“It is certain that Ethiopian sages have come into Italy, Spain, France, England, and those Christian lands where there are good flying dragons; and by an occult art that they possess, excite the dragons from their caves. And they have saddles and bridles ready, and they ride the dragons, and drive them at top speed through the air, in order to soften the rigidity and toughness of their flesh, just as boars, bears, and bulls are hunted with dogs and beaten with many blows before they are killed for eating. And when they have tamed the dragons in this way, they have an art of preparing their flesh ... which they employ against the accidents of age and prolong life and inspire the intellect beyond all estimation. For no education which man can give will bestow such wisdom as does the eating of their flesh, as we have learned without deceit or doubt from men of proved trustworthiness.”[2171]
Bacon’s discussion of experimental science, therefore, on its positive side amounts to little more than a recognition of experience as a criterion of truth and a promulgation of the phrase “Experimental science” which, however, he himself ascribes to Ptolemy.[2172]
On the other hand, the credulity, the superstition, the element of marvelousness, which seem to vitiate the experimental tendencies of Bacon, are to be explained as the result of a real connection between experiment and magic. There is abundant evidence for this. Bacon, it is true, asserts that experimental science exposes and shuns all the follies of the magicians, but he admits that many persons confuse it with magic because of the marvels which it works, and he himself especially associates it with the occult sciences of alchemy and astrology. It makes gold such as neither the art of alchemy nor nature can produce; it can predict the future better than astrology.[2173] It teaches one to choose the proper constellations for his undertakings, and to use the right words at the proper times;[2174] it can construct “philosophical images and incantations and characters” which are vastly superior to those of magic;[2175] it can alter the world about us, and incline and excite the human will, though without coercion.[2176] Moreover, Bacon’s ideal experimental scientist does not scorn to take hints from wizards, while Roger himself derives his hazel rod experiment from the magicians. The snake experiment of his sage at Paris sounds more like the trick of a Hindu conjurer than the procedure of a modern laboratory.
Thus we are finally led to a consideration of the magic and astrology which were evidently so closely connected with Bacon’s mathematics and experimental science. Roger admits a certain connection between magic and astrology, since he adopts Hugh of St. Victor’s fivefold division of magic into mantice, mathematica, sortilegium, praestigium and maleficium.[2177] However, except for this superstitious mathematica he approves of astrology, whereas his attitude towards magic is uniformly one of condemnation and contempt. We shall therefore take up his treatments of the two subjects separately.
Bacon discusses or alludes to “magic” in a number of passages scattered through his works, and to it is more particularly devoted the “Letter on the secret works of art and nature and the nullity of magic,” a treatise which faithfully reproduces his point of view whether actually penned by him as it stands or not.[2178] Bacon had evidently read a good deal about magic and gives a rather unusual account of its position in the Roman Empire and early Christian period, but one which is not so very far from the truth. His idea is that there were three great conflicting and contending forces in the early centuries of the Christian era, namely, Christianity, philosophy, and magic, and that each one of these was then in opposition to the other two, although there was no sufficient reason for the permanent hostility of Christianity and philosophy, which have since become allies.[2179] But at the time the result was that the philosophers often accused the Christians of practicing magic, and that the early Christians similarly confused philosophers with magicians, as indeed was often done by uneducated men of the time who were not Christians. Moreover, Bacon complains that this confusion still exists in his own time and that contemporary theologians, Gratian in his work on Canon law, and “many saints” have condemned many useful and splendid sciences along with magic.[2180]
Roger himself, however, not only regards magic as rife in antiquity, but as still prevalent in his own time. He often refers to contemporary magicians and witches, old-wives and wizards. He declares that every nation is full of their superstitions.[2181] He is another medieval witness to the currency of a considerable body of occult literature, of which he speaks especially in the second and third chapters of the Epistola de secretis operibus, and again in his commentary on The Secret of Secrets. “Books of the magicians” are in circulation which are falsely attributed to Solomon and the ancient philosophers and which “assume a grand-sounding style,” but which “ought all to be prohibited by law, since they abound in so many lies that one cannot distinguish the true from the false.”[2182] Such works as De officiis spirituum, De morte animae, and De arte notoria embody only “figments of the magicians.” Yet these books of false mathematici and demons, ascribed to Adam, Moses, Solomon, Aristotle, and Hermes, have seduced not only youths but mature and famous men of Bacon’s own time.
Bacon, indeed, despite the prevalence of magic both in antiquity and in his own time, regards it as essentially a delusion. It is “the nullity of magic” that he especially attempts to demonstrate both in the Epistola de secretis operibus and elsewhere in his works. He is medieval Christian enough, it is true, to grant that magic may perform marvels by the aid of demons.[2183] But he also accepts the orthodox belief that magicians cannot coerce the demons by their invocations, sacrifices, and employment of the properties of natural objects, and that the evil spirits in reality respond only with evil intent and as God permits.[2184] But his emphasis is not, like Augustine’s upon the “host of wonders” which magicians work by demon aid. He seems to be sounding, not a religious retreat from magic, but a rational and scientific attack upon it. Nor does he dwell much on the criminal character of magic, although he calls the magicians maledicti—“of evil repute.”[2185] What impresses him most about magic, and the charge which he most often brings against it, is its fraud and futility. Twice he speaks of things as “false and magical”;[2186] he mentions the “figments of the magicians”;[2187] and associates magic and necromancy, not like Albert with astronomy, but with deception.[2188] For him magicians are neither magni nor philosophers and astronomers; in half a dozen passages he classes them with old-wives and witches.[2189] He will not admit that they employ valid natural forces. He represents magic as using sleight-of-hand, ventriloquism, subtle mechanism, darkness and confederates to simulate results which it is unable to perform.[2190] He further represents the magicians as “stupidly trusting in characters and incantations,”[2191] and affirms that “the human voice has not that power which magicians imagine it has.”[2192] When words are employed in magic, “either the magician accomplishes nothing, or the devil is the author of the feat.”[2193] Magical incantations and formulae are made haphazard and at anyone’s pleasure; they therefore possess no natural transforming power, and if they seem to effect anything, this is really the work of demons.[2194] Similarly Bacon regards as worthless the assertion of the magicians and witches that sudden transformations may be produced by any man at any time of day.[2195] He dismisses “fascination by word alone uttered at haphazard” as “a stupid notion characteristic of magic and of old-wives and beneath the notice of philosophers.” Here again nothing is accomplished, “unless the devil because of men’s sins operates unbeknownst.”[2196]
In certain passages, however, Bacon suggests that magic is not utterly worthless and that some truth may be derived from it. The experimental scientist whom he most admired “investigated even the experiments and lot-castings of old women”—note that they too were experimenters—“and their charms and those of all the magicians, and likewise the illusions and devices of all the conjurers”; and he did so not merely that he might be able to expose their deceptions, but also “so that nothing that ought to be known might escape him.”[2197] And his experimental science not merely “considered all the follies of the magicians, not to confirm them but to shun them, just as logic deals with sophistry”; but also “so that all falsity may be removed and the truth of the art alone retained.”[2198] Roger himself in the case of the split hazel rod discovered a natural phenomenon concealed by use of a magic incantation. Bacon also granted that the books of the magicians “may contain some truth.”[2199] It also was apparently very difficult to distinguish them from other writings, since he states that many books are reputed magical which are nothing of the sort but contain sound learning;[2200] since he calls the magicians “corrupters of wisdom’s records,”[2201] and charges them not only with fraudulently ascribing various “enormities” to Solomon, but with misinterpreting and abusing “enigmatical writings” which he believes Solomon really wrote;[2202] and since he tells us that even true philosophers have sometimes made use of meaningless incantations and characters in order to conceal their meaning. He consequently concludes that experience will show which books are good and which are bad, and that “if anyone finds the work of nature and art in one of them, let him receive it; if not, abandon the book as open to suspicion.”[2203]
Indeed, Bacon seems to think that magic has taken such a hold upon men that it can be uprooted only by scientific exposition of its tricks and by scientific achievement of even greater marvels than it professes to perform. Perhaps he realizes that religious censure or rationalistic argument is not enough to turn men from these alluring arts, but that science must show unto them yet a more excellent way, and afford scope for that laudable curiosity, that inventive and exploring instinct which magic pretends to gratify. He waxes enthusiastic over “the secret works of art and nature,” and contends that the wonders of nature and the possibilities of applied science far outshine the feats of magicians.[2204] One reason why early Christian writers so often confounded philosophy and magic together was, in his opinion, that the philosophers by their marvelous exploitation of the forces of nature equalled both the illusions of magic and the miracles of the Christians.[2205] Science, in short, not merely attacks magic’s front; it can turn its flank and cut it off from its base of supplies.
But Bacon’s science is sometimes occult science. In the first place he shared the common belief of his time that “herbs and stones and metals and other things” possess “almost miraculous” powers.[2206] By thorough investigation of such occult virtues Artephius prolonged his existence to one thousand and twenty-five years. “Moreover, there are numerous things which kill every venomous animal by the slightest contact; and if a circle is drawn about such animals with objects of this sort, they cannot get out but die without having been touched. And if a man is stung by a venomous animal, he can be cured by a little powder scraped from such objects, as Bede writes in his Ecclesiastical History and as we know by experience. And so there are innumerable things which have extraneous virtues of this sort, of whose powers we are ignorant from mere neglect of experimentation.”[2207] By calling such virtues “extraneous” Bacon seems to imply that they cannot be accounted for by the properties of the elements composing the objects, and perhaps further that they are of celestial origin. This points on to his belief in astrology.
But Bacon goes farther than that, for some of his “secret works of art and nature” we must regard as plain cases of magic procedure, and they would indeed be so classified by most of our authors. Bacon really goes about as far as Albertus Magnus in credulous acceptance of superstition, but will not admit, as Albert does, that such things are magic or very closely related to it. The incantations and characters, the fascination and marvelous transformations of magic Bacon condemns, but he does not condemn all incantations and characters, nor disbelieve in marvelous transformations and fascination. While he regards haphazard fascination as magic, he holds that just as certain bodily diseases are contagious, so if some malignant soul thinks hard of infecting another, and desires this ardently, and has full confidence in its own power to inflict such injury, “there is no doubt that nature will obey thought, as Avicenna”—who seems to have been the leading medieval authority on the subject of fascination—“shows in his eighth book on animals and in his fourth book on the soul: ... and this much is not magic.”[2208]
Bacon makes a close connection between fascination and the power of words and of the human voice, since in his opinion both are largely due to the rational soul. Words are the soul’s most appropriate instrument and almost every miracle since the beginning of the world has been performed by using them.[2209] “For where the attention, desire and virtue of the rational soul, which is worthier than the stars, concur with the power of the sky, it is inevitable that either a word or some other instrument of marvelous power be produced which will alter the things of this world, so that not only natural objects but also souls will be inclined to those ends which the wise operator desires.”[2210] Again in the Opus Tertium we are told that, while the magician accomplishes nothing by words, the wise man may for this reason. “When words are uttered with deep thought and great desire and good intention and firm confidence, they have great virtue. For when these four qualities unite, the substance of the rational being is strongly excited to radiate its own species and virtues from itself into its own body and foreign matter.”[2211] The rational soul influences the voice, which in turn affects the atmosphere and all objects contained therein. The physical constitution of the speaker also has some influence, and finally the positions of the stars must by all means be taken into account.[2212] All this reasoning is equivalent to accepting the power of incantations, for as Bacon states, “They are words brought forth by the exertion of the rational soul, and receive the virtue of the sky as they are pronounced.”[2213] Through their power bodies are healed, venomous animals put to flight, and other such effects produced. If incantations are made as described above, “then they are philosophical and the work of a sage wisely enchanting, as David the prophet says.”[2214] Bacon, however, recognizes that he is dealing with a delicate matter in which it is hard to distinguish between philosophy and magic.[2215] Of his further discussion of characters and images, and effort to show that they need not be magical, we shall treat presently in connection with his astrology. In his introduction to The Secret of Secrets he holds that the prayers and sacrifices of Aristotle and other philosophers were licit and not idolatrous.[2216]
Thus Bacon fails in his attempt to draw the line between science and magic, and shows, as William of Auvergne, Albertus Magnus, and others have already shown, how inextricably the two subjects were intertwined in his time. His own science still clings to many occult and magical theories and practices, while he admits that the magicians often try or pretend to use scientific books and methods, and that it is no easy matter to tell which books and characters and images are which. The experimental scientist not only exposes the frauds of magic but discovers secrets of nature hidden beneath the husk of magical ceremony and pretense. Also some men employ the marvels of philosophy for wicked ends and so pervert it into a sort of magic. Finally in one passage he forgets himself and speaks of “those magnificent sciences” which properly employ “images, characters, charms, prayers, and deprecations” as “magical sciences.”[2217]
Bacon’s doctrine of the multiplication of species is a good illustration of the combination of magic and science which we encounter in his works. This theory has been praised by his admirers as the propagation of force subject to mathematical law; and he has been commended for describing the species which every agent causes in all directions not, like the idols of Lucretius, as material films which peel off from the agent and impress themselves on surrounding matter, but as successive effects produced in that matter. Bacon usually illustrates his theory by the radiation of light from the sun, and by a discussion of the geometrical laws of reflection and refraction; thus his theory seems at first sight a physical one. He believed, however, that the occult influences of the planets upon nature and man were exercised in the same way, and also such mysterious powers as those of the evil eye and of fascination. Indeed, he asserts that this multiplication of virtues is universal, and that spiritual beings as well as corporeal objects affect in this manner everything about them and may themselves be so affected by other objects and beings.[2218] Viewed from this angle, his theory seems a magical one of occult influence, though given a scientific guise by its assumption that such forces proceed along mathematical lines after the analogy of rays of light. This suggests that it is not fair merely to call Bacon’s science superstitious; we must also note that he tries to make his magic scientific. But finally we must note that this doctrine was not original with Bacon; we have already met with it in Alkindi’s work on stellar rays.[2219]
It is interesting to find Bacon’s belief that the works of art and nature can exceed those of magic, and his charge that unscientific persons are confusing such works with magic, repeated by another writer. William of St. Cloud composed astronomical tables based upon his own observations during the period from about 1285 to 1321, in which he detected errors in the earlier tables of Thebit, Toulouse, and Toledo. This experimental astronomer, speaking of the powers of mirrors and lenses, such as those of Archimedes, those by which Caesar saw Britain from the shores of Gaul, and that by which Socrates discovered a dragon in the air, says: “These marvels and many others have been performed in ancient times, not by magic art, as some would have it, who are ignorant of the secrets of nature and of scientific industry, but solely by the force of nature and the aid of art.”[2220]
We now turn to Bacon’s attitude towards astrology, which we have already seen was an important factor in his “secret works of art and nature” as well as in his mathematics. He was aware that the mathematici or astrologers of the Roman Empire had been condemned by some of the church fathers, and were classed as practitioners of magic by more recent theologians and writers on Canon law. Like Isidore, Albertus Magnus, and other authors whom we have already discussed, Bacon gets around this by distinguishing two varieties of mathematics, one of which he says is magic, condemned by Cicero in his De divinatione and by other classical authorities as well as by the church fathers, the other a department of philosophy, a branch of which Augustine, Ambrose, Basil, Cassiodorus, and Gregory all approved. In the Opus Maius and Opus Tertium he states as usual that the “e” is long in the magical art of divination, while the vowel is short in the philosophical study; but in other writings he changed his mind and declared that “all the Latins” were wrong in this opinion and that the distinction was just the opposite.[2221] Bacon also cites Isidore’s distinction between two kinds of “astronomy”; one natural science, the other superstitious. Roger himself sometimes uses the words “astrology” and “astronomy” indifferently; sometimes speaks of “astrology” as speculative and “astronomy” as practical; sometimes distinguishes between speculative and practical astrology, of which the last includes judicial astrology.[2222]
Four features, to Bacon’s mind, distinguish the forbidden mathematica from legitimate judicial astrology.[2223] In the first place, it ascribes fatal necessity to the influence of the stars, whereas Bacon shows by an examination of the writings of Haly, Ptolemy, Avicenna, Messahala, and Isaac that learned and legitimate astrologers have never held any such tenet as fatal necessity, although common report may ignorantly ascribe such doctrine to them.[2224] In the second place, the practitioners of the magical variety of mathematics “invoke demons by conjurations and sacrifices to supplement the influence of the constellations, an execrable practice.” Third, “they mar their astrological observations by the idlest sort of circles, figures, and characters, and by the stupidest incantations and unreasonable prayers in which they put their trust.” Finally they often resort to fraud, employing confederates, darkness, deceptive mechanisms, and sleight-of-hand. By such methods “in which they know there is illusion” and “in which there is no virtue of the sky operating,” “they perform many feats which seem marvelous to the stupid.”[2225]
While thus censuring the mathematica which is a subdivision of magic, Bacon declared that “it is manifest to everyone that the celestial bodies are the causes of generation and corruption in all inferior things.”[2226] Had not Aristotle in his treatise on Generation and Corruption said that the four terrestrial elements are related to the heavens as tools to an artificer?[2227] Bacon regarded the stars as ungenerated, incorruptible, and voluntary in their movements, which were regulated by angelic intelligences.[2228] He also accepted the usual technique of the astrological art in explaining the operation of this celestial influence.[2229]
Bacon naturally subjected the human body to the constellations and was a firm believer in astrological medicine. If a doctor is ignorant of “astronomy,” his medical treatment will be dependent upon “chance and fortune.”[2230] Bacon holds not only that at conception and at birth one’s fundamental “complexion,” or physical constitution, is determined by the sky,[2231] but that with each changing hour our bodies are governed by a different planet whose characteristics the physician should know. Where Neckam[2232] had assigned six hours to the planet after which the day was named, that is, the first three and last three hours of the twenty-four, Bacon assigns it only four hours, namely, the first, eighth, fifteenth and twenty-second. Then, in order to bring the proper planet into control of the first hour of the succeeding day, he is obliged to have them follow each other in a different order in their rule of hours from that in which the days of the week are named.[2233] Bacon also distributes the parts of the body among the signs of the zodiac,[2234] and states that the physician must observe the moon carefully.[2235] He cites Hippocrates, Galen, the Centiloquium and Haly concerning the great influence of the stars both upon health and the administering of medicines.[2236] That the patriarchs of the Old Testament lived so much longer than men do to-day has been explained by many, Bacon says, as due to the stars. His explanation of the strange case of a woman of Norwich who ate nothing for twenty years and yet was during all that time in the best of health is that some constellation must have reduced the concourse of the four elements in her body to a self-sufficient harmony such as they seldom attain.[2237] Indeed, he goes so far as to hold that the resurrected body will have that harmony of the elements and so endure through eternity, no matter whether raised to the bliss of heaven or subjected to the consuming torments of hell.
Bacon even held that the stars by their influence upon the human body incline men to bad acts and evil arts or to good conduct and useful sciences. Such natural inclinations might, however, be resisted by effort of will, modified by divine grace, or strengthened by diabolic tempting.[2238] But while the individual by an effort of will may resist the force of the stars, in masses of men the power of the constellations usually prevails; and the differences in peoples inhabiting different parts of the earth are due to their being under different aspects of the sky. Recent bloody wars might have been avoided, had men harkened to warnings written in the sky. “Oh, how great profit to the church of God might have been procured, if the disposition of the sky for those times had been foreseen by the wise, and known to prelates and princes, and restricted by zeal for peace! Then there would not have been such slaughter of Christians nor so many souls sent below.”[2239] The personality of the king, too, has such great influence upon his kingdom that it is worth while to examine his horoscope carefully.[2240]
Bacon was especially attracted by the doctrine of Albumasar concerning conjunctions of the planets, and derived comforting evidence of the superiority of the Christian faith to other religions from the astrological explanation of the origin of religious sects according to the successive conjunctions of the other planets with Jupiter.[2241] He was pleased by the association of Christianity with Mercury, which he calls the lord of wisdom and eloquence, of oracles and prophecies; it is dominant only in the sign Virgo, which at once suggests the Virgin Mary; and its orbit, difficult to trace because of epicycle and eccentric, typifies well the Christian creed with its mysteries that defy reason. Similarly the malign force of the moon, productive of necromancy and magic, fits Antichrist exactly; and Venus corresponds to the sensuality of Mohammedanism. Further astrological evidences of Christianity are the coincidence six years before the birth of Christ of an important conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter with a tenth revolution of Saturn, which last occurs only at intervals of 320 years, and always marks some great historical change like the advent of Alexander or Manes or Mohammed. Astrology further assures us that Islam can endure only 693 years, a prediction in close agreement with the number of the beast in the Apocalypse, 663 (sic); the small discrepancy of thirty years is readily accounted for by the dictum of the venerable Bede that “Scripture in many places subtracts something from the complete number, for that’s the way with Scripture.”[2242]
The astronomers, Bacon tells the pope, further assure us that even the Virgin Birth of Christ and His Nativity were in accordance with the constellations. They think that God willed so to order His works that certain future events which He foresaw or predestined should be revealed to the wise through the planets, in order that the human mind, recognizing God’s marvelous works, might increase in love towards Him. They grant that it is impossible that the Creator be subject to a creature, or that the birth of Christ, in so far as it was supernatural, should be subject in any way to the influence of the stars, which in this respect could only be signs of the divine work. But in so far as the birth of Jesus was a natural event and His nature was human, they regard Him as under the influence of the constellations, like the rest of humanity. Their statements in such matters should, however, Bacon more cautiously adds, be brought into conformity with the doctrines of the Catholic faith.[2243]
Bacon believed that by means of astrology not only could the future be in large measure foretold, but also marvelous operations and great alterations could be effected throughout the whole world, especially by choosing favorable hours and by employing astronomical amulets and characters—in other words, by the arts of elections and of images.[2244] As the babe at birth receives from the stars that fundamental physical constitution which lasts it through life, so any new-made object is permanently affected by the disposition of the constellations at the moment of its making.[2245] Especially by images, “if they are engraved in accordance with the aspect of the sky in the elect times, can all injuries be repelled and useful undertakings promoted.”[2246] Bacon not only cites as authorities concerning them Haly’s commentary on the Centiloquium supposed to be by Ptolemy, Thabit ben Corra, and the spurious Secret of Secrets of Aristotle; but believes that Moses and Solomon both made use of them.[2247] The marvelous power of spoken words is also in part accounted for by Bacon by the celestial influence prevalent at the moment of utterance. “Although the efficacious employment of words is primarily the function of the rational soul,” nevertheless “the astronomer can form words in elect times which will possess unspeakable power” of transforming natural objects and even inclining human minds to obey him.[2248] Thus Bacon’s “astronomer” is really a magician and enchanter as well—one more of the many indications we have met that there is no dividing line between magic and astrology: divination is magic; astrology operates. Bacon was very desirous that the church should avail itself of the guidance and aid of astrology; and he feared the harm that Antichrist, whose advent Bacon with many others of his century seems to have believed was near at hand, or the Tartars with their astrologers, would be able to do Christendom, if the church neglected this art.[2249]
Having considered Bacon’s position in regard to magic and astrology, we are now prepared to inquire what likelihood there is that his reported condemnation in 1278 for “some suspected novelties” was due to either. Briefly it may be answered to begin with that his views concerning these subjects were not novel; he shared them with Albert and other contemporaries, and there seems to be no good reason why they should have got him into trouble. His expressed attitude towards “magic” is so hostile that it seems unlikely that he would have been charged with it, when other clergymen like Albert and William of Auvergne spoke of it with less hostility and yet escaped unscathed. There is not a particle of evidence in his works that he ever invoked spirits or attempted to do anyone an injury by occult methods, and this was the only kind of magic that was likely to be punished at that time.[2250] Towards astrology he was, it is true, more favorable than some of his contemporaries. With his views on astrological images and his attribution of religious sects to conjunctions of the planets theologians like Aquinas and William of Auvergne would refuse to agree, but Arabian astrology supported such doctrines, and the views of an approved Christian thinker like Albertus Magnus concerning astrology are almost identical with those of Bacon. We note elsewhere writings on such subjects as astrological medicine by Franciscans; and such a regulation as that of May 25, 1292, for Franciscans studying at Paris, that they should not spend the alms given them to buy books with for other purposes, nor cause curious books to be made, suggests that a number of them were prone to consult superstitious works as well as that the Order forbids this.[2251] And by “curious books” are doubtless meant the sort that we have heard Bacon strongly censure.
Again therefore there is no reason why Bacon should have been singled out for condemnation. Such a notion has arisen partly from misapprehension as to the views of Bacon’s contemporaries and from misstatements such as the passage in Charles’ life of Bacon,[2252] where he declares that Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly in his treatise on laws and sects condemns the doctrine of an English doctor concerning religions and the conjunctions of planets, and approves the contrary doctrine of William of Auvergne, but “does not dare” to name Bacon, to whom he alludes with the bated breath of terror and repugnance. All this, except the bare fact that d’Ailly criticizes this particular doctrine of Bacon, is sheer fancy on Charles’ part. Had he consulted a complete fifteenth-century edition of d’Ailly’s writings instead of merely such of his treatises as were included in an eighteenth-century edition of the works of Gerson, he would have known that elsewhere the cardinal cites Bacon on astrology by name with respect and admiration,[2253] and that the learned reformer even goes so far as to agree boldly and explicitly with Bacon’s doctrine that Christ as a son of man was under the stars.[2254] That Bacon’s astrology had not been condemned in 1278 is also indicated soon after his death by Pierre Dubois’ approving mention of his discussion of the utility of “mathematics.”[2255]