Chapter II: The Authority Of Faith And The Free Exercise Of Research (2)

Take, for instance, a more recent decision of the Congregation,
forbidding craniotomy. It has often been denounced. The question
was submitted to the Congregation of the Holy Office whether it
were permissible to teach that craniotomy is allowable in case the
mother cannot give birth to the child, and that both will have to
die unless the child be killed and removed by a surgical
operation. The Congregation answered twice in the negative, in May
and August, 1889. Neither craniotomy, nor any operation implying
the direct murder of the child or mother can be taught to be
permissible. The reason on which the answers were based is that
the direct murder of an innocent person in order to save human
life is never allowable; and this applies to the murder of a
child, which has as much right to its life as any other person. In
the case of craniotomy we have the direct murder of the child. We,
too, shall have to admit, if we judge according to the objective
morality of the action, that the Congregation is in the right;
though it may seem hard to let both mother and child die rather
than take a life directly, we shall have to admit that it is more
in accord with the sanctity of the moral law than the opposite,
though the latter may seem preferable to medical practice. Viewed
in the interest of truth and the purity of the moral law, it is
gratifying to know that there is a court courageous enough to
uphold this law always and everywhere, even when it becomes hard.

So much about assenting to doctrinal decisions that are not infallible.

In regard to _infallible_ decisions, the Catholic knows that there are certain truths which no result of science can contradict. To these decisions he owes unconditional submission, and he gives it with conviction: he knows the promise, “I am with you always, even unto the consummation of the world.” New decisions of this kind are very rare. When the dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope was proclaimed in 1870, the fear was frequently expressed that the Head of the Roman Church would hasten to make the fullest use of this prerogative, by erecting theological barriers at all nooks and corners in the realm of thought. The fear did not come true; it was unfounded.

A Protestant scientist wrote recently: “Those who thought
_Doellinger’s_ prediction of a prolific crop of dogmas would come
true were disappointed. There has been no new dogma pronounced
since 1870, although there were many pious opinions that certain
circles would have been only too glad to see confirmed. On looking
calmly at the dogma of infallibility it is seen that it was, after
all, not so bad as had been feared during the first excitement”
(_K. Holl_, Modernismus, 1908, p. 9, Religionsgesch. Volksbuecher,
IV, 7, Heft).

We may get a good idea of the precaution taken prior to the proclamation of an infallible decision by perusing the History of the Vatican Council, published by _Granderath_, in three volumes. He describes the proceedings with conscientious objectiveness. He shows how minutely all questions had been previously studied, with all the available means of scientific investigation, and how minutely and freely they were discussed by the most venerable representatives of the Catholic world.

Cardinal _Gibbons_, Archbishop of Baltimore, gave his impressions of the Vatican Council as follows:

“I happened to be the youngest Bishop that attended the Council of the Vatican, and, while my youth and inexperience imposed on me a discreet silence among my elders, I do not remember to have missed a single session, and I was an attentive listener at all the debates.... I think I am not exaggerating when I say that the Council of the Vatican has been excelled by few, if any, deliberative assemblies, civil or ecclesiastical, that have ever met, whether we consider the _maturity_ of years of its members, their _learning_, their _experience_ and _piety_, or the widespread influence of the _Decrees_ that they framed for the spiritual and moral welfare of the Christian Republic.

“The youngest Bishop in the Council was thirty-six years old. Fully three-fourths of the Prelates ranged between fifty-six and ninety years. The great majority, therefore, had grown gray in the service of their Divine Master. Several Fathers of the Church, bent with age, might be seen passing through St. Peter’s Basilica to the council chamber every morning, leaning with one hand on their staff, the other resting on the shoulder of their secretary. One or two blind Bishops could be observed, guided by their servants, as they advanced to their posts with tottering steps, determined to aid the Church in their declining years by the wisdom of their counsel, as they had consecrated to her their vigorous manhood by their Apostolic labours.

“But to the gravity of years the members of the Council generally united profound and varied learning....

“They were men, too, of world-wide experience and close observation. Each Bishop brought with him an intimate knowledge of the history of his country and of the religious, moral, social, and political condition of the people among whom he lived. One could learn more from an hour’s interview with this living encyclopædia of divines, who were a world in miniature, than from a week’s study of books.... The most ample liberty of discussion prevailed in the Council. This freedom the Holy Father pledged at the opening of the synod, and the pledge was religiously kept. I can safely say that neither in the British House of Commons, nor in the French Chambers, nor in the German Reichstag, nor in our American Congress, would a wider liberty of debate be tolerated than was granted in the Vatican Council. The presiding Cardinal exhibited a courtesy of manner and a forbearance even in the heat of debate that was worthy of all praise. I do not think that he called a speaker to order more than a dozen times during the eighty-nine sessions, and then only in deference to the dissenting murmurs or demands of some Bishops. A Prelate representing the smallest diocese had the same rights that were accorded to the highest dignitary in the Chamber. There was no limit prescribed as to the length of the speeches. We may judge of the wide scope of discussion from the single fact that the debate on the Infallibility of the Pope lasted two months, occupying twenty-five sessions, and was participated in by one hundred and twenty-five Prelates, not counting one hundred others who handed in written observations. No stone was left unturned, no text of Sacred Scripture, no passage in the writings of the Fathers, no page of Ecclesiastical History bearing on the subject, escaped the vigilant investigations of the Bishops, so that the whole truth of God might be brought to light....

“The most important debate in the Council was that on the Infallibility of the Pope. It may be proper to observe here that the discussion was rather on the expediency or opportuneness of defining the dogma than on the intrinsic truth of the doctrine itself. The number of Prelates who questioned the claim of Papal Infallibility could be counted on the fingers of a single hand. Many of the speakers, indeed, impugned the dogma, not because they did not personally accept it, but with the view of pointing out the difficulties with which the teaching body of the Church would have to contend in vindicating it before the world. I have listened in the council chamber to far more subtle, more plausible, and more searching objections against this prerogative of the Pope than I have ever read or heard from the pen or tongue of the most learned and formidable Protestant assailant” (North American Review, April, 1894).

Obedience of Faith and Freedom of Action.

In looking back at what has been said, we see the justice of the question: where is here any real injury to lawful freedom in thought and scientific research? In most of the profane sciences the scientist receives no directions from the authority of faith; he is altogether free, as long as he keeps within his province. In some matters he is given a list of errors to beware of: these are in the first place the great questions concerning views of the world and life, of which, after all, it is very difficult to obtain scientific knowledge. But here he knows, through the conviction he has of the truth of his faith, that he is offered the truth free from error and prejudice.

It is true, adhering to a religious authority implies restraint. But it is only the restraint of truth. Truth does not lose its claim upon the mind because it is offered to the latter by a supernatural authority; much less does the Creator lose the right to the tribute of homage of his rational creature; and this tribute is rendered by voluntary submission to the revealed truth. Upon the Church, however, has been laid the task of preserving unadulterated the legacy of her Founder from generation to generation. She is responsible before God and history for the faithful presentation of the most sacred inheritance of mankind. Therefore the Church must raise her voice when the puny thoughts of men, called science and progress, rise against the saving truth to disparage, to falsify, to annihilate it. _It is not science the Church opposes, but error_; not truth, but the emancipation of the human mind from God’s authority, an emancipation that is trying to hide its real self under the guise of scientific truth.

“The Church,” says the Vatican Council (Sess. III, ch. 4), “having received with her apostolic office to teach, the obligation of preserving the legacy of the faith, has also the God-given right and duty to condemn what is falsely called science, ’lest any one be cheated by philosophy and vain deceit.’” That the denial of the faith is flippantly called science does not alter the case. What determines the attitude of the Church is not eagerness to rule, not a propensity to apply force to the mind, but loyalty to her vocation. If it is disagreeable for any superior to have to correct those under him, then it requires an heroic strength and courage to cry out time and again to the whole world and its leading minds, _Errastis_, you have erred! It requires heroism to reject, to oppose and condemn, time and again, propositions sailing under the flag of progress, light and enlightenment, in spite of the protest of those concerned, who denounce whatever opposes them as darkness and retrogression. How much easier it would be to fawn upon the pet ideas of the age, Neo-protestantism and Modernism, and thus to gain their approval, than to hear repeatedly the distressing words, “We will not have her to rule over us—_crucifige, crucifige_!”

But why not let _science correct itself_? Why these violent condemnations and indictments? Science, by virtue of its instinct for the truth will by itself find the way back, when it has gone on the wrong track; only be patient. Science has in itself the cure for all its defects. Has it not already all by itself overcome numerous errors in the course of the centuries? Indeed, were there nothing at stake but scientific theories they might be readily left to themselves: the loss to mankind would not be great. But here there are more important issues at stake. The protection of the faith, of truths of the vastest importance for Christian life and the souls of men. And it is the duty of the Church to protect her charges from going astray, from dangers to salvation. How many thousands of them would suffer harm before it would please science to correct its heresies! It often takes a long time to pull down the idols placed upon pedestals, and then it may be only to erect another idol. How long will it take modern philosophy to agree that the will of man is free, that there is a substantial immortal soul, that a Creator of the world dwells above the heavens? Is the Church to wait till the men of science make up their minds to desist from denying the existence of a personal God, and to bow before the Creator of heaven and earth? Should she meanwhile look on calmly how such ruinous doctrines are pervading and penetrating society deeper and deeper? Souls cannot wait thus to suffer shipwreck. Finally, the duty to believe remains the same for all, for the scientist, too—he is not free to delay his assent until he has exhausted all his antagonistic scientific experiments.

To be sure, the scientist is restricted in so far as he is not allowed to pursue any and every hypothesis, regardless of the immutable truth; he may no longer follow every scientific fashion. But is this a real detriment to the human intellect and science? Has not every science to bear _restraint from other sciences_ at all times? The adherent of _Darwin’s_ theory of natural selection needs a billion years for his slow evolution; but the geologist tells him that neither the formation of the earth’s surface nor the strata or sub-strata have taken so long in formation—he corrects him. When the philosopher, drawing the logical deductions from his materialistic views of the world, assumes that the first living being sprang from lifeless matter, the naturalist informs him that this is contradicted by facts—there never has been a case of spontaneous generation. The naturalist is corrected by the better experiment of men of his profession, the scientific author is corrected by his critic. Hence if a man submits to the guidance of other men of his profession, if one science accepts direction from another science, without any one seeing any injury to freedom therein, why, then, should it be mental oppression for God’s infallible wisdom to call out through His Church to the fallible human mind: this is error, I declare it so? When the guide-post points out to the traveller that he is on the wrong way, will the wanderer indignantly resent the correction as an interference with his freedom of action? Is the railing along the steep precipice, to guard against falling down, an interference with liberty? Is the lighthouse, warning the sailor of cliffs and shoals, any interference with his freedom?

Generally those who oppose the Christian and Catholic duty to believe use the following argument: Where there is restraint and dependence there is no freedom; the Christian, and especially the Catholic, is restrained and dependent; hence he is not free: consequently he has no true science, because there can be no true science without freedom. In the same way it may be argued: The civilized nation is restrained in various ways by the civil order, therefore it is not free. The careful writer of scientific works is tied down on all sides by the rules of logic, by the dictates of good style, by scientific usages: hence he is not free.

Let us not lose sight of the question. It cannot be denied that the man who does not bother about faith has a greater outer freedom than the man who does. We speak purposely of outer freedom. It is quite another question, where real internal freedom exists, _i.e._, freedom from the fetters of one’s own inclinations and prejudices,—in the religiously disciplined mind, or in the other. Here we speak of inner freedom. Obviously it is greater in the former. The deer in the forest is freer in his movements than the cautious mountain-climber, who keeps to marked roads and paths, so as to journey safely, yet the latter is not without freedom. Nor will any one deny that the Australian bushman enjoys a greater outer freedom than the civilized white, restrained by laws, by rules and regulations, by standards of decency. And the busy writer of many things and everything, who in his writing never pays any attention to logic, to scientific form, to style and tact, has more freedom than one who strictly conforms to all these.

_Every civilization, culture, and education implies restriction of freedom_, and the more the rejection of dependence and laws increases the nearer we approach the state of uncultured and barbarous nations. The same applies to intellectual culture. The higher it is, the more learning and mental culture a man has, the greater the number of truths, principles, and intellectual standards he carries within him. By these he is bound if he wants to advance into the higher spheres of intellectuality. And the more the intellect rejects laws and standards the more unregulated and dull its intellectual life will become. The more one knows the more strictly is he bound to truth in every respect; the less one knows the freer he is to commit errors. This is no advantage, it is the privilege of the ignorant and untrained mind. The believer is bound by religious truth in the same way as one who knows the truth is bound by it, while one who is ignorant of it is not.

It is certainly not impossible for the obedience of faith to create _intellectual conflict_. There may be cases when scientific views look probable to the scientist, while they contradict a doctrine of faith or an ecclesiastical decision. The roads may even cross more radically. It may happen that his views and books are condemned, forbidden by the Church.

If the conflicting doctrine should be an _infallible_ one, the decision of the believing scientist is soon reached. He knows now what to think of his hypothesis, that it is not true progress but aberration, and consistency with his own conviction moves him to desist. Thus the philosophical errors of modern times are opposed almost throughout to infallible dogmas, for the most part fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. This is also the legal right under which revelation and the Church approach the scientist with the demand not to permit his views to go contrary to faith, because there can never be a contradiction between faith and reason. “There can never be a contradiction between faith and reason,” the Vatican Council teaches; “the apparent conflict is due either to the doctrine not being understood and interpreted in the sense of the Church, or to erroneous opinions that are mistaken for conclusions of reason” (Conc. Vat. sess. III, cp. 4). If the Catholic finds his position opposed to _non-infallible_ decisions, then he will re-examine his views in unselfish impartiality before God. If he must calmly tell himself that his arguments are not so weighty as to be able to stand up before so high an authority, guided by the Holy Ghost, then he will forego the gratification of holding fast to his own opinions, and will remind himself that true wisdom knows the fallibility of the human mind, and is ever ready to take advice from a divinely guided authority. Perhaps he will recall the words of the great _St. Augustine_: “Better bow before an incomprehensible but saving symbol than entangle one’s neck in the meshes of error” (De doctr. Christ. III, 13). This Christian self-denial surpasses in beauty even science itself, and sheds upon it a greater splendour.

The great _Fénelon_, proceeding to his pulpit in the cathedral of
Cambrai, on Annunciation day in 1699, was handed by his brother
the Roman brief condemning twenty-three propositions of
_Fénelon’s_ “Maximes des Saints.” The Bishop took the writing,
calmly ascended the pulpit and announced it forthwith, and
preached a sermon on the submission due to ecclesiastical
superiors, at which the whole congregation was greatly moved. A
few days later he announced in an episcopal letter to his diocese
his submission, “simple, absolute, and without a shadow of
reservation.” By this deed, an heroic act of obedience, _Fénelon_
is placed higher in history than by his brilliant works, than by
the honour of having been the illustrious tutor of the Dauphin of
France.

_Antonio Rosmini-Serbati_ in August, 1849, received official
notice of the condemnation of two of his works by the Congregation
of the Index. He immediately sent in his submission: “With the
sentiments of a true and obedient son of the Apostolic See, that I
have always been by the grace of God and wish ever to be, and have
ever acknowledged myself, I now declare clearly and sincerely,
without reservation, my submission, in the most complete manner,
to the condemnation of my writings.” Both the condemnation and the
submission were soon made the target of attack by the Liberal
press. _Rosmini_ replied in an admirable open letter: “To my great
sorrow I have seen several articles in different newspapers which
dare criticize the Holy Congregation of the Index for condemning
my writings. Inasmuch as I have submitted to the decree of the
said Congregation with all sincerity, and with full interior and
exterior obedience as becomes a true son of the Church, every one
will easily understand how much I regret these articles and
disapprove of them. Yet I deem it not superfluous to declare
expressly that I reject those articles entirely and that I do not
accept the praise for me which they offer. With regard to other
newspaper writers, who are censuring me and even insulting me for
having done what it was my duty to do, in submitting to the
condemnation, as though I had committed a crime, I can only say
that I greatly pity them, and that they would fill me with
contempt could I deem it permissible to despise any one” (apud _J.
Hilgers_, Der Index der verbotenen Buecher, 1904, 413).

A _Fénelon_ or a _Rosmini_, bowing with the humility of the
Christian savant to the judgment of their Church, have thereby
forfeited nothing of their intellectual fame in the eyes of
earnest critics, but, on the contrary, have greatly increased the
respect for their noble character.

Even should the future prove as scientifically correct that which the believing scientist does not as yet clearly see, that he was scientifically in the right, no considerable damage would result to science. Providence, which guides human affairs, will protect science for its noble modesty in submitting meanwhile to an authority appointed by God. As a matter of fact, science cannot be shown ever to have suffered any real loss by such submission, not even in the _Galileo_ case, as we shall see further on. On the other hand, countless are the errors and injuries which have befallen human thought and belief, and which the Church has warded off from those who yielded to her guidance. Of course the submission may become difficult if a man clings to his views, or has already publicly proclaimed them. Then, indeed, a bitter struggle may ensue. A number of scientists have failed to stand the test and have left to posterity the ill-fated name of apostates. The Church regrets such cases; but the deposit of faith is too precious to be endangered for the sake of any individual.

For this reason the Church is and must be _conservative_; for this reason she may have to warn against the dissemination of propositions which may not in themselves be false, but fraught with danger for the time being. She cannot take part in any hasty effort to make experiments, risking everything inherited in order to try something new.

During the nineteenth century the United States was repeatedly the
scene of communistic experiments. Daring adventurers assembled
people and founded settlements on communistic principles, private
property being abolished. In 1824 _Robert Owen_ founded a colony
in Indiana, which soon grew to nine hundred members, living in the
fashion of atheistic communism. In 1825 the colony adopted its
first constitution, which within the following year suffered six
complete revisions. In June of the second year the last members of
the colony ate their farewell dinner together. The experiment had
come to a speedy termination. A Frenchman, _Etienne Cabet_,
founded, in 1848, a new colony in Texas, called Icaria. Soon it
numbered 500 members. Each family had its small homestead.
Children were educated by the community. Amusement was provided
for by a band and a theatre; a library supplied more intellectual
wants. But soon it all fell into decay. _Cabet_ departed and died.
In 1895 the newspapers reported the dissolution of the last
remnant of the colony. Such is the fate of experiments.

Daring adventurers may undertake them. The lecturer at college,
too, will be readily pardoned for his eagerness to take up the
cudgel in defence of what is new in his profane science: he may
easily correct himself. But the Teacher of the Centuries and of
the Nations, in the sphere of religion and morals, has not the
right to experiment. Here, where mistakes may entail the direst
consequences, the rule must be: slowly onward, to keep the whole
from ruin. Cardinal _Benedict Gaetani_, later Pope _Boniface
VIII._, once praised Rome for having _pedes non plumeos sed
plumbeos_—not winged feet, but leaden heels.

Sentiments of the kind just set forth are of course possible only in conjunction with the belief in a revelation and in the supernatural character of the Church, where the interests of faith come first, and must be unconditionally preserved. He who lacks this conviction, he to whom the Church is but a human institution, founded in the course of time, tending perhaps to oppose truth and science for fear they might endanger the submission of minds—to such a one the Catholic’s confident devotion to his Church, and consciousness of unimpaired freedom at the same time, will be unintelligible; and the inflexibility of the Church in defending the faith will pass his comprehension. And woe to the Church when her position toward science is being tried before this court: only harsh denunciations are to be expected where the judge does not understand the matter he undertakes to decide.

Nor do we attempt to bridge the chasm that separates the two views of the world which we here again encounter, the one, which rejects the supernatural world, the other, the view of the believing Christian. We have but endeavoured to show that _faith does not restrain the mental freedom of one who is convinced of the truth of his faith_. Submission to the authority of faith is the consequence of his conviction. This is the question to be decided: Either there is a revelation and a Church founded by God, or there is not. If such there be, or if it is only possible, then modern freedom of thought, with its demand of exemption from all authority, is against reason and morality. If there is not, then this should be proved. It can be done consistently only by acknowledging atheism. For if there is a personal God, then He can give a revelation and found a Church, and demand submission from all. Since the days of _Celsus_ to this day the attempt to demonstrate that the convictions of a faithful Christian are unjustifiable has proved futile.

Obedience of Faith and Injury to Science.

While all this is true, yet one may not share this conviction, nor rise to the certainty that there is a supernatural world whence the Son of God descended to teach man and to found an infallible Church. Still, to be fair, he must admit that no real danger to freedom of research and progress of science results from submission to faith, as shown above.

In the first place it must be admitted that the assertion is still unproved, that a positive result of research has ever come in hopeless conflict with a dogma of faith; hence that science has been prevented from accepting this result. No such case can be found. The condemnation of the Copernican view of the world will be considered presently; we pass over the fact that at the time of its condemnation it was not a positive result of science: the main point is that the condemnation was not an irrevocable dogma of faith, but only the decision of a Congregation, which was withdrawn as soon as the truth was clearly demonstrated. Besides, science has suffered no injury from that decision.

In general, where there is real contradiction between science and faith, the matters in question are invariably _hypotheses_. Is it more than an hypothesis, and a very doubtful hypothesis at that, that the world and God are identical, that there is an eternal, uncreated course of the world, that miracles are impossible? That what is said about the natural origin of Christianity, the origin of the Jewish religion from Babylonian myths, the origin of all religions from fear, fancy, or deception, is it anything more than hypothetical? The false systems of knowledge, subjectivism, and agnosticism—are they more than hypotheses? Ask their originators and champions; they will admit it themselves; and if they will not admit it, others will tell them that their propositions are not only hypotheses, but often quite untenable. There is hardly a single hypothesis which has not its vehement opponents. That the serious conflict between dogma and science is waged only in this field could be proved by abundant examples. Besides, is it not the philosophical axiom of modern freedom of thought, that in the sphere of philosophy and religion there is no certain knowledge, but only supposition?

Can hypotheses claim to rank as assured results of research which should be universally accepted? Why should it not be allowed to contradict them, to oppose them with other suppositions? Is it not in the interest of science that this be done, that they be subjected to sharp criticism, lest they gradually be given out for positive results? Is it not a shameful trifling with the truth, when a _Haeckel_ deceives wide circles by pretending that most frivolous hypotheses are established results of science? Is it not misleading when modern science treats the rejection of a supernatural order as an established principle?

And how often the hypotheses of profane sciences change! “Laymen
are astonished,” says _H. Poincaré_, “that so many scientific
theories are perishable. They see them thrive for a few years, to
be abandoned one after the other; they see wrecks heaped upon
wrecks; they foresee that theories now fashionable will after a
short while be forgotten, and they conclude that these theories
are absolute fallacy. They call it the bankruptcy of science”
(Wissenschaft u. Hypothese, German by _F. Lindemann_, 2d ed.,
1906, 161). The conclusion is certainly unjustified, but the fact
itself remains. Is it then a loss to science when faith opposes in
the field of religion these variations of opinion with fixed
dogmas?

Or are these perhaps of less worth, or less certain than their
contraries? Is the dogma of the existence of God of less value
than atheism? Is the conviction of the existence of a world of
spirits less substantial than the philosophy of materialistic
monism? Is the doctrine of the origin of the human soul from the
creating hand of God found inferior to the notion that the soul
has developed from the lower stages of animal life? Should the
holy teaching of Christianity, doctrines believed by the best
periods in the world’s history, believed in and professed by minds
like those of an _Augustine_, a _Thomas_, and a _Leibnitz_;
doctrines that since their appearance on earth have always
attracted the noble and good, and repelled chiefly the base and
immoral; doctrines that still wait for their first unobjectionable
refutation—should such doctrines be less sure than the
innumerable, ever-changing suggestions of unregulated thought,
apparently directed by an aversion to everything supernatural?

Erravimus.

Yet another fact may be pointed out. It is an undeniable fact that science, after straying for some time, is not unfrequently _compelled to return to what is taught by faith and the Church_, thus confirming the truth of the faith. Frequently the new theory has come on like a tornado, sweeping all minds before it. But the tempest was soon spent, the minds recovered their balance and the hasty misjudgment was recognized.

Not long ago, when materialism revelled in its orgies, especially
in Germany, when _Vogt_, _Buechner_, and _Moleschott_ were writing
their books, and science with _Du Bois-Reymond_ was hunting
_Laplace’s_ theory in the evolution of the world, the Syllabus,
undaunted, put its anathema upon the (58.) proposition: “No other
forces are acknowledged but those of matter.” The summer-night’s
dream came to an end, and people rubbed their eyes and saw the
reality they had lost a while. The materialism of the 60’s and
70’s has been discarded by the scientific world, and finds a
shelter only in the circles of unschooled infidelity. _J. Reinke_,
in the name of biology, bears testimony in the words: “In my
opinion materialism has been disposed of in biology; if,
nevertheless, a number of biologists still stand by its colours,
this tenacity may be explained psychologically; for, in the apt
words of _Du Bois-Reymond_, in the domain of ideas a man does not
willingly and easily forsake the highway of thought which his
entire mental training has opened up” (Einleitung in die
theoretische Biologie, 1901, 52).

A few decades ago a number of scientists declared it impossible
that the different races could have descended from one pair of
ancestors, as taught by faith: the difference between the various
families being too great and radical, it was said; the difference
being rather of species than of race. Moreover, there was
announced the discovery of people without religion, without
notions of morality and family life; of tribes incapable of
civilization and culture; it was asserted in the early days of
_Darwin_ enthusiasm that there had been discovered a race of men
that clearly belonged to the species ape. Assertions of this kind
have gradually ceased. Now the different human races are
considered to belong to the same species, and their common
parentage is considered possible from the view-point of the theory
of evolution. The anthropologist _Ranke_ expresses his opinion
thus: “We find the bodily differences perfectly connected by
intermediate forms, graded to a nicety, and the summary of the
differences appears to point to but one species.... This is the
prevalent opinion of all independent research of anatomically
schooled anthropologists” (Der Mensch, 2d ed., II, 1894, 261).
Ethnology denies the existence of nations or tribes without
religion (_Ratzel_, Voelkerkunde, I, 1885, 31). _Peschel_ says:
“The statement that any nation or tribe has ever been found
anywhere on earth without notions and suggestions of religion can
be denied emphatically” (_O. Peschel_, Voelkerkunde, 6th ed.,
1885, 273). “The more recent ethnology knows of no tribes without
morality, nor does history record any” (_W. Schneider_, Die
Naturvoelker, 1886, II, 348).

Until a short time ago it was believed that the derivation of
man’s life from inferior stages of animal life would not be
difficult to prove; but at present, while many still adhere to the
theory that man has developed from the brute, the conviction is
steadily gaining ground that it cannot be scientifically proved
and that it becomes more and more difficult to disprove man’s
higher origin. Unable to withstand the force of facts, one
hypothesis gives place to another: what had to be found could not
be found, living or extinct links between the brute and man
refused to appear anywhere, and those which people thought they
had found, turned out to be unsuitable. _Kohlbrugge_ concludes his
criticism of the recent theories of the evolution of the body of
man from lower animals with the confession: “The above summary is
enough to convince everybody that we do not know anything distinct
about the great problem of evolution; we have not yet seen its
face. All must be done over again” (Die Morpholog. Abstammung des
Menschen, 1908, 88). _Virchow_ said at the anthropological
congress of Vienna, 1889: “When we met at Innsbruck twenty years
ago Darwinism had just finished its first triumphal march through
the world, and my friend _Vogt_ became its ardent champion. We
have searched in vain for the missing link connecting man directly
with the ape.”

What has become of those anatomic-morphologic links between man
and beast, the _pithecanthropus erectus_, the man dug out at
Neandertal, Spy, Schipka, La Naulette, and Krapina, and shown with
great confidence to the world? What has become of the prehistoric
man, said to belong to the glacial period of Europe, and to have
ranked far below the present man? _J. Kohlmann_ writes: “I wish to
state that I thoroughly adhere to the theory of evolution, but my
own experience has led me to the result that man has not changed
his racial characteristics since the glacial period. He appears on
the soil of Europe physically complete, and there is no ape-man to
be found” (apud _Ranke_, Ibid. 480). Prof. _Branco_, director of
the Palæontological Institute of Berlin, says: “Palæontology tells
us nothing about the missing link. This science knows of no
ancestors of man” (at the 5th international Zoological Congress,
1901, _Wasmann_, Die mod. Biolog. 3, p. 488). And the
palæontologist _Zittel_ says: “The missing link between man and
ape, though a postulate of the theory of evolution, has not been
found” (_Ranke_, l. c. 504). _E. Grosse_ concludes his studies on
evolution with the significant words: “I began this book with the
intention of writing a history of the evolution of the family, and
I finish it convinced that at present the writing of that history
is impossible for me or for anybody else” (Die Formen der Familie,
1896, Vorwort). _Ranke_ is perfectly right in saying that “it
behoves the dignity of science to confess that it knows nothing of
the origin of man” (Thuermer V, 1902, I. Heft).

A century ago or so, ridicule was heaped in the name of science on
the description in the Bible of the last day: “The stars shall
fall,” “and the powers of heaven shall be moved,” “the elements
shall be melted with heat, and the earth shall be burnt up” (Matt.
xxiv. 29 _seq._; Luke xxi. 25 _seq._; Mark xiii. 24 _seq._; 2 Pet.
iii. 10). Then the assertion that stones could fall from the skies
caused a smile, but now science has come to the general knowledge
that this is not only possible, but perhaps really will be the end
of all things, if once our earth on its journey through unknown
spaces of the universe should collide with a comet or get into a
cosmic cloud of large meteors. (Cf. the graphic description in _K.
Braun_, Ueber Kosmogonie, 3d ed., 1905, p. 381 _seq._)

An example of another kind: It is not so long since Protestant,
liberal Bible-criticism and its history of early Christian
literature, in the endeavour to remove everything supernatural
from the beginning of Christianity, regarded the New Testament and
the oldest Christian documents as unreliable testimony, even
forgeries, and for this reason placed the date of their origin as
late as possible. But now they have to retrace their steps.

_A. Harnack_ writes: “There was a period—the general public is
still living in it—when the New Testament and the oldest Christian
literature were thought to be but a tissue of lies and forgeries.
This time has passed. For science it was an episode in which much
was learned of which much must be forgotten. The result of
subsequent research over-reaches in a ‘reactionary’ effect what
might be termed the central position of modern criticism. The
oldest literature of the Church is in the main and in most details
true and reliable, that is, from the literary and historical point
of view.... I am not afraid to use the word ‘retrogressive’—for we
should call a spade a spade—the criticism of the sources of the
earliest Christianity is beyond doubt moving retrogressively
towards tradition” (Chronologie der Alt-Christ. Literatur I, 1897,
VIII). In a more recent work the same savant writes: “During the
years from 30 to 70 all originated in Palestine, or, better, in
Jerusalem, what later on was developed. This knowledge is steadily
gaining and replacing the former ‘critical’ opinion that the
fundamental development had extended over a period of about a
hundred years” (Lukas der Arzt, 1906, Vorwort). This retrogression
is continued still farther in his later work, “Neue Untersuchungen
zur Apostolgesch. u. zur Abfassungszeit der synopt. Evang., 1911,”
in which _Harnack_ draws very near to the Catholic view regarding
the date of writing of the Acts of the Apostles, as also regarding
_St. Paul’s_ attitude towards Judaism and Christian-Judaism, and
departs from the modern Protestant view (cf. pp. 28-47, 79 _seq._,
86, 93 _seq._). “Protestant authorities on church-history,” he
says elsewhere, “no longer take offence at the proposition that
the main elements of Catholicism go back to the Apostolic era, and
not only peripherically” (Theol. Literar. Zeitung, 1905, 52).

In a speech, much commented on, which he made at his university
January 12, 1907, Prof. _Harnack_, discussing the religious
question in Germany, called attention to the fact that there has
been quite a marked return to the Catholic standpoint: “From the
study of Church history we find that we all have become different
from what our fathers were, whether we may like it or not. Study
has shown that we are separated from our fathers by a long course
of development; that we do not understand their ideas and words at
all, much less do we use them in the sense they used them.” He
then draws out the comparison more particularly: “_Flacius_ and
the older Protestants denied that _Peter_ had ever been in Rome at
all. Now we know that his having been there is a fact well
evidenced in history.” The motto of the older Protestants was that
the Scriptures are the sole source of revelation. “But now, and
for a long time past, Protestant savants have realized that the
Scriptures could not be separated from tradition, and that the
collecting of the New Testament Scriptures was a part of
tradition.” “Protestants of the sixteenth century taught
justification by faith alone, without works. In the absence of
confessional controversy, no evangelical Christian would now find
fault with the teaching which declares only such faith to be of
any worth which shows itself by the love of God and of the
neighbour” (Protestantismus u. Katholizismus in Deutschland,
Preussisch. Jahrbücher 127. Bd., 1907, 301 _seq._).

Many similar instances of science confessing Erravimus in regard to the Christian or Catholic position could be cited. They are an admonition to be modest, not to overrate the value of a scientific proposition, and not, with supreme confidence and infallibility, to brand it as an offence against the human intellect to let one’s self be guided by the principles of faith.

Moreover, it has often happened that science emphatically and sneeringly rejected propositions, and called them false and absurd, which to-day are considered elementary.

_Newton_, in 1687, had correctly explained the revolution of the moon around the earth, and of the planets around the sun, as the co-operation of gravitation and inertia, and thence concluded also the elliptic form of the orbits of planets previously discovered by _Kepler_. _Leibnitz_ rejected this theory, _Huygens_ called it absurd, and the Academy of Paris as late as 1730 still favoured the theory of revolution of _Descartes_; it was only about the year 1740 that it was generally accepted. _Huygens_, himself, had formed in 1690 his theory about light-waves. For a long time it was misunderstood. Only in 1800, or somewhat later, it received its merited acknowledgment, but noted physicists like _Biot_ and _Brewster_ rejected it still for some time and held to the theory of emission. “Even in the intellectual world the law of inertia holds good” (_Rosenberger_, Gesch. der Physik, III, 1887, 139).

The great discoverer _Galvani_ complained of being attacked from
two opposite sides, by the scientists and by the ignorant: “Both
make fun of me. They call me the dancing master of frogs. Yet I
know I have discovered one of the greatest forces of nature.”

When _Benjamin Franklin_ explained the lightning-rod to the Royal Academy of Sciences, he was ridiculed as a dreamer. The same happened to _Young_ with his theory of the undulation of light. “The Edinburgh Review” proposed to the public to put _Thomas Grey_ in a strait-jacket when he presented his plan for railroads. Sir _Humphry Davy_ laughed at the idea of illuminating the city of London by gas. The French Academy of Sciences actually sneered at the physicist _Arago_ when he proposed a resolution to merely open a discussion of the idea of an electric telegraph (_Wallace_, Die wissensch. Ansicht des Uebernatuerlichen, 102 _seq._).

Until about a hundred years ago scientists almost universally
thought it impossible for a stone to fall from the skies—not to
mention a rain of stones. Of the big meteor that fell at Agram in
1751 the learned Vienna professor, _Stuetz_, wrote in 1790 as
follows: “That iron had fallen from the skies may have been
believed in Germany in 1751 even by its enlightened minds, owing
to the uncertainty then prevailing in regard to physics and
natural history. In our times, however, it were unpardonable to
consider similar fairy tales even probable.” Some museums threw
away their collections of meteors, fearing they would appear
ridiculous by keeping them. In that very year, 1790, a meteor fell
near the city of Juillac in France, and the mayor of the town sent
a report of it to the French Academy of Sciences, signed by three
hundred eye-witnesses. But the wise men of the academy knew
better. Referee _Bertholon_ said: “It is a pity for a town to have
so foolish a mayor,” and added: “It is sad to see the whole
municipality certifying by affidavit to a folk-saga that can only
be pitied. What more can I say of an affidavit like that? Comment
is self-evident to a philosophically trained mind who reads this
authentic testimonial about an evidently false fact, about a
physically impossible phenomenon.” _A. Deluc_, in other respects a
sober-minded man, and a scientist, even remarked that should a
stone like that fall before his feet, then he would have to admit
that he had seen it, but nevertheless would not believe it.
_Vaudin_ remarked: “Better to deny such incredible things than to
have to try to explain them.” Thus taught the French Academy of
that time (apud _Braun_, Ueber Kosmogonie, 3d ed., 1905, 378
_seq._). And now science is teaching the contrary. Everybody knows
that such falling meteors are not only possible, but that they
fall about seven hundred times a year on our earth.

Do not these examples bear a striking resemblance to the attitude of many of the representatives of modern science towards facts and truths of our faith?

This has not been said with a view of detracting from the reputation of science. Not at all. It has fallen to the lot of man to be subject to error. The above was said to recall that fact. Science is not so infallible as to be able to claim the right to ignore, in religious and ethical questions, faith and the Church, and even to usurp the place of the faith given by God, in order to lead its disciples upon the new paths of a delivered mankind.