before we hear the thunder because "sight is nobler
than hearing."

In chemistry we have the same theologic tendency to magic, and, as a
result, a muddle of science and theology, which from one point of view
seems blasphemous and from another idiotic, but which none the less
sterilized physical investigation for ages. That debased Platonism which
had been such an important factor in the evolution of Christian theology
from the earliest days of the Church continued its work. As everything
in inorganic nature was supposed to have spiritual significance, the
doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation were turned into an argument
in behalf of the philosopher's stone; arguments for the scheme of
redemption and for transubstantiation suggested others of similar
construction to prove the transmutation of metals; the doctrine of the
resurrection of the human body was by similar mystic jugglery connected
with the processes of distillation and sublimation. Even after the
Middle Ages were past, strong men seemed unable to break away from such
reasoning as this--among them such leaders as Basil Valentine in the
fifteenth century, Agricola in the sixteenth, and Van Helmont in the
seventeenth.

The greatest theologians contributed to the welter of unreason from
which this pseudo-science was developed. One question largely discussed
was, whether at the Redemption it was necessary for God to take the
human form. Thomas Aquinas answered that it was necessary, but William
Occam and Duns Scotus answered that it was not; that God might have
taken the form of a stone, or of a log, or of a beast. The possibilities
opened to wild substitutes for science by this sort of reasoning were
infinite. Men have often asked how it was that the Arabians
accomplished so much in scientific discovery as compared with Christian
investigators; but the answer is easy: the Arabians were comparatively
free from these theologic allurements which in Christian Europe
flickered in the air on all sides, luring men into paths which led
no-whither.

Strong investigators, like Arnold of Villanova, Raymond Lully, Basil
Valentine, Paracelsus, and their compeers, were thus drawn far out
of the only paths which led to fruitful truths. In a work generally
ascribed to the first of these, the student is told that in mixing his
chemicals he must repeat the psalm Exsurge Domine, and that on certain
chemical vessels must be placed the last words of Jesus on the cross.
Vincent