We must not, therefore, unduly blame Adelard for placing, like the Greek philosophers before him, somewhat excessive trust in human reason and believing that “nothing is surer than reason, nothing falser than the senses.”[55] But in consequence much of his discussion is still in the speculative stage, and uncle as well as nephew shows the influence of dialectical training. Some quaint and amusing instances may be given. Asked why men do not have horns like some other animals, Adelard at first objects to the question as trivial; but when his nephew urges the utility of horns as weapons of defence, he replies that man has reason instead of horns, and that, as a social as well as bellicose animal, man requires weapons which he can lay aside in times of peace.[56] Asked why the nose, with its impurities, is placed above the mouth, through which we eat, Adelard answers that nothing in nature is impure, and that the nose serves the head and so should be above the mouth which serves the stomach.[57] Such arguing from the fitness of things and from design was common in the Greek philosophers whom Adelard had read, and in judging his treatise we must compare it with such books as the _Saturnalia_ of Macrobius which he cites,[58] the _Natural Questions_ of Seneca, Plato’s _Timaeus_, and the _Problems_ of Aristotle,[59] rather than with works of modern science. [Sidenote: Warfare, science, and religion.] It is noteworthy, however, even in these two amusing instances that the argument from design is questioned, while the question about horns Adelard perhaps inserted as a sly hit against the militarism of the feudal age. Little recked he of the horrible substitutes for horns that twentieth century warfare would work out with the aid of modern science. The medieval church has too often been wildly accused of persecuting natural scientists and it has been erroneously stated that Roger Bacon dared not reveal the secret of the mariner’s compass--which really was well known before his time--for fear of being accused of magic.[60] There is somewhat more plausibility in the theory that he concealed the invention of gunpowder from fear of the inquisition,[61] since there appears to have been a certain medieval prejudice against inhuman war inventions, which historians of artillery somewhat impatiently ascribe to “ignorance, religion, and chivalry,” and which they hold prevented the use of Greek fire in the west.[62] At any rate in Adelard’s day the Second Lateran Council attempted to prohibit the use of military engines against men on the ground that they were too murderous.[63] [Sidenote: Specimens of medieval scientific curiosity.]