ies afterwards, for stating the same claim, namely, that much
which was attributed to demons, resulted from natural causes, Cornelius
Agrippa, Weyer, Flade, Loos, Bekker, and a multitude of other
investigators and thinkers, suffered confiscation of property, loss of
position, and even torture and death.

In the latter half of the sixteenth century, John Baptist Porta, who was
the first to show how to reduce the metallic oxides and thus laid the
foundation of several important industries, was summoned to Rome by
Pope Paul II, and forbidden to continue his researches.

Both in Protestant and Catholic countries instruction in chemistry and
physics was discouraged by Church authorities, and in England the
theologians strenuously opposed the Royal Society and the Association
for the Advancement of Science.

Francis Bacon and Boyle were denounced by the clergy, and Lavoisier was
sent to the scaffold by the Parisian mob. Priestley had his home, his
library, instruments, and papers containing the results of long years of
scientific research burned by a Birmingham mob that had been instigated
by Anglican clergymen. He was driven into exile, and the mob would have
murdered him if they could have laid their hands upon him.

Yet, in spite of the opposition of the clergy, an opposition of such
force that one may well wonder how these tender embryonic sciences could
have withstood the terrific ecclesiastical onslaughts, the truths of
chemistry and physics continued to diffuse themselves among the
intelligent observers. The value to humanity of these two sciences is
now established as inestimable.

CHAPTER XI

RELIGION AND GEOLOGY, PHILOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

_The human race has suffered three grave humiliations: when Copernicus
showed that the earth was not the center of the universe; when Darwin
proved that man's origin was not the result of direct creation; when
Freud explained that man was not the master of his own thoughts or
actions_.

LLEWELYN POWYS.

In the writings of the Greek and Roman philosophers are found the
germinal concepts of geological truths. But as Christianity took control
of the world instead of a steady progression of knowledge in this field
there was a distinct retrogression. According to the prevailing belief
the earth was soon to be destroyed and the collecting of knowledge was
futile and any study of its nature was vain.

St. Jerome stated that the broken and twisted crust of the earth
e