' He was educated at Oxford, and, according to the cus- tom of his day, proceeded to the university of Paris to study philosophy and theology. Here he received his doctor's degree. About 1240 (?) he returned to Ox- ford, and there (perhaps on the advice of Grossetete
J q. v.), be took the vows as a Franciscan, and applied himself closely in his convent to the study of lan- guages, as w.ell as to experimental philosophy. It was the mistake of his life that he joined the Francis-
' cans ; his brethren soon began to manifest a spirit of enmity, a prohibition being issued against Bacon's
; lectures in the university, as well as against the pub- lication of any of his writings. He was charged with magic and diabolism, as was commonly the case at
| that time with those who studied the sciences, and particularly chemistry. Bacon was a true thinker, and, as such, was necessarily regarded as an innovator
! in such an age, although it was the age of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura. He complained of the
' absolute submission to authority. "I would burn all
| the books of Aristotle if I had them in hand" {Comp.
j Theol. pt. i, ch. 2). He was very severe upon the scholastic theology, even upon Alexander de Hales, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas, whom be styles vir erroneus etfamosus. It was not unnatural that the monks should suspect so plainspoken a man,
j especially one who kept cauldrons and crucibles at work, studied the stars, and made strange experiments of all sorts. Wadding, the historian of the Francis- cans, says that Bacon was condemned propter novitatcs quasdam suspectas. From 1257 until 1267 he was con- tinually persecuted; most of the time kept in prifon, his studies hindered, and all intercourse with the outer world prohibited. In 1265 Clement IV (Guy Foulques, a Frenchman) became pope. He had been Bacon's friend when cardinal legate in England, had taken great interest in his studies, and had sought to get hold of his writings, but the strict watch kept on Bacon prevented him from sending them. Bacon managed to get letters conveyed to the new pope, stating his sad case, and asking help in the name of
: religion and good learning. Clement's answer re- quired him to send his writings with haste, any com-
, mand of his superiors or constitution of his order not- withstanding. Bacon at once prepared his Opus Ma- jus from his materials on hand, with an account of his troubles and persecutions in the preface. The book was sent in the year 1267, but the pope did not ven- ture to release him from prison till several months had elapsed, so great was the power of the Franciscan order. Clement died in November, 1268, and Bacon was thus again at the mercy of his enemies ; but he still pursued his studies, and was allowed to remain free from open persecution up to 1278 ; but in that year Jerome of Ascoli, general of the Franciscan or-
' der, afterward pope under the title of Nicholas IV, was appointed legate to the court of France. Bacon,
I then sixty-four years old, was summoned to Paris, where a council of Franciscans, with Jerome at their head, condemned his writings, and committed him to close confinement. A confirmation of the proceeding was immediately obtained from the court of Pome.1 During ten years every effort made by him to procure his enlargement was without success; but, on the ac- cession of Jerome (Nicholas IV), that which was not to be obtained from the justice of the pope was con- ceded to private interest, and Bacon was at last re- stored to liberty by the intercession of some powerful nobles. Some say he died in prison; but the lest authorities unite in stating that he returned to Oxford, where he wrote his Compendium Theologice, and died some months, or perhaps a year and a half, after Nicholas IV (who died April, 1292). The suspicion and fear of the monks followed the great man's Looks after his death ; " the books were nailed to boards, so that they could not be read, and were left to rot amid dirt and damp.''
BACON
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BACON
Of the grandeur of Bacon's scientific intellect, and of the marvellous discoveries made by him, this is not the place to speak at length. Humboldt calls him the greatest apparition of the Middle Ages. In the depths of an age of tradition, he saw what science was, and devoted his life to its pursuit. In languages, he mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. He held, with Plato, that Mathematics is the mistress and key of all the sciences {Opus Majus, pt. iv). In twen- ty years he spent 2000 livres (a vast sum for that age) in books, apparatus, and experiments. As early as 1264 he sent the pope a proposal to rectify the Julian calendar — three centuries before the thing was done. " Roger Bacon, the vastest intellect that England has produced, studied nature as a natural philosopher rather than as a chemist, and the extraordinary dis- coveries he made in those branches of science are fa- miliarly known : the rectification of the errors com- mitted in the Julian calendar with regard to the solar year ; the physical analysis of the action of lenses and convex glasses ; the invention of spectacles for the aged ; that of achromatic lenses ; the theory and per- haps the first construction of the telescope. From the principles and laws laid down or partially apprehend- ed by him, a system of unanticipated facts was sure to spring, as he himself remarked ; nevertheless, his in- quiries into chemical phenomena have not been with- out fruit for us. He carefully studied the properties of saltpetre, and if, in opposition to the ordinary opin- ion, he did not discover gunpowder, which had been explicitly described by Marcus Grsecus fifty years be- fore, he improved its preparation by teaching the mode of purifying saltpetre by first dissolving the salt in water and then crystallizing it. He also called atten- tion to the chemical action of air in combustion" (Fi- guier, UAlchimie et les A/ckimistcs, part i, ch. iv, p. 80, 81).