30 THE EVOLUTION OF MAIT. 



natural science by the development and dilTusion of 

 influential conceptions of faith, a re-commencement of 

 biological researches was especially out of the question. 

 Even when, in the sixteenth century, human Anatomy 

 again began to be studied, and independent investigations 

 of the structure of the body of the developed human being 

 were again first made, anatomists dared not extend their 

 investigations into the condition of the yet undeveloped 

 human body, into the formation and development of the 

 embryo. 



The prevailing fear of such researches was due to 

 several causes. This seems but natural when we remember 

 that by the bull of Pope Boniface VIII. greater excom- 

 munication was pronounced against all who dared to dis- 

 member a human corpse. While anatomical investiga- 

 tion of the developed human body was a crime which 

 drew down the curse of the Church, it is evident that the 

 examination of the body of the child, hidden in the 

 mother's womb, and which the Creator himself seemed, 

 by its concealed position, to have intentionally withdrawn 

 from the curious gaze of naturalists, would have appeared 

 much more criminal and impious. The omnipotence of 

 the Christian Church, which at that time caused many 

 thousands to be executed and burned for heresy, and which 

 even then with correct instinct foresaw dano^er threatened 

 to itself from the deadly enemy which was then growing 

 up in Natural Science, took care that the latter should 

 not make too rapid strides. 



It was only when the Reformation broke the all- 

 embracing power of the Only-Saving Church, and a new 

 and fresh intellectual impulse began to release enslaved 



