Page:Theory of Mind of Roger Bacon.djvu/6

 which colors the whole background of his Theory of Mind in particular, and his Philosophy in general.

A word should be added concerning the general character of Bacon’s work. Although premature, it would not seem hazardous to assume that his work retained to the end of his days much more the character of outline than of system. The frequent repetitions, the extraordinarily wide scope of his reading, his marked gift of criticism and less marked capacity for synthesis, his intense enthusiasm and lack of judicial calm, on the one hand; and the purely external circumstances that filled his literary career with embarrassments and difficulties, and especially the imprisonment that robbed him of many of his best years, on the other hand—all make for a very reasonable presumption that his chief contribution in the history of thought was to be less a systematic Philosophy than a Method of procedure. For an excellent picture of the difficult circumstances that surrounded the composition of the Opus Majus, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium, attention is especially called to Brewer’s Introduction (pp. xvi. ff). It is well to keep this picture clearly before one’s mind in the study of Bacon; for it frequently makes plain what would otherwise be puzzling.