" It was not the charge of magic alone that brought Roger
Bacon's works into discredit with the Church, and caused a nail to be
driven through their covers to keep the dangerous pages closed
tightly within.
There is no reason to doubt that Bacon's investigations led him to
discoveries of essential value, but which for the most part died with
him. His active and piercing intellect, which employed itself on the
most difficult subjects, which led him to the formation of a theory of
tides, and brought him to see the need and with prophetic anticipation
to point out the means of a reformation of the calendar, enabled him to
discover many of what were then called the Secrets of Nature. The
popular belief that he was the inventor of gunpowder had its origin in
two passages in his treatise "On the Secret Works of Art and Nature, and
on the Nullity of Magic,"[37] in one of which he describes some of its
qualities, while in the other he apparently conceals its composition
under an enigma.[38] He had made experiments with Greek fire and the
magnet; he had constructed burning-glasses, and lenses of various power;
and had practised with multiplying-mirrors, and with mirrors that
magnified and diminished.
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