ROGER BACON
Of all mediaeval men, Thomas Aquinas achieved the most organic and
comprehensive union of the results of human reasoning and the data of
Christian theology. He may be regarded as the final exponent of
scholasticism, perfected in method, universal in scope, and still integral
in purpose. The scholastic method was soon to be impugned and the
scholastic universality broken. The premature attack upon the method came
from Roger Bacon;[615] the fatal breach in the scholastic wholeness
resulted from the constructive, as well as critical, achievements of Duns
Scotus and Occam.
Bacon is a perplexing personality. With other mediaeval thinkers one
quickly feels the point of view from which to regard them. Not so with
this most disparate genius of the Middle Ages. Reading his rugged
statements, and trying to form a coherent thought of him, we are puzzled
at the contradictions of his mind. One may not say that he was not of his
time. Every man is of his time, and cannot raise himself very far out of
the mass of knowledge and opinion furnished by it, any more than a swimmer
can lift himself out of the water that sustains him. Yet personal temper
and inclination may aline a man with less potent tendencies, which are
obscured and hampered by the dominant intellectual interests of the
period. Assuredly, through all the Middle Ages, there were men who noticed
such physical phenomena as bore upon their lives, even men who cared for
the dumb beginnings of what eventually might lead to natural science. But
they were not representative of their epoch’s master energies; and in the
Middle Ages, as always, the man of evident and great achievement will be
one who, like Aquinas, stands upon the whole attainment of his age. Roger
Bacon, on the contrary, was as one about whose loins the currents of his
time drag and pull; they did not aid him, and yet he could not extricate
himself. It was his intellectual misfortune that he was held by his time
so fatally, so fatally, at least, for the proper doing of the work which
was to be his contribution to human enlightenment, a contribution well
ignored while he lived, and for long afterward.
Bacon accepted the dominant mediaeval convictions: the entire truth of
Scripture; the absolute validity of the revealed religion, with its
dogmatic formulation; also (to his detriment) the universally prevailing
view that the end of all the sciences is to serve their queen, theology.
Yet he hated the ways of mediaeval natural selection and survival of the
mediaeval fittest, and the methods by which Albert or Thomas or Vincent of
Beauvais were at last presenting the sum of mediaeval knowledge and
conviction. Well might he detest those ways and methods, seeing that he
was Roger Bacon, one impelled by his genius to critical study, to
observation and experiment. He was impassioned for linguistics, for
mathematics, for astronomy, optics, chemistry, and for an experimental
science which should confirm the contents of all these, and also enlarge
the scope of human ingenuity. Yet he was held fast, and his thinking was
confused, by what he took from his time. Especially he was obsessed by the
idea that philosophy, including every branch of knowledge, must serve
theology, and even in that service find its justification. But what has
chemistry to do with theology? What has mathematics? And what has the
physical experimental method? By maintaining the utility of these for
theology, Bacon saved his mediaeval orthodoxy, and it may be, his skin
from the fire. But it wrecked the working of his genius. His writings
remain, such of them as are known, astounding in their originality and
insight, and almost as remarkable for their inconsistencies; they are
marked by a confusion of method and a distortion of purpose, which sprang
from the contradictions between Bacon’s genius and the current views which
he adopted.
The career of Bacon was an intellectual tragedy, conforming to the old
principles of tragic art: that the hero’s character shall be large and
noble, but not flawless, inasmuch as the fatal consummation must issue
from character, and not happen through chance. He died an old man, as in
his youth, so in his age, a devotee of tangible knowledge. His pursuit of
a knowledge which was not altogether learning had been obstructed by the
Order of which he was an unhappy and rebellious member; quite as fatally
his achievement was deformed from within by the principles which he
accepted from his time. But he was responsible for his acceptance of
current opinions; and as his views roused the distrust of his brother
Friars, his intractable temper drew their hostility (of which we know very
little) on his head. Persuasiveness and tact were needed by one who would
impress such novel views as his upon his fellows, or, in the thirteenth
century, escape persecution for their divulgence. Bacon attacked dead and
living worthies, tactlessly, fatuously, and unfairly. Of his life scarcely
anything is known, save from his allusions to himself and others; and
these are insufficient for the construction of even a slight consecutive
narrative. Born; studied at Oxford; went to Paris, studied, experimented;
is at Oxford again, and a Franciscan; studies, teaches, becomes suspect to
his Order, is sent back to Paris, kept under surveillance, receives a
letter from the pope, writes, writes, writes,--his three best-known works;
is again in trouble, confined for many years, released, and dead, so very
dead, body and fame alike, until partly unearthed after five centuries.
Inference and construction may fill out this sombre outline. England was
the land of Bacon’s birth, and Ilchester is said to have been the natal
spot. The approximate date may be guessed at from his reference to himself
as _senex_ in 1267, and his remark that he had then been studying forty
years. His family seems to have been wealthy. Besides the letter of Pope
Clement, hereafter to be quoted, there is one contemporary reference to
him. Mathew Paris has a story of a certain _clericus de curia, scilicet
Rogerus Bacum_, speaking up with bold wit to King Henry III. at Oxford in
1233. Bacon when a young man studied there under Robert Grosseteste and
Adam of Marsh. He frequently refers to both, and always with respect. His
chief enthusiasm is for the former. For years this admirable man was
chancellor of Oxford; until made bishop of Lincoln in 1235. Although never
a Franciscan, he was the Order’s devoted friend, and lectured in its house
at Oxford. Grosseteste founded the study of Greek at Oxford, and collected
treatises upon Greek grammar. Bacon, following him, wrote a Greek grammar.
Grosseteste, before Bacon, devoted himself to physics and mathematics, and
all that these many-branched sciences might include. Besides a taste for
these studies Bacon may have had from him the idea that they were useful
for theology. “No one,” says Bacon, “knew the sciences save Lord Robert,
Bishop of Lincoln, from his length of life and experience, and
studiousness and industry, and because he knew mathematics and optics, and
was able to know all things; and he knew enough of the languages to
understand the saints and philosophers of antiquity; but not enough to
translate them, unless towards the end of his life when he invited Greeks,
and had books of Greek grammar gathered from Greece and elsewhere.”[616]
There is evidence that others at Oxford, besides Grosseteste, were
interested in the study of Greek and natural science.
From Oxford Bacon went to Paris, where apparently he remained for a number
of years; he was made a doctor there, and afterwards became a Franciscan.
Since a monk could own nothing, one may perhaps infer that Bacon did not
join the Order until after the lapse of certain twenty years of scientific
research, in which he spent much money, as he says in 1267, in an
often-quoted passage of the _Opus tertium_:
“For now I have laboured from my youth in the sciences and languages,
and for the furtherance of study, getting together much that is
useful. I sought the friendship of all wise men among the Latins, and
caused youth to be instructed in languages, and geometric figures, in
numbers and tables and instruments, and many needful matters. I
examined everything useful to the purpose, and I know how to proceed,
and with what means, and what are the impediments: but I cannot go on
for lack of the funds which are needed. Through the twenty years in
which I laboured specially in the study of wisdom, careless of the
crowd’s opinion, I spent more than two thousand pounds in these
pursuits on occult books (_libros secretos_) and various experiments,
and languages and instruments, and tables and other things.”[617]
After his first stay at Paris Bacon returned to Oxford. There he doubtless
continued his researches, and divulged them, or taught in some way. For he
roused the suspicions of his Order, and in the course of time was sent or
conducted back to Paris, where constraint seems to have been put upon his
actions and utterances. Like the first, this second, possibly enforced,
stay was a long one; he speaks of himself in the first chapter of the
_Opus tertium_ as “for ten years an exile.” Yet here as always, one is not
quite certain how literally to take Bacon’s personal statements, either
touching himself or others.
A short period of elation was at hand. He had evidently been forbidden to
write, or spread his ideas; he had been disciplined at times with a diet
of bread and water. All this had failed to sweeten his temper, or conform
his mind to current views. In 1265, an open-minded man who had been a
jurist, a warrior, and the counsellor of a king, before becoming an
ecclesiastic, was made Pope Clement IV. While living in Paris he had been
interested in Bacon’s work. Soon after the papal election our
sore-bestead philosopher managed to communicate with him, as appears by
the pope’s reply, written from Viterbo, in July 1266:
“To our beloved son, Brother Roger, called Bacon, of the Order of
Brothers Minorites. We have received with pleasure the letter of thy
devotion; and we have well considered what our beloved son called
Bonecor, Knight, has by word of mouth set forth to us, with fidelity
and prudence. So then, that we may understand more clearly what thou
purposest, it is our will, and we command thee by our Apostolic
mandate that, notwithstanding the prohibition of any prelate, or any
constitution of thy Order, thou sendest to us speedily in good script
that work which, while we held a minor office, we requested thee to
communicate to our beloved son Raymond, of Laudunum. Also, we command
thee to set forth in a letter what remedies thou deemest should be
applied to those matters which thou didst recently speak of as fraught
with such peril. Do this as secretly as possible without delay.”[618]
Poor Bacon! The pope’s letter roused him to ecstasy, then put him in a
quandary, and elicited elaborate apologies, and the flood of persuasive
exposition which he poured forth with tremulous haste in the eighteen
months following. Delight at being solicited by the head of Christendom
breaks out in hyperbole, not to be wondered at: he is uplifted and cast
prone; that his littleness and multiple ignorance, his tongue-tied mouth
and rasping pen, and himself unlistened to by all men, a buried man
delivered to oblivion, should be called on by the pope’s wisdom for
wisdom’s writings (_sapientales scripturas_)!
“The Saviour’s vicar, the ruler of the orb, has deigned to solicit me,
who am scarcely to be numbered among the particles of the
world--_inter partes universae_! Yet, while my weakness is oppressed
with the glory of this mandate, I am raised above my own powers; I
feel a fervour of spirit; I rise up in strength. And indeed I ought to
overflow with gratitude since your beatitude commands what I have
desired, what I have worked out with sweat, and gleaned through great
expenditures.”[619]
The word “expenditures” touches one horn of Bacon’s dilemma. He is a
Franciscan; therefore penniless; and, besides that, apparently under the
restraining ban of his own Order. The pope has enjoined secrecy; therefore
Bacon cannot set up the papal mandate against the probable interference of
his own superiors. The pope has sent no funds; sitting _in culmine mundi_
he was too busy with high affairs to think of that.[620] And now comes the
chief matter for Bacon’s apologies: his Beatitude misapprehends, has been
misinformed: the work is not yet written; it is still to be composed.
In spite of these obstacles the friendless but resourceful philosopher
somehow obtained opportunity to write, and the means needed for the fair
copy. And then in those great eighteen, or perhaps but fifteen, months,
what a flood of enlightenment, of reforming criticism, of plans of study
and methods of investigation, of examples and sketches of the matter to be
prepared or discovered, is poured forth. Four works we know of,[621] and
they may have made the greater part of all that Bacon ever actually wrote.
With variations of emphasis, of abridgement and elaboration, the four have
the one purpose to convince the pope of the enormous value of Bacon’s
scheme of useful and saving knowledge. To a great extent they set forth
the same matters; indeed the _Opus tertium_ was intended to convey the
substance of the _Opus majus_, should that fail to reach the pope. So
there is much repetition and some disorder in these eager, hurried works,
defects which emphasise the dramatic situation of the impetuous genius
whose pent-up utterance was loosed at last. The _Opus minus_ and the
_Vatican Fragment_ are as from a man overpowered by the eagerness to say
everything at once, lest the night close in before he have chance of
speech. And when the _Opus majus_ was at last sent forth, accompanied by
the _Opus minus_, as a battleship by a light armed cruiser, the _Opus
tertium_ was despatched after them, filled with the same militant
exposition, for fear the former two should perish _en voyage_.
Did they ever reach the pope? We may presume so. Did he read any one of
them? Here there is no information. Popes were the busiest men in Europe,
and death was so apt to cut short their industry. Clement died the next
year, and so far as known, no syllable of acknowledgement from him ever
reached the feverishly expectant philosopher.
A few words will tell the rest. In 1271, apparently, Bacon wrote his
_Compendium studii philosophiae_, taking the occasion to denounce the
corruptions of Church and society in unmeasured terms. He rarely measured
his vituperation! His life was setting on toward its long last trial. In
1277, Jerome of Ascoli, the General of the Franciscan Order, held a
Chapter at Paris, and Bacon was condemned to imprisonment (_carceri
condempnatus_) because of his teachings, which contained _aliquas
novitates suspectas_.[622] Jerome became Pope Nicholas IV. At a Chapter of
the Order held in Paris in 1292, just after his death, certain prisoners
condemned in 1277, were set free. Roger Bacon probably was among the
number. If so, it was in the year of his liberation that he wrote a tract
entitled _Compendium theologiae_; for that was written in 1292. This is
the last we hear of him. But as he must now have been hard on to eighty,
probably he did not live much longer.
There seems to have been nothing exceptional in Bacon’s attitude toward
Scripture and the doctrines of the Church. He deemed, with other mediaeval
men, that Scripture held, at least implicitly, the sum of knowledge useful
or indeed possible for men. True, neither the Old Testament nor the New
treats of grammar, or physics, or of minerals, or plants, or animals.
Nevertheless, the statements in these revealed writings are made with
complete knowledge of every topic or thing considered or referred
to--bird, beast, and plant, the courses of the stars, the earth and its
waters, yea, the arts of song or agriculture, and the principles of every
science. Conversely (and here Bacon even gave fresh emphasis and novel
pointings to the current view) all knowledge whatsoever, every art and
science, is needed for the full understanding of Scripture, _sacra
doctrina_, in a word, theology. This opinion may hold large truth; but
Bacon’s advocacy of it sometimes affects us as a _reductio ad absurdum_,
especially when he is proceeding on the assumption that the patriarchs and
prophets had knowledge of all sciences, including astrology and the
connection between the courses of the stars and the truth of Christianity.
There was likewise nothing startling in Bacon’s view of the Fathers, and
their knowledge and authoritativeness. Thomas did not regard them as
inspired. Neither did Bacon; he respects them, yet discerns limitations to
their knowledge; by reason of their circumstances they may have neglected
certain of the sciences; but this is no reason why we should.[623]
As for the ancient philosophers, Bacon holds to their partial inspiration.
“God illuminated their minds to desire and perceive the truths of
philosophy. He even disclosed the truth to them.”[624] They received their
knowledge from God, indirectly as it were, through the prophets, to whom
God revealed it directly. More than once and with every detail of baseless
tradition, he sets forth the common view that the Greek philosophers
studied the prophets, and drew their wisdom from that source.[625] But
their knowledge was not complete; and it behoves us to know much that is
not in Aristotle.[626]
“The study of wisdom may always increase in this life, because nothing
is perfect in human discoveries. Therefore, we later men ought to
supplement the defects of the ancients, since we have entered into
their labours, through which, unless we are asses, we may be incited
to improve upon them. It is most wretched always to be using what has
been attained, and never reach further for one’s self.”[627]
It may be that Bacon was suspected of raising the philosophers too near
the Christian level; and perhaps his argument that their knowledge had
come from the prophets may have seemed a vain excuse. Says he, for
example:
“There was a great book of Aristotle upon civil science,[628] well
agreeing with the Christian law; for the law of Aristotle has precepts
like the Christian law, although much is added in the latter excelling
all human science. The Christian law takes whatever is worthy in the
civil philosophical law. For God gave the philosophers all truth, as
the saints, and especially Augustine, declare.... And what noble
thoughts have they expressed upon God, the blessed Trinity, the
Incarnation, Christ, the blessed Virgin, and the angels.”[629]
Possibly one is here reminded of Abaelard, and his thought of Christianity
as _reformatio legis naturalis_. Yet Christ had said, He came not to
destroy, but to fulfil; and the chief Christian theologians had followed
Augustine in “despoiling the Egyptians” as he phrased it; the very process
which in fact was making the authority of Aristotle supreme in Bacon’s
time. So there was little that was peculiar or suspicious in Bacon’s
admiration of the philosophers.
The trouble with Bacon becomes clearer as we turn to his views upon the
state of knowledge in his time, and the methods of contemporary doctors in
rendering it worse, rather than better. These doctors were largely engaged
upon _sacra doctrina_; they were primarily theologians and expounders of
the truth of revelation. Bacon’s criticism of their methods might
disparage that to which those methods were applied. His caustic
enumeration of the four everlasting causes of error, and the seven vices
infecting the study of theology, will show reason enough why his
error-stricken and infected contemporaries wished to close his mouth. The
anxiousness of some might sour to enmity under the acerbity of his attack;
nor would their hearts be softened by Bacon’s boasting that these various
doctors, of course including Albert, could not write in ten years what he
is sending to the pope.[630] Bacon declares that there is at Paris a great
man (was it Albert? was it Thomas?), who is set up as an authority in the
schools, like Aristotle or Averroes; and his works display merely
“infinite puerile vanity,” “ineffable falsity,” superfluous verbiage, and
the omission of the most needful parts of philosophy.[631] Bacon is not
content with abusing members of the rival Dominican Order; but includes in
his contempt the venerable Alexander of Hales, the defunct light of the
Franciscans. “_Nullum ordinem excludo_,” cries he, in his sweeping
denunciation of his epoch’s rampant sins. As for the seculars, why, they
can only lecture by stealing the copy-books of the “boys” in the
“aforesaid Orders.”[632] “Never,” says Bacon in the _Compendium studii_
from which the last phrases are taken, “has there been such a show of
wisdom, nor such prosecution of study in so many faculties through so many
regions as in the last forty years. Doctors are spread everywhere,
especially in theology, in every city, castle, and burg, chiefly through
the two student Orders. Yet there was never so great ignorance and so much
error--as shall appear from this writing.”[633]
Bacon never loses a chance of stating the four causes of the error and
ignorance about him. These causes preyed upon his mind--he would have said
they preyed upon the age. They are elaborately expounded in pars i. of the
_Opus majus_:[634]
“There are four principal stumbling blocks (_offendicula_) to
comprehending truth, which hinder well-nigh every one: the example of
frail and unworthy authority, long-established custom, the sense of
the ignorant crowd (_vulgi sensus imperiti_), and the hiding of one’s
own ignorance under the pretence of wisdom. In these, every man is
involved and every state beset. For in every act of life, or business,
or study, these three worst arguments are used for the same
conclusion: this was the way of our ancestors, this is the custom,
this is the common view: therefore should be held. But the opposite
of this conclusion follows much better from the premises, as I will
prove through authority, experience, and reason. If these three are
sometimes refuted by the glorious power of reason, the fourth is
always ready, as a gloss for foolishness; so that, though a man know
nothing of any value, he will impudently magnify it, and thus,
soothing his wretched folly, defeat truth. From these deadly pests
come all the evils of the human race; for the noblest and most useful
documents of wisdom are ignored, and the secrets of the arts and
sciences. Worse than this, men blinded by the darkness of these four
do not see their ignorance, but take every care to palliate that for
which they do not find the remedy; and what is the worst, when they
are in the densest shades of error, they deem themselves in the full
light of truth.”[635]
Therefore they think the true the false, and spend their time and money
vainly, says Bacon with many strainings of phrase.
“There is no remedy,” continues Bacon, “against the first three causes of
error save as with all our strength we set the sound authors above the
weak ones, reason above custom, and the opinions of the wise above the
humours of the crowd; and do not trust in the triple argument: this has
precedent, this is customary, this is the common view.” But the fourth
cause of error is the worst of all. “For this is a lone and savage beast,
which devours and destroys all reason,--this desire of seeming wise, with
which every man is born.” Bacon arraigns this cause of evil, through
numerous witnesses, sacred and profane. It has two sides: display of
pretended knowledge, and excusing of ignorance. Infinite are the verities
of God and the creation: let no one boast of knowledge. It is not for man
to glory in his wisdom; faith goes beyond man’s knowledge; and still much
is unrevealed. In forty years we learn no more than could be taught youth
in one. I have profited more from simple men “than from all my famous
doctors.”
Bacon’s four universal causes of ignorance indicate his general attitude.
More specific criticisms upon the academic methods of his time are
contained in his _septem peccata studii principalis quod est theologiae_.
This is given in the _Opus minus_.[636] Bacon, it will be remembered, says
again and again that all sciences must serve theology, and find their
value from that service: the science of theology includes every science,
and should use each as a handmaid for its own ends. Accordingly, when
Bacon speaks of the seven vices of the _studium principale quod est
theologia_, we may expect him to point out vicious methods touching all
branches of study, yet with an eye to their common service of their
mistress.
“Seven are the vices of the chief study which is theology; the first
is that philosophy in practice dominates theology. But it ought not to
dominate in any province beyond itself, and surely not the science of
God, which leads to eternal life.... The greater part of all the
quaestiones in a _Summa theologiae_ is pure philosophy, with arguments
and solutions; and there are infinite quaestiones concerning the
heavens, and concerning matter and being, and concerning species and
the similitudes of things, and concerning cognition through such; also
concerning eternity and time, and how the soul is in the body, and how
angels move locally, and how they are in a place, and an infinitude of
like matters which are determined in the books of the philosophers. To
investigate these difficulties does not belong to theologians,
according to the main intent and subject of their work. They ought
briefly to recite these truths as they find them determined in
philosophy. Moreover, the other matter of the quaestiones which
concerns what is proper to theology, as concerning the Blessed
Trinity, the Incarnation, the Sacraments, is discussed principally
through the authorities, arguments, and distinctions of philosophy.”
Evidently, this first vice of theological study infected the method of
Albert and Thomas, and of practically all other theologians! Its
correction might call for a complete reversal of method. But the reversal
desired by Bacon would scarcely have led back to Gospel simplicity, as may
be seen from what follows.
“The second vice is that the best sciences, which are those most
clearly pertinent to theology, are not used by theologians. I refer to
the grammar of the foreign tongues from which all theology comes. Of
even more value are mathematics, optics, moral science, experimental
science, and alchemy. But the cheap sciences (_scientiae viles_) are
used by theologians, like Latin grammar, logic, natural philosophy in
its baser part, and a certain side of metaphysics. In these there is
neither the good of the soul, nor the good of the body, nor the good
things of fortune. But moral philosophy draws out the good of the
soul, as far as philosophy may. Alchemy is experimental and, with
mathematics and optics, promotes the good of the body and of
fortune.... While the grammar of other tongues gives theology and
moral philosophy to the Latins.... Oh! what madness is it to neglect
sciences so useful for theology, and be sunk in those which are
impertinent!
“The third vice is that the theologians are ignorant of those four
sciences which they use; and therefore accept a mass of false and
futile propositions, taking the doubtful for certain, the obscure for
evident; they suffer alike from superfluity and the lack of what is
necessary, and so stain theology with infinite vices which proceed
from sheer ignorance.” For they are ignorant of Greek and Hebrew and
Arabic, and therefore ignorant of all the sciences contained in these
tongues; and they have relied on Alexander of Hales and others as
ignorant as themselves. The fourth vice is that they study and lecture
on the _Sentences_ of the Lombard, instead of the text of Scripture;
and the lecturers on the _Sentences_ are preferred in honour, while
any one who would lecture on Scripture has to beg for a room and hour
to be set him.
“The fifth fault is greater than all the preceding. The text of
Scripture is horribly corrupt in the Vulgate copy at Paris.”
Bacon goes at some length into the errors of the Vulgate, and gives a good
account of the various Latin versions of the Bible. Next, the “_sextum
peccatum_ is far graver than all, and may be divided into two _peccata
maxima_: one is that through these errors the literal sense of the Vulgate
has infinite falsities and intolerable uncertainties, so that the truth
cannot be known. From this follows the other _peccatum_, that the
spiritual sense is infected with the same doubt and error.” These errors,
first in the literal meaning, and thence in the spiritual or allegorical
significance, spring from ignorance of the original tongues, and from
ignorance of the birds and beasts and objects of all sorts spoken of in
the Bible. “By far the greater cause of error, both in the literal and
spiritual meaning, rises from ignorance of things in Scripture. For the
literal sense is in the natures and properties of things, in order that
the spiritual meaning may be elicited through convenient adaptations and
congruent similitudes.” Bacon cites Augustine to show that we cannot
understand the precept, _Estote prudentes sicut serpentes_, unless we know
that it is the serpent’s habit to expose his body in defence of his head,
as the Christian should expose all things for the sake of his head, which
is Christ. Alack! is it for such ends as these that Bacon would have a
closer scholarship fostered, and natural science prosecuted? The text of
the _Opus minus_ is broken at this point, and one cannot say whether Bacon
had still a seventh _peccatum_ to allege, or whether the series ended with
the second of the vices into which he divided the sixth.
Bacon’s strictures upon the errors of his time were connected with his
labours to remedy them, and win a firmer knowledge than dialectic could
supply. To this end he advocated the study of the ancient languages, which
he held to be “the first door of wisdom, and especially for the Latins,
who have not the text, either of theology or philosophy, except from
foreign languages.”[637] His own knowledge of Greek was sufficient to
enable him to read passages in that tongue, and to compose a Greek
grammar.[638] But he shows no interest in the classical Greek literature,
nor is there evidence of his having studied any important Greek
philosopher in the original. He was likewise zealous for the study of
Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, the other foreign tongues which held the
learning so inadequately represented by Latin versions. He spoke with some
exaggeration of the demerits of the existing translations;[639] but he
recognised the arduousness of the translator’s task, from diversity of
idiom and the difficulty of finding an equivalent in Latin for the
statements, for example, in the Greek. The Latin vocabulary often proved
inadequate; and words had to be taken bodily from the original tongue.
Likewise he saw, and so had others, though none had declared it so
clearly, that the translator should not only be master of the two
languages, but have knowledge of the subject treated by the work to be
translated.[640]
After the languages, Bacon urged the pursuit of the sciences, which he
conceived to be interdependent and corroborative; the conclusions of each
of them susceptible of proof by the methods and data of the others.
“Next to languages,” says Bacon in chapter xxix. of the _Opus
tertium_, “I hold mathematics necessary in the second place, to the
end that we may know what may be known. It is not planted in us by
nature, yet is closest to inborn knowledge, of all the sciences which
we know through discovery and learning (_inventionem et doctrinam_).
For its study is easier than all other sciences, and boys learn its
branches readily. Besides, the laity can make diagrams, and calculate,
and sing, and use musical instruments. All these are the _opera_ of
mathematics.”
Thus, with antique and mediaeval looseness, Bacon conceived this science.
He devotes to it the long _Pars quarta_ of the _Opus majus_: saying at the
beginning that of--
“the four great sciences the gate and key is mathematics, which the
saints found out (_invenerunt_) from the beginning of the world, and
used more than all the other sciences. Its neglect for the past thirty
or forty years has ruined the studies (_studium_) of the Latins. For
whoso is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences, nor the things
of this world. But knowledge of this science prepares the mind and
lifts it to the tested cognition (_certificatam cognitionem_) of all
things.”
Bacon adduces authorities to prove the need of mathematics for the study
of grammar and logic; he shows that its processes reach indubitable
certitude of truth; and “if in other sciences we would reach certitude
free from doubt, and truth without error, we must set the foundations of
cognition in mathematics.”[641] He points out its obvious necessity in the
study of the heavens, and in everything pertaining to speculative and
practical _astrologia_; also for the study of physics and optics. Thus his
interest lay chiefly in its application. As human science is nought unless
it may be applied to things divine, mathematics must find its supreme
usefulness in its application to the matters of theology. It should aid us
in ascertaining the position of paradise and hell, and promote our
knowledge of Scriptural geography, and more especially, sacred chronology.
Next it affords us knowledge of the exact forms of things mentioned in
Scripture, like the ark, the tabernacle, and the temple, so that from an
accurate ascertainment of the literal sense, the true spiritual meaning
may be deduced. It should not be confused with its evil namesake
magic,[642] yet the true science is useful in determining the influence of
the stars on the fortunes of states. Moreover, mathematics, through
astrology, is of great importance in the certification of the faith,
strengthening it against the sect of Antichrist;[643] then in the
correction of the Church’s calendar; and finally, as all things and
regions of the earth are affected by the heavens, astrology and
mathematics are pertinent to a consideration of geography. And Bacon
concludes _Pars quarta_ with an elaborate description of the regions,
countries, and cities of the known world.
Bacon likewise was profoundly interested in optics, the _scientia
perspectiva_, which he sets forth elaborately in _Pars quinta_ of the
_Opus majus_. Much space would be needed to discuss his theories of light
and vision, and the propagation of physical force, treated in the _De
multiplicatione specierum_. He knew all that was to be learned from Greek
and Arabic sources, and, unlike Albert, who compiled much of the same
material, he used his knowledge to build with. Bacon had a genius for
these sciences: his _Scientia perspectiva_ is no mere compilation, and no
work used by him presented either a theory of force or of vision,
containing as many adumbrations of later theorizing.[644] Yet he fails to
cast off his obsession with the “spiritual meaning” and the utility of
science for theology. He discussed the composition of Adam’s body while in
a state of innocence,[645] a point that may seem no more tangible than
Thomas’s reasonings upon the movements of Angels, which Bacon ridicules.
Again in his _Optics_, after an interesting discussion of refraction and
reflection, he cannot forego a consideration of the spiritual
significations of refracted rays.[646] Even his discussion of experimental
science has touches of mediaevalism, which are peculiarly dissonant in
this most original and “advanced” product of Bacon’s genius, which now
must be considered more specifically.
The speculative intellect of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was so
widely absorbed with the matter and methods of the dominant scholasticism,
that no one is likely to think of the eminent scholastics as isolated
phenomena. Plainly they were but as the highest peaks which somewhat
overtop the other mountains, through whose aggregation and support they
were lifted to their supreme altitude. But with Bacon the danger is real
lest he seem separate and unsupported; for the influences which helped to
make him are not over-evident. Yet he did not make himself. The directing
of his attention to linguistics is sufficiently accounted for by the
influence of Grosseteste and others, who had inaugurated the study of
Greek, and perhaps Hebrew at Oxford. As for physics or optics, others also
were interested--or there would have been no translations of Greek and
Arabic treatises for him to use;[647] and in mathematics there was a
certain older contemporary, Jordanus Nemorarius (not to mention Leonardo
Fibonacci), who far overtopped him. It is safe to assume that in the
thirteenth, as in the twelfth and previous centuries, there were men who
studied the phenomena of nature. But they have left scant record. A period
is remembered by those features of its main accomplishment which are not
superseded or obliterated by the further advance of later times. Nothing
has obliterated the work of the scholastics for those who may still care
for such reasonings; and Aquinas to-day holds sway in the Roman Catholic
Church. On the other hand, the sparse footprints of the mediaeval men who
essayed the paths of natural science have long since been trodden out by
myriad feet passing far beyond them, along those ways. Yet there were
these wayfarers, who made little stir in their own time, and have long
been well forgotten. Had it not been for the letter from Pope Clement,
Bacon himself might be among them; and only his writings keep from utter
oblivion the name of an individual who, according to Bacon, carried the
practice of “experimental science” further than he could hope to do. It
may be fruitful to approach Bacon’s presentation of this science, or
scientific method, through his references to this extraordinary Picard,
named Peter of Maharncuria, or Maricourt.
In the _Opus tertium_, Bacon has been considering optics and mathematics,
and has spoken of this Peter as proficient in them; and thus he opens
chapter xiii., which is devoted to the _scientia experimentalis_:
“But beyond these sciences is one more perfect than all, which all
serve, and which in a wonderful way certifies them all: this is called
the experimental science, which neglects arguments, since they do not
make certain, however strong they may be, unless at the same time
there is present the _experientia_ of the conclusion. Experimental
science teaches _experiri_, that is, to test, by observation or
experiment, the lofty conclusions of all sciences.” This science none
but Master Peter knows.
By following the text further, we may be able to appreciate what Bacon
will shortly say of him:
“Another dignity of this science is that it attests these noble truths
in terms of the other sciences, which they cannot prove or
investigate: like the prolongation of human life; for this truth is in
terms of medicine, but the art of medicine never extends itself to
this truth, nor is there anything about it in medical treatises. But
the _fidelis experimentator_ has considered that the eagle, and the
stag, and the serpent, and the phoenix prolong life, and renew their
youth, and knows that these things are given to brutes for the
instruction of men. Wherefore he has thought out noble plans (_vias
nobiles_) with this in view, and has commanded alchemy to prepare a
body of like constitution (_aequalis complexionis_), that he may use
it.”
It may be pertinent to our estimate of Bacon’s experimental science to
query where the _experimentator_ ever observed an eagle or a phoenix
renewing its youth, outside of the _Physiologus_?
“The third dignity of this science is that it does not accept truths
in terms of the other sciences, yet uses them as handmaids.... And
this science attests all natural and artificial data specifically and
in the proper province, _per experientiam perfectam_; not through
arguments, like the purely speculative sciences, and not through weak
and imperfect _experientias_, like the operative sciences (_scientiae
operativae_).[648] So this is the mistress of all, and the goal of all
speculation. But it requires great expenditures for its prosecution;
Aristotle, by Alexander’s authority, besides those whom he used at
home _in experientia_, sent many thousands of men through the world to
examine (_ad experiendum_) the natures and properties of all things,
as Pliny tells. And certainly to set on fire at any distance would
cost more than a thousand marks, before adequate glasses could be
prepared; but they would be worth an army against the Turks and
Saracens. For the perfect experimenter could destroy any hostile force
by this combustion through the sun’s rays. This is a marvellous thing,
yet there are many other things more wonderful in this science; but
very few people are devoted to it, from lack of money. I know but one,
who deserves praise for the prosecution of its works; he cares not for
wordy controversies, but prosecutes the works of wisdom, and in them
rests. So what others as purblind men try to see, like bats in the
twilight, he views in the full brightness of day, because he is
_dominus experimentorum_. He knows natural matters _per experientiam_,
and those of medicine and alchemy, and all things celestial and below.
He is ashamed if any layman, or old woman, or knight, or rustic, knows
what he does not. He has studied everything in metal castings, and
gold and silver work, and the use of other metals and minerals; he
knows everything pertaining to war and arms and hunting; he has
examined into agriculture and surveying; also into the experiments and
fortune-tellings of old women, knows the spells of wizards; likewise
the tricks and devices of jugglers. In fine, nothing escapes him that
he ought to know, and he knows how to expose the frauds of magic.”
It is impossible to complete philosophy, usefully and with certitude,
without Peter; but he is not to be had for a price; he could have had
every honour from princes; and if he wished to publish his works, the
whole world of Paris would follow him. But he cares not a whit for honours
or riches, though he could get them any time he chose through his wisdom.
This man has worked at such a burning-glass for three years, and soon will
perfect it by the grace of God.
There is a great deal of Roger Bacon in these curious passages; much of
his inductive genius, much of his sanguine hopefulness, not to say
inventive imagination; and enough of his credulity. No one ever knew or
could perform all he ascribes to this astounding Peter, from whom,
apparently, there is extant a certain intelligent treatise upon the
magnet.[649] And as for those burning-glasses, or possibly reflectors, by
which distant fleets and armies should be set afire--did they ever exist?
Did Archimedes ever burn with them the Roman ships at Syracuse? Were they
ever more than a myth? It is, at all events, safe to say that no device
from the hand and brain of Peter of Maharncuria ever threatened Turk or
Saracen.
It is knowledge that gives insight. Modern critical methods amount chiefly
to this, that we know more. Bacon did not have such knowledge of animal
physiology as would assure him of the absurdity of the notion that an
eagle or any animal could renew its youth. Nor did he know enough to
realise the vast improbability of Greek philosophers drawing their
knowledge from the books of Hebrew prophets. And one sees how loose must
have been the practice, or the dreams, of his “experimental science.” His
fundamental conception seems to waver: _Scientia experimentalis_, is it a
science, or is it a means and method universally applicable to all
scientific investigation? The sciences serve it as handmaids, says Bacon;
and he also says, that it alone can test and certify, make sure and
certain, the conclusions of the other sciences. Perhaps he thought it the
master-key fitting all the doors of knowledge; and held that all sciences,
so far as possible, should proceed from experience, through further
observation and experiment. But he has not said quite this.
He is little to be blamed for his vagueness, and greatly to be admired for
having reached his possibly inconsistent conception. Observation and
experiment were as old as human thought upon human experience. And Albert
the Great says that the conclusions of all sciences should be tested by
them. But he evinces no formal conception of either an experimental
science or method; though he has much to say as to logic, and ponderously
considers whether it is a science or the means or method of all
sciences.[650] Herein he is discussing consciously with respect to logic,
the very point as to which Bacon, in respect to experimental science,
rather unconsciously wavers: is it a science, and almost the queen? Or is
it the true scientific method to be followed by all sciences when
applicable?[651] Bacon had no high regard for the study of logic, deeming
that the thoughts of untaught men naturally followed its laws.[652] This
was doubtless true, and just as true, moreover, of experimental science
as of logic. The one and the other were built up from the ways of the
common man and universal processes of thought. Yet the logic of the
trained mind is the surer; and so experimental science may reach out
beyond the crude observations of unscientific men.
Manifestly with Roger Bacon the _scientia experimentalis_ held the place
which logic held with Albert, or queenly dialectic with Abaelard. He
repeats himself continually in stating its properties and prerogatives,
yet without advancing to greater clearness of conception. _Pars sexta_ of
the _Opus majus_ is devoted to it: and we may take one last glance to see
whether the statements there throw any further light upon the matter.
“The roots of the wisdom of the Latins having been placed and set in
Languages, Mathematics, and Perspective, I now wish to re-examine
these _radices_ from the side of _scientia experimentalis_; because,
without _experientia_ nothing can be known adequately. There are two
modes of arriving at knowledge (_cognoscendi_), to wit, argument and
_experimentum_. Argument draws a conclusion and forces us to concede
it, but does not make it certain or remove doubt, so that the mind may
rest in the perception of truth, unless the mind find truth by the way
of experience.”
And Bacon says, as illustration, that you could never by mere argument
convince a man that fire would burn; also that “in spite of the
demonstration of the properties of an equilateral triangle, the mind would
not stick to the conclusion _sine experientia_.”
After referring to Aristotle, and adducing some examples of foolish things
believed by learned and common men alike, because they had not applied the
tests of observation, he concludes: “Oportet ergo omnia certificari per
viam experientiae.” He continues with something unexpected:
“_Sed duplex est experientia_: one is through the external senses, and
thus those _experimenta_ take place which are made through suitable
instruments in astronomy, and by the tests of observation as to things
below. And whatever like matters may not be observed by us, we know
from other wise men who have observed them. This _experientia_ is
human and philosophical; but it is not sufficient for man, because it
does not give plenary assurance as to things corporeal; and as to
things spiritual it reaches nothing. The intellect of man needs other
aid, and so the holy patriarchs and prophets, who first gave the
sciences to the world, received inner illuminations and did not stand
on sense alone. Likewise many believers after Christ. For the grace of
faith illuminates much, and divine inspirations, not only in spiritual
but corporeal things, and in the sciences of philosophy. As Ptolemy
says, the way of coming to a knowledge of things is duplex, one
through the _experientia_ of philosophy, and the other through divine
inspiration, which is much better.”[653]
Any doubt as to the religious and Christian meaning of the last passage is
removed by Bacon’s statement of the
“seven grades of this inner science: the first is through
_illuminationes pure scientiales_; the next consists in virtues, for
the bad man is ignorant; ... the third is in the seven gifts of the
Holy Spirit, which Isaiah enumerates; the fourth is in the beatitudes
which the Lord defines in the Gospel; the fifth is in the _sensibus
spiritualibus_; the sixth is in _fructibus_, from which is the peace
of God which passes _omnem sensum_; the seventh consists in raptures
(_in raptibus_) and their modes, as in various ways divers men have
been enraptured, so that they saw many things which it is not lawful
for man to tell. And who is diligently exercised in these experiences,
or some of them, can certify both to himself and others not only as to
spiritual things, but as to all human sciences.”[654]
These utterances are religious, and bring us back to the religious, or
practical, motive of Bacon’s entire endeavour after knowledge: knowledge
should have its utility, its practical bearing; and the ultimate utility
is that which promotes a sound and saving knowledge of God. The true
method of research, says Bacon in the _Compendium studii_,
“... is to study first what properly comes first in any science, the
easier before the more difficult, the general before the particular,
the less before the greater. The student’s business should lie in
chosen and useful topics, because life is short; and these should be
set forth with clearness and certitude, which is impossible without
_experientia_. Because, although we know through three means,
authority, reason, and _experientia_, yet authority is not wise
unless its reason be given (_auctoritas non sapit nisi detur ejus
ratio_), nor does it give knowledge, but belief. We believe, but do
not know, from authority. Nor can reason distinguish sophistry from
demonstration, unless we know that the conclusion is attested by facts
(_experiri per opera_). Yet the fruits of study are insignificant at
the present time, and the secret and great matters of wisdom are
unknown to the crowd of students.”[655]
It is as with an echo of this thought, that Bacon begins the second
chapter of his exposition of experimental science in the sixth part of the
_Opus majus_, from which we have but now withdrawn our attention. He
anxiously reiterates what he has already said more than once, as to the
properties and prerogatives of this _scientia experimentalis_. Then he
gives his most interesting and elaborate example of its application in the
investigation of the rainbow, an example too lengthy and too difficult to
reproduce. In stating the three prerogatives, he makes but slight change
of phrasing; yet his restatement of the last of them:--“The third
_dignitas_ of this science is that it investigates the secrets of nature
by its own competency and out of its own qualities, irrespective of any
connection with the other sciences,”--signifies an autonomous science,
rather than a method applicable to all investigation. The illustrations
which Bacon now gives, range free indeed; yet in the main relate to
“useful discoveries” as one might say: to ever-burning lamps, Greek fire,
explosives, antidotes for poison, and matters useful to the Church and
State. Along these lines of discovery through experiment, Bacon lets his
imagination travel and lead him on to surmises of inventions that long
after him were realised. “Machines for navigating are possible without
rowers, like great ships suited to river or ocean, going with greater
velocity than if they were full of rowers: likewise wagons may be moved
_cum impetu inaestimabili_, as we deem the chariots of antiquity to have
been. And there may be flying machines, so made that a man may sit in the
middle of the machine and direct it by some devise: and again, machines
for raising great weights.”[656] The modern reality has outdone this
mediaeval dream.