No great expenditures are called for, nor the services of assistants.

One would think that nothing could be more congenial, nothing more delightful, even in the retirement of monastic life.
Shall we answer with Eusebius, "It is through contempt of such useless labor that we think so little of these matters; we turn our souls to the exercise of better things ?" Better things! What can be better than absolute truth?
Are mysteries, miracles, lying impostures, better?
It was these that stood in the way! The ecclesiastical authorities had recognized, from the outset of this scientific invasion, that the principles it was disseminating were absolutely irreconcilable with the current theology.

Directly and indirectly, they struggled against it.

So great was their detestation of experimental science, that they thought they had gained a great advantage when the Accademia del Cimento was suppressed.

Nor was the sentiment restricted to Catholicism.