ii THE ARREST OF ENQUIRY 67 



found some resemblance, some compensation, in the 

 bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine 

 achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest 

 of the Roman Empire, but the victors themselves 

 were insensibly subdued by the arts of their 

 vanquished rivals.' 



Enough has been said on a topic to which pro- 

 minence has been given because it brings into fuller 

 relief the fact, that in a religion for which its apolo- 

 gists claim divine origin and guidance 'to the end of 

 the world ' we have the same intrusion of the rites 

 and customs of lower cults which marks other 

 advanced faiths. Hence, science and superstition 

 being deadly foes, the explanation of that hostile 

 attitude towards enquiry, and that dread of its results, 

 which marked Christianity down to modern times. 

 While the intrusion of corrupting elements presents 

 difficulties which the theory of the supernatural 

 history of Christianity alone creates, it accords with 

 all that might be predicted of a religion whose 

 success was due to its early escape from the narrow 

 confines of Judaism ; and to its fortunate contact 

 with the enterprising peoples to whom the civilisa- 

 tion of Europe and the New World is due. 



2. From Augustine to Bacon 



A.D. 40O-A.D. 1600 



The foregoing slight outline of the causes which 

 operated for centuries against the freedom of the 

 human mind will render it needless to follow the 

 history of the development of Christian polity and 



