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Bacon (ROGER an English monk and one)

ROGER, an English monk, and one of the most profound and original thinkers of his day, was born about 1214, near Ilchester, Somersetshire. He studied at Oxford and Paris. About 1250 he entered the order of Franciscans, but incurring the distrust of his ecclesiastical superiors was sent to Paris and there confined for 10 years without books or writing materials. He was thus punished because of extraordinary discoveries in science which ignorant minds attributed to magic. This opinion was countenanced by the jealousy and hatred of the monks of his fraternity. Having been set at liberty he enjoyed a brief space of quiet while Clement IV. was Pope; but in 1278 he was again thrown into prison, where he remained for at least 10 years.

Of the close of his life little is known.

His most important work is his "Opus Majus," where he discusses the relation of philosophy to religion, and then treats of language, metaphysics, optics, and experimental science. He was undoubtedly the earliest philosophical experimentalist in Britain; he made signal advances in optics; was an excellent chemist, and intimately acquainted with geography and astronomy, as appears by his discovery of the errors of the calendar and their causes. He died in Oxford, in 1294.