Volume 2 / Book 5 — II. His Criticism of and Part in Medieval Learning

Aims and plan of the Opus Maius.

We turn from Bacon’s life to his writings, and shall center our attention upon his three works to the pope. In them he had his greatest opportunity and did his best work both in style and substance. They embody most of his ideas and knowledge. Much, for example, of the celebrated “Epistle concerning the secret works of art and nature and the nullity of magic” sounds like a later compilation from these three works.[2072] Two of them are merely supplementary to the Opus Maius and are parallel to it in aims, plan, and contents. Its two chief aims were to demonstrate the practical utility of “philosophy,” especially to the Church, and secondly, to reform the present state of learning according to Bacon’s idea of the relative importance of the sciences. Having convinced himself that an exhaustive work on philosophy was not yet possible, Roger substituted this introductory treatise, outlining the paths along which future study and investigation should go. Of the thirty divisions of philosophy he considers only the five which he deems the most important and essential, namely, the languages, “mathematics,” perspective or optic, “experimental science” (including alchemy), and moral philosophy, which last he regards as “the noblest” and “the mistress of them all.”[2073] Treated in this order, these “sciences” form the themes of the last five of the seven sections of the Opus Maius. Inasmuch as Roger regarded himself as a reformer of the state of learning, he prefixed a first part on the causes of human error to justify his divergence from the views of the multitude. His second section develops his ideas as to the relations of “philosophy” and theology.

Bacon’s theological standpoint.

The mere plan of the Opus Maius thus indicates that it is not exclusively devoted to natural science. “Divine wisdom,” or theology, is the end that all human thought should serve, and morality is the supreme science. Children should receive more education in the Bible and the fundamentals of Christianity, and spend less time upon “the fables and insanities” of Ovid and other poets who are full of errors in faith and morals.[2074] In discussing other sciences Bacon’s eye is ever fixed upon their utility “to the Church of God, to the republic of the faithful, toward the conversion of infidels and the conquest of such as cannot be converted.”[2075] This service is to be rendered not merely by practical inventions or calendar reform or revision of the Vulgate, but by aiding in most elaborate and far-fetched allegorical interpretation of the Bible. To give a very simple example of this, it is not enough for the interpreter of Scripture to know that the lion is the king of beasts; he must be so thoroughly acquainted with all the lion’s natural properties that he can tell whether in any particular passage it is meant to typify Christ or the devil.[2076] Also the marvels of human science strengthen our faith in divine miracles.[2077] Bacon speaks of philosophy as the handmaid of “sacred wisdom”;[2078] he asserts that all truth is contained in Scripture, though philosophy and canon law are required for its comprehension and exposition, and that anything alien therefrom is utterly erroneous.[2079] Nay more, the Bible is surer ground than philosophy even in the latter’s own field of the natures and properties of things.[2080] Furthermore, “philosophy considered by itself is of no utility.”[2081] Bacon believed not only that the active intellect (intellectus agens) by which our minds are illuminated was from God and not an integral part of the human mind,[2082] but that all philosophy had been revealed by God to the sainted patriarchs and again to Solomon,[2083] and that it was impossible for man by his own efforts to attain to “the great truths of the arts and sciences.”[2084] Bacon alludes several times to sin as an obstacle to the acquisition of science;[2085] on the other hand, he observes that contemporary Christians are inferior morally to the pagan philosophers, from whose books they might well take a leaf.[2086] All this gives little evidence of an independent scientific spirit, or of appreciation of experimental method as the one sure foundation of scientific knowledge. We see how much of a medieval friar and theologian and how little of a modern scientist Roger could be. It must, of course, be remembered that he is trying to persuade the Church to support scientific research; still, there seems to be no sufficient reason for doubting his sincerity in the above statements, though we must discount here as elsewhere his tendency to make emphatic and sweeping assertions.

Bacon’s scholastic side.

Writers as far back as Cousin[2087] and Charles have recognized that Bacon was interested in the scholasticism of his time as well as in natural science. His separate works on the Metaphysics and Physics of Aristotle are pretty much the usual sort of medieval commentary;[2088] the tiresome dialectic of the Questions on Aristotle’s Physics is well brought out in Duhem’s essay, “Roger Bacon et l’Horreur du Vide.”[2089] Bacon’s works dedicated to the pope, on the contrary, are written to a considerable extent in a clear, direct, outspoken style; and the subjects of linguistics, mathematics, and experimental science seem at first glance to offer little opportunity for metaphysical disquisitions or scholastic method. Yet, here too, much space is devoted to intellectual battledore and shuttlecock with such concepts as matter and form, moved and mover, agent and patient, element and compound.[2090] Such current problems as the unity of the intellect, the source of the intellectus agens, and the unity or infinity of matter are introduced for discussion,[2091] although the question of universals is briefly dismissed.[2092]

Attitude to Aristotle and other authorities.

Two other characteristic traits of scholasticism are found in the Opus Maius, namely, continual use of authorities and the highest regard for Aristotle, summus philosophorum,[2093] as Bacon calls him. Because in one passage in his Compendium Studii Philosophiae Bacon says in his exaggerated way that he would burn all the Latin translations of Aristotle if he could,[2094] it has sometimes been assumed that he was opposed to the medieval study of Aristotle. Yet in the very next sentence he declares that “Aristotle’s labors are the foundations of all wisdom.” What he wanted was more, not less Aristotle. He believed that Aristotle had written a thousand works.[2095] He complains quite as much that certain works of Aristotle have not yet been translated into Latin as he does that others have been translated incorrectly. As a matter of fact, he himself seems to have made about as many mistakes in connection with the study of Aristotle as did anyone else. He thought many apocryphal writings genuine, such as the Secret of Secrets,[2096] an astrological treatise entitled De Impressionibus Coelestibus,[2097] and other writings concerning “the arcana of science” and “marvels of nature.”[2098] He overestimated Aristotle and blamed the translators for obscurities and difficulties which abound in the Greek text itself. He declares that a few chapters of Aristotle’s Laws are superior to the entire corpus of Roman law.[2099] His assertion that Robert Grosseteste paid no attention to translations of Aristotle is regarded as misleading by Baur.[2100] He nowhere gives credit to Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas for their great commentaries on Aristotle[2101] which are superior to any that he wrote. He bases some of his own views upon mistranslations of Aristotle, substituting, for instance, “matter” for “substance”—a mistranslation avoided by Albert and Thomas.[2102]

Bacon’s critical bent.

Despite its theological and scholastic proclivities, Bacon’s mind had a decidedly critical bent. He was, like Petrarch, profoundly pessimistic as to his own times. Church music, present-day sermons, the immorality of monks and theologians, the misconduct of students at Oxford and Paris, the wars and exactions of kings and feudal lords, the prevalence of Roman Law—these are some of the faults he has to find with his age.[2103] The Opus Maius is largely devoted, not to objective presentation of facts and discussion of theories, but to subjective criticism of the state of learning and even of individual contemporary scholars. This last is so unusual that Bacon excuses himself for it to the pope in both the supplementary treatises.[2104] Several other works of Bacon display the same critical tendency. The Compendium Studii Philosophiae enlarges upon the complaints and criticisms of the three works. In the Tractatus de Erroribus Medicorum he detected in contemporary medicine “thirty-six great and radical defects with infinite ramifications.”[2105] But in medicine, too, his own contributions are of little account. In the Compendium Studii Theologiae, after contemptuous allusion to the huge Summae of the past fifty years, he opens with an examination of the problems of speculative philosophy which underlie the questions discussed by contemporary theologians. As far as we know that is as far as he got. And in the five neglected sciences to which his Opus Maius was a mere introduction he seems to have made little further progress than is there recorded; it has yet to be proved that he made any definite original contribution to any particular science.

Criticism easier than construction.

After all, we must keep in mind the fact that in ancient and medieval times hostile criticism was more likely to hit the mark than were attempts at constructive thought and collection of scientific details. There were plenty of wrong ideas to knock down; it was not easy to find a rock foundation to build upon, or materials without some hidden flaw. The church fathers made many telling shots in their bombardment of pagan thought; their own interpretation of nature and life less commands our admiration. So Roger Bacon, by devoting much of his space to criticism of the mistakes of others and writing “preambles” to science and theology, avoided treacherous detail—a wise caution for his times. Thus he constructed a sort of intellectual portico more pretentious than he could have justified by his main building. To a superficial observer this portico may seem a fitting entrance to the temple of modern science, but a closer examination discovers that it is built of the same faulty materials as the neglected ruins of his contemporaries’ science.

Commonplaces of medieval criticism.

Merely to have assumed a critical point of view in the middle ages may seem a distinction; but Abelard, Adelard of Bath, William of Conches, and Daniel Morley were all critical, back in the twelfth century. Moreover, our estimate of any critic must take into account how valid, how accurate, how original and how consistent his criticisms were and from what motives they proceeded. Some of Bacon’s complaints the reader of medieval literature has often listened to before. What student of philosophy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had not sighed at the invasion of the Roman law into school and church and state? What devotee of astronomy had failed to contrast its human interest and divine relationships with the dry drubbing of the jurists? What learned man had not expressed his preference for the wise and the experts (sapientes) over the vulgus or common herd? The great secrets of learning and the danger of casting pearls before swine were also quite familiar concepts. If Bacon goes a step farther and speaks of a vulgus studentium and even of a vulgus medicorum, he is only refining a medical commonplace or quoting Galen.

Debt of Bacon to earlier writers.

In Bacon’s discussion of the four causes of human error his attack upon undue reliance on authority has often seemed to modern readers most unusual for his age. But all his arguments against authority are drawn from authorities;[2106] and while he seems to have got a whiff of the spirit of rationalism from such classical writers as Seneca and Cicero, he also quotes the Natural Questions of his fellow-countryman, Adelard of Bath, who in the early twelfth century had found the doctrine of the schools of Gaul as little to his liking as was that of Paris to Roger’s taste, and whom we have heard reprove his nephew for blind trust in authorities.[2107] Bacon’s fourth cause of human error, the concealment of ignorance by a false show of learning, might well have been suggested by Daniel Morley’s satire on the bestiales who occupied chairs in the schools of Paris “with grave authority,” and reverently marked their Ulpians with daggers and asterisks, and seemed wise as long as they concealed their ignorance by a statuesque silence, but whom he found “most childish” when they tried to say anything. Or by the same Daniel’s warning not to spurn Arabic clarity for Latin obscurity; and his charge that it was owing to their ignorance and inability to attain definite conclusions that Latin philosophers of his day spun so many elaborate figments and hid “uncertain error under the shadow of ambiguity.”[2108]

Limitations of his criticism.

Bacon’s criticisms have usually been taken to apply to medieval learning as a whole, but a closer examination shows their application to be much more limited. In the first place, he is thinking only of the past “forty years” in making his complaints; in the good old days of Grosseteste, Adam Marsh, William Wolf, and William of Shyrwood things were different, and scholarship flowed smoothly, if not copiously, in the channels marked out by the ancient sages;[2109] nor does Bacon deny that there was a renaissance of natural science and an independent scientific spirit still farther back in the twelfth century.

Secondly, except for his tirades against the Italians and their civil law, Bacon’s criticisms apply to but two countries, France and England, and two universities, Oxford and Paris. Also those few contemporaries whom he praises are either his old Oxford friends or scattered individuals in France. Of the state of learning in Italy, Spain, and Germany he says little and apparently knew little. Amid his sighing for some prince or prelate to play the patron to science, he never mentions Alfonso X of Castile, who was so interested in the “mathematics” and occult science which were so dear to Bacon’s heart;[2110] Roger even still employs the old Toletan astronomical tables of Arzachel instead of the Alfonsine tables issued in 1252, the first year of that monarch’s reign.[2111] His lamentation over the sad neglect of astrology among the “Latins” is not borne out by our investigations of their interest in that subject, and indicates that he was ignorant of the work at the University of Bologna of the astrologer, Guido Bonatti, whose voluminous Latin treatise on that art based on wide reading in both classical and Arabian scholars did not indeed appear until after 1277,[2112] but must have already been in preparation when Bacon wrote, since Guido was born at some time before 1223.[2113] Bacon grieves at the neglect of the science of optic by his age, and says that it has not yet been lectured on at Paris nor elsewhere among the Latins except twice at Oxford;[2114] he does not mention the Pole, Witelo, who traveled in Italy and whose important treatise on the subject was produced at about this time.[2115]

Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus.

While complaining of the ignorance of the natures and properties of animals, plants, and minerals which is shown by contemporary theologians in their explanation of Scriptural passages, Bacon not only slights the encyclopedias which several clergymen like Alexander Neckam, Bartholomew of England, Thomas of Cantimpré and Vincent of Beauvais had compiled; he also says nothing of the school at Cologne of Albertus Magnus, whose reputation was already established by the middle of the century, who personally investigated many animals, especially those of the north, and often rectified the erroneous assertions of classical zoologists, whom the historian of botany has lauded, whose students too were curious to know not only the theoretical botany that passed under the name of Aristotle, but also the particular characteristics of plants, and who in his five books on minerals discusses the alchemy and indulges in the same occult science and astrology which Bacon deemed so important. Yet Albert was a noted theologian and Biblical commentator as well as a student of nature.

In saying that Bacon does not mention Albert’s work in natural science, I of course do not mean to imply that he never mentions Albert. He excuses his delay in answering the pope by declaring that the most noted Christian scholars, such as Brother Albert of the Order of Preachers, and Master William of Shyrwood, could not in ten years produce such a work as he transmits; and he incidentally observes that William is a far abler scholar than Albert.[2116] I am suspicious, however, of the integrity of the passage[2117] where Bacon sneers at the theological teaching of “the boys of the two Orders, such as Albert and Thomas and the others who enter the Orders when twenty years or under.” It seems incongruous for Bacon to speak of his probable senior, Albert, as a boy. Other passages in Bacon’s works which have been taken to apply to Albert, though he is not expressly named, seem to me not to apply to him at all closely; and if meant for him, they show that Bacon was an incompetent and unfair critic. Not only was Albert only for a short time in Paris; he does not seem to have been in sympathy with the conditions there which Bacon attacks. Nor can I see that Bacon is meant in the passage at the close of Albert’s Politics,[2118] where he declares that its doctrines, as in his books on physics, are not his own theories but a faithful reflection of peripatetic opinion; and that he makes this statement for the benefit of lazy persons who occupy their idle hours in searching writings for things to criticize; “Such men killed Socrates, drove Plato from Athens to the Academy, and, plotting even against Aristotle, forced him into exile.” Such a passage seems a commonplace one. Both Adelard of Bath and William of Conches expressed the same fear of setting forth new ideas of their own, and medieval writers not infrequently in their prefaces apprehend with shrinking “the bite of envy” which both their Horace and personal experience had taught would follow fast on publication.

Bacon’s criticism of education applies chiefly to the training of the friars in theology.

Thirdly, while Bacon occasionally makes bitter remarks about the present state of learning in general, it is the teaching of theology at Paris and by the friars that he has most in mind and that he especially desires to reform. Though himself a friar and master of theology, he had been trained and had then himself specialized in the three learned languages, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, in optic and geometry, in astronomy and astrology, in alchemy and “experimental science,” and in the writings of the classical moralists. Consequently he thought that no one could be a thorough theologian who did not go through the same course of training; nay, it was enough to ruin the reputation of any supposed scholar in Bacon’s sight, if he were unacquainted with these indispensable subjects. Bacon held that it was not sufficient preparation for theology merely to study “the common sciences, such as Latin, grammar, logic, and a part of natural philosophy, and a little metaphysics.”[2119] However, it was not that he objected to these studies in themselves, nor to the ordinary university instruction in the arts course; in fact, he complains that many young friars start in to study theology at once and “presume to investigate philosophy by themselves without a teacher.”[2120] Bacon has a low opinion of the scholarship of Alexander of Hales, because his university education had been completed before the chief authorities and commentaries in natural philosophy and metaphysics had been translated. Against another friar generally regarded by the academic world as its greatest living authority Bacon brings the charge that “he never heard philosophy in the schools,” and “was not instructed nor trained in listening, reading and disputing, so that he must be ignorant of the common sciences.”[2121] Such passages show that to represent Bacon’s writings as full of “sweeping attacks” upon “the metaphysical subtleties and verbal strifes” of his age is to exaggerate his position.[2122] There are not many direct attacks upon scholastic method in his works.

His other criticisms of contemporary education.

It is true that Bacon complains of the lack of good teachers in his day, saying in the Opus Minus that he could impart to an apt pupil in four years all the knowledge that it had taken himself forty years to acquire,[2123] and in the Opus Tertium that he could do it in a half or a quarter of a year, and that he could teach a good student all the Greek and Hebrew he need know in three days for each subject.[2124] But aside from the young friars who presume to teach theology, the teachers against whom he rails most are those in his favorite subject of “mathematics.” Bacon could teach more useful geometry in a fortnight than they do in ten or twenty years[2125]—a hint that much time was given in those days to the study of mathematics. These boasts are not, however, as wild as they may at first seem; after all Roger did not know a vast amount of geometry and Greek and Hebrew, and he had no intention of teaching any more of mathematics and the languages than would be of service in his other sciences, in theology, and in practical life. He complained that “the ordinary mathematician does not consider that he knows anything unless he demonstrates it, and so he takes from thirty to forty years” to master the subject, and that “the text-books and the teachers of mathematics delight in multiplying conclusions to such an extent that one has to give years of unnecessary time to extracting the essentials,” and “this is one reason why there are so few students of a science which is a prerequisite to all knowledge.”[2126] Nor were such boasts unique in the age in which Bacon lived. Another professor and Franciscan friar, who wrote at least no later than the early fourteenth century, Bernard of Verdun, states that his little book on astronomy takes the place of “innumerable works and huge tomes,” and makes it possible for anyone acquainted with geometry to learn in a short time not only the gist of books which two years of steady reading could scarce suffice to cover, but also many points which other books omit.[2127]

His personal motives.

It is easy to discern the personal motives which actuated Bacon in his criticism. He was jealous of his more successful contemporaries and desperately anxious to secure the pope as his patron. If, as Macaulay said, Francis Bacon seeking the truth was a very different person from Francis Bacon seeking the seals, we must remember that Roger Bacon combined both attempts at once. He grieved to see the neglect by his fellow theologians of the subjects in which he was particularly interested, and to see himself second in reputation, influence and advancement to the “boy theologians.” It angered him that these same narrowly educated and narrow-minded men should “always teach against these sciences in their lectures, sermons and conferences.”[2128] And after all, as he tells the pope, he does not wish to revolutionize the curriculum nor overthrow the existing educational system, “but that from the table of the Lord, heaped with wisdom’s spoils, I, poor fellow, may gather the falling crumbs I need.”

Inaccuracy of much of his criticism.

Bacon’s allusions to and dates for events in the history of medieval learning are sometimes hard to fit in with what we learn from other sources, and as we have seen he has been detected in misstatements of the doctrines of other scholars.[2129] His personal diatribes against the Latin translators of Greek and Arabian science seem overdrawn and unfair, especially when he condemns the first translators for not knowing the sciences in question before they ventured to translate, whereas it is plain that the sciences could not be known to the Latin world until the translations had been made. Indeed, it may be doubted if Roger himself knew Arabic well enough to read scientific works therein without a translation or interpreter. Especially unjustifiable and ill advised seems his savage onslaught upon William of Moerbeke,[2130] whom we are told Aquinas induced to translate Aristotle from the Greek, who was like Bacon interested in occult science, and to whom Witelo dedicated his treatise on optics. As William held the confidential post of papal chaplain and penitentiary under Clement IV, and as he became archbishop of Corinth about the time that Roger was condemned to prison, there may have been some personal rivalry and bitterness between them.

Bacon does not regard himself as unique.

It should be said to Bacon’s credit that his own statements do not support the inference which others have drawn from them, that he was alone in the advocacy or pursuit of the studies dear to him. In the Opus Minus he says to the pope, with rather unusual modesty it must be admitted, “I confess that there are several men who can present to Your Wisdom in a better way than I can these very subjects of which I treat.”[2131] And though the secrets of the arts and sciences are neglected by the crowd of students and their masters, “God always has reserved some sages who know all the necessary elements of wisdom. Not that anyone of them knows every detail, however, nor the majority of them; but one knows one subject, another another, so that the knowledge of such sages ought to be combined.”[2132] Combine it Bacon does for the pope’s perusal, and he is not ashamed to speak on its behalf, for though there are fewer Latins conversant with it than there should be, there are many who would gladly receive it, if they were taught.[2133] Thus he speaks not merely as an exponent of his own ideas, but as the representative of a movement with a considerable following at least outside of strictly theological circles.

Instances of ideas which were not new with him.

Bacon has been given great credit for pointing out the need of calendar revision three centuries before the papacy achieved it; but he says himself that not only wise astronomers but even ordinary computistae were already aware of the crying need for reform,[2134] and his discussion of the calendar often coincides verbally with Grosseteste’s Computus.[2135] When Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly over a century later again urged the need of reform upon Pope John XXIII he cited Grosseteste often, but Bacon seldom or never.[2136] The Parisian version of the Bible, against which Bacon inveighs as a corruption of the Vulgate, was in the first instance the work of a conscientious Hebrew scholar;[2137] and the numerous corrections and changes made in it since, though deplored by Bacon, show the prevalent interest in such matters. While Bacon holds that there are very few men who understand the theory of Greek, Hebrew and Arabic grammar, or the technique of the sciences which have to be studied from those languages, he admits that many men are found among the “Latins” who can speak those tongues and that there are even plenty of teachers of Greek and Hebrew at Paris and elsewhere in France and England.[2138] Thus Bacon was not so superior linguistically to his age as he has sometimes been depicted.

Bacon and the discovery of America.

The treatment of geography in the Opus Maius is simply an intelligent compilation of well-known past writers, including the wretched work of Ethicus, supplemented from writings of the friars who had recently visited the Tartars. Roger Bacon’s name has sometimes been connected with the discovery of America by Columbus on the ground that Columbus was greatly influenced by the Imago mundi of Pierre d’Ailly and that a chapter in that work on the extent of the habitable earth was copied in large measure without acknowledgment from Roger Bacon.[2139] Cardinal d’Ailly, however, can scarcely be censured for failing to mention Bacon in this context since he does cite him elsewhere and since in this passage all that he borrows from Roger are the statements of other writers whom Roger cites. That is, against Ptolemy’s discouraging assertion that five-sixths of the earth’s surface is covered with water he cites Aristotle, Seneca and Pliny to prove that the distance west from Spain to India is not great and the apocryphal book of Esdras to the effect that only one-seventh of the earth’s surface is covered with water. But it is contended that the Imago Mundi was not published until 1487[2140] and that Columbus did not read it until after his first voyage in 1492,[2141] which is to be regarded as a continuation of the search after new islands and lands in the western ocean already undertaken by various Portuguese sailors.[2142] It is interesting to note one argument for the propinquity of northwestern Africa to India employed by Bacon which d’Ailly, firm believer in astrology as he was, did not copy. Bacon argues that Aristotle and his commentator included northwestern Africa in “Spain,” “since they say as proof of the narrowness of the sea between Spain and India that there are elephants only in those two places.” And “Aristotle says that there cannot be elephants in those places unless they were of like complexion.”[2143]—i. e., under the same constellations.

Bacon’s historical attitude.

If in many respects Bacon’s contribution to learning has been overestimated, there is one side of his thought which has seldom been emphasized but deserves some notice, namely, his historical attitude. In one sense history was a weak point with Bacon as with most of his contemporaries. He not only accepted the faulty accounts of the past current in his day, but was apt to pounce upon the most sensational and incredible details and use these to support his case. He had no notion of historical criticism. Unfortunately he thought that he knew a good deal about the history of philosophy, and his attitude to science is colored by his false ideas of the history of intellectual development. He of course knew nothing of evolution or of prehistoric man. For him intellectual history commenced with a complete divine revelation of philosophy to the patriarchs. Science then declined owing to the sinfulness of mankind, the invention of magic by Zoroaster, and further corruption of wisdom at the hands of Nimrod, Atlas, Prometheus, Hermes Trismegistus, Aesculapius, and Apollo. Complete knowledge and understanding were granted again by God to Solomon, after whom succeeded another period of sinful decline, until with Thales began the gradual upbuilding of Greek philosophy culminating in Aristotle. Then night set in again, until Avicenna revived philosophy among the Arabs. To him and Aristotle, however, as infidels, less complete knowledge was vouchsafed than to the representatives of God’s chosen people.[2144] Of the composition and development of Roman law Bacon had so little notion that he thought it borrowed chiefly from Aristotle and Theophrastus, except that the Twelve Tables were derived from the laws of Solon.[2145] Though he saw the value of linguistics and textual criticism, and sought with true humanistic ardor for a lost work like the Morals of Seneca, he accepted as genuine works of antiquity spurious treatises like the De Vetula ascribed to Ovid.[2146] He believed that Paul had corresponded with Seneca and that Alexander’s conquests were due to Aristotle’s experimental science. We shall soon see how he used the astrological interpretation of history, which was the medieval counterpart of our geographical and economic interpretation. Yet Bacon deserves praise for so often opening his discussion of a problem by an inquiry into its historical background; he at least tried to adopt the historical point of view. And on the whole his historical method makes about as close an approach to modern research as do his mathematics and experimental science to their modern parallels.

His “mathematical method.”

Yet the introduction of mathematical method into natural science has often been attributed to Roger Bacon, in which respect he has been favorably contrasted with Francis Bacon. Therefore it will be well to note exactly what Roger says on this point and whether his observations were notably in advance of the thought of his times. It will be recalled that in his criticism of the teaching of mathematics Roger had shown little appreciation of the labors of those pure mathematicians who devoted a lifetime to painstaking demonstration and were satisfied with nothing short of it. The discussion in the Opus Maius opens with strong assertions of the necessity for a knowledge of mathematics in the study of natural science and of theology as well; and we are told that neglect of mathematics for the past thirty or forty years has been the ruin of Latin learning. This position is supported by citation of various authorities and by some vague general arguments in typical scholastic style. Grammar and logic must employ music, a branch of mathematics, in prosody and persuasive periods. The categories of time, place, and quantity require mathematical knowledge for their comprehension. Mathematics must underlie other subjects because it is by nature the most elementary and the easiest to learn and the first discovered. Moreover, all our sense knowledge is received in space, in time, and quantitatively. Also the certitude of mathematics makes it desirable that other studies avail themselves of its aid.

Its crudity.

But now we come to the application of these glittering generalities and we see what Bacon’s “mathematical method” really amounts to. Briefly, it consists in expounding his physical and astronomical theories by means of simple geometrical diagrams. The atomical doctrine of Democritus cannot be true, since it involves the error that the hypothenuse is of the same length as the side of a square. Geometry satisfies Roger that there can be but one universe; otherwise we should have a vacuum left. Plato’s assertion that the heavens and four elements are made up each of one group of regular solids is also subjected to geometrical scrutiny. Mathematics is further of service in Biblical geography, in sacred chronology, and in allegorical interpretation of the dimensions of the ark, temple, and tabernacle, and of various numbers which occur in Scripture. But mathematics, according to Bacon, plays its greatest rôle in astronomy or astrology and in physics, and in his favorite theory of multiplication of species or virtues, or, as modern writers have flatteringly termed it, the propagation of force.[2147]

Its debt to others.

Astronomy and astrology had together long made up the world’s supreme science; there was no originality in urging their importance, and unfortunately it was astrology rather than astronomy which seemed to Bacon by far the most important and practical part of mathematics. In physics he borrowed his discussion of weights and falling bodies from Jordanus, an earlier writer in the thirteenth century, and his optics from Alhazen and Grosseteste and from treatises which passed then under the names of Ptolemy and Euclid but were perhaps of more recent origin.[2148] Bacon’s graphic expression of the multiplication of species by lines and figures we find earlier in Grosseteste’s De Lineis, Angulis, et Figuris.[2149] It does not seem, therefore, that Bacon made any new suggestions of great importance concerning the application of mathematical method in the sciences, and historians of mathematics have recognized that “he contributed nothing to the pure science,”[2150] of whose very meaning his notion was inadequate.

III. His Experimental Science

Has been given undue prominence.

Let us next inquire what contributions, if any, Bacon made in the direction of modern experimental method. Jebb’s edition of the Opus Maius in 1733 ended with the sixth part on “Experimental Science,” which thus received undue prominence and seemed the climax of the work. Bridges’ edition added the seventh part on “Moral Philosophy,” “a science better than all the preceding,” and the text as now extant, after listing various arguments for the superiority of Christianity to other religions, concludes abruptly with an eight-page devout justification and glorification of the mystery of the Eucharist.

Our preceding chapters have similarly rectified the place of Bacon’s discussion of experimental science in the history of thought. We have already brought out the fact that he was not the first medieval man to advocate experimentation, but that writers before him contain “experiments,” rely on experience rather than mere authority, and mention the existence of other “experimenters” and “experimental books.” We have noted Petrus Hispanus’ discussion of “the experimental method” (via experiment), Albertus Magnus’ experimental school for the study of nature, Robert Grosseteste’s association of experimentation with physics, and William of Auvergne’s association of experiment with natural magic. We have described experiments of Constantinus Africanus, Adelard of Bath, Pedro Alfonso, Bernard Silvester, and many others. We have yet to describe experimental books, many of which antedate Roger Bacon. His discussion will be found to do little more than duplicate and reinforce the picture of the medieval status of experimental method which we have already obtained from other and earlier sources. He is not a lone herald of the experimental method of modern science; he merely reveals and himself represents the merits and the defects of an important movement of his time.

“Experimental science” distinct from other natural sciences.

Bacon’s discussion of “experimental science” and of experimental method are not quite one and the same thing. He treats of “experimental science” in a separate section of the Opus Maius, and seems to regard it as something distinct from his other natural sciences, such as optics, alchemy, astronomy and astrology, rather than as an inductive method through regulated and purposive observation and experience to the discovery of truth, which should underlie and form an essential part of them all. Yet he also approaches the latter conception. But note that, while the sixth part on “Experimental Science” is not the last section of the Opus Maius, it is the last of the natural sciences to be discussed by him there rather than the first. It is not, like modern experimentation, the source but “the goal of all speculation.” It is not so much an inductive method of discovering scientific truth, as it is applied science, the putting the results of the “speculative” natural sciences to the test of practical utility. “Other sciences know how to discover their first principles through experience, but reach their conclusions by arguments made from the principles so discovered. But if they require a specific and final test of their conclusions, then they ought to avail themselves of the aid of this noble science.”[2151] “Natural philosophy narrates and argues but does not experiment. The student of perspective and the astronomer put many things to the test of experience, but not all nor sufficiently. Hence complete experience is reserved for this science.”[2152] It uses the other sciences to achieve definite practical results; as a navigator orders a carpenter to build him a ship or a knight tells a smith to make him a suit of armor, so the experimentator uses his knowledge of geometry to construct a burning-glass or outdoes alchemy at its own specialty of gold-making.[2153] In working out these practical inventions, however, the “experimenter” often happens on new facts and truths of which the speculative sciences have not dreamed, and in this way experimental science “by its own power investigates the secrets of nature.” Thus Bacon begins to see the advisability of a close alliance between “experimental science” and natural science, but it is also clear that they are not yet identified. The artisans of the gilds and the alchemists—Bacon includes a discussion of alchemy in the same sixth section with his “experimental science,” although in a way keeping the two distinct—seem to be engaging in this experimental science more than do the scholars of the books and schools. As William of Auvergne associated experimentation with magic rather than with science, so Bacon seems to regard natural science as largely speculative, and confirms the impression, which we have already derived from many other sources, that magicians were the first to “experiment,” and that “science,” originally speculative, has gradually taken over the experimental method from magic. This impression will be strengthened as we proceed to examine in more detail, first Bacon’s “experimental science” and then what he has to say concerning magic. From now on, however, we shall credit Bacon with all the traces of experimental method that we can find anywhere in his writings, as well as in his separate section on “experimental science” in the Opus Maius and his further allusions to the same subject in the Opus Minus and Opus Tertium.

As a criterion of truth.

Bacon not merely emphasizes the importance of experience in arriving at the truth, but of all sciences regards his “experimental science” as the best criterion of truth. “All sciences except this either merely employ arguments to prove their conclusions, like the purely speculative sciences, or have universal and imperfect experiences”;[2154] while “It alone, in truth, has the means of finding out to perfection what can be done by nature, what by the industry of art, what by fraud”; for it alone can distinguish what is true from what is false in “incantations, conjurations, invocations, deprecations, and sacrifices.”[2155]

Lack of method.

But how is one to set about experimenting? On this point Bacon is disappointing. His explanation of the rainbow, which is his longest illustration of the value of experimental science, is based merely on ordinary intelligent observation and reasoning, although he adds at the close that tests with instruments are needed and that consequently he will not assert that he has reached the full truth of the matter.[2156] Elsewhere he speaks of astronomical experiments “by instruments made for this purpose,” but seems to regard the unaided eyesight as sufficient for the investigation of terrestrial phenomena. Bacon has sent “over sea and to various other lands and to annual fairs, in order that I might see the things of nature with my own eyes.”[2157] “And those things which are not present in our locality we may know through other sages who have experienced them, just as Aristotle by authority of Alexander sent two thousand men to different regions to experience all things on the face of the earth, as Pliny testifies in his Natural History.”[2158] The one contemporary who most nearly fulfills Bacon’s ideal of what an experimental scientist should be, does not spend his time merely in reading, attending lectures, and engaging in disputations, but “is ashamed to have some layman or old wife or knight or rustic know facts of which he is ignorant”; hence he goes out into the world and observes the doings of common workingmen and even takes hints from the operations of witches, enchanters and magicians.[2159] Bacon even accepts the notion which we have already often met in other writers, that valuable medicines can be discovered by observing what remedies various animals employ. It would seem that experimental method is in a low state of its development, if it takes lessons from common human experience and from the actions of brutes. Bacon sufficiently indicates, however, that it does not consist merely of observation and casual experience, but includes purposive experimentation, and he often speaks of “experimenters.” Undoubtedly he himself experimented. But the fact remains that he gives no directions concerning either the proper environment for experimenting or the proper conduct of experiments. Of laboratory equipment, of scientific instruments, of exact measurements, he has no more notion apparently than his contemporaries.

Bacon and inventions.

It cannot be shown that Roger Bacon actually anticipated any of our modern inventions, nor that to him in particular were due any of the medieval inventions which revolutionized domestic life such as chimney flues and window panes, or navigation such as the rudder and mariner’s compass, or public and ecclesiastical architecture such as the pointed vault and flying buttress and stained glass, or reckoning and writing such as the Hindu-Arabic numerals and paper, or reading and seeing such as lenses and eye-glasses, or warfare such as gunpowder.[2160] We probably are justified, however, in accepting such passages in his works as the following, not merely as dreams that have been brought true by modern mechanical inventions, but as further indications that an interest existed in mechanical devices, and that men were already beginning to struggle with the problems which have recently been solved.

“Machines for navigation can be made without rowers so that the largest ships on rivers or seas will be moved by a single man in charge with greater velocity than if they were full of men. Also cars can be made so that without animals they will move with unbelievable rapidity; such we opine were the scythe-bearing chariots with which the men of old fought. Also flying machines can be constructed so that a man sits in the midst of the machine revolving some engine by which artificial wings are made to beat the air like a flying bird. Also a machine small in size for raising or lowering enormous weights, than which nothing is more useful in emergencies. For by a machine three fingers high and wide and of less size a man could free himself and his friends from all danger of prison and rise and descend. Also a machine can easily be made by which one man can draw a thousand to himself by violence against their wills, and attract other things in like manner. Also machines can be made for walking in the sea and rivers, even to the bottom without danger. For Alexander the Great employed such, that he might see the secrets of the deep, as Ethicus the astronomer tells. These machines were made in antiquity and they have certainly been made in our times, except possibly a flying machine which I have not seen nor do I know any one who has, but I know an expert who has thought out the way to make one. And such things can be made almost without limit, for instance, bridges across rivers without piers or other supports, and mechanisms, and unheard of engines.”[2161] Since Bacon’s authority concerning Alexander is unreliable and his conjectures concerning ancient scythe-bearing chariots unwarranted, we may also doubt if steamboats and automobiles had “certainly been made” in his day; but men may have been trying to accomplish such things.

Marvelous results expected.

Bacon says far more of the marvelous results which he expects experimental science to achieve than he does of the methods by which such results are to be attained. In the main marvelousness rather than practicability characterizes the aims which he proposes for scientia experimentalis. Indeed, of the three ways in which he represents it as superior to all other sciences, while one is that it employs sure proofs rather than mere arguments, two are that by it life may be greatly lengthened, and that from it a better knowledge of the future may be gained than even from astrology.[2162] Thus experimental method is especially connected with alchemy and astrology. Bacon declares that “it has been proved by certain experiments” that life can be greatly prolonged “by secret experiences.”[2163] and he believes that Artephius was enabled by such methods to live for a thousand and twenty-five years.[2164] Or experimental science may predict the weather by observing the behavior of animals.[2165]

Fantastic “experiments.”

Some of Bacon’s “experiments” are as fantastic as the aims are marvelous. “A good experimenter says in the book De regimine senum” that the following elixir will greatly prolong life: “that which is temperate in the fourth degree, and what swims in the sea, and what grows in the air, and what is cast up by the sea, and plant of India, and what is found in the entrails of an animal of long life, and those two serpents which are the food of the inhabitants of Tyre and Ethiopia.”[2166] We also are told that “at Paris recently there was a sage who asked for snakes and was given one and cut it into small sections except that the skin of its belly on which it crawled remained intact; and that snake crawled as best it could to a certain herb by touching which it was instantly made whole. And the experimenter collected an herb of wonderful virtue.”[2167]

Credulity essential.

Credulity, in contrast to the sceptical attitude of modern science is a characteristic of Bacon’s experimental method. He declares, it is true, that experiment disproves many false notions such as that hot water freezes faster than cold, that adamant can be broken only with the blood of a goat, and that the beaver when hunted castrates itself to save its life;[2168] but we have already heard such beliefs questioned by Albertus Magnus and others. On the other hand, Bacon asserts that credulity is necessary to experimentation. “First one should be credulous until experience follows second and reason comes third.... At first one should believe those who have made experiments or who have faithful testimony from others who have done so, nor should one reject the truth because he is ignorant of it and because he has no argument for it.”[2169] Taken as a plea for an open-minded attitude toward scientific investigation on the part of the ordinary man and of the ecclesiastical authorities, this utterance may be commended; but as a prescription for the scientific investigator it is dangerous. Many of Bacon’s “experiments” are copied from books, and the reproach made against the Greek Empirics that they followed tradition, applies also to him. Describing a certain marvel of nature, he exclaims, “After I beheld this, there was nothing difficult for my mind to believe, provided it had a reliable author.”[2170] In the midst of his discussion of experimental science we encounter the following instance of his gullibility:

Good flying dragons.

“It is certain that Ethiopian sages have come into Italy, Spain, France, England, and those Christian lands where there are good flying dragons; and by an occult art that they possess, excite the dragons from their caves. And they have saddles and bridles ready, and they ride the dragons, and drive them at top speed through the air, in order to soften the rigidity and toughness of their flesh, just as boars, bears, and bulls are hunted with dogs and beaten with many blows before they are killed for eating. And when they have tamed the dragons in this way, they have an art of preparing their flesh ... which they employ against the accidents of age and prolong life and inspire the intellect beyond all estimation. For no education which man can give will bestow such wisdom as does the eating of their flesh, as we have learned without deceit or doubt from men of proved trustworthiness.”[2171]

Bacon’s discussion of experimental science, therefore, on its positive side amounts to little more than a recognition of experience as a criterion of truth and a promulgation of the phrase “Experimental science” which, however, he himself ascribes to Ptolemy.[2172]

Experiment and magic.

On the other hand, the credulity, the superstition, the element of marvelousness, which seem to vitiate the experimental tendencies of Bacon, are to be explained as the result of a real connection between experiment and magic. There is abundant evidence for this. Bacon, it is true, asserts that experimental science exposes and shuns all the follies of the magicians, but he admits that many persons confuse it with magic because of the marvels which it works, and he himself especially associates it with the occult sciences of alchemy and astrology. It makes gold such as neither the art of alchemy nor nature can produce; it can predict the future better than astrology.[2173] It teaches one to choose the proper constellations for his undertakings, and to use the right words at the proper times;[2174] it can construct “philosophical images and incantations and characters” which are vastly superior to those of magic;[2175] it can alter the world about us, and incline and excite the human will, though without coercion.[2176] Moreover, Bacon’s ideal experimental scientist does not scorn to take hints from wizards, while Roger himself derives his hazel rod experiment from the magicians. The snake experiment of his sage at Paris sounds more like the trick of a Hindu conjurer than the procedure of a modern laboratory.

IV. His Attitude Toward Magic and Astrology

Magic and astrology.

Thus we are finally led to a consideration of the magic and astrology which were evidently so closely connected with Bacon’s mathematics and experimental science. Roger admits a certain connection between magic and astrology, since he adopts Hugh of St. Victor’s fivefold division of magic into mantice, mathematica, sortilegium, praestigium and maleficium.[2177] However, except for this superstitious mathematica he approves of astrology, whereas his attitude towards magic is uniformly one of condemnation and contempt. We shall therefore take up his treatments of the two subjects separately.

Magic in the past.

Bacon discusses or alludes to “magic” in a number of passages scattered through his works, and to it is more particularly devoted the “Letter on the secret works of art and nature and the nullity of magic,” a treatise which faithfully reproduces his point of view whether actually penned by him as it stands or not.[2178] Bacon had evidently read a good deal about magic and gives a rather unusual account of its position in the Roman Empire and early Christian period, but one which is not so very far from the truth. His idea is that there were three great conflicting and contending forces in the early centuries of the Christian era, namely, Christianity, philosophy, and magic, and that each one of these was then in opposition to the other two, although there was no sufficient reason for the permanent hostility of Christianity and philosophy, which have since become allies.[2179] But at the time the result was that the philosophers often accused the Christians of practicing magic, and that the early Christians similarly confused philosophers with magicians, as indeed was often done by uneducated men of the time who were not Christians. Moreover, Bacon complains that this confusion still exists in his own time and that contemporary theologians, Gratian in his work on Canon law, and “many saints” have condemned many useful and splendid sciences along with magic.[2180]

Magicians and their books still prevalent.

Roger himself, however, not only regards magic as rife in antiquity, but as still prevalent in his own time. He often refers to contemporary magicians and witches, old-wives and wizards. He declares that every nation is full of their superstitions.[2181] He is another medieval witness to the currency of a considerable body of occult literature, of which he speaks especially in the second and third chapters of the Epistola de secretis operibus, and again in his commentary on The Secret of Secrets. “Books of the magicians” are in circulation which are falsely attributed to Solomon and the ancient philosophers and which “assume a grand-sounding style,” but which “ought all to be prohibited by law, since they abound in so many lies that one cannot distinguish the true from the false.”[2182] Such works as De officiis spirituum, De morte animae, and De arte notoria embody only “figments of the magicians.” Yet these books of false mathematici and demons, ascribed to Adam, Moses, Solomon, Aristotle, and Hermes, have seduced not only youths but mature and famous men of Bacon’s own time.

Magic a delusion.

Bacon, indeed, despite the prevalence of magic both in antiquity and in his own time, regards it as essentially a delusion. It is “the nullity of magic” that he especially attempts to demonstrate both in the Epistola de secretis operibus and elsewhere in his works. He is medieval Christian enough, it is true, to grant that magic may perform marvels by the aid of demons.[2183] But he also accepts the orthodox belief that magicians cannot coerce the demons by their invocations, sacrifices, and employment of the properties of natural objects, and that the evil spirits in reality respond only with evil intent and as God permits.[2184] But his emphasis is not, like Augustine’s upon the “host of wonders” which magicians work by demon aid. He seems to be sounding, not a religious retreat from magic, but a rational and scientific attack upon it. Nor does he dwell much on the criminal character of magic, although he calls the magicians maledicti—“of evil repute.”[2185] What impresses him most about magic, and the charge which he most often brings against it, is its fraud and futility. Twice he speaks of things as “false and magical”;[2186] he mentions the “figments of the magicians”;[2187] and associates magic and necromancy, not like Albert with astronomy, but with deception.[2188] For him magicians are neither magni nor philosophers and astronomers; in half a dozen passages he classes them with old-wives and witches.[2189] He will not admit that they employ valid natural forces. He represents magic as using sleight-of-hand, ventriloquism, subtle mechanism, darkness and confederates to simulate results which it is unable to perform.[2190] He further represents the magicians as “stupidly trusting in characters and incantations,”[2191] and affirms that “the human voice has not that power which magicians imagine it has.”[2192] When words are employed in magic, “either the magician accomplishes nothing, or the devil is the author of the feat.”[2193] Magical incantations and formulae are made haphazard and at anyone’s pleasure; they therefore possess no natural transforming power, and if they seem to effect anything, this is really the work of demons.[2194] Similarly Bacon regards as worthless the assertion of the magicians and witches that sudden transformations may be produced by any man at any time of day.[2195] He dismisses “fascination by word alone uttered at haphazard” as “a stupid notion characteristic of magic and of old-wives and beneath the notice of philosophers.” Here again nothing is accomplished, “unless the devil because of men’s sins operates unbeknownst.”[2196]

Some truth in magic.

In certain passages, however, Bacon suggests that magic is not utterly worthless and that some truth may be derived from it. The experimental scientist whom he most admired “investigated even the experiments and lot-castings of old women”—note that they too were experimenters—“and their charms and those of all the magicians, and likewise the illusions and devices of all the conjurers”; and he did so not merely that he might be able to expose their deceptions, but also “so that nothing that ought to be known might escape him.”[2197] And his experimental science not merely “considered all the follies of the magicians, not to confirm them but to shun them, just as logic deals with sophistry”; but also “so that all falsity may be removed and the truth of the art alone retained.”[2198] Roger himself in the case of the split hazel rod discovered a natural phenomenon concealed by use of a magic incantation. Bacon also granted that the books of the magicians “may contain some truth.”[2199] It also was apparently very difficult to distinguish them from other writings, since he states that many books are reputed magical which are nothing of the sort but contain sound learning;[2200] since he calls the magicians “corrupters of wisdom’s records,”[2201] and charges them not only with fraudulently ascribing various “enormities” to Solomon, but with misinterpreting and abusing “enigmatical writings” which he believes Solomon really wrote;[2202] and since he tells us that even true philosophers have sometimes made use of meaningless incantations and characters in order to conceal their meaning. He consequently concludes that experience will show which books are good and which are bad, and that “if anyone finds the work of nature and art in one of them, let him receive it; if not, abandon the book as open to suspicion.”[2203]

Magic and science.

Indeed, Bacon seems to think that magic has taken such a hold upon men that it can be uprooted only by scientific exposition of its tricks and by scientific achievement of even greater marvels than it professes to perform. Perhaps he realizes that religious censure or rationalistic argument is not enough to turn men from these alluring arts, but that science must show unto them yet a more excellent way, and afford scope for that laudable curiosity, that inventive and exploring instinct which magic pretends to gratify. He waxes enthusiastic over “the secret works of art and nature,” and contends that the wonders of nature and the possibilities of applied science far outshine the feats of magicians.[2204] One reason why early Christian writers so often confounded philosophy and magic together was, in his opinion, that the philosophers by their marvelous exploitation of the forces of nature equalled both the illusions of magic and the miracles of the Christians.[2205] Science, in short, not merely attacks magic’s front; it can turn its flank and cut it off from its base of supplies.

His belief in marvelous “extraneous virtues.”

But Bacon’s science is sometimes occult science. In the first place he shared the common belief of his time that “herbs and stones and metals and other things” possess “almost miraculous” powers.[2206] By thorough investigation of such occult virtues Artephius prolonged his existence to one thousand and twenty-five years. “Moreover, there are numerous things which kill every venomous animal by the slightest contact; and if a circle is drawn about such animals with objects of this sort, they cannot get out but die without having been touched. And if a man is stung by a venomous animal, he can be cured by a little powder scraped from such objects, as Bede writes in his Ecclesiastical History and as we know by experience. And so there are innumerable things which have extraneous virtues of this sort, of whose powers we are ignorant from mere neglect of experimentation.”[2207] By calling such virtues “extraneous” Bacon seems to imply that they cannot be accounted for by the properties of the elements composing the objects, and perhaps further that they are of celestial origin. This points on to his belief in astrology.

Non-magical fascination.

But Bacon goes farther than that, for some of his “secret works of art and nature” we must regard as plain cases of magic procedure, and they would indeed be so classified by most of our authors. Bacon really goes about as far as Albertus Magnus in credulous acceptance of superstition, but will not admit, as Albert does, that such things are magic or very closely related to it. The incantations and characters, the fascination and marvelous transformations of magic Bacon condemns, but he does not condemn all incantations and characters, nor disbelieve in marvelous transformations and fascination. While he regards haphazard fascination as magic, he holds that just as certain bodily diseases are contagious, so if some malignant soul thinks hard of infecting another, and desires this ardently, and has full confidence in its own power to inflict such injury, “there is no doubt that nature will obey thought, as Avicenna”—who seems to have been the leading medieval authority on the subject of fascination—“shows in his eighth book on animals and in his fourth book on the soul: ... and this much is not magic.”[2208]

The power of words.

Bacon makes a close connection between fascination and the power of words and of the human voice, since in his opinion both are largely due to the rational soul. Words are the soul’s most appropriate instrument and almost every miracle since the beginning of the world has been performed by using them.[2209] “For where the attention, desire and virtue of the rational soul, which is worthier than the stars, concur with the power of the sky, it is inevitable that either a word or some other instrument of marvelous power be produced which will alter the things of this world, so that not only natural objects but also souls will be inclined to those ends which the wise operator desires.”[2210] Again in the Opus Tertium we are told that, while the magician accomplishes nothing by words, the wise man may for this reason. “When words are uttered with deep thought and great desire and good intention and firm confidence, they have great virtue. For when these four qualities unite, the substance of the rational being is strongly excited to radiate its own species and virtues from itself into its own body and foreign matter.”[2211] The rational soul influences the voice, which in turn affects the atmosphere and all objects contained therein. The physical constitution of the speaker also has some influence, and finally the positions of the stars must by all means be taken into account.[2212] All this reasoning is equivalent to accepting the power of incantations, for as Bacon states, “They are words brought forth by the exertion of the rational soul, and receive the virtue of the sky as they are pronounced.”[2213] Through their power bodies are healed, venomous animals put to flight, and other such effects produced. If incantations are made as described above, “then they are philosophical and the work of a sage wisely enchanting, as David the prophet says.”[2214] Bacon, however, recognizes that he is dealing with a delicate matter in which it is hard to distinguish between philosophy and magic.[2215] Of his further discussion of characters and images, and effort to show that they need not be magical, we shall treat presently in connection with his astrology. In his introduction to The Secret of Secrets he holds that the prayers and sacrifices of Aristotle and other philosophers were licit and not idolatrous.[2216]

Magic and science again.

Thus Bacon fails in his attempt to draw the line between science and magic, and shows, as William of Auvergne, Albertus Magnus, and others have already shown, how inextricably the two subjects were intertwined in his time. His own science still clings to many occult and magical theories and practices, while he admits that the magicians often try or pretend to use scientific books and methods, and that it is no easy matter to tell which books and characters and images are which. The experimental scientist not only exposes the frauds of magic but discovers secrets of nature hidden beneath the husk of magical ceremony and pretense. Also some men employ the marvels of philosophy for wicked ends and so pervert it into a sort of magic. Finally in one passage he forgets himself and speaks of “those magnificent sciences” which properly employ “images, characters, charms, prayers, and deprecations” as “magical sciences.”[2217]

The multiplication of species.

Bacon’s doctrine of the multiplication of species is a good illustration of the combination of magic and science which we encounter in his works. This theory has been praised by his admirers as the propagation of force subject to mathematical law; and he has been commended for describing the species which every agent causes in all directions not, like the idols of Lucretius, as material films which peel off from the agent and impress themselves on surrounding matter, but as successive effects produced in that matter. Bacon usually illustrates his theory by the radiation of light from the sun, and by a discussion of the geometrical laws of reflection and refraction; thus his theory seems at first sight a physical one. He believed, however, that the occult influences of the planets upon nature and man were exercised in the same way, and also such mysterious powers as those of the evil eye and of fascination. Indeed, he asserts that this multiplication of virtues is universal, and that spiritual beings as well as corporeal objects affect in this manner everything about them and may themselves be so affected by other objects and beings.[2218] Viewed from this angle, his theory seems a magical one of occult influence, though given a scientific guise by its assumption that such forces proceed along mathematical lines after the analogy of rays of light. This suggests that it is not fair merely to call Bacon’s science superstitious; we must also note that he tries to make his magic scientific. But finally we must note that this doctrine was not original with Bacon; we have already met with it in Alkindi’s work on stellar rays.[2219]

William of St. Cloud on works of art and nature compared to magic.

It is interesting to find Bacon’s belief that the works of art and nature can exceed those of magic, and his charge that unscientific persons are confusing such works with magic, repeated by another writer. William of St. Cloud composed astronomical tables based upon his own observations during the period from about 1285 to 1321, in which he detected errors in the earlier tables of Thebit, Toulouse, and Toledo. This experimental astronomer, speaking of the powers of mirrors and lenses, such as those of Archimedes, those by which Caesar saw Britain from the shores of Gaul, and that by which Socrates discovered a dragon in the air, says: “These marvels and many others have been performed in ancient times, not by magic art, as some would have it, who are ignorant of the secrets of nature and of scientific industry, but solely by the force of nature and the aid of art.”[2220]

The two mathematics.

We now turn to Bacon’s attitude towards astrology, which we have already seen was an important factor in his “secret works of art and nature” as well as in his mathematics. He was aware that the mathematici or astrologers of the Roman Empire had been condemned by some of the church fathers, and were classed as practitioners of magic by more recent theologians and writers on Canon law. Like Isidore, Albertus Magnus, and other authors whom we have already discussed, Bacon gets around this by distinguishing two varieties of mathematics, one of which he says is magic, condemned by Cicero in his De divinatione and by other classical authorities as well as by the church fathers, the other a department of philosophy, a branch of which Augustine, Ambrose, Basil, Cassiodorus, and Gregory all approved. In the Opus Maius and Opus Tertium he states as usual that the “e” is long in the magical art of divination, while the vowel is short in the philosophical study; but in other writings he changed his mind and declared that “all the Latins” were wrong in this opinion and that the distinction was just the opposite.[2221] Bacon also cites Isidore’s distinction between two kinds of “astronomy”; one natural science, the other superstitious. Roger himself sometimes uses the words “astrology” and “astronomy” indifferently; sometimes speaks of “astrology” as speculative and “astronomy” as practical; sometimes distinguishes between speculative and practical astrology, of which the last includes judicial astrology.[2222]

Four objections to the forbidden variety.

Four features, to Bacon’s mind, distinguish the forbidden mathematica from legitimate judicial astrology.[2223] In the first place, it ascribes fatal necessity to the influence of the stars, whereas Bacon shows by an examination of the writings of Haly, Ptolemy, Avicenna, Messahala, and Isaac that learned and legitimate astrologers have never held any such tenet as fatal necessity, although common report may ignorantly ascribe such doctrine to them.[2224] In the second place, the practitioners of the magical variety of mathematics “invoke demons by conjurations and sacrifices to supplement the influence of the constellations, an execrable practice.” Third, “they mar their astrological observations by the idlest sort of circles, figures, and characters, and by the stupidest incantations and unreasonable prayers in which they put their trust.” Finally they often resort to fraud, employing confederates, darkness, deceptive mechanisms, and sleight-of-hand. By such methods “in which they know there is illusion” and “in which there is no virtue of the sky operating,” “they perform many feats which seem marvelous to the stupid.”[2225]

The rule of the stars.

While thus censuring the mathematica which is a subdivision of magic, Bacon declared that “it is manifest to everyone that the celestial bodies are the causes of generation and corruption in all inferior things.”[2226] Had not Aristotle in his treatise on Generation and Corruption said that the four terrestrial elements are related to the heavens as tools to an artificer?[2227] Bacon regarded the stars as ungenerated, incorruptible, and voluntary in their movements, which were regulated by angelic intelligences.[2228] He also accepted the usual technique of the astrological art in explaining the operation of this celestial influence.[2229]

Astrological medicine.

Bacon naturally subjected the human body to the constellations and was a firm believer in astrological medicine. If a doctor is ignorant of “astronomy,” his medical treatment will be dependent upon “chance and fortune.”[2230] Bacon holds not only that at conception and at birth one’s fundamental “complexion,” or physical constitution, is determined by the sky,[2231] but that with each changing hour our bodies are governed by a different planet whose characteristics the physician should know. Where Neckam[2232] had assigned six hours to the planet after which the day was named, that is, the first three and last three hours of the twenty-four, Bacon assigns it only four hours, namely, the first, eighth, fifteenth and twenty-second. Then, in order to bring the proper planet into control of the first hour of the succeeding day, he is obliged to have them follow each other in a different order in their rule of hours from that in which the days of the week are named.[2233] Bacon also distributes the parts of the body among the signs of the zodiac,[2234] and states that the physician must observe the moon carefully.[2235] He cites Hippocrates, Galen, the Centiloquium and Haly concerning the great influence of the stars both upon health and the administering of medicines.[2236] That the patriarchs of the Old Testament lived so much longer than men do to-day has been explained by many, Bacon says, as due to the stars. His explanation of the strange case of a woman of Norwich who ate nothing for twenty years and yet was during all that time in the best of health is that some constellation must have reduced the concourse of the four elements in her body to a self-sufficient harmony such as they seldom attain.[2237] Indeed, he goes so far as to hold that the resurrected body will have that harmony of the elements and so endure through eternity, no matter whether raised to the bliss of heaven or subjected to the consuming torments of hell.

Influence of the stars upon human conduct.

Bacon even held that the stars by their influence upon the human body incline men to bad acts and evil arts or to good conduct and useful sciences. Such natural inclinations might, however, be resisted by effort of will, modified by divine grace, or strengthened by diabolic tempting.[2238] But while the individual by an effort of will may resist the force of the stars, in masses of men the power of the constellations usually prevails; and the differences in peoples inhabiting different parts of the earth are due to their being under different aspects of the sky. Recent bloody wars might have been avoided, had men harkened to warnings written in the sky. “Oh, how great profit to the church of God might have been procured, if the disposition of the sky for those times had been foreseen by the wise, and known to prelates and princes, and restricted by zeal for peace! Then there would not have been such slaughter of Christians nor so many souls sent below.”[2239] The personality of the king, too, has such great influence upon his kingdom that it is worth while to examine his horoscope carefully.[2240]

Planetary conjunctions and religious movements.

Bacon was especially attracted by the doctrine of Albumasar concerning conjunctions of the planets, and derived comforting evidence of the superiority of the Christian faith to other religions from the astrological explanation of the origin of religious sects according to the successive conjunctions of the other planets with Jupiter.[2241] He was pleased by the association of Christianity with Mercury, which he calls the lord of wisdom and eloquence, of oracles and prophecies; it is dominant only in the sign Virgo, which at once suggests the Virgin Mary; and its orbit, difficult to trace because of epicycle and eccentric, typifies well the Christian creed with its mysteries that defy reason. Similarly the malign force of the moon, productive of necromancy and magic, fits Antichrist exactly; and Venus corresponds to the sensuality of Mohammedanism. Further astrological evidences of Christianity are the coincidence six years before the birth of Christ of an important conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter with a tenth revolution of Saturn, which last occurs only at intervals of 320 years, and always marks some great historical change like the advent of Alexander or Manes or Mohammed. Astrology further assures us that Islam can endure only 693 years, a prediction in close agreement with the number of the beast in the Apocalypse, 663 (sic); the small discrepancy of thirty years is readily accounted for by the dictum of the venerable Bede that “Scripture in many places subtracts something from the complete number, for that’s the way with Scripture.”[2242]

Was Christ born under the stars?

The astronomers, Bacon tells the pope, further assure us that even the Virgin Birth of Christ and His Nativity were in accordance with the constellations. They think that God willed so to order His works that certain future events which He foresaw or predestined should be revealed to the wise through the planets, in order that the human mind, recognizing God’s marvelous works, might increase in love towards Him. They grant that it is impossible that the Creator be subject to a creature, or that the birth of Christ, in so far as it was supernatural, should be subject in any way to the influence of the stars, which in this respect could only be signs of the divine work. But in so far as the birth of Jesus was a natural event and His nature was human, they regard Him as under the influence of the constellations, like the rest of humanity. Their statements in such matters should, however, Bacon more cautiously adds, be brought into conformity with the doctrines of the Catholic faith.[2243]

Operative astrology.

Bacon believed that by means of astrology not only could the future be in large measure foretold, but also marvelous operations and great alterations could be effected throughout the whole world, especially by choosing favorable hours and by employing astronomical amulets and characters—in other words, by the arts of elections and of images.[2244] As the babe at birth receives from the stars that fundamental physical constitution which lasts it through life, so any new-made object is permanently affected by the disposition of the constellations at the moment of its making.[2245] Especially by images, “if they are engraved in accordance with the aspect of the sky in the elect times, can all injuries be repelled and useful undertakings promoted.”[2246] Bacon not only cites as authorities concerning them Haly’s commentary on the Centiloquium supposed to be by Ptolemy, Thabit ben Corra, and the spurious Secret of Secrets of Aristotle; but believes that Moses and Solomon both made use of them.[2247] The marvelous power of spoken words is also in part accounted for by Bacon by the celestial influence prevalent at the moment of utterance. “Although the efficacious employment of words is primarily the function of the rational soul,” nevertheless “the astronomer can form words in elect times which will possess unspeakable power” of transforming natural objects and even inclining human minds to obey him.[2248] Thus Bacon’s “astronomer” is really a magician and enchanter as well—one more of the many indications we have met that there is no dividing line between magic and astrology: divination is magic; astrology operates. Bacon was very desirous that the church should avail itself of the guidance and aid of astrology; and he feared the harm that Antichrist, whose advent Bacon with many others of his century seems to have believed was near at hand, or the Tartars with their astrologers, would be able to do Christendom, if the church neglected this art.[2249]

Unlikelihood that Bacon was condemned for magic or astrology.

Having considered Bacon’s position in regard to magic and astrology, we are now prepared to inquire what likelihood there is that his reported condemnation in 1278 for “some suspected novelties” was due to either. Briefly it may be answered to begin with that his views concerning these subjects were not novel; he shared them with Albert and other contemporaries, and there seems to be no good reason why they should have got him into trouble. His expressed attitude towards “magic” is so hostile that it seems unlikely that he would have been charged with it, when other clergymen like Albert and William of Auvergne spoke of it with less hostility and yet escaped unscathed. There is not a particle of evidence in his works that he ever invoked spirits or attempted to do anyone an injury by occult methods, and this was the only kind of magic that was likely to be punished at that time.[2250] Towards astrology he was, it is true, more favorable than some of his contemporaries. With his views on astrological images and his attribution of religious sects to conjunctions of the planets theologians like Aquinas and William of Auvergne would refuse to agree, but Arabian astrology supported such doctrines, and the views of an approved Christian thinker like Albertus Magnus concerning astrology are almost identical with those of Bacon. We note elsewhere writings on such subjects as astrological medicine by Franciscans; and such a regulation as that of May 25, 1292, for Franciscans studying at Paris, that they should not spend the alms given them to buy books with for other purposes, nor cause curious books to be made, suggests that a number of them were prone to consult superstitious works as well as that the Order forbids this.[2251] And by “curious books” are doubtless meant the sort that we have heard Bacon strongly censure.

Error of Charles in thinking that any stigma rested on Bacon’s memory

Again therefore there is no reason why Bacon should have been singled out for condemnation. Such a notion has arisen partly from misapprehension as to the views of Bacon’s contemporaries and from misstatements such as the passage in Charles’ life of Bacon,[2252] where he declares that Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly in his treatise on laws and sects condemns the doctrine of an English doctor concerning religions and the conjunctions of planets, and approves the contrary doctrine of William of Auvergne, but “does not dare” to name Bacon, to whom he alludes with the bated breath of terror and repugnance. All this, except the bare fact that d’Ailly criticizes this particular doctrine of Bacon, is sheer fancy on Charles’ part. Had he consulted a complete fifteenth-century edition of d’Ailly’s writings instead of merely such of his treatises as were included in an eighteenth-century edition of the works of Gerson, he would have known that elsewhere the cardinal cites Bacon on astrology by name with respect and admiration,[2253] and that the learned reformer even goes so far as to agree boldly and explicitly with Bacon’s doctrine that Christ as a son of man was under the stars.[2254] That Bacon’s astrology had not been condemned in 1278 is also indicated soon after his death by Pierre Dubois’ approving mention of his discussion of the utility of “mathematics.”[2255]

But his own statements may have caused the legend.

It must be added, however, that there are passages in Bacon’s own writings which are perhaps also partly responsible for the growth of the idea that he was condemned for magic or astrology. Briefly, these are the passages where he himself says that there is danger of scientists being accused of magic. For instance, he tells us that “scarcely anyone has dared” to speak of astronomical images in public, “For those who are acquainted with them are immediately called magicians, although really they are the wisest men.”[2256] It also seems somewhat strange that Bacon should always be so condemnatory and contemptuous in his allusions to magic and magicians, when both William of Auvergne and Albertus Magnus allude to it as sometimes bordering upon science, in which case they do not regard it unfavorably. The suspicion occurs to one that Bacon perhaps protests a little too much, that he is condemning magic from a fear that he may be accused of it. But are not his apprehensions exaggerated? Does he not overstate the hostility of canonists and theologians to his many splendid sciences, and their tendency to confuse them with magic? Thomas of Cantimpré in the De natura rerum and Albert in the treatise on minerals and in the Speculum astronomiae dared to discuss astronomical images. And finally, whether there is any real ground for Bacon’s apprehensions or not, if he is afraid of being accused of magic, would not this very fear keep him from going too far and from thereby incurring condemnation in 1278 on this account?

V. Conclusion

Characteristics of medieval books.

Such were Roger Bacon’s views bearing upon magic and experimental science and their relations to Christian thought, as set forth principally in his Opus Maius and the two other treatises to the pope which supplemented it. Most medieval books impress one as literary mosaics where the method of arrangement may be new but most of the fragments are familiar. One soon recognizes, however, that striking similarity in two passages is no sure sign that one is copied from the other. The authors may have used the same Arabic sources or simply be repeating some commonplace thought of the times. Men began with the same assumptions and general notions, read the same limited library, reasoned by common methods, and naturally often reached the same conclusions, especially since the field of knowledge was not yet so extensive but that one man might try to cover it all, and since all used the same medium of thought, the Latin language. New discoveries were being made occasionally but slowly, perhaps also sporadically and empirically. A collection of industrial and chemical recipes in the thirteenth century may in the main be derived from a set of the seventh century or Hellenistic age, but a few new ones have somehow got added to the list in the interim. Thomas of Cantimpré’s encyclopedia professes to be no more than a compilation, but it seems to contain the first allusion we have to modern plumbing.

Features of Bacon’s Opus Maius.

Bacon’s chief book was a mosaic like the rest, but bears a strong impress of his personality. Sometimes there is too much personality, but if we allow for this, we find it a valuable, though not a complete nor perfect, picture of medieval learning. Its ideas were not brand-new; it was not centuries in advance of its age; but while its contents may be found scattered in many other places, they will scarcely be found altogether anywhere else, for it combines the most diverse features. In the first place it is a “pious” production, if I may employ that adjective in a somewhat objectionable colloquial sense to indicate roughly a combination of religious, theological, and moral points of view. In other words, Bacon continues the Christian attitude of patristic literature to a certain extent; and his book is written by a clergyman for clergymen, and in order to promote the welfare of the Church and Christianity. There is no denying that, hail him as one may as a herald of modern science. Secondly, he is frequently scholastic and metaphysical; yet thirdly, is critical in numerous respects; and fourthly, insists on practical utility as a standard by which science and philosophy must be judged. Finally, he is an exponent of the aims and methods of what we have called “the natural magic and experimental school,” and as such he sometimes comes near to being scientific. So there is no other book quite like the Opus Maius in the Middle Ages, nor has there been one like it since; yet it is true to its age and is still readable to-day. It will therefore always remain one of the most remarkable books of the remarkable thirteenth century.

APPENDIX I

THE STUDY OF ROGER BACON

Lack of early printed editions of his works.

In addition to criticizing and refuting the over-estimate of Roger Bacon which has been prevalent in modern times, it may be well to indicate when and how this exaggerated estimate of his importance and uniqueness originated, and also to trace the gradual growth of a more critical attitude towards him in still more recent years. The investigations of Mr. A. G. Little and several other contributors to the Roger Bacon Essays of 1914 have demonstrated that his writings were not almost forgotten for centuries, but that they exerted a continuous influence. However, owing perhaps to the unfinished state and rather fragmentary, confused, and scattered form in which they have survived in the manuscripts, they did not appear, as did many of the works of medieval science which we have considered, immediately after the invention of printing in early editions. No incunabula of them are known and only a few brief treatises were printed in the course of the sixteenth century,[2257] namely, some alchemistic tracts of doubtful authorship, a treatise on how to postpone the ills of old age, and the “Epistle concerning the secret works of nature and the nullity of magic,” which became quite a favorite and was reprinted several times in Latin and appeared twice both in English and in French translations in the course of the seventeenth century.[2258]

His popular reputation as a magician.

Meanwhile, despite what was said of “the nullity of magic” in this treatise on the secret works of nature,[2259] Friar Bacon had become in popular tradition a nigromancer, conjurer, and magician. As such he was presented about 1592 in Robert Greene’s play, the “Honourable History of Frier Bacon and Frier Bungay,” with magic wand, perspective glass, and speaking brazen head, and in the prose “Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon” which appeared about the same time.[2260] In 1625 Naudé included Roger Bacon among the great men of the past whose memory he endeavored to clear of the false charge of magic.[2261]

Jebb’s edition of the Opus Maius.

Other medical and alchemistic tracts by Bacon were issued together in 1603,[2262] and some portions of his chief work, the Opus Maius, and other similar fragments dealing with mathematics and optics were published in 1614.[2263] But the Opus Maius itself remained unprinted until 1733, when Jebb issued his edition of the work upon which Bacon’s fame has since largely rested. This edition,[2264] although to-day become quite rare, was perhaps just late enough not to share the neglect which with the advance of modern science befell the numerous earlier editions of medieval physicians, alchemists, astrologers, and natural scientists. On the other hand it was perhaps just early enough to introduce Roger and his criticisms of the learning of his contemporaries to an age whose historical interests were largely dominated by classicism. And when interest in and study of the middle ages developed in the course of the nineteenth century, for a time it had the effect of only increasing the exaggerated emphasis laid upon Roger Bacon.

General misestimate of Bacon and of medieval science.

As a result it came to be the fashion in works tracing the history of this or that department of learning from the times of the ancient Greeks or Egyptians to our own, in gliding rapidly and at a lofty height over the generally unexplored medieval region, and airily dropping a few bombs concerning the blighting effect of the church upon freedom of thought and scientific investigation or anent the inanities of scholasticism, to exclaim at the marvelous apparition of a mind like Roger Bacon’s in such an age and to hail him as a herald of a later and better civilization. There was the more excuse for doing this, since Jebb’s version of the Opus Maius had terminated the text with the sixth part on “Experimental Science.”[2265] This theme thus appeared to be the climax of the work, and the impression was given that Roger Bacon was primarily a natural scientist and that he regarded experimental method as the supreme thing in the study of nature. Consequently he came to be regarded by many as the first rebel against scholasticism and the first prophet of modern science.

Roger Bacon and Francis Bacon.

The fact that his name was Bacon also contributed to Roger’s celebrity, as Francis Bacon was already a favorite with historians of science and thought, and it now appeared that he had borrowed some of his ideas from, or had at least been anteceded in them by, the thirteenth century friar. Both had criticized scholastic method and urged the great practical utility possible from applied science. Akin to the idols of Francis were Roger’s four causes of human error. The program of endowed scientific research—based upon an essentially medieval classification of science and list of anticipated inventions—in which Francis tried to interest the society of his time in his New Atlantis[2266] has a general resemblance to the attempt of Roger to enlist the support of the pope in the cause of science in his Opus Maius; while the “Workes of Nature, Works of Art” of the New Atlantis, which made that isle almost seem “a Land of Magicians,”[2267] are rather suggestive of the treatise, “Of the Secret Works of Art and Nature and the Nullity of Magic,” by Roger Bacon to whom indeed Francis seems to allude in the New Atlantis as “Your Monke that was the Inuentour of Ordnance, and of Gunpowder.”[2268] Roger was by some indeed not only regarded as superior to Francis Bacon in priority, but in having emphasized the importance in scientific investigation of mathematical method whose value Francis had failed to appreciate.

Legend of his martyrdom for science.

The next step in the development of the Baconian legend was to supply Roger with a biography suited to his supposed position as a modern experimental and mathematical scientist in the midst of an age of religious bigotry and superstition, of gloomy monks and arid theologians. Surely, especially in view of his later literary and popular renown as a magician, he must have been persecuted and a martyr to science. Abbé Feret has shown how through the nineteenth century successive historians kept adding to the legend of Friar Bacon’s persecution by the Franciscan Order without giving any references to the sources for the details which they elaborated from their own imaginations. [2269]

Works of Brewer and Charles.

The sources, however, became more accessible with the editing in 1859 in the Rolls Series by Brewer of a number of Bacon’s minor treatises hitherto unpublished. Brewer, however, was able from the manuscripts at his disposal, to present only an incomplete text of the Opus Minus, Opus Tertium, and Compendium Studii Philosophiae. These served nevertheless to give a new stimulus to the interest in and the study of Bacon, especially since two years later appeared Charles’ book on Roger Bacon where were included further extracts from his unpublished writings. Unfortunately Charles wrote without knowledge of Brewer’s labors,[2270] and it must be added that several writers on Bacon since have failed to keep abreast with the latest research in the field.[2271] Charles also was guilty, as Abbé Feret has shown, of swelling the story of Bacon’s imprisonments, and in other matters he jumped to conclusions unwarranted by the sources or indulged in undiluted imagination.

Minor studies of the later nineteenth century.

The works of Brewer and Charles educed a number of minor essays and studies in the following decades. Two unsigned articles on “The life and writings of Roger Bacon” and “The philosophy of Roger Bacon” which appeared in The Westminster Review in 1864, are worth noting as combining a tendency towards a sane and critical estimate of what Bacon had actually said and accomplished, with the inclination to regard him as a voice crying in the wilderness of medieval scholasticism and theology. The writer admitted that the merit of the Opus Maius “lies rather in the spirit in which it was written than in the facts it records or in any merit which it may have as a scientific whole.” He further asserted that “it can easily be shown that of the things which Bacon is asserted to have invented, several were perfectly well known before his time, and the rest are nowhere described in his works.” The writer also cited some of Roger’s absurd experiments, and said, “Notwithstanding his forcible language about the prerogatives of experimental science and his bitter invective against frail authority, we find him occasionally resting on authority with childlike faith, and treating his favorite science as if its only prerogative was to provoke a smile.” Yet he still maintained that “Bacon preached a philosophy of which not half-a-dozen men in Europe saw the value, and of which the majority of really good men feared the results,” and that “when Roger Bacon was laid in his grave, the real philosophy was buried with him.”[2272] Many of the articles which appeared in the years following were of slight value, causing G. Delorme to say in 1910, “Monographs or studies concerning Bacon are numerous, perhaps too numerous.”[2273] As he proceeded to explain, in many of them Bacon was misunderstood and misinterpreted, so that they must be read with the greatest caution. On the other hand, in 1891 had appeared Abbé Feret’s valuable criticism of the legends regarding Bacon’s imprisonments.