SCIENCE
608
SCIENCE
consistency. The fact is, however, that up to the
French Revolution, when Voltaire and Rousseau
drew the last consequences from Atheism, the great
scientists, almost to a man, speak with great rever-
ence of God and of His wonderful Creation. Is it
necessary to mention Copernicus, Kepler, Galilei,
Tycho Brahe, Newton, Huyghens, Boyle, Haller,
Mariotte, the Bernoullis, Euler, Linne, and many
others? Since it is often the advocates of the glorious
principles of 17S9 that never tire of recounting the
tragedy of Gahlei, we beg to remind them of the great
chemist Lavoisier, who died faithful to his Church
under the guillotine, while the free-thinkers raised the
crv: "Nous n'avous plus besoin de chimistes" [see
"Etudes", cxxiii (Paris, 1910), 834 sqq.j. For the
time after the French Revolution we find in Kneller's
volume (see below) the names of a glorious array of be-
heving scientists, taken only from the branch of natu-
ral sciences. According to Donat ("Die Freiheit der
Wissenschaft", Innsbruck, 1910, p. 251) among the
8847 scientists enumerated in Poggendorff's "Bi-
ographisch-Literarisches Handworterbuch" (Leipzig,
18li3l there are no less than 862 Catholic clergymen,
or nearly ten per cent of the number.
(b) The lack of true arguments for the theses "that faith is discredited by history" is supplied by falsi- fication. Among the fables invented for the purpose may be mentioned the condemnation of the doctrine about the Antipodes. Its (probable) representative, Virgilius, was accused in Rome (747) but not con- demned (Hefele, "Konziliengcschichte", III, 557). He became Bi.shop of Salzburg, and was afterwards canonized by Gregory IX. Another story is the al- leged prohibition b}' Boniface VIII of the anatomy of the human body. Columbus is reported as excom- municated by the "Council" of Salamanca. The re- cent re-appearance of Halley's comet has revived the etory of a papal Bull issued against the comet by Ca- lixtus III (1456). The fable was started by Laplace, who invented the "conjuration", though he tried to atone for his untruthfulness by omitting the phrase in the fourth edition of his "Essai philosophique" (see Laplace). The atheist Arago changed the conju- ration into excommunication. Vice-Admiral Smyth added the exorcism, Robert Grant the anathema, Flammarion the "malefice", and finally John Draper the malediction. Here the vocabulary came to an end. Poetry, gro.ss and fine, sarcasm, and even as- tronomical errors were resorted to to illustrate the conflict between science and the Church. Babinet describes the Friar Minors, during the Battle of Bel- grade, crucifix in hand, exorcising a comet which was not there; Halley's comet had disappeared more than a week before. Chambers (1861) honoured Callistus III with the title "the silly pope" for commemorating annually the victory of Belgrade. Daru lets the pope stand at the foot of the altar, with tears in his eyes and his forehead covered with ashes, and bids him look up and see how the comet continues its course unconcerned about conjurations. John Draper lets the pope .scare the comet away by noisy bells after the fashion of savages. Dr. Dickson White composes a papal litany: "From the Turk and the comet, good Lord, deliver us", which was supplemented by another writer: "Lord save us from the Devil, the Turk and the Comet". In "Popular Astronomy" (1908) the comet is left more than a week too long on the visible sky and in the "Rivista di Astronomia" (1909) even a full month too long; in "The Scientific Ameri- can" (1909; it appears fully three j'ears too soon. Such fictions and falsificationsare needed to prove con- flicts between Science and the (Church fsee quotations and rectifications in Stein, "Calixtc III et lacomt-tede Halley", Rome, 1909; Platina, BAKTf)LOMEo).
(c) As a specimen of the anti-('athr)lic literature on this subject we may take the "History of the Conflicts between Religion and Science" of John W. Draper
(see below), which deserves special mention, not for
the difficulty it presents, but for its wide circulation
in various languages. The author placed himself ex-
clusively on philosophical and historical grounds.
Neither of them formed the field of his special studies,
and the many blunders in his work might be pardoned,
if it were not for the boldness of style and the shallow-
ness of its contents. As the book is on the Index, a
short specimen may be welcome to those who are not
allowed to read it. In connexion with the subject of
the preceding paragraph, Draper writes: "When Hal-
ley's comet came in 1456, so tremendous was its ap-
parition that it was necessary for the pope himself to
interfere. He exorcised and expelled it from the skies.
It shrank away into the abysses of space, terror-
stricken by the maledictions of Callixtus III, and did
not venture back for seventy-five years! . . . By or-
der of the pope, all the church bells in Europe were
rung to scare it away, the faithful were commanded
to add each day another praj'er; and as their prayers
had often in so marked a manner been answered in
eclipses and droughts and rains, so on this occasion it
was declared that a victorj over the comet had been
vouchsafed to the Pope". Except the first half
sentence, that the "comet came in 1456", all his
statements, without exception, are historical falsifi-
cations. The scurrility of language, however, makes
one think that the author did not expect to be taken
seriously. The same manner of treatment is given to
other historical points, like Giordano Bruno, de Do-
minis, the Library of Alexandria. How the Spanish
Inquisition comes into the book is easily understood
from its purpose; but how it comes under the title,
"Conflicts between Religion and Science", remains a
logical problem. The domination of the Church in
the Middle Ages and its influence upon the progress of
science is a subject that required a different mind
from that of a chemist or physicist. It was taken up
by one of the Bollandists, Ch. de Smedt, in answer to
Draper. It was an easy but, at the same time, dis-
gusting task for him to correct Draper in this, as
in all other historical points (de Smedt, see below).
Draper's philosophical reasonings on the scientific
freedom of believing scientists, on the right of the
Church in proclaiming dogmas and demanding as-
sent, on the possibility of miracles, betray complete
ignorance or confusion of the principles explained in
the preceding paragraphs.
(4) A fitting conclusion to the chapter of "Con- flicts between Science and the Church" may be found in the declaration of the Vatican Council (Sess. Ill, de fide, c. 4): "Faith and reason are of mutual help to each other: by reason, well applied, the foundations of faith are established, and, in the light of faith, the sci- ence of Divinity is built up. Faith, on the other hand frees and preserves reason from error and enriches it with knowledge. The Church, therefore, far from hindering the pursuit of arts and sciences, fosters and promotes them in many ways. . . . Nor does she pre- vent sciences, each in its sphere, from making use of their own principles and methods. Yet, while ac- knowledging the freedom due to them, she tries to pre- serve them from falling into errors contrary to Di- vine doctrine, and from overstepping their own boundaries and throwing into confusion matters that belong to the domain of faith. The doctrine of faith which God has revealed is not placed before the hu- man mind for further elaboration, like a philosophical system; it is a Divine deposit, handed over to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully guarded and infalli- bly declared. Hence, the iiicaiiirig once given to a sacred dogma by holy mot her Church is to be main- tained forever and not to Ix- dc parted from under pre- text of more profound uiKicrstaiuling. Let knowl- edge, sci(;nce and wisdom grow with the course of times and centuries, in individuals as well as in the community, in each man as in the whole Church, but
