Almost all great works are destroyed by a complication of natures, that which is beneficial in one respect being hurtful in another; so that herein there is need of an accurate judg-ment and a discreet practice. And this I have done, as far as the matter allows and I can at present devise, by separating kindly heats from hurtful, and the things which tend to both.

– Francis Bacon, History of Life and Death (1638)