worth examining. They are very easily examined, for they are to be found
on all the battlefields of science; but on that field they were used
with more effect than on almost any other. These weapons are the
epithets "infidel" and "atheist." They have been used against almost
every man who has ever done anything new for his fellow-men. The list of
those who have been denounced as "infidel" and "atheist" includes
almost all great men of science, general scholars, inventors, and
philanthropists.

The purest Christian life, the noblest Christian character, have not
availed to shield combatants. Christians like Isaac Newton, Pascal,
Locke, Milton, and even Fenelon and Howard, have had this weapon
hurled against them. Of all proofs of the existence of a God, those of
Descartes have been wrought most thoroughly into the minds of modern
men; yet the Protestant theologians of Holland sought to bring him to
torture and to death by the charge of atheism, and the Roman Catholic
theologians of France thwarted him during his life and prevented any due
honours to him after his death.(59)

(59) For various objectors and objections to Galileo by his
contemporaries, see Libri, Histoire des Sciences mathematiques en
Italie, vol. iv, p. 233, 234; also Martin, Vie de Galilee. For Father
Lecazre's argument, see Flammarion, Mondes imaginaires et mondes reels,
6th ed., pp. 315, 316. For Melanchthon's argument, see his Initia in
Opera, vol. iii, Halle, 1846.

These epithets can hardly be classed with civilized weapons. They are
burning arrows; they set fire to masses of popular prejudice, always
obscuring the real question, sometimes destroying the attacking party.
They are poisoned weapons. They pierce the hearts of loving women; they
alienate dear children; they injure a man after life is ended, for they
leave poisoned wounds in the hearts of those who loved him best--fears
for his eternal salvation, dread of the Divine wrath upon him. Of
course, in these days these weapons, though often effective in vexing
good men and in scaring good women, are somewhat blunted; indeed, they
not infrequently injure the assailants more than the assailed. So it was
not in the days of Galileo; they were then in all their sharpness and
venom.(60)

(60) For curious exemplification of the way in which these weapons
have been hurled, see lists of persons charged with "infidelity" and
"atheism," in the Dictionnaire des Athees., Paris, (1800); a