NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 23 



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- 

 compressibility of water, were studied by the right method and 

 with results that enriched the world. 



The Academy was a fortress of science, and siege was soon 

 laid to it. The votaries of scholastic learning denounced it as 

 irreligious ; quarrels were fomented ; Leopold was bribed with 

 a cardinal's hat and drawn away to Rome ; and, after ten years 

 of beleaguering, the fortress fell : Borelli was left a beggar ; Oliva 

 killed himself in despair. 



So, too, the noted Academy of the Lincei at times incurred the 

 ill-will of the papacy by the very fact that it included thoughtful 

 investigators. It was "patronized" by Pope Urban VIII in such 

 manner as to paralyze it, and it was afterward vexed by Pope 

 Gregory XVI ; even in our own time sessions of scientific asso- 

 ciations were discouraged and thwarted by Pope Pius IX.* 



* For Porta, see the English translation of his main summary, " Natural Magick," Lon- 

 don, 1658. The first chapters are especially interesting, as showing what the word " magic " 

 had come to mean in the mind of a man in whom mediaeval and modern ideas were curiously 

 mixed ; see also Hoefer, Histoire de la Chimie, vol. ii, pp. 102-106 ; also Kopp ; also Sprengel, 

 Histoire de la Medecine, iii, p. 239 ; also Musset-Pathay. For the Accademia del Cimento, 

 see Napier, Florentine History, vol. v, p. 485 ; T iraboschi, Storia della Litteratura ; Henri 

 Martin, Histoire de France ; Jevons, Principles of Science, vol. ii, pp. 36-40. For value 



