Roger Bacon
English philosopher and scientist
byname Doctor Mirabilis (Latin: “Wonderful Teacher”)
born c. 1220, Ilchester, Somerset, or Bisley, Gloucester?,
Eng.
died 1292, Oxford?
Main
English Franciscan philosopher and educational reformer who
was a major medieval proponent of experimental science.
Bacon studied mathematics, astronomy, optics, alchemy, and
languages. He was the first European to describe in detail
the process of making gunpowder, and he proposed flying
machines and motorized ships and carriages. Bacon (as he
himself complacently remarked) displayed a prodigious energy
and zeal in the pursuit of experimental science; indeed, his
studies were talked about everywhere and eventually won him
a place in popular literature as a kind of wonder worker.
Bacon therefore represents a historically precocious
expression of the empirical spirit of experimental science,
even though his actual practice of it seems to have been
exaggerated.
Early life
Bacon was born into a wealthy family; he was well-versed in
the classics and enjoyed the advantages of an early training
in geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Inasmuch as
he later lectured at Paris, it is probable that his master
of arts degree was conferred there, presumably not before
1241—a date in keeping with his claim that he saw the
Franciscan professor Alexander of Hales (who died in 1245)
with his own eyes and that he heard the master scholar
William of Auvergne (d. 1249) dispute twice in the presence
of the whole university.
University and scientific career.
In the earlier part of his career, Bacon lectured in the
faculty of arts on Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian
treatises, displaying no indication of his later
preoccupation with science. His Paris lectures, important in
enabling scholars to form some idea of the work done by one
who was a pioneer in introducing the works of Aristotle into
western Europe, reveal an Aristotelianism strongly marked by
Neoplatonist elements stemming from many different sources.
The influence of Avicenna on Bacon has been exaggerated.
About 1247 a considerable change took place in Bacon’s
intellectual development. From that date forward he expended
much time and energy and huge sums of money in experimental
research, in acquiring “secret” books, in the construction
of instruments and of tables, in the training of assistants,
and in seeking the friendship of savants—activities that
marked a definite departure from the usual routine of the
faculty of arts. The change was probably caused by his
return to Oxford and the influence there of the great
scholar Robert Grosseteste, a leader in introducing Greek
learning to the West, and his student Adam de Marisco, as
well as that of Thomas Wallensis, the bishop of St. David’s.
From 1247 to 1257 Bacon devoted himself wholeheartedly to
the cultivation of those new branches of learning to which
he was introduced at Oxford—languages, optics, and
alchemy—and to further studies in astronomy and mathematics.
It is true that Bacon was more skeptical of hearsay claims
than were his contemporaries, that he suspected rational
deductions (holding to the superior dependability of
confirming experiences), and that he extolled
experimentation so ardently that he has often been viewed as
a harbinger of modern science more than 300 years before it
came to bloom. Yet research on Bacon suggests that his
characterization as an experimenter may be overwrought. His
originality lay not so much in any positive contribution to
the sum of knowledge as in his insistence on fruitful lines
of research and methods of experimental study. As for actual
experiments performed, he deferred to a certain Master Peter
de Maricourt (Maharn-Curia), a Picard, who alone, he wrote,
understood the method of experiment and whom he called
dominus experimentorum (“master of experiments”). Bacon, to
be sure, did have a sort of laboratory for alchemical
experiments and carried out some systematic observations
with lenses and mirrors. His studies on the nature of light
and on the rainbow are especially noteworthy, and he seems
to have planned and interpreted these experiments carefully.
But his most notable “experiments” seem never to have been
actually performed; they were merely described. He
suggested, for example, that a balloon of thin copper sheet
be made and filled with “liquid fire”; he felt that it would
float in the air as many light objects do in water. He
seriously studied the problem of flying in a machine with
flapping wings. He was the first person in the West to give
exact directions for making gunpowder (1242); and, though he
knew that, if confined, it would have great power and might
be useful in war, he failed to speculate further. (Its use
in guns arose early in the following century.) Bacon
described spectacles (which also soon came into use);
elucidated the principles of reflection, refraction, and
spherical aberration; and proposed mechanically propelled
ships and carriages. He used a camera obscura (which
projects an image through a pinhole) to observe eclipses of
the Sun.
Career as a friar.
In 1257 another marked change took place in Bacon’s life.
Because of ill health and his entry into the Order of Friars
Minor, Bacon felt (as he wrote) forgotten by everyone and
all but buried. His university and literary careers seemed
finished. His feverish activity, his amazing credulity, his
superstition, and his vocal contempt for those not sharing
his interests displeased his superiors in the order and
brought him under severe discipline. He decided to appeal to
Pope Clement IV, whom he may have known when the latter was
(before his election to the papacy) in the service of the
Capetian kings of France. In a letter (1266) the pope
referred to letters received from Bacon, who had come
forward with certain proposals covering the natural world,
mathematics, languages, perspective, and astrology. Bacon
had argued that a more accurate experimental knowledge of
nature would be of great value in confirming the Christian
faith, and he felt that his proposals would be of great
importance for the welfare of the church and of the
universities. The pope desired to become more fully informed
of these projects and commanded Bacon to send him the work.
But Bacon had had in mind a vast encyclopaedia of all the
known sciences, requiring many collaborators, the
organization and administration of which would be
coordinated by a papal institute. The work, then, was merely
projected when the pope thought that it already existed. In
obedience to the pope’s command, however, Bacon set to work
and in a remarkably short time had dispatched the Opus majus
(“Great Work”), the Opus minus (“Lesser Work”), and the Opus
tertium (“Third Work”). He had to do this secretly and
notwithstanding any command of his superiors to the
contrary; and even when the irregularity of his conduct
attracted their attention and the terrible weapons of
spiritual coercion were brought to bear upon him, he was
deterred from explaining his position by the papal command
of secrecy. Under the circumstances, his achievement was
truly astounding. He reminded the pope that, like the
leaders of the schools with their commentaries and scholarly
summaries, he could have covered quires of vellum with
“puerilities” and vain speculations. Instead, he aspired to
penetrate realms undreamed of in the schools at Paris and to
lay bare the secrets of nature by positive study. The Opus
majus was an effort to persuade the pope of the urgent
necessity and manifold utility of the reforms that he
proposed. But the death of Clement in 1268 extinguished
Bacon’s dreams of gaining for the sciences their rightful
place in the curriculum of university studies.
Bacon projected yet another encyclopaedia, of which only
fragments were ever published, namely, the Communia
naturalium (“General Principles of Natural Philosophy”) and
the Communia mathematica (“General Principles of
Mathematical Science”), written about 1268. In 1272 there
appeared the Compendium philosophiae (“Compendium of
Philosophy”). In philosophy—and even Bacon’s so-called
scientific works contain lengthy philosophical
digressions—he was the disciple of Aristotle; even though he
did incorporate Neoplatonist elements into his philosophy,
his thought remains essentially Aristotelian in its main
lines.
Sometime between 1277 and 1279, Bacon was condemned to
prison by his fellow Franciscans because of certain
“suspected novelties” in his teaching. The condemnation was
probably issued because of his bitter attacks on the
theologians and scholars of his day, his excessive credulity
in alchemy and astrology, and his penchant for
millenarianism under the influence of the prophecies of
Abbot Joachim of Fiore, a mystical philosopher of history.
How long he was imprisoned is unknown. His last work (1292),
incomplete as so many others, shows him as aggressive as
ever.
The Rev. Theodore Crowley, O.F.M.
