Language and Fact

"No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute knowledge of Fact, past, or to come. For, as for the knowledge of Fact, it is originally, Sense; and ever after, Memory. And for the knowledge of Consequence, which I have said before is called Science, it is not Absolute, but Conditionall. No man can know by Discourse, that this, or that, is, has been, or will be; which is to know absolutely: but onely, that if This be, That is; if This has been, That has been; if This shall be, That shall be: which is to know conditionally; and that not the consequence of one thing to another; but of one name of a thing, to another name of the same thing." (Part 1, Chpt VII, paragraph 3, [p.131])

Besides being confused by the end of this passage (even after several attempts), and finding my confusion ironic since Hobbes puts such an emphasis on language as the root of knowledge, I found myself wondering not only how Bacon and Descartes would take this, but how we should react. Can we only know what is conditional? Or are the efforts made by Bacon and Descartes legitimate, and should we follow suit in attempting to find absolute knowledge? I found the bit about memory to be quite similar to our discussion about Descartes (how do we know memory is real/correct), but Descartes seemed to be able to push past that. So I guess I'm also wondering if the sense and memory objection is valid? I apologize for any convolution in my language, and hope that this post can reach your understanding.