Therefore they think the true the false, and spend their time and money vainly, says Bacon with many strainings of phrase.
“There is no remedy,” continues Bacon, “against the first three causes of error save as with all our strength we set the sound authors above the weak ones, reason above custom, and the opinions of the wise above the humours of the crowd; and do not trust in the triple argument: this has precedent, this is customary, this is the common view.” But the fourth cause of error is the worst of all. “For this is a lone and savage beast, which devours and destroys all reason,—this desire of seeming wise, with which every man is born.” Bacon arraigns this cause of evil, through numerous witnesses, sacred and profane. It has two sides: display of pretended knowledge, and excusing of ignorance. Infinite are the verities of God and the creation: let no one boast of knowledge. It is not for man to glory in his wisdom; faith goes beyond man’s knowledge; and still much is unrevealed. In forty years we learn no more than could be taught youth in one. I have profited more from simple men “than from all my famous doctors.”
Bacon’s four universal causes of ignorance indicate his general attitude. More specific criticisms upon the academic methods of his time are contained in his septem peccata studii principalis quod est theologiae. This is given in the Opus minus.[636] Bacon, it will be remembered, says again and again that all sciences must serve theology, and find their value from that service: the science of theology includes every science, and should use each as a handmaid for its own ends. Accordingly, when Bacon speaks of the seven vices of the studium principale quod est theologia, we may expect him to point out vicious methods touching all branches of study, yet with an eye to their common service of their mistress.
“Seven are the vices of the chief study which is theology; the first is that philosophy in practice dominates theology. But it ought not to dominate in any province beyond itself, and surely not the science of God, which leads to eternal life.... The greater part of all the quaestiones in a Summa theologiae is pure philosophy, with arguments and solutions; and there are infinite quaestiones concerning the heavens, and concerning matter and being, and concerning species and the similitudes of things, and concerning cognition through such; also concerning eternity and time, and how the soul is in the body, and how angels move locally, and how they are in a place, and an infinitude of like matters which are determined in the books of the philosophers. To investigate these difficulties does not belong to theologians, according to the main intent and subject of their work. They ought briefly to recite these truths as they find them determined in philosophy. Moreover, the other matter of the quaestiones which concerns what is proper to theology, as concerning the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, the Sacraments, is discussed principally through the authorities, arguments, and distinctions of philosophy.”
Evidently, this first vice of theological study infected the method of Albert and Thomas, and of practically all other theologians! Its correction might call for a complete reversal of method. But the reversal desired by Bacon would scarcely have led back to Gospel simplicity, as may be seen from what follows.
“The second vice is that the best sciences, which are those most clearly pertinent to theology, are not used by theologians. I refer to the grammar of the foreign tongues from which all theology comes. Of even more value are mathematics, optics, moral science, experimental science, and alchemy. But the cheap sciences (scientiae viles) are used by theologians, like Latin grammar, logic, natural philosophy in its baser part, and a certain side of metaphysics. In these there is neither the good of the soul, nor the good of the body, nor the good things of fortune. But moral philosophy draws out the good of the soul, as far as philosophy may. Alchemy is experimental and, with mathematics and optics, promotes the good of the body and of fortune.... While the grammar of other tongues gives theology and moral philosophy to the Latins.... Oh! what madness is it to neglect sciences so useful for theology, and be sunk in those which are impertinent!
“The third vice is that the theologians are ignorant of those four sciences which they use; and therefore accept a mass of false and futile propositions, taking the doubtful for certain, the obscure for evident; they suffer alike from superfluity and the lack of what is necessary, and so stain theology with infinite vices which proceed from sheer ignorance.” For they are ignorant of Greek and Hebrew and Arabic, and therefore ignorant of all the sciences contained in these tongues; and they have relied on Alexander of Hales and others as ignorant as themselves. The fourth vice is that they study and lecture on the Sentences of the Lombard, instead of the text of Scripture; and the lecturers on the Sentences are preferred in honour, while any one who would lecture on Scripture has to beg for a room and hour to be set him.
“The fifth fault is greater than all the preceding. The text of Scripture is horribly corrupt in the Vulgate copy at Paris.”
Bacon goes at some length into the errors of the Vulgate, and gives a good account of the various Latin versions of the Bible. Next, the “sextum peccatum is far graver than all, and may be divided into two peccata maxima: one is that through these errors the literal sense of the Vulgate has infinite falsities and intolerable uncertainties, so that the truth cannot be known. From this follows the other peccatum, that the spiritual sense is infected with the same doubt and error.” These errors, first in the literal meaning, and thence in the spiritual or allegorical significance, spring from ignorance of the original tongues, and from ignorance of the birds and beasts and objects of all sorts spoken of in the Bible. “By far the greater cause of error, both in the literal and spiritual meaning, rises from ignorance of things in Scripture. For the literal sense is in the natures and properties of things, in order that the spiritual meaning may be elicited through convenient adaptations and congruent similitudes.” Bacon cites Augustine to show that we cannot understand the precept, Estote prudentes sicut serpentes, unless we know that it is the serpent’s habit to expose his body in defence of his head, as the Christian should expose all things for the sake of his head, which is Christ. Alack! is it for such ends as these that Bacon would have a closer scholarship fostered, and natural science prosecuted? The text of the Opus minus is broken at this point, and one cannot say whether Bacon had still a seventh peccatum to allege, or whether the series ended with the second of the vices into which he divided the sixth.
Bacon’s strictures upon the errors of his time were connected with his labours to remedy them, and win a firmer knowledge than dialectic could supply. To this end he advocated the study of the ancient languages, which he held to be “the first door of wisdom, and especially for the Latins, who have not the text, either of theology or philosophy, except from foreign languages.”[637] His own knowledge of Greek was sufficient to enable him to read passages in that tongue, and to compose a Greek grammar.[638] But he shows no interest in the classical Greek literature, nor is there evidence of his having studied any important Greek philosopher in the original. He was likewise zealous for the study of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, the other foreign tongues which held the learning so inadequately represented by Latin versions. He spoke with some exaggeration of the demerits of the existing translations;[639] but he recognised the arduousness of the translator’s task, from diversity of idiom and the difficulty of finding an equivalent in Latin for the statements, for example, in the Greek. The Latin vocabulary often proved inadequate; and words had to be taken bodily from the original tongue. Likewise he saw, and so had others, though none had declared it so clearly, that the translator should not only be master of the two languages, but have knowledge of the subject treated by the work to be translated.[640]