Chapter LXI: Roger Bacon (1)

Bibliographical note--Our method of considering him.

I. _Life_

Birth, family, and early life--The years before 1267--Bacon and the mariner’s compass--The papal mandate--The composition of the three works--The injunction of secrecy--Roger Bacon and the Franciscans--Bacon’s life after 1267--His reported condemnation--Franciscans and science: John Peckham--Was Bacon still writing in 1292?

II. _His Criticism of and Part in Medieval Learning_

Aims and plan of the _Opus Maius_--Bacon’s theological standpoint--His scholastic side--Attitude to Aristotle and other authorities--Bacon’s critical bent--Criticism easier than construction--Commonplaces of medieval criticism--Debt of Bacon to earlier writers--Limitations of his criticism--Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus--Bacon’s criticism of education applies chiefly to the training of the friars in theology--His other criticisms of contemporary education--His personal motives--Inaccuracy of much of his criticism--Bacon does not regard himself as unique--Instances of ideas which were not new with him--Bacon and the discovery of America--His historical attitude--His “mathematical method”--Its crudity--Its debt to others.

III. _His Experimental Science_

Has been given undue prominence--“Experimental science” distinct from other natural sciences--As a criterion of truth--Lack of method--Bacon and inventions--Marvelous results expected--Fantastic “experiments”--Credulity essential--Good flying dragons--Experiment and magic.

IV. _His Attitude Toward Magic and Astrology_

Magic and astrology--Magic in the past--Magicians and their books still prevalent--Magic a delusion--Some truth in magic--Magic and science--His belief in marvelous “extraneous virtues”--Non-magical fascination--The power of words--Magic and science again--The multiplication of species--William of St. Cloud on works of art and nature compared to magic--The two mathematics--Four objections to the forbidden variety--The rule of the stars--Astrological medicine--Influence of the stars upon human conduct--Planetary conjunctions and religious movements--Was Christ born under the stars?--Operative astrology--Unlikelihood that Bacon was condemned for magic or astrology--Error of Charles in thinking that any stigma rested on Bacon’s memory--But his own statements may have given rise to the legend.

V. _Conclusion_

Characteristics of medieval books--Features of the _Opus Maius_.

Appendix I. The Study of Roger Bacon.

Lack of early printed editions of his works--His popular reputation as a magician--Jebb’s edition of the _Opus Maius_--General misestimate of Bacon and of medieval science--Roger Bacon and Francis Bacon--Legend of Roger’s martyrdom for science--Works of Brewer and Charles--Minor studies of the later nineteenth century--Recent editions of Bacon’s works--Continued overestimate of Bacon--Beginnings of adverse criticism--_The Commemoration Essays_.

Appendix II. Roger Bacon and Gunpowder.

[Sidenote: Our method of considering him.]

Contemporary with the three learned Dominicans of whom preceding chapters have treated--Albert, Thomas, and Vincent--was the Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, who in modern times has received so much attention and admiration at the expense of his contemporaries and his age.[2030] Happily in the present volume we are in a better position to estimate him fairly. The best, if not the only way to appreciate him aright is by a detailed study of the writings and doctrines of his predecessors and contemporaries. Roger Bacon has hitherto been studied too much in isolation. He has been regarded as an exceptional individual; his environment has been estimated at his own valuation of it or according to some preconceived idea of his age; and his writings have not been studied in relation to those of his predecessors and contemporaries. Thought of as a precursor of modern science, he has been read to find germs of modern ideas rather than scrutinized with a view to discovering his sources. Yet his constant citing of authorities and the helpful footnotes which Bridges, in his edition of the _Opus Maius_, gives to explain these allusions to other scientists, point insistently in the latter direction. When one has gone a step further and has read for their own sake the works of men like Adelard of Bath, William of Conches, and Daniel of Morley in the twelfth century, or William of Auvergne, Robert Grosseteste and Albert Magnus in the early and middle thirteenth century, the true position of Roger Bacon in the history of thought grows clearer. One then re-reads his works with a new insight, finds that a different interpretation may be put upon many a passage, and realizes that even in his most boastful moments Roger himself never made such claims to astounding originality as some modern writers have made for him. Conversely, one is impelled to the conclusion that Bacon’s writings, instead of being unpalatable to, neglected by, and far in advance of, his times, give a most valuable picture of medieval thought, summarizing, it is true, its most advanced stages, but also including much that is most characteristic, and even revealing some of its back currents. It is from this standpoint that we shall consider Roger Bacon and endeavor to refute misconceptions that have grown up concerning his life and learning. We shall also, in conformity with our main theme, take particular note of his experimental science, long regarded as the brightest gem in his crown, and of other aspects of his learning which have hitherto not received special or proper treatment, namely, the astrology and magic to which he gives so much space and emphasis and which so seriously affect all his thought, but which probably did not affect his life and the attitude of his age towards him in the way that many have assumed.

I. _Life_

[Sidenote: Birth, family, and early life.]

Past estimates of Bacon’s learning have been greatly affected by their holders’ views of his life; but his biography is gradually being shorn of fictions and losing that sensational and exceptional character which gave countenance to the representation of his thought as far in advance of his age. We cannot tell to which of several families of Bacons mentioned in feudal registers and other documents of the times he belonged, and the exact date and place of his birth are uncertain.[2031] But he speaks of England as his native land, and in 1267 looks back upon a past of some forty years of study and twenty years of specialization in his favorite branches of learning.[2032] In another passage he mentions having spent all his spare time for ten years upon the science of perspective.[2033] Also he speaks of one brother as rich, of another as a student, and of his family’s suffering exile for their support of Henry III against the barons.[2034] He implies that up to 1267 he had not been outside France and England,[2035] but he had sent across the seas for material to assist his special investigations and had spent large sums of money.[2036]

[Sidenote: The years before 1267.]

Before he became a friar he had written text-books for students, and had worked so hard that men wondered that he still lived. When or why he joined the Franciscans we are not informed,[2037] but his doing so is no cause for wonder, for both Orders were rich in learned men, including students of natural science. Bacon tells us that after becoming a friar he was able to study as much as before, but “did not work so much,” probably because he now had less teaching to do. For about ten years before 1267, instead of being imprisoned and ill-treated by his order, as was once believed without foundation, he was, as we now know from his own words discovered in 1897, in poor health and “took no part in the outward affairs of the university.” This abstention caused the report to spread that he was devoting all his time to writing, especially since many were aware that he had long intended to sum up his knowledge in a _magnum opus_, but he actually “composed nothing except a few chapters, now about one science and now about another, compiled in odd moments at the instance of friends.” At least this is what he told the pope in 1267 when trying to excuse himself for having had no completed work ready to submit to the supreme pontiff.[2038] During these years he seems to have fallen into some obscurity, since in the _Opus Tertium_ he compares his tone in the _Opus Minus_ to that of Cicero, when recalled from exile, in the letter in which he humbled himself and congratulated the Roman senate. So Bacon, describing himself probably with some rhetorical exaggeration as an exile for the past ten years from his former scholastic fame,[2039] recognizes his own littleness and admires the wisdom of the pope, who has deigned to seek works of scholarship “from me, now unheard by anyone and as it were buried in oblivion.”[2040]

[Sidenote: Bacon and the mariner’s compass.]

R. H. Major’s _Prince Henry the Navigator_ is responsible for the spread of the story that in 1258 Brunetto Latini saw Friar Bacon at the Parliament at Oxford and was shown by him the secret of the magnetic needle, which Roger dared not divulge for fear of being accused of magic. The supposed letter of Brunetto Latini to the poet Guido Cavalcanti, from which these data are drawn, seems to have been a hoax or fanciful production appearing first in 1802 in the _Monthly Magazine_[2041] among “Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters,” who is said to have translated them from “the French patois of the Romansch language.” Certainly the mariner’s compass was pretty well known in Bacon’s time, nor are we informed of any case where it involved its possessor in a trial for magic. Bacon says in one passage that if the experiment of the magnet with respect to iron “were not known to the world, it would seem a great miracle.”[2042] In another place he grants that even the common herd of philosophers know of the magnetic needle; he merely criticizes their belief that the needle always turns towards the north star; Roger thinks that it can be made to turn to any other point of the compass if only it has been properly magnetized.[2043] Perhaps the Latini story was suggested by a third passage, where Bacon says, in order to illustrate his statement that philosophers have sometimes resorted to charms and incantations to hide their secrets from the unworthy, “As if, for instance, it were quite unknown that the magnetic needle attracts iron and someone wishing to perform this operation before the people should make characters and utter incantations, so that they might not see that the operation of attraction was entirely natural.”[2044]

[Sidenote: The papal mandate.]

Bacon’s career centers about a papal mandate which was despatched to him in the summer of 1266. Guy de Foulques, who became Clement IV on February 5, 1265, had at some previous time requested Bacon to send him the _scriptum principale_ or comprehensive work on philosophy which he had been led to think was already written.[2045] On June 22, 1266, he repeated this request in the form of a papal mandate, which is extant.[2046] The former letter is lost, but both Bacon and the pope refer to it.[2047] Somehow writers on Bacon have paid little heed to this first request, have assumed that Bacon wrote his three works to the pope in about a year[2048] despite the “impediments” upon which he dwells, and have therefore been filled with admiration at the superhuman genius which could produce such works at such short notice while laboring under such difficulties.[2049] But this is assuming that Roger had done nothing in the considerable interval between the two mandates. And why does he keep apologizing for “so great delay in this matter,” and “Your Clemency’s impatience at hope deferred.”[2050] Moreover, his excuses do not all apply to the same period, and most of them are excuses for not having composed a full exposition of philosophy rather than for not having composed sooner the _Opus Maius_, which Roger regarded as a mere preamble to philosophy. One set of excuses explains why he had no comprehensive work ready when the first request arrived.[2051] A second set explains why he had not written it in the interval between the two mandates.[2052] A third set explains why he finally does not write it at all but sends instead an introductory treatise, the _Opus Maius_, supplemented by two others, the _Opus Minus_ and _Opus Tertium_. Of course some excuses hold equally good for all three periods. But he states in the third treatise that in writing the second he was free from some of the “impediments” which had hampered his composition of the _Opus Maius_.[2053] As he also says that one reason for writing the _Opus Minus_ was lest the _Opus Maius_ be lost amid the great dangers of the roads at that time, one infers that the latter work was despatched before the other. Moreover, the _Opus Minus_ opens with a eulogy of the pope which is absent in the _Opus Maius_,[2054] in which there are very few passages to suggest that it is addressed to the pope, or written later than 1266.[2055]

[Sidenote: The composition of the three works.]

The _Opus Maius_, therefore, was practically finished, if not already sent, when the papal mandate of 1266 reached Bacon. When Roger learned that Foulques as pope was still interested in his work, visions of what the apostolic see might do for his programme of learning and himself flashed before his mind, and, after a fresh but vain effort at a _scriptum principale_, which kept him busy until Epiphany, he composed the supplementary treatise, the _Opus Minus_, with its adulatory introduction to Clement IV, with its excuses for sending or having sent a preambulatory treatise instead of a complete work of philosophy, with its hints that such a final treatise can be successfully completed only with the financial backing of the unlimited papal resources, with its analysis of the preceding work for the benefit of the busy pope and its suggestions as to what portions of it he might profitably omit, and with its additions of matter which in the _Opus Maius_ Roger had either forgotten or at that time had not been in a position to insert. The third work, _Opus Tertium_, is of the same sort but apparently more disorderly in arrangement, and looser and more extravagant in its tone. Presumably it was undertaken to remind the pope again of Bacon’s existence and proposals; it is even conceivable that Roger was a little unstrung when he composed it; it has been suggested that it was left unfinished and never sent to the pope, who died in 1268. A part at least of the _Opus Tertium_ was written in 1267.[2056]

[Sidenote: The injunction of secrecy.]

The extant papal mandate orders Bacon not only to send his book but to state “what remedies you think should be applied in those matters which you recently intimated were of so great importance,” and to “do this without delay as secretly as you can.”[2057] This allusion to matters of importance and this injunction of secrecy have cast a certain veil of mystery over the three works and the relations of Roger and the pope. Observance of secrecy may have been intended to guard against such frauds of copyists as we shall soon hear Bacon describe, or to secure some alchemistic arcana or practical inventions which the pope had been led to expect from him. Indeed, so far as alchemy was concerned, Bacon observed the injunction of secrecy so strictly that he divided his discussion of the subject among four different treatises sent to the pope at different times and by different messengers, so that no outsider might steal the precious truth. It must be added that even after receiving all four instalments, the pope would not have been much nearer the philosopher’s stone than before.[2058]

[Sidenote: Roger Bacon and the Franciscans.]

Another moot question in Bacon’s biography besides that of the composition of the three works is that of his relations with the Franciscan Order. We have seen that it was natural for him to join it, and that the change, at first at least, seemed one for the better. Bacon, however, found irksome the rule made by the order in 1260, as a consequence of the publication in 1254 of Gerard’s heretical _Introductorius in Evangelium Aeternum_, that in the future no Franciscan should publish anything without permission.[2059] Roger wished to employ amanuenses even in composing his works, and these men, he tells the pope, would often divulge “the most secret writings,”[2060] and so involve one in unintentional violation of the above rule. “And therefore,” says Bacon, “I did not feel the least bit like writing anything.”[2061] For a man so easily discouraged one cannot feel much sympathy. There is however another important inference from his statement: instead of his writings being neglected by his age, they are so valued that they are pirated before they have been published. Moreover, this rule of his order should not have hampered Bacon much in writing for the pope; indeed, Roger himself implies that he was exempted from this restriction in the earlier request from the cardinal as well as in the later papal mandate. Raymond of Laon, Bacon grants, had correctly informed “Your Magnificence, as both the mandates state,” concerning this regulation, though he had given a wrong impression as to what Bacon already had written.[2062]

We have heard from Bacon’s own mouth that he did little public teaching after becoming a friar, that he had as much time for private study as ever, and that everybody supposed him to be at work at his _magnum opus_. Yet in the _Opus Minus_ he grumbles that “his prelates were at him every day to do other things”[2063] before he received the first mandate from the cardinal, and that even thereafter he was unable to excuse himself fully from their demands upon his time, “because Your Lordship had ordered me to treat that business secretly, nor had Your Glory given them any instructions.”[2064] In the _Opus Tertium_ he describes the same situation in stronger language: “They pressed me with unspeakable violence to obey their will as others did,” and “I sustained so many and so great setbacks that I cannot tell them.”[2065] On how we interpret a few such passages as these depends our estimate of the attitude of the Franciscan Order before 1267 to Bacon and his ideas and researches. He gives so many other reasons why he has no comprehensive work of philosophy ready for the pope that this attitude of his superiors seems a relatively slight factor. He needed much money, he needed expensive instruments, he needed a large library, he needed “plenty of parchment,” he needed a corps of assistant investigators and another of copyists with skilled superintendents to direct their efforts and insert figures and other delicate details. It was a task beyond the powers of any one man; besides, he was in ill-health, he felt languid, he composed very slowly. Shall we blame his superiors for not providing him with this expensive equipment; and are we surprised, when we remember that the mandates directed him to send a book supposed to be already finished, that his superiors continued to ask of him the performance of his usual duties as a friar? Their attitude can scarcely be regarded as persecution of Bacon or hostility to his science. On the other hand, Clement IV must be given credit for his effort to elicit from Bacon a _scriptum principale_; and it may well be doubted if Roger would have produced anything equivalent to the _Opus Maius_, _Opus Minus_ and _Opus Tertium_ without this papal encouragement.

[Sidenote: Bacon’s life after 1267.]

In 1272 in the _Compendium Studii Philosophiae_ Bacon lays bare the failings of “the two orders” as if he belonged to neither, but he then proceeds to refute indignantly those masters at Paris who have tried to argue that the state of the higher secular clergy, such as bishops, is more perfect than that of the religious.[2066]

[Sidenote: His reported condemnation.]

In 1277, however, we learn “solely on the very contestable authority of the Chronicle of the XXIV Generals,”[2067] a work written about 1370, although containing earlier matter,[2068] that at the suggestion of many friars the teaching of “Friar Roger Bacon of England, master of sacred theology,” was condemned as containing “some suspected novelties,” that Roger was sentenced to prison, and that the pope was asked to help to suppress the dangerous doctrines in question. It has been a favorite conjecture of students of Bacon that he incurred this condemnation by his leanings toward astrology and magic; but, as we shall see later, his views on these subjects were not novelties. He shared them with Albertus Magnus and other contemporaries, and there seems no good reason why they should have got him into trouble. Suffice it here to note that the wording of the chronicle suggests nothing of the sort, but rather some details of doctrine, whereas had Bacon been charged with magic, we may be pretty sure that so sensational a feature would not have passed unmentioned.

[Sidenote: Franciscans and science: John Peckham.]

How absurd it is to think that the Franciscan Order was opposed to Bacon’s pursuit of natural and experimental science, or that he was alone among the members of that order in the pursuit of such subjects, may be inferred from a glance at the career of John Peckham who from 1279 to his death in 1292 was archbishop of Canterbury.[2069] According to a letter of Bacon’s favorite, Adam Marsh, Peckham entered the Franciscan Order about 1250. He had been educated in France but about 1270 became lector of his order at Oxford. He also became the ninth provincial minister of the Franciscans in England, and had been called to Rome by the pope to be _Lector sacri palatii_ before his nomination by the pope to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Yet this Franciscan who rose so high in the church was the author of a treatise on Perspective, one of the five subjects which Bacon held could be of such service to the church and yet were being so woefully neglected. In his _Perspectiva communis_, which was printed at Venice in 1504, Peckham talks of such matters as the reflection of visible rays and experiment. A work on the sphere and a _Theory of the Planets_ which exists only in manuscript are also attributed to him. It has even been suggested that he was the bright lad John whom Bacon sent to explain his work to the pope, but Peckham was evidently too old in 1267 to fill that rôle. Bartholomew of England was another Franciscan interested, as we have seen, both in natural science and astrology, and other Friar Preachers than Albertus Magnus and Aquinas showed the same interest.

[Sidenote: Was Bacon still writing in 1292?]

This is about all that we know of Bacon’s life except the dates of one or two more of his works. Mr. Little regards it as “certain that Roger’s last dated work was written in 1292.”[2070] This was his treatise on the study of theology, which in one passage gives the year as 1292 and in another speaks of “forty years and more” as having elapsed since 1250.[2071] It is rather surprising to find his literary activity continuing so late, since in 1267 he wrote as if well along in life.

II. _His Criticism of and Part in Medieval Learning_

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: 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.”

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Bacon’s historical attitude.]