the fame enjoyed by the fluent young doctors roused Bacon’s indignation. In the Opus Minus and Opus Tertium he pours forth a violent tirade against Alexander of Hales, and another professor, not mentioned by name, but spoken of as alive, and blamed even more severely than Alexander. This anonymous writer,[1] he says, acquired his learning by teaching others, and adopted a dogmatic tone, which has caused him to be received at Paris with applause as the equal of Aristotle, Avicenna, or Averroes.
Bacon, during his stay in Paris, acquired considerable renown. He took the degree of doctor of theology, and seems to have received the complimentary title of doctor mirabilis. In 1250 he was again at Oxford, and probably about this time entered the Franciscan order. His fame spread at Oxford, though it was mingled with suspicions of his dealings in the black arts and with some doubts of his orthodoxy. About 1257, Bonaventura, general of the order, interdicted his lectures at Oxford, and commanded him to place himself under the superintendence of the body at Paris. Here for ten years he remained under supervision, suffering great privations and strictly prohibited from writing anything for publication. But his fame had reached the ears of the papal legate in England, Guy de Foulques, who in 1265 became pope as Clement IV. In the following year he wrote to Bacon, ordering him notwithstanding any injunctions from his superiors, to write out and send to him a treatise on the sciences which he had already asked of him when papal legate. Bacon, whose previous writings had been mostly scattered tracts, capitula quaedam, took fresh courage from this command of the pope. He set at naught the jealousy of his superiors and brother friars, and despite the want of funds, instruments, materials for copying and skilled copyists, completed in about eighteen months three large treatises, the Opus Majus, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium, which, with some other tracts, were despatched to the pope. We do not know what opinion Clement formed of them, but before his death he seems to have bestirred himself on Bacon’s behalf, for in 1268 the latter was permitted to return to Oxford. Here he continued his labours in experimental science and also in the composition of complete treatises. The works sent to Clement he regarded as preliminaries, laying down principles which were afterwards to be applied to the sciences. The first part of an encyclopaedic work probably remains to us in the Compendium Studii Philosophiae (1271). In this work Bacon makes a vehement attack upon the ignorance and vices of the clergy and monks, and generally upon the insufficiency of the existing studies. In 1278 his books were condemned by Jerome de Ascoli, general of the Franciscans, afterwards Pope Nicholas IV., and he himself was thrown into prison for fourteen years. During this time, it is said, he wrote the small tract De Retardandis Senectutis Accidentibus, but this is merely a tradition. In 1292, as appears from what is probably his latest composition, the Compendium Studii Theologiae, he was again at liberty. The exact time of his death cannot be determined; 1294 is probably as accurate a date as can be fixed upon.
Works and Editions.—Leland said that it is easier to collect the leaves of the Sibyl than the titles of the works written by Roger Bacon; and though the labour has been somewhat lightened by the publications of Brewer and Charles, referred to below, it is no easy matter even now to form an accurate idea of his actual productions. An enormous number of MSS. are known to exist in British and French libraries, and probably not all have yet been discovered. Many are transcripts of works or portions of works already published and, therefore, require no notice.[2]
The works hitherto printed (neglecting reprints) are the following:—(1) Speculum Alchimiae (1541)—translated into English (1597); French, A Poisson (1890); (2) De Mirabili Potestate Artis et Naturae (1542)—English translation (1659); (3) Libellus de Retardandis Senectutis Accidentibus (1590)—translated as the “Cure of Old Age,” by Richard Brown (London, 1683); (4) Sanioris Medicinae Magistri D. Rogeri Baconis Anglici de Arte Chymiae Scripta (Frankfort, 1603)—a collection of small tracts containing Excerpta de Libro Avicennae de Anima, Breve Breviarium, Verbum Abbreviatum,[3] Secretum Secretorum, Tractatus Trium Verborum, and Speculum Secretorum; (5) Perspectiva (1614), which is the fifth part of the Opus Majus; (6) Specula Mathematica, which is the fourth part of the same; (7) Opus Majus ad Clementem IV., edited by S. Jebb (1733) and J. H. Bridges (London, 1897); (8) Opera hactenus Inedita, by J. S. Brewer (1859), containing the Opus Tertium, Opus Minus, Compendium Studii Philosophiae and the De Secretis Operibus Naturae; (9) De Morali Philosophia (Dublin, 1860, see below); (10) The Greek Grammar of R. Bacon and a Fragment of his Hebrew Grammar, edited with introduction and notes by E. S. Nolan and S. A. Hirsch (1902); (11) Metaphysica Fratris Rogeri, edited by R. Steele, with a preface (1905); (12) Opera hactenus inedita, by Robert Steele (1905).
How these works stand related to one another can only be determined by internal evidence. The smaller works, chiefly on alchemy, are unimportant, and the dates of their composition cannot be ascertained. It is known that before the Opus Majus Bacon had already written some tracts, among which an unpublished work, Computus Naturalium, on chronology, belongs probably to the year 1263; while, if the dedication of the De Secretis Operibus be authentic, that short treatise must have been composed before 1249.
It is, however, with the Opus Majus that Bacon’s real activity begins. It has been called by Whewell at once the Encyclopaedia and the Organum of the 13th century.
Part I. (pp. 1–22), which is sometimes designated De Utililate Scientiarum, treats of the four offendicula, or causes of error. These are, authority, custom, the opinion of the unskilled many, and the concealment of real ignorance with pretence of knowledge. The last error is the most dangerous, and is, in a sense, the cause of all the others. The offendicula have sometimes been looked upon as an anticipation of Francis Bacon’s Idola, but the two classifications have little in common. In the summary of this part, contained in the Opus Tertium, Bacon shows very clearly his perception of the unity of science and the necessity of encyclopaedic treatment.
Part II. (pp. 23–43) treats of the relation between philosophy and theology. All true wisdom is contained in the Scriptures, at least implicitly; and the true end of philosophy is to rise from the imperfect knowledge of created things to a knowledge of the Creator. Ancient philosophers, who had not the Scriptures, received direct illumination from God, and only thus can the brilliant results attained by them be accounted for.
Part III. (pp. 44–57) treats of the utility of grammar, and the necessity of a true linguistic science for the adequate comprehension either of the Scriptures or of books on philosophy.
- ↑ Brewer thinks this unknown professor is Richard of Cornwall, but the little we know of Richard is not in harmony with the terms in which he is elsewhere spoken of by Bacon. Erdmann conjectures Thomas Aquinas, which is extremely improbable, as Thomas was unquestionably not the first of his order to study philosophy. Cousin and Charles think that Albertus Magnus is aimed at, and certainly much of what is said applies with peculiar force to him. But some things do not at all cohere with what is otherwise known of Albert. It is worth pointing out that Brewer, in transcribing the passage bearing on this (Op. Ined. p. 327), has the words fratrum puerulus, which in his marginal note he interprets as applying to the Franciscan order. In this case, of course, Albert could not be the person referred to, as he was a Dominican. But Charles, in his transcription, entirely omits the important word fratrum.
- ↑ The more important MSS. are:—(1) The extensive work on the fundamental notions of physics, called Communia Naturalium, which is found in the Mazarin library at Paris, in the British Museum, and in the Bodleian and University College libraries at Oxford; (2) on the fundamental notions of mathematics, De Communibus Mathematicae, part of which is in the Sloane collection, part in the Bodleian; (3) Baconis Physica, contained among the additional MSS. in the British Museum; (4) the fragment called Quinta Pars Compendii Theologiae, in the British Museum; (5) the Compendium Studii Theologiae, in the British Museum; (6) the logical fragments, such as the Summulae Dialectices, in the Bodleian, and the glosses upon Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics in the library at Amiens. See Little, The Grey Friars in Oxford (1892).
- ↑ At the close of the Verb. Abbrev. is a curious note, concluding with the words, “ipse Rogerus fuit discipulus fratris Alberti!”
