152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The theological path thus opened by these strong men became 

 the main path for science during ages, and it led the world ever 

 further and further from any fruitful fact or useful method. 

 Roger Bacon's investigations already begun were discredited ; 

 worthless mixtures of scriptural legends with imperfectly au- 

 thenticated physical facts took their place. Thus it was that for 

 twelve hundred years the minds in control of Europe regarded 

 all real science as futile, and diverted the great current of earnest 

 thought into theology. 



The next stage in this evolution was the development of an 

 idea which acted with great force throughout the middle ages 

 — the idea that science is dangerous. As we have seen in other 

 chapters, there was evolved more and more a vivid sense of the 

 interference of Satan with human affairs, and especially of the 

 interference of the ancient gods whom St. Paul had explicitly 

 declared to be devils, and who were naturally indignant at their 

 dethronement. More and more suspicion attached to all men 

 who attempted anything in the development of science. The 

 old scriptural warrrant for the existence of sorcery and magic 

 was brought in as a powerful argument against such men. 

 The conscience of the time, therefore, acting in obedience to 

 the highest authorities in the Church, and, as was supposed, in 

 defense of religion, brought out a missile which it hurled against 

 scientific investigators with deadly effect ; the mediaeval battle- 

 fields of thought were strewn with such ; it was the charge of sor- 

 cery and magic — of unlawful compact with the devil. This mis- 

 sile was effective. We find it used against every great investi- 

 gator of Nature in those times and for ages after. The list of 

 great men in those centuries charged with magic, as given by 

 Naude", is astounding ; it includes every man of real mark, and in 

 the midst of them stands one of the most thoughtful popes, Syl- 

 vester II (Gerbert), and the foremost of mediaeval thinkers on 

 natural science, Albert the Great. It came to be the accepted 

 idea that as soon as a man conceived a wish to study the works of 

 God his first step must be a league with the devil.* 



The first great thinker who, in spite of some stumbling into 

 theologic pitfalls, persevered in a truly scientific path, was Roger 

 Bacon. His life and works seem until recently to have been gen- 

 erally misunderstood : he was formerly ranked as a superstitious 



the text of the bull Spondcnt Paritcr is given. For popular legends regarding Albert and 

 St. Thomas, see Elephas Levi, Hist, de la Magie, chap. v. 



* For the charge of magic against scholars and others, see Naude, Apologie pour les 

 grands hommes soupconnes de Magie, passim ; also, Maury, Hist, de la Magie, troisieme 

 edit., pp. 214, 215 ; also, Cuvier, Hist, des Sciences Naturelles, vol. i, p. 396. For a circum- 

 stantial account of this charge of magic against Pope Boniface VIII, see Milman, Latin 

 Christianity, Book XII, chap. iii. 



