The Reformation did little to change it, and in Germany,
where Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in proving
their orthodoxy, it was at its worst. On German soil more than
one hundred thousand victims are believed to have been
sacrificed to it between the middle of the fifteenth and the
middle of the sixteenth centuries.
Thus it was that from St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas, from
Aquinas to Luther, and from Luther to Wesley, theologians of
both branches of the Church, with hardly an exception, enforced
the belief in magic and witchcraft, and, as far as they had
power, carried out the injunction, "Thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live."
How this was ended by the progress of scientific modes of
thought I shall endeavour to show elsewhere: here we are only
concerned with the effect of this widespread terrorism on the
germs and early growth of the physical sciences.
Of course, the atmosphere created by this persecution of
magicians was deadly to any open beginnings of experimental
science.
Pages:
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696