324 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



apprehend the nature of real science. In cultivated 

 and enlightened periods, such as those of ancient 

 Greece, or modern Europe, knowledge is wished 

 for and admired, even by those who least possess 

 it: but in dark and degraded periods, superior 

 knowledge is a butt for hatred and fear. In the 

 one case, men's eyes are open ; their thoughts are 

 clear ; and, however high the philosopher may be 

 raised above the multitude, they can catch glimpses 

 of the intervening path, and see that it is free 

 to all, and that elevation is the reward of energy 

 and labour. In the other case, the crowd are 

 not only ignorant, but spiritless ; they have lost 

 the pleasure in knowledge, the appetite for it, 

 and the feeling of dignity which it gives : there is 

 no sympathy which connects them with the learned 

 man : they see him above them, but know not how 

 he is raised or supported : he becomes an object 

 of aversion and envy, of vague suspicion and terror; 

 and these emotions are embodied and confirmed 

 by association with the fancies and dogmas of 

 superstition. To consider superior knowledge as 

 Magic, and Magic as a detestable and criminal em- 

 ployment, was the form which these feelings of 

 dislike assumed ; and at one period in the history 

 of Europe, almost every one who had gained any 

 eminent literary fame, was spoken of as a magician. 

 Naudseus, a learned Frenchman, in the seventeenth 

 century, wrote "An Apology for all the Wise Men 

 who have been unjustly reported Magicians, from 



