The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon

Published in 1897, this was the first complete edition of Roger Bacon's influential thirteenth-century encyclopedia of science.

John Henry Bridges (Edited by), Roger Bacon (Author)

9781108014427, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 1 July 2010

608 pages, 25 b/w illus. 5 tables
21.6 x 14 x 3.1 cm, 0.69 kg

Roger Bacon, the medieval natural philosopher who broke new ground in promoting scientific method, produced the encyclopedic Opus Majus or 'Greater Work' in the mid-thirteenth century. This 1897 publication in two volumes was the first complete edition of the work to appear in print. Written at the request of Pope Clement IV, the Opus Majus is the most significant and most influential of Bacon's works, containing his observations of the natural world and theories on knowledge acquisition. Bacon's text appears in the original Latin, and Bridges includes a substantial introduction and brief analysis of each chapter in English, as well as extensive footnotes and an analytical table to aid the reader. Volume 1 contains the first four parts of Bacon's treatise with sections on 'Wisdom and Truth', 'The connection of Philosophy with Theology', 'The Study of Language', and 'Mathematical Science'.

Part I. The Four General Causes of Human Ignorance
Part II. The Connexion of Philosophy with Theology
Part III. The Study of Language
Part IV. Mathematical Science.

Subject Areas: Cosmology & the universe [PGK]