NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 581 



which was once Lot's wife. He not only indicates places on land, 

 but places in the sea ; thus he shows where Jonah was swallowed 

 by the whale, and " where St. Peter caught one hundred and fifty- 

 three fishes." 



As to the Dead Sea miracles generally, he does not dwell on 

 them at great length ; he evidently felt that Quaresmio had ex- 

 hausted the subject, but he shows largely the fruits of Quaresmio's 

 teaching in other matters. He sees, describes, and reasons with 

 great theological acuteness upon the basilisk. The animal is 

 about a foot and a half long, shaped like a crocodile, and kills 

 people with its glance. The one which he saw was dead, fortu- 

 nately for him, for in the time of Pope Leo IV, as he tells us, 

 one appeared at Rome and killed many people by merely looking 

 at them, but the Pope destroyed it with his prayers and the 

 sign of the cross. He says that Providence has wisely and merci- 

 fully protected man by requiring the monster to cry aloud two or 

 three times whenever he leaves his cavern, and the divine wisdom 

 has also made it necessary that the monster should look his victim 

 in the eye, and at a certain distance, in order that his glance may 

 penetrate the victim's eye, and so pass at once to his heart. He 

 also gives reason for supposing that the same divine mercy has 

 provided that the crowing of a cock will kill a basilisk. 



But even in this good and credulous missionary we see the in- 

 fluence of Bacon and the dawn of experimental science ; for, hav- 

 ing been told many stories regarding the salamander, he secured 

 one, placed it alive upon the coals, and reports to us that the 

 legends regarding its power to live in the fire are untrue. He 

 also tried experiments with the chameleon, and found that the 

 stories told regarding it were to be received with much allow- 

 ance ; but, while he uses his mind in these things after the modern 

 method, he locks up his judgment when he discusses the letter of 

 Scripture. A curious example of this we find in his reference to 

 the famous text, in the thirty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel, which 

 led the mediaeval map-makers to place Jerusalem at the center of 

 the earth. Coupling with this a text from Isaiah, he, by a theo- 

 logical argument, satisfies himself that the exact center of the 

 earth is a certain spot marked on the pavement of the Church of 

 the Holy Sepulchre : by a similar process of theological reasoning 

 he also proves that the place where the Holy Cross stood was the 

 identical spot first occupied by the tree which bore the forbidden 

 fruit in the Garden of Eden. 



So, too, we find the thoughts and words of Quaresmio echoing 

 afar through the German universities, in public disquisitions, 

 dissertations, and sermons. The great Bible commentators, both 

 Catholic and Protestant, generally agreed in accepting them. 



But, strong as this theological theory was, we find that, as 



