Editing Roger Bacon (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Friar Bacon's Brazen Head.png|thumb|right|200px|A woodcut from [[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Robert Greene]]'s [[Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay|play]] displaying the [[brazen head]] pronouncing "Time is. Time was. Time is past."]]
[[File:Roger Bacons Study in Oxford.jpg|thumb|200px|"Friar Bacon's Study" in [[Oxford]]. By the late 18th century this study on [[Folly Bridge]] had become a place of pilgrimage for scientists, but the building was pulled down in 1779 to allow for road widening.{{sfnp|Fauvel & al.|2000|p=2}}]]
[[File:Roger Bacon Plaque.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The Westgate plaque at Oxford]]
Bacon was largely ignored by his contemporaries in favour of other scholars such as [[Albertus Magnus]], [[Bonaventure]], and [[Thomas Aquinas]],{{sfnp|''Encyclopædia Britannica''|1878|p=218}} although his works were studied by Bonaventure, [[John Pecham]], and [[Peter of Limoges]], through whom he may have influenced [[Raymond Lull]].{{sfnp|''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''|2013|loc=Intro.}} He was also partially responsible for the addition of [[history of optics|optics]] (''{{lang|la|perspectiva}}'') to the [[medieval university]] [[medieval university#curriculum|curriculum]].{{sfnp|''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''|2013|loc=§1}}

By the [[early modern period]], the English considered him the epitome of a wise and subtle possessor of [[Western esotericism|forbidden knowledge]], a [[Faust]]-like magician who had tricked the [[Devil (Christianity)|devil]] and so was able to go to [[heaven (Christianity)|heaven]]. Of these legends, one of the most prominent was that he created a [[Brazen head|talking brazen head]] which could answer any question. The story appears in the anonymous 16th-century account of ''The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon'',{{refn|group=n|Although the manuscript was circulated in by {{circa|lk=no|1555}}, it was not published until 1627.{{sfnp|''Fryer Bacon''|1627}} It was republished in the mid-19th century.<ref>{{citation |editor-last=Thomas |editor-first=William J. |display-editors=0 |title=Early English Prose Romances: With Bibliographical and Historical Introductions |location=London |publisher=Nattali & Bond |date=1858 }}</ref>}} in which Bacon speaks with a demon but causes the head to speak by "the continuall fume of the six hottest Simples",<ref name=fryer>{{harvp|''Fryer Bacon''|1627}}.</ref> testing his theory that speech is caused by "an effusion of vapors".{{sfnp|Borlik|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=c_ShAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 134]}}

Around 1589, [[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Robert Greene]] adapted the story for the stage as ''[[The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay]]'',{{sfnp|Greene|1594}}{{sfnp|Borlik|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=c_ShAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA129 129]}}{{sfnp|Kavey|2007|pp=38–39}} one of the most successful [[English Renaissance theatre|Elizabethan comedies]].{{sfnp|Borlik|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=c_ShAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA129 129]}} As late as the 1640s, [[Thomas Browne]] was still complaining that "Every ear is filled with the story of Frier Bacon, that made a brazen head to speak these words, ''Time is''".<ref name=girlscout>[[Thomas Browne|Browne]], ''[[Pseudodoxia Epidemica|Pseud. Epid.]]'', [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo717.html#brazenhead Bk.&nbsp;VII, Ch.&nbsp;xvii, §7.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230108104636/http://penelope.uchicago.edu/pseudodoxia/pseudo717.html#brazenhead |date=8 January 2023 }}</ref> Greene's Bacon spent seven years creating a brass head that would speak "strange and uncouth aphorisms"<ref>[[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Greene]], ''[[Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay|Fr. Bacon]]'', iii.168.</ref> to enable him to encircle [[Great Britain|Britain]] with a wall of brass that would make it impossible to conquer.

Unlike his source material, Greene does not cause his head to operate by natural forces but by "[[necromancy|nigromantic]]<!--sic--> charms" and "the enchanting forces of the [[devil (Christianity)|devil]]":<ref>[[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Greene]], ''[[Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay|Fr. Bacon]]'', xi.15 & 18.</ref> i.e., by entrapping a [[ghost|dead spirit]]{{sfnp|Borlik|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=c_ShAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 134]}} or [[hobgoblin]].<ref>[[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Greene]], ''[[Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay|Fr. Bacon]]'', xi.52.</ref> Bacon collapses, exhausted, just before his device comes to life and announces "Time is", "Time was", and "Time is Past"<ref>[[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Greene]], ''[[Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay|Fr. Bacon]]'', ix.53–73.</ref> before being destroyed in spectacular fashion: the [[stage direction]] instructs that "''a lightening flasheth forth, and a hand appears that breaketh down the Head with a hammer''".<ref>[[Robert Greene (dramatist)|Greene]], ''[[Friar Bacon & Friar Bungay|Fr. Bacon]]'', ix.72.</ref>

A [[brazen head|necromantic head]] was ascribed to [[Pope Sylvester&nbsp;II]] as early as the 1120s,<ref>[[William of Malmesbury|Malmesbury]], ''[[Chronicle of the Kings of England|Chron.]]'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=rTpLAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA181  Bk.&nbsp;II., Ch. x., p.&nbsp;181].</ref>{{refn|group=n|[[William of Malmesbury|Malmesbury]] even notes that "probably some may regard all this as a fiction, because the vulgar are used to undermine the fame of scholars, saying that the man who excels in any admirable science, holds converse with the devil"<ref>[[William of Malmesbury|Malmesbury]], ''[[Chronicle of the Kings of England|Chron.]]'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=rTpLAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA174  Bk.&nbsp;II., Ch. x., p.&nbsp;174].</ref> but professes himself willing to believe the stories about [[Pope Sylvester II|Sylvester]] because of the (spurious) accounts he had of the pope's "shameful end".<ref>[[William of Malmesbury|Malmesbury]], ''[[Chronicle of the Kings of England|Chron.]]'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=rTpLAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA175  Bk.&nbsp;II., Ch. x., p.&nbsp;175].</ref>}} but [[Thomas Browne|Browne]] considered the legend to be a misunderstanding of a passage in [[Petrus Bonus|Peter the Good]]'s {{circa|lk=no|1335}} ''[[Petrus Bonus|Precious Pearl]]'' where the negligent alchemist misses the birth of his creation and loses it forever.<ref name=girlscout/> The story may also preserve the work by Bacon and his contemporaries to construct clockwork [[armillary sphere]]s.{{sfnp|Borlik|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=c_ShAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA138 138]}} Bacon had praised a "self-activated working model of the heavens" as "the greatest of all things which have been devised".<ref>Bacon, ''[[De Nullitate Magiae|De Null. Mag.]]'', 29.</ref>

As early as the 16th century, [[natural philosophy|natural philosophers]] such as [[Giordano Bruno|Bruno]], [[John Dee|Dee]]{{sfnp|Borlik|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=c_ShAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA132 132–4]}} and [[Francis Bacon]]{{sfnp|''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''|2013|loc=§1}} were attempting to rehabilitate Bacon's reputation and to portray him as a scientific pioneer who had avoided the petty bickering of his contemporaries to attempt a rational understanding of nature. By the 19th century, commenters following [[William Whewell|Whewell]]{{sfnp|Whewell|1858}}{{sfnp|''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''|2013|loc=§1}} considered that "Bacon ... was not appreciated in his age because he was so completely in advance of it; he is a 16th- or 17th-century philosopher, whose lot has been by some accident cast in the 13th century".{{sfnp|''Encyclopædia Britannica''|1878|p=218}} His assertions in the ''{{lang|la|Opus Majus}}'' that "theories supplied by reason should be verified by sensory data, aided by instruments, and corroborated by trustworthy witnesses"<ref>Bacon, ''Opus Majus'', Bk.&VI.</ref> were (and still are) considered "one of the first important formulations of the [[scientific method]] on record".{{sfnp|Borlik|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=c_ShAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA132 132]}}

This idea that Bacon was a modern experimental scientist reflected two views of the period: that the principal form of scientific activity is experimentation and that 13th-century Europe still represented the "[[Dark Ages (historiography)|Dark Ages]]".{{sfn|Hackett (1997), "Scientia Experimentalis"|p=279}} This view, which is still reflected in some 21st-century [[popular science]] books,{{refn |E.g., [[Brian Clegg (writer)|Clegg]]'s 2003 treatment of Roger Bacon, entitled ''The First Scientist''.{{sfnp |Clegg |2003}}<ref>{{citation |last=Wooley |first=Benjamin |author-link=Benjamin Wooley |author-mask=Wooley |date=17 May 2003 |contribution-url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/may/17/featuresreviews.guardianreview10 |contribution=Review of ''The First Scientist'' |title=The Guardian |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk }}</ref>{{sfnp |Goldstone & al. |2005}}}} portrays Bacon as an advocate of modern experimental science who emerged as a solitary genius in an age hostile to his ideas.{{sfnp|Gray|2011|p=184}} Based on Bacon's [[#Apocrypha|apocrypha]], he is also portrayed as a visionary who predicted the invention of the [[submarine#History|submarine]], [[history of aviation|aircraft]], and [[automobile#History|automobile]].{{sfnp|Mayer|1966|pp=500–501}} Consistent with this view of Bacon as a man ahead of his time, [[H. G. Wells]]'s ''[[The Outline of History|Outline of History]]'' attributes this prescient passage to him:<blockquote>Machines for navigating are possible without rowers, so that great ships suited to river or ocean, guided by one man, may be borne with greater speed than if they were full of men. Likewise, cars may be made so that without a draught animal they may be moved ''cum impetu inaestimabili'', as we deem the scythed chariots to have been from which antiquity fought. And flying machines are possible, so that a man may sit in the middle turning some device by which artificial wings may beat the air in the manner of a flying bird.<ref name=Wells>[https://archive.org/details/hgwellsoutlinehistoryvol2/page/638/mode/1up?view=theater Wells, H. G., ''The Outline of History'', Vol. 2, Ch. 33, §6, p. 638 (New York 1971) ("updated" by Raymond Postgate and G. P. Wells).]</ref></blockquote>

However, in the course of the 20th century, [[Edmund Husserl|Husserl]], [[Martin Heidegger|Heidegger]] and others emphasised the importance to the modern science of [[René Descartes|Cartesian]] and [[Galileo Galilei|Galilean]] projections of [[mathematics]] over sensory perceptions of nature; Heidegger, in particular, noted the lack of such an understanding in Bacon's works.{{sfnp|''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''|2013|loc=§1}} Although [[Alistair Cameron Crombie|Crombie]],{{sfnp|Crombie|1953}} [[Thomas Kuhn|Kuhn]]{{sfnp|Kuhn|1976}} and {{ill|Matthias Schramm|de|Matthias Schramm (Wissenschaftshistoriker)|lt=Schramm}}{{sfnp|Schramm|1998}} continued to argue for Bacon's importance to the development of "qualitative" areas of modern science,{{sfnp|''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''|2013|loc=§1}} [[Pierre Duhem|Duhem]],{{sfnp|Duhem|1915|p=442}} [[Lynn Thorndike|Thorndike]],{{sfnp|Thorndike|1914}}{{sfnp|Thorndike|1916}} [[Raoul Carton|Carton]]{{sfn|Hackett (1997), "Scientia Experimentalis"|p=280}} and [[Alexandre Koyré|Koyré]]{{sfnp|Koyré|1957}} emphasised the essentially medieval nature of Bacon's ''{{lang|la|scientia experimentalis}}''.{{sfn|Hackett (1997), "Scientia Experimentalis"|p=280}}{{sfnp|Lindberg|1996|p=lv}}

Research also established that Bacon was not as isolated—and probably not as persecuted—as was once thought. Many medieval sources of and influences on Bacon's scientific activity have been identified.{{sfn|Hackett (1997), "Scientia Experimentalis"|pp=279–284}} In particular, Bacon often mentioned his debt to the work of [[Robert Grosseteste]]:{{sfn|Hackett (1997), "Life"|pp=11–12}} his work on [[#Optics|optics]] and the [[#Calendrical reform|calendar]] followed Grosseteste's lead,{{sfnp|Crombie|1990|p=129}} as did his idea that [[inductive reasoning|inductively-derived conclusions]] should be submitted for verification through experimental testing.{{sfnp|Gauch|2003|p=222}}

Bacon noted of [[William of Sherwood]] that "nobody was greater in philosophy than he";{{sfnp|Brewer|1859}}{{sfnp|Wood|1786|p=[https://archive.org/stream/historyantiquiti00wood#page/38/mode/2up 38]}} praised [[Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt|Peter of Maricourt]] (the author of "A Letter on Magnetism")<ref>{{citation |last=Turner |first=Gillian |author-mask=Turner |title=North Pole, South Pole |date=2010 }}</ref> and [[John of London]] as "perfect" mathematicians; [[Campanus of Novara]] (the author of works on astronomy, astrology, and the calendar) and a Master Nicholas as "good";{{sfnp|Molland|1997}} and acknowledged the influence of [[Adam Marsh]] and lesser figures. He was clearly not an isolated genius.{{sfn|Hackett (1997), "Life"|pp=11–12}} The medieval church was also not generally opposed to scientific investigation{{sfnp|Lindberg|2003}} and [[Science in the Middle Ages|medieval science]] was both varied and extensive.{{refn|group=n|"If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed in the [[Age of Enlightenment|Age of Reason]], they were only made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities."{{sfnp|Grant|2001|p=9}}}}

As a result, the picture of Bacon has changed. Bacon is now seen as part of his age: a leading figure in the beginnings of the [[medieval university|medieval universities]] at [[University of Paris#History|Paris]] and [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] but one joined in the development of the philosophy of science by [[Robert Grosseteste]], [[William of Auvergne]], [[Henry of Ghent]], [[Albertus Magnus|Albert Magnus]], [[Thomas Aquinas]], [[Duns Scotus|John Duns Scotus]], and [[William of Ockham]].{{sfnp|Gauch|2003|p=51}} [[David C. Lindberg|Lindberg]] summarised:
<blockquote>Bacon was not a modern, out of step with his age, or a harbinger of things to come, but a brilliant, combative, and somewhat eccentric [[scholasticism|schoolman]] of the thirteenth century, endeavoring to take advantage of the new learning just becoming available while remaining true to traditional notions... of the importance to be attached to philosophical knowledge".{{sfnp|Lindberg|1987|p=520}}</blockquote>

A recent review of the many visions of Bacon across the ages says contemporary scholarship still neglects one of the most important aspects of his life and thought: his commitment to the Franciscan order. 
<blockquote>His {{lang|la|Opus majus}} was a plea for reform addressed to the supreme [[Pope|spiritual head of the Christian faith]], written against a background of [[Apocalypse|apocalyptic]] expectation and informed by the driving concerns of the [[friar]]s. It was designed to improve training for [[missionary|missionaries]] and to provide new skills to be employed in the defence of the Christian world against the enmity of non-Christians and of the [[Antichrist]]. It cannot usefully be read solely in the context of the [[history of science]] and [[history of philosophy|philosophy]].{{sfnp|Power|2006}}</blockquote>

With regard to religion's influence on Bacon's philosophy, [[Charles Sanders Peirce]] noted, "To Roger Bacon,... the schoolmen's conception of reasoning appeared only an obstacle to truth... [but] Of all kinds of experience, the best, he thought, was interior illumination, which teaches many things about Nature which the external senses could never discover, such as the [[transubstantiation]] of bread."<ref>{{citation |last=Peirce |first=Charles Sanders |author-link=Charles Sanders Peirce |date=1877 |title=The Fixation of Belief |url=http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html }}</ref> Later scholars have therefore viewed him as a proto-protestant.<ref name="Porterfield 2006 p. 136">{{cite book | last=Porterfield | first=A. | title=The Protestant Experience in America | publisher=Greenwood Press | series=American religious experience | year=2006 | isbn=978-0-313-32801-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V9VM9NEsqXwC&pg=PA136 | access-date=2023-05-29 | page=136}}</ref>

In [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] lore, Bacon is credited as the namesake of [[Folly Bridge]] for having been placed under house arrest nearby.{{sfnp|Smith|2010|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=JAE7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT21 "Bacon Friar"]}} Although this is probably untrue,<ref>{{citation |last=Thacker |first=Frederick Samuel |author-mask=Thacker |title=The Stripling Thames |url=http://thames.me.uk/0TST/t00020.htm |date=1909 |volume=Ch. 2 }}</ref> it had formerly been known as "Friar Bacon's Bridge".<ref>{{citation |author=C. |contribution=Friar Bacon's, or Folly Bridge, Oxford |date=Aug 1829 |page=105 |contribution-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IvdfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA105 |editor-last=Cave |editor-first=Edward |editor-link=Edward Cave |display-editors=0 |title=Gentleman's Magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IvdfAAAAcAAJ }}</ref> Bacon is also honoured at Oxford by a plaque affixed to the wall of the new Westgate shopping centre.{{sfnp|Smith|2010|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=JAE7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT21 "Bacon Friar"]}}