42 Francis Bacon.

lead and Saturn, tin and the Devil, and, so, often merely
sowed and reaped the air.

The other cause lay in the prejudice which the often
pretentious claims of these erratic pioneers naturally
excited in an ignorant age. The unripe fruit whiclf
they plucked from the tree of knowledge was regarded
as forbidden, and hardly one among them escaped the
charge,1 sometimes followed by severe practical conse-
quences, of unhallowed dealing in the black arts. It
has been observed that in dark periods and among
rude peoples superior powers are apt to be the butts
of hatred and fear. On the minds of those assailed
this had a twofold result; it led to the practice among
the more cautious thinkers of expressing themselves in
occult phrases, of conveying the secrets2 of which they
fancied themselves possessed, in enigmas intelligible only
to an initiated few, thus restricting the range of their in-
fluence : it misled the more rash or daring into them-
selves believing or asserting the truth of the allegations
against them. The same perverted pride which, in much
later times, often brought reputed witches to the stake,

1 Among the conspicuous reputed magicians of the dark and middle
ages were Geber, Gerbert or Sylvester It., Grosteto, Albertus Mag-
nus, Arnold of Villanova, Raymond Lully, Roger Bacon, and Picus of
Mirandola. Similarly Virgil is represented in the 'Gesta Ronianorum1
as a conjuror, and Thomas the Rhymer was accepted as a wizard.

2 The interval between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries is
studded with books of secrets—e.g., Vincent deBeauvais's 'Speculum
Quadruplex,' c. 1250, belonging to the next century, though even the
'Speculum Majus' was not published till 1473; Bartholomew Glan-
vill's ' Properties of Things'; Levinus Lemnius'ti ' Do Miraculis
Naturae/ published c. 1600; the ' Bibliotheca Universalis' of Con-
rad Gesner, fl. 1516-1565; the works of Don Alessio Ruscelli and
Polydore Vergil, fl. 1520 ; the ' Secret! Diversi' of G, Falloppio, c.
1550; and the 'Magia Naturalis' of Giambatista Porta, 1538-1615.