o the mystery--as
such. It renounces authority, cuts athwart custom, violates the sacred,
rejects the myths. It adjusts itself to the process of change whose
creative impulse it itself supplies. Not _semper idem_ but _semper
alterum_ is the keynote of science. Each discovery of something new
involves the discarding of something old. Above all, it progresses by
doubting rather than by believing." (_James T. Shotwell: "The Religious
Revolution of To-day."_)

_There has never been an advance in science of widespread importance
which in some manner or other endangered some mouldy religious concept,
that the Church has not bitterly opposed; an advance which in time has
proven of inestimable benefit for all mankind. A glance at the history
of human progress will reveal scores of such instances._

The two rival divisions of the Christian Church, Protestant and
Catholic, have always been in accord on one point, that is, to tolerate
no science except such as they considered to be agreeable to the
Scriptures. It was the decree of the Lateran Council of 1515 that
ordered that no books should be printed but such as had been inspected
by the ecclesiastical censors, under pain of excommunication and fine.

It is easily understood that having declared the Bible to contain all
knowledge both scientific and spiritual, and then passing a decree
ordering no books to be printed which did not agree on all points with
the Church's interpretation of the Bible, the Church was in absolute
control of all thought, both written and spoken.

It was to no advantage for the scholar to investigate any new fields,
for all knowledge which was possible for the mind to discover had
already been revealed in the Scriptures. Thus declared the Church. We
understand why it was that Copernicus did not permit his book to be
published until he was dying. We understand also that when Galileo and
Bruno had the courage of their convictions, and gave voice to their
beliefs, they were persecuted. Galileo was made to recant a discovery
that the youngest of children now takes for granted. Bruno was burnt at
the stake.

We know that astronomy was at a standstill under Church domination,
chemistry was forbidden, and the study of natural philosophy was
contradicted; while anthropology, which showed on what mythical
foundations the story of the fall of man rests, was squelched. The
attitude of the Church on geography was hostile to the truth, as witness
the persecutio