THE MEDIAEVAL MIND 95 



dependent on argument, since they do not bring 

 certainty, however strong the reasoning, unless 

 experiment be added to test their conclusions. This 

 method of experiment no one understands save Master 

 Peter alone ; he, indeed, is dominus experimenter um, 

 but cares not to publish his work, nor for the honours 

 and riches it would bring nor perhaps, one might 

 venture to surmise, for the risk of an ecclesiastical 

 prison it also might possibly entail. 



But, whatever be the truth about these phantom 

 figures which flit across Bacon's pages, it is clear that 

 Friar Roger himself was in spirit a true man of science, 

 born out of due time and chafing unconsciously against 

 the limitations of his own restricted outlook, no less 

 than against the external obstacles at which he rails 

 so openly and so often ; a true harbinger of the ages 

 of experiment, of whom Somerset, Oxford and England 

 may well be proud. 



Roger Bacon's criticism of the scholasticism of 



Aquinas, though effective from the modern point of 



The Decay of view, was out of harmony with the pre- 



Scholasticism. vailing spirit of the time, and consequently 



produced little effect. 



Much more damaging were the philosophic attacks 

 which began towards the close of the thirteenth 

 century. Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), who taught 

 at Oxford and Paris, enlarged the theological ground 

 which even Aquinas had reserved as beyond the 

 demonstration of reason. He based the leading 

 Christian doctrines on the arbitrary Will of God, and 

 took free will as the primary attribute of man, placing 

 it high above reason. Here is the beginning of the 



