THE MEDIAEVAL ATTITUDE 



pie. Bacon, himself, was a Franciscan and his Opus 

 Majus is not only a marvellous storehouse of infor- 

 mation and a treatise on science far in advance of 

 his day, but it is also interspersed with bitter, and 

 probably just, attacks on the vices of his own Order. 

 We can, at any rate, place to the liberality of the 

 Church the fact that Pope Clement IV ordered his 

 release from prison after he had read the book. 



The burning of Giordano Bruno in 1600 is often 

 cited as an example of the prevailing attitude of the 

 Church towards science. While it was a futile at- 

 tempt to crush heresy, science was not in the least 

 involved, as- Bruno was in no sense a man of science. 

 The most celebrated case, of course, is that of Gali- 

 leo. But even here, Galileo had aroused personal 

 enemies by incessant attacks of the most bitter sort 

 on the Jesuits. Not content with the convincing na- 

 ture of the scientific discoveries which came from his 

 fertile mind, he used his proofs of the Copernican 

 theory as a weapon against the dogmas of the Church, 

 and he wrote his Dialogues with a pen dipped in 

 vitriol. And it is true, as Kepler is reported to have 

 said, that the theory had quietly been gaining ground 

 unmolested for eighty years and had found support 

 amongst many of the more enlightened of the eccle- 

 siastics. His trial was the personal reply of the Jesuits, 

 his enemies, rather than an attack on science. And 

 one is rather struck with the reluctance of the Popes 

 to bring the question to an issue. 



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