OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 61i 



^uesti, che m'e a destra piu vicino, 

 Frate e maestro fummi; ed esso Alberto 

 E' di Cologna, ed io Thomas d' Aquino. 



II Paradiso, x. 97-99. 



In all that has directly operated on the extension of the 

 natural sciences, and on their establishment on a mathematical 

 basis, and by the calling forth of phenomena by the process 

 of experiment, Roger Bacon, the contemporary of Albertus 

 of Bollstadt, may be regarded as the most important and 

 influential man of the middle ages. These two men occupy 

 almost the whole of the thirteenth century; but to Roger 

 Bacon belongs the merit that the influence which he exercised 

 on the form of the mode of treating the study of nature, lias 

 been more beneficial and lasting than the various discoveries 

 which, with more or less justice, have been ascribed to him. 

 Stimulating the mind to independence of thought, he severely 

 condemned the blind faith attached to the authority of the 

 schools, yet, far from neglecting the investigations of the 

 ancient Greeks, he directed his attention simultaneously to 

 philological researches,* and the application of mathematics 

 and of the Sclentia experimentalis, to which last he devoted a 

 special section of the Opus ifnajus.\ Protected and favoured 

 by one Pope (Clement IV.), and accused of magic and im- 

 prisoned by two others (Nicholas III. and IV.), he experienced 

 the changes of fortune common to great minds in all ages. 

 He was acquainted with the Optics of Ptolemy,^ and with 



* So many passages of the Opus majus show the respect which Roger 

 Bacon entertained for Grecian antiquity, that, as Jourdain has already 

 remarked (p. 429), we can only interpret the wish expressed by him in 

 a letter to Pope Clement IV., " to burn the works of Aristotle, in order 

 to stop the diffusion of error among the scholars," as referring to the bad 

 Latin translations from the Arabic. 



t Scientia experimentalis a vulgo studentium penitus ignorata; duo 

 tamen sunt modi cognoscendi, scilicet per argumentum et experien- 

 tiam (the ideal path, and the path of experiment). Sine experientia 

 nihil sumcienter sciri potest. Argumentum concludit, sed non certificat, 

 neque removet duditationem ; et quiescat animus in intuita veritatis, 

 nisi earn inveniat via experientiee." (Opus majus, pars. vi. cap. 1.) I 

 have collected all the passages relating to Roger Bacon's physical know 

 ledge, and to his proposals for various inventions, in the Examen crit. 

 de I'Hist. de la Geoyr., t. ii. pp. 295-299. Compare also Whewell, 

 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. pp. 323-337. 



J See vol. ii. p. 562. I find Ptolemy's Optics cited in the Opus 



