NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 439 



lowing in the lines of the earlier fathers, St. Anselm, Abdlard, St. 

 Thomas Aquinas, Vincent de Beauvais, all the great doctors in the 

 mediaeval Church, some of them in spite of occasional misgivings, 

 upheld the idea that insanity is largely or mainly demoniacal pos- 

 session, basing their belief steadily on the sacred Scriptures ; and 

 this belief was followed up in every quarter by more and more 

 constant citation of the text " Ye shall not suffer a witch to live." 

 No other text of Scripture — save, perhaps, one — has caused the 

 shedding of so much innocent blood. 



As we look over the history of the middle ages, we do, indeed, 

 see another development from which one might hope much ; for 

 there were two great streams of influence in the Church — and 

 never were two powers more truly unlike each other. 



On one side was the spirit of Christianity, as it proceeded from 

 the heart and mind of its blessed Founder, immensely powerful in 

 aiding the evolution of religious thought and effort, and especially 

 of provision for the relief of suffering by religious asylums and 

 tender care. Nothing better expresses this than the touching 

 words inscribed upon a great mediaeval hospital, " Christo in pau- 

 peribus suis." But on the other side was the theological theory — 

 proceeding, as we have seen, from the survival of ancient super- 

 stitions, and sustained by constant reference to the texts in our 

 sacred books — that many, and probably most, of the insane were 

 possessed by the devil or in league with him, and that the cruel 

 treatment of lunatics was simply punishment of the devil and his 

 minions. By this current of thought was gradually developed 

 one of the greatest masses of superstitious cruelty that has ever 

 disgraced humanity. At the same time the stream of Christian 

 endeavor, so far as the insane were concerned, was almost entirely 

 cut off. In all the beautiful provision during the middle ages 

 for the alleviation of human suffering, there was for the insane 

 almost no care. Some monasteries, indeed, gave them refuge. We 

 hear of a charitable work done for them at the London Bethlehem 

 Hospital in the thirteenth century, at Geneva in the fifteenth, at 

 Marseilles in the sixteenth, by the Black Penitents in the south of 

 France, by certain Franciscans in northern France, by the Alexian 

 Brothers on the Rhine, and by various agencies in other parts of 

 Europe. 



Curiously enough, the only really important effort in the 

 Christian Church was stimulated by the Mohammedans. Certain 

 monks, who had much to do with them in redeeming Christian 

 slaves, found in the fifteenth century what John Howard found 

 in the eighteenth, that the Arabs and Turks made a large and 

 merciful provision for lunatics, such as was not seen in Christian 

 lands ; and this example led to better establishments in Spain and 

 Italy. 



