[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.
APPENDIX II
ROGER BACON AND GUNPOWDER
In his paper “Roger Bacon and Gunpowder” contributed to the Roger Bacon Commemoration Essays, Colonel Hime tries to prove Roger Bacon the inventor of gunpowder by the method employed to prove Francis Bacon the author of Shakespeare’s plays—a cipher. Since other contributors to the same volume refer favorably to this effort (Mr. A. G. Little, p. 395, calls it an “ingenious explanation” and Mr. Patterson Muir, p. 301, says that “Colonel Hime establishes a large probability” in its favor) it may be well to note some points against it quite apart from the merits of the cipher itself.
In the first place, the cipher is based upon chapters of the Epistola de secretis operibus naturae et de nullitate magiae not found in the early manuscript of that work and considered doubtful by Charles in his work on Roger Bacon. Indeed, the opening phrases of two chapters “Transactis annis Arabum sexcentis et duobus,” and “Annis Arabum 630 transactis” suggest their source.