and armed them with the malleus maleficarum, to torture and destroy men and women by tens of thousands for sorcery and magic.
Under such guidance the secular rulers were naturally vigorous in the same policy. In 1380 Charles V of France forbade the possession of furnaces and apparatus necessary for chemical processes. Under this law the chemist John Barrillon was thrown into prison, and it was only by the greatest effort that his life was saved. In 1404 Henry IV of England issued a similar decree, and in 1118 the Republic of Venice followed these examples.
But champions of science still pressed on. The judicial torture and murder of Antonio de Dominis were not simply for heresy; his investigations in the phenomena of light were an additional crime. Pierre de la Ramee fell in the massacre of St. Bartholomew as a heretic, but his teachings had previously been stopped by a royal edict, sought by the Church on account of his breaking away from the old theological methods.[1]
- ↑ For an account of Bacon's treatise, De Nullitate Magiæ, see Hoefer. For the uproar caused by Bacon's teaching at Oxford, see Kopp, Geschichte der Chemie, Braunschweig, 1343, vol. i, p. 63; and for a somewhat reactionary discussion of Bacon's relation to the progress of chemistry, see a recent work by the same author, Ansichten über die Aufgabe der Chemie, Braunschweig, 1874, pp. 85 et seq.; also, for an excellent summary, see Hoefer, Hist. de la Chimie, vol. i, pp. 368 et seq. For probably the most thorough study of Bacon's general works in science, and for his views of the universe, see Prof. Werner, Die Kosmologie und allgemeine Naturlehre des Roger Baco, Wien, 1879. For summaries of his work in other fields, see Whewell, vol. i, pp. 367, 368; Draper, p. 438; Saisset, Descartes et ses Précurseurs, deuxième édition, pp. 397 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 Featherstonhaugh's article in North American Review. For a brief but admirable statement of Roger Bacon's relation to the world in his time, and of what he might have done had he not been thwarted by theology, see Döllinger, Studies in European History, English translation, London, 1890, pp. 178, 179. For a good example of the danger of denying the 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. Kopp, in his Ansichten, pushes criticism even to some skepticism as to Roger Bacon being the discoverer of many of the things generally attributed to him; but, after all deductions are carefully made, enough remains to make Bacon the greatest benefactor to humanity during the middle ages. For Roger Bacon's deep devotion to religion and the Church, see citation and remarks in Schneider, Roger Bacon, Augsburg, 1873, p. 112; also, citation from the Opus Majus in Eicken, chap. vi. On Bacon as a "Mohammedan," see Saisset, p. 17. For the interdiction of studies in physical science by the Dominicans and Franciscans, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol. iv, p. 283. For the suppression of chemical teaching by the Parliament of Paris, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xii, pp. 14, 15. For proofs that the world is steadily working toward great discoveries as to the cause and prevention of zymotic diseases and of their propagation, see Beale's Disease Germs, Baldwin Latham's Sanitary Engineering, Michel Lévy's Traité d'Hygiène Publique et Privée. For a summary of the bull Spondent pariter, and for an example of injury done by it, see
