Title: The Freedom of Science
Author: Donat, Joseph, 1868-1946
Language: English
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                          The Freedom of Science

                                    By

                         Joseph Donat, S.J., D.D.

                      Professor Innsbruck University

                                 New York

                             Joseph F. Wagner

                                   1914



CONTENTS


Imprimatur.
Author’s Preface To The English Edition.
Translator’s Note.
First Section. The Freedom of Science and its Philosophical Basis.
   Chapter I. Science And Freedom.
   Chapter II. Two Views Of The World And Their Freedom.
   Chapter III. Subjectivism And Its Freedom.
Second Section. Freedom of Research and Faith.
   Chapter I. Research And Faith In General.
   Chapter II. The Authority Of Faith And The Free Exercise Of Research.
   Chapter III. Unprepossession Of Research.
   Chapter IV. Accusations And Objections.
   Chapter V. The Witnesses of the Incompatibility Of Science And Faith.
Third Section. The Liberal Freedom of Research.
   Chapter I. Free From The Yoke Of The Supernatural.
   Chapter II. The Unscientific Method.
   Chapter III. The Bitter Fruit.
Fourth Section. Freedom of Teaching.
   Chapter I. Freedom Of Teaching And Ethics.
   Chapter II. Freedom Of Teaching And The State.
Fifth Section. Theology.
   Chapter I. Theology And Science.
   Chapter II. Theology And University.
Index.
Footnotes



IMPRIMATUR.


Nihil Obstat
REMIGIUS LAFORT, D.D.
_Censor_

Imprimatur
JOHN CARDINAL FARLEY
_Archbishop of New York_

NEW YORK, January 22, 1914.

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY JOSEPH F. WAGNER, NEW YORK



AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.


The present work has already secured many friends in German Europe. An
invitation has now been extended for its reception among the
English-speaking countries, with the object that there, too, it may seek
readers and friends, and communicate to them its thoughts—the ideas it has
to convey and to interpret. While wishing it heartfelt success and good
fortune on its journey, the Author desires it to convey his greetings to
its new readers.

This book has issued from the throes of dissension and strife, seeing the
light at a time when, in Austria and Germany, the bitter forces of
opposition, that range themselves about the shibboleth _Freedom of
Science_, were seen engaging in a combat of fiercer intensity than ever.
Yet, notwithstanding, this Child of Strife has learned the language of
Peace only. It speaks the language of an impartial objectivity which
endeavours, in a spirit of unimpassioned, though earnest, calm, to range
itself over the burning questions of the day—over those great
_Weltanschauung_ questions, that stand in such close relation with the
compendious motto: _Freedom of Science_. Yes, _Freedom_ and _Science_
serve, in our age and on both sides of the Atlantic, as trumpet-calls, to
summon together—often indeed to pit in deadly combat—the rival forces of
opposition. They are catch-words that tend to hold at fever-pitch the
intellectual life of modern civilization—agents as they are of such mighty
and far-reaching influences. On the one hand, Science, whence the moving
and leading ideas of the time take shape and form to go forth in turn and
subject to their sway the intellect of man; on the other, Freedom—that
Freedom of sovereign emancipation, that Christian Freedom of well-ordered
self-development, which determine the actions, the strivings of the human
spirit, even as they control imperceptibly the march of Science. While the
present volume is connected with this chain of profound problems, it
becomes, of itself, a representation of the intellectual life of our day,
with its far-reaching philosophical questions, its forces of struggle and
opposition, its dangers, and deep-seated evils.

The Author has a lively recollection of an expression which he heard a few
years ago, in a conversation with an American professor, then journeying
in Europe. “Here, they talk of tolerance,” he observed, “while in America
we put it into practice.” The catch-word _Freedom of Science_ will not,
therefore, in _every_ quarter of the world, serve as a call to arms,
causing the opposing columns to engage in mutual conflict, as is the case
in many portions of Europe. But certain it is that everywhere alike—in the
new world of America, as well as in the old world of Europe—the human
spirit has its attention engaged with the same identical questions—those
topics of nerve-straining interest that sway and surge about this same
catch-word like so many opposing forces. Everywhere we shall have those
tense oppositions between sovereign Humanity and Christianity, between
Knowledge and Faith, between Law and Freedom; everywhere those questions
on the Rights and Obligations of Science, on Catholic Thought, and on
Catholic Doctrinal Beliefs and Duties.

May it fall to the lot of this book to be able to communicate to many a
reader, interested in such topics, words of enlightenment and
explanation—to some for the strengthening of their convictions, to others
for the correction, perhaps, of their erroneous views. At home, while
winning the sympathy of many readers, it has not failed to encounter also
antagonism. This was to be expected. The resolute championing of the
principles of the Christian view of the world, as well as many a candid
expression of views touching the intellectual impoverishment and the
ever-shifting position of unshackled Freethinking, must necessarily arouse
such antagonism. May the present volume meet on the other side of the
Atlantic with a large share of that tolerance which is put into actual
practice there, and is there not merely an empty phrase on the lips of
men! May it contribute something to the better and fuller understanding of
the saying of that great English scientist, WILLIAM THOMSON: “Do not be
afraid of being free-thinkers! If you think strongly enough, you will be
forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all
religion.”

Finally, I may be allowed to express my sincere thanks to the publisher
for undertaking the work of this translation.

May it accomplish much good.

J. Donat.

UNIVERSITY INNSBRUCK,
CHRISTMAS, 1913.



TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.


The German original is replete with references to works especially in the
German language, the author having with great care quoted title and page
whenever referring to an author. Since many of these references are of
value only to those familiar with the German, they have been abbreviated
or omitted in this English version, whenever they would seem to needlessly
encumber its pages.

Those desirous of verifying quotations will be enabled to do so in all
instances by a reference to the German original.



FIRST SECTION. THE FREEDOM OF SCIENCE AND ITS PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS.



Chapter I. Science And Freedom.


If a question is destined to agitate and divide for considerable length of
time the minds of men, it must undoubtedly have its root deep in the
entire intellectual life of the times; it must be anchored in profound
philosophical thought, in theories of life. From this source it derives
its power of captivating the minds. All this applies to the question of
the Freedom of Science. If, then, we desire a thorough understanding of
this question, we must first of all seek and examine its deeper lying
philosophical basis; we must trace the threads which so closely unite it
to the intellectual life and effort of the times.

But before we begin our study, let us remember a rule of the great orator
and philosopher of ancient Rome; a rule only too often forgotten in our
times: “Every philosophical discussion, of anything whatsoever, should
begin with a definition, in order to make clear what the discussion is
about” (_Cicero_, De Officiis, I, 2). If we would form a judgment as to
the demand of science for freedom, as to the justification of this demand,
as to its compatibility or incompatibility with the duty of faith, the
first question that naturally arises is: What is the purport of this
demand, what does it mean? Only after we have clearly circumscribed this
demand can we approach its philosophical presumptions and test its basis.

What, then, do we understand by Science, and what freedom may be granted
to it?



Science.


When a man of Northern or Central Europe hears of science, his thoughts
generally turn to the universities and their teachers. To him the
university is the home of science, there its numerous branches dwell in
good fellowship, there hundreds of men have consecrated themselves to its
service. In those parts of Europe it is customary for men of science to be
university professors. Of what university is he? is asked. Celebrated
scientists, like _Helmholtz_, _Liebig_, _Hertz_, _Kirchhoff_;
philosophers, like _Kant_, _Fichte_, _Schelling_, _Hegel_, _Herbart_;
great philologists, historians, and so on, were university professors.

For all that, _science_ and _university_ are not necessarily inseparable
things. The university needs science, but science does not absolutely need
the university. Science was in the world before the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, the time when France and Italy built their first universities;
and also since then science has been enriched by the achievements of many
a genius who never occupied a university chair. _Pythagoras_, _Aristotle_,
_St. Augustine_ belonged to no universities; _Copernicus_, _Newton_, and
_Kepler_ never taught in the higher schools. In the countries of Western
Europe and America the man of science and the university professor are to
this day not so much identical in person. Therefore, if the freedom of
science applies _principally_ to the higher schools and their teachers,
this is not its exclusive application. Science and university are not
identical terms.

What, then, is science?

At the sound of this magic word there arises in the minds of many the
image of a superhuman being: open on his lap lies the book of wisdom in
which all mysteries are solved; in his hand is the flaming torch which
enlightens the path down into the lowest depths of research, dispelling
all darkness. This, in the minds of many, is what science means. The mere
appeal to this infallible being suffices to settle all problems, to
silence every contradiction; woe to him who dares open his profane mouth
to utter an If or a But!

Were this science, there would be no dispute. We should have to admit that
there could be no limit set to the freedom of this being; he must share
the privileges of divine Intelligence, for no command to keep silent can
be imposed on Infallible Truth; there can be no amendment. But, alas! in
the world of reality this personified Science is nowhere to be found, it
exists solely in the realm of rhetoric and poetry. Science, as it exists
among men, has its seat, after all, nowhere else than in the human mind.
It is, indeed, nothing else but _the well-ordered summary of knowledge and
of the research for the causes of things_. Natural science is the summary
of knowledge and research in the realm of natural phenomena, arranged in
an orderly way, as a text-book will give it; that is, an investigation of
phenomena and their causes. A mere description of natural phenomena,
without any explanation, or reference of them to the laws of nature, would
indeed be teaching about nature, but not natural science. Similarly, the
science of history is the well-ordered summary of knowledge and research
in the domain of human events, derived from their sources, with the
statement of facts according to cause and effect.

And not all this knowledge is certain, and free from doubt. The modern
conception of science, as we now have it—the ancients had a much narrower
conception—includes certain as well as uncertain knowledge, results and
hypotheses, and even the activity of research, together with its methods.
Astronomy was thus in _Ptolemy’s_ time the summary of what was then known
with more or less certainty about the stars; included in this, as is well
known, was the opinion that the sun circles around the earth. And the
philosophy of _Aristotle_ embraced his philosophical ideas about God, the
world and man; hence many errors. Further, when speaking of science in
general, we mean the whole number of the individual sciences. It is the
freedom of science in this sense that we have to investigate here. The
individual sciences are distinguished one from another principally by the
subjects of which they treat. Astronomy is distinguished from palæontology
and philosophy by the fact that it treats of the stars, not of fossils, or
of the fundamental truths of reason.

From this brief analysis of concepts it is clear that science and
scientific research are not superhuman beings, but an activity or
condition of the human mind, distinguished from the ordinary thought of
the individual only by system and method, and, commonly, by greater
thoroughness and by the united effort of many. _It is subject to all the
limitations of the human mind._

What follows from this? Two things. Let us at once make a brief reference
to both of them, because in our discussion they are of the greatest
importance.

Since, then, science is an activity of the human mind, it must, like it,
always and everywhere be _subject to the Truth_ and _subject to God_.
Subject to the Truth: whenever science comes in contact with it, it must
reverently bow to the truth. And subject to God: if God is the Creator of
man and of his spiritual and bodily activity, He is also the master of his
whole being, and man is subject to Him in all his activity and
development, therefore in his intellectual life, and in his artistic and
scientific pursuits. Everything is and remains the activity of the
_creature_. As gravitation rules the entire planet and its material
activity, attracts it towards the sun and makes it circle around it, so
does the law of dependence on God rule the whole life of the creature. Man
cannot therefore, even in his scientific research, ignore his Creator,
cannot emancipate himself from His authority; and if God has given a
revelation and demands faith, the man of science, too, must believe. There
cannot be an emancipated, free, science in this sense.

Another consequence is this: since science is an activity of the human
mind, it shares all its _imperfections and weaknesses_. It is truly flesh
of its flesh. The fruit cannot be more perfect than the tree that produces
it, nor the flower better than the plant on which it blossomed. Now, as
the human mind is throughout limited in its nature, so is it also in its
research. It is not given to man to soar aloft on eagle wings to the
heights of knowledge, thence to gaze upon truth with unerring intuition;
the ascent must be slow, with constant dangers of stumbling, even of
falling headlong. To these dangers must be added his latent likes and
dislikes, which imperceptibly guide his thought, especially in forming
opinions on questions of the world and of life, which the human heart
cannot view with indifference: they influence his thought. Hence
ignorance, darkness, and error, everywhere accompany the investigator
individually, and science as a whole, all the more the loftier the
questions that present themselves.


    Already the philosopher of the dim past gave expression to the
    complaint, that our reason is no more capable of knowing the
    divine than the eyes of the owl are of seeing in broad daylight.
    It is _Aristotle_ who so complains. And the great _Newton_, in the
    evening of his life, thus estimates the worth of his knowledge:
    “What the world may think about my labour, I do not know; I feel
    like a child that plays on the strand of the sea: now and then I
    may perhaps find a pebble or shell more beautiful than those of my
    playmates, while the boundless ocean lies ever before me with its
    undiscovered treasures” (apud _O. Zoeckler_, Gottes Zeugen im
    Reich der Natur (1906), 173). The same sorrowful plaint is heard
    from all serious investigators, especially those in the domain of
    the natural sciences, who should have more reason than others to
    be proud of their achievements. “However great the amount of human
    knowledge may seem to the multitude,” writes the well-known
    chemist _Schoenbein_, “the most experienced scientist feels the
    incompleteness and patchwork of it, and realizes that man so far
    has been able to learn but infinitely little of what nature is,
    and of what can be known.” “The more exact the investigation,”
    says the geologist _Quenstedt_, “so much the more obscure is its
    beginning. Indeed, the deeper we think to have understood the
    single parts, the further the original plan of the Creator seems
    to escape us” (cf. _Kneller_, Das Christentum und die Vertreter
    der neueren Naturwissenschaften (1904), 208, 281). “Although
    science,” so we are assured by another modern savant, “has brought
    to light many a treasure, still, compared with what we do not yet
    know, it is as a drop to the ocean. In all our knowledge there
    will always be the danger of error.” We are probably not very far
    in advance of the time of _Albrecht von Haller_, who said: “We,
    all of us, err, only each errs in a different way. Every passage
    that has been illuminated by science is surrounded by dense
    darkness; beyond the visible lies the invisible.” And Prof. _J.
    Reinke_ continues: “As early as the day of _Socrates_, the
    beginning of philosophy was to know that we know nothing; the end
    of philosophy, to know that we must believe: such is the
    inevitable fate of human wisdom” (Naturwissenschaft und Religion,
    in Natur und Kultur IV (1907), 418, 425. Printed also separately).
    Some years ago Sir _W. Ramsay_, a noted scientist, concluded a
    discourse on his scientific labour with the words: “When a man has
    reached the middle of his life, he begins to believe that the
    longer he lives the less he knows! This is my excuse for having
    molested you for an hour with my ignorance” (Einige Betrachtungen
    ueber das periodische Gesetz der Elemente. Vortrag auf der 75.
    Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Ærzte zu Cassel (1903)).

    If science, then, can only with difficulty lift from visible
    nature the veils that hide the truth—and even this is often beyond
    its power—no wonder it is confronted with still greater obstacles
    when it approaches the truths that are beyond visible nature.
    Moreover, it is an old truth that here it is led not by reason
    only, but also, and even more energetically, by self-interest.
    “Most men,” says _Cicero_, “are swayed in their judgments by
    either love or hatred, likes or dislikes” (De Oratore, II, 42).


If this is the nature of human science, its adepts would be badly
deceiving themselves, if, in the pride of learning, they would reject
every correction, even proudly pushing aside the hand of God that reaches
down into the darkness of man’s intellectual life to offer its guidance.
He who realizes that he is in danger of losing his way in the dark, will
not reject a reliable guide; and he who fears to stumble will not refuse a
helping hand. Self-knowledge is the sister of wisdom, and the mother of
modesty.



Freedom.


Such, then, is science: not the goddess that emanated from the head of
immortal Jove, but the offspring of the puny mind of man, bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh. And this science cries for freedom. It would be
free and act freely; it urges its claim in the name of truth, which must
not be slighted; in the name of the progress of civilization, which must
not be hindered.

_Freedom_ clearly means nothing less than to be untrammeled and free from
restraint, from fetter and check, in action, thought, and desire. The
prisoner is free when his chains drop off, a people is free when it has
cast off the yoke of serfdom, the eagle is free and can spread out its
wings in lofty flight when not bound down to the earth. Science,
therefore, should be free in its activity from bond, fetter, and
restraint. Does this mean it must be free from _all_ restraint and law?
Should the historian be given the right to make _Solon_ a member of the
French Academy, or of the heroes of Troy mediæval knights? Should the
scientist be given the right to break every rule of logic, to ignore all
progress, and perhaps in his capriciousness return to the four elements of
_Aristotle_, or the astronomical chart of primitive ages? Nobody demands
this. No, science must be bound by the _truth_. Freedom indeed should not
mean lawlessness. Science remains bound by the general laws of logic, and
by positive facts. Truth is the irremovable barrier set in restraint of
the freedom of everything, even of scientific thought. The freedom of
science therefore can only be freedom from _unreasonable_ restraint and
fetters; from such that hinder it unreasonably in its inquiry after the
truth, and in the communication of the results of its investigation. _It
should be free, not from the internal bondage of truth, but from the
restraint by external authority_, the restraint which would hinder it, in
an _improper way_, from approaching those questions, and using those
methods, that lead to the discovery of truth, and from acknowledging the
results it has found to be true; or which would unlawfully keep it from
making known, for the benefit of others, the results of its investigation.
It should be free from any unjust restriction, imposed by state or Church,
by popular opinion, by party spirit, by hampering protectorate, or
servility of any kind.

From any _unjust_ restriction, we said. For this is clear: if under
certain circumstances there might be warrant for a _just_ restriction by
external authority, such a restriction could not be refused in the name of
freedom. So long, then, as we understand by freedom a _lawful_ freedom,
there cannot be included in this the freedom from _every_ external
authority, but only from _unlawful_ interference. There is, then, the
question whether there may be a legitimate restraint, imposed by external
authority, which man must not evade, and what the nature of such restraint
may be.

We must, moreover, take into consideration two elements, which are
distinguished in the above definitions, both belonging to the modern idea
of scientific freedom. We will call them _freedom of research_, and
_freedom of teaching_. The investigator and the scientist claim the one;
the teacher, the other. Searching after truth, and communicating the truth
found, are, as is known, the principal occupations of science. The
scientist should first of all be an investigator. He should not be content
to appropriate to himself the knowledge of others, he should also make his
own additions to knowledge. He is also commonly a teacher, by word of
mouth, as at the university, or by his writing, in his literary activity.
Research, as such, imparts directly a certain knowledge only to the
investigator; it is of a private nature and as such does not reach beyond
him. But by teaching, his ideas are communicated to others, and then begin
to influence their thought, will, and action, often very strongly.
Teaching is a social factor; with it are bound up the weal and woe of
others. Suppose a man of influence conceives in his study the idea that
monogamy is an infringement upon the universal rights of man; should he be
given without any ado the right of disseminating, by teaching, the
imagined results of his investigation, to the confusion of men, and with
serious danger to the peace of society?

We shall therefore have to distinguish between freedom of research and
freedom of teaching. The neglect of this distinction causes not a little
confusion; thus, if one complains of his convictions being trammeled or
his liberty of conscience being violated, when he is hindered from
immediately proclaiming whatever he calls his convictions. Private
opinion, and the public propaganda of this opinion, are evidently very
different things. It may be that an opinion seems to me the right one,
but, in spite of that, public dissemination of it may, always or under
certain circumstances, mean danger to my fellow-men. If I am for this
reason prevented from publishing it, I am not thereby hindered from giving
it my own private assent. It is, moreover, quite clear that the state—we
disregard here religious authority—cannot at all directly restrict
research, which is something personal. It can only impose restrictions on
the communication of one’s ideas by teaching them to others, which is a
social function.


    From these few remarks will be followed the impropriety of the
    following, or similar, observations: “The fostering of science and
    its teaching are not separate functions ... to insinuate a twofold
    function of freedom, viz., that of the savant and that of the
    teacher, would be to dissolve the unity of the moral personality”
    (_W. Kahl_, Bekenntnissgebundenheit und Lehrfreiheit (1897), 22).
    It is not at all double-dealing if some one does not publicly
    proclaim one’s private knowledge. Is it double-dealing, is it a
    violation of “the unity of the moral personality,” if one is, and
    must be, silent about official secrets? And if one does not tell,
    and is not allowed to tell, official secrets, if one prevents an
    anarchist from spreading his revolutionary ideas, is this a
    violation of the unity of the moral personality? It is true that
    “to deny one’s convictions is a violation of one of the most
    indubitable principles of moral conduct” (_K. v. Amira_, Die
    Stellung des akademischen Lehrers zur Freiheit in Forschung und
    Lehre. Beilage der Muenchener Neuesten Nachrichten. 9. Juli,
    1908). But it is logically incorrect to conclude therefrom that
    the freedom of teaching should not be restricted. To keep silence
    is not denying one’s convictions. Later on, when speaking of
    freedom in teaching, we shall return to this thought and deal with
    it more thoroughly.


So far there can be no serious diversity of opinion. Freedom from unjust
restraint is demanded, and rightly demanded, for science. The very object
of science requires it. In scientific research man’s power of discernment
should freely develop; his inclination towards truth should exert itself;
and by communication of acquired knowledge mankind should advance in
mental and material culture.

The bud bursts forth and freely unfolds its splendour; the butterfly grows
unhindered in beauty; the tree, too, wants freedom, in order to develop
its boughs and branches according to its nature, and if you try to bind
and tie it, it resists as much as it can. Just so is freedom needful for
the development of the noblest aspirations of human nature, for its
progress in knowledge. Every friend of humanity, every one who loves his
own kind, must be in sympathy with its progress. Who will not rejoice to
see the mind of man happily trace the laws of nature, laid down by the
Spirit of God in the stillness of eternity when as yet there was no
creature to heed, the laws He then placed in nature in order that the
reasonable creature might discern the marks of his Creator? Who would not
rejoice to see man, diligently following the facts of history and studying
the works of literature and art, find therein the ideas of God reflected,
as the rays of the sun in the trembling drop of dew, and, finally, trying
to solve the difficult problems of life? To this end has the Creator
enkindled in the mind of man a spark of His own intelligence; to this end
has He put in him a desire to inquire and learn, a desire which has
exerted itself most in the noblest of men. Man is destined to find his
ultimate gratification in beholding the Eternal Truth and Beauty, a vision
which will be the completion of human science and culture, the highest
perfection of created life. Thus man’s noble desire for knowledge and
truth must develop, it must be able to produce leaves and blossoms. For
this he needs freedom, free air, and free light.

If science is to attain its high purpose, it must have freedom also to
impart the knowledge acquired. It should indeed further the progress of
mankind. By its discovery it should enhance the beauty of human life,
should enrich the treasure of human knowledge, should promote education
and morality, to the honour of the Creator. For this end, too, freedom is
necessary: freedom to impart newly acquired knowledge, else there would be
no pleasure in work, stagnation rather than progress.



Chapter II. Two Views Of The World And Their Freedom.


There can, then, be no difference of opinion on this matter among
sober-minded men: science must be free from all unjust hindrances and
restraint. But we have not yet finished. We have not even proceeded very
far on our way. The further question at once presents itself: Which are
those unjust hindrances and restraints that scientific research and
teaching may reject? May there not perhaps be such which it must respect?
There is little meaning in the cry: Freedom! Freedom! This attractive
word, which always finds an enthusiastic echo in man, may easily prove a
misleading catchword, and become a dangerous weapon of the thoughtless and
the unscrupulous.

The question is not, whether our science, or, to speak more generally, our
intellectual life, must be free—of that there can be no doubt. No life can
spring up and thrive without due freedom. The question is: _What sort of
freedom?_ how can it be more precisely defined? We all, indeed, demand
freedom for the citizen; but what kind of freedom? He should be free from
the fetters of tyranny and despotism. Do we also demand that he be free
from the laws of the state? By no means! On the contrary, he must be
subject to these, for the very reason that he is a citizen and not the
inhabitant of an uncivilized world. We demand freedom for the artist; he
should not be bound by the tyranny of fashion. Do we also demand that he
be exempt from the laws of beauty and art? Not at all. He must subject
himself to these if he means to be an artist and not a quack. That would
not be true freedom, but lawlessness and license, the privilege of
barbarism. Freedom therefore is a very ambiguous word.

There are _two kinds of freedom_, _lawful_ and _unlawful_: the latter is
freedom from just laws, the former from unjust laws.

We ask again, what is that lawful freedom which man may claim for his
scientific activity? In other words, what are the restraints which he may
reject as unjust, and as enslaving the mind?—Here the ways part. Here,
too, our question goes deeper, and touches something which moves men’s
minds very powerfully. Two different views of the world, two opposite
conceptions of man and his thought, come here in collision.



The Christian View of the World and its Freedom.


On the one hand there is the Christian view of the world: it is
essentially also the one which appears self-evident to every unbiassed
mind. In this view man is a _creature, limited in every way, therefore in
many ways dependent upon_ external rules, forces, and authorities. To God
alone is it reserved to be infinite, and, therefore, to possess in Himself
all perfection, goodness, and truth; for which reason there is nothing
above Him on which He could be dependent. This is not the case with man.
As a creature man is subject to his Creator. The latter is master over
man’s life and therefore at the same time its ultimate aim. For this
reason religion is of obligation to man, that is, he must honour God as He
demands it; if God requires faith in a revelation, if He established a
Church and duly authorized it to guide us, we must submit to it. In the
same way the intellect of man is bound by the laws of objective truth,
which is not of his making, but presents itself to him as a norm: he must
always be subject to it whether he wishes or not. Man is, finally, a
factor in social life; he lives in the family, state, and Church, in the
great society of mankind; upon them he is dependent for his education and
development. And society requires that man be subject to a ruling
authority, that in many things his own interests be subordinated to the
welfare of the community.

This is the order that God has established and wishes observed. Hence all
human authority is a participation in God’s supreme government. Thus it
comes about that limits may be set to the scientist’s free expression of
his views, if the interest of the community require it.

Man is, nevertheless, free. But his freedom does not mean complete
independence; nor freedom from all restraint, but only from those external
restraints which are opposed to his nature and position, which hinder his
legitimate development and activity. He possesses freedom, but only such a
freedom as is his due, by which he can unfold and develop his physical and
mental powers. To keep his place of subordination to, and dependence on,
these higher authorities and powers of truth and order, tends not to
injure but to improve his being, not to dwarf but to develop his
personality; for they are sources of life to him, they impart to his
existence order and harmony, they raise him above himself and his own
littleness, they free him from the prison of his own narrowness and
selfishness, from the chains of his unruly desires. If a man emancipates
himself from these bonds, which he ought to bear, he has freedom of
course, but an unnatural freedom, which will be harmful and perhaps
ruinous to him.

Take the tree, for instance. It should have freedom for its natural
growth. If you force it to creep along the ground instead of growing
upward, if you deny it air and light, you infringe on the freedom it
should have. Still it cannot have absolute freedom, for it is dependent on
the ground from which it derives its nourishment, dependent on the laws of
light and atmosphere and gravitation, on the laws of season; it must adapt
itself to climate and soil. It may not say to the light: Away with you!—a
stunted growth and deformity would be the result of such emancipation. It
may not say to the ground: Away with you!—a sad but quick death would be
its fate. It has its freedom, and in this freedom it grows and thrives. If
it desires greater freedom, it would be an unnatural one, and it would
tend, not to its development, but to its destruction.

Such is the Christian view of man and his thought. Here, then, there is
but one question to solve: Are the external restraints imposed on me in my
investigation and teaching against my nature; against the right of my mind
to truth; against my position in human society? If so, then I reject them,
because they mean serfdom, not duty; unjust bonds, not natural restraint.
But if not, then I do not refuse them my submission. Freedom I want, but
only the freedom of man.

Here we pause. Suffice it at present to have formulated the question; we
shall return to this topic later and discuss it at greater length.



The Modern Idea of Freedom.


The Christian view of man and his freedom, which to past ages appeared
self-evident, has grown obscure to many minds, and given place to another,
a more modern view.(1)

For the modern man, freedom, especially freedom of intellectual life,
means _independence from external ties, from all authority_, or, to
express it positively, absolute right of self-determination, _autonomy_.
He does not recognize any law or rule which he has not imposed upon
himself. In civil life, of course, it is a principle that man must submit
to external, legal restraint in many things that do not directly concern
his own person, but only so far as is necessary in order that others, too,
may enjoy the same freedom; but also here every citizen must be able to
share in the legislation, according to the rules of constitutional or
republican government. But he must be free from every external restraint
in whatever touches the core of his personality, his feeling, desire,
thought, and the expression of his thought.

It should now be clear, from what has been said, what is meant by _freedom
of science_. It means independence from every external authority and
restraint in research and teaching, the unhindered development and
assertion of one’s own intellectual personality. Man must let himself be
directed only by his own judgment and his instinct for the truth, or his
personal need, without heeding dogmas, Church laws, tradition, or any
other external norm whatsoever. This is particularly true in the _domain
of philosophy and religion_, in questions regarding the world and life,
and in fundamental social questions. This is principally, and almost
exclusively, the field in which an authoritative influence of the Church,
or state, or society in general, is to be feared. Hence the importance of
the question of the freedom of science in this field.

This is also the manner in which the advocates of modern freedom of
science unanimously describe it.


    For the academic teacher, says _G. Kaufmann_, there are “strictly
    speaking only the barriers drawn by his own instinct for the
    truth. It is in this sense that we demand freedom of science
    to-day for the university teacher. The freedom of the scientist
    and of the academic teacher must not be limited by patented truth,
    nor by faint-hearted consideration” (Die Lehrfreiheit an den
    deutschen Universitaeten im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (1898), 36).
    The first resolution proposed at the _Second Conference of German
    University Teachers_, at Jena, in September, 1908, was this: “The
    purpose of scientific research, and the communication of its
    results, demand that it be independent of every consideration
    foreign to scientific method itself.” Of this resolution we have
    from another source the following explanation: “Therefore, it
    should be independent especially of tradition and the prejudices
    of the masses, independent of authority and social bodies,
    independent of party interest.” (This was the addition to the
    thesis as originally formulated by Prof. _von Amira_. Beilage der
    Muenchener Neuesten Nachrichten, July 9, 1908.) And Prof. _F.
    Paulsen_ writes: “No thought can be commanded or forbidden the
    academic teacher or his audience” (Die deutschen Universitaeten
    und das Universitaets-studium, 1902, 288).

    _A. Harnack_ likewise teaches that “In regard to research and
    knowledge there must be unlimited freedom,” especially in matters
    of religion. Here “man must fully understand his own innermost
    being; the soul must recognize its own needs and the indicated way
    to their satisfaction. This it can do only when it is entirely
    free.” “The fear that thereby the door to serious error is thrown
    open should not in the least deter it, for the most serious error
    of all is the opinion that man should not enjoy perfect freedom in
    the determination of his state” (Neue Freie Presse, 7 Juni, 1908).

    The same demands are made by free-thinkers, who are always and
    everywhere in favor of free science. The _International Congress
    of Free-thinkers_, held at Rome in June, 1904, thus defines
    free-thought: “Since free-thought cannot concede to any authority
    whatever the right to oppose human reason, or even to supersede
    it, it demands that its advocates reject directly not only any
    compulsory belief, but also every authority that tries to enforce
    its dogmas, even though such an authority be based on revelation,
    or though it command obedience to dogmas or a-priori principles of
    philosophy, or to the decisions of public authority or the vote of
    a majority.”—We shall have frequent occasion to speak of this
    freedom in these pages.


Hence it is easily seen that this view differs from the one we considered
before. Freedom from _all_ external restraint has superseded freedom from
_unjust_ restraint. The presumption has found acceptance that every
interference by authority is unjust, a violation of the natural rights of
man and his thought. On what is this presumption based? In other words:
What are the philosophical premises of modern freedom of science? We shall
be occupied with this question now for some time. For only after we have
attentively considered it, can we gain an intelligent idea of the nature
of this freedom, of its methods, and of the justice of its claims.
Advocates of this view not infrequently think they have exhausted its
meaning when they have protested against ecclesiastical encroachments,
when they have held forth against Syllabus and Index. Of the deeper
thoughts it contains they have scarcely any idea.



The Humanitarian View of the World.


We may distinguish a twofold basis for this view, a general and a
particular one. The latter, which is connected with the former, is
subjectivism in thought. The former, the more _general_, at the same time
the _real basis of the modern freedom of science_, is that particular view
of man and his position in the world, which we may call the theory of
humanitarianism. We are familiar with this word—it has its history. The
word of itself conveys a good meaning: it means human nature and dignity,
thought and desire worthy of man, nobility of culture. During the
Renaissance the so-called “humanists” identified culture with knowledge of
the ancient classical literature. Many of them, however, added to the
admiration of classical literature also preference for pagan tastes, to
the contempt of the Christian spirit. Since that time the word
_humanitarian_ has never lost its unchristian sense; it has ever been made
the motto of men who emancipated themselves from God and Christianity.
Hence it is extensively the motto of our times.

It has changed the position of man. It has forgotten that man is a
created, limited, even a fallen being, withal destined for eternal
existence. To it man is everything; man left to himself and to his life in
this world, severed from God and his eternal destiny, an _absolute, purely
worldly being_. No longer does he look up to Heaven, no longer does he get
from above his laws, his hope for help, and strength, and eternal life. He
is his own and only end: he and his earthly happiness and advancement. In
himself alone he sees the source of his strength, in himself he finds his
law, to himself alone is he responsible, the inherited corruption of his
nature he has forgotten. What God once was to our fathers—the end and rule
of their life—that now is Man to their sons. The anthropocentric has
succeeded the theocentric view of the world. _Diis extinctis successit
humanitas_ (Man has succeeded the fallen gods). “Out of the corrupted
nations and decaying religions let there arise a more beautiful humanity!”
is the radical cry of this humanitarian religion.

When in 1892 the battle for a new school law was raging in Prussia,
_Caprivi_, the Chancellor of the Empire, said: “It is here question of a
contrast between Christianity and atheism. Essential to man is his
relation to God.” Scarcely had these words been uttered when a champion of
modern thought, Prof. _Fr. Jodl_, took up his pen and wrote: “No sharper
contrast with the convictions of the modern world is imaginable than that
expressed by the words of the imperial Chancellor, ‘essential to man is
his relation to God.’ To this sentence, which might be expected in a
speech of Cromwell, or in a papal encyclical, rather than from a statesman
of modern Germany, liberalism must with all possible emphasis oppose this
other sentence: What determines the real worth of a man, is, first and
last, his relation to humanity” (Moral, Religion und Schule, 1892, 14f.).
_Diis extinctis successit humanitas_. We shall not deny that the modern
spirit is a complicated structure: but neither can any one deny that its
chief characteristic is the humanitarian view, with its emancipation from
God, its decided emphasis of the things of this world, and its boundless
overestimation of man.

An attentive observer of these days, should he chance to come from an old,
Catholic town, and saunter with observant eye through one of our great
modern cities, particularly a Protestant one, would behold a vivid
realization of this modern view of the world. The most prominent feature
of the Catholic town of old was the House of God. It towered high above
the city, its spires reached heavenward; the houses of the faithful clung
around the House of God like chicks about the mother hen. The mere sight
told the beholder that here dwelt a people whose thoughts were directed
towards the other world; over their lives ruled the sacred peace of
eternity.

But here all is different. Here the most prominent feature is no longer
the House of God; worldly edifices have usurped its place; railroad
depots, barracks, city-hall and court-house dominate the city. The state
house bears no longer on its front the Christian motto, _Nisi Dominus
custodierit_ (“Unless the Lord keep the city he watcheth in vain that
keepeth it”). It would be considered a degradation should the state base
its existence upon religion. Should, then, the observer enter the
legislature he would learn the modern principles of state wisdom. The
state as such has no relation to religion; the principle is the separation
of state and Church. In the public squares he beholds mighty monuments,
erected, not to religious heroes and leaders, as perhaps of old, but to
great men of the world, champions of national progress. At their feet lie
wreaths of homage. They have brought modern humanity to its full stature,
maturity, and self-consciousness. Here it is Man who is standing
everywhere in the foreground. “It is I,” says he, “that lives here. Here I
have pitched my tent, from this earth come all my joys, and this sun is
shining upon my sorrows.”

Our observer, wandering about, finds everywhere magnificent state-schools,
scientific institutes, splendid colleges and universities. In years gone
by a cross or a word of divine wisdom was probably found here somewhere.
It is seen no more. Often it would seem that we can almost hear the words:
“We will not have this One rule over us.” Here a new race is being reared,
which no longer follows blindly the “old tradition,” it believes in its
own self and its own reason: culture and science take the place of the old
religion. He finds but few churches; and where found they are mostly
overshadowed by great palaces, and—mostly empty. The modern man passes
them by. He has no longer any understanding for the truths of the
Christian religion. It fails to satisfy him because it does not appeal to
modern ways of thinking and feeling, because it does not symbolize the
humanitarian creed. His desire is no longer for Heaven; his aspirations
are earthward. “The life beyond concerns me little: my joys come from this
world.” Contemplating modern civilization he exclaims, with the king of
Babylon: “Is not this the great Babylon, which I have built to be the seat
of the kingdom, by the strength of my power, and in the glory of my
excellence?” (Dan. iv. 27). The doctrine of a nature corrupted by original
sin, of a darkened intellect that needs divine revelation, of a weakened
will that needs strength from above, of sin that demands atonement,—all
this has become meaningless to him, it offends his higher sentiments, his
human dignity. He has no longer any understanding for a Saviour of the
world, in whom alone salvation is to be sought, much less for a Cross.
This sign of redemption, as a certain herald of modern thought remarked,
weighs like a mountain upon the mind of our day. He has no longer any
understanding for the saving institution of the Church, by whom he should
be led: she is to him an institution of intellectual serfdom. He makes his
own religion, free from dogma, just as his individuality desires, just as
he “lives” it.

Should our observer, while visiting the Protestant city, make a final
visit to its university, he will find there the thoughts, which hitherto
he had but vaguely felt, clothed in scientific language. There they meet
his gaze, defined sharply on the pedestal of Research as the Modern
Philosophy, protected, often exclusively privileged, by the state license
of teaching. It is the modern scientific view of the world, the only one
that men of modern times may hold. From here it is to find its way to
wider circles.


    “Man,” we are told by a pupil of _Feuerbach_, in accord with his
    master’s teaching, “man is man’s god. And only by the enthronement
    of this human god can the super-human and ultra-human God be made
    superfluous. What Christianity was and claimed to be in times gone
    by, that now is claimed by humanity.” “The being which man in
    religion and theology reveres,” continues _Jodl_ with _Feuerbach_,
    “is his own being, the essence of his own desires and ideals. If
    you eliminate from this conception all that is mere fancy and
    contrary to the laws of nature, what is left is a cultural ideal
    of civilization, a refined humanity, which will become a reality
    by its own independent strength and labour” (_Ludwig Feuerbach_,
    1904, 111 f., 194). “The greatest achievement of modern times,”
    says another panegyrist of emancipated humanity, “is the
    deliverance from the traditional bondage of a direct
    revelation.... Neither revelation nor redemption approach man from
    without; he is bound rather to struggle for his perfection by his
    own strength. What he knows about God, nature, and his own self,
    is of his own doing. He is in reality ‘the measure of all things,
    of those that are, and why they are; of those that are not, and
    why they are not.’ Of his dignity as an image of God, he has
    therefore not lost anything; on the contrary, he has come nearer
    to his resemblance to God, his highest end, by his consciousness
    of being self-existent and of having the destiny to produce
    everything of himself; from a receptive being he has become a
    spontaneous one; he has at last come to a clear knowledge of his
    own real importance and destiny” (_Spicker_, Der Kampf zweier
    Weltanschauungen, 1898, 134).

    Hence “not to make man religious,” to quote again the
    above-mentioned exponent of modern wisdom of life, “but to
    educate, to promote culture among all classes and professions,
    this is the task of the present time.” “Religion cannot therefore
    be the watchword of a progressive humanity; neither the religion
    of the past nor the religion that is to be looked for in the
    future, but ethics” (_Jodl_, ibid., 108, 112). Ethics, to be sure,
    the fundamental principles of which are not the commandments of
    God, by the keeping of which we are to reach our eternal
    happiness, but human laws, which are observed for the sake of man.
    “Morality and religion,” we are told, “shall no longer give us a
    narrow ladder on which we, each one for himself, climb to the
    heights of the other world; we are vaulting a majestic dome above
    this earth under which the generations come and go, succeeding
    each other in continuous procession.... The day will come when the
    rays of thought which are now dawning upon the highest and freest
    mountain-tops will bring the light of noonday down to mankind.”
    Woe to us, if from these high mountain-tops, where the bare rocks
    no longer take life and fecundity from the heavens, the sad desert
    of estrangement from God should extend into the fresh green of the
    valleys!

    The central ideas of the humanitarian view of the world appear
    again, though under different form, among Freemasons and
    free-thinkers, agitators for free religion and free schools. It is
    well known that Freemasonry has emblazoned “humanity” upon its
    standard. “One word of the highest meaning,” so wrote an official
    authority some years ago, “contains in itself the principle, the
    purpose, and the whole tenor of Freemasonry, this word is
    humanity. Humanity is indeed everything to us.” “What is humanity?
    It is all, and only that, which is human” (Freiburger Ritual, 24.
    _Pachtler_, Der Goetze der Humanitaet, 1875, 249 f.). “That which
    is essentially human is the sublime, divine, and the only
    Christian ideal,” adds another authority, addressing the aspirant
    to Freemasonry. “Leave behind you in the world your different
    church-formulas when you enter our temple, but let there always be
    with you the sense for what is holy in man, the religion which
    alone makes us happy” (Latomia, 1868, p. 167, _Pachtler_, 248). As
    early as 1823 the “Zeitschrift fuer Freimauerei” wrote: “We should
    be accused of idolatry should we personify the idea of humanity in
    the way in which the Divinity is usually personified. This is
    indeed our reason for withholding from the eyes of profane persons
    the humanitarian cult, till the time has come when, from east to
    west, from noon to midnight, its high ideal will be pondered and
    its cult propagated everywhere” (_Pachtler_, 255).

    The time has already come when “the rays of thought that dawned
    upon the mountain-tops” are descending into the valley. The
    Twenty-second Convention of German Free-religionists, at Goerlitz,
    at the end of May, 1907, passed this resolution: “The Convention
    sees one of its chief tasks in the alliance of all anti-clericals
    and free-thinkers, and tries by united effort to obtain this
    common end and interest by promoting culture, liberty of mind, and
    humanitarianism.” There was, moreover, taken up for discussion the
    thesis: “Free-religionists reject the teaching that declares man
    lost by original sin, unable to raise himself of his own strength
    and reason, that directs him to revelation, redemption, and grace
    from above.”


This view of the world finds its most characteristic expression in
_pantheism_, which, though expressed in various and often fantastic forms,
is eminently the religion of modern man. From this gloomy depth of
autotheism the apotheosis of man and his earthly life, the modern
consciousness of freedom, draws its strength and determination.

To find this modern view of man expressed in the language of consistent
radicalism, let us hear _Fr. Nietzsche_, the most modern of all
philosophers. His ideal is the transcendental man, who knows that God is
dead, that now there is no bar to stepping forth in unrestricted freedom
to superhuman greatness and independence. To this “masterman,” who deems
himself superior to others, everything is licit that serves his egotism
and will, everything that will promote his interest to the disadvantage of
the rabble; probity is cowardice! “But now this god is dead. Ye superior
men, this god was your greatest danger.” Thus spoke Zarathustra. “Only
since this god is buried do you begin to rise. Now at length the great
Noon is in its zenith. Now the superior man becomes master. Onward and
upward, then, ye superior men! At last the mountain of man’s future is in
travail. God is dead; let the superior man arise and live.” (Also sprach
Zarathustra, W. W. VI, 418.) And, in the consciousness that the Christian
religion condemns this self-exaltation, he breaks out in this blasphemous
charge: “I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great internal
corruption.... I call it the one immortal, disgraceful, blot on mankind”
(Antichrist, W. W. VIII, 313). This is independent humanity in the cloak
of fanaticism. _Nietzsche_ has carried the modern view of the world to its
final consequences; the autonomous man has developed into the god-like
superman who carries into effect the behest: Ye shall be as gods; his code
of ethics is that of the autocrat who is above the notions of good and
bad.

And “let no one deceive himself,” writes an intelligent observer of the
times, “the spirit of our time is attuned to _Nietzsche’s_ idea.”
Consciously or unconsciously this sentiment dominates more minds than many
a man learned in the wisdom of the schools may dream of. Did _Nietzsche_
create this spirit? Certainly not: he grew out of it, he has only given it
a philosophical setting. _Nietzsche_ would never have caused that
tremendous sensation, never have gathered around him his enthusiastic
followers, had not the soil been prepared. As it was, he appeared to “his”
men as the Messiah “in the fulness of time.” He, too, in his own way
“loosened the tongue of the dumb and opened the eyes of the blind.” The
veiled anti-Christian spirit, the unconscious religious and ethical
nihilism, which no one before dared profess openly, though it was hatching
in the minds, now had found its “master,” its “scientific system” (_Von
Grotthuss_, Tuermer, VII, 1905, 79). It is, asserts _Wundt_, “the new
ideal of free personality, dependent on precarious moods and chance
influences, that has found in _Nietzsche’s_ philosophy a fantastic
expression” (Ethik, ed. 3. 1905, p. 522).



The Autonomous Man.


Now we have a clearer idea of modern freedom. It is known as autonomism.
The individual wants to be a law to himself, his own court of last appeal;
he wants to develop his personality, feeling, desires, and thought,
independently of all authority. Too long, it is said, have man’s
aspirations been directed upward, away from things, of this world, to a
supernatural world. Religion and Church seek to determine his thought and
desire, to subject him to dogma. Too long has he clung like a child to the
apron-strings of authority. Man has at last awoken to self-consciousness
and to a sense of his own dignity, after a period of estrangement, so to
say, from himself; he has become himself again, as the poet sang when the
century of the “illuminati” was closing:


    “How beautiful, with palm of victory,
    O man, thou standest at the century’s close,
    The mightiest son thy Time has given birth,
    By reason free, by law and precept strong,
    Alike in meekness great and treasure rich,
    So long unknown concealed within thy breast.”


Yes, man has discovered the treasure that long lay hidden in his breast,
the seed and bud that longed to burst forth into life and blossom. Now the
motto is: Independent self-development; no more restraint, but living out
one’s personality. The eagle is not given wings to be bound down upon the
earth; nor does the bud come forth never to unfold. Full freedom,
therefore, too, for everything human! And modern man leaps to the fatal
conclusion: therefore all interference of external authority is unjust, is
force, constraint upon my being; the same error that boys fall into when
life begins to tingle with its fulness of strength. Being ignorant of
their nature, they feel any kind of dependence a chain; only themselves,
their judgments and desires, are law. Just so modern man, in his
deplorable want of self-knowledge, fails to see how he is cutting himself
off from the source and support of life; how he is pulling himself out by
the roots from the soil whence he derives his strength; how, left to his
own littleness, he withers away; how, abandoned to his own diseased
nature, he condemns himself to intellectual decay.

Autonomism, individualism, independent personality—these have become the
ideals that permeate the man of this age, and influence the thought of
thousands without their knowing it.


    The well-known, Protestant, theologian, _A. Sabatier_, writes: “It
    is not difficult to find the common principle to which all the
    expressions and tendencies of the spirit of modern times can be
    reduced in any field whatever. One word expresses it—the word,
    ‘autonomy.’ By autonomy I understand the firm confidence, which
    the mind of man has attained in his present stage of development,
    that he contains in himself his own rule of life and norm of
    thought, and that he harbours the ardent desire of realizing
    himself by obeying his own law” (La Religion de la Culture
    moderne, 10).

    “Modern times,” writes _R. Eucken_, “have changed the position of
    the human subject ... it has become to them the centre of his life
    and the ultimate end of his endeavours” (Zeitschrift fuer
    Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 112 (1898), 165 s.). Still
    clearer are the following words of _G. Spicker_: “Man depended
    formerly either on nature or on revelation, or on both at once;
    now it is just the opposite: man is in every way, theoretically as
    well as practically, an autonomist. If anything can denote clearly
    the characteristic difference between the modern and the old
    scholastic view, it is this absolute, subjective, standpoint.” “As
    we in principle do not intend to depend on any objectivity or
    authority, there is nothing left but the autonomy of the subject”
    (Der Kampf zweier Weltanschauungen (1898), 143, 145).


A noted apostle of modern freedom exclaims enthusiastically:


    “This after all is freedom: an unconditional appreciation of human
    greatness, no matter how it asserts itself. This greatest
    happiness, as _Goethe_ called it, the humanists have restored to
    us. Henceforth we must with all our strength retain it. Whoever
    wants to rob us of it, even should he descend from heaven, is our
    deadliest enemy.” (_H. St. Chamberlain._)


It is true, of course, that man should strive for perfection of self in
every respect; for the harmonious development of all the faculties and
good inclinations of his own being, and, in this sense, for a nobler
humanity; he should also develop and assert his own peculiar disposition
and originality, so far as they are in order, and thus promote a healthy
individualism. But all this he should do within the moral bonds of his
created and limited nature, being convinced that only by keeping within
the right limits of his being can he develop his ability and personality
harmoniously; he dare not reach out, in reckless venture after
independence, to free himself from God and his eternal end, and from the
yoke of truth; he dare not transform the divine sovereignty into the
distorted image of created autotheism.

He who professes a Christian view of the world, can see in such a view of
man and his freedom only an utter misunderstanding of human nature and an
overthrow of the right order of things. This overthrow, again, can only
produce calamity, interior and exterior disorder. Woe to the planet that
feels its orbit a tyrannical restraint, and leaves it to move in sovereign
freedom through the universe! It will move along free, and free will it go
to ruin. Woe to the speeding train that leaves its track; it will speed on
free, but invariably dash itself to pieces! A nature that abandons the
prescribed safeguards can only degenerate into a wild sprout. We shall see
how these principles have actually become in modern intellectual life the
principles of negation and intellectual degeneration.

_St. Augustine_ states the history of mankind in the following, thoughtful
words: “A twofold love divides mankind into the City of the World and the
City of God. Man’s self-love and his self-exaltation pushed to the
contempt of God constitute the City of the World; but the love of God
pushed to contempt of self is the foundation of the City of God.”
(_Fecerunt itaque civitates duas amores duo, terrenam scilicet amor sui
usque ad contemptum Dei, coelestem vero amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui._
De civ. Dei XIV, 28.) Thus _St. Augustine_, while contemplating the time
when the war between heathenism and Christianity was raging. The same
spectacle is presented to our own eyes to-day, probably more thoroughly
than ever before in history.



The Period of Man’s Emancipation.


The modern view of man and his freedom has shaped itself gradually in
recent times; the present is ever the child of the past. The most
important factor in this development was undoubtedly the _Reformation_. It
emancipated man in the most important affair, religious life, from the
authority of the Church, and made him independent. “All have the right to
try and to judge what is right and wrong in belief,” so _Luther_ told the
Christian nobility of the German nation; “everybody shall according to his
believing mind interpret the Scriptures, it is the duty of every believing
Christian to espouse the faith, to understand and defend it, and to
condemn all errors.” Protestantism means even to the modern man “the
thinking mind’s break with authority, a protest against being fettered by
anything positive, the mind’s return to itself from self-alienation”
(_Schwegler_, Geschichte der Philosophie (1887), 167): “it puts out of
joint the Christian Church organization, and overturns its supernatural
foundation, quite against its will, but with an actual, and ever more
plainly visible, effect” (_E. Troeltsch_, Die Bedeutung des
Protestantismus fuer die Entstehung der modernen Welt (1906), 29).

The first step towards full autonomy was taken with energy; the
emancipation from external authority then progressed rapidly in the domain
of politics, sociology, economy, and especially of religion, to the very
elimination of everything supernatural. There came the English
individualism of the seventeenth century. The liberty of “individual
conviction,” termed also “tolerance,” in the sense of rejecting every
authoritative interference in the sanctuary of man’s thought and feeling,
was extolled; of course at first only as the privilege of those who were
intellectually superior. Soon the Deism of a _Herbert of Cherbury_ and
_Locke_ was reached; it was the religion of natural reason, with belief in
God and the obligation to moral action. Whatever is added by positive
religions, and therefore by the Christian religion, is superfluous; hence
not dogma, but freedom! _Locke_, indeed, denied to atheists state
toleration; but _J. Toland_ already advised full freedom of thought, even
to the tolerance of atheism. In the year 1717 _Freemasonry_ came into
existence in England. _Adam Smith_ originated the idea of a liberal
political economy which frees the individual from all bond, even in the
economic field. The views prevailing in England then exert great influence
in France. _Rousseau_ and _Voltaire_ appear.

In France and Germany the enlightenment of the eighteenth century makes
rapid strides in the direction of emancipation. “The enlightenment of the
eighteenth century,” writes _H. Heltner_, “not only resumes the
prematurely interrupted work of the sixteenth century, the Reformation,
but carries it on independently, and in its own way. The thoughts and
demands of the ‘enlightened’ are bolder and more aggressive, more
unscrupulous and daring.... With _Luther_ the idea of revelation remained
intact; the new method of thought rejects the idea of a divine revelation,
and bases all religious knowledge on merely human thought and
sentiment.... It is only the free, entirely independent thought that
decides in truth and justice, moral and political rights and duties.
Reason has regained its self-glory; man comes to his senses again”
(Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts II (1894), 553). _Kant_ gave it
a philosophical setting.

Then the _French Revolution_ breaks into fierce blaze, writing on the
skies of Europe with flaming letters the ideas of emancipated humanity;
the adherents to the old religion are sent to the guillotine. On August
27, 1789, the proclamation of the “rights of man” is made. “The principles
of 1789,” as they are now called, henceforth dominate the nineteenth
century. The system which adopted these principles called itself, and
still calls itself, _Liberalism_.

Liberalism as a principle—we are speaking of the principles of liberalism,
not of its adherents, who for the most part do not carry out these
principles in their consequences, and occasionally do not even grasp them
completely—tried to accomplish man’s utter emancipation from all external
and superior authority. It sought to accomplish this in the political
field, by instituting constitutional, and, wherever possible, a republican
form of government; in the field of economy, by granting freedom to labour
and possession, to capital and commerce; but especially in the field of
morals and religion, by emancipating thought and science, and the entire
life of man,—school, marriage, state,—from every religious influence and
direction, and in this sense it aimed at humanizing the whole life of man.
This is its purpose. To achieve this, it aims at establishing itself in
the state, by gaining political power through the aid of compulsory laws,
of course against all principles of freedom; it tries to attain this by
compulsory state-education, by obligatory civil marriage, and so on. At
first there appeared only a moderate liberalism, which gradually gave
place to a more radical tendency, striving more directly and openly toward
the enfeeblement and, if possible, the destruction of the Christian view
of the world and its chief representative, the Church. In 1848 the
well-known materialist _K. Vogt_ said at the national assembly in
Frankfort: “Every church is opposed to a free development of mankind, in
that it demands faith above all. Every church is an obstacle in the way of
man’s free intellectual development, and since I am for such intellectual
development of man, I am against every church” (cf. _Rothenbuecher_,
Trennung von Staat und Kirche (1908), 106).

In the field of economics, every one can see how liberalism has failed. In
some countries people were ashamed to retain its name any longer. It
suddenly disappeared from public life, and gave place to its
translation,—free thought. This shows that nobody cares to boast of its
success. All barriers of safety had been removed in a night; crises,
confusion, and the serious danger of the social question were the
consequence. In the field of actual economics it became clear that the
principle of unlimited freedom could not be carried out, because it was
utterly ruinous, and it really means a complete misunderstanding of human
nature. Therefore liberalism has disappeared from this field, leaving to
others to solve the problem it created, and to heal the wounds it
inflicted. It is otherwise in the field of theoretical economics. Here it
still strives to dominate, often more thoroughly than before, no matter
what name it may assume. The consequences do not appear so gross to the
eyes as they would in the tangible sphere of sociology. Especially science
it wants to hold in subjection to its principles of freedom in
undiminished severity.

That freedom which is identified with absolute independence from all
authority, especially in the intellectual sphere, we shall here know as
Liberal freedom, in contradistinction to Christian freedom, which is
satisfied with independence from unjust restraint.

In the foregoing discussion it has been shown how deeply the liberal idea
of freedom is imbedded in the unchristian philosophical view of the world.
The inevitable result is a freedom of science which considers every
authoritative interference in research and teaching as an encroachment
upon the rights of free development in man’s personality, especially in
the sphere of philosophy and religion. Moreover, the humanitarian view of
the world, insisting on the independence of man and his earthly life,
naturally demands the exclusion of God and the other world, it orders the
rejection of “dualism” as unscientific, and the adoption of the monistic
view in its stead; an autonomous science can hardly be reconciled with a
superior, restricting authority. Later on we shall demonstrate that the
main law of modern science is that the supernatural is inadmissible.
Furthermore, since science is not a superhuman being, but has its seat in
the intellect of man, subject to the psychology of man, every one who
knows the heart of man will suspect from the outset that man cannot stop
at merely ignoring, but will often proceed to combat and explain away
faith, the Church, and all authority that might be considered an oppressor
of the truth. This undue love of liberty will of itself become a struggle
for freedom against the oppressor. How far this is actually the case we
shall have occasion to discuss later on.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

We have heard _Nietzsche’s_ haughty and proud boast. Shortly after the
philosopher had penned these words he was stricken (1889) with permanent,
incurable insanity, with which he was afflicted till his death in 1900.
The “transcendental man” was dethroned. The strength of the Titan was
shattered. He that said with _Prometheus_, I am not a god, still I am in
strength the equal of any of them, received the ironical answer, “Behold
he has become as one of us” (Gen. iii. 22). He that cursed Christian
charity towards the poor and suffering, was now cast helpless upon
charity. His grave at Roecken, the place also of his birth, is a sign of
warning to the modern world.

To the believing Christian a different grave opens on Easter day. From it
comes the risen God-man; in His hand the banner of immortal victory. It
points the way to true human greatness, to a superior humanity according
to the will of God. Man longs for perfection; he longs to go beyond the
narrow limits of his present condition. But modern man wants to rise to
greatness by his own strength, without help from above; he would rise with
giant bounds, without law. In his weakness he falls; error and scepticism
and the loss of morality are the bitter fruit. Another way is pointed out
by the great Friend of Man. Humanity is to be led on the way of progress
by the hand of God, by faith in God, supported by His grace; thus man
shall participate in God’s nature, shall one day attain his highest
perfection in eternal life, far beyond the limits of his present
condition. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”



Chapter III. Subjectivism And Its Freedom.


The tendency of the modern intellect to independence in its own peculiar
sphere of thinking and knowing, cannot fail to work itself out
energetically. In this sphere it leads naturally to that view of human
reasoning called subjectivism: the thinking or reasoning subject is its
own law, the autonomous creator and guide of its thought. Herein lies the
_essential presumption_, the very core, of the liberal freedom of science.
Wherever we turn we meet subjectivism with its autonomous rejection of all
authority, its arbitrary separation of knowledge from faith, its
agnosticism, its relativity to truth as the moving factor of, and the
ostensible warrant for, this freedom, especially in the sphere which it
considers peculiarly its own, philosophy and religion. Only when we look
closer into its philosophical premises will it be possible to form a
judgment of the “scientific method” it employs in this, its peculiar
sphere, and of the justice of its claim to be the sole administrator of
man’s ideal possessions, and to be altogether “independent of every view
not conforming to this scientific method.” Before considering subjectivism
let us by way of preface set down a few considerations on the nature of
human, intellectual perception.



Objectivism and Subjectivism.


It always has been, and still is, the firm conviction of unbiassed men,—a
conviction which irresistibly forces itself upon us,—that in our
intellectual perception and thought we grasp an _objective, exterior order
of things, an existence distinct from our thought_; of this objective
reality we reproduce an image in our minds, and thus grasp it
intellectually. _Cognitio est similitudo rei_, says the old school; that
is, Knowledge is the reproduction of an objective reality, which thus
becomes the criterion of cognition. The reproduction is a counterpart of
the original. In this perfect resemblance of our cognition to the
objective reality there has ever been recognized the _truth_ of knowledge.

When the thinking mind has arrived at the mathematical truth that the
circumference of a circle is the product of the diameter multiplied by
_Ludolph’s_ number, it knows—unless indeed it has lost its natural
candour—that it has not of itself produced this result of reasoning, but
that it has recognized in it an objective reality of truth, distinct from
its own thought, and has reproduced that truth in itself. And because this
reproduction corresponds to the reality, it is called true cognition.
Similarly, when the intellect expresses the general law of causality,
namely, everything that happens has a cause, the intellect is again
convinced that it has not of itself produced this result of reasoning, but
has only reproduced it by assimilating to itself an objective truth which
is necessarily so and cannot be otherwise, and which the mind must
assimilate if it wants to think aright. This is true not only when the
mind is dealing with concrete things, but also when it would give
expression to general principles, as in the present instance; these, too,
are not subjective projections, but are independent of the thinking
subject, and are eternal laws.

This view of the nature of human cognition and thought has gradually
undergone an essential change, not indeed with those outside the influence
of philosophical speculation, but with the representatives of modern
philosophy, and those subject to its influence. Objectivism has been
superseded by subjectivism. Its principle is this: cognition, imagination,
and thought are not the intellectual apprehension of an objective world
existing independent of us, of which we reproduce in ourselves a
counterpart. No, _the mind creates its own results of reason and
cognition_; the objects before us are the creatures of the imagining
subject. At the utmost, we can but say that our reasoning is the manner in
which a hidden exterior world appears to us. This manner must necessarily
conform to the peculiarity of the subject, to his faculties and stage of
development; but the exterior world as it is in itself we can never
apprehend. _Descartes_, starting with the premise that consciousness is
the beginning of all certainty, was the first modern philosopher to enter
upon the way of subjectivism. He was followed by _Locke_, _Berkeley_, and
_Kant_. It is due to them that in the modern theory of cognition the
fundamental principle of idealistic subjectivism, no matter how difficult
and unreasonable it may appear to an ordinary thinker, has obtained so
many advocates who, nevertheless, cannot adhere to it, but contradict it
at every step.


    “The world,” _Schopenhauer_ is convinced, “is the projection of my
    idea.... No truth is more certain, more independent of all others,
    less in need of proof, than this, that all there is to be known,
    hence the whole world, is an object only in relation to a subject,
    a vision of the beholder; in a word, the projection of my own
    idea. Hence the subject is the bearer of the world” (Die Welt als
    Wille und Vorstellung, I, §§ 1-2). “It is evidently true that
    knowledge cannot go beyond our consciousness, and hence the
    existence of things outside of our sphere of consciousness must,
    to say the least, remain problematical” (Der Gegenstand der
    Erkenntniss, 1892, p. 2). In like manner _O. Liebmann_ says: “We
    can never go beyond our individual sphere of ideas (projection of
    our ideas), even though we apprehend what is independent of us,
    still the absolute reality of it is known to us only as our own
    idea” (Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit, 1900, p. 28). Therefore “the
    contrast between ‘I’ and the world,” says _E. Mach_, “between
    feeling or apprehension and the reality, falls away” (Die Analysis
    der Empfindungen, 2d ed., 1900, p. 9). And a disciple of _Mach_
    says: “It is important to hold fast to the idea that a
    self-existent, divine Truth, independent of the subject,
    objectively binding, enthroned, so to say, above men and gods, is
    meaningless.... Such a Truth is nonsense” (_H. Kleinpeter_,
    Kantstudien, VIII, 1903, p. 314).

    None of these representatives of worldly wisdom are able to fulfil
    the first duty of the wise man: “Live according to what you
    teach.” Even the sceptic _Hume_ has to admit that in the common
    affairs of life he feels himself compelled of necessity to talk
    and act like other people.


Subjectivism is really nothing but _scepticism_, for it eliminates the
knowableness of objective truth. But it is a masked—if you will, a
reformed—scepticism. Cognition is given another purpose; its task is not
at all, so it is said, to reproduce or assimilate a world distinct from
itself, but to create its own contents. The very nature of cognition is
reversed.



The Autonomy of Reason.


It was _Kant_, the herald of a new era in philosophy, who gave to this
gradually maturing subjectivism its scientific form and basis. At the same
time he gave prominence to that element of subjectivism which seems to
give justification to freedom of thought, to wit, autonomism, the creative
power of the intellect which makes its own laws. Independence of reason
and free thought have become catchwords since _Kant’s_ time. They are a
precious ingredient of the autonomy of modern man.

When the flaming blaze of the French Revolution was reddening the skies of
Europe, and inaugurating the restoration of the rights of man, _Kant_ was
sitting in his study at Königsberg, his heart beating strongly in sympathy
with the Revolution, for he saw in it a hopeful turn of the times. An old
man of nearly seventy, he followed the events with most passionate
interest. _Varnhagen_ records in his Memoirs, based on the stories of
_Staegemann_, that, when the proclamation of the Republic was announced in
the newspapers, _Kant_, with tears in his eyes, said to some friends: “Now
can I say with Simeon, ‘Now dost Thou, O Lord, dismiss Thy servant in
peace, because mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation’ ” (_H. Hettner_,
Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrh. III, 4th ed., 3, 2, 1894, p. 38). While
on the other side of the Rhine the Jacobins were doing their bloody work
of political liberation, the German philosopher, the herald of a new era
and an ardent admirer of _Rousseau_, sat in his study labouring for man’s
intellectual liberation. To give man the right of autonomous
self-determination in action and thought was the work of his life.
Autonomy was indeed to him “ ‘the source’ of all dignity of man and of
every rational nature” (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, II). And
hence it was that his ardent followers beheld in him “the first perfect
model of a really free German, one who had purged himself from every trace
of Roman absolutism, dogmatism, and anti-individualism” (_H. St.
Chamberlain_, Die Grundlagen des 19. Jahrh., 8th ed., 1907, II, 1127).

In his “Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten” (The Foundation of the
Metaphysics of Ethics) and “Kritik der praktischen Vernunft” (Critique of
Practical Reason) _Kant_ sought to establish _autonomy in moral life_ and
action. Man himself, his practical reason, is the ultimate foundation of
all moral obligation; did man lead a good life out of obedience to God it
would be a heteronomy unworthy of the name of “moral.” “The autonomy of
the will,” he teaches, “is the sole principle of all moral laws and the
duties allied to them; all arbitrary heteronomy, on the contrary, far from
having any binding force, is contrary to the principle of morality of the
will” (Kritik der prakt. Vern., Elementarlehre, I, 1, 4. Lehrsatz). Or, as
amplified by a faithful interpreter of the master: “In the moral world the
individual should be not only a member but also a ruler; he is a member of
the moral order when he obeys its law; he is its ruler when he enacts the
law.... The distinction between autonomy and heteronomy separates true
from false ethics, the system of _Kant_ from all other systems. All moral
systems, except that of _Kant_, are based on the principles of heteronomy;
they can have no other. And critical philosophy was the first to grasp the
principle of autonomy” (_Kuno Fischer_, Geschichte der neuen Philosophie,
IV, 2d ed., 1869, p. 114 _seq._). _Kant’s_ just man no longer prays “Thy
will be done”; he identifies the law with himself. _Nietzsche’s_
transcendental man is seen in the background.

_Autonomy of thought_ is the result of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and
in spite of its inconsistency of expression, its involved sentences, its
extremely tiresome style, it is and will long continue to be the text-book
of modern philosophy. According to _Kant_ our cognition consists in our
fashioning the substance of our perceptions and reasoning after innate,
purely subjective, views and conceptions. Time and place, and especially
the abstract notions of existence and non-existence, necessity, causality,
substance, have no truth independent of our thought; they are but forms
and patterns according to which we are forced to picture the world. Their
first matter is supplied by sense experience, such as sound, colour,
feeling; but these, too, according to _Kant_, are not objective. Nothing
then remains to our cognition that is not purely subjective, having
existence in ourselves alone. Our cognition is no longer a reproduction,
but a creation of its object; our thought is no longer subject to an
external truth that may be forced upon it. “Hitherto,” says _Kant_, “it
has been generally supposed that our cognition must be governed by
objects.... Let us see if we cannot make better headway in the province of
metaphysics by supposing that objects must be governed by our cognition”
(Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, Vorrede zur zweiten Ausgabe).

This is, indeed, nothing but a complete falsification of human cognition.
It is evident to an unbiassed mind that there must be a reason for
everything, not because I so think, but I think so because such is the
fact; that the multiplication table is right, not because I think so, but
I must multiply according to it simply because it is right. My thought is
subject to objective truth. But _Kant’s_ autonomy means emancipation from
objective truth, and hence, though _Kant_ himself held fast to the
unchangeable laws of thinking and acting, he energetically opened the way
for subjectivism with all its consequences. This was _Kant’s_ doing, and
history credits him with it. It was one of those events which have made
men famous: the giving to the ideas and sentiments of a period their
scientific formula, and thereby also their apparent justification.


    _Schiller_ wrote in 1805 to _W. von Humboldt_: “The profound
    fundamental ideas of ideal philosophy remain an enduring treasure,
    and for this reason alone one should think himself fortunate for
    having lived at the present time.... Finally, we are both
    idealists, and should be ashamed to have it said of us that things
    made us and not we the things.” _Fr. Paulsen_ gives expression to
    the opinion of many when he says: “_Kant_ gives to the intellect
    the self-determination that is essential to it, and the position
    in the world which it deserves. He has raised the intellect’s
    creative power to a position of honour: the essence of the
    intellect is freedom” (Immanuel Kant, 1898, p. 386). “The autonomy
    of reason ... we cannot give up” (_Kant_, Der Philosoph des
    Protestantismus, in Philosophia militans, 2d ed., 1901, p. 51).
    “It is indeed the offspring of Protestantism.” “To me it is beyond
    doubt,” _Paulsen_ continues, “that the fundamental tendency of
    primitive Protestantism has here been carried out in all
    clearness” (Ibid. 43). _Luther_, too, found in the heart of the
    individual the unfailing source of truth. For that reason _Kant_
    has been called the philosopher of Protestantism.

    Hence the well-known historian, _J. Scherr_, may not be wrong when
    he calls the philosophy of _Kant_ “the foundation of granite
    whereon is built the freedom of the German intellect.”


Now, indeed, we easily understand the demand for freedom of thought. It is
unintelligible how an external authority, a divine revelation or
infallible Church, could have ever approached man, assured him of the
truth of its teaching, and laid upon him in consequence of this testimony
the obligation of accepting it as true. “An external authority,” we are
assured, “be it ever so great, will never succeed in arousing in us a
sense of obligation; its laws, be they ever so lofty and earnest, will be
deemed arbitrary, simply because they come from without” (_Sabatier_, La
Religion et la Culture moderne, apud _Fonsegrive_, Die Stellung der
Katholiken gegenueber der Wissenschaft, Deutsch von _Schieser_ (1903),
10). Man accepts only what he himself has produced, what is congenial to
his individuality, what is in harmony with his personal intellectual life.
In the place of truth steps “personal conviction,” the shaping of one’s
views and ideals; in the place of unselfish submission to the truth steps
the “development of one’s intellectual individuality,” the “evolution of
one’s intellectual personality”; in a word, free-thought. Exterior
authority can no longer impose an obligation. “Is there on earth,” asks
_Paulsen_, “an instance where authority can decide for us in matters of
belief and thought?” And he answers: “There is none; there cannot be on
this earth an infallible teaching authority.” And why not? “Philosophy and
science must refuse to recognize such an authority.... If I could believe
all that the Church or the Pope teaches, this one thing I could never
believe, that they are infallible; it would include a resolution, once for
all, to renounce my own judgment regarding whatever they declare true or
false, good or bad; it would be the utter renunciation of the use of my
reason and conscience.” (Ibid. 51-53. We shall often cite the testimony of
_Paulsen_ for the purpose of illustrating modern thought, partly because
he is no longer living, partly because he is quite an outspoken
representative of the modern view of the world, though generally regarded
as moderate. Moreover, he is without doubt one of the most widely read of
the modern German philosophers.)

The demonstration of all this is quite unique. Here it is in brief: Were
there an infallible authority, one which necessarily taught the truth,
then thought and science would be irrevocably subjected to this authority:
that will not do; therefore there is no such authority. Or thus: Were
there an infallible teaching, then we should have to accept it without
contradiction: that is impossible; therefore there is no infallibility.
Hence it is clear, the protest against an infallible authority, even
though divine,—for the argument holds good also in regard to such an
authority,—is not based on the impossibility of teaching the truth, for
the authority is supposed to be infallible, but on man’s refusal to be
taught. And this refusal is made in accordance with that sovereign freedom
of thought which is the natural offspring of subjectivism; the principal
renunciation is based on its denial of objective truth. _It is the
rejection of the truth._


    “In advanced progress,” _Paulsen_ continues, “the individual is
    also separating himself from the intellectual mass of the people
    in order to enjoy a separate mental existence.... The individual
    is beginning to have his own ideas about things; he is no longer
    satisfied with the common opinions and notions about the world and
    life which have been dealt out to him by religion and mythology:
    all philosophy begins with freeing the individual from common
    notions.” “If the individual ideals of a personality, gifted with
    extraordinary power of mind and will, happen to come in conflict
    with the objective morality of the time, then there results one of
    those struggles which cause the dramatic crises of history. They
    who thus struggled were the real heroes of mankind. They rose
    against the conventional and indifferent ideals which had grown
    obsolete, against untrue appearances, against the salt that had
    lost its savour; they preached a new truth, pointed out new
    aspirations and ideals which breathed a new strength into life and
    raised it to a higher plane” (System der Ethik, 8th ed., 1906, I,
    372 f.).


Truly encouraging words for the modern agitator and reformer. To summon
the courage to rise above the level of the masses, to feel within himself
the centre of gravity, and to fashion his thoughts regardless of the whole
world, this is nothing less than the beginning of philosophy and wisdom.
And should he feel himself strong-minded he may simply change all moral
and religious values which do not square with his individual judgments.
“To remain faithful to one’s own self,” we are told again, “that is the
essence of this ideal bravery. No one can possess this virtue who does not
feel within himself the centre about which life gravitates; whoever
pursues exterior things as his ultimate end cannot penetrate to interior
freedom. _Spinoza_, by life and teaching, is a great preacher of this
freedom” (Ibid. II, p. 27). Self-consciousness as arrogant as that of a
pantheist like _Spinoza_, who indeed did not pursue “exterior things as
the ultimate end,” nor God either; the self-consciousness in which man
feels himself the centre about which world and life revolve; the will
which now directs thought on its way,—these are the life-nerves of
autonomous free-thought.


    In fact, inclination and will, not objective truth, are the
    measure and norm of free-thought. This _Paulsen_ again expresses
    with astonishing candour. According to him, intelligence is after
    all nothing else than a transformation of the will, this doctrine
    is rooted in the more modern voluntaristic monism, and is akin to
    subjectivism. If our cognition itself forms its object, then the
    real concept of cognition has been lost to us, and in its place we
    have the will determining the action even of the intellect.
    _Paulsen_ says emphatically, “Intelligence is an instrument of the
    will in the service of preservation of life.... Perhaps it can be
    said that even the elementary formations of thought, the logical
    and metaphysical forms of reality, are already codetermined by the
    will. If the forms of abstract thought are at all the result of
    biological evolution, then this must be accepted: they are
    formations and conceptions of reality, which have proved effective
    and life-preserving, and have therefore attained their object. The
    principle of identity is in reality not a mere statement, not an
    indicative, but an imperative: A is A; that is, what I have put
    down as A shall be A and remain A.... If this be so, if thought
    and cognition be determined fundamentally by the will, then it is
    altogether unintelligible how it might finally turn against the
    will, and force upon it a view against its will” (_Kant’s_
    Verhaeltniss zur Metaphysik, 1900, p. 31 f.).

    We have to do here with a confusion of ideas possible only when
    correct reasoning has sunk to a surprisingly low level. To think
    with the will, to draw conclusions with intention, is degenerate
    thinking. But now we understand better what is meant by autonomy
    of thought. It gives man license to disregard by shallow reasoning
    everything that clashes with his own will. “What I have put down
    as A shall be A and remain A!”


It is now clear that subjectivism and autonomism in thinking are rooted in
the positive disregard of objective truth, in the refusal of an
unconditional subjection to it; they mean _emancipation from the truth_.
Here we have the most striking and _deepest difference_ between modern
subjectivistic and Christian objective thought. The latter adheres to the
old conviction that our thoughts do not make the truth, but are subject to
an objective order of things as a norm. For this reason autonomous freedom
and subjective caprice, a manner of reasoning that would approach truth as
a lawgiver, and even change it according to time and circumstance, are
unintelligible in the Christian objective thought. This thought submits
unselfishly to truth wherever met, be it without a divine revelation or
with it, if the revelation be but vouched for. And the reward of this
unselfishness is the preservation of the truth.

But subjectivism, with its freedom, leads inevitably to the loss of the
truth; it is scepticism in principle, in fact, if my thoughts are not a
counterpart of an objective world, but only a subjectively produced image;
not knowledge of an external reality, but only a figment of the
imagination, a projection, then I can have no assurance that they are more
than an empty dream.



The Modern Separation of Knowledge and Faith.


Of course it would be too much to expect that subjectivism in modern
thought and scientific work should go to the very limit, viz., to
disregard all reasoning, to advance at will any theory whatever, to
silence disagreeable critics by merely referring to one’s autonomy in
thinking, and denying that any one can attain to absolute truth. Errors in
empirical speculation never prosper as others do; the power of natural
evidence asserts itself at every step, and tears down the artificial
cobwebs of apparently scientific scepticism. It asserts itself less
strongly where the opposing power of natural evidence is weaker, than is
the case in matters of actual sense-experience. Here indeed one sees the
objective reality before him, which he cannot fashion according to his
caprice. The astronomer has no thought of creating his own starry sky, nor
does the archæologist wish to create out of his own mind the history of
ancient nations. They both desire to know and to reveal the reality. But
in the _suprasensible sphere_, in dealing with questions of the whence and
whither of human life, where there is question of religion and morals,
there autonomy and scepticism assert themselves as though they were in
their own country, there the free-thinker steps in, boasting of his
independence and taking for his motto the axiom of ancient sophistry: the
measure of all things is man.

Here at the same time the natural product of subjectivism, sceptic
agnosticism, has full sway. In such matters, we are told, there is no
certain truth; nothing can be proved, nothing refuted: they are all
matters of _faith_—not faith, of course, in the Catholic sense. The latter
is the acceptance by reason of recognized divine testimony, hence an act
of the intellect. The modern so-called faith, on the contrary, is not an
act of the intellect, but is supposed to be a vague _feeling_, a want, a
longing and striving after the divine in one’s innermost soul, which
divine is then to be grasped by the soul in some mysterious way as
something immediately present in it. This feeling is said to emerge from
the subconsciousness of the soul, and to raise in the mind those images
and symbols which we encounter in the doctrines of the various religions,
varying according to times and men. They are only the symbols for that
unutterable experience of the divine, which can be as little expressed by
definitions and tenets as sounds can by colour. It is a conviction of the
ideal and divine, but different from the conviction of reason; it is an
inner, actual experience. Hence there can no longer be absolute religious
truth, no unchangeable dogmas, which would have to be adhered to forever.
In religion, in views of the world and life, the free feeling of the human
subject holds sway, a feeling that experiences and weaves together those
thoughts and ideals that are in accord with his individuality. This is the
modern doctrine.

The dark mysticism of the ancient East and the agnosticism of modern times
here join hands. This modern method of separating knowledge and faith is,
as we all know, a prominent feature of modern thought. Knowledge, that is,
cognition by reason, is said to exist only in the domain of the natural
sciences and history. Of what may be beyond these we can have no true
knowledge. Here, too, _Kant_ has led the way; for the important result of
his criticism is his incessant injunction: we can have true knowledge only
of empiric objects, never of things lying beyond the experience of the
senses; our ideas are merely subjective constructions of the reason which
obtain weight and meaning only by applying them to objects of sense
experiment. Hence God, immortality, freedom, and the like, remain forever
outside the field of our theoretical or cognitive reason. Nevertheless
_Kant_ did not like to drop these truths. Hence he constructed for himself
a conviction of another kind. The “practical reason” is to guide man’s
action in accomplishing the task in which her more timid sister,
theoretical reason, failed. And it does it, too. It simply “postulates”
these truths; they are its “_postulates_,” since without them moral life
and moral order, which it is bound to recognize, would be impossible. No
one knows, of course, whether this be truth, but it ought to be truth.
_Stat pro ratione voluntas._ The Gordian knot is cut. “It is so,” the will
now cries from the depths of the soul, “I believe it”; while the intellect
stands hesitatingly by protesting “I don’t know whether it is so or not.”
Doubt and conviction embrace each other; Yes and No meet peacefully. “I
had to suspend knowledge,” _Kant_ suggests, “in order to make room for
faith” (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2. Vorrede). “It is an exigency of
pure practical reason based on duty,” he further comments on his
postulate, “to make something the highest good, the object of my will, in
order to further it with all my power. Herein, however, I have to assume
its possibility, and therefore its conditions, viz., God, freedom, and
immortality, because I cannot prove them by speculative reason, nor yet
disprove them.” Thus “the just man may say I wish that there be a God; I
insist upon it, I will not have my faith taken from me” (Kritik der prakt.
Vernunft, 1. Teil, 2. Buch, 2 VIII).

Others have followed the lead of _Kant_. For philosophers, Protestant
theologians, and modernists, he has become the pilot in whom they trust.


    “_Kant’s_ critical philosophy,” says _Paulsen_, “gives to
    knowledge what belongs to it—the entire world of phenomena, for
    the freest investigation; on the other hand, it gives to faith its
    eternal right, viz., the interpretation of life and the world
    according to their value” (Immanuel Kant, 1898, 6). “Faith does
    not simply rest upon proofs, but upon practical necessity”; “it
    does not come from the intellect, but from the heart and will”
    (Einleitung in die Philosophie, 10th ed., 1903, 271, 269).
    “Religion is not a science, hence it cannot be proved nor
    disproved.” “Therefore man’s view of the world does not depend on
    the intellect, but solely on his will.... The ultimate and highest
    truths, truths by which man lives and for which he dies, have not
    their source in scientific knowledge, but come from the heart and
    from the individual will.” In a similar strain _R. Falkenberg_
    writes: “The views of the world growing out of the chronology of
    the human race, as the blossoms of a general process of
    civilization, are not so much thoughts as rhythms of thinking, not
    theories but views, saturated with appreciations.... Not only
    optimism and pessimism, determinism and doctrine of freedom, but
    also pantheism and individualism, idealism and materialism, even
    rationalism and sensualism, have their roots ultimately in the
    affections, and even while working with the tools of reason remain
    for the most part matters of faith, sentiment, and resolve”
    (Geschichte der neuen Philosophie, 5th ed., 1905, p. 3).

    You may look up any books or magazines of modern philosophy or
    Protestant theology, and you will find in all of them “that faith
    is a kind of conviction for which there is no need of proof” (_H.
    Luedemann_, Prot. Monatshefte IX, 1903, 367). This emotional faith
    has been introduced into Protestant theology especially by
    _Schleiermacher_. It is also this view of the more recent
    philosophy that the modernists have adopted. They themselves
    confess: “The _modernists_ in accord with modern psychology
    distinguish clearly between knowledge and faith. The intellectual
    processes which lead to them appear to the modernists altogether
    foreign to and independent of one another. This is one of our
    fundamental principles” (Programma dei Modernisti (1908), 121).

    Religious instruction for children will then have to become
    altogether different. The demand is already made for “a recast of
    thought from the sphere of the intellect into the sphere of
    affection.” Away, so they clamour, away with the dogmas of
    creation, of Christ as the Son of God, of His miracles, as taught
    in the old schools! For all these are religious ideas. Pupils of
    the higher grades should be told “the plain truth about the degree
    of historicity in elementary religious principles.... The
    fundamental idea of religion can neither be created nor destroyed
    by teaching, it has its seat in sentiment, like—excuse the term—an
    insane idea” (_Fr. Niebergall_, Christliche Welt, 1909, p. 43).


This dualism of “faith” and knowledge is as untenable as it is common. It
is a psychological _impossibility_ as well as a sad _degradation of
religion_.

How can I seriously believe, and seriously hold for true, a view of the
world of which I do not know whether it be really true, when the intellect
unceasingly whispers in my ear: it is all imagination! As long as faith is
a conviction so long must it be an activity of the intellect. With my
feeling and will I may indeed wish that something be true; but to wish
simply that there be a God is not to be convinced that there actually is a
God. By merely longing and desiring I can be as little convinced as I can
make progress in virtue by the use of my feet, or repent of sins by a
toothache. It is μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος. A dualism of this kind, between
head and heart, doubt and belief, between the No of the mind and the Yes
of the heart, is a process incompatible with logic and psychology. How
could such a dualism be maintained for any length of time? It may perhaps
last longer in one in whom a vivid imagination has dimmed the clearness of
intellect; but where the intellectual life is clear, reason will very soon
emancipate itself from a deceptive imagination. One may go on dreaming of
ideal images, but as soon as the intellect awakens they vanish.
Hallucinations are taken for real while the mind is affected, but they
pass away the moment it sees clearly.


    _Kant_ himself, the father of modern agnostic mysticism, has made
    it quite clear that his postulates of faith concerning the
    existence of God and the immortality of the soul, have never taken
    in him the place of earnest conviction. Thus in the first place
    _Kant_ holds that there are no duties towards God, since He is
    merely a creature of our mind. “Since this idea proceeds entirely
    from ourselves, and is a product of ours, we have here before us a
    postulated being towards whom we cannot have an obligation; for
    its reality would have to be proved first by experience (or
    revealed)”; but “to have religion is a duty man owes to himself.”
    Again, he dislikes an oath, he asks whether an oath be possible
    and binding, since we swear only on condition that there is a God
    (without, however, stipulating it, as did _Protagoras_). And he
    thinks that “in fact all oaths taken honestly and discreetly have
    been taken in no other sense” (Metaphysik der Sitten, II, § 18,
    Beschluss).

    _Prayer_ he dislikes still more. “Prayer,” he says, “as an
    internal form of cult, and therefore considered as a means of
    grace, is a superstitious delusion (feticism).... A hearty wish to
    please God in all our actions, that is, a disposition present in
    all our actions to perform them as if in the service of God, is a
    spirit of prayer that can and ought to be our perpetual guide.”
    “By this desire, the spirit of prayer, man seeks to influence only
    himself; by prayer, since man expresses himself in words, hence
    outwardly, he seeks to influence God. In the former sense a prayer
    can be made with all sincerity, though man does not pretend to
    assert the existence of God fully established; in the latter form,
    as an address, he assumes this highest Being as personally
    present, or at least pretends that he is convinced of its
    presence, in the belief that even if it should not be so it can do
    him no harm, on the contrary it may win him favour; hence in the
    latter form of actual prayer we shall not find the sincerity as
    perfect as in the former. The truth of this last remark any one
    will find confirmed when he imagines to himself a pious and
    well-meaning man, but rather backward in regard to such advanced
    religious ideas, surprised by another man while, I will not say
    praying aloud, but only in an attitude of prayer; any one will
    expect, without my saying so, that that man will be confused, as
    if he were in a condition of which he ought to be ashamed. But why
    this? A man caught talking aloud to himself raises at once the
    suspicion that his mind is slightly deranged; and not altogether
    wrongly, because one would seem out of mind if found all alone
    making gestures as though he had somebody else before him; that,
    however, is the case in the example given” (Religion innerhalb der
    Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 4. Stueck, 2, § 4, Allgemeine
    Anmerkung). Thus it happens that in his opinion those who have
    advanced in perfection cease to pray.

    Nor does it seem that _Kant_ is serious about his postulate of the
    _immortality_ of the soul. Asked by _Lacharpe_ what he thought of
    the soul, he did not answer at first, but remarked, when the
    question was repeated: “We must not make too much boast of it”
    (_H. Hettner_, Literat. Gesch. des 18. Jahrh., III, 4. ed., 3, p.
    26. From _Varnhausen’s_ Denkwuerdigkeiten).

    Thousands have with _Kant_ destroyed their religious conviction by
    a boastful scepticism, and, like him, finally given it up to
    replace its lack by artificial autosuggestions.


And is not the religious life of man thereby made completely valueless?
The highest truths on which the mind of man lives, and which from the
first stage of his existence not only interested but deeply stirred him,
become fiction, pictures of the fancy, suggestions of an effeminate mind,
that cannot make a lasting impression on stronger minds. And how can the
products of autosuggestion give comfort and strength in hours of need and
trial? It is true they do not impose any obligations. Every one is free to
form his own notions of life; they are not to be taken seriously anyway,
whether they be this or that; they are all equally true and equally false.
Buddhism is just as true as Christianity, Materialism as true as
Spiritualism, Mohammedanism as true as Quakerism, the wisdom of the Saints
as true as the philosophy of the worldly. “The most beautiful flower is
growing on the same soil (that of the emotions) with the rankest weed”
(_Hegel_). The decision rests with sentiments which admit of no arguing.
Thus all is made over to scepticism, to that constant doubting which
degrades and unnerves the higher life of modern times, to that _modern
agnosticism_ which, though bearing the distinction of aristocratic
reserve, is in reality dulness and poverty of intellect; not a perfection
of the human intellect, but a hideous disease, all the more dangerous
because difficult to cure. It is the neurasthenia of the intellect of
which the physical neurasthenia of our generation is the counterpart.

The distinguishing mark between man and the lower animals has ever been
held to be that the former could knowingly step beyond the sphere of the
senses, into that world of which his intellect is a part. The conviction
has always prevailed that man by means of his own valid laws of thought,
for instance, the principle of causality, could safely ascend from the
visible world to an invisible one. Thus also the physician concludes the
interior cause of the disease from the exterior symptoms, the physicist
thus comes to the knowledge of the existence of atoms and ions which he
has never seen, and the astronomer calculates with _Leverrier_ the
existence and location of stars which no eye has yet detected.

One thing has certainly been established: a _free sentiment_ can now
assert itself with sovereignty in the most important spheres of
intellectual life, without any barriers of stationary truths and immovable
Christian dogmas; one is now free to fashion his religion and ideals to
suit the _individuum ineffabile_. The latter asks no longer what religion
demands of him, but rather how religion can serve his purposes. “For the
gods,” it is said, “which we now acknowledge, are those we need, which we
can use, whose demands confirm and strengthen our own personal demands and
those of our fellow-men.... We apply thereby only the principle of
elimination of everything unsuitable to man, and of the survival of the
fittest, to our own religious convictions”; “we turn to that religion
which best suits our own individuality” (_W. James_). Arrogant doubt can
now undermine all fundamental truths of Christian faith until they crumble
to pieces; beside it rises the free genius of the new religion, on whose
emblem the name of God is no longer emblazoned, but the glittering seal of
an independent humanity.



Relative Truth.


Freedom of thought appears still more justified when we take a further
step which brings us to the _consequence of subjectivism_; _i.e._, when we
advance so far as to assert that there are no unchangeable and in this
sense no absolute truths, but only temporary, changeable, relative truths.
And modern thought does profess this: there is no absolute truth, no
_religio et philosophia perennis_; different principles and views are
justified and even necessary for different times and even classes. This
removes another barrier to freedom of thought, viz., allegiance to
generally accepted truths and to the convictions of bygone ages.

The logicalness of this further step can hardly be denied. If the human
intellect, independent of the laws of objective truth, fashions its own
object and truth, especially in things above the senses, why can it not
form for itself, at different periods and in different stages of life, a
different religion and another view of the world? Cannot the human subject
pass through different phases? He indeed changes his costume and style of
architecture; why not also his thoughts? Every product of thought would
then be the right one for the time, but would be untenable for a further
stage of his intellectual genesis and growth, and would have to be
replaced by a new one. The nature of subjectivistic thought is no longer
an obstacle to this. Besides, we have the modern idea of _evolution_,
already predominant in all fields: the world, the species of plants and
animals, man himself with his whole life, his language, right, family, all
of them the products of a perpetual evolution, everything constantly
changing. Why not also his religion, morality, and view of the world? They
are only reflexes of a temporary state of civilization. Hence also here
motion and change, evolution into new shapes!

Therefore, so it is said, we have now broken definitely with the “dogmatic
method of reasoning” of the belief in revelation, and of scholastic
philosophy which adhered to absolute truth. They are replaced by the
historical-genetical reasoning of the _saeculum historicum_ which “has
discarded absolute truth: there are only relative, no eternal truths”
(_Paulsen_, Immanuel Kant, 1898, 389). We are further assured that “this
treatment of the history of thought prevails in the scientific world; the
Catholic Church alone has not adopted it. She still clings to dogmatic
reasoning, and that is natural to her; she is sure that she is in
possession of the absolute truth” (Idem, Philosophia militans, 2d ed.,
1901, 5). Outside of this Church every period of time is free to construct
its own theories, which will eventually go with it as they came with it.

We meet this relative truth, and all the indefinable hazy notions
identified with it, _in all spheres_.


    The modern history of philosophy and religion concedes to every
    system and religion the right to their historic position: they are
    necessary phases of evolution. The notion of immutable problems
    and truths by which any system of thought would have to be
    measured has been lost. “The appearance and rejection of a
    system,” says _J. E. Erdmann_, “is a necessity of world-history.
    The former was demanded by the character of the time which the
    system reflected, the latter again is demanded by the fact that
    the time has changed” (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie,
    3rd, I, 1878, 4). And Professor _Eucken_ says: “Despite all its
    advantages, such a view and construction of life is not a definite
    truth, it remains an attempt, a problem that always causes new
    discord among minds” (Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung,
    1907, 2). “Thus, if according to _Hegel_ the coming into being
    constitutes the truth of being, the ideals and aims also must
    share in the mobility, and truth becomes a child of the times
    (_veritas temporis filia_). That apparently subjects life to a
    full-blown relativism, but such a relativism has lost all its
    terror by the deterioration of the older method of reasoning. For
    agreement with existing truth is no longer its chief object.”
    (Geistige Stroemungen der Gegenwart, 1904, p. 197). The new theory
    of knowledge assures us quite generally: “It is a vain attempt to
    single out certain lasting primitive forms of consciousness,
    acknowledged constant elements of the mind, to retain them. Every
    ‘a-priori’ principle which is thus maintained as an unalienable
    dowry of thought, as a necessary result of its psychological and
    physiological ‘disposition,’ will prove an obstacle of which the
    progress of science will steer clear sooner or later” (_E.
    Cassirer_, Das Erkenntnissproblem in der Philosophie und
    Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, 1906, 6).

    That this relativism is also laying hand, more and more firmly,
    upon modern ethics is well known. One often gets the conviction
    that, as _E. Westermark_ teaches, “there is no absolute standard
    of morality,” that “there are no general truths,” “that all moral
    values,” as Prof. _R. Broda_ writes, “are relative and varying
    with every people, every civilization, every society, every free
    person” (Dokumente des Fortschritts, 1908, 362).


Thus modern subjectivism has lost all sense for definite rules of thought;
in its frantic rush for freedom and in its confused excitement it seeks to
upset all barriers. Now, of course, we may disregard convictions thousands
of years old, by simply observing that they suited former ages but not the
present; that they perhaps suit the uneducated but not the educated.
Henceforth one may also reject the dogmas of _Christianity_ by merely
pointing out that they were at one time of importance, but are not suited
to the modern man. That is an idea readily grasped, one which has already
become quite general with those who are mentally tired of Christianity.
What is demanded is a further evolution also of the Christian religion, a
continuous cultivation of freer, higher forms, an undogmatic Christianity
without duty to believe, without a Church: nothing else, in the end, but a
veiled humanitarian religion.


    “It will be difficult for coming generations to understand,” says
    _Paulsen_, in the same sense, “how our time could cling in
    religious instruction with such peace of mind to a system which,
    having originated several centuries ago under entirely different
    conditions of intellectual life, stands in striking contrast to
    facts and ideas accepted by our time everywhere outside the
    schools.” Hence a revision of the fundamental truths of
    Christianity is needed. Away with everything supernatural and
    miraculous, obedience to faith, original sin, redemption: all this
    sounds strange to the modern man. “So there remains but one way:
    to adapt the doctrine of the Church to the theories and views of
    our times” (System der Ethik, 8th ed., 1906, II, pp. 247, 250).
    And _Eucken_ says similarly: “We can adopt the doctrinal system of
    the Church only by retiring from the present back to the past”
    (Zeitschr. fuer Philosophie u. Phil. Kritik 112, 1898, 165).
    Therefore we demand evolution of the Christian religion! “Let us
    not blindly follow antiquated doctrines disposed of by science,”
    we are exhorted. “Let there be no fear lest our belief in God and
    true piety suffer by it! Let us remember that everything earthly
    is in continual motion, carried along by the rushing river of
    life.” Onward, therefore, to advancement! ... cheerfully avowing
    the watchword: “evolution of religion” (_Fr. Delitzsch_, Zweiter
    Vortrag ueber Babel u. Bibel, 45. thousand, 1904, 42).

    Modern Protestant theology has achieved a great deal in this
    direction; its evolution has progressed to a complete
    disintegration of Christianity, by adapting it to modern ideas so
    thoroughly that there is not a single thought left which this
    Christianity, reduced to meaningless words, might not accept.


This is the relativism of the present subjectivistic reasoning and its
consequences.

Now, it is true that there is room for a certain relativity and evolution
in the field of thought and truth. There is a relative truth in the sense
that our knowledge of it is never exhaustive. Even the eternal truths of
the Christian religion we always know only imperfectly, and we ought to
perfect our knowledge continually; established facts of history can also
be known, if studied, in greater detail. Thus there is progress and
evolution. But from this we may not conclude that there can be no fixed
truths at all. In the astronomy of to-day one can surely have the
conviction that the fundamental truths of _Copernicus’s_ System of the
Universe must remain an unchangeable truth, and that the time will never
come when we shall go back to the obsolete doctrines of old _Ptolemy_, who
made the sun revolve around the earth. Is astronomy therefore excluded
from progress and evolution? It is moreover true that the individual as
well as the community pass through an intellectual evolution in the sense
that they gradually increase their knowledge and correct their errors,
that literature and the schools gradually enhance the energy and wealth of
our ideas and thoughts.

But a progressive change of the laws of thought, to the effect that we
must now hold to a proposition which at another time we should naturally
reject as untenable, can be maintained only upon the supposition that the
thought of evolution has driven all others out of the intellect. It would
be absurd to hold that the same view could be true at one time and false
at another, that the same views about the world and life could be right
to-day and wrong to-morrow, to be accepted to-day and rejected to-morrow.
A view is either true or false. If true, it is always true and warranted.
Or was old _Thales_ right when he declared the world to consist of water;
were _Plato_ and _Aristotle_ right in maintaining that it consisted of
ideas, or forms, with real existences; was _Fichte_ and his time right
with his Ego, and are finally _Schopenhauer_, _Wundt_, and _Paulsen_ right
in claiming the world to be the work of the will? Were our heroic
ancestors right, as the theories of evolution claim, in holding that trees
are inhabited by ghosts; were then the Greeks right with their idea of a
host of gods dwelling in the Olympus; and later on, was the civilized
world right in holding that there is but one God, a personal one; and,
after that, are many others of to-day right when they tell us that the
world, and nature itself, is god? These are conclusions that threaten
confusion to the human brain. And yet they are the logical consequences of
“relative truth,” and any one reluctant to accept these consequences would
prove thereby that he has never realized what absurdities are marketed as
relative truth.

Or shall we give it up, as entirely impossible, to judge of the truth or
falseness of doctrines and views? Are we to value them only so far as they
are adapted to a period, and as moulding and benefiting that period? This
opinion indeed is held. “The values of science and philosophy,” says
_Paulsen_, “of our arts and poetry, consist in what they give us; whether
a distant future will still use them is very questionable. Scholastic
philosophy has passed away; we use it no longer; that is, however, no
proof against its value; if it has made the generations living in the
latter half of the Middle Ages more intelligent and wise ... then it has
done all that could rightfully be expected of it: having served its
purpose, it may be laid with the dead: there is no philosophy of enduring
value.” “Whatever new ideas a people produces from its own inner nature
will be beneficial to it. Nature may be confidently expected to produce
here and everywhere at the right time what is proper and necessary”
(System der Ethik, 8th ed., 1906, I, 339, _seq._, II, 241).

We have here a very deplorable misconception of the real value of truth,
degrading it to suit passing interests and to promote them. This also is
in conformity with subjectivism. But what could be answered to the
straight question: suppose the opinions which some prefer to call “false”
are more useful and valuable than “truth”? None but _Nietzsche_ had the
courage to say that “the falsity of a judgment is not yet a sufficient
prejudice against it; here our new speech will perhaps sound strangest.
The question is: How far is that judgment life-promoting, life-sustaining,
preservative, even creative of species, and we are inclined, on principle,
to say that the falsest judgments are to us the most indispensable”
(Jenseits von Gut und Boese, I, 4, W. W. VII, 12.) The view that doctrines
and opinions become especially or exclusively true and valuable by their
usefulness for practical life, has become in our times the principle of
pragmatism.

What others thought out only half way, _Nietzsche_ reasons out to the end.


    To what lengths this contempt of objective truth may lead a man of
    such an honest character as _Paulsen_, is learned from his advice
    to the modern Protestant preacher who can no longer believe what
    he has to preach to his orthodox congregation: he may speak just
    as suits his congregation, orthodox as well as unorthodox,
    according to the principles of relative truth. “Let us assume,” he
    says, “that his congregation is of a remote country village, where
    not the slightest report of the happenings in theology and
    literature has penetrated, where the names of _Strauss_ and
    _Renan_ are as little heard as those of _Kant_ and
    _Schleiermacher_. Here the Bible is still taken to be the literal
    Word of God, transmitted to us by holy men commissioned to do it.
    In this case the preacher may speak without scruple of that book
    in the same way as his present hearers are used to. Would he thus
    be saying what is wrong? What is meant by saying the Bible is the
    Word of God? The same preacher, if transferred to other
    surroundings where he has to address readers of _Strauss_ and
    _Kant_, may change his manner of speaking without changing his
    view or without violating the truth one way or the other. He would
    be speaking to them from their own point of view.... Again, should
    the same preacher publish his philosophical scientific research,
    he could speak of Holy Scripture in an entirely different way....”
    And he adds: “Some have taken exception to this opinion.” Surely
    not without reason!

    A justification of this counsel was attempted in these words:

    “Just as the electric incandescent light and the tallow-candle may
    exist side by side, and as each of them may serve its purpose in
    its proper place, so there exist also side by side various
    physical and metaphysical ideas and fundamental notions: the
    scientist and the philosopher and the old grandmother in her
    cottage on the remote mountain-side, cannot think of the world in
    the same way” (Ethik II, 240-244). But the argument, if it should
    prove anything, must be formulated thus: “As the incandescent
    light can at the same time be a tallow-candle, just so can two
    different and opposite views about one and the same thing be at
    the same time both right.”


Thus, thanks to the science of modern subjectivism, every fixed and
unchangeable truth, especially in the sphere of philosophy and religion,
is removed, and with it also every barrier to freedom of thought in
science as well as elsewhere. The human intellect in its autonomous
self-consciousness may not only reject those truths which are proposed by
revelation or the Church; it may not only experience its views of religion
and the world by giving free activity to its feelings, it also knows that
to be no longer satisfied with the old truths means to be progressive.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Above we have sketched the deeper-lying thoughts on which the liberal
freedom of science is based; it is the humanitarian view of the world with
its emancipation of man, and autonomous scepticism in thought, joined to
that sceptical disregard of truth which once the representative of
expiring pagan antiquity comprised in the words: _Quid est veritas?_ Now
we also understand better the liberal science which often claims the
privilege of being “the” science, and which only too often likes to put
down as unwarranted and inferior every other science that does not pursue
its investigations in the same way. We understand its methods of thought
in philosophy and religion, for which it claims an exclusive privilege; we
can also form a judgment of its claim to be the leader of humanity in
place of faith.

No doubt there are many who are flirting with this freedom without
accepting its principles entirely. They do not reason out the thing to the
end, they argue against the invasion of the Church into the field of
science, and point to _Galileo_; they denounce Index and Syllabus, and
then believe they have therewith exhausted the meaning of freedom of
science. That the real matter in question is a view of the world
diametrically opposed to the Christian view, that a changed theory of
cognition is underlying it, is by many but insufficiently realized.

This freedom is not acceptable to one who professes the Christian view of
the world. He will not offer any feeble apology to the eulogist of this
freedom, as, for instance: Indeed you are quite right about your freedom,
but please remember that I, too, as a faithful Christian am entitled to
profess freedom. No; the answer can only be: Freedom, yes; but _this_
freedom, no. A wholly different view of the world separates me from it. I
see in it not freedom but rebellion, not the rights of man but upheaval,
not a real boon of mankind but real danger.

The principle of liberalism has in the field of social economy already
done enough to wreck man’s welfare. It has here proved its incompetence as
a factor of civilization. That in science also, where it is active in the
field of philosophy and religion, liberalism is the principle of
overthrowing true science, without any appreciation for truth and human
nature, that it is a principle of intellectual pauperism and decay, that
it despoils man of his greatest treasures, inherited from better
centuries—this we shall prove conclusively.

It is difficult to say how long the high tide of liberalism will sweep
over the fields of modern intellectual life before it subsides. One thing,
however, is certain, that just so long it will remain a danger to
Christian civilization, and to the intellectual life of mankind.



SECOND SECTION. FREEDOM OF RESEARCH AND FAITH.



Chapter I. Research And Faith In General.



Introduction.


When the youth growing to maturity begins to feel the development of his
own strength, it may happen that he finds his dependence on home
unbearably trying. Perhaps he will say, “Father, give me the portion of
substance that falleth to me,” and then depart into a strange country.

The men of Europe have for centuries lived in the Christian religion as in
their fathers’ house, and have fared well. But to many children of our
time the old homestead has become too confining. Modern man, we are told,
has at last come to his senses. He wants to develop his personality,
thoughts, and sentiments freely, independently of every authority. He
turns his back on his father’s house. His parting words are the
accusation: The old Church “opposes the modern principles of free
individuality, the right to drain the cup of one’s own reason and personal
life, and it sets itself against the whole of modern feeling,
investigation, and activity” (_Th. Ziegler_, Gesch. der Ethik, II, 2d ed.,
1892, p. 589).

We are already acquainted with this freedom. We approach now the main
question: What is the true relation of the freedom, which man may rightly
claim for his scientific activity and reason, to external laws and
regulations? Is man really justified to reject them all on the plea that
they degrade his intellect and are an obstacle to his development, or does
this rejection but manifest an error into which his desire of freedom has
decoyed him? This is the question, it will be remembered, that we reached
soon in the beginning of our investigation. We have already found the
categorical answer—an emphatic rejection of such justification; we also
traced the hypotheses on which the answer rests. We now return to the
question to discuss it in principle. We begin with the freedom of
scientific _research_, in order to take up afterwards the freedom in
_teaching_.

What are those external powers that may interrupt or caution the scientist
in his investigations and problems? Here we do not yet consider the
scientist as a teacher, communicating to the public the result of his
investigation, his ideas and views, from the university chair to his
scientific audience, or to a wider circle of hearers by means of
publications; we here regard him in his private study only, in the pursuit
of which he perhaps encounters new questions, and new solutions suggest
themselves to him. What freedom can he and must he enjoy here? This
private freedom must evidently be judged from a point of view other than
that from which the freedom in teaching should be judged. With the latter,
the interests of his contemporaries must be taken into account, and the
question must be considered, whether they suffer by such teaching. The
freedom of the scientist is greater than that of the teacher. Moreover,
research is the principal and most important activity of science: nothing,
surely, is taught that has not been previously investigated. If,
therefore, research is in any way restricted, so also is teaching; but not
_vice versa_. Are there, then, exterior authorities that may restrain
research and reasoning, and what are they?

One who lives in the Christian world knows at once of what authority to
think. It is not the state. The state cannot directly influence the
private work of the student: if it may exert its influence directly upon
anything, it is only upon freedom in teaching. No, the authority to think
of is the authority of the faith, revealed religion and its guardian, the
Church.

Of course, this is not the only authority. Even if a revelation from
heaven had not been given us, yet those _general convictions of mankind_,
common to all nations and times, of the immutability of the laws of
thought and morality, of the existence of a supramundane God, of the
retribution for moral conduct to be made in the world to come, of the
sanctity of state-authority, of the necessity of private property, and
others, would ever remain most revered utterances of truth. No one would
be allowed to contradict this avowal of all mankind, relying on his own
reasoning, which he calls science, and give the lie to the reasoning of
all other men, in order to make his own reason the sole measure of truth.

But for the present let us pass over the natural authority of mankind, of
its convictions and traditions. It is surpassed and replaced by the
_authority of faith_ which belongs to _our Christian religion_. The latter
comes to us claiming to possess the only true view of the world, and
laying upon us the obligation of accepting it. It has even the courage to
put its anathema upon propositions which the scientist may call science;
it dares write out a list of the propositions which it condemns as
untenable. Against this authority the protest is raised: Where is freedom
of research, if one cannot even indulge in his own ideas, if the intellect
is to be cropped and fettered? What is to become of frank, unprejudiced
investigation, if I am from the outset bound to certain propositions, if
from the outset the result at which I must arrive is already determined?
It is intellectual bondage that the man of faith is languishing in. Thus
reads the indictment; thus sounds the battle-cry. Is the indictment
justified? Can and shall science take faith as a guide in many instances
without detriment to its own innate freedom? And where, and when?

First, the more general question: Is freedom of research compatible with
the duty to believe, or do they exclude each other in principle?



What Faith is Not.


What, then, is faith, and what does the duty to believe demand of us?

Here we meet at once with a false proposition which the opponents of the
Christian faith will not abandon. To them faith is always a blind assent,
in giving which one does not ask, nor dare ask, whether the proposition be
true—_a belief without personal conviction_. According to them the
believer holds himself “captive to the teaching of his Church. He cannot
reflect personally, but follows blindly the lead of authority and force of
habit.” Thus “Catholicism is the religion of bondage” (_W. Wundt_, Ethik,
3d ed., 1903, II, 255, 254). To them it is but an “uncritical submission
to the existing authority, uninfluenced either by the testimony of the
senses or the reflection of the intellect” (_K. Menger_, Neue Freie
Presse, 24 Nov., 1907). The campaign for liberal science is denouncing
those who “even to-day dare to demand blind faith,” “without proof or
criticism,” faith in the “word of the Popes and men pretending to be
interpreters and emissaries of God, men who have proved their incompetence
and inability by the physical and religious coercion to which they have
subjected mankind” (_T. G. Masaryk_, V boji o nábozenstvi, The Battle for
Religion, 1904, p. 10, 23).

To be sure, if the Christian faith were such, it would be intellectual
slavery. If I am compelled to believe something of which I cannot know the
truth, this is coercion, and conflicts with the nature of the intellect
and its right to truth. Infidelity would then be liberation. But faith is
_not_ that.

As a rule this view is based on a presumption, which has already been
extensively discussed, viz., that faith and religion have nothing at all
to do with intellectual activity, but are merely the _product of the
heart_, a sentimental, freely acting notion; for, of metaphysical objects
no human intellect can form a certain conviction. It is subjectivism that
leads to this view. According to it the subject creates its own world of
thought, free in action and feeling, not indeed everywhere,—in the sphere
of sense-experience the evidence of the concrete is too great,—but at
least in the sphere of metaphysical truth.

Such modes of expression find their way also into Catholic literature and
language; even here we meet with the assertion that religion is a matter
of the heart, and for that very reason has nothing to do with science. On
the whole it is a remarkable fact that among believing men many
expressions are current that have been coined in the mint of modern
philosophy, and have there received a special significance. They are used
without real knowledge of their origin and purposed meaning; but the words
do not fail to colour their ideas, and to create imperceptibly a strange
train of thought.

One who is of the opinion that religion and views of the world are but
sentiment and feeling, which change with one’s personality and
individuality, can, of course, no longer understand a dogmatic
Christianity and the obligation to hold fast to clearly defined dogmas as
unchangeable truth. I can hold dogmas and doctrinal decisions to be
unquestionably true only when I can _convince myself of their credibility_
by the judgment of my reason. If I cannot do that, and am still bound to
believe them, without the least doubt, then such obedience is compulsory
repression of the reason. Then it would indeed be necessary for the
Church, as _Kant_ says, “to instil into its flock a pious dread of the
least deviation from certain articles of faith based on history, and a
dread of all investigation, to such a degree that they dare not let a
doubt rise, even in thought, against the articles proposed for their
belief, because this would be tantamount to lending an ear to the evil
spirit” (Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 3. Stueck,
2. Abtlg.). Fixed dogmas may then at the very most, according to the great
master of modern thought, be of pedagogic value to a minor, until he be
grown to maturity. But to more advanced minds must be unconditionally
conceded the freedom to construct dogmas as they think best, viz., as
symbols and images for the subjective thought they underlie. This also, as
is well known, is an article of Modernism, which here again follows in the
steps of _Kant_.


    “Ecclesiastical faith,” says _Kant_, “may be useful as a vehicle
    to minors who can grasp a purely rational religion only through
    symbols, until in the course of time, owing to the general
    enlightenment, they can with the consent of everybody exchange the
    form of degrading means of coercion for an ecclesiastical form
    suitable to the dignity of a moral religion—that of free faith.”
    “The membranes,” he says in another place, “in which the embryo
    first shaped itself into man must be cast off, if he is to see the
    light of day. The apron-strings of sacred tradition with its
    appendages, viz., the statutes and observances which at one time
    did good service, can gradually be dispensed with; they may even
    become a harmful hindrance when one is growing to manhood.”


Of course, to him who takes the position of _Kant’s_ _dualism of belief
and rational judgment_, freedom from every authority in matters of faith,
and in this sense tolerance, will appear to be self-evident. Whatever has
nothing to do with knowledge, but is merely the personal result of an
inner, subjective experience, cannot be offered by external authority as
matter for instruction. The sole standard for this belief is the
autonomous subject and its own needs. In this sense _Harnack_ tells us:
“The kernel of one’s being is to be grasped in its own depths and the soul
is merely to recognize its own needs and the road traced out for their
gratification. This can only be done with the fullest freedom. Any
restraint here is tantamount to the destruction of the problem; any
submission to the teaching of others ... is treason to one’s own religion”
(Religioeser Glaube und freie Forschung. Neue Freie Presse, 7. Juni,
1908). To have one’s religion determined by any authority, even a divine
one, would be treason to the sovereignty of man!

Viewed from this standpoint, the _reconciliation between faith and
science_ is no longer a problem. And they congratulate themselves on the
solution of this vexing question. Now, they say, deliverance from an
oppressive misery has been found, now the peace sought for so long is
restored. A fair division has been made: two worlds, the world of the
senses, and the world above sense experience. One belongs to science,
where it now rules supreme; the other belongs to faith, where it can move
freely, undisturbed by, and even unapproachable to science. Just as the
stars in the sky are inaccessible to the custodian of civil order,—he can
neither support them nor hinder them, nor pull them down,—just so the
realm of faith is inaccessible to science: peace reigns everywhere.


    Cheered on by this treaty of peace, _Paulsen_ writes: “Thus
    critical philosophy has solved the old problem of the relation of
    knowledge to faith. _Kant_ is convinced that by properly setting
    the limits he has succeeded in laying the foundation for real and
    enduring peace between them. In fact, upon this in the first place
    will rest the importance and vitality of his philosophy. It gives
    to knowledge, on the one hand, what belongs to it for unlimited
    research, the whole world of phenomena; on the other hand it gives
    to faith its eternal right, the interpretation of life and the
    world from the view-point of values. There can be no doubt that
    herein lies the cause of the great impression made by _Kant_ upon
    his time; he appeared as the liberator from unbearable suspense”
    (Immanuel Kant, 1898, 6).


To a critical observer, such peace-making is utterly incomprehensible.
They probably did not consider that in this way _religion and faith_ were
not liberated, but _dispossessed_; not brought to a place of safety, but
transferred from the realm of reality into the realm of fancy. Similarly
an aggressive ruler might address a neighbouring prince thus: We cannot
agree any longer, let us make peace: you retain all your titles, and I
shall see to your decent support, but you will have to lay down your crown
and sovereignty and leave the country—in this way we can have peace.
Religion, once the greatest power in the life of man, for the sake of
which man made sacrifices and even laid down his life, has now become a
matter of sterile devotion; it may, moreover, no longer claim power and
importance; it is now reduced to a poetic feeling, with which one can fill
up intellectual vacancies. No longer is man here for religion’s sake;
religion is here for man’s sake. A buttonhole flower, a poetic perfume to
sprinkle over his person. For he does not want to give up religion
entirely. “We are the less inclined to give up religion forthwith, since
we are prone to consider a religious disposition as a prerogative of human
nature, even as its noblest title.” Thus _D. F. Strauss_, when he asked of
those who sympathized with his opinions, Have we still religion? (Der alte
u. neue Glaube, II, n. 33). Of course religion has now become something
quite different; it has been _consigned to deep degradation_.

To be sure, feeling is of great importance in religion. Dissatisfaction
with the things of this earth, man’s longing for something higher, for the
Infinite, his craving for immortality, for aid and consolation—are all
naturally seeking for religious truths. If these are known, they in turn
arouse fear and hope, love and gratitude; they become a source of
happiness and inspiration. But these feelings have no meaning unless we
are certain that there exists something corresponding to them; much less
could they of themselves be a conviction, just as little as hunger could
convince us that we have food and drink. If one cannot perceive that there
is a God, a Providence, a life beyond, then religion sinks to the level of
a hazy feeling, without reason and truth, which must appear foolish to men
who think,—as “the great phantasmagoria of the human mind, which we call
religion” (_Jodl_, Gedanken über Reform Katholizismus, 1902, 12),—which
departs from the sphere of rational intellectual life, and which many have
even begun to contemplate from the view-point of psychopathology. It is
only due to the after-effect of a more religious past that religion is
suffered to lead still a life of pretence: moral support in struggles it
can give no more, nor comfort in dark hours, much less may it presume to
guide man’s thought. It stands far below science.

Despair of the possibility of knowing higher truths is confronting us, the
disease of deteriorating times and intellectually decaying nations. But
just as Christianity, once in youthful vigour, went to the rescue of an
old World dying of scepticism, just as the Catholic Church has ever upheld
the rights of reason, especially against Protestantism, which from its
beginning has torn asunder faith and knowledge: so the Catholic Church
stands to this day unaffected by the doubting tendency of our times,
upholding the rights of reason. It also upholds faith. But its faith has
nothing to do with modern agnosticism.



What Faith Is.


What, then, according to Catholic doctrine, is faith and the duty to
believe?

Let us briefly recall to mind the _fundamental tenets_ of the _Christian
religion_. It tells us that even in the Old Testament, but more especially
in the New, through His Incarnate Son, God has revealed to man all those
religious and moral truths which are necessary and sufficient for the
attainment of his supernatural end. Some of them are truths which reason
by itself could not discover; others it could discover, but only by great
labour. And this divine revelation demands belief. Belief is natural to
man. The child believes its parents, the judge believes the witnesses, the
ruler believes his counsellors. God wished to meet man in this way, and to
give him certainty in regard to the highest truths.

But revelation was to be an heritage of mankind, it was to be transmitted
and laid unadulterated before all generations. For this reason it could
not be left unprotected to the vicissitudes of time, or the arbitrary
interpretation of the individual. It would have utterly failed in its
purpose of transmitting sure knowledge of certain truth,—the history of
Protestantism proves this,—had it been given merely with the injunction:
Receive what I have committed to your keeping, and do with it what you
please. No, it had to be made secure against subjective, arbitrary choice.

To this end Christ established an international organization, the
_Church_, and committed to it His Gospel as a means of grace, together
with the right and sacred duty to teach it to all men in His Name, to keep
inviolate the heirloom of revelation, defending it against all error.
“Going, therefore, teach ye all nations” (Matt. xxviii. 19), was His
command. “Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every
creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that
believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark xvi. 15). “He that heareth you,
heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me” (Luke x. 16).
“Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world”
(Matt. xxviii. 20). He gave His divine aid to the Church, in order that
she might _infallibly_ keep His doctrine to the very end of time.

Thus the divine revelation and the Church approach all men with the duty
to believe: “he that believeth shall be saved,” God gravely commands; “and
if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and
publican” (Matt. xviii. 17). They lay their teachings before the human
intellect, bidding it retain them as indubitable truth, upon their
infallible testimony, yet only after convincing itself that God has really
spoken, and that this Church is the true one, which cannot err. And only
after having convinced itself of the credibility of the proposed teaching
is it obliged to believe. Hence, according to the Christian mind, faith is
the _reasonable conviction of the truth of what is proposed for belief, by
reason of an acknowledged infallible testimony_.


    The Catholic dogma we find explained in the definition of the
    Vatican Council, which had to expose so many errors that are
    liable in our days to confuse the faithful in their notions of
    faith and Church. “This faith,” says the Vatican Council (Sess.
    III, chap. 3), “which is the beginning of human salvation, the
    Catholic Church teaches to be a supernatural virtue, by which,
    through the inspiration and co-operation of the grace of God, we
    believe to be true what He has revealed, not on account of the
    intrinsic truth of it, perceived by the natural light of reason,
    but on the authority of God who gives the revelation, who can
    neither deceive nor be deceived.... Nevertheless, in order that
    the service of our belief might be in accord with reason (‘a
    reasonable service’) God willed to unite to the internal helps of
    the Holy Ghost external proofs of His revelation, to wit, external
    works divine, especially miracles and prophecies, which, clearly
    demonstrating God’s omnipotence and infinite knowledge, are most
    certain signs of divine revelation and are suited to the
    intelligence of all.” The Council adds expressly the canon: “If
    any one say that divine revelation cannot be made credible by
    exterior signs, and that men ought therefore to be moved to belief
    solely by their interior experience or individual inspiration, let
    him be anathema.” We have here stated the Catholic dogma as
    unanimously taught by all Christian centuries, by all Fathers and
    theologians.


Hence, the act of faith by which I believe that the Son of God became man,
that I shall rise from the dead, is first of all a _judgment of the
reason_, not an act of the will, or a feeling of the heart. It is,
moreover, a _certain_ rational judgment upon weighty reasons, not, indeed,
such which I draw from intellectual knowledge, but those which rest upon
the infallible testimony of God. The act of faith agrees therefore with
assent to historic truth in that it is of the same kind of knowledge, but
upon the authority of infallible testimony. Just as I believe that
Alexander once marched victoriously through Asia, because there is sure
testimony to that effect, so I believe that I shall rise from the dead,
because God has revealed it. The difference being that in the former case
we have only human testimony, whereas in the latter God Himself speaks.
Thus, according to Catholic teaching, faith and knowledge may be distinct
from each other, but in a sense quite different from that of the
representatives of modern, sentimental faith. The latter understand
knowledge, in this connection, to be any judgment of the reason based upon
evidence, and they deny that faith is such; but to a Catholic, faith, too,
is a _judgment of the reason_, and in this sense true knowledge; only it
is not knowledge in the more common sense of a cognition derived from
one’s own mental activity _without_ the external means of authority.

As we have heard from the Vatican Council, it is the recognized fact of
divine revelation which bestows upon the matter of faith its certainty in
reason. Hence the knowledge of this fact must precede faith itself. But
the knowledge must be certain, not merely a belief, for it is the very
presupposition of belief, but a knowledge, derived from the intellect,
which may at any time be traced back to scientific proofs if there is the
requisite philosophical training. So long as man is not certain that God
has spoken, he cannot have faith according to the Catholic view. One of
the sentences condemned by _Innocent XI._, to say nothing of other
ecclesiastical testimonies, is this: “The assent of supernatural faith,
useful for salvation, can exist with merely probable information of the
fact of revelation, even with the fear that God has not spoken.” And very
recently there has been condemned also the proposition: “The assent of
faith ultimately rests upon a sum of probabilities” (Decretum Lamentabile,
July 3, 1907. Sent. 25).

It cannot be our task here to show at length how the Christian arrives at
this certain knowledge. Our present purpose is only to state the Catholic
concept of faith. We have already heard the Vatican Council refer to
miracles and prophecies. To most of the faithful the chief fact that
offers them this security is the wonderful phenomenon of the _Catholic
Church_ itself, which proposes to them the doctrines of faith as divine
revelation.


    Thus again the Vatican Council defines clearly: “To enable us to
    do our duty in embracing the true faith and remaining in it
    steadfastly, God has through His incarnate Son established the
    Church and set plain marks upon His institution, in order that it
    may be recognized by all as the guardian and interpreter of
    revelation. For only the Catholic Church possesses all those
    arrangements, so various and wonderful, made by God in order to
    demonstrate publicly the credibility of Christianity. Indeed the
    Church of itself, because of its wonderful propagation, its
    pre-eminent sanctity and inexhaustible fecundity in everything
    good, its Catholic unity and invincible duration, is a grand
    permanent proof of its credibility and irrefutable testimony in
    behalf of its divine mission. Thus, like a ’standard unto the
    nations,’ it invites those to come to it who have not yet
    believed, and assures its children that the faith they profess
    rests upon a most firm foundation.”

    The Catholic looks with pride upon his Church: she has stood all
    the trials of history. He sees her endure, though within harassed
    by heresies and endangered by various unworthiness and incapacity
    of her priests, and attacked incessantly from without by
    irreconcilable enemies, yet prevailing victoriously through the
    centuries, blessing, converting nations and beloved by them; while
    by her side worldly kingdoms, supported by armies and weapons, go
    down into the grave of human instability. The most wonderful fact
    in the world’s history, contrary to all laws of natural,
    historical events,—here a higher hand is plainly thrust into human
    history; it is the fulfilment of the divine promise: “I am with
    you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” “The gates
    of hell shall not prevail against it.” He sees the Saints, who
    have lived in this Church and have become saints through her,
    those superhuman heroes of virtue, who far surpass the laws of
    human capacity.

    In the most widely different states of life in the Church he sees
    virtue grow in the degree in which one submits to her guidance. He
    witnesses the remarkable spectacle, that everything noble and good
    is attracted by the Church, and their contrary repelled. He sees
    the miracles which never cease in her midst. Finally he beholds
    her admirable unity and vigorous faith; she alone holding firm to
    her teaching, not compromising with any error; she alone holding
    fearlessly aloft the principle of divine authority, and thus
    becoming a beacon to many who are seeking a safe shelter from
    spiritual ruin. In addition we finally have that harmony and
    grandeur of the truths of faith, and—perhaps not in the last
    place—that calm and peace of mind, produced in the faithful soul
    by a life led according to this faith, by prayer and the reception
    of the Sacraments. This is a clear proof that where the Spirit of
    God breathes there cannot be the seat of untruth.


These are sufficient proofs to produce even in the uneducated, and in
children, true and reasonable certainty, provided they have had sufficient
instruction in religion. It must, however, be emphasized that this
conviction produced by faith need _not first be gained by scientific
investigation_ of the motives of faith, or by minute or extensive
theological studies. A wrong notion of human knowledge frequently leads to
the opinion that there is no true certainty at all unless it is the result
of scientific study—a presumption on which is based the claim of freedom
of science to disregard any conviction, be it ever so sacred, and the
claim that it is reserved to science alone to attain the sure possession
of the truth. Later on we shall dwell more at length upon this important
point. Let it suffice here to remark that the intellect can attain real
certainty even without scientific research; most of our convictions, which
we all hold unhesitatingly as true, are of this kind. They constitute a
belief that is based upon the real knowledge of the reason, which
knowledge is not, however, so clear and distinct that it could be
demonstrated easily in scientific form.

The certainty of faith, therefore, is based upon the knowledge that God
Himself vouches for the truth of the teachings of faith. This relieves the
faithful from the necessity of obtaining by his own reflection an insight
into the intrinsic reasons of the why and the wherefore of the proposed
truth, and to examine in each instance the correctness of the thing. He
knows that God has revealed it, that His infallible Church vouches for it;
hence it is credible and true; that suffices for him, just as trustworthy
evidence suffices for the historian concerning facts which he himself has
not observed.

Let no one say that faith is a _blind belief_ and blind obedience, and
that dogmatic Christianity, or, to use another phrase, “the religion of
the law, demands first of all obedience: it is true it would like, besides
that, an interior assent for its thoughts and commandments, but where this
is lacking the law itself furnishes the ways and means to compensate the
lack of this internal assent, if only obedience is there” (_A. Harnack_,
Religioeser Glaube u. freie Forschung. Neue Freie Presse, June 7, 1908).
Nor let any one say that free research has “at least this advantage over
dogma, that its claims can be proved, which is not true of the other’s
claims” (_J. H. van’t Hoff_, ibid., Dec. 29, 1907). These are
misrepresentations.

There is no obedience to faith which is not _internal assent and
conviction_, and there is no clinging to dogmas which is not based on
motives of faith, or which could not at any time be subjected to
scientific investigation. If the term “blindness of belief” were intended
to express only that the believer holds the revealed doctrine to be true,
not because he has discovered its truth by his own reasoning, but on the
authority of God, then we might suffer the misleading word. But it is
utterly false in the sense that the believer has no conviction at all.
Even though others have it not, the faithful Catholic, the believing
Christian, has it, and it is personal conviction. He has convinced himself
that God has spoken, and of the credibility and hence the truth of the
revealed doctrine, by his own reason, and this is why he assents.


    Still greater is the misrepresentation of the real motive of
    faith, if it is held to be the opinion of the Pope or of Roman
    Prelates. _Wundt_ thus misstates the Catholic position: “Not every
    one can acquire knowledge. But any one can believe. The
    enlightened leaders of the Church, and the Church herself first of
    all, have knowledge, and by dint of authority determine what is to
    be believed” (Ethik, 3d ed., 1903, I, p. 342). According to the
    popular scientific propaganda of unbelief, we have to deal in the
    Church merely with “ignorant monks, Asiatic patriarchs, and
    similar dignitaries, some very superstitious, who, for instance,
    assembled in the third century and decided _by vote_ that the
    Gospel is the word of God; we have to deal with men who have
    proved their incapacity and incompetence” (_Masaryk_, Im Kampfe um
    die Religion, 1904, pp. 22-23).

    Any one who shares such ideas about the supernaturalness of the
    Catholic Church has, of course, forfeited his claim to understand
    Catholic life and faith. The Catholic believes in his Church, not
    on any account of Asiatic patriarchs and superstitious
    dignitaries, but because she is led by the Holy Ghost, and the
    Pope must believe the same as the humblest of the faithful:
    neither the Pope himself relies upon his own judgment, nor does
    the Catholic who trusts in the word of the Pope.

    We add a few remarks which may further illustrate the action of
    faith.

    The knowledge of the fact of revelation, hence of the credibility
    of the truths revealed, is certain, as shown above. Nevertheless,
    _it does not compel_ reason to assent. Under ordinary
    circumstances it would be impossible to think of one’s own
    existence, of the elementary laws of mathematics, without being
    constrained by the evidence to give direct internal assent. But
    insight into the truth of a thing is not always of this high
    degree of clearness. In such cases it is an empirical law of the
    mind that reason discerns of itself the _logical_ necessity, that
    is, if it desires to proceed according to the merits of the case,
    without, however, acting under _physical_ constraint. There
    remains then the determination, the command of the will. This is
    generally true of many judgments about natural things, but
    especially true of belief. The knowledge of the fact of revelation
    is true and certain, though it might be still clearer. The truths
    offered by divine revelation are too deep for us to comprehend
    them fully; they imply questions and difficulties for us to
    ponder. We feel the physical possibility of pondering these
    difficulties, although we see at the same time that the difficulty
    is exploded by the certainty of the fact of revelation; but we
    remain _free_ in giving our assent.

    Herein lies the possibility of _meritorious_ faith, the
    possibility of the creature rendering to God the free tribute of
    his free submission. At the same time it opens the possibility of
    turning voluntarily to doubts, and of submitting to them more and
    more, till the mind becomes clouded and ensnared by error. Thus,
    since faith depends on free will, the will is strictly commanded
    to impel the intellect to assent and cling to faith and to put
    aside doubts. God has revealed the truths of faith that they may
    be firmly believed.

    Hence faith is a product of the will also, and may become part and
    parcel of the sentimental life. Firmly believed, revealed truths
    engender in man love and gratitude, fear and hope. And being
    beautiful and comforting, they are embraced fervently by the
    heart, and become objects of desire, sources of comfort and
    happiness. Nevertheless they are in themselves, and remain,
    rational judgments, based upon insight and knowledge; just as the
    fond recollections of home are and remain acts of cognition,
    though our affections are twined round those reminiscences like
    wreaths of evergreen.

    What has just been said illustrates also another point,—the
    _relation of faith to grace_. The Vatican Council says: “Faith is
    a supernatural virtue by which, through the inspiration and
    co-operation of the grace of God, we believe to be true what He
    has revealed.” Faith is called a gift of God, a work of grace. But
    this must not mislead us to think that it is a mystical process,
    taking place in the human mind, indeed, but not moving along the
    natural course of human cognition, but along quite a different
    course: perhaps an immediate mystical grasp of the revealed truth,
    while natural intelligence stands aside, not understanding it.
    This would be returning to our starting point,—making faith
    anything but a judgment of the reason. It is a common doctrine of
    theology that the process of faith differs nothing in kind from
    the natural process of human intellect in its apprehension of the
    truth. It is belief on grounds recognized as sufficient motives
    for assent.

    What then does grace do? Two things. First, it elevates the act of
    the soul in the process of believing to a higher sphere. Just as
    sanctifying grace elevates the soul itself to a supernatural
    sphere, permitting it to partake of the nature of God, so does the
    grace of faith raise the acts of the soul to the supernatural
    order. The _kind_ of cognition, however, remains the same: just as
    a ring does not alter its form by being golden instead of silver.

    In the second place, grace is _assistance_: it enlightens the
    intellect that it may be able to see more clearly, not giving to
    motives of faith an importance which they have not of themselves,
    but helping the intellect to see them as they are; removing the
    troubles and dangers of doubt which beset the mind, so that it may
    retain that calmness which generally accompanies the possession of
    the truth. The pledge of this assistance is given the Christian at
    baptism and with each increase of sanctifying grace. But the
    actual effect of grace depends on many conditions. If one omits
    prayer and neglects religious duties, deafens one’s ear to the
    word of God, incurs knowingly unnecessary dangers to faith,
    forsakes the path of virtue, then grace may withdraw to a
    considerable extent; doubts become stronger, intellectual darkness
    and confusion increase, and man goes on apace towards infidelity.

    This is the Catholic doctrine concerning faith.



Faith and Reason.


But to return to our question: In what relation do faith and the duty to
believe stand to freedom of research? We said that freedom of research
consists in exemption from all unjust external restraint, that is, from
those external hindrances to the action of the human intellect which
prevent it from attaining its natural end. Now what is this natural end?
The answer will make clear what restraint and laws must be respected by
the human mind, and which may be rightly rejected.

On the coat-of-arms of Harvard University is written the beautiful word
“Truth.” Upon the human mind, too, is inscribed the word _Veritati_—_for
the truth_. The human mind exists for the sake of truth; for the truth it
reasons and searches; it is its natural object, as sound is the object of
the human ear, and light and colour the object of the eye. And truth
attracts the mind strongly. The child wants the truth, and tries to get it
by its many questions; the historian wants the truth, and tries to get it
by his incessant searching and collecting. “I can hardly resist my
craving,” _William von Humboldt_ confesses, “to see and know and examine
as much as possible: after all, man seems to be here only for the purpose
of appropriating to himself, making his own property, the property of his
intellect, all that surrounds him—and life is short. When I depart this
life I should like to leave behind me as little as possible unexperienced
by me” (apud _O. Willmann_, Didaktik als Bildungslehre, 3d ed., II, 1903,
p. 7). The great physicist, _W. Thomson_, a few years ago closed a life of
eighty-three years—he died in December, 1907—devoted to the last to
unabated search for the truth. It is true not all are called to labour in
this field like _W. Thomson_. But every one who has capability may and
should help to promote the noble work. Only they are excluded who do not
want to look for the truth, or who are even ready, for external
considerations, to pass off falsehood for the truth, unproved for
established results. “I know of nothing,” says the ancient sage, _Plato_,
“that is more worthy of the human mind than truth” (Rep. VI, p. 483 c.).
And so the poet _Pindar_ sings: “Queen Truth, the mother of sublime
Virtue.”

If this is the aim of the human mind and its science, there is but one
freedom of research, the _freedom for the truth_, the right not to be
hampered in searching for the truth, not to be forced to hold as true what
has not been previously vouched for to the intellect as true; in a word,
the freedom to wear but one chain, the golden chain of the truth. Hence,
if the scientist should be compelled by party interest, or public opinion,
to pursue a course in science which he cannot acknowledge as the right
one; if the younger scientist should feel constrained to conform the
results of his research to the pleasure of his older colleagues or of men
of name, against his own better judgment, then he would be deprived of his
rightful freedom of searching for the truth, and of deciding for himself
when he has found it. But there is one sort of freedom the scientist
should never claim—_freedom against the truth_, freedom to ignore the
truth, to emancipate himself from the truth. He is bound to accept every
truth, sufficiently proved, even religious dogmas, miracles too, provided
they are authenticated. Not freedom, but truth, is the purpose of
research: emancipation from the truth is degeneration of the intellect,
destruction of science.

What, then, does the duty to believe require of the faithful Christian? He
is required, first of all, to assure himself of the certain credibility of
those truths which he is required to believe, and here authentic proofs
are offered him. On his perception of the credibility of these truths, he
ought to assent to and accept God’s testimony. Hence there should be no
coercion to believe without interior conviction, no obstacle put in the
way of recognizing the truth. _Where, then, is here any opposition to the
lawful freedom of research_, to the right of unimpeded search for the
truth? How is reason hindered in its search for the truth when truth is
offered it by an infallible authority? We have here no opposition to the
laws of reason, but due honour to its sacred rights; no bondage, but
elevation and enrichment, completion and crowning of its thought, for the
highest truth has been communicated to the reason that it may be of one
mind with that Infinite Wisdom which has shaped reason for the truth, and
from which it obtains its light as the planet from the sun around which it
revolves.

Therefore, it cannot be said that “the Catholic resolves to believe as
true what the Church teaches in the Apostles’ Creed, but were he offered
anything else as Church doctrine he would accept it as well. Hence these
doctrines do not express his own personal opinions, they are something
extraneous to him.” (_W. Herrmann_, Roemische u. evangelische
Sittlichkeit, 3d ed., 1903, p. 3). No, what the Catholic, what any true
Christian, believes by faith, that is his innermost conviction, as it is
the firm conviction of the historian that what he has drawn from reliable
sources is true.—But what if the contrary were offered him? Well, this
assumption is absurd; and why? Because God and His Church are infallible,
and an infallible authority cannot speak the truth and its contrary at the
same time. Much less than a reliable historical witness can testify to the
truth and its contrary at the same time.

This same conviction gives to the faithful Christian the firm assurance
that no certain result of human research will ever come in conflict with
his faith, just as the mathematician does not fear that his principle will
ever be contradicted by any further work. Truth can never contradict
truth. “Thus we believe and thus we teach and herein lies our salvation.”
It is the very old conviction of the faithful Christian “that philosophy,
that is, the study of wisdom, and religion are not different things.” _Non
aliam esse philosophiam, i.e., sapientiae studium et aliam religionem_
(_Augustinus_, De Vera Religione, 5). It is precisely this that enables
the believing scientist to devote himself with great freedom and
impartiality to research in every field, and to acknowledge any certified
result without fear of ever having to stop before a definite conclusion.

Such is the _peace between faith and science_ according to Christian
principles. They are not torn apart, but join hands peacefully, like truth
with truth, like two certain convictions, only gained in different ways.
Similar is the peace and harmony between the results of various sciences,
as physics and astronomy, geology and biology, which results, though
arrived at by different methods, are still not opposed to each other,
because they are both true.

The authority of faith, however, must be _infallible_; the authority of a
scientist, a school or the state, can never approach us with an absolute
obligation to believe it, because it cannot vouch for the truth. To the
Catholic his Church proves itself infallible; hence everything is here
logically consequent. Protestant Church authorities have not
infallibility, nor do they claim it. Hence their precepts are seen more
and more opposed. Hence to the Protestant the firm attachment of the
Catholic to his Church must ever remain unintelligible, and it is
regrettable that Catholics take instruction from Protestants about their
relation to their Church.(2)

We must go a step further. If there is a divine revelation or an
infallible Church—we speak only hypothetically—then no man and _no
scientific research can claim the right_ to contradict this revelation and
Church. Scientific research is not the hypostatized activity of a
superhuman genius, of a god-like intelligence. No, it is the activity of a
human intellect, and the latter is subject to God and truth everywhere.
There can be no freedom to oppose the truth; no privilege not to be bound
to the truth but rather to have the right to construct one’s views
autonomously.

But here lies the deeper reason why to-day thousands to whom _Kant’s_
_autonomism in thought_ has become the nerve of their intellectual life,
will have nothing to do with guidance by revelation and Church. They can
no longer understand that their reason should accept the truth from an
external authority, not, indeed, because they would not find the truth,
but because they would lose their independence.


    It was _Sabatier_ who maintained that “an external authority, no
    matter how great one may think it to be, does not suffice to
    arouse in us any sense of obligation.” And _Th. Lipps_ says on
    this further: “If obedience is taken in its narrower sense, that
    is, of determination by the will of another, then no obedience is
    moral.” “In brief, obedience is immoral—not as a fact but as a
    feeling, betokening an unfree, slavish mind” (Die ethiseben
    Grundfragen, 2d ed., 1905, p. 119). And _W. Herrmann_ assures us.
    “We would deem it a sin if we dared treat a proposition as true of
    which the ideas are not our own. If we should find such a
    proposition in the Bible, then we may perhaps resolve to wait and
    see whether its truth cannot be brought home to us after we have
    obtained a clearer and stronger insight of ourselves. But from the
    resolution to take that proposition as true without more ado, we
    could not promise ourselves anything beneficial.”


It is for the sovereign subject himself to decide whether the ideas
offered are compatible with the rest of his notions. A truth offered from
without is acceptable to the subject only when, and because, he can
produce of himself at the same time what is offered; but he cannot accept
the obligation of _submitting_ to that truth in obedience to faith. “There
is no infallible teaching authority on earth, nor can there be any.
Philosophy and science would have to contradict themselves to acknowledge
it,” says another champion of _Kant’s_ freedom (_Paulsen_, Philosophia
militans, 2d ed., p. 52). Hence the reason why there cannot be any
infallible authority is, not because it does not offer the truth, but
because the human intellect must not be chained down.

Now, this is no longer true freedom, but rebellion against the sacred
right that truth has over the intellect. It is rebellion against the
supreme authority of God, who can oblige man to embrace His revelation
with that reason which He Himself has bestowed upon man. It is a
misconception of the human mind, for it is by no means the source of truth
and absolute knowledge, but weak and in need of supplement. Many truths it
cannot by itself find at all, while in the quest for others it needs safe
guidance lest it lose its way. If it refuses to be supplemented and guided
from above, it demands the freedom of the weak vine allowed to break loose
from the needed support of the tree, the freedom of the planet allowed to
deviate from its orbit to be hopelessly wrecked in the universe. The
barrenness and disintegration in the ideal life of our own unchristian
age, are clear testimony that freedom is not only lawlessness but a sin
against one’s own nature.

Or, do they seek to save themselves by asserting that a divine revelation
and the founding of an infallible Church are _impossible_? Very well,
then, let them prove it. On this the question hinges. If they can prove it
to us, that very moment we shall cease to be faithful Catholics, and
Christianity will have been the most stupendous lie in history. But if the
reverse is the case, then all declamations in the name of free research
fall to the ground.

This impossibility, however, could only be proved by the aid of a
presumption. This presumption is _atheism_, which denies the existence of
a personal God, or at least doubts it. If it is admitted that there is a
personal God, then it is self-evident that He can give a revelation, and
found an infallible Church, and can oblige all to believe. But herewith
collapses also the liberal principle that, in reasoning, one may reject an
external authority. Hence the principle of liberal freedom in science can
only then be taken seriously, when one advances to atheism. Then, of
course, they will say with _Nietzsche_: God is dead; long live the
transcendental man!

Our assertions are proved by experience. At the end of the eighteenth
century the enlightenment began by excluding all revelation; but it was
desired to retain the rational truth of God’s existence. Since then,
liberal science has been aiming at atheism in philosophy, whether open or
masked. And if we follow up the career of men who have left their faith,
we shall soon find that if they do not seek peace in the sheltering
harbour of thoughtlessness, they have reached the terminal station of
atheism. There is no stopping on this incline.

Since it is the express fundamental principle of the liberal freedom of
research, that science is not bound to any external authority, it is
evident that it is nothing else but the refusal to submit to God’s
authority, hence, also, to submit to truth if it appears as revelation.
For, either it is admitted that if there is a divine revelation, we have
to give it our assent—and in this event liberal freedom of science would
have to be abandoned,—or this liberal freedom is adopted in real
earnest—then it must be admitted that it is tantamount to _radical
apostasy and defection from the truth_. If a man wishes to be a faithful
Christian and at the same time to uphold the liberal freedom of science,
then he has never made clear to himself what he wishes.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Ecce ancilla Domini._ Thus spoke the Mother of the Lord, when she heard
the message that she was to receive the Word of the eternal Father in her
bosom. This word of humility and submission was the condition under which
she could receive in herself the eternal Wisdom of the Father.

Behold, the Handmaid of the Lord! This word of humility and submission to
God must also be spoken by the creature’s intelligence, if it desires by
faith to share in God’s truth. Without humility of mind a faithful
attachment to God is impossible; pride and arrogance lead to desertion of
God, faith, and truth. _Multum errant, quoniam superbi sunt_, says
_Augustine_ of the erring companions of his youth. Only if there is
humility does God’s wisdom cross the threshold of the creature’s mind,
only if there is humility can it be said of man: _Et verbum caro factum
est et habitat in nobis, plenum gratiae et veritatis_.



Chapter II. The Authority Of Faith And The Free Exercise Of Research.



Preliminary Remarks.


We must not stop at what we have just said in general about the relation
between the freedom of research and the obligation to believe. We must go
further into detail, in order to give a more exact explanation of how and
where the authority of faith clashes with research and restrains it. Is it
true that the believing scientist cannot move freely in his research, that
there are barriers on all sides which he may not overstep? Is it true that
the Church may prescribe for the Catholic scientist what he is allowed to
defend and approve, what he ought to refute and reprove, suppress or
advocate, so that his eyes must ever be turned towards Rome, to inquire
and ascertain what might there be approved? And what a chain of
proscriptions of free thinking is attached to the name of Rome! Index,
Syllabus, _Galileo_—link after link is added to this chain of miserable
slavery!

We shall say something more about this chain later on. First we must
consider the principal question: Where and how do faith and science come
in contact? And what we are going to say we shall condense into four
points. Thus freedom of science will be more precisely defined; it will be
shown what freedom revelation, and especially the guardian of revelation,
the Church, offers to science: there can be no doubt that its natural
freedom of exercise must be left to science intact.

We shall deal in the first place with the _profane sciences_, and, at
least for the present, leave aside the discussion of theology, since it is
clear that theology, being the science of faith, must assume a peculiar
position in regard to the authority of faith: theology, moreover, is a
special mark for attack; accordingly we shall deal with it particularly
later on. However, the principles to be cited, being of a general nature,
refer also to the science of faith, and for this reason we shall have
occasion to refer to them.



1. Authority of Faith and Private Authority.


We often meet with the most inconceivable notions. We are told quite
seriously that the Church teaches, and that the Catholic has therefore to
believe, that the earth is a flat disc surrounded by the sea, as the
ancients believed; above it is a vault, below it hell-fire; that the earth
stands still and the sun and stars revolve about it, just as _Ptolemy_ of
Egypt taught; that God created the whole world just as it is now in
exactly six days of twenty-four hours each; that He made the sun and moon,
just as they are now illuminating the skies; that the strata, just as they
now look when bared by the geologist’s hammer, even the coal-fields and
petrified saurians and fossils—all were made, just as they now are, well
nigh six thousand years ago. The Scriptures teach this, the Fathers of old
and the theologians believe this: and that is where the Catholic must get
his science. And then they are astonished, and consider dogma retreating
before science, when they see other notions prevailing, when they see
Catholic scientists defend without prejudice the evolution of the solar
system, and even the system of the whole universe, from some primitive
matter, or assume an organic evolution, as far as science supports it (cf.
_Braun_, Ueber Kosmologie u. Standpunkt christlich. Wiss., 2d ed., 1906,
etc.). They would be still more astonished perhaps to learn that similar
ideas had long ago been proposed by _St. Augustine_ and _St. Thomas_ (cf.
Summa c. G. l. 3, c. 77; _Knabenbauer_, in Stimmen a. M. Laach xiii, 75
_seq._).

A distinction must be made between the teaching of the Church and the
private views of individuals, schools, or periods. Only the teaching of
the Church is the obligatory standard of Christian and Catholic thought,
not the opinion of individuals. Hence not everything that Catholic savants
have held to be true belongs to the teaching of the Church. Only when
theologians unanimously declare something to be contained in the deposit
of revealed truth, or the teaching of the Church,—only then is their
teaching authoritative; not because it is the teaching of theologians, but
because it is contained in revelation or the teaching of the Church. Else
the maxim holds good: _Tantum valet auctoritas, quantum argumenta_. Nor is
all that which a former age found in Holy Scripture, therefore to be
believed as revealed truth, to the exclusion of all other interpretations.

The foregoing may be elucidated by the examples given above. When Holy
Writ describes in figurative language and Oriental, demonstrative style,
how God created the heaven and earth, the sun and moon, the sea and its
contents, it means to teach us religious truths: that God is the First
Cause of everything, and hence that the sun and moon, for instance, are
not uncreated deities, as the Egyptian believed them to be. The narrative
need not be taken in a literal sense, as if God immediately formed
everything in the exact condition as it now appears to us; it may be
interpreted in the sense that God let the present condition of things
gradually grow out of the forces and materials and plan of nature He
created, the result of a lengthy evolution. When our Lord tells us in the
gospel that His Father in heaven feeds the birds of the air and clothes
the grass of the field, we know that this is to be understood as a mediate
action of God, which He exercises through the instinct of animals and
through natural forces which He created for the purpose. Now when former
ages, reading the narrative of Genesis, generally understood an immediate
creation of the world, because the knowledge of nature at the time did not
admit of any other interpretation, it is by no means necessary to conclude
from it that every other interpretation must be rejected as against the
Bible, or that the Church herself has prescribed this literal
interpretation as the only correct one. As is known, _St. Augustine_, the
greatest Father of the Church, had another very liberal explanation of the
Genesis narrative, and the Church has never censured him. (He taught that
the whole world had been created at one time, and that the six days of the
Mosaic narrative were the logical divisions of an account of the various
orders of creatures.) And now the interpretations vary greatly. The
passages in Scripture, in which, according to popular modes of expression,
the sun is said to rise and set and revolve about the earth, the latter
standing in the centre of the world—these, too, were interpreted literally
in the days of the Fathers: there was no cause for interpreting them
otherwise; but it was only due to defective knowledge of nature at the
time. These temporary errors remained till corrected by research in the
field of the natural sciences: had the discoveries been made sooner, the
errors, too, would have disappeared sooner.

The Church knows, and the holy Fathers knew, that it is not the purpose of
Holy Writ to teach profane sciences, but to instruct in faith and morals;
if it speaks of other matters, it is but occasionally, and then in the
idiom of common life, which is not the same as the scientific language of
the specialist. Indeed, the Bible does not intend to give scientific
instruction in such matters, nor could it have done so at a time when men
were not ripe for such enlightenment.


    Thus _St. Augustine_ insists that the Spirit of God who spoke
    through the authors of Scripture did not intend to instruct men in
    matters which do not serve for salvation, and hence he objects to
    the Scriptures being taken literally in regard to such matters,
    because the Bible adapts itself to man’s manner of speech: a
    distinction is to be made between letter and sense (“Multi multum
    disputant de iis rebus, quae majore prudentia nostri auctores
    omiserunt, ad beatam vitam non profuturas discentibus ... Breviter
    dicendum est, ... Spiritum Dei, qui per ipsos loquebatur, noluisse
    ita docere homines nulli saluti profuturas,” De Gen. ad lit., II,
    9, n. 20. Cf. De Gen. contra Manich. 1, 5, n. 3; 11, n. 17). He
    further cautions Bible students against putting their own
    interpretation upon obscure passages and then claiming it to be
    dogma, because one may easily go astray and thus make the
    Scriptures appear ridiculous. “In rebus obscuris atque a nostris
    oculis remotissimis, si qua inde scripta etiam divina legerimus,
    quae possint salva fide, qua imbuimur, alias atque alias parere
    sententias, in nullam earum nos praecipiti affirmatione
    proiciamus, ut si forte, diligentius discussa veritas eam recte
    labefactaverit, corruamus, non pro sententia divinarum
    scripturarum sed pro nosctra ita dimicantes, ut eam velimus
    scripturarum esse, quae nostra est” (De genesi ad lit. I, 18 n.
    37). “Plerumque accidit, ut aliquid de terra, de coelo, de ceteris
    mundi huius elementis ... etiam non christianus ita noverit, ut
    certissima ratione et experientia teneat. Turpe est autem nimis et
    perniciosum ac maxime cavendum, ut christianus de his rebus quasi
    secundum christianas literas loquentem ita delirare quilibet
    infidelis audiat, ut, quemadmodum dicitur, toto coelo errare
    conspiciens, risum tenere vix possit” (Ibid. I, 19 n. 39). Cf.
    also I, 21. _St. Thomas of Aquin_ also expresses himself in this
    sense: “Multum autem nocet, talia, quae ad pietatis doctrinam non
    spectant, vel asserere vel negare, quasi pertinentia ad sacram
    doctrinam ... Unde mihi videtur tutius esse, ut haec, quae
    philosophi communius senserunt et nostrae fidei non repugnant,
    neque sic esse asserenda ut dogmata fidei, licet aliquando sub
    nomine philosophorum introducantur, neque sic esse neganda tamquam
    fidei contraria, ne sapientibus huius mundi contemnendi doctrinam
    fidei occasio praebeatur” (Opusc. X. ad Jo. Vercel. Proem.).

    The doctrine of the _Church_ concurs with this, as laid down in
    numerous documents, many of them quoting the above-mentioned words
    of _St. Augustine_. It also insists that the interpretation of the
    Fathers be only taken as a standard of the Church’s explanation of
    the meaning of Scripture when they are unanimous on the meaning of
    a passage relating to faith and morals; but not to other things
    (cf. Encycl. Providentissimus, Denz. 10 ed., n. 1947, 1944; Conc.
    Trid., sess. IV., Conc. Vat. sess. III., c. 2, Denz. nn. 786,
    1788).


Now if one simply opens Holy Scripture, takes up some passage at random,
explains it in its most literal sense, and then insists that this is the
evident meaning, and goes on to assert with the same insistence that this
is the interpretation of the Church, and a part of the faith of Catholics
in regard to the natural sciences, then of course it is very easy to make
out contradictions between faith and science: but such efforts cannot
claim to be scientific. It is not necessary to know theology and the
principles of Catholic exegesis; but it is not proper that those who are
ignorant of these matters pass judgment on them, not even in the name of
objective research.


    Hence we may easily see what we should think of a writer who
    asserts that the examination of the Christian-Catholic idea of the
    world leads to the following results: “The Books of Moses,
    inspired by divine revelation, are the golden key to the
    understanding of the whole history of creation. Other Scriptural
    passages of the Old and New Testaments, the writings of the
    Fathers, etc., are to be considered as supplementary to these.
    According to these authorities the earth is a flat disc,
    surrounded by the sea. Above it arches the firmament of heaven,
    with its great lights for day and night. Below it are purgatory
    and hell. All this is not the gradual outgrowth of lengthy
    evolution, but was created by God out of nothing in a few days,
    about six thousand years ago, of which four thousand are reckoned
    before Christ and two thousand after Christ. Although modern
    science has long since established that the Biblical narrative is
    of no worth, nothing but an imperfect reproduction of older myths,
    the Catholic Church continues to teach it literally to this very
    day, spreading it broadcast by thousands and thousands of
    catechisms, and insisting on it being learned as a part of
    religious instruction in all schools, and to be accepted as the
    revealed truth” (_L. Wahrmund_, Katholische Weltanschauung und
    freie Wissenschaft, 1908, p. 14. The scientific value of this work
    has been considered by _L. Fonck_, Katholische Weltansch).

    “Clericalism,” we are told, “stands on a rigidly fixed view of the
    world, corresponding in part to the childhood of mankind, to the
    dawning of civilization.... Philosophy, built upon the results of
    progress, since it is unceasingly forcing its way ahead, cannot
    remain in accord with the notions belonging to a remote past,
    partly to Babylonian and Egyptian civilization, partly to the
    thought of nomadic times.” It is then pointed out how this view of
    the world on which clericalism, that is, the Catholic Church, is
    based, has already been overthrown in many instances. “The
    geocentric position, the doctrine of our earth being the centre
    and man the ultimate aim of the universe, must needs be abandoned
    by the world of scientists, in view of the new system of
    Copernicus; the doctrine also of the earth being a disc must be
    abandoned in consequence of the voyage of Columbus, and subsequent
    discoveries, which make it certain that the earth is a globe”
    (Prof. _K. Menger_, Die Eroberung der Universitaeten. Neue Freie
    Presse, Nov. 24, 1907). It is surprising what little knowledge
    suffices to warrant writing about theological matters in the name
    of “objective research.”

    These passages, in regard to their scientific contents and manner,
    recall vividly an American work that appeared some time ago, and
    reached many editions. It is entitled, “A History of the Conflict
    Between Religion and Science,” by _J. W. Draper_. The book was
    answered by a competent authority, _De Smedt_, S. J., “L’Eglise et
    la Science,” 1877.

    It seems _Draper’s_ arguments have since become a pattern for
    many. He, too, maintains that Holy Writ has always been declared
    by the Church and the Fathers to be a source of profane science.
    This, he states, is true especially of _St. Augustine_. We read:
    “The book of Genesis ... also in a philosophical point of view
    became the grand authority of Patristic science. Astronomy,
    geology, geography, anthropology, chronology, and indeed all the
    various departments of human knowledge, were made to conform to
    it.... The doctrines of _St. Augustine_ have had the effect of
    thus placing theology in antagonism with science....” “No one did
    more than this Father to bring science and religion into
    antagonism; it was mainly he who diverted the Bible from its true
    office—a guide to purity of life—and placed it in the perilous
    position of being the arbiter of human knowledge....” “What, then,
    is that sacred, that revealed science, declared by the Fathers to
    be the sum of all knowledge?... As to the earth, it affirmed that
    it is a flat surface, over which the sky is spread like a dome. In
    this the sun and moon and stars move, so that they may give light
    by day and by night to man.... Above the sky or firmament is
    heaven; in the dark and fiery space beneath the earth is hell....”
    (pp. 57-63).

    By reading again what we said above, especially the urgent
    admonitions of _St. Augustine_ not to look upon the Scriptures as
    a text-book of profane science, one will be able to appreciate the
    scientific quality of the book in question.

    The fancy of this writer has distorted Christianity and the Church
    into a monster that has nothing more important to do than to tread
    down and crush science and civilization. A few examples will
    suffice to show how he proves the _contradictions between faith
    and science_. The Christian religion teaches that man is subject
    to death as a penalty for original sin: prior to that sin death
    had no power over Adam and Eve. It is claimed that this is a
    contradiction of science. But how? Long before Adam, thousands of
    animals and plants had died, the author asserts. “The doctrine
    declared to be orthodox by ecclesiastical authority is overthrown
    by the unquestionable discoveries of modern science. Long before a
    human being had appeared on earth millions of individuals, nay,
    more, thousands of species and even genera had died” (p. 57). The
    author has completely missed the point. The matter in question is
    not the death of animals and plants, but the death of man. The
    infallibility of the Pope is refuted by the fact that he failed to
    foresee the result of the war between France and Germany.
    “Notwithstanding his infallibility, which implies omniscience, His
    Holiness did not foresee the issue of the Franco-Prussian war” (p.
    352, also p. 362).

    How high his historical statements are to be rated is shown by the
    assertion that _Cyril of Alexandria_ had much to do with the
    introduction of the worship of the Virgin Mary (p. 55); that
    auricular confession was introduced by the Fourth Lateran Council
    in 1215 (p. 208). He asks when the idea originated that the
    Pentateuch was written by Moses under divine inspiration, and he
    finds that “not until after the second century [of the Christian
    era] was there any such extravagant demand on human credulity” (p.
    220). It would seem incredible that any one could write such
    stuff.

    The author says in his preface: “I had also devoted much attention
    to the experimental investigation of natural phenomena, and had
    published many well-known memoirs on such subjects. And perhaps no
    one can give himself to these pursuits, and spend a large part of
    his life in the public teaching of science, without partaking of
    that love of impartiality and truth which philosophy incites”
    (VIII-IX). We do not care to argue with the author about his
    experience in experimental research, nor about his love for the
    truth, but he himself has shown superabundantly that they have not
    sufficed to keep him clear from scientific shallowness and the
    grossest blunders. Nevertheless, it seems that his scientific
    ability obtained for him in the consideration of many the weight
    of an authority. _Haeckel_, in his “Weltraetsel,” refers
    repeatedly to the book, and recommends “its truthful statements
    and excellent discussion” to his readers (Weltraetsel, 17. Kap.,
    Wissenschaft u. Christentum).

    Such is the fashion in which contradictions between faith and
    science, and the Church’s hostility towards scientific research,
    are proved.


The result is that we must distinguish clearly between dogmas of faith and
private opinions or interpretations. Of course it may frequently happen,
and has happened, that the Christian savant is too timorous, and looks
askance at the discoveries of science, and even thinks he ought to resist
them, because he is afraid that religious truth might be opposed by them.
Nor can it be said that this timidity is altogether without excuse, for
there was hardly one scientific discovery of the nineteenth century that
was not immediately grasped and exploited by eager enemies of the
Christian religion. Too often has science been made the menial of
infidelity, and the assertion has been untiringly repeated that science
and faith cannot agree. No wonder, then, that timid souls become
suspicious, that they are prone to resist the whole theory of evolution in
a lump, instead of trying to distinguish between what is of scientific
value in it, and what is misused for the purpose of denying creation.

Nevertheless, such narrow-mindedness is strongly to be censured. It has
often caused the reproach, that Catholics lack the freedom to admit
scientific discoveries. They forget the wise admonition of the prince of
mediæval theologians, that it were advisable, in regard to scientific
views which have nothing to do with religion, neither to set them down as
truths of faith, nor either to reject them as contrary to faith lest
occasion be given to think contemptuously of the faith. As long as men are
and men think, narrow-mindedness will never be lacking. Hence if the
believing scientist wants to know whether he is running counter to faith
in any particular, he has to ascertain from theological text-books what
the Church declares to belong to faith, what explanation of Holy Scripture
is unconditionally binding, and not what is the individual opinion of
theologians, much less what some pious nurse is telling the little ones.

This is the first rule concerning the relation between faith and science:
it states what the scientist is _not_ tied down to.



2. Science Retains its Method of Research.


But when and how may the scientist be restricted? Here we come to the
second point: the directions which faith may give to the profane sciences
are in themselves not of a positive but of a _negative kind_; revelation
and Church cannot tell the scientist what he is to assert or defend in the
field of the profane sciences, but only what propositions he must _avoid_.
Thus every science is left free to pursue its own method of research. It
is not difficult to understand this.

Faith draws from divine revelation; profane sciences, as such, do not draw
from divine revelation, but only from experience and reason. Philosophy
would cease to be philosophy and become theology did it demonstrate the
immortality of the soul by revelation. The anthropologist would cease to
be an anthropologist and become a theologian if he would attempt to prove
the common origin of mankind by Holy Scripture.

In other words, the profane sciences are distinguished from faith and
theology by their formal object, by the end they have in view, by the
scientific method with which they handle their subject. Theology, of
course, uses revelation extensively; and in this it differs from the other
sciences. Hence faith cannot command the anthropologist to defend also in
profane science the common origin of the human race from Adam and Eve,
because it is held to be a revealed truth. He must say: I believe as a
Christian that this is true, established by divine revelation, and no
science will ever prove the contrary; but whether I can positively defend
this fact as resulting from anthropology, depends on my ability to
corroborate it by the methods of this science, that is by the testimony of
profane history. And just as little could the historian be required to
obtain historical results of which he cannot produce the evidence
according to his method.

Therefore faith can only tell the profane scientist that he must not
assert anything which is held by faith to be erroneous; that it is false
to say there is nothing but force and matter, that the human soul ends in
death, or that the various families of the human race have not a common
origin. As soon as the scientist knows by faith that a thing is false, he
is bound to refrain from asserting it: bound in the first place by the
duty to believe, but also by the principles of his own science, which is
to find not error, but truth, which forbids to assert what has been proved
to be erroneous. Perhaps his own means will not enable him to prove the
truth independently of revelation; then from the standpoint of his science
he must say, _Non liquet._


    The position of the Catholic Church agrees with these principles.
    She knows, and emphasizes that science has its own method, and
    hence a natural right and freedom to proceed in its own field
    according to its method. The Church rejects but one kind of
    freedom, viz., the freedom to propound a doctrine proved by faith
    to be erroneous. “The Church by no means forbids these disciplines
    to use in their own field their own principles and method,”
    declares the Vatican Council. “But, while acknowledging this
    lawful freedom, the Church takes care to prevent them from taking
    up errors in opposition to divine teaching, or from creating
    confusion by transgressing their limits and invading the realm of
    faith” (Vat. sess. III, ch. 4. Cf. also the letter of _Pius IX_.,
    “Gravissimas,” of Dec. 11, 1862, to the Archbishop of Munich,
    Denz. n. 1666, _seq._)


These few remarks show the lack of intelligence in the charge that
“Catholic philosophy starts from dogmas and revelation,” or that the
Church would dictate to scientists everything they should teach; that,
according to its principles it could claim the right “to impose upon a
physicist of _Zeppelin’s_ era the task of proving the Ascension of Christ
or the Assumption of Mary by aërostatic rules.” This is simply gross
ignorance or misrepresentation.



3. Restraint Only in the Province of Revelation.


In what matters may faith and the Church be a guide to research in this
negative sense? In all fields, or only some? Evidently only in their own
sphere. But to the sphere of faith belongs only what is contained in
divine revelation, viz., the truths of _religion and morality_, as laid
down in Scripture and tradition, the truths of God and His work of
salvation, of man and his way to his eternal destiny, of the means of
grace, and of the Church. Whatever lies outside of that sphere does not
belong to the province of faith. This is true also of the teaching
authority of the Church. The purpose of the Church is to guard faithfully
the treasure of divine revelation and to transmit it in an authoritative
manner to mankind: hence her authority in teaching is confined to what is
contained in revelation, and what is necessary for an efficient custody
and transmission of it to mankind. Hence she may declare certain truths as
revealed, she may reject opposing errors, she may condemn books offensive
to faith, she may approve or reject systems of ethics. But she cannot set
up wholly new religious truths or revelations. _Depositum custodi_—this is
the purpose of the Church. Still less are matters of an entirely profane
nature subject to the teaching authority of the Church. Profane sciences
can therefore receive direction from faith only in those matters which at
the same time belong to the province of faith.

What follows from this? It follows that _almost all the profane sciences
are incapable of being instructed or restricted by faith_, because their
province lies outside that of faith, and does not come in touch with it:
they are left to themselves to correct their errors. When the astronomer
in his observatory watches the movements of the planets, and bases thereon
his mathematical calculations, when the physicist or chemist in his
laboratory observes the laws of nature or makes new discoveries, when the
pathologist studies the symptoms of diseases in organisms, no warning
voice interrupts their work of study. Of course when they deny the
creation, the possibility of miracles, then they conflict with faith; but
then they have ceased to be naturalists, they have become philosophers.
When the botanist or zoölogist in his laboratory is studying plants and
animals and collecting his specimens, when the palæontologist is
excavating and examining his fossils, they enjoy perfect freedom: all this
has nothing directly to do with faith. And there is no warning sign set up
for the geographer or geologist when settling the orographical or
hydrographical conditions of countries or measuring geological strata; no
danger signal disturbs the linguist in establishing the grammar of unknown
languages, nor the archæologist or the historian, when they discover new
documents or decipher inscriptions. Nor does anybody interrupt the
mathematician in his calculations.

What unnecessary worry, then, for the representatives of mathematics,
geology, palæontology, and chemistry to write burning protests against the
fetters of dogma in the interest of their scientific activity! And it is
superfluous worry for professors of the technical arts to get excited by
imagining that electricity and steam must be treated according to
ecclesiastical precepts. Nor is there need of emphasizing the statement
that there cannot be a Catholic chemistry, geography, or mathematics—it is
self-evident.

Hence almost the entire province of the profane sciences, which are the
pride of our age and occupy the foremost position in our universities,
with their laboratories, institutes and observatories and meteorological
stations, are free and perfectly undisturbed by faith. If accordingly any
one should be of the opinion that the Christian-minded scientist were
hindered in his scientific research, he would have to consider him an
unhampered investigator at least in this vast field.

Most in touch with faith comes _philosophy_. Not in the vast field of
logic, of empirical psychology, in questions concerning the essence of
bodies and their forces, in matters of mere history of philosophy; but in
questions of views of the world and life, in metaphysics and ethics, it
does. These, the highest questions, bearing on the direction and pursuit
of human life, matters that most occupy the human mind, are at the same
time subjects of revelation; God Himself has deigned to teach the truth in
these matters, to make them safe for all time against the error of the
mind of man. Here philosophers encounter danger-signals. They hear, what
their reason even tells them, that it is erroneous to think there is no
world of spirits, no God above nature, no immortality, no life hereafter,
no providence. Nor could one say that philosophy is the loser by being
kept from error which endangers human life. Nowhere are errors so apt to
occur as in questions which are outside the sphere of immediate
experience; nowhere are self-deceptions more common than there, where
disposition and character continually influence the mind.


    A modern representative of philosophy, _E. Adickes_, writes as
    follows: “In the course of this history (of metaphysics) there
    have been given long since all the principal answers that are at
    all possible to all metaphysical questions. The building up of
    metaphysical systems can and will proceed, nevertheless, and their
    multiplicity will remain.... Of course, progress will not be
    gained thereby: results will not gain in certainty, contradictions
    and mysteries do not diminish.”

    “If the greatest of the ancient Greek natural scientists,
    physicians, and geographers should rise again they would be amazed
    at the progress made in their sciences; like beginners they would
    sit at the feet of teachers of our day, they would lack the most
    elementary ideas; they would first have to learn what every
    grammar-school boy knows, and much of what they once considered
    achievements would be disclosed to them as deception or mere
    hypothesis. On the other hand a _Plato_, an _Aristotle_, a _Zeno_
    or _Epicurus_, might readily take part in our discussions about
    God and the soul, about virtue and immortality. And they could
    safely use their old weapons, the keenness of which has suffered
    but little from the rust of time and the attacks of opponents.
    They would be astonished at the little progress made, so that now,
    after two thousand years, the same answers are given to the same
    questions.” (Charakter und Weltanschauung, 1905, p. 24).

    A science which must make such a confession has no reason to
    reject with haughty self-confidence the intimations of a divine
    revelation.


The _science of history_ again has not the duty of praising everything
that has happened within the Catholic Church or else to repress it; no,
only the truth is desired. But it must not start out with the assumption
that God’s influence in the world, a divine revelation, miracles, and a
supernatural guidance of the Church, are impossible; nor must it attempt
to construe history according to that assumption. Hence it must not
undertake to explain the religion of the Jewish nation, or the origin of
Christianity, by unconditionally ignoring everything supernatural, and
attempting to eliminate it by prejudiced research and by means of natural
factors, whether they be called Babylonic myths or Greek philosophy or
anything else; it must not impugn the credibility of the Gospel, claiming
that reports of miracles must be false; it must not write the history of
the Church and deliberately ignore its supernatural character, as if it
were the violent struggle of a federation of priests for universal rule.
Assured results undoubtedly are arrived at in history less frequently than
in other sciences; it offers full play to suppositions, hypotheses,
constructive fancy, the influence of ideas inculcated by education and
personal views of the world, especially when summing up facts. Hence here
more than anywhere else must moral character and unselfish love of the
truth stand higher than the desire for freedom.

The _history of religion_ and _anthropology_ must be forbidden to assume
that the human mind is but a product of animal evolution, that therefore
religion and morality, family and state life, reason and language, and the
entire intellectual and social life have necessarily evolved from the
first stages of animal life. If we add that _jurisprudence_ in its highest
principles comes in touch with faith, and that it also must not dispute
the divine right of the Church, we have mentioned the most important
sciences and instances in which the investigator must take faith into
consideration.

We now understand in what sense we may rightly speak of a “_Christian
philosophy and science_” or of a “_Catholic science of history_.” Surely
not in this sense that philosophy and history have to draw their results
from Holy Scripture or from the dogmatical decisions of the Church; nor in
the sense that they have to make positive defence for everything that the
Church finds it necessary to prescribe. The sense is merely this: they
guide themselves by faith, as we said above, by refraining from
propositions and presumptions proved by faith to be false. In a large
measure this is also the meaning of the often-misrepresented term,
_Catholic University_. In the reverse sense we may speak of a liberal
science. It is that science which in the field of philosophy and religion
guides itself by the principles of liberalism and the principle of liberal
freedom and the rejection of faith. But to speak of a Catholic,
Protestant, Liberal chemistry or mathematics, has no sense at all, because
these disciplines, like most other profane sciences, have no direct
connection with Catholicism, Protestantism, or Liberalism.


    That we have stated correctly the _attitude of the Catholic
    Church_ is evidenced by more than one official document. In the
    decree of the Holy Office of July 3, 1907, the so-called Syllabus
    of _Pius X._, the following (5.) proposition is condemned:
    “Inasmuch as the treasure of faith contains only revealed truths,
    it does not behoove the Church under any consideration to pass
    judgment on the assertions made by human sciences.” Similarly was
    the proposition (14), likewise condemned in the Syllabus of _Pius
    IX._: “Philosophy must be pursued without any regard to
    supernatural revelation.”

    These condemnations stirred up anger: “Now,” it was said, “the
    Church wants to subject the whole of human knowledge to her
    judgment: this is unbearable insolence.” But what follows from
    these condemnations? The opposite truth asserted in them is this:
    the Church in one respect must pass judgment on the assertions
    made by human science, namely, in so far as they come in conflict
    with the doctrines of faith. The only freedom rejected by the
    Council is the freedom to contradict revealed truth: it must not
    be held “that human science may be pursued with freedom, that its
    assertions can be considered true and must not be rejected by the
    Church even if they contradict a revealed doctrine.” (sess. III,
    ch. 4, can. 2). The Church does not want to judge on matters of
    profane science; but she claims the right, due to her as guardian
    appointed for the preservation of the pure faith, to raise her
    warning voice when, for instance, natural science transgresses its
    limits and trespasses on the province of religion by denying the
    creation of the world. It is but self-defence against an attack
    upon her inviolable domain. But she does not claim the authority
    to sit in judgment upon the results of astro-physics, upon the
    atom-hypothesis, or its opposite; or on the acceptance of a theory
    about ions or earthquakes.


Another question may be touched upon: Is the _Catholic historian_ free to
proceed steadily in the search after historic truth, even where he
discovers facts which do not reflect honour on his Church? And where it is
a question of uncertain, private revelation, of doubtfulness of relics and
other sacred objects exposed for public worship, may he proceed
undisturbed with his critical research, or is he restrained by
ecclesiastical authority?

Should the Catholic meet with dark passages in the history of his Church,
then every well-meaning observer will demand that he display in the
treatment of such matters a pious forbearance for his Church. His respect
for her will dictate this. Unsparing criticism and hunting for blemishes
and shadows must be excluded. But he cannot on this account be bound to
pass by the unpleasant facts he may meet in his researches, or to cloak or
deny them against his better knowledge. He knows that the divinity of his
Church shows itself to best advantage just because, notwithstanding many
weaknesses and faults, past and present, she passes unvanquished and
imperishable through all storms,—a token of the supernatural origin of her
strength and power of endurance.

It was this very thought that moved _Leo XIII._ to open the Vatican
Archives for freest research to friend and enemy,—the clearest proof that
could possibly be given that the Church does not fear historical truth. In
his letter of admonition, of August 18, 1883, urging the fostering of
historiography, the same Pope gives the following rules for the Catholic
scientist: “The first law of history is that it must not say anything
false; the second, that it must not be afraid of saying the truth, lest a
suspicion of partiality and unfairness arise.” An excellent example of the
application of these rules is found in _L. v. Pastor’s_ “History of the
Popes,” especially in what he says about _Alexander VI._ and _Leo X._

In his historical investigation of private revelations, such as those of
_St. Gertrude_, _St. Mechtild_, _Bl. Juliana of Liège_, or of relics and
objects of veneration, the historian is likewise not restricted by
Church-direction. Having merely the task of preserving the treasure of the
faith received from Christ and the Apostles, the Church in her function as
Teacher never vouches for the divine origin of new, private revelations,
nor for the accuracy of pious traditions of another kind. True, she
decides authoritatively whether private revelations contain anything
against faith and morals, but she decides nothing more. If she accepts
such revelations or traditions as genuine, she claims for the facts in
question only that human faith which corresponds to their historical
proof.


    This is clearly stated by the recent encyclical _Pascendi_: “In
    judging of pious traditions, the following must be kept in mind:
    the Church employs such prudence in treating of these matters that
    she does not allow such traditions to be written about except with
    great precaution and only after making the declarations required
    by _Urban VIII._; and even then, after this has been properly
    done, the Church by no means asserts the truth of the private
    revelation or of the tradition, but merely permits them to be
    believed, provided there be sufficient human reasons. It was in
    this sense that the Sacred Congregation of Rites declared
    thirty-one years ago: ‘These apparitions are neither approved nor
    condemned by the Holy See; it merely permits them to be believed
    in a natural way, provided the tradition on which they rest be
    corroborated by credible testimonies and documents.’ Whoever
    follows this maxim is safe. The veneration of such things is
    always conditional, it is only relative, and on the condition that
    the tradition be true. In so far only is the veneration absolute
    as it relates to the Saint to whom the veneration is paid. The
    same applies to the veneration of relics.” (_Benedict XIV._ says
    of private revelations: “Praedictis revelationibus etsi
    _approbatis_, non debere nec posse a nobis adhiberi assensum fidei
    catholicae, sed tantum fidei humanae juxta regulas prudentiae,
    juxta quas praedictae revelationes sunt probabiles et pie
    credibiles.” De Serv. Dei beatificatione, III, c. ult. n. 15).

    Hence the historian is free to investigate such traditions
    critically, provided, of course, that he does not violate the
    reverence due to sacred things.



4. Infallible and Non-Infallible Teachings.


Now to consider a last point. Does it not rest entirely with the pleasure
of ecclesiastical authority, as would seem from what has been said above,
to suppress at any time the results, or at least the hypotheses, of
scientific research by pointing to putative truths of faith presumed to be
in opposition? Then, of course, the scientist would be at the mercy of a
zealous ecclesiastical authority. Or will it perhaps be said that this
authority is infallible in its every decision? Think of _Galileo_, of the
interdict against the Copernican view of the world, and you will be able
fully to appreciate the danger alluded to!

We shall later on return to the famous case of _Galileo_. For the present
we only call attention to a distinction which must not be overlooked, the
distinction between infallible teachings and those that are not
infallible.(3)

According to Catholic teaching, the universal teaching body of the Church,
when declaring unanimously to be an object of faith something relating to
faith and morals, is endowed with _infallibility_, and also when in its
daily practice of the faith it unanimously professes a doctrine to be a
truth of faith. This infallibility is also possessed by the Pope alone
when, acting in his capacity as Supreme Teacher of the Church in matters
of faith and morals, he intends to give a permanent decision for the whole
Church (ex cathedra).

Besides these infallible teachings there are also _non-infallible_
teachings, and they are the more frequent. Such are, first of all, the
ordinary doctrinal utterances of the Pope himself in his regular
supervision of the teaching of doctrine: these instructions and
declarations are of a lower kind than those peremptory ones that are
pronounced ex cathedra: he is infallible only in the utterance of these
ultimate, supreme decisions, the chief bulwark, as it were, erected
against the floods of error. Decisions ex cathedra are very rare.
Encyclical letters, too, are, as a rule, not infallible. It is
self-evident that the theological opinions and statements of the Pope as a
private person, not as Supreme Head of the Church, do not belong here at
all. They have no official character and are in no way binding.

Among decisions that are not infallible are further included, in various
degrees, the doctrinal utterances of Bishops, of particular synods, and
especially those of the Roman Congregations. The latter are bodies of
Cardinals, delegated by the Head of the Church, as highest Papal boards,
to co-operate with him in the various offices of administration. Of these,
the Congregation of the Holy Office and that of the Index may also render
decisions on doctrinal questions. Although the Congregations act by virtue
of their delegation from the Pope, and publish their decrees with his
consent, the decisions are not decisions of the Pope himself, but remain
decisions of the Cardinals. Much less can the infallibility of the Pope
pass over to them: it is his personal prerogative, the aid of the Holy
Ghost is promised to him, and protects his judgments under certain
conditions against error.

But the Catholic owes submission also to the non-infallible teachings; and
not only an outer submission, a reverent silence, that offends not either
verbally or in writing against the decision rendered, but he owes also his
inner assent. But it cannot be that unconditional inner assent which he
owes to the infallible decision, for this he holds to be irrevocably
certain; nor is his assent to non-infallible decisions a real act of
faith. He is not given any unconditional guarantee of the truth. An error
is, of course, most unlikely, but not absolutely impossible. Hence the
faithful Catholic should always be ready to accept such decisions in as
far as they are warranted by recognized truth. This applies to all kinds
of doctrinal teaching, but of course in different ways, corresponding to
the degree of authority,—for instance, Papal decisions are of higher
authority than those of the Congregations,—yet it applies also to the
doctrinal decisions of the Congregations, because they are the ordinary
teaching organs of the Church.


    When the Congregation of the Index, 1857, had forbidden the works
    of _Guenther_ and many thought they could evade the decision,
    _Pius IX._ wrote, June 15, to the Archbishop of Cologne: “The
    decree is so far-reaching that nobody may think himself free not
    to hold what we have confirmed.” Similar was what the Pope had
    written to the Archbishop of Mecheln after the condemnation of the
    ontological errors of _Ubagh_. The Motu proprio of _Pius X._ of
    November 8, 1907, speaks similarly of the obligation of submission
    to the decisions of the Papal Biblical Commission relating to
    doctrines, and to the decrees of Congregations when approved by
    the Pope. (Cf. also the Syllabus of Pius IX., sent. 22.)

    Theologians agree that this requisite internal assent is not the
    same as irrevocable assent. This was also declared by _Pius IX._
    in his letter to the Archbishop of Munich-Freising, saying that
    this inner submission is by no means faith; and no theologian will
    ascribe infallibility to a mere congregational decree. (See on
    this point: _e.g._ _Grisar_, Galileistudien, 1882, 171 _seq._ Cr.
    _Pesch_, Theol. Zeitfragen, Erste Folge, 1900, III. _Egger_,
    Streiflichter ueber die freiere Bibelforschung, 1889.)

    It would be erroneous to think that only in recent times, after
    the embarrassment caused by the regrettable _Galileo_ decision the
    subtle distinction had been invented that congregational decisions
    are not binding on Catholics with absolute force. This was taught
    by theologians long before the _Galileo_ case caused any
    excitement. In this sense the celebrated writer on Moral Theology,
    _Lacroix_, said: “The declarations of none of these Congregations
    are infallible.... No infallibility is promised to the
    Congregation in so far as it is viewed as separate from the Pope”
    (Theologia Moralis, 1729, I, n. 215). _Raccioli_, soon after the
    _Galileo_ trial, wrote: “The Holy Congregation of Cardinals as
    separate from the Pope cannot give to any proposition the proper
    authority of faith.” And he adds: “There being extant no decision
    of the Pope, or of a Council directed and confirmed by him, the
    proposition of the sun moving and the earth standing still cannot
    on the strength of a congregational decree be considered a truth
    that must be believed” (Almagestum novum, 1651, I, 52).


The obligation to give interior assent also to an authority not
infallible, cannot seem strange if this authority offers a guarantee for
the truth commensurate to the assent demanded. We certainly ask of a child
to receive the instruction from his parent and teacher with internal
assent, so far as the latter does not run counter to its instinct for the
truth, else the education of the child and the needful influence over its
intellectual life would be impossible. Upon the Church has been bestowed
by her divine Founder the task of guiding the faithful authoritatively in
the educational matters committed to the Church, and not only in their
youth but throughout their lives. This guidance in religion and morality
would be impossible if the faithful could constantly deny their internal
assent to the instruction of the Church, which is given generally in a
form that is not infallible. The full power of the Church to teach with
authority implies a corresponding duty of the faithful to assent to her
teachings as far as this is possible. Does not the scientific specialist
think himself obliged to accept a proposition on the strength of a certain
authority, even if the latter’s infallibility is not established? He reads
in his scientific periodical and finds in it the report of special
researches made by a colleague. He cannot examine them over again, yet he
accepts them because of the reliability of his colleague, in which he sees
the guarantee of truth. Likewise, only more so, does the Catholic owe it
to his sense of truth to impose upon himself an assent even where the
representatives of the teaching authority of the Church are not endowed in
their decision with the gift of infallibility. For he knows that even in
such teachings the Church is commonly under the guidance of the Holy
Ghost, who will seldom tolerate error. He is promised to the teaching
Church for the safe guidance of the faithful; these declarations are,
however, the ordinary doctrinal utterances of that ecclesiastical office.
And the Holy Ghost cannot permit that the teaching authority should by a
wrong decision forfeit the confidence it enjoys.

Moreover, this authority ranks very high even when looked at from a purely
human standpoint. Those who are invested with it are mostly men of great
learning, competent to give such doctrinal decisions by virtue of their
experience and position, and learned advisers are at their side. They are
guided by the tradition and wisdom of a universal Church, which measures
its history by thousands of years: the decisions, too, are for the most
part but the application or repetition of previous doctrinal utterances.
Besides, there is the hesitating caution which advances to a decision only
after long deliberations, and in undemonstrated matters usually refrains
from decision; a caution which has increased still more in recent times,
since so many subtle questions have arisen on the boundaries of science
and faith. It is also known that many inquisitive eyes are constantly
turned on Rome, and a single wrong decision might entail most disagreeable
consequences for friend and foe. The pressure must be very great before a
much-disputed question is taken up at all.

Of course it is by no means impossible that difficulties may pile up in
such a way that an error may really be made. History knows of such a case.
But the very fact that the one case of _Galileo_ is always quoted, and,
therefore, that in the long history of the Congregations this is
considered to be almost the only case of importance, is a proof how
carefully the Congregations proceed, and that supernatural aid is granted
them. An institution which in the course of its long existence had to
reply to innumerable questions and against which only one wrong decision
of importance can be pointed out, must necessarily be an exemplary
institution. An institution so free from human error must surely be guided
by the Holy Ghost. Compare with this the many cases in which science has
had to correct itself, had to abandon its long-championed propositions as
untenable.

Thus, in a given case, the decision is not difficult for the Catholic. On
one side stand the representatives of a science which has erred, very
often, incomparably more frequently than the ecclesiastical teaching
authority, and which lacks the special aid of God. On the other side is
the ecclesiastical authority, which has almost never erred, and which
enjoys special divine aid; moreover, it examines into its questions with
greater caution and care, because it has more to lose. In addition it is
almost invariably able to point to a large number, and frequently the
majority, of savants who indorse its decisions, because these mostly
concern disputed questions not yet scientifically determined. Hence the
Catholic will find no difficulty in presuming that the decision is in
accord with the truth; the more so because, as a rule, he himself is
unable to examine scientifically both sides of the question.

Should any one, nevertheless, be clearly convinced, by substantial and
valid reasons, that there has been prejudgment, then he would not be any
longer obliged to give it his interior assent: truth before all else. It
would be easy, too, by presenting reliable information to an authoritative
quarter, to secure the triumph of the truth. However, in this case a man
must be ever on his guard against the tendency to overrate his own
arguments. In excitement he easily thinks himself to be certainly in the
right, but when considering the matter quietly before God and his
conscience, he will rarely come to the conclusion that it would be wise to
set his judgment above the decision. In the case of _Galileo_ the decision
of the Congregation was by no means opposed by a clear conviction of the
truth of the opposite.


    Take, for instance, a more recent decision of the Congregation,
    forbidding craniotomy. It has often been denounced. The question
    was submitted to the Congregation of the Holy Office whether it
    were permissible to teach that craniotomy is allowable in case the
    mother cannot give birth to the child, and that both will have to
    die unless the child be killed and removed by a surgical
    operation. The Congregation answered twice in the negative, in May
    and August, 1889. Neither craniotomy, nor any operation implying
    the direct murder of the child or mother can be taught to be
    permissible. The reason on which the answers were based is that
    the direct murder of an innocent person in order to save human
    life is never allowable; and this applies to the murder of a
    child, which has as much right to its life as any other person. In
    the case of craniotomy we have the direct murder of the child. We,
    too, shall have to admit, if we judge according to the objective
    morality of the action, that the Congregation is in the right;
    though it may seem hard to let both mother and child die rather
    than take a life directly, we shall have to admit that it is more
    in accord with the sanctity of the moral law than the opposite,
    though the latter may seem preferable to medical practice. Viewed
    in the interest of truth and the purity of the moral law, it is
    gratifying to know that there is a court courageous enough to
    uphold this law always and everywhere, even when it becomes hard.


So much about assenting to doctrinal decisions that are not infallible.

In regard to _infallible_ decisions, the Catholic knows that there are
certain truths which no result of science can contradict. To these
decisions he owes unconditional submission, and he gives it with
conviction: he knows the promise, “I am with you always, even unto the
consummation of the world.” New decisions of this kind are very rare. When
the dogma of the Infallibility of the Pope was proclaimed in 1870, the
fear was frequently expressed that the Head of the Roman Church would
hasten to make the fullest use of this prerogative, by erecting
theological barriers at all nooks and corners in the realm of thought. The
fear did not come true; it was unfounded.


    A Protestant scientist wrote recently: “Those who thought
    _Doellinger’s_ prediction of a prolific crop of dogmas would come
    true were disappointed. There has been no new dogma pronounced
    since 1870, although there were many pious opinions that certain
    circles would have been only too glad to see confirmed. On looking
    calmly at the dogma of infallibility it is seen that it was, after
    all, not so bad as had been feared during the first excitement”
    (_K. Holl_, Modernismus, 1908, p. 9, Religionsgesch. Volksbuecher,
    IV, 7, Heft).


We may get a good idea of the precaution taken prior to the proclamation
of an infallible decision by perusing the History of the Vatican Council,
published by _Granderath_, in three volumes. He describes the proceedings
with conscientious objectiveness. He shows how minutely all questions had
been previously studied, with all the available means of scientific
investigation, and how minutely and freely they were discussed by the most
venerable representatives of the Catholic world.

Cardinal _Gibbons_, Archbishop of Baltimore, gave his impressions of the
Vatican Council as follows:

“I happened to be the youngest Bishop that attended the Council of the
Vatican, and, while my youth and inexperience imposed on me a discreet
silence among my elders, I do not remember to have missed a single
session, and I was an attentive listener at all the debates.... I think I
am not exaggerating when I say that the Council of the Vatican has been
excelled by few, if any, deliberative assemblies, civil or ecclesiastical,
that have ever met, whether we consider the _maturity_ of years of its
members, their _learning_, their _experience_ and _piety_, or the
widespread influence of the _Decrees_ that they framed for the spiritual
and moral welfare of the Christian Republic.

“The youngest Bishop in the Council was thirty-six years old. Fully
three-fourths of the Prelates ranged between fifty-six and ninety years.
The great majority, therefore, had grown gray in the service of their
Divine Master. Several Fathers of the Church, bent with age, might be seen
passing through St. Peter’s Basilica to the council chamber every morning,
leaning with one hand on their staff, the other resting on the shoulder of
their secretary. One or two blind Bishops could be observed, guided by
their servants, as they advanced to their posts with tottering steps,
determined to aid the Church in their declining years by the wisdom of
their counsel, as they had consecrated to her their vigorous manhood by
their Apostolic labours.

“But to the gravity of years the members of the Council generally united
profound and varied learning....

“They were men, too, of world-wide experience and close observation. Each
Bishop brought with him an intimate knowledge of the history of his
country and of the religious, moral, social, and political condition of
the people among whom he lived. One could learn more from an hour’s
interview with this living encyclopædia of divines, who were a world in
miniature, than from a week’s study of books.... The most ample liberty of
discussion prevailed in the Council. This freedom the Holy Father pledged
at the opening of the synod, and the pledge was religiously kept. I can
safely say that neither in the British House of Commons, nor in the French
Chambers, nor in the German Reichstag, nor in our American Congress, would
a wider liberty of debate be tolerated than was granted in the Vatican
Council. The presiding Cardinal exhibited a courtesy of manner and a
forbearance even in the heat of debate that was worthy of all praise. I do
not think that he called a speaker to order more than a dozen times during
the eighty-nine sessions, and then only in deference to the dissenting
murmurs or demands of some Bishops. A Prelate representing the smallest
diocese had the same rights that were accorded to the highest dignitary in
the Chamber. There was no limit prescribed as to the length of the
speeches. We may judge of the wide scope of discussion from the single
fact that the debate on the Infallibility of the Pope lasted two months,
occupying twenty-five sessions, and was participated in by one hundred and
twenty-five Prelates, not counting one hundred others who handed in
written observations. No stone was left unturned, no text of Sacred
Scripture, no passage in the writings of the Fathers, no page of
Ecclesiastical History bearing on the subject, escaped the vigilant
investigations of the Bishops, so that the whole truth of God might be
brought to light....

“The most important debate in the Council was that on the Infallibility of
the Pope. It may be proper to observe here that the discussion was rather
on the expediency or opportuneness of defining the dogma than on the
intrinsic truth of the doctrine itself. The number of Prelates who
questioned the claim of Papal Infallibility could be counted on the
fingers of a single hand. Many of the speakers, indeed, impugned the
dogma, not because they did not personally accept it, but with the view of
pointing out the difficulties with which the teaching body of the Church
would have to contend in vindicating it before the world. I have listened
in the council chamber to far more subtle, more plausible, and more
searching objections against this prerogative of the Pope than I have ever
read or heard from the pen or tongue of the most learned and formidable
Protestant assailant” (North American Review, April, 1894).



Obedience of Faith and Freedom of Action.


In looking back at what has been said, we see the justice of the question:
where is here any real injury to lawful freedom in thought and scientific
research? In most of the profane sciences the scientist receives no
directions from the authority of faith; he is altogether free, as long as
he keeps within his province. In some matters he is given a list of errors
to beware of: these are in the first place the great questions concerning
views of the world and life, of which, after all, it is very difficult to
obtain scientific knowledge. But here he knows, through the conviction he
has of the truth of his faith, that he is offered the truth free from
error and prejudice.

It is true, adhering to a religious authority implies restraint. But it is
only the restraint of truth. Truth does not lose its claim upon the mind
because it is offered to the latter by a supernatural authority; much less
does the Creator lose the right to the tribute of homage of his rational
creature; and this tribute is rendered by voluntary submission to the
revealed truth. Upon the Church, however, has been laid the task of
preserving unadulterated the legacy of her Founder from generation to
generation. She is responsible before God and history for the faithful
presentation of the most sacred inheritance of mankind. Therefore the
Church must raise her voice when the puny thoughts of men, called science
and progress, rise against the saving truth to disparage, to falsify, to
annihilate it. _It is not science the Church opposes, but error_; not
truth, but the emancipation of the human mind from God’s authority, an
emancipation that is trying to hide its real self under the guise of
scientific truth.

“The Church,” says the Vatican Council (Sess. III, ch. 4), “having
received with her apostolic office to teach, the obligation of preserving
the legacy of the faith, has also the God-given right and duty to condemn
what is falsely called science, ’lest any one be cheated by philosophy and
vain deceit.’” That the denial of the faith is flippantly called science
does not alter the case. What determines the attitude of the Church is not
eagerness to rule, not a propensity to apply force to the mind, but
loyalty to her vocation. If it is disagreeable for any superior to have to
correct those under him, then it requires an heroic strength and courage
to cry out time and again to the whole world and its leading minds,
_Errastis_, you have erred! It requires heroism to reject, to oppose and
condemn, time and again, propositions sailing under the flag of progress,
light and enlightenment, in spite of the protest of those concerned, who
denounce whatever opposes them as darkness and retrogression. How much
easier it would be to fawn upon the pet ideas of the age,
Neo-protestantism and Modernism, and thus to gain their approval, than to
hear repeatedly the distressing words, “We will not have her to rule over
us—_crucifige, crucifige_!”

But why not let _science correct itself_? Why these violent condemnations
and indictments? Science, by virtue of its instinct for the truth will by
itself find the way back, when it has gone on the wrong track; only be
patient. Science has in itself the cure for all its defects. Has it not
already all by itself overcome numerous errors in the course of the
centuries? Indeed, were there nothing at stake but scientific theories
they might be readily left to themselves: the loss to mankind would not be
great. But here there are more important issues at stake. The protection
of the faith, of truths of the vastest importance for Christian life and
the souls of men. And it is the duty of the Church to protect her charges
from going astray, from dangers to salvation. How many thousands of them
would suffer harm before it would please science to correct its heresies!
It often takes a long time to pull down the idols placed upon pedestals,
and then it may be only to erect another idol. How long will it take
modern philosophy to agree that the will of man is free, that there is a
substantial immortal soul, that a Creator of the world dwells above the
heavens? Is the Church to wait till the men of science make up their minds
to desist from denying the existence of a personal God, and to bow before
the Creator of heaven and earth? Should she meanwhile look on calmly how
such ruinous doctrines are pervading and penetrating society deeper and
deeper? Souls cannot wait thus to suffer shipwreck. Finally, the duty to
believe remains the same for all, for the scientist, too—he is not free to
delay his assent until he has exhausted all his antagonistic scientific
experiments.

To be sure, the scientist is restricted in so far as he is not allowed to
pursue any and every hypothesis, regardless of the immutable truth; he may
no longer follow every scientific fashion. But is this a real detriment to
the human intellect and science? Has not every science to bear _restraint
from other sciences_ at all times? The adherent of _Darwin’s_ theory of
natural selection needs a billion years for his slow evolution; but the
geologist tells him that neither the formation of the earth’s surface nor
the strata or sub-strata have taken so long in formation—he corrects him.
When the philosopher, drawing the logical deductions from his
materialistic views of the world, assumes that the first living being
sprang from lifeless matter, the naturalist informs him that this is
contradicted by facts—there never has been a case of spontaneous
generation. The naturalist is corrected by the better experiment of men of
his profession, the scientific author is corrected by his critic. Hence if
a man submits to the guidance of other men of his profession, if one
science accepts direction from another science, without any one seeing any
injury to freedom therein, why, then, should it be mental oppression for
God’s infallible wisdom to call out through His Church to the fallible
human mind: this is error, I declare it so? When the guide-post points out
to the traveller that he is on the wrong way, will the wanderer
indignantly resent the correction as an interference with his freedom of
action? Is the railing along the steep precipice, to guard against falling
down, an interference with liberty? Is the lighthouse, warning the sailor
of cliffs and shoals, any interference with his freedom?

Generally those who oppose the Christian and Catholic duty to believe use
the following argument: Where there is restraint and dependence there is
no freedom; the Christian, and especially the Catholic, is restrained and
dependent; hence he is not free: consequently he has no true science,
because there can be no true science without freedom. In the same way it
may be argued: The civilized nation is restrained in various ways by the
civil order, therefore it is not free. The careful writer of scientific
works is tied down on all sides by the rules of logic, by the dictates of
good style, by scientific usages: hence he is not free.

Let us not lose sight of the question. It cannot be denied that the man
who does not bother about faith has a greater outer freedom than the man
who does. We speak purposely of outer freedom. It is quite another
question, where real internal freedom exists, _i.e._, freedom from the
fetters of one’s own inclinations and prejudices,—in the religiously
disciplined mind, or in the other. Here we speak of inner freedom.
Obviously it is greater in the former. The deer in the forest is freer in
his movements than the cautious mountain-climber, who keeps to marked
roads and paths, so as to journey safely, yet the latter is not without
freedom. Nor will any one deny that the Australian bushman enjoys a
greater outer freedom than the civilized white, restrained by laws, by
rules and regulations, by standards of decency. And the busy writer of
many things and everything, who in his writing never pays any attention to
logic, to scientific form, to style and tact, has more freedom than one
who strictly conforms to all these.

_Every civilization, culture, and education implies restriction of
freedom_, and the more the rejection of dependence and laws increases the
nearer we approach the state of uncultured and barbarous nations. The same
applies to intellectual culture. The higher it is, the more learning and
mental culture a man has, the greater the number of truths, principles,
and intellectual standards he carries within him. By these he is bound if
he wants to advance into the higher spheres of intellectuality. And the
more the intellect rejects laws and standards the more unregulated and
dull its intellectual life will become. The more one knows the more
strictly is he bound to truth in every respect; the less one knows the
freer he is to commit errors. This is no advantage, it is the privilege of
the ignorant and untrained mind. The believer is bound by religious truth
in the same way as one who knows the truth is bound by it, while one who
is ignorant of it is not.

It is certainly not impossible for the obedience of faith to create
_intellectual conflict_. There may be cases when scientific views look
probable to the scientist, while they contradict a doctrine of faith or an
ecclesiastical decision. The roads may even cross more radically. It may
happen that his views and books are condemned, forbidden by the Church.

If the conflicting doctrine should be an _infallible_ one, the decision of
the believing scientist is soon reached. He knows now what to think of his
hypothesis, that it is not true progress but aberration, and consistency
with his own conviction moves him to desist. Thus the philosophical errors
of modern times are opposed almost throughout to infallible dogmas, for
the most part fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. This is
also the legal right under which revelation and the Church approach the
scientist with the demand not to permit his views to go contrary to faith,
because there can never be a contradiction between faith and reason.
“There can never be a contradiction between faith and reason,” the Vatican
Council teaches; “the apparent conflict is due either to the doctrine not
being understood and interpreted in the sense of the Church, or to
erroneous opinions that are mistaken for conclusions of reason” (Conc.
Vat. sess. III, cp. 4). If the Catholic finds his position opposed to
_non-infallible_ decisions, then he will re-examine his views in unselfish
impartiality before God. If he must calmly tell himself that his arguments
are not so weighty as to be able to stand up before so high an authority,
guided by the Holy Ghost, then he will forego the gratification of holding
fast to his own opinions, and will remind himself that true wisdom knows
the fallibility of the human mind, and is ever ready to take advice from a
divinely guided authority. Perhaps he will recall the words of the great
_St. Augustine_: “Better bow before an incomprehensible but saving symbol
than entangle one’s neck in the meshes of error” (De doctr. Christ. III,
13). This Christian self-denial surpasses in beauty even science itself,
and sheds upon it a greater splendour.


    The great _Fénelon_, proceeding to his pulpit in the cathedral of
    Cambrai, on Annunciation day in 1699, was handed by his brother
    the Roman brief condemning twenty-three propositions of
    _Fénelon’s_ “Maximes des Saints.” The Bishop took the writing,
    calmly ascended the pulpit and announced it forthwith, and
    preached a sermon on the submission due to ecclesiastical
    superiors, at which the whole congregation was greatly moved. A
    few days later he announced in an episcopal letter to his diocese
    his submission, “simple, absolute, and without a shadow of
    reservation.” By this deed, an heroic act of obedience, _Fénelon_
    is placed higher in history than by his brilliant works, than by
    the honour of having been the illustrious tutor of the Dauphin of
    France.

    _Antonio Rosmini-Serbati_ in August, 1849, received official
    notice of the condemnation of two of his works by the Congregation
    of the Index. He immediately sent in his submission: “With the
    sentiments of a true and obedient son of the Apostolic See, that I
    have always been by the grace of God and wish ever to be, and have
    ever acknowledged myself, I now declare clearly and sincerely,
    without reservation, my submission, in the most complete manner,
    to the condemnation of my writings.” Both the condemnation and the
    submission were soon made the target of attack by the Liberal
    press. _Rosmini_ replied in an admirable open letter: “To my great
    sorrow I have seen several articles in different newspapers which
    dare criticize the Holy Congregation of the Index for condemning
    my writings. Inasmuch as I have submitted to the decree of the
    said Congregation with all sincerity, and with full interior and
    exterior obedience as becomes a true son of the Church, every one
    will easily understand how much I regret these articles and
    disapprove of them. Yet I deem it not superfluous to declare
    expressly that I reject those articles entirely and that I do not
    accept the praise for me which they offer. With regard to other
    newspaper writers, who are censuring me and even insulting me for
    having done what it was my duty to do, in submitting to the
    condemnation, as though I had committed a crime, I can only say
    that I greatly pity them, and that they would fill me with
    contempt could I deem it permissible to despise any one” (apud _J.
    Hilgers_, Der Index der verbotenen Buecher, 1904, 413).

    A _Fénelon_ or a _Rosmini_, bowing with the humility of the
    Christian savant to the judgment of their Church, have thereby
    forfeited nothing of their intellectual fame in the eyes of
    earnest critics, but, on the contrary, have greatly increased the
    respect for their noble character.


Even should the future prove as scientifically correct that which the
believing scientist does not as yet clearly see, that he was
scientifically in the right, no considerable damage would result to
science. Providence, which guides human affairs, will protect science for
its noble modesty in submitting meanwhile to an authority appointed by
God. As a matter of fact, science cannot be shown ever to have suffered
any real loss by such submission, not even in the _Galileo_ case, as we
shall see further on. On the other hand, countless are the errors and
injuries which have befallen human thought and belief, and which the
Church has warded off from those who yielded to her guidance. Of course
the submission may become difficult if a man clings to his views, or has
already publicly proclaimed them. Then, indeed, a bitter struggle may
ensue. A number of scientists have failed to stand the test and have left
to posterity the ill-fated name of apostates. The Church regrets such
cases; but the deposit of faith is too precious to be endangered for the
sake of any individual.

For this reason the Church is and must be _conservative_; for this reason
she may have to warn against the dissemination of propositions which may
not in themselves be false, but fraught with danger for the time being.
She cannot take part in any hasty effort to make experiments, risking
everything inherited in order to try something new.


    During the nineteenth century the United States was repeatedly the
    scene of communistic experiments. Daring adventurers assembled
    people and founded settlements on communistic principles, private
    property being abolished. In 1824 _Robert Owen_ founded a colony
    in Indiana, which soon grew to nine hundred members, living in the
    fashion of atheistic communism. In 1825 the colony adopted its
    first constitution, which within the following year suffered six
    complete revisions. In June of the second year the last members of
    the colony ate their farewell dinner together. The experiment had
    come to a speedy termination. A Frenchman, _Etienne Cabet_,
    founded, in 1848, a new colony in Texas, called Icaria. Soon it
    numbered 500 members. Each family had its small homestead.
    Children were educated by the community. Amusement was provided
    for by a band and a theatre; a library supplied more intellectual
    wants. But soon it all fell into decay. _Cabet_ departed and died.
    In 1895 the newspapers reported the dissolution of the last
    remnant of the colony. Such is the fate of experiments.

    Daring adventurers may undertake them. The lecturer at college,
    too, will be readily pardoned for his eagerness to take up the
    cudgel in defence of what is new in his profane science: he may
    easily correct himself. But the Teacher of the Centuries and of
    the Nations, in the sphere of religion and morals, has not the
    right to experiment. Here, where mistakes may entail the direst
    consequences, the rule must be: slowly onward, to keep the whole
    from ruin. Cardinal _Benedict Gaetani_, later Pope _Boniface
    VIII._, once praised Rome for having _pedes non plumeos sed
    plumbeos_—not winged feet, but leaden heels.


Sentiments of the kind just set forth are of course possible only in
conjunction with the belief in a revelation and in the supernatural
character of the Church, where the interests of faith come first, and must
be unconditionally preserved. He who lacks this conviction, he to whom the
Church is but a human institution, founded in the course of time, tending
perhaps to oppose truth and science for fear they might endanger the
submission of minds—to such a one the Catholic’s confident devotion to his
Church, and consciousness of unimpaired freedom at the same time, will be
unintelligible; and the inflexibility of the Church in defending the faith
will pass his comprehension. And woe to the Church when her position
toward science is being tried before this court: only harsh denunciations
are to be expected where the judge does not understand the matter he
undertakes to decide.

Nor do we attempt to bridge the chasm that separates the two views of the
world which we here again encounter, the one, which rejects the
supernatural world, the other, the view of the believing Christian. We
have but endeavoured to show that _faith does not restrain the mental
freedom of one who is convinced of the truth of his faith_. Submission to
the authority of faith is the consequence of his conviction. This is the
question to be decided: Either there is a revelation and a Church founded
by God, or there is not. If such there be, or if it is only possible, then
modern freedom of thought, with its demand of exemption from all
authority, is against reason and morality. If there is not, then this
should be proved. It can be done consistently only by acknowledging
atheism. For if there is a personal God, then He can give a revelation and
found a Church, and demand submission from all. Since the days of _Celsus_
to this day the attempt to demonstrate that the convictions of a faithful
Christian are unjustifiable has proved futile.



Obedience of Faith and Injury to Science.


While all this is true, yet one may not share this conviction, nor rise to
the certainty that there is a supernatural world whence the Son of God
descended to teach man and to found an infallible Church. Still, to be
fair, he must admit that no real danger to freedom of research and
progress of science results from submission to faith, as shown above.

In the first place it must be admitted that the assertion is still
unproved, that a positive result of research has ever come in hopeless
conflict with a dogma of faith; hence that science has been prevented from
accepting this result. No such case can be found. The condemnation of the
Copernican view of the world will be considered presently; we pass over
the fact that at the time of its condemnation it was not a positive result
of science: the main point is that the condemnation was not an irrevocable
dogma of faith, but only the decision of a Congregation, which was
withdrawn as soon as the truth was clearly demonstrated. Besides, science
has suffered no injury from that decision.

In general, where there is real contradiction between science and faith,
the matters in question are invariably _hypotheses_. Is it more than an
hypothesis, and a very doubtful hypothesis at that, that the world and God
are identical, that there is an eternal, uncreated course of the world,
that miracles are impossible? That what is said about the natural origin
of Christianity, the origin of the Jewish religion from Babylonian myths,
the origin of all religions from fear, fancy, or deception, is it anything
more than hypothetical? The false systems of knowledge, subjectivism, and
agnosticism—are they more than hypotheses? Ask their originators and
champions; they will admit it themselves; and if they will not admit it,
others will tell them that their propositions are not only hypotheses, but
often quite untenable. There is hardly a single hypothesis which has not
its vehement opponents. That the serious conflict between dogma and
science is waged only in this field could be proved by abundant examples.
Besides, is it not the philosophical axiom of modern freedom of thought,
that in the sphere of philosophy and religion there is no certain
knowledge, but only supposition?

Can hypotheses claim to rank as assured results of research which should
be universally accepted? Why should it not be allowed to contradict them,
to oppose them with other suppositions? Is it not in the interest of
science that this be done, that they be subjected to sharp criticism, lest
they gradually be given out for positive results? Is it not a shameful
trifling with the truth, when a _Haeckel_ deceives wide circles by
pretending that most frivolous hypotheses are established results of
science? Is it not misleading when modern science treats the rejection of
a supernatural order as an established principle?


    And how often the hypotheses of profane sciences change! “Laymen
    are astonished,” says _H. Poincaré_, “that so many scientific
    theories are perishable. They see them thrive for a few years, to
    be abandoned one after the other; they see wrecks heaped upon
    wrecks; they foresee that theories now fashionable will after a
    short while be forgotten, and they conclude that these theories
    are absolute fallacy. They call it the bankruptcy of science”
    (Wissenschaft u. Hypothese, German by _F. Lindemann_, 2d ed.,
    1906, 161). The conclusion is certainly unjustified, but the fact
    itself remains. Is it then a loss to science when faith opposes in
    the field of religion these variations of opinion with fixed
    dogmas?

    Or are these perhaps of less worth, or less certain than their
    contraries? Is the dogma of the existence of God of less value
    than atheism? Is the conviction of the existence of a world of
    spirits less substantial than the philosophy of materialistic
    monism? Is the doctrine of the origin of the human soul from the
    creating hand of God found inferior to the notion that the soul
    has developed from the lower stages of animal life? Should the
    holy teaching of Christianity, doctrines believed by the best
    periods in the world’s history, believed in and professed by minds
    like those of an _Augustine_, a _Thomas_, and a _Leibnitz_;
    doctrines that since their appearance on earth have always
    attracted the noble and good, and repelled chiefly the base and
    immoral; doctrines that still wait for their first unobjectionable
    refutation—should such doctrines be less sure than the
    innumerable, ever-changing suggestions of unregulated thought,
    apparently directed by an aversion to everything supernatural?



Erravimus.


Yet another fact may be pointed out. It is an undeniable fact that
science, after straying for some time, is not unfrequently _compelled to
return to what is taught by faith and the Church_, thus confirming the
truth of the faith. Frequently the new theory has come on like a tornado,
sweeping all minds before it. But the tempest was soon spent, the minds
recovered their balance and the hasty misjudgment was recognized.


    Not long ago, when materialism revelled in its orgies, especially
    in Germany, when _Vogt_, _Buechner_, and _Moleschott_ were writing
    their books, and science with _Du Bois-Reymond_ was hunting
    _Laplace’s_ theory in the evolution of the world, the Syllabus,
    undaunted, put its anathema upon the (58.) proposition: “No other
    forces are acknowledged but those of matter.” The summer-night’s
    dream came to an end, and people rubbed their eyes and saw the
    reality they had lost a while. The materialism of the 60’s and
    70’s has been discarded by the scientific world, and finds a
    shelter only in the circles of unschooled infidelity. _J. Reinke_,
    in the name of biology, bears testimony in the words: “In my
    opinion materialism has been disposed of in biology; if,
    nevertheless, a number of biologists still stand by its colours,
    this tenacity may be explained psychologically; for, in the apt
    words of _Du Bois-Reymond_, in the domain of ideas a man does not
    willingly and easily forsake the highway of thought which his
    entire mental training has opened up” (Einleitung in die
    theoretische Biologie, 1901, 52).

    A few decades ago a number of scientists declared it impossible
    that the different races could have descended from one pair of
    ancestors, as taught by faith: the difference between the various
    families being too great and radical, it was said; the difference
    being rather of species than of race. Moreover, there was
    announced the discovery of people without religion, without
    notions of morality and family life; of tribes incapable of
    civilization and culture; it was asserted in the early days of
    _Darwin_ enthusiasm that there had been discovered a race of men
    that clearly belonged to the species ape. Assertions of this kind
    have gradually ceased. Now the different human races are
    considered to belong to the same species, and their common
    parentage is considered possible from the view-point of the theory
    of evolution. The anthropologist _Ranke_ expresses his opinion
    thus: “We find the bodily differences perfectly connected by
    intermediate forms, graded to a nicety, and the summary of the
    differences appears to point to but one species.... This is the
    prevalent opinion of all independent research of anatomically
    schooled anthropologists” (Der Mensch, 2d ed., II, 1894, 261).
    Ethnology denies the existence of nations or tribes without
    religion (_Ratzel_, Voelkerkunde, I, 1885, 31). _Peschel_ says:
    “The statement that any nation or tribe has ever been found
    anywhere on earth without notions and suggestions of religion can
    be denied emphatically” (_O. Peschel_, Voelkerkunde, 6th ed.,
    1885, 273). “The more recent ethnology knows of no tribes without
    morality, nor does history record any” (_W. Schneider_, Die
    Naturvoelker, 1886, II, 348).

    Until a short time ago it was believed that the derivation of
    man’s life from inferior stages of animal life would not be
    difficult to prove; but at present, while many still adhere to the
    theory that man has developed from the brute, the conviction is
    steadily gaining ground that it cannot be scientifically proved
    and that it becomes more and more difficult to disprove man’s
    higher origin. Unable to withstand the force of facts, one
    hypothesis gives place to another: what had to be found could not
    be found, living or extinct links between the brute and man
    refused to appear anywhere, and those which people thought they
    had found, turned out to be unsuitable. _Kohlbrugge_ concludes his
    criticism of the recent theories of the evolution of the body of
    man from lower animals with the confession: “The above summary is
    enough to convince everybody that we do not know anything distinct
    about the great problem of evolution; we have not yet seen its
    face. All must be done over again” (Die Morpholog. Abstammung des
    Menschen, 1908, 88). _Virchow_ said at the anthropological
    congress of Vienna, 1889: “When we met at Innsbruck twenty years
    ago Darwinism had just finished its first triumphal march through
    the world, and my friend _Vogt_ became its ardent champion. We
    have searched in vain for the missing link connecting man directly
    with the ape.”

    What has become of those anatomic-morphologic links between man
    and beast, the _pithecanthropus erectus_, the man dug out at
    Neandertal, Spy, Schipka, La Naulette, and Krapina, and shown with
    great confidence to the world? What has become of the prehistoric
    man, said to belong to the glacial period of Europe, and to have
    ranked far below the present man? _J. Kohlmann_ writes: “I wish to
    state that I thoroughly adhere to the theory of evolution, but my
    own experience has led me to the result that man has not changed
    his racial characteristics since the glacial period. He appears on
    the soil of Europe physically complete, and there is no ape-man to
    be found” (apud _Ranke_, Ibid. 480). Prof. _Branco_, director of
    the Palæontological Institute of Berlin, says: “Palæontology tells
    us nothing about the missing link. This science knows of no
    ancestors of man” (at the 5th international Zoological Congress,
    1901, _Wasmann_, Die mod. Biolog. 3, p. 488). And the
    palæontologist _Zittel_ says: “The missing link between man and
    ape, though a postulate of the theory of evolution, has not been
    found” (_Ranke_, l. c. 504). _E. Grosse_ concludes his studies on
    evolution with the significant words: “I began this book with the
    intention of writing a history of the evolution of the family, and
    I finish it convinced that at present the writing of that history
    is impossible for me or for anybody else” (Die Formen der Familie,
    1896, Vorwort). _Ranke_ is perfectly right in saying that “it
    behoves the dignity of science to confess that it knows nothing of
    the origin of man” (Thuermer V, 1902, I. Heft).

    A century ago or so, ridicule was heaped in the name of science on
    the description in the Bible of the last day: “The stars shall
    fall,” “and the powers of heaven shall be moved,” “the elements
    shall be melted with heat, and the earth shall be burnt up” (Matt.
    xxiv. 29 _seq._; Luke xxi. 25 _seq._; Mark xiii. 24 _seq._; 2 Pet.
    iii. 10). Then the assertion that stones could fall from the skies
    caused a smile, but now science has come to the general knowledge
    that this is not only possible, but perhaps really will be the end
    of all things, if once our earth on its journey through unknown
    spaces of the universe should collide with a comet or get into a
    cosmic cloud of large meteors. (Cf. the graphic description in _K.
    Braun_, Ueber Kosmogonie, 3d ed., 1905, p. 381 _seq._)

    An example of another kind: It is not so long since Protestant,
    liberal Bible-criticism and its history of early Christian
    literature, in the endeavour to remove everything supernatural
    from the beginning of Christianity, regarded the New Testament and
    the oldest Christian documents as unreliable testimony, even
    forgeries, and for this reason placed the date of their origin as
    late as possible. But now they have to retrace their steps.

    _A. Harnack_ writes: “There was a period—the general public is
    still living in it—when the New Testament and the oldest Christian
    literature were thought to be but a tissue of lies and forgeries.
    This time has passed. For science it was an episode in which much
    was learned of which much must be forgotten. The result of
    subsequent research over-reaches in a ‘reactionary’ effect what
    might be termed the central position of modern criticism. The
    oldest literature of the Church is in the main and in most details
    true and reliable, that is, from the literary and historical point
    of view.... I am not afraid to use the word ‘retrogressive’—for we
    should call a spade a spade—the criticism of the sources of the
    earliest Christianity is beyond doubt moving retrogressively
    towards tradition” (Chronologie der Alt-Christ. Literatur I, 1897,
    VIII). In a more recent work the same savant writes: “During the
    years from 30 to 70 all originated in Palestine, or, better, in
    Jerusalem, what later on was developed. This knowledge is steadily
    gaining and replacing the former ‘critical’ opinion that the
    fundamental development had extended over a period of about a
    hundred years” (Lukas der Arzt, 1906, Vorwort). This retrogression
    is continued still farther in his later work, “Neue Untersuchungen
    zur Apostolgesch. u. zur Abfassungszeit der synopt. Evang., 1911,”
    in which _Harnack_ draws very near to the Catholic view regarding
    the date of writing of the Acts of the Apostles, as also regarding
    _St. Paul’s_ attitude towards Judaism and Christian-Judaism, and
    departs from the modern Protestant view (cf. pp. 28-47, 79 _seq._,
    86, 93 _seq._). “Protestant authorities on church-history,” he
    says elsewhere, “no longer take offence at the proposition that
    the main elements of Catholicism go back to the Apostolic era, and
    not only peripherically” (Theol. Literar. Zeitung, 1905, 52).

    In a speech, much commented on, which he made at his university
    January 12, 1907, Prof. _Harnack_, discussing the religious
    question in Germany, called attention to the fact that there has
    been quite a marked return to the Catholic standpoint: “From the
    study of Church history we find that we all have become different
    from what our fathers were, whether we may like it or not. Study
    has shown that we are separated from our fathers by a long course
    of development; that we do not understand their ideas and words at
    all, much less do we use them in the sense they used them.” He
    then draws out the comparison more particularly: “_Flacius_ and
    the older Protestants denied that _Peter_ had ever been in Rome at
    all. Now we know that his having been there is a fact well
    evidenced in history.” The motto of the older Protestants was that
    the Scriptures are the sole source of revelation. “But now, and
    for a long time past, Protestant savants have realized that the
    Scriptures could not be separated from tradition, and that the
    collecting of the New Testament Scriptures was a part of
    tradition.” “Protestants of the sixteenth century taught
    justification by faith alone, without works. In the absence of
    confessional controversy, no evangelical Christian would now find
    fault with the teaching which declares only such faith to be of
    any worth which shows itself by the love of God and of the
    neighbour” (Protestantismus u. Katholizismus in Deutschland,
    Preussisch. Jahrbücher 127. Bd., 1907, 301 _seq._).


Many similar instances of science confessing Erravimus in regard to the
Christian or Catholic position could be cited. They are an admonition to
be modest, not to overrate the value of a scientific proposition, and not,
with supreme confidence and infallibility, to brand it as an offence
against the human intellect to let one’s self be guided by the principles
of faith.

Moreover, it has often happened that science emphatically and sneeringly
rejected propositions, and called them false and absurd, which to-day are
considered elementary.

_Newton_, in 1687, had correctly explained the revolution of the moon
around the earth, and of the planets around the sun, as the co-operation
of gravitation and inertia, and thence concluded also the elliptic form of
the orbits of planets previously discovered by _Kepler_. _Leibnitz_
rejected this theory, _Huygens_ called it absurd, and the Academy of Paris
as late as 1730 still favoured the theory of revolution of _Descartes_; it
was only about the year 1740 that it was generally accepted. _Huygens_,
himself, had formed in 1690 his theory about light-waves. For a long time
it was misunderstood. Only in 1800, or somewhat later, it received its
merited acknowledgment, but noted physicists like _Biot_ and _Brewster_
rejected it still for some time and held to the theory of emission. “Even
in the intellectual world the law of inertia holds good” (_Rosenberger_,
Gesch. der Physik, III, 1887, 139).


    The great discoverer _Galvani_ complained of being attacked from
    two opposite sides, by the scientists and by the ignorant: “Both
    make fun of me. They call me the dancing master of frogs. Yet I
    know I have discovered one of the greatest forces of nature.”


When _Benjamin Franklin_ explained the lightning-rod to the Royal Academy
of Sciences, he was ridiculed as a dreamer. The same happened to _Young_
with his theory of the undulation of light. “The Edinburgh Review”
proposed to the public to put _Thomas Grey_ in a strait-jacket when he
presented his plan for railroads. Sir _Humphry Davy_ laughed at the idea
of illuminating the city of London by gas. The French Academy of Sciences
actually sneered at the physicist _Arago_ when he proposed a resolution to
merely open a discussion of the idea of an electric telegraph (_Wallace_,
Die wissensch. Ansicht des Uebernatuerlichen, 102 _seq._).


    Until about a hundred years ago scientists almost universally
    thought it impossible for a stone to fall from the skies—not to
    mention a rain of stones. Of the big meteor that fell at Agram in
    1751 the learned Vienna professor, _Stuetz_, wrote in 1790 as
    follows: “That iron had fallen from the skies may have been
    believed in Germany in 1751 even by its enlightened minds, owing
    to the uncertainty then prevailing in regard to physics and
    natural history. In our times, however, it were unpardonable to
    consider similar fairy tales even probable.” Some museums threw
    away their collections of meteors, fearing they would appear
    ridiculous by keeping them. In that very year, 1790, a meteor fell
    near the city of Juillac in France, and the mayor of the town sent
    a report of it to the French Academy of Sciences, signed by three
    hundred eye-witnesses. But the wise men of the academy knew
    better. Referee _Bertholon_ said: “It is a pity for a town to have
    so foolish a mayor,” and added: “It is sad to see the whole
    municipality certifying by affidavit to a folk-saga that can only
    be pitied. What more can I say of an affidavit like that? Comment
    is self-evident to a philosophically trained mind who reads this
    authentic testimonial about an evidently false fact, about a
    physically impossible phenomenon.” _A. Deluc_, in other respects a
    sober-minded man, and a scientist, even remarked that should a
    stone like that fall before his feet, then he would have to admit
    that he had seen it, but nevertheless would not believe it.
    _Vaudin_ remarked: “Better to deny such incredible things than to
    have to try to explain them.” Thus taught the French Academy of
    that time (apud _Braun_, Ueber Kosmogonie, 3d ed., 1905, 378
    _seq._). And now science is teaching the contrary. Everybody knows
    that such falling meteors are not only possible, but that they
    fall about seven hundred times a year on our earth.


Do not these examples bear a striking resemblance to the attitude of many
of the representatives of modern science towards facts and truths of our
faith?

This has not been said with a view of detracting from the reputation of
science. Not at all. It has fallen to the lot of man to be subject to
error. The above was said to recall that fact. Science is not so
infallible as to be able to claim the right to ignore, in religious and
ethical questions, faith and the Church, and even to usurp the place of
the faith given by God, in order to lead its disciples upon the new paths
of a delivered mankind.



Chapter III. Unprepossession Of Research.



What It Is.


In the year 1901 a case, insignificant in itself, caused great excitement
in and even beyond the scientific world. What had happened? At the
University of Strassburg, in a territory for the most part Catholic, no
less than one-third of the students were Catholic, yet of the seventy-two
professors sixty-one were Protestant, six Israelites and but four
Catholics (according to the report of the Secretary of State, _Koeller_,
in the 115th session of the Reichstag, January 11, 1901). The government
resolved, in view of the state of affairs, to give more consideration,
when appointing professors, to the Catholic members of the university.
Even the non-Catholic members of the Bundesrat desired it. A vacancy
occurring in the faculty of history, the government, besides appointing
the Protestant professor proposed by the faculty of philosophy, decided to
create a new chair to be filled by a Catholic.

The appointment of a Catholic professor of history was regarded as
seriously endangering science. The storm broke. The venerable historian,
_Th. Mommsen_, who had been a champion of liberty in the revolution of
1848, promptly gave the alarm. In the Munich “Neueste Nachrichten” there
appeared over his signature an article that created a general sensation.
“German university circles,” he said, in his solemn protest, “are pervaded
by a feeling of degradation. Our vital nerve is unprejudiced research;
research that does not find what it seeks and expects to find, owing to
purposes, considerations, and restraints that serve other, practical ends
extraneous to science—but finds what logically and historically appears to
the conscientious scientist the right thing, truthfulness. The appointment
of a college teacher whose freedom is restricted by barriers is laying the
axe to the root of German science. The call to a chair of history, or
philosophy, of one who must be a Catholic or a Protestant, and who must
serve this or that confession, is tantamount to compelling him to set
bounds to his work whenever the results might be awkward for a religious
dogma.” And he concludes with a ringing appeal for the solidarity of the
representatives of science: “Perhaps I am not deceived in the hope of
having given expression to the sentiments of our colleagues.” This
statement of the famous scientist, conceived in the temper of his days of
’48, was soon softened, if not neutralized, by a subsequent statement from
his pen. But the spark had already started the fire. From most
universities there came letters of approval and praise of his courageous
stand, in behalf of the honour of the universities and of German science.
On the other hand, some gave vent to their regret of his hot-spurred
action. Since then the song of unprejudiced science has been sung in
countless variations and keys, ending as a rule with the chorus: Hence the
believing, especially Catholics, cannot be true scientists. For this was
the central idea of _Mommsen’s_ protest, and in that sense it had been
understood.

For the sake of clearness we shall condense the substance of the thought
into a brief form: The vital nerve of science, the condition under which
alone it can exist, is unprepossession, that is, a straightforward honesty
that knows of no other consideration than to aim at the truth for its own
sake. The believer, the Catholic, cannot be unprepossessed, because he
must pay regard to dogmas and Church-doctrine and precept. Therefore he is
wanting in the most essential requisite of true science. Hence college
professors of a Catholic conviction are anomalous: they have no right to
claim a chair in the home of unprepossessed science. For reasons of
expediency it may be advisable to appoint some of them, but they cannot be
regarded as sterling scientists. Catholic theology, building upon faith,
is not science in the true sense of the word, and deserves no place in a
university. A Catholic university, a home of scientific research built
upon a Catholic foundation, is something like a squared circle. It may be
that Catholic scientists, too, have their achievements, but they cannot be
expected to be possessed of that unflinching pursuit of the truth which
must be part of the man of science.

These are thoughts which have petrified in the minds of many into
self-evident principles, with all the obstinacy of intolerance. It is not
difficult to recognize in it the old reproach we have already dealt with,
it is here in a slightly different form. The believing scientist is not
free to search for the truth, being tied down by his duty to believe.
Science, however, must be free. Hence the believer cannot properly pursue
science.

Freedom of science and science unprepossessed are related terms and are
often used synonymously. Therefore, in putting the probe to the
often-repeated demand for unprepossession, we shall meet with ideas
similar to those we have already discussed, only in a slightly different
shape.

What, then, is that unprepossession which science must avow? Can the
Catholic, the believing scientist, possess it? Unprepossessed research—“I
don’t like the expression,” says a representative of free-thought,
“because it is a product of that shortcoming which has already done great
damage to free-thought in its struggle with the powers of the past”
(_Jodl_). Hence we have reason to fear that the confidence with which this
word is used is greater than the clearness of thought it represents.

What is meant by saying that science must be _unprepossessed_? Undoubtedly
it means that science should make no presuppositions, it must enter upon
its work free from prejudice and presumption. And what is presumption?
Evidently something presumed, upon which the research is to rest the level
and rule of its direction: the supposition being taken for granted,
without express proof. What I have expressly proved in my process of
thought is no longer a supposition to the structure of thought, but a part
of that structure.

Is the scientist, however, to allow no presumption at all? That would be
impossible. When making his calculations the mathematician presupposes the
correctness of the multiplication table. Or is he first to prove that
twice three are six? He could not do it, because it is immediately
self-evident. In his optical experiments in the laboratory, in drawing
inferences as to the nature of light from different indications, the
physicist presupposes that senses are able to observe the facts correctly,
that everything has its respective reason, that nothing can be and not be,
at the same time, under the same conditions. Can he or must he try first
to prove it? He must presume it because it is beyond a doubt, and because
it cannot be proved at all, at least all of it cannot. The astronomer,
too, makes unhesitating use of the formulas of mathematics without
examining them anew; every natural scientist calmly presupposes the
correctness of the results established by his predecessors and goes on
building upon those results: he may do so because he cannot with reason
doubt them. Hence presumptions are common; they may be made when we are
convinced of their truth; they must be made because not everything can be
proved. Much cannot be proved because it is immediately self-evident, as,
for instance, the ability to recognize the true or the elementary
principles of reasoning; many other things cannot always be proved
minutely, because not every scientist cares to begin with the egg of Leda.
He that wants to build a house builds upon a given base; if he will not
accept it, if he desires to dig up the fundament to the very bottom, in
order to lay it anew, he will be digging forever, but the house will never
be built.

Hence to say that science must be unprepossessed cannot mean that it must
not make any presupposition. What, therefore, does it mean? Simply this:
_Science must not presume anything to be true which is false, nor anything
as proved which is still uncertain and unproved_. Whatever the scientist
knows to be certain he may take as such, presuming it as the foundation
and direction of further work; and what he knows to be probable he may
suppose to be probable.

In so doing he in no way offends against the ideal that should be
ever-present to his mind—the truth, because he merely allows himself to be
guided by the truth, recognized as such. And the sequence of truth cannot
but be truth, the sequence of certainty cannot but be certainty. But
should he presuppose to be true what is false and unproved, and the
uncertain to be certain, then he would offend against truth, against the
aim of every science.


    Hence if the critic of the Bible presupposes miracles and
    prophecies to be impossible, inferring therefrom that many
    narratives in Holy Writ cannot be authentic, but must be legends
    of a later period, he is making arbitrary presuppositions, he is
    not an unprepossessed scientist. Likewise, if an historian
    presupposing God’s supernatural providence over the world to be
    impossible, and, in building upon this basis, comes to the
    conclusion that the Christian religion grew from purely natural
    factors, from Oriental notions and myths, from Greek philosophy
    and Roman forms of government, he again makes unproved
    suppositions. If the natural philosopher assumes that there cannot
    be a personal Creator, and infers from it that the world is of
    itself and eternal, he has forfeited the claim of being an
    unprepossessed scientist, and by making in any way his own pet
    ideas the basis of his research he is violating the demands of
    unprepossession; the results he arrives at are not scientific
    results, but the speculations of an amateur.



Unprepossession and Religious Conviction.


Is it possible for the Christian scientist who adheres to his faith, to be
unprepossessed, as demanded by science? According to all that has been
said hitherto about the relation of science to faith, the answer can be
only in the affirmative. The believing Christian and Catholic looks upon
the doctrines of faith taught him by revelation and the Church as an
_established truth_. What to me is true and certain I can take for the
true and certain basis and standard of my thought. This is demanded by
unprepossession—nothing more.

Considering the immense extent of the sciences, the profane sciences will
but seldom, and in but few matters, have occasion to presuppose truths of
faith in the above-mentioned way; and only in a negative form at that. We
have previously shown that the profane sciences must never take truths of
faith for a positive basis to build upon; they must regard the doctrines
of revelation only in so far as it is not allowed to teach anything in
contradiction to them. And with this demand they will meet in rare
instances only, because, if not overstepping their province, they will
very seldom come in touch with faith (cf. pp. 88-96). When _Kepler_ was
studying his planetary orbits, and _Newton_ discovered the law of
gravitation, both worked independent of the Christian view of the world
which they both professed; it was in no way a necessary presupposition to
their research. When _Scheiner_ discovered the sun-spots, and _Secchi_
classified the spectra of the stars, they were not doing so as Jesuits nor
as Catholics; as Mohammedans or atheists they might have made the same
discoveries. Steam engines and railways, _Volta’s_ electricity,
cathode-rays and X-rays, all discoveries that the nineteenth century can
boast of, do not depend directly on any special view of the world.

And if the believing scientist does take his faith for a guide in some
matters, when in all his researches in the history of the Christian
religion and the Church he presupposes that God’s miraculous interference
is not impossible, because the contrary would offend not only against his
faith, but also against his common sense; when in pondering the ultimate
reasons of all things he allows himself to be influenced by the idea that
atheism is false, or at least not proved—for that there is a God both his
faith and his reason tell him—then these presumptions are by no means
inadmissible. The naturalist, too, presupposing certain results of science
to be true, takes care not to get into conflict with them, and he will
soon correct himself should he arrive at different results. If a
mathematician should arrive at results conflicting with other proved
results, he would infer therefrom that his calculation was faulty; why,
then, cannot the Christian now and then be led by the truths of his faith,
of which he is certain, without by doing so offending against the spirit
of scientific truthfulness?

Or may he not do so just because they are _religious_ truths, vouched for
by a supernatural authority? As a fact many of them are established also
by the testimony of reason. This is shown by the examples just mentioned.
However, the question is not how a truth is vouched for, but whether it be
a truth or not. If the scientist is assured that something is
unquestionably true, then he owes it to the spirit of truthfulness to
accept it. In doing so he will in no way be unfaithful to his scientific
method; the truths of faith are to him not a source of proofs for the
results of his profane science, but only hints, calling his attention to
the fact that certain propositions are not proved, that they are even
false.


    Much less is in historical questions the Catholic obliged to
    defend or praise everything of advantage to his Church, whether
    true or not. Hence _Mommsen_ is grossly mistaken when he states in
    his letter of protest mentioned above: “The appointment of a
    historian or philosopher, who must be a Catholic or a Protestant
    and who must serve his confession, evidently means nothing else
    but to prohibit the Protestant historian from presenting the
    powerful mental structure of the papacy in its full light, and the
    Catholic historian from appreciating the profound thought and the
    tremendous importance of heresy and Protestantism.” The Catholic
    is only bound to the truth.


Or are the Christian truths of faith perhaps regrettable errors, hence
presumptions that should not be made? If so, demonstrate it. Hitherto such
demonstration has not succeeded. So long as the creed of the believing
Christian cannot be refuted convincingly, he has the right to cling to it
in the name of truth.

Or can we not have reasonable certainty at all in religious matters? Are
they the undemonstrable things of an uncontrollable sentiment? To be sure,
this is asserted often enough, explicitly or by insinuation. If this were
true, then of course duty of faith and true unprepossession could not go
together; one would be regarding as the truth things of which one cannot
be convinced. But this is also an unproved assumption: it is the duality
of subjectivism and agnosticism, the fundamental presumption of liberal
freedom of science, which we have already sufficiently exposed.

However, let us assume again the position of those who do not feel
themselves personally convinced of the truth of the Christian dogmatic
faith, or of the Catholic Church. But the Catholic is _firmly convinced_
thereof and, if need be, will make sacrifices for this conviction, as
millions have done. Hence, can any one forbid him to think and judge
according to his conviction? Would they who differ from his opinion for
this very reason force him to think against his own conviction? Would not
that indeed be “seduction to sin against the Holy Ghost”? If the jurist or
historian has formed the conviction that _Mommsen_ is on historical
questions concerning Roman law an authority, who may be followed without
scruple, and he does so without re-examining the particular points, will
this be looked upon as an offence against unprepossession? If, then, the
Catholic is certain that he may safely trust to revelation and the
Church—and there is no authority on earth of more venerable standing, even
if viewed from a purely natural point—will he alone be accused of mental
blindness and lack of freedom?

Or may the scientist have _no view of the world_ at all, because he might
be influenced thereby in certain directions? The champions of this demand
will surely not admit that they have not a definite view of the world. By
no means! We know very well that just those who are most vehement in
urging unprepossessed science have a very pronounced notion of the world,
we know also that they are resolutely propagating that notion. Yet nothing
is said against a scientist who is a monist, or who starts from
agnosticism. It seems they intend to exclude one view only, the positive
religious view. Yet not even this one wholly. No one finds the Jew who
adheres to his religion unfit for scientific research. Of course not.
Protestants, too, find favour: according to the statutes of some German
universities Protestants only may be professors there. Neither _Mommsen_
nor any other herald of unprepossession deems it necessary to defend
science against these institutions and usages. It is plain what is meant
by the popular cry for science unprepossessed: The man of science may be
anything, sceptic or atheist, pagan or Hottentot, only he must not be a
faithful Catholic. Is this fair? Is this the spirit of truth and justice
with which they claim to be filled?


    What has just been said about the Catholic being excluded, could
    easily be exemplified by a lengthy list of facts. But we shall
    pass them over. We shall note one utterance only, from the pen of
    a non-Catholic writer. The renowned pedagogue, _Fr. W. Foerster_,
    says in the preface to the second edition of his book on “Sexual
    Ethics and Sexual Pedagogy”: “Special exception has been taken to
    the catholicizing tendency of my book, and not infrequently the
    author has without further ado been made out an orthodox Catholic.
    For many years past I have been in a position to gain interesting
    information concerning the incredible bias of many champions of
    unprepossessed research. To them it is an a-priori dogma that
    everything represented by the Catholic Church is nonsense,
    superstition, bigotry. They are past comprehending how an
    unprejudiced man, simply by concrete experience, unprepossessed
    research and serious pondering in the field of pedagogy, could be
    brought to affirm that certain notions of the Roman Catholic
    Church are the unavoidable consequence of a penetrating knowledge
    of soul and life. This cannot be admitted by the non-Catholic: for
    him the truth must cease where the Catholic faith begins; he dares
    not assent to anything, else he will no longer be taken for a
    reputable scientific man.”


The bluster about unprepossession proceeds from _shallowness and
dishonesty_. The most varied presumptions, that have nothing to do with
science and the pursuit of the truth, may pass without notice; only when
Christian and Catholic religious convictions, resting upon divine
authority, are encountered, then tolerance gives way to excitement, a hue
and cry is raised, the gate is shut, and entrance to the scientific world
denied.


    Philosophers arise, and each philosophizes according to his
    manner. _Fichte_ says: “What philosophy to choose depends on the
    kind of a man one is.” The historian enters. It is reported that
    _Treitschke_ said: “If I cannot write history from my own
    view-point, with my own judgment, then I had rather be a
    soapmaker.” According to trustworthy testimony, the well-known
    Protestant historian, _Giesebrecht_, used to preface his lectures
    in Munich with the words: “I am a Prussian and a Protestant: I
    shall lecture accordingly” (Hochschulnachrichten, 1901, 2, p. 30).
    Even here there are no objections in the name of Unprepossession.
    “Science,” says _Harnack_, “will tear off the mask of the
    hypocrite or plagiarist and throw him out of the temple, but the
    queerest suppositions it must let pass if they go by the name of
    convictions, and if those who harbour them are trying to
    demonstrate them by scientific means.”

    Therefore the convictions, or, to speak with _Harnack_, the
    “prejudices,” of the Catholic “certainly deserve as much
    consideration and patience as the velleities, idiosyncrasies, and
    blind dogmas which we have to meet and refute in the struggle
    between intellects” (Internationale Wochenschrift, 1908, 259
    _seq._). “Science has been restricted,” the same authority also
    admits, “at all times; our progeny will find even modern science
    in many ways not ruled by pure reason only” (Dogmengesch. III, 3d
    ed., 1907, 326).

    And what is to be said of those more serious suppositions,
    unproved and unprovable, which guide modern science wherever it
    meets philosophical-religious questions? That truly dogmatic
    rejection of everything supernatural and transcendental, that
    obstinate ignoration of a personal God, the rejection of any
    creative act, of any miracle, of any revelation,—a presupposition
    directly raised to a scientific principle: the principle of
    causality. Later on we shall make an excursion into various fields
    of science, and we shall show clearly how this presumption is
    stamped upon entire branches of science. Those solemn assurances
    of persevering unselfishness in desiring nothing but the truth;
    the confidence with which they claim a monopoly of the instinct
    for the truth, all this will appear in quite a strange light, the
    twilight of dishonesty, when we examine the documents and records
    of liberal science itself. We shall see sufficiently how truthful
    the self-confession of a modern champion of liberal science really
    is: “The recently coined expression, ‘science unprepossessed,’ I
    do not like, because it is a product of that shortcoming which has
    already done so much damage to free thought in its struggle with
    the powers of the past—because that word is not entirely honest.
    None of us sits down to his work unprepossessed” (_F. Jodl_, Neue
    Freie Presse, November 26, 1907). Here we shall touch upon only
    one more question.



The Duty to Believe and Scientific Demonstration.


But cannot the believing Christian submit to scientific investigation the
doctrine of faith itself, which he must without doubt hold to be true?
This must surely be allowed if he is to convince himself scientifically of
the truth of it. Indeed, this is allowed. He may critically examine
everything to the very bottom, even the existence of God, the rationality
of his own mind. But how can he, if no doubt is permissible? To examine
means to search doubtingly; it means to call the matter in question—this,
too, is right. It is, on the one hand, a doctrine of the Catholic Church
that they who have received faith through the ministry of the Church, that
is, they that have been made familiar with the essential subjects of the
faith and the motives of their credibility by proper religious
instruction, must not doubt their faith. They have no reasonable excuse
for doubting because they are assured of the truth of the faith. We have
discussed this point before.(4)


    As a matter of course only voluntary doubts are excluded, doubts
    by which one assents deliberately and wilfully to the judgment
    that perhaps not all may be true that is proposed for our belief.
    Involuntary doubts are neither excluded nor sinful. These are
    apparent counter-arguments, objections, difficulties against the
    faith, which occur to the mind without getting its conscious
    approval. They are not unlikely, because the cognition of the
    credibility of Christian truths, while it is certain, is yet
    lacking in that obvious clearness which would render obscurity and
    counter-argument impossible; the assent to faith is free. Doubts
    of this kind are apt to molest the mind and buzz round it like
    bothersome insects, but they are not sinful because they do not
    set aside the assent to faith any more than the cloud that
    intervenes between us and the sun can extinguish its light. The
    assent to faith is withdrawn only when the will with clear
    consideration approves of the judgment that the doubt may be
    right.

    But what about doubts which one cannot solve? Would we not owe it
    to truth and probity to withhold assent to faith for a while?

    The answer lies in the distinction of a twofold solution of
    difficulties. It is by no means necessary, nor even possible, to
    solve directly all objections; it suffices to solve them
    indirectly, that is, by recognizing them as void; since faith is
    certain, whatever is contrary to it must be false. If one is
    convinced by clear proofs of the innocence of a defendant he will
    not be swayed in his assurance, no matter how much circumstantial
    evidence be offered against the defendant. He may not be able to
    account directly for one or the other remarkable coincidence of
    circumstances, but all the arguments of the other side are to him
    refuted, because to him the defendant’s innocence is a certainty.
    Thus the faithful Christian may hear it solemnly proclaimed as a
    scientifically established fact that miracles are impossible,
    because they would be tantamount to God making correction on His
    own work, because they would imply a self-contradiction, or they
    would be against the law of preservation of energy; he hears of
    atrocities in the history of the Church, of the Inquisition, of
    the Church being an enemy of civilization—he knows not what to
    say: but one thing he knows, that there must be an answer, because
    he knows, enlightened by faith, that his belief cannot be false.
    Nowhere is it demanded that all objections be directly answered,
    in order that the conviction be true. If I, with the whole world,
    am convinced that I am able to recognize the truth, must I
    therefore carefully disentangle all the cobwebs ever spun about
    the truth by brooding philosophical brains? If I am in the house,
    safe from the rain, must I, in order to keep dry, go out and catch
    every drop of rain that is falling? Such doubts may indeed harass
    the untrained mind, may even confuse it. This is the juncture
    where grace comes in, the pledge of which has been received at
    baptism, bringing enlightenment, peace, assurance; then we learn
    from others and from ourselves that faith is also a grace.


Nevertheless a scientific examination of the foundations and truths of
faith is allowed and wholesome. Nearly all the theological works written
by Catholics since the days of _Justin_ and _Augustine_ are nothing but
examinations of this kind. At every examination one proceeds with doubt
and question. This is admitted; but this doubt must be merely a methodical
one, not a serious one, nor need it be serious. These two kinds of doubt
must be clearly distinguished. In case of a serious doubt I look upon the
matter as really dubious, and withhold my assent. I am not yet convinced
of its truth. This kind of a doubt is not allowed in matters of faith and
it is the only one that is forbidden. In case of a methodical doubt I
proceed as convinced of a truth, but I do not yet see the reasons plainly,
and would like to be fully conscious of them. Evidently there is no need
of casting aside the convictions I have hitherto held, and of beginning to
think that the matter is by no means positively established.

For instance, I am convinced that a complicated order must be the work of
intellect; however, I would like to find the proof of it. Hence I proceed
as if the truth were yet to be found. But it would evidently be absurd to
think in the meantime that such admirable order could be the result of
blind accident. Or, I am convinced that there must be a source for every
event: I desire to find the demonstration of it. In the meantime shall I
think it possible for another Nova Persei to be produced in the sky
without any cause? Or, investigating to see whether I am capable of
recognizing the truth, shall I seriously become a sceptic till I am
convinced that I ought not to be such? As soon as I really doubt that I
can recognize anything at all as true, obviously I cannot proceed any
further. _Kant_ begins his “Critique of Pure Reason” with this doubt, and
many imitate him, but only by evident inconsistency are they able to
continue their researches by means of reason. Scientific examination does
not consist in repudiating a certainty held hitherto, in order to arrive
at it anew; it consists in bringing to one’s clear consciousness the
reasons for that certainty, and in trying to formulate those reasons
precisely. To investigate the light it is evidently not necessary first to
extinguish it.

Thus the believing Christian may most certainly probe into his religious
conviction without interfering with his adherence, and by doing so proceed
unprepossessed in the fullest sense, for unprepossession does not mean the
rooting up of all certainty. At the threshold of wisdom does not sit
Scepticism.



What Unprepossession is Not.


But the deeper, modern meaning of unprepossession is precisely the right
to doubt seriously everything, especially the truths of the Christian
faith; this is the freedom demanded. Scepticism, the stamp of our time.

Many a misconception may have contributed to the definition of this
unprepossession. For instance, overlooking the important difference
between methodical doubt and serious doubt.

Then there is the erroneous opinion that we should and could proceed
everywhere in the same way as in the natural sciences. Almost parallel
with the progress in the natural sciences grew the doubt of the
correctness of the ancient physical and astronomical notion of the world;
piece after piece crumbled away under the hand of research; new truths
were discovered. In just admiration of these results it was concluded that
all provinces of human cognition should be “researched” in the same way,
not excepting religion and theories of the world; here, too, science
should cast a radical doubt upon everything and discover truth—as if here
we had to deal with matters similar to astronomy and physics, in the state
they were centuries ago; as if all mankind was still ignorant of the truth
and science had to discover it.

This right to doubt is claimed especially in the higher questions of
religion. Certain cognition by reason is, after all, impossible here, such
is the presumption, and therefore, first of all, it is the right and duty
of man, as soon as he has attained his intellectual maturity, to shape by
doubt his views of the world to the satisfaction of his mind and heart, to
win them by a struggle; nor is this true only in the case of the single
individual, but also of entire generations. To see problems everywhere,
not to have any convictions, this is taken to be true unprepossession.


    “Man must learn,” so we are told, “that there is no absolute
    miracle, not even in the domain of the religious life, which
    supernaturally offers truth at a point or by an institution, but
    that every man and every era as witnessed by the authority of
    history must conquer truth by themselves for their own sake and at
    their own risk” (_E. Troeltsch_, Internationale Wochensch. 1908,
    26). Thus the mind of man cannot slake its thirst for positive
    truth at the divine fountain of revelation, but only by search and
    research. Such is the cheerful message of this science. “Amid
    grave crises,” we are told again, “a new concept of science has
    forced its way to the front since the beginning of the eighteenth
    century and conquered the universities.” “Science is not a
    finished system, but a research to be forever under examination”
    (_A. Harnack_, Die Aufgabe der theol. Facultaeten, 1901, 17).


Research without ever arriving at the sure possession of the truth, this
is now the meaning of science, especially of philosophy. Hence there
cannot be a philosophy conclusive and immutable, and any point which seems
established may at any time be revised according to new perceptions.
“There is no question that may not be asked; none which in the abstract
could not just as well be denied as affirmed. In this sense philosophy is
unprepossessed” (_Paulsen_, Die deutschen Universitaeten, 1902, 304
_seq._). The highest achievement it declares itself capable of, is not to
point out the truth to its disciples, for it does not know the truth
itself, but only this: “We expect, or at least we should expect, that
during the years of study the mind give itself earnestly to philosophy,
and strive for a firm grasp of ideas. The great pathfinders in world
thought, _Plato_, _Aristotle_, _Spinoza_, _Kant_, and whoever may be
ranked with them, remain the living teachers of philosophy.” Thus we hold
those great intellectual achievements, _Plato’s_ doctrine and ideas,
_Spinoza’s_ atheistic pantheism, _Aristotle’s_ objectivism and _Kant’s_
subjectivism, with other views of the world of most variegated patterns,
all contradicting and excluding one another, all dubious, none sure. What
would be said of an astronomy that could do nothing better than fix the
telescope on the different stars and then tell its disciples: Now look for
what you please, ideas of _Ptolemy_ or _Copernicus_; _Aristotle’s_ theory
of the spheres or _Newton’s_ theory of gravity; each has its points, but
of none can it be said it is certain! Such an astronomy would probably be
left to its deserved fate.

In the most important points of religion mankind has ever, even in pagan
times, recognized the truth, albeit imperfectly. This is evinced by the
conviction that there exists a personal God and a hereafter; convictions
which can be proved historically. God’s revelation has provided those who
desire to believe with a fuller knowledge of the truth: heaven and earth
will pass away, but these words will not pass away. But what is already in
our safe possession cannot be once more discovered by research. What has
already been found is no longer an object of research. Mankind’s lot would
be a sad one indeed were this unprepossessed science in the right; if in
the most important questions of life it were condemned forever to
tantalizing doubt. God’s providence has ordained matters more kindly for
humanity.

On the other hand, it is a poor science that has nothing to offer but an
eternal query for the truth. A poor science, that with self-consciousness
promises enlightenment and what not, but finally can give nothing but
ceaseless doubt instead of truth, tormenting darkness instead of cheerful
light. Why, then, research where nothing can be found? Why raise searching
eyes to the sky when the stars do not show themselves? What kind of
progress is this when science does nothing further than dig forever at the
foundation? The great _St. Augustine_ has long also passed judgment on
this kind of science: “Such doubting is abhorred by the City of God as
false wisdom, because among the things which we grasp with our intellect
and reason there is a knowledge, limited, it is true, because the soul is
weighed down by a perishable body, as the Apostle says: _ex parte
scimus_—but which has full certainty” (De Civitate Dei, XIX, 18).



An Erroneous Supposition.


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

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


    Such unclarified conceptions, with their inferences, are even met
    with where they would not be expected, for instance, we read:
    “What the average individual needed was a good shepherd, a
    shepherd’s devotion and love, that uplifts and urges onward; it
    was authority, Church-ministry and care of souls, that was needed.
    The Church is an organized pastorate, for the average individual
    likes to go with the flock. The chosen are they who feel within
    themselves the great question of truth as the care of their heart
    and task of their life, who experience its tremendous tension, and
    who are struggling to the end with the intellectual battles
    provoked by this question of truth. The average people, _i.e._,
    the many, the great majority, need something steady to which they
    can cling—persons and teachers, laws and practice.” And why this
    uncharitable distinction between people belonging to the flock and
    the chosen ones, as if the Church and its ecclesiastical functions
    were only appointed for the former? Particularly because “without
    methodical scientific work man cannot attain to the truth” (_H.
    Schell_, Christus, 1900, 125, 64).


Thus science may summon everything before its forum, no one having a right
to interfere; in the superiority bestowed by the right of autocracy it may
sweep aside everything that is opposed to it, no matter by what authority.
Hence science must be free to jolt everything, free to question the truth
of everything, which it has not itself examined and approved. This is the
fundamental supposition of modern freedom of science; also a fatal error,
betraying a woeful ignorance of the construction of the human intellect,
in spite of all its pretentiousness. As a rule we have a true certainty in
most matters, particularly in philosophical-religious convictions, a
certainty not gained by scientific studies; by aid of the latter we may
explain or strengthen that certainty, but we are not free to upset it.

We cannot avoid examining this point a little closer. There is a twofold
certainty, one, which we shall call the _natural_ certainty, is a firm
conviction based on positive knowledge, but without a clear reflexive
consciousness of the grounds on which the conviction is actually resting.
Reason recognizes these grounds, but the recognition is not distinct
enough for reason to become conscious of them, to be able to state them
accurately and in scientific formulas. _scientific_ certainty is a firm
conviction, with a clear consciousness of the grounds, hence it can easily
account for them. Natural certainty is the usual one in human life;
scientific certainty is the privilege of but a few, and even they have it
in but very few things.


    Everybody has a positive intellectual certainty that a complicated
    order cannot be the result of accident, and that for every event
    there must be a cause, though not every one will be able readily
    to demonstrate the truth of his certainty. But if the philosopher
    should look for the proof, he would do so in no other way than by
    reflecting upon his natural and direct knowledge, and by trying to
    become conscious of what he has thus directly found out. To
    illustrate by a few examples: We are all convinced of the
    existence of an exterior world, and any one who is not an idealist
    will call this conviction a reasonable certainty, and yet only a
    few will be able to answer the subtle questions of a sceptic. This
    certainty again is a natural but not a scientific one. How
    difficult it is here also for reason to attain scientific
    certainty, how easy it is to go astray in these researches, is
    proved by the errors of idealism so incomprehensible to the
    untrained natural mind. Let us ask, finally, any one: Why must we
    say: “_Cæsar_ defeated _Pompey_,” but not “_Cæsar_ defeated of
    _Pompey_”? He will tell us this is nonsense; maybe he will add
    that the genitive has another meaning. But should I ask further
    how the meaning of the genitive differs from that of the
    accusative, as both cases seem to have often the same meaning, I
    shall get no answer. There is a certitude, but only a natural one.
    Even if I should ask modern students of the psychology and history
    of languages, like _Wundt_, _Paul_, or whatever their names may
    be, I should not get a satisfactory answer either. The whole logic
    of language, with its subtle forms and moods of expression—how
    difficult for scientific research! And yet the mind of even a
    child penetrates it, and not only a European child, but the
    Patagonian and negro child, who is able to master by its
    intellectual power complex languages, with four numbers, many
    moods, fourteen tenses, etc.

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


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

It is just this natural knowledge and certitude that gives man certainty
of divine revelation, after God vouchsafed to give it to mankind for its
unfailing guidance and help. For revelation was not only intended for
theologians, Bible critics, philosophers, and Church-historians, but for
all. And God has taken care, as He had to do, that man has ample evidence
that God has spoken, and that the Church is the authorized Guardian of
this revelation, even without critical research in history and philosophy.
We have elsewhere briefly stated this evidence in the words of the Vatican
Council.


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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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


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



Chapter IV. Accusations And Objections.


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



The Enemy of Progress.


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

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

No wonder, one might say, that the Church makes such assurances. It is
time for her to realize that unless she can clear herself from it this
accusation will be her moral ruin at a time when the banner of progress is
held aloft, and when even the Catholic world shares in that progress.
True, but let us not forget this: if there is anything characteristic of
the Catholic Church it is her frankness and honesty. She is not afraid to
proclaim her doctrines and judgments before the whole world; she leaves
her Index and Syllabus open for inspection, openly avowing that she is the
irreconcilable enemy of that emancipated freedom proclaimed by modern
liberalism as the ideal of the age. It is the honesty which she inherited
from her Founder, who told the truth to friend and enemy, to His disciples
and to the Scribes, to _Nicodemus_, that lonely night, and to _Caiaphas_.
With the same straightforwardness the Church declares that she feels not
enmity but sympathy toward civilization. A fair-minded critic will admit
here again that the Church is in earnest. “Far from opposing the fostering
of human arts and sciences, the Church is supporting and promoting them in
various ways,” declares the Vatican Council. “The Church does not
underrate nor despise their advantages for human life: on the contrary, it
avows that they, coming as they do from God, the Master of the sciences,
also lead to God by aid of His grace, when properly used” (Sess. III, c.
4). The Church has put this accusation on the list of errors of the age
condemned by _Pius X._ (Sent. 57). She feels the charge as an injury.



The Testimony of History.


Nevertheless, in anti-ecclesiastical circles it is taken very often for an
established fact that the Roman Church has ever tried her best to hamper
the progress of science, or has suppressed it, or at least scowled at it.
How could it be otherwise? they say. How could she favour the progress
made in enlightening reason or in advancing human knowledge? Must she not
fear for its intellectual sway over men whom she keeps under the yoke of
faith? Must she not fear that they might awaken from the slumber in which
they were held prisoners by the suggestive force of her authority, held to
be transcendental; that they might awaken to find out the truth for
themselves? And what is the use of science? He that believes will be
saved: hence faith suffices. If we wish to hear the accusation in the
language of militant science, here it is: “Outside the monastic
institutions no attempt at intellectual advancement was made (in the
Middle Ages), indeed, so far as the laity were concerned, the influence of
the Church was directed to an opposite result, for the maxim universally
received was, that ‘ignorance is the mother of devotion’ ” (_J. W.
Draper_, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science).

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

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


    The first elementary schools were those of the monasteries. Later
    on there were established after their pattern the cathedral and
    chapter schools, then the parish schools. Still later there came
    the town and village schools—all of ecclesiastical origin, or at
    least under the direction of the Church and in close connection
    with her. As early as 774 we find an ecclesiastical school law, to
    the effect that each Bishop should found an ecclesiastical school
    in his episcopal town and appoint a competent teacher to instruct
    “according to the tradition of the Romans.” _Eugene II._ ordained
    in 826 anew that efficient teachers should be provided for the
    cathedral schools wherever needed, who were “to lecture on the
    sciences and the liberal arts with zeal.” “All Bishops should have
    the liberal arts taught at their churches,” was a resolution of
    the Council held in Rome in 1079 by _Gregory VII._ We read in the
    acts of the Lateran Synod of 1179: “Inasmuch as it behooves the
    Church, like a loving mother, to see to it that poor children who
    cannot count upon the support of their parents should not lack
    opportunity of learning to read and make progress, there should at
    every cathedral church be given an adequate prebend to the
    teacher—who is to teach the clerics of this church and the poor
    pupils gratuitously” (_E. Michael_, Gesch. des Deutschen Volkes
    II, 1899, 370). School education flourished more and more; in the
    thirteenth century it was in full bloom. In Germany even many
    unimportant places, market towns, boroughs, and villages had their
    schools at that time. In Mayence and its immediate neighbourhood
    there were, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, seven chapter
    schools; at Muenster at least four schools; the clerical schools
    at Erfurt had an attendance of no less than 1,000 pupils. About
    the year 1400 the diocese of Prague alone had 460 schools. In the
    middle Rhine district, about the year 1500, many counties had an
    elementary school for every radius of two leagues; even rural
    communities with 500 to 600 inhabitants, like Weisenau near Mainz,
    and Michaelstadt in Odenwald, did not lack schools. (_J. Janssen_,
    Gesch. des Deutschen Volkes, 15th ed., 1890, 26; cf. Michael, 1.
    c. 402, 417-419; _Palacky_, Gesch. v. Boehmen, III, 1, p. 186).
    Even in far-off Transylvania there was, as early as the fourteenth
    century, no village without a church and a school (_K. Th.
    Becker_, Die Volksschule der Siebenbuerger Sachsen, 1894, y;
    Michael, 430). There is no doubt that this flourishing state of
    schools was due in the first place to the stimulus, support, and
    unselfish effort of the Church.


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

When, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the thirst for knowledge,
stronger than at any time in history, made itself felt in the Christian
countries of Europe, there were erected in the universities great
international homes of science, so as to gratify the deeply felt need of
education. And thousands hastened to these places to acquire the knowledge
of the period, overcoming all difficulties, then much greater than now. A
recent writer remarks about this not without reason: “The academic
instruction met on part of the thronging thousands with a psychic
disposition more favourable than at any other time. In a way it was here a
case of first love” (_W. Muench_, Zukunftspaedagogik, 1908, 337). At the
universities of the Middle Ages there were taught theology, ecclesiastical
and civil law, the liberal arts, and medicine. But not in the manner that
all four faculties were everywhere represented. Theology especially was
quite frequently lacking, though the aim was to have all sciences
represented. What since the beginning of the thirteenth century was first
of all understood by a university were _studia generalia_—then the usual
name for universities, in contradistinction to _studium particulare_.
Universities enjoyed the privilege of having their academic degrees
honoured everywhere, and their graduates could teach anywhere. The
universities were of an international character. Hence it happened that at
the German universities there were sitting in quest of knowledge by the
side of Germans also foreign youths, from Scotland, Sweden, and Norway,
from Italy and France, all contending for academic honours—a moment which
unquestionably contributed in no small degree to the improvement of
education.

Prior to the Reformation, universities were not state institutions, as
they are at present in Europe, but free, independent corporations. They
were complete in themselves, they made their own statutes, had their own
jurisdiction, and many other privileges. The modern university enjoys but
a small remnant of those ancient prerogatives. In a public speech, made in
the presence of the Duke of Saxony, the Leipsic professor, _Johann Kone_,
could say in 1445: “No king, no chancellor, has any right to interfere
with our privileges and exemptions; the university rules itself, and
changes and improves its statutes according to its needs” (_Janssen_, 1.
c. 91).

Up to the year 1300 there were no less than 23 universities established in
Italy, 5 in France, 2 in England, 4 in Spain, and 1 in Portugal. “Had all
intentions been realized, Europe would have had by the year 1400 no fewer
than 55 universities, including Paris and Bologna. But of 9 of them there
are extant only the charter deeds that were never executed. At any rate,
there were 46 of them, of which 37 or 39 existed at the turn of the
fourteenth century; a considerable number, which was not known till recent
years” (_Denifle_). Germany, Austria, and Hungary shared in 8: Prague,
Cracow, Vienna, Fuenfkirchen, Ofen, Heidelberg, Cologne, and Erfurt.
Within fifty years, from 1460 to 1510, no less than 9 universities were
founded in Germany—a clear proof of the generous enthusiasm for science of
that period.

By their fostering and founding of universities, secular princes have won
the lasting gratitude of posterity, and so have the municipalities of a
later period for showing an even greater zeal than those princes. But it
was indisputably the Church that bestowed upon these homes of learning and
culture the greatest benevolence and support for their foundation and
maintenance.

In the first place, history shows that the majority of them were founded
by _Papal charters_. Since universities were understood to have the power
of conferring degrees of international value, they had to be universally
acknowledged; this could be effected only by an authority of universal
recognition; hence by the Roman-German Emperor—as the supreme prince of
the world-wide Christian monarchy, or by the Pope, who was considered in
the first place. He was the general Father and Teacher of Christendom;
this is why Papal charters were so zealously sought after, in addition to
imperial charters. Of the 44 universities called into existence before the
year 1400, 31 were founded by Papal charters. A similar condition
prevailed in the fifteenth century and afterwards, up to the Reformation.
This was no interference in foreign affairs: such an interpretation would
have caused just surprise in the Middle Ages. That the highest spiritual
power on earth should have the first claim in education was a matter of
general concession. And certainly the manner in which the Church made use
of this right, to speak with an historian of the universities, forms “one
of the most important, and by no means least inglorious, parts of an
activity so manifold and difficult” (_V. A. Huber_, Die Englischen
Universitaeten, I, 1839, p. 14).

These Papal charters breathe a warm _benevolence_ for science. Everywhere
we find the wish expressed, that studies thrive in those places which are
most suitable for the effectual spread of science, and that the different
countries have a sufficient number of scientifically trained men.


    Read, for instance, the charter given by Pope _Boniface VIII._ to
    Pamiers and Avignon, or the Letter of Privileges granted to
    Coimbra by _Clement V._ (apud _Denifle_, 793, 524), or _Pius
    II.’s_ Bull founding the university of Basle. The Pope says here
    about the aim of science: “Among the various blessings to which
    man may by the grace of God attain in this mortal life, the last
    place is not to be given to persevering study, by which man may
    gain the pearl of the sciences, which point out the way to a good
    and happy life, and by their excellence elevate the learned men
    above the uneducated. Science makes man like to God, and enables
    him to clearly perceive the secrets of the world. It aids the
    unlearned, it elevates to sublime heights those born in the
    lowliest condition.” “For this reason the Holy See has always
    promoted the sciences, given them homes, and provided for their
    wants, that they might flourish, so that men, well directed, might
    the more easily acquire so lofty a human happiness, and, when
    acquired, share it with others.” This was the longing desire that
    led to the opening at Basle of “a plentiful spring of science, of
    whose fulness all those may draw who desire to be introduced into
    the study of the mysteries of Scripture and learning.” Even prior
    to this, the same Pope had written to the Duke _Louis of Bavaria_:
    “The Apostolic See desires the widest possible extension of
    science,” which, “while other things are exhausted by
    dissemination, is the only thing that expands the more the greater
    the number of those reached by it” (apud _Janssen_, 1. c, p. 89).


But the Church was not satisfied with granting charters. She also gave
very _substantial material aid_ to most of the universities. The Popes
maintained two universities at Rome, one of them connected with the Papal
Curia, a sort of court-school. It was founded by _Innocent IV._, in order
that the many who came to the Papal court from all parts of Christendom
might satisfy also their thirst for knowledge. Theology, law, especially
civil law, medicine, and languages, including Oriental languages, were
taught there. Besides this there was another university at Rome, founded
by _Boniface VIII._ for a similar purpose: it did not flourish long,
though in 1514 it counted no less than eighty-eight professors. Many
attempts to found or support universities would have proved abortive had
not the Popes provided for the salaries of professors by prebends and
stipends, and by allotting to that end a portion of the income of priests
and churches. Bishops, too, proved themselves zealous patrons of the
universities (_Paulsen_, Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts, 2d ed., I,
1898, p. 27).


    Thus, to cite a few examples of German universities, there was in
    1532, with the consent of the Archbishop _Arnest_, a contribution
    raised by the clergy for the endowment of the university of
    Prague, to which the various cloisters and chapters, especially
    those at Prague, contributed. With the money thus raised the
    Archbishop purchased property, the income from which was to
    provide salaries for the professors. Twelve professors received
    from _Urban V._ the canonicates of the church of All Saints
    (_Denifle_, 598). Erfurt university was given 4 canonicates,
    Cologne 11, Greifswald still more. Similarly Tuebingen, Breslau,
    Rostock, Wittenberg, and Freiburg were cared for (_Kaufmann_, Die
    Gesch. der Deutschen Universitaeten, II, 1896, p. 34, _seq._).
    Vienna found a benefactor in the pastor of Gars, who on October
    13, 1370, founded a purse for 3 sublectors and 1 scholar.
    Heidelberg received 10 canonicates. Its great benefactor was the
    learned _Johann von Dalberg_, first curator of the university, and
    later Bishop of Worms. Under him Heidelberg reached the zenith of
    its lustre, and laid the foundation of almost all that has won it
    the reputation it at present enjoys. By his co-operation the first
    chair of Greek was founded; to him the foundation of the college
    library is due, which later on gained world-wide fame under the
    name of “Palatina.” He further collected a private library, rich
    in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew books, the use of which was open to
    all scientists. “The Rhenish Literary Society” attained its
    greatest prominence under his direction (_Janssen_, 1. c.
    100-105). Ingolstadt, too, obtained its needed income by the
    donation of rich church-prebends, to such an extent that the
    “endowments netted the university about 2,500 florins,” a very
    large sum for that time (_Kaufmann_, 1. c. 38). _Prantl_ also
    admits in regard to Ingolstadt: “The Papal Curia did its best to
    furnish the university” (Gesch. der Ludwig-Maximilian in
    Ingolstadt, 1872, I, 19, apud _Janssen_, 1. c. p. 9).


It is true, the Church then owned much property. But it is just as true
that she was ever ready to support science and colleges out of this
property. Pope and clergy were also taking incessant pains to make it
possible for _poor students_ to attend the university, not only for
theological students, but for those of all the faculties, to give an
opportunity to rich and poor alike to enjoy the advantages of higher
education. Stipends and legacies of this kind are numerous. Even in our
own days many a son of an _alma mater_ owes the stipend he enjoys to
endowments made by the Church. In the course of time there were
established at most of the universities so-called _colleges_ for the
purpose of offering shelter and maintenance to poor students.


    These colleges contributed essentially to the flourishing
    condition of the university. Thus _Albrecht v. Langenstein_
    suggested, at the founding of Vienna university, to the Duke,
    _Albrecht of Austria_, the establishment of such colleges,
    inasmuch as the continuance of the university was dependent on
    them, and stated that Paris owed its prosperity to them
    (_Denifle_, 624).

    The Popes set here the best example. _Zoen_, Bishop of Avignon,
    had provided in his testament that eight students from the
    province of Avignon should be maintained at Bologna by his
    successors from their estates at Bologna. These estates, however,
    were sold later on. _John XXII._ then interfered in favour of the
    students injured thereby and annulled the deed of purchase. The
    income was set aside and increased to an amount sufficient for
    thirty scholars; later on the Pope endeavoured to raise their
    number to fifty. At the same celebrated academy, which, next to
    Paris, had long been a beacon of science sought from near and
    afar, _Urban V._ founded a home for poor students and directed the
    appropriation of 4,000 gold ducats a year for it. From June 16,
    1367, to June 15, 1368, the home received an appropriation of
    5,908 ducats in gold and 155 baskets of cereals. His successor,
    _Gregory XI._, set himself to the task of completing the work
    begun. Out of the income of the Church he ordered appropriated in
    the future 1,500 ducats a year for thirty students, of whom one
    half were to study Canon Law, the other half Civil Law. He then
    decreed the purchase of a home for 4,500 ducats in gold, and
    ordered to pay out immediately 4,000 florins in gold for the next
    school year. Besides the college named, _Urban V._ had founded one
    at Montpellier for medical students, and another, which had its
    seat at first at Trets, later at Monosque. During his pontificate
    this Pope maintained no less than 1,000 students at various
    institutions. Toulouse also had several colleges for poor
    students, founded by high princes of the Church. In the year 1359
    _Innocent VI._ devoted his own home at Toulouse with all its
    possessions and its entire income to twenty poor students, ten of
    whom were to study Canon Law and ten Civil Law. For their further
    maintenance he ordered given to them, besides other things, 25,000
    florins in gold “manualiter” (_Denifle_, 213 _seq._, 308 _seq._,
    339).


Finally, nearly all universities, whether they owed their existence to
ecclesiastical or civil power, received many and far-reaching _privileges_
from the Popes. Not the least one was for clerical students the
dispensation to free them from the requirement of residence for the
enjoyment of their benefices, which made it possible for them to study in
remote university towns, where they were free to study not only theology,
but other sciences as well. This dispensation was quite common.
Furthermore, the Popes protected in the most energetic way the
universities in their privileges and freedom every time they were applied
to for aid.


    This happened, for instance, at Bologna. The students there had
    their free guilds. The municipal authorities began to restrict
    their privileges by forbidding native students under heavy
    penalties to study outside of Bologna, which was later on extended
    to the alien students. The professors sided with the city.
    _Honorius III._ in 1220 called upon the latter to repeal those
    statutes; if they wanted to confine the students to the city, it
    should be done by clemency, not with severity and coercion. The
    city relented. But we see again in 1224 the students appeal, for
    the third time since 1217, to the Pope, begging for protection.
    The tension had grown; the city was actually beginning to use
    force. _Honorius_ sharply rebuked the city for this action,
    threatening excommunication if the authorities continued to
    suppress freedom. The city yielded completely, and the freedom of
    the students was saved, thanks to their protector. Later on the
    Popes had to interfere again. _Clement V._ had already ordered the
    Bishops to protect the students at Bologna. His successor, _John
    XXII._, received complaints that privileges of students in Italy
    were being violated by authorities and citizens of the city.
    Against the Podesta of Bologna especially complaints were made.
    The Pope, in 1321 and 1322, bade the Bishops and Archbishops to
    take measures against those who _directe et indirecte impedire
    dieuntur, ne ad praedictum studium valeant declinare contra
    apostolica et imperialia privilegia_. He appointed at Bologna a
    special protector and conservator of the university. Some years
    after, when the Podesta declined to take the _juramentum de
    observandis statutis ejusdem studiis factis et faciendis_, he was
    commanded to take the oath.

    At Orleans there was a flourishing law school; especially its _jus
    civile_ was famous. Professors and students were granted by
    _Clement V._ the privilege of an autonomous university with the
    right of free corporation, with the power to suspend lectures in
    case they could get no satisfaction for any wrong done them. These
    privileges were a thorn in the eye of the city; its citizens even
    allowed violence to be done the university. Then _Philip the Fair_
    interfered, but in a way which indicates that he did not know
    sufficiently the university life of the Middle Ages. Moreover, he
    annulled the granted free fellowship, and put professors and the
    students under civil supervision. But this was not tolerated in
    those days. The king had at the same time given many privileges,
    but they were disregarded. In 1316 professors and students left
    Orleans and the university ceased to exist. The first act of _John
    XXII._ upon ascending the Papal throne was to restore this school,
    the French king himself having begged his support in the matter.
    The king’s suggestion to take the privilege of free fellowship
    from the professors and students was rejected by the Pope. The
    Pope reaffirmed all privileges granted to the university,
    whereupon the professors and students returned, to inaugurate the
    most brilliant epoch of their college.


Considering these facts, one may subscribe to the judgment of _Denifle_
which he pronounces at the conclusion of his thorough treatise on the
universities of the Middle Ages: “So far as the foundation of the
universities can be spoken of, its merit belongs to the Popes, to secular
rulers, clergy, and laity. But that the lion’s share belongs to the Popes
every one must admit who has followed my presentment, which is exclusively
based on documents, and who examines history with impartiality” (Ib. 792
_seq._). Even _Kaufmann_, who is very unfavourably disposed towards the
Church, cannot deny that “numerous Popes have shown warm interest for the
fostering of sciences during those centuries, and were for the most part
themselves prominent representatives of science” (Ib. 403).

That the mediæval universities in some points, though not in all, were
inferior to modern universities, was not their fault. No good judge of
human conditions could expect it to be otherwise. The experience and
efficiency of the mature man is not attained at once, but only after the
exertions and experiments made by him during the period of youth and
development. At a time when all the experiences in the field of school
legislation, which are the property of the present day, had yet to be
collected, when the relation between lower and higher schools had not been
regulated in all respects, at that time it was not possible to be in the
position we are in to-day. Future critics of our times will see in our
present educational systems many gross defects, which often are not hidden
even to our own eyes. But it would be arrogance for them to belittle our
efforts, the fruits of which they will once enjoy without any merit on
their part. The university of yore conformed to the educational purposes
of that period; it was the focus of intellectual life, perhaps to a larger
degree than is the case to-day. This suffices. Moreover, the number of
professors was quite considerable, that of the students even more so. In
Bologna in 1388 the number of professors was 70, not including the
theologians, among them 39 jurists; in Piacenza there were from the years
1398 to 1402 71 professors; among them were 27 teachers of Roman law and
22 teachers of medicine (_Denifle_, 209, 571).

In regard to the zeal displayed by the Church in promoting universities,
it might be objected that she was caring in the first place for
_theology_, not for the other sciences, and that the universities then had
chiefly been established for theological students. This, however, is not
the case. The universities especially favoured by the Popes were first of
all law schools, chiefly of civil law, or medical schools. Those at
Bologna, Padua, Florence, and Orleans were principally law schools; in
Italy, in general, chief attention was paid to jurisprudence, particularly
to Roman law. Montpellier was essentially a medical college; it attained
during the thirteenth century preponderance even over Salerno. The
assertion has been made that the vigorous life at this medical college was
owing to its independence of Rome (_Haeser_, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der
Medizin, 1, 655. Cfr. _Denifle_, 342). But _Denifle_ has proved that
“clerical organs have been the moving spirits of the medical college at
Montpellier.”

Nor did the Papal charter deeds exclude any profane science. The common
formula, which always prevails, authorizes to teach indiscriminately _in
jure canonico et civili necnon in medicina et qualibet alia licita
facultate_. Only one science was frequently excepted, and that was just
theology. Of the forty-six high schools that had been established up to
the year 1400, about twenty-eight, therefore nearly two-thirds, excluded
by their charter the teaching of theology. At first a number of
universities sprang up merely as law schools, others as medical schools,
and there was then no need to include the science of theology in the
schedule of studies. Furthermore, Paris was ever since the twelfth century
looked upon as the home and the natural place for theology (_Denifle_, 703
f.). Hence the benevolence of the Church towards the universities was not
merely determined by selfish interest.

Or was it, nevertheless? May the Church not have bestowed so much care on
the homes of science in order to increase her own influence thereby, and
also with an eye to the future? This assertion has been made. But this
assertion is an injustice and it is against the testimony of history. The
Popes very often issued their charter deeds only then, when request was
made by worldly rulers and by the cities themselves. Hence there was no
hurried self-assertion. And the Church has never denied the right to
worldly powers to found their own high schools. The theologians of the
thirteenth century expressedly declared it to be the duty of princes to
provide for institutions of learning (Cfr. _Thomas of Aquin_, De regimine
principum, I, 13; Op. contra impug. relig. 3).


    Thus up to the year 1400 nine high schools had received no
    charters at all, ten only imperial charters or charters from their
    local sovereigns. If the Popes had cared only about their
    influence, why then did they treat such colleges with the same
    benevolence? Spain’s first college was founded at Paleneia in the
    years 1212-1214 by _Alfonso VIII._ without asking the Pope. When
    soon afterwards it was in trouble it was _Honorius III._ who aided
    _Alfonso’s_ successor in restoring it, by assigning some
    ecclesiastical income to its professors. When the college was
    nearly wrecked and Rome once more applied to for help, _Urban IV._
    lent an aiding hand because he did not want _ut lucerna tanta
    claritatis in commune mutorum dispendium sic extincta remaneat_.
    _Frederick II._ had founded a university of his own. When it
    failed it was _Clement IV._ who urged _King Charles_ of Anjou to
    re-establish it. _In eodem regno facias et jubeas hujusmodi
    studium reformari_ (_Denifle_, 478, 459). This is not the language
    and action of one who is only ruled by the passion to spread his
    own influence, and not guided by benevolence for science.

    But it is true, in supporting the higher schools the Church did
    not aim at science as its ultimate object; it was her view that
    science should serve the material welfare of man, but still more
    the highest ethical and religious purpose of life. This in general
    was the conception of the entire Middle Ages. At that time it
    would have been considered curious to seek a science ultimately
    for its own sake.


And the universities repaid the Church by gratitude and devotion. The
effort has been made to demonstrate that the modern separation of science
from religion had already begun in the Middle Ages, and had showed itself
everywhere; this tendency for autonomy “appeared at first only timidly and
in manifold disguises” (_Kaufmann_, 14). How easy it is to find such
disguises may be shown by an example. The university of Paris had after
the death of _St. Thomas_ asked for his remains. _Kaufmann_ holds that the
notion of the autonomy of science had found sharp expression in the
memorandum wherein the university stated the motive of its request. Now
how does this harmless document sound? “Quoniam omnino est indecens et
indignum ut alia ratio aut locus quam omnium studiorum nobilissima
Parisiensis civitas quae ipsum prius educavit nutrivit et fovit et post
modum ad eodem doctrinae monumenta et ineffabilia fomenta suscepit ossa
... habeat.... Si enim Ecclesia merito ossa et reliquias Sanctorum honorat
nobis non sine causa videtur honestum et sanctum tanti doctoris corpus in
perpetuum penes nos habere in honore.” Evidently the university requests
the relic for itself, or rather for the Parisiensis civitas, not in
opposition to the Church, but in opposition to other cities, altera natio
aut locus. I wonder if the Parisian admirers of St. Thomas ever dreamed
that they would one day be put in the light of forerunners of liberal
science, because of their pious application for the bones of their great
teacher? This is tantamount to carrying one’s own idea into the fact.
_Denifle_, probably the most competent judge of the affairs of mediæval
universities, writes as follows: “If we weigh the different acts which
suggest themselves to us in these various foundations, and if we compare
them with one another, there is revealed to us, in the realm of history of
the foundation of mediæval universities, a wonderful harmony between
Church and State, between the spiritual and material. This is the reason
why the universities of the Middle Ages appear to us as the highest civil
as well as the highest ecclesiastical teaching institutions.
Fundamentally, they are the product of the Christian spirit which
penetrated the whole, wherein Pope and Prince, clergy and laity, each held
the proper position” (l. c. p. 795).

One consequence of this relation between the universities and the Church
was that “they attained their greatest prosperity as long as the unity of
Church and faith remained unimpaired, and that, at the time of the
Reformation, they all sided with the Church with the exception of two,
Wittenberg and Erfurt. Torn away from their ecclesiastical and established
basis only by violent means, they were led to the new doctrine, but really
succumbed to it only when their freedom had been curtailed and they had
been reduced to state institutions” (_Janssen_, l. c. p. 91). They had
been, as the learned _Wimpheling_ wrote at the close of the sixteenth
century, “the most favoured daughters of the Church, who tried to repay by
fidelity and attachment what they owed to their Mother” (De arte
impressoria, apud _Janssen_, l. c. 91).



A False Progress.


Hence history cannot subscribe to the accusation that the Church is the
enemy of progress. How then does it happen that this accusation is made so
frequently? The idea suggests itself that there may be here a different
meaning given to the word “progress,” that the Church opposes a certain
kind of progress which her enemies call “the” progress. And this is the
actual fact. If we examine the proofs which are to show the hostile
attitude of the Church, we meet at every step _Galileo_, the Copernican
system, the Syllabus, and Index. But this appears only on the surface,
which hides beneath it something that is easily overlooked by the cursory
glance. And this is the precise definition of scientific and civilized
progress. Progress has ever been an ideal of powerful attraction. The
noblest and best of men have ever displayed the most earnest endeavour
onward and upward. In our times, however, this ideal comes forward
differently garbed, in the name of the new view of the world, and
resolutely censures as reactionary everything that will oppose it. What is
this definition?

Since the _theory of evolution_ of _Lamarck_ and _Darwin_ entered biology,
it has also more and more invaded other branches of science. The principle
is now that everywhere, in the organic or inorganic world and in the whole
province of human life there is a gradual growth and change—nothing
permanent, nothing definite and absolute. Uninterrupted evolution
hitherto; hereafter restless development; especially in the greatest good
belonging to human life, thought, philosophy, and chiefly religion. Here,
too, there are no forms nor dogmas which evolution in its continual
development does not evolve and elevate. This idea of evolution is
supplemented by subjectivism with its _relativism of truth_: all views,
especially philosophical and religious “Truths,” are no longer the
reproduction of objectively existing things, but a creation of the
subject, of his inner experience and feeling; hence each age must proceed
to new thought of _its own_.


    “The methods of scientific research,” we are told, “are determined
    by the idea of evolution, and this applies not only to natural
    sciences but also to the so-called intellectual sciences,—history,
    philology, philosophy, and theology. The idea of evolution
    influences and dominates all our thoughts; without it progress in
    the field of scientific knowledge is quite impossible.” We read,
    for instance, in the modern history of philosophy: “The rise and
    fall of a system is a necessary part of universal history; it is
    conditioned by the character of its time, the system being the
    understanding of that time, while this understanding of the time
    is conditioned by the fact that the time has changed.” At
    _Roscellin’s_ time the nominalists were intellectually inferior;
    but where there is question of undermining the militant Church of
    the Middle Ages the nominalists will be considered to have been
    the greater philosophers. In this the realists “by the futility of
    their struggle proved that the time for nominalism had arrived,
    hence that whoever favours it understands the time better; that
    is, more philosophically. After the beginning of the Renaissance
    we notice an attempt at philosophizing in such a way as to ignore
    the existence of divine wisdom taught by Christianity. The
    pre-Christian sages had done so: to philosophize in their spirit
    was therefore the task of the time, and those who had a better
    understanding of the time philosophized that way better than by
    the scholastic method; though their method may appear reactionary
    to unphilosophical minds” (_J. E. Erdmann_, Grundriss der Gesch.
    der Philosophie, 3d ed., I (1878), 4, 262, 434, 502). This is a
    frank denial of any truth in philosophy: the more neological and
    modern a thing is, the more truth there is in it! Realism was
    right in _Roscellin’s_ time, but a later period had to sweep it
    away. The Christian religion was right for the Middle Ages, but
    when the Greek authors began to be read again it was no longer
    modern.

    Apostasy from the faith is considered a mark of progress. “Italian
    natural philosophy,” we are told, “reached its pinnacle with
    _Bruno_ and _Campanella_, of whom the former, though the older,
    appears to be more progressive on account of his freer attitude
    towards the Church” (_R. Falkenburg_, Gesch. der neueren
    Philosophie, 5th ed. (1905), page 30, _seq._). Hence evidently
    further development of Christianity, too, is demanded. According
    to subjectivistic views it was hitherto only an historical product
    of the human intellect: hence “onward to new and higher forms
    corresponding to modern thought and feeling, onward to a new
    Christianity without dogmas and authority!” “Break up those old
    tablets,” spoke _Zarathustra_.


Such is progress in thought and science, for which the way must be opened.
That the immutable dogmas of Christianity, that the task of the Catholic
Church to preserve revelation intact, are incompatible with it, that the
Church appears reactionary, and as an obstacle to this progress, is now
self-evident. Here we have the _deeper contrast between progress, in the
anti-Christian sense, and the essence of Christianity_ in general, and,
especially, of the _Catholic Church_.


    “It is frankly admitted that the issue is the struggle between the
    two views of the world—between the Christian, conservative
    dogmatism and the anti-dogmatic evolutionary philosophy” (Neue
    Freie Presse, Jun. 7, 1908). Faith according to its very essence
    is immutable and stationary, science is essentially progressive:
    they had therefore to part in a manner which could not be kept a
    secret. “A divine revelation must necessarily be intolerant of
    contradiction, it must repudiate all improvement in itself” (_J.
    Draper_, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science,
    VI). “The great opposition between the rigid dogmatism of the
    Roman Catholic Church and the ever progressing modern science
    cannot be removed” (Academicus, l. c. 362). So say the opponents
    of the Church.


There is no error, says _St. Augustine_, which does not contain some
truth, especially when it is able to rule the thought of many. Hence its
capacity to deceive. The same is true in the present case.

There is evolution and progress in everything, or at least there should
be. The individual gradually develops from the embryo into a perfect form,
though it becomes nothing else than what it had formerly been in its
embryonic state. Mankind advances rapidly in civilization; we no longer
ride in the rumbling stage-coach but in a comfortable express train, and
the tallow candle has been replaced by the electric light. Thus we demand
progress also in knowledge and science, and even in religion. Many things
that were obscure to older generations have become clear to us; we have
corrected many an error, made many discoveries which were unknown to our
ancestors. Many doctrines of faith, also, appear to our eyes in sharper
outlines than before; of many we have a deeper understanding, discovered
new relations, meanings, and deductions. Thus there is progress and
development everywhere.

But it would be erroneous to conclude from all this that there cannot be
any stable truths and dogmas, that progress to new and different views and
doctrines is necessary. By the same right we might conclude that the main
principles of the Copernican system cannot be immutable, because they
would hinder the progress of science. Progress certainly does not consist
in throwing away all certainty acquired, in order to begin anew. Or does
it really belong to progress in astronomy to again give up _Copernicus_,
to go back to _Ptolemy_ and let the sun and all the stars revolve again
around the earth? Does not progress rather consist in our studying these
astronomical results more closely, in building up the details, and, first
of all, in trying to solve new problems?

The champion of the faith will reply: Just as established results do not
hinder the progress of science, just so do the doctrines of faith not form
an obstacle to progress and evolution. The fixed doctrines of the faith
themselves, in themselves and in their application to the conditions of
life, offer rich material for the growth of religious knowledge. And there
is the immense field for progress in the profane sciences. If any one
should say that the believing scientist, who is bound by his dogmas, can
do nothing further but reiterate his old truths, one might in turn argue:
Then the astronomer bound by the fundamental rules of the Copernican
system could have only the monotonous task of drawing over and over again
the outlines of his system, while the mathematician who holds the
multiplication table to be an unalienable possession would not be allowed
to do aught but to repeat the multiplication table.

Or the argument may be put thus: We have made great progress in the
material province of civilization, in science and art; “can an old
religion suffice under these new and improved conditions, a religion which
originated at an age when these conditions did not exist? This
contradiction is shocking.... Progress in culture demands progress in
religion.... We want a more perfect religion, a higher religion”
(_Masaryk_, Im Kampf um die Religion, 1904, 29). Note the logic of this
demonstration. We no longer light our rooms by the dim light of a small
oil lamp, we walk no longer at night through dark narrow lanes, but
through brightly illuminated avenues, does it follow from this that it can
no longer be true that Christ is the Son of God, nor that He has worked
miracles, or founded a Church, and a new religion is therefore necessary?
We have made progress in our knowledge of history; we know a good deal of
Rome and Carthage, of the civilization of ancient Egypt and of Greece, and
of their mutual relations; we have other fashions of life than our fathers
had, we build and paint differently—our political life, too, has grown
more complicated; does it follow from all this, that it cannot be true
that we are created by God, that we must believe a divine revelation,
hence a new religion is necessary? Progress and evolution to consist in
ever abandoning the old and advancing to new and different views—this is
_absurd_. Absurd, in the first place, because it is no _progress_ at all,
but a retrogression, a hopeless alternation of forwards and backwards.
There can be no progress if I am always withdrawing from my old position;
progress is possible only by retaining the basis established and then
advancing therefrom. And _evolution_ is not a continuous remodelling and
shaping anew, but a continuance in growth. Evolution means that the embryo
unfolds, and by retaining and perfecting the old matter gradually becomes
a plant; evolution is in the progress from bud to blossom; but not in the
changing mass of clouds, swept away to-day by the current wind and
replaced to-morrow by other clouds. An absurdity, also, for the reason
that it violates all laws of reason, that once there was a revelation of
God to be believed, but that this is no longer true.

Furthermore, the demand to follow always “the ideas of the period”
suggests the question: Who is to represent the period? Who represented
Greece, the sophists or _Plato_? Who was representative of the first days
of Christianity, the Roman emperors or the martyrs? Will not the passage
in _Goethe’s_ Faust apply in most cases: “What they call the spirit of the
times is but their own mind wherein the times are reflected”? True, if
progress is taken to be the overstepping by human reason of the eternal
standards of immutable truth and the barriers of faith, if it is to be the
attempt at emancipation from God and religion, then there is no more
resolute foe of progress than the Christian religion, than the Catholic
Church. But this is not progress but loss of the truth, not higher
religion but apostasy, not development of what is best in man, but
retrogression to mental disintegration by scepticism.



The Syllabus.


In the eyes of many it is especially the Syllabus of _Pius IX._ by which
the Catholic Church has erected a lasting monument to its enmity to
civilization. It is the Syllabus, we are told, in which _Pius IX._ has “ex
cathedra condemned the freedom of science” (_W. Kahl_,
Bekenntnissgebundenheit und Lehrfreiheit, 1897, 10); “in which modern
culture and science is being cursed” (_Th. Fuchs_, Neue Freie Presse, Nov.
25, 1907); in which “the most general foundations of our political order,
the freedom of conscience, are rejected” (_G. Kaufmann_, Die Lehrfreiheit
an den deutschen Universitaeten, 1898, 34); “in which it has simply
anathematized the achievements of the modern concept of right” (_F. Jodl_,
Gedanken über Reformkatholizismus, 1902, 5); the Syllabus “strikes blows
against the autonomy of human development of culture, it is a _non
possumus_, I cannot make peace, I cannot compromise with what is termed
progress, liberalism, and civilization.” The Syllabus is a favorite stock
argument of professional free-thinkers and agitators, and the one with
which they like to open the discussion. For this reason we must say a few
words about it.

When a Syllabus is spoken of without any distinction, the Syllabus of
_Pius IX._ is meant. It is a list of eighty condemned propositions which
this Pope sent on December 8, 1864, to all the Bishops of the world,
together with the encyclical letter “Quanta Cura.” _Pius IX._ had, prior
to this, and on various occasions, denounced these propositions as false
and to be repudiated. They were now gathered together in the Syllabus.
They represent the _program of modern liberalism_ in the province of
religion and in politics in relation to religion. They are repudiated in
the following order: Pantheism; liberal freedom of thought and of
conscience as a repudiation of the duty to believe; religious freedom as a
demand of emancipation from faith and Church; religious indifferentism;
the denial of the Church and of her independence of the state; the
omnipotence of state power, especially in the province of thought. The
single propositions are not all designated as heretical, hence the
contrary is not always pronounced to be dogma; they are rejected in
general as “errors.” It is not necessary to discuss here the question
whether and to what extent the Syllabus is an infallible decision. Suffice
it to say it is binding for believing Catholics.

Has the Catholic any reason to be ashamed of the Syllabus?

It was a resolute deed. A deed of that intrepidity and firm consistency
which has ever characterized the Catholic Church. With her fearless love
of truth the Church has in the Syllabus solemnly condemned the errors of
the modern rebellion against the supernatural order, of the naturalization
and declaration of independence of the human life. For this reason the
Syllabus is called an attack upon modern culture, science, and education,
upon the foundations of the state. Is this true?

It is, and it is not. All that is good and Christian in modern culture is
not touched by the Syllabus; it strikes only at what is anti-Christian in
our times and in the leading ideas of our times. It does not condemn
freedom of science, but only the liberal freedom which throws off the yoke
of faith; it does not repudiate freedom of religion and conscience, but
the _liberal_ freedom which will not acknowledge a divine revelation nor
take the Church as a guide. Not the foundations of modern states are
attacked, but only the liberal ideas of emancipation from religion, and of
opposition to the Church. The Church proclaims to the world only what has
been known to all Christian centuries, that, just as the single individual
is bound to have the Christian belief and must lead a Christian life, so
are nations and organized states; that the human creature is subject to
the law of Christ in all its relations. Nor does she contend against
genuine progress in science, education and in the material domain, but
merely against liberal progress towards the irreligious materialization of
life.

This emancipation from the Christian faith poses mostly under the
attractive and deceptive name of “modern progress.” Indeed, it has ever
been the pretension of liberalism to look upon itself as the sole
harbinger of civilization, to claim the guidance of intellectual life for
its aim, and to stigmatize as a foe of culture any one that opposes the
dissemination of its anti-Christian humanism. It is also an expert in
giving to words a charm and an ambiguous meaning that deceive.
Emancipation from religion is “progress” and “enlightenment.” Everything
else is reactionary. Its infidelity is freedom of conscience and thought.
Everything else is “bondage.” Only its secular schools, its civil
marriage, its separation of Church and State are “modern.” Everything else
is obsolete, hence no longer warranted. For the Church to defend her
rights is arrogance; when the Church uses her God-given authority for the
good of the faith, she practises intellectual oppression; the Catholic who
lets himself be guided by his Church is called unpatriotic, bereft of his
civil spirit.

What striking contrast to the honesty in which the Church presents her
doctrines frankly before the whole world, without disguise or artifice.
The reason is that she has sufficient interior strength and truth to
render it unnecessary for her to take refuge in disguise or present the
truth in ambiguity.


    The clearest evidence of the Church’s hostility to culture is the
    condemnation of the 80th thesis of the _Syllabus_, so it is said.
    It is the thesis that the Pope can and must reconcile himself to,
    and compromise with, progress, liberalism, and modern
    civilization. This is a condemned proposition, hence the contrary
    is true: the Pope of Rome cannot, and must not, reconcile himself,
    nor compromise with, liberalism and modern civilization. Here we
    have the frankly admitted hostility against progress, education,
    and science—it is the watchword of the Papacy.

    This conclusion can be arrived at only by pushing aside all rules
    of scientific interpretation. What progress is this, with what
    civilization can the Papacy not be reconciled? The progress of
    modern liberalism. The heading of the paragraph containing this
    proposition states expressly that “errors of modern liberalism”
    are to be condemned. This becomes clear by the Allocution
    “Jamdudum cernimus” of March 18, 1861, from which this
    condemnation is taken. There it is stated: “It is asked that the
    Pope of Rome reconcile himself with progress, to liberalism as
    they call it, to the new civilization, and compromise with
    them.... But now we ask of those inviting us to be reconciled with
    modern civilization, whether the facts be such as to tempt the
    Vicar of Christ on earth ... to connect himself with the
    civilization of to-day without the greatest injury to this
    conscience ... a civilization that has caused the dissemination of
    numerous despicable opinions, errors, and principles in conflict
    with the Catholic religion and its doctrines.” Of course a
    civilization cut off from any true Christianity by education and
    science, by family life and political life, a progress, trying to
    stop the activity of the Church in every sphere and attacking her
    in their speech, in newspapers, and in schools, cannot demand of
    the Papacy to join hands with them. No Christian, whether Catholic
    or Protestant, can profess this “progress.” We have here at the
    same time a specimen of how they proceed in interpreting the
    propositions of the Syllabus in order to discover in them all
    possible absurdities. Many propositions are short sentences taken
    from the work of an author, or from previous Papal declarations.
    Hence they must be understood in the sense of those sources.
    Furthermore, attention must be paid to what is specially
    emphasized. Then, again, we must remember that by repudiating a
    proposition only the contradictory is asserted, but not the
    contrary; to conclude this would be to conclude too much. For
    instance, the seventy-seventh condemned proposition reads: “In our
    times it is no longer to any purpose that the Catholic religion
    should be the sole religion of the state to the exclusion of all
    other confessions.” According to some, _e.g._, _Frins_, the
    contradictory is thus formulated: “In our times also it is still
    to the purpose....” According to others, however, _e.g._,
    _Hoensbroeeh_ and _Goetz_: “In our times also it is
    beneficial....” Thus while _Hoensbroech_ and _Goetz_ make the
    ecclesiastical doctrine appear to read that it would be beneficial
    to hold fast to the Catholic as the sole religion of the state
    under all circumstances even to-day, the actual opposite is the
    doctrine, that this may be yet to the purpose under certain
    circumstances. While no reasonable man could object to the latter,
    the former is eagerly exploited against the Church (_Heiner_, Der
    Syllabus, 1905, p. 31, _seq._; cf. _Frins_, Kirchenlex, 2d ed.,
    XI, 1031; _Hoensbroech_, l. c. 25; _Goetz_, Der Ultramontanismus,
    1905, 148).


Of course it may be taken for granted that the Syllabus is distasteful to
modern liberalism, which is branded there as one of the errors of the day.
Yet the Church cannot be censured for not becoming unfaithful to her
vocation of preserving the patrimony of Christianity to mankind, or for
acting as the invincible defender of the Christian religion in the
universal struggle between truth and error, even though the latter pose
with great assurance.



The Condemnation of Modernism.


The great excitement caused in intellectual circles by the Syllabus of
_Pius IX._ was aroused again, though not with the same intensity, when
some years ago the news of another Syllabus was circulated through the
world, and the excitement increased when the rumour was followed by the
publication of the encyclical “Pascendi Dominici gregis.” Indeed, the new
event was not very unlike the former: in the 60’s Rome’s sentence was
directed against the Modernism of that period, which called itself
liberalism. The excitement caused by its condemnation was more intense,
because it struck directly at the principles governing the liberal
politics against the Church, which principles were claimed to be the
foundation of the modern state. Now the Modernism repudiated by the
Church’s voice was nothing more than the old humanistic, fundamental,
errors of liberalism, but put in the form of a religious and philosophical
view of the world, and in Catholic garb: it meant man detached from
everything supernatural, and dependent alone on himself in his
intellectual life, more especially in his religious life.

Now, as then, similar charges were raised: The Church is the
irreconcilable foe of modern achievements and the opponent of them; “the
encyclical aims at modern intellectual life in all its phases and forms”
(XX. Jahrh., 1908, 568). Now, as then, we have the same ambiguity of the
terms “modern” and “progress.”

What was condemned by the Church? The document “Lamentabili sane exitu,”
issued by the teaching authority of the Church on July 3, 1907, is
entitled “A Decree of the Holy Congregation of the Roman and General
Inquisition or the Holy Office,” which has to watch over the unadulterated
preservation of the faith. The decree soon was christened the “New
Syllabus,” because of its similarity with the Syllabus of _Pius IX._ In a
similar way it condemns sixty-five propositions against the inspiration
and the historical character of Holy Scripture, against the divine origin
of revelation and of faith, against the divinity of Christ, His
Resurrection and His atoning death, against the Sacraments, and against
the Church. These are component parts of the philosophical religious
system of thought which soon after was set forth and condemned by the
encyclical “Pascendi,” of September 8, 1907.

Modernism is essentially philosophy, combining modern _agnostic-autonomous
subjectivism_ with _evolutionism_, and applied to the Christian religion,
which thereby becomes disfigured beyond recognition. Its chain of thought,
excellently stated by the encyclical, starts with the proposition that the
supernatural is beyond the knowledge of man, and hence man cannot know
anything of God. The faith which unites us to God is nothing but a
feeling, born of a blind impulse, which may be considered a divine
revelation. If this religious feeling is expressed in forms, the result is
“doctrines of faith”; for Christian “dogmas” are this and nothing more,
images and symbols of the noble and divine, hence they are of human origin
and are changeable according to the disposition and the degree of learning
of the individual, as well as of the times. There is no dogmatic
Christianity, in the sense of an immutable religious doctrine, nor is
there any absolutely true religion, for religion is but a variable
feeling, that has nothing to do with cognition and knowledge. For this
reason they never can come in conflict. The Christian religion originally
was nothing else but the religious experience of Christ, who was not God
but a man; in the course of time it has undergone changes which are
reflected in the shaping of Christian dogma. Holy Scripture is, similarly,
the expression of the religious experience of its human authors; the
Sacraments are symbols, arousing religious sentiments; the Church is not
founded by God, and only has the task of regulating the development of
Christianity, and of sanctioning at any time whatever religious
experiences the changeable spirit of progressive civilization may produce.

This is Modernism, as represented chiefly in France, Italy, and to an
extent also in England; in Germany it did not appear as a system, but even
there its spirit became quite apparent. Thus, Modernism is nothing else
but the systematic arrangement of those ideas which we have hitherto met,
in various places, as the fundamental principles of modern religious
thought opposed to Christianity. It is subjectivism with its autonomy of
the human subject, its agnosticism, its relativism of truth, sailing under
the name of “historical method of thought” and “progress,” and, finally,
with its freedom of thought and conscience which rejects all authority. It
is _Kant_ in the robe of a Catholic theologian. Ultimately it is nothing
else but the shocking negation of everything supernatural, hence complete
apostasy. “The salient point is recognized,” says _Troeltsch_, “the enemy
is the modern historical method of thought, the concept of evolution, the
theory of inner experience and relativism as applied to religion, the
negation of supernaturalism as taught by the old Church” (l. c. 22).
Hence, was it not manifest that the Church had to take measures against
this positive denial of Christianity as a whole, the more so as the
uneducated could be easily deceived by it? Every organism will throw off
excrescences, the more energetically the stronger it is. Any religion
lacking this strength is doomed. That the Papal declaration aroused such
opposition must not be wondered at; it hit once more the central idea of
the anti-Christian view of the world. The judgment was not passed against
modern intellectual life, but only against the grave errors inherent in
it; the Church did not condemn progress, nor the increase and deepening of
knowledge of the truth; not the enrichment of the life of the mind, of
feeling, and the will, but only pretended progress; she did not condemn
the historical method nor the idea of evolution, but their false
application, which dissolved anything and everything in growth, purely
natural growth at that, without acknowledging a revelation of absolute
truths.


    Orthodox Protestants have openly praised this bold deed of the
    Pope as highly meritorious for the preservation of the Christian
    faith. Thus the South African Church Quarterly Review (Episcopal)
    of January, 1908, said: “The Syllabus and Encyclical of _Pius X._
    against Modernism are deserving of the respectful consideration of
    all Christians.... At the present stage of history the opposing
    factors are driving with great speed towards a fierce and resolute
    struggle between Christ and anti-Christ. All who sincerely love
    Christ, our Lord, must rally under one flag.... Narrow-minded
    hostility towards the Pope must give way to the desire to be
    united with the great community which is fighting so valiantly for
    the old faith of our fathers.... One must be blind, to misjudge
    the tremendous influence exerted by the last deed of the Pope in
    favour of the faith.”

    Even the Evangelical “Kirchenzeitung” admitted that the encyclical
    is “directed chiefly against the more or less unchristian modern
    views of the world ... which we must combat.... Undoubtedly it is
    not only the Pope’s right to lay bare the unchristian tendency of
    these ideas and their incompatibility with the Christian faith,
    but it is also his duty and his merit” (November 29, 1908, n. 48).


Puny men, entangled in the ideas of their time and surroundings, are
easily led to take for their standard the thoughts and actions of their
age. They often imagine that they possess not a little strength and
independence, when they are intellectually entirely dependent and unable
to rise above their time. “It is the fashion, others think that way,
therefore I must think so, too”; these are often the principles of their
wisdom, and they ask the Church to do likewise. The Church, however, looks
back upon a long history, and numerous ideas and opinions she has seen
arise and vanish. And whoever can look back upon a great experience, and
moreover carries in himself the call to lead the times, feels no restless
impulse to be carried away by changing doctrines.



The Index.


Whenever the subject of Rome’s enmity to science and progress of culture
is discussed, there invariably appears on the scene, beside Syllabus and
_Galileo_, also the Index. The latter is held by many to be Rome’s
permanent means of hindering the progress of humanity in general, and the
free scientific activity of the Catholic in particular, and to annihilate
the freedom of teaching and learning (_Hoensbroech_, Die Kath. theol.
Fakultaeten, 1907, 40 _seq._). They say “the Congregation of the Index has
no pity nor consideration for the classical works of literature, and
condemns in the name of religion the most admirable products of the human
intellect” (Grande Dict. univ. du XIX. siècle, IX, 640, apud _J. Hilgers_,
Der Index der Verb. Buecher, 1904, 166; much of what we shall say on this
topic is taken from this work by _Hilgers_).


    This statement again reminds that the accusations against the
    Catholic Church and her institutions are to be considered with
    caution, because of the ignorance of her opponents in Catholic
    things. This is especially true of the Index. Thus the above
    assertion is false. _Dante’s_ “Divina Commedia” (the work referred
    to) is neither forbidden nor needs approval nor correction: of the
    classical literature of the world little or nothing is forbidden;
    even morally offensive books, that are considered classical, may
    without ecclesiastical permission be read for the sake of their
    elegant diction, whenever their reading is required by one’s work
    or duty of teaching.

    A few examples of the _incredible ignorance_ alluded to will
    suffice. In the “Grande Dictionnaire Universel du XIX. Siècle” it
    is actually stated that the works of _Albert the Great_ were
    condemned by a decree of April 10, 1666. What does the Index
    really forbid? It states: “_Alberto __ Magno, diviso in tre libri,
    nel primo si tratta della virtu delle herbe, nel secondo della
    virtu delle pietre, e nel terzo della virtu di alcuni
    animali._—Albert the Great, in three parts: the first treats of
    the virtue of plants; the second, of the virtue of stones; and the
    third, of the virtue of some animals.” It is the title of a little
    superstitious book, attributed to “Albert the Great” by an unknown
    author.

    The first edition of the Index of _Leo XIII._ in 1900 was sold out
    in less than a year; a second edition followed in 1901, and, like
    the first, could be had at all booksellers, at a very moderate
    price. In December, 1901, there appeared in the Anglo-American
    weekly, “The Roman World,” an article which says that it is
    difficult to obtain this list of notorious books forbidden to
    Catholics, unless one be a Church official, since only a few
    copies are printed and even these are not handled by general
    book-dealers; hence that no details could be given about the
    purchase of the copy referred to; but it was quite evident that it
    had commanded a good price. “The copy in question, a model of fine
    printing, might be worth about $40 to $50, but owing to its
    rareness, it had undoubtedly cost $400. The history of this famous
    Index is interesting. The one who first hit upon the idea was
    _Charles V._ of Spain, about 1550. The first compilation of the
    book-list was made by the university of Louvain in 1564, Pope
    _Paul IV._ assuming the direction of the edition. It remained for
    357 years in the hands of the Pope.” Every one of these statements
    is false. And just as false is the statement that the “Syllabus
    condemns not only a book written by a Pope, but by Pope _Leo
    XIII._ himself.” Still it could not surprise us, since even
    David’s psalter is on the Index! When the Index of _Leo XIII._ was
    published, Dr. _Max Claar_ wrote from Rome to the “Neue Freie
    Presse” of Vienna: “On the old Index we find among other things
    the Psalms of King David and the Divina Commedia of _Dante_.” We
    have already stated that the latter was never on the Index. But
    how in the world could this man find Holy Scripture condemned on
    the Index? Perhaps he found this passage: “Il salmista secondo la
    biblia” and “Salmi (sessanta) di David.” The first is a
    superstitious booklet, the second is a translation of sixty Psalms
    of David by the heretic, _Giovanni Diodati_. The learned doctor in
    all seriousness mistook them for the Psalms of David (_Hilgers_,
    167, _seq._).


What then is the Index, and how is it to be judged?

Ever since the Apostle of the Nations had at Ephesus the superstitious
books burned under his eyes, the Holy Fathers, Bishops, and Councils since
the first centuries of Christianity have been careful to keep from the
faithful writings hurtful to faith and morals. Thus even in the olden time
we find several catalogues of forbidden books, then followed the Indices
of the Middle Ages. In the year 1571 a special Congregation of Cardinals
was formed, the “Congregation of the Index,” which has ever since had
charge of the ecclesiastical book-laws. The last edition of the Index,
obligatory for the whole Church, emanated from _Leo XIII._ The title of
the work now in force reads, “The Index of Forbidden Books, revised and
published by order of and in the name of Leo XIII. 1900.” It is divided
into two parts. The first and shorter part contains the general book
regulations, giving in short paragraphs the rules on various classes of
forbidden books, the permission required for reading them, the examination
to be made previous to the publication of certain books. The second part
enumerates the writings forbidden by special decree—the Index in the
particular sense, and the part most often considered. But it is second in
importance to the first, because by far not all books dangerous to faith
and morals are named in it. Most such books are forbidden by the general
laws contained in the first part, without mentioning the many which are
forbidden by mere common sense.

Ecclesiastical legislation on books is composed of two factors: first, the
previous censorship—certain books must be examined by ecclesiastical
authority before their publication. Second, the prohibition of books
already published.

The previous scrutiny in general is delegated to the Bishop; all books
dealing with morals and theology must be submitted. The license to print
the book is to be given if the book is in accord with the teaching of the
Church, in so far as determined by ecclesiastical authority, the decision
based on it rests solely with the censor; if the author of the book should
fail to see that the passages objected to need revision he may try to
clear himself by stating his reasons; however, he is also free to submit
his work to another Bishop and to look for a printer in the latter’s
diocese. If one looks over the numerous books bearing the ecclesiastical
imprimatur, he will readily notice how much freedom is given, if the
author keeps within the doctrine of the Church.

The _condemnation_ of a book never strikes at the person of the author,
nor at what he has intended to express by the passages objected to;
judgment is passed only upon what is actually expressed in them. Hence it
is not necessary to give to the author himself a hearing, or a chance to
explain. The reason is that the judgment is rendered on the sense of the
passages, not on the meaning of the author. In general those books and
periodicals are forbidden which are likely to do serious damage to faith
and morals. The isolated cases of indicting the works of Catholic authors
in the nineteenth century—we may mention _Lamennais_, _Hermes_,
_Guenther_, _Loisy_, and _Schell_—show that the Church proceeds but slowly
and with consideration against the author involved.

To appreciate the Index properly, one must try to grasp without prejudice
the _purpose_ the Church has in view. This purpose is to protect the
faithful from error and from moral contagion, and to preserve the faith
intact. “What is more precious than souls, what more precious than the
faith? But both suffer damage from such reading.” Such was the judgment of
the Council of Ephesus when it drew up its book-decrees; such was the
judgment of an _Augustine_, of _Leo the Great_, and of the Holy Fathers;
such is still the judgment of the Church. Books and writings that offend
against morals are a menace to her faithful. They become infected with
wrong ideas; they are as a rule not in a position to distinguish by
themselves the false from the true, and for the most part they are not
morally strong enough to resist the allurements of error. It may also
happen that certain thoughts are true in the abstract, yet for the time
being would be a danger for many. Now, it is the right and duty of any
social authority, beginning with the head of the family and up to the
government, to protect with strong hand the precious possessions of its
subjects.

The state keeps under control the sale of poison and dynamite, keeps out
contagious diseases from its boundaries—it protects the possessions of its
subjects. European states have for centuries claimed the right to censure
books, and have used it much more rigorously than the Church ever did, to
say nothing of the censures of the Protestant Church of former times (see
abundant proof apud _Hilgers_, 206-402). The modern state also, despite
the great freedom granted to the press, cannot entirely forego its sense
of responsibility. It restricts the freedom of the press by censorship,
and by preventive measures often not less drastic than the censure itself,
and it always regards the confiscation of particularly dangerous writings
to be a matter of course. It puts under censure school-books, political
posters, and theatrical plays, and does not tolerate any socialistic
literature in the soldiers’ barracks. And do we not take it as a matter of
course if a father forbids his child to associate with dangerous
playmates, and takes bad books from its hands? We cannot find fault with
the Church if she seeks to protect her children, if she represses the
promiscuous dissemination of false ideas and doctrines, and if she takes
dangerous books under her control. “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep,” was the
command given to the Church.

The objection should therefore not be made that “such precaution is proper
when dealing with children but not with men; especially since the thinking
elements among the Catholics of the Germanic tongue or origin are too
profound and firm in their faith to warrant a fear of the effects of
unrestricted free research” (from the petition of the so-called
“Index-league” of Muenster). This perusal may become dangerous even for
highly educated men, else how could Modernism break so forcefully into the
Church? Manifestly only because learned theologians did not possess that
firmness of Catholic faith and Catholic knowledge which would prevent them
from being deceived by the misleading ideas of modern philosophy, and of
the new Protestant theology. Moreover, all forbidden books may be read
upon obtaining the necessary permission.

“Preserve the deposit of faith,” the Church has been told. She cannot look
on silently when her doctrines are being falsified and denied, when the
most venerable sphere of theology is made the stamping ground for immature
minds and a laboratory for all kinds of experiments. When _Zola’s_ novel,
“Rome,” had been put on the Index, the atheistic literary critic,
_Sarcey_, made the following comment: “If my own criticisms of literature
are regarded by many people as highest decisions, why should a positive
criticism be looked upon as monstrous just because it comes from the Pope?
It is my aim to guard good taste in literature, and it is the aim of the
Pope to guard the true faith” (Allgemeine Rundschau, 1908, 828). Every
social authority must interfere when its foundations are attacked. A
church that tolerates false doctrines cannot be the teacher that Christ
sent to the nations. As a matter of fact the Index has from the first
helped in no small degree to keep the Catholic doctrine pure, to induce
caution in reading certain authors, and to keep awake in the faithful that
aversion against immoral and irreligious writings which is the
characteristic of Catholics, and which has rescued the faith for
thousands.

To judge the Index fairly one must be convinced that the preservation of
true Christian doctrine is its highest aim. Then the zeal of the Catholic
Church will be intelligible. Of course, he who thinks that the true weal
of mankind consists in the speedy emancipation from all Christian dogma,
he who holds the task of science to be the establishment of a new
“scientific view of the world,” he who no longer knows faith, will see in
the Index nothing but restraint. But, whoever is of a different view will
not take offence at the restriction of the freedom of writing and reading
when it is productive of higher good. Freedom of science cannot be
unrestricted, especially in regard to teaching; the welfare of humanity
must be considered. Moreover, the Index concerns almost exclusively
theology and some branches of philosophy, the rest of the profane sciences
but little or not at all; the scientific works prohibited, however, are
not removed from scientific perusal: only permission is necessary, and
this is granted without difficulty and without cost.

It is true, an error on the part of the Church authorities is not
impossible. We know of such a case, putting on the Index the writings of
_Copernicus_, in 1616. But just the circumstance that history knows of but
one such case of importance is a clear testimony to the Holy Ghost’s
direction of the teaching office even when it is rendering non-infallible
decisions. Besides, the damage that might result from a few mistakes would
not be so great as the damage resulting if everything were allowed to be
written and read.

The Catholic scientist who appreciates the supernatural mission of his
Church will _yield to her guidance in humble confidence_, he will practise
this submission to the Church by requesting permission for reading
forbidden books, and by this spirit he will obtain God’s blessing on his
work.


    In doing so he may recall to mind the edifying words of _St.
    Francis of Sales_, in the preface to his treatise on the errors of
    the Lutherans and Calvinists, where he gives the assurance of
    having conscientiously asked for and received permission to read
    their writings. “We fervently request our Catholic readers,”
    writes the Saint, “not to let an evil suspicion against us arise,
    as if we had read the forbidden books in spite of the prohibition
    of holy Church. We are able to assure them in all truth of having
    done nothing forbidden to a good Christian, and of having taken
    every precaution due in a matter of so vast importance, so as not
    to incur in any way the very just censures of the Church, nor in
    any manner to violate the profound reverence we owe to her.” The
    permission granted him, dated July 16, 1608, is still extant;
    likewise one asked by _St. Charles Borromeo_.


The Catholic scientist also will readily ask the ecclesiastical Imprimatur
for certain of his works. If a careful author before publishing a work
submits the proofs to a friend of his profession, taking his comment for a
guide, why should we deem it intellectual bondage if the Catholic
scientist, in matters of faith and morals, submits his work to the formal
approval of his Church, which to him is a higher authority than any other?
and does this willingly, as in consistency with his Catholic
conviction?(5)

_Via stulti recta in oculis ejus, qui autem sapiens est audit consilia_,
says the Wise Man. It is characteristic of the fool to be wise in his own
eyes, and stubbornly to cling to his own judgment; but the prudent man
seeks advice, and suffers his attention to be called to his mistakes.

The believing scientist, too, will submit to correction; should the rare
case fall to his lot to have the Church condemn his work, he will know how
to be generously obedient. Splendid examples are blazing the way for him.
“Were we to draw up a list of the scientists, who, in a similar critical
position as _Fénelon_, found strength in the virtue of obedience, and on
the other hand a list of all those whose subjective scientific views did
not allow them to submit, then we should perceive at a glance that their
proud persistence in their own opinion has been injurious to true wisdom
in the same degree as humble submission proved a benefit to science”
(_Hilgers_, 412). Finally, he who is convinced that the Christian faith is
the greatest heritance of truth from the past, which must be preserved in
him, he will take no offence if the Church is not impressed even by names
like _Kant_, _Spinoza_, _Schopenhauer_, _Strauss_, men much featured as
the captains of modern science and philosophy. In the eyes of the Church
nothing is genuine and true science that is contrary to the testimony of
God, and errors are errors even then when their perpetrator is receiving
cheers and applause. Just as the state prohibits the physician from
designedly assisting any one to commit suicide, even though the physician
be a noted scientist, just so the Church opposes any one who assaults
God’s truth, be he journalist or philosopher.


    Frequently the _great number of forbidden books mentioned by the
    Index_ is pointed out. The Index of 1900 contains about 5,000
    titles belonging to the last three centuries; of these about 1,300
    belong to the nineteenth century. Quite a small number,
    considering the immense literature of the world. Yet it will look
    even smaller when compared, for instance, with the censure of
    books by the _Prussian state_.

    In the year 1845 there appeared the following catalogue: “Index
    _librorum prohibitorum_, Catalogue of the books forbidden in
    Germany during 1844-1845, first volume.” The second volume was
    issued in 1846. The list is not complete: it does not contain, for
    instance, the names of prohibited newspapers and periodicals. Yet
    it contains 437 writings, forbidden by 570 decrees, _i.e._, two or
    three times as many as the entire number of German books of the
    nineteenth century enumerated by name in the Roman Index. The
    “Historisch-Politischen Blaetter” of 1840 contain an article
    beginning thus: “_Veritas odium parit._ In Prussia there are now
    prohibited nearly all Catholic journals and periodicals, and in
    order to begin the matter _ab ovo_ they have grasped a welcome
    opportunity to throw interdicts at wholesale against works not yet
    published, or to render their circulation difficult to a degree
    amounting to prohibition.”

    How the Prussian censorship proceeded in those days may be
    illustrated by another example. “At the time of the Vatican
    Council a publisher, _Joseph Bachem_, came to Dr. _Westhoff_,
    rector of the Seminary of Cologne, a man of venerable years, and
    told him of his misgivings about the dogma of the infallibility.
    In his youth he had been taught the maxim that that is Catholic
    which has been taught always, everywhere, and by everybody; yet he
    had until recently never found the doctrine of Papal Infallibility
    taught, neither in schools nor in text-books. Then the reverend
    old rector took the visitor by the hand and led him into the
    library of the seminary, where he showed him not less than sixteen
    catechisms that had been in use in the Archdiocese of Cologne
    during the eighteenth century, and which stated without exception,
    clearly and convincingly, the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in
    matters of faith and morals. The publisher in utter astonishment
    then asked how it was that this doctrine was not taught in later
    editions. Dr. _Westhoff_ referred him to the Prussian censure,
    enforced until 1848, which had expunged this doctrine from all
    Catholic catechisms. From that moment _Bachem_ no longer wavered
    in his opinions” (Koelnische Volkszeitung, September 7, 1893).

    One may also remember _Bismarck’s_ press-campaign during the
    _Kulturkampf_. Professor _Friedberg_, Prussian court canonist,
    instigated this campaign, and in many ways devised the plan of
    attack. This much-praised liberalism—how tyrannically it proceeded
    against the Catholic press! The Frankfurter Zeitung in those days
    took a census of convictions due to the press law. According to
    the census, which “does not by far claim to be complete,” there
    were of newspaper editors sentenced in 1875—21 in January, 35 in
    February, 29 in March, 24 in April; in four months 137 newspaper
    writers were either fined or sent to jail. During the same period
    30 newspapers were confiscated (Staatslexikon, IV, 550). This is
    not all. “We could mention at least three instances,” says _P.
    Majunke_ in his History of the Kulturkampf, “where agents of the
    Berlin secret police have succeeded in obtaining a position on the
    editorial staff of Catholic papers, staying for a year or more.
    Besides serving as spies these fellows had to perform the task of
    _agents provocateurs_, viz., to incite the editors of Catholic
    papers to extreme utterances, similar to the denunciations
    suggested to correspondents of foreign Catholic organs for their
    papers.” This happened in a civilized state, despite its
    constitutional freedom of the press, by order of the same
    liberalism which always pretends to be full of righteous
    indignation when the Church prohibits books and puts them on the
    Index.

    Towards the end of the last century, again with the aid of
    liberalism, laws against the socialists were drawn up. After they
    had been passed war was waged against socialistic literature. In
    the year 1886 there appeared a real Index Librorum Prohibitorum,
    its title read, “Social Democratic publications and societies
    prohibited by the imperial law against the dangerous designs of
    Social Democracy,” which law had then been in force eight years. A
    supplementary list was published two years later, in 1888.
    _Hilgers_ makes this comment on it: “How many additional pamphlets
    have been condemned in the time from March 28, 1888, to September
    30, 1890, we cannot state.” According to the foregoing official
    statement the average is 130 a year. Hence we assume that the
    printed matter prohibited during the twelve years that the law was
    in force amounted to between 15,000 and 16,000. This number of
    social democratic pamphlets forbidden within twelve years exceeds
    by far the number of all books prohibited by the Roman Index in
    the course of the entire nineteenth century—books that are the
    products of all countries in the world and dealing with all
    branches; the number of these German prohibitions is ten times
    that of Roman prohibitions. Indeed, in the course of a year and a
    half the new German Empire prohibited more writings of Germans
    than Rome had prohibited during the entire past century. We may
    mention here _Goethe_. In the atheism dispute, at the end of the
    eighteenth century, decision was rendered upon _Goethe’s_ advice
    against the philosopher _Fichte_; _Fichte_ was discharged in spite
    of petitions and mediations in his favour. The liberal Grand Duke
    _Karl August of Saxony Weimar_ granted in 1816, after the French
    conqueror had been overthrown, freedom of the press. Professor
    _Oken_ of Jena availed himself of this privilege, and printed in
    his “Isis” contributions complaining about the government.
    _Goethe_ had to advise what should be done against it. He thought
    that the paper should have been suppressed by the police at its
    very first announcement; “the measure neglected at the beginning
    is to be taken immediately and the paper is to be prohibited. By
    prohibiting the ‘Isis’ the trouble will be stopped at once”
    (Briefwechsel des Grossh. _Karl August v. Sax.-Weimar-Eisenach_
    mit _Goethe_, II, 1863, 90). And this was done, in spite of the
    freedom granted the press.

    _Frederick II._ is called the Royal Free-thinker; and yet the
    general introduction of the book censure into Prussia occurred
    precisely during his reign. The first general censure edict was
    issued in 1749 and remained in force till the death of the king.
    All books, even those printed in foreign tongues, were subject to
    the censure. Even all episcopal and Papal proclamations were
    subjected to the royal censure. That the leaders in the
    Reformation and their successors were not prevented by their
    avowal of the principle of free research from exercising rigorous,
    often tyrannical, censure, not only against the Catholics but also
    against their fellow reformers, is well known.

    _M. Lehmann_ writes in the Preuss. Jahrb. 1902: “It claims to be
    infallible, this Papal Church, it wants to be to the faithful
    everything, in science and even in nationality. It offends every
    nation. The Index in the shape given it in 1900 by the present
    Pope proscribes the ‘Oeuvres du Philosophe de Sanssouci,’ _Kant’s_
    ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’ _Ranke’s_ ‘History of the Popes,’ the
    greatest German king, the greatest German philosopher, and the
    greatest German historian” (1902, no. 8).

    As to _Frederick II._, his own works appeared only after his death
    in 1788, and even then only in part; later on there were other
    editions. None of these is put on the Index. On this list we find
    since 1760 the “Oeuvres du Philosophe de Sanssouci.” Under this
    title appeared at first three volumes, in but a few copies,
    intended for the most intimate friends of the king. The first
    volume he soon withdrew and had it burned of his own accord; it
    contained the “Palladion” an imitation of Voltaire’s “Pucelle,” a
    salacious work throughout. In 1762 a new edition was issued. It
    also contains a philosophical treatise denying the immortality of
    the soul; this treatise was also published separately and
    specially prohibited in 1767. A third work put on the Index is a
    spurious attack on the Popes published by order of King _Frederick
    II._, with a preface by him. Its author is said to have been the
    French abbé _Jean Martin De Prades_, reader to the king. These are
    the indicted works of _Frederick II._, all written in French and
    in substance French Voltairianism. Thus came the greatest German
    king on the Index!

    _Ranke’s_ “Roemische Paepste” is on the Index, because the book
    belittles the constitutions and doctrines of the Catholic Church:
    not because of the true things the author says about Popes. _Von
    Pastor’s_ “History of the Popes” is not on the Index,
    notwithstanding the bitter truths he writes about Popes _Alexander
    VI._ and _Leo X._

    He who knows even the fundamental ideas of _Kant’s_ “Kritik der
    reinen Vernunft” will see that not only the Catholic Church, but
    every Christian denomination, might forfeit its existence if it
    showed itself indifferent towards it. Heresies are especially
    dangerous to the uneducated when they bear the names of authors of
    scientific repute. But the Church willingly grants the permission
    to read them when there is reason for it. Moreover, it was not
    Rome alone that took steps against _Kant_. This was done by the
    Prussian king _Frederick II._ also. One may recall his cabinet
    order, under minister _Woellner_, against Kant’s “Religion
    innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft.” Similarly the works
    of _Spinoza_ were proceeded against, whereas his indictment by
    Rome now calls forth protest because he has since been assigned a
    prominent place among philosophers. _Freudenthal_ registers a list
    of 500 sharp prohibitions issued against _Spinoza’s_ works during
    the years 1556-1580: they were condemned by the states of Holland,
    by the court, by synods and magistrates. Those judgments were
    passed during a period when the competent authorities had views
    different from those of to-day; when the state deemed it its duty
    to oppose the undermining of Christianity. The state’s judgment
    has changed in many ways, Rome’s judgment has remained the same.
    But the works of _Kant_ and _Spinoza_ likewise have remained the
    same, and so is Christianity, against which they occupy an
    irreconcilable position, still the same.


“In the moral world nothing can support that cannot also resist” is a
truthful saying of _Treitschke_: it is also the principle of the Catholic
Church. Without ever surrendering to the unchristian tendency of a time,
she opposes error with unsubdued courage. If this be intolerance, it is
not intolerance towards erring men but towards their errors, it is the
intolerance that the gardener shows in uprooting harmful weeds, it is the
intolerance of the physician towards disease. Obedience to the Index makes
high moral demands upon the Catholic. But it has been characteristic of
the Christian religion and of its faithful children never to shrink before
any moral action where it appeared demanded. And if the preservation of
moral purity exacts conscientious discipline, this is also true of the
preservation of the pure faith, especially at a time when a neo-paganism
in league with an uncontrolled mania for reading is threatening in many
forms.



Galileo, and Other Topics.


_Galileo Galilei_—but few names have achieved equal fame. Men like
_Alexander_ and _Cæsar_, like _Homer_ and _Dante_, have scarcely succeeded
in writing their names with a sharper pencil on the tablet of history than
the astronomer of Pisa. His grand discoveries in natural science have done
little to crown his temples with the wreath of immortality—it was the fate
of his life that did it. And one may add: if this fate had been caused by
the French government, or by a Protestant General Assembly, he would never
have obtained his position in history; but since this lot came to him by
the human limitation of a Roman Church authority, his name is not only
entered on the calendar of the anti-Roman journalist, it also stands
surrounded with the halo of a Martyr in the esteem of serious scientists,
who see in _Galileo_ and in the consequent condemnation of the Copernican
system the proof that dogma and science cannot agree, that the Catholic
Church assumes a hostile attitude toward science. Whenever this theme is
mentioned, _Galileo’s_ ghost is paraded. For this reason we cannot pass by
this fact of history. To a son of the Church they are unpleasant
recollections, but this shall not keep us from looking history firmly in
the eye.

There are some other charges brought forth from history, but the _Galileo_
case overshadows them all. We shall touch upon them but briefly, and then
return to _Galileo_.

Attention is called to the Church’s condemnation of the _doctrine of
Antipodes_. The Priest _Vigilius_ was accused in Rome, in 747, of having
taught that there exists another world under the earth, and other people
also, or another sun and moon (_quod alius mundus et alii homines sub
terra sint seu sol et luna_). Such was his doctrine as stated by Pope
_Zacharias_ in his reply to _Boniface_, the Apostle of Germany, in which
he said that he had cited _Vigilius_ to Rome in order that his doctrine be
thoroughly investigated: if it should turn out that this had really been
taught by him, he would be condemned. Further particulars of his teaching
are unknown, because it is mentioned only in the above passage. The
assertion ascribed to him is that there is another world besides this one,
with other inhabitants and with another sun and moon—an assertion
scientifically absurd and dogmatically inadmissible, as this might call in
question the common descent of mankind from one pair of parents. The
anxiety and rebuke of the Pope is directed solely against the latter
point. The condemnation of _Vigilius_ has never taken place, for he
remained in his office, won great respect, was elevated to the bishopric
of Salzburg, and later canonized by _Gregory IX._ Had a condemnation of
his particular doctrine taken place, this would not have involved the
condemnation of the antipodean theory, in the sense that the side of the
globe opposite to us is also inhabited by human beings, a proposition
which does not conflict with any doctrine of faith. The doctrine described
above has another tendency. The entire case is hidden in obscurity
(_Hefele_, Conc. Gesch., 2d ed., III, 557 _seq._).

Furthermore, it has been said that at the time when the universities were
in close union with the Church, medical science could not advance because
the Church had prohibited human _anatomy_ (Prof. _J. H. van’t Hoff_, Neue
Freie Presse, December 29, 1907). In amplification it was said: “_Boniface
VIII._ had forbidden every anatomical dissection of a body” (_O.
Zoeckler_, Theologie und Naturwissenschaft, 1877, I, 342). What is true of
this assertion?


    In the first place, _Boniface VIII._ did not forbid anatomy. He
    merely prohibited in 1299 and 1300 the hideous custom then
    prevailing regarding the bodies of noblemen who had died away from
    home: they were disembowelled, dissected, and boiled, for the
    purpose of removing the flesh from the bones so that the latter
    could be transported the more easily. This process had nothing to
    do with anatomy. The wish to possess the bones of the dead did not
    seem to the Pope a sufficient reason for treating the human body
    in such a way (Cfr. _Michael_, Gesch. des deutschen Volkes III,
    1903, 433). Nor does history know of any other prohibition of
    anatomy by the Church. It tells us, however, that _Frederick II._
    in his excellent rules for the benefit of his Sicilian kingdom in
    the regulation of medical science among other things emphasizes
    the study of surgery: he ordered that no one be allowed to
    practise surgery who could not show by attestation of his
    professors that he had studied surgery for at least one year,
    especially that he had learned at school how to dissect bodies; a
    physician must be perfect in anatomy, else he may not undertake
    operations (_Michael_, l. c. 430). This was done and practised
    under the eyes of the Church. The accusers also seem ignorant of
    the fact that bodies of those executed were given to universities
    for dissection. In the year 1336 the medical students of
    Montpellier, the famous medical school under the immediate
    direction of the Church (see above, page 154) were granted the
    privilege of obtaining once a year an executed criminal’s body for
    dissection. The same privilege was extended to the medical
    students of Lerida by King _Juan I._ on June 3, 1391, who decreed
    that the delinquent should be drowned _pro speriencia seu anatomia
    fienda_ (_Denifle_, Die Universitaeten des Mittelalters, I, 1885,
    507).

    The story is also circulated that the fourth Lateran Council in
    1215 prohibited monks from studying natural sciences and medicine
    (Deutschoester. Lehrerzeitung 15th Dec., 1909). It will suffice to
    quote this particular decree of the Lateran Council: “No clergyman
    is allowed to pronounce capital sentence, nor to execute it, nor
    to be present at its execution. No clergyman is allowed to draw up
    a document concerning a death sentence: at the courts this should
    be done by laymen. No clergyman is allowed to assume command of
    Rotarians (freebooters), of archers or any others who shed human
    blood; no subdeacon, deacon, or priest is allowed to practise that
    part of surgery by which cutting and burning is done, nor must any
    one pronounce a benediction at an ordeal” (_Hefele_, Koncil.
    Gesch., 2d ed., V, 1887, 887). This will thoroughly dispose of
    that charge.

    Just as briefly may we settle the story of _Columbus_ having been
    excommunicated because of his intention to discover new lands. It
    is said that the “Spanish clergy denounced his plans as against
    the faith, and that the Council of Salamanca excommunicated him”
    (_W. Draper_, ibid. 163). This is a fairy tale. The truth is, that
    King _Ferdinand_ and Queen _Isabella_ referred the plans of the
    bold Genoese to a council of scientists and ecclesiastical
    dignitaries, which was held in the Dominican Monastery of
    Salamanca, _Columbus_ being present. There never was a Council of
    Salamanca. _Weiss_ writes in his “History of the World”: “Much has
    been surmised concerning the objections and their refutation. It
    is only certain that the majority rejected the plan as impossible
    of execution, and that _Columbus_ won over a minority of them,
    especially the priests, among whom the learned Dominican _Deza_
    deserves mention” (Weltgesch. VII, 187). _Denthofen_, in his
    biography of _Columbus_, says: “The Dominican Fathers supported
    him during the long time the conference lasted, and even defrayed
    the expenses of his journey. Father _Diego de Deza_, chief
    professor of theology, was convinced by the reasons of _Columbus_,
    and in turn convinced the more learned of his confrères. The
    majority, however, thought the idea but a phantom, while others
    deemed it impracticable. The conference adjourned without coming
    to any definite decision” (Christof Columbus, Eine biographische
    Skizze ..., 1878, 21). _Columbus_ found his warmest friend in the
    learned Father _Juan Perez_, Guardian of the Franciscan Monastery
    of St. Maria de la Rabida. Within the quiet walls of this cloister
    _Columbus’_ plans were disclosed for the first time in Spain, and
    admired and resolved upon. _Perez_ spoke untiringly to Isabella in
    favour of the plan, and even aided _Columbus_ in gathering men for
    his crew. This is the fact about the anathema the Church is paid
    to have pronounced on _Columbus_.

    But let us return to _Galileo_.(6)


_Galileo Galilei_, the great Italian physicist, was born in 1564, at Pisa.
At first he was professor in his native town, then at Padua, where he
taught the doctrine of _Ptolemy_, although at that time there was no
obstacle to accepting the Copernican system. In 1611 he became
mathematician at the court of _Cosimo II._ at Florence. His talents and
happy discoveries soon won fame. In general he was more of a physicist
than an astronomer; his astronomical discoveries were, almost without
exception, of a kind that did not presuppose a thorough astronomical
training. As is known, he was not the original inventor of the telescope,
though with its aid he achieved some of the most important of his
discoveries; for instance, that of the satellites of Jupiter. The
telescope was invented in Holland.

When he went to Rome, in 1611, he was received with great honour. In one
of his letters from there he wrote: “I have received marked favours from
many Cardinals and prelates here, and from several princes. They wanted to
hear of my inventions, and were all well pleased.” The Jesuits gave a
special reception in his honour at the Roman College. This shows in what
esteem science was then held at Rome. But five years later _Galileo_
returned to the Eternal City under quite different circumstances. What had
happened? In 1612 he had issued a treatise on “The History and Explanation
of the Sun-spots,” in which he declared unreservedly for the Copernican
system. And this caused the change. True, _Copernicus_ himself was a
Catholic Priest, and had dedicated his principal work to Pope _Paul III._
But it was generally supposed that he had brought forward the doctrine
only as an hypothesis, only to illustrate and facilitate calculations, not
claiming for it absolute certainty. This assumption was based on the
preface of the first edition of his book, containing assurance to that
effect. That preface, however, was not the work of _Copernicus_, but had
been smuggled into the book by the Protestant publisher _Osiander_,
without the author’s knowledge, because _Osiander_ feared _his own_ church
authorities.

_Galileo_ spoke in quite another tone. He defended the doctrine as true.
He soon aroused opposition. Men standing for the geocentric theory were
opposed by others, siding with _Galileo_ for the solar system, such as the
learned Benedictine, _Castelli_. _Galileo’s_ great bitterness and sarcasm
in dealing with his opponents aggravated the quarrel with the “partisans
of _Aristotle_.” Extreme irritability and love of praise were prominent
traits of _Galileo’s_ character.

It was the custom of that time to bring Scripture into controversies about
nature. This was done also in _Galileo’s_ case. Passages were quoted
against him, referring to the “rising and setting sun,” to the “earth that
never moves,” of _Joshua’s_ “commanding the sun to stand still.” This
prompted _Galileo_ to cross over into the field of theology himself. In a
letter to _Castelli_ in 1613 he says: “Holy Writ can never lie nor err; on
the contrary, its sayings are absolute and incontestable truth; but its
interpreters are liable to err in various ways, and it is a fatal and very
common mistake to stop always at the literal sense” (_Kepler_, even prior
to _Galileo_, had interpreted the respective passages of the Scriptures
properly and with surprising skill; especially in his introduction to his
“Astronomia nova.” Cfr. _Anschuetz_, Johannes Kepler als Exeget.
Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, XI, 1887, 1-24).

Correct as these arguments were, it was nevertheless imprudent for the
court mathematician to trespass upon grounds regarded by theologians as
their own, instead of furnishing natural scientific proofs. Thus the
matter was brought to Rome before the Congregation of the Inquisition.
_Galileo_, worrying about his case, went voluntarily to Rome, in 1615. He
failed to assuage the opposition against his theory, though he says he was
received favourably by the princes of the Church. Moreover, heedless of
the admonition of his friends, he pursued the matter with indiscreet zeal,
with vehemence and impetuosity, practically provoking a decision. Cardinal
_Bellarmin_ opposed the haste with which the matter was being pressed; the
Jesuit _Grienberger_ thought that _Galileo_ should first set forth his
proofs, and then speak about the Scriptures. Had scientific proofs been
brought forth, theological difficulties would have been easily cleared
away; but scientific proof was lacking, and what there perhaps was of it,
_Galileo_ failed to offer.

The right of the Congregation to take up the matter can hardly be denied,
for although the matter was one of natural sciences, yet, by introducing
theology and Scripture, it had assumed the character of theology and
exegesis. _Galileo_ personally was dealt with very leniently. During the
discussions of 1616 he was never cited before the bar of the Inquisition,
nor was his exterior freedom in any way restricted. Only one thing was
done: he was cautioned by Cardinal _Bellarmin_, “by order of the Holy
Congregation,” not to adhere to, nor teach any longer, the Copernican
theory. The documents of the case say that “_Galileo_ submitted to this
order and promised to obey.” The Congregation of the Index prohibited,
March 5, 1616, all books defending the Copernican theory, declaring the
doctrine to be against Holy Scripture. Even the work of _Copernicus_ was
prohibited _donec corrigatur_—until it be corrected. A decision of the
year 1620 declared which passages should be corrected. They are those in
which the author speaks of his theory not as an hypothesis but as of an
established truth: _non ex hypothesi, sed asserando_. The Protestant
_Kepler_, upon hearing this, wrote: “By their imprudent acts some have
caused the work of _Copernicus_ to be condemned, after it had been left
unmolested for nearly eighty years; and the prohibition will last at least
till the corrections are made. I have been assured, however, by competent
authority, both ecclesiastical and civil, that the decree was not intended
to put any hindrance in the way of astronomical research” (_A. Mueller_,
J. Kepler, 1903, 105). The reproach of imprudence was intended for
_Galileo_.

To teach the doctrine as an hypothesis was permitted even to _Galileo_,
and this left the way clear for the development of the hypothesis, because
whatever showed the usefulness of the hypothesis was sure to increase its
value as a truth, but _Galileo_ would not keep within these limits.
Instead of showing in a Christian spirit a submission to Providence, which
even an erring authority may demand, he openly violated his promise and
disobeyed the command he had received. In the spring of 1632 there
appeared at Florence his “_Dialogue on the two most important systems of
the world_.” It contained an open, though by no means victorious, defence
of the Copernican system—seeking to hide under a confidence-inspiring
mask. It contained many passages of caustic sarcasm, with the evident
intention of arousing public opinion against the attitude of the Roman
Congregations. It was a flagrant _violation of the command given him
personally_.

The Pope under whom the proceedings against _Galileo_ took place was
_Urban VIII._, who, when a Cardinal, had followed _Galileo’s_ discoveries
with enthusiasm, though never partial to the system of _Copernicus_, and,
in accord with the custom of the age, he had written an ode to _Galileo_.

Cited to Rome, _Galileo_ came only after repeated urging, on February 14,
1633. The story of his having been imprisoned and tortured on this second
visit to Rome is false. _Galileo_ wrote on April 16 of that year: “I live
in an apartment of three rooms, belonging to the Fiscal of the
Inquisition, and am free to move in many rooms. My health is good.” This
stay in the apartment belonging to the Inquisition lasted but twenty-two
days; after that _Galileo_ was allowed to live in the palace of the
Ambassador of Tuscany. During his whole life _Galileo_ was never even for
an hour in a real prison.

_Galileo’s_ demeanour before the Inquisition bespeaks little truthfulness
and manliness. It makes a painful impression. Many other events in his
life cast dark shades of insincerity upon his character, especially his
relations with _Kepler_. While in his dialogue he openly defended the
truth of the Copernican system, while he had written, time and again, that
the theory had been demonstrated by “forceful, convincing arguments,”
whereas nothing but insignificant reasons could be pleaded for the
contrary, he now assumes the attitude before the Inquisition of denying
that he had championed that theory, at least not consciously; that he had
never taught that doctrine otherwise than hypothetically. And this he
asserts although he had taken the oath to say nothing but the truth. We
even hear him declare that he considers the doctrine to be false, and that
he was ready to refute it at once.

The judges were convinced of the untruthfulness of the defendant. In those
times, in order to obtain further confessions, especially when the accused
had been previously convicted of guilt, torture was resorted to. This
regrettable practice was then in vogue at every European court; the
Inquisition, too, had adopted it, but strict rules were laid down to guard
against abuses. Very old persons were exempt from the rack; they were only
threatened with it. This happened also in _Galileo’s_ case, he was never
actually put on the rack. Moreover, one can safely presume that this
threat did not terrify him much. His reading must have enlightened him on
this point, and even without it he must have known the practice by his
active intercourse with those theologians of the Curia who were friendly
to him. In fact, he clung obstinately to his denial, to the very end of
the hearing, although it must be surmised that he would not have
aggravated his case by confession. The commissioner of Inquisition,
_Macolano_, at the first stages of the trial had expressed his hope that
in this event “it would be possible to show indulgence to the guilty, and
whatever the result might be, he would realize the benefit received, apart
from all other consequences to be expected from a desired mutual
satisfaction” (Letter to Cardinal _Fr. Barberini_, April 28, 1633).

On June 22 _the final verdict_ was rendered: it told the defendant: “Thou
art convicted by the Holy Congregation of being suspected of heresy, to
wit, to have held for true, and believed in, a false theory, contrary to
Holy Writ—which makes the sun the centre of the orbit of the earth,
without moving from east to west, and which lets the earth, on the other
hand, move outside the centre of the world, and to have believed that an
opinion may be considered probable and be defended, though it had been
expressly declared to be contrary to the Scripture.” _Galileo_ was
declared suspect of heresy, because, in the opinion of the judges, he had
assumed that a doctrine in contradiction to the Scriptures might be
defended. _Galileo_ retracted by oath. That upon retraction he arose and
exclaimed, stamping with his foot, “_Pur si muove!_” (“and yet it does
move!”) is a fable. He was sentenced to be jailed in the Holy Office. But
already the next day he was allowed to go to the palace of the Grand Duke
of Tuscany and to consider that palace his prison. Soon after he departed
for Siena, “in the best of health,” according to the report of the Tuscan
ambassador, _Niccolini_, and there took up his abode with his friend the
Archbishop _Piccolomini_. After a lapse of five months he was allowed to
return to his villa at Arcetri, near Florence, where he remained, with the
exception of occasional visits to Florence, till his death. Two of his
daughters were nuns in the nearby cloister of S. Matteo. His literary
activity was not suppressed by the surveillance of the Inquisition. His
lively and fertile mind, cut off from polemics, turned to the completion
of his researches in other directions. His lively intercourse with friends
and disciples, of whom many belonged to various Orders, proved beneficial
to him. In the year 1638 he published his “Dialogue on the New Sciences,”
which he rightly pronounced to be his best effort, and by which he became
the founder of dynamics. His productiveness continued until he became
blind.

We may say without fear of contradiction that, apart from their
theoretical error, the Roman Congregations had shown the greatest
indulgence towards one guilty of having broken his pledge, and doubtless
they would have been still more lenient had _Galileo_, confirmed by
flattering friends in his anger at the supposed intrigues of his enemies,
not himself made this impossible; if he had not continued to propagate
secretly his views, verbally and in writing, which was bound to be
discovered. Considering all this, Rome’s proceeding in the case appears to
be quite indulgent. Here the position was taken that the spread of the
doctrine would mean an imminent danger to the purity of the faith. The
unfortunate scientist died on January 8, 1642, at the age of seventy-eight
years, fortified by the holy Sacraments. _Urban VIII._ sent him his
blessing. Undoubtedly _Galileo_ had nothing in common with the champions
of that unbelieving freedom of science, which now tries to lift him upon
its shield; notwithstanding his later bitterness he remained to his death
steadfast in his Catholic faith.



Comments on the Galileo Case.


The above is a brief history of _Galileo’s_ conviction, and of the
occurrences leading to it. An event regrettable to all, a stumbling-block
for not a few; for others a welcome event to make the Church appear in the
light of an enemy of science. Let us now give more particulars of the
merits of the case.

We have before us two decisions of Roman Tribunals: the Index decree of
1616, announcing the rejection of the Copernican doctrine and prohibiting
books maintaining it, and the conviction of _Galileo_ in 1633 by the
Congregation of the Inquisition. It is freely admitted that these Roman
Tribunals committed an _error_ in advocating an interpretation of the
Bible which was false in itself, and is to-day recognized as false.

Well, _does this confute the infallibility of the Church?_ It does not.
The matter in point is merely an error of the Congregations, of bodies of
Cardinals, who were responsible for the transactions and decisions. The
Congregations, however, are not infallible organs. There is no Bull or
Papal decree designating the Copernican doctrine as false, much less is
there extant a decision ex cathedra. Neither in 1616 nor in 1633, nor at
any other time, has the Holy See ever manifested its intention of
declaring, by a peremptory, dogmatic decision, the new system to be
against Scripture.


    It was thus the general understanding of that age that in the
    present case there was no irrevocable dogmatic decision given. For
    instance, the Jesuit _Riccioli_, wrote not long after the
    decision: “Inasmuch as no dogmatic decision was rendered in this
    case, neither on the part of the Pope nor on the part of a Council
    ruled by the Pope and acknowledged by him, it is not made, by
    virtue of that decree of the Congregation, a doctrine of faith
    that the sun is moving and the earth standing still, but at most
    it is a doctrine for those who by reason of Holy Writ seem to be
    morally certain that God has so revealed it. Yet every Catholic is
    bound by virtue of obedience to conform to the decree of the
    Congregation, or at least not to teach what is directly opposed to
    it” (Almagestum novum, 1651, 162). _Descartes_, _Gassendi_, and
    others of that time expressed themselves similarly (_Grisar_, 165,
    _seq._). There is an interesting letter of the Protestant
    philosopher _Leibnitz_, written to the Landgrave _Ernest of
    Hessia_, 1688, begging him to work for the repeal of the
    condemnation of the Copernican theory, because of the growing
    verification of this theory: “If the Congregation would change its
    censure, or mitigate it, as one issued hastily at a time when the
    proofs for the correctness of the Copernican theory were not yet
    clear enough, this step could not detract from the authority of
    the Congregation, much less of the Church, because the Pope had no
    part in it. There is no judicial authority which has not at times
    reformed its own decisions.”


But have we here not at least a _wilful attack on science_? or a
manifestation of the Congregation’s narrow-mindedness and ignorance, which
are bound to deprive it of all respect and confidence of sober-minded
people?

This harsh judgment overlooks two points. In the first place, the error of
the judges was quite _pardonable_. Could the liberal critics of to-day,
who so harshly denounce the Cardinals of the Congregation, be suddenly
changed into ecclesiastical prelates, and transferred back to the years of
1616-1633, and placed in the chairs of the tribunal which had to decide
those delicate questions, it may be feared that, did they carry into the
decision but a part of the animosity they now show, they would disgrace
themselves and compromise the Church even more than the judges of
_Galileo_ did. It is true that were we to judge the handling of the
question by the knowledge of to-day, we might be astonished at the
narrow-mindedness of the judges, trying to uphold their untenable views
against the established results of scientific research. But it would be
altogether unhistorical to look at the matter in that way. When the
Copernican theory entered upon the battlefield, it was _by no means
certain and demonstrated_.


    The real arguments for the rotation of the earth were not then
    known. There were no direct proofs for the progressive revolution
    of the earth around the sun. _Galileo_ advanced three main
    arguments for his theory. First, he advanced the argument from the
    phenomenon of the tides, which, he said, could not be accounted
    for but by the rotation of the earth: an argument rejected as
    futile even at that time. Next he argued from certain observations
    of the spots on the sun: another worthless argument, which others,
    like _Scheiner_, looked upon as proof of the older theory. The
    third argument was that the new theory simplified the explanation
    of certain celestial phenomena; but the scope of this argument,
    valid though it was in the abstract, could not be expressed or
    grasped at the time, especially since the corrections of _Tycho de
    Brahe_ had removed the greatest objections to the Ptolemaic
    system. The Copernican theory could not be considered certain till
    the end of the seventeenth century, after _Newton’s_ work on
    gravitation.

    Then there were difficulties, the greatest of which was probably
    the old idea of inertia, which at that time meant only that all
    bodies tend to a state of rest; hence it seemed impossible that
    the earth could ceaselessly execute two movements at the same
    time, around the sun and around its own axis. This notion of
    inertia had not been doubted in 1616; even _Kepler_ adhered to it.
    Later on _Galileo_ came very near to the new idea of inertia: that
    bodies tended to retain their state of repose or motion. But this
    new notion, like everything else new, gained ground but slowly.
    Then it was only with great difficulty that he could dispose of
    the objection that were the earth to speed through space, as the
    new theory claimed, the atmosphere would take a stormlike motion.
    Lastly, the philosophical objection had to be met: the sun and
    other celestial bodies, as far as we can know by observation, are
    moving; if they do not move, then we must admit that we can know
    nothing by observation.

    Thus the new doctrine was not at all proven at that time, as could
    be easily shown by its opponents; although it cannot be denied
    that they did not always enter into the discussion with
    impartiality. The astronomer, _Secchi_, testifies that “none of
    the real arguments for the rotary motion of the earth was known at
    _Galileo’s_ time, also direct proofs for the progressive movement
    of the earth around the sun were lacking at that time” (_Grisar_,
    30). Another famous astronomer, _Schiaparelli_, writes: “In the
    sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Ptolemaic as well as the
    Copernican system could serve for the description of phenomena;
    geometrically they were equivalent to each other and to _Tycho’s_
    eclectic system” (_Schiaparelli_, Die Vorläufer des Copernicus im
    Altertum (German, 1876), 86).

    Hence no direct evidence could be pleaded against the decision of
    the Congregation, not even _Galileo_ had that evidence. At any
    rate no judge who observed his demeanour at the trial could have
    suspected _Galileo_ of coming in conflict with his conscience by
    swearing off the theory.


For this reason it would be wrong to call _Galileo_ a martyr for science,
because he did not suffer any martyrdom. He has seen neither rack nor
prison. But he was not a martyr chiefly for the reason that he could not
have had any scientific conviction, apart from the fact that he did not
claim any such conviction, even denied it expressly.

No wonder, then, that the heliocentric system had considerable opponents
at that time; no wonder the opposite view was even the prevalent one. _A.
Tanner_ wrote in 1626: “_Ita habet communis ac certa omnium theologorum ac
philosophorum naturalium sentia_” (Theol. Schol. I, disp. 6, q. 4., dub.
3). Had valid argument been brought forth there never would have been a
_Galileo_ case. In this respect a passage from a letter of _Bellarmin_
deserves attention: “If it could be really demonstrated that the sun be in
the centre of the world ... then we would have to proceed quite cautiously
in explaining the apparently opposite passages in the Scriptures, we would
rather have to say that we do not understand them, than to say of things
demonstrated that they are false” (to _Foscarini_, April 12, 1615). The
Cardinals of that time could not be expected to anticipate the knowledge
of a later period. They had to consult the judgment of their
contemporaneous savants. When seeing the majority of them sharply
rejecting the new theory and refuting the arguments of their opponents, it
is little wonder that the Cardinals could not overcome their theological
scruples.

The scruples arose from the opinion, then prevalent, that the Holy
Scripture taught that the earth stood still and the sun moved; that the
words of the Scripture must be taken literally till the contrary is
demonstrated. The unanimous explanation of the Christian centuries was
also cited. As a matter of fact, however, the Christian past had not
taught this to be the only true sense of the words, but at that time the
words were understood that way, because no one could arrive at any other
sense in those days.

Under these circumstances, an error was hardly avoidable, if a decision
was required. And a decision seemed to be urgent, and this is the second
point we must not overlook, if we wish to judge fairly. It was a time
eager for innovations, full of anti-religious ideas. A renaissance,
sidling off into false humanism, was combating religious convictions,
false notions were invading philosophy; in addition, Protestantism was
trying to invade Italy. All this caused suspicion of any innovation apt to
endanger the faith; interpretations of the Scriptures deviating from the
accustomed sense were particularly distrusted. The _Galileo_ quarrel
happened at an inopportune time. Indeed a sudden spread of the Copernican
theory might have been accompanied by great religious dangers. Even now,
after nearly three hundred years, the leaders of the anti-Christian
propaganda are still pointing out that the progress of natural science has
proved Holy Scripture to be erroneous, and many are impressed by the
argument; many thousands would have been confused in those days by the
sudden collapse of old astronomical views that were connected with
unclarified religious ideas—dreading that victorious science might shatter
all religious traditions. Now, if one is convinced that the damage to
religion is to be estimated greater than any other, then one may also have
the conviction that it was better for the nations of the new era to have
their scientific progress a little delayed, than to have their most sacred
possession endangered. Of course considerations of this kind will have no
weight with representatives of the naturalistic view of the world. Then it
can only be emphasized that a science that has no appreciation of the
supernatural character of the Catholic Church cannot be in a position to
render a fair judgment on many facts in the history of that Church.

What we have said shows sufficiently that the condemnation of _Galileo_
was not due to any hostility to science.


    The idea that the Church’s attitude towards _Galileo_ and the
    Copernican theory was a result of her antipathy to science is
    entirely in contradiction with the character of that strenuous
    period. In Catholic countries, especially in Italy, intellectual
    life was zealously promoted by the Popes and their influence. It
    was developing and flourishing even in the natural sciences. When
    reading the correspondence of _Galileo_ one must be surprised to
    see how popular astronomical, physical, and mathematical studies
    were in the educated circles of the period. These studies belonged
    to the curriculum of a general philosophical education, and it was
    a matter of honour for many ecclesiastical dignitaries to remain
    philosophers in that sense, notwithstanding their official duties.
    We recall to mind the scientific discussion carried on with
    _Galileo_ in Rome in 1611 and 1616, by Cardinals _Del Monte_,
    _Farnese_, _Bonzi_, _Bemerio_, _Orsini_, and _Maffeo Baberini_,
    and by clergymen like _Agucchi_, _Dini_, and _Campioli_. Similarly
    in France we meet with names like _Mersenne_, _Gassendi_, and
    _Descartes_. And in Italy, after _Galileo_ and at his time, we
    meet with a long list of eminent naturalists like _Toricelli_,
    _Cassini_, _Riccioli_, and others. In 1667 _Gemiani Montanari_
    could write that in Italy there were continually forming new
    societies of scientists. The advance in knowledge of truth was
    made on safe grounds; at Naples, Rome, and elsewhere science was
    enriched by a great variety of new experiences, inasmuch as the
    scientists were making progress in the observation and the
    investigation of nature. _Targioni-Tozzetti_ writes: “Astronomy
    with us, about the middle of the sixteenth century, was a very
    diligently cultivated branch of science” (Galileistudien (1882)
    338 f.). The Church was by no means hostile to this newly awakened
    life, not even holding aloof from it; on the contrary, it
    flourished especially in ecclesiastical circles; a proof that
    narrow-minded disappreciation of natural science did not prevail,
    and that there was a different explanation for the _Galileo_ case.



Copernicus on the Index till 1835.


And what of the fact that _Copernicus_ remained on the Index until the
nineteenth century? Does it not show a rigid adherence to old, traditional
method and opposition to progress? The fact is true: The work of
_Copernicus_, and other Copernican writings, remained on the Index until
1835. But it is also true that a great deal connected with this fact is
not generally known or ignored. Let us mention here some of these facts.


    To begin with, it must not be forgotten that we owe the new world
    system, and with it the turning-point in astronomy, first of all
    to representatives of the Catholic clergy. After the learned
    Bishop _Nicholas Oresme_ had expressed with fullest certainty the
    most important point of the Copernican system as early as 1377 (in
    a manuscript hitherto unknown, discovered a short time ago by
    _Pierre Duhem_ in the National Library at Paris. Cfr. Liter.
    Zentralblatt (1909), page 1618), and after the learned Cardinal
    _Nicholaus von Kues_ (d. 1474) adopted a rotary motion of the
    earth in his cosmic system, it was _Copernicus_, a canon of the
    diocese of Ermland, who became the father of the new theory, in
    his work “De evolutionibus orbium coelestium.” He published it at
    the urgent request of Cardinal _Nikolaus Schoenberg_. But the most
    zealous promoter of his work was Bishop _Tiedemann Giese_ of Kulm.
    Enthusiastic over the novel idea, he incessantly urged his friend
    to publish his work, took care of its publication, and sent a copy
    to Pope _Paul III._, who accepted its dedication. Again, it was a
    prince of the Church, Bishop _Martin Kromer_, who, in 1851,
    dedicated a tablet in the cathedral at Frauenberg to “The Great
    Astronomer and Innovator of Astronomical Science.” All these men
    knew that _Copernicus_ defended his work not as an hypothesis or
    as fiction, but as true. Before _Copernicus_ issued his great
    work, _Clement VIII._ showed a lively interest in his system and
    had it explained to him by the learned _Johann Widmannstadt_ in
    the Vatican Gardens (_Pastor_, Gesch. der Päpste, IV, 2 (1907)
    550).

    The first attack against the new system, as being contrary to Holy
    Writ, came not from Catholic but from Protestant circles. Among
    the latter the opposition against _Copernicus_ was being agitated,
    while peaceful calm reigned among the former. Twelve Popes
    succeeded _Paul III._, and not one interfered with this doctrine.
    _Luther_, even in _Copernicus’_ time, hurled his anathema against
    the “Frauenberg Fool,” and six years after the publication of
    _Copernicus’_ chief work, _Melanchthon_ declared it a sin and a
    scandal to publish such nonsensical opinions, contrary to the
    divine testimony of the Scriptures. In fear of his religious
    community the Protestant publisher _Osiander_ smuggled in the
    spurious preface already mentioned, “On the hypothesis of this
    work.” The Protestant _Rheticus_, a friend and pupil of
    _Copernicus_, got into disfavour with _Melanchthon_ and had to
    discontinue his lectures at Wittenberg. The genial _Kepler_,
    finally, was prosecuted by his own congregation, because of his
    defence of the theory. And when on the Catholic side the Index
    decree of 1616 was already beginning to be regarded as obsolete,
    Protestant theology still held to the old view even up to the
    nineteenth century: a long list of names could be adduced in
    proof.

    Certainly no fair-minded person can see wilful hostility against
    astronomy in this procedure. Likewise there should not be imputed
    dishonourable intentions to Catholics, if in the course of history
    they rendered tribute to human limitation.


But did not the decrees of 1616 and 1633 do _great harm to research_? Not
at all. That this was hardly the case with _Galileo_ himself we have shown
above. Soon after we find in Italy a goodly number of distinguished
scientists; the Church in no way opposed the newly awakened life, nor even
held aloof from it. _Galileo_ himself was honoured in ecclesiastical
circles. Soon after _Galileo’s_ conviction the Jesuit _Grimaldi_ named a
mountain on the moon after him.

Nor was there any considerable harm done to the development of the
Copernican theory. Although after _Galileo_ the occasions were not
lacking, still no further advocate of his theory was ever up for trial.
Nor was any other book on the subject prohibited. Freedom was quietly
granted more and more. In the edition of the Index of 1758, the general
prohibition of 1616 of Copernican writings was withdrawn; it was an
official withdrawal from the old position. But not until 1822 were the
special prohibitions repealed, although they had long since lost their
binding force. The occasion was given by an accidental occurrence. The
Magister S. Palatii of the time intended to deny the Imprimatur to a book
on the Copernican theory, on account of the obsolete prohibition. An
appeal was made, which brought about the formal repeal of the prohibition.
Of course there had been no hurry to revoke a decision once given. But
according to the astronomer _Lalande’s_ report of his interview with the
Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Index, in 1765, the removal
from the Index of _Galileo’s_ Dialogue had been postponed only on account
of extraneous difficulties. _Leibnitz_, while in Rome, worked for a repeal
of the decree. According to Eméry, there are extant statements of
_Leibnitz_ vouching for the fact that he very nearly succeeded (_Eméry_,
Pensées de Leibnitz, 1, 275). The name of _Copernicus_, too, was omitted
in the next edition of the Index, which appeared in 1835.

But even while the prohibition was still in force, the works of _Galileo_
and _Copernicus_ were read everywhere. As early as 1619 _John Remus_ wrote
from Vienna to _Kepler_ that the Copernican writings may be read by
scientific men who had received special permission, and that this was done
in all Italy and in Rome itself. Besides, it was allowed at any time to
make use of the doctrine as an hypothesis. Thus it advanced continually
nearer and nearer to the position of an established truth.

Soon after the publication of the decree, according to the report of
_Kepler_, it was the general conviction in ecclesiastical and civil
circles of Austria “that the censure was no obstacle to the freedom of
science in the investigation of God’s work.” In 1685 we are assured by the
Jesuit _Kochansky_, that any Catholic was free to “look for an
irrefutable, mathematical, and physical demonstration of the movement of
the earth.” It was also known that the condemnation of the theory had been
aided by the supposition that there were no valid arguments in support of
the new theory. Hence the Congregation’s decree had in the eighteenth
century for the most part lost its force. The Jesuit _Boscovich_, a
celebrated physicist and astronomer, wrote in 1755: “In consequence of the
extraordinary arguments offered by the consideration of _Kepler’s_ laws,
astronomers no longer look upon his theory as a mere hypothesis, but as an
established truth” (Grisar, 347, 350).

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Thus in the light of history the condemnation of the Copernican theory
appears quite differently from the picture presented by the superficial
accusation that Rome up to the nineteenth century condemned this theory.
There is no trace of callousness and oppression, but only submission to
legitimate authority, in so far and as long as one deemed himself obliged.
It was a science enlightened by Christianity, which, in questions not yet
clearly decided, laid down upon the altar of the Giver of all wisdom the
tribute of humble submission, for the sake of higher interests.

We shall have to class with _St. Augustine_ the uncertainty of human
judgments and tribunals among the “troubles of human life,” and say with
him: “It is also a misery that the judge is subject to the necessity of
not knowing many things, but to the wise man it is not a fault” (De Civ.
Dei, IX, 6). May we therefore infer that the teaching authority is an
evil? Were that true, we should have to abolish the authority of the state
and of parents, because they also make mistakes. We should have to
conclude that there had better be no authority at all on earth. Where men
live and rule, mistakes will certainly be made. The physician makes
mistakes in his important office, yet patients return to him with
confidence. Every pedagogue, every professor, has made mistakes, yet they
still command respect. The state government is subject to mistakes, yet
none but the anarchist will say that it must therefore be abolished. “That
the judge is subject to the necessity of not knowing many things, is a
misery, but to the wise man not a fault.”



Chapter V. The Witnesses of the Incompatibility Of Science And Faith.



The Objection.


We shall not go wrong in presuming that the reader, who has patiently
followed our deductions, has had for some time in his mind the question:
How about the representatives of scientific research themselves? Do not a
large majority of them, perhaps virtually all, stand alien and repellant
to Christian faith and its fundamental truths? We do not refer to our
modern philosophers, for of them it might be said that their researches
yield questionable speculations of individualistic stamp, rather than
exact results. But there are the representatives of the more exact
sciences, especially of the most exact of all, natural science. They may
be considered the legitimate representatives of modern science, since
their results are the most accurate, their methods the most strictly
scientific; and are they not, every one of them, opposed to Christian
faith, especially to its fundamental dogma? Is not _Haeckel_ right when he
states in the final summary of his “Welträtsel,” in which he so strongly
insists on the incompatibility of religion and natural science: “I am
supported by the accord of nearly all modern naturalists who have the
courage to express their convictions”? Is it not true that _A. von
Humboldt_ is considered the prince of German naturalists? and yet in his
voluminous “_Kosmos_” he not once mentions the name of God? Have not, with
few exceptions, German naturalists, under _Humboldt’s_ influence, turned
against Christianity? (_W. Menzel_, Die letzten hundertzwanzig Jahre der
Weltgeschichte, VI, 1860, p. 70; cfr. _Pohle_, P. Angelo Secchi, 1904, p.
6). Here indeed the antagonism between true scientific spirit and the
faith seems to take shape in tangible reality, and to invalidate every
argument to the contrary.

Thus runs the speech that is ever recurring in the literature of the day,
in newspapers and magazines no less than in books. And this speech makes
an impression on its hearers. Indeed, why should it not? After describing
how these heroes of science in recent times marched on triumphantly from
victory to victory, how they renewed the face of the earth, and became the
pioneers of human progress, how can they fail to make a deep impression if
in the same breath they state that these discoverers of truth have, almost
to a man, broken with the ancient teachings of the Christian religion?

Without doubt the suggestive effect of such speculation must be very
considerable with those who lack sufficient historical knowledge. The case
is different with those better acquainted with the history of the natural
sciences. They know that it is not true to state that the leading natural
scientists, for the most part, or even unanimously, have rejected and
denied Christian religion, that it is a _lie_ and a falsification of
history.

Let us illustrate it briefly. We do not, of course, mean to say, that _if_
it were true that all the leading naturalists were infidels, the inference
would necessarily follow that Christianity is untenable, and incompatible
with science. Not at all. First of all, natural scientists who oppose
Christianity could hardly ever come forward in the capacity of experts in
this matter. For by venturing the assertion that world-matter and
world-force are eternal and uncreated, that they develop by force of
natural causality, by unending evolution, and not by the power and
direction of an intelligent cause, they leave their own province and
trespass on the domain of philosophy. These and similar questions are not
solved by natural science research, by experiment, observation, or
calculation, but are the subjects of philosophical speculation. Atheism,
materialism, the denial of the soul’s immortality or of eternal
destination, all these are philosophical matters, and a natural science
theory of the world is a misconception about as absurd as a Swiss England
or a Bavarian Spain.

As it is impossible to review here all scientists of the past centuries,
to probe their bent of mind, we shall restrict ourselves in the following
to scientists of the first rank, for to them the assertion above mentioned
must chiefly refer. First of all, they were possessed of that spirit of
scientific research claimed to be incompatible with the faith; and they,
more than others, should have been conscious of this contradiction. It is
plain that if they did not know anything of the claimed antagonism between
the theories of evolution and of creation, between physical facts and
spirituality of soul, between natural law and miracles; if it be shown
that many of them were actually orthodox Christians, believing in the
supernatural and yet enthusiastic friends of science, fathoming the laws
of nature and yet unshaken in their faith, then the fact that inferior
minds talk of a contradiction unknown to these great ones can no longer
make much of an impression.

Therefore let us look over the long list of great scholars of the last
centuries, those great men to whom we owe knowledge and discoveries that
are our joy to this very day. Among them we shall find many who, in their
life and thought, have plainly confessed themselves faithful Christians;
we shall find that others were at least the opponents of atheism and
materialism, that they clung to the fundamental truths of the Christian
faith, and that is a matter of moment when the antagonism between natural
science and faith is under discussion.

We shall not go back to the ancient representatives of natural science,
men like _Pythagoras_, _Aristotle_, _Archimedes_, _Albert the Great_,
_Roger Bacon_, and others of past ages, partly because there is no doubt
about the religious views of those men, partly because research at their
time was imperfect. We begin at the rise of modern natural science.



The Old Masters.


At the threshold of modern natural science there stands the man who solved
the riddle that had puzzled centuries before him, the father of modern
astronomy, _Nikolaus Copernicus_. He had studied at the universities of
Cracow, Bologna, Ferrara, and Padua, and while he was one of the foremost
historians of his time, it was astronomy that had engaged his enthusiastic
devotion from his youth. He was a Catholic priest, a Canon of Frauenberg.
“If recent representatives of the Roman Church,” so writes the Protestant
theologian, _O. Zoeckler_, “praise this Frauenberg Canon as a faithful son
of their Church, this fact must be granted by Protestants, despite the
frankness with which he opposed the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic theories
taught by the scholastics, and despite his friendship with the Protestant
_Rheticus_” (Gottes Zeugen im Reiche der Natur, 1906, p. 82). _George
Joachim_, a native of Feldkirch, surnamed _Rheticus_, and a Protestant
professor at Wittenberg, came to _Copernicus_ at Frauenberg, and was
cordially received. His praise for “his teacher” is unreserved. He speaks
in the same admiring terms of _Tiedemann Giese_, in those days Bishop of
Kulm.

For nearly forty years _Copernicus_ sat in the modest observatory which he
had erected at Frauenberg, studying and collecting the material for his
book. Even after all this time this deliberate scholar, despite the urging
of his friends, especially Bishop _Tiedemann Giese_ and Cardinal
_Schoenberg_, Archbishop of Capua, hesitated for ten years longer before
publishing his discoveries. The work was entitled _De revolutionibus
orbium caelestium, libri VI_, and was dedicated to Pope _Paul III._ The
author himself could enjoy his achievement but very little. The first copy
sent by the printer reached _Copernicus_ on his deathbed, and a few hours
later he breathed his last, on May 24, 1543.

In the introduction to his work this devout Christian scientist wrote:
“Who would not be urged by the intimate intercourse with the work of His
hands to the contemplation of the Most High, and to the admiration for the
Omnipotent Architect of the universe, in whom is the highest happiness,
and in whom is the perfection of all that is good?”

Without _Copernicus_ there could have been no _Kepler_, without _Kepler_
no _Newton_. These three men, in the words of a recent astronomer, belong
inseparably together, they support and supplement one another. It might be
fittingly asked, after which of these three the celestial system should be
named; and were it possible to ask these three men for their opinion in
this matter, they would probably all give the answer that has been
ascribed to one or the other of them: Not my system, but God’s Order. Like
_Copernicus_, so _Kepler_ and _Newton_ were profoundly religious men.

_Johann Kepler_, born of Protestant parents in Württemberg in 1571, was
raised a Lutheran. In 1594 he was appointed professor of mathematics at a
school in Graz, and after that he dwelt for the most time in Austria,
which country became his second home. From Graz he was called to Prague to
be mathematician at the imperial court, and from there to Linz to be
professor at the college there. His last years were passed at Sagan and
Ratisbon, where he died in 1630. Even after having left Austria he
gratefully remembered the _clementia austriaca_ and the _favor
archiducalis_. _Kepler’s_ astronomical achievements are known to
everybody, especially his laws of the planets. With an untiring spirit of
research he combined beautiful traits of character, cheerfulness,
kindness, and modesty, but chiefly a profoundly religious mind. However,
he was in difficult circumstances as far as his religious life was
concerned. Quite early he came in conflict with the religious authorities
of his confession, particularly for the reason that they considered
_Kepler’s_ Copernican views as against the Bible, a fact which the learned
astronomer could not see. There were also other differences. The conflict
became more and more aggravated. It cannot be denied that the Lutheran
Church-authorities proceeded against _Kepler_ with a lack of consideration
never shown by Rome against men like _Galileo_. _Kepler_ was expelled from
the Lutheran Church, and despite his efforts to be reinstated the ban was
never lifted.


    Like _Kepler_, so was his predecessor at the Catholic court of
    Prague, the Danish astronomer _Tycho Brahe_ (died 1601), a devout
    Protestant, but the trials of _Kepler_ were spared him. His
    erroneous idea that the Copernican system conflicted with Holy
    Writ kept him from subscribing to it: it led him to devise a
    system midway between _Copernicus_ and _Ptolemy_. His religious
    sentiment is evidenced by a passage from a letter of his, written
    at his father’s death, “Although there are many consolations for
    me, of a religious nature based on Holy Writ, and of a
    philosophical kind drawn from the contemplation of the fate of all
    men and of the inconstancy of everything under the moon, it is a
    special comfort for me that my father departed so sweetly and
    piously from this valley of misery to the heavenly eternal home,
    where, according to _St. Paul_, we shall find a lasting abode.”


But let us return to _Kepler_. There is evidence that at various times in
his life he wavered between his Lutheran confession and the Catholic
faith, but that is as far as he went. He was of the opinion that the
fundamental truths of both were in accord, and he would not presume to
judge of the differences; he had taken a view-point of his own, from which
he could not be made to recede. On the other hand, he was shocked when his
fellow-Lutherans in Styria were on two occasions severely dealt with,
although he personally had been treated with especial consideration.
Otherwise his opinions on Catholic matters and the “wisdom” of the
Catholic Church were eminently fair; he censured his co-religionists for
their invidious attacks on Rome, and for their hesitancy in adopting the
Gregorian reform of the calendar. He had friendly relation with many a
Catholic scientist, was in correspondence with many Jesuits, was even
frequently their guest, receiving stimulus, commendation, and scientific
communications from them.

To _Kepler_ the study of astronomy became largely a prayer; the finest of
his scientific works he was wont to conclude with the doxology of the
Psalmist, “Great is our Lord, and great is His power, and of His wisdom
there is no number: praise Him ye Heavens; praise ye Him, O Sun, and Moon,
ye Stars and light, and praise Him in your language. Thou, too, praise
Him, O soul of mine, thy Lord, thy Creator, as long as it is granted to
thee” (_Harmonices Mundi_, v. 9). His name and work is commemorated in the
Keplerbund in Germany, which aims at the promotion of scientific knowledge
in the sense of _Kepler_, in opposition to the misuse of natural science
for purposes of materialism and atheism.

The work, begun so happily by _Copernicus_ and _Kepler_, was completed by
the great Englishman, _Newton_ (died 1727). It was he who in his immortal
work, _Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica_, laid bare the law of
the universe, which compels the heavenly bodies to revolve about one
another. Therewith the laws of _Kepler_, and consequently the Copernican
hypothesis, became established. When, in 1727, this scientist, at the age
of eighty-five, died, his mortal remains were entombed in Westminster
Abbey, the Pantheon of the British nation. Lofty science and the reverent
worship of his Creator were combined in the noble mind of this great
Briton. In an appendix to his master-work, referred to above, he cited his
proofs for the existence of God, and stated that “the entire order, as to
space and time of all things existing, must have necessarily proceeded
from the conception and will of an existing Being,” that “the admirable
arrangement of sun, planets, and comets could only emanate from the decree
and the design of an All-wise and Omnipotent Being,” that “we admire Him
for His perfections, we adore and worship Him as the ruler of the world,
we, the servants of the great Sovereign of the Universe.” According to
_Voltaire_, it was stated by _Newton’s_ disciple, _Clarke_, that his
master invariably pronounced the name of God with reverent attitude and
expression.


    Inseparably connected with the history of the Copernican system
    there is the name, which recalls harsh accusations and painful
    memories, the name of _Galileo_. That he had nothing in common
    with the aims of those who have broken with faith and
    Christianity, nor with that hostility against his Church for which
    his name is so often misused, has been made evident by what we
    have said on another page (see page 189). Not only during his
    early life was his religious turn of mind evidenced, but also
    later on and up to the end of his life he continued to observe
    faithfully the duties of his religion.


One of the greatest physicists of recent times was _Christian Huygens_,
who died in 1695 at his native city, The Hague. To him we owe the
epoch-making discovery of the undulation of light, while _Newton_ had held
light to be a matter of emission. But while _Huygens_ advanced over
_Newton_ in this respect, he paid tribute to human limitation by remaining
prejudiced against _Newton’s_ theory of gravitation, which he rejected.
_Huygens_ was a believing Christian.


    In his philosophic dissertation “Kosmotheoros,” a posthumous work,
    he says in regard to the possibility of the celestial bodies being
    inhabited: “How could the investigator look up to God, the Creator
    of all these great worlds, otherwise but in the spirit of deepest
    reverence? Here it will be possible for us to find manifold proofs
    to demonstrate His providence and wonderful wisdom; likewise will
    our contemplation contend against those who are spreading false
    opinions, such as attributing the origin of the earth to the
    accidental union of atoms, or of the earth being without a
    beginning and without a creator.”


Religious fervour is still more pronounced in _Huygens’_ contemporary,
_Robert Boyle_ (died 1692), a son of Ireland. While he had made
considerable achievements in physics, his chief fame lies in chemistry: he
inaugurated the period in which chemistry became gradually an independent
science. Although working in a different field of research, he is similar
to _Newton_ in many respects: like _Newton_ and _Huygens_, his love of
scientific studies induced him to remain unmarried, like _Newton_ he found
his last resting place in Westminster Abbey, but chiefly he is like
_Newton_ because of his pious, religious mind. He was much occupied with
theological studies, and in them the demonstration from nature of the
existence of God, and the author’s reverence for the Scriptures are most
conspicuous: “In relation to the Bible,” he writes, “all the books of men,
even the most learned, are like the planets that receive their light and
brightness from the sun.” On his deathbed he made a foundation for
apologetic lectures: the Boyle-lectures are held to this very day.


    We shall have to pass by others. We might point to the English
    philosopher and statesman, _Francis Bacon_ of Verulam (died 1626),
    who won his place in the history of natural science by his urging
    of the empiric method; we might point to _W. Harvey_ (died 1658),
    the discoverer of the blood-circulation, a man of earnest and
    simple piety; we might mention the pious _Albrecht von Haller_
    (died 1777), _J. Bernouilli_ (died 1728) the co-inventor of
    integral calculus, the man of whom his great disciple _Euler_
    relates that this _Bernouilli_, co-inventor of the most difficult
    of all calculations, this great mathematician, expressed regret in
    his old age that he had devoted so many years to science, and only
    few hours to religion, and that on his deathbed he admonished
    those around him to adhere to the Word of God because that alone
    is the word of life.


We shall name but one more, a son of northern Sweden, the famous botanist,
_Karl Linné_ (died 1778). He, too, found God in the living nature which he
studied so diligently.


    In commenting on his _Systema naturae_ he writes: “Man, know
    thyself; in theological aspect, that thou art created with an
    immortal soul, after the image of God; in moral aspect, that thou
    alone art blessed with a rational soul for the praise of thy
    sublime Creator. I ask, why did God put man equipped thus in sense
    and spirit on this earth, where he perceives this wonderfully
    ordered nature? For what, but to praise and admire the invisible
    Master-builder for His magnificent work.”


These are the great masters and reformers of recent natural science, the
men who opened up the paths which natural science of the present day is
still pursuing; most of these savants were of a Christian mind, many of
them even pious. There were but few indifferent or irreligious, such as
_E. Halley_ (died 1742), who computed the cycle of the comet since named
after him, and _G. de Buffon_ (died 1788): but they are a small minority.
The period of highest achievement in modern natural science bears the
stamp of religion; indeed, to a great extent it bears the halo of devotion
and fervour. An incompatibility of research and faith, a solidarity of
science and anti-Christian tendency, was never known to the mind of these
great masters.

“Any one who has grasped even the elements of natural science, the unity
of natural forces and their rigid conformity to laws, becomes a monist if
he has the faculty for clear reasoning, and as to the others, there is no
help for them anyway” (_L. Plate_, Ultramontane Weltanschauung und moderne
Lebenskunde, 1907, 11). This sort of argument is shouted at us in manifold
variations. How does that statement look in the light of history? Men like
_Copernicus_, _Kepler_, _Newton_, _Linné_, _Boyle_, thus knew nothing of
the elements of natural science, nothing of the conformity to laws of
natural forces: because they were neither monists nor atheists, but
worshippers of the Creator of heaven and earth! A more painful contrast
cannot be imagined than to see these great masters and pioneers rated as
lesser minds, ignorant of real natural science, by those who trail far
behind them and who are seeking their footsteps. The religious conviction
of the natural scientists of a past age is sufficient proof that, not the
research in natural science, but other causes lead minds to infidelity.



Modern Times.


We turn to the nineteenth century. Does the picture perhaps change
essentially in the century that has shown its children so much progress,
that has disclosed so many secrets of nature, but has also taught
irreligion to thousands of men? Does it become true now that natural
science and Christian fundamental truths are opposed to each other in
hostile attitude? Claims to this effect are not lacking. In fact, the
number of those who refuse assent to the Christian religion is increasing.
But even at this time we do not find such to be the majority of eminent
scientists, and our inquiry is about eminent scientists, those who make
the science of a period, not those who can hardly expect to have their
names known by posterity. A considerable number, indeed the majority, of
the master minds of natural science, even in the nineteenth century,
reject materialism and atheism, and not infrequently they are pious
Christians; another proof that just upon the deeper and more serious minds
religion exercises a stronger power of attraction.

Let us commence with the astronomers.

“The sciences and their true representatives,” so states the renowned
_Mädler_ of Dorpat, “do not deserve the reproaches and imputations heaped
upon them from a certain side, that they would estrange man from God, even
turn him into an atheist ... we hope to show of astronomy especially that
just the contrary is taking place” (Reden und Abhandlungen über
Gegenstände der Himmelskunde, 1870, 326).

The greatest astronomer of the nineteenth century, and one of the greatest
discoverers of all ages, was undoubtedly _William Herschel_ (died 1822).
His son _John Herschel_ (died 1871) became his “worthy successor, almost
his peer, who won a fame nearly equal to that of the inherited name” (_R.
Wolf_, Geschichte der Astronomie, 1877, 505). While not hostile to
religion, the father had been so engrossed in his restless research, that
religion received little attention, but religious thought and sentiment
played a prominent part in the son. Time and again he opposed with zeal
the materialistic-atheistic explanation of the universe. “Nothing is more
unfounded than the objection made by some well-meaning but undiscerning
persons, that the study of natural science induces a doubt of religion and
of the immortality of the soul. Be assured that its logical effect upon
any well-ordered mind must be just the opposite” (Preliminary Discourse on
the Study of Natural Philosophy, 1830, 7).

It was _Leverrier_ (died 1877), Director of the Paris Observatory, who by
calculations ascertained the existence and exact position of the remotest
planet Neptune even before it was discovered. When eventually _Galle_ of
Berlin really found the planet in the position indicated, _Leverrier’s_
name became famous. But greater still were the achievements of this
indefatigable investigator in respect to the known planets. When he
presented to the French Academy the final part of his great work, the
calculations of Jupiter and Saturnus, he said: “During our long labours,
which it took us thirty-five years to complete, we needed the support
obtained by the contemplation of one of the grandest works of creation,
and by the thought that it strengthened in us the imperishable truths of a
spiritualistic (_i.e._, non-materialistic) philosophy.” He was an orthodox
Catholic, known as a Clerical. A newspaper complained of him that “Under
the empire he was a clerical Senator, concerned with the interests of the
altar no less than with those of the throne” (_Kneller_, Das Christenthum
und die Vertreter der neueren Naturwissenschaft, 1904, 96. In the
following pages we have made frequent use of the material gathered in this
sterling work. See also _James J. Walsh_, Makers of Modern Medicine
(1907); and the same author’s Catholic Churchmen in Science, I (1909), II
(1910)).

One year after the death of _Leverrier_ another scientist of the first
rank died. It was _A. Secchi_ (died 1878). Member of nearly all the
scientific academies of the world, he was not only a faithful Christian,
but also a priest: for forty-five years, and until his death, he wore the
garb of the Society of Jesus. As an astronomer he has been named, not
without good cause, the father of astrophysics: he ascertained the
chemical composition of about 4,000 stars and classified them into what is
known as _Secchi’s_ four types of stars. As a physicist he wrote an
important work on The Unity of Natural Forces. He was also an eminent
meteorologist.


    At the second International Exposition at Paris his meteorograph
    was quite a feature. The _Kölnische Zeitung_ wrote, on March 2,
    1878: “Visitors of the Italian Exhibition, at the second World’s
    Fair in Paris, could see the marvellous instrument which does the
    work of ten observers and surpasses them in accuracy. At the same
    time they could obtain all needed information about details and
    scope of the meteorograph from the exhibitor himself; for _Secchi_
    was there daily, devoting several hours to answering questions in
    any of the civilized languages of Europe. It is peculiarly
    interesting to observe the silent movement of the hands working
    day and night like registrars of the natural forces, and recording
    for every quarter of an hour with the utmost accuracy all changes
    in temperature, in humidity, every variance of the wind, any
    movement of the mercury in the barometer. Even the force of the
    wind and the time of rain is registered by this wonderful
    instrument.” The inventor, out of 40,000 art exhibitors, was
    awarded the great golden medal. He also received the insignia of
    an officer of the French Legion of Honor, while the Emperor of
    Brazil appointed him an officer of the “Golden Rose.”

    The French scientist _Moigno_ writes of _Secchi_: “_Secchi_ was
    very pious, and as a worker he knew no limits. He was ever ready
    to evolve new scientific plans, to enter into new and long
    campaigns of observation. The mere list of his 800 works reveals
    him as one of the most intrepid workers of our century. And let
    this be considered: every one of these writings, no matter how
    brief, was the result of subtle and difficult researches and
    observations. And after devoting the day to arduous writing, he
    passed the night searching the skies” (_Pohle_, P. Angelo Secchi,
    1904, 191).

    In the nineteenth century, too, astronomy has not failed in its
    mission of leading to God. A long list could be named of believing
    astronomers of great achievements. For instance, the Roman
    astronomer _Respighi_ (died 1889), a resolute Catholic. And
    _Lamont_, Director of the Observatory of Munich, whose Catholic
    orthodoxy was generally known. _Heis_ (died 1877) likewise was a
    zealous Catholic: when he had finished his map of the sky, after
    27 years of hard work, he sent one of the first copies to _Pius
    IX._ The astronomers _Bessel_ and _Olbers_ speak in their letters
    of God, of the hereafter and Providence, in a way that has nothing
    in common with materialism.

    _Secchi_ was not the only priest and monk among the astronomers of
    the nineteenth century. The very first day of the century was made
    notable by the astronomical achievement of a monk. _Joseph
    Piazzi_, a member of the Theatine order (died 1826), discovered on
    that day the first asteroid, Ceres. The great mathematician
    _Gauss_ named his first born son Joseph, in _Piazzi’s_ honor.

    It is, indeed, a remarkable fact, testifying strongly against the
    incompatibility of natural science and faith, that just the
    Catholic clergy, the prominent representatives of religion and
    faith, have contributed a large contingent to the number of
    natural scientists. _Poggendorf’s_ Biographical Dictionary of the
    Exact Sciences contains, down to 1863, according to preface and
    recapitulation, the names and biographical sketches of 8,847
    natural scientists. Of these, 862 are Catholic priests, amounting
    to 9.8 per cent. To appreciate these 10 per cent it must be taken
    into account that most of them were not connected with natural
    science by their position, but only through their personal
    interest, and most of them were engaged in other duties.


Mathematics, although not natural science proper, is inseparably connected
with it. For this reason we may extend our consideration to
mathematicians. We only point to the three greatest, _Euler_, _Gauss_, and
_Cauchy_, and all three were religious men. _Euler_ (died 1783 at
Petersburg) has no peer in the recent history of science in prolific
activity: ten times he was awarded the prize by the Paris Academy of
Sciences. _Cantor_ says of him: “Like most great mathematicians, _Euler_
was profoundly religious, though without bigotry. He personally conducted
every evening the private devotions at his home, and one of the few
polemical books he wrote was a defence of revelation against the
objections of free-thinkers.” Its publication at Berlin in 1747, in close
proximity of the court of _Frederick the Great_, presupposed a certain
moral courage. In this book he refers to the difficulties found in all
sciences, even in geometry, adding: “By what right then can the
free-thinkers demand of us to reject at once Holy Writ in its entirety,
because of some difficulties which frequently are not even so important as
those complained of in geometry?” _Gauss_ (died 1855) is perhaps the
greatest mathematician of all times. It sounds incredible, yet it is well
attested, that as a child of three years, when in the workshop of his
father, a plain mechanic, he was able to correct the father if he made a
mistake in figuring out the wages paid to his journeymen. His biographer,
_Waltershausen_, says of him: “The conviction of a personal existence
after death, the firm belief in an ultimate Ruler of things, in an
eternal, just, all-wise and all-powerful God, formed the foundation of his
religious life, which, with his unsurpassed scientific researches,
resolved itself into a perfect harmony.” _Cauchy_ (died 1857) was a man of
most extraordinary genius, whose creative genius knew how to discover new
paths everywhere, and almost at every weekly meeting of the Paris Academy
_Cauchy_ had something new to offer. In addition he was a dutiful
Catholic, and a member of St. Vincent’s Society. When, shortly before the
February revolution, an onslaught upon the Jesuit schools was made, he
defended them in two pamphlets.


    One of them contains the following confession of faith: “I am a
    Christian, that is, I believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ,
    with _Tycho __ Brahe_, _Copernicus_, _Descartes_, _Newton_,
    _Fermat_, _Leibnitz_, _Pascal_, _Grimaldi_, _Euler_, _Guldin_,
    _Boscovich_, _Gerdil_; with all great astronomers, all great
    physicists, all great mathematicians of past centuries. I am also
    a Catholic, with the majority of them, and if asked for my
    reasons, I would enumerate them readily. By them it would be made
    clear that my conviction is not the result of inherited
    prejudices, but of profound inquiry. I am a sincere Catholic, as
    _Corneille_, _Racine_, _La Bruyère_, _Bossuet_, _Bourdaloue_,
    _Fénelon_ were, and such as were and still are a large portion of
    the most eminent men of our times, among them those who have
    achieved most in the exact sciences, in philosophy and literature,
    and who have most prominently adorned our Academy” (_Valson_, Vie
    de Cauchy, I, 173). When near death, and told that the priest
    would bring the Holy Sacrament, he ordered the finest flowers of
    his garden used in the reception of the Lord.


We now come to the physicists. To begin with the most prominent
representatives of the science of optics, which was developed especially
during the first half of the century, there are to be named chiefly
_Fresnel_, _Frauenhofer_, _Fizeau_, _Foucault_. _A. Fresnel_ (died 1827),
the originator of the modern theory of light, clung to his conviction of
the spirituality and immortality of the soul. _Frauenhofer_ (died 1826)
showed himself to be a man of refinement and of kindness, which only
occasionally was disturbed by natural irritability: he was much devoted to
his religion, so that even his guests while at his house had to observe
the abstinence prescribed by the Church; this was quite significant,
considering the indifference of his times in this respect. _Fizeau_ (died
1896), too, was a staunch Catholic, who fearlessly testified to his
belief, even before the Paris Academy. Though his work was of the first
rank, France’s chief marks of honour passed him by, and little notice was
even given to his death. A significant fact. “These circumstances,” so
writes _Kneller_, “induced us to inquire for particulars; and through the
services of friends we obtained information in Paris from most reliable
source that _Fizeau_ was a faithful Christian, who fulfilled his religious
duties. For this very reason his name had been stricken, at the Centenary
of the Academy, from the list of candidates for the cross of the legion of
honor, notwithstanding the fact that, on the strength of his scientific
achievement, he should long have been Commander and even Grand Officer of
this order.” _Cornu_ was the only one to protest against this slight.
_Foucault_ (died 1868) had, in the time of his restless scientific work,
taken an unsympathetic attitude towards the Catholic religion. In his last
illness he returned, step by step, to his Creator and Redeemer, in whom he
found his comfort, and he breathed his last in peace with God and the
Church.

_Foucault’s_ great countryman, _Ampère_ (died 1836), the celebrated
investigator in the fields of electricity, was also estranged from the
Christian religion, but, after passing through torturing doubts, he
regained undisturbed possession of his Catholic faith, and was a pious
Christian at the time of his brilliant discoveries. He had frequent
intercourse with _A. F. Ozanam_, and the discussion almost without
exception turned to God. Then _Ampère_ would cover his forehead with his
hands, exclaiming: “How great God is! Ozanam! how great God is, and our
knowledge is as nothing.” “This venerable head,” _Ozanam_ relates of his
friend, “covered with honours and full of knowledge, bowed down before the
mysteries of the faith; he knelt at the same altars where before him
_Descartes_ and _Pascal_ worshipped humbly, beside the poor widow and the
small child, who perhaps were less humble than he” (_A. F. Ozanam_,
Oeuvres Complètes, X, 37, and VIII, 89). As he was dying, and _M.
Deschamps_, director of the college of Marseille, began to read aloud some
passages from the “Imitation of Christ,” the dying man remarked that he
knew the book by heart.

Another great discoverer in the domain of electricity, who had preceded
_Ampère_, was _Volta_ (died 1827). Like his great fellow countryman,
_Galvani_ (died 1798), who did not disdain to be a member of the third
order of St. Francis, _Volta_ was a staunch Catholic; every day he recited
the rosary.

At Como, his home, he was daily seen to go to holy Mass and, on holidays,
to the Sacraments. Those who passed his house on Saturdays saw a small
lamp burning before the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary over his door.
If the servant forgot to light the lamp, _Volta_ did it himself. On Feast
days, when visiting the parish church, the great electrician could be seen
among the children, explaining the catechism to them.


    A friend of _Volta_, the Canon _Giacomo Ciceri_, once was
    endeavoring to convert a dying man, who, however, refused to hear
    him, on the ground that whereas religion might be good for the
    common people, scientists did not need it, and he reckoned himself
    among them. _Ciceri_ thereupon reminded him of _Volta_. This made
    an impression upon the dying man, who declared that if _Volta_ be
    seriously religious, and not only as a matter of convention, he
    would consent to receive the Sacraments. The Canon then requested
    _Volta_ to write a few lines. _Volta_ replied as follows: “I do
    not understand how anybody can doubt my sincerity and constancy in
    the religion which I profess, and which is that of Catholic,
    Apostolic, Roman Church, wherein I was born and raised, and which
    I have professed all my life, inwardly and outwardly.... Should
    any misdemeanor on my part have prompted any one to suspect me of
    unbelief, then I will declare, for the purpose of making
    reparation ... that I always have believed this Holy Catholic
    religion to be the only true and infallible one, and that I still
    think so, and I thank our dear Lord incessantly for having given
    me this belief, in which to live and to die is my resolution, in
    the firm hope of gaining the eternal life. It is true, I
    acknowledge this belief to be a gift of God, a supernatural
    belief; yet, I have not neglected human means to fortify myself in
    this belief, and to drive away all doubts that may arise to tempt
    me. For this reason, I have studied the faith diligently in its
    foundations, by reading apologetic and controversial writings,
    weighing the reasons for and against; a way, which supplies the
    strongest proof, and makes it most credible for the human reason
    to such a degree, that any noble mind, not perverted by sins and
    passions, cannot help embracing and loving it. I wish this
    profession, for which I was asked and which I willingly make,
    written and signed by my own hand, to be shown at will to any one,
    because I am not ashamed of the Gospel. May my writing bear good
    fruit.

    _Alexander Volta._

    MILAN, January 6th, 1815.
    (_C. Grandi_, Alessandro Volta, 1899, 575.)”


He who, for the first time, is made aware of the religious confession of
the greatest natural scientists may perhaps be astonished. Hitherto, he
had heard little of the Christian mind of these men, but a great deal
about their alleged indifference for religion, and about their materialism
and atheism. Now, suddenly, he sees a large number of them to be the
enemies of atheism, many, indeed, to be zealous Christians.

This is due to the biographers: they dwell largely on the scientific
achievement of a man, likewise on his human qualities, but his religion is
often not mentioned at all. When, in 1888, a monument was erected to
_Ampère_ in his native city, Lyons, not a word in the speeches referred to
the fact that he was a faithful Catholic. Nay, more; on one of the books
seen on his monument is chiselled in bold letters the word “Encyclopédie.”
Those unaware of the facts would infer that _Ampère_ had been one of the
Encyclopædists. His actual relation to this infamous work was that he had
read it in his youth, but abhorred it in his later age.

The English physicist, _Faraday_ (died 1867), according to _Tyndall_ and
_Du Bois-Reymond_ the greatest experimentist of all times, was, like
_Volta_ and _Ampère_, of religious mind.


    In a letter to a lady he wrote: “I belong to a small and despised
    Christian sect, known by the name of Sandemanians. Our hope is
    based upon the belief which is in Christ.” In 1847, he concluded
    his lectures at the Royal Institution with the following words:
    “In teaching us those things, our science should prompt us to
    think of Him whose works they are.” At a later lecture, he
    declared: “I have never encountered anything to cause a
    contradiction between things within the scope of man, and the
    higher things, relating to his future and unconceivable to
    (unaided) human mind” (_Jones_, The Life and Letters of Faraday).


Of the same bent of mind was _Faraday’s_ fellow countryman, _Maxwell_
(died 1879), known to every one who has studied the development of the
theories of electricity. This ingenious theoretician of electrics,
professor of experimental physics at Cambridge, was deeply religious.
Every evening he led in the family prayer; he regularly attended divine
service, and partook of the monthly communion of his denomination. Those
more intimately acquainted with _Maxwell_ agree, that he was one of the
worthiest men they ever met.


    Nothing could better illustrate his religious sentiment than the
    splendid prayer found among his posthumous papers: “Almighty God,
    Thou who hast created man after Thy image and hast given him a
    living soul, that he should search Thee and rule over Thy
    creatures, teach us to study the works by Thy hands that we may
    subject the earth for our use, and strengthen our reason for Thy
    service, and let us receive Thy holy word thus, that we may
    believe in Him whom Thou hast sent us to give us the knowledge of
    salvation and the forgiving of our sins, all of which we pray for
    in the name of the same Jesus Christ, our Lord”
    (_Campbell-Garnett_, The Life of J. C. Maxwell).


_Maxwell’s_ devout mind is especially significant here, because, like
_Ampère_ and _Volta_, he occupied himself much with philosophical and
theological questions. Every Sunday upon return from church he is said to
have buried himself in his theological books.

Many others might be mentioned of English physicists of the past century,
who combined religious belief with great knowledge. The peculiar trait of
the English character to respect and preserve with piety the inherited
institutions of the past, as against radicalism and the craze for
innovation, manifests itself also in the absence of the immature and
frivolous juggling with the great truths of the Christian past, not
infrequently met with elsewhere. Let us mention but one more of England’s
great men who have died in recent years. In December, 1907, the papers
reported the death of _William Thomson_, latterly better known as _Lord
Kelvin_. He lived to the age of 83 years, up to his death incessantly busy
with scientific work. As early as 1855, _Helmholtz_ described him as “one
of the foremost mathematical physicists of Europe.(7)” The Berlin Academy
of Science expressed high praise and admiration in its address
felicitating _Thomson_ on his Golden Jubilee. Undoubtedly, he merited this
admiration also by stoutly defending from the viewpoint of science the
necessity of a Divine Creator.


    “We do not know,” he wrote, “at what moment a creation of matter
    or of energy fixed a beginning beyond which no speculation based
    on mechanical laws is able to lead us. In exact mechanics, if we
    were ever inclined to forget this barrier, we necessarily would be
    reminded of it by the consideration that reasoning, resting
    exclusively upon the law of mechanics, points to a time when the
    earth must have been uninhabited, and it also teaches us that our
    own bodies, like those of all living plants and animals, and
    fossils, are organized forms of matter for which science can give
    no other explanation than the will of a Creator, a truth, in
    support of which geological history offers rich evidence” (On
    Mechanical Antecedent of Motion, Heat and Light, 1884). “The only
    contribution of dynamics to theoretical biology consists in the
    absolute negation of an automatic beginning and automatic
    continuance of life” (Addresses and Speeches).

    On May 1, 1902, the Rev. Prof. _G. Henslow_, according to the
    _London Times_, spoke at University College, before a big audience
    with the President of the University as chairman, on the subject
    “The Rationalism of To-day, an Examination of Darwinism.” On
    conclusion of the speech the venerable octogenarian, _Lord
    Kelvin_, arose and proposed a resolution of thanks to the speaker.
    While fully subscribing to the fundamental ideas of Prof.
    _Henslow’s_ lecture, _Lord Kelvin_ said, he could not assent to
    the proposition that natural science neither affirms nor denies
    the origin of life by a creative force. He stated that natural
    science _does_, positively, assert a creative force. Science
    forces every one to recognize a miracle within himself. That we
    are living, and moving, and existing, is not due to dead matter,
    but to a creating and directing force, and science forces us to
    accept this assumption as a tenet of faith. _Lord Kelvin_
    subsequently amplified these remarks in an article that appeared
    in the _Nineteenth Century_, of June, 1903. It concludes with the
    admonition, not to be afraid to think independently. “If you
    reason sharply, you will be forced by science to believe in God,
    who is the basis of all religion. You will find science to be, not
    an opponent of religion, but a support” (_Times_, May 8 and 15,
    1903).


Such were the views of those to whom, in the first place, the
establishment of natural science and its progress are due. It is not
science and strong reasoning that lead away from God, but the lack of true
science. _Bacon_ said: _Leviores gustus in philosophia movere fortasse
animum ad atheismum, sed pleniores haustus ad Deum reducere_. Another
thing must be observed. Among those earnest men, earnest in the
investigation of nature, and earnest in the consideration of questions of
a supernatural life, there are many who made the religious question the
subject of mature study, and who were well acquainted with the objections
against religion and Christianity. But they cling to their religious
persuasion only the more firmly. We may be reminded of men like _Volta_,
_Cauchy_, _Ampère_, and _Maxwell_.

To speak of authorities, what comparison is there between these great
scientists and discoverers, and those who are satisfied with the general
assurance that “any one who has grasped the elements of natural sciences
must become a monist,” and “that the supernatural exists only in the brain
of the visionary and ignorant,” that, “in the same measure in which the
victorious progress of modern knowledge of nature surpasses the scientific
achievements of former centuries, the untenableness of all mystical views
of life that tend to harness the reason in the yoke of so-called
revelation has been made clear” (_Haeckel_), and who in such assurance
find perfect intellectual gratification. They recall an incident at the
Congress of English natural scientists, held at Belfast in 1874, when
_Tyndall_ delivered from the platform a materialistic lecture, and among
the audience sat _Maxwell_, his superior in scientific research, who put
down the lecture in doggerel rhyme, in a humorous vein, of course, but not
without deserved sarcasm.

We proceed on our way, trying to make haste, and omitting many names that
might be mentioned, limiting ourselves to the most prominent ones.

Among the chemists we name _Lavoisier_. A martyr to his science, he died
under the guillotine of the Revolution in 1794; he had remained true to
his Christian faith. The Swede, _J. Berzelius_ (died 1848), openly
professed his belief in God. _Thénard_ (died 1859), the discoverer of
boron, of a blue dye named after him, and of many other chemicals, was a
staunch Catholic. The pastor of St. Sulpice could testify at his funeral
as follows: “He attended church every Sunday, eyes and heart fixed on his
prayer-book, and on solemn Feast days he received Holy Communion.... With
_Baron Thénard_ one of the greatest benefactors of my poor people is gone”
(_Kneller_).

_Dumas_ (died 1884), who is esteemed by his pupil _Pasteur_ as the peer of
_Lavoisier_, was also a practical Catholic, as was his compatriot
_Chevreul_ (died 1889). This great man had the rare good fortune to be
present at his own centenary in 1886. At this great celebration he
received an address by the Berlin Academy, stating that his name had a
prominent place on the list of the great scientists who had carried the
scientific repute of France to all quarters of the globe. When, in view of
the mundane character of the celebration, the liberal press endeavoured to
rank him among the representatives of unbelieving science, and this
question being discussed in public, _Chevreul_ felt himself constrained to
proclaim his religious persuasion openly in a letter to _Count de
Montravel_, in which he said: “I am simply a scientist, but those who know
me, know also that I was born a Catholic, that I lead a Catholic life, and
that I want to die a Catholic” (Civilta Cattolica, 1891, 292).

Two Germans may conclude the list of chemists, _Schoenbein_ (died 1868)
and _J. Liebig_ (died 1873).


    In his diary, “Menschen und Dinge,” 1885 (page 29), _Schoenbein_
    writes: “There are still people who fancy in their limited mind
    that, the deeper the human intellect penetrates the secrets of
    nature, the more extensive its knowledge, the wider its conception
    of the exterior world, the more it must forget the cause of all
    things. Many have gone even so far as to assert that natural
    science must lead to the denial of God. This view is without all
    foundation. He, who contemplates with open eyes, daily and hourly,
    the doings and workings of nature, will not only believe, but will
    actually perceive, and be firmly convinced, that there is not the
    smallest place in space where the divine does not reveal itself in
    the most magnificent and admirable way.” And in a similar strain
    _Liebig_ writes: “Indeed, the greatness and infinite wisdom of the
    Creator of the world can be realized only by him who endeavours to
    understand His ideas as laid down in that immense book,—nature, in
    comparison to which everything that men otherwise know and tell of
    Him, appears like empty talk” (Die Chemie in ihrer Anwendung).


Now let us turn to the geographers. We merely mention _Ritter_ (died
1859), the man who raised geography to the dignity of a science; he was a
faithful Protestant, while biassed against the Catholic Church. In spite
of this, a Catholic historian, _J. Janssen_, has sketched his life, in
which we read: “Firm in his belief in the living God, and in the Incarnate
Son of God, His Redeemer, he furnishes a clear and convincing proof that
this faith, far from being a contradiction to natural science ... alone
enables man to acquire an extensive and deep knowledge of nature.” We give
only passing notice to the founder of scientific crystallography, _R.
Hauy_ (died 1822), who was a dutiful Catholic priest. The geologists now
will get a hearing.


    Among them we meet, in the first place, the noted geologist and
    zoölogist, _Cuvier_ (died 1832), a faithful Protestant: also the
    foremost French geologist of his time, _L. De Beaumont_ (died
    1874), “a Christian in all things and a steadfast Christian ...
    which he remained through his whole life;” so _Dumas_ testifies of
    him in his obituary (Comptes Rendus, 1874). Then there is _J.
    Barrande_, the untiring explorer of the antediluvian strata of
    Bohemia. He came in 1830 to Bohemia with the banished royal
    family, as _Chambord’s_ teacher, and died 1883 at Frohsdorf near
    Vienna. He was a pious Catholic. The volumes of his works are
    nearly all dated on Catholic feasts. The recently deceased French
    geologist, _A. De Lapparent_, was a practical Catholic, and such
    were the two Belgian geologists, _J. d’Omalius_ (died 1875), and
    _A. Dumont_ (died 1857), to both of whom Belgium owes its
    geological exploration. The English geologists, _Buckland_ (died
    1856), _Hitchcock_ (died 1864), and _A. Sedgwick_ (died 1872),
    were ministers of the English Church. _J. Dwight Dana_ (died
    1895), the foremost geologist of North America, begins his
    celebrated text-book of geology with a homage to his Creator, and
    concludes it by paying tribute to Holy Writ. _W. Dawson_ (died
    1899) the worthy geological explorer of his native land, Canada,
    published several apologetic dissertations on the Bible and
    Nature. A kindred sentiment animated the German scientists,
    _Bischof_ (died 1870), _Quenstedt_ (died 1898), the geologist of
    Suabia _Pfaff_ (died 1886), _Schafhæutl_ (died 1890), and the
    equally pious as learned Swiss geologist _O. Heer_ (died 1883).
    They all have much to say about the greatness of their Creator,
    but not a word of any insolvable contradictions between the Bible
    and geologic research.


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

Are the eminent representatives of this science really the materialists
and monists they would have to be, if all this were true? The foremost
physiologist of the nineteenth century was _J. Müller_ (died 1858), buried
in the Catholic cemetery at Berlin. He was a decided opponent of
materialism; he not only contended for the existence of a spiritual soul,
but also for an immaterial vital force in plants. _Th. Schwann_ (died
1882) is the founder of the cellular theory. In the year 1839 he accepted
a call to take the chair of anatomy at the Catholic University of Louvain.
One of the most prominent physiologists of the nineteenth century was _A.
Volkmann_ (died 1877). He was a stout champion of the spirituality and
immortality of the soul, of purposive cause in animated beings, and an
opponent of _Darwin’s_ theory. _G. J. Mendel_ (died 1884) became by his
work on _Experimenting with Hybrid Plants_ the pioneer of the modern
theory of hereditary transmission, adopted by modern biology; and
scientists like _H. de Vries_, _Correns_, _Tschermak_, and _Bateson_
followed his lead. “His important laws of hereditary transmission are the
best so far offered by the research in this field” (_Muckermann_,
Grundriss der Biologie). He was a Catholic priest, and the abbot of the
Augustinian Monastery at Old-Brünn. _Karl von Vierordt_ (died 1884) is
well known by his “Manual of Physiology,” still in demand as a reference
book in the libraries of universities. In 1865 he delivered a speech at
the Tübingen University on the unity of science, concluding with this
appeal to the students: “Until your religious notions become clear by a
mature insight, trust in the well-meant assurance that the belief in the
divinity of the religion of Jesus has not been put falsely into your
heart. True piety is equally remote from narrow pietism as from
freethinking indifference; it leaves to reason its full rights, but it
also assures to us the faculty to be aware, in joyful confidence in
Almighty Providence, of an immaterial and for us eternal destiny.” _Ch.
Ehrenberg_ (died 1876) is the explorer of the world of little things: of
infusoria and protozoa. He did not countenance _Haeckel’s_ materialism nor
_Darwin’s_ denial of teleology: to him they were fantastic theories and
romances. A friend of his, and of the same mind, was _K. von Martius_, who
admired God’s wisdom in the wonders of the world of vegetation. Long
before his death he ordered his burial dress to be made of white cloth
embroidered with a green cross,—“a cross because I am a Christian, and
green in honour of botany.” Another renowned name may be mentioned, that
of the Austrian anatomist _J. Hyrtl_ (died 1894).


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

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

    _Haeckel_ was much vexed by two fellow scientists, _M. von Baer_
    (died 1876) and _G. J. Romanes_ (died 1894). _Baer_ was prominent
    in the science of evolution. He was led to theism by his studies.
    _Romanes_, a friend of _Darwin_, had been an adherent of
    materialism, but through serious study he returned to the belief
    in God and Christianity. His posthumous work, “Thoughts on
    Religion, a scientist’s religious evolution from Atheism to
    Christianity,” furnishes a brilliant voucher thereof. _Romanes’s_
    conversion was a sad blow for _Haeckel_. However, he constructed
    an explanation to give himself comfort. “When the news of this
    conversion,” he wrote, “was first circulated by a friend of
    _Romanes_, a zealous English Churchman, the assumption suggested
    itself to me that it was all a mystification and invention, for it
    is known that the fanatical champions of ecclesiastical
    superstition have never hesitated to pervert the truth to save
    their dogma. Later on, however, it was found that it was really an
    instance (analogous to the case of old _Baer_) of one of those
    interesting psychological metamorphoses with which I have dealt in
    Chapter 6 of my book. _Romanes_ was in his last years a sick man.
    It was pathological debility. The first condition, however, of an
    unbiassed, pure conception of reason is the normal condition of
    its organ. His phronema was not in a normal condition.” _Haeckel_
    will have to rank among those whose phronema is not in a normal
    condition a good many other natural scientists; indeed, most of
    those of higher standing.


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


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

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

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



Mature Science Respects Faith.


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


    “Theism in natural science, or, if you prefer, in natural
    philosophy,” so says a modern scientist, “rests upon the basis of
    a fundamental view which an old formula has clothed in words as
    simple as they are sublime: ‘I believe in God, the Almighty
    Creator of Heaven and of Earth.’ This confession does not cling to
    theistic scientists like an egg-shell from the time of
    unsophisticated childhood faith; it is the result of their entire
    scientific thought and judgment. This conviction has been
    professed by the most discerning natural scientists of all ages”
    (_J. Reinke_, Naturwissenschaft und Religion).


Still it cannot be denied that some of the great scientists were of
different mind, men like _R. von Virchow_, _Tyndall_, _A. von Humboldt_,
_Du Bois-Reymond_. Nor shall it be disputed that, at the present time, a
large number of men of average learning are on the side of unbelief.
However, it must not be forgotten that unbelief is more frequently
pretended to the outside world for appearance’s sake than it really dwells
in the heart. This is, to a great extent, due to human respect, to public
opinion, and the prevailing tendency of science. Then again, it must be
remembered, that religiously minded scientists are often crowded out from
the schools of science, with the natural result that the others
predominate. Another point to be borne in mind is that the atheistic
representatives of science are doing more to get themselves talked about;
they are seeking more diligently the attention of public opinion. Men like
_Tyndall_, _Vogt_, _Moleschott_, _Haeckel_, are known in larger circles
than men like _Faraday_, _Maxwell_, _Ampère_, _Volta_, _Pasteur_, who,
engaged in serious work, gave no time to making propaganda, as the others
did by lecturing and popular writing for materialistic and monistic views
in the name of science; they had no desire for the limelight of attention,
and for posing as personified science.

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

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

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

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



THIRD SECTION. THE LIBERAL FREEDOM OF RESEARCH.



The Yoke of the Sun.


The gifted Danish writer and convert, _J. Jörgensen_, tells a parable
which is pregnant with thought. “In the midst of a large rye-field,” he
relates, “there stood a tall poplar, with other trees standing nearby. One
day the poplar turned to the other trees and plants, and thus began to
speak: ‘Sisters and brothers! To us, the glorious tribe of plants, belongs
the earth, and everything upon it is dependent on us. We fertilize and
feed ourselves, while beasts and men are fed and clothed by us. Indeed,
the earth itself feeds upon our decaying leaves, upon our boughs and
branches. There is only one power in the world our existence and growth is
said to depend on; I refer to the Sun. I purposely used the words, “is
said,” because I am sure that we do not depend on the Sun. This doctrine
of sunlight being a necessity and a benefit to our plant life is nothing
but a superstition, which at last ought to give way to enlightenment.’
Here the poplar paused. From some old oaks and elms in the neighbouring
grove there came signs of disapproval, but the inconstant rye-field
muttered assent. Thus encouraged and raising its voice the poplar
continued: ‘I know well that there is a musty faction amongst us which
clings obstinately to obsolete views. However, I have confidence in the
independence of the younger generation of plants. They will realize the
baseness of continuing to do homage to an absurd superstition. Our
freeborn heads shall never bow to a yoke, not even to the yoke of the Sun.
Down, therefore, with that yoke! And free from restraint there will arise
a free and beautiful generation that will astonish the world.’ The poplar
paused for the second time, and now the applause was long and loud, the
fields cheered and the groves gave boisterous applause, so that the
disapproval of a few old trees could not be heard. The following days
looked upon an odd spectacle. At daybreak, when the Sun ascended and cast
its first rays over the landscape, the flowers closed their cups and
denied admission, as if asleep; the leaves no longer turned toward the
Sun. But when the dispenser of warmth and light had gone down behind the
hills, the gayly coloured flowers opened in the dim starlight, as if now
the time had come for them to grow and blossom.

“Alas, how sad was the fate of these poor rebels! The rye soon began to
languish till it lay prone on the ground; green leaves turned yellow, the
flowers drooped, faded and withered. Then the plants began to grumble at
the poplar. There it stood, its leaves a seared yellow. ‘What simpletons
you are, brothers and sisters!’ it said. ‘Can’t you see that now you are
much more like yourselves than under the rule of the Sun? Now you are
refined, independent beings, well rid of the sluggish health of yore.’
There were some who still believed what the poplar said. ‘We are
independent, we are unfettered,’ they clamoured, till the last spark of
life was gone. Not long after the poplar, too, stood there with its
branches bared,—it had died. The farmers, however, complained about the
failing of the crop, and consoled themselves by hoping for better success
the next year.”

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

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

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

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

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



Chapter I. Free From The Yoke Of The Supernatural.



Ignoramus, We Ignore.


The liberal principle of research rests on the basis of the humanitarian
view of the world, which makes man autonomous, and causes him to turn his
eyes from above and downward, and to fix them upon his earthly existence.
To remain true to its own idea, this liberal science will feel the
necessity to sever itself gradually from the restraining powers of the
world beyond, and to shun the thought of God and of His divine influence
and supremacy over the world and human life. It must resent such truths as
a burdensome yoke that oppresses human freedom.

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

At the same time the _unprepossession of this science_ will be made clear.
“A feeling of degradation pervades the German university circles,” so the
learned _Mommsen_ expressed himself some years ago when Strassburg was to
get a Catholic chair of history; therefore a Catholic who takes his
Catholic view of the world as his guide cannot be unprepossessed, hence
cannot be a true scientist. We have become used to this reproach;
nevertheless it is very painful to a Catholic, especially when he devotes
his life to scientific work. The other side claims very emphatically to
have a monopoly on unprepossession and truthfulness; it gives most solemn
assurances of not desiring anything but the truth, of serving the truth
alone, with persevering unselfishness, unaffected by disposition and party
interest, and that it has its unbiassed spiritual eye turned only to the
chaste sunlight of truth. Hence, we may be permitted to inquire whether
these assurances square with the facts. As they demand belief, we may also
demand proofs; and if those assurances are accompanied by sharp
accusations, the accused will have even a greater right to examine the
deeds and records of this assertive science.

What about the unprepossession of liberal science, especially in the
province of philosophy and religion? It cannot be our intention to explore
the whole territory in every direction. We shall keep to the central and
main road, the road to which chiefly lead all other roads of life, we mean
the attitude of this school of research towards the world beyond. We find
this attitude to be one of persistent ignoring! Science cannot acknowledge
the supernatural; this presumption, unproved and impossible of proof, it
never loses sight of, it is even made a scientific principle, which is
called:



The Principle of Exclusive Natural Causation.


This principle demands that everything belonging to nature in its widest
sense, consequently all objects and events of irrational nature and of
human life, must be explained by natural causes only; supernatural factors
must not be brought in. To assume an interposition by God, in the form of
creation, miracle, or revelation, is unscientific; he who does so is not a
true scientist. A presumption, a mandate of truly stupendous enormity! How
can it be proved that there is no God, that creation, miracles, the
supernatural origin of religion, are impossible things? And if they are
possible, why should it be forbidden to make use of them in explaining
facts which cannot otherwise be explained?

However, it is readily admitted that the principle is merely a postulate,
an _unproved_ presumption.


    “The postulate of exclusive natural causation tells us that
    natural events can have their causes only in other natural events,
    and not in conditions lying outside of the continuity of natural
    causality”; so _W. Wundt_. This is a “postulate, accepted by
    modern natural science partly tacitly, partly by open profession.”
    “Even where an exact deduction is not possible, natural science
    nevertheless acts under this supposition. It never will consider a
    natural event to be causally explained, if it is attempted to
    derive that event from other conditions than preceding natural
    events.”

    Professor _Jodl_ protests against alliance with the Catholic
    Church, for the reason that the latter does not acknowledge the
    fundamental presumption of all scientific research, namely, the
    uninterrupted natural causation, and because the Church is
    essentially founded on supernatural presumptions. Prof. _A.
    Messer_ thinks he has proved sufficiently the untenableness of the
    Catholic faith by the simple appeal to this presumption: “Natural
    sciences rest upon the presumption that everything is causally
    determined. This means, that the same causes must be followed by
    the same effects, and all natural events take their course
    according to invariable laws. It is against this presumption that
    the Church exacts a belief in miracles, in immediate divine
    manifestations, not explainable by natural causes. _God_ is not a
    causal factor in the eyes of natural science, because everything,
    and for that very reason, nothing, could be explained through
    Him.” We see that the principle is expressly admitted to be a mere
    presumption. “I concede readily,” says _Paulsen_, “that the law of
    natural causation is not a proven fact, but a demand or
    presumption with which reason approaches the task of explaining
    natural phenomena. But this postulate ... is the hard-fought
    victory of long scientific effort.... Gradually there were
    eliminated from the course of nature demoniacal influence and the
    miraculous intervention of God, and in their stead the idea of
    natural causation was installed.”


It is merely another expression for the same thing if one calls, with
_Paulsen_, the unbroken causal connection “the fundamental presumption of
all our natural research”; or concludes, with _A. Drews_, that the
assumption of a transcendental God, beyond the visible, and in causal
relation to the world, destroys the universal conformity to laws in the
world, the self-evident presumption of all scientific knowledge; or one
may say, with _F. Steudel_, “The theory of unbroken causal connection has
become the fundamental presupposition of all philosophical explanation of
world happenings. This finally disposes of a transcendental God, together
with his empiric correlative, the miracle, as a philosophical explanation
of the world.” The same result is achieved by declaring evolution from
natural factors as the universal world-law.

“_I Know not God the Father, Almighty Creator of Heaven and of Earth_”

With inexorable persistency this principle is now applied wherever science
meets with God and the world beyond. Hence, let us proceed on our way and
halt at some points to watch this science at work.

The unbiassed reasoning of the mind shows that this world, limited and
finite, in all its phenomena accidental and perishable, cannot have in
itself the cause of its existence, hence, that it demands a supernatural
creative cause. This solution of the question is by no means demonstrated
by liberal science as untenable, it is simply declined.


    “Natural science, once for all, has not the least occasion to
    assume a supernatural act of creation”; this we are told by the
    famous historian of materialism, _F. A. Lange_. “To fall back upon
    explanations of this sort amounts always to straying from
    scientific grounds, which not only is not permissible in a
    scientific investigation, but should never enter into
    consideration.” And _L. Plate_ states: “A creation of matter we
    cannot assume, nor would such an assumption be any explanation at
    all; at most, it would be tantamount to exchanging one question
    mark for another. We natural scientists are modest enough, as
    matters now stand, to forego a further solution of the question.”
    They will subscribe to _Du Bois-Reymond’s_ “ignoramus” rather than
    assume the only solution of the question, an act of creation. This
    scientist, asking himself the question, from where the
    world-matter received its first impulse, argues: “Let us try to
    imagine a primordial condition, where matter had not yet been
    influenced by any cause, and we arrive at the conclusion that
    matter an infinite time ago was inactive, and equally distributed
    in infinite space. Since a supernatural impulse does not fit into
    our theory of the universe, an adequate cause for the first action
    is lacking.”


Thus they frankly violate the scientific method that demands acceptance of
the explanation demonstrated as necessary, and violate it only for the
reason to dodge the acknowledgment of a Creator. This is not science, but
politics.

But let us ask, Why should it be against science to reckon with
supernatural factors? Is it because we cannot disclose with certainty the
other world? Are they not aware that such a principle is opposed by the
conviction of all mankind, that always held these conceptions to be the
highest, and therefore not to be considered illusions? Do they not see,
moreover, how they involve themselves in flagrant contradictions? Does not
science by means of its laws of reasoning, especially on the principle of
causality, constantly infer invisible causes from visible facts? From
physical-chemical facts ether and physical atoms, which no man has ever
seen, are deduced: from falling stones and the movement of astral bodies
is inferred a universal gravitation, undemonstrable by experience; from an
anonymous letter is deduced an author. The astronomer deduces from certain
facts that fixed stars must have dark companions, visible to no one; from
disturbances in the movements of Uranus _Leverrier_ found by calculation
the existence and location of Neptune, then not as yet discovered. Hence,
what does it mean: “to fall back upon explanations of this sort always
amounts to straying away from scientific ground”? Let us imagine a noble
vessel on the high seas to have become the victim of a catastrophe. It
lies now at the bottom of the sea. Fishes come from all sides and stop
musingly before the strange visitor. Whence did this come? Was it made out
of water? Impossible! Did it creep up from the bottom of the sea? No! At
last a fish reasons: “What we see here has undoubtedly come down to us
from a higher world, far above us, and invisible to us.” The speech meets
with approval. But another fish objects: “Nonsense! To fall back upon
explanations of this sort always amounts to straying away from the
scientific grounds on which we fish must stand. We cannot assume such a
world to exist, because this would offend against the first principle of
our science, the principle of the exclusive natural causation of sea and
water.” With these words the speaker departs, wagging his tail, his speech
having been received with stupefaction rather than with understanding.

To this philosophy may be applied the word of the Apostle: “Beware lest
any man cheat you by philosophy and vain deceit” (Col. ii. 8). No, it is
not the spirit of true science that opposes the belief in supernatural
factors, but it is the desertion of the traditions and the spirit of a
better science. To the representatives of paganism, to _Plato_ and others,
the highest goal of human quest of truth was to find God and to worship
Him. For the great leaders in recent natural science, _Copernicus_,
_Kepler_, _Newton_, _Linné_, _Boyle_,_ Volta_, _Faraday_, and _Maxwell_,
the highest achievement was to point to God’s wisdom in the wonderful
works of nature; their science ended in prayer. A principle of unbroken
natural causation, as a boycott of the Deity, was to them not a postulate
of science but an abomination. They were carried by a conviction expressed
by a later scientist, _W. Thomson_, in the following words: “Fear not to
be independent thinkers! If you think vigorously enough, you will be
forced by science to believe in a God, Who is the basis of all religion”;
and expressed by _R. Mayer_ in the following words: “True philosophy must
not and cannot be anything else but the propædeutics of the Christian
religion.”

But let us proceed. We have before us an astonishing _order_, we behold
uncounted wonders of well-designed purpose in the world. The question
suggests itself: Whence this Order? The watch originates from the
intelligence of a maker, an accident could not have produced it; hence
also the great world-machine must have had an intelligent maker. This is
the logic of unbiassed reason. But the principles of liberal research
object to the acceptance of this explanation. What is theirs?


    There have been some scientists endeavouring to discover the
    purposeless in nature, and they have gleaned various things.
    _Haeckel_ invented for them the name Dysteleologists; and this is
    now the name they go by. Why the destruction of so many living
    embryos? What is the purpose of pain, of the vermiform appendix?
    “To what purpose is the immense belt of desert extending through
    both large continents of the Old World? Could the Sahara not have
    been avoided?... Indeed, numerous forms of life we cannot look at
    but with repugnance and horror; for instance, the parasitical
    beings.” ... (_F. Paulsen_). Hence the order claimed for the world
    does not exist, on the contrary, “it is beyond doubt that the most
    essential means of nature is of a kind which can only be put on a
    level with the blindest accident” (_F. A. Lange_). But they do not
    feel satisfied with this. They feel that even if all these things
    were actually purposeless, they would amount only to a few drops
    in the immense ocean of order which still has to be explained. At
    most, they would form but a few typographical errors in an
    otherwise ingenious book,—errors that evidently are no proof that
    the whole book is a mass of nonsense and not dictated by reason.


There appears to them, like a rescuing plank in a shipwreck, _Darwin’s_
Natural Selection. The artistic forms in the kingdom of plants and animals
arose, says _Darwin_, by the fact that, among numerous seemingly tentative
formations, there were some useful organs or their rudiments which
survived in the struggle for existence and became hereditary in the
offspring, while others disappeared. It was seen very soon, and it is even
better understood to-day, that this enormous feat of “natural selection”
is contrary to the facts, and would be, above all, an incredible accident.
Nevertheless _Darwin_ has become the rescuing knight for many who became
alarmed about the threatening Supernaturalism.


    _Du Bois-Reymond_ speaks very frankly: “Albeit, in holding to this
    theory we may feel like a man kept from drowning only by holding
    firmly to a plank just strong enough to keep him afloat. But when
    we have to choose between a plank and death, the preference will
    decidedly be with the plank.” The same idea is expressed somewhat
    more gracefully by _W. Ostwald_: “That the quite complicated
    problem concerning the purposiveness of organism loses its
    character of a riddle, at least in principle, and assumes the
    aspect of a scientific task, all by virtue of this simple thought
    ... is a gain that cannot be sufficiently appreciated.” With
    vehement plainness _H. Spitzer_ maintains: “Purposiveness in
    nature, which was feared by positive research like a ghost,
    because it really seemed only to be due to the intervention of
    ghosts in the course of the world, has now been traced by _Darwin_
    to its origin from natural causes, and he thereby made it a fit
    object for the science that is at home only in the sphere of
    natural causes.” “To the height of this point of view,” _D. F.
    Strauss_ boasts, “we have been led by modern natural research in
    _Darwin_.”(8)

    At any rate one thing is settled: “The theological explanation
    must be rejected,” as _Plate_ puts it. “It sees in adaptation the
    proof for the love and kindness of a Creator, who has ordered all
    organisms most conformable to their purpose. Natural Science
    cannot accept such an explanation.”


Is this the boasted spirit of truthfulness, which desires only the
truth,—but is evading it persistently? Is this that unbiassed eye that
seeks only the truth? Truly, it seems to be unsound, since it cannot bear
the rays of truth. Let us go to another workshop of liberal science. It is
known now that our earth has once been a ball of glowing fluid, with a
temperature in which no living being could exist. Consequently the latter
must have appeared at a later stage of evolution. As a fact, palæontology
does not show any remnants of organisms in the lower strata of the earth.
Now again a question suggests itself to the scientist, _Whence did the
first life come from?_ We have the choice of only two explanations: either
it has risen by itself, out of unorganic, dead matter, or it was produced
by the hand of a Creator: either by _generatio aequivoca_ or the act of
creation. Now there has never been observed a _generatio aequivoca_, as is
testified to by natural science itself, and never has it been accomplished
in the laboratory. Therefore, inasmuch as the natural laws of olden times
cannot have been any different from those of the present, there has never
been a primordial genesis. Do they perhaps give the Creator his due here,
where the case is so obvious? Let us see.


    The noted zoölogist, _R. Hertwig_, writes: “Inasmuch as there has
    doubtless been a time when the prevailing temperature of our globe
    made any life impossible, there must have been a time when life on
    it arose either by an act of creation or by primordial genesis.
    If, conformable to the spirit of natural sciences, we are relying
    only on natural forces for an explanation of natural phenomena,
    then we are necessarily led to the hypothesis of primordial
    genesis,” although it contradicts all experience. But the
    deduction is only brought forth as a “logical postulate”: there
    “must” be such genesis after creation is eliminated. “We natural
    scientists say,” states _Plate_, “that all living beings must have
    originated some time in former geological periods ... from dead,
    unorganic matter; to assume a creation would be no explanation at
    all, exactly as it would be no explanation to assume the creation
    of matter.” Which philosophy teaches that it is not an explanation
    of a fact to assume for it the only reasonable cause? But just
    this cause they do not want. _Virchow_ says in this respect: “If I
    do not wish to assume a creative act, if I desire to explain the
    matter in my way, then it is clear that I must resort to
    _generatio aequivoca_. _Tertium non datur._ There is nothing else
    left, if one once has said: ‘I do not accept creation, but I want
    an explanation of it.’ If this is the first thesis, the second
    thesis is, ergo, I accept the _generatio aequivoca_. _But we have
    no actual proof of it._” Hence _Haeckel_ only follows the lead of
    others when he writes: “We admit that this process (_primordial
    genesis_) must remain a pure hypothesis, as long as it is not
    directly observed or duplicated by experiment. But I repeat that
    this hypothesis is indispensable for the entire coherence of the
    history of natural creation. Unless you accept the hypothesis of
    primordial genesis at this one point in the theory of evolution,
    you must take refuge in the miracle of a supernatural creation.”


Is this science, or is it not rather Theophobia? Does the freedom of
science consist, first of all, in the privilege of emancipating one’s self
from truth, whenever truth is not to one’s taste? True, liberal science
will then be free from distasteful truths, but all the more shackled by
its irreligious prejudices.

In modern times, the _theory of evolution_ is in high favour. On earth we
do not only see life, but life in a great variety of forms, from plant to
man. The question, whence this variety, admits in its turn only of the
alternative: either it was immediately created by God’s hand, or it is the
result of a slow evolution from common original forms. Whether there has
been an evolution within the vegetable and animal kingdom is a problem for
natural science. But it is a philosophical question, whether the
essentially superior human soul, endowed with spirituality and reason,
could have evolved from the inferior animal soul. Philosophy must answer:
No, just as impossible as to evolve ten from two, or a whole book from a
single proofsheet. Faith says the human soul is created by God. We do not
intend to discuss the problem here any further, but shall only point out
how science here, too, expressly or tacitly, is determined very
energetically by the presumption of the exclusive natural causation; this
is applied to the entire theory of evolution, but especially in regard to
man.


    “The notion of the evolution of the living world on earth,” thus
    states _Weismann_ quite significantly, “extends far beyond the
    provinces of individual sciences, and it influences our entire
    range of thoughts. This notion means nothing less than the
    elimination of miracle from our knowledge of nature, and the
    classification of the phenomena of life on an equal footing with
    the rest of natural events.” The guiding motive is plainly in
    evidence.


The aim to eliminate the “miracle of creation” is manifested even more
conspicuously in the question about the origin of man: man with his entire
equipment, intellectual as well as cultural, must have evolved upward from
the most imperfect rudiments; this is regarded as a self-evident
proposition.


    _M. Hoernes_, for instance, writes: “The Cosmogonies, _i.e._, the
    theories of creation, of all nations ascribe the origin of man to
    a supernatural act of creation, whereby the Creator is imagined as
    a human being, because at the intellectual stage corresponding to
    these notions something created could only be conceived as
    something formed, something constructed.” Thus the theory of
    creation, and the Christian doctrine of the genesis of man, is
    disposed of as a notion of the lower intellect. “On the contrary,
    we are taught by science to look upon the highest mammals as our
    nearest blood-relatives.” This “we are taught by science,”
    although it is confessed: “We know the fact of the existence of
    the man of the fourth, or glacial, period, but we have not a
    solitary fact that would throw light upon his origin and his
    previous existence.”

    “The theory of miracles can be given up only when we shall cease
    to contemplate man as a creature apart from the rest of creation,
    and look upon him as a being developed within creation to what he
    is now. Then, however, reason and language, as well as man
    himself, are the products of a continuous evolution,” says _Wundt_
    in his “Psychology of Nations.” _Fr. Müller_, in a text-book on
    the science of language, argues: “According to _Darwin_ and to
    modern natural science, man was not created but has evolved from a
    lower organism during a process of thousands and thousands of
    years.... For this reason, we must (?) assume that the first
    language of primitive man could not have ranked above the speech
    by which animals living in families communicate with each other.”

    On the basis of this truly dogmatical presumption, that the
    “miracle theory” of creation must not be accepted, they proceed
    then to construe one hypothesis upon another, of the origin of
    language, of thought, of conscience, of religion, according to the
    method of _Darwin_ and _Spencer_, hypotheses of utmost
    arbitrariness, and frequently most fantastic. “Ethnographical
    researches,” so we are told by _E. Lehmann_, “made by travellers,
    representatives of science and of practical life, in all parts of
    the globe, ... are starting to-day, almost without exception, from
    the tacit presumption that the civilization of peoples living in
    the primitive state represent an early and low stage in a
    historical chain of evolution.”


All these are suitable commentaries upon the trite proposition that
natural science, or more generally science, is incompatible with religious
belief. Of course research, like that described above, does not agree with
Faith. But the fault lies in its unscientific method, rather than in its
scientific character, in its latent atheistic presumption which prevents
an unbiassed conception of truth.


    In February, 1907, the well-known biologist and priest of the
    Jesuit order, _E. Wasmann_, gave three lectures in Berlin on the
    theory of evolution, before a large audience; they were followed
    on the fourth evening by a discussion, in the course of which
    eleven opponents voiced for nearly three hours their objections
    and attacks, to which _Wasmann_ replied briefly at midnight, but
    little time having been allotted to him for this purpose.
    _Wasmann_, as well as his chief opponent, Prof. _Plate_ of Berlin,
    have published the arguments on both sides with notes, comments,
    and supplements. The report of Prof. _Plate_ lays stress upon the
    assertion, which had also formed the refrain of all opposing
    speeches, viz., “the discussion has shown, in the first place,
    that true research in natural science is impossible for those
    taking the position of the Roman Catholic Church; secondly, the
    glaring and irreconcilable opposition of the scientific theory of
    the world to the Orthodox-Christian view was sharply manifested.”
    In examining how this was demonstrated by this particular natural
    science, one meets with a painful surprise.

    Even the facts concerning the arrangements for the discussion make
    an unpleasant impression. It is true, _Plate_ accused _Wasmann_ of
    calumny on account of the latter’s complaint. However, upon
    comparing closely the statements of both, the following facts
    remain undisputed. _Wasmann_ notified _Plate_ that he desired to
    speak twice during the discussion, and that the entire discussion
    should not last much over two hours. _Plate_ promised to arrange
    matters accordingly. But on the forenoon of February 18th, the
    opponents held a meeting, _Plate_ presiding, and they resolved,
    without the least notification to _Wasmann_, that there should be
    eleven speakers against _Wasmann_, and that the latter should
    reply but once, at the end. Only just before the beginning of the
    discussion, the same evening, _Plate_ informed _Wasmann_ of the
    arrangement, making it practically impossible for the latter to
    change the situation. Furthermore, upon _Plate’s_ proposal, an
    intermission of five minutes before the appearance of the tenth
    speaker was decided upon, “in order to give those in the audience,
    who might find the session too exhausting, a chance to leave.”
    Thus the audience was to be subjected for three long hours to the
    influence of heated attacks on Theism, Christianity, and the
    Church, and without hearing the reply unless they held out from
    half-past eight in the evening to half-past twelve in the morning.

    _Plate’s_ Monism rejects principally everything metaphysical:
    “Monism is the short term for the natural science view of the
    world, that rejects all preternatural and supernatural ideas.”
    Solutions, not given by the natural sciences, simply do not exist
    for him; for him the sun sets on the horizon of his natural
    science. “Natural laws comprise all that we are able to fathom:
    what is behind them, or what is living in them and operates in
    them, is the ultimate question for philosophy, and there one
    thinks this way, another that way” (_Plate_). Nevertheless, he
    knows that “Out of nothing can come nothing: hence matter is
    eternal,” and he is certain that there is no personal God, no
    angel nor devil, no beyond nor immortality. Whoever fails to think
    the same way is no scientist, he is not even a man of sound
    reason: because “he who has grasped even the elements of natural
    science, the unity and strict conformity to law of the natural
    forces, and has a head for sound reasoning, will become a monist
    all by himself, while the rest are past help, anyhow.”

    “The Polytheism of the orthodox Church,” he says further,
    referring to the mystery of the Trinity, “is irrational”; for
    “Common Sense says that 3 is not equal to 1, nor 1 to 3,” and this
    is sufficient for _Plate_. “Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of
    God, Christ’s Ascension and His descent into hell, Original Sin,
    Redemption from sin by Christ’s sacrifice, Angels and Devils, the
    Immaculate Conception, the Infallibility of the Pope, all these
    and many other doctrines of the orthodox Church are thrown to the
    winds by anybody convinced of the permanence and imperviousness of
    the natural laws.” This again is sufficient for him. “The question
    whether God is personal or impersonal,” says he, in another place,
    “should never be raised: it is just as preposterous as the
    question whether God has eyes or not.” Another of his arguments
    reads: “If the body after death can become dust by natural means,
    then there must have been conditions under which the dust became
    by natural means a body.” An analogous argument would be: “If a
    book can of itself finally wear away into withered and loosened
    leaves, then there must be conditions under which the perfect book
    could originate all by itself, and without Prof. _Plate_, out of
    withered, loose leaves.”

    _Plate_ assures us: “I do not know anything about metaphysics.” We
    do not want to dispute that. It is regrettable that so many
    scientists of our times are betraying a pitiable lack of
    philosophical training, a lack which becomes a social danger if
    they, nevertheless, yield to the temptation to invade the domain
    of Philosophy. Even the Protestant scientist _G. Wobbermin_ in
    referring to the above-mentioned discussion remarked: “_Wasmann’s_
    opponents on that evening have betrayed without exception a really
    amazing lack of philosophical training.” In glaring contrast with
    this ignorance stands their intolerance for any different theory
    of the world. Because he thinks as a Christian, _Wasmann_ is
    peremptorily expelled from the ranks of natural scientists.
    “_Father Wasmann_ is not a true natural scientist, he is not a
    true scholar.” With this crushing verdict Prof. _Plate_ concluded
    his speech. He repeats this finding on the last page of his book
    in conspicuous type: “_Father Wasmann_, S. J., no true natural
    scientist, no true scholar.” That his opponent, in answer to
    questions that go beyond mere natural science, is giving
    philosophical replies, in accord with the doctrine of
    Christianity, is explained by “his voluntary or involuntary
    submission to the Church,” “natural science bows to Theology.” He
    therefore lacks “the freedom of thought and of deduction.”
    Sophistical stunts in the service of intolerance! But let us
    proceed on our way.


The compulsory dogma of the inadmissibility of a supernatural order of the
world, and of its operation in the visible world, becomes most manifest
when liberal science comes in contact with the miracle. Forsooth, it
shirks this contact. But time and again, now and in the past, it is
confronted by clearly attested facts and it cannot avoid noticing them.
However, it is determined from the outset that miracles are impossible. Of
course, this cannot be proved except by the presumption that there is no
supermundane God. Even the agnostic _Stuart Mill_ admits that if the
existence of God is conceded, an effect produced by His will, which in
every instance owes its origin to its creator, appears no longer as a
purely arbitrary hypothesis, but must be considered a serious possibility
(Essays, 1874). Generally, however, liberal science does not try hard to
demonstrate in a scientific way the impossibility.


    “It is my unyielding conviction,” so speaks _A. Harnack_, and his
    is perhaps the most telling expression of this dogmatic mood,
    “that anything that happens within time and space is subject to
    the laws of motion. Hence, that in this sense, _i.e._, of
    interrupting the natural connection, there cannot be any
    miracles.” One simply does not believe such things. “That a
    tempest at sea,” thus _Harnack_ again, “could have been stilled by
    a word we do not believe, nor shall we ever again believe it.”
    Similarly reads _Baumgarten’s_ declaration regarding the
    resurrection of Christ: “Even if all the reports had been written
    on the third day, and had been transmitted to us as a certainty
    ... nevertheless modern consciousness could not accept the story.”
    And _W. Foerster_ writes: “The supposition that such interferences
    do not occur, and that everything in the world is advancing
    steadily and in accordance with fixed laws, forms the
    indispensable presumption of scientific research.” And _H. von
    Sybel_ holds “An absolute concord with the laws of evolution, a
    common level in the existence of things terrestrial, forms the
    presumption of all knowledge: it stands and falls with it.”


This is the presumption, from which is drawn the most extravagant
conclusion, which, though so manifestly improper, is made the basis for
rejecting the entire supernatural religion of Christianity. Because God’s
Incarnate Son, in a small town of Palestine, once turned water into wine,
will the Christian housewife lose her confidence in the stability of
water? When it was suddenly discovered that the orbit of the planet Uranus
was not a perfect ellipsis, as required by the law of _Kepler_, was it
thought that these deviations are impossible because there must not be any
exception to the law of perfect elliptical movements? Happily, this law
continued to be accepted without deeming an irregularity impossible, and
shortly afterwards Neptune was discovered and found to be the cause of the
disturbance. But anything miraculous, no matter how well proven, must be
considered unacceptable by reason of such unsound presumption.
Philosophical a-priorism is superior to facts.


    Thus _St. Augustine_ tells in his work “De civitate Dei” (1. xxii.
    c. 8) of a number of miracles happening in his time, of which he
    had knowledge either as eye-witness or by authentical reports from
    eye-witnesses. _E. Zeller_ renders judgment on the historical
    value of the statement as follows: “The narrator is a
    contemporary, and partly even an eye-witness, of the events
    reported: by virtue of his episcopal office he is particularly
    commissioned to closely investigate them; we know him as a man
    overtowering his contemporaries in intellect and knowledge, second
    to none in religious zeal, strong faith, and moral earnestness.
    The wonderful events happened to well-known persons, sometimes in
    the presence of big crowds of people; they were attested and
    recorded by official order.” Hence the statement must be accepted
    without objection. But must it not also be believed? is the query
    of an unbiassed listener. Not in the judgment of one who is in the
    tyrannical yoke of his presumptions. “What are we to say about
    it?” continues _Zeller_, and finds that “in this unparalleled
    aggregation of miracles we can after all see nothing else but a
    proof of the credulity of that age.” The report is incontestable,
    but it must not be believed!

    In our times _Lourdes_ has become the scene of events which are
    founded on facts, and the miraculous character has been proven at
    least of some of them. _Bertrin_, in his “Histoire critique des
    evénéments de Lourdes,” deals with the attitude of the physicians
    toward the miracles. The believing physician can enter upon his
    investigation without prejudice: not so the unbelieving physician
    and scientist, who is shackled by his prejudice against the
    possibility of miracles. Of this a few examples:

    “How did you get cured?” was the question put by a physician to a
    young woman who, after having suffered for four years from a
    suppurating inflammation of the hip joints, complicated by caries,
    had a few days previously suddenly regained her full health. Pains
    and sores had disappeared. “By whom was I cured? By the Blessed
    Virgin!” “Never mind the Blessed Virgin,” replied the physician.
    “Young woman, why don’t you admit that you had been assured in
    advance that you would get well. You were told that, once in
    Lourdes, you would suddenly rise from the box wherein you were
    lying. That sort of thing happens—we call it suggestion.” The girl
    replied, unhesitatingly, that it did not happen this way at all.
    Finally the physician offered her money if she would admit having
    really been cured by suggestion. The girl declined the
    offer.—Another girl arrived in Lourdes, with a physician’s
    attestation that she was a consumptive. She is cured after the
    first bath. At the bureau of verification her lungs were found to
    be no longer diseased. Her physician’s statement having been very
    brief, a telegram was sent to him as a matter of precaution,
    asking him for another statement without, however, informing him
    of the cure. The physician immediately wired back: “She is a
    consumptive.” This was also the opinion of other physicians who
    had treated the girl. The girl joyfully returns home, and hurries
    to her physician, requesting him to certify to her cure. He does
    so quite reluctantly. Upon reading his certificate, she discovers
    that it said she had been cured, but only of a _cough_. The case
    of consumption of his original testimonial had changed into a
    cough. His dread of a miracle had induced this physician to commit
    a falsehood.

    _A. Rambacher_, as he relates in a pamphlet, sent the scientific
    treatise on Lourdes by Dr. _Boissarie_ to Prof. _Haeckel_, with
    the request to read it, in order to gain a better notion of the
    existence of a supernatural world. After some urging he finally
    received the following reply, which speaks volumes for the
    attitude of the natural scientist towards facts: “With many thanks
    I hereby return the book by Dr. _Boissarie_ on the Great Cures of
    Lourdes which you sent me. The perusal of the same has convinced
    me anew of the tremendous power of superstition (glorified as
    ‘pious belief’) of naïve credulity (without critical examination),
    and of contagious collective suggestion, as well as of the cunning
    of the clergy, exploiting them for their gain.... The physicians,
    said to testify in behalf of the ‘miracles’ and the supernatural
    phenomena, are either ignorant and undiscerning quacks, or
    positive frauds in collusion with the priests. The most accurate
    description of the gigantic swindle of Lourdes I know of, is that
    of _Zola_ in his well-known novel.... With repeated thanks for
    your kindness ... _Ernst Haeckel_.” Against all the facts in
    evidence this dogmatic scientist was safely intrenched behind the
    stone wall of his presumptions. He knew in advance that everything
    was superstition or the fraud of cunning priests, that all
    physicians who certified to cures were quacks and cheats. _Zola’s_
    tendentious romance considered the best historical source! Mention
    should be made here how this celebrated novelist dealt with facts
    at Lourdes. In the year 1892, the time of the great pilgrimage,
    _Zola_ went to Lourdes. He wanted to observe and then tell what he
    had seen. An historical novel it was to be; time and again he had
    proclaimed in the newspapers that he would tell the whole truth.
    At Lourdes all doors were opened to him; he had admittance
    anywhere; he could interview and obtain explanations at will. How
    he kept his promise to report the truth may be shown by a single
    instance: _Marie Lebranchu_ came to Lourdes on August 20, 1892,
    suffering from incurable consumption. She was suddenly cured, and
    never had a relapse. One year after her cure she returned to the
    miraculous Grotto. The excellent condition of her lungs was again
    verified. Now, what does _Zola_ make of this event? In his novel
    the cured girl suffers a terrible relapse upon her first return
    home, “a brutal return of the disease which remained victorious,”
    we read in _Zola’s_ book. One day, the president of the Lourdes
    Bureau of Investigation introduced himself to _Zola_ in Paris, and
    asked him “How dare you let _Marie Lebranchu_ die in your novel;
    you know very well that she is alive and just as well as you and
    I.” “What do I care,” was _Zola’s_ reply, “I think I have the
    right to do as I please with the characters I create.” If a
    romancer desires to avail himself of this privilege he certainly
    has not the right to proclaim his novels as truthful historical
    writings, much less may others see in such a novel the “most
    accurate description of the events at Lourdes.”

    _Renan_ at one time said: “Oh, if we just once might have a
    miracle brought before professional scientists! But, alas! this
    will never happen!” He borrowed this saying from _Voltaire_, with
    the difference that the latter demanded God to perform a miracle
    before the Academy of Sciences, as if there were need for miracles
    in a physical or chemical laboratory. Those who desire in earnest
    to investigate miracles ought to go where they are performed. And
    even there, where the eyes can see them, it also takes good will
    to acknowledge them. In this respect an interview is instructive
    which _Zola_ once had with an editor. The latter asked: “If you
    were witness to a miracle, that would occur under strictest
    conditions suggested by yourself, would you acknowledge the
    miracle? Would you then accept the teachings of the faith?” After
    a few moments of serious thought, _Zola_ replied: “I do not know,
    but I do not believe I would” (_Bertrin_). On April 7, 1875, there
    came to the Belgian sanctuary, Oostacker, a Flemish labourer, by
    name _Peter de Rudder_, whose leg had eight years before been
    broken below the knee, and who was then suffering from two
    suppurating cancerous sores, that had formed at the place of the
    fracture and on the foot. He suddenly was entirely cured. The case
    was investigated in a most exact way. In 1900 a treatise
    concerning the case was published by three physicians. _E.
    Wasmann_ had as early as 1900 published a short extract of it in
    the “Stimmen aus Maria Laach.” In February, 1907, when, at Berlin,
    he delivered his lectures which were followed by a discussion, his
    opponents, headed by Prof. _Plate_, did not know of this article.
    When they learned of it, some time afterwards, he was put under
    the ban because he “had degraded himself to the position of a
    charlatan by vouching with his scientific repute for the happening
    of a miraculous cure”; and they said “they would fight him in the
    same way as they would fight every quack, but as a scientist he
    was discarded.” _Plate_ had on the evening of the discussion asked
    of the assembled scientists the question: “Have we ever observed
    anything like a suspension of the natural laws? The reply to it is
    an unconditional ‘we have not’; consequently Theism becomes
    inadmissible to the natural scientist.” Here, in the _de Rudder_
    case, is found the required instance. But _Plate_ knows, in
    advance of any investigation, that it is a fairy tale, believed
    without critical examination. And Prof. _Hansemann_, another
    opposing speaker of that evening, subsequently sent word to
    _Wasmann_ that: “One can pretty well judge what to think of a
    natural scientist who publishes such stuff. For this reason I now
    declare that I shall never in future, no matter how or where,
    enter into discussion of matters of natural science with Mr.
    _Wasmann_.” When on a certain occasion _Hegel_ was advised that
    some facts did not agree with his philosophical notions, he
    replied: “The more pity for the facts.”


The English natural scientist, _W. Thomson_, once said before the British
Society at Edinburgh: “Science is bound by eternal honour to face
fearlessly every problem that can be clearly laid before it.” The equally
famous _Faraday_, in the name of empirical research, demands of its
adherents the determination to stand or to fall with the results of a
direct appeal to the facts in the first place, and with the strict logical
deductions therefrom in the second. In general these principles are
adhered to so long as religious notions are not encountered. But as soon
as these are sighted, the engine is reversed, and all scientific
principles are forgotten.

A science led by this spirit will set out to emancipate man’s moral
conduct of life from God and religion. Indeed, the first postulate of
modern ethics directs that _morality_ must be _independent of religion_.
That God and eternal salvation is the end of man, the ultimate norm of his
moral life, that God’s Command is the ultimate reason of the moral
obligation, and divine sanction its strongest support, it does not want to
acknowledge. Here, too, we find the principle of natural causality in
operation. “As in physics God’s will must not be made to serve as an
explanation, so likewise in the theory of moral phenomena. Both the
natural and the moral world, as they exist, may point beyond themselves to
something transcendental. But we cannot admit the transcendental ... a
scientific explanation will have to be wholly immanent, and
anthropological” (_Paulsen_). According to this approved principle of
ignoration, the supreme aim and law of a morality without religion is
_man_, his earthly happiness, and his culture.


    Its aims, according to Prof. _Jodl_, one of its noted champions,
    are: “Promotion of moral life, fostering of a refined humanity,
    development of a true fellow-feeling, without the religious and
    metaphysical notions upon which mankind hitherto has mostly built
    its ethical ideals.” _Kant_ was the pioneer here: “In so far as
    morality is based on the conception of man as a free, being, it
    requires neither the idea of a superior being to make him
    cognizant of his duties, nor any motive but the law itself in
    order to observe it ... hence morality for its own sake does not
    by any means need religion.” This is the viewpoint of the
    autonomous man, who is his own law. “From the viewpoint of
    authority,” so tells us _E. von Hartmann_, “autonomy does not mean
    anything else but that in ethical matters I am for myself the
    highest court without appeal.... The God, Who in the beginning
    spoke to His children from a fiery cloud ... has descended into
    our bosom, and, transformed into our own being, speaks out of us
    as a moral autonomy.” _Diis extinctis successit humanitas._


“Although an individual representative of science may be a believer in God
in his private life,” so argues the English philosopher, _W. James_, “at
any rate the times have passed when it could be said that the heavens
announce to science the glory of God, and that the heaven shows the works
of His hands.” The flight from divinity, atheism open or disguised, is the
psychological effect of the liberal principle. Free thought aims to free
man of all authority, it aims at severing from religion his entire
existence, marriage, state, schools, and likewise science. “It is
undeniable,” we hear from the lips of champions of modern man, standing on
the pinnacle of religious liberalism, “that there is a certain
forsakenness in this existence of man, as compared to a life brightened by
the idea of a God,” but that forsakenness is not purchased too dearly, for
“it is the solitude of autonomy, a possession so precious that no price
for it could be too high” (_Carneri_).

Indeed, these modern men use even plainer language: science is applauded
for having at last freed man from God. With _Kant’s_ principle that we
cannot know anything of the supernatural, we are told, there “were thrown
overboard the cosmogonic notions of the Semitic races, notions that have
so severely oppressed our science and religion, and are still oppressing
them.... By this insight an idol is smashed. In a previous chapter I
called the Israelites the worshippers of abstract idols; now, I believe, I
shall be fully understood.” Indeed, we understand. It means: Away with
God. “This German metaphysics frees us from idolatry and reveals to us the
living divinity in our own bosom” (_Chamberlain_).

This is the manner in which this free thought, within science and without,
is fulfilling the earnest admonition of the Psalmist: “Seek ye the Lord
and be strengthened: seek His face evermore” (Ps. civ. 4), and it turns
into irony the words: “This is the generation of them that seek Him, of
them that seek the face of the God of Jacob” (Ps. xxiii. 6).



“I Know not Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son, Our Lord.”


Where the thought of independence and of this world enslaves the minds,
and holds them captive in harsh aversion to the supernatural, an objective
judgment on the nature and history of the Christian religion, to say
nothing of the Catholic Church, can hardly be hoped for. What may be
expected is that we will also meet here with a science which, with its
hands held before the eye that fears the light, wards off and combats
everything that is specifically Christian. It is to be feared only that it
will turn light into darkness regarding the view of life, as also the
doctrine and history, of the Christian religion.

Regarding the Christian view of life we need only read the superficial and
yet so arrogant discussions of Christian philosophy, as found in
_Paulsen_, _Wundt_, or _E. von Hartmann_. From this judicial bench the
wisdom of Him, of Whom it is said “And we saw His glory, full of grace and
truth,” we see condemned, if not even treated with subtle ridicule.

Let us for instance take _Paulsen’s_ presentment of the “View of Life
under Christianity.” Whoever reads it, and believes it, to him the
teaching of Jesus Christ can only be, what the Apostle said it was to the
heathens, foolishness. No longer can he have adoration for its Founder,
but rather the pity that one has for an enthusiastic visionary devoid of
any knowledge of the world and men. The wisdom taught by Christ is
distorted into a sombre grimace, while side by side with it the conception
of life of Hellenic paganism is transfigured into a beautiful ideal.


    We are told there: “While classical antiquity saw as the task of
    life the perfect development of the natural powers and talents of
    man, ... Christianity with clear consciousness makes the contrary
    the goal of life.” “The cultivation and exercise of intellectual
    faculties was of great importance to the Greeks.... Primitive
    Christianity looks upon reason and natural cognition with
    indifference, even with suspicion and contempt ... indeed, natural
    reason and knowledge are an obstacle for the kingdom of God.
    Christianity at first was indifferent, even inimical, not only to
    philosophy and science, but also to art and poetry. It cuts off
    not only sensual but also æsthetical gratification,” because _St.
    John_ condemned the gratification of the eyes (which means
    something quite different from æsthetical gratification)
    Christianity is said to reject “the arts of the Muses and
    athletics: they belong to that sowing of the flesh of which the
    harvest is perdition.” “What the Christians valued highly was not
    erudition and eloquence, but silence. Silence is the first thing
    recommended by _Ambrose_” (and he the great and renowned
    representative of early Christian eloquence!). There is more: “In
    the primitive view the first virtue was valour, especially valour
    in war; indeed, in Greek and Latin speech the word ’virtue’ meant
    valour; the Christian’s virtue, however, is patience and
    endurance. He does not draw the sword; to him are expressly
    forbidden not only anger, hatred, and private revenge, but even
    litigation.”

    In this tendentious strain _Paulsen_ continues, with exaggerations
    and misrepresentations that have nothing in common with science.
    According to the Greek view, he says, high-mindedness was a great
    virtue, but, naturally, the Christian is not allowed to have it;
    “the virtue of the Christian is humility,” _i.e._, in _Paulsen’s_
    sense low-mindedness; this is “the starting point of
    Christianity.” True, the author assures us that Christianity of
    to-day is no longer the one he is describing; it has adapted
    itself more to the world. But it is sad to have this gloomy,
    visionary fanaticism described to us as the one which was taught
    by the words of Jesus Himself.

    The adherent of this Christianity looks upon governments and their
    aims as something essentially foreign to it, even to be an
    official “would doubtless have been felt as a contradiction”; but
    a sudden change is said to have taken place under _Constantine_.
    Earthly joys and benefits, the holy ties of the family, those that
    Jesus in person blessed at Cana, they were, according to _St.
    Paul_, so we are told, in the spirit of Christ things to avoid and
    condemn.

    And how are these theological discoveries proven, what sources are
    quoted in substantiation? By some arbitrarily selected passages of
    the Scriptures, that one must hate father and mother, wife and
    child, brother and sister; that the poor in spirit are blessed,
    that the lust of the eye is sinful, that evil should not be
    resisted; and in quoting these passages all scientific
    interpretation is carefully avoided, all the writers who have
    amply explained them are ignored. And what the scriptural passages
    fail to prove must be demonstrated by some extreme statement
    borrowed from _Tertullian_, who is generally prone to
    exaggeration. As a matter of course, gloomy Christianity then
    seems inferior to the brilliancy of Greek paganism; Christianity
    is directly a danger to civilization; it may be good enough for
    those tired of life. “The objection has been made that the
    fulfilment of this command would destroy our entire civilization.
    Most probably this would be the case. But where is it written (in
    Holy Writ) that our civilization must be preserved?” We have here
    the picture formed of the doctrine of Christ by the world, whereof
    the Lord has predicted: the world will hate you. _Paulsen_ admits
    frankly: “Whence this hatred? Because the Christian despises that
    which to the world is the highest good. There can be no better
    reason for hating any one....”

    It is easy to understand that one who has for a long time mentally
    abandoned his Christian faith, cannot carry in mind its picture as
    undistorted as he did in his better days, and as would conform to
    reality. But it is reprehensible to exhibit in public this
    picture, without having previously and conscientiously examined
    the main lines, to see whether they are not caricatures. And they
    are caricatures, traced by a hand that is led by the mood of a
    secret anti-Christianity.


A treatment identical with that of its view of life is accorded to the
_doctrine and history of the Christian religion_. Not science and
uncorrupted truthfulness, but antipathy, presumption, harsh denial of
everything divine, only too often point the way. Let us listen again to
the author named above, since he knows to express modern thought with a
clearness and precision almost unequalled by any one else.


    It made a painful impression to find in the Christmas number,
    1908, of the liberal-theological “Christliche Welt” a posthumous
    article by _Fr. Paulsen_: “What think you of Christ: Whose Son is
    He?” The article was without doubt one of the last he had written.
    It contains the program of modern liberal science. “With the
    seventeenth century,” we read there, “begins the reorganization of
    the theory of the universe by science. Its general tendency may be
    described by the formula: Elimination of the supernatural from the
    natural and historical world.” “Consequently, no miracles in
    history, no supernatural birth, no resurrection, no revelation, in
    fact no interference by the Eternal in temporal events.” Hence,
    the man who “thinks scientifically _in this wise_ can have no
    doubt that the old ecclesiastical dogma cannot be reconciled with
    scientific thought.” This, of course, amounts to a complete
    renunciation of positive Christianity.

    This scientific thought, in the words of _Baumgarten_, “rejects
    any projection of the supernatural into tangible reality”;
    especially is “the metaphysical genesis and nature of the Saviour
    highly offensive to our ethical consciousness,” even “absolutely
    unbearable.” The Christian religion can no longer be permitted to
    overtower other religions by its supernaturalness. “The
    distinction between a revealed and a natural religion becomes an
    impossibility,” says _W. Bousset_. And _Wundt_ declares:
    “Christianity, as an ‘absolute’ or a ‘revealed’ religion, would
    stand opposed to all other religious development, as an
    incommensurable magnitude. This point of view, evidently, cannot
    be competent for our speculations.”


Having become the ruling mode of thought, these presumptions determine
from the outset the results to be obtained by “research,” and they force
it to violate its own method, so that it may be dragged along the by-ways
and false ways of a mistaken, philosophical a-priorism, thereby making
freedom of science a mockery. From the abundant material at our disposal
let us take only one example, viz., the _Modern Criticism of the Gospels_.

The Gospels contain many records of facts of a supernatural character, of
miracles and prophecies. That these records are necessarily false is the
first principle of the historical, or critical, method, as it is called.
“As a miracle of itself is unthinkable, so the miracles in the history of
Christianity, and in the Christianity of the New Testament, are likewise
unthinkable. Hence, when miracles are nevertheless narrated, these
narratives must be false, in as far as they report miracles: that is,
either the relation did not happen at all, or, if it did, there was a
sufficient natural explanation”; “the historian must under all
circumstances answer, ‘No,’ to the question whether the report of a
miracle is worthy of belief” (_T. Zeller_). Thus instructed,
“unprejudiced” research proceeds to construct its results of the
investigation of the genuineness, time and date, of the writing of the
Gospels and of the Acts, as well as of their credibility. Let us see how
this is done.

The tradition of the early Church, as well as intrinsic evidence, testify
that the first Gospel was really written by the Apostle _Matthew_, and
this certainly before the destruction of Jerusalem. Liberal-Protestant
criticism, however, assigns its origin to a time after the year 70,
chiefly for two reasons: First, the striking prophecy of the destruction
of Jerusalem, conforming so accurately to the actual event, could have
been written only after the year 70; otherwise it would have amounted to a
real prophecy subsequently fulfilled, a conclusion that cannot be
accepted. The second reason is this: The contents of _St. Matthew’s_
Gospel is already wholly Catholic, hence it must have been written during
a later, Catholic, period. For as there can be no influences from above,
and as everything is evolved in a natural way, the principle must govern:
that the more supernatural and the more dogmas, so much later the period
in question; at first there could have been only a religion of sentiment
without dogma, which gradually developed into Catholic dogmatism. Similar
are the presumptions which direct modern research in respect to the
genuineness of the other Gospels and the Acts. A few proofs:


    Prof. _Jülicher_ thinks that, “While we cannot go prior to the
    beginning of the second century, because of external testimony, we
    cannot on the other hand maintain a later date. The most probable
    time for our Gospel is the one shortly before the year 100....”
    Why? “Because the ill-fitting feature in the parable of the
    wedding feast, that the king in his wrath, because his invitation
    had been made light of, sent forth his armies and destroyed those
    murderers and burned up their city, could hardly have been
    invented before the conflagration of Jerusalem”—a prophecy,
    namely, of the coming destruction of Jerusalem cannot be admitted.
    “But to my mind, the decisive point is found in the religious
    position of _Matthew_. Despite his conservative treatment of
    tradition, he already stands quite removed from its spirit; he has
    written a Catholic Gospel.... To _Matthew_ the congregation, the
    Church, forms the highest court of discipline, being the
    administrator of all heavenly goods of salvation; his Gospel
    determines who is to rule, who to give laws: in its essential
    features the early Catholicism is completed.”

    _Jülicher_ arrives at a similar conclusion in his research on _St.
    Luke’s_ Gospel: “That _Luke’s_ Gospel was written sometime after
    the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., is proven beyond any
    doubt, by xxi. 22-24, where the terrible events of the Jewish war
    are ‘foretold.’... All arguments in favor of a later date of
    writing concerning _Matthew_ hold good also of _Luke_.” Even more
    unreserved is _O. Pfleiderer_, until recently a prominent
    representative of liberal-Protestant theology at Berlin: “In this
    Gospel we find the elements of dogma, morals, the constitution of
    the developing Catholic Church. Catholic is its trinitarian
    formula of christening, this embryo of the Creed and of the
    apostolic symbol. Catholic is its teaching of Christ ... Catholic,
    the doctrine of Salvation ... Catholic are the morals ...
    Catholic, finally, is the importance attached to _Peter_ as the
    foundation of the Church and as the bearer of the power of the
    key.” In regard to this latter point _Pfleiderer_ remarks
    expressly: “In spite of all attempts of Protestants to mitigate
    this passage (Matt. xvi. 17-20) there is no doubt that it contains
    the solemn proclamation of _Peter’s_ Primacy.” The unsophisticated
    reader thereupon would be likely to deduct: If the oldest Gospel
    is already Catholic, then it must be admitted that earliest
    Christianity was already Catholic. In so reasoning he might have
    rightly concluded, but he would have shown himself little
    acquainted with the method of liberal science. This infers
    contrariwise: early Christianity must not be Catholic, hence the
    Catholic Gospel cannot be so old, it must be the fraudulent
    concoction of a later time; “hence the origin of the Gospel of
    _Matthew_ is to be put down not before the time of _Hadrian_; in
    the fourth century rather than in the third.”

    _A. Harnack_ fixes the date of the Gospel at shortly after 70,
    because “_Matthew_, as well as _Luke_, are presupposing the
    destruction of Jerusalem. This follows with the greatest
    probability from Matt. xxii. 7 (the parable of the marriage
    feast).” This is to be held also of _Luke’s_ Gospel. “This much
    can be concluded without hesitation: that, as now admitted by
    almost all critics, _Luke’s_ Gospel presupposes the destruction of
    Jerusalem.”

    Remarkable is _Harnack’s_ latest attitude towards the Acts; it
    shows again that the results of modern biblical criticism are less
    the results of historical research than of philosophical
    presumptions. In his “Acts of the Apostles” _Harnack_ admits:
    “Very weighty observations indicate that the Acts (hence also the
    Gospels) were already written at the beginning of the sixties.” In
    substantiation he cites not less than six reasons which evidently
    prove it: they are based upon the principles of sound historical
    criticism. “These are opposed solely by the observation that the
    prophecy about the catastrophe of Jerusalem in some striking
    points comes near to the actual event, and that the reports about
    the Apparition and the legend of the Ascension would be hard to
    understand prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. It is hard to
    decide.... But it is not difficult to judge on which side the
    weightier arguments are” (viz., on the part of the contention for
    an earlier date). Yet _Harnack_ is loath to accept the better
    scientific reasons: they must suffer correction by presumptions.
    He formulates his final decision in the following way: “_Luke_
    wrote at the time of _Titus_, or during the earlier time of
    _Domitian_ (?), but perhaps (only _perhaps_, in spite of decisive
    arguments) already at the beginning of the sixties.” (Recently
    _Harnack_ recedes to the time before the destruction of Jerusalem
    without, however, acknowledging a divine prophecy of this
    catastrophe.) Similar is this theologian’s proof that the fourth
    Gospel could not have been written by _John_, the son of
    _Zebedee_; because xxi. 20-23 (I will that he tarry till I come)
    cannot be a prophecy, but must have been written down after the
    death of the favourite disciple. “The section xx. 20-23 obviously
    presupposes the death of the beloved disciple; on the other hand
    he cannot be left out of the 21st Chapter. This 21st Chapter,
    however, shows no other pen than that which had written Chapters
    1-20. This proves that the author of Chapter 21, hence the author
    of Chapters 1-20, could not have been the son of _Zebedee_, whose
    death is there presupposed.” The whole argument again rests upon
    the refusal to hold possible a prophecy from the lips of Jesus.

    The main reason, however, for disputing the genuineness of the
    fourth Gospel, although external tradition and internal criterions
    testify to it as the writing of _St. John_, is, because it teaches
    so clearly the _divinity of Christ_: and this must be denied.
    Significant are, for instance, the words in which _Weizsäcker_
    sums up his objections to this gospel: “That the Apostle, the
    favorite disciple according to the Gospel, who sat at the table
    beside Christ, should have looked upon and represented everything
    that he once experienced, as the living together with the
    incarnate divine Logos, is rather a puzzle. No power of faith and
    no philosophy can be imagined big enough to extinguish the memory
    of real life and to replace it by this miraculous image of a
    divine being ... of one of the original Apostles, it is
    unthinkable. Upon this the decision of this point will always
    hinge. Anything else that may be added from the contents of the
    Gospel is subordinate.” This means, Christ cannot be admitted to
    be a Divine Being—impossible. An eye-witness could not take Him
    for it: therefore, this “miraculous picture of a Divine Being”
    cannot have been the work of an eye-witness.


Like the _genuineness_ of the Gospels, so is also their _credibility_
beyond a doubt. Two of them are written by Apostles, the two others by
Disciples of the Apostles: they also have all the marks peculiar to
writings of eye or ear witnesses, or of persons who have heard the
narratives directly from the lips of eye-witnesses. Nor would any one
doubt their credibility if they did not report supernatural facts. But,
this being the case, infidel research is bound to arrive at the opposite
result.

The writers were frauds—this was long ago the hypothesis of the
superficial Hamburg Professor, _Samuel Reimarus_, whose “Fragments” were
published by _Lessing_. But even to a _D. F. Strauss_ “such a suspicion
was repulsive.” The Heidelberg Professor, _H. E. Paulus_, sought his
salvation in trying to reduce the reports of miracles to a natural sense,
by doing painful violence to the text: for instance, the Lord did not walk
_upon_ the sea, but only _along_ the sea; the miracle of the wine at Cana
was only a wedding joke. Then came _D. F. Strauss_ (died 1874), and he
tried it in a different way. “If the Gospels are really historical
documents, then the miracle cannot be removed from the life of Jesus.”
Hence, it is to remain? Indeed not! The Gospels must not be accepted as
historical sources. They are products of purposeless poetic legends, the
miracles are garlands of religious myths, gradually twined around the
picture of Jesus. Myths, however, need time for their formation, hence
_Strauss_ fixes the date of the Gospels within the second century. He
openly admits that his hypothesis would fall to the ground if but a single
Gospel has been written in the first century. As a fact, more recent
rationalistic criticism has found itself constrained to drop this
hypothesis. _F. Ch. Baur_ (died 1860) fell back upon the fraud-hypothesis
of a _Reimarus_. It, too, has been laid among the dead. Thus they have
exhausted themselves in the attempt to shake off the burdensome yoke of
truth.

Influenced by _Strauss_, _Baur_, and other German critics, _E. Renan_
(died 1892) wrote his “Life of Jesus,” a frivolous romance. Quite frank
are the words he wrote down in the preface to the thirteenth edition of
his “Vie de Jésus” (1883): “If miracle has any reality, then my book is
nothing but a tissue of errors.... If the miracle and the inspiration of
certain books are real things, then our method is abominable.” But he
silences all doubts by the phrase: “To admit the supernatural is alone
sufficient to place one’s self outside of science.”

The newer “historical-critical” school, while having disposed of many
contentions of the old schools, is nevertheless in its research bound just
as energetically by the postulate of conformity to natural laws. The
fourth Gospel is pushed aside: in the others all miraculous occurrences
are expounded away, till the “historically credible core” is reached.

The books of the Old Testament fare even worse, if possible.


    “Does Genesis relate history or a legend?” asks Prof. _Gunkel_,
    and continues: “this is no longer a question to the historian.”
    Well, a legend, then. But how does the historian know this? From
    his own pantheistic philosophy, which recognizes no God differing
    from this world: “The narratives of Genesis being mostly of a
    religious nature, they continuously speak of God. The way,
    however, in which narratives speak of God is one of the most
    reliable standards to judge whether they are meant historically or
    poetically. Here, too, the historian cannot do without a world
    philosophy. We believe that God acts in the world as the latent,
    hidden motive of all things ... but He never appears to us as an
    acting factor _jointly with others_ (the italics are the
    author’s), but always as the ultimate cause of all things. Quite
    different in many narratives of Genesis. We are able to understand
    these narratives of miracles and apparitions as the artlessness of
    primitive people, but we refuse to believe them.”


Analogous to Bible-criticism is the research in other branches of
theology. The _origin of Christianity_, this wonderful power which so
suddenly made its appearance in history and speedily vanquished a whole
world, must of course not be a work of Heaven. Hence its origin must be
explained at any cost in a natural way, or “historically,” as they put it.
The religious notions of Christianity must not be conceded a supernatural
certainty over all other religions; and “to understand an event
historically means: to conceive it by its causal connection with the
conditions of a given place and at a certain time of the human life. Hence
science cannot consider such a thing as the appearance of a supernatural
being upon the earth” (_Pfleiderer_).

And then they proceed to show that Christianity is a natural, evolutionary
product of the Israelite religion, of Greek philosophy, of Oriental myths,
and Roman customs. That it is far superior to all these, and that it is
the opposite to them in various ways, is carefully hushed up. The
inadequacy and impossibility of such an explanation is adroitly concealed.
Nor could the Israelite religion of the Old Covenant, according to the
naturalistic principle of liberal theology, have had its origin in
revelation and the prophets; hence it comes from Babylon, as the product
of natural evolution from Oriental myths and customs. Any old and new
analogies, hypotheses, and fancies are good enough then to demonstrate
this as “historical.”



The Truth is not in Them.


We pause here. We might thus continue for a long time; but it is enough.
The patient reader, who has accompanied us on the tedious way to this
point, may begin to feel tired. May he excuse the detailed recital for the
reason that we had to do some extensive reconnoitring, through the
precincts of modern philosophical-religious research, to avoid the
reproach that we were making accusations without furnishing proofs. Our
contention was, that liberal science is trying to shake off the yoke of
religious truth, and to explain it away by its self-made presumptions. We
believe that we have proved our contention.

We are confronted by a science that boasts of monopolizing the spirit of
truthfulness; as a matter of fact, we see that it uses all scientific
devices to shirk the truth and to disguise its effort. In loquacious
protests it rejects the “rigid dogmatism,” the “fixed views,” of the
Christian faith, and it proclaims experience and reason as the sole
criterions of scientific cognition; yet it always stands upon the platform
of rigid presumptions, that are derived from no experience, and which no
reason can prove. It clamours for research free from presumption, and,
without winking an eye, substitutes its own presumption, secretly or
openly. It is _dishonest_.

It promises to preserve for man the highest ideals and blessings for which
his mind is yearning, yet it has no religion and no God. It recalls to
mind the words spoken by _St. Augustine_ of the philosophers whom he had
followed in the false ways of his youth: “They said: truth, and always
truth, and talked much of truth, but it was not in them.... Oh, truth,
truth, how deeply my inmost spirit sighed after thee, while they filled my
ears incessantly with thy bare name and with the palaver of their bulky
volumes.” Free it wants to be, this science. One of its disciples boasted:
“It has taught its disciples to look down without dizziness from the airy
heights of sovereign scepticism. How easy and free one breathes up there!”
Aye, it has made itself free,—from the yoke of unpalatable truth. So much
more firmly is it fettered, not with the holy bonds of belief in God, but
by the more burdensome mental yoke of a disbelief that weakens and blinds
the eyes against the cognition of the higher truth:—and bound by the
chains of public opinion, which threatens anathema to every one who fails
to stop at the border of the natural. Truly free is only the science that
enjoys a clear and free perception for the truth. Unfree is a science that
restrains the mental eye with the blinkers of theophoby. Our age seeks for
the lost happiness of the soul, it seeks longingly God and the
supernatural that have been removed from its sight. But science, so often
its leader, loathingly dodges God, and refuses to fold the hands and pray.
As long as our age does not break with a science that refuses to know a
God and a Saviour, so long will it hopelessly grope about without result,
and look in vain for an escape from the wretched labyrinth of doubt.



Chapter II. The Unscientific Method.


The efforts of liberal science, to remove more and more from its scope the
supernatural powers, show clearly that man may feel the truth to be a
yoke, and that he may attempt to free himself from this yoke by opposing
the truth and by substituting postulates for knowledge. Sceptical,
autonomous subjectivism, the philosophy of liberal free thought, has
changed the nature of human reasoning, and its relation to truth, and
perverted it to its very opposite. No longer is the human mind the vassal
of Queen Truth, as _Plutarch_ put it, but the autocratic ruler who
degrades truth to the position of a servant. Thus liberal freedom of
thought becomes the principle of an unscientific method, because it loses,
by false reasoning and false truth, the first condition of solid and
scientific research; furthermore, by treating the highest questions with
consequent levity, it betrays a lack of earnestness which again renders it
unfit for scientific research in serious matters.



False Reasoning.


“The philosophical thinkers of to-day,” says an admirer of _Kant_, _A.
Sabatier_, “may be divided into two classes, the pre-Kantian and those who
have received their initiation and their philosophical baptism from
_Kant’s_ Critic.”

The Christian philosophy of a _St. Thomas_, which is, as even
representatives of modern philosophy are constrained to admit, “a system
carried out with clear perception and great sagacity” (_Paulsen_),
contains many a principle, the intrinsic merit of which will be fully
appreciated only when contrasted with the experiments of modern
philosophy. An instance is the principle of the old school, that cognition
is the likeness of that which is cognized. Apart from the cognition by
sense, we are given here the only correct principle, coinciding with the
general conviction that reasoning is the mental reproduction of an
objective order of existence, independent of us, even in our conception of
the metaphysical world. Thinking does not create its object, but is a
reproduction of it; it is not a producer, but a painter, who copies the
world with his mental brush within himself, sometimes only in the
indistinct outlines of indefinite conception, often, however, in the sharp
lines of clear cognition.

If, according to its nature, thinking is subject to standards and laws
given it by an objective world, then subjective arbitrariness, a method of
thought which, while pretending to be a free producer of truth, yet
determines it according to necessity or desire; and, even more so, a
method of thought which feels itself justified to hold an opinion upon the
same question in one way to-day, and another and entirely opposite one
to-morrow, is wholly incomprehensible: just as incomprehensible as if a
draughtsman, attempting to draw a true picture of St. Peter’s Church,
would not follow the reality but prefer to draw the picture at random,
according to his fancy and mood.

We have stated these fundamental principles already at the beginning of
our book, we have also set forth how greatly liberal freedom of thought is
lacking the first presumption of any proper science, namely, the clear
perception that there is an objective truth in philosophical-religious
questions, to which we must submit, there, in fact, most of all.

No! We also want autonomy of thought, especially in questions of
metaphysics, where, anyway, there can only be postulates! so shouted
_Kant_ to the modern world on the threshold of the nineteenth century.
There are no stable truths, everything is relative and changing, adds the
modern theory of evolution. At last there is freedom for thought and
research, freedom from the yoke of absolute truth! Behold the aberrations
of an unbridled rush for freedom which moves the world of to-day. This
unruly hankering for a freer existence than allowed by their nature and
position, makes unbearable to many modern children of man the idea of iron
laws of truth and marked boundaries of thought. Revelling in the
consciousness of their sovereign personality, they want to measure all
things by their individuality, even religion, philosophy, truth, and
ethics. Only that what is created and experienced by them within the
sanctuary of their personality, only what is made important and legitimate
by their sentiment, is truth and of value to them. _Autonomism_ thus
changes unnoticeably into _individualism_; the own individuality, in its
peculiar inclinations, moods, and humours, its exigencies and egotistical
aims, its infirmities and diseases—they have, under the name of
_individual reason_, become the law of thinking and reasoning.



Without Knowledge of the Human Nature.


“Varied, according to character, are the demands made by heart and mind,”
assures us a representative of modern philosophy, “corresponding to them
is the image of the world to which the individual turns by inner
necessity. He may waver hither and thither, uncertain as to himself; at
last, however, his innermost tendency of life will prevail and press him
into the view of the world corresponding to his individuality. Upon its
further development worldly and local influences will play a very
important part. But the deciding factor in giving the direction is
personality.” “And,” continues Prof. _Adickes_, “the sharper and more
one-sided a character type is brought to expression, the more it will be
urged into a certain metaphysical or religious tendency, and this man will
find no rest, nor feel himself at home in the world, until he has found
the view of life that fits him. Nor does man assemble his metaphysics with
discrimination on the grounds of logical necessity, choosing here,
rejecting there, but it grows within himself by that inner compulsion
identical with true freedom.” Hence, not unselfish yielding to truth, no,
the inclinations of heart and mind, the “personality” must form the view
of the world. Let every type of character therefore develop itself sharply
and one-sidedly, let every one get the view of the world corresponding to
himself, without regard to objective truth and logical necessity. This
precisely is the “true freedom.” “For when is a man more free, than when
he chooses and does—without any compulsion, even resisting compulsion—what
his innermost soul is urging him to choose and do? How could he be more
true to himself, more like himself?” With such a freedom “the outer
compulsion” of an absolute truth, to say nothing of the duty to believe,
will not agree. “The core of one’s very being,” so _Harnack_ informs us,
“should be grasped in its depths, and the soul should only know its own
needs and the way indicated by it to gratify them.” “According to my
character,” says _Adickes_ again, “is the world reflected within myself by
intrinsic necessity just as my creed represents it, and no opponent is
able to shake my position by arguments of reason or by empirical facts.”

Hence it is not only true, as has been known from the beginning, that the
inclinations of the heart are trying to prevail upon reason to urge their
desires, and to oppose what displeases them, and that reason must beware
of the heart—no, inclination and character are now directly called upon to
shape our religion and view of the world. Every type of man, every period,
may construct its own philosophical system, or, if this is beyond it, at
least its own ideas; it may also shape its own Christianity, according to
its experience. As the individual chooses his clothes, and puts his
individuality into them, in like manner may the individual put on the view
of life that fits him.

These principles represent the apostasy from objective truth, and, at the
same time, the apostasy from the _principles of true science_: their first
demand, the proper understanding of truth, is perverted into its very
opposite. A necessary quality of scientific research is exactness;
exactness, however, demands most conscientious cleaving to truth; scale
and measure are its instruments. The reverse of exactness is to cast away
scale and measure, to turn eye and ear, not toward reality, but toward
one’s self, so as to observe personal wishes and inclinations, and then
shape the results of the “research” accordingly. This may be a method of
freedom, but it cannot be the method of science. The very thing that true
research would eliminate in the first place, viz., to have the decision
influenced by hobbies and moods, is most important in the method of
individualism; objectiveness, deemed by true science the highest
requirement, is to that method the least one: what true science first of
all insists on, namely, to prove that which is claimed, this method knows
but little of. It recalls the method of the gourmet who selects that which
gratifies his taste: it may be likened to the dandy picking frock-coat and
trousers that suit his whim. True research, with a firm hand at the helm,
aims to direct its craft so as to discover new coasts, or at least a new
island; the exploring done by liberal research is like casting off the
rudder to be tossed by the waves, for its task is only to hold to the
course which the waving billows of individual life give to it. True
science, finally, seeks for serious results, able to withstand criticism:
the research by individualism produces results which, as individualism
itself confesses, must not be taken seriously. They are the subjective
achievements of amateurs, creations of fashion, cut to the pattern of the
ruling principle: _nihil nisi quod modernum est_. A science that professes
such a method is beyond a doubt unfit to play a beneficial part in the
endeavour of mankind.

Do not say: but it is not claimed that religion and view of life are
matters of scientific research: on the contrary, they are always
distinguished from science. It is true, this is not infrequently claimed.
But it is also known how energetically just these matters are appropriated
by science. Is it not exactly this sphere in which free research is to be
active? Is it not its aim to construct a “scientific view of the world,”
as opposed to the Christian belief? Is there not the conviction that
science has already carried much light and enlightenment into this very
sphere, that it has upset the old tenets of faith?

And what an amount of _ignorance of human nature_ underlies these
principles! It is the same complete misconception that has always
characterized liberalism, and which it has also manifested in economical
matters. There, too, it demanded boundless freedom for all economic
sources, ignoring man’s disordered inclinations that will work disorder
and destruction if not restrained by laws. In a similar manner they dream
that man, if left to the unrestrained influence of his personality, will
soar without fail to the heights of the pure truth. They know no longer
the maxim once engraved by the wisdom of the ancient world upon Delphi’s
sanctuary: “Know thyself”! They no longer know the beguiling and benumbing
influence exerted upon reason by inclination, how it fetters the mind.
_Amor premit oculos_, says Quintilian. The thing we like, we desire to
establish as true; favourable arguments are decisive, counter arguments
are ignored or belittled, inclinations guide the observation, determine
the books and sources drawn from. If we meet with something unsympathetic,
something that interferes with the liberties we have grown fond of, it
takes a rare degree of unselfishness to love the painful truth more than
one’s self. It is easy to leave cool reason in control in mathematical
speculations: they seldom affect the heart; quite different, however, in
questions of philosophy and religion that often have vexatious
consequences.


    We have to concede that _D. F. Strauss_ was right when he wrote:
    “He who writes about the Rulers of Nineveh or the Pharaohs of
    Egypt, may pursue a purely historical interest: but Christianity
    is a power so alive, and the question of what occurred at its
    origin is involved in such vast consequences for the immediate
    present, that the inquirer would have to be dull-witted to be
    interested only in a purely historical way in the solution of
    these questions.” But we must also regret that this personal
    interest has misled him, for one, into pernicious ways.

    In view of the frequent assurances of the noted historian, _Th.
    Mommsen_, that he hates the sight of old Christian inscriptions(9)
    we may perhaps welcome it in the interest of history that he
    refrained from writing the fourth volume of his Roman history,
    wherein the Origin of Christianity was to be treated. One of his
    biographers asserts that the downfall of paganism through
    Christianity was a fact not to _Mommsen’s_ liking, that “a
    description of the decomposition of all things ancient, and the
    substitution therefor of the Nazarene spirit would not have been a
    labour of love.”(10) And again, when we see the well-known
    historian of philosophy, _F. Ueberweg_, in a letter to _F. A.
    Lange_, denouncing from the bitterness of his heart “the miserable
    beggar-principle of Christianity,” and the “surrendering of
    independence and of personal honour in favour of a servile
    submission to the master, who is made a Messiah, nay, even the
    incarnate _Son of God_,” then we may well dread the historical
    objectivity of a man of such notions in writing about the religion
    of Jesus Christ.

    With reference to the chief subject of psychology, the noted
    psychologist, _W. James_, writes with utmost frankness: “The soul
    is an entity, and truly one of the worst kind, a scholastic one,
    and something said to be destined for salvation or perdition. As
    far as I am concerned, I must frankly admit that the antipathy
    against the particular soul I find myself burdened with, is an old
    hardness of heart, which I cannot account for, not even to myself.
    I will admit that the formal disposition of the question in
    dispute would come to an end, if the existence of souls could be
    used for an explanatory principle. I admit the soul would be a
    means of unification, whereas the working of the brain, or ideas,
    show no harmonizing efficacy, no matter how thoroughly
    synchronical they be. Yet, despite these admissions, I never
    resort in my psychologizing to the soul.”


If we read such statement, if, in addition, we remember the
popular-philosophical science of men like _Haeckel_, particularly perhaps
the literature which he recommends for information about Christianity, and
of which he himself makes use; if we have read _Schopenhauer_,
_Nietzsche_, or the “Philosophy of Races” of a _Chamberlain_,—we can no
longer be at a loss what to think of the “rule of reason” and of the
“search for pure truth.” Observe, also, the restless haste of those who,
having turned their back upon the Catholic Church, now proceed to attack
her, observe their agitated work and incitement, how they rummage and
ransack the nooks and corners of the history of the Church in quest of
refuse and filth, and if the find is not sufficient how they even help it
along by forgery, all this to demonstrate to the world that the grandest
fact in history is really absurdity and filth;—then one will understand
what instincts may be found there to guide “reason and science.” How even
sexual impulses are trying to shape their own ethics we shall not examine
here. _F. W. Foerster_ relates: “I once heard a moral pervert expound his
ethical and religious notions; they were nothing but the reflection of his
perverse impulses. But he thought them to be the result of his reasoning.”
Is there not known in these days the inherited disorder of the human heart
as characterized by the Apostle in the words: “But I see another law in my
members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the
law of sin (Rom. vii. 23)”? The Ancients knew it. The wisdom of _Plato_
knew it, who speaks of the “pricks of sin, sunk into man, coming from an
old, unexpiated offence, giving birth to wickedness.” The wise _Cicero_
knew of it: “Nature has bestowed upon us but a few sparks of knowledge,
which, corrupted by bad habits and errors, we soon extinguish, with the
result that the light of nature does nowhere appear in its clearness and
brightness.” Truth is often disagreeable to nature. And if not subdued and
ruled by strong discipline, nature proceeds to oppose the truth. Only to
lofty self-discipline and purity of morals is reserved the privilege of
facing the highest truths with a calm eye. “Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.”



Mental Bondage.


Of this wisdom the admirer of liberal freedom knows little. Instead of
distinguishing the good from the evil in man, of unfolding his inner
kernel, the pure spirit, and making it rule; instead of demanding, like
_Pythagoras_, discipline as a preparatory school for wisdom, he has
learned from _Rousseau_, the master of modern Liberalism, that everything
in man is good. Depravity of nature, original sin, are unsympathetic
things to his ear. Even _Goethe_ wrote to _Herder_, when _Kant_ had in his
religious philosophy found a radical Evil in man: “After it has taken
_Kant_ a lifetime to clean his philosophical gown of many filthy
prejudices, he now outrageously slabbers it with the stain of the radical
Evil, so that Christians, too, may be enticed to come and kiss the seam.”
Instead of exhorting for a redemption from internal fetters, as the sages
of all ages did, the principle of wisdom now proposed is to quietly let
individuality develop, with all its inclinations. They call this freedom.
Is it not the freedom whereof the slave of sensuality avails himself to
form his theory of life? It, too, “grows up in man with that inner
compulsion which is identical with true freedom” (_Adickes_).

Freedom this may be. But _only external freedom_, the only freedom they
often know. They are unaware that they forfeit thereby the real, the inner
freedom. “Thou aimest at free heights,” admonishes even the most impetuous
herald of freedom, “thy soul is athirst for stars. But also thy wicked
impulses are athirst for freedom. Thy wild hounds want to be free, they
bark joyfully in their kennel when thy spirit essays to throw open all
dungeons.”(11) They think to be free and speak of the self-assurance of
individual reason, and they cannot see that the mind is in the fetters of
bondage.

Else how is it that the atheistic free science, considered in general,
arrives with infallible regularity at results that obviously tend to a
morally loose conduct of life? How is it, that it tries throughout to
shirk the acceptance of a personal God, and is at home only in open or
disguised atheism? that it so persistently avoids the acceptance of
anything supernatural? Why does it in its researches never arrive at
theism, which has as much foundation at least as pantheism and atheism?
Why does it, nearly without exception, deny or ignore the personal
immortality of the soul and a Beyond; why does it never reach the opposite
result which, in intrinsic evidence, ranks at least on a par with it? Why
is it not admitted, that the will is free and strictly responsible for its
acts, although this fact is borne out by the obvious experience and
testimony of mankind? Why does it so regularly arrive at the conclusion
that the Christian religion has become untenable, and needs development;
that its ethics, too, must be reformed, more especially in sexual matters?
Why does it not defend the duty to believe, but reject it persistently? A
striking fact! The matters in question here concern truths that impose
sacrifices upon man, whereas their opposites have connections of intimate
friendship with unpurged impulses. It may be noted also that this same
science, that announces to the world these results of research, meets with
the boisterous applause from the elements that belong to the morally
inferior part of mankind.


    _St. Augustine_ prays: “Redeem me, O God, from the throng of
    thoughts, which I feel so painfully within my soul, which feels
    lowly in Thy presence, which is fleeing to Thy mercy. Grant me
    that I may not give my assent to them; that I may disapprove of
    them, even if they seek to delight me, and that I may not stay
    with them in sleepiness. May they not have the power to insinuate
    themselves into my works; may I be protected from them in my
    resolution, may my conscience be protected by Thy keeping.” It is
    the realization of the want of freedom of the human reason, the
    only way to the liberation from the fetters of our own
    imperfection. He, who has seriously begun to take up the struggle
    with his inner disorders, will, by his own experience, pray as
    _St. Augustine_ prayed.


Recognizing this fact, man will try to rise above himself, to cleave to a
superior Power and Wisdom, who, in purer heights, untouched by human
passions, holds aloft the truth, in order to rise thereby above his own
bondage; he will understand the necessity of an authority clothed with
divine power and dignity, so that it may hold in unvanquished hands the
ideal against all onslaughts of human passions. He will without difficulty
find this power in the religion of Jesus Christ and in His Church: in Him,
who could not be accused of sin, who by His Cross has achieved the highest
triumph over flesh and sin, who has surrounded His Church with the bright
throng of saints. And if he sees this religion and Church an object of
persecution, he will behold in it the signature of its truth. For truth is
a yoke despised by sensualism and pride, and the spiritual power that
contends for purity and truth will be hated.



Without Earnestness.


The regrettable conception of truth proper to the modern freedom of
thought, leads to that flippancy with which our time is prone to treat the
highest questions. Why conscientiousness and anxious care? All that is
needed is to form one’s personal views; there is no certain, generally
valid, truth in religious matters. Hence there is often in this sphere of
scientific research a method wholly different from that in use anywhere
else. In history, philology, natural science, there is a striving for
exactness, but in these matters exact reasoning is replaced only too often
by discretionary reasoning, by loose forming of ideas; in the very domain
which has ever pre-eminently been called the province of the wisdom of
life, there is now in vogue the method of flippancy.

True wisdom is convinced that reason has not been given to man to grope in
the dark in respect to the most momentous questions of life; that reason,
though limited and liable to err, is given him to find the truth. True
wisdom knows its difficulties when the matter in quest is metaphysical
truth: it knows how, in this case, more than in any other, reason is
exposed to the influence of inclinations from within, and to the power of
error and of public opinion from without; that in these matters, least of
all, reason is not in the habit of taking the truth by assault. True,
there are intuitions, and inspiration by genius—they have their rights,
but they are the exceptions. The ordinary, and only safe, way is to
advance cautiously, by discoursive thinking, from cognition to cognition,
otherwise there is danger of a sudden fall from the steep path.

In the early Christian ages this insight led to careful cultivation and
application of certain methodical means of thinking and terms of
expressions, to definitions, distinctions, and forms of syllogism, with
that “insulting lucidity,” in the words of a modern philosopher, which
gives to them the stamp of scrupulousness. The same insight into the
cognitive weakness of reason leads to the noble union between science and
modesty.

What, however, do we see in modern philosophic-religious thinking? Often
unsolidity, with hardly a remnant of the principles of the serious pursuit
of knowledge.

The autonomous freethinker of these days lacks chiefly humility and
modesty. The ancient Sage of Samos once declined the name of “sage,”
saying that God alone is wise, while man must be content to be
wisdom-loving (φιλόσοφος). Not always so the sages of modern times.


    _Kant_ believed of his system: “Critical philosophy must be
    convinced that there is not in store for it a change of opinions,
    no improvement nor possibly a differently formed system, but that
    the system of criticism, resting on a fully assured basis, will be
    established forever, indispensable for all coming ages to the
    highest aims of mankind.” _Hegel_, in turn, was no less convinced
    of the indispensability of his doctrine. In the summer term of
    1820 he began his lectures with the words: “I would say with
    Christ: I teach the truth, and I am the truth.” Yet, to
    _Schopenhauer_ _Hegel’s_ philosophy is nonsense, humbug, and
    worse. _Schopenhauer_ knew better, and was convinced that he had
    lifted the veil of truth higher than any mortal before him; he
    claimed that he had written paragraphs “which may be taken to have
    been inspired by the Holy Ghost.” Shortly before his death he
    wrote: “My curse upon any one, who in reprinting my works shall
    knowingly make a change; be it but a sentence, or a word, a
    syllable or a punctuation point.” _Nietzsche_ held: “I have given
    to the world the most profound book in its possession.” To the
    eyes of this philosophy, modesty and humility are no longer
    virtues. _B. Spinoza_, a leader in later philosophy, states
    expressly: “Humility is no virtue; it does not spring from reason.
    It is a sadness, springing from the fact that man becomes aware of
    his impotence.”


An arrogant mind is not capable of finding the higher truth with
certainty; conscientious obedience to truth, unselfish abstention from
asserting one’s ego, and one’s pet opinion, can dwell only in the humble
mind. Here applies what _St. Augustine_ said of the Neoplatonists: “To
acquiesce in truth you need humility, which, however, is very difficult to
instil into your minds.”(12)

When God’s authority steps before scientists and earnestly demands faith,
they will talk excitedly about their human dignity that does not permit
them to believe; about reason being their court of last resort that must
not know of submission; and if the Church, in the name of God, steps
before them, they become abusive.

Men who have scarcely outgrown their minority often feel it incumbent upon
themselves to furnish humanity with new thought and to discard the old.
_D. F. Strauss_, a young under-master of twenty-seven years, writes his
“Life of Jesus, critically analyzed” (1835); he tells the Christian world
that everything it has hitherto held sacred is a delusion and a snare; he
feels the vocation to “replace the old, obsolete, supernatural, method of
contemplating the history of Jesus with a new one,” which changes all
divine deeds into myths. Hardly out of knickerbockers and kilts, they feel
experienced enough to come forth with novel and unheard-of propositions on
the highest problems. In business and office, as in public service,
sober-mindedness and maturity are demanded; but to work out the ultimate
questions of humanity, inexperience and lack of the deeper knowledge of
life do not disqualify in our time. If _Schiller’s_ complaint of the
Kantians of his time was that, “What they have scarcely learned to-day,
they want to teach to-morrow,” what is to be said of those who teach even
before they have learned? And what superficial thinking do we meet in the
philosophy of the day! Lacking all solid training, they proceed to
construct new systems, or at least fragments of them. As regards their
competence, one is often tempted to quote the harsh words of a modern
writer: “I believe _Schopenhauer_ would have formed a better opinion of
the human intellect, had he paid less attention to authors and
newspaper-writers, and more to the common sense evinced by men in their
work and business” (_Paulsen_).

It would be highly instructive to take a longer journey through the realm
of modern philosophy, in so far as it touches upon questions concerning
the theory of the world, or even liberal Protestant theology, so as to
subject to a searching criticism the untenable notions and attempts at
demonstration even of acknowledged representatives of this science,
whereby they generally do away with God and miracles, the soul and
immortality, freedom of the will, the divine moral laws, the Gospel, the
divinity of Christ, and so much more, and show what they offer in place of
all this. It would disclose an enormous lack of scientific method: instead
of assured results they offer questionable, even untenable theories; in
place of proofs, emphatical assertions, imperatives, catch phrases; or
else arguments which under the simplest test will prove miscarriages of
logic. These philosophers vault ditches and boundaries with ease, and
derive full gratification from imperfect and warped ideas. Of course,
exactness in philosophical thinking is not a fruit to be plucked while out
taking a walk; it is the product of serious mental work, of sterling
philosophical training, which, alas, is wanting to-day in large circles of
scientists.

As an instance, we point to the method described in a previous chapter, by
which all supernatural factors are rejected by the arbitrary postulate of
“exclusively natural causation,” without valid proofs, based only upon the
arbitrary decision of so-called modern science—in the gravest matter an
unscientific process that cannot be outdone.

Another instructive instance, of serious matters treated with levity, is
furnished in the unscrupulous way in which the Catholic Church, her
teaching, institutions, and history, are passed upon in judgment by those
having neither knowledge nor fairness.



Without Reverence.


True wisdom accepts advice and guidance. It feels reverence for sacred and
venerable traditions, for the convictions of mankind on the great
questions of life, and greater reverence still for an authority of faith
that has received from God its warrant to be the teacher of mankind, and
which has stood the test of time. True wisdom is convinced that continuity
in human thinking and in knowledge is necessary. Life is short, and gives
to the individual hardly time to attain mental maturity. Philosophy, and
this is the matter before us at present,—philosophy can never be the work
of a single person; it is the achievement of centuries; succeeding
generations, with searching eye and careful hand, building further upon
the achievement for which past ages have laid the foundations. By nailing
together beams and boards the individual may erect a house good enough for
a short time to serve his sports and pleasures; and if wrecked by the
first storm, it may be replaced by another. But the building of massive
and towering cathedrals that last for ages required the work of
generations. And only skilful and experienced hands may do the work; haste
is out of place here. The ancient sages of Greece, _Plato_, _Pythagoras_,
and _Aristotle_, had this reverence for the philosophical and religious
traditions of the past. These representatives of true wisdom did not
consider philosophy and theology as the product of individual sagacity,
they did not attempt to be free rulers in the realm of thought; on the
contrary, they looked upon wisdom as the patrimony of the past, which it
was their duty to preserve.


    They pointed to their venerable traditions, however meagre they
    were. “Our forefathers,” says _Plato_, “who were better than we
    are, and stood nearer to the gods than we, have handed down to us
    this revelation.”(13) That the testimony of the great sages, to
    the effect that the most essential elements of their philosophy
    had their origin in religious traditions, is based upon truth and
    not on fancy has been proven by _O. Willmann_, whose knowledge of
    ancient civilization was very extensive, in his monumental
    “History of Idealism.” Delhi, the home of mysteries, the
    generations of priests in ancient Egypt, the doctrinal traditions
    of the Chaldeans, the Magi of Medes and Persians, and the wisdom
    of the Brahmins of ancient India are witnesses to the fact. “The
    Ancients were correct,” says _Willmann_, “in tracing their
    philosophy to earliest traditions ... they knew what they owed to
    their forefathers better than we do. They direct our astonished
    eyes to a very ancient reality, to a towering remoteness of living
    thought.” This fact is very much against the taste of our
    times.... An inherited wisdom, springing from an original
    revelation, adapted to the nations, shining with renewed
    brightness in true philosophy, is quite the opposite to a
    philosophy that seeks the source of mental life only in isolated
    thinking; that thinks its success to be conditioned upon
    unprepossession; that holds the refutation of tradition to be the
    test of its strength.


Unfortunately this latter view is widespread in our time. Research is
often directed, not by reverence for the wisdom inherited from many
Christian centuries, but by the mania, unwise and fatal alike, of seeking
new paths. “Love of truth,” so we are told, “is what urges on the great
leaders of humanity, the prophets and reformers, to seek new and untrodden
paths of life. ‘Plus ultra’ is the rallying-cry of these pathfinders of
the future, who are clearing the way for the mental life of mankind. No
authority can restrain them, no prejudice, however holy: they are
following the light which has dawned upon their soul” (_Paulsen_).

And a multitude discover this light in their souls, and join the prophets
and pathfinders! Everybody goes abroad looking for untrodden paths; from
all directions comes the cry: Here and there, to the right, to the left,
is the right way! Do we not only too often see self-willed and
self-satisfied thinkers, whose shortsighted conceit gets within the four
walls of their study puffed up against God and religion, offer us for holy
truth the fanciful products of their narrow brains? Do we not see, only
too often, champions of shallow reasoning, without discipline of thought
and without ethical maturity, recommending their undigested efforts as the
wisdom of the world? Youthful thinkers there are in numbers, each of whom
claims that he at last has succeeded in solving the world riddle; they
offer us new theories of the world, new ideas on ethics, on law and
theology, for a few dollars per copy or less. The holy abode of truth has
become the campus for saunterers, each eager to displace the other so that
he may be sole proprietor, or at least a respected partner. Day by day new
solutions of “problems,” “vital questions,” or at least “outlines” of
them; new “views of the world”; new forms of religion and of Christianity
for the “modern man”; “reforms” of marriage and of sexual ethics, and so
on. Truth had not been discovered until the newcomer puts his pen to the
paper. Every one is free to join in. Yea, more, he may not only join in,
but lash those who do not applaud him. According to this notion, nothing
has a right to exist, no “sacred prejudice” may be claimed once this
self-appointed representative of science takes the field for “research.”
Behold the Christian truth, it has stood the test of centuries: but it
cannot resist these scientific freebooters, they rush over it with banners
flying.

Severe speech would here be in order. A painful spectacle, these doings of
modern thought in the sacred precincts of truth. “Put off the shoes from
thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,” we imagine
to hear; yet this sanctuary of truth has been made a profane place of
bartering.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

While still a pagan, but moved by his desire for truth, the philosopher
_Justin_ went to the schools of his day to seek the solution of his doubts
and queries. First he turned to a Stoic, but as he taught nothing of God,
_Justin_ was unsatisfied. He next went to a Peripatetic teacher, then to a
Pythagorean, but failed to find what he desired. The Platonist at last
gave him something. Walking alone along the beach, and musing over
_Plato’s_ principles, he met an old man who referred him to the truth of
Christianity, to the Prophets and the Apostles: “They alone have seen the
truth and proclaimed it unto man, they were afraid of no one, knew no
fear; yielded to no opinion; filled with the Holy Ghost, they spoke only
what they saw and heard. The Scriptures are still extant, and he who takes
them up will find in them a treasure of information about principles and
ultimate things, and all else the philosopher must know, if he believes
them.”(14) And _Justin_ found truth and peace, and bowed to the yoke of
the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

What a striking contrast between this serious love of truth in the days of
passing heathendom, and the uncontrolled thinking of so many in our
Christian age! To them truth is no longer a sacred treasure, a yoke to be
assumed in reverence; it has become the plaything of their impressions and
inclinations. Indeed, they consider it a burden to accept the old
Christian truth, with which they meet on all their ways.



Chapter III. The Bitter Fruit.



The Vocation of Science.


Science is, and ever was, an influential factor operating upon the
thought, aims, and actions of man. Hence science must remain conscious of
its vocation. First of all it is to hold aloft and preserve the _spiritual
possessions of mankind_. True, science must also progress; but progress
means growth, which presupposes the preservation of what has been received
from of old. This applies pre-eminently to the philosophical-religious
patrimony of the past; no error could be more fatal than to presume that
each generation must start from the beginning, that the foundations, which
have safely supported human life for centuries, must be obsolete because
human nature is suddenly considered changed.

What are these foundations? They are the tested religious and moral
convictions of mankind, and, for our nations particularly, the divine
tenets of Christianity, that have been their highest ideals for centuries,
and have produced serenity and a high standard of morality. If science
aims to be the principle of conservation and not of destruction, it must
look upon the safeguarding of those possessions of the nations as its
sacred task. Indeed, it would perform this task but poorly were it to
waste this patrimony piece by piece, or to shatter it with wicked fist,
instead of respecting and honouring it, or to set fire to the sanctuary
where mankind hitherto has dwelled in peace and happiness. A science of
this kind would not only cease to be a bulwark for the mental life of
mankind, but turn into a positive danger.

In as far as it follows the principles of liberal freedom of research,
present-day science does present this danger. This cannot be denied, the
facts speak too plainly. By its very nature it _must_ become such danger.
For it recognizes no belief, neither in God nor in the Church; no dogmas,
no “prejudices,” no traditions, however sacred, are to be respected; it is
fundamental unbelief, the principle of opposition to the Christian
religion. Its autonomous Subject emancipates himself from the yoke of
objective truth which he cannot procreate free out of himself. It
confesses the principle that there are neither truths nor values that
endure; _plus ultra!_ always new ideas! _Quieta movere_, hitherto the
watchword of unwisdom, is this science’s maxim. And liberal freedom of
research is what its nature compels it to be. Can it do any more than it
has done, to prove itself a principle of mental pauperism? We shall not
demand a list of the things it has thrown aside and shattered. Let us
rather ask, _what it has left whole_ of the sacred institutions of truth,
inherited from a Christian past. Alas, it has cast off and denied
everything; it has lost not only the things a Christian age has treasured,
but even those a higher paganism had revered. Let us examine this sad work
of negation and annihilation. It is a more melancholy spectacle than any
war of extermination that was ever waged against Europe’s Christian
civilization by a people bent on trampling down every flower of Christian
culture, and on razing every castle to the ground.



Are We Still Christians?


This was the question proposed some scores of years ago by _D. Strauss_ to
himself, and to those of his mind. With this question we will begin. To
our forefathers, especially of the German nation, nothing was more sacred
than the Christian religion; no people like the German has absorbed it so
fully, has been so permeated with it. But now, wherever liberal
science—here especially modern Protestant theology that brings liberal
freedom of research into full application—wherever it has made the
Christian religion a subject of its study, one treasure after another has
been lost; of the whole of Christendom nothing remains but an empty name
and a formal homage, reminding of the courtesy paid to deposed rulers.

In the first place, there has been dropped the fundamental thesis of the
_divinity of Christ_, whereupon rests the entire structure of
Christianity. Man’s modern emancipation from everything supernatural has
been accomplished also with respect to the person of Christ: the man
Christ is divested of His divinity and of everything miraculous; His birth
by the virgin, His miracles and prophecies, His resurrection and
ascension, once the subjects of exalting feasts, have fallen a victim to
unbelieving science. It is true, they exert themselves to keep His person
in view, they want the purely human Jesus to hold His old position of God
and man in the believing consciousness, to conceal the mental
pauperization. But this trick is failing more and more. The Son of God
sees Himself gradually placed among the great men of history; we are
becoming accustomed to find in the “Biographies of Celebrated Men,” among
“Religious Educators,” side by side with _Confucius_, _Buddha_,
_Augustine_, _Mohammed_, _Luther_, _Kant_, and _Goethe_, also the name of
Jesus. The lustre of the past belief in His divinity is paling. In the
eyes of unbelieving science He has ceased to be the infallible,
all-surpassing Authority, and the basis of the faith. The teaching of
Jesus has become the subject of an analyzing and eliminating criticism,
and whenever deemed advisable His authority is simply ignored; He was
human, affected by the views and errors of His age.


    Thus they know, as does _H. Gunkel_, that “Jesus and the Apostles
    evidently have taken those narratives (the miracles of Genesis) to
    be reality and not poetry”; “the men of the New Testament on such
    questions take no particular attitude but share the (erroneous)
    opinions of their times.” They also know “that in regard to
    persons possessed with demons Jesus shared the erroneous notions
    of his time” (_Braun_), and _Fr. Delitzsch_ informs us that it was
    “particularly a Babylonian superstition,” in consequence of which
    “the belief in demons and devils assumed such importance in the
    imagination of Jesus of Nazareth and of his Galilean disciples.”
    Thus the word is fulfilled literally: “He is a sign which will be
    contradicted.”


No one knows really _who Jesus was_. His person is the football of
opinions. “If any one desiring reliable information, as to who Jesus
Christ was, and what message He brought, should consult the literature of
the day, he would find buzzing round him contradictory voices.... Taken
all in all, the impression made by these contradicting opinions is
depressing: the confusion seems past hope,” admits Prof. _Harnack_.


    Also _E. V. Hartmann_ remarks: “Thus, according to some, Jesus was
    a poet, to others a mystic visionary, a third sees in him the
    militant hero for freedom and human dignity, to a fourth he was
    the organizer of a new Church and of an ecclesiastical system of
    ethics, to a fifth the rationalistic reformer ... to the eleventh
    a naturalistic pantheist like _Giordano Bruno_, to the twelfth a
    superman on the order of _Nietzsche’s_ Zarathustra....” A chaos of
    opinions agreeing only in the one aim of rejecting His divinity.
    _A. Schweitzer_, himself a representative of liberal Protestant
    research, says, “Nothing is more negative than the result of the
    research concerning the life of Jesus.” And knowing Jesus’s person
    no longer, they no longer know anything certain about His
    teaching, as is clear from the above. According to _I.
    Wellhausen_, from the “unsufficient fragments at hand we can get
    but a scanty conception of the doctrine of Jesus.”—The fathers
    were rich, the children have grown poor. _Dissipaverunt
    substantiam suam!_

    To many even the _existence of Jesus_ has become doubtful; and
    this not only to men of an irreligious propaganda, like Prof. _A.
    Drews_, who, carried away by the corroding tendency of a radical
    age, journeyed from town to town in order to proclaim, in the
    twentieth century of Christian reckoning, the scientific discovery
    of the “Myth of Christ”; but even to others the existence of Jesus
    has become doubtful or at least valueless. The task now is to do
    away entirely with the person of Jesus, and to solve the problem
    of preserving a Christian faith without a Christ. In this sense
    Prof. _M. Rade_ writes: “Serious and gifted men having asserted
    that Jesus never existed (or, what amounts to the same, that, if
    He ever lived, nothing is known of Him; hence, His existence is of
    no historical importance), we dogmatists almost have to be
    grateful to them for having helped us to put a very concrete
    question no longer in general terms: how does religious certainty
    face historical criticism? but quite specifically: how does
    religious certainty (of the Christian) regard the
    historic-scientific possibility of the non-existence of the
    historical Jesus?” They frankly assert that they could entirely
    forego the person of Christ. Thus Prof. _P. W. Schmiedel_
    declares: “My innermost religious conviction would not suffer
    injury were I to be convinced to-day that Jesus never lived.... I
    would know that I could not lose the measure of piety that has
    become my property long since, even if I cannot derive it any
    longer from Jesus.” “Neither does my piety require me to see in
    Jesus an absolutely perfect type, nor would it disturb me were I
    to find someone else actually surpassing Him, which undoubtedly is
    the case in some respects.” For him to whom Christ is no longer
    God but a man and capable of error, His person and existence have
    necessarily lost their value.


Thus we have arrived at a _Christianity without a Christ_. As yet the
person of the Lord is usually surrounded by a halo: it is the after-effect
of a faithful past, the last rays of a setting sun. That this last
glimmer, too, will pale and give way to darkness is but a question of
time, when with more honesty expression will be given to the conclusion
necessarily arrived at. If Christ is not what He claimed to be, God and
Messiah, then the belief in His being the Son of God and the Messiah, in
His right to abrogate the religion of the Old Testament and to found a new
religion, commanding its acceptance under penalty of damnation—all this
can be nothing but the result of religious fanaticism and mental
derangement. And science is, in all seriousness, preparing to turn into
this direction.


    It is true, many are hesitating to draw these fearful conclusions
    and to utter them; arriving at this point, they cautiously stop:
    so _Harnack_. “How Jesus could arrive at the consciousness of His
    unique relation to God as His Son, how He became conscious of His
    power as well as of the obligation and task involved in this
    power, that is His secret, and no psychology will ever disclose
    it.... Here, all research must halt.” It is the silence of
    embarrassment, but equally of unscientific method. Having arrived
    at untenable conclusions, when question upon question is
    impetuously suggested, they stop suddenly and have nothing to say
    but a vague word about inscrutableness.

    But there are those who actually speak the word so horrible to a
    Christian heart: Jesus was demented, a subject for pathology.
    _Strauss_ indicated this cautiously: “One who expects to return
    after his death in a manner in which no human being had ever
    returned, he is to us ... not exactly a lunatic, but a great
    visionary.” Others speak more plainly. _Holtzmann’s_ answer to the
    question: Was Jesus an Ecstatic, is an emphatic: “Yes, He was.”
    _De Loosten_ considers him insane. _E. Rasmussen_ thinks Him an
    epileptic, but grants to physicians the right to reckon him among
    paranoiacs or lunatics. To _A. Jülicher_ Jesus is a visionary, “a
    mystic, not satisfied to dream of his ideals, but who lived with
    them, worked with them, even saw them tangibly before his eyes,
    deceiving himself and others.” Thus the supernatural has become
    madness; Jesus Christ, for whose divinity the martyrs went to
    their death, wears now, before the forum of a false science,
    Herod’s cloak of foolishness.


With the fall of this fundamental dogma there must necessarily fall all
other specific truths of Christianity, and they have fallen. The Holy
Writ, once the work of the Holy Ghost, has now become a book like the
Indian Vedda, to some perhaps even more unreliable; original sin,
Redemption and grace, the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments, have
been dropped or changed into symbols, of which every one may think what he
pleases. They have tried to make Christianity “acceptable to our times,”
to “bring it nearer to the modern idea.” There is really nothing left to
offend modern man, nothing that could get in conflict with any idea. The
essence of Christianity is depreciated and emptied until it has become
only a vague sentiment, without thought; a few names, without ideas.
“Christianity as a Gospel,” so teaches _Harnack_, “has but one aim: to
find the living God, that every individual may find Him as his God,
gaining strength and joy and peace. How it attains this aim through the
centuries, whether with the Coefficient of the Jewish or the Greek, of
flight from the world or of civilization, of Gnosticism or
Agnosticism—this all is of secondary consideration.” Of secondary
consideration it is, then, whether one is convinced of the existence of
God or whether he doubts with the agnostics, whether he believes in a
personal God or not. To-day even the pantheist who does not acknowledge a
Creator of Heaven and Earth may be a Christian; and so can he who no
longer believes in personal immortality and in a hereafter; for, we are
informed, “this religion is above the contrasts of here and the beyond, of
life and death, of Reason and Ecstatics, of Judaism and Hellenism”
(_Harnack_). Thus there is no thought which could not be made to agree
with this despoiled Christianity. For, we are told further, “much less
does the Gospel presuppose, or is joined to, a fixed theory of nature—not
even in a negative sense could this be asserted” (_Harnack_). Materialism
and Spiritualism, Theism and Pantheism, Belief or Negation of Creation,
everything will harmonize with a Christianity thus degraded to a thing
without character or principle.(15)

All that is left is a word of love, of a kind Father, of filiation to God,
and union with God: words robbed of their true meaning; a shell without a
kernel, ruins with the name “Christianity” still inscribed thereon,
telling of a house that once stood here, wherein the fathers dwelt, but
long since vacated by their children. _Dissipaverunt substantiam suam!_


    As to God and divine filiation, everybody is welcome to his own
    interpretation. He may form with _O. Pfleiderer_ the
    “Neoprotestantism” which, “after breaking with all ecclesiastical
    dogmas, recalled to mind the truths of the Christian religion,
    hidden beneath the surface of these dogmas, in order to realize,
    more purely and more perfectly than ever before, the truth of
    God’s incarnation in the new forms of autonomous thought and of
    the moral life of human society.” Christianity and God—the symbols
    of autonomous man! Or he may follow _Bousset_, to whom nature is
    God, and in this way combines harmoniously Christianity and
    Atheism. “This is the forceful evolution of Christian religion,”
    says he, “the notion of redemption, the Dogma of the divinity of
    Christ, the trinity, the idea of satisfaction and sacrifice,
    miracles, the old conception of revelation—all these we see
    carried off by this wave of progress.” “What is left? Timid people
    may think: a wreck. But to our pleasant surprise we found stated
    at many points in our inquiry: what is left is the simple Gospel
    of Jesus.” And what does this simplified Gospel contain? “Of
    course we cannot simply accept in full the Gospel of Jesus....
    There is the internal and the external. The external and
    non-essential includes the judgment of the world, angels,
    miracles, inspiration, and other things.” All this may be
    disregarded. “But even the essentials, the internal of the Gospel
    cannot be simply subscribed to. They must be interpreted.” What,
    then, is this essential, this internal of the Gospel, and what is
    its interpretation? “The belief of the Gospel in the personal
    heavenly Father; to this we hold fast with all our strength. But
    we carry this belief in God into our modern thought.” And what
    becomes then of “God”? “To us, God is no longer the kind Father
    above the starry skies. God is the Infinite, Omnipotent, who is
    active in the immense universe, in infiniteness of time and space,
    in infinitely small and in infinitely large things. He is the God
    whose garb is the iron law of nature which hides Him from the
    human eye by a compact, impenetrable veil.” We see the belief of
    the Gospel has dwindled down to atheistic Monism.

    As early as 1874 _Ed. von Hartmann_, in his book “Die
    Selbstzersetzung des Christentums,” came to the conclusion that
    “liberal Protestantism has in no sense the right to claim a place
    within Christendom.” In a later book his keen examination
    demonstrates how the speculation of liberal Protestantism has
    changed the Christian religion step by step into pantheism: “Not a
    single point in the doctrine of the Church is spared by this
    upheaval of principle, every dogma is formally turned into its
    very opposite, in order to make its religious idea conform to the
    tenet of divine immanence.”

    This is called the development of Christianity. It is this
    “religious progress,” the same “free Christianity,” that they are
    now trying to promote by international congresses. The invitation
    to the “World’s Congress for free Christianity and religious
    progress” at Berlin, in 1910, was signed by more than 130 German
    professors, including 47 theologians. We have here the development
    of the dying into the lifeless corpse, the progress of the strong
    castle into a dilapidated ruin, the advance of the rich man to
    beggary.


We began our inquiry with the question proposed some years ago by _D.
Strauss_ to his brethren-in-spirit: Are we still Christians? We may now
quote the answer, which he gives at the conclusion of his own
investigation: “Now, I think, we are through. And the result? the reply to
my question?—must I state it explicitly? Very well; my conviction is, that
if we do not want to make excuses, if we do not want to shift and shuffle
and quibble, if yes is to be yes, and no to remain no, in short, if we
desire to speak like honest, sincere men, we must confess: we are no
longer Christians.”

This is the bitter fruit of autonomous freedom of thinking, which,
declining any guidance by faith, recognizes no other judge of truth than
individual reason, with all the license and the hidden inclinations that
rule it. Protestantism has adopted this freedom of research as its
principle; in consistently applying it, Protestantism has completely
denatured the Christian religion. If anything can prove irrefutably the
monstrosity and cultural incapacity of modern freedom of research, it is
the fate of Protestantism. Any one capable of seriously judging serious
things must realize here how pernicious this freedom is for the human
mind.



Reduced to Beggary.


But the loss is even greater. The better class of paganism still clung to
the general notion of an existing personal God, of a future life, of a
reward after death; it was convinced of the existence of an immortal soul
and a future reward, of the necessity of religion, of immutable standards
for morals and thought. Has liberal science at least been able to preserve
this essential property of a higher paganism? Alas, no! It has lost nearly
everything.

No longer has it a personal God. While belief in God may still survive in
the hearts of many representatives of this science, it has vanished from
science itself. It begs to be excused from accepting any solution of
questions, if God is a factor in the solution. The opinion prevails that
_Kant_ has forever shattered all rational demonstrations of the existence
of God. Yet _Kant_ permits this existence as a “postulate,” which,
according to _Strauss_, “may be regarded as the attic room, where God who
has been retired from His office may be decently sheltered and employed.”
But now He has been given notice to quit even this refuge. There must be
nothing left of Him but His venerable name, which is appropriated by the
new apostasy in the guise of pantheism or a masked materialism. Monism is
the joint name for it: this is the modern “belief in God.” In days gone by
it was frankly called “atheism.”


    This disappearance of the old belief in God is noted with
    satisfaction by modern science: “It is true,” says _Paulsen_, “the
    belief in gods ... is dying out, and will never be resurrected.
    Nor is there an essential difference whether many or only one of
    these beings are assumed. A monotheism which looks upon God as an
    individual being and lets him occasionally interfere in the world
    as in something separate from and foreign to him, such a
    monotheism is essentially not different from polytheism. If one
    should insist on such conception of theism, then, of course, it
    will be difficult to contradict those who maintain that science
    must lead to atheism.”


Therefore God, as a personal being, is dead, and will never come to life
again. While there is an enormous exaggeration in these words, they
nevertheless glaringly characterize the ideas of the science of which
_Paulsen_ is the mouthpiece. It does not want directly to give up the name
of God; it serves as a mask to conceal the uncanny features of pantheism
and materialism.


    “The universe,” we hear often and in many variations, “is the
    expression of a uniform, original principle, which may be termed
    God, Nature, primitive force, or anything else, and which appears
    to man in manifold forms of energy, like matter, light, warmth,
    electricity, chemical energy, or psychical process.... These
    fundamental ideas of monism are by no means ‘atheistic.’ Many
    monists in spite of assertions to the contrary believe in a
    supreme divine principle, which penetrates the whole world, living
    and operating in everything. Of course, if God is taken to mean a
    being who exists outside of the world ... then it is true we are
    atheists” (_Plate_). We have already seen that one can even be a
    Protestant theologian and yet be satisfied with a “God” of this
    description.


In the place of God has stepped _man_, with his advanced civilization,
radiant in the divine aureole of the absolute as its highest incarnation.
But what has liberal research done even to him? According to the Christian
idea, man bears the stamp of God on his forehead: “after My image I have
created thee”; in his breast he carries a spiritual soul, endowed with
freedom and immortality—_gloria et honore coronasti eum_. Liberal science
pretends to uplift and exalt man; but in reality it strips him of his
adornments, one after the other. He is no longer a creature of God because
this would contradict science. His birthplace and the home of his
childhood are no longer in Paradise, but in the jungles of Africa, among
the animals, whose descendent man is now said to be. Liberal science,
almost without exception, denies the freedom of will which raises man high
above the beast, and as a rule it calls such freedom an “illusion”: of a
substantial soul, of immortality, of an ultimate possession of God after
death, it frequently, if not always, knows nothing.


    Let us take up a handbook of modern _Psychology_ of this kind,
    Wundt’s, for instance. We see at a glance that it is a very
    learned work. The thirty lectures inform us in minute
    investigations of the various methods and resources of
    psychological research. The reader has reached the twentieth
    lecture, and he asks, how about the soul? The title of the book
    states that the chapters would treat of the human soul, but so far
    not a word has been said about it. But there are ten lectures
    more; he continues to turn over the leaves of the book. He finds
    beautiful things said about expression and emotions, about
    instincts in animal and man, about spontaneous actions and other
    things. At last, the third before the last page of the book, there
    arises the question, what about the soul, and what does the reader
    learn? “Our soul is nothing else, but the sum total of our
    perception, our feeling and our will.” The conviction he held
    hitherto, that he possessed a substantial, immortal soul, which
    remains through changing conceptions and sentiments, he sees
    rejected as “fiction.” The reader learns that, though he may still
    use the term “soul,” he has no real soul, much less a spiritual
    soul, least of all an immortal soul. In its stead he is treated to
    some learned statements about muscular sensations and such things,
    by way of compensation. _Jodl_, too, speaks of the “illusions,
    based upon the old theories about the soul,” and he rejects the
    dualistic psychology which “mistook an abstract thought, the soul,
    for a real being, for an immaterial substance”; and which defended
    this notion “with worthless reasons.”

    It is manifest that, together with the substantial soul,
    immortality is also disposed of. True, here too the word is
    cautiously retained; but by immortality is now understood
    perpetuation in the human race, in the ideas of posterity, in
    “objective spirit,” in the “imperishable value of ethical
    possessions,” for which the individual has laboured. Some fine
    words are said about it, as roses are used to cover a grave. Yet,
    it is only the immortality of the barrel of Regulus, or the
    Gordian knot in history, the immortality of which the printers’
    press may partake in the effect of the books it prints. To quote
    _Jodl_ again: “The fact of the objective spirit, together with the
    organic connection of the generations to one another, form the
    scientific reality of what appears in popular, mythological tenets
    of faith as the idea of personal immortality ... and which has
    been defended by the dualistic psychology with worthless, invalid
    arguments.” The refutation of these arguments does not bother him.
    “A refutation of these scholastic arguments is as little needed as
    a refutation of the belief in the miracles and demons of former
    centuries is needed by a man standing on the ground of modern
    natural science.” This reminds one of _Haeckel’s_ method. The
    latter nevertheless found it worth while in his “Weltraetsel” to
    dispose in thirteen lines of six such arguments, and then to
    assure the reader that “All these and similar arguments have
    fallen to the ground.” That the matter in question is an idea that
    has been the foundation of Christian civilization and ethics for
    thousands of years, that has led millions to holiness; an idea,
    indeed, that has been the common property of all nations at all
    times—this seems to count for very little.

    This technique of a superficial speculation, which, devoid of
    piety, casts everything overboard, finds no trouble in disposing
    of the entire _spiritual world_. “No one is capable,” says _Jodl_
    again, “of imagining a purely spiritual reality.” This is disposed
    of. “Since the war between the Aristotle-scholastic and the
    mechanical method has been waged, spiritual powers have never
    played any other part in the explanation of the world than that of
    an unknown quantity in equations of a higher degree, which,
    unsolvable by methods hitherto prevalent, are only awaiting the
    superior master and a new technique (_sic_) in order to disappear”
    (p. 77 _seq._).


With the denial of a personal God and of the immortality of the soul, true
_religion_ is abandoned. Of course, there is much said and written about
religion in our days: the scientific literature about it has grown to
tremendous proportions—to say nothing of newspapers, novels, and plays.
One might welcome this as a proof that this world will never entirely
satisfy the human heart. But it is also a sign that religion is no longer
a secure possession, but has become a problem—that it has been lost. Even
on the part of free-thought it is not denied that “only unhappy times will
permit the existence of religious problems; and that this problem is the
utterance of mental discord.” Yet they do not want to forego religion
entirely, for they feel that irreligion is tantamount to degeneration. But
what has become of religion? It has been degraded to a vague sentiment and
longing, without religious truths and duties, a plaything for pastime.


    For _Schleiermacher_ religion is a feeling of simple dependence,
    though no one knows upon whom he is dependent: according to
    _Wundt_ religion consists in “man serving infinite purposes,
    together with his finite purposes, the ultimate fulfilment whereof
    remains hidden to his eye,” which probably means something, but I
    do not know what. _Haeckel_ calls his materialism the religion of
    the true, good, and beautiful; _Jodl_ even thinks, “As the realm
    of science is the real, and the realm of art the possible, so the
    realm of religion is the impossible.” Religion having been
    degraded to such a level, it is no longer astonishing that
    religion is attributed even to animals, and in the words of _E.
    von Hartmann_, “we cannot help attributing a religious character,
    as far as the animal is concerned, to the relation between the
    intelligent domestic animals and their masters.”


What, finally, has become of the old standard of _morals_? A modern
philosopher may answer the question.


    _Fouillée_ writes: “In our day, far more so than thirty years ago,
    morality itself, its reality, its necessity and usefulness, is in
    the balance.... I have read with much concern how my
    contemporaries are at fundamental variance in this respect, and
    how they contradict one another. I have tried to form an opinion
    of all these different opinions. Shall I say it? I have found in
    the province of morals a confusion of ideas and sentiments to an
    extent that it seemed impossible to me to illustrate thoroughly
    what might be termed contemporaneous sophistry” (Le Moralisme de
    Kant, etc.).


Where is left now to liberal science a single remnant of those great
truths on which mankind has hitherto lived, and which it needs for
existence? There was a God—but He is gone. There was a life to come, and a
supernatural world; they are lost. Man had a soul, endowed with freedom,
spirituality, and immortality; he has it no longer. He had fixed
principles of reasoning and laws of morals; they are gone. He possessed
Christ, full of grace and truth, he possessed redemption and a Church;
everything is lost. Burnt to the ground is the homestead. In the blank
voids, that cheerful casements were, sits despair; man stands at the grave
of all that fortune gave!

The names alone have survived; now and then they speak of God and
religion, of Christianity and faith, immortality and freedom; but the
words are false, pretending a possession that is lost long since. They are
patches from a grand dress, once worn by our ancestors; ruins of the
ancestral house that the children have lost. They are still cherished as
the memories of better times. People thus acknowledge the irreparable
forfeiture which those names denote, without realizing how they pronounce
their own condemnation by having destroyed these possessions.(16)
_Dissipaverunt substantiam suam._

The son came to his father. In his heedless anxiety for freedom he would
leave the father’s house, to get away from restraining discipline and
dependence. “Father, give me the portion of the goods that falleth to me.”
And he departed into a far country. Soon he had spent all and had nothing
to appease his hunger.



Despairing of Truth.


These, then, are the achievements liberal research can boast of in the
fields of philosophy and religion: Negations and again negations; temples
and altars it has destroyed, sacred images it has broken, pillars it has
knocked down. Free from Christianity, free from God, free from the life to
come and the supernatural, free from authority and faith—it is rich in
freedom and negation. But what does it offer in place of all the things it
has destroyed? What spiritual goods does it show to the expectant eyes of
its confiding followers? The most hopeless things imaginable, namely,
despair of all higher truth, mental confusion, and decay. One other brief
glance at the consequences and we shall be competent to judge of the
fitness of liberal freedom of thought for the civilization of mankind.

As far as it is inspired by philosophy, modern science confesses the
principle: “No objective truth can be positively known, at least not in
metaphysics”; restless doubt is the lot of the searching intellect. We
have amplified this elsewhere in these pages. This result of the modern
doctrine of cognition is not infrequently boasted of. It was good enough,
say they, for the ancients to live in the silly belief of possessing
eternal truth; they were simple and unsuspecting; we know there is in
store for man only doubt and everlasting struggle for truth.


    “We confess that we do not know whether there are for mankind as a
    whole, and for the individual, tasks and goals that extend beyond
    this earthly existence” (_Jodl_). “There is no scientific
    philosophy of generally recognized standard, but only in the form
    of various experiments for the purpose of defining and expressing
    the harmony and the idea of the active principle; consequently
    there cannot be a final philosophy, it must be ready at all times
    to revise any point that previously seemed to have been
    established” (_Paulsen_). “Only to dogmatism,” says another, “are
    the various theories of the world contradictory; to science they
    are hypotheses of equal value, which, as they are all limited, may
    exist side by side, the theistic as well as the atheistic, the
    dualistic, the monistic, and whatever their names may be. Man, who
    conceives these hypotheses, is master over them all and makes use
    of them, here of one, there of another, according to the kind of
    the problem he is occupied with at the time. Thus, he is
    independent of any view of the world” (_L. von Sybel_). Again we
    are told: “There has been formulated a free variety of
    metaphysical systems, none of them demonstrable.... Is it our
    task, perhaps, to select the true one? This would be an odd
    superstition; this metaphysical anarchy is teaching, as obviously
    as possible, the relativity of all metaphysical systems” (_W.
    Dilthey_). Therefore, nothing but impressions and opinions, and
    not the truth; indeed, for the cognition of transcendental,
    metaphysical truths, they often have only words of disdain.

    “The fact should be emphasized,” says _G. Spicker_, “that
    philosophy really is devoid of any higher ideal; that, through its
    doubt of the objective cognizability of things above us, outside
    and inside of us, it has fallen prey to scepticism, even if
    philosophers do not admit it and try to evade the issue with the
    phrase ‘theory of cognition.’ ”


A science cannot sink to a lower level than by the admission that it has
nothing to offer and nothing to accomplish. It is tantamount to
bankruptcy. This science undertakes to nourish the human mind, but offers
stones instead of bread; it wants to uplift and to instruct, and confesses
that it has nothing to tell. _Amphora coepit institui, currente rota
urceus exit._ In the beginning a proud consciousness and the promise to be
everything to mankind; at the end mental pauperism and scepticism, a
caricature of science.

This, then, is the terminal at which the free-thought of subjectivism has
arrived: the loss of truth, without which man’s mind wanders restlessly
and without a goal. That is the penalty for gambling boldly with human
perception, the retribution for rebelling against the rights of truth and
for the vainglorious arrogance of the intellect, which would draw only
from its own cisterns the water of life, while alone those lying deep in
the Divine may offer him the eternal fountains of objective truth.
Scepticism is gnawing at the mental life of the world. A scepticism
cloaked with the names of criticism and research, and of positivism and
empiric knowledge, but which, nevertheless, remains what it is, an ominous
demon, liberated from the grave into which has been lowered the Christian
spiritual life, the spirit of darkness now pervading the world.



In All Directions of the Compass.


They have lost their way, puzzled by mazes and perplexed with error they
are in hopeless confusion; a correlative of individualistic thinking. If
the absolute subject and his experiences of life are the self-appointed
court of last resort, the result must be anarchy and not accord. This is
manifest; moreover, it is frankly admitted by the spokesmen of
freethought.


    This anarchy is described in vivid words by Prof. _Paulsen_,
    recently the indefatigable champion of freest thought: “We no
    longer have a Protestant philosophy, in the sense of a standard
    system. _Hegel’s_ philosophy was the last to occupy such a
    position. Anarchy rules ever since. The attempted rally around the
    name of _Kant_ failed to put an end to the prevalent anarchy, or
    to the division into small fractions and individualisms. Then
    there is the mental neurasthenia of our times, the absolute lack
    of ideas, especially noticeable among so-called educated
    people.... Billboard art has found a counterpart in
    billboard-philosophy. Here, there, and everywhere we meet the cry:
    here is the saviour, the secret ruler, the magic doctor, who cures
    all ills of our diseased age.... After a while, the mob has again
    dispersed and the thing is forgotten” (“Philosophia Militans”).

    “There is no uniform philosophic theory of the world, such as we,
    at least to a certain extent, used to have,” says _Paulsen_
    elsewhere, “the latest ideas are diverging in all directions of
    the compass.” When one buildeth up, and another pulleth down, what
    profit have they but the labour? (Ecclus. xxxiv. 28). “We have no
    metaphysics nowadays,” says _R. Eucken_ in the same strain, “and
    there are not a few who are proud of it. They only would have the
    right to be so if our philosophy were in excellent shape, if, even
    without metaphysics, firm convictions ruled our life and actions,
    if great aims held us together and lifted us above the smallness
    of the merely human. The fact is an unlimited discordance, a
    pitiful insecurity in all matters of principle, a defencelessness
    against the petty human, and soullessness accompanied by
    superabounding exterior manifestation of life.”


This is the status of modern philosophy and also of liberal, Protestant,
theology. Of views of the world, of notions and forms of Christianity, of
ideas, essays and contributions to them, there is choice in abundance.
Here, materialistic Monism is proclaimed, warranted to solve all riddles.
There, spiritualistic Pantheism is retailed in endless varieties. Yonder,
Agnosticism is strutting: no longer philosophy, but facts and reality, is
its slogan. Then comes the long procession of ethical views of life:
“Contemplations of life; theories of human existence surround us and court
us in plenty; the coincidence of ample historical learning with active
reflection induces manifold combinations, and makes it easy for the
individual to draw pictures of this kind according to circumstance and
mood; and so we see individual philosophies whirling about promiscuously,
winning and losing the favour of the day, and shifting and transmuting
themselves in kaleidoscopic change” (_Eucken_). _Hegel_, although he
lectured with great assurance on his own system, lamented: “Every
philosophy comes forth with the pretension to refute not only the
preceding philosophy, but to remedy its defects, to have at last found the
right thing.” But past experience shows, that to this philosophy, too, the
passage from Holy Writ is applicable: “Behold, the feet that will carry
thee away are already at the threshold.” Indeed, often it has come to pass
that these philosophers themselves bury their ideas, preparatory to
entering another camp. Consider the changes that men like _Kant_,
_Fichte_, _Schelling_, _Strauss_, _Nietzsche_, have essayed in the short
course of a few decades, and we are justified in assuming that they would
again have changed their last ideas had death not interfered.

Now and then such confusion of opinions is considered an advantage, the
advantage of fertility. To be sure, it is fertility,—the fertility of
fruitless attempts, of errors, and of fancies, the fertility of disorder
and chaos. If this fertility be a cause of pride for science, then
mathematics, physics, astronomy, and other exact sciences, are indeed to
be pitied for having to forego this fertility of philosophy, and the
privilege of being an arena for contradictory views.



Without Peace and without Joy.


After the hopeless shipwreck of the modern, godless thought, can we wonder
at meeting frequently the despondency of _pessimism_? Is not pessimism the
first born of scepticism? At the close of the nineteenth century we read,
again and again, in reviews of the past and forecasts of the future, how
the modern world stands perplexed before the riddles of life, confessing
in pessimistic mood that it is dissatisfied and unhappy to the depth of
its soul. With proud self-consciousness, boasting of knowledge and power
of intellect, they had entered the nineteenth century, praising themselves
in the words: How great, O man, thou standest at the century’s close, with
palm of victory in thy hand, the fittest son of time! With heads bowed in
shame these same representatives of modern thought make their exit from
the same century.


    Of the number that voiced this sentiment we quote but one, Prof.
    _R. Eucken_, who wrote: “The greatness of the work is beyond
    doubt. This work more and more opens up and conquers the world,
    unfolds our powers, enriches our life, it leads us in quick
    victorious marches from triumph to triumph.... Thus, it is true,
    our desired objects have been attained, but they disclosed other
    things than we expected: the more our powers and ideas are
    attracted by the work, the more we must realize the neglect of the
    inner man and of his unappeased, ardent longing for happiness.
    Doubts spring up concerning the entire work; we must ask whether
    the new civilization be not too much a development of bare force,
    and too little a cultivation of the being, whether because of our
    strenuous attention to surroundings, the problems of innermost man
    are not neglected. There is also noticeable a sad lack in moral
    power: we feel powerless against selfish interests and
    overwhelming passions: mankind is more and more dividing itself
    into hostile sects and parties. And such doubts arouse to renewed
    vigour the old, eternal problems, which faithfully accompany our
    evolution through all its stages. Former times did not finally
    solve them, (?) but they were, at least to a degree, mollified and
    quieted. But now they are here again unmitigated and unobscured.
    The enigmatical of human existence is impressed upon us with
    unchecked strength, the darkness concerning the Whence and
    Whither, the dismal power of blind necessity, accident and sorrow
    in our fate, the low and vulgar in the human soul, the difficult
    complications of the social body: all unite in the question: Has
    our existence any real sense or value? Is it not torn asunder to
    an extent that we shall be denied truth and peace for ever?...
    Hence it is readily understood why a gloomy pessimism is spreading
    more and more, why the depressed feeling of littleness and
    weakness is pervading mankind in the midst of its triumphs.”

    Similar, and profoundly true, are the words spoken some years ago
    by a noted critic in the “Literarische Zentralblatt” (1900): “A
    painful lament and longing pervades our restless and peaceless
    time. The bulk of our knowledge is daily increasing, our technical
    ability hardly knows of difficulties it could not overcome ... and
    yet we are not satisfied. More and more frequently we meet with
    the tired, disheartened question: What’s the use? We lack the one
    thing which would give support and impetus to our existence, a
    firm and assured view of the world. Or, to be more exact, we have
    found that we cannot live with the view of the world which in this
    century of enlightenment has stamped its imprint more and more
    upon our entire mental life. Materialism, in coarser or finer
    form, has penetrated deeply our habits of thought, even in those
    who would indignantly protest against being called materialists;
    the name seemed to imply scientific earnestness and liberal views.
    However, there was still left a considerable fund of old,
    idealistic values, and as long as we could draw upon them we saw
    in materialism only the power to clear up rooted prejudices, and
    to open the road for progress in every field. To the newer
    generation, however, little or nothing is left of this old fund,
    hence, having nothing else but materialism to depend upon, they
    are confronted by an appalling dreariness and emptiness of
    existence. And ever since the man on the street has absorbed the
    easy materialistic principles, and looks down from the height of
    his ‘scientific’ view of life contemptuously upon all
    reactionaries, we have become aware of the danger that imperils
    everything implied by the collective word ‘humanism.’ This
    explains the plethora of literature which in these days deals with
    the questions of a world philosophy.” Who is not reminded after
    reading this mournful confession of the words of _St. Augustine_:
    “Restless is our heart, till it finds rest in Thee”?


If it be true, then, that philosophical thought stands in closest
connection with civilization, determining the latter in its loftier
aspects, then the freedom of thought of modern subjectivism has proved its
incompetence as a power for civilization; it can produce only a
sham-civilization, it can incite the minds and keep them in nervous
tension, until, tired of fruitless endeavour, they yield to pessimism.
However painful it may be to admit it, this freedom of thought is and
remains the principle of natural decadence of all the higher elements of a
culture that is not determined by the number of guns, by steam-engines,
and high-schools for girls, but which consists, chiefly, in a steadfast,
ideal condition of reason and will, from which all else obtains
significance and value. What further proof of intellectual and cultural
incompetence can be demanded which this principle has not furnished
already?

If this be the fact, then it follows in turn that in the life of higher
culture, where the health of the soul and the marrow of mental life is at
stake, there can rule but a single principle, the _objectivism of
Christian thought_, the principle of absolute submission, without variance
and change, to a truth against which man has no rights. The submission of
Christian thought to a religious, teaching authority, recognized as
infallible in all matters pertaining to its domain, while not an
exhaustive presentment of this principle, is its perceptive and concrete
effect.



A Rock in the Waters.


The history of human thought of all ages, but especially of the last
centuries, proves how necessary a divine revelation is to man; viz., the
clear exposition of the highest truths in the view of world and of life,
emphasized by a divine authority, which links the human mind to the one
immutable truth; not only in ignorant nations, not only in the man of the
common people, but also, and more especially, in the educated man and in
the scientist, he, namely, who, through the moderate studies of a small
intellect, has collected a little sum of knowledge that is apt to confuse
his limited understanding and to rob him of modesty. It is just as
manifest that revelation alone does not suffice, that there is needed also
the enduring forum of a teaching Church, which in the course of centuries
gives expression to truth with infallible, binding authority.

The full truth of this is felt even by those unfavourably disposed toward
this authority. A recent champion of autonomous freedom of thought, the
Protestant theologian, _F. Troeltsch_, makes this concession in the words:
“The immediate consequence of such autonomy is necessarily a steadily more
intensified individualism of convictions, opinions, theories, and
practical ends and aims. An absolute supra-individual union is effected
only by an enormous power such as the belief in an immediate,
supernatural, divine, revelation, as possessed by Catholicism, and
organized in the Church as the extended and continued incarnation of God.
This tie gone, the necessary sequel will be a splitting up in all sorts of
human opinions.”(17)

This is to the Catholic a caution to appreciate the ministry of his Church
ever more highly, and to cleave to it still closer. He will not agree with
those who think that in our time the principle of Authority must retire.
The more his eyes are opened by the present situation, the more clearly he
realizes where thought emancipated from faith and authority has led, the
more he will affirm his conscious belief in authority. His foothold upon
the rock of the Church will be the firmer the more restless the billows of
unsafe opinions rise and roll about him. The Catholic of mature, Catholic,
conviction would consider it folly to abandon the rock for the restless
and turbulent play of the waves. Many, indeed, who are looking for a safe
place of truth, we see for this reason taking refuge in a strong Church;
many are impressed by the stability of Catholic authority.(18)

The present situation is similar socially to that of the ancient world at
its close, and also in regard to the spiritual life. Then, as now, there
was learning without idealism, corroded by scepticism, without harmony and
cheer. Then, as now, there was but one power to offer rescue. Faith and
Church. A longing for help is now also prevailing in the world. It feels
its helplessness. If they only had the conviction of a _St. Augustine_,
who prayed for deliverance from his errors: “When I often and forcefully
realized the agility, sagacity, and acumen of the human mind, I could not
believe that truth was hidden completely from us—rather only the way and
manner how to discover it, and that we must accept these from a divine
authority” (_De utilit. credendi_, 8).

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

It was a solemn hour, pregnant with profound significance, when at
midnight at the beginning of this century all the churchbells of the
Catholic globe were ringing, and, while everything around was silent,
their blessed sound was resounding alone over the earth, over villages and
cities, over countries and nations. Grandly there resounded into the whole
world, over the heads of the children of men about to enter upon a new
century of their history, that the Catholic Church is the Queen in the
realm of mind, that she alone preserves infallibly the truths and ideals
of which mankind is in quest, by which they are raised above earthly
turmoil—those truths and ideals in which the heart and mind of earthly
pilgrims find rest and peace on their long journey to the goal of time.
Since she assumed the mission of Him who said, “I am the Way and the
Truth,” and, “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the
world,” the Church has travelled a long way through the centuries, has
withstood hard times and fierce storms. And she has faithfully preserved
for mankind the precious patrimony from God’s hand. And now, at the dawn
of new times, her bells proclaimed that she is still alive, holding the
old truths in a strong hand. And after another century the bells of the
globe will ring again, they will, so we hope—ring more loudly and more
forcefully, over the nations. And these bells will also ring over the
graves of this present generation, over fallen giants of the forest and
over collapsed towers, over mouldy books, and the wreckage left by a
culture that the emancipated, fallible human mind created, but which truth
did not consecrate. And again the bells will proclaim to a new century
that God, and the world’s history, are thinking greater thoughts than the
puny child of man is capable of thinking within the narrow compass of his
years and of his surroundings.



FOURTH SECTION. FREEDOM OF TEACHING.



Preliminary Conceptions and Distinctions.


Acquisition and distribution, labour and communication of the fruits of
labour, are the two factors that determine the progress of mankind. Thus
the precious metal is mined and brought to the surface by the labourer,
whence it speeds through the world; thus the faithful missionary journeys
into remote countries, to disseminate there the mental treasures acquired
by study and hard religious effort. And thus science desires to work, and
should work, for the culture and progress of mankind, and this work is
pre-eminently its task. To properly pursue this vocation science demands
freedom, _freedom in research and teaching_. There is, as we have already
pointed out, an important distinction between the two. Although research
and teaching are mostly joined, the former only attaining its chief end in
teaching, there is a real difference between the two elements; and not
unfrequently they are separated. It makes quite a difference whether some
one within the four walls of his room studies anarchy, or whether he
proceeds to proclaim its principles to the world; it is quite different
whether a man embraces atheism for his personal use only, or whether he
makes propaganda for it from the pulpit; it makes also a world of
difference whether a man is personally convinced that materialism is the
sole truth, or whether he proclaims it as a science, and is able to affirm
that of the German edition of “Welträtsel” 200,000 copies have been sold,
of the English edition about as many, and that a dozen other translations
have spread the fundamental notions of monism broadcast through the world
(_E. Haeckel_, Monismus u. Naturgesetz). Teaching must be viewed from a
different point. Research is a personal function, whereas Teaching is a
social one. This fact, of itself, makes it evident that teaching cannot be
allowed the same measure of freedom as research, hence that teaching must
be confined within narrower limits.

But Freedom is demanded not only for research, but also for teaching, in
most cases even an unlimited freedom. It is demanded as an inalienable
right of the individual, it is demanded in the name of progress, which can
be promoted only by new knowledge. Some countries grant this freedom in
their constitutions. Before discussing this demand and its presumptions,
we shall have to make clear some preliminary conceptions.

First, the meaning of _freedom of teaching_. How is it precisely to be
understood? Freedom in teaching in general means, evidently, exemption
from unwarranted restraint in teaching. Teaching, however, to use the
words of a great thinker of the past, means _Causare in alio scientiam_,
to impart knowledge to some one else (_Thomas Aquinas_, Quaest. disp. De
verit. q. XI al.). Thus the pious mother teaches the child truths about
God and Heaven, the school-teacher teaches elementary knowledge, the
college-professor teaches science. Teaching is chiefly understood to be
the instruction by professional teachers, from grammar school up to
university. Hence freedom in teaching does not necessarily refer to
scientific matters only; we may also speak of a freedom of teaching in the
elementary school. As a rule, however, the term is used in the narrower
sense of freedom in teaching science.


    Here it may not be amiss to mention further distinctions. As we
    may distinguish in teaching three essentials, namely, the matter,
    the method, and the teacher, so there is a corresponding triple
    freedom of teaching. If we regard the matter, we meet with the
    demand, that no one be excluded in an unjust way from exercising
    his right to teach, that no single party should have the monopoly
    of teaching: the right to found free universities also belongs
    here. It is part of the freedom of teaching. As it has relation to
    the state, we shall return to this point later on. A second
    freedom, which might be called methodological, concerns the choice
    of the method. This is naturally subject to considerable
    restraint; not only because the academic teacher may frequently
    have to get along without desirable paraphernalia, but also
    because of the commission he receives with his appointment,
    wherein his field and scope are prescribed. This is necessary for
    the purpose of the university; the students are to acquire the
    varied knowledge needed later on in their vocations of clergyman,
    lawyer, teacher, or physician. There is frequent complaint that
    this freedom in method is abused to a certain extent, that the
    students are taught many fragments of science with thoroughness,
    but too little of that which they actually need later on; they are
    trained too much for theoretical work and not enough for the
    practical vocation. Thus there is limitation here, too. But this
    is not the freedom in teaching which occupies the centre of
    interest to-day.


The trophy for which the battle is waged is the freedom relating to the
_subject_ of teaching; we shall term it “doctrinal” freedom in teaching:
Shall the representative of science be permitted to promulgate any view he
has formed? Even if that view conflicts with general religious or moral
convictions, with the social order? Or must this freedom be curbed? This
is the question.(19)

Obviously, teaching need not always be done _verbally_, it can be done
also by _writing_. The professor lectures in the classrooms, but he may
also expound his theories in books; this latter the private scholar may
also do. In this way _Plato_ and _Aristotle_ and the Fathers are still
teaching by their writings, though their lips have long been silent. True,
this way of teaching has not the force of the spoken word, vibrating with
personal conviction, but it reaches farther out, with telling effect upon
masses and remote circles. Thus, freedom in teaching includes also the
freedom to print and publish scientific theories, hence it includes part
of the _freedom of the press_; in its full meaning, however, the freedom
of the press relates also to unscientific periodicals, especially
newspapers.

A counterpart to the freedom in teaching is presented by the _freedom in
learning_. It concerns the student, and may consist of the right granted
to the “academic citizen” to choose at his discretion, but within the
restrictions set by his studies, his university, his teachers, and his
curriculum.



Chapter I. Freedom Of Teaching And Ethics.


Now for a closer examination of the problem of freedom of teaching, from
the point of _general ethics_, not of law. This is an important
distinction, not seldom overlooked. The former point of view deals with
freedom in teaching only in as far as regulated or circumscribed by
ethical principles, by the moral principles of conscience, without regard
to state-laws or other positive rules. The freedom in teaching as
determined by governmental decrees may be called freedom of teaching by
state-right. It may happen that the state does not prohibit the
dissemination of doctrines which may be forbidden by reason and
conscience, for instance, atheistical doctrine. There may be immoral
products of art not prohibited by the state; yet ethics cannot grant
license to pornography. The state grants the liberty of changing from one
creed to another, or of declaring one’s self an atheist; yet this does not
justify the act before the conscience. The statutes do not forbid
everything that is morally impermissible; their aim is directed only at
offences against the good of the commonwealth. Moreover, even such
offences may not be prohibited by statute, for the simple reason that the
enactment of such laws may be impossible on account of the complexion of
legislative bodies, or because of other conditions.

We will now take the ethical position and try to judge the freedom of
teaching from this point of view. First of all, we shall have to explain
the _social character_ of teaching and the _responsibility_ attached
thereto. We start again with the meaning of freedom of teaching. It
demands that the communication of scientific opinions should not be
restrained in unwarranted manner. “In unwarranted manner”; because,
manifestly, not all bars are to be removed; no one will assert that a man
may teach things he knows to be false. Every activity, including
scientific activity, must conform to truth and morals. Hence there is only
the question to determine, when is freedom in teaching morally
reprehensible, and when not; which are the bars that must not be
transgressed, and which bars may be disregarded? Is it allowed or not to
teach any opinion, if the teacher subjectively believes it to be true?
Here the views differ. However, one thing at present is clear:



Freedom of Teaching is Necessary.


Also in respect to method. Even the teacher in public and grammar schools,
though minutely guided by the plan of instruction, must be granted, by the
demands of pedagogy, a certain liberty; he should be free to arrange and
to try many things. Only where individual spontaneity is given play will
love for work be aroused, which in turn stimulates devotion to the cause
and makes for success. This applies with even greater force to the
college-professor, in respect to method, course of instruction, subject,
and the results of his research. He must be free to communicate them,
without consideration for unwarranted prejudices, or for private and party
interests.

If the scientist were condemned to do nothing but repeat the old things,
without change and variance, without improvement and correction, without
new additions and discoveries, all alertness and impulse would disappear;
but his alacrity and ardour will increase, if allowed to contribute to
progress, if assured beforehand of publicity for the new solutions he
hopes to find, if allowed to promulgate new discoveries.

This freedom is demanded, even more imperatively, by the vocation of
science to work for the progress of mankind, primarily for the
intellectual and through this for the general progress. The demand in
behalf of the individual is even more urgent in behalf of science at
large: no standing still, ever onward to new knowledge and the enrichment
of the mind, to moral uplift, to a beautifying of life—and ultimately to
the glorification of God! For, verily, the purpose of the whole universe
is the glory of the Creator. Glory is given to Him by the world of stars,
as they speed through space, conforming to His laws; glory is given to Him
by the dewdrop, as it reflects the rays of the morning sun; glory is given
to Him by the butterfly, as it unfolds the brilliancy of colours received
from His hand. The chief glory of all is given to Him by the
reason-endowed human mind, developing its powers ever more fully, the
crowning achievement of visible creation, wherein God’s wisdom reflects
brighter than the sun in the morning-dew. And for this is needed the
freedom of scientific progress, which would be impossible without a
freedom in teaching.


    And this applies not only to fixed conclusions; it must also be
    permitted, within admissible bounds, to teach scientific
    _hypotheses_. Science needs them for its progress; they are the
    buds that burst forth into blossoms. Had men like _Copernicus_,
    _Newton_, _Huygens_, not been free to propound their hypotheses,
    the sun would still revolve around the earth, we still would have
    _Ptolemy’s_ revolution of the spheres, and the results of optical
    science would be denied us.



A Twofold Freedom of Teaching and Its Presumption.


There cannot be any doubt that science must have freedom in teaching. But
of what kind? One that is necessary and suitable. Yes, but what kind of
freedom is that? Here is the crux of the question. Now we are again at the
boundary line where we stood, when defining the freedom of science in
general, at the parting of the ways of two contrary conceptions of man.

One is the Christian idea, and also that of unbiassed reason. Man is a
limited creature, depending on God, on truth and moral law, at the same
time dependent on social life, hence also dependent on social order and
authority; consequently he cannot claim independence, but only the freedom
compatible with his position. Therefore the barriers demanded by truth and
by the duty of belief are set to his research; hence his freedom in
teaching can only be the one permitted by his social position; personal
perception of truth _and_ consideration for the welfare of mankind will be
the barriers of this freedom.

This view is opposed by another, claiming full independence for both
research and teaching, a claim prompted by the modern philosophy of _free
humanity_, which sees in man an autonomous being, who needs only follow
the immanent impulses of his own individuality; and this especially in
that activity which is deemed the most perfect, the pursuit of science:
this hypostatized collective-being of the highest human pursuit is also to
be the supreme bearer of autonomism. As a matter of course this results in
the claim for unlimited freedom in teaching, a freedom we shall term
_liberal_: in communicating his scientific view the scientist need merely
be guided by his perception of truth, without any considerations for
external authorities or interests, provided his communication is a
scientific one, viz., observing the usual form of scientific teaching.
This latter limitation is usually added, because this freedom is to apply
to the teaching of _science_ only; to the popular presentation of
scientific views, appealing directly to the masses, such a freedom is not
always conceded.


    “Research,” we are told, “demands full freedom, with no other
    barrier but its own desire for truth, hence the academic teacher
    who teaches in the capacity of an investigator is likewise not to
    know any barriers but his inner truthfulness and propriety.” “In
    this sense we demand to-day freedom in teaching for our
    universities. The freedom of the scientist and of the academic
    teacher must not be constrained by any patented truth, nor by
    faint-hearted consideration. We let the word of the Bible comfort
    us: ‘if this doctrine is of God, it will endure; if not, it will
    pass away’ ” (_Kaufmann_). Whatever the academic teacher produces
    from his subjective veracity must be inviolable; he may proclaim
    it as truth, regardless of consequences. “The searching
    scientist,” so says another, “must consider only the one question:
    What is truth? But inasmuch as there cannot be research without
    communication(?), we must go a step further: the teaching, too,
    must not be restricted. The scientific writer has to heed but one
    consideration: How can I present the things exactly as I perceive
    them, in the clearest and most precise manner?” (_Paulsen_).
    “Scientific research and the communication of its results must,
    conformable to its purpose, be independent of any consideration
    not innate in the scientific method itself,—hence independent of
    the traditions and prejudices of the masses, independent of
    authorities and social groups, independent of interested parties.
    That this independence is indispensable needs no demonstration.”
    “Nor can any limitation of the freedom of research and teaching be
    deduced from the official position of the scientist or teacher”
    (_Von Amira_). Just as soon as he begins his research according to
    scientific method, _i.e._, adapts his thoughts to scientific
    rules, customs, and postulates, he may question Christianity, God,
    everything; neither state nor Church must object, no matter if
    thousands are led astray.


This freedom is pre-eminently claimed for philosophical and religious
thought, for ideas relating to views of the world and the foundations of
social order; because only in this province is absolute freedom of
teaching likely to be seriously refused. In mathematics and the natural
sciences, in philology and kindred sciences, there is hardly occasion for
it; there only petty disputes occur, differences among competitors, things
that do not reach beyond the precinct of the learned fraternity. Whether
one is for or against the theory of three-dimensional space, for or
against the theory of ions and the like, all that touches very little on
the vital questions of mankind; but the case is quite different when it
comes to publicly advocating the abolition of private property, to the
preaching of polygamy: it is here where great clashes threaten. Here,
also, there enter into the plan the social powers, whose duty it is to
shield the highest possessions of human society against wanton attack.
Nevertheless the demand is for unlimited freedom in teaching. What, then,
are the arguments used in giving to this exceptional claim the semblance
of justification? This shall be the first question.



Unlimited Freedom in Teaching not Demanded.


1. Not by Veracity.


Veracity is appealed to first; it obligates the teacher, so it is said, to
announce his own convictions unreservedly, for to “deny one’s own
convictions would offend against one of the most positive principles of
morals”; hence the academic teacher could not grant to the state the right
to set a barrier in this respect, “it would be a violation of the duty of
veracity, which is innate to the teacher’s office” (_Von Amira_).

Was it realized in making this claim what the duty of truthfulness really
demands? This duty is complied with when one is not untruthful, that is to
say, does not state something to be his opinion when secretly he believes
the contrary to be true; to force him to do this would of course be
instigating untruthfulness. Truthfulness, however, does not require any
one to speak out publicly what he thinks; one may be silent. Or is
cautious silence untruthfulness? It is oftentimes prudence, but not
untruthfulness. There is a considerable difference between thinking and
communicating thought, even to the scientist.

Or is the scientist _obliged_, for instance, to proclaim publicly views he
has formed contrary to the prevailing principles of morals,—views he calls
the “results of his research,” so that mankind at last may learn the
truth? Was _Nietzsche_ in duty bound to proclaim to the wide world his
revolutionary ideas? Any sober-minded man might have told him he need not
worry about this duty. Has the teacher of science this duty? How will he
prove it? How are they going to prove that it is incumbent upon an
atheistic college-professor to teach his atheism also to others? Or, must
he teach that the fundamental principles of Christian marriage are
untenable, if this has become his personal opinion? Is it, perhaps,
impossible for him to refrain from such teaching in the lectures he is
appointed to give? This view will mostly prove a delusion. A conscientious
examination of his opinion would convince him that he, too, had better
abandon it, since it is merely an aberration of his mind. But let us
assume that he could neither correct his views nor refrain from
proclaiming them, that he would declare: “I should lie if, in discussing
the question in how far this or that public institution is morally
sanctioned, I were to halt before certain institutions; for instance if,
having the moral conviction that monarchy is a morally objectionable
institution, I omitted to say so” (_Th. Lipps_).

Well, he has the option to change his branch of teaching, or to resign his
office; he is not indispensable, no one forces him to retain his office.
Indeed, he owes it to _truthfulness_ to leave his post the very instant he
finds he is not able to occupy it in a beneficial way; he owes it to
_honesty_ to yield his position, if he has lost the proper relation to
religion, state, and the people, to whom his position is to render
service.


2. Not the Duty of Science.


“Nevertheless,” we are told, “the representatives of science have the duty
of freely communicating their opinions; they are called by people and
state to find the truth for the great multitude, that is not itself in the
position to pursue laborious research. Where else could it get the truth
but from science?” “The multitude participates in truth generally in a
receptive, passive manner; only a few pre-eminent minds are destined by
nature to be the dispensers and promoters of knowledge” (_Paulsen_), and
with this vocation of science a restriction of its freedom of speech would
be incompatible.

The idea has something enticing about it. It also has its justification,
if the matter at issue concerns things outside of the common scope of
human knowledge, such as the more precise research of nature, of history,
and so on. But the idea is not warranted when applied to the higher
questions of human life. Here it is based on the false premise that man
cannot arrive at the certain possession of truth without scientific
research. We have demonstrated previously how this notion involves a total
misconception of the nature of human thought.


    There is, beside the scientific certainty, another true certainty,
    a natural certainty, the only one we have in most matters, and a
    safe guide to mankind especially in higher questions, nay, in
    general much safer than science, which, as proved by history, goes
    easily astray in such matters. Long before there was a science,
    mankind possessed the truth about the principles of life; and it
    possesses this truth still, through common sense and, even more,
    through divine revelation, which offers enlightenment to every one
    regardless of science. Here apply the words of the poet:

    “Das Wahre ist schon laengst gefunden
    Hat edle Geisterschaar verbunden
    Das alte Wahre, fasst es an!”


Nevertheless, it is claimed, science remains the sole guide to truth and
progress. Must not truth be searched for and struggled for always anew?
There are no patented truths for all times—each age must sketch its own
image of the world, must form new values. And it is for science to point
out these new roads. Therefore, full swing for its doctrines. “Science
knows not of statutes of limitations or prescription, hence of no
absolutely established possession. Consequently real, scientific,
instruction can only mean absolutely free instruction” (_Paulsen_). We may
be brief. Every line bears the imprint of that sceptical subjectivism
which we have met so often as the philosophical presumption of modern
freedom of science. It is the wisdom of ancient sophistry, which even
Aristotle stigmatized as a “sham-science,” “a running after something that
invariably slips away.” A freedom in teaching with such a theory of
cognition can never be a factor of mental progress, least of all when it
seeks to rise above a God-given, Christian truth to “higher” forms of
religion. This, however, is often the very progress for which freedom in
teaching is intended—the unhindered propagation of an anti-Christian view
of the world.


3. No Innate Right.


Very well, we are told, leave aside the appeal to the province of science;
but it cannot be denied that man has at least an innate right of
communicating his thoughts in the freest manner. The first right of the
human individual, a right which must not be curtailed in any way, is his
right to free development according to his inner laws, provided the
freedom of the fellow-man is not thereby injured. Hence every man has the
right of freely uttering his opinion, in science especially, because the
free right of others is thereby not infringed upon in any matter
whatsoever.

This is the claim. It is again rooted in the autonomy of the human
subject, the main idea of the liberal view of life, and, at the same time,
the principal presumption of its freedom of science. It leads to the
_individualistic theory of rights_, which declares freedom to be man’s
self-sufficient object, viz., freedom in all things regardless of the weal
and woe of others, no matter if the sequel be error, scandal, or
seduction, if only the strict right to freedom be not violated.


    “Act outwardly so,” says the philosophic preceptor of autonomism,
    “that the free use of thy free will may be consistent with the
    liberty of others according to a general law.” “This liberty,”
    continues _Kant_, “is the sole, original right of every man by
    virtue of his humanity.” And _Spencer_ concurrently teaches:
    “Every one is free to do what he wants, as long as he does not
    infringe upon the liberty of others.”

    This is termed the “Maxim of Co-existence.” Accordingly any one
    may say and write anything at will, no matter if people are led
    astray by his errors. Even the government must in no way limit
    this freedom, except where rights are violated; to defend religion
    and morals against attacks, to guard innocence and inexperience
    against seduction, is, according to this theory, not allowed to
    the state. _W. von Humboldt_ writes: “He who utters things or
    commits actions, offending the conscience or the morals of other
    people, may act immorally: but unless he is guilty of
    obtrusiveness, he does not injure any right.” Hence the state must
    not interfere. “Even the assuredly graver case, when the
    witnessing of an action, the listening to certain reasoning, would
    mislead the virtue or the thought of others, even this case would
    not permit restraint of freedom.”


We are dealing here with that misconception of the social nature of man
which has always characterized liberalism. It knows only of the right and
liberty of the individual; of his duties to society it knows nothing, not
even that men should not injure the possessions of others, but rather
promote them; nor does it know that men are placed in a society that
requires the free will of the individual to yield to the common weal of
the many. To liberal thought human society is only an accidental
aggregation of individuals, not connected by social unity. The autonomous
spheres of the single individuals are rolling side by side, each one for
itself: wherever it pleases them to roll, there they are carried by the
autonomous centre of gravity, whatever they upset in their career has no
right to complain. This principle of freedom was given free rein in the
economical legislation of the nineteenth century. Free enterprise, free
development of energy, was the rallying cry; the result was devastation
and wreckage.



Unrestricted Freedom of Teaching Inadmissible.


Hence the claim for absolute freedom in teaching is not warranted; on the
contrary, its chief arguments are borrowed from a philosophy that is
unacceptable to the Christian mind. Is it even admissible? Though not
warranted, is it permissible at least from the viewpoint of ethics? It is
not even this. The claim is ethically inadmissible, because the
_religious, moral, and social_ institutions, especially the _Christian
faith_ and the Christian morals of mankind, would be seriously injured. In
other words: The claim that it is permissible to proclaim scientific
theories which are apt to do great _damage_ to the foundations of
religious, moral, and social life, especially to Christian conviction and
morals, is ethically reprehensible.

A few remarks in explanation. We merely speak here of the freedom in
teaching relating to the philosophical-religious foundations of life; that
it cannot be the subject of serious objection in other matters we have
previously mentioned. Nor do we yet inquire what social powers should fix
the needed limitations, whether state or Church should regulate them; we
are merely investigating, from the viewpoint of ethics, what barriers are
set by the law of reason, and would have to be set even in the absence of
state laws, because of the important influence exercised by scientific
doctrine upon the social life—the social welfare of mankind is the
consideration beside the truth that is decisive in considering freedom in
teaching.

The teacher or writer may himself be of the opinion that his pernicious
errors are not dangerous; he may fancy them even of utmost importance to
the world; hence he thinks he has the right, even the duty, to communicate
them to the world. And do we not hear them all assure us that they desire
only the truth? We do not wish to sit in judgment on the good faith of
them individually; we make no comment when a man like _D. F. Strauss_,
looking back upon the forty years of his career as a writer, vouches for
his unwavering and pure aim for truth; and when even _Haeckel_ asserts
this of himself. Every fallacy has made its appearance with this avowal.


    But, by way of parenthesis, there is no reason to boast in a
    general way of the sincere aim at truth and the pure mind for the
    ideal, alleged to prevail in the modern literature of our times,
    especially in philosophical literature. He who stands upon
    Christian ground knows that the denial of a personal God, of
    immortality and other matters, are errors of gravest consequence.
    Furthermore, if one is convinced of the capability of man to
    recognize the truth, at least in the most important matters, and
    if one knows that God has made His Revelation the greatest
    manifestation in history, and proved it sufficiently by
    documents—indeed, had to prove it; that He will let all who are of
    good will come to the knowledge of the truth; then it remains
    incomprehensible how modern philosophy considered as a whole is
    said on the one hand to be guided by a sincere desire for truth,
    while on the other hand it clings with hopeless obstinacy to the
    most radical errors.

    Such talk of general sincere searching for truth is apt to deceive
    the inexperienced. He who has obtained a deeper insight into
    modern philosophy, he who steadily watches it at work, will recall
    to mind only too often the word of the Holy Ghost: “For there
    shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but
    according to their own desires shall they heap to themselves
    teachers ... and will indeed turn away their hearing from the
    truth and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. iv. 3).


Even if the teacher is himself convinced of the truth and inoffensiveness
of his theory, it does not follow by any means that society is obliged to
receive it. Indeed not. The state prohibits cults dangerous to the common
weal: it does not intend to suffer damage just because the adherents of
such cults may be in good faith. And if some one thinks himself called to
deliver a people from its legitimate ruler, let it be undecided whether
his purpose is good or not, he will nevertheless be restrained by rather
drastic means from proceeding according to his idea. This proves that the
principle of “no barrier but one’s own veracity” is not conceded in
practical life. The teacher and author, this is the sense of our thesis,
must ever be conscious of the grave responsibility of science, against
whose power the unscientific are so often defenceless; his great duty will
be to make use of this power with utmost compunction, to teach nothing
whereof he is not fully convinced, nor to announce for truth anything he
is still investigating.

As we turn to the demonstration of our proposition, a start from the
_definition of scientific teaching_ suggests itself; manifestly this must
be decisive for the measure of its freedom. No doubt, its purpose
obviously is: to promote the weal of mankind by communicating the truth,
by guarding men against errors, especially against those which would most
harm them, by elevating and increasing the blessings of this life: for
knowledge guides man in all his steps, it is the light on his way.

Science is not self-sufficient. It is an equally false and pernicious
notion to make science a sovereign authority, throning above man, who must
pay homage, and subordinate his interests to it, but which he must not ask
to serve him for his own ends in life. There are such notions of science
and also of art. Art, too, it is sometimes claimed, should serve its own
ends only; the demand, that it should edify, or promote the ideals of
society, is deemed a desertion of its purposes, “the furtherance of
worldly or heavenly ideals may be eliminated from its task” (_E. von
Hartmann_). These are the excrescences of unclarified cultural thoughts.
Since man and his culture is more and more replacing the divine Ideal,
this culture itself has grown to be the overshadowing ideal of the Deity,
without whom evidently man cannot live. The Egyptians worshipped Sun and
Moon; modern man often burns incense before the products of his own mind.
It is a reversal of the right proportion. Science and its doctrine are
activities of life, results of the human mind. Activities of life,
however, have man for their end, they are to develop and perfect him: man
does not exist for the clothes he wears—the clothes exist on account of
man; the leaves exist for the sake of the tree that puts them forth, nor
can grapes be of more importance than the vine that has produced them.

Hence, where science does not serve this end, where it in consequence
becomes not a blessing, but an injury to man, where it tears down, instead
of building up, there it forfeits the right to exist; it is no longer a
fruitful bough on the tree of humanity, but a harmful outgrowth. Like
every organism actively opposes its harmful growths, society, too, must
not tolerate within its bosom any scientific tendencies which act as
malign germs, perhaps attack its very marrow.

From the true object of science, as above stated, it follows that it is
wrong to disseminate doctrines that are apt to injure mankind in the
possession of the truth, which may even imperil the authenticated
foundations of life. For nobody will deny that firm foundations are needed
to uphold and support the highest ideals of life; they can no more
withstand a constant jarring and shaking than can a house of frame and
stone. Such foundations are, first of all, the moral and religious truths
and convictions about the Whence and Whither of human life, about God and
the hereafter, the social duties toward the fellow-man, obedience to
authority, and so on. If man is to perform burdensome duties as husband
and father, if, as a citizen, he is to do justice to others and yield in
obedience to authority, he must have powerful motives; else his impulses
will take the helm, the sensible, moral being becomes a sensual being who
reverses the order and drives the ship of life towards the cataract of
ethical and social revolution. And these motives must rest deeply in the
mind, like the foundation that supports the house; they must become
identified with it, as the vital principle penetrates the tree, as the
instinct of the animal is part of its innermost being. If new notions are
continually whizzing without resistance through the mind, like the wind
over the fields, repose and permanence are impossible in human life. To
jolt the foundations invites collapse and ruin.

It is the duty of self-preservation, for which every being strives, that
society guard these foundations of order against subversion and capricious
experimentation. Of the Locrians it is told that any one desiring to offer
a resolution for changing existing laws, was required to appear at the
public meeting with a rope around his neck. He was hanged with it if he
failed to win his fellow-citizens over to his view. This custom pictures
the necessity of erecting a powerful dam against the inundation by illicit
mental tidal waves, that endanger the stability of the order of life.
This, of course, does not oppose every new progress. In building a house,
firm foundations do not prevent the house from growing in size; but the
foundations are a necessary preliminary to a suitable construction. Under
no circumstances must a man be permitted, in his individualistic mania for
reform, to lay an impious hand at the fundamental principles of life; and
the scientist must bear in mind the fact that it is not the task and
privilege of his individualistic reason to put the seal of approval on
these principles as if the truth had never before been discovered.

To _Christian_ nations the immutable truths of Christianity are these safe
foundations. They are vouched for by divine authority, they have stood all
historical tests of fitness; they sustain the institutions of family and
of government, they determine thought, education, the ideas of right and
wrong—a venerable patrimony of the nations. Shall every _Nietzsche_, big
or little, be free to attack them? Experiments may be made with rabbits,
flowers, or drugs; but it would violate the first principle of prudence
and justice to allow every Tom, Dick, and Harry, who may have the
neological itch, to experiment on the highest institutions of mankind.

_Primum non nocere_ is an old caution to the physician; for many medical
practitioners and surgeons not an untimely admonition. It is asserted, and
vouched for by proof, that patients are made the subjects of experiment
for purposes of science; not, indeed, rich people, but the poor in
hospitals and clinics (comp. _A. Moll_, Arztliche Ethik, 1902). Every
conscientious physician will turn with moral abhorrence from such action.
Indeed, man and his greatest possession, life, is not to be made the
victim of scientific experiment. If this holds good as to the physical
things of life, then how much more of the ideal things of mankind!



“Every One to Form His Own Judgment”?


But, then, cannot every one decide for himself as to the teachings of
science, and reject whatever he thinks to be false? Then would be avoided
all damage that might result from a freedom in teaching. Science does not
force its opinion upon any one. With due respect for the discernment of
its disciples, science lays its results before them, leaving it to them to
judge and choose, whatever they think is good.

Such words voice the optimism of an inexperienced idealism. To be sure,
were the devotee to science, be he a student at a university or a reader
of scientific works, a clear-sighted diagnostician, who could at once
perceive error, and, moreover, if he were a mathematical entity, without
personal interest in the matter, the argument might be listened to. But
any one past the immaturity of youth, he, especially, who has earnestly
commenced to know himself, is aware that unfortunately the opposite is the
case.

First the lack of ability to _distinguish error from truth_. Even when
recognized, error is not without danger; it shares with truth the property
to act suggestively, especially when it repeatedly and with assurance
approaches the mind. And often error does pose with great assurance, as
the result of science, as the conclusion of the superior mind of the
teacher, perhaps of a famous teacher! It is taken for granted that
whatever serious men assert in the name of science must be right; or, if
not that, there is the overawing feeling that there must be some
justification for the confidence of the assertion. Authority impresses
even without argument, and impresses the more strongly, the less there is
of intellectual independence. The latter is at lowest ebb at the youthful
age. That which in hypnotic suggestion is intensified into the morbid: the
effective psychical transfer of one’s own thought into some one else,
occurs in a lesser form through the influence of the morbid scepsis of our
times; it is a poisonous atmosphere, affecting imperceptively the
susceptible mind which remains long in it.


    For this reason the religious savant, who has to do a great deal
    with infidel books, must be on his watch incessantly, even though
    he has the knowledge and the intellect to detect wrong
    conclusions. Thus we find that great scholars often display a
    striking fear of irreligious books. Of Cardinal _Mai_ it is told:
    “He said—and this we can vouch for—‘I have the permission to read
    forbidden books; but I never make use of it nor do I intend to do
    so’ ” (_Hilger_, Der Index, 1905, 41).

    The learned _L. A. Muratori_ wrote a refutation of a heretic book.
    In the preface he thought it necessary to apologize for having
    read the book. He said: “The book got into my hands very late, and
    for a long time I could not get myself to read it. For why should
    one read the writings of innovators except to commit one’s self to
    their folly? I seek and like books which confirm my faith, but not
    those which would lead me away from my religion. But when I heard
    that the book was circulated in Italy, I resolved to muster up my
    strength for the defence of truth and religion, and for the safety
    of my brethren.”

    _Saint Francis of Sales_, with touching simplicity, gives in his
    writings praise to God for having preserved him from losing his
    faith through the reading of heretical books. Of the learned
    Spanish philosopher _Balmes_ is preserved a saying that he once
    addressed to two of his friends: “You know, the faith is deeply
    rooted in my heart. Nevertheless, I cannot read a fallacious book
    without feeling the necessity of regaining the right mood by
    reading Holy Writ, the Imitation of Christ, and the writings of
    blessed _Louis of Granada_.”


What then must happen when the needed training is lacking? when one easily
grasps the objections to the truth, but cannot find the answer? when one
is not in a position to ascertain whether the asserted facts are based on
truth, whether something important is kept back, whether there are stated
positive facts, or mere hypotheses, or perhaps even idle suppositions? If
one is not capable to recognize wrong conclusions, to note the ambiguities
of words? Our present treatise cites proof of it. How many earnest men,
who in good faith are the warm advocates of freedom of science, are aware
how ambiguous that term is; how a whole theory of cognition and view of
the world is hidden behind it? How many can at once see the ambiguity of
phrases like “Difference between knowledge and faith,” of “experiencing
one’s religion,” of “evolution and progress,” of “humanism,” of “unfolding
personality”? And of the self-conscious postulate that science cannot
reckon with supernatural factors, how many perceive that it is nothing but
an undemonstrated supposition? We are told that all great representatives
of science reject the Christian view of the world; who knows at once that
such assertion is untrue? We read that the Copernican theory was condemned
by Rome, even prohibited up to 1835, and this cannot fail to make an
impression; but the part omitted in the story, who will at once supplement
or even suspect it?

Then there is the great _want of philosophical training_. Formerly a
thorough philosophical education was the indispensable condition for
maturity, and considered the indispensable foundation for higher studies.
All this has changed; frequently there is not even the desire for
philosophical training. Of course, modern philosophy in its present state
does not promise much of benefit. “Students of medicine and law remain for
the larger part without any philosophical education, and among those of
the other two faculties but few students do better than come into a more
or less superficial touch with philosophy” (_Paulsen_). The consequence
is, they cannot scientifically get their bearings in respect to ultimate
questions, and easily lose their faith, succumbing to errors and sophisms.

Imagine a young man, untrained; in books, in the lecture room, in his
intercourse, everywhere, he is courted by a disbelieving science, with its
theories, its objections, its doubts,—tension everywhere that is not
relieved, accusations that are not explained; how is he to bring with a
steady hand order in all this? To clinch it, he hears the obtrusive
exhortation to form forthwith his own conviction by his own reasoning!


    He is, moreover, likely to be informed as follows: “The university
    is a place for mental struggle, for incessant investigation of
    inherited opinions. For years and years the student was fed with
    prescribed matter which he had to swallow believingly, ... at last
    the moment has arrived when he can choose and decide for himself.
    True, this freedom of mental choice—and it is the essence of
    academic freedom—has also its anguish. But how magnificent it is,
    on the other hand, when the gloomy walls of the classroom vanish,
    and the bright ether of research dawns into view with its wide
    horizon! He who cannot grasp and enjoy this moment in its grandeur
    and exquisiteness, he who prefers to the free life of the colt on
    the vast prairies the dull existence in a narrow fold ... he has
    taken the wrong road when he came to the gates of the Alma Mater
    to study worldly science—he should have remained at the restful
    hearth of the pious, parental home, in the shadow of the old
    village-church” (_Jodl_).


What a lack of earnestness and of knowledge of man, what lack of the sense
of responsibility! Of young men, without thorough philosophical and
theological preparation, it is demanded to doubt at once their Christian
religion, despite all compunctions of their conscience, and to argue the
dangerous theses of an anti-Christian view of the world. They are
expected, as if they were heirs to the wisdom of all centuries, to judge
and correct forthwith that which their teachers call the result of their
long studies—for they are not supposed to follow them blindly, they are
expected to sit in judgment over theological tendencies and philosophical
systems, and to struggle through doubts and aberrations, untouched by
error, to display a mental independence which even the man of highest
learning lacks. Such a knowledge of human nature might be left to itself,
if the wrecks it causes were not so saddening.


    “How terrible is the power of science!” a voice of authority
    warned a short time ago. “The unlearned are defenceless against
    the learned, those who know little against those that know much;
    the unlearned are incapable of independently judging the theories
    of the learned; error in the garb of knowledge impresses them with
    the force of truth, especially when it finds an ally in their evil
    lusts. No wielder of state-power can lay waste, can destroy, as
    much as an unconscientious, or even merely careless, wielder of
    the weapons of knowledge. Exalted as is the pursuit of knowledge,
    and as knowledge itself is if guided by strong moral sentiment and
    earnest conscience, so degraded it becomes if it tears itself from
    the self-control of conscience. This fatal rupture will happen the
    instant science deviates but a hair’s breadth from the truth it
    can vouch for upon conscientious examination.... Sacred is the
    freedom of science keeping within the bounds of the moral laws;
    but transgressing them it is no longer science, but a farce staged
    with scientific technique, a negation of the essence of science”
    (Count _A. Apponyi_, former Hungarian Minister of Education,
    officiating at a _Promotio sub auspiciis_, 1908).

    In the year 1877, at the Fiftieth Congress of Natural Scientists
    in Munich, Prof. _R. Virchow_, founder and leader of the
    Progressive Party in Germany, sounded a warning to be
    conscientious in the use of the freedom in teaching, and in the
    first place, to announce as the result of science nothing but what
    has been demonstrated beyond doubt: “I am of the opinion that we
    are actually in danger of jeopardizing the future by making too
    much use of the freedom offered to us by present conditions, and I
    would caution not to continue in the arbitrary personal
    speculation, which spreads itself nowadays in many branches of
    natural science. We must make rigid distinction between that which
    we teach and that which is the object of research. The subjects of
    our research are problems. But a problem should not be made a
    subject of teaching. In teaching, we have to remain within the
    small, and yet large domain which we actually control. Any attempt
    to model our problems into doctrines, to introduce our conjectures
    as the foundation of education, must fail, especially the attempt
    to simply depose the Church and to replace its dogma without
    ceremony by evolutionary religion; indeed, gentlemen, this attempt
    must fail, but in failing it will carry with it the greatest
    dangers for science in general.... We must set ourselves the task,
    in the first place, to hand down the actual, the real knowledge,
    and, in going further, we must tell our students invariably: This,
    however, is not proved, it is _my_ opinion, _my_ notion, _my_
    theory, _my_ speculation.... Gentlemen, I think we would misuse
    our power, and endanger our power, if in teaching we would not
    restrict ourselves to this legitimate province.”


And is nothing known of the inclinations and passions, especially of the
youthful heart, to which truth is so often a heavy yoke, constraining and
oppressing them? Will they not try to use every means to relieve the
tension? Will they not gravitate by themselves to a science that tells
them the old religion with its oppressive dogmas, its unworldly morals, is
a stage of evolution long since passed by, and that many other things,
once called sin by obsolete prejudices, are the justified utterances of
nature? Will they not worship this science as their liberator? He who once
said “I am the truth,” He was crucified; a sign for all ages. Base nature
will at all times crucify the truth. _F. Coppée_, a member of the French
Academy, led back by severe sickness to the faith of his youth, relates
the following in his confessions: “I was raised a Christian, and fulfilled
the religious duties with zeal even for some years after my first Holy
Communion. What made me deviate from my pious habits were, I confess it
openly, the aberrations of youthful age and the loathing to make certain
confessions. Quite many who are in the same position will admit, if they
will be frank, that at the beginning they were estranged from their creed
by the severe law which religion imposes on all in respect to sensuality,
and only in later years they felt the want to extenuate and justify the
transgressions of the moral law by a scientific system.” “Having taken the
first step on the downward road, I could not fail to read books, listen to
words, see examples, which confirmed my notion that nothing can be more
warranted but that man obey his pride and his sensuality; and soon I
became totally indifferent in respect to religion. As will be seen, my
case is an everyday case.”

Only exalted moral purity can keep the mind free from being made captive
and dragged down by the passions.

In a college town in southern Germany a Catholic Priest some time ago met
a college girl who belonged to a club of monists. They started upon a
discussion, and soon the college girl had no argument left. But as a last
shot she exclaimed, “Well, you cannot prevent me from hating your God.”

Prof. _G. Spicker_ relates in his autobiography instructive reminiscences
of his college years. Religiously trained in his youth, and in his early
years for some time a Capuchin, he left this Order to go to the
university. Previous to this he had been led to doubt by the perusal of
modern philosophical writings, and at Munich he sank still more deeply
into doubt. Prof. _Huber_ advised him to hear the radical _Prantl_. In his
dejection he went to a fellow-student in quest of comfort, and received
the significant advice: “Indeed, _Huber_ is right: you are not a bit of a
philosopher; you still believe in sin, that is only a theological notion;
go and hear _Prantl_, he’ll rid you of your fancies.” Of the impression
_Prantl’s_ lectures made upon the susceptible young students he relates:
“They were especially overawed by his passionate enthusiasm, his trenchant
criticism, his sarcastic treatment of everything mediocre and superficial,
and, chiefly, by his self-conscious, authoritative, demeanor. Like a
tornado he swept through hazy, obscure regions, whether in science, art,
poetry, or religion. Even by only attending the lectures one became more
conscious of one’s knowledge and looked down with silent contempt upon
semi-philosophers and theologians.” In regard to himself he admits that a
few weeks sufficed to destroy the last remnants of his former religious
persuasion: “_Huber’s_ prophecy was completely fulfilled, the last stump
of my dogmatic belief was smashed into a thousand splinters.”

_Vae mundo a scandalis!_ What a responsibility rests especially upon those
who become the scandal for inexperienced youth!

In the upper classes of a largely Protestant college in northern Germany
the professor of mathematics, some years ago, asked the question, who
among the students had read _Haeckel’s_ “Weltraetsel.” All except four or
five rose to their feet. Upon his further question, who of them believed
in what is said in the book, about half of the classroom rose. “The
immature youth who read the ‘Weltraetsel,’ ” so says _A. Hansen_,
“unfortunately conclude: ‘_Haeckel_ says there is no God, therefore we may
boldly live as it suits our natural immorality....’ Is _Haeckel_ the
strong mind to assume for a long future the responsibility for this
conclusion?”

One is frightened by the manner the highest ideals of mankind are often
juggled with, what they dare offer with easy conscience to the tenderest
youth. Prof. _Forel_ is known by his widely spread book on “The Sexual
Question,” perhaps better known even by his lectures on the subject, which
some cities prohibited in the interest of public morals. In the seventh
edition of his book we find published as a testimonial, also as proof of
the good reading the book makes for early youth, a letter of a young woman
whose opinion of the book had been requested by the author. Her answer
reads: “You ask me what impression your book made upon me. I should state
that I am very young, but have read a great deal. My mother has given me a
very liberal education, and so I have a right to count myself among the
unprejudiced girls.” She assures the author: “I never thought for a single
moment that your book was immoral, hence I do not believe that you have
corrupted me.” And such books are offered to young girls as fit reading!

Some years ago a sensation was created when in Berlin a young author,
twenty-two years of age, _George Scheufler_ by name, killed himself.
Though of a religious training, he began at an early age to read the
writings of infidel natural scientists and philosophers. His belief became
weaker and weaker, and he finally abandoned it entirely. Only a few years
afterwards, the young man, who had become a writer of repute, put a
revolver to his heart, nauseated by the world, tortured by religious
doubts. An organ of modern infidelity commented upon the event in the cold
words: “The truth is probably that the undoubtedly talented author had not
nerves strong enough for the Berlin life, hence he dies. May his ashes
rest in peace!” Heartless words on the misfortune of a poor victim of the
modern propaganda of disbelief.

Heavy, indeed, is the responsibility courted by representatives of science
when they sin against the holiest ideals of mankind, especially when they
induce the maturing youth, with his susceptibilities and awakening
impulses, to emancipate himself from the belief of his childhood, and to
tear down the fortifications of innocence! If the teacher is high-minded,
this cannot mitigate the perniciousness of his teaching, but only increase
it, neither can the fact that his personal morals are without a flaw
vindicate him. If a man by strewing poison does no harm to himself, this
does not give him the right to injure others. If science demands the
privilege of assuming the mental education of our people, then science
assumes also the duty of administering these interests conscientiously,
and the gravest responsibility will rest upon him in whose hand science
spreads ruin.



“Knowledge does no Harm”?


“The increase and spread of knowledge” (this is a further objection) “can
never harm society, only benefit its interests” (_Von Amira_). Hence, do
not get alarmed: nothing is to be feared from science. The apostles of the
enlightened eighteenth century tried to quiet their age with similar
assertions. “It is not true,” says _Lessing_, “that speculations about God
and divine things have ever done harm to society; not the speculations did
it—but the folly and tyranny to forbid them.”

If this were amended to read _true_ knowledge can never do harm, then the
mind might be set at rest, although even then it might become dangerous to
teach the truth without discrimination or caution. Not all are ripe for
every truth: truth can often be misunderstood, lead to false conclusions.
Thus, it may become certain, perhaps, that a much-worshipped relic, a
much-visited shrine, is not genuine: nevertheless in giving such
explanation to simple, pious people one would have to display caution in
order to keep them from doubting even the tenets of the creed.

But there is also false knowledge; can this “never do harm but only
benefit?” Will all knowledge exert the same influence, whether the
Christian tenets of love and mercy, or _Nietzsche’s_ moral for the
wealthy, whether young people are given to read Christian books, or those
of _Haeckel_, _Buechner_, and _Strauss_? The story is told of _Voltaire_,
that he sent all servants out of the room when he had friends for guests
and philosophical discussions started at the dining-table, because he did
not wish to have his throat cut the next night. So this free-thinker, too,
did not think that all knowledge is beneficial.

But, we are further assured, let science peacefully pursue its way; if it
should err it will correct itself.

It is true, sciences of obvious subjects, that have no direct relation to
moral conduct of life, do, sooner or later, correct their mistakes; recent
physics has corrected the mistakes of the physics of past ages; historical
errors, too, are disappearing with the times. Quite different is the
matter when philosophical-religious questions are at issue. Pantheism,
subjectivism, “scientific” rejection of faith, are errors, grave errors,
yet it does not follow that they will fall of themselves into desuetude;
they may prevail for a long time, may return with the regularity of
certain diseases. Their error is not tangible, and the desires of the
heart incline to them by the law of least resistance. From the earliest
ages to this day the same philosophical errors have returned, in varied
form.

But let us assume that this would be the case; that these errors, too,
would disappear after some time, disappear for good. Is it demanded that
the errors in the meanwhile ought to have free play? Shall the surgeon be
allowed to perform risky experiments on the patient, because later on he
will realize that his act was objectionable? Will the father hand to his
son an improper book, consoling himself that truth must prevail in the
end, even though defeated temporarily?

These are delusions of the abstract intellectualism of our times, which
sees all salvation and human perfection merely in learning and knowledge,
and forgets that knowledge signifies education and benefit for mankind
only when attached to truth and moral order. Not knowledge, but knowledge
of the truth, and moral dignity, make for civilization and perfection;
knowledge no longer controlled by truth and ethics becomes the hireling of
the low passions, and fights for their freedom.



“The Vehicle of Truth.”


Back of the urgent demands for unrestricted freedom in teaching stands
invariably a thought that operates with palsying effect upon the minds: to
wit, that science is the embodiment of truth, a genius carrying the
unextinguishable beacon of light: to silence it would be to resist the
truth.

Our first thought when we began our dissertation of the Freedom of Science
was, that science is not the poetical being so often described: it is an
individual activity, a product of the human mind, sharing its defects and
weaknesses. For this reason science is not the infallible bearer of the
truth; least of all in the higher questions of life, where its eyes are
dimmed, and where inclinations of the heart still further obscure its
strength of vision. And this is admitted, even to the point of despairing
of the ability to find the truth on these questions, and if one is not
ready to admit this, the fact is made apparent by a glance at the
countless errors exhibited in the history of human thinking.

Is error to have the same right that truth has? If wholesome beverage may
rightly be offered to anybody, can, with the same right, poison be given?
May one follow his false sense of truth, calling it science, and teach
anything he thinks right?

Moreover, is not this science, which, according to its exponents, need not
regard anything but its own method, entirely a _special kind of science_?
Indeed it is, as we have learned to know it. We have learned to know this
free science, with its autonomous subjectivism, that shapes its changing
views according to personal experience; this feeble but proud scepticism;
we have learned of those ominous imperatives, that banish everything
divine from the horizon of knowledge—a science with its torch turned
upside down. And its aim—negation. The beautiful thought is frequently
expressed that science, especially the science of our universities, is to
act as the leader in the mental life of the nation, “a universal
Parliament of science, which would represent the authoritative power so
urgently needed by our discordant and sceptical age, an age that has lost
faith in authority.”

The idea is beautiful, it is sublime; it coincides with a conception of
the divine Spirit, who has already realized it, though, it is true, in
another manner. The divine Spirit has founded in the bosom of mankind such
a centre of mental life; namely, the Church. She, and only she, bears all
the marks of the universal teacher of truth. By virtue of divine aid the
Church alone has the prerogative of infallibility, as necessary to the
teacher of the nations; human philosophy is not infallible, least of all a
science that despairs of the highest truth, nay, that often deals with it
as the cat does with the mouse. A teacher of the nations must possess
unity of doctrine. The Church has this unity, her view of the world stands
before us in perfect concord; while discord reigns in the philosophy of a
free mankind, one thought opposed to another. The Church is holy, holy in
her moral laws, holy in her service of the truth; she never shirks truth,
not even where truth is painful; the Church never surrenders the truth to
human passions. The Church is Catholic, general, for the learned and the
unlearned; she is apostolic, with faithful hand she preserves for all
generations the spiritual patrimony of the forefathers. And the
unbelieving science of liberalism, where is its holiness, when its eye
cannot bear the sight of heaven? when it numbers among its admirers all
the unholy elements of humanity? Where is its catholicity, its reverence
for traditions, its historic sense, the indispensable requirement for the
teacher of centuries? The ruins of overthrown truths, amongst which wanton
thought holds its orgies, bear witness to the unfitness of infidel science
to be the teacher of mankind.



Serious Charges.


The science of our day must often listen to charges of the gravest nature.
They are uttered not only by servants of the Church, but in public
meetings, legislative bodies, and in numerous articles by the press:
science, we are told, has become a danger to faith and morals, it has
become the teacher of irreligion, a leader in the war against
Christianity. The force of the accusation is felt and attempts are made to
ward it off. And then we are assured that science is not the enemy of
religion, nor of the precious possessions of society.

It is clear, without further proof, that science in itself cannot be a
social danger; hence the charge cannot apply to science in general, but
only to that special brand of science cultivated in an _anti-Christian_
spirit. The assurance from its champions, that their intentions are the
best, may often be a proof that they do not realize the scope of their
doctrines; nevertheless, it cannot be denied that this science has become,
through its principles, as taught in lectures and in print, the greatest
danger to the religious-moral possessions of our nations and to the
foundations of public order, hence an unlimited freedom for the activities
of this science means unlimited freedom for a destructive power that
spells ruin to our mental culture.

Can the principles of this science be anything but a danger? Their sharp
antagonism to the principle of authority, must it not undermine the
respect for state authority, must it not strengthen the elements of social
disorder? Its contempt of sacred traditions, must it not become a danger
to everything existing? “If all mankind were of one opinion,” it teaches,
“and but one single man were of a different opinion, then mankind would
have no more right to impose silence on him than he to silence all of
mankind, if he could,” must not such an individualism become the fertile
soil of revolutionary ideas? Its ethics without religion tells every one
that his own individuality is the court of last resort for his moral
doings, that moral laws are subject to change, and must such views not
become a danger to moral order? Finally, the separation of mankind from
God and its eternal destiny, must it not necessarily lead the whole of
life to materialism? and from the scullery it is not far to the sewer.
Through its antagonism to Christian faith this science becomes the chief
factor in dechristianizing the nations.

It is objected that this accusation is not true, because science addresses
itself to _professional circles_ only; the people, of course, cannot
digest these things, therefore religion is to be preserved for the people.

Why this distinction? The principles of liberal science of to-day are
either true or they are not true. If not true, why profess them? If they
are true, as is vehemently asserted, then why should the people be
excluded from a true view of the world? Have the people not an equal right
to the truth in important questions, equal right to light and happiness?
Ah, the consequences of this doctrine of freedom are feared; it is feared
the people’s natural logic would take hold of these principles and draw
from them its conclusions. And by that very fear these principles stand
condemned of themselves. The truth can stand its consequences, as does the
Christian view of the world; and the more zealously its consequences are
pursued, the more blessed the fruits. It is otherwise with error.
Therefore, if the principles of liberal science cannot stand their
consequences, they must be erroneous. “Consider chiefly to be good that
which enhances when communicated to others,” is a wise maxim of the
Pythagoreans. Anything spelling damage and ruin, when communicated to
others, is not good, but evil.

Nor is it true that science confines itself to professional circles. Any
one who does not lead the isolated existence of pedantry knows that this
is not the case. What the professor of our day teaches in the lecture
room, finds its way into the minds of his students, and from there into
preparatory and public schools; ideas committed by the scientific writer
to paper and print, go into all the world, and, transformed into popular
speech, become the common property of the millions. The flood of books,
pamphlets, and leaflets attacking and vilifying the Christian tenets of
faith is ever swelling, and day by day tons of this literature are spread
without hindrance over Christian countries. There is not a single book
against the Christian truth, be its author named _Feuerbach_, _Strauss_,
_Darwin_, _Haeckel_, _Carneri_, _Nietzsche_, or otherwise, that does not
soon circulate in popular editions in every country, or at least has to
lend its subject to pamphlets and booklets, which then carry these
“results of science” to every nook and corner, to the remotest backwoods
village. And the fruits? All those who in these days profess infidelity
and radicalism, they all unanimously profess adherence to modern free
science.



Tell Me with Whom Thou Goest.


In stately array they come along nowadays, free-thinkers and freemasons,
free-religionists and representatives of the free view of the world,
monists, agitators for “free school” and socialists, all impetuously
active in the service of anti-Christianity, bent on reviving and spreading
ancient heathendom. All are avowed disciples of free science, all spread
its doctrines, and all work for the popularizing of their ideas. There
they press on, the living proof that modern science, as far as it is
infidel, has become, voluntarily or involuntarily, the teacher of
radicalism, of paganism, and the leader in the battle against religion and
Christian morals.

And in its train is marching Free-thought in all its varieties. Its aim at
destruction, its dismal designs against religion and state, have become
manifest in its books and conventions; for instance, the international
free-thinker conventions lately held at Rome and at Prague were plainly of
anarchistical sentiment. In their midst we see men of science, academic
teachers. Under their auspices are arranged “scientific lectures” to make
known the “results of modern science,” with the conviction that this will
suffice for the overthrow of religion; they demand that “the instruction
in public institutions be only a scientific one”; itinerant orators are
sent to speak with preference on “Science and the Church,” on the
theocratic view of the world and free science. The doctrines of liberal
science are adopted by freemasonry, its rallying-cry is “freedom from God,
freedom of the human reason.” And following the band-wagon of free
science, we see a shouting and jeering multitude, its clenched fists
threatening any one who would dare to attack this fine science, their
liberator from the yoke of religion; they are the thousands of the common
people, whose faith has been torn out of their hearts, and, with faith,
also peace and good morals. We see marching there hundreds from the ranks
of youth, who in the heedless impulse of their inexperience have cast off
belief, and, with belief, frequently all moral discipline; they, too, look
upon science as their liberator. The morally inferior part of mankind,
which declares anything to be ethical that “promotes life”; which fights
against “love-denying views” and against obsolete maxims of morals, it,
too, follows in the tracks of free science. And wherever the issue is to
fight Christian institutions, under the name of marriage-reform,
free-school, or what not, there we are sure to see representatives of
science and of universities, and to hear them hold forth for free science.

Where the purpose is to kindle the fires of revolt against religious
authority, there we are certain to meet in the first rank the modern
teachers of science.

Science and its representatives have an ideal vocation. They should be the
hearth of the spiritual goods of the nations; new and wholesome forces
should at all times emanate from the abodes of science, and the people
should look up with confidence to these watch-towers of knowledge and
truth. What a shocking contrast to this exalted ideal it is, to hear time
and again the believing people and their leaders raise a complaining and
indignant voice against a science that has become a most dangerous
antagonist to their holiest goods! Is it not painful to see the devout
mother apprehensively cautioning her son, who departs for the university,
not to let his faith be taken from him by teaching and association? Is it
not sad to observe that it has become the common saying: “He has lost his
faith at the university”? Is it not regrettable to see that Catholic
universities have become necessary to preserve the ideal goods of the
Christian religion? It is unavoidable that such complaints are sometimes
exaggerated. In their generality they include universities that have given
small reason for them; honourable men and representatives of sciences who
should not be reproached are being mixed up in these charges. But it is
true, nevertheless, that many have given such occasion. Is it not true
also that many remain silent instead of protesting in the name of true
science? that they feel it incumbent upon themselves to protect such a
procedure, for the sake of the freedom of science?


    For a generation and longer, _Haeckel_ misused science to make war
    upon religion, and went to the extreme in his scientific
    outrageousness, not even stopping at forgery. Professor _W. His_
    had already in 1875 expressed his opinion of _Haeckel_ in relation
    to the false drawings of his embryonic illustrations in the words:
    “Others may respect _Haeckel_ as an active and reckless leader: in
    my judgment he has on account of his methods forfeited the right
    to be considered an equal in the circle of serious investigators.”
    When Dr. _Brass_, a member of the Kepler Bund, recently disclosed
    new forgeries of this kind, it should have been made the occasion
    for a protest in the interest of science and its freedom against
    such methods. Instead of that, however, forty-six professors of
    biology and zoölogy published a statement in defence of _Haeckel_,
    declaring that while not approving of _Haeckel’s_ method in some
    instances, they condemned in the interest of science and of
    freedom of teaching most strongly the war waged against _Haeckel_
    by _Brass_ and the Kepler Bund. Is the freedom to use methods like
    _Haeckel’s_ included in the freedom of teaching, which they
    consider must be defended? Can it surprise any one that this
    freedom of teaching is viewed with concern?

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

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

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


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


    In academic circles the increasing lack of respect for the
    university and its teachers is complained of. Professor _Von
    Amira_ writes: “Thirty years ago the academic teacher was
    reverenced by the highest society; his association was sought; he
    had no need of any other title than the one that told what he was.
    To-day we see a different picture, particularly as to the title
    ’professor.’ To-day they smile at it. Nowadays, if a professor
    desires to impress, he must bear a title designating something
    else than what he really is. A literature has grown up that deals
    with the decline of the universities. The fact of a decline is
    taken for granted, only its causes and remedies are discussed. And
    this is not all. Invectives are bestowed upon the institutions,
    upon the teachers as a body, upon the individual teacher. And
    there is no one to take up the cudgels in our defence!” A fact
    suggesting earnest self-examination, and the resolution not to
    forfeit still more this respect. It is not sufficient to repudiate
    with indignation the complaints. Nor will it do to pretend a
    respect for religion and Christianity, and a desire to see both
    preserved, that are not really felt. What is needed is the
    admission that the road taken is the wrong one.



The Responsibility before History.


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


    Remarkable words on this subject are those written not long ago by
    _Paulsen_: “It looks as if all the demons had been let loose at
    this moment to devastate the basis of the people’s life. Those who
    know Germany through reading only, through its comic weeklies, its
    plays, its novels, the windows of its bookshops, the lectures
    delivered and attended by male and female, must arrive at the
    opinion that the paramount question to the German people just now
    is whether the restrictions put on the free play of the sexual
    impulse by custom and law are evil and should be abolished?”
    _Paulsen_ puts the responsibility for it upon the sophistry on the
    sexual instinct and the present naturalism in the view of the
    world: “The prevailing naturalism in the view of world and life is
    leading to astonishing aberrations of judgment, and this is true
    also of men otherwise discerning. If man is nothing else but a
    system of natural instincts, similar in this to the rest of living
    beings, then, indeed, no one can tell what other purpose life
    could have than the gratification of all instincts.... Reformation
    of ideas—this is the cry heard in all streets; cast off a
    Christianity hostile to life, that is killing in embryo thousands
    of possibilities for happiness. True, even in past ages young
    people were not spared temptation. But the barriers were stronger;
    traditional, moral, religious sentiment, and sensible views. Our
    time has pulled down these barriers; young people everywhere are
    advised by all the leading lights of the day: old morals and
    religion are dead, slain by modern science; the old commandments
    are the obsolete fetters of superstition. We know now their
    origin; they are but auto-suggestions of common consciousness
    which mistakes them for voices from another world, that has been
    deposed long since by the scientific thought of to-day.”


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


    “The old religion is dead, slain by science,” is proclaimed in
    innumerable passages of his books; the idea of another world has
    long been disposed of by the scientific reasoning of the present
    time, “hence a philosophy,” he tells us, “which insists upon the
    thesis that certain natural processes make it necessary to assume
    a metaphysical principle, or a supernatural agency, will always
    have science for an irreconcilable opponent.” “It will be
    difficult for a future age to understand,” he writes elsewhere,
    “how our times so complacently could cling to a system of
    religious instruction originated many centuries ago under entirely
    different conditions of intellectual life, and which in many
    points forms the decided opposite to facts and notions which,
    outside of the school, are taken by our times for granted.” In
    respect to morals, too, one can do without a supernatural law.
    “According to the view presented here, ethics as a science does
    not depend on belief.... Moral laws are the natural laws of the
    human-historical life of time and place.... Nor does it seem
    advisable in pedagogical-practical respect to make the force or
    the significance of ethical commands dependent on a matter so
    uncertain as the belief in a future life.” We might cite many
    similar expressions from his writings.

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


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


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


No one will deny approval to these words. But do they not, again, become a
severe condemnation of the reckless freedom in teaching, that claims the
right to assault without hindrance the truths which are the foundation of
our nation? If art must not become a danger, why may science? If the
artist is asked to take into consideration the innocence and weal of young
people, if he is cautioned not to follow solely “his sense for beauty,”
why should the teacher be allowed to follow his “sense for truth” without
regard for anything else? If no statute of limitation and restriction
exist for science, neither prescribed nor prohibited ideas for the
academic teacher, why should there be any prohibited “æsthetic principles”
for the artist? Manifestly, because here the absurdity of this freedom is
more clearly perceptible, because it leads to shamelessness. At this
juncture, therefore, they are constrained to concede the untenability and
the senselessness of the unlimited human freedom, that is defended with so
much volubility.


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

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


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


    Concerning the decline of morality in our age _Paulsen_ observes:
    “_Foerster_ rightly emphasizes the fact that the old Church
    rendered an imperishable service in moralizing and spiritualizing
    our life, by urging first of all the discipline of the will, and
    by raising heroes of self-denial in the persons of her Saints.
    That we still draw from this patrimony I, too, do not doubt. _That
    we waste it carelessly is indeed the great danger._”

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

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


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

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



Chapter II. Freedom Of Teaching And The State.


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

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

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

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

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

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



Universities as State Institutions.


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

Nevertheless, universities are in many countries still state institutions.
They are founded by the state, are given organization and laws by the
state; the teachers are appointed and given their commissions by the
state. They are state officials, though less under government supervision
than other state officials. At the same time these universities are
possessed of a certain measure of autonomy, a remainder of olden times.
They elect their academic authorities, which have some autonomy and
disciplinary jurisdiction. Likewise the separate faculties have their
powers; they confer degrees, administer their benefices, and exert
considerable influence in filling vacant chairs.

The state then considers it its duty to grant freedom in teaching.
“Science and its teaching are free,” says the law in some countries. No
doubt a loosely drawn sentence; at any rate, it means that science should
be granted the _proper_ freedom. And this freedom it must have. We have
become more sensitive of unjustified paternal government than were the
people of the eighteenth century.



The Object of the State.


What kind of a freedom in teaching, then, should be granted by the state?
Unlimited freedom? This is, at any rate, not a necessary conclusion. The
state must also grant freedom to the father for the education of his
children, to the landowner for the culture of his fields, to the artist in
the production of his works; but that freedom would not be understood to
be an unlimited one, having no regard to the interests of society, but
merely as the exclusion of unwarranted interference. Hence if the state,
for reasons of the commonwealth, were to restrict freedom of teaching, the
restraint could not be considered unjust. The purpose of the state must
not suffer injury; to attain this purpose the state has the right to
demand, and must demand, all that is necessary to the purpose in view,
even though it entails a restriction of somebody’s freedom. Now for a
definition of this purpose of the state.

Like any other society, the state seeks to attain a definite object, so
much the more because the state is necessary to man, who otherwise would
have to forego the things most needed in life; and but for the public
co-operation of the many these could be attained not at all, or at least
not sufficiently. To provide these things is the object of the state,
viz., the public welfare of the citizens; it is to bring about public
conditions which will enable the citizens to attain their temporal
welfare. To this end the state must protect the rights of its subjects,
and must protect and promote the public goods of economic life, but
especially the spiritual benefits of morals and religion. The state,
through its legislative, judicial, and executive functions, is to _direct_
effectively the community to this end; therefore it is incumbent upon the
state to care for the preservation and promotion of both material and
spiritual benefits, for the protection of private rights, and for the
conditions necessary to its own existence, even against the arbitrary will
of its subjects.



Protection for the Spiritual Foundations of Life.


From this the conclusion naturally follows, that the state must not grant
freedom to propound in public, by speech or writing, theories that will
_endanger the religious and moral goods of its citizens and the foundation
of the state_.

We claim that the state neglects a solemn duty if it permits without
hindrance—we will not say, the ridicule and disparagement of religion and
morals: the less so, as freedom to ridicule and to slander has nothing to
do with freedom in teaching—but the public promulgation of theories which
are either irreligious, or against morals, or against the state. Even
though they be done in scientific form, injuries to the common weal remain
injuries, and they do not change into something else by being committed in
scientific form. The state must seek to prevent such injuries by strictly
enforced penalties and by the selection of conscientious teachers. The
enforcement of the principle may not be possible under circumstances,
legislatures may lack insight or good will, or the complexion of the state
may not admit of it for the time being, or permanently. Then we would
simply see a regrettable condition, a government incapable of ridding
itself of the morbid matter which is poisoning its marrow. But if there is
good will and energy, one thing may always be done to check injurious
influences, and that is the awakening and employment of forces of
opposition.


    The University of Halle is said to have been the first one to
    enjoy modern freedom in teaching. What, at that time, however, was
    meant by freedom in teaching, is shown by the words of _Chr.
    Thomasius_ in 1694: “Thank God that He has prompted His Anointed
    (the prince) not to introduce here the yoke under which many are
    now and then languishing, but gracefully to grant our teachers the
    freedom of doctrines _that are not against God and the state_.”
    One hundred and fifty years later Minister _Eichhorn_ advised the
    University of Koenigsberg that in natural sciences neither the
    individual freedom in teaching nor of research are limited, that
    the case is different, however, with philosophy as applied to
    life, with history, theology, and the science of laws. “The first
    requisite there,” he said, “is a proper bent of mind, which,
    however, can find its basis and its lasting support only in
    religion. With the proper bent of mind there will be no desire to
    teach doctrines which attack the roots of the very life of one’s
    own country.”


Now, what considerations make it plain that the duty of the state is as
stated? Two: consideration for its subjects, and consideration for the
state itself. The state must protect the highest _possessions of its
citizens_. For that reason men are by nature itself prompted to found
states, so as to protect better their common goods, by the strong hand of
an authority, against foes from within and without, and to enable them to
bequeath those goods inviolate to their sons and grandsons. Hence they
must demand of state-power not to tolerate conditions which would greatly
jeopardize those goods, and certainly not to allow attacks thereon by its
own educational organs. The highest spiritual benefits of civilization,
and at the same time the necessary foundations of a well-ordered life,
are, first of all, morality and religion; not morality alone, but also
religion, do not forget this. Man’s first duty is the duty of worshipping
God, of recognizing and worshipping his Creator, the ultimate end of all
things. A profound truth was stated by _Aristotle_, when, coupling the
duties to God with those to parents, he said that those merit punishment
who question the duty of worshipping the gods and of loving one’s parents.
Hence the first thing to be preserved to the nations is religion; it is in
many ways their most precious possession, too. Not only do all nations
possess religion, not excepting the most uncivilized; but there is no
power that influences life and stirs the heart more than religion.
Consider the religious wars of history; while they were surely deplorable,
they demonstrate what religion is to man. Even in individuals who to all
appearance are irreligious, religion never fully dies out; it appears
there in false forms, or is their great puzzle, maybe the incubus of their
lives, giving them no rest. Only in conjunction with firm religious
principle can morality stand fast. Nowadays they work for ethics without
religion, for education and school without God. Theoreticians in their
four walls, removed from all real life, are busily working out systems of
this sort. This new ethics has not yet stood the test of life, or, if it
did, it has succeeded in gaining for its adherents only those who are at
odds with religion and morals. These theories must first be otherwise
attested before they may replace the old, well-tried religious
foundations.


    The noted and justly esteemed pedagogue, _Fr. W. Foerster_,
    writes: “On the part of free-thinkers vigorous complaint has been
    made that my book so decidedly confesses the unparalleled
    pedagogic strength of the Christian religion. The author therefore
    repeats emphatically that this confession has not grown out of an
    arbitrary metaphysical mood, but directly out of his
    moral-pedagogic studies. For over ten years of a long period of
    instructing the youth in ethics, he has been engaged exclusively
    in studying psychologically the problem of character-forming, and
    the result of his studies is his conviction that all attempts at
    educating youth without religion are absolutely futile. And, in
    the judgment of the author, the only reason why the notion that
    religion is superfluous in education is prevalent in such large
    circles of modern pedagogues, is, that they have no extensive
    practical experience in character-training, nor made thorough and
    concentrated studies.” “The fact is, that all education in which
    religion to all outward appearance is dispensed with, is still
    deeply influenced by the after-effect of religious sanction and
    religious earnestness. What education without religion really
    means will become more clearly known in the coming generation.”


The state is zealous in protecting the property of its citizens, to which
end a powerful police apparatus is constantly at work. If the state deems
it its duty to interfere in this matter, must it not consider it a still
higher duty to protect religion and morals, for the very reason that they
are the property of its citizens, and even their most precious? _Pro aris
et focis_, for home and altar, was what was fought for by the old Romans.
Is it possible that a pagan government was more sterling and high-minded
than the Christian state of the present? If it is to be the bearer of
civilization, it ought to consider that man liveth not by bread alone. The
only true mental civilization is the one which does not hamper but helps
man in attaining his eternal goal.

Modern state power is being urged from all sides to take measures against
the corruption of morals by the novel and the shop window, and not to look
on apathetically when the consuming fire is spreading all about, in the
name of art. Are the dangers to the spiritual health of society any less
if reformers, in the name of science, shake at the foundations of
matrimony, advocate polygamy, teach atheism? Because a so-called reformer
has lost the fundamental truths of our moral-religious order, must all the
rest submit to an attack upon the sacred possessions of themselves and
their descendants?


    That the rights of the teacher are not unrestricted was set forth
    by an American paper (“Science,” No. 321) in its comment upon the
    removal of certain professors: “There are barriers set to them on
    the one hand by the rights of the students, and by the rights of
    the college where he teaches, on the other. The college must
    preserve its reputation and its good name, the student must be
    protected against palpable errors and waste of time.... If a
    professor of sociology should attack the institution of matrimony,
    and propound the gospel of polygamy and of free love, then neither
    the right to teach his views nor his honesty of purpose would save
    him from dismissal. This is of course a very extreme case, not
    likely to happen.”

    Is it so very extreme? Certainly not in regard to teaching by
    books. Listen: “From the foregoing it is self-evident that
    polygyny based upon the rivalry of men for women (analogous to the
    animal kingdom) presents the natural sexual practice of mankind.
    Whether there is to be preferred a simultaneous or a successive
    polygyny, or a combination of both, would depend on varying
    conditions. The ethical type of the sexual condition, viz., in
    general the desirable biological type, is the one that would best
    suit a polygyny based upon a selection of man.” It is taught
    further: “The monogamic principle of marriage in general is only
    conditionally favorable to civilization, whereas it is destructive
    of it constitutionally, hence in need of reform.” “Our
    contemporaneous sexual reform wave has not yet assumed the
    position of this knowledge; on the contrary, notwithstanding its
    revolutionary aspect in some particulars, it is still under the
    ban of the traditional ideal of marriage”; continence before
    marriage is an “absurd” proposition!

    This new system of morals, fit for the barnyard, but for women the
    lowest degradation, is now to become the ideal of men, nay, even
    of women: “True motherly pride, true womanly dignity, are
    incompatible with the exclusiveness of the monogamic property
    principle. If our movement for sexual reform is to elevate us
    instead of plunging us into the mire, then this view must become
    part and parcel of our women.” “The picture of the motherly woman,
    of the woman with the pride of sexual modesty, instead of with the
    exciting desire of possession ... this picture must become the
    ideal of men, and sink down to the bottom of their soul and into
    the fibres of their nervous system; it must animate their fancy
    and awaken their sensual passions.”(20) We stand right in the
    midst of the world of beasts!

    This perilous moral teaching is allowed also in public lectures.
    On November 14, 1908, the “Allgemeine Rundschau” wrote: “Imagine a
    spacious concert-hall, brightly illuminated, every one of the many
    seats occupied, the boxes filled to the last place, the aisles
    crowded, by a most variegated audience: men and women, young
    maidens, youths with downy beard; gentlemen of high rank with
    their ladies, faces upon which are written a life of vast
    experience side by side with childish faces whose innocence is
    betrayed by their looks, and on the platform a university
    professor and physician, holding forth about the most intimate
    relations of sexual life: the unfitness of celibacy, the Catholic
    morals of matrimony, prostitution and prostitutes, the causes of
    adultery, ‘sterile marriage,’ onanism, and many kinds of
    perversities. The man is, moreover, speaking in a fashion that
    makes one forget the admonishments of conscience.”

    The city council of Lausanne, in its meeting of February 10, 1907,
    prohibited _Forel’s_ lecture as an attack upon decency and public
    morals, making reference in its resolution to _Forel’s_ ideas as
    laid down in his book. In protest, _Forel_ made a public
    statement, saying among other things: “If the council desires to
    be logical it would have to prohibit also the sale of my book.” We
    have no objection to make to his conclusion.


We stated that religion is man’s first duty. This applies not only to the
individual, but also—and this is forgotten too often—to the state. Man, by
his nature, and hence in all forms of his life, including his citizenship,
is obliged to have religion. He remains in all conditions the creature
which is dependent upon God. And does not the state, too, owe special
duties of gratitude to God? It owes its origin to God: the impulse to
found states has been put into the human nature by its Creator; the state
owes to God the foundation of its authority: in a thousand difficulties
the state is thrown upon His help. Therefore a public divine service is
found with all peoples. Does the state comply with this duty by silently
supporting a public atheism when it might do otherwise? by even becoming
its patron, when, posing as science, it ascends to the lecturing desk to
teach adolescing youth?

Of course, free-thought is of a different opinion, especially the one of
to-day. Its principle is: the state need not trouble itself about God and
Religion, that is the private matter of each individual. In the eyes of
free-thought the state is an imaginary being, hovering over the heads of
its citizens; though they may be religious, the state itself should have
no Religion. What absurdity! It is nothing short of nonsense to demand of
the members of a state, the overwhelming majority of whom hold Religion to
be true and necessary, that as a political community they are to act as if
their Religion were false and worthless, as if to deny and to destroy it
were quite proper. What else is the state but an organized aggregation of
its citizens? To make of religious citizens, a state without Religion is
just as absurd as a Catholic state composed wholly and entirely of
Protestant citizens. This leads us to a further consideration. The state
must protect its own foundations. Just as it must defend its existence
against enemies from without, it must protect itself against those enemies
from within, who, whether realizing the consequences or not, are by their
actions actually shaking its foundations. These foundations consist of
proper views on social and political principles, on morals and Religion.
If the state does not intend to abolish itself, it must not permit
doctrines to be disseminated which imperil these foundations and,
consequently, the peaceful continuance of the state. In fact, no state
power in its senses would permit a teacher, who directly attacks the
validity of the state order, to continue; it would retire every professor
of law who would dare to teach that regicide is permissible, or who would
with the oratory of a Tolstoy preach the unnaturalness of a state
possessing coercive power.


    As a rule, open advocates of _Socialism_ are kept out of
    college-chairs. And rightly so. So long as the adherents of
    Socialism see in the state but the product of the egotism of the
    ruling classes, and an institute for subjugating the masses, and
    in the obtainment of political power the means of doing away with
    this state of affairs, so long will it be impossible for the state
    to trust the education of the future citizen to a Socialist, nor
    can the latter, as an honest man, accept a position of trust from
    the state, much less bind himself by the oath of office to
    co-operate in the work of the state. Prof. _C. Bornhak_ makes the
    following comment: “The decisive point is not freedom in teaching,
    but the circumstance that the Socialist professor takes advantage
    of the respect connected with a state office, or of his position
    at a state institution, to undermine the state. A state that would
    stand for this would deserve nothing better than its abolition.”

    And _Paulsen_ similarly writes: “A state that would allow in the
    lecture rooms of its colleges Socialistic views to be taught as
    the results of science ... such a state will be looked for in
    vain.”


Hence it is certain the state cannot grant a freedom in teaching that
would jeopardize the foundation of its existence. It must consequently
recognize no freedom which, in lectures and publications, will seriously
injure public morality and religion. Morality and religion are, first of
all, the indispensable conditions for the continuance of the state.


    _Aristotle_ says the first duty of the state is to care for
    religion. _Plato_ proposes heavy penalty for those who deny the
    existence of the gods; a well-ordered state, he claims, must care
    first of all for the fostering of religion. _Plutarch_ calls
    religion the bond of every society and the foundation of the law.
    _Cicero_ declares that there can be neither loyalty nor justice
    without regard for God. _Valerius Maximus_ could say of Rome: “It
    has ever been the principle of our city to give preference to
    religion before any other matter, even before the highest and most
    glorious benefits.” _Washington_, in his speech to Congress in
    1789, declared religion and morality to be the most indispensable
    support of the commonweal. He stated that it would be in vain for
    one, who tries to wreck these two fundamental pillars of the
    social structure, to boast of his patriotism.


Without religion there can be no firm resistance by conscience against
man’s lower nature, no social virtues and sacrifices, there can only be
egotism, the foe of all social order. No secure state-life can be built
upon the principles that formed the basis of the French Revolution. So we
see, generally and instinctively, the endeavour to prevent as much as
possible anti-religious doctrines from being expounded directly to the
broad masses of the people. This of itself is tantamount to the
acknowledgment of their danger to the state. Yet, millions have tasted the
fruit of an atheistic science, and the poison shows its effect; they have
shaken off the yoke of religion; in its place dissatisfaction and
bitterness are filling their breast, and fists are clenched against the
existing order.


    _Bebel_ said in a speech in the German Reichstag, on September 16,
    1878: “Gentlemen, you attack our views in respect to religion,
    because they are atheistic and materialistic. I acknowledge them
    to be so.... I firmly believe Socialism will ultimately lead to
    atheism. But these atheistic doctrines, that now are causing so
    much pain and trouble for you, by whom were they scientifically
    and philosophically demonstrated? Was it by Socialists? Men like
    _Edgar_ and _Bruno_, _Bauer_, _Feuerbach_, _David Strauss_, _Ernst
    Renan_, were they Socialists? They were men of science.... What is
    allowed to the one—why should it be forbidden to the other?”

    The notorious anarchist _Vaillant_ said: “I have demonstrated to
    the physicians at Hotel-Dieu that my deed is the inexorable
    consequence of my philosophy, and of the philosophy of _Buechner_,
    _Darwin_, and _Herbert Spencer_.”

    The youthful criminal _Emil Herny_ read at his trial a memorandum
    wherein he said among other things: “I am an anarchist since 1891.
    Up to this time I was wont to esteem and even to idolize my
    country, the family, the state, and property.... Socialism is not
    able to change the present order. It upholds the principle of
    authority which, all affirmations of so-called free-thinkers
    notwithstanding, is an obsolete remnant of the belief in a higher
    power. I however was a materialist, atheist. My scientific
    researches taught me gradually the work of natural forces. I
    conceived that science had done away with the hypothesis of ‘God,’
    which it needs no longer, hence that also the
    religious-authoritative doctrine of morals, built upon it, as upon
    a false foundation, had to disappear.”


What political wisdom would it be to honor as science any doctrine that
becomes a social danger the moment it is taken seriously; what logic to
denounce those as dangerous who are putting into practice a science that
is hailed as the bearer of civilization!

One may object: How is the state to determine whether scientific doctrines
are warranted or not warranted? The state has the conviction that in its
political offices it has no organs for the cognition of scientific truth,
for this reason it leaves science to self-regulation. Only the scientist,
it is said, is able to revise the scientist.

Nothing but scholarly conceit can engender such ideas. Then any one would
have the right to pin upon himself the badge of the scientist and become
thereby completely immune. Thus, the bearers of practical political wisdom
are declared incompetent to recognize the chief foundation of their
state-structure; to realize, what daily experience and the experience of
centuries teaches, that disbelief in God, even if sailing under false
colors, undermines authority, that communism and upheaval of moral
conceptions are tantamount to social danger. They are directed to depend
for their information in such matters upon the latest ideas of impractical
scientists. The fact is, the matters at issue have, with hardly an
exception, long been decided. And where the Christian faith is concerned,
the Church and the Christian centuries tell us clearly enough, what has
hitherto been understood by Christianity. If the objection here advanced
were true, then the state would not have a right to decide in the matter
of exhibiting immoral pictures in show windows, without having argued the
matter previously with representatives of art. The state would not be
allowed to pronounce a death sentence because some scientists denounce
capital punishment: the state would have to expunge “guilt,” “expiation,”
and “liberty” from its penal code, because many recent scientists, by
rejecting the freedom of choice, have removed the dividing line between
crime and insanity, between punishment and correction.



Protection for Christianity.


Hitherto we have, in respect to religion, considered chiefly the rational
truths, which are the foundations of every religion and also common to
non-Christian creeds; the existence of a supermundane God and of a life
after death are the most important of them. The revealed Christian
religion contains, beside these truths, some others, which supplement them
and surround them like a living garland, viz., original sin, redemption,
resurrection, the divinity of Christ, grace and the Sacraments, the
existence of a Church with its God-given rights, indissolubility of
matrimony, etc. Should state-power protect the Christian and Catholic
religion by warding off attacks against it, though such attacks are made
in scientific form? This, too, in a state in which perhaps other
confessions are enjoying the freedom of worship?


    It would seem superfluous to propose this question specifically.
    If, according to the gist of our argument, religion is to be
    protected, what other religion can be meant than the Christian
    religion? That is the religion of our nations; none other is.
    While the stated distinction may have more of an academic than a
    practical interest, the discussion of this question will not be
    idle, if only for the reason that it will shed even more light
    upon our previous statements. Besides, there are manifest efforts
    to dislodge Christianity from the life of our people, and with it
    all true religion, under the pretext of opposing church-doctrines
    and dogmatism. The war against Christianity has not since the days
    of a _Celsus_ been waged as it is to-day.


We premise a principle of a general nature. Of conflicting religions and
views of the world, only one can be true; this is clear to every one who
still believes in truth. It is equally clear that this one truth only can
have the right to come forward and to enlist support in public life as a
spiritual power; error has no right to prevail against truth. Hence it
will not do to say simply: There are also the convictions of minorities in
the state; some claim that none of the existing religions is the right
one, others have dropped all belief in God; in our times we wish to
concede to any conviction the right to enter into competition with others,
provided mockery and abuse are barred. These remarks are quite true, in
the sense that neither the individual nor the state may directly interfere
with conscience or prescribe opinions: leaving entirely aside the question
whether any one really could have a serious conviction of atheism. The
foregoing is true also in the sense that public avowal of opinion must not
be hindered by individuals. To interpret this to mean that the state must
grant freedom to any expression of doctrine would be a grave misconception
of the social influence which false ideas are liable to exercise. Does the
state grant this freedom to any kind of medical practice, whether
exercised skilfully or awkwardly, conscientiously or unscrupulously?

Moral-religious error may in public life expect only _tolerance_—just as
many other evils must be tolerated, because their prevention would cause
greater evils to arise. This is the reason why the state may, and often
must, grant freedom of worship even to false creeds, because its denial
would give rise to greater harm to the public weal (_St. Thomas_, 2, 2 q.
10, 11). Freedom of teaching, likewise, must not be granted in the sense
of acknowledging that false doctrines and truth have equal rights; this
would amount to an assassination of truth. Freedom can be conceded to
error for the one reason only, that by not granting it there would be
engendered greater evils. Consequently, if a state-power, or the organs of
its legislative part, are convinced that the Christian religion is the
only true one, they cannot possibly concede to contrary doctrines the
right to pose as the truth and thus deceive minds; they may be granted the
same freedom in teaching only because restrictive laws can either not be
enforced at all, or not without creating a disorder that would give rise
to greater evils. Hence the lesser evil must be carefully ascertained.

With this general principle in mind, it is easily seen that a freedom
large enough to include an open attack on the fundamental, rational,
truths of religion and morals—this having been our subject hitherto—could
be conceded only if disbelief and atheism had gained so much power as to
make impossible its prohibition. In this case, however, the state should
be conscious of the fact that it allows the undermining of its
foundations. If, in another state, religious feeling were at so low an
ebb, that the freedom of the Christian truth could not be obtained in any
other way than by granting full freedom for everything, then even such
unlimited freedom would be a good thing to be striven for; of itself a
deplorable condition and contrary to God’s intentions, but good as the
lesser evil.

But let us return to the revealed religion. In the eyes of those who are
convinced that the Christian religion, namely, the Catholic religion, is
the only true religion, the ideal condition would be to have the entire
population united in its faithful confession; then matters would simplify
themselves in our case. But this ideal hardly exists anywhere. True, in
many countries the population is almost wholly Christian; but the
denominations are mixed, and many have separated at heart from
Christianity. What standards, then, should rule in this case?

Looking at it specially, the demand of ethical reason is no doubt this:
Nations and governments whose past was Christian, whose institutions and
civilization are still Christian, and an overwhelming majority of whose
members still think and believe in a Christian way, would fail in their
gravest duties if they would expose or permit the Christian religion to
remain unprotected against the attacks and the attempts at destruction by
a false science, or by conceding to the adversaries of Christianity equal
rights or even preference. The Christian religion will not be destroyed;
but whole nations may lose it, and its loss will in great measure be the
fault of those in whose hands their fate was laid. Here might be applied
_Napoleon’s_ well-known saying: “The weakness of the highest authority is
the greatest misfortune of the nations.”

It remains an anomaly that a state, the members of which for the most part
are Christians, should treat this religion with indifference, and tolerate
that its tenets and traditions be represented as fairy-tales and fables,
its moral law as a danger to civilization, and perhaps its divine Founder
as a victim of religious frenzy. If the state is the expression and the
_representative of its subjects_, then such disharmony between public and
private life is unnatural. Moreover, the Christian religion is held by the
majority of its citizens to be the most precious legacy of their
forefathers; they must demand from the state _protection for their
greatest good_. And this may be claimed with even greater right by
provinces where the population almost unanimously clings to the creed of
their ancestors; at the colleges in these parts the faithful people will
be entitled to protection more than elsewhere against dangers to its
inherited religion. It would be unnatural in this case to apply the
thoughtless principle of dealing uniformly with all provinces of the
state. The state is not a heap of uniform pebbles, but an organism
composed of different parts, each desiring to retain its own peculiar
life.


    Do not say this presumption does not admit of application to our
    conditions, the majority of the people of this age being long
    since estranged from Christianity. It is true, if we turn our eye
    only to the more conspicuous classes of society, the classes that
    control the newspapers and mould public opinion, this view might
    be admitted as to some countries. But if we look at the masses,
    those not infected by half-education, then this opinion is true no
    longer. And there are many who at heart are not so distant from
    faith as it would seem. In public life they pose as free-thinkers,
    but their domestic life bears frequently a Christian character.
    And often they approach more and more the faith, the older they
    grow. This is known to be the fact even of scientists. Instances
    are men like _Ampère_, _Foucault_, _Flourens_, _Hermite_, _Bion_,
    _Biran_, _Fechner_, _Lotze_, _Romanes_, _Littré_, and others.
    _Plato_ claimed that no one who in his youth disputed the
    existence of the gods retained this view to his old age.
    “Christianity,” observes _Savigny_ rightly, “is not only to be
    acknowledged as a rule of life, it has actually transformed the
    world, so that all our thoughts are ruled and penetrated by it, no
    matter how foreign, even hostile, to Christianity they may
    appear.”


It is a sign how deeply Christian religion has sunk its roots into the
heart, that it remains _the_ religion even for those who have turned away
from it. To be sure, for our nations Christianity is _the_ religion. For
them the religion of a _Confucius_ or _Zoroaster_ does not enter into
consideration; nor any of the products of modern religious foundations,
which would replace Christianity with substitutions of all kinds of
religious essences; they are on a level with the attempts at
reconstructing sexual ethics: both are regrettable delusions.
“Improvement” of Christian morality is tantamount to abandoning all
morals, and desertion from the Christian religion, amongst our people, has
always been apostasy from all religion. The Christian religion is so true,
that no one can renounce it inwardly and then find peace in a self-made
one. And all efforts aimed at displacing Christianity lead only to an
abandonment of all religion.

Look at the number of people from whom slander and insinuation have torn
their old religion to be replaced by another—a freer, higher religion;
their moral decadence soon bears testimony of the religious consecration
which has been given to them. Woe unto those authorities who, while able
to oppose, are indifferent, and who lend a hand in causing Christian
thought to withdraw more and more from our mental atmosphere, to be
replaced by another spirit, a spirit that will gradually control the
decision of the judge, the practice of the physician, the instruction of
the teacher, and thus more and more enter into the life of the people.


    It is not assured to those nations of Europe, whose public life is
    feeding to-day upon the remnants of their Christian past, that
    they will not relapse into a state of moral and religious
    barbarity. “Maybe civilized mankind, or our nation at least, is
    really losing its hold more and more upon definite moral
    standards,” so complains a modern pedagogue; “possibly the
    emancipation of sensuality will increase without end, perhaps we
    have passed forever the stage of true humanity and of a live
    idealism, and we shall henceforth glide downward.... These are no
    mere, feverish dreams; there is good reason for facing these
    possibilities with a determined eye, and no accidental or
    philosophical optimism can ignore them” (_Münch_).

    “It is quite possible,” we are told by another, “that much will go
    down in our old Europe during the next centuries; and the downfall
    will not be restricted by any means to Church and Christianity,
    and in the crises that will come Europe will hardly get the needed
    support from an æsthetic heathendom, from the Monists’ Union, or
    from the evidences of science” (_Troeltsch_).

    If it does not come to it, it will not be the merit of authorities
    who let the vessel of state drift rudderless toward the rocks of
    dechristianization.


They do not realize that they greatly endanger thereby also the
foundations of the state. _The foundations of our governments rest upon
Christianity._ The Christian faith created the state, created matrimony,
family, and the education of the youth; created the social virtues of
loyalty and of obedience. What we have of religion is Christian, what we
have of the religious support of morality is equally Christian;
“Christianity, Christian faith, Christian formation of life penetrates all
vital utterances of the Occidental world like an all-pervading element”
(_Paulsen_).

It is one of the first principles of political prudence not to shake the
foundations upon which the state rests. States and nations are not
ephemeral beings, existing from one day to the other, they are historical
structures measuring their lives by centuries; past generations join hands
with present generations, deeds and customs of the fathers live on in
their sons.

States must remain on the historical tracks on which they have travelled
to success, at least until the new track has stood the test of
reliability. So far anti-Christian philosophy has terribly shaken
governments; it has not yet proved itself a state-conserving principle.

It is a sad condition to see the guardians of states, devoid of historical
appreciation, allow their people to tear themselves away from the soil
wherein reposed the roots from which they drew life and strength. Sad,
too, that complaints are made of college-professors who abuse freedom in
teaching by constructing an unproved contradiction between knowledge and
faith, by misrepresenting Christian tenets, by lowering the prestige of
the Church, by distorting her historical picture. It would be regrettable
for a Christian state, if the complaint were justified that for the most
part our colleges have become places where religion is ignored; where the
name of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, is no longer mentioned;
where the name of God never occurs in history, in natural and political
science; where religion is considered the most unessential factor of
mental life, a factor that has nothing to offer, that can answer no
question—a treatment which, by the force of suggestion, must lead young
men to think that religion is of no account. It is a banishment which in
its effect is little different from an attack upon religion.


    Sadder still would it be if the following view were to prevail at
    our colleges: “A right of the student to see protected and not
    destroyed any views and convictions, including those of a
    religious nature, which he may bring to the university from his
    home surroundings, from his preliminary education, as it is
    asserted time and again in the frequent complaints about the
    dechristianizing of youth at the universities—does not exist and
    cannot exist, because it would be in contradiction to the very
    essence of the university and its tasks” (_Jodl_).

    Is not this the ethical principle of the bird of prey? Is it not
    allowed to guard the defenceless chick against the hawk? Christian
    people send their sons to the university, and demand that the
    education of the parental home be spared, that the inexperience of
    youth be not misused. The state must demand that the
    religious-moral education which it furthers in its public schools
    be not destroyed by the higher schools. Yet, all these rights must
    be silenced the moment the vision of the absolute freedom of
    teaching makes its appearance, since to refrain from
    dechristianizing the youth would be contrary to his tasks.


If such abuse in the management of the power of knowledge, within and
without colleges, is not counteracted by all possible means, then none
need be surprised when a science free from religion and Christianity is
followed by an elementary school free from religion, when in public and
preparatory schools the free-thinking teacher is telling the pupils that
there is no creation but only evolution, and that the gospels and biblical
history are poetical stories such as the Nibelungenlied and the Iliad and
Odyssey.


    We cannot be astonished to find the following rules advocated for
    the instruction in public schools: “Religious instruction in
    schools should not differ from the instruction in other subjects,
    namely, one of full freedom, bound only by recognized documents
    and personalities of religious literature and religious science.
    The school must teach that which is, it must present the tenets of
    all times and all nations in so far as this is possible within its
    modest compass.... But if the pupil should ask, What really is?
    What position should the teacher assume toward this question? In
    my opinion, he should speak in plain terms. He should say: There
    are people who believe all that is taught by the different systems
    of religion.... The child may further ask of the teacher whether
    he himself believes. No teacher who claims the confidence of the
    children should shirk the answer. He may confess his faith or
    disbelief, without need of worry. It cannot hurt his prestige in
    the eyes of the child, because, if for no other reason, either way
    he will find himself in an equally large and good company”
    (_Tews_).

    But we hear much more radical utterances. For instance, the
    official organ of teachers in a Catholic country urges defection
    from the Church in the following words: “How long will
    Social-Democracy, now so formidable, remain inactive against
    clerical arrogance? How much longer will it shirk a duty that is
    clear to the dullest eye? If the millions of our Social-Democrats,
    including the women and children, would break away from Rome, the
    priestcraft in Austria is as good as defeated. A grave
    responsibility rests upon the Social-Democratic leaders. Should
    they miss the moment to act, they will be judged by history!”
    (Deutsch-oesterreichische Lehrerzeitung, June 1, 1909).

    Another organ of teachers declares Christianity to be nothing else
    but _victorious heresy_, for which Christ had to lay down His life
    the same as _Giordano_, _Hus_, and countless others. “The subject
    of religion as taught in the preparatory schools is for the most
    part taken from ages whose customs and morals are—happily—no
    longer ours.” We see radicalism rampant in large circles of public
    school teachers, demanding noisily, excitedly, and, of course, in
    the name of modern science and enlightenment, the abolition of the
    divine service, of prayer, and religious instruction in school,
    giving as reason that, “as to matters of mental freedom no
    difference should be made between a university and a village
    school.” That our people will “carelessly waste their Christian
    patrimony, this is the great danger.”


Our argument is not that only Catholics should be professors, nor even to
limit the teaching office to Christians. But one thing must be demanded of
the college-teacher, that he possess the pedagogic qualifications to
render him competent of educating the hope of the Christian people. As a
rule this demands a religious, Christian disposition. One thing the state
must absolutely demand of the teacher, that he have appreciation for the
foundations of the Christian state; he who has no understanding for the
historical forms of the life of a nation, who even regards them with
hostility, should remain away from this vocation.

In the United States the Jesuit Order has five free universities, founded
and directed by the Order. Their professors are not all Catholics; there
are professors of other creeds, even Jews. All work in harmony to the
common end of the university.


    Men who sincerely and conscientiously strive for the interests of
    science will everywhere show not only consideration, but even
    understanding and respect, for what is true in the ideas of
    others. “I gaze,” so writes Prof. _Smolka_, “upon the likenesses
    of my venerable Protestant masters, under whom I studied at
    Göttingen. Thirty-seven years have passed since I went to them, in
    full confidence to find in their school the leaders who would be
    free from the influence of the Catholic view of the world. To
    their profound knowledge I owe, first of all, the emancipation
    from the prejudices I was raised in, from the views of an
    atmosphere devoted to Indifferentism in which I had passed my
    youth. Prof. _Waitz_ opened my eyes to the grandeur of the
    Catholic Church in the course of the centuries, in the repeated
    prostration of the Papacy and its ever-following rise to
    unsuspected heights, a fact unparalleled in the history of human
    institutions. Prof. _Lotze_ rebuked me at the very beginning of my
    studies at Göttingen for a slighting remark about scholastic
    philosophy: later he imbued me with profound respect for it and
    for the wealth of problems it embraces. These scientists,
    Protestants without exception and in exclusively Protestant
    surroundings, inoculated me with sincere love for scientific
    truth, regardless of the consequences it would lead to. They also
    introduced the youthful mind to the tried methods of scientific
    research, indicating the boundaries where the domain of research
    ends and the right of dogma, or arbitrary rule of subjective
    imagination, begins.”



Restriction of Right.


We need no further proof that the state is justified in restricting the
freedom of teaching, whenever demanded by the business of the state as
described above. Restriction of this kind can be considered unjustified
only by a state theory of liberalism, which holds that the object of the
state consists in merely protecting individual liberty, no matter if this
liberty should lead to the gravest injuries so long as it does not affect
the freedom of others; a theory which changes the state community from an
integral organism into a conglomeration of autonomous individuals.
_Lasalle_ scornfully termed this theory the “nightwatchman idea” of the
state. The state has the right and the duty to exert a necessary influence
upon the pursuit of science, especially at the universities. Against it
the pleading of _autonomy of the college_ and its teacher will not hold.
They have a certain autonomy, that was even greater in former times. An
important part of it is the right to propose appointments for vacant
chairs. It must be admitted that this method of appointment is proper; it
vouches for the scientific fitness of the appointee, and will prove a
protection against the exercise of undue political influence and
ministerial absolutism, provided that this method is impartially
exercised. But an autonomy that disputes the right of the state to protect
its interests, where free science conflicts with it, that would demand, as
has been asserted, that “no infringement of the freedom in teaching must
be deduced from the official position as teacher,”—such autonomy would be
a palpable misconception of the dependency of the college-teacher and of
the social service of science. The rules that apply to other,
non-judicial, officers should apply to teachers appointed by the state,
and offences in their office, or conduct injurious to the purpose and the
dignity of their office, should be treated similarly as in the case of
other public servants. Nor should members of the legislature be forbidden
to defend the rightful interests of their constituents in regard to
schools. They are elected by the people for this purpose, and the people
have a claim on the schools, which are supported by their taxes and to
which some of their greatest interests are attached.


    It has been demanded to concede to college-teachers the
    independence and immunity of judges. This, however, would be
    overlooking the vast difference between professors and judges. The
    judge has to render legal decisions in concrete cases, according
    to existing laws; in order to lessen the danger of his being
    guided by outside considerations he is given a large measure of
    independence. But what questions has the college-professor to
    decide? Mathematical or physical questions? There his
    incorruptibility is not in such danger that he must be made
    independent of government. Religious and moral questions,
    questions of views of the world? These he is not compelled to
    decide. Neither state nor people have appointed him to question,
    time and again, the fundamental foundations of human life, and to
    render decisions which nobody requested.


It is not clear why science, pleading its independence, should oppose
justified restrictions. As a matter of fact _this independence does not
exist anywhere_. Numerous are the considerations, often unwarranted, it is
actually tied to, yea, often tied to by its own hands. He who is familiar
with scientific doings, especially academic doings, knows numbers of such
ties—there is the professional opinion in scientific circles; woe unto him
who in his scientific works dares to confess a supernatural view of the
world!—ties of the predominance of certain leaders or schools, without or
against whose favor it is difficult to attain recognition, approval, or
position; the ties of parties and cliques in an academic career; the tie,
too, of that insinuating power of the state that confers much-desired
decorations and titles.


    “Where is this freedom of science?” asks a modern academic
    teacher. “Some will say science and its teaching are free in our
    country. True, it is so written on paper. But those charged with
    keeping this principle inviolate are human. For instance the
    monists have the chief voice in appointments to zoölogical chairs.
    They will propose only scientists who are not opponents to the
    monistic faith. Far be it from me to assume any _mala fides_. They
    simply believe that only their faith is the proper one to promote
    science. But I ask again, where is the freedom of science?”
    (_Dahl_).

    _H. St. Chamberlain_ tells of an amusing incident in his life:
    “Many years ago, when I desired to devote myself to an academic
    career, a chemist said to me: ‘My dear fellow, since you belong to
    the profession, I tell you as a friend that it is not enough for
    you to be proficient: you should try, first of all, to marry the
    daughter of one of the professors, of a privy counsellor if
    possible.’ ‘This advice comes too late,’ I replied, ‘I am already
    married.’ My well-wisher was visibly shocked. ‘What a pity! Too
    bad! You don’t realize what an influence this has here upon one’s
    career.’ What trouble I had to obtain even the _venia docendi_!
    and then I stuck fast and could not budge despite all achievements
    until I undertook to marry the daughter of one of the
    ‘head-wirepullers’; then things were fixed within three months. I
    may have looked at him in a peculiar way, for his wife was a
    veritable Xanthippe, and, he added with a laugh: ‘You know I am
    all day at the laboratory, from morning until late at night.’ ”
    There is nothing new under the sun. In the year of grace, 1720,
    _Johann Jacob Moser_ started his lectures in Tuebingen, but could
    get no audience. “No wonder, even a cleverer man than I would not
    have fared better at that time, when everything depended on
    nepotism.” The young man had crossed Chancellor _Pfaff_ by
    rejecting a marriage arrangement (_Horn_).

    One will find these things very human. Moreover, it would be
    unwarranted to assume that they happen always and everywhere. But
    they prove that the pursuit of science rests also on general human
    grounds, and does not always remain aloft, in the ethereal heights
    of pure truth.



The Freedom of Teaching in History.


When we said that it is the duty of the state to protect the common
benefits of life against injury by freedom in teaching, and to stand guard
over its Christian past, we stated nothing but what has been the
conviction of the Christian nations and their rulers up into the
nineteenth century. Absolute freedom in teaching cannot plead the support
of history, it is only of yesterday. History shows it to be the natural
child, not of the first awakening of the consciousness of freedom, but of
_the de-Christianizing of the modern state_. Its official entry coincides
with the increasing de-christianizing of public life during the nineteenth
century, after the modern state adopted more and more the principles of
liberal thought. A naturalistic view of the world, without faith, was
struggling for supremacy; science had to proclaim it as higher
enlightenment, and vehemently urged freedom in its behalf. The state
receded step by step, confused by the commanding note in the new demands,
by high-sounding words about the rights of science; it allowed itself to
be talked into the belief that it must become the leader in the new
course, and it took the banner that was forced into its hands. It has
always been so; claims presented with impudence will intimidate, and
assume in the eyes of many the appearance of right.


    In so far as it signifies the removal of the religious-moral bars
    in teaching, the freedom in teaching developed first in Protestant
    Germany, together with the increasing change of universities into
    state institutions. Reformation and the ensuing _Enlightenment_
    had gradually prepared the way for it. Neither the rationalism nor
    the pietism of the eighteenth century could have an understanding
    for the tenets of the faith. In addition there was the confusion
    engendered by the multiplication of Protestant denominations, none
    supported by an overtowering spiritual authority; it led more and
    more to the parting between science and religious confession;
    political reasons, too, made it desirable to disregard
    confessions. Thus the severance of science from religion increased
    and the “freedom of teaching” in this sense was finally adopted
    also by Catholic states as an achievement.

    The enlightenment that had developed outside of the universities
    made its entry into the halls of universities chiefly under the
    Prussian Minister _von Zedlitz_, a champion of enlightenment and a
    friend of the philosophers _Wolff_ and _Kant_. That the
    universities at that time were controlled by free-thinkers is
    illustrated by a saying of _Frederick II._ On January 4, 1774,
    _von Zedlitz_ asked of the king whether _Steinhauss_, M.D., should
    be denied the appointment for professor extraordinary at
    Frankfort-on-the-Oder, for the reason that he was a Catholic. The
    king decreed in his own handwriting that “This does not matter if
    he is clever; besides, doctors know too much to have belief”
    (_Bornhak_).

    In the year of the Revolution, 1848, freedom of teaching became a
    political catch-word. “The terms freedom of teaching and freedom
    of learning, that became popular in 1848, when any phrase
    compounded with freedom could not be often enough repeated, have
    been ever since reminiscent of barricades, and men who have
    witnessed those times become nervous at their mere sound”
    (_Billroth_).

    What was understood by freedom in teaching at the turning point of
    the eighteenth century is shown by the demand of _Thomasius_ for
    “freedom of doctrines that are not against God and the state.” The
    first move was to break away from _human_ authorities, _Aristotle_
    and others. Thus the Kiel University, by its regulation of January
    27, 1707, ordered that “no faculty should enslave itself to
    certain principles or opinions, in so far as they are dependent on
    a human authority” (_Horn_).

    In Göttingen and Halle freedom of teaching also became the maxim,
    and “_Libertas sentiendi_,” as _Münchhausen_ declared, “was open
    to every one and not restrained by statute, except that there
    should be taught nothing _ungodly_ and _Unchristian_.” In those
    days this restriction was looked upon as a matter of course. It is
    known that _Kant_ was disciplined by Minister _Woellner_ in 1794,
    because of his treatise on religion; at Koenigsberg this reproof
    was accepted with good grace, and both the philosophical and the
    theological faculties pledged themselves not to lecture on
    _Kant’s_ religious philosophy. As recently as the middle of the
    nineteenth century a restriction in this sense was ordered by the
    Prussian Minister _Eichhorn_, and the restriction was observed.
    The Materialist _Moleschott_ was cautioned in 1845 by the Senate
    of Heidelberg University, and in reply he resigned his post; in
    the following year at Tübingen _Büchner’s venia legendi_ was
    cancelled, because, as he himself stated, “it was feared I would
    poison with my teaching the minds of my young students” (_Horn_).

    In 1842, _Bruno Bauer_, the radical Bible-critic, was removed by
    the Prussian faculties from the academic chair because of his
    writings. _D. Strauss_ lectured on philosophy at Tübingen, but was
    forced to resign when the first volume of his “Life of Jesus”
    appeared in 1835. Later on, when called by the authorities of
    Zurich to the chair for Church history and dogmatics, an emphatic
    protest of the people made the appointment impossible.


While showing a regrettable indifference for attacks against religion, the
modern states, inoculated with the principles of Liberalism, have not
entirely forgotten their traditions. Many sections in their penal codes
still protect religion, not only against defamation, but, as is the case
in Austria, also against public anti-Christian propaganda, and the
“religious-moral education” in public schools is made compulsory by law.
Of course there is a contradiction, between the conviction of the state
that the principles of morals and religion must be preserved, and the
grant of full freedom to an anti-religious misuse of science, whose effect
upon the masses is unavoidable. It is a contradiction to tear down the dam
at the river and then erect emergency levees against the onrushing flood.
The amazing presumption, that holds inviolate and sacred everything that
poses under the name of science, is the fault of it all.



Freedom of Teaching and Party Rule.


In some countries the complaint is heard that a certain faction has
obtained control of the universities, and so exercises its control that
those who are not of its bent of mind are excluded from both teaching and
taking part in the administration of its affairs, despite the fact that
freedom in teaching and learning has been guaranteed by the state. It is
the faction that professes free-thought and cultivates the freedom of
science in this sense. This condition forces students faithful to their
religion to study in a strange atmosphere, and they are looked upon as
strangers. The parties so accused seek to disclaim these charges as
unjust; for they feel that, if justified, it would disclose an unlawful
condition of things. Nevertheless the facts are so notorious, that all
protestations will be without avail.


    These facts must be painful to the sense of justice, order, and
    good-fellowship; and to this sense it is not pleasing to deal
    further with matters which have often been the cause for indignant
    resentment, and to go into concrete details. We shall but briefly
    recall to mind how persistently candidates for academic positions
    are pushed aside when they are known to be of staunch Catholic
    mind. This is borne out by their trifling percentage among the
    large number of college-teachers; by the high pressure that is
    often needed to lift the embargo for a _Catholic_; by assaults
    which not seldom resulted in physical violence. This small number
    is glaringly emphasized by the considerable, even disquieting,
    number of college lecturers of Jewish extraction. Furthermore,
    there is the improper usage that the theological faculty is passed
    over at the annual election of the rector, and likewise, that
    teachers even of lay-faculties are excluded from academic offices
    when they profess themselves openly as Catholics.

    Catholic students have seen themselves treated as strangers at
    more than one university; they were not given the usual
    privileges, and were accorded rights only in the proportion that
    their number had to be reckoned with. Their corporate bodies were
    ignored, self-evident rights either denied or grossly violated.

    As to the small number of religious-minded lecturers at colleges
    it is not to be denied that the number of those who combine
    fervent religious persuasion with high scientific efficacy is not
    considerable these days. Their long suppression furnishes a reason
    for it, but not the only one. A modern university professor
    rightly states: “While there never has been a want of courageous,
    determined confessors of the Catholic faith who have occupied a
    prominent, even leading, position in the progress of science, in
    the perfection of methods and means of scientific research, they
    were and still are the exception. They were men of _self-reliance
    and independent_ judgment, who were able to exempt themselves from
    an humble submission to the powerful view of the world, which
    emanates from the hatred of Christianity and prevails in educated
    circles. The issue is still the same secular contrast between the
    two views of the world, which _St. Augustine_ illustrated with
    unsurpassed mastery as long as fifteen hundred years ago. But the
    view of the world which has been in the ascendant in scientific
    circles long since, has certainly nothing in common with
    scientific research.”


Our task, however, is not to examine the facts, but to prove that such
conditions are unlawful, no matter where and when found. We do not wish to
discuss further the fact that a university polity, exclusively in the
spirit of a liberalism that gradually goes over into radicalism, would
constitute a grave danger for Christian traditions. Indifference to the
Christian and every other religion, or to an extent direct rejection, must
make it appear more and more inferior and obsolete in the eyes of educated
circles; this view will then easily find its way to the people. Nor do we
intend to enlarge upon a second point, viz., the interest of science
itself. The kernel of liberal research in the province of the spiritual is
a frivolous agnosticism, with a rigid bondage to its naturalistic
postulates, with which we have become sufficiently acquainted. Principles
of this kind are poison for true science. For this reason alone it is
necessary that a Christian philosophy be placed by the side of a
philosophy in fear of metaphysics, one that never extends beyond puzzles
and problems; that a history guided by Christian principles be placed
alongside of one inspired by anti-ecclesiastical sentiment; in general
that a spirit of veracity assert itself, which would give an example, from
the home of highest culture, not of vain arrogance, but of that mental
firmness which, conscious of the limits of human knowledge, is also ready
to believe. How can our universities remain the seats of sterling mental
life, if the highest power of truth that has ever been, the Christian
religion, is ignored there, and even maligned; and if in its stead is
cultivated a philosophical-religious research which leads only to the
negation of everything that hitherto was our ideal, and which gives birth
to a mental anarchy, which, before the forum of history, makes it a
principle of pauperization.

One point to be particularly emphasized is the _violation of rights and
the oppression of mental liberty_, resulting from a party-rule in the
realm of higher education. Under a government of law every one, assuming
he possesses the necessary qualification, has an equal right to teach:
this is elemental to freedom of teaching. The state with its institutions
exists for the benefit of all classes, not for one certain class that has
formed the notion that it is the sole bearer of science. Enemies of the
state should be excluded from teaching, but not good citizens. Nor can it
be demanded, as a necessary preliminary for academic teaching, that one
must subscribe to the catch-phrases of any particular party, and so
discard one’s religious belief. And there is the violation of the rights
of faithful Christian people. Since their money in the form of taxes
maintains to a large extent the schools and their teachers, they surely
can demand a conscientious administration of their interests, and a
representation of the Christian view of the world, in a way becoming its
past and its dignity; Christian people can demand that their sons receive
an education in consonance with their Christian convictions, and that the
universities will train officials, physicians, and teachers, in whom they
may have confidence. If there are no other but state universities in a
country, and these are monopolized by a free-thought party, then a
condition of mental bondage will arise for those of a different mind. They
are compelled either to have their sons forego the learned profession, or
else expose them to an atmosphere wherein they see danger of a religious
and moral nature, in ideas, association, and example. No right is left to
them, but the right to pay taxes toward the budget of education, and then
to look on how an irreligious party is striving to turn the higher schools
into training camps of obligatory liberalism, and to monopolize the entire
mental life for this purpose. Now and then there is great indignation
against state monopolies; it is said, shall the state determine what kind
of cigars I should smoke, and what I am to pay for them! Now, then, where
is freedom if the majority of the Christian population is to be forced
into taking mental nourishment it does not desire and rejects, and pay for
it besides? If we recall to mind the past, which gave birth to the most
venerable universities of the present, a sorrowful feeling comes over us.
We see how far our colleges have deviated from their original purpose, how
our governments have lost their old traditions. Promotion of the Christian
religion and of the fear of God, was the lofty aim which their founders
had in mind.


    In bestowing the charter upon Vienna University, Duke _Albrecht_
    stated that he beheld in the university an institution “whereby
    the glory of the Creator in heaven and His true faith on earth
    would be furthered, knowledge would be increased, the state
    benefited, and the light of justice and truth brightened.” And
    when, in 1366, he donated property to the university, he declared
    the object of the donation to be “that the university may increase
    the prosperity of the entire Church.”

    When Leopold I, on April 26, 1677, signed the charter of Innsbruck
    University he declared that he founded this university
    pre-eminently for the protection and prosperity of the Catholic
    Religion, as a means for its preservation, and also that many of
    those who had lost the faith might be led back to religion, for
    the honour and the glory of the Tyrol.

    In the charter of Tübingen University, _Eberhard_ of Württemberg
    states: “I believe I can do no better work, none more helpful to
    gain salvation, none more pleasing to the eternal God, than to
    provide with special diligence and emulation for the instruction
    of good and zealous young men in the fine arts and sciences, to
    enable them to recognize God, to know, to honour, and to serve Him
    alone.” “In those days there was no hesitation to assign to
    science the loftiest vocation and to declare ... that, coming from
    God, science should also lead back to Him as its origin.... The
    school was charged to work for the spread and the defence of the
    true belief. Christian truth was once queen at these universities;
    now, she has only too often become a stranger, to be denounced at
    times if she attempts to knock at the portals of her old home”
    (_Probst_).



Free Universities.


Another manner, to provide proper freedom of teaching, is open to the
modern state by incorporating free universities. Unlike the state
institutions, they are not directly controlled by the state, but are
independent of it in their internal affairs; they are founded and managed
by private persons or societies. Universities of this kind are found in
Belgium and in England, to some extent in France, but their home is
chiefly in the United States. At the head of the free university of the
United States is the president, with a governing body and a board of
trustees elected from members of the university; they appoint teachers,
prescribe schedules of study and examinations, and conduct its business.
True, the state cannot relinquish its right to oppose a system of teaching
dangerous to the common weal; it will also provide that those to be
licensed to practice the professions possess the necessary education and
training; but the state refrains from further interference in the
management of free universities.

It is no doubt difficult to establish by private means universities
equally efficient with those of the state; in the countries of Middle
Europe this undertaking is perhaps more difficult than elsewhere, but the
possibility is there, and it is even realized in some places. This,
however, is not a question to occupy us here; we merely wish to declare,
if similar foundations are about to be undertaken, and the necessary
conditions are present, then the state must not prevent them, it must
grant freedom in teaching.

True, the state is obliged to assist its subjects in acquiring material
and spiritual goods, but only in so far as private means are insufficient
thereto: the state must only act in a supplemental way. If it does that
which its citizens themselves are able to do, then the state is needlessly
abridging their free right. This includes the establishment of schools and
the teaching in them. Presuming fitness, everybody has a _natural right_
to teach others; hence, also, to found schools, whether by himself or
jointly with others. Furthermore, instruction is a part of education, even
at the university; it could hardly be said of the graduate of the
preparatory school that his education is completed. Education, however, is
a matter for the parents. Their rights would be infringed upon, if
needlessly forced by the state to intrust their sons exclusively to the
state colleges and to their method of teaching. How could the state’s
exclusive right to teach be proved? Does the pursuit of science belong to
its domain? No one will care to claim this. If science were to be allotted
to the jurisdiction of any one body, the Church would be the first to
enter into consideration, because of her international and spiritual
character. Or is this right to be conceded to the state because it is to
be the bearer of culture? The state is to promote culture, but not to
prescribe a certain brand of it. The argument that private universities
cannot be founded and conducted in the proper way is certainly not borne
out by the facts.

Even if the state, owing to its superior facilities, could provide better
universities than private effort, it would not be entitled to the
monopoly; the fact of being able to do something better does not secure
the sole privilege of doing it. Moreover, in order to attract students,
free universities will have to emulate state universities. The right of
the state to found universities will of course not be disputed; but this
right must not deteriorate into a disguised monopoly, that would grant
privileges to its own universities, and deny them to free universities in
order to put them out of existence. At any rate, the state will always
retain considerable influence over the studies at free universities. It
may require certain standards in candidates for political and professional
positions, for judges and lawyers, teachers at state schools, physicians;
it may insist upon state examinations, or it may make its stipulations for
recognizing the examinations and academic degrees of the free schools.

By free schools of higher learning, a greater degree of freedom in
teaching and in learning would be assured, or, speaking generally, a
greater freedom in the intellectual life. If these higher institutions of
learning are exclusively in the hands of the state, it cannot fail that
the higher intellectual life will be dangerously dependent upon the state,
or fall into the control of a dominating clique. As an example might be
cited the restrictions placed upon jurisprudence by Prussia in the
eighteenth century; the long-continued control of Hegelian philosophy; the
Université Impériale of Napoleon; the predominance of anti-Catholic
thought in our own schools. Universities, founded upon a positive,
Christian basis, would surely be a comfort for thousands.

No need to say that such foundations may also be undertaken by the Church.
This right cannot be denied to the Church, just as little as to any other
corporation. Nay, much less! Because of its intellectual and international
character science is most closely related to the Church. The latter,
furthermore, has an eminent, historical right; no one has done more for
the foundation and promotion of the European universities than the Church.


    A remarkable and at the same time _characteristic attitude_
    towards free, particularly Catholic, universities is assumed by
    Liberalism. The stereotyped objection to Catholic universities is
    known; it can be reduced to this formula: At a Catholic university
    there can be no freedom in research nor freedom in teaching; but
    without them there can be no science; consequently, a Catholic
    university is a contradiction. It is the same old song: there is
    but one science, there is but one freedom—the free-thought that
    rejects belief. If it is really so obvious that a Catholic
    university is a contradiction to science, hence incapable to
    foster it, why the excitement? Either such universities are
    incompetent, or they are not. Let the experiment go on; the result
    will tell. If the result is certain, as is claimed, very well, one
    may serenely await it. Liberalism shows itself again here in the
    shape of that nasty hybrid of freedom and intolerance for which it
    is known. It is the head of Janus with its two faces: the one
    showing the bright mien of freedom, the other the sinister scowl
    of an intolerant tyrant. They shout for freedom, freedom they
    demand; Church and Revelation are put under the ban, because they
    restrain freedom. The state is denounced as soon as it wants to
    interfere. But if others attempt research free and independently,
    though not just so as Liberalism would like, then tyranny
    immediately takes the place of liberty, the herald of freedom
    resorts to oppression, and those who just now proclaimed the
    independence of universities from the state, who protested against
    the interference of the state in science, turn about and loudly
    call for the help of the state, avowing that science can thrive
    only under state control.



The Church and the Universities.


In discussing the position of the social authorities toward freedom of
teaching, we have chiefly considered the state. Of the Church we shall say
but a brief word. It will suffice to recall what has been said previously;
what has been stated about the relation of the Church to freedom of
research, applies in many respects equally to freedom of teaching. Little
will have to be added. The Church, and the Church alone, has received from
her divine Founder the command to preserve the doctrine of revelation and
to proclaim it to mankind. “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations”—this
is the commission of the Lord.

For this reason the teaching of the revealed truth, Theology, is the
privilege of the Church. But the rest of the sciences will not be exempt
from the obligation to listen to the admonition of the God-appointed
authority, in all cases where religious grounds are invaded. To the Church
is intrusted the religious-moral guidance of her faithful; she cannot
remain indifferent, when in the public teaching of science a system is
followed detrimental to the Christian principles of the faithful. And
whoever has entered the Church by baptism, remains subject to her
authority in all matters within her sphere.

The state must acknowledge these rights of the Church, or else forfeit its
claim to be a Christian state; these rights, belonging to the essence of
the Christian religion, are guaranteed by God, and are independent of
human sanction. Hence, in case of clashes in this respect, the state must
listen to the grievances of the Church; this will chiefly concern
Theology, rarely other sciences. Thus it would be partially correct to say
that the theological faculties are subject to the Church, but those of the
rest of the sciences to the power of the state. But only partially;
spiritual interests cannot be marked out by faculties. Interests of faith
may be also violated in other faculties: then cases may arise which lose
their purely worldly character, and extend into the religious sphere of
the Church. If a professor should lecture on a matter touching closely
upon interests of faith, for instance, Catholic Canon law or philosophy,
and should show bias against Church and Christianity, deny its authority,
distort and attack its tenets—then this would constitute an evident wrong
to the Church and a flagrant violation of the interests which to guard it
is her duty, especially in a country overwhelmingly Catholic. In that case
the Church would be entitled to make expostulation.

In rejecting the protests of the Church in such cases, as being the
interference of a foreign power, the state would thereby prove that it
misunderstands both, the religious vocation of the Church and the proper
relation between state and Church. For the faithful, whom the state calls
its subject, are also the subjects of the Church, they are the lambs and
sheep the Church is to feed, in obedience to divine command. Church and
state having in common the same subjects, and being closely connected for
so long a time that it has become historical, it would be unnatural if
they were to treat each other as strangers, such as might be expected in a
heathen country, Japan, for instance. The nature of the case and the weal
of the people demand harmonious action in such matters. It cannot be
denied, moreover, that the Church commonly meets the state government to
the extreme limit of her ability. About the divine rights of the Church
opinions differ, but those able to fully appreciate the precious benefits
of religion and morality will regard it as one of the greatest boons to
humanity, that there exists within its fold an organization which protects
with fearless, awe-inspiring majesty these benefits against all attacks,
even against the state and its all-devouring policy of utility, and in
this way defends the mental dignity of the human individual against
oppression by the reckless reality of external life.


    Just to show how an avowed free-thinker appreciates the
    significance of a commanding spiritual force as against the state
    we will quote the French positivist _A. Comte_, who declares: “The
    absorption of the spiritual by the worldly power is a return to
    barbarity; the separation of the two powers, however, is the
    principle for mental uplift and moral dignity.” “True,” says he,
    “men struggle in blind aversion against spiritual power of any
    kind; yet it will even then prevail, though in a mistaken way.
    Professors, authors, and newspaper writers will then pose as the
    speculative leaders of mankind, although they lack all mental and
    moral qualification for it” (Cours de philosophie positive).

    Short-sighted perception may upbraid the Catholic Church; but a
    far-sighted judgment will have to concede that mankind owes
    gratitude to the Church and the Papacy. A noted Protestant writer
    remarks: “But for the Papacy the Middle Ages would have fallen a
    prey to barbarity. Even in our day the liberty of nations would be
    threatened with greatest danger if there were no Papacy. It is the
    most effective counterpoise to an omnipotent power of the state.
    If it did not exist, it would have to be invented” (_Hübler_).



FIFTH SECTION. THEOLOGY.



Chapter I. Theology And Science.


Now one other, the concluding point. So far our discussion has dealt
almost exclusively with the profane sciences, and while there were often
under discussion general principles, applying also to theology, we did not
refer to the latter expressly for the reason that it occupies a special
position in regard to our question. Theology is the science of the faith,
its subjects are truths established by divine or inspired authority;
hence, in teaching, authority plays a larger part in this than in any
other science. For this reason much fault is found with theology, and many
consider that it forfeits thereby its claim to rank as a science. They say
it lacks all liberty, the results are prescribed; it lacks possibility of
progress; nothing but rigid dogmas, rejecting all development and
improvement; its vocation is exhausted by the incessant transmitting of
the immutable; hence it lacks all the essential conditions of a true
science, it has no claim to a place at the university; if it nevertheless
has established itself at the university, as is the case in some
countries, it must be considered as an alien body, a remnant of an
obsolete time.

A keen eye cannot fail to detect in these words the prompting voice of
that view of the world which rejects everything supernatural, and declares
that Christian dogmatics and morals, and ideas of sin, redemption,
humility of faith, cross, and self-denial, do no longer correspond to
modern man. At bottom is the struggle between the two views of the
world—one the philosophy of modern, sovereign man, the other the
contemplation of the world in the light of Christianity: a process of
repulsion, psychologically easily understood, by which the one seeks to
expel the other from the position which it desires to occupy. A closer
examination of the matter will show this.



Theology as a Science.


Is theology a science in the proper sense? May it rightly claim a place
among the branches of human science? This shall be the first question to
be answered. Theology, meaning the doctrine of God, is the science of the
Revelation, or of the faith; of the Revelation which began in the Old
Testament and reached its perfection in Christ, the Son of God, in whom
appeared the fulness of God, the image of the glory of God, the perfection
of all religion; the Revelation intrusted to the Church to be preserved
infallibly, so that by these truths, and means of salvation, the Church
might guide and enrich the life of believing mankind. Hence, in the broad
sense in which it is understood now, theology is the science that gathers
the revealed truths from their sources, endeavours to grasp and to defend
them, and to deduce new truths from them; which also studies these truths
and the means given for salvation, in their development and effect in the
Christian life.

Thus it includes a wide range of subordinate branches, connected by a
common object. The biblical sciences have for their subject Holy Writ; the
sciences of introduction to the Bible deal with its external history, with
historical criticism playing an important part; exegesis is occupied with
the scientific interpretation of the text and uncovers the treasures of
truth in Holy Writ, assisted in this task by hermeneutics and a number of
philosophical-historical auxiliary sciences. Ecclesiastical history and
its branches of patrology, history of dogma, ecclesiastical archæology,
and art, and other auxiliary sciences, describe the doctrine of Revelation
in its historical course through the centuries, and its development in the
bosom of the Church. Dogmatics (with apologetics) and morals have the task
to explain and defend the doctrine of faith and morals, as drawn from the
Scriptures and from tradition, to deduce new truths from them and to unite
them all in a system. Finally, Canon law, and even to a greater degree the
departments of pastoral theology, homiletics, liturgy, show how the
treasures of Revelation and Redemption find their realization in the
practical life of the Church and of the Christian people.

Hence there cannot be any doubt but that theology is a science in the
proper sense, unless a wrong definition of science is presumed. Of course,
if we should identify science in general with empirical science, and
scientific methods with the methods of natural sciences and mathematics,
and refuse to recognize any results as scientific except those gained by
observation and mathematical calculation, then, of course, theology would
not be a science, nor would many other branches of knowledge come under
this head; the fault, however, would lie with a narrow conception, that
limits itself to the portion of human knowledge within its vision,
ignoring everything that exists beyond its horizon.

What are we to understand by science? It is the systematic concentration
of the knowledge and the research of things according to their causes;
hence of our cognition of a subject that can be proved by careful
demonstration to be certain or at least probable. This we find to be the
case in theology. It is the sum total, systematically arranged, of
knowledge and researches concerning the tenets of faith, considered in the
abstract, in their history, and in their effects on the life of the
Church. Applying the method of natural thought, theology first studies the
presumptions and foundations of faith, examines the sources of revelation
by the philosophical and historical-critical method, proves the doctrines
of faith by these sources, endeavours to grasp these truths
intellectually, by the methods of analytical and synthetical thinking, and
to make clear their connection. We have here the same methods as applied
in other sciences: ascertaining the facts, definition of terms, deduction,
induction. In respect to the history of the Church and to Canon law their
similarity with analogous profane sciences is at once obvious.

There is one _difference_: in the theological sciences there is active,
not only rational research, but also the _belief_ in revealed truths. In
some departments, like that of ecclesiastical history, this difference is
less pronounced, they proceed by the method of critically establishing and
connecting the facts; but they, too, are guided by the conviction that
there is in the life of the Church not only natural causation, but also
supernatural principle. Dogmatics takes faith to a greater degree as its
point of support, in order to connect natural reason with the convictions
of faith, and how richly natural reason may unfold itself is shown in the
works of _St. Augustine_ and _St. Thomas_, on the great mysteries of the
faith. As regards faith itself, we must keep in mind that it has a
scientific foundation: the credibility of revelation is proven, it is a
reasoning faith. It may be likened to history. The historian, on the
testimony of his sources, believes in the actuality of human events,
having convinced himself of the credibility of his sources; this belief
becomes then his starting point for further researches of a pragmatical
nature: he penetrates more deeply into the facts, and connects them
according to their causal relations. The difference is this: the historian
rests upon human authority, the theologian upon divine.

Yet the objection is raised: theology is faith, or at least rests on
faith. Faith, however, has nothing to do with science; faith is sentiment,
whereas science is knowledge. That this view of faith is wrong, and the
result of subjective agnosticism that denies to man any positive
understanding of supernatural truths, we have shown repeatedly. Certainly,
if faith were nothing but sentiment, no science could be built upon it;
you cannot build stone houses upon water. But the Catholic faith is not
simply sentiment, it is a conviction of reason, based upon God’s testimony
that the revealed doctrines are true. In the same way that the
historian—to use the comparison once more—believes positively in his
historical facts, on the strength of the authority of a _Livy_ or
_Tacitus_, or accepts as proved some events of ancient times, relying upon
the testimony of Babylonian tablets of clay or upon the pyramids, and
makes these events his starting point for further researches, without
having to fear objections to his work on the ground that knowledge and
belief are incompatible; just so the theologian believes in his religious
truths because they are vouched for by God’s testimony. This proves that
the foundation for his further thought is not formed by uncontrollable,
irrational sentiment, but by a conviction of reason.

Hence, if by knowledge is meant nothing but a conviction of reason—and in
this sense faith and knowledge are usually contrasted by modern
philosophical writers—then faith is knowledge in the proper sense and a
contradiction does not exist. If, however, knowledge is taken to be the
understanding gained by personal insight without reliance on external
testimony, then, of course, there is a distinction, and theology would not
be a science, in so far as it _believes_; just as little as history would
be a science, in so far as it believes its sources. But theology is a
science, in so far as it makes use of experience and reason, examines its
sources, draws from them the facts of faith, and makes them the starting
point for its investigations.


    Theology also has mysteries among its subjects, namely, truths
    whose actuality is cognizable, but whose contents, while not
    indeed inconsistent, yet remain obscure and incomprehensible to
    us. But even this does not impair its scientific character. Other
    sciences share with it this lot of human limitation. Instances are
    plentiful in natural science where the existence of natural forces
    of one kind or another is proven; of which it is able to form some
    idea, but cannot fathom; they remain a puzzle to science,
    sometimes presenting the greatest difficulties. For instance,
    ether, gravitation, electricity, the nature of motion, and so on.
    The noted physicist _J. J. Thomson_ says: “Gravitation is the
    secret of secrets. But the very same holds good of all molecular
    forces, of magnetism, electricity, etc. There are in animated
    nature even more things we cannot understand. We could say that of
    the processes of living organisms we understand practically
    nothing. Our knowledge of indigestion, of propagation, of
    instinct, is so small that we can almost say it is limited to the
    enumeration of them. What we do know and understand is not one
    thousandth part of what would be necessary for a knowledge in any
    degree complete. ‘If we raise an arm,’ says _Pasteur_, ‘or put our
    teeth in action, we do something that no one can explain.’ ”



Theology and Progress.


With a very superficial conception of theology we might easily arrive at
the opinion that it lacks a characteristic of science, which, in our time
especially, is insisted upon, namely, progress. For it must adhere to
dogmas and not go beyond them. Hence, seemingly, there is nothing to do
for theology but to transmit unchangeable truths, perhaps in different
aspects, but nevertheless the same truths.

It must be admitted that one kind of progress is barred in theology, as
also in other sciences; to wit, the progress of incessant remodelling and
reshaping, the continuous tearing down of the old facts, the eternal
search after truth without ever gaining its possession.


    This is often the progress demanded. “The new tuition,” it is
    said, “starts from the premise that the truth is to be searched
    for” (_Paulsen_). “Science is not a perfected doctrine, but a
    research, ever to be revised” (_Harnack_). It is particularly
    demanded of theology that it procure a FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF
    CHRISTIANITY, and substitute for it thoughts which modern age has
    adopted and which it calls scientific thinking. “There remains the
    task,” they say, “of expressing faith and its objects so as to
    coincide with the conception formed by scientific thinking of the
    natural and historical reality” (_Paulsen_). Hence miracles, the
    divinity of Christ, and mysteries of any kind, must be eliminated;
    even the notion of a personal God will have to be changed to a
    pantheistic notion: “After the great revolution in our cosmic
    theories we can no longer think of God, the eternal holy Will that
    we revere as First Cause of all things, as the ‘first mover’
    throning outside and above the universe, as _Aristotle_ and
    _Thomas_ did” (_Paulsen_).


Such a progress is impossible in theology, at least in Catholic theology,
and in any other that still aims to be the theology of the Christian,
revealed religion. It cannot be expected from theology, nor from any other
science, that it will degrade itself to a fashionable science, that takes
for its level not truth but the variable imperatives and moods of the
times, and, destitute of character, changes with each varying fashion. The
science of faith cannot assume this position, so much the less as it must
be aware that its truths often clash with the inclinations of the human
heart, and that its vocation is to lift up mankind, not to let itself be
dragged down. This kind of progress therefore is barred. This, indeed, is
not progress, but a hopeless wavering from pillar to post, a building and
tearing down, acquiring without permanent possession, searching without
finding.

_True progress_ can be shown in theology as in any other science.

The _possibility_ of progress is manifest, particularly, in
Church-history, in the biblical and pastoral sciences: they are closely
related to the profane-historical, philological, social, and juridical
branches of science, hence theology shares in their progress. It would
seem that dogmatics would have to forego progress. Its progress certainly
cannot consist in changing the revealed doctrines, nor in interpreting
differently in the course of times the formulas of creed; here the rule
is, _veritas Domini manet in aeternum_. The development of dogmatic
knowledge consists rather in the following: the revealed truths are in the
course of the centuries more and more clearly perceived and more sharply
circumscribed, more surely demonstrated, more and more extensively
appreciated in their connections, relations, and deductions. The sources
of Divine Revelation flow the richer the more they are drawn from; their
truths are so substantial, so abundant in relation to knowledge and life,
that, the more research advances, the less it reaches its limit. “No one
gets nearer to the realization of truth than he who perceives that in
divine things, no matter how far he progresses, there remains always
something more to be examined” (_Leo the Great_).

Consider the progress in mathematics. No one will say the mathematician is
doomed to stagnation because he cannot change the multiplication table or
the geometrical propositions. The increasing mathematical literature, with
its big volumes, contradicts this notion: but its growth of knowledge is
not the zigzag progress of restless to and fro, it is the solid progress
from the seed to the plant.


    As early as the fifth century _St. Vincent_ of Lerin described the
    progress in dogmatical knowledge: “Sed forsitan dicet aliquis:
    Nullusne ergo in Ecclesia Christi profectus habebitur religionis?
    Habeatur plane et maximus. Nam quis ille est tam invidus
    hominibus, tam exosus Deo, qui istud prohibere conetur? Sed ita
    tamen, ut vere profectus sit ille fidei, non permutatio. Siquidem
    ad profectum pertinet, ut in semetipsum quaeque res amplificetur;
    ad permutationem vero, ut aliquid ex alio in aliud transvertatur.
    Crescat igitur oportet et multum vehementerque proficiat tam
    singulorum quam omnium, tam unius hominis, quam totius Ecclesiae,
    aetatum ac saeculorum gradibus, intelligentia, scientia,
    sapientia, sed in suo duntaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate,
    eodem sensu eademque sententia.... Quodeunque igitur in hac
    Ecclesiae Dei agricultura fide Patrum satum est, hoc idem filiorem
    industria decet excolatur et observetur, hoc idem floreat et
    maturescat, hoc idem proficiat et perficiatur. Fas est etenim, ut
    prisca illa coelestis philosophiae dogmata processu temporis
    excurentur, limentur, poliantur, sed nefas est, ut commutentur,
    nefas, ut detruncentur, ut mutilentur.”


The _proof for the actual progress_ of theology is furnished by its
history. It shows how theology has gradually grown from the first seed of
the divine Word, placed by the hand of God’s Son into the soil of
humanity, until it became a great tree, rich in branches and leaves. The
holiest men of the Christian centuries, equipped with the choicest mental
forces, enlightened by the light of grace, have worked on its growth;
toiling and praying, they filled libraries with their books.


    It is not our intention to outline here a sketch of this
    development. A few hints may suffice. Hardly had the faith taken
    root in the civilized nations of the old times when researches
    were begun. A long list of Holy Fathers and ecclesiastical authors
    were the bearers of the first development. Drawing upon Greek
    philosophy in aid and to deepen their thought in the mental battle
    against the ancient pagan view of the world, against Judaism and
    heresy, they elucidated more and more the tenets of faith and
    morals, and endeavoured to draw ever more fully from their
    spiritual contents. We encounter among the shining host men like
    _Tertullian_, _Cyprian_, _Clement of Alexandria_, _Origines_,
    _Cyril of Jerusalem_, _Basil_, _Gregory of Nyssa_, and many
    others, up to the powerful dogmatist of the old time, _Augustine_,
    who treated scientifically and often extensively the great dogmas
    of faith. Truly a voluminous theological literature with a
    plethora of genius and truth. The great edition of the Greek and
    Latin Fathers by _Migne_ numbers 382 volumes in quarto, each of
    1,500 pages or more in close print. Comparing with these 382
    volumes the modest book of the Bible, which had been their
    foremost source, the progress of these centuries becomes manifest.

    Soon the way was broken for systematizing the tenets of the faith,
    especially by _St. John Damascene_ (eighth century). Scholasticism
    completed the work: it created a systematical whole and connected
    theology and philosophy, especially the Aristotelian, into a
    harmonious union. Its pioneers were _St. Anselm_ and still more
    _Petrus Lombard_ (died 1160). Then, in the Middle Ages, when
    universities began to flourish, there followed the great
    theologians _Alexander of Hales_, _Bonaventure_, _Albert the
    Great_, _Scotus_, and chief of all _Thomas of Aquin_ (died 1274),
    in whom scholasticism reached its perfection, and undeniably one
    of the greatest minds known in the history of science;
    distinguished by an astonishing prolificness, still more by a
    wealth and depth of thought combined with the greatest simplicity
    and lucidity in presenting truths, he will for ever remain
    unapproachable. The decline of scholasticism during the fourteenth
    and fifteenth centuries was followed by a new bloom, when the life
    of the Church, rejuvenated by the Council of Trent, gave birth to
    new forces in theology. The mighty tomes of men like _Suarez_,
    _Lugo_, _Gregory of Valencia_, _Ruiz_, _Bañez_, _Billuart_, and
    others joined the volumes of their predecessors and continued
    their work. At the same time the various departments of the
    science were branching off more and more, and became independent.

    _M. Canus_ created the theory of theological cognition as an
    introduction to dogmatics, _Bellarmin_ and _Th. Stapleton_ founded
    the newer controversial theology. Moral Theology became in the
    sixteenth century a separate science and was developed by men like
    _Lugo_, _Laymann_, _Busembaum_, _Alphons of Liguori_. Similarly a
    new period of research began in the biblical sciences. Not that
    the first foundations were laid at that time; there had been
    _Origines_, who had become the founder of biblical text criticism
    by his “Hexapla”; the Antioch school of exegetes, _Chrysostomus_,
    _Hilarius_, and especially _Jerome_. But it was fostered with
    renewed zeal. The great Antwerp and Paris polyglots furnished
    aids, men like _Maldonatus_, _Salmeron_, _Toletus_, _Cornelius_,
    _á Lapide_, wrote their exegetic works. To the seventeenth century
    belongs the creation of the propædeutics, by _Richard Simon_ and
    _Bernard Lami_. The monumental work, “Cursus sacrae scripturae”
    (since 1885), containing so far thirty-six volumes, demonstrates,
    among other things, that there has been in recent years no
    standstill in the research in Holy Writ. In the province of
    ecclesiastical history, too, with its branches and auxiliary
    sciences, new life was awakened at that time. In the sixteenth
    century, when the defence of the creed by the witnesses of a
    former age became urgent, patristics and history of dogma enjoyed
    their first rise. _Petavius_ was prominently connected with them.
    How these sciences have been fostered in the nineteenth century is
    indicated by the names of _Mai_, _De Rossi_, _Hergenroether_,
    _Hefele_, _Pastor_. There remains to be mentioned the gradual
    establishment of the science of Canon law, of the
    pastoral-theological departments which have attained an
    independent position since the close of the eighteenth century,
    and since then produced a voluminous literature. The fear of a
    standstill in theological research seems unwarranted in the light
    of its history. The errors of the present time will prevent a
    standstill. The more vehement the attacks by natural science and
    philosophy, by philology and archæology, the more they seek to
    shake the foundations of the Christian religion, the stronger
    theology must grow by the combat. The solid progress of our times
    in knowledge and methodics will not remain without influence; nor
    can the empirical, the historical-critical method, the theory of
    evolution, and so on, fail to exert their stimulating influence
    upon theology.

    The progress that Catholic theology has made since the days of the
    Fathers, the vast amount of mental work it has performed, is
    perhaps made most clear by a glance at the “Nomenclator literarius
    theologiae catholicae,” by _H. Hurter_ (2d ed., 3 vols.; the 3d
    ed. is in 6 vols., 5 being ready). It gives in concise briefness
    the biographical data and the more important works of Catholic
    theologians of greater repute. Counting the names there presented,
    we find not less than 3,900 from 1109 to 1563; about 2,900 from
    1564 to 1663; about 3,900 between 1664 and 1763; finally, from
    1764 to 1894 about 4,000 theological authors; hence in the period
    from 1109 to 1894 nearly 14,700 theologians. That these 14,700
    scientists—and their number is not exhausted by this figure—should
    have written their works without offering in them any new
    knowledge, would surely be a bold assertion! In addition consider
    the long rows of tomes which some of them wrote. Perhaps it would
    not be wholly amiss to refer to the restless zeal of many of them,
    as recorded by their biographers. _Baronius_ (died 1607) could
    truthfully assert before his death, that for thirty years he had
    never had sufficient sleep; he usually slept only four or five
    hours. _Pierre Halloix_ (died 1656) likewise was content with four
    or five hours of rest. _Dionysius Sanmarthanus_ (died 1725) gave
    only four hours to sleep and devoted less than half an hour daily
    to recreation; likewise _Fr. Combéfis_ (died 1679), during the
    last forty years of his life. _A. Fr. Orsi_ (died 1761) contented
    himself with three or four hours of sleep; _Fr. Clement_ (died
    1793) and _H. Oberrauch_ (died 1808) are said to have slept but
    two hours daily. _J. Caramuel de Lobkowicz_ (died 1682) persevered
    for fourteen hours every day at his books; _Chr. Lupus_ (died
    1681) even for fifteen hours daily. The theologian _Lessius_ is
    characterized by “_Parcissimus erat temporis, laboris pertinax_”;
    the same holds good of hundreds of others of these men.

    A science, enumerating its disciples by so many thousands, with
    the greatest intellects among its workers, which has commanded so
    much zeal and work for centuries, should be safe from the reproach
    of having back of it a history of stagnation.



Theology and Freedom of Science.


To many it seems obvious that theology lacks at least the other predicate
of science, freedom; because it is bound to dogmas and ecclesiastical
authorities, at least Catholic theology is.

Although this claim is pressed persistently and with confidence, we may
dispose of it very briefly. The freedom missed in theology, and demanded
in its behalf, is none other than the liberal freedom of science, the
nature of which we have had sufficiently long under the searchlight, so
that there remains nothing to be added. We have proved sufficiently that
this freedom is not a freedom from unnatural fetters, but a dissolute
subjectivism, that claims the right not to be bound to any unchangeable,
religious truths. We admit that the Catholic theology does not possess
_THIS_ freedom. Convinced of the truth of the doctrines established by
divine testimony, and by the infallible voice of the Church, theology sees
not freedom but a sin against truth in the license to assert the contrary
of what it has recognized as the truth.

There is but one freedom which science may claim: it is freedom from
hindrance in reaching the truth in its legitimate domain. If this truth is
transmitted to science infallibly, by the highest instance of wisdom—and
of this every theologian is convinced—how can science be said to be
hindered thereby in attaining the truth? Restrained it is, but only by
truth: truth, however, can only be a barrier to license, but not to
precious freedom. This restraint theology shares with the rest of the
sciences. The physicist is tied to the facts brought forth by the
experiments of his laboratory; the astronomer is tied to the results
reported to him by the instruments of his observatory, the historian is
tied to the events disclosed by his sources. Moreover, all sciences are
tied to their methods. In this way, and in no other way, the theologian,
too, is tied to the facts given him by Revelation, and to his method.
Every science has its own method. The astronomer gains his facts by
observation and calculation, the mathematician arrives at his facts by
calculation and study; the historian, by human testimony; the theologian,
however, by divine testimony, at least as to fundamental truths. That they
are transmitted to him not by his personal study, but by external
testimony, does not matter; the historian too draws from such sources. Nor
can theological knowledge be less certain because vouched for by divine
authority: it makes it the more certain. Or is there no divine authority,
and can there be none? This is exactly the silent presumption, which is
the basis of the charge against theology. But where is the proof for it?
It can only be demonstrated by denying the existence of a supermundane
God; for, if there is an Almighty God, there can be no doubt that He can
give a Revelation and demand belief.

Perhaps it may be said further, the theologian is not permitted to doubt
his doctrines, hence he is prohibited from examining them; he surely
cannot be _unprepossessed_.

We can refer to what we have previously said. Unprepossession demands but
one thing, namely, not to assume something as true and certain that is
false or unproved; it demands strong proofs for anything that needs proof.
We may safely assert that there is no other science more exacting in this
respect than Catholic theology, both of the present and of the past. It
has not a single position that is not incessantly tested by attacks as to
its tenability. Any one not unacquainted with theology, who knows the
works of _St. Thomas_ and of the later theologians, with their exact
methods of thinking, who observes the conscientious work in Catholic
biblical-exegetic, historical-critical field, must be convinced of the
serious atmosphere of truth prevailing here. Unprepossession does not
demand to doubt, time and again, that which has been positively proved, to
rediscover it by new research. Positive facts are no longer a subject for
research; in their case research has fully achieved its end. Methodical
doubt, proper in scientific examination, is proper also in regard to
religious truths.

Furthermore, the latitude of the theologian is much larger than presumed
by those who derive their information solely from modern assertions about
dogmatic bondage. One may safely assert that the freedom of movement of
the mathematician is more limited by his principles, his train of thought
more sharply prescribed, than is the case with the theologian. Of course
the theologian is bound by everything he finds infallibly established
directly by revelation and by the authority of the Church; or indirectly
by the concurring teaching of the Fathers or the theologians; he is bound
also by non-infallible decisions, especially those of congregations,
though not absolutely and not irrevocably.

But this is only the smaller part of his province. In many departments,
like the one of ecclesiastical history, there are almost no restrictions
to his research, except those imposed by historical facts. Canon law and
similar departments dealing with the laws of the Church, coincide in
method and liberty of research with the profane science of law. Of all
departments of theology, the dogmatical is the one most affected by the
authority of faith. Yet even here a great deal is left to unhampered work.
Many a void has to be filled, many a question solved, which the theology
of the past has never taken up; even the defined truths still offer a
large scope for personal work, in regard to demonstration, or to the
philosophic-speculative penetration of the dogmas and their
interpretation.

As a fact, the reader of theological literature, both old and new, will,
in a multitude of cases, meet with unrestrained individuality.



Ecclesiastical Supervision of Teaching.


The _Encyclica_ against Modernism (September 8, 1907) gave rise to fears
that any free movement would henceforth be impossible for Catholic
theology. These fears referred chiefly to the disciplinary measures,
prescribed by the Encyclical for the purpose of supervising theological
teaching in each diocese. Then came the papal Motu Proprio, of September
1, 1910, which, among other things, required the teacher of theology to
confirm by oath his confession of the Creed and his intention to repudiate
modernistic errors. Since then many a complaint has been heard about
espionage and coercion. Similar complaint, about an imminent debasement of
the Church, has been raised whenever important measures in the discipline
of the Catholic Church were published, and they emanated primarily from
the camp of the enemy.

It is not to be denied, however, that such an energetic call for
watchfulness and action, issued from the highest ecclesiastical
watchtower, like the one referred to, may lead in some cases to anxiety
and false suspicions. This is no doubt regrettable; but it is an incident
common to human legislation and will surprise no one who has any
experience of life. A glance at these decrees will show that they are
nothing more than an urgent injunction, and the exercise of that
supervision of religious life and teaching which pertains to the authority
of the Catholic Church, and which has been practised by her at all times.
The language is urgent, it has a severity which is softened in the
execution. Its explanation lies in the eminent danger of the modernistic
movement to the continuance of Catholic life. Modernism, as described and
condemned by the Encyclica, is nothing less than the absolute destruction
of the Catholic faith, and of Christianity.

The Protestant theologian, Prof. _Tröltsch_, wrote after the publication
of the Encyclica: “As viewed from the position of curialism and of the
strict Catholic dogma, there existed a real danger. Catholicism had gotten
into a state of inner fermentation, corresponding to the same condition
caused by modern theology within the Protestant churches.”

The danger of Modernism is often enhanced by a deceptive semblance of the
right faith, and by the pretence to urge only the righteous interests of
modern progress against obsolete forms of thought and life, now and then
also by its secret propaganda. Hence this intervention by a firm hand, and
this only after having waited a long time. They were measures of
prevention, like those taken to stave off a serious danger; the tidal wave
receding, their urgency disappears automatically.


    The German bishops stated in their pastoral letter of December 10,
    1907, that in some Catholic lay-circles there was uneasiness about
    the Encyclical, fearing that it might endanger scientific
    endeavour and independence in thought and research, and that the
    Church intended to prohibit or render impossible co-operation in
    solving the problems of civilization. “May they all recognize,”
    they said, “how groundless such fears are! The Church desires to
    set bars only to one kind of freedom—the freedom to err.” If the
    rules and precepts of the Church do sound harsh sometimes, it is
    because the Church adheres unconditionally to the principle: The
    truth above all. “The Church has at no time opposed the true
    progress of civilization, but only that which hinders its
    progress: heedlessness, haste, the mania for innovation, the
    morbid aversion against the truth that comes from God. But we
    Catholic Christians can join free and unhampered, with all our
    strength and talent, in the peaceful strife of noble, intellectual
    work and genuine mental education.”

    The fears of too great a pressure by the ecclesiastical
    authorities have been given trenchant expression in most recent
    times by a man who, while standing outside of the Catholic Church,
    has always shown himself well disposed towards it, namely, the
    noted pedagogue, _Fr. W. Förster_ of Zurich. _Förster_ has won
    merit and distinction by his manly and spirited defence of the
    Christian view in pedagogical science and mental culture. In the
    book referred to he again describes urgently the worthlessness and
    fatality of modern individualism, that knows a good deal about
    freedom but nothing of self-discipline, nor of authority or
    tradition, and which represents most superficial amateurism in the
    domain of religion and morals. Then he turns to criticize Church
    practice; and his criticism becomes a sharp accusation. His main
    charge is “fatal restraint of the spirit of universality.” “Some
    groups in the Church,” he asserts, “of mediocre learning, have
    established a clique rule, under which the others, the more
    creative and intensive souls, become the victims of intolerance,
    espionage, and false suspicion”; “universality, which unites the
    different mental tendencies, has given way to separation”;
    “everywhere a one-sided denunciatory information of the leading
    circles by accidentally ruling groups and factions; anxious
    intolerance for everything unusual, disciplinary austerity and
    unintelligent pedantry, individualistic and unchristian spirit of
    distrust and mutual espionage”; “levelling of the mental life”;
    “one is tired,” we are told, “of the spirit of incessant
    disciplining”; “of the invariable cold and disdainful forbidding
    and repression.” In the Middle Ages and earlier times it was
    different; then “universality was the ruling spirit, the working
    of the many into a unit full of life; this policy was changed for
    no other reason than because of the struggle of the Church against
    Protestantism.” “The greatest harm that Catholicism suffered by
    the great rupture of the sixteenth century is most likely seen in
    the tendency of the Church to view thenceforth religious freedom
    within Catholic Christianity with an anxious, even hostile eye.”

    Readers of the literature of the day will recognize here views
    often met with during the last years, and the same excited note,
    which is quite in contrast to the even temper that ordinarily
    characterizes _Förster’s_ books. But what the reader will not find
    stated are the proofs for these enormous accusations.

    Undeniably, things have happened in the wide range of
    ecclesiastical authority that cannot be approved. But where are
    the facts that would justify charges of such sweeping nature? A
    Protestant author can hardly be presumed to possess such a direct
    and positive insight into the ecclesiastical practice of the
    higher and the highest order, to give convincing strength to his
    bare assertion. Or is the number of dissatisfied voices that make
    these charges sufficient proof in itself? If the ecclesiastical
    authority be allowed, now and then, to emerge from its passiveness
    to take measures against dangerous doctrinal tendencies, is it not
    to be expected, as a matter of course, that some minds become
    disgruntled and complain about oppression and clique rule? Or must
    that right be denied the Church altogether? _Förster_ says
    himself: “The spirit of dignity and responsibility has never ruled
    all parts of the hierarchy in the same measure as now, and rarely
    if ever were there found in its leading circles so many men
    leading an almost holy life as at present.” And yet we are asked
    to believe that it was reserved exactly for this worthy hierarchy,
    and for these saintly men, to forget the traditions of the Church
    in the most irresponsible manner. One will have to say: “If
    _Förster_ would examine without bias the situation and apply
    consistently in respect to authority the principles that he
    himself defends, he would be convinced that the Church could not
    have acted any differently than it did in regard to the
    regrettable events of the last years, and that it has ever been
    the aim of the Church, before the sixteenth century as after, to
    guard carefully the purity of traditions of faith against any
    attack” (Prof. _G. Reinhold_ in a review of _Förster’s_ book).

    The Church has never known a universality that did not oppose
    doctrinal errors. The Middle Ages did not know it; one need only
    read the many condemnations from Nicholas I. to Innocent VIII.;
    nor was such a universality known to the great Councils of ancient
    Christianity up to the Nicæan, which hurled its anathema against
    numerous teachings that opposed no dogmas defined at that time;
    nor did the Holy Fathers know such a universality, nor the
    Apostles, with their strict admonitions of unity of faith. The
    reply is made, the “Church must not yield the least of its
    fundamental truths,” that “its centralizing power ought to remain
    within the region of the most essential”; whereas she actually
    exercises it in the domain of the incidental. The ecclesiastical
    supervision of teaching has never limited itself to the most
    essential, nor would this practice ever accomplish the object to
    preserve pure the doctrine of faith. Furthermore, what is the
    “most essential” what is the “incidental”? _Förster’s_ book does
    not inform us about this most important question. The views
    against which the Church has made front in the last years, do they
    relate only to the incidental? Does this apply to the doctrines of
    a _Rosmini_ and _Lamennais_, who are referred to in passing? No
    well-informed theologian will assert this.

    We shall hardly be wrong in assuming that the charge of
    overstraining the ecclesiastical authority is based upon a
    presumption of a philosophical nature, which is in evidence in
    several other passages of the book—on the view, namely, that in
    religion the intellectual moment should recede before the
    mystical, before anticipation and inner experience. Hence the
    severe censure of “the narrow autocracy of the intellectual
    interpretation” against the “preponderance of the intellectual
    contemplation” in the Church, which is said to have become so
    prevalent as to exert unavoidably a paralyzing effect upon the
    entire religious life. Here we have the result of the notion that
    theory of life, religion, and faith, depend but little on rational
    knowledge. This notion is also in accord with the argument about
    the impossibility of an independent scientific ethics. We have
    discussed this elsewhere. We demonstrated that religion and faith
    relate to positive truths that can be realized, and that can
    therefore be accurately defined; they must be so defined. Of
    course this realization need not be a scientific one, it can be of
    the natural kind that is not clearly conscious of its reasons.
    _Förster_, too, touches upon this important distinction when
    quoting _Saitschick_: “The inner perception overtowers feeling and
    logical reason—here, too, lies the source of a light shining
    brighter, stronger, and incomparably more true than any light of
    reason”; and again, when his advice is, to foster to a greater
    extent the “inner perception.” What is felt here vaguely has long
    since been expressed much more lucidly in Christian philosophy.

    Certainly a view that fails to lay, first of all, absolute stress
    on the protection of the _doctrine_ of faith cannot understand the
    Catholic point of view; it will assume only too easily that the
    supervision relates to incidentals. It will also engender a
    criticism against which the Church may rightly protest, because it
    starts from presumptions that do not apply to the Church.

    No one will be astonished to find a Protestant author lacking the
    clarified conception of the supernatural character of the Church
    that is possessed by the Catholic; to see him view the Church
    almost invariably in the light of a human organization, similar to
    the Protestant denominations which he may cite before the court of
    his individual reason and force to bow under the yoke of his
    criticism. The Catholic has a better understanding of the words:
    “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.”
    There will be foreign to his mind the idea that the Church has
    since the days of Reformation, for now nearly four centuries,
    deviated from the right way, and degenerated more and more to a
    separatistic and insignificant community; a church able to forget
    its traditions to the extent of grossly misconceiving its proper
    sphere of authority, and fettering itself in a narrow spirit to
    incidentals, could not keep his confidence any longer.



The Oath Against Modernism.


The _Motu Proprio_ of September 1, 1910, decreed that teachers of
theology, and also Catholic priests generally, had to bind themselves by
oath to reject modernistic heresies, and to accept obediently the
ecclesiastical precepts. Dispensed from this pledge were only the
professors of theology at state institutions, to spare them difficulties
with state authorities.

This anti-modernist oath at once became the signal for a storm of
indignation, than which there has been hardly a greater one since the days
of the Vatican Council. A cry was raised for freedom of science, for the
exclusion of theological faculties, even for another “Kulturkampf.” The
General Convention of German college professors, held at Leipzig January
7, 1911, issued a declaration to the effect that “All those who have taken
the anti-modernist oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of an
independent recognition of truth and of the exercise of their scientific
conviction, hence they have forfeited all claim to be considered
independent scientists.” Interpellations were made in legislative bodies,
it was demanded that the option of taking the oath should be taken away
from university professors, because “the dignity of the universities would
be lowered if their members had the opportunity to bind themselves by such
an oath.”

Even threats were made by statesmen, hinting at reprisals by the state,
because its interests were being jeopardized, while, on the other hand,
there were those who declared: “If the Catholic Church thinks it necessary
for her ecclesiastical and religious interests to put her servants under
oath, it is her own business; neither the state nor the Evangelical Church
have a right to interfere” (Prime Minister _Bethmann-Hollweg_, in the
Prussian Diet, on March 7, 1911).

The agitation of the minds will soon subside, as on former occasions of
this kind; and, with calm restored, people will find, as _J. G. Fichte_
told the impulsive _F. Nicolai_, one hundred and thirty years ago, that
the fact has only just been discovered that the Catholics are Catholic.

Yes, indeed, the Catholics are Catholic, and desire to remain
Catholic—this and nothing else is the gist of the anti-modernist oath. It
does not oblige to anything else but what was believed and adhered to
before. It obliges to accept the doctrines of faith; but they are the old
truths of the Catholic Church, propounded and believed at all times, and
the necessary inferences from them. Even the proposition that truths of
faith can never be contradicted by the results of historical research, or
by human science in general, is as old as faith itself. In addition, the
oath avows obedient submission to Church precepts; but this has been
demanded for centuries by the _professio fidei Tridentina_, a pledge by
oath to which every professor of theology has been before obliged:
_Apostolicas et ecclesiasticas traditiones reliquasque eiusdem Ecclesiae
observationes et constitutiones firmissime admitto et amplector_. This was
the opinion of all competent judges on this theological question. “We are
convinced,” declared correctly a prominent theological institution, “that
there is not assumed by this oath any obligation new in subject, and no
obligation not already existing. The oath is but the affirmation of a duty
already imposed by conscience” (the professors of Theology of Paderborn,
December 12, 1910). The Breslau faculty said, in the same sense: “The
faculty does not see in the so-called anti-modernist oath any new
obligation, nor one exceeding the rule of faith ever adhered to by the
faculty.” And this declaration was fully approved of by Rome.


    Cardinal _Kopp_, at the session of the German Upper House on April
    7, 1911, commented on these statements as follows: “Against the
    opinions of these circles (having a different opinion of the oath)
    I set the testimony and the statement of the most competent
    people, to wit, the professors of university faculties and also
    those at episcopal seminaries. Those who have taken the oath, as
    well as those who have refrained from it by the privilege granted
    them by the Holy See, they both declare positively that the oath
    does not contain any new obligations, nor does it impose new
    duties on them; hence that, on the contrary, they are not impeded
    in the pursuit of their tasks as teachers and of their scientific
    work of research. Now, gentlemen, I do not think it would be
    proper to insinuate that these earnest men, appointed by the
    Government, or at least in office by its consent, would make this
    declaration against their conviction and not in full sincerity.”


No wonder, therefore, that of the hundreds of thousands of Catholic
priests hardly a handful have refused the oath.


    Nor is there anything new in the obligation to swear and subscribe
    in writing to a confession of creed. Very often in the course of
    the centuries decrees of creed and symbols had to be subscribed to
    in writing. In the days of Jansenism, when priests were required
    to swear to and sign a statement, many Jansenists tried to dodge
    this oath, and the Jansenist _Racine_ complained that this demand
    was unheard-of in the Church. Thereupon the learned theologian
    _Tournely_ and others cited a number of examples of this kind from
    the history of the Church.


Therefore the anti-modernist oath has not created anything new.
Consequently it has not changed anything in regard to the freedom of
theological research. It is the same as before; nor has the oath changed
anything in the quality of theological professors, they merely promise to
be what they must be anyway; nor can, for instance, the oath induce the
Catholic priest, in teaching profane history, to present the history of
the Reformation in a different light than before, and thus render him
unfit to teach history; the oath has created no new, confessional
differences, hence has given no justified cause for excitement—provided
one has the needed theological comprehension of the oath. If one has not
this insight, and will not trust to information from a competent source,
then it will be the act of prudence to leave the test to the future; and
we can await this test serenely.


    We referred above to the declaration of German college teachers,
    to the effect that all who have taken the oath have thereby
    expressed their renunciation of independent cognition of truth.
    These stereotyped ideas we have so often heard, with the same
    haziness and inconsistency. “Because they have thereby expressed
    the renunciation of independent cognition of the truth,” namely,
    by the acceptance of certain doctrines. But is not every one who
    clings to his Christian belief bound by this very fact to certain
    doctrines? Does every one who still prays his Credo express the
    renunciation of his independence? If the argument quoted is to
    mean anything at all, it means the full rejection of all Christian
    duty to believe; indeed, this is the real sense of this
    “independent recognition of truth,” as we have already seen. But
    cannot some one, because of his conviction, renounce this
    independence and believe, and in this conviction accept the
    doctrines of the Church? If this conviction is his, and he affirms
    it by oath, how can any one see in this oath a want of freedom,
    nay, a renunciation of truth? If an atheist solemnly declared his
    intention to be and to remain an atheist, he would hardly be
    accused of lack of character by the advocates of modern freedom of
    thought. The judge, the military officer, the member of a
    legislature, the professor, who must all take the oath of
    allegiance,—all of these will have to be protected against the
    insinuation of disloyalty to truth. If a man affirms by oath his
    unalterable Catholic faith, he is without any hesitation accused
    of untruthfulness. The government has been urged to forbid this
    spontaneous exercise of Catholic sentiment. The inconsistency of
    modern catch-phrases can hardly be given more drastic expression.
    In order to guard the freedom of thought the government is to
    forbid one from pledging himself to his own principles; in order
    to remain an independent thinker a man must be forced by penal
    statute to confess unconditionally the brand of free science
    prescribed by a certain school and by no means have an opinion of
    his own; in order to be free in his research the teacher in
    theology must be tied to the catch-phrases of liberal philosophy.
    This is modern freedom, a hybrid of freedom and bondage, of
    sophistry and contradiction, of arrogance and barrenness of
    thought, which will exert its rule over the minds as long as they
    are guided by half-thinking.



Bonds of Love, not of Servitude.


People to whose mind Catholic thinking is foreign will never be able to
appreciate the energetic activity of the Church authority.

On close examination, however, they will not deny that, _if_ the Christian
treasure of faith is to be preserved undiminished, _if_ in the hopeless
confusion and the unsteady vacillation of opinions in our days there is to
be left anywhere a safe place for truth and unity of faith, this cannot be
accomplished otherwise than in the shape of a strong authority that has
the assurance of the aid of God.


    The Catholic theologian may be permitted to point in exemplifying
    this fact to the recent history of Protestantism and of its
    theology. Protestantism does not acknowledge a teaching authority:
    its theology demands complete freedom of research and teaching,
    making the most extensive use of both. The result is the
    demoralization of the Christian faith, which is speeding with
    frightfully accelerated steps to total annihilation. The very
    danger which Modernism threatened to carry into the Catholic
    Church has overwhelmed Protestant theology: the metaphysical ideas
    of a modern philosophy penetrated it without check, and killed its
    Christian substance. The measures against Modernism were sharply
    criticized by many Protestants who, at the same time, laid stress
    upon the fact that nothing of the sort could happen among
    themselves. Indeed it could not, at least not consistently with
    Protestant principle. But there is not a single fact in all
    history which demonstrates more clearly the necessity of the
    Catholic authority of faith, than just the condition of
    Protestantism at the present time. On the part of believing
    Protestants this is admitted, if not expressly, then at least in
    practice. To stem the destructive work of liberal theology they
    resort to authority; invoke Evangelical formulas of confession,
    the traditional doctrine, sometimes even the aid of the state;
    neological preachers are disciplined by censures, even by
    dismissal, against the loud protest of the liberals. Such action
    is easily understandable; one cannot hear without sadness the cry
    for help of pious Protestantism, a cry that grows more desperate
    every day; one cannot help regretting its forlorn situation in
    view of the millions of souls whose salvation is jeopardized, who
    are in danger of being despoiled of the last remains of their
    Christian faith. Yet it must be admitted that this cry for
    authority and obedience signifies the abandoning of the Protestant
    principle, and the involuntary imitation and therefore
    acknowledgment of the Catholic principle—for the Catholic an
    incentive to cleave the more closely to his Church.


Many to whom the Catholic way of thinking is foreign, look upon the duty
of obedience which ties the Catholic to his Church as a sort of servitude;
to the Catholic it is the tie of love, uniting free people to a sacred
authority. Many look upon the Church of Rome as a tyrannical curia, where
Umbrian prelates are cracking their whips over millions of servile and
ignorant souls; to the Catholic the Church is the divinely appointed
institution of truth, that possesses his fullest confidence. He knows that
history has given the most magnificent justification to the Catholic
principle of authority. Opinions have come and gone, systems were born and
have died, thrones of learning rose and fell; only one towering mental
structure remained standing upon the rock of God-founded authority in the
vast field of ruins with its wrecks of human wisdom. And its ancient
Credo, prayed by all nations, is the same Credo once prayed by the
martyrs.



Chapter II. Theology And University.


“He is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings”; thus spoke in
bygone ages the children of this world. “Let us therefore lie in wait for
the just.... He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God and calleth
himself the Son of God” (Wisdom ii, 12 _seq._). Centuries later the
children of the world treated in the same manner God’s Son and His
doctrine. And in these days, when the science of the faith is to be driven
from the rooms of the school, let us recall that in olden times the
children of the world planned similarly.

In the days when the private and public life of Europe’s nations was
permeated with the Christian faith, and their ideas were still centred in
God and eternity, then the science of the faith was held to be the highest
among the sciences, not only by rank but in fact.

And when, in the budding desire for knowledge, they erected universities,
the first and largest of them, Paris University, was to be the pre-eminent
home of theology, and wherever theology joined with the other sciences it
received first honours. Thus it was in the days of yore, and for a long
time. The secular tendency of modern thought led to the gradual
emancipation of science from religion; unavoidably, its aversion for a
supernatural view of the world soon turned against, and demanded the
removal of, the science representing that view. Reasons for the demand
were soon found. Thus the removal of theology from the university has
become part and parcel of the system of ideas of the unbelieving modern
man; the liberal press exploits the idea whenever occasion offers.
Resolutions to this effect are introduced in parliaments and diets,
meetings of young students are echoing the ideas heard elsewhere. No
wonder that the Portuguese revolution of 1910 had nothing more urgent to
do than to close the theological faculty at Portugal’s only university.

What are the _reasons_ advanced? Many are advanced; the main reason is
usually disguised; we shall treat of it when concluding. In the first
place we are again met by the old tune of free science, which has been in
our ears so long; the rooms of the colleges, it is said, are destined for
a research which seeks truth with an undimmed eye, and not for blindfolded
science confined to a prescribed path.

No need to waste words on this. Just one more reference may be permitted
us, namely, to the study of law. There is hardly another science with less
latitude than the science of law. Its task is not to doubt the
justification of state laws, but to look upon constitutions and statutes
as established, to explain them, and by doing so to train efficient
officials and administrators of the law. When explaining the civil code
the teacher of law has small opportunity for pursuing “free search after
truth”; neither will his pupil be tested at examinations in the maxims of
a free research that accepts no tradition; he will have to prove his
knowledge of the matter that had been given to him. Yet no one has ever
objected to the teaching of jurisprudence at the university. Therefore the
objection cannot be valid that theology is restricted to the established
doctrines of its religion and has to transmit them without change to its
future servants. It should be borne in mind that our universities are not
intended for research only, but also, and chiefly, for training candidates
for the professions.


    This disposes at the same time of the objection that theology has
    to serve ecclesiastical purposes outside of and foreign to
    science. Religious science, like any other science, serves the
    desire that strives for truth. True, it serves also for the
    practical training of the clergyman for his vocation. But shall we
    eliminate from science the interests of practical life? Then
    medicine and legal science would also have to be excluded, and for
    these there would be planted only sterile theories, and the
    universities transformed into a place of abstract intellectualism.

    Again it is argued that religion and faith are not really
    cognition and knowledge, but only the products of sentiment, and
    hence theology has no claim to a place among the sciences; that
    religion can only be a subject for psychology which lays bare its
    roots in the human heart, and a subject for the history of
    religion, to trace its historical forms and to study its laws of
    evolution—sciences which belong to the philosophical faculty.

    Thus we come back to the principles of an erroneous theory of
    knowledge. No need to demonstrate again that the Christian belief
    is built upon the clear perception of reason, and that it is not a
    sentimental but a rational function.


But has not the Church her theological seminaries? Let theology seek
refuge there! We answer the Church herself desires this; she does not like
theological faculties, they are in her eyes a danger to the faith.

Now, _if_ the Church would be deprived of her authoritative influence upon
the appointment of professors at theological faculties and upon the
subject of their teachings, consequently, _if_ there would be jeopardized
the purity of belief of the candidates for priesthood, and through them of
the people, then, we admit, the Church would rather forego theological
faculties at state-universities. This could not be done without
considerable injury to the public prestige of the Church, to her contact
with worldly sciences and their representatives and disciples, even to the
scientific study of theology. In the latter particularly by the loss of
the greater resources of the state, and by the absence of inducement to
scientific aim, which is more urgent for theologians than for others at
college. Neither would the state escape injury, because of the open slight
and harm to religion, and of lessening its contact with the most
influential body in Christian countries. But if the Church is assured of
her proper influence on the faculties, she has no reason for an unfriendly
attitude toward them. The object the Church seeks to achieve in her
seminaries is the clerical education of her candidates, their ascetic
training, the introduction into a life of recollection and prayer, into an
order of life befitting priests; this cannot be sufficiently done in the
free life at the university.

This is not a bar to scientific instruction by the theological faculty.
Seminary and faculty supplement one another. We see very frequently, at
Rome and outside of Rome, the theological school separated from the
seminary with the approval of the Church. But all these objections do not
give the real reason, the roots lie deeper.

When the Divine Founder of our Religion stood before the tribunal of Judea
He said: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this
world, servants would strive for me.” This was the whole explanation of
why He stood there accused. The guardian of the doctrine of her Master may
use these words to explain the fact that, in the eyes of many, she stands
to-day accused and defamed. The mind of modern man has forsaken the world
of the Divine and Eternal; no longer is he a servant of this kingdom. His
ideals are not God and Heaven, but he himself and this world; not the
service of God, but human rights and human dignity. This view of the
world, which cannot grasp the wisdom of Jesus Christ, and which takes
offence at the Cross, also takes offence at a science that confesses as
the loftiest ideal _Jesum Christum, et hunc crucifixum_.

The real kernel of the question is: Does the Christian religion in its
entirety still serve the purpose of to-day—or does it not? is it to remain
with us, the religion wherein our fathers found the gratification of their
highest mental aims, the religion that gave Europe its civilization and
culture, that created its superior mental life, and still rules it to this
hour? Or shall religion be expelled by a return to a heathendom which
Christianity had overthrown? “We do not want Him to rule over us”—there is
the real reason for the modern antipathy to Catholic theology. Else,
whence the excited demand for its removal? Because it is superfluous? Even
if this were the fact, there is many a category of officials, the little
need of which can be demonstrated without difficulty, yet no one grows
excited about it; many expenditures by the state are rather superfluous,
yet there is no indignation. No, the matter at issue is not so much the
scientific character of theology, nor misgivings about its progress or its
freedom; the real question is this:



Do we Desire to Remain Christians?


For _if_ we still recognize the Christian religion as the standard for our
thought, _if_ we are persuaded that it must remain the foundation of our
life, then there can be no doubt that its facts, its truths, and standards
of life require scientific presentation; then it cannot be disputed that
this science is entitled to a place alongside of the science of law, of
chemistry, or Indology. Indeed, then it must assume the first place in the
system of sciences.


    Surely a science ranks the higher, the higher its object and its
    sources, the surer its results, and the greater its significance
    for the most exalted aim of mankind. The subject of theology is
    God and His works, the ultimate causes of all things in God’s
    eternal plan of the universe, the “wisdom of God in a mystery, a
    wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto
    our glory” (1 Cor. ii. 7). Therefore it is wisdom; for “the
    science of things divine is science proper” (Augustinus, De
    Trinit. xii, 14). A science, having as its subject Greek
    architecture, geography, or physical law, may claim respect, yet
    it must step back before a science of Religion, that rises to the
    highest sphere of truth by a power of flight that participates in
    the omniscience of the Holy Ghost; for such is the faith. For this
    reason its results, in so far as they rest on faith, are more
    certain than the results of all other sciences.

    Finally, the aims of life which theology serves are not physical
    health or advantages in the external life, but the knowledge of
    God, the spread of His kingdom on earth, and the eternal goal of
    all human life.


So long as the Christian religion is the valued possession of the people
of a country, and the roots of their lives rest more in Christianity than
in mathematics, astrophysics, or Egyptology, so long is the science of
religion entitled to a seat at the hearth of the sciences; and the people,
then, have the right to demand that the servants of religion get their
education at the place where the other leading professions get their
training. If the state considers it its duty to train teachers of history
and physics for the benefit of its citizen, then it is still more its duty
to help in the education of the servants of religion, who are called upon
to care for more important interests of the people and state than all the
rest of the professions. Let us consider the task of universities. As
established in the countries of central Europe, they are destined to
foster science in the widest sense, and to educate the leading
professions: to be the hearth for the sum total of mental endeavour, this
is their vocation; hence all things that contain truth and have
educational value should join hands here. To eliminate the science of the
highest sphere of knowledge would be tantamount to a mutilation of the
university. Here all boughs and branches of human knowledge should be
united into a large organism, of unity and community of work, of giving
and taking Theology needs for auxiliaries other sciences, such as profane
history and philology, Assyriology and Egyptology, psychology and
medicine. In turn it offers indispensable aid to history and other
branches of science, it guards the ethical and ideal principles of every
science, and crowns them by tendering to them the most exalted thoughts.
Here is the place of education for the judge and official, for the
physician and teacher; hence it should be the place also for the education
of the servant of the chief spiritual power, religion.


    The university should unite all active mental powers that lift man
    above the commonplace. But is there any stronger mental power than
    religion?

    It is the oldest and mightiest factor in mental life; it is as
    natural to man as the flower is to the field; his mind gravitates
    to a religious resting place, whence he may view time and
    eternity, where he may rest. Therefore religion demands a science
    that inquires into its substance, its justification, its effect on
    thought and life. Man strives to give to himself an account of
    everything, but most of all of what is foremost in his mind. A
    system of sciences without theology would be like an uncompleted
    tower, like a body without a head.

    The history of theology dates back to the very beginning of
    science and culture. If we trace the oldest philosophy we find as
    its starting point theological research and knowledge. _Orpheus_
    and _Hesiod_, who sang of the gods, and the sages of the oldest
    mysteries, were called theologians; _Plutarch_ sees in the
    theologians of past ages the oldest philosophers, in the
    philosophers, however, the descendants of the theologians; _Plato_
    derives philosophy from the teachers of theology. Even more
    prominently was religious study and knowledge responsible for
    Hindoo, Chaldean, and Egyptian philosophy.

    Was it reserved for our age to discard all the better traditions
    of mankind? Shall victory rest with the destructive elements in
    the mental education of Europe? Against this danger to our ideal
    goods, theology should stay at the universities, as a bulwark and
    permanent protest.



Theological Faculty in State and Church.


For this reason the theological faculty has a birth-right at the
university, whether state school or free university. Where it is joined to
a state university, theology automatically becomes subordinate to the
state, in a limited sense. More essential is its dependency upon the
Church, because, being the science of the faith, theology is primarily
subject to the authority and supervision of the Church. For the Church,
and only the Church, is charged by its Divine Founder to teach His
religion to all nations. Hence no one can exercise the office of a
religious teacher, neither in the public school nor at college, if not
authorized to do so by the Church. It is a participation in the ministry
of the Church; and the latter alone can designate its organs. Whoever has
not been given by the Church such license to teach, or he from whom she
takes it away, does not possess it; no other power can grant it, not even
the state. Nor can the state restore the license of teaching to a
theologian from whom the Church has withdrawn it; this would be an act
beyond state jurisdiction, hence invalid.

In granting the license to teach, the Church does so in the self-evident
presumption that the one so licensed will teach his students the correct
doctrine of the Church, as far as it has been established; and he binds
himself to do so by voluntarily taking the office, and more explicitly by
the profession of the creed. If he should deviate from the creed later on,
it is the obvious right of the Church to cancel his license. In this the
Church only draws the logical conclusion from the office of the teacher
and from his voluntary obligation. He holds his office as an organ of the
Church, destined to lecture on pure doctrine before future priests.
Whether or not he has honestly searched for the truth when deviating
therefrom, this he may settle with his conscience; but he is incapacitated
to act still further as an organ of the Church, and it is only common
honesty to resign his office if he cannot fulfil any longer the
obligations he assumed. The professor of theology is therefore in the
first place a deputy of his Church. Also he is teacher at a state
institution and as such a state official; he is appointed by the state to
be the teacher of students belonging to a certain denomination, he is paid
by the state, and may be removed by the state from his position as
official teacher. But withal the right must not be denied to the Church to
watch over the correctness of the Christian doctrine, and to make
appointment and continuance in the teaching office dependent upon it.


    Indeed, this demand was urged by Prof. _Paulsen_, notwithstanding
    his entirely different position: he says: “The
    Catholic-theological faculties are in a certain sense a concession
    by the Church to the state; of course they are also a service of
    the state for the Church, and a valuable one, too; but they rest
    in the first place upon a concession made by the Church to the
    state, with a view to the historically established fact, and to
    peace. Naturally, this concession cannot be unconditional. The
    condition is: the professors appointed by the state must stand
    upon ecclesiastical ground, they must acknowledge the doctrine of
    the Church as the standard of their teaching, and they must
    receive from the Church the _missio canonica_. The Church cannot
    accept hostile scientists for teachers. Hence for the appointment
    an agreement must be reached with ecclesiastical authority. The
    universities are not merely workshops for research, they are at
    the same time educational institutions for important public
    professions; in fact, they were founded for this latter purpose:
    they are the outcome of the want for scientifically educated
    clergymen, teachers, physicians, judges, and other professionals.
    And this purpose necessitates restrictions: the professor of
    Evangelical theology cannot teach arbitrary opinions any more than
    his Catholic fellow-professor can; the lawyer is also restricted
    by presumptions, for instance, that the civil code is not an
    accumulation of nonsense, but, on the whole, a pretty good order
    of life. Just as little as we should dispute the lawyer’s standing
    as a scientist on this account, so little shall we be able to deny
    this standing to the Catholic theologian who stands with honest
    conviction on the platform of his Church.” “We want the Catholic
    theological faculties to be preserved; of course, under the
    presumption of freedom of scientific research within the limits
    drawn by the creed of the Church.”

    In a similar sense the Bavarian minister of education, Dr. _V.
    Wehner_, said, on Feb. 11, 1908, in the course of a speech in the
    Bavarian Diet: “Thus the Catholic professor of theology is bound
    to the standards of creed and morals as established by the Church.
    The decision as to whether a Catholic professor of theology
    teaches the right doctrine of the Church is not for the state to
    give, but for the Church alone.” “The business of the professors
    at theological faculties is to transmit the teachings of the
    Church to future candidates for the priesthood, and this is what
    they are employed for by the state. That the Church does not
    tolerate a doctrine to differ from her own is to me quite
    self-evident.” Hence we may conclude, “The attacks directed here
    and there in recent times against the continuance of Catholic
    theological faculties need not worry us in any way. Nor are they
    likely to meet with response at the places where the decision
    rests. Times have changed. Even non-Catholic governments are no
    longer blind to the conviction that an educated clergy must be
    reckoned among the most eminent factors for conserving the state”
    (_Freiherr von Hertling_). Even during the heated debates on the
    anti-modernist oath in the Prussian Diet and upper house, the
    importance of the theological faculties was acknowledged by the
    speakers, none of whom demanded the removal of these faculties,
    though outspoken in their criticism of the oath. Prime minister
    _Bethmann-Hollweg_ declared on March 7: “Catholic students will
    get their training at the Catholic faculties the same as hitherto,
    even after the anti-modernist oath is introduced. The state never
    will claim for itself the authority to determine in any way which,
    and in what, forms doctrines of faith shall be taught to Catholic
    students. This is no affair of the state. If, and this is my wish,
    the Catholic faculties will retain that value to teachers,
    students, and the total organism of the universities, which is the
    natural condition of their existence, then they will continue to
    exist for the profit of both, the Catholic population and the
    state. Should they lose this value, however, an event I do not
    wish to see, then they will die by themselves. But I do not see
    that it is demanded by the interest of the state to abolish
    without awaiting further development these faculties with one
    stroke, thereby harming our Catholic population, whose wants and
    needs deserve as much consideration as those of any other part of
    the population.”

    There is no warrant for the view that theology is subject to a
    foreign power, and therefore it cannot claim a place in a state
    institution. In its external relations the theological faculty is
    subject also to the state, serving the public interests so much
    the better the more continually the priest by his activity
    influences the life of the people. By the way, why this urgent
    demand for state control in the pursuit of a science by a party
    that otherwise is striving zealously to put the university beyond
    the influence of the state? To be a state institution or not can
    only be an extrinsic matter to the university itself. Or has the
    science of medicine not enough intellectual substance and
    consistency to thrive at a free university? Is science as such a
    matter of state? Therefore, why find fault with theology because
    it will not be entirely subordinated to the state? Nor is it
    proper to call the Church a “foreign” power. It is certainly not a
    foreign power to theology; neither to the Christian state, that
    has developed in closest relation to the Church, which owes its
    civilization and culture to the Church, shares with her its
    subjects, and is based even to-day upon the doctrines and customs
    of the Church.


Against Christ there arose the Jewish scribes and denounced His wisdom as
error; the scribes have passed away, we know them no longer. To the
Neoplatonics Christianity was ignorance, even barbarity; Manicheans and
Gnostics praised as the higher wisdom Oriental and Greek philosophy
adorned with Christian ideas. They belong to history. When the people of
Israel came in touch with the brilliant civilization of Egypt, Assyria,
and Greece, they often became ashamed of the religion of their
forefathers, and embraced false gods; to-day we look upon their fancy of
inferiority as foolishness, and we rank their religion high above the
religious notions of the pagan Orient.

Thus has truth pursued its way through the centuries of human history,
often unrecognized by the children of men, scolded for being obsolete,
nay, more, driven from its home and forced to make room for delusion and
error. Delusion fled, and error sank into its grave—but truth remained.
Thus the Church has endured, and thus the Church will live on, with her
doctrines and science misunderstood and repulsed by the children of a
world unable to grasp them; they will pass away and so will their
thoughts, yet the Church will remain, and so will her science. “She was
great and respected”—this is the familiar quotation from a Protestant
historian—“before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had
passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still nourished in Antioch, when
idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still
exist in undiminished vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in
the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London
Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s” (_Lord Macaulay_).

Then, perhaps, another observer, leaning against the pillars of history,
and looking back upon the culture of this age, will realize that only one
power of truth may rightly say: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my
words will not pass away”—Christ and His Church.



Law and Freedom. An Epilogue.


The great Renovator of mankind, in whom the pious Christian sees his God,
and in whom the greater part of the modern world, though turned from
faith, still sees the ideal of a perfect human being, hence also of true
freedom, once spoke the significant words: “_Et veritas liberabit vos_,
and the truth shall make you free” (John viii. 32). As all the words that
fell from His lips are the truth for all centuries to come, so are these
words pre-eminently true.

There is in our times a strong tension felt between freedom on the one
hand, and law and authority on the other; true freedom and true worth it
sees too exclusively in the independent assertion of the self-will, and in
the unrestrained manifestation of one’s strength and energy, while law and
authority are looked upon as onerous fetters. Our times do not understand
that freedom and human dignity are not opposed to law and obedience, that
no other freedom can be intended for man than the voluntary compliance
with the law and the standards of order.

All creatures, from the smallest to the largest, are bound by law; none is
destined for the eminent isolation of independence. The same law of
gravitation that causes the stone to fall, also governs the giants of the
skies, and they obey its rule; the same laws that rule the candle-flame,
that are at work in the drop of water, also rule the fires of the sun and
guide the fates of the ocean. The heart, like all other organs of the
human body, is ruled by laws, and medical science, with its institutes and
methods, is kept busy to cure the consequences of the disturbance of these
laws. Every being has its laws: it must follow them to attain perfection;
deviation leads to degeneration.

Thus the decision of the worth and dignity of man does not rest with an
unrestrained display of strength, but with order; not with unchecked
activity, but with control of his acts and with truth. The floods that
break through the dam have force and energy, but being without order they
create destruction; the avalanche crashing down the mountain side has
force and power, but, free from the law of order, it carries devastation;
glowing metal when led into the mould becomes a magnificent bell, while
flowing lava brings ruin. Only _one_ dignity and freedom can be destined
for man, it consists in voluntarily adhering to warranted laws and
authorities.

For him who with conviction and free decision has made the law of thought,
faith, and action his own principle, the law has ceased to be a yoke and a
burden; it has become his own standard of life, which he loves; it has
become the fruit of his conviction, _truth_ has made him free. Ask the
virtuoso who obeys the rules of his art whether he considers them fetters;
indeed he does not, he has made them his principles. Let us ask of the
civilized citizen whether he feels the laws of civilization to be a yoke;
he does not, he obeys them of his own free will, they are his own order of
life. Unfree, slaves and serfs, will be those only who carry with
resentment the burden of the laws they must obey. Unfree feels the savage
people fighting against the laws of civilization; unfree the wicked boy to
whom discipline is repugnant. It is not the law that makes man unfree, it
is his own lawlessness and rebellion.

Nor does submission to the God-given law of the Christian belief make man
low or unfree; to those to whom their belief is conviction and life, the
suggestion that they are oppressed will sound strange. On the contrary,
they feel that this belief fits in harmoniously with the nobler impulses
of their thought and will, like the pearl in the shell, like the gem in
its setting. Man experiences this when his belief lifts him above the
lowlands of his sensual life to mental independence, and frees him from
the bondage of his own unruly impulses, that so often seek to control him.


    Freiheit sei der Zweck des Zwanges
      Wie man eine Rebe bindet,
    Dass sie, statt im Staub zu kriechen,
      Frei sich in die Lüfte windet.


(Freedom be the aim of restraint, just as the vine is tied to the trellis
that it may freely rise in the air, instead of crawling in the dust.) This
is the freedom of mind, knowing but one yoke, the truth; the freedom that
does not bow to error, nor to high sounding phrases, nor to public
opinion, nor to the bondage of political life; neither is true freedom
shackled by the fetters of one’s own lawless impulses. _Et veritas
liberabit vos._



INDEX.


Accusations of the Church, 142 _et seq._

Achievements of liberal research, 291

_Adickes, E._, 92, 264, 269

Agnosticism, 43, 46, 48

_Amira, K. von_, 11, 17, 309, 326

_Ampère, A._, 212 _et seq._, 223, 224

Anthropocentric view of the world, 19

_Apponyi, A., Count_, 323

_Arago_, 119

_Aristotle_, 4, 5, 7, 52, 345, 349

_Arnest, Archbishop_, 150

Atheism, 19, 79, 287

_Augustine, St._, 4, 27, 76, 80, 82 _et seq._, 110, 135, 159, 179, 246,
            260, 273

Authority of Faith, 81, 112, 125 _et seq._
—— private, 82
—— Protestant, 397
—— rejection of, 33, 40

Autonomism, 25, 29, 33

Autonomy of the College, 360
—— of Reason, 36
—— of the Teacher, 361

Autotheism, 23

_Bacon, F._, 205, 216

_Baer, M. von_, 221

_Balmes, J._, 320

_Barrande_, 219

_Baumgarten, O._, 246, 254

_Baur, F. Ch._, 258

_Beaumont, L. de_, 218

_Bebel_, 350

_Becker, K._, 146

_Bellarmin, Cardinal_, 185, 192

_Benedict XIV._, 96

_Berkeley_, 35

_Bernouilli_, 205

_Bertholon_, 119

_Bertrin, G._, 247

_Berzelius, J._, 217

_Bessel, F. W._, 209

_Bethmann-Hollweg_, 394, 405

Bible, 281, 283

Bible-Criticism, modern, 254 _et seq._

_Billroth, Th._, 363

_Biot, J._, 116

_Bischof, K. G._, 219

_Boissarie, Dr._, 247 _et seq._

_Boniface VIII._, 149, 181

_Bornhak, C._, 349, 363

_Boscovich_, 197

_Bourdaloue_, 211

_Bousset, W._, 254, 285

_Boyle, Robert_, 205

_Brahe, Tycho de_, 191, 202

_Branco, W._, 116

_Brass, A._, 333

_Braun, K._, 82, 117, 119, 281

_Brewster, D._, 118

_Broda, R._, 50

_Büchner_, 115, 364

_Buckland, W._, 219

_Buffon, G. de_, 206

_Cabet, Etienne_, 111

_Cantor, M._, 210

_Caprivi_, 19

Cardinals, 98

_Carneri, B._, 251

_Cassirer_, 50

Catholic, not free in research, 108

Catholic Universities, 370

_Cauchy_, 210

Causation, Natural, 34, 235 _et seq._

Certainty, scientific, 137

Censorship of Books, civil, 172

—— ecclesiastical, 171

_Chamberlain, H. St._, 26, 36, 251, 361

_Charles Borromeo, St._, 175

_Cherbury, Herbert of_, 28

_Chevreul, M. E._, 217

Christ, 31, 143, 246, 401, 407
—— Divinity denied, 251

Christian Religion, State Protection for, 352 _et seq._
—— Truths, 21
—— View of the World, 14 _et seq._, 27, 30, 55

Christianity, 21, 24, 51
—— compared with Paganism, 267
—— free, 285
—— Origin of, 259
—— _vs._ Paganism, 253
—— without Christ, 252, 282

Church, the, 14, 30, 39, 50, 63 _et seq._, 70, 90 _et seq._, 106, 125,
            179, 235, 275 _et seq._
—— Accusations of the, 142 _et seq._
—— and Medical Science, 181
—— Catholic, alone enduring, 298
—— Episcopal, 298
—— founder of Schools and Universities, 145 _et seq._
—— not a foreign Power, 406
—— the Mother of Civilization, 145 _et seq._

_Cicero_, 3, 8, 138, 269, 349

_Claar_, M., 170

_Clement IV._, 155

_Clement V._, 149, 152

_Clement VIII._, 195

Cognition, human, 34 _et seq._, 43

College Professors, 393

_Columbus, Christopher_, 182

Communistic Experiments, 111

Congregations, Roman, 98, 189

Copernican System, 183

Copernicus, 4, 113, 174, 184, 186, 189, 194 _et seq._, 200

_Coppée, F._, 324

_Corneille_, 211

_Cornu_, 211

Cosmogonies, of Nations, 242

Council, Fourth Lateran, 182

Council, Vatican, 68 _et seq._, 90, 103, 106, 109, 130

Craniotomy, 102

Creation, disputed, 241

Criticism of the Gospels, modern, 254 _et seq._

_Cuvier, G._, 218, 223

_Cyril, St., of Alexandria_, 87

_Dalberg, J. von_, 150

_Dana, J. Dwight_, 219

_Darwin_, 107, 115, 157, 239, 243
—— an Agnostic, 222

_Davy, Sir H._, 119

_Dawson, W._, 219

Dechristianizing of the modern State, 362 _et seq._

_Delitzsch, Fr._, 51, 281

_Deluc, A._, 119

_Denifle, H._, 151, 153 _et seq._, 182

_Denthofen_, 182

_Descartes, R._, 35, 118, 190

_Dilthey, W._, 292

Divinity of Christ, 281
—— denied, 251 _et seq._

Dogmas, 51, 67, 97, 158

_Döllinger_, 103

_Draper, J._, 86 _et seq._, 144, 159, 182

_Drews, A._, 236, 282

Dualism, 31, 63

_Du Bois-Reymond_, 115, 224, 237, 240

_Dumas, J. B._, 217

_Dumont, A._, 219

Economics, liberal, 30

_Egger, F._, 99

_Ehrenberg, Ch._, 220

_Ehrenfels, Chr. von_, 347

_Eichhorn, Minister_, 344, 364

Emancipation from the Truth, 41

_Eméry_, 196

_Epinois, de l’_, 183

Episcopal Church, 298

_Erdmann, J. E._, 50, 158

Error, Danger of Infection by, 319
—— to be taught with same right as truth? 328

Ethics, modern, 50, 250, 325, 330, 347

_Eucken, R._, 26, 50, 51, 244, 294 _et seq._

_Euler_, 210

Evolution, Theory of, 49, 157, 241 _et seq._
—— Theory, held by Catholic Scientists, 223

Faith, 14, 43, 51
—— and Reason, 73
—— Authority of, 61, 81
—— Definition of, 61, 63, 66
—— Doubts forbidden, 139
—— its scientific Demonstration, 130 _et seq._
—— Motive of, 71
—— not blind, 61, 71
—— Obedience of, and Freedom of Action, 105

_Falkenberg, R._, 45, 158

_Faraday, M._, 214, 224, 249

_Favaro, A._, 183

_Fénélon_, 110

_Feuerbach, L._, 21, 22

_Fichte, J. G._, 4, 52, 129, 178, 394

_Fischer, Kuno_, 37

_Fizeau, A._, 211

_Foerster, F. W._, 128, 246, 268, 338, 345, 390

_Fonck, L._, 86

_Fonsegrive, G._, 39

_Forel, A._, 325, 347

_Foucault, L._, 211

_Fouillie, A._, 290

_Francé, R. H._, 240

_Francis of Sales, St._, 175, 320

_Franklin, B._, 119

_Frauenhofer_, 211

_Frederick II., King_, 178, 179, 363

Freedom, Definition of, 8, 16
—— for the Truth, 74
—— modern Idea of, 16 _et seq._, 18, 26
—— of Art, 336
—— of Research, different from Freedom of Teaching, 9
—— of Research, liberal, 229 _et seq._
—— of Science, Necessity, 12
—— —— Subject to human Nature, 361
—— of Teaching, as understood in the Past, 344, 363 _et seq._, 370
—— —— Danger of, admitted by modern Scientists, 323
—— —— Definition of, 303
—— —— unrestricted, inadmissible, 314

Freedom of Thought, 30, 298
—— two Kinds of, 13, 15, 55

Freemasons, 22, 28, 331

Free-religionists, 23

Free-thinkers, 17, 22, 30, 272, 291, 331, 332, 345, 363

_Fresnel, A._, 211

_Friedwald_, 140

_Frins, V._, 165

_Fuchs, Th._, 162

_Galileo_, 55, 97, 99, 101, 102, 180 _et seq._

_Galle, J. G._, 208

_Galvani, L._, 118, 212

_Gassendi, P._, 190

_Gauss, K._, 209, 210

_Gebler, K. von_, 183

Generatio aequivoca, 241

Genesis, 281
—— Doctrine of, 212
—— History or Legend? 259
—— primordial, 241

_Gerdil_, 211

_Gibbons, Cardinal_, 103

_Giese, T._, 194, 201

_Giesebrecht, F. W._, 129

God, 6, 11, 14, 23, 26, 32, 44, 53, 65, 176, 235, 236, 286, 387

God’s Order of Life, 14

_Goethe_, 178, 269

_Goetz, L._, 165

Gospels, 285
—— modern Criticism of, 254 _et seq._

Government, founded on Christianity, 356

_Goyau, G._, 299

Grace, divine, Definition of, 73

_Gray, Th._, 119

_Gregory VII._, 145

_Gregory IX._, 181

_Gregory XI._, 151

_Grienberger_, 185

_Grimaldi, F._, 195

_Grisar, H._, 99, 190, 197

_Grosse, E._, 116

_Grotthuss, von_, 24

_Guldin_, 211

_Gunkel, H._, 259, 281

_Günther, A._, 99, 172

_Häckel, E._, 87, 114, 198, 217, 221, 222, 239, 241, 268, 303, 325
——— denounced for Forgery, 333
——— on Lourdes, 247

_Haeser_, 154

_Haller, A. von_, 7, 205

_Halley_, E., 206

_Hansen, A._, 325

_Harnack, A._, 17, 64, 71, 117, 129, 134, 246, 256 _et seq._, 265, 282,
            283, 284, 382

_Hartmann, E. von_, 250, 282, 285, 290, 317

Harvard University, 74

_Harvey, W._, 205

_Hauy, R._, 218

_Heer, O._, 219, 223

_Hefele, K. von_, 181 _et seq._

_Hegel_, 4, 47, 50, 272, 294

_Heis, E._, 209

_Helmholtz, H. von_, 4, 215

_Henslow, G._, 216

_Herbart_, 4

_Hermes, G._, 172

_Herrmann, W._, 76, 78

_Herschel_, 207

_Hertwig, R._, 241

_Hertz_, 4

_Hettner, H._, 28, 36, 47

_Hilgers, J._, 111, 169, 176, 177

_His, W._, 333

Historian, the Catholic, 95 _et seq._

History, and the Faith, 93

_Hitchcock_, 219

_Hoensbroech, P._, 165, 169

_Hoff, van’t_, 71, 181

_Holl, K._, 103

_Holtzmann, O._, 283

_Honorius III._, 152, 155

_Hörnes, M._, 242

_Huber, V. A._, 148, 324

Humanists, 18 _et seq._

Humanitarian Religion, 51
—— View of Life, 55

Humanity, emancipated, 22

Human race, Origin of, 115 _et seq._

_Humboldt, A. von_, 198, 224

_Humboldt, W. von_, 38, 74, 314

_Hume, D._, 35

_Huxley, Th._, 222

_Huygens, Chr._, 118, 204 _et seq._

_Hyrtl, J._, 221

Illuminati, 25

Immorality, among College Men, 335

Inclinations, human, 264 _et seq._

Incompatibility of Science and Faith, 198 _et seq._

Index of forbidden Books, 55, 169 _et seq._, 189, 196

Individualism, 25, 28

Infallibility, 76, 97 _et seq._, 109

_Innocent IV._, 149

_Innocent VI._, 151

_James, W._, 48, 250, 268

_Janssen, J._, 146, 149, 150, 156, 218

Jesuit Order, 183, 359

Jesus Christ, 252, 357
—— Existence of, 282
—— who was? 281 _et seq._

Jews, 128

_Joachim, G._ (see _Rheticus_)

_Jodl, F._, 19, 21, 22, 66, 123, 130, 162, 245, 250, 288, 292, 322, 357

_John XXII._, 151 _et seq._

_Jones, Dr. Spencer_, 298

_Jörgensen_, 229

_Jülicher_, 255, 283

_Justin, Phil._, 277

_Kahl, W._, 10, 162

_Kant, I._, 4, 29, 35, 36, 37 _et seq._, 43 _et seq._, 46 _et seq._, 54,
            63, 64, 77, 132, 167, 179, 250, 263, 269, 272, 287, 293, 313,
            363

_Kaufmann, G._, 17, 150, 153, 155, 162, 309

_Kelvin, Lord_ (see _Thomson_)

_Kepler, J._, 4, 125, 184, 185, 187, 191, 195 _et seq._, 201 _et seq._

Kepler-Bund, 333

_Kirchhoff, G. R._, 4

_Kleinpeter, H._, 35

_Kneller_, 7, 208

Knowledge and Faith, separation of, 42

_Kochansky_, 196

_Kohlbrugge, J. H._, 116

_Köller_, 121

_Kollmann, J._, 116

_Kone, J._, 147

_Kromer, Bishop_, 195

_Kues, N. von_, 194

_Lacharpe_, 47

_Lalande_, 196

_Lamarck, J. B. de_, 157, 223

_Lammenais, F._, 172

_Lamont, J. von._, 209

_Lange, F._, 237, 239

_Lapparent, A. de_, 219

Lateran Council, Fourth, 182

_Lavoisier, A._, 217

Law, necessity of, 408

Laws of nature, 11

_Lehmann, E._, 243

_Lehmann, M._, 178

_Leibnitz, G. W._, 114, 118, 190, 196, 211

_Leo, the Great_, 383

_Leo XIII._, 95, 170 _et seq._

_Lessing, G. F._, 326

_Leverrier, M._, 48, 207 _et seq._, 238

Liberalism, 29 _et seq._, 162, 364, 370

License to teach, ecclesiastical, 404

_Liebig, J. von_, 4, 218

_Liebmann, O._, 35

Life, first, whence did it come, 240

_Linné, Karl_, 205

_Lipps, Th._, 78, 135, 311

_Locke, J._, 28, 35

_Loisy, A._, 172

_Loosten, de_, 283

_Lossen_, 223

Lourdes, 247

_Lüdeman_, 45

_Luther_, 27, 29, 38, 195

Lutheran Church, expelled Kepler, 202

_Lyell, Ch._, 223

_Macaulay_, 407

_Mach, E._, 35

_Macolano_, 187

_Mädler, J._, 206

_Mai, Cardinal_, 320

Man, Descent of, 288
—— free, 15, 25
—— his Destiny, 11, 19
—— Member of Society, 11

Man, the autonomous, 24 _et seq._, 29, 33, 287
—— the transcendental, 23 _et seq._, 37

Man’s Emancipation, 27
—— Intellect, 14

_Martius, von_, 220

_Masaryk, T. G._, 62, 72, 136, 160

_Maxwell, J._, 214 _et seq._, 224

_Mayer, R._, 215, 239

_Melanchthon_, 195

_Mendel, G. J._, 220

_Menger, K._, 62, 86

_Messer, A._, 140, 235

Method of modern Science, 262

_Michael, E._, 146, 181, 182

_Migné_, 384

_Mill, Stuart_, 245

Miracles denied, 246 _et seq._

Modernism, 44, 45, 165 _et seq._, 389 _et seq._
—— Oath against, 393

_Moigno_, 209

_Moleschott, J._, 115, 224, 364

_Mommsen, Th._, 121, 128, 234, 267

Monism, 31, 331
—— Definition of, 244

Monists, 331

_Montanari, G._, 194

Morality, 325
—— independent of Religion, 250, 336
—— no absolute Standard of, 50

_Muckermann, H._, 220

_Müller, A._, 186

_Müller, Fr._, 243

_Müller, J._, 219

_Münch, W._, 147, 356

_Muratori, L. A._, 320

_Mysticism_, 43, 46

Nature, human, ignored, 264

_Newton_, 4, 7, 118, 125, 191, 201, 203 _et seq._

_Nicolai, F._, 394

_Niebergall, F._, 45

_Nietzsche_, 23 _et seq._, 31, 37, 53, 54, 79, 270, 273

Oath against Modernism, 405
—— binding? 46

Oath of Allegiance in civil Professions, 396
—— of the Professio Fidei Tridentina, 394

Objectivism, 33

_Oken_, 178

_Olbers, W._, 209

_Omalius, J. de_, 219, 223

Oppression, of mental Liberty, by Party Rule, 366

_Oresme, Bishop_, 194

_Osiander_, 184, 195

_Ostwald, W._, 240

_Owen, R._, 111

_Ozanam, A._, 212

Paganism, 267, 286
—— extolled by modern Science, 212
—— preferred to Christianity, 267

_Palacky_, 146

Pantheism, 23, 41, 284

Papacy, Importance of, 373

Papal Charters of Universities, 148 _et seq._

_Pascal_, 211

_Pasteur_, 217, 222, 224, 381

_Pastor, L. von_, 96, 195

Patients, made Subjects for medical Experiments, 319

_Paul III._, 184, 195, 201

_Paul IV._, 170

_Paulsen, F._, 17, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 49, 51 _et seq._, 64, 78, 134, 150,
            236, 239, 252, 253, 262, 274, 276, 287, 292 _et seq._, 309,
            312, 321, 335, 338, 382, 404

_Paulus, H. E._, 258

Pedagogy, 345

Perception, the Nature of human, 33

_Pesch, Chr._, 99

_Peschel, O._, 115

_Pessimism_, 295 _et seq._

_Pfaff, F._, 219

_Pfleiderer, O._, 256, 259, 285

_Philip, the Fair_, 152

Philosophical Errors, 327
—— Training, great Want of, 321

Philosophy, 7, 16, 21, 28, 36, 44, 78, 242, 275, 292 _et seq._

Philosophy and the Faith, 92
—— Scholastic, 49, 53

_Piazzi, G._, 209

_Pindar_, 74

_Pius IX._, 99, 162, 165, 166

_Pius X._, 99

_Plate, L._, 206, 237, 240, 241, 243 _et seq._, 249, 287

_Plato_, 52, 74, 249, 269, 275, 337

_Plutarch_, 349

_Poggendorff_, 209

_Pohle, J._, 209

_Poincaré, H._, 114

Pope, his Person, 98

Popes, and the Universities, 150 _et seq._

_Prantl, K. von_, 324

Prayer, 46

_Pressensé, F. de_, 299

Primordial Genesis, 241

Progress, 159

Promoting the Christian Faith, the Aim of Founders of Universities, 367

Protestantism, 19, 27 _et seq._, 44, 45, 51, 54, 66, 77, 97, 117, 128,
            129, 140, 168, 193, 195, 202, 255, 293, 298, 359, 363, 390,
            396

_Ptolemy_, 5

_Pythagoras_, 4, 140

_Quenstedt, F._, 7, 219, 223

_Rade, M._, 282

Radicalism, 332

_Ramsay, W._, 7

_Ranke, L. von._, 116, 179

_Ratzel, F._, 115

Reason, its Limitations, 7, 14

Reformation, the, 27, 28, 363

_Reimarus, H. S._, 258

_Reinhold, G._, 391

_Reinke, J._, 7, 115, 223

Relative Truth, 157

Religion, 16, 20, 25, 28, 51
—— abandoned, 289 _et seq._
—— distinguished from Science, 266
—— of natural Reason, 28, 51

Religious Instruction of Children, 45

_Remus, John_, 196

_Renan, E._, 54, 248, 258

Research, and Faith, 59
—— Definition of, 9

Restraint, proper, of Science, 90

Revelation, 29, 51, 72, 77 _et seq._, 90, 125, 297
—— Proof of, 138

Revolution, French, 29, 36
—— of 1848, 363

_Rheticus_ (_G. Joachim_), 195, 201

_Rhodius_, 140

_Riccioli, J._, 190

Right of Christians, to be represented, 367
—— to teach, natural, 369

Rights of Teacher, not unrestricted, 346

_Ritter, K._, 218

_Romanes, G._, 221

_Roscellin_, 158

_Rosenberger_, 118

_Rosmini-Serbati_, 110

_Rothenbücher_, 30

_Rousseau, J. J._, 28

_Rudder, P. de_, 249

_Ruville, A. von_, 77

_Sabatier, A._, 26, 39, 78, 262

_Saint-Hilaire_, 223

_Saitschick_, 392

_Sarcey_, 173

_Savigny, F. von_, 355

Scepticism, 35, 47, 55, 293

_Schafhäutl, K. von_, 219

_Scheiner, Ch._, 125, 191

_Schell, H._, 136, 172

_Schelling_, 4

_Scherr, J._, 38

_Schiaparelli, G._, 191

_Schiller_, 274

_Schleiermacher_, 45, 54, 290

_Schmiedel, P._, 282

_Schneider, W._, 116

_Schönbein_, 7, 218

_Schönberg, Cardinal_, 194, 201

Schools, free, 22

_Schopenhauer_, 35, 272, 274

_Schwann, Th._, 220

_Schwegler, A._, 28

_Schweitzer, A._, 282

Science, an Activity of the human Mind, 6
—— anti-Christian, its Danger, 329 _et seq._
—— Definition, 3 _et seq._
—— Errors of, 115 _et seq._
—— grave Charges against Modern, 329
—— Limitations, 7
—— Power of, 322
—— restricted by accidental Conditions, 361
—— subject to God, 6
—— subject to Imperfections of human Mind, 6, 31
—— subject to Truth, 6
—— Vocation of, 279

Sciences, profane and the Faith, 88

Scientific Research, Methods, 158
—— Teaching, Definition, 316

Scientists, Catholic, 384 _et seq._

Scripture, does not teach profane Sciences, 84
—— Interpretation, 27
—— Narratives not to be taken in literal Sense, 82 _et seq._

_Secchi, A._, 191, 208

_Sedgwick, A._, 219

Seminaries, 400

Sensuality, Emancipation of, Danger to Civilization, 356

Sexual Perversities, 347
—— Practice, natural, 346
—— Questions, 325
—— Reform, 347

Sham-Science, 313

Silence not Denial, 11

_Smet, de_, 86

_Smith, Adam_, 28

_Smolko, S. von_, 359

Socialism, 111, 349, 350

Socialists, 331

Social question, 30

Sociology, 30

_Socrates_, 7

Soul, the, 46 _et seq._
—— the, an illusion, 288 _et seq._

_Spencer, H._, 243, 313

_Spicker, G._, 22, 26, 292, 324

_Spinoza, B._, 41, 179

_Stägemann_, 36

State, the, and Freedom of Teaching, 340 _et seq._

_Steudel_, 236

_Strauss, D. F._, 54, 65, 240, 258, 267, 273, 280, 283, 286, 287, 315, 364

_Stütz_, 119

_Subjectivism_, 33 _et seq._

Supernatural, Factors to be excluded, 235 _et seq._
—— the, inadmissible, 31

Supervision of Teaching, Ecclesiastical, 389

_Sybel, L. von_, 246, 292

Syllabus, the, 55, 94, 115, 162 _et seq._

Tanner, A., 192

_Targioni-Tozzetti_, 194

Teachers, anti-Christian, 358
—— Catholic, small Number of, 365
—— Jewish, 365

Teaching, Definition of, 10
—— of the Church, as distinguished from Opinions of Theologians, 82 _et
            seq._

_Tews, J._, 358

_Thénard, L._, 217

Theocentric View of the World, 19

Theologians, Catholic, of Repute, 384 _et seq._

Theological Literature, Catholic, 384 _et seq._

Theology and Progress, 381 _et seq._
—— a Science, 378 _et seq._
—— History of, 403

Theophobia of Science, 234, 241

Theory of Rights, individualistic, 313

_Thomas, St._, 82, 84, 155, 262, 353, 388

_Thomasius, Chr._, 344, 363

_Thomson_ (_Lord Kelvin_), 74, 238, 249, 251 _et seq._, 381

_Toland, J._, 28

_Treitschke, H. von_, 129, 179

_Tröltsch, E._, 28, 134, 167, 298, 356, 389

Truth, relative, 49 _et seq._

_Tyndall, J._, 217, 224

_Überweg, F._, 267

_Uhlich, L._, 291

United States, 111, 368

Universities, 150, 341 _et seq._
—— and the Church, 371
—— Catholic, 370
—— free, 368

University, and Theology, 398
—— Teachers, 17
—— vanishing Respect for, 334

Unprepossession in Research, 121 _et seq._, 357

_Urban IV._, 155

_Urban V._, 151

_Urban VIII._, 96, 186, 189

_Vaillant_, _Anarchist_, 350

_Valerius, Maximus_, 319

_Varnhagen_, 36

Vatican Archives, 95

Vatican Council, 68 _et seq._, 90, 103, 106, 109, 130

_Vaudin_, 119

_Vierort, K. von_, 220

View of life, Christian, 252
—— of the World, anthropocentric, 19
—— —— Christian, 14, 27
—— —— humanitarian, 18, 21 _et seq._, 31
—— —— theocentric, 19

Views of the World, various, 13, 22, 159, 294

_Vigilius, St._, 180 _et seq._

_Vincent, St. of Lerin_, 383

_Virchow, R. von_, 116, 224, 241, 323

_Vogt, K._, 30, 115, 224

_Volkmann, A._, 220, 223

_Volta, A._, 212 _et seq._, 224

_Voltaire_, 28, 326

_Vries, H. de_, 220

_Waagen, W._, 223

_Wahrmund, L._, 86

_Wallace, A._, 119

_Walsh, J. J._, 208

_Walther, W._, 284

_Washington, George_, 349

_Wasmann, E._, 116, 223, 243, 249

_Wehner, von_, 405

_Weismann_, 242

_Weizsäcker_, 257

_Westermark_, 50

_Westhoff_, 177, 74, 145, 276, 282

_Wimpheling_, 156

_Wobbermin, G._, 245

_Wolf, R._, 207

_Wöllner, Minister_, 363

_Wundt, W._, 24, 52, 62, 71, 137, 235, 243, 254, 288, 290

_Young, Th._, 119

_Zacharias, Pope_, 180

_Zedlitz, von_, 363

_Zeller, E._, 246, 255

_Ziegler, Th._, 59

_Zittel_, 116

_Zöckler_, 7, 181, 201

_Zoen, Bishop_, 151

_Zola_, 248 _et seq._



FOOTNOTES


    1 Whenever we use here the word “modern,” we do not take it in the
      sense of “present,”—the Christian view of the world is also a
      present one, and is still of the utmost importance,—but in the sense
      of “new” in contrast to the time-honoured and inherited.

    2 The difference between the Protestant and the Catholic manner of
      reasoning is stated by the convert, Prof. _A. von Ruville_, as
      follows:

      “My mind had harboured up to now the characteristically Protestant
      thought that I, from my superior mental standpoint, was going to
      probe the Catholic Church, that I was going to pass an infallible
      judgment on her truth or untruth, and this in spite of my being
      ready to acknowledge the truth in her. But now I became more and
      more conscious of the fact that it was the Church who had a right to
      pass judgment on me, that I had to bow to her opinion, that she
      immeasurably surpassed me in wisdom. Many details, which I was
      inclined to criticize, demonstrated this to me, for in every
      instance I recognized that it was my understanding that was at
      fault, and that what appeared to me as an imperfection was rooted in
      the deepest truth. In this way I was gradually brought to the real
      Catholic standpoint, to accept the doctrines immediately as Truth,
      because they proceeded from the Church, and then to endeavour to
      understand them thoroughly, and to reap from them the fullest
      possible harvest of Truth. Formerly, with regard to Protestant
      doctrines, I always retained my independence and the sovereignty of
      my judgment. Why should I not have had my own opinion, when every
      denomination and every theologian had an individual opinion? How
      different with the Catholic Church. Before her sublime, never
      varying wisdom, as it is proclaimed by every simple priest, I bowed
      my knees in humility. Compared to her experience of two thousand
      years my ephemeral knowledge was a mere nothing” (Back to Holy
      Church, by Dr. _Albert von Ruville_, pp. 30, 31).

    3 Infallible teachings are often also called dogmas. But they are not
      always dogmas in the strict sense. In the strict sense dogmas are
      such truths as are contained in divine revelation, and are
      proclaimed by the infallible teaching authority of the Church to be
      believed as such by the faithful. In a broader sense those tenets
      are often called dogmas which are presented by revelation or by the
      Church as infallible truths. In this sense all teachings of faith
      clearly found in Holy Scripture are dogmas, even if not declared by
      the Church. In this sense Protestants, too, believe in revealed
      dogmas.

    4 “They that have received the faith through the ministry of the
      Church can never have just cause for changing their faith or calling
      it into doubt” (Sess. III, ch. 3). The Vatican Council did not
      thereby mean to say that an exceptional case could not happen where
      some one, without fault of his own, might fall away from his faith,
      either on account of insufficient religious instruction, or of
      natural dullness or exceptional misfortunes in the circumstances of
      life in which he may be placed. The theologians who worded the
      decision also say that the Council did not intend to condemn the
      opinion expressed by many older theologians, that under certain
      conditions an uneducated Catholic might be led in such way into
      error as to join another faith without committing a sin. (cf.
      _Granderath_, Const. Dog. ss. oec. Concl. Vat. 69).

    5 At a certain Austrian university, where the custom obtains that a
      member of a faculty of the university, in the regular order of the
      faculties, publishes during the year a book on some study in its
      particular branch, the turn came to the theological faculty. One of
      its members then issued a work on moral theology, of course with the
      ecclesiastical Imprimatur. Upon this being discovered the senate
      resolved not to acknowledge the book as a university publication,
      nor to issue it as such, as is usually the custom. They believed
      they saw in the Imprimatur a degradation of science and a violation
      of its freedom—a procedure entirely in accord with the traditional
      narrow-mindedness and intolerance of liberalism.

    6 A clear understanding of the case of _Galileo_ has been made
      possible only since the year 1877, when the papers of the trial were
      published by two men of opposite religious views,—the
      Catholic-minded historian, _de l’Epinois_, and the liberal author,
      _K. Gebler_, who in 1876 had already published a work on “Galileo
      Galilei and the Roman Curia,” in the spirit of the anti-clerical
      tendency of the times. Yet, in spite of his attitude, he was given
      free permission to copy the papers—a magnanimity by which the Holy
      See has earned the gratitude and admiration of every fair-minded
      lover of history. In more recent times, _A. Favaro_ published, in
      1890-1907, a work of twenty volumes containing all the papers
      relating to the trial of _Galileo_, “Opere di Galileo Galilei,
      Edizione Nazionale.” He, too, had access to the ecclesiastical
      archives, which he acknowledges with thanks. It may be said now that
      the _Galileo_ case has been settled by documentary evidence.

    7 After visiting _Thomson_ at Kreuznach, _Helmholtz_ wrote: “He
      surpasses all great scientists I have personally met, in acumen,
      clearness and activity of spirit, so that I felt somewhat dull
      beside him.” _Helmholtz_ himself (died 1894) has never expressed
      himself about religion. Absorbed by his scientific work, he seemed
      to have been indifferent to religion, but according to his
      biographer his father was a decided theist, and his philosophical
      views were held in great esteem, and partly subscribed to, by the
      son. According to _Dennert_, _Helmholtz_ attended church now and
      then, and even partook of holy communion. Of decided religious bent
      of mind was _Helmholtz’s_ fellow-countryman, and co-discoverer of
      the law of energy, _Robert Mayer_. At the Congress of scientists at
      Innsbruck, in 1869, _Mayer_ ended his address with the significant
      words: “Let me in conclusion declare from the bottom of my heart
      that true philosophy cannot and must not be anything else but
      propædeutics of the Christian religion.” His letters breathe piety.
      For a time he had the intention of joining the Catholic Church.

    8 Others take refuge in the fantastic theory of an “All-Animation.”
      According to it all organisms, including trees, shrubs, grasses, are
      possessed of a soulful sensation and feeling for the purposes they
      serve, and for the elaborate actions they undertake: this is the
      reason for their efficacy, not because a wise Creator had arranged
      them thus. _R. H. Francé_ exclaims triumphantly: “When the powers
      that be should ask in their dissatisfaction: ‘Where has God a place
      in your system?’ we can answer calmly: ‘We do not need the
      hypothesis of a personal God.’ ” God is superfluous—this is the
      precious gain which this unscientific explanation is to yield.

    9 Compare Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XI (1883, vii.).

_   10 L. M. Hartmann_, Theodor Mommsen (1908), 81. The author of the
      biography is a Jew. There is a much-circulated story, alleged to
      come from _F. X. Kraus_. _Mommsen_ is said to have told _Kraus_,
      inasmuch as neither the origin, nor nature, nor the spread of
      Christianity can be explained by natural causes, and since he, in
      his capacity of historian, could never acknowledge anything
      supernatural, therefore the fourth volume will remain unwritten.

_   11 Nietzsche_, “Thus spoke Zarathustra.”

   12 “_Veritati ut possetis acquiescere, humilitate opus erat, quae
      civitati, vestrae difficillime persuaderi potest_” (De civit. Dei,
      X, 29).

_   13 Plato_, Phil. 6 c. Similarly _Pythagoras_, _Aristotle_, and
      _Cicero_.

   14 Dial. c. Tryph. 2.

   15 “But for the retention of names and terms _Harnack_ leaves nothing
      of the specific nature of Christianity,” admits the Protestant
      Professor of Theology, _W. Walther_, in his book, “Harnack’s Wesen
      des Christentums” (1901).

_   16 Uhlich_, founder of a community of free-thinkers, who died in 1873,
      thus describes his evolution from rationalism to atheism: “At the
      beginning I could say: We hold fast to Jesus, to Him who stood too
      high to be called a mere man. Ten years later I could say: God,
      virtue, immortality—these three are the eternal foundation of
      religion. And after ten more years I could issue a declaration
      wherein God was mentioned no more.” Similar progress in spiritual
      disintegration has been shown by Liberalism in recent years: first
      it partially abandoned Christian dogma, without however quite
      breaking loose from it; in the eighteenth century rationalistic
      enlightenment tore loose from all revelation, adhering only to
      natural religion: to-day even this is lost.

   17 Dr. _Spencer Jones_, an Episcopal clergyman, says in his book,
      “England and the Holy See”: “For the Episcopal Church the junction
      with Rome, with its sharply defined dogmas, its supreme ministry,
      and its firm leadership, is a question of life. More and more the
      supernatural belief is replaced by individual opinions, a condition
      which in itself causes faith to disappear. A condition like the
      present, making it possible that in one and the same congregation
      the most pronounced contrariety of opinions in respect to most
      essential tenets, as well as a general confusion of minds, is not
      only tolerated, but directly welcomed, such a condition cannot
      endure in the long run.”

   18 A French author, _G. Goyau_, states with truth: “What makes the
      (Catholic) Church lovable in the eyes of thinking minds outside of
      the Church, is just her uncompromising attitude. They see a Church
      steadfast, permanent, imperturbable. The stumbling block of yore has
      become for them an isle of safety. They are thankful to Rome for
      holding before their eyes _the_ Christianity, instead of giving them
      the choice of several kinds of Christianity, including kinds still
      unknown, which they undoubtedly themselves may discover, if so
      inclined. They welcome the Roman Church as the ‘Teacher of Faith’
      and ‘Conqueror of Errors,’ and, to quote more of the forcible
      language of the Protestant _de Pressensé_: ‘they are disgusted with
      a Christianity for the lowest bidder, but are impressed by the rigid
      inflexibility of Catholicism....’ ” (Autour du Catholicisme social.
      I. 1896).

   19 “The Independent” (New York) of Feb. 2, 1914, reports under the head
      _freedom of teaching_ the dismissal of a professor from the
      Presbyterian University at Easton, Pa. After quoting from the
      charter article VIII, which provides “that persons of every
      religious denomination shall be capable of being elected Trustees,
      nor shall any person, either as principal, professor, tutor or pupil
      be refused admittance into said college, or denied any of the
      privileges, immunities or advantages thereof, for or on account of
      his sentiments in matters of religion,” the report goes on to say:
      “it appears however, from the investigations of the committee, that
      President _Warfield_ insists that the instruction in philosophy and
      psychology has to be such, as, in his opinion, accords with the most
      conservative form of Presbyterian theology.”

   20 Prof. _Chr. von Ehrenfels_, Sexualethik. Similar passages might be
      quoted from numerous other books by college-professors.





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