Chapter II. The Authority Of Faith And The Free Exercise Of Research.
Preliminary Remarks.
We must not stop at what we have just said in general about the relation between the freedom of research and the obligation to believe. We must go further into detail, in order to give a more exact explanation of how and where the authority of faith clashes with research and restrains it. Is it true that the believing scientist cannot move freely in his research, that there are barriers on all sides which he may not overstep? Is it true that the Church may prescribe for the Catholic scientist what he is allowed to defend and approve, what he ought to refute and reprove, suppress or advocate, so that his eyes must ever be turned towards Rome, to inquire and ascertain what might there be approved? And what a chain of proscriptions of free thinking is attached to the name of Rome! Index, Syllabus, _Galileo_—link after link is added to this chain of miserable slavery!
We shall say something more about this chain later on. First we must consider the principal question: Where and how do faith and science come in contact? And what we are going to say we shall condense into four points. Thus freedom of science will be more precisely defined; it will be shown what freedom revelation, and especially the guardian of revelation, the Church, offers to science: there can be no doubt that its natural freedom of exercise must be left to science intact.
We shall deal in the first place with the _profane sciences_, and, at least for the present, leave aside the discussion of theology, since it is clear that theology, being the science of faith, must assume a peculiar position in regard to the authority of faith: theology, moreover, is a special mark for attack; accordingly we shall deal with it particularly later on. However, the principles to be cited, being of a general nature, refer also to the science of faith, and for this reason we shall have occasion to refer to them.
1. Authority of Faith and Private Authority.
We often meet with the most inconceivable notions. We are told quite seriously that the Church teaches, and that the Catholic has therefore to believe, that the earth is a flat disc surrounded by the sea, as the ancients believed; above it is a vault, below it hell-fire; that the earth stands still and the sun and stars revolve about it, just as _Ptolemy_ of Egypt taught; that God created the whole world just as it is now in exactly six days of twenty-four hours each; that He made the sun and moon, just as they are now illuminating the skies; that the strata, just as they now look when bared by the geologist’s hammer, even the coal-fields and petrified saurians and fossils—all were made, just as they now are, well nigh six thousand years ago. The Scriptures teach this, the Fathers of old and the theologians believe this: and that is where the Catholic must get his science. And then they are astonished, and consider dogma retreating before science, when they see other notions prevailing, when they see Catholic scientists defend without prejudice the evolution of the solar system, and even the system of the whole universe, from some primitive matter, or assume an organic evolution, as far as science supports it (cf. _Braun_, Ueber Kosmologie u. Standpunkt christlich. Wiss., 2d ed., 1906, etc.). They would be still more astonished perhaps to learn that similar ideas had long ago been proposed by _St. Augustine_ and _St. Thomas_ (cf. Summa c. G. l. 3, c. 77; _Knabenbauer_, in Stimmen a. M. Laach xiii, 75 _seq._).
A distinction must be made between the teaching of the Church and the private views of individuals, schools, or periods. Only the teaching of the Church is the obligatory standard of Christian and Catholic thought, not the opinion of individuals. Hence not everything that Catholic savants have held to be true belongs to the teaching of the Church. Only when theologians unanimously declare something to be contained in the deposit of revealed truth, or the teaching of the Church,—only then is their teaching authoritative; not because it is the teaching of theologians, but because it is contained in revelation or the teaching of the Church. Else the maxim holds good: _Tantum valet auctoritas, quantum argumenta_. Nor is all that which a former age found in Holy Scripture, therefore to be believed as revealed truth, to the exclusion of all other interpretations.
The foregoing may be elucidated by the examples given above. When Holy Writ describes in figurative language and Oriental, demonstrative style, how God created the heaven and earth, the sun and moon, the sea and its contents, it means to teach us religious truths: that God is the First Cause of everything, and hence that the sun and moon, for instance, are not uncreated deities, as the Egyptian believed them to be. The narrative need not be taken in a literal sense, as if God immediately formed everything in the exact condition as it now appears to us; it may be interpreted in the sense that God let the present condition of things gradually grow out of the forces and materials and plan of nature He created, the result of a lengthy evolution. When our Lord tells us in the gospel that His Father in heaven feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass of the field, we know that this is to be understood as a mediate action of God, which He exercises through the instinct of animals and through natural forces which He created for the purpose. Now when former ages, reading the narrative of Genesis, generally understood an immediate creation of the world, because the knowledge of nature at the time did not admit of any other interpretation, it is by no means necessary to conclude from it that every other interpretation must be rejected as against the Bible, or that the Church herself has prescribed this literal interpretation as the only correct one. As is known, _St. Augustine_, the greatest Father of the Church, had another very liberal explanation of the Genesis narrative, and the Church has never censured him. (He taught that the whole world had been created at one time, and that the six days of the Mosaic narrative were the logical divisions of an account of the various orders of creatures.) And now the interpretations vary greatly. The passages in Scripture, in which, according to popular modes of expression, the sun is said to rise and set and revolve about the earth, the latter standing in the centre of the world—these, too, were interpreted literally in the days of the Fathers: there was no cause for interpreting them otherwise; but it was only due to defective knowledge of nature at the time. These temporary errors remained till corrected by research in the field of the natural sciences: had the discoveries been made sooner, the errors, too, would have disappeared sooner.
The Church knows, and the holy Fathers knew, that it is not the purpose of Holy Writ to teach profane sciences, but to instruct in faith and morals; if it speaks of other matters, it is but occasionally, and then in the idiom of common life, which is not the same as the scientific language of the specialist. Indeed, the Bible does not intend to give scientific instruction in such matters, nor could it have done so at a time when men were not ripe for such enlightenment.
Thus _St. Augustine_ insists that the Spirit of God who spoke through the authors of Scripture did not intend to instruct men in matters which do not serve for salvation, and hence he objects to the Scriptures being taken literally in regard to such matters, because the Bible adapts itself to man’s manner of speech: a distinction is to be made between letter and sense (“Multi multum disputant de iis rebus, quae majore prudentia nostri auctores omiserunt, ad beatam vitam non profuturas discentibus ... Breviter dicendum est, ... Spiritum Dei, qui per ipsos loquebatur, noluisse ita docere homines nulli saluti profuturas,” De Gen. ad lit., II, 9, n. 20. Cf. De Gen. contra Manich. 1, 5, n. 3; 11, n. 17). He further cautions Bible students against putting their own interpretation upon obscure passages and then claiming it to be dogma, because one may easily go astray and thus make the Scriptures appear ridiculous. “In rebus obscuris atque a nostris oculis remotissimis, si qua inde scripta etiam divina legerimus, quae possint salva fide, qua imbuimur, alias atque alias parere sententias, in nullam earum nos praecipiti affirmatione proiciamus, ut si forte, diligentius discussa veritas eam recte labefactaverit, corruamus, non pro sententia divinarum scripturarum sed pro nosctra ita dimicantes, ut eam velimus scripturarum esse, quae nostra est” (De genesi ad lit. I, 18 n. 37). “Plerumque accidit, ut aliquid de terra, de coelo, de ceteris mundi huius elementis ... etiam non christianus ita noverit, ut certissima ratione et experientia teneat. Turpe est autem nimis et perniciosum ac maxime cavendum, ut christianus de his rebus quasi secundum christianas literas loquentem ita delirare quilibet infidelis audiat, ut, quemadmodum dicitur, toto coelo errare conspiciens, risum tenere vix possit” (Ibid. I, 19 n. 39). Cf. also I, 21. _St. Thomas of Aquin_ also expresses himself in this sense: “Multum autem nocet, talia, quae ad pietatis doctrinam non spectant, vel asserere vel negare, quasi pertinentia ad sacram doctrinam ... Unde mihi videtur tutius esse, ut haec, quae philosophi communius senserunt et nostrae fidei non repugnant, neque sic esse asserenda ut dogmata fidei, licet aliquando sub nomine philosophorum introducantur, neque sic esse neganda tamquam fidei contraria, ne sapientibus huius mundi contemnendi doctrinam fidei occasio praebeatur” (Opusc. X. ad Jo. Vercel. Proem.).
The doctrine of the _Church_ concurs with this, as laid down in numerous documents, many of them quoting the above-mentioned words of _St. Augustine_. It also insists that the interpretation of the Fathers be only taken as a standard of the Church’s explanation of the meaning of Scripture when they are unanimous on the meaning of a passage relating to faith and morals; but not to other things (cf. Encycl. Providentissimus, Denz. 10 ed., n. 1947, 1944; Conc. Trid., sess. IV., Conc. Vat. sess. III., c. 2, Denz. nn. 786, 1788).
Now if one simply opens Holy Scripture, takes up some passage at random, explains it in its most literal sense, and then insists that this is the evident meaning, and goes on to assert with the same insistence that this is the interpretation of the Church, and a part of the faith of Catholics in regard to the natural sciences, then of course it is very easy to make out contradictions between faith and science: but such efforts cannot claim to be scientific. It is not necessary to know theology and the principles of Catholic exegesis; but it is not proper that those who are ignorant of these matters pass judgment on them, not even in the name of objective research.
Hence we may easily see what we should think of a writer who asserts that the examination of the Christian-Catholic idea of the world leads to the following results: “The Books of Moses, inspired by divine revelation, are the golden key to the understanding of the whole history of creation. Other Scriptural passages of the Old and New Testaments, the writings of the Fathers, etc., are to be considered as supplementary to these. According to these authorities the earth is a flat disc, surrounded by the sea. Above it arches the firmament of heaven, with its great lights for day and night. Below it are purgatory and hell. All this is not the gradual outgrowth of lengthy evolution, but was created by God out of nothing in a few days, about six thousand years ago, of which four thousand are reckoned before Christ and two thousand after Christ. Although modern science has long since established that the Biblical narrative is of no worth, nothing but an imperfect reproduction of older myths, the Catholic Church continues to teach it literally to this very day, spreading it broadcast by thousands and thousands of catechisms, and insisting on it being learned as a part of religious instruction in all schools, and to be accepted as the revealed truth” (_L. Wahrmund_, Katholische Weltanschauung und freie Wissenschaft, 1908, p. 14. The scientific value of this work has been considered by _L. Fonck_, Katholische Weltansch).
“Clericalism,” we are told, “stands on a rigidly fixed view of the world, corresponding in part to the childhood of mankind, to the dawning of civilization.... Philosophy, built upon the results of progress, since it is unceasingly forcing its way ahead, cannot remain in accord with the notions belonging to a remote past, partly to Babylonian and Egyptian civilization, partly to the thought of nomadic times.” It is then pointed out how this view of the world on which clericalism, that is, the Catholic Church, is based, has already been overthrown in many instances. “The geocentric position, the doctrine of our earth being the centre and man the ultimate aim of the universe, must needs be abandoned by the world of scientists, in view of the new system of Copernicus; the doctrine also of the earth being a disc must be abandoned in consequence of the voyage of Columbus, and subsequent discoveries, which make it certain that the earth is a globe” (Prof. _K. Menger_, Die Eroberung der Universitaeten. Neue Freie Presse, Nov. 24, 1907). It is surprising what little knowledge suffices to warrant writing about theological matters in the name of “objective research.”
These passages, in regard to their scientific contents and manner, recall vividly an American work that appeared some time ago, and reached many editions. It is entitled, “A History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science,” by _J. W. Draper_. The book was answered by a competent authority, _De Smedt_, S. J., “L’Eglise et la Science,” 1877.
It seems _Draper’s_ arguments have since become a pattern for many. He, too, maintains that Holy Writ has always been declared by the Church and the Fathers to be a source of profane science. This, he states, is true especially of _St. Augustine_. We read: “The book of Genesis ... also in a philosophical point of view became the grand authority of Patristic science. Astronomy, geology, geography, anthropology, chronology, and indeed all the various departments of human knowledge, were made to conform to it.... The doctrines of _St. Augustine_ have had the effect of thus placing theology in antagonism with science....” “No one did more than this Father to bring science and religion into antagonism; it was mainly he who diverted the Bible from its true office—a guide to purity of life—and placed it in the perilous position of being the arbiter of human knowledge....” “What, then, is that sacred, that revealed science, declared by the Fathers to be the sum of all knowledge?... As to the earth, it affirmed that it is a flat surface, over which the sky is spread like a dome. In this the sun and moon and stars move, so that they may give light by day and by night to man.... Above the sky or firmament is heaven; in the dark and fiery space beneath the earth is hell....” (pp. 57-63).
By reading again what we said above, especially the urgent admonitions of _St. Augustine_ not to look upon the Scriptures as a text-book of profane science, one will be able to appreciate the scientific quality of the book in question.
The fancy of this writer has distorted Christianity and the Church into a monster that has nothing more important to do than to tread down and crush science and civilization. A few examples will suffice to show how he proves the _contradictions between faith and science_. The Christian religion teaches that man is subject to death as a penalty for original sin: prior to that sin death had no power over Adam and Eve. It is claimed that this is a contradiction of science. But how? Long before Adam, thousands of animals and plants had died, the author asserts. “The doctrine declared to be orthodox by ecclesiastical authority is overthrown by the unquestionable discoveries of modern science. Long before a human being had appeared on earth millions of individuals, nay, more, thousands of species and even genera had died” (p. 57). The author has completely missed the point. The matter in question is not the death of animals and plants, but the death of man. The infallibility of the Pope is refuted by the fact that he failed to foresee the result of the war between France and Germany. “Notwithstanding his infallibility, which implies omniscience, His Holiness did not foresee the issue of the Franco-Prussian war” (p. 352, also p. 362).
How high his historical statements are to be rated is shown by the assertion that _Cyril of Alexandria_ had much to do with the introduction of the worship of the Virgin Mary (p. 55); that auricular confession was introduced by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (p. 208). He asks when the idea originated that the Pentateuch was written by Moses under divine inspiration, and he finds that “not until after the second century [of the Christian era] was there any such extravagant demand on human credulity” (p. 220). It would seem incredible that any one could write such stuff.
The author says in his preface: “I had also devoted much attention to the experimental investigation of natural phenomena, and had published many well-known memoirs on such subjects. And perhaps no one can give himself to these pursuits, and spend a large part of his life in the public teaching of science, without partaking of that love of impartiality and truth which philosophy incites” (VIII-IX). We do not care to argue with the author about his experience in experimental research, nor about his love for the truth, but he himself has shown superabundantly that they have not sufficed to keep him clear from scientific shallowness and the grossest blunders. Nevertheless, it seems that his scientific ability obtained for him in the consideration of many the weight of an authority. _Haeckel_, in his “Weltraetsel,” refers repeatedly to the book, and recommends “its truthful statements and excellent discussion” to his readers (Weltraetsel, 17. Kap., Wissenschaft u. Christentum).
Such is the fashion in which contradictions between faith and science, and the Church’s hostility towards scientific research, are proved.
The result is that we must distinguish clearly between dogmas of faith and private opinions or interpretations. Of course it may frequently happen, and has happened, that the Christian savant is too timorous, and looks askance at the discoveries of science, and even thinks he ought to resist them, because he is afraid that religious truth might be opposed by them. Nor can it be said that this timidity is altogether without excuse, for there was hardly one scientific discovery of the nineteenth century that was not immediately grasped and exploited by eager enemies of the Christian religion. Too often has science been made the menial of infidelity, and the assertion has been untiringly repeated that science and faith cannot agree. No wonder, then, that timid souls become suspicious, that they are prone to resist the whole theory of evolution in a lump, instead of trying to distinguish between what is of scientific value in it, and what is misused for the purpose of denying creation.
Nevertheless, such narrow-mindedness is strongly to be censured. It has often caused the reproach, that Catholics lack the freedom to admit scientific discoveries. They forget the wise admonition of the prince of mediæval theologians, that it were advisable, in regard to scientific views which have nothing to do with religion, neither to set them down as truths of faith, nor either to reject them as contrary to faith lest occasion be given to think contemptuously of the faith. As long as men are and men think, narrow-mindedness will never be lacking. Hence if the believing scientist wants to know whether he is running counter to faith in any particular, he has to ascertain from theological text-books what the Church declares to belong to faith, what explanation of Holy Scripture is unconditionally binding, and not what is the individual opinion of theologians, much less what some pious nurse is telling the little ones.
This is the first rule concerning the relation between faith and science: it states what the scientist is _not_ tied down to.
2. Science Retains its Method of Research.
But when and how may the scientist be restricted? Here we come to the second point: the directions which faith may give to the profane sciences are in themselves not of a positive but of a _negative kind_; revelation and Church cannot tell the scientist what he is to assert or defend in the field of the profane sciences, but only what propositions he must _avoid_. Thus every science is left free to pursue its own method of research. It is not difficult to understand this.
Faith draws from divine revelation; profane sciences, as such, do not draw from divine revelation, but only from experience and reason. Philosophy would cease to be philosophy and become theology did it demonstrate the immortality of the soul by revelation. The anthropologist would cease to be an anthropologist and become a theologian if he would attempt to prove the common origin of mankind by Holy Scripture.
In other words, the profane sciences are distinguished from faith and theology by their formal object, by the end they have in view, by the scientific method with which they handle their subject. Theology, of course, uses revelation extensively; and in this it differs from the other sciences. Hence faith cannot command the anthropologist to defend also in profane science the common origin of the human race from Adam and Eve, because it is held to be a revealed truth. He must say: I believe as a Christian that this is true, established by divine revelation, and no science will ever prove the contrary; but whether I can positively defend this fact as resulting from anthropology, depends on my ability to corroborate it by the methods of this science, that is by the testimony of profane history. And just as little could the historian be required to obtain historical results of which he cannot produce the evidence according to his method.
Therefore faith can only tell the profane scientist that he must not assert anything which is held by faith to be erroneous; that it is false to say there is nothing but force and matter, that the human soul ends in death, or that the various families of the human race have not a common origin. As soon as the scientist knows by faith that a thing is false, he is bound to refrain from asserting it: bound in the first place by the duty to believe, but also by the principles of his own science, which is to find not error, but truth, which forbids to assert what has been proved to be erroneous. Perhaps his own means will not enable him to prove the truth independently of revelation; then from the standpoint of his science he must say, _Non liquet._
The position of the Catholic Church agrees with these principles. She knows, and emphasizes that science has its own method, and hence a natural right and freedom to proceed in its own field according to its method. The Church rejects but one kind of freedom, viz., the freedom to propound a doctrine proved by faith to be erroneous. “The Church by no means forbids these disciplines to use in their own field their own principles and method,” declares the Vatican Council. “But, while acknowledging this lawful freedom, the Church takes care to prevent them from taking up errors in opposition to divine teaching, or from creating confusion by transgressing their limits and invading the realm of faith” (Vat. sess. III, ch. 4. Cf. also the letter of _Pius IX_., “Gravissimas,” of Dec. 11, 1862, to the Archbishop of Munich, Denz. n. 1666, _seq._)
These few remarks show the lack of intelligence in the charge that “Catholic philosophy starts from dogmas and revelation,” or that the Church would dictate to scientists everything they should teach; that, according to its principles it could claim the right “to impose upon a physicist of _Zeppelin’s_ era the task of proving the Ascension of Christ or the Assumption of Mary by aërostatic rules.” This is simply gross ignorance or misrepresentation.
3. Restraint Only in the Province of Revelation.
In what matters may faith and the Church be a guide to research in this negative sense? In all fields, or only some? Evidently only in their own sphere. But to the sphere of faith belongs only what is contained in divine revelation, viz., the truths of _religion and morality_, as laid down in Scripture and tradition, the truths of God and His work of salvation, of man and his way to his eternal destiny, of the means of grace, and of the Church. Whatever lies outside of that sphere does not belong to the province of faith. This is true also of the teaching authority of the Church. The purpose of the Church is to guard faithfully the treasure of divine revelation and to transmit it in an authoritative manner to mankind: hence her authority in teaching is confined to what is contained in revelation, and what is necessary for an efficient custody and transmission of it to mankind. Hence she may declare certain truths as revealed, she may reject opposing errors, she may condemn books offensive to faith, she may approve or reject systems of ethics. But she cannot set up wholly new religious truths or revelations. _Depositum custodi_—this is the purpose of the Church. Still less are matters of an entirely profane nature subject to the teaching authority of the Church. Profane sciences can therefore receive direction from faith only in those matters which at the same time belong to the province of faith.
What follows from this? It follows that _almost all the profane sciences are incapable of being instructed or restricted by faith_, because their province lies outside that of faith, and does not come in touch with it: they are left to themselves to correct their errors. When the astronomer in his observatory watches the movements of the planets, and bases thereon his mathematical calculations, when the physicist or chemist in his laboratory observes the laws of nature or makes new discoveries, when the pathologist studies the symptoms of diseases in organisms, no warning voice interrupts their work of study. Of course when they deny the creation, the possibility of miracles, then they conflict with faith; but then they have ceased to be naturalists, they have become philosophers. When the botanist or zoölogist in his laboratory is studying plants and animals and collecting his specimens, when the palæontologist is excavating and examining his fossils, they enjoy perfect freedom: all this has nothing directly to do with faith. And there is no warning sign set up for the geographer or geologist when settling the orographical or hydrographical conditions of countries or measuring geological strata; no danger signal disturbs the linguist in establishing the grammar of unknown languages, nor the archæologist or the historian, when they discover new documents or decipher inscriptions. Nor does anybody interrupt the mathematician in his calculations.
What unnecessary worry, then, for the representatives of mathematics, geology, palæontology, and chemistry to write burning protests against the fetters of dogma in the interest of their scientific activity! And it is superfluous worry for professors of the technical arts to get excited by imagining that electricity and steam must be treated according to ecclesiastical precepts. Nor is there need of emphasizing the statement that there cannot be a Catholic chemistry, geography, or mathematics—it is self-evident.
Hence almost the entire province of the profane sciences, which are the pride of our age and occupy the foremost position in our universities, with their laboratories, institutes and observatories and meteorological stations, are free and perfectly undisturbed by faith. If accordingly any one should be of the opinion that the Christian-minded scientist were hindered in his scientific research, he would have to consider him an unhampered investigator at least in this vast field.
Most in touch with faith comes _philosophy_. Not in the vast field of logic, of empirical psychology, in questions concerning the essence of bodies and their forces, in matters of mere history of philosophy; but in questions of views of the world and life, in metaphysics and ethics, it does. These, the highest questions, bearing on the direction and pursuit of human life, matters that most occupy the human mind, are at the same time subjects of revelation; God Himself has deigned to teach the truth in these matters, to make them safe for all time against the error of the mind of man. Here philosophers encounter danger-signals. They hear, what their reason even tells them, that it is erroneous to think there is no world of spirits, no God above nature, no immortality, no life hereafter, no providence. Nor could one say that philosophy is the loser by being kept from error which endangers human life. Nowhere are errors so apt to occur as in questions which are outside the sphere of immediate experience; nowhere are self-deceptions more common than there, where disposition and character continually influence the mind.
A modern representative of philosophy, _E. Adickes_, writes as follows: “In the course of this history (of metaphysics) there have been given long since all the principal answers that are at all possible to all metaphysical questions. The building up of metaphysical systems can and will proceed, nevertheless, and their multiplicity will remain.... Of course, progress will not be gained thereby: results will not gain in certainty, contradictions and mysteries do not diminish.”
“If the greatest of the ancient Greek natural scientists, physicians, and geographers should rise again they would be amazed at the progress made in their sciences; like beginners they would sit at the feet of teachers of our day, they would lack the most elementary ideas; they would first have to learn what every grammar-school boy knows, and much of what they once considered achievements would be disclosed to them as deception or mere hypothesis. On the other hand a _Plato_, an _Aristotle_, a _Zeno_ or _Epicurus_, might readily take part in our discussions about God and the soul, about virtue and immortality. And they could safely use their old weapons, the keenness of which has suffered but little from the rust of time and the attacks of opponents. They would be astonished at the little progress made, so that now, after two thousand years, the same answers are given to the same questions.” (Charakter und Weltanschauung, 1905, p. 24).
A science which must make such a confession has no reason to reject with haughty self-confidence the intimations of a divine revelation.
The _science of history_ again has not the duty of praising everything that has happened within the Catholic Church or else to repress it; no, only the truth is desired. But it must not start out with the assumption that God’s influence in the world, a divine revelation, miracles, and a supernatural guidance of the Church, are impossible; nor must it attempt to construe history according to that assumption. Hence it must not undertake to explain the religion of the Jewish nation, or the origin of Christianity, by unconditionally ignoring everything supernatural, and attempting to eliminate it by prejudiced research and by means of natural factors, whether they be called Babylonic myths or Greek philosophy or anything else; it must not impugn the credibility of the Gospel, claiming that reports of miracles must be false; it must not write the history of the Church and deliberately ignore its supernatural character, as if it were the violent struggle of a federation of priests for universal rule. Assured results undoubtedly are arrived at in history less frequently than in other sciences; it offers full play to suppositions, hypotheses, constructive fancy, the influence of ideas inculcated by education and personal views of the world, especially when summing up facts. Hence here more than anywhere else must moral character and unselfish love of the truth stand higher than the desire for freedom.
The _history of religion_ and _anthropology_ must be forbidden to assume that the human mind is but a product of animal evolution, that therefore religion and morality, family and state life, reason and language, and the entire intellectual and social life have necessarily evolved from the first stages of animal life. If we add that _jurisprudence_ in its highest principles comes in touch with faith, and that it also must not dispute the divine right of the Church, we have mentioned the most important sciences and instances in which the investigator must take faith into consideration.
We now understand in what sense we may rightly speak of a “_Christian philosophy and science_” or of a “_Catholic science of history_.” Surely not in this sense that philosophy and history have to draw their results from Holy Scripture or from the dogmatical decisions of the Church; nor in the sense that they have to make positive defence for everything that the Church finds it necessary to prescribe. The sense is merely this: they guide themselves by faith, as we said above, by refraining from propositions and presumptions proved by faith to be false. In a large measure this is also the meaning of the often-misrepresented term, _Catholic University_. In the reverse sense we may speak of a liberal science. It is that science which in the field of philosophy and religion guides itself by the principles of liberalism and the principle of liberal freedom and the rejection of faith. But to speak of a Catholic, Protestant, Liberal chemistry or mathematics, has no sense at all, because these disciplines, like most other profane sciences, have no direct connection with Catholicism, Protestantism, or Liberalism.
That we have stated correctly the _attitude of the Catholic Church_ is evidenced by more than one official document. In the decree of the Holy Office of July 3, 1907, the so-called Syllabus of _Pius X._, the following (5.) proposition is condemned: “Inasmuch as the treasure of faith contains only revealed truths, it does not behoove the Church under any consideration to pass judgment on the assertions made by human sciences.” Similarly was the proposition (14), likewise condemned in the Syllabus of _Pius IX._: “Philosophy must be pursued without any regard to supernatural revelation.”
These condemnations stirred up anger: “Now,” it was said, “the Church wants to subject the whole of human knowledge to her judgment: this is unbearable insolence.” But what follows from these condemnations? The opposite truth asserted in them is this: the Church in one respect must pass judgment on the assertions made by human science, namely, in so far as they come in conflict with the doctrines of faith. The only freedom rejected by the Council is the freedom to contradict revealed truth: it must not be held “that human science may be pursued with freedom, that its assertions can be considered true and must not be rejected by the Church even if they contradict a revealed doctrine.” (sess. III, ch. 4, can. 2). The Church does not want to judge on matters of profane science; but she claims the right, due to her as guardian appointed for the preservation of the pure faith, to raise her warning voice when, for instance, natural science transgresses its limits and trespasses on the province of religion by denying the creation of the world. It is but self-defence against an attack upon her inviolable domain. But she does not claim the authority to sit in judgment upon the results of astro-physics, upon the atom-hypothesis, or its opposite; or on the acceptance of a theory about ions or earthquakes.
Another question may be touched upon: Is the _Catholic historian_ free to proceed steadily in the search after historic truth, even where he discovers facts which do not reflect honour on his Church? And where it is a question of uncertain, private revelation, of doubtfulness of relics and other sacred objects exposed for public worship, may he proceed undisturbed with his critical research, or is he restrained by ecclesiastical authority?
Should the Catholic meet with dark passages in the history of his Church, then every well-meaning observer will demand that he display in the treatment of such matters a pious forbearance for his Church. His respect for her will dictate this. Unsparing criticism and hunting for blemishes and shadows must be excluded. But he cannot on this account be bound to pass by the unpleasant facts he may meet in his researches, or to cloak or deny them against his better knowledge. He knows that the divinity of his Church shows itself to best advantage just because, notwithstanding many weaknesses and faults, past and present, she passes unvanquished and imperishable through all storms,—a token of the supernatural origin of her strength and power of endurance.
It was this very thought that moved _Leo XIII._ to open the Vatican Archives for freest research to friend and enemy,—the clearest proof that could possibly be given that the Church does not fear historical truth. In his letter of admonition, of August 18, 1883, urging the fostering of historiography, the same Pope gives the following rules for the Catholic scientist: “The first law of history is that it must not say anything false; the second, that it must not be afraid of saying the truth, lest a suspicion of partiality and unfairness arise.” An excellent example of the application of these rules is found in _L. v. Pastor’s_ “History of the Popes,” especially in what he says about _Alexander VI._ and _Leo X._
In his historical investigation of private revelations, such as those of _St. Gertrude_, _St. Mechtild_, _Bl. Juliana of Liège_, or of relics and objects of veneration, the historian is likewise not restricted by Church-direction. Having merely the task of preserving the treasure of the faith received from Christ and the Apostles, the Church in her function as Teacher never vouches for the divine origin of new, private revelations, nor for the accuracy of pious traditions of another kind. True, she decides authoritatively whether private revelations contain anything against faith and morals, but she decides nothing more. If she accepts such revelations or traditions as genuine, she claims for the facts in question only that human faith which corresponds to their historical proof.
This is clearly stated by the recent encyclical _Pascendi_: “In judging of pious traditions, the following must be kept in mind: the Church employs such prudence in treating of these matters that she does not allow such traditions to be written about except with great precaution and only after making the declarations required by _Urban VIII._; and even then, after this has been properly done, the Church by no means asserts the truth of the private revelation or of the tradition, but merely permits them to be believed, provided there be sufficient human reasons. It was in this sense that the Sacred Congregation of Rites declared thirty-one years ago: ‘These apparitions are neither approved nor condemned by the Holy See; it merely permits them to be believed in a natural way, provided the tradition on which they rest be corroborated by credible testimonies and documents.’ Whoever follows this maxim is safe. The veneration of such things is always conditional, it is only relative, and on the condition that the tradition be true. In so far only is the veneration absolute as it relates to the Saint to whom the veneration is paid. The same applies to the veneration of relics.” (_Benedict XIV._ says of private revelations: “Praedictis revelationibus etsi _approbatis_, non debere nec posse a nobis adhiberi assensum fidei catholicae, sed tantum fidei humanae juxta regulas prudentiae, juxta quas praedictae revelationes sunt probabiles et pie credibiles.” De Serv. Dei beatificatione, III, c. ult. n. 15).
Hence the historian is free to investigate such traditions critically, provided, of course, that he does not violate the reverence due to sacred things.
4. Infallible and Non-Infallible Teachings.
Now to consider a last point. Does it not rest entirely with the pleasure of ecclesiastical authority, as would seem from what has been said above, to suppress at any time the results, or at least the hypotheses, of scientific research by pointing to putative truths of faith presumed to be in opposition? Then, of course, the scientist would be at the mercy of a zealous ecclesiastical authority. Or will it perhaps be said that this authority is infallible in its every decision? Think of _Galileo_, of the interdict against the Copernican view of the world, and you will be able fully to appreciate the danger alluded to!
We shall later on return to the famous case of _Galileo_. For the present we only call attention to a distinction which must not be overlooked, the distinction between infallible teachings and those that are not infallible.(3)
According to Catholic teaching, the universal teaching body of the Church, when declaring unanimously to be an object of faith something relating to faith and morals, is endowed with _infallibility_, and also when in its daily practice of the faith it unanimously professes a doctrine to be a truth of faith. This infallibility is also possessed by the Pope alone when, acting in his capacity as Supreme Teacher of the Church in matters of faith and morals, he intends to give a permanent decision for the whole Church (ex cathedra).
Besides these infallible teachings there are also _non-infallible_ teachings, and they are the more frequent. Such are, first of all, the ordinary doctrinal utterances of the Pope himself in his regular supervision of the teaching of doctrine: these instructions and declarations are of a lower kind than those peremptory ones that are pronounced ex cathedra: he is infallible only in the utterance of these ultimate, supreme decisions, the chief bulwark, as it were, erected against the floods of error. Decisions ex cathedra are very rare. Encyclical letters, too, are, as a rule, not infallible. It is self-evident that the theological opinions and statements of the Pope as a private person, not as Supreme Head of the Church, do not belong here at all. They have no official character and are in no way binding.
Among decisions that are not infallible are further included, in various degrees, the doctrinal utterances of Bishops, of particular synods, and especially those of the Roman Congregations. The latter are bodies of Cardinals, delegated by the Head of the Church, as highest Papal boards, to co-operate with him in the various offices of administration. Of these, the Congregation of the Holy Office and that of the Index may also render decisions on doctrinal questions. Although the Congregations act by virtue of their delegation from the Pope, and publish their decrees with his consent, the decisions are not decisions of the Pope himself, but remain decisions of the Cardinals. Much less can the infallibility of the Pope pass over to them: it is his personal prerogative, the aid of the Holy Ghost is promised to him, and protects his judgments under certain conditions against error.
But the Catholic owes submission also to the non-infallible teachings; and not only an outer submission, a reverent silence, that offends not either verbally or in writing against the decision rendered, but he owes also his inner assent. But it cannot be that unconditional inner assent which he owes to the infallible decision, for this he holds to be irrevocably certain; nor is his assent to non-infallible decisions a real act of faith. He is not given any unconditional guarantee of the truth. An error is, of course, most unlikely, but not absolutely impossible. Hence the faithful Catholic should always be ready to accept such decisions in as far as they are warranted by recognized truth. This applies to all kinds of doctrinal teaching, but of course in different ways, corresponding to the degree of authority,—for instance, Papal decisions are of higher authority than those of the Congregations,—yet it applies also to the doctrinal decisions of the Congregations, because they are the ordinary teaching organs of the Church.
When the Congregation of the Index, 1857, had forbidden the works of _Guenther_ and many thought they could evade the decision, _Pius IX._ wrote, June 15, to the Archbishop of Cologne: “The decree is so far-reaching that nobody may think himself free not to hold what we have confirmed.” Similar was what the Pope had written to the Archbishop of Mecheln after the condemnation of the ontological errors of _Ubagh_. The Motu proprio of _Pius X._ of November 8, 1907, speaks similarly of the obligation of submission to the decisions of the Papal Biblical Commission relating to doctrines, and to the decrees of Congregations when approved by the Pope. (Cf. also the Syllabus of Pius IX., sent. 22.)
Theologians agree that this requisite internal assent is not the same as irrevocable assent. This was also declared by _Pius IX._ in his letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Freising, saying that this inner submission is by no means faith; and no theologian will ascribe infallibility to a mere congregational decree. (See on this point: _e.g._ _Grisar_, Galileistudien, 1882, 171 _seq._ Cr. _Pesch_, Theol. Zeitfragen, Erste Folge, 1900, III. _Egger_, Streiflichter ueber die freiere Bibelforschung, 1889.)
It would be erroneous to think that only in recent times, after the embarrassment caused by the regrettable _Galileo_ decision the subtle distinction had been invented that congregational decisions are not binding on Catholics with absolute force. This was taught by theologians long before the _Galileo_ case caused any excitement. In this sense the celebrated writer on Moral Theology, _Lacroix_, said: “The declarations of none of these Congregations are infallible.... No infallibility is promised to the Congregation in so far as it is viewed as separate from the Pope” (Theologia Moralis, 1729, I, n. 215). _Raccioli_, soon after the _Galileo_ trial, wrote: “The Holy Congregation of Cardinals as separate from the Pope cannot give to any proposition the proper authority of faith.” And he adds: “There being extant no decision of the Pope, or of a Council directed and confirmed by him, the proposition of the sun moving and the earth standing still cannot on the strength of a congregational decree be considered a truth that must be believed” (Almagestum novum, 1651, I, 52).
The obligation to give interior assent also to an authority not infallible, cannot seem strange if this authority offers a guarantee for the truth commensurate to the assent demanded. We certainly ask of a child to receive the instruction from his parent and teacher with internal assent, so far as the latter does not run counter to its instinct for the truth, else the education of the child and the needful influence over its intellectual life would be impossible. Upon the Church has been bestowed by her divine Founder the task of guiding the faithful authoritatively in the educational matters committed to the Church, and not only in their youth but throughout their lives. This guidance in religion and morality would be impossible if the faithful could constantly deny their internal assent to the instruction of the Church, which is given generally in a form that is not infallible. The full power of the Church to teach with authority implies a corresponding duty of the faithful to assent to her teachings as far as this is possible. Does not the scientific specialist think himself obliged to accept a proposition on the strength of a certain authority, even if the latter’s infallibility is not established? He reads in his scientific periodical and finds in it the report of special researches made by a colleague. He cannot examine them over again, yet he accepts them because of the reliability of his colleague, in which he sees the guarantee of truth. Likewise, only more so, does the Catholic owe it to his sense of truth to impose upon himself an assent even where the representatives of the teaching authority of the Church are not endowed in their decision with the gift of infallibility. For he knows that even in such teachings the Church is commonly under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, who will seldom tolerate error. He is promised to the teaching Church for the safe guidance of the faithful; these declarations are, however, the ordinary doctrinal utterances of that ecclesiastical office. And the Holy Ghost cannot permit that the teaching authority should by a wrong decision forfeit the confidence it enjoys.
Moreover, this authority ranks very high even when looked at from a purely human standpoint. Those who are invested with it are mostly men of great learning, competent to give such doctrinal decisions by virtue of their experience and position, and learned advisers are at their side. They are guided by the tradition and wisdom of a universal Church, which measures its history by thousands of years: the decisions, too, are for the most part but the application or repetition of previous doctrinal utterances. Besides, there is the hesitating caution which advances to a decision only after long deliberations, and in undemonstrated matters usually refrains from decision; a caution which has increased still more in recent times, since so many subtle questions have arisen on the boundaries of science and faith. It is also known that many inquisitive eyes are constantly turned on Rome, and a single wrong decision might entail most disagreeable consequences for friend and foe. The pressure must be very great before a much-disputed question is taken up at all.
Of course it is by no means impossible that difficulties may pile up in such a way that an error may really be made. History knows of such a case. But the very fact that the one case of _Galileo_ is always quoted, and, therefore, that in the long history of the Congregations this is considered to be almost the only case of importance, is a proof how carefully the Congregations proceed, and that supernatural aid is granted them. An institution which in the course of its long existence had to reply to innumerable questions and against which only one wrong decision of importance can be pointed out, must necessarily be an exemplary institution. An institution so free from human error must surely be guided by the Holy Ghost. Compare with this the many cases in which science has had to correct itself, had to abandon its long-championed propositions as untenable.
Thus, in a given case, the decision is not difficult for the Catholic. On one side stand the representatives of a science which has erred, very often, incomparably more frequently than the ecclesiastical teaching authority, and which lacks the special aid of God. On the other side is the ecclesiastical authority, which has almost never erred, and which enjoys special divine aid; moreover, it examines into its questions with greater caution and care, because it has more to lose. In addition it is almost invariably able to point to a large number, and frequently the majority, of savants who indorse its decisions, because these mostly concern disputed questions not yet scientifically determined. Hence the Catholic will find no difficulty in presuming that the decision is in accord with the truth; the more so because, as a rule, he himself is unable to examine scientifically both sides of the question.
Should any one, nevertheless, be clearly convinced, by substantial and valid reasons, that there has been prejudgment, then he would not be any longer obliged to give it his interior assent: truth before all else. It would be easy, too, by presenting reliable information to an authoritative quarter, to secure the triumph of the truth. However, in this case a man must be ever on his guard against the tendency to overrate his own arguments. In excitement he easily thinks himself to be certainly in the right, but when considering the matter quietly before God and his conscience, he will rarely come to the conclusion that it would be wise to set his judgment above the decision. In the case of _Galileo_ the decision of the Congregation was by no means opposed by a clear conviction of the truth of the opposite.
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.