Bacon's fame in popular estimation has always rested on his mechanical discoveries. Careful research has shown that very little can with accuracy be ascribed to him. He certainly describes a method of constructing a telescope, but not so as to lead one to conclude that he was in possession of that instrument. Burning-glasses were in common use, and spectacles it does not appear he made, although he was probably acquainted with the principle of their construction. His wonderful predictions (in the De Secretis) must be taken cum grano salis; he believed in astrology, in the doctrine of signatures, and in the philosopher's stone, and knew that the circle had been squared. For his work in connexion with gunpowder, the invention of which has been claimed for him on the ground of a passage in his De mirabili potestate antis et naturae, see Gunpowder.
Summary
The 13th century, an age peculiarly rich in great men, produced few, if any, who can take higher rank than Roger Bacon. He is in every way worthy to be placed beside Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas. These had an infinitely wider renown in their day, but modern criticism has restored the balance in his favour, and is even in danger of erring in the opposite direction. Bacon, it is now said, was not appreciated by his age because he was in advance of it; he is no schoolman, but a modern thinker, whose conceptions of science are more just and clear than are even those of his more celebrated namesake. In this view there is certainly some truth, but it is much exaggerated. As a general rule, no man can be completely dissevered from his national antecedents and surroundings, and Bacon is not an exception. Those who take up such an extreme position regarding his merits have known too little of the state of contemporary science, and have limited their comparison to the works of the scholastic theologians. We never find in Bacon himself any consciousness of originality; he is rather a keen and systematic thinker, working in a wellbeaten track, from which his contemporaries were being drawn by theology and metaphysics.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. - The best work on Roger Bacon is perhaps that of E.
Charles, Roger Bacon, sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines d'apres des
textes inedits (1861). Against the somewhat enthusiastic estimate
and modern interpretation given in this work, are Schneider in his
Roger Bacon, Eine Monographie (Augsburg, 1873); K. Werner, Die
Psychol . . . . des Roger Bacon and Die Kosmologie . . . des
Roger Bacon (Vienna, 1879); S. A. Hirsch, Early English
Hebraists (1899) Book of Essays (London, 1905), deals with
Bacon as a Hebraist. The new matter contained in the publications of
Charles and Brewer was summarized by H. Siebert, Roger Bacon:
Inaugural Dissertation (Marburg, 1861). Cf. also J. K. Ingram, On
the Opus Majus of Bacon (Dublin, 1858); Cousin, " Fragments phil. du
moyen age " (reprinted from Journal des savans, 1848); E.
Saisset, " Precurseurs et disciples de Descartes," pp. 1 -58 (reprinted
from Revue de deux mondes, 1861); K. Prantl, Gesch. der Logik,
iii. 120-129 (a severe criticism of Bacon's logical doctrines);
Held, Roger Bacon's praktische Philosophie (Jena, 1881); Karl
Pohl, Das Verheiltniss d. Philos. zur Theol. bei Roger Bacon
(Neustrelitz, 1893); articles in Westminster Review, lxxxi. I and
512; A. Parrot, Roger Bacon et ses contemporains (1894); E.
Fluegel, Roger Bacons Stellung in d. Gesch. d. Philos. (1902); S.
Vogl, Die Physik Roger Bacos (1906). For the popular legend see
Famous Histcrie of Fryer Bacon (London, 1615; reproduced in
Thoms, Early Prose Romances, iii.); R. Greene's Friar Bacon
and Friar Bungay (1587 or 1588), and in publication of the Percy
Society, vol. xv. 1844, A Piece of Friar Bacon's Brazen Heade's
Prophesie (1604). For Bacon as a. classical scholar see J. E.
Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. (2nd ed., 1906), cxxxi. (R. AD.;
X.)
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