216 Philosophy of Botany. 



tude throitgh the division into the sects of Sonnites and 

 Shiites, which had been formed into violent political factions. 

 The Spanish Khalifs had been repeatedly overtaken by serious 

 disasters by their attempt to spread the Islam across the 

 Pyrenees. Their defeat at Tour by the united forces of the 

 Franks, under Karl Martell, terminated forever their advance 

 northw^ardi (October, 732). 



The Goths, who had preserved their ancient valor, now de- 

 scended from their mountain fastnesses, harassing the heredi- 

 tary foe with unceasing raids, taking advantage of the internal 

 feuds in the disorganized and weakened Sarcen dominions 

 One by one fell the open or fortified cities into the hands of the 

 kings of Castile and Aragone, who gave the defeated the choice 

 to either submit to forced conversion or to be burned at the 

 stake, by order of the Holy Inquisition. * 



In place of the toleration and equal rights before the law 

 for all nationalities and confessions granted three hundred 

 years ago by the conquering Saracens, the Spaniard now in- 

 stitutes the Inquisitiori, and as we will hereafter see, becomes, 

 at a later day, the merciless despoiler and executioner of two 

 other civilizations in the newly discovered Western Hem- 

 isphere. It is meet here to speak of this hellish institution, 

 which more than ariy other wickedness obstructed progress 

 and overwhelmed the best of men for their devotion to reason 

 and truth with ruin or cruel death. The device originated in 

 the plan to increase to an unlimited extent the power and ■ 

 wealth of the church and its adherents. A papal bull, issued 

 under papal seal by Pope Innocence .1X1., Anno 1193, gives to 

 Peter of Castelnan instructions to summon before a tribunal, 

 called " The Holy Inquisition," all persons accused of hold- 

 ing or divulging heretical doctrines or opinions not in con- 

 formity with the doctrines of the orthodox Roman Catholic 

 Church, with unrestricted jurisdiction. 



This mandate of the Holy Father was so successfully car- 

 ried into effect that in Madrid alone — other places also desig- 

 nated for the execution not included — within three hundred 

 years, as attested by documentary history, 300,000 persons 

 were cremated at the stake for religious opinion's sake. These 



