ok of it he asserts that "that excellent book of Job, if it
be revolved with diligence, will be found pregnant and swelling with
natural philosophy," and he endeavours to show that in it the "roundness
of the earth," the "fixing of the stars, ever standing at equal
distances," the "depression of the southern pole," the "matter of
generation," and "matter of minerals" are "with great elegancy noted."
But, curiously enough, he uses to support some of these truths the very
texts which the fathers of the Church used to destroy them, and those
for which he finds Scripture warrant most clearly are such as science
has since disproved. So, too, he says that Solomon was enabled in his
Proverbs, "by donation of God, to compile a natural history of all
verdure."(280)

(280) See Bacon, Advancement of Learning, edited by W. Aldis Wright,
London, 1873, pp. 47, 48. Certainly no more striking examples of the
strength of the evil which he had all along been denouncing could be
exhibited that these in his own writings. Nothing better illustrates the
sway of the mediaeval theology, or better explains his blindness to the
discoveries of Copernicus and to the experiments of Gilbert. For a
very contemptuous statement of Lord Bacon's claim to his position as
a philosopher, see Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, Leipsic, 1872,
vol i, p. 219. For a more just statement, see Brewster, Life of Sir
Isaac Newton, London, 1874, vol. ii, p. 298.

Such was the struggle of the physical sciences in general. Let us now
look briefly at one special example out of many, which reveals, as well
as any, one of the main theories which prompted theological interference
with them.

It will doubtless seem amazing to many that for ages the weight of
theological thought in Christendom was thrown against the idea of the
suffocating properties of certain gases, and especially of carbonic
acid. Although in antiquity we see men forming a right theory of gases
in mines, we find that, early in the history of the Church, St. Clement
of Alexandria put forth the theory that these gases are manifestations
of diabolic action, and that, throughout Christendom, suffocation in
caverns, wells, and cellars was attributed to the direct action of evil
spirits. Evidences of this view abound through the medieval period, and
during the Reformation period a great authority, Agricola, one of the
most earnest and truthful of investigators, still adhered to the
belief that thes