22 NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



most free from the unfortunate bias he condemns ; that he, cer- 

 tainly, can not be deluded into the old path. But as we go on 

 through his main work we are surprised to find that the strong 

 arm of Aquinas has been stretched over the intervening ages, and 

 has laid hold upon this master-thinker of the seventeenth cent- 

 ury. For only a few chapters beyond those containing the cita- 

 tions already made we find Bacon alluding to the recent voyage 

 of Columbus, and speaking of the prophecy of Daniel regarding 

 the latter days, that " many shall run to and fro and knowledge 

 be increased," as clearly signifying "that . . . the circumnaviga- 

 tion of the world and the increase of science should happen in the 

 same age." * 



In his great work on the Advancement of Learning the firm 

 grasp which the methods he condemned held upon him is shown 

 yet more clearly. In the first book of it he asserts " that excel- 

 lent book of Job, if it be revolved with diligence, will be found 

 pregnant and swelling with natural philosophy," and he endeav- 

 ors to show that in it the " roundness of the earth," the " fixing of 

 the stars, ever standing at equal distances," the " depression of the 

 southern pole," the " matter of generation," and " matter of min- 

 erals " are " with great elegancy noted." But, curiously enough, 

 he uses to support some of these truths the very texts which the 

 fathers of the Church used to destroy them, and those for which 

 he 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." f 



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 



* See the Novum Organon, translated by the Rev. G. W. Kitchin, Oxford, 1855, chaps. 

 Ixv and Ixxxix. 



f See Bacon, Advancement of Learning, edited by W. Aldis Wright, London, 1873. 

 pp. 47, 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 dea 

 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, 1874, vol. ii, p. 298. 



