He laid the foundations of a science,
but he paid for it with his life. Condemned by the Inquisition,
his penalty was commuted, by the intercession of the Spanish king,
into a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and when on his way back,
while still in the prime of life, he died miserably at Zante, of
fever and want--a martyr to his love of science.
When the 'Novum Organon' appeared, a hue-and-cry was raised
against it, because of its alleged tendency to produce "dangerous
revolutions," to "subvert governments," and to "overturn the
authority of religion;" (2) and one Dr. Henry Stubbe (whose name
would otherwise have been forgotten) wrote a book against the new
philosophy, denouncing the whole tribe of experimentalists as "a
Bacon-faced generation." Even the establishment of the Royal
Society was opposed, on the ground that "experimental philosophy
is subversive of the Christian faith."
While the followers of Copernicus were persecuted as infidels,
Kepler was branded with the stigma of heresy, "because," said he,
"I take that side which seems to me to be consonant with the Word
of God." Even the pure and simpleminded Newton, of whom Bishop
Burnet said that he had the WHITEST SOUL he ever knew--who was a
very infant in the purity of his mind--even Newton was accused of
"dethroning the Deity" by his sublime discovery of the law of
gravitation; and a similar charge was made against Franklin for
explaining the nature of the thunderbolt.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176