Grosseteste, see Southern, 1992). For Augustine this had been a psychological
and epistemological doctrine; for Grosseteste it became expanded into a cos-
mology. His speculative system declares that the world is formed of light. God
created a point of light, Grosseteste posits, which spread out as a sphere,
rarefying until it reached a limit; this constituted the outermost celestial sphere
recognized by contemporary astronomy and cosmology. From this sphere light
bounced back by reflection to the lower spheres of the planets, eventually
forming the earth at the center. Grosseteste worked out the geometric theory
of angles and lines of reflection, drawing on the Arab science of optics. This
splendid visual image of the universe of spheres, rays, and golden light had a
powerful appeal throughout the century; three generations later Dante used it,
though associating it erroneously with Averroës.
Out of Grosseteste’s circle of scholars promoting Greek learning came
Roger Bacon, who became the most famous by taking the most radical line.
Like a number of others of his day interested in science, Bacon had considerable
independent wealth to put into his researches (he reports spending the huge
sum of £2,000 on experiments; DSB, 1981: 1:377). Structurally he was a
competitor of his contemporary Albert, whom he violently attacked, along with
Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, and most others; even where Bacon
grudgingly respects Albert, he accuses him of teaching before he has learned.
Bacon is nevertheless dependent on Arabic doctrines. He uses an Averroist
vocabulary, but his cosmology is the familiar light universe. Bacon’s main
originality is in advocating and promoting experimental science; his own
researches led to nothing concrete, and his encyclopedic efforts ranging into
fields such as astrology and alchemy yielded little advance. Even his epistemol-
ogy is rather naive; though resolutely overthrowing Platonic realism and illu-
minationist doctrines, he expects that experience and experiments will produce
complete certitude.
Bacon was in fact a propagandist, publicizing his position by violent attacks
on contemporary rivals, holding that they were living in a time of barbaric
superstition and awe of authorities. This historical condition he explains, after
the fashion of a moralistic preacher, as the result of human sins which have
caused us to lose the ancient wisdom. Here Bacon gives away the source of his
own energy: he was the most aggressive importer of pagan cultural capital at
the time when the market was just opening. In a maneuver strangely foreshad-
owing Newton’s maniacal private studies 400 years later, Bacon wrote a
synthesis of pagan myths and biblical history. Atlas, Prometheus, Apollo,
Zoroaster, and others down to the time of King Solomon are held to have
known the true science of nature; because this was subsequently lost, we must
now work empirically to regain it.
Bacon paid the price for his contentious stance. Having joined the Francis-
Academic Expansion: Medieval Christendom^ •^471