Despite this very natural tendency to decry the value of new discoveries in science and the opposition they aroused, it will be found that the lives of these clergymen scientists show us that they met with much more sympathy in their work than was usually accorded to original investigators in science in other paths in life. This is so different from the ordinary impression in the matter that it seems worth while calling it to particular attention. While we have selected lives of certain of the great leaders in science, we would not wish it to be understood that these are the only ones among the clergymen of the last four centuries who deserve an honorable place high up in the roll of successful scientific investigators. Only those are taken who illustrate activity in sciences that are supposed to have been especially forbidden to clergymen. It {8} has been said over and over again, for instance, that there was distinct ecclesiastical opposition to the study of chemistry. Indeed, many writers have not hesitated to say that there was a bull, or at least a decree, issued by one or more of the popes forbidding the study of chemistry. This, is not only not true, but the very pope who is said to have issued the decree, John XXII, was himself an ardent student of the medical sciences. We still possess several books from him on these subjects, and his decree was meant only to suppress pseudo-science, which, as always, was exploiting the people for its own ends. The fact that a century later the foundation of modern chemical pharmacology was laid by a Benedictine monk, Basil Valentine, shows how unfounded is the idea that the papal decree actually hampered in any way the development of chemical investigation or the advance of chemical science.