Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/541

Rh third is the animal spirit, whose seat is in the brain and nerves."

Now, he goes on to suppose that the blood, having received in its passage through the lungs the breath of life, is sent by the left ventricle into the arteries. The purest part ascends to the base of the brain, where it is more refined and changed from the vital to the animal spirit, and acts upon the mass of the brain, which is incapable of reasoning without its stimulus. From this, and much more which is unintelligible, it appears plain that Servetus had read the schoolmen, and was imbued with their methods of reasoning.

To get published a book filled, as the Christianismi Restitutio was, with theological opinions repugnant alike to Catholics and Reformers, was no easy task. And in effecting his purpose Servetus exercised great caution and ingenuity. At Vienne, where he had lived for twelve years, was a publisher named Arnoullet, whom, with the printer Geroult, Servetus took into his confidence. He engaged not only to pay the whole expenses, but also to add a gratuity of a hundred crowns. It was arranged that the printing should not be carried on at the ordinary place of business, but that a small house at some distance should be used for the purpose. The printing was commenced on St. Michael's day, and in three or four months one thousand copies of the book were ready.

No name appeared on the title-page, but at the end of the book immediately over the date the initials "M. S. V." were placed, and at page 199, at the commencement of the dialogue between Michael and Petrus, the latter is made to say: "Here he is; Servetus is here, of whom I was speaking." The reference made in the preface to former works on the same subject, and the introduction of Michael and Peter as interlocutors, just as had been done in the Dialogue on the Trinity twenty years before, rendered it easy to establish that Michael Servetus and Michael Villeneuve were one and the same man.

The whole stock of books, when ready, was made up into bales of one hundred each, and sent away, the greater part to Lyons, to the care of a type-founder named Pierre Merrin, who believed that the packets contained nothing but blank paper. It was probably intended to forward them, as soon as opportunity offered, to Genoa and Venice.

Meanwhile, unknown to Servetus, a copy of the work, and a letter giving particulars of the printing of it, were dispatched to Calvin at Geneva, probably by some one at Lyons, who had friends at Vienne, and who was in the confidence of both Servetus and Calvin. Armed with this evidence against the Spaniard, Calvin caused a letter to be written to Vienne by a young man named William Trie, denouncing Servetus, and inclosing