158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To question the theological view of physical science was, even 

 long after the close of the middle ages, exceedingly perilous. We 

 have seen in this chapter how one of Roger Bacon's unpardonable 

 offenses was his argument against the efficacy of magic, and in 

 chapters preceding how centuries afterward Wyer, Flade, Bekker, 

 and a multitude of other investigators and thinkers suffered con- 

 fiscation of property, loss of position, and even torture and death, 

 for similar views. I will refer, then, to but one more case as 

 typical. 



In the last year of the sixteenth century the persecutions for 

 witchcraft and magic were especially cruel in the western districts 

 of Germany, the main instrument in them being Binsfeld, Suf- 

 fragan Bishop of Treves. 



At that time Cornelius Loos was a professor at the university 

 of that city. He was a devoted churchman, and one of the most 

 brilliant opponents of Protestantism, but he finally saw through 

 the prevailing belief regarding occult powers, and in an evil hour 

 for himself embodied his idea in a book entitled " True and False 

 Magic." The book, though earnest, was temperate, but this helped 

 him and his cause not at all. The texts of Scripture clearly 

 sanctioning belief in sorcery and magic stood against him, and 

 these had been confirmed by the infallible teachings of the Church 

 and the popes from time immemorial ; the book was stopped in 

 the press, the manuscript confiscated, and Loos thrown into a 

 dungeon. 



The inquisitors having wrought their will upon him, in the 

 spring of 1593 he was brought out of prison, forced to recant on 

 his knees before the assembled dignitaries of the Church, and 

 thenceforward kept constantly under surveillance, and at times in 

 prison. Even this was considered too light a punishment, and his 

 arch-enemy, the Jesuit Del Rio, declared that but for his death by 

 plague he would have been finally sent to the stake. His manu- 

 script, hidden away in the archives at Treves, was supposed to be 

 lost until within the present decade. After three centuries what 

 remains of it has been brought to light by an American scholar.* 



Schneider, Geschichte der Alchemie, p. 160; and for a studiously moderate statement, 

 Milman, Latin Christianity, Book XII, chap. vi. For character and general efforts of John 

 XXII, see Lea, Inquisition, iii, 436, also 452 et seq. For the character of the two papal 

 briefs, see Rydberg, p. 111. For the Bull Stvmmis Desideranfes, see previous chapters of this 

 work. For Antonio de Dominis, see Montucla, Hist, des Mathematiques, vol. i, p. 105, Hum- 

 boldt, Cosmos, Libri, vol. iv, pp. 145 ct seq. 



* Prof. George Lincoln Burr, of Cornell University, whose copy of Loos's MS. is now in 

 the library of that institution. For a full account of the discovery and its significance, see 

 the New York Evening Post for November 13, 1886. The facts regarding the after-life of 

 Loos, were discovered by Prof. Burr in the archives at Brussels. For Weyer, Flade, Bekker, 

 and others, see the chapters of this work on Demoniacal Possession and Insanity, and Dia- 

 bolism and Hysteria. 



