Yet even this does
not end the war. Many conscientious men oppose the doctrine for two
hundred years longer. Then the French astronomers make their
measurements of degrees in equatorial and polar regions, and add to
their proofs that of the lengthened pendulum. When this was done,
when the deductions of science were seen to be established by the
simple test of measurement, beautifully and perfectly, and when a
long line of trustworthy explorers, including devoted missionaries,
had sent home accounts of the antipodes, then, and then only, this
war of twelve centuries ended.
Such was the main result of this long war; but there were other
results not so fortunate. The efforts of Eusebius, Basil, and
Lactantius to deaden scientific thought; the efforts of Augustine
to combat it; the efforts of Cosmas to crush it by dogmatism; the
efforts of Boniface and Zachary to crush it by force, conscientious
as they all were, had resulted simply in impressing upon many
leading minds the conviction that science and religion are enemies.
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