ar as it was given
representation, its chief field must have been Ptolemaic astronomy. The
utter lack of scientific thought and scientific method is illustrated
most vividly in the works of the greatest men of that period--such men
as Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, and the hosts of other
scholastics of lesser rank. Yet the mental awakening implied in their
efforts was sure to extend to other fields, and in point of fact there
was at least one contemporary of these great scholastics whose mind
was intended towards scientific subjects, and who produced writings
strangely at variance in tone and in content with the others. This
anachronistic thinker was the English monk, Roger Bacon.

ROGER BACON

Bacon was born in 1214 and died in 1292. By some it is held that he was
not appreciated in his own time because he was really a modern scientist
living in an age two centuries before modern science or methods of
modern scientific thinking were known. Such an estimate, however, is a
manifest exaggeration of the facts, although there is probably a grain
of truth in it withal. His learning certainly brought him into contact
with the great thinkers of the time, and his writings caused him to
be imprisoned by his fellow-churchmen at different times, from which
circumstances we may gather that he was advanced thinker, even if not a
modern scientist.

Although Bacon was at various times in durance, or under surveillance,
and forbidden to write, he was nevertheless a marvellously prolific
writer, as is shown by the numerous books and unpublished manuscripts of
his still extant. His master-production was the Opus Majus. In Part IV.
of this work he attempts to show that all sciences rest ultimately on
mathematics; but Part V., which treats of perspective, is of particular
interest to modern scientists, because in this he discusses reflection
and refraction, and the properties of mirrors and lenses. In this part,
also, it is evident that he is making use of such Arabian writers as
Alkindi and Alhazen, and this is of especial interest, since it has been
used by his detractors, who accuse him of lack of originality, to prove
that his seeming inventions and discoveries were in reality adaptations
of the Arab scientists. It is difficult to determine just how fully such
criticisms are justified. It is certain, however, that in this part
he describes the anatomy of the eye with great accuracy, and discusses
mirrors and lenses.