Foulkes having been made pope, Bacon was for a time shielded, but the fury of the enemy was too strong. In an unpublished letter, Blackstone declares that when, on one occasion. Bacon was about to perform a few experiments for some friends, all Oxford was in an uproar. It was believed that Satan was let loose. Everywhere were priests, fellows, and students rushing about, their garments streaming in the wind, and everywhere resounded the cry, "Down with the conjurer!" and this cry "Down with the conjurer" resounded from cell to cell and hall to hall.[1]
But the attack took a shape far more terrible. The two great religious orders, Franciscan and Dominican, vied with each other in fighting the new thought in chemistry and philosophy. St. Dominic, sincere as he was, solemnly condemned research by experiment and observation. The general of the Franciscan order took similar grounds.
In 1243 the Dominicans solemnly interdicted every member of their order from the study of medicine and natural philosophy; and, in 1287, this interdiction was extended to the study of chemistry.[2]
Another weapon began to be used upon the battle-fields of that time with much effect. The Arabs had made noble discoveries in science. Averroes had, among many, divided the honors with St. Thomas Aquinas. These facts gave the new missile. It was the epithet "Mahometan," This, too, was flung with effect at Bacon.[3]
Bacon was at last conquered. He was imprisoned for fourteen years. At the age of eighty years he was released from prison, but death alone took him beyond the reach of his enemies. How deeply the struggle had racked his mind may be gathered from that last afflicting declaration of his: "Would that I had not given myself so much trouble for the love of science!"
Sad is it to think of what this great man might have given to the world had the world not refused the gift. He held the key of treasures which would have freed mankind from ages of error and misery. With his discoveries as a basis, with his method as a guide, what might not the world have gained! Nor was the wrong done to that age alone. It was done to this age also. The nineteenth century was robbed at the same time with the thirteenth. But for that inter-
- ↑ Whewell, vol. i., pp. 367, 368. Draper, p. 438. Saisset, "Descartes et ses Précurseurs," deuxième édition, pp. 897, et seq. Nourrisson, "Progrès de la pensée humaine," pp. 271, 272. Sprengel, "Histoire de la Médecine," Paris, 1865, vol. ii., p. 397. Cuvier, "Histoire des Sciences Naturelles," vol. i., p. 417. As to Bacon's orthodoxy, see Saisset, pp. 53, 55. For special examination of causes of Bacon's condemnation, see Waddington, cited by Saisset, p. 14. On Bacon as a sorcerer, see Featherstonaugh's article in North American Review. For a good example of the danger of denying full power of Satan, even in much more recent times, and in a Protestant country, see account of treatment of Bekker's "Monde Enchanté" by the theologians of Holland, in Nisard, "Histoire des Livres Populaires," vol. i., pp. 172, 173.
- ↑ Henri Martin, "Hist. de France," vol. iv., p. 283.
- ↑ On Bacon as a "Mahometan," see Saisset, p. 17
