(5) The copy of the Vulgate Scripture at Paris is very corrupt.
(6) Through the corrupt condition of the text, both the literal interpretation and the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture is full of error.
The text of the Opus Minus is broken off at this point, so that no information is forthcoming as to the seventh criticism that Bacon desired to offer.[718]
In order to remedy the educational shortcomings, Bacon suggests additions to the usual subjects of study. Special attention, he thinks, should be paid to languages, particularly to Latin and Greek; in addition, Bacon was anxious that Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic should be studied. It is noteworthy that Bacon desired these languages to be studied for the sake of their knowledge-matter, and not for the literature they embodied. Next to languages, Bacon placed the study of mathematics. “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. For its study is easier than all other sciences, and boys learn its branches easily. Besides, the laity can make diagrams, and calculate and sing, and use musical instruments. These are the ‘opera’ of mathematics.”[719]
From Bacon we learn something of the difficulties with which the medieval scholar had to contend. Among other things, he complains of the indifferent value of the translations, through whose aid alone knowledge was possible. “Though we have numerous translations of all the sciences ... there is such an utter falsity in all their writings that none can sufficiently wonder at it.”[720] The scarcity of books placed a great obstacle in the way of those who wished to profit by them. “The scientific books of Aristotle, of Avicenna, of Seneca, of Cicero, and other ancients, cannot be had except at great cost; their principal works have not been translated into Latin, and copies of others are not to be found in ordinary libraries or elsewhere.”[721] The scarcity of competent teachers, especially in mathematics, still further intensified the difficulties. “Without mathematics, nothing worth knowing in philosophy can be attained. And, therefore, it is indispensable that good mathematicians be had, who are very scarce. Nor can any obtain their services, especially the best of them, except it be the pope or some great prince.”[722] Moreover, there was the scarcity and the expense of obtaining the necessary scientific apparatus: “without mathematical instruments no science can be mastered; and these instruments are not to be found among the Latins, and could not be made for £200 or £300. And besides, better tables are indispensable requisites, for although the certifying of the tables is done by instruments, yet this cannot be accomplished unless there be an immense number of instruments.”[723] The question of expense is a matter that Bacon frequently refers to, as he found that inability to meet the expenditure necessary for the work he desired to carry out effectually checked the projects he had in his mind. “I know how to proceed,” he writes, “and with what means, and what are the impediments; but I cannot go on for lack of the necessary funds. 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 on occult books and various experiments and languages and instruments and tables and other things.”[724]
Details are also available of the curriculum for the bachelors who were to determine at Oxford in 1267. This included:—
Logic. The bachelors “shall swear on the gospels that they have gone through all the books of the old Logic in lectures at least twice, except Boethius, for which one hearing is enough, and the Fourth Book of Boethius’ Topics, which they are not bound to hear at all; in the new Logic, the book of Prior Analytics, Topics and Fallacies twice; but the book of Posterior Analytics, they shall swear that they have heard at least once.”
Grammar. Priscian and Donatus.
Natural Philosophy. “De Anima, De Generatione et Corruptione.”[725]
For the fourteenth century we have the writings of Chaucer, which serve to throw some light upon what was taught in the schools. He tells us of:—