The Story of Mankind [99]
place was taken by serious men who spent twenty hours
a day administering those holy duties which had been placed
in their hands.
The long and rather disgraceful happiness of the monasteries
came to an end. Monks and nuns were forced to be up
at sunrise, to study the Church Fathers, to tend the sick and
console the dying. The Holy Inquisition watched day and
night that no dangerous doctrines should be spread by way of
the printing press. Here it is customary to mention poor
Galileo, who was locked up because he had been a little too
indiscreet in explaining the heavens with his funny little
telescope and had muttered certain opinions about the behaviour
of the planets which were entirely opposed to the official views
of the church. But in all fairness to the Pope, the clergy and
the Inquisition, it ought to be stated that the Protestants were
quite as much the enemies of science and medicine as the Catholics
and with equal manifestations of ignorance and intolerance
regarded the men who investigated things for themselves
as the most dangerous enemies of mankind.
And Calvin, the great French reformer and the tyrant
(both political and spiritual) of Geneva, not only assisted the
French authorities when they tried to hang Michael Servetus
(the Spanish theologian and physician who had become famous
as the assistant of Vesalius, the first great anatomist), but
when Servetus had managed to escape from his French jail and
had fled to Geneva, Calvin threw this brilliant man into prison
and after a prolonged trial, allowed him to be burned at the
stake on account of his heresies, totally indifferent to his fame
as a scientist.
And so it went. We have few reliable statistics upon the
subject, but on the whole, the Protestants tired of this game
long before the Catholics, and the greater part of honest men
and women who were burned and hanged and decapitated on
account of their religious beliefs fell as victims of the very
energetic but also very drastic church of Rome.
For tolerance (and please remember this when you grow
older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own
so-called ``modern world'' are apt to be tolerant only upon such
matters as do not interest them very much. They are tolerant
towards a native of Africa, and do not care whether he becomes
a Buddhist or a Mohammedan, because neither Buddhism nor
Mohammedanism means anything to them. But when they
hear that their neighbour who was a Republican and believed
in a high protective tariff, has joined the Socialist party and
now wants to repeal all tariff laws, their tolerance ceases and
they use almost the same words as those employed by a kindly
Catholic (or Protestant) of the seventeenth century, who was
informed that his best friend whom he had always respected
and loved had fallen a victim to the terrible heresies of the
Protestant (or Catholic) church.
``Heresy'' until a very short time ago was regarded as a
disease. Nowadays when we see a man neglecting the personal
cleanliness of his body and his home and exposing himself
and his children to the dangers of typhoid fever or another
preventable disease, we send for the board-of-health and the
health officer calls upon the police to aid him in removing this
person who is a danger to the safety of the entire community.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a heretic, a man
or a woman who openly doubted the fundamental principles
upon which his Protestant or Catholic religion had been
founded, was considered a more terrible menace than a typhoid
carrier. Typhoid fever might (very likely would) destroy the
body. But heresy, according to them, would positively destroy
the immortal soul. It was therefore the duty of all good and
logical citizens to warn the police against the enemies of the
established order of things and those who failed to do so were
as culpable as a modern man who does
a day administering those holy duties which had been placed
in their hands.
The long and rather disgraceful happiness of the monasteries
came to an end. Monks and nuns were forced to be up
at sunrise, to study the Church Fathers, to tend the sick and
console the dying. The Holy Inquisition watched day and
night that no dangerous doctrines should be spread by way of
the printing press. Here it is customary to mention poor
Galileo, who was locked up because he had been a little too
indiscreet in explaining the heavens with his funny little
telescope and had muttered certain opinions about the behaviour
of the planets which were entirely opposed to the official views
of the church. But in all fairness to the Pope, the clergy and
the Inquisition, it ought to be stated that the Protestants were
quite as much the enemies of science and medicine as the Catholics
and with equal manifestations of ignorance and intolerance
regarded the men who investigated things for themselves
as the most dangerous enemies of mankind.
And Calvin, the great French reformer and the tyrant
(both political and spiritual) of Geneva, not only assisted the
French authorities when they tried to hang Michael Servetus
(the Spanish theologian and physician who had become famous
as the assistant of Vesalius, the first great anatomist), but
when Servetus had managed to escape from his French jail and
had fled to Geneva, Calvin threw this brilliant man into prison
and after a prolonged trial, allowed him to be burned at the
stake on account of his heresies, totally indifferent to his fame
as a scientist.
And so it went. We have few reliable statistics upon the
subject, but on the whole, the Protestants tired of this game
long before the Catholics, and the greater part of honest men
and women who were burned and hanged and decapitated on
account of their religious beliefs fell as victims of the very
energetic but also very drastic church of Rome.
For tolerance (and please remember this when you grow
older), is of very recent origin and even the people of our own
so-called ``modern world'' are apt to be tolerant only upon such
matters as do not interest them very much. They are tolerant
towards a native of Africa, and do not care whether he becomes
a Buddhist or a Mohammedan, because neither Buddhism nor
Mohammedanism means anything to them. But when they
hear that their neighbour who was a Republican and believed
in a high protective tariff, has joined the Socialist party and
now wants to repeal all tariff laws, their tolerance ceases and
they use almost the same words as those employed by a kindly
Catholic (or Protestant) of the seventeenth century, who was
informed that his best friend whom he had always respected
and loved had fallen a victim to the terrible heresies of the
Protestant (or Catholic) church.
``Heresy'' until a very short time ago was regarded as a
disease. Nowadays when we see a man neglecting the personal
cleanliness of his body and his home and exposing himself
and his children to the dangers of typhoid fever or another
preventable disease, we send for the board-of-health and the
health officer calls upon the police to aid him in removing this
person who is a danger to the safety of the entire community.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a heretic, a man
or a woman who openly doubted the fundamental principles
upon which his Protestant or Catholic religion had been
founded, was considered a more terrible menace than a typhoid
carrier. Typhoid fever might (very likely would) destroy the
body. But heresy, according to them, would positively destroy
the immortal soul. It was therefore the duty of all good and
logical citizens to warn the police against the enemies of the
established order of things and those who failed to do so were
as culpable as a modern man who does