ecessity of correct texts, of an accurate knowledge of
languages, of an exact interpretation, are hardly less remarkable than his
scientific investigations. From grammar he passes to mathematics, from
mathematics to experimental philosophy. Under the name of mathematics
indeed was included all the physical science of the time. "The neglect of
it for nearly thirty or forty years," pleads Bacon passionately, "hath
nearly destroyed the entire studies of Latin Christendom. For he who knows
not mathematics cannot know any other sciences; and what is more, he cannot
discover his own ignorance or find its proper remedies." Geography,
chronology, arithmetic, music, are brought into something of scientific
form, and like rapid sketches are given of the question of climate,
hydrography, geography, and astrology. The subject of optics, his own
especial study, is treated with greater fulness; he enters into the
question of the anatomy of the eye besides discussing problems which lie
more strictly within the province of optical science. In a word, the
"Greater Work," to borrow the phrase of Dr. Whewell, is "at once the
Encyclopedia and the Novum Organum of the thirteenth century." The whole of
the after-works of Roger Bacon--and treatise after treatise has of late
been disentombed from our libraries--are but developements in detail of the
magnificent conception he laid before Clement. Such a work was its own
great reward.

From the world around Roger Bacon could look for and found small
recognition. No word of acknowledgement seems to have reached its author
from the Pope. If we may credit a more recent story, his writings only
gained him a prison from his order. "Unheard, forgotten, buried," the old
man died as he had lived, and it has been reserved for later ages to roll
away the obscurity that had gathered round his memory, and to place first
in the great roll of modern science the name of Roger Bacon.

[Sidenote: Scholasticism]

The failure of Bacon shows the overpowering strength of the drift towards
the practical studies, and above all towards theology in its scholastic
guise. Aristotle, who had been so long held at bay as the most dangerous
foe of mediaeval faith, was now turned by the adoption of his logical
method in the discussion and definition of theological dogma into its
unexpected ally. It was this very method that led to "that unprofitable
subtlety and curiosity" which Lord Bacon notes as the vice of the
scholast