262 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



saw all its weaknesses and defects; and that he enforced his insight by 

 constant, bold, vigorous and searching criticism. If we analyze the 

 scientific methods of Galileo, Huyghens and Newton we shall find 

 that, in their large lines, they are the same as those of the Experi- 

 mental Science based upon mathematics, of which Bacon was the first 

 inventor and almost the only exponent for three hundred years 



The thirteenth century, as a whole, received its full expression in 

 the works of Albertus Magnus. We can only comprehend the admi- 

 rable independence and originality of Bacon's mind when we have 

 compared him, point by point, with his great rival. They are literally 

 worlds apart. One epitomizes the old world; the other foretells the 

 new. Seen in this summary way Bacon appears a lusus naturce — as 

 a man born quite out of his own time; and he is usually so regarded. 

 When, however, we consider his whole career with a minuteness that 

 has been impossible in this short sketch, we discover that the seeds of 

 the rich harvest of his mind were sown by his great teacher, Eobert 

 of Lincoln; that in Paris Peter of Mericourt — the author of De 

 Magnete, from which Gilbert of Colchester derived many of his ideas 

 — was his master in experimental science; and that both in Oxford 

 and Paris he found many kindred spirits. We have proofs, therefore, 

 that in the first half of the thirteenth century there were at least two 

 companies of open-minded and liberal scholars. The fame of Bacon's 

 lectures at the universities testifies to the existence of the same spirit 

 in other large companies. It is only because the annals of the time 

 are so deficient, and especially because the history of that time has been 

 written by the Dominicans, his enemies, that we cannot adduce other 

 specific instances, with names and dates, to demonstrate more fully 

 that Bacon had the fellowship of men of his own stamp; that, in a 

 strict sense he was the highest product of his age; that he was not, at 

 least for half his life, utterly isolated. Until we understand these condi- 

 tions we cannot comprehend his true relations to his age. At 

 the beginning of the century there was a striving towards sound learn- 

 ing — a veritable revival — of which Bacon is the highest exponent. We 

 are not concerned to here exhibit how and why the spirit of the century 

 changed when its years were half run out. 



If his career could have been, like that of Albertus Magnus, 

 molded into a reasonable conformity to the spirit of his time, his works 

 would have also been the text-books of the schools of the thirteenth 

 century; his influence would have been immense and immediate; the 

 revival of learning would have dated from Bacon, not from Petrarch; 

 the foundations of modem science would have been firmly laid three 

 centuries before Copernicus. Why these changes were not to be is ex- 

 plained by his character: and his character was his fate. 



