Bacon's observation cuts deeper than the familiar warning against greed—he's arguing that material accumulation is categorically *insufficient* as a life's purpose, not merely excessive. A person chasing wealth has already conceded something fundamental: that external gain can measure human worth, when in fact our being demands aims that transcend what we can possess. We see this played out in the lives of those who reach their financial goals only to discover an unexpected hollowness, the way a surgeon or executive who has "made it" sometimes finds themselves asking, at forty or fifty, what any of it was actually *for*. Bacon insists we owe ourselves something grander—purposes rooted in understanding, virtue, or service—or we reduce ourselves to mere acquisition machines.