Chapter I: Free From The Yoke Of The Supernatural (1)

Ignoramus, We Ignore.

The liberal principle of research rests on the basis of the humanitarian view of the world, which makes man autonomous, and causes him to turn his eyes from above and downward, and to fix them upon his earthly existence. To remain true to its own idea, this liberal science will feel the necessity to sever itself gradually from the restraining powers of the world beyond, and to shun the thought of God and of His divine influence and supremacy over the world and human life. It must resent such truths as a burdensome yoke that oppresses human freedom.

And to this thought it remains faithful, if not in all its representatives, then at any rate in a good many of them. With unremitting persistency it enforces in all its domains the demand: _Science must not reckon with supernatural factors_. Ignoramus is its watchword, “we do not know it” in the sense of its usual agnosticism, but “we ignore it” in the spirit of the impulse which dreads the loss of its freedom through higher powers. Creation and miracles, divine revelation and the God-imposed duty of belief, it does not know. A moral law, as given by God, does not exist for this science. It wants nothing to do with a religion that worships a personal God, much less with a supernatural religion, with mysteries, miracles, and grace. It praises all the higher that modern religion of sentiment, without dogmas and religious duties, which sovereign man creates for himself, a poetical adornment of his individuality, a religion he need not ask what he owes it, but rather what it offers him. All connection with the world beyond is cut off. Man is now free in his own house. We shall show this in detail, by the testimony chiefly of men generally accepted as foremost representatives of modern science. We do not assert, however, that all representatives of modern science belong here. Far be it from us to sit in judgment as to the good intentions of the champions of liberal science. We know very well that an education indifferent to religion, early habitual association with the ideas of a sceptical, naturalistic philosophy, the acquisition of prejudices and unsolved difficulties, a continuous stay in an intellectual atmosphere foreign and inimical to religious belief—all this, we well understand, will gradually rob the mind of all inclination and unbiassed judgment for religious truth, and thus make for apostasy from religion. Nor do we assert that the idea of God and Christianity are extinct in the hearts of the representatives of liberal science, but we do assert that their _science_ no longer wants to know God and His true religion, that only too often it is in the grip of a Theophobia, which slinks past God and His works, with its eyes designedly averted.

At the same time the _unprepossession of this science_ will be made clear. “A feeling of degradation pervades the German university circles,” so the learned _Mommsen_ expressed himself some years ago when Strassburg was to get a Catholic chair of history; therefore a Catholic who takes his Catholic view of the world as his guide cannot be unprepossessed, hence cannot be a true scientist. We have become used to this reproach; nevertheless it is very painful to a Catholic, especially when he devotes his life to scientific work. The other side claims very emphatically to have a monopoly on unprepossession and truthfulness; it gives most solemn assurances of not desiring anything but the truth, of serving the truth alone, with persevering unselfishness, unaffected by disposition and party interest, and that it has its unbiassed spiritual eye turned only to the chaste sunlight of truth. Hence, we may be permitted to inquire whether these assurances square with the facts. As they demand belief, we may also demand proofs; and if those assurances are accompanied by sharp accusations, the accused will have even a greater right to examine the deeds and records of this assertive science.

What about the unprepossession of liberal science, especially in the province of philosophy and religion? It cannot be our intention to explore the whole territory in every direction. We shall keep to the central and main road, the road to which chiefly lead all other roads of life, we mean the attitude of this school of research towards the world beyond. We find this attitude to be one of persistent ignoring! Science cannot acknowledge the supernatural; this presumption, unproved and impossible of proof, it never loses sight of, it is even made a scientific principle, which is called:

The Principle of Exclusive Natural Causation.

This principle demands that everything belonging to nature in its widest sense, consequently all objects and events of irrational nature and of human life, must be explained by natural causes only; supernatural factors must not be brought in. To assume an interposition by God, in the form of creation, miracle, or revelation, is unscientific; he who does so is not a true scientist. A presumption, a mandate of truly stupendous enormity! How can it be proved that there is no God, that creation, miracles, the supernatural origin of religion, are impossible things? And if they are possible, why should it be forbidden to make use of them in explaining facts which cannot otherwise be explained?

However, it is readily admitted that the principle is merely a postulate, an _unproved_ presumption.

“The postulate of exclusive natural causation tells us that
natural events can have their causes only in other natural events,
and not in conditions lying outside of the continuity of natural
causality”; so _W. Wundt_. This is a “postulate, accepted by
modern natural science partly tacitly, partly by open profession.”
“Even where an exact deduction is not possible, natural science
nevertheless acts under this supposition. It never will consider a
natural event to be causally explained, if it is attempted to
derive that event from other conditions than preceding natural
events.”

Professor _Jodl_ protests against alliance with the Catholic
Church, for the reason that the latter does not acknowledge the
fundamental presumption of all scientific research, namely, the
uninterrupted natural causation, and because the Church is
essentially founded on supernatural presumptions. Prof. _A.
Messer_ thinks he has proved sufficiently the untenableness of the
Catholic faith by the simple appeal to this presumption: “Natural
sciences rest upon the presumption that everything is causally
determined. This means, that the same causes must be followed by
the same effects, and all natural events take their course
according to invariable laws. It is against this presumption that
the Church exacts a belief in miracles, in immediate divine
manifestations, not explainable by natural causes. _God_ is not a
causal factor in the eyes of natural science, because everything,
and for that very reason, nothing, could be explained through
Him.” We see that the principle is expressly admitted to be a mere
presumption. “I concede readily,” says _Paulsen_, “that the law of
natural causation is not a proven fact, but a demand or
presumption with which reason approaches the task of explaining
natural phenomena. But this postulate ... is the hard-fought
victory of long scientific effort.... Gradually there were
eliminated from the course of nature demoniacal influence and the
miraculous intervention of God, and in their stead the idea of
natural causation was installed.”

It is merely another expression for the same thing if one calls, with _Paulsen_, the unbroken causal connection “the fundamental presumption of all our natural research”; or concludes, with _A. Drews_, that the assumption of a transcendental God, beyond the visible, and in causal relation to the world, destroys the universal conformity to laws in the world, the self-evident presumption of all scientific knowledge; or one may say, with _F. Steudel_, “The theory of unbroken causal connection has become the fundamental presupposition of all philosophical explanation of world happenings. This finally disposes of a transcendental God, together with his empiric correlative, the miracle, as a philosophical explanation of the world.” The same result is achieved by declaring evolution from natural factors as the universal world-law.

“_I Know not God the Father, Almighty Creator of Heaven and of Earth_”

With inexorable persistency this principle is now applied wherever science meets with God and the world beyond. Hence, let us proceed on our way and halt at some points to watch this science at work.

The unbiassed reasoning of the mind shows that this world, limited and finite, in all its phenomena accidental and perishable, cannot have in itself the cause of its existence, hence, that it demands a supernatural creative cause. This solution of the question is by no means demonstrated by liberal science as untenable, it is simply declined.

“Natural science, once for all, has not the least occasion to
assume a supernatural act of creation”; this we are told by the
famous historian of materialism, _F. A. Lange_. “To fall back upon
explanations of this sort amounts always to straying from
scientific grounds, which not only is not permissible in a
scientific investigation, but should never enter into
consideration.” And _L. Plate_ states: “A creation of matter we
cannot assume, nor would such an assumption be any explanation at
all; at most, it would be tantamount to exchanging one question
mark for another. We natural scientists are modest enough, as
matters now stand, to forego a further solution of the question.”
They will subscribe to _Du Bois-Reymond’s_ “ignoramus” rather than
assume the only solution of the question, an act of creation. This
scientist, asking himself the question, from where the
world-matter received its first impulse, argues: “Let us try to
imagine a primordial condition, where matter had not yet been
influenced by any cause, and we arrive at the conclusion that
matter an infinite time ago was inactive, and equally distributed
in infinite space. Since a supernatural impulse does not fit into
our theory of the universe, an adequate cause for the first action
is lacking.”

Thus they frankly violate the scientific method that demands acceptance of the explanation demonstrated as necessary, and violate it only for the reason to dodge the acknowledgment of a Creator. This is not science, but politics.

But let us ask, Why should it be against science to reckon with supernatural factors? Is it because we cannot disclose with certainty the other world? Are they not aware that such a principle is opposed by the conviction of all mankind, that always held these conceptions to be the highest, and therefore not to be considered illusions? Do they not see, moreover, how they involve themselves in flagrant contradictions? Does not science by means of its laws of reasoning, especially on the principle of causality, constantly infer invisible causes from visible facts? From physical-chemical facts ether and physical atoms, which no man has ever seen, are deduced: from falling stones and the movement of astral bodies is inferred a universal gravitation, undemonstrable by experience; from an anonymous letter is deduced an author. The astronomer deduces from certain facts that fixed stars must have dark companions, visible to no one; from disturbances in the movements of Uranus _Leverrier_ found by calculation the existence and location of Neptune, then not as yet discovered. Hence, what does it mean: “to fall back upon explanations of this sort always amounts to straying away from scientific ground”? Let us imagine a noble vessel on the high seas to have become the victim of a catastrophe. It lies now at the bottom of the sea. Fishes come from all sides and stop musingly before the strange visitor. Whence did this come? Was it made out of water? Impossible! Did it creep up from the bottom of the sea? No! At last a fish reasons: “What we see here has undoubtedly come down to us from a higher world, far above us, and invisible to us.” The speech meets with approval. But another fish objects: “Nonsense! To fall back upon explanations of this sort always amounts to straying away from the scientific grounds on which we fish must stand. We cannot assume such a world to exist, because this would offend against the first principle of our science, the principle of the exclusive natural causation of sea and water.” With these words the speaker departs, wagging his tail, his speech having been received with stupefaction rather than with understanding.

To this philosophy may be applied the word of the Apostle: “Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy and vain deceit” (Col. ii. 8). No, it is not the spirit of true science that opposes the belief in supernatural factors, but it is the desertion of the traditions and the spirit of a better science. To the representatives of paganism, to _Plato_ and others, the highest goal of human quest of truth was to find God and to worship Him. For the great leaders in recent natural science, _Copernicus_, _Kepler_, _Newton_, _Linné_, _Boyle_,_ Volta_, _Faraday_, and _Maxwell_, the highest achievement was to point to God’s wisdom in the wonderful works of nature; their science ended in prayer. A principle of unbroken natural causation, as a boycott of the Deity, was to them not a postulate of science but an abomination. They were carried by a conviction expressed by a later scientist, _W. Thomson_, in the following words: “Fear not to be independent thinkers! If you think vigorously enough, you will be forced by science to believe in a God, Who is the basis of all religion”; and expressed by _R. Mayer_ in the following words: “True philosophy must not and cannot be anything else but the propædeutics of the Christian religion.”

But let us proceed. We have before us an astonishing _order_, we behold uncounted wonders of well-designed purpose in the world. The question suggests itself: Whence this Order? The watch originates from the intelligence of a maker, an accident could not have produced it; hence also the great world-machine must have had an intelligent maker. This is the logic of unbiassed reason. But the principles of liberal research object to the acceptance of this explanation. What is theirs?

There have been some scientists endeavouring to discover the
purposeless in nature, and they have gleaned various things.
_Haeckel_ invented for them the name Dysteleologists; and this is
now the name they go by. Why the destruction of so many living
embryos? What is the purpose of pain, of the vermiform appendix?
“To what purpose is the immense belt of desert extending through
both large continents of the Old World? Could the Sahara not have
been avoided?... Indeed, numerous forms of life we cannot look at
but with repugnance and horror; for instance, the parasitical
beings.” ... (_F. Paulsen_). Hence the order claimed for the world
does not exist, on the contrary, “it is beyond doubt that the most
essential means of nature is of a kind which can only be put on a
level with the blindest accident” (_F. A. Lange_). But they do not
feel satisfied with this. They feel that even if all these things
were actually purposeless, they would amount only to a few drops
in the immense ocean of order which still has to be explained. At
most, they would form but a few typographical errors in an
otherwise ingenious book,—errors that evidently are no proof that
the whole book is a mass of nonsense and not dictated by reason.

There appears to them, like a rescuing plank in a shipwreck, _Darwin’s_ Natural Selection. The artistic forms in the kingdom of plants and animals arose, says _Darwin_, by the fact that, among numerous seemingly tentative formations, there were some useful organs or their rudiments which survived in the struggle for existence and became hereditary in the offspring, while others disappeared. It was seen very soon, and it is even better understood to-day, that this enormous feat of “natural selection” is contrary to the facts, and would be, above all, an incredible accident. Nevertheless _Darwin_ has become the rescuing knight for many who became alarmed about the threatening Supernaturalism.

_Du Bois-Reymond_ speaks very frankly: “Albeit, in holding to this
theory we may feel like a man kept from drowning only by holding
firmly to a plank just strong enough to keep him afloat. But when
we have to choose between a plank and death, the preference will
decidedly be with the plank.” The same idea is expressed somewhat
more gracefully by _W. Ostwald_: “That the quite complicated
problem concerning the purposiveness of organism loses its
character of a riddle, at least in principle, and assumes the
aspect of a scientific task, all by virtue of this simple thought
... is a gain that cannot be sufficiently appreciated.” With
vehement plainness _H. Spitzer_ maintains: “Purposiveness in
nature, which was feared by positive research like a ghost,
because it really seemed only to be due to the intervention of
ghosts in the course of the world, has now been traced by _Darwin_
to its origin from natural causes, and he thereby made it a fit
object for the science that is at home only in the sphere of
natural causes.” “To the height of this point of view,” _D. F.
Strauss_ boasts, “we have been led by modern natural research in
_Darwin_.”(8)

At any rate one thing is settled: “The theological explanation
must be rejected,” as _Plate_ puts it. “It sees in adaptation the
proof for the love and kindness of a Creator, who has ordered all
organisms most conformable to their purpose. Natural Science
cannot accept such an explanation.”

Is this the boasted spirit of truthfulness, which desires only the truth,—but is evading it persistently? Is this that unbiassed eye that seeks only the truth? Truly, it seems to be unsound, since it cannot bear the rays of truth. Let us go to another workshop of liberal science. It is known now that our earth has once been a ball of glowing fluid, with a temperature in which no living being could exist. Consequently the latter must have appeared at a later stage of evolution. As a fact, palæontology does not show any remnants of organisms in the lower strata of the earth. Now again a question suggests itself to the scientist, _Whence did the first life come from?_ We have the choice of only two explanations: either it has risen by itself, out of unorganic, dead matter, or it was produced by the hand of a Creator: either by _generatio aequivoca_ or the act of creation. Now there has never been observed a _generatio aequivoca_, as is testified to by natural science itself, and never has it been accomplished in the laboratory. Therefore, inasmuch as the natural laws of olden times cannot have been any different from those of the present, there has never been a primordial genesis. Do they perhaps give the Creator his due here, where the case is so obvious? Let us see.

The noted zoölogist, _R. Hertwig_, writes: “Inasmuch as there has
doubtless been a time when the prevailing temperature of our globe
made any life impossible, there must have been a time when life on
it arose either by an act of creation or by primordial genesis.
If, conformable to the spirit of natural sciences, we are relying
only on natural forces for an explanation of natural phenomena,
then we are necessarily led to the hypothesis of primordial
genesis,” although it contradicts all experience. But the
deduction is only brought forth as a “logical postulate”: there
“must” be such genesis after creation is eliminated. “We natural
scientists say,” states _Plate_, “that all living beings must have
originated some time in former geological periods ... from dead,
unorganic matter; to assume a creation would be no explanation at
all, exactly as it would be no explanation to assume the creation
of matter.” Which philosophy teaches that it is not an explanation
of a fact to assume for it the only reasonable cause? But just
this cause they do not want. _Virchow_ says in this respect: “If I
do not wish to assume a creative act, if I desire to explain the
matter in my way, then it is clear that I must resort to
_generatio aequivoca_. _Tertium non datur._ There is nothing else
left, if one once has said: ‘I do not accept creation, but I want
an explanation of it.’ If this is the first thesis, the second
thesis is, ergo, I accept the _generatio aequivoca_. _But we have
no actual proof of it._” Hence _Haeckel_ only follows the lead of
others when he writes: “We admit that this process (_primordial
genesis_) must remain a pure hypothesis, as long as it is not
directly observed or duplicated by experiment. But I repeat that
this hypothesis is indispensable for the entire coherence of the
history of natural creation. Unless you accept the hypothesis of
primordial genesis at this one point in the theory of evolution,
you must take refuge in the miracle of a supernatural creation.”

Is this science, or is it not rather Theophobia? Does the freedom of science consist, first of all, in the privilege of emancipating one’s self from truth, whenever truth is not to one’s taste? True, liberal science will then be free from distasteful truths, but all the more shackled by its irreligious prejudices.

In modern times, the _theory of evolution_ is in high favour. On earth we do not only see life, but life in a great variety of forms, from plant to man. The question, whence this variety, admits in its turn only of the alternative: either it was immediately created by God’s hand, or it is the result of a slow evolution from common original forms. Whether there has been an evolution within the vegetable and animal kingdom is a problem for natural science. But it is a philosophical question, whether the essentially superior human soul, endowed with spirituality and reason, could have evolved from the inferior animal soul. Philosophy must answer: No, just as impossible as to evolve ten from two, or a whole book from a single proofsheet. Faith says the human soul is created by God. We do not intend to discuss the problem here any further, but shall only point out how science here, too, expressly or tacitly, is determined very energetically by the presumption of the exclusive natural causation; this is applied to the entire theory of evolution, but especially in regard to man.

“The notion of the evolution of the living world on earth,” thus
states _Weismann_ quite significantly, “extends far beyond the
provinces of individual sciences, and it influences our entire
range of thoughts. This notion means nothing less than the
elimination of miracle from our knowledge of nature, and the
classification of the phenomena of life on an equal footing with
the rest of natural events.” The guiding motive is plainly in
evidence.

The aim to eliminate the “miracle of creation” is manifested even more conspicuously in the question about the origin of man: man with his entire equipment, intellectual as well as cultural, must have evolved upward from the most imperfect rudiments; this is regarded as a self-evident proposition.

_M. Hoernes_, for instance, writes: “The Cosmogonies, _i.e._, the
theories of creation, of all nations ascribe the origin of man to
a supernatural act of creation, whereby the Creator is imagined as
a human being, because at the intellectual stage corresponding to
these notions something created could only be conceived as
something formed, something constructed.” Thus the theory of
creation, and the Christian doctrine of the genesis of man, is
disposed of as a notion of the lower intellect. “On the contrary,
we are taught by science to look upon the highest mammals as our
nearest blood-relatives.” This “we are taught by science,”
although it is confessed: “We know the fact of the existence of
the man of the fourth, or glacial, period, but we have not a
solitary fact that would throw light upon his origin and his
previous existence.”

“The theory of miracles can be given up only when we shall cease
to contemplate man as a creature apart from the rest of creation,
and look upon him as a being developed within creation to what he
is now. Then, however, reason and language, as well as man
himself, are the products of a continuous evolution,” says _Wundt_
in his “Psychology of Nations.” _Fr. Müller_, in a text-book on
the science of language, argues: “According to _Darwin_ and to
modern natural science, man was not created but has evolved from a
lower organism during a process of thousands and thousands of
years.... For this reason, we must (?) assume that the first
language of primitive man could not have ranked above the speech
by which animals living in families communicate with each other.”

On the basis of this truly dogmatical presumption, that the
“miracle theory” of creation must not be accepted, they proceed
then to construe one hypothesis upon another, of the origin of
language, of thought, of conscience, of religion, according to the
method of _Darwin_ and _Spencer_, hypotheses of utmost
arbitrariness, and frequently most fantastic. “Ethnographical
researches,” so we are told by _E. Lehmann_, “made by travellers,
representatives of science and of practical life, in all parts of
the globe, ... are starting to-day, almost without exception, from
the tacit presumption that the civilization of peoples living in
the primitive state represent an early and low stage in a
historical chain of evolution.”

All these are suitable commentaries upon the trite proposition that natural science, or more generally science, is incompatible with religious belief. Of course research, like that described above, does not agree with Faith. But the fault lies in its unscientific method, rather than in its scientific character, in its latent atheistic presumption which prevents an unbiassed conception of truth.

In February, 1907, the well-known biologist and priest of the
Jesuit order, _E. Wasmann_, gave three lectures in Berlin on the
theory of evolution, before a large audience; they were followed
on the fourth evening by a discussion, in the course of which
eleven opponents voiced for nearly three hours their objections
and attacks, to which _Wasmann_ replied briefly at midnight, but
little time having been allotted to him for this purpose.
_Wasmann_, as well as his chief opponent, Prof. _Plate_ of Berlin,
have published the arguments on both sides with notes, comments,
and supplements. The report of Prof. _Plate_ lays stress upon the
assertion, which had also formed the refrain of all opposing
speeches, viz., “the discussion has shown, in the first place,
that true research in natural science is impossible for those
taking the position of the Roman Catholic Church; secondly, the
glaring and irreconcilable opposition of the scientific theory of
the world to the Orthodox-Christian view was sharply manifested.”
In examining how this was demonstrated by this particular natural
science, one meets with a painful surprise.

Even the facts concerning the arrangements for the discussion make
an unpleasant impression. It is true, _Plate_ accused _Wasmann_ of
calumny on account of the latter’s complaint. However, upon
comparing closely the statements of both, the following facts
remain undisputed. _Wasmann_ notified _Plate_ that he desired to
speak twice during the discussion, and that the entire discussion
should not last much over two hours. _Plate_ promised to arrange
matters accordingly. But on the forenoon of February 18th, the
opponents held a meeting, _Plate_ presiding, and they resolved,
without the least notification to _Wasmann_, that there should be
eleven speakers against _Wasmann_, and that the latter should
reply but once, at the end. Only just before the beginning of the
discussion, the same evening, _Plate_ informed _Wasmann_ of the
arrangement, making it practically impossible for the latter to
change the situation. Furthermore, upon _Plate’s_ proposal, an
intermission of five minutes before the appearance of the tenth
speaker was decided upon, “in order to give those in the audience,
who might find the session too exhausting, a chance to leave.”
Thus the audience was to be subjected for three long hours to the
influence of heated attacks on Theism, Christianity, and the
Church, and without hearing the reply unless they held out from
half-past eight in the evening to half-past twelve in the morning.

_Plate’s_ Monism rejects principally everything metaphysical:
“Monism is the short term for the natural science view of the
world, that rejects all preternatural and supernatural ideas.”
Solutions, not given by the natural sciences, simply do not exist
for him; for him the sun sets on the horizon of his natural
science. “Natural laws comprise all that we are able to fathom:
what is behind them, or what is living in them and operates in
them, is the ultimate question for philosophy, and there one
thinks this way, another that way” (_Plate_). Nevertheless, he
knows that “Out of nothing can come nothing: hence matter is
eternal,” and he is certain that there is no personal God, no
angel nor devil, no beyond nor immortality. Whoever fails to think
the same way is no scientist, he is not even a man of sound
reason: because “he who has grasped even the elements of natural
science, the unity and strict conformity to law of the natural
forces, and has a head for sound reasoning, will become a monist
all by himself, while the rest are past help, anyhow.”

“The Polytheism of the orthodox Church,” he says further,
referring to the mystery of the Trinity, “is irrational”; for
“Common Sense says that 3 is not equal to 1, nor 1 to 3,” and this
is sufficient for _Plate_. “Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of
God, Christ’s Ascension and His descent into hell, Original Sin,
Redemption from sin by Christ’s sacrifice, Angels and Devils, the
Immaculate Conception, the Infallibility of the Pope, all these
and many other doctrines of the orthodox Church are thrown to the
winds by anybody convinced of the permanence and imperviousness of
the natural laws.” This again is sufficient for him. “The question
whether God is personal or impersonal,” says he, in another place,
“should never be raised: it is just as preposterous as the
question whether God has eyes or not.” Another of his arguments
reads: “If the body after death can become dust by natural means,
then there must have been conditions under which the dust became
by natural means a body.” An analogous argument would be: “If a
book can of itself finally wear away into withered and loosened
leaves, then there must be conditions under which the perfect book
could originate all by itself, and without Prof. _Plate_, out of
withered, loose leaves.”

_Plate_ assures us: “I do not know anything about metaphysics.” We
do not want to dispute that. It is regrettable that so many
scientists of our times are betraying a pitiable lack of
philosophical training, a lack which becomes a social danger if
they, nevertheless, yield to the temptation to invade the domain
of Philosophy. Even the Protestant scientist _G. Wobbermin_ in
referring to the above-mentioned discussion remarked: “_Wasmann’s_
opponents on that evening have betrayed without exception a really
amazing lack of philosophical training.” In glaring contrast with
this ignorance stands their intolerance for any different theory
of the world. Because he thinks as a Christian, _Wasmann_ is
peremptorily expelled from the ranks of natural scientists.
“_Father Wasmann_ is not a true natural scientist, he is not a
true scholar.” With this crushing verdict Prof. _Plate_ concluded
his speech. He repeats this finding on the last page of his book
in conspicuous type: “_Father Wasmann_, S. J., no true natural
scientist, no true scholar.” That his opponent, in answer to
questions that go beyond mere natural science, is giving
philosophical replies, in accord with the doctrine of
Christianity, is explained by “his voluntary or involuntary
submission to the Church,” “natural science bows to Theology.” He
therefore lacks “the freedom of thought and of deduction.”
Sophistical stunts in the service of intolerance! But let us
proceed on our way.

The compulsory dogma of the inadmissibility of a supernatural order of the world, and of its operation in the visible world, becomes most manifest when liberal science comes in contact with the miracle. Forsooth, it shirks this contact. But time and again, now and in the past, it is confronted by clearly attested facts and it cannot avoid noticing them. However, it is determined from the outset that miracles are impossible. Of course, this cannot be proved except by the presumption that there is no supermundane God. Even the agnostic _Stuart Mill_ admits that if the existence of God is conceded, an effect produced by His will, which in every instance owes its origin to its creator, appears no longer as a purely arbitrary hypothesis, but must be considered a serious possibility (Essays, 1874). Generally, however, liberal science does not try hard to demonstrate in a scientific way the impossibility.

“It is my unyielding conviction,” so speaks _A. Harnack_, and his
is perhaps the most telling expression of this dogmatic mood,
“that anything that happens within time and space is subject to
the laws of motion. Hence, that in this sense, _i.e._, of
interrupting the natural connection, there cannot be any
miracles.” One simply does not believe such things. “That a
tempest at sea,” thus _Harnack_ again, “could have been stilled by
a word we do not believe, nor shall we ever again believe it.”
Similarly reads _Baumgarten’s_ declaration regarding the
resurrection of Christ: “Even if all the reports had been written
on the third day, and had been transmitted to us as a certainty
... nevertheless modern consciousness could not accept the story.”
And _W. Foerster_ writes: “The supposition that such interferences
do not occur, and that everything in the world is advancing
steadily and in accordance with fixed laws, forms the
indispensable presumption of scientific research.” And _H. von
Sybel_ holds “An absolute concord with the laws of evolution, a
common level in the existence of things terrestrial, forms the
presumption of all knowledge: it stands and falls with it.”

This is the presumption, from which is drawn the most extravagant conclusion, which, though so manifestly improper, is made the basis for rejecting the entire supernatural religion of Christianity. Because God’s Incarnate Son, in a small town of Palestine, once turned water into wine, will the Christian housewife lose her confidence in the stability of water? When it was suddenly discovered that the orbit of the planet Uranus was not a perfect ellipsis, as required by the law of _Kepler_, was it thought that these deviations are impossible because there must not be any exception to the law of perfect elliptical movements? Happily, this law continued to be accepted without deeming an irregularity impossible, and shortly afterwards Neptune was discovered and found to be the cause of the disturbance. But anything miraculous, no matter how well proven, must be considered unacceptable by reason of such unsound presumption. Philosophical a-priorism is superior to facts.

Thus _St. Augustine_ tells in his work “De civitate Dei” (1. xxii.
c. 8) of a number of miracles happening in his time, of which he
had knowledge either as eye-witness or by authentical reports from
eye-witnesses. _E. Zeller_ renders judgment on the historical
value of the statement as follows: “The narrator is a
contemporary, and partly even an eye-witness, of the events
reported: by virtue of his episcopal office he is particularly
commissioned to closely investigate them; we know him as a man
overtowering his contemporaries in intellect and knowledge, second
to none in religious zeal, strong faith, and moral earnestness.
The wonderful events happened to well-known persons, sometimes in
the presence of big crowds of people; they were attested and
recorded by official order.” Hence the statement must be accepted
without objection. But must it not also be believed? is the query
of an unbiassed listener. Not in the judgment of one who is in the
tyrannical yoke of his presumptions. “What are we to say about
it?” continues _Zeller_, and finds that “in this unparalleled
aggregation of miracles we can after all see nothing else but a
proof of the credulity of that age.” The report is incontestable,
but it must not be believed!

In our times _Lourdes_ has become the scene of events which are
founded on facts, and the miraculous character has been proven at
least of some of them. _Bertrin_, in his “Histoire critique des
evénéments de Lourdes,” deals with the attitude of the physicians
toward the miracles. The believing physician can enter upon his
investigation without prejudice: not so the unbelieving physician
and scientist, who is shackled by his prejudice against the
possibility of miracles. Of this a few examples:

“How did you get cured?” was the question put by a physician to a
young woman who, after having suffered for four years from a
suppurating inflammation of the hip joints, complicated by caries,
had a few days previously suddenly regained her full health. Pains
and sores had disappeared. “By whom was I cured? By the Blessed
Virgin!” “Never mind the Blessed Virgin,” replied the physician.
“Young woman, why don’t you admit that you had been assured in
advance that you would get well. You were told that, once in
Lourdes, you would suddenly rise from the box wherein you were
lying. That sort of thing happens—we call it suggestion.” The girl
replied, unhesitatingly, that it did not happen this way at all.
Finally the physician offered her money if she would admit having
really been cured by suggestion. The girl declined the
offer.—Another girl arrived in Lourdes, with a physician’s
attestation that she was a consumptive. She is cured after the
first bath. At the bureau of verification her lungs were found to
be no longer diseased. Her physician’s statement having been very
brief, a telegram was sent to him as a matter of precaution,
asking him for another statement without, however, informing him
of the cure. The physician immediately wired back: “She is a
consumptive.” This was also the opinion of other physicians who
had treated the girl. The girl joyfully returns home, and hurries
to her physician, requesting him to certify to her cure. He does
so quite reluctantly. Upon reading his certificate, she discovers
that it said she had been cured, but only of a _cough_. The case
of consumption of his original testimonial had changed into a
cough. His dread of a miracle had induced this physician to commit
a falsehood.

_A. Rambacher_, as he relates in a pamphlet, sent the scientific
treatise on Lourdes by Dr. _Boissarie_ to Prof. _Haeckel_, with
the request to read it, in order to gain a better notion of the
existence of a supernatural world. After some urging he finally
received the following reply, which speaks volumes for the
attitude of the natural scientist towards facts: “With many thanks
I hereby return the book by Dr. _Boissarie_ on the Great Cures of
Lourdes which you sent me. The perusal of the same has convinced
me anew of the tremendous power of superstition (glorified as
‘pious belief’) of naïve credulity (without critical examination),
and of contagious collective suggestion, as well as of the cunning
of the clergy, exploiting them for their gain.... The physicians,
said to testify in behalf of the ‘miracles’ and the supernatural
phenomena, are either ignorant and undiscerning quacks, or
positive frauds in collusion with the priests. The most accurate
description of the gigantic swindle of Lourdes I know of, is that
of _Zola_ in his well-known novel.... With repeated thanks for
your kindness ... _Ernst Haeckel_.” Against all the facts in
evidence this dogmatic scientist was safely intrenched behind the
stone wall of his presumptions. He knew in advance that everything
was superstition or the fraud of cunning priests, that all
physicians who certified to cures were quacks and cheats. _Zola’s_
tendentious romance considered the best historical source! Mention
should be made here how this celebrated novelist dealt with facts
at Lourdes. In the year 1892, the time of the great pilgrimage,
_Zola_ went to Lourdes. He wanted to observe and then tell what he
had seen. An historical novel it was to be; time and again he had
proclaimed in the newspapers that he would tell the whole truth.
At Lourdes all doors were opened to him; he had admittance
anywhere; he could interview and obtain explanations at will. How
he kept his promise to report the truth may be shown by a single
instance: _Marie Lebranchu_ came to Lourdes on August 20, 1892,
suffering from incurable consumption. She was suddenly cured, and
never had a relapse. One year after her cure she returned to the
miraculous Grotto. The excellent condition of her lungs was again
verified. Now, what does _Zola_ make of this event? In his novel
the cured girl suffers a terrible relapse upon her first return
home, “a brutal return of the disease which remained victorious,”
we read in _Zola’s_ book. One day, the president of the Lourdes
Bureau of Investigation introduced himself to _Zola_ in Paris, and
asked him “How dare you let _Marie Lebranchu_ die in your novel;
you know very well that she is alive and just as well as you and
I.” “What do I care,” was _Zola’s_ reply, “I think I have the
right to do as I please with the characters I create.” If a
romancer desires to avail himself of this privilege he certainly
has not the right to proclaim his novels as truthful historical
writings, much less may others see in such a novel the “most
accurate description of the events at Lourdes.”

_Renan_ at one time said: “Oh, if we just once might have a
miracle brought before professional scientists! But, alas! this
will never happen!” He borrowed this saying from _Voltaire_, with
the difference that the latter demanded God to perform a miracle
before the Academy of Sciences, as if there were need for miracles
in a physical or chemical laboratory. Those who desire in earnest
to investigate miracles ought to go where they are performed. And
even there, where the eyes can see them, it also takes good will
to acknowledge them. In this respect an interview is instructive
which _Zola_ once had with an editor. The latter asked: “If you
were witness to a miracle, that would occur under strictest
conditions suggested by yourself, would you acknowledge the
miracle? Would you then accept the teachings of the faith?” After
a few moments of serious thought, _Zola_ replied: “I do not know,
but I do not believe I would” (_Bertrin_). On April 7, 1875, there
came to the Belgian sanctuary, Oostacker, a Flemish labourer, by
name _Peter de Rudder_, whose leg had eight years before been
broken below the knee, and who was then suffering from two
suppurating cancerous sores, that had formed at the place of the
fracture and on the foot. He suddenly was entirely cured. The case
was investigated in a most exact way. In 1900 a treatise
concerning the case was published by three physicians. _E.
Wasmann_ had as early as 1900 published a short extract of it in
the “Stimmen aus Maria Laach.” In February, 1907, when, at Berlin,
he delivered his lectures which were followed by a discussion, his
opponents, headed by Prof. _Plate_, did not know of this article.
When they learned of it, some time afterwards, he was put under
the ban because he “had degraded himself to the position of a
charlatan by vouching with his scientific repute for the happening
of a miraculous cure”; and they said “they would fight him in the
same way as they would fight every quack, but as a scientist he
was discarded.” _Plate_ had on the evening of the discussion asked
of the assembled scientists the question: “Have we ever observed
anything like a suspension of the natural laws? The reply to it is
an unconditional ‘we have not’; consequently Theism becomes
inadmissible to the natural scientist.” Here, in the _de Rudder_
case, is found the required instance. But _Plate_ knows, in
advance of any investigation, that it is a fairy tale, believed
without critical examination. And Prof. _Hansemann_, another
opposing speaker of that evening, subsequently sent word to
_Wasmann_ that: “One can pretty well judge what to think of a
natural scientist who publishes such stuff. For this reason I now
declare that I shall never in future, no matter how or where,
enter into discussion of matters of natural science with Mr.
_Wasmann_.” When on a certain occasion _Hegel_ was advised that
some facts did not agree with his philosophical notions, he
replied: “The more pity for the facts.”

The English natural scientist, _W. Thomson_, once said before the British Society at Edinburgh: “Science is bound by eternal honour to face fearlessly every problem that can be clearly laid before it.” The equally famous _Faraday_, in the name of empirical research, demands of its adherents the determination to stand or to fall with the results of a direct appeal to the facts in the first place, and with the strict logical deductions therefrom in the second. In general these principles are adhered to so long as religious notions are not encountered. But as soon as these are sighted, the engine is reversed, and all scientific principles are forgotten.

A science led by this spirit will set out to emancipate man’s moral conduct of life from God and religion. Indeed, the first postulate of modern ethics directs that _morality_ must be _independent of religion_. That God and eternal salvation is the end of man, the ultimate norm of his moral life, that God’s Command is the ultimate reason of the moral obligation, and divine sanction its strongest support, it does not want to acknowledge. Here, too, we find the principle of natural causality in operation. “As in physics God’s will must not be made to serve as an explanation, so likewise in the theory of moral phenomena. Both the natural and the moral world, as they exist, may point beyond themselves to something transcendental. But we cannot admit the transcendental ... a scientific explanation will have to be wholly immanent, and anthropological” (_Paulsen_). According to this approved principle of ignoration, the supreme aim and law of a morality without religion is _man_, his earthly happiness, and his culture.

Its aims, according to Prof. _Jodl_, one of its noted champions,
are: “Promotion of moral life, fostering of a refined humanity,
development of a true fellow-feeling, without the religious and
metaphysical notions upon which mankind hitherto has mostly built
its ethical ideals.” _Kant_ was the pioneer here: “In so far as
morality is based on the conception of man as a free, being, it
requires neither the idea of a superior being to make him
cognizant of his duties, nor any motive but the law itself in
order to observe it ... hence morality for its own sake does not
by any means need religion.” This is the viewpoint of the
autonomous man, who is his own law. “From the viewpoint of
authority,” so tells us _E. von Hartmann_, “autonomy does not mean
anything else but that in ethical matters I am for myself the
highest court without appeal.... The God, Who in the beginning
spoke to His children from a fiery cloud ... has descended into
our bosom, and, transformed into our own being, speaks out of us
as a moral autonomy.” _Diis extinctis successit humanitas._

“Although an individual representative of science may be a believer in God in his private life,” so argues the English philosopher, _W. James_, “at any rate the times have passed when it could be said that the heavens announce to science the glory of God, and that the heaven shows the works of His hands.” The flight from divinity, atheism open or disguised, is the psychological effect of the liberal principle. Free thought aims to free man of all authority, it aims at severing from religion his entire existence, marriage, state, schools, and likewise science. “It is undeniable,” we hear from the lips of champions of modern man, standing on the pinnacle of religious liberalism, “that there is a certain forsakenness in this existence of man, as compared to a life brightened by the idea of a God,” but that forsakenness is not purchased too dearly, for “it is the solitude of autonomy, a possession so precious that no price for it could be too high” (_Carneri_).

Indeed, these modern men use even plainer language: science is applauded for having at last freed man from God. With _Kant’s_ principle that we cannot know anything of the supernatural, we are told, there “were thrown overboard the cosmogonic notions of the Semitic races, notions that have so severely oppressed our science and religion, and are still oppressing them.... By this insight an idol is smashed. In a previous chapter I called the Israelites the worshippers of abstract idols; now, I believe, I shall be fully understood.” Indeed, we understand. It means: Away with God. “This German metaphysics frees us from idolatry and reveals to us the living divinity in our own bosom” (_Chamberlain_).

This is the manner in which this free thought, within science and without, is fulfilling the earnest admonition of the Psalmist: “Seek ye the Lord and be strengthened: seek His face evermore” (Ps. civ. 4), and it turns into irony the words: “This is the generation of them that seek Him, of them that seek the face of the God of Jacob” (Ps. xxiii. 6).

“I Know not Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son, Our Lord.”

Where the thought of independence and of this world enslaves the minds, and holds them captive in harsh aversion to the supernatural, an objective judgment on the nature and history of the Christian religion, to say nothing of the Catholic Church, can hardly be hoped for. What may be expected is that we will also meet here with a science which, with its hands held before the eye that fears the light, wards off and combats everything that is specifically Christian. It is to be feared only that it will turn light into darkness regarding the view of life, as also the doctrine and history, of the Christian religion.

Regarding the Christian view of life we need only read the superficial and yet so arrogant discussions of Christian philosophy, as found in _Paulsen_, _Wundt_, or _E. von Hartmann_. From this judicial bench the wisdom of Him, of Whom it is said “And we saw His glory, full of grace and truth,” we see condemned, if not even treated with subtle ridicule.

Let us for instance take _Paulsen’s_ presentment of the “View of Life under Christianity.” Whoever reads it, and believes it, to him the teaching of Jesus Christ can only be, what the Apostle said it was to the heathens, foolishness. No longer can he have adoration for its Founder, but rather the pity that one has for an enthusiastic visionary devoid of any knowledge of the world and men. The wisdom taught by Christ is distorted into a sombre grimace, while side by side with it the conception of life of Hellenic paganism is transfigured into a beautiful ideal.

We are told there: “While classical antiquity saw as the task of
life the perfect development of the natural powers and talents of
man, ... Christianity with clear consciousness makes the contrary
the goal of life.” “The cultivation and exercise of intellectual
faculties was of great importance to the Greeks.... Primitive
Christianity looks upon reason and natural cognition with
indifference, even with suspicion and contempt ... indeed, natural
reason and knowledge are an obstacle for the kingdom of God.
Christianity at first was indifferent, even inimical, not only to
philosophy and science, but also to art and poetry. It cuts off
not only sensual but also æsthetical gratification,” because _St.
John_ condemned the gratification of the eyes (which means
something quite different from æsthetical gratification)
Christianity is said to reject “the arts of the Muses and
athletics: they belong to that sowing of the flesh of which the
harvest is perdition.” “What the Christians valued highly was not
erudition and eloquence, but silence. Silence is the first thing
recommended by _Ambrose_” (and he the great and renowned
representative of early Christian eloquence!). There is more: “In
the primitive view the first virtue was valour, especially valour
in war; indeed, in Greek and Latin speech the word ’virtue’ meant
valour; the Christian’s virtue, however, is patience and
endurance. He does not draw the sword; to him are expressly
forbidden not only anger, hatred, and private revenge, but even
litigation.”

In this tendentious strain _Paulsen_ continues, with exaggerations
and misrepresentations that have nothing in common with science.
According to the Greek view, he says, high-mindedness was a great
virtue, but, naturally, the Christian is not allowed to have it;
“the virtue of the Christian is humility,” _i.e._, in _Paulsen’s_
sense low-mindedness; this is “the starting point of
Christianity.” True, the author assures us that Christianity of
to-day is no longer the one he is describing; it has adapted
itself more to the world. But it is sad to have this gloomy,
visionary fanaticism described to us as the one which was taught
by the words of Jesus Himself.

The adherent of this Christianity looks upon governments and their
aims as something essentially foreign to it, even to be an
official “would doubtless have been felt as a contradiction”; but
a sudden change is said to have taken place under _Constantine_.
Earthly joys and benefits, the holy ties of the family, those that
Jesus in person blessed at Cana, they were, according to _St.
Paul_, so we are told, in the spirit of Christ things to avoid and
condemn.