The Freedom of Science Part 12

An Erroneous Supposition.

The errors just dealt with, and the demand that scientific research must doubt everything, is based on a supposition often stated expressly as a principle, and which appears quite plausible even to a mind not trained in philosophy. It says: There is but one certainty, the scientific certainty; the certain possession of the truth can be obtained only by scientific research. To rid the world of error, we are told, "there is but one way, viz., scientific work. Only science and scientific truth are able to dispose of error" (_Th. Lipps_, Allgemeine Zeitung, Muenchen, August 4, 1908). "Truth is scientific truth, based on criticism, hence the religion of modern man must also rest on critical truth.... There is no other authority but science" (_Masaryk_, Kampf um die Religion, 13).

This sort of speech we hear from the college chair as the slogan for education and enlightenment: any one deficient in science or in education belongs more or less to the unthinking ma.s.s who have no convictions of their own, but submit blindly to impressions and authority.

Such unclarified conceptions, with their inferences, are even met with where they would not be expected, for instance, we read: "What the average individual needed was a good shepherd, a shepherd's devotion and love, that uplifts and urges onward; it was authority, Church-ministry and care of souls, that was needed.

The Church is an organized pastorate, for the average individual likes to go with the flock. The chosen are they who feel within themselves the great question of truth as the care of their heart and task of their life, who experience its tremendous tension, and who are struggling to the end with the intellectual battles provoked by this question of truth. The average people, _i.e._, the many, the great majority, need something steady to which they can cling-persons and teachers, laws and practice." And why this uncharitable distinction between people belonging to the flock and the chosen ones, as if the Church and its ecclesiastical functions were only appointed for the former? Particularly because "without methodical scientific work man cannot attain to the truth" (_H.

Sch.e.l.l_, Christus, 1900, 125, 64).

Thus science may summon everything before its forum, no one having a right to interfere; in the superiority bestowed by the right of autocracy it may sweep aside everything that is opposed to it, no matter by what authority.

Hence science must be free to jolt everything, free to question the truth of everything, which it has not itself examined and approved. This is the fundamental supposition of modern freedom of science; also a fatal error, betraying a woeful ignorance of the construction of the human intellect, in spite of all its pretentiousness. As a rule we have a true certainty in most matters, particularly in philosophical-religious convictions, a certainty not gained by scientific studies; by aid of the latter we may explain or strengthen that certainty, but we are not free to upset it.

We cannot avoid examining this point a little closer. There is a twofold certainty, one, which we shall call the _natural_ certainty, is a firm conviction based on positive knowledge, but without a clear reflexive consciousness of the grounds on which the conviction is actually resting.

Reason recognizes these grounds, but the recognition is not distinct enough for reason to become conscious of them, to be able to state them accurately and in scientific formulas. _scientific_ certainty is a firm conviction, with a clear consciousness of the grounds, hence it can easily account for them. Natural certainty is the usual one in human life; scientific certainty is the privilege of but a few, and even they have it in but very few things.

Everybody has a positive intellectual certainty that a complicated order cannot be the result of accident, and that for every event there must be a cause, though not every one will be able readily to demonstrate the truth of his certainty. But if the philosopher should look for the proof, he would do so in no other way than by reflecting upon his natural and direct knowledge, and by trying to become conscious of what he has thus directly found out. To ill.u.s.trate by a few examples: We are all convinced of the existence of an exterior world, and any one who is not an idealist will call this conviction a reasonable certainty, and yet only a few will be able to answer the subtle questions of a sceptic. This certainty again is a natural but not a scientific one. How difficult it is here also for reason to attain scientific certainty, how easy it is to go astray in these researches, is proved by the errors of idealism so incomprehensible to the untrained natural mind. Let us ask, finally, any one: Why must we say: "_Caesar_ defeated _Pompey_," but not "_Caesar_ defeated of _Pompey_"? He will tell us this is nonsense; maybe he will add that the genitive has another meaning. But should I ask further how the meaning of the genitive differs from that of the accusative, as both cases seem to have often the same meaning, I shall get no answer. There is a cert.i.tude, but only a natural one.

Even if I should ask modern students of the psychology and history of languages, like _Wundt_, _Paul_, or whatever their names may be, I should not get a satisfactory answer either. The whole logic of language, with its subtle forms and moods of expression-how difficult for scientific research! And yet the mind of even a child penetrates it, and not only a European child, but the Patagonian and negro child, who is able to master by its intellectual power complex languages, with four numbers, many moods, fourteen tenses, etc.

These examples will suffice, though volumes of them could be written. They show us clearly a twofold certainty. The difference between the natural and scientific certainty is not that the former is a blind conviction formed at random, but only that one is not clearly conscious of the reasons on which it rests, whereas this is the case in scientific cert.i.tude. We see further the untrained power of the intellect manifest itself in natural knowledge and certainty; for this purpose it is primarily created; philosophical thought is difficult for it, and many have no talent at all for it. It is also unfailing in apprehending directly things pertaining to human life. Here the mind is free of that morbid scepticism of which it too easily becomes a prey when it begins to investigate and probe scientifically. What it there sees with certainty cannot always be found here distinctly, and thus the mind begins to doubt things it was. .h.i.therto sure of, and which often remain instinctively certain to the mind despite its artificial doubts. Now we can also understand why philosophers so often have doubts which to the untrained look absurd, and why philosophers differ in their opinions on most important things, whereas mankind guided by its natural cert.i.tude is unanimous in them.

This certainty is destined to be the reliable guide of man through life.

It precedes science, and can even exist without it. Long before there was a science of art and of jurisprudence the Babylonians and Egyptians had built their monuments, and _Solon_ and _Lycurgus_ had given their wise laws. And long before philosophers were disputing about the moral laws, men had the right view in regard to virtue and vice (cf. _Cicero_, De Oratore, I, 32). The same cert.i.tude is also destined to guide man in the more important questions, in the questions of religion and morality. The Creator of human nature and its destiny, who implanted instinct in the animal to guide it unconsciously in the necessities of life, has also given to man the necessary light to perceive with certainty truths without which it would be impossible to live a life worthy of man.

It is just this natural knowledge and cert.i.tude that gives man certainty of divine revelation, after G.o.d vouchsafed to give it to mankind for its unfailing guidance and help. For revelation was not only intended for theologians, Bible critics, philosophers, and Church-historians, but for all. And G.o.d has taken care, as He had to do, that man has ample evidence that G.o.d has spoken, and that the Church is the authorized Guardian of this revelation, even without critical research in history and philosophy.

We have elsewhere briefly stated this evidence in the words of the Vatican Council.

This evidence is seen in the invincible stability of the Church and its unity of faith, the incontestable miracles never ceasing within it, the grand figures of its Saints and Martyrs, virtue in the various cla.s.ses, a virtue increasing in proportion to the influence the Church exerts, the spectacle that everything truly n.o.ble is attracted by the Christian faith and the contrary repulsed. In addition the intrinsic grandeur and harmony of the truths of faith, above all the unique figure of Christ, with His wonderful life and sufferings, also the calm and peace of mind effected in the soul of the faithful by living and thinking in this faith; all these tell him that here the spirit of G.o.d is breathing, the spirit of truth. The natural light of his intellect, further illuminated by grace, suffices to give him a true intellectual certainty of his faith, based upon these motives and similar ones, even without scientific studies. The calmness of the mind that holds fast to this faith, the compunction and unrest which follow defection from the faith, both so characteristic of Catholics, prove that their minds embrace the truth in their faith.

Hence it betrays little philosophical knowledge of the peculiarity of man's intellectual life, if infidelity approaches an inexperienced, believing student, perhaps even an uneducated labourer, with the express a.s.surance that his faith hitherto has been but a blind belief, an unintelligent following of the lead of a foreign authority, with the distinct admonition to turn his back on the faith of his childhood.

What has been said above makes it clear why a Catholic is not permitted to have a serious doubt about his faith under the pretext that he ought first to form a certain conviction all for himself by scientific investigation. He has it already, if we presuppose sufficient instruction and normal conditions; he may raise his natural cert.i.tude to a scientific one by study if he has the time and talent for it, but he must not condition his a.s.sent upon the success of his scientific investigations. He has cert.i.tude; he has no right to demand scientific knowledge as a necessary condition, because it is not required for cert.i.tude, and also because it lies altogether outside of the conditions of human life. It would amount simply to shaking off the yoke of truth. The Church teaches as follows: "If any one says that the condition of the faithful and of those who have not yet come to the only true faith is equal, so that Catholics can have a just cause for suspending their a.s.sent and calling in question the faith which they have received by the ministry of the Church until they have completed the scientific demonstration of the credibility and truth of it, let him be anathema."

How high this wisdom rises above the limited thought of a science that imagines itself alone to be wise! Sad indeed would be the lot of mankind could it attain to certain truth in the most important questions of life only by lengthy scientific investigations. The overwhelming majority of mankind would be forever excluded from the certain knowledge that there is a G.o.d, an eternity, liberty, that there are immutable moral laws and truths, on the value of which depends the woe and weal of humanity.

Behold the wisdom of the world that is put before us: "In order to arrive at a definite conclusion by our own philosophical reasoning (on the existence of G.o.d and the possibility of miracles) what a mult.i.tude of things must be presupposed!" Thus we are informed in a philosophical novel of modern times which aims at proving the incompatibility of the Catholic duty to believe with the freedom of the intellect [Katholische Studenten, by _A. Friedwald_ (nom de plume). An explanation of the ideas contained in it is given by the Academia 18, 1905-6, December and March. The ideas found in the novel are also advanced by _A. Messer_, Einfuhrung in die Erkenntnistheorie, 1909, p. 158 _seq._]. And Prof. _Rhodius_, who put the ideas of the novel in formulas, teaches: "The question whether our knowledge could penetrate beyond what we know by our experience and even our senses, is answered, as you know, in the negative by a noted philosophical school. Hence, before attacking those metaphysical questions regarding the existence of G.o.d and His relations to the world, we must first try to have definite views as to the essence of human knowledge, of its criterion, its scope, and of the degrees of its certainty. But these preliminary questions of theoretic knowledge, how difficult and perplexing they are! You probably have not the faintest idea into what a ma.s.s of individual problems the main questions must be dissected, nor what a mult.i.tude of heterogeneous views are struggling here against one another" (p. 181).

Consider how shortsighted a wisdom is manifested by these words.

Is it seriously intended to summon the peasant from his plough, the old grandmother from behind the stove, and lead them into the lecture rooms of the university in order that they might there listen to lectures on phenomenalism, and positivism, and realism, and criticism, until their heads are swimming? Or else can they not hope to arrive at the truth? Do they seriously think that the truth asked for by every man, the truth in the most vital questions of mankind, is the exclusive privilege of a few college professors? And how very few. More than twenty-four hundred years have elapsed since the days of _Pythagoras_, and yet modern philosophy still stands before the first preliminary question in all knowledge, whether a man can know what the eye does not see.

"Many views are at variance there." If this be the only way for mankind to reach certain truth, then we are indeed in a pitiful plight!

We esteem philosophy and its subtle questions, and we heartily wish our Catholic young men in college to obtain a more thorough philosophical training. But if, involved in theories, one will lose his insight into the world and human life to such a degree as to make of the "wisdom of the world" an isolated narrow speculation which boasts of being alone able to discover the higher truths, while withering in neurasthenic doubt-such wisdom should be left to its deserved fate, sterility.

Or should it be possible to the ideal of Protestantism-and therefore also of the modern spirit-to console mankind by pointing out that the knowledge of the question which concerns us most deeply, "the knowledge of G.o.d and the knowledge of good, remains but a leading idea and problem, though we are confident of advancing nearer to its solution"? Is thus mankind to be eternally without light in the most important questions and problems? Every little plant and animal is equipped by nature with everything it needs-and man alone to be a failure? The young shoots of the tree strive to bring forth blossoms and fruit, and succeed; the bird flies off in the fall in quest of a new home, and finds it; hunger and thirst demand food and get it; only the aim of the human mind shall never be fulfilled-he alone shall ever pine without hope!-_Dicentes se esse sapientes stulti facti sunt._ What a difference between such principles and the grand thoughts of Christianity! A difference like that between peace and eternal restless doubt, like that between man's dignity and man's degradation, between man's short-sightedness and the wisdom of G.o.d.

Hence the result of our discussion is: independent of science mankind has its positive convictions, independent of science it finds here rest and gratification in its longing for truth. Scientific study and research are for the purpose of setting these truths in a brighter light, of defending the patrimony of mankind. But the fosterer of science must not claim the freedom to ignore these positive convictions in himself and in others, to endanger the patrimony of mankind by doubts and attacks instead of protecting it, much less must he condemn the human mind to the eternal labour of _Sisyphus_, to the eternal rolling of a huge stone which, recoiling, must always be lifted anew.

Chapter IV. Accusations And Objections.

Among the notable facts in history one stands out prominently, it is more remarkable than any other, and evokes serious thought. It is the fact that the Christian religion, especially its foremost representative, the Catholic Church, concerning which every unbia.s.sed critic is bound to admit that none has made more nations moral, happy and great than this Church; that nowhere else has virtue and holiness flourished more than in her; that no one else has laboured more for truth and purity of morals; that nevertheless there is not, and never was, an inst.i.tution which has more enemies, which has been more persecuted, than the Catholic Church. This fact will suggest to every serious-minded critic the question, whether we have not here focussed that tremendous struggle, which truth and justice have ever waged in the bosom of mankind against error and pa.s.sions-an image of the struggle raging in every human breast. The Church recognizes in this fact the fulfilment of the prophecy of her Founder: "And ye shall be hated by all men for my name's sake" (Luke xxi. 17). And the Church may add, that in her alone this prophecy is being fulfilled.

The Enemy of Progress.

In her journey through the centuries the Church has had to listen to many accusations because she, the keeper of the truth entrusted to her care, has refused to respond to the demand to accept unconditionally the ideals devised by existing fashions. _Cantavimus vobis et non saltastis_ (we have piped to you and you have not danced). Therefore the Church has been called reactionary; the heretics of the first centuries of Christianity denounced her as the enemy of the higher gnosis; a later period denounced her as an enemy of the genuine humanism, in the eighteenth century she was denounced as the enemy of enlightenment, to-day she is denounced as the enemy of progress. Again the Church is accused before the judicial bar of the children of the age. They desire to eat plentifully from the tree of knowledge, but the Church, they say, prevents them. They wish to climb the heights of human perfection, to ascend higher than any preceding generation, but the Church holds them back. She will keep them in the fetters of her guardianship. And with a keen, searching eye the smart children of our age have looked the old Church over, taking notice of everything, anxious to put her in the wrong.

Their charges do not fail to make an impression, even on the Church herself. She wishes to justify herself before the plaintiffs, and still more before her own children who trust in her. Thus she has not hesitated in declaring loudly on most solemn occasions that _she is not an enemy of n.o.ble science_ and of human progress, and with great earnest she takes exception to this charge.

No wonder, one might say, that the Church makes such a.s.surances. It is time for her to realize that unless she can clear herself from it this accusation will be her moral ruin at a time when the banner of progress is held aloft, and when even the Catholic world shares in that progress.

True, but let us not forget this: if there is anything characteristic of the Catholic Church it is her frankness and honesty. She is not afraid to proclaim her doctrines and judgments before the whole world; she leaves her Index and Syllabus open for inspection, openly avowing that she is the irreconcilable enemy of that emanc.i.p.ated freedom proclaimed by modern liberalism as the ideal of the age. It is the honesty which she inherited from her Founder, who told the truth to friend and enemy, to His disciples and to the Scribes, to _Nicodemus_, that lonely night, and to _Caiaphas_.

With the same straightforwardness the Church declares that she feels not enmity but sympathy toward civilization. A fair-minded critic will admit here again that the Church is in earnest. "Far from opposing the fostering of human arts and sciences, the Church is supporting and promoting them in various ways," declares the Vatican Council. "The Church does not underrate nor despise their advantages for human life: on the contrary, it avows that they, coming as they do from G.o.d, the Master of the sciences, also lead to G.o.d by aid of His grace, when properly used" (Sess. III, c.

4). The Church has put this accusation on the list of errors of the age condemned by _Pius X._ (Sent. 57). She feels the charge as an injury.

The Testimony of History.

Nevertheless, in anti-ecclesiastical circles it is taken very often for an established fact that the Roman Church has ever tried her best to hamper the progress of science, or has suppressed it, or at least scowled at it.

How could it be otherwise? they say. How could she favour the progress made in enlightening reason or in advancing human knowledge? Must she not fear for its intellectual sway over men whom she keeps under the yoke of faith? Must she not fear that they might awaken from the slumber in which they were held prisoners by the suggestive force of her authority, held to be transcendental; that they might awaken to find out the truth for themselves? And what is the use of science? He that believes will be saved: hence faith suffices. If we wish to hear the accusation in the language of militant science, here it is: "Outside the monastic inst.i.tutions no attempt at intellectual advancement was made (in the Middle Ages), indeed, so far as the laity were concerned, the influence of the Church was directed to an opposite result, for the maxim universally received was, that 'ignorance is the mother of devotion' " (_J. W.

Draper_, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science).

This is the train of thought and the result of anti-ecclesiastical a-priorism and its historical research. Are the plain facts of history in accord with it? The first and immediate task of the Church is certainly not to disseminate science: her task, first of all, lies in the province of morals and religion. But as she is the highest power of morality and religion, she stands in the midst of mankind's intellectual life, and cannot but come in contact with its other endeavours, owing to the close unity of that life. Hence, let us ask history, not about everything it might tell us in this respect, but about one thing only.

We do not wish to show how the Church, headed by the Papacy, has become the mother of Western civilization and culture. Nor shall we enumerate the merits of the Church in art, nor point out the alertness she has certainly shown, in her walk through the centuries, by taking up the intellectual achievements of the time and a.s.similating them with her moral and religious treasure of faith, withal preserved unchanged. The old Church had done this with the treasures of ancient learning and science; "this spirit of Christianity proved itself by the facility with which Christian thinkers gathered the truth contained in the systems of old philosophy, and, even before that, by a.s.similating those old truths into Christian thought, the beginning of which had already been made in the New Testament. They were appropriated, without hesitating experiment, without wavering, and were given their place in a higher order" (_O. Willmann_, Gesch. des Idealismus, 2d ed., II, 1907, 67). This, she unceasingly continues to do, as proved by the high standard of Catholic life and Catholic science at the present, a fact not even disputed by opponents. We point only incidentally to _the foundation and the fostering of primary schools_ by the Church. It is an historical fact that public education began to thrive only with the freer unfolding of the Church.

The first elementary schools were those of the monasteries. Later on there were established after their pattern the cathedral and chapter schools, then the parish schools. Still later there came the town and village schools-all of ecclesiastical origin, or at least under the direction of the Church and in close connection with her. As early as 774 we find an ecclesiastical school law, to the effect that each Bishop should found an ecclesiastical school in his episcopal town and appoint a competent teacher to instruct "according to the tradition of the Romans." _Eugene II._ ordained in 826 anew that efficient teachers should be provided for the cathedral schools wherever needed, who were "to lecture on the sciences and the liberal arts with zeal." "All Bishops should have the liberal arts taught at their churches," was a resolution of the Council held in Rome in 1079 by _Gregory VII._ We read in the acts of the Lateran Synod of 1179: "Inasmuch as it behooves the Church, like a loving mother, to see to it that poor children who cannot count upon the support of their parents should not lack opportunity of learning to read and make progress, there should at every cathedral church be given an adequate prebend to the teacher-who is to teach the clerics of this church and the poor pupils gratuitously" (_E. Michael_, Gesch. des Deutschen Volkes II, 1899, 370). School education flourished more and more; in the thirteenth century it was in full bloom. In Germany even many unimportant places, market towns, boroughs, and villages had their schools at that time. In Mayence and its immediate neighbourhood there were, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, seven chapter schools; at Muenster at least four schools; the clerical schools at Erfurt had an attendance of no less than 1,000 pupils. About the year 1400 the diocese of Prague alone had 460 schools. In the middle Rhine district, about the year 1500, many counties had an elementary school for every radius of two leagues; even rural communities with 500 to 600 inhabitants, like Weisenau near Mainz, and Michaelstadt in Odenwald, did not lack schools. (_J. Janssen_, Gesch. des Deutschen Volkes, 15th ed., 1890, 26; cf. Michael, 1.

c. 402, 417-419; _Palacky_, Gesch. v. Boehmen, III, 1, p. 186).

Even in far-off Transylvania there was, as early as the fourteenth century, no village without a church and a school (_K. Th.

Becker_, Die Volksschule der Siebenbuerger Sachsen, 1894, y; Michael, 430). There is no doubt that this flourishing state of schools was due in the first place to the stimulus, support, and unselfish effort of the Church.

But we will not dwell longer on this subject. We wish, however, to point out more plainly something more closely related to our subject, viz., _the att.i.tude of the Church towards the universities_, at a time when the most prominent nurseries of science were first coming into existence and beginning to flourish, when they began to exert their influence upon the civilization of Europe. Here, in the first place, it should become clear whether it be true that the Church has ever looked upon the progress of science with suspicion or even suppressed it. History teaches, in this instance again, that no one has shown more interest, more devotion, more readiness, to make sacrifices in promoting the establishment and growth of the university, than the Church.