Evening Star Newspaper, March 18, 1928, Page 33

(Continued from Third Page.) in it, may be nearer ht and tuth than we helcss let us spoak our prej- candidly and say that porhs " 3 at scholast N at_all g ‘(“""“; man who follows r ”'\“ -h‘ ‘»‘k ‘, wherever it may g RO OO the gre: and and cach Gk had philosophy attained to such before On the face sopher ctest logic. of it it was emendou and the universe Thomas presents f heretical positions. often vigorou: ing for granted . usually in sf v refuse to doubt which he m v ) seholastics the on was part of the fall punishment infl ations beca an apple d not on revelati arting poin| { thought: no shed unless the fied to the the or hodoxy £ we nem was absifrdity as the Jast cert mgnd ion was the in- upon his woeb th ad philosophy still great minds, who, in remind us of lions homas with eves owable ty. God is Hims do we knc of scholasticism by ad ationality of dogma and on of intellect to will: B of Occam went pack to non chief ai fz ¢ questionable nd invented as L. . r doctrine of the * t a doctrine might b2 t gv and wrong in_philosophy perfection of s that there should a Greek gift, like wooden horse to Troy: he had the habit of thi ned dogma by ng men | understand hen dogma | This joy in | s a sign of the youth of Eu- | oon the mind. intoxicated with a | new consclousness of power, would be- | gin to put questions to these doctrines | accepted so faithfully and humbly be- fore. Unwillingly and unwittingly, St. | ... . | Thomas was the prelude to Bruno and otle properly taugh cartes. and even a premonition of form of the codv. ! yoltaire; these difficulties which he so mes only through | honestly expressed and so trustingly lorm answered would rise again and would | not be satisfied so e As one stands | on the peak of schola: one sees the dawn of the Renaissance and, far | off. the peaks of the enlightenment. | deb: n pas place ut going through the inf Roger Bacon. { Meanwhile the seeds of the new age riponing everywhere, and even m | tence, forgotten for a s coming to life movement that s and the cathedrals | and science; commerce thematics and astronomy, | developed physics and chemise and the gathering of people to- | r into larger and more varied com- | munitics brought that interplay of | ideas, that elbow rubbing of dogmas | which proves 5o fatal to inherited be- | liefs | The picture of medieval s-‘ence is one of astrology struggling to become | my strugglhing to be- | : fabliaux of talking | gradually developing into biol- It was believed that the position | the planets at a man's birth deter- d his life history: men studied the | suman fates and gazed | to sce the future. Prof. | nts out how many current | ty on the astrological tra- | as the same v‘ d: § saturnine and mercuria which are taken from the names of the planets, and evan th» urantan has been used to denote a me beginnings in the-pur- Isps men ac- | er krowledge of d of the Middle | re pre of P s of modern nd chemicals n to revolu- | for 1k - Wililam Ram- | future the | s mo | Polo, th not only ron Italian & bt oratio KAHN ca Teh St, | oovmnn ! 32 Ycars épecials Monday and Tuesday EYES EXAMINED FREL Fine Quali Shell Frames — Witk Finest Quality Tlres Registered Optometrists in Attendance Toric Sphericel Complete Cutfit, With Caze and Cleaner Included Genuine Toric KRYPTOK Firet 51:4 best 'f:"!“y' "{"uri" " price Monday and Tuesday KAHN OPTICAL CO. 617 Seventh St. N.W. Invisible Bifocal Lenszs 0. BD\A ragulivly 915, Specis) Pty AND G MRS bs not phi- | microscope and_tel is a uncxpected worlds to man . | was hindered by the distaste for dis- to bo | and the | | new-d; ke stood in the off- | Middle Ages were movir tion of the truth. | ular futility | | labratory but A‘f' “on). | | STAR, WASIINGTON, o ever before, and geographers deseribed Madeira, the Canary Islands, and even Azor (750 m! out in the At- ) before 1351, Phy 's contributed | to the mediev home the luxuries of mirrors and clocks, to the art of kiliing it contributed the new explosive called aunpowder, and to the enlarg ment of human sense it contributed the lens, whic would soon evelop into the e and reveal Medicine section; but at Salerno. Montpelier and | Padua provision was made for diss apid advances. Henry of Monde- in the fourteenth century. in- urated antiscptic surgery, and the next century plastic grew to the point where new noses, ears, lips and faces were provided for those who cold afford them. Everywher new spirit was appearing in the cit d the schools,'a new audacity in the face of cvery dogma and every {radition Over the fgnoranee of the Middle Ages r the domination of the mind by antiquated thought. risos the svmbolie finure of anst has- learned ihe tast the honey of ust the restless willing to sell When such could be, the to an end covered truth: T and insatiable student even his soul for knowle men. or even such legond: * ok Only one man remair most remarkable of all. ery he h despite his goodly share of wordly for- tune. for only there can he have the litude and peace of rescarch: but un- d~r his busy_hands the cell becomes . full of strange mechanicn and heretical smells: and now and th irbad in their prayer: One may c: to bur n bronze.” writes Roger Bacon, lts more formidable than produced by nature. A small ¥ of prepared matter occasions a explosion accompanicd by One may multiply the a 50 far as to destroy an army (Ah, yos: we are convinced Soon every battlefield in furope thundered death magnificently. We do not know when Bacon was born: presumably it was toward 1210, v Iichester, In England. Matthew Paris mentions 1 his chronicle how a bold clerie. named Rogerus Bacum, spoke up with_ bra at Oxford in 1233, Then we him in Paris, where he receives the doctor’s degree. and becomes a Fran- ciscan monk. Not till 1267 do we hear nd he is the oo him in his city or a of it now) | matter: 08 tion | dventure of all, the attempt | under proper conditions, and surgery through | t and knowledge alone: he must | t not even the son itself: there is nothing | But | was | of | n was not to be trusted. | retired there | of him again, and then in an flumi- nating passage of autobiography “For now I have labored from my youth in the sciences and langt and for the furtherance of stud. ting together much that is ue sought the friendship of all men among, the Latins, and caused youth to be instructed in languages, 1 weometric figures. in numbers and table nd instruments und many necdful 1 examined everything uscful to the purpose, and I know how to pro- ceed, and with what means, and what impediments, but I cannot go on for Iack of necessary funds. Through the 20 years in which T labored, specially in | the study of wisdom. careless of the | crowd'’s opinion, T spent more than 2,000 the wise | | totle, pounds in these pursuits on occult books | and various experiments.” ok ko For many years, ils seems, he found no enconragement, indeed every discour- agement. in his own order. and bis spirit became embittered against his times. But in 1266 he had been made happy by a letter from Pope Clement s 0 our beloved son, Brother Bacon, called Roger: * * * Wehave received with pleasure the lefter of thy devo- tion: and we have well considered what our beloved son Bonecor, Knight, has by word of mouth set forthtous, * * * So then, that we may understand more clearly what thou purposcst, it is our will and we command thee by our Apostolic mandate, that, notwithstand- ing the prohibition of any prelate, or any_constitution of thy Order, Thou sendest to us speedily in_good script that work which. while we held a minor office, we requested thee to communi cate to our beloved son Raymund. * Do this as secretly ible, without Pos was now that Bacon wrote, and dispatched to the Pope, his Opus Majus: and then, lest it should have been los! on the way, he sent another work, Opus Minus. covering the same ground and still later a briefer exposition. the Opus Tertium. So harasssd was this man, who in the midst of obscurantism fought for the right to pave the way for modern science. We do not know whether his manuseripts ever reached the Pope; Clement died the next vear and Bacon went to his own grave with- out anv further word of encouragement from the world. It is remarkable how like the word of a later Bacon the challenge which Roger flings in the face of Aristotle and all who think that knowledge can grow | | | MARCT 15, ) merely by copying antlquity or autha ity. “If 1 had my way,” he declared, “I should burn all the books of Ari for the study of them can lead to the loss of time, produce crror. and increase ignorance.” Aristotle perhaps had planted the tree of knowi- cdge, but this had hardly begun to produce its fullest frufts. “If we could | continue to live for endless ceniurfes | we mortals could never hope to reach full and complete knowledge of all the | things which are to be known. No one knows enough of nature completely to describe the peculfarities of a single fly and give the reason for its color and why it has Just so many feet, no more and no less.” Here, in this cu- riosity about the ways of nature lay a new mote: soon men would awaken to the fact that the greatest book of all lay almost unopened before their eyes, while they lost themselves in accounts of what other men had scen. Aok A% Ay “There are two ways of pursuing knowledge,” he says, “argument, and experiment. But argument is endless, and every argument begets an cqual and conirary argument forever; = by this way “in 40 years we learn no more than could be ‘taught in one.” And then again he speaks with the volce of Francis Bacon: | “There are four principal stumbling | blocks to comprehending truth, which | hinder wellnigh every scholar: The cxample of frall and untrustworthy | authority, long established custom, the | sense of the ignorant crowd and the hiding of one's own fgnorance under the show of wisdom. In these every man is involved, and every state be- | et For in every act of life, or busi- | s, or study these three worst argu- | s are used for the same conciu- This was the way of our ances- this was the custom, this was the common view; therefore it should be held.” So Roger gave himself to science, and met with a wild pugnacity the resis- tance of his order. He pointed out the crror which was' visiting the Julian | calendar, and calculated the proper | corrections; three centuries later Greg- | XII established the present Gro- | n calendar on the basis of Roger's corrections. Perhaps, as Anatole France believed, even “Les savants ne sont pas | and science is no more anxious | andon the past than theology is t Roger believed in science with all rt and soul: he forcsaw its | triumphs as vividly as Francis Bacon three centuries Jater would foresee THE WRIGH" |'held a chapter at them: and he spoks li%s a propht In-| spired: fachines for navigating are pos- sible without rowers, so that great ships suited to river or ocean, guided by one man. may be borne with greater spred n Af they were full of men Like- cars may he made so that without ght animal they may be movid by some mysterious influence (cum im- petu Incstimabili). * * * And flying ma- | chines are possible, 5o that a man may sit in the middle turning some device | by which artificial wings may beat the air in the manner of a bird." P In the year 1271 Bacon wrote a final treatise, Compedium Studii Philoso- phize, in which he enlivened abstract discourse by denouncing the corruption that prevailed in the church s “I exclude no order,” he said: they were all shot through with venality and immorality. Six years later Jerome of Ascoli, general of the Franciscan Order. Paris. and Roger Bacon, as having taught “certain sus- picious “novelties,” was condemned to imprisonment. We do not hear of him again. Tt is a ftorrible denouement to a great | century, the century of Albert and Thomas, of Dante and the great cathe- | drals, this picture of the prophet of | science spending the last years of his | harassed life in jail. But we have to | bear with the world's ways. and must | not expect it to deal lovingly with men | whom it will honor when they are dead. | The thirteenth century could not be asked to understand that the Renais- | <ance had begun with Roger, as it was to end with Francis Bacon. 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