Even the great theologian Fromundus, at the
University of Louvain, the oracle of his age, who had
demonstrated the futility of the Copernican theory, had foreseen
this and made the inevitable attempt at compromise, declaring
that devils, though _often_, are not _always_ or even for the most
part the causes of thunder. The learned Jesuit Caspar Schott,
whose _Physica Curiosa_ was one of the most popular books of the
seventeenth century, also ventured to make the same mild
statement. But even such concessions by such great champions of
orthodoxy did not prevent frantic efforts in various quarters to
bring the world back under the old dogma: as late as 1743 there
was published in Catholic Germany a manual by Father Vincent of
Berg, in which the superstition was taught to its fullest
extent, with the declaration that it was issued for the use of
priests under the express sanction of the theological professors
of the University of Cologne; and twenty-five years later, in
1768, we find in Protestant England John Wesley standing firmly
for witchcraft, and uttering his famous declaration, "The
giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the
Bible.
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