 Bacon devoted considerable time to the study of this work, the Latin translation of the Arabic work on statecraft in the tradition of Mirrors for Princes entitled Sirr-al-‘asrar. He worked on the text at Paris and completed the edition of this text with introduction and notes at Oxford after his return there from Paris c. 1280. This is the most important text on government and the education of the Prince prior to the writing of The Prince by Machiavelli. The work is divided into four parts. Part one begins with the letter of Alexander to Aristotle and deals with the king’s maintenance of the kingdom. It deals with virtues, largesse, and gifts. It is an account of the behavior expected of a King. Part two deals with health care, medicine, and the origins of the sciences. Part three deals with alchemy and with the human emotional structure. Part four deals with physiognomy and anthropology. Bacon’s introduction is substantial, consisting of seven chapters. It is closely connected with his account of astrology in Opus maius, part four, and with scientia experimentalis in part six. His sources are mostly Islamic and include the De radiis and De aspectibus of al-Kindi and the introduction to astrology of Abu Ma’shar. Bacon proposes a kind of statistical predictive astrology, and so has to deal explicitly with the issue of freedom and determinism. He objects to a kind of infallibilist necessitarianism and thinks that provided “possibility” and “contingency” can be guarded, one can predict what can happen in nature and in human society (due to the effects of the elements on temperament) in a general manner. Thus, the ruler will have need of the astrologer who will function as a kind of doctor, psychologist, sociologist, and political theorist. This is a far cry from a contemplative ethics. It is significant that in the work entitled Errores philosophorum ascribed to Giles of Rome, a contemporary of Bacon at Paris, many of Bacon’s sources are severely criticized. In the De regimine principium (1280s), Giles, unlike Bacon, provides a moral education for the prince that is entirely based on Greek and Latin sources, especially on Aristotle.