which he anticipated a later age, is one of his two chief claims to
be remembered. [Footnote: Cp. Opus Tertium, c. iv. p. 18, omnes
scientiae sunt connexae et mutuis se fovent auxiliis sicut partes
ejusdem totius, quarum quaelibet opus suum peragit non solum propter
se sed pro aliis.] It is the motif of the Opus Majus, and it would
have been more fully elaborated if he had lived to complete the
encyclopaedic work, Scriptum Principale, which he had only begun
before his death. His other title to fame is well-known. He
realised, as no man had done before him, the importance of the
experimental method in investigating the secrets of nature, and was
an almost solitary pioneer in the paths to which his greater
namesake, more than three hundred years later, was to invite the
attention of the world.

But, although Roger Bacon was inspired by these enlightened ideas,
although he cast off many of the prejudices of his time and boldly
revolted against the tyranny of the prevailing scholastic
philosophy, he was nevertheless in other respects a child of his age
and could not disencumber himself of the current medieval conception
of the universe. His general view of the course of human history was
not materially different from that of St. Augustine. When he says
that the practical object of all knowledge is to assure the safety
of the human race, he explains this to mean "things which lead to
felicity in the next life." [Footnote: Opus Majus, vii. p. 366.]

It is pertinent to observe that he not only shared in the belief in
astrology, which was then universal, but considered it one of the
most important parts of "mathematics." It was looked upon with
disfavour by the Church as a dangerous study; Bacon defended its use
in the interests of the Church itself. He maintained, like Thomas