APPENDIX I
THE STUDY OF ROGER BACON
Lack of early printed editions of his works.
In addition to criticizing and refuting the over-estimate of Roger Bacon which has been prevalent in modern times, it may be well to indicate when and how this exaggerated estimate of his importance and uniqueness originated, and also to trace the gradual growth of a more critical attitude towards him in still more recent years. The investigations of Mr. A. G. Little and several other contributors to the Roger Bacon Essays of 1914 have demonstrated that his writings were not almost forgotten for centuries, but that they exerted a continuous influence. However, owing perhaps to the unfinished state and rather fragmentary, confused, and scattered form in which they have survived in the manuscripts, they did not appear, as did many of the works of medieval science which we have considered, immediately after the invention of printing in early editions. No incunabula of them are known and only a few brief treatises were printed in the course of the sixteenth century,[2257] namely, some alchemistic tracts of doubtful authorship, a treatise on how to postpone the ills of old age, and the “Epistle concerning the secret works of nature and the nullity of magic,” which became quite a favorite and was reprinted several times in Latin and appeared twice both in English and in French translations in the course of the seventeenth century.[2258]
His popular reputation as a magician.
Meanwhile, despite what was said of “the nullity of magic” in this treatise on the secret works of nature,[2259] Friar Bacon had become in popular tradition a nigromancer, conjurer, and magician. As such he was presented about 1592 in Robert Greene’s play, the “Honourable History of Frier Bacon and Frier Bungay,” with magic wand, perspective glass, and speaking brazen head, and in the prose “Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon” which appeared about the same time.[2260] In 1625 Naudé included Roger Bacon among the great men of the past whose memory he endeavored to clear of the false charge of magic.[2261]
Jebb’s edition of the Opus Maius.
Other medical and alchemistic tracts by Bacon were issued together in 1603,[2262] and some portions of his chief work, the Opus Maius, and other similar fragments dealing with mathematics and optics were published in 1614.[2263] But the Opus Maius itself remained unprinted until 1733, when Jebb issued his edition of the work upon which Bacon’s fame has since largely rested. This edition,[2264] although to-day become quite rare, was perhaps just late enough not to share the neglect which with the advance of modern science befell the numerous earlier editions of medieval physicians, alchemists, astrologers, and natural scientists. On the other hand it was perhaps just early enough to introduce Roger and his criticisms of the learning of his contemporaries to an age whose historical interests were largely dominated by classicism. And when interest in and study of the middle ages developed in the course of the nineteenth century, for a time it had the effect of only increasing the exaggerated emphasis laid upon Roger Bacon.
General misestimate of Bacon and of medieval science.
As a result it came to be the fashion in works tracing the history of this or that department of learning from the times of the ancient Greeks or Egyptians to our own, in gliding rapidly and at a lofty height over the generally unexplored medieval region, and airily dropping a few bombs concerning the blighting effect of the church upon freedom of thought and scientific investigation or anent the inanities of scholasticism, to exclaim at the marvelous apparition of a mind like Roger Bacon’s in such an age and to hail him as a herald of a later and better civilization. There was the more excuse for doing this, since Jebb’s version of the Opus Maius had terminated the text with the sixth part on “Experimental Science.”[2265] This theme thus appeared to be the climax of the work, and the impression was given that Roger Bacon was primarily a natural scientist and that he regarded experimental method as the supreme thing in the study of nature. Consequently he came to be regarded by many as the first rebel against scholasticism and the first prophet of modern science.
Roger Bacon and Francis Bacon.
The fact that his name was Bacon also contributed to Roger’s celebrity, as Francis Bacon was already a favorite with historians of science and thought, and it now appeared that he had borrowed some of his ideas from, or had at least been anteceded in them by, the thirteenth century friar. Both had criticized scholastic method and urged the great practical utility possible from applied science. Akin to the idols of Francis were Roger’s four causes of human error. The program of endowed scientific research—based upon an essentially medieval classification of science and list of anticipated inventions—in which Francis tried to interest the society of his time in his New Atlantis[2266] has a general resemblance to the attempt of Roger to enlist the support of the pope in the cause of science in his Opus Maius; while the “Workes of Nature, Works of Art” of the New Atlantis, which made that isle almost seem “a Land of Magicians,”[2267] are rather suggestive of the treatise, “Of the Secret Works of Art and Nature and the Nullity of Magic,” by Roger Bacon to whom indeed Francis seems to allude in the New Atlantis as “Your Monke that was the Inuentour of Ordnance, and of Gunpowder.”[2268] Roger was by some indeed not only regarded as superior to Francis Bacon in priority, but in having emphasized the importance in scientific investigation of mathematical method whose value Francis had failed to appreciate.
Legend of his martyrdom for science.
The next step in the development of the Baconian legend was to supply Roger with a biography suited to his supposed position as a modern experimental and mathematical scientist in the midst of an age of religious bigotry and superstition, of gloomy monks and arid theologians. Surely, especially in view of his later literary and popular renown as a magician, he must have been persecuted and a martyr to science. Abbé Feret has shown how through the nineteenth century successive historians kept adding to the legend of Friar Bacon’s persecution by the Franciscan Order without giving any references to the sources for the details which they elaborated from their own imaginations. [2269]
Works of Brewer and Charles.
The sources, however, became more accessible with the editing in 1859 in the Rolls Series by Brewer of a number of Bacon’s minor treatises hitherto unpublished. Brewer, however, was able from the manuscripts at his disposal, to present only an incomplete text of the Opus Minus, Opus Tertium, and Compendium Studii Philosophiae. These served nevertheless to give a new stimulus to the interest in and the study of Bacon, especially since two years later appeared Charles’ book on Roger Bacon where were included further extracts from his unpublished writings. Unfortunately Charles wrote without knowledge of Brewer’s labors,[2270] and it must be added that several writers on Bacon since have failed to keep abreast with the latest research in the field.[2271] Charles also was guilty, as Abbé Feret has shown, of swelling the story of Bacon’s imprisonments, and in other matters he jumped to conclusions unwarranted by the sources or indulged in undiluted imagination.
Minor studies of the later nineteenth century.
The works of Brewer and Charles educed a number of minor essays and studies in the following decades. Two unsigned articles on “The life and writings of Roger Bacon” and “The philosophy of Roger Bacon” which appeared in The Westminster Review in 1864, are worth noting as combining a tendency towards a sane and critical estimate of what Bacon had actually said and accomplished, with the inclination to regard him as a voice crying in the wilderness of medieval scholasticism and theology. The writer admitted that the merit of the Opus Maius “lies rather in the spirit in which it was written than in the facts it records or in any merit which it may have as a scientific whole.” He further asserted that “it can easily be shown that of the things which Bacon is asserted to have invented, several were perfectly well known before his time, and the rest are nowhere described in his works.” The writer also cited some of Roger’s absurd experiments, and said, “Notwithstanding his forcible language about the prerogatives of experimental science and his bitter invective against frail authority, we find him occasionally resting on authority with childlike faith, and treating his favorite science as if its only prerogative was to provoke a smile.” Yet he still maintained that “Bacon preached a philosophy of which not half-a-dozen men in Europe saw the value, and of which the majority of really good men feared the results,” and that “when Roger Bacon was laid in his grave, the real philosophy was buried with him.”[2272] Many of the articles which appeared in the years following were of slight value, causing G. Delorme to say in 1910, “Monographs or studies concerning Bacon are numerous, perhaps too numerous.”[2273] As he proceeded to explain, in many of them Bacon was misunderstood and misinterpreted, so that they must be read with the greatest caution. On the other hand, in 1891 had appeared Abbé Feret’s valuable criticism of the legends regarding Bacon’s imprisonments.
Recent editions of Bacon’s works.
Next came solid progress in additions to the catalogue of Roger’s works and fragments by recent discoveries in the manuscripts, and in new or first editions of a number of his previously known writings. In 1897 J. H. Bridges’ fuller, handier, and more correctly arranged two volume edition of the Opus Maius replaced Jebb’s now extremely rare edition. Unfortunately, while supplied with a helpful introduction, analytical table of contents, and footnotes, this new version was so full of misreadings of the manuscripts and other mistakes in the text due to an imperfect knowledge of Latin, that in 1900 a third and supplementary volume of corrections was added to it. In 1897 Cardinal (then Father) Gasquet discovered and published a new fragment, which he regarded as an introduction to the Opus Maius, but which seems to me evidently the first part of the Opus Minus, as Mr. Little has already suggested.[2274] Passages in this fragment serve to render even more untenable the story of Roger’s persecution before 1267. In 1902 Nolan and Hirsch edited Bacon’s Greek Grammar. Then in 1909 Professor Duhem gave to the world a newly discovered fragment of the Opus Tertium; while in 1911 the British Society of Franciscan Studies printed the Compendium Studii Theologiae, edited by Canon (now Dean) Hastings Rashdall, and in 1912 more of the Opus Tertium, edited by Mr. A. G. Little. Meanwhile Robert Steele, who in 1905 had edited a fragment of Bacon’s Metaphysics, began in 1912 to produce the Communia Naturalium in sections. Other scholars had announced new or first editions of other treatises, mathematical, medical or alchemistic, as in preparation, and the discovery of a complete copy of the Metaphysics in the Vatican Library had just been announced when the world war broke out and temporarily stayed their publication.[2275] Recently, however, Mr. Steele has published another volume containing Bacon’s introduction to and version of The Secret of Secrets, in the preface of which he says: “Medieval students will be glad to learn that the publication of the whole of Bacon’s work now seems assured.”
Continued over-estimate of Bacon.
As Bacon’s works thus became more generally known and as standards of historical criticism grew more strict, not only the facts of his life, but his doctrines, point of view, and personal equation were more carefully examined and analyzed, and previous exaggerated estimates of him were questioned or toned down, although still repeated in some quarters. Indeed, the very writer who rejects some one legend may hold fast to the old view of Bacon in other respects. Especially hard to down has been the notion that Roger Bacon stood almost alone in the middle ages in his advocacy of natural science. Such was still the impression given by otherwise excellent recent estimates of Bacon, such as those in the Catholic Encyclopedia and in Henry Osborn Taylor’s The Medieval Mind,[2276] and such was still the frame of mind in which preparations were made at more than one great university to celebrate in 1914 the seventh centennial of his birth—preparations which resulted at Oxford in the publication of an important volume of commemoration essays by fourteen scholars from various lands and fields of learning, five of whom were editors of Bacon’s writings, while others had previously published books or articles concerning him, and still others were authors of general histories of the department of learning to which they were now to estimate Bacon’s contributions or relation.
Beginnings of adverse criticism.
Already, however, before the appearance of this volume Roger Bacon’s pre-eminence and superiority to his times had been questioned from more than one quarter. Father Mandonnet in his work on Siger de Brabant and Latin Averroism affirmed that Bacon’s importance had been over-estimated in many ways. While Charles had held that, if Bacon’s scientific worth had been exaggerated, his value as a school-man had been lost sight of, Mandonnet declared that as a philosopher and theologian he was behind rather than in the forefront of his age.[2277] Rashdall had asserted in 1911 that “Bacon was more the child of his age than he imagined himself to be.”[2278] W. H. V. Reade in the English Historical Review for October, 1912,[2279] hoped “that it is not an article of faith with the Society of Franciscan Studies to accept all of Roger Bacon’s statements. As regards the state of knowledge among his contemporaries, his assertions are often of no greater value than the similar assertions of his distinguished namesake in a later age.” The next year Mr. Reade spoke in the same periodical of “the usual Baconian atmosphere, in which science and superstition are happily or unhappily compounded.”[2280] In May, 1914, in my paper on “Roger Bacon and Experimental Method in the Middle Ages,”[2281] I discussed what his “experimental science” really amounted to, and showed that it was representative of the science of his time rather than in revolt against it.
The Commemoration Essays.
When the Oxford Roger Bacon Essays appeared, many of them were marked by a sane and critical attitude, were restrained and scientific in tone, and did not indulge in glowing but unsubstantiated eulogies of the noted friar. Professor David Eugene Smith gave warning that “one is liable to be led away by enthusiasm, when writing upon the occasion of the seven hundredth anniversary of any great leader, to read into his works what is not there, and to ascribe to him abilities which he never possessed.”[2282] But this tendency both he and most of his fellow essayists successfully resisted, and the main achievement of the volume was to point out Roger’s indebtedness to others for some of the ideas upon which his fame has rested and to note his mistakes and superstitions, rather than to bring to light anything new to his credit.[2283] It became evident that a careful examination of those treatises by Bacon which had been recently edited or were in preparation for publication, and of those which have recently been brought to light in manuscript form or are still difficult of access in old editions, was unlikely to add much to his stock of ideas as found in the now well-known Opus Maius, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium.
[2257] See Little’s lists of Bacon’s writings in the Appendix to the Roger Bacon Essays.
[2258] Ibid., 396.
[2259] Or perhaps because of it, since “The famous historie of Fryer Bacon” in prose takes two chapters word for word from the English translation of “The Epistle concerning the secret works of nature and the nullity of magic”—see Sandys, p. 365 in Little, Essays.
[2260] See J. E. Sandys, “Roger Bacon in English Literature,” in Little, Essays.
[2261] Gabriel Naudé, Apologie pour tous les grands personages qui ont esté faussement soupçonnez de Magie, Paris, 1625.
[2262] Sanioris medicinae magistri D. Rogeri Baconis angli de arte chymiae scripta, etc., Frankfurt, 1603; reprinted 1620 as “Thesaurus Chemicus,” etc.
[2263] By Combach, Specula mathematica, etc., Frankfurt, 1614.
[2264] Reprinted at Venice, 1750.
[2265] So in a MS of the 16-17th century at Cambridge, Trinity 1119, fols. 56v-68v (ends incompletely) “Here followeth the first part of the great work namely the experimental science of Roger Bacon written to Clemens ye Pope.”
[2266] Ed. A. B. Gough, 1915, p. 14.
[2267] Ibid., p. 15.
[2268] Gough, 1915, p. 46.
[2269] P. Feret, “Les emprisonnements de Roger Bacon,” Revue des questions historiques, vol. 50 (1891), pp. 119-42. See also the article on “Roger Bacon” by Theophilus Witzel in the Catholic Encyclopedia, whereas the eleventh edition of the Britannica still preserves the old legends.
[2270] So did Abbé Narbey twenty years later in his “Le moine Roger Bacon et le mouvement scientifique au XIIIe siècle,” Revue des questions historiques, vol. XXXV (1884), pp. 115-66.
[2271] An extreme instance was A. Parrot, Roger Bacon et ses contemporains, Paris, 1894, in which the legend of the persecution of Bacon was pushed to the last extreme of exaggeration and the author regretted (p. 51) that the Opus Tertium still remained unprinted—thirty-five years after Brewer had edited it.
[2272] Westminster Review, vol. 81, pp. 12, 9, 241 and 252.
[2273] Vacant and Mangenot, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, Paris, 1910, II, 31. It is hardly necessary to list these monographs here; for bibliography of writings on Bacon see also CE, “Roger Bacon.”
[2274] Essays, 389. The phrase “in hac epistola praeeunte” which Gasquet takes as a sign that the fragment is part of the Opus Maius, occurs also in the Opus Tertium, cap. 1 (Brewer, 9).
[2275] Little, Essays (1914), 376 and 407.
[2276] Taylor’s discussion of Bacon occurs in Vol. II, 483-508 of the 1911 edition (2nd edition revised and enlarged, 1914). He goes farther than the sources justify in some of his assertions concerning Bacon’s life, though he is caution itself compared to some writers. For instance, it cannot be shown that before 1266 Roger’s pursuit of learning “had been obstructed by the Order of which he was an unhappy and rebellious member”; nor that “he had evidently been forbidden to write or spread his ideas; he had been disciplined at times with a diet of bread and water.”
[2277] Siger de Brabant et l’averroisme latin au XIIIe siècle, 2nd edition, 1908-10, I, 40, 244-48.
[2278] Rashdall, 3.
[2279] P. 810.
[2280] EHR, XXVIII, 805 (Oct., 1913).
[2281] Philosophical Review, XXIII, 271-98.
[2282] P. 182.
[2283] In articles published in 1915 (“Adelard of Bath and the Continuity of Universal Nature” in Nature, XCIV, 616-17; “Roger Bacon and Gunpowder,” in Science, XLII, 799-800) I disputed Professor Duhem’s crediting Bacon with originating the theory of universal nature and Colonel Hime’s ascribing to him the invention of gunpowder. In the present work these articles will be found embodied in the chapter on Adelard of Bath and in Appendix II to this chapter.