SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY. 825 



research was robbed of any real value. The deliberate 

 and successful attack on science began in the early 

 part of the fourth century, particularly after the 

 Council of Nicaea (327), presided over by Constantine 

 — called the " Great " because he raised Christianity 

 to the position of a State religion, and founded Con- 

 stantinople, though a worthless character, a false- 

 hearted hypocrite, and a murderer. The success of 

 the Papacy in its conflict with independent scientific 

 thought and inquiry is best seen in the distressing 

 condition of science and its literature during the 

 Middle Ages. Not only were the rich literary treasures 

 that classical antiquity had bequeathed to the world 

 destroyed for the most part, or withdrawn from circu- 

 lation, but the rack and the stake ensured the silence 

 of every heretic — that is, every independent thinker. 

 If he did not keep his thoughts to himself, he had to 

 look forward to being burnt alive, as was the fate of 

 the great monistic philosopher Giordano Bruno, the 

 reformer John Huss, and more than a hundred 

 thousand other " witnesses to the truth." The history 

 of science in the Middle Ages teaches us on every page 

 that independent thought and empirical research were 

 completely buried for twelve sad centuries under the 

 oppression of the omnipotent Papacy. 



All that we esteem in true Christianity, in the 

 sense of its founder and of his noblest followers, and 

 that we must endeavour to save from the inevitable 

 wreck of this great world-religion for our new monistic 

 religion, lies on its ethical and social planes. The 

 principles of true humanism, the golden rule, the 

 spirit of tolerance, the love of man, in the best and 

 highest sense of the word — all these true graces of 

 Christianity were not, indeed, first discovered and 



