It wasn't so much that experience and observation were unknown. Albertus Magnus (1206-1280), the major influence on Thomas Aquinas, was a great believer in the experimental sciences. It's just that the danger of heresy was ever present and when it came to salvation it was better to believe in piffle than to run afoul of the will of God. To safeguard your soul, it was wise to follow the dictum that if the Church didn't believe it, you didn't see it.

It was therefore most unfortunate that in this climate a thirty-something year old Roger Bacon developed an interest in science. I say unfortunate because he was not totally prepared to follow the practices of the time. Bacon, you see, came to the conclusion that one of the best ways to verify one's theories was to test them through experiment. Common sense to you and me perhaps, but in his day this was pretty revolutionary stuff.

Experimental evidence versus the divine will was a little like those signs at a self serve gas bar: "In case of disagreement, the latter shall be deemed correct." It is easy to see how this could lead to some questionable science. How it was for instance that ice was thought to float because of its "flatness" and larger objects were thought to fall more quickly than small ones. There was no cause to question these things because God had said it was so.

Bacon was born in Ilchester, Somerset, England in the year 1214. He had received a degree from the University of Paris around 1241 and subsequently studied at the University of Oxford for ten years beginning in 1247. In 1257 after he left Oxford he entered an Order of Franciscan Friars. Much to the displeasure of his fellow Franciscans he continued his interest in the sciences however.

Then in 1266 he embarked on a bold plan. Pope Clement IV was the reigning pope at this time and Bacon decided to write to him with what can only be described as a grant proposal similar to what a scientist might make today. The difference was he was not looking for money, but official approval. Officially he wished to propose an encyclopaedia of all the sciences worked on by a team of collaborators, coordinated by a body in the Church.

Unofficially it would create an umbrella for him to freely espouse all sorts of "radical" notions not least of which was the idea that much could be learned about creation by simply observing and carrying out experiments. The Pope misunderstood, thinking that such a thing already existed and asked Bacon to show him. Not wishing to be disrespectful, Bacon quickly cobbled together a rough outline of his proposals.

Though hastily assembled, this effort proved to be far more extensive than one might suppose. It covered in several works, a broad cross-section of the many ideas that Bacon felt were legitimate fields of study with an emphasis on observation, experiment and verification. He even anticipated the invention of the telescope suggesting this might be a good way to study the heavens.

History does not record how Pope Clement felt about all this because he died shortly after in 1268 . We do know however, that his fellow Franciscans were far from pleased. In 1278 they had him put in prison the charge being of 'suspected novelties' in his teaching." (Source). It wasn't only because of his encyclopaedia proposal but also because of two later works, the Communia Naturalium (General Principles of Natural Philosophy) and the Communia Mathematica (General Principles of Mathematical Science).

What complicated things for Bacon was the fact that in 1278 the general of the Franciscan order was none other than Girolamo Masci. This was unfortunate because good old Girolamo became himself a pope, Pope Nicholas IV. He not only had Bacon arrested but also forbade the reading of his books. As Pope he would not show the tolerance that Clement IV had done.

The ten years in prison were unkind to Bacon whose health had never been too robust. After his release he returned to Oxford, wrote A Compendium of the Study of Theology in 1292 and died shortly after. Roger Bacon was a true pioneer. With little regard for his safety, he set out to challenge a lot of wrong headed ideas that comprised what passed for scientific inquiry in his day.

It has been suggested that on the one hand he had not abandoned many of the questionable beliefs of his compatriots and on the other that several ideas such as the formula for gunpowder were in fact poached from the Arab writings that had begun to surface. I think that's quibbling. I believe that Roger Bacon was a mental giant and with him we see the first stirrings of modern scientific study. Hurray for Roger!

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