It was believed that Satan was about to be let
loose. Everywhere priests, monks, fellows, and students rushed
about, their garments streaming in the wind, and everywhere rose
the cry, "Down with the magician!" and this cry, "Down with
the magician!" resounded from cell to cell and from hall to hall.
Another weapon was also used upon the battlefields of science in
that time with much effect. The Arabs had made many noble
discoveries in science, and Averroes had, in the opinion of
many, divided the honours with St. Thomas Aquinas; these facts
gave the new missile--it was the epithet "Mohammedan"; this,
too, was flung with effect at Bacon.
The attack now began to take its final shape. The two great
religious orders, Franciscan and Dominican, then in all the
vigour of their youth, vied with each other in fighting the new
thought in chemistry and physics. St. Dominic solemnly condemned
research by experiment and observation; the general of the
Franciscan order took similar ground. In 1243 the Dominicans
interdicted every member of their order from the study of
medicine and natural philosophy, and in 1287 this interdiction
was extended to the study of chemistry.
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