Roger Bacon : essays contributed by various writers on the occasion of the commemoration of the seventh centenary of his birth / collected and edited by A.G. Little.
- Date:
- 1914
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Roger Bacon : essays contributed by various writers on the occasion of the commemoration of the seventh centenary of his birth / collected and edited by A.G. Little. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![thinker. The mere enunciation of such a thought is sufficient to secure for Bacon a high place among those who have written on scientific method. It by no means detracts from his merit to say, as Prantl says, that Grossetête was an able mathematician ; for Grossetête, so far as we know, made no such application of his mathematical knowledge. How- ever imperfectly Bacon realized his great conception, and it must be remembered how weak the instrument then was, and how little was prepared for its application, he at all events threw out a fruitful thought, of which modern physical science is but the exemplification. * So highly does Bacon estimate mathematics that he makes logic entirely subordinate to it. This attempt to show that logic deals essentially with quantities, and is therefore mathematical in character, is both bold and subtle.1 He will not allow that logical is synonymous with demonstrative. Mathematics alone can give absolute certainty (in sola mathematica est certitudo sine dubitatione) ; demonstration is in essence mathematical. To logic, indeed, Bacon is rather unjust. He advances against it arguments similar to those afterwards employed by Locke. Logic, he says in effect, is innate ; we reason perfectly well with- out it. ‘ The Fifth part of the Opus Majus treats at great length of Perspective or optics. One can readily understand how this should be for Bacon the very type of physical science. It was exactly conformed to mathematical law ; in fact, one may say that his grand idea of all physical science as mathematical in nature was simply an inference from what was so palpable in optics. It is not necessary to enter into the details of the treatise, which begins with the psychology of perception, then takes up the anatomy and physiology of the eye, and finally discusses at great length vision in a right line, the laws of reflection and refraction, the construction and properties of mirrors, lenses, and burning- glasses. There is not much advance beyond Alhazen.2 Part VI. Of all the parts of the Opus Majus, the sixth is the most important. It treats of experimental science, domina omnium scientiarum et finis totius speculationis. Without experience, as Bacon constantly repeats, nothing can be known with certainty. Even the conclusions of 1 * Op. Majus, 60 ’ [ed. Bridges, i. 102]. 2 [On this cf. the remarks of Bridges, Introduction, pp. lxxii-lxxiii, and the articles of Wiedemann, Vogl, and Wiirschmidt in this volume.] 1689 c](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28993949_0029.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
