THE PRIDE OF IGNORANCE. 203 



on the ground that it seemed to substitute a sec- 

 ondary cause for tlie immediate act and will of 

 tlie Creator. Later still, first geology and then 

 evolution have been similarly decried as opposed 

 to the plain doctrines of the Holy Scriptures. The 

 good and learned Sir Matthew Hale firmly held 

 that, if you did not burn unhappy old women at 

 the stake as witches — for no other crime than 

 because they were bent double and very ugly — 

 you were disregarding the plain injunctions of the 

 divinely inspired author. In our own day we 

 have been similarly told that to doubt the reality 

 of the shadowy white ghost which appeared one 

 dark Saturday night to William Snooks in the 

 haunted house at Jjittle Pedlington is to under- 

 mine the very foundations of Christianity. Thou- 

 sands of excellent peo[)le were certain a genera- 

 tion ago that to grant civil rights to the Jews was 

 to cast a terrible slight upon the national religion. 

 A few centuries earlier, in the reign of King John, 

 it was no doubt regarded as a pious work to ex- 

 tract the teeth of Hebrews by slow degrees ; and 

 a man who should have objected to the popular 

 method of converting them in the mass by burn- 

 ing down their houses and ill-treating their wives 

 and daughters would i)robably have brought down 

 upon himself universal condemnation as a very 

 lukewarm, half-hearted Christian. These curious 

 abeirations of the human intellect and these 



