Nor was it entirely his devotion to rational liberty, nor
even his disbelief in the doctrine of the Trinity, which brought
on this catastrophe. That there was a deep distrust of his
scientific pursuits, was evident when the leaders of the mob took
pains to use his electrical apparatus to set fire to his papers.
Still, though theological modes of thought continued to
sterilize much effort in chemistry, the old influence was more
and more thrown off, and truth sought more and more for truth's
sake. "Black magic" with its Satanic machinery vanished, only
reappearing occasionally among marvel-mongers and belated
theologians. "White magic" became legerdemain.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, physical research,
though it went on with ever-increasing vigour, felt in various
ways the reaction which followed the French Revolution. It was
not merely under the Bourbons and Hapsburgs that resistance was
offered; even in England the old spirit lingered long. As late
as 1832, when the British Association for the Advancement of
Science first visited Oxford, no less amiable a man than John
Keble--at that time a power in the university--condemned
indignantly the conferring of honorary degrees upon the leading
men thus brought together.
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