an appearance of knowledge, nor so great an
application to so many sciences in so many
countries as there had been for forty years past,
yet there never was so great ignorance, and
such a variety of errors as then." At this time
Aristotle, known only by bad Latin translations,
was the idol before which all the learning and
science of the day was made to bow, and
illustrations of his writings were almost the only
literary works undertaken.

Bacon was strongly impressed with the sense
that this study of words without objects was
but "loss of time and occasion of error—a mere
multiplying of ignorance, amusing students and
the ignorant with the shadow of knowledge
without any substance." On his return to
Oxford, having already attained a very high
reputation as one of the ablest and most
indefatigable inquirers after knowledge that the
world had produced, and satisfied that the only
way to improve and advance science was by
actual experiment, he set about various trials,
constructed different instruments, and
investigated phenomena with great earnestness.
Within the compass of twenty years he spent
upwards of two thousand pounds in experiments
for the improvement of useful
knowledge—a sum of money then regarded as so
enormous, as of itself to justify the belief that
recourse had been had to unlawful arts and
magic both to raise and employ that amount.
Under colour of this suspicion, Bacon was
prevented from reading lectures to the young
students in the University, and was ultimately
subjected to close confinement, in which he
was almost starved. It appears, however, that
he had attracted this attention, and was
regarded as a dangerous character by his
ecclesiastical superiors, quite as much for his freedom
in accusing the clergy of ignorance and
immorality, as from his costly scientific labours and
their ill-understood results.

In the year 1266, when Friar Bacon was in
the flower of his age, appeared that Great
Work, on which his chief reputation rests.
It is in some respects a complete system
of science, based on principles of free inquiry
and useful experiment. It appears to have
been originally composed at the request of
Pope Clement IV. before he ascended the papal
chair; but was kept back, owing to persecution,
till the friend and patron of the author was able
to support him.

The fifth and sixth parts of this remarkable
work form the germ and nucleus of all modern
experimental philosophy. In them we find it
stated that there are two methods of obtaining
knowledge—one by argument or reason, and
the other by trial or experiment. "Experimental
philosophy," he adds, has three great
prerogatives, beyond all other sciences: it
examines their conclusions by experience, it
discovers truths which could not be found
out otherwise, and it enables us by
independent means to arrive at the secret
processes of nature." Each of these remarks is
illustrated in the Great Work by a variety of
examples. Chemistry, optics, and astronomy
are shown to be all of them sciences in which
great results can be obtained only by experiment,
and Bacon even goes so far as to suggest
that many marvellous appearances that had often
been found to excite astonishment, and had been
regarded as true miracles, had for their main
object to cover and conceal the wonderful
effects of natural causes from the knowledge of
the vulgar. Much greater and more extraordinary
things, says Roger Bacon, have been
performed by the power of wisdom than by
the force of arms, and "many dangers and
the effusion of much blood may be prevented
if prelates and princes would promote study and
the searching out the secrets of nature and art."

Although persecuted by his contemporaries,
Friar Bacon maintained great equability of mind,
and not only revised and augmented what he
had formerly written, but prepared a new treatise,
On the Means of avoiding the Infirmities of Old
Age; and we are told that "the hope of having
justice done him after death enabled him to bear
the miseries of life, while his confidence of future
fame lessened the sense of present calumnies."
His last work, prepared after liberation from
confinement, was A Compendium of Theology,
and he died at a very advanced age, within a few
years after the close of the thirteenth century.

Magic was the agency by which Bacon—the
Doctor Mirabilis, or "Wonderful Doctor," of
his contemporaries—was said to work. The
magic of that experimental science which he
advocated, has since produced almost all the
results which he could only suggest as possible.
Thus he states that "a vessel may be so
constructed, and oars therein so disposed, as to
make more way with one man in her than
another vessel fully manned." Who cannot
recognise the steamer of our own day in this
vessel? "It is possible," he says again, "to
make a chariot which, without any assistance of
animals, shall move with irresistible force." The
steam-locomotive is clearly this carriage. Here
again is an account of the balloon, with some
modifications not yet perfected. "An instrument
for flying, so that a man sitting in the
middle thereof, and steering with a kind of
rudder, may manage what is contrived to answer
the end of wings, so as to divide and pass through
the air." Perhaps, also, it would be difficult in
a few words to give a more accurate description
than the following of Bramah's hydrostatic press,
now largely used for important engineering
works. Bacon foretels it as "a machine of very
small size, capable of raising and sinking the
greatest weights."

ln optics, Bacon distinctly describes the
camera obscura, and the use of ordinary
magnifying glasses for various purposes. It is even
possible that he preceded Galileo in the
discovery of the telescope. He found out the use
of gunpowder, and other chemical compositions
of importance, and he was particularly well
informed in the geography and astronomy of his
day. On the whole, there cannot be a question
that, as Bacon advocated, so did he conscientiously