THE ARREST OF INQUIRY. 73 



relief the fact that in a religion for which its apolo- 

 gists claim divine origin and guidance " to the end of 

 the world " we have the same intrusion of the rites 

 and customs of lower cults which marks other ad- 

 vanced faiths. Hence, science and superstition being 

 deadly foes, the explanation of that hostile attitude 

 toward inquiry and that dread of its results which 

 marked Christianity down to modem times. While 

 the intrusion of corrupting elements presents diffi- 

 culties which the theory of the supernatural history 

 of Christianity alone creates, it accords with all that 

 might be predicted of a religion whose success was 

 due to its early escape from the narrow confines of 

 Judaism; and to its fortunate contact with the enter- 

 prising peoples to whom the civilization of Europe 

 and the New World is due. 



2. From Augustine to Lord Bacon. 

 A. D. 400-A. D. 1600. 

 The foregoing slight outline of the causes which 

 operated for centuries against the freedom of the 

 human mind will render it needless to follow the 

 history of the development of Christian polity and 

 dogma — the temporalizing of the one, and the crys- 

 tallizing of the other. Yet one prominent actor in 

 that history demands a brief notice, because of the 

 influence which his teaching wielded from the fifth 

 to the fifteenth centuries. The annals of the churches 

 in Africa, along whose northern shores Christianity 

 had spread early and rapidly, yield notable names, 



