Scientific Lectures. 213 



men, lie began to place tlie great science of human anatomy on its 

 solid modern foundations, on careful examination and observation 

 of the human body. This was his first great sin, and it was soon 

 aggravated by one considered even greater. 



Mistakes of the CiiUKcn, 

 Perhaps the most unfortunate thing that has ever been done for 

 Christianity, is the tying it to forms of science and systems of educa- 

 tion which are doomed and gradually sinking. Just as in the time 

 of Eoger Bacon, excellent but mistaken men devoted all their ener- 

 gies to binding Christianity to Aristotle, Just as in the time of 

 Keuchlin and Erasmus, they insisted on binding Christianity to 

 Thomas Aquinas, so in the time of Vesalius, such men gave all 

 their efforts to linking Christianity to Galen, The cry has been the 

 same in all ages. It is the same which we hear in this age against 

 scientific studies, the cry for what is called " sound learning^'' 

 Whether standing for Aristotle against Bacon, or Aquinas against 

 Erasmus, or Galen against Yesalius, or making mechanical Greek 

 verses at Eton, instead of studying the handiwork of the Almighty, 

 or reading Euripides with translations, instead of Lessing and Goethe 

 in the original, the cry always is for " sound learning," The idea 

 always is that these studies are safe. 



Vesalius. 

 At twenty-eight years of age, Yesalius gave to the world his great 

 work on human anatomy, "With it ended the old and began the 

 new. Its researches by their thoroughness formed a triumph of 

 science, its illustrations by their fidelity formed a triumph of art. To 

 shield himself as far as possible in the battle which he foresaw must 

 come, Yesalius prefaced the work by a dedication to Emperor Charles 

 Y, In this dedicatory preface he argues for his method and against 

 the parrot repetitions of the old medical text-books. He also con- 

 demns the wretched anatomical preparations and specimens made by 

 physicians who utterly refused to advance beyond^ the ancient master. 

 The parrot-like repeaters of Galen gave battle at once. After the 

 manner of their time their first missiles were epithets, and the almost 

 infinite magazine of these having been exhausted, they began to use 

 sharper weapons — weapons tlieologic. At first the theologic engine did 

 not succeed, A conference of divines having been appealed to to decide 

 dissection of the human body is sacrilege, gave a decision in his favor. 



