Bacon advocated the
experimental method, Roger Bacon practised it, and the results as now
revealed are wonderful. He wrought with power in many sciences, and his
knowledge was sound and exact. By him, more than by any other man of
the Middle Ages, was the world brought into the more fruitful paths
of scientific thought--the paths which have led to the most precious
inventions; and among these are clocks, lenses, and burning specula,
which were given by him to the world, directly or indirectly. In his
writings are found formulae for extracting phosphorus, manganese, and
bismuth. It is even claimed, with much appearance of justice, that
he investigated the power of steam, and he seems to have very nearly
reached some of the principal doctrines of modern chemistry. But it
should be borne in mind that his METHOD of investigation was even
greater than its RESULTS. In an age when theological subtilizing
was alone thought to give the title of scholar, he insisted on REAL
reasoning and the aid of natural science by mathematics; in an age when
experimenting was sure to cost a man his reputation, and was likely
to cost him his life, he insisted on experimenting, and braved all
its risks. Few greater men have lived. As we follow Bacon's process of
reasoning regarding the refraction of light, we see that he was divinely
inspired.

On this man came the brunt of the battle. The most conscientious men
of his time thought it their duty to fight him, and they fought him
steadily and bitterly. His sin was not disbelief in Christianity, not
want of fidelity to the Church, not even dissent from the main lines of
orthodoxy; on the contrary, he showed in all his writings a desire
to strengthen Christianity, to build up the Church, and to develop
orthodoxy. He was attacked and condemned mainly because he did not
believe that philosophy had become complete, and that nothing more was
to be learned; he was condemned, as his opponents expressly declared,
"on account of certain suspicious novelties"--"propter quasdam novitates
suspectas."

Upon his return to Oxford, about 1250, the forces of unreason beset him
on all sides. Greatest of all his enemies was Bonaventura. This enemy
was the theologic idol of the period: the learned world knew him as the
"seraphic Doctor"; Dante gave him an honoured place in the great poem
of the Middle Ages; the Church finally enrolled him among the saints. By
force of great ability in theology he had become, in th