i. Introduction or dedicatory letter; ii. Practical alchemy; iii. Explanation of the Opus Majus; the order of the sciences inverted, i.e. they were arranged according to their dignity, moral philosophy first; iv. Treatise on the seven sins of Theology; v. Speculative alchemy, or, De rerum generationibus (see below); vi. De Coelestibus.
Of this work only the fragment edited by Brewer (Opera Ined. 311-390) from MS. Bodl. Digby 218, has been discovered. This includes a few pages of Part ii., all of iii., most of iv., and part of v. Wood quotes a passage from the Opus Minus which does not occur in this fragment (Opera Ined. xciv. n. 1). From this it has been assumed that he had access to a MS. of the Opus Minus now lost; but the passage is quoted by Leland, and probably copied from him by Wood. It may perhaps occur in some other work of Bacon’s; thus the passage quoted in Op. Ined. pp. xcvii-xcviii, from which Brewer argues that ‘Wood must have seen some other copy of the Opus Minus not now discoverable,’ occurs in Brewer’s edition of the Opus Tert. pp. 272-3.
Part of the blank on p. 375 is to be filled up from the Opus Majus, Pars VI, Exemplum II, where the passage ‘Est autem—curabit et’ occurs, word for word. How much of the Opus Majus was here inserted is doubtful; probably to the end of Exemplum II. Thus MS. Bodl. Canonic. Miscell. 334, f. 53, begins with the words, ‘Corpora vero Adae et Evae,’ Opus Minus, p. 373, and leaves off with the words, ‘et alibi multis modis,’ which occur at the end of Opus Majus, Pars VI, Exemp. II.
The last part of the Opus Minus is wholly wanting in Brewer’s edition. The subject of this part may be gathered from Bacon’s words in Opus Tert., cap. xxvi (p. 96):
‘Nunc igitur tangam aliquas radices circa haec quas diligentius exposui in Secundo Opere, ubi de coelestibus egi’: and (p. 99) ‘Sed in Opere Minore ubi de coelestibus tractavi, exposui magis ista.’
In Digby MS. 76, fol. 36 seq. (sec. xiii) is a treatise on this subject, forming part of the Physics in the great Compendium Philosophiae (see below). It is not improbable, that, before being incorporated in this larger work, it formed part of the Opus Minus sent to the Pope; on fol. 42 are the words:
‘et est nunc temporis scilicet anno domini 1266.’
Opus Tertium, written in 1267 (see Opera Ined. p. 277), 75 chapters.
MSS. London:—Brit. Mus: Cotton Tiberius C. V. (sec. xiv); also Lambeth Palace Library, 200 (chapters 1-45).
Oxford:—Bodl. E Musaeo 155 (sec. xv ineuntis); and Univ. Coll. 49 (A. D. 1617).