The Theory of Mind of Roger Bacon

Preface

PREFACE.

The following study pretends to be no more than a contribution toward an eventual formulation of the Philosophy of Roger Bacon. It is neither a literary nor an historical study, but rather a critical presentation of certain aspects of his Philosophy.

The time has hardly come when one can undertake seriously to write of the Philosophy of Roger Bacon. Such a work presupposes materials in a very different form from that in which we have them. Further, there is presupposed a study of our Author’s sources, with the purpose of making clear the influence of his predecessors in the shaping of his thought. And, finally, a better account of the life of Bacon is desirable, to indicate the influence of his contemporaries upon his philosophical and scientific activities.

It was my hope at the outset to be able to make this a literary and historical, as well as a critical study, and founded upon a preliminary examination of my Author’s works and sources and life; but with the realization of the requirements involved, this hope quickly faded. It is possible therefore merely to indicate where the life and works and sources, so far as discussed, may be found.

For the fullest discussion of these subjects, the reader is referred to Emile Charles’ Monograph, “Roger Bacon, sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines, d’apres des textes inedits,” published in Paris, 1861. Bacon’s life is treated pp. 1 to 53, and some further suggestions as to his personality 97 to 110, and 306 to 310; his works pp. 54 to 96, cf. 334 to 416; and for an admirable attempt to indicate his sources, see pp. 311 to 322 (also 97 to 288, passim). Charles’ work has not been superseded; nor, as such, is it likely to be. At once its advantage and its disadvantage lie in it its broad scope and its fairly free play of the imagination. It should be added that Charles does not confine himself to the unedited works (suggested by the title), and that his citation of sources is inadequate.

In J. S. Brewer’s “Fr. Rogeri Bacon Opera quaedam hactenus inedita,” London, 1859, is to be found (Introd. pp. lxxxv. to xcix.) an account of Bacon’s life (English translation from Wood’s “Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon.,” Oxford, 1674, pp. 136ff); and in the same Introduction (pp. xxviii. to lxxxiv., cf. c.) a scholarly discussion of Bacon’s works, especially of value for orientation in his general literary activity and philosophy.

In John Henry Bridges’ (deceased, 1907) edition of “The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon,” Oxford, vols. I and II 1897, vol. III 1900, will be found a table of the few known facts of Bacon’s life (Introd. p. xx.), and a short description of that life (ibid. xxi. to xxxiii.); but he gives little that is new concerning the works of our Author. He gives, however, a very serviceable orientation in Bacon’s general philosophical scheme (ibid, xxxvi. to xcii.). In “Essays and Addresses,” by the same Author, posthumously published, London, 1897, will be found (pp. 159 to 168) an interesting sketch of our Philosopher’s life and work. As for sources, much material of great value is to be found in the footnotes of his edition of the Opus Majus.

In Robert Steele’s edition of the “Metaphysica Fratris Rogeri,” London, Alex. Moring Limited, is given (Preface) some further material, especially concerning the Metaphysics (sic) of Bacon. The same Editor has published Parts One and Two of the “Liber Primus Communium Naturalium Fratris Rogeri,” Oxford, Clarendon Press.

In “The Greek Grammar of Roger Bacon,” edited by Nolan and Hirsch, Cambridge, 1902, some material is presented that bears on the life, with especial reference to his contemporaries (Introd. xxxviii. to lxv.).

For bibliographies, the reader is referred to Delorme’s art. in “Dictionnaire de Theologie catholique,” t. II, ff. 8 to 31; and to Robertson’s art. in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” vol. II, pp. 374 to 378, ed. 1885, as well as Vogl: D. Physik Roger Bacons, Inaug. Diss., Erlangen, 1906.

The materials on which this study is chiefly based are the published works of Bacon as contained in the Brewer and Bridges editions above described; the latter contains the Opus Majus and the De Multiplication Specierum, while the former contains the Opus Tertium, Opus Minus, Compendium and the appended De Secretibus Artis et Naturae. Further, I have referred, here and there, to the editions of Steele above described, and to the printed (English Historical Review, July 1897) MS. (4086) found by Gasquet in the Vatican Library. In no case have I used any but published material. My references to the various works are as follows: Brewer, “Br. . . .”; Bridges, “I, or II, or III. . . .”; Steele, “M. . . .” for the Metaphysics, and “C. N. . . .” for the Communia Naturalium; Gasquet, “Ep . . . . “ for the self-denominated “epistola praeambulans.” I have taken these sources at their face value, as representing words actually penned by my Author; in no instance have I found serious difficulties of text so far as concerned my theme. The corrections of text, as in Bridges III, are not vital; the addi to the text, for Pars Prima, are however of real value. While vol. III (Bridges) suggests that it is not complete (see pp. 177 and 179, “preface to this volume”), I am informed that the late editor left no further materials.

The method followed has been simple, but it has been sought to make it painstaking. Certain definite questions were put to my Author, and the answers sought in his own words; attention has been confined to a critical examination of his own works, and the literature on Bacon has been little taken into account. The method of collation of parallel passages has been employed to the utmost possible limit. Accordingly, as an instrument for automatic control, an Index Rerum was composed, comprising something over two hundred concepts, and containing upward of seven thousand references. With this my Author’s treatment-in-chief was compared with all other relevant passages, to establish consistency or reveal inconsistency of conception. Where the latter appeared, it was sought to indicate a reconciliation, if possible, and that failing to seek the cause or the motive for the inconsistency. Pains have been taken throughout to say nothing which cannot be established by definite citation. And, further, it has been taken to be of essential importance not only to answer a given question clearly, but just as clearly to indicate my failure to do so.

The limitations of my work are expressed in the title selected, which it will be observed is fairly broad. Under Theory of Mind is included Psychology and Epistemology; under Psychology, both the physiological and the analytical; under Epistemology, both Theory of Perception and Theory of Knowledge, with the implied Criteriology. In Chapters II and III is to be found Bacon’s Psychology; thus, the distinction between vegetative, sensitive and rational souls, their origins, their relations to each other, and the faculties and physiological basis of the sensitive soul, on the one hand: and an examination of the rational soul in and for itself, with reference to form and matter, and in relation to its sources of knowledge, with reference to the “intellectus agens” problem, on the other hand. In Chapter IV is to be found our Philosopher’s Epistemology and Criteriology; thus, first his notion of the Perception of the External World, where the process of Perception, its analysis into Sensation, Association—and here his notion of the Universal—and Inference, and true as opposed to erroneous Perception, are considered: then, second, his notion of the part played by the Understanding in the winning of our Knowledge, where his conception of Proof in general and in particular is examined, to make clear how far a Criterion is given. Chapter I contains, as a necessary introduction, a critical presentation of his Theory of Species, which colors the whole background of his Theory of Mind in particular, and his Philosophy in general.

A word should be added concerning the general character of Bacon’s work. Although premature, it would not seem hazardous to assume that his work retained to the end of his days much more the character of outline than of system. The frequent repetitions, the extraordinarily wide scope of his reading, his marked gift of criticism and less marked capacity for synthesis, his intense enthusiasm and lack of judicial calm, on the one hand; and the purely external circumstances that filled his literary career with embarrassments and difficulties, and especially the imprisonment that robbed him of many of his best years, on the other hand—all make for a very reasonable presumption that his chief contribution in the history of thought was to be less a systematic Philosophy than a Method of procedure. For an excellent picture of the difficult circumstances that surrounded the composition of the Opus Majus, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium, attention is especially called to Brewer’s Introduction (pp. xvi. ff). It is well to keep this picture clearly before one’s mind in the study of Bacon; for it frequently makes plain what would otherwise be puzzling.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION.

In following the history of thought one comes soon to know those figures in the drama who pass as the men “beyond their time”; men whose minds are so endowed as to assimilate fairly well the learning inherited by their time, but especially gifted with an insight that carries them beyond their immediate age. It is with a mind of this type—a mind too far beyond its time—that we shall have to do in the pages that follow. For, that which is characteristic and original in Roger Bacon is not the system of his Philosophy, but rather his search for philosophic Method; and indeed a search in which appears an anticipation, now clear and again but vaguely suggested, of the trend of thought which in later centuries came to be called the Scientific Movement. His is not a mind that fits comfortably into the predominant tendencies of the thirteenth century, and it is therefore important that we should bear in mind throughout the type of mind with which we have to deal.

Living (1214-1294) in a century when the most varied determining factors were at work, his natural bent threw him into that development which might properly be called the Scientific Movement of his day. Dissatisfied with what seemed to him the unfruitful method of inquiry then prevailing, he bent his efforts rather to preliminary Method than to formulated System, to the foundations of knowledge rather than to the completed edifice. The world, he thought, was quite too full of vain attempts to systematize; overburdened with specimens of plebeian and trivial knowledge. “It is easy,” as he says, “for any man of learning to multiply without end truths that are paltry and commonplace, and to spin out and magnify what is of little value. But for the scholar this is an unworthy procedure, and the more so when the limits to his scholarly thought are fixed thereby.” And more than once he gives evidence of an intense disdain for the learning of the eminent scholars of his day. But his impatient dismissal of that learning is from no unworthy motive; it arises rather from a pure and whole-hearted love of Truth—indeed, the man is carried away with the fine enthusiasm of the devotee of Truth “writ large.” “I am after the treasures of the Sciences,” he continues, “the wonders of Truth whereof one excels a thousand of commonplace truths. I would diligently search out the dominion of the Sciences and of the Languages, and the other things needful to raise the edifice of Truth.” Bold words these are, but they well characterize the spirit and the labor of the man as we know it. And so it is not strange that the figure of Bacon has been drawn almost exclusively in these lines by the historians of Philosophy.

But while his mind was so full of this inquiry after method, one does wrong to suppose that it held nothing more; nothing more than a critical opposition to the conditions then prevailing in the scholarly world, and an attempt to sketch some plan for its regeneration. On the contrary, his works make it plain that he had pondered—and pondered deeply, shrewdly and seriously—the problems that engaged the thoughtful men about him; and that he had his own views, and very decided ones they were, concerning these problems. To be sure, that degree of system which characterizes the work of Thomas Aquinas we are not to expect; for only in Bacon’s Scriptum Principale could this have been furnished, and that great work, if ever consummated, does not exist for us now. But there is plain evidence of a system in the making, and it is our task to indicate some of its features, and to make clear his position with reference to certain of the problems which attracted the thinkers of his day.

Now in his work there is revealed a mind filled, out of all proportion to his time, with the conviction that the exactness of the mathematico-mechanical method alone could be fruitful in investigating the various departments of knowledge. And while there are many indications of this scientific character of our Author’s way of thinking, these lie for us too far afield. But there is one feature so salient, so vitally characteristic, and so important for his Philosophy of Mind, that we must devote our first efforts to a comprehensive study of it. And this is his theory of Species or Forms.

Chapter One

Chapter One.

THE THEORY OF SPECIES.

The Theory of Species or Forms is an attempt to explain the phenomena of qualitative change in the world, and indeed in the whole universe—the Aristotelian universe of the Mediaeval thinker. Our Author sets out from Aristotle’s conception of assimilation, and pretends to make a distinct advance upon that conception. The problem is not, therefore, a problem in Logic, with Species as opposed to Genus for the central concept; but a problem in Natural Philosophy, where Species in the Sense of Form or Image or Likeness is the central theme. In the action of one thing upon another, it is that “immediate or first effect of the Agent” which is propagated in the medium and works the secondary effects; such, for example, is the “virtue” of the sun in the air which acts upon wax and melts it, upon clay and hardens it, upon the sense of touch and produces the feeling of warmth.

Of the many words used to express this idea, Bacon furnishes us with a list. Thus, with reference to the process of physical change, the term Virtue is employed, because the Agent is conceived as putting its “virtue” into the thing acted upon. In Optics the term used is Form; and in particular, the reflections in mirrors are called Unsubstantial Forms. And for perception and conception there are various terms in use, such as Species and Impression and Intention and Phantasm, or Simulacrum, and Affection. Species and Impression are used, following the terminology of Aristotle. Intention serves to indicate its unclearness in contrast with the real thing whose likeness it is. As applied to dreams Phantasm and Simulacrum are used, because the Species is taken for the reality which it resembles. And it is called Affection because the medium and the senses are affected and substantially changed by receiving the Species.

With Species so described, the importance of this theory for his Philosophy of Mind becomes apparent at once. And, indeed, Bacon directly calls attention to the vital importance of his treatise, on the Propagation of Species, for the understanding of his theory of Perception; the latter cannot be understood at all without the former. And conversely the action of the mind upon the body is explained by use of the same theory. In fact, all phenomena of qualitative change in the one world (spiritualia) as in the other (corporalia), and in their interaction, are to be brought within the scope of this single, far-reaching hypothesis. There is apparently no realm left untouched by the “laws of the propagation of Species, which the sense of sight follows in common with all other senses, and with the whole machine of the universe.” And as one turns the pages whereon lie registered the hopes and expectations of our Author for this theory of his, he knows not which to admire the more, the genius that could give meaning to his thought, or the courage that could face its full execution. Certain it is, in any case, that it forms “the warp and the woof” for his Philosophy of Mind.

1. THE SETTING OF THE THEORY.

It has already been indicated, that Bacon’s theory of Species is an attempt to explain change of a certain kind; not change in position, nor change in quantity, but change in quality. This fur broadly the limitations of his problem. And it is this problem, set by his master Aristotle, which he means to further develop. Let us get succinctly before us, therefore, the Aristotelian treatment of the problem, to see how far he carried it, and wherein it offered opportunity for further development.

The problem of change forms for Aristotle one of the three great problems of his Metaphysics, and the leading theme of his Physics. And he was the first to treat it fully with reference to Matter and Form. Change is motion, and motion is the transition from the Potential to the Actual; it therefore implies the actual Form and the potential Matter.

In his analysis of Motion he finds three kinds, to wit, spatial and quantitative and qualitative. There are several kinds of change in position. Change in quantity is either increase or diminution; while change in quality is alteration. Generation and decay may be added as a fourth kind of change. In a sense all change may be reduced to change in position; yet change in quality is to be counted as a second source. The conditions for the process of change are as follows: contact between Agent and Patient, identity of Genus, and difference of Species. When Agent and Patient meet, the one is actually what the other is only potentially; and the change consists in the removal of the opposition, that is, the Agent makes the Patient like itself.

A careful examination of the Aristotelian conception reveals, that in three important respects it permitted further elaboration. First, in the circumscribing of the problem—the relation of change and motion, and of the various kinds to each other. Second, in the meaning and function of Form and Matter. Third, in the details of the process of assimilation. As regards the first, Bacon shows

the same uncertainty as Aristotle. But all the more do we find his efforts directed toward clarifying the second and third. The vantage ground from which he makes his further development is that of Optics; an advantage which he owes especially to Ptolemy and Alhazen. We shall later see how this element is combined with the Aristotelian conception. Let us now see how closely Bacon follows Aristotle for the general setting of his theory.

His point of departure is along the same broad lines as Aristotle’s. After Matter and Form and Privation, he says, the natural Philosopher has two fundamental factors to investigate; these are motion with respect to Place, and motion with respect to Form. It is the latter rather than the former in which he is interested; for it has to do with qualitative change, and includes alteration, generation-dissolution, and increase-diminution. Now while the last of these three is usually involved in the first two, yet strictly this sort of change is not effected through the Species, which never adds to the quantity. His theory is therefore really directed to alteration and generation-dissolution. For alteration has to do, not with quantity as such, but with the Form that is to be designed or released in this quantity. And alteration is of two kinds, complete and incomplete. In the one case, we have an entire transformation whereby the very nature of the Patient is replaced; loosely speaking, there is a certain generation of species here. And in the other case we have the kind of alteration (of the senses, for example, and the rest) which is effected through the Species; this is the sense in which he means to use the word. With this, it will be observed, is given the distinction between generation-dissolution and alteration, in the Aristotelian sense of change in substance and change in accidents. Bacon suggests that his theory is meant to be applied only to the latter, but he is obviously uncertain; and in point of fact he abides by no hard and fast distinction.

As for Aristotle so too for Bacon the essential feature in the process is assimilation. The change is always for the production of a “like.” The Agent assimilates the Patient to itself; the Patient is potentially that which the Agent actually is. For example, in the case of sense-perception, the sense of sight is assimilated to the quality to be perceived, and this is effected through the Species. The details of this process, omitted by Aristotle, it is Bacon’s intention to fill in. The conditions presupposed for the assimilation are the same for Bacon as for Aristotle, as we shall see.

We may now summarize. Within the general concept of motion, that which is formal as opposed to spatial, gives the field within which this theory of Species is to be applied. Within the formal, that change which is qualitative as opposed to quantitative engages his attention; and the qualitative is taken to include the change of generation-dissolution as well as that of alteration, though meant more particularly for the latter. Finally, the change is always such as makes for the assimilation of the Patient to the Agent.

THE PROCESS OF ASSIMILATION.

We may now get clearly before us our Author’s description of the process of assimilation through the Species. As we should expect, his general description of the process begins always with the broad notion of Agent and Patient, or Efficient and Material Cause. And the problem takes this form: How is any natural phenomenon brought into being? The answer in simple terms is this: When an Efficient Cause acts upon a Material Principle, the “virtue” of the former works the change in the latter—the Virtue of the Agent is infused into the Matter of the Patient, and transforms it until the Effect is produced. We have, then, three factors; the Efficient Cause or Agent, the Material Cause or Patient, and the Effect.

As a first condition for this process it is necessary that the Agent and Patient should come together. And by this is meant, that they must exist not only simultaneously, but also in actual contact; the Agent must touch some part of the Patient, and through this contact work the change. But while “approximation” is a necessary condition, none other than that described is required. It is a surface-contact, and that suffices. For, the Agent-as-a-whole is active, and changes the depths of the Patient part by part through the Species. As a second condition, the Agent and Patient must belong to opposite species of a common genus. These two conditions are the only ones required. Thus far Aristotle has been faithfully followed. But in the details of the actual process of assimilation, Bacon seeks to give what Aristotle omitted.

Bacon’s preliminary description of this process is as follows. We have before us, let us say, two objects each with a specific nature of its own; the one is Agent and the other is Patient, and the former is to transform the latter into a thing like itself. This transformation will be effected through the Species. Now, at first the Species is an incomplete effect of the Agent, and for that very reason is called just species; in fact, the only reason for the Species at all is its service in mediating the assimilation. During this early stage of the process the Patient is in process of being assimilated to the Agent, but is retentive of its own specific nature. But there comes a time when the Agent, through its Species, has prevailed over the Patient; and this is the moment when the specific nature of the Patient has been destroyed, and the Agent has induced the complete Effect. And when this moment arrives, the effect of the Agent ceases to be called Species and is called by the name of the Agent itself.

To illustrate, by a very concrete case, Bacon takes the action of fire upon wood. At first the passive wood is called wood and the active fire called fire, while the process is incomplete; and that is while the process of assimilation is being carried on, through a certain something with incomeplete being, the Species. But there comes a point at which the fire has prevailed over the wood, and then the Species issues with a new name, fire. The Specific nature of wood has given way to that of fire, through the mediation of the Species; the first and incomplete effect of the fire issues then under the name of a complete effect, or fire. So fire produces fire through incomplete fire. In short, a complete Effect just like its cause is produced through the medium of the incomplete effect, or Species; and the Species is the kind of intermediary that can be identical first with the Agent and then with the supplanted Patient, or Complete Effect.

This is Bacon’s preliminary account of the process. Its clearness in certain particulars makes only more annoying its confusion in other respects. The further study of details that follows will make the matter clearer. But, as we shall see, Bacon is here and

elsewhere guilty of serious ambiguity, for which his reader must be prepared.

3. DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIES.

We are now in a position to enter into a detailed study of the theory. And to this end we shall examine in order the following: first, the nature of the Species; second, its genesis; third, its limitations.

What then, precisely, is the Species? This question presses for an answer so soon as one touches his theory at any point. In and for itself it is nothing; it is described always by reference to something else. And from the very nature of his theory we should expect it to be so. He describes it chiefly by reference to the Agent, but briefly too by reference to the Patient and the Effect. We shall follow the description in this order.

By Reference to the Agent—Everything, Bacon tells us, has some essential nature, which must be either a definite substance or an accident. And such a nature is active (agens) because it is possessed of some particular virtue; that it has this virtue means that it can do something. Indeed, this operating virtue is only another name for the essence of the thing; from the standpoint, namely, of the operation itself. Moreover, essence and nature and virtue are but different aspects of the same thing; and the same is true of substance, potentiality and force. While each of the others refers to one or another aspect, virtue refers to the operation; that is, the potentiality in all Agents of calling out the action, as distinguished from that in the Patients of finishing this action.

Now, Bacon frequently uses Species as convertible with virtue. Is then the virtue just described the Species? It is not. There is yet a second sense of the word virtue, namely, the first effect of the virtue just described. This is the Species. And it is like the virtue, whose effect it is, both in essence and in action. The Species, then, is not exactly the virtue or essence of a given Agent; but similar only to it. And yet it is as nearly like this virtue as it can be, short of absolute identity with it. It is, as it were, a representative of the Agent, with full power to stand for its principal because of its likeness to it.

With this introduction, Bacon is ready to define the Species. But for purposes of exposition, let us get before us at once a summary definition, and then look closely into the meaning of its several parts.

The Species is uniformly the univocal, incomplete, principal and immediate, or first, effect of the Agent.

It is uniformly so, in the sense that it is the effect of a natural Agent acting in accordance with law and without variation. Always the first effect which the Agent produces is the Species; for, a natural Agent cannot now produce one “first effect” and again another. To be sure, the same Cause, or Agent, does produce different Effects; but the difference is to be sought in the things acted upon, and not in the Agent. For example, the sun illuminates the stars, melts the wax, hardens the clay, and warms the sense of touch; and it is the same “virtue” that acts upon all. But in each case the difference is in the Matter of the Patient receiving the Species; the Species, as first effect, is always the same, quite regardless of the nature of the Patient.

The significance of this characteristic of the Species for sense-perception is important, and Bacon calls especial attention to it. The Species of any given Agent is always Species-of-that-Agent; accordingly, whether it acts upon the external world or upon the senses, the Species as such is uniformly the same first effect.

It is the univocal effect of the Agent. An Agent may have many and various effects, but all save the first are equivocal or secondary effects. These differ from the univocal or primary effect in various respects. Thus, of the former there may be many, whereas of the latter there can be but a single one. Again, the univocal effect comes immediately from the Agent, whereas the equivocal effects are derived mediately through this. Finally, the univocal effect is essentially the same with the Agent, whereas the equivocal effects are in essence unlike the Agent. Still, the equivocal effects are predominant; they are the effects which Nature chiefly seeks. And obviously, too. For, did the action of the Agent stop with