But yet, though he had examined everything that
was necessary for the construction of a preliminary work to serve as a
guide to the wisdom of philosophy, though he knew how it was to be done,
with what aids, and what were the hindrances to it, still he could not
proceed with it, owing to the want of means. The cost of employing
proper persons in the work, the rarity and costliness of books, the
expense of instruments and of experiments, the need of infinite
parchment and many scribes for rough copies, all put it beyond his power
to accomplish. This was his excuse for the imperfection of the treatise
which he had sent to the Pope, and this was a work worthy to be
sustained by Papal aid.[17]
The enumeration by Bacon of the trials and difficulties of a scholar's
life at a time when the means of communicating knowledge were difficult,
when books were rare and to be obtained only at great cost, when the
knowledge of the ancient languages was most imperfect, and many of the
most precious works of ancient philosophy were not to be obtained or
were to be found only in imperfect and erroneous translations, depicts a
condition of things in vivid contrast to the present facilities for the
communication and acquisition of learning, and enables us in some degree
to estimate the drawbacks under which scholars prosecuted their studies
before the invention of printing.
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