Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jews, to whom he belonged,
because of his views of philosophy, which were supposed to be
adverse to religion; and his life was afterwards attempted by an
assassin for the same reason. Spinoza remained courageous and
self-reliant to the last, dying in obscurity and poverty.
The philosophy of Descartes was denounced as leading to
irreligion; the doctrines of Locke were said to produce
materialism; and in our own day, Dr. Buckland, Mr. Sedgwick, and
other leading geologists, have been accused of overturning
revelation with regard to the constitution and history of
the earth. Indeed, there has scarcely been a discovery
in astronomy, in natural history, or in physical science,
that has not been attacked by the bigoted and narrow-minded
as leading to infidelity.
Other great discoverers, though they may not have been charged
with irreligion, have had not less obloquy of a professional and
public nature to encounter. When Dr. Harvey published his theory
of the circulation of the blood, his practice fell off, (3) and
the medical profession stigmatised him as a fool. "The few good
things I have been able to do," said John Hunter, "have been
accomplished with the greatest difficulty, and encountered the
greatest opposition." Sir Charles Bell, while employed in his
important investigations as to the nervous system, which issued in
one of the greatest of physiological discoveries, wrote to a
friend: "If I were not so poor, and had not so many vexations to
encounter, how happy would I be!" But he himself observed that
his practice sensibly fell off after the publication of each
successive stage of his discovery.
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