Note 2058 — II. His Criticism of and Part in Medieval Learning

Part of the Opus Tertium of Roger Bacon (ed. A. G. Little, Aberdeen, 1912), 80-82. This passage is the fourth one and in it Bacon lists the three earlier statements: “Scripsi in tribus locis Vestre Glorie de huiusmodi secretis.” Roger ultimately decides that he will not reveal the whole secret even in this fourth instalment, because alchemists never put the full truth into writing; he therefore “reserves some points for word of mouth.”