distinct incompatibility between the state of mind which accepts
things on faith and that other intellectual attitude which leads man
to doubt about his knowledge and consequently to inquire. This
doubting frame of mind, which is readily recognized to be absolutely
necessary for the proper pursuit of experimental science, is supposed
quite to preclude the idea of the peaceful settlement of the doubts
that assail men's minds as to the significance of life, of the
relation of man to man and to his Creator, and the hereafter, which
comes {282} with the acceptance of what revelation has to say on these
subjects. Somehow, it is assumed by many people that there is
something mutually and essentially repellent in these two forms of
assent. If a man is ready to accept certain propositions on authority
and without being able to understand them, and still more, if he
accept them, realizing that he cannot understand them, it is
considered to be impossible for him to be able to assume such a mental
attitude towards science as would make him an original investigator.
It is almost needless to say to anyone who knows anything about the
history of modern science--even nineteenth century science, that there
is absolutely no foundation for this prejudice. Most of our greatest
investigators even in nineteenth century science have been faithful
believers not only in the ordinary religious truths, in a Providence,
in a hereafter, and in this life as a preparation for another, but
also in the great mysteries of revelation. I have shown this amply
even with regard to what is usually considered so unorthodox a science
as medicine, in my volume on the Makers of Modern Medicine. Most of
the men who did the great original work in last century medicine were
Catholics. The same thing is true for electricity, for example. All
the men after whom modes and units of electricity are named--Galvani,
Volta, Coulomb, Ampere, Ohm--were not only members of the Church, but
what would be even called devout Catholics.
A second and almost as important a reason for the superstition--for it
is a supposed truth accepted without good reasons therefor--that
somehow the Church was opposed to the inductive or experimental
method, is the persistent belief which, in spite of frequent {283}
contradictions, remains in the minds of so many scientists, that the
inductive or experimental method was introduced to the world by
Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. Bacon himself was a Protestant; he did not do his
writing until the reformation so-called had been at work in Europe for
nearly a century, and somehow it is supposed that these facts are
linked together as causes and effects. The reason why such a
formulation of the inductive method had not come before was because
this was forbidden ground! Nothing could be less true than that Lord
Bacon had any serious influence in bringing about the introduction of
the inductive method into science. At most he was a chronicler of
tendencies that he saw in the science of his day. It is true that his
writings served to give a certain popular vogue to the inductive
method, or rather a certain exaggerated notion of the import of
experiment to those who were not themselves scientists. Bacon was a
popular writer on science, not an original thinker or worker in the
experimental sciences. Popularizers in science, alas! have from
Amerigo Vespucci down reaped the rewards due to the real discoverers.
Induction in the genuine significance of the word had been recognized
in the world long before Bacon's time and been used to much better
effect than he was able to apply it. Personally, I have always felt
that he has almost less right to all the praise that has been bestowed
on him for what he is supposed to have done for science, than he has
for any addition to his reputation because of the attribution to him
by so many fanatics of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. It is
rather difficult to understand how his reputation ever came about.
Lord {284} Macaulay is much more responsible for it than is usually
thought; his brilliancy often overreached itself or went far beyond
truth; his favorite geese were nearly always swans, in his eyes.
De Maistre, in his review of Bacon's Novum Organum, points out that
this work is replete with prejudices; that Bacon makes glaring
blunders in astronomy, in logic, in metaphysics, in physics, in
natural history, and fills the pages of his work with childish
observations, trifling experiments, and ridiculous explanations. Our
own Professor Draper, in his Intellectual Development of Europe, has
been even more severe, and has especially pointed out that Bacon never
received the Copernican System, but "with the audacity of ignorance he
presumed to criticise what he did not understand, and with a superb
conceit disparaged the great Copernicus."--"The more closely we
examine the writings of Lord Bacon," he says farther on, "the more
unworthy does he seem to have been of the great reputation which has
been awarded to him. . . The popular delusion, to which he owes so
much, originated at a time when the history of science was unknown.
This boasted founder of a new philosophy could not comprehend and
would not accept the greatest of all scientific discoveries when it
was plainly set before his eyes."
As a student of the history of medicine, it has always been especially
irritating to me to hear Francis Bacon's name heralded as the Father
of Experimental Science. Literally hundreds of physicians had applied
the experimental method in its perfect form to many problems in
medicine and surgery during at least three centuries or more before
Bacon's time. They did not need to have the principles of it set forth
for them by this {285} publicist, who knew how to write about
scientific method, but did not know how to apply it, so far as we know
anything about him; and who was utterly unable to see the great
discoveries that had been made by the experimental method in the
century before his time, and refused to accept such great advances in
science as were made by Copernicus and others. Some two score of years
before Bacon wrote, in England itself, the great Gilbert of
Colchester, who was elected the president of the Royal College of
Physicians for the year 1600, and who was physician-in-ordinary to
Queen Elizabeth, had applied the experimental method to such good
purpose that he well deserves the title that has been conferred upon
him of Father of Electricity.
There was never a more purely experimental scientist than Gilbert. His
work, De Magnete, is one of the great contributions to experimental
science. Anyone who thinks that experiments came only after Lord
Bacon's time should read this wonderful work, which is at the
foundation of modern electricity. For twenty years, from 1580 to 1600,
Gilbert spent all the leisure that he could snatch from his
professional duties, in his laboratory. He notes down his
experiments--his failures as well as his successes--discusses them
very thoroughly, suggests explanations of success and failure, hits
upon methods of control, but pursues the solution of the problems he
has in hand ever further and further. As a biographer said of him, "we
find him toiling in his work-shop at Colchester quite as Faraday
toiled, more than two hundred years later, in the low dark rooms of
the Royal Institution of Great Britain." Faraday was actuated by no
more calm, persevering, inquiring spirit than was Gilbert. To say that
any Englishman invented {286} or taught the world the application of
the experimental method in science after Gilbert's time is to talk
nonsense.
Yet it was of this great scientific observer that Lord Bacon, carried
away by ill-feeling and jealousy of a contemporary, went so far as to
say in his _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, that Gilbert "had attempted to
found a general system upon the magnet, and endeavored to build a ship
out of materials not sufficient to make the rowing-pins of a boat."
When Bacon refused to accept Copernicus's teachings, he did not commit
a greater error, nor do a greater wrong to mankind, than when he made
little of Gilbert of Colchester's work. Poggendorf called Gilbert the
"Galileo of Magnetism" and Priestley hailed him as the "founder of
modern electricity." When Gilbert did the work on which these titles
are founded, however, he was only following out the methods which had
been introduced into England long before, and which had been
exemplified so thoroughly all during the life of Friar Bacon, and of
Friar Bacon's great teacher, Albertus Magnus. One would expect that at
least in science credit would be given properly, and that the false
notions introduced by litterateurs and historians of politics should
not be allowed to dominate the situation.
The position popularly assigned to Bacon in the history of science is
indeed one of those history lies, as the Germans so bluntly but
frankly call them, which, though very generally accepted, is entirely
due to a lack of knowledge of the state of education and of the
progress of scientific investigation long before his time. The reason
for this ignorance is the unfortunate tradition which has been so long
fostered in educational circles, {287} that nothing worth while ever
came out of the Nazareth of the Middle Ages, or the centuries before
the so-called reformation and the Renaissance. The ridiculously utter
falsity of this impression we shall be able properly to characterize
at the end of the next chapter.
As a matter of fact, it would have been much truer to have attributed
the origin of experimental science to his great namesake, Roger Bacon,
the Franciscan friar, whose work was done at Paris and at Oxford
during the latter half of that wonderful thirteenth century that saw
the rise and the development of the universities to that condition in
which they have practically remained ever since. Even Bacon, however,
is not the real originator of the inductive method, since, as we shall
see, the writings of his great teacher, the profoundest scholar of
this great century, whose years are almost coincident with it, Albert
Magnus, the Dominican, who afterwards became Bishop of Ratisbon,
contained many distinct and definite anticipations of Bacon as regards
the inductive method.
The earlier Bacon, the Franciscan, laid down very distinctly the
principle, that only by careful observation and experimental
demonstration could any real knowledge with regard to natural
phenomena be obtained. He not only laid down the principle, however,
but in this, quite a contrast to his later namesake, he followed the
route himself very wonderfully. It is for this reason that his name is
deservedly attached to many important beginnings in modern science,
which we shall have occasion to mention during the course of this and
the next chapter. His general attitude of mind toward natural science
can be best appreciated from the famous passage with regard to his
friend, Petrus Peregrinus, {288} who did such excellent work in
magnetism in the thirteenth century, and sent to Friar Bacon the
details of it with the loving solicitude of a pupil to a master.
In his Opus Tertium, Bacon thus praises the merits of Peregrinus: "I
know of only one person who deserves praise for his work in
experimental philosophy, for he does not care for the discourses of
men and their wordy warfare, but quietly and diligently pursues the
work of wisdom. Therefore, what others grope after blindly, as bats in
the evening twilight, this man contemplates in all their brilliancy
_because he is a master of experiment_. Hence, he knows all of natural
science, whether pertaining to medicine and alchemy, or to matters
celestial or terrestrial. He has worked diligently in the smelting of
ores, as also in the working of minerals; he is thoroughly acquainted
with all sorts of arms and implements used in military service and in
hunting, besides which he is skilled in agriculture and in the
measurement of lands. It is impossible to write a useful or correct
treatise in experimental philosophy without mentioning this man's
name. Moreover, he pursues knowledge for its own sake; for if he
wished to obtain royal favor, he could easily find sovereigns who
would honor and enrich him."
Brother Potamian's reflections on this unexpected passage of Bacon are
the best interpretation of it for the modern student of science.
"This last statement is worthy of the best utterances of the
twentieth century. Say what they will, the most ardent pleaders of
our day for original work and laboratory methods, cannot surpass the
Franciscan monk of the thirteenth century in his denunciation of
mere book-learning, or in his advocacy of experiment and research;
{289} while in Peregrinus, the medievalist, they have Bacon's
impersonation of what a student of science ought to be. Peregrinus
was a hard worker, not a mere theorizer, preferring,
Procrusteanlike, to make theory fit the facts rather than facts fit
the theory; he was a brilliant discoverer, who knew at the same time
how to use his discoveries for the benefit of mankind; he was a
pioneer of science and a leader in the progress of the world."
[Footnote 32]
[Footnote 32: The letter of Petrus Peregrinus on the Magnet, A. D.
1269, translated by Bro. Arnold, M. Sc, with an Introductory Note by
Bro. Potamian, N.Y., 1904.]
This letter of Roger Bacon contains every idea that the modern
scientists contend for as significant in education. It counsels
observation, not theory, and says very plainly what he thinks of much
talk without a basis of observation. It commends a mastery in
experiment as the most important thing for science. It suggests, of
course, by implication at least, that a man should know all sciences
and all applications of them; but surely no one will object to this
medieval friar commending as great a breadth of mental development as
possible, as the ideal of an educated man, and especially with regard
to the experimental sciences. Finally, it has the surprising phrase,
that Peregrinus pursues knowledge for its own sake. Friar Bacon
evidently would have sympathized very heartily with Faraday, who at
the beginning of the nineteenth century wanted to get out of trade and
into science, because he thought it unworthy of man to spend all his
life accumulating money, and considered that the only proper aim in
life is to add to knowledge. He would have been in cordial accord with
Pasteur, at the end of the century, who told the Empress Eugenie, when
she asked him if he would not exploit his discoveries in fermentation
for the purpose of building up a great {290} brewing industry in
France, that he thought it unworthy of a French scientist to devote
himself to a mere money-making industry.
For a man of the modern time, perhaps the most interesting expression
that ever fell from Roger Bacon's lips is his famous proclamation of
the reasons why men do not obtain genuine knowledge more rapidly than
would seem ought to be the case, from the care and time and amount of
work which they have devoted to its cultivation. This expression
occurs in Bacon's Opus Tertium, which, it may be recalled, the
Franciscan friar wrote at the command of Pope Clement, because the
Pope had heard many interesting accounts of all that the great
thirteenth century teacher and experimenter was doing at the
University of Oxford, and wished to learn for himself the details of
his work. Friar Bacon starts out with the principle that there are
four grounds of human ignorance.
"These are: first, trust in adequate authority; second, that force of
custom which leads men to accept too unquestioningly what has been
accepted before their time; third, the placing of confidence in the
opinion of the inexperienced; and fourth, the hiding of one's own
ignorance with the parade of superficial knowledge." These reasons
contain the very essence of the experimental method, and continue to
be as important in the twentieth century as they were in the
thirteenth. They could only have emanated from an eminently practical
mind, accustomed to test by observation and by careful searching of
authorities every proposition that came to him.
It is very evident that modern scientists would have more of kinship
and intellectual sympathy with Friar {291} Bacon than most of them are
apt to think possible. A faithful student of his writings, who was at
the same time in many ways a cordial admirer of medievalism, the late
Professor Henry Morley, who held the chair of English literature at
University College, London, whose contributions to the History of
English Literature are probably the most important of the nineteenth
century, has a striking paragraph with regard to this attitude of
Bacon toward knowledge and science--two words that have the same
meaning etymologically, though they have come to have quite different
connotations. In the third volume of his English Writers, page 321,
Professor Morley, after quoting Bacon's four grounds of human
ignorance, said:--
"No part of that ground has yet been cut away from beneath the feet
of students, although six centuries ago the Oxford friar clearly
pointed out its character. We still make sheep walks of second,
third and fourth and fiftieth-hand references to authority; still we
are the slaves of habit; still we are found following too frequently
the untaught crowd; still we flinch from the righteous and wholesome
phrase, 'I do not know,' and acquiesce actively in the opinion of
others, that we know what we appear to know. Substitute honest
research, original and independent thought, strict truth in the
comparison of only what we really know with what is really known by
others, and the strong redoubt of ignorance is fallen."
This attitude of mind of Friar Bacon toward the reasons for ignorance,
is so different from what is usually predicated of the Middle Ages and
of medieval scholars, that it seems worth while insisting on it.
Authority is supposed to have meant everything for the scholastics,
{292} and experiment is usually said to have counted for nothing. They
are supposed to have been accustomed to swear to the words of the
master--"_jurare in verba magistri_"--yet here is a great leader of
medieval thought insisting on just the opposite. As clearly as ever it
was proclaimed, Bacon announces that an authority is worth only the
reasons that he advances. These thirteenth century teachers are
supposed, above all, to have fairly bowed down and worshipped at the
shrine of Aristotle. Many of them doubtless did. In every generation
the great mass of mankind must find someone to follow. As often as
not, their leaders are much more fallible than Aristotle. Bacon,
however, had no undue reverence for Aristotle or anyone else, and he
realized that the blind following of Aristotle had done much harm. In
his sketch of Gilbert of Colchester, which was published in the
"Popular Science Monthly" for August, 1901, Brother Potamian calls
attention to this quality of Roger Bacon in a striking passage.
"Roger Bacon, after absorbing the learning of Oxford and Paris,
wrote to the reigning Pontiff, Clement IV., urging him to have the
works of the Stagirite burnt in order to stop the propagation of
error in the schools. The Franciscan monk of Ilchester has left us,
in his Opus Majus, a lasting memorial of his practical genius. In
the section entitled, "Scientia Experimentalis," he affirms that
"Without experiment, nothing can be adequately known. An argument
proves theoretically, but does not give the certitude necessary to
remove all doubt; nor will the mind repose in the clear view of
truth, unless it finds it by way of experiment." And in his Opus
Tertium: "The strongest arguments prove nothing, so long as the
conclusions are not verified by {293} experience. Experimental
science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation."
Lest it should be thought that these expressions of laudatory
appreciation of the great thirteenth century scientist are dictated
more by the desire to magnify his work and to bring out the influence
in science of the churchmen of the period, it seems well to quote an
expression of opinion from the modern historian of the inductive
sciences, whose praise is scarcely if any less outspoken than that of
others whom we have quoted and who might be supposed to be somewhat
partial in their judgment. This opinion will fortify the doubters who
must have authority, and at the same time sums up very excellently the
position which Roger Bacon occupies in the history of science.
Dr. Whewell says that Roger Bacon's Opus Majus is "the encyclopedia
and Novum Organon of the thirteenth century, a work equally wonderful
with regard to its general scheme and to the special treatises with
which the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed object of
the work is to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of
philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a
greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge
which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which
were yet almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking by a
prospect of the best advantages which it offered. In the development
of this plan all the leading portions of science are expanded in the
most complete shape which they had at that time assumed; and
improvements of a very wide and striking kind are proposed in some of
the principal branches of study. Even if the work had no leading
purposes it would have {294} been highly valuable as a treasure of the
most solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it
had contained no such details, it would have been a work most
remarkable for its general views and scope."
The open and inquiring attitude of mind toward the truths of nature is
supposed usually to be utterly at variance with the intellectual
temper of the Middle Ages. We have heard so much about the submission
to authority and the cultivation of tradition on the part of medieval
scholars that we forget entirely how much they accomplished in adding
to human knowledge, and though they had their limitations of
conservatism, they were no more old fogies clinging to old-fashioned
ruts than are the older men of each successive generation down even to
our own time, in the minds of their younger colleagues. It might seem
to be difficult to substantiate such a declaration. It may appear to
be a paradox to talk thus. It is not hard to show good reasons for it,
and far from being a far-fetched attempt to bolster up an opinion more
favorable to the Middle Ages, it is really a very simple expression of
what the history of these generations shows that they actually tried
to accomplish. Roger Bacon must not be thought to be alone in this. On
the contrary, he was only a leader with many followers. Even before
his time, however, these ideas as to the necessity for observation had
been very forcibly expressed by many, and by no one more than Roger's
distinguished teacher, Albertus Magnus, whose name is now becoming
familiar to scholars as Albert the Great.
Albert's great pupil, Roger Bacon, is rightly looked upon as the true
father of inductive science, an honor that history has unfortunately
taken from him to confer {295} it undeservedly on his namesake of four
centuries later; but the teaching out of which Roger Bacon was to
develop the principles of experimental science can be found in many
places in the master's writings. In Albert's tenth book, wherein he
catalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his
time, he observes: "All that is here set down is the result of our own
experience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have
written what their personal experience has confirmed: for in these
matters experience alone can give certainty"--_experimentum solum
certificat in talibus_. "Such an expression," says his biographer,
"which might have proceeded from the pen of (Francis) Bacon, argues in
itself a prodigious scientific progress, and shows that the medieval
friar was on the track so successfully pursued by modern natural
philosophy. He had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto
tied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor of
Aristotle."