The new Academy entered into scientific investigations with energy; Borelli in mathematics, Redi in natural history, and many others, pushed on the boundaries of knowledge. Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, projectiles, digestion, the incompressibility of water, were studied by the right method and with results that enriched the world. The Academy was a fortress of science, and siege was soon laid to it. The votaries of scholastic learning denounced it as irreligious. Quarrels were fomented. Leopold was bribed with a cardinal's hat and drawn away to Rome; and, after ten years of beleaguering, the fortress fell: Borelli was left a beggar; Oliva killed himself in despair.[105] Still later, just before the great discoveries by Stahl, we find his predecessor Becher opposed with the following syllogism: "King Solomon, according to the Scriptures, possessed the united wisdom of heaven and earth. But King Solomon sent his vessels to Ophir to seek gold, and he levied taxes upon his subjects. Now, if Solomon had known anything about alchemy, he would not have done this; therefore Solomon did not know anything about alchemy (or chemistry in the form which then existed); therefore alchemy (or chemistry) has no reality or truth." And we find that Becher is absolutely turned away from his labors, and obliged to devote himself to proving that Solomon used more money than he possibly could have obtained from Ophir or his subjects, and therefore that he must have possessed a knowledge of chemical methods and the philosopher's stone as the result of them.[106] And, in our time, Joseph de Maistre, uttering his hatred of physical sciences, declaring that man has paid too dearly for them, asserting that they must be subjected to theology, likening them to fire--good when confined, but fearful when scattered about--this brilliant thinker has been the centre of a great opposing camp, an army of good men who cannot relinquish the idea that the Bible is a text-book of science. ANATOMY AND MEDICINE. I pass, now, to fields of more immediate importance to us--to anatomy and medicine. It might be supposed that the votaries of sciences like these would be suffered to escape attack; unfortunately, they have had to stand in the thickest of the battle.