h regard to its general scheme and to the special treatises with
which the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed object of
the work is to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of
philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a
greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge
which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which
were yet almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking by a
prospect of the best advantages which it offered. In the development
of this plan all the leading portions of science are expanded in the
most complete shape which they had at that time assumed; and
improvements of a very wide and striking kind are proposed in some of
the principal branches of study. Even if the work had no leading
purposes it would have {294} been highly valuable as a treasure of the
most solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it
had contained no such details, it would have been a work most
remarkable for its general views and scope."

The open and inquiring attitude of mind toward the truths of nature is
supposed usually to be utterly at variance with the intellectual
temper of the Middle Ages. We have heard so much about the submission
to authority and the cultivation of tradition on the part of medieval
scholars that we forget entirely how much they accomplished in adding
to human knowledge, and though they had their limitations of
conservatism, they were no more old fogies clinging to old-fashioned
ruts than are the older men of each successive generation down even to
our own time, in the minds of their younger colleagues. It might seem
to be difficult to substantiate such a declaration. It may appear to
be a paradox to talk thus. It is not hard to show good reasons for it,
and far from being a far-fetched attempt to bolster up an opinion more
favorable to the Middle Ages, it is really a very simple expression of
what the history of these generations shows that they actually tried
to accomplish. Roger Bacon must not be thought to be alone in this. On
the contrary, he was only a leader with many followers. Even before
his time, however, these ideas as to the necessity for observation had
been very forcibly expressed by many, and by no one more than Roger's
distinguished teacher, Albertus Magnus, whose name is now becoming
familiar to scholars as Albert the Great.

Albert's great pupil, Roger Bacon, is rightly l