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.
English polymath, philosopher and friar (c.1219/20–c.1292)
Roger Bacon (c. 1219/20 – c. 1292), also known as Doctor Mirabilis (Latin: "wonderful teacher"), was an English theologian, philosopher and Franciscan friar. An English philosopher who placed considerable emphasis on empiricism, he was one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method. Later studies have emphasized his reliance on occult and alchemical traditions. All his theoretical writings were originally in Latin.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Pen Names:
Doctor Mirabilis
Alternative Names:
Rogerus
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Rogerus Bacon
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Rogerus Baconus
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Frater Rogerus
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Rogerus Baconis
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Rogerius Baconis
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Ruggiero Bacone
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Rogerus Bachon
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Rogerius Bacconis
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Ruggero Bacone
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Roger Bacco
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Rogerius Baco
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Roger
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Roger Bachon
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Roger Bacho
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Rogerius Bacco
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Roger Baco
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Rogeri Baconis
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Admirable Doctor
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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.
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.
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.