First among the distinguished men who, in that century, laid foundations for modern science, was Albert of Bollstadt, better known as Albert the Great, the most renowned scholar of Germany. Fettered though he was by the absurd methods of his time, led astray as he was by the scholastic spirit, he had conceived ideas of better methods and aims. His eye pierces the mists of scholasticism; he sees the light, and draws the world toward it. He stands among the great pioneers of modern physical and natural science. He aids in giving foundations to botany and chemistry, and Humboldt finds in his works the germ of the comprehensive science of physical geography.[87] The conscience of the time, acting, as it supposed, in defense of religion, brought out a missile which it hurled with deadly effect. You see those mediæval scientific battle-fields strewed with such: it was the charge of sorcery, of unlawful compact with the devil. This missile was effective. You find it used against every great investigator of Nature in those times and for centuries after. The list of great men charged with magic, as given by Naudé, is astounding. It includes every man of real mark, and the most thoughtful of the popes, Sylvester II. (Gerbert), stands in the midst of them. It seemed to be the received idea that, as soon as a man conceived a wish to study the works of God, his first step must be a league with the devil.[88] This missile was hurled against Albert. He was condemned by the authorities of the Dominican order, subjected to suspicion and indignity, and only escaped persecution by yielding to the ecclesiastical spirit of the time, and working mainly in theological channels by scholastic methods. It was a sad loss to the earth; and certainly, of all organizations that have reason to lament the pressure of those ecclesiastical forces which turned Albert the Great from the path of experimental philosophy, foremost of all in regret should be the Christian Church, and especially the Roman branch of it. Had the Church of the thirteenth century been so full of faith as to accept the truths in natural science brought by Albert and his compeers, and to have encouraged their growth, this faith and this encouragement would to this day have formed the greatest argument for proving the Church directly under Divine guidance; they would have been the brightest jewels in her crown. The loss to the Church, by this want of faith and courage, has proved, in the long-run, even greater than the loss to science. The next great man of that age whom the theological and ecclesiastical forces of the time turn from the right path is Vincent of Beauvais.