Contemplation and Power

Probably the most misleading term in Aristotle's oeuvre is 'contemplation'.  For, while the word commonly connotes 'passive observation', in Metaphysics XII, 7, he characterizes the condition as "active", and, more notably, in On the Soul, III, 5, as "productive" and as "an art".  In other words, it is constituted by a possession of Power, from which it follows that Bacon's identity of Knowledge and Power is a recovery of, not a departure from, true Aristotelianism.  Similarly, his concept of the "desire to know", formulated at the outset of the Metaphysics, is equivalent to a Will to Power.