SOURCE: "The Innovators of the Middle Ages," in The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History, Vol 2, second edition, 1847. Reprint by Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1967, pp. 155-73.

Whewell was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University, and the author of several distinguished works on the inductive sciences. In the following excerpt, he focuses upon Opus Majus, seeking "to point out… the way in which the various principles, which the reform of scientific method involved, are here brought into view."

[Roger Bacon] was termed by his brother monks Doctor Mirabilis. We know from his own works, as well as from the traditions concerning him, that he possessed an intimate acquaintance with all the science of his time which could be acquired from books; and that he had made many remarkable advances by means of his own experimental labours. He was acquainted with Arabic, as well as with the other...