Bacon, Robert

Not surprisingly, people had speculated on the nature of heat since ancient times. Fire was one of the four classical elements and hotness one of the four primary qualities. At the time of the scientific revolution there was a widespread belief that heat was a substance, and some held the view that it was composed of atoms. Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke adopted a particulate explanation, and Hooke held the view that a body became hot because of the motion of the particles of which it is composed. 

Bacon, Robert, and Masami Kojima. 2006. Phasing Out Subsidies Recent Experiences with Fuel in Developing Countries. Financial and Private Sector Policy Note 310. Washington, DC World Bank... 

Microbial Endophytes, edited by Charles W. Bacon and James F. White, Jr. Plant-Environment Interactions Second Edition, edited by Robert E. Wilkinson... 

Bacon, Roger.The most mysterious manuscript the Voynich "Roger Bacon" cipher manuscript / edited by Robert S. Brumbaugh. Edited by Robert S. Brumbaugh. Carbondale Southern Illinois UP, 1978. xii, 175 p. 

Bacon, Roger. The Philosopher s Stone or grand elixir, discover d by Friar Bacon and now published as a counterpart to the degradation of gold by an anti-elixir. With a few notes, by No Adept... London Printed by H. Woodfall sold by J. Roberts, in Warwick-Lane and A. Dodd, without Temple-Bar, 1739. 56p. 

Bacon, Roger.Secretum secretorum edited by Robert Steele. Edited by Robert Steele. Oxford , 1920. 

West, Muriel. Notes on the importance of alchemy to modem science in the writings of Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle. Ambix 9, no. 2 (Jun 1961) 102-114. 

Steele, Robert. "Roger Bacon and the state of science in the thirteenth century." In Studies in the history and method of science, ed. Charles J. Singer, ii, 121-150. Oxford Clarendon P, 1921. 

Bacon, Francis. The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England. Edited by James Spedding, Robert L. Ellis and Douglas D. Heath., 1872. 14 vols... 

Greene, Robert.Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Edited by Daniel Selzer. Edited by Daniel Selzer. London Edward Arnold, 1963. 

Greene, Robert. The history of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Fortune Play Books, 1927. 

Each Selection Preceded by a Sketch of the Author, with Bibliography. Includes Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, by Robert Greene, The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson. 

Ashton, John William, ed.Types of English drama / edited by John W. Ashton. New York Macmillan, 1940 reprint, St Clair Shores (MI) Scholarly P, 1976. ix, 750 p. Each Selection Preceded by a Sketch of the Author, with Bibliography. Includes Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, by Robert Greene, The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson. 

Schuler, Robert M. Francis Bacon and scientific poetry 82, no. 2 (1982). 

Morrison, Robert Thornton, and Boyd, Robert. Organic Chemistry. Boston Allyn and Bacon Inc., 1959. 

The Opus Majus, of Roger Bacon, trans. Robert Belle Burke, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1928, Vol. 2, p. 629. 

Quotations in this paragraph are from Bacons works, as quoted by Rose-Mary Sargent, The Diffident Naturalist Robert Boyle and the Philosophy of Experiment (Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1995), 51. 

Bacon was born at Ilchester in Somerset around the year 1214 to a wealthy family who supported Henry III in the war against the Barons (a position that would later drive them to ruin). He was probably sent up to Oxford at the traditional age of ten or twelve, and there proved himself to be an exceptional student, being taught by the most learned men of the day, including Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln and the leading mathematician of the time. Perhaps while an undergraduate, Bacon became a Franciscan. 

After his death, the work of Roger Bacon lapsed into obscurity, no doubt due to his reputation as a sorcerer. Stories of his magical prowess kept his name alive, and in 1589, he featured in a play by Robert Greene, The History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which competed for audiences with Marlowe s Doctor Faustus. Like Faustus, Bacon regrets his magic, but unlike Marlowe s protagonist, he recants and is allowed to live (it is his slapstick servant, Miles, who is transported to hell). In a more recent tribute, Umberto Eco makes Bacon William of Baskerville s hero in The Name ojthe Rose. 

Bacon remains one of the most remarkable minds of the Middle Ages, an almost clairvoyantly sighted figure centuries ahead of his time. After reading some of Roger s work, the Francis Bacon scholar Robert Ellis was said to remark, I am inclined to think that he may have been a greater man than our Francis . For more on Roger Bacon, see Chapter 2. 

Bartholomew was one of the first great encyclopaedists, whose work l)e Proprietatibus Rerum (On the Properties of Things) was an attempt to assimilate the new learning that was coming out of Spain as a result of the work of translators such as Robert of Chester. He appears to have studied under Robert Grosseteste, the Bishop of Lincoln, and may therefore have known Roger Bacon. 

See Muriel West, Notes on the Importance of Alchemy to Modern Science in the Writings of Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle, Ambix 9, 1961, 102-114 William R. Newman, Boyle s Debt to Corpuscular Alchemy, in Robert Boyle Reconsidered, ed. Hunter Lawrence M. Principe, Robert Boyle s Alchemical Secrecy Codes, Ciphers, and Concealments, Ambix 39, 1992, 63-74 idem, Boyle s alchemical pursuits, ibid., 91-105 idem, The Aspiring Adept-, Michael Hunter, Alchemy, Magic and Moralism in the Thought of Robert Boyle, British Journal for the History of Science 23, 1990, 387- 10. 

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