Science of Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, writing about the year 1260, that is, six hundred years ago, says:—“I call that Experimental Science which neglects argumentation; for the strongest arguments prove nothing as long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science does not receive truth at the hands of superior sciences. It is itself mistress, and other sciences are its servants. It has, in truth, the right to command all sciences, since it alone certifies and sanctions their results. Experimental science is, therefore, the queen of sciences and the limit of all speculation.” The features in Bacon’s writings that have caused his name to be handed down as a founder of physical science are very obvious. He doubts wisely and has a profound reverence for facts. The theory of a vacuum has come to him on the highest authority, but its difficulties distress him. He speaks of experimental philosophy as more perfect than all the natural sciences; “for it teaches us to test by trial the noble conclusions of all the sciences, which, in the others, are either proved by logical arguments or are examined into on the imperfect evidence of nature; and this is its prerogative.”
“As a workman in the laboratory, and with lenses, he himself discovers the existence of explosive compounds, confirms the tradition of history as to the effect of burning glasses, and understands the principle of the camera. He points out the faultiness of Cæsar’s calendar. His views of the limits of medicine are excellent. ‘For, whereas a healthy rule of life depends upon what is eaten and drank, on the hours of sleep and waking, of exercise and rest, on climate and the temper of the mind, and that all these should be observed from childhood in the constitution they fit, scarcely any man cares to take thought of these things, nay, not even physicians, such at least as we have met with.’ Contrast this and his critical approval of the use of charms to delude credulous patients into health with the science ridiculed in the Malade Imaginaire, and the advantage will not be found on the side of the seventeenth century. But, even in physical science, Bacon’s splendid powers of generalization prevail over the habit of analysis, and he is rather a prophet than a teacher. He believes that the period of human life may be prolonged many years by a sound system of dietetics; and the averages of life in our own century confirm him. He believes that ‘engines of navigation may be made without oarsmen, so that the greatest river and sea-ships with only one man to steer them, may sail swifter than if they were fully manned. Moreover, chariots,’ he thinks, ‘may be made so as to be moved with incalculable force without any beast drawing them.’ ‘And such things might be made to infinity, as, for instance, bridges to traverse rivers without pillars or any buttress.’ He even knows a wise man who has determined to construct a flying machine; but Bacon’s tone on this subject is a little less confident. That he himself hoped for much that has since been proved impossible—for the art of increasing gold, and for the discovery of an elixir of life—cannot of course be questioned. Bacon summed up the science of his times, and the analogies which guided him in his estimate of the laws of motion could not teach him to anticipate by five hundred years the individuality of the elements, or to understand the texture of the human body. His error, after all, was chiefly that he believed in Thought as a conqueror, and expected to establish her kingdom on the ruins of the thrones of the visible world.”
—Saturday Review.