272 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



the Novum Organum of that age." They formed not only a 

 summary of existing knowledge, but they pointed out and 

 defined the only right method of acquiring natural knowledge, 

 by observation and experiment. 



The first mention of these works in literature is by Picodella 

 Mirandola, the friend of Lorenzo dei Medici; and a list of the 

 works is given in Bale's Illustrium Majoris Britannice Scriptorum 

 in 1548. Curiously, Dante does not mention Bacon, although 

 it is most probable that he was not ignorant of his works. Dr. 

 Liddon suggested many years ago that Dante might have had 

 the same idea of Britain that the Jews had of Galilee, so that he 

 could not conceive the possibility of an English Franciscan being 

 comparable to one of Latin blood. In English literature Bacon 

 appears as a necromancer from Gavin Douglas, through Robert 

 Green, to Byron. He was, however, noticed by a few workers 

 during the centuries. The second President of the Royal 

 Society (Sir Joseph Williamson) copied out some of his treatises 

 with his own hand; Goethe, when preparing material for the 

 Farbenlehre, studied what was available of Bacon's works and 

 wrote very appreciatively of him ; Humboldt also knew some- 

 thing of him, although he wrongly attributes to Francis Bacon, 

 instead of to Roger, the discovery that light has an appreciable 

 velocity. 



The three principal works — the Opus Majus, the Opus Minus, 

 and the Opus Tertium — contain a mass of discoveries, of demon- 

 strations and of propositions which he had made in the various 

 sciences. He had visions of telescopes, of microscopes, of steam 

 power for land and sea, and of flying machines ; he knew a great 

 deal about lenses and mirrors, and concerning the refraction of 

 light ; he argued that the world was round ; he discussed the 

 nature of fire, the volume of the sun and moon, the centre of 

 gravity of bodies, and sidereal light ; he suggested the reform of 

 the calendar (not realised until the sixteenth century); he 

 suspected the compass in studying the magnet, and also the 

 diving-bell in treating of density of bodies, and of the elasticity 

 of air. The essays in the commemoration volume by Prof. D. E 

 Smith, by Prof. Wiedemann, by Dr. Vogl, by Dr. Wurschmidt, 

 and by Mr. Pattison Muir give an admirable account of his 

 work in these directions. He declaimed energetically against 

 routine, and against the acceptance of opinions without examina- 

 tion and without proof. 



