The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion, or declaration in this magazine, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an official document. A ROGER BACON, THEOSOPHIST "Perfecti in sapientia divina." "Men perfected in divine wisdom." ROGER BACON, Opus Majus. T the very beginning of his greatest work, the Opus Majus, Roger Bacon discusses the "obstacles to real wisdom". Among these obstacles, he puts first the example of weak and unreliable authority and the uncritical acceptance of traditional views. Perhaps we shall be wise to follow his example and, before we try to get a true view of this great Theosophist, set forth and put out of our way certain accepted views of his life and work, which are completely misleading. The first of these misleading views, which was strongly, though in all probability unconsciously, supported by the popular discussion last Spring of certain cipher manuscripts attributed to him, and made the subject of lectures and articles in Philadelphia, is that Roger Bacon's ideas and principles are at once very mysterious and very little known; that our understanding of them depends on the unravelling of a highly complicated cipher, in a manuscript which is not certainly his, and even the subject of which is still doubtful. But the reality is, that practically every good library contains half a dozen or more of Roger Bacon's authentic works, well edited and with excellent commentaries, and that these easily accessible books set forth, again and again, Roger Bacon's fundamental principles and enumerate his discoveries and forecasts of inventions, in many cases illustrated by his own drawings. As regards his life, it is no exaggeration to say that we know five times as much |