History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Part 13

While Lutheranism was thus condemning the theory of the earth's movement, other branches of the Protestant Church did not remain behind.

Calvin took the lead, in his Commentary on Genesis, by condemning all who a.s.serted that the earth is not at the centre of the universe. He clinched the matter by the usual reference to the first verse of the ninety-third Psalm, and asked, "Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?" Turretin, Calvin's famous successor, even after Kepler and Newton had virtually completed the theory of Copernicus and Galileo, put forth his compendium of theology, in which he proved, from a mult.i.tude of scriptural texts, that the heavens, sun, and moon move about the earth, which stands still in the centre. In England we see similar theological efforts, even after they had become evidently futile. Hutchinson's Moses's Principia, Dr. Samuel Pike's Sacred Philosophy, the writings of Horne, Bishop Horsley, and President Forbes contain most earnest attacks upon the ideas of Newton, such attacks being based upon Scripture. Dr. John Owen, so famous in the annals of Puritanism, declared the Copernican system a "delusive and arbitrary hypothesis, contrary to Scripture"; and even John Wesley declared the new ideas to "tend toward infidelity."(51)

(51) On the teachings on Protestantism as regards the Copernican theory, see citations in Canon Farrar's History of Interpretation, preface, xviii; also Rev. Dr. Shields, of Princeton, The Final Philosophy, pp.

60, 61.

And Protestant peoples were not a whit behind Catholic in following out such teachings. The people of Elbing made themselves merry over a farce in which Copernicus was the main object of ridicule. The people of Nuremberg, a Protestant stronghold, caused a medal to be struck with inscriptions ridiculing the philosopher and his theory.

Why the people at large took this view is easily understood when we note the att.i.tude of the guardians of learning, both Catholic and Protestant, in that age. It throws great light upon sundry claims by modern theologians to take charge of public instruction and of the evolution of science. So important was it thought to have "sound learning" guarded and "safe science" taught, that in many of the universities, as late as the end of the seventeenth century, professors were forced to take an oath not to hold the "Pythagorean"--that is, the Copernican--idea as to the movement of the heavenly bodies. As the contest went on, professors were forbidden to make known to students the facts revealed by the telescope. Special orders to this effect were issued by the ecclesiastical authorities to the universities and colleges of Pisa, Innspruck, Louvain, Douay, Salamanca, and others. During generations we find the authorities of these Universities boasting that these G.o.dless doctrines were kept away from their students. It is touching to hear such boasts made then, just as it is touching now to hear sundry excellent university authorities boast that they discourage the reading of Mill, Spencer, and Darwin. Nor were such attempts to keep the truth from students confined to the Roman Catholic inst.i.tutions of learning.

Strange as it may seem, nowhere were the facts confirming the Copernican theory more carefully kept out of sight than at Wittenberg--the university of Luther and Melanchthon. About the middle of the sixteenth century there were at that centre of Protestant instruction two astronomers of a very high order, Rheticus and Reinhold; both of these, after thorough study, had convinced themselves that the Copernican system was true, but neither of them was allowed to tell this truth to his students. Neither in his lecture announcements nor in his published works did Rheticus venture to make the new system known, and he at last gave up his professorship and left Wittenberg, that he might have freedom to seek and tell the truth. Reinhold was even more wretchedly humiliated. Convinced of the truth of the new theory, he was obliged to advocate the old; if he mentioned the Copernican ideas, he was compelled to overlay them with the Ptolemaic. Even this was not thought safe enough, and in 1571 the subject was intrusted to Peucer. He was eminently "sound," and denounced the Copernican theory in his lectures as "absurd, and unfit to be introduced into the schools."

To clinch anti-scientific ideas more firmly into German Protestant teaching, Rector Hensel wrote a text-book for schools ent.i.tled The Restored Mosaic System of the World, which showed the Copernican astronomy to be unscriptural.

Doubtless this has a far-off sound; yet its echo comes very near modern Protestantism in the expulsion of Dr. Woodrow by the Presbyterian authorities in South Carolina; the expulsion of Prof. Winch.e.l.l by the Methodist Episcopal authorities in Tennessee; the expulsion of Prof. Toy by Baptist authorities in Kentucky; the expulsion of the professors at Beyrout under authority of American Protestant divines--all for holding the doctrines of modern science, and in the last years of the nineteenth century.(52)

(52) For treatment of Copernican ideas by the people, see The Catholic World, as above; also Melanchthon, ubi supra; also Prowe, Copernicus, Berlin, 1883, vol. i, p. 269, note; also pp. 279, 280; also Madler, i, p.167. For Rector Hensel, see Rev. Dr. Shield's Final Philosophy, p. 60.

For details of recent Protestant efforts against evolution doctrines, see the chapter on the Fall of Man and Anthropology in this work.

But the new truth could not be concealed; it could neither be laughed down nor frowned down. Many minds had received it, but within the hearing of the papacy only one tongue appears to have dared to utter it clearly. This new warrior was that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno. He was hunted from land to land, until at last he turned on his pursuers with fearful invectives. For this he was entrapped at Venice, imprisoned during six years in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome, then burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds. Still, the new truth lived on.

Ten years after the martyrdom of Bruno the truth of Copernicus's doctrine was established by the telescope of Galileo.(53)

(53) For Bruno, see Bartholmess, Vie de Jordano Bruno, Paris, 1846, vol. i, p.121 and pp. 212 et seq.; also Berti, Vita di Giordano Bruno, Firenze, 1868, chap. xvi; also Whewell, vol. i, pp. 272, 273. That Whewell is somewhat hasty in attributing Bruno's punishment entirely to the s.p.a.ccio della Bestia Trionfante will be evident, in spite of Montucla, to anyone who reads the account of the persecution in Bartholmess or Berti; and even if Whewell be right, the s.p.a.ccio would never have been written but for Bruno's indignation at ecclesiastical oppression. See Tiraboschi, vol. vii, pp. 466 et seq.

Herein was fulfilled one of the most touching of prophecies. Years before, the opponents of Copernicus had said to him, "If your doctrines were true, Venus would show phases like the moon." Copernicus answered: "You are right; I know not what to say; but G.o.d is good, and will in time find an answer to this objection." The G.o.d-given answer came when, in 1611, the rude telescope of Galileo showed the phases of Venus.(54)

(54) For the relation of these discoveries to Copernicus's work, see Delambre, Histoire de l'Astronomie moderne, discours preliminaire, p. xiv; also Laplace, Systeme du Monde, vol. i, p. 326; and for more careful statements, Kepler's Opera Omnia, edit. Frisch, tome ii, p. 464.

For Copernicus's prophecy, see Cantu, Histoire Univerelle, vol. xv, p.

473. (Cantu was an eminent Roman Catholic.)

III. THE WAR UPON GALILEO.

On this new champion, Galileo, the whole war was at last concentrated.

His discoveries had clearly taken the Copernican theory out of the list of hypotheses, and had placed it before the world as a truth. Against him, then, the war was long and bitter. The supporters of what was called "sound learning" declared his discoveries deceptions and his announcements blasphemy. Semi-scientific professors, endeavouring to curry favour with the Church, attacked him with sham science; earnest preachers attacked him with perverted Scripture; theologians, inquisitors, congregations of cardinals, and at last two popes dealt with him, and, as was supposed, silenced his impious doctrine forever.(55)

(55) A very curious example of this sham science employed by theologians is seen in the argument, frequently used at that time, that, if the earth really moved, a stone falling from a height would fall back of a point immediately below its point of starting. This is used by Fromundus with great effect. It appears never to have occurred to him to test the matter by dropping a stone from the topmast of a ship. Bezenburg has mathematically demonstrated just such an aberration in falling bodies, as is mathematically required by the diurnal motion of the earth. See Jevons, Principles of Science, pp. 388, 389, second edition, 1877.

I shall present this warfare at some length because, so far as I can find, no careful summary of it has been given in our language, since the whole history was placed in a new light by the revelations of the trial doc.u.ments in the Vatican Library, honestly published for the first time by L'Epinois in 1867, and since that by Gebler, Berti, Favaro, and others.

The first important attack on Galileo began in 1610, when he announced that his telescope had revealed the moons of the planet Jupiter. The enemy saw that this took the Copernican theory out of the realm of hypothesis, and they gave battle immediately. They denounced both his method and its results as absurd and impious. As to his method, professors bred in the "safe science" favoured by the Church argued that the divinely appointed way of arriving at the truth in astronomy was by theological reasoning on texts of Scripture; and, as to his results, they insisted, first, that Aristotle knew nothing of these new revelations; and, next, that the Bible showed by all applicable types that there could be only seven planets; that this was proved by the seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse, by the seven-branched candlestick of the tabernacle, and by the seven churches of Asia; that from Galileo's doctrine consequences must logically result destructive to Christian truth. Bishops and priests therefore warned their flocks, and mult.i.tudes of the faithful besought the Inquisition to deal speedily and sharply with the heretic.(56)

(56) See Delambre on the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter as the turning-point with the heliocentric doctrine. As to its effects on Bacon, see Jevons, p. 638, as above. For argument drawn from the candlestick and the seven churches, see Delambre, p. 20.

In vain did Galileo try to prove the existence of satellites by showing them to the doubters through his telescope: they either declared it impious to look, or, if they did look, denounced the satellites as illusions from the devil. Good Father Clavius declared that "to see satellites of Jupiter, men had to make an instrument which would create them." In vain did Galileo try to save the great truths he had discovered by his letters to the Benedictine Castelli and the Grand-d.u.c.h.ess Christine, in which he argued that literal biblical interpretation should not be applied to science; it was answered that such an argument only made his heresy more detestable; that he was "worse than Luther or Calvin."

The war on the Copernican theory, which up to that time had been carried on quietly, now flamed forth. It was declared that the doctrine was proved false by the standing still of the sun for Joshua, by the declarations that "the foundations of the earth are fixed so firm that they can not be moved," and that the sun "runneth about from one end of the heavens to the other."(57)

(57) For principle points as given, see Libri, Histoire des Sciences mathematiques en Italie, vol. iv, p. 211; De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 26, for account of Father Clavius. It is interesting to know that Clavius, in his last years, acknowledged that "the whole system of the heavens is broken down, and must be mended," Cantu, Histoire Universelle, vol.

xv, p. 478. See Th. Martin, Galilee, pp. 34, 208, and 266; also h.e.l.ler, Geschichte der Physik, Stuttgart, 1882, vol. i, p. 366. For the original doc.u.ments, see L'Epinois, pp.34 and 36; or better, Gebler's careful edition of the trial (Die Acten des Galileischen Processes, Stuttgart, 1877), pp. 47 et seq. Martin's translation seems somewhat too free. See also Gebler, Galileo Galilei, English translation, London, 1879, pp.

76-78; also Reusch, Der Process Galilei's und die Jesuiten, Bonn, 1879, chaps. ix, x, xi.

But the little telescope of Galileo still swept the heavens, and another revelation was announced--the mountains and valleys in the moon. This brought on another attack. It was declared that this, and the statement that the moon shines by light reflected from the sun, directly contradict the statement in Genesis that the moon is "a great light."

To make the matter worse, a painter, placing the moon in a religious picture in its usual position beneath the feet of the Blessed Virgin, outlined on its surface mountains and valleys; this was denounced as a sacrilege logically resulting from the astronomer's heresy.

Still another struggle was aroused when the hated telescope revealed spots upon the sun, and their motion indicating the sun's rotation.

Monsignor Elci, head of the University of Pisa, forbade the astronomer Castelli to mention these spots to his students. Father Busaeus, at the University of Innspruck, forbade the astronomer Scheiner, who had also discovered the spots and proposed a SAFE explanation of them, to allow the new discovery to be known there. At the College of Douay and the University of Louvain this discovery was expressly placed under the ban, and this became the general rule among the Catholic universities and colleges of Europe. The Spanish universities were especially intolerant of this and similar ideas, and up to a recent period their presentation was strictly forbidden in the most important university of all--that of Salamanca.(58)

(58) See Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, vol. iii.

Such are the consequences of placing the instruction of men's minds in the hands of those mainly absorbed in saving men's souls. Nothing could be more in accordance with the idea recently put forth by sundry ecclesiastics, Catholic and Protestant, that the Church alone is empowered to promulgate scientific truth or direct university instruction. But science gained a victory here also. Observations of the solar spots were reported not only from Galileo in Italy, but from Fabricius in Holland. Father Scheiner then endeavoured to make the usual compromise between theology and science. He promulgated a pseudo-scientific theory, which only provoked derision.

The war became more and more bitter. The Dominican Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and this wretched pun upon the great astronomer's name ushered in sharper weapons; for, before Caccini ended, he insisted that "geometry is of the devil," and that "mathematicians should be banished as the authors of all heresies." The Church authorities gave Caccini promotion.

Father Lorini proved that Galileo's doctrine was not only heretical but "atheistic," and besought the Inquisition to intervene. The Bishop of Fiesole screamed in rage against the Copernican system, publicly insulted Galileo, and denounced him to the Grand-Duke. The Archbishop of Pisa secretly sought to entrap Galileo and deliver him to the Inquisition at Rome. The Archbishop of Florence solemnly condemned the new doctrines as unscriptural; and Paul V, while petting Galileo, and inviting him as the greatest astronomer of the world to visit Rome, was secretly moving the Archbishop of Pisa to pick up evidence against the astronomer.

But by far the most terrible champion who now appeared was Cardinal Bellarmin, one of the greatest theologians the world has known. He was earnest, sincere, and learned, but insisted on making science conform to Scripture. The weapons which men of Bellarmin's stamp used were purely theological. They held up before the world the dreadful consequences which must result to Christian theology were the heavenly bodies proved to revolve about the sun and not about the earth. Their most tremendous dogmatic engine was the statement that "his pretended discovery vitiates the whole Christian plan of salvation." Father Lecazre declared "it casts suspicion on the doctrine of the incarnation." Others declared, "It upsets the whole basis of theology. If the earth is a planet, and only one among several planets, it can not be that any such great things have been done specially for it as the Christian doctrine teaches. If there are other planets, since G.o.d makes nothing in vain, they must be inhabited; but how can their inhabitants be descended from Adam? How can they trace back their origin to Noah's ark? How can they have been redeemed by the Saviour?" Nor was this argument confined to the theologians of the Roman Church; Melanchthon, Protestant as he was, had already used it in his attacks on Copernicus and his school.

In addition to this prodigious theological engine of war there was kept up a fire of smaller artillery in the shape of texts and scriptural extracts.

But the war grew still more bitter, and some weapons used in it are worth examining. They are very easily examined, for they are to be found on all the battlefields of science; but on that field they were used with more effect than on almost any other. These weapons are the epithets "infidel" and "atheist." They have been used against almost every man who has ever done anything new for his fellow-men. The list of those who have been denounced as "infidel" and "atheist" includes almost all great men of science, general scholars, inventors, and philanthropists.

The purest Christian life, the n.o.blest Christian character, have not availed to shield combatants. Christians like Isaac Newton, Pascal, Locke, Milton, and even Fenelon and Howard, have had this weapon hurled against them. Of all proofs of the existence of a G.o.d, those of Descartes have been wrought most thoroughly into the minds of modern men; yet the Protestant theologians of Holland sought to bring him to torture and to death by the charge of atheism, and the Roman Catholic theologians of France thwarted him during his life and prevented any due honours to him after his death.(59)

(59) For various objectors and objections to Galileo by his contemporaries, see Libri, Histoire des Sciences mathematiques en Italie, vol. iv, p. 233, 234; also Martin, Vie de Galilee. For Father Lecazre's argument, see Flammarion, Mondes imaginaires et mondes reels, 6th ed., pp. 315, 316. For Melanchthon's argument, see his Initia in Opera, vol. iii, Halle, 1846.

These epithets can hardly be cla.s.sed with civilized weapons. They are burning arrows; they set fire to ma.s.ses of popular prejudice, always obscuring the real question, sometimes destroying the attacking party.

They are poisoned weapons. They pierce the hearts of loving women; they alienate dear children; they injure a man after life is ended, for they leave poisoned wounds in the hearts of those who loved him best--fears for his eternal salvation, dread of the Divine wrath upon him. Of course, in these days these weapons, though often effective in vexing good men and in scaring good women, are somewhat blunted; indeed, they not infrequently injure the a.s.sailants more than the a.s.sailed. So it was not in the days of Galileo; they were then in all their sharpness and venom.(60)