The works appear to have been well received.  We next find BACON at Oxford writing his Compendium Studii Philosophiae, in which work he indulged in some by no means unjust criticisms of the clergy, for which he fell under the condemnation of his order, and was imprisoned in 1277 on a charge of teaching “suspected novelties”.  In those days any knowledge of natural phenomena beyond that of the quasi-science of the times was regarded as magic, and no doubt some of ROGER BACON’S “suspected novelties” were of this nature; his recognition of the value of the writings of non-Christian moralists was, no doubt, another “suspected novelty”.  Appeals for his release directed to the Pope proved fruitless, being frustrated by JEROME D’ASCOLI, General of the Franciscan Order, who shortly afterwards succeeded to the Holy See under the title of NICHOLAS IV.  The latter died in 1292, whereupon RAYMOND GAUFREDI, who had been elected General of the Franciscan Order, and who, it is thought, was well disposed towards BACON, because of certain alchemical secrets the latter had revealed to him, ordered his release.  BACON returned to Oxford, where he wrote his last work, the Compendium Studii Theologiae.  He died either in this year or in 1294.[1]

[1] For further details concerning BACON’S life, EMILE CHARLES:  Roger Bacon, sa Vie, ses Ouvrages, ses Doctrines (1861); J. H. BRIDGES:  The Life & Work of Roger Bacon, an Introduction to the Opus Majus (edited by H. G. JONES, 1914); and Mr A. G. LITTLE’S essay in Roger Bacon Essays, may be consulted.

It was not until the publication by Dr SAMUEL JEBB, in 1733, of the greater part of BACON’S Opus Majus, nearly four and a half centuries after his death, that anything like his rightful position in the history of philosophy began to be assigned to him.  But let his spirit be no longer troubled, if it were ever troubled by neglect or slander, for the world, and first and foremost his own country, has paid him due honour.  His septcentenary was duly celebrated in 1914 at his alma mater, Oxford, his statue has there been raised as a memorial to his greatness, and savants have meted out praise to him in no grudging tones.[2] Indeed, a voice has here and there been heard depreciating his better-known namesake FRANCIS,[3] so that the later luminary should not, standing in the way, obscure the light of the earlier; though, for my part, I would suggest that one need not be so one-eyed as to fail to see both lights at once.

[2] See Roger Bacon, Essays contributed by various Writers on the Occasion of the Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of his Birth.  Collected and edited by A. G. LITTLE (1914); also Sir J. E. SANDYS’ Roger Bacon (from The Proceedings of the British Association, vol. vi., 1914).

[3] For example, that of ERNST DUHRING.  See an article entitled “The Two Bacons,” translated from his Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie in The Open Court for August 1914.