Raymond, surnamed the "Enlightened Doctor," a philosopher and theologian of eccentric character and singular enthusiasm, was born at Palma, in the island of Majorca, about 1235. In early life he espoused the profession of arms under James I. of Arragon, at whose gay Lunawara court he is said to have led a somewhat irregular life. His mind took a serious turn about the age of 30, when he retired to a desert, and, amid solitude and asceticism, gave himself up for nine years to the study of theology, to prepare himself for the duties of a missionary. Directed, as he alleged, by a vision from Christ to convert the Mohammedans, he learned Arabic from a slave; and it was on becoming acquainted with the philosophy of Averroes that he probably conceived his scheme of dialectics, by which he hoped at once to revolutionize science and the world. His Ars Lullia was now published (1276), at the express command of a fiery seraph which appeared to him; and having prevailed upon his former patron of Arragon to establish a convent at Palma for the education of missionaries to the infidels, he went to Rome ten years afterwards to solicit the aid of Pope Honorius IV. in carrying out a crusade against the worshippers of Islam. The death of his holiness compelled Lully to look for aid elsewhere, and he accordingly visited Paris and Genoa, but without success. Having crossed to Africa, he engaged in a discussion with a Mohammedan, which almost cost him his life. He left the country for a time; but soon made his appearance again, when he was nearly stoned to death, and afterwards cast into prison. Liberated on the intervention of some Genoese merchants, he returned to Europe, and busied himself in preaching in behalf of a crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land. His success was not equal to his zeal; and the fiery and unquenchable enthusiasm of Lully urged him to make a third single-handed attack upon the unbelievers of Africa, when he died a martyr to his devotion for their conversion, at Bougieh, in Algeria, in 1315, at the mature age of 80 years.

The Ars Magna ("Great Art"), as the admiring followers of Lully termed it, consisted in a determination, a priori, of all the forms and of all the possible combinations of thought; a complete arsenal of universal argumentation; a reducing of science to a number of general signs; the solution, in short, of all questions, human and divine, by a simple piece of mechanism resembling a calculating machine! His most celebrated follower was the unfortunate Giordano Bruno. Trivolous in many respects as his invention was, it nevertheless was a protest against the idle methods of the schools, which led him to be regarded as a reformer in philosophy. The end Lully had in view was the union—the complete assimilation—of philosophy and theology; and his powers neither as a philosopher nor as a theologian were able to free him from the inextricable confusion into which his method led him. He united the chivalrous ardour of the crusader to the pedantry of the schoolman; the mystical exaltation of one inspired to the strict and methodical habits of the logician. His personal character claims our admiration for the unconquerable resolution and devoted zeal with which he strove to disseminate what he believed to be the truth. The most complete edition of Lully's works is that of Buchollus and Salzingar, 10 vols. folio, Mayence, 1721.