160 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



In about the year 1250, Bartholomew de Glanvil, or, as 

 he was commonly termed, Bartholomseus Anglicus, an 

 English monk of the Minories order, wrote an encyclo- 

 paedic work, 1 as usual on the lines of that of St. Isidore. 

 His chapter on the magnet is of no intrinsic importance, 

 for it is partly copied from the Etymologies and partly- 

 taken from the same source from which Albertus Magnus 

 and Vincent de Beauvais drew their information the false 

 treatise of Aristotle. But Glanvil's work fell into the 

 hands of the man who was easily first among the philoso- 

 phers of his time, and whose genius towered over that of 

 his contemporaries like a mountain peak above mole-hills. 



For forty years, Roger Bacon studied science through 

 the medium of experiment, which extended chiefly over 

 the fields of alchemy and optics. Meanwhile he found 

 time to learn Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and to 

 master all that was known of mathematics. In an evil 

 hour, he jo. I the order of Franciscan monks, and then 

 found that he had literally thrown himself, body and mind, 

 into chains. His writings were forbidden. If he at- 

 tempted to instruct others, punishment awaited him. He 

 was denied books, and because, despite all the obstacles 

 cast in his way, it was evident, even to the dull minds of 

 those who harassed him, that his knowledge of nature was 

 far beyond that of the world in general, he was accused 

 of sorcery. When he was not treated like a disobedient 

 school-boy, he was dealt with as a suspected heretic. 2 



At length there came a pope Clement IV. whose lean- 

 ing toward scientific inquiry caused a desire to know what 

 Bacon could teach him; so he ordered the monk to disobey 

 his superiors, hastily and secretly, and to write out his 

 treatises and send them to Rome. Bacon had already 

 exhausted his pecuniary resources, for he had expended 

 some 2000 livres on his experiments; and how was he, a 

 mendicant friar and penniless, to find the sum necessary 



1 Lib. de Proprietatibus. 



2 Lewes: Hist, of Philosophy. London, 1867, ii. 77. 



