[Previous] [Next] [Up] [Top] [Index]
Roger Bacon
(1214-1294)
Roger Bacon was a Franciscan friar and an early advocate of
the experimental method. He worked on optics, and at the request of
Pope Clement IV he wrote a series of books which amounted to an
encyclopedia of science. He also worked on alchemy. He kept much of
his work secret from his fellow Franciscans, but nonetheless, in 1278
they imprisoned him on the charge of "suspected novelties" in his
teaching. In his Letter on the Secret Works of Art and the Nullity
of Magic, he wrote "The man is insane who writes a secret in any other
way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar and make it
intelligible only with difficulty even to scientific men and earnest
students. ... Certain persons have achieved concealment by means of
letters not then used by their own race or others but arbitrarily
invented by themselves."
Further reading at:
http://www.thehistorynet.com:80/BritishHeritage/articles/1999/05992_text.htm
[Previous] [Next] [Up] [Top] [Index]
|
|
|