ius who asked, "Is there any one so senseless as to believe that
there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? That the
crops and trees grow downward? That the rains and snow and hail fall
upwards toward the earth? I am at a loss as to what to say of those,
who, when they have once erred, steadily persevere in their folly, and
defend one vain thing by another."

St. Augustine insisted that men could not be allowed by the Almighty to
live there, since, if they did, they could not see Christ at His second
coming, descending through the air.

In the eighth century, a Bishop Virgil of Salzburg dared to assert that
there were men living in the antipodes. He was strongly attacked by St.
Boniface of Germany, who appealed to Pope Zachary for a decision. The
Pope, as the infallible teacher of Christendom, made the following
response: He declared it, "Perverse, iniquitous, and against Virgil's
soul." And again another infallible statement by the infallible Pope
Zachary became a doctrine of the Church.

In Italy, in 1316, Peter of Abano, famous as a physician, promulgated
the opposite view to that of the Church, for which he was persecuted by
the Inquisition, and barely escaped with his life. In 1327, Cecco
d'Ascoli, an astronomer, was burned alive at Florence for daring to
assert that men lived in the antipodes.

The difficulties that beset Columbus are well known. How he was hounded
both in Portugal and in Spain by the clergy; and even after his
discovery of America, the Papacy still maintained its theory of the
flatness of the earth and the nonsense of the antipodes. Pope Alexander
VI and Pope Julius II attempted to settle the disputes between Spain and
Portugal by drawing some remarkable maps that may still be found; but no
one dares to disturb the quiet of the ridiculous bulls that the popes
issued on this dispute.

In 1519 Magellan made his famous voyage and proved the earth to be round
and that men actually lived in the antipodes. But the force of
ecclesiastical stultification was so great, as it is today, that men
still believed the opposite view for two hundred years after the voyage
of Magellan.

CHAPTER X

RELIGION AND CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS

The establishment of Christianity, beginning a new evolution of
theology, arrested the normal development of the physical sciences for
more than 1500 years. The work begun by Aristotle and carried on to such
a high state of relative perfection by Archi