274 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



might arise from hyle (this is the Greek v~\.y), the true matter, but 

 his clear and terse exposition of these ideas shows that he has 

 no relationship to the mystics. 



One of the papers in this volume excites one's apprehension : 

 it is the essay on " Roger Bacon and Gunpowder," by Col. Hime, 

 who explains certain passages in the Epistola de Secretis Operibus 

 Artis et Naturce, which are otherwise incomprehensible, by means 

 of cryptogramic interpretation. Col. Hime certainly extracts 

 sense out of passages otherwise meaningless, but on account of 

 the ridiculous association of cryptograms with Roger Bacon's 

 great namesake, one has got an uncomfortable feeling of doubt 

 which makes one wish, probably unjustly, that this essay had 

 not been included in the book. The relation of Bacon to the 

 invention of gunpowder does not seem quite clear, even if we 

 are not prejudiced against cryptograms. According to a very 

 exhaustive review of the subject by MM. Reinaud and Fave, 1 

 gunpowder was known to the Arabians in the thirteenth century, 

 so it seems doubtful whether it was an independent discovery of 

 Bacon's, as Col. Hime believes. There was in all his work the 

 tendency to try to solve the unknown through the known, and 

 to conquer the far off through the near. He saw far beyond his 

 day, and the things which were then being thought of and 

 worked at, and he often speaks of things as if they were already 

 attained. For instance, the telescope is treated of so wonder- 

 fully that it is almost impossible to believe that he did not 

 possess one. But the mind of man is ever in advance of technique, 

 and he trusted to the future more than to the current views of 

 his contemporaries, of whom he was often somewhat con- 

 temptuous. He strove to reform scientific study and to insist 

 that knowledge should be controlled by experimental research ; 

 and he demanded freedom of inquiry at a time when inquiry, like 

 everything else, was ruled by authority. He fought the principal 

 causes of the error and of the lethargy of his time : namely, the 

 pride of a pretended knowledge which he thought was the 

 principal cause of human ignorance, the rule of authority un- 

 founded on knowledge, the adhesion to conventional views, the 

 influence of the opinion of the ignorant multitude, and the dark- 

 ness of the minds of those representing knowledge. His 

 writings, although confused often by repetitions and re-arrange- 



1 Du feu grtgeois, des feux de guerre et des origines de la poudre a canon, 

 Paris, 1845. 



