CHAPTER X.

John of Salisbury; Roger Bacon.

THE persons with whom we have been occupied in the chapters immediately preceding the present, have all belonged to what may almost be called our own times; or, at least, their pursuits have been such as indicate an advanced state of literature, philosophy, and civilization generally. It is only within the last two or three centuries, that any thing like a spirit of independent speculation has formed a pervading characteristic of the literature of modern Europe. Up to that period, the intellect of our forefathers may be said, in most of its efforts, to have walked in leading-strings. The peculiar circumstances, in which literature sprung up, a second time, in western Europe, after the subversion of the Roman empire, sufficiently explain why it remained so long in a state of pupilage. But the extended period in modern history, called the Dark Ages, was only the night of the human mind, and by no means its sleep, as it has sometimes been described. The numbers of those who then dedicated themselves to literary pursuits, were very great, and their zeal and industry in many cases such as has never been surpassed.

As an evidence of the assiduity with which it was customary for men to apply themselves to the studies then in fashion, we may quote the account, which JOHN OF SALISBURY, who flourished in the twelfth century, gives us of the education he had received. "He says," (we quote the version of the original Latin, which Mr. Turner has given in his History of England,) "that in the year after Henry I. died, he went to the Peripatetic

School at Paris,* on the mount of St. Genevieve, and there studied logic; he afterwards adhered to Master Alberic, as opinatissimus dialectus, (a dialectician in the highest repute,) and an acerrimus impugnator (most keen impugner) of the nominal sect. He was two years with him and Robert Metridensis, an Englishman, both men acuti ingenii and studii pervicacis, (of acute genius and resolute studiousness.) He then, for three years, transferred himself to William de Conchin, to imbibe his grammatical knowledge. After this, he followed Richard, called the Bishop, retracing with him all he had learned from others, and the Quadrivium ; and also heard the German Harduin. He restudied rhetoric, which he had learned from Master Theodoric, and more completely from Father Helias. Being poor, he supported himself by teaching the children of the noble, and contracted an intimate acquaintance with Master Adam, an Englishman, and a stout Aristotelian. He prosecuted afterwards the study of logic with William of Soissons. Returning, at the end of three years, he heard Master Gilbert on logic and on Divine subjects; then Robert Pullen, and also Simon Periacensis, a faithful reader, but a heavy disputer. These last two were his only teachers. in theology. Thus," he adds, "I passed twelve years, occupied by these various studies."

One of the most extraordinary individuals that appeared during the dark ages, was ROGER BACON; and his history affords us so admirable an example of the successful pursuit of knowledge, in the midst of all sorts of difficulties and discouragements, that we shall devote a few pages to present it with some fulness of detail. Bacon was born at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in the year

* So translated by Mr. Turner; but the phrase in the original is Ad peripateticum Palatinum, which means to the Peripatetic of Palais,' the common name by which the celebrated Abelard was known in that age, from his place of birth, Palais, in Bretagne.

† In the Middle Ages, all the branches of elementary education were considered as comprehended in the two great divisions called the Trivium and the Quadrivium; the former of which embraced grammar, logic, and rhetoric; and the latter, arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and music.

1214.

After remaining, for some years, at the University of Oxford, he went to finish his education at that of Paris, then the most distinguished seat of learning in Europe. Here he received his doctor's degree; after which, he returned to his own country, and, entering himself a. brother of the Franciscan order, again took up his residence at Oxford. At this time, all the four orders of mendicant friars had establishments both at Oxford and Cambridge; and their members were, in truth, especially the Franciscans, the great support and ornaments of both Universities.

At the period, however, when Bacon commenced his career, the Aristotelian metaphysics and logic, although they had already begun to be studied, had not acquired in England that extraordinary ascendency, of which we find them only a few years after in possession. He, at all events, applied himself, from the first, chiefly to the mathematical and natural sciences, the principal of which, as cultivated at this time, may be enumerated under the heads of chemistry or alchymy, astronomy or astrology, medicine, and mechanics. To these, may be added, as having engaged a considerable share of Bacon's attention, the minor departments of geography, music, and optics; which last, especially, was one of his favorite studies, and that in which he displayed, more perhaps than in any other, his brilliant and inventive genius.

The

Nearly all these sciences were as yet mixed up with the wildest errors and follies, which were, however, universally looked upon as their most fundamental and unquestionable principles, and were accordingly steadily kept in view, by all who taught or studied either the theory or the practical applications of any of them. grand object of chemistry, at the time to which we refer, was the discovery of the philosopher's stone, or the secret of manufacturing gold; but the experiments which were constantly making, with a view to this end, had incidentally given birth to some real discoveries, especially in regard to the fusibility, malleability, and other properties of the different metals. Of these, we may just state, that lead and copper were the two which the most perse

vering efforts were made to convert into gold, the former exciting the hope of a favorable result by its great weight, and the latter by its color; no bad example of the purely imaginary grounds, which formed the whole theory and foundation of this art.

Medicine, was in much the same condition with chemistry, being studied, also, chiefly in the writings of the Arabian doctors, who had taken a particular pleasure in mystifying this science with all manner of occult speculations, and bedizening it with their frivolous fancies and inventions. Its natural alliance with chemistry, in the first place, subjected it to be corrupted by all the absurdities of the Hermetic philosophy.* But as these had originated chiefly in one of men's strongest passions, the love of wealth, so another passion still stronger, the fear of disease and death, operated in the case of medicine to give birth to a variety of other delusions, which retained their hold upon the public credulity with even yet more invincible obstinacy. In the unphilosophical times, to which we now refer, it was little more than a heap of quackeries and superstitions; or, at least, the truths which it taught, were so mixed up with the merest dreams and imaginations, and these latter were held to be so much the more important and essential part of it, that, if not the very vainest and falsest of all the sciences of the period, there certainly was no other, even as then studied, which was disfigured upon the whole, by more frivolity and

nonsense.

As the chemists thought of nothing but their elixir, or universal solvent, of the metals, so the physicians had their elixir vitæ, or universal medicine, which was to cure all diseases, and, if not altogether to put an end to the custom of dying, at least to protract life to more than

*The science occupied with the pursuit of the philosopher's stone, was so called in memory of the Egyptian philosopher, Hermes, styled also Trismegistus, or the thrice-great, (supposed by some to be the same personage with the heathen god Mercury,) who, it was pretended, had first cultivated it about two thousand years before the birth of Christ, and to whom several existing works upon the subject were ascribed, although, it is almost needless to say, without any founda

tion.

antediluvian longevity. Then, the Arabian writers, in whose works the science was principally studied, had introduced into it a cloud of mystical and metaphysical notions, from those other departments of inquiry to which they were almost all of them attached. One of the greatest of the Arabian physicians, Avicenna, was one of the most devoted admirers that ever lived of the metaphysical works of Aristotle; which, however, he ingenuously confesses he had perused no fewer than forty times, before he understood them.

Another of these doctors, Averroes, had written so many commentaries on the Greek philosopher, that he obtained the name of the most Peripatetic* of the Arabians. Another of them, called Alcendi, or Alchindus, had a strange theory with regard to the virtues of medicines, maintaining that they could only be properly mixed according to the principles of music-a notion which seems intended to defy either explanation or comprehension.

But it was the intimate connexion it had formed with the philosophy of the stars, as then received, which gave to the medical science of the thirteenth and some succeeding centuries, the greater part of its weakness and absurdity. Medicine, in truth, was for a long time considered as only one of the branches of astronomy or astrology, terms which in those days were synonymous. One of Roger Bacon's own expressions is, that the most important department of astronomy is the science of medicine. Operations, accordingly, used to be performed, and remedies administered, not so much in conformity to the appearance or nature of the disease, as according to the aspect of the constellations. For it was the study of the influence, which the heavenly bodies were supposed to exert over human affairs, and the fortunes of individuals, that constituted the favorite astronomy of the times; or rather, no part of astronomy was studied at all, except with a view principally to the observation and detection of this imaginary sympathy between the stars and men.

*The philosophy of Aristotle was called the Peripatetic, from a Greek word signifying to walk about, because its founder was wont to walk about, while he conversed with and instructed his disciples.