Note 402 — Chapter IX · CHRISTENDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Worldly-minded he was in a noble sense, as seeking to know the world of Nature; and perhaps the most remarkable proof of his originality on this side is his acceptance of the theory of the earth’s sphericity. Peter de Alliaco, whose Imago Mundi was compiled in 1410, transcribed from Roger Bacon’s Opus Majus almost literally, but without acknowledgment, a passage containing quotations from Aristotle, Pliny, and Seneca, all arguing for the possibility of reaching India by sailing westward. Columbus, it is known, was familiar with the Imago Mundi; and this passage seems greatly to have inspired him in his task.402 This alone was sufficient practical heresy to put Bacon in danger; and yet his real orthodoxy can hardly be doubted.403 He always protested against the scholastic doctrine of a “twofold truth,” insisting that revelation and philosophy were at one, but that the latter also was divine.404 It probably mattered little to his superiors, however, what view he took of the abstract question: it was his zeal for concrete knowledge that they detested. His works remain to show the scientific reach of which his age was capable, when helped by the lore of the Arabs; for he seems to have drawn from Averroës some of his inspiration to research;405 but in the England of that day his ideals of research were as unattainable as his wrath against clerical obstruction was powerless;406 and Averroïsm in England made little for innovation.407 The English Renaissance properly sets-in in the latter half of the sixteenth century, when the glory of that of Italy is passing away.