RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bacon
his teacher. The first investigation was favorable to the genial scholar, but a renewed charge which was brought against him by the general of the Franciscans, Jerome of Ascoli, during the pontificate of Nicholas III (1277-81), especially on account of the treatise De vera astronomia, ended with Bacon's imprisonment in a monastery either in Paris or at some other place in France. Ten years he thus spent behind the walls, but when Jerome had become Pope Nicholas IV, Bacon obtained his liberty through the recommendation of influential friends and was permitted to return to England.
Bacon belongs to those scientists of the Middle Ages who approached modern methods. On this account he criticizes sharply the scholastic method of instruction. In his Compendium studii philoso- ■phice he speaks disparagingly of Aristotle, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas, whose " boyish " learning and effort he censures, also of the great Franciscan theologian Alexander of Hales. The attacks upon the latter explain in part the hostilities which he experienced from his fellow friars. In the Opus majus (treating in six sections " of the hindrances of philosophy; of the relation between theology and philosophy; of the study of languages; of mathematics; of optics; of experimental knowledge ") his decidedly antischolastic standpoint is also evident. No less do we find this
Anticipa- in his Opus minus, which endeavors tion of Mod- to reproduce the contents of the Opus em Methods principale in an abbreviated form, and
and Dis- in the Opus tertium, in which the prin-
coveries. cipal theses of both works are reproduced in a more aphoristic form (clothed in a more elegant diction to make their understanding easier and more acceptable to his papal protector Clement IV). In his theological works, of which two only have been preserved, Bacon also appears as representative of an antischolastic tendency. The Epistola de lo.ude Scriptures Sacrce (ed.Wharton, in Ussher's Historia dogmatica de Scripturis, London, 1699) is permeated by a reformatory spirit. He emphasizes the sentence: Tola scientia in Bibliis contenta est principaliter et fontaliter ; he insists upon the reading of the Bible in the original (and, if possible, also by the laity); he emphasizes in a critical spirit the need of correcting the Vulgate and cautions against the implicit confidence of the expositors in the authority of the Church Fathers. In the last of his works, the Compendium studii theologici (composed in 1292), he appears rather as a representative of church tradition, and denounces the " gross errors " of a Parisian theologian, the sententiarian Richardus Cornubiensis. The advanced character of hi. theological thought and teaching is evident also in his works on natural philosophy; for example, he speaks in the Opus minus of the " seven principal sms ' in theological study, including the neglect of the original languages of the Holy Scripture, the corruption of the traditional text, and the wrong confidence in the authority of the Fathers. With regard to the future progress and triun jhs of natural science, Bacon, in bold anticipatio , foresaw and predicted many things, which as: ure to I.— 27
him the repute of a prophet, just as he discovered the principles of the telescope and microscope, was able to outline the laws of refraction and reflection, and penetrated more deeply into the laws of cosmology than any other scholar of the Middle Ages. His proofs that the Julian calendar needed correction, and the ways and means which he indicated to accomplish this end, and for which he was praised by Copernicus, must also be mentioned.
Of Bacon's writings the most are philosophical, or rather physical. The most important works of this class, especially the Opus majus, remained in manuscript till toward the end of the eighteenth century. The Opera chemica Rogeri Baconis, which was published in folio in 1485, was followed by a few minor writings pertaining to alchemy and mathematics. Of these the most interesting is the tractate on the secret powers of art and nature (first published at Paris, 1541, under the title, De mirabili potestate artis et naturae ; often issued since the beginning of the seventeenth century with the title: De secretis operibus artis et naturae). His principal work, Opus majus ad Writings. Clementem IV, was first published in the eighteenth century by Samuel Jebb (London, 1733), and not before 1859 were his philosophical and physical works, which supplement his main work, issued {Fr. R. Baconis opera qumdam hactenus inedita, scil. Opus tertium, Opus minus, Compendium studii philosophim, De nullitate magice, De secretis naturae operibus, ed. J. F. Brewer, Rolls Series, No. 15). Two other works followed this publication: the tractate De philosophia morali, which Bacon composed as part vii of his Opus majus (Dublin, 1860), and De multiplicatione specierum, which was published in 1897 as an addition to J. H. Bridges's new edition of the Opus majus (The Opus majus of R. Bacon, edited with introduction and analytical table, 2 vols., Oxford, 1897), which gives for the first time the complete text, including also the seventh part, of moral-philosophical contents. His Greek Grammar and a Fragment of his Hebrew Grammar, edited from the manuscript, with notes by E. Nolan and S. A. Hirsch, appeared in 1902 (London), and a Greek tragedy was first published in the same year by the Cambridge press. In manuscript are still the Computus naturalium (3 books pertaining to the calendar and chronology), the Communia naturalium, and the Communia mathematica.
O. ZSCKLEHf. Bibliography: For the life Jebb's preface to his edition of the Opus majus, ut sup.; M. le Clerc, in the Histoire litteraire de la France, vol. xx, Paris, 1842; E. Charles, Roger Bacon, sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines, Paris, 1861 ("a model of industry, skill, and intelligence "); L. Schneider, Roger Bacon, eine Monographic zur Geschichte der Philosophie des dreizehnten Jahrhunderls, Augsburg, 1873; DNB, ii, 374-378; J. H. Bridges, in the introduction to his edition of the Opus majus, ut sup. (this and Charles are the best sources); H. Hurter, Theologia catholica temporamedii wvi, pp. 310-312, Innsbruck, 1899. On Bacon as scientific investigator consult: K. Werner, Die Psychologie, Erkenntnislehre und Wissenschaftslehre des Roger Baco, and Die Kosmologie und allgemeine Naturlehre des Roger Baco, both Vienna, 1879. For his significance as forerunner of the evangelical doctrine of scripture and as Bible-critic, F. A. Gasquet, English Bible Criticism %n the Thirteenth Century, in The Dublin Review, cxxii (1898), 1-22.
Baden Bagshawe