Chapter II: Part 2

The first important move in the retreat was a falling back upon the statement that Galileo was condemned, not because he affirmed the motion of the earth, but because he supported it from Scripture. For a considerable time this falsehood served its purpose; even a hundred and fifty years after Galileo's condemnation it was renewed by the Protestant Mallet du Pan,[57] in his wish to gain favor from the older Church; but the slightest critical examination of the original documents, recently revealed, show this position utterly untenable. The letters of Galileo to Castelli and the Grand-duchess Christine, in which he spoke of the Copernican theory as reconcilable with Scripture, were not published until after the condemnation; and although the Archbishop of Pisa had endeavored to use them against him, they were but casually mentioned in 1616, and entirely left out of view in 1633. What was condemned in 1616 as "absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because absolutely contrary to Holy Scripture," was the proposition that "_the sun is the centre about which the earth revolves_;" and what was condemned as "absurd, false in philosophy, and, from a theologic point of view at least, opposed to the true faith," was the proposition that "_the earth is not the centre of the universe and immovable, but has a diurnal motion_."[58]

What Galileo was made, by express order of Pope Urban and by the action of the Inquisition under threat of torture, to abjure, was "_the error and heresy of the movement of the earth_."[59]

What the _Index_, prefaced by papal bulls binding its contents upon the consciences of the faithful, for two hundred years steadily condemned, were "_all books which affirm the motion of the earth_."

Not one of these condemnations was directed against Galileo's private letters to Castelli and Christine affirming the possibility of reconciling his ideas to Scripture.

Having been dislodged from this point, the Church apologists sought cover under the statement that "Galileo was condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy," and for "wanting in respect for the pope."[60]

As to the first point, the very language of the various sentences shows the falsehood of the assertion; they speak of "heresy," and never of "contumacy." As to the last point, the display of the original documents settled that forever. It was proved by them that from first to last he had been toward the pope most patient and submissive. He had indeed expressed his anger at times against his traducers; but to hold this the cause of the judgment against him, is to degrade the whole proceeding, and to convict the pope, Bellarmin, the theologians, and the Inquisition, of direct falsehood, since they assigned entirely different reasons for their conduct. From this, therefore, the apologists hastily retreated.

The next rally was made about the statement that the persecution of Galileo was the result of a quarrel between Aristotelian professors on one side and professors favoring the experimental method on the other, and that at first Pope Urban favored Galileo. But this position was attacked and carried by a very simple statement. If the Divine guidance of the Church is such a sham that it can be dragged into a professional squabble, and the pope made the tool of a faction in bringing about a most disastrous condemnation of a proven truth, how does the Church differ from any human organization sunk into decrepitude, managed by simpletons and controlled by schemers? If the argument be true, the condition of the Church is worse than its enemies have declared it. Amid the jeers of an unfeeling world the apologists sought new shelter.

The next point at which a stand was made was the assertion that the condemnation of Galileo was "provisory;" but this proved a more treacherous shelter than the other. When doctrines have been solemnly declared, as those of Galileo were solemnly declared, "contrary to the sacred Scriptures," "opposed to the true faith," and "false and absurd in theology and philosophy," to say that such declarations are "provisory,"[61] is to say that the truth held by the Church is not immutable; from this, then, the apologists retreated.

While this retreat was going on, there was a constant discharge of small-arms in the shape of innuendoes, hints, and small sophistries, by small writers; every effort was made to blacken Galileo's private character; the irregularities of his early life were dragged forth, and stress was laid on breaches of etiquette; but this succeeded so poorly, that in 1850 it was thought necessary by the Roman court to cover their retreat by some more careful strategy.

The original documents of the trial of Galileo had, during the storms of the early part of the century, been transferred to Paris; but after several years, in 1846, they were returned to Rome by the French government, on the express promise by the papal authorities that the decisions should be published. After various delays, on various pretexts, in 1850 the long-expected publication appeared. The ecclesiastic charged with presenting them to the world was Monsignor Marini. This ecclesiastic was of a kind which has too often afflicted the weary earth--fox-like in cunning, cat-like in treachery. Despite the solemn promise of the papal court, the wily Marini became the instrument of the Roman authority in evading the promise; by suppressing a document here, and interpolating a statement there, he managed to give plausible standing-ground for nearly every important sophistry ever broached to save the reputation of the Church and destroy the reputation of Galileo. He it was who supported the idea that "Galileo was condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy," and various other assertions as groundless.

The first effect of Monsignor Marini's book seemed favorable in covering the retreat of the Church; aided by him, such vigorous writers as Ward were able to throw up temporary intrenchments between the Church and the indignation of the world.

But some time later came an investigator very different from wily Monsignor Marini. This man was a Frenchman, M. de l'Epinois. Like Marini, de l'Epinois was devoted to the Church, but, unlike Marini, he could not lie. Having obtained access, in 1867, to the Galileo documents at the Vatican, he published fully all those of importance, without suppression or piously-fraudulent manipulation. This made all the intrenchments based upon Marini's statements untenable. Another retreat had to be made.

And now was made the most desperate effort of all. The apologistic army, reviving an idea which popes and Church had spurned, declared that the pope, _as pope_, had never condemned the doctrines of Kopernik and Galileo; that he had condemned them as a man simply; that therefore the Church had never been committed to them; that they were condemned by the cardinals of the Inquisition and Index, and that the pope had evidently been restrained from signing their condemnation by Providence.[62] Nothing could show the desperation of the retreating party better than jugglery like this. The facts are, that from Pope Urban downward, among the Church authorities of the seventeenth century, the decision was spoken of as made by the pope and the Church. Urban VIII. spoke of that of 1616 as made by Pope Paul V. and the Church, and of that of 1633 as made by himself and the Church.[63]

When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the decision was not sanctioned by the Church as such, a great theological authority, Father Lecazre, rector of the College of Dijon, publicly contradicted him, and declared that it "was not certain cardinals, but the supreme authority of the Church," that had condemned Galileo; and to this statement the pope and the Church gave consent, either openly or by silence.[64] The suspected thinkers, like Descartes and others, who attempted to raise the same point, were treated with contempt. Father Castelli, who had devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his cost just what the condemnation meant and who made it, takes it for granted, in his letter to the papal authorities, that it was made by the Church. Cardinal Querenghi in his letters, the embassador Guicciardini in his dispatches, the historian Viviani in his biography of Galileo--all writing under Church inspection at the time--take the view that the Church condemned Galileo. The Inquisition itself, backed by the greatest theologian of the time, Bellarmin, took the same view;[65] and if this were not enough, we have the Roman Index, containing the condemnation for nearly two hundred years, prefaced by a solemn bull of the reigning pope, binding the condemnation on the consciences of the whole Church, and reiterating year after year the condemnation of "all books which affirm the motion of the earth" as damnable.[66] To attempt to face all this, added to the fact that the Inquisition condemned Galileo, and required his abjuration of "the heresy of the movement of the earth" by written order of the pope, was soon seen to be impossible.

In spite, then, of all the casuistry of de l'Epinois and all the special pleadings of M. Martin, the sturdy common-sense of the world proved too strong; and now comes to view the most astounding defense of all--that hinted at by Viscount de Bonald and developed in the _Dublin Review_. This was nothing less than an attempt to retreat under a charge of deception against the Almighty himself. The argument is as follows: "But it may well be doubted whether the Church did retard the progress of scientific truth. What retarded it, was the circumstance that God has thought fit to express many texts of Scripture in words which have every appearance of denying the earth's motion. But it is God who did this, not the Church; and, moreover, since He thought fit so to act as to retard the progress of scientific truth, it would be little to her discredit even if it were true that she had followed His example."

With this, the retreat of the army of apologists is complete; further than this, through mazes of sophistry and into depths of contempt, they could not go.[67]

Do not understand me here as casting blame on the Roman Church at large. It must in fairness be said, that some of its best men tried to stop this great mistake. Even Pope Urban himself would have been glad at one time to stop it; but the current was too strong, and he weakly yielded, becoming a bitter persecutor.[68] The whole of the civilized world was at fault, Protestant as well as Catholic, and not any particular part of it. It was not the fault of religion; it was the fault of the short-sighted views which narrow-minded, loud-voiced men are ever prone to mix in with religion, and to insist are religion.[69]

But the losses to the earth in the long war against Galileo were followed by losses not less unfortunate in other quarters. There was then in Europe one of the greatest thinkers ever given to mankind--Réné Descartes. Mistaken though many of his theories were, they were fruitful in truths. The scientific warriors had stirred new life in him, and he was working over and summing up in his mighty mind all the researches of his time; the result must make an epoch in history. His aim was to combine all knowledge and thought into a "Treatise on the World." His earnestness he proved by the eleven years which he gave to the study of anatomy alone. Petty persecution he had met often, but the fate of Galileo robbed him of all hope, of all energy; the battle seemed lost; he gave up his great plan forever.[70]

But champions pressed on. Campanella, full of vagaries as he was, wrote his _Apologia pro Galileo_, though for that and other heresies, religious and political, he seven times underwent torture.[71]

And Kepler comes. He leads science on to greater victories. Kopernik, great as he was, could not disentangle his scientific reasoning entirely from the theological bias. The doctrines of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as to the necessary superiority of the circle, had vitiated the minor features of his system, and left breaches in it through which the enemy was not slow to enter. Kepler sees these errors, and, by wonderful genius in insight and vigor in thought, he brings to the world the three laws which bear his name, and this fortress of science is complete. He thinks and speaks as one inspired. His battle is severe; he is sometimes abused, sometimes ridiculed, sometimes imprisoned. Protestants in Styria and at Tübingen, Catholics at Rome, press upon him;[72] but Newton, Halley, Bradley, and the other great leaders follow, and to science remains the victory.

And yet the war did not wholly end. During the seventeenth century, in all France, after all the splendid proofs added by Kepler, no one dared openly teach the Copernican theory, and Cassini, the great astronomer, never declared it.[73] In 1672 Father Riccioli, a Jesuit, declared that there were precisely forty-nine arguments for the Copernican theory and seventy-seven against it; so that there remained twenty-eight reasons for preferring the orthodox theory.[74] Toward the end of the seventeenth century, after the demonstration of Sir Isaac Newton, even Bossuet, the "eagle of Meaux," among the loftiest of religious thinkers, declared for the Ptolemaic theory as the Scriptural theory;[75] and in 1724 John Hutchinson published in England his _Moses's Principia_, maintaining that the Hebrew Scriptures are a perfect system of natural philosophy, and are opposed to the Newtonian theory of gravitation.[76] In 1746 Boscovich, the great mathematician of the Jesuits, used these words: "As for me, full of respect for the Holy Scriptures and the decree of the Holy Inquisition, I regard the earth as immovable; nevertheless, for simplicity in explanation, I will argue as if the earth moves, for it is proved that of the two hypotheses the appearances favor that idea."[77] And even at a date far within our own nineteenth century, the authorities of the Spanish universities vigorously excluded the Newtonian system, and the greatest of them all, the University of Salamanca, held it under the ban until a very recent period.[78]

Nor has the opposition failed even in our own time. On the 5th of May, 1829, a great multitude assembled at Warsaw, to do honor to the memory of Kopernik, and to unveil Thorwaldsen's statue of him.

Kopernik had lived a pious, Christian life. He was well known for unostentatious Christian charity. With his religious belief no fault had ever been found; he was a canon of the church of Frauenberg, and over his grave had been written the most touching of Christian epitaphs.

Naturally, then, the people expected a religious service. All was understood to be arranged for it. The procession marched to the church and waited. The hour passed, and no priest appeared; none could be induced to appear. Kopernik, simple, charitable, pious, one of the noblest gifts of God to the service of religion as well as science, was still held to be a reprobate. Five years after that, his book was still standing on the Index of books prohibited to Christians; and although, in 1757, under Benedict XIV., the Congregation of the Index had secretly allowed the ideas of Kopernik and Galileo to be simply tolerated, it was not until 1822, as we have seen, that Pius VII. allowed the publishing of them at Rome; and not until 1835 did the prohibition of them fully disappear from the Index.[79]

The Protestantism of England was little better. In 1772 sailed the famous English expedition for scientific discovery under Cook. The greatest by far of all the scientific authorities chosen to accompany it was Dr. Priestley. Sir Joseph Banks had especially invited him; but the clergy of Oxford and Cambridge intervened. Priestley was considered unsound in his views of the Trinity; it was suspected that this would vitiate his astronomical observations; he was rejected, and the expedition crippled.[80]

Nor has the warfare against dead champions of science been carried on only by the older Church.

On the 10th of May, 1859, was buried Alexander von Humboldt. His labors were among the greatest glories of the century, and his funeral one of the most imposing that Berlin had ever seen; among those who honored themselves by their presence was the prince regent--the present emperor. But of the clergy it was observed that none were present save the officiating clergyman and a few regarded as unorthodox.[81]

Nor have attempts to renew the battle been wanting in these latter days. The attempt in the Church of England, in 1864, to fetter science, which was brought to ridicule by Herschel, Bowring, and De Morgan; the Lutheran assemblage at Berlin, in 1868, to protest against "science falsely so called," in the midst of which stood Pastor Knak denouncing the Copernican theory; the "Syllabus," the greatest mistake of the Roman Church, are all examples of this.[82]

And now, what has been won by either party in this long and terrible war? The party which would subordinate the methods and aims of science to those of theology, though in general obedient to deep convictions, had given to Christianity a series of the worst blows it had ever received. They had made large numbers of the best men in Europe hate it. Why did Ricetto and Bruno and Vanini, when the crucifix was presented to them in their hours of martyrdom, turn from that blessed image with loathing?[83] Simply because Christianity had been made to them identical with the most horrible oppression of the mind.

Worse than that, the well-meaning defenders of the faith had wrought into the very fibre of the European heart that most unfortunate of all ideas, the idea that there is a necessary antagonism between science and religion. Like the landsman who lashes himself to the anchor of the sinking ship, they had attached the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, by the strongest cords of logic which they could spin, to these mistaken ideas in science, and the advance of knowledge had wellnigh engulfed them.

On the other hand, what had science done for religion? Simply this: Kopernik, escaping persecution only by death; Giordano Bruno, burned alive as a monster of impiety; Galileo, imprisoned and humiliated as the worst of misbelievers; Kepler, hunted alike by Protestant and Catholic, had given to religion great new foundations, great new, ennobling conceptions, a great new revelation of the might of God.

Under the old system we have that princely astronomer, Alfonso of Castile, seeing the poverty of the Ptolemaic system, yet knowing no other, startling Europe with the blasphemy that if he had been present at creation he could have suggested a better ordering of the heavenly bodies. Under the new system you have Kepler, filled with a religious spirit, exclaiming, "I do think the thoughts of God."[84] The difference in religious spirit between these two men marks the conquest made in this, even by science, for religion.

But we cannot leave the subject of astronomy without noticing the most recent warfare. Especially interesting is it because at one period the battle seemed utterly lost, and then was won beautifully, thoroughly, by a legitimate advance in scientific knowledge. I speak of the Nebular Hypothesis.

The sacred writings of the Jews which we have inherited speak literally of the creation of the heavenly bodies by direct intervention, and for the convenience of the earth. This was the view of the Fathers of the Church, and was transmitted through the great doctors in theology.

More than that, it was crystallized in art. So have I seen, over the portal of the Cathedral of Freiburg, a representation of the Almighty making and placing numbers of wafer-like suns, moons, and stars; and at the centre of all, platter-like and largest of all, the earth.[85] The lines on the Creator's face show that He is obliged to contrive; the lines of his muscles show that He is obliged to toil. Naturally, then, did sculptors and painters of the mediæval and early modern period represent the Almighty as weary after labor, and enjoying dignified repose.

These ideas, more or less gross in their accompaniments, passed into the popular creed of the modern period.

But about the close of the last century, Bruno having guessed the fundamental fact of the nebular hypothesis, and Kant having reasoned out its foundation idea, Laplace developed it, showing the reason for supposing that our own solar system, in its sun, planets, satellites, with their various motions, distances, and magnitudes, is a natural result of the diminishing heat of a nebulous mass--a result obeying natural laws.

There was an outcry at once against the "atheism" of the scheme. The war raged fiercely. Laplace claimed that there were in the heavens many nebulous patches yet in the gaseous form, and pointed them out. He showed by laws of physics and mathematical demonstration that his hypothesis accounted in a most striking manner for the great body of facts, and, despite clamor, was gaining ground, when the improved telescopes resolved some of the patches of nebulous matter into multitudes of stars.

The opponents of the nebular hypothesis were overjoyed; they sang pæans to astronomy, because, as they said, it had proved the truth of Scripture. They had jumped to the conclusion that all nebulæ must be alike--that if _some_ are made up of systems of stars, _all_ must be so made up; that none can be masses of attenuated gaseous matter, because some are not.

Science, for a time, halted. The accepted doctrine became this: that the only reason why all the nebulæ are not resolved into distinct stars is because our telescopes are not sufficiently powerful. But in time came that wonderful discovery of the spectroscope and spectrum analysis, and this was supplemented by Fraunhofer's discovery that the spectrum of an ignited gaseous body is discontinuous, with interrupting lines; and this, in 1846, by Draper's discovery that the spectrum of an ignited solid is continuous, with no interrupting lines. And now the spectroscope was turned upon the nebulæ, and about one-third of them were found to be gaseous.

Again the nebular hypothesis comes forth stronger than ever. The beautiful experiment of Plateau on the rotation of a fluid globe comes in to strengthen if not to confirm it. But what was likely to be lost in this? Simply a poor conception of the universe. What to be gained? A far more worthy idea of that vast power which works in the universe, in all things by law, and in none by caprice.[86]

CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

The great series of battles to which I next turn with you were fought on those fields occupied by such sciences as Chemistry and Natural Philosophy.

Even before these sciences were out of their childhood, while yet they were tottering mainly toward childish objects and by childish steps, the champions of that same old mistaken conception of rigid Scriptural interpretation began the war. The catalogue of chemists and physicists persecuted or thwarted would fill volumes.

The first entrance of these sciences, as a well-defined force, into the modern world, began in the thirteenth century. But the thirteenth century was marked by a revival of religious fervor; to this day the greatest and best works of the cathedral-builders are memorials of its depth and strength.

Out of this religious fervor naturally came a great growth of theological thought and ecclesiastical power, and the spirit of inquiry was soon obliged to take account of this influence.

First among the distinguished men who, in that century, laid foundations for modern science, was Albert of Bollstadt, better known as Albert the Great, the most renowned scholar of Germany.

Fettered though he was by the absurd methods of his time, led astray as he was by the scholastic spirit, he had conceived ideas of better methods and aims. His eye pierces the mists of scholasticism; he sees the light, and draws the world toward it. He stands among the great pioneers of modern physical and natural science. He aids in giving foundations to botany and chemistry, and Humboldt finds in his works the germ of the comprehensive science of physical geography.[87]

The conscience of the time, acting, as it supposed, in defense of religion, brought out a missile which it hurled with deadly effect. You see those mediæval scientific battle-fields strewed with such: it was the charge of sorcery, of unlawful compact with the devil.

This missile was effective. You find it used against every great investigator of Nature in those times and for centuries after. The list of great men charged with magic, as given by Naudé, is astounding. It includes every man of real mark, and the most thoughtful of the popes, Sylvester II. (Gerbert), stands in the midst of them. It seemed to be the received idea that, as soon as a man conceived a wish to study the works of God, his first step must be a league with the devil.[88]

This missile was hurled against Albert. He was condemned by the authorities of the Dominican order, subjected to suspicion and indignity, and only escaped persecution by yielding to the ecclesiastical spirit of the time, and working mainly in theological channels by scholastic methods. It was a sad loss to the earth; and certainly, of all organizations that have reason to lament the pressure of those ecclesiastical forces which turned Albert the Great from the path of experimental philosophy, foremost of all in regret should be the Christian Church, and especially the Roman branch of it. Had the Church of the thirteenth century been so full of faith as to accept the truths in natural science brought by Albert and his compeers, and to have encouraged their growth, this faith and this encouragement would to this day have formed the greatest argument for proving the Church directly under Divine guidance; they would have been the brightest jewels in her crown. The loss to the Church, by this want of faith and courage, has proved, in the long-run, even greater than the loss to science.

The next great man of that age whom the theological and ecclesiastical forces of the time turn from the right path is Vincent of Beauvais.

Vincent devoted himself to the study of Nature in several of her most interesting fields. To astronomy, mineralogy, botany, and chemistry, he gave much thought; but especially did he devote himself to the preparation of a full account of the universe. Had he taken the path of experimental research, the world would have been enriched with most precious discoveries; but the impulse followed by Albert of Bollstadt, backed as it was by the whole ecclesiastical power of his time, was too strong, and, in all the life-labor of Vincent, nothing appears of any permanent value. He built a structure which careless observation of facts, literal interpretation of Scripture, and theological subtilizing, combined to make one of the most striking monuments of human error.[89]

But the theological ecclesiastical spirit of the thirteenth century gained its greatest victory in the work of the most renowned of all thinkers of his time, St. Thomas Aquinas. In him was the theological spirit of his age incarnate. Although he yielded somewhat, at one period, to love of studies in natural science, it was he who finally made that great treaty or compromise which for ages subjected science entirely to theology. He it was whose thought reared the most enduring barrier against those who, in that age and in succeeding ages, labored to open for science the path by its own legitimate method toward its own noble ends.

Through the earlier systems of philosophy as they were then known, and through the earlier theologic thought, he had gone with great labor and vigor; he had been a pupil of Albert of Bollstadt, and from him had gained inspiration in science. All his mighty powers, thus disciplined and cultured, he brought to bear in making a treaty or truce, giving to theology the supremacy over science. The experimental method had already been practically initiated; Albert of Bollstadt and Roger Bacon had begun their work in accordance with its methods; but St. Thomas Aquinas gave all his thoughts to bringing science again under the sway of the theological bias, metaphysical methods, and ecclesiastical control. He gave to the world a striking example of what his method could be made to produce. In his commentary upon Aristotle's treatise upon "Heaven and Earth" he illustrates all the evils of such a combination of theological reasoning and literal interpretation of the Scriptural with scientific facts as then understood, and it remains to this day a prodigious monument to human genius and human folly. The ecclesiastical power of the time hailed him as a deliverer; it was claimed that striking miracles were vouchsafed, showing that the blessing of Heaven rested upon his labors. Among the legends embodying the Church spirit of that period is that given by the Bollandists and immortalized by a renowned painter. The great philosopher and saint is represented in the habit of his order, with book and pen in hand, kneeling before the image of Christ crucified; and as he kneels the image thus addresses him: "Thomas, thou hast written well concerning me; what price wilt thou receive for thy labor?" To this day the greater ecclesiastical historians of the Roman Church, like the Abbé Rohrbacher, and the minor historians of science, who find it convenient to propitiate the Church, like Pouchet, dilate upon the glories of St. Thomas Aquinas in thus making a treaty of alliance between religious and scientific thought, and laying the foundations for a "sanctified science." But the unprejudiced historian cannot indulge in this enthusiastic view. The results both for the Church and for the progress of science have been most unfortunate. It was a wretched step backward. The first result of this great man's great compromise was to close that new path in science which alone leads to discoveries of value--the experimental method--and to reopen the old path of mixed theology and science, which, as Hallam declares, "after three or four hundred years had not untied a single knot, or added one unequivocal truth to the domain of philosophy;" the path which, as all modern history proves, has ever since led only to delusion and evil.[90]

The path thus unfortunately opened by these strong men became the main path in science for ages, and it led the world farther and farther from any fruitful fact or hopeful method. Roger Bacon's investigations were virtually forgotten; worthless mixtures of literal interpretation of Scripture with imperfectly authenticated physical facts took their place.

Every age since has been full of examples of this, but out of them I will take just one; and it shall be no other than that Francis Bacon, who, more than any other man, led the modern world out of the path opened by Aquinas, and back into the path trod by Roger Bacon. Strange as it may at first seem, Francis Bacon, whose keenness of sight revealed the delusions of the old path and the promises of the new, that man whose boldness in thought did so much to turn the world from the old path into the new, presents, in his own writings, one of the most striking examples of the strength of the evil he did so much to destroy.

The _Novum Organum_, considering the time when it came from his pen, is doubtless one of the greatest exhibitions of genius in the history of human thought. This treatise it was which showed the modern world the way out of the scholastic method and reverence for dogma into the experimental method and reverence for demonstrated fact. In the course of it occur many passages which show that the great philosopher was fully alive to the danger, both to religion and to science, arising from their mixture. Early in his argument he says: "But the corruption of philosophy from superstition and admixture of theology separates altogether more widely, and introduces the greatest amount of evil, both into whole systems of philosophy and into their parts." And a little later he says: "Some moderns have indulged this vanity with the greatest carelessness, and have endeavored to found a Natural Philosophy on the first of Genesis and the Book of Job, and other sacred Scriptures, so 'seeking the dead among the living.' And by so much the more is this vanity to be restrained and coerced because their expressions form an unwholesome mixture of things human and divine; not merely fantastic philosophy, but heretical religion. And so it is very salutary that, with due sobriety of mind, those things only be rendered to faith which are faith's."[91] Still later, in his treatise, Bacon returns to the charge yet more strongly. He says: "Nor is it to be overlooked, that natural philosophy has in all ages had a troublesome and stubborn adversary in superstition and the blind and immoderate zeal for religion. Thus it has been among the Greeks, that they who first proposed to the yet unprepared ears of men the natural causes of lightning and tempests were condemned, on that head, for impiety toward the gods; nor by some of the old fathers of the Christian religion were those much better received, who laid it down from the most sure demonstrations, such as no one in his senses could nowadays contradict, that the earth is round, and asserted in consequence that there must be antipodes. Furthermore, as things are now, the condition of discourses on Nature is made severe and more rigorous in consequence of the summaries and methods of scholastic theologians, who, while they have, as far as they could, reduced theology to order, and have fashioned it into the form of an art, have besides succeeded in mingling far more than was right of the quarrelsome and thorny philosophy of Aristotle with the body of religion."

"The fictions, too, of those who have not feared to deduce and confirm from the principles and authority of philosophies the true Christian religion, have the same tendency, though in a different way. These celebrated the wedding of faith and sense, as though it were lawful, with much pomp and solemnity, and soothed the minds of men with a grateful variety of things, but, meanwhile, mingled the divine with the human in ill-matched state. And in mixtures like this of theology with natural philosophy, those things only which are now received in philosophy are included; while novelties, though they be changes for the better, are all banished and driven out."

And, again, Bacon says: "Lastly you may find, thanks to the unskillfulness of some divines, the approach to any kind of philosophy, however improved, entirely closed up. Some, indeed, in their simplicity are rather afraid, lest perhaps a deeper inquiry into Nature should penetrate beyond the allowed limits of sobriety." Still further on Bacon penetrates into the very heart of the question in a vigorous way, and says: "Others, more craftily, conjecture and consider that, if the means be unknown, each single thing can be referred more easily to the hand and rod of God--a matter, as they think, of very great importance to religion: and this is nothing more nor less than wishing to _please God by a lie_." And, finally, he says: "Whereas, if one considers the matter rightly, natural philosophy is, after God's word, the surest medicine for superstition, and also the most approved nourishment of faith."[92]

No man who has thought much upon the annals of his race can, without a feeling of awe, come into the presence of such inspired clearness of insight and boldness of utterance. The first thought of the reader is, that, of all men, this Francis Bacon is the most free from the unfortunate bias he condemns. He certainly cannot be deluded into the old path. But, as we go on through the treatise, we are surprised to find that the strong arm of Aquinas had been stretched over the intervening ages, and had laid hold upon this master-thinker of the sixteenth century. Only a few chapters further along we find Bacon, after alluding to the then recent voyage of Columbus, speaking of the prophecy of Daniel regarding the latter days, that "many shall run to and fro and knowledge be increased," as "clearly signifying that it is in the fates, i. e., in providence, that the circumnavigation of the world, which through so many lengthy voyages seems to be entirely complete or in course of completion, and the increase of science, should happen in the same age."[93]

Here, then, we have this great man indulging in that very mixture of literal Scriptural interpretation and scientific thought which he had condemned, and therefrom evidently deducing the conclusion that these great voyages and discoveries, which were the beginning of a new world in thought and action, were the end of all things.

But in his great work on _The Advancement of Learning_ the firm grip which the methods he condemned held upon him is shown yet more clearly. In his first book he shows how "that excellent Book of Job, if it be revolved with diligence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural philosophy," and endeavors to show that the "roundness of the world," the "fixing of the stars, ever standing at equal distance," the "depression of the southern pole," "matter of generation," and "matter of minerals," are "with great elegancy noted." But, curiously enough, he uses to support some of these truths the very texts which the Fathers of the Church used to destroy them, and those for which he finds Scriptural warrant most clearly are such as science has since disproved. So, too, he says that Solomon was enabled by "donation of God" in his proverbs "to compile a natural history of all verdure."[94]

Certainly no more striking examples of the strength of the evil which he had all along been denouncing could be exhibited than these in his own writings; after this we cease to wonder at his blindness to the discoveries of Kopernik and the experiments of Gilbert.

I pass from the legions of those who from that day to this have stumbled into similar errors by degrading our sacred volume into a compendium of history or a text-book of science, and turn next to a far more serious class of effects arising from the great mediæval compromise between science and theology. We have considered the wrong road into which so many master-spirits were led or driven; we will now look at the war brought against those men of science who persevered in the right road.

The first great thinker who, in spite of some stumbling into theologic pitfalls, persevered in this true path was Roger Bacon. His life and works seem until recently to have been generally misunderstood. He has been ranked as a superstitious alchemist who stumbled upon some inventions; but more recent investigation has revealed him to be one of the great masters in human progress.

The advance of sound historical judgment seems likely to bring nearer to equality the fame of the two who bear the name of Bacon. Bacon of the chancellorship and the _Novum Organon_ may not wane; but Bacon of the prison-cell and the _Opus Majus_ steadily approaches him in brightness.[95]

More than three centuries before Francis Bacon advocated the experimental method, Roger Bacon practised it, and the results as now revealed are wonderful. He wrought with power in philosophy and in all sciences, and his knowledge was sound and exact. By him, more than by any other man of the middle ages, was the world put on the most fruitful paths of science--the paths which have led to the most precious inventions. Among them are clocks, lenses, burning specula, telescopes, which were given by him to the world, directly or indirectly. In his writings are found formulæ for extracting phosphorus, manganese, and bismuth. It is even claimed, with much appearance of justice, that he investigated the power of steam. He seems to have very nearly reached also some of the principal doctrines of modern chemistry. But it should be borne in mind that his method of investigation was even greater than these vast results. In the age when metaphysical subtilizing was alone thought to give the title of scholar, he insisted on _real_ reasoning and the aid of natural science by mathematics. In an age when experimenting was sure to cost a man his reputation, and was likely to cost him his life, he insisted on experiment and braved all its risks. Few greater men have lived. As we read the sketch given by Whewell of Bacon's process of reasoning regarding the refraction of light, he seems fairly inspired.[96]

On this man came the brunt of the battle. The most conscientious men of his time thought it their duty to fight him, and they did it too well. It was not that he disbelieved in Christianity; _that_ was never charged against him. His orthodoxy was perfect. He was attacked and condemned, in the words of his opponents, "_propter quasdam novitates suspectas_."

He was attacked, first of all, with that goodly old missile, which, with the epithets "infidel" and "atheist," has decided the fate of so many battles--the charge of magic and compact with Satan.

He defended himself with a most unfortunate weapon--a weapon which exploded in his hands and injured him more than the enemy, for he argued against the idea of compacts with Satan, and showed that much which is ascribed to demons results from natural means. This added fuel to the flame. To limit the power of Satan was deemed hardly less impious than to limit the power of God.[97]

The most powerful protectors availed him little. His friend Guy Foulkes having been made pope, Bacon was for a time shielded, but the fury of the enemy was too strong. In an unpublished letter, Blackstone declares that when, on one occasion, Bacon was about to perform a few experiments for some friends, all Oxford was in an uproar. It was believed that Satan was let loose. Everywhere were priests, fellows, and students rushing about, their garments streaming in the wind, and everywhere resounded the cry, "Down with the conjurer!" and this cry, "Down with the conjurer!" resounded from cell to cell and hall to hall.[98]

But the attack took a shape far more terrible. The two great religions orders, Franciscan and Dominican, vied with each other in fighting the new thought in chemistry and philosophy. St. Dominic, sincere as he was, solemnly condemned research by experiment and observation. The general of the Franciscan order took similar grounds.

In 1243 the Dominicans solemnly interdicted every member of their order from the study of medicine and natural philosophy, and in 1287 this interdiction was extended to the study of chemistry.[99] In 1278 the authorities of the Franciscan order, assembled at Paris, solemnly condemned Bacon's teachings.

Another weapon began to be used upon the battle-fields of that time with much effect. The Arabs had made noble discoveries in science. Averroès had, among many, divided the honors with St. Thomas Aquinas. These facts gave the new missile: it was the epithet "Mahometan." This, too, was flung with effect at Bacon.[100]

Bacon was at last conquered. He was imprisoned for fourteen years. At the age of eighty years he was released from prison, but death alone took him beyond the reach of his enemies. How deeply the struggle had racked his mind may be gathered from that last affecting declaration of his: "Would that I had not given myself so much trouble for the love of science!"

Sad is it to think of what this great man might have given to the world had the world not refused the gift. He held the key of treasures which would have freed mankind from ages of error and misery. With his discoveries as a basis, with his method as a guide, what might not the world have gained! Nor was the wrong done to that age alone; it was done to this age also. The nineteenth century was robbed at the same time with the thirteenth. But for that interference with science, the nineteenth century would, without doubt, be enjoying discoveries which will not be reached before the twentieth century. Thousands of precious lives shall be lost in this century, tens of thousands shall suffer discomfort, privation, sickness, poverty, ignorance, for lack of discoveries and methods which, but for this mistaken religious fight against Bacon and his compeers, would now be blessing the earth.

In 1868 and 1869, sixty thousand children died in England and in Wales of scarlet fever; probably nearly as many died in this country. Had not Bacon been hindered, we should have had in our hands, by this time, the means to save two-thirds of these victims; and the same is true of typhoid, typhus, and that great class of diseases of whose physical causes science is just beginning to get an inkling. Put together all the efforts of all the atheists who have ever lived, and they have not done so much harm to Christianity and the world as has been done by the narrow-minded, conscientious men who persecuted Roger Bacon, and closed the path which he gave his life to open.[101]

But, despite the persecution of Bacon and the defection of those who ought to have followed him, champions of natural science and the experimental method arose from time to time during the succeeding centuries. We know little of them personally. Our main knowledge of their efforts is derived from the efforts of their opponents and persecutors.

In 1317 Pope John XXII. issued his bull _Spondent Pariter_, nominally leveled at the alchemists, but really dealing a terrible blow at the beginnings of the science of chemistry.

In 1380 Charles V. of France carried out the same policy, and even forbade the possession of furnaces and apparatus necessary for chemical processes. Under this law the chemist John Barillon, for possessing chemical furnaces and apparatus, was thrown into prison, and it was only by the greatest effort that his life was saved.

In 1404 Henry IV. of England issued a decree of the same sort; and in 1418 the republic of Venice followed the example of pope and kings. But champions of science still pressed on. Antonio de Dominis relinquishes his archbishopric of Spalatro, investigates the phenomena of light, and dies in the clutches of the Inquisition.[102]

Pierre de la Ramée stands up against Aristotelianism at Paris. A royal edict, sought by the Church, stopped his teaching, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew ended his life.

Somewhat later, John Baptist Porta began his investigations. Despite many absurdities, his work was most fruitful. His book on meteorology was the first in which sound ideas were broached. His researches in optics gave the world the camera obscura, and, possibly, the telescope. In chemistry he seems to have been the first to show how to reduce the metallic oxides, and thus to have laid the foundation of all those industries based upon the staining and coloring of glass and enamels; and, last of all, he did much to change natural philosophy from a "black art" to a vigorous open science. He encountered the same old policy of conscientious men. The society founded by him for physical research, "I Secreti," was broken up, and he was summoned to Rome and censured.[103]

In 1624 some young chemists of Paris, having taught the experimental method and cut loose from Aristotle, the Faculty of Theology besets the Parliament of Paris, and the Parliament prohibits this new chemical teaching under penalty of death.[104]

The war went on in Italy. In 1657 occurred the first sitting of the _Accademia del Cimento_, at Florence, under the presidency of Prince Leopold dei Medici. This Academy promised great things for science. It was open to all talent. Its only fundamental law was "the repudiation of any favorite system or sect of philosophy, and the obligation to investigate Nature by the pure light of experiment."

The new Academy entered into scientific investigations with energy; Borelli in mathematics, Redi in natural history, and many others, pushed on the boundaries of knowledge. Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, projectiles, digestion, the incompressibility of water, were studied by the right method and with results that enriched the world.

The Academy was a fortress of science, and siege was soon laid to it. The votaries of scholastic learning denounced it as irreligious. Quarrels were fomented. Leopold was bribed with a cardinal's hat and drawn away to Rome; and, after ten years of beleaguering, the fortress fell: Borelli was left a beggar; Oliva killed himself in despair.[105]

Still later, just before the great discoveries by Stahl, we find his predecessor Becher opposed with the following syllogism: "King Solomon, according to the Scriptures, possessed the united wisdom of heaven and earth. But King Solomon sent his vessels to Ophir to seek gold, and he levied taxes upon his subjects. Now, if Solomon had known anything about alchemy, he would not have done this; therefore Solomon did not know anything about alchemy (or chemistry in the form which then existed); therefore alchemy (or chemistry) has no reality or truth." And we find that Becher is absolutely turned away from his labors, and obliged to devote himself to proving that Solomon used more money than he possibly could have obtained from Ophir or his subjects, and therefore that he must have possessed a knowledge of chemical methods and the philosopher's stone as the result of them.[106]

And, in our time, Joseph de Maistre, uttering his hatred of physical sciences, declaring that man has paid too dearly for them, asserting that they must be subjected to theology, likening them to fire--good when confined, but fearful when scattered about--this brilliant thinker has been the centre of a great opposing camp, an army of good men who cannot relinquish the idea that the Bible is a text-book of science.

ANATOMY AND MEDICINE.

I pass, now, to fields of more immediate importance to us--to anatomy and medicine.

It might be supposed that the votaries of sciences like these would be suffered to escape attack; unfortunately, they have had to stand in the thickest of the battle.

The Church, even in its earliest centuries, seems to have developed a distrust of them. Tertullian, in his "Treatise upon the Soul," stigmatizes the surgeon Herophilus as a "butcher," and evidently on account of his skill in his profession rather than on account of his want of it. St. Augustine, in his great treatise on the City of God, which remains to this day one of the treasures of the Church, speaks with some bitterness of "medical men who are called anatomists," and says that "with a cruel zeal for science they have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes of sick persons, who have died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the secrets of the human body to learn the nature of disease and its exact seat, and how it might be cured!"[107]

But it was not until the mixture of theology and science had begun to ferment, in the thirteenth century, and the ecclesiastical power had been aroused in behalf of this sacred mixture, that the feeling against medical science broke into open war. About the beginning of that century Pope Innocent III. forbade surgical operations by priests, deacons, or subdeacons. Pope Honorius went still further, and forbade medicine to be practised by archdeacons, priests, or deacons; in 1243 the Dominican authorities banished books on medicine from their monasteries; somewhat later, Pope Boniface VIII. interdicted dissection as sacrilege.[108]

Toward the close of that great religious century came a battle which serves to show the spirit of the time.

The great physician and chemist of the day was Arnold de Villa Nova. Although he has been overrated by some modern historians as a votary of the experimental method, and under-rated by others as a votary of alchemy, the sober judgment of the most thoughtful has acknowledged him as one of the most useful forerunners of modern masters in medical and chemical science.

The missile usual in such cases was hurled at him. He was charged with sorcery and dealings with the devil. The Archbishop of Tarragona first excommunicated him and drove him from Spain; next he was driven from Paris, and took refuge at Montpellier; thence, too, he was driven, finally, every place in France was closed against him, and he became an outcast.[109]

Such seemed the fate of men in that field who gained even a glimmer of new scientific truth. Even men like Cardan, and Paracelsus, and Porta, who yielded much to popular superstitions, were at once set upon if they ventured upon any other than the path which the Church thought sound--the insufficient path of Aristotelian investigation.

We have seen that the weapons used against the astronomers were mainly the epithets "infidel" and "atheist." We have also seen that the missiles used against the chemists and physicians were the epithets "sorcerer" and "leaguer with the devil," and we have picked up on various battle-fields another effective weapon, the epithet "Mohammedan."

On the heads of the anatomists and physicians were concentrated _all_ these missiles. The charge of atheism ripened into a proverb: "_Ubi sunt tres medici, ibi sunt duo athei_." Magic seemed so common a charge that many of the physicians seemed to believe it themselves. Mohammedanism and Averroism became almost synonymous with medicine, and Petrarch stigmatized Averroists as "men who deny Genesis and bark at Christ."[110]

Not to weary you with the details of earlier struggles, I will select a great benefactor of mankind and champion of scientific truth at the period of the revival of learning and the Reformation--Andreas Vesalius, the founder of the modern science of anatomy. The battle waged by this man is one of the glories of our race.