The Freedom of Science Part 19

Among them we meet, in the first place, the noted geologist and zoologist, _Cuvier_ (died 1832), a faithful Protestant: also the foremost French geologist of his time, _L. De Beaumont_ (died 1874), "a Christian in all things and a steadfast Christian ...

which he remained through his whole life;" so _Dumas_ testifies of him in his obituary (Comptes Rendus, 1874). Then there is _J.

Barrande_, the untiring explorer of the antediluvian strata of Bohemia. He came in 1830 to Bohemia with the banished royal family, as _Chambord's_ teacher, and died 1883 at Frohsdorf near Vienna. He was a pious Catholic. The volumes of his works are nearly all dated on Catholic feasts. The recently deceased French geologist, _A. De Lapparent_, was a practical Catholic, and such were the two Belgian geologists, _J. d'Omalius_ (died 1875), and _A. Dumont_ (died 1857), to both of whom Belgium owes its geological exploration. The English geologists, _Buckland_ (died 1856), _Hitchc.o.c.k_ (died 1864), and _A. Sedgwick_ (died 1872), were ministers of the English Church. _J. Dwight Dana_ (died 1895), the foremost geologist of North America, begins his celebrated text-book of geology with a homage to his Creator, and concludes it by paying tribute to Holy Writ. _W. Dawson_ (died 1899) the worthy geological explorer of his native land, Canada, published several apologetic dissertations on the Bible and Nature. A kindred sentiment animated the German scientists, _Bischof_ (died 1870), _Quenstedt_ (died 1898), the geologist of Suabia _Pfaff_ (died 1886), _Schafhaeutl_ (died 1890), and the equally pious as learned Swiss geologist _O. Heer_ (died 1883).

They all have much to say about the greatness of their Creator, but not a word of any insolvable contradictions between the Bible and geologic research.

As a last division of an imposing phalanx, there are now the biologists and physiologists. Modern biology, as the science of life, has in the eyes of many accomplished the bold deed of demonstrating the superfluity of a soul distinct from matter. Claim is made that it has sufficiently explained the sensitive and mental life by the sole agency of physical and chemical forces, and thus to have removed the boundary between live and dead matter. It is said, further, that biology in conjunction with zoology and botany has furnished proof that the wonderful organic forms of life may be explained by purely natural causes, without having to a.s.sume as an ultimate cause the act of a higher intelligence; that a never ceasing evolution is the sole ultimate cause,-creation is made superfluous by evolution. Biology is thus claimed to have refuted the old dualism of soul and matter, of world and G.o.d, and to have awarded the palm to monism.

Are the eminent representatives of this science really the materialists and monists they would have to be, if all this were true? The foremost physiologist of the nineteenth century was _J. Muller_ (died 1858), buried in the Catholic cemetery at Berlin. He was a decided opponent of materialism; he not only contended for the existence of a spiritual soul, but also for an immaterial vital force in plants. _Th. Schwann_ (died 1882) is the founder of the cellular theory. In the year 1839 he accepted a call to take the chair of anatomy at the Catholic University of Louvain.

One of the most prominent physiologists of the nineteenth century was _A.

Volkmann_ (died 1877). He was a stout champion of the spirituality and immortality of the soul, of purposive cause in animated beings, and an opponent of _Darwin's_ theory. _G. J. Mendel_ (died 1884) became by his work on _Experimenting with Hybrid Plants_ the pioneer of the modern theory of hereditary transmission, adopted by modern biology; and scientists like _H. de Vries_, _Correns_, _Tschermak_, and _Bateson_ followed his lead. "His important laws of hereditary transmission are the best so far offered by the research in this field" (_Muckermann_, Grundriss der Biologie). He was a Catholic priest, and the abbot of the Augustinian Monastery at Old-Brunn. _Karl von Vierordt_ (died 1884) is well known by his "Manual of Physiology," still in demand as a reference book in the libraries of universities. In 1865 he delivered a speech at the Tubingen University on the unity of science, concluding with this appeal to the students: "Until your religious notions become clear by a mature insight, trust in the well-meant a.s.surance that the belief in the divinity of the religion of Jesus has not been put falsely into your heart. True piety is equally remote from narrow pietism as from freethinking indifference; it leaves to reason its full rights, but it also a.s.sures to us the faculty to be aware, in joyful confidence in Almighty Providence, of an immaterial and for us eternal destiny." _Ch.

Ehrenberg_ (died 1876) is the explorer of the world of little things: of infusoria and protozoa. He did not countenance _Haeckel's_ materialism nor _Darwin's_ denial of teleology: to him they were fantastic theories and romances. A friend of his, and of the same mind, was _K. von Martius_, who admired G.o.d's wisdom in the wonders of the world of vegetation. Long before his death he ordered his burial dress to be made of white cloth embroidered with a green cross,-"a cross because I am a Christian, and green in honour of botany." Another renowned name may be mentioned, that of the Austrian anatomist _J. Hyrtl_ (died 1894).

In the years when materialism was flourishing, _Hyrtl_ was painfully grieved to see science fall into disrepute through the fault of individuals. He gave vent to his indignation on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the Vienna University (1864), when, having been elected Rector, and being considered the greatest celebrity at that college, he delivered his inaugural speech on the materialistic tendency of our times. Summing up he said: "I am at a loss how to explain what scientific grounds there are to defend and fortify a revival of the old materialistic views of an _Epicurus_ and a _Lucretius_, and to endeavour to insure to it a permanent rule.... Its success is due to the boldness of its a.s.sertion and to the prevailing spirit of the time, which popularizes teachings of this sort the more willingly, the more danger they seem to entail for the existing order of things." It was the same protest made some years later by another famous scientist against "the dangerous opinion that there were dogmas of natural science in inimical opposition to the highest ideals of the human mind." He stated that "it would be a desirable reward for the efforts of our foremost naturalists to erect with the aid of anthropology a barrier to this error which is so demoralizing for the people" (_J. Ranke_, Der Mensch, 1894).

_Hyrtl's_ speech at once aroused a storm of indignation in the liberal press of Vienna, and the great scientist, until then honoured and extolled, became the object of denunciation and sneer. Thus was the freedom of science understood in those circles.

_Haeckel_ was much vexed by two fellow scientists, _M. von Baer_ (died 1876) and _G. J. Romanes_ (died 1894). _Baer_ was prominent in the science of evolution. He was led to theism by his studies.

_Romanes_, a friend of _Darwin_, had been an adherent of materialism, but through serious study he returned to the belief in G.o.d and Christianity. His posthumous work, "Thoughts on Religion, a scientist's religious evolution from Atheism to Christianity," furnishes a brilliant voucher thereof. _Romanes's_ conversion was a sad blow for _Haeckel_. However, he constructed an explanation to give himself comfort. "When the news of this conversion," he wrote, "was first circulated by a friend of _Romanes_, a zealous English Churchman, the a.s.sumption suggested itself to me that it was all a mystification and invention, for it is known that the fanatical champions of ecclesiastical superst.i.tion have never hesitated to pervert the truth to save their dogma. Later on, however, it was found that it was really an instance (a.n.a.logous to the case of old _Baer_) of one of those interesting psychological metamorphoses with which I have dealt in Chapter 6 of my book. _Romanes_ was in his last years a sick man.

It was pathological debility. The first condition, however, of an unbia.s.sed, pure conception of reason is the normal condition of its organ. His phronema was not in a normal condition." _Haeckel_ will have to rank among those whose phronema is not in a normal condition a good many other natural scientists; indeed, most of those of higher standing.

Every one knows the celebrated name of _Louis Pasteur_ (died 1895), the discoverer of various bacteria, of whom _Huxley_ says that his manifold inventions have repaid to French industry the five billion francs indemnity which France had to pay to Germany after the war. It is equally well known that _Pasteur_ was to his death a staunch Catholic. "As his soul departed, he held in his hands a small cross of bra.s.s, and his last words were the confession of faith and hope" (La Science Catholique, X, 1896, 182). The story is told that one of his pupils asked him how he could be so religious after all his thinking and studying. _Pasteur_ replied: "Just because I have thought and studied, I remained religious like a man of Brittany, and had I thought and studied still more, I would be as religious as a woman of Brittany" (Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 1896, 385).

In the year 1859 great commotion was caused in the world of thought by the appearance of _Darwin's_ book on the "Origin of Species." It stated that the various species had gradually evolved from most simple, primordial forms, and this by natural selection; not, therefore, in the sense that the Creator had put the laws of evolution into nature, but that in the struggle for existence the survival of the fittest was the result of natural selection. Soon it was claimed that man, too, in his rational life, was the result of an evolution from animal stages; indeed, the whole universe had arisen by the survival of the accidentally fittest. Evolution was to be subst.i.tuted for creation. In Germany, _E. Haeckel_ was the man who considered it the task of his life to spread those ideas as the established result of science. In our own time a belated high tide is sweeping over the intellectual lowlands.

_Darwin_ himself was an agnostic; to begin with, he lacked all religious training; his mother had died early, his father was a free-thinker, and his education at school was rationalistic. The doubt of all higher truths, and finally, according to his own confession, the doubt respecting the power of reason, were his companions through life. Yet he confesses: "... I never was an atheist in the sense that I would deny the existence of G.o.d. I think, in general (and more so the older I grow), but not at all times, agnostic would be a more accurate description of my state of mind" (_F. Darwin_, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, I, 304). Remarkable, however, is the following pa.s.sage at the end of _Darwin's_ chief work: "It is a great belief, indeed, of the Creator having breathed the embryo of all life surrounding us into a few forms, or in but one single form, and an endless row of most beautiful, most wonderful forms having evolved and are still evolving from such a simple beginning, while our planet, following the laws of gravitation, has steadily revolved in its circle."

What _Darwin_ was lacking in a high degree was a philosophical training of the mind.

In itself the _theory of evolution_, which a.s.serts the variability of species of animals and plants, is by no means opposed to religious truths. It neither includes a necessity of a.s.suming the origin of the human soul from the essentially lower animal soul, nor is it an atheistic theory. On the contrary, such an evolution would most clearly certify to G.o.d's wisdom in laying such a wonderful basis for the progress of nature, provided this theory could be proved by scientific facts; indeed, for an evolution within narrow limits, circ.u.mstantial evidence is not lacking. That there is no contradiction between the theory of evolution and the fundamental tenets of Christian Creed is sufficiently shown by the representatives of the theory. _Lamarck_ (died 1829) and _Saint-Hilaire_ (died 1844), both of them representatives of the theory of evolution long before _Darwin_, believed in G.o.d. There were, prior to _Darwin_, two celebrated Catholic scientists, to wit, _Ampere_ and _d'Omalius_, who had decidedly taken the part of _Saint-Hilaire_ in his controversy with _Cuvier_. And also after _Darwin_, a number of Christian and Catholic scientists have contended for the idea of evolution, as, for instance, the pious Swiss geologist, _Heer_; also _Quenstedt_, _Volkmann_, and the American geologist, _Ch. Lyell_. More recently Catholic scientists have expressed themselves in favour of the theory of evolution; for instance, the noted zoologist, _E. Wasmann_, and the geologists _Lossen_ and _W. Waagen_, both of whom had to bring bitter sacrifices in their career on account of their Catholic faith.

Mature Science Respects Faith.

There have now pa.s.sed in review the great natural scientists of the past, those living at the present time we shall leave to the judgment of the future. Is it true, then, that the foremost representatives of natural science had the conviction that science and faith are incompatible? No! On the contrary, most of them, and the greatest of them, have professed the fundamental truths of religion, or have even been devout Christians themselves.

"Theism in natural science, or, if you prefer, in natural philosophy," so says a modern scientist, "rests upon the basis of a fundamental view which an old formula has clothed in words as simple as they are sublime: 'I believe in G.o.d, the Almighty Creator of Heaven and of Earth.' This confession does not cling to theistic scientists like an egg-sh.e.l.l from the time of unsophisticated childhood faith; it is the result of their entire scientific thought and judgment. This conviction has been professed by the most discerning natural scientists of all ages"

(_J. Reinke_, Naturwissenschaft und Religion).

Still it cannot be denied that some of the great scientists were of different mind, men like _R. von Virchow_, _Tyndall_, _A. von Humboldt_, _Du Bois-Reymond_. Nor shall it be disputed that, at the present time, a large number of men of average learning are on the side of unbelief.

However, it must not be forgotten that unbelief is more frequently pretended to the outside world for appearance's sake than it really dwells in the heart. This is, to a great extent, due to human respect, to public opinion, and the prevailing tendency of science. Then again, it must be remembered, that religiously minded scientists are often crowded out from the schools of science, with the natural result that the others predominate. Another point to be borne in mind is that the atheistic representatives of science are doing more to get themselves talked about; they are seeking more diligently the attention of public opinion. Men like _Tyndall_, _Vogt_, _Moleschott_, _Haeckel_, are known in larger circles than men like _Faraday_, _Maxwell_, _Ampere_, _Volta_, _Pasteur_, who, engaged in serious work, gave no time to making propaganda, as the others did by lecturing and popular writing for materialistic and monistic views in the name of science; they had no desire for the limelight of attention, and for posing as personified science.

All this does not change the fact that a very large number, indeed the largest number, of natural scientists of first rank were believers in G.o.d, or of pious, Christian mind. And that is of the greater importance. To do pioneer work in the field of science, to give impetus, to make progress, requires a penetrating and, at the same time, an independent mind, one that can rise above conventional commonplace. The fact that such men have largely been very religious, that they never belittled religion, weighs much more in the balance than the disparagement of inferior minds.

These, then, are the often-cited witnesses for the incompatibility of science and faith. While only taken from the province of natural science, they may in our case be deemed representative of science in general. For natural science is generally regarded the most exact of all, and as the one which, more than any other, has the scientific spirit said to be incompatible with faith, and which, by many, is believed to have brought about in the modern world of thought the irreconcilable conflict between faith and science. This is not so! Such antagonism does _not_ exist. It cannot exist, because it is certain from the outset that both faith and science unfold the truth. Truth, however, can never be in conflict with truth. Nor has that antagonism ever existed historically in any of the great representatives of science. This antagonism is fict.i.tious, it is false in its very essence. It is fabricated, either by distorting faith into a blind belief of absurd things, or else by distorting the human faculty of conception into infallible omniscience, or, the other extreme, by denying its faculty for a higher perception.

Faith has nothing to fear from a mature science that has arrived at the conviction of its cognitions, nor has it anything to fear from the great intellects who reason profoundly and seriously. But it has to fear mock-science and ignorance, and those small and superficial minds that aim at stretching their pseudo-knowledge to a gigantic infallibility.

THIRD SECTION. THE LIBERAL FREEDOM OF RESEARCH.

The Yoke of the Sun.

The gifted Danish writer and convert, _J. Jorgensen_, tells a parable which is pregnant with thought. "In the midst of a large rye-field," he relates, "there stood a tall poplar, with other trees standing nearby. One day the poplar turned to the other trees and plants, and thus began to speak: 'Sisters and brothers! To us, the glorious tribe of plants, belongs the earth, and everything upon it is dependent on us. We fertilize and feed ourselves, while beasts and men are fed and clothed by us. Indeed, the earth itself feeds upon our decaying leaves, upon our boughs and branches. There is only one power in the world our existence and growth is said to depend on; I refer to the Sun. I purposely used the words, "is said," because I am sure that we do not depend on the Sun. This doctrine of sunlight being a necessity and a benefit to our plant life is nothing but a superst.i.tion, which at last ought to give way to enlightenment.'

Here the poplar paused. From some old oaks and elms in the neighbouring grove there came signs of disapproval, but the inconstant rye-field muttered a.s.sent. Thus encouraged and raising its voice the poplar continued: 'I know well that there is a musty faction amongst us which clings obstinately to obsolete views. However, I have confidence in the independence of the younger generation of plants. They will realize the baseness of continuing to do homage to an absurd superst.i.tion. Our freeborn heads shall never bow to a yoke, not even to the yoke of the Sun.

Down, therefore, with that yoke! And free from restraint there will arise a free and beautiful generation that will astonish the world.' The poplar paused for the second time, and now the applause was long and loud, the fields cheered and the groves gave boisterous applause, so that the disapproval of a few old trees could not be heard. The following days looked upon an odd spectacle. At daybreak, when the Sun ascended and cast its first rays over the landscape, the flowers closed their cups and denied admission, as if asleep; the leaves no longer turned toward the Sun. But when the dispenser of warmth and light had gone down behind the hills, the gayly coloured flowers opened in the dim starlight, as if now the time had come for them to grow and blossom.

"Alas, how sad was the fate of these poor rebels! The rye soon began to languish till it lay p.r.o.ne on the ground; green leaves turned yellow, the flowers drooped, faded and withered. Then the plants began to grumble at the poplar. There it stood, its leaves a seared yellow. 'What simpletons you are, brothers and sisters!' it said. 'Can't you see that now you are much more like yourselves than under the rule of the Sun? Now you are refined, independent beings, well rid of the sluggish health of yore.'

There were some who still believed what the poplar said. 'We are independent, we are unfettered,' they clamoured, till the last spark of life was gone. Not long after the poplar, too, stood there with its branches bared,-it had died. The farmers, however, complained about the failing of the crop, and consoled themselves by hoping for better success the next year."

A parable of deep meaning! It may serve as an ill.u.s.tration for the facts stated, and for those yet to be dealt with.

According to the Christian view, man is dependent on his Creator, from whom he receives life and light, and, in the same way, his mind depends on truth, by which it lives as the plants live, by the light and the warmth of the sun. To many generations this was self-evident, and withal they felt themselves free, because they looked for the freedom only of the dependent creature. And, keeping within these bounds, they had a cheerful existence in the happy possession of their faith, contented and serene in the possession of truth; their higher spiritual life throve and flourished, promoted by the Eternal Giver of light and warmth, who held out to them the prospect of completing their mental life in the contemplation of His eternal truth.

What the fathers deemed self-evident has now become a problem to their sons. What to their fathers was lofty and revered, the things to which they ascribed their enn.o.blement, have become to the sons an obstacle to free development. They have forgotten what they are. They demand independence and freest realization of their own individuality, in which they see the sole source of greatness and progress. In every dependence they perceive a hampering of their natural development.

We have in previous chapters become acquainted with this _liberal freedom_, particularly in reasoning and in scientific research, the child of the philosophy of humanitarianism and subjectivism, the philosophy that emanc.i.p.ates man from G.o.d's rule, from the immutable religious truths, and which sees in this emanc.i.p.ation perfect freedom. We have listened to the arguments in behalf of this position, especially arguments against the duty to believe. All that we have set forth hitherto was to prove that such a freedom is not required. In the faithful adherence to G.o.d's revelation and to His Church there is no degradation of reason, an exaltation rather; because to join in the eternal reason of its Creator is not bondage but a privilege.

We proceed. We shall demonstrate that this freedom is not only not required, but that it is entirely untenable and ruinous; that it is especially so because it is urged and demanded in the name of truth and proper order, in the name of uplift of human intellectual life, and of progress towards real enlightenment. We shall see that this freedom is not a liberation from mean fetters, but simply a revolt against the natural order, an apostasy from G.o.d and the supernatural which one shuns. Hence, not the natural and orderly development of the human individual, but a principle of negation under the garb of freedom, the severance of man from the sources of his greatness and strength, the perversion of true science; not the only admissible scientific method, but an altogether unscientific method. We shall show that it becomes thereby the principle of mental pauperization and decay, a principle of mental decadence, which in the sphere of idealism will reduce mankind to beggary. Thereby public testimony is given that in the midst of mankind there is needed an intelligent force that preserves, with conscientious earnestness and unyielding firmness, the intellectual inheritance of mankind, the ideal treasures of truth and of morality.

Chapter I. Free From The Yoke Of The Supernatural.

Ignoramus, We Ignore.

The liberal principle of research rests on the basis of the humanitarian view of the world, which makes man autonomous, and causes him to turn his eyes from above and downward, and to fix them upon his earthly existence.

To remain true to its own idea, this liberal science will feel the necessity to sever itself gradually from the restraining powers of the world beyond, and to shun the thought of G.o.d and of His divine influence and supremacy over the world and human life. It must resent such truths as a burdensome yoke that oppresses human freedom.

And to this thought it remains faithful, if not in all its representatives, then at any rate in a good many of them. With unremitting persistency it enforces in all its domains the demand: _Science must not reckon with supernatural factors_. Ignoramus is its watchword, "we do not know it" in the sense of its usual agnosticism, but "we ignore it" in the spirit of the impulse which dreads the loss of its freedom through higher powers. Creation and miracles, divine revelation and the G.o.d-imposed duty of belief, it does not know. A moral law, as given by G.o.d, does not exist for this science. It wants nothing to do with a religion that worships a personal G.o.d, much less with a supernatural religion, with mysteries, miracles, and grace. It praises all the higher that modern religion of sentiment, without dogmas and religious duties, which sovereign man creates for himself, a poetical adornment of his individuality, a religion he need not ask what he owes it, but rather what it offers him. All connection with the world beyond is cut off. Man is now free in his own house. We shall show this in detail, by the testimony chiefly of men generally accepted as foremost representatives of modern science. We do not a.s.sert, however, that all representatives of modern science belong here. Far be it from us to sit in judgment as to the good intentions of the champions of liberal science. We know very well that an education indifferent to religion, early habitual a.s.sociation with the ideas of a sceptical, naturalistic philosophy, the acquisition of prejudices and unsolved difficulties, a continuous stay in an intellectual atmosphere foreign and inimical to religious belief-all this, we well understand, will gradually rob the mind of all inclination and unbia.s.sed judgment for religious truth, and thus make for apostasy from religion. Nor do we a.s.sert that the idea of G.o.d and Christianity are extinct in the hearts of the representatives of liberal science, but we do a.s.sert that their _science_ no longer wants to know G.o.d and His true religion, that only too often it is in the grip of a Theophobia, which slinks past G.o.d and His works, with its eyes designedly averted.