88 MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES. 



urging so many minds to the study of nature, and to the experimental 

 method without which the mysteries of nature remain unfathomable. Whilst 

 St. Thomas Aquinas was devoting to Christian theology all the resources of 

 his dialectics and all the glow of his piety, Eoger Bacon applied himself to 

 natural philosophy and mathematics, paying special attention to the study of 

 languages, which he looked upon as closely connected with the progress of 

 the natural sciences (Fig. 61). 



But a too exclusive devotion to these his favourite studies eventually led 

 Roger Bacon astray, and he came to look with contempt upon all methods 

 except his own. Upon repairing to Paris after his residence at Oxford, he 

 unhesitatingly attacked the system of teaching in the Universities, accusing 

 the masters and professors either of ignorance or bad faith ; and, though 

 himself belonging to the Order of St. Francis, he declared war upon the 

 Franciscans and Dominicans in France, whom he did not consider equal to 

 the learned friends he had left behind him in England, such as Robert of 

 Lincoln, William of Sherwood, John of London, and, above all, the person 

 whom he spoke of as Master Nicholas. " Experience is worth more than 

 Aristotle," he said ; " all the metaphysics of the school are not to be compared 

 with a little grammar and mathematics ; Alexander of Hales and Albert are 

 presumptuous schoolmen who exercise a fatal influence ; let us beware of 

 becoming subject to it, and let us complete for ourselves our education, which 

 is scarcely as yet begun." 



From this time he applied himself to the study of four ancient languages, 

 higher mathematics, astronomy, optics, and Platonist philosophy. He was 

 assisted in his studies by a man of incomparable genius, a French savant 

 belonging to Picardy, whom he always speaks of as Magister Petrus or 

 MfKjistcr Peregrinus, and who would be absolutely unknown if his illustrious 

 pupil had not handed his name down, in his " Opus Tertium " and his " Opus 

 Minus," to the admiration of posterity. Magister Petrus led a solitary life, 

 avoiding the society of his fellow-men, whom he looked upon as mad, or as 

 sophists incapable of enduring the light of truth ; he endeavoured to pene- 

 trate the secrets of nature ; he observed the stars, and sought out the causes of 

 the celestial phenomena ; he imposed upon science the task of multiplying the 

 metamorphoses of matter ; he invented arms and instruments of war ; he 

 gave a practical and useful application to alchemy ; lie paid attention at the 

 same time to agronomy, surveying, and architecture, and he sought to 



