Foulkes having been made pope, Bacon was for a time shielded, but the fury of the enemy was too strong. In an unpublished letter, Blackstone declares that when, on one occasion, Bacon was about to perform a few experiments for some friends, all Oxford was in an uproar. It was believed that Satan was let loose. Everywhere were priests, fellows, and students rushing about, their garments streaming in the wind, and everywhere resounded the cry, "Down with the conjurer!" and this cry "Down with the conjurer" resounded from cell to cell and hall to hall.'

But the attack took a shape far more terrible. The two great religious orders, Franciscan and Dominican, vied with each other in fighting the new thought in chemistry and philosophy. St. Dominic, sincere as he was, solemnly condemned research by experiment and observation. The general of the Franciscan order took similar grounds.

In 1243 the Dominicans solemnly interdicted every member of their order from the study of medicine and natural philosophy; and, in 1287, this interdiction was extended to the study of chemistry.'

Another weapon began to be used upon the battle-fields of that time with much effect. The Arabs had made noble discoveries in science. Averroes had, among many, divided the honors with St. Thomas Aquinas. These facts gave the new missile. It was the epithet "Mahometan.' This, too, was flung with effect at Bacon.'

Bacon was at last conquered. He was imprisoned for fourteen years. At the age of eighty years he was released from prison, but death alone took him beyond the reach of his enemies. How deeply the struggle had racked his mind may be gathered from that last afflicting declaration of his: "Would that I had not given myself so much trouble for the love of science!"

Sad is it to think of what this great man might have given to the world had the world not refused the gift. He held the key of treas ures which would have freed mankind from ages of error and misery. With his discoveries as a basis, with his method as a guide, what might not the world have gained! Nor was the wrong done to that age alone. It was done to this age also. The nineteenth century

was robbed at the same time with the thirteenth.

But for that inter

1 Whewell, vol. i., pp. 367, 368. Draper, p. 438. Saisset, "Descartes et ses Précurseurs," deuxième édition, pp. 397, et seq. Nourrisson, "Progrès de la pensée humaine," pp. 271, 272. Sprengel, "Histoire de la Médecine," Paris, 1865, vol. ii., p. 397. Cuvier, "Histoire des Sciences Naturelles," vol. i., p. 417. As to Bacon's orthodoxy, see Saisset, pp. 53, 55. For special examination of causes of Bacon's condemnation, see Waddington, cited by Saisset, p. 14. On Bacon as a sorcerer, see Featherstonaugh's article in North American Review. For a good example of the danger of denying full power of Satan, even in much more recent times, and in a Protestant country, see account of treatment of Bekker's "Monde Enchanté" by the theologians of Holland, in Nisard, "Histoire des Livres Populaires," vol. i., pp. 172, 173.

2 Henri Martin, "Hist. de France," vol. iv., p. 283. 3 On Bacon as a "Mahometan," see Saisset, p. 17

ference with science, this nineteenth century would, without doubt, be enjoying discoveries which will not be reached before the twenti eth century. Thousands of precious lives shall be lost in this century, tens of thousands shall suffer discomfort, privation, sickness, poverty, ignorance, for lack of discoveries and methods which, but for this mistaken religious fight against Bacon and his compeers, would now be blessing the earth.

In 1868 and 1869, sixty thousand children died in England and in Wales of scarlet fever; probably nearly as many died in this country. Had not Bacon been hindered we should have had in our hands, by this time, the means to save two-thirds of these victims, and the same is true of typhoid, typhus, and that great class of diseases of whose physical causes Science is just beginning to get an inkling. Put together all the efforts of all the atheists who have ever lived, and they have not done so much harm to Christianity and the world as has been done by the narrow-minded, conscientious men who persecuted Roger Bacon.'

Roger Bacon was vanquished. For ages the champions of science were crippled; but the "good fight" was carried on. The Church itself furnishes heroes of science. Antonio de Dominis relinquishes his archbishopric of Spalatro, investigates the phenomena of light, and dies in the clutches of the Inquisition."

Pierre de la Ramée stands up against Aristotelianism at Paris. A royal edict, sought by the Church, stopped his teaching, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew ended his life.

Somewhat later, John Baptist Porta began his investigations. Despite many absurdities, his work was most fruitful. His book on meteorology was the first in which sound ideas were broached. His researches in optics gave the world the camera obscura, and, possibly, the telescope. He encountered the same old policy of conscientious men. The society founded by him for physical research, "I Secreti," was broken up, and he was summoned to Rome and censured.

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

The war went on in Italy. In 1657 occurred the first sitting of

1 For proofs that the world is steadily working toward great discoveries as to the cause and prevention of zymotic diseases and of their propagation, see Beale's "Disease Germs," Baldwin Latham's "Sanitary Engineering," Michel Lévy, “Traité d'Hygiène Publique et Privée," Paris, 1869. And for very thorough summaries, see President Barnard's paper read before Sanitary Congress in New York, 1874, and Dr. J. C. Dalton's "Anniversary Discourse, on the Origin and Propagation of Disease," New York, 1874.

Antonio de Dominis, see Montucla, "Hist. des Mathématiques," vol. i., p. 705. Humboldt, "Cosmos." Libri, vol. iv., pp. 145, et seq.

3 Sprengel, "Hist. de la Médecine, iii., p. 239. Also Musset-Parthay. 4 Henri Martin, "Histoire de France," vol. xii., pp. 14, 15.

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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."

The new Academy 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 incompressibility of water, were studied by the right method and with results that enriched the world.

The Academy was a fortress of science, and siege was soon laid to it. The votaries of scholastic learning denounced it as irreligious. Quarrels were fomented. Leopold was bribed with a cardinal's hat and drawn away to Rome; and, after ten years of beleaguering, the fortress fell: Borelli was left a beggar; Oliva killed himself in despair.'

From the dismissal of the scientific professors from the University of Salamanca by Ferdinand VII. of Spain, in the beginning of this century, down to sundry dealings with scientific men in our own land and time, we see the same war continued.

Joseph de Maistre, uttering his hatred of physical sciences, declaring that man has paid too dearly for them, asserting that they must be subjected to theology, likening them to fire-good when confined but fearful when scattered about-this brilliant thinker has been the centre of a great opposing camp in our own time—an army of good men who cannot relinquish the idea that the Bible is a text-book of science.

[To be continued.]

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE KANGAROO.

BY ST. GEORGE MIVART, F. R. S.

HE kangaroos have now become familiar objects to all who visit

now, or any

able zoological museum.

Their general external form, when seen in the attitude they habitually assume when grazing (with their front limbs touching the ground),

1

Napier, "Florentine History," vol. v., p. 485. Tiraboschi, "Storia della Literatura." Henri Martin, "Histoire de France." Jevons, "Principles of Science," vol. ii., pp. 36-40. Libri, in his "Essai sur Galilée," p. 37, says that Oliva was summoned to Rome and so tortured by the Inquisition that, to escape further cruelty, he ended his life by throwing himself from a window. For closing, by church authority, of the Academy, "I Secreti," instituted for scientific investigation at an earlier period, see reference to Porta in this article. On Porta, see Sprengel, "Histoire de la Médecine," vol. iii.,

may have recalled to mind, more or less, the appearance presented by some hornless deer. Their chief mode of locomotion (that jnmping action necessitated by the great length of the hind-limbs) must be familiar to all who have observed them living, and also, very probably, the singular mode in which the young are carried in a pouch of skin in the front of the belly of the mother.

But "What is a kangaroo?" The question will raise in the minds of those who are not naturalists the image of some familiar circum

stances like those just referred to. But such image will afford no real answer to the question. To arrive at such an answer it is necessary to estimate correctly in what relation the kangaroo stands to other

animals-its place in the scale of animated beings-as also its relations to space and time; that is, its distribution over the earth's surface today, in connection with that of other animals more or less like it, and its relation to the past life of this planet, in connection with similar relations of animals also more or less like it. In other words, to understand what a kangaroo is, we must understand its zoological, geographical, and geological conditions. And my task in this paper is to make these conditions as clear as I can, and so to enable the reader to really answer the question, "What is a kangaroo?"

But before proceeding to these matters, let us look at our kangaroo a little closer, and learn something of its structure, habits, and history, so as to have some clear conceptions of the kangaroo considered by itself, before considering its relations with the universe (animate and inanimate) about it.

The kangaroo (Fig. 1) is a quadruped, with very long hind-limbs and a long and rather thick tail. Its head possesses rather a long muzzle, somewhat like that of a deer, with a pair of rather long ears. Each fore-paw has five toes, urnished with claws. Each hind-limb has but two large and conspicuous toes, the inner one of which is much the larger, and bears a very long and strong claw (Fig. 2). On the inner

side of this is what appears to be a very minute toe, furnished with two small claws. An examination of the bones of the foot shows us, however, that it really consists of two very slender toes united together in a common fold of skin. These toes answer to the second and third toes of our own foot, and there is no representative of our greattoe-not even that part of it which is inclosed in the substance of our foot, called the inner metatarsal bone. Two other points are specially noteworthy in the skeleton. The first of these is that the pelvis (or bony girdle to which the hind-limbs are articulated, and by which they are connected with the back-bone) has two elongated bones extending upward from its superior margin in front (Fig. 4, a). These are called marsupial bones, and lie within the flesh of the front of the animal's belly. The other point is that the lower, hinder portion of each side of the lower jaw (which portion is technically called the "angle") is bent inward, or "inflected," and not continued directly backward in the same plane as the rest of the lower jaw.

A certain muscle, called the cremaster muscle, is attached to each