Human physiology, statical and dynamical, or, The conditions and course of the life of man / by John William Draper.

  • John William Draper
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Human physiology, statical and dynamical, or, The conditions and course of the life of man / by John William Draper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    646/684 (page 624)
    dependence of the spiritual order, how she kept her grasp upon mankind by the establishment of monastic institutions; how, after the death of Charlemagne, who had done so much for her, she adopted the feudal system, which was the legitimate offsjiring of barbarism ; how, as knowl- edge began to spread, she tried to render it tributary to her by councils, convocations, federations; how, finding it likely to become uncontrollable, she took the alann, and m an evil hour attempted its repression; how for a little while she became the autocrat of Europe, and in the plenitude of her power so greatly forgot her duty that, in the time of Leo X., it was doubted in Rome whether the soul be immaterial and immortal, Erasmus testifying with hoiTor that he heard it proved that there is no difference between the soul of a man and that of a beast—of a truth it was said that the Eternal City teemed at once with all crime and all the glories of art—how, agamst the moral and intellectual revolt which she encountered—the Eeformation—the Church made a stand by the aid of the Society of the Jesuits and the establishment of the Inquisition, and, with a quick sense of her trae position, attempted to Its attempt at ^ .,,,, tit suppressing guidc children through education by the tormer, and to check phUosophy. j^g^ -^^ ^Yie teiTors of the latter; how, as if by instinct, she detected the antagonism of exact science, and on the one hand published her Index of prohibited books, and on the other allied herself with art, cultivating it so eminently as to compel even her enemies to confess that she had produced true miracles at last—in architectm-e, sculpture, paint- ing, music. Pius lY. was justified in comparing some of her grand masses to the strains of Paradise. The mistake committed by the Italian government in thus attempting the compression of human thought was in its imperfect appreciation of the qualities of the European mind and the existing philosophical tend- ency. Up to a certain point opinion may be coerced by force. It is altoo-ether a vulgar error that persecution never attains its ends. In nine cases out often it does attain them, provided it is apphed with suf- ficient severity and for a sufficient time, as is proved by the history of almost any nation ; but in the tenth it fails. Judging from the experience of twenty centuries, for that was nearly Failure of that t^^e period during which the European had been philosophiz- attempt. ing, the popes were justified in coming to the conclusion that they did. Those centuries had produced no philosophy of a sure and permanent kind. The only fruit which they had borne was the meta- ])hysical uncertamties of the schools. There seemed no prospect that the human mind would ever do more than flounder in doubt; that sect after sect, and doctrine after doctrine, would emerge into prominence and disaj)- pear. In such a state of things, it was not to be supposed that any peril could arise from attempting to control opinion by authority, and to extin- guish the spirit of inquiry by asserting the permanent efficacy of faith.