+241. The ordeal.+ The doctrines and sentiments of this early age were seed planted to produce an immeasurable crop in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when they were brought forth again and quoted with the authority of the church fathers. The ordeal is a question addressed to the superior powers in order to learn the truth. The question is always categorical: Is this man guilty or not? The irrationality is that there is a third possibility which cannot be tested; the superior powers may not answer at all. In the early Middle Ages the ordeal was in common use in all civil and ecclesiastical trials. Experience proved the fallacy of it. We are led to believe that the people of the dark ages, not yet being locked in dogmatism, although stupid and ignorant, were better able to learn from experience than those of later times. Innocent III, in 1212, forbade the use of the ordeal, the occasion being its use by the Bishop of Strasburg against heretics.[543] The Lateran Council of 1215 forbade ecclesiastics to take any part in ordeals. It is perhaps true that torture was introduced from the Roman law after the ordeal was ruled out.[544] +242. Irrationality of torture.+ Torture was far more irrational than the ordeal. The Roman authorities had recorded warnings of its fallacy.[545] Torture destroys nerve power, will, and consciousness. There comes a point at which the victim will assent to anything to escape pain, or to get a quick and easy death. Therefore "confessions" under torture are of no value. Ulpian said of it, "_Res est fragilis et periculosa et quae veritatem fallat_."[546] One of the templars said that if he was tortured further he would confess that he had murdered the Saviour. Another said that he would confess anything if he was tortured further, although he was ready to suffer any death for the Order of Templars. He would confess that he had killed the mother of God.[547] A heretic under torture cried out that Christ, if so treated, would be proved a heretic.[548] Bernard Delicieux declared before King Philip that Peter and Paul could be convicted of heresy by the methods of the inquisitors.[549] Count Frederick von Spee, a Jesuit who opposed the witch persecutions, is quoted as saying, in 1631, "Treat the heads of the church, the judges, or me, as you treat those unhappy ones [accused of witchcraft], subject any of us to the same tortures, and you will discover that we are all sorcerers."[550] He quoted an inquisitor who boasted that if he could get the pope on the rack he would prove him a sorcerer.[551] In the thirteenth century "judges were well convinced of the failure of the procedure with its secret and subjective elements, but they could not in any other way cope with crime."[552]