230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Christendom, partly because its demands are the most pretentious, 

 and 'partly because it has commonly sought to enforce those demands 

 by the civil power. None of the Protestant Churches has ever occu- 

 pied a position so imperious none has ever had such wide-spread 

 political influence. For the most part they have been averse to con- 

 straint, and except in very few instances their opposition has not 

 passed beyond the exciting of theological odium. 



As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. 

 She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any 

 human being. She has never subjected any one to mental torment, 

 physical torture, least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or 

 promoting her ideas. She presents herself unstained by cruelties and 

 crimes. But in the Vatican we have only to recall the Inquisition 

 the hands that are now raised in appeals to the Most Merciful are 

 crimsoned. They have been steeped in blood ! 



There are two modes of historical composition, the artistic and the 

 scientific. The former implies that men give origin to events ; it 

 therefore selects some prominent individual, pictures him under a fan- 

 ciful form, and makes him the hero of a romance. The latter, insist- 

 ing that human affairs present an unbroken chain, in which each fact 

 is the offspring of some preceding fact, and the parent of some sub- 

 sequent fact, declares that men do not control events, but that events 

 control men. The former gives origin to compositions, which, how- 

 ever much they may interest or delight us, are but a grade above 

 novels ; the latter is austere, perhaps even repulsive, for it sternly im- 

 presses us with a conviction of the irresistible dominion of law, and 

 the insignificance of human exertions. In a subject so solemn as that 

 to which this book is devoted, the romantic and the popular are alto- 

 gether out of place. He who presumes to treat of it must fix his eye 

 steadfastly on that chain of destiny which universal history displays ; 

 he must turn with disdain from the phantom impostures of pontiffs 

 and statesmen and kings. 



If any thing were needed to show us the untrustworthiness of ar- 

 tistic historical compositions, our personal experience would furnish 

 it. How often do our most intimate friends fail to perceive the real 

 motives of our every-day actions ; how frequently they misinterpret 

 our intentions ! If this be the case in what is passing before our eyes. 

 may we not be satisfied that it is impossible to comprehend justly the 

 doings of persons who lived many years ago, and whom we have 

 never seen ? 



In selecting and arranging the topics now to be presented, I have 

 been guided in part by "the Confession" of the late Vatican Council, 

 and in part by the order of events in history. Not without interest 

 will the reader remark that the subjects offer themselves to us now as 

 they did to the old philosophers of Greece. We still deal with the 

 same questions about which they disputed. What is God ? What 



