310 Ch. 8 • The New Philosophy Of Science
Astronomers using a telescope at the Royal Observatory of London.
at Greenwich in 1675. Newton and other members of the Royal Society
almost unanimously supported the exile of the Catholic King James II to
France and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Censorship was relatively
rare in England, where political and ecclesiastical authority was not so
centralized.
By way of contrast, state censorship, encouraged by the Catholic Church,
had formally begun in France in 1623, five years after the sovereign law
court of Toulouse had ordered a defrocked monk burned at the stake for
denouncing belief in miracles after studying at the University of Padua.
Thereafter, each new manuscript had to be submitted to a royal office for
authorization to be published. Six years later, separate offices were estab
lished for literature, science, and politics, with ecclesiastics having veto
power over books treating religious subjects.
Yet, to be sure, not all churchmen in France adamantly waged a war on
science. Some French Jesuits were open-minded about the scientific method.
Jansenists, forming a dissident movement within the Church, also favored
scientific discovery, discussion, and debate (see Chapter 7).
Consequences of the Scientific RevolutionThe Scientific Revolution seemed to push theology into the background.
Even though the earliest exponents of scientific method never doubted