One of my favourite phases in my long-abandoned academic career was the few years I spent studying the history of physics and of the scientific method - where I was able to dive deeply into the unsorted, various and frequently barking-mad works of an astonishing man, who lived and worked within a mile of where I grew up: Sir Frances Bacon.
This is amazing, I had to read the key part out loud to everyone else in the car :-). I'm enjoying your writing style.