A HISTORY OF THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY IN CHRISTENDOM,
by ANDREW DICKSON WHITE.
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A HISTORY OF THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY IN CHRISTENDOM
BY
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE
LL.D. (YALE), L.H.D. (COLUMBIA), PH.DR. (JENA)
LATE PRESIDENT AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY
TWO VOLUMES COMBINED
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1898
COPYRIGHT, 1896
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
To the Memory of
EZRA CORNELL
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
Thoughts that great hearts once broke for, we
Breathe cheaply in the common air.--LOWELL
Dicipulus est prioris posterior dies.--PUBLIUS SYRUS
Truth is the daughter of Time.--BACON
The Truth shall make you free.--ST. JOHN, viii, 32.
INTRODUCTION
MY book is ready for the printer, and as I begin this
preface my eye lights upon the crowd of Russian peasants
at work on the Neva under my windows. With pick and
shovel they are letting the rays of the April sun into the
great ice barrier which binds together the modern quays
and the old granite fortress where lie the bones of the
Romanoff Czars.
This barrier is already weakened; it is widely decayed,
in many places thin, and everywhere treacherous; but it is,
as a whole, so broad, so crystallized about old boulders, so
imbedded in shallows, so wedged into crannies on either
shore, that it is a great danger. The waters from thousands
of swollen streamlets above are pressing behind it;
wreckage and refuse are piling up against it; every one
knows that it must yield. But there is danger that it may
resist the pressure too long and break suddenly, wrenching
even the granite quays from their foundations, bringing
desolation to a vast population, and leaving, after the
subsidence of the flood, a widespread residue of slime, a
fertile breeding-bed for the germs of disease.
But the patient _mujiks_ are doing the right thing. The
barrier, exposed more and more to the warmth of spring
by the scores of channels they are making, will break away
gradually, and the river will flow on beneficent and beautiful.
My work in this book is like that of the Russian _mujik_
on the Neva. I simply try to aid in letting the light of
historical truth into that decaying mass of outworn thought
which attaches the modern world to mediaeval conceptions
of Christianity, and which still lingers among us--a most
serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the
whole normal evolution of society.
For behind this barrier also the flood is rapidly rising
--the flood of increased knowledge and new thought; and
this barrier also, though honeycombed and in many places
thin, creates a danger--danger of a sudden breaking away,
distressing and calamitous, sweeping before it not only
out worn creeds and noxious dogmas, but cherished principles
and ideals, and even wrenching out most precious religious
and moral foundations of the whole social and political fabric.
My hope is to aid--even if it be but a little--in the
gradual and healthful dissolving away of this mass of
unreason, that the stream of "religion pure and undefiled"
may flow on broad and clear, a blessing to humanity.
And now a few words regarding the evolution of this book.
It is something over a quarter of a century since I
labored with Ezra Cornell in founding the university which
bears his honored name.
Our purpose was to establish in the State of New York
an institution for advanced instruction and research, i
which science, pure and applied, should have an equal plac
with literature; in which the study of literature, ancient
and modern, should be emancipated as much as possible
from pedantry; and which should be free from variou
useless trammels and vicious methods which at that period
hampered many, if not most, of the American universities
and colleges
We had especially determined that the institution shoul
be under the control of no political party and of no single
religious sect, and with Mr. Cornell's approval I embodied
stringent provisions to this effect in the charter
It had certainly never entered into the mind of eithe
of us that in all this we were doing anything irreligious or
unchristian. Mr. Cornell was reared a member of the Societ
of Friends; he had from his fortune liberally aided
every form of Christian effort which he found going on about
him, and among the permanent trustees of the public librar
which he had already founded, he had named all the clergymen
of the town--Catholic and Protestant. As for myself,
I had been bred a churchman, had recently been elected a
trustee of one church college, and a professor in another;
those nearest and dearest to me were devoutly religious
and, if I may be allowed to speak of a matter so personal t
my self, my most cherished friendships were among deepl
religious men and women, and my greatest sources of enjoyment
were ecclesiastical architecture, religious music, an
the more devout forms of poetry. So, far from wishing to
injure Christianity, we both hoped to promote it; but we
did not confound religion with sectarianism, and we saw in
the sectarian character of American colleges and universitie
as a whole, a reason for the poverty of the advanced instruction
then given in so many of them.
It required no great acuteness to see that a system of
control which, in selecting a Professor of Mathematics or
Language or Rhetoric or Physics or Chemistry, asked firs
and above all to what sect or even to what wing or branch of
a sect he belonged, could hardly do much to advance th
moral, religious, or intellectual development of mankind.
The reasons for the new foundation seemed to us, then,
so cogent that we expected the co-operation of all good
citizens, and anticipated no opposition from any source.
As I look back across the intervening years, I know not
whether to be more astonished or amused at our simplicity
Opposition began at once. In the State Legislature i
confronted us at every turn, and it was soon in full blaze
throughout the State--from the good Protestant bishop
who proclaimed that all professors should be in holy orders
since to the Church alone was given the command, "Go,
teach all nations," to the zealous priest who published a
charge that Goldwin Smith--a profoundly Christian scholar
--had come to Cornell in order to inculcate the "infidelity
of the _Westminster Review_"; and from the eminent divine
who went from city to city, denouncing the "atheistic and
pantheistic tendencies" of the proposed education, to the
perfervid minister who informed a denominational synod
that Agassiz, the last great opponent of Darwin, and a devou
theist, was "preaching Darwinism and atheism" in
the new institution.
As the struggle deepened, as hostile resolutions wer
introduced into various ecclesiastical bodies, as honored
clergymen solemnly warned their flocks first against the
"atheism," then against the "infidelity," and finally against
the "indifferentism" of the university, as devoted pastors
endeavoured to dissuade young men from matriculation, I
took the defensive, and, in answer to various attacks fro
pulpits and religious newspapers, attempted to allay the
fears of the public. "Sweet reasonableness" was fully tried
There was established and endowed in the university perhaps
the most effective Christian pulpit, and one of the most
vigorous branches of the Christian Association, then in the
United States; but all this did nothing to ward off the attack.
The clause in the charter of the university forbidding
it to give predominance to the doctrines of any sect
and above all the fact that much prominence was given to
instruction in various branches of science, seemed to prevent
all compromise, and it soon became clear that to stand on
the defensive only made matters worse. Then it was that
there was borne in upon me a sense of the real difficulty-
the antagonism between the theological and scientific view
of the universe and of education in relation to it; therefore
it was that, having been invited to deliver a lecture in
the great hall of the Cooper Institute at New York, I too
as my subject _The Battlefields of Science_, maintaining this
thesis which follows:
_In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed
interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such
interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both
to religion and science, and invariably; and, on the other hand
all untrammeled scientific investigation, no matter how dangerou
to religion some of its stages may have seemed for the tim
to be, has invariably resulted in the highest good both of religion
and science._
The lecture was next day published in the _New York
Tribune_ at the request of Horace Greeley, its editor,
who was also one of the Cornell University trustees. As
a result of this widespread publication and of sundry attacks
which it elicited, I was asked to maintain my thesis
before various university associations and literary clubs;
and I shall always remember with gratitude that among
those who stood by me and presented me on the lectur
platform with words of approval and cheer was my revered
instructor, the Rev. Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey, at
that time President of Yale College
My lecture grew--first into a couple of magazine articles
and then into a little book called _The Warfare of Science_,
for which, when republished in England, Prof. John Tyndall
wrote a preface.
Sundry translations of this little book were published,
but the most curious thing in its history is the fact that a
very friendly introduction to the Swedish translation was
written by a Lutheran bishop.
Meanwhile Prof. John W. Draper published his book on
_The Conflict between Science and Religion_, a work of great
ability, which, as I then thought, ended the matter, so fa
as my giving it further attention was concerned.
But two things led me to keep on developing my own
work in this field: First, I had become deeply intereste
in it, and could not refrain from directing my observation
and study to it; secondly, much as I admired Draper'
treatment of the questions involved, his point of view and
mode of looking at history were different from mine.
He regarded the struggle as one between Science and
Religion. I believed then, and am convinced now, that it
was a struggle between Science and Dogmatic Theology
More and more I saw that it was the conflict betwee
two epochs in the evolution of human thought--the
theological and the scientific.
So I kept on, and from time to time published _New
Chapters in the Warfare of Science_ as magazine articles in
_The Popular Science Monthly_. This was done under many
difficulties. For twenty years, as President of Cornel
University and Professor of History in that institution, I was
immersed in the work of its early development. Besides this,
I could not hold myself entirely aloof from public affairs,
and was three times sent by the Government of the United
States to do public duty abroad: first as a commissione
to Santo Domingo, in 1870; afterward as minister to Germany
in 1879; finally, as minister to Russia, in 1892; and
was also called upon by the State of New York to do
considerable labor in connection with international exhibition
at Philadelphia and at Paris. I was also obliged from time
to time to throw off by travel the effects of overwork.
The variety of residence and occupation arising from
these causes may perhaps explain some peculiarities in this
book which might otherwise puzzle my reader.
While these journeyings have enabled me to collect materials
over a very wide range--in the New World, from
Quebec to Santo Domingo and from Boston to Mexico,
San Francisco, and Seattle, and in the Old World from
Trondhjem to Cairo and from St. Petersburg to Palermo--
they have often obliged me to write under circumstances
not very favorable: sometimes on an Atlantic steamer,
sometimes on a Nile boat, and not only in my own library
at Cornell, but in those of Berlin, Helsingfors, Munich,
Florence, and the British Museum. This fact will explain to the
benevolent reader not only the citation of different edition
of the same authority in different chapters, but som
iterations which in the steady quiet of my own library would
not have been made.
It has been my constant endeavour to write for the general
reader, avoiding scholastic and technical terms as much a
possible and stating the truth simply as it presents itself to me.
That errors of omission and commission will be found
here and there is probable--nay, certain; but the substance
of the book will, I believe, be found fully true. I am
encouraged in this belief by the fact that, of the three bitter
attacks which this work in its earlier form has already
encountered, one was purely declamatory, objurgatory, and
hortatory, and the others based upon ignorance of facts easily
pointed out
And here I must express my thanks to those who hav
aided me. First and above all to my former student and
dear friend, Prof. George Lincoln Burr, of Cornell University,
to whose contributions, suggestions, criticisms, and
cautions I am most deeply indebted; also to my friends
U. G. Weatherly, formerly Travelling Fellow of Cornell, and
now Assistant Professor in the University of Indiana,--Prof.
and Mrs. Earl Barnes and Prof. William H. Hudson, of Stanford
University,--and Prof. E. P. Evans, formerly of the
University of Michigan, but now of Munich, for extensive
aid in researches upon the lines I have indicated to them,
but which I could never have prosecuted without their
co-operation. In libraries at home and abroad they hav
all worked for me most effectively, and I am deeply grateful
to them.
This book is presented as a sort of _Festschrift_--a tribute
to Cornell University as it enters the second quarter-century
of its existence, and probably my last tribute.
The ideas for which so bitter a struggle was made at its
foundation have triumphed. Its faculty, numbering over
one hundred and, fifty; its students, numbering but little
short of two thousand; its noble buildings and equipment;
the munificent gifts, now amounting to millions of dollars
which it has received from public-spirited men and women;
the evidences of public confidence on all sides; and, above
all, the adoption of its cardinal principles and main features
by various institutions of learning in other States, show this
abundantly. But there has been a triumph far greater and
wider. Everywhere among the leading modern nations the
same general tendency is seen. During the quarter-century
just past the control of public instruction, not only in America
but in the leading nations of Europe, has passed more
and more from the clergy to the laity. Not only are the
presidents of the larger universities in the United States,
with but one or two exceptions, laymen, but the same thing
is seen in the old European strongholds of metaphysica
theology. At my first visit to Oxford and Cambridge, forty
years ago, they were entirely under ecclesiastical control.
Now, all this is changed. An eminent member of the presen
British Government has recently said, "A candidate for
high university position is handicapped by holy orders." I
refer to this with not the slightest feeling of hostilit
toward the clergy, for I have none; among them are many of
my dearest friends; no one honours their proper work more
than I; but the above fact is simply noted as proving th
continuance of that evolution which I have endeavoured to
describe in this series of monographs--an evolution, indeed,
in which the warfare of Theology against Science has been
one of the most active and powerful agents. My belief is
that in the field left to them--their proper field--the clergy
will more and more, as they cease to struggle against scientific
methods and conclusions, do work even nobler and more
beautiful than anything they have heretofore done. And
this is saying much. My conviction is that Science, though
it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on
biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in
hand with Religion; and that, although theological contro
will continue to diminish, Religion, as seen in the recognition
of "a Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for
righteousness," and in the love of God and of our neighbor,
will steadily grow stronger and stronger, not only in the
American institutions of learning but in the world at large.
Thus may the declaration of Micah as to the requirements
of Jehovah, the definition by St. James of "pure religion
and undefiled," and, above all, the precepts and ideals of the
blessed Founder of Christianity himself, be brought to bea
more and more effectively on mankind.
I close this preface some days after its first lines were
written. The sun of spring has done its work on the Neva;
the great river flows tranquilly on, a blessing and a joy; the
_mujiks_ are forgotten.
A. D. W
LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, ST. PETERSBURG,
April 14,1894.
P. S.--Owing to a wish to give more thorough revision
to some parts of my work, it has been withheld from the
press until the present date.
A. D. W.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y.,
August 15, 1895
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I
FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION.
I. The Visible Universe.
Ancient and medieval views regarding the manner of creation
Regarding the matter of creation
Regarding the time of creatio
Regarding the date of creatio
Regarding the Creator
Regarding light and darknes
Rise of the conception of an evolution: among the Chaldeans,
The Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans
Its survival through the Middle Ages, despite the disfavour of
the Church
Its development in modern times.--The nebular hypothesis and
its struggle with theology
The idea of evolution at last victoriou
Our sacred books themselves an illustration of its truth
The true reconciliation of Science and Theology
II. Theological Teachings regarding the Animals and Man.
Ancient and medieval representations of the creation of man
Literal acceptance of the book of Genesis by the Christian
father
By the Reformers
By modern theologians, Catholic and Protestant
Theological reasoning as to the divisions of the animal
kingdom
The Physiologus, the Bestiaries, the Exempila
Beginnings of sceptical observation
Development of a scientific method in the study of Nature
Breaking down of the theological theory of creatio
III. Theological and Scientific Theories of an Evolution in Animated Nature.
Ideas of evolution among the ancients
In the early Church
In the medieval Church
Development of these ideas from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth centuries
The work of De Maillet
Of Linneus
Of Buffon
Contributions to the theory of evolution at the close of th
eighteenth century
The work of Treviranus and Lamarck
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier
Development of the theory up to the middle of the nineteenth
century
The contributions of Darwin and Wallace
The opposition of Agassiz
IV. The Final Effort of Theology.
Attacks on Darwin and his theories in England
In America
Formation of sacro-scientific organizations to combat the
theory of evolution
The attack in France
In Germany
Conversion of Lyell to the theory of evolution
The attack on Darwin's Descent of Man
Difference between this and the former attack
Hostility to Darwinism in America
Change in the tone of the controversy.--Attempts at compromise
Dying-out of opposition to evolution
Last outbursts of theological hostility
Final victory of evolution
CHAPTER II.
GEOGRAPHY
I. The Form of the Earth
Primitive conception of the earth as flat
In Chaldea and Egypt
In Persia
Among the Hebrews
Evolution, among the Greeks, of the idea of its sphericity
Opposition of the early Church
Evolution of a sacred theory, drawn from the Bibl
Its completion by Cosmas Indicopleustes
Its influence on Christian thought
Survival of the idea of the earth's sphericity--its acceptanc
by Isidore and Bede
Its struggle and final victory
II. The Delineation of the Earth.
Belief of every ancient people that its own central place was
the centre of the eart
Hebrew conviction that the earth's centre was at Jerusalem
Acceptance of this view by Christianity
Influence of other Hebrew conceptions--Gog and Magog, the
"four winds," the waters "on an heap
III. The Inhabitants of the Earth.
The idea of antipode
Its opposition by the Christian Church--Gregory Nazianzen,
Lactantius, Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Procopius of Gaza,
Cosmas, Isidore
Virgil of Salzburg's assertion of it in the eighth centur
Its revival by William of Conches and Albert the Great in the
thirteent
Surrender of it by Nicolas d'Oresme
Fate of Peter of Abano and Cecco d' Ascol
Timidity of Pierre d'Ailly and Tostatus
Theological hindrance of Columbus
Pope Alexander VI's demarcation line
Cautious conservatism.of Gregory Reysc
Magellan and the victory of science
IV. The Size of the Earth
Scientific attempts at measuring the eart
The sacred solution of the problem
Fortunate influence of the blunder upon Columbus
V. The Character of the Earth's Surface.
Servetus and the charge of denying the fertility of Judea
Contrast between the theological and the religious spirit in
their effects on science
CHAPTER III.
ASTRONOMY
I. The Old Sacred Theory of the Universe
The early Church's conviction of the uselessness of astronomy
The growth of a sacred theory--Origen, the Gnostics,
Philastrius, Cosmas, Isidore
The geocentric, or Ptolemaic, theory its origin, and its
acceptance by the Christian world
Development of the new sacred system of astronomy--the
pseudo-Dionysius, Peter Lombard. Thomas Aquinas
Its popularization by Dante
Its details
Its persistence to modern times
II. The Heliocentric Theory
Its rise among the Greeks--Pythagoras, Philolaus, Aristarchus
Its suppression by the charge of blasphemy
Its loss from sight for six hundred Years, then for a thousand
Its revival by Nicholas de Cusa and Nicholas Copernicus
Its toleration as a hypothesis
Its prohibition as soon as Galileo teaches it as a trut
Consequent timidity of scholars--Acosta, Apian
Protestantism not less zealous in opposition than
Catholicism--Luther
Melanchthon, Calvin, Turreti
This opposition especially persistent in England--Hutchinson,
Pike, Horne, Horsley, Forbes, Owen, Wesle
Resulting interferences with freedom of teaching
Giordano Bruno's boldness and his fate
The truth demonstrated by the telescope of Galileo
III. The War upon Galileo
Concentration of the war on this new champion
The first attack
Fresh attacks--Elci, Busaeus, Caccini, Lorini, Bellarmi
Use of epithets
Attempts to entrap Galileo
His summons before the Inquisition at Rome
The injunction to silence, and the condemnation of the theory
of the earth's motion,
The work of Copernicus placed on the Index
Galileo's seclusion
Renewed attacks upon Galileo--Inchofer, Fromundus
IV. Victory of the Church over Galileo
Publication of his Dialogo,
Hostility of Pope Urban VII
Galileo's second trial by the Inquisition
His abjuration
Later persecution of hi
Measures to complete the destruction of the Copernican theor
Persecution of Galileo's memory
Protestant hostility to the new astronomy and its champions
V. Results of the Victory over Galileo.
Rejoicings of churchmen over the victor
The silencing of Descartes
Persecution of Campanella and of Kepler
Persistence and victory of science
Dilemma of the theologians
Vain attempts to postpone the surrender
VI. The Retreat of the Church after its Victory over Galileo.
The easy path for the Protestant theologian
The difficulties of the older Church.--The papal infallibility
fully committed against the Copernican theor
Attempts at evasion--first plea: that Galileo was condemned
not for affirming the earth's motion, but for supportin
it from Scripture
Its easy refutation
Second plea: that he was condemned not for heresy, but for
contumac
Folly of this assertion
Third plea: that it was all a quarrel between Aristotelia
professors and those favouring the experimental method
Fourth plea: that the condemnation of Galileo was "provisory
Fifth plea: that he was no more a victim of Catholics than of
Protestants
Efforts to blacken Galileo's character
Efforts to suppress the documents of his trial
Their fruitlessness
Sixth plea: that the popes as popes had never condemned hi
theor
Its confutation from their own mouths
Abandonment of the contention by honest Catholics
Two efforts at compromise--Newman, De Bonald
Effect of all this on thinking men
The fault not in Catholicism more than in Protestantism--not
in religion, but in theology
CHAPTER IV.
FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW IN THE HEAVENS.
I. The Theological View
Early beliefs as to comets, meteors, and eclipses
Their inheritance by Jews and Christians
The belief regarding comets especially harmful as a source of
superstitious terror
Its transmission through the Middle Ages
Its culmination under Pope Calixtus III
Beginnings of scepticism--Coperuicus, Paracelsus, Scalige
Firmness of theologians, Catholicand Protestant, in its
support
II. Theological Efforts to crush the Scientific View.
The effort through the universities.--The effort through the
pulpits
Heerbrand at Tubingen and Dieterich at Marburg
Maestlin at Heidelberg
Buttner, Vossius, Torreblanca, Fromundu
Father Augustin de Angelis at Rome
Reinzer at Linz
Celichius at Magdeburg
Conrad Dieterich's sermon at Ulm
Erni and others in Switzerlan
Comet doggerel
Echoes from New England--Danforth, Morton, Increase Mathe
III. The Invasion of Scepticism.
Rationalism of Cotton Mather, and its cause
Blaise de Vigenere
Erastu
Bekker, Lubienitzky, Pierre Petit
Bayle
Fontenelle
The scientific movement beneath all this
IV. Theological Efforts at Compromise.--The Final Victory of
Science
The admission that some comets are supralunar
Difference between scientific and theological reasoning
Development of the reasoning of Tycho and Kepler--Cassini,
Hevel, Doerfel, Bernouilli, Newto
Completion of the victory by Halley and Clairau
Survivals of the superstition--Joseph de Maistre, Forster
Arago'sstatistics
The theories of Whiston and Burnet, and their influence in
German
The superstition ended in America by the lectures of Winthrop
Helpful influence of John Wesley
Effects of the victory
CHAPTER V.
FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY.
I. Growth of Theological Explanations
Germs of geological truth among the Greeks and Romans
Attitude of the Church toward science
Geological theories of the early theologian
Attitude of the schoolmen
Contributions of the Arabian schools
Theories of the earlier Protestants
Influence of the revival of learnin
II. Efforts to Suppress the Scientific View.
Revival of scientific methods
Buffon and the Sorbonne
Beringer's treatise on fossils
Protestant opposition to the new geology---the works of
Burnet, Whiston, Wesley, Clark, Watson, Arnold, Cockburn,
and others
III. The First Great Effort of Compromise, based on the Flood of
Noah.
The theory that fossils were produced by the Deluge
Its acceptance by both Catholics and Protestants--Luther,
Calmet Burnet, Whiston, Woodward, Mazurier, Torrubia,
Increase Mathe
Scheuchzer
Voltaire's theory of fossils
Vain efforts of enlightened churchmen in behalf of the
scientific vie
Steady progress of science--the work of Cuvier and Brongniart
Granvile Penn's opposition
The defection of Buckland and Lyell to the scientific side
Surrender of the theologians
Remnants of the old belief
Death-blow given to the traditional theory of the Deluge by
the discovery of the Chaldean accounts
Results of the theological opposition to science
IV. Final Efforts at Compromise--The Victory of Scienee complete.
Efforts of Carl von Raumer, Wagner, and other
The new testimony of the caves and beds of drift as to th
antiquity of man
Gosse's effort to save the literal interpretation of Genesi
Efforts of Continental theologians
Gladstone's attempt at a compromise
Its demolition by Huxley
By Canon Drive
Dean Stanley on the reconciliation of Science and Scriptur
CHAPTER VI
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, EGYPTOLOGY, AND ASSYRIOLOGY.
I. The Sacred Chronology
Two fields in which Science has gained a definite victory over
Theolog
Opinious of the Church fathers on the antiquity of man
The chronology of Isidore
Of Bede
Of the medieval Jewish scholars
The views of the Reformers on the antiquity of ma
Of the Roman Church
Of Archbishop Usher
Influence of Egyptology on the belief in man's antiquity
La Peyrere's theory of the Pre-Adamites
Opposition in England to the new chronolog
II. The New Chronology.
Influence of the new science of Egyptology on biblica
chronology
Manetho's history of Egypt and the new chronology derived from
it
Evidence of the antiquity of man furnished by the monuments of
Egypt
By her art
By her scienc
By other elements of civilizatio
By the remains found in the bed of the Nile
Evidence furnished by the study of Assyriology
CHAPTER VII.
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN AND PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY
I. The Thunder-stones
Early beliefs regarding "thunder-stones"
Theories of Mercati and Tollius regarding the
Their identification with the implements of prehistoric man
Remains of man found in caverns
Unfavourable influence on scientific activity of the political
conditions of the early part of the nineteenth century
Change effected by the French Revolution of t
Rallying of the reactionary clerical influence against scienc
II. The Flint Weapons and Implements
Boucher de Perthes's contributions to the knowledge of
prehistoric man
His conclusions confirmed by Lyell and other
Cave explorations of Lartet and Christ
Evidence of man's existence furnished by rude carvings
Cave explorations in the British Islands
Evidence of man's existence in the Drift perio
In the early Quaternary and in the Tertiary periods
CHAPTER VIII
THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY.
The two antagonistic views regarding the life of man on the earth
The theory of "the Fall" among ancient peoples
Inheritance of this view by the Christian Church
Appearance among the Greeks and Romans of the theory of a rise of man
Its disappearance during the Middle Ages
Its development since the seventeenth century
The first blow at the doctrine of "the Fall" comes from geology
Influence of anthropology on the belief in this doctrin
The finding of human skulls in Quaternary deposits
Their significanc
Results obtained from the comparative study of the remains of
human handiwork
Discovery of human remains in shell-heaps on the shores of the
Baltic Se
In peat-beds
The lake-dwellers
Indications of the upward direction of man's developmen
Mr. Southall's attack on the theory of man's antiquity
An answer to it
Discovery of prehistoric human remains in Egypt
Hamard's attack on the new scientific conclusion
The survival of prehistoric implements in religious rites
Strength of the argument against the theory of "the Fall of Man"
CHAPTER IX.
THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY.
The beginnings of the science of Comparative Ethnology
Its testimony to the upward tendency of man from low beginning
Theological efforts to break its force--De Maistre and De
Bonald Whately's attemp
The attempt of the Duke of Argyll
Evidence of man's upward tendency derived from Comparative
Philology
From Comparative Literature and Folklor
From Comparative Ethnography
From Biology
CHAPTER X.
THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY.
Proof of progress given by the history of ar
Proofs from general histor
Development of civilization even under unfavourable
circumstances to, Advancement even through catastrophes
and the decay of civilizations
Progress not confined to man's material conditio
Theological struggle against the new scientific view
Persecution of prof. Winchel
Of Dr. Woodrow
Other interferences with freedom of teachin
The great harm thus done to religion
Rise of a better spirit
The service rendered to religion by Anthropology
CHAPTER XI.
FROM "THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR" TO METEOROLOGY.
I. Growth of a Theological Theory.
The beliefs of classical antiquity regarding storms, thunder,
and lightning
Development of a sacred science of meteorology by the fathers of
the Churc
Theories of Cosmas Indicopleustes
Of Isidore of Seville
Of Bede
Of Rabanus Mauru
Rational views of Honorius of Autun
Orthodox theories of John of San Geminian
Attempt of Albert the Great to reconcile the speculations of
Aristotle with the theological views
The monkish encyclopedists
Theories regarding the rainbow and the causes of storm
Meteorological phenomena attributed to the Almighty
II. Diabolical Agency in Storms.
Meteorological phenomena attributed to the devil--"the prince
of the power of the air
Propagation of this belief by the medieval theologian
Its transmission to both Catholics and Protestants--Eck,
Luther
The great work of Delrio
Guacci's Compendium
The employment of prayer against "the powers of the air"
Of exoreisms
Of fetiches and processions
Of consecrated church bell
III. The Agency of Witches.
The fearful results of the witch superstition
Its growth out of the doctrine of evil agency in atmospheric
phenomen
Archbishop Agobard's futile attempt to dispel it
Its sanction by the popes
Its support by confessions extracted by torture
Part taken in the persecution by Dominicans and Jesuit
Opponents of the witch theory--Pomponatius, Paracelsus,
Agrippa of Nettesheim
Jean Bodin's defence of the superstition
Fate of Cornelius Loo
Of Dietrich Flade
Efforts of Spee to stem the persecution
His posthumous influence
Upholders of the orthodox view--Bishop Binsfeld, Remigius
Vain protests of Wier
Persecution of Bekker for opposing the popular belief
Effect of the Reformation in deepening the superstition
The persecution in Great Britain and America
Development of a scientific view of the heaven
Final efforts to revive the old belief
IV. Franklin's Lightning-Rod
Franklin's experiments witlh the kite
Their effect on the old belief
Efforts at compromise between the scientific and theological
theories
Successful use of the lightning-rod
Religious scruples against it in Americ
In Englan
In Austria
In Italy
Victory of the scientific theory
This victory exemplified in the case of the church of the
monastery of Lerins
In the case of Dr. Moorhouse
In the case of the Missouri droughts
CHAPTER XII.
FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
I. The Supremacy of Magic
Primitive tendency to belief in magi
The Greek conception of natura law
Influence of Plato and Aristotle on the growth of science
Effect of the establishment of Christianity on the development
of the physical sciences
The revival of thought in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
Albert the Great
Vincent of Beauvais
Thomas Aquinas
Roger Bacon's beginning of the experimental method brought to
nough
The belief that science is futile gives place to the belief
that it is dangerous
The two kinds of magi
Rarity of persecution for magic before the Christian er
The Christian theory of devil
Constantine's laws against magic
Increasing terror of magic and witchcraft
Papal enactments against them
Persistence of the belief in magi
Its effect on the development of science
Roger Baco
Opposition of secular rulers to science
John Baptist Porta
The opposition to scientific societies in italy
In Englan
The effort to turn all thought from science to religio
The development of mystic theology
Its harmful influence on science
Mixture of theological with scientific speculation
This shown in the case of Melanchthon
In that of Francis Bacon
Theological theory of gases
Growth of a scientific theory
Basil Valentine and his contributions to chemistry
Triumph of the scientific theory
II. The Triumph of Chemistry and Physics
New epoch in chemistry begun by Boyl
Attitude of the mob toward science
Effect on science of the reaction following the French
Revolution:
Development of chemistry since the middle of the nineteenth
century
Development of physics
Modern opposition to science in Catholic countries
Attack on scientific education in France
In England
In Prussia
Revolt against the subordination of education to science
Effect of the International Exhibition of ii at London
Of the endowment of State colleges in America by the Morrill
Act of 186
The results to religio
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM MIRACLES TO MEDICINE
I. THE EARLY AND SACRED THEORIES OF DISEASE.
Naturalness of the idea of supernatural intervention in causin
and curing disease
Prevalence of this idea in ancient civilization
Beginnings of a scientific theory of medicin
The twofold influence of Christianity on the healing art
II. GROWTH OF LEGENDS OF HEALING.--THE LIFE OF XAVIER AS A TYPICAL EXAMPLE.
Growth of legends of miracles about the lives of great benefactors
of humanity
Sketch of Xavier's caree
Absence of miraculous accounts in his writings and those of his
contemporarie
Direct evidence that Xavier wrought no miracles
Growth of legends of miracles as shown in the early biographies
of him
As shown in the canonization proceedings
Naturalness of these legends
III. THE MEDIAEVAL MIRACLES OF HEALING CHECK MEDICAL SCIENCE.
Character of the testimony regarding miracles
Connection of mediaeval with pagan miracle
Their basis of fact
Various kinds of miraculous cure
Atmosphere of supernaturalism thrown about all cure
Influence of this atmosphere on medical scienc
IV. THE ATTRIBUTION OF DISEASE TO SATANIC INFLUENCE.--
"PASTORAL MEDICINE" CHECKS SCIENTIFIC EFFORT
Theological theory as to the cause of disease
Influence of self-interest on "pastoral medicine
Development of fetichism at Cologne and elsewhere
Other developments of fetich cur
V. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO ANATOMICAL STUDIES.
Medieval belief in the unlawfulness of meddling with the bodie
of the dea
Dissection objected to on the ground that "the Church abhors
the shedding of blood"
The decree of Boniface VIII and its results
VI. NEW BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.
Gale
Scanty development of medical science in the Church
Among Jews and Mohammedans
Promotion of medical science by various Christian laymen of
the Middle Age
By rare men of scienc
By various ecclesiastics
VII. THEOLOGICAL DISCOURAGEMENT OF MEDICINE.
Opposition to seeking cure from disease by natural means
Requirement of ecclesiastical advice before undertaking
medical treatmen
Charge of magic and Mohammedanism against men of science
Effect of ecclesiastical opposition to medicine
The doctrine of signatures
The doctrine of exorcism
Theological opposition to surger
Development of miracle and fetich cures
Fashion in pious cures
Medicinal properties of sacred places
Theological argument in favour of miraculous cure
Prejudice against Jewish physicians
VIII. FETICH CURES UNDER PROTESTANTISM.--THE ROYAL TOUCH
Luther's theory of disease
The royal touch
Cures wrought by Charles II
By James II
By William III
By Queen Anne
By Louis XIV
Universal acceptance of these miracles
IX. THE SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE FOR ANATOMY.
Occasional encouragement of medical science in the Middle Ages
New impulse given by the revival of learning and the age of discovery
Paracelsus and Mundinus
Vesalius, the founder of the modem science of anatomy.--Hi
career and fat
X. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO INOCULATION, VACCINATION
AND THE USE OF ANAESTHETICS
Theological opposition to inoculation in Europe
In America
Theological opposition to vaccination
Recent hostility to vaccination in England
In Canada, during the smallpox epidemic
Theological opposition to the use of cocaine
To the use of quinine
Theological opposition to the Use of anesthetics
XI. FINAL BREAKING AWAY OF THE THEOLOGICAL THEORY IN MEDICINE.
Changes incorporated in the American Book of Common Prayer
Effect on the theological view of the growing knowledge of the
relation between imagination and medicin
Effect of the discoveries in hypnotism
In bacteriology
Relation between ascertained truth and the "ages of faith"
CHAPTER XIV
FROM FETICH TO HYGIENE.
I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW OF EPIDEMICS AND SANITATION.
The recurrence of great pestilences
Their early ascription to the wrath or malice of unseen powers
Their real cause want of hygienic precaution
Theological apotheosis of filth
Sanction given to the sacred theory of pestilence by Pope
Gregory the Great
Modes of propitiating the higher powers
Modes of thwarting the powers of evil
Persecution of the Jews as Satan's emissaries
Persecution of witches as Satan's emissaries
Case of the Untori at Mila
New developments of fetichism.--The blood of St. Januarius at Naples
Appearance of better methods in Italy.--In Spai
II. GRADUAL DECAY OF THEOLOGICAL VIEWS REGARDING SANITATION.
Comparative freedom of England from persecutions for
plague-bringing, in spite of her wretched sanitary condition
Aid sought mainly through church services
Effects of the great fire in London
The jail fever
The work of John Howard
Plagues in the American colonies
In France.--The great plague at Marseilles
Persistence of the old methods in Austria
In Scotland
III. THE TRIUMPH OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
Difficulty of reconciling the theological theory of
pestilences with accumulating facts
Curious approaches to a right theory
The law governing the relation of theology to diseas
Recent victories of hygiene in all countries
In England.---Chadwick and his fellow
In France
IV. THE RELATION OF SANITARY SCIENCE TO RELIGION.
The process of sanitary science not at the cost of religion
Illustration from the policy of Napoleon III in France
Effect of proper sanitation on epidemics in the United States
Change in the attitude of the Church toward the cause and cur
of pestilence
CHAPTER XV.
FROM "DEMONIACAL POSSESSION" TO INSANITY.
I. THEOLOGICAL IDEAS OF LUNACY AND ITS TREATMENT.
The struggle for the scientific treatment of the insane
The primitive ascription of insanity to evil spirit
Better Greek and Roman theories--madness a disease
The Christian Church accepts the demoniacal theory of insanity
Yet for a time uses mild methods for the insane
Growth of the practice of punishing the indwelling demo
Two sources whence better things might have been hoped.--Th
reasons of their futility
The growth of exorcism
Use of whipping and torture
The part of art and literature in making vivid to the commo
mind the idea of diabolic activity
The effects of religious processions as a cure for mental disease
Exorcism of animals possessed of demons
Belief in the transformation of human beings into animals
The doctrine of demoniacal possession in the Reformed Church
II. BEGINNINGS OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.
Rivalry between Catholics and Protestants in the casting out
of devil
Increased belief in witchcraft during the period following the
Reformation
Increase of insanity during the witch persecutions
Attitude of physicians toward witchcraf
Religious hallucinations of the insan
Theories as to the modes of diabolic entrance into the possessed
Influence of monastic life on the development of insanity
Protests against the theological view of insanity--Wier, Montaigue
Bekke
Last struggles of the old superstitio
III. THE FINAL STRUGGLE AND VICTORY OF SCIENCE.--PINEL AND TUKE.
Influence of French philosophy on the belief in demoniacal possession
Reactionary influence of John Wesley
Progress of scientific ideas in Prussia
In Austria
In America
In South German
General indifference toward the sufferings of madmen
The beginnings of a more humane treatment
Jean Baptiste Pine
Improvement in the treatment of the insane in England.--William Tuke
The place of Pinel and Tuke in history
CHAPTER XVI.
FROM DIABOLISM TO HYSTERIA
I. THE EPIDEMICS OF "POSSESSION."
Survival of the belief in diabolic activity as the cause of
such epidemics
Epidemics of hysteria in classical times
In the Middle Ages
The dancing mania
Inability of science during the fifteenth century to cope wit
such disease
Cases of possession brought within the scope of medical
research during the sixteenth century
Dying-out of this form of mental disease in northern Europe
In Ital
Epidemics of hysteria in the convents
The case of Martha Brossier
Revival in France of belief in diabolic influenc
The Ursulines of Loudun and Urbain Grandie
Possession among the Huguenots
In New England.--The Salem witch persecution
At Paris.--Alleged miracles at the grave of Archdeacon Paris
In Germany.--Case of Maria Renata Sanger
More recent outbreaks
II. BEGINNINGS OF HELPFUL SCEPTICISM.
Outbreaks of hysteria in factories and hospitals
In places of religious excitement
The case at Morzine
Similar cases among Protestants and in Africa
III. THEOLOGICAL "RESTATEMENTS."--FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFI
VIEW AND METHODS.
Successful dealings of medical science with mental diseases
Attempts to give a scientific turn to the theory of diaboli
agency in disease
Last great demonstration of the old belief in England
Final triumph of science in the latter half of the present century
Last echoes of the old belief
CHAPTER XVII
FROM BABEL TO COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY.
I. THE SACRED THEORY IN ITS FIRST FORM.
Difference of the history of Comparative Philology from that
of other sciences as regards the attitude of theologians
Curiosity of early man regarding the origin, the primitive
form, and the diversity of language
The Hebrew answer to these questions
The legend of the Tower of Babel
The real reason for the building of towers by the Chaldean
and the causes of their ruin
Other legends of a confusion of tongues
Influence upon Christendom of the Hebrew legends
Lucretius's theory of the origin of language
The teachings of the Church fathers on this subjec
The controversy as to the divine origin of the Hebrew vowel point
Attitude of the reformers toward this question
Of Catholic scholars.--Marini
Capellus and his adversaries
The treatise of Danzius
II. THE SACRED THEORY OF LANGUAGE IN ITS SECOND FORM.
Theological theory that Hebrew was the primitive tongue
divinely revealed
This theory supported by all Christian scholars until the
beginning of the eighteenth century
Diasent of Prideaux and Cotton Mather
Apparent strength of the sacred theory of languag
III. BREAKING DOWN OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
Reason for the Church's ready acceptance of the conclusions of
comparative philology
Beginnings of a scientific theory of languag
Hottinger
Leibnitz
The collections of Catharine the Great, of Hervas, and of Adelun
Chaotic period in philology between Leibnitz and the beginning
of the study of Sanskrit
Illustration from the successive editions of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica
IV. TRIUMPH OF THE NEW SCIENCE
Effect of the discovery of Sanskrit on the old theory
Attempts to discredit the new learning
General acceptance of the new theory
Destruction of the belief that all created things were firs
named by Adam
Of the belief in the divine origin of letters
Attempts in England to support the old theory of language
Progress of philological science in Franc
In Germany
In Great Britain
Recent absurd attempts to prove Hebrew the primitive tongu
V. SUMMARY
Gradual disappearance of the old theories regarding the origin
of speech and writing
Full acceptance of the new theories by all Christian scholar
The result to religion, and to the Bible
CHAPTER XVIII.
FROM THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS TO COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY
I. THE GROWTH OF EXPLANATORY TRANSFORMATION MYTHS
Growth of myths to account for remarkable appearances in
Nature--mountains. rocks, curiously marked stones, fossils,
products of volcanicaction
Myths of the transformation of living beings into natural objects
Development of the science of Comparative Mythology
II. MEDIAEVAL GROWTH OF THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS.
Description of the Dead Sea
Impression made by its peculiar features on the early dwellers
in Palestin
Reasons for selecting the Dead Sea myths for stud
Naturalness of the growth of legend regarding the salt region
of Usdum
Universal belief in these legends
Concurrent testimony of early and mediaeval writers, Jewish and
Christian, respecting the existence of Lot's wife as a "pillar
of salt," and of the other wonders of the Dead Sea
Discrepancies in the various accounts and theological
explanations of them
Theological arguments respecting the statue of Lot's wife
Growth of the legend in the sixteenth century
III. POST-REFORMATION CULMINATION OF THE DEAD SEA
LEGENDS.--BEGINNINGS OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.
Popularization of the older legends at the Reformation
Growth of new myths among scholar
Signs of scepticism among travellers near the end of the
sixteenth century
Effort of Quaresmio to check this tendency
Of Eugene Roge
Of Wedelius
Influence of these teachings
Renewed scepticism--the seventeenth and eighteenth centurie
Efforts of Briemle and Masius in support of the old myths
Their influence
The travels of Mariti and of Volney
Influence of scientific thought on the Dead Sea legends during
the eighteenth century
Reactionary efforts of Chateaubrian
Investigations of the naturalist Seetzen
Of Dr. Robinson
The expedition of Lieutenant Lynch
The investigations of De Saulcy
Of the Duc de Luynes.--Lartet's repor
Summary of the investigations of the nineteenth
century.--Ritter's verdict
IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.--
TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
Attempts to reconcile scientific facts with the Dead Sea legends
Van de Velde's investigations of the Dead Sea region
Canon Tristram'
Mgr. Mislin's protests against the growing rationalism
The work of Schaff and Osborn
Acceptance of the scientific view by leaders in the Church
Dr. Geikie's ascription of the myths to the Arabs
Mgr. Haussmann de Wandelburg and.his rejection of the scientific view
Service of theologians to religion in accepting the conclusions
of silence in this field
CHAPTER XIX.
FROM LEVITICUS TO POLITICAL ECONOM
I. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF HOSTILITY TO LOANS AT INTEREST
Universal belief in the sin of loaning money at interest
The taking of interest among the Greeks and Roman
Opposition of leaders of thought, especially Aristotle
Condemnation of the practice by the Old and New Testament
By the Church fathers
In ecclesiastical and secular legislation
Exception sometimes made in behalf of the Jews
Hostility of the pulpit
Of the canon law
Evil results of the prohibition of loans at interest
Efforts to induce the Church to change her positio
Theological evasions of the rule
Attitude of the Reformers toward the taking of interest
Struggle in England for recognition of the right to accept interes
Invention of a distinction between usury and interest
II. RETREAT OF THE CHURCH, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC
Sir Robert Filmer's attack on the old doctrine
Retreat of the Protestant Church in Hollan
In Germany and America
Difficulties in the way of compromise in the Catholic Church
Failure of such attempts in France
Theoretical condemnation of usury in Italy
Disregard of all restrictions in practic
Attempts of Escobar and Liguori to reconcile the taking of
interest with the teachings of the Church
Montesquieu's attack on the old theory
Encyclical of Benedict XIV permitting the taking of interest
Similar decision of the Inquisition at Rome
Final retreat of the Catholic Churc
Curious dealings of theology with public economy in other fields
CHAPTER XX.
FROM THE DIVINE ORACLES TO THE HIGHER CRITICISM
I. THE OLDER INTERPRETATION.
Character of the great sacred books of the worl
General laws governing the development and influence of sacred
literature.--The law of its origin
Legends concerning the Septuagint
The law of wills and causes
The law of inerrancy
Hostility to the revision of King James's translation of the Bible
The law of unity
Working of these laws seen in the great rabbinical school
The law of allegorical interpretation
Philo Judaeu
Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria
Occult significance of numbers
Origen
Hilary of Poitiers and Jerome
Augustine
Gregory the Great
Vain attempts to check the flood of allegorical interpretations
Bede.--Savonarola
Methods of modern criticism for the first time employed by Lorenzo Valla
Erasmus
Influence of the Reformation on the belief in the infallibilit
of the sacred books.--Luther and Melanchthon
Development of scholasticism in the Reformed Church
Catholic belief in the inspiration of the Vulgat
Opposition in Russia to the revision of the Slavonic Scriptures
Sir Isaac Newton as a commentator
Scriptural interpretation at the beginning of the eighteenth century
II. BEGINNINGS OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
Theological beliefs regarding the Pentateuch
The book of Genesis
Doubt thrown on the sacred theory by Aben Ezra
By Carlstadt and Maes
Influence of the discovery that the Isidorian Decretals were forgeries
That the writings ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite were serious
Hobbes and La Peyrere
Spinoza
Progress of biblical criticism in France.--Richard Simo
LeClerc
Bishop Lowt
Astruc
Eichhorn's application of the "higher criticism" to biblical research
Isenbieh
Herder
Alexander Gedde
Opposition to the higher criticism in Germany
Hupfel
Vatke and Reuss
Kuenen
Wellhause
III. THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
Progress of the higher criticism in Germany and Holland
Opposition to it in England
At the University of Oxford
Puse
Bentle
Wolf
Niebuhr and Arnol
Milman
Thirlwall and Grote
The publication of Essays and Reviews, and the storm raised by book
IV. THE CLOSING STRUGGLE.
Colenso's work on the Pentateuch
The persecution of hi
Bishop Wilberforce's part in it
Dean Stanley's
Bishop Thirlwall's
Results of Colenso's work
Sanday's Bampton Lectures
Keble College and Lux Mundi
Progress of biblical criticism among the dissenters
In France.--Renan
In the Roman Catholic Church
The encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIII
In America.--Theodore Parker
Apparent strength of the old theory of inspiration
Real strength of the new movement
V. VICTORY OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY METHODS
Confirmation of the conclusions of the higher criticism by
Assyriology and Egyptology
Light thrown upon Hebrew religion by the translation of the
sacred books of the East
The influence of Persian thought.--The work of the Rev. Dr. Mills
The influence of Indian thought.--Light thrown by the study o
Brahmanism and Buddhism
The work of Fathers Huc and Gabet
Discovery that Buddha himself had been canonized as a Christian saint
Similarity between the ideas and legends of Buddhism and those
of Christianity
The application of the higher criticism to the New Testament
The English "Revised Version" of Studies on the formation of
the canon of Scripture
Recognition of the laws governing its developmen
Change in the spirit of the controversy over the higher criticism
VI. RECONSTRUCTIVE FORCE OF SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM
Development of a scientific atmosphere during the last three centuries
Action of modern science in reconstruction of religious truth
Change wrought by it in the conception of a sacred literatur
Of the Divine Power.--Of man.---Of the world at large
Of our Bibl
I. THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE.
AMONG those masses of cathedral sculpture which preserve so much of
medieval theology, one frequently recurring group is noteworthy fo
its presentment of a time-honoured doctrine regarding the origin of
the universe.
The Almighty, in human form, sits benignly, making the sun, moon,
and stars, and hanging them from the solid firmament which support
the "heaven above" and overarches the "earth beneath."
The furrows of thought on the Creator's brow show that in this work
he is obliged to contrive; the knotted muscles upon his arms sho
that he is obliged to toil; naturally, then, the sculptors and
painters of the medieval and early modern period frequently
represented him as the writers whose conceptions they embodied had
done--as, on the seventh day, weary after thought and toil,
enjoying well-earned repose and the plaudits of the hosts of heaven.
In these thought-fossils of the cathedrals, and in other
revelations of the same idea through sculpture, painting,
glass-staining, mosaic work, and engraving, during the Middle Ages
and the two centuries following, culminated a belief which had been
developed through thousands of years, and which has determined the
world's thought until our own time.
Its beginnings lie far back in human history; we find them among
the early records of nearly all the great civilizations, and the
hold a most prominent place in the various sacred books of the
world. In nearly all of them is revealed the conception of a
Creator of whom man is an imperfect image, and who literally and
directly created the visible universe with his hands and fingers.
Among these theories, of especial interest to us are those which
controlled theological thought in Chaldea. The Assyrian
inscriptions which have been recently recovered and given to the
English-speaking peoples by Layard, George Smith, Sayce, and
others, show that in the ancient religions of Chaldea and Babyloni
there was elaborated a narrative of the creation which, in its most
important features, must have been the source of that in our own
sacred books. It has now become perfectly clear that from the same
sources which inspired the accounts of the creation of the univers
among the Chaldeo-Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Phoenician, and
other ancient civilizations came the ideas which hold so prominent
a place in the sacred books of the Hebrews. In the two accounts
imperfectly fused together in Genesis, and also in the account of
which we have indications in the book of Job and in the Proverbs,
there, is presented, often with the greatest sublimity, the same
early conception of the Creator and of the creation--the
conception, so natural in the childhood of civilization, of a
Creator who is an enlarged human being working literally with his
own hands, and of a creation which is "the work of his fingers." To
supplement this view there was developed the belief in this Creator
as one who, havin
. . . "from his ample palm
Launched forth the rolling planets into space."
sits on high, enthroned "upon the circle of the heavens,
perpetually controlling and directing them.
From this idea of creation was evolved in time a somewhat noble
view. Ancient thinkers, and especially, as is now found, in Egypt,
suggested that the main agency in creation was not the hands and
fingers of the Creator, but his _voice_. Hence was mingled with th
earlier, cruder belief regarding the origin of the earth and
heavenly bodies by the Almighty the more impressive idea that "he
spake and they were made"--that they were brought into existence
by his _word_.[3]
Among the early fathers of the Church this general view of creatio
became fundamental; they impressed upon Christendom more and more
strongly the belief that the universe was created in a perfectly
literal sense by the hands or voice of God. Here and there sundry
theologians of larger mind attempted to give a more spiritual view
regarding some parts of the creative work, and of these were St.
Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine. Ready as they were to accept
the literal text of Scripture, they revolted against the conception
of an actual creation of the universe by the hands and fingers o
a Supreme Being, and in this they were followed by Bede and a few
others; but the more material conceptions prevailed, and we find
these taking shape not only in the sculptures and mosaics and
stained glass of cathedrals, and in the illuminations of missals
and psalters, but later, at the close of the Middle Ages, in the
pictured Bibles and in general literature.
Into the Anglo-Saxon mind this ancient material conception of the
creation was riveted by two poets whose works appealed especially
to the deeper religious feelings. In the seventh century Caedmon
paraphrased the account given in Genesis, bringing out this
material conception in the most literal form; and a thousand years
later Milton developed out of the various statements in the Old
Testament, mingled with a theology regarding "the creative Word"
which had been drawn from the New, his description of the creation
by the second person in the Trinity, than which nothing could b
more literal and material:
"He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe and all created things
One foot he centred, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure,
And said, `Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds:
This be thy just circumference, O world!'"[4]
So much for the orthodox view of the _manner_ of creation.
The next point developed in this theologic evolution had referenc
to the _matter_ of which the universe was made, and it was decided by
an overwhelming majority that no material substance existed before
the creation of the material universe--that "God created everything
out of nothing." Some venturesome thinkers, basing their reasoning
upon the first verses of Genesis, hinted at a different
view--namely, that the mass, "without form and void," existed
before the universe; but this doctrine was soon swept out of sight
The vast majority of the fathers were explicit on this point.
Tertullian especially was very severe against those who took any
other view than that generally accepted as orthodox: he declared
that, if there had been any pre-existing matter out of which the
world was formed, Scripture would have mentioned it; that by not
mentioning it God has given us a clear proof that there was no such
thing; and, after a manner not unknown in other theological
controversies, he threatens Hermogenes, who takes the opposit
view, with the woe which impends on all who add to or take away
from the written word."
St. Augustine, who showed signs of a belief in a pre-existence of
matter, made his peace with the prevailing belief by the simple
reasoning that, "although the world has been made of some material
that very same material must have been made out of nothing."
In the wake of these great men the universal Church steadil
followed. The Fourth Lateran Council declared that God created
everything out of nothing; and at the present hour the vast
majority of the faithful--whether Catholic or Protestant--are
taught the same doctrine; on this point the syllabus of Pius IX and
the Westminster Catechism fully agree.[5]
Having thus disposed of the manner and matter of creation, the next
subject taken up by theologians was the _time_ required for the
great work.
Here came a difficulty. The first of the two accounts given in
Genesis extended the creative operation through six days, each of
an evening and a morning, with much explicit detail regarding the
progress made in each. But the second account spoke of "_the day_"
in which "the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." The
explicitness of the first account and its naturalness to the minds
of the great mass of early theologians gave it at first a decided
advantage; but Jewish thinkers, like Philo, and Christian thinkers
like Origen, forming higher conceptions of the Creator and his
work, were not content with this, and by them was launched upon the
troubled sea of Christian theology the idea that the creation was
instantaneous, this idea being strengthened not only by the second
of the Genesis legends, but by the great text, "He spake, and it
was done; he commanded, and it stood fast"--or, as it appears in
the Vulgate and in most translations, "He spake, and they were
made; he commanded, and they were created."
As a result, it began to be held that the safe and proper course
was to believe literally _both_ statements; that in some mysteriou
manner God created the universe in six days, and yet brought it all
into existence in a moment. In spite of the outcries of sundry
great theologians, like Ephrem Syrus, that the universe was created
in exactly six days of twenty-four hours each, this compromise was
promoted by St. Athanasius and St. Basil in the East, and by St.
Augustine and St. Hilary in the West.
Serious difficulties were found in reconciling these two views,
which to the natural mind seem absolutely contradictory; but by
ingenious manipulation of texts, by dexterous play upon phrases,
and by the abundant use of metaphysics to dissolve away facts, a
reconciliation was effected, and men came at least to believe that
they believed in a creation of the universe instantaneous and at
the same time extended through six days.[6
Some of the efforts to reconcile these two accounts were s
fruitful as to deserve especial record. The fathers, Eastern and
Western, developed out of the double account in Genesis, and the
indications in the Psalms, the Proverbs, and the book of Job,
vast mass of sacred science bearing upon this point. As regards the
whole work of creation, stress was laid upon certain occult power
in numerals. Philo Judaeus, while believing in an instantaneous
creation, had also declared that the world was created in six days
because "of all numbers six is the most productive"; he had
explained the creation of the heavenly bodies on the fourth day by
"the harmony of the number four"; of the animals on the fifth day
by the five senses; of man on the sixth day by the same virtues in
the number six which had caused it to be set as a limit to the
creative work; and, greatest of all, the rest on the seventh day by
the vast mass of mysterious virtues in the number seven.
St. Jerome held that the reason why God did not pronounce the work
of the second day "good" is to be found in the fact that there is
something essentially evil in the number two, and this was echoed
centuries afterward, afar off in Britain, by Bede.
St. Augustine brought this view to bear upon the Church in th
following statement: "There are three classes of numbers--the more
than perfect, the perfect, and the less than perfect, according as
the sum of them is greater than, equal to, or less than the
original number. Six is the first perfect number: wherefore we mus
not say that six is a perfect number because God finished all hi
works in six days, but that God finished all his works in six days
because six is a perfect number."
Reasoning of this sort echoed along through the mediaeval Church
until a year after the discovery of America, when the _Nuremberg
Chronicle_ re-echoed it as follows: "The creation of things is
explained by the number six, the parts of which, one, two, and
three, assume the form of a triangle."
This view of the creation of the universe as instantaneous and also
as in six days, each made up of an evening and a morning, became
virtually universal. Peter Lombard and Hugo of St. Victor
authorities of Vast weight, gave it their sanction in the twelfth
century, and impressed it for ages upon the mind of the Church.
Both these lines of speculation--as to the creation of everything
out of nothing, and the reconciling of the instantaneous creatio
of the universe with its creation in six days--were still further
developed by other great thinkers of the Middle Ages.
St. Hilary of Poictiers reconciled the two conceptions as follows:
"For, although according to Moses there is an appearance of regular
order in the fixing of the firmament, the laying bare of the dry
land, the gathering together of the waters, the formation of the
heavenly bodies, and the arising of living things from land and
water, yet the creation of the heavens, earth, and other elements
is seen to be the work of a single moment."
St. Thomas Aquinas drew from St. Augustine a subtle distinction
which for ages eased the difficulties in the case: he taught in
effect that God created the substance of things in a moment, but
gave to the work of separating, shaping, and adorning this
creation, six days.[8]
The early reformers accepted and developed the same view, and
Luther especially showed himself equal to the occasion. With his
usual boldness he declared, first, that Moses "spoke properly an
plainly, and neither allegorically nor figuratively," and that
therefore "the world with all creatures was created in six days."
And he then goes on to show how, by a great miracle, the whole
creation was also instantaneous.
Melanchthon also insisted that the universe was created out of
nothing and in a mysterious way, both in an instant and in six
days, citing the text: "He spake, and they were made.
Calvin opposed the idea of an instantaneous creation, and laid
especial stress on the creation in six days: having called
attention to the fact that the biblical chronology shows the world
to be not quite six thousand years old and that it is now near its
end, he says that "creation was extended through six days that it
might not be tedious for us to occupy the whole of life in the
consideration of it."
Peter Martyr clinched the matter by declaring: "So important is it
to comprehend the work of creation that we see the creed of the
Church take this as its starting point. Were this article taken
away there would be no original sin, the promise of Christ would
become void, and all the vital force of our religion would be
destroyed." The Westminster divines in drawing up their Confession
of Faith specially laid it down as necessary to believe that al
things visible and invisible were created not only out of nothing
but in exactly six days.
Nor were the Roman divines less strenuous than the Protestant
reformers regarding the necessity of holding closely to the
so-called Mosaic account of creation. As late as the middle of th
eighteenth century, when Buffon attempted to state simple
geological truths, the theological faculty of the Sorbonne forced
him to make and to publish a most ignominious recantation which
ended with these words: "I abandon everything in my book respecting
the formation of the earth, and generally all which may be Contrary
to the narrative of Moses."
Theologians, having thus settled the manner of the creation, the
matter used in it, and the time required for it, now exerted
themselves to fix its _date_.
The long series of efforts by the greatest minds in the Church,
from Eusebius to Archbishop Usher, to settle this point are
presented in another chapter. Suffice it here that the general
conclusion arrived at by an overwhelming majority of the most
competent students of the biblical accounts was that the date of
creation was, in round numbers, four thousand years before our era;
and in the seventeenth century, in his great work, Dr. John
Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and one
of the most eminent Hebrew scholars of his time, declared, as the
result of his most profound and exhaustive study of the Scriptures
that "heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created all
together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water," and that
"this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on October
23, 4004 B. C., at nine o'clock in the morning."
Here was, indeed, a triumph of Lactantius's method, the result of
hundreds of years of biblical study and theological thought since
Bede in the eighth century, and Vincent of Beauvais in the
thirteenth, had declared that creation must have taken place in the
spring. Yet, alas! within two centuries after Lightfoot's great
biblical demonstration as to the exact hour of creation, it wa
discovered that at that hour an exceedingly cultivated people
enjoying all the fruits of a highly developed civilization, had
long been swarming in the great cities of Egypt, and that other
nations hardly less advanced had at that time reached a high
development in Asia.[10]
But, strange as it may seem, even after theologians had thus
settled the manner of creation, the matter employed in it, the tim
required for it, and the exact date of it, there remained virtually
unsettled the first and greatest question of all; and this was
nothing less than the question, WHO actually created the universe?
Various theories more or less nebulous, but all centred in texts of
Scripture, had swept through the mind of the Church. By some
theologians it was held virtually that the actual creative agent
was the third person of the Trinity, who, in the opening words of
our sublime creation poem, "moved upon the face of the waters." B
others it was held that the actual Creator was the second person of
the Trinity, in behalf of whose agency many texts were cited fro
the New Testament. Others held that the actual Creator was the
first person, and this view was embodied in the two great formulas
known as the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, which explicitly assigned
the work to "God the Father Almighty" Maker of heaven and earth.
Others, finding a deep meaning in the words "Let _us_ make," ascribed
in Genesis to the Creator, held that the entire Trinity directl
created all things; and still others, by curious metaphysical
processes, seemed to arrive at the idea that peculiar combinations
of two persons of the Trinity achieved the creation.
In all this there would seem to be considerable courage in view of
the fearful condemnations launched in the Athanasian Creed against
all who should "confound the persons" or "divide the substance of
the Trinity."
These various stages in the evolution of scholastic theology wer
also embodied in sacred art, and especially in cathedral sculpture,
in glass-staining, in mosaic working, and in missal painting.
The creative Being is thus represented sometimes as the third
person of the Trinity, in the form of a dove brooding over chaos
sometimes as the second person, and therefore a youth; sometimes as
the first person, and therefore fatherly and venerable; sometimes
as the first and second persons, one being venerable and the other
youthful; and sometimes as three persons, one venerable and on
youthful, both wearing papal crowns, and each holding in his lip
a tip of the wing of the dove, which thus seems to proceed from
both and to be suspended between them.
Nor was this the most complete development of the medieval idea.
The Creator was sometimes represented with a single body, but with
three faces, thus showing that Christian belief had in some piou
minds gone through substantially the same cycle which an earlie
form of belief had made ages before in India, when the Supreme
Being was represented with one body but with the three faces o
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.
But at the beginning of the modern period the older view in it
primitive Jewish form was impressed upon Christians by the most
mighty genius in art the world has known; for in 1512, after four
years of Titanic labour, Michael Angelo uncovered his frescoe
within the vault of the Sistine Chapel.
They had been executed by the command and under the sanction of the
ruling Pope, Julius II, to represent the conception of Christian
theology then dominant, and they remain to-day in all their majesty
to show the highest point ever attained by the older thought upon
the origin of the visible universe.
In the midst of the expanse of heaven the Almighty Father--the
first person of the Trinity--in human form, august and venerable,
attended by angels and upborne by mighty winds, sweeps over the
abyss, and, moving through successive compartments of the great
vault, accomplishes the work of the creative days. With a simple
gesture he divides the light from the darkness, rears on high the
solid firmament, gathers together beneath it the seas, or summons
into existence the sun, moon, and planets, and sets them circlin
about the earth
In this sublime work culminated the thought of thousands of years;
the strongest minds accepted it or pretended to accept it, and
nearly two centuries later this conception, in accordance with the
first of the two accounts given in Genesis, was especially enforced
by Bossuet, and received a new lease of life in the Church, both
Catholic and Protestant.[12]
But to these discussions was added yet another, which, beginning in
the early days of the Church, was handed down the ages until it ha
died out among the theologians of our own time.
In the first of the biblical accounts light is created and the
distinction between day and night thereby made on the first day,
while the sun and moon are not created until the fourth day. Masses
of profound theological and pseudo-scientific reasoning have bee
developed to account for this--masses so great that for ages they
have obscured the simple fact that the original text is a precious
revelation to us of one of the most ancient of recorded
beliefs--the belief that light and darkness are entities
independent of the heavenly bodies, and that the sun, moon, and
stars exist not merely to increase light but to "divide the day
from the night, to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and
for years," and "to rule the day and the night."
Of this belief we find survivals among the early fathers, an
especially in St. Ambrose. In his work on creation he tells us: "W
must remember that the light of day is one thing and the light of
the sun, moon, and stars another--the sun by his rays appearing to
add lustre to the daylight. For before sunrise the day dawns, but
is not in full refulgence, for the sun adds still further to it
splendour." This idea became one of the "treasures of sacred
knowledge committed to the Church," and was faithfully received by
the Middle Ages. The medieval mysteries and miracle plays give
curious evidences of this: In a performance of the creation, when
God separates light from darkness, the stage direction is, "Now a
painted cloth is to be exhibited, one half black and the other half
white." It was also given more permanent form. In the mosaics of
San Marco at Venice, in the frescoes of the Baptistery at Florence
and of the Church of St. Francis at Assisi, and in the altar
carving at Salerno, we find a striking realization of it--the
Creator placing in the heavens two disks or living figures of equal
size, each suitably coloured or inscribed to show that one
represents light and the other darkness. This conception was
without doubt that of the person or persons who compiled from the
Chaldean and other earlier statements the accounts of the creation
in the first of our sacred books.[13]
Thus, down to a period almost within living memory, it was held,
virtually "always, everywhere, and by all," that the universe, a
we now see it, was created literally and directly by the voice or
hands of the Almighty, or by both--out of nothing--in an instant
or in six days, or in both--about four thousand years before the
Christian era--and for the convenience of the dwellers upon th
earth, which was at the base and foundation of the whole structure.
But there had been implanted along through the ages germs of
another growth in human thinking, some of them even as early as the
Babylonian period. In the Assyrian inscriptions we find recorded
the Chaldeo-Babylonian idea of _an evolution_ of the universe out of
the primeval flood or "great deep," and of the animal creation out
of the earth and sea. This idea, recast, partially at least, into
monotheistic form, passed naturally into the sacred books of the
neighbours and pupils of the Chaldeans--the Hebrews; but its growth
in Christendom afterward was checked, as we shall hereafter find,
by the more powerful influence of other inherited statements which
appealed more intelligibly to the mind of the Church
Striking, also, was the effect of this idea as rewrought by the
early Ionian philosophers, to whom it was probably transmitted fro
the Chaldeans through the Phoenicians. In the minds of Ionians lik
Anaximander and Anaximenes it was most clearly developed: the first
of these conceiving of the visible universe as the result of
processes of evolution, and the latter pressing further the same
mode of reasoning, and dwelling on agencies in cosmic development
recognised in modern science.
This general idea of evolution in Nature thus took strong hold upo
Greek thought and was developed in many ways, some ingenious, some
perverse. Plato, indeed, withstood it; but Aristotle sometimes
developed it in a manner which reminds us of modern views
Among the Romans Lucretius caught much from it, extending the
evolutionary process virtually to all things.
In the early Church, as we have seen, the idea of a creation
direct, material, and by means like those used by man, wa
all-powerful for the exclusion of conceptions based on evolution.
From the more simple and crude of the views of creation given in
the Babylonian legends, and thence incorporated into Genesis, rose
the stream of orthodox thought on the subject, which grew into a
flood and swept on through the Middle Ages and into modern times.
Yet here and there in the midst of this flood were high grounds of
thought held by strong men. Scotus Erigena and Duns Scotus, among
the schoolmen, bewildered though they were, had caught some rays of
this ancient light, and passed on to their successors, in modified
form, doctrines of an evolutionary process in the universe
In the latter half of the sixteenth century these evolutionary
theories seemed to take more definite form in the mind of Giordano
Bruno, who evidently divined the fundamental idea of what is no
known as the "nebular hypothesis"; but with his murder by the
Inquisition at Rome this idea seemed utterly to
disappear--dissipated by the flames which in 1600 consumed his body
on the Campo dei Fiori.
Yet within the two centuries divided by Bruno's death the world wa
led into a new realm of thought in which an evolution theory of the
visible universe was sure to be rapidly developed. For there came,
one after the other, five of the greatest men our race has
produced--Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton--and
when their work was done the old theological conception of the
universe was gone. "The spacious firmament on high"--"the
crystalline spheres"--the Almighty enthroned upon "the circle of
the heavens," and with his own lands, or with angels as his agents,
keeping sun, moon, and planets in motion for the benefit of the
earth, opening and closing the "windows of heaven," letting down
upon the earth the "waters above the firmament," "setting his bow
in the cloud," hanging out "signs and wonders," hurling comets,
"casting forth lightnings" to scare the wicked, and "shaking the
earth" in his wrath: all this had disappeared.
These five men had given a new divine revelation to the world; and
through the last, Newton, had come a vast new conception, destined
to be fatal to the old theory of creation, for he had shown
throughout the universe, in place of almighty caprice,
all-pervading law. The bitter opposition of theology to the first
four of these men is well known; but the fact is not so widely
known that Newton, in spite of his deeply religious spirit, was
also strongly opposed. It was vigorously urged against him that by
his statement of the law of gravitation he "took from God that
direct action on his works so constantly ascribed to him in
Scripture and transferred it to material mechanism," and that he
"substituted gravitation for Providence." But, more than this,
these men gave a new basis for the theory of evolution as
distinguished from the theory of creation.
Especially worthy of note is it that the great work of Descartes,
erroneous as many of its deductions were, and, in view of the lac
of physical knowledge in his time, must be, had done much to weaken
the old conception. His theory of a universe brought out of
all-pervading matter, wrought into orderly arrangement by movements
in accordance with physical laws--though it was but a provisional
hypothesis--had done much to draw men's minds from the old
theological view of creation; it was an example of intellectual
honesty arriving at errors, but thereby aiding the advent of
truths. Crippled though Descartes was by his almost morbid fear of
the Church, this part of his work was no small factor in bringing
in that attitude of mind which led to a reception of the thoughts
of more unfettered thinkers.
Thirty years later came, in England, an effort of a different sort,
but with a similar result. In 1678 Ralph Cudworth published his
_Intellectual System of the Universe_. To this day he remains, in
breadth of scholarship, in strength of thought, in tolerance, an
in honesty, one of the greatest glories of the English Church, and
his work was worthy of him. He purposed to build a fortress which
should protect Christianity against all dangerous theories of the
universe, ancient or modern. The foundations of the structure wer
laid with old thoughts thrown often into new and striking forms;
but, as the superstructure arose more and more into view, while
genius marked every part of it, features appeared which gave the
rigidly orthodox serious misgivings. From the old theories o
direct personal action on the universe by the Almighty he broke
utterly. He dwelt on the action of law, rejected the continuous
exercise of miraculous intervention, pointed out the fact that in
the natural world there are "errors" and "bungles," and argued
vigorously in favour of the origin and maintenance of the universe
as a slow and gradual development of Nature in obedience to an
inward principle. The Balaks of seventeenth-century orthodoxy might
well condemn this honest Balaam.
Toward the end of the next century a still more profound genius,
Immanuel Kant, presented the nebular theory, giving it, in th
light of Newton's great utterances, a consistency which it neve
before had; and about the same time Laplace gave it yet greater
strength by mathematical reasonings of wonderful power and extent,
thus implanting firmly in modern thought the idea that our ow
solar system and others--suns, planets, satellites, and their
various movements, distances, and magnitudes--necessarily resul
from the obedience of nebulous masses to natural laws.
Throughout the theological world there was an outcry at once
against "atheism," and war raged fiercely. Herschel and others
pointed out many nebulous patches apparently gaseous. They showed
by physical and mathematical demonstrations that the hypothesis
accounted for the great body of facts, and, despite clamour, were
gaining ground, when the improved telescopes resolved some of th
patches of nebulous matter into multitudes of stars. The opponents
of the nebular hypothesis were overjoyed; they now sang paans to
astronomy, because, as they said, it had proved the truth of
Scripture. They had jumped to the conclusion that all nebula must
be alike; that, if _some_ are made up of systems of stars, _all_ must
be so made up; that none can be masses of attenuated gaseous
matter, because some are not.
Science halted for a time. The accepted doctrine became this: that
the only reason why all the nebula are not resolved into distinct
stars is that our telescopes are not sufficiently powerful. But in
time came the discovery of the spectroscope and spectrum analysis,
and thence Fraunhofer's discovery that the spectrum of an ignite
gaseous body is non-continuous, with interrupting lines; an
Draper's discovery that the spectrum of an ignited solid i
continuous, with no interrupting lines. And now the spectroscope
was turned upon the nebula, and many of them were found to be
gaseous. Here, then, was ground for the inference that in these
nebulous masses at different stages of condensation--some
apparently mere pitches of mist, some with luminous centres--we
have the process of development actually going on, and observations
like those of Lord Rosse and Arrest gave yet further confirmation
to this view. Then came the great contribution of the nineteenth
century to physics, aiding to explain important parts of the vast
process by the mechanical theory of heat.
Again the nebular hypothesis came forth stronger than ever, and
about 1850 the beautiful experiment of Plateau on the rotation of
a fluid globe came in apparently to illustrate if not to confirm
it. Even so determined a defender of orthodoxy as Mr. Gladstone at
last acknowledged some form of a nebular hypothesis as probably true
Here, too, was exhibited that form of surrendering theological
views to science under the claim that science concurs with
theology, which we have seen in so many other fields; and, as
typical, an example may be given, which, however restricted in its
scope, throws light on the process by which such surrenders are
obtained. A few years since one of the most noted professors of
chemistry in the city of New York, under the auspices of one of its
most fashionable churches, gave a lecture which, as was claimed in
the public prints and in placards posted in the streets, was t
show that science supports the theory of creation given in the
sacred books ascribed to Moses. A large audience assembled, and a
brilliant series of elementary experiments with oxygen, hydrogen
and carbonic acid was concluded by the Plateau demonstration. It
was beautifully made. As the coloured globule of oil, representing
the earth, was revolved in a transparent medium of equal density,
as it became flattened at the poles, as rings then broke forth fro
it and revolved about it, and, finally, as some of these rings
broke into satellites, which for a moment continued to circle about
the central mass, the audience, as well they might, rose and burst
into rapturous applause.
Thereupon a well-to-do citizen arose and moved the thanks of the
audience to the eminent professor for "this perfect demonstratio
of the exact and literal conformity of the statements given in Holy
Scripture with the latest results of science." The motion was
carried unanimously and with applause, and the audience dispersed
feeling that a great service had been rendered to orthodoxy.
_Sancta simplicitas!_
What this incident exhibited on a small scale has been seen
elsewhere with more distinguished actors and on a broader stage.
Scores of theologians, chief among whom of late, in zeal if not in
knowledge, has been Mr. Gladstone, have endeavoured to "reconcile"
the two accounts in Genesis with each other and with the truths
regarding the origin of the universe gained by astronomy, geology,
geography, physics, and chemistry. The result has been recently
stated by an eminent theologian, the Hulsean Professor of Divinity
at the University of Cambridge. He declares, "No attempt at
reconciling genesis with the exacting requirements of modern
sciences has ever been known to succeed without entailing a degree
of special pleading or forced interpretation to which, in such
question, we should be wise to have no recourse."[19]
The revelations of another group of sciences, though sometimes
bitterly opposed and sometimes "reconciled" by theologians, have
finally set the whole question at rest. First, there have come the
biblical critics--earnest Christian scholars, working for the sake
of truth--and these have revealed beyond the shadow of a reasonable
doubt the existence of at least two distinct accounts of creation
in our book of Genesis, which can sometimes be forced to agree, but
which are generally absolutely at variance with each other. Thes
scholars have further shown the two accounts to be not the
cunningly devised fables of priestcraft, but evidently fragments of
earlier legends, myths, and theologies, accepted in good faith and
brought together for the noblest of purposes by those who put in
order the first of our sacred books
Next have come the archaeologists and philologists, the devoted
students of ancient monuments and records; of these are such as
Rawlinson, George Smith, Sayce, Oppert, Jensen, Schrader,
Delitzsch, and a phalanx of similarly devoted scholars, who have
deciphered a multitude of ancient texts, especially th
inscriptions found in the great library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh,
and have discovered therein an account of the origin of the world
identical in its most important features with the later accounts in
our own book of Genesis.
These men have had the courage to point out these facts and to
connect them with the truth that these Chaldean and Babylonian
myths, legends, and theories were far earlier than those of the
Hebrews, which so strikingly resemble them, and which we have i
our sacred books; and they have also shown us how natural it was
that the Jewish accounts of the creation should have been obtained
at that remote period when the earliest Hebrews were among the
Chaldeans, and how the great Hebrew poetic accounts of creatio
were drawn either from the sacred traditions of these earlier
peoples or from antecedent sources common to various ancient nations.
In a summary which for profound thought and fearless integrity does
honour not only to himself but to the great position which he
holds, the Rev. Dr. Driver, Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ
Church at Oxford, has recently stated the case fully and fairly
Having pointed out the fact that the Hebrews were one people out of
many who thought upon the origin of the universe, he says that they
"framed theories to account for the beginnings of the earth and man"
that "they either did this for themselves or borrowed those of
their neighbours"; that "of the theories current in Assyria and
Phoenicia fragments have been preserved, and these exhibit points
of resemblance with the biblical narrative sufficient to warrant
the inference that both are derived from the same cycle of tradition.
After giving some extracts from the Chaldean creation tablets he
says: "In the light of these facts it is difficult to resist the
conclusion that the biblical narrative is drawn from the same
source as these other records. The biblical historians, it is
plain, derived their materials from the best human sources
available.... The materials which with other nations were combined
into the crudest physical theories or associated with a grotesque
polytheism were vivified and transformed by the inspired genius of
the Hebrew historians, and adapted to become the vehicle o
profound religious truth."
Not less honourable to the sister university and to himself is the
statement recently made by the Rev. Dr. Ryle, Hulsean Professor of
Divinity at Cambridge. He says that to suppose that a Christian
"must either renounce his confidence in the achievements of
scientific research or abandon his faith in Scripture is
monstrous perversion of Christian freedom." He declares: "The ol
position is no longer tenable; a new position has to be taken up
at once, prayerfully chosen, and hopefully held." He then goes on
to compare the Hebrew story of creation with the earlier stories
developed among kindred peoples, and especially with the
pre-existing Assyro-Babylonian cosmogony, and shows that they ar
from the same source. He points out that any attempt to explain
particular features of the story into harmony with the modern
scientific ideas necessitates "a non-natural" interpretation; but
he says that, if we adopt a natural interpretation, "we shall
consider that the Hebrew description of the visible universe is
unscientific as judged by modern standards, and that it shares the
limitations of the imperfect knowledge of the age at which it was
committed to writing." Regarding the account in Genesis of man's
physical origin, he says that it "is expressed in the simple terms
of prehistoric legend, of unscientific pictorial description."
In these statements and in a multitude of others made by eminent
Christian investigators in other countries is indicated what the
victory is which has now been fully won over the older theology.
Thus, from the Assyrian researches as well as from other sources
it has come to be acknowledged by the most eminent scholars at the
leading seats of Christian learning that the accounts of creation
with which for nearly two thousand years all scientific discoveries
have had to be "reconciled"--the accounts which blocked the way of
Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and Laplace--were simply
transcribed or evolved from a mass of myths and legends largely
derived by the Hebrews from their ancient relations with Chaldea,
rewrought in a monotheistic sense, imperfectly welded together, and then
thrown into poetic forms in the sacred books which we have inherited.
On one hand, then, we have the various groups of men devoted to the
physical sciences all converging toward the proofs that the
universe, as we at present know it, is the result of an
evolutionary process--that is, of the gradual working of physical
laws upon an early condition of matter; on the other hand, we have
other great groups of men devoted to historical, philological, and
archaeological science whose researches all converge toward th
conclusion that our sacred accounts of creation were the result o
an evolution from an early chaos of rude opinion.
The great body of theologians who have so long resisted th
conclusions of the men of science have claimed to be fightin
especially for "the truth of Scripture," and their final answer to
the simple conclusions of science regarding the evolution of the
material universe has been the cry, "The Bible is true." And they
are right--though in a sense nobler than they have dreamed.
Science, while conquering them, has found in our Scriptures a far
nobler truth than that literal historical exactness for which
theologians have so long and so vainly contended. More and more a
we consider the results of the long struggle in this field we are
brought to the conclusion that the inestimable value of the great
sacred books of the world is found in their revelation of the
steady striving of our race after higher conceptions, beliefs, and
aspirations, both in morals and religion. Unfolding and exhibiting
this long-continued effort, each of the great sacred books of the
world is precious, and all, in the highest sense, are true. Not one
of them, indeed, conforms to the measure of what mankind has now
reached in historical and scientific truth; to make a claim to suc
conformity is folly, for it simply exposes those who make it and
the books for which it is made to loss of their just influence.
That to which the great sacred books of the world conform, and ou
own most of all, is the evolution of the highest conceptions,
beliefs, and aspirations of our race from its childhood through the
great turning-points in its history. Herein lies the truth of all
bibles, and especially of our own. Of vast value they indeed often
are as a record of historical outward fact; recent researches in
the East are constantly increasing this value; but it is not for
this that we prize them most: they are eminently precious, not as
a record of outward fact, but as a mirror of the evolving heart,
mind, and soul of man. They are true because they have bee
developed in accordance with the laws governing the evolution of
truth in human history, and because in poem, chronicle, code,
legend, myth, apologue, or parable they reflect this development of
what is best in the onward march of humanity. To say that they are
not true is as if one should say that a flower or a tree or a
planet is not true; to scoff at them is to scoff at the law of the
universe. In welding together into noble form, whether in the book
of Genesis, or in the Psalms, or in the book of Job, or elsewhere,
the great conceptions of men acting under earlier inspiration,
whether in Egypt, or Chaldea, or India, or Persia, the compilers of
our sacred books have given to humanity a possession ever becoming
more and more precious; and modern science, in substituting a new
heaven and a new earth for the old--the reign of law for the reign
of caprice, and the idea of evolution for that of creation--has
added and is steadily adding a new revelation divinely inspired
In the light of these two evolutions, then--one of the visible
universe, the other of a sacred creation-legend--science and
theology, if the master minds in both are wise, may at last be
reconciled. A great step in this reconciliation was recently seen
at the main centre of theological thought among English-speaking
people, when, in the collection of essays entitled _Lux Mundi_,
emanating from the college established in these latter days as a
fortress of orthodoxy at Oxford, the legendary character of the
creation accounts in our sacred books was acknowledged, and when
the Archbishop of Canterbury asked, "May not the Holy Spirit at
times have made use of myth and legend?"[24]
II. THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS REGARDING THE ANIMALS AND MAN.
IN one of the windows of the cathedral at Ulm a mediaeval
glass-stainer has represented the Almighty as busily engaged in
creating the animals, and there has just left the divine hands a
elephant fully accoutred, with armour, harness, and housings
ready-for war. Similar representations appear in illuminate
manuscripts and even in early printed books, and, as the
culmination of the whole, the Almighty is shown as fashioning the
first man from a hillock of clay and extracting from his side,
with evident effort, the first woman.
This view of the general process of creation had come from far,
appearing under varying forms in various ancient cosmogonies. In
the Egyptian temples at Philae and Denderah may still be seen
representations of the Nile gods modelling lumps of clay into men,
and a similar work is ascribed in the Assyrian tablets to the gods
of Babylonia. Passing into our own sacred books, these ideas became
the starting point of a vast new development of theology[25]
The fathers of the Church generally received each of the two
conflicting creation legends in Genesis literally, and then, having
done their best to reconcile them with each other and to mould them
together, made them the final test of thought upon the universe and
all things therein. At the beginning of the fourth centur
Lactantius struck the key-note of this mode of subordinating all
other things in the study of creation to the literal text of
Scripture, and he enforces his view of the creation of man by a bit
of philology, saying the final being created "is called man because
he is made from the ground--_homo ex humo_."
In the second half of the same century this view as to the literal
acceptance of the sacred text was reasserted by St. Ambrose, who
in his work on the creation, declared that "Moses opened his mouth
and poured forth what God had said to him." But a greater than
either of them fastened this idea into the Christian theologies.
St. Augustine, preparing his _Commentary on the Book of Genesis_,
laid down in one famous sentence the law which has lasted in the
Church until our own time: "Nothing is to be accepted save on the
authority of Scripture, since greater is that authority than all
the powers of the human mind." The vigour of the sentence in its
original Latin carried it ringing down the centuries: "_Major est
Scripturae auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii capacitas_."
Through the mediaeval period, in spite of a revolt led by no other
than St. Augustine himself, and followed by a series of influential
churchmen, contending, as we shall hereafter see, for a
modification of the accepted view of creation, this phrase held the
minds of men firmly. The great Dominican encyclopaedist, Vincent of
Beauvais, in his _Mirror of Nature_, while mixing ideas brought fro
Aristotle with a theory drawn from the Bible, stood firmly by the
first of the accounts given in Genesis, and assigned the special
virtue of the number six as a reason why all things were created i
six days; and in the later Middle Ages that eminent authority,
Cardinal d' Ailly, accepted everything regarding creation in the
sacred books literally. Only a faint dissent is seen in Gregory
Reisch, another authority of this later period, who, while giving,
in his book on the beginning of things, a full length woodcut
showing the Almighty in the act of extracting Eve from Adam's side,
with all the rest of new-formed Nature in the background, leans in
his writings, like St. Augustine, toward a belief in the
pre-existence of matter.
At the Reformation the vast authority of Luther was thrown in
favour of the literal acceptance of Scripture as the main source of
natural science. The allegorical and mystical interpretations of
earlier theologians he utterly rejected. "Why," he asks, "should
Moses use allegory when he is not speaking of allegorical creature
or of an allegorical world, but of real creatures and of a visible
world, which can be seen, felt, and grasped? Moses calls things by
their right names, as we ought to do.... I hold that the animals
took their being at once upon the word of God, as did also the
fishes in the sea."
Not less explicit in his adherence to the literal account o
creation given in Genesis was Calvin. He warns those who, by taking
another view than his own, "basely insult the Creator, to expect a
judge who will annihilate them." He insists that all species of
animals were created in six days, each made up of an evening and a
morning, and that no new species has ever appeared since. He dwells
on the production of birds from the water as resting upon certain
warrant of Scripture, but adds, "If the question is to be argued on
physical grounds, we know that water is more akin to air than the
earth is." As to difficulties in the scriptural account of
creation, he tells us that God "wished by these to give proofs of
his power which should fill us with astonishment."
The controlling minds in the Roman Church steadfastly held thi
view. In the seventeenth century Bossuet threw his vast authority
in its favour, and in his _Discourse on Universal History_, which
has remained the foundation not only of theological but of general
historical teaching in France down to the present republic, we fin
him calling attention to what he regards as the culminating act of
creation, and asserting that, literally, for the creation of man
earth was used, and "the finger of God applied to corruptible matter."
The Protestant world held this idea no less persistently. In the
seventeenth century Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of th
University of Cambridge, the great rabbinical scholar of his time,
attempted to reconcile the two main legends in Genesis by saying
that of the "clean sort of beasts there were seven of every kind
created, three couples for breeding and the odd one for Adam's
sacrifice on his fall, which God foresaw"; and that of unclean
beasts only one couple was created.
So literal was this whole conception of the work of creation that
in these days it can scarcely be imagined. The Almighty was
represented in theological literature, in the pictured Bibles, and
in works of art generally, as a sort of enlarged and venerable
Nuremberg toymaker. At times the accounts in Genesis were
illustrated with even more literal exactness; thus, in connection
with a well-known passage in the sacred text, the Creator was shown
as a tailor, seated, needle in hand, diligently sewing together
skins of beasts into coats for Adam and Eve. Such representations
presented no difficulties to the docile minds of the Middle Ages
and the Reformation period; and in the same spirit, when the
discovery of fossils began to provoke thought, these were declare
to be "models of his works approved or rejected by the grea
Artificer," "outlines of future creations," "sports of Nature," o
"objects placed in the strata to bring to naught human curiosity";
and this kind of explanation lingered on until in our own time an
eminent naturalist, in his anxiety to save the literal account in
Genesis, has urged that Jehovah tilted and twisted the strata,
scattered the fossils through them, scratched the glacial furrows
upon them, spread over them the marks of erosion by water, and set
Niagara pouring--all in an instant--thus mystifying the world "fo
some inscrutable purpose, but for his own glory."[28]
The next important development of theological reasoning had regard
to the _divisions_ of the animal kingdom.
Naturally, one of the first divisions which struck the inquiring
mind was that between useful and noxious creatures, and th
question therefore occurred, How could a good God create tigers an
serpents, thorns and thistles? The answer was found in theological
considerations upon _sin_. To man's first disobedience all woes were
due. Great men for eighteen hundred years developed the theory that
before Adam's disobedience there was no death, and therefor
neither ferocity nor venom
Some typical utterances in the evolution of this doctrine are
worthy of a passing glance. St. Augustine expressly confirmed and
emphasized the view that the vegetable as well as the animal
kingdom was cursed on account of man's sin. Two hundred years later
this utterance had been echoed on from father to father of the
Church until it was caught by Bede; he declared that before man's
fall animals were harmless, but were made poisonous or hurtful by
Adam's sin, and he said, "Thus fierce and poisonous animals were
created for terrifying man (because God foresaw that he would sin),
in order that he might be made aware of the final punishment of hell."
In the twelfth century this view was incorporated by Peter Lombard
into his great theological work, the _Sentences_, which became a
text-book of theology through the middle ages. He affirmed that "no
created things would have been hurtful to man had he not sinned;
they became hurtful for the sake of terrifying and punishing vice
or of proving and perfecting virtue; they were created harmless,
and on account of sin became hurtful.
This theological theory regarding animals was brought out in the
eighteenth century with great force by John Wesley. He declared
that before Adam's sin "none of these attempted to devour or in
any wise hurt one another"; "the spider was as harmless as the
fly, and did not lie in wait for blood." Not only Wesley, but the
eminent Dr. Adam Clarke and Dr. Richard Watson, whose ideas had the
very greatest weight among the English Dissenters, and even among
leading thinkers in the Established Church, held firmly to thi
theory; so that not until, in our own time, geology revealed the
remains of vast multitudes of carnivorous creatures, many of them
with half-digested remains of other animals in their stomachs, al
extinct long ages before the appearance of man upon earth, was a
victory won by science over theology in this field.
A curious development of this doctrine was seen in the belief drawn
by sundry old commentators from the condemnation of the serpent in
Genesis--a belief, indeed, perfectly natural, since it was
evidently that of the original writers of the account preserved in
the first of our sacred books. This belief was that, until the
tempting serpent was cursed by the Almighty, all serpents stood
erect, walked, and talked
This belief was handed down the ages as part of "the sacred
deposit of the faith" until Watson, the most prolific writer of
the evangelical reform in the eighteenth century and the standard
theologian of the evangelical party, declared: "We have no reason
at all to believe that the animal had a serpentine form in any mode
or degree until its transformation; that he was then degraded to a
reptile to go upon his belly imports, on the contrary, an entire
loss and alteration of the original form." Here, again, was a ripe
result of the theologic method diligently pursued by the strongest
thinkers in the Church during nearly two thousand years; but this
"sacred deposit" also faded away when the geologists found
abundant remains of fossil serpents dating from periods long before
the appearance of man.
Troublesome questions also arose among theologians regarding
animals classed as "superfluous." St. Augustine was especially
exercised thereby. He says: "I confess I am ignorant why mice and
frogs were created, or flies and worms.... All creatures are eithe
useful, hurtful, or superfluous to us.... As for the hurtful
creatures, we are either punished, or disciplined, or terrified by
them, so that we may not cherish and love this life." As to the
"superfluous animals," he says, "Although they are not necessary
for our service, yet the whole design of the universe is thereby
completed and finished." Luther, who followed St. Augustine in so
many other matters, declined to follow him fully in this. To him a
fly was not merely superfluous, it was noxious--sent by the devil
to vex him when reading.
Another subject which gave rise to much searching of Scripture and
long trains of theological reasoning was the difference between th
creation of man and that of other living beings.
Great stress was laid by theologians, from St. Basil and St
Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas and Bossuet, and from Luther t
Wesley, on the radical distinction indicated in Genesis, God having
created man "in his own image." What this statement meant was seen
in the light of the later biblical statement that "Adam begat Seth
in his own likeness, after his image."
In view of this and of well-known texts incorporated from older
creation legends into the Hebrew sacred books it came to be widely
held that, while man was directly moulded and fashioned separately
by the Creator's hand, the animals generally were evoked in numbers
from the earth and sea by the Creator's voice
A question now arose naturally as to the _distinctions of species
among animals. The Vast majority of theologians agreed in
representing all animals as created "in the beginning," and named
by Adam, preserved in the ark, and continued ever afterward under
exactly the same species. This belief ripened into a dogma. Like so
many other dogmas in the Church, Catholic and Protestant, its real
origins are to be found rather in pagan philosophy than in th
Christian Scriptures; it came far more from Plato and Aristotle
than from Moses and St. Paul. But this was not considered: more and
more it became necessary to believe that each and every difference
of species was impressed by the Creator "in the beginning," and
that no change had taken place or could have taken place since.
Some difficulties arose here and there as zoology progressed an
revealed ever-increasing numbers of species; but through the Middle
Ages, and indeed long after the Reformation, these difficulties
were easily surmounted by making the ark of Noah larger and larger,
and especially by holding that there had been a human error in
regard to its measurement.[31]
But naturally there was developed among both ecclesiastics and
laymen a human desire to go beyond these special points in the
history of animated beings--a desire to know what the creation
really _is_.
Current legends, stories, and travellers' observations, poor as
they were, tended powerfully to stimulate curiosity in this field.
Three centuries before the Christian era Aristotle had made the
first really great attempt to satisfy this curiosity, and had begun
a development of studies in natural history which remains one of
the leading achievements in the story of our race
But the feeling which we have already seen so strong in the earl
Church--that all study of Nature was futile in view of the
approaching end of the world--indicated so clearly in the New
Testament and voiced so powerfully by Lactantius and St.
Augustine--held back this current of thought for many centuries.
Still, the better tendency in humanity continued to assert itself.
There was, indeed, an influence coming from the Hebrew Scriptures
themselves which wrought powerfully to this end; for, in spite of
all that Lactantius or St. Augustine might say as to the futility
of any study of Nature, the grand utterances in the Psalms
regarding the beauties and wonders of creation, in all the glow of
the truest poetry, ennobled the study even among those whom logic
drew away from it.
But, as a matter of course, in the early Church and throughout the
Middle Ages all such studies were cast in a theologic mould.
Without some purpose of biblical illustration or spiritual
edification they were considered futile too much prying into th
secrets of Nature was very generally held to be dangerous both t
body and soul; only for showing forth God's glory and his purposes
in the creation were such studies praiseworthy. The great work of
Aristotle was under eclipse. The early Christian thinkers gave
little attention to it, and that little was devoted to transforming
it into something absolutely opposed to his whole spirit and
method; in place of it they developed the _Physiologus_ and the
Bestiaries, mingling scriptural statements, legends of the saints,
and fanciful inventions with pious intent and childlike simplicity.
In place of research came authority--the authority of the
Scriptures as interpreted by the _Physio Cogus_ and the
Bestiaries--and these remained the principal source of thought on
animated Nature for over a thousand years
Occasionally, indeed, fear was shown among the rulers in th
Church, even at such poor prying into the creation as this, and in
the fifth century a synod under Pope Gelasius administered a rebuke
to the _Physiologus_; but the interest in Nature was too strong:
the great work on _Creation_ by St. Basil had drawn from the
_Physiologus_ precious illustrations of Holy Writ, and the strongest
of the early popes, Gregory the Great, virtually sanctioned it.
Thus was developed a sacred science of creation and of the divine
purpose in Nature, which went on developing from the fourth century
to the nineteenth--from St. Basil to St. Isidore of Seville, from
Isidore to Vincent of Beauvais, and from Vincent to Archdeaco
Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises
Like all else in the Middle Ages, this sacred science was developed
purely by theological methods. Neglecting the wonders which the
dissection of the commonest animals would have afforded them, these
naturalists attempted to throw light into Nature by ingenious use
of scriptural texts, by research among the lives of the saints, and
by the plentiful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong
men as St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the unicorn
and dragons mentioned in the Scriptures and of the phoenix and
basilisk in profane writings. Hence such contributions to knowledge
as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath and men by his
glance, that the lion when pursued effaces his tracks with the end
of his tail, that the pelican nourishes her young with her own
blood, that serpents lay aside their venom before drinking, that
the salamander quenches fire, that the hyena can talk with
shepherds, that certain birds are born of the fruit of a certain
tree when it happens to fall into the water, with other masses of
science equally valuable.
As to the method of bringing science to bear on Scripture, the
_Physiologus_ gives an example, illustrating the passage in the book
of Job which speaks of the old lion perishing for lack of prey. Out
of the attempt to explain an unusual Hebrew word in the text there
came a curious development of error, until we find fully evolved a
account of the "ant-lion," which, it gives us to understand, was
the lion mentioned by Job, and it says: "As to the ant-lion, his
father hath the shape of a lion, his mother that of an ant; the
father liveth upon flesh and the mother upon herbs; these bring
forth the ant-lion, a compound of both and in part like to either;
for his fore part is like that of a lion and his hind part like
that of an ant. Being thus composed, he is neither able to eat
flesh like his father nor herbs like his mother, and so he perisheth."
In the middle of the thirteenth century we have a triumph of this
theological method in the great work of the English Francisca
Bartholomew on _The Properties of Things_. The theological method as
applied to science consists largely in accepting tradition and in
spinning arguments to fit it. In this field Bartholomew was a
master. Having begun with the intent mainly to explain the
allusions in Scripture to natural objects, he soon rises logically
into a survey of all Nature. Discussing the "cockatrice" of
Scripture, he tells us: "He drieth and burneth leaves with his
touch, and he is of so great venom and perilous that he slayeth and
wasteth him that nigheth him without tarrying; and yet the weasel
overcometh him, for the biting of the weasel is death to the
cockatrice. Nevertheless the biting of the cockatrice is death to
the weasel if the weasel eat not rue before. And though the
cockatrice be venomous without remedy while he is alive, yet he
looseth all the malice when he is burnt to ashes. His ashes be
accounted profitable in working of alchemy, and namely in turning
and changing of metals."
Bartholomew also enlightens us on the animals of Egypt, and says,
"If the crocodile findeth a man by the water's brim he slayeth
him, and then he weepeth over him and swalloweth him."
Naturally this good Franciscan naturalist devotes much thought t
the "dragons" mentioned in Scripture. He says: "The dragon is
most greatest of all serpents, and oft he is drawn out of his den
and riseth up into the air, and the air is moved by him, and also
the sea swelleth against his venom, and he hath a crest, and
reareth his tongue, and hath teeth like a saw, and hath strength,
and not only in teeth but in tail, and grieveth with biting and
with stinging. Whom he findeth he slayeth. Oft four or five of them
fasten their tails together and rear up their heads, and sail over
the sea to get good meat. Between elephants and dragons is
everlasting fighting; for the dragon with his tail spanneth the
elephant, and the elephant with his nose throweth down the
dragon.... The cause why the dragon desireth his blood is the
coldness thereof, by the which the dragon desireth to cool himself.
Jerome saith that the dragon is a full thirsty beast, insomuch that
he openeth his mouth against the wind to quench the burning of his
thirst in that wise. Therefore, when he seeth ships in great wind
he flieth against the sail to take the cold wind, and overthroweth
the ship."
These ideas of Friar Bartholomew spread far and struck deep into
the popular mind. His book was translated into the principal
languages of Europe, and was one of those most generally read
during the Ages of Faith. It maintained its position nearly three
hundred years; even after the invention of printing it held its
own, and in the fifteenth century there were issued no less than
ten editions of it in Latin, four in French, and various versions
of it in Dutch, Spanish, and English. Preachers found it especially
useful in illustrating the ways of God to man. It was only when the
great voyages of discovery substituted ascertained fact fo
theological reasoning in this province that its authority was broken.
The same sort of science flourished in the _Bestiaries_, which were
used everywhere, and especially in the pulpits, for the edification
of the faithful. In all of these, as in that compiled early in the
thirteenth century by an ecclesiastic, William of Normandy, we have
this lesson, borrowed from the _Physiologus_: "The lioness giveth
birth to cubs which remain three days without life. Then cometh the
lion, breatheth upon them, and bringeth them to life.... Thus it is
that Jesus Christ during three days was deprived of life, but Go
the Father raised him gloriously."
Pious use was constantly made of this science, especially by
monkish preachers. The phoenix rising from his ashes proves the
doctrine of the resurrection; the structure and mischief of monkeys
proves the existence of demons; the fact that certain monkeys have
no tails proves that Satan has been shorn of his glory; the weasel,
which "constantly changes its place, is a type of the man
estranged from the word of God, who findeth no rest."
The moral treatises of the time often took the form of works on
natural history, in order the more fully to exploit these religious
teachings of Nature. Thus from the book _On Bees_, the Dominican
Thomas of Cantimpre, we learn that "wasps persecute bees and make war
on them out of natural hatred"; and these, he tells us, typify the
demons who dwell in the air and with lightning and tempest assail
and vex mankind--whereupon he fills a long chapter with anecdotes
of such demonic warfare on mortals. In like manner hi
fellow-Dominican, the inquisitor Nider, in his book _The Ant Hill_,
teaches us that the ants in Ethiopia, which are said to have horns
and to grow so large as to look like dogs, are emblems of atrocious
heretics, like Wyclif and the Hussites, who bark and bite against
the truth; while the ants of India, which dig up gold out of the
sand with their feet and hoard it, though they make no use of it,
symbolize the fruitless toil with which the heretics dig out the
gold of Holy Scripture and hoard it in their books to no purpose.
This pious spirit not only pervaded science; it bloomed out in art,
and especially in the cathedrals. In the gargoyles overhanging the
walls, in the grotesques clambering about the towers or perche
upon pinnacles, in the dragons prowling under archways or lurkin
in bosses of foliage, in the apocalyptic beasts carved upon the
stalls of the choir, stained into the windows, wrought into the
tapestries, illuminated in the letters and borders of psalters and
missals, these marvels of creation suggested everywhere morals from
the Physiologus, the Bestiaries, and the Exempla.[36
Here and there among men who were free from church control we have
work of a better sort. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Abd
Allatif made observations upon the natural history of Egypt which
showed a truly scientific spirit, and the Emperor Frederick II
attempted to promote a more fruitful study of Nature; but one of
these men was abhorred as a Mussulman and the other as an infidel.
Far more in accordance with the spirit of the time was the
ecclesiastic Giraldus Cambrensis, whose book on the topography of
Ireland bestows much attention upon the animals of the island, and
rarely fails to make each contribute an appropriate moral. For
example, he says that in Ireland "eagles live for so many ages tha
they seem to contend with eternity itself; so also the saints,
having put off the old man and put on the new, obtain the blessed
fruit of everlasting life." Again, he tells us: "Eagles often fly
so high that their wings are scorched by the sun; so those who in
the Holy Scriptures strive to unravel the deep and hidden secrets
of the heavenly mysteries, beyond what is allowed, fall below, a
if the wings of the presumptuous imaginations on which they are
borne were scorched."
In one of the great men of the following century appeared a gleam
of healthful criticism: Albert the Great, in his work on the
animals, dissents from the widespread belief that certain bird
spring from trees and are nourished by the sap, and also from the
theory that some are generated in the sea from decaying wood.
But it required many generations for such scepticism to produce
much effect, and we find among the illustrations in an edition of
Mandeville published just before the Reformation not only careful
accounts but pictured representations both of birds and of beasts
produced in the fruit of trees.[37]
This general employment of natural science for pious purposes went
on after the Reformation. Luther frequently made this use of it,
and his example controlled his followers. In 1612, Wolfgang Franz,
Professor of Theology at Luther's university, gave to the world hi
sacred history of animals, which went through many editions. It
contained a very ingenious classification, describing "natural
dragons," which have three rows of teeth to each jaw, and he
piously adds, "the principal dragon is the Devil."
Near the end of the same century, Father Kircher, the great Jesuit
professor at Rome, holds back the sceptical current, insists upon
the orthodox view, and represents among the animals entering the
ark sirens and griffins.
Yet even among theologians we note here and there a sceptica
spirit in natural science. Early in the same seventeenth centur
Eugene Roger published his _Travels in Palestine_. As regards the
utterances of Scripture he is soundly orthodox: he prefaces his
work with a map showing, among other important points referred to
in biblical history, the place where Samson slew a thousand
Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, the cavern which Adam and
Eve inhabited after their expulsion from paradise, the spot where
Balaam's ass spoke, the place where Jacob wrestled with the angel,
the steep place down which the swine possessed of devils plunged
into the sea, the position of the salt statue which was once Lot's
wife, the place at sea where Jonah was swallowed by the whale, and "the
exact spot where St. Peter caught one hundred and fifty-three fishes."
As to natural history, he describes and discusses with great
theological acuteness the basilisk. He tells us that the animal is
about a foot and a half long, is shaped like a crocodile, and kills
people with a single glance. The one which he saw was dead,
fortunately for him, since in the time of Pope Leo IV--as he tells
us--one appeared in Rome and killed many people by merely looking
at them; but the Pope destroyed it with his prayers and the sign of
the cross. He informs us that Providence has wisely and mercifull
protected man by requiring the monster to cry aloud two or three
times whenever it leaves its den, and that the divine wisdom in
creation is also shown by the fact that the monster is obliged to
look its victim in the eye, and at a certain fixed distance, before
its glance can penetrate the victim's brain and so pass to his
heart. He also gives a reason for supposing that the same divine
mercy has provided that the crowing of a cock will kill the basilisk.
Yet even in this good and credulous missionary we see the
influence of Bacon and the dawn of experimental science; for,
having been told many stories regarding the salamander, he secured
one, placed it alive upon the burning coals, and reports to us that
the legends concerning its power to live in the fire are untrue. He
also tried experiments with the chameleon, and found that the storie
told of it were to be received with much allowance: while, then, h
locks up his judgment whenever he discusses the letter of Scripture,
he uses his mind in other things much after the modern method.
In the second half of the same century Hottinger, in hi
_Theological Examination of the History of Creation_, breaks from
the belief in the phoenix; but his scepticism is carefully kept
within the limits imposed by Scripture. He avows his doubts, first,
"because God created the animals in couples, while the phoenix is
represented as a single, unmated creature"; secondly, "because
Noah, when he entered the ark, brought the animals in by sevens,
while there were never so many individuals of the phoenix species"
thirdly, because "no man is known who dares assert that he has
ever seen this bird"; fourthly, because "those who assert there
is a phoenix differ among themselves."
In view of these attacks on the salamander and the phoenix, we are
not surprised to find, before the end of the century, scepticism
regarding the basilisk: the eminent Prof. Kirchmaier, at the
University of Wittenberg, treats phoenix and basilisk alike as old
wives' fables. As to the phoenix, he denies its existence, not only
because Noah took no such bird into the ark, but also because, a
he pithily remarks, "birds come from eggs, not from ashes." Bu
the unicorn he can not resign, nor will he even concede that the
unicorn is a rhinoceros; he appeals to Job and to Marco Polo to
prove that this animal, as usually conceived, really exists, and
says, "Who would not fear to deny the existence of the unicorn,
since Holy Scripture names him with distinct praises?" As to the
other great animals mentioned in Scripture, he is so rationalisti
as to admit that behemoth was an elephant and leviathan a whale.
But these germs of a fruitful scepticism grew, and we soon find
Dannhauer going a step further and declaring his disbelief even in
the unicorn, insisting that it was a rhinoceros--only that an
nothing more. Still, the main current continued strongly
theological. In 1712 Samuel Bochart published his great work upo
the animals of Holy Scripture. As showing its spirit we may take
the titles of the chapters on the horse:
"Chapter VI. Of the Hebrew Name of the Horse."
"Chapter VII. Of the Colours of the Six Horses in Zechariah."
"Chapter VIII. Of the Horses in Job."
"Chapter IX. Of Solomon's Horses, and of the Texts wherein the
Writers praise the Excellence of Horses."
"Chapter X. Of the Consecrated Horses of the Sun."
Among the other titles of chapters are such as: Of Balaam's Ass; Of
the Thousand Philistines slain by Samson with the Jawbone of an
Ass; Of the Golden Calves of Aaron and Jeroboam; Of the Bleating,
Milk, Wool, External and Internal Parts of Sheep mentioned in
Scripture; Of Notable Things told regarding Lions in Scripture; O
Noah's Dove and of the Dove which appeared at Christ's Baptism.
Mixed up in the book, with the principal mass drawn from Scripture,
were many facts and reasonings taken from investigations by
naturalists; but all were permeated by the theological spirit.[40
The inquiry into Nature having thus been pursued nearly two
thousand years theologically, we find by the middle of the
sixteenth century some promising beginnings of a different
method--the method of inquiry into Nature scientifically--th
method which seeks not plausibilities but facts. At that time
Edward Wotton led the way in England and Conrad Gesner on th
Continent, by observations widely extended, carefully noted, and
thoughtfully classified.
This better method of interrogating Nature soon led to the
formation of societies for the same purpose. In 1560 was founded an
Academy for the Study of Nature at Naples, but theologians
becoming alarmed, suppressed it, and for nearly one hundred years
there was no new combined effort of that sort, until in 1645 began
the meetings in London of what was afterward the Royal Society
Then came the Academy of Sciences in France, and the Accademia del
Cimento in Italy; others followed in all parts of the world, and a
great new movement was begun.
Theologians soon saw a danger in this movement. In Italy, Prince
Leopold de' Medici, a protector of the Florentine Academy, was
bribed with a cardinal's hat to neglect it, and from the days of
Urban VIII to Pius IX a similar spirit was there shown. In France,
there were frequent ecclesiastical interferences, of which Buffon's
humiliation for stating a simple scientific truth was a note
example. In England, Protestantism was at first hardly more
favourable toward the Royal Society, and the great Dr. South
denounced it in his sermons as irreligious
Fortunately, one thing prevented an open breach between theology
and science: while new investigators had mainly given up the
medieval method so dear to the Church, they had very generally
retained the conception of direct creation and of design throughou
creation--a design having as its main purpose the profit,
instruction, enjoyment, and amusement of man.
On this the naturally opposing tendencies of theology and science
were compromised. Science, while somewhat freed from its old
limitations, became the handmaid of theology in illustrating the
doctrine of creative design, and always with apparent deference t
the Chaldean and other ancient myths and legends embodied in the
Hebrew sacred books.
About the middle of the seventeenth century came a great victory of
the scientific over the theologic method. At that time Francesco
Redi published the results of his inquiries into the doctrine of
spontaneous generation. For ages a widely accepted doctrine had
been that water, filth, and carrion had received power from the
Creator to generate worms, insects, and a multitude of the smaller
animals; and this doctrine had been especially welcomed by St.
Augustine and many of the fathers, since it relieved the Almighty
of making, Adam of naming, and Noah of living in the ark with these
innumerable despised species. But to this fallacy Redi put an end
By researches which could not be gainsaid, he showed that every one
of these animals came from an egg; each, therefore, must be the
lineal descendant of an animal created, named, and preserved from
"the beginning."
Similar work went on in England, but under more distinctly
theological limitations. In the same seventeenth century a very
famous and popular English book was published by the naturalist
John Ray, a fellow of the Royal Society, who produced a number o
works on plants, fishes, and birds; but the most widely read of all
was entitled _The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of
Creation_. Between the years 1691 and 1827 it passed through nearly
twenty editions
Ray argued the goodness and wisdom of God from the adaptation of the
animals not only to man's uses but to their own lives and surroundings.
In the first years of the eighteenth century Dr. Nehemiah Grew, of
the Royal Society, published his _Cosmologia Sacra_ to refute
anti-scriptural opinions by producing evidences of creative design.
Discussing "the ends of Providence," he says, "A crane, which is
scurvy meat, lays but two eggs in the year, but a pheasant and
partridge, both excellent meat, lay and hatch fifteen or twenty."
He points to the fact that "those of value which lay few at a time
sit the oftener, as the woodcock and the dove." He breaks decidedly
from the doctrine that noxious things in Nature are caused by sin,
and shows that they, too, are useful; that, "if nettles sting, it
is to secure an excellent medicine for children and cattle";
that, "if the bramble hurts man, it makes all the better hedge";
and that, "if it chances to prick the owner, it tears the thief."
"Weasels, kites, and other hurtful animals induce us to
watchfulness; thistles and moles, to good husbandry; lice oblige
us to cleanliness in our bodies, spiders in our houses, and the
moth in our clothes." This very optimistic view, triumphing over
the theological theory of noxious animals and plants as effects of
sin, which prevailed with so much force from St. Augustine to
Wesley, was developed into nobler form during the century by
various thinkers, and especially by Archdeacon Paley, whose
_Natural Theology_ exercised a powerful influence down to recent
times. The same tendency appeared in other countries, though
various philosophers showed weak points in the argument, and Goethe
made sport of it in a noted verse, praising the forethought of the
Creator in foreordaining the cork tree to furnish stoppers fo
wine-bottles.
Shortly before the middle of the nineteenth century the main
movement culminated in the _Bridgewater Treatises_. Pursuant to th
will of the eighth Earl of Bridgewater, the President of the Royal
Society selected eight persons, each to receive a thousand pounds
sterling for writing and publishing a treatise on the "power,
wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested in the creation." O
these, the leading essays in regard to animated Nature were those
of Thomas Chalmers, on _The Adaptation of External Nature to the
Moral and Intellectual Condition of Man_; of Sir Charles Bell, on
_The Hand as evincing Design_; of Roget, on _Animal and Vegetabl
Physiology with reference to Natural Theology_; and of Kirby, on _The
Habits and Instincts of Animals with reference to Natural Theology_.
Besides these there were treatises by Whewell, Buckland, Kidd, and
Prout. The work was well done. It was a marked advance on all that
had appeared before, in matter, method, and spirit. Looking back
upon it now we can see that it was provisional, but that it was
none the less fruitful in truth, and we may well remember Darwin's
remark on the stimulating effect of mistaken _theories_, as
compared with the sterilizing effect of mistaken _observations_:
mistaken observations lead men astray, mistaken theories suggest
true theories.
An effort made in so noble a spirit certainly does not deserve the
ridicule that, in our own day, has sometimes been lavished upon it.
Curiously, indeed, one of the most contemptuous of these criticisms
has been recently made by one of the most strenuous defenders of
orthodoxy. No less eminent a standard-bearer of the faith than th
Rev. Prof. Zoeckler says of this movement to demonstrate creative
purpose and design, and of the men who took part in it, "The earth
appeared in their representation of it like a great clothing shop
and soup kitchen, and God as a glorified rationalistic professor.
Such a statement as this is far from just to the conceptions o
such men as Butler, Paley, and Chalmers, no matter how fully th
thinking world has now outlived them.[44]
But, noble as the work of these men was, the foundation of fact on
which they reared it became evidently more and more insecure.
For as far back as the seventeenth century acute theologians had
begun to discern difficulties more serious than any that had before
confronted them. More and more it was seen that the number of
different species was far greater than the world had hitherto
imagined. Greater and greater had become the old difficulty in
conceiving that, of these innumerable species, each had bee
specially created by the Almighty hand; that each had been brought
before Adam by the Almighty to be named; and that each, in couple
or in sevens, had been gathered by Noah into the ark. But the
difficulties thus suggested were as nothing compared to those
raised by the _distribution_ of animals.
Even in the first days of the Church this had aroused serious
thought, and above all in the great mind of St. Augustine. In his
_City of God_ he had stated the difficulty as follows: "But there
is a question about all these kinds of beasts, which are neither
tamed by man, nor spring from the earth like frogs, such as wolve
and others of that sort,... as to how they could find their way to
the islands after that flood which destroyed every living thing not
preserved in the ark.... Some, indeed, might be thought to reach
islands by swimming, in case these were very near; but some islands
are so remote from continental lands that it does not seem possible
that any creature could reach them by swimming. It is not an
incredible thing, either, that some animals may have been captured
by men and taken with them to those lands which they intended to
inhabit, in order that they might have the pleasure of hunting; and
it can not be denied that the transfer may have been accomplished
through the agency of angels, commanded or allowed to perform this
labour by God.
But this difficulty had now assumed a magnitude of which St.
Augustine never dreamed. Most powerful of all agencies to increas
it were the voyages of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Amerigo
Vespucci, and other navigators of the period of discovery. Still
more serious did it become as the great islands of the southern
seas were explored. Every navigator brought home tidings of new
species of animals and of races of men living in parts of the world
where the theologians, relying on the statement of St. Paul tha
the gospel had gone into all lands, had for ages declared there
could be none; until finally it overtaxed even the theological
imagination to conceive of angels, in obedience to the divine
command, distributing the various animals over the earth, dropping
the megatherium in South America, the archeopteryx in Europe, th
ornithorhynchus in Australia, and the opossum in North America.
The first striking evidence of this new difficulty was shown by the
eminent Jesuit missionary, Joseph Acosta. In his _Natural and Moral
History of the Indies_, published in 1590, he proved himself honest
and lucid. Though entangled in most of the older scriptural views,
he broke away from many; but the distribution of animals gave him
great trouble. Having shown the futility of St. Augustine's other
explanations, he quaintly asks: "Who can imagine that in so long
a voyage men woulde take the paines to carrie Foxes to Peru,
especially that kinde they call `Acias,' which is the filthiest
have seene? Who woulde likewise say that they have carried Tygers
and Lyons? Truly it were a thing worthy the laughing at to thinke
so. It was sufficient, yea, very much, for men driven against their
willes by tempest, in so long and unknowne a voyage, to escape with
their owne lives, without busying themselves to carrie Woolves and
Foxes, and to nourish them at sea."
It was under the impression made by this new array of facts that
in 1667 Abraham Milius published at Geneva his book on _The Origin
of Animals and the Migration of Peoples_. This book shows, like tha
of Acosta, the shock and strain to which the discovery of America
subjected the received theological scheme of things. It was issued
with the special approbation of the Bishop of Salzburg, and it
indicates the possibility that a solution of the whole trouble may
be found in the text, "Let the earth bring forth the living
creature after his kind." Milius goes on to show that the ancient
philosophers agree with Moses, and that "the earth and the waters,
and especially the heat of the sun and of the genial sky, together
with that slimy and putrid quality which seems to be inherent in
the soil, may furnish the origin for fishes, terrestrial animals,
and birds." On the other hand, he is very severe against those who
imagine that man can have had the same origin with animals. But th
subject with which Milius especially grapples is the _distribution_
of animals. He is greatly exercised by the many species found in
America and in remote islands of the ocean--species entirely
unknown in the other continents--and of course he is especially
troubled by the fact that these species existing in those
exceedingly remote parts of the earth do not exist in the
neighbourhood of Mount Ararat. He confesses that to explain th
distribution of animals is the most difficult part of the problem
If it be urged that birds could reach America by flying and fishes
by swimming, he asks, "What of the beasts which neither fly nor
swim?" Yet even as to the birds he asks, "Is there not an
infinite variety of winged creatures who fly so slowly and heavily
and have such a horror of the water, that they would not even dare
trust themselves to fly over a wide river?" As to fishes, he says,
"They are very averse to wandering from their native waters," and
he shows that there are now reported many species of American and
East Indian fishes entirely unknown on the other continents, whose
presence, therefore, can not be explained by any theory of natura
dispersion.
Of those who suggest that land animals may have been dispersed over
the earth by the direct agency of man for his use or pleasure he
asks: "Who would like to get different sorts of lions, bears,
tigers, and other ferocious and noxious creatures on board ship?
who would trust himself with them? and who would wish to plant
colonies of such creatures in new, desirable lands?"
His conclusion is that plants and animals take their origin in the
lands wherein they are found; an opinion which he supports by
quoting from the two narrations in Genesis passages which imply
generative force in earth and water
But in the eighteenth century matters had become even worse for the
theological view. To meet the difficulty the eminent Benedictine,
Dom Calmet, in his _Commentary_, expressed the belief that all the
species of a genus had; originally formed one species, and he dwelt
on this view as one which enabled him to explain the possibility of
gathering all animals into the ark. This idea, dangerous as it wa
to the fabric of orthodoxy, and involving a profound separation
from the general doctrine of the Church, seems to have been abroa
among thinking men, for we find in the latter half of the same
century even Linnaeus inclining to consider it. It was time,
indeed, that some new theological theory be evolved; the grea
Linnaeus himself, in spite of his famous declaration favouring the
fixity of species, had dealt a death-blow to the old theory. In his
_Systema Naturae_, published in the middle of the eighteenth
century, he had enumerated four thousand species of animals, and
the difficulties involved in the naming of each of them by Adam and
in bringing them together in the ark appeared to all thinking men
more and more insurmountable.
What was more embarrassing, the number of distinct species went on
increasing rapidly, indeed enormously, until, as an eminent
zoological authority of our own time has declared, "for every on
of the species enumerated by Linnaeus, more than fifty kinds are
known to the naturalist of to-day, and the number of species still
unknown doubtless far exceeds the list of those recorded."
Already there were premonitions of the strain made upon Scriptur
by requiring a hundred and sixty distinct miraculous interventions
of the Creator to produce the hundred and sixty species of land
shells found in the little island of Madeira alone, and fourteen
hundred distinct interventions to produce the actual number of
distinct species of a single well-known shell.
Ever more and more difficult, too, became the question of the
geographical distribution of animals. As new explorations were mad
in various parts of the world, this danger to the theological view
went on increasing. The sloths in South America suggested painful
questions: How could animals so sluggish have got away from the
neighbourhood of Mount Ararat so completely and have travelled so far?
The explorations in Australia and neighbouring islands made matters
still worse, for there was found in those regions a whole realm of
animals differing widely from those of other parts of the earth.
The problem before the strict theologians became, for example, how
to explain the fact that the kangaroo can have been in the ark and
be now only found in Australia: his saltatory powers are indeed
great, but how could he by any series of leaps have sprung acros
the intervening mountains, plains, and oceans to that remote
continent? and, if the theory were adopted that at some period a
causeway extended across the vast chasm separating Australia from
the nearest mainland, why did not lions, tigers, camels, and
camelopards force or find their way across it?
The theological theory, therefore, had by the end of the eighteenth
century gone to pieces. The wiser theologians waited; the unwis
indulged in exhortations to "root out the wicked heart of
unbelief," in denunciation of "science falsely so called," and in
frantic declarations that "the Bible is true"--by which they
meant that the limited understanding of it which they had happened
to inherit is true.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the whole theological
theory of creation--though still preached everywhere as a matter of
form--was clearly seen by all thinking men to be hopelessly lost:
such strong men as Cardinal Wiseman in the Roman Church, Dean
Buckland in the Anglican, and Hugh Miller in the Scottish Church,
made heroic efforts to save something from it, but all to no
purpose. That sturdy Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon honesty, which is the
best legacy of the Middle Ages to Christendom, asserted itself i
the old strongholds of theological thought, the universities.
Neither the powerful logic of Bishop Butler nor the nimble
reasoning of Archdeacon Paley availed. Just as the line of
astronomical thinkers from Copernicus to Newton had destroyed th
old astronomy, in which the earth was the centre, and the Almighty
sitting above the firmament the agent in moving the heavenly bodies
about it with his own hands, so now a race of biological thinker
had destroyed the old idea of a Creator minutely contriving and
fashioning all animals to suit the needs and purposes of man. They
had developed a system of a very different sort, and this we shall
next consider.[49]
III. THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, OF AN
EVOLUTION IN ANIMATED NATURE.
WE have seen, thus far, how there came into the thinking of
mankind upon the visible universe and its inhabitants the idea of
a creation virtually instantaneous and complete, and of a Creator
in human form with human attributes, who spoke matter into
existence literally by the exercise of his throat and lips, or
shaped and placed it with his hands and fingers.
We have seen that this view came from far; that it existed
in the Chaldaeo-Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, and
probably in others of the earliest date known to us; that its
main features passed thence into the sacred books of the Hebrews
and then into the early Christian Church, by whose theologians it
was developed through the Middle Ages and maintained during the
modern period.
But, while this idea was thus developed by a succession of noble
and thoughtful men through thousands of years, another
conception, to all appearance equally ancient, was developed,
sometimes in antagonism to it, sometimes mingled with it--the
conception of all living beings as wholly or in part the result
of a growth process--of an evolution.
This idea, in various forms, became a powerful factor in nearly
all the greater ancient theologies and philosophies. For very
widespread among the early peoples who attained to much thinking
power was a conception that, in obedience to the divine fiat, a
watery chaos produced the earth, and that the sea and land gave
birth to their inhabitants.
This is clearly seen in those records of Chaldaeo-Babylonian
thought deciphered in these latter years, to which reference has
already been made. In these we have a watery chaos which, under
divine action, brings forth the earth and its inhabitants; first
the sea animals and then the land animals--the latter being
separated into three kinds, substantially as recorded afterward
in the Hebrew accounts. At the various stages in the work the
Chaldean Creator pronounces it "beautiful," just as the Hebrew
Creator in our own later account pronounces it "good."
In both accounts there is placed over the whole creation
solid, concave firmament; in both, light is created first, and
the heavenly bodies are afterward placed "for signs and for
seasons"; in both, the number seven is especially sacred, giving
rise to a sacred division of time and to much else. It may be
added that, with many other features in the Hebrew legends
evidently drawn from the Chaldean, the account of the creation i
each is followed by a legend regarding "the fall of man" and a
deluge, many details of which clearly passed in slightly modified
form from the Chaldean into the Hebrew accounts.
It would have been a miracle indeed if these primitive
conceptions, wrought out with so much poetic vigour in that
earlier civilization on the Tigris and Euphrates, had failed to
influence the Hebrews, who during the most plastic periods of
their development were under the tutelage of their Chaldean
neighbours. Since the researches of Layard, George Smith, Oppert,
Schrader, Jensen, Sayce, and their compeers, there is no longer
a reasonable doubt that this ancient view of the world,
elaborated if not originated in that earlier civilization, came
thence as a legacy to the Hebrews, who wrought it in a somewhat
disjointed but mainly monotheistic form into the poetic whole
which forms one of the most precious treasures of ancient thought
preserved in the book of Genesis.
Thus it was that, while the idea of a simple material creation
literally by the hands and fingers or voice of the Creator
became, as we have seen, the starting-point of a powerful stream
of theological thought, and while this stream was swollen from
age to age by contributions from the fathers, doctors, and
learned divines of the Church, Catholic and Protestant, there was
poured into it this lesser current, always discernible and at
times clearly separated from it--a current of belief in a process
of evolution
The Rev. Prof. Sayce, of Oxford, than whom no English-speakin
scholar carries more weight in a matter of this kind, has
recently declared his belief that the Chaldaeo-Babylonian theory
was the undoubted source of the similar theory propounded by the
Ionic philosopher Anaximander--the Greek thinkers deriving this
view from the Babylonians through the Phoenicians; he also
allows that from the same source its main features were adopted
into both the accounts given in the first of our sacred books
and in this general view the most eminent Christian
Assyriologists concur.
It is true that these sacred accounts of ours contradict each
other. In that part of the first or Elohistic account given in
the first chapter of Genesis the _waters_ bring forth fishes,
marine animals, and birds (Genesis, i, 20); but in that part o
the second or Jehovistic account given in the second chapter of
Genesis both the land animals and birds are declared to have been
created not out of the water, but "_out of the ground_"
(Genesis, ii, 19).
The dialectic skill of the fathers was easily equal to explaining
away this contradiction; but the old current of thought,
strengthened by both these legends, arrested their attention, and
passing through the minds of a succession of the greatest men of
the Church, influenced theological opinion deeply, if not widely,
for ages, in favour of an evolution theory.
But there was still another ancient source of evolution ideas.
Thoughtful men of the early civilizations which were developed
along the great rivers in the warmer regions of the earth noted how
the sun-god as he rose in his fullest might caused the water and
the rich soil to teem with the lesser forms of life. In Egypt,
especially, men saw how under this divine power the Nile slime
brought forth "creeping things innumerable." Hence mainly this
ancient belief that the animals and man were produced by lifeless
matter at the divine command, "in the beginning," was supplemented
by the idea that some of the lesser animals, especially the
insects, were produced by a later evolution, being evoked after the
original creation from various sources, but chiefly from matter in
a state of decay.
This crude, early view aided doubtless in giving germs of a better
evolution theory to the early Greeks. Anaximander, Empedocles,
Anaxagoras, and, greatest of all, Aristotle, as we have seen,
developed them, making their way at times by guesses toward truths
since established by observation. Aristotle especially, both by
speculation and observation, arrived at some results which, had
Greek freedom of thought continued, might have brought the world
long since to its present plane of biological knowledge; for he
reached something like the modern idea of a succession of higher
organizations from lower, and made the fruitful suggestion of "a
perfecting principle" in Nature
With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency toward a ye
truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, but the old crude
view remained, and as a typical example of it we may note the
opinion of St. Basil the Great in the fourth century. Discussing
the work of creation, he declares that, at the command of God,
"the waters were gifted with productive power"; "from slime and
muddy places frogs, flies, and gnats came into being"; and he
finally declares that the same voice which gave this energy an
quality of productiveness to earth and water shall be similarly
efficacious until the end of the world. St. Gregory of Nyssa held
a similar view.
This idea of these great fathers of the Eastern Church took even
stronger hold on the great father of the Western Church. For St.
Augustine, so fettered usually by the letter of the sacred text,
broke from his own famous doctrine as to the acceptance of
Scripture and spurned the generally received belief of a creative
process like that by which a toymaker brings into existence a box
of playthings. In his great treatise on _Genesis_ he says: "To
suppose that God formed man from the dust with bodily hands is very
childish.... God neither formed man with bodily hands nor did h
breathe upon him with throat and lips."
St. Augustine then suggests the adoption of the old emanation or
evolution theory, shows that "certain very small animals may not
have been created on the fifth and sixth days, but may have
originated later from putrefying matter." argues that, even if this
be so, God is still their creator, dwells upon such a potential
creation as involved in the actual creation, and speaks of animals
"whose numbers the after-time unfolded."
In his great treatise on the _Trinity_--the work to which he
devoted the best thirty years of his life--we find the full growth
of this opinion. He develops at length the view that in the
creation of living beings there was something like a growth--tha
God is the ultimate author, but works through secondary causes; and
finally argues that certain substances are endowed by God with the
power of producing certain classes of plants and animals.[53]
This idea of a development by secondary causes apart from th
original creation was helped in its growth by a theological
exigency. More and more, as the organic world was observed, the
vast multitude of petty animals, winged creatures, and "creepin
things" was felt to be a strain upon the sacred narrative. Mor
and more it became difficult to reconcile the dignity of the
Almighty with his work in bringing each of these creatures before
Adam to be named; or to reconcile the human limitations of Adam
with his work in naming "every living creature"; or to reconcile
the dimensions of Noah's ark with the space required for preserving
all of them, and the food of all sorts necessary for thei
sustenance, whether they were admitted by twos, as stated in on
scriptural account, or by sevens, as stated in the other
The inadequate size of the ark gave especial trouble. Origen had
dealt with it by suggesting that the cubit was Six times greater
than had been supposed. Bede explained Noah's ability to complete
so large a vessel by supposing that he worked upon it during a
hundred years; and, as to the provision of food taken into it, he
declared that there was no need of a supply for more than one day,
since God could throw the animals into a deep sleep or otherwise
miraculously make one day's supply sufficient; he also lessened the
strain on faith still more by diminishing the number of animals
taken into the ark--supporting his view upon Augustine's theory of
the later development of insects out of carrion.
Doubtless this theological necessity was among the main reasons
which led St. Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, to
incorporate this theory, supported by St. Basil and St. Augustine,
into his great encyclopedic work which gave materials for thought
on God and Nature to so many generations. He familiarized the
theological world still further with the doctrine of secondar
creation, giving such examples of it as that "bees are generated
from decomposed veal, beetles from horseflesh, grasshoppers fro
mules, scorpions from crabs," and, in order to give still stronger
force to the idea of such transformations, he dwells on the
biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar, which appears to have taken
strong hold upon medieval thought in science, and he declares that
other human beings had been changed into animals, especially int
swine, wolves, and owls.
This doctrine of after-creations went on gathering strength until,
in the twelfth century, Peter Lombard, in his theological summary
_The Sentences_, so powerful in moulding the thought of the Church,
emphasized the distinction between animals which spring from
carrion and those which are created from earth and water; the former
he holds to have been created "potentially" the latter "actually."
In the century following, this idea was taken up by St. Thoma
Aquinas and virtually received from him its final form. In the
_Summa_, which remains the greatest work of medieval thought, he
accepts the idea that certain animals spring from the decaying
bodies of plants and animals, and declares that they are produce
by the creative word of God either actually or virtually. H
develops this view by saying, "Nothing was made by God, after the
six days of creation, absolutely new, but it was in some sense
included in the work of the six days"; and that "even new
species, if any appear, have existed before in certain native
properties, just as animals are produced from putrefaction."
The distinction thus developed between creation "causally" o
"potentially," and "materially" or "formally," was made much of
by commentators afterward. Cornelius a Lapide spread it by saying
that certain animals were created not "absolutely," but only
"derivatively," and this thought was still further developed three
centuries later by Augustinus Eugubinus, who tells us that, after
the first creative energy had called forth land and water, light
was made by the Almighty, the instrument of all future creation
and that the light called everything into existence
All this "science falsely so called," so sedulously developed by
the master minds of the Church, and yet so futile that we might
almost suppose that the great apostle, in a glow of prophetic
vision, had foreseen it in his famous condemnation, seems at this
distance very harmless indeed; yet, to many guardians of th
"sacred deposit of doctrine " in the Church, even so slight a
departure from the main current of thought seemed dangerous. It
appeared to them like pressing the doctrine of secondary causes to
a perilous extent; and about the beginning of the seventeenth
century we have the eminent Spanish Jesuit and theologian Suarez
denouncing it, and declaring St. Augustine a heretic for his share
in it.
But there was little danger to the older idea just then; the main
theological tendency was so strong that the world kept on as of
old. Biblical theology continued to spin its own webs out of its
own bowels, and all the lesser theological flies continued to be
entangled in them; yet here and there stronger thinkers broke loose
from this entanglement and helped somewhat to disentangle others.[56]
At the close of the Middle Ages, in spite of the devotion of the
Reformed Church to the letter of Scripture, the revival of learning
and the great voyages gave an atmosphere in which better thinking
on the problems of Nature began to gain strength. On all sides, in
every field, men were making discoveries which caused the general
theological view to appear more and more inadequate.
First of those who should be mentioned with reverence as beginning
to develop again that current of Greek thought which the system
drawn from our sacred books by the fathers and doctors of the
Church had interrupted for more than a thousand years, was Giordano
Bruno. His utterances were indeed vague and enigmatical, but this
fault may well be forgiven him, for he saw but too clearly what
must be his reward for any more open statements. His reward indeed
came--even for his faulty utterances--when, toward the end of the
nineteenth century, thoughtful men from all parts of the worl
united in erecting his statue on the spot where he had been burned
by the Roman Inquisition nearly three hundred years before.
After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth
century, Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human
thought: his theories, however superseded now, gave a great impulse
to investigation then. His genius in promoting an evolution
doctrine as regards the mechanical formation of the solar system
was great, and his mode of thought strengthened the current of
evolutionary doctrine generally; but his constant dread of
persecution, both from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily
to veil his thoughts and even to suppress them. The execution of
Bruno had occurred in his childhood, and in the midst of his Caree
he had watched the Galileo struggle in all its stages. He had seen
his own works condemned by university after university under the
direction of theologians, and placed upon the Roman _Index_.
Although he gave new and striking arguments to prove the existence
of God, and humbled himself before the Jesuits, he was condemned by
Catholics and Protestants alike. Since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no
great thinker had been so completely abased and thwarted by
theological oppression.
Near the close of the same century another great thinker, Leibnitz,
though not propounding any full doctrine on evolution, gave it an
impulse by suggesting a view contrary to the sacrosanct belief i
the immutability of species--that is, to the pious doctrine that
every species in the animal kingdom now exists as it left the hand
of the Creator, the naming process by Adam, and the door of Noah's ark.
His punishment at the hands of the Church came a few years later,
when, in 1712, the Jesuits defeated his attempt to found an Academy
of Science at Vienna. The imperial authorities covered him with
honours, but the priests--ruling in the confessionals an
pulpits--would not allow him the privilege of aiding his fellow-me
to ascertain God's truths revealed in Nature.
Spinoza, Hume, and Kant may also be mentioned as among those whose
thinking, even when mistaken, might have done much to aid in the
development of a truer theory had not the theologic atmosphere of
their times been so unpropitious; but a few years after Leibnitz's
death came in France a thinker in natural science of much less
influence than any of these, who made a decided step forward.
Early in the eighteenth century Benoist de Maillet, a man of the
world, but a wide observer and close thinker upon Nature, began
meditating especially upon the origin of animal forms, and was led
into the idea of the transformation of species and so into a theory
of evolution, which in some important respects anticipated modern
ideas. He definitely, though at times absurdly, conceived the
production of existing species by the modification of their
predecessors, and he plainly accepted one of the fundamental maxims
of modern geology--that the structure of the globe must be studied
in the light of the present course of Nature.
But he fell between two ranks of adversaries. On one side, th
Church authorities denounced him as a freethinker; on the other,
Voltaire ridiculed him as a devotee. Feeling that his greatest
danger was from the orthodox theologians, De Maillet endeavoured to
protect himself by disguising his name in the title of his book,
and by so wording its preface and dedication that, if persecuted,
he could declare it a mere sport of fancy; he therefore announced
it as the reverie of a Hindu sage imparted to a Christian
missionary. But this strategy availed nothing: he had allowed his
Hindu sage to suggest that the days of creation named in Genesis
might be long periods of time; and this, with other ideas of
equally fearful import, was fatal. Though the book was in type in
1735, it was not published till 1748--three years after his death.
On the other hand, the heterodox theology of Voltaire was also
aroused; and, as De Maillet had seen in the presence of fossils on
high mountains a proof that these mountains were once below the
sea, Voltaire, recognising in this an argument for the deluge of
Noah, ridiculed the new thinker without mercy. Unfortunately, some
of De Maillet's vagaries lent themselves admirably to Voltaire's
sarcasm; better material for it could hardly be conceived than the
theory, seriously proposed, that the first human being was born of
a mermaid.
Hence it was that, between these two extremes of theology, De
Maillet received no recognition until, very recently, the greatest
men of science in England and France have united in giving him his
due. But his work was not lost, even in his own day; Robinet and
Bonnet pushed forward victoriously on helpful lines.
In the second half of the eighteenth century a great barrier was
thrown across this current--the authority of Linnaeus. He was the
most eminent naturalist of his time, a wide observer, a close
thinker; but the atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had his
being was saturated with biblical theology, and this permeated all
his thinking
He who visits the tomb of Linnaeus to-day, entering the beautiful
cathedral of Upsala by its southern porch, sees above it, wrought
in stone, the Hebrew legend of creation. In a series of
medallions, the Almighty--in human form--accomplishes the work of
each creative day. In due order he puts in place the soli
firmament with the waters above it, the sun, moon, and stars withi
it, the beasts, birds, and plants below it, and finishes his task
by taking man out of a little hillock of "the earth beneath," and
woman out of man's side. Doubtless Linnaeus, as he went to his
devotions, often smiled at this childlike portrayal. Yet he was
never able to break away from the idea it embodied. At times, in
face of the difficulties which beset the orthodox theory, he
ventured to favour some slight concessions. Toward the end of his
life he timidly advanced the hypothesis that all the species of one
genus constituted at the creation one species; and from the last
edition of his _Systema Naturae_ he quietly left out the strongly
orthodox statement of the fixity of each species, which he had
insisted upon in his earlier works. But he made no adequate
declaration. What he might expect if he openly and decidedly
sanctioned a newer view he learned to his cost; warnings came
speedily both from the Catholic and Protestant sides
At a time when eminent prelates of the older Church were eulogizin
debauched princes like Louis XV, and using the unspeakably obscene
casuistry of the Jesuit Sanchez in the education of the priesthood
as to the relations of men to women, the modesty of the Church
authorities was so shocked by Linnaeus's proofs of a sexual system
in plants that for many years his writings were prohibited in the
Papal States and in various other parts of Europe where clerical
authority was strong enough to resist the new scientific current.
Not until 1773 did one of the more broad-minded cardinals
--Zelanda--succeed in gaining permission that Prof. Minasi should
discuss the Linnaean system at Rome.
And Protestantism was quite as oppressive. In a letter to Eloius
Linnaeus tells of the rebuke given to science by one of the great
Lutheran prelates of Sweden, Bishop Svedberg. From various parts of
Europe detailed statements had been sent to the Royal Academy of
Science that water had been turned into blood, and well-meaning
ecclesiastics had seen in this an indication of the wrath of God,
certainly against the regions in which these miracles had occurred
and possibly against the whole world. A miracle of this sort
appearing in Sweden, Linnaeus looked into it carefully and found
that the reddening of the water was caused by dense masses of
minute insects. News of this explanation having reached the bishop,
he took the field against it; he denounced this scientific
discovery as "a Satanic abyss" (_abyssum Satanae_), and declared
"The reddening of the water is _not_ natural," and "when God allows
such a miracle to take place Satan endeavours, and so do his
ungodly, self-reliant, self-sufficient, and worldly tools, to make
it signify nothing." In face of this onslaught Linnaeus retreated;
he tells his correspondent that "it is difficult to say anything
in this matter," and shields himself under the statement "It is
certainly a miracle that so many millions of creatures can be s
suddenly propagated," and "it shows undoubtedly the all-wise power
of the Infinite."
The great naturalist, grown old and worn with labours for science
could no longer resist the contemporary theology; he settled int
obedience to it, and while the modification of his early orthodo
view was, as we have seen, quietly imbedded in the final edition of
his great work, he made no special effort to impress it upon th
world. To all appearance he continued to adhere to the doctrine that
all existing species had been created by the Almighty "in the
beginning," and that since "the beginning" no new species had appeared.
Yet even his great authority could not arrest the swelling tide;
more and more vast became the number of species, more and mor
incomprehensible under the old theory became the newly ascertaine
facts in geographical distribution, more and more it was felt that
the universe and animated beings had come into existence by some
process other than a special creation "in the beginning," and the
question was constantly pressing, "By _what_ process?"
Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century one man was at work
on natural history who might have contributed much toward an answe
to this question: this man was Buffon. His powers of research an
thought were remarkable, and his gift in presenting results of
research and thought showed genius. He had caught the idea of an
evolution in Nature by the variation of species, and was likely to
make a great advance with it; but he, too, was made to feel the
power of theology.
As long as he gave pleasing descriptions of animals the Church
petted him, but when he began to deduce truths of philosophical
import the batteries of the Sorbonne were opened upon him; he was
made to know that "the sacred deposit of truth committed to the
Church" was, that "in the beginning God made the heavens and the
earth" and that "all things were made at the beginning of th
world." For his simple statement of truths in natural science which
are to-day truisms, he was, as we have seen, dragged forth by the
theological faculty, forced to recant publicly, and to print his
recantation. In this he announced, "I abandon everything in my
book respecting the formation of the earth, and generally all which
may be contrary to the narrative of Moses."[62]
But all this triumph of the Chaldeo-Babylonian creation legends
which the Church had inherited availed but little.
For about the end of the eighteenth century fruitful suggestions
and even clear presentations of this or that part of a large
evolutionary doctrine came thick and fast, and from the most
divergent quarters. Especially remarkable were those which cam
from Erasmus Darwin in England, from Maupertuis in France, fro
Oken in Switzerland, and from Herder, and, most brilliantly of all,
from Goethe in Germany.
Two men among these thinkers must be especially
mentioned--Treviranus in Germany and Lamarck in France; each
independently of the other drew the world more completely than eve
before in this direction.
From Treviranus came, in 1802, his work on biology, and in this h
gave forth the idea that from forms of life originally simple had
arisen all higher organizations by gradual development; that ever
living feature has a capacity for receiving modifications of its
structure from external influences; and that no species had become
really extinct, but that each had passed into some other species
From Lamarck came about the same time his _Researches_, and a little
later his _Zoological Philosophy_, which introduced a new factor into
the process of evolution--the action of the animal itself in its
efforts toward a development to suit new needs--and he gave as hi
principal conclusions the following:
1. Life tends to increase the volume of each living body and of al
its parts up to a limit determined by its own necessities.
2. New wants in animals give rise to new organs.
3. The development of these organs is in proportion to their employment.
4. New developments may be transmitted to offspring.
His well-known examples to illustrate these views, such as that of
successive generations of giraffes lengthening their necks by
stretching them to gather high-growing foliage, and of successive
generations of kangaroos lengthening and strengthening their hind
legs by the necessity of keeping themselves erect while jumping
provoked laughter, but the very comicality of these illustrations
aided to fasten his main conclusion in men's memories.
In both these statements, imperfect as they were, great truths were
embodied--truths which were sure to grow.
Lamarck's declaration, especially, that the development of organs
is in ratio to their employment, and his indications of the
reproduction in progeny of what is gained or lost in parents by
the influence of circumstances, entered as a most effective force
into the development of the evolution theory.
The next great successor in the apostolate of this idea of the
universe was Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. As early as 1795 he had begun
to form a theory that species are various modifications of the same
type, and this theory he developed, testing it at various stages as
Nature was more and more displayed to him. It fell to his lot to bea
the brunt in a struggle against heavy odds which lasted many years.
For the man who now took up the warfare, avowedly for science but
unconsciously for theology, was the foremost naturalist the
living--Cuvier. His scientific eminence was deserved; the highest
honours of his own and other countries were given him, and he bore
them worthily. An Imperial Councillor under Napoleon; President of
the Council of Public Instruction and Chancellor of the University
under the restored Bourbons; Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour,
a Peer of France, Minister of the Interior, and President of the
Council of State under Louis Philippe; he was eminent in all these
capacities, and yet the dignity given by such high administrative
positions was as nothing compared to his leadership in natural
science. Science throughout the world acknowledged in him its chief
contemporary ornament, and to this hour his fame rightly continues.
But there was in him, as in Linnaeus, a survival of certain
theological ways of looking at the universe and certain theological
conceptions of a plan of creation; it must be said, too, that while
his temperament made him distrust new hypotheses, of which he had
seen so many born and die, his environment as a great functionary
of state, honoured, admired, almost adored by the greatest, not
only in the state but in the Church, his solicitude lest science
should receive some detriment by openly resisting the Church, whic
had recaptured Europe after the French Revolution, and had made o
its enemies its footstool--all these considerations led him to
oppose the new theory. Amid the plaudits, then, of the foremost
church-men he threw across the path of the evolution doctrines the
whole mass of his authority in favour of the old theory o
catastrophic changes and special creations.
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire stoutly withstood him, braving
non-recognition, ill-treatment, and ridicule. Treviranus, afar off
in his mathematical lecture-room at Bremen, seemed simply forgotten.
But the current of evolutionary thought could not thus be checked:
dammed up for a time, it broke out in new channels and in ways and
places least expected; turned away from France, it appeared
especially in England, where great paleontologists and geologists
arose whose work culminated in that of Lyell. Specialists
throughout all the world now became more vigorous than ever
gathering facts and thinking upon them in a way which caused the
special creation theory to shrink more and more. Broader and more
full became these various rivulets, soon to unite in one great
stream of thought.
In 1813 Dr. Wells developed a theory of evolution by natural
selection to account for varieties in the human race. About 182
Dean Herbert, eminent as an authority in horticulture, avowed his
conviction that species are but fixed varieties. In 1831 Patrick
Matthews stumbled upon and stated the main doctrine of natural
selection in evolution; and others here and there, in Europe and
America, caught an inkling of it.
But no one outside of a circle apparently uninfluential cared for
these things: the Church was serene: on the Continent it had
obtained reactionary control of courts, cabinets, and universities
in England, Dean Cockburn was denouncing Mary Somerville and the
geologists to the delight of churchmen; and the Rev. Mellor Brown
was doing the same thing for the edification of dissenters.
In America the mild suggestions of Silliman and his compeers wer
met by the protestations of the Andover theologians headed by Moses
Stuart. Neither of the great English universities, as a rule, too
any notice of the innovators save by sneers
To this current of thought there was joined a new element when, in
1844, Robert Chambers published his _Vestiges of Creation_. The book
was attractive and was widely read. In Chambers's view the several
series of animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the
highest and most recent, were the result of two distinct impulses,
each given once and for all time by the Creator. The first of thes
was an impulse imparted to forms of life, lifting them gradually
through higher grades; the second was an impulse tending to modify
organic substances in accordance with external circumstances; i
fact, the doctrine of the book was evolution tempered by miracle--a
stretching out of the creative act through all time--a pious
version of Lamarck.
Two results followed, one mirth-provoking, the other leading to
serious thought. The amusing result was that the theologians were
greatly alarmed by the book: it was loudly insisted that i
promoted atheism. Looking back along the line of thought which has
since been developed, one feels that the older theologians ought to
have put up thanksgivings for Chambers's theory, and prayers that
it might prove true. The more serious result was that it accustomed
men's minds to a belief in evolution as in some form possibl
or even probable. In this way it was provisionally of service.
Eight years later Herbert Spencer published an essay contrasting
the theories of creation and evolution--reasoning with great force
in favour of the latter, showing that species had undoubtedly been
modified by circumstances; but still only few and chosen men saw
the significance of all these lines of reasoning which had been
converging during so many years toward one conclusion.
On July 1, 1858, there were read before the Linnaean Society at
London two papers--one presented by Charles Darwin, the other by
Alfred Russel Wallace--and with the reading of these papers the
doctrine of evolution by natural selection was born. Then and ther
a fatal breach was made in the great theological barrier of th
continued fixity of species since the creation
The story of these papers the scientific world knows by heart: how
Charles Darwin, having been sent to the University of Cambridge t
fit him for the Anglican priesthood, left it in 1831 to go upon the
scientific expedition of the Beagle; how for five years he studied
with wonderful vigour and acuteness the problems of life as
revealed on land and at sea--among volcanoes and coral reefs, i
forests and on the sands, from the tropics to the arctic regions
how, in the Cape Verde and the Galapagos Islands, and in Brazil,
Patagonia, and Australia he interrogated Nature with matchless
persistency and skill; how he returned unheralded, quietly settle
down to his work, and soon set the world thinking over its firs
published results, such as his book on _Coral Reefs,_ and the
monograph on the _Cirripedia_; and, finally, how he presented hi
paper, and followed it up with treatises which made him one of the
great leaders in the history of human thought.
The scientific world realizes, too, more and more, the power of
character shown by Darwin in all this great career; the faculty of
silence, the reserve of strength seen in keeping his great
thought--his idea of evolution by natural selection--under silent
study and meditation for nearly twenty years, giving no hint of it
to the world at large, but working in every field to secure proofs
or disproofs, and accumulating masses of precious material for the
solution of the questions involved.
To one man only did he reveal his thought--to Dr. Joseph Hooker, to
whom in 1844, under the seal of secrecy, he gave a summary of his
conclusions. Not until fourteen years later occurred the event
which showed him that the fulness of time had come--the letter from
Alfred Russel Wallace, to whom, in brilliant researches during the
decade from 1848 to 1858, in Brazil and in the Malay Archipelago,
the same truth of evolution by natural selection had been revealed.
Among the proofs that scientific study does no injury to the more
delicate shades of sentiment is the well-known story of this letter.
With it Wallace sent Darwin a memoir, asking him to present it to
the Linnaean Society: on examining it, Darwin found that Wallac
had independently arrived at conclusions similar to his
own--possibly had deprived him of fame; but Darwin was loyal to his
friend, and his friend remained ever loyal to him. He publicl
presented the paper from Wallace, with his own conclusions; and the
date of this presentation--July 1, 1858--separates two epochs in the
history, not merely of natural science, but of human thought.
In the following year, 1859, came the first instalment of his wor
in its fuller development--his book on _The Origin of Species_. In
this book one at least of the main secrets at the heart of the
evolutionary process, which had baffled the long line of
investigators and philosophers from the days of Aristotle, was mor
broadly revealed. The effective mechanism of evolution was shown a
work in three ascertained facts: in the struggle for existence
among organized beings; in the survival of the fittest; and in
heredity. These facts were presented with such minute research,
wide observation, patient collation, transparent honesty, and
judicial fairness, that they at once commanded the world's
attention. It was the outcome of thirty years' work and thought by
a worker and thinker of genius, but it was yet more than that--i
was the outcome, also, of the work and thought of another man of
genius fifty years before. The book of Malthus on the _Principle of
Population_, mainly founded on the fact that animals increase in a
geometrical ratio, and therefore, if unchecked, must encumber th
earth, had been generally forgotten, and was only recalled with a
sneer. But the genius of Darwin recognised in it a deeper meaning,
and now the thought of Malthus was joined to the new current.
Meditating upon it in connection with his own observations of the
luxuriance of Nature, Darwin had arrived at his doctrine of natura
selection and survival of the fittest
As the great dogmatic barrier between the old and new views of the
universe was broken down, the flood of new thought pouring over the
world stimulated and nourished strong growths in every field of
research and reasoning: edition after edition of the book was
called for; it was translated even into Japanese and Hindustani;
the stagnation of scientific thought, which Buckle, only a fe
years before, had so deeply lamented, gave place to a widespread
and fruitful activity; masses of accumulated observations, which
had seemed stale and unprofitable, were made alive; facts formerly
without meaning now found their interpretation. Under this new
influence an army of young men took up every promising line of
scientific investigation in every land. Epoch-making books appeared
in all the great nations. Spencer, Wallace, Huxley, Galton,
Tyndall, Tylor, Lubbock, Bagehot, Lewes, in England, and a phalanx
of strong men in Germany, Italy, France, and America gave fort
works which became authoritative in every department of biology. If
some of the older men in France held back, overawed perhaps by the
authority of Cuvier, the younger and more vigorous pressed on.
One source of opposition deserves to be especially mentioned--Louis
Agassiz.
A great investigator, an inspired and inspiring teacher, a noble
man, he had received and elaborated a theory of animated creation
which he could not readily change. In his heart and mind still
prevailed the atmosphere of the little Swiss parsonage in which he
was born, and his religious and moral nature, so beautiful to all
who knew him, was especially repelled by sundry evolutionists, who,
in their zeal as neophytes, made proclamations seeming to have a
decidedly irreligious if not immoral bearing. In addition to this
was the direction his thinking had received from Cuvier. Both these
influences combined to prevent his acceptance of the new view.
He was the third great man who had thrown his influence as a
barrier across the current of evolutionary thought. Linnaeus in the
second half of the eighteenth century, Cuvier in the first half
and Agassiz in the second half of the nineteenth--all made the same
effort. Each remains great; but not all of them together could
arrest the current. Agassiz's strong efforts throughout the United
States, and indeed throughout Europe, to check it, really promoted
it. From the great museum he had founded at Cambridge, from his
summer school at Penikese, from his lecture rooms at Harvard and
Cornell, his disciples went forth full of love and admiration fo
him, full of enthusiasm which he had stirred and into fields whic
he had indicated; but their powers, which he had aroused and
strengthened, were devoted to developing the truth he failed to
recognise; Shaler, Verrill, Packard, Hartt, Wilder, Jordan, with a
multitude of others, and especially the son who bore his honoured
name, did justice to his memory by applying what they had received
from him to research under inspiration of the new revelation.
Still another man deserves especial gratitude and honour in this
progress--Edward Livingston Youmans. He was perhaps the first in
America to recognise the vast bearings of the truths presented by
Darwin, Wallace, and Spencer. He became the apostle of these
truths, sacrificing the brilliant career on which he had entered as
a public lecturer, subordinating himself to the three leaders, and
giving himself to editorial drudgery in the stimulation of research
and the announcement of results
In support of the new doctrine came a world of new proofs; those
which Darwin himself added in regard to the cross-fertilization of
plants, and which he had adopted from embryology, led the way, and
these were followed by the discoveries of Wallace, Bates, Huxley,
Marsh, Cope, Leidy, Haeckel, Muller, Gaudry, and a multitude o
others in all lands.[70]
IV. THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY
DARWIN'S _Origin of Species_ had come into the theological world like
a plough into an ant-hill. Everywhere those thus rudely awakene
from their old comfort and repose had swarmed forth angry and
confused. Reviews, sermons, books light and heavy, came flying at
the new thinker from all sides
The keynote was struck at once in the _Quarterly Review_ by
Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He declared that Darwin was guilty
of "a tendency to limit God's glory in creation"; that "the
principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the
word of God"; that it "contradicts the revealed relations of
creation to its Creator"; that it is "inconsistent with the fulness
of his glory"; that it is "a dishonouring view of Nature"; and that
there is "a simpler explanation of the presence of these strange
forms among the works of God": that explanation being--"the fall of
Adam." Nor did the bishop's efforts end here; at the meeting of th
British Association for the Advancement of Science he again
disported himself in the tide of popular applause. Referring to the
ideas of Darwin, who was absent on account of illness, he
congratulated himself in a public speech that he was not descended
from a monkey. The reply came from Huxley, who said in substance:
"If I had to choose, I would prefer to be a descendant of a humble
monkey rather than of a man who employs his knowledge and eloquenc
in misrepresenting those who are wearing out their lives in th
search for truth."
This shot reverberated through England, and indeed throug
other countries.
The utterances of this the most brilliant prelate of the Anglican
Church received a sort of antiphonal response from the leaders of
the English Catholics. In an address before the "Academia," which
had been organized to combat "science falsely so called," Cardinal
Manning declared his abhorrence of the new view of Nature, and
described it as "a brutal philosophy--to wit, there is no God, and
the ape is our Adam."
These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical fashion
for several years. One distinguished clerical reviewer, in spite of
Darwin's thirty years of quiet labour, and in spite of th
powerful summing up of his book, prefaced a diatribe by saying
that Darwin "might have been more modest had he given some slight
reason for dissenting from the views generally entertained."
Another distinguished clergyman, vice-president of a Protestant
institute to combat "dangerous" science, declared Darwinism "an
attempt to dethrone God." Another critic spoke of persons accepting
the Darwinian views as "under the frenzied inspiration of the
inhaler of mephitic gas," and of Darwin's argument as "a jungle o
fanciful assumption." Another spoke of Darwin's views as suggesting
that "God is dead," and declared that Darwin's work "does open
violence to everything which the Creator himself has told us in the
Scriptures of the methods and results of his work." Still another
theological authority asserted: "If the Darwinian theory is true,
Genesis is a lie, the whole framework of the book of life falls to
pieces, and the revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it,
is a delusion and a snare." Another, who had shown excellen
qualities as an observing naturalist, declared the Darwinian view
"a huge imposture from the beginning."
Echoes came from America. One review, the organ of the most
widespread of American religious sects, declared that Darwin was
"attempting to befog and to pettifog the whole question"; another
denounced Darwin's views as "infidelity"; another, representing the
American branch of the Anglican Church, poured contempt over Darwin
as "sophistical and illogical," and then plunged into a
exceedingly dangerous line of argument in the following words: "If
this hypothesis be true, then is the Bible an unbearable
fiction;... then have Christians for nearly two thousand years been
duped by a monstrous lie.... Darwin requires us to disbelieve the
authoritative word of the Creator" A leading journal representing
the same church took pains to show the evolution theory to be as
contrary to the explicit declarations of the New Testament as to
those of the Old, and said: "If we have all, men and monkeys,
oysters and eagles, developed from an original germ, then is St.
Paul's grand deliverance--`All flesh is not the same flesh; there
is one kind of flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes
and another of birds'--untrue."
Another echo came from Australia, where Dr. Perry, Lord Bishop of
Melbourne, in a most bitter book on _Science and the Bible_, declared
that the obvious object of Chambers, Darwin, and Huxley is "to
produce in their readers a disbelief of the Bible."
Nor was the older branch of the Church to be left behind in this
chorus. Bayma, in the _Catholic World_, declared, "Mr. Darwin is, we
have reason to believe, the mouthpiece or chief trumpeter of that
infidel clique whose well-known object is to do away with all idea
of a God.
Worthy of especial note as showing the determination of the
theological side at that period was the foundation of
sacro-scientific organizations to combat the new ideas. First to be
noted is the "Academia," planned by Cardinal Wiseman. In
circular letter the cardinal, usually so moderate and just, sounded
an alarm and summed up by saying, "Now it is for the Church, which
alone possesses divine certainty and divine discernment, to place
itself at once in the front of a movement which threatens even th
fragmentary remains of Christian belief in England." The necessary
permission was obtained from Rome, the Academia was founded, and
the "divine discernment" of the Church was seen in the utterance
which came from it, such as those of Cardinal Manning, which every
thoughtful Catholic would now desire to recall, and in the
diatribes of Dr. Laing, which only aroused laughter on all sides.
A similar effort was seen in Protestant quarters; the "Victoria
institute" was created, and perhaps the most noted utterance which
ever came from it was the declaration of its vice-president, the
Rev. Walter Mitchell, that "Darwinism endeavours to dethrone God."[73]
In France the attack was even more violent. Fabre d'Envieu brought
out the heavy artillery of theology, and in a long series of
elaborate propositions demonstrated that any other doctrine tha
that of the fixity and persistence of species is absolutely
contrary to Scripture. The Abbe Desorges, a former Professor of
Theology, stigmatized Darwin as a "pedant," and evolution as
"gloomy". Monseigneur Segur, referring to Darwin and his followers,
went into hysterics and shrieked: "These infamous doctrines have
for their only support the most abject passions. Their father is
pride, their mother impurity, their offspring revolutions. The
come from hell and return thither, taking with them the gross
creatures who blush not to proclaim and accept them."
In Germany the attack, if less declamatory, was no less severe.
Catholic theologians vied with Protestants in bitterness. Prof.
Michelis declared Darwin's theory "a caricature of creation." Dr.
Hagermann asserted that it "turned the Creator out of doors." Dr.
Schund insisted that "every idea of the Holy Scriptures, from the
first to the last page, stands in diametrical opposition to the
Darwinian theory"; and, "if Darwin be right in his view of the
development of man out of a brutal condition, then the Bible
teaching in regard to man is utterly annihilated." Rougemont i
Switzerland called for a crusade against the obnoxious doctrine.
Luthardt, Professor of Theology at Leipsic, declared: "The idea of
creation belongs to religion and not to natural science; the whole
superstructure of personal religion is built upon the doctrine of
creation"; and he showed the evolution theory to be in direct
contradiction to Holy Writ.
But in 1863 came an event which brought serious confusion to the
theological camp: Sir Charles Lyell, the most eminent of living
geologists, a man of deeply Christian feeling and of exceedingl
cautious temper, who had opposed the evolution theory of Lamarck
and declared his adherence to the idea of successive creations,
then published his work on the _Antiquity of Man_, and in this and
other utterances showed himself a complete though unwilling convert
to the fundamental ideas of Darwin. The blow was serious in many
ways, and especially so in two--first, as withdrawing all
foundation in fact from the scriptural chronology, and secondly, as
discrediting the creation theory. The blow was not unexpected; i
various review articles against the Darwinian theory there had been
appeals to Lyell, at times almost piteous, "not to flinch from the
truths he had formerly proclaimed." But Lyell, like the honest man
he was, yielded unreservedly to the mass of new proofs arrayed on
the side of evolution against that of creation.
At the same time came Huxley's _Man's Place in Nature_, giving ne
and most cogent arguments in favour of evolution by natural selection.
In 1871 was published Darwin's _Descent of Man_. Its doctrine had
been anticipated by critics of his previous books, but it made,
none the less, a great stir; again the opposing army trooped forth,
though evidently with much less heart than before. A few were very
violent. _The Dublin University Magazine_, after the traditional
Hibernian fashion, charged Mr. Darwin with seeking "to displace
God by the unerring action of vagary," and with being "resolved t
hunt God out of the world." But most notable from the side of the
older Church was the elaborate answer to Darwin's book by the
eminent French Catholic physician, Dr. Constantin James. In his
work, _On Darwinism, or the Man-Ape_, published at Paris in 1877, Dr
James not only refuted Darwin scientifically but poured contempt
on his book, calling it "a fairy tale," and insisted that a work
"so fantastic and so burlesque" was, doubtless, only a huge joke,
like Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_, or Montesquieu's _Persian Letters_.
The princes of the Church were delighted. The Cardinal Archbishop
of Paris assured the author that the book had become his
"spiritual reading," and begged him to send a copy to the Pope
himself. His Holiness, Pope Pius IX, acknowledged the gift in
remarkable letter. He thanked his dear son, the writer, for th
book in which he "refutes so well the aberrations of Darwinism."
"A system," His Holiness adds, "which is repugnant at once t
history, to the tradition of all peoples, to exact science, t
observed facts, and even to Reason herself, would seem to need no
refutation, did not alienation from God and the leaning toward
materialism, due to depravity, eagerly seek a support in all thi
tissue of fables.... And, in fact, pride, after rejecting the
Creator of all things and proclaiming man independent, wishing hi
to be his own king, his own priest, and his own God--pride goes s
far as to degrade man himself to the level of the unreasoning
brutes, perhaps even of lifeless matter, thus unconsciously
confirming the Divine declaration, _When pride cometh, then cometh
shame_. But the corruption of this age, the machinations of the
perverse, the danger of the simple, demand that such fancies,
altogether absurd though they are, should--since they borrow the
mask of science--be refuted by true science." Wherefore the Pope
thanked Dr. James for his book, "so opportune and so perfectly
appropriate to the exigencies of our time," and bestowed on him the
apostolic benediction. Nor was this brief all. With it there cam
a second, creating the author an officer of the Papal Order of St.
Sylvester. The cardinal archbishop assured the delighted physician
that such a double honour of brief and brevet was perhap
unprecedented, and suggested only that in a new edition of his book
he should "insist a little more on the relation existing between
the narratives of Genesis and the discoveries of modern science, in
such fashion as to convince the most incredulous of their perfect
agreement." The prelate urged also a more dignified title. The
proofs of this new edition were accordingly all submitted to His
Eminence, and in 1882 it appeared as _Moses and Darwin: the Man of
Genesis compared with the Man-Ape, or Religious Education opposed
to Atheistic_. No wonder the cardinal embraced the author, thanking
him in the name of science and religion. " We have at last," he
declared, "a handbook which we can safely put into the hands of youth."
Scarcely less vigorous were the champions of English Protestant
orthodoxy. In an address at Liverpool, Mr. Gladstone remarked:
"Upon the grounds of what is termed evolution God is relieved of
the labour of creation; in the name of unchangeable laws he is
discharged from governing the world"; and, when Herbert Spencer
called his attention to the fact that Newton with the doctrine of
gravitation and with the science of physical astronomy is open to
the same charge, Mr. Gladstone retreated in the _Contemporary Review_
under one of his characteristic clouds of words. The Rev. Dr.
Coles, in the _British and Foreign Evangelical Review_, declared that
the God of evolution is not the Christian's God. Burgon, Dean of
Chichester, in a sermon preached before the University of Oxford,
pathetically warned the students that "those who refuse to accept
the history of the creation of our first parents according to its
obvious literal intention, and are for substituting the moder
dream of evolution in its place, cause the entire scheme of man's
salvation to collapse." Dr. Pusey also came into the fray with most
earnest appeals against the new doctrine, and the Rev. Gavin
Carlyle was perfervid on the same side. The Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge published a book by the Rev. Mr. Birks, in
which the evolution doctrine was declared to be "flatly opposed
to the fundamental doctrine of creation." Even the _London Times_
admitted a review stigmatizing Darwin's _Descent of Man_ as an
"utterly unsupported hypothesis," full of "unsubstantiated
premises, cursory investigations, and disintegrating speculations,"
and Darwin himself as "reckless and unscientific."[77
But it was noted that this second series of attacks, on the _Descent
of Man_, differed in one remarkable respect--so far as England was
concerned--from those which had been made over ten years before on
the _Origin of Species_. While everything was done to discredit
Darwin, to pour contempt upon him, and even, of all things in the
world, to make him--the gentlest of mankind, only occupied with
the scientific side of the problem--"a persecutor of Christianity,"
while his followers were represented more and more as charlatans
or dupes, there began to be in the most influential quarters
careful avoidance of the old argument that evolution--even b
natural selection--contradicts Scripture. It began to be felt that
this was dangerous ground. The defection of Lyell had, perhaps,
more than anything else, started the question among theologians who
had preserved some equanimity, "_What if, after all, the Darwinian
theory should prove to be true?_" Recollections of the position in
which the Roman Church found itself after the establishment of the
doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo naturally came into the minds
of the more thoughtful. In Germany this consideration does not seem
to have occurred at quite so early a day. One eminent Lutheran
clergyman at Magdeburg called on his hearers to choose between
Darwin and religion; Delitszch, in his new commentary on Genesis,
attempted to bring science back to recognise human sin as an
important factor in creation; Prof. Heinrich Ewald, while carefully
avoiding any sharp conflict between the scriptural doctrine an
evolution, comforted himself by covering Darwin and his followers
with contempt; Christlieb, in his address before the Evangelical
Alliance at New York in 1873, simply took the view that the
tendencies of the Darwinian theory were "toward infidelity," but
declined to make any serious battle on biblical grounds; the
Jesuit, Father Pesch, in Holland, drew up in Latin, after the old
scholastic manner, a sort of general indictment of evolution, of
which one may say that it was interesting--as interesting as the
display of a troop in chain armour and with cross-bows on a
nineteenth-century battlefield
From America there came new echoes. Among the myriad attacks on the
Darwinian theory by Protestants and Catholics two should be
especially mentioned. The first of these was by Dr. Noah Porter,
President of Yale College, an excellent scholar, an interestin
writer, a noble man, broadly tolerant, combining in his thinking a
curious mixture of radicalism and conservatism. While giving great
latitude to the evolutionary teaching in the university under his
care, he felt it his duty upon one occasion to avow his disbelief
in it; but he was too wise a man to suggest any necessary
antagonism between it and the Scriptures. He confined himself
mainly to pointing out the tendency of the evolution doctrine i
this form toward agnosticism and pantheism. To those who knew and
loved him, and had noted the genial way in which by wise neglect h
had allowed scientific studies to flourish at Yale, there was an
amusing side to all this. Within a stone's throw of his college
rooms was the Museum of Paleontology, in which Prof. Marsh had laid
side by side, among other evidences of the new truth, that
wonderful series of specimens showing the evolution of the hors
from the earliest form of the animal, "not larger than a fox, with
five toes," through the whole series up to his present form and
size--that series which Huxley declared an absolute proof of the
existence of natural selection as an agent in evolution. In spite
of the veneration and love which all Yale men felt for President
Porter, it was hardly to be expected that these particula
arguments of his would have much permanent effect upon them when
there was constantly before their eyes so convincing a refutation.
But a far more determined opponent was the Rev. Dr. Hodge, of
Princeton; his anger toward the evolution doctrine was bitter: he
denounced it as thoroughly "atheistic"; he insisted that Christians
"have a right to protest against the arraying of probabilities
against the clear evidence of the Scriptures"; he even censured
so orthodox a writer as the Duke of Argyll, and declared that the
Darwinian theory of natural selection is "utterly inconsistent
with the Scriptures," and that "an absent God, who does nothing,
is to us no God"; that "to ignore design as manifested in God's
creation is to dethrone God"; that "a denial of design in Natur
is virtually a denial of God"; and that "no teleologist can be a
Darwinian." Even more uncompromising was another of the leadin
authorities at the same university--the Rev. Dr. Duffield. H
declared war not only against Darwin but even against men like Asa
Gray, Le Conte, and others, who had attempted to reconcile the ne
theory with the Bible: he insisted that "evolutionism and the
scriptural account of the origin of man are irreconcilable"--that
the Darwinian theory is "in direct conflict with the teaching of
the apostle, `All scripture is given by inspiration of God'"; he
pointed out, in his opposition to Darwin's _Descent of Man_ and
Lyell's _Antiquity of Man_, that in the Bible "the genealogical
links which connect the Israelites in Egypt with Adam and Eve in
Eden are explicitly given." These utterances of Prof. Duffield
culminated in a declaration which deserves to be cited as showing
that a Presbyterian minister can "deal damnation round the land"
_ex cathedra_ in a fashion quite equal to that of popes and bishops.
It is as follows: "If the development theory of the origin of man,
wrote Dr. Duffield in the _Princeton Review_, "shall in a little
while take its place--as doubtless it will--with other exploded
scientific speculations, then they who accept it with its proper
logical consequences will in the life to come have their portion
with those who in this life `know not God and obey not the gospel
of his Son.'"
Fortunately, at about the time when Darwin's _Descent of Man_ was
published, there had come into Princeton University "_deus e
machina_" in the person of Dr. James McCosh. Called to the
presidency, he at once took his stand against teachings so
dangerous to Christianity as those of Drs. Hodge, Duffield, and
their associates. In one of his personal confidences he has let us
into the secret of this matter. With that hard Scotch sense which
Thackeray had applauded in his well-known verses, he saw that the
most dangerous thing which could be done to Christianity at
Princeton was to reiterate in the university pulpit, week after
week, solemn declarations that if evolution by natural selection,
or indeed evolution at all, be true, the Scriptures are false. He
tells us that he saw that this was the certain way to make the
students unbelievers; he therefore not only checked this dangerous
preaching but preached an opposite doctrine. With him began th
inevitable compromise, and, in spite of mutterings against him as
a Darwinian, he carried the day. Whatever may be thought of his
general system of philosophy, no one can deny his great service in
neutralizing the teachings of his predecessors and colleagues--so
dangerous to all that is essential in Christianity.
Other divines of strong sense in other parts of the country began
to take similar ground--namely, that men could be Christians and at
the same time Darwinians. There appeared, indeed, here and there,
curious discrepancies: thus in 1873 the _Monthly Religious Magazine_
of Boston congratulated its readers that the Rev. Mr. Burr ha
"demolished the evolution theory, knocking the breath of life out of
it and throwing it to the dogs." This amazing performance by the
Rev. Mr. Burr was repeated in a very striking way by Bishop Keener
before the OEcumenical Council of Methodism at Washington in 1891.
In what the newspapers described as an "admirable speech," he
refuted evolution doctrines by saying that evolutionists had "only
to make a journey of twelve hours from the place where he was then
standing to find together the bones of the muskrat, the opossum
the coprolite, and the ichthyosaurus." He asserted that
Agassiz--whom the good bishop, like so many others, seemed to think
an evolutionist--when he visited these beds near Charleston,
declared: "These old beds have set me crazy; they have destroyed
the work of a lifetime." And the Methodist prelate ended by
saying: "Now, gentlemen, brethren, take these facts home with
you; get down and look at them. This is the watch that was under
the steam hammer--the doctrine of evolution; and this steam hamme
is the wonderful deposit of the Ashley beds." Exhibitions like
these availed little. While the good bishop amid vociferous
applause thus made comically evident his belief that Agassiz was a
Darwinian and a coprolite an animal, scientific men were recording
in all parts of the world facts confirming the dreaded theory of an
evolution by natural selection. While the Rev. Mr. Burr was so
loudly praised for "throwing Darwinism to the dogs," Marsh was
completing his series leading from the five-toed ungulates to the
horse. While Dr. Tayler Lewis at Union, and Drs. Hodge and Duffield
at Princeton, were showing that if evolution be true the biblical
accounts must be false, the indefatigable Yale professor was
showing his cretaceous birds, and among them _Hesperornis_ and
_Ichthyornis_ with teeth. While in Germany Luthardt, Schund, and
their compeers were demonstrating that Scripture requires a belief
in special and separate creations, the Archaepteryx, showing a
most remarkable connection between birds and reptiles, was
discovered. While in France Monseigneur Segur and others were
indulging in diatribes against "a certain Darwin," Gaudry an
Filhol were discovering a striking series of "missing links" among
the carnivora.
In view of the proofs accumulating in favour of the new
evolutionary hypothesis, the change in the tone of controlling
theologians was now rapid. From all sides came evidences of desir
to compromise with the theory. Strict adherents of the biblical
text pointed significantly to the verses in Genesis in which the
earth and sea were made to bring forth birds and fishes, and ma
was created out of the dust of the ground. Men of larger mind like
Kingsley and Farrar, with English and American broad churchmen
generally, took ground directly in Darwin's favour. Even Whewell too
pains to show that there might be such a thing as a Darwinian argument
for design in Nature; and the Rev. Samuel Houghton, of the Royal
Society, gave interesting suggestions of a divine design in evolution.
Both the great English universities received the new teaching as a
leaven: at Oxford, in the very front of the High Church party at
Keble College, was elaborated a statement that the evolutio
doctrine is "an advance in our theological thinking." And Temple,
Bishop of London, perhaps the most influential thinker then in the
Anglican episcopate, accepted the new revelation in the following
words: "It seems something more majestic, more befitting him to
whom a thousand years are as one day, thus to impress his will
once for all on his creation, and provide for all the countless
varieties by this one original impress, than by special acts of
creation to be perpetually modifying what he had previously made."
In Scotland the Duke of Argyll, head and front of the orthodox
party, dissenting in many respects from Darwin's full conclusions,
made concessions which badly shook the old position.
Curiously enough, from the Roman Catholic Church, bitter as some o
its writers had been, now came argument to prove that the Catholic
faith does not prevent any one from holding the Darwinian theory,
and especially a declaration from an authority eminent among
American Catholics--a declaration which has a very curious sound,
but which it would be ungracious to find fault with--that "the
doctrine of evolution is no more in opposition to the doctrine of the
Catholic Church than is the Copernican theory or that of Galileo."
Here and there, indeed, men of science like Dawson, Mivart, and
Wigand, in view of theological considerations, sought to make
conditions; but the current was too strong, and eminent
theologians in every country accepted natural selection as at leas
a very important part in the mechanism of evolution.
At the death of Darwin it was felt that there was but one place i
England where his body should be laid, and that this place was next
the grave of Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey. The nobl
address of Canon Farrar at his funeral was echoed from many pulpits
in Europe and America, and theological opposition as such was ended.
Occasionally appeared, it is true, a survival of the old feeling:
the Rev. Dr. Laing referred to the burial of Darwin in Westminste
Abbey as "a proof that England is no longer a Christian country,"
and added that this burial was a desecration--that this honour
was given him because he had been "the chief promoter of the mock
doctrrne of evolution of the species and the ape descent of man."
Still another of these belated prophets was, of all men, Thoma
Carlyle. Soured and embittered, in the same spirit which led him to
find more heroism in a marauding Viking or in one of Frederick the
Great's generals than in Washington, or Lincoln, or Grant, and
which caused him to see in the American civil war only the burning
out of a foul chimney, he, with the petulance natural to
dyspeptic eunuch, railed at Darwin as an "apostle of dirt worship."
The last echoes of these utterances reverberated between Scotland
and America. In the former country, in 1885, the Rev. Dr. Lee
issued a volume declaring that, if the Darwinian view be true,
"there is no place for God"; that "by no method of interpretation
can the language of Holy Scripture be made wide enough to re-echo
the orang-outang theory of man's natural history"; that "Darwinism
reverses the revelation of God" and "implies utter blasphemy
against the divine and human character of our Incarnate Lord"; and
he was pleased to call Darwin and his followers "gospellers of the
gutter." In one of the intellectual centres of America the edito
of a periodical called _The Christian_ urged frantically that "the
battle be set in array, and that men find out who is on the Lord'
side and who is on the side of the devil and the monkeys.
To the honour of the Church of England it should be recorded that
a considerable number of her truest men opposed such utterances
as these, and that one of them--Farrar, Archdeacon o
Westminster--made a protest worthy to be held in perpetual
remembrance. While confessing his own inability to accept fully the
new scientific belief, he said: "We should consider it disgraceful
and humiliating to try to shake it by an _ad captandum_ argument, or
by a clap-trap platform appeal to the unfathomable ignorance and
unlimited arrogance of a prejudiced assembly. We should blush to
meet it with an anathema or a sneer."
All opposition had availed nothing; Darwin's work and fame were
secure. As men looked back over his beautiful life--simple, honest,
tolerant, kindly--and thought upon his great labours in the searc
for truth, all the attacks faded into nothingness.
There were indeed some dark spots, which as time goes on appear
darker. At Trinity College, Cambridge, Whewell, the "omniscient,"
author of the _History of the Inductive Sciences_, refused to allow
a copy of the _Origin of Species_ to be placed in the library. A
multitudes of institutions under theological control--Protestant as
well as Catholic--attempts were made to stamp out or to stifle
evolutionary teaching. Especially was this true for a time i
America, and the case of the American College at Beyrout, where
nearly all the younger professors were dismissed for adhering to
Darwin's views, is worthy of remembrance. The treatment of Dr.
Winchell at the Vanderbilt University in Tennessee showed the same
spirit; one of the truest of men, devoted to science but of deeply
Christian feeling, he was driven forth for views which centred in
the Darwinian theory.
Still more striking was the case of Dr. Woodrow. He had, abou
1857, been appointed to a professorship of Natural Science as
connected with Revealed Religion, in the Presbyterian Seminary a
Columbia, South Carolina. He was a devoted Christian man, and his
training had led him to accept the Presbyterian standards of faith.
With great gifts for scientific study he visited Europe, made a
most conscientious examination of the main questions under
discussion, and adopted the chief points in the doctrine of
evolution by natural selection. A struggle soon began. A movement
hostile to him grew more and more determined, and at last, in spit
of the efforts made in his behalf by the directors of the seminary
and by a large and broad-minded minority in the representative
bodies controlling it, an orthodox storm, raised by the delegates
from various Presbyterian bodies, drove him from his post.
Fortunately, he was received into a professorship at the University
of South Carolina, where he has since taught with more power than
ever before.
This testimony to the faith by American provincial Protestantism
was very properly echoed from Spanish provincial Catholicism. In
the year 1878 a Spanish colonial man of science, Dr. Chil y
Marango, published a work on the Canary Islands. But Dr. Chil had
the imprudence to sketch, in his introduction, the modern
hypothesis of evolution, and to exhibit some proofs, found in the
Canary Islands, of the barbarism of primitive man. The
ecclesiastical authorities, under the lead of Bishop Urquinaona y
Bidot, at once grappled with this new idea. By a solemn act they
declared it "_falsa, impia, scandalosa_"; all persons possessing
copies of the work were ordered to surrender them at once to the
proper ecclesiastics, and the author was placed under the major
excommunication.
But all this opposition may be reckoned among the last expiring
convulsions of the old theologic theory. Even from the new Catholic
University at Washington has come an utterance in favour of the ne
doctrine, and in other universities in the Old World and in the New
the doctrine of evolution by natural selection has asserted it
right to full and honest consideration. More than this, it i
clearly evident that the stronger men in the Church have, in these
latter days, not only relinquished the struggle against science in
this field, but have determined frankly and manfully to make an
alliance with it. In two very remarkable lectures given in 1892 at
the parish church of Rochdale, Wilson, Archdeacon of Manchester
not only accepted Darwinism as true, but wrought it with great
argumentative power into a higher view of Christianity; and what
is of great significance, these sermons were published by the same
Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge which only a fe
years before had published the most bitter attacks against the
Darwinian theory. So, too, during the year 1893, Prof. Henry
Drummond, whose praise is in all the dissenting churches, developed
a similar view most brilliantly in a series of lectures delivered
before the American Chautauqua schools, and published in one of th
most widespread of English orthodox newspapers
Whatever additional factors may be added to natural selection--and
Darwin himself fully admitted that there might be others--the theory
of an evolution process in the formation of the universe and of
animated nature is established, and the old theory of direct creation
is gone forever. In place of it science has given us conceptions far
more noble, and opened the way to an argument for design infinitely
more beautiful than any ever developed by theology.[86]
CHAPTER II.
GEOGRAPHY.
I. THE FORM OF THE EARTH.
AMONG various rude tribes we find survivals of a primitive idea
that the earth is a flat table or disk, ceiled, domed, or canopie
by the sky, and that the sky rests upon the mountains as pillars. Such
a belief is entirely natural; it conforms to the appearance of things,
and hence at a very early period entered into various theologies.
In the civilizations of Chaldea and Egypt it was very fully
developed. The Assyrian inscriptions deciphered in these latter
years represent the god Marduk as in the beginning creating the
heavens and the earth: the earth rests upon the waters; within it
is the realm of the dead; above it is spread "the firmament"--a
solid dome coming down to the horizon on all sides and resting upon
foundations laid in the "great waters" which extend around the earth.
On the east and west sides of this domed firmament are doors, through
which the sun enters in the morning and departs at night; above it
extends another ocean, which goes down to the ocean surrounding
the earth at the horizon on all sides, and which is supported and
kept away from the earth by the firmament. Above the firmament and
the upper ocean which it supports is the interior of heaven.
The Egyptians considered the earth as a table, flat and oblong, the
sky being its ceiling--a huge "firmament" of metal. At the fou
corners of the earth were the pillars supporting this firmament,
and on this solid sky were the "waters above the heavens." They
believed that, when chaos was taking form, one of the gods by mai
force raised the waters on high and spread them out over the
firmament; that on the under side of this solid vault, or ceiling,
or firmament, the stars were suspended to light the earth, and that
the rains were caused by the letting down of the waters through its
windows. This idea and others connected with it seem to have taken
strong hold of the Egyptian priestly caste, entering into thei
theology and sacred science: ceilings of great temples, with
stars, constellations, planets, and signs of the zodiac figure
upon them, remain to-day as striking evidences of this.
In Persia we have theories of geography based upon similar
conceptions and embalmed in sacred texts
From these and doubtless from earlier sources common to them all
came geographical legacies to the Hebrews. Various passages in
their sacred books, many of them noble in conception and beautiful
in form, regarding "the foundation of the earth upon the waters,"
"the fountains of the great deep," "the compass upon the face of
the depth," the "firmament," the "corners of the earth," the
"pillars of heaven," the "waters above the firmament," the
"windows of heaven," and "doors of heaven," point us back to both
these ancient springs of thought.[90]
But, as civilization was developed, there were evolved, especially
among the Greeks, ideas of the earth's sphericity. The
Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle especially cherished them. These
ideas were vague, they were mixed with absurdities, but they were
germ ideas, and even amid the luxuriant growth of theology in the
early Christian Church these germs began struggling into life in
the minds of a few thinking men, and these men renewed the
suggestion that the earth is a globe.[91]
A few of the larger-minded fathers of the Church, influenced
possibly by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by Aristotle and
Plato, were willing to accept this view, but the majority of them
took fright at once. To them it seemed fraught with dangers to
Scripture, by which, of course, they meant their interpretation of
Scripture. Among the first who took up arms against it was
Eusebius. In view of the New Testament texts indicating the
immediately approaching, end of the world, he endeavoured to turn
off this idea by bringing scientific studies into contempt.
Speaking of investigators, he said, "It is not through ignorance
of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their
useless labour, that we think little of these matters, turning our
souls to better things." Basil of Caesarea declared it "a matter
of no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or
a disk, or concave in the middle like a fan." Lactantius referred
to the ideas of those studying astronomy as "bad and senseless,"
and opposed the doctrine of the earth's sphericity both from
Scripture and reason. St. John Chrysostom also exerted his
influence against this scientific belief; and Ephraem Syrus, the
greatest man of the old Syrian Church, widely known as the "lute
of the Holy Ghost," opposed it no less earnestly.
But the strictly biblical men of science, such eminent fathers and
bishops as Theophilus of Antioch in the second century, and Clement
of Alexandria in the third, with others in centuries following,
were not content with merely opposing what they stigmatized as a
old heathen theory; they drew from their Bibles a new Christian
theory, to which one Church authority added one idea and another
another, until it was fully developed. Taking the survival of
various early traditions, given in the seventh verse of the firs
chapter of Genesis, they insisted on the clear declarations of
Scripture that the earth was, at creation, arched over with a solid
vault, "a firmament," and to this they added the passages from
Isaiah and the Psalms, in which it declared that the heavens are
stretched out "like a curtain," and again "like a tent to dwell
in." The universe, then, is like a house: the earth is its ground
floor, the firmament its ceiling, under which the Almighty hangs
out the sun to rule the day and the moon and stars to rule the
night. This ceiling is also the floor of the apartment above, and
in this is a cistern, shaped, as one of the authorities says,
"like a bathing-tank," and containing "the waters which are abov
the firmament." These waters are let down upon the earth by the
Almighty and his angels through the "windows of heaven." As to the
movement of the sun, there was a citation of various passages in
Genesis, mixed with metaphysics in various proportions, and this
was thought to give ample proofs from the Bible that the earth
could not be a sphere.[92]
In the sixth century this development culminated in what was
nothing less than a complete and detailed system of the universe
claiming to be based upon Scripture, its author being the Egyptian
monk Cosmas Indicopleustes. Egypt was a great treasure-house of
theologic thought to various religions of antiquity, and Cosmas
appears to have urged upon the early Church this Egyptian idea of
the construction of the world, just as another Egyptian
ecclesiastic, Athanasius, urged upon the Church the Egyptian idea
of a triune deity ruling the world. According to Cosmas, the earth
is a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by four seas. It is four
hundred days' journey long and two hundred broad. At the outer
edges of these four seas arise massive walls closing in the whole
structure and supporting the firmament or vault of the heavens
whose edges are cemented to the walls. These walls inclose the
earth and all the heavenly bodies.
The whole of this theologico-scientific structure was built most
carefully and, as was then thought, most scripturally. Starting
with the expression applied in the ninth chapter of Hebrews to the
tabernacle in the desert, Cosmas insists, with other interpreter
of his time, that it gives the key to the whole construction of the
world. The universe is, therefore, made on the plan of the Jewis
tabernacle--boxlike and oblong. Going into details, he quotes the
sublime words of Isaiah: "It is He that sitteth upon the circle of
the earth;... that stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain, and
spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell in"; and the passage in
Job which speaks of the "pillars of heaven." He works all this
into his system, and reveals, as he thinks, treasures of science
This vast box is divided into two compartments, one above the
other. In the first of these, men live and stars move; and i
extends up to the first solid vault, or firmament, above which live
the angels, a main part of whose business it is to push and pull
the sun and planets to and fro. Next, he takes the text, "Let
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters," and other texts from Genesis; to these
he adds the text from the Psalms, "Praise him, ye heaven of
heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens" then casts all,
and these growths of thought into his crucible together, finally
brings out the theory that over this first vault is a vast cistern
containing "the waters." He then takes the expression in Genesis
regarding the "windows of heaven" and establishes a doctrine
regarding the regulation of the rain, to the effect that the angels
not only push and pull the heavenly bodies to light the earth, but
also open and close the heavenly windows to water it.
To understand the surface of the earth, Cosmas, following the
methods of interpretation which Origen and other early fathers of
the Church had established, studies the table of shew-bread in the
Jewish tabernacle. The surface of this table proves to him that the
earth is flat, and its dimensions prove that the earth is twice a
long as broad; its four corners symbolize the four seasons; the
twelve loaves of bread, the twelve months; the hollow about the
table proves that the ocean surrounds the earth. To account for the
movement of the sun, Cosmas suggests that at the north of the earth
is a great mountain, and that at night the sun is carried behind
this; but some of the commentators ventured to express a doubt
here: they thought that the sun was pushed into a pit at night and
pulled out in the morning.
Nothing can be more touching in its simplicity than Cosmas's
summing up of his great argument, He declares, "We say therefore
with Isaiah that the heaven embracing the universe is a vault, wit
Job that it is joined to the earth, and with Moses that the length
of the earth is greater than its breadth." The treatise closes with
rapturous assertions that not only Moses and the prophets, but also
angels and apostles, agree to the truth of his doctrine, and that
at the last day God will condemn all who do not accept it.
Although this theory was drawn from Scripture, it was also, as we
have seen, the result of an evolution of theological thought begun
long before the scriptural texts on which it rested were written.
It was not at all strange that Cosmas, Egyptian as he was, shoul
have received this old Nile-born doctrine, as we see it indicated
to-day in the structure of Egyptian temples, and that he should
have developed it by the aid of the Jewish Scriptures; but th
theological world knew nothing of this more remote evolution from
pagan germs; it was received as virtually inspired, and was soon
regarded as a fortress of scriptural truth. Some of the foremost
men in the Church devoted themselves to buttressing it with new
texts and throwing about it new outworks of theological reasoning;
the great body of the faithful considered it a direct gift from th
Almighty. Even in the later centuries of the Middle Ages John of
San Geminiano made a desperate attempt to save it. Like Cosmas, he
takes the Jewish tabernacle as his starting-point, and shows ho
all the newer ideas can be reconciled with the biblical accounts of
its shape, dimensions, and furniture.[95]
From this old conception of the universe as a sort of house, wit
heaven as its upper story and the earth as its ground floor, flowed
important theological ideas into heathen, Jewish, and Christian
mythologies. Common to them all are legends regarding attempts of
mortals to invade the upper apartment from the lower. Of such are
the Greek legends of the Aloidae, who sought to reach heaven by
piling up mountains, and were cast down; the Chaldean and Hebrew
legends of the wicked who at Babel sought to build "a tower whose
top may reach heaven," which Jehovah went down from heaven to see,
and which he brought to naught by the "confusion of tongues"; the
Hindu legend of the tree which sought to grow into heaven and which
Brahma blasted; and the Mexican legend of the giants who sought t
reach heaven by building the Pyramid of Cholula, and who wer
overthrown by fire from above.
Myths having this geographical idea as their germ developed in
luxuriance through thousands of years. Ascensions to heaven and
descents from it, "translations," "assumptions," "annunciations,"
mortals "caught up" into it and returning, angels flying between
it and the earth, thunderbolts hurled down from it, might
winds issuing from its corners, voices speaking from the
upper floor to men on the lower, temporary openings of the floor of
heaven to reveal the blessedness of the good, "signs and wonders"
hung out from it to warn the wicked, interventions of every
kind--from the heathen gods coming down on every sort of errand, an
Jehovah coming down to walk in Eden in the cool of the day, to St.
Mark swooping down into the market-place of Venice to break th
shackles of a slave--all these are but features in a vast evolution
of myths arising largely from this geographical germ.
Nor did this evolution end here. Naturally, in this view of things,
if heaven was a loft, hell was a cellar; and if there were
ascensions into one, there were descents into the other. Hell being
so near, interferences by its occupants with the dwellers of th
earth just above were constant, and form a vast chapter in medieval
literature. Dante made this conception of the location of hel
still more vivid, and we find some forms of it serious barriers t
geographical investigation. Many a bold navigator, who was quite
ready to brave pirates and tempests, trembled at the thought of
tumbling with his ship into one of the openings into hell which a
widespread belief placed in the Atlantic at some unknown distance
from Europe. This terror among sailors was one of the main
obstacles in the great voyage of Columbus. In a medieval text-book,
giving science the form of a dialogue, occur the following question
and answer: "Why is the sun so red in the evening?" "Because he
looketh down upon hell."
But the ancient germ of scientific truth in geography--the idea of
the earth's sphericity--still lived. Although the great majority
of the early fathers of the Church, and especially Lactantius, had
sought to crush it beneath the utterances attributed to Isaiah,
David, and St. Paul, the better opinion of Eudoxus and Aristotle
could not be forgotten. Clement of Alexandria and Origen had eve
supported it. Ambrose and Augustine had tolerated it, and, after
Cosmas had held sway a hundred years, it received new life from
great churchman of southern Europe, Isidore of Seville, who,
however fettered by the dominant theology in many other things,
braved it in this. In the eighth century a similar declaration was
made in the north of Europe by another great Church authority,
Bede. Against the new life thus given to the old truth, the sacred
theory struggled long and vigorously but in vain. Eminent
authorities in later ages, like Albert the Great, St. Thomas
Aquinas, Dante, and Vincent of Beauvais, felt obliged to accept the
doctrine of the earth's sphericity, and as we approach the modern
period we find its truth acknowledged by the vast majority o
thinking men. The Reformation did not at first yield fully to this
better theory. Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin were very strict in
their adherence to the exact letter of Scripture. Even Zwingli,
broad as his views generally were, was closely bound down in this
matter, and held to the opinion of the fathers that a great
firmament, or floor, separated the heavens from the earth; that
above it were the waters and angels, and below it the earth and man.
The main scope given to independent thought on this general subject
among the Reformers was in a few minor speculations regarding the
universe which encompassed Eden, the exact character of the
conversation of the serpent with Eve, and the like.
In the times immediately following the Reformation matters were
even worse. The interpretations of Scripture by Luther and Calvin
became as sacred to their followers as the Scripture itself. Whe
Calixt ventured, in interpreting the Psalms, to question th
accepted belief that "the waters above the heavens" were
contained in a vast receptacle upheld by a solid vault, he was
bitterly denounced as heretical.
In the latter part of the sixteenth century Musaeus interpreted the
accounts in Genesis to mean that first God made the heavens for the
roof or vault, and left it there on high swinging until three days
later he put the earth under it. But the new scientific thought as
to the earth's form had gained the day. The most sturdy believers
were obliged to adjust their, biblical theories to it as best they
could.[98
II. THE DELINEATION OF THE EARTH
Every great people of antiquity, as a rule, regarded its own central
city or most holy place as necessarily the centre of the earth.
The Chaldeans held that their "holy house of the gods" was the
centre. The Egyptians sketched the world under the form of a human
figure, in which Egypt was the heart, and the centre of it Thebes.
For the Assyrians, it was Babylon; for the Hindus, it was Mount
Meru; for the Greeks, so far as the civilized world was concerned,
Olympus or the temple at Delphi; for the modern Mohammedans, it is
Mecca and its sacred stone; the Chinese, to this day, speak of
their empire as the "middle kingdom." It was in accordance, then,
with a simple tendency of human thought that the Jews believed th
centre of the world to be Jerusalem.
The book of Ezekiel speaks of Jerusalem as in the middle of the
earth, and all other parts of the world as set around the holy
city. Throughout the "ages of faith" this was very generally
accepted as a direct revelation from the Almighty regarding the
earth's form. St. Jerome, the greatest authority of the early
Church upon the Bible, declared, on the strength of this utterance
of the prophet, that Jerusalem could be nowhere but at the earth'
centre; in the ninth century Archbishop Rabanus Maurus reiterated
the same argument; in the eleventh century Hugh of St. Victor gave
to the doctrine another scriptural demonstration; and Pope Urban,
in his great sermon at Clermont urging the Franks to the crusade,
declared, "Jerusalem is the middle point of the earth"; in the
thirteenth century an ecclesiastical writer much in vogue, the
monk Caesarius of Heisterbach, declared, "As the heart in the midst
of the body, so is Jerusalem situated in the midst of our inhabited
earth,"--"so it was that Christ was crucified at the centre of the
earth." Dante accepted this view of Jerusalem as a certainty,
wedding it to immortal verse; and in the pious book of travels
ascribed to Sir John Mandeville, so widely read in the Middle Ages,
it is declared that Jerusalem is at the centre of the world, and
that a spear standing erect at the Holy Sepulchre casts no shado
at the equinox
Ezekiel's statement thus became the standard of orthodoxy to early
map-makers. The map of the world at Hereford Cathedral, the maps of
Andrea Bianco, Marino Sanuto, and a multitude of others fixed thi
view in men's minds, and doubtless discouraged during many
generations any scientific statements tending to unbalance this
geographical centre revealed in Scripture.[99]
Nor did medieval thinkers rest with this conception. In accordance
with the dominant view that physical truth must be sought b
theological reasoning, the doctrine was evolved that not only th
site of the cross on Calvary marked the geographical centre of th
world, but that on this very spot had stood the tree which bore the
forbidden fruit in Eden. Thus was geography made to reconcile all
parts of the great theologic plan. This doctrine was hailed with
joy by multitudes; and we find in the works of medieval pilgrims to
Palestine, again and again, evidence that this had become preciou
truth to them, both in theology and geography. Even as late as 1664
the eminent French priest Eugene Roger, in his published travels in
Palestine, dwelt upon the thirty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel, coupled
with a text from Isaiah, to prove that the exact centre of the
earth is a spot marked on the pavement of the Church of the Hol
Sepulchre, and that on this spot once stood the tree which bore the
forbidden fruit and the cross of Christ.[100
Nor was this the only misconception which forced its way from our
sacred writings into medieval map-making: two others were almost
as marked. First of these was the vague terror inspired by Gog
and Magog. Few passages in the Old Testament are more sublime
than the denunciation of these great enemies by Ezekiel; and the
well-known statement in the Apocalypse fastened the Hebrew
feeling regarding them with a new meaning into the mind of the
early Church: hence it was that the medieval map-makers too
great pains to delineate these monsters and their habitations o
the maps. For centuries no map was considered orthodox which did
not show them.
The second conception was derived from the mention in our sacre
books of the "four winds." Hence came a vivid belief in their real
existence, and their delineation on the maps, generally as colossal
heads with distended cheeks, blowing vigorously toward Jerusalem.
After these conceptions had mainly disappeared we find here and
there evidences of the difficulty men found in giving up the
scriptural idea of direct personal interference by agents of Heaven
in the ordinary phenomena of Nature: thus, in a noted map of th
sixteenth century representing the earth as a sphere, there is at
each pole a crank, with an angel laboriously turning the earth by
means of it; and, in another map, the hand of the Almighty, thrus
forth from the clouds, holds the earth suspended by a rope and
spins it with his thumb and fingers. Even as late as the middle of
the seventeenth century Heylin, the most authoritative English
geographer of the time, shows a like tendency to mix science and
theology. He warps each to help the other, as follows: "Water,
making but one globe with the earth, is yet higher than it. This
appears, first, because it is a body not so heavy; secondly, it is
observed by sailors that their ships move faster to the shore than
from it, whereof no reason can be given but the height of the wate
above the land; thirdly, to such as stand on the shore the sea
seems to swell into the form of a round hill till it puts a bound
upon our sight. Now that the sea, hovering thus over and above the
earth, doth not overwhelm it, can be ascribed only to his
Providence who `hath made the waters to stand on an heap that they
turn not again to cover the earth.'"[102]
III. THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH.
Even while the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth was
undecided, another question had been suggested which theologians
finally came to consider of far greater importance. The doctrine of
the sphericity of the earth naturally led to thought regarding its
inhabitants, and another ancient germ was warmed into life--the
idea of antipodes: of human beings on the earth's opposite sides.
In the Greek and Roman world this idea had found supporters and
opponents, Cicero and Pliny being among the former, and Epicurus,
Lucretius, and Plutarch among the latter. Thus the problem cam
into the early Church unsolved.
Among the first churchmen to take it up was, in the East, St.
Gregory Nazianzen, who showed that to sail beyond Gibraltar wa
impossible; and, in the West, Lactantius, who asked: "Is there any
one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps
are higher than their heads?. . . that the crops and trees grow
downward?. . . that the rains and snow and hail fall upward toward
the earth?. . . I am at a loss what to say of those who, when they
have once erred, steadily persevere in their folly and defend one
vain thing by another."
In all this contention by Gregory and Lactantius there was nothing to be
especially regretted, for, whatever their motive, they simply supported
their inherited belief on grounds of natural law and probability.
Unfortunately, the discussion was not long allowed to rest on these
scientific and philosophical grounds; other Christian thinkers
followed, who in their ardour adduced texts of Scripture, and soo
the question had become theological; hostility to the belief in
antipodes became dogmatic. The universal Church was arrayed against
it, and in front of the vast phalanx stood, to a man, the fathers.
To all of them this idea seemed dangerous; to most of them it
seemed damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose were tolerant enough to
allow that a man might be saved who thought the earth inhabited on
its opposite sides; but the great majority of the fathers doubted
the possibility of salvation to such misbelievers.
The great champion of the orthodox view was St. Augustine. Though
he seemed inclined to yield a little in regard to the sphericity o
the earth, he fought the idea that men exist on the other side of
it, saying that "Scripture speaks of no such descendants of Adam."
he insists that men could not be allowed by the Almighty to live
there, since if they did they could not see Christ at His second
coming descending through the air. But his most cogent appeal, one
which we find echoed from theologian to theologian during a
thousand years afterward, is to the nineteenth Psalm, and to it
confirmation in the Epistle to the Romans; to the words, "Their
line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the en
of the world." He dwells with great force on the fact that St.
Paul based one of his most powerful arguments upon this declaration
regarding the preachers of the gospel, and that he declared even
more explicitly that "Verily, their sound went into all the earth,
and their words unto the ends of the world." Thenceforth we find i
constantly declared that, as those preachers did not go to the
antipodes, no antipodes can exist; and hence that the supporters of
this geographical doctrine "give the lie direct to King David and
to St. Paul, and therefore to the Holy Ghost." Thus the great
Bishop of Hippo taught the whole world for over a thousand years
that, as there was no preaching of the gospel on the opposite side
of the earth, there could be no human beings there.
The great authority of Augustine, and the cogency of his scriptural
argument, held the Church firmly against the doctrine of the
antipodes; all schools of interpretation were now agreed--the
followers of the allegorical tendencies of Alexandria, the strictly
literal exegetes of Syria, the more eclectic theologians of the
West. For over a thousand years it was held in the Church,
"always, everywhere, and by all," that there could not be human
beings on the opposite sides of the earth, even if the earth had
opposite sides; and, when attacked by gainsayers, the great mass of
true believers, from the fourth century to the fifteenth, simply
used that opiate which had so soothing an effect on John Henry
Newman in the nineteenth century--_securus judicat orbis terrarum_.
Yet gainsayers still appeared. That the doctrine of the antipodes
continued to have life, is shown by the fact that in the sixt
century Procopius of Gaza attacks it with a tremendous argument. He
declares that, if there be men on the other side of the earth, Christ
must have gone there and suffered a second time to save them; and,
therefore, that there must have been there, as necessary preliminaries
to his coming, a duplicate Eden, Adam, serpent, and deluge.
Cosmas Indicopleustes also attacked the doctrine with especia
bitterness, citing a passage from St. Luke to prove that antipodes
are theologically impossible.
At the end of the sixth century came a man from whom much might be
expected--St. Isidore of Seville. He had pondered over ancient
thought in science, and, as we have seen, had dared proclaim his
belief in the sphericity of the earth; but with that he stopped. As
to the antipodes, the authority of the Psalmist, St. Paul, and St
Augustine silences him; he shuns the whole question as unlawful,
subjects reason to faith, and declares that men can not and ought
not to exist on opposite sides of the earth.[105]
Under such pressure this scientific truth seems to have disappeared
for nearly two hundred years; but by the eighth century the
sphericity of the earth had come to be generally accepted among th
leaders of thought, and now the doctrine of the antipodes was again
asserted by a bishop, Virgil of Salzburg.
There then stood in Germany, in those first years of the eighth
century, one of the greatest and noblest of men--St. Boniface. His
learning was of the best then known. In labours he was a worthy
successor of the apostles; his genius for Christian work made him
unwillingly primate of Germany; his devotion to duty led him
willingly to martyrdom. There sat, too, at that time, on the papal
throne a great Christian statesman--Pope Zachary. Boniface
immediately declared against the revival of such a heresy as the
doctrine of the antipodes; he stigmatized it as an assertion that
there are men beyond the reach of the appointed means of salvation;
he attacked Virgil, and called on Pope Zachary for aid.
The Pope, as the infallible teacher of Christendom, made a strong
response. He cited passages from the book of Job and the Wisdom of
Solomon against the doctrine of the antipodes; he declared it
"perverse, iniquitous, and against Virgil's own soul," and indicated
a purpose of driving him from his bishopric. Whether this purpose
was carried out or not, the old theological view, by virtue of the
Pope's divinely ordered and protected "inerrancy," was
re-established, and the doctrine that the earth has inhabitants on
but one of its sides became more than ever orthodox, and precious
in the mind of the Church.[106]
This decision seems to have been regarded as final, and five
centuries later the great encyclopedist of the Middle Ages, Vincen
of Beauvais, though he accepts the sphericity of the earth, treats
the doctrine of the antipodes as disproved, because contrary to
Scripture. Yet the doctrine still lived. Just as it had bee
previously revived by William of Conches and then laid to rest, so
now it is somewhat timidly brought out in the thirteenth century by
no less a personage than Albert the Great, the most noted man of
science in that time. But his utterances are perhaps purposely
obscure. Again it disappears beneath the theological wave, and a
hundred years later Nicolas d'Oresme, geographer of the King of
France, a light of science, is forced to yield to the clear
teaching of the Scripture as cited by St. Augustine.
Nor was this the worst. In Italy, at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, the Church thought it necessary to deal with
questions of this sort by rack and fagot. In 1316 Peter of Abano
famous as a physician, having promulgated this with other obnoxious
doctrines in science, only escaped the Inquisition by death; and i
1327 Cecco d'Ascoli, noted as an astronomer, was for this and other
results of thought, which brought him under suspicion of sorcery,
driven from his professorship at Bologna and burned alive at
Florence. Nor was this all his punishment: Orcagna, whose terrible
frescoes still exist on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa
immortalized Cecco by representing him in the flames of hell.[107]
Years rolled on, and there came in the fifteenth century one from
whom the world had a right to expect much. Pierre d'Ailly, by force
of thought and study, had risen to be Provost of the College of St.
Die in Lorraine; his ability had made that little village a centre
of scientific thought for all Europe, and finally made him
Archbishop of Cambray and a cardinal. Toward the end of th
fifteenth century was printed what Cardinal d'Ailly had written
long before as a summing up of his best thought and research--th
collection of essays known as the _Ymago Mundi_. It gives us one of
the most striking examples in history of a great man in theological
fetters. As he approaches this question he states it with such
clearness that we expect to hear him assert the truth; but there
stands the argument of St. Augustine; there, too, stand the
biblical texts on which it is founded--the text from the Psalms and
the explicit declaration of St. Paul to the Romans, "Their sound
went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the
world." D'Ailly attempts to reason, but he is overawed, and gives
to the world virtually nothing.
Still, the doctrine of the antipodes lived and moved: so much s
that the eminent Spanish theologian Tostatus, even as late as the
age of Columbus, felt called upon to protest against it as
"unsafe." He had shaped the old missile of St. Augustine into the
following syllogism: "The apostles were commanded to go into al
the world and to preach the gospel to every creature; they did not
go to any such part of the world as the antipodes; they did not
preach to any creatures there: _ergo_, no antipodes exist."
The warfare of Columbus the world knows well: how the Bishop of
Ceuta worsted him in Portugal; how sundry wise men of Spain
confronted him with the usual quotations from the Psalms, from St.
Paul, and from St. Augustine; how, even after he was triumphant
and after his voyage had greatly strengthened the theory of th
earth's sphericity, with which the theory of the antipodes was so
closely connected, the Church by its highest authority solemnly
stumbled and persisted in going astray. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI,
having been appealed to as an umpire between the claims of Spain
and Portugal to the newly discovered parts of the earth, issued a
bull laying down upon the earth's surface a line of demarcatio
between the two powers. This line was drawn from north to south a
hundred leagues west of the Azores; and the Pope in the plenitude
of his knowledge declared that all lands discovered east of this
line should belong to the Portuguese, and all west of it should
belong to the Spaniards. This was hailed as an exercise of divinely
illuminated power by the Church; but difficulties arose, and in
1506 another attempt was made by Pope Julius II to draw the line
three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
This, again, was supposed to bring divine wisdom to settle the
question; but, shortly, overwhelming difficulties arose; for th
Portuguese claimed Brazil, and, of course, had no difficulty in
showing that they could reach it by sailing to the east of the
line, provided they sailed long enough. The lines laid down b
Popes Alexander and Julius may still be found upon the maps of the
period, but their bulls have quietly passed into the catalogue of
ludicrous errors.
Yet the theological barriers to this geographical truth yielded bu
slowly. Plain as it had become to scholars, they hesitated to
declare it to the world at large. Eleven hundred years had passe
since St. Augustine had proved its antagonism to Scripture, when
Gregory Reysch gave forth his famous encyclopaedia, the _Margarita
Philosophica_. Edition after edition was issued, and everywher
appeared in it the orthodox statements; but they were evidentl
strained to the breaking point; for while, in treating of the
antipodes, Reysch refers respectfully to St. Augustine as objecting
to the scientific doctrine, he is careful not to cite Scripture
against it, and not less careful to suggest geographical reasoning
in favour of it.
But in 1519 science gains a crushing victory. Magellan makes hi
famous voyage. He proves the earth to be round, for his expedition
circumnavigates it; he proves the doctrine of the antipodes, for
his shipmates see the peoples of the antipodes. Yet even this does
not end the war. Many conscientious men oppose the doctrine for two
hundred years longer. Then the French astronomers make their
measurements of degrees in equatorial and polar regions, and add to
their proofs that of the lengthened pendulum. When this was done,
when the deductions of science were seen to be established by the
simple test of measurement, beautifully and perfectly, and when a
long line of trustworthy explorers, including devoted missionaries,
had sent home accounts of the antipodes, then, and then only, this
war of twelve centuries ended.
Such was the main result of this long war; but there were other
results not so fortunate. The efforts of Eusebius, Basil, and
Lactantius to deaden scientific thought; the efforts of Augustine
to combat it; the efforts of Cosmas to crush it by dogmatism; th
efforts of Boniface and Zachary to crush it by force, conscientious
as they all were, had resulted simply in impressing upon many
leading minds the conviction that science and religion are enemies.
On the other hand, what was gained by the warriors of science for
religion? Certainly a far more worthy conception of the world, and
a far more ennobling conception of that power which pervades and
directs it. Which is more consistent with a great religion, the
cosmography of Cosmas or that of Isaac Newton? Which presents
nobler field for religious thought, the diatribes of Lactantius or
the calm statements of Humboldt?[110]
IV. THE SIZE OF THE EARTH.
But at an early period another subject in geography had stirred the
minds of thinking men--_the earth's size_. Various ancient
investigators had by different methods reached measurements more or
less near the truth; these methods were continued into the Middle
Ages, supplemented by new thought, and among the more strikin
results were those obtained by Roger Bacon and Gerbert, afterward
Pope Sylvester II. They handed down to after-time the torch of
knowledge, but, as their reward among their contemporaries, they
fell under the charge of sorcery.
Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the Middle Ages
was a solution of the problem from Scripture, and this solution
deserves to be given as an example of a very curious theological
error, chancing to result in the establishment of a great truth.
The second book of Esdras, which among Protestants is placed in th
Apocrypha, was held by many of the foremost men of the ancient
Church as fully inspired: though Jerome looked with suspicion on
this book, it was regarded as prophetic by Clement of Alexandria,
Tertullian, and Ambrose, and the Church acquiesced in that view. I
the Eastern Church it held an especially high place, and in the
Western Church, before the Reformation, was generally considered by
the most eminent authorities to be part of the sacred canon. In th
sixth chapter of this book there is a summary of the works o
creation, and in it occur the following verses:
"Upon the third day thou didst command that the waters should b
gathered in the seventh part of the earth; six parts hast thou
dried up and kept them to the intent that of these some, bein
planted of God and tilled, might serve thee."
"Upon the fifth day thou saidst unto the seventh part where the
waters were gathered, that it should bring forth living creatures,
fowls and fishes, and so it came to pass."
These statements were reiterated in other verses, and were
naturally considered as of controlling authority.
Among the scholars who pondered on this as on all things likely to
increase knowledge was Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly. As we have seen,
this great man, while he denied the existence of the antipodes, as
St. Augustine had done, believed firmly in the sphericity of the
earth, and, interpreting these statements of the book of Esdras in
connection with this belief, he held that, as only one seventh of
the earth's surface was covered by water, the ocean between th
west coast of Europe and the east coast of Asia could not be very
wide. Knowing, as he thought, the extent of the land upon the
globe, he felt that in view of this divinely authorized statement
the globe must be much smaller, and the land of "Zipango," reached
by Marco Polo, on the extreme east coast of Asia, much nearer than
had been generally believed.
On this point he laid stress in his great work, the _Ymago Mundi_,
and an edition of it having been published in the days when
Columbus was thinking most closely upon the problem of a westward
voyage, it naturally exercised much influence upon his reasonings.
Among the treasures of the library at Seville, there is nothing
more interesting than a copy of this work annotated by Columbus
himself: from this very copy it was that Columbus obtained
confirmation of his belief that the passage across the ocean t
Marco Polo's land of Zipango in Asia was short. But for this error,
based upon a text supposed to be inspired, it is unlikely that
Columbus could have secured the necessary support for his voyage.
It is a curious fact that this single theological error thus
promoted a series of voyages which completely destroyed not only
this but every other conception of geography based upon the sacre
writings.[112
V. THE CHARACTER OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE.
It would be hardly just to dismiss the struggle for geographical
truth without referring to one passage more in the history of th
Protestant Church, for it shows clearly the difficulties in the way
of the simplest statement of geographical truth which conflicted
with the words of the sacred books.
In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life a
Geneva on the charge of Arianism. Servetus had rendered many
services to scientific truth, and one of these was an edition of
Ptolemy's _Geography_, in which Judea was spoken of, not as "a land
flowing with milk and honey," but, in strict accordance with the
truth, as, in the main, meagre, barren, and inhospitable. In his
trial this simple statement of geographical fact was used against
him by his arch-enemy John Calvin with fearful power. In vain did
Servetus plead that he had simply drawn the words from a previous
edition of Ptolemy; in vain did he declare that this statement was
a simple geographical truth of which there were ample proofs: i
was answered that such language "necessarily inculpated Moses, and
grievously outraged the Holy Ghost."[113]
In summing up the action of the Church upon geography, we must say,
then, that the dogmas developed in strict adherence to Scripture
and the conceptions held in the Church during many centuries
"always, every where, and by all," were, on the whole, steadily
hostile to truth; but it is only just to make a distinction here
between the religious and the theological spirit. To the religious
spirit are largely due several of the noblest among the great
voyages of discovery. A deep longing to extend the realms o
Christianity influenced the minds of Prince John of Portugal, in
his great series of efforts along the African coast; of Vasco da
Gama, in his circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope; of
Magellan, in his voyage around the world; and doubtless found a
place among the more worldly motives of Columbus.[113b]
Thus, in this field, from the supremacy accorded to theology, we
find resulting that tendency to dogmatism which has shown itself in
all ages the deadly foe not only of scientific inquiry but of th
higher religious spirit itself, while from the love of truth for
truth's sake, which has been the inspiration of all fruitful work
in science, nothing but advantage has ever resulted to religion
CHAPTER III.
ASTRONOMY.
I. THE OLD SACRED THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
THE next great series of battles was fought over the relations of
the visible heavens to the earth.
In the early Church, in view of the doctrine so prominent in the
New Testament, that the earth was soon to be destroyed, and tha
there were to be "new heavens and a new earth," astronomy, lik
other branches of science, was generally looked upon as futile. Wh
study the old heavens and the old earth, when they were so soon t
be replaced with something infinitely better? This feeling appear
in St. Augustine's famous utterance, "What concern is it to me
whether the heavens as a sphere inclose the earth in the middle of
the world or overhang it on either side?"
As to the heavenly bodies, theologians looked on them as at bes
only objects of pious speculation. Regarding their nature the
fathers of the Church were divided. Origen, and others with him,
thought them living beings possessed of souls, and this belief was
mainly based upon the scriptural vision of the morning stars
singing together, and upon the beautiful appeal to the "stars and
light" in the song of the three children--the _Benedicite_--which
the Anglican communion has so wisely retained in its Liturgy.
Other fathers thought the stars abiding-places of the angels, and
that stars were moved by angels. The Gnostics thought the stars
spiritual beings governed by angels, and appointed not to cause
earthly events but to indicate them.
As to the heavens in general, the prevailing view in the Church was
based upon the scriptural declarations that a solid vault--
"firmament"--was extended above the earth, and that the heavenly
bodies were simply lights hung within it. This was for a time held
very tenaciously. St. Philastrius, in his famous treatise on
heresies, pronounced it a heresy to deny that the stars are brought
out by God from his treasure-house and hung in the sky ever
evening; any other view he declared "false to the Catholi
faith." This view also survived in the sacred theory established so
firmly by Cosmas in the sixth century. Having established his plan
of the universe upon various texts in the Old and New Testaments,
and having made it a vast oblong box, covered by the solid
"firmament," he brought in additional texts from Scripture t
account for the planetary movements, and developed at length the
theory that the sun and planets are moved and the "windows of
heaven" opened and shut by angels appointed for that purpose.
How intensely real this way of looking at the universe was, we find
in the writings of St. Isidore, the greatest leader of orthodox
thought in the seventh century. He affirms that since the fall of
man, and on account of it, the sun and moon shine with a feebler
light; but he proves from a text in Isaiah that when the world
shall be fully redeemed these "great lights" will shine again in
all their early splendour. But, despite these authorities and their
theological finalities, the evolution of scientific though
continued, its main germ being the geocentric doctrine--the
doctrine that the earth is the centre, and that the sun and planets
revolve about it.[115]
This doctrine was of the highest respectability: it had been
developed at a very early period, and had been elaborated until it
accounted well for the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies;
its final name, "Ptolemaic theory," carried weight; and, having
thus come from antiquity into the Christian world, St. Clement of
Alexandria demonstrated that the altar in the Jewish tabernacle was
"a symbol of the earth placed in the middle of the universe":
nothing more was needed; the geocentric theory was fully adopted b
the Church and universally held to agree with the letter and spirit
of Scripture.[116]
Wrought into this foundation, and based upon it, there was
developed in the Middle Ages, mainly out of fragments of Chaldean
and other early theories preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures, a new
sacred system of astronomy, which became one of the great treasures
of the universal Church--the last word of revelation.
Three great men mainly reared this structure. First was the unknow
who gave to the world the treatises ascribed to Dionysius the
Areopagite. It was unhesitatingly believed that these were the work
of St. Paul's Athenian convert, and therefore virtually of St. Paul
himself. Though now known to be spurious, they were then considered
a treasure of inspiration, and an emperor of the East sent them to
an emperor of the West as the most worthy of gifts. In the ninth
century they were widely circulated in western Europe, and becam
a fruitful source of thought, especially on the whole celestia
hierarchy. Thus the old ideas of astronomy were vastly developed,
and the heavenly hosts were classed and named in accordance wit
indications scattered through the sacred Scriptures.
The next of these three great theologians was Peter Lombard,
professor at the University of Paris. About the middle of the
twelfth century he gave forth his collection of _Sentences_, or
Statements by the Fathers, and this remained until the end of the
Middle Ages the universal manual of theology. In it was especially
developed the theological view of man's relation to the universe.
The author tells the world: "Just as man is made for the sake of
God--that is, that he may serve Him,--so the universe is made for
the sake of man--that is, that it may serve _him_; therefore is ma
placed at the middle point of the universe, that he may both serve
and be served.
The vast significance of this view, and its power in resisting any real
astronomical science, we shall see, especially in the time of Galileo.
The great triad of thinkers culminated in St. Thomas Aquinas--the
sainted theologian, the glory of the mediaeval Church, the
"Angelic Doctor," the most marvellous intellect between Aristotle
and Newton; he to whom it was believed that an image of the
Crucified had spoken words praising his writings. Large of mind,
strong, acute, yet just--even more than just--to his opponents, he
gave forth, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, his
Cyclopaedia of Theology, the _Summa Theologica_. In this he carried
the sacred theory of the universe to its full development. With
great power and clearness he brought the whole vast system,
material and spiritual, into its relations to God and man.[117]
Thus was the vast system developed by these three leaders of
mediaeval thought; and now came the man who wrought it yet more
deeply into European belief, the poet divinely inspired who made
the system part of the world's _life_. Pictured by Dante, the
empyrean and the concentric heavens, paradise, purgatory, and hell,
were seen of all men; the God Triune, seated on his throne upon the
circle of the heavens, as real as the Pope seated in the chair of
St. Peter; the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones, surrounding the
Almighty, as real as the cardinals surrounding the Pope; the three
great orders of angels in heaven, as real as the three great
orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, on earth; and the whole
system of spheres, each revolving within the one above it, and all
moving about the earth, subject to the _primum mobile_, as real as
the feudal system of western Europe, subject to the Emperor.[118]
Let us look into this vast creation--the highest achievement of
theology--somewhat more closely.
Its first feature shows a development out of earlier theologica
ideas. The earth is no longer a flat plain inclosed by four walls
and solidly vaulted above, as theologians of previous centuries had
believed it, under the inspiration of Cosmas; it is no longer a
mere flat disk, with sun, moon, and stars hung up to give it light,
as the earlier cathedral sculptors had figured it; it has become
a globe at the centre of the universe. Encompassing it are
successive transparent spheres, rotated by angels about the earth,
and each carrying one or more of the heavenly bodies with it: that
nearest the earth carrying the moon; the next, Mercury; the next,
Venus; the next, the Sun; the next three, Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn; the eighth carrying the fixed stars. The ninth was the
_primum mobile_, and inclosing all was the tenth heaven--the
Empyrean. This was immovable--the boundarv between creation and the
great outer void; and here, in a light which no one can enter, the
Triune God sat enthroned, the "music of the spheres" rising to
Him as they moved. Thus was the old heathen doctrine of the spheres
made Christian.
In attendance upon the Divine Majesty, thus enthroned, are vast
hosts of angels, who are divided into three hierarchies, one
serving in the empyrean, one in the heavens, between the empyrean
and the earth, and one on the earth.
Each of these hierarchies is divided into three choirs, or orders;
the first, into the orders of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; and
the main occupation of these is to chant incessantly--to
"continually cry" the divine praises.
The order of Thrones conveys God's will to the second hierarchy
which serves in the movable heavens. This second hierarchy is also
made up of three orders. The first of these, the order of
Dominions, receives the divine commands; the second, the order of
Powers, moves the heavens, sun, moon, planets, and stars, opens and
shuts the "windows of heaven," and brings to pass all other celestial
phenomena; the third, the order of Empire, guards the others
The third and lowest hierarchy is also made up of three orders.
First of these are the Principalities, the guardian spirits of
nations and kingdoms. Next come Archangels; these protect religion,
and bear the prayers of the saints to the foot of God's throne.
Finally come Angels; these care for earthly affairs in general, one
being appointed to each mortal, and others taking charge of the
qualities of plants, metals, stones, and the like. Throughout the
whole system, from the great Triune God to the lowest group of
angels, we see at work the mystic power attached to the triangle
and sacred number three--the same which gave the triune idea to
ancient Hindu theology, which developed the triune deities in
Egypt, and which transmitted this theological gift to the Christian
world, especially through the Egyptian Athanasius.
Below the earth is hell. This is tenanted by the angels who
rebelled under the lead of Lucifer, prince of the seraphim--th
former favourite of the Trinity; but, of these rebellious angels
some still rove among the planetary spheres, and give trouble to
the good angels; others pervade the atmosphere about the earth
carrying lightning, storm, drought, and hail; others infest earthly
society, tempting men to sin; but Peter Lombard and St. Thomas
Aquinas take pains to show that the work of these devils is, after
all, but to discipline man or to mete out deserved punishment.
All this vast scheme had been so riveted into the Ptolemaic view
by the use of biblical texts and theological reasonings that the
resultant system of the universe was considered impregnable an
final. To attack it was blasphemy.
It stood for centuries. Great theological men of science, like
Vincent of Beauvais and Cardinal d'Ailly, devoted themselves t
showing not only that it was supported by Scripture, but that it
supported Scripture. Thus was the geocentric theory embedded in the
beliefs and aspirations, in the hopes and fears, of Christendom
down to the middle of the sixteenth century.[120]
II. THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY.
But, on the other hand, there had been planted, long before, th
germs of a heliocentric theory. In the sixth century before our
era, Pythagoras, and after him Philolaus, had suggested the
movement of the earth and planets about a central fire; and, three
centuries later, Aristarchus had restated the main truth with
striking precision. Here comes in a proof that the antagonisin
between theological and scientific methods is not confined to
Christianity; for this statement brought upon Aristarchus the
charge of blasphemy, and drew after it a cloud of prejudice which
hid the truth for six hundred years. Not until the fifth century of
our era did it timidly appear in the thoughts of Martianus Capella:
then it was again lost to sight for a thousand years, until in the
fifteenth century, distorted and imperfect, it appeared in th
writings of Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa.
But in the shade cast by the vast system which had grown from the
minds of the great theologians and from the heart of the great poet
there had come to this truth neither bloom nor fruitage.
Quietly, however, the soil was receiving enrichment and the ai
warmth. The processes of mathematics were constantly improved, the
heavenly bodies were steadily observed, and at length appeared, far
from the centres of thought, on the borders of Poland, a plain,
simple-minded scholar, who first fairly uttered to the modern world
the truth--now so commonplace, then so astounding--that the sun and
planets do not revolve about the earth, but that the earth and
planets revolve about the sun: this man was Nicholas Copernicus.
Copernicus had been a professor at Rome, and even as early as 150
had announced his doctrine there, but more in the way of a
scientific curiosity or paradox, as it had been previously held by
Cardinal de Cusa, than as the statement of a system representing a
great fact in Nature. About thirty years later one of his
disciples, Widmanstadt, had explained it to Clement VII; but it
still remained a mere hypothesis, and soon, like so many others,
disappeared from the public view. But to Copernicus, steadily
studying the subject, it became more and more a reality, and as
this truth grew within him he seemed to feel that at Rome he wa
no longer safe. To announce his discovery there as a theory or a
paradox might amuse the papal court, but to announce it as a
truth--as _the_ truth--was a far different matter. He therefore
returned to his little town in Poland
To publish his thought as it had now developed was evidentl
dangerous even there, and for more than thirty years it la
slumbering in the mind of Copernicus and of the friends to whom he
had privately intrusted it.
At last he prepared his great work on the _Revolutions of the
Heavenly Bodies_, and dedicated it to the Pope himself. He next
sought a place of publication. He dared not send it to Rome, for
there were the rulers of the older Church ready to seize it; he
dared not send it to Wittenberg, for there were the leaders of
Protestantism no less hostile; he therefore intrusted it to
Osiander, at Nuremberg.[122]
But Osiander's courage failed him: he dared not launch the new
thought boldly. He wrote a grovelling preface, endeavouring to
excuse Copernicus for his novel idea, and in this he inserted the
apologetic lie that Copernicus had propounded the doctrine of the
earth's movement not as a fact, but as a hypothesis. He declared
that it was lawful for an astronomer to indulge his imagination,
and that this was what Copernicus had done.
Thus was the greatest and most ennobling, perhaps, of scientific
truths--a truth not less ennobling to religion than to
science--forced, in coming before the world, to sneak and crawl.[123]
On the 24th of May, 1543, the newly printed book arrived at th
house of Copernicus. It was put into his hands; but he was on his
deathbed. A few hours later he was beyond the reach of the
conscientious men who would have blotted his reputation and perhaps
have destroyed his life.
Yet not wholly beyond their reach. Even death could not be trusted
to shield him. There seems to have been fear of vengeance upon his
corpse, for on his tombstone was placed no record of his lifelong
labours, no mention of his great discovery; but there was graven
upon it simply a prayer: "I ask not the grace accorded to Paul
not that given to Peter; give me only the favour which Thou didst
show to the thief on the cross." Not till thirty years after did a
friend dare write on his tombstone a memorial of his discovery.[124]
The preface of Osiander, pretending that the book of Copernicus
suggested a hypothesis instead of announcing a truth, served its
purpose well. During nearly seventy years the Church authorities
evidently thought it best not to stir the matter, and in some cases
professors like Calganini were allowed to present the new view
purely as a hypothesis. There were, indeed, mutterings from time to
time on the theological side, but there was no great demonstration
against the system until 1616. Then, when the Copernican doctrine
was upheld by Galileo as a _truth_, and proved to be a truth by his
telescope, the book was taken in hand by the Roman curia. The
statements of Copernicus were condemnned, "until they should be
corrected"; and the corrections required were simply such as would
substitute for his conclusions the old Ptolemaic theory.
That this was their purpose was seen in that year when Galileo was
forbidden to teach or discuss the Copernican theory, and when wer
forbidden "all books which affirm the motion of the earth."
Henceforth to read the work of Copernicus was to risk damnation,
and the world accepted the decree.[124b] The strongest minds wer
thus held fast. If they could not believe the old system, they must
_pretend_ that they believed it;--and this, even after the great
circumnavigation of the globe had done so much to open the eyes of
the world! Very striking is the case of the eminent Jesuit
missionary Joseph Acosta, whose great work on the _Natural and
Moral History of the Indies_, published in the last quarter of the
sixteenth century, exploded so many astronomical and geographical
errors. Though at times curiously credulous, he told the truth as
far as he dared; but as to the movement of the heavenly bodies he
remained orthodox--declaring, "I have seen the two poles, whereon
the heavens turn as upon their axletrees."
There was, indeed, in Europe one man who might have done much to
check this current of unreason which was to sweep away so many
thoughtful men on the one hand from scientific knowledge, and so
many on the other from Christianity. This was Peter Apian. He wa
one of the great mathematical and astronomical scholars of the
time. His brilliant abilities had made him the astronomical teacher
of the Emperor Charles V. his work on geography had brought him a
world-wide reputation; his work on astronomy brought him a patent
of nobility; his improvements in mathematical processes and
astronomical instruments brought him the praise of Kepler and a
place in the history of science: never had a true man better
opportunity to do a great deed. When Copernicus's work appeared,
Apian was at the height of his reputation and power: a quiet,
earnest plea from him, even if it had been only for ordinary
fairness and a suspension of judgment, must have carried much
weight. His devoted pupil, Charles V, who sat on the thrones of
Germany and Spain, must at least have given a hearing to such a
plea. But, unfortunately, Apian was a professor in an institution
of learning under the strictest Church control--the University of
Ingolstadt. His foremost duty was to teach _safe_ science--to keep
science within the line of scriptural truth as interpreted by
theological professors. His great opportunity was lost. Apian
continued to maunder over the Ptolemaic theory and astrology in his
lecture-room. The attack on the Copernican theory he neither
supported nor opposed; he was silent; and the cause of his silence
should never be forgotten so long as any Church asserts its title
to control university instruction.[126]
Doubtless many will exclaim against the Roman Catholic Church for
this; but the simple truth is that Protestantism was no less
zealous against the new scientific doctrine. All branches of the
Protestant Church--Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican--vied with eac
other in denouncing the Copernican doctrine as contrary to
Scripture; and, at a later period, the Puritans showed the same tendency.
Said Martin Luther: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who
strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or th
firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever
must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the
very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of
astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the
sun to stand still, and not the earth." Melanchthon, mild as he
was, was not behind Luther in condemning Copernicus. In his
treatise on the _Elements of Physics_, published six years after
Copernicus's death, he says: "The eyes are witnesses that the
heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men
either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity,
have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither
the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves.... Now, it is a want of
honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the
example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the
truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it." Melanchthon then
cites the passages in the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, which he
declares assert positively and clearly that the earth stands fast
and that the sun moves around it, and adds eight other proofs of
his proposition that "the earth can be nowhere if not in the centre
of the universe." So earnest does this mildest of the Reformers
become, that he suggests severe measures to restrain such impious
teachings as those of Copernicus.[127]
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 asserted that the earth is not at the centre o
the universe. He clinched the matter by the usual reference to th
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 multitude 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."[128]
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 attitude 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 godless 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 suc
attempts to keep the truth from students confined to the Roman
Catholic institutions of learning. Strange as it may seem, nowher
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 hi
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 entitled _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 th
Presbyterian authorities in South Carolina; the expulsion of Prof.
Winchell 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.[129
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 strang
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.[130]
Herein was fulfilled one of the most touching of prophecies. Years
before, the opponents of Copernicus had said to him, "If you
doctrines were true, Venus would show phases like the moon."
Copernicus answered: "You are right; I know not what to say; bu
God is good, and will in time find an answer to this objection."
The God-given answer came when, in 1611, the rude telescope of
Galileo showed the phases of Venus.[130b
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 th
world as a truth. Against him, then, the war was long and bitter.
The supporters of what was called "sound learning" declared hi
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.[131]
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 documents 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. A
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 multitudes of the faithful besought the Inquisition to
deal speedily and sharply with the heretic.[131b]
In vain did Galileo try to prove the existence of satellites b
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 th
Benedictine Castelli and the Grand-Duchess 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 ar
fixed so firm that they can not be moved," and that the su
"runneth about from one end of the heavens to the other."[132]
But the little telescope of Galileo still swept the heavens, an
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 know
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 o
Europe. The Spanish universities were especially intolerant of this
and similar ideas, and up to a recent period their presentation wa
strictly forbidden in the most important university of all--that of
Salamanca.[133]
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 Galile
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 grea
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
solenmnly 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 o
salvation." Father Lecazre declared "it casts suspicion on th
doctrine of the incarnation." Others declared, "It upsets the
whole basis of theology. If the earth is a planet, and only on
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 God 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 noblest 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 agains
them. Of all proofs of the existence of a God, 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 Roma
Catholic theologians of France thwarted him during his life and
prevented any due honours to him after his death.[135]
These epithets can hardly be classed with civilized weapons. They
are burning arrows; they set fire to masses of popular prejudice
always obscuring the real question, sometimes destroying th
attacking party. They are poisoned weapons. They pierce the hearts
of loving women; they alienate dear children; they injure a ma
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 assailants more than the assailed. So it was not in the
days of Galileo; they were then in all their sharpness and venom.[135b]
Yet a baser warfare was waged by the Archbishop of Pisa. This man,
whose cathedral derives its most enduring fame from Galileo's
deduction of a great natural law from the swinging lamp before its
altar, was not an archbishop after the noble mould of Borromeo and
Fenelon and Cheverus. Sadly enough for the Church and humanity, he
was simply a zealot and intriguer: he perfected the plan for
entrapping the great astronomer.
Galileo, after his discoveries had been denounced, had written to
his friend Castelli and to the Grand-Duchess Christine two letters
to show that his discoveries might be reconciled with Scripture. On
a hint from the Inquisition at Rome, the archbishop sought to get
hold of these letters and exhibit them as proofs that Galileo had
uttered heretical views of theology and of Scripture, and thus to
bring him into the clutch of the Inquisition. The archbishop begs
Castelli, therefore, to let him see the original letter in the
handwriting of Galileo. Castelli declines. The archbishop then,
while, as is now revealed, writing constantly and bitterly to the
Inquisition against Galileo, professes to Castelli the greatest
admiration of Galileo's genius and a sincere desire to know more of
his discoveries. This not succeeding, the archbishop at last throws
off the mask and resorts to open attack.
The whole struggle to crush Galileo and to save him would be
amusing were it not so fraught with evil. There were intrigues and
counter-intrigues, plots and counter-plots, lying and spying; and
in the thickest of this seething, squabbling, screaming mass of
priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals, appear two popes,
Paul V and Urban VIII. It is most suggestive to see in this crisis
of the Church, at the tomb of the prince of the apostles, on the
eve of the greatest errors in Church policy the world has known, in
all the intrigues and deliberations of these consecrated leaders of
the Church, no more evidence of the guidance or presence of the
Holy Spirit than in a caucus of New York politicians at Tammany Hall.
But the opposing powers were too strong. In 1615 Galileo was
summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, and the mine which had
been so long preparing was sprung. Sundry theologians of the
Inquisition having been ordered to examine two propositions which
had been extracted from Galileo's letters on the solar spots,
solemnly considered these points during ahout a month and rendere
their unanimous decision as follows: "_The first proposition, that
the sun is the centre and does not revolve about the earth, i
foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because
expressly contrary to Holy Scripture"; and "the second proposition,
that the earth is not the centre but revolves about the sun, is
absurd, false in philosophy, and, from a theological point of view
at least, opposed to the true faith_."
The Pope himself, Paul V, now intervened again: he ordered that
Galileo be brought before the Inquisition. Then the greatest man o
science in that age was brought face to face with the greates
theologian--Galileo was confronted by Bellarmin. Bellarmin shows
Galileo the error of his opinion and orders him to renounce it. De
Lauda, fortified by a letter from the Pope, gives orders that the
astronomer be placed in the dungeons of the Inquisition should he
refuse to yield. Bellarmin now commands Galileo, "in the name of
His Holiness the Pope and the whole Congregation of the Holy
Office, to relinquish altogether the opinion that the sun is the
centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves, nor
henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever,
verbally or in writing." This injunction Galileo acquiesces in and
promises to obey.[137]
This was on the 26th of February, 1616. About a fortnight later th
Congregation of the Index, moved thereto, as the letters and
documents now brought to light show, by Pope Paul, V solemnly
rendered a decree that "_the doctrine of the double motion of the
earth about its axis and about the sun is false, and entirely
contrary to Holy Scripture_"; and that this opinion must neither b
taught nor advocated. The same decree condemned all writings of
Copernicus and "_all writings which affirm the motion of the
earth_." The great work of Copernicus was interdicted unti
corrected in accordance with the views of the Inquisition; and th
works of Galileo and Kepler, though not mentioned by name at tha
time, were included among those implicitly condemned as "affirming
the motion of the earth."
The condemnations were inscribed upon the _Index_; and, finally, the
papacy committed itself as an infallible judge and teacher to the
world by prefixing to the _Index_ the usual papal bull giving it
monitions the most solemn papal sanction. To teach or even read the
works denounced or passages condemned was to risk persecution in
this world and damnation in the next. Science had apparently lost
the decisive battle.
For a time after this judgment Galileo remained in Rome, apparently
hoping to find some way out of this difficulty; but he soon
discovered the hollowness of the protestations made to him by
ecclesiastics, and, being recalled to Florence, remained in his
hermitage near the city in silence, working steadily, indeed, but
not publishing anything save by private letters to friends in
various parts of Europe.
But at last a better vista seemed to open for him. Cardinal
Barberini, who had seemed liberal and friendly, became pope under
the name of Urban VIII. Galileo at this conceived new hopes, and
allowed his continued allegiance to the Copernican system to be
known. New troubles ensued. Galileo was induced to visit Rome
again, and Pope Urban tried to cajole him into silence, personally
taking the trouble to show him his errors by argument. Other
opponents were less considerate, for works appeared attacking his
ideas--works all the more unmanly, since their authors knew that
Galileo was restrained by force from defending himself. Then, too
as if to accumulate proofs of the unfitness of the Church to take
charge of advanced instruction, his salary as a professor at the
University of Pisa was taken from him, and sapping and mining
began. Just as the Archbishop of Pisa some years before had tried
to betray him with honeyed words to the Inquisition, so now Father
Grassi tried it, and, after various attempts to draw him out by
flattery, suddenly denounced his scientific ideas as "leading to a
denial of the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
For the final assault upon him a park of heavy artillery was at
last wheeled into place. It may be seen on all the scientific
battlefields. It consists of general denunciation; and in 1631
Father Melchior Inchofer, of the Jesuits, brought his artillery to
bear upon Galileo with this declaration: "The opinion of the
earth's motion is of all heresies the most abominable, the most
pernicious, the most scandalous; the immovability of the earth is
thrice sacred; argument against the immortality of the soul, the
existence of God, and the incarnation, should be tolerated sooner
than an argument to prove that the earth moves." From the other end
of Europe came a powerful echo.
From the shadow of the Cathedral of Antwerp, the noted theologian
Fromundus gave forth his famous treatise, the _Ant-Aristarclius_. Its
very title-page was a contemptuous insult to the memory of
Copernicus, since it paraded the assumption that the new truth was
only an exploded theory of a pagan astronomer. Fromundus declare
that "sacred Scripture fights against the Copernicans." To prov
that the sun revolves about the earth, he cites the passage in the
Psalms which speaks of the sun "which cometh forth as a bridegroo
out of his chamber." To prove that the earth stands still, he
quotes a passage from Ecclesiastes, "The earth standeth fas
forever." To show the utter futility of the Copernican theory, he
declares that, if it were true, "the wind would constantly blow
from the east"; and that "buildings and the earth itself would fly
off with such a rapid motion that men would have to be provided
with claws like cats to enable them to hold fast to the earth's
surface." Greatest weapon of all, he works up, by the use of
Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, a demonstration from theology and
science combined, that the earth _must_ stand in the centre, an
that the sun _must_ revolve about it.[140] Nor was it merely
fanatics who opposed the truth revealed by Copernicus; such strong
men as Jean Bodin, in France, and Sir Thomas Browne, in England,
declared against it as evidently contrary to Holy Scripture.
IV. VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO.
While news of triumphant attacks upon him and upon the truth he had
established were coming in from all parts of Europe, Galile
prepared a careful treatise in the form of a dialogue, exhibiting
the arguments for and against the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems,
and offered to submit to any conditions that the Church tribunals
might impose, if they would allow it to be printed. At last, after
discussions which extended through eight years, they consented,
imposing a humiliating condition--a preface written in accordance
with the ideas of Father Ricciardi, Master of the Sacred Palace,
and signed by Galileo, in which the Copernican theory was virtually
exhibited as a play of the imagination, and not at all as opposed
to the Ptolemaic doctrine reasserted in 1616 by the Inquisition
under the direction of Pope Paul V.
This new work of Galileo--the _Dialogo_--appeared in 1632, and met
with prodigious success. It put new weapons into the hands of the
supporters of the Copernican theory. The pious preface was laughe
at from one end of Europe to the other. This roused the enemy; the
Jesuits, Dominicans, and the great majority of the clergy returne
to the attack more violent than ever, and in the midst of them
stood Pope Urban VIII, most bitter of all. His whole power was now
thrown against Galileo. He was touched in two points: first, in his
personal vanity, for Galileo had put the Pope's arguments into th
mouth of one of the persons in the dialogue and their refutation
into the mouth of another; but, above all, he was touched in his
religious feelings. Again and again His Holiness insisted to all
comers on the absolute and specific declarations of Holy Scripture,
which prove that the sun and heavenly bodies revolve about the
earth, and declared that to gainsay them is simply to dispute
revelation. Certainly, if one ecclesiastic more than another ever
seemed _not_ under the care of the Spirit of Truth, it was Urban
VIII in all this matter.
Herein was one of the greatest pieces of ill fortune that has ever
befallen the older Church. Had Pope Urban been broad-minded and
tolerant like Benedict XIV, or had he been taught moderation b
adversity like Pius VII, or had he possessed the large scholarly
qualities of Leo XIII, now reigning, the vast scandal of the
Galileo case would never have burdened the Church: instead of
devising endless quibbles and special pleadings to escape
responsibility for this colossal blunder, its defenders could hav
claimed forever for the Church the glory of fearlessly initiating
a great epoch in human thought.
But it was not so to be. Urban was not merely Pope; he was also a
prince of the house of Barberini, and therefore doubly angry that
his arguments had been publicly controverted.
The opening strategy of Galileo's enemies was to forbid the sale of
his work; but this was soon seen to be unavailing, for the first
edition had already been spread throughout Europe. Urban now became
more angry than ever, and both Galileo and his works were placed in
the hands of the Inquisition. In vain did the good Benedictine
Castelli urge that Galileo was entirely respectful to the Church;
in vain did he insist that "nothing that can be done can now
hinder the earth from revolving." He was dismissed in disgrace, an
Galileo was forced to appear in the presence of the dread tribunal
without defender or adviser. There, as was so long concealed, bu
as is now fully revealed, he was menaced with torture again an
again by express order of Pope Urban, and, as is also thoroughly
established from the trial documents themselves, forced to abjure
under threats, and subjected to imprisonment by command of the
Pope; the Inquisition deferring in this whole matter to the papal
authority. All the long series of attempts made in the supposed
interest of the Church to mystify these transactions have at last
failed. The world knows now that Galileo was subjected certainly to
indignity, to imprisonment, and to threats equivalent to torture,
and was at last forced to pronounce publicly and on his knees his
recantation, as follows:
"I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner and on
my knees, and before your Eminences, having before my eyes the Holy
Gospel, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse, and detest the
error and the heresy of the movement of the earth."[142]
He was vanquished indeed, for he had been forced, in the face of
all coming ages, to perjure himself. To complete his dishonour, he
was obliged to swear that he would denounce to the Inquisition any
other man of science whom he should discover to be supporting the
"heresy of the motion of the earth."
Many have wondered at this abjuration, and on account of it have
denied to Galileo the title of martyr. But let such gainsayers
consider the circumstances. Here was an old man--one who had
reached the allotted threescore years and ten--broken with
disappointments, worn out with labours and cares, dragged from
Florence to Rome, with the threat from the Pope himself that if he
delayed he should be "brought in chains"; sick in body and mind,
given over to his oppressors by the Grand-Duke who ought to have
protected him, and on his arrival in Rome threatened with torture
What the Inquisition was he knew well. He could remember as but of
yesterday the burning of Giordano Bruno in that same city for
scientific and philosophic heresy; he could remember, too, that
only eight years before this very time De Dominis, Archbishop of
Spalatro, having been seized by the Inquisition for scientific and
other heresies, had died in a dungeon, and that his body and his
writings had been publicly burned
To the end of his life--nay, after his life was ended--the
persecution of Galileo was continued. He was kept in exile from his
family, from his friends, from his noble employments, and was held
rigidly to his promise not to speak of his theory. When, in the
midst of intense bodily sufferings from disease, and mental
sufferings from calamities in his family, he besought some little
liberty, he was met with threats of committal to a dungeon. When,
at last, a special commission had reported to the ecclesiastical
authorities that he had become blind and wasted with disease an
sorrow, he was allowed a little more liberty, but that little was
hampered by close surveillance. He was forced to bear contemptible
attacks on himself and on his works in silence; to see the men who
had befriended him severely punished; Father Castelli banished;
Ricciardi, the Master of the Sacred Palace, and Ciampoli, the papa
secretary, thrown out of their positions by Pope Urban, and the
Inquisitor at Florence reprimanded for having given permission to
print Galileo's work. He lived to see the truths he had established
carefully weeded out from all the Church colleges and universities
in Europe; and, when in a scientific work he happened to be spoken
of as "renowned," the Inquisition ordered the substitution of the
word "notorious."[143]
And now measures were taken to complete the destruction of the
Copernican theory, with Galileo's proofs of it. On the 16th of
June, 1633, the Holy Congregation, with the permission of the
reigning Pope, ordered the sentence upon Galileo, and his
recantation, to be sent to all the papal nuncios throughout Europe,
as well as to all archbishops, bishops, and inquisitors in Italy
and this document gave orders that the sentence and abjuration be
made known "to your vicars, that you and all professors of
philosophy and mathematics may have knowledge of it, that they may
know why we proceeded against the said Galileo, and recognise the
gravity of his error, in order that they may avoid it, and thus not
incur the penalties which they would have to suffer in case they
fell into the same."[144]
As a consequence, the processors of mathematics and astronomy in
various universities of Europe were assembled and these document
were read to them. To the theological authorities this gave great
satisfaction. The Rector of the University of Douay, referring to
the opinion of Galileo, wrote to the papal nuncio at Brussels: "The
professors of our university are so opposed to this fanatica
opinion that they have always held that it must be banished from
the schools. In our English college at Douay this paradox has
never been approved and never will be.
Still another step was taken: the Inquisitors were ordered,
especially in Italy, not to permit the publication of a new edition
of any of Galileo's works, or of any similar writings. On the other
hand, theologians were urged, now that Copernicus and Galileo and
Kepler were silenced, to reply to them with tongue and pen. Europe was
flooded with these theological refutations of the Copernican system.
To make all complete, there was prefixed to the _Index_ of the
Church, forbidding "all writings which affirm the motion of th
earth," a bull signed by the reigning Pope, which, by virtue of his
infallibility as a divinely guided teacher in matters of faith and
morals, clinched this condemnation into the consciences of the
whole Christian world.
From the mass of books which appeared under the auspices of the
Church immediately after the condemnation of Galileo, for the
purpose of rooting out every vestige of the hated Copernican theory
from the mind of the world, two may be taken as typical. The first
of these was a work by Scipio Chiaramonti, dedicated to Cardinal
Barberini. Among his arguments against the double motion of the
earth may be cited the following
"Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles; the earth has no
limbs or muscles, therefore it does not move. It is angels who make
Saturn, Jupiter, the sun, etc., turn round. If the earth revolves,
it must also have an angel in the centre to set it in motion; but
only devils live there; it would therefore be a devil who would
impart motion to the earth...
"The planets, the sun, the fixed stars, all belong to one
species--namely, that of stars. It seems, therefore, to be a
grievous wrong to place the earth, which is a sink of impurity,
among these heavenly bodies, which are pure and divine things."
The next, which I select from the mass of similar works, is the
_Anticopernicus Catholicus_ of Polacco. It was intended to deal a
finishing stroke at Galileo's heresy. In this it is declared
"The Scripture always represents the earth as at rest, and the sun
and moon as in motion; or, if these latter bodies are ever
represented as at rest, Scripture represents this as the result o
a great miracle....
"These writings must be prohibited, because they teach certain
principles about the position and motion of the terrestrial globe
repugnant to Holy Scripture and to the Catholic interpretation of
it, not as hypotheses but as established facts...."
Speaking of Galileo's book, Polacco says that it "smacked o
Copernicanism," and that, "when this was shown to the Inquisition,
Galileo was thrown into prison and was compelled to utterly abjure
the baseness of this erroneous dogma."
As to the authority of the cardinals in their decree, Polacco
asserts that, since they are the "Pope's Council" and his "brothers,"
their work is one, except that the Pope is favoured with special
divine enlightenment.
Having shown that the authority of the Scriptures, of popes, and of
cardinals is against the new astronomy, he gives a refutation based
on physics. He asks: "If we concede the motion of the earth, why
is it that an arrow shot into the air falls back to the same spot,
while the earth and all things on it have in the meantime moved
very rapidly toward the east? Who does not see that great confusio
would result from this motion?"
Next he argues from metaphysics, as follows: "The Copernican theory
of the earth's motion is against the nature of the earth itself,
because the earth is not only cold but contains in itself the
principle of cold; but cold is opposed to motion, and even destroy
it--as is evident in animals, which become motionless when they
become cold."
Finally, he clinches all with a piece of theological reasoning, a
follows: "Since it can certainly be gathered from Scripture that
the heavens move above the earth, and since a circular motion
requires something immovable around which to move,... the earth is
at the centre of the universe."[146]
But any sketch of the warfare between theology and science in this
field would be incomplete without some reference to the treatment
of Galileo after his death. He had begged to be buried in hi
family tomb in Santa Croce; this request was denied. His friends
wished to erect a monument over him; this, too, was refused. Pope
Urban said to the ambassador Niccolini that "it would be an evil
example for the world if such honours were rendered to a man who
had been brought before the Roman Inquisition for an opinion so
false and erroneous; who had communicated it to many others, an
who had given so great a scandal to Christendom." In accordance,
therefore, with the wish of the Pope and the orders of th
Inquisition, Galileo was buried ignobly, apart from his family
without fitting ceremony, without monument, without epitaph. Not
until forty years after did Pierrozzi dare write an inscription to
be placed above his bones; not until a hundred years after di
Nelli dare transfer his remains to a suitable position in Santa
Croce, and erect a monument above them. Even then the old
conscientious hostility burst forth: the Inquisition was besought
to prevent such honours to "a man condemned for notorious
errors"; and that tribunal refused to allow any epitaph to b
placed above him which had not been submitted to its censorship.
Nor has that old conscientious consistency in hatred yet fully
relented: hardly a generation since has not seen some ecclesiastic,
like Marini or De Bonald or Rallaye or De Gabriac, suppressing
evidence, or torturing expressions, or inventing theories to
blacken the memory of Galileo and save the reputation of the
Church. Nay, more: there are school histories, widely used, which,
in the supposed interest of the Church, misrepresent in the
grossest manner all these transactions in which Galileo was
concerned. _Sancta simplicitas_! The Church has no worse enemies than
those who devise and teach these perversions. They are simply
rooting out, in the long run, from the minds of the more thoughtful
scholars, respect for the great organization which such writings
are supposed to serve.[147]
The Protestant Church was hardly less energetic against this ne
astronomy than the mother Church. The sacred science of the first
Lutheran Reformers was transmitted as a precious legacy, and in the
next century was made much of by Calovius. His great learning and
determined orthodoxy gave him the Lutheran leadership. Utterly
refusing to look at ascertained facts, he cited the turning back of
the shadow upon King Hezekiah's dial and the standing still of the
sun for Joshua, denied the movement of the earth, and denounced the
whole new view as clearly opposed to Scripture. To this day his
arguments are repeated by sundry orthodox leaders of America
Lutheranism.
As to the other branches of the Reformed Church, we have already
seen how Calvinists, Anglicans, and, indeed, Protestant sectarians
generally, opposed the new truth.[148] In England, among the strict
churchmen, the great Dr. South denounced the Royal Society as
"irreligious," and among the Puritans the eminent John Owen declared
that Newton's discoveries were "built on fallible phenomena and
advanced by many arbitrary presumptions against evident testimonies
of Scripture." Even Milton seems to have hesitated between the two
systems. At the beginning of the eighth book of _Paradise Lost_ he
makes Adam state the difficulties of the Ptolemaic system, and then
brings forward an angel to make the usual orthodox answers. Later,
Milton seems to lean toward the Copernican theory, for, referring
to the earth, he says:
"Or she from west her silent course advance
With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps
On her soft axle, while she faces even
And bears thee soft with the smooth air along."
English orthodoxy continued to assert itself. In 1724 John
Hutchinson, professor at Cambridge, published his _Moses' Principia_
a system of philosophy in which he sought to build up a complete
physical system of the universe from the Bible. In this he
assaulted the Newtonian theory as "atheistic," and led the way for
similar attacks by such Church teachers as Horne, Duncan Forbes,
and Jones of Nayland. But one far greater than these involved
himself in this view. That same limitation of his reason by the
simple statements of Scripture which led John Wesley to declar
that, "unless witchcraft is true, nothing in the Bible is true,"
led him, while giving up the Ptolemaic theory and accepting in a
general way the Copernican, to suspect the demonstrations of
Newton. Happily, his inborn nobility of character lifted him above
any bitterness or persecuting spirit, or any imposition of
doctrinal tests which could prevent those who came after him from
finding their way to the truth.
But in the midst of this vast expanse of theologic error signs of
right reason began to appear, both in England and America.
Noteworthy is it that Cotton Mather, bitter as was his orthodoxy
regarding witchcraft, accepted, in 1721, the modern astronomy
fully, with all its consequences.
In the following year came an even more striking evidence that the
new scientific ideas were making their way in England. In 1722
Thomas Burnet published the sixth edition of his _Sacred Theory of
the Earth_. In this he argues, as usual, to establish the scriptural
doctrine of the earth's stability; but in his preface he sounds a
remarkable warning. He mentions the great mistake into which St.
Augustine led the Church regarding the doctrine of the antipodes,
and says, "If within a few years or in the next generation it
should prove as certain and demonstrable that the earth is moved,
as it is now that there are antipodes, those that have been zealous
against it, and engaged the Scripture in the controversy, would
have the same reason to repent of their forwardness that St
Augustine would now, if he were still alive."
Fortunately, too, Protestantism had no such power to oppose the
development of the Copernican ideas as the older Church had
enjoyed. Yet there were some things in its warfare against scienc
even more indefensible. In 1772 the famous English expedition for
scientific discovery sailed from England under Captain Cook.
Greatest by far of all the scientific authorities chosen to accompany
it was Dr. Priestley. Sir Joseph Banks had especially invite
him. But the clergy of Oxford and Cambridge interfered. Priestley
was considered unsound in his views of the Trinity; it wa
evidently suspected that this might vitiate his astronomical
observations; he was rejected, and the expedition crippled
The orthodox view of astronomy lingered on in other branches of th
Protestant Church. In Germany even Leibnitz attacked the Newtonian
theory of gravitation on theological grounds, though he found some
little consolation in thinking that it might be used to support the
Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation.
In Holland the Calvinistic Church was at first strenuous against
the whole new system, but we possess a comical proof that Calvinism
even in its strongholds was powerless against it; for in 1642 Blaer
published at Amsterdam his book on the use of globes, and, in order
to be on the safe side, devoted one part of his work to the
Ptolemaic and the other to the Copernican scheme, leaving the
benevolent reader to take his choice.[150
Nor have efforts to renew the battle in the Protestant Church been
wanting in these latter days. The attempt in the Church of England
in 1864, to fetter science, which was brought to ridicule by
Herschel, Bowring, and De Morgan; the assemblage of Lutheran clerg
at Berlin, in 1868, to protest against "science falsely so called,
are examples of these. Fortunately, to the latter came Pastor Knak
and his denunciations of the Copernican theory as absolutel
incompatible with a belief in the Bible, dissolved the whole
assemblage in ridicule.
In its recent dealings with modern astronomy the wisdom of the
Catholic Church in the more civilized countries has prevented its
yielding to some astounding errors into which one part of the
Protestant Church has fallen heedlessly.
Though various leaders in the older Church have committed the
absurd error of allowing a text-book and sundry review articles to
appear which grossly misstate the Galileo episode, with the
certainty of ultimately undermining confidence in her teachings
among her more thoughtful young men, she has kept clear of the
folly of continuing to tie her instruction, and the acceptance of
our sacred books, to an adoption of the Ptolemaic theory.
Not so with American Lutheranism. In 1873 was published in St.
Louis, at the publishing house of the Lutheran Synod of Missouri,
a work entitled _Astromomische Unterredung_, the author being well
known as a late president of a Lutheran Teachers' Seminary
No attack on the whole modern system of astronomy could be more
bitter. On the first page of the introduction the author, after
stating the two theories, asks, "Which is right?" and says: "It
would be very simple to me which is right, if it were only a
question of human import. But the wise and truthful God has
expressed himself on this matter in the Bible. The entire Hol
Scripture settles the question that the earth is the principal body
(_Hauptkorper_) of the universe, that it stands fixed, and that su
and moon only serve to light it."
The author then goes on to show from Scripture the folly, not only
of Copernicus and Newton, but of a long line of great astronomer
in more recent times. He declares: "Let no one understand me as
inquiring first where truth is to be found--in the Bible or with
the astronomers. No; I know that beforehand--that my God never
lies, never makes a mistake; out of his mouth comes only truth,
when he speaks of the structure of the universe, of the earth, sun,
moon, and stars....
"Because the truth of the Holy Scripture is involved in this,
therefore the above question is of the highest importance to me....
Scientists and others lean upon the miserable reed (_Rohrstab_) that God
teaches only the order of salvation, but not the order of the universe."
Very noteworthy is the fact that this late survival of an ancient
belief based upon text-worship is found, not in the teachings o
any zealous priest of the mother Church, but in those of an eminent
professor in that branch of Protestantism which claims special
enlightenment.[151]
Nor has the warfare against the dead champions of science been
carried on by the older Church alone.
On the 10th of May, 1859, Alexander von Humboldt was buried. His
labours had been among the glories of the century, and his funera
was one of the most imposing that Berlin had ever seen. Among
those who honoured themselves by their presence was the prince
regent, afterward the Emperor William I; but of the clergy it was
observed that none were present save the officiating clergyman an
a few regarded as unorthodox.[152]
V. RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
We return now to the sequel of the Galileo case.
Having gained their victory over Galileo, living and dead, having
used it to scare into submission the professors of astronom
throughout Europe, conscientious churchmen exulted. Loud was their
rejoicing that the "heresy," the "infidelity" the "atheism"
involved in believing that the earth revolves about its axis and
moves around the sun had been crushed by the great tribunal of the
Church, acting in strict obedience to the expressed will of one
Pope and the written order of another. As we have seen, all books
teaching this hated belief were put upon the _Index_ of books
forbidden to Christians, and that _Index_ was prefaced by a bull
enforcing this condemnation upon the consciences of the faithful
throughout the world, and signed by the reigning Pope.
The losses to the world during this complete triumph of theology
were even more serious than at first appears: one must especially
be mentioned. There was then in Europe one of the greatest thinkers
ever given to mankind--Rene Descartes. Mistaken though many of his
reasonings were, they bore a rich fruitage of truth. He had already
done a vast work. His theory of vortices--assuming a uniform
material regulated by physical laws--as the beginning of th
visible universe, though it was but a provisional hypothesis, had
ended the whole old theory of the heavens with the vaulted
firmament and the direction of the planetary movements by angels,
which even Kepler had allowed. The scientific warriors had stirred
new life in him, and he was working over and summing up in his
mighty mind all the researches of his time. The result would have
made an epoch in history. His aim was to combine all knowledge and
thought into a _Treatise on the World_, and in view of this he gave
eleven years to the study of anatomy alone. But the fate of Galileo
robbed him of all hope, of all courage; the battle seemed lost; he
gave up his great plan forever.[153]
But ere long it was seen that this triumph of the Church was in
reality a prodigious defeat. From all sides came proofs tha
Copernicus and Galileo were right; and although Pope Urban and the
inquisition held Galileo in strict seclusion, forbidding him even
to _speak_ regarding the double motion of the earth; and although
this condemnation of "all books which affirm the motion of th
earth" was kept on the _Index_; and although the papal bull still
bound the _Index_ and the condemnations in it on the consciences of
the faithful; and although colleges and universities under Churc
control were compelled to teach the old doctrine--it was seen by
clear-sighted men everywhere that this victory of the Church was a
disaster to the victors.
New champions pressed on. Campanella, full of vagaries as he was,
wrote his _Apology for Galileo_, though for that and other heresies,
religious, and political, he seven times underwent torture
And Kepler comes: he leads science on to greater victories.
Copernicus, great as he was, could not disentangle scientifi
reasoning entirely from the theological bias: the doctrines of
Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as to the necessary superiority of th
circle had vitiated the minor features of his system, and left
breaches in it through which the enemy was not slow to enter; but
Kepler sees these errors, and by wonderful genius and vigour he
gives to the world the three laws which bear his name, and this
fortress of science is complete. He thinks and speaks as one
inspired. His battle is severe. He is solemnly warned by the
Protestant Consistory of Stuttgart "not to throw Christ's kingdom
into confusion with his silly fancies," and as solemnly ordered to
"bring his theory of the world into harmony with Scripture": he
is sometimes abused, sometimes ridiculed, sometimes imprisoned.
Protestants in Styria and Wurtemberg, Catholics in Austria and
Bohemia, press upon him but Newton, Halley, Bradley, and other
great astronomers follow, and to science remains the victory.[154
Yet this did not end the war. During the seventeenth century, in
France, after all the splendid proofs added by Kepler, no one dare
openly teach the Copernican theory, and Cassini, the grea
astronomer, never declared for it. In 1672 the Jesuit Father
Riccioli declared that there were precisely forty-nine arguments
for the Copernican theory and seventy-seven against it. Even afte
the beginning of the eighteenth century--long after the
demonstrations of Sir Isaac Newton--Bossuet, the great Bishop of
Meaux, the foremost theologian that France has ever produced
declared it contrary to Scripture.
Nor did matters seem to improve rapidly during that century. I
England, John Hutchinson, as we have seen, published in 1724 his
_Moses' Principia_ maintaining that the Hebrew Scriptures are
perfect system of natural philosophy, and are opposed to the
Newtonian system of gravitation; and, as we have also seen, he was
followed by a long list of noted men in the Church. In France, two
eminent mathematicians published in 1748 an edition of Newton's
_Principia_; but, in order to avert ecclesiastical censure, they felt
obliged to prefix to it a statement absolutely false. Three years
later, Boscovich, the great mathematician of the Jesuits, used
these words: "As for me, full of respect for the Holy Scriptures
and the decree of the Holy Inquisition, I regard the earth as
immovable; nevertheless, for simplicity in explanation I will argue
as if the earth moves; for it is proved that of the two hypothese
the appearances favour this idea."
In Germany, especially in the Protestant part of it, the war was
even more bitter, and it lasted through the first half of the
eighteenth century. Eminent Lutheran doctors of divinity floode
the country with treatises to prove that the Copernican theory
could not be reconciled with Scripture. In the theological
seminaries and in many of the universities where clerical influence
was strong they seemed to sweep all before them; and yet at the
middle of the century we find some of the clearest-headed of them
aware of the fact that their cause was lost.[155]
In 1757 the most enlightened perhaps in the whole line of th
popes, Benedict XIV, took up the matter, and the Congregation of
the _Index_ secretly allowed the ideas of Copernicus to be tolerated.
Yet in 1765 Lalande, the great French astronomer, tried in vain at
Rome to induce the authorities to remove Galileo's works from the
_Index_. Even at a date far within our own nineteenth century the
authorities of many universities in Catholic Europe, and especiall
those in Spain, excluded the Newtonian system. In 1771 the
greatest of them all, the University of Salamanca, being urged to
teach physical science, refused, making answer as follows: "Newton
teaches nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician;
and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth
as Aristotle does."
Vengeance upon the dead also has continued far into our ow
century. On the 5th of May, 1829, a great multitude assembled at
Warsaw to honour the memory of Copernicus and to unveil
Thorwaldsen's statue of him
Copernicus had lived a pious, Christian life; he had been beloved
for unostentatious Christian charity; with his religious belief no
fault had ever been found; he was a canon of the Church at
Frauenberg, and over his grave had been written the most touching
of Christian epitaphs. Naturally, then, the people expected
religious service; all was understood to be arranged for it; the
procession marched to the church and waited. The hour passed, and
no priest appeared; none could be induced to appear. Copernicus,
gentle, charitable, pious, one of the noblest gifts of God t
religion as well as to science, was evidently still under the ban
Five years after that, his book was still standing on the _Index_ of
books prohibited to Christians.
The edition of the _Index_ published in 1819 was as inexorable towar
the works of Copernicus and Galileo as its predecessors had been;
but in the year 182O came a crisis. Canon Settele, Professor of
Astronomy at Rome, had written an elementary book in which th
Copernican system was taken for granted. The Master of the Sacre
Palace, Anfossi, as censor of the press, refused to allow the book
to be printed unless Settele revised his work and treated the
Copernican theory as merely a hypothesis. On this Settele appealed
to Pope Pius VII, and the Pope referred the matter to the
Congregation of the Holy Office. At last, on the 16th of August,
182O, it was decided that Settele might teach the Copernican system
as established, and this decision was approved by the Pope. This
aroused considerable discussion, but finally, on the 11th of
September, 1822, the cardinals of the Holy Inquisition graciously
agreed that "the printing and publication of works treating of the
motion of the earth and the stability of the sun, in accordance
with the general opinion of modern astronomers, is permitted at
Rome." This decree was ratified by Pius VII, but it was not until
thirteen years later, in 1835, that there was issued an edition of
the _Index_ from which the condemnation of works defending the double
motion of the earth was left out.
This was not a moment too soon, for, as if the previous proofs had
not been sufficient, each of the motions of the earth was now
absolutely demonstrated anew, so as to be recognised by the
ordinary observer. The parallax of fixed stars, shown by Bessel as
well as other noted astronomers in 1838, clinched forever the
doctrine of the revolution of the earth around the sun, and in 1851
the great experiment of Foucault with the pendulum showed to the
human eye the earth in motion around its own axis. To make the
matter complete, this experiment was publicly made in one of the
churches at Rome by the eminent astronomer, Father Secchi, of th
Jesuits, in 1852--just two hundred and twenty years after the
Jesuits had done so much to secure Galileo's condemnation.[157]
VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
Any history of the victory of astronomical science over dogmatic
theology would be incomplete without some account of the retreat
made by the Church from all its former positions in the Galileo case.
The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult. A
little skilful warping of Scripture, a little skilful use of that
time-honoured phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius, that the
Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go, but how men go
to heaven, and a free use of explosive rhetoric against the
pursuing army of scientists, sufficed.
But in the older Church it was far less easy. The retreat of the
sacro-scientific army of Church apologists lasted through two centuries.
In spite of all that has been said by these apologists, there no
longer remains the shadow of a doubt that the papal infallibility
was committed fully and irrevocably against the double revolution
of the earth. As the documents of Galileo's trial now published
show, Paul V, in 1616, pushed on with all his might the
condemnation of Galileo and of the works of Copernicus and of all
others teaching the motion of the earth around its own axis and
around the sun. So, too, in the condemnation of Galileo in 1633,
and in all the proceedings which led up to it and which followed
it, Urban VIII was the central figure. Without his sanction no
action could have been taken.
True, the Pope did not formally sign the decree against th
Copernican theory _then_; but this came later, In 1664 Alexander VI
prefixed to the _Index_ containing the condemnations of the works of
Copernicus and Galileo and "all books which affirm the motion of
the earth" a papal bull signed by himself, binding the contents of
the _Index_ upon the consciences of the faithful. This bull confirmed
and approved in express terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly,
the condemnation of "all books teaching the movement of the earth
and the stability of the sun."[158]
The position of the mother Church had been thus made especially
difficult; and the first important move in retreat by the
apologists was the statement that Galileo was condemned, not
because he affirmed the motion of the earth, but because h
supported it from Scripture. There was a slight appearance of truth
in this. Undoubtedly, Galileo's letters to Castelli and the grand.
duchess, in which he attempted to show that his astronomical
doctrines were not opposed to Scripture, gave a new stir to
religious bigotry. For a considerable time, then, this quibble
served its purpose; even a hundred and fifty years after Galileo's
condemnation it was renewed by the Protestant Mallet du Pan, in hi
wish to gain favour from the older Church.
But nothing can be more absurd, in the light of the original
documents recently brought out of the Vatican archives, than to
make this contention now. The letters of Galileo to Castelli and
the Grand-Duchess were not published until after the condemnation;
and, although the Archbishop of Pisa had endeavoured to use them
against him, they were but casually mentioned in 1616, and entirely
left out of view in 1633. What was condemned in 1616 by the Sacred
Congregation held in the presence of Pope Paul V, as "_absurd,
false in theology, and heretical, because absolutely contrary to
Holy Scripture_, "was the proposition that "_the sun is the centre
about which the earth revolves_"; and what was condemned as
"_absurd, false in philosophy, and from a theologic point of view,
at least, opposed to the true faith_," was the proposition that "_the
earth is not the centre of the universe and immovable, but has a
diurnal motion_."
And again, what Galileo was made, by express order of Pope Urban, and
by the action of the Inquisition under threat of torture, to abjure
in 1633, was "_the error and heresy of the movement of the earth_."
What the _Index_ condemned under sanction of the bull issued by
Alexander VII in 1664 was, "_all books teaching the movement of the
earth and the stability of the sun_."
What the _Index_, prefaced by papal bulls, infallibly binding its
contents upon the consciences of the faithful, for nearly two
hundred years steadily condemned was, "_all books which affirm the
motion of the earth_."
Not one of these condemnations was directed against Galileo "for
reconciling his ideas with Scripture."[160]
Having been dislodged from this point, the Church apologists sought
cover under the statement that Galileo was condemned not for
heresy, but for contumacy and want of respect toward the Pope.
There was a slight chance, also, for this quibble: no doubt Urban
VIII, one of the haughtiest of pontiffs, was induced by Galileo's
enemies to think that he had been treated with some lack of proper
etiquette: first, by Galileo's adhesion to his own doctrines after
his condemnation in 1616; and, next, by his supposed reference in
the _Dialogue_ of 1632 to the arguments which the Pope had used
against him.
But it would seem to be a very poor service rendered to the
doctrine of papal infallibility to claim that a decision so immense
in its consequences could be influenced by the personal resentment
of the reigning pontiff
Again, as to the first point, the very language of the various
sentences shows the folly of this assertion; for these sentences
speak always of "heresy" and never of "contumacy." As to the
last point, the display of the original documents settled that
forever. They show Galileo from first to last as most submissive
toward the Pope, and patient under the papal arguments and
exactions. He had, indeed, expressed his anger at times against his
traducers; but to hold this the cause of the judgment against him
is to degrade the whole proceedings, and to convict Paul V, Urban
VIII, Bellarmin, the other theologians, and the Inquisition, of
direct falsehood, since they assigned entirely different reasons
for their conduct. From this position, therefore, the assailants
retreated.[161]
The next rally was made about the statement that the persecution of
Galileo was the result of a quarrel between Aristotelian professors
on one side and professors favouring the experimental method on the
other. But this position was attacked and carried by a very simpl
statement. If the divine guidance of the Church is such that it can
be dragged into a professorial squabble, and made the tool of a
faction in bringing about a most disastrous condemnation of a
proved truth, how did the Church at that time differ from any human
organization sunk into decrepitude, managed nominally by
simpletons, but really by schemers? If that argument be true, the
condition of the Church was even worse than its enemies have
declared it; and amid the jeers of an unfeeling world th
apologists sought new shelter.
The next point at which a stand was made was the assertion that the
condemnation of Galileo was "provisory"; but this proved a mor
treacherous shelter than the others. The wording of the decree of
condemnation itself is a sufficient answer to this claim. Whe
doctrines have been solemnly declared, as those of Galileo were
solemnly declared under sanction of the highest authority in the
Church, "contrary to the sacred Scriptures," "opposed to the true
faith," and "false and absurd in theology and philosophy"--to
say that such declarations are "provisory" is to say that the
truth held by the Church is not immutable; from this, then, the
apologists retreated.[161b]
Still another contention was made, in some respects more curious
than any other: it was, mainly, that Galileo "was no more a
victim of Catholics than of Protestants; for they more than the
Catholic theologians impelled the Pope to the action taken."[162]
But if Protestantism could force the papal hand in a matter of this
magnitude, involving vast questions of belief and far-reaching
questions of policy, what becomes of "inerrancy"--of special
protection and guidance of the papal authority in matters of faith?
While this retreat from position to position was going on, there
was a constant discharge of small-arms, in the shape of innuendoes,
hints, and sophistries: every effort was made to blacken
Galileo's private character: the irregularities of his early life
were dragged forth, and stress was even laid upon breaches of
etiquette; but this succeeded so poorly that even as far back a
1850 it was thought necessary to cover the retreat by some more
careful strategy.
This new strategy is instructive. The original documents of the
Galileo trial had been brought during the Napoleonic conquests to
Paris; but in 1846 they were returned to Rome by the French
Government, on the express pledge by the papal authorities that
they should be published. In 1850, after many delays on various
pretexts, the long-expected publication appeared. The personag
charged with presenting them to the world was Monsignor Marini.
This ecclesiastic was of a kind which has too often afflicted bot
the Church and the world at large. Despite the solemn promise o
the papal court, the wily Marini became the instrument of the Roman
authorities in evading the promise. By suppressing a document here,
and interpolating a statement there, he managed to give plausible
standing-ground for nearly every important sophistry ever broached
to save the infallibility of the Church and destroy the reputation
of Galileo. He it was who supported the idea that Galileo was
"condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy."
The first effect of Monsignor Marini's book seemed useful in
covering the retreat of the Church apologists. Aided by him, such
vigorous writers as Ward were able to throw up temporary intrenchments
between the Roman authorities and the indignation of the world.
But some time later came an investigator very different from
Monsignor Marini. This was a Frenchman, M. L'Epinois. Like Marini,
L'Epinois was devoted to the Church; but, unlike Marini, he coul
not lie. Having obtained access in 1867 to the Galileo documents at
the Vatican, he published several of the most important, without
suppression or pious-fraudulent manipulation. This made all the
intrenchments based upon Marini's statements untenable. Another
retreat had to be made.
And now came the most desperate effort of all. The apologetic army,
reviving an idea which the popes and the Church had spurned for
centuries, declared that the popes _as popes_ had never condemned
the doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo; that they had condemned
them as men simply; that therefore the Church had never been
committed to them; that the condemnation was made by the cardinals
of the inquisition and index; and that the Pope had evidently bee
restrained by interposition of Providence from signing thei
condemnation. Nothing could show the desperation of the retreatin
party better than jugglery like this. The fact is, that in th
official account of the condemnation by Bellarmin, in 1616, he
declares distinctly that he makes this condemnation "in the name
of His Holiness the Pope."[163]
Again, from Pope Urban downward, among the Church authorities o
the seventeenth century the decision was always acknowledged to be
made by the Pope and the Church. Urban VIII spoke of that of 161
as made by Pope Paul V and the Church, and of that of 1633 as made
by himself and the Church. Pope Alexander VII in 1664, in his bull
_Speculatores_, solemnly sanctioned the condemnation of all books
affirming the earth's movement.[163b]
When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the decisio
against Copernicus and Galileo was not sanctioned by the Church as
such, an eminent theological authority, Father Lecazre, rector of
the College of Dijon, publicly contradicted him, and declared that
it "was not certain cardinals, but the supreme authority of th
Church," that had condemned Galileo; and to this statement the
Pope and other Church authorities gave consent either openly or by
silence. When Descartes and others attempted to raise the same
point, they were treated with contempt. Father Castelli, who had
devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his cost just what the
condemnation meant and who made it, takes it for granted, in his
letter to the papal authorities, that it was made by the Church.
Cardinal Querenghi, in his letters; the ambassador Guicciardini, in
his dispatches; Polacco, in his refutation; the historian Viviani,
in his biography of Galileo--all writing under Church inspection
and approval at the time, took the view that the Pope and the
Church condemned Galileo, and this was never denied at Rome. The
Inquisition itself, backed by the greatest theologian of the time
(Bellarmin), took the same view. Not only does he declare that he
makes the condemnation "in the name of His Holiness the Pope," but
we have the Roman _Index_, containing the condemnation for nearly two
hundred years, prefaced by a solemn bull of the reigning Pope
binding this condemnation on the consciences of the whole Church
and declaring year after year that "all books which affirm the
motion of the earth" are damnable. To attempt to face all this,
added to the fact that Galileo was required to abjure "the heresy
of the movement of the earth" by written order of the Pope, was
soon seen to be impossible. Against the assertion that the Pope was
not responsible we have all this mass of testimony, and the bull of
Alexander VII in 1664.[164]
This contention, then, was at last utterly given up by honest
Catholics themselves. In 1870 a Roman Catholic clergy man in
England, the Rev. Mr. Roberts, evidently thinking that the time ha
come to tell the truth, published a book entitled _The Pontifica
Decrees against the Earth's Movement_, and in this exhibited the
incontrovertible evidences that the papacy had committed itself and
its infallibility fully against the movement of the earth. This
Catholic clergyman showed from the original record that Pope Paul
V, in 1616, had presided over the tribunal condemning the doctrine
of the earth's movement, and ordering Galileo to give up th
opinion. He showed that Pope Urban VIII, in 1633, pressed on,
directed, and promulgated the final condemnation, making himself in
all these ways responsible for it. And, finally, he showed that
Pope Alexander VII, in 1664, by his bull--_Speculatores domus
Israel_--attached to the _Index_, condemning "all books which affirm
the motion of the earth," had absolutely pledged the papa
infallibility against the earth's movement. He also confessed tha
under the rules laid down by the highest authorities in the Church,
and especially by Sixtus V and Pius IX, there was no escape from
this conclusion.
Various theologians attempted to evade the force of the argument.
Some, like Dr. Ward and Bouix, took refuge in verbal niceties;
some, like Dr. Jeremiah Murphy, comforted themselves with
declamation. The only result was, that in 1885 came another edition
of the Rev. Mr. Roberts's work, even more cogent than the first;
and, besides this, an essay by that eminent Catholic, St. George
Mivart, acknowledging the Rev. Mr. Roberts's position to be
impregnable, and declaring virtually that the Almighty allowed Pope
and Church to fall into complete error regarding the Copernica
theory, in order to teach them that science lies outside their
province, and that the true priesthood of scientific truth rests
with scientific investigators alone.[166]
In spite, then, of all casuistry and special pleading, this sturdy
honesty ended the controversy among Catholics themselves, so far a
fair-minded men are concerned.
In recalling it at this day there stand out from its later phase
two efforts at compromise especially instructive, as showing the
embarrassment of militant theology in the nineteenth century.
The first of these was made by John Henry Newman in the days whe
he was hovering between the Anglican and Roman Churches. In one of
his sermons before the University of Oxford he spoke as follows:
"Scripture says that the sun moves and the earth is stationary, and
science that the earth moves and the sun is comparatively at rest.
How can we determine which of these opposite statements is the very
truth till we know what motion is? If our idea of motion is but a
accidental result of our present senses, neither proposition is
true and both are true: neither true philosophically; both true for
certain practical purposes in the system in which they are
respectively found."
In all anti-theological literature there is no utterance more
hopelessly skeptical. And for what were the youth of Oxford led
into such bottomless depths of disbelief as to any real existence
of truth or any real foundation for it? Simply to save an outwor
system of interpretation into which the gifted preacher happened t
be born
The other utterance was suggested by De Bonald and developed in the
_Dublin Review_, as is understood, by one of Newman's associates
This argument was nothing less than an attempt to retreat under the
charge of deception against the Almighty himself. It is as follows
"But it may well be doubted whether the Church did retard the
progress of scientific truth. What retarded it was the circumstance
that God has thought fit to express many texts of Scripture in
words which have every appearance of denying the earth's motion.
But it is God who did this, not the Church; and, moreover, since he
saw fit so to act as to retard the progress of scientific truth, it
would be little to her discredit, even if it were true, that she
had followed his example."
This argument, like Mr. Gosse's famous attempt to reconcile geology
to Genesis--by supposing that for some inscrutable purpose God
deliberately deceived the thinking world by giving to the earth al
the appearances of development through long periods of time, while
really creating it in six days, each of an evening and a
morning--seems only to have awakened the amazed pity of thinking
men. This, like the argument of Newman, was a last desperate effort
of Anglican and Roman divines to save something from the wreckage
of dogmatic theology.[167]
All these well-meaning defenders of the faith but wrought into the
hearts of great numbers of thinking men the idea that there is a
necessary antagonism between science and religion. Like the
landsman who lashes himself to the anchor of the sinking ship, they
simply attached Christianity by the strongest cords of logic which
they could spin to these mistaken ideas in science, and, could they
have had their way, the advance of knowledge would have ingulfed
both together
On the other hand, what had science done for religion? Simply this:
Copernicus, escaping persecution only by death; Giordano Bruno,
burned alive as a monster of impiety; Galileo, imprisoned an
humiliated as the worst of misbelievers; Kepler, accused of
"throwing Christ's kingdom into confusion with his silly fancies";
Newton, bitterly attacked for "dethroning Providence," gave to
religion stronger foundations and more ennobling conceptions.
Under the old system, that princely astronomer, Alphonso of
Castile, seeing the inadequacy of the Ptolemaic theory, yet knowing
no other, startled Europe with the blasphemy that, if he had been
present at creation, he could have suggested a better order of the
heavenly bodies. Under the new system, Kepler, filled with a
religious spirit, exclaimed, "I do think the thoughts of God." The
difference in religious spirit between these two men marks the
conquest made in this long struggle by Science for Religion.[168]
Nothing is more unjust than to cast especial blame for all this
resistance to science upon the Roman Church. The Protestant Church,
though rarely able to be so severe, has been more blameworthy. The
persecution of Galileo and his compeers by the older Church wa
mainly at the beginning of the seventeenth century; the
persecution of Robertson Smith, and Winchell, and Woodrow, and Toy,
and the young professors at Beyrout, by various Protestant
authorities, was near the end of the nineteenth century. Those
earlier persecutions by Catholicism were strictly in accordance
with principles held at that time by all religionists, Catholic and
Protestant, throughout the world; these later persecutions by
Protestants were in defiance of principles which all Protestants
to-day hold or pretend to hold, and none make louder claim to hold
them than the very sects which persecuted these eminent Christian
men of our day, men whose crime was that they were intelligent
enough to accept the science of their time, and honest enough to
acknowledge it.
Most unjustly, then, would Protestantism taunt Catholicism for
excluding knowledge of astronomical truths from European Catholic
universities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whil
real knowledge of geological and biological and anthropological
truth is denied or pitifully diluted in so many American Protestan
colleges and universities in the nineteenth century.
Nor has Protestantism the right to point with scorn to the Catholic
_Index_, and to lay stress on the fact that nearly every reall
important book in the last three centuries has been forbidden by
it, so long as young men in so many American Protestant
universities and colleges are nursed with "ecclesiastical pap"
rather than with real thought, and directed to the works of
"solemnly constituted impostors," or to sundry "approved courses of
reading," while they are studiously kept aloof from such leaders in
modern thought as Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Draper, and Lecky.
It may indeed be justly claimed by Protestantism that some of the
former strongholds of her bigotry have become liberalized; but, on
the other hand, Catholicism can point to the fact that Pope Leo XIII,
now happily reigning, has made a noble change as regards open
dealing with documents. The days of Monsignor Marini, it may be
hoped, are gone. The Vatican Library, with its masses of historical
material, has been thrown open to Protestant and Catholic scholars
alike, and this privilege has been freely used by men representing
all shades of religious thought.
As to the older errors, the whole civilized world was at fault,
Protestant as well as Catholic. It was not the fault of religion
it was the fault of that short-sighted linking of theological
dogmas to scriptural texts which, in utter defiance of the words
and works of the Blessed Founder of Christianity, narrow-minded
loud-voiced men are ever prone to substitute for religion. Justly
is it said by one of the most eminent among contemporary Anglican
divines, that "it is because they have mistaken the dawn for a
conflagration that theologians have so often been foes of light."[170]
CHAPTER IV.
FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW IN THE HEAVENS.
I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
FEW things in the evolution of astronomy are more suggestive than
the struggle between the theological and the scientific doctrine
regarding comets--the passage from the conception of them as
fire-balls flung by an angry God for the purpose of scaring a
wicked world, to a recognition of them as natural in origin an
obedient to law in movement. Hardly anything throws a more vivid
light upon the danger of wresting texts of Scripture to preserve
ideas which observation and thought have superseded, and upon th
folly of arraying ecclesiastical power against scientific discovery.[171]
Out of the ancient world had come a mass of beliefs regarding
comets, meteors, and eclipses; all these were held to be signs
displayed from heaven for the warning of mankind. Stars and meteors
were generally thought to presage happy events, especially the
births of gods, heroes, and great men. So firmly rooted was this
idea that we constantly find among the ancient nations tradition
of lights in the heavens preceding the birth of persons of note.
The sacred books of India show that the births of Crishna and o
Buddha were announced by such heavenly lights.[171b] The sacred
books of China tell of similar appearances at the births of Yu, the
founder of the first dynasty, and of the inspired sage, Lao-tse
According to the Jewish legends, a star appeared at the birth of
Moses, and was seen by the Magi of Egpyt, who informed the king;
and when Abraham was born an unusual star appeared in the east. Th
Greeks and Romans cherished similar traditions. A heavenly light
accompanied the birth of AEsculapius, and the births of various
Caesars were heralded in like manner.[172]
The same conception entered into our Christian sacred books. Of all
the legends which grew in such luxuriance and beauty about the
cradle of Jesus of Nazareth, none appeals more directly to the
highest poetic feeling than that given by one of the evangelists
in which a star, rising in the east, conducted the wise men to the
manger where the Galilean peasant-child--the Hope of Mankind, th
Light of the World--was lying in poverty and helplessness.
Among the Mohammedans we have a curious example of the same
tendency toward a kindly interpretation of stars and meteors, in
the belief of certain Mohammedan teachers that meteoric showers are
caused by good angels hurling missiles to drive evil angels out of
the sky.
Eclipses were regarded in a very different light, being supposed to
express the distress of Nature at earthly calamities. The Greeks
believed that darkness overshadowed the earth at the deaths o
Prometheus, Atreus, Hercules, AEsculapius, and Alexander the Great.
The Roman legends held that at the death of Romulus there was
darkness for six hours. In the history of the Caesars occur
portents of all three kinds; for at the death of Julius the earth
was shrouded in darkness, the birth of Augustus was heralded by a
star, and the downfall of Nero by a comet. So, too, in one of the
Christian legends clustering about the crucifixion, darkness
overspread the earth from the sixth to the ninth hour. Neither the
silence regarding it of the only evangelist who claims to have been
present, nor the fact that observers like Seneca and Pliny, who
though they carefully described much less striking occurrences of
the same sort and in more remote regions, failed to note any such
darkness even in Judea, have availed to shake faith in an accoun
so true to the highest poetic instincts of humanity
This view of the relations between Nature and man continued among
both Jews and Christians. According to Jewish tradition, darkness
overspread the earth for three days when the books of the Law were
profaned by translation into Greek. Tertullian thought an eclipse
an evidence of God's wrath against unbelievers. Nor has this mode
of thinking ceased in modern times. A similar claim was made at th
execution of Charles I; and Increase Mather thought an eclipse i
Massachusetts an evidence of the grief of Nature at the death of
President Chauncey, of Harvard College. Archbishop Sandys expecte
eclipses to be the final tokens of woe at the destruction of the
world, and traces of this feeling have come down to our own time.
The quaint story of the Connecticut statesman who, when his
associates in the General Assembly were alarmed by an eclipse of
the sun, and thought it the beginning of the Day of Judgment,
quietly ordered in candles, that he might in any case be found
doing his duty, marks probably the last noteworthy appearance of
the old belief in any civilized nation.[173
In these beliefs regarding meteors and eclipses there was little
calculated to do harm by arousing that superstitious terror which i
the worst breeding-bed of cruelty. Far otherwise was it with th
belief regarding comets. During many centuries it gave rise to the
direst superstition and fanaticism. The Chaldeans alone among th
ancient peoples generally regarded comets without fear, and thought
them bodies wandering as harmless as fishes in the sea; th
Pythagoreans alone among philosophers seem to have had a vague idea
of them as bodies returning at fixed periods of time; and in all
antiquity, so far as is known, one man alone, Seneca, had the
scientific instinct and prophetic inspiration to give this idea
definite shape, and to declare that the time would come when comet
would be found to move in accordance with natural law. Here and
there a few strong men rose above the prevailing superstition. The
Emperor Vespasian tried to laugh it down, and insisted that a
certain comet in his time could not betoken his death, because it
was hairy, and he bald; but such scoffing produced little permanent
effect, and the prophecy of Seneca was soon forgotten. These and
similar isolated utterances could not stand against the mass of
opinion which upheld the doctrine that comets are "signs an
wonders."[174]
The belief that every comet is a ball of fire flung from the righ
hand of an angry God to warn the grovelling dwellers of earth wa
received into the early Church, transmitted through the Middle Age
to the Reformation period, and in its transmission was made all the
more precious by supposed textual proofs from Scripture. The great
fathers of the Church committed themselves unreservedly to it. In
the third century Origen, perhaps the most influential of the
earlier fathers of the universal Church in all questions between
science and faith, insisted that comets indicate catastrophes and
the downfall of empires and worlds. Bede, so justly revered by the
English Church, declared in the eighth century. that "comets
portend revolutions of kingdoms, pestilence, war, winds, or heat";
and John of Damascus, his eminent contemporary in the Eastern
Church, took the same view. Rabanus Maurus, the great teacher of
Europe in the ninth century, an authority throughout the Middle
Ages, adopted Bede's opinion fully. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great
light of the universal Church in the thirteenth century, whose
works the Pope now reigning commends as the centre and source of
all university instruction, accepted and handed down the same
opinion. The sainted Albert the Great, the most noted genius of the
medieval Church in natural science, received and developed this
theory. These men and those who followed them founded upo
scriptural texts and theological reasonings a system that for
seventeen centuries defied every advance of thought.[175]
The main evils thence arising were three: the paralysis of
self-help, the arousing of fanaticism, and the strengthening of
ecclesiastical and political tyranny. The first two of these
evils--the paralysis of self-help and the arousing of
fanaticism--are evident throughout all these ages. At the
appearance of a comet we constantly see all Christendom, from pope
to peasant, instead of striving to avert war by wise statesmanship,
instead of striving to avert pestilence by observation and reason,
instead of striving to avert famine by skilful economy, whinin
before fetiches, trying to bribe them to remove these signs of
God's wrath, and planning to wreak this supposed wrath of God upon
misbelievers.
As to the third of these evils--the strengthening of ecclesiastical
and civil despotism--examples appear on every side. It was natural
that hierarchs and monarchs whose births were announced by stars,
or whose deaths were announced by comets, should regard themselves
as far above the common herd, and should be so regarded by mankind;
passive obedience was thus strengthened, and the most monstrous
assumptions of authority were considered simply as manifestations
of the Divine will. Shakespeare makes Calphurnia say to Caesar:
"When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
Galeazzo, the tyrant of Milan, expressing satisfaction on his
deathbed that his approaching end was of such importance as to be
heralded by a comet, is but a type of many thus encouraged to prey
upon mankind; and Charles V, one of the most powerful monarchs the
world has known, abdicating under fear of the comet of 1556, taking
refuge in the monastery of San Yuste, and giving up the best of his
vast realms to such a scribbling bigot as Philip II, furnishes an
example even more striking.[176
But for the retention of this belief there was a moral cause.
Myriads of good men in the Christian Church down to a recent period
saw in the appearance of comets not merely an exhibition of "signs
in the heavens" foretold in Scripture, but also Divine warnings of
vast value to humanity as incentives to repentance and improvemen
of life-warnings, indeed, so precious that they could not be spared
without danger to the moral government of the world. And this
belief in the portentous character of comets as an essential part
of the Divine government, being, as it was thought, in full accord
with Scripture, was made for centuries a source of terror to
humanity. To say nothing of examples in the earlier periods, comets
in the tenth century especially increased the distress of all
Europe. In the middle of the eleventh century a comet was though
to accompany the death of Edward the Confessor and to presage the
Norman conquest; the traveller in France to-day may see this
belief as it was then wrought into the Bayeux tapestry.[177]
Nearly every decade of years throughout the Middle Ages saw Europe
plunged into alarm by appearances of this sort, but the culminatio
seems to have been reached in 1456. At that time the Turks, after
a long effort, had made good their footing in Europe. A large
statesmanship or generalship might have kept them out; but, while
different religious factions were disputing over petty shades of
dogma, they had advanced, had taken Constantinople, and were
evidently securing their foothold. Now came the full bloom of this
superstition. A comet appeared. The Pope of that period, Calixtus
III, though a man of more than ordinary ability, was saturated with
the ideas of his time. Alarmed at this monster, if we are to
believe the contemporary historian, this infallible head of the
Church solemnly "decreed several days of prayer for the averting
of the wrath of God, that whatever calamity impended might be
turned from the Christians and against the Turks." And, that all
might join daily in this petition, there was then established that
midday Angelus which has ever since called good Catholics to prayer
against the powers of evil. Then, too, was incorporated into a
litany the plea, "From the Turk and the comet, good Lord, deliver
us." Never was papal intercession less effective; for the Turk has
held Constantinople from that day to this, while the obstinate
comet, being that now known under the name of Halley, has returne
imperturbably at short periods ever since.[177b]
But the superstition went still further. It became more and more
incorporated into what was considered "scriptural science" and
"sound learning." The encyclopedic summaries, in which the science
of the Middle Ages and the Reformation period took form, furnis
abundant proofs of this.
Yet scientific observation was slowly undermining this structure.
The inspired prophecy of Seneca had not been forgotten. Even as
far back as the ninth century, in the midst of the sacred learning
so abundant at the court of Charlemagne and his successors, we find
a scholar protesting against the accepted doctrine. In the
thirteenth century we have a mild question by Albert the Great as
to the supposed influence of comets upon individuals; but the
prevailing theological current was too strong, and he finally
yielded to it in this as in so many other things.
So, too, in the sixteenth century, we have Copernicus refusing to
accept the usual theory, Paracelsus writing to Zwingli against it,
and Julius Caesar Scaliger denouncing it as "ridiculous folly."[178]
At first this scepticism only aroused the horror of theologians and
increased the vigour of ecclesiastics; both asserted the
theological theory of comets all the more strenuously as based on
scriptural truth. During the sixteenth century France felt the
influence of one of her greatest men on the side of this
superstition. Jean Bodin, so far before his time in political
theories, was only thoroughly abreast of it in religious theories:
the same reverence for the mere letter of Scripture which made him
so fatally powerful in supporting the witchcraft delusion, led him
to support this theological theory of comets--but with
difference: he thought them the souls of men, wandering in space
bringing famine, pestilence, and war.
Not less strong was the same superstition in England. Based upon
mediaeval theology, it outlived the revival of learning. From a
multitude of examples a few may be selected as typical. Early in
the sixteenth century Polydore Virgil, an ecclesiastic of the
unreformed Church, alludes, in his _English History_, to the presage
of the death of the Emperor Constantine by a comet as to a simple
matter of fact; and in his work on prodigies he pushes this
superstition to its most extreme point, exhibiting comets as
preceding almost every form of calamity
In 1532, just at the transition period from the old Church to the
new, Cranmer, paving the way to his archbishopric, writes from
Germany to Henry VIII, and says of the comet then visible: "What
strange things these tokens do signify to come hereafter, God
knoweth; for they do not lightly appear but against some great matter."
Twenty years later Bishop Latimer, in an Advent sermon, speaks of
eclipses, rings about the sun, and the like, as signs of the
approaching end of the world.[179]
In 1580, under Queen Elizabeth, there was set forth an "order of
prayer to avert God's wrath from us, threatened by the late
terrible earthquake, to be used in all parish churches." In
connection with this there was also commended to the faithful "a
godly admonition for the time present"; and among the things
referred to as evidence of God's wrath are comets, eclipses, and
falls of snow
This view held sway in the Church of England during Elizabeth's
whole reign and far into the Stuart period: Strype, th
ecclesiastical annalist, gives ample evidence of this, and among
the more curious examples is the surmise that the comet of 1572 was
a token of Divine wrath provoked by the St. Bartholomew massacre.
As to the Stuart period, Archbishop Spottiswoode seems to have been
active in carrying the superstition from the sixteenth century to
the seventeenth, and Archbishop Bramhall cites Scripture in suppor
of it. Rather curiously, while the diary of Archbishop Laud shows
so much superstition regarding dreams as portents, it shows little
or none regarding comets; but Bishop Jeremy Taylor, strong as he
was, evidently favoured the usual view. John Howe, the eminent
Nonconformist divine in the latter part of the century, seems to
have regarded the comet superstition as almost a fundamental
article of belief; he laments the total neglect of comets and
portents generally, declaring that this neglect betokens want of
reverence for the Ruler of the world; he expresses contempt for
scientific inquiry regarding comets, insists that they may be
natural bodies and yet supernatural portents, and ends by saying,
"I conceive it very safe to suppose that some very considerable
thing, either in the way of judgment or mercy, may ensue, according
as the cry of persevering wickedness or of penitential prayer is
more or less loud at that time."[180]
The Reformed Church of Scotland supported the superstition just as
strongly. John Knox saw in comets tokens of the wrath of Heaven;
other authorities considered them "a warning to the king to
extirpate the Papists"; and as late as 1680, after Halley had wo
his victory, comets were announced on high authority in the
Scottish Church to be "prodigies of great judgment on these lands
for our sins, for never was the Lord more provoked by a people.
While such was the view of the clergy during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, the laity generally accepted it as a matter
of course, Among the great leaders in literature there was at least
general acquiescence in it. Both Shakespeare and Milton recognise
it, whether they fully accept it or not. Shakespeare makes the Duke
of Bedford, lamenting at the bier of Henry V, say:
"Comets, importing change of time and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars
That have consented unto Henry's death.
Milton, speaking of Satan preparing for combat, says:
"On the other side
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood.
Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus hug
In the arctic sky, and from its horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.
We do indeed find that in some minds the discoveries of Tycho Brahe
and Kepler begin to take effect, for, in 1621, Burton in his
_Anatomy of Melancholy_ alludes to them as changing public opinion
somewhat regarding comets; and, just hefore the middle of the
century, Sir Thomas Browne expresses a doubt whether comets produce
such terrible effects, "since it is found that many of them are
above the moon."[181] Yet even as late as the last years of th
seventeenth century we have English authors of much power battling
for this supposed scriptural view and among the natural and typical
results we find, in 1682, Ralph Thoresby, a Fellow of the Royal
Society, terrified at the comet of that year, and writing in his
diary the following passage: "Lord, fit us for whatever changes it
may portend; for, though I am not ignorant that such meteors
proceed from natural causes, yet are they frequently also the
presages of imminent calamities." Interesting is it to note here
that this was Halley's comet, and that Halley was at this very
moment making those scientific studies upon it which were to fre
the civilized world forever from such terrors as distressed Thoresby.
The belief in comets as warnings against sin was especially one o
those held "always, everywhere, and by all," and by Eastern
Christians as well as by Western. One of the most striking scenes
in the history of the Eastern Church is that which took place a
the condemnation of Nikon, the great Patriarch of Moscow. Turnin
toward his judges, he pointed to a comet then blazing in the sky,
and said, "God's besom shall sweep you all away!"
Of all countries in western Europe, it was in Germany and German
Switzerland that this superstition took strongest hold. That same
depth of religious feeling which produced in those countries th
most terrible growth of witchcraft persecution, brought
superstition to its highest development regarding comets. No
country suffered more from it in the Middle Ages. At the
Reformation Luther declared strongly in favour of it. In one of his
Advent sermons he said, "The heathen write that the comet may
arise from natural causes, but God creates not one that does not
foretoken a sure calamity." Again he said, "Whatever moves in the
heaven in an unusual way is certainly a sign of God's wrath." And
sometimes, yielding to another phase of his belief, he declared
them works of the devil, and declaimed against them as "harlot
stars."[182
Melanchthon, too, in various letters refers to comets as heralds of
Heaven's wrath, classing them, with evil conjunctions of the
planets and abortive births, among the "signs" referred to in
Scripture. Zwingli, boldest of the greater Reformers in shaking off
traditional beliefs, could not shake off this, and insisted tha
the comet of 1531 betokened calamity. Arietus, a leading Protestant
theologian, declared, "The heavens are given us not merely for our
pleasure, but also as a warning of the wrath of God for the
correction of our lives." Lavater insisted that comets are signs o
death or calamity, and cited proofs from Scripture
Catholic and Protestant strove together for the glory of this
doctrine. It was maintained with especial vigour by Fromundus, th
eminent professor and Doctor of Theology at the Catholic University
of Louvain, who so strongly opposed the Copernican system; at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, even so gifted an astronomer
as Kepler yielded somewhat to the belief; and near the end of tha
century Voigt declared that the comet of 1618 clearly presaged the
downfall of the Turkish Empire, and he stigmatized as "atheists and
Epicureans" all who did not believe comets to be God's warnings.[183
II. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW
Out of this belief was developed a great series of efforts to
maintain the theological view of comets, and to put down foreve
the scientific view. These efforts may be divided into two classes
those directed toward learned men and scholars, through the
universities, and those directed toward the people at large
through the pulpits. As to the first of these, that learned men and
scholars might be kept in the paths of "sacred science" and "sound
learning," especial pains was taken to keep all knowledge of
the scientific view of comets as far as possible from students in
the universities. Even to the end of the seventeenth century the
oath generally required of professors of astronomy over a large
part of Europe prevented their teaching that comets are heavenly
bodies obedient to law. Efforts just as earnest were made to faste
into students' minds the theological theory. Two or three example
out of many may serve as types. First of these may be named the
teaching of Jacob Heerbrand, professor at the University of
Tubingen, who in 1577 illustrated the moral value of comets by
comparing the Almighty sending a comet, to the judge laying the
executioner's sword on the table between himself and the criminal
in a court of justice; and, again, to the father or schoolmaster
displaying the rod before naughty children. A little later we have
another churchman of great importance in that region, Schickhart,
head pastor and superintendent at Goppingen, preaching and
publishing a comet sermon, in which he denounces those who stare at
such warnings of God without heeding them, and compares them t
"calves gaping at a new barn door." Still later, at the end of the
seventeenth century, we find Conrad Dieterich, director of studies
at the University of Marburg, denouncing all scientific
investigation of comets as impious, and insisting that they are
only to be regarded as "signs and wonders."[184]
The results of this ecclesiastical pressure upon science in th
universities were painfully shown during generation after
generation, as regards both professors and students; and examples
may be given typical of its effects upon each of these two classes.
The first of these is the case of Michael Maestlin. He was by birt
a Swabian Protestant, was educated at Tubingen as a pupil of Apian,
and, after a period of travel, was settled as deacon in the little
parish of Backnang, when the comet of 1577 gave him an occasion to
apply his astronomical studies. His minute and accurate
observation of it is to this day one of the wonders of science. It
seems almost impossible that so much could be accomplished by the
naked eye. His observations agreed with those of Tycho Brahe, and
won for Maestlin the professorship of astronomy in the University
of Heidelberg. No man had so clearly proved the supralunar position
of a comet, or shown so conclusively that its motion was not
erratic, but regular. The young astronomer, though Apian's pupil
was an avowed Copernican and the destined master and friend of
Kepler. Yet, in the treatise embodying his observations, he felt it
necessary to save his reputation for orthodoxy by calling the comet
a "new and horrible prodigy," and by giving a chapter of "conjectures
on the signification of the present comet," in which he proves
from history that this variety of comet betokens peace, but
peace purchased by a bloody victory. That he really believed in
this theological theory seems impossible; the very fact that his
observations had settled the supralunar character and regular
motion of comets proves this. It was a humiliation only to be
compared to that of Osiander when he wrote his grovelling preface
to the great book of Copernicus. Maestlin had his reward: when, a
few years, later his old teacher, Apian, was driven from his chair
at Tubingen for refusing to sign the _Lutheran Concord-Book_, Maestlin
was elected to his place.
Not less striking was the effect of this theological pressure upo
the minds of students. Noteworthy as an example of this is the book
of the Leipsic lawyer, Buttner. From no less than eighty-six
biblical texts he proves the Almighty's purpose of using the
heavenly bodies for the instruction of men as to future events, an
then proceeds to frame exhaustive tables, from which, the time and
place of the comet's first appearance being known, its
signification can be deduced. This manual he gave forth as
triumph of religious science, under the name of the _Comet
Hour-Book_.[185]
The same devotion to the portent theory is found in the
universities of Protestant Holland. Striking is it to see in the
sixteenth century, after Tycho Brahe's discovery, the Dutch
theologian, Gerard Vossius, Professor of Theology and Eloquence at
Leyden, lending his great weight to the superstition. "The history
of all times," he says, "shows comets to be the messengers of
misfortune. It does not follow that they are endowed with
intelligence, but that there is a deity who makes use of them to
call the human race to repentance." Though familiar with the works
of Tycho Brahe, he finds it "hard to believe" that all comets ar
ethereal, and adduces several historical examples of sublunary ones
Nor was this attempt to hold back university teaching to the old
view of comets confined to Protestants. The Roman Church was, if
possible, more strenuous in the same effort. A few examples will
serve as types, representing the orthodox teaching at the great
centres of Catholic theology.
One of these is seen in Spain. The eminent jurist Torreblanca was
recognised as a controlling authority in all the universities o
Spain, and from these he swayed in the seventeenth century th
thought of Catholic Europe, especially as to witchcraft and the
occult powers in Nature. He lays down the old cometary superstition
as one of the foundations of orthodox teaching: Begging the
question, after the fashion of his time, he argues that comets can
not be stars, because new stars always betoken good, while comets
betoken evil
The same teaching was given in the Catholic universities of the
Netherlands. Fromundus, at Louvain, the enemy of Galileo, steadily
continued his crusade against all cometary heresy.[186]
But a still more striking case is seen in Italy. The reveren
Father Augustin de Angelis, rector of the Clementine College at
Rome, as late as 1673, after the new cometary theory had been
placed beyond reasonable doubt, and even while Newton was working
out its final demonstration, published a third edition of his
_Lectures on Meteorology_. It was dedicated to the Cardinal of
Hesse, and bore the express sanction of the Master of the Sacred
Palace at Rome and of the head of the religious order to which De
Angelis belonged. This work deserves careful analysis, not only as
representing the highest and most approved university teaching o
the time at the centre of Roman Catholic Christendom, but still
more because it represents that attempt to make a compromise
between theology and science, or rather the attempt to confiscate
science to the uses of theology, which we so constantly find
whenever the triumph of science in any field has become inevitable.
As to the scientific element in this compromise, De Angelis holds,
in his general introduction regarding meteorology, that the main
material cause of comets is "exhalation," and says, "If this
exhalation is thick and sticky, it blazes into a comet." And again
he returns to the same view, saying that "one form of exhalatio
is dense, hence easily inflammable and long retentive of fire, from
which sort are especially generated comets." But it is in his thir
lecture that he takes up comets specially, and his discussion of
them is extended through the fourth, fifth, and sixth lectures.
Having given in detail the opinions of various theologians and
philosophers, he declares his own in the form of two conclusions.
The first of these is that "comets are not heavenly bodies, bu
originate in the earth's atmosphere below the moon; for everything
heavenly is eternal and incorruptible, but comets have a beginning
and ending--_ergo_, comets can not be heavenly bodies." This, we ma
observe, is levelled at the observations and reasonings of Tycho
Brahe and Kepler, and is a very good illustration of the scholastic
and mediaeval method--the method which blots out an ascertained
fact by means of a metaphysical formula. His second conclusion is
that "comets are of elemental and sublunary nature; for they are
an exhalation hot and dry, fatty and well condensed, inflammable
and kindled in the uppermost regions of the air." He then goes on
to answer sundry objections to this mixture of metaphysics and
science, and among other things declares that "the fatty, sticky
material of a comet may be kindled from sparks falling from fiery
heavenly bodies or from a thunderholt"; and, again, that the
thick, fatty, sticky quality of the comet holds its tail in shape
and that, so far are comets from having their paths beyond the
moon's orbit, as Tycho Brahe and Kepler thought, he himself in 161
saw "a bearded comet so near the summit of Vesuvius that it almos
seemed to touch it." As to sorts and qualities of comets, he
accepts Aristotle's view, and divides them into bearded and
tailed.[187] He goes on into long disquisitions upon their colours,
forms, and motions. Under this latter head he again plunges deep
into a sea of metaphysical considerations, and does not reappear
until he brings up his compromise in the opinion that their
movement is as yet uncertain and not understood, but that, if we
must account definitely for it, we must say that it is effected by
angels especially assigned to this service by Divine Providence
But, while proposing this compromise between science and theology
as to the origin and movement of comets, he will hear to none as
regards their mission as "signs and wonders" and presages o
evil. He draws up a careful table of these evils, arranging them in
the following order. Drought, wind, earthquake, tempest, famine,
pestilence, war, and, to clinch the matter, declares that the comet
observed by him in 1618 brought not only war, famine, pestilence,
and earthquake, but also a general volcanic eruption, "which would
have destroyed Naples, had not the blood of the invincible martyr
Januarius withstood it."
It will be observed, even from this sketch, that, while the learned
Father Augustin thus comes infallibly to the mediaeval conclusion,
he does so very largely by scientific and essentially modern
processes, giving unwonted prominence to observation, and at times
twisting scientific observation into the strand with his
metaphysics. The observations and methods of his science are
sometimes shrewd, sometimes comical. Good examples of the latter
sort are such as his observing that the comet stood very near the
summit of Vesuvius, and his reasoning that its tail was kept in
place by its stickiness. But observations and reasonings of this
sort are always the first homage paid by theology to science as th
end of their struggle approaches.[188]
Equally striking is an example seen a little later in another part
of Europe; and it is the more noteworthy because Halley and Newto
had already fully established the modern scientific theory. Just at
the close of the seventeenth century the Jesuit Reinzer, professo
at Linz, put forth his _Meteorologia Philosophico-Politica_, in
which all natural phenomena received both a physical and a moral
interpretation. It was profusely and elaborately illustrated, and
on account of its instructive contents was in 1712 translated into
German for the unlearned reader. The comet receives, of course
great attention. "It appears," says Reinzer, "only then in the
heavens when the latter punish the earth, and through it [the
comet] not only predict but bring to pass all sorts of calamity....
And, to that end, its tail serves for a rod, its hair for weapon
and arrows, its light for a threat, and its heat for a sign of
anger and vengeance." Its warnings are threefold: (1) "Comets,
generated in the air, betoken _naturally_ drought, wind, earthquake,
famine, and pestilence." (2) "Comets can indirectly, in view of
their material, betoken wars, tumults, and the death of princes
for, being hot and dry, they bring the moistnesses [_Feuchtigkeiten_]
in the human body to an extraordinary heat and dryness, increasing
the gall; and, since the emotions depend on the temperament and
condition of the body, men are through this change driven to
violent deeds, quarrels, disputes, and finally to arms: especially
is this the result with princes, who are more delicate and also
more arrogant than other men, and whose moistnesses are more liabl
to inflammation of this sort, inasmuch as they live in luxury an
seldom restrain themselves from those things which in such a dry
state of the heavens are especially injurious." (3) "All comets,
whatever prophetic significance they may have naturally in and of
themselves, are yet principally, according to the Divine pleasure,
heralds of the death of great princes, of war, and of other such
great calamities; and this is known and proved, first of all, from
the words of Christ himself: `Nation shall rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes shall be in divers
places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and grea
signs shall there be from heaven.'"[189]
While such pains was taken to keep the more highly educated classes
in the "paths of scriptural science and sound learning; at the
universities, equal efforts were made to preserve the cometary
orthodoxy of the people at large by means of the pulpits. Out of
the mass of sermons for this purpose which were widely circulated
I will select just two as typical, and they are worthy of carefu
study as showing some special dangers of applying theological
methods to scientific facts. In the second half of the sixteenth
century the recognised capital of orthodox Lutheranism was
Magdeburg, and in the region tributary to this metropolis no Church
official held a more prominent station than the "Superintendent,"
or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Altmark. It was this
dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name, who at Magdeburg, in 1578,
gave to the press his _Theological Reminder of the New Comet_. After
deprecating as blasphemous the attempt of Aristotle to explain th
phenomenon otherwise than as a supernatural warning from God to
sinful man, he assures his hearers that "whoever would know the
comet's real source and nature must not merely gape and stare at
the scientific theory that it is an earthy, greasy, tough, and
sticky vapour and mist, rising into the upper air and set ablaze by
the celestial heat." Far more important for them is it to know what
this vaponr is. It is really, in the opinion of Celichius, nothing
more or less than "the thick smoke of human sins, rising every
day, every hour, every moment, full of stench and horror, befor
the face of God, and becoming gradually so thick as to form a
comet, with curled and plaited tresses, which at last is kindled by
the hot and fiery anger of the Supreme Heavenly Judge." He adds
that it is probably only through the prayers and tears of Christ
that this blazing monument of human depravity becomes visible t
mortals. In support of this theory, he urges the "coming up before
God" of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Nineveh, and
especially the words of the prophet regarding Babylon, "Her stench
and rottenness is come up before me." That the anger of God can
produce the conflagration without any intervention of Nature is
proved from the Psalms, "He sendeth out his word and melteth
them." From the position of the comet, its course, and the
direction of its tail he augurs especially the near approach of the
judgment day, though it may also betoken, as usual, famine,
pestilence, and war. "Yet even in these days," he mourns, "there
are people reckless and giddy enough to pay no heed to such
celestial warnings, and these even cite in their own defence the
injunction of Jeremiah not to fear signs in the heavens." This idea
he explodes, and shows that good and orthodox Christians, while not
superstitious like the heathen, know well "that God is not bound
to his creation and the ordinary course of Nature, but must often,
especially in these last dregs of the world, resort to irregula
means to display his anger at human guilt."[191]
The other typical case occurred in the following century and in
another part of Germany. Conrad Dieterich was, during the first
half of the seventeenth century, a Lutheran ecclesiastic of the
highest authority. His ability as a theologian had made hi
Archdeacon of Marburg, Professor of Philosophy and Director of
Studies at the University of Giessen, and "Superintendent," or
Lutheran bishop, in southwestern Germany. In the year 162O, on the
second Sunday in Advent, in the great Cathedral of Ulm, he
developed the orthodox doctrine of comets in a sermon, taking up
the questions: 1. What are comets? 2. What do they indicate? 3.
What have we to do with their significance? This sermon marks an
epoch. Delivered in that stronghold of German Protestantism and b
a prelate of the highest standing, it was immediately printed,
prefaced by three laudatory poems from different men of note, and
sent forth to drive back the scientific, or, as it was called, the
"godless," view of comets. The preface shows that Dieterich wa
sincerely alarmed by the tendency to regard comets as natural
appearances. His text was taken from the twenty-fifth verse of the
twenty-first chapter of St. Luke: "And there shall be signs in the
sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress
of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring." As to
what comets are, he cites a multitude of philosophers, and, finding
that they differ among themselves, he uses a form of argument not
uncommon from that day to this, declaring that this difference of
opinion proves that there is no solution of the problem save in
revelation, and insisting that comets are "signs especially sent
by the Almighty to warn the earth." An additional proof of this he
finds in the forms of comets. One, he says, took the form of
trumpet; another, of a spear; another of a goat; another, of a
torch; another, of a sword; another, of an arrow; another, of a
sabre; still another, of a bare arm. From these forms of comets he
infers that we may divine their purpose. As to their creation, h
quotes John of Damascus and other early Church authorities in
behalf of the idea that each comet is a star newly created at the
Divine command, out of nothing, and that it indicates the wrath of
God. As to their purpose, having quoted largely from the Bible and
from Luther, he winds up by insisting that, as God can make nothing
in vain, comets must have some distinct object; then, from Isaiah
and Joel among the prophets, from Matthew, Mark, and Luke among the
evangelists, from Origen and John Chrysostom among the fathers,
from Luther and Melanchthon among the Reformers, he draws variou
texts more or less conclusive to prove that comets indicate evil
and only evil; and he cites Luther's Advent sermon to the effect
that, though comets may arise in the course of Nature, they are
still signs of evil to mankind. In answer to the theory of sundr
naturalists that comets are made up of "a certain fiery, warm,
sulphurous, saltpetery, sticky fog," he declaims: "Our sins, our
sins: they are the fiery heated vapours, the thick, sticky
sulphurous clouds which rise from the earth toward heaven before
God." Throughout the sermon Dieterich pours contempt over all men
who simply investigate comets as natural objects, calls special
attention to a comet then in the heavens resembling a long broom o
bundle of rods, and declares that he and his hearers can only
consider it rightly "when we see standing before us our Lord God
in heaven as an angry father with a rod for his children." In
answer to the question what comets signify, he commits himself
entirely to the idea that they indicate the wrath of God, and
therefore calamities of every sort. Page after page is filled with
the records of evils following comets. Beginning with the creation
of the world, he insists that the first comet brought on the
deluge of Noah, and cites a mass of authorities, ranging from Moses
and Isaiah to Albert the Great and Melanchthon, in support of the
view that comets precede earthquakes, famines, wars, pestilences,
and every form of evil. He makes some parade of astronomical
knowledge as to the greatness of the sun and moon, but relapses
soon into his old line of argument. Imploring his audience not to
be led away from the well-established belief of Christendom and the
principles of their fathers, he comes back to his old assertion,
insists that "our sins are the inflammable material of whic
comets are made," and winds up with a most earnest appeal to the
Almighty to spare his people.[193]
Similar efforts from the pulpit were provoked by the great comet of
1680. Typical among these was the effort in Switzerland of Pastor
Heinrich Erni, who, from the Cathedral of Zurich, sent a circular
letter to the clergy of that region showing the connection of the
eleventh and twelfth verses of the first chapter of Jeremiah with
the comet, giving notice that at his suggestion the authorities ha
proclaimed a solemn fast, and exhorting the clergy to preach
earnestly on the subject of this warning.
Nor were the interpreters of the comet's message content with
simple prose. At the appearance of the comet of 1618, Grasser and
Gross, pastors and doctors of theology at Basle, put forth a
collection of doggerel rhymes to fasten the orthodox theory into
the minds of school-children and peasants. One of these may be
translated:
"I am a Rod in God's right hand
threatening the German and foreign land.
Others for a similar purpose taught:
"Eight things there be a Comet brings,
When it on high doth horrid range:
Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings
War, Earthquakes, Floods, and Direful Change."
Great ingenuity was shown in meeting the advance of science, in the
universities and schools, with new texts of Scripture; and Stephe
Spleiss, Rector of the Gymnasium at Schaffhausen, got great credit
by teaching that in the vision of Jeremiah the "almond rod" was
a tailed comet, and the "seething pot" a bearded one.[194]
It can be easily understood that such authoritative utterances as
that of Dieterich must have produced a great effect throughout
Protestant Christendom; and in due time we see their working in Ne
England. That same tendency to provincialism, which, save at rare
intervals, has been the bane of Massachusetts thought from that day
to this, appeared; and in 1664 we find Samuel Danforth arguing
from the Bible that "comets are portentous signals of great and
notable changes," and arguing from history that they "have bee
many times heralds of wrath to a secure and impenitent world." He
cites especially the comet of 1652, which appeared just before Mr.
Cotton's sickness and disappeared after his death. Morton also, in
his _Memorial_ recording the death of John Putnam, alludes to the
comet of 1662 as "a very signal testimony that God had the
removed a bright star and a shining light out of the heaven of hi
Church here into celestial glory above." Again he speaks of another
comet, insisting that "it was no fiery meteor caused b
exhalation, but it was sent immediately by God to awaken the secure
world," and goes on to show how in that year "it pleased God to
smite the fruits of the earth--namely, the wheat in special--with
blasting and mildew, whereby much of it was spoiled and became
profitable for nothing, and much of it worth little, being light
and empty. This was looked upon by the judicious and conscientious
of the land as a speaking providence against the unthankfulness of
many,... as also against voluptuousness and abuse of the good
creatures of God by licentiousness in drinking and fashions in
apparel, for the obtaining whereof a great part of the principal
grain was oftentimes unnecessarily expended."
But in 1680 a stronger than either of these seized upon the
doctrine and wielded it with power. Increase Mather, so open always
to ideas from Europe, and always so powerful for good or evil i
the colonies, preached his sermon on "Heaven's Alarm to the
World,... wherein is shown that fearful sights and signs in the
heavens are the presages of great calamities at hand." The text
were taken from the book of Revelation: "And the third ange
sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning, as it
were a lamp," and "Behold, the third woe cometh quickly." In this,
as in various other sermons, he supports the theological cometary
theory fully. He insists that "we are fallen into the dregs of
time," and that the day of judgment is evidently approaching. He
explains away the words of Jeremiah--"Be not dismayed at signs in
the heavens"--and shows that comets have been forerunners of
nearly every form of evil. Having done full justice to evils thu
presaged in scriptural times, he begins a similar display in modern
history by citing blazing stars which foretold the invasions o
Goths, Huns, Saracens, and Turks, and warns gainsayers by citing
the example of Vespasian, who, after ridiculing a comet, soon died.
The general shape and appearance of comets, he thinks, betoken
their purpose, and he cites Tertullian to prove them "God's sharp
razors on mankind, whereby he doth poll, and his scythe whereby he
doth shear down multitudes of sinful creatures." At last, rising to
a fearful height, he declares: "For the Lord hath fired his beacon
in the heavens among the stars of God there; the fearful sight is
not yet out of sight. The warning piece of heaven is going off.
Now, then, if the Lord discharge his murdering pieces from on high,
and men be found in their sins unfit for death, their blood shall
be upon them." And again, in an agony of supplication, he cries
out: "Do we see the sword blazing over us? Let it put us upon
crying to God, that the judgment be diverted and not return upon us
again so speedily.... Doth God threaten our very heavens? O pray
unto him, that he would not take away stars and send comets to
succeed them."[195]
Two years later, in August, 1682, he followed this with another
sermon on "The Latter Sign," "wherein is showed that the voice of
God in signal providences, especially when repeated and iterated,
ought to be hearkened unto." Here, too, of course, the comet comes
in for a large share of attention. But his tone is less sure: even
in the midst of all his arguments appears an evident misgiving. The
thoughts of Newton in science and Bayle in philosophy were
evidently tending to accomplish the prophecy of Seneca. Mather's
alarm at this is clear. His natural tendency is to uphold the idea
that a comet is simply a fire-ball flung from the hand of an
avenging God at a guilty world, but he evidently feels obliged to
yield something to the scientific spirit; hence, in the _Discourse
concerning Comets_, published in 1683, he declares: "There are
those who think that, inasmuch as comets may be supposed to proceed
from natural causes, there is no speaking voice of Heaven in them
beyond what is to be said of all other works of God. But certain it
is that many things which may happen according to the course of
Nature are portentous signs of Divine anger and prognostics of
great evils hastening upon the world." He then notices the eclipse
of August, 1672, and adds: "That year the college was eclipsed by
the death of the learned president there, worthy Mr. Chauncey and
two colonies--namely, Massachusetts and Plymouth--by the death of
two governors, who died within a twelvemonth after.... Shall, then,
such mighty works of God as comets are be insignificant things?"[196]
III. THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM.
Vigorous as Mather's argument is, we see scepticism regarding
"signs" continuing to invade the public mind; and, in spite of hi
threatenings, about twenty years after we find a remarkable
evidence of this progress in the fact that this scepticism has
seized upon no less a personage than that colossus of orthodoxy,
his thrice illustrious son, Cotton Mather himself; and him we find,
in 1726, despite the arguments of his father, declaring in his
_Manuductio_: "Perhaps there may be some need for me to caution yo
against being dismayed at the signs of the heavens, or having any
superstitious fancies upon eclipses and the like.... I am willing
that you be apprehensive of nothing portentous in blazing stars.
For my part, I know not whether all our worlds, and even the sun
itself, may not fare the better for them."[197]
Curiously enough, for this scientific scepticism in Cotton Mather
there was a cause identical with that which had developed
superstition in the mind of his father. The same provincial
tendency to receive implicitly any new European fashion in thinking
or speech wrought upon both, plunging one into superstition and
drawing the other out of it.
European thought, which New England followed, had at last broken
away in great measure from the theological view of comets as signs
and wonders. The germ of this emancipating influence was mainly in
the great utterance of Seneca; and we find in nearly every century
some evidence that this germ was still alive. This life became more
and more evident after the Reformation period, even thoug
theologians in every Church did their best to destroy it. The firs
series of attacks on the old theological doctrine were mainly
founded in philosophic reasoning. As early as the first half of the
sixteenth century we hear Julius Caesar Scaliger protesting against
the cometary superstition as "ridiculous folly."[197b] Of more
real importance was the treatise of Blaise de Vigenere, published
at Paris in 1578. In this little book various statements regarding
comets as signs of wrath or causes of evils are given, and then
followed by a very gentle and quiet discussion, usually tending t
develop that healthful scepticism which is the parent of
investigation. A fair example of his mode of treating the subject
is seen in his dealing with a bit of "sacred science." This was
simply that "comets menace princes and kings with death because
they live more delicately than other people; and, therefore, th
air thickened and corrupted by a comet would be naturally more
injurious to them than to common folk who live on coarser food."
To this De Vigenere answers that there are very many persons who
live on food as delicate as that enjoyed by princes and kings, and
yet receive no harm from comets. He then goes on to show that many
of the greatest monarchs in history have met death without any
comet to herald it.
In the same year thoughtful scepticism of a similar sort found an
advocate in another part of Europe. Thomas Erastus, the learned and
devout professor of medicine at Heidelberg, put forth a letter
dealing in the plainest terms with the superstition. He argued
especially that there could be no natural connection between th
comet and pestilence, since the burning of an exhalation must tend
to purify rather than to infect the air. In the following year the
eloquent Hungarian divine Dudith published a letter in which th
theological theory was handled even more shrewdly. for he argued
that, if comets were caused by the sins of mortals, they woul
never be absent from the sky. But these utterances were for the
time brushed aside by the theological leaders of thought as shallow
or impious.
In the seventeenth century able arguments against the superstition,
on general grounds, began to be multiplied. In Holland, Balthasar
Bekker opposed this, as he opposed the witchcraft delusion,
on general philosophic grounds; and Lubienitzky wrote in
a compromising spirit to prove that comets were as often followed
by good as by evil events. In France, Pierre Petit, formerly
geographer of Louis XIII, and an intimate friend of Descartes,
addressed to the young Louis XIV a vehement protest against the
superstition, basing his arguments not on astronomy, but on common
sense. A very effective part of the little treatise was devoted to
answering the authority of the fathers of the early Church. To d
this, he simplv reminded his readers that St. Augustine and St.
John Damascenus had also opposed the doctrine of the antipodes. The
book did good service in France, and was translated in Germany a
few years later.[199
All these were denounced as infidels and heretics, yet none the
less did they set men at thinking, and prepare the way for a fa
greater genius; for toward the end of the same century the
philosophic attack was taken up by Pierre Bayle, and in the whole
series of philosophic champions he is chief. While professor at the
University of Sedan he had observed the alarm caused by the come
of 1680, and he now brought all his reasoning powers to bear upon
it. Thoughts deep and witty he poured out in volume after volume.
Catholics and Protestants were alike scandalized. Catholic Franc
spurned him, and Jurieu, the great Reformed divine, called hi
cometary views "atheism," and tried hard to have Protestant
Holland condemn him. Though Bayle did not touch immediately the
mass of mankind, he wrought with power upon men who gave themselves
the trouble of thinking. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church
that theologians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter,
left it to Bayle; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptura
doctrine of comets, he tore down much else: of all men in his time,
no one so thoroughly prepared the way for Voltaire.
Bayle's whole argument is rooted in the prophecy of Seneca. He
declares: "Comets are bodies subject to the ordinary law of
Nature, and not prodigies amenable to no law." He show
historically that there is no reason to regard comets as portents
of earthly evils. As to the fact that such evils occur after the
passage of comets across the sky, he compares the person believing
that comets cause these evils to a woman looking out of a window
into a Paris street and believing that the carriages pass because
she looks out. As to the accomplishment of some predictions, he
cites the shrewd saying of Henry IV, to the effect that "the
public will remember one prediction that comes true better than all
the rest that have proved false." Finally, he sums up by saying:
"The more we study man, the more does it appear that pride is his
ruling passion, and that he affects grandeur even in his misery.
Mean and perishable creature that he is, he has been able to
persuade men that he can not die without disturbing the whole
course of Nature and obliging the heavens to put themselves to
fresh expense. In order to light his funeral pomp. Foolish and
ridiculous vanity! If we had a just idea of the universe, we should
soon comprehend that the death or birth of a prince is too
insignificant a matter to stir the heavens."[200]
This great philosophic champion of right reason was followed by a
literary champion hardly less famous; for Fontenelle now gave to
the French theatre his play of _The Comet_, and a point of capita
importance in France was made by rendering the army of ignoranc
ridiculous.[200b]
Such was the line of philosophic and literary attack, as developed
from Scaliger to Fontenelle. But beneath and in the midst of all of
it, from first to last, giving firmness, strength, and new sources
of vitality to it, was the steady development of scientific effort;
and to the series of great men who patiently wrought and thought
out the truth by scientific methods through all these centuries
belong the honours of the victory.
For generations men in various parts of the world had been making
careful observations on these strange bodies. As far back as th
time when Luther and Melanchthon and Zwingli were plunged into
alarm by various comets from 1531 to 1539, Peter Apian kept his
head sufficiently cool to make scientific notes of their paths
through the heavens. A little later, when the great comet of 155
scared popes, emperors, and reformers alike, such men as Fabricius
at Vienna and Heller at Nuremberg quietly observed its path. I
vain did men like Dieterich and Heerbrand and Celich from various
parts of Germany denounce such observations and investigations a
impious; they were steadily continued, and in 1577 came the first
which led to the distinct foundation of the modern doctrine. In
that year appeared a comet which again plunged Europe into alarm.
In every European country this alarm was strong, but in Germany
strongest of all. The churches were filled with terror-stricken
multitudes. Celich preaching at Magdeburg was echoed by Heerbrand
preaching at Tubingen, and both these from thousands of othe
pulpits, Catholic and Protestant, throughout Europe. In the midst
of all this din and outcry a few men quietly but steadily observed
the monster; and Tycho Brahe announced, as the result, that its
path lay farther from the earth than the orbit of the moon. Another
great astronomical genius, Kepler, confirmed this. This distinct
beginning of the new doctrine was bitterly opposed by theologians
they denounced it as one of the evil results of that scientific
meddling with the designs of Providence against which they had so
long declaimed in pulpits and professors' chairs; they even brought
forward some astronomers ambitious or wrong-headed enough t
testify that Tycho and Kepler were in error[201]
Nothing could be more natural than such opposition; for this simpl
announcement by Tycho Brahe began a new era. It shook the very
foundation of cometary superstition. The Aristotelian view
developed by the theologians, was that what lies within the moon's
orbit appertains to the earth and is essentially transitory and
evil, while what lies beyond it belongs to the heavens and is
permanent, regular, and pure. Tycho Brahe and Kepler, therefore,
having by means of scientific observation and thought taken comet
out of the category of meteors and appearances in the neighbourhood
of the earth, and placed them among the heavenly bodies, dealt a
blow at the very foundations of the theological argument, and gave
a great impulse to the idea that comets are themselves heavenly
bodies moving regularly and in obedience to law.
IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.--THE FINAL
VICTORY OF SCIENCE.
Attempts were now made to compromise. It was declared that, while
some comets were doubtless supralunar, some must be sublunar. But
this admission was no less fatal on another account. During many
centuries the theory favoured by the Church had been, as we have
seen, that the earth was surrounded by hollow spheres, concentric
and transparent, forming a number of glassy strata incasing one
another "like the different coatings of an onion," and that each
of these in its movement about the earth carries one or more of the
heavenly bodies. Some maintained that these spheres were crystal;
but Lactantius, and with him various fathers of the Church, spoke
of the heavenly vault as made of ice. Now, the admission that
comets could move beyond the moon was fatal to this theory, for it
sent them crashing through these spheres of ice or crystal, and
therefore through the whole sacred fabric of the Ptolemaic theory.[202]
Here we may pause for a moment to note one of the chief differences
between scientific and theological reasoning considered in
themselves. Kepler's main reasoning as to the existence of a law
for cometary movement was right; but his secondary reasoning, that
comets move nearly in straight lines, was wrong. His right
reasoning was developed by Gassendi in France, by Borelli in Italy,
by Hevel and Doerfel in Germany, by Eysat and Bernouilli in
Switzerland, by Percy and--most important of all, as regards
mathematical demonstration--by Newton in England. The general
theory, which was true, they accepted and developed; the secondar
theory, which was found untrue, they rejected; and, as a result,
both of what they thus accepted and of what they rejected, was
evolved the basis of the whole modern cometary theory.
Very different was this from the theological method. As a rule,
when there arises a thinker as great in theology as Kepler in
science, the whole mass of his conclusions ripens into a dogma. His
disciples labour not to test it, but to establish it; and while, in
the Catholic Church, it becomes a dogma to be believed or
disbelieved under the penalty of damnation, it becomes in the
Protestant Church the basis for one more sect.
Various astronomers laboured to develop the truth discovered by
Tycho and strengthened by Kepler. Cassini seemed likely to win for
Italy the glory of completing the great structure; but he was sadly
fettered by Church influences, and was obliged to leave most of the
work to others. Early among these was Hevel. He gave reasons for
believing that comets move in parabolic curves toward the sun. Then
came a man who developed this truth further--Samuel Doerfel; and it
is a pleasure to note that he was a clergyman. The comet of 1680,
which set Erni in Switzerland, Mather in New England, and so many
others in all parts of the world at declaiming, set Doerfel at
thinking. Undismayed by the authority of Origen and St. John
Chrysostom, the arguments of Luther, Melanchthon, and Zwingli, the
outcries of Celich, Heerbrand, and Dieterich, he pondered over the
problem in his little Saxon parsonage, until in 1681 he set forth
his proofs that comets are heavenly bodies moving in parabolas of
which the sun is the focus. Bernouilli arrived at the same
conclusion; and, finally, this great series of men and works wa
closed by the greatest of all, when Newton, in 1686, having taken
the data furnished by the comet of 1680, demonstrated that comets
are guided in their movements by the same principle that controls
the planets in their orbits. Thus was completed the evolution of
this new truth in science.
Yet we are not to suppose that these two great series of
philosophical and scientific victories cleared the field of all
opponents. Declamation and pretended demonstration of the ol
theologic view were still heard; but the day of complete victory
dawned when Halley, after most thorough observation and
calculation, recognised the comet of 1682 as one which had already
appeared at stated periods, and foretold its return in about
seventy-five years; and the battle was fully won when Clairaut,
seconded by Lalande and Mme. Lepaute, predicted distinctly the time
when the comet would arrive at its perihelion, and this prediction
was verified.[204] Then it was that a Roman heathen philosopher was
proved more infallible and more directly under Divine inspiration
than a Roman Christian pontiff; for the very comet which th
traveller finds to-day depicted on the Bay eux tapestry as
portending destruction to Harold and the Saxons at the Norman
invasion of England, and which was regarded by Pope Calixtus as
portending evil to Christendom, was found six centuries later to
be, as Seneca had prophesied, a heavenly body obeying the great
laws of the universe, and coming at regular periods. Thencefort
the whole ponderous enginery of this superstition, with it
proof-texts regarding "signs in the heavens," its theological
reasoning to show the moral necessity of cometary warnings, and it
ecclesiastical fulminations against the "atheism, godlessness, and
infidelity" of scientific investigation, was seen by all thinking
men to be as weak against the scientific method as Indian arrows
against needle guns. Copernicus, Galileo, Cassini, Doerfel, Newton,
Halley, and Clairaut had gained the victory.[204b]
It is instructive to note, even after the main battle was lost, a
renewal of the attempt, always seen under like circumstances, to
effect a compromise, to establish a "safe science" on grounds
pseudo-scientific and pseudo-theologic. Luther, with his strong
common sense, had foreshadowed this; Kepler had expressed a
willingness to accept it. It was insisted that comets might be
heavenly bodies moving in regular orbits, and even obedient to law,
and yet be sent as "signs in the heavens." Many good men clung
longingly to this phase of the old belief, and in 1770 Semler,
professor at Halle, tried to satisfy both sides. He insisted that,
while from a scientific point of view comets could not exercise any
physical influence upon the world, yet from a religious point o
view they could exercise a moral influence as reminders of the Just
Judge of the Universe.
So hard was it for good men to give up the doctrine of "signs i
the heavens," seemingly based upon Scripture and exercising such a
healthful moral tendency! As is always the case after such
defeat, these votaries of "sacred science" exerted the greatest
ingenuity in devising statements and arguments to avert the new
doctrine. Within our own century the great Catholic champion,
Joseph de Maistre, echoed these in declaring his belief that comets
are special warnings of evil. So, too, in Protestant England, in
1818, the _Gentleman's Magazine_ stated that under the malign
influence of a recent comet "flies became blind and died early in
the season," and "the wife of a London shoemaker had four children
at a birth." And even as late as 1829 Mr. Forster, an English
physician, published a work to prove that comets produce ho
summers, cold winters, epidemics, earthquakes, clouds of midges an
locusts, and nearly every calamity conceivable. He bore especially
upon the fact that the comet of 1665 was coincident with the plague
in London, apparently forgetting that the other great cities of
England and the Continent were not thus visited; and, in a climax,
announces the fact that the comet of 1663 "made all the cats i
Westphalia sick."
There still lingered one little cloud-patch of superstition,
arising mainly from the supposed fact that comets had really been
followed by a marked rise in temperature. Even this poor basis fo
the belief that they might, after all, affect earthly affairs was
swept away, and science won here another victory; for Arago, by
thermometric records carefully kept at Paris from 1735 to
1781, proved that comets had produced no effect upon temperature.
Among multitudes of similar examples he showed that, in some years
when several comets appeared, the temperature was lower than in
other years when few or none appeared. In 1737 there were two
comets, and the weather was cool; in 1785 there was no comet, and
the weather was hot; through the whole fifty years it was shown
that comets were sometimes followed by hot weather, sometimes by
cool, and that no rule was deducible. The victory of science was
complete at every point.[206]
But in this history there was one little exhibition so curious as
to be worthy of notice, though its permanent effect upon thought
was small. Whiston and Burnet, so devoted to what they considere
sacred science, had determined that in some way comets must be
instruments of Divine wrath. One of them maintained that the
deluge was caused by the tail of a comet striking the earth; the
other put forth the theory that comets are places of punishment
for the damned--in fact, "flying hells." The theories of Whiston
and Burnet found wide acceptance also in Germany, mainly through
the all-powerful mediation of Gottsched, so long, from his
professor's chair at Leipsic, the dictator of orthodox thought, who
not only wrote a brief tractate of his own upon the subject, bu
furnished a voluminous historical introduction to the more
elaborate treatise of Heyn. In this book, which appeared at Leipsic
in 1742, the agency of comets in the creation, the flood, and the
final destruction of the world is fully proved. Both these theorie
were, however, soon discredited.
Perhaps the more interesting of them can best be met by another
which, if not fully established, appears much better based--namely,
that in 1868 the earth passed directly through the tail of a comet,
with no deluge, no sound of any wailings of the damned, with but
slight appearances here and there, only to be detected by the keen
sight of the meteorological or astronomical observer.
In our own country superstitious ideas regarding comets continued
to have some little currency; but their life was short. The
tendency shown by Cotton Mather, at the beginning of the eighteenth
century, toward acknowledging the victory of science, was completed
by the utterances of Winthrop, professor at Harvard, who in 175
published two lectures on comets, in which he simply and clearly
revealed the truth, never scoffing, but reasoning quietly and
reverently. In one passage he says: "To be thrown into a pani
whenever a comet appears, on account of the ill effects which som
few of them might possibly produce, if they were not under proper
direction, betrays a weakness unbecoming a reasonable being."
A happy influence in this respect was exercised on both continents
by John Wesley. Tenaciously as he had held to the supposed
scriptural view in so many other matters of science, in this he
allowed his reason to prevail, accepted the demonstrations of
Halley, and gloried in them.[207
The victory was indeed complete. Happily, none of the fears
expressed by Conrad Dieterich and Increase Mather were realized. N
catastrophe has ensued either to religion or to morals. In the
realm of religion the Psalms of David remain no less beautiful, the
great utterances of the Hebrew prophets no less powerful; the
Sermon on the Mount, "the first commandment, and the second, which
is like unto it," the definition of "pure religion and undefiled"
by St. James, appeal no less to the deepest things in the human
heart. In the realm of morals, too, serviceable as the idea o
firebrands thrown by the right hand of an avenging God to scare a
naughty world might seem, any competent historian must find that
the destruction of the old theological cometary theory was followe
by moral improvement rather than by deterioration. We have but to
compare the general moral tone of society to-day, wretchedly
imperfect as it is, with that existing in the time when this
superstition had its strongest hold. We have only to compare the
court of Henry VIII with the court of Victoria, the reign of th
later Valois and earlier Bourbon princes with the present French
Republic, the period of the Medici and Sforzas and Borgias with the
period of Leo XIII and Humbert, the monstrous wickedness of the
Thirty Years' War with the ennobling patriotism of the
Franco-Prussian struggle, and the despotism of the miserable German
princelings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the
reign of the Emperor William.
The gain is not simply that mankind has arrived at a clearer
conception of law in the universe; not merely that thinking men see
more clearly that we are part of a system not requiring constant
patching and arbitrary interference; but perhaps best of all is the
fact that science has cleared away one more series of those dogmas
which tend to debase rather than to develop man's whole moral an
religious nature. In this emancipation from terror and fanaticism,
as in so many other results of scientific thinking, we have a proof o
the inspiration of those great words, "THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE."
CHAPTER V.
FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY.
I. GROWTH OF THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS.
AMONG the philosophers of Greece we find, even at an earl
period, germs of geological truth, and, what is of vas
importance, an atmosphere in which such germs could grow. These
germs were transmitted to Roman thought; an atmosphere of
tolerance continued; there was nothing which forbade unfettered
reasoning regarding either the earth's strata or the remains of
former life found in them, and under the Roman Empire a perio
of fruitful observation seemed sure to begin.
But, as Christianity took control of the world, there came a
great change. The earliest attitude of the Church toward geology
and its kindred sciences was indifferent, and even contemptuous.
According to the prevailing belief, the earth was a "falle
world," and was soon to be destroyed. Why, then, should it be
studied? Why, indeed, give a thought to it? The scorn which
Lactantius and St. Augustine had cast upon the study of
astronomy was extended largely to other sciences.[209]
But the germs of scientific knowledge and thought developed i
the ancient world could be entirely smothered neither by
eloquence nor by logic; some little scientific observation must
be allowed, though all close reasoning upon it was fettered b
theology. Thus it was that St. Jerome insisted that the broke
and twisted crust of the earth exhibits the wrath of God against
sin, and Tertullian asserted that fossils resulted from th
flood of Noah.
To keep all such observation and reasoning within orthodox
limits, St. Augustine, about the beginning of the fifth century,
began an effort to develop from these germs a growth in scienc
which should be sacred and safe. With this intent he prepared
his great commentary on the work of creation, as depicted in
Genesis, besides dwelling upon the subject in other writings.
Once engaged in this work, he gave himself to it more earnestl
than any other of the earlier fathers ever did; but his vast
powers of research and thought were not directed to actual
observation or reasoning upon observation. The keynote of hi
whole method is seen in his famous phrase, "Nothing is to be
accepted save on the authority of Scripture, since greater is
that authority than all the powers of the human mind." All his
thought was given to studying the letter of the sacred text, an
to making it explain natural phenomena by methods purely
theological.[210]
Among the many questions he then raised and discussed may be
mentioned such as these: "What caused the creation of the stars
on the fourth day?" "Were beasts of prey and venomous animals
created before, or after, the fall of Adam? If before, how can
their creation be reconciled with God's goodness; if afterward
how can their creation be reconciled to the letter of God's
Word?" "Why were only beasts and birds brought before Adam to
be named, and not fishes and marine animals?" "Why did the
Creator not say, `Be fruitful and multiply,' to plants as well as
to animals?"[210b]
Sundry answers to these and similar questions formed the main
contributions of the greatest of the Latin fathers to the
scientific knowledge of the world, after a most thorough stud
of the biblical text and a most profound application o
theological reasoning. The results of these contributions wer
most important. In this, as in so many other fields, Augustin
gave direction to the main current of thought in western Europe,
Catholic and Protestant, for nearly thirteen centuries.
In the ages that succeeded, the vast majority of prominent
scholars followed him implicitly. Even so strong a man as Pop
Gregory the Great yielded to his influence, and such leaders of
thought as St. Isidore, in the seventh century, and the
Venerable Bede, in the eighth, planting themselves upon
Augustine's premises, only ventured timidly to extend their
conclusions upon lines he had laid down.
In his great work on _Etymologies_, Isidore took up Augustine'
attempt to bring the creation into satisfactory relations wit
the book of Genesis, and, as to fossil remains, he, like
Tertullian, thought that they resulted from the Flood of Noah.
In the following century Bede developed the same orthodox
traditions.[211]
The best guess, in a geological sense, among the followers of
St. Augustine was made by an Irish monkish scholar, who, in
order to diminish the difficulty arising from the distribution
of animals, especially in view of the fact that the same animals
are found in Ireland as in England, held that various lands now
separated were once connected. But, alas! the exigencies of
theology forced him to place their separation later than the
Flood. Happily for him, such facts were not yet known as tha
the kangaroo is found only on an island in the South Pacific,
and must therefore, according to his theory, have migrated
thither with all his progeny, and along a causeway so curiousl
constructed that none of the beasts of prey, who were his
fellow-voyagers in the ark, could follow him
These general lines of thought upon geology and its kindre
science of zoology were followed by St. Thomas Aquinas and by
the whole body of medieval theologians, so far as they gave any
attention to such subjects.
The next development of geology, mainly under Church guidance
was by means of the scholastic theology. Phrase-making wa
substituted for investigation. Without the Church and within it
wonderful contributions were thus made. In the eleventh century
Avicenna accounted for the fossils by suggesting a
"stone-making force";[212] in the thirteenth, Albert the Great
attributed them to a "formative quality;"[212b] in the followin
centuries some philosophers ventured the idea that they grew
from seed; and the Aristotelian doctrine of spontaneous
generation was constantly used to prove that these stony fossils
possessed powers of reproduction like plants and animals.[212c]
Still, at various times and places, germs implanted by Greek and
Roman thought were warmed into life. The Arabian schools seem t
have been less fettered by the letter of the Koran than the
contemporary Christian scholars by the letter of the Bible; and to
Avicenna belongs the credit of first announcing substantially the
modern geological theory of changes in the earth's surface.[212d]
The direct influence of the Reformation was at first
unfavourable to scientific progress, for nothing could be more
at variance with any scientific theory of the development of th
universe than the ideas of the Protestant leaders. That strict
adherence to the text of Scripture which made Luther and
Melanchthon denounce the idea that the planets revolve about
the sun, was naturally extended to every other scientific
statement at variance with the sacred text. There is much reason
to believe that the fetters upon scientific thought were closer
under the strict interpretation of Scripture by the early
Protestants than they had been under the older Church. The
dominant spirit among the Reformers is shown by the declaration
of Peter Martyr to the effect that, if a wrong opinion should
obtain regarding the creation as described in Genesis, "all the
promises of Christ fall into nothing, and all the life of our
religion would be lost."[213]
In the times immediately succeeding the Reformation matters went
from bad to worse. Under Luther and Melanchthon there was some
little freedom of speculation, but under their successors there
was none; to question any interpretation of Luther came to be
thought almost as wicked as to question the literal
interpretation of the Scriptures themselves. Examples of this
are seen in the struggles between those who held that birds were
created entirely from water and those who held that they wer
created out of water and mud. In the city of Lubeck, the ancient
centre of the Hanseatic League, close at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, Pfeiffer, "General Superintendent" or
bishop in those parts, published his _Pansophia Mosaica_,
calculated, as he believed, to beat back science forever. In a
long series of declamations he insisted that in the strict text
of Genesis alone is safety, that it contains all wisdom and
knowledge, human and divine. This being the case, who could
care to waste time on the study of material things and give
thought to the structure of the world? Above all, who, after
such a proclamation by such a ruler in the Lutheran Israel
would dare to talk of the "days" mentioned in Genesis a
"periods of time"; or of the "firmament" as not meaning a
solid vault over the universe; or of the "waters above the
heavens" as not contained in a vast cistern supported by the
heavenly vault; or of the "windows of heaven" as a figure of
speech?[213b]
In England the same spirit was shown even as late as the time of
Sir Matthew Hale. We find in his book on the _Origination of
Mankind_, published in 1685, the strictest devotion to a theory
of creation based upon the mere letter of Scripture, and a
complete inability to draw knowledge regarding the earth's
origin and structure from any other source.
While the Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Anglican Reformers clung to
literal interpretations of the sacred books, and turned their
faces away from scientific investigation, it was among their
contemporaries at the revival of learning that there began t
arise fruitful thought in this field. Then it was, about the
beginning of the sixteenth century, that Leonardo da Vinci, as
great a genius in science as in art, broached the true idea as
to the origin of fossil remains; and his compatriot, Fracastoro
developed this on the modern lines of thought. Others in other
parts of Europe took up the idea, and, while mixing with it many
crudities, drew from it more and more truth. Toward the end o
the sixteenth century Bernard Palissy, in France, took hold of
it with the same genius which he showed in artistic creation;
but, remarkable as were his assertions of scientific realities,
they could gain little hearing. Theologians, philosophers, and
even some scientific men of value, under the sway of scholastic
phrases, continued to insist upon such explanations as tha
fossils were the product of "fatty matter set into
fermentation by heat"; or of a "lapidific juice";[214] or of a
"seminal air";[214b] or of a "tumultuous movement of
terrestrial exhalations"; and there was a prevailing belief
that fossil remains, in general, might be brought under the head
of "sports of Nature," a pious turn being given to this phrase
by the suggestion that these "sports" indicated some
inscrutable purpose of the Almighty.
This remained a leading orthodox mode of explanation in the
Church, Catholic and Protestant, for centuries.
II. EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW
But the scientific method could not be entirely hidden; and,
near the beginning of the seventeenth century, De Clave, Bitaud,
and De Villon revived it in France. Straightway the theological
faculty of Paris protested against the scientific doctrine as
unscriptural, destroyed the offending treatises, banished their
authors from Paris, and forbade them to live in towns or enter
places of public resort.[214c]
The champions of science, though depressed for a time, quietl
laboured on, especially in Italy. Half a century later, Steno,
a Dane, and Scilla, an Italian, went still further in the right
direction; and, though they and their disciples took great pains
to throw a tub to the whale, in the shape of sundry vagu
concessions to the Genesis legends, they developed geological
truth more and more.
In France, the old theological spirit remained exceedingly
powerful. About the middle of the eighteenth century Buffon made
another attempt to state simple geological truths; but th
theological faculty of the Sorbonne dragged him at once from his
high position, forced him to recant ignominiously, and to print
his recantation. It runs as follows: "I declare that I had no
intention to contradict the text of Scripture; that I believe
most firmly all therein related about the creation, both as t
order of time and matter of fact. I abandon everything in my
book respecting the formation of the earth, and generally al
which may be contrary to the narrative of Moses." Thi
humiliating document reminds us painfully of that forced upo
Galileo a hundred years before.
It has been well observed by one of the greatest of modern
authorities that the doctrine which Buffon thus "abandoned" is
as firmly established as that of the earth's rotation upon its
axis.[215] Yet one hundred and fifty years were required to secur
for it even a fair hearing; the prevailing doctrine of the
Church continued to be that "all things were made at the
beginning of the world," and that to say that stones and fossils
were made before or since "the beginning" is contrary to
Scripture. Again we find theological substitutes for scientifi
explanation ripening into phrases more and more hollow--makin
fossils "sports of Nature," or "mineral concretions," or
"creations of plastic force," or "models" made by the Creator
before he had fully decided upon the best manner of creating
various beings.
Of this period, when theological substitutes for science were
carrying all before them, there still exists a monumen
commemorating at the same time a farce and a tragedy. This i
the work of Johann Beringer, professor in the University of
Wurzburg and private physician to the Prince-Bishop--th
treatise bearing the title _Lithographiae Wirceburgensis Specimen
Primum_, "illustrated with the marvellous likenesses of two
hundred figured or rather insectiform stones." Beringer, for the
greater glory of God, had previously committed himself so
completely to the theory that fossils are simply "stones of a
peculiar sort, hidden by the Author of Nature for his own
pleasure,"[216] that some of his students determined to give his
faith in that pious doctrine a thorough trial. They therefore
prepared a collection of sham fossils in baked clay, imitating
not only plants, reptiles, and fishes of every sort that thei
knowledge or imagination could suggest, but even Hebrew and
Syriac inscriptions, one of them the name of the Almighty; and
these they buried in a place where the professor was wont to
search for specimens. The joy of Beringer on unearthing these
proofs of the immediate agency of the finger of God in creating
fossils knew no bounds. At great cost he prepared this book,
whose twenty-two elaborate plates of facsimiles were forever to
settle the question in favour of theology and against science,
and prefixed to the work an allegorical title page, wherein not
only the glory of his own sovereign, but that of heaven itself
was pictured as based upon a pyramid of these miraculous
fossils. So robust was his faith that not even a premature
exposure of the fraud could dissuade him from the publication of
his book. Dismissing in one contemptuous chapter this exposure
as a slander by his rivals, he appealed to the learned world.
But the shout of laughter that welcomed the work soon convinced
even its author. In vain did he try to suppress it; and,
according to tradition, having wasted his fortune in vain
attempts to buy up all the copies of it, and being taunted by
the rivals whom he had thought to overwhelm, he died of chagrin.
Even death did not end his misfortunes. The copies of the firs
edition having been sold by a graceless descendant to a Leipsic
bookseller, a second edition was brought out under a new title,
and this, too, is now much sought as a precious memorial of
human credulity.[217]
But even this discomfiture did not end the idea which had caused
it, for, although some latitude was allowed among the various
theologico-scientific explanations, it was still hel
meritorious to believe that all fossils were placed in the
strata on one of the creative days by the hand of the Almighty,
and that this was done for some mysterious purpose, probably fo
the trial of human faith.
Strange as it may at first seem, the theological war against a
scientific method in geology was waged more fiercely in
Protestant countries than in Catholic. The older Church had
learned by her costly mistakes, especially in the cases of
Copernicus and Galileo, what dangers to her claim of
infallibility lay in meddling with a growing science. In Italy
therefore, comparatively little opposition was made, while
England furnished the most bitter opponents to geology so long
as the controversy could be maintained, and the most active
negotiators in patching up a truce on the basis of a sha
science afterward. The Church of England did, indeed, produce
some noble men, like Bishop Clayton and John Mitchell, who stood
firmly by the scientific method; but these appear generally to
have been overwhelmed by a chorus of churchmen and dissenters,
whose mixtures of theology and science, sometimes tragic in
their results and sometimes comic, are among the most
instructive things in modern history.[217b]
We have already noted that there are generally three periods or
phases in a theological attack upon any science. The first o
these is marked by the general use of scriptural texts and
statements against the new scientific doctrine; the third by
attempts at compromise by means of far-fetched reconciliations
of textual statements with ascertained fact; but the second o
intermediate period between these two is frequently marked by
the pitting against science of some great doctrine in theology.
We saw this in astronomy, when Bellarmin and his followers
insisted that the scientific doctrine of the earth revolving
about the sun is contrary to the theological doctrine of th
incarnation. So now against geology it was urged that the
scientific doctrine that fossils represent animals which died
before Adam contradicts the theological doctrine of Adam's fall
and the statement that "death entered the world by sin."
In this second stage of the theological struggle with geology,
England was especially fruitful in champions of orthodoxy, first
among whom may be named Thomas Burnet. In the last quarter of
the seventeenth century, just at the time when Newton's great
discovery was given to the world, Burnet issued his _Sacred
Theory of the Earth_. His position was commanding; he was a royal
chaplain and a cabinet officer. Planting himself upon the famous
text in the second epistle of Peter,[218] he declares that the
flood had destroyed the old and created a new world. The
Newtonian theory he refuses to accept. In his theory of the
deluge he lays less stress upon the "opening of the windows of
heaven" than upon the "breaking up of the fountains of the
great deep." On this latter point he comes forth with great
strength. His theory is that the earth is hollow, and filled
with fluid like an egg. Mixing together sundry texts from
Genesis and from the second epistle of Peter, the theological
doctrine of the "Fall," an astronomical theory regarding the
ecliptic, and various notions adapted from Descartes, he
insisted that, before sin brought on the Deluge, the earth wa
of perfect mathematical form, smooth and beautiful, "like an
egg," with neither seas nor islands nor valleys nor rocks,
"with not a wrinkle, scar, or fracture," and that all creation
was equally perfect
In the second book of his great work Burnet went still further.
As in his first book he had mixed his texts of Genesis and St.
Peter with Descartes, he now mixed the account of the Garden o
Eden in Genesis with heathen legends of the golden age, and
concluded that before the flood there was over the whole earth
perpetual spring, disturbed by no rain more severe than the
falling of the dew
In addition to his other grounds for denying the earlier
existence of the sea, he assigned the reason that, if there had
been a sea before the Deluge, sinners would have learned to build
ships, and so, when the Deluge set in, could have saved themselves.
The work was written with much power, and attracted universa
attention. It was translated into various languages, and calle
forth a multitude of supporters and opponents in all parts of
Europe. Strong men rose against it, especially in England, and
among them a few dignitaries of the Church; but the Church
generally hailed the work with joy. Addison praised it in a
Latin ode, and for nearly a century it exercised a strong
influence upon European feeling, and aided to plant more deeply
than ever the theological opinion that the earth as now existin
is merely a ruin; whereas, before sin brought on the Flood, it was
beautiful in its "egg-shaped form," and free from every imperfection.
A few years later came another writer of the highest
standing--William Whiston, professor at Cambridge, who in 1696
published his _New Theory of the Earth_. Unlike Burnet, he
endeavoured to avail himself of the Newtonian idea, and brought
in, to aid the geological catastrophe caused by human sin,
comet, which broke open "the fountains of the great deep."
But, far more important than either of these champions, there
arose in the eighteenth century, to aid in the subjection of
science to theology, three men of extraordinary power--Joh
Wesley, Adam Clarke, and Richard Watson. All three were men of
striking intellectual gifts, lofty character, and noble purpose,
and the first-named one of the greatest men in English history
yet we find them in geology hopelessly fettered by the mere
letter of Scripture, and by a temporary phase in theology. As in
regard to witchcraft and the doctrine of comets, so in regard to
geology, this theological view drew Wesley into enormou
error.[220] The great doctrine which Wesley, Watson, Clarke, and
their compeers, following St. Augustine, Bede, Peter Lombard
and a long line of the greatest minds in the universal Church,
thought it especially necessary to uphold against geologists
was, that death entered the world by sin--by the first
transgression of Adam and Eve. The extent to which the supposed
necessity of upholding this doctrine carried Wesley seems now
almost beyond belief. Basing his theology on the declaratio
that the Almighty after creation found the earth and all created
things "very good," he declares, in his sermon on the _Cause and
Cure of Earthquakes_, that no one who believes the Scriptures can
deny that "sin is the moral cause of earthquakes, whatever
their natural cause may be." Again, he declares that earthquakes
are the "effect of that curse which was brought upon the earth
by the original transgression." Bringing into connection with
Genesis the declaration of St. Paul that "the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now," he finds
additional scriptural proof that the earthquakes were the resul
of Adam's fall. He declares, in his sermon on _God's Approbation
of His Works_, that "before the sin of Adam there were
no agitations within the bowels of the earth, no violent
convulsions, no concussions of the earth, no earthquakes, but
all was unmoved as the pillars of heaven. There were then no
such things as eruptions of fires; no volcanoes or burnin
mountains." Of course, a science which showed that earthquakes
had been in operation for ages before the appearance of man on
the planet, and which showed, also, that those very earthquakes
which he considered as curses resultant upon the Fall were
really blessings, producing the fissures in which we find today
those mineral veins so essential to modern civilization, was
entirely beyond his comprehension. He insists that earthquakes
are "God's strange works of judgment, the proper effect and
punishment of sin."
So, too, as to death and pain. In his sermon on the _Fall of Man_
he took the ground that death and pain entered the world by
Adam's transgression, insisting that the carnage now going on
among animals is the result of Adam's sin. Speaking of the
birds, beasts, and insects, he says that, before sin entered the
world by Adam's fall, "none of these attempted to devour or in
any way hurt one another"; that "the spider was then as
harmless as the fly and did not then lie in wait for blood."
Here, again, Wesley arrayed his early followers against geology,
which reveals, in the fossil remains of carnivorous animals,
pain and death countless ages before the appearance of man. Th
half-digested fragments of weaker animals within the fossilized
bodies of the stronger have destroyed all Wesley's arguments in
behalf of his great theory.[221]
Dr. Adam Clarke held similar views. He insisted that thorns and
thistles were given as a curse to human labour, on account of
Adam's sin, and appeared upon the earth for the first time after
Adam's fall. So, too, Richard Watson, the most prolific writer
of the great evangelical reform period, and the author of the
_Institutes_, the standard theological treatise on the evangelical
side, says, in a chapter treating of the Fall, and especially o
the serpent which tempted Eve: "We have no reason at all to
believe that the animal had a serpentine form in any mode or
degree until his transformation. That he was then degraded to a
reptile, to go upon his belly, imports, on the contrary, an
entire alteration and loss of the original form." All tha
admirable adjustment of the serpent to its environment which
delights naturalists was to the Wesleyan divine simply an evi
result of the sin of Adam and Eve. Yet here again geology was
obliged to confront theology in revealing the _python_ in the
Eocene, ages before man appeared.[222]
The immediate results of such teaching by such men was to throw
many who would otherwise have resorted to observation and
investigation back upon scholastic methods. Again reappears the
old system of solving the riddle by phrases. In 1733, Dr
Theodore Arnold urged the theory of "models," and insisted that
fossils result from "infinitesimal particles brought togethe
in the creation to form the outline of all the creatures and
objects upon and within the earth"; and Arnold's work gained
wide acceptance.[222]
Such was the influence of this succession of great men that
toward the close of the last century the English opponents of
geology on biblical grounds seemed likely to sweep all before
them. Cramping our whole inheritance of sacred literature within
the rules of a historical compend, they showed the terrible
dangers arising from the revelations of geology, which make the
earth older than the six thousand years required by Archbishop
Usher's interpretation of the Old Testament. Nor was this
feeling confined to ecclesiastics. Williams, a thoughtful
layman, declared that such researches led to infidelity and
atheism, and are "nothing less than to depose the Almighty
Creator of the universe from his office." The poet Cowper, one
of the mildest of men, was also roused by these dangers, and in
his most elaborate poem wrote:
"Some drill and bore
The solid earth, and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn
That He who made it, and revealed its date
To Moses, was mistaken in its age!"
John Howard summoned England to oppose "those scientific
systems which are calculated to tear up in the public mind every
remaining attachment to Christianity."
With this special attack upon geological science by means of the
dogma of Adam's fall, the more general attack by the literal
interpretation of the text was continued. The legendary husks
and rinds of our sacred books were insisted upon as equall
precious and nutritious with the great moral and religiou
truths which they envelop. Especially precious were the six
days--each "the evening and the morning"--and the exac
statements as to the time when each part of creation came int
being. To save these, the struggle became more and more desperate.
Difficult as it is to realize it now, within the memory of many
now living the battle was still raging most fiercely in England,
and both kinds of artillery usually brought against a new
science were in full play, and filling the civilized world with
their roar.
About half a century since, the Rev. J. Mellor Brown, the Rev.
Henry Cole, and others were hurling at all geologists alike, and
especially at such Christian scholars as Dr. Buckland and Dean
Conybeare and Pye Smith and Prof. Sedgwick, the epithets of
"infidel," "impugner of the sacred record," and "assailant of
the volume of God."[223]
The favourite weapon of the orthodox party was the charge that
the geologists were "attacking the truth of God." They
declared geology "not a subject of lawful inquiry," denouncing
it as "a dark art," as "dangerous and disreputable," as "a
forbidden province," as "infernal artillery," and as "an
awful evasion of the testimony of revelation."[223b]
This attempt to scare men from the science having failed,
various other means were taken. To say nothing about England, it
is humiliating to human nature to remember the annoyances, and
even trials, to which the pettiest and narrowest of me
subjected such Christian scholars in our own country as Benjamin
Silliman and Edward Hitchcock and Louis Agassiz
But it is a duty and a pleasure to state here that one great
Christian scholar did honour to religion and to himself by
quietly accepting the claims of science and making the best of
them, despite all these clamours. This man was Nicholas Wiseman
better known afterward as Cardinal Wiseman. The conduct of this
pillar of the Roman Catholic Church contrasts admirably with
that of timid Protestants, who were filling England with shrieks
and denunciations.[224]
And here let it be noted that one of the most interesting
skirmishes in this war occurred in New England. Prof. Stuart, of
Andover, justly honoured as a Hebrew scholar, declared that to
speak of six periods of time for the creation was flying in the
face of Scripture; that Genesis expressly speaks of six days,
each made up of "the evening and the morning," and not six
periods of time.
To him replied a professor in Yale College, James Kingsley. In
an article admirable for keen wit and kindly temper, he showed
that Genesis speaks just as clearly of a solid firmament as of
six ordinary days, and that, if Prof. Stuart had surmounted one
difficulty and accepted the Copernican theory, he might as well
get over another and accept the revelations of geology. The
encounter was quick and decisive, and the victory was wit
science and the broader scholarship of Yale.[224b]
Perhaps the most singular attempt against geology was made by a
fine survival of the eighteenth century Don-Dean Cockburn, of
York--to _scold_ its champions off the field. Having no adequat
knowledge of the new science, he opened a battery of abuse,
giving it to the world at large from the pulpit and through the
press, and even through private letters. From his pulpit in York
Minster he denounced Mary Somerville by name for those studie
in physical geography which have made her name honoured
throughout the world.
But the special object of his antipathy was the Britis
Association for the Advancement of Science. He issued a pamphlet
against it which went through five editions in two years, sent
solemn warnings to its president, and in various ways made life
a burden to Sedgwick, Buckland, and other eminent investigators
who ventured to state geological facts as they found them.
These weapons were soon seen to be ineffective; they were like
Chinese gongs and dragon lanterns against rifled cannon; the
work of science went steadily on.[225]
III. THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE, BASED ON
THE FLOOD OF NOAH
Long before the end of the struggle already described, even at
a very early period, the futility of the usual scholastic
weapons had been seen by the more keen-sighted champions of
orthodoxy; and, as the difficulties of the ordinary attack upo
science became more and more evident, many of these champions
endeavoured to patch up a truce. So began the third stage in the
war--the period of attempts at compromise.
The position which the compromise party took was that the
fossils were produced by the Deluge of Noah.
This position was strong, for it was apparently based upon
Scripture. Moreover, it had high ecclesiastical sanction, som
of the fathers having held that fossil remains, even on the
highest mountains, represented animals destroyed at the Deluge.
Tertullian was especially firm on this point, and St. Augustin
thought that a fossil tooth discovered in North Africa must have
belonged to one of the giants mentioned in Scripture.[225b]
In the sixteenth century especially, weight began to be attached
to this idea by those who felt the worthlessness of various
scholastic explanations. Strong men in both the Catholic and the
Protestant camps accepted it; but the man who did most to give
it an impulse into modern theology was Martin Luther. He easily
saw that scholastic phrase-making could not meet the difficulties
raised by fossils, and he naturally urged the doctrine of their
origin at Noah's Flood.[226]
With such support, it soon became the dominant theory in
Christendom: nothing seemed able to stand against it; but before
the end of the same sixteenth century it met some serious
obstacles. Bernard Palissy, one of the most keen-sighted of
scientific thinkers in France, as well as one of the most
devoted of Christians, showed that it was utterly untenable.
Conscientious investigators in other parts of Europe, and
especially in Italy, showed the same thing; all in vain.[226b]
In vain did good men protest against the injury sure to be
brought upon religion by tying it to a scientific theory sure to
be exploded; the doctrine that fossils are the remains of
animals drowned at the Flood continued to be upheld by the grea
majority of theological leaders for nearly three centuries as
"sound doctrine," and as a blessed means of reconciling science
with Scripture. To sustain this scriptural view, efforts energetic
and persistent were put forth both by Catholics and Protestants.
In France, the learned Benedictine, Calmet, in his great work
on the Bible, accepted it as late as the beginning of th
eighteenth century, believing the mastodon's bones exhibited by
Mazurier to be those of King Teutobocus, and holding them
valuable testimony to the existence of the giants mentioned in
Scripture and of the early inhabitants of the earth overwhelmed
by the Flood.[226c]
But the greatest champion appeared in England. We have already
seen how, near the close of the seventeenth century, Thoma
Burnet prepared the way in his _Sacred Theory of the Earth_ by
rejecting the discoveries of Newton, and showing how sin led to
the breaking up of the "foundations of the great deep" "and w
have also seen how Whiston, in his _New Theory of the Earth_,
while yielding a little and accepting the discoveries of Newton,
brought in a comet to aid in producing the Deluge; but far more
important than these in permanent influence was John Woodward,
professor at Gresham College, a leader in scientific thought at
the University of Cambridge, and, as a patient collector of
fossils and an earnest investigator of their meaning, deserving
of the highest respect. In 1695 he published his _Natural History
of the Earth_, and rendered one great service to science, for he
yielded another point, and thus destroyed the foundations for
the old theory of fossils. He showed that they were not "sports
of Nature," or "models inserted by the Creator in the strata
for some inscrutable purpose," but that they were really remains
of living beings, as Xenophanes had asserted two thousand years
before him. So far, he rendered a great service both to science
and religion; but, this done, the text of the Old Testament
narrative and the famous passage in St. Peter's Epistle were too
strong for him, and he, too, insisted that the fossils were
produced by the Deluge. Aided by his great authority, the
assault on the true scientific position was vigorous: Mazurier
exhibited certain fossil remains of a mammoth discovered in
France as bones of the giants mentioned in Scripture; Father
Torrubia did the same thing in Spain; Increase Mather sent to
England similar remains discovered in America, with a like statement.
For the edification of the faithful, such "bones of the giants
mentioned in Scripture" were hung up in public places. Jurieu
saw some of them thus suspended in one of the churches of
Valence; and Henrion, apparently under the stimulus thus given,
drew up tables showing the size of our antediluvian ancestors,
giving the height of Adam as 123 feet 9 inches and that of Eve
as 118 feet 9 inches and 9 lines.[228]
But the most brilliant service rendered to the theological
theory came from another quarter for, in 1726, Scheuchzer,
having discovered a large fossil lizard, exhibited it to the
world as the "human witness of the Deluge":[228b] this grea
discovery was hailed everywhere with joy, for it seemed to prove
not only that human beings were drowned at the Deluge, but tha
"there were giants in those days." Cheered by the applause thus
gained, he determined to make the theological position
impregnable. Mixing together various texts of Scripture with
notions derived from the philosophy of Descartes and the
speculations of Whiston, he developed the theory that "the
fountains of the great deep" were broken up by the direct
physical action of the hand of God, which, being literall
applied to the axis of the earth, suddenly stopped the earth's
rotation, broke up "the fountains of the great deep," spille
the water therein contained, and produced the Deluge. But his
service to sacred science did not end here, for he prepared a
edition of the Bible, in which magnificent engravings in great
number illustrated his view and enforced it upon all readers. Of
these engravings no less than thirty-four were devoted to th
Deluge alone.[228c
In the midst all this came an episode very comical but very
instructive; for it shows that the attempt to shape the
deductions of science to meet the exigencies of dogma may
mislead heterodoxy as absurdly as orthodoxy.
About the year 1760 news of the discovery of marine fossils in
various elevated districts of Europe reached Voltaire. He, too,
had a theologic system to support, though his system was opposed
to that of the sacred books of the Hebrews; and, fearing that
these new discoveries might be used to support the Mosai
accounts of the Deluge, all his wisdom and wit were compacte
into arguments to prove that the fossil fishes were remains of
fishes intended for food, but spoiled and thrown away by
travellers; that the fossil shells were accidentally dropped by
crusaders and pilgrims returning from the Holy Land; and tha
the fossil bones found between Paris and Etampes were parts of
a skeleton belonging to the cabinet of some ancient philosopher.
Through chapter after chapter, Voltaire, obeying the suppose
necessities of his theology, fought desperately the growing
results of the geologic investigations of his time.[229
But far more prejudicial to Christianity was the continued
effort on the other side to show that the fossils were caused by
the Deluge of Noah.
No supposition was too violent to support this theory, which was
considered vital to the Bible. By taking the mere husks and
rinds of biblical truth for truth itself, by taking sacred
poetry as prose, and by giving a literal interpretation of it
the followers of Burnet, Whiston, and Woodward built up systems
which bear to real geology much the same relation that the
_Christian Topography_ of Cosmas bears to real geography. In vain
were exhibited the absolute geological, zoological, astronomical
proofs that no universal deluge, or deluge covering any larg
part of the earth, had taken place within the last six thousand
or sixty thousand years; in vain did so enlightened a churchman
as Bishop Clayton declare that the Deluge could not have
extended beyond that district where Noah lived before the Flood;
in vain did others, like Bishop Croft and Bishop Stillingfleet
and the nonconformist Matthew Poole, show that the Deluge might
not have been and probably was not universal; in vain was it
shown that, even if there had been a universal deluge, the
fossils were not produced by it: the only answers were the
citation of the text, "And all the high mountains which were
under the whole heaven were covered," and, to clinch the matter,
Worthington and men like him insisted that any argument to show
that fossils were not remains of animals drowned at the Delug
of Noah was "infidelity." In England, France, and Germany, belief
that the fossils were produced by the Deluge of Noah was widely
insisted upon as part of that faith essential to salvation.[230]
But the steady work of science went on: not all the force of the
Church--not even the splendid engravings in Scheuchzer's
Bible--could stop it, and the foundations of this theological
theory began to crumble away. The process was, indeed, slow; it
required a hundred and twenty years for the searchers of God's
truth, as revealed in Nature--such men as Hooke, Linnaeus,
Whitehurst, Daubenton, Cuvier, and William Smith--to push thei
works under this fabric of error, and, by statements which could
not be resisted, to undermine it. As we arrive at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, science is becoming irresistible in
this field. Blumenbach, Von Buch, and Schlotheim led the way,
but most important on the Continent was the work of Cuvier. In
the early years of the present century his researches among
fossils began to throw new light into the whole subject of
geology. He was, indeed, very conservative, and even more war
and diplomatic; seeming, like Voltaire, to feel that "among
wolves one must howl a little." It was a time of reaction
Napoleon had made peace with the Church, and to disturb that
peace was akin to treason. By large but vague concessions Cuvier
kept the theologians satisfied, while he undermined their
strongest fortress. The danger was instinctively felt by some of
the champions of the Church, and typical among these was
Chateaubriand, who in his best-known work, once so great, now so
little--the _Genius of Christianity_--grappled with the questions
of creation by insisting upon a sort of general deception "in
the beginning," under which everything was created by a sudden
fiat, but with appearances of pre-existence. His words are as
follows: "It was part of the perfection and harmony of th
nature which was displayed before men's eyes that the deserted
nests of last year's birds should be seen on the trees, and that
the seashore should be covered with shells which had been the
abode of fish, and yet the world was quite new, and nests an
shells had never been inhabited."[231] But the real victory was
with Brongniart, who, about 1820, gave forth his work on fossil
plants, and thus built a barrier against which the enemies o
science raged in vain.[231b]
Still the struggle was not ended, and, a few years later, a
forlorn hope was led in England by Granville Penn.
His fundamental thesis was that "our globe has undergone onl
two revolutions, the Creation and the Deluge, and both by the
immediate fiat of the Almighty"; he insisted that the Creation
took place in exactly six days of ordinary time, each made up of
"the evening and the morning"; and he ended with a piece of
that peculiar presumption so familiar to the world, by calling
on Cuvier and all other geologists to "ask for the old paths
and walk therein until they shall simplify their system and
reduce their numerous revolutions to the two events or epochs
only--the six days of Creation and the Deluge."[232c] Th
geologists showed no disposition to yield to this peremptory
summons; on the contrary, the President of the British
Geological Society, and even so eminent a churchman an
geologist as Dean Buckland, soon acknowledged that facts obliged
them to give up the theory that the fossils of the coal measure
were deposited at the Deluge of Noah, and to deny that the
Deluge was universal.
The defection of Buckland was especially felt by the orthodox
party. His ability, honesty, and loyalty to his profession, a
well as his position as Canon of Christ Church and Professor of
Geology at Oxford, gave him great authority, which he exerted to
the utmost in soothing his brother ecclesiastics. In his
inaugural lecture he had laboured to show that geology confirmed
the accounts of Creation and the Flood as given in Genesis, and
in 1823, after his cave explorations had revealed overwhelming
evidences of the vast antiquity of the earth, he had still clung
to the Flood theory in his _Reliquiae Diluvianae_.
This had not, indeed, fully satisfied the anti-scientific party,
but as a rule their attacks upon him took the form not so much
of abuse as of humorous disparagement. An epigram by
Shuttleworth, afterward Bishop of Chichester, in imitation of
Pope's famous lines upon Newton, ran as follows:
"Some doubts were once expressed about the Flood
Buckland arose, and all was clear as mud."
On his leaving Oxford for a journey to southern Europe, Dean
Gaisford was heard to exclaim: "Well, Buckland is gone t
Italy; so, thank God, we shall have no more of this geology!"
Still there was some comfort as long as Buckland held to the
Deluge theory; but, on his surrender, the combat deepened:
instead of epigrams and caricatures came bitter attacks, an
from the pulpit and press came showers of missiles. The worst of
these were hurled at Lyell. As we have seen, he had published in
1830 his _Principles of Geology_. Nothing could have been more
cautious. It simply gave an account of the main discoveries up
to that time, drawing the necessary inferences with plain yet
convincing logic, and it remains to this day one of those works
in which the Anglo-Saxon race may most justly take pride,--one of
the land-marks in the advance of human thought.
But its tendency was inevitably at variance with the Chaldean
and other ancient myths and legends regarding the Creation and
Deluge which the Hebrews had received from the older
civilizations among their neighbours, and had incorporated into
the sacred books which they transmitted to the modern world; it
was therefore extensively "refuted."
Theologians and men of science influenced by them insisted that
his minimizing of geological changes, and his laying stress on
the gradual action of natural causes still in force, endangere
the sacred record of Creation and left no place for miraculous
intervention; and when it was found that he had entirely cast
aside their cherished idea that the great geological changes of
the earth's surface and the multitude of fossil remains were
due to the Deluge of Noah, and had shown that a far longer time
was demanded for Creation than any which could possibly b
deduced from the Old Testament genealogies and chronicles
orthodox indignation burst forth violently; eminent dignitaries
of the Church attacked him without mercy and for a time he wa
under social ostracism.
As this availed little, an effort was made on the scientific
side to crush him beneath the weighty authority of Cuvier; but
the futility of this effort was evident when it was found that
thinking men would no longer listen to Cuvier and persisted i
listening to Lyell. The great orthodox text-book, Cuvier's
_Theory of the Earth_, became at once so discredited in the
estimation of men of science that no new edition of it was
called for, while Lyell's work speedily ran through twelve
editions and remained a firm basis of modern thought.[233]
As typical of his more moderate opponents we may take Fairholme,
who in 1837 published his _Mosaic Deluge_, and argued that no
early convulsions of the earth, such as those supposed by
geologists, could have taken place, because there could have
been no deluge "before moral guilt could possibly have bee
incurred"--that is to say, before the creation of mankind. In
touching terms he bewailed the defection of the President of the
Geological Society and Dean Buckland--protesting against
geologists who "persist in closing their eyes upon the solemn
declarations of the Almighty"
Still the geologists continued to seek truth: the germs planted
especially by William Smith, "the Father of English Geology"
were developed by a noble succession of investigators, and the
victory was sure. Meanwhile those theologians who felt that
denunciation of science as "godless" could accomplish little,
laboured upon schemes for reconciling geology with Genesis. Some
of these show amazing ingenuity, but an eminent religious
authority, going over them with great thoroughness, has well
characterized them as "daring and fanciful." Such attempts hav
been variously classified, but the fact regarding them all is
that each mixes up more or less of science with more or less of
Scripture, and produces a result more or less absurd. Though a
few men here and there have continued these exercises, the
capitulation of the party which set the literal account of the
Deluge of Noah against the facts revealed by geology was at las
clearly made.[234]
One of the first evidences of the completeness of this surrender
has been so well related by the eminent physiologist, Dr. W. B.
Carpenter, that it may best be given in his own words: "You ar
familiar with a book of considerable value, Dr. W. Smith's
_Dictionary of the Bible_. I happened to know the influences under
which that dictionary was framed. The idea of the publisher and
of the editor was to give as much scholarship and such results
of modern criticism as should be compatible with a very
judicious conservatism. There was to be no objection to geology,
but the universality of the Deluge was to be strictly
maintained. The editor committed the article _Deluge_ to a man o
very considerable ability, but when the article came to him he
found that it was so excessively heretical that he could not
venture to put it in. There was not time for a second article
under that head, and if you look in that dictionary you will
find under the word _Deluge_ a reference to _Flood_. Before _Flood_
came, a second article had been commissioned from a source that
was believed safely conservative; but when the article came in
it was found to be worse than the first. A third article wa
then commissioned, and care was taken to secure its `safety.' If
you look for the word _Flood_ in the dictionary, you will find a
reference to _Noah_. Under that name you will find an article
written by a distinguished professor of Cambridge, of which I
remember that Bishop Colenso said to me at the time, `In a very
guarded way the writer concedes the whole thing.' You will see
by this under what trammels scientific thought has laboured in
this department of inquiry."[235
A similar surrender was seen when from a new edition of Horne's
_Introduction to the Scriptures_, the standard textbook of
orthodoxy, its accustomed use of fossils to prove the
universality of the Deluge was quietly dropped.[235b]
A like capitulation in the United States was foreshadowed in
1841, when an eminent Professor of Biblical Literature and
interpretation in the most important theological seminary of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, Dr. Samuel Turner, showed his
Christian faith and courage by virtually accepting the new view;
and the old contention was utterly cast away by the thinking men
of another great religious body when, at a later period, two
divines among the most eminent for piety and learning in the
Methodist Episcopal Church inserted in the _Biblical Cyclopaedia_,
published under their supervision, a candid summary of th
proofs from geology, astronomy, and zoology that the Deluge of
Noah was not universal, or even widely extended, and this
without protest from any man of note in any branch of the
American Church.[235c]
The time when the struggle was relinquished by enlightened
theologians of the Roman Catholic Church may be fixed at about
1862, when Reusch, Professor of Theology at Bonn, in his work on
_The Bible and Nature_, cast off the old diluvial theory and all
its supporters, accepting the conclusions of science.[236]
But, though the sacred theory with the Deluge of Noah as a
universal solvent for geological difficulties was evidently
dying, there still remained in various quarters a touching
fidelity to it. In Roman Catholic countries the old theory was
widely though quietly cherished, and taught from the religiou
press, the pulpit, and the theological professor's chair. Pope
Pius IX was doubtless in sympathy with this feeling when, about
1850, he forbade the scientific congress of Italy to meet at
Bologna.[236b]
In 1856 Father Debreyne congratulated the theologians of Franc
on their admirable attitude: "Instinctively," he says, "they
still insist upon deriving the fossils from Noah's Flood."[236c]
In 1875 the Abbe Choyer published at Paris and Angers a
text-book widely approved by Church authorities, in which he
took similar ground; and in 1877 the Jesuit father Bosizio
published at Mayence a treatise on _Geology and the Deluge_
endeavouring to hold the world to the old solution of the
problem, allowing, indeed, that the "days" of Creation were
long periods, but making atonement for this concession by sneers
at Darwin.[236d
In the Russo-Greek Church, in 1869, Archbishop Macarius, of
Lithuania, urged the necessity of believing that Creation in six
days of ordinary time and the Deluge of Noah are the only causes
of all that geology seeks to explain; and, as late as 1876,
another eminent theologian of the same Church went even farther,
and refused to allow the faithful to believe that any change had
taken place since "the beginning" mentioned in Genesis, when
the strata of the earth were laid, tilted, and twisted, and the
fossils scattered among them by the hand of the Almighty durin
six ordinary days.[237]
In the Lutheran branch of the Protestant Church we also find
echoes of the old belief. Keil, eminent in scriptural
interpretation at the University of Dorpat, gave forth in 1860
a treatise insisting that geology is rendered futile and its
explanations vain by two great facts: the Curse which drove
Adam and Eve out of Eden, and the Flood that destroyed al
living things save Noah, his family, and the animals in the ark.
In 1867, Phillippi, and in 1869, Dieterich, both theologians of
eminence, took virtually the same ground in Germany, the latter
attempting to beat back the scientific hosts with a phras
apparently pithy, but really hollow--the declaration tha
"modern geology observes what is, but has no right to judge
concerning the beginning of things." As late as 1876, Zugler
took a similar view, and a multitude of lesser lights, through
pulpit and press, brought these antiscientific doctrines to bear
upon the people at large--the only effect being to arouse grave
doubts regarding Christianity among thoughtful men, and
especially among young men, who naturally distrusted a cause
using such weapons.
For just at this time the traditional view of the Deluge
received its death-blow, and in a manner entirely unexpected. By
the investigations of George Smith among the Assyrian tablets o
the British Museum, in 1872, and by his discoveries just
afterward in Assyria, it was put beyond a reasonable doubt that
a great mass of accounts in Genesis are simply adaptations of
earlier and especially of Chaldean myths and legends. While this
proved to be the fact as regards the accounts of Creation and
the fall of man, it was seen to be most strikingly so as regards
the Deluge. The eleventh of the twelve tablets, on which the
most important of these inscriptions was found, was almost
wholly preserved, and it revealed in this legend, dating from
a time far earlier than that of Moses, such features peculiar to
the childhood of the world as the building of the great ship or
ark to escape the flood, the careful caulking of its seams, the
saving of a man beloved of Heaven, his selecting and taking with
him into the vessel animals of all sorts in couples, the
impressive final closing of the door, the sending forth
different birds as the flood abated, the offering of sacrifice
when the flood had subsided, the joy of the Divine Being who ha
caused the flood as the odour of the sacrifice reached his
nostrils; while throughout all was shown that partiality for the
Chaldean sacred number seven which appears so constantly in the
Genesis legends and throughout the Hebrew sacred books.
Other devoted scholars followed in the paths thus opened--Sayce
in England, Lenormant in France, Schrader in Germany--with the
result that the Hebrew account of the Deluge, to which for ages
theologians had obliged all geological research to conform, was
quietly relegated, even by most eminent Christian scholars, to
the realm of myth and legend.[238]
Sundry feeble attempts to break the force of this discovery, and an
evidently widespread fear to have it known, have certainly impaired
not a little the legitimate influence of the Christian clergy.
And yet this adoption of Chaldean myths into the Hebrew
Scriptures furnishes one of the strongest arguments for th
value of our Bible as a record of the upward growth of man; for,
while the Chaldean legend primarily ascribes the Deluge to the
mere arbitrary caprice of one among many gods (Bel), the Hebrew
development of the legend ascribes it to the justice, the
righteousness, of the Supreme God; thus showing the evolution of
a higher and nobler sentiment which demanded a moral cause
adequate to justify such a catastrophe.
Unfortunately, thus far, save in a few of the broader and noble
minds among the clergy, the policy of ignoring such new
revelations has prevailed, and the results of this policy, both
in Roman Catholic and in Protestant countries, are not far to
seek. What the condition of thought is among the middle classes
of France and Italy needs not to be stated here. In Germany, as
a typical fact, it may be mentioned that there was in the year
1881 church accommodation in the city of Berlin for but two pe
cent of the population, and that even this accommodation was
more than was needed. This fact is not due to the want of a deep
religious spirit among the North Germans: no one who has lived
among them can doubt the existence of such a spirit; but it is
due mainly to the fact that, while the simple results of
scientific investigation have filtered down among the people at
large, the dominant party in the Lutheran Church has steadily
refused to recognise this fact, and has persisted in imposing on
Scripture the fetters of literal and dogmatic interpretation
which Germany has largely outgrown. A similar danger threatens
every other country in which the clergy pursue a similar policy.
No thinking man, whatever may be his religious views, can fail
to regret this. A thoughtful, reverent, enlightened clergy is a
great blessing to any country. and anything which undermines
their legitimate work of leading men out of the worship of
material things to the consideration of that which is highest is
a vast misfortune.[239]
IV. FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.--THE VICTORY OF
SCIENCE COMPLETE.
Before concluding, it may be instructive to note a few
especially desperate attempts at truces or compromises, such as
always appear when the victory of any science has become
absolutely sure. Typical among the earliest of these may be
mentioned the effort of Carl von Raumer in 1819. With much
pretension to scientific knowledge, but with aspirations bounded
by the limits of Prussian orthodoxy, he made a laboured attempt
to produce a statement which, by its vagueness, haziness, and
"depth," should obscure the real questions at issue. Thi
statement appeared in the shape of an argument, used by Bertran
and others in the previous century, to prove that fossil remain
of plants in the coal measures had never existed as livin
plants, but had been simply a "result of the development of
imperfect plant embryos"; and the same misty theory was
suggested to explain the existence of fossil animals without
supposing the epochs and changes required by geological science.
In 1837 Wagner sought to uphold this explanation; but it was so
clearly a mere hollow phrase, unable to bear the weight of the
facts to be accounted for, that it was soon given up.
Similar attempts were made throughout Europe, the most
noteworthy appearing in England. In 1853 was issued an anonymous
work having as its title _A Brief and Complete Refutation of the
Anti-Scriptural Theory of Geologists_: the author having revived
an old idea, and put a spark of life into it--this idea being
that "all the organisms found in the depths of the earth were mad
on the first of the six creative days, as models for the plants and
animals to be created on the third, fifth, and sixth days."[240]
But while these attempts to preserve the old theory as to fossil
remains of lower animals were thus pressed, there appeared upon
the geological field a new scientific column far more terrible
to the old doctrines than any which had been seen previously.
For, just at the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth
century, geologists began to examine the caves and beds of drift
in various parts of the world; and within a few years from that
time a series of discoveries began in France, in Belgium, in
England, in Brazil, in Sicily, in India, in Egypt, and in
America, which established the fact that a period of time much
greater than any which had before been thought of had elapsed
since the first human occupation of the earth. The chronologies
of Archbishop Usher, Petavius, Bossuet, and the other great
authorities on which theology had securely leaned, were found
worthless. It was clearly seen that, no matter how well based
upon the Old Testament genealogies and lives of the patriarchs
all these systems must go for nothing. The most conservative
geologists were gradually obliged to admit that man had been
upon the earth not merely six thousand, or sixty thousand, or
one hundred and sixty thousand years. And when, in 1863, Sir
Charles Lyell, in his book on _The Antiquity of Man_, retracted
solemnly his earlier view--yielding with a reluctance almost
pathetic, but with a thoroughness absolutely convincing--the last
stronghold of orthodoxy in this field fell.[241
The supporters of a theory based upon the letter of Scripture,
who had so long taken the offensive, were now obliged to fight
upon the defensive and at fearful odds. Various lines of defenc
were taken; but perhaps the most pathetic effort was that made
in the year 1857, in England, by Gosse. As a naturalist he had
rendered great services to zoological science, but he now
concentrated his energies upon one last effort to save the
literal interpretation of Genesis and the theological structur
built upon it. In his work entitled _Omphalos_ he developed the
theory previously urged by Granville Penn, and asserted a new
principle called "prochronism." In accordance with this, all
things were created by the Almighty hand literally within the
six days, each made up of "the evening and the morning," and
each great branch of creation was brought into existence in an
instant. Accepting a declaration of Dr. Ure, that "neither
reason nor revelation will justify us in extending the origin of
the material system beyond six thousand years from our own
days," Gosse held that all the evidences of convulsive change
and long epochs in strata, rocks, minerals, and fossils are
simply "_appearances_"--only that and nothing more. Amon
these mere "appearances," all created simultaneously, were the
glacial furrows and scratches on rocks, the marks of retreat on
rocky masses, as at Niagara, the tilted and twisted strata, the
piles of lava from extinct volcanoes, the fossils of every sort
in every part of the earth, the foot-tracks of birds and
reptiles, the half-digested remains of weaker animals found in
the fossilized bodies of the stronger, the marks of hyenas,
teeth on fossilized bones found in various caves, and even the
skeleton of the Siberian mammoth at St. Petersburg with lumps of
flesh bearing the marks of wolves' teeth--all these, with all
gaps and imperfections, he urged mankind to believe came into
being in an instant. The preface of the work is especiall
touching, and it ends with the prayer that science an
Scripture may be reconciled by his theory, and "that the God of
truth will deign so to use it, and if he do, to him be all the
glory."[242] At the close of the whole book Gosse declared: "The
field is left clear and undisputed for the one witness on the
opposite side, whose testimony is as follows: `In six days
Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in the
is.'" This quotation he placed in capital letters, as the final
refutation of all that the science of geology had built.
In other parts of Europe desperate attempts were made even late
to save the letter of our sacred books by the revival of a
theory in some respects more striking. To shape this theory to
recent needs, vague reminiscences of a text in Job regardin
fire beneath the earth, and vague conceptions of speculations
made by Humboldt and Laplace, were mingled with Jewish
tradition. Out of the mixture thus obtained Schubert developed
the idea that the Satanic "principalities and powers" formerly
inhabiting our universe plunged it into the chaos from which it
was newly created by a process accurately described in Genesis.
Rougemont made the earth one of the "morning stars" of Job
reduced to chaos by Lucifer and his followers, and thence
developed in accordance with the nebular hypothesis. Kurtz
evolved from this theory an opinion that the geological
disturbances were caused by the opposition of the devil to th
rescue of our universe from chaos by the Almighty. Delitzsch put
a similar idea into a more scholastic jargon; but most desperat
of all were the statements of Dr. Anton Westermeyer, of Munich,
in _The Old Testament vindicated from Modern Infidel Objections_.
The following passage will serve to show his ideas: "By the
fructifying brooding of the Divine Spirit on the waters of the
deep, creative forces began to stir; the devils who inhabited
the primeval darkness and considered it their own abode saw that
they were to be driven from their possessions, or at least that
their place of habitation was to be contracted, and they
therefore tried to frustrate God's plan of creation and exert
all that remained to them of might and power to hinder or at
least to mar the new creation." So came into being "the
horrible and destructive monsters, these caricatures and
distortions of creation," of which we have fossil remains. Dr.
Westermeyer goes on to insist that "whole generations called
into existence by God succumbed to the corruption of the devil,
and for that reason had to be destroyed"; and that "in the
work of the six days God caused the devil to feel his power in
all earnest, and made Satan's enterprise appear miserable an
vain."[243]
Such was the last important assault upon the strongholds of
geological science in Germany; and, in view of this and others
of the same kind, it is little to be wondered at that when, in
1870, Johann Silberschlag made an attempt to again base geology
upon the Deluge of Noah, he found such difficulties that, in
touching passage, he expressed a desire to get back to the
theory that fossils were "sports of Nature."[243b]
But the most noted among efforts to keep geology well within the
letter of Scripture is of still more recent date. In the year
1885 Mr. Gladstone found time, amid all his labours and cares as
the greatest parliamentary leader in England, to take the field
in the struggle for the letter of Genesis against geology.
On the face of it his effort seemed Quixotic, for he confessed
at the outset that in science he was "utterly destitute of that
kind of knowledge which carries authority," and his argument
soon showed that this confession was entirely true
But he had some other qualities of which much might be expected
great skill in phrase-making, great shrewdness in adapting the
meanings of single words to conflicting necessities in
discussion, wonderful power in erecting showy structures of
argument upon the smallest basis of fact, and a facility almost
preternatural in "explaining away" troublesome realities. So
striking was his power in this last respect, that a humorous
London chronicler once advised a bigamist, as his only hope, to
induce Mr. Gladstone to explain away one of his wives.
At the basis of this theologico-geological structure Mr
Gladstone placed what he found in the text of Genesis: "A grand
fourfold division" of animated Nature "set forth in an orderl
succession of times." And he arranged this order and succession
of creation as follows: "First, the water population;
sec
