mposition
under an enigma.[38] He had made experiments with Greek fire and the
magnet; he had constructed burning-glasses, and lenses of various power;
and had practised with multiplying-mirrors, and with mirrors that
magnified and diminished. It was no wonder that a man who knew and
employed such wonderful things, who was known, too, to have sought for
artificial gold, should gain the reputation of a wizard, and that his
books should be looked upon with suspicion. As he himself says,--"Many
books are esteemed magic, which are not so, but contain the dignity of
knowledge." And he adds,--"For, as it is unworthy and unlawful for a
wise man to deal with magic, so it is superfluous and unnecessary."[39]

There is a passage in this treatise "On the Nullity of Magic" of
remarkable character, as exhibiting the achievements, or, if not the
actual achievements, the things esteemed possible by the inventors of
the thirteenth century. There is in it a seeming mixture of fancy and of
fact, of childish credulity with more than mere haphazard prophecy of
mechanical and physical results which have been so lately reached in the
progress of science as to be among new things even six centuries after
Bacon's death. Its positiveness of statement is puzzling, when tested by
what is known from other sources of the nature of the discoveries and
inventions of that early time; and were there reason to question Bacon's
truth, it would seem as if he had mistaken his dreams for facts. As it
stands, it is one of the most curious existing illustrations of the
state of physical science in the Middle Ages. It runs as follows:--"I
will now, in the first place, speak of some of the wonderful works of
Art and Nature, that I may afterwards assign the causes and methods of
them, in which there is nothing magical, so that it may be seen how
inferior and worthless all magic power is, in comparison with these
works. And first, according to the fashion and rule of Art alone. Thus,
machines can be made for navigation without men to row them; so that
ships of the largest size, whether on rivers or the sea, can be carried
forward, under the guidance of a single man, at greater speed than if
they were full of men [rowers]. In like manner, a car can be made which
will move, without the aid of any animal, with incalculable impetus;
such as we suppose the scythed chariots to have been which were
anciently used in battle. Also, machines for flying can be made, so that