I am rather induced to set down the history of arts as a species of natural history, because it is the fashion to talk as if art were something different from nature, so that things artificial should be separated from things natural, as differing totally in kind. . . . Therefore, as nature is ever one and the same, and her power extends through all things, nor does she ever forsake herself. . . . things should by all means be set down as alike subordinate to nature; the course of nature; the wanderings of nature; and art, or nature with man to help. And therefore in natural history all these things should be included in one continuous series of narratives.

Sir Francis Bacon