Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/311

Rh 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."

We have now seen how powerless were the strongest men in physical science, singly, in this struggle against theology and ecclesiasticism, and it may be well to study briefly their efforts after they had learned to combine in societies and academies against the common enemy. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, John Baptist Porta began his investigations, and despite much absurdity they were fruitful. His was not "black magic," claiming the aid of Satan, but "white magic" bringing into service the laws of Nature—the precursor of applied science. His book on Meteorology was the first in which sound ideas were broached on that subject; his researches in optics gave the world the camera obscura, and possibly the telescope; in chemistry he seems to have been the first to show how to reduce the metallic oxides, and thus to have laid the foundation of all those industries based upon the coloring and staining of glass and enamels; he did much to change natural philosophy from a "black art" to a vigorous open science. He encountered the old policy of conscientious men; the society founded by him for physical research, "I Secreti," was broken up, and he was summoned to Rome by Pope Paul III and forbidden to continue his investigations.

In 1624 some young chemists of Paris, having taught the experimental method and cut loose from Aristotle, the Faculty of Theology beset the Parliament of Paris, and the Parliament prohibited this new chemical teaching, under penalty of death.

The same war continued in Italy. In 1657 occurred the first sitting of the Accademia del Cimento at Florence, under the presidency of Prince Leopold dei Medici. This Academy promised great things for science; it was open to all talent; its only fundamental law was "the repudiation of any favorite system or sect of philosophy, and the obligation to investigate Nature by the pure light of experiment"; it entered into scientific investigations with energy. Borelli in mathematics, Redi in natural history, and many others pushed on the boundaries of knowledge. Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, projectiles, digestion, the