Editing Francis Bacon (section)

===Organization of knowledge===
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Francis Bacon developed the idea that a classification of knowledge must be universal while handling all possible resources. In his progressive view, humanity would be better if access to educational resources were provided to the public, hence the need to organise it. His approach to learning reshaped the Western view of knowledge theory from an individual to a social interest.

The original classification proposed by Bacon organised all types of knowledge into three general groups: history, poetry, and philosophy. He did that based on his understanding of how information is processed: memory, imagination, and reason, respectively.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Simpson |first1=David |title=Francis Bacon (1561–1626) |url=https://iep.utm.edu/francis-bacon/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=22 December 2023 |quote=Bacon outlines his scheme for a new division of human knowledge into three primary categories: History, Poesy, and Philosophy (which he associates respectively with the three fundamental “faculties” of mind – memory, imagination, and reason).}}</ref> His methodical approach to the categorization of knowledge goes hand-in-hand with his principles of scientific methods. Bacon's writings were the starting point for [[William Torrey Harris]]'s [[Library classification system|classification system for libraries]] in the United States by the second half of the 1800s.

The phrase "{{lang|la|scientia potentia est}}" (or "{{lang|la|scientia est potentia}}"), meaning "[[knowledge is power]]", is commonly attributed to Bacon: the expression "{{lang|la|ipsa scientia potestas est}}" ("knowledge itself is power") occurs in his ''Meditationes Sacrae'' (1597).{{sfn|Josephson-Storm|2017|pp=46–47}}