In the dim light which had gathered over everything, he could see the delicate eyebrows drawing together in a frown. But he went on, cheerfully, as if giving offence had not occurred to him, “Now Spain is enthusiastically Catholic. And for ignorance,–solid, comprehensive, reliable ignorance,–there is nothing like it in the solar system. You can’t hurt it with a hammer. It defies competition. If a Spaniard were to meet a bath-tub on a lonely highway, he would cross himself and run.”
“Their ignorance is their own fault. Education and progress have always been encouraged by the Catholic Church.”
“Encouraged? Oh!”
“Certainly.”
“You mean by the stake and boiling lead?”
“I do not.”
“When, for example, she notified Galileo that she would roast him alive, as she had already 46roasted Bruno, if he persisted in his heresy that the earth was round instead of flat?”
“If you are happy in that belief, I will not destroy it.”
“It is a historic fact, but I am no happier for believing it. However, too much education is a nuisance, and very likely Mamma Church was wise in toasting an astronomer now and then.”
“Your conclusions are rather entertaining. I am a Catholic myself, and my own reading has brought opinions that are quite different.”