in what may he called,
without a sneer, the childishnesses of his time, childishnesses often
combined with mature powers and profound thought. No age is fully
conscious of its own intellectual disproportions; and what now seem mere
puerilities in the works of the thinkers of the Middle Ages were perhaps
frequently the result of as laborious effort and as patient study as
what we still prize in them for its manly vigor and permanent worth. In
a later age, the Centuries of the "Sylva Sylvarum" afford a curious
comment on the Aphorisms of the "Novum Organum."

The "Opus Majus" of Bacon was undertaken in answer to a demand of Pope
Clement IV. in 1266, and was intended to contain a review of the whole
range of science, as then understood, with the exception of logic.
Clement had apparently become personally acquainted with Bacon, at the
time when, as legate of the preceding Pope, he had been sent to England
on an ineffectual mission to compose the differences between Henry III.
and his barons, and he appears to have formed a just opinion of the
genius and learning of the philosopher.

The task to which Bacon had been set by the Papal mandate was rapidly
accomplished, in spite of difficulties which might have overcome a less
resolute spirit; but the work extended to such great length in his
hands, that he seems to have felt a not unnatural fear that Clement,
burdened with the innumerable cares of the Pontificate, would not find
leisure for its perusal, much less for the study which some part of it
demanded. With this fear, fearful also that portions of his work might
be deficient in clearness, and dreading lest it might be lost on its way
to Rome, he proceeded to compose a second treatise, called the "Opus
Minus," to serve as an abstract and specimen of his greater work, and to
embrace some additions to its matter. Unfortunately, but a fragment of
this second work has been preserved, and this fragment is for the first
time published in the volume just issued under the direction of the
Master of the Rolls. But the "Opus Minus" was scarcely completed before
he undertook a third work, to serve as an introduction and preamble to
both the preceding. This has been handed down to us complete, and this,
too, is for the first time printed in the volume before us. We take the
account of it given by Professor Brewer, the editor, in his
introduction.

"Inferior to its predecessors in the importance
of its scientific details