The Freedom of Science Part 29

For a generation and longer, _Haeckel_ misused science to make war upon religion, and went to the extreme in his scientific outrageousness, not even stopping at forgery. Professor _W. His_ had already in 1875 expressed his opinion of _Haeckel_ in relation to the false drawings of his embryonic ill.u.s.trations in the words: "Others may respect _Haeckel_ as an active and reckless leader: in my judgment he has on account of his methods forfeited the right to be considered an equal in the circle of serious investigators."

When Dr. _Bra.s.s_, a member of the Kepler Bund, recently disclosed new forgeries of this kind, it should have been made the occasion for a protest in the interest of science and its freedom against such methods. Instead of that, however, forty-six professors of biology and zoology published a statement in defence of _Haeckel_, declaring that while not approving of _Haeckel's_ method in some instances, they condemned in the interest of science and of freedom of teaching most strongly the war waged against _Haeckel_ by _Bra.s.s_ and the Kepler Bund. Is the freedom to use methods like _Haeckel's_ included in the freedom of teaching, which they consider must be defended? Can it surprise any one that this freedom of teaching is viewed with concern?

Much excitement was caused a few years ago by a pamphlet of an Austrian professor. Another Austrian professor, of high rank in science, criticized the pamphlet as "A reckless and absolute negation of the foundation of the Christian dogma in the widest sense of the word, proclaimed as the verdict of science and of common sense. It is replete with blasphemous jokes, such as may usually be heard only in the most vulgar places."

A cry of indignation was raised by the Catholic people of the Tyrol against this base insult to their creed; it was shown that the author of this pamphlet had misused his lectures on Catholic Canon Law, to speak to his Catholic students disdainfully of the Divinity of Christ, of the Sacraments, of the Church, and the prime foundations of Christianity. Upon indictment by the public prosecutor, the pamphlet was condemned in Court as a libel upon the Christian religion.

It was expected that the representatives of science, in defence of the threatened honour of science, would repudiate all community of interest with a production that was merely the expression of an anti-Christian propaganda. That expectation was not fulfilled; on the contrary, those in authority at the Austrian universities, and numerous professors of other countries, joined in a protest against the violation of the rights of a professor, against the attacks on freedom of science. They demanded full immunity for the author of the libel. Even the state department of Religion and Education expressed the opinion that the accused "had only availed himself of the right of free research." Is this the freedom in teaching that is to be protected by the state? And yet there are those who indignantly deny that there is danger for religion in this freedom!

He who really has at heart the honour of science and of the universities, and is inspired by their ideals, should bear in mind that to realize these ideals the first thing necessary is public confidence: not the confidence of a revolutionizing minority,-a scrutiny of those elements that give them their plaudits ought to arouse reflection,-but the confidence of earnest, conservative circles of the uncorrupted people.

In academic circles the increasing lack of respect for the university and its teachers is complained of. Professor _Von Amira_ writes: "Thirty years ago the academic teacher was reverenced by the highest society; his a.s.sociation was sought; he had no need of any other t.i.tle than the one that told what he was.

To-day we see a different picture, particularly as to the t.i.tle 'professor.' To-day they smile at it. Nowadays, if a professor desires to impress, he must bear a t.i.tle designating something else than what he really is. A literature has grown up that deals with the decline of the universities. The fact of a decline is taken for granted, only its causes and remedies are discussed. And this is not all. Invectives are bestowed upon the inst.i.tutions, upon the teachers as a body, upon the individual teacher. And there is no one to take up the cudgels in our defence!" A fact suggesting earnest self-examination, and the resolution not to forfeit still more this respect. It is not sufficient to repudiate with indignation the complaints. Nor will it do to pretend a respect for religion and Christianity, and a desire to see both preserved, that are not really felt. What is needed is the admission that the road taken is the wrong one.

The Responsibility before History.

The distressing fact is realized that the worm of immorality is devouring in our day the marrow of the most civilized nations. It is also known that its wretched victims are in no cla.s.s so numerous as in the cla.s.s of college men. Earnest-minded men and women are raising a warning cry, and are forming societies to stem the ruin of the nations. The alarm bell is ringing through the lands.

Remarkable words on this subject are those written not long ago by _Paulsen_: "It looks as if all the demons had been let loose at this moment to devastate the basis of the people's life. Those who know Germany through reading only, through its comic weeklies, its plays, its novels, the windows of its bookshops, the lectures delivered and attended by male and female, must arrive at the opinion that the paramount question to the German people just now is whether the restrictions put on the free play of the s.e.xual impulse by custom and law are evil and should be abolished?"

_Paulsen_ puts the responsibility for it upon the sophistry on the s.e.xual instinct and the present naturalism in the view of the world: "The prevailing naturalism in the view of world and life is leading to astonishing aberrations of judgment, and this is true also of men otherwise discerning. If man is nothing else but a system of natural instincts, similar in this to the rest of living beings, then, indeed, no one can tell what other purpose life could have than the gratification of all instincts.... Reformation of ideas-this is the cry heard in all streets; cast off a Christianity hostile to life, that is killing in embryo thousands of possibilities for happiness. True, even in past ages young people were not spared temptation. But the barriers were stronger; traditional, moral, religious sentiment, and sensible views. Our time has pulled down these barriers; young people everywhere are advised by all the leading lights of the day: old morals and religion are dead, slain by modern science; the old commandments are the obsolete fetters of superst.i.tion. We know now their origin; they are but auto-suggestions of common consciousness which mistakes them for voices from another world, that has been deposed long since by the scientific thought of to-day."

These are words of indignation of a well-meaning friend of mankind. Do they not rebound upon the speaker himself to become terrible self-accusations for him and others, who, while perhaps of similar well-meaning sentiment, are actually working for the annihilation of the moral-religious sentiment, as _Paulsen_ himself has done by his books?

"The old religion is dead, slain by science," is proclaimed in innumerable pa.s.sages of his books; the idea of another world has long been disposed of by the scientific reasoning of the present time, "hence a philosophy," he tells us, "which insists upon the thesis that certain natural processes make it necessary to a.s.sume a metaphysical principle, or a supernatural agency, will always have science for an irreconcilable opponent." "It will be difficult for a future age to understand," he writes elsewhere, "how our times so complacently could cling to a system of religious instruction originated many centuries ago under entirely different conditions of intellectual life, and which in many points forms the decided opposite to facts and notions which, outside of the school, are taken by our times for granted." In respect to morals, too, one can do without a supernatural law.

"According to the view presented here, ethics as a science does not depend on belief.... Moral laws are the natural laws of the human-historical life of time and place.... Nor does it seem advisable in pedagogical-practical respect to make the force or the significance of ethical commands dependent on a matter so uncertain as the belief in a future life." We might cite many similar expressions from his writings.

It is significant that they have to condemn their own science in view of its sad consequences.

_Paulsen_ loudly demands _restriction for the freedom of art_, for the industry of lewdness, for the literature of perversity.

He says: "The English people, admired by us because of their liberal principles and free inst.i.tutions, are less afraid to show by the sternest means the door to salacious minds ... the feeling of responsibility for preserving the roots of the strength of the people's life is in England far more wide awake than with us, who still feel in our bones the fear of censure and the policeman's club.... But what are the things committed by our nasty trades and the publications in their service other than so many a.s.saults upon our liberty? Are they not primarily an a.s.sault upon the inner freedom of adolescent youth who are made slaves of their lowest instincts by the industries of these merchants? Therefore admonish the hangman not to be swerved by the plea of freedom."

No one will deny approval to these words. But do they not, again, become a severe condemnation of the reckless freedom in teaching, that claims the right to a.s.sault without hindrance the truths which are the foundation of our nation? If art must not become a danger, why may science? If the artist is asked to take into consideration the innocence and weal of young people, if he is cautioned not to follow solely "his sense for beauty,"

why should the teacher be allowed to follow his "sense for truth" without regard for anything else? If no statute of limitation and restriction exist for science, neither prescribed nor prohibited ideas for the academic teacher, why should there be any prohibited "aesthetic principles"

for the artist? Manifestly, because here the absurdity of this freedom is more clearly perceptible, because it leads to shamelessness. At this juncture, therefore, they are constrained to concede the untenability and the senselessness of the unlimited human freedom, that is defended with so much volubility.

_Paulsen_ points to an age in which, similarly to our times, progressive men arose and, in the name of science, discarded religion and morals; they called themselves men of science, sages, "sophists." "It is remarkable that the very same occurrence was observed more than 2,000 years ago, when _Plato_ experienced it in his time with the young people of Athens, who became fascinated by similar sophistical speech."

The n.o.ble Sage of Greece had caustic words for _Protagoras_, the champion of sophistry, and his brethren in spirit: "If cobblers and tailors were to put in worse condition the shoes and clothes they receive for improving, this would soon be known and they would starve; not so _Protagoras_, who is corrupting quietly the whole of h.e.l.las, and who has dismissed his disciples in a worse state than he received them, and this for more than forty years.... Not _Protagoras_ alone, but many others did this before and after him. Did they knowingly deceive and poison the youth or did they not realize what they were doing? Are we to a.s.sume that these men, praised by many for their sagacity, have done so in ignorance? No, they were not blind to their acts, but blind were the young people who paid them for instruction, blind were their parents who confided them to these sophists, blindest were the communities that admitted them instead of turning them away."

What a responsibility to co-operate in the intellectual corruption of entire generations! And the corruption by dechristianizing is increasing in all circles, owing to the misuse of science. That the condition is not even worse is not the merit of this science, nor evidence of the harmlessness of its freedom; it is the merit of the after effect of a Christian past, which continues to influence, consciously or unconsciously, the thought and feeling even of those circles that seem to be long since estranged from Christianity.

Concerning the decline of morality in our age _Paulsen_ observes: "_Foerster_ rightly emphasizes the fact that the old Church rendered an imperishable service in moralizing and spiritualizing our life, by urging first of all the discipline of the will, and by raising heroes of self-denial in the persons of her Saints.

That we still draw from this patrimony I, too, do not doubt. _That we waste it carelessly is indeed the great danger._"

"It was a wonderfully balmy evening in the fall of 1905," relates Rev. _L. Ballet_, missionary in j.a.pan, "and the sun had just set behind Mount Fiji. Unexpectedly a young j.a.panese appeared in front of me, desiring to talk to me. I noticed that he was a young student. I bade him enter, and we saluted each other with a low bow, as persons meeting for the first time. I asked him to take a seat opposite to me, and took advantage of the first moments of silence to take a good look at him. But imagine my astonishment when his first question was, 'Do you believe life is worth living?' asked in an earnest but calm manner. I confess this question from lips so young alarmed me and went to my heart like a thrust. 'Why, certainly,' was my reply, 'life is worth living, and living good. How do you come to ask a question that sounds so strange from the lips of a young man? You certainly do not desire to follow the example of your fellow-countryman _Fijimura Misao_, who jumped into the abyss from Mount Kegon?'-'No, sir, at least not yet. I confess, however, that I feel my hesitation to be cowardice, for I have made this resolution for some time. In my opinion man is purely a thing of blind accident, a wretched, ephemeral fly without importance, without value. Why then prolong a life in which a little pleasure is added to so much sorrow, so much disappointment; a life that at any rate finally melts away into nothing? I am more and more convinced that this is the truth.'-'And what brought you to such views?'-'Well, science, philosophy, the books which I have read for pastime or study. If it were only the opinion of our few j.a.panese scientists one might hesitate; but the science, the philosophy, of Europe, translated and expounded by our writers, teach the same thing. G.o.d, soul, future life, all is idle delusion. Nothing is eternal but only matter. After twenty, thirty, sixty years, man dies, and there remains nothing of him but his body, which will decay in order to pa.s.s into other beings, matter like he was. This is what science teaches us; a hard doctrine, I confess; but what is there to be said against it, considering the positive results of scientific research?' "

Great responsibility is borne by a science that despoils mankind of its best, of all that gives it comfort and support in life! In faraway j.a.pan there is not the spiritual power of Christianity to counteract the misuse of science; the poison does its work and there is no antidote.

That the Christian nations "carelessly waste their patrimony, that, indeed, is the great danger."

Chapter II. Freedom Of Teaching And The State.

Close bonds of mutual dependence and solidarity interlink all created beings, especially men. Insufficient in himself, both physically and mentally, man finds in uniting with others everything he needs; thus do individuals and families join forces, generations join hands; what the fathers have earned is inherited and increased by new generations. Human life is essentially social life and co-operation-in the indefinite form social life within the great human society, in the definite form social life within the two great bodies, Church and state. Within both bodies human benefits are to be attained and protected against danger by common exertion-within the Church the spiritual benefits of eternal character, within the state the temporal benefits.

Hence both bodies, or societies, will have to take a position in relation to science and its doctrine. Indeed, in civilized nations there is hardly a public activity of mightier influence upon life than science. The contemplation of this position shall now be our task.

Science, as we have above set forth, addresses itself to mankind-a fallible science addressing itself to men easily deceived; therefore, an unrestricted freedom in teaching is ethically inadmissible. Hence it follows, as a matter of course, that the authorities of state and Church, who must guard the common benefits, have the duty of keeping the freedom in scientific teaching within its proper bounds, so far as this lies in their power. Hitherto we have left these social authorities out of consideration; the position taken was the general ethical one.

The case might be supposed that the Church had provided few restrictions of this kind, and the state none at all; nevertheless, an absolute freedom in teaching would still present a condition dangerous to the community at large, contrary to the demands of morality; we should then have an unrestricted freedom in teaching, permitted by law, but ethically inadmissible.

The distinction is important. Quite often freedom in teaching is spoken of as permitted by the state, as if it was identical with ethical permission.

If freedom in teaching is permitted by the state, this evidently means only that the state permits teaching without interference on its part; it says, I do not stand in the way, I let things proceed. But this does not mean that it is right and proper. The burden of personal responsibility rests upon him who avails himself of a freedom which, though not hindered by the state, is in conflict with what is right. The state tolerates many things-it does not interfere against unkindness, nor against extravagance, nor deceit; nevertheless everybody is morally responsible for such doings.

If, then, we take up the question, what position social authority should take toward scientific teaching, whether it be in the higher schools, or outside of them, we are considering chiefly the state. It is the state that enters most into consideration when freedom in teaching nowadays is discussed; the state may interfere most effectively in the management of schools and universities, for these are state inst.i.tutions in most countries.

Universities as State Inst.i.tutions.

They were not always state inst.i.tutions. The universities of the Middle Ages were autonomous corporations, which const.i.tuted themselves, made their own statutes, had their own courts, but enjoyed at the same time legal rights. Conditions gradually changed after the Reformation. The power of princes began more and more to interfere in the management of the universities, until in the seventeenth century, and still more in the eighteenth, the universities became state inst.i.tutions, subject to the reigning sovereign, the professors his salaried officials, and text-books, subject and form of instruction were prescribed by the minute, paternal directions of the sovereign, and with the mania for regulating that was a feature of the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century brought more liberty; it was demanded by the enlarged scope of universities, which no longer were only the training schools for the learned professions, but became the home of research, needing freedom of movement.

Nevertheless, universities are in many countries still state inst.i.tutions.

They are founded by the state, are given organization and laws by the state; the teachers are appointed and given their commissions by the state. They are state officials, though less under government supervision than other state officials. At the same time these universities are possessed of a certain measure of autonomy, a remainder of olden times.

They elect their academic authorities, which have some autonomy and disciplinary jurisdiction. Likewise the separate faculties have their powers; they confer degrees, administer their benefices, and exert considerable influence in filling vacant chairs.