Robert Adamson

“ In its last and highest form of activity the mind rests in the contemplation of the infinite goodness of God, which is apprehended by means of the highest faculty, the apex mentis or synderesis. This spark of the divine illumination is common to all forms of mysticism, but Bonaventura adds to it peculiarly Christian elements. The complete yielding up of mind and heart to God is unattainable without divine grace, and nothing renders us so fit to receive this gift as the meditative and ascetic life of the cloister. The monastic life is the best means of grace. ”

“ Bacon, it is now said, was not appreciated by his age because he was in advance of it; he is no schoolman, but a modern thinker, whose conceptions of science are more just and clear than are even those of his more celebrated namesake. ”

“ As a general rule, no man can be completely dissevered from his national antecedents and surroundings, and Bacon is not an exception. Those who take up such an extreme position regarding his merits have known too little of the state of contemporary science, and have limited their comparison to the works of the scholastic theologians. We never find in Bacon himself any consciousness of originality; he is rather a keen and systematic thinker, working in a well-beaten track, from which his contemporaries were being drawn by theology and metaphysics. ”

“ In the first case the three great properties of physical bodies—weight, number, measure,—in the second the division of created things into the classes of those that have merely physical existence, those that have life, and those that have thought, irresistibly lead us to conclude the power, wisdom and goodness of the Triune God. ”

“ The distinctive peculiarity of Beneke’s system consists, first, in the firmness with which he maintained that in empirical psychology is to be found the basis of all philosophy; and secondly, in his rigid treatment of mental phenomena by the genetic method. According to him, the perfected mind is a development from simple elements, and the first problem of philosophy is the determination of these elements and of the processes by which the development takes place. ”

“ In the last stage we have first intelligentia, pure intellect, contemplating the essential being of God, and finding itself compelled by necessity of thought to hold absolute being as the first notion, for non-being cannot be conceived apart from being, of which it is but the privation. ”

“ Experimental science, which in the Opus Tertium (p. 46) is distinguished from the speculative sciences and the operative arts in a way that forcibly reminds us of Francis Bacon, is said to have three great prerogatives over all other sciences:— (1) It verifies their conclusions by direct experiment; (2) It discovers truths which they could never reach; (3) It investigates the secrets of nature, and opens to us a knowledge of past and future. ”

“ All psychical phenomena are explicable by the relation of impression and power, and by the flow of movable elements; the whole process of mental development is nothing but the result of the action and interaction of the above simple laws. ”

“ Change, or any natural phenomenon, is produced by the impression of a virtus or species on matter—the result being the thing known. Physical action is, therefore, impression, or transmission of force in lines, and must accordingly be explained geometrically. This view of nature Bacon considered fundamental, and it lies, indeed, at the root of his whole philosophy. ”

“ In the summary of this part, contained in the Opus Tertium, Bacon shows very clearly his perception of the unity of science and the necessity of encyclopaedic treatment.
Part II. (pp. 23–43) treats of the relation between philosophy and theology. All true wisdom is contained in the Scriptures, at least implicitly; and the true end of philosophy is to rise from the imperfect knowledge of created things to a knowledge of the Creator. Ancient philosophers, who had not the Scriptures, received direct illumination from God, and only thus can the brilliant results attained by them be accounted for. ”

“ Any formed faculty does not cease to exist on the removal of its stimulus; in virtue of its fundamental property, tenacity, it sinks back as a trace (Spur) into unconsciousness, whence it may be recalled by the application to it of another stimulus, or by the attraction towards it of some of the movable elements or newly-formed original powers. These traces and the flowing over of the movable elements are the most important conceptions in Beneke’s psychology ”

“ The necessity of accurate acquaintance with any foreign language and of obtaining good texts, is a subject Bacon is never weary of descanting upon. A translator should know thoroughly the language he is translating from, the language into which he is translating, and the subject of which the book treats.
Part IV. (pp. 57-255) contains an elaborate treatise on mathematics, “the alphabet of philosophy,” maintaining that all the sciences rest ultimately on mathematics, and progress only when their facts can be subsumed under mathematical principles. ”

“ If the union of impression and faculty be sufficiently strong, consciousness (not self-consciousness) arises, and definite sensations and perceptions begin to be formed. These primitive sensations, however, are not to be identified with the sensations of the special senses, for each of these senses is a system of many powers which have grown into a definite unity, have been educated by experience. ”

“ The original hypotheses, peculiar to Beneke, on which the whole depends, are hastily assumed and rest on a clumsy mechanical metaphor. As is the case with all empirical theories of mental development, the higher categories or notions, which are apparently shown to result from the simple elements, are really presupposed at every step. Particularly unsatisfactory is the account of consciousness, which is said to arise from the union of impression and faculty. ”

“ Thus the sensations of the special senses are gradually formed from the primary sensuous feelings (sinnliche Empfindungen) ; concepts are formed from intuitions of individuals by the attraction of the common elements, and the consequent flow towards them of movable forms. Judgment is the springing into consciousness of a concept alongside of an intuition, or of a higher concept alongside of a lower. Reasoning is merely a more complex judgment. ”

“ At the same time, or immediately after, Bacon began a third work as a preamble to the other two, giving their general scope and aim, but supplementing them in many points. The part of this work, generally called Opus Tertium, is printed by Brewer (pp. 1-310) , who considers it to be a complete treatise. Charles, however, has given good grounds for supposing that it is merely a preface, and that the work went on to discuss grammar, logic (which Bacon thought of little service, as reasoning was innate) , mathematics, general physics, metaphysics and moral philosophy. ”

“ Starting from the two assumptions that there is nothing, or at least no formed product, innate in the mind, and that definite faculties do not originally exist, and from the fact that our minds nevertheless actually have a definite content and definite modes of action, Beneke proceeds to state somewhat dogmatically his scientifically verifiable hypotheses as to the primitive condition of the soul and the laws according to which it develops. ”

“ Summary.—The 13th century, an age peculiarly rich in great men, produced few, if any, who can take higher rank than Roger Bacon. He is in every way worthy to be placed beside Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, and Thomas Aquinas. ”

“ The necessity of consciousness for any mental action whatsoever is apparently granted, but the conditions involved in it are never discussed or mentioned. The same defect appears in the account of ethical judgment; no amount of empirical fact can ever yield the notion of absolute duty. ”

“ The third and most important process results from the fact that the combination between stimulus and power may be weak or strong; if weak, then the two elements are said to be movable, and they may flow over from one to another of the already formed psychical products. ”

“ Bacon, during his stay in Paris, acquired considerable renown. He took the degree of doctor of theology, and seems to have received the complimentary title of doctor mirabilis. In 1250 he was again at Oxford, and probably about this time entered the Franciscan order. His fame spread at Oxford, though it was mingled with suspicions of his dealings in the black arts and with some doubts of his orthodoxy. About 1257, Bonaventura, general of the order, interdicted his lectures at Oxford, and commanded him to place himself under the superintendence of the body at Paris. ”

“ The last error is the most dangerous, and is, in a sense, the cause of all the others. The offendicula have sometimes been looked upon as an anticipation of Francis Bacon’s Idola, but the two classifications have little in common. ”

“ He discusses very carefully the nature and meaning of the divine attributes; considers universals to be the ideal forms pre-existing in the divine mind according to which things were shaped; holds matter to be pure potentiality which receives individual being and determinateness from the formative power of God, acting according to the ideas ”

“ In general this growth may be said to take the direction of rendering more and more definite by repetition and attraction of like to like the originally indefinite activities of the primary faculties. ”

“ Speculum Alchimiae (1541) —translated into English (1597) ; French, A Poisson (1890) ; (2) De Mirabili Potestate Artis et Naturae (1542) —English translation (1659) ; (3) Libellus de Retardandis Senectutis Accidentibus (1590) —translated as the “Cure of Old Age,” by Richard Brown (London, 1683) ; (4) Sanioris Medicinae Magistri D. Rogeri Baconis Anglici de Arte Chymiae Scripta (Frankfort, 1603) —a collection of small tracts containing Excerpta de Libro Avicennae de Anima, Breve Breviarium, Verbum Abbreviatum, [3] Secretum Secretorum, Tractatus Trium Verborum, and Speculum Secretorum ”

“ For the popular legend see Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon (London, 1615; reproduced in Thoms, Early Prose Romances, iii.) ; R. Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1587 or 1588) , and in publication of the Percy Society, vol. xv. 1844, A Piece of Friar Bacon’s Brazen Heade's Prophesie (1604) . For Bacon as a classical scholar see J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. (2nd ed., 1906) , cxxxi. (R. Ad.; X.)
↑ Brewer thinks this unknown professor is Richard of Cornwall, but the little we know of Richard is not in harmony with the terms in which he is elsewhere spoken of by Bacon. ”