Those popes who
had been merely amateur humanists and dealers in Roman
and Greek antiquities, disappeared from the scene and
their place was taken by serious men who spent twenty hours
a day administering those holy duties which had been placed
in their hands.
The long and rather disgraceful happiness of the monasteries
came to an end. Monks and nuns were forced to be up
at sunrise, to study the Church Fathers, to tend the sick and
console the dying. The Holy Inquisition watched day and
night that no dangerous doctrines should be spread by way of
the printing press. Here it is customary to mention poor
Galileo, who was locked up because he had been a little too
indiscreet in explaining the heavens with his funny little
telescope and had muttered certain opinions about the behaviour
of the planets which were entirely opposed to the official views
of the church. But in all fairness to the Pope, the clergy and
the Inquisition, it ought to be stated that the Protestants were
quite as much the enemies of science and medicine as the Catholics
and with equal manifestations of ignorance and intolerance
regarded the men who investigated things for themselves
as the most dangerous enemies of mankind.
And Calvin, the great French reformer and the tyrant
(both political and spiritual) of Geneva, not only assisted the
French authorities when they tried to hang Michael Servetus
(the Spanish theologian and physician who had become famous
as the assistant of Vesalius, the first great anatomist), but
when Servetus had managed to escape from his French jail and
had fled to Geneva, Calvin threw this brilliant man into prison
and after a prolonged trial, allowed him to be burned at the
stake on account of his heresies, totally indifferent to his fame
as a scientist.
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