Theologians From England

"Every medieval and Renaissance court had a royal astrologer who advised the duke or prince he served. ...Men such as Roger Bacon, who even in the thirteenth century was a clear and outspoken champion of the experimental method in science, and Jerome Cardan, one of the foremost mathematicians and physicians of the sixteenth century, subscribed to astrology."

"Throughout the Opus Majus there is an orderly arrangement of the subject-matter formed with a definite purpose, and leading up to a central theme, the consolidation of the Catholic faith as the supreme agency for the civilization and ennoblement of mankind. For this end a complete renovation and reorganization of man's intellectual forces was needed. After a brief exposition of the four principal impediments to wisdom—authority, habit, prejudice, and false conceit of knowledge—Bacon proceeds in his second part to explain the inseparable connexion of philosophy with the highest truths of religion. ...The first condition ...of a renovation of learning is the systematic study of at least three languages besides Latin, namely Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic. The second condition was the application of mathematical method to all objects of study, whether in the world or in the Church. ...it [mathematics] raises the understanding to the plane at which knowledge can be distinguished from ignorance. Without it other sciences are unintelligible. It reveals to us the motions of the heavenly bodies, and the laws of the propagation of force in things terrestrial, of which the propagation of light may be taken as a type; without it we are incapable of regulating the festivals of the Church; we remain in ignorance of the influences of climate upon character; of the position of cities and of the boundaries of nations whom it is the function of the Catholic Church to bring within her pale, and to control spiritually. ...But mathematical method, though essential, is insufficient. It must be supplemented by the method of experiment. Experimental science governs all the preceding sciences ('domina est omnium scientiarum praecedentium' [she is the matron of all previous sciences]), it controls their methods; in prosecuting its own special researches it makes use of their results."

"To be able to speak the language of the schools with authority was the first condition of obtaining a hearing. But he was not slow to perceive that the men who taught this philosophy were, for the most part, wholly destitute of positive knowledge. They knew no language but Latin. Beyond the shreds of arithmetic, mensuration, and astronomy taught in the manuals of the Quadrivium, they were ignorant of mathematics. Of the possibility of applying mathematical knowledge to the facts of nature they had formed no conception whatever. Their philosophy was a tangle of barren controversies reducible, for the most part, to verbal disputes. It bore no relation to the facts of real life. It held out no hope of raising the Catholic Church to the position of intellectual domination needed for establishing her authority over the Asiatic world, from which dangers were looming of appalling magnitude."

"Great as Bacon was, he was far from being free from the mistakes and prejudices of those who went before him. Even some of the most wild and absurd opinions of the antients have the sanction of his approbation and authority. He does not hesitate to assent to an opinion... that visual rays proceed from the eye; giving this reason for it, that every thing in nature is qualified to discharge its proper functions by its own powers, in the same manner as the sun, and other celestial bodies. He acknowledges, however, that the presence of light, as well as several other circumstances, is necessary to vision."

"The mind of Roger Bacon was strangely compounded of almost prophetic gleams of the future course of science, and the best principles of the inductive philosophy, with a more than usual credulity in the superstitions of his own time. Some have deemed him overrated by the nationality of the English; but, if we may have sometimes given him credit for discoveries to which he has only borne testimony, there can be no doubt of the originality of his genius."

"Et hæc scientia certificat omnia naturalia et artificialia in particulari et in propria disciplina, per experientiam perfectam; non per argumenta, ut scientiæ pure speculativae, nec per debiles et imperfecta experientias ut scientiae operativæ. Et ideo hæc est domina omnium scientiarum præcedentium, et finis totius speculationis."

"One man I know, and one only, who can be praised for his achievements in this science. Of discourses and battles of words he takes no heed: he follows the works of wisdom, and in these finds rest. What others strive to see dimly and blindly, like bats in twilight, he gazes at in the full light of day, because he is a master of experiment. Through experiment he gains knowledge of natural things, medical, chemical, indeed of everything in the heavens or earth. He is ashamed that things should be known to laymen, old women, soldiers, ploughmen, of which he is ignorant. Therefore he has looked closely into the doings of those who work in metals and minerals of all kinds; he knows everything relating to the art of war, the making of weapons, and the chase; he has looked closely into agriculture, mensuration, and farming work; he has even taken note of the remedies, lot casting, and charms used by old women and by wizards and magicians, and of the deceptions and devices of conjurors, so that nothing which deserves inquiry should escape him, and that he may be able to expose the falsehoods of magicians. If philosophy is to be carried to its perfection and is to be handled with utility and certainty, his aid is indispensable. As for reward, he neither receives nor seeks it. If he frequented kings and princes, he would easily find those who would bestow on him honours and wealth. Or, if in Paris he would display the results of his researches, the whole world would follow him. But since either of these courses would hinder him from pursuing the great experiments in which he delights, he puts honour and wealth aside, knowing well that his wisdom would secure him wealth whenever he chose. For the last three years he has been working at the production of a mirror that shall produce combustion at a fixed distance; a problem which the Latins have neither solved nor attempted, though books have been written upon the subject."

"All these foregoing sciences are, properly speaking, speculative. There is indeed in every science a practical side, as Avicenna teaches in the first book of his Art of Medicine. Nevertheless, of Moral Philosophy alone can it be said that it is in the special and autonomatic sense practical, dealing as it does with human conduct with reference to virtue and vice, beatitude and misery. All other sciences are called speculative: they are not concerned with the deeds of the present or future life affecting man's salvation or damnation. All procedures of art and of nature are directed to these moral actions, and exist on account of them. They are of no account except in that they help forward right action. Thus practical and operative sciences, as experimental alchemy and the rest, are regarded as speculative in reference to the operations with which moral or political science is concerned. This science is the mistress of every department of philosophy. It employs and controls them for the advantage of states and kingdoms. It directs the choice of men who are to study in sciences and arts for the common good. It orders all members of the state or kingdom so that none shall remain without his proper work."

"[H]aec vocatur scientia experimentalis, quae negligit argumenta, quoniam non certificant, quantumcunque sint fortia, nisi simul adsit experientia conclusionis. Et ideo haec docet experiri conclusiones nobiles omnium scientiarum, quae in aliis scientiis aut probantur per argumenta, aut investigantur per experientias naturales et imperfectas..."

"In his Opus Majus he demonstrates, that if a transparent body, interposed between the eye and an object, be convex towards the eye, the object will appear magnified. This observation our author certainly had from Alhazen... this writer [Bacon] gives us figures, representing the progress of rays of light through his spherical segment, as well as endeavours to give reasons why objects are magnified... From the writings of Alhazen and these observations and experiments of Bacon together, it is not improbable that some monks gradually hit upon the construction of spectacles, to which Bacon's lesser segment, not withstanding his mistake concerning it, was a nearer approach than Alhazen's... Whoever they were that pursued the discoveries of Bacon, they probably observed, that a very small convex glass, when held at a greater distance from a book, would magnify the letters more than when it was placed close to them, in which position only Bacon seemed to have used it. In the next place, they might try whether two of these small segments of a sphere placed together, or a glass convex on both sides, would not magnify more than one of them. They would then find, that two of these glasses, one for each eye, would answer the purpose of reading better than one; and lastly they might find, that different degrees of convexity, suited different persons. It is certain that spectacles were well known in the 13th century, and not long before. ...It would certainly have been a great satisfaction to us to have been able to trace the actual steps in the progress of this most useful invention, without which most persons who have a taste for reading must have had the melancholy prospect of passing a very dull and joyless old age; and must have been deprived of the pleasure of entertaining themselves by conversing with the absent and the dead, when they were no longer capable of acting their part among the living. Telescopes and microscopes are to be numbered among the superfluities of life when compared to spectacles, which may now be ranked almost among the necessities of it; since the arts of reading and writing are almost universal."

"I use the example of the rainbow and of the phenomena connected with it, of which sort are the circle around the sun and the stars, likewise the rod lying at the side of the sun or of a star which appears to the eye in a straight line... called the rod by Seneca, and the circle is called the corona, which often has the colors of the rainbow. But neither Aristotle nor Avicenna, in their Natural Histories, has given us knowledge of things of this sort, nor has Seneca, who composed a special book on them. But Experimental Science makes certain of them. [The experimenter] considers rowers and he finds the same colors in the falling drops dripping from the raised oars when the solar rays penetrate drops of this sort. It is the same with waters falling from the wheels of a mill; and when a man sees the drops of dew in summer of a morning lying on the grass in the meadow or the field, he will see the colors. And in the same way when it rains, if he stands in a shady place and if the rays beyond it pass through dripping moisture, then the colors will appear in the shadow nearby; and very frequently of a night colors appear around the wax candle. Moreover, if a man in summer, when he rises from sleep and while his eyes are yet only partly opened, looks suddenly toward an aperture through which a ray of the sun enters, he will see colors. And if, while seated beyond the sun, he extend his hat before his eyes, he will see colors; and in the same way if he closes his eye, the same thing happens under the shade of the eyebrow; and again, the same phenomenon occurs through a glass vessel filled with water, placed in the rays of the sun. Or similarly if any one holding water in his mouth sprinkles it vigorously into the rays and stands to the side of the rays; and if rays in the proper position pass through an oil lamp hanging in the air, so that the light falls on the surface of the oil, colors will be produced. And so in an infinite number of ways, as well natural as artificial, colors of this sort appear, as the careful experimenter is able to discover."

"I have labored much in sciences and languages, and I have up to now devoted forty years [to them] after I first learned the Alphabetum; and I was always studious. Apart from two of these forty years I was always [engaged] in study [or at a place of study], and I had many expenses just as others commonly have. Nevertheless, provided I had first composed a compendium, I am certain that within quarter or half a year I could directly teach a solicitous and confident person whatever I know of these sciences and languages. And it is known that no one worked in so many sciences and languages as I did, nor so much as I did. Indeed, when I was living in the other state of life [as a Magister], people marveled that I survived the abundance of my work. And still, I was just as involved in studies afterwards, as I had been before. But I did not work all that much, since in the pursuit of Wisdom this was not required."

"Many of these mystics, by following what they were taught by some treatises, secretly preserved from one generation to another, achieved discoveries which would not be despised even in our modern days of exact sciences. Roger Bacon, the friar, was laughed at as a quack, and is now generally numbered among "pretenders" to magic art; but his discoveries were nevertheless accepted, and are now used by those who ridicule him the most... Roger Bacon belonged by right if not by fact to that Brotherhood which includes all those who study the occult sciences. Living in the thirteenth century, almost a contemporary, therefore, of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, his discoveries — such as gunpowder and optical glasses, and his mechanical achievements — were considered by everyone as so many miracles. He was accused of having made a compact with the Evil One... It is recounted, that, having been summoned before the king, the friar was induced to show "some of his skill before her majesty the queen. So he waved his hand... and "presently was heard such excellent music, that they all said they had never heard the like."... Then he waved his wand again,and suddenly there was such a smell "as if all the rich perfumes in the whole world had been there prepared in the best manner that art could set them out." Thephenomena of the mystic odors and music, exhibited by Roger Bacon, have been often observed in our own time."

"If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics..."

"I shall draw... a figure (which all these matters are made clear as far as possible on a surface, but the full demonstration would require a body like the eye... The eye of a cow, pig, and other animals can be used for illustration, if anyone wishes to experiment."

"Everything in nature completes its action through its own force and species alone... as, for example, fire by its own force dries and consumes and does many things. Therefore vision must perform the act of seeing by its own force. But the act of seeing is the perception of a visible object at a distance, and therefore vision perceives what is visible by its own force multiplied to the object. Moreover, the species of the things of world are not fitted by nature to effect the complete act of vision at once, because of its nobleness. Hence these must be aided by the species of the eye, which travels in the locality of the visual pyramid, and changes the medium and ennobles it, and renders it analogous to vision, and so prepares the passage of the species itself of the visible object... Concerning the multiplication of this species, moreover, we are to understand that it lies in the same place as the species of the thing seen, between the sight and the thing seen, and takes place along the pyramid whose vertex is in the eye and base in the thing seen. And as the species of an object in the same medium travels in a straight path and is refracted in different ways when it meets a medium of another transparency, and is reflected when it meets the obstacles of a dense body; so is it also true of the species of vision that it travels altogether along the path of the species itself of the visible object."

"Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience."

"There are in fact four very significant stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely, the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge."

"Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical."

"Mathematics is the gate and key of the sciences. ... Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world. And what is worse, men who are thus Ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance and so do not seek a remedy."

"For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics. For this is an assured fact in regard to celestial things, since two important sciences of mathematics treat of them, namely theoretical astrology and practical astrology. The first … gives us definite information as to the number of the heavens and of the stars, whose size can be comprehended by means of instruments, and the shapes of all and their magnitudes and distances from the earth, and the thicknesses and number, and greatness and smallness, … It likewise treats of the size and shape of the habitable earth … All this information is secured by means of instruments suitable for these purposes, and by tables and by canons .. For everything works through innate forces shown by lines, angles and figures."

"Mix together saltpetre, luru vopo vir con utriet [powdered charcoal], and sulphur, and you will make thunder and lightning, if you know the method of mixing them."

"Prudens quaestio dimidium scientiae."

"And because this Experimental Science is wholly ignored by the general run of students, for that reason I can not convince people of its utility unless I show at the same time its excellence and its property. This science alone, then, knows how to test perfectly by experience what can be done by nature, what by the industry of art, what by imposture; what the incantations, conjurations, invocations, deprecations, sacrifices (which are magical devices) seek and dream of; and what is done in them, so that all falsity may be removed and that only the truth of art and nature be retained. This science alone teaches one to consider all the insanities of magicians, not that they may be confirmed but that they may be avoided, just as logic considers sophistical argument."

"Argument is conclusive... but... it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may never rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment. For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns, his hearer's mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught."

"Bacon expresses theological and moral truths in terms of mathematical phraseology. He compares the Trinity to an equilateral triangle, argues that the divine light of grace reaches the good in a direct perpendicular ray, the weak in a refracted ray, and the bad in a reflected ray, and compares the virtues to the rational numbers, and the passions to the irrational, etc."

"Oh how delightful is the taste of wisdom to those who are thus steeped in it from its very fount and origin. They who have not tried this cannot feel the delight of wisdom, just as a sick man cannot estimate the flavour of food. But because they are affected with this sort of mental sickness, and their intellect in this matter is as it were deaf from their very birth, so as not to appreciate the delight of harmony, on this account they grieve not at this so great loss of wisdom, though indeed without doubt it is an infinite loss."

"For sounds like thunder, and coruscations like lightning, may be made in the air, and they may be rendered even more horrible than those of nature herself. A small quantity of matter, properly manufactured, not larger than the human thumb, may be made to produce a horrible noise and coruscation. And this may be done many ways, by which a city or an army may be destroyed, as was the case when and his men broke their pitchers and exhibited their lamps, fire issuing out of them with inestimable noise, destroyed an infinite number of the army of the Midianites."

"Quantum theory also tells us that the world is not simply objective; somehow it's something more subtle than that. In some sense it is veiled from us, but it has a structure that we can understand."

"Let me end this chapter by suggesting that religion has done something for science. The latter came to full flower in its modern form in seventeenth-century Europe. Have you ever wondered why that's so? After all the ancient Greeks were pretty clever and the Chinese achieved a sophisticated culture well before we Europeans did, yet they did not hit on science as we now understand it. Quite a lot of people have thought that the missing ingredient was provided by the Christian religion. Of course, it's impossible to prove that so - we can't rerun history without Christianity and see what happens - but there's a respectable case worth considering. It runs like this. The way Christians think about creation (and the same is true for Jews and Muslims) has four significant consequences. The first is that we expect the world to be orderly because its Creator is rational and consistent, yet God is also free to create a universe whichever way God chooses. Therefore, we can't figure it out just by thinking what the order of nature ought to be; we'll have to take a look and see. In other words, observation and experiment are indispensable. That's the bit the Greeks missed. They thought you could do it all just by cogitating. Third, because the world is God's creation, it's worthy of study. That, perhaps, was a point that the Chinese missed as they concentrated their attention on the world of humanity at the expense of the world of nature. Fourth, because the creation is not itself divine, we can prod it and investigate it without impiety. Put all these features together, and you have the intellectual setting in which science can get going. It's certainly a historical fact that most of the pioneers of modern science were religious men. They may have had their difficulties with the Church (like Galileo) or been of an orthodox cast of mind (like Newton), but religion was important for them. They used to like to say that God had written two books for our instruction, the book of scripture and the book of nature. I think we need to try to decipher both books if we're to understand what's really happening."

"God is not a God of the edges, with a vested interest in beginnings. God is the God of the whole show."

"God didn't produce a ready-made world. The Creator has done something cleverer than this, making a world able to make itself."

"There is much cloudy unpredictable process throughout the whole of the physical world. It is a coherent possibility that God interacts with the history of creation by means of "information input" into its open physical process. The causal net of the universe is not drawn so tight as to exclude this possibility. Mere mechanism is dead, and a more subtle and supple universe is accessible to the providential interaction of the Creator."

"It is only when we have saturated ourselves in his prose, followed the movement of his thought, that we find his examination of words terminating in the ecstasy of assent. Andrewes takes a word and derives the world from it; squeezing and squeezing the word until it yields a full juice of meaning which we should never have supposed any word to possess. In this process the qualities which we have mentioned, of ordonnance and precision, are exercised."

"Master Lillies immoderate commending him, by little and little I was drawne on to bee an auditor of his: since when, whensoever I heard him, I thought it was but hard and scant allowance that was giv'n him, in comparison of the incomparable gifts that were in him."

"This reverend shadow cast that setting Sun, Whose glorious course through our Horrizon run, Left the dimme face of this dull Hemisphaeare, All one great eye, all drown'd in one great Teare. Whose faire illustrious soule, led his free thought Through Learnings Universe, and (vainely) sought Roome for her spatious selfe, untill at length Shee found the way home, with an holy strength Snathc't herself hence, to Heaven: fill'd a bright place, Mongst those immortall fires, and on the face Of her great Maker fixt her flaming eye, There still to read true pure divinity. And now that grave aspect hath deign'd to shrinke Into this lesse appearance; If you thinke, Tis but a dead face, Art doth here bequeath: looke on the following leaves, and see him breath."

"I had dinner to-day with the Bishop of Ely [Andrewes] and heard him read chapter VIII of his book [Responsio ad ‘Apologiam’ Card. Bellarmine]. It is wonderful with what elegance this most learned man confutes the theological scum, the folly, and sometimes the impious blasphemies of Bellarmine."

"I have read and daily read this work [Responsio ad ‘Apologiam’ Card. Bellarmine] in which sincere piety contends for the first place with varied learning and a certain most sweet elegance... Truly wretched Cardinal, who has thus found in his effete old age an antagonist full of genius, rare erudition, and eloquence... If there is any sense of shame left in him I do not think he will ever again dare to descend into the arena with this adversary—certe enim impar congressus Achilli."

"The bishop of Chichester is appointed to aunswer Bellarmin about the oth of allegeaunce, which taske I doubt how he will undertake and performe, beeing so contrarie to his disposition and course to meddle with controversies."

"I believe that Thou hast created me; despise not the work of Thine own hands;— that Thou madest me after Thine image and likeness, suffer not Thy likeness to be blotted out;— that Thou host redeemed me in Thy blood, suffer not the cost of that redemption to perish; that Thou host called me Christian after Thy name, disdain not Thine own title; that Thou host hallowed me in regeneration; destroy not Thy holy work;— than Thou halt grafted me into the good olive‑tree, the member of a mystical body; the member of Thy mystical body, cut not off. O think upon Thy servant as concerning Thy word, wherein Thou hast caused me to put my trust. My soul hath longed for Thy salvation, and I have good hope because of Thy word."

"The power of the Father guide me, the wisdom of the Son enlighten me, the working of the Spirit quicken me. Guard Thou my soul, stablish my body, elevate my senses, direct my converse, form my habits, bless my actions, fulfil my prayers, inspire holy thoughts, pardon the past, correct the present, prevent the future."

"Blessed, and praised, and celebrated, and magnified, and exalted, and glorified, and hallowed, be Thy Name, O Lord, its record, and its memory, and every memorial of it; for the all-honourable senate of the Patriarchs, the ever‑venerable band of the Prophets, the all‑glorious college of the Apostles, the Evangelists, the all-illustrious army of the Martyrs, the Confessors, the assembly of Doctors, the Ascetics, the beauty of Virgins, for Infants the delight of the world,— for their faith, their hope, their labours, their truth; their blood, their zeal, their diligence, their tears, their purity; their beauty. Glory to Thee, O Lord, glory to Thee, glory to Thee who didst glorify them, among whom we too glorify Thee."

"Fill our garners with all manner of store; preserve our marriages in peace and concord, nourish our infants, lead forward our youth, sustain our aged, comfort the weak‑hearted, gather together the scattered, restore the wanderers, and knit them to Thy Holy Catholic Apostolic Church...Be, Lord, within me to strengthen me, without me to guard me, over me to shelter me, beneath me to stablish me, before me to guide me, after me to forward me, round about me to secure me."

"Let us pray to God...for the Catholic Church, its establishment and increase; for the Eastern, its deliverance and union; for the Western, its adjustment and peace; for the British, the supply of what is wanting in it, the strengthening of what remains in it; for the episcopate, presbytery, Christian people...for all whom I have promised to remember in my prayers; or from mutual offices, for all who remember me in their prayers, and ask of me the same; or from stress of engagements, for all who on sufficient reasons fail to call upon Thee; for all who have no intercessor in their own behalf..."

"Perfect for me what is lacking of faith, of hope of Thy gifts, help Thou mine unbelief, establish my trembling hope, of love kindle its smoking flax. Shed abroad Thy love in my heart, so that I may love Thee, my friend in Thee, my enemy for Thee. O Thou who givest grace to the humble-minded, also give me grace to be humble-minded."

"We then remembering, O sovereign Lord, in the presence of Thy holy mysteries, the salutary passion of Thy Christ, His life‑giving cross, most precious death, three days’ sepulture, resurrection from the dead, ascent into heaven, session at the right hand of Thee, the Father, His fearful and glorious coming; we beseech Thee, O Lord, that we, receiving in the pure testimony of our conscience, our portion of Thy sacred things, may be made one with the holy Body and Blood of Thy Christ; and receiving them not unworthily, we may hold Christ indwelling in our hearts, and may become a temple of Thy Holy Spirit."

"A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off, in solstitio brumali, ‘the very dead of winter’."

"But because in the Sacrament all those doe meete together, therefore nothing so availeable to take away sinne, as the touching of bread and wine, with our lips."

"Thou who wouldest that we overcome evil with good, and pray for those who persecute us, have pity on mine enemies, Lord, as on myself; and lead them together with me to Thy heavenly kingdom. Thou who grantest the prayers of Thy servants one for another, remember, Lord, for good, and pity all those who remember me in their, prayers, or whom I have promised to remember in mine. Thou who acceptest diligence in every good work, remember, Lord, as if they prayed to Thee, those who for any good reason give not time to prayer."

"If all be true that I do think, There are five reasons we should drink: Good wine, a friend, or being dry, Or lest we should be by and by, Or any other reason why."