NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 295 



lie finds Scripture warrant most clearly are such as science has 

 since disproved. So, too, he says that Solomon was enabled in 

 his Proverbs, " by donation of God, to compile a natural history 

 of all verdure." * 



We have now seen how powerless were the strongest men in 

 physical science, singly, in this struggle against theology and 

 ecclesiasticism, and it may be well to study briefly their efforts 

 after they had learned to combine in societies and academies 

 against the common enemy. In the latter half of the sixteenth 

 century, John Baptist Porta began his investigations, and despite 

 much absurdity they were fruitful. His was not " black magic," 

 claiming the aid of Satan, but " white magic " bringing into serv- 

 ice the laws of Nature — the precursor of applied science. His 

 book on Meteorology was the first in which sound ideas were 

 broached on that subject ; his researches in optics gave the world 

 the camera obscura, and possibly the telescope ; in chemistry he 

 seems to have been the first to show how to reduce the metallic- 

 oxides, and thus to have laid the foundation of all those indus- 

 tries based upon the coloring and staining of glass and enamels ; 

 he did much to change natural philosophy from a " black art " to 

 a vigorous open science. He encountered the old policy of con- 

 scientious men ; the society founded by him for physical research, 

 "I Secreti," was broken up, and he was summoned to Rome by 

 Pope Paul III and forbidden to continue his investigations. 



In 1624 some young chemists of Paris, having taught the ex- 

 perimental method and cut loose from Aristotle, the Faculty of 

 Theology beset the Parliament of Paris, and the Parliament pro- 

 hibited this new chemical teaching, under penalty of death. 



The same war continued in Italy. In 1657 occurred the first 

 sitting of the Accademia del Cimento at Florence, under the 

 presidency of Prince Leopold dei Medici. This Academy prom- 

 ised great things for science ; it was open to all talent ; its only 

 fundamental law was " the repudiation of any favorite system or 

 sect of philosophy, and the obligation to investigate Nature by 

 the pure light of experiment " ; it entered into scientific inves- 

 tigations with energy. Borelli in mathematics, Redi in natural 

 history, and many others pushed on the boundaries of knowledge. 

 Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, projectiles, digestion, the in- 



* See Bacon, Advancement of Learning, edited by W. Aldis Wright, London, 18*73. 

 pp. 4*7, 48. Certainly no more striking examples of the strength of the evil which he had 

 all along been denouncing could be exhibited than these in his own writings. Nothing 

 better illustrates the sway of the mediaeval theology, or better explains his blindness to the 

 discoveries of Copernicus and to the experiments of Gilbert. For a very contemptuous 

 statement of Lord Bacon's claim to his position as a philosopher, see Lange, Geschichte des 

 Materialismus, Leipsic, 1874, vol. i, p. 219. For a more just statement, see Brewster, Life 

 of Sir Isaac Newton. See, also Jevons, Principles of Science, London, 1814, vol. ii, p. 298. 



