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In the thirteenth century then the conflict with 

 the provisional synthesis of the Faith had become 

 imminent and menacing. The faith, the chivalry 

 and the learning of the Saracens led men to feel 

 that without the Church all might not be utter 

 darkness. Albert owed as much to Avicenna 



order there were three well-marked parties ; namely, of the 

 naturalists, as Bacon ; of the mystics, as Bonaventura ; and of 

 the sophists, as John Duns the Northumbrian. Now Bacon's 

 troubles did not begin till the succession to the Generalship of 

 the Order of the seraphic Bonaventura, an argumentative mystic 

 (like Duns, and unlike the ecstatic mystics of St Victor), who, 

 rejecting Aristotle, had steeped himself in the neo-platonism of 

 Augustine and " Dionysius the Areopagite " ; and Bonaventura 

 and his party it was who stopped Bacon's mouth at Oxford, and 

 shut him up in Paris. What the life of Bacon and the direction 

 of medieval thought might have been had Grosseteste been 

 able to spare Adam Marsh from Oxford for the Generalship it 

 were perhaps too curious to consider ; yet we may profitably 

 remember that Bacon, brushing aside Porphyry and his ques- 

 tions, and denouncing the " vain physics " of Paris, urged that 

 enquiry should begin with the simplest objects of research, 

 and rise gradually to the higher and higher ; every observa- 

 tion being controlled by experiment. He says indeed that by 

 experiment only can we distinguish a sophism from a demon- 

 stration. (Op. Tert. xix.) Earnestly he tried to follow this 

 method ; he seems to have spent on it substance of his own, 

 and, after this was exhausted, to have appeared for the first 

 time in history as a petitioner for " scientific grants in aid." 

 Diderot speaks of Bacon as "Un des genies les plus surpre- 

 nants que la nature ait produits, et un des hommes les plus 

 malheureux " ; he lived in vain, died unhonoured, and left no 

 disciple. 



