inae operationis," might be taken as the
motto for his whole system of natural science. In speaking of the value
of words, he says,--"Sed considerare debemus quod verba habent maximam
potestatem, et omnia miracula facta a principio mundi fere facta sunt
per verba. Et opus animae rationalis praecipuum est verbum, et in quo
maxime delectatur." In the "Opus Tertium," at the point where he begins
to give an abstract of his "Opus Majus," he uses words which remind one
of the famous "Franciscus de Verulamio sic cogitavit." He
says,--"Cogitavi quod intellectus humanus habet magnam debilitationem ex
se.... Et ideo volui excludere errorum corde hominis impossible est
ipsum videre veritatem." This is strikingly similar to Lord Bacon's
"errores qui invaluerunt, quique in aeternum invalituri sunt, alii post
alios, si mens sibi permittatur." Such citations of passages remarkable
for thought or for expression might be indefinitely extended, but we
have space for only one more, in which the Friar attacks the vices of
the Roman court with an energy that brings to mind the invectives of the
greatest of his contemporaries. "Curia Romana, quae solebat et debet
regi sapientia Dei, nunc depravatur.... Laceratur enim illa sedes sacra
fraudibus et dolis injustorum. Pent justitia; pax omnis violatur;
infinita scandala suscitantur. Mores enim sequuntur ibidem
perversissimi; regnat superbia, ardet avaritia, invidia corrodit
singulos, luxuria diffamat totam illam curiam, gula in omnibus
dominatur." It was not the charge of magic alone that brought Roger
Bacon's works into discredit with the Church, and caused a nail to be
driven through their covers to keep the dangerous pages closed
tightly within.

There is no reason to doubt that Bacon's investigations led him to
discoveries of essential value, but which for the most part died with
him. His active and piercing intellect, which employed itself on the
most difficult subjects, which led him to the formation of a theory of
tides, and brought him to see the need and with prophetic anticipation
to point out the means of a reformation of the calendar, enabled him to
discover many of what were then called the Secrets of Nature. The
popular belief that he was the inventor of gunpowder had its origin in
two passages in his treatise "On the Secret Works of Art and Nature, and
on the Nullity of Magic,"[37] in one of which he describes some of its
qualities, while in the other he apparently conceals its co