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A HISTORY OF 

THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 

WITH THEOLOGY 



IN CHRISTENDOM 



BY 

ANDREW DICKSON WHITE 

LL. D. (Yale), L. H. D. (Columbia), Ph. Dr. (Jena) 

LATE PRESIDENT AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



IN TWO VOLUMES 
VOL. I 




NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1896 



Copyright, 1896, 
Bv D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



50ier>30 



■ • 






• • • m 



So ti)c iSlcmor!] of 

EZRA CORNELL 

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. 



Thoughts that great hearts once broke for, we 
Breathe cheaply in the common air. — Lowell. 

Discipulus est prions posterior dies.— Publius Syrus. 

Truth is the daughter of Time. — Bacon. 

The Truth shall make you free. — St. John, viii, 33. 



INTRODUCTION. 



My book is ready for the printer, and as I begin this 
preface my eye lights upon the crowd of Russian peasants 
at work on the Neva under my windows. With pick and 
shovel they are letting the rays of the April sun into the 
great ice barrier which binds together the modern quays 
and the old granite fortress where lie the bones of the 
Romanoff Czars. 

This barrier is already weakened ; it is widely decayed, 
in many places thin, and everywhere treacherous ; but it is, 
as a whole, so broad, so crystallized about old boulders, so 
imbedded in shallows, so wedged into crannies on either 
shore, that it is a great danger. The waters from thou- 
sands of swollen streamlets above are pressing behind it; 
wreckage and refuse are piling up against it ; every one 
knows that it must yield. But there is danger that it may 
resist the pressure too long and break suddenly, wrenching 
even the granite quays from their foundations, bringing 
desolation to a vast population, and leaving, after the sub- 
sidence of the flood, a widespread residue of slime, a fer- 
tile breeding-bed for the germs of disease. 

But the patient mujiks are doing the right thing. The 
barrier, exposed more and more to the warmth of spring 
by the scores of channels they are making, will break away 
gradually, and the river will flow on beneficent and beau- 
tiful. 

My work in this book is like that of the Russian mujik 
on the Neva. I simply try to aid in letting the light of 
historical truth into that decaying mass of outworn thought 
which attaches the modern world to mediaeval conceptions 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

of Christianit}', and which still lingers among us — a most 
serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the 
whole normal evolution of society. 

For behind this barrier also the flood is rapidly rising 
— the flood of increased knowledge and new thought ; and 
this barrier also, though honeycombed and in many places 
thin, creates a danger — danger of a sudden breaking awa}- , 
distressing and calamitous, sweeping before it not only out- 
worn creeds and noxious dogmas, but cherished principles 
and ideals, and even wrenching out most precious religious 
and moral foundations of the whole social and political 
fabric. 

My hope is to aid — even if it be but a little — in the 
gradual and healthful dissolving away of this mass of un- 
reason, that the stream of " religion pure and undefiled " 
may flow on broad and clear, a blessing to humanity. 

And now a few words regarding the evolution of this 
book. 

It is something over a quarter of a century since I la- 
bored with Ezra Cornell in founding the university which 
bears his honored name. 

Our purpose was to establish in the State of New York 
an institution for advanced instruction and research, in 
which science, pure and applied, should have an equal place 
with literature ; in which the study of literature, ancient 
and modern, should be emancipated as much as possible 
from pedantry ; and which should be free from various 
useless trammels and vicious methods which at that period 
hampered many, if not most, of the American universities 
and colleges. 

We had especially determined that the institution should 
be under the control of no political party and of no single 
religious sect, and with Mr. Cornell's approval I embodied 
stringent provisions to this effect in the charter. 

It had certainly never entered into the mind of either 
of us that in all this we were doing anything irreligious or 
unchristian. Mr. Cornell was reared a member of the So- 
ciety of Friends; he had from his fortune liberally aided 
every form of Christian effort which he found going on about 
him, and among the permanent trustees of the public library 



INTRODUCTION. vii 

which he had already founded, he had named all the clergy- 
men of the town — Catholic and Protestant. As for myself, 
I had been bred a churchman, had recently been elected a 
trustee of one church college, and a professor in another; 
those nearest and dearest to me were devoutly religious ; 
and, if I may be allowed to speak of a matter so personal to 
myself, my most cherished friendships were among deeply 
religious men and women, and my greatest sources of enjoy- 
ment were ecclesiastical architecture, religious music, and 
the more devout forms of poetry. So far from wishing to 
injure Christianity, we both hoped to promote it ; but we 
did not confound religion with sectarianism, and we saw in 
the sectarian character of American colleges and universities, 
as a whole, a reason for the poverty of the advanced instruc- 
tion then given in so many of them. 

It required no great acuteness to see that a system of 
control which, in selecting a Professor of Mathematics or 
Language or Rhetoric or Physics or Chemistry, asked first 
and above all to what sect or even to what wing or branch of 
a sect he belonged, could hardly do much to advance the 
moral, religious, or intellectual development of mankind. 

The reasons for the new foundation seemed to us, then. 
so cogent that we expected the co-operation of all good citi- 
zens, and anticipated no opposition from any source. 

As I look back across the intervening years, I know not 
whether to be more astonished or amused at our sim- 
plicity. 

Opposition began at once. In the State Legislature it 
confronted us at every turn, and it was soon in full blaze 
throughout the State — from the good Protestant bishop 
who proclaimed that all professors should be in holy orders, 
since to the Church alone was given the command, " Go, 
teach all nations," to the zealous priest who published a 
charge that Goldwin Smith — a profoundly Christian scholar 
— had come to Cornell in order to inculcate the " infidelity 
of the Westminster Rei'iew'' \ and from the eminent divine 
who went from city to city denouncing the "atheistic and 
pantheistic tendencies " of the proposed education, to the 
perfervid minister who informed a denominational synod 
that Agassiz, the last great opponent of Darwin, and a de- 



viii INTRODUCTION. 

vout theist, was " preaching Darwinism and atheism " in 
the new institution. 

As the struggle deepened, as hostile resolutions were in- 
troduced into various ecclesiastical bodies, as honored cler- 
gymen solemnly warned their flocks first against the " athe- 
ism," then against the "infidelity," and finally against the 
"indifferentism *' of the university, as devoted pastors en- 
deavoured to dissuade young men from matriculation, I 
took the defensive, and, in answer to various attacks from 
pulpits and religious newspapers, attempted to allay the 
fears of the public. " Sweet reasonableness " was fully tried. 
There was established and endowed in the university per- 
haps the most effective Christian pulpit, and one of the most 
vigorous branches of the Christian Association, then in the 
United States ; but all this did nothing to ward off the at- 
tack. The clause in the charter of the university forbid- 
ding it to give predominance to the doctrines of any sect, 
and above all the fact that much prominence was given to 
instruction in various branches of science, seemed to prevent 
all compromise, and it soon became clear that to stand on 
the defensive only made matters worse. Then it was that 
there was borne in upon me a sense of the real difficulty — 
the antagonism between the theological and scientific view 
of the universe and of education in relation to it; there- 
fore it was that, having been invited to deliver a lecture in 
the great hall of the Cooper Institute at New York, I took 
as my subject The Battlefields of Science, maintaining this 
thesis which follows : 

In all modern history, interference with science in the sup- 
posed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such in- 
terference may have been, lias resulted in the direst evils both to 
religion and to science, and invariably ; and, on the other hand, 
all untrammelled scientific investigation, no matter how danger- 
ous to religion some of its stages may have seemed for the time 
to be, has invariably resulted in the highest good both of religion 
and of science. 

The lecture was next day published in the New York 
Tribune at the request of Horace Greeley, its editor, 
who was also one of the Cornell University trustees. As 
a result of this widespread publication and of sundry at- 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

tacks which it elicited, I was asked to maintain my thesis 
before various university associations and literary clubs; 
and I shall always remember with gratitude that among 
those who stood by^me and presented me on the lecture 
platform with words of approval and cheer was my re- 
vered instructor, the Rev. Dr. Theodore Dwight Wool- 
sey, at that time President of Yale College. 

My lecture grew — first into a couple of magazine articles, 
and then into a little book called The Warfare of Science, 
for which, when republished in England, Prof. John Tyndall 
wrote a preface. 

Sundry translations of this little book were published, 
but the most curious thing in its history is the fact that a 
very friendly introduction to the Swedish translation was 
written by a Lutheran bishop. 

Meanwhile Prof. John W. Draper published his book on 
TIu Conflict between Science and Religion, a work of great 
ability, which, as I then thought, ended the matter, so far 
as my giving it further attention was concerned. 

But two things led me to keep on developing my own 
work in this field : First, I had become deeply interested 
in it, and could not refrain from directing my observation 
and study to it; secondly, much as I admired Draper's 
treatment of the questions involved, his point of view and 
mode of looking at history were different from mine. 

He regarded the struggle as one between -Science and 
Religion. I believed then, and am convinced now, that it 
was a struggle between Science and Dogmatic Theology, 

More and more I saw that it was the conflict between 
two epochs in the evolution of human thought — the theo- 
logical and the scientific. 

So I kept on, and from time to time published New 
Chapters in the Warfare of Science as magazine articles in 
Tlie Popular Science Monthly. This was done under many 
difficulties. For twenty years, as President of Cornell Uni- 
versity and Professor of History in that institution, I was im- 
mersed in the work of its early development. Besides this, 
I could not hold myself entirely aloof from public affairs, 
and was three times sent by the Government of the United 
States to do public duty abroad : first as a commissioner 



X INTRODUCTION. 

to Santo Domingo, in 1870: afterward as minister to Ger- 
many, in 1879: finally, as minister to Russia, in 1892; and 
was also called upon by the State of New York to do con- 
siderable labor in connection with international exhibitions 
at Philadelphia and at Paris. I was also obliged from time 
to time to throw off bv travel the effects of overwork. 

The variety of residence and occupation arising from 
these causes may perhaps explain some peculiarities in this 
book which might otherwise puzzle my reader. 

While these journey ings have enabled me to collect ma- 
terials over a very wide range — in the New World, from 
Quebec to Santo Domingo and from Boston to Mexico, 
San Francisco, and Seattle, and in the Old World from 
Trondhjem to Cairo and from St. Petersburg to Palermo — 
they have often obliged me to write under circumstances 
not ver}' favorable : sometimes on an Atlantic steamer, 
sometimes on a Nile boat, and not only in my own library 
at Cornell, but in those of Berlin, Helsingfors, Munich, Flor- 
ence, and the British Museum. This fact will explain to the 
benevolent reader not onlv the citation of different editions 
of the same authority in different chapters, but some itera- 
tions which in the steady quiet of m}' own library would 
not have been made. 

It has been my constant endeavour to write for the gen- 
eral reader, avoiding scholastic and technical terms as much 
as possible and stating the truth simply as it presents itself 
to me. 

That errors of omission and commission will be found 
here and there is probable — nay, certain ; but the substance 
of the book will, I believe, be found fully true. I am en- 
cou raged in this belief by the fact that, of the three bitter 
attacks which this work in its earlier form has alread}' en- 
countered, one was purely declamatory, objurgatory, and 
hortatory, and the others based upon ignorance of facts easily 
pointed out. 

And here I must express my thanks to those who have 
aided me. First and above all to my former student and 
dear friend. Prof. George Lincoln Burr, of Cornell Univer- 
sity, to whose contributions, suggestions, criticisms, and 
cautions I am most deeply indebted ; also to my friends U. 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

G. Weatherly, formerly Travelling Fellow of Cornell, and 
now Assistant Professor in the University of Indiana, — Prof, 
and Mrs. Earl Barnes and Prof. William H. Hudson, of Stan- 
ford University, — and Prof. E. P. Evans, formerly of the 
University of Michigan, but now of Munich, for extensive 
aid in researches upon the lines I have indicated to them, 
but which I could never have prosecuted without their 
co-operation. In libraries at home and abroad they have 
all worked for me most effectively, and I am deeply grate- 
ful to them. 

This book is presented as a sort of Festschrift — a tribute 
to Cornell University as it enters the second quarter-cen- 
tury of its existence, and probably my last tribute. 

The ideas for which so bitter a struggle was made at its 
foundation have triumphed. Its faculty, numbering over 
one hundred and fifty; its students, numbering but little 
short of two thousand ; its noble buildings and equipment ; 
the munificent gifts, now amounting to millions of dollars, 
which it has received from public-spirited men and women ; 
the evidences of public confidence on all sides ; and, above 
all, the adoption of its cardinal principles and main features 
by various institutions of learning in other States, show this 
abundantly. But there has been a triumph far greater and 
wider. Everywhere among the leading modern nations the 
same general tendency is seen. During the quarter-century 
just past the control of public instruction, not only in Amer- 
ica but in the leading nations of Europe, has passed more 
and more from the clergy to the laity. Not only are the 
presidents of the larger universities in the United States, 
with but one or two exceptions, laymen, but the same thing 
is seen in the old European strongholds of metaphysical 
theology. At my first visit to Oxford and Cambridge, forty 
years ago, they were entirely under ecclesiastical control. 
Now, all this is changed. An eminent member of the pres- 
ent British Government has recently said, " A candidate for 
high university position is handicapped by holy orders." I 
refer to this with not the slightest feeling of hostility to- 
ward the clergy, for I have none ; among them are many of 
my dearest friends ; no one honours their proper work more 
than I ; but the above fact is simply noted as proving the 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

continuance of that evolution which I have endeavoured to 
describe in this series of monographs — an evolution, indeed, 
in which the warfare of Theology against Science has been 
one of the most active and powerful agents. My belief is 
that in the field left to them — their proper field — the clergy 
will more and more, as they cease to struggle against scien- 
tific methods and conclusions, do work even nobler and more 
beautiful than anything they have heretofore done. And 
this is saying much. My conviction is that Science, though 
it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on 
biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in 
hand with Religion ; and that, although theological control 
will continue to diminish. Religion, as seen in the recognition 
of " a Power in the universe, not ourselves, which makes for 
righteousness," and in the love of God and of our neighbor, 
will steadily grow stronger and stronger, not only in the 
American institutions of learning but in the world at large. 
Thus may the declaration of Micah as to the requirements 
of Jehovah, the definition by St. James of "pure religion 
and undefiled," and, above all, the precepts and ideals of the 
blessed Founder of Christianity himself, be brought to bear 
more and more eflfectively on mankind. 

I close this preface some days after its first lines were 
written. The sun of spring has done its work on the Neva ; 
the great river flows tranquilly on, a blessing and a joy ; the 

mujiks are forgotten. 

A. D. W. 

Legation of the United States, St. Petersburg, 
April i^ i8g4, 

P. S. — Owing to a wish to give more thorough revision 
to some parts of my work, it has been withheld from the 
press until the present date. 

A. D. W. 

Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., 
August IS, i8gs. 



CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 



CHAPTER I. 
FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

PAGE 

I. The VinbU Universe, 

Ancient and mediaeval views regarding the manner of creation 1-4 

Regarding the matter of creation 4, 5 

Regarding the time of creation 5-9 

Regarding the date of creation 9 

Regarding the Creator 10-12 

Regarding light and darkness 12, 13 

Rise of the conception of an evolution : among the Chaldeans, the He- 
brews, the Greeks, the Romans 14 

Its survival through the Middle Ages, despite the disfavour of the 

Church I4> 15 

Its development in modem times. — The nebular hypothesis and its strug- 
gle with theology 15-19 

The idea of evolution at last victorious 19-22 

Our sacred books themselves an illustration of its truth . . 22-24 
The true reconciliation of Science and Theology 24 



II. Theological Teachings regarding the Animals and Man, 

Ancient and mediaeval representations of the creation of man . 
Literal acceptance of the book of Genesis by the Christian fathers 

By the Reformers 

By modem theologians. Catholic and Protestant 

Theological reasoning as to the divisions of the animal kingdom 

The Physiologus^ the Bestiaries^ the Exempla .... 

Beginnings of sceptical observation 

Development of a scientific method in the study of Nature 
Breaking down of the theological theory of creation 



24 

25 
26 

27, 28 

28-30 

32-36 

37-40 
40-44 

44-49 



III. Theological and Scientific Theories of an Evolution in Animated Nature, 

Ideas of evolution among the ancients 50-52 

In the early Church 52-54 

In the mediaeval Church 55» 56 

Development of these ideas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth cen- 
turies 57. 58 

• » • 

xiu 



i^iv a>NlFNTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 



FACM 



I hs« *k\»ik \»i IV VlaiUct 58t 59 

V>i I tniiAU^ 59-61 

VM UiiUvn 61 

V v*mttt>uiK*i»<k U* iho th«\>ry of evolution at the close of the eighteenth 

vv'tiui^ . 62 

thvv«\»ikv'l 1 1 vv II Alius ami Lamarck 62,63 

V*K«>itK>« N-uiil MiUiic ami Cuvicr 63,64 

I VxvU'|»it»\MU \»t iho iheiiry up to the middle of the nineteenth century 64-66 

|K«» soMi I itui I u»is v*t Pill win and Wallace 66-68 

t ii^ x*|'|HMtUv»ii \*i .\^av\i< 68,69 

\ii<iik< (>ii P 11^^ t" HiiiNuH theories in England .... 70,71 

(m VmiMvtt 71.72 

I vMmUi\*ii pl «>ivio Hviciititic organiiattons to combat the theory of evolu- 

lU'ii 72 

I hi> iiUtk 111 I Miu'«' 73 

\\\ \JtMumiv 73 

I (.iiM-i «iHii (•( 1 NvlMi* the tlu'ory of evolution 74 

I K«> •iiui ki Mil |»iii«hi'« /Vi«r*»/ i»/ «l/«i*» 74-77 

iMlMivtMi- luliu'iii till* rtiid ihv lonncr attack .... 77,78 

Mii.Mlilk t(t h'ii«\liil^iii III AuiiMiia 78-81 

I liiKiti- (tt tlii> li'iii' i>l tlir iiMiliovnsy. — Attempts at compromise . 81,82 

ISlll|^ mil (•! i*|<|miw|UmU to I'Volutioii 83 

I I \ iMtilMii<«N id lliiMi|t>|'litil hiMility 83-85 

I (u>il vd li*ii id i-%mIiiIIi>u 86 



flUITKR IL 
(iKnCKAlMIY. 

I Hinhin- I 'III I'I'IIkh mMIii> iMilh hh Mat 89 

1.1 \ li d I. -I 'Hid I UU'I 89 

I.I I I ll 90 

\U< «l|k ll«l Jl' I'M'IM ......... 90 

\ , l.iH <u iiM Mt|( ii«i> liirtk*. id the idea of its sphericity ... 91 
1 1( I . IN .11 id liii' i-iil^ ( liiiiih 9it92 

I . i,,ti 11 <i 'I Mild ilit-itiv, dirtwii from the Bible .... 92 

II .,,,|.i H III Im I ••.•IIIII4 liidUopU'UMtcK 93~95 

\i (iiiiii ti ■ .Ml I liii'iitiii llioii(;ht ....... 95-97 

> .,1,1, d I III i li-H td llii> iwiiih'n uphcricity — its acceptance by Isidore 

II. Ml I 97 

t< iiiiiiiil: III Miii'd iiilMiy 97i98 



• I 



I I . i.< II ■• t I i, h'tiik 



|i u I I li -Hit ii ill |ii>H|ilii ihiil itH own central place was the centre 

I III ■ Mill 98 

\\.\<\ . iii.iiMiMi llmMliii iiiiilh'k centre was at Jerusalem ... 99 



CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. xv 

PACE 

Acceptance of this view by Christianity 99, 100 

Influence of other Hebrew conceptions — Gog and Magog, the '* four 

winds," the waters " on an heap " loi, 102 

III. The Inhabitants of the Earth, 

The idea of antipodes 102 

Its opposition by the Christian Church — Gregory Nazianzen, Lactantius, 
Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Procopius of Gaza, Cosmas, Isi- 
dore 102-104 

Virgil of Salzburg's assertion of it in the eighth century . 105, 106 
Its revival by William of Conches and Albert the Great in the thir- 
teenth 106 

Surrender of it by Nicolas d*Oresme 106 

Fate of Peter of Abano and Cecco d*AscoIi 106, 107 

Timidity of Pierre d'Ailly and Tostatus 107, 108 

Theological hindrance of Columbus 108 

Pope Alexander VI's demarcation line 108 

Cautious conservatism of Gregory Reysch 109 

Magellan and the victory of science 109, no 

IV. The Siu of the Earth. 

Scientific attempts at measuring the earth no 

The sacred solution of the problem in 

Fortunate influence of the blunder upon Columbus 112 

V. The Character of the Earth* s Surface, 

Servetus and the charge of denying the fertility of J udea 112,113 

Contrast between the theological and the religious spirit in their efliects 

on science 113 



CHAPTER III. 
ASTRONOMY. 

I. The Old Saered Theory of the Universe, 

The early Church's conviction of the uselessness of a">tronomy .114 
The growth of a sacred theory — Origen, the Gnostics, Philastrius, Cos- 
mas, Isidore 114, 115 

The geocentric or Ptolemaic, theory : its origin, and its acceptance by the 

Christian world 115 

Development of the new sacred system of astronomy — the pseudo-Dio- 

nysius, Peter Lombard. Thomas Aquinas 116, 117 

Its popularization by Dante 117 

Its details 118-120 

Its persistence to modem times 120 

II. The Heliocentric Theory, 

Its rise among the Greeks — Pythagoras, Philolaus, Aristarchus . .120 
Its suppression by the charge of blasphemy 121 



jfvi CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 

rACB 

ttt U0^ frr/m itfj^ht for uz bandred jesrs, tlieii for a tboosand . .121 

|f« r^viirftl (/y Nicholas de Cusa and Nicholas Coperaicus 121-124 

lr« t/zl^rati/m a* a hypothesis 124 

f f< f/r'/hit/iti/^ as soon as C^ileo teaches it as a tnith .... 124 
r:/^«^/|ii«nt timidity of scholars— Acosta, Apian .... 125,126 
l'r//tifst«riti«m not less zealous in opposition than Catholicism — ^Lather, 

M«rl«nchth//n, Calvin, Turretin 126^ 127 

7hU /f|f|yi%iti/yn especially persistent in England — Hatdiinson, Pike, 

ttffrntt, Hwsley, Forbes, Owen, Wesley 127,123 

^««ffMinf( interferences with freedom of teaching .... 123,129 

//f/^d^n// Itruno's brjldness and his fate 130 

'I U^ ffuth dem/zrist rated by the telescope of Galileo .... 130 

lit Th0 PVrtr upon GaliUo. 

/ //Tf/ 4k r,r /Hi i//n of the war on this new champion i^ 

'\ >»A Uf^ <ifi«/.k 131, 132 

^V*^ti«M«i/k^ Klu, Husaeus, Caccini, Lorini, Bellarmin 132-134 

\',i^ tA ^•\M\%fS% 135. 

AH*^/#)fU \n ft\\i%\9 ^fftlilco 136 

Mm *umttt*ft9A \*f.ior«: the Inquisition at Rome 137 

'tUf- UtfuttflUnt to silence, and the condemnation of the theory of the 

t^mtlh*^ tunliitu, lOlf) 137.138 

HfA 'y//flr '/( r//|/<:rriicu«» placed on the /f^i^rjr 133 

l,m\t\t^n'A %r.i\tix\nU I33 

|'#.if«.^«-'l MtiM/tcs upon Oaliler>— Inchofer, Fromundus . 139,140 

i I l'hfnt y nf Ihf Chuff h over Galileo. 

i'.th\t*'«Hhh *ii Ul* /Jifilo^o, 1632 140 

lln^nUtf If! Vii\nr lirhau Will 141 

/r'«Uf«-//'« t'^' 'Hid I rifil by the Inquisition 141,142 

lh~ ^h^titftihtti 143 

I Htt>t lit- t-^m nn*th ni htm 143 

i4hH N^«.i In » niii\iU'.if the destruction of the Copemican theory . 143-146 

1 1 1 1 1 nlti,n lit t tuUUn'n mtmory 146,147 

i fitth.iHui UfiAUUiy in \\it: new astronomy and its champions . . 147-152 

•/ / ,-»nlh nf Ihti I* It lot y over (ialileo. 

|'<j«^»')/f|/t ^MlihMhiiiKii over the victory 152 

H>»- '•fl'M'hiiJ <«f l»*->' »Hrji , , 152 

rM>.i(<i)iiM ««M rtMii'itiK'll I and of Kepler . .... 153 

f M Hf-fM*- rtM'i vtHuiy of bciencc 154 

h»lM*M«'» "Mliii ll»»:"l'»Mi»ii'» 154,155 

^t,%\\i t^\\^,m\^^ \n \mA\\n\\M\\\fi hyxXXMliCitill J55-I57 

/ 1 / *. /I » /*../«/ »'/ /A. I him h iiftn- Us Victory over Galileo, 

Mm I h-7 )iiiilt fill iIm- I'M'ti'hlant theologians 158 

(I,. ifiMit mIiI»^m i»f iliit iiMi-i Church.— The papal infallibility fully com- 

imIMi •) M)t»«h»»»l ihr r«»)»criiit'ttn theory 15S 

MlMM|>li Ml ♦.wjiilMii l»iul plea: that Galileo was condemned not for 

hIImmiImm OMi i;»nlir» luotinn, but for supporting it from Scripture . 159 



CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. xvii 

PACB 

Its easy refutation 159, 160 

Second plea : that he was condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy 160 

Folly of this assertion 160 

Third plea : that it was all a quarrel between Aristotelian professors and 

those favouring the experimental method 161 

Fourth plea : that the condemnation of Galileo was ** provisory " . iCi 

Fifth plea : that he was no more a victim of Catholics than of Protestants 161 

Efforts to blacken Galileo's character 162 

Efforts to suppress the documents of his trial 162 

Their fruitlessness . . . 163 

b'ixth plea: that the popes as popes had never condemned his theory 163 

Its confutation from their own mouths i63» 164 

Abandonment of the contention by honest Catholics . . 165, 166 

Two efforts at compromise — Newman, De Bonald .... 166, 167 

Effect of all this on thinking men 167, 16S 

The fault not in Catholicism more than in Protestantism — not in religion, 

but in theology 168-170 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS " TO LAW IN THE HEAVENS. 

I. Thi Theological View, 

Early beliefs as to comets, meteors, and eclipses .... 171-173 

Their inheritance by Jews and Christians 173 

The belief regarding comets especially harmful as a source of supersti- 
tious terror 174 

Its transmission through the Middle Ages 174-176 

Its culmination under Pope Calixtus III 177 

Beginnings of scepticism — Copernicus, Paracelsus. Scaliger . . .178 
Firmness of theologians, Catholic and Protestant, in its sup|x>rt 178-183 

II. Theological Efforts to crush th: Scientific View. 

The effort through the universities. — The effort through the pulpits . 183 

Heerbrand at Tubingen and Dieterich at Marburg 184 

Maestlin at Heidelberg 184 

Biittner, Vossius, Torreblanca, Fromundus 185, 186 

Father Augustin de Angelis at Rome 186-188 

Reinzer at Linz i38, 189 

Celichius at Magdeburg 190 

Conrad Dieterich's sermon at Ulm 191-193 

Erni and others in Switzerland 193, 194 

Comet doggerel 193 

Echoes from New England — Danforth, Morton, Increase Mather . 194-196 

III. The Invasion of Scepticism, 

Rationalism of Cotton Mather, and its cause 196, 197 

Blaise de Vigenire 197 

Erastus 198 

Bekker, Lubienitzky, Pierre Petit 198 

B 



xviii CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 

PACB 

Bayle 199 

Fontenelle 200 

The scientitic movement beneath all this 200, 201 

IV, Theological Efforts at Compromise, — The Final Victory of Science. 

The admission that some comets are supralanar 202 

Difference between scientific and theological reasoning . 202, 203 

Development of the reasoning of Tycho and Kepler — Cassini, Hevel, 

Doerfel, Bemouilli, Newton .^ 203 

Completion of the victory by Halley and Clairaut .... 203, 204 
Survivals of the superstition — Joseph de Maistre, Forster . . 205 

Arago's statistics 205 

The theories of Whiston and Bumet» and th^ir influence in Germany . 206 
The superstition ended in America by the lectures of Winthrop . 207 

Helpful influence of John Wesley 207 

Effects of the victory 207, 208 



CHAPTER V. 
FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

I. Growth of Theological Explanations 

Germs of geological truth among the Greeks and Romans . 209 

Attitude of the Church toward science 209 

Geological theories of the early theologians 2io»2ii 

Attitude of the schoolmen 212 

Contributions of the Arabian schools 212 

Theories of the earlier Protestants • 212, 213 

Influence of the revival of learning 214 

II. Efforts to Suppress the Scientific View. 

Revival of scientific methods 214,215 

Buffon and the Sorbonne . . .215 

Beringer's treatise on fossils • 216, 217 

Protestant opposition to the new geology — the works of Burnet, Whis- 

ton, Wesley, Clark, Watson, Arnold, Cockbum, and others . .■ 217-225 

III. The First Great Effort at Compromise ^ based on the Flood of Noah. 

The theory that fossils were produced by the Deluge .... 225 
Its acceptance by both Catholics and Protestants — Luther, Calmet . 226 

Burnet, Whiston, Woodward, Mazurier, Torrubia, Increase Mather . 227 

Scheuchzer 22S 

Voltaire's theory of fossils 229 

Vain eflbrts of enlightened churchmen in behalf of the scientific view 229, 230 
Steady progress of science — the work of Cuvier and Brongniarl 230, 231 

Granville Penn's opposition 231 

The defection of Buckland and Lyell to the scientific side 232, 233 

Surrender of the theologians • 234-236 

Remnants of the old belief . . . 236, 237 



CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. xix 

PAGB 

Death-blow given to the traditional theory of the Deluge by the discov- 
ery of the Chaldean accounts 237, 238 

Results of the theological opposition to science .... 238, 239 

I V. Final Efforts at Compromise — The Victory of Science complete. 

Efforts of Carl von Raumer, Wagner, and others .... 23()» 240 
The new testimony of the caves and beds of drift as to the antiquity of 

man 240 

Gosse*s effort to save the literal interpretation of Genesis 241, 242 

Efforts of Continental theologians 242, 243 

Gladstone's attempt at a compromise 243, 244 

Its demolition by Huxley 245 

By Canon Driver 246 

Dean Stanley on the reconciliation of Science and Scripture . . . 247 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, EGYPTOLOGY. AND ASSYRIOLOGY. 

I. The Sacred Chronology, 

Two fields in which Science has gained a definite victory over Theology 249 
Opinions of the Church fathers on the antiquity of man . . 249-251 

The chronology of Isidore 251 

OfBede 251 

Of the mediaeval Jewish scholars 252 

The views of the Reformers on the antiquity of man . 252, 253 

Of the Roman Church 253 

Of Archbishop Usher . 253 

Influence of Egyptology on the belief in man's antiquity . 254 

La Peyr^re's theory of the Pre-Adamites . 255 

Opposition in England to the new chronology. '. . 255, 256 

II. The New Chronology, 

Influence of the new science of Egyptology on biblical chronology . 257 

Manetho's history of Egypt and the new chronology derived from it 257-259 
Evidence of the antiquity of man furnished by the monuments of 

Egypt 259,260 

By her art 260, 261 

By her science 261, 262 

By other elements of civilization 262 

By the remains found in the bed of the Nile 263 

Evidence furnished by the study of Assyriology 264 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ANTIQUITY «)F MAN AND PREHISTORIC ARCHiBOLOGY. 

I. The Thunder-Atones, 

Eady beliefs regarding " thunder-stones " 266 

Theories of Mercati and ToUins regarding them 267 



CONTEXTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 



vi;2i ibe iapLaKnls of prtliaonc sab 267, lOS 

» oi mtn ibwid to carems af^f, 269 

t'BCsvoanble iBflae&ce on soenU^c acmirr of cbe pjUzxal cacylixUms of 

tike ear> port of tike nine! ecu th oestzry 269 

fltangt tAtCLtd bf tbe French ReToia:k» of 1^30 . ... 270 

Rajlriog of the rcactkmarr clerical ^*-***^-^ 'X^''^ «^-"'*w-» . 270, 271 



271-2:3 

. 273 
273.274 
274-275 
27^277 
277-2S0 
231-2S3 



II. Tlu Flimt Weapons and Impkmuuli. 

B^faAerde Fenbe&'i contxibntioas to the knovkd^ of preListonc 

Hk oondastoos oonfinned br LtcO and othen 

Cave exploratioas of Lartet and Chitstj . 

ETidence of man's existence fomiabed br rvde curings 

Care cxpkxatitms in the British Islands . 

Eridence of man's existence in the Drift period 

In the earlj Qoateruanr znd in the Tertiary periods 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE "FALL OF MAX" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 

The two antagonistic views regarding the life of man on the earth . 2^4 

The theory of " the Fall " among ancient peoples .... 285, 2S6 

Inheritance of this view by the Christian Church 2S6 

Appearance among the Greeks and Romans of the theory of a riu of 

man 286. 2S7 

Its disappearance during the Middle Ages 2SS 

Its development since the seventeenth century 2S8 

The 6rst blow at the dactrine of ** the Fall " comes from geology . 289 

Influence of anthropology on the belief in this doctrine .... 2S9 
The finding of human skulls in Quaternary deposits .... 2c o 

Their significance 290, 291 

Results obtained from the comparative study of the remains of human 

handiwork 291 

I^iscovery of human remains in shell-heaps on the shores of the Baltic Sea 292 

In peat-beds 292, 293 

The lakc-dwellcrs 294, 295 

Indications of the upward direction of man's development 295 

Mr. Southall's attack on the theory of man's antiquity .... 296 

An answer to it 297 

Discovery of prehistoric human remains in Egypt .... 297-299 

llamard's attack on the new scientific conclu>ioii5 300 

The survival of prehistoric implements in religious rites . 300, 301 

Strength of the argument against the theory of ** the Fall of Man " . . 301 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE " FALL OF MAN " AND ETHNOLOGY. 

The beginnings of the science of Comparative Ethnology 

Its testimony to the upward tendency of man from low beginnings. 



. 303 
303.304 



CONTENTS OK THE FIRST VOLUME. xxi 

PACE 

Theological efforts to break its forc^ — Do Maistre and Dc BonalJ . . 304 

Whatcly's attempt 304. 305 

The attempt of the Duke of Argyll 3^5-307 

E/idence of man's upward tendency derived from Comparative Fhiiology 307 

From Comparative Literature and Folklore 308 

From Comparative Ethnography 308 

From Biology 308 

CHAPTER X. 



If 



THE " FALL OF MAN AND HISTORY. 

Proof of progress given by the history of art 310 

Proofs from general history 310 

Development of civilization even under unfavourable circumstances 310, 311 
Advancement even through catastrophes and the decay of civil- 
izations 311,312 

Progress not confined to man's material condition 312 

Theological struggle against the new scientific view . '313 

Persecution of Prof. Winchell 313-315 

Of Dr. Woodrow 316-318 

Other interferences with freedom of teaching 319 

The great harm thus done to religion 320 

Rise of a better spirit 320 

The service rendered to religion by Anthropology .... 320-322 



CHAPTER XI. 
FROM "THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR" TO METEOROLOGY. 



ti 



I. Growth of a Thtological Theory, 

The beliefs of classical antiquity regarding storms, thunder, and lightning 323 
Development of a sacred science of meteorology by the fathers of the 

Church ........... 323-325 

Theories of Cosmas I ndicopleustes 325 

Of Isidore of Seville 326 

Of Bede 326-328 

Of Rabanus Maurus 328 

Rational views of Honorius of Autun 328, 329 

Orthodox theories of John of San Geminiano 329 

Attempt of Albert the Great to reconcile the speculations of .\risto!le 

with the theological views 329 

The monkish encyclopedists 330 

Theories regarding the rainbow and the causes of storms 330, 331 

Meteorological phenomena attributed ro the Almighty . 331-335 

II. Diabolical Agency in Storms. 

Meteorological phenomena attributed to the devil — " the prince of 

the power of the air " 336, 337 

Propagation of this belief by the mediaeval theologians 337, 338 

Its transmission to both Catholics and Protestants — Eck, Luther . 339 



xxii CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 

FACI 

The great work of Delrio 359 

Goacci's Compemdiumt 340 

The emplojrment of prayer against ** the powers of the air ** . . 340 

Of exordsms 340-342 

Of fetiches and processions 342-344 

Of consecrated church bells 344-350 

III. Tlu Agency of WiUhis. 

The fearful results of the witch superstition 350 

Its growth out of the doctrine of evil agency in atmospheric phenomena 351 

Archbishop Agobard*s futile attempt to dispel it 351 

Its sanction by the popes 351, 352 

Its support by confessions extracted by torture .... 352, 353 
Part taken in the persecution by Dominicans and Jesuits . 353 

Opponents of the witch theory — Pomponatius, Paracelsus, Agrippa of 

Nettesheim 354.355 

Jean Bodin's defence of the superstition 355 

Fate of Cornelius Loos 356 

Of Dietrich Flade 356, 357 

Efforts of Spee to stem the persecution 357 

His posthumous influence 358 

. Upholders of the orthodox view — Bishop Binsfcld, Remigius . . 358 

Vain protests of Wier 359 

Persecution of Bekker for opposing the popular belief .... 359 
Effect of the Reformation in deepening the superstition . 359, 360 

The persecution in Great Britain and America .... 360, 361 

Derelopment of a scientific view of the heavens 362 

Final efforts to revive the old belief 362. 363 

IV. Franklin* s Lightning- Rod. 

Franklin's experiments with the kite 3C4 

Their effect on the old belief 364 

Efforts at compromise between the scientific and theological theories . 365 

Successful use of the lightning-rod 3C5 

Religious scruples against it in America 366 

In England 3C7 

In Austria 3C7 

In Italy 3<>7i 3^8 

Victory of the scientific theory 368 

This victory exemplified in the case of the church of the monaster}' of 

L^rins 3^371 

In the case of Dr. Moorhouse 572 

In the case of ihc Missouri droughts 372 

CHAPTER XII. 

FROM MAGIC TO CHE-MISTRY AND PHYSICS. 

I. The Supnmafy of Magic. 

Primitive tendency to belief in magic 373 

The (ircek conception of natural laws 374 



CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. xxiii 

PACE 

Influence of Plato and Aristotle on the gjcpwth of science 374, 375 

Effect of the establishment of Christianity on the development of the 

physical sciences 375-377 

The revival of thought in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries . 377 

Albert the Great 377. 37^* 

Vincent of Beauvais 378 

Thomas Aquinas 379. 38o 

Roger Bacon's beginnings of the experimental method brought to nought 381 
The belief that science is futile gives place to the belief that it i.<. dan- 
gerous 381 

The two kinds of magic 381 

Rarity of persecution for magic before the Christian era . . 382 

The Christian theory of devils 382 

Constantine's laws ogftinst magic 383 

Increasing terror of magic and witchcraft 383, 384 

Papal enactments against them 384. 385 

Persistence of the belief in magic 385 

Its effect on the development of science 385*386 

Roger Bacon 386-390 

Opposition of secular rulers to science 391, 392 

John Baptist Porta 392 

The opposition to scientific societies in Italy 393 

In England 394 

The effort to turn all thought from science to religion .... 394 

The development of mystic theology 395 

Its harmful influence on science 395~397 

Mixture of theological with scientific speculation .... 397.398 

This shown in the case of Melanchthon 399 

In that of Francis Bacon 400, 401 

Theological theory of gases 402 

Growth of a scientific theory .... .... 402 

Basil Valentine and his contributions to chemistry 403 

Triumph of the scientific theory 403 

II. The Triumph of Chemistry and Physics. 

New epoch in chemistry begun by Boyle 404 

Attitude of the mob toward science 405 

Effect on science of the reaction following the French Revolution . 405, 406 
Development of chemistry since the middle of the nineteenth century . 406 

Development of physics 406, 407 

Modem opposition to science in Catholic countries 408 

Attack on scientific education in France 409, 410 

In England 411 

In Prussia 411 

Revolt against the subordination of education to science . .411, 412 

Effect of the International Exhibition of 1 85 1 at London •413 

Of the endowment of State colleges in America by the Morrill Act 

of 1862 413,414 

The results to religion 41 {,415 



THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE 

WITH THEOLOGY. 



CHAPTER I. 
FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

I. THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 

Among those masses of cathedral sculpture which pre- 
serve so much of mediaeval theology, one frequently recur- 
ring group is noteworthy for its presentment of a time- 
honoured doctrine regarding the origin of the universe. 

The Almighty, in human form, sits benignly, making the 
sun, moon, and stars, and hanging them from the solid firma- 
ment which supports the " heaven above " and overarches 
the " earth beneath." 

The furrows of thought on the Creator's brow show that 
in this work he is obliged to contrive ; the knotted muscles 
upon his arms show that he is obliged to toil ; naturally, 
then, the sculptors and painters of the mediaeval and early 
modern period frequently represented him as the writers 
whose conceptions they embodied had done — as, on the 
seventh day, weary after thought and toil, enjoying well- 
earned repose and the plaudits of the hosts of heaven. 

In these thought-fossils of the cathedrals, and in other 
revelations of the same idea through sculpture, painting, 
glass-staining, mosaic work, and engraving, during the Mid- 
dle Ages and the two centuries following, culminated a be- 
lief which had been developed through thousands of years, 
and which has determined the world's thought until our 
own time. 

Its beginnings lie far back in human history ; we find 

2 I 



2 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

them among the early records of nearly all the great civiliza- 
tions, and they hold a most prominent place in the various 
sacred books of the world. In nearly all of them is revealed 
the conception of a Creator of whom man is an imperfect 
image, and who literally and directly created the visible 
universe with his hands and fingers. 

Among these theories, of especial interest to us are those 
which controlled theological thought in Chaldea. The As- 
syrian inscriptions which have been recently recovered and 
given to the English-speaking peoples by Layard, George 
Smith, Sayce, and others, show that in the ancient religions 
of Chaldea and Babylonia there was elaborated a narrative 
of the creation which, in its most important features, must 
have been the source of that in our own sacred books. It 
has now become perfectly clear that from the same sources 
which inspired the accounts of the creation of the universe 
among the Chaldeo-Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Phoenician, 
and other ancient civilizations came the ideas which hold so 
prominent a place in the sacred books of the Hebrews. In 
the two accounts imperfectly fused together in Genesis, and 
also in the account of which we have indications in the book 
of Job and in the Proverbs, there is presented, often with 
the greatest sublimity, the same early conception of the 
Creator and of the creation — the conception, so natural in 
the childhood of civilization, of a Creator who is an enlarged 
human being working literally with his own hands, and of a 
creation which is *' the work of his fingers.** To supplement 
this view there was developed the belief in this Creator as 
one who, having 

..." from his ample palm 
Launched forth the rolling planets into space," 

sits on high, enthroned " upon the circle of the heavens," 
perpetually controlling and directing them. 

From this idea of creation was evolved in time a some- 
what nobler view. Ancient thinkers, and especially, as is 
now found, in Egypt, suggested that the main agency in 
creation was not the hands and fingers of the Creator, but 
his voice. Hence was mingled with the earlier, cruder be- 
lief regarding the origin of the earth and heavenly bodies 
by the Almighty the more impressive idea that '* he spake 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 3 

and they were made " — that they were brought into exist- 
ence by his word.* 

Among the early fathers of the Church this general view 
of creation became fundamental; they impressed upon 
Christendom more and more strongly the belief that the 
universe was created in a perfectly literal sense by the hands 
or voice of God. Here and there sundry theologians of 
larger mind attempted to give a more spiritual view regard- 
ing some parts of the creative work, and of these were St. 
Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine. Ready as thejr were 
to accept the literal text of Scripture, they revolted against 
the conception of an actual creation of the universe by the 
hands and fingers of a Supreme Being, and in this they were 
followed by Bede and a few others ; but the more material 
conceptions prevailed, and we find these taking shape not 
only in the sculptures and mosaics and stained glass of cathe- 
drals, and in the illuminations of missals and psalters, but 
later, at the close of the Middle Ages, in the pictured Bibles 
and in general literature. 

Into the Anglo-Saxon mind this ancient material concep- 
tion of the creation was riveted by two poets whose works 

* Among the many mediaeval representations of the creation of the universe, I 
especially recall from personal observation those sculptured above the portals of 
the cathedrals of Freiburg and Upsala, the paintings on the walls of the Campo 
Santo at Pisa, and, most striking of all, the mosaics of the Cathedral of Monreale 
and those in the Cappella Palatina at Palermo. Among peculiarities showing the 
simplicity of the earlier conception the representation of the repose of the Almighty 
on the seventh day is very striking. He is shown as seated in almost the exact 
attitude of the " Weary Mercury " of classic sculpture — ^bent, and with a very 
marked expression of fatigue upon his countenance and in the whole disposition of 
his body. 

The Monreale mosaics are pictured in the great work of Gravina, and the Pisa 
frescoes in Didron's Iconographies Paris, 1843, p. 598. For an exact statement of the 
resemblances which have settled the question among the most eminent scholars in 
favour of the derivation of the Hebrew cosmogony from that of Assyria, see Jensen, 
Du Kosmoiogie der Bahylonier^ Strassburg, 1890, pp. 304, 306 ; also Franz Lukas, 
Dii Grundbegriffe in den Kosmograpkien der alten Vdlker, Leipsic, 1893, pp. 35- 
46 ; also George Smith's Chaldean Genesis, especially the German translation with 
additions by Delitzsch, Leipsic, 1876, and Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das 
AlU Testament, Giessen, 1883, pp. 1-54, etc. See also Renan, Histoire du peuple 
iTIsrael^ vol. i, chap, i, Vantique influence bahylonienne. For Egyptian views re- 
garding creation, and especially for the transition from the idea of creation by the 
hands and fingers of the Creator to creation by his voice and his " word," see 
Ma^>ero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilisation, pp. 145-146. 



4 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

appealed especially to the deeper religious feelings. In the 
seventh century Caedmon paraphrased the account given in 
Genesis, bringing out this material conception in the most 
literal form ; and a thousand years later Milton developed 
out of the various statements in the Old Testament, mingled 
with a theology regarding " the creative Word " which had 
been drawn from the New, his description of the creation by 
the second person in the Trinity, than which nothing could 
be more literal and material : 

" He took the golden compasses, prepared 
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe 
This universe and all created things. 
One foot he centred, and the other turned 
Round through the vast profundity obscure. 
And said, ' Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds : 
Thfe be thy just circumference, O world ! ' " ♦ 

So much for the orthodox view of the manner oi creation. 

The next point developed in this theologic evolution had 
reference to the matter of which the universe was made, and 
it was decided by an overwhelming majority that no ma- 
terial substance existed before the creation of the material 
universe — that "God created everything out of nothing.*' 
Some venturesome thinkers, basing their reasoning upon the 
first verses of Genesis, hinted at a different view — namely, 
that the mass, " without form and void/' existed before the 
universe ; but this doctrine was soon swept out of sight. 
The vast majority of the fathers were explicit on this point. 
TertuUian especially was very severe against those who 
took any other view than that generally accepted as ortho- 
dox: he declared that, if there had been any pre-existing 
matter out of which the world was formed, Scripture would 
have mentioned it ; that by not mentioning it God has given 
us a clear proof that there was no such thing ; and, after a 
manner not unknown in other theological controversies, he 
threatens Hermogenes, who takes the opposite view, with 

♦ For Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and the general subject of the development 
of an evolution theory among the Greeks, see the excellent work by Dr. Osbom, 
From the Greeks to Darwin^ pp. 33 and following ; for Caedmon, see any edition — 
I have used Bouterwek's, GQtersloh, 1854; for Milton, see Paradise Lost^ book vii, 
lines 225-231. 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 



5 



*• the woe which impends on all who add to or take away 
from the written word." 

St. Augustine, who showed signs of a belief in a pre-exist- 
ence of matter, made his peace with the prevailing belief by 
the simple reasoning that, "although the world has been 
made of some material, that very same material must have 
been made out of nothing." 

In the wake of these great men the universal Church 
steadily followed. The Fourth Lateran Council declared 
that God created everything out of nothing ; and at the 
present hour the vast majority of the faithful — whether 
Catholic or Protestant — are taught the same doctrine; on 
this point the syllabus of Pius IX and the Westminster 
Catechism fully agree.* 

Having thus disposed of the manner and matter of crea- 
tion, the next subject taken up by theologians was the tifne 
required for the great work. 

Here came a difficulty. The first of the two accounts 
given in Genesis extended the creative operation through 
six days, each of an evening and a morning, with much ex- 
plicit detail regarding the progress made in each. But the 
second account spoke of " the day " in which " the Lord God 
made the earth and the heavens." The explicitness of the 
first account and its naturalness to the minds of the great 
mass of early theologians g^ve it at first a decided advan- 
tage ; but Jewish thinkers, like Philo, and Christian think- 
ers, like Origen, forming higher conceptions of the Creator 
and his work, were not content with this, and by them was 
launched upon the troubled sea of Christian theology the 
idea that the creation was instantaneous, this idea being 
strengthened not only by the second of the Genesis legends, 
but by the great text, " He spake, and it was done ; he com- 
manded, and it stood fast " — or, as it appears in the Vulgate 
and in most translations, " He spake, and they were made ; 
he commanded, and they were created." 

♦ For TertulUan, see TertulUan against Hermogenes, chaps, xx and xxii ; for St. 
Augustine regarding " creation from nothing/' see the De Gemsi contra Manichaos, 
lib. i, cap. vi ; for St. Ambrose, see the ffexamenm, lib. i, cap. iv ; for the decree 
of the Fourth Lateran Council, and the view received in the Church to-day, see 
the article Cnatwn in Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, 



6 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

As a result, it began to be held that the safe and proper 
course was to believe literally both statements ; that in some 
mysterious manner God created the universe in six days, 
and 3'et brought it all into existence in a moment. In spite 
of the outcries of sundry great theologians, like Ephrem 
Syrus, that the universe was created in exactly six days of 
twenty-four hours each, this compromise was promoted by 
St. Athanasius and St. Basil in the East, and by St. Augus- 
tine and St. Hilary in the West. 

Serious difficulties were found in reconciling these two 
views, which to the natural mind seem absolutely contra- 
dictory ; but by ingenious manipulation of texts, by dexter- 
ous play upon phrases, and by the abundant use of meta- 
physics to dissolve away facts, a reconciliation was effected, 
. and men came at least to believe that they believed in a 
creation of the universe instantaneous and at the same time 
extended through six days.* 

Some of the efforts to reconcile these two accounts were 
so fruitful as to deserve especial record. The fathers. East- 
ern and Western, developed out of the double account in 
Genesis, and the indications in the Psalms, the Proverbs, 
and the book of Job, a vast mass of sacred science bearing 
upon this point. As regards the whole work of creation, 
stress was laid upon certain occult powers in numerals. 
Philo Judaeus, while believing in an instantaneous creation, 
had also declared that the world was created in six days 
because "of all numbers six is the most productive"; he 
had explained the creation of the heavenly bodies on the 
fourth day by "the harmony of the number four"; of the 
animals on the fifth day by the five senses ; of man on the 
sixth day by the same virtues in the number six which had 
caused it to be set as a limit to the creative work ; and, 
greatest of all, the rest on the seventh day by the vast mass 
of mysterious virtues in the number seven. 

St. Jerome held that the reason why God did not pro- 
nounce the work of the second day " good " is to be found 



* For Origen, see his Contra Celsum, cap. xxxvi, xxxvii ; also his De Primipi' 
bus, cap. V ; for St. Augustine, see his De Genesi contra Manichaos and De Genesi 
ad Littfram, passim / for Athanasius, see his Discourses against the Arians, ii, 
48, 49. 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 7 

in the fact that there is something essentially evil in the 
number two, and this was echoed centuries afterward, afar 
off in Britain, by Bede. 

St. Augustine brought this view to bear upon the Church 
in the following statement: " There are three classes of num- 
bers — the more than perfect, the perfect, and the less than 
perfect, according as the sum of them is greater than, equal 
to, or less than the original number. Six is the first perfect 
number : wherefore we must not say that six is a perfect 
number because God finished all his works in six days, but 
that God finished all his works in six days because six is a 
perfect number." 

Reasoning of this sort echoed along through the mediae- 
val Church until a year after the discovery of America, 
when the Nuremberg Chronicle re-echoed it as follows : " The 
creation of things is explained by the number six, the 
parts of which, one, two, and three, assume the form of a 
triangle." 

This view of the creation of the universe as instantaneous 
and also as in six days, each made up of an evening and a 
morning, became virtually universal. Peter Lombard and 
Hugo of St. Victor, authorities of vast weight, gave it their 
sanction in the twelfth century, and impressed it for ages 
upon the mind of the Church. 

Both these lines of speculation — as to the creation of 
everything out of nothing, and the reconciling of the instan- 
taneous creation of the universe with its creation in six days 
— were still further developed by other great thinkers of the 
Middle Ages. 

St. Hilary of Poictiers reconciled the two conceptions 
as follows : ** For, although according to Moses there is an 
appearance of regular order in the fixing of the firmament, 
the laying bare of the dry land, the gathering together of 
the waters, the formation of the heavenly bodies, and the 
arising of living things from land and water, yet the creation 
of the heavens, earth, and other elements is seen to be the 
work of a single moment." 

St. Thomas Aquinas drew from St. Augustine a subtle 
distinction which for ages eased the difficulties in the case : 
he taught in effect that God created the substance of things 



S FBOX Cm£^TM>% TO ITtXXTICK. 

in a nxwncTit^ bat gavr to tibe vori^ oc scparatn^, siiapii^. 



Tbc can J leiutuicj s aoocpcod awl devrtoped the same 
', and Lotber c sp ec ii llj sltcnrcd ^"■" ^ equal to the 
Witii his osoal hnldnrss he declared, first, that 
MKj&ts " spoke properlj awl ptaini j. awl ■rjlhrr aDegoricall j 
uo€ fignradTeij," and that therefore ''the world with all 
creatures was created in six dars." Awl he then goes oo 
to show how, bj a great mirade, the whole crcadoo was 
also instantaneous. 

Melancfathon also insisird that the unirerse was created 
out of nochii^ and in a mjstcrioiis war, both in an instant 
and in six dajs, citing the text : ** He spake, and the j were 



Calrin opposed the idea (rf an instantaneoos crcatioii, and 
laid especial stress on the creation in six dajs: haiii^ called 
attention to the iact that the biblical cfarooologT shows the 
world to be not quite six thousand years old auad that it is 
now near its end, he says that ^creation was extended 
through six days that it might not be tedious for us to 
occupy the whole of life in the consideration of it.** 

Peter Martyr dincbed the matter by declaring : ** So im- 
portant is it to comprehend the work of creation that we see 
the creed of the Church take this as its starting pmnt. 
Were this article taken away there would be no original sin^ 
the promise of Christ would become void, and all the vital 
force of our religion would be destroyed.** The West- 
minster divines in drawing up their Confession of Faith 



« For V^ulo JmOaan, lee Us Cmdom #/ the WmrU, diapu iii ; for Sl A^vsdne 
OB die powefs of osmben in creation, see his De Grmesi md Uttamaiy rr, dupe ii ; 
for Peter Lombdud, tee the SenttnHM, lib. ii, dist. zr. 5 ; and for Hvso of St. Vic- 
tor, tee De SaeramenHs^ lib. i, pars i ; also, Amm^tai. EimddmL im Pemiaitmekmm^ 
cap, ^,yn,int', itn Sl Hibuy, see De TrimUate^ lib. zii ; for Sl Thomas Aquinas* 
see his Sttmma Tkeologiea, quest. IxxziT, arts, i and ii ; the passage in the Nmnm^ 
berg Chfvnkie, 1493, is in foL iii ; for Bossaet, see his Disemtrt sur mistem CM- 
venette ; for the sacredaeas of the nnmber seven among the BabjkNuaas» see cspe- 
ciatly Hchrader, Die KeiUmckriften umd das AUe TeOamemi, pp. 21, 22 ; also 
fieorge Smith e/ al. ; for general ideas on the occult powers of rarioiis numbers, 
especially the number seren, and the influence of these ideas 00 tiicology and sd- 
ence, see my chapter on astronomy. As to mediaeval ideas on the same subject, 
fee Dtizelf Chrisitiehe JAom4fgrapkie, Freiburg, 1894, pp. 44 and following. 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 9 

specially laid it down as necessary to believe that all things 
visible and invisible were created not only out of* nothing 
but in exactly six days. 

Nor were the Roman divines less strenuous than the 
Protestant reformers regarding the necessity of holding 
closely to the so-called Mosaic account of creation. As late 
as the middle of the eighteenth century, when Buffon at- 
tempted to state simple geological truths, the theological 
faculty of the Sorbonne forced him to make and to publish 
a most ignominious recantation which ended with these 
words : " I abandon everything in my book respecting the 
formation of the earth, and generally all which may be con- 
trary to the narrative of Moses." 

Theologians, having thus settled the manner of the crea- 
tion, the matter used in it, and the time required for it, now 
exerted themselves to fix its date. 

The long series of eflforts by the greatest minds in the 
Church, from Eusebius to Archbishop Usher, to settle this 
point are presented in another chapter.- Suffice it here that 
the general conclusion arrived at by an overwhelming 
majority of the most competent students of the biblical ac- 
counts was that the date of creation was, in round numbers, 
four thousand years before our era ; and in the seventeenth 
century, in his great work. Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chan- f, 
cellor of the University of Cambridge, and one of the most 
eminent Hebrew scholars of his time, declared, as the result 
of his most profound and exhaustive study of the Scriptures, 
that "heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were 
created all together, in the same instant, and clouds full of 
water," and that " this work took place and man was created 
by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B. c, at nine o'clock in 
the morning." 

Here was, indeed, a triumph of Lactantius's method, the 
result of hundreds of years of biblical study and theological 
thought since Bede in the eighth century, and Vincent of 
Beauvais in the thirteenth, had declared that creation must 
have taken place in the spring. Yet, alas ! within two cen- 
tunes after Lightfoot's great biblical demonstration as to 
the exact hour of creation, it was discovered that at that 
hour an exceedingly cultivated people, enjoying all the 



lO FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

fruits of a highly developed civilization, had loog been 
swarming in the great cities of Egypt, and that other m- 
tions hardly less advanced had at that time reached a high 
development in Asia.* 

But, strange as it may seem, even after theologians had 
thus settled the manner of creation, the matter employed in 
it, the time required for it, and the exact date of it, there 
remained virtually unsettled the first and greatest question 
of all ; and this was nothing less than the question. Who 
actually created the universe ? 

Various theories more or less nebulous, but all centred 
in texts of Scripture, had swept through the mind of the 
Church. By some theologians it was held virtually that the 
actual creative agent was the third person of the Trinity, 
who, in the oi>ening words of our sublime creation poem, 
" moved upon the face of the waters." By others it was 
held that the actual Creator was the second person of the 
Trinity, in behalf of whose agency many texts were cited 
from the New Testament. Others held that the actual 
Creator was the first person, and this view was embodied in 
the two great formulas known as the Apostles' and Nicene 
Creeds, which explicitly assigned the work to " God the Fa- 
ther Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." Others, finding 
a deep meaning in the words " Let us make," ascribed in 
Genesis to the Creator, held that the entire Trinity directly 
created all things ; and still others, by curious metaphysical 
processes, seemed to arrive at the idea that peculiar com- 
binations of two persons of the Trinity achieved the creation. 

In all this there would seem to be considerable courage 



♦ For Luther, see his Commentary on Genesis^ 1545, introduction, and hb com- 
ments on chap, i, verse 12; the quotations from Luther's commentaiy are taken 
mainly from the translation by Henry Cole, D.D., Edinburgh, 1858; for MeUnch- 
thon, see Ijki Theohgici, in Melanchthon. Opera, cd. Bretschneider, voL zxi, pp. 
269. 270, also pp. 637, 638 — in quoting the text (Ps. xxiii, 9) I have used, as does 
Melanchthon himself, the form of the Vulgate ; for the citations from Calvin, see 
his Commentary on Genesis {Opera omnia, Amsterdam, 1671, torn, i, cap. ii, p. 8); 
alv) in the Institutes, Allen's translation. London. 1838. vol. i. chap, xr, pp. 126, 
127 ; for Peter Martyr, see his Commentary on Genesis, cited by 2^0ckler. voL i, p. 
(yr^} : for the articles in the Westminster Confession of Faith, see chap, iv ; for 
Puffon's recantation, see Lyell. Principles of Geology, chap. iii. p. 57. For L%ht- 
foot's declaration, see his works, edited by Pitman. London, 1822. 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. II 

in view of the fearful condemnations launched in the Athana- 
sian Creed against all who should "confound the persons'* 
or " divide the substance of the Trinity." 

These various stages in the evolution of scholastic the- 
ology were also embodied in sacred art, and especially in 
cathedral sculpture, in glass-staining, in mosaic working, 
and in missal painting. 

The creative Being is thus represented sometimes as the 
third person of the Trinity, in the form of a dove brooding 
over chaos ; sometimes as the second person, and therefore 
a youth ; sometimes as the first person, and therefore fa- 
therly and venerable ; sometimes as the first and second per- 
sons, one being venerable and the other youthful; and 
sometimes as three persons, one venerable and one youthful, 
both wearing papal crowns, and each holding in his lips a 
tip of the wing of the dove, which thus seems to proceed 
from both and to be suspended between them. 

Nor was this the most complete development of the 
mediaeval idea. The Creator was sometimes represented 
with a single body, but with three faces, thus showing that 
Christian belief had in some pious minds gone through sub- 
stantially the same cycle which an earlier form of belief had 
made ages before in India, when the Supreme Being was 
represented with one body but with the three faces of 
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. 

But at the beginning of the modern period the older 
view in its primitive Jewish form was impressed upon Chris- 
tians by the most mighty genius in art the world has known ; 
for in 15 12, after four years of Titanic labour, Michael 
Angelo uncovered his frescoes within the vault of the Sistine 
Chapel. 

They had been executed by the command and under the 
sanction of the ruling Pope, Julius II, to represent the con- 
caption of Christian theology then dominant, and they re- 
main to-day in all their majesty to show the highest point 
ever attained by the older thought upon the origin of the 
visible universe. 

In the midst of the expanse of heaven the Almighty Fa- 
ther — the first person of the Trinity — in human form, august 
and venerable, attended by angels and upborne by mighty 



12 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

winds, sweeps over the abvss, and, moving through success- 
ive coinp>artments of the great vault, accomplishes the work 
of the creative days. With a simple gesture he divides the 
light from the darkness, rears on high the solid firmament, 
gathers together beneath it the seas, or summons into exist- 
ence the sun, moon, and planets, and sets them circling 
about the earth. 

In this sublime work culminated the thought of thou- 
sands of years ; the strongest minds accepted it or pretended 
to accept it, and nearly two centuries later this conception, 
in accordance with the first of the two accounts g^ven in 
Genesis, was especially enforced by Bossuet, and received a 
new lease of life in the Church, both Catholic and Protestant.* 

But to these discussions was added yet another, which, 
beginning in the early days of the Church, was handed 
down the ages until it had died out among the theologians 
of our own time. 

In the first of the biblical accounts light is created and 
the distinction between day and night thereby made on the 
first day, while the sun and moon are not created until the 
fourth day. Masses of profound theological and pseudo- 
scientific reasoning have been developed to account for this 
— masses so great that for ages they have obscured the sim- 
ple fact that the original text is a precious revelation to us 
of one of the most ancient of recorded beliefs — the belief 
that light and darkness are entities independent of the heav- 
enly bodies, and that the sun, moon, and stars exist not 
merely to increase light but to " divide the day from the 
night, to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and 
for years," and " to rule the day and the night." 

♦ For strange representations of the Creator and of the creation by one, two, or 
three persons of the Trinity, see Didron, Iconographie ChriHemu^ pp. 35, 178, 
224, 483, 567-580, and elsewhere ; also Detzel as already cited. The most naive of 
all survivals of the mediaeval idea of creation which the present writer has ever 
seen was exhibited in 1894 on the banner of one of the guilds at the celebration of 
the four-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Munich Cathedral. Jesus 
of Nazareth, as a beautiful boy and with a nimbus encircling his head, was shown 
turning and shaping the globe on a lathe, which he keeps in motion with his foot. 
The emblems of the Passion are about him, God the Father looking approvingly 
upon him from a cloud, and the dove hovering between the two. The date upon 
the banner was 1727. 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 



13 



Of this belief we find survivals among the early fathers, 
and especially in St. Ambrose. In his work on creation he 
tells us : " We must remember that the light of day is one 
thing and the light of the sun, moon, and stars another — the 
sun by his rays appearing to add lustre to the daylight. 
For before sunrise the day dawns, but is not in full reful- 
gence, for the sun adds still further to its splendour." This 
idea became one of the "treasures of sacred knowledge 
committed to the Church," and was faithfully received by 
the Middle Ages. The mediaeval mysteries and miracle 
plays give curious evidences of this: In a performance of 
the creation, when God separates light from darkness, the 
stage direction is, " Now a painted cloth is to be exhibited, 
one half black and the other half white.*' It was also given 
more permanent form. In the mosaics of San Marco at 
Venice, in the frescoes of the Baptistery at Florence and of 
the Church of St. Francis at Assisi, and in the altar carving 
at Salerno, we find a striking realization of it — the Creator 
placing in the heavens two disks or living figures of equal 
size, each suitably coloured or inscribed to show that one 
represents light and the other darkness. This conception 
was without doubt that of the person or persons who com- 
piled from the Chaldean and other earlier statements the 
accounts of the creation in the first of our sacred books.* 

Thus, down to a period almost within living memory, it 
was held, virtually "always, everywhere, and by all," that 
the universe, as we now see it, was created literally and 

* For scriptural indications of the independent existence of light and darkness, 
compare with the first verses of the first chapter of Genesb sach passages as Job 
xxzriii, 19, 24 ; for the general prevalence of this early view, see Lukas, Kosmo' 
pmu, pp. 31, 33, 41, 74, and passim ; for the view of St. Ambrose regarding the 
creation of light and of the sun, see his Hexameron^ lib. 4, cap. iii ; for an excellent 
general statement, see Huxley, Mr, GkubUme and Genesis^ in the Nineteenth Cen- 
tmry^ 1886, reprinted in his Essay i on Controverted Questions ^ London, 1892, note, 
pp. 126 // seq, ; for the acceptance in the miracle plays of the scriptural idea of 
light and darkness as independent creations, see Wright, Essays on Archaological 
Sukfeets^ ToL ii, p. 178 ; for an account, with illustrations, of the mosaics, etc.,' 
representing this idea, see Tikkanen, Die Genesis-mosaiken von San Marco^ Hel- 
singfors, 1889, pp. 14 and 16 of text and Plates I and II. Very naively the Salerno 
carver, not wishing to colour the ivory which he wrought, has inscribed on one disk 
the word "LUX" and on the other "NOX." See also Didron, IconographU^ 
p. 482. 



14 



FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 



directly by the voice or hands of the Almighty, or by both 
— out of nothing — in an instant or in six days, or in both — 
about four thousand years before the Christian era — and for 
the convenience of the dwellers upon the earth, which was 
at the base and foundation of the whole structure. 

But there had been implanted along through the ages 
germs of another growth in human thinking, some of them 
even as early as the Babylonian period. In the Assyrian 
inscriptions we find recorded the Chaldeo-Babylonian idea 
' of an evolution of the universe out of the primeval flood or 
" great deep," and of the animal creation out of the earth 
and sea. This idea, recast, partially at least, into mono- 
theistic form, passed naturally into the sacred books of the 
neighbours and pupils of the Chaldeans — the Hebrews ; but 
its growth in Christendom afterward was checked, as we 
shall hereafter find, by the more powerful influence of other 
inherited statements which appealed more intelligibly to the 
mind of the Church. 

Striking, also, was the effect of this idea as rewrought 
by the early Ionian philosophers, to whom it was probably 
transmitted from the Chaldeans through the Phoenicians. 
In the minds of lonians like Anaximander and Anaximenes 
it was most clearly developed : the first of these conceiving 
of the visible universe as the result of processes of evolution, 
and the latter pressing further the same mode of reasoning, 
and dwelling on agencies in cosmic development recognised 
in modern science. 

This general idea of evolution in Nature thus took strong 
hold upon Greek thought and was developed in many 
ways, some ingenious, some perverse. Plato, indeed, with- 
stood it ; but Aristotle sometimes developed it in a manner 
which reminds us of modern views. 

Among the Romans Lucretius caught much from it, ex- 
tending the evolutionary process virtually to all things. 

In the early Church, as we have seen, the idea of a crea- 
tion direct, material, and by means like those used by man, 
was all-powerful for the exclusion of conceptions based on 
evolution. From the more simple and crude of the views 
of creation given in the Babylonian legends, and thence in- 
corporated into Genesis, rose the stream of orthodox thought 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 1 5 

on the subject, which grew into a flood and swept on 
through the Middle Ages and into modern times. Yet here 
and there in the midst of this flood were high grounds of 
thought held by strong men. Scotus Erigena and Duns 
Scotus, among the schoolmen, bewildered though they were, 
had caught some rays of this ancient light, and passed on to 
their successors, in modified form, doctrines of an evolu- 
tionary process in the universe. 

In the latter half of the sixteenth century these evolu- 
tionary theories seemed to take more definite form in the 
mind of Giordano Bruno, who evidentlv divined the funda- 
mental idea of what is now known as the " nebular hypothe- 
sis " ; but with his murder by the Inquisition at Rome this 
idea seemed utterly to disappear — dissipated by the flames 
which in 1600 consumed his body on the Campo dei Fiori. 

Yet within the two centuries divided by Bruno's death 
the world was led into a new realm of thought in which an 
evolution theory of the visible universe was sure to be rap- 
idly developed. For there came, one after the other, five 
of the greatest men our race has produced — Copernicus, 
Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton — and when their 
work was done the old theological conception of the uni- 
verse was gone. "The spacious firmament on high ** — " the 
crystalline spheres " — the Almighty enthroned upon " the 
circle of the heavens,** and with his own hands, or with 
angels as his agents, keeping sun, moon, and planets in mo- 
tion for the benefit of the earth, opening and closing the 
" windows of heaven," letting down upon the earth the " wa- 
ters above the firmament," " setting his bow in the cloud," 
hanging out " signs and wonders,** hurling comets, " casting 
forth lightnings" to scare the wicked, and "shaking the 
earth " in his wrath : all this had disappeared. 

These five men had given a new divine revelation to the 
world ; and through the last, Newton, had come a vast new 1/ 
conception, destined to be fatal to the old theory of crea- 
tion, for he had shown throughout the universe, in place of 
almighty caprice, all-pervading law. The bitter opposition 
of theology to the first four of these men is well known ; but 
the fact is not so widely known that Newton, in spite of his 
deeply religious spirit, was also strongly opposed. It was 



i^ FUOK auuLToas TO E:Tn3cirn3a5: 



wigoroKL^j or^ed agpinst hm cfaot bj bs statement of the 
htw of graTdasdoa he •*■ took froni God t-Har direct vrtsoii oo 
kh worlB so constantlj ascribed to Wfm ni Scr^ptizre and 
inmsferred it to niatcrial mecfaanisnu"' and th^r tat *"sub- 
stitatcd gmvTtadoa for Ptowfrnce>'" Bat^ nuorc f^^an this. 
these men g^re 2. oew boas £or the theorj of erolatioo as 
distin^ished from the tfaeorj of creatioiL 

Ei^peciallT worthj of note is it that the great work of 
Descartes. errocseoGES as manj of its dedoctioos were^ and, 
in riew of the lack of phjacal knowledge in his time, most 
be, bad docie much to weaken the old cooceptioo. His 
tbeorr of a omTerie brought oat of altpervadii^ matter, 
wrought into orderir arrangement br moTements in accord- 
ance with physical laws — thot^ it was but a provisional 
bvpoihesis — had dooe mnch to draw men s minds from the 
old theological riew (rf creation ; it was an example of intel- 
lectual honesty arriving at errws* but thereby aiding the 
advent of truths. Crippled though Descartes was by his 
almost morbid fear of the Church, this part of his work was 
no small factor in bringing in that attitude of mind which 
led to a reception of the thoughts of more unfettered 
thinkers. 

Thirty years later came, in England, an effort of a differ- 
ent sort, but with a similar resulL In 1678 Ralph Cud- 
worth published his IntelUctual System of the Universe. To 
this day he remains, in breadth of scholarship, in strength 
of thought, in tolerance, and in honesty, one of the greatest 
glories of the English Church, and his work was worthy of 
him. He purposed to build a fortress which should protect 
Christianity against all dangerous theories of the universe, 
ancient or modem. The foundations of the structure were 
laid with old thoughts thrown often into new and striking 
forms ; but, as the superstructure arose more and more into 
view, while genius marked every part of it, features ap- 
peared which gave the rigidly orthodox serious misgivings. 
From the old theories of direct personal action on the uni- 
verse by the Almighty he broke utterly. He dwelt on the 
action of law, rejected the continuous exercise of miraculous 
intervention, pointed out the fact that in the natural world 
there arc " errors " and " bungles,'* and argued vigorously 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 



17 



in favour of the origin and maintenance of the universe as a 
slow and gradual development of Nature in obedience to an 
inward principle. The Balaks of seventeenth-century ortho- 
doxy might well condemn this honest Balaam. 

Toward the end of the next century a still more profound 
genius, Immanuel Kant, presented the nebular theory, giv- 
ing it, in the light of Newton's great utterances, a consist- 
ency which it never before had ; and about the same time 
Laplace gave it yet greater strength by mathematical reason- 
ings of wonderful power and extent, thus implanting firmly 
in modern thought the idea that our own solar system and 
others — suns, planets, satellites, and their various move- 
ments, distances, and magnitudes — necessarily result from 
the obedience of nebulous masses to natural laws. 

Throughout the theological world there was an outcry 
at once against "atheism," and war raged fiercely. Her- 
schel and others pointed out many nebulous patches appar- 
ently gaseous. They showed by^ physical and mathemat- 
ical demonstrations that the hypothesis accounted for the 
great body of facts, and, despite clamour, were gaining 
ground, when the improved telescopes resolved some of the 
patches of nebulous matter into multitudes of stars. The 
opponents of the nebular hypothesis were overjoyed ; they 
now sang paeans to astronomy, because, as they said, it had 
proved the truth of Scripture. They had jumped to the 
conclusion that all nebulae must be alike ; that, if some are 
made up of systems of stars, all must be so made up ; that 
none can be masses of attenuated gaseous matter, because 
some are not. 

Science halted for a time. The accepted doctrine be- 
came this : that the only reason why all the nebulae are not 
resolved into distinct stars is that our telescopes are not 
sufficiently powerful. But in time came the discovery of 
the spectroscope and spectrum analysis, and thence Fraun- 
hofer's discovery that the spectrum of an ignited gaseous 
body is non-continuous, with interrupting lines; and Dra- 
per's discovery that the spectrum of an ignited solid is con- 
tinuous, with no interrupting lines. And now the spectro- 
scop>e was turned upon the nebulae, and many of them were 
found to be gaseous. Here, then, was ground for the infer- 
3 



IS FROM CRELVTIOX TO EVOLUTION. 

ruvv that in thc:?e nebulous masses at different stages of con- 
\lenMtiv»n - 5».^m5f aptvinrntlr mere patches of roist^some with 
hu\uiu>us cvatrr$ — we hare the process of development ac- 
\\\s\\\\ ^\nn^ vHu AHvi observations like those of Lord Rosse 
(uul Vnv^t cAvr vet rurtherconfirmation to this view. Then 
\anu" the ^tvAt vvncrtbutioa of the nineteenth century to 
y\\\ vK V. aivhu^ tv> c\pUia important parts of the vast process 
l»v thv^ luvvhattiv'Jil thcv^rr ot heat. 

\v:aiii the ttcbuUr hvpvHhesis came forth stronger than 
\\v\, m\k\ al\*ut t^^xs'^ the beautiful experiment of Plateau on 
{\sv \\^\M\\^x\ v*t u tUik: i:tv>N: came in apparently to illustrate 
II Mv»t iv» v^M»^u tti it, Fv^rn s*."* determined a defender of ortho- 
»h»\v t^H \li ViUvl^itvuK* at ta<t acknowledged some form of a 
»H l»ul;M h\j»v*thv"sis a5 prv^bably true- 

I K »\\ tvs\ \\a^ cvhibit^fvt that form of surrendering theo- 
l^^iril \K wx tv* science uttvler the cbim that science con- 
\ \\^< \\\^\\ thv\*lv^^\\ which we have seen in so many other 
IW l»U . M\y\, ,\x t\ puMi. A« cxanipte may be gfiven, which, how- 
» v*i M^^tMvtvNl u^ Us skvjv. thn>ws light on the process by 
^\ hirh »sn\ h svn ^vuvk'^s A:t^ cbtaiaed. A few vears since one 
I'l \Uv hu»<t Mv'tcvl {*iv^:v"55sor<i v>t chemistry in the city of New 
NhiK. \\\\\\\\ \hy- auspiv\*$ v^t one of its most fashionable 
I ImM hr*;. fc;.u\^ »\ Uvtujv which. a$ was claimed in the public 
I'tlhU \\\\\\ \\\ y\M\\^\h jN^uxJ iu the streets, was to show 
\\\'\\ -t\U\\\v vuppvMts tHc thev>rv ot creation given in the 
'••n Mil lMM»^^^ {^^vuivvl to Mv^c^csi. A lorge audience assem- 
l<l» »l. *\\\\\ i\ \^\\\\\M\X scncs ot elementary experiments with 
"•♦ w»» M, h\\lM*^\Mu *uut car':vaic acid was concluded by the 
ri.Hi'M* »h h<vMu(K^tuM\, h was beautifully made. As the 
» mImmmmI j;lv*bul\^ v^t xuL icptvscutiniT the earth, was revolved 
In •» h«»hu|»iMvut nuvtium ot <\;ual density, as it became flat- 
ly Mt»| lit tho pv^K^s, AS tin^^s thai brv^ke forth from it and 
«» s»«Ui *l i\U\^\\\ u» anvl. r\iutt\\ sis some of these rings broke 
!•»!»» >MiU IUh's» which tvM a nxvnuont cv>ntinued to circle about 
ihi^ \ i-uhal hiAss, the auviicnvx. as well they might, rose and 
\'\\\M \\\{\\ I Aptuunis applause. 

Iluirupou a wolltvv^v?o citiren arv>se and moved the 
Ihiihkh ol \\w auvUenco to the eminent professor for " this 
pciliTt »K iwonstiation ot the exact and literal conformity of 
i\\v Matruuuts ^iven in Holy Scripture with the latest re- 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 



19 



suits of science." The motion was carried unanimously and 
with applause, and the audience dispersed, feeling that a 
great service had been rendered to orthodoxy. Sancta siifu 
plicitas ! 

What this incident exhibited on a small scale has been 
seen elsewhere with more distinguished actors and on a 
broader stage. Scores of theologians, chief among whom 
of late, in zeal if not in knowledge, has been Mr. Gladstone, 
have endeavoured to " reconcile ** the two accounts in Gene- 
sis with each other and with the truths regarding the origin 
of the universe gained by astronomy, geology, geography, 
physics, and chemistry. The result has been recently stated 
by an eminent theologian, the Hulsean Professor of Divinity 
at the University of Cambridge. He declares, " No attempt 
at reconciling Genesis with the exacting requirements of 
modern sciences has ever been known to succeed without 
entailing a degree of special pleading or forced interpreta- 
tion to which, in such a question, we should be wise to have 
no recourse."* 

The revelations of another group of sciences, though 
sometimes bitterly opposed and sometimes " reconciled " by 



* For an interesting reference to the outcry against Newton, see McCosh, The 
Religious Aspect of Evolution^ New York, 1890, pp. 103, 104 ; for germs of an 
evolutionary view among the Babylonians, see George Smith, Chaldean Account of 
Genesis^ New York, 1876, pp. 74, 75 ; for a germ of the same thought in Lucretius, 
see his D§ NcUura Rerum^ lib. ▼, pp. 187-194, 447-454 ; for Bruno's conjecture (in 
1 591), see Jevons, Principles of Science^ London, 1874, vol. ii, p. 299 ; for Kant's 
statement, see his Naturgeschichte des Hitnmels ; for his part in the nebular hy- 
pothesis, see Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus^ vol. i, p. 266 ; for value of Pla- 
teau's beautiful experiment, very cautiously estimated, see Jevons, vol. ii, p. 36 ; 
also Elis^ Redus, The Earthy translated by Woodward, vol. i, pp. 14-18, for an 
estimate still more careful ; for a general account of discoveries of the nature of 
nebulse by spectroscope, see Draper, Conflict between Religion and Science ; for a 
careful discussion regarding the spectra of solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies, see 
Schellen, Spectrum Analysis^ pp. 100 et seq. ; for a very thorough discussion of the 
bearings of discoveries made by spectrum analysis upon the nebular hypothesis, 
ibid., pp. 532-537 ; for a presentation of the difficulties yet unsolved, see an article 
by Plummer in the London Popular Science Review for January, 1875 ; for an ex- 
cellent short summary of recent observations and thought on this subject, see T. 
Sterrj Hunt, Address at the Priestley Centennial^ pp. 7, 8 ; for an interesting 
modification of this hypothesis, see Proctor's writings ; for a still more recent view, 
see Lockyer's two articles on The Sun's Place in Nature^ in Nature for February 
14 and 35, 1895. 







-rr'.'^Siftn iir- .mz zitt siiiii.: w a* i. -rrs^uastiut Djc'rc tbc 



fn/r,* tr k: 1*2*3: it-: rir^rmrr anr.mr a a^ zz ^^rn'tir in our book 
irx "Hit mnniniZ"- ' liirssi ^:Tii 





Snr:flD^r. Z^tiirr^-r. mi i pn? jtt a: sznilailj dc- 
T'X^ fc±ji«iirsL. vrii iiTi 5*z^c>=rri II nxJSnic of ancicot 
*jrxr,h. ^rscis--^c" J tl^ iz^scTzrorcs :n=iii ir ibc grot Hbrary 
«:•: A«.-mrta:iij;iI it Ninrr-h- isi hivr iscotTcrd therein 
5£' acc^xnr: o: tie r^lgri^r :c tr* wjirLi 53e=ii3cal 211 its most 
i" 'r^nsct :*3t.t-rt< wtir li? iiisr irrjcrrs rn oar own book 

Tsese rjien hir* hif tb* irxi--^^r? tj- rarest oat these facts 
z.'jZ to cotrxci thez: with the tr^iti tin tbesc OuQdeam and 
BibvVjsian n^vths. -^c^tiis^ ii^i tbe^rKS were far earlier 
•r.ia those 0: the Hebrews^ whirii 50 stnkinglT resemble 
•h^rtn. and which we hsve in our sacred bx^: and thev 
hire also shown us how natural it was that the Jewish 
amounts of the creatf.-^n shz^uld have been obtained at that 
r-^rcivtc peri j^d when the earliest Hebrews were among the 
C'^aldeans. and how the great Hebrew poetic accounts of 
cr-s^ation were drawn either fiv>m the sacred traditions of 
tr.-^rv; earlier r«^D:?!es or from antecedent sources common to 
various ancient nations. 

In a summary which for profound thought and fearless 
'v,\*:znxy does honour not onlv to himself but to the great 
jxr^ition which he holds, the Rev. Dn Driver, Professor of 
H'rorcw and Canon of Christ Church at Oxford, has recently 
^tated the case fully and fairly. Having pointed out the 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 21 

fact that the Hebrews were one people out of many who 
thought upon the origin of the universe, he says that they 
" framed theories to account for the beginnings of the earth 
and man " ; that " they either did this for themselves or bor- 
rowed those of their neighbours " ; that " of the theories 
current in Assyria and Phoenicia fragments have been pre- 
served, and these exhibit points of resemblance with the 
biblical narrative sufficient to warrant the inference that 
both are derived from the same cycle of tradition." 

After giving some extracts from the Chaldean creation 
tablets he says : " In the light of these facts it is difficult to 
resist the conclusion that the biblical narrative is drawn 
from the same source as these other records. The biblical 
historians, it is plain, derived their materials from the best 
human sources available. . . . The materials which with 
other nations were combined into the crudest physical theo- 
ries or associated with a grotesque polytheism were vivified 
and transformed by the inspired genius of the Hebrew his- 
torians, and adapted to become the vehicle of profound 
religious truth." 

Not less honourable to the sister university and to him- 
self is the statement recently made by the Rev. Dr. Ryle, 
Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. He says that 
to suppose that a Christian " must either renounce his con- 
fidence in the achievements of scientific research or abandon 
his faith in Scripture is a monstrous perversion of Christian 
freedom." He declares : " The old position is • no longer 
tenable ; a new position has to be taken up at once, prayer- 
fully chosen, and hopefully held." He then goes on to 
compare the Hebrew story of creation with the earlier 
stories developed among kindred peoples, and especially 
with the pre-existing Assyro-Babylonian cosmogony, and 
shows that they are from the same source. He points out 
that any attempt to explain particular features of the story 
into harmony with the modern scientific ideas necessitates 
" a non-natural " interpretation ; but he says that, if we adopt 
a natural interpretation, " we shall consider that the Hebrew 
description of the visible universe is unscientific as judged 
by modem standards, and that it shares the limitations of 
the imperfect knowledge of the age at which it was com- 



22 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

mitted to writing." Regarding the account in Genesis of 
man's physical origin, he says that it " is expressed in the 
simple terms of prehistoric legend, of unscientific pictorial 
description." 

In these statements and in a multitude of others made by 
eminent Christian investigators in other countries is indi- 
cated what the victory is which has now been fully won 
over the older theology. 

Thus, from the Assyrian researches as well as from other 
sources, it has come to be acknowledged by the most emi- 
nent scholars at the leading seats of Christian learning that 
the accounts of creation with which for nearly two thousand 
years all scientific discoveries have had to be " reconciled " 
\ — the accounts which blocked the way of Copernicus, and 
! Galileo, and Newton, and Laplace — were simply transcribed 
or evolved from a mass of myths and legends largely derived 
by the Hebrews from their ancient relations with Chaldea, 
rewrought in a monotheistic sense, imperfectly welded to- 
gether, and then thrown into poetic forms in the sacred 
books which we have inherited. 

On one hand, then, we have the various groups of men 
devoted to the physical sciences all converging toward the 
proofs that the universe, as we at present know it, is the 
result of an evolutionary process — that is, of the gradual 
working of physical laws upon an early condition of matter ; 
on the other hand, we have other great groups of men 
devoted to historical, philological, and archaeological science 
whose researches all converge toward the conclusion that 
our sacred accounts of creation were the result of an evolu- 
tion from an early chaos of rude opinion. 

The great body of theologians who have so long resisted 
the conclusions of the men of science have claimed to be 
fighting especially for " the truth of Scripture," and their 
final answer to the simple conclusions of science regarding 
the evolution of the material universe has been the cry, 
" The Bible is true." And they are right — though in a sense 
nobler than they have dreamed. Science, while conquering 
them, has found in our Scriptures a far nobler truth than 
that literal historical exactness for which theologians have 
so long and so vainly coatended. More and more as we 



THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 



23 



consider the results of the long struggle in this field we are 
brought to the conclusion that the inestimable value of the 
great sacred books of the world is found in their revelation 
of the steady striving of our race after higher conceptions, 
beliefs, and aspirations, both in morals and religion. Un- 
folding and exhibiting this long-continued effort, each of the 
great sacred books of the world is precious, and all, in the 
highest sense, are true. Not one of them, indeed, conforms 
to the measure of what mankind has now reached in his- 
torical and scientific truth ; to make a claim to such con- 
formity is folly, for it simply exposes those who make it 
and the books for which it is made to loss of their just in- 
fluence. 

That to which the great sacred books of the world con- 
form, and our own most of all, is the evolution of the high- 
est conceptions, beliefs, and aspirations of our race from its 
childhood through the great turning-points in its history. 
Herein lies the truth of all bibles, and especially of our own. 
Of vast value they indeed often are as a record of historical 
outward fact ; recent researches in the East are constantly 
increasing this value ; but it is not for this that we prize 
them most : they are eminently precious, not as a record of 
outward fact, but as a mirror of the evolving heart, mind, 
and soul of man. They are true because they have been 
developed in accordance with the laws governing the evolu- 
tion of truth in human history, and because in poem, chroni- 
cle, code, legend, myth, apologue, or parable they reflect this 
development of what is best in the onward march of human- 
ity. To say that they are not true is as if one should say 
that a flower or a tree or a planet is not true ; to scoff at 
them is to scoff at the law of the universe. In welding to- 
gether into noble form, whether in the book of Genesis, 
or in the Psalms, or in the book of Job, or elsewhere, the 
great conceptions of men acting under earlier inspiration, 
whether in Egypt, or Chaldea, or India, or Persia, the 
compilers of our sacred books have given to humanity a 
possession ever becoming more and more precious ; and 
modem science, in substituting a new heaven and a new 
earth for the old — the reign of law for the reign of ca- 
price, and the idea of evolution for that of creation — has 



24 VKOM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

a/Jdcd aiul is steadily adding a new revelation divinely in- 
fe|4red. 

In thr light of these two evolutions, then— one of the 
visible universe, the other of a sacred creation-legend— sci- 
ence and theology, if the master minds in both are wise, 
may at hist he rea)nciled. A great step in this reconciliation 
was recently seen at the main centre of theological thought 
among Knglish-speaking people, when, in the collection of 
essays entitled Inx Mnndi, emanating from the college estab- 
hshed in these huter days as a fortress of orthodoxy at Ox- 
ford, the legendary character of the creation accounts in our 
sacred books was acknowledged, and when the Archbishop 
of Canterbury asked, " May not the Holy Spirit at times 
have made use of myth and legend ? " * 

II. THEOLOtilCAL TEACHINGS REGARDING THE ANIMALS 

AND MAN. 

In one of the windows of the cathedral at Ulm a mediae- 
val glass-stainer has represented the Almighty as busily en- 
gaged in creating the animals, and there has just left the 
divine hands an elephant fully accoutred, with armour, har- 
ness, and housing^s, ready for war. Similar representations 
appear in illuminated manuscripts and even in early printed 
books, and, as the culmination of the whole, the Almighty 
is shown as fashioning the first man from a hillock of clay 
and extracting from his side, with evident effort, the first 
woman. 

This view of the general process of creation had come 
from far, appearing under varying forms in various ancient 
cosmogonies. In the Egyptian temples at Philae and Den- 



* For the first citations above made, see The Coswtcgomy 0/ Gtnesit^ by the 
Rev. S. R. Driver, D. D., Canon of Christ Church and R^os Professor of He- 
brew at Oxford, in Tke Expositor for January, 18S6 ; for the second series of cita- 
tions, tee Th£ Early Narrativts of Genesis, by Herbert Edward Ryle, Hulseaa 
Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, London, 1892. For evidence that even the 
stifTest of Scotch Presbyterians have now come to discard the old literal biblical 
narrative of creation and to regard the declaration of the Westminster Confession 
thereon as a " disproved theory of creation," see Principal John Tolloch, in Gnt- 
Umforary Review, March, 1877, on Religious Thought in &^//4tuu/— especially 
page 55a 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



25 



derah may still be seen representations of the Nile gods 
modelling lumps of clay into men, and a similar work is 
ascribed in the Assyrian tablets to the gods of Baby- 
lonia. Passing into our own sacred books, these ideas be- 
came the starting point of a vast new development of the- 
ology.* 

The fathers of the Church generally received each of the 
two conflicting creation legends in Genesis literally, and 
then, having done their best to reconcile them with each 
other and to mould them together, made them the final test 
of thought upon the universe and all things therein. At the 
beginning of the fourth century Lactantius struck the key- 
note of this mode of subordinating all other things in the 
study of creation to the literal text of Scripture, and he en- 
forces his view of the creation of man by a bit of philology, 
saying the final being created " is called man because he is 
made from the ground — hoftio ex htimoy 

In the second half of the same century this view as to 
the literal acceptance of the sacred text was reasserted by 
St Ambrose, who, in his work on the creation, declared that 
" Moses opened his mouth and poured forth what God had 
said to him." But a greater than either of them fastened 
this idea into the Christian theologies. St. Augustine, pre- 
paring his Commentary on t/te Book of Genesis, laid down in 
one famous sentence the law which has lasted in the Church 
until our own time : •* Nothing is to be accepted save on the 
authority of Scripture, since greater is that authority than 
all the powers of the human mind." The vigour of the sen- 
tence in its original Latin carried it ringing down the cen- 
turies: *' Major est Scriptures auctoritas quam omnis humani 
ingenii capacitas.** 

Through the mediaeval period, in spite of a revolt led 
by no other than St. Augustine himself, and followed by a 



^ For representations of Egyptian gods creating men oat of lumps of clay, see 
Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of History, p. 156 ; for the Chaldean legends of 
the creation of men and animals, see ibid., p. 543 ; also Geoi%e Smith, ChaltUan 
Aeamni of Genesis, Sayce's edition, pp. 36, 7a, and 93 ; also for similar legends in 
other ancient nations, Lenormant, Origines de Fffistoire, pp. ijetse^.; formedise- 
Til representations of the creation of man and woman, see Didron, Iconographie, 
pp. 35. 178, a24« 537. 



26 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTIOX 



scries of influential churchmen, contending, as we shall here- 
after see, for a modification of the accepted riew of creation, 
this phrase held the minds of men firmly. The great Do- 
minican encyclopaedist, Vincent of BeauTais, in his Mirror 
of Nature^ while mixing ideas brought from Aristotle with a 
theory drawn from the Bible, stood firmly by the first of the 
accounts given in Genesis, and assigned the special virtue of 
the number six as a reason why all things were created in 
six days ; and in the later Middle Ages that eminent author- 
ity. Cardinal d'Ailly, accepted everything regarding crea- 
tion in the sacred books literally. Only a faint dissent is 
seen in Gr^ory Reisch, another authority of this later pe- 
riod, whOy while giving, in his book on the banning of 
things, a full4eng^h woodcut showing the Almighty in the 
act of extracting Eve from Adam*s side, vrith all the rest of 
new-formed Nature in the background, leans in his writings, 
like SL Augustine, toward a belief in the pre-existence of 
matter. 

At the Reformation the vast authority of Luther was 
thrown in favour of the literal acceptance of Scripture as 
the main source of natural science. The allegorical and mys- 
tical fkiterpretations of earlier theologians he utterly rejected. 
**Wliy/'he asks, "should Moses use allegory when he is 
not 8p>eaking of allegorical creatures or of an allegorical 
world, but of real creatures and of a visible world, which 
can be seen, felt, and grasped ? Moses calls things by their 
right names, as we ought to do. ... I hold that the animals 
took their being at once upon the word of God, as did also 
the fishes in the sea." 

Not less explicit in his adherence to the literal account 
of creation given in Genesis was Calvin. He warns those 
who, by taking another view than his own, " basely insult 
the Creator, to expect a judge who will annihilate them." 
He insists that all species of animals were created in six 
days, each made up of an evening and a morning, and that 
no new species has ever appeared since. He dwells on the 
production of birds from the water as resting upon certain 
warrant of Scripture, but adds, " If the question is to be 
argued on physical grounds, we know that water is more 
akin to air than the earth is." As to difficulties in the scrip- 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



27 



tural account of creation, he tells us that God " wished by 
these to give proofs of his power which should fill us with 
astonishment." 

The controlling minds in the Roman Church steadfastly 
held this view. In the seventeenth century Bossuet threw 
his vast authority in its favour, and in his Discourse on Uni- 
versal History^ which has remained the foundation not only 
of theological but of general historical teaching in France 
down to the present republic, we find him calling atten- 
tion to what he regards as the culminating act of creation, 
and asserting that, literally, for the creation of man earth 
was used, and "the finger of God applied to corruptible 
matter." 

The Protestant world held this idea no less persistently. 
In the seventeenth century Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chan- 
cellor of the University of Cambridge, the great rabbinical 
scholar of his time, attempted to reconcile the two main leg- 
ends in Genesis by saying that of the " clean sort of beasts 
there were seven of every kind created, three couples for 
breeding and the odd one for Adam's sacrifice on his fall, 
which God foresaw " ; and that of unclean beasts only one 
couple was created. 

So literal was this whole conception of the work of crea- 
tion that in these days it can scarcely be imagined. The 
Almighty was represented in theological literature, in the 
pictured Bibles, and in works of art generally, as a sort of 
enlarged and venerable Nuremberg toymaker. At times 
the accounts in Genesis were illustrated with even more 
literal exactness ; thus, in connection with a well-known pas- 
sage in the sacred text, the Creator was shown as a tailor, 
seated, needle in hand, diligently sewing together skins of 
beasts into coats for Adam and Eve. Such representations 
presented no difficulties to the docile minds of the Middle 
Ages and the Reformation period ; and in the same spirit, 
when the discovery of fossils began to provoke thought, 
these were declared to be " models of his works approved 
or rejected by the great Artificer," " outlines of future cre- 
ations," " sports of Nature," or " objects placed in the strata 
to bring to naught human curiosity " ; and this kind of ex- 
planation lingered on until in our own time an eminent natu- 



/^ FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTIOX. 

^^\y^^, iff hU anxiety to save the literal account in Genesis, 
A f 4 nf^t*t\ flint Jehovah tilted and twisted the strata, scat- 
>)A/>/| Ofi' fo^t^lU throij^^h them, scratched the glacial furrows 
■ry/h Dtf'iu, tiprriid over them the marks of erosion by water, 
^^,4 %*l Nhi^ar II pouriiif; — all in an instant — thus mystifying 
h^/^ ^t,fit\ *'inr Home inscrutable purpose, but for his own 

l^tt^ iM'Hl Important development of theological reason- 
f^^i/. tii^fi nn^itil to the liivisions of the animal kingdom. 

iV*^fMMilly, onn of the first divisions which struck the in- 
*yUt\hii Milhd WHu that between useful and noxious creatures, 
'^hf\ M^^ *)iM«illon therefore occurred, How could a good 
h^'\ ^M>'lf^ fl^iHn and serpents, thorns and thistles? The 
^ff.itt.i WMD lound In theolof^ical considerations upon sin. 
hi ht'Ui'^ llfM (lUoliedirnce all woes were due. Great men 
h/^ h\i4Ulhhii IommIkmI years developed the theory that before 
Kt\'iih'^ HUolii illrnc'O there was no death, and therefore nei- 
hth^ \hiHr]\i hoi venom. 

^ihiiih lyplf ril nlli'ianees in the evolution of this doctrine 
f//- <i^//Mhv m( i( pah»»lnK[ kI^^"^'<^* St. Augustine expressly 
f 'othntO'ti •Mill I inphahl/eil the view that the vegetable as 
/r>.M •«'• llf^ MMliihd UiiKdom was cursed on account of man's 
-hf I ^n IiiimiImmI years later this utterance had been 
f^thhhti oM hoMi Ifilhoi to lather of the Church until it was 
A*^/^^l/f lyy Mfih'i IumUu tared that before man's fall animals 
W4.^;. i^»«MMlii»i», liMl Nvrie nuiiie poisonous or hurtful by 
hiUht i» ^)M, •«iMt ln> tiald, ** Thus tierce and poisonous animals 
w/L^i. ^^«.,||».»| |ni H:m living man (because God foresaw that 



♦ ^'iit Hm- »IUM'<m Imuu I MiUiUiuii, ioe /Vmh, /«uAV., lib. ii, cap. xi, in Migne, 
i'/ii»c v|, |/j/ 4n, 04, txi h|. Av»^\utimJ*>i jjivat yhnst, stt the De Gems, tki Uf(., 
li, t . hi ^i \ni\,\uut:, bWM lilt, i, CAji. ii ; for Viwctnt of Beauvais, see the S/ecu- 
inm A'.i//«/./A. Iiti I, w*t|i II, Aiui lili. it, CA)v. xv and xxx; also Bourgeat, ^An^j xirr 
iiiu.Ht U^ Ji*iH4*m*, I'mu, 1H50, c)i|tci i«Uly cha)vi« vii, xii« and xvi; for Cardinal 
J'Atily, .^Lu iliu y//4.^v«' Uu**M, M\\\ Uw Hci!ich» «<m> the various editions of the iVar- 
.i,.^//A* y'4*/.'i.'/iiM# , |v4i I ulUcv'* bUlcuwwK jiw Luther's ScAri/ten^ edi VValch, 
ll.illi:, r;^u, i\'m»4tutu'V s'u it\ui\xis^ vsU. i ; for Calviu^s view of the creation of the 
.uiiitiula, ttiiUiiliug (he iuuuuubility vif k^^evic^s »ee the C^mm, im Gen,, tome i of 
lua (>/.>»! i'mtthtt Am*!., 1671, caj^. i. v, \x, \v $» also cap, ii, t» ii, p. 8, and else- 
vvliLic , |i)i liiikkuui, hcv )u» />4ivv«/-.f jkM^- /V/iV^'nr itKityrj^iZr (in his C£afvnrj, tome 
V, raii:>, 1846) i Ua ligUtfuot, ^cc hi* wvuk&, inUtiHl by litn\an, London, 1822 ; for 
litiic, bcc iliu ^A-.u^Mv/i'M, Ub. i. iu Migue, Uvme xvt> (v 81 ; for Mr. Gosse*s mod- 
ern ilclcucc ol i\\c literal view, sei$ hU Om/A^iA^^ London. i$$y^/iassim. 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



29 



he would sin), in order that he might be made aware of the 
final punishment of hell." 

In the twelfth century this view was incorporated by 
Peter Lombard into his great theological work, the Sentences^ 
which became a text-book of theology through the middle 
ages. He affirmed that " no created things would have been 
hurtful to man had he not sinned ; they became hurtful for 
the sake of terrifying and punishing vice or of proving and 
perfecting virtue ; they were created harmless, and on ac- 
count of sin became hurtful." 

This theological theory regarding animals was brought 
out in the eighteenth century with great force by John Wes- 
ley. He declared that before Adam's sin " none of these 
attempted to devour or in any wise hurt one another " ; " the 
spider was as harmless as the fly, and did not lie in wait 
for blood." Not only Wesley, but the eminent Dr. Adam 
Clarke and Dr. Richard Watson, whose ideas had the very 
greatest weight among the English Dissenters, and even 
among leading thinkers in the Established Church, held 
firmly to this theory ; so that not until, in our own time, 
geology revealed the remains of vast multitudes of carnivor- 
ous creatures, many of them with half-digested remains of 
other animals in their stomachs, all extinct long ages before 
the appearance of man upon earth, was a victory won by 
science over theology in this field. 

A curious development of this doctrine was seen in the 
belief drawn by sundry old commentators from the con- 
demnation of the serpent in Genesis — a belief, indeed, per- 
fectly natural, since it was evidently that of the original 
writers of the account preserved in the first of our sacred 
books. This belief was that> until the tempting serpent was 
cursed by the Almighty, all serpents stood erect, walked, 
and talked. 

This belief was handed down the ages as part of " the 
sacred deposit of the faith " until Watson, the most prolific 
writer of the evangelical reform in the eighteenth century 
and the standard theologian of the evangelical party, de- 
clared : " We have no reason at all to believe that the animal 
had a serpentine form in any mode or degree until its trans- 
formation ; that he was then degraded to a reptile to go 



30 



FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 



upon his belly imports, on the contrary, an entire loss and 
alteration of the original form." Here, again, was a ripe 
result of the theologic method diligently pursued by the 
strongest thinkers in the Church during nearly two thou- 
sand years; but this "sacred deposit" also faded away 
when the geologists found abundant remains of fossil ser- 
pents dating from periods long before the appearance of man. 

Troublesome questions also arose among theologians re- 
garding animals classed as "superfluous." St Augustine 
was especially exercised thereby. He says : " I confess I 
am ignorant why mice and frogs were created, or flies and 
worms. . . . All creatures are either useful, hurtful, or su- 
pcrfluous to us. . . . As for the hurtful creatures, we are 
either punished, or disciplined, or terrified by them, so that 
we may not cherish and love this life."^ As to the " superflu- 
ous animals," he says, •' Although they are not necessary for 
our service, yet the whole design of the universe is thereby 
completed and finished." Luther, who followed St. Augus- 
tine in so many other matters, declined to follow him fully in 
this. To him a fly was not merely superfluous, it was nox- 
ious — sent by the devil to vex him when reading. 

Another subject which gave rise to much searching of 
Scripture and long trains of theological reasoning was the 
difference between the creation of man and that of other 
living beings. 

Great stress was laid by theologians, from St. Basil and 
St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas and Bossuet, and from 
Luther to Wesley, on the radical distinction indicated in 
Genesis, God having created man "in his own image." 
What this statement meant was seen in the light of the later 
biblical statement that " Adam begat Seth in his own like- 
ness, after his image." 

In view of this and of well-known texts incorporated 
from older creation legends into the Hebrew sacred books 
it came to be widely held that, while man was directly 
moulded and fashioned separately by the Creator's hand, the 
animals generally were evoked in numbers from the earth 
and sea by the Creator's voice. 

A question now arose naturally as to the distinctions of 
species among animals. The vast majority of theologians 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



31 



agreed in representing all animals as created " in the begin- 
ning," and named by Adam, preserved in the ark, and con- 
tinued ever afterward under exactly the same species. This 
belief ripened into a dogma. Like so many other dogmas 
in the Church, Catholic and Protestant, its real origins are 
to be found rather in pagan philosophy than in the Chris- 
tian Scriptures ; it came far more from Plato and Aristotle 
than from Moses and St. Paul. But this was not considered : 
more and more it became necessary to believe that each and 
every difference of species was impressed by the Creator 
" in the beginning," and that no change had taken place or 
could have taken place since. 

Some difficulties arose here and there as zoOlogy pro- 
gressed and revealed ever-increasing numbers of species ; 
but through the Middle Ages, and indeed long after the 
Reformation, these difficulties were easily surmounted by 
making the ark of Noah larger and larger, and especially 
by holding that there had been a human error in regard to 
its measurement.* 

But naturally there was developed among both ecclesias- 
tics and laymen a human desire to go beyond these special 
points in the history of animated beings — a desire to know 
what the creation really is. 

Current legends, stories, and travellers* observatipns, 
poor as they were, tended powerfully to stimulate curiosity 
in this field. 

Three centuries before the Christian era Aristotle had 
made the first really great attempt to satisfy this curiosity, 
and had beg^n a development of studies in natural history 
which remains one of the leading achievements in the story 
of our race. 

* For St Augustine, see De Genesi and De Trinitate^ passim ; for Bede, see 
Hexttmeron^ lib. i, in Migne, tome xci, pp. 21, 36-38, 42 ; and De Sex Dierum 
Creatwne, in Migne, tome xciii, p. 215 ; for Peter Lombard on "riOxious animals/' 
see his Sententia, lib. ii, dist. xv, 3, Migne, tome cxcii, p. 68a ; for Wesley, Clarke, 
and Watson, see quotations from them and notes thereto in my chapter on Geology ; 
for St Augustine on " superfluous animals," see the De Genesi, lib. i, cap. xvi, 26 ; 
on Luther^s riew of flies, see the TabU Talk and his famous utterance, " Odio 
museas quia sunt imagines di^^U et hiBreticorum " ; for the agency of Aristotle 
and Plato in fastening the belief in the fixity of species into Christian theology, see 
Sachs, Gesckiehte der Botanik^ Mdnchen, 1875, p. 107 and note, also p. 113. 



3^ 



FROM CREATIOX TO EVOLUTION*. 



Bot the feeling^ which we hare alreadj seen so strong in 
the carlv Church — that all studr of Nature was futile in 
Tiew of the approaching end of the world — vindicated so 
ciearlj in the New Testament and voiced so powerfully bv 
Lactantios and St. Augustine — held bade this current of 
thought for manv centuries. Still, the better tendency in 
humanity continued to assert itselL There was, indeed, an 
influence coming from the Hebrew Scriptures themselves 
which wrought powerfully to this end ; for, in spite of all 
that Lactantius or St. Augustine might say as to the futility 
of any study of Nature, the grand utterances in the Psalms 
regarding the beauties and wonders of creation, in all the 
glow of the truest poetry, ennobled the study even among 
those whom logic drew away from iL 

But, as a matter of course, in the early Church and 
throughout the Middle Ages all such studies were cast in a 
theologic mould. Without some purpose of biblical illustra- 
tion or spiritual edification they were considered futile ; too 
much prying into the secrets of Nature was very generally 
held to be dangerous both to body and soul ; only for show- 
ing forth God's glory and his purposes in the creation were 
such studies praiseworthy. The great work of Aristotle 
was under eclipse. The early Christian thinkers gave little 
attention to it, and that little was devoted to transforming it 
into something absolutely op(>osed to his whole spirit and 
method ; in place of it they developed the Physiologus and 
the Bestiaries^ mingling scriptural statements, legends of the 
saints, and fanciful inventions with pious intent and childlike 
simplicity. In place of research came authority — the au- 
thority of the Scriptures as interpreted by the Physiologus 
and the Bestiaries — and these remained the principal source 
of thought on animated Nature for over a thousand years. 

Occasionally, indeed, fear was shown among the rulers 
in the Church, even at such poor prying into the creation as 
this, and in the fifth century a synod under Pope Gelasius 
administered a rebuke to the Physiologus ; but the interest in 
Nature was too strong : the great work on Creation by St 
Basil had drawn from the Physiologus precious illustrations 
of Holy Writ, and the strongest of the early popes, Gregory 
the Great, virtually sanctioned it. 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



33 



Thus was developed a sacred science of creation and of 
the divine purpose in Nature, which went on developing 
from the fourth century to the nineteenth — from St. Basil to 
St. Isidore of Seville, from Isidore to Vincent of Beauvais, 
and from Vincent to Archdeacon Paley and the Bridgewater 
Treatises. 

Like all else in the Middle Ages, this sacred science was 
developed purely by theological methods. Neglecting the 
wonders which the dissection of the commonest animals 
would have afforded them, these naturalists attempted to 
throw light into Nature by ingenious use of scriptural texts, 
by research among the lives of the saints, and by the plenti- 
ful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong 
men as St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the 
unicorn and dragons mentioned in the Scriptures and of the 
phcenix and basilisk in profane writings. Hence such con- 
tributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills serpents by 
his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when pur- 
sued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the peli- 
can nourishes her young with her own blood, that serpents 
lay aside their venom before drinking, that the salamander 
quenches fire, that the hyena can talk with shepherds, that 
certain birds are born of the fruit of a certain tree when it 
happens to fall into the water, with other masses of science 
equally valuable. 

As to the method of bringing science to bear on Scrip- 
ture, the Physiologus gives an example, illustrating the pas- 
sage in the book of Job which speaks of the old lion perish- 
ing for lack of prey. Out of the attempt to explain an un- 
usual Hebrew word in the text there came a curious devel- 
opment of error, until we find fully evolved an account of 
the "ant-lion," which, it gives us to understand, was the lion 
mentioned by Job, and it says : " As to the ant-lion, his father 
hath the shape of a lion, his mother that of an ant ; the father 
liveth upon flesh and the mother upon herbs ; these bring 
forth the ant-lion, a compound of both and in part like to 
either ; for his fore part is like that of a lion and his hind 
part like that of an ant. Being thus composed, he is neither 
able to eat flesh like his father nor herbs like his mother, 
and so he perisheth." 

4 



/iOX CIZATIOX TO EVOLUnOX. 



,-. —.it rr.-.-ijc o: tr.c trirtecnt:! century we aaTC a tn- 
i—^-. '.: :r.U tr.eclv^lcal =:*t::>i in the great work of the 
r^' i; -'i- rntrxi^an B^rthol vtnew oq Ti£ Prz^ertZLS cf Tizjtgs. 
7 'Jt \'.^.'y.'/st.rjsL TT-^rj-jd &5 applied to science cocsiscs largclv 
--. s-V-i^*:r.^ tra/i:ti'-/n and in spinning argnments to fit it 
Ir. •'.i'l •^.d Bartholomew was a master. Having^ begun 
rlv. tr.e :r/,er.t mainlj to explain the allnsiocs in Scripture 
Vy r^* -ral o'o'ects. he soon rises loeicallT into a surrev of 
i.. N'itur*. Discussing the -cockatrice" of Scripture, he 
rf:.'.\ '.'", : •* He drieth and bumeth leares with his touch, and 
r.^ is of so gT'eat renom and perilous that he slajeth and 
«^i»tetp. him that nigheth him without tarrying : and yet the 
'Kt^^^\ overcoraetfa him, lor the biting of the weasel is death 
ro th* cockatrice. Nevertheless the biting of the cockatrice 
:• d'iath to the weasel if the weasel eat not rue before- And 
tr.o'i$fh the cockatrice be venomous without remedy while 
i.t is aiive, vet he looseth all the malice when he is burnt to 
ash<^^. His ashes be accounted profitable in working of 
axhemy, and namely in turning and changing of metals." 

Bartholomew also enlightens us on the animals of Egypt, 
TirA says, *• If the crocodile findeth a man by the water's 
orirn he siayeth him, and then he weepeth over him and 
sv«raIIo-*'Cth him." 

Naturally this good Franciscan naturalist devotes much 
thought to the *• dragons" mentioned in Scripture. He 
tays: " The dragon is most greatest of all serpents, and oft 
he is drawn out of his den and riseth up into the air, and 
the air is moved by him, and also the sea swelleth against 
his venom, and he hath a crest, and reareth his tongue, and 
hath teeth like a saw, and hath strength, and not only in 
teeth but in tail, and grieveth with biting and with stinging. 
Whom he findeth he slaveth. Oft four or five of them 
fasten their tails together and rear up their heads, and sail 
over the sea to get good meat. Between elephants and 
dragons is everlasting fighting; for the dragon with his tail 
spanncth the elephant, and the elephant with his nose 
throwcth down the dragon. . . . The cause why the dragon 
desireth his blood is the coldness thereof, by the which the 
dragon dcsireth to cool himself. Jerome saith that the 
dragon is a full thirsty beast, insomuch that he openeth his 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



35 



mouth against the wind to quench the burning of his thirst 
in that wise. Therefore, when he seeth ships in great wind 
he flieth against the sail to take the cold wind, and over- 
throweth the ship." 

These ideas of Friar Bartholomew spread far and struck 
deep into the popular mind. His book was translated into the 
principal languages of Europe, and was one of those most 
generally read during the Ages of Faith. It maintained its 
position nearly three hundred years ; even after the inven- 
tion of printing it held its own, and in the fifteenth century 
there were issued no less than ten editions of it in Latin, 
four in French, and various versions of it in Dutch, Spanish, 
and English. Preachers found it especially useful in illus- 
trating the ways of God to man. It was only when the great 
voyages of discovery substituted ascertained fact for the- 
ological reasoning in this province that its authority was 
broken. 

The same sort of science flourished in the Bestiaries^ 
which were used everywhere, and especially in the pulpits, 
for the edification of the faithful. In all of these, as in that 
compiled early in the thirteenth century by an ecclesiastic, 
William of Normandy, we have this lesson, borrowed from 
the Physiologus: "The lioness giveth birth to cubfe which 
remain three days without life. Then cometh the lion, 
breatheth upon them, and bringeth them to life. . . . Thus 
it is that Jesus Christ during three days was deprived of 
life, but God the Father raised him gloriously." 

Pious use was constantly made of this science, especially 
by monkish preachers. The phoenix rising from his ashes 
proves the doctrine of the resurrection ; the structure and 
mischief of monkeys proves the existence of demons; the 
fact that certain monkeys have no tails proves that Satan 
has been shorn of his glory ; the weasel, which ** constantly 
changes its place, is a type of the man estranged from the 
word of God, who findeth no rest." 

The moral treatises of the time often took the form of 
works on natural history, in order the more fully to exploit 
these religious teachings of Nature. Thus from the book 
On Bees, of the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpr6, we learn 
that " wasps persecute bees and make war on them out of 



3^ ThOM CIXATION TO rVOLI'TION. 

natural li^JtrH"; and ihest. he tells us, rypi:y the demons 
who dwell ill t!,t a:r unc viih iirhtninir and tempest assail 
and vfx maukiid— v tifrt'UTi.-m ht nils a long chapter with 
anfcdoifji o: surr. ifnj;i::ir wariare cm mortals. In like 
manner his 3fii.^\v.I».jn:ir:izan. inc inquisitor Nider, in his 
book 7/lr .T/:; i:'.;., tracnt-s us that the ants in Ethiopia, 
which arc- said i:« tiivc- h:»-ns and t:» grow so lar^^e as 
to look like 0..^. ^rt eiL:>Jt'ms o: atrocious heretics, like 
Wvclii and liu Hussitt-s. wn;^ bavk and bite ag-ainst the 
truth : while thf ants- o: India, whirh dig up gold out of the 
sand with their u-t-i :.:id hoard ::. :.hou£-h thev make no use 
oi it. symb.ilire tiie :ri:::less toil w::.h which the heretics dig 
out the goid oi li^.y Scr;p:ure and h:»ard it in their books 
to no purjMjse. 

This pi- 'US spirit n:n ot:!t per>'aded science: it bloomed 
riut in art. and t'Speri:::!v in the cathedrais. In the gargovles 
overhanging the wa'.':?., izi the grotesques clambering about 
the towers or ]»erched upon : irinac ies. in the dragons prowl- 
iijg under arc ii ways or rjrking in bosses of foliage, in the 
afir.calyptic beas:s car\'ed upj^n the stalls of the choir, 
stained int^'j the windows, wrough: into the tapestries, illumi- 
nated in tlie letters arid borders o: psa'ters and missals, these 
marvels oi creaii.-n sv.gge?:cd everywhere morals from the 
Pfivb^iolf.'irus. tr:e Besviarivs. and the Exeiri^la.* 



tiS.^'i'.'ut: ; tiy.- Jt :;■:►«:::.: > vL.Vi^^z. cd iLe St.-rsss'r at Guil^umt at iKprmamdit^ 
'. j-LT. jrfS, !;:•'- si.-.:, r fi..'.v:.l ^.l..kf c:' rAi=i: ii is- 'Jit Lumrm Xoiura ; also 
Jl'^i^f'.", JiitzArt df .J Z.'Tl.ri: : i.u>. R-si'ml.*. J'i::r:ri dt 2a Cs^i'hscaicm Fran- 
< ill it. Jfc.ri>. jV^r. v'.il. :. :>r. "•■^. "'o : =.'>r C::rc:::il I4:n. T^refare lo the Stin*e- 
y.um S\t'.:tryeni». Ftni. irrs./j.'.Tm : als.? C::ru&. Gc^^kizkii de^ Zctnlflcu': and, for 

J^ rLt ^Jiuu-ii-a'-fi Eii.:.'_^cr::it i:; -Jie Li': r^n if Corrjel] Un:versi:T are some very 
f • : K i n J' e I. am • Ics of ;;? '.i! f s ': - 1 f . F it sin:: riMy iV. -sirs: ei arJ cl es on the Besti- 
a rifi , btt C t.L ier ar. d ^' tr : r. . .'.VVj »r rrj y.-? •-.• ht.I.^zic, Piriii, 2?si. 25^2, and x5c6, 
vv!. i: *A ihc firsi serirs. r:.. r'-2"3. ar*d second series, ro.unse on Cwrir-si^/s JUvS' 
t/ruu:ti. y^. i'/i^lC4 ; £l^.i J- K. Aller^, Ez'rly Ch^:tizn S^'mhc'Hs^ in G^eit Brit- 
(tin and Ireland rLoriO'.r.. 3:^7-. lec:i:re ri : for an exhaustive c:sc=Sfr.ion of ihc 
fejv*;';*. 's*:* Ija: Tkierbuch dt: n:mK4iKni:c\cn Di:\U^5 Gui^lav^c U Ti'T, heraus- 
;'*.;••:?/«: fj von Keinisch, Le:p-ic. 2 5 mo: ar.d. for an Italian cxairir"'e. Goldstaub und 
Vi tridrirjcr, ^i« Taco-Venezianiicher Bestiariuj, Halle, iSg2, uheiie is given, on 
\;\,. l^^ry^^- * ^^^7 pi'-^'-is but Ten* comical tradition regarding the beaver, hardly 
j; »:.■.• ivr.t:/]t to tan> po]i'c. For Friar Bartholomew, see ^besides his book itself) 
Afedinal L&re, edited by Kobert Steele, London, 2S93, pp. x 2 5-135. 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



37 



Here and there among men who were free from church 
control we have work of a better sort. In the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries Abd AUatif made observations upon the 
natural history of Egypt which showed a truly scientific 
spirit, and the Emperor Frederick II attempted to promote 
a more fruitful study of Nature ; but one of these men was 
abhorred as a Mussulman and the other as an infidel. Far 
more in accordance with the spirit of the time was the ec- 
clesiastic Giraldus Cambrensis, whose book on the topog- 
raphy of Ireland bestows much attention upon the animals 
of the island, and rarely fails to make each contribute an 
appropriate moral. For example, he says that in Ireland 
** eagles live for so many ages that they seem to contend 
with eternity itself ; so also the saints, having put oflF the 
old man and put on the new, obtain the blessed fruit of ever- 
lasting life." Again, he tells us : " Eagles often fly so high 
that their wings are scorched by the sun ; so those who in 
the Holy Scriptures strive to unravel the deep and hidden 
secrets of the heavenly mysteries, beyond what is allowed, 
fall below, as if the wings of the presumptuous imaginations 
on which they are borne were scorched.** 

In one of the great men of the following century ap- 
peared a gleam of healthful criticism : Albert the Great, in 
his work on the animals, dissents from the widespread belief 
that certain birds spring from trees and are nourished by 
the sap, and also from the theory that some are generated 
in the sea from decaying wood. 

But it required many generations for such scepticism to 
produce much effect, and we find among the illustrations in 
an edition of Mandeville published just before the Reforma- 
tion not only careful accounts but pictured representations 
both of birds and of beasts produced in the fruit of trees.* 

This general employment of natural science for pious 
purposes went on after the Reformation. Luther frequently 
made this use of it, and his example controlled his followers. 

* For Giraldns Cambrensis, see the edition in the Bohn Library, London, 1863, 
p. 30 ; for Abd Allatif and Frederick II, see Hoefer, as above ; for Albertus Mag- 
nos, see the Di AnimaHbuSf lib. xxiii ; for the illustrations in Mandeville, see the 
Strasborg edition, 1484 ; for the history of the myth of the tree which produces 
birds, see Max Mailer's Lectures on the Science of Language^ second series, lect. xii. 



-3 FROM CREATION TO ENOLUTIOX. 

In i6i2, Wolfgang Franz, Professor of Theologj at Luther s 
university, gave to the world his sacred history of animals, 
which went through many editions. It contained a very in- 
genious classification, describing '* natural dragons," which 
have three rows of teeth to each jaw, and he piously adds, 
•• the principal dragon is the Devil." 

Near the end of the same century. Father Kircher, the 
great Jesuit professor at Rome, holds back the sceptical 
current, insists upon the orthodox view, and represents 
among the animals entering the ark sirens and griffins. 

Yet even among theologians we note here and there a 
sceptical spirit in natural science. ^Early in the same seven- 
teenth century Eugfene Roger published his Travels in Palts- 
tine. As regards the utterances of Scripture he is soundly 
orthodox : he prefaces his work with a map showing, among 
other important points referred to in biblical history, the 
place where Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the 
jawbone of an ass, the cavern which Adam and Eve inhab- 
ited after their expulsion from paradise, the spot where 
Balaam's ass spoke, the place where Jacob wrestled with 
the angel, the steep place down which the swine possessed 
of devils plunged into the sea, the position of the salt statue 
which was once Lot's wife, the place at sea where Jonah 
was swallowed by the whale, and " the exact spot where St. 
Peter caught one hundred and fifty-three fishes." — 

As to natural history, he describes and discusses with 
great theological acuteness the basilisk. He tells us that 
the animal is about a foot and a half long, is shaped like a 
crocodile, and kills people with a single glance. The one 
which he saw was dead, fortunately for him, since in the 
time of Pope Leo IV — as he tells us — one appeared in Rome 
and killed many people by merely looking at them ; but the 
Pope destroyed it with his prayers and the sign of the cross. 
He informs us that Providence has wisely and mercifully 
protected man by requiring the monster to cry aloud two or 
three times whenever it leaves its den, and that the divine 
wisdom in creation is also shown by the fact that the mon- 
ster is obliged to look its victim in the eye, and at a certain 
fixed distance, before its glance can penetrate the victim's 
brain and so pass to his heart. He also gives a reason for 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 39 

supposing that the same divine mercy has provided that the 
crowing of a cock will kill the basilisk. 

Yet even in this good and credulous missionary we see 
the influence of Bacon and the dawn of experimental sci- 
ence ; for, having been told many stories regarding the sala- 
mander, he secured one, placed it alive upon the burning 
coals, and reports to us that the legends concerning its 
power to live in the fire are untrue. He also tried experi- 
ments with the chameleon, and found that the stories told 
of it were to be received with much allowance : while, then, 
he locks up his judgment whenever he discusses the letter 
of Scripture, he uses his mind in other things much after 
the modern method. 

In the second half of the same century Hottinger, in his 
Tluological Examination of the History of Creation, breaks 
from the belief in the phoenix ; but his scepticism is care- 
fully kept within the limits imposed by Scripture. He 
avows his doubts, first, " because God created the animals 
in couples, while the phoenix is represented as a single, un- 
mated creature " ; secondly, " because Noah, when he en- 
tered the ark, brought the animals in by sevens, while there 
were never so many individuals of the phoenix species " ; 
thirdly, because " no man is known who dares assert that 
he has ever seen this bird " ; fourthly, because " those who 
assert there is a phoenix differ among themselves." 

In view of these attacks on the salamander and the 
phoenix, we are not surprised to find, before the end of the 
century, scepticism regarding the basilisk: the eminent 
Prof. Kirchmaier, at the University of Wittenberg, treats 
phoenix and basilisk alike as old wives' fables. As to the 
phoenix, he denies its existence, not only because Noah 
took no such bird into the ark, but also because, as he 
pithily remarks, "birds come from eggs, not from ashes.** 
But the unicorn he can not resign, nor will he even con- 
cede that the unicorn is a rhinoceros ; he appeals to Job 
and to Marco Polo to prove that this animal, as usually 
conceived, really exists, and says, " Who would not fear to 
deny the existence of the unicorn, since Holy Scripture 
names him with distinct praises ? *' As to the other great 
animals mentioned in Scripture, he is so rationalistic as 



40 



FROM CKEATIOK TO E^^OLUTIOX. 



to admit that behemoth was an elephant and leviathan a 
whiile. 

But these g-erms of n Iniitfxil scepticism grew, and wc 
soon find Dannhauer groing a step further and dedaiing his 
disbelief even in the unicorn, insisting that it was a Tiiinoce- 
rc»s — only that and nothing marc. Stilly the main current 
continued strongly theological. In 1712 Samuel Bochart 
published his great work upon the animals of Holy Scrip- 
ture. As showing its spirit we may take the titles of the 
chapters on the horse: 

•' Chapter VI. Ol the Hebrew Xame of the Horse." 

"Chapter Vll. Oi the Colours of the Six Horses in 
Zechariah." 

" Chapter VI 11. Oi the Horses in Job.'' 

•'Chapter IX. Oi Solomon's Horses, and of the Texts 
wherein the Writers praise the Excellence of Horses." 

'• Chaf»ter X. Oi the Consecrated Horses of the Sun." 

Among the other titJes oi chapters are such as: Of Ba- 
laam's Ass ; Of the Thousand Philistines slain by Samson 
with the Jawbone of an Ass ; Of the Golden Calves of Aaron 
and Jerc>boam : Of the Bleating, Milk, Wool, External and 
I nternal Parts of Sheep mentioned in Scripture ; Of Nota- 
ble Things told regarding Lions in Scripture: Of Noah's 
Dove and of the Dove which appeared at Christ's Baptism. 
Mixed up in the book, with the principal mass drawn from 
Scripture, were many facts and reasonings taken from inves- 
tigations by naturalists : but all were j>erme;ited by the theo- 
logical spirit.* 

The inquiry into Nature having thus been pursued nearly 
two thousand years theologically, we find by the middle of 
the sixteenth century some promising beginnings of a di£Fer- 
ent method — ^the method of inquiry into Nature scientifically 
— ^the method which seeks not plausibilities but facts. At 



^ F*jr Fnnx asd Kirdier, see Penier. La PWeuyUt Zimli^i^me mmml DarmHM^ 
Pari*, 1^64. p- 29 : for Roger, see bis Z« Tern SetmOr, Fftzis. 1664, pp. 89^2, 139, 
21 €, etc. ; for Hottinger. ^ee his HisU>riat CrtatUmds Ertmrm /4«i&y»«>/4»Wijfi- 
cttm, Heidelberg. 1659, lib. ri, qnaesL Ixxxiii ; for Kiitiuniier, see his Disfutatifiius 
Z&Uc'j^%c^ (published coUectirelT after his death V. JexuL, 1756 ; for Dannhauer, see 
bit Disputatumes Thtohgic^, Lcipsic, 1707, p. 14 ; for Bodiait, see \a& Hiemdhem^ 
stvt De Ammaiihut Saerm Serif turs^ Lejden, 1 712. 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



41 



that time Edward Wotton led the way in England and Con- 
rad Gesner on the Continent, by observations widely ex- 
tended, carefully noted, and thoughtfully classified. 

This better method of interrogating Nature soon led to 
the formation of societies for the same purpose. In 1560 
was founded an Academy for the Study of Nature at Naples^ 
but theologians, becoming alarmed, suppressed it, and for; 
nearly one hundred years there was no new combined effortj 
of that sort, until in 1645 began the meetings in London of 
what was afterward the Royal Society. Then came the 
Academy of Sciences in France, and the Accademia del Ci- 
mento in Italy ; others followed in all parts of the world, 
and a great new movement was begun. 

Theologians soon saw a danger in this movement. In 
Italy, Prince Leopold de* Medici, a protector of the Floren- 
tine Academy, was bribed with a cardinal's hat to neglect 
it, and from the days of Urban VIII to Pius IX a similar 
spirit was there shown. In France, there were frequent 
ecclesiastical interferences, of which Buflfon's humiliation for 
stating a simple scientific truth was a noted example. In 
England, Protestantism was at first hardly more favourable 
toward the Royal Society, and the great Dr. South de- 
nounced it in his sermons as irreligious. 

Fortunately, one thing prevented an open breach be- 
tween theology and science: while new investigators had 
mainly given up the mediaeval method so dear to the Church,! 
they had very generally retained the conception of direct' 
creation and of design throughout creation — a design hav- . 
ing as its main purpose the profit, instruction, enjoyment, 
and amusement of man. 

On this the naturally opposing tendencies of theology 
and science were compromised. Science, while somewhat 
freed from its old limitations, became the handmaid of the- 
ology in illustrating the doctrine of creative design, and al-j 
ways with apparent deference to the Chaldean and other 
ancient myths and legends embodied in the Hebrew sacred 
books. 

About the middle of the seventeenth century came a 
great victory of the scientific over the theologic method. 
At that time Francesco Redi published the results of his 



4^ 



FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 



inqiiirirs into the doctrine of spontaneous generation. For 
i}i^r^ 'i\ widely accepted doctrine had been that water, filth, 
jiid <.iriion had received power from the Creator to gen- 
M.itr \v(ii ins, insects, and a multitude of the smaller animals; 
iinri this (lortrinc had been especially welcomed by St 
AiijMistinr and many of the fathers, since it relieved the Al- 
riii»:htY <»l making, Adam of naming, and Noah of living in 
Ihf iirk with these innumerable despised species. But to 
Mii*9 l<illa<v I\edi put an end. By researches which could 
not )>r t«jiins,iid, he showed that every one of these animals 
< 'tmo fniin an e^^ ; each, therefore, must be the lineal de- 
.,M niliint ol an animal created, named, and preserved from 
" fhr lirr. innin^^** 

Miniliii woik went on in England, but under more dis- 
flniflv thr(ilii>*ii'al limitations. In the same seventeenth 
/Mihiiv M vtiv lannuis and popular English book was pub- 
h-.liMt liv «lir nalnialist John Ray, a fellow of the Royal 
*;hi I« I\ . whii pKulueed a number of works on plants, fishes, 
Mii'l MkI'i . I'ul I he most widely read of all was entitled TAe 
li i,./'nt I'/ tnuf t*htfttftsft'f/ /// //ic Works of Creation. Between 
Mi« pMiM MmjI ami iSj; it passed through nearly twenty 

|«Mv 'Mr.'!* d <!»<* ^;tMHlncss and wisdom of God from the 
'I I-()«i>iIImii III llir animals not only to man's uses but to their 
>i -M ll* ( M 'Hill •MM Mtundin^s. 

Ih (Im )h"l Mai'M»l tlie eighteenth century Dr. Nehemiah 

I ill . f,| ilif. MM\al Soeiety, published his Cosmologia Sacra 

iw M hih •iiid '11 ilphiial opini(ms by producing evidences of 

tn-iS] i ili.lfrti IM'anssing ** the ends of Providence," he 

.\ I (MM . uliii li i** seurvy meat, lays but two eggs in 

h.i f> 'U , hill M iiliiiiMint and partridge, both excellent meat, 

/■/ •ni'\ Irihli lilliiiiMi twenty." He points to the fact that 

J|/', » »,l .iliM wlili li lav lew at a time sit the oftener, as 

M. . -,','l'».i|. immI llirdove." I Ic breaks decidedly from the 

' -'hht^ iIpiI mmhImum things in Nature are caused by sin, 

'•• i", ... Hhil Ihty, too, arc useful; that, " if nettles sting, 

■ ' ' »•/ 1 1 nn MM I «o I'llent medicine for children and cat- 

I ' il.»i If ihi' litamMe hurts man, it makes all the bet- 

'■ • I ..I.,. .Mi'l Ihut, "il it chances to prick the owner, it 

!• ' »)• ihh I " Wrasels, kites, and other hurtful animals 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 43 

induce us to watchfulness ; thistles and moles, to good hus- 
bandry ; lice oblige us to cleanliness in our bodies, spiders 
in our houses, and the moth in our clothes." This very 
optimistic view, triumphing over the theological theory of 
noxious animals and plants as effects of sin, which prevailed 
with so much force from St. Augustine to Wesley, was 
developed into nobler form during the century by various 
thinkers, and especially by Archdeacon Paley, whose Natu- 
ral Theology exercised a powerful influence down to recent 
times. The same tendency appeared in other countries, 
though various philosophers showed weak points in the 
argument, and Goethe made sport of it in a noted verse, 
praising the forethought of the Creator in foreordaining the 
cork tree to furnish stoppers for wine-bottles. 

Shortly before the middle of the nineteenth century the 
main movement culminated in the Bridgewater Treatises. 
Pursuant to the will of the eighth Earl of Bridgewater, the 
President of the Royal Society selected eight persons, each 
to receive a thousand pounds sterling for writing and pub- 
lishing a treatise on the " power, wisdom, and goodness of 
God, as manifested in the creation." Of these, the leading 
essays in regard to animated Nature were those of Thomas 
Chalmers, on The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral 
and Intellectual Condition of Man ; of Sir Charles Bell, on 
The Hand as evincing Design ; of Roget, on Animal and Vege- 
table Physiology with reference to Natural Theology \ and of 
Kirby, on The Habits and Instincts of Animals with reference 
to Natural Theology. 

Besides these there were treatises by Whewell, Buck- 
land, Kidd, and Prout. The work was well done. It was a 
marked advance on all that had appeared before, in matter, 
method, and spirit. Looking back upon it now we can see 
that it was provisional, but that it was none the less fruitful 
in truth, and we may well remember Darwin's remark on 
the stimulating effect of mistaken theories^ as compared with 
the sterilizing effect of mistaken obserifations : mistaken ob- 
servations lead men astray, mistaken theories suggest true 
theories. 

An effort made in so noble a spirit certainly does not 
deserve the ridicule that, in our own day, has sometimes 



44 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

been lavished upon it. Curiously, indeed, one of the most 
contemptuous of these criticisms has been recently made by 
one of the most strenuous defenders of orthodoxy. No less 
eminent a standard-bearer of the faith than the Rev. Prof. 
Zoeckler says of this movement to demonstrate creative 
purpose and design, and of the men who took part in it, 
" The earth appeared in their representation of it like a 
great clothing shop and soup kitchen, and God as a glorified 
rationalistic professor.** Such a statement as this is far from 
just to the conceptions of such men as Butler, Paley, and 
Chalmers, no matter how fully the thinking world has now 
outlived them.* 

But, noble as the work of these men was, the foundation 
of fact on which they reared it became evidently more and 
more insecure. 

For as far back as the seventeenth century acute theolo- 
gians had begun to discern difficulties more serious than any 
that had before confronted them. More and more it was 
seen that the number of diflferent species was far greater 
than the world had hitherto imagined. Greater and greater 
had become the old difficulty in conceiving that, of these in- 
numerable species, each had been specially created by the 
Almighty hand ; that each had been brought before Adam 
by the Almighty to be named ; and that each, in couples or in 
sevens, had been gathered by Noah into the ark. But the 
difficulties thus suggested were as nothing compared tc 
those raised by the distribution of animals. 

Even in the first days of the Church this had aroused 
serious thought, and above all in the great mind of St. 



* For a very valuable and interesting study on the old idea of the generation of 
insects from carrion, see Osten-Sacken, On the Oxen-bom Bees of the Ancients, 
Heidelberg, 1894 ; for Ray, see the work cited, London, 1827, p. 153 ; for Grew, 
see Cosmologia Sacra^ or a Discourse on the Universe, as it is the Creature and 
Kingdom of God ; chiefly written to demonstrate the Truth and Excellency of the 
Bible, by Dr. Nehemi«'ih Grew, Fellow of the College of Physicians and of the 
Royal Society, London, 1701 ; for Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises, see the 
usual editions ; also Lange, History of Rationcdism. Goethe's couplet ran as fol- 
lows: 

** Welche Verehrung verdient der WeltenerschQpfer, der Gnadig, 
Als er den Korkbaum erschuf, gleich auch die Stopfel erfand." 

For the quotation from Zoeckler, see his work already cited, vol. ii, pp. 74, 440. 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 45 

Augustine. In his City of God he had stated the difficulty 
as follows : " But there is a question about all these kinds of 
beasts, which are neither tamed by man, nor spring from 
the earth like frogs, such as wolves and others of that sort, 
... as to how they could find their way to the islands after 
that flood which destroyed every living thing not preserved 
in the ark. . . . Some, indeed, might be thought to reach 
islands by swimming, in case these were very near; but 
some islands are so remote from continental lands that it 
does not seem possible that any creature could reach them 
by swimming. It is not an incredible thing, either, that 
some animals may have been captured by men and taken 
with them to those lands which they intended to inhabit, in 
order that they might have the pleasure of hunting ; and it 
can not be denied that the transfer may have been accom- 
plished through the agency of angels, commanded or allowed 
to perform this labour by God.** 

But this difficulty had now assumed a magnitude of 
which St. Augustine never dreamed. Most powerful of all 
agencies to increase it were the voyages of Columbus, Vasco 
da Gama, Magellan, Amerigo Vespucci, and other navigators 
of the period of discovery. Still more serious did it become 
as the great islands of the southern seas were explored. 
Every navigator brought home tidings of new species of ani- 
mals and of races of men living in parts of the world where 
the theologians, relying on the statement of St. Paul that 
the gospel had gone into all lands, had for ages declared 
there could be none ; until finally it overtaxed even the the- 
ological imagination to conceive of angels, in obedience to 
the divine command, distributing the various animals over 
the earth, dropping the megatherium in South America, the 
archeopteryx in Europe, the ornithorhynchus in Australia, 
and the opossum in North America. 

The first striking evidence of this new difficulty was 
shown by the eminent Jesuit missionary, Joseph Acosta. 
In his Natural and Moral History of the Indies^ published in 
1590, he proved himself honest and lucid. Though entangled 
in most of the older scriptural views, he broke away from 
many; but the distribution of animals gave him great 
trouble. Having shown the futility of St. Augustine's other 



4^) KROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

i:xplanutit>ns. \\c quaintly asks: " Who can imagine that in so 
Inu^ u vt»v;v';c nu*n woulde take the paines to carrie Foxes 
in l*t III, rNpti'ially that kindc they call * Acias,' which is the 
liUhit j»i I \u\\c scene ? Who woulde likewise say that they 
have iMiiinl ryK**J5^ •uul Lyons? Truly it were a thing 
vvniihv \\\c lau^lun^ at to thinke so. It was sufficient, yea, 
viiy luui h, lor men driven against their willes by tempest, 
ill bij liiii^ and unknownc a voyage, to escape with their 
owiie lives, without busying themselves to carrie Woolves 
and I' lives, aiiil to nourish them at sea.** 

tt was uuiler the impression made b)^ this new array of 
tat lb tliat in K^of Abraham Milius published at Geneva his 
liiiok i»n y^i iVy7« .»/ .-Iv/w.jA anJ tlu Migrations of Peo- 
//i^. Tliih book shows, hke that of Acosta, the shock and 
btiaiii to wlut'h the discovery of America subjected the re- 
leivtil tlu'olo^ical scheme of things. It was issued with 
the h|)ei ial approlution of the Bishop of Salzburg, and it 
iiidit ales the possibility that a solution of the whole trouble 
may be touiul in the text. •* Let the earth bring forth the liv- 
ing creature alter his kind.** Milius goes on to show that 
lliu aiuieiit philosophers agree with Moses, and that "the 
L-arih and the waters, and especially the heat of the sun and 
ul the genial sky, together with that slimy and putrid quality 
uliii h setiuh to be inherent in the soil, may furnish the ori- 
gin lor fishes, terrestrial animals, and birds." On the other 
iiaiid, he is very severe against those who imagine that man 
can have had I lie same origin with animals. But the subject 
with which Milius especially grapples is th^ distribution ol 
animals. I le is greatly exercised by the many species found 
in America and in retiiote islands of the ocean — ^species en- 
tirely unknown in the other continents — and of course he is 
especially troubled by the fact that these species existing in 
those exceedingly remote parts of the earth do not exist in 
the neighbourhood of Mount Ararat. He confesses that to 
explain the distribution of animals is the most difficult part 
of the problem. If it be urged that birds could reach Amer- 
ica by flying and fishes by swimming, he asks, '* What of the 
beasts which neither fly nor swim?" Yet even as to the 
birds he asks, *' Is there not an infinite variety of winged 
creatures who fly so slowly and heavily, and have such a 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 



47 



horror of the water, that they would not even dare trust 
themselves to fly over a wide river?" As to fishes, he says, 
"They are very averse to wandering from their native 
waters," and he shows that there are now reported many 
species of American and East Indian fishes entirely unknown 
on the other continents, whose presence, therefore, can not 
be explained by any theory of natural dispersion. 

Of those who suggest that land animals may have been 
dispersed over the earth by the direct agency of man for his 
use or pleasure he asks: " Who would like to get different 
sorts of lions, bears, tigers, and other ferocious and noxious 
creatures on board ship? who would trust himself with 
them ? and who would wish to plant colonies of such crea- 
tures in new, desirable lands?" 

His conclusion is that plants and animals take their ori- 
gin in the lands wherein they are found ; an opinion which 
he supports by quoting from the two narrations in Genesis 
passages which imply generative force in earth and water. 

But in the eighteenth century matters had become even 
worse for the theological view. To meet the difficulty the 
eminent Benedictine, Dom Calmet, in his Commentary, ex- 
pressed the belief that all the species of a genus had origi- 
nally formed one species, and he dwelt on this view as one 
which enabled him to explain the possibility of gathering all 
animals into the ark. This idea, dangerous as it was to the 
fabric of orthodoxy, and involving a profound separation 
from the general doctrine of the Church, seems to have been 
abroad among thinking men, for we find in the latter half of 
the same century even Linnaeus inclining to consider it. It 
was time, indeed, that some new theological theory be 
evolved ; the great Linnaeus himself, in spite of his famous 
declaration favouring the fixity of species, had dealt a death- 
blow to the old theory. In his Systcma NaturcBy published 
in the middle of the eighteenth century, he had enumerated 
four thousand species of animals, and the difficulties involved y, ' 
in the naming of each of them by Adam and in bringing them \ 

together in the ark appeared to all thinking men more and \ 

more insurmountable. 

What was more embarrassing, the number of distinct 
species went on increasing rapidly, indeed enormously, until, 



/ 



/ 



\ 



48 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

as an eminent zoological authority of our own time has 
declared, " for every one of the species enumerated by Lin- 
nasus, more than fifty kinds are known to the naturalist of 
to-day, and the number of species still unknown doubtless 
far exceeds the list of those recorded." 

Already there were premonitions of the strain made upon 
Scripture by requiring a hundred and sixty distinct miracu- 
lous interventions of the Creator to produce the hundred 
and sixty species of land shells found in the little island of 
Madeira alone, and fourteen hundred distinct interventions 
to produce the actual number of distinct species of a single 
well-known shell. 

Ever more and more difficult, too, became the question 
of the geographical distribution of animals. As new ex- 
plorations were made in various parts of the world, this dan- 
ger to the theological view went on increasing. The sloths 
in South America suggested painful questions : How could 
animals so sluggish have got away from the neighbourhood 
of Mount Ararat so completely and have travelled so far? 

The explorations in Australia and neighbouring islands 
made matters still worse, for there was found in those re- 
gions a whole realm of animals differing widely from those 
of other parts of the earth. 

The problem before the strict theologians became, for 
example, how to explain the fact that the kangaroo can have 
been in the ark and be now only found in Australia : his 
saltatory powers are indeed great, but how could he by any 
series of leaps have sprung across the intervening mountains, 
plains, and oceans to that remote continent? and, if the 
theory were adopted that at some period a causeway ex- 
tended across the vast chasm separating Australia from the 
nearest mainland, why did not lions, tigers, camels, and 
camelopards force or find their way across it ? 

The theological theory, therefore, had by the end of the 
eighteenth century gone to pieces. The wiser theologians 
waited; the unwise indulged in exhortations to "root out 
the wicked heart of unbelief," in denunciation of " science 
falsely so called," and in frantic declarations that "the Bible 
is true " — by which they meant that the limited understand- 
ing of it which they had happened to inherit is true. 



THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS. 49 

By the middle of the nineteenth century the whole theo- 
logical theory of creation — though still preached everywhere 
as a matter of form — was clearly seen by all thinking men to 
be hopelessly lost : such strong men as Cardinal Wiseman in 
the Roman Church, Dean Buckland in the Anglican, and 
Hugh Miller in the Scottish Church, made heroic efforts to 
save something from it, but all to no purpose. That sturdy 
Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon honesty, which is the best legacy 
of the Middle Ages to Christendom, asserted itself in the 
old strongholds of theological thought, the universities. 
Neither the powerful logic of Bishop Butler nor the nimble 
reasoning of Archdeacon Paley availed. Just as the line of * 
astronomical thinkers from Copernicus to Newton had de- 
stroyed the old astronomy, in which the earth was the cen- 
tre, and the Almighty sitting above the firmament the agent 
in moving the heavenly bodies about it with his own hands, 
so now a race of biological thinkers had destroyed the old 
idea of a Creator minutely contriving and fashioning all ani- 
mals to suit the needs and purposes of man. They had de- 
veloped a system of a very different sort, and this we shall 
next consider.* 



in. THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF AN 
EVOLUTION IN ANIMATED NATURE. 

We have seen, thus far, how there came into the think- 
ing of mankind upon the visible universe and its inhabitants 
the idea of a creation virtually instantaneous and complete, 
and of a Creator in human form with human attributes, who 
spoke matter into existence literally by the exercise of his 
throat and lips, or shaped and placed it with his hands and 
fingers. 

We have seen that this view came from far ; that it ex- 

♦ For Acosta, sec his Historia natural y moral de las Indias^ Seville, 1590— the 
quaint English translation is of London, 1604 ; for Abraham Milius, see his De 
Originf Animalium et Migratioru Populorum, Geneva, 1667 ; also Kosmos, 1877. 
H. I, S. 36 ; for Linnseus's declaration regarding species, see the Philosophia 
BotanUa^ 99« 157 ; for Calmet and Linnaeus, see Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 237. As to 
the enormously increasing numbers of species in zoology and botany, see President 
D. S. Jordan, Science Sketches^ pp. 176, 177 ; also, for pithy statement, Laing's 
Problems of the Future, chap. vi. 

5 



50 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

isted in the Chaldaeo-Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, 
and probably in others of the earliest date known to us ; that 
its main features passed thence into the sacred books of the 
Hebrews and then into the early Christian Church, by 
whose theologians it was developed through the Middle Ages 
and maintained during the modern period. 

But, while this idea was thus developed by a succession 
of noble and thoughtful men through thousands of years, 
another conception, to all appearance equally ancient, was 
developed, sometimes in antagonism to it, sometimes mingled 
with it — the conception of all living beings as wholly or in 
part the result of a growth process — of an evolution. 

This idea, in various forms, became a powerful factor in 
nearly all the greater ancient theologies and philosophies. 
For very widespread among the early peoples who attained 
to much thinking power was a conception that, in obedience 
to the divine fiat, a watery chaos produced the earth, and 
that the sea and land gave birth to their inhabitants. 

This is clearly seen in those records of Chaldaeo-Baby- 
lonian thought deciphered in these latter years, to which 
reference has already been made. In these we have a 
watery chaos which, under divine action, brings forth the 
earth and its inhabitants ; first the sea animals and then the 
land animals — the latter being separated into three kinds, 
substantially as recorded afterward in the Hebrew accounts. 
At the various stages in the work the Chaldean Creator 
pronounces it " beautiful," just as the Hebrew Creator in 
our own later account pronounces it " good." 

In both accounts there is placed over the whole creation 
a solid, concave firmament; in both, light is created first, and 
the heavenly bodies are afterward placed " for signs and for 
seasons " ; in both, the number seven is especially sacred, 
giving rise to a sacred division of time and to much else. 
It may be added that, with many other features in the He- 
brew legends evidently drawn from the Chaldean, the 
account of the creation in each is followed by a legend re- 
garding ** the fall of man " and a deluge, many details of 
which clearly passed in slightly modified form from the 
Chaldean into the Hebrew accounts. 

It would have been a miracle indeed if these primitive 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 51 

conceptions, wrought out with so much poetic vigour in that 
earlier civilization on the Tigris and Euphrates, had failed 
to influence the Hebrews, who during the most plastic peri- 
ods of their development were under the tutelage of their 
Chaldean neighbours. Since the researches of Layard, 
George Smith, Oppert, Schrader, Jensen, Sayce, and their 
compeers, there is no longer a reasonable doubt that this 
ancient view of the world, elaborated if not originated in 
that earlier civilization, came thence as a legacy to the He- 
brews, who wrought it in a somewhat disjointed but mainly 
monotheistic form into the poetic whole which forms one of 
the most precious treasures of ancient thought preserved in 
the book of Genesis. 

Thus it was that, while the idea of a simple material crea- 
tion literally by the hands and fingers or voice of the Crea- 
tor became, as we have seen, the starting-point of a powerful 
stream of theological thought, and while this stream was ' 
swollen from age to age by contributions from the fathers, 
doctors, and learned divines of the Church, Catholic and 
Protestant, there was poured into it this lesser current, 
always discernible and at times clearly separated from it — 
a current of belief in a process of evolution. 

The Rev. Prof. Sayce, of Oxford, than whom no English- 
speaking scholar carries more weight in a matter of this 
kind, has recently declared his belief that the Chaldaso- 
Babylonian theory was the undoubted source of the similar 
theory propounded by the Ionic philosopher Anaximander — 
the Greek thinkers deriving this view from the Babylonians 
through the Phoenicians ; he also allows that from the same 
source its main features were adopted into both the accounts 
given in the first of our sacred books, and in this general 
view the most eminent Christian Assyriologists concur. 

It is true that these sacred accounts of ours contradict 
each other. In that part of the first or Elohistic account 
given in the first chapter of Genesis the waters bring forth 
fishes, marine animals, and birds (Genesis, i, 20) ; but in that 
part of the second or Jehovistic account given in the second 
chapter of Genesis both the land animals and birds are de- 
clared to have been created not out of the water, but " out 
of t/u ground'' (Genesis, ii, 19). 



52 



FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 



The dialectic skill of the fathers was easily equal to ex- 
plaining away this contradiction ; but the old current of 
thought, strengthened by both these legends, arrested their 
attention, and, passing through the minds of a succession of 
the greatest men of the Church, influenced theological opin- 
ion deeply, if not widely, for ages, in favour of an evolution 
theory. 

But there was still another ancient source of evolution 
ideas. Thoughtful men of the early civilizations which 
were developed along the great rivers in the warmer regions 
of the earth noted how the sun-god as he rose in his fullest 
might caused the water and the rich soil to teem with the 
lesser forms of life. In Egypt, especially, men saw how 
under this divine power the Nile slime brought forth " creep- 
ing things innumerable." Hence mainly this ancient belief 
that the animals and man were produced by lifeless matter 
at the divine command, "in the beginning," was supple- 
mented by the idea that some of the lesser animals, espe- 
cially the insects, were produced by a later evolution, being 
evoked after the original creation from various sources, but 
chiefly from matter in a state of decay. 

This crude, early view aided doubtless in giving germs 
of a better evolution theory to the early Greeks. Anaxi- 
mander, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and, greatest of all, Aris- 
totle, as we have seen, developed them, making their way at 
times by guesses toward truths since established by observa- 
tion. Aristotle especially, both by speculation and observa- 
tion, arrived at some results which, had Greek freedom of 
thought continued, might have brought the world long since 
to its present plane of biological knowledge ; for he reached 
something like the modern idea of a succession of higher 
organizations from lower, and made the fruitful suggestion 
of " a perfecting principle " in Nature. 

With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency 
toward a yet truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, 
but the old crude view remained, and as a typical example 
of it we may note the opinion of St. Basil the Great in the 
fourth century. Discussing the work of creation, he de- 
clares that, at the command of God, " the waters were gifted 
with productive power " ; " from slime and muddy places 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 53 

frogs, flies, and gnats came into being"; and he finally de- 
clares that the same voice which gave this energy and qual- 
ity of productiveness to earth and water shall be similarly 
efficacious until the end of the world. St. Gregory of Nyssa 
held a similar view. 

This idea of these great fathers of the Eastern Church 
took even stronger hold on the great father of the Western 
Church. For St. Augustine, so fettered usually by the let- 
ter of the sacred text, broke from his own famous doctrine 
as to the acceptance of Scripture and spurned the generally 
received belief of a creative process like that by which a 
toymaker brings into existence a box of playthings. In his 
great treatise on Genesis he says: "To suppose that God 
formed man from the dust with bodily hands is very child- 
ish. . . . God neither formed man with bodily hands nor 
did he breathe upon him with throat and lips.** 

St. Augustine then suggests the adoption of the old ema- 
nation or evolution theory, shows that " certain very small 
animals may not have been created on the fifth and sixth 
days, but may have originated later from putrefying mat- 
ter," argues that, even if this be so, God is still their creator, 
dwells upon such a potential creation as involved in the 
actual creation, and speaks of animals " whose numbers the 
after-time unfolded." 

In his great treatise on the Trinity — the work to which 
he devoted the best thirty years of his life — we find the full 
growth of this opinion. He develops at length the view 
that in the creation of living beings there was something 
like a growth— that God is the ultimate author, but works 
through secondary causes ; and finally argues that certain 
substances are endowed by God with the power of pro- 
ducing certain classes of plants and animals.* 

♦ For the Chaldean view of creation, sec George Smith, Chaldean Account of 
Genesisy New York, 1876, pp. 14, 15. and 64-86 ; also Lukas, as above ; also Sayce, 
Religion of the Ancient Babylonians ^ Hibbert Lectures for 1887, pp. 371 and else- 
where ; as to the fall of man, Tower of Babel, sacredness of the number seven, etc., 
see also Delitzsch, appendix to the German translation of Smith, pp. 305 et seq. ; 
as to the almost exact adoption of the Chaldean legends into the Hebrew sacred 
account, see all these, as also Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testa- 
ment^ Giessen, 1883, early chapters ; also article Babylonia in the Encychpadia 
Bfitannica ; as to the similar approval of creation by the Creator in both accounts. 



54 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

This idea of a development by secondary causes apart 
from the original creation was helped in its g^wth by a 
theological exigenc)\ More and more, as the organic world 
was observed, the vast multitude of pett)- animals, winged 
creatures, and "creeping things" was felt to be a strain upon 
the sacred narrative. More and more it became difficult to 
reconcile the dignity of the Almighty' with his work in 
bringing each of these creatures before Adam to be named : 
or to reconcile the human limitations of Adam with his 
work in naming "every living creature"; or to reconcile 
the dimensions of Xoah's ark with the space required for 
preserving all of them, and the food of all sorts necessary 
for their sustenance, whether they were admitted by twos, 
as stated in one scriptural account, or b^' sevens, as stated 
in the other. 

The inadequate size of the ark gave especial trouble. 
Origen had dealt with it by suggesting that the cubit was 
six times greater than had been supposed. Bede explained 
Noah's ability to complete so large a vessel b)' supposing 
that he worked upon it during a hundred years ; and, as to 
the provision of food taken into it, he declared that there 
was no need of a supply for more than one day, since God 
could throw the animals into a deep sleep or otherwise 
miraculously make one day's supply sufficient ; he also les- 



see George Smith, p. 73 ; as to the migration of the Babylonian legends to the 
Hebrews, see Schrader. Whitehouse's translation, pp. 44, 43 ; as to the Chaldaean 
l>eHef in a solid firmament, while Schrader in 1883 thought it not proved, Jensen 
in i8c/5 has found it clearly expressed — sec his Kosmologie der Babyhnier^ pp. 9 et 
seq.^ also pp. 304-306, and elsewhere. Dr. Lukas in 1893 also fully accepts this 
view of a Chaldean record of a " firmament " — see Kosmohgu, pp. 43. ett. ; see 
also Maspero and Sayce. Th^ Dawn of Civilitation, and for crude early ideas of 
evolution in Egypt, see ibid., pp. 156 ei seq. 

For the seven-day week among Chaldeans and rest on the seventh day, and the 
proof that even the name " Sabbath " is of Chaldean origin, sec Delitzsch, Beiga^ 
bm zu Smith* s Chald. Genesis, pp. 300 and 306 ; also Schrader ; for St. Basil, see 
Hexameron and Homilies vii-ix ; but, for the steadfastness of Basil's view in regard 
to the immutability of species, see a Catholic writer on Evolution and Faith in 
the Dublin Reinew for July, 187 1, p. 13 ; for citations of St. Augustine on Genesis, 
see the De Gemsi contra Manichaos, lib. ii, cap. 14, in Migne, xxxiv, 188, — lib. v, 
cap. 5 and cap. 23, — and lib. vii, cap. I ; for the citations from his work on the 
Trinity, see his De Tfinitate, lib. iii. cap. 8 and 9, in Migne, xlii, 877, 878 ; for the 
general subject very fully and adequately presented, see Osbom, From tht Greeks 
to Darwin, New York, 1894, chaps, ii and iii. 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 55 

sened the strain on faith still more by diminishing the num- 
ber of animals taken into the ark — supporting his view upon 
Augustine's theory of the later development of insects out 
of carrion. 

Doubtless this theological necessity was among the main 
reasons which led St. Isidore of Seville, in the seventh cen- 
tury, to incorporate this theory, supported by St. Basil and 
St. Augustine, into his great encyclopedic work which gave 
materials for thought on God and Nature to so many gen- 
erations. He familiarized the theological world still further 
with the doctrine of secondary creation, giving such exam- 
ples of it as that " bees are generated from decomposed veal, 
beetles from horseflesh, grasshoppers from mules, scorpions 
from crabs," and, in order to give still stronger force to the 
idea of such transformations, he dwells on the biblical ac- 
count of Nebuchadnezzar, which appears to have taken 
strong hold upon mediaeval thought in science, and he de- 
clares that other human beings had been changed into ani- 
mals, especially into swine, wolves, and owls. 

This doctrine of after-creations went on gathering 
strength until, in the twelfth century, Peter Lombard, in his 
theological summary. The Sentefices, so powerful in moulding 
the thought of the Church, emphasized the distinction be- 
tween animals which spring from carrion and those which 
are created from earth and water ; the former he holds to 
have been created "potentially," the latter "actually." 

In the century following, this idea was taken up by St. 
Thomas Aquinas and virtually received from him its final 
form. In the Summa^ which remains the greatest work of 
mediaeval thought, he accepts the idea that certain animals 
spring from the decaying bodies of plants and animals, and 
declares that they are produced by the creative word of 
God either actually or virtually. He develops this view by 
saying, " Nothing was made by God, after the six days of 
creation, absolutely new, but it was in some sense included 
in the work of the six days " ; and that " even new species, 
if any appear, have existed before in certain native proper- 
ties, just as animals are produced from putrefaction." 

The distinction thus developed between creation " caus- 
ally " or " potentially," and " materially " or " formally," was 



i/; fkoyg cksxTzas to ttolztiosl 



Lapi'i^ %pr^ad it bj sajin^ thar certain arTT,i> were created 
lyx •" a^i/Vriutelj,"" but oal v " deriratiTciT.'* asi this thought 
vij i-till furtaer cicTeloped three centuries later bj Ao^us- 
ti:^t;§ Euj^cbsnus. who tells us thai, after the fir^t creatine 
eneri^j had called forth land azid water. 2ieht was made bj 
tr>e AlmightT. the instrument of all future crcarixi. and that 
the iiijht called everrthing into existence. 

Aw thu - science ialselv so called.*' so scdckxislT derel- 
op^ bv the master minds of the Church, and jet so futile 
tr^at w^ mi;^ht almost suppose that the great apostle, in a 
g>/7r of prophetic vision, had foreseen it in his famous con- 
demnation, seems at this distance Terr harmless indeed; 
vet, to many guardians of the " sacred deposit of doctrine " 
in the Church, even so slight a departure from the main 
current of thought seemed dangerous. It appeared to them 
like pressing the doctrine of secondary causes to a perilous 
extent ; and about the beginning of the seventeenth century 
we have the eminent Spanish Jesuit and theologian Suarez 
denouncing it, and declaring St. Augustine a heretic for his 
share in it« 

But there was little danger to the older idea just then ; 
the main theological tendency was so strong that the world 
kept on as of old. Biblical theology continued to spin its 
own webs out of its own bowels, and all the lesser theo- 
logical flics continued to be entangled in them ; yet here 
and there stronger thinkers broke loose from this entangle- 
ment and helped somewhat to disentangle others.* 



* Vm Urj\t*% view of the ark and the origin of insects, see his Hex^tmeron^ i 
ffi'l if ; for Uidore, see the Etymologia, xi, 4, and xiii, 22 ; for Peter Lombard, see 
Sent,, Vi\t. i\, AisU xv, 4 (in Migne, cxcii, 682); for St. Thomas Aquinas as to the 
law* of Nature, %tt Summa Theologica^ i, Quasi, Ixvii, art. iv ; for his discussion 
r/n Aviccnna*» thcr/ry of the origin of animals, see ibid., Quasi. Ixxi, roL i, pp. 
1 184 and 1 185, of Migne'f edit ; for his idea as to the word of God being the active 
pr'xlucing principle, see ibid., i, Quast. Ixxi, art. i ; for his remarks on species, 
%ct ibid., i. Quasi. Ixxii, art. i ; for his ideas on the necesf^ity of the procreation of 
man, »ee ibid., i. Quasi. Ixxii, art. i ; for the origin of animals from putrefaction, 
«?c n*id., i, Quast, Ixxix, art. i, 3 ; for Cornelius a Lapide on the derivative crea- 
tion of animals, see his In Genesim Comment.^ cap. i, cited by Mivart, Genesis of 
Spreies, p. 282 ; for a reference to Suarez's denunciation of the view of St Augus- 
tine, ftcc Iluxlcy'h Essays, 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 57 

At the close of the Middle Ages, in spite of the devotion 
of the Reformed Church to the letter of Scripture, the re- 
vival of learning and the great voyages gave an atmosphere 
in which better thinking on the problems of Nature began 
to gain strength. On all sides, in every field, men were 
making discoveries which caused the general theological 
view to appear more and more inadequate. 

First of those who should be mentioned with reverence 
as beginning to develop again that current of Greek thought 
which the system drawn from our sacred books by the fa- 
thers and doctors of the Church had interrupted for more 
than a thousand years, was Giordano Bruno. His utterances 
were indeed vague and enigmatical, but this fault may well 
be forgiven him, for he saw but too clearly what must be his 
reward for any more open statements. His reward indeed 
came — even for his faulty utterances — when, toward the end 
of the nineteenth century, thoughtful men from all parts of 
the world united in erecting his statue on the spot where 
he had been burned by the Roman Inquisition nearly three 
hundred years before. 

After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seven- 
teenth century, Descartes seemed about to take the leader- 
ship of human thought: his theories, however superseded 
now, gave a great impulse to investigation then. His genius 
in promoting an evolution doctrine as regards the mechan- 
ical formation of the solar system was great, and his mode 
of thought strengthened the current of evolutionary doc- 
trine generally ; but his constant dread of persecution, both 
from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily to veil his 
thoughts and even to suppress them. The execution of 
Bruno had occurred in his childhood, and in the midst of 
his career he had watched the Galileo struggle in all its 
stages. He had seen his own works condemned by univer- 
sity after university under the direction of theologians, and 
placed upon the Roman Index, Although he gave new and 
striking arguments to prove the existence of God, and 
humbled himself before the Jesuits, he was condemned by 
Catholics and Protestants alike. Since Roger Bacon, per- 
haps, no great thinker had been so completely abased and 
thwarted by theological oppression. 



N>rir '.\i\ : i.Sf^ :r '.\tt Tame rrinnir^ imztiier i ^-\ r tif^i-^ 
.V-.-,n:r/ -.-.i.n-r-i it r ;:r c* iini::n:r -inj :uil iiicmne :& ev.> 

*.', *.Te y.tj.i '.* xjr r.T.it '.:jr -iTi'-^ Tcetnett Ji "He Tr>— "^n" ^-.y . 
1,»,'X\ ':i>'v *-:.>. r.i 1:= .- jt'" v.t^ liiniis :r rre Cr^orrr. zzft za^z- 

■*r«-; .rtr*r v-rr-.. :.i :*:i. t.ie '-^< ^:'^-s > iiii-iaci-i iis itt*rzrt 

>r. •. .^r^ '-'' i.^.'-r -'i^i i^l-'"- v-nec. t: i=i::inaiz. G-i£"s truths 
^c.-'''5&c. H .rr.'^. ir.ii Sjjit naj ilji: re nectiTocd as 

r.r*/: .-.--^r •.-.-^ •-.•*'-■ .%\\ izrz :*§iiier^ :r zz'tir tin^fs riKti so un- 
^r%v.*>/-^ ''•.•- i -*»- 7^:ir5 i::*r Leircitz s death caaac in 
f r'4V.^ 4 *-!.'. A ^r :.' r.^:-ril 5*::* nee re ziuch less infiaeccc 
".'^r. ^r.7 >:' *:.t'*^. -k't.'j rr^^it: 2. i-tcidt-i seer- iinnrd- 

L'l.'.y -.-. •-.* ei^r.'.et::::!- century B^z:ist ie Mifllct, a 
r,';.', ',:' •%* -vor.:. but i wfie ir-s^rver iri cl^sc thinker 
.y,". S'i*\r': \^'j:\:i n-.e-ii^itin^ e<pt?cially ur^rn the origin 
^ ^r..r.^. :'.rv.^. ar.i -^as .e2 in:,. :ne ilea :: :r.e tmrtsrorma- 
^'>ri ^: :.:y:'.>:i ssr.'i s-o into a :he:ry :: ev:lu:::.n. which in 
v/T*'^, >:.:y.'*.ir.*. r':^>ect5 anticiiatei m.-dem ideas. He 
^J^;r./':.v, *.'.'/ :»'^':. at tinier absurdly, crncefved the produc- 
\'/r» ''/.* ':.T:.*ir,;f sr^'rcies by the ni>d:ncat:oa o: their prede- 
^Av/,r\, '^:A r.c plairtly accepted or.e of the fundamental 
fr»;jXir:.-. ^: rr.^'i';rn jjeo'.o^y — '/.it the structure of the globe 
::,'»'*. '/: \"".'\\*'A in the iii^ht o: the present 0-">urse of Nature. 

Jj i* r.': :':.i bot'.veen f.vo ranks of adversaries. On one 
^i'i":, ?:.'; ^':*'ir'',h aiithorities denounced him as a freethinker ; 
f,u Ui^: o*:i(:r, \'oItaire ridiculed him as a devotee. Feeling 
tr.af his ^r^:ar/;st danger was from the orthodox theologians. 
I)': M;ii!i':t endeavoured to protect himself by disguising his 
n.'ir.'if: in the title of his book, and by so wording its preface 
;ind declination that, if persecuted, he could declare it a mere 
'.port of fancy ; he therefore announced it as the reverie of a 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 



59 



Hindu sage imparted to a Christian missionary. But this 
strategy availed nothing : he had allowed his Hindu sage to 
suggest that the days of creation named in Genesis might 
be long periods of time ; and this, with other ideas of equally 
fearful import, was fatal. Though the book was in type in 
1735, it was not published till 1748 — three years after his 
death. 

On the other hand, the heterodox theology of Voltaire 
was also aroused ; and, as De Maillet had seen in the pres- 
ence of fossils on high mountains a proof that these moun- 
tains were once below the sea, Voltaire, recognising in this 
an argument for the deluge of Noah, ridiculed the new 
thinker without mercy. Unfortunately, some of De Mail- 
let's vagaries lent themselves admirably to Voltaire's sar- 
casm ; better material for it could hardly be conceived than 
the theory, seriously proposed, that the first human being 
was born of a mermaid. 

Hence it was that, between these two extremes of the- 
ology, De Maillet received no recognition until, very re- 
cently, the greatest men of science in England and France 
have united in giving him his due. But his work was not 
lost, even in his own day ; Robinet and Bonnet pushed for- 
ward victoriously on helpful lines. 

In the second half of the eighteenth century a great bar- 
rier was thrown across this current — the authority of Lin- 
naeus. He was the most eminent naturalist of his time, a 
wide observer, a close thinker ; but the atmosphere in which 
he lived and moved and had his being was saturated with 
biblical theology, and this permeated all his thinking. 

He who visits the tomb of Linnaeus to-day, entering the 
beautiful cathedral of Upsala by its southern porch, sees 
above it, wrought in stone, the Hebrew legend of creation. 
In a series of medallions, the Almighty — in human form — 
accomplishes the work of each creative day. In due order 
he puts in place the solid firmament with the waters above 
it, the sun, moon, and stars within it, the beasts, birds, and 
plants below it, and finishes his task by taking man out of 
a little hillock of " the earth beneath," and woman out of 
man's side. Doubtless Linnaeus, as he went to his devotions, 
often smiled at this childlike portrayal. Yet he was never 



^r^ Tk/jyi CIJLAZZOS T:^ ETC<UrT»3L 



i.v'«*: '.o 'jr«i i-riT fr^xa ti? ifoi it c^b^fiKL At 



v: 1.;^ ^'.t z.* t:'r.iC-r a.-srar^ora irrfr fixpccrrtsas is 



>rft ''/ut ti^ vtror-g-Ij onh-yiox siairz^cat ci lit 5xij cc each 
v^Ai*^^ irr,;cL ht Lad insisted uj^jQ ia his carlirr vorks. Bat 
;>^ saa-C^ 1*0 a'i^uale dcclaratiryn- Wliat be m%it expect if 
h*: *r^*\y aad decidedly saacnoDcd a aewcr iriew fee learned 
to hh c/At : •warnings rame speedily bolh froca ibe Catholic 
ar*^ Prole«taat sides. 

At a time -when eminent prelates of the older Chnrrii 
ir-trrt e-j>/^iz:rig^ debauched princes like Louis XV. asd using 
tf.e un^p'^akably obscene casuistry of the Jesuit Sanchez in 
the educatirm of the priesthood as to the relations of men to 
irorr;en. the modest v of the Church authorities was so shocked 
by Lsnna^ru^'s pr^x/.s of a sexual system in plants that for 
many yrars his writings were prohibited in the Papal States 
and in various other parts of Europe where clerical author- 
ity was ^strong enough to resist the new scientific current. 
Not unril 1/73 ^^^ ^-^"^ ^* ^^^ more broad-minded cardinals 
— Z':;;in''ia — succeed in gaining permission that Prof. Minasi 
<ihou>l discuss the Linna^n ss'stem at Rome. 

And Prot'rstantism was quite as oppressive. In a letter 
to Rloius. Linnaeus tells of the rebuke given to science by 
one of the great Lutheran prelates of Sweden. Bishop Sved- 
berg. From various parts of Europe detailed statements 
harl Ixrcn sent to the Roval Academv of Science that water 
had been turned into blriod, and well-meaning ecclesiastics 
had seen in this an indication of the wrath of God, certainlv 
against the regions in which these miracles had occurred 
and possibly against the whole world. A miracle of this 
V/rt appearing in Sweden, Linnaeus looked into it carefully 
and found that the reddening of the water was caused by 
dense masses of minute insects. News of this explanation 
having reached the bishop, he took the field against it ; he 
denounced this scientific discovery as " a Satanic abyss " 
(abyssum SatancB), and declared " The reddening of the water 
is not natural," and " when God allows such a miracle to 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 6 1 

take place Satan endeavours, and so do his ungodly, self- 
reliant, self-sufficient, and worldly tools, to make it signify 
nothing." In face of this onslaught Linnseus retreated ; he 
tells his correspondent that ** it is difficult to say anything in 
this matter," and shields himself under the statement " It is 
certainly a miracle that so many millions of creatures can be 
so suddenly propagated," and " it shows undoubtedly the 
all-wise power of the Infinite." 

The great naturalist, grown old and worn with labours for 
science, could no longer resist the contemporary theology ; 
he settled into obedience to it, and while the modification of 
his early orthodox view was, as we have seen, quietly im- 
bedded in the final edition of his great work, he made no 
special effort to impress it upon the world. To all appear- 
ance he continued to adhere to the doctrine that all existing 
species had been created by the Almighty "in the begin- 
ning," and that since " the beginning " no new species had 
appeared. 

Yet even his great authority could not, arrest the swell- 
ing tide ; more and more vast became the number of species, 
more and more incomprehensible under the old theory be- 
came the newly ascertained facts in geographical distribu- 
tion, more and more it was felt that the universe and ani- 
mated beings had come into existence by some process other 
than a special creation " in the beginning," and the question 
was constantly pressing, ** By what process ? " 

Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century one 
man was at work on natural history who might have con- 
tributed much toward an answer to this question : this man 
was Buflon. His powers of research and thought were re- 
markable, and his gift in presenting results of research and 
thought showed genius. He had caught the idea of an evo- 
lution in Nature by the variation of species, and was likely 
to make a great advance with it ; but he, too, was made to 
feel the power of theology •^ 

As long as he gave pleasing descriptions of animals the 
Church petted him, but when he began to deduce truths of 
philosophical import the batteries of the Sorbonne were 
opened upon him ; he was made to know that " the sacred 
deposit of truth committed to the Church" was, that** in 



62 FROM CREATIOX TO EVOLUTIOX. 

thc beginning God made the heavens and the earth " : and 
that •* all things were made at the beginning of the world." 
For his simpSe statement of truths in natural science which 
arc t*>dav truisms, he wasy as we hare seen, dragged forth 
by the theological laculiv, forced to recant publiclv. and to 
print his recantation. In this he announced. **I abandon 
everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth, 
and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of 
Moses." * 

But all this triumph of the Chaldeo-Babylonian creation 
legends which the Church had inherited availed but little. 

For about the end of the eighteenth century fruitful sug- 
gestions and even clear presentations of this or that part of 
a large evolutionary doctrine came thick and fast, and from 
the most divergent quarters. Especially remarkable were 
those which came from Erasmus Darwin in England, from 
Mau]>ertui$ in France, from Oken in Switzerland, and from 
Herder, and, most brilliantly of all. from Goethe in Ger- 
man v. 

Two men araons: these thinkers must be esoeciallv men- 
tinned — Treviranus in Germanv and Lamarck in France: 
each independently of the other drew the world more com- 
pletely than ever before in this direction. 

From Treviranus came, in iSor. his work on biolo«:v. and 
in this he gave forth the idea that from forms of life origi- 
nally simple had arisen all higher organizations by gradual 
development : that every living creature has a capacitv for 

* For Descartes ia his rdatioii to &« Copenican cheorr. jce Siiistcc. DttxarUs 
et us Pricur7fmn \ also Foaillee, De^crxrus^ Farias 1$»J5. chaps, ii and iii ; also 
other authorities cited in mr chapter on AsavcooiT : for his r«Iatioo to the theory 
of erolatioa. see the Frincip<s di FkiU^soTku^ vme partie. ^ 45. For De Maillet, 
see Qnatrefages. D'lrvim et sti FricMmurs frtittcais. chap, i, cidng D'Ardiiac, 
PaUimtolo-^, S:r-i:i^2pkii, toL i ; also, Perrier. La Fkilas;ipkie ajvu/^ifut aramt 
Diirurim. chap, y: : also the *iniirable article. Ero^m^irm, by Haxley. in EtKyc. 
B*it. The tit.e cf De Mailiet's b*x>k is, lel^iimdd, ju Emiretums J' mm Fiiifsfffkt 
imJi^n avec uh MLsijnnaire franfjds lur Ui ZHmitnuum tie Li J/er, 174S and 1 756. 
For Bi€or., see the aniorities previoasly given, also the chapter on Geologr in 
this work. For the resistance of both Catholic and Protestant anthorides to the 
Linnjran srstem and ideas, see Alberg. Lt/e jf Limm»rui^ London. i55S, pp. 143- 
147, and 237. As to the creation medallions at the Cathedral of Upsala. it is a 
somewhat curiou.? coincidence that the present writer came upon them vrhile lisit- 
ing that edifice daring the prepantion of this chapter. 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 63 

receiving modifications of its structure from external influ- 
ences ; and that no species had become really extinct, but 
that each had passed into some other species. From La- 
marck came about the same time his Researches^ and a little 
later his Zoological Philosophy y which introduced a new factor 
into the process of evolution — the action of the animal itself 
in its efforts toward a development to suit new needs — and 
he gave as his principal conclusions the following : 

1. Life tends to increase the volume of each living body 
and of all its parts up to a limit determined by its o\yn 
necessities. 

2. New wants in animals give rise to new organs. 

3. The development of these organs is in proportion to 
their emploj'ment. 

4. New developments may be transmitted to offspring. 
His well-known examples to illustrate these views, such 

as that of successive generations of giraffes lengthening their 
necks by stretching them to gather high-growing foliage, 
and of successive generations of kangaroos lengthening and 
strengthening their hind legs by the necessity of keeping 
themselves erect while jumping, provoked laughter, but the 
verj" comicality of these illustrations aided to fasten his main 
conclusion in men's memories. 

In both these statements, imperfect as they were, great 
truths were embodied — truths which were sure to grow. 

Lamarck's declaration, especially, that the development 
of organs is in ratio to their employment, and his indications 
of the reproduction in progeny of what is gained or lost in 
parents by the influence of circumstances, entered as a most 
effective force into the development of the evolution theory. 

The next great successor in the apostolate of this idea of 
the universe was Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. As early as 1795 
he had begun to form a theory that species are various 
modifications of the same type, and this theory he devel- 
oped, testing it at various stages as Nature was more and 
more displayed to him. It fell to his lot to bear the brunt 
in a struggle against heavy odds which lasted many years. 

For the man who now took up the warfare, avowedly for 
science but unconsciously for theology, was the foremost 
naturalist then living — Cuvier. His scientific eminence was 



64 



FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 



deserved ; the highest honours of his own and other coun- 
tries were given him, and he bore them worthily. An Im- 
perial Councillor under Napoleon ; President of the Council 
of Public Instruction and Chancellor of the University under 
the restored Bourbons ; Grand Officer of the Legion of Hon- 
our, a Peer of France, Minister of the Interior, and President 
of the Council of State under Louis Philippe; he was emi- 
nent in all these capacities, and yet the dignity given by such 
high administrative positions was as nothing compared to his 
leadership in natural science. Science throughout the world 
acknowledged in him its chief contemporary ornament, and 
to this hour his fame rightly continues. But there was in 
him, as in Linnaeus, a survival of certain theological ways of 
looking at the universe and certain theological conceptions 
of a plan of creation ; it must be said, too, that while his 
temperament made him distrust new hypotheses, of which 
he had seen so many born and die, his environment as a great 
functionary of state, honoured, admired, almost adored by 
the greatest, not only in the state but in the Church, his 
solicitude lest science should receive some detriment by 
openly resisting the Church, which had recaptured Europe 
after the French Revolution, and had made of its enemies its 
footstool — all these considerations led him to oppose the new 
theory. Amid the plaudits, then, of the foremost church- 
men he threw across the path of the evolution doctrines the 
whole mass of his authority in favour of the old theory of 
catastrophic changes and special creations. 

Geoflroy Saint-Hilaire stoutly withstood him, braving 
non-recognition, ill-treatment, and ridicule. Treviranus, afar 
off in his mathematical lecture-room at Bremen, seemed sim- 
ply forgotten. 

But the current of evolutionary thought could not thus 
be checked : dammed up for a time, it broke out in new 
channels and in ways and places least expected; turned 
away from France, it appeared especially in England, where 
great paleontologists and geologists arose whose work cul- 
minated in that of Lyell. Specialists throughout all the 
world now became more vigorous than ever, gathering facts 
and thinking upon them in a way which caused the special 
creation theory to shrink more and more. Broader and 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 65 

more full became these various rivulets, soon to unite in one 
great stream of thought. 

In 1813 Dr. Wells developed a theory of evolution by 
natural selection to account for varieties in the human race. 
About 1820 Dean Herbert, eminent as an authority in horti- 
culture, avowed his conviction that species are but fixed 
varieties. In 183 1 Patrick Matthews stumbled upon and 
stated the main doctrine of natural selection in evolution ; 
and others here and there, in Europe and America, caught 
an inkling of it. 

But no one outside of a circle apparently uninfluential 
cared for these things : the Church was serene : on the Con- 
tinent it had obtained reactionary control of courts, cabi- 
nets, and universities ; in England, Dean Cockburn was de- 
nouncing Mary Somerville and the geologists to the delight 
of churchmen ; and the Rev. Mellor Brown was doing the 
same thing for the edification of dissenters. 

In America the mild suggestions of Silliman and his com- 
peers were met by the protestations of the Andover theolo- 
gians headed by Moses Stuart. Neither of the great English 
universities, as a rule, took any notice of the innovators save 
by sneers. 

To this current of thought there was joined a new ele- 
ment when, in 1844, Robert Chambers published his Vestiges 
of Creation, The book was attractive and was widely read. 
In Chambers's view the several series of animated beings, 
from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most re- 
cent, were the result of two distinct impulses, each given 
once and for all time by the Creator. The first of these was 
an impulse imparted to forms of life, lifting them gradually 
through higher grades ; the second was an impulse tending 
to modify organic substances in accordance with external 
circumstances ; in fact, the doctrine of the book was evolu- 
tion tempered by miracle — a stretching out of the creative 
act through all time — a pious version of Lamarck. 

Two results followed, one mirth-provoking, the other 

leading to serious thought. The amusing result was that 

the theologians were greatly alarmed by the book : it was 

loudly insisted that it promoted atheism. Looking back 

along the line of thought which has since been developed, 
6 



/^ 



*>C fhjr :aa^--Ti:^i" i\ it.tiij-zok 



^jtft i»:*;ii UiiT. iii* tiiO'T' lieiTMi^saK iTupjr. ii na'.'t toe m 
iiii^ir. ;»"j\t ^ru* 7'ii* lutr* atr^Kiu* r^sur wrsr Hue x ic- 

vijii'.iiAii'^ 'j: wr-vji* 

LiiTir. ; %in laitr- ri^r^jurz iT»cnL*r TmubsiiEL ar 

iti^ V r,t. f *:ir. iif-:,*: it iirv-jur y: iitt iamsr siii'imir zxac 

vut jr.i: vii V it-u aut i.ij-.f5Kn. m^a suv 1112: sirninzauz^ :e ilL 

Oi. '*..r :. il^l. zitirrt vtr* resii iiEiiirt tiir 7 /niK«am 
J>iif »•>.. t!»^ 'XtitT Iv Adr*:- Rusk:. Wtliaot — Knz wxi liir 

f.'-ir* : :/j^- 0-ar^*rt L^mft:, harisg- b«n 5<^1 ID lit Uii- 
vTftJ* V '/ Carjjvr*':^': tv ri Lina i'jz lit Ang-'.icaii i-rkscbcod, 
.-:fr ;r jr^ ;>5J to 5^0 ujy>ii tie sritnti^c cx]:»ed:ii:o cfi lie 
\U'/^'/^,*: : h'/w ^.^r fjvt vtar^ fcc siucied wiitj -aroDCcrfisl rig- 
vjr iix>'j iicut<rfi*rv*> tht proi>ien3§ of lire as ncYcajed on laiDd 
;in'j at Via— afjiOfjjf vojcan^/ts and coral reefs, in forests aDd 
'n% ih*: !ta;>d^, from the tropics lo the arctic regions : how, in 
t^*: ^^Jajy; \>Hc and the Galapagos Islands, and in Brazil, 
l'afa;/onia, and Australia he interrogated Nature with match- 
l^'V* i^'rf Nj^tcncy and skill : how he returned unheralded. 
/j<ii':tly vrttl'rd down to his work, and soon set the world 
thinking over its first published results, such as his book 
on (oral Hetfs, and the monograph on the Cirripcdia\ and» 
(nially^ how h'r presented his paper, and followed it up with 
fnrafivrs whi^jh made him one of the great leaders in the 
hii»f//f y o( human thought. 

The hrientific world realizes, too, more and more, the 
powi'i of character shown by Darwin in all this great career; 
lh<: laMilly (il hilcncc, the reserve of strength seen in keep- 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 6/ 

ing his great thought — his idea of evolution by natural selec- 
tion — under silent study and meditation for nearly twenty 
years, giving no hint of it to the world at large, but working 
in every field to secure proofs or disproofs, and accumulat- 
ing masses of precious material for the solution of the ques- 
tions involved. 

To one man only did he reveal his thought-;— to Dr. Joseph 
Hooker, to whom in 1844, under the seal of secrecy, he 
gave a summary of his conclusions. Not until fourteen 
years later occurred the event which showed him that the 
fulness of time had come — the letter from Alfred Russel 
Wallace, to whom, in brilliant researches during the decade 
from 1848 to 1858, in Brazil and in the Malay Archipelago, 
the same truth of evolution by natural selection had been 
revealed. Among the proofs that scientific study does no 
injury to the more delicate shades of sentiment is the well- 
known story of this letter. With it Wallace sent Darwin a 
memoir, asking him to present it to the Linnaean Society : 
on examining it, Darwin found that Wallace had independ- 
ently arrived at conclusions similar to his own — possibly 
had deprived him of fame ; but Darwin was loyal to his 
friend, and his friend remained ever loyal to him. He pub- 
licly presented the paper from Wallace, with his own con- 
clusions; and the date of this presentation — July i, 1858 — 
separates two epochs in the history, not merely of natural 
science, but of human thought. 

In the following year, 1859, came the first instalment of 
his work in its fuller development — his book on The Origin 
of Species. In this book one at least of the main secrets at 
the heart of the evolutionary process, which had baffled the 
long line of investigators and philosophers from the days of 
Aristotle, was more broadly revealed. The effective mech- 
anism of evolution was shown at work in three ascertained 
facts : in the struggle for existence among organized beings ; 
in the survival of the fittest ; and in heredity. These facts 
were presented with such minute research, wide observa- 
tion, patient collation, transparent honesty, and judicial fair- 
ness, that they at once commanded the world's attention. 
It was the outcome of thirty years' work and thought by a 
worker and thinker of genius, but it was yet more than that 



/ 



68 FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION. 

— it was the outcome, also, of the work and thought of an- 
other man of genius fifty years before. The book of Mal- 
thus on the Principle of Population^ mainly founded on the 
fact that animals increase in a geometrical ratio, and there- 
fore, if unchecked, must encumber the earth, had been gen- 
erally forgotten, and was only recalled w^ith a sneer. But 
the genius of Darwin recognised in it a deeper meaning, 
and now the thought of Malthus was joined to the new 
current Meditating upon it in connection with his own 
observations of the luxuriance of Nature, Darwin had ar- 
rived at his doctrine of natural selection and survival of 
the fittest. 

As the great dogmatic barrier between the old and new 
views of the universe was broken down, the flood of new 
thought pouring over the world stimulated and nourished 
strong growths in every field of research and reasoning: 
edition after edition of the book was called for ; it was trans- 
lated even into Japanese and Hindustani ; the stagnation of 
scientific thought, which Buckle, only a few years before, 
had so deeply lamented, gave place to a widespread and 
fruitful activity ; masses of accumulated observations, which 
had seemed stale and unprofitable, were made alive ; facts 
formerly without meaning now. found their interpretation. 
Under this new influence an army of young men took up 
every promising line of scientific investigation in every land. 
Epoch-making books appeared in all the great nations. 
Spencer, Wallace, Huxley, Galton, Tj'ndall, Tylor, Lubbock, 
Bagehot, Lewes, in England, and a phalanx of strong men 
in Germany, Italy, France, and America gave forth works 
which became authoritative in every department of biology. 
If some of the older men in France held back, overawed 
perhaps by the authority of Cuvier, the younger and more 
vigorous pressed on. 

One source of opposition deserves to be especially men- 
tioned — Louis Agassiz. 

A great investigator, an inspired and inspiring teacher, 
a noble man, he had received and elaborated a theory of 
animated creation which he could not readily change. In 
his heart and mind still prevailed the atmosphere of the little 
Swiss parsonage in which he was born, and his religious 



THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. 69 

and moral nature, so beautiful to all who knew him, was 
especially repelled by sundry evolutionists, who, in their 
zeal as neophytes, made proclamations seeming to have a 
decidedly irreligious if not immoral bearing. In addition to 
this was the direction his thinking had received from Cu- 
vier. Both these influences combined to prevent his accept- 
ance of the new view. 

He was the third great man who had thrown his influ- 
ence as a barrier across the current of evolutionary thought. 
Linnaeus in the second half of the eighteenth century, Cuvier 
in the first half, and Agassiz in the second half of the nine- 
teenth — all made the same effort. Each remains great ; but 
not all of them together could arrest the current. Agassiz's 
strong efforts throughout the United States, and indeed 
throughout Europe, to check it, really promoted it. From 
the great museum he had founded at Cambridge, from his 
summer school at Penikese, from his lecture rooms at Har- 
vard and Cornell, his disciples went forth full of love and 
admiration for him, full of enthusiasm which he had stirred 
and into fields which he had indicated ; but their powers, 
which he had aroused and strengthened, were devoted to 
developing the truth he failed to recognise ; Shaler, Ver- 
rill, Packard, Hartt, Wilder, Jordan, with a multitude of 
others, and especially the son who bore his honoured name, 
did justice to his memory by applying what they had re- 
ceived from him to research under inspiration of the new 
revelation. 

Still another man deserves especial gratitude and honour 
in this progress — Edward Livingston Youmans. He was 
perhaps the first in America to recognise the vast bearings 
of the truths presented by Darwin, Wallace, and Spencer. 
He became the apostle of these truths, sacrificing the bril- 
liant career on which he had entered as a public lecturer, 
subordinating himself to the three leaders, and giving him- 
self to editorial drudgery in the stimulation of research and 
the announcement of results. 

In support of the new doctrine came a world of new 
proofs ; those which Darwin himself added in regard to the 
cross-fertilization of plants, and which he had adopted from 
embryology, led the way, and these were followed by the 



1 .jfTiIT. 




^ • 



THZ Jiis-i-i i-r»ixr 1? rHZ-iE-iirr. 







TyT ^'.rj^j'jzc/:, 3 'j^crjp oi Orrprd. He cerf.irgc riat Dar- 
T»Jn w» %^*'J ^-^ ■* * teraiercy to linfr God"s ^yxj in 

;ri</xr-pa?:'>> -arfth the word oc God": that 



t«»«( rev«a«ed relatSoss of crrart'in to 1:5 Creator " : that it is 
" ir*c//Trti%ti!mt with the falocss o: his giorr": that it is *"a 
^;Vf,OTjotirin^ view of Nature": and that there is -a sim- 
p;<rr exj/Ianation of the presence ot these strange forms 
arfi^/Ti^f th^ works of God": that explanatioo being — ^**the 
fail of Adam/' Xor did the bishop's efforts end here ; at the 
%ufj'X\uy^ of the British Association for the Advancement of 
S<,i<rrjcc he a^^ain disported himself in the tide of popular 
applauv:;. Referring to the ideas of Darwin, who was ab- 
vint ^/n account of illness, he congratulated himself in a pub- 
lic «tpccch that he was not descended from a monkey. The 
reply carnc from Huxley, who said in substance: "If I had 
to chrx/fwr, I would prefer to be a descendant of a bumble 
inonk'ry rather than of a man who employs his knowledge 



• \'*ti K%%%%\is <fitpfy*hifjn to evolution, see the Essajt tm ClasnficaHon^ yoI. i, 
l^^7, %\ fcrjjar'K Lamarck, and vol. iii, i860, as regards Darwin; also SHHmam's 
Jfturnai, July. I Vxj ; alw the Atlantic Monthly^ January, 1874 ; also his Life ami 
(Mfff^pondence, vol. ii, p. 647 ; alto Asa Gray, ScientiJU Papers, vol ii, p. 484. 
A remirii^ccnce of my own enables me to appreciate his deep ethical and religions 
Up\\%%. I wa% f/ahHing the day with him at Nahant in t868, consulting him re- 
Kfirdirif( candidates for various scientific chairs at the newly established Cornell 
nriivf*r<iity, in which he took a deep interest As we discussed one after another 
of ihr ratididntcti he suddenly said: "Who is to be your Professor of Moral 
rhllo«o|iliy ? That is a far more important position than all the others." 



v^ 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 7 1 

and eloquence in misrepresenting those who are wearing 
out their lives in the search for truth." 

This shot reverberated through England, and indeed 
through other countries. 

The utterances of this the most brilliant prelate of the 
Anglican Church received a sort of antiphonal response 
from the leaders of the English Catholics. In an address be- 
fore the " Academia/* which had been organized to combat 
" science falsely so called," Cardinal Manning declared his 
abhorrence of the new view of Nature, and described it as 
" a brutal philosophy — to wit, there is no God, and the ape ^ 
is our Adam." 

These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical 
fashion for several years. One distinguished clerical re- 
viewer, in spite of Darwin's thirty years of quiet labour, and 
in spite of the powerful summing up of his book, prefaced a 
diatribe by saying that Darwin " might have been more 
modest had he given some slight reason for dissenting from 
the views generally entertained." Another distinguished! 
clergyman, vice-president of a Protestant institute to com- 1 
bat ** dangerous " science, declared Darwinism " an attempt | * 
to dethrone God." Another critic spoke of persons accept- 
ing the Darwinian views as ** under the frenzied inspiration 
of the inhaler of mephitic gas," and of Darwin's argument 
as "a jungle of fanciful assumption." Another spoke of 
Darwin's views as suggesting that " God is dead," and de- 
clared that Darwin's work " does open violence to every- 
thing which the Creator himself has told us in the Scriptures 
of the methods and results of his work." Still another the- 
ological authority asserted : "If the Darwinian theory is 
true. Genesis is a lie, the whole framework of the book of 
life falls to pieces, and the revelation of God to man, as we 
Christians know it, is a delusion and a snare." Another, 
who had shown excellent qualities as an observing natural- 
ist, declared the Darwinian view " a huge imposture from 
the beginning." 

Echoes came from America. One review, the organ of 
the most widespread of American religious sects, declared 
that Darwin was " attempting to befog and to pettifog the 
whole question " ; another denounced Darwin's views as 



rii^^r ia2.*Tj'-*: "i ~ 






-:-:/► .-:.-: ;^;rjifl ^i;^::^. >:r.r-^n - 














%rv: 1 



«^t4« 



^' » ^^f ^? 



f>nr*,r, ir^i lizzjtj ii -lo pr'>::icc n tiefr readers a di&- 

*»'/r w^^ tir^ ''/v-^^T brar.ch of tii^ Cnurch to be left fac- 
r/.r,^l ^r> tr,H f.:.*'jriA, Barnr-a, ia the C*jrA.Vir JJV^ declared, 
' Mr, fr^r-mirt i», tt^ r*avc reason to beliere, the XDOoth- 
j/V/y, or ^hi^ trurr.p<:tCT of that infidel clique whose well- 
kf^/vtrn oS>ct i% tr^ do awav with ail idea of a God." 

WorUiy of ertf^cial note as showing the determination of 
fh'; th';ol/'/{{icai side at that period was the foundation of 
«;^^ro vjV:ritific organizations to combat the new ideas. First 
f// f/': riot/rd i^ the ** Academia," planned by Cardinal Wise- 
tttutt. lit a circular letter the cardinal* usually so moderate 
;if»d just, Viundc'd an alarm and summed up bv saying, ** Now 
If i^ for the C'hurch, which alone possesses divine certainty 
;irid divine discernment, to place itself at once in the front 
oi ;i movefnent which threatens even the fragmentary re- 
rn;ijnn of (Christian belief in England." The necessary per- 
rnjtvnion wan obtained from Rome, the Acadcmia was founded, 
tiiul Hie "divine discernment** of the Church was seen in 
III*! iilferanceH which came from it, such as those of Cardinal 
Mafitiiri^, which every thoughtful Catholic would now de- 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 73 

sire to recall, and in the diatribes of Dr. Laing, which only 
aroused laughter on all sides. A similar effort was seen 
in Protestant quarters; the "Victoria Institute" was cre- 
ated, and perhaps the most noted utterance which ever 
came from it was the declaration of its vice-president, the 
Rev. Walter Mitchell, that " Darwinism endeavours to de- 
throne God." * 

In France the attack was even more violent. Fabre 
d'Envieu brought out the heavy artillery of theology, and 
in a long series of elaborate propositions demonstrated that 
any other doctrine than that of the fixity and persistence of 
species is absolutely contrary to Scripture. The Abb6 D6- 
sorges, a former Professor of Theology, stigmatized Darwin 
as a " pedant," and evolution as " gloomy " ; Monseigneur 
S6gur, referring to Darwin and his followers, went into hys- 
terics and shrieked : " These infamous doctrines have for 
their only support the most abject passions. Their father is 
pride, their mother impurity, their offspring revolutions. 
They come from hell and return thither, taking with them 
the gross creatures who blush not to proclaim and accept 
them." 

In Germany the attack, if less declamatory, was no less 
severe. Catholic theologians vied with Protestants in bitter- 
ness. Prof. Michelis declared Darwin's theory " a caricature 
of creation." Dr. Hagermann asserted that it " turned the 
Creator out of doors." Dr. Schund insisted that "every 

i>« > 

♦ For Wilberforcc's article, sec Quarterly Review^ July» i860. For the reply of 
Huxley to the bishop's speech I have relied on the account gpven in Quatrefages^ 
who had it from Carpenter ; a somewhat different version is given in the Life and 
LetUrs of Darwin. For Cardinal Manning's attack, see Essays on Religion and 
Literature^ London, 1865. For the review articles, see the Quarterly already cited, 
and that for July, 1874 ; also the North British Review^ May, i860 ; also, F. O. 
Morris's letter in the Record^ reprinted at Glasgow, 1870 ; also the Addresses of 
Rev, fValter AfitcAell before the Victoria Institute, London, 1867 ; also Rev. B. G. 
Johns, Afoses not Darwin^ a Sermon^ March 31, 1871. For the earlier American 
attacks, see Methodist Quarterly Review^ April, 1871 ; The American Church Re^ 
virWt July and October, 1865, and January, 1866. For the Australian attack, see 
Science and the Bible, by the Right Reverend Charles Perry, D. D., Bishop of MeL 
bourne, London, 1869. For Bayma, see the Catholic H'orld, vol. xxvi, p. 782. For 
the Academia, see Essays edited by Cardinal Manning, above cited ; and for the 
Victoria Institute, see Scientia Scientiarum^ by a member of the Victoria Institute, 
London, 1865. 



-^ TkfJM, ZKLJLZ'jrj% Z', rric-mi! 





cv.tr^v^- L-,v.i^'it- ?r.^:f:«*'-/r :c Tii*-:«:-z7 i 

to Holr Writ. 

K-.t ;r; :VC; canvt as crrcnt w-iich brc^^^rt 5ffr:c*:25 confn- 
yvAi to tri^ ir-tologkai caisp : Sir Oi&rjes Lt c-Z. tbe most 
^^Xiiu^st of living jje/>logi5t5- a man &: dcep-Zj Chrisma fccl- 
ir>;j ax^d of <^xctedingly cautious tcapcr. wba had opposed 
t.'i^ evolution theory of Laisarck and declared his adherence 
to the idea of successive creations, then published his work 
f^ the Anfipii/jr of Man, and in this and other utterances 
showed himself a complete though unwilling convert to the 
fundamental ideas of Darwin. The blow was serious in 
many ways, and especially so in two — first, as withdrawing 
ail foundation in fact from the scriptural chronology, and 
vrcondly, as discrediting the creation theory. The blow 
was not unexpected ; in various review articles against the 
Darwinian theory there had been appeals to Lyell. at times 
alm'-iSt piteous, ''not to flinch from the truths he had for- 
merly pnx-laimcd/* But Lyell, like the honest man he was, 
yielded unrev:r\'cdly to the mass of new proofs arrayed on 
the side of c\'olution against that of creation. 

At the same time came Huxley's Mans Place in Xature^ 
giving new and most cogent arguments in favour of evolu- 
tion by natural selection. 

In 1871 was published Darwin's Descent of Man, Its doc- 
trine had been anticipated by critics of his previous books, 
but it made, none the less, a great stir ; again the opposing 
army trcK^pcd forth, though evidently with much less heart 
than l>efore. A few were very violent. The Dublin Univcr- 
sity Mfij^azine, after the traditional Hibernian fashion, charged 
Mr. Darwin with seeking "to displace God by the uner- 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 



75 



ring action of vagary," and with being "resolved to hunt 
God out of the world.'* But most notable from the side of 
the older Church was the elaborate answer to Darwin's book 
by the eminent French Catholic physician, Dr. Constantin 
James. In his work, On Darwinism, or the Man-Ape, pub- 
lished at Paris in 1877, Dr. James not only refuted Darwin 
scientifically but poured contempt on his book, calling it "a 
fairy tale,** and insisted that a work "so fantastic and so 
burlesque ** was, doubtless, only a huge joke, like Eras- 
mus's Praise of Folly, or Montesquieu's Persian Letters. The 
princes of the Church were delighted. The Cardinal Arch- 
bishop of Paris assured the author that the book had become 
his " spiritual reading," and begged him to send a copy to 
the Pope himself. His Holiness, Pope Pius IX, acknowl- 
edged the gift in a remarkable letter. He thanked his dear 
son, the writer, for the book in which he " refutes so well 
the aberrations of Darwinism.*' "A system," His Holiness^ 
adds, " which is repugnant at once to history, to the tradi- 
tion of all peoples, to exact science, to observed facts, and 
even to Reason herself, would seem to need no refutation, 
did not alienation from God and the leaning toward ma- 
terialism, due to depravity, eagerly seek a support in all this 
tissue of fables. . . . And, in fact, pride, after rejecting the 
Creator of all things and proclaiming man independent, 
wishing him to be his own king, his own priest, and his own 
God — pride goes so far as to degrade man himself to the 
level of the unreasoning brutes, perhaps even of lifeless mat- 
ter, thus unconsciously confirming the Divine declaration. 
When pride cometh, then cometh shame. But the corruption 
of this age, the machinations of the perverse, the danger 
of the simple, demand that such fancies, altogether absurd 
though they are, should — since they borrow the mask of 
science — be refuted by true science." Wherefore the Pope 
thanked Dr. James for his book, " so opportune and so per- 
fectly appropriate to the exigencies of our time,** and be- 
stowed on him the apostolic benediction. Nor was this brief 
all. With it there came a second, creating the author an 
officer of the Papal Order of St. Sylvester. The cardinal 
archbishop assured the delighted physician that such a 
double honour of brief and brevet was perhaps unprece- 










Crt.v:ir*r: ■ i r-fc-iii:*'^!* ■■•in m* rix ssit-Ij rd isto 

0-fcCW/r>t r^iin-irc*::: : - U'cc tie £T:d>25. cc vh^i is tensed 
frrv-uri'/L O'/i ii r*r'irr*c o: t3>e litoar cc c:Tad?a: in the 
i:i-i>: *>: vjt%ir;?*:a'i> laws ic i* ciscbarjTed frrca g-OTcming 
^'jt Trvrlc * : Z'A, vz^-fm H^rrDtr: Sr«n>cer caZ-ed fcis atiendoQ 
to ^r.*- :^f*. tr,i*. N^-K^r/n w:tb tie ccctriae of sraritaiioo and 



1ft;*:; *,:.*: ^A^.'if: o! phrsicsu asircoi-^iT is oc«i to the same 



r'./'i^rz*',, Mr- Oiicstor:^ retreated in the Crmze^pe^Mry Rrzirx 
^jfA*:r o:.-i '.: :.;* characteristic Ci>x;cs o: words. The Rev. 
I>r. ^^j'.'zs. iri \r.^ hritiih anJ Fc^ri^w Ez^jx^flz^al Rrru-zr. dc- 
^-Arfrc ♦r.it ♦r^e Gr/d of evoIuiic*n is not the Christian's God. 
ly^T'^'n. iJ'r^Ti of Cr.ichester, in a sermon preached before 
tJj': L'r.iv'rr'sitv of Oxford, pathelicallj warned the students 
thil ** t:,*^/v; who refuse to accef»t the history of the creation 
of our first parents according to its obrious literal intention, 
and ar': for substituting^ the modem dream of evolution in 
li\ pjac^:, cauve tPiC entire scheme of man's salvation to col- 
bps^/* Dr, Pusey also came into the fray with most earnest 
ap;/':als ajjainst the new doctrine, and the Rev. Gavin Car- 
Ivlc was j/'rrfervid on the same side. The Societv for Pro- 
ffiotin^f Christian Knowledge published a book by the Rev. 
Mr. I^irks, in which the evolution doctrine was declared to 
Xt^z " flatly opposed to the fundamental doctrine of creation." 
K%''rri the Ij>ndon Times admitted a review stigmatizing Dar- 
win's Dcicent of Man as an "utterly unsupported hypothe- 
fci^/' full of " unsubstantiated premises, cursory investiga- 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 



n 



lions, and disintegrating speculations," and Darwin himself 
as " reckless and unscientific." * 

But it was noted that this second series of attacks, on the 
Descent of Man, differed in one remarkable respect — so far 
as England* was concerned — from those which had been 
made over ten years before on the Origin of Species, While 
everything was done to discredit Darwin, to pour contempt 
upon him, and even, of all things^ in the world, to make him 
— the gentlest of mankind, only occupied with the scientific 
side of the problem — " a persecutor of Christianity," while 
his followers were represented more and more as charlatans 
or dupes, there began to be in the most influential quarters 
careful avoidance of the old argument that evolution — even 
by natural selection — contradicts Scripture. It began to be 
felt that this was dangerous ground. The defection of Lyell 
had, perhaps, more than anything else, started the question 
among theologians who had preserved some equanimity, 
" IVhai if after all, the Darwinian theory should proz^e to be 
true f " Recollections of the position in which the Roman 
Church found itself after the establishment of the doctrines 



• For the French theological opposition to the Darwinian theory, see Pozzy 
La Terre et it Ricit Biblique de la Criation^ 1874, especially pp 353, 363 ; also, 
Felix Ducane, Andes sur U Transform istnt, 1876, especially pp. 107 to 119. As 
to Fabre d'Envieu, see especially his Proposition xliii. For the Abb^ Dirges, 
" former Professor of Philosophy and Theology," see his Erreurs Modtmes^ Paris, 
1878, pp. 677 and 595 to 598. For Monseigneur S^gur, see his La Foi devant la 
Science Afodeme^ sixth ed., Paris, 1874, pp. 23, 34, etc For Herbert Spencer's 
reply to Mr. Gladstone, see his Study of Sociology ; for the passage in the Dublin 
Review, see the issue for July, 1871. For the review in the London Times, see 
Nature for April 20, 1871. For Gavin Carlyle. see The Battle of Unbelief 1870, 
pp. 86 and 171. For the attacks by Michelis and Hagermann, see Natur und 
Offenbarung, Miinster, 1861 to 1869. For Schund, see his Darwin* s Hypothese und 
ihr Verhdltniss %u ^Religion und Moral, Stuttgart, 1869. For Luthardt, see Funded- 
mental Truths of Christianity, translated by Sophia Taylor, second ed., Edinburgh, 
1869. For Rougemont, see his L Homme et le Singe, Neuch&tel, 1863 (also in 
German trans.). For Constantin James, see his Mes Entretiens avec VEmpireur 
Don P/dro sur le Darwinisme, Paris. 1888, where the papal briefs are printed in 
full. For the English attacks on Darwin's Descent of Man, see the Edinburgh 
Review July, 1871, and elsewhere ; the Dublin Review, July, 1871 ; the Bfitish 
and Foreign Evangelical Review, April, 1*^86. See also The Scripture Doctrine of 
Creation, by the Rev. T. R. Birks, London, 1873, published by the S. P. C. K. 
For Dr. Puscy's attack, sec his Unscience, not Science, adverse to Faith, 1878 ; also, 
Darwin* s Life and Letters, voL ii, pp. 411, 412. 



V C^cr^^iitas inri 'Or*;::!^ isx^vnil" "amr intn :rxe TTrnrrg i 









r.'^im-of^'-.iVi. A..'jkr.i>i ir N^v Y'-rk in. :i*3. sniciV oick tic 
V. v.c», ifrvi-r:-^ •>.!* Jr-iiir. Fidijcr Piscii. in. Hii.anr. 



n 1^^\t, i.'-*r :r.«* v.i-i 5i-^«:iisric manner. 1 3i:rt ct zes- 



*r*, ..-,.-: ..v'"'*^.t ',r *-y-:'.-t:t-.r^ :c ttijis. ::ce ziaj sly r-rar a: 

fr-r.-. Ar.-r-i.^a ^-.*^* carii-t n-^Tr ech-Tcs. Azi'jc^ the 
'- 7.", '4/: i**;i.',<^ ^r* -r.* rnr^ir.Li- th'^iry zj Pricestancs and 
^/<? '.',..<.> 'TTo sry//.': 'jt t<z*tciillj n^^ri'icei The arst of 
*-./^^/t v^? %v r>rr. N^ti'-. P'.r:er. President o: Yale CoLIc^c, 
i'» '/^y.^'/. ar,r.'>!;ir. ar; :r.:erest:r.z writer, a nooLe man. 



'/T'Af\ } •.',,'rr^r,*. ':orr.r,;r.:r:%' :n r.is tninicr.j^ a cunoas mix- 
♦ ."! -'Z r^'ii^^'.i^.ri an^i c-or.servarisni. Whi.e giving great 
)^*;* .'\" *r, *'.': 'jvoi'irioriarv teaching in the universitj under 
t..-i. f.'A:*' :.': f^^f. ;?. hU duty upon cr*e occasion to avoir his 
''^^v.>f ir* if; S^if. he '*as tr/O wise a rran to suggest any 
u»r'xx',%r,' '^Xi*'A'^f,u\\xv\ !>tt'Aeen it and the Scriptures. He 
^//ri?,r.'yi r,imv^f rf*airily to pointin;^ out the tendency of the 
'•v'/^i*i'/r» *\'fr*x\u", in this form toward agnosticism and pan- 
t'.'>.'r». 'lo fh^/«y; who knew and loved him. and had noted 
fh" y^iftUtl '//Hv in which bv wise negrlect he had allowed sci- 
'ofific t.Nj/li^!'s to flourish at Yale, there was an amusing side 
to h\\ i'tth. Within a stone's throw of his college rooms was 
fh'', Muvriirn of Pale-ontology, in which Prof. Marsh had laid 
^i^l'r hy i/uU:, ;ifnong other evidences of the new truth, that 
wofi'l'-rful vrrics of specimens showing the evolution of the 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 



79 



horse from the earliest form of the animal, " not larger than 
a fox, with five toes," through the whole series up to his 
present form and size — that series which Huxlfey declared 
an absolute proof of the existence of natural selection as an 
agent in evolution. In spite of the veneration and love which 
all Yale men felt for President Porter, it was hardly to be 
expected that these particular arguments of his would have 
much permanent effect upon them when there was con- 
stantly before their eyes so convincing a refutation. 

But a far more determined opponent was the Rev. Dr. 
Hodge, of Princeton ; his anger toward the evolution doc- 
trine was bitter : he denounced it as thoroughly " atheistic ** ; 
he insisted that Christians ** have a right to protest against 
the arraying of probabilities against the clear evidence of 
the Scriptures " ; he even censured so orthodox a writer as , 
the Duke of Argyll, and declared that the Darwinian theory 
of natural selection is *' utterly inconsistent with the Scrip- 
tures," and that " an absent God, who does nothing, is to us 
no God " ; that " to ignore design as manifested in God's 
creation is to dethrone God " ; that " a denial of design in 
Nature is virtually a denial of God " ; and that " no tele- 
ologist can be a Darwinian." Even more uncompromising 
was another of the leading authorities at the same university 
— the Rev. Dr. Duffield. He declared war not only against 
Darwin but even against men like Asa Gray, Le Conte, and ^ 
others, who had attempted to reconcile the new theory with 
the Bible : he insisted that " evolutionism and the scriptural 
account of the origin of man are irreconcilable " — that the 
Darwinian theory is " in direct conflict with the teaching of 
the apostle, * All scripture is given by inspiration of God * " ; 
he pointed out, in his opposition to Darwin's Descent of Man 
and Lyell's Antiquity of Man, that in the Bible " the gene- 
alogical links which connect the Israelites in Egypt with 
Adam and Eve in Eden are explicitly given." These utter- 
ances of Prof. Duffield culminated in a declaration which de- 
serves to be cited as showing that a Presbyterian minister 
can " deal damnation round the land " ex cathedra in a fashion 
quite equal to that of popes and bishops. It is as follows: 
" If the development theory of the origin of man," wrote Dr. 
Duffield in the Princeton Review^ " shall in a little while take 



^ Thxm ruF.^Tioy to rraLrrwx. 

r.i ;.ua»ct — fcs ti'mbOess h '■rS — ■iih otliCT exploded soeati&c 
h'/tiOx^S^jzxi^ liita litT ttgo acocjrt ii miih its proper logical 
cviibtr'ja^niicrf wiH ia ii«: lift to ccnDt hare t±«r portiosi miih 
Vif'A^ TriiO in liis iiit - ki>ow nc« Grod amd obex iKrt the gos- 

F*>rt unateiy. at ^brmi tic time wbm Danrin's Descrmt cf 
Msn Wit pub-ivbed- tbcre had comt into Princetcm UniTcr- 
vhr a *• deu: €x ma^kima " in the f«r?oo of I>r. Jasses McCosh. 
Caiit:d to tbt: preadencT. be at oocc took his stand against 
t*5actjinjj% iiO dan^trous to CfarisTianhy as those ol Dis. 
\\<A%t. Dufl&eld, and tbnr associates. In ooc of his personal 
c//oJid«Jces he has let us into the secret of this matter. 
With triat hard Scotch sense which Thackeiaj had ap- 
plauded in his well-known rerses. he saw that the most dan- 
gerous thing which could be done to Christianitj at Princc- 
t/yn was to reiterate in the university pulpit, week after 
week, solemn declarations that if evolution by natural selec- 
tion, or indeed evolution at all, be true, the Scriptures arc 
false. He tells us that he saw that this was the certain way 
to make the students unbelievers; he therefore not only 
checked this dangerous preaching but preached an opposite 
d^x^trinc. With him began the inevitable compromise, and, 
in spite of mutterings against him as a Darwinian, he carried 
the day. Whatever may be thought of his general system 
of phiU>s^>phy, no one can deny his g^eat service in neutral- 
izing the teachings of his predecessors and colleagues — so 
dangerous to all that is essential in Christianity. 

Other divines of strong sense in other parts of the coun- 
try began to take similar ground — namely, that men could 
be Christians and at the same tim^ Darwinians. There ap 
pcarcd, indeed, here and there, curious discrepancies: thus 
in 1873 the Monthly Religious Magazine of Boston congratu- 
lated its readers that the Rev. Mr. Burr had "demolished 
the evolution theqry, knocking the breath of life out of it 
and throwing it to the dogs." This amazing performance by 
the Rev. Mr. Burr was repeated in a very striking way by 
Bishop Keener before the CEcumenical Council of Metho- 
dism at Washington in 1891. In what the newspapers de- 
scribed as an " admirable speech," he refuted evolution doc- 
trines by saying that evolutionists had "only to make a 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 8 1 

journey of twelve hours from the place where he was then 
standing to find together the bones of the muskrat, the opos- 
sum, the coprolite, and the ichthyosaurus." He asserted 
that Agassiz — whom the good bishop, like so many others, 
seemed to think an evolutionist — when he visited these beds 
near Charleston, declared : " These old beds have set me 
crazy ; they have destroyed the work of a lifetime." And 
the Methodist prelate ended by saying : " Now, gentlemen, 
brethren, take these facts home with you ; get down and 
look at them. This is the watch that was under the steam 
hammer — the doctrine of evolution ; and this steam hammer 
is the wonderful deposit of the Ashley beds." 

Exhibitions like these availed little. While the good 
bishop amid vociferous applause thus made comically evi- 
dent his belief that Agassiz was a Darwinian and a coprolite 
an animal, scientific men were recording in all parts of the 
world facts confirming the dreaded theory of an evolution 
by natural selection. While the Rev. Mr. Burr was so 
loudly praised for " throwing Darw^inism to the dogs," 
Marsh was completing his series leading from the five-toed 
ungulates to the horse. While Dr. Tayler Lewis at Union, 
and Drs. Hodge and Duffield at Princeton, were showing 
that if evolution be true the biblical accounts must be false, 
the indefatigable Yale professor was showing his cretaceous 
birds, and among them Hesperornis and Ichthyornis with teeth. 
While in Germany Luthardt, Schund, and their compeers 
were demonstrating that Scripture requires a belief in special 
and separate creations, the Archceopteryx^ showing a most 
remarkable connection between birds and reptiles, was dis- 
covered. While in Fyance Monseigneur S6gur and others 
were indulging in diatribes against "a certain Darwin," 
Gaudry and Filhol were discovering a striking series of 
" missing links " among the carnivora. 

In view of the proofs accumulating*in favour of the new 
evolutionary hypothesis, the change in the tone of control- 
ling theologians was now rapid. From all sides came evi- 
dences of desire to compromise with the theory. Strict ad- 
herents of the biblical text pointed significantly to the verses 
in Genesis in which the earth and sea were made to bring 
forth birds and fishes, and man was created out of the dust 
7 



\^ f^kOyi CdiEXZlCS to EVOLCriDBt 



ot' t*r.<* yrounri- Men of larger mind Ifke KingsLcj and Fi-- 
rar. vitr. Er^V^Ci. aad American broad churcimiea generallr. 
try>ic ;5r>und directly in Darwin's favour. Even WnewcU 
tr/>4C wti.vj to shoTT that there ciigtt be soch a thing as a 
L^rw inian argument for desi^ in Nature: -^ nd the Rcr. 
Sarfiuei Houghton, of the Rojai Sjcietj. gave interesting 
iu^jje^tions of a divine design in erolntioa. 

Botn the great English aniversities received the new 
teai:hing 2A a leaven: at Oxford, in the very front of the 
High Church party at Keble College, was elaborated a 
statement that the evolution doctrine is ** an advance in oar 
theol^'^ical thinking." And Temple, Bishop of London, per- 
haps the most influential thinker then in the Anglican epis- 
c/^>pate, accepted the new revelation in the following words: 
** It seems sotncthing more majestic, more befitting him to 
whom a thousand years are as one day, thus to impress his 
will once for all on his creation, and provide for all the 
countless varieties by this one original impress, than by spe- 
cial acts of creation to be perpetually modifying what be 
had previously made." 

In Scotland the Duke of Argyll, head and front of the 
orth^xlox party, dissenting in many respects from Darwin's 
full conclusions, made concessions which badlv shook the 
old \ff/siium. 

f furiously enough, from the Roman Catholic Church, 
bitter as s^>me of its writers had been, now came argument 
to prove that the Catholic faith does not prevent any one 
from holding the Darwinian theory, and especially a declara- 
tion from an authority eminent among American Catholics 
— a declaration which has a very curious sound, but which 
it would Ix: ungracious to find fault with — that "the doctrine 
of evolution is no more in opposition to the doctrine of the 
Catholic Church than is the Copernican theory or that of 
Galileo." 

Here and there, indeed, men of science like Dawson, 
Mivart, and Wigand, in view of theological considerations, 
sought to make conditions ; but the current was too strong, 
and eminent theologians in every country accepted natural 
selection as at least a very important part in the mechanism 
of evolution. 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 83 

At the death of Darwin it was felt that there was but one 
^lace in England where his body should be laid, and that 
:his place was next the grave of Sir Isaac Newton in West- 
minster Abbey. The noble address of Canon Farrar at his 
luneral was echoed from many pulpits in Europe and Amer- 
ica, and theological opposition as such was ended. Occa- 
sionally appeared, it is true, a survival of the old feeling : 
the Rev. Dr. Laing referred to the burial of Darwin in 
Westminster Abbey as " a proof that England is no longer a 
Christian country,*' and added that this burial was a desecra- 
tion — that this honour was given him because he had been 
** the chief promoter of the mock doctrine of evolution of 
the species and the ape descent of man." 

C Still another of these belated prophets was, of all men, 
Thomas Carlyle. Soured and embittered, in the same spirit 
which led him to find more heroism in a marauding Viking 
or in one of Frederick the Great's generals than in Wash- 
ington, or Lincoln, or Grant, and which caused him to see 
in the American civil war only the burning out of a foul 
chimney, he, with the petulance natural to a dyspeptic 
eunuch, railed at Darwin as an " apostle of dirt worship." 
( The last echoes of these utterances reverberated between 
Scotland and America. In the former country, in 1885, the 
Rev. Dr. Lee issued a volume declaring that, if the Darwin- 
ian view be true, " there is no place for God " ; that " by no 
method of interpretation can the language of Holy Scrip- 
ture be made wide enough to re-echo the orang-outang the- 
ory of man's natural history " ; that " Darwinism reverses 
the revelation of God " and ** implies utter blasphemy against 
the divine and human character of our Incarnate Lord " ; 
and he was pleased to call Darwin and his followers " gos- 
pellers of the gutter." In one of the intellectual centres of 
America the editor of a periodical called The Christian urged 
frantically that •* the battle be set in array, and that men find 
out who is on the Lord's side and who is on the side of the 
devil and the monkeys." 

', To the honour of the Church of England it should be 
recorded that a considerable number of her truest men op- 
posed such utterances as these, and that one of them — Far- 
rar, Archdeacon of Westminster — made a protest worthy to 



^4 FROIC CUEATIOV TO EVOLCTIO^: 

b#t hcui in perpetual rttacmbnmcc. While coniessn^ fcis 
O'jrn inabilitj to accept fuUy the new scientiic beiief, fce 
iavi : - We should consider it disijracctiil and huniiliatmg to 
trj to shake it b j an a</ captamdu,m argument, or b j a clap- 
trap y.2Cdc>TU\ X'^ytSil vrj the unfathomabLe ignorance and 
urilimited arrogance of a prejudiced assembij. We should 
biuiih to meet it with an anathema or a sneer." 

Ail opposition had arailed ni^thing : Darwin's work and 
fame were secure. As men looked back OTer his beaatifui 
life — simple, honest, tolerant, kindly — and thought upoa his 
great labours in the search for truth, all the attacks faded 
into nothingness. 

There were indeed some dark spots, which as time goes 
on appear darker. At Trinity College, Cambridge, Whc- 
well, the " omniscient," author of the Histtjrj o/tJu ImJmctke 
Sciincis, refused to allow a copy of the Origin of Sp€ci€s to be 
pbkccd in the library. At multitudes of institutions under 
theological control — Protestant as well as Catholic — attempts 
were made to stamp out or to stifle evolutionary teaching. 
Especially was this true for a time in America, and the case 
of the American College at Bey rout, where nearly all the 
younger professors were dismissed for adhering to Darwin's 
views, is worthy of remembrance. The treatment of Dr. 
Winchcll at the Vanderbilt University in Tennessee showed 
the same spirit ; one of the truest of men, devoted to science 
but of deeply Christian feeling, he was driven forth for views 
which centred in the Darwinian theory. 

Still more striking was the case of Dr. Woodrow. He 
had, alxjut 1857, been appointed to a professorship of Natu- 
ral Science as connected with Revealed Religion, in the 
F^rcsbyterian Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina. He 
was a devoted Christian man, and his training had led him 
to accept the Presbyterian standards of faith. With great 
gifts for scientific study he visited Europe, made a most 
conscientious examination of the main questions under dis- 
cussion, and adopted the chief points in the doctrine of 
cvohition by natural selection. A struggle soon began. A 
movement hostile to him grew more and more determined, 
and at last, in spite of the efforts made in his behalf by the 
directors of the seminary and by a large and broad-minded 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 85 

linority in the representative bodies controlling it, an ortho- 
ox storm, raised by the delegates from various Presbyterian 
odies, drove him from his post. Fortunately, he was re- 
eived into a professorship at the University of South Caro- 
na, where he has since taught with more power than ever 
efore. 

r This testimony to the faith by American provincial Prot- 
stantism was very properly echoed from Spanish provincial 
^tholicism. In the Tear 1878 a Spanish colonial man of sci- 
nce, Dr. Chil y Marango, published a work on the Canary 
slands. But Dr. Chil had the imprudence to sketch, in his 
itroduction, the modern hypothesis of evolution, and to 
xhibit some proofs, found in the Canary Islands, of the bar- 
arism of primitive man. The ecclesiastical authorities, un- 
er the lead of Bishop Urquinaona y Bidot, at once grappled 
rith this new idea. By a solemn act they declared it ^' falsa, 
npiuy scandalosa " ; all persons possessing copies of the work 
rare ordered to surrender them at once to the proper 
cclesiastics, and the author was placed under the major 
xcommunication. 

But all this opposition may be reckoned among the last 
xpiring convulsions of the old theologic theory. Even from 
fie new Catholic University at Washington has come an 
Iterance in favour of the new doctrine, and in other univer- 
ities in the Old World and in the New the doctrine of 
volution by natural selection has asserted its right to full 
nd honest consideration. More than this, it is clearly evi- 
ent that the stronger men in the Church have, in these 
itter days, not only relinquished the struggle against sci- 
nce in this field, but have determined frankly and manfully 
3 make an alliance with it. In two very remarkable lec- 
jres given in 1892 at the parish church of Rochdale, WiU 
3n, Archdeacon of Manchester, not only accepted Dar- 
rinism as true, but wrought it with great argumentative 
ower into a higher view of Christianity ; and what is of 
reat significance, these sermons were published by the same 
lociety for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge which 
nly a few years before had published the most bitter at- 
acks against the Darwinian theory. So, too, during the 
ear 1893, Prof. Henry Drummond, whose praise is in all 



7/, FROM CREATIOX TO EVOLCTIOX. 

fr.i* ^U^r.tingf churches. dcTcIoped a sixnilar view most bril- 
.^anrlv in a series of lectures delivered before tnc American 
Chautiuqua schools, and published £a one of ihc most wid^ 
•pr^ad of En^-ish orthrxiox newspaperSw 

Whatever additional factors mav be added to natural 
selection — and Darwin himself fullr admitted that there 
rr::;jht h»e others — the theory of an evolution process in the 
formation of the universe and of animated nature is estab- 
lished, and the old theory of direct creation is gone forever.) 
In place of it science has given us conceptions far more 
noble, and opened the way to an argument for design infi- 
nitely more beautiful than any ever developed by theology * 



* For cuuM of the bitterness shovn regardisg the DtuvxsxsB farpodiesis. see 
Ressch, hih<l und S'atur, toL ii. pp. 46 ^ uq. For hoidlitj in the Usited Stales 
t/jTf^rd the LKLrmia'ukn cheorr, see, axnong a mnlrirndr of writosi. die Iblknrii^: Dr. 
Chariot iUAgt, of Princetoc, monograph, irAai is D-jrsiMism/ Xev Yoric, 1S74: 
alv> h:» Sy:lema/ic TheoL-fy^ New York, i572, toL ii, part 2, AmtkrtfeL>gy i ako 
Tke Lij^ki ^ Tchich zae see Li^ht^ or Xature and the Scriptmres^ Vcdder Lectures, 
1^75, Kacgen College. New York. 1773 ; also Pcsitizinm ami ExWmtumum^ in 
the Americam Catholic Quarterly^ October, 1377. pp. 607. 619: and, in the same 
camber, Profe::or Huxley and Ezcluticn^ by Rev. A. M. Kindi, pp. 662, 664 ; 
Ike Lo^ie c/ Evoluiicn^ by Prof. Edward F. X. McSweencr, D. D., Jnly, i579i P- 
56 F ; fjas l/examer<m und die Getlc^ie, von P. Eihch, Paator in AUnny, N. Y., 
Lu^heriicher Concordia- Verlag, St. Louis, Mo., i^T^. pp. Si, 32. S4, 92-94 ; Evobh 
tionizm reipecting Man and tke Bible ^ by John T. I>a£5ield, of Princetoii, Jannarj. 
i?7% Princeton Revieu\ pp. 151, 153, 154, isS, 159, 160, iS3 ; A Lectmre om Ewlnh 
tion, before the Nineteenth Century- Club of New York, May 25, iS56, by ex-Presl- 
dent Noah Porter, pp. 4, 26-29. For the laudatory notice of the Rev. E. F. Barfs 
demolition of evolution in his book Pater Mundi^ see Mont Air Pelij^ums Maga' 
tine, Boston, May, 1^73, p. 492. Concerning the reoioval of Rev. Dr. James Wood« 
row, Professor of Natural Science in the Columbia Theological Seminary, see 
Evolution or Xot^ art. in the Xew York Weekly Sun, October 24, 18S8. For the 
dealings of Spanish ecclesiastics with Dr. Chil and his Darwinian exposition, see 
the Revue d* Antkropohj^ie^ cited in the Academy for April 6, 1S7S ; see also the 
Catkolic IVorld, xix, 433, A Discussion witk an Infidel, directed against Dr. Loub 
Biichner and his Kraft and StofT; also Mind and Matter^ by Rev. James Tail, 
of Canada, p. 66 (m the third edition the author bemoans the ** horrible plaudits** 
that '*have accompanied e\ery effort to establish man's brutal descent)*' ; also The 
Ckurck Journal^ New York, May 23, 1874. For the effort in favour of a teleo- 
Irjgical evolution, see Rev. Samuel Houghton, F. R. S., Principles of Animal Mt' 
ckanicSt Ix>ndon, 1873, preface and p. 156 and elsewhere. For details of the persecu- 
tion of Drs. Winchell and Woodrow, and of the Beyrout professors, with authorities 
cited, see my chapter on Tke Fall of Man and Antkropology, For more liberal 
views among religious thinkers regarding the Dan%-inian theory, and for efforts to 
mitigate and adapt it to theological views, see, among the great mass of utterances, 
the following : Charles Kingsley's letters to Darwin, November 18, 1859, in Dor- 



THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY. 8/ 

win*s Ufe and Letters^ vol. ii, p. 8a ; Adam Sedgwick to Charles Darwin, Decem- 
ber 24, 1859, see ibid., vol. ii, pp. 356-359 ; the same to Miss Gerard, January 2, 
i860, see Sedgwick^ s Life and Letters^ vol. ii, pp. 359, 360 ; the same in The Spec- 
tator^ London, March 24, i860 ; The Rambler ^ March, i860, cited by Mivart, Gene- 
sis of Species^ p. 30 ; Thi Dublin Review^ May, i860 ; The Christian Examiner ^ 
May, i860 : Charles Kingsley to F. D. Maurice in 1863, in Kingsley's Life^ voL 
ii, p. 171 ; Adam Sedgwick to Livingstone (the explorer), March 16, 1865, in Life 
and Letters of Sedgwick^ vol. ii, pp. 410-412 ; the Duke of Argyll, The Reign of 
Law^ New York, pp. 16, 18, 31, 116, 117, 120, 159 ; Joseph P. Thompson, D. D., 
LL. D.. Man in Genesis and Geology, New York, 1870, pp. 48, 49, 82 ; Canon H. P. 
Liddon, Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, 1871, Sermon III ; St, 
George Mivart, Evolution and its Consequences, Contemporary Review,]2^M9Ty, 1872; 
Sritish and Foreign Evangelical Review, 1872, article on The Theory of Evolu- 
tion ; The Lutheran Quarterly, Gettysburg, Pa., April, 1872, article by Rev. Cyrus 
Thomas, Assistant United States Geological Survey, on The Descent of Man, pp. 
214, 239, 372-376 ; The Lutheran Quarterly, July, 1873, article on Some Assump- 
tions against Christianity, by Rev. C. A. Stork, Baltimore, Md., pp. 325, 326 ; 
also, in the same number, see a review of Dr. Burr's Pater Mundi, pp. 474, 475, 
and contrast with the review in the Andover Review of that period ; an article in 
the Religious Maga%ine and Monthly Review, Boston, on Religion and Evolution, 
by Rev. S. R. Calthrop, September, 1873, p. 200 ; The Popular Science Monthly, 
January, 1874, article Genesis, Geology, and Evolution, by Rev. George Henslow — 
this article first appeared in his book Evolution and Religion ; article by Asa 
Gray, Nature, Loudon, June 4, 1874 ; Materialism, by Rev. W. Streissguth, 
Lutheran Quarterly, July, 1875, originally written in German, and translated by 
J. G. Morris, D. D., pp. 406, 408 ; Darwinismus und Christenthum, von R. Steck, 
Ref. Pfarrer in Dresden, Berlin, 1875, pp. 5, 6, and 26, reprinted from the Pro- 
testantische Kirehenteitung, and issued as a tract by the Protestantenverein ; Rev. 
W. E. Adams, article in the Lutheran Quarterly, April, 1879, on Evolution : Shall 
it be Atheistic f John Wood, Bible Anticipations of Modern Science, 1880, pp. 18, 
19, 22 ; Lutheran Quarterly, January, 1881, Some Postulates of the New Ethics, 
by Rev. C. A. Stork, D. D. ; Lutheran Quarterly, January, 1882, The Religion of 
Evolution as against the Religion of Jesus, by Prof. W. H. Wjmn, Iowa State 
Agricultural College — this article was republished as a pamphlet ; Canon Liddon, 
prefatory note to sermon on The Recovery of St. Thomas, pp. 4, ii, 12, 13, and 26, 
preached in St Paul's Cathedral, April 23, 1882 ; Lutheran Quarterly, January, 
1882, EtHflution and the Scripture, by Rev. John A. Earnest, pp. loi, 105 ; Glimpses 
im the Twilight, by Rev. F. G. Lee, D. D., Edinburgh, 1885, especially pp. 18 and 
19 ; the Hibbert Lectures for 1883, by Rev. Charles Beard, pp. 392, 393, et seq. ; 
F. W. Farrar, D. D., Canon of Westminster, The History of Interpretation, being 
the Bampton Lectures for 1885, pp. 426, 427 ; Bishop Temple, Bampton Lectures, 
pp. 184-186 ; article Evolution, in the Dictionary of Religion, edited by Rev. 
William Benham, 1887 ; Prof. Huxley, An Episcopal Trilogy, Nineteenth Century, 
November, 1887 — this article discusses three sermons delivered by the Bishops of 
Carlisle, Bedford, and Manchester, in Manchester Cathedral, during the meeting of 
the British Association, September, 1887 — these sermons were afterward published 
in pamphlet form under the title The Advance of Science ; John Fiske, Darwinism, 
and other Essays, Boston, 1888 ; Harriet Mackenzie, Evolution illuminating the 
Bible, London, 1891, dedicated to Prof. Huxley ; H. E. Ryle, Hulsean Professor of 
Divinity at Cambridge, The Early Narratives of Genesis, London, 1892, preface, 



31-1 







CHAPTER II. 
GEOGRAPHY. 

I. THE FORM OF THE EARTH. 

Among various rude tribes we find survivals of a primi- 
tive idea that the earth is a flat table or disk, ceiled, domed, 
or canopied by the sky, and that the sky rests upon the 
mountains as pillars. Such a belief is entirely natural ; it 
conforms to the appearance of things, and hence at a very 
early period entered into various theologies. 

In the civilizations of Chaldea and Egypt it was very 
fully developed. The Assyrian inscriptions deciphered in 
these latter years represent the god Marduk as in the begin- 
ning creating the heavens and the earth : the earth rests 
upon the waters ; within it is the realm of the dead ; above 
it is spread " the firmament '* — a solid dome coming down 
to the horizon on all sides and resting upon foundations laid 
in the ** great waters " which extend around the earth. 

On the east and west sides of this domed firmament are 
doors, through which the sun enters in the morning and de- 
parts at night ; above it extends another ocean, which goes 
down to the ocean surrounding the earth at the horizon on 
all sides, and which is supported and kept away from the 
earth by the firmament. Above the firmament and the up- 
per ocean which it supports is the interior of heaven. 

The Egyptians considered the earth as a table, flat and 
oblong, the sky being its ceiling — a huge "firmament" of 
metal. At the four corners of the earth were the pillars sup- 
porting this firmament, and on this solid sky were the " wa- 
ters above the heavens." They believed that, when chaos 
was taking form, one of the gods by main force raised the 

waters on high and spread them out over the firmament ; 

89 



.ni-«^5L^ST 



« ^ 






.r. r^*rv-i -y^ r:^'.* t:ie:r:es :: rr-rgrarcT ::a5cd upon 



rr'.rr. T.^trie ar.r: -::..- ir.ess men ear-ier sources common 
v> tr.*rr. a., carr.e g^e^-e^i^ical legacies to the Hebrews. 
Viriv-* s^i^a^^ iri :r.e:r E^icred btioiEw niazr or them noble 
:r. </>r.o^*,;'.ri ar.d b^auui-l in fznz. regardiz^ "the foiinda- 
rl'^ri ^: tr.^ ^ar:ri upon the warer?,"* -the fountains of the 
%r*:^'i 'i^.tr^." " '-'.e c :.n:pass uz-«jn the face of the depth," the 
•■ f;rrr.arr,ent/* tr.e " comers of the canh."* the " pillars of 
hfrav^i/" th^ '• -jrarers aixive the £nnan:eat.'* the " windows 
o: r.':iiveri,' ar.d *' doors of heaven/" piint as back to both 
t:.^s^: ar-v>:rit springs of though:.* 



• F ',r . ;r-7;Ti i -.f 'h* eary i-ita. asr^-tis ic F^^^ts cf the sky ss scppccted by 
ir.'/5-."A..-. -. iT.'i a.-n'.r.^ ■^-'drv Fxdr.c islaz'iers, -rf die sir as a finaamnx or Taall 
cf »."-r.* ^* Tv'.r. Ezrly Ifutiry :f M znUnd^ itccxA cditjoo, Lcndca, 1870^ 
c:-ip. r; : rp^r.-i^r. .>.«:/:"•, vol. i, chap, rii: ; also Andrew Lajsg^ Li MrtkcicgU^ 
Par;., i-'^^ pp. ^.t-73. For the Baby Ionian ieones. see George Smith's CJkaldMm 
Cau:i:, %tA ^:p^'.a!!y the Gcnsaa transla^ioc by Delirrsch, Lexptuc, i576 ; also, 
J*T.v:n, /^iV K:im.:^:nU der Bc'yl:nigr, S:rasb:irg, iSgo ; see cspeciallj in the 
%ru\,^^'\'v.*^, ;-p. ', ar.-i 10, a 'drawing represcniiag the whole Babylonian scheme so 
cW-^Vf {'/.Wsif*. in the Hebrew book Genes-i^ See also Lakas. Die Crumdbegrife 
in den A'o:moy>nien der alten I'olker^ Leipsic, I7*p3. for a most thorough summing 
up *A the who;<t *ub;*ct, with texts showicg the derelopment of Hebrew oat <rf 
ChaMean ar.d K'^y^rlzn conceptions, pp. 44, etc ; also pp. 127 et stf. For the 
early vi<;'Ar in India ar.i Persia, see ciuitions from the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta 
in I.'sthaljy, A re hi te^ Surf, My:ticism^ and Myth, chap, i For the Egyptian Tiew, 
Mre Chamfx^llion : aUo, Lenormant. Ilistcire Ancienne^ Maspero, and others. As 
to the figures of the heavens upon the ceilings of Egyptian temples see Maspero, 
Archlflo7ie E^yftienne^ Paris, i?go; and for engravings of them, see Lepsias, 
DenkmaUr^ vol. i, Bl. 41, and voL ix. Abth. iv, BI. 35 ; also the D/scriptum de 
l*Ii;',ypte, published by order of Napoleon, tome ii, PI. 14 ; also Prisse d'Avennes, 
Art E/^yptien, Atla^, tome i, PI. 35 ; and especially for a survi\'al at the Temple of 
I>endcrah, sec I>cnon, Voyage en E.j^yfte, Planches 129, 130. For the Egyptian 
idea of "pillars of heaven/' as alluded to on the stele of victory of Thotmes III, 



THE FORM OF THE EARTH. 



91 



But, as civilization was developed, there were evolved, 
especially among the Greeks, ideas of the earth's sphericity. 
The Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle especially cherished 
them. These ideas were vague, they were mixed with ab- 
surdities, but they were germ ideas, and even amid the luxu- 
riant growth of theology in the early Christian Church these 
germs began struggling into life in the minds of a few think- 
ing men, and these men renewed the suggestion that the 
earth is a globe.* 

A few of the larger-minded fathers of the Church, influ- 
enced possibly by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by 
Aristotle and Plato, were willing to accept this view, but 
the majority of them took fright at once. To them it seemed 
fraught with dangers to Scripture, by which, of course, 
they meant their interpretation of Scripture. Among the 
first who took up arms against it was Eusebius. In view of 
the New Testament texts indicating the immediately ap- 
proaching end of the world, he endeavoured to turn ofif this 
idea by bringing scientific studies into contempt. Speaking 
of investigators, he said, " It is not through ignorance of the 
things admired by them, but through contempt of their use- 



in the Cairo Museum, see Ebers, Uarda^ vol. ii, p. 175, note, Leipsic, 1877. For a 
similar Babylonian belief, see Sayce's Herodotus^ Appendix, p. 403. For the belief 
of Hebrew scriptural writers in a solid "firmament," see especially Job, xxxviii, 18 ; 
also Smith's Bible Dictionary, For engravings showing the earth and heaven above 
it as conceived by Egyptians and Chaldeans, with '* pillars of heaven " and *' firma- 
ment," see Maspero and Sayce, Dawn of Cimlisation^ London, 1894, pp. 17 and 543. 
* The agency of the Pythagoreans in first spreading the doctrine of the earth's 
sphericity is generally acknowledged, but the first clear and full utterance of it to 
the world was by Aristotle. Very fruitful, too, was the statement of the new the- 
ory given by Plato in the Timaus ; see Jowett's translation, 62, c. Also the Phado^ 
pp. 449 et seq. See also Grote on Plato's doctrine of the sphericity of the earth ; 
also Sir G. C. Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients^ London, 1862, chap, iii, section 
i, and note. Cicero's mention of the antipodes, and his reference to the passage in 
the Timxus, are even more remarkable than the latter, in that they much more 
clearly foreshadow the modem doctrine. See his Academic Questions, ii ; also 
Tusc, Quest, ^ \ and t, 24. For a very full summary of the views of the ancients on 
the sphericity of the earth, see Kretschmer, Die physische Erdkunde im christlichen 
Mittelalter^ Wien, 1889, pp. 35 et seq. ; also, Eicken, Geschichte der mitielalterlichen 
Weltanschauung^ Stuttgart, 1887, Dritter Theil, chap. vi. For citations and sum- 
maries, see Whewell, Hist, Induct, Sciences, vol. i, p. 189, and St. Martin, Hist, de 
la Giog,, Paris, 1873, p. 96 ; also, Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli 
antichi, Firenze, 185 1, chap, xii, pp. 184 et seq. 



--7 C£«OGiJMET- 



v>ult to '':jtVJ!:T ti.ii^iu'' B^sL o: Cacsarra declared it "a 
xnaittrr of 2>o iiittrtrsl to us •■rLeibtr ibc caLTtii is a 5f»bcre or 
a CT-ii*c^r or a ci^ or coqcsitc in lie diidie like a fan." 
Lacta:;;tiui r*:if:rTt:i to the ideas of VLoyt ssodjiag' astn>zx>isT 
2ii "lis-d 4tzA Krascless." aad opposed ibe dcctriDC of the 
earii's spr^ericitT i>otb froni Scrfptcie and reason. St. John 
Ciiry v/^toni aly> exerted Lis inruence against this scientific 
l>tlief; ar-d Eptraem Sjrus, the greatest man of the old 
Svrian Ciiurch, wideiT knovn as the "Inte of the HoIt 
Gh'yst,** Opposed it no less camesilj. 

But the strictlr biblical men of science, snch eminent 
fathers and bishops as Tbeopfailus of Antioch in the second 
centurv, and Oement of Alexandria in the third, with others 
in centuries following* were not content with merely oppos- 
ing what they stigmatized as an old heathen theory ; they 
drew from their Bibles a new Christian theory, to which one 
Church authority added one idea and another another, until 
it was fully developed. Taking the sur\'ival of various early 
traditions, given in the seventh verse of the first chapter of 
Genesis, they insisted on the clear declarations of Scripture 
that the earth was, at creation, arched over with a solid 
vault, " a firmament," and to this they added the passages 
from Isaiah and the Psalms, in which it declared that the 
heavens are stretched out " like a curtain," and again ** like 
a tent to dwell in." The universe, then, is like a house: the 
earth is its ground floor, the firmament its ceiling, under 
which the Almighty hangs out the sun to rule the daj^ and 
the moon and stars to rule the night. This ceiling is also 
the floor of the apartment above, and in this is a cistern, 
shaped, as one of the authorities says, " like a bathing-tank," 
and containing " the waters which are above the firmament." 
These waters are let down upon the earth by the Almighty 
and his angels through the " windows of heaven." As to 
the movement of the sun, there was a citation of various 
passages in Genesis, mixed with metaphysics in various pro- 
portions, and this was thought to give ample proofs from 
the Bible that the earth could not be a sphere.* 

• For I'uscbius, sec ihc Pr<rp. Ev., xv, 6i. For Basil, see the Hexttmeron^ 



THE FORM OF THE EARTH. 



93 



In the sixth century this development culminated in what 
was nothing less than a complete and detailed system of the 
universe, claiming to be based upon Scripture, its author 
being the Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes. Egypt 
was a great treasure-house of theologic thought to various 
religions of antiquity, and Cosmas appears to have urged 
upon the early Church this Egyptian idea of the construc- 
tion of the world, just as another Egyptian ecclesiastic, 
Athanasius, urged upon the Church the Egyptian idea of a 
triune deity ruling the world. ( According to Cosmas, the 
earth is a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by four seas. 
It is four hundred days' journey long and two hundred 
broad. At the outer edges of these four seas arise massive 
walls closing in the whole structure and supporting the 
firmament or vault of the heavens, whose edges are cement- 
ed to the walls. These walls inclose the earth and all the 
heavenly bodies. 

The whole of this theologico-scientific structure was built 
most carefully and, as was then thought, most scripturally. 
Starting with the expression applied in the ninth chapter of 
Hebrews to the tabernacle in the desert, Cosmas insists, 
with other interpreters of his time, that it gives the key to 
the whole construction of the world. The universe is, there- 
fore, made on the plan of the Jewish tabernacle — boxlike 
and oblong. Going into details, he quotes the sublime 
words of Isaiah : " It is He that sitteth upon the circle of 
the earth ; . . . that stretcheth out the heavens like a cur- 
lain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell in" ; and 
the passage in Job which speaks of the " pillars of heaven." 
He works all this into his system, and reveals, as he thinks, 
treasures of science. 

This vast box is divided into two compartments, one 
above the other. In the first of these, men live and stars 
move ; and it extends up to the first solid vault, or firma- 
ment, above which live the angels, a main part of whose 
business it is to push and pull the sun and planets to and 

Horn. ix. For Lactantius, see his Inst, Z>iv., lib. iii, cap. 3 ; also, citations in 
Whewell, //ist. Induct Sciences^ London, 1857, vol. i, p. 194, and in St. Martin, 
Histcire de la Giograpkie^ pp. 216, 217. For the views of St. John Chrysostom, 
Ephraem Syrus, and other great churchmen, see Kretschmer as above, chap. L 



i£C*;a.T?gT: 



le iiiiss ne Terr. * --ir ^ler? 3C i txrnzamcnt in 
tie 3ii«::fC :i iixt TOKT*. inn e^ x irrrce rixe w:iters from 
rze T-tir^r*. ' 111(1 rmer Ti-'irs r'.nx «>iness: r: ticsc he adds 
lie ":±!ir :~ m :r:e r5L..i:>. • r-:ii5e ijn. j- iQT^aod heavens, 
in-it fri v:ir±r5 riiir re i;:«:\-- "ne 3eaT-as ' : then casts all 
rie^se zryrms :i zzizuz^.z -nnj is ir:u~ie tceether. and 
i.iiLl7 rr"j3^ :uc ne rierjiy noc :v»s* riis irsc vanlt is a 
71SC yjsZ'tri r:nr3:niag ■ ne vir^rsw ' Ke tien takes the ex- 
pr^ssiia in *jrr!ness -^gor^ng ne * irinoj'ars :c heaven ** and 
•sa-iiisces x iTctriae r^-.rir'iin^ the r^,rx!atf#jn oc the rain, 
•t th't effect th-it tne in;ir;:s 3i:c jn^j rusd ind rdl the heav- 
^T tminis t: int tze :;am. tur i-sc jcen and close the 
at^T»::lT wino: vs ft vaKr x. 

T : inf:»frKanc the 5;irrac2 :i the -nrth* Crsnias, follow- 
ing t-t-i zirith'Ziis :£ int^rrnrtariira -arhich Ort§en and other 
ear.- iithers :i: the Ctiirrh zosi :;<cxhiishei. sr^-iies the table 
or sr.e-v-cr^ait hr the Jev^ taherTucie. The sjirface of this 
tahie trtTes t: hr-r that the ^arth fs fat. and its dimensions 
cr' T* :hit the earth is t vi.j- 05 Icc:? is broad : its four 
comers *Tz:b«:Li-re the ::ur seosccs: the rarelve loaves of 
or-^ai-i. th'i t:velve ttccths : the hrLl*:**- ai>^ct the table proves 
rr.riZ the 'cean surrrunds the earth. To account for the 
rr. v/e-r.-er-t of th'r suz. C:sn:a.> 5u^^:escs :ha: at the north of 
Tr.f: ertrtr. is a zreat mrcntnin. ani that at night the sun 
k crirri-t^ behind this: but s^rcte o: the commentators ven- 
tuT'-A r.'j express a doubt here: thev thou^t that the sun 
wri^ z>'.i\r.*tfi into a lit at ni^ht and pulled out vn. the morning. 

N'oThir.g- can be more touching in its simplicity than Cos- 
Tu^<^ summing up of his great argument. He declares, 
'• W> «ay therefore with Isaiah that the heaven embracing 
fh<^, nriiver^ie is a vault, with Job that it is joined to the 
<^?irf ri, an^l with Moses that the length of the earth is greater 
tK;iri \^% breadth/' The treatise closes with rapturous asser- 
f ion^ f haf not only Moses and the prophets, but also angels 
'AUf\ ;ipo<..tIes. agree to the truth of his doctrine, and that at 
U\f'. l/'i'.t day CffA will condemn all who do not accept it. 

Alth'^jijj^h this theory was drawn from Scripture, it was 
;ilv>, ;i's w^- have seen, the result of an evolution of theological 
thought \)f'fr\\x\ long before the scriptural texts on which it 
Tr^\i:(\ wf:rc written* It was not at all strange that Cosmas, 



THE FORM OF THE EARTH. 95 

Egyptian as he was, should have received this old Nile-bom 
doctrine, as we see it indicated to-day in the structure of 
Egyptian temples, and that he should have developed it by 
the aid of the Jewish Scriptures ; but the theological world 
knew nothing of this more remote evolution from pagan 
germs ; it was received as virtually inspired, and was soon 
regarded as a fortress of scriptural truth. Some of the fore- 
most men in the Church devoted themselves to buttressing 
it with new texts and throwing about it new outworks of 
theological reasoning ; the great body of the faithful con- 
sidered it a direct gift from the Almighty. Even in the later 
centuries of the Middle Ages John of San Geminiano made 
a desperate attempt to save it. Like Cosmas, he takes the 
Jewish tabernacle as his starting-point, and shows how all 
the newer ideas can be reconciled with the biblical accounts 
of its shape, dimensions, and furniture.* 



* For a notice of the views of Cosmas in connection with those of Lactantius, 
Augnstine, St John Chrysostom, and others, sec Schocll, Histoire de la LittArature 
Grecque^ yoL vii, p. 37. The main scriptural passages referred to are as follows : 
(i) Isaiah xl, 22 ; (2) Genesb i, 6; (3) Genesis vii, 11 ; (4) Exodus xxiv, 10; (5) 
Job xxvi, II, and xxxvii, 18 ; (6) Psalm cxlviii, 4, and civ, 9 ; (7) Ezekiel i, 22-26. 
For Cosmas's theory, see Montfaucon, ColUctio Noifa Patrum^ Paris, 1706, vol. ii, 
p. 188 ; also pp. 298, 299. The text is illustrated with engravings showing walls 
and solid vault (firmament), with the whole apparatus of " fountains of the great 
deep," ** windows of heaven," angels, and the mountain behind which the sun is 
drawn. For reduction of one of them, see Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde^ p. 
98 ; also article Maps^ in Knight's Dictionary of Afechanics, New York, 1875. 
For curious drawings showing Cosmas's scheme in a different way from that given 
by Montfaucon, see extracts from a Vatican codex of the ninth century in Garucci, 
Storia de I* Arte Christiana^ vol. iii, pp. 70 et seq. For a good discussion of Cos- 
mas's ideas, see Santarem, Hist, de la Cosmographies vol. ii, pp. 8 et seq.^ and for a 
very thorough discussion of its details, Kretschmer, as above. For still another 
theory, very droll, and thought out on similar principles, see Mungo Park, cited in 
De Morgan, Paradoxes^ p. 309. For Cosmas's joyful summing up, see Montfaucon, 
ColUctio Nova Patrum, vol. ii, p. 255. For a curious survival in the thirteenth 
century of the old idea of the " waters above the heavens," see the story in Ciervase 
of Tilbury, how in his time some people coming out of church in England found 
an anchor let down by a rope out of the heavens, how there came voices from sail- 
ors above trying to loose the anchor, and, finally, how a sailor came down the rope, 
who, on reaching the earth, died as if drowned in water. See Gervase of Tilbury, 
Otia Imperialia^ edit. Liebrecht, Hanover, 1856, Prima Decisio, cap. xiii. The 
work was written about 121 1. For John of San Geminiano, see his Summa de 
Exemplis^ lib. ix, cap. 43. For the Egyptian Trinitarian views, see Sharpe, //f>- 
tory of Egypt, vol. i, pp. 94, 102. 



o 






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....:: • ::::::::::-*-::.':•-■ - ~— ^- ' =iiirir m ' nn.: r iod 
^. : ::li-.-: -.v: r.-n :. r.:^:r- vmisr ssumr r-rnr r:* 
— .-•— : — - ::.: f ;r :i n:u'"" 

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THE FORM OF THE EARTH. 



97 



tion. Many a bold navigator, who was quite ready to brave 
pirates and tempests, trembled at the thought of tumbling 
with his ship into one of the openings into hell which a 
widespread belief placed in the Atlantic at some unknown 
distance from Europe. This terror among sailors was one 
of the main obstacles in the great voyage of Columbus. In 
a mediaeval text-book, giving science the form of a dialogue, 
occur the following question and answer: ** Why is the sun 
so red in the evening ? " ** Because he looketh down upon 
hell." 

But the ancient germ of scientific truth in geography — 
the idea of the earth's sphericity— still lived. Although the 
great majority of the early fathers of the Church, and espe- 
cially Lactantius, had sought to crush it beneath the utter- 
ances attributed to Isaiah, David, and St. Paul, the better 
opinion of Eudoxus and Aristotle could not be forgotten. 
Clement of Alexandria and Origen had even supported it. 
Ambrose and Augustine had tolerated it, and, after Cosmas 
had held sway a hundred years, it received new life from a 
great churchman of southern Europe, Isidore of Seville, 
who, however fettered by the dominant theology in many 
other things, braved it in this. In the eighth century a simi- 
lar declaration was made in the north of Europe by another 
great Church authority, Bede. Against the new life thus 
given to the old truth, the sacred theory struggled long and 
vigorously but in vain. Eminent authorities in later ages, 
like Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante, and Vin- 
cent of Beauvais, felt obliged to accept the doctrine of the 
earth's sphericity, and as we approach the modern period 
we find its truth acknowledged by the vast majority of 
thinking men. The Reformation did not at first yield fully 
to this better theory. Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin were 
very strict in their adherence to the exact letter of Scrip- 
ture. Even Zwingli, broad as his views generally were, was 
closely bound down in this matter, and held to the opinion 
of the fathers that a great firmament, or floor, separated the 
heavens from the earth ; that above it were the waters and 
angels, and below it the earth and man. 

The main scope given to independent thought on this 
general subject among the Reformers was in a few minor 
8 



0£>35;aPHY- 



r-:^^ .'-. ~ which encompassed 

tcez, :*- ;fij.j: j:Lirij:-r :: zzc conversation of the serpent 
•A-::- Ev-, ici :r.- :ii-. 

1= '.z:: \in^ :=:=^iii:-:r ::Howing the Reformation mat 
:-r? wer^ trv-~ w.rs^. T-^ interpretations of Scripture by 
Lu:-er a-- CjIvi- ^ev^=e as sacred to their followers as 
:r.e :s:r-.r:ure ::xr^. When C;xuxt ventured, in interpreting 
tre Psal-s, :o qu-?:!. -: the accepted belief that " the watcn 
a':>^Ye the hej.vt:i>* w-re c^>3tiiaed in a vast receptacle up- 
hcVi by a s^jlii viu.t. he was bitterly denounced as h^ 

In the latter part o: the sixteenth century Musaeus inter- 
pretei the accounts in Genesis to mean that first God made 
tne heavens ::>t the rv>x or vault, and left it there on high 
swing-Ing until three days later he put the earth under it 
But the new scientif.c thought as to the earth's form had 
gained the day. The n:.>5t sturdy believers were obliged to 
adjust their biblis.'al theories to it as best thev could.* 



i:. THE DEMNEATION OF THE EARTH. 

Every great people o: antiquity, as a rule, regarded its 
own central city or most holy place as necessarily the centre 
of the earth. 

The Chaldean? held that their "holy house of the gods" 
was the centre. The Egyptians sketched the world under 
the form of a human figure, in which Egypt was the heart, 
and the centre of it Thebes. For the Assyrians, it was 
Babylon: for the Hindus, it was Mount Meru; for the 
Greeks, so far as the civilized world was concerned, Olvni- 
pus or the temple at Delphi: for the modem Mohammed- 
ans, it is Mecca and its sacred stone : the Chinese, to this 
day, speak of their empire as the •* middle kingdom." It 
was in accordance, then, with a simple tendency of human 

* For a dUciission of the geographical views of Isidore and Bede, see SanUrein, 
Cr':m^'rraphie, vol. i, pp. 22-24. For the gradual acceptance of the idem of the 
earth's s^^hcricity after the eighth cectur\'. see Kretschmer, pp. 51 tt seq.^ where 
citariontt from a multitude of authors are given. For the \-iews of the Reformers, 
\n«t Z'kr.Ier, vol. i, pp. 679 and 693. For Calixt, Mo&xus, and others, ibid^^ pp. 
673-/»77 and 761. 



THE DELINEATION OF THE EARTH. 



99 



thought that the Jews believed the centre of the world to 
be Jerusalem. 

The book of Ezekiel speaks of Jerusalem as in the mid- 
dle of the earth, and all other parts of the world as set 
around the holy city. Throughout the ** ages of faith ** this 
was very generally accepted as a direct revelation from the 
Almighty regarding the earth's form. St. Jerome, the great- 
est authority of the early Church upon the Bible, declared, 
on the strength of this utterance of the prophet, that Jeru- 
salem could be nowhere but at the earth's centre; in the 
ninth century Archbishop Rabanus Maurus reiterated the 
same argument; in the eleventh century Hugh of St. Vic- 
tor gave to the doctrine another scriptural demonstration ; 
and Pope Urban, in his great sermon at Clermont urging 
the Franks to the crusade, declared, " Jerusalem is the mid- 
dle point of the earth " ; in the thirteenth century an ecclesi- 
astical writer much in vogue, the monk Caesarius of Heister- 
bach, declared, "As the heart in the midst of the body, so is 
Jerusalem situated in the midst of our inhabited earth," — 
*' so it was that Christ was crucified at the centre of the 
earth." Dante accepted this view of Jerusalem as a cer- 
tainty, wedding it to immortal verse; and in the pious book 
of travels ascribed to Sir John Mandeville, so widely read 
in the Middle Ages, it is declared that Jerusalem is at the 
centre of the world, and that a spear standing erect at the 
Holy Sepulchre casts no shadow at the equinox. 

Ezekiel's statement thus became the standard of ortho- 
doxy to early map-makers. The map of the world at Here- 
ford Cathedral, the maps of Andrea Bianco, Marino Sanuto, 
and a multitude of others fixed this view in men's minds, and 
doubtless discouraged during many generations any scien- 
tific statements tending to unbalance this geographical cen- 
tre revealed in Scripture.* 

* For the beliefs of various nations of antiquity that the earth's centre was in 
their most sacred place, see citations from Maspero, Charton, Sayce, and others in 
Lethaby, Architecture^ Mysticism^ and Myth^ chap. iv. As to the Greeks, we have 
typical statements in the Eumenides of iCschylus, where the stone on the altar at 
Delphi is repeatedly called " the earth's navel " — which is precisely the expression 
used regarding Jerusalem in the Septuagint translation of Ezekiel (see below). 
The proof texts on which the mediaeval geographers mainly relied m to the form 



lOO CZOGJL&PHT. 



Nor did c-fciatTil tiink^rs rest wizh this conception. 
In accor-j-irce 'ariih tiie d :.€z."*ant Tie-*- that physical truth 
must be s-oc^ht bj the^jZc-^^ial reasonTng, the doctrine was 
CTolvcd tbat z^'jC oclj the stc oi the cross on Calvarr marked 
the gcrrgr&^hic:kl centre of the world, bet that on this Tcry 
spot had stOi>d the tree which bore the forbidden fruit in 
Eden. Thus was geography made to reconcile all parts of 
the great theologic plan. This doctrine was hailed with 
joy by muldtudes : and we tnd in the works of medixval 
pilgrims to Palestine, again and again, evidence that this 
had become precious truth to them, both in theology and 
geography. Even as late as 1664 the eminent French priest 
Eugene Roger, in his published travels in Palestine, dwelt 
upon the thirty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel, coupled with a 
text from Isaiah, to prove that the exact centre of the earth 
is a spot marked on the pavement of the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, and that on this spot once stood the tree which 
bore the forbidden fruit and the cross of Christ.* 



of the earth vere Ezdud t, 5, aod xxxriii, 12. The |wu |^ i e && of 
knowledge eridentlj cansed them to be softened down somewhat in our King 
James's Tersion ; bat the fiist of them reads, in the Vacate. '* /stm est Hi^rusmiem^ 
in mrdic gentium pond ram ft in circmiu ejus terr^ " ; and the second reads, in 
the Valgate, " in medio terrm^ and in the Septnagint, M. r^ i ^a AiW r^t y^s. 
That the literal centre of the earth was nndeistood, see proof in St. Jerome, Cpm^ 
mentar. in EseHel^ lib. ii ; and for general proof, see Leopardi, Sa§gi^ sopra gU 
errari popolari degli anti^ki^ pp. 207, 2o3. For Rabanos Mannis, see his De Um- 
verso, lib. xii. cap. 4, in Migne, tome cxi, p. 339. For Hngh of Sl Victor, see his 
De Situ Terrarum^ cap. ii. For Dante's belief, see Jnfemo, canto zxxiy, 1 1 2-1 15 : 

" £ se' or sotto Temisperio gionto, 

Ch' h opposito a quel che la gran secca 
Coverchia, e sotto fl cai colmo consnnto 
Fa I'uom che nacqae e risse senza pecca." 
For orthodox geography in the Middle Ages, see Wright's Essays an Arcka- 
ology^ vol. ii. chapter on the map of the world in Hereford Cathedral ; also the 
rude maps in Cardinal d'Ailly's Ymago Mundi ; also copies of maps of Marino 
.Sanuto and others in Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 210 ; also Manster, Fa^ Simile deli* 
Atlante di Andrea Bianco^ Venezia, 1869. And for discussions of the whole sub- 
ject, see Santarem, vol. ii, p. 295, vol. iii, pp. 71, 183, 184, and elsewhere. For a 
brief summary with citations, see Eicken, Geschichte^ etc., pp. 622, 623. 

♦ For the site of the cross on Calvary, as the point where stood " the tree of 
the knowledge of good and evil " in Eden, at the centre of the earth, see various 
Eastern travellers cited in Tobler ; but especially the traveb of Bishop Arculf in 
the Holy Land, in Wright's Early Travels in Palestine^ p. 8 ; also Travels of 
Saewulf, ibid., p. 38 ; also, Sir John Mandeville, ibid., pp. 166, 167. For Roger, 



THE DELINEATION OF THE Ti/ARTH. loi 



Nor was this the only misconception which forced its 
way from our sacred writings into mediaevaF map-making : 
two others were almost as marked. 

First of these was the vague terror inspired by Gog and 
Magog. Few passages in the Old Testament *are more 
sublime than the denunciation of these great eneniies by 
Ezekiel; and the well-known statement in the Apocalypse 
fastened the Hebrew feeling regarding them with a new 
meaning into the mind of the early Church : hence it was 
that the mediaeval map-makers took great pains to delineate 
these monsters and their habitations on the maps. For cen- 
turies no map was considered orthodox which did not show 
them. 

The second conception was derived from the mention in 
our sacred books of the " four winds." Hence came a vivid 
belief in their real existence, and their delineation on the 
maps, generally as colossal heads with distended cheeks, 
blowing vigorously toward Jerusalem. 

After these conceptions had mainly disappeared we find 
here and there evidences of the difficulty men found in giv- 
ing up the scriptural idea of direct personal interference by 
agents of Heaven in the ordinary phenomena of Nature : 
thus, in a noted map of the sixteenth century representing 
the earth as a sphere, there is at each pole a crank, with an 
angel laboriously turning the earth by means of it : and, in 
another map, the hand of the Almighty, thrust forth from 
the clouds, holds the earth suspended by a rope and spins 
it with his thumb and fingers. Even as late as the middle of 
the seventeenth century Heylin, the most authoritative Eng- 
lish geographer of the time, shows a like tendency to mix 
science and theology. He warps each to help the other, as 
follows: "Water, making but one globe with the earth, is 

see his La Terre Saincte^ Paris, 1664, pp. 89-218, etc. ; see also Quaresmio, Terra 
Sancta Elucidation 1639, for similar view ; and, for one narrative in which the idea 
was developed into an amazing mass of pious myths, see Pilgrimage of the RuS' 
sian Abbot Daniel^ edited by Sir C. W. Wilson, London, 1885, p. 14. (The pas- 
sage deserves to be quoted as an example of myth-making ; it is as follows : " At 
the time of our Lord's crucifixion, when he gave up the ghost on the cross, the 
veil of the temple was rent, and the rock above Adam's skull opened, and the 
blood and water which flowed from Christ's side ran down through the fissure 
upon the skull, thus washing away the sins of men.") 



102 GEOGRAPHY. 

• • • ^^ 

jet higher than'ii. This appears, first, because it is a body 
not so beavv ; secoodlv, it is observed bv sailors that their 
ships mo^iei'iaster to the shore than from it, whereof no rea- 
son can*'^' given but the height of the water above the 
landj thirdly, to such as stand on the shore the sea seems to 
sweirioto the form of a round hill till it puts a bound upon 
Qurr'sighL Now that the sea, ho%'ering thus over and above 
:'tl)e earth, doth not overwhelm it, can be ascribed onlv to 
V. His Providence who ' hath made the waters to stand on an 
'•.'•. heap that they turn not again to cover the earth/ " * 



III. THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH. 

Even while the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth 
was undecided, another question had been suggested which 
theologians finally came to consider of far greater impor- 
tance. The doctrine of the sphericity of the earth naturally 
led to thought regarding its inhabitants, and another ancient 
germ was warmed into life — the idea of antipodes: of human 
beings on the earth's opposite sides. 

In the Greek and Roman world this idea had found sup- 
porters and opponents, Cicero and Pliny being among the 
former, and Epicurus, Lucretius, and Plutarch among the 
latter. Thus the problem came into the early Church un- 
solved. 

Among the first churchmen to take it up was, in the 
East, St. Gregory Nazianzen, who showed that to sail be- 



* For Gog and Magog, see Ezekiel xxxviii and xxxix, and Rev. xx, 8 ; and 
for the general subject, Toy, Judaism and Christianity^ Boston, 1 891, pp. 373, 
374. For maps showing these two great terrors, and for geographical discussion 
regarding them, see Lelewcl, G/og. du Moyen Age, Bruxelles, 1850, Atlas ; also 
Huge, Gfsch. des Ztitaltrrs der Entdeckungen^ Berlin, 1881, pp. 78, 79 ; also Pes- 
chel's Abhandlungen, pp. 28-35, and Gesch. der Erdkunde, p. 210. For representa- 
tions on maps of the " Four Winds," see Charton, Vayageurs, tome ii, p. ii ; also 
Kuge, as above, pp. 324, 325 ; also, for a curious mixture of the scriptural four 
winds with the classical winds issuing from the bags of i^olus, see a map of the 
twelfth century in L^n Gautier, La CAevalerie, p. 153 ; and for maps showing ad- 
ditional winds, see various editions of Ptolemy. For a map with angels turning 
the earth by means of cranks at the poles, see Grynseus, Nauus Orbis, Basilese, 
1537. For the globe kept spinning by the Almighty, see J. Hondius's map, 1589; 
and for Ileylin, his first folio, 1652, p. 27. 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH. 



103 



yond Gibraltar was impossible ; and, in the West, Lactantius, 
who asked : " Is there any one so senseless as to believe that 
there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads ? 
. . . that the crops and trees grow downward? . . . that 
the rains and snow and hail fall upward toward the earth ? 
... I am at a loss what to say of those who, when they 
have once erred, steadily persevere in their folly and defend 
one vain thing by another." 

In all this contention by Gregory and Lactantius there 
was nothing to be especially regretted, for, whatever their 
motive, they simply supported their inherited belief on 
grounds of natural law and probability. 

Unfortunately, the discussion was not long allowed to 
rest on these scientific and philosophical grounds; other 
Christian thinkers followed, who in their ardour adduced 
texts of Scripture, and soon the question had become theo- 
logical; hostility to the belief in antipodes became dog- 
matic. The universal Church was arrayed against it, and 
in front of the vast phalanx stood, to a man, the fathers. 

To all of them this idea seemed dangerous ; to most of 
them it seemed damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose were 
tolerant enough to allow that a man might be saved who 
thought the earth inhabited on its opposite sides ; but the 
great majority of the fathers doubted the possibility of sal- 
vation to such misbelievers. 

The great champion of the orthodox view was St. Augus- 
tine. Though he seemed inclined to yield a little in regard 
to the sphericity of the earth, he fought the idea that men 
exist on the other side of it, saying that " Scripture speaks 
of no such descendants of Adam." He insists that men 
could not be allowed by the Almighty to live there, since if 
they did they could not see Christ at his second coming 
descending through the air. But his most cogent appeal, 
one which we find echoed from theologian to theologian 
during a thousand years afterward, is to the nineteenth 
Psalm, and to its confirmation in the Epistle to the Romans ; 
to the words, " Their line is gone out through all the earth, 
and their words to the end of the world." He dwells with 
great force on the fact that St. Paul based one of his most 
powerful arguments upon this declaration regarding the 



'-#^:' v'.'-V- inn. 'lit •mir li lue ▼urii. " ^ _ 

^ ^ V 

Hv ^ 0-j',«rr-' Ti-ii; '-lit r^'^sir Sisuic :c Hzrcc ii.i;=r^ ihc 



V-<*rr* '^VL..^ -^!: ^'. :_:-Ti;iJi i»ici;r? l^jfriL _ 

7 'it ir^^ri.': iiL-tJij'.rrtT x Ai^ir^snui. izif t*?^ rr^rracr of 

Aj^rxir^cr-t tz,*: 5r_ri:-LT ^t-xl neriii!? :c Sjrii. lie ZDore 
*'j':^*:r:'.l% t'ytr:M',«2ri3Li.r if ii;-!: W-!?c. Fir :T*r i rr.icstTi'i Tears 
i* ufc* r,^ji i:i t:^^ C-"-rci. * ilw^js^ ere ; i K r^re. ir>d bv alL" 
t-jit t:,*T^ cvulc r>v: ":^ !i--::Lir: r^tii^ :»r tre cc z«nste sees of 

fj'^,\j!i*.*t -Ar.icri r-std so yxytr-in^ ^^3 erect en John Henry Xew- 
r;,arj ;:; t.^e r-iri^eenth cer-t-r\- — .';Vi»Ttj r^u^x c^bis Wrrarum, 

Vet ^ainsavers still azi-t^irei. Th^i the doctrine of the 
anlijyyies c/yntinued to have life, is shown by the fact that 
jn the sixth centurv Procozius of Gaza attacks it with a 
tremendous arg^ument. He declares that, if there be men on 
the other side of the earth. Christ must have gone there and 
suffered a second time to save them ; and, therefore, that 
there must have been there, as necessary preliminaries to his 
comirijf, a duplicate Eden, Adam, serpent, and deluge. 

fJosmas Indicopleustes also attacked the doctrine with 
especial bitterness, citing a passage from Sl Luke to prove 
that antip^xles are theologically impossible. 

At the end of the sixth centurv came a man from whom 
much might be expected — St. Isidore of Seville. He had 
[>ondered r>ver ancient thought in science, and, as we have 
M^eri. had dared proclaim his belief in the sphericity of the 
eartli ; hut with that he stopped. As to the antipodes, the 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH. 105 

authority of the Psalmist, St. Paul, and St. Augustine si- 
lences him; he shuns the whole question as unlawful, sub- 
jects reason to faith, and declares that men can not and 
ought not to exist on opposite sides of the earth.* 

Under such pressure this scientific truth seems to have 
disappeared for nearly two hundred years ; but by the eighth 
century the sphericity of the earth had come to be generally 
accepted among the leaders of thought, and now the doc- 
trine of the antipodes was again asserted by a bishop, Virgil 
of Salzburg. 

There then stood in Germany, in those first years of the 
eighth century, one of the greatest and noblest of men — St. 
Boniface. His learning was of the best then known. In 
labours he was a worthy successor of the apostles ; his genius 
for Christian work made him unwillingly primate of Ger- 
many ; his devotion to duty led him willingly to martyr- 
dom. There sat, too, at that time, on the papal throne a 
great Christian statesman — Pope Zachary. Boniface im- 
mediately declared against the revival of such a heresy as 
the doctrine of the antipodes ; he stigmatized it as an asser- 
tion that there are men beyond the reach of the appointed 
means of salvation ; he attacked Virgil, and called on Pope 
Zachary for aid. 

* For the opinions of Basil, Ambrose, and others, see Lecky, History of Ret" 
timiatism in Europe^ New York, 1872, vol. i, p. 279, note. Also Letronne, in 
Revue des Deux Mondes^ March, 1834. For Lactantius, see citations already given. 
For St. Augustine's opinion, see the De Civitate Dei^ xvi, 9, where this great 
father of the Church shows that the existence of the antipodes " nulla ratione cre^ 
dendum est** For the unanimity of the fathers against the antipodes, see Zockler, 
voL i, p. 127. For a very naWe summary, see Joseph Acosta, Natural and Moral 
History of the Indies^ Grimston's translation, republished by the Hakluyt Soc., 
chaps, vii and viii ; also citations in Buckle's Posthumous Works^ vol. ii, p. 645. 
For Procopius of Gaza, see Kretschmer, p. 55. See also, on the general subject, 
Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde^ pp. 96, 97. For Isidore, see citations already 
given. To understand the embarrassment caused by these utterances of the fa- 
thers to scientific men of a later period, see letter of Agricola to Joachim Vadia- 
nus in 15 14. Agricola asks Vadianus to give his views regarding the antipodes, 
saying that he himself does not know what to do, between the fathers on the one 
side and the learned men of modem times on the other. On the other hand, for 
the embarrassment caused to the Church by this mistaken zeal of the fathers, see 
Kepler's references and Fromund's replies ; also De Morgan, Paradoxes^ p. 58. 
Kepler appears to have taken great delight in throwing the views of Lactantius 
into the teeth of his adversaries. 



I06 GEOGRAPHY. 

The Pope, as the infallible teacher of Christendom, made 
a slion^ ix^sponse. He cited passages from the book of Job 
aiul the Wisdom of Solomon against the doctrine of the 
antipovlcs : he declared it "perverse, iniquitous, and against 
VirjiiTs own soul," and indicated a purpose of driving him 
Irom his bishopric. Whether this purpose was carried out 
or not, the oivi thov^logical view, by virtue of the Pope's 
divinely orvloroil and protected "inerrancy," was re-estab- 
hshovi, and the dvX'trine that the earth has inhabitants on but 
\M\o ot its sides became more than ever orthodox, and pre- 
\'i\ms in the minvl ot the Church.* 

This de\nsion seems to have been regarded as final, and 
tno \Yniuiies later the great encyclopedist of the Middle 
Ajivs, Vinvxnt o! Beauvais, though he accepts the sphericity 
ol the eaith, tjx^ais the dixnrine of the antipodes as dis- 
pi>n\sl, K\\\«se cv^ntrary to Scripture. Yet the doctrine - 
suU h\i\l. l;:s; as it had been previously revived by Wil- 
han\ %M i\v,K In^s and then laid to rest, so now it is somewhat 
UnusUx iN^vn^iiht out in the thineenth century by no less a 
jvtx>Nua»iv r:\;n Alivn the Great, the most noted man of 
Mun^v '*.^ t>.'s: v.-.ve. l^;;: his unerances are perhaps pur- 
^^.^^^ A %\\vx i^v A;:ava it ^::sap:var> heneaxh the theological 
w.ux. xV.N^, a ^i ^vvv. xea:>^ '.«:er Nicolas d'Oresme, geog- 
»A5^*s: >x t>o Kv^c ^^•• V^virtvV. a Mchi of science, is forced 
i,x\\x\^ ^^ ::o ^:. a: :v\w:v::\c v^- ••"i* Scripture as cited by 

\.v x\/,x i! .X '"-o \\,v>^: Ir. l:,V.y, ai the beginning of 
^^,' uM»;.v^;'r xV::;'x :'^x" Or.v.r^^h th.^airhi it necessary to 
,^\\; \x-.jV ,;,>'x;-,'. ^v .\ ;^;>i s,v: ^v r^ck and fagot. In 1316 
P, 1, ; .^; \;vi;N\ ..,.^^^\;S is A vthx N^v^i^n, having promulgated 



.^ > '. ,^ > . X *• .iK..* ' ,' '.>^ •' .I--.* fr — i'/'n.iAf-. rtc^ rpcent edi- 

ix v.. * ...V ' N ■ ^ ■ ■ •. fl>^^ V-,'N,'HmrT nr. sf'-ff : also WbcwclU 

X.. , , .. .\ \' ..v"'> ***•-■ v ■ '^.T-.w iv; pr.. £j-!Jf.. Few T«T full 

, , ,, ,. , ,» ,1. ...„. .» '^ .v-"**^ .V :»v t^,x*rrin« n:" the spfacrkaXT of the 

,,..» , ^. . ■• ; v\ ». N ■■>*. «.* ,>•-*,* t'-.'Mr r.nrhar* '^ Icrrer, s«e Migne, 

. > . N . , V. ■ .'. > .X. \ ■. r% .-^■'^ * ,>• S; R-^nifact'f psn. sec Brmi' 

,,., ,*,- '* .» .'»»v'* '• >'*'"»* '^sv. r.-»nf TArhRn' denannoed the 

». ...,, . . ♦. .), >... ,xrt ..s «,. * HN K V^MiMt Tvv»: — ir. :ht aUKdi book of ibe 

' ■• ■ t ..ill i ■ '• v.»v .» K V* ■ x'* ♦ 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH. 107 

this with other obnoxious doctrines in science, only escaped 
the Inquisition by death ; and in 1327 Cecco d'Ascoli, noted 
as an astronomer, was for this and other results of thought, 
which brought him under suspicion of sorcery, driven from 
his professorship at Bologna and burned alive at Florence. 
Nor was this all his punishment : Orcagna, whose terrible 
frescoes still exist on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa, 
immortalized Cecco by representing him in the flames of 
hell.* ._ , , 

Years rolled on, and there came in the fifteenth century 
one from whom the world had a right to expect much. 
Pierre d'Ailly, by force of thought and study, had risen to 
be Provost of the College of St. Di6 in Lorraine ; his ability 
had made that little village a centre of scientific thought for 
all Europe, and finally made him Archbishop of Cambray 
and a cardinal. Toward the end of the fifteenth century 
was printed what Cardinal d'Ailly had written long before 
as a summing up of his best thought and research — the col- 
lection of essays known as the Ymago Mundi. It gives us 
one of the most striking examples in history of a great man 
in theological fetters. As he approaches this question he 
states it with such clearness that we expect to hear him 
assert the truth ; but there stands the argument of St. Au- 
gustine; there, too, stand the biblical texts on which it is 
founded — the text from the Psalms and the explicit declara- 
tion of St. Paul to the Romans, " Their sound went into 
all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." 
D'Ailly attempts to reason, but he is overawed, and gives 
to the world virtually Nothing. 



• For Vincent of Beauvais and the antipodes, see his ^culum NaturaU, Book 
VII, with citations from St Augustine, De Civitate Dei^ cap. xvi. For Albert the 
Great's doctrine regarding the antipodes, compare Kretschmer, as above, with 
Eicken, CtschickU^ etc., p. 621. Kretschmer finds that Albert supports the doc- 
trine, and Eicken finds that he denies it — a fair proof that Albert was not inclined 
to sUte his views with dangerous clearness. For D'Oresme, see Santarem, //i>- 
toire tU la Cosmographies vol. i, p. 142. For Peter of Abano, or Apono, as he is 
often called, see Tiraboschi ; also Ginguen^, vol. ii, p. 293 ; also Naud^, Histoire 
det Grands Hommes soup(onn/s de Magie. For Cecco d' Ascoli, see Montucla, His- 
toire des MaMmatiques, i, 528 ; also Daunou, £tudes IJistoriqaes, vol. vi, p. 320 ; 
also Kretschmer, p. 59. Concerning Orcagna's representation of Cecco in the 
flames of hell, see Renan, Averroes et VAverroisme^ Pahs, 1867, p. 328. 



I08 GEOGRAPHY. 

Still, the d'^xrtrine of the antipodes lived and moTcd: so 
much so that the eminent Spanish theologian Tostatus, even 
as late as the age of Columbus, felt called upon to protest 
against it as ** unsafe." He had shaped the old missile of Sl 
Augustine into the following syllogism : ^ The apostles were 
commanded to go into all the world and to preach the gos- 
pel to every creature ; they did not go to any such part of 
the world as the antipodes ; they did not preach to any 
creatures there: ergo, no antipodes exist." 

The w^risirt of Columbus the world knows well: how 
the Bishop of Ceuta worsted him in Portugal ; how sundry 
wise men of Spain confronted him with the usual quotations 
from the Psalms, from St. Paul, and from St. Augustine : 
how, even after he was triumphant, and after his voyage had 
greatly strengthened the theory of the earth's sphericity, 
with which the theory of the antipodes was so closely con- 
nected, the Church by its highest authority solemnly stum- 
bled and persisted in going astray. In 1493 Pope Alexander 
VI, having been appealed to as an umpire between the 
claims of Spain and Portugal to the newly discovered parts of 
the earth, issued a bull laying down upon the earth's surface 
a line of demarcation between the two powers. This Hue 
was drawn from north to south a hundred leagues west of 
the Azores ; and the Pope in the plenitude of his knowledge 
declared that all lands discovered east of this line should be- 
long to the Portuguese, and all west of it should belong to 
the Spaniards. This was hailed as an exercise of divinely 
illuminated power by the Church ; but difficulties arose, and 
in 1506 another attempt was made by Pope Julius 11 to draw 
the line three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape 
Verde Islands. This, again, was supposed to bring divine 
wisdom to settle the question ; but, shortly, overwhelming 
difficulties arose; for the Portuguese claimed Brazil, and, of 
course, had no difficulty in showing that they could reach it 
by sailing to the east of the line, provided they sailed long 
enough. The lines laid down by Popes Alexander and 
Julius may still be found upon the maps of the period, but 
their bulls have quietly passed into the catalogue of ludicrous 
errors. 

Yet the theological barriers to this geographical truth 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH. 



109 



yielded but slowly. Plain as it had become to scholars, 
they hesitated to declare it to the world at large. Eleven 
hundred years had passed since St. Augustine had proved 
its antagonism to Scripture, when Gregory Reysch gave 
forth his famous encyclopaedia, the Margarita Philosophica. 
Edition after edition was issued, and everywhere appeared 
in it the orthodox statements; but they were evidently 
strained to the breaking point; for while, in treating of the 
antipodes, Reysch refers respectfully to St. Augustine as 
objecting to the scientific doctrine, he is careful not to cite 
Scripture against it, and not less careful to suggest geo- 
graphical reasoning in favour of it. 

But in 1 5 19 science gains a crushing victory. Magellan 7 
makes his famous voyage. He proves the earth to be round, 
for his expedition circumnavigates it ; he proves the doc- 
trine of the antipodes, for his shipmates see the peoples of 
the antipodes. Yet even this does not end the war. Many 
conscientious men oppose the doctrine for two hundred 
years longer.; Then the French astronomers make their 
measurements of degrees in equatorial and polar regions, 
and add to their proofs that of the lengthened pendulum. 
When this was done, when the deductions of science were 
seen to be established by the simple test of measurement, 
beautifully and perfectly, and when a long line of trust- 
worthy explorers, including devoted missionaries, had sent 
home accounts of the antipodes, then, and then only, this 
war of twelve centuries ended. 

Such was the main result of this long war; but there 
were other results not so fortunate. The efforts of Eusebius, 
Basil, and Lactantius to deaden scientific thought; the ef- 
forts of Augustine to combat it ; the efforts of Cosmas to 
crush it by dogmatism ; the efforts of Boniface and Zachary 
to crush it by force, conscientious as they all were, had re- 
sulted simply in impressing upon many leading minds the 
conviction that science and religion are enemies. 

On the other hand, what was gained by the warriors of 
science for religion ? Certainly a far more worthy concep- 
tion of the world, and a far more ennobling conception of 
that power which pervades and directs it. Which is more 
consistent with a great religion, the cosmography of Cosmas 



no 



or that of Isaac Newton ? Which presents a nobler field for 
religious thought, the diatribes of Lactantius or the calm 
stutemeats ot Humboldt ? * 



Vf THE SIZE OF THE EARTH. 

But at on eanv period another subject in geography had 
stirred the uiinds ot thinking men — tAr eartKs size. Various 
ancient investigators had by different methods reached meas- 
uiemcncs more or less near the truth; these methods were 
vvntinued into the Middle Ages, supplemented by new 
th*.>ug:ht. and among the more striking results were those 
obiaiii^\i by Roger Bacon and Gerbert, afterward Pope Syl- 
vester IL Thev handed down to after-time the torch of 



* b\M P' \iilvW jcorpcxnof of St. Avgostine^s ugoment, see the Ymago Mumdi, 
\^\\K \\\. KnH VvmUCus k« Z^'klcr. voL u pp. 467, 468. He based his opposi- 
lu'u \M\ Kouiaux V i^ b'or Columbick see Winsor, Fiske, and Adams; also 
HuluKvlvU. /rt.vA'fe- M M C'A^'^^'ttf Jm \tmveam Gmtinatt, For the bull of 
Vtv\<«itstci VL MX l>uuaou. titui-t Huitfrvfmes^ toL ii, p. 417; also Peschel, Ztit' 
.t,'rt* .H-* Sh.^hi ^/^-cr**, Bvx^Il ll» chapL it. The text of the bull is given with an 
I'.ui'luh iiikuxlAiioit ttt .VrNrr*:^ rvprmc of 7*4r /tVj/ TJknt English Books on Amer' 
<■>*, vi\ . UiMuiii^hdai^ i>>> FK'^ JO 1-304 ; ^l^o especially Peschel, Du Tkei" 
:hh^^ .*i' >'./t hhU* C^it Akxiimdrr I'/ mmtiymiims I/t'Leipsic, iSyi, pp. i^et 
uy. k* \*i iviu.il k> v'li ihe (vwer uaUer which the line was drawn by Alexander VI, 
«v»^ M.uutiui. /W ya/MA* «c-t r^'f C'^mi SfCi*/i, p. 170. For maps showing lines 
\^\ tUwiioii. xvc Kv^l. JV ^-iJtyi ju'orsArm Crtural-JCarten von Amerika^ Weimar, 
liiHS \^h\*iv in.iivi v>t 15.^7 and 15^ are reproduced; also Mercator, ^/iSirj, tenth 
v<luu>u, \ih>U'i\Uut. io«'5« p(\ >\ 71. For latest discussion on The Demarcation 
t t»K .'* l\ \*»HKt\* l\\ >«^ F. Ik Houme in Vale Review^ May, 1892. For the 
!/.*> ^. *>«/•* /'*«Ami'A *.'»;*, NCt' the edit!v>ns of 1503, 1509, 1517, lib. vii, cap. 48. For 
\\\v y\\\\\ \»i M4|;cU.ui\ vv>v;a^s and the reluctance to yield to proof, see Henri 
M.uUu. //<»A'<'i' *i'*' /'»ii<k4\ vv»l, xiv. p. 395 ; St. Martin's Histoire de la G6)graphie^ 
!• \K\\s , IVh\ hi-l. (.Vu Us 4 A" JsS /eitalters der Entdeckungen^ concluding chapters ; 
milt li'i M\ .uluUiaMo MimmAry, Uraper, Hist Int Devel of Europe^ pp. 451-453; 
hI.(i 4m mUMo^nn^; |»4'»>A^c in Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar and Common Errors^ 
M..iii. I, s\\JKY N» . rtKo A NtrtktU)* (passage in Acosta, chap. ii. For general state- 
i„i.ii( .M l»i ••upplouuMiLMv prwf by measurement of degrees and by pendulum, see 
.) .iniivill*. /•*»• (miv-. ^'*»*r' ». par. 6. note; also Humboldt, Ox»iw, vol. ii, p. 
/ ii., .«int Mil V. p|». \K\ ;U* ; aUo Montucla, iv. 138. As to the effect of travel, see 
V , ht .. liJ.hiiv rtl'ovc litcd. The good missionary says, in Grimston's quaint 
h HI I'tilxH, " W l».»iM»rvci lactantius saieth, wee that live now at Peru, and in- 
ti ii.nx ilt.H I'iMii' «»l iho woiUle which is opposite to Asia and their Antipodes, finde 
„ .1 .,H .Im-. I.« Uv hanging in the aire, our heades downward and our feete on 

tii(ili 



THE SIZE OF THE EARTH. Ill 

knowledge, but, as their reward among their contemporaries, 
they fell under the charge of sorcery. 

- Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the 
Middle Ages was a solution of the problem from Scripture, 
and this solution deserves to be given as an example of a 
very curious theological error, chancing to result in the 
establishment of a great truth. The second book of Esdras, 
which among Protestants is placed in the Apocrypha, was 
held by many of the foremost men of the ancient Church as 
fully inspired : though Jerome looked with suspicion on this 
book, it was regarded as prophetic by Clement of Alexan- 
dria, Tertullian, and Ambrose, and the Church acquiesced 
in that view. In the Eastern Church it held an especially 
high place, and in the Western Church, before the Reforma- 
tion, was generally considered by the most eminent authori- 
ties to be part of the sacred canon. In the sixth chapter of 
this book there is a summary of the works of creation, and 
in it occur the following verses : 

" Upon the third day thou didst command that the wa- 
ters should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth ; six 
parts hast thou dried up and kept them to the intent that of 
these some, being planted of God and tilled, might serve 
thee.*' 

" Upon the fifth day thou saidst unto the seventh part 
where the waters were gathered, that it should bring forth 
living creatures, fowls and fishes, and so it came to pass." 

These statements were reiterated in other verses, and 
were naturally considered as of controlling authority. 

Among the scholars who pondered on this as on all 
things likely to increase knowledge was Cardinal Pierre 
d'Ailly. As we have seen, this great man, while he denied 
the existence of the antipodes, as St. Augustine had done, 
believed firmly in the sphericity of the earth, and, interpret- 
ing these statements of the book of Esdras in connection 
with this belief, he held that, as only one seventh of the 
earth's surface was covered by water, the ocean between 
the west coast of Europe and the east coast of Asia could 
not be very wide. Knowing, as he thought, the extent of 
the land upon the globe, he felt that in view of this divinely 
authorized statement the globe must be much smaller, and 



112 GEOC&APHT. 



the liai :t "^ ZZpan^o," reachcti bj Marco Polo, on the ex- 
tn»cie ease ojoiC .:c Asi. ziucn zjearcr than had been gen- 
erallv believe^i. 

O3 :h.5 j«:cic he lii-i scrrss ia his great work, the Vma^o 
J/»tr.\ xzd an cc£ti»Ta :c it having been published in the 
dav^ wh^:i C:L.i=bus was ihiriizg r=:iuist closelv ui>on the 

urally exercised much 
the treasures of the 
ibrary a: Seville. :h<;re is =»:<r:Trrg cere interesting^ than a 
00c V cc tzis wjrk azLz^rcars-i bv Cciuaibtxs himself: from 
this v^jrr ojct ii was tr-a: CCumbcs obcained confirmation 
v^: his bulie: :ha: the rasstpf across the ocean to Marco 
rX.^ > lini :c Zirar^-'' iz Asii was shcrt. But for this error, 
hosjevi -o:- a text scircosei r.^ be iascireii it is unlikelv 
tra: CcV-nrc::? crco hav^ xctirec the necessaiy sup[>ort 
:or his v: vj^. I: is a cur^^xs fact that this single theo- 




Y : :-,r vKAs^A. 7VX . F THE EARTHS SURFACE. 

1: \\o;;\i rvr hari.y ;j-5C r.^ iissriss the straggle forgeo- 
jira;^h:oul :r*::r- \\::h.ct nr:irrir<: tC' coe passage more in 
The h:>:N^r\ v^: :h;r tV.^crstart Oiurch, :cr it shows clearly 
I he xi^rr.x^; r.;^ ir. :h^ ujlv .-c th? sirrrjist statement of geo- 
^rArhioal ::A;:h ^^ ric^h vvc,r.:^t^i with th^ wc^nis of the sacred 

Kx>ks- 

In :>x" x<%^r :>5x MixhJL^^ Scrmrtus was on trial for his 
J:tx- a: v^K^r.xXW sNn :Sv" x^*^Jirpr v^: Arianisn:- Servetus had 
tvt^vu Vv\; :v,ArA Ss'vx^>v^ t^^ s^i^r.uhc truth, and one of these 



• >,v .'^Nx , '\v v,^ ■* vij"" it /..-s^v^vr-T - »t r' A:.~T, ym£^ Jfmmdi ; the 

^v^x»\^v vv Nv; ,v > rA' r^v-^i,'. >\v :^ 7t&>ssa{!S fraiL Esdras^ sec cbap. ti, 

\>\*>^ #' *• ^A *ts- v? 'i^v fc^H,- r.vOrr. , vrt to- tr or- SnL'iwmgm xtnstAm 

!,,,,■», \..'.. w,.t^f h. ■*. xv*. \ r. ^^: F^^c «iDt 4C :!ke Vest recent state- 

w», i^.V^xV KvsN- . ' •«' r,'.«.^.*:-- .•- * ••«• ^«*,-r. ?^3Z;. I5S2, PPl 221 ^ 

..s- t o\ * , u, ,v > ,C **^'^.^ *,^;.^-»\^N^i|^: >js ?TKirSr^£T«a85 ?:• ikis mistmke in 
t*,<,^., »,v \oi NV,N '■■ •• • ,"»'* t.^vwiii»ti; V**^7ji^^ :>iS ^«i« i pp^ 242. 
-,\4 ^S,^ Um.mXO. . •' '. ^ .'■ .- V" ■?"'*•' ^^ .Vofcci'^ S^-msinemi^ tcL i, pp. 



THE CHARACTER OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE. 113 

was an edition of Ptolemy's Geography, in which Judea was 
spoken of, not as " a land flowing with milk and honey," but, 
in strict accordance with the truth, as, in the main, meagre, 
barren, and inhospitable. In his trial this simple statement 
of geographical fact was used against him by his arch-enemy 
John Calvin with fearful power. In vain did Servetus plead 
that he had simply drawn the words from a previous edition 
of Ptolemy; in vain did he declare that this statement was a 
simple geographical truth of which there were ample proofs ; 
it was answered that such language " necessarily inculpated 
Moses, and grievously outraged the Holy Ghost." * 

In summing up the action of the Church upon geog- 
raphy, we must say, then, that the dogmas developed in 
strict adherence to Scripture and the conceptions held in the 
Church during many centuries "always, everywhere, and 
by all,*' were, on the whole, steadily hostile to truth ; but it 
is only just to make a distinction here between the religious 
and the theological spirit. To the religious spirit are largely 
due several of the noblest among the great voyages of dis- 
covery. A deep longing to extend the realms of Christian- 
ity influenced the minds of Prince John of Portugal, in his 
great series of efforts along the African coast ; of Vasco da 
Gama, in his circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope ; 
of Magellan, in his voyage around the world ; and doubtless 
found a place among the more worldly motives of Columbus.f 

Thus, in this field, from the supremacy accorded to the- 
ology, we find resulting that tendency to dogmatism which 
has shown itself in all ages the deadly foe not only of scien- 
tific inquiry but of the higher religious spirit itself, while 
from the love of truth for truth's sake, which has been the 
inspiration of all fruitful work in science, nothing but ad- 
vantage has ever resulted to religion. 



* For Scrvetus's geographical offense, see Rilliet, Relation du Prods crtminel 
centre Michel Servet (Tapr^s Us Documents originaux, Geneva, 1844, pp. 42, 43 ; 
also Willis, Servetus and Calvin, London, 1877, p. 325. The passage condemned 
is in the Ptolemy of 1535, fol. 41. It was discreetly retrenched in a repnnt of the 
same edition. 

f As to the mixture in the motives of Columbus, it may be well to compare 
with the earlier biographies the recent ones by Dr. Winsor and President Adams. 



" --■ T 



CM AFTER III. 

:ir NAJio-r rHrL»jvT or the tkr-erse 



T:.* T»r\: ii'Ti: ?5r-jr> :i: htnjrs vas ioug-ht over the rela- 

^.'^ :>r ri"- ^ vT'T-.-rr.. ir var w n: ibr doctrine so promi- 
?^^*: r. :^r N: u Tisri-Tr^m :r.£: rbe earth w2ls soon to be 
,'?,>.: ^v*;*,* i-:^:~ •^*i.: :^rrr -wrrf tt i*e 'new bcarens and a 
.V* H*i.\*. ■ i^'w>.irr\ «tf :i: .^rr nrLncbes of science, was 
^vN^-^ X ^ '.x^-v i ,^.c i> ". "rl'f. TTr.T sracx the old heavens 
XV ;v ,-^'; r-;.'*. v^r■T:^;T i^fr; sr s:on to be replaced 
x\ \v >:^.-A,..» .^^ ■:.^.:. ::■ i >:■:":; 7 * Tr.:> :>e.nni: appears in 
N V.,^. >: V > .- r:^,x»> iTTr-i-Tir^ • WhLi c.-rDcem is it to 
N »» *«,' '^. .*',- ^ri «"*■> -'-> i s. T':.*^ inr.jrsf tie earth in the 

\x .^ . *^. *^, i»-,*' • :x.v' '.-^ :!«r':i':ic»-LT5> j-i:iei on them 

,x .. x-^ .« ■ « r \\'N ,1 ..'.us ?c«rri-;Lr}:ir.. Re^rarding 

V *N *',^ :^ .:': v^ri--rr v^r* i:T5ied- Ori- 

^,.. . , ,. .. »», V V • » -r. T'.u'^r: :^r^l ihit^: btir-c^ pos- 

,. ^xsN ,. X ^ v X, * ^ X ♦:• v\u> TTJ-T.. » riLs?i *:p:»n the 

.^ . X V V V '-. ' » V. v^ sTi.'s s.ro"^-^ T:<cf:!:er, and 

s • x- V- •:''.' '• sri.*^ isrtz. ':;i:r: " in the 

* ..... , isJ- • •■ . - . •! -■» " ' •■ ■■ ■*< '■■^" ■*"J- i 

: :i':. n^-T-'^irrtn? c-f the 

\, X X .,-,-.,- r :.nci <. T:** Grj:«5Ucs 

N V .X v^-^ c- *'i*Tu*," r'T iTiprls. and 

, . X . • , , • > :i. : t: n:.?rj.:* irera. 

»••* »»« 
. .-. ;. .^r,^»:.-*i-:?:c::> lb-it a 



x' ■ ' N * ^ -. 






w ■ • \. \> \ X »• *N. 



• ■ V ^ ' 



THE OLD SACRED THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 



115 



and that the heavenly bodies were simply lights hung within 
it. This was for a time held very tenaciously. St. Philas- 
trius, in his famous treatise on heresies, pronounced it a 
heresy to deny that the stars are brought out by God from 
his treasure-house and hung in the sky every evening ; any 
other view he declared " false to the Catholic faith." This 
view also survived in the sacred theory established so firmly 
by Cosmas in the sixth century. Having established his 
plan of the universe upon various texts in the Old and 
New Testaments, and having made it a vast oblong box, 
covered by the solid " firmament," he brought in additional 
texts from Scripture to account for the planetary move- 
ments, and developed at length the theory that the sun and 
planets are moved and the ** windows of heaven " opened 
and shut by angels appointed for that purpose. 

How intensely real this way of looking at the universe 
was, we find in the writings of St. Isidore, the greatest 
leader of orthodox thought in the seventh century. He 
affirms that since the fall of man, and on account of it, the 
sun and moon shine with a feebler light ; but he proves from 
a text in Isaiah that when the world shall be fully redeemed 
these "great lights " will shine again in all their early splen- 
dour. • But, despite these authorities and their theological 
finalities, the evolution of scientific thought continued, its 
main germ being the geocentric doctrine — the doctrine that 
the earth is the centre, and that the sun and planets revolve 
about it* 

This doctrine was of the highest respectability: it had 
been developed at a very early period, and had been elabo- 

* For passage cited from Clement of Alexandria, see English translation, Edin- 
burgh, 1869, vol. ii, p. 368 ; also the Miscellanies^ Book V, cap. vi. For typical 
statements by St. Augustine, see De Genesis ii, cap. ix, in Migne, Pair. Lat, tome 
xxxiv, pp. 270, 271. For Origen's view, see the De Principiis^ lib. i, cap. vii ; see 
also Lcopardi's Errori Popularly cap. xi ; also Wilson's Selections from the Pro- 
phetic Scriptures in Ante-Nicene Library ^ p. 132. For Philo Judzeus, sec On the 
Creation of the Worlds chaps, xviii and xix, and On Monarchy^ chap. i. For St. 
Isidore, see the De Ordine Creaturarum^ cap. v, in Migne, Patr. Lat,^ Ixxxiii, pp. 
923-925 ; also, 1000, looi. For Philastrius, see the De Hceresibus^ chap, cxxxiii, 
in Migne, tome xii, p. 1264. For Cosmas's view, see his Topographia Christiana^ 
in Montfaufon, Col, Nov. Patrum, ii, p. 150, and elsewhere as cited in my chapter 
on Geography. 



Il6 ASTRONOMY. 

rated until it accounted well for the apparent movements of 
the heavenly bodies ; its final name, " Ptolemaic theor}^" 
carried weight ; and, having thus come from antiquity into 
the Christian world, St. Clement of Alexandria demon- 
strated that the altar in the Jewish tabernacle was ** a sj'm- 
bol of the earth placed in the middle of the universe": 
nothing more was needed ; the geocentric theory was fully 
adopted by the Church and universally held to agree with 
the letter and spirit of Scripture.* 

Wrought into this foundation, and based upon it, there 
was developed in the Middle Ages, mainly out of fragments 
of Chaldean and other early theories preserved in the He- 
brew Scriptures, a new sacred system of astronomy, which 
became one of the great treasures of the universal Church 
— the last word of revelation. 

Three great men mainly reared this structure. First was 
the unknown who gave to the world the treatises ascribed 
to Dionysius the Areopagite. it was unhesitatingly believed 
that these were the work of St. Paul's Athenian convert, 
and therefore virtually of St. Paul himself. Though now 
known to be spurious, they were then considered a treasure 
of inspiration, and an emperor of the East sent them to an 
emperor of the West as the most worthy of gifts. In the 
ninth century they were widely circulated in western Europe, 
and became a fruitful source of thought, especially on the 
whole celestial hierarchy. Thus the old ideas of astronomy 
were vastly developed, and the heavenly hosts were classed 
and named in accordance with indications scattered through 
the sacred Scriptures. 

The next of these three great theologians was Peter 
Lombard, professor at the University of Paris. About the 
middle of the twelfth century he gave forth his collection of 



• As to the respectability of the geocentric theory, etc., see Grote's Plato, vol. 
iii, p. 257 ; also Sir G. C. Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients, chap, iii, sec. I, for a 
very thoughtful statement of Plato's view, and differing from ancient statements. 
For plausible elaboration of it, and for supposed agreement of Scripture with it, 
see Fromundus, Anti-Aristarchus, Antwerp, 1631 ; also Melanchthon's Imtia 
Doctrina Physiae. For an admirable statement of the theological view of the 
geocentric theory, antipodes, etc., see Eicken, Geschichte und System der mittelalter' 
lichen Weltanschauung, pp. 618 /•/ seq. 



THE OLD SACRED THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 



117 



Sentences, or Statements by the Fathers, and this remained 
until the end of the Middle Ages the universal manual of 
theology. In it was especially developed the theological 
view of man's relation to the universe. The author tells the 
world : "Just as man is made for the sake of God — that is, 
that he may serve Him, — so the universe is made for the 
sake of man — that is, that it may serve him ; therefore is man 
placed at the middle point of the universe, that he may both 
serve and be served." 

The vast significance of this view, and its power in resist- 
ing any real astronomical science, we shall see, especially in 
the time of Galileo. 

The great triad of thinkers culminated in St. Thomas 
Aquinas — the sainted theologian, the glory of the mediaeval 
Church, the "Angelic Doctor," the most marvellous intellect 
between Aristotle and Newton ; he to whom it was believed 
that an image of the Crucified had spoken words praising 
his writings. Large of mind, strong, acute, yet just — even 
more than just — to his opponents, he gave forth, in the latter 
half of the thirteenth century, his Cyclopaedia of Theology, 
the Summa Theologica. In this he carried the sacred theory 
of the universe to its full development. With great power 
and clearness he brought the whole vast system, material 
and spiritual, into its relations to God and man.* 

Thus was the vast system developed by these three lead- 
ers of mediaeval thought; and now came the man who 
wrought it yet more deeply into European belief, the poet 
divinely inspired who made the S3'stem part of the world's 
life. Pictured by Dante, the empyrean and the concentric 
heavens, paradise, purgatory, and hell, were seen of all men ; 

* For the belief of Chaldean astronomers in revolving spheres carrying sun, 
moon, and planets, in a solid firmament supporting the celestial waters, and in 
angels as giving motion to the planets, see Lenormant ; also Lethaby, 13-21 ; also 
Schroder, Jensen, I^ukas, etaL For the contribution of the pseudo-Dionysius to 
mediaeval cosmology, see Dion. Areopagita, De CaUsti Hierarchia^ vers. Joan. Scoti, 
in Migne, Pair, Lat,, cxxii. For the contribution of Peter Lombard, see Pet. 
Lomb., Libr, Seni.^ II, i, 8, — IV, i, 6, 7, in Migne, tome 192. For the citations 
from St. Thomas Aquinas, see the Summa^ ed. Migne, especially Pars I, Qu. 70, 
(tome i, pp. 1174-1184); also Quaestio 47, Art. iii. For good general statement, 
see Milman, Latin Christianity, iv, 191 et seq. ; and for relation of Cosmas to these 
theologians of western Europe, see Milman, as above, viii, 228, note. 



Ilg ASTRONOMY. 

the God Triune, seated on his throne upon the circle of the 
heavens, as real as the Pope seated in the chair of St. Peter; 
the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones, surrounding the Al- 
mighty, as real as the cardinals surrounding the Pope ; the 
three great orders of angels in heaven, as real as the three 
great orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, on earth ; and 
the whole system of spheres, each revolving within the one 
above it, and all moving about the earth, subject to the 
primum mobile^ as real as the feudal system of western 
Europe, subject to the Emperor.* 

Let us look into this vast creation — the highest achieve- 
ment of theology — somewhat more closely. 

Its first feature shows a development out of earlier theo- 
logical ideas. The earth is no longer a flat plain inclosed by 
four walls and solidly vaulted above, as tbeolog^ns of pre- 
vious centuries had believed it, under the inspiration of Cos- 
mas ; it is no longer a mere flat disk, with sun, moon, and 
stars hung up to give it light, as the earlier cathedral sculp- 
tors had figured it ; it has become a globe at the centre of 
the universe. Encompassing it are successive transparent 
spheres, rotated by angels about the earth, and each carry- 
ing one or more of the heavenly bodies with it : that nearest 
the earth carrying the moon ; the next. Mercury ; the next, 
Venus; the next, the sun ; the next three. Mars, Jupiter, and 
Saturn ; the eighth carrying the fixed stars. The ninth was 
the primum mobile^ and inclosing all was the tenth heaven 
— the Empyrean. This was immovable — the boundary be- 
tween creation and the great outer void ; and here, in a light 
which no one can enter, the Triune God sat enthroned, the 
** music of the spheres " rising to Him as they moved. Thus 
was the old heathen doctrine of the spheres made Christian. 

In attendance upon the Divine Majesty, thus enthroned, 



• For the central sun, hierarchy of angels, and concentric circle^, sec Dante, 
ParadisOf canto xxviii. For the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, showing to Virgil 
and Dante the great theologians of the Middle Ages, see canto x, and in Dean 
Plumptrc's translation, vol. ii, pp. 56 et seq. ; also Botta, Dante^ pp. 350, 351. As 
to Dante's deep religious feeling and belief in his own divine mission, see J. R. 
Lowell, Among my Books^ vol. i, p. 36. For a remarkable series of coloured en- 
gravings showing Dante's whole cosmology, see Im Materia della Divina Com- 
media di Dante dichiarata in vi tavole, da Michelangelo Caetani, published by the 
monks of Monte Cassino, to whose kindness I am indebted for my copy. 



THE OLD SACRED THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE. 



119 



are vast hosts of angels, who are divided into three hier- 
archies, one serving in the empyrean, one in the heavens, 
between the empyrean and the earth, and one on the earth. 

Each of these hierarchies is divided into three choirs, or 
orders; the first, into the orders of Seraphim, Cherubim, 
and Thrones; and the main occupation of these is to chant 
incessantly — to ** continually cry ** the divine praises. 

The order of Thrones conveys God's will to the second 
hierarchy, which serves in the movable heavens. This sec- 
ond hierarchy is also made up of three orders. The first of 
these, the order of Dominions, receives the divine com- 
mands ; the second, the order of Powers, moves the heavens, 
sun, moon, planets, and stars, opens and shuts the " windows 
of heaven," and brings to pass all other celestial phenomena ; 
the third, the order of Empire, guards the others. 

The third and lowest hierarchy is also made up of three 
orders. First of these are the Principalities, the guardian 
spirits of nations and kingdoms. Next come Archangels ; 
these protect religion, and bear the prayers of the saints to 
the foot of God's throne. Finally come Angels; these care 
for earthly affairs in general, one being appointed to each 
mortal, and others taking charge of the qualities of plants, 
metals, stones, and the like. Throughout the whole system, 
from the great Triune God to the lowest group of angels, 
we see at work the mystic power attached to the triangle 
and sacred number three — the same which gave the triune 
idea to ancient Hindu theology, which developed the triune 
deities in Egypt, and which transmitted this theological gift 
to the Christian world, especially through the Egyptian 
Athanasius. 

Below the earth is hell. This is tenanted by the angels 
who rebelled under the lead of Lucifer, prince of the ser- 
aphim — the former favourite of the Trinity ; but, of these re- 
bellious angels, some still rove among the planetary spheres, 
and give trouble to the good angels ; others pervade the 
atmosphere about the earth, carrying lightning, storm, 
drought, and hail ; others infest earthly society, tempting 
men to sin ; but Peter Lombard and St. Thomas Aquinas 
take pains to show that the work of these devils is, after all, 
but to discipline man or to mete out deserved punishment. 



I20 ASTRONOMY. 

All this vast scheme had been so riveted into the Ptolc- 
maic view by the use of biblical texts and theological reason- 
ings that the resultant system of the universe was considered 
impregnable and final. To attack it was blasphemy. 

It stood for centuries. Great theological men of science, 
like Vincent of Beauvais and Cardinal d'Ailly, devoted 
themselves to showing not only that it was supported by 
Scripture, but that it supported Scripture. Thus was the 
geocentric theory embedded in the beliefs and aspirations, 
in the hopes and fears, of Christendom down to the middle 
of the sixteenth century.* 



II. THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY. 

But, on the other hand, there had been planted, long be- 
fore, the germs of a heliocentric theory. In the sixth cen- 
tury before our era, Pythagoras, and after him Philolaus, 
had suggcstcvl the movement of the earth and planets about 
a ornti-nl fire : and, three centuries later, Aristarchus had re- 
5tAtrvl the main truth with striking precision. Here comes 
in A )m\hM that the antagonism between theological and sci- 



* f\M (N^ <<^rt;<r ^ox^l cvvMBK^sYT "-"^ Cv>saKA5w with ci:a:iock5 from Montfui90&, 
<v^ »tw \l^*js<*< %>« xvyrc*** w ;V,* «vrtL Koc :*« rjew* of die mcdixral theo- 
^^^^»^K ^^v t'^NV^*'''* «^x« t% ;5i» c^v*r«r, F*"*- dbe ptasBges of Scriptnre on 
\^h^xN »N»* \N>N^^>x^"*» J*^'^ *'< '^'^ tfrtvt;tw wis i<T«k>pec. see cspedallj Romans * 
\^^^ *"* . Vj^-Nvv»*«* V Ct , v'^v^vxiiT* V :?v A»i -J;. :« . xai ssaaienble passages 
\Vi \K' \^N\ \ 0^1 ^w^x"-^, V'^ cv'' ;>>c «r.»ac c< t^ io&aemw Ase IVta namptxe*s Damtt, 
\\A ^v )^ I >^<iSh> V.v a^ JK'xWvitK^ f^tiKix^a^ xr <Nf :^ sKd^rral cosmologrin its 
^vU^'»^»^ ^N^ *^,**^''^^ '*^ ^'-^vVk vi^ KxviSfc*^, A'^'x- /• The Mi£& Affts^ diap. i, 
w Vv.,' M\»Mi*^*,\ * \<xv s*^ v^vv. ,:t :W 7XA.T. y.*c *:TJi.:3^ wvK^icais shoving the 
\»< \^ «^Vv'^ ^-^ A*' xv^x^vvx \s* s>*x\-^f* *••:> rJc".? c">v.v.?s oc S3^u&. tie earth being at 
tV ^> »'»> ^**'- iV v'*''^''V^ fcN*v; X *t»^ cVr \^ifrn .il \;&> :k:oBe above all, see 
,%, \ ,...•«. \'-, , -i.^.,M-« #. \ t*si X '.x ,^it,v * :*;j; Foe c^^airts shoviftg the 

,nv.* ^.»^N .''I .^ * iN*N^ ^*. X s"'* ,V*-r .V cW S:^.XT..j^ ,"« i^ isxicenxh oentnry, 

• ,, .\, x-^ ->^.« ,N s^Ax ,v .V * .rxtt'tu Ttntntt*>itL'^ Tr,*nt :)&«: <f 1505 onward, 
,,,.s^-,^«s ,^". ,\* > V,\ -'^S'W. if^ v'i» "^mrrc^^ "i^^-^rr^ fbf ^rixatxs of gods in 
^.., , -i t-^x'-^ •» w^^^v* 'V'*'- . -VO"*** *v»' , nr. o« uti :oi. The present 
\*,--,i ,.' ,s >•,.• \- * ^N'' t s ■'• %"*:\\ '^^*r tit ^fnitv:<t< Sr.v^ IV«c«r of Medicine, 
,,• ,,ss-. ., \.. ,>, *».,.,..* N .n". fc»v- y^'«','v*r NA.--W. Arws ai;£ rriaities. The 
»,st«.,N-.*» »',s»x >^-«»» »^"> MsK.i "^iK-^'^V ^tiMv A.*^'r I^v :>« psr^ra of Eden and 
vki« los, ^ ,v \, *.».-. .'- ,^-* ,NV» ,% ,>v vU». K ,"\.Vii»jn{»/. >!&> rmme cbancterto 
\vt«*.«^ t»-,. .V*, '.s-M \,»*« ;.. «.(,\ v^sw^ »>«»VM/ .V ,'h^ vfc*vitt atnckgfl TiiTinns 



THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY. 12 1 

cntific methods is not confined to Christianity ; for this state- 
ment brought upon Aristarchus the charge of blasphemy, 
and drew after it a cloud of prejudice which hid the truth 
for six hundred years. Not until the fifth century of our era 
did it timidly appear in the thoughts of Martianus Capella : 
then it was again lost to sight for a thousand years, until in 
the fifteenth century, distorted and imperfect, it appeared in 
the writings of Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa. 

But in the shade cast by the vast system which had 
grown from the minds of the great theologians and from the 
heart of the great poet there had come to this truth neither 
bloom nor fruitage. 

Quietly, however, the soil was receiving enrichment and 
the air warmth. The processes of mathematics were con- 
stantly improved, the heavenly bodies were steadily ob- 
served, and at length appeared, far from the centres of 
thought, on the borders of Poland, a plain, simple-minded 
scholar, who first fairly uttered to the modern world the 
truth — now so commonplace, then so astounding — that the 
sun and planets do not revolve about the earth, but that 
the earth and planets revolve about the sun : this man was 
Nicholas Copernicus. 

Copernicus had been a professor at Rome, and even as 
early as 1500 had announced his doctrine there, but more in 
the way of a scientific curiosity or paradox, as it had been 
previously held by Cardinal de Cusa, than as the statement 
of a system representing a great fact in Nature. About 
thirty years later one of his disciples, Widmanstadt, had 
explained it to Clement VII ; but it still remained a mere 
hypothesis, and soon, like so many others, disappeared from 
the public view. But to Copernicus, steadily studying the 
subject, it became more and more a reality, and as this 
truth grew within him he seemed to feel that at Rome 
he was no longer safe. To announce his discovery there 
as a theory or a paradox might amuse the papal court, 
but to announce it as a truth — as the truth — was a far differ- 
ent matter. He therefore returned to his little town in Po- 
land. 

To publish his thought as it had now developed was evi- 
dently dangerous even there, and for more than thirty years 



122 ASTRONOMY. 

it lay slumbering in the mind of Copernicus and of the 
friends to whom he had privately intrusted it. 

At last he prepared his great work on the Revolutions of 
the Heavenly Bodies, and dedicated it to the Pope himself. 
He next sought a place of publication. He dared not send it 
to Rome, for there were the rulers of the older Church 
ready to seize it ; he dared not send it to Wittenberg, for 
there were the leaders of Protestantism no less hostile; he 
therefore intrusted it to Osiander, at Nuremberg.* 



* For germs of heliocentric theory planted long before, see Sir G. C. Lewis ; 
and for a succinct statement 6f the claims of Pythagoras, Philolaus, Aiistarchus, 
and Martianus Capella, sec Hoefer, Histoire <U V Astronomie^ 1873, p. 107 et seq. ; 
also Heller, Ceschichte der Physik, Stuttgart, 1882, vol. i, pp. 12, 13; also pp. 99 
et seq. For germs among thinkers of India, see Whewell, vol. i, p. 277 ; also 
Whitney, Oriental and Linguistic Studies, New York, 1874 ; Essay on the Lunar 
Zodiac, p. 345. For the views of Vincent of Beauvais, see his Speculum Naturalt, 
lib. xvi, cap. 21. For Cardinal d'Ailly's view, see his treatise De Concordia Astro^ 
nomica Veritatis cum Theologia (in his Ymago Mundi and separately). For 
general statement of De Cusa's work, see Draper, Intellectual Development of 
Europe^ p. 512. For skilful use of De Cusa's view in order to mitigate censure 
upon the Church for its treatment of Copemicus's discovery, see an article in the 
Catholic World for January, 1869. For a very exact statement, in a spirit of 
judicial fairness, see Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, p. 275 and pp. 
379, 380. In the latter, Whewell cites the exact words of De Cusa in the De 
Docta Ignorantia, and sums up in these words : " This train of thought might be a 
preparation for the reception of the Copemican system ; but it is very different 
from the doctrine that the sun b the centre of the planetary system." Whewell 
says : " De Cusa propounded the doctrine of the motion of the earth more as a 
paradox than as a reality. We can not consider this as any distinct anticipation of 
a profound and consistent view of the truth." On De Cusa, see also Heller, vol. i, 
p. 216. For Aristotle's views, and their elaboration by St. Thomas Aquinas, see 
the De Ccelo et Alundo, sec xx, and elsewhere in the latter. It is curious to see 
how even such a biographer as Archbishop Vaughan slurs over the Angelic Doctor's 
errors. See Vaughan's Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquin, pp. 459, 460. 

As to Copemicus*s danger at Rome, the Catholic World for January, 1869, cites 
a speech of the Archbishop of Mechlin before the University of Louvain, to the 
effect that Copernicus defended his theory at Rome, in 1500, before two thousand 
scholars; also, that another professor taught the system in 1528, and was made 
apostolic notary by Clement VIII. All this; even if the doctrines taught were 
identical with those of Copernicus as finally developed — which is simply not the 
case — avails nothing against the overwhelming testimony that Copernicus felt him- 
self in danger — testimony which the after-history of the Copemican theory renders 
invincible. The very title of Fromundus's book, already cited, published within a 
few miles of the archbishop's own cathedral, and sanctioned expressly by the theo- 
logical faculty of that same University of Louvain in 1630, utterly refutes the 
archbishop's idea that the Church was inclined to treat Copernicus kindly. The 



THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY. 



123 



But Osiander's courage failed him : he dared not launch 
the new thought boldly. He wrote a grovelling preface, en- 
deavouring to excuse Copernicus for his novel idea, and in 
this he inserted the apologetic lie that Copernicus had pro. 
pounded the doctrine of the earth's movement not as a fact, 

but as a hypothesis. He declared that it was lawful for an 
astronomer to indulge his imagination, and that this was 

what Copernicus had done. 

Thus was the greatest and most ennobling, perhaps, of 
scientific truths — a truth not less ennobling to religion than 
to science — forced, in coming before the world, to sneak and 
crawl.* 

On the 24th of May, 1 543, the newly printed book ar- 
rived at the house of Copernicus. It was put into his hands ; 
but he was on his deathbed. A few hours later he was be- 



title is as follows : Ant-Aristarchus sive Orbis- Terra Itntnobilis^ in quo decretum 
S, Ccngregatianis S, R. E, Cardinal, an. M.DCXVI adversus Pythagorico-Copemi- 
canos editum defenditur^ Antveq>iae, MDCXXXI. L'£pinois, GaliUe^ Paris, 1867, 
lays stress, p. 14, on the broaching of the doctrine by De Cusa in 1435, and by 
Widmanstadt in 1533, and their kind treatment by Eugenius IV and Clement VII ; 
but this is absolutely worthless in denying the papal policy afterward. Lange, 
GeschichU des MaUrialismus, vol. i, pp. 217, 218, while admitting that De Cusa 
and Widmanstadt sustained this theory and received honours from their respective 
popes, shows that, when the Church gave it serious consideration, it was con- 
demned. There is nothing in this view unreasonable. It would be a parallel case 
to that of Leo X, at first inclined toward Luther and others, in their "squabbles 
with the envious friars," and afterward forced to oppose them. That Copernicus 
felt the danger, is evident, among other things, by the expression in the preface ; 
** Skitim me expiodendum cum tali opinione clamitant.** For dangers at Witten- 
berg, see Lange, as above, vol. i, p. 217. 

* Osiandcr, in a letter to Copernicus, dated April 20, 1541, had endeavoured 
to reconcile him to such a procedure, and ends by saying, ** Sic enim placidiores 
reddideris peripatheticos et theologos quos contradicturos mctuis." See Apologia 
Tychonis in Kepler's Opera Omnia, Frisch's edition, vol. i, p. 246. Kepler holds 
Osiander entirely responsible for this preface. Bertrand, in his Fondateurs de 
r Astronomic moderne, gives its text, and thinks it possible that Copernicus may 
have yielded '* in pure condescension toward his disciple." But this idea is utterly 
at variance with expressions in Copemicus's own dedicatory letter to the Pcpe, 
which follows the preface. For a good summary of the argument, see Figuier, 
Savants de la Renaissance, pp. 378, 379 ; see also citation from Gassendi's Life 
of Copernicus, in Flammarion, Vie de Copernic, p. 124. Mr. John Fiske, accurate 
as he usually is, in his Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy appears to have followed 
I aplace, Delambre, and Petit into the error of supposing that Copernicus, and not 
Osiander, is responsible for the preface. For the latest proofs, see Menzer*s 
translation of Copemicus's work. Thorn, 1879, notes on pp. 3 and 4 of the appendix. 



124 



ASTRONOMY. 



vond the reach of the conscientious men who would have 
blotted his reputation and perhaps have destroyed his life. 

Yet not wholly beyond their reach. Even death could 
not be trusted to shield him. There seems to have been 
fear of vengeance upon his corpse, for on his tombstone was 
placed no record of his lifelong labours, no mention of his 
great disc<.>very : but there was graven upon it simply a 
pr%iycr : " I ask not the grace accorded to Paul ; not that 
given to ! Vlcr : give me only the favour which Thou didst 
shv>w to the thief on the cross,'* Not till thirty years after 
divl «i friend dare write on his tom.bstone a memorial of his 
disc\>verv.* 

The pnctaoe of C>siander. pretending that the book of 
l\>pcrnicus sugjrc^ted a hyjvnhesis instead of announcing a 
tuith» 55erve\l its purjv\Sie welK During nearly seventy years 
tho Chuivh Aulhv>ri:ies evidently thought it best not to stir 
l^e WAl?c:\ A«vi in :?on:e cases professors like Calganini were 
aVxOWknI t>^ ;^rr^ns :he i^w view purely as a hypothesis. 
Vxxo^v XX *"t\\ ;^*.<>c\:. nx;;;;vtr:ncs^ rrccn iin:e :o lirae on the theo- 
U\itu\\» VxxV, in;; th^r-JC «Jis tj*^ grra: oecaoostiation against 
«ho ^x>ror."s v.r.:;s "..'"■ .\ T><"r„ w^c::: :he Co'per::ican doctrine 
XX Av w.^'^o.o. >x vv*%...xV A< A r*t.:L joi rrcved :o be a truth 
>x >■> ;x* x^svv.v.. ;^x■' Nx^ii; *x< tit^c. :r hAr>i bv the Roman 
X I r^i V'x" v:«:x -^^N'-^^t x%: CorcrrijriTS were coodemned, 
' X. ': .""xx v"^,"'. :^* xV xVi'—Ox'ro.". ' iTv£ rbe crmrctions re- 
<. . \v. XX X V V. ' /. \ ^4^"^ ;.s ^\^/'.\ s^.hs::::;::e ::»r bis conclu- 

V^.s. ;'■ V \x 5x .V ,^i -.v^ii^ ^-Wi s?rr. ir. zY»il year when 
\vs w \x t.v \N Nv-^.v*- *.^ \^x"^ .*r /i^^Tjiyj? :he Ci^pcmican 
\'xN^ X s'N XX K^^ ^w vv >,-i,ior ' r.l. h.vits "which a£rm 
^■> •••,^ '.^'^ ,^ N xv * ^' V-'x-^Twuv-rr :.- -^r^i :r?e work of 
>'.'>N . ^.;.\ N\ ..X :,* -.xv r»'."'n'. i-^r, nnr rhr yrzrii accepted 
\^ ^ .Ss^Ns^ * /"• , V '^'-.j^-.-n: n- m.tv T.\^-^^ :r-xsi hj*ji fast- If 



» . V. . , ix>, :..^ .\.. *..^ .. . ^.^-^.i-^-.. »..;.* t^ vsitcs rc Tape 



\ V . 



■» - « X 



*■ * N V X» N 



^«» ** "*» '■■ir*^'**' .^^.-:T."t «;;:iwinrv. and 



THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY. 



125 



they could not believe the old system, they must pretend that 
they believed it ;— and this, even after the great circumnavi- 
gation of the globe had done so much to open the eyes of 
the world ! Very striking is the case of the eminent Jesuit 
missionary Joseph Acosta, whose great work on the Natural 
atid Moral History of tlu Indies, published in the last quarter 
of the sixteenth century, exploded so many astronomical and 
geographical errors. Though at times curiously credulous, 
he told the truth as far as he dared ; but as to the movement 
of the heavenly bodies he remained orthodox — declaring, 
" I have seen the two poles, whereon the heavens turn as 
upon their axletrees." 

There was, indeed, in Europe one man who might have 
done much to check this current of unreason which was to 
sweep away so many thoughtful men on the one hand from 
scientific knowledge, and so many on the other from Chris- 
tianity. This was Peter Apian. He was one of the great 
mathematical and astronomical scholars of the time. His 
brilliant abilities had made him the astronomical teacher 
of the Emperor Charles V; his work on geography had 
brought him a world-wide reputation ; his work on astron- 
omy brought him a patent of nobility ; his improvements 
in mathematical processes and astronomical instruments 
brought him the praise of Kepler and a place in the history 
of science : never had a true man better opportunity to do a 
great deed. When Copernicus's work appeared. Apian 

the Index in my own possession prove this. Nearly all of these declare on their 
title-pages that they are issued by order of the pontiff of the period, and each is 
prefaced by a special papal bull or letter. See especially the Index of 1664, issued 
under order of Alexander VII, and that of 1761, under Benedict XIV. Copemi- 
ciis's statements were prohibited in the Index " dome eorrigantur" Kepler said 
that it ought to be worded ^^ donee explieetur," See Bertrand, Fondateurs de 
VAstronomie moderne^ p. 57. De Morgan, pp. 57-60, gives the corrections re- 
quired by the Index of 1620. Their main aim seems to be to reduce Copernicus to 
the grovelling level of Osiander, making of his discovery a mere hypothesis ; but 
occasionally they require a virtual giving np of the whole Copemican doctrine — 
e. g., *' correction " insisted upon for chap, viii, p. 6. For a scholarly account of 
the relation of the Prohibitory and Expurgatory Indexes to each other, see Mend- 
ham, Literary Policy of the Church of Rome ; also Reusch, Index der verbotenen 
BUcher, Bonn, 1855, vol. ii, chaps, i and ii. For a brief but very careful state- 
ment, see Gebler, Galileo Galilei^ English translation, London, 1879, chap, i ; see 
also Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary^ article Galileo^ p. 8. 



1 26 ASTRONOMY. 

was at the height of his reputation and power: a quiet, 
earnest plea from him, even if it had been only for ordinary 
fairness and a suspension of judgment, must have carried 
much weight. His devoted pupil, Charles V, who sat on 
the thrones of Germany and Spain, must at least have given 
a hearing to such a plea. But, unfortunately, Apian was a 
professor in an institution of learning under the strictest 
Church control — the University of Ingolstadt. His foremost 
duty was to teach safe science — to keep science within the 
line of scriptural truth as interpreted by theological pro- 
fessors. His great opportunity was lost. Apian continued 
to maunder over the Ptolemaic theory and astrology in his 
lecture-room. The attacks on the Copemican theory he 
neither supported nor oppK)sed ; he was silent ; and the cause 
of his silence should never be forgotten so long as any 
Church asserts its title to control university instruction.* 

Doubtless many will exclaim against the Roman Catholic 
Church for this; but the simple truth is that Protestantism 
was no less zealous against the new scientific doctrine. All 
branches of the Protestant Church — Lutheran, Calvinist, 
Anglican — vied with each other in denouncing the Copemi- 
can doctrine as contrary to Scripture ; and, at a later period, 
the Puritans showed the same tendencv. 

Said Martin Luther: ** People g^ve ear to an upstart 
astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not 
the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Who- 
ever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, 
which of all svstems is of course the verv best. This fool 
wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy ; but 
sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to 
stand still, and not the earth.** Melanchthon, mild as he was, 
was not behind Luther in condemning Copernicus. In his 
treatise on the Elements of Physics^ published six years after 
Copernicus*s death, he says : '* The eyes are witnesses that 



* For Joseph Acosta's statement, see the translation of his History^ published 
by the Ilakluvt Society, chap. ii. For Peter Apian, see Midler, GesckickU dtr 
Astronomif^ Braunschweig, 1S73. vol. i, p. 141. For eWdences of the special favour 
of Charles V, see Delambre, Histoire de r.4str<mcmie au Moyen Ag€^ p. 390 : also 
Briihns, in the Allgmeiiu cUutsche Bio^aphU, For an attempted apology for 
him, see GQnther, PeUr and Philipp Apian^ Prag. 1882, p. 62. 



THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY. 



127 



the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But 
certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a 
display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves ; 
and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun 
revolves. . . . Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to 
assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. 
It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed 
by God and to acquiesce in it.". -Melanchthon then cites the 
passages in the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, which he declares 
assert positively and clearly that the earth stands fast and 
that the sun moves around it, and adds eight other proofs of 
his proposition that "the earth can be nowhere if not in the 
centre of the universe." So earnest does this mildest of the 
Reformers become, that he suggests severe measures to re- 
strain such impious teachings as those of Copernicus.* 

While Lutheranism was thus condemning the theory of 
the earth's movement, other branches of the Protestant 
Church did not remain behind. Calvin took the lead, in his 
Commentary on Genesis, by condemning all who asserted that 
the earth is not at the centre of the universe. He clinched 
the matter by the usual reference to the first verse of the 
ninety-third Psalm, and asked, " Who will venture to place 
the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?" 
Turretin, Calvin's famous successor, even after Kepler and 
Newton had virtually completed the theory of Copernicus 
and Galileo, put forth his compendium of theology, in which 
he proved, from a multitude of scriptural texts, that the 
heavens, sun, and moon move about the earth, which stands 
still in the centre. In England we see similar theological 
efforts, even after thev had become evidentlv futile. Hutch- 
inson's Moses's Principia, Dr. Samuel Pike's Sacred Philoso- 
phy, the writings of Home, Bishop Horsley, and President 
Forbes contain most earnest attacks upon the ideas of Ncw- 



• See the Tischreden in the Walsch edition of Luther's Works ^ 1743, vol. xxii, 
p. 2260 ; also Melanchthon's Initia Doctrina Physicct, This treatise is cited under 
a mistaken title by the Catholic Worlds September, 1870. The correct title is 
as given above ; it will be found in the Corpus Reformatorum^ vol. xiii ( ed. Bret- 
schneider, Halle, 1846), pp. 216, 217. 5^ee also Madler, vol. i, p. 176 ; also Lange, 
Gfschichte des Materialismus^ vol. i, p. 217 ; also Prowe, Ueber die Ahhdngigkeit 
dis Copernicus, Thorn, 1865, p. 4 ; also note, pp. 5, 6, where text is given in full. 



--«? ^^^ •!/■&,»- 










t-.^ -'...Tri.'J^^rv i.» lii* 3fc5 lie n-i :c ire seT^srecntn ccn- 

• -rr ^r'^rVt-tp'^r* "Jr^r* :',ritd i: tikr i:; :a:h rc-c ro hotd the 

P.v.'i^'vrtrsr. ' — ^th-i^ i*. n* Ccemfcan — :cia as to the 

rr. '//*;':. -:.'.: ',' •:.* r-tav*r-lv 'i»>iirs- As iJi« cictest went ou, 
r^rvVvVori -v^r* : >ri:::der. i., zLik* jciotix to sT-dents the 

T>;v ;5ir.': 'j,..':'z*'\ of P;%a, Innsi^ruck, Louvain. I>3uav. Sala- 
r;,ar.':ri. ar,^: ov,':rs. Ijjrir.g generations we nnd the authori- 
t>;'s of t.';':-/: 'j:.ivf:r%]>.;es boasting that these godless doctrines 
wT'; k'r;>»r a-A'ay from their students. It is touching to hear 
«>!K,h v/'i'/s rnadc then, just as it is touching now to hear 
'■/ififlrv ':x^':.icnt universitv authorities boast that thev dis- 
(/fur'.t-y^: th'; r':'d.^V\u'^ rA Mill, Spencer, and Darwin. Nor 
'm*:t*: su^ri 7xU':',u\)\.s to keep the truth from students confined 
to the Komari Catholic institutions of learning. Strange as 
ir may s';orri, nowhere were the facts confirming the Coper- 
uvMs\ th':ory more carefully kept out of sight than at Wit- 



^ f }n fh*: \*':ti)i\tn*% of Protestantism as regards the Cojicmican theory, see 
/ i>;4ti//fi'. in r,ifi//n farrar'% History of Interpretation, preface, xviii ; also ReT. 
Or. '.Ai\t\t\i, t,i I'tUicciotif Tfu Final Philosophy , pp. 6o, 6i. 



THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY. 1 29 

tenberg — the university of Luther and Melanchthon. About 
the middle of the sixteenth century there were at that centre 
of Protestant instruction two astronomers of a very high 
order, Rheticus and Reinhold ; both of these, after thorough 
study, had convinced themselves that the Copernican sys- 
tem was true, but neither of them was allowed to tell this 
truth to his students. Neither in his lecture announcements 
nor in his published works did Rheticus venture to make 
the new system known, and he at last gave up his professor- 
ship and left Wittenberg, that he might have freedom to 
seek and tell the truth. Reinhold was even more wretch- 
edly humiliated. Convinced of the truth of the new theory, 
he was obliged to advocate the old ; if he mentioned the 
Copernican ideas, he was compelled to overlay them with 
the Ptolemaic. Even this was not thought safe enough, and 
in 1 571 the subject was intrusted to Peucer. He was emi- 
nently " sound," and denounced the Copernican theory in 
his lectures as " absurd, and unfit to be introduced into the 
schools." 

To clinch anti-scientific ideas more firmly into German 
Protestant teaching. Rector Hensel wrote a text-book for 
schools entitled The Restored Mosaic System of the World, 
which showed the Copernican astronomy to be unscriptural. 

Doubtless this has a far-off sound ; yet its echo comes 
very near modern Protestantism in the expulsion of Dr. 
Woodrow by the Presbyterian authorities in South Caro- 
lina; the expulsion of Prof. Winchell by the Methodist 
Episcopal authorities in Tennessee ; the expulsion of Prof. 
Toy by Baptist authorities in Kentucky ; the expulsion of 
the professors at Beyrout under authority of American Prot- 
estant divines — all for holding the doctrines of modern sci- 
ence, and in the last years of the nineteenth century.* 

But the new truth could not be concealed ; it could 
neither be laughed down nor frowned down. Many minds 

* For treatment of Copernican ideas by the people, see The Catholic World, as 
above; also Melanchthon, %tH supra \ also Prowe, CopemicuSt Berlin, 1883, vol. i, 
p. 269, note ; also pp. ayq, aSo ; also M&dler, i, p. 167. For Rector Hensel, see 
Rev. Dr. Shield's Final Philosophy, p. 60. For details of recent Protestant efforts 
against evolution doctrines, see the chapter on Th< Fall of Man and Anthropology 
in this work. 
zo 



« ''» 















^A^mT, \ ^ >>^ ^■g •fit ^-g-iiX., ! — n -xsr» ^T^ ■ .IT _ 




^-i*n y*5fcn vrf'jc* --lit yi;;»"-i7t*T^ lif Crc^rziiitis tat saii lo 



ii:. THE wAi Vr-:y "^:::f>. 

O:. t:,:^ nt'ar c:-arr.;.:'vr^ Gslil^o. the w':::>le war was at 

last c/yT.^^ntrate^. HU cirC'-zTeries had c'.earlj taken the 
Oy;/f:rr,;can th^^orj out of the list of hjpothcsesw aixi had 
pla/.^ri it before the world as a truth. Against him. then, 
t.^e -A-ar was long and bitter. The supporters of what was 
ca*icd *'%ourjd iearninij" declared his discoveries deceptions 
and his announcements blaspheinv. Semi-scientific profes- 



• f '/f iJrav/, ««« harV/rafrTf, F»/ dSr JvrdoMo Bntma, P&ris, 1S46. tqL i. pc I2I 
tfi'l J/;/. 212 ft tff. ; a;v> fc^rti, KiV-a </»" Giordano Bruno, Firenie, i56S, ^•♦'•■p xri ; 
»!•/ WhewdJ, T^;. i, pp. 272, 273. That \M»eTrcIl U saaevhat hastr in attribat- 
\u^ lirin*/% yiM%hmtn% entirely to the S^accio deUa Be:tia TrumfamU will be 
^yj'J«rTi», in tf/iK of M'/n»ucla, to any one who reads the acconnt of the persecndoQ 
in I5arth'/lm>:w '^»f Berti ; and, even if MTiewcIl be right, the Spaccio woald ncrer 
Kav: \i^.t:n written but for linino'k indignation at ecclesiastical oppression. See 
'I tru^M/vAitf vol vii, pp. 466 tf teq. 

\ For the relation of theie discoveries to Copemicaf^'s work, sec Delambre, 
Jfinttfirf (U I'Attronomu moderne^ discours pr/liminaire^ p, xiv ; also Laplace, Sxs- 
Iffftf du Mtrnde, vol. i, p, 326 ; and for more careful statements, Kepler's Opera 
Omnin^ edit. Frinch, tome ii, p. 464. For Copemicus's prophecy, see Canto, His' 
loirf UttiverMeUi, vol. xv, p. 473. (Cantu was an eminent Roman Catholic) 



THE WAR UPON GALILEO. 



131 



sors, endeavouring to curry favour with the Church, at- 
tacked him with sham science ; earnest preachers attacked 
him with perverted Scripture ; theologians, inquisitors, con- 
gregations of cardinals, and at last two popes dealt with 
hira, and, as was supposed, silenced his impious doctrine 
forever.* • 

I shall present this warfare at some length because, so far 
as I can find, no careful summary of it has been given in our 
language, since the whole history was placed in a new light 
by the revelations of the trial documents in the Vatican 
Library, honestly published for the first time by L'fipinois 
in 1867, and since that by Gebler, Berti, Favaro, and others. 
• The first important attack on Galileo began in 1610, when 
he announced that his telescope had revealed the moons of 
the planet Jupiter. The enemy saw that this took the 
Copernican theory out of the realm of hypothesis, and they 
gave battle immediately. They denounced both his method 
and its results as absurd and impious. As to his method, 
professors bred in the " safe science " favoured by the Church 
•argued that the divinely appointed way of arriving at the 
truth in astronomy was by theological reasoning on texts of 
Scripture; and, as to his results, they insisted, first, that 
Aristotle knew nothing of these new revelations; and, next, 
that the Bible showed by all applicable types that there 
could be only seven planets;' that this was proved by the 
seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse, by the seven- 
branched candlestick of the tabernacle, and by the seven 
churches of Asia ; that from Galileo's doctrine consequences 
must logically result destructive to Christian truth. Bishops 
and priests therefore warned their flocks, and multitudes of 
the faithful besought the Inquisition to deal speedily and 
sharply with the heretic.f 

* A yery curious example of this sham science employed by theologians is seen 
in the argument, frequently used at that time, that, if the earth really moved, a 
stone falling from a height would fall back of the point immediately below its 
point of starting. This is used by Fromundus with great effect. It appears never 
to have occurred to him to test the matter by dropping a stone from the topmast of 
a ship. Benzenburg has experimentally demonstrated just such an aberration in 
falling bodies as is mathematically required by the diurnal motion of the earth. 
See Jevons, PfincipUs of Science, pp. 388, 389, second edition, 1877. 

t See Delambre on the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter as the turning-point 



132 



ASTRONOMY 



In vain did Galileo try to prove the existence of satel- 
lites by showing them to the doubters through his telescop-e : 
thej either declared it impious to look, or, if thev did look, 
denounced the satellites as illusions from the de>-iL Good 
Father Clavius declared that " to see satellites of Jupiter, 
men had to make an instrument which would create them.** 
In vain did Galileo try to save the great truths he had dis- 
covered bv his letters to the Benedictine Castelli and the 
Grand-Duchess Christine, in which he argued that literal 
biblical interpretation should not be applied to science : it 
was answered that such an argument only made his heresy 
more detestable ; that he was ^* worse than Luther or Calvin." 

The war on the Copemican theory, which up to that 
time had been carried on quietly, now flamed forth. It was 
declared that the doctrine was proved false by the standing, 
still of the sun for Joshua, by the declarations that ** the 
foundations of the earth are fixed so firm that they can not 
be moved,*' and that the sun '* runneth about from one end 
of the heavens to the other." * 

But the little telescope of Galileo still swept the heavens.- 
and another revelation was announced — the mountains and 
valleys in the moon. This brought on another attack. It 
was declared that this, and the statement that the moon 
shines by light reflected from the sun, directly contradict 
the statement in Genesis that the moon is " a great light." 
To make the matter worse, a painter, placing the moon in a 
religious picture in its usual position beneath the feet of the 



with the heliocentric doctrine. As to its effects on Bacon, see Jevons, p. 638, as 
above. For argument drawn from the candlestick and the seven diarches, see De- 
lambre, p. 20. 

* For principal points as given, see Libri, Hisioire dis Sciatcn matkimatiqtiei 
en Italie^ vol. iv, p. 211 ; De Morgan, Paradoxes^ p. 26, for account of Father 
Clavius. It is interesting to know that Ctavius, in his last years, acknowledged 
that ** the whole system of the heavens is broken down, and must be mended," 
Cantu, Hisioire CniverselU, vol. xv, p. 478. See Th. Martin, GaliUe, pp. 34. 2o3, 
and 266 ; also Heller. Geschichte der Physik, Stuttgart, 1882. vol. i. p. 366. For the 
original documents, see L*6pinob, pp. 34 and 36 ; or, better, Gebler's careful edi- 
tion of the trial {.Die Acten des Galileischen Processes^ Stuttgart, 1877), pp. 47 
et seq. Martin's translation seems somewhat too free. See also Gebler, Galileo 
Galilei, English translation. London, 1879, PP* 7^7^ \ also Reusch, Der Process 
Galileos und die JesuiUn, Bonn, 1879, chaps, ix, x, xi. 



THE WAR UPON GALILEO. 



133 



Blessed Virgin, outlined on its surface mountains and val- 
leys ; this was denounced as a sacrilege logically resulting 
from the astronomer's heresy. 

Still another struggle was aroused when the hated tele- 
scope revealed spots upon the sun, and their motion indicat- 
ing the sun's rotation. Monsignor Elci, head of the Univer- 
sity of Pisa, forbade the astronomer Castelli to mention these 
spots to his students. Father Busaeus, at the University of 
Innspruck, forbade the astronomer Scheiner, who had also 
discovered the spots and proposed a safe explanation of 
them, to allow the new discovery to be known there. At 
the College of Douaj^ and the University of Louvain this 
discovery was expressly placed under the ban, and this be- 
came the general rule among the Catholic universities and 
colleges of Europe. The Spanish universities were espe- 
cially intolerant of this and similar ideas, and up to a recent 
period their presentation was strictly forbidden in the most 
important university of all — that of Salamanca.* 

Such are the consequences of placing the instruction of 
men's minds in the hands of those mainly absorbed in saving 
men's souls. Nothing could be more in accordance with 
the idea recently put forth by sundry ecclesiastics, Catholic 
and Protestant, that the Church alone is empowered to pro- 
mulgate scientific truth or direct university instruction. 
But science gained a victory here also. Observations of 
the solar spots were reported not only from Galileo in Italy, 
but from Fabricius in Holland. Father Scheiner then en- 
deavoured to make the usual compromise between theology 
and science. He promulgated a pseudo-scientific theory, 
which only provoked derision. 

The war became more and more bitter. The Dominican 
Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, " Ye men 
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? " and this 
wretched pun upon the great astronomer's name ushered in 
sharper weapons ; for, before Caccini ended, he insisted that 
" geometry is of the devil," and that " mathematicians should 
be banished as the authors of all heresies."^ The Church 
authorities gave Caccini promotion. 

• Sec Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature^ vol. iii. 



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THE WAR UPON GALILEO. 1 35 

used in it are worth examining. They are very easily ex- 
amined, for they are to be found on all the battlefields of 
science ; but on that field they were used with more effect 
than on almost any other. These weapons are the epithets 
•* infidel " and " atheist." They have been used against 
almost every man who has ever done anything new for his 
fellow-men. The list of those who have been denounced as 
•* infidel *' and ** atheist " includes almost all great men of 
science, general scholars, inventors, and philanthropists. 
The purest Christian life, the noblest Christian character, 
have not availed to shield combatants. Christians like Isaac 
Newton, Pascal, Locke, Milton, and even F6nelon and How- 
ard, have had this weapon hurled against them. Of all 
proofs of the existence of a God, those of Descartes have 
been wrought most thoroughly into the minds of modern 
men ; yet the Protestant theologians of Holland sought to 
bring him to torture and to death by the charge of atheism, 
and the Roman Catholic theologians of France thwarted him 
during his life and prevented any due honours to him after 
his death.* — 

These epithets can hardly be classed with civilized weap- 
ons. They are burning arrows ; they set fire to masses of 
popular prejudice, always obscuring the real question, some- 
times destroying the attacking party. They are poisoned 
weapons. They pierce the hearts of loving women ; they 
alienate dear children ; they injure a man after life is ended, 
for they leave poisoned wounds in the hearts of those who 
loved him best — fears for his eternal salvation, dread of the 
Divine wrath upon him. Of course, in these days these weap- 
ons, though often effective in vexing good men and in scar- 
i^S good women, are somewhat blunted ; indeed, they not. 
infrequently injure the assailants more than the assailed. So 
it was not in the days of Galileo ; they were then in all their 
sharpness and venom.f — 

* For various objectors and objections to Galileo by his contemporaries, see 
Libri, ffuttnre (Us Sciences math/moHques en Italic^ vol. iv, pp. 233, 234 ; also Mar- 
tin, Vie de GaliUe. For Father Lecazre*s argument, see Flammarion, Mondes ima- 
ginaires et mondes rdels^ 6e 6d., pp. 315, 316. For Melanchthon's argument, see 
his Initio^ in Opera, vol. iii, Halle, 1846. 

f For curious exemplification of the way in which these weapons have been 



i^ jksr^z^ynT. 



Y^ 2 baser inriin w^s "wi^^rd zj tie Arcibcsiiop of 
Pisi- Ti2§ -^.irr, wh:,se ciiiccral i-iriT-s £3 raosc €a*iiiring 
it=LC ztjcl Ga.fTtj's iiCacrScii ;c x zrsar aatsnl Liw from 
tire S'^Tz^in;^ Lizip befir* ±5 ir'n^. ins !i>3C ia irciibishop 
afr-r the nijbie =i-:filsi :c Bomcieii i3ii Feceija isd Cheve- 
ns- SadlT caijazi : jC rze Cb.::in:2. ioii iasmnfrv, he was 



2L yra.fX aaa iz^m^Tier: se pertectcc :::e fwia. :or cn- 



tTMCt^^ tne ^rcar astrjcijcier. 

Galileo^ after his dfso3Teries fcad been deaonncgd. had 
wrftrca to Lis friend CasccTi aai u riie Graad-Ehichcss 
Carisciae two Letters to siijw tiat bis diseoTenies rai^at be 
recoaciled witii Script;ire. Oa a hfat frjoi the Inqoxsidoa 
at Rome, the archbbhop sooght ta get hoLd ot these letters 
and cxhibct them as proos that Galileo had attered heretical 
Tiews oc theology and o£ Scriptzire. and thos to bring him 
into the ciotch of the Inquiatioa- The archbishop begs 
Castelli, therefore, to let hhn see the original letter in the 
handwriting of Galileo^ Castelli declines^ The archbishop 
then, while, as is now revealed, writing coostantlj and bit- 
terij to the Inquisitioa against GalileOv professes to Castelli 
the greatest admiration of Galileo's genius and a sincere de- 
sire to know more of his discoveriesw This not savxeeding, 
the archbishop at List throws onf the mask aad resorts lo 
open attack. 

The whole struggle to crush Galileo and to save him 
would be amusing were it not so fraught with eriL There 
were intrigues and counter-intrigues* plots and coanter-pIoCs» 
lying and spying: and in the thickest of this seething, 
squabbling, screaming mass of priests* bishops* :4rchbishops, 
and cardinals* appear two popes* Paul V and Urban VIII. 
It is most suggestive to see in this crisis of the Church, at 
the tomb of the prince of the apostles* on the eve of the 
greatest errors in Church policy the world has known, in all 
the intrigues and deliberations of these consecrated leaders 



hirlei, 3ce lists of per?oix5 charged witli ** intideUtr ** and *' sdietsm,** in the Du'" 
tiimnaire Jus Atruicu Paris* [^^^^I ^ *^ Leckj. History jf R.iti»maS.sm^ voL ii. p. 
50. For the case of De>cartes> «e Saisset, Descartes dt ses P'n& mruufu pp. 103, 
I to. For the faciity wi:h irhica the term '* idheist" has been applied &«b the 
eorlr Aryans djvira to believers ia evoiudon, see Tylor, Frimzim Oi^3E|0v» toL i, 
p. 42a 



THE WAR UPON GALILEO. 



137 



of the Church, no more evidence of the guidance or pres- 
ence of the Holy Spirit than in a caucus of New York politi- 
cians at Tammany Hall. 

But the opposing powers were too strong. In 161 5 Gali- 
leo was summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, and the 
mine which had been so long preparing was sprung. Sun- 
dry theologians of the Inquisition having been ordered to 
examine two propositions which had been extracted from 
Galileo's letters on the solar spots, solemnly considered 
these points during about a month and rendered their unani- 
mous decision as follows : " Tlie first proposition, that the sun 
is the centre and does not revolve about the earth, is foolish, 
absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because expressly contrary 
to Holy Scripture " ; and " tlu second proposition, titat the earth 
is not tlie centre but revolves about the sun, is absurd, false in 
philosophy, and, from a tluological point of view at least, opposed 
to the true fait hy 

The Pope himself, Paul V, now intervened again : he 
ordered that Galileo be brought before the Inquisition. 
Then the greatest man of science in that age was brought 
face to face with the greatest theologian — Galileo was con- 
fronted by Bellarmin. Bellarmin shows Galileo the error 
of his opinion and orders him to renounce it. De Lauda, 
fortified by a letter from the Pope, gives orders that the 
astronomer be placed in the dungeons of the Inquisition 
should he refuse to yield. Bellarmin now commands Gali- 
leo, " in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole 
Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether 
the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and im- 
movable, and that the earth moves, nor henceforth to hold, 
teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in 
writing." This injunction Galileo acquiesces in and prom- 
ises to obey.* 

This was on the 26th of February, 1616. About a fort- 

* I am aware that the theory proposed by Wohlwill and developed by Gebler 
denies that this promise was ever made by Galileo, and holds that the passage was 
a forgery devised later by the Church rulers to justify the proceedings of 1632 and 
1633. Thb would make the conduct of the Church worse, but authorities as emi- 
nent consider the charge not proved. A careful examination of the documents seems 
to disprove it. 



138 



AiTROXosnr. 



nijfrit later the CongregatioQ of the Index, sroTcd 
a* the letters and documents now brought to li^t show, bj 
Pope Paul V, solemnly rendered a decree that -r^ir Szczrzxd 
cf tlu douhU motion of t/u earth abcut its axii and ^c-bT r^ ixn 
ii fahe, and entirely contrary to Holy Scripture ' : aii^i th^ 
this opinion must neither be taught nor adfocatcd. The 
same decree condemned all writingfs of Copernicus and "j-j 
writings which affirm tJu motion of the ettrtkr The great 
work of Copernicus was interdicted until corrected in ac^ 
cordance with the views of the Inquisition ; and the works 
of Galileo and Kepler, though not mentioned bj name at 
that time, were included among those implicitly condemned 
as " affirming the motion of the earth." 

The condemnations were inscribed upon the Indejri and, 
finally, the papacy committed itself as an infallible judge 
and teacher to the world by prefixing to the Index the usual 
papal bull giving its monitions the most solemn papal sanc- 
tion. To teach or even read the works denounced or pas- 
sages condemned was to risk persecution in this world and 
damnatirm in the next. Science had apparently lost the 
decisive battle. 

For a time after this judgment Galileo remained in Rome, 
apparently hoping to find some way out of this difficulty ; 
but he soon discovered the hollo wness of the protestations 
made to him by ecclesiastics, and, being recalled to Flor- 
ence, remained in his hermitage near the city in silence, 
working steadily, indeed, but not publishing anything save 
by private letters to friends in various parts of Europe. 

Hut at last a better vista seemed to open for him. Car- 
dinal Barlxirini, who had seemed liberal and friendlv, be- 
came pope under the name of Urban VIII. Galileo at this 
conceived new hopes, and allowed his continued allegiance 
to the Copcrnican system to be known. New troubles en- 
sued. Galileo was induced to visit Rome again, and Pope 
Urban tried to cajole him into silence, personally taking the 
trouble to show him his errors by argument. Other oi>- 
poncnts were less considerate, for works appeared attacking 
his ideas — works all the more unmanly, since their authors 
knew that Galileo was restrained by force from defending 
himself. Then, too, as if to accumulate proofs of the unfit- 



THE WAR UPON GALILEO. 



139 



ness of the Church to take charge of advanced instruction, 
his salary as a professor at the University of Pisa was taken 
from him, and sapping and mining began. Just as the Arch- 
bishop of Pisa some years before had tried to betray him 
with honeyed words to the Inquisition, so now Father 
Grassi tried it, and, after various attempts to draw him out 
by flattery, suddenly denounced his scientific ideas as " lead- 
ing to a denial of the Real Presence in the Eucharist." 

For the final assault upon him a park of heavy artillery 
was at last wheeled into place. It may be seen on all the 
scientific battlefields. It consists of general denunciation ; 
and in 163 1 Father Melchior Inchofer, of the Jesuits, brought 
his artillery to bear upon Galileo with this declaration: 
" The opinion of the earth's motion is of all heresies the most 
abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous ; the 
immovability of the earth is thrice sacred ; argument against 
the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and the 
incarnation, should be tolerated sooner than an argument to 
prove that the earth moves.** 

From the other end of Europe came a powerful echo. 
From the shadow of the Cathedral of Antwerp, the noted 
theologian Fromundus gave forth his famous treatise, the 
Ant'Aristarckus. Its very title-page was a contemptuous 
insult to the memory of Copernicus, since it paraded the as- 
sumption that the new truth was only an exploded theory 
of a pagan astronomer. Fromundus declares that " sacred 
Scripture fights against the Copernicans.'* To prove that 
the sun revolves about the earth, he cites the passage in the 
Psalms which speaks of the sun " which cometh forth as a 
bridegroom out of his chamber.** - To prove that the earth 
stands still, he quotes a passage from Ecclesiastes, " The 
earth standeth fast forever.** To show the utter futility of 
the Copernican theory, he declares that, if it were true, ** the 
wind would constantly blow from the east**; and that 
" buildings and the earth itself would fly off with such a 
rapid motion that men would have to be provided with claws 
like cats to enable them to hold fast to the earth*s surface.** 
Greatest weapon of all, he works up, by the use of Aristotle 
and St. Thomas Aquinas, a demonstration from theology 
and science combined, that the earth must stand in the cen- 



jZ. 



ni"T 



'rt. uuz. iiac in* sin mu:i: tt^uiv^ xaiuin n. j^or ^iras n 
nivui ourn: srrjur m^i- 5S V^it Sanir.. n. Jrnnirt. and Sir 




"STi^li* ii^vT :i; tninEiJiarn: grrargx xrinr iiir Lud upon 
-tit ^rir.i_ itt ziuz -ifSCLriziiiii-i vrrT nmrnsr ic frrcn ilU iiarts 
'^: £*ir'.c»t Grx..:i:: zrr^nnr^t i. ZLr^rxL tr^Eiiar in ibc ioiTa of 

nr KHZ *2im5i the 
if i&r^r zz* snbinit to 

tjii^-r -w'j'j^z i-li: T r: 1: "re z-rin^i A: iisc ihfr discnssaons 

^ -» ^ 

tv:^ whi ^ift 5f *a;5 :c Fiir^Er Rirc=irrL Muster cc ibt Sacred 
Vk^jLrjt. IlZjZ ^jzz^z it Giil'e'.ji. i^ '■■liri vze Cor^emicaii 
•-vtr.rr »s.^ ■•-:.—. -ill T ^^liLfr:*:*! 23 i rlij of tie i'^-aginarioiL 
iiiC r-'.t ir sll i? '.zz^'jirrz :: the ?::CeTm-"c irctri^e rcasseit- 
^A :z i^.i^^ ZT iz'i Ioc-is:u:c urier tie cireciiDa of Pope 

T:,:^ T,*:v TTork 'f Galileo — the -»r--.V--r — a:>Kared in i6;2, 
a'.^ f.'.-:rt -A fth pr-yii^^ yU5 success^ It rut new weapons into 
tf.f: r.ir.c^ of the supporters of the Copemicaa theory. The 
;y!o i-^ preface was laughed at from one end of Europe to the 
Of r-^r, 'IrJs roused the enemv: the Jesuits, I>ominicans, 

• f 'yf t'kfr.*:r If.f-'/'T'* a.*. tack, see hi» Tractitus Sy^ertL-^i^ cited ia Galileo's 
I/:">^^f •/, l,^j/i^\i, ] :,y 2't, i(,34. For Fromnndns's more fxsoos atryfc. see his 
Ant'Ariit/n^hu:, ^rtsk-iy citfl, pa:nm, bat especiallr d» beadisg of dupter ti, 
*/*/J fK« arjf »thKf*' in '.h*;,Orn. x and xi. A copy of this work may be foand ia the 
Ai«//f lAhrury *• NV-^ V'/rk, and another in the WTiite Libraiy at Cornell Univcr- 
t»»y, For ifitftr»:aifig r^fcrtnce to one of Fromnndas's argaments, showing, by a 
utifUiTf, of rri2Lth<:matic-% and theolrjgy, that the earth is the centre of the nnirerse, 
**:#; tfui-.^fAtX, I/iitcrire tUf Sfutues matfUmatiqMts et physiques^ Bmxelles, 1S64, p. 
170; ;«lvi Mft/ller, deuhifhu d^r AstronomU, vol. i, p. 274. For Bodin's opposi- 
i» #11 »o \\\f. ^//j^erninari theory, <>ee Hallam, Zi/W-a/vr^ of Europe', also Lecky. 
I /*r Sir 'i hornas Iirown«^, wrc hiii Vulvar and Common Errors^ book iv. chap, v ; 
Mh'l ft* !/> tli« rral rcanon for hi« disbelief in the Copemican view, see Dr. John- 
utu% iirefitci: to \i\% Life 0/ liroimu, vol. i, p. xix, of hb collected works. 



VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO. 141 

and the great majority of the clergy returned to the attack 
more violent than ever, and in the midst of them stood Pope 
Urban VIII, most bitter of all. His whole power was now 
thrown against Galileo. He was touched in two points: 
first, in his personal vanity, for Galileo had put the Pope's 
arguments into the mouth of one of the persons in the dia- 
logue and their refutation into the mouth of another ; but, 
above, all, he was touched in his religious feelings. Ag^in 
and again His Holiness insisted to all comers on the absolute 
and specific declarations of Holy Scripture, which prove 
that the sun and heavenly bodies revolve about the earth, 
and declared that to gainsay them is simply to dispute rev- 
elation. Certainly, if one ecclesiastic more than another 
ever seemed not under the care of the Spirit of Truth, it was 
Urban VIII in all this matter. 

Herein was one of the greatest pieces of ill fortune that 
has ever befallen the older Church. Had Pope Urban been 
broad-minded and tolerant like Benedict XIV, or had he 
been taught moderation by adversity like Pius VII, or had 
he possessed the large scholarly qualities of Leo XIII, now 
reigning, the vast scandal of the Galileo case would never 
have burdened the Church : instead of devising endless quib- 
bles and special pleadings to escape responsibility for this 
colossal blunder, its defenders could have claimed forever 
for the Church the glory of fearlessly initiating a great 
epoch in human thought. 

But it was not so to be. Urban was not merely Pope ; 
he was also a prince of the house of Barberini, and therefore 
doubly angry that his arguments had been publicly con- 
troverted. 

The opening strategy of Galileo's enemies was to forbid 
the sale of his work ; but this was soon seen to be unavail- 
ing, for the first edition had already been spread throughout 
Europe. Urban now became more angry than ever, and 
both Galileo and his works were placed in the hands of 
the Inquisition. In vain did the good Benedictine Castelli 
urge that Galileo was entirely respectful to the Church; in 
vain did he insist that ** nothing that can be done can now 
hinder the earth from revolving." He was dismissed in dis- 
grace, and Galileo was forced to appear in the presence of 



5T1jj503CT. 



ir*r: iii'r> ectitd to im:>ri50C3^^t br C3cir7:and cc ire P:ce: 
tr.^ Iric^iUitioTi 'iiti^rTi:L^ iz. rriis w^bjie Ezaner : j ire riTiil 
kiiZhrjrizj. Al. th'* lon^f series oc attccpcs aace in ire s-> 
YAfA iri,tf:r^i:^z of the Cr'-;rcii to mjatirj tiese irazsaniras 
c^7^ at Ia.*t isLiJtd^ The worid knows mow that GalLetD -anas 
tiir/ectivi CitrtainlT to indignitj. to inipriaxincct- ar*i id 
threat* equivalent to torture, and w2ls at last forced ir- i:r> 
r*ouace publiclj and on his knees his recantatioa. as igZots: 
-^ "I, Galileo, facing in mj scTcntieth jcar. bein^ a pristDoer 
arid on my knees, and before jour Eminences. haTin^ bcfc.re 
rny eyes the Holy Gospel, which I touch with mj hands. 
abjure, curse, and detest the error and the heresy o: the 
movement of the earth." * — ' — - ^' _ 

He was vanquished indeed, for he had been forced, in 
the face of all coming ages, to perjure himself. To com- 
plete his dishonour, he was obliged to swear that he would 
denounce to the Inquisition any other man of science whom 
he should discover Uj be supporting the *• heresy of the mo- 
tion of the earth." 

Many have wondered at this abjuration, and on account 
of it have denied to Galileo the title of martyr. But let such 
gainviyers consider the circumstances. Here was an old 
man — ouc who had reached the allotted threescore vears 
and ten — broken with disappointments, worn out with la- 
ymrs and cares, dragged from Florence to Rome, with the 
threat from the fV)pe himself that if he delayed he should be 
** brought in chains " ; sick in body and mind, g^ven over 

* For various utterances of Pctpt Urban against the Copemican theoiy at this 
\ff:nff\, nee extract-i from the original documents given by G«bler. For punish- 
ment of thtr^ who ha/l »hown sr^me favour to Galileo, see various citations, and 
e%f«ecially tUtne from the Vatican manuscript, Gebler, p. 216. As to the text of 
the a)>jurati<ni, ftcc I/Kpinois ; also Polacco, Aniicopfmicus^ etc, Venice, 1644 ; 
and for a dim:u4tMon rcgnrding its publication, see Favaro, Miscellania Galileana^ 
p. 8fi4. It IH not probable that torture in the ordinary sense was administered 
to Galileo, though it wah threatened. Sec Th. Martin, Vie de GaliUe^ for a fair sum- 
ming up of the cai»e. 



VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO. 



143 



to his oppressors by the Grand-Duke who ought to have pro- 
tected him, and on his arrival in Rome threatened with tor- 
ture. What the Inquisition was he knew well. He could 
remember as but of yesterday the burning of Giordano Bruno /^ 
in that same city for scientific and philosophic heresy ; he 
could remember, too, that only eight years before this very 
time De Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, having been 
seized by the Inquisition for scientific and other heresies, 
had died in a dungeon, and that his body and his writings 
had been publicly burned. 

To the end of his life — nay, after his life was ended — the 
persecution of Galileo was continued. He was kept in exile 
from his family, from his friends, from his noble employ- 
ments, and was held rigidly to his promise not to speak of 
his theory. When, in the midst of intense bodily sufiFerings 
from disease, and mental sufferings from calamities in his 
family, he besought some little liberty, he was met with 
threats of committal to a dungeon. When, at last, a special 
commission had reported to the ecclesiastical authorities that 
be had become blind and wasted with disease and sorrow, 
he was allowed a little more liberty, but that little was ham- 
pered by close surveillance. He was forced to bear con- 
temptible attacks on himself and on his works in silence ; to 
see the men who had befriended him severely punished ; 
Father Castelli banished; Ricciardi, the Master of the 
Sacred Palace, and Ciampoli, the papal secretary, thrown 
out of their positions by Pope Urban, and the Inquisitor at 
Florence reprimanded for having given permission to print 
Galileo's work. He lived to see the truths he had estab- 
lished carefully weeded out from all the Church colleges and 
universities in Europe ; and, when in a scientific work he 
happened to be spoken of as " renowned," the Inquisition 
ordered the substitution of the word " notorious." * 

And now measures were taken to complete the destruc- 
tion of the Copernican theory, with Galileo's proofs of it. 
On the i6th of June, 1633, the Holy Congregation, with the 
permission of the reigning Pope, ordered the sentence upon 



♦ For the substitution of the word ** notorious " for " renowned *' by order of the 
Inqubition, see Martin, p. 227. 



144 



ASTRONOMY. 



Galileo, and his recantation, to be sent to all the papal 
nuncios throughout Europe, as well as to all archbishops, 
bishops, and inquisitors in Italy ; and this document g^ve 
orders that the sentence and abjuration be made known " to 
your vicars, that you and all professors of philosophy and 
mathematics may have knowledge of it, that they may know 
why we proceeded against the said Galileo, and recognise 
the gravity of his error, in order that they may avoid it, and 
thus not incur the penalties which they would have to suflFer 
in case they fell into the same.*' * 

As a consequence, the professors of mathematics and 
astronomy in various universities of Europe were assem- 
bled and these documents were read to them. To the theo- 
logical authorities this gave great satisfaction. The Rec- 
tor of the University of Douay, referring to the opinion of 
Galileo.wrote to the papal nuncio at Brussels : " The profess- 
ors of our university are so opposed to this fanatical opin- 
ion that they have always held that it must be banished from 
the schools. In our English college at Douay this paradox 
has never been approved and never will be." 

Still another step was taken : the Inquisitors were or- 
dered, especially in Italy, not to permit the publication of a 
new edition of any of Galileo's works, or of any similar writ- 
ings. On the other hand, theologians were urged, now that 
Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler were silenced, to reply 
to them with tongue and pen. Europe was flooded with 
these theological refutations of the Copernican system. 

To make all complete, there was prefixed to the Index 
of the Church, forbidding "all writings which affirm the 
motion of the earth," a bull signed by the reigning Pope, 
which, by virtue of his infallibility as a divinely guided 
teacher in matters of faith and morals, clinched this con- 
demnation into the consciences of the whole Christian 
world. 

From the mass of books which appeared under the 
auspices of the Church immediately after the condemnation 



* For a copy of this document, see Gebler, p. 269. As to the spread of this 
and similar documents notifying Europe of Galileo's condemnation, see Favaro, 
pp. 804, 805. 



VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO. 



145 



( 



of Galileo, for the purpose of rooting out every vestige of 
the hated Copernican theory from the mind of the world, 
two may be taken as typical. The first of these was a work 
by Scipio Chiaramonti, dedicated to Cardinal Barberini. 
Among his arguments against the double motion of the 
earth may be cited the following : 

"Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles; the 
earth has no limbs or muscles, therefore it does not move./ 
It is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the sun, etc., turn 
round. If the earth revolves, it must also have an angel in 
the centre to set it in motion ; but only devils live there ; it 
would therefore be a devil who would impart motion to the 
earth. . . . 

" The planets, the sun, the fixed stars, all belong to one 
species — namely, that of stars. It seems, therefore, to be a 
gfrievous wrong to place the earth, which is a sink of im- 
purity, among these heavenly bodies, which are pure and 
divine things.*' 

The next, which I s6lect from the mass of similar works, 
is the Anticopernicus Catholicus of Polacco. It was intended 
to deal a finishing stroke at Galileo's heresy. In this it is 
declared : 

" The Scripture always represents the earth as at rest, 
and the sun and moon as in motion ; or, if these latter bodies 
are ever represented as at rest. Scripture represents this as 
the result of a great miracle. . . . 

" These writings must be prohibited, because they teach 
certain principles about the position and motion of the ter- 
restrial globe repugnant to Holy Scripture and to the Cath- 
olic interpretation of it, not as hypotheses but as established 
facts. . . ." 

Speaking of Galileo's book, Polacco says that it " smacked 
of Copernicanism," and that, " when this was shown to the 
Inquisition, Galileo was thrown into prison and was com- 
pelled to utterly abjure the baseness of this erroneous 
dogma." 

As to the authority of the cardinals in their decree, Po- 
lacco asserts that, since they are the " Pope's Council " and 
his " brothers," their work is one, except that the Pope is 

favoured with special divine enlightenment. 
II 



146 ASTRONOMY. 

Having shown that the authority of the Scriptures, of 
popes, and of cardinals is against the new astronomy, he 
gives a* refutation based on physics. He asks: " If we con- 
cede the motion of the earth, why is it that an arrow shot 
into the air falls back to the same spot, while the earth and 
all things on it have in the meantime moved very rapidly 
toward the east ? Who does not see that great confusion 
would result from this motion ? ** 

Next he argues from metaphysics, as follows : " The Co- 
pemican theory of the earth's motion is against the nature 
of the earth itself, because the earth is not only cold but 
contains in itself the principle of cold ; but cold is opposed 
to motion, and even destroys it — as is evident in animals, 
which become motionless when they become cold." 

Finally, he clinches all with a piece of theological reason- 
ing, as follows : " Since it can certainly be gathered from 
Scripture that the heavens move above the earth, and since 
a circular motion requires something immovable around 
which to move, . . . the earth is at the centre of the uni- 
verse." * 

But any sketch of the warfare between theology and 
science in this field would be incomplete without some ref- 
erence to the treatment of Galileo after his death. He had 
begged to be buried in his family tomb in Santa Croce; 
this request was denied. His friends wished to erect a 
monument over him; this, too, was refused. Pope Urban 
said to the ambassador Niccolini that " it would be an evil 
example for the world if such honours were rendered to a 
man who had been brought before the Roman Inquisition 
for an opinion so false and erroneous ; who had communi- 
cated it to many others, and who had given so great a scan- 
dal to Christendom." In accordance, therefore, with the 
wish of the Pope and the orders of the Inquisition, Galileo 
was buried ignobly, apart from his family, without fitting 
ceremony, without monument, without epitaph. Not until 
forty years after did Pierrozzi dare write an inscription 

* For Chiaramonti's book and selections given, see Gebler as above, p. 271. 
For Polacco, see his work as cited, especially Assertiones i, ii, vii, xi, xiii, licxiii, 
clxxxvii, and others. The work is in the White Library at Cornell University. 
The date of it is 1644. 



VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO. 



147 



to be placed above his bones ; not until a hundred years 
after did Nelli dare transfer his remains to a suitable 
position in Santa Croce, and erect a monument above 
them. Even then the old conscientious hostility burst 
forth : the Inquisition was besought to prevent such hon- 
ours to "a man condemned for notorious errors*'; and that 
tribunal refused to allow any epitaph to be placed above 
him which had not been suiDmitted to its censorship. Nor 
has that old conscientious consistency in hatred yet fully 
relented : hardly a generation since has not seen some eccle- 
siastic, like Marini or De Bonald or Rallaye or De Gabriac, 
suppressing evidence, or torturing expressions, or inventing 
theories to blacken the memory of Galileo and save the 
reputation of the Church. Nay, more: there are school his- 
tories, widely used, which, in the supposed interest of the 
Church, misrepresent in the grossest manner all these trans- 
actions in which Galileo was concerned. Sancta simplicitas ! 
The Church has no worse enemies than those who devise 
and teach these perversions. They are simply rooting out, 
in the long run, from the minds of the more thoughtful 
scholars, respect for the great organization which such writ- 
ings are supposed to serve.* 

The Protestant Church was hardly less energetic against \ 
this new astronomy than the mother Church. The sacred 
science of the first Lutheran Reformers was transmitted as 
a precious legacy, and in the next century was made much .' 
of by Calovius. His great learning and determined ortho- 
doxy gave him the Lutheran leadership. Utterly refusing 
to look at ascertained facts, he cited the turning back of the 
shadow upon King Hezekiah*s dial and the standing still 
of the sun for Joshua, denied the movement of the earth, 
and denounced the whole new view as clearly opposed to 
Scripture. To this day his arguments are repeated by sun- 
dry orthodox leaders of Atnerican Lutheranism. ..^^ 

* For the persecutions of Galileo's memory after his death, see Gebler and 
Wohlwill, but especially Th. Martin, p. 243 and chaps, ix and x. For documentary 
proofs, see L'Epinois. For a collection of the slanderous theories invented against 
Galileo, see Martin, final chapters and appendix. Both these authors are devoted 
to the Church, but, unlike Monsignor Marini, are too upright to resort to the pious 
fraud of suppressing documents or interpolating pretended facts. 



148 ASTRONOMY. 

As to the other branches of the Reformed Church, we 
have already seen how Calrinists, Anglicans, and, indeed, 
Protestant sectarians generally, opposed the new truth.* In 
England, among the strict churchmen, the great Dr. South 
denounced the Royal Society as '' irreligious," and among 
the Puritans the eminent John Owen declared that New- 
ton's discoveries were ^ buUt on fallible phenomena and ad- 
vanced by many arbitrary presumptions against e\ident 
testimonies of Scripture.*' Even Milton seems to have hesi- 
tated between the two systems. At the beginning of the 
eighth book of Paradise Lost he makes Adam state the diffi- 
culties of the Ptolemaic system, and then brings forward an 
angel to make the usual orthodox answers. Later, Milton 
seems to lean toward the Copemican theory, for, referring 
to the earth, he says : 

" Or she from west her silent course advance 
With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps 
On her soft avle, while she faces e\'en 
And bears thee soft with the smooth air along." 

English orthodoxy continued to assert itself. In 1724 
John Hutchinson, professor at Cambridge, published his 
Moses Principia, a system of philosophy in which he sought 
to build up a complete physical system of the universe from 
the Bible. In this he assaulted the Newtonian theory as 
"atheistic," and led the way for similar attacks by such 
Church teachers as Home, Duncan Forbes, and Jones of 
Nayland. But one far greater than these involved himself 
in this view. That same limitation of his reason b)' the sim- 
ple statements of Scripture which led John Wesley to de- 
clare that, "unless witchcraft is true, nothing in the Bible is 
true," led him, while giving up the Ptolemaic theory and 
accepting in a general way the Copemican, to suspect the 
demonstrations of Newton. Happily, his inborn nobility of 
character lifted him above any bitterness or persecuting 
spirit, or any imposition of doctrinal tests which could pre- 
vent those who came after him from finding their way to 
the truth. 

* For Calovius, see Zoeckler, Gesckichte, vol. i, pp. 684 and 763. For Calvin 
and Turretin, see Shields, The Final Philosophy^ pp. 60, 61. 



VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO. 



149 



But in the midst of this vast expanse of theologic error 
signs of right reason began to appear, both in England and 
America. Noteworthy is it that Cotton Mather, bitter as 
was his orthodoxy regarding witchcraft, accepted, in 1721, 
the modern astronomy fully, with all its consequences. 

In the following year came an even more striking evi- 
dence that the new scientific ideas were making their way 
in England. In 1722 Thomas Burnet published the sixth 
edition of his Sacred Theory of the Earth. In this he argues, 
as usual, to establish the scriptural doctrine of the earth's 
stability ; but in his preface he sounds a remarkable warn- 
ing. He mentions the great mistake into which St, Augus- 
tine led the Church regarding the doctrine of the antipodes, 
and says, " If within a few years or in the next generation it 
should prove as certain and demonstrable that the earth is 
moved, as it is now that there are antipodes, those that have 
been zealous against it, and engaged the Scripture in the 
controversy, would have the same reason to repent of their 
forwardness that St. Augustine would now, if he were still 
alive." 

Fortunately, too. Protestantism had no such power to 
oppose the development of the Copernican ideas as the older 
Church had enjoyed. Yet there were some things in its 
warfare against science even more indefensible. In 1772 
the famous English expedition for scientific discovery sailed 
from England under Captain Cook. Greatest by far of all 
the scientific authorities chosen to accompany it was Dr. 
Priestley. Sir Joseph Banks had especially invited him. 
But the clergy of Oxford and Cambridge interfered. Priest- 
ley was considered unsound in his views of the Trinity ; it 
was evidently suspected that this might vitiate his astro- 
nomical observations; he was rejected, and the expedition 
crippled. 

The orthodox view of astronomy lingered on in other 
branches of the Protestant Church. In Germany even Leib- 
nitz attacked the Newtonian theory of gravitation on theo- 
logical grounds, though he found some little consolation in 
thinking that it might be used to support the Lutheran doc- 
trine of consubstantiation. 

In Holland the Calvinistic Church was at first strenuous 



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VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO. 



ISI 



dung, the author being well known as a late president of a 
Lutheran Teachers* Seminary. 

No attack on the whole modern system of astronomy 
could be more bitter. On the first page of the introduction 
the author, after stating the two theories, asks, " Which is 
right?" and says: ** It would be very simple to me which is 
right, if it were only a question of human import. But the 
wise and truthful God has expressed himself on this matter 
in the Bible. The entire Holy Scripture settles the ques- 
tion that the earth is the principal body (Hauptkorper) of the 
universe, that it stands fixed, and that sun and moon only 
serve to light it." 

The author then goes on to show from Scripture the 
folly, not only of Copernicus and Newton, but of a long line 
of great astronomers in more recent times. He declares : 
" Let no one understand me as inquiring first where truth is 
to be found — in the Bible or with the astronomers. No; 
I know that beforehand — that my God never lies, never 
makes a mistake ; out of his mouth comes only truth, when 
he speaks of the structure of the universe, of the earth, sun, 
moon, and stars. . . . 

" Because the truth of the Holy Scripture is involved in 
this, therefore the above question is of the highest impor- 
tance to me. . . . Scientists and others lean upon the miser- 
able reed {Rohrstab) that God teaches only the order of sal- 
vation, but not the order of the universe." 

Very noteworthy is the fact that this late survival of an 
ancient belief based upon text-worship is found, not in the 
teachings of any zealous priest of the mother Church, but 
in those of an eminent professor in that branch of Protes- 
tantism which claims special enlightenment.* 

Nor has the warfare against the dead champions of sci- 
ence been carried on by the older Church alone. 

On the loth of May, 1859, Alexander von Humboldt was 



* For the amusing details of the attempt in the English Church to repress sci- 
ence, and of the way in which it was met, see De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 42. For 
Pastor Knak and his associates, see the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1868. Of the 
recent Lutheran works against the Copemican astronomy, see especially the 
Astronomische Unterredung twischen einem Liebhaber der Astronomie und mehr- 
eren btrUhmten Astronomer der Neuteit, by J. C. W. L., St Louis, 1873. 



152 



ASTRONOMY. 



buried. His labours had been among the glories of the cen- 
tury, and his funeral was one of the most imposing that 
Berlin had ever seen. Among those who honoured them- 
selves by their presence was the prince regent, afterward 
the Emperor William I ; but of the clergy it was observed 
that none were present save the officiating clergyman and a 
few regarded as unorthodox.* 



V. RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO. 

We return now to the sequel of the Galileo case. 

Having gained their victory over Galileo, living and 
dead, having used it to scare into submission the professors 
of astronomy throughout Europe, conscientious churchmen 
exulted. Loud was their rejoicing that the " heresy," the 
" infidelity,** the " atheism ** involved in believing that the 
earth revolves about its axis and moves around the sun had 
been crushed by the great tribunal of the Church, acting in 
strict obedience to the expressed will of one Pope and the 
written order of another. As we have seen, all books teach- 
ing this hated belief were put upon the Index of books for- 
bidden to Christians, and that hidcx was prefaced by a bull 
enforcing this condemnation upon the consciences of the 
faithful throughout the world, and signed by the reigning 
Pope. 

The losses to the world during this complete triumph of 
theology were even more serious than at first appears : one 
must especially be mentioned. There was then in Europe 
one of the greatest thinkers ever given to mankind — Ren6 
Descartes. Mistaken though many of his reasonings were, 
they bore a rich fruitage of truth. He had already done a 
vast work. His theory of vortices — assuming a uniform 
material regulated by physical laws — as the beginning of 
the visible universe, though it was but a provisional hy- 
pothesis, had ended the whole old theory of the heavens with 
the vaulted firmament and the direction of the planetary 
movements by angels, which even Kepler had allowed. The 

* See Bruhns and Lassell, Life of Humboldt^ London, 1873, vol. ii, p. 411. 



RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO. 



153 



scientific warriors had stirred new life in him, and he was 
working over and summing up in his mighty mind all the 
researches of his time. The result would have made an 
epoch in history. His aim was to combine all knowledge 
and thought into a Treatise on the World, and in view of this 
he gave eleven years to the study of anatomy alone. But 
the fate of Galileo robbed him of all hope, of all courage ; 
the battle seemed lost ; he gave up his great plan forever.* 

But ere long it was seen that this triumph of the Church 
was in reality a prodigious defeat. From all sides came 
proofs that Copernicus and Galileo were right ; and although 
Pope Urban and the Inquisition held Galileo in strict seclu- 
sion, forbidding him even to speak regarding the double mo- 
tion of the earth ; and although this condemnation of " all 
books which affirm the motion of the earth " was kept on 
the Index ; and although the papal bull still bound the Index 
and the condemnations in it on the consciences of the faith- 
ful ; and although colleges and universities under Church 
control were compelled to teach the old doctrine — it was 
seen by clear-sighted men everywhere that this victory of 
the Church was a disaster to the victors. 

New champions pressed on. Campanella, full of vagaries 
as he was, wrote his Apology for Galileo, though for that and 
other heresies, religious and political, he seven times under- 
went torture. 

And Kepler comes : he leads science on to greater vic- 
tories. Copernicus, great as he was, could not disentangle 
scientific reasoning entirely from the theological bias : the 
doctrines of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as to the neces- 
sary superiority of the circle had vitiated the minor features 
of his system, and left breaches in it through which the 
enemy was not slow to enter ; but Kepler sees these errors, 
and by wonderful genius and vigour he gives to the world 
the three laws which bear his name, and this fortress of sci- 

♦ For Descartes's discouragement, see Humboldt, Cosmos^ London, 1851, vol. 
iii, p. 21 ; also Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, English translation, vol. i, pp. 
248, 249, where the letters of Descartes are given, showing his despair, and the 
relinquishment of his best thoughts and works in order to preserve peace with the 
Church ; also Saisset, Descartes et ses Pr^urseurs^ pp. 100 et s'q. ; also Jolly, His* 
toire du Mouvcmtnt intclkctuel au XVI* Sihle^ vol. i, p. 390. 



154 



ASTRONOMY. 



ence is complete. He thinks and speaks as one inspired. 
His battle is severe. He is solemnly warned by the Prot- 
estant Consistory of Stuttgart ** not to throw Christ's king- 
dom into confusion with his silly fancies," and as solemnly 
ordered to *' bring his theory of the world into harmony 
with Scripture " : he is sometimes abused, sometimes ridi- 
culed, sometimes imprisoned. Protestants in Styria and 
Wiirtemberg, Catholics in Austria and Bohemia, press uf>on 
him ; but Newton, Halley, Bradley, and other great astrono- 
mers follow, and to science remains the victory.* 

Yet this did not end the war. During the seventeenth 
century, in France, after all the splendid proofs added by 
Kepler, no one dared openly teach the Copernican theory, 
and Cassini, the great astronomer, never declared for it. In 
1672 the Jesuit Father Riccioli declared that there were 
precisely forty-nine arguments for the Copernican theory 
and seventy-seven against it. Even after the beginning of 
the eighteenth century — long after the demonstrations of 
Sir Isaac Newton — Bossuet, the great Bishop of Meaux, the 
foremost theologian that France has ever produced, de- 
clared it contrary to Scripture. 

Nor did matters seem to improve rapidly during that 
century. In England, John Hutchinson, as we have seen, 
published in 1724 his Moses Principia maintaining that the 
Hebrew Scriptures are a perfect system of natural phi- 
losophy, and are opposed to the Newtonian system of gravi- 
tation ; and, as we have also seen, he was followed by a long 
list of noted men in the Church. In France, two eminent 
mathematicians published in 1748 an edition of Newton*s 

* For Campanella, see Amabile, Fra Tommaso Campanella^ Naples, 1882, espe- 
cially vol. iii ; also Libri, vol. iv, pp. 149 et seq. Fromundus, speaking of Kepler's 
explanation, says, " Vix Uneo ebullienUm risum** This is almost equal to the 
Nnv York Church Journal, speaking of John Stuart Mill as " that small sciolist," 
and of the preface to Dr. Draper's great work as " chippering." How a journal, 
generally so fair in its treatment of such subjects, can condescend to such weapons, 
is one of the wonders of modem journalism. For the persecution of Kepler, see 
Heller, Geschichte dcr Physik, vol. i, pp. aSi ft seq. ; also Reuschle, Kepler und die 
Astronomie, Frankfurt a. M., 1871, pp. 57 «7 seq. ; also Prof. Sigwart, Kleine Sekrif- 
ten, pp. 211 et seq. There is pK>ctic iu>iice in the fact that these two last-named 
books come from Wiirtemberg professors. See also l^he New-Englander for March, 
1884, p. 178. 



RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO. 



155 



Principia ; but, in order to avert ecclesiastical censure, they 
felt obliged to prefix to it a statement absolutely false. 
Three years later, Boscovich, the great mathematician of 
the Jesuits, used these words : " As for me, full of respect 
for the Holy Scriptures and the decree of the Holy Inquisi- 
tion, I regard the earth as immovable ; nevertheless, for sim- 
plicity in explanation I will argue as if the earth moves ; for 
it is proved that of the two hypotheses the appearances 
favour this idea." 

In Germany, especially in the Protestant part of it, the 
war was even more bitter, and it lasted through the first half 
of the eighteenth century. ( Eminent Lutheran doctors of 
divinity flooded the country with treatises to prove that the 
Copernican theory could not be reconciled with Scripture. 
In the theological seminaries and in many of the universities 
where clerical influence was strong they seemed to sweep 
all before them ; and yet at the middle of the century we 
find some of the clearest-headed of them aware of the fact 
that their cause was lost.* 

In 1757 the most enlightened perhaps in the whole line 
of the popes, Benedict XIV, took up the matter, and the 
Congregation of the Index secretly allowed the ideas of Co- 
pernicus to be tolerated. Yet in 1765 Lalande, the great 
French astronomer, tried in vain at Rome to induce the 
authorities to remove Galileo's works from the Index. Even 
at a date far within our own nineteenth century the authori- 
ties of many universities in Catholic Europe, and especially 
those in Spain, excluded the Newtonian system. In 1771 the 
greatest of them all, the University of Salamanca, being 
urged to teach physical science, refused, making answer as 
follows: " Newton teaches nothing that would make a good 



♦ For Cassini's position, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France^ vol. xiii, p. 175. 
For Riccioli, see Daunou, Pjudes Historiqttes, vol. ii, p. 439. For Bossuet, see 
Bertrand, p. 41. For Hutchinson, see LycU, PrimipUs of Geology, p. 48. For 
Wesley, sec his work, already cited. As to Boscovich, his declaration, mentioned 
in the text, was in 1746, but in 1785 he seemed to feel his position in view of his- 
tory, and apologized abjectly : Bertrand, pp. 60, 61. See also Whewell's notice of 
Lc Sueur and Jacquier's introduction to their edition of Newton's Principia, For 
the struggle in Germany, see Zoeckler, Geschichte der Beziehungen twiscfun Tfuo- 
iogie und Naturwissenschaft^ vol. ii, pp. 45 et seq. 



1 56 ASTRONOMY. 

I()g:ici;ui or metaphysician ; and Gassendi and Descartes do 
not aijree so well with revealed truth as Aristotle does." 

\'eng:eance upon the dead also has continued far into our 
own century. On the 5th o( May, 1829, a great multitude 
assembled at Warsaw to honour the memory of Copernicus 
and to uuveil Thorwaldsen's statue of him. 

Copernicus had lived a pious* Christian life ; he had been 
beloved tor unostentatious Christian charity ; with his re- 
li^rtous beliet no tault had ever been found ; he was a canon 
oi the Church at Frauenberg. and over his grave had been 
written the most touching ot Christian epitaphs. Naturally, 
then, the people expected a religious service; all was under- 
stood to be arrano^ed f^.^r it : the procession marched to the 
church and waited. The hour passed, and no priest ap- 
poarcd : none could be induced to appear. Copernicus, 
w^oiKio. charitable, pious, one ot the noblest gifts of God to 
t elision as well as to science, was evidently still under the 
ban. Five vears after that, his book was still standingr on 
the .''tiu I oi books prohibited to Christians. 

The edition of the At/t-.r published in 18 19 was as inexo- 
lalWo toward the works ot Copernicus and Galileo as its 
picvkvcss*.>rs had been: but in the year 1S20 came a crisis. 
v\iiKui Scttcle. Fro:essi.^r Oi Astronomy at Rome, had written 
asi Ciontoucarv Kx^k in which the Copemican system was 
mU'u tor gtantevi. The Master of the Sacred Palace, An- 
Kvvxi, as vXttSv>r o: the press, re:used to allow the book to be 
pi »ntv\l utilcss Settele revisexl his work and treated the Co- 
1 VI UK an tluvry as irerely a hyjvthesis- On this Settele ap- 
l^.alcvi tv> IViv Hus VIL ar*d the Pope referred the matter 
uv iho v.\^Mi:rcv:a::vni o: the Holv Otfice. At last, on the i6th 
vv[ Vis^'jNt. i>A\ i: was J.ecivievi that Settele might teach the 
V \»px : ;tu an sv>;:c:n as established, and this decision was ap- 
pu^\v\{ '*v :ho Fov^e. This aroused considerable discussion, 
Sul !nu!.\. v^n :ho i::h o: Sc^pteraber. 1S22. the cardinals of 
{\w \U<\ l:K;uisi::o:^ C^^wiously o^rreed that "the printing 
Mi,\ pv»^'u\itivv\ ot WvV <s :rxM:in^ o: the motion of the earth 
lu.l iSo xial^iUtx v^t :h^ su:\ in accordance with the general 
.,p»»Mv»n x^i i*N\K:n as::v:u^:r.ers. is permitted at Rome." 
\ lt». vIxN iNV \^as ?a:-:v\: bv l^ius VII. but it was not until 
\U\s\s ^ M \N\ux ^Uv :. r^ ix\:5. that there was issued an edition 



RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO. 



157 



of the Index from which the condemnation of works defend- 
ing the double motion of the earth was left out. 

This was not a moment too soon, for, as if the previous 
proofs had not been sufficient, each of the motions of the 
earth was now absolutely demonstrated anew, so as to be 
recognised by the ordinary observer. The parallax of fixed 
stars, shown by Bessel as well as other noted astronomers in 
1838, clinched forever the doctrine of the revolution of the 
earth around the sun, and in 1851 the great experiment of 
Foucault with the pendulum showed to the human eye the 
earth in motion around its own axis. To make the matter 
complete, this experiment was publicly made in one of the 
churches at Rome by the eminent astronomer, Father Sec- 
chi, of the Jesuits, in 1852 — ^just two hundred and twenty 
years after the Jesuits had done so much to secure Galileo's 
condemnation.* 



* For good statements of the final action of the Church in the matter, see 
Gebler; also Zoeckler, ii, 352. See also Bertrand, Fondateurs de tAstranomie 
wtodemty p. 61 ; Flammarion, Vie de Copernic, chap. ix. As to the time when the 
decree of condemnation was repealed, there have been various pious attempts to 
make it earlier than the reality. Artaud, p. 307, cited in an apologetic article in 
the Dublin Review^ September, 1865, says that Galileo's famous dialogue was pub- 
lished in 1 714. at Padua, entire, and with the usual approbations. The same article 
also declares that in 1818 the ecclesiastical decrees were repealed by Pius VII 
in full Consistory. Whewell accepts this ; but Cantu, an authority favourable to 
the Church, acknowledges that Copemicus's work remained on the Index as late as 
1835 (Cantu, Histoire universelle^ vol. xv, p. 483) ; and with this Th. Martin, not 
less favourable to the Church, but exceedingly careful as to the facts, agrees ; and 
the most eminent authority of all, Prof. Reusch, of Bonn, in his Der Index der 
verbotenen BUcher^ Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, p. 396, confirms the above statement in the 
texL For a clear statement of Bradley's exquisite demonstration of the Copemi- 
can theory by reasonings upon the rapidity of light, etc., and Foucault's exhibition 
of the rotation of the earth by the pendulum experiment, see Hoefer, Histoire de 
I Astronomies pp. 492 et seq. For more recent proofs of the Copemican theory, by 
the discoveries of Bunsen, Bischoff, Benzenburg, and others, see Jevons, Principles 
0/ Science, 



/ 



1 58 ASTRONOMY. 

VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY 

OVER GALILEO. 

Any history of the victory of astronomical science over 
dogmatic theology would be incomplete without some ac- 
count of the retreat made by the Church from all its former 
positions in the Galileo case. 

The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult. 
A little skilful warping of Scripture, a little skilful use of 
that time-honoured phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius, 
that the Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go, 
but how men go to heaven, and a free use of explosive rhet- 
oric against the pursuing army of scientists, sufficed. 

. But in the older Church it was far less easy. The re- 
treat of the sacro-scientific army of Church apolog«ists lasted 
through two centuries. 

In spite of all that has been said by these apologists, 
there no longer remains the shadow of a doubt that the papal 
infallibility was committed fully and irrevocably against the 
double revolution of the earth. As the documents of Gali- 
leo's trial now published show, Paul V, in 1616, pushed on 
with all his might the condemnation of Galileo and of the 
works of Copernicus and of all others teaching the motion of 
the earth around its own axis and around the sun. So, 
too, in the condemnation of Galileo in 1633, and in all the 
proceedings which led up to it and which followed it, Urban 
VIII was the central figure. Without his sanction no action 
could have been taken. 

True, the Pope did not formally sign the decree against 
the Copernican theory then\ but this came later. In 1664 
Alexander VII prefixed to the Index containing the con- 
demnations of the works of Copernicus and Galileo ^nd "all 
books which affirm the motion of the earth " a papal bull 
signed by himself, binding the contents of the Index upon 
the consciences of the faithful. This bull confirmed and ap- 
proved in express terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly, 
the condemnation of ** all books teaching the movement of 
the earth and the stability of the sun.*'* 

* See Rev. William W. Roberts, The Pontifical Decrees against the Doctrine 



THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH. 



159 



The position of the mother Church had been thus made 
especially difficult ; and the first important move in retreat 
by the apologists was the statement that Galileo was con- 
demned, not because he affirmed the motion of the earth, 
but because he supported it from Scripture. There was a 
slight appearance of truth in this. Undoubtedly, Galileo's 
letters to Castelli and the grand duchess, in which he at- 
tempted to show that his astronomical doctrines were not 
opposed to Scripture, gave a new stir to religious bigotry. 
For a considerable time, then, this quibble served its pur- 
pose; even a hundred and fifty years after Galileo's con- 
demnation it was renewed by the Protestant Mallet du Pan, 
in his wish to gain favour from the older Church. 

But nothing can be more absurd, in the light of the origi- 
nal documents recently brought out of the Vatican archives, 
than to make this contention now. The letters of Gali- 
leo to Castelli and the Grand-Duchess were not published 
until after the condemnation ; and, although the Archbishop 
of Pisa had endeavoured to use them against him, they were 
but casually mentioned in 1616, and entirely left out of view 
in 1633. What was condemned in 1616 by the Sacred Con- 
gregation held in the presence of Pope Paul V, as " absurd, 
false in theology, and heretical, because absolutely contrary to 
Holy Scripture,'' was the proposition that ** the sun is the cen- 
tre about which t/ie earth revolves " ; and what was condemned 
as " absurd, false in philosophy, and from a theologic point of 
view, at least, opposed to the true faith,'' was the proposition 
that ** the earth is not the centre of the universe and immovable, 
but has a diurnal motion," 

And again, what Galileo was made, by express order of 
Pope Urban, and by the action of the Inquisition under 
threat of torture, to abjure in 1633, was ^' the error and heresy 
of the movement of the earth." 

What the Index condemned under sanction of the bull 



0/ the Earth* s Movement^ London, 1885, p. 94 ; and for the text of the papal bull, 
Speeulatorts domus Israel^ pp. 132, 133, see also St. George Mivart's article in 
the Nineteenth Century for July, 1885. For the authentic publication of the bull, 
see preface to the Index of 1664, where the bull appears, signed by the Pope. The 
ReT. Mr. Roberts and Mr. St. George Mivart are Roman Catholics, and both 
acknowledge that the papal sanction was fully given. 



l6o ASTRONOMY. 

issued by Alexander VII in 1664 was, "^// books teaching the 
movement of the earth and the stability of the sun^ 

What the Index, prefaced by papal bulls, infallibly bind- 
ing its contents upon the consciences of the faithful, for 
nearly two hundred years steadily condemned was, ^'all 
books which a firm the motion of t/te earths 

Not one of these condemnations was directed against 
Galileo " for reconciling his ideas with Scripture."* 

Having been dislodged from this point, the Church apol- 
ogists sought cover under the statement that Galileo was 
condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy and want of 
respect toward the Pope. 

There was a slight chance, also, for this quibble: no 
doubt Urban VIII, one of the haughtiest of pontiffs, was in- 
duced by Galileo's enemies to think that he had been treated 
with some lack of proper etiquette : first, by Galileo's adhe- 
sion to his own doctrines after his condemnation in 1616; 
and, next, by his supposed reference in the Dialogue of 1632 
to the arguments which the Pope had used against him. 

But it would seem to be a very poor service rendered to 
the doctrine of papal infallibility to claim that a decision so 
immense in its consequences could be influenced by the 
personal resentment of the reigning pontiff. 

Again, as to the first point, the very language of the 
various sentences shows the folly of this assertion ; for these 
sentences speak always of " heresy," and never of " con- 
tumacy." As to the last point, the display of the original 
documents settled that forever. They show Galileo from 
first to last as most submissive toward the Pope, and patient 
under the papal arguments and exactions. He had, indeed, 
expressed his anger at times against his traducers ; but to 
hold this the cause of the judgment against him is to de- 
grade the whole proceedings, and to convict Paul V, Urban 

* For the original trial documents, copied carefully from the Vatican manu- 
scripts, see the Roman Catholic authority, L'Epinois, especially p. 35, where the 
principal document is given in its original Latin ; see also Gebler, DU Acten tUs 
(kilileVscfun Processes, for still more complete copies of the same documents. For 
minute information regarding these documents and their publication, see Favaro, 
Miscellanea Galileana Inedita, forming vol. xxii, part iii, of the Memoirs of the 
Venetian Institute for 1887, and especially pp. 891 and following. 



THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH. id 

VIII, Bellarmin, the other theologians, and the Inquisition, 
of direct falsehood, since they assigned entirely different rea- 
sons for their conduct. From this position, therefore, the 
assailants retreated.* 

The next rally was made about the statement that the 
persecution of Galileo was the result of a quarrel between 
Aristotelian professors on one side and professors favouring 
the experimental method on the other. But this position 
was attacked and carried by a very simple statement. If 
the divine guidance of the Church is such that it can be 
dragged into a professorial squabble, and made the tool of a 
faction in bringing about a most disastrous condemnation of 
a proved truth, how did the Church at that time differ from 
any human organization sunk into decrepitude, managed 
nominally by simpletons^ but really by schemers? If that 
argument be true. The condition of the Church was even 
worse than its enemies have declared it ; and amid the jeers 
of an unfeeling world the apologists sought new shelter. 

The next point at which a stand was made was the asser- 
tion that the condemnation of Galileo was " provisory '* ; but 
this proved a more treacherous shelter than the others. The 
wording of the decree of condemnation itself is a sufficient 
answer to this claim. When doctrines have been solemnly 
declared, as those of Galileo were solemnly declared under 
sanction of the highest authority in the Church, " contrary 
to the sacred Scriptures," " opposed to the true faith,** and 
" false and absurd in theology and philosophy ** — to say that 
such declarations are " provisory " is to say that the truth 
held by the Church is not immutable ; from this, then, the 
apologists retreated.f 

Still another contention was made, in some respects more 
curious than any other : it was, mainly, that Galileo " was 
no more a victim of Catholics than of Protestants ; for they 

* The invention of the " contumacy " quibble seems due to Monsignor Marini, 
who appears also to have manipulated the original documents to prove it Even 
Whewell was evidently somewhat misled by him, but Whewell wrote before L'Epi- 
nois had shown all the documents, and under the supposition that Marini was 
an honest man. 

t This argument also seems to have been foisted upon the world by the wily 
Monsignor MarinL 

12 



1 62 ASTRONOMY. 

more than the Catholic theologians impelled the Pope to the 
action taken." * 

But if Protestantism could force the papal hand in a 
matter of this magnitude, involving vast questions of belief 
and far-reaching questions of policy, what becomes of ** in- 
errancy " — of special protection and guidance of the papal 
authority in matters of faith ? 

While this retreat from position to position was going on, 
there was a constant discharge of small-arms, in the shape of 
innuendoes, hints, and sophistries : every effort was made to 
blacken Galileo's private character : the irregularities of his 
early life were dragged forth, and stress was even laid upon 
breaches of etiquette ; but this succeeded so poorly that 
even as far back as 1850 it was thought necessary to cover 
the retreat by some more careful strategy. — ^ 

This new strategy is instructive. The original docu- 
ments of the Galileo trial had been brought during the 
Napoleonic conquests to Paris; but in 1846 they were re- 
turned to Rome by the French Government, on the express 
pledge by the papal authorities that they should be pub- 
lished. In 1850, after many delays on various pretexts, the 
long-expected publication appeared. The personage charged 
with presenting them to the world was Monsignor Marini. 
This ecclesiastic was of a kind which has too often afflicted 
both the Church and the world at large. Despite the solemn 
promise of the papal court, the wily Marini became the in- 
strument of the Roman authorities in evading the promise. 
By suppressing a document here, and interpolating a state- 
ment there, he managed to give plausible standing-ground 
for nearly every important sophistry ever broached to save 
the infallibility of the Church and destroy the reputation of 
Galileo. He it was who supported the idea that Galileo 
was " condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy." 

The first effect of Monsignor Marini*s book seemed use- 
ful in covering the retreat of the Church apologists. Aided 
by him, such vigorous writers as Ward were able to throw 

• Sec the Rev. A. M. Kirsch on Professor Huxley and Evolution^ in The Amer- 
ican Catholic Quarterly ^ October, 1877. The article is, as a whole, remarkably 
fair-minded, and in the main just, as to the Protestant attitude, and as to the 
causes underlying the whole action against Galileo. 



THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH. 



163 



up temporary intrenchments between the Roman authori- 
ties and the indignation of the world. 

But some time later came an investigator very different 
from Monsignor Marini. This was a Frenchman, M. L'fepi- 
nois. Like Marini, L'Epinois was devoted to the Church ; 
but, unlike Marini, he could not lie. Having obtained ac- 
cess in 1867 to the Galileo documents at the Vatican, he 
published several of the most important, without suppres- 
sion or pious-fraudulent manipulation. This made all the 
intrenchments based upon Marini's statements untenable. 
Another retreat had to be made. 

And now came the most desperate effort of all. The 
apologetic army, reviving an idea which the popes and the 
Church had spurned for centuries, declared that the popes 
as popes had never condemned the doctrines of Copernicus 
and Galileo ; that they had condemned them as men simply ; 
that therefore the Church had never been committed to 
them ; that the condemnation was made by the cardinals of 
the Inquisition and Index ; and that the Pope had evidently 
been restrained by interposition of Providence from signing 
their condemnation. Nothing could show the desperation 
of the retreating party better than jugglery like this. The 2 
fact is, that in the official account of the condemnation by ' 
Bellarmin, in 1616, he declares distinctly that he makes this 
condemnation "in the name of His Holiness the Pope.*** 

Again, from Pope Urban downward, among the Church 
authorities of the seventeenth century the decision was al- 
ways acknowledged to be made by the Pope and the Church. 
Urban VIH spoke of that of 1616 as made by Pope Paul V 
and the Church, and of that of 1633 as made by himself and 
the Church. Pope Alexander VII in 1664, in his bull Spccu- 
latorcs, solemnly sanctioned the condemnation of all books 
affirming the earth's movement.f 

When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the de- 

* See the citation from the Vatican manuscript given in Gebler, p. 78. 

f For references by Urban VIII to the condemnation as made by Pope Paul V 
see pp. 136, 144, and elsewhere in Martin, who much against his will is forced to 
allow this. See also Roberts, Pontifical Decrees against the Earth^s Movement^ 
and St. George Mivart's article, as above quoted ; also Reusch, Index der verba^ 
Unen BiUhet^ Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, pp. 29 et seq. 



164 



ASTRONOMY. 



cision against Copernicus and Galileo was not sanctioned by 
the Church as such, an eminent theological authority, Father 
Lecazre, rector of the College of Dijon, publicly contra- 
dicted him, and declared that it ** was not certain cardinals, 
but the supreme authority of the Church," that had con- 
demned Galileo ; and to this statement the Pope and other 
Church authorities gave consent either openly or by silence. 
When Descartes and others attempted to raise the same 
point, they were treated with contempt. Father Castelli, 
who had devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his cost 
just what the condemnation meant and who made it, takes 
it for granted, in his letter to the papal authorities, that it 
was made by the Church. Cardinal Querenghi, in his let- 
ters ; the ambassador Guicciardini, in his dispatches ; Po- 
lacco, in his refutation ; the historian Viviani, in his biog- 
raphy of Galileo — all writing under Church inspection and 
approval at the time, took the view that the Pope and the 
Church condemned Galileo, and this was never denied at 
Rome. The Inquisition itself, backed by the greatest the- 
ologian of the time (Bellarmin), took the same view. Not 
only does he declare that he makes the condemnation " in 
the name of His Holiness the Pope,*' but we have the Roman 
l7idcxy containing the condemnation for nearly two hundred 
ye^rs, prefaced by a solemn bull of the reigning Pope bind- 
ing this condemnation on the consciences of the whole 
Church, and declaring year after year that " all books which 
affirm the motion of the earth" are damnable. To attempt 
to face all this, added to the fact that Galileo was required 
to abjure " the heresy of the movement of the earth " by 
written order of the Pope, was soon seen to be impossible. 
Against the assertion that the Pope was not responsible we 
have all this mass of tcstimonv, and the bull of Alexander 
VII in 1664.* 

* For Lecazre's answer to Gassendi, see Martin, pp. 146, 147. For the attempt 
to make the crime of Galileo a breach of etiquette, see Dublin Review^ as above. 
Whewell, vol. i, p. 283. Citation from Marini : " Galileo was punished for trifling 
with the authorities, to which he refused to submit, and was punished for obstinate 
contumacy, not heresy." The sufficient answer to all this is that the words of the 
inflexible sentence designating the condemned books are " Libri omnes qui affir- 
mant iclluris moiumy See Certrand, p. 59. As to the idea that " Galileo was pun- 



THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH. igc 

This contention, then, was at last utterly given up by 
honest Catholics themselves. In 1870 a Roman Catholic 
clergyman in England, the Rev. Mr. Roberts, evidently 
thinking that the time had come to tell the truth, published 
a book entitled The Pontifical Decrees against the Earth's Move- 
ment, and in this exhibited the incontrovertible evidences 
that the papacy had committed itself and its infallibility 
fully against the movement of the earth. This Catholic 
clergyman showed from the original record that Pope Paul V, 
in 1616, had presided over the tribunal condemning the doc- 
trine of the earth's movement, and ordering Galileo to give 
up the opinion. He showed that Pope Urban VIII, in 1633, 
pressed on, directed, and promulgated the final condemna- 
tion, making himself in all these ways responsible for it. 
And, finally, he showed that Pope Alexander VII, in 1664, 
by his bull — Speculatores domus Israel — attached to the Index, 
condemning "all books which affirm the motion of the 
earth," had absolutely pledged the papal infallibility against 
the earth's movement. He also confessed that under the 
rules laid down by the highest authorities in the Church, 
and especially by Sixtus V and Pius IX, there was no escape 
from this conclusion. 

Various theologiatis attempted to evade the force of the 
argument. Some, like Dr. Ward and Bouix, took refuge in 
verbal niceties ; some, like Dr. Jeremiah Murphy, comforted 
themselves with declamation. The only result was, that in 
1885 came another edition of the Rev. Mr. Roberts's work, 
even more cogent than the first ; and, besides this, an essay 
by that eminent Catholic, St. George Mivart, acknowledging 
the Rev. Mr. Roberts's position to be impregnable, and 

ished not for his opinion, but for basing it on Scripture/' the answer may be found 
in the Roman Index of 1704, in which are noted for condemnation ^^ Libri omnes 
docenUs moHlitaUm terra et immobilitatem solis.** For the way in which, when it 
was found convenient in argument, Church apologists insisted that it was " the Su- 
preme Chief of the Church by a pontifical decree, and not certain cardinals," who 
condemned Galileo and his doctrine, see Father Lecazre's letter to Gassendi, in 
Flammarion, Pluraliti des Mondes^ p. 427, and Urban VIlI's own declarations as 
given by Martin. For the way in which, when necessary, Church apologists as- 
serted the very contrary of this, declaring that " it was issued in a doctrinal decree 
of the Congregation of the Index, and not as the Holy Father's teaching,*' see 
Duhlin /Review, September, 1865. 



/ 



,66 ASTRONOMY. 

declaring virtually that the Almighty allowed Pope and 
Church to fall into complete error regarding the Copernican 
theory, in order to teach them that science lies outside their 
province, and that the true priesthood of scientific truth 
rests with scientific investigators alone.* 

In spite, then, of all casuistry and special pleading, this 
sturdy honesty ended the controversy among Catholics 
themselves, so far as fair-minded men are concerned. 

In recalling it at this day there stand out from its later 
phases two efforts at compromise especially instructive, as 
showing the embarrassment of militant theology in the nine- 
teenth century. 

— The first of these was made by John Henry Newman in 
the days when he was hovering between the Anglican and 
Roman Churches. In one of his sermons before the Univer- 
sity of Oxford he spoke as follows : 

" Scripture says that the sun moves and the earth is sta- 
tionary, and science that the earth moves and the sun is 
comparatively at rest. How can we determine which of 
these opposite statements is the very truth till we know 
what motion is? If our idea of motion is but an accidental 
result of our present senses, neither proposition is true and 
both are true : neither true philosophically ; both true for 
certain practical purposes in the system in which they are 
respectively found." 

In all anti-theological literature there is no utterance 
more hopelessly skeptical. And for what were the youth of 
Oxford led into such bottomless depths of disbelief as to any 
real existence of truth or any real foundation for it ? Sim- 
ply to save an outworn system of interpretation into which 
the gifted preacher happened to be born. 

The other utterance was suggested by De Bonald and 
developed in the Dublin Review, as is understood, by one of 
Newman's associates. This argument was nothing less than 
an attempt to retreat under the charge of deception against 
the Almighty himself. It is as follows : " But it may well 

* For this crushing answer by two eminent Roman Catholics to the sophistries 
cited — an answer which does infinitely more credit to the older Church than all 
the perverted ingenuity used in concealing the truth or breaking the force of it — 
see Roberts and St. George Mivart, as already cited. 



THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH. 



167 



be doubted whether the Church did retard the progress of 
scientific truth. What retarded it was the circumstance 
that God has thought fit to express many texts of Scripture 
in words which have every appearance of denying the 
earth's motion. But it is God who did this, not the Church ; 
and, moreover, since he saw fit so to act as to retard the 
progress of scientific truth, it would be little to her dis- 
credit, even if it were true, that she had followed his ex- 
ample." 

This argument, like Mr. Gosse's famous attempt to rec- 
oncile geology to Genesis — by supposing that for some in- 
scrutable purpose God deliberately deceived the thinking 
world by giving to the earth all the appearances of develop- 
ment through long periods of time, while really creating it 
in six days, each of an evening and a morning — seems only 
to have awakened the amazed pity of thinking men. This, 
like the argument of Newman, was a last desperate effort 
of Anglican and Roman divines to save something from the 
wreckage of dogmatic theology.* 

All these well-meaning defenders of the faith but wrought 
into the hearts of great numbers of thinking men the idea 
that there is a necessary antagonism between science and 
religion. Like the landsman who lashes himself to the 
anchor of the sinking ship, they simply attached Christian- 
ity by the strongest cords of logic which they could spin 

* For the quotation from Newman, see his Sermons on the Theory of Religious 
Belief sermon xiv, cited by Bishop Goodwin in Contemporary Review for January, 
1892. For the attempt to take the blame off the shoulders of both Pope and car- 
dinals and place it upon the Almighty, see the article above cited, in the Dublin 
Review^ September, 1865, p. 419, and July, 1871, pp. 157 et seq. For a good sum- 
mary of the various attemptSf'land for replies to them in a spirit of judicial fairness, 
see Th. Martin, Vie de GcdiUe^ though there is some special pleading to save the 
infallibility of Pope and Church. The bibliography at the close is very valuable* 
For details of Mr. Gosse*s theory, as developed in his Omphalos^ see the chapter on 
Geology in this work. As to a still later attempt, see Wegg-Prosser, Galileo and 
his Judges^ London, 1889, the main thing in it being an attempt to establish, 
against the honest and honourable concessions of Catholics like Roberts and Mivart^ 
sundry far-fetched and wire-drawn distinctions between dogmatic and disciplinary 
bulls — an attempt which will only deepen the distrust of straightforward reasoners. 
The author's point of view is stated in the words, " I have maintained that the 
Church has a right to lay her restraining hand on the speculations of natural 
science " (p. 167). 



/ 

/ 



1 68 ASTRONOMY. 

to these mistaken ideas in science, and, could they have had 
their way, the advance of knowledge would have ingulfed 
both together. 

On the other hand, what had science done for religion ? 
Simply this: Copernicus, escaping persecution only by 
death ; Giordano Bruno, burned alive as a monster of im- 
piety; Galileo, imprisoned and humiliated as the worst of 
misbelievers; Kepler, accused of "throwing Christ's king- 
dom into confusion with his silly fancies " ; Newton, 
bitterly attacked for "dethroning Providence," gave to 
religion stronger foundations and more ennobling concep- 
tions. 

Under the old system, that princely astronomer, Al- 
phonso of Castile, seeing the inadequacy of the Ptolemaic 
theory, yet knowing no other, startled Europe with the blas- 
phemy that, if he had been present at creation, he could 
have suggested a better order of the heavenly bodies. 
Under the new system, Kepler, filled with a religious 
spirit, exclaimed, " I do think the thoughts of God." The 
difference in religious spirit between these two men marks 
the conquest made in this long struggle by Science for 
Religion.* 

Nothing is more unjust than to cast especial blame for 
all this resistance to science upon the Roman Church. The 
Protestant Church, though rarely able to be so severe, has 
been more blameworthy. The persecution of Galileo and 
his compeers by the older Church was mainly at the begin- 
ning of the seventeenth century ; the persecution of Robert- 
son Smith, and Winchell, and Woodrow, and Toy, and the 
young professors at Beyrout, by various Protestant authori- 
ties, was near the end of the nineteenth century. Those 
earlier persecutions by Catholicism were strictly in accord- 
ance with principles held at that time by all religionists. 
Catholic and Protestant, throughout the world ; these later 
persecutions by Protestants were in defiance of principles 
which all Protestants to-day hold or pretend to hold, and 
none make louder claim to hold them than the very sects 

♦ As a pendant to this ejaculation of Kepler may be cited the words of Lin- 
nscus : ** Dcum omnipotentem a tergo transeunUm vidi et obstupui" 



THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH. 



169 



which persecuted these eminent Christian men of our day, 
men whose crime was that they were intelligent enough to 
accept the science of their time, and honest enough to 
acknowledge it. 

Most unjustly, then, would Protestantism taunt Catholi- 
cism for excluding knowledge of astronomical truths from 
European Catholic universities in the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries, while real knowledge of geological and 
biological and anthropological truth is denied or pitifully 
diluted in so many American Protestant colleges and uni- 
versities in the nineteenth century. 

Nor has Protestantism the right to point with scorn to 
the Catholic Index^ and to lay stress on the lact that nearly 
every really important book in the last three centuries 
has been forbidden by it, so long as young men in so many' 
American Protestant universities and colleges are nursed 
with "ecclesiastical pap" rather than with real thought, 
and directed to the works of "solemnly constituted im- 
postors," or to sundry "approved courses of reading," 
while they are studiously kept aloof from such leaders in 
modern thought as Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Draper, and 
Lecky. 

It may indeed be justly claimed by Protestantism that 
some of the former strongholds of her bigotry have be- 
come liberalized ; but, on the other hand, Catholicism can 
point to the fact that Pope Leo XIII, now happily reign- 
ing, has made a noble change as regards open dealing 
with documents. The days of Monsignor Marini, it may 
be hoped, are gone. The Vatican Library, with its masses 
of historical material, has been thrown open to Protestant 
and Catholic scholars alike, and this privilege has been 
freely used by men representing all shades of religious 
thought. 

As to the older errors, the whole civilized world was at 
fault, Protestant as well as Catholic. It was not the fault 
of religion ; it was the fault of that short-sighted linking of 
theological dogmas to scriptural texts which, in utter de- 
fiance of the words and works of the Blessed Founder 
of Christianity, narrow-minded, loud-voiced men are ever 
prone to substitute for religion. Justly is it said by one of 



170 



ASTRONOMY. 



the most eminent among contemporary Anglican divines, 
that "it is because they have mistaken the dawn for a 
conflagration that theologians have so often been foes of 
light." * 

* For an exceedingly striking statement, by a Roman Catholic historian of 
genius, as to the popular demand for persecution and the pressure of the lower 
strata in ecclesiastical organizations for cruel measures, see Balm^s's Le Protestan- 
t sme compari au Catholicisme^ etc., fourth edition, Paris, 1855, ^oL ii. Archbishop 
Spaulding has something of the same sort in his Miscellanies. L'^pinois, Calil/e, 
pp. 22 ei seq.y stretches this as far as possible to save the reputation of the Church 
in the Galileo matter. As to the various branches of the Protestant Church in 
England and the United States, it is a matter of notoriety that the smug, well-to- 
do laymen, whether elders, deacons, or vestrymen, are, as a rule, far more prone to 
heresy-hunting than are their better educated pastors. As to the cases of Messrs. 
Winchell, Woodrow, Toy, and the professors at Beyrout, with details, see the 
chapter in this series on The Fall of Man and Anthropology, Among Protestant 
historians who have been recently allowed full and free examination of the treas- 
ures in the Vatican Library, and even those involving questions between Catholi- 
cism and Protestantism, are Von Sybel, of Berlin, and Philip Schaflf, of New York. 
It should be added that the latter went with commendatory letters from eminent 
prelates of the Catholic Church in Europe and America. For the closing citation, 
see Canon Farrar, History of Interpretation^ p. 432. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM " SIGNS AND WONDERS " TO LA W IN THE 

HEA VENS, 

I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW. 

Few things in the evolution of astronomy are more sug- 
gestive than the struggle between the theological and the 
scientific doctrine regarding comets — the passage from the 
conception of them as fire-balls flung by an angry God for 
the purpose of scaring a wicked world, to a recognition of 
them as natural in origin and obedient to law in movement. 
Hardly anything throws a more vivid light upon the dan- 
ger of wresting texts of Scripture to preserve ideas which 
observation and thought have superseded, and upon the 
folly of arraying ecclesiastical power against scientific dis- 
covery.* 

Out of the ancient world had come a mass of beliefs re- 
garding comets, meteors, and eclipses ; all these were held 
to be signs displayed from heaven for the warning of man- 
kind. Stars and meteors were generally thought to presage 
happy events, especially the births of gods, heroes, and 
great men. So firmly rooted was this idea that we con- 
stantly find among the ancient nations traditions of lights in 
the heavens preceding the birth of persons of note. The 
sacred books of India show that the births of Crishna and of 
Buddha were announced by such heavenly lights.f The 

* The present study, after its appearance in the Popular Scunce Monthly as a 
" new chapter in the Warfare of Science/' was revised and enlarged to nearly its 
present form, and read before the American Historical Association, among whose 
papers it was published, in 1887, under the title of A History of the Doctrine of 
Comets, 

t For Crishna, see Cox, Aryan Mythology^ yoI. ii, p. 133 ; the Vishnu Purana 
(Wilson's traoslation), book v, chap. iv. As to lights at the birth, or rather at the 

171 



172 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

sacred books of China tell of similar appearances at the 
births of Yu, the founder of the first dynasty, and of the in- 
spired sage, Lao-tse. According to the Jewish legends, a 
star appeared at the birth of Moses, and was seen by the 
Magi of Egpyt, who informed the king ; and when Abraham 
was born an unusual star appeared in the east. The Greeks 
and Romans cherished similar traditions. A heavenly light 
accompanied the birth of -^sculapius, and the births of va- 
rious Caesars were heralded in like manner.* 

The same conception entered into our Christian sacred 
books. Of all the legends which grew in such luxuriance 
and beauty about the cradle of Jesus of Nazareth, none ap- 
peals more directly to the highest poetic feeling than that 
given by one of the evangelists, in which a star, rising in 
the east, conducted the wise men to the manger where the 
Galilean peasant-child — the Hope of Mankind, the Light of 
the World — was lying in poverty and helplessness. -*- 

Among the Mohammedans we have a curious example of 
the same tendency toward a kindly interpretation of stars 
and meteors, in the belief of certain Mohammedan teachers 
that meteoric showers are caused by good angels hurling 
missiles to drive evil angels out of the sky. 

Eclipses were regarded in a very different light, being 
supposed to express the distress of Nature at earthly calami- 
ties. The Greeks believed that darkness overshadowed the 
earth at the deaths of Prometheus, Atreus, Hercules, -^scu- 
lapius, and Alexander the Great. The Roman legends held 

conception, of Buddha, see Bunsen, Angd Messiah^ pp. 22, 23 ; Alabaster, Wheel 
of the Law (illustrations of Buddhism), p. 102 ; Edwin Arnold, Light of Asia ; 
Bp. Bigandet, Life of Gaudama, the Burmese Buddha, p. 30 ; Oldenbeig, Buddha 
(English translation), part i, chap. ii. 

* For Chinese legends regarding stars at the birth of Yu and Lao-tse, see 
Thornton, History of China, vol. i, p. 137 ; also Pingr^, Comitographie^ p. 245. 
Regarding stars at the births of Moses and Abraham, see Calmet, Fragments, 
part viii ; Baring-Gould, legends of Old Testament Characters^ chap, xxiv ; Farrar, 
Life of Christ, chap. iiL As to the Magi, see Higgins, Anacalypsis ; Hooykaas, Ort, 
and Kuenen, Bible for Learners, vol. iii. For Greek and Roman traditions, see 
Bell, Pantheon, s. v. ^sculapius and Atreus \ Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. i, pp. 
151* 590 ; Farrar, Life of Christ (Amer. ed.), p. 52 ; Cox, Tales of Ancient Greece, 
pp. 41, 61, 62 ; Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. i, p. 322 ; also Suetonius, Caes,, Julius, p. 
88, Claud., p. 463 ; Seneca, Nat, Quaest,, vol. i, p. I ; Virgil, EcL, vol. ix, p. 47 ; as 
well as Ovid, Pliny, and others. 



THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW. 



173 



that at the death of Romulus there was darkness for six 
hours. In the history of the Caesars occur portents of all 
three kinds ; for at the death of Julius the earth was shrouded 
in darkness, the birth of Augustus was heralded by a star, 
and the downfall of Nero by a comet. So, too, in one of the 
Christian legends clustering about the crucifixion, darkness 
overspread the earth from the sixth to the ninth hour. Nei- 
ther the silence regarding it of the only evangelist who 
claims to have been present, nor the fact that observers like 
Seneca and Pliny, who, though they carefully described 
much less striking occurrences of the same sort and in more 
remote regions, failed to note any such darkness even in 
Judea, have availed to shake faith in an account so true to 
the highest poetic instincts of humanity. 

This view of the relations between Nature and man con- 
tinued among both Jews and Christians. According to Jew- 
ish tradition, darkness overspread the earth for three days 
when the books of the Law were profaned by translation 
into Greek. Tertullian thought an eclipse an evidence of 
God's wrath against unbelievers. Nor has this mode of 
thinking ceased in modern times. A similar claim was made 
at the execution of Charles I ; and Increase Mather thought 
an eclipse in Massachusetts an evidence of the grief of Nature 
at the death of President Chauncey, of Harvard College. 
Archbishop Sandys expected eclipses to be the final tokens 
of woe at the destruction of the world, and traces of this 
feeling have come down to our own time. The quaint story 
of the Connecticut statesman who, when his associates in the 
General Assembly were alarmed by an eclipse of the sun, 
and thought it the beginning of the Day of Judgment, quietly 
ordered in candles, that he might in any case be found doing 
his duty, marks probably the last noteworthy appearance of 
the old belief in any civilized nation.* 



♦For Hindu theories, see Alabaster, Wheel of the Law, 11. For Greek and 
Roman legends, see Higgins, Anacalypsis^ vol. i, pp. 616,617; also Suetonius, 
Caes , Julius, p. 88, Claud., p. 46 ; Seneca, Quaes/. Nat.^ vol. i, p. i, vol. vii, p. 17 ; 
Pliny, Hist Nat., vol. ii, p. 25 ; Tacitus, Ann., vol. xiv, p. 22 ; Josephus, Aniiq., vol. 
xiv, p. 12 ; and the authorities above cited. For the tradition of the Jews re^irding 
the darkness of three days, see citation in Renan, Histoire du Peuple Israil, vol. iv. 
chap. iv. For TertuUian's belief regarding the significance of an edipse, see the Ad 



174 



FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 



In these beliefs regarding meteors and eclipses there was 
little calculated to do harm by arousing that superstitious 
terror which is the worst breeding-bed of cruelty. Far 
otherwise was it with the belief regarding comets. During 
many centuries it gave rise to the direst superstition and 
fanaticism. The Chaldeans alone among the ancient peoples 
generally regarded comets without fear, and thought them 
bodies wandering as harmless as fishes in the sea; the 
Pythagoreans alone among philosophers seem to have had 
a vague idea of them as bodies returning at fixed periods of 
time ; and in all antiquity, so far as is known, one man alone, 
Seneca, had the scientific instinct and prophetic inspira- 
tion to give this idea definite shape, and to declare that the 
time would come when comets would be found to move in 
accordance with natural law. Here and there a few strong 
men rose above the prevailing superstition. The Emperor 
Vespasian tried to laugh it down, and insisted that a certain 
comet in his time could not betoken his death, because it 
was hairy, and he bald ; but such scoffing produced little 
permanent effect, and the prophecy of Seneca was soon for- 
gotten. These and similar isolated utterances could not stand 
against the mass of opinion which upheld the doctrine that 
comets are " signs and wonders." * 

The belief that every comet is a ball of fire flung from 
the right hand of an angry God to warn the grovelling 
dwellers of earth was received into the early Church, trans- 
mitted through the Middle Ages to the Reformation period, 
and in its transmission was made all the more precious by 

Scapulam, chap, iii, in Migne, Patrolog. Lat.^ vol. i, p. 701. For the claim regard- 
ing Charles I, see a sermon preached before Charles II, cited by Lecky, England 
in the Eighteenth Century^ vol. i, p. 65. Mather thought, too, that it might have 
something to do with the death of sundry civil functionaries of the colonies : see 
his Discourse concerning Comets^ 16S2. For Archbishop Sandys*s belief, see his 
eighteenth sermon (in Parker Soc. Publications). The story of Abraham Daven- 
port has been made familiar by the poem of Whittier. 

* For terror caused in Rome by comets, see Pingr^, Comitographie^ pp. 165, 166. 
For the Chaldeans, see Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomic^ p. 10 et seq.^ and p. 181 /•/ 
seq. ; also Pingre, chap. ii. For the Pythagorean notions, see citation from Plutarch 
in Coslard, History of Astronomy^ p. 283. For Seneca's prediction, see Guillemin, 
World of Comets (XxvtXi^^sX^^ byGlaisher), pp. 4, 5 ; also Watson, On Comets^ 'p, 126. 
For this feeling in antiquity generally, see the preliminary chapters of the two 
works last cited. 



THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW. 



I7S 



supposed textual proofs from Scripture. The great fathers 
of the Church committed themselves unreservedly to it. In 
the third century Origen, perhaps the most influential of the 
earlier fathers of the universal Church in all questions be- 
tween science and faith, insisted that comets indicate catas- 
trophes and the downfall of empires and worlds. Bede, so 
justly revered by the English Church, declared in the eighth 
century that " comets portend revolutions of kingdoms, pes- 
tilence, war, winds, or heat " ; and John of Damascus, his 
eminent contemporary in the Eastern Church, took the same 
view. Rabanus Maurus, the great teacher of Europe in 
the ninth century, an authority throughout the Middle Ages, 
adopted Bede's opinion fully. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great 
light of the universal Church in the thirteenth century, whose 
works the Pope now reigning commends as the centre and 
source of all university instruction, accepted and handed 
down the same opinion. The sainted Albert the Great, the 
most noted genius of the mediaeval Church in natural science, 
received and developed this theory. These men and those 
who followed them founded upon scriptural texts and the- 
ological reasonings a system that for seventeen centuries 
defied every advance of thought* 

The main evils thence arising were three : the paralysis 
of self-help, the arousing of fanaticism, and the strengthen- 
ing of ecclesiastical and political tyranny. The first two of 
these evils — the paralysis of self-help and the arousing of 
fanaticism — are evident throughout all these ages. At the 
appearance of a comet we constantly see all Christendom, 
from pope to peasant, instead of striving to avert war by 
wise statesmanship, instead of striving to avert pestilence by 
observation and reason, instead of striving to avert famine 
by skilful economy, whining before fetiches, trying to bribe 
them to remove these signs of God's wrath, and planning to 
wreak this supposed wrath of God upon misbelievers. 

As to the third of these evils — the strengthening of eccle- 



* For Origen, see his De Princip., vol. i, p. 7 ; also Maury, L/^. Pieuses, p. 203, 
note. For Bede and others, see De Nat.^ vol. xxiv ; Joh. Dam., De Fid, Ch.^ vol. 
ii, p. 7; Maury, La Magie et TAstronomie, pp. 181, 182. For Albertui Magnus, 
sec his Opera^ vol. i, tr. iii, chaps, x, xi. Among the texts of Scripture on which 
this belief rested was especially Joel ii, 30, 31. 



176 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

siastical and civil despotism — examples appear on every side. 
It was natural that hierarchs and monarchs whose births 
were announced by stars, or whose deaths were announced 
by comets, should regard themselves as far above the com- 
mon herd, and should be so regarded by mankind ; passive 
obedience was thus strengthened, and the most monstrous 
assumptions of authority were considered simply as mani- 
festations of the Divine will. Shakespeare makes Calphurnia 
say to Caesar : 

" When beggars die, there are no comets seen ; 
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes." 

Galeazzo, the tyrant of Milan, expressing satisfaction on 
his deathbed that his approaching end was of such impor- 
tance as to be heralded by a comet, is but a type of many 
thus encouraged to prey upon mankind ; and Charles V, one 
of the most powerful monarchs the world has known, ab- 
dicating under fear of the comet of 1556, taking refuge in 
the monastery of San Yuste, and giving up the best of his 
vast realms to such a scribbling bigot as Philip II, furnishes 
an example even more striking.* 

But for the retention of this belief there was a moral 
cause. Myriads of good men in the Christian Church down 
to a recent period saw in the appearance of comets not 
merely an exhibition of " signs in the heavens '* foretold in 
Scripture, but also Divine warnings of vast value to human- 
ity as incentives to repentance and improvement of life — 
warnings, indeed, so precious that they could not be spared 
without danger to the moral government of the world. And 
this belief in the portentous character of comets as an essen- 
tial part of the Divine government, being, as it was thought, 
in full accord with Scripture, was made for centuries a 
source of terror to humanity. To say nothing of examples 
in the earlier periods, comets in the tenth century especially 
increased the distress of all Europe. In the middle of the 
eleventh century a comet was thought to accompany the 
death of Edward the Confessor and to presage the Norman 

* For Casar, see Shakespeare, Julius Ccesar^ act ii, sc. 2. For Galeazzo, see 
Guillemin, World of Comets, p. 19. For Charles V, see Prof. Wolfs essay in the 
Monatschrift des wissenschaftlichen Vcreins^ ZQrich, 1857, p. 228. 



THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW. 



177 



conquest ; the traveller in France to-day may see this belief 
as it was then wrought into the Bayeux tapestry.* 

Nearly every decade of years throughout the Middle 
Ages saw Europe plunged into alarm by appearances of 
this sort, but the culmination seems to have been reached in 
1456. At that time the Turks, after a long effort, had made 
good their footing in Europe. A large statesmanship or 
generalship might have kept them out ; but, while different 
religious factions were disputing over petty shades of dogma, 
they had advanced, had taken Constantinople, and were evi- 
dently securing their foothold. Now came the full bloom 
of this superstition. A comet appeared. The Pope of that 
period, Calixtus III, though a man of more than ordinary 
ability, was saturated with the ideas of his time. Alarmed 
at this monster, if we are to believe the contemporary his- 
torian, this infallible head of the Church solemnly *' decreed 
several days of prayer for the averting of the wrath of God, 
that whatever calamity impended might be turned from the 
Christians and against the Turks." And, that all might join 
daily in this petition, there was then established that midday 
Angelus which has ever since called good Catholics to prayer 
against the powers of evil. Then, too, was incorporated 
into a litany the plea, " From the Turk and the comet, good i 
Lord, deliver us.** Never was papal intercession less effect- ' 
ive ; for the Turk has held Constantinople from that day to 
this, while the obstinate comet, being that now known un- 
der the name of Halley, has returned imperturbably at short 
periods ever since.f 

♦ For evidences of this widespread terror, see chronicles of Raoul Glaber, Guil- 
laome de Nangis, William of Malmesbury, Florence of Worcester, Ordericus Vita- 
lis, et aL, passim^ and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (in the Hoils Series), For very 
thrilling pictures of this horror in England, see Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. 
iii, pp. 640-644, and fVilliam Rufus^ vol. ii, p. 118. For the Bayeux tapestry, see 
Brace, Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated, plate vii and p. 86 ; also Guillemin, World of 
CametSf p. 24. There is a large photographic copy, in the South Kensington Mu- 
seum at London, of the original, wrought, as is generally believed, by the wife of 
William the Conqueror and her ladies, and still preser^'ed in the town museum at 
Bayeux. 

f The usual statement is, that Calixtus excommunicated the comet by a bull, 
and this is accepted by Arago, Grant, Hoefer, Guillemin, Watson, and many his- 
torimns of astronomy. Hence the parallel made on a noted occasion by President 
Lincoln. No such bull, however, is to be found in the published Bullaria^ and 

13 



178 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

But the superstition went still further. It became more 
and more incorporated into what was considered " scriptural 
science" and "sound learning." The encyclopedic summa- 
ries, in which the science of the Middle Ages and the Ref- 
ormation period took form, furnish abundant proofs of this. 

Yet scientific observation was slowly undermining this 
structure. The inspired prophecy of Seneca had not been 
forgotten. Even as far back as the ninth century, in the 
midst of the sacred learning so abundant at the court of 
Charlemagne and his successors, we find a scholar protest- 
ing against the accepted doctrine. In the thirteenth cen- 
tury we have a mild question by Albert the Great as to the 
supposed influence of comets upon individuals; but the pre- 
vailing theological current was too strong, and he finally 
yielded to it in this as in so many other things. 

So, too, in the sixteenth century, we have Copernicus 
refusing to accept the usual theory, Paracelsus writing to 
Zwingli against it, and Julius Caesar Scaliger denouncing it 
as " ridiculous folly." * 

At first this scepticism only aroused the horror of theo- 
logians and increased the vigour of ecclesiastics ; both as- 
serted the thedlogical theory of comets all the more strenu- 
ously as based on scriptural truth. During the sixteenth 
century France felt the influence of one of her greatest 
men on the side of this superstition. Jean Bodin, so far 
before his time in political theories, was only thoroughly 
abreast of it in religious theories : the same reverence for 

that establishing the Angelus (as given by Raynaldus in the AnnaUs Eccl.) 
contains no mention of the comet. But the authority of Platina (in his Vita 
Poniificum^ Venice, 1479, sub Calistus III), who was not only in Rome at the time, 
but, when he wrote his history, archivist of the Vatican, is final as to the Pope's 
attitude. Platina's authority was never questioned until modem science had 
changed the ideas of the world. The recent attempt of Pastor (in his GeschickU 
der Pdpste) to pooh-pooh down the whole matter is too evident an evasion to carry 
weight with those who know how even the most careful histories have to be modi- 
fied to suit the views of the censorship at Rome. 

* As to encyclopedic summaries, see Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturdle^ 
and the various editions of Reisch's Margarita Philosophica. For Charlemagne's 
time, see Champion, La Fin du Monde^ p. 156 ; Leopardi, Errori Popolari^ p. 165. 
As to Albert the Great's question, see Heller, Geschichte der Physik^ vol. i, p. 
188. As to scepticism in the sixteenth century, see Champion, La Fin du Mande^ 
pp. 155, 156 ; and for Scaliger, Dudith's book, cited below. 



THE THEOIjCXJICAL \1EVr, 



179 



the mere letter of Scripture which made him so fatally pow- 
erful in supporting the witchcraft delusion, led him to sup- 
port this theolc^cal theory of comets — but with a difference : 
he thought them the souls of men, wandering in space, 
bring^g famine, pestilence, and war. 

Not less strong was the same superstition in England. 
Based upon mediaeval theolc^y, it outlived the revival of 
learning. From a multitude of examples a few may be se- 
lected as typicaL Early in the sixteenth century Polydore 
Virgil, an ecclesiastic of the unreformed Church, alludes, in 
his English History^ to the presage of the death of the Era* 
peror Constantine by a comet as to a simple matter of fact ;. 
and in his work on prodigies he pushes this superstition to 
its most extreme point, exhibiting comets as preceding al- 
most every form of calamity. 

In 1532, just at the transition period from the old Church 
to the new, Cranmer, paving the way to his archbishopric, 
writes from Germany to Henry VIII, and says of the comet 
then visible : " What strange things these tokens do signify 
to come hereafter, God knoweth ; for they do not lightly 
appear but against some great matter." 

Twenty years later Bishop Latimer, in an Advent ser- 
mon, speaks of eclipses, rings about the sun, and the like, as 
signs of the approaching end of the world.* 

In 1580, under Queen Elizabeth, there was set forth an 
"order of prayer to avert God's wrath from us, threatened 
by the late terrible earthquake, to be used in all parish 
churches." In connection with this there was also com- 
mended to the faithful "a godly admonition for the time 
present " ; and among the things referred to as evidence of 
God's wrath are comets, eclipses, and falls of snow. 

This view held sway in the Church of England during 
Elizabeth's whole reign and far into the Stuart period: 
Strype, the ecclesiastical annalist, gives ample evidence of 
this, and among the more curious examples is the surmise 



• For Bodin, see Theatr.^ lib. ii, cited by Pingr^, vol. i, p. 45 ; also a vague 
citation in Baudrillart, Bodin et son Temps, p. 360. For Polydore Virgil, see Enj^- 
Hsh History, p. 97 (in Camden Society Publications). For Cranmer, see Remains, 
voL ii, p 535 (in Parker Society Publications). For Latimer, see Sermons, second 
Sunday in Advent, 1552. 



l8o FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

that the comet of 1572 was a token of Divine wrath pro- 
voked by the St. Bartholomew massacre. 

As to the Stuart period, Archbishop Spottiswoode seems 
to have been active in carrying the superstition from the 
sixteenth century to the seventeenth, and Archbishop Bram- 
hall cites Scripture in support of it. Rather curiously, while 
the diary of Archbishop Laud shows so much superstition 
regarding dreams as portents, it shows little or none regard- 
ing comets ; but Bishop Jeremy Taylor, strong as he was, 
evidently favoured the usual view. John Howe, the emi- 
nent Nonconformist divine in the latter part of the century, 
seems to have regarded the comet superstition as almost a 
fundamental article of belief ; he laments the total neglect 
of comets and portents generally, declaring that this neg- 
lect betokens want of reverence for the Ruler of the world ; 
he expresses contempt for scientific inquiry regarding com- 
ets, insists that they may be natural bodies and yet super- 
natural portents, and ends by saying, " I conceive it very 
safe to suppose that some very considerable thing, either 
in the way of judgment or mercy, may ensue, according as 
the cry of persevering wickedness or of penitential prayer 
is more or less loud at that time.'* * 

The Reformed Church of Scotland supported the super- 
stition just as strongly. John Knox saw in comets tokens of 
the wrath of Heaven; other authorities considered them "a 
warning to the king to extirpate the Papists " ; and as late as 
1680, after Halley had won his victory, comets were an- 
nounced on high authority in the Scottish Church to be 
" prodigies of great judgment on these lands for our sins, 
for never was the Lord more provoked by a people." 

While such was the view of the clergy during the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, the laity generally ac- 



♦ For Liturgical Services of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, see Parker Society 
Publications, pp. 569, 570. For Strypc, see his Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. iii, 
part i, p. 472 ; also his Annals of the Keformation, vol. ii, part ii, p. 151 ; and his 
Life of Sir Thomas Smith, pp. 161, 162. For Spottiswoode, see History of the 
Church of 5f<>//tf«</ (Edinburgh reprint, 185 1), vol. i, pp. 185, 186. For Bramhall, 
see his Works, Oxford, 1844, vol. iv, pp. 60, 307, etc. For Jeremy Taylor, see 
his Sermons on the Life of Christ, For John Howe, see his JVorks, London, 
1862, vol. iv, pp. 140, 141. 



THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW. l8l 

cepted it as a matter of course. Among the great leaders 
in literature there was at least general acquiescence in it. 
Both Shakespeare and Milton recognise it, whether they 
fully accept it or not. Shakespeare makes the Duke of 
Bedford, lamenting at the bier of Henry V, say : 

" Comets, importing change of time and states. 
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky ; 
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars, 
That have consented unto Henry's death." 

Milton, speaking of Satan preparing for combat, says : 

" On the other side. 
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood 
Unterrified, and like a comet burned. 
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge 
In the arctic sky, and from its horrid hair 
Shakes pestilence and war." 

We do indeed find that in some minds the discoveries of 
Tycho Brahe and Kepler begin to take effect, for, in 162 1, 
Burton in his Anatomy of Melandioly alludes to them as 
changing public opinion somewhat regarding comets; and, 
just before the middle of the century. Sir Thomas Browne 
expresses a doubt whether comets produce such terrible 
effects, " since it is found that many of them are above the 
moon." * Yet even as late as the last years of the seven- 
teenth century we have English authors of much power 
battling for this supposed scriptural view ; and among the 
natural and typical results we find, in 1682, Ralph Thoresby, 
a Fellow of the Royal Society, terrified at the comet of that 
year, and writing in his diary the following passage : " Lord, 
fit us for whatever changes it may portend ; for, though I 
am not ignorant that such meteors proceed from natural 
causes, yet are they frequently also the presages of immi- 
nent calamities." Interesting is it to note here that this was 
Halley's comet, and that Halley was at this very moment 
making those scientific studies upon it which were to free 



♦ For John Knox, see his Historie of the Reformation of Religion within the 
Realm of 5;r^//ti»</ (Edinburgh, 1732), lib. iv ; also Chambers, Domestic Annals of 
Scotland^ vol. ii, pp. 410-412. For Burton, see his Anatomy of Melancholy ^ part 
ii, sect a. For Browne, see ihe Vulgar and Common Errors^ book vi, chap. xiv. 



1 82 FROM 'SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

the civilized world forever from such terrors as distressed 
Thoresby. 

The belief in comets as warnings against sin was espe- 
cially one of those held "always, everywhere, and by all," 
and by Eastern Christians as well as by Western. One of the 
most striking scenes in the history of the Eastern Church is 
that which took place at the condemnation of Nikon, the 
great Patriarch of Moscow. Turning toward his judges, 
he pointed to a comet then blazing in the sky, and said, 
** God's besom shall sweep you all away ! " 

Of all countries in western Europe, it was in Germany 
and German Switzerland that this superstition took strong- 
est hold. That same depth of religious feeling which pro- 
duced in those countries the most terrible growth of witch- 
craft persecution, brought superstition to its highest devel- 
opment regarding comets. No country suffered more from 
it in the Middle Ages. At the Reformation Luther declared 
strongly in favour of it. In one of his Advent sermons he 
said, **The heathen write that the comet may arise from 
natural causes, but God creates not one that does not fore- 
token a sure calamity.** Again he said, ** Whatever moves 
in the heaven in an unusual way is certainly a sign of God's 
wrath.** And sometimes, yielding to another phase of his 
belief, he declared them works of the devil, and declaimed 
against them as ** harlot stars.** * 

Melanchthon, too, in various letters refers to comets as 
heralds of Heaven*s wrath, classing them, with evil conjunc- 
tions of the planets and abortive births, among the " signs ** 
referred to in Scripture. Zwingli, boldest of the greater 
Reformers in shaking off traditional beliefs, could not shake 
off this, and insisted that the comet of 1531 betokened calam. 
ity. Arietus, a leading Protestant theologian, declared, " The 
heavens are given us not merely for our pleasure, but also 

* For Thoresby, see his Diary (London, 1830), vol. i, p. 132. Halley's great serv- 
ice is described further on in this chapter. For Nikon's speech, see Dean Stan- 
ley's History of the Eastern Churchy p. 485. For very striking examples of this 
mediaeval terror in Germany, see Von Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen^ vol. 
vi, p. 538. For the Reformation period, see Wolf, Gesch. d. Astronomie ; also 
Pnctorius, Ueber d. Cometstern (Erfurt, 1580), in which the above sentences of 
Luther are printed on the title-page as epigraphs. For " Huren-Stemen," see the 
sermon of Celichius, described later. 



EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 183 

as a warning of the wrath of God for the correction of our 
lives." Lavater insisted that comets are signs of death or 
calamity, and cited proofs from Scripture. 

Catholic and Protestant strove together for the glory of 
this doctrine. It was maintained with especial vigour by 
Fromundus, the eminent professor and Doctor of Theology 
at the Catholic University of Louvain, who so strongly op- 
posed the Copernican system ; at the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, even so gifted an astronomer as Kepler 
yielded somewhat to the belief ; and near the end of that 
century Voigt declared that the comet of 161 8 clearly pre- 
saged the downfall of the Turkish Empire, and he stigma- 
tized as ** atheists and Epicureans " all who did not believe 
comets to be God's warnings.* 



II. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC 

VIEW. 

Out of this belief was developed a great series of efforts 
to maintain the theological view of comets, and to put down 
forever the scientific view. These efforts may be divided 
into two classes: those directed toward learned men and 
scholars, through the universities, and those directed to- 
ward the people at large, through the pulpits. As to the 
first of these, that learned men and scholars might be kept 
in the paths of " sacred science " and " sound learning," es- 
pecial pains was taken to keep all knowledge of the scien- 
tific view of comets as far as possible from students in the 
universities. Even to the end of the seventeenth century 
the oath generally required of professors of astronomy over 
a large part of Europe prevented their teaching that comets 
are heavenly bodies obedient to law. Efforts just as earnest 
were made to fasten into students* minds the theological 
theory. Two or three examples out of many may serve as 

• For Melanchthon, sec Wolf, uH supra. For Zwingli, sec Wolf, p. 235. For 
Arietus, sec Midler, GeschichU der Himmelskunde^ vol. ii. For Kepler's supersti- 
tion, sec Wolf, p. 281. For Voigt, see Himmels-Magnaten Reichstage^ Hamburg, 
1676. For both Fromundus and Voigt, see also Miidler, vol. ii, p. 399, and Lecky, 
nationalism in Europe^ voL i, p. 28. 



1 84 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

types. First of these may be named the teaching of Jacob 
Heerbrand, professor at the University of Tubingen, who in 
1577 illustrated the moral value of comets by comparing the 
Almighty sending a comet, to the judge laying the execu- 
tioner's sword on the table between himself and the criminal 
in a court of justice ; and, again, to the father or schoolmaster 
displaying the rod before naughty children. A little later 
we have another churchman of great importance in that 
region, Schickhart, head pastor and superintendent at G6p- 
pingen, preaching and publishing a comet sermon, in which 
he denounces those who stare at such warnings of God with- 
out heeding them, and compares them to " calves gaping at 
a new barn door.** Still later, at the end of the seventeenth 
century, we find Conrad Dieterich, director of studies at the 
University of Marburg, denouncing all scientific investiga- 
tion of comets as impious, and insisting that they are only 
to be regarded as " signs and wonders." * 

The results of this ecclesiastical pressure upon science 
in the universities were painfully shown during generation 
after generation, as regards both professors and students; 
and examples may be given typical of its effects upon each 
of these two classes. 

The first of these is the case of Michael Maestlin. He 
was by birth a Swabian Protestant, was educated at Tu- 
bingen as a pupil of Apian, and, after a period of travel, was 
settled as deacon in the little parish of Backnang, when the 
comet of 1577 gave him an occasion to apply his astronom- 
ical studies. His minute and accurate observation of it is to 
this day one of the wonders of science. It seems almost im- 
possible that so much could be accomplished by the naked 
eye. His observations agreed with those of Tycho Brahe, 
and won for Maestlin the professorship of astronomy in the 
University of Heidelberg. No nian had so clearly proved 
the supralunar position of a comet, or shown so conclusively 
that its motion was not erratic, but regular. The young as- 
tronomer, though Apian's pupil, was an avowed Copernican 



* For the effect of the anti-Pythagorcan oath, see Prowe, Copernicus ; also 
Madler and Wolf. For Heerbrand, see his Von dent erschrockenlUhen Wundenti^ 
r^«, Tubingen, 1577. For Schickhart, see his Predigt vom Wunderziickcn^ Stutt- 
gart, 1621. For Dieterich, see his sermon, described more fully below. 



EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 



185 



and the destined master and friend of Kepler. Yet, in the 
treatise embodying his observations, he felt it necessary to 
save his reputation for orthodoxy by calling the comet a 
" new and horrible prodigy," and by giving a chapter of 
" conjectures on the signification of the present comet," in 
which he proves from history that this variety of comet be- 
tokens peace, but peace purchased by a bloody victory. 
That he really believed in this theological theory seems im- 
possible; the very fact that his observations had settled 
the supralunar character and regular motion of comets 
proves this. It was a humiliation only to be compared to 
that of Osiander when he wrote his grovelling preface to the 
great book of Copernicus. Maestlin had his reward : when, 
a few years later, his old teacher. Apian, was driven from his 
chair at Tubingen for refusing to sign the Lutheran Concord- 
Book, Maestlin was elected to his place. 

Not less striking was the effect of this theological pres- 
sure upon the minds of students. Noteworthy as an ex- 
ample of this is the book of the Leipsic lawyer, Biittner. 
From no less than eighty-six biblical texts he proves the Al- 
mighty's purpose of using the heavenly bodies for the in- 
struction of men as to future events, and then proceeds to 
frame exhaustive tables, from which, the time and place of 
the comet's first appearance being known, its signification 
can be deduced. This manual he gave forth as a triumph 
of religious science, under the name of the Comet Hour-Book!^ 

The same devotion to the portent theory is found in the 
universities of Protestant Holland. Striking is it to see in 
the sixteenth century, after Tycho Brahe's discovery, the 
Dutch theologian, Gerard Vossius, Professor of Theology and 
Eloquence at Leyden, lending his great weight to the super- 
stition. " The history of all times," he says, " shows comets 
to be the messengers of misfortune. It does not follow that 
they are endowed with intelligence, but that there is a 
deity who makes use of them to call the human race to 
repentance." Though familiar with the works of Tycho 
Brahe, he finds it " hard to believe " that all comets are 



• For Maestlin, sec his Observatio et Dfmonstratio Cometa, Tiibingen, 1578. 
For BUttner, see his Cometen StundbUchUin^ Leipsic, 1605. 



1 86 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

ethereal, and adduces several historical examples of sublu- 
nary ones. 

Nor was this attempt to hold back university teaching to 
the old view of comets confined to'Proteslants. The Roman 
Church was, if possible, more strenuous in the same eflfort. 
A few examples will serve as types, representing the ortho- 
dox teaching at the great centres of Catholic theology. 

One of these is seen in Spain. The eminent jurist Torre- 
blanca was recognised as a controlling authority in all the 
universities of Spain, and from these he swayed in the sev- 
enteenth century the thought of Catholic Europe, especially 
as to witchcraft and the occult powers in Nature. He lays 
down the old cometary superstition as one of the founda- 
tions of orthodox teaching. Begging the question, after the 
fashion of his time, he argues that comets can not be stars, 
because new stars always betoken good, while comets be- 
token evil. 

The same teaching was given in the Catholic universities 
of the Netherlands. Fromundus, at Louvain, the enemy of 
Galileo, steadily continued his crusade against all cometary 
heresy.* 

But a still more striking case is seen in Italy. The rev- 
erend Father Augustin de Angelis, rector of the Clementine 
College at Rome, as late as 1673, after the new cometary 
theory had been placed beyond reasonable doubt, and even 
while Newton was working out its final demonstration, pub- 
lished a third edition of his Lectures on Meteorology. It was 
dedicated to the Cardinal of Hesse, and bore the express 
sanction of the Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome and of 
the head of the religious order to which De Angelis be- 
longed. This work deserves careful analysis, not only as 
representing the highest and most approved university 
teaching of the time at the centre of Roman Catholic Chris- 
tendom, but still more because it represents that attempt to 
make a compromise between theology and science, or rather 
the attempt to confiscate science to the uses of theology, 

* For Vossius, see the De Idololatria (in his Opera^ vol. v, pp. 283-285). For 
Torreblanca, see his De Magia^ Seville, 1618, and often reprinted. For Fromun- 
dus, see his Mcteorologica, 



EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 



187 



which we so constantly find whenever the triumph of sci- 
ence in any field has become inevitable. 

As to the scientific element in this compromise, De Ange- 
lis holds, in his general introduction regarding meteorology, 
that the main material cause of comets is " exhalation," and 
says, "If this exhalation is thick and sticky, it blazes into a 
comet." And again he returns to the same view, saying 
that " one form of exhalation is dense, hence easily inflam- 
mable and long retentive of fire, from which sort are espe- 
cially generated comets." But it is in his third lecture that 
he takes up comets specially, and his discussion of them is 
extended through the fourth, fifth, and sixth lectures. Hav- 
ing given in detail the opinions of various theologians and 
philosophers, he declares his own in the form of two conclu- 
sions. The first of these is that " comets are not heavenly 
bodies, but originate in the earth's atmosphere below the 
moon ; for everything heavenly is eternal and incorruptible, 
but comets have a beginning and ending — ergOy comets can 
not be heavenly bodies." This, we may observe, is levelled 
at the observations and reasonings of Tycho Brahe and Kep- 
ler, and is a very good illustration of the scholastic and me- 
diaeval method — the method which blots out an ascertained 
fact by means of a metaphysical formula. His second con- 
clusion is that *' comets are of elemental and sublunary na- 
ture ; for they are an exhalation hot and dry, fatty and well 
condensed, inflammable and kindled in the uppermost regions 
of the air." He then goes on to answer sundry objections 
to this mixture of metaphysics and science, and among other 
things declares that " the fatty, sticky material of a comet 
may be kindled from sparks falling from fiery heavenly 
bodies or from a thunderbolt"; and, again, that the thick, 
fatty, sticky quality of the comet holds its tail in shape, and 
that, so far are comets from having their paths beyond the 
moon's orbit, as Tycho Brahe and Kepler thought, he him- 
self in 161 8 saw " a bearded comet so near the summit of 
Vesuvius that it almost seemed to touch it." As to sorts 
and qualities of comets, he accepts Aristotle's view, and 
divides them into bearded and tailed.* He goes on into 

* Barbata et caudata. 



l88 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

long disquisitions upon their colours, forms, and motions. 
Under this latter head he again plunges deep into a sea of 
metaphysical considerations, and does not reappear until he 
brings up his compromise in the opinion that their move- 
ment is as yet uncertain and not understood, but that, if we 
must account definitely for it, we must say that it is effect- 
ed by angels especially assigned to this service by Divine 
Providence. But, while proposing this compromise be- 
tween science and theology as to the origin and movement 
of comets, he will hear to none as regards their mission as 
" signs and wonders " and presages of evil. He draws up a 
careful table of these evils, arranging them in the following 
order: Drought, wind, earthquake, tempest, famine, pesti- 
lence, war, and, to clinch the matter, declares that the comet 
observed by him in 1618 brought not only war, famine, pes- 
tilence, and earthquake, but also a general volcanic eruption, 
" which would have destroyed Naples, had not the blood of 
the invincible martyr Januarius withstood it." 

It will be observed, even from this sketch, that, while the 
learned Father Augustin thus comes infallibly to the mediae- 
val conclusion, he does so very largely by scientific and es- 
sentially modern processes, giving unwonted prominence to 
observation, and at times twisting scientific observation into 
the strand with his metaphysics. The observations and 
methods of his science are sometimes shrewd, sometimes 
comical. Good examples of the latter sort are such as his 
observing that the comet stood very near the summit of 
Vesuvius, and his reasoning that its tail was kept in place by 
its stickiness. But observations and reasonings of this sort 
are always the first homage paid by theology to science as 
the end of their struggle approaches.* 

Equally striking is an example seen a little later in an- 
other part of Europe ; and it is the more noteworthy because 
Halley and Newton had already fully established the mod- 
ern scientific theory. Just at the close of the seventeenth 
century the Jesuit Reinzer, professor at Linz, put forth his 
Mctcorologia Philosophico-Politica, in which all natural phe- 
nomena received both a physical and a moral interpretation. 



See Dc Angelis, Lectiones Meteorolo^ica^ Rome, 1669. 



EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 



189 



It was profusely and elaborately illustrated, and on account 
of its instructive contents was in 17 12 translated into Ger- 
man for the unlearned reader. The comet receives, of course, 
great attention. " It appears," says Reinzer, " only then in 
the heavens when the latter punish the earth, and through 
it [the comet] not only predict but bring to pass all sorts of 
calamity. . . . And, to that end, its tail serves for a rod, its 
hair for weapons and arrows, its light for a threat, and its 
heat for a sign of anger and vengeance." Its warnings are 
threefold: (i) "Comets, generated in the air, betoken natu- 
rally drought, wind, earthquake, famine, and pestilence." 
(2) "Comets can indirectly, in view of their material, be- 
token wars, tumults, and the death of princes ; for, being hot 
and dry, they bring the moistnesses \Feuchtigkeiten\ in the 
human body to an extraordinary heat and dryness, increasing 
the gall; and, since the emotions depend on the tempera- 
ment and condition of the body, men are through this change 
driven to violent deeds, quarrels, disputes, and finally to 
arms : especially is this the result with princes, who are 
more delicate and also more arrogant than other men, and 
whose moistnesses are more liable to inflammation of this 
sort, inasmuch as they live in luxury and seldom restrain 
themselves from those things which in such a dry state of 
the heavens are especially injurious." (3) " All comets, what- 
ever prophetic significance they may have naturally in and 
of themselves, are yet principally, according to the Divine 
pleasure, heralds of the death of great princes, of war, and 
of other such great calamities ; and this is known and proved, 
first of all, from the words of Christ himself: * Nation shall 
rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom ; and 
great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and 
pestilences ; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be 
from heaven.' " * 

While such pains was taken to keep the more highly 
educated classes in the "paths of scriptural science and 
sound learning" at the universities, equal eflForts were made 
to preserve the comet^ry orthodoxy of the people at large 

* See Reinzer, Meteorologia Philosophico-Politica (edition of Augsburg, 1712), 
pp. 101-103. 



IQO 



FROM -SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 



by means of the pulpits. Out of the mass of sermons for 
this purpose which were widely circulated I will select just 
two as typical, and they are worthy of careful study as show- 
ing some special dangers of applying theological methods to 
scientific facts. In the second half of the sixteenth century 
the recognised capital of orthodox Lutheranism was Magde- 
burg, and in the region tributary to this metropolis no 
Church official held a more prominent station than the " Su- 
perintendent," or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Alt- 
mark. It was this dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name, 
who at Magdeburg, in 1578, gave to the press his Theological 
Reminder of the New Comet. After deprecating as blasphe- 
mous the attempt of Aristotle to explain the phenomenon 
otherwise than as a supernatural warning from God to sinful 
man, he assures his hearers that " whoever would know the 
comet's real source and nature must not merely gape and 
stare at the scientific theory that it is an earthy, greasy, 
tough, and sticky vapour and mist, rising into the upper air 
and set ablaze by the celestial heat." Far more important 
for them is it to know what this vapour is. It is really, in 
the opinion of Celichius, nothing more or less than **the 
thick smoke of human sins, rising every day, every hour, 
every moment, full of stench and horror, before the face of 
God, and becoming gradually so thick as to form a comet, 
with curled and plaited tresses, which at last is kindled by 
the hot and fiery anger of the Supreme Heavenly Judge." 
He adds that it is probably only through the prayers and 
tears of Christ that this blazing monument of human deprav- 
ity becomes visible to mortals. In support of this theory, 
he urges the " coming up before God " of the wickedness of 
Sodom and Gomorrah and of Nineveh, and especially the 
words of the prophet regarding Babylon, " Her stench and 
rottenness is come up before me." That the anger of God 
can produce the conflagration without any intervention of 
Nature is proved from the Psalms, " He sendeth out his 
word and melteth them." From the position of the comet, 
its course, and the direction of its tail he augurs especially 
the near approach of the judgment day, though it may also 
betoken, as usual, famine, pestilence, and war. " Yet even 
in these days," he mourns, ** there are people reckless and 



EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 



191 



giddy enough to pay no heed to such celestial warnings, and 
these even cite in their own defence the injunction of Jere- 
miah not to fear signs in the heavens." This idea he ex- 
plodes, and shows that good and orthodox Christians, while 
not superstitious like the heathen, know well " that God is 
not bound to his creation and the ordinary course of Nature, 
but must often, especially in these last dregs of the world, 
resort to irregular means to display his anger at human 
guilt." * 

The other typical case occurred in the following century 
and in another part of Germany. Conrad Dieterich was, 
during the first half of the seventeenth century, a Lutheran 
ecclesiastic of the highest authority. His ability as a theo- 
logian had made him Archdeacon of Marburg, Professor of 
Philosophy and Director of Studies at the University of 
Giessen, and "Superintendent," or Lutheran bishop, in south- 
western Germany. In the year 1620, on the second Sunday 
in Advent, in the great Cathedral of Ulm, he developed the 
orthodox doctrine of comets in a sermon, taking up the ques- 
tions: I. What are comets? 2. What do they indicate ? 3. 
What have we to do with their significance? This sermon 
marks an epoch. Delivered in that stronghold of German 
Protestantism and by a prelate of the highest standing, it 
was immediately printed, prefaced by three laudatory poems 
from different men of note, and sent forth to drive back the 
scientific, or, as it was called, the "godless," view of comets. 
The preface shows that Dieterich was sincerely alarmed by 
the tendency to regard comets as natural appearances. His 
text was taken from the twenty-fifth verse of the twenty-first 
chapter of St. Luke : " And there shall be signs in the sun, 
and in the moon, and in the stars ; and upon the earth dis- 
tress of nations, with perplexity ; the sea and the waves 
roaring." As to what comets are, he cites a multitude of 
philosophers, and, finding that they diflfer among themselves, 
he uses a form of argument not uncommon from that day to 
this, declaring that this difference of opinion proves that 
there is no solution of the problem save in revelation, and 
insisting that comets are " signs especially sent by the Al- 

* For Celichius, or Celich, see his own treatise, as above. 



192 



FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 



mighty to warn the earth." An additional proof of this he 
finds in the forms of comets. One, he says, took the form of 
a trumpet; another, of a spear; another, of a goat; another, 
of a torch ; another, of a sword ; another, of an arrow ; an- 
other, of a sabre ; still another, of a bare arm. From these 
forms of comets he infers that we may divine their purpose. 
As to their creation, he quotes John of Damascus and other 
early Church authorities in behalf of the idea that each 
comet is a star newly created at the Divine command, out of 
nothing, and that it indicates the wrath of God. As to their 
purpose, having quoted largely from the Bible and from 
Luther, he winds up by insisting that, as God can make 
nothing in vain, comets must have some distinct object ; then, 
from Isaiah and Joel among the prophets, from Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke among the evangelists, from Origen and 
John Chrysostom among the fathers, from Luther and Me- 
lanchthon among the Reformers, he draws various texts more 
or less conclusive to prove that comets indicate evil and 
only evil ; and he cites Luther's Advent sermon to the eflfect 
that, though comets may arise in the course of Nature, they 
are still signs of evil to mankind. In answer to the theory 
of sundry naturalists that comets are made up of "a certain 
fiery, warm, sulphurous, saltpetery, sticky fog,** he declaims: 
"Our sins, our sins: they are the fiery heated vapours, the 
thick, sticky, sulphurous clouds which rise from the earth 
toward heaven before God.** Throughout the sermon Die- 
terich pours contempt over all men who simply investigate 
comets as natural objects, calls special attention to a comet 
then in the heavens resembling a long broom or bundle of 
rods, and declares that he and his hearers can only con- 
sider it rightly " when we see standing before us our Lord 
God in heaven as an angry father with a rod for his chil- 
dren.** In answer to the question what comets signify, 
he commits himself entirely to the idea that they indicate 
the wrath of God, and therefore calamities of every sort. 
Page after page is filled with the records of evils following 
comets. Beginning with the creation of the world, he in- 
sists that the first comet brought on the deluge of Noah, and 
cites a mass of authorities, ranging from Moses and Isaiah 
to Albert the Great and Melanchthon, in support of the 



EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 



193 



view that comets precede earthquakes, famines, wars, pesti- 
lences, and every form of evil. He makes some parade of 
astronomical knowledge as to the greatness of the sun and 
moon, but relapses soon into his old line of argument. Im- 
ploring his audience not to be led away from the well-estab- 
lished belief of Christendom and the principles of their 
fathers, he comes back to his old assertion, insists that "our 
sins are the inflammable material of which comets are made," 
and winds up with a most earnest appeal to the Almighty to 
spare his people.* 

Similar efforts from the pulpit were provoked by the 
great comet of 1680. Typical among these was the effort 
in Switzerland of Pastor Heinrich Erni, who, from the Cathe- 
dral of Zurich, sent a circular letter to the clergy of that 
region showing the connection of the eleventh and twelfth 
verses of the first chapter of Jeremiah with the comet, 
giving notice that at his suggestion the authorities had pro- 
claimed a solemn fast, and exhorting the clergy to preach 
earnestly on the subject of this warning. 

Nor were the interpreters of the comet's message con- 
tent with simple prose. At the appearance of the comet of 
161 8, Grasser and Gross, pastors and doctors of theology at 
Basle, put forth a collection of doggerel rhymes to fasten 
the orthodox theory into the minds of school-children and 
peasants. One of these may be translated : 

" I am a Rod in God's right hand 
Threatening the German and foreign land." 

Others for a similar purpose taught : 

" Eight things there be a Comet brings. 
When it on high doth horrid range : 
Wind. Famine. Plague, and Death to Kings. 
War, Earthquakes. Floods, and Direful Change." 

Great ingenuity was shown in meeting the advance of 
science, in the universities and schools, with new texts of 



• For Dictcrich, sec Ulmische ComeUn-Predigt, von dem Cometen^ so fuchst ab^ 
gewischen i6i8 Jahrs im Wintermonat erstenmahls in Schwaben sehen lassen^ . . . 
gehalten tu Ulm . . . durch Conrad Dietfrich, Ulm, 1620. For a life of the author, 
see article DuUrich in the Allgemeine Deutschi Biographies Sec also Wolf. 



194 



FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 



Scripture ; and Stephen Spleiss, Rector of the Gymnasium 
at Schaffhausen, got great credit by teaching that in the 
vision of Jeremiah the "almond rod" was a tailed comet, 
and the " seething pot " a bearded one.* 

It can be easily understood that such authoritative utter- 
ances as that of Dieterich must have produced a great effect 
throughout Protestant Christendom ; and in due time we 
see their working in New England. That same tendency to 
provincialism, which, save at rare intervals, has been the 
bane of Massachusetts thought from that day to this, ap- 
peared ; and in 1664 we find Samuel Danforth arguing from 
the Bible that " comets are portentous signals of great and 
notable changes," and arguing from history that they " have 
been many times heralds of wrath to a secure and impenitent 
world." He cites especially the comet of 1652, which ap- 
peared just before Mr. Cotton's sickness and disappeared 
after his death. Morton also, in his Memorial recording the 
death of John Putnam, alludes to the comet of 1662 as "a 
very signal testimony that God had then removed a bright 
star and a shining light out of the heaven of his Church here 
into celestial glory above." Again he speaks of another 
comet, insisting that " it was no fiery meteor caused by ex- 
halation, but it was sent immediately by God to awaken the 
secure world," and goes on to show how in that year " it 
pleased God to smite the fruits of the earth — namely, the 
wheat in special — with blasting and mildew, whereby much 
of it was spoiled and became profitable for nothing, and 
much of it worth little, being light and empty. This was 
looked upon by the judicious and conscientious of the land 
as a speaking providence against the unthankfulness of many, 
... as also against voluptuousness and abuse of the good 
creatures of God by licentiousness in drinking and fashions 
in apparel, for the obtaining whereof a great part of the 
principal grain was oftentimes unnecessarily expended." 

But in 1680 a stronger than either of these seized upon 
the doctrine and wielded it with power. Increase Mather, 

* For Emi, see Wolf, Gesch, d. Astronomiey p. 239. For Crasser and Gross, see 
their ChrisUnliches Bedencken . . . von dem erschrockenlichen Cometcn^ etc., Ziirich, 
1664. For Spleiss, see Bfilduf tiger Bcricht von dim jetzigen Cometsternent etc, 
Schaflhausen, 1664. 



EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 



195 



SO open always to ideas from Europe, and always so power- 
ful for good or evil in the colonies, preached his sermon on 
" Heaven's Alarm to the World, . . . wherein is shown that 
fearful sights and signs in the heavens are the presages of 
great calamities at hand." The texts were taken from the 
book of Revelation: "And the third angel sounded, and 
there fell a great star from heaven, burning, as it were a 
lamp," and " Behold, the third woe cometh quickly." In 
this, as in various other sermons, he supports the theolog- 
ical cometary theory fully. He insists that " we are fallen 
into the dregs of time," and that the day of judgment is evi- 
dently approaching. He explains away the words of Jere- 
miah — " Be not dismayed at signs in the heavens " — and 
shows that comets have been forerunners of nearly every 
form of evil. Having done full justice to evils thus presaged 
in scriptural times, he begins a similar display in modern 
history by citing blazing stars which foretold the invasions 
of Goths, Huns, Saracens, and Turks, and warns gainsayers 
by citing the example of Vespasian, who, after ridiculing a 
comet, soon died. The general shape and appearance of 
comets, he thinks, betoken their purpose, and he cites Ter- 
tullian to prove them "God's sharp razors on mankind, 
whereby he doth poll, and his scythe whereby he doth shear 
down multitudes of sinful creatures." At last, rising to a 
fearful height, he declares : " For the Lord hath fired his 
beacon in the heavens among the stars of God there ; the 
fearful sight is not yet out of sight. The warning piece of 
heaven is going off. Now, then, if the Lord discharge his 
murdering pieces from on high, and men be found in their 
sins unfit for death, their blood shall be upon them." And 
again, in an agony of supplication, he cries out : " Do we see 
the sword blazing over us ? Let it put us upon crying to 
God, that the judgment be diverted and not return upon us 
again so speedily. . . . Doth God threaten our very heavens? 
O pray unto him, that he would not take 'away stars and 
send comets to succeed them." * 

♦ For Danforth, sec his Astronomical Description of the Late Comet or Elating 
Star, Together with a Brief Theological Application Thereof 1664. For Morton, 
sec his Memorial, pp. 251, 252 ; also 309, 31a Texts cited by Mather were Rev. 
viii, 10, and xi, 14. 



196 



FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 



Two years later, in August, 1682, he followed this with 
another sermon on " The Latter Sign," " wherein is showed 
that the voice of God in signal providences, especially when 
repeated and iterated, ought to be hearkened unto." Here, 
too, of course, the comet comes in for a large share of atten- 
tion. But his tone is less sure : even in the midst of all his 
arguments appears an evident misgiving. The thoughts of 
Newton in science and Bayle in philosophy were evidently 
tending to accomplish the prophecy of Seneca. / Mather's 
alarm at this is clear. His natural tendency is to uphold the 
idea that a comet is simply a fire-ball flung from the hand of 
an avenging God at a guilty world,lbut he evidently feels 
obliged to yield something to the scientific spirit; hence, 
in the Discourse concerning Comets^ published in 1683, he de- 
clares : " There are those who think that, inasmuch as com- 
ets may be supposed to proceed from natural causes, there 
is no speaking voice of Heaven in them beyond what is to 
be said of all other works of God. But certain it is that 
many things which may happen according to the course of 
Nature are portentous signs of Divine anger and prognostics 
of great evils hastening upon the world." He then notices 
the eclipse of August, 1672, and adds: "That year the col- 
lege was eclipsed by the death of the learned president 
there, worthy Mr. Chauncey; and two colonies — namely, 
Massachusetts and Plymouth — by the death of two gov- 
ernors, who died within a twelvemonth after. . . . Shall, 
then, such mighty works of God as comets are be insignifi- 
cant things?"* 



III. THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM. 

Vigorous as Mather's argument is, we see scepticism re- 
garding ** signs ** continuing to invade the public mind ; and, 
in spite of his threatenings, about twenty years after we find 
a remarkable evidence of this progress in the fact that this 



* Increase Mather's Heaven* s Alarm to the World was first printed at Boston in 
168 1, but was reprinted in 1682, and was appended, with the sermon on The Latter 
Si^ftf to the Discourse on Cornets (Boston, 1683). 



THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM. 



197 



scepticism has seized upon no less a personage than that 
colossus of orthodoxy, his thrice illustrious son, Cotton 
Mather himself; and him we find, in 1726, despite the argu- 
ments of his father, declaring in his Manuductio : " Perhaps 
there may be some need for me to caution you against 
being dismayed at the signs of the heavens, or having any 
superstitious fancies upon eclipses and the like. ... I am 
willing that you be apprehensive of nothing portentous in 
blazing stars. For my part, I know not whether all our 
worlds, and even the sun itself, may not fare the better for 
them." * 

Curiously enough, for this scientific scepticism in Cotton 
Mather there was a cause identical with that which had 
developed superstition in the mind of his father. The same 
provincial tendency to receive implicitly any new Euro- 
pean fashion in thinking or speech wrought upon both, 
plunging one into superstition and drawing the other out 
of it. 

European thought, which New England followed, had at 
last broken away in great measure from the theological view 
of comets as signs and wonders. The germ of this emanci- 
pating influence was mainly in the great utterance of Seneca ; 
and we find in nearly every century some evidence that this 
germ was still alive. This life became more and more evi- 
dent after the Reformation period, even though theologians 
in every Church did their best to destroy it. The first series 
of attacks on the old theological doctrine were mainly 
founded in philosophic reasoning. As early as the first 
half of the sixteenth century we hear Julius Caesar Scaliger 
protesting against the cometary superstition as " ridiculous 
folly." t Oi more real importance was the treatise of Blaise 
de Vigenfere, published at Paris in 1578. In this little book 
various statements regarding comets as signs of wrath or 
causes of evils are given, and then followed by a very gentle 
and quiet discussion, usually tending to develop that health- 
ful scepticism which is the parent of investigation. A fair 
example of his mode of treating the subject is seen in his 

* For Cotton Mather, see the Afanuductio^ p|A 54, 55. 
f For Scaliger, see p. 20 of Dudith*s book, cited below. 



198 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

dealing with a bit of " sacred science.** This was simply 
that " comets menace princes and kings with death because 
they live more delicately than other people ; and, therefore, 
the air thickened and corrupted by a comet would be natu- 
rally more injurious to them than to common folk who live 
on coarser food." To this De Vigen^re answers that there 
are very many persons who live on food as delicate as that 
enjoyed by princes and kings, and yet receive no harm from 
comets. He then goes on to show that many of the greatest 
monarchs in history have met death without any comet to 
herald it. 

In the same year thoughtful scepticism of a similar sort 
found an advocate in another part of Europe. Thomas 
Erastus, the learned and devout professor of medicine at 
Heidelberg, put forth a letter dealing in the plainest terms 
with the superstition. He argued especially that there could 
be no natural connection between the comet and pestilence, 
since the burning of an exhalation must tend to purify rather 
than to infect the air. In the following year the eloquent 
Hungarian divine Dudith published a letter in which the 
theological theory was handled even more shrewdly ; for he 
argued that, if comets were caused by the sins of mortals, 
they would never be absent from the sky. But these utter- 
ances were for the time brushed aside by the theological 
leaders of thought as shallow or impious. 

In the seventeenth century able arguments against the 
superstition, on general grounds, began to be multiplied. In 
Holland, Balthasar Bekker opposed this, as he opposed the 
witchcraft delusion, on general philosophic grounds ; and 
Lubienitzky wrote in a compromising spirit to prove that 
comets were as often followed by good as by evil events. 
In France, Pierre Petit, formerly geographer of Louis XIII, 
and an intimate friend of Descartes, addressed to the young 
Louis XIV a vehement protest against the superstition, 
basing his arguments not on astronomy, but on common 
sense. A very effective part of the little treatise was 
devoted to answering the authority of the fathers of the 
early Church. To do this, he simply reminded his readers 
that St. Augustine and St. John Damascenus had also op- 
posed the doctrine of the antipodes. The book did good 



THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM. jgg 

service in France, and was translated in Germany a few 
years later.* 

All these were denounced as infidels and heretics, j-et 
none the less did they set men at thinking, and prepare the 
way for a far greater genius ; for toward the end of the 
same century the philosophic attack was taken up by Pierre 
Bayle, and in the whole series of philosophic champions he 
is chief. While professor at the University of Sedan he had 
observed the alarm caused by the comet of 1680, and he now 
brought all his reasoning powers to bear upon it. Thoughts 
deep and witty he poured out in volume after volume. 
Catholics and Protestants were alike scandalized. Catholic 
France spurned him, and Jurieu, the great Reformed divine, 
called his cometary views " atheism," and tried hard to have 
Protestant Holland condemn him. Though Bayle did not 
touch immediately the mass of mankind, he wrought with 
power upon men who gave themselves the trouble of think- 
ing. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church that theolo- 
gians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter, left it 
to Bayle ; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptural doc- 
trine of comets, he tore down much else : of all men in his 
time, no one so thoroughly prepared the way for Voltaire. 

Bayle's whole argument is rooted in the prophecy of 
Seneca. He declares : " Comets are bodies subject to the 
ordinary law of Nature, and not prodigies amenable to no 
law." He shows historically that there is no reason to re- 
gard comets as portents of earthly evils. As to the fact that 
such evils occur after the passage of comets across the sky, 
he compares the person believing that comets cause these 
evils to a woman looking out of a window into a Paris street 
and believing that the carriages pass because she looks out. 
As to the accomplishment of some predictions, he cites the 
shrewd saying of Henry IV, to the effect that " the public 



♦ For Blaise de Vigenfcre, see his Traits des ComiUs, Paris, 1578. For Dudith, 
see his De Cotiutarum Significatione^ Basle, 1579, to which the letter of Erastus is 
appended. Bekker's views may be found in his Ondertoek van de Betekening der 
Cometen^ Leeuwarden, 16S3. For Lubienitzky*s, see his Theatrum Cometicum, Am- 
sterdam, 1667, in part ii : Histaria Cometarum, preface " to the reader." For Petit, 
see his Dissertation sur la Nature des ComiUs, Paris, 1665 (German translation, 
Dresden and Zittau, 168 i)l 



200 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

will remember one prediction that comes true better than 
all the rest that have proved false." Finally, he sums up by 
saying : " The more we study man, the more does it appear 
that pride is his ruling passion, and that he affects grandeur 
even in his misery. Mean and perishable creature that he 
is, he has been able to persuade men that he can not die with- 
out disturbing the whole course of Nature and obliging the 
heavens to put themselves to fresh expense in order to light 
his funeral pomp. Foolish and ridiculous vanity! If we 
had a just idea of the universe, we should soon comprehend 
that the death or birth of a prince is too insignificant a mat- 
ter to stir the heavens." * 

This great philosophic champion of right reason was fol- 
lowed by a literary champion hardly less famous ; for Fonte- 
nelle now gave to the French theatre his play of Tlu Cotnet, 
and a point of capital importance in France was made by 
rendering the army of ignorance ridiculous.f 

Such was the line of philosophic and literary attack, as 
developed from Scaliger to Fontenelle. But beneath and 
in the midst of all of it, from first to last, giving firmness, 
strength, and new sources of vitality to it, was the steady 
development of scientific effort ; and to the series of great 
men who patiently wrought and thought out the truth by 
scientific methods through all these centuries belong the 
honours of the victory. 

For generations men in various parts of the world had 
been making careful observations on these strange bodies. 
As far back as the time when Luther and Melanchthon and 
Zwingli were plunged into alarm by various comets from 
1 53 1 to 1539, Peter Apian kept his head sufficiently cool to 
make scientific notes of their paths through the heavens. 
A little later, when the great comet of 1556 scared popes, 
emperors, and reformers alike, such men as Fabricius at Vi- 
enna and Heller at Nuremberg quietly observed its path. 

* Regarding Bayle, see MSdler, Himmebkunde^ vol. i, p. 327. For special points 
of interest in Bayle*s argument, see his Pensies Diverses sur Us ComkteSy Amsterdam, 
1749, pp. 79» 102, 134, 206. For the response to Jurieu, see the Continuation des 
Pensies, Rotterdam, 1705 ; also Champion, p. 164, Lecky, ubi supra, and Guillemin, 
pp. 29, 30. 

f See Fontenelle, cited by Champion, p. 167. 



THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM. 20I 

In vain did men like Dieterich and Heerbrand and Celich 
from various parts of Germany denounce such observations 
and investigations as impious ; they were steadily continued, 
and in 1577 came the first which led to the distinct founda- 
tion of the modern doctrine. In that year appeared a comet 
which again plunged Europe into alarm. In every European 
country this alarm was strong, but in Germany strongest of 
all. The churches were filled with terror-stricken multi- 
tudes. Celich preaching at Magdeburg was echoed by 
Heerbrand preaching at Tubingen, and both these from 
thousands of other pulpits. Catholic and Protestant, through- 
out Europe. In the midst of all this din and outcry a few 
men quietly but steadily observed the monster ; and Tycho 
Brahe announced, as the result, that its path lay farther from 
the earth than the orbit of the moon. Another great astro- 
nomical genius, Kepler, confirmed this. This distinct be- 
ginning of the new doctrine was bitterly opposed by theo- 
logians ; they denounced it as one of the evil results of that 
scientific meddling with the designs of Providence against 
which they had so long declaimed in pulpits and professors' 
chairs; they even brought forward some astronomers am- 
bitious or wrong-headed enough to testify that Tycho and 
Kepler were in error.* 

Nothing could be more natural than such opposition ; 
for this simple announcement by Tycho Brahe began a new 
era. It shook the very foundation of cometary superstition. 
The Aristotelian view, developed by the theologians, was 
that what lies within the moon's orbit appertains to the earth 
and is essentially transitory and evil, while what lies beyond 
it belongs to the heavens and is permanent, regular, and 
pure. Tycho Brahe and Kepler, therefore, having by means 
of scientific observation and thought taken comets out of the 
category of meteors and appearances in the neighbourhood 
of the earth, and placed them among the heavenly bodies, 
dealt a blow at the very foundations of the theological argu- 
ment, and gave a great impulse to the idea that comets are 

^ See M2dler, Himmelskunde^ vol. i, pp. 181, 197 ; also Wolf, Gesch, d. Astronom 
mit^ and Janssen, Gesck, d. deutschen Volkes^ vol. v, p. 35a Heerbrand's sermon, 
cited above, is a good specimen of tbe tbeologic attitude. See Pingr^, voL ii, 
n. 81. 



202 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

themselves heavenly bodies moving- regularly and in obedi- 
ence to law. 



IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.— THE FINAL 

VICTORY OF SCIENCE. 

Attempts were now made to compromise. It was de- 
clared that, while some comets were doubtless supralunar, 
some must be sublunar. But this admission was no less 
fatal on another account. During many centuries the theory 
favoured by the Church had been, as we have seen, that the 
earth was surrounded by hollow spheres, concentric and 
transparent, forming a number of glassy strata incasing one 
another " like the different coatings of an onion," and that 
each of these in its movement about the earth carries one or 
more of the heavenly bodies. Some maintained that these 
spheres were crystal ; but Lactantius, and with him various 
fathers of the Church, spoke of the heavenly vault as made 
of ice. Now, the admission that comets could move be- 
yond the moon was fatal to this theory, for it sent them 
crashing through these spheres of ice or crystal, and there- 
fore through the whole sacred fabric of the Ptolemaic 
theory.* 

Here we may pause for a moment to note one of the 
chief differences between scientific and theological reasoning 
considered in themselves. Kepler's main reasoning as to 
the existence of a law for cometary movement was right ; 
but his secondary reasoning, that comets move nearly in 
straight lines, was wrong. His right reasoning was devel- 
oped by Gassendi in France, by Borelli in Italy, by Hevel 
and Doerfel in Germany, by Eysat and Bernouilli in Switz- 
erland, by Percy and — most important of all, as regards 
mathematical demonstration — by Newton in England. The 
general theory, which was true, they accepted and deveU 
oped ; the secondary theory, which was found untrue, they 
rejected ; and, as a result, both of what they thus accepted 

■ 

* For these features in cometary theory, see Pingr^, vol. i, p. 89 ; also Hum- 
boldt, Cosmos (English translation, London, 1868), vol. iii p. 169. 



THEOLCX;iCAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 



203 



and of what they rejected, was evolved the basis of the 
whole modern cometary theory. 

Very different was this from the theological method. As 
a rule, when there arises a thinker as great in theology as 
Kepler in science, the whole mass of his conclusions ripens 
into a dogma. His disciples labour not to test it, but to es- 
tablish it ; and while, in the Catholic Church, it becomes a 
dogma to be believed or disbelieved under the penalty of 
damnation, it becomes in the Protestant Church the basis 
for one more sect. 

Various astronomers laboured to develop the truth dis- 
covered by Tycho and strengthened by Kepler. Cassini 
seemed likely to win for Italy the glory of completing the 
great structure ; but he was sadly fettered by Church influ- 
ences, and was obliged to leave most of the work to others. 
Early among these was Hevel. He gave reasons for be- 
lieving that comets move in parabolic curves toward the 
sun. Then came a man who developed this truth further — 
Samuel Doerfel ; and it is a pleasure to note that he was a 
clergyman. The comet of 1680, which set Erni in Switzer- 
land, Mather in New England, and so many others in all 
parts of the world at declaiming, set Doerfel at thinking. 
Undismayed by the authority of Origen and St. John Chrys- 
ostom, the arguments of Luther, Melanchthon, and Zwingli, 
the outcries of Celich, Heerbrand, and Dieterich, he pon- 
dered over the problem in his little Saxon parsonage, until 
in 168 1 he set forth his proofs that comets are heavenly 
bodies moving in parabolas of which the sun is the focus. 
Bemouilli arrived at the same conclusion ; and, finally, this 
great series of men and works was closed by the greatest of 
all, when Newton, in 1686, having taken the data furnished 
by the comet of 1680, demonstrated that comets are guided 
in their movements by the same principle that controls the 
planets in their orbits. Thus was completed the evolution 
of this new truth in science. 

Yet we are not to suppose that these two great series of 
philosophical and scientific victories cleared the field of all 
opponents. Declamation and pretended demonstration of 
the old theologic view were still heard ; but the day of com- 
plete victory dawned when Halley, after most thorough ob- 



204 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

servation and calculation, recognised the comet of 1682 as 
one which had already appeared at stated periods, and fore- 
told its return in about seventy-five years ; and the battle 
was fully won when Clairaut, seconded by Lalande and Mme. 
Lepaute, predicted distinctly the time when the comet would 
arrive at its perihelion, and this prediction was verified.* 
Then it was that a Roman heathen philosopher was proved 
more infallible and more directly under Divine inspiration 
than a Roman Christian pontiff ; for the very comet which 
the traveller finds to-day depicted on the Bayeux tapestry 
as portending destruction to Harold and the Saxons at the 
Norman invasion of England, and which was regarded by 
Pope Calixtus as portending evil to Christendom, was found 
six centuries later to be, as Seneca had prophesied, a heav- 
enly body obeying the great laws of the universe, and com- 
ing at regular periods. Thenceforth the whole ponderous 
enginery of this superstition, with its proof-texts regarding 
" signs in the heavens," its theological reasoning to show the 
moral necessity of cometary warnings, and its ecclesiastical 
fulminations against the ** atheism, godlessness, and infidel- 
ity " of scientific investigation, was seen by all thinking 
men to be as weak against the scientific method as Indian 
arrows against needle guns. Copernicus, Galileo, Cassini, 
Doerfel, Newton, Halley, and Clairaut had gained the 

victory.f 

It is instructive to note, even after the main battle was 
lost, a renewal of the attempt, always seen under like circum- 
stances, to effect a compromise, to establish a " safe science ** 
on grounds pseudo-scientific and pseudo-theologic. Luther, 
with his strong common sense, had foreshadowed this ; Kep)- 
ler had expressed a willingness to accept it. It was insisted 
that comets might be heavenly bodies moving in regular 

* See Pingr^, vol. i, p. 53 ; Grant, History of Physical Astronomy, p. 305, etc., 
etc. For a curious partial anticipation by Hooke, in 1664, of the great truth an- 
nounced by Halley in 1682, see Pepys's Diary for March I. 1664. For excellent 
summaries of the whole work of Halley and Clairaut and their forerunners and 
associates, see Pingr^, Madler, Wolf, Arago, et al, 

f In accordance with Halley's prophecy, the comet of 1682 has returned in 
1759 and 1835. See Madler, Guillemin Watson, Grant, Delambre, Proctor, article 
Astronomy in Encycl, Brit,, and especially, for details, Wolf, pp. 407-412 and 701- 
722. For clear statement regarding Doerfel, see Wolf, p. 411. 



THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 



205 



orbits, and even obedient to law, and yet be sent as " signs in 
the heavens." Many good men clung longingly to this phase 
of the old belief, and in 1770 Semler, professor at Halle, tried 
to satisfy both sides. He insisted that, while from a scien- 
tific point of view comets could not exercise any physical 
influence upon the world, yet from a religious point of view 
they could exercise a moral influence as reminders of the 
Just Judge of the Universe. 

So hard was it for good men to give up the doctrine of 
** signs in the heavens," seemingly based upon Scripture and 
exercising such a healthful moral tendency ! As is always 
the case after such a defeat, these votaries of ** sacred sci- 
ence " exerted the greatest ingenuity in devising statements 
and arguments to avert the new doctrine. Within our own 
century the great Catholic champion, Joseph de Maistre, 
echoed these in declaring his belief that comets are special 
warnings of evil. So, too, in Protestant England, in 181 8, 
the Gentleman s Magazine stated that under the malign influ- 
ence of a recent comet " flies became blind and died early in 
the season," and " the wife of a London shoemaker had four 
children at a birth." And even as late as 1829 Mr. Forster, 
an English physician, published a work to prove that comets 
produce hot summers, cold winters, epidemics, earthquakes, 
clouds of midges and locusts, and nearly every calamity 
conceivable. He bore especially upon the fact that the 
comet of 1665 was coincident with the plague in London, 
apparently forgetting that the other great cities of England 
and the Continent were not thus visited ; and, in a climax, 
announces the fact that the comet of 1663 " made all the cats 
in Westphalia sick." 

There still lingered one little cloud-patch of superstition, 
arising mainly from the supposed fact that comets had really 
been followed by a marked rise in temperature. Even this 
poor basis for the belief that they might, after all, affect 
earthly affairs was swept away, and science won here an- 
other victory ; for Arago, by thermometric records carefully 
kept at Paris from 1735 to 178 1, proved that comets had pro- 
duced no effect upon temperature. Among multitudes of 
similar examples he showed that, in some years when several 
comets appeared, the temperature was lower than in other 



2o6 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW, 

years when few or none appeared. In 1737 there were two 
comets, and the weather was cool; in 1785 there was no 
comet, and the weather was hot ; through the whole fifty 
years it was shown that comets were sometimes followed 
by hot weather, sometimes by cool, and that no rule was 
deducible. The victory of science was complete at every 
point* 

But in this history there was one little exhibition so curi- 
ous as to be worthy of notice, though its permanent effect 
upon thought was small. Whiston and Burnet, so devoted 
to what they considered sacred science, had determined that 
in some way comets must be instruments of Divine wrath. 
One of them maintained that the deluge was caused by the 
tail of a comet striking the earth ; the other put forth the 
theory that comets are places of punishment for the damned 
— in fact, " flying hells.** ( The theories of Whiston and Bur- 
net found wide acceptance also in Germany, mainly through 
the all-powerful mediation of Gottsched, so long, from his 
professor's chair at Leipsic, the dictator of orthodox thought, 
who not only wrote a brief tractate of his own upon the 
subject, but furnished a voluminous historical introduction 
to the more elaborate treatise of Heyn. In this book, 
which appeared at Leipsic in 1742, the agency of comets in 
the creation, the flood, and the final destruction of the world 
is fully proved. Both these theories were, however, soon 
discredited. 

Perhaps the more interesting of them can best be met by 
another, which, if not fully established, appears much better 
based — namely, that in 1868 the earth passed directly through 
the tail of a comet, with no deluge, no sound of any wailings 
of the damned, with but slight appearances here and there, 
only to be detected by the keen sight of the meteorological 
or astronomical observer. 

In our own country superstitious ideas regarding comets 
continued to have some little currency ; but their life was 

* For Forster, see his Illustrations of the Atmospherical Origin of Epidemic 
Diseases, Chelmsford, 1829, cited by Arago ; also in Quarterly /Review for April, 
1835. For the writings of several on both sides, and especially of those who sought 
to save, as far as possible, the sacred theory of comets, see Madler, vol. ii, p. 384 
et seq.t and Wolf, p. 186. 



THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 207 

short. The tendency shown by Cotton Mather, at the be^ 
ginning of the eighteenth centurj-, toward acknowledging 
the victory of science, was completed by the utterances of 
Winthrop, professor at Harvard, who in 1759 published two 
lectures on comets, in which he simply and clearly revealed 
the truth, never scoffing, but reasoning quietly and rever- 
ently. In one passage he says : " To be thrown into a panic 
whenever a comet appears, on account of the ill effects which 
some few of them might possibly produce, if they were not 
under proper direction, betrays a weakness unbecoming a 
reasonable being." 

A happy influence in this respect was exercised on both 
continents by John Wesley. Tenaciously as he had held to 
the supposed scriptural view in so many other matters of 
science, in this he allowed his reason to prevail, accepted 
the demonstrations of Halley, and gloried in them.* 

The victory was indeed complete. Happily, none of the 
fears expressed by Conrad Dieterich and Increase Mather 
were realized. No catastrophe has ensued either to religion 
or to morals. In the realm of religion the Psalms of David 
remain no less beautiful, the great utterances of the Hebrew 
prophets no less powerful ; the Sermon on the Mount, " the 
first commandment, and the second, which is like unto it," 
the definition of " pure religion and undefiled " by St. James, 
appeal no less to the deepest things in the human heart. In 
the realm of morals, too, serviceable as the idea of firebrands 
thrown by the right hand of an avenging God to scare a 
naughty world might seem, any competent historian must 
find that the destruction of the old theological cometary 
theory was followed by moral improvement rather than by 
deterioration. We have but to compare the general moral 
tone of society to-day, wretchedly imperfect as it is, with 
that existing in the time when this superstition had its 



♦ For Hcyn, sec his Versuch einer Betrachtung Uber die Contften, die SUndfluth 
und das Vorspiel des jUngsten Gerichts, Leipsic, 1742. A Latin version, of the 
same year, bears the title, Specimen Cometologice Sacra. For the theory that the 
earth encountered the tail of a comet, see Guillemin and Watson. For survival of 
the old idea in America, see a Sermon of Israel luring, of Sudbury, published in 
1722. For Prof. J. Winthrop, see his Comets, For Wesley, sec his Natural Phi^ 
hsophy^ London, 1784, vol. iii, p. 303. 



2o8 FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW. 

strongest hold. We have only to compare the court of 
Henry VIII with the court of Victoria, the reign of the 
later Valois and earlier Bourbon princes with the present 
French Republic, the period of the Medici and Sforzas and 
Borgias with the period of Leo XIII and Humbert, the 
monstrous wickedness of the Thirty Years' War with the 
ennobling patriotism of the Franco- Prussian struggle, and 
tVie despotism of the miserable German princelings of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the reign of the 
Emperor William. 

The gain is not simply that mankind has arrived at a 
clearer conception of law in the universe ; not merely that 
thinking men see more clearly that we are part of a system 
not requiring constant patching and arbitrary interference ; 
but perhaps best of all is the fact that science has cleared 
away one more series of those dogmas which tend to debase 
rather than to develop man's whole moral and religious 
nature. In this emancipation from terror and fanaticism, as 
in so many other results of scientific thinking, we have a 
proof of the inspiration of those great words, " TilE truth 

SHALL MAKE YOU FREE." 



CHAPTER V. 
FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

I. GROWTH OF THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 

Among the philosophers of Greece we find, even at an 
early period, germs of geological truth, and, what is of vast 
importance, an atmosphere in which such germs could grow. 
These germs were transmitted to Roman thought; an at- 
mosphere of tolerance continued ; there was nothing which 
forbade unfettered reasoning regarding either the earth's 
strata or the remains of former life found in them, and 
under the Roman Empire a period of fruitful observation 
seemed sure to begin. 

But, as Christianity took control of the world, there came 
a great change. The earliest attitude of the Church toward 
geology and its kindred sciences was indifferent, and even 
contemptuous. According to the prevailing belief, the earth 
was a " fallen world," and was soon to be destroyed. Why, 
then, should it be studied ? Why, indeed, give a thought to 
it? The scorn which Lactantius and St. Augustine had cast 
upon the study of astronomy was extended largely to other 
sciences.* 

But the germs of scientific knowledge and thought de- 
veloped in the ancient world could be entirely smothered 
neither by eloquence nor by logic ; some little scientific ob- 

* For a compact and admirable statement as to the dawn of geological concep- 
tions in Greece and Rome» see Mr. Lester Ward's essay on paleobotany in the 
Hfth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, for 1883-84. As to 
the reasons why Greek philosophers did comparatively so little for geology, see 
D'Archiac, Giologie, p. 18. For the contempt felt by Lactantius and St. Augustine 
toward astronomical science, see foregoing chapters on Astronomy and Geography. 
15 209 



2IO FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

servation must be allowed, though all close reasoning upon 
it was fettered by theology. (^Thus it was that St. Jerome 
insisted that the broken and twisted crust of the earth ex- 
hibits the wrath of God against sin, and Tertullian asserted 
that fossils resulted from the flood of Noah. 

To keep all such observation and reasoning within ortho- 
dox limits, St. Augustine, about the beginning of the fifth 
century, began an effort to develop from these germs a 
growth in science which should be sacred and safe. With 
this intent he prepared his great commentary on the work 
of creation, as depicted in Genesis, besides dwelling upon 
the subject in other writings. Once engaged in this work, 
he gave himself to it more earnestly than any other of the 
earlier fathers ever did ; but his vast powers of research 
and thought were not directed to actual observation or rea- 
soning upon observation. (The keynote of his whole method 
is seen in his famous phrase, " Nothing is to be accepted save 
on the authority of Scripture, since greater is that authority 
than all the powers of the human mind." All his thought 
was given to studying the letter of the sacred text, and to 
making it explain natural phenomena by methods purely 
theological.* 

Among the many questions he then raised and discussed 
may be mentioned such as these : " What caused the crea- 
tion of the stars on the fourth day ? " " Were beasts of prey 
and venomous animals created before, or after, the fall of 
Adam? If before, how can their creation be reconciled 
with God's goodness ; if afterward, how can their creation 
be reconciled to the letter of God's Word ? " " Why were 
only beasts and birds brought before Adam to be named, 
and not fishes and marine animals?" " Why did the Creator 
not say, * Be fruitful and multiply,' to plants m well as to 

animals ? " f 

Sundry answers to these and similar questions formed 
the main contributions of the greatest of the Latin fathers to 



* For citations and authorities on these points, see the chapter on Meteorology. 

f See Augustine, Df Getusi, ii, 13 ; iii, 13, 15 ^' J^^- ; ix, 12 ^/ seq. For the ref- 
erence to St. Jerome, see Shields, Final Philosophy, p. 119 ; also Lyell, IntrodtU' 
Hon to Geology, vol. i, chap. iL 



GROWTH OF THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 2II 

the scientific knowledge of the world, after a most thorough 
study of the biblical text and a most profound application 
of theological reasoning. The results of these contributions 
were most important. In this, as in so many other fields, 
Augustine gave direction to the main current of thought in 
western Europe, Catholic and Protestant, for nearly thirteen 
centuries. 

In the ages that succeeded, the vast majority of promi- 
nent scholars followed him implicitly. Even so strong 
a man as Pope Gregory the Great yielded to his influ- 
ence, and such leaders of thought as St. Isidore, in the 
seventh century, and the Venerable Bede, in the eighth, 
planting themselves upon Augustine's premises, only ven- 
tured timidly to extend their conclusions upon lines he had 
laid down. 

In his great work on Etymologies^ Isidore took up Augus- 
tine's attempt to bring the creation into satisfactory rela- 
tions with the book of Genesis, and, as to fossil remains, he, 
like Tertullian, thought that they resulted from the Flood of 
Noah. In the following century Bede developed the same 
orthodox traditions.* 

The best guess, in a geological sense, among the followers 
of St. Augustine was made by an Irish monkish scholar, 
who, in order to diminish the difficulty arising from the dis- 
tribution of animals, especially in view of the fact that the 
same animals are found in Ireland as in England, held that 
various lands now separated were once connected. But, 
alas ! the exigencies of theology forced him to place their 
separation later than the Flood. Happily for him, such facts 
were not yet known as that the kangaroo is found only on an 
island in the South Pacific, and must therefore, according 
to his theory, have migrated thither with all his progeny, 
and along a causeway so curiously constructed that none of 
the beasts of prey, who were his fellow-voyagers in the ark, 
could follow him. 

These general lines of thought upon geology and its kin- 
dred science of zoology were followed by St. Thomas Aqui- 



• For Isidore, see the Etymologia, xi, 4. xUi, 22. For Bede. see the Hexameron, 
i, ii, in Migne, tome xci. 



212 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

nas and by the whole body of mediaeval theologians, so far 
as they gave any attention to such subjects. 

The next development of geology, mainly under Church 
guidance, was by means of the scholastic theology. Phrase- 
making was substituted for investigation. Without the 
Church and within it wonderful contributions were thus 
made. In the eleventh century Avicenna accounted for the 
fossils by suggesting a ** stone-making force " ; * in the thir- 
teenth, Albert the Great attributed them to a "formative 
quality ;"t in the following centuries some philosophers 
ventured the idea that they grew from seed ; and the Aris- 
totelian doctrine of spontaneous generation was constantly 
used to prove that these stony fossils possessed powers of 
reproduction like plants and animals. X 

Still, at various times and places, germs implanted by 
Greek and Roman thought were warmed into life. The 
Arabian schools seem to have been less fettered by the letter 
of the Koran than the contemporary Christian scholars by 
the letter of the Bible; and to Avicenna belongs the credit of 
first announcing substantially the modem geological theory 
of changes in the earth's surface. || 

The direct influence of the Reformation was at first un- 
favourable to scientific progress, for nothing could be more 
at variance with any scientific theory of the development of 
the universe than the ideas of the Protestant leaders. That 
strict adherence to the text of Scripture which made Luther 
and Melanchthon denounce the idea that the planets revolve 
about the sun, was naturally extended to every other scien- 
tific statement at variance with the sacred text. ( There is 
much reason to believe that the fetters upon scientific 
thought were closer under the strict interpretation of Scrip- 
ture by the early Protestants than they had been under 
the older Church. The dominant spirit among the Reform- 
ers is shown by the declaration of Peter Martyr to the effect 
that, if a wrong opinion should obtain regarding the crea- 
tion as described in Genesis, "all the promises of Christ 



* Vis lapidifica, 
\ Virtus formativa. 



\ See authorities given in Mr. Ward's essay, as above. 
I For Avicenna, see Lyell and D'Archiac 



GROWTH OF THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 



213 



fall into nothing, and all the life of our religion would be 
lost." * 

In the times immediately succeeding the Reformation 
matters went from bad to worse. Under Luther and Me- 
lanchthon there was some little freedom of speculation, but 
under their successors there was none ; to question any in- 
terpretation of Luther came to be thought almost as wicked 
as to question the literal interpretation of the Scriptures 
themselves. Examples of this are seen in the struggles be- 
tween those who held that birds were created entirely from 
water and those who held that they were created out of water 
and mud. In the city of LUbeck, the ancient centre of the 
Hanseatic League, close at the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century, Pfeiffer, " General Superintendent " or bishop 
in those parts, published his Pansophia Mosaica^ calculated, as 
he believed, to beat back science forever, fin a long series 
of declamations he insisted that in the strict text of Genesis 
alone is safety ; that it contains all wisdom and knowledge, 
human and divine. This being the case, who could care to 
waste time on the study of material things and give thought 
to the structure of the world ? Above all, who, after such a 
proclamation by such a ruler in the Lutheran Israel, would 
dare to talk of the " days " mentioned in Genesis as " periods 
of time " ; or of the " firmament " as not meaning a solid 
vault over the universe ; or of the " waters above the heav- 
ens " as not contained in a vast cistern supported by the 
heavenly vault ; or of the " windows of heaven " as a figure 
of speech ? f 

( In England the same spirit was shown even as late as 
the time of Sir Matthew Hale. We find in his book on the 
Origination of Mankind^ published in 1685, the strictest devo- 
tion to a theory of creation based upon the mere letter of 
Scripture, and a complete inability to draw knowledge re- 
garding the earth's origin and structure from any other 
source. 

While the Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Anglican Reformers 
clung to literal interpretations of the sacred books, and 

* See his Commentary on Genesis^ cited by Zoeckler, Gtschichte der Benehungtn 
woischin Theologie und Naturwissensckaft^ vol. i, p. 69a 
t For Pfeiffer, see Zoeckler, voL i, pp. 688, 689. 



214 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

turned their faces away from scientific investigation, it was 
among their contemporaries at the revival of learning that 
there began to arise fruitful thought in this field. Then it 
was, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, that 
Leonardo da Vinci, as great a genius in science as in art, 
broached the true idea as to the origin of fossil remains; 
and his compatriot, Fracastoro, developed this on the modem 
lines of thought. Others in other parts of Europe took up 
the idea, and, while mixing with it many crudities, drew 
from it more and more truth. Toward the end of the six- 
teenth century Bernard Palissy, in France, took hold of it 
with the same genius which he showed in artistic creation ; 
but, remarkable as were his assertions of scientific realities, 
they could gain little hearing. Theologfians, philosophers, 
and even some scientific men of value, under the sway of 
scholastic phrases, continued to insist upon such explanations 
as that fossils were the product of " fatty matter set into a 
fermentation by heat " ; or of a " lapidific juice " ; * or of a 
" seminal air " ; f or of a " tumultuous movement of terres- 
trial exhalations *' ; and there was a prevailing belief that fos- 
sil remains, in general, might be brought under the head of 
" sports of Nature," a pious turn being given to this phrase 
by the suggestion that these " sports " indicated some in- 
scrutable purpose of the Almighty. 

This remained a leading orthodox mode of explanation 
in the Church, Catholic and Protestant, for centuries. 



II. EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 

But the scientific method could not be entirely hidden ; 
and, near the beginning of the seventeenth century, De 
Clave, Bitaud, and De Villon revived it in France. Straight- 
way the theological faculty of Paris protested against the 
scientific doctrine as unscriptural, destroyed the offending 
treatises, banished their authors from Paris, and forbade 
them to live in towns or enter places of public resort.:}: 



♦ Succus Uxpidificus, \ Aura seminalis, 

X See Morley, Life of Palissy the Potter ^ vol. ii, p. 315 ^/ seg. 



EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 215 

The champions of science, though repressed for a time» 
quietly laboured on, especially in Italy. Half a century later, 
Steno, a Dane, and Scilla, an Italian, went still further in the 
right direction ; and, though they and their disciples took 
great pains to throw a tub to the whale, in the shape of sun- 
dry vague concessions to the Genesis legends, they developed 
geological truth more and more. 

In France, the old theological spirit remained exceed- 
ingly powerful. About the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury Buffon made another attempt to state simple geological 
truths ; but the theologfical faculty of the Sorbonne dragged 
him at once from his high position, forced him to recant 
ignominiously, and to print his recantation. It runs as fol< 
lows : '* I declare that I had no intention to contradict the 
text of Scripture ; that I believe most firmly all therein re- 
lated about the creation, both as to order of time and matter 
of fact. I abandon everything in my book respecting the 
formation of the earth, and generally all which may be con- 
trary to the narrative of Moses." This humiliating docu- 
ment reminds us painfully of that forced upon Galileo a 
hundred years before. 

It has been well observed by one of the greatest of mod- 
ern authorities that the doctrine which Buffon thus "aban- 
doned " is as firmly established as that of the earth's rota- 
tion upon its axis.* Yet one hundred and fifty years were 
required to secure for it even a fair hearing ; the prevailing 
doctrine of the Church continued to be that "all things 
were made at the beginning of the world," and that to say 
that stones and fossils were made before or since " the begin- 
ning " is contrary to Scripture. Again we find theological 
substitutes for scientific explanation ripening into phrases 
more and more hollow — making fossils " sports of Nature," 
or " mineral concretions," or " creations of plastic force," or 
*' models " made by the Creator before he had fully decided 
upon the best manner of creating various beings. 

Of this period, when theological substitutes; for science 
were carrying all before them, there still exists a monument 



♦ Sec citation and remark in Lyell's Principles of Geology^ chap, iii, p. 57 ; also 
Huxley, Essays an Controverted Questions^ p. 62. 



2i6 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

commemorating at the same time a farce and a tragedy. 
This is the work of Johann Beringer, professor in the Uni- 
versity of Wiirzburg and private physician to the Prince- 
Bishop — the treatise bearing the title Lithographic Wirce- 
burgensis Specimen Primum, *' illustrated with the marvellous 
likenesses of two hundred figured or rather insectiforra 
stones." Beringer, for the greater glory of God, had pre- 
viously committed himself so completely to the theory that 
fossils are simply " stones of a peculiar sort, hidden by the 
Author of Nature for his own pleasure," * that some of his 
students determined to give his faith in that pious doctrine 
a thorough trial. They therefore prepared a collection of 
sham fossils in baked clay, imitating not only plants, reptiles, 
and fishes of every sort that their knowledge or imagination 
could suggest, but even Hebrew and Syriac inscriptions, 
one of them the name of the Almighty ; and these they buried 
in a place where the professor was wont to search for speci- 
mens. The joy of Beringer on unearthing these proofs of 
the immediate agency of the finger of God in creating fossils 
knew no bounds. At great cost he prepared this book, whose 
twenty-two elaborate plates of facsimiles were forever to 
settle the question in favour of theology and against science, 
and prefixed to the work an allegorical title page, wherein 
not only the glory of his own sovereign, but that of heaven 
itself, was pictured as based upon a pyramid of these mirac- 
ulous fossils. So robust was his faith that not even a pre- 
mature exposure of the fraud could dissuade him from the 
publication of his book. Dismissing in one contemptuous 
chapter this exposure as a slander by his rivals, he appealed 
to the learned world. But the shout of laughter that wel- 
comed the work soon convinced even its author. In vain 
did he try to suppress it ; and, according to tradition, hav- 
ing wasted his fortune in vain attempts to buy up all the 
copies of it, and being taunted by the rivals whom he had 
thought to overwhelm, he died of chagrin. Even death did 
not end his misfortunes. The copies of the first edition hav- 
ing been sold by a graceless descendant to a Leipsic book- 
seller, a second edition was brought out under a new title, 

♦ See Beringer's Lithographict^ etc , p. 91. 



EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 217 

and this, too, is now much sought as a precious memorial of 

human credulity.* 

But even this discomfiture did not end the idea which 
had caused it, for, although some latitude was allowed 
among the various theologico-scientific explanations, it was 
still held meritorious to believe that all fossils were placed 
in the strata on one of the creative days by the hand of the 
' Almighty, and that this was done for some mysterious pur- 
pose, probably for the trial of human faith. 

Strange as it may at first seem, the theological war 
against a scientific method in geology was waged more 
fiercely in Protestant countries than in Catholic. The older 
Church had learned by her costly mistakes, especially in 
the cases of Copernicus and Galileo, what dangers to her 
claim of infallibility lay in meddling with a growing science. 
In Italy, therefore, comparatively little opposition was made, 
while England furnished the most bitter opponents to ge- 
ology so long as the controversy could be maintained, and 
the most active negotiators in patching up a truce on the 
basis of a sham science afterward. ] The Church of England 
did, indeed, produce some noble men, like Bishop Clayton 
and John Mitchell, who stood firmly by the scientific meth- 
od ; but these appear generally to have been overwhelmed 
by a chorus of churchmen and dissenters, whose mixtures of 
theology and science, sometimes tragic in their results and 
sometimes comic, are among the most instructive things in 
modern history.f 

• Sec Carus, GeschichU der ZoologU^ Munich, 1872, p. 467. note, and Reusch, 
Bibel und Natur^ p. 197. A list of the authorities upon this episode, with the text 
of one of the epigrams circulated at poor Beringer's expense, is given by Dr. Reuss 
in the Serapeum for 1852, p. 203. The book itself (the original impression) is in 
the White Library at Cornell University. For Beringer himself, see especially the 
encyclopaedia of Ersch and Gruber, and the Allgemeine deuUche BiographU, 

f For a comparison between the conduct of Italian and English ecclesiastics as 
regards geology, see Lyell. Principles of Geology^ tenth English edition, vol. i. p. 
33. For a philosophical statement of reasons why the struggle was more bitter 
and the attempt at deceptive compromises more absurd in England than elsewhere, 
see Maury, LAncienne A caddie des Sciences, second edition, p. 152. For very 
frank confessions of the reasons why the Roman Catholic Church has become more 
careful in her dealings with science, see Roberts, The Pontifical Decrees against 
the Earth* s Movement, London, 1885, especially pp. 94 and 132, 133, and St. 
George Mivart's article in the Nineteenth Century for July, 1885. The first of 



2i8 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

We have already noted that there are generally three 
periods or phases in a theological attack upon any science. 
The first of these is marked by the general use of scriptural 
texts and statements against the new scientific doctrine ; the 
third by attempts at compromise by means of far-fetched rec- 
onciliations of textual statements with ascertained fact ; but 
the second or intermediate period between these two is fre- 
quently marked by the pitting against science of some great 
doctrine in theology. We saw this in astronomy, when Bel- 
larmin and his followers insisted that the scientific doctrine 
of the earth revolving about the sun is contrary to the theo- 
logical doctrine of the incarnation. So now against geology 
it was urged that the scientific doctrine that fossils represent 
animals which died before Adam contradicts the theological 
doctrine of Adam's fall and the statement that " death en- 
tered the world by sin." 

(In this second stage of the theological struggle with geol- 
ogy, England was especially fruitful in champions of ortho- 
doxy, first among whom may be named Thomas Burnet 
In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, just at the 
time when Newton's great discovery was given to the world, 
Burnet issued his Sacred Theory of the Earth, His position 
was commanding; he was a royal chaplain and a cabinet 
officer. Planting himself upon the famous text in the second 
epistle of Peter,* he declares that the flood had destroyed 
the old and created a new world. The Newtonian theory 
he refuses to accept. In his theory of the deluge he lays 
less stress upon the " opening of the windows of heaven " 
than upon the " breaking up of the fountains of the great 
deep." On this latter point he comes forth with great 
strength. His theory is that the earth is hollow, and filled 
with fluid like an ^%%* Mixing together sundry texts from 
Genesis and from the second epistle of Peter, the theological 



these gentlemen, it must not be forgotten, is a Roman Catholic clergyman, and the 
second an eminent layman of the same Church* and both admit that it was the 
Pope, speaking ex cathedra^ who erred in the Galileo case ; but their explanation is 
that God allowed the Pope and Church to fall into this grievous error, which has 
cost so dear, in order to show once and for all that the Church has no right to 
decide questions in science. 
♦ See II Peter iii, 6. 



EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 



219 



doctrine of the " Fall," an astronomical theory regarding the 
ecliptic, and various notions adapted from Descartes, he in- 
sisted that, before sin brought on the Deluge, the earth was 
of perfect mathematical form, smooth and beautiful, " like 
an egg,** with neither seas nor islands nor valleys nor rocks, 
" with not a wrinkle, scar, or fracture," and that all creation 
was equally perfect. 

In the second book of his great w^ork Burnet went still 
further. As in his first book he had mixed his texts of Gene- 
sis and St. Peter with Descartes, he now mixed the account 
of the Garden of Eden in Genesis with heathen legends of 
the golden age, and concluded that before the flood there 
was over the whole earth perpetual spring, disturbed by 
no rain more severe than the falling of the dew. 

In addition to his other grounds for denying the earlier 
existence of the sea, he assigned the reason that, if there 
had been a sea before the Deluge, sinners would have learned 
to build ships, and so, when the Deluge set in, could have 
saved themselves. > 

The work was written with much power, and attracted 
universal attention. It was translated into various lan- 
guages, and called forth a multitude of supporters and oppo- 
nents in all parts of Europe. Strong men rose against it, 
especially in England, and among them a few dignitaries of 
the Church ;^but the Church generally hailed the work with 
joy. j Addison praised it in a Latin ode, and for nearly 
a century it exercised a strong influenpe upon European 
feeling, and aided to plant more deeply than ever the theo- 
logical opinion that the earth as now existing is merely 
a ruin ; whereas, before sin brought on the Flood, it was 
beautiful in its "egg-shaped form," and free from every 
imperfection. 

A few years later came another writer of the highest 
standing — William Whiston, professor at Cambridge, who 
in 1696 published his Nett/ Theory of the Earth. Unlike Bur- 
net, he endeavoured to avail himself of the Newtonian idea, 
and brought in, to aid the geological catastrophe caused by 
human sin, a comet, which broke open " the fountains of the 
great deep." 

But, far more important than either of these champions, 



220 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

there arose in the eighteenth century, to aid in the subjec- 
tion of science to theology, three men of extraordinary power 
— John Wesley, Adam Clarke, and Richard Watson. All 
three were men of striking intellectual gifts, lofty character, 
and noble purpose, and the first-named one of the greatest 
men in English history ; yet we find them in geology hope- 
lessly fettered by the mere letter of Scripture, and by a tem- 
porary phase in theology. As in regard to witchcraft and 
the doctrine of comets, so in regard to geology, this theo- 
logical view drew Wesley into enormous error.* The great 
doctrine which Wesley, Watson, Clarke, and their compeers, 
following St. Augustine, Bede, Peter Lombard, and a long 
line of the greatest minds in the universal Church, thought 
it especially necessary to uphold against geologists was, that 
death entered the world by sin — by the first transgression of 
Adam and Eve. The extent to which the supposed neces- 
sity of upholding this doctrine carried Wesley seems now 
almost beyond belief. Basing his theology on the declara- 
tion that the Almighty after creation found the earth and all 
created things ** very good," he declares, in his sermon on 
the Cause and Cure of Earthquakes^ that no one who believes 
the Scriptures can deny that " sin is the moral cause of earth- 
quakes, whatever their natural cause may be." Again, he 
declares that earthquakes are the ** effect of that curse which 
was brought upon the earth by the original transgression." 
Bringing into connection with Genesis the declaration of St. 
Paul that " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth to- 
gether in pain until now," he finds additional scriptural proof 
that the earthquakes were the result of Adam's fall. He de- 
clares, in his sermon on God's Approbation of His Works, that 
" before the sin of Adam there were no agitations within 
the bowels of the earth, no violent convulsions, no concus- 
sions of the earth, no earthquakes, but all was unmoved as 
the pillars of heaven. ) There were then no such things as 
eruptions of fires ; no volcanoes or burning mountains." Of 
course, a science which showed that earthquakes had been 
in operation for ages before the appearance of man on the 



* For his statement that " the giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up 
of the Bible," see Wesley's Journal, i766-'68. 



EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 221 

planet, and which showed, also, that those very earthquakes 
which he considered as curses resultant upon the Fall were 
really blessings, producing the fissures in which we find to- 
day those mineral veins so essential to modern civilization, 
was entirely beyond his comprehension. He insists that 
earthquakes are " God's strange works of judgment, the 
proper effect and punishment of sin." 

So, too, as to death and pain. In his sermon on the Fall 
of Man he took the ground that death and pain entered the 
world by Adam's transgression, insisting that the carnage 
now going on among animals is the result of Adam's sin. 
Speaking of the birds, beasts, and insects, he says that, be- 
fore sin entered the world by Adam's fall, " none of these 
attempted to devour or in any way hurt one another " ; that 
** the spider was then as harmless as the fly and did not then 
lie in wait for blood." Here, again, Wesley arrayed his 
early followers against geology, which reveals, in the fossil 
remains of carnivorous animals, pain and death countless 
ages before the appearance of man. The half-digested frag- 
ments of weaker animals within the fossilized bodies of the 
stronger have destroyed all Wesley's arguments in behalf of 
his great theory.* 

Dr. Adam Clarke held similar views. He insisted that 
thorns and thistles were given as a curse to human labour, 
on account of Adam's sin, and appeared upon the earth for 
the first time after Adam's fall. So, too, Richard Watson, 
the most prolific writer of the great evangelical reform 
period, and the author of the Institutes, the standard theo- 
logical treatise on the evangelical side, says, in a chapter 
treating of the Fall, and especially of the serpent which 
tempted Eve : " We have no reason at all to believe that the 
animal had a serpentine form in any mode or degree until 
his transformation. That he was then degraded to a reptile, 
to go upon his belly, imports, on the contrary, an entire 
alteration and loss of the original form." ; All that admirable 
adjustment of the serpent to its environment which delights 
naturalists was to the Wesleyan divine simply an evil result 
of the sin of Adam and Eve. Yet here again geology was 



♦ Sec Wesley's sermon on Gods Approbation of His Works^ parts xi and xiL 



222 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

oblig^ to confront theology in revealing the pjthon in the 
Eocene, ages before man appeared.* 

- The immediate results of such teaching by such men was 
to throw many who would otherwise have resorted to ob- 
servation and investigation back upon scholastic methods. 
Ag^in reappears the old system of solving the riddle by 
phrases. In 1733, Dr. Theodore Arnold urged the theory 
of " models," and insisted that fossils result from '' infinitesi- 
mal particles brought together in the creation to form the 
outline of all the creatures and objects upon and within the 
earth " ; and Arnold's work g^ned wide acceptance, f 

Such was the influence of this succession of great men 
that toward the close of the last century the English oppo- 
nents of geology on biblical g^unds seemed likely to sweep 
all before them. Cramping our whole inheritance of sacred 
literature within the rules of a historical compend, they 
showed the terrible dangers arising from the revelations of 
geology, which make the earth older than the six thousand 
years required by Archbishop Usher's interpretation of the 
Old Testament. Nor was this feeling confined to ecclesias- 
tics. Williams, a thoughtful layman, declared that such re- 
searches led to infidelity and atheism, and are " nothing less 
than to depose the Almighty Creator of the universe from 
his office." The poet Cowper, one of the mildest of men, 
was also roused by these dangers, and in his most elaborate 
poem wrote : 

" Some drill and bore 
The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn 
That He who made it, and revealed its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age ! " 

John Howard summoned England to oppose "those sci- 
entific systems which are calculated to tear up in the public 
mind every remaining attachment to Christianity." 

With this special attack upon geological science by means 
of the dogma of Adam's fall, the more general attack by the lit- 

♦ See Westminster Revitw^ October, 1870, Article on John Wesley's Cosmogony ^ 
with citations from Wesley's Sermons^ Watson's Institutes of Theology^ KAxebl 
Clarke's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures^ etc. 

t See citation in Mr. Ward's article, as above, p. 390. 



EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW. 



223 



eral interpretation of the text was continued. The legendary 
husks and rinds of our sacred books were insisted upon as 
equally precious and nutritious with the great moral and 
religious truths which they envelop. Especially precious 
were the six days— each " the evening and the morning " — 
and the exact statements as to the time when each part of 
creation came into being. To save these, the struggle be- 
came more and more desperate. 

Difficult as it is to realize it now, within the memory of 
many now living the battle was still raging most fiercely in 
England, and both kinds of artillery usually brought against 
a new science were in full play, and filling the civilized world 
with their roar. 

About half a century since, the Rev. J. Mellor Brown, the 
Rev. Henry Cole, and others were hurling at all geologists 
alike, and especially at such Christian scholars as Dr. Buck- 
land and Dean Conybeare and Pye Smith and Prof. Sedg- 
wick, the epithets of "infidel," "impugner of the sacred 
record," and " assailant of the volume of God." * 

The favourite weapon of the orthodox party was the 
charge that the geologists were "attacking the truth of 
God." They declared geology " not a subject of lawful in- 
quiry," denouncing it as " a dark art," as " dangerous and 
disreputable," as " a forbidden province," as " infernal ar- 
tillery," and as "an awful evasion of the testimony of reve- 
lation." t 

This attempt to scare men from the science having failed, 
various other means were taken. To say nothing about 
England, it is humiliating to human nature to remember the 
annoyances, and even trials, to which the pettiest and nar- 
rowest of men subjected such Christian scholars in our own 
country as Benjamin Silliman and Edward Hitchcock and 
Louis Agassiz. 

- But it is a duty and a pleasure to state here that one 
great Christian scholar did honour to religion and to him- 
self by quietly accepting the claims of science and making 
the best of them, despite all these clamours. This man was 



♦ For these citations, see Lyell. Principles of Geology, introduction, 
t See Pye Smith, D. D., Geology and Scripture^ pp. 156, 157, 168, 16^ 



Wfsemao. Trie coodact oc trus piUsr g£ tize Roossm Caih- 
otic Caurck coctrasts arrrrr-abtr wka tsat cc ifsaad Proces- 
tariff, irno «ere ffng Engiasd vitk siiricks 



A^ii here Let it be noted tsar one ot tse csoGt isterestiBg 
skirz&isces ia tha war oc cuirc d in New Eagiaad. Pro:. 
Stszrt, rA Asdorer, ^^cstlj faoooored as a Hebrev scbc^. 
decbrcd tnat to speak oc ax periods oc tzme foe the crearkn 
was firing in the face of SczipCnre : that Geness cxpresslv 
ipeaks oi nx days, each made up of ** tbe eTcnxD^ aiiid the 
mondng^'* stnd not sx periods ol time. 

To him TCpHtd a professor in Vale College. James Kings- 
lej. In an article admirable for keen wit and kindij temper, 
be showed that Gcness speaks just as dcarlj of a soiid fir- 
mament as of six ordinary days* and that, if ProL Stnart had 
surmounted one difficultj and accepted the Copemican the- 
orjy he might as well get over another and accept the reve- 
lations of geologr. Tbe encounter was quick and decisive, 
and the victory was with science and the broader scholar- 
ship of Yale> 

Perhaps the most singular attempt against geology was 
made by a fine survival of the eighteenth century Don — 
Dean Cockbum, of York — to scald its champions off the 
field. Having no adequate knowledge of the new science, 
he opened a battery of abuse, giving it to the world at large 
from the pulpit and through the press, and even through 
private letters. From his pulpit in York Minster he de- 
nounced Mary Somerville by name for those studies in 
physical geography which have made her name honoured 
throughout the world. 

But the special object of his antipathy was tbe British 
Association for the Advancement of Science. He issued a 
pamphlet against it which went through five editions in two 
years, sent solemn warnings to its president, and in various 
— J 

^ W item an, Twelve Lectures on tfu Connection between Scimce and Revealed 
Helif^ion, first American edition, New York, 1837. As to the comparadTC severity 
of the struggle regarding astronomy, geology, etc., in Catholic and Protestant 
countries, see Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century^ chap, ix, p. 525. 

f Sec t>illiman*s Journal ^ vol. xxx, p. 114. 



THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE. 22$ 

ways made life a burden to Sedgwick, Buckland, and other 
eminent investigators who ventured to state geological facts 
as they found them. 

These weapons were soon seen to be ineffective; they 
were like Chinese gong^ and dragon lanterns against rifled 
cannon ; the work of science went steadily on.* 



III. THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE, BASED ON 

THE FLOOD OF NOAH. 

Long before the end of the struggle already described, 
even at a very early period, the futility of the usual scholastic 
weapons had been seen by the more keen-sighted champions 
of orthodoxy ; and, as the difficulties of the ordinary attack 
upon science became more and more evident, many of these 
champions endeavoured to patch up a truce. So began the 
third stage in the war — the period of attempts at compromise. 

The position which the compromise party took was that 
the fossils were produced by the Deluge of Noah. 

This position was strong, for it was apparently based 
upon Scripture. Moreover, it had high ecclesiastical sanc- 
tion, some of the fathers having held that fossil remains, even 
on the highest mountains, represented animals destroyed at 
the Deluge. Tertullian was especially firm on this point, 
and St. Augustine thought that a fossil tooth discovered in 
North Africa must have belonged to one of the giants men- 
tioned in Scripture.f 



♦ Prof. Goldwin Smith informs me that the papers of Sir Robert Peel, yet un- 
published, contain very curious specimens of the epistles of Dean Cockbum. See 
also Personal Recollections of Mary Somervilley Boston, 1874, pp. 139 and 375. 
Compare with any statement of his religious views that Dean Cockbum was able 
to make, the following from Mrs. Somerville : " Nothing has afforded me so con- 
vincing a proof of the Deity as these purely mental conceptions of numerical and 
mathematical science which have been, by slow degrees, vouchsafed to man — and 
are still granted in these latter times by the differential calculus, now superseded 
by the higher algebra — all of which must have existed in that sublimely omniscient 
mind from eternity." See also The Life and Letters of Adam Sedgwick^ Cambridge, 
1890, vol. ii, pp. 76 and following. 

t For Tertullian, see his De Pallio^ c. ii (Migne, Patr. Lat,^ vol. ii, p. 1033). 
For Augustine's view, see Cuvier, Recherches sur Us Ossements fossiles, fourth edi- 
tion, vol. ii, p. 143. 
16 



226 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

In the sixteenth century especially, weight began to be 
attached to this idea bv those who felt the worthlessness of 
various scholastic explanations. Strong men in both the 
Catholic and the Protestant camps accepted it ; but the man 
who did most to give it an impulse into modem theology 
was Martin Luther. He easily saw that scholastic phrase- 
making could not meet the difficulties raised by fossils, and 
he naturally urged the doctrine of their origin at Noah's 
Flood* 

With such support, it soon became the dominant theory 
in Christendom: nothing seemed able to stand against it; 
but before the end of the same sixteenth century it met 
some serious obstacles. Bernard Palissy, one of the most 
keen-sighted of scientific thinkers in France, as well as 
one of the most devoted of Christians, showed that it was 
utterly untenable. Conscientious investigators in other 
parts of Europe, and especially in Italy, showed the same 
thing; all in vain.f In vain did good men protest against 
the injury sure to be brought upon religion by tying it 
to a scientific theory sure to be exploded ; the doctrine 
that fossils are the remains of animals drowned at the 
Flood continued to be upheld by the great majority of 
theological leaders for nearly three centuries as " sound 
doctrine,'* and as a blessed means of reconciling science 
with Scripture. To sustain this scriptural view, efforts 
energetic and persistent were put forth both by Catholics 
and Protestants. 

In France, the learned Benedictine, Calmet, in his great 
works on the Bible, accepted it as late as the beginning of 
the eighteenth century, believing the mastodon's bones ex- 
hibited by Mazurier to be those of King Teutobocus, and 
holding them valuable testimony to the existence of the 
giants mentioned in Scripture and of the early inhabitants 
of the earth overwhelmed by the Flood.J 

* For Luther's opinion, see his Commentary on Genesis, 

t For a very full statement of the honourable record of Italy in this respect, 
and for the cnlijjhtened views of some Italian churchmen, see Stoppani, II Dogma 
e le Scienze Positive, Milan, 1886, pp. 203 et seq. 

X For the steady adherence to this sacred theory, see Audiat, Vie de Pa- 
lissy^ p. 412, and Cantu, Ilistoire UniverselU^ vol. xv, p. 492. For Calmet, sec 



THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE. 227 

But the greatest champion appeared in England. We 
have already seen how, near the close of the seventeenth 
century, Thomas Burnet prepared the way in his Sacred 
Theory of tite Earth by rejecting the discoveries of Newton, 
and showing how sin led to the breaking up of the " founda- 
tions of the great deep " ; and we have also seen how Whis- 
ton, in his New Theory of tlie Earth, while yielding a little 
and accepting the discoveries of Newton, brought in a comet 
to aid in producing the Deluge; but far more important 
than these in permanent influence was John Woodward, 
professor at Gresham College, a leader in scientific thought 
at the University of Cambridge, and, as a patient collector 
of fossils and an earnest investigator of their meaning, de- 
serving of the highest respect. In 1695 he published his 
Natural History of the Earth, and rendered one great service 
to science, for he yielded another point, and thus destroyed 
the foundations for the old theory of fossils. He showed 
that they were not " sports of Nature," or " models inserted 
by the Creator in the strata for some inscrutable purpose," 
but that they were really remains of living beings, as Xenoph- 
anes had asserted two thousand years before him. So far, 
he rendered a great service both to science and religion ; 
but, this done, the text of the Old Testament narrative and 
the famous passage in St. Peter's Epistle were too strong 
for him, and he, too, insisted that the fossils were produced 
by the Deluge. Aided by his great authority, the assault 
on the true scientific position was vigorous: Mazurier ex- 
hibited certain fossil remains of a mammoth discovered in 
France as bones of the giants mentioned in Scripture ; Father 
Torrubia did the same thing in Spain ; Increase Mather 
sent to England similar remains discovered in America, with 
a like statement. 

For the edification of the faithful, such " bones of the 
giants mentioned in Scripture" were hung up in public 
places. Jurieu saw some of them thus suspended in one of 
the churches of Valence; and Henrion, apparently under 
the stimulus thus given, drew up tables showing the size of 



his Dissertation sur les CAints, cited in Bcrgcr dc Xivrcy, Traditions T&ato^ 
IjSiqtus, p. 191. 



223 FILOM GENESIS TO CXOLOCT. 

oar aacecilaviiia acceston. givingf the aeigfet oc Adic as 
123 :^et > inciies and that oi Eve as £i5 icec 9 incbes aad9 
Lines- 

But the most brilliant senricc rendered to the theoi-o^Kai 
thetjry came irocn anotner quarter : :or. in 1735. Scceuchzcr, 
having discovered a lar^e f«3ssil lizard* exhibited it to the 
world as the " haman witness ot the E>cluge " : -^ this great 
discovery was hailed everywhere with joy. for it seemed to 
prove not only that human bein^ were drowned ax the Del- 
uge, but that " there were giants in thi3se days."* Cheered 
by the applause thus gained, he determined to make the 
theological pijsiti on impregnable. Mixing togetiier Tarious 
texts ot Scripture with notions derived tn^m the philosc^hj 
ot Descartes and the speculations of Whiston, he devek>ped 
the theory that " the fountains of the great deep "" were 
broken up by the direct physical action of the hand of God, 
which, being literally applied to the axis of the earth, sud- 
denly stopped the earth's rotation, broke up '^ the toantains 
of the 2:reat deep." spilled the water therein contained, and 
produced the Deluge. But his service to sacred science did 
not end here, tor he prepared an edition of the Bible, in 
which ma;jnincent eno:nivings in great number illustrated his 
view and enforced it upon ail readers. Ot these engravings 
no less than thirty-rour were devoted to the Deluge alone.* 



• <^^ rjvier. A.-r^'^-'^- -"»'' ^' Cerement: fjssiJes, fimrth edidon. tcL i pi 
56 -. ilso Ge'jtfroy Sr.-Hiiaire. ared by Berger de Xivrcy. Trj^uaums Tir^<^ 

^ritpieT. p. infi' 

f H.'mif iiSxrii .V-'.'i.-. 

♦ <ee Zoecklcr. v?l. i, ?• 172 : iiso Sc-ieuchzer. Pti'st.j Suth, Ao^oscz Mb- 
del.*et ISlmx. i-y2. F:r the ancient belief re;;ardmg giants, see Leorar-ii. Sr^jT.-. 
For jcc'.'unts of *'he v:ews :( Miiuner and Siheuchzer. see Cavier : also Efichner. 
J/in in Put, Fr-^zcnt, tnd Futun, En;i'L:»h transiation, pp. 235, 236. Foe Ib- 
cr-ase ^rl:he^^ vrew's. ^ Phuosi^p^iiu T^-jn^iuti^^, voL xxiT. p. 55. As to 
sim;Iar :■:>.;:> ^nt from N.-^ V :rk to the Royal Society is remains of giaa-^ ?« 
We'd, H- t^'rv '.'■ t'i£ -?"•'// -Ntr^'r. v.?:. i, p. 421. F-jr Father Torrubia and his 
Gi^r.jnLu.f-r^^i E r^in*^^^ -^^ DArchiac. f^tr.^atuti.m a P Etuuc dt m Ful^mtjiapg 
Sir. ' 




Pin-. iS<:^: Hie-:ke!, //'-/./rv ;•/ C' -carton. Enijli^h translation. New York. 1376, 
chap.* :ii : and Pjr re-ent pr;i;rebs. Prof. O. S. Marsh's AJdress an the History and 



:nap 

Methods of PauontoLj^, 



THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE. 



229 



In the midst all this came an episode very comical but 
very instructive ; for it shows that the attempt to shape the 
deductions of science to meet the exigencies of dogma may 
mislead heterodoxy as absurdly as orthodoxy. 

About the year 1760 news of the discovery of marine fos- 
sils in various elevated districts of Europe reached Voltaire. 
He, too, had a theologic system to support, though his sys- 
tem was opposed to that of the sacred books of the Hebrews ; 
and, fearing that these new discoveries might be used to 
support the Mosaic accounts of the Deluge, all his wisdom 
and wit were compacted into arguments to prove that the 
fossil fishes were remains of fishes intended for food, but 
spoiled and thrown away by travellers ; that the fossil shells 
were accidentally dropped by crusaders and pilgrims re- 
turning from the Holy Land ; and that the fossil bones found 
between Paris and fetampes were parts of a skeleton belong- 
ing to the cabinet of some ancient philosopher. Through 
chapter after chapter, Voltaire, obeying the supposed neces- 
sities of his theology, fought desperately the growing results 
of the geologic investigations of his time.* 

But far more prejudicial to Christianity was the con- 
tinued eflfort on the other side to show that the fossils were 
caused by the Deluge of Noah. 

No supposition was too violent to support this theory, 
which was considered vital to the Bible. By taking the 
mere husks and rinds of biblical truth for truth itself, by 
taking sacred poetry as prose, and by giving a literal inter- 
pretation of it, the followers of Burnet, Whiston, and Wood- 
ward built up systems which bear to real geology much the 
same relation that the Christian Topography of Cosmas bears 
to real geography. In vain were exhibited the absolute ge- 
ological, zoSlogical, astronomical proofs that no universal 
deluge, or deluge covering any large part of the earth, had 
taken place within the last six thousand or sixty thousand 
years ; in vain did so enlightened a churchman as Bishop 
Clayton declare that the Deluge could not have extended 



* See Voltaire, Dissertation sur Us Changements arrivis dans notre Globe ; also 
Voltaire, Les Singulantis de la Nature^ chap, xii ; also Jcvons, Principles of Sci^ 
ence, vol. ii, p. 328. 









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• 



THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE. 



231 



that peace was akin to treason. By large but vague conces- 
sions Cuvier kept the theologians satisfied, while he under- 
mined their strongest fortress. The danger was instinctively 
felt by some of the champions of the Church, and typical 
among these was Chateaubriand, who in his best-known 
work, once so great, now so little — the Genius of Christianity 
— grappled with the questions of creation by insisting upon 
a sort of general deception " in the beginning," under which 
everything was created by a sudden fiat, but with appear- 
ances of pre-existence. His words are as follows : " It was 
part of the perfection and harmony of the nature which was 
displayed before men's eyes that the deserted nests of last 
year's birds should be seen on the trees, and that the sea- 
shore should be covered with shells which had been the 
abode of fish, and yet the world was quite new, and nests 
and shells had never been inhabited." * But the real victory 
was with Brongniart, who, about 1820, gave forth his work 
on fossil plants, and thus built a barrier against which the 
enemies of science raged in vain.f 

Still the struggle was not ended, and, a few years later,' a 
forlorn hope was led in England by Granville Penn. 

His fundamental thesis was that " our globe has under- 
gone only two revolutions, the Creation and the Deluge, and 
both by the immediate fiat of the Almighty"; he insisted 
that the Creation took place in exactly six days of ordinary 
time, each made up of " the evening and the morning " ; and 
he ended with a piece of that peculiar presumption so famil- 
iar to the world, by calling on Cuvier and all other geolo- 
gists to " ask for the old paths and walk therein until they 
shall simplify their system and reduce their numerous revo- 
lutions to the two events or epochs only — the six days of 
Creation and the Deluge." % The geologists showed no dis- 
position to yield to this peremptory summons ; on the con- 
trary, the President of the British Geological Society, and 
even so eminent a churchman and geologist as Dean Buck- 
land, soon acknowledged that facts obliged them to give up 



• Ginie du Christianisme^ chap, v, pp. 1-14, cited by Reusch, vol. i, p. 250. 
f For admirable sketches of Brongniart and other paleobotanbts, see Ward» as 
above. 

X See the works of Granville Penn, vol. ii, p. 273. 



232 



FKOX GCXESIS TO GEOLOGT. 



the theory that the fossfls of the coal measorcs were de- 
posited at the Deluge of Noah, and to deny that the Deluge 
was universaL 

The defection of Buckland was especialLj feit bj the or- 
thodox party. His ability* honesty^ and k>yalty to his pro- 
fession, as well as his position as Canon of Oirist Church 
and Professor of Geology at Oxford, gave him great aoth<^- 
ity, which he exerted to the utmost in soothing his brother 
ecclesiastics. In his inaugural lecture he had laboured to 
show that geology confirmed the accounts of Creation and 
the Flood as given in Genesis, and in 1823. after his cave ex- 
plorations had revealed overwhelming evidences of the vast 
antiquity of the earth, he had still clung to the Flood theory 
in his Reliquia Diluviana, 

This had not, indeed, fully satisfied the anti-scientific party, 
but as a rule their attacks upon him took the form not so 
much of abuse as of humorous disparagement. An epigram 
by Shuttleworth, afterward Bishop of Chichester, in imita- 
tion of Pope's famous lines upon Newton, ran as follows : 

" Some doubts were once expressed about the Flood : 
Buckland arose, and aU was clear as mud." 

On his leaving Oxford for a journey to southern Europe, 
Dean Gaisford was heard to exclaim : " Well, Buckland is 
gone to Italy ; so, thank God, we shall have no more of this 
geology ! " 

Still there was some comfort as long as Buckland held to 
the Deluge theory ; but, on his surrender, the combat deep- 
ened : instead of epigrams and caricatures came bitter at- 
tacks, and from the pulpit and press came showers of mis- 
siles. The worst of these were hurled at Lyell. As we 
have seen, he had published in 1830 his Principles of Geology. 
Nothing could have been more cautious. It simply gave an 
account of the main discoveries up to that time, drawing the 
necessary inferences with plain yet convincing logic, and it 
remains to this day one of those works in which the Anglo- 
Saxon race may most justly take pride, — one of the land- 
marks in the advance of human thought. 

Hut its tendency was inevitably at variance with the 
Chaldean and other ancient myths and legends regarding 



THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE. 233 

the Creation and Deluge which the Hebrews had received 
from the older civilizations among their neighbours, and had 
incorporated into the sacred books which they transmitted 
to the modern world ; it was therefore extensively " refuted." 

Theologians and men of science influenced by them in- 
sisted that his minimizing of geological changes, and his 
laying stress on the gradual action of natural causes still in 
force, endangered the sacred record of Creation and left no 
place for miraculous intervention ; and when it was found 
that he had entirely cast aside their cherished idea that the 
great geological changes of the earth's surface and the mul- 
titude of fossil remains were due to the Deluge of Noah, and 
had shown that a far longer time was demanded for Creation 
than any which could possibly be deduced from the Old 
Testament genealogies and chronicles, orthodox indignation 
burst forth violently ; eminent dignitaries of the Church at- 
tacked him without mercy and for a time he was under 
social ostracism. 

As this availed little, an efl^ort was made on the scientific 
side to crush him beneath the weighty authority of Cuvier ; 
but the futility of this effort was evident when it was found 
that thinking men would no longer listen to Cuvier and per- 
sisted in listening to Lyell. The great orthodox text-book, 
Cuvier's Theory of the Earth, became at once so discredited 
in the estimation of men of science that no new edition of it 
was called for, while Lyell's work speedily ran through 
twelve editions and remained a firm basis of modern thought.* 

As typical of his more moderate opponents we may take 
Fairholme, who in 1837 published his Mosaic Deluge, and ar- 
gued that no early convulsions of the earth, such as those 
supposed by geologists, could have taken place, because 
there could have been no deluge " before moral guilt could 
possibly have been incurred** — that is to say, before the 
creation of mankind. In touching terms he bewailed the 
defection of the President of the Geological Society and 
Dean Buckland — protesting against geologists who " persist 



• For Buckland and the various forms of attack upon him. sec Gordon, Life of 
Buckland, especially pp. 10, 26, 136. For the attack on LycU and his book, see 
Huxley, T)u Ughts of t)u Church and the Light of Science. 



234 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

in closing their eyes upon the solemn declarations of the 
Almighty." 

Still the geologists continued to seek truth : the germs 
planted especially by William Smith, " the Father of Eng- 
lish Geology," were developed by a noble succession of in- 
vestigators, and the victory was sure. Meanwhile those 
theologians who felt that denunciation of science as " god- 
less " could accomplish little, laboured upon schemes for 
reconciling geology with Genesis. Some of these show 
amazing ingenuity, but an eminent religious authority, going 
over them with great thoroughness, has well characterized 
them as ** daring and fanciful." Such attempts have been 
variously classified, but the fact regarding them all is that 
each mixes up more or less of science with more or less 
of Scripture, and produces a result more or less absurd. 
Though a few men here and there have continued these 
exercises, the capitulation of the party which set the literal 
account of the Deluge of Noah against the facts revealed by 
geology was at last clearly made.* 

One of the first evidences of the completeness of this sur- 
render has been so well related by the eminent physiologist, 
Dr. W. B. Carpenter, that it may best be given in his own 
words : " You are familiar with a book of considerable value. 
Dr. W. Smith's Diciiotiary of the Bible, I happened to know 
the influences under which that dictionary was framed. The 
idea of the publisher and of the editor was to give as much 
scholarship and such results of modern criticism as should 
be compatible with a very judicious conservatism. There 
was to be no objection to geology, but the universality of 
the Deluge was to be strictly maintained. The editor com- 
mitted the article Deluge to a man of very considerable abil- 
ity, but when the article came to him he found that it was 
so excessively heretical that he could not venture to put it 
in. There was not time for a second article under that head, 
and if you look in that dictionary you will find under the 
word Deluge a reference to Flood, Before Flood came, a sec- 

♦ For Fairholme, sec his Mosaic Deluge^ London, 1837, p. 358. For a very 
just characterization of various schemes of " reconciliation,*' see Shields, The Final 
Philosophy^ p. 340. 



THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE. 235 

end article had been commissioned from a source that was 
believed safely conservative ; but when the article came 
in it was found to be worse than the first. A third article 
was then commissioned, and care was taken to secure its 
' safety.* If you look for the word Flood in the dictionary, 
you will find a reference to Noah, Under that name you 
will find an article written by a distinguished professor of 
Cambridge, of which I remember that Bishop Colenso said 
to me at the time, * In a very guarded way the writer con- 
cedes the whole thing.' You will see by this under what 
trammels scientific thought has laboured in this department 
of inquiry." * 

A similar surrender was seen when from a new edition 
of Home's Introduction to the Scriptures^ the standard text- 
book of orthodoxy, its accustomed use of fossils to prove the 
universality of the Deluge was quietly dropped, t 

A like capitulation in the United States was foreshadowed 
in 1841, when an eminent Professor of Biblical Literature 
and Interpretation in the most important theological semi- 
nary of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Dr. Samuel Turner, 
showed his Christian faith and courage by virtually accept- 
ing the new view ; and the old contention was utterly cast 
away by the thinking men of another great religious body 
when, at a later period, two divines among the most eminent 
for piety and learning in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
inserted in the Biblical Cyclopcedia^ published under their su- 
pervision, a candid summary of the proofs from geology, 
astronomy, and zo5logy that the Deluge of Noah was not 
universal, or even widely extended, and this without pro- 
test from any man of note in any branch of the American 
Church. X 

The time when the struggle was relinquished by enlight- 



• Sec Official Report of tki National Conference of Unitarian and other Chris- 
Han Churches heU at Saratoga^ 1882^ p. 97. 

f This was about 1856 ; see Tylor, Early History of Mankind^ p. 329. 

X For Dr. Turner, see his Companion to the Book of Genesis, London and New 
York, 1841, pp. 216-219. For McClintock and Strong, see their Cyclopedia of 
Biblical Knowledge, t\.z.,Kt\\KX^ Deluge, For similar surrenders of the Deluge in 
▼arious other religious encyclopaedias and commentaries, sec Huxley, Essays on 
Controverted Questions, chap. xiii. 



236 FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY. 

cned theologians of the Roman Catholic Church may be 
fixed at about 1S62, when Reusch, Professor of Theology at 
Bonn, in his work on The Bible and Nature^ cast oflF the old 
diluvial theory and all its supporters, accepting* the conclB- 
sions of science.* 

But, though the sacred theory with the Deluge of Noah 
as a universal solvent for geological difficulties was evidently 
dying, there still remained in various quarters a touching 
fidelity to it. In Roman Catholic countries the old theory 
was widely though quietly cherished, and taug^ht from the 
religious press, the pulpit, and the theological professors 
chair. Pope Pius IX was doubtless in sympathy with this 
feeling when, about 1850, he forbade the scientific congress 
of Italy to meet at Bologna, f 

In 1856 Father Debreyne congratulated the theologians 
of France on their admirable attitude: " Instinctivel^V he 
says, "they still insist upon deriving the fossils from 
Noah's Flood." J In 1875 the Abb6 Choyer published 
at Paris and Angers a text-book widely approved bv 
Church authorities, in which he took similar ground ; and 
in 1877 the Jesuit father Bosizio published at Mayence a 
treatise on Geology and the Deluge, endeavouring to hold 
the world to the old solution of the problem, allowing, 
indeed, that the **days*' of Creation were long periods, 
but making atonement for this concession by sneers at 
Darwin.^ 

In the Russo-Greek Church, in 1869, Archbishop Ma- 
carius, of Lithuania, urged the necessity of believing that 
Creation in six days of ordinary time and the Deluge of 
Noah are the only causes of all that geology seeks to ex- 
plain ; and. as late as 1876, another eminent theologian of 
the same Church went even farther, and refused to allow 
the faithful to believe that any change had taken place since 
** the beginning ** mentioned in Genesis, when the strata of 
the earth were laid, tilted, and twisted, and the fossils scat- 



♦ See Rcusch. Bihel und Xatur^ chap. xxi. 

f See Whiteside, Italy in the Xineteenth Century^ vol. iii, chap. xiv. 
X See Zoecklcr, vol. ii, p. 472. 

^ See Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 478, and Bosizio, Geoiogie und die SUndfiuih, May- 
ence, 1877, preface, p. xiv. 



THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE. 



237 



tered among them by the hand of the Almighty during six 
ordinary days.* 

In the Lutheran branch of the Protestant Church we also 
find echoes of the old belief. Keil, eminent in scriptural 
interpretation at the University of Dorpat, gave forth in 
i860 a treatise insisting that geology is rendered futile and 
its explanations vain by two great facts : the Curse which 
drove Adam and Eve out of Eden, and the Flood that de- 
stroyed all living things save Noah, his family, and the ani- 
mals in the ark. In 1867, Phillippi, and in 1869, Dieterich, 
both theologians of eminence, took virtually the same ground 
in Germany, the latter attempting to beat back the scientific 
hosts with a phrase apparently pithy, but really hollow — the 
declaration that " modern geology observes what is, but has 
no right to judge concerning the beginning of things." As 
late as 1876, Zugler took a similar view, and a multitude of 
lesser lights, through pulpit and press, brought these anti- 
scientific doctrines to bear upon the people at large — the 
only effect being to arouse grave doubts regarding Chris- 
tianity among thoughtful men, and especially among young 
men, who naturally distrusted a cause using such weapons. 

For just at this time the traditional view of the Deluge 
received its death-blow, and in a manner entirely unexpected. 
By the investigations of George Smith among the Assyrian 
tablets of the British Museum, in 1872, and by his discov- 
eries just afterward in Assyria, it was put beyond a reason- 
able doubt that a great mass of accounts in Genesis are 
simply adaptations of earlier and especially of Chaldean 
myths and legends. While this proved to be the fact as 
regards the accounts of Creation and the fall of man, it was 
seen to be most strikingly so as regards the Deluge. The 
eleventh of the twelve tablets, on which the most important 
of these inscriptions was found, was almost wholly preserved, 
and it revealed in this legend, dating from a time far earlier 
than that of Moses, such features peculiar to the childhood 
of the world as the building of the great ship or ark to escape 
the flood, the careful caulking of its seams, the saving of a 

* 5>ee Zoeckler, vol. ii, pp. 472, 571, and elsewhere ; also citations in Reusch 
and Shields. 



23^ r^tO^ CXSLS^ TO GEOLOCT. 

rr-aa beloved of H^aTca. Lis sgTgcrgrg aad tuiz^ with hirs 
ir.r.o t'r.e T^ss^l irsnL3LS <x all sorts xa coopi«s. the impressive 
nr-al clv^i::2r of the drxjr, the scscis^ forth dircrcut birds as 
the fioryi abated, the ozczizz oc sacri tiers when the &>x had 
subsided, the ;ot o: the EKThae Bein^ who had caused the 
flood aa the c/iour of the aacrifcc reached his nostrils : while 
throujjhout all was shjwa that partialitv ior the Chaldean 
sacred namber seren which appears so ooostaatlj in the 
Genesis legends and throughout the Hebrew sacred books. 

Other devoted scholars followed ia the paths thus opened 
— Sayce in England, Lenormant in France. Schrader in Ger- 
many — with the result that the Hebrew account of the Del- 
uge, to which forages theologians had obliged all geological re- 
search to conform, was quietly relegated, even by most emi- 
nent Christian scholars, to the realm of myth and legend.* 

Sundry feeble attempts to break the force of this dis- 
covery, and an evidently widespread fear to have it known, 
have certainly impaired not a little the legitimate influence 
of the Christian clergy. 

And yet this adoption of Chaldean myths into the Hebrew 
Scriptures furnishes one of the strongest arguments for the 
value of our Bible as a record of the upward growth of man; 
for, while the Chaldean legend primarily ascribes the Deluge 
to the mere arbitrary caprice of one among many gods (Bel\ 
the Hebrew development of the legend ascribes it to the 
justice, the righteousness, of the Supreme God ; thus show- 
ing the evolution of a higher and nobler sentiment which 
demanded a moral cause adequate to justify such a catas- 
trophe. 

Unfortunately, thus far, save in a few of the broader and 
nobler minds among the clergy, the policy of ignoring such 
new revelations has prevailed, and the results of this policy, 
both in Koman Catholic and in Protestant countries, are not 
far to seek. What the condition of thought is among the 
middle classes of France and Italy needs not to be stated 

♦ For Ocorgc Smith, sec his Chaldean Account of Genesis, New York, 1876, 
especially pp. 36, 263, 286 ; also his special work on the subject. See also Lenor- 
mant, />•/ Origines de niistoire, Paris, 1880, chap. viii. For Schrader, sec his 
The Cunnform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, Whitehouse's translation, 
London, 1885, vol. i, pp. 47-49 and 58-60, and elsewhere. 



FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 



239 



here. In Germany, as a typical fact, it may be mentioned 
that there was in the year 1881 church accommodation in 
the city of Berlin for but two per cent of the population, 
and that even this accommodation was more than was 
needed. This fact is not due to the want of a deep religious 
spirit among the North Germans: no one who has lived 
among them can doubt the existence of such a spirit ; but it 
is due mainly to the fact that, while the simple results of 
scientific investigation have filtered down among the people 
at large, the dominant party in the Lutheran Church has 
steadily refused to recognise this fact, and has persisted in 
imposing on Scripture the fetters of literal and dogmatic 
interpretation which Germany has largely outgrown. A 
similar danger threatens every other country in which the 
clergy pursue a similar policy. No thinking man, whatever 
may be his religious views, can fail to regret this. A thought- 
ful, reverent, enlightened clergy is a great blessing to any 
country ; and anything which undermines their legitimate 
work of leading men out of the worship of material things 
to the consideration of that which is highest is a vast mis- 
fortune.* 



IV. FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.— THE VICTORY OF 

SCIENCE COMPLETE. 

Before concluding, it may be instructive to note a few 
especially desperate attempts at truces or compromises, such 
as always appear when the victory of any science has be- 
come absolutely sure. Typical among the earliest of these 
may be mentioned the effort of Carl von Raumer in 18 19. 
With much pretension to scientific knowledge, but with 
aspirations bounded by the limits of Prussian orthodoxy, he 
made a laboured attempt to produce a statement which, 
by its vagueness, haziness, and "depth," should obscure the 
real questions at issue. This statement appeared in the 

* For the foregoing statements regarding (jermany the writer relies on his per- 
sonal observation as a student at the University of Berlin in 1856, as a traveller at 
various periods afterward, and as Minister of the United States in 1879, 1880, and 

i88x. 



240 



FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGT. 



shape of an argument, used bj Bertrand and others in tbe 
previous centurv, to prove that fossil remains oi plants in 
the coal measures had never existed as living plants, but had 
been simply a ** result of the development oi imperfect plant 
embryrys": and the same mistv theory was suggested to 
explain the existence of fossil animals without supposing the 
epochs and changes required by geological science. 

In 1837 Wagner sought to uphold this explanation; but 
it was so clearly a mere hollow phrase, unable to bear the 
weight of the facts to be accounted for, that it was soon 
given up. 

Similar attempts were made throughout Europe, the 
most noteworthy appearing in England. In 1853 ^^^ issued 
an anonymous work having as its title A Brief and ComfUtt 
Refutation of the Anti-Scriptural Theory of Geoic^istsz the 
author having revived an old idea, and put a spark of life 
into it — this idea being that " all the organisms found in the 
depths of the earth were made on the first of the six creative 
days, as models for the plants and animals to be created on 
the third, fifth, and sixth days."* 

But while these attempts to preserve the old theory as 
to fossil remains of lower animals were thus pressed, there 
appeared upon the geological field a new scientific column 
far more terrible to the old doctrines than anv which had 
been seen previously. 

For. just at the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth 
century, geologists beg^n to examine the caves and beds of 
drift in various parts of the world ; and within a few years 
from that time a series of discoveries began in France, in 
Belgium, in England, in Brazil, in Sicily, in India, in Egypt, 
and in America, which established the fact that a period of 
time much greater than any which had before been thought 
of had elapsed since the first human occupation of the earth. 
The chronologies of Archbishop Usher, Petavius, Bossuet, 
and the other great authorities on which theology had 
securely leaned, were found worthless. It was clearly seen 
that, no matter how well based upon the Old Testament 
genealogies and lives of the patriarchs, all these systems 

* See Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 475. 



FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 24 1 

must go for nothing. The most conservative geologists were 
gradually obliged to admit that man had been upon the 
earth not merely six thousand, or sixty thousand, or one 
hundred and sixty thousand years. And when, in 1863, Sir 
Charles Lyell, in his book on Tlie Antiquity 0/ Man, retracted 
solemnly his earlier view — yielding with a reluctance almost 
pathetic, but with a thoroughness absolutely convincing — 
the last stronghold of orthodoxy in this field fell.* 

The supporters of a theory based upon the letter of 
Scripture, who had so long taken the offensive, were now 
obliged to fight upon the defensive and at fearful odds. 
Various lines of defence were taken ; but perhaps the most 
pathetic effort was that made in the year 1857, in England, 
by Gosse. As a naturalist he had rendered great services 
to zoological science, but he now concentrated his energies 
upon one last effort to save the literal interpretation of 
Genesis and the theological structure built upon it. In his 
work entitled Omphalos he developed the theory previously 
urged by Granville Penn, and asserted a new principle 
called " prochronism." In accordance with this, all things 
were created by the Almighty hand literally within the six 
days, each made up of " the evening and the morning," and 
each great branch of creation was brought into existence in 
an instant. Accepting a declaration of Dr. Ure, that " neither 
reason nor revelation will justify us in extending the origin 
of the material system beyond six thousand years from our 
own days," Gosse held that all the evidences of convulsive 
changes and long epochs in strata, rocks, minerals, and 
fossils are simply ** appearances " — only that and nothing 
more. Among these mere " appearances," all created simul- 
taneously, were the glacial furrows and scratches on rocks, 
the marks of retreat on rocky masses, as at Niagara, the 
tilted and twisted strata, the piles of lava from extinct vol- 
canoes, the fossils of every sort in every part of the earth, 
the foot-tracks of birds and reptiles, the half-digested re- 
mains of weaker animals found in the fossilized bodies of the 

• See Prof. Marsh's address as President of the Society for the Advancement of 
Science, in 1879 ; and for a development of the matter, see the chapters on The 
Antiquity of Man and Egyptology and The Fall of Man and Anthropology^ in this 
work. 

17 



ntoM c^Exras to gsxmjogt. 

stronger, the marks of hjenas* teeth oo fossiliyrd bones found 
in rarious cares, and eren the skeleton of the Siberian mam- 
moth at St. Petersburg with lamps of flesh bearing the marks 
of volrcs* teeth — all these, with all gaps and imperfections, 
he orged mankind to beUere came into being in an instant 
The preface of the work is eq>eciallT touching, and it ends 
with the prayer that science and Scripture mar be recoociled 
bj his theorr, smd ** that the God of truth will deign so to 
use it, and if he do, to him be all the glory." * At the dose 
of the whole book Gosse declared : ** The field is left clear 
and undisputed for the one witness on the c^>posite side, 
whose testimony is as follows: ' In six days Jehovah made 
hearen and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.' " This 
quotation he placed in capital letters, as the final refutation 
of all that the science of geology had builL 

In other parts of Europe desperate attempts were made 
even later to save the letter of our sacred books bv the re- 
vival of a theory in some respects more striking. To shape 
this theory to recent needs, vague reminiscences of a text in 
Job regarding fire beneath the earth, and vague conceptions 
of speculations made by Humboldt and Laplace, were min- 
gled with Jewish tradition. Out of the mixture thus obtained 
Schubert developed the idea that the Satanic " principalities 
and powers" formerly inhabiting our universe plunged it 
into the chaos from which it was newly created by a process 
accurately described in Genesis. Rougemont made the 
earth one of the " morning stars " of Job, reduced to chaos 
by Lucifer and his followers, and thence developed in ac- 
cordance with the nebular hypothesis. Kurtz evolved from 
this theory an opinion that the geological disturbances were 
caused by the opposition of the devil to the rescue of our 
universe from chaos by the Almighty. Delitzsch put a simi- 
lar idea into a more scholastic jargon ; but most desperate 
of all were the statements of Dr. Anton Westcrmeyer, of 
Munich, in TA/ Old Testament vindicated from Modem Infidel 
Objections. The following passage will serve to show his 



♦ See Gossc, Omphalos, London. 1857, p. 5. and passim ; and for a passage 
giving the keynote of the whole, with a most fardcal note oo coprolites, see pp. 

353i 354. 



FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 



243 



Ideas : " By the fructifying brooding of the Divine Spirit on 
the waters of the deep, creative forces began to stir; the 
devils who inhabited the primeval darkness and considered 
it their own abode saw that they were to be driven from 
their possessions, or at least that their place of habitation 
was to be contracted, and they therefore tried to frustrate 
God's plan of creation and exert all that remained to them 
of might and power to hinder or at least to mar the new 
creation." So came into being " the horrible and destruc- 
tive monsters, these caricatures and distortions of creation," 
of which we have fossil remains. Dr. Westermeyer goes on 
to insist that *' whole generations called into existence by 
God succumbed to the corruption of the devil, and for that 
reason had to be destroyed " ; and that " in the work of the 
six days God caused the devil to feel his power in all ear- 
nest, and made Satafi's enterprise appear miserable and 
vain."* f'-' '-T I r 0' . 

Such was the last important assault upon the strongholds 
of geological science in Germany ; and, in view of this and 
others of the same kind, it is little to be wondered at that 
when, in 1870, Johann Silberschlag made an attempt to again 
base geology upon the Deluge of Noah, he found such diffi- 
culties that, in a touching passage, he expressed a desire to 
get back to the theory that fossils were "sports of Na- 
ture." t 

But the most noted among efforts to keep geology well 
within the letter of Scripture is of still more recent date. In 
the year 1885 Mr. Gladstone found time, amid all his labours 
and cares as the greatest parliamentary leader in England, 
to take the field in the struggle for the letter of Genesis 
against geology. ' ' < / .,. 

On the face of it his effort seemed Quixotic, for he con- 
fessed at the outset that in science he was " utterly destitute 
of that kind of knowledge which carries authority," and his 
argument soon showed that this confession was entirely 
true. 



• See Shiclds's Final Philosophy, pp. 340 et seq., and Rcusch's Nature and thi 
BibU (English translation, 1886), vol. i, pp. 318-320. 
f See Reasch, vol. i, p. 264. 



244 



nam gushsis to gechjogt. 



But be had some other qualities of vhicfa much might be 
expected: great skill in phrasc-making, great shrewdness 
in adapting the meanings of single words to ^^rwiflirtipg 
necessities in discussion, wonderful power in erecting showj 
structures of argument upon the smallest basis ai fact, and a 
facility almost preternatural in ** explaining awaj "* trouble- 
some realities. So striking was his power in this last respect, 
that a humorous London chronicler once advised a bigamist, 
as his only hope, to induce Mr. Gladstone to explain avaj 
one of his wires. ^ 

At the basis of this theok^co-geological structure Mr. 
Gladstone placed what he found in the text of Genesis: ^ A 
grand fourfold division ** of animated Nature *^ set forth in 
an orderly succession of times.'* And he arranged this order 
and succession of creation as follows : *^ First, the water popu- 
lation ; secondly, the air population ; thirdly, the land popu- 
lation of animals ; fourthly, the land population consummated 
in man." 

His next step was to slide in upon this basis the appar- 
ently harmless proposition that this division and sequence 
" is understood to have been so affirmed in our time by nat- 
ural science that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclu- 
sion and established fact" 

Finally, upon these foundations he proceeded to build an 
argument out of the coincidences thus secured between the 
record in the Hebrew sacred books and the truths revealed 
by science as regards this order and sequence, and he easily 
arrived at the desired conclusion with which he crowned the 
whole structure, namely, as regards the writer of Genesis, 
that " his knowledge was divine." * 

Such was the skeleton of the structure; it was abun- 
dantly decorated with the rhetoric in which Mr. Gladstone 
is so skilful an artificer, and it towered above "the average 
man " as a structure beautiful and invincible — like some Chi- 
nese fortress in the nineteenth century, faced with porcelain 
and defended with crossbows. 

Its strength was soon seen to be unreal. In an essay ad- 

• Sec Mr. Gladstone's Daitm of Creation and Worship^ a reply to Dr. ReTiOe, 
in the Nineteenth Century for November, 1885. 



FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 



245 



mirable in its temper, overwhelming in its facts, and abso- 
lutely convincing in its argument. Prof. Huxley, late Presi- 
dent of the Royal Society, and doubtless the most eminent 
contemporary authority on the scientific questions con- 
cerned, took up the matter. 

Mr. Gladstone's first proposition, that the sacred writings 
g^ve us a great " fourfold division " created " in an orderly 
succession of times," Prof. Huxley did not presume to gainsay. 

As to Mr. Gladstone's second proposition, that "this 
great fourfold division . . . created in an orderly succession 
of times . . . has been so affirmed in our own time by nat- 
ural science that it may be taken as a demonstrated con- 
clusion and established fact," Prof. Huxley showed that, as 
a matter of fact, no such " fourfold division " and " orderlv 
succession " exist ; that, so far from establishing Mr. Glad- 
stone's assumption that the population of water, air, and land 
followed each other in the order given, ** all the evidence we 
possess goes to prove that they did not " ; that the distribu- 
tion of fossils through the various strata proves that some 
land animals originated before sea animals; that there has 
been a mixing of sea, land, and air " population " utterly de- 
structive to the " great fourfold division " and to the creation 
" in an orderly succession of times " ; that, so far is the view 
presented in the sacred text, as stated by Mr. Gladstone, 
from having been " so affirmed in our own time by natural 
science, that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion 
and established fact " that Mr. Gladstone's assertion is " di- 
rectly contradictory to facts known to every one who is ac- 
quainted with the elements of natural science " ; that Mr. 
Gladstone's only geological authority, Cuvier, had died more 
than fifty years before, when geological science was in its 
infancy [and he might have added, when it was necessary 
to make every possible concession to the Church] ; and, 
finally, he challenged Mr. Gladstone to produce any contem- 
porary authority in geological science who would support 
his so-called scriptural view. And when, in a rejoinder, Mr. 
Gladstone attempted to support his view on the authority of 
Prof. Dana, Prof. Huxley had no difficulty in showing from 
Prof. Dana's works that Mr. Gladstone's inference was ut- 
terly unfounded. 



2^ rauom gzsiss to ceoloct. 

Bixc W2ile tne £iaric reared br Hr. Gladstane had bcca 
th.Q£§ nnrfrrrnfmrfi bj HaxLer oa tixe ^" i rnfi i i c sidc^ aii^>rtifr 
099000^ bc^^a. aa attack froox rise biblical side Tb 
Rerr. Caaoa Drirer, processor at Mr. GfadsUXie's on Ub- 
Tcr^T oC Oxft'jcd^ took op the qorsrion io the I%iit Gf scrip- 
tor^I ssxerpretat&jA. la regard to the cooiparatiTe tafak 
drsLwa sp bj Sir J. W. Dawson, sbovia^ the supposed 
oofrespoodezbcc between the scripciiral and the gcologkal 
order oc crreatkwi, Canoo DriTer said : ** The two series are 
eridentl J at ▼ariaoce. The geological record cnotains do 
eridence ci ckarij dc^oed periods ccHTCspoodiiig to tbe 
* dzrs ' oi Genesis. In Gcness, r^etation is complete two 
dajs before animal file appears^ Geologj shows that ther 
appear amuhaneooslT^-eTen if animal life does not appear 
first. In Genesis, birds appear together with aquatic crea- 
tures, and precede all land animals ; accordii^ to the evi- 
dence of geOfOgy, birds are unknown till a period much later 
than that at which aquatic creatures (including fishes and 
amphibia; abound, and thej are preceded bj numerous spe- 
cies of land animals — ^in particular, bj insects and other 
' creeping things.' " Of the Mosaic account of the existence 
of vegetation before the creation of the sun. Canon Drircr 
said, '* No reconciliation of this representation with the data 
of science has yet been found " ; and again : " From all that 
has been said, however reluctant we mav be to make the ad- 
mission, only one conclusion seems possible. Read without 
prejudice or bias, the narrative of Genesis i. creates an im- 
pression at variance with the facts revealed by science." 
The eminent professor ends by saying that the eflforts at 
reconciliation are "different modes of obliterating the char- 
acteristic features of Genesis, and of reading into it a view 
which it docs not express." 

Thus fell Mr. Gladstone's fabric of coincidences between 
the *'^rcat fourfold division " in Genesis and the facts asccr- 
taincd by geology. Prof. Huxley had shattered the scien- 
tific parts of the structure, Prof. Driver had removed its 
biblical foundations, and the last great fortress of the 
opponents of unfettered scientific investigation was in 
ruins. 

In opposition to all such attempts we may put a noble 



FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE. 247 

utterance by a clergyman who has probably done more to 
save what is essential in Christianity among English-speak- 
ing people than any other ecclesiastic of his time. The late 
Dean of Westminster, Dr. Arthur Stanley, was widely 
known and beloved on both continents. In his memorial 
sermon after the funeral of Sir Charles Lyell he said : " It is 
now clear to diligent students of the Bible that the first and 
second chapters of Genesis contain two narratives of the 
creation side by side, differing from each other in almost 
every particular of time and place and order. It is well 
known that, when the science of geology first arose, it was 
involved in endless schemes of attempted reconciliation with 
the letter of Scripture. There were, there are perhaps still, 
two modes of reconciliation of Scripture and science, which 
have been each in their day attempted, and each has totally 
and deservedly failed. One is the endeavour to wrest the 
words of the Bible from their natural meaning ?LX\di force it to 
speak the language of science'' And again, speaking of the 
earliest known example, which was the interpolation of the 
word " not " in Leviticus xi, 6, he continues : " This is the 
earliest instance of the falsification of Scripture to meet the de- 
mands of science ; and it has been followed in later times by 
the various efforts which have been made to twist the earlier 
chapters of the book of Genesis into apparent agreement with 
the last results of geology — representing days not to be 
days, morning and evening not to be morning and even- 
ing, the Deluge not to be the Deluge, and the ark not to be 
the ark." 

After a statement like this we may fitly ask, Which is 
the more likely to strengthen Christianity for its work in 
the twentieth century which we are now about to enter — 
a large, manly, honest, fearless utterance like this of Arthur 
Stanley, or hair-splitting sophistries, bearing in their every 
line the germs of failure, like those attempted by Mr. Glad- 
stone ? 

The world is finding that the scientific revelation of crea- 
tion is ever more and more in accordance with worthy con- ) 
ceptions of that great Power working in and through the ^] 
universe. More and more it is seen that inspiration has 
never ceased, and that its prophets and priests are not those 



248 



FROM GENESIS TO GEOIjOGT. 



vbo work to fit the letter of its older literature to the needs 
of dogmas and sects, bat those, aboTe all others, who f»- 
tientlT, fearlesslT, and rererentlT derote themselves to the 
search for truth as truth, in the faith that there is a Power in 
the universe wise enough to make truth-seeking safe and 
good enough to make truth-telling usef uL* 

far iSSS" 

m Tit Ex. 




CHAPTER VI. 

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, EGYPTOLOGY, AND 

ASSYRIOLOGY. 



I. THE SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 

In the great ranges of investigation which bear most 
directly upon the origin of man, there are two in which 
Science within the last few years has gained final victories. 
The significance of these in changing, and ultimately in re- 
versing, one of the greatest currents of theological thought, 
can hardly be overestimated ; not even the tide set in motion 
by Cusa, Copernicus, and Galileo was more powerful to 
bring in a new epoch of belief. 

The first of these conquests relates to the antiquity of 
man on the earth. 

The fathers of the early Christian Church, receiving all 
parts of our sacred books as equally inspired, laid little, if 
any, less stress on the myths, legends, genealogies, and tribal, 
family, and personal traditions contained in the Old and the 
New Testaments, than upon the most powerful appeals, the 
most instructive apologues, and the most lofty poems of 
prophets, psalmists, and apostles. As to the age of our 
planet and the life of man upon it, they found in the Bible a 
carefully recorded series of periods, extending from Adam 
to the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, the length of 
each period being explicitly given. 

Thus they had a biblical chronology — full, consecutive, 
and definite— extending from the first man created to an 
event of known date well within ascertained profane his- 
tory ; as a result, the early Christian commentators arrived 
at conclusions varying somewhat, but in the main agree- 

249 



M~ :^ . y.ii-n:.::. :: . i::i- -i-/v v.^.- Duiii il t 5::r: t 
iir.: . : !:--_ * :::r . S-^:-^ ^1-1* iTiiic i.r m?: a? in* 5;v;i 
j-:i.-;t •:.-:«:.• :::- -^: z^'i-^.z vtr"t i i:x nt-iL "i: z*rr\'t '-t 
z:m^\^..z ^'.'zr. ::-— •"tii." :-. nir- ^w., "lup u:i:>u: iij* ^ltii. 
?: r V .i.- :i:: ::^- :;:: ii: z:^ -> .: r-trai: ii. Tirefiiri:"'t-i six 
■::..:^f— :.: • -i-"".- .:.:-::^ v:..j: i:- cli—.i ii it.- fir-r. ::)nL vis 

11-' r*!."^"^. II": .*r.'.".I Tilllin. I— il TTIt; HI III* Sisni. TT'" f*- 

."^I'y.' 11"" ii-ii*."!"* 1 " ' — ■ •i'~"'~ii**'"'ii" v~'"ii «iit T^m * ' *ii* "^^ T ^ 

V'llI 11. 1 ^ ~» »ir 1 1 r ' li ^^I .1 ~ ' '"-11 ""r 

-^ •— - -,^" — - --— ~T- ••—--1- T.-i — *"t I"* «T-* r_""«- "•"■"r-^r** 

,. . - — ._ -..— - ■_ -. --.- ^r.~l-^IlllT CI. lillZ ^I If- 



'• - - — ■ ■— - " ■ , . ■ ■' : ?*!.■.!'.. l.T ." -t-llll 'lif. 1.7 r*f ir 

^. -. .- .^ - -^ ■ . " "* : .," 1... " "i *-- liT.l. 1! lir I'-^SlUl'llS 1- 

^. . . ....... .... - ■ • ,- y-.i -i*' - ^H 

^ . . ■ 

^ '^ .r^..--. .1-*.. . ^'.1 . «'. k 4^.w 

^^ ■.«■ ■-■ -»^.i..--T'*»,* ^^'••'^._ 



THE SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 



251 



Philastrius, the friend of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, 
whose feariul catalogue of heresies served as a guide to in- 
tolerance throughout the Middle Ages, ^^ondemned with the 
same holy horror those who expressed doubt as to the ortho- 
dox number of years since the beginning of the world, and 
those who doubted an earthquake to be the literal voice of 
an angry God, or who questioned the plurality of the heav- 
ens, or who gainsaid the statement that God brings out the 
stars from his treasures and hangs them up in the solid 
firmament above the earth every night. 

About the beginning of the seventh century Isidore of 
Seville, the great theologian of his time, took up the subject. 
He accepted the dominant view not only of Hebrew but of 
all other chronologies, without anything like real criticism. 
The childlike faith of his system may be imagined from his 
summaries which follow. He tells us: 

" Joseph lived one hundred and five years. Greece be- 
gan to cultivate grain/* 

" The Jews were in slavery in Egypt one hundred and 
forty-four years. Atlas discovered astrology." 

** Joshua ruled for twenty -seven years. Ericthonius yoked 
horses together.** • 

'* Othniel, forty years. Cadmus introduced letters into 
Greece." 

" Deborah, forty years. Apollo discovered the art of 
medicine and invented the cithara." 

"Gideon, forty years. Mercury invented the lyre and 
gave it to Orpheus.'* 

Reasoning in this general way, Isidore kept well under 
the longer date ; and, the great theological authority of 
southern Europe having thus spoken, the question was vir- 
tually at rest throughout Christendom for nearly a hundred 
years. 

Early in the eighth century the Venerable Bede took up 
the problem. Dwelling especially upon the received He- 
brew text of the Old Testament, he soon entangled himself 
in very serious difficulties ; but, in spite of the great fathers 
of the first three centuries, he reduced the antiquity of man 
on the earth by nearly a thousand years, and, in spite of 
mutterings against him as coming dangerously near a limit 



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-ttr.jrr^ nut ^r"22r: wBryriri ant dit nncn: -n ix 




j;srt ^r ruic HiiL ibiits: -soiiirniiiiift wack iinrjiiififr ^i* fonr lo 

vr^ssU'jL 'X TLxtcL k: icicvcc iunT txinisamf TfSETs bcaarr nnr criu* 

Ai tint: Kin'«rnaci:ii. lis -nsrw »is no: iscizrbed. T*e 

vesut Tusarutz 'jc atrggcrng "^^e «crsf i=c vinrai jfd Lacier. 



o;j5>VKr t:ie C',c>2nn2a. liimrr. itsf likcas irmhr 311 lii 
'X'jryjrtl rrLr'jiM'jyjzj "^ '^kJtrrnsjt ^mi& smmDfjf icir tics: br 

^nj^^' y^*:'j£Zjrjzj'j:s'x^ zz^jr*: ^tlm^^ ZLXtd lb* cr^EiticBa £C rr.2i 



tk/ h'AU t 71^ CtrnZTrnftfrcry /irrm i'jt Aprl. zh'^ Far a»e daa rf miz's 
'^r^tt/r-r jf! y"r*-L •-•» jf-fcCJiif di3-yir:w'-5:22Ci ir Txri:«i» brxxir^kcs c£ iS^ ChxrdL, see 
/, /f r/ ^ r/riCrr U: Osit:, PsTiL. :•:>. vu. 1. p;^ r: rt" jcr. la :i» fcirMTr liiere 
».'* v.-.-'.'n •T;r>^ri.:A-.'jiI *:Trx\ : trjifpirc "■"-ti W ^lnrr . Trme Agr rf the iTr^^d, 
\y/'^yr, :\i^ Ai rv './r*i.*rr*:ii'jit fcr tbc ^icgrr coBEprurkiE bj li* fiz^en c£ tie 
r . .^.-.:- ^^^ *,..'L"/r.. f2:U IliLenin, t-jL ii. r- 2:jl- Foff lije sftcred s%id5c«iice cf 
•»^. V / -: -i7 » '/ '.r«a-'>or, :z. ti.'j»rr-£j:i!i5 tii« xrtirxirr of mir. see espeoalh- F i ctea . 
f^rtrh^hu drr mituUUcrhi iun IVeUanirkaxtm^ ; alio Waiiace. T^mr j€^ tf the 

iV^^U '.r^. 2. 5- f '>f 't^. r,f:m% of Sl Attg^tiiiae, see Topiinrd. Amtkrjftii/yp^, 
t:.*,'V ".^. fJf Ctv. IJri.. ]:rj. %r:^ c rili. IHi. x.i, c x. For tbe riews of P1i2»tn«s, 
vi^ ••^ /y-' //^re:ihu:, c ."^^r?. I J 2. ft f-dzrim, in Mignc, to«ne lii. For Evsebiss's 
*irn*A»- '/f»A.\ *y. y^t X'w: *ji}/.*r% :a P^lit^^ E^tiam Ckr^^muUi^ tcL ii, pp. S2S, 
ti/f f'/f />']«:, v^^ I/h*rr\ Chrcm^Joj^ia Si^ra, cited in Wjdlace. Trme Affe ef tke 

H^oriJ, \, 'j« F '/f I ^JOort of Scrl.le, iec the Etjmchgia, lib. ▼. c 39 ; also lib. iii. 



THE SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 253 

But the great Christian scholars continued the old en- 
deavour to make the time of man's origin more precise : there 
seems to have been a sort of fascination in the subject which 
developed a long array of chronologists, all weighing the 
minutest indications in our sacred books, until the Protestant 
divine De Vignolles, who had given forty years to the study 
of biblical chronology, declared in 1738 that he had gathered 
no less than two hundred computations based upon Scrip- 
ture, and no two alike. 

As to the Roman Church, about 1580 there was published, 
by authority of Pope Gregory XIII, the Roman Martyrol- 
ogyi and this, both as originally published and as revised in 
1640 under Pope Urban VIII, declared that the creation of 
man took place 5199 years before Christ. 

But of all who gave themselves up to these chronological 
studies, the man who exerted the most powerful influence 
upon the dominant nations of Christendom was Archbishop 
Usher. In 1650 he published his Annals of the Ancient and 
New Testaments, and it at once became the greatest authority 
for all English-speaking peoples. Usher was a man of deep 
and wide theological learning, powerful in controversy ; and 
bis careful conclusion, after years of the most profound study 
of the Hebrew Scriptures, was that man was created 4004 
years before the Christian era. His verdict was widely re- 
ceived as final ; his dates were inserted in the margins of the 
authorized version of the English Bible, and were soon prac- 
tically regarded as equally inspired with the sacred text 
itself : to question them seriously was to risk preferment in 
the Church and reputation in the world at large. 

The same adhesion to the Hebrew Scriptures which had 
influenced Usher brought leading men of the older Church 
to the same view : men who would have burned each other 
at the stake for their differences on other points, agreed on 
this: Melanchthon and Tostatus, Lightfootand Jansen, Sal- 
meron and Scaliger, Petavius and Kepler, inquisitors and 
reformers, Jesuits and Jansenists, priests and rabbis, stood 
together in the belief that the creation of man was proved 
by Scripture to have taken place between 3900 and 4004 
years before Christ. 

In spite of the severe pressure of this line of authorities, 



r ^ 



r;4 THE ANTIOUITY OF MAN. 

fxT'.-ndin^ froin St. Jerome and Eusebius lo Usher ari:?:- 
T:*vijs. i:i :a\7:iur of this scriptural chrc>riojc»g*v. ever cev.tc 
L'r.:-2-:i:in scholars had srimetimes felt i>Liii:red ir- rrv;.*.. 
Tin v.Ti^: c-'ja: source of diflBcultv was increased knpwit"^ 
:-.j:;^:::::j the Eiryj»tian monuments. As far back as Tbeiis: 
v:..r> •: the sixteenth century Joseph Scalicer had ci:nf 
u Tiu: r.e :■ *uld to lay the foundaii-ims c»f a mcire srirniii: 
:-:•:.:::■:■:.: rr chron.Hojry. insisting especially that :ht hiy 
: ■:■..:.. ::i.:i.-:i:i.»ns in Persia, in Babvlon. and abcve ;.".". i: 
.:\:': >:}.r^:Z be brousrht to bear on the questior:. M:Tt 
:.:.:. ::C :;;id the boldness to urge that the chron:»l:»di 
:: ■:.> •: the Hebrew Scriptures should be iuV.x z:i 
\ .::>r:issed in the light of Egyptian and other re:- 
\x •::.-;;: a:.y undue bias from theological consider:;- 
^l.^ -.j-a Tr.::y well be called inspired : vet it had iirJf 
..- •■:-i:L:-..> a true view of the antiquity of man. fvf: 
: ::.>: .: : -r the Theological bias prevailed above a!'. :.;? 
..:.^> :v:r. :r. his own mind. Well does a briWizni 
: u * .:: • :.:•: \:,-i tririt. ** among the muln'Tude c»i strorx 
'. : •:. ::r.-»fs abdicating their reason at the c.-ni- 
■- ' : -: .-.^irs. Joseph Scaliger is perha:-s ::.t 



: IN 



N ^ 



V 

\ 



.. .' »» . 



w ::.c rertii-y Sir Walter Raleigh, ir bi? 
:o::-:::f'. pointed out the danger:-: 

- >•: r: He. too. foresaw one of the rt- 
:-:.j^..:; r.. stating it in these words 

. • ; : :::: inspirati- »n : " For in Abn- 

■ ; : <: . WT tians o! the world were de- 

• . - r..:.-v niagnincent cities. . . . and 

- ...^ : ..: :: hewn stone, . . . which 

-.-::::: r:i:-rt antiquity than these 

-■ ^'.'^v :»! these consideratinns 

. . cv :•: the Septuagint version. 

•:i :\-^Tr.j.n race a few core 

■: >: \;:::'rnth centurv Isaac Vos- 

- . :•: >.T .'".irs o! Christ en d (. 'm. at- 

■ o: ^: . : : ir-t:* closer accordance 

, N ..>.;: V u chosen few. his ei- 

. . ..*:> .: E*-rope a man holding 



THE SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 255 

new views on chronology was by no means safe from bodily 
harm. As an example of the extreme pressure exerted by 
the old theological system at times upon honest scholars, we 
may take the case of La Peyrfere, who about the middle of 
the seventeenth century put forth his book on the Pre- 
Adamites — an attempt to reconcile sundry well-known diffi- 
culties in Scripture by claiming that man existed on earth 
before the time of Adam. He was taken in hand at once ; 
great theologians rushed forward to attack him from all 
parts of Europe ; within fifty years thirty-six different refu- 
tations of his arguments had appeared ; the Parliament of 
Paris burned the book, and the Grand Vicar of the archdio- 
cese of Mechlin threw him into prison and kept him there 
until he was forced, not only to retract his statements, but to 
abjure his Protestantism. 

In England, opposition to the growing truth was hardly 
less earnest. Especially strong was Pearson, afterward Mas- 
ter of Trinity and Bishop of Chester. In his treatise on the 
Creed, published in 1659, which has remained a theologic 
classic, he condemned those who held the earth to be more 
than fifty-six hundred years old, insisted that the first man 
was created just six days later, declared that the Egyptian 
records were forged, and called all Christians to turn from 
them to " the infallible annals of the Spirit of God." 

But, in spite of warnings like these, we see the new idea 
cropping out in various parts of Europe. In 1672, Sir John 
Marsham published a work in which he showed himself bold 
and honest. After describing the heathen sources of Orien- 
tal history, he turns to the Christian writers, and, having 
used the history of Egypt to show that the great Church 
authorities were not exact, he ends one important argument 
with the following words : " Thus the most interesting an- 
tiquities of Egypt have been involved in the deepest obscu- 
rity by the very interpreters of her chronology, who have 
jumbled everything up (gut omnia susque deque pcrmiscueruni\ 
so as to make them match with their own reckonings of He- 
brew chronology. Truly a very bad example, and quite un- 
worthy of religious writers." 

This sturdy protest of Sir John against the dominant sys- 
tem and against the "jumbling" by which Eusebius had 



256 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 

endeavoured to cut down ancient chronology within safe and 
sound orthodox limits, had little eSecL Though eminent 
chronologists of the eighteenth century, like Jackson, Hales, 
and Drummond, gave forth multitudes of ponderous vol- 
umes pleading for a period somewhat longer than that gen- 
erally allowed, and insisting that the received Hebrew text 
was grossly vitiated as regards chronolc^y, even this i>oor 
favour was refused them ; the mass of believers found it 
more comfortable to hold fast the faith committed to them 
by Usher, and it remained settled that man was created 
about four thousand years before our era. 

To those who wished even greater precision, Dr. John 
Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, 
the great rabbinical scholar of his time, gave his famous 
demonstration from our sacred books that ** heaven and 
earth, centre and circumference, were created together, in 
the same instant, and clouds full of water," and that " this 
work took place and man was created by the Trinity on the 
twenty-third of October, 4004 B. c, at nine o'clock in the 
morning." 

This tide of theological reasoning rolled on through the 
eighteenth century, swollen by the biblical researches of 
leading commentators, Catholic and Protestant, until it came 
in much majesty and force into our own nineteenth century. 
At the very beginning of the century it gained new strength 
from various great men in the Church, among whom may 
be especially named Dr. Adam Clarke, who declared that, 
" to preclude the possibility of a mistake, the unerring Spirit 
of God directed Moses in the selection of his facts and the 
ascertaining of his dates." 

All opposition to the received view seemed broken down, 
and as late as 1835 — indeed, as late as 1850— came an announce- 
ment in the work of one of the most eminent Egyptologists, 
Sir J. G. Wilkinson, to the effect that he had modified the 
results he had obtained from Egyptian monuments, in order 
that his chronology might not interfere with the received 
date of the Deluge of Noah.* 

• For Lightfoot, see his ProUgometia relating to the age of the world at the birth 
of Christ ; see also in the edition of his works, London, 1822, vol. iv, pp. 64, 112. 
For Scaliger, see the De Emendations Temporum^ 1583 ; also Mark Pattison, Es^ 



THE NEW CHRONOLOGY. 



257 



II. THE NEW CHRONOLOGY. 



But all investigators were not so docile as Wilkinson, and 
there soon came a new train of scientific thought which rap- 
idly undermined all this theological chronology. Not to 
speak of other noted men, we have early in the present cen- 
tury Young, Champollion, and Rosellini, beginning a new 
epoch in the study of the Egyptian monuments. Nothing 
could be more cautious than their procedure, but the evi- 
dence was soon overwhelming in favour of a vastly longer 
existence of man in the Nile Valley than could be made to 
agree with even the longest duration then allowed by theo- 
logians. 

For, in spite of all the suppleness of men like Wilkinson, 
it became evident that, whatever system of scriptural chro- 
nology was adopted, Egypt was the seat of a flourishing civ- 
ilization at a period before the " Flood of Noah," and that no 
such flood had ever interrupted it. This was bad, but worse 
remained behind : it was soon clear that the civilization of 
Egypt began earlier than the time assigned for the creation 
of man, even according to the most liberal of the sacred 
chronologists. 

As time went on, this became more and more evident. 
The long duration assigned to human civilization in the frag- 
ments of Manetho, the Egyptian scribe at Thebes in the third 
century B. C, was discovered to be more accordant with truth 
than the chronologies of the great theologians ; and, as the 

says^ Oxford, 1889, vol. i, pp. 162 et seq. For Raleigh's misgivings, see his History 
of thi Worlds London, 1614, p. 227, book ii of part i, section 7 of chapter i ; also Clin- 
ton's FasH HelUniciy vol. ii, p. 293. For Usher, see his AnnaUs Vet. et Nov, Test,^ 
London, 165a For Pearson, see his Exposition of the Creeds sixth edition, London, 
1692, pp. 59 et seq. For Marsham, see his Chronicus Canon yEgypticus^ Eh'aicus^ 
GracuSf et Disquisitiones, London, 1672. For La Peyr^re, see especially Quatre- 
fages, in Revue des Deux Mondes for 1861 ; also other chapters in this work. For 
Jackson, Hales, and others, see Wallace's True Age of the World, For Wilkin- 
son, see \-arious editions of his work on Egypt. For Vignolles, see Leblois, vol. iii, 
p. 617. As to the declarations in favour of the recent origin of man, sanctioned by 
Popes Gregory XIII and Urban VIII, see Strauchius, cited in Wallace, p. 97. For 
the general agreement of Church authorities, as stated, see LArt de Verifier les 
Dates^ as above. As to difficulties of scriptural chronology, see Ewald, History of 
Israel^ English translation, London, 1883, pp. 204 et seq, 
18 



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Tfr,;^rj% to tr:>: m^its prtceciiiz. tie nr:i 
vsho^ar* Laire y^:dsixd tbc^selres tiat t: 
of M^Ty^rtho rtrprcsKit the irork of a niaa boocst aad wc3 in- 
forrr.-^/i, a::.'i, after ciakirL^ all alLowarjocs for discrrpazicics 
ar,d the ov^sxlapping of reigns, it has bccocic ckar that the 
\f^'vA Vi^iiKXi as the rei^n of Mena must be fixed at more 
than three thotisand rears B. c. In this the great Egxptolo- 
givU of our time concur. Mariette, the eminent French au- 
tr;oritr, puts the date at 5304 B. c; Brugsch. the leading 
0<:rrr;an authority, puts it at about 4500 B. c ; and Meyer, 



THE NEW CHRONOLOGY. 



259 



the latest and most cautious of the historians of antiquity, de- 
clares 3180 B. c. the latest possible date that can be assigned 
it. With these dates the foremost English authorities, Sayce 
and Flinders Petrie, substantially agree. This view is also 
confirmed on astronomical grounds by Mr. Lockyer, the 
Astronomer Royal. We have it, then, as the result of a 
century of work by the most acute and trained Egyptolo- 
gfists, and with the inscriptions upon the temples and papyri 
before them, both of which are now read with as much 
facility as many mediaeval manuscripts, that the reign of 
Mena must be placed more than five thousand years ago. 

But the significance of this conclusion can not be fully 
understood until we bring into connection with it some 
other facts revealed by the Egyptian monuments. 

The first of these is that which struck Sir Walter Raleigh, 
that, even in the time of the first dynasties in the Nile Val- 
ley, a high civilization had already been developed- Take, 
first, man himself : we find sculptured upon the early monu- 
ments types of the various races — Egyptians, Israelites, ne- 
groes, and Libyans — as clearly distinguishable in these paint- 
ings and sculptures of from four to six thousand years ago 
as the same types are at the present day. No one can look 
at these sculptures upon the Egyptian monuments, or even 
the drawings of them, as gfiven by Lepsius or Prisse 
d'Avennes, without being convinced that they indicate, even 
at that remote period, a difference of races so marked that 
long previous ages must have been required to produce it. 

The social condition of Egypt revealed in these early 
monuments of art forces us to the same conclusion. Those 
earliest monuments show that a very complex society had 
even then been developed. We not only have a separation 
between the priestly and military orders, but agricultur- 
ists, manufacturers, and traders, with a whole series of sub- 
divisions in each of these classes. The early tombs show us 
sculptured and painted representations of a daily life which 
even then had been developed into a vast wealth and variety 
of grades, forms, and usages. 

Take, next, the political and military condition. One fact 
out of many reveals a policy which must have been the re- 
suit of long experience. Just as now, at the end of the nine- 



26o THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 

teenth century, the British Government, having found that 
they can not rely upon the native Egyptians for the protec- 
tion of the country, are drilling the negroes from the interior 
of Africa as soldiers, so the celebrated inscription of Prince 
Una, as far back as the sixth dynasty, speaks of the Maksi 
or negroes levied and drilled by tens of thousands for the 
Egyptian army. 

Take, next, engineering. Here we find very early opera- 
tions in the way of canals, dikes, and great public edifices, 
so bold in conception and thorough in execution as to fill 
our greatest engineers of these days with astonishment. 
The quarrying, conveyance, cutting, jointing, and polishing 
of the enormous blocks in the interior of the Great Pyramid 
alone are the marvel of the foremost stone-workers of our 
century. 

As regards architecture, we find not only the pyramids, 
which date from the very earliest period of Egyptian his- 
tory, and which are to this hour the wonder of the world 
for size, for boldness, for exactness, and for skilful contriv- 
ance, but also the temples, with long ranges of colossal col- 
umns wrought in polished granite, with wonderful beauty 
of ornamentation, with architraves and roofs vast in size and 
exquisite in adjustment, which by their proportions tax the 
imagination, and lead the beholder to ask whether all this 
can be real. 

As to sculpture, we have not only the great Sphinx of 
Gizeh, so marvellous in its boldness and dignity, dating from 
the very first period of Egyptian history, but we have ranges 
of sphinxes, heroic statues, and bas-reliefs, showing that even 
in the early ages this branch of art had reached an amazing 
development 

As regards the perfection of these, Liibke, the most emi- 
nent German authority on plastic art, referring to the early 
works in the tombs about Memphis, declares that, " as monu- 
ments of the period of the fourth dynasty, they are an evi- 
dence of the high perfection to which the sculpture of the 
Egyptians had attained." Brugsch declares that "every 
artistic production of those early days, whether picture, 
writing, or sculpture, bears the stamp of the highest perfec- 
tion in art." Maspero, the most eminent French authority 



THE NEW CHRONOLOGY. 26 1 

in this field, while expressing his belief that the Sphinx was 
sculptured even before the time of Mena, declares that " the 
art which conceived and carved this prodigious statue was 
a finished art — an art which had attained self-mastery and 
was sure of its effects " ; while, among the more eminent 
English authorities, Sayce tells us that " art is at its best in 
the age of the pyramid-builders," and Sir James Fergusson 
declares, " We are startled to find Egyptian art nearly as 
perfect in the oldest periods as in any of the later." 

The evidence as to the high development of Egyptian 
sculpture in the earlier dynasties becomes every day more 
overwhelming. What exquisite genius the early Egyptian 
sculptors showed in their lesser statues is known to all who 
have seen those most precious specimens in the museum at 
Cairo, which were wrought before the conventional type 
was adopted in obedience to religious considerations. 

In decorative and especially in ceramic art, as early as 
the fourth and fifth dynasties, we have vases, cups, and other 
vessels showing exquisite beauty of outline and a general 
sense of form almost if not quite equal to Etruscan and Gre- 
cian work of the best periods. 

Take, next, astronomy. Going back to the very earliest 
period of Egyptian civilization, we find that the four sides 
of the Great Pyramid are adjusted to the cardinal points 
with the utmost precision. " The day of the equinox can be 
taken by observing the sun set across the face of the pyra- 
mid, and the neighbouring Arabs adjust their astronomical 
dates by its shadow." Yet this is but one out of many facts 
which prove that the Egyptians, at the earliest period of 
which their monuments exist, had arrived at knowledge and 
skill only acquired by long ages of observation and thought. 
Mr. Lockyer, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, has re- 
cently convinced himself, after careful examination of various 
ruined temples at Thebes and elsewhere, that they were 
placed with reference to observations of stars. To state his 
conclusion in his own words : " There seems a very high 
probability that three thousand, and possibly four thousand, 
years before Christ the Egyptians had among them men 
with some knowledge of astronomy, and that six thousand 
years ago the course of the sun through the year was prac- 



262 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 

tically very well known, and methods had been invented 
by means of which in time it might be better known ; and 
that, not very long after that, they not only considered ques- 
tions relating to the sun, but began to take up other ques- 
tions relating to the position and movement of the stars." 

The same view of the antiquity of man in the Nile val- 
ley is confirmed by philologists. To use the words of Max 
Duncker : " The oldest monuments of Egypt — and they are 
the oldest monuments in the world — exhibit the Egyptian in 
possession of the art of writing." It is found also, by the in- 
scriptions of the early dynasties, that the Egyptian language 
had even at that early time been developed in all essential 
particulars to the highest point it ever attained. What long 
periods it must have required for such a development every 
scholar in philology can imagine. 

As regards medical science, we have the Berlin papyrus, 
which, although of a later period, refers with careful speci- 
fication to a medical literature of the first dynasty. 

As regards archaeology, the earliest known inscriptions 
point to still earlier events and buildings, indicating a long 
sequence in previous history. 

As to all that pertains to the history of civilization, no 
man of fair and open mind can go into the museums of Cairo 
or the Louvre or the British Museum and look at the monu- 
ments of those earlier dynasties without seeing in them the 
results of a development in art, science, laws, customs, and 
language, which must have required a vast period before 
the time of Mena. And this conclusion is forced upon us 
all the more invincibly when we consider the slow growth 
of ideas in the earlier stages of civilization as compared with 
the later — a slowness of growth which has kept the natives 
of many parts of the world in that earliest civilization to this 
hour. To this we must add the fact that Egyptian civiliza- 
tion was especially immobile : its development into castes is 
but one among many evidences that it was the very opposite 
of a civilization developed rapidly. 

As to the length of the period before the time of Mena, 
there is, of course, nothing exact. Manetho gives lists of 
great personages before that first dynasty, and these extend 
over twenty-four thousand years. Bunsen, one of the most 



THE NEW CHRONOLOGY. 263 

learned of Christian scholars, declares that not less than ten 
thousand years were necessary for the development of civili- 
zation up to the point where we find it in Mena's time. No 
one can claim precision for either of these statements, but 
they are valuable as showing the impression of vast antiquity 
made upon the most competent judges by the careful study 
of those remains : no unbiased judge can doubt that an im- 
mensely long period of years must have been required for 
the development of civilization up to the state in which we 
there find it. 

The investigations in the bed of the Nile confirm these 
views. That some unwarranted conclusions have at times 
been announced is true ; but the fact remains that again and 
again rude pottery and other evidences of early stages of 
civilization have been found in borings at places so distant 
from each other, and at depths so great, that for such a 
range of concurring facts, considered in connection with the 
rate of earthy deposit by the Nile, there is no adequate ex- 
planation save the existence of man in that valley thousands 
on thousands of years before the longest time admitted by 
our sacred chronologists. 

Nor have these investigations been of a careless charac- 
ter. Between the years 185 1 and 1854, Mr. Horner, an ex- 
tremely cautious English geologist, sank ninety-six shafts in 
four rows at intervals of eight English miles, at right angles 
to the Nile, in the neighbourhood of Memphis. In these 
pottery was brought up from various depths, and beneath 
the statue of Rameses II at Memphis from a depth of thirty- 
nine feet. At the rate of the Nile deposit a careful estimate 
has declared this to indicate a period of over eleven thou- 
sand years. So eminent a German authority in geography 
as Peschel characterizes objections to such deductions as 
groundless. However this may be, the general results of 
these investigations, taken in connection with the other re- 
sults of research, are convincing. 

And, finally, as if to make assurance doubly sure, a series 
of archaeologists of the highest standing, French, German, 
English, and American, have within the past twenty years 
discovered relics of a savage period, of vastly earlier date 
than the time of Mena, prevailing throughout Egypt. These 



264 TH^ AjrnQurnr or max. 

relics hare been discorered in Tarioos parts of the coantry, 
froni Cairo to Laxor« in ^reat nombers^ Thej are the same 
sort of prehistoric implements which prore to us the carij 
existence of man in so many other parts of the world at a 
geological period so remote that the figures given bj our 
sacred chronologists are but tririaL The last and most con- 
Tincing of these discoreries, that of flint implements in the 
drift, far down below the tombs of earlj kings at Thebes, 
and upon high terraces far above the present bed of the 
Nile, will be referred to later. 

But it is not in Egjpt alcme that proofs are found of the 
utter inadequacy of the entire chronolc^cal system derived 
from our sacred books. These results of research in Egypt 
are strikingly confirmed by research in Assyria and Baby- 
lonia. Prof. Sayce exhibits various proofs of this. To use 
his own words regarding one of these proofs: "On the 
shelves of the British Museum you may see huge sun-dried 
bricks, on which are stamped the names and titles of kings 
who erected or repaired the temples where they have been 
found. . . . They must . . . have reigned before the time 
when, according to the margins of our Bibles, the Flood of 
Noah was covering the earth and reducing such bricks as 
these to their primeval slime." 

This conclusion was soon placed beyond a doubt. The 
lists of kings and collateral inscriptions recovered from the 
temples of the great valley between the Tigris and Euphra- 
tes, and the records of astronomical observations in that 
region, showed that there, too, a powerful civilization had 
grown up at a period far earlier than could be made con- 
sistent with our sacred chronology. The science of Assyri- 
ology was thus combined with Egyptology to furnish one 
more convincing proof that, precious as are the moral and^ 
religious truths in our sacred books and the historical indi- / 
cations which they give us, these truths and indications are 
necessarily inclosed in a setting of myth and legend.* 

♦ As to Manetho, see, for a very full account of his relations to other chronolo- 
gists, Palmer, Egyptian Chronicles^ vol. i, chap, iu For a more recent and read- 
able account, see Brugsch, Egypt under the Pharaohs^ English edition, London, 
1879, chap. iv. For lists of kings at Abydos and elsewhere, also the lists of archi- 
tects, see Brugsch, Palmer, Mariette, and others ; also illustrations in Lepsius. For 



/ w 



THE NEW CHRONOLOGY. 265 

proofs that the dynasties given were consecutive and not contemporaneous, as was 
once so fondly argued by those who tried to save Archbishop Usher's chronology, 
see Mariette ; also Sayce's Herodotus^ appendix, p. 316. For the various race types 
given on early monuments, see the coloured engravings in Lepsius, DenkmdUr ; 
also Prisse d'Avennes, and the frontispiece in the English edition of Brugsch ; see 
also statement regarding the same subject in Tylor, Anthropology^ chap. i. For the 
fulness of development in Egyptian civilization in the earliest dynasties, see Raw- 
linson's EgypU London, 1881, chap, xiii ; also Brugsch and other works cited. 
For the perfection of Egyptian engineering, I rely not merely upon my own ob- 
servation, but on what b far more important, the testimony of my friend the Hon. 
J. G. Batterson, probably the largest and most experienced worker in granite in 
the United States, who acknowledges, from personal observation, that the early 
Egyptian work is, in boldness and perfection, far beyond anything known since, 
and a source of perpetual wonder to him. As to the perfection of Egyptian archi- 
tecture, see very striking statements in Fergusson, History of Architecture^ book i, 
chap. i. As to the pyramids, showing a very high grade of culture already reached 
under the earliest dynasties, see Lfibke, Gesch, der Arch,^ book i. For Sayce's 
views, see his Herodotus^ appendix, p. 348. As to sculpture, see for representa- 
tions photographs published by the Boulak Museum, and such works as the ZV- 
scription de VEgypte^ Lepsius's DenkmdUr^ and Prisse d'Avennes ; see also a most 
valuable smalljwork, easy of access, Maspero, Archaology, translated by Miss A. B. 
Edwards, New York and London, 1887, chaps, i and ii. See especially in Prisse, 
vol. ii, the statue of Chafr^ the Scribe, and the group of " Tea " and his wife. As 
to the artistic value of the Sphinx, see Maspero, as above, pp. 202, 203. See also 
similar ideas in Lflbke's History of Sculpture^ vol. i, p. 24. As to astronomical 
knowledge evidenced by the Great Pyramid, see Tylor, as above, p. 21 ; also Lock- 
yer, On Sonu Points in the Early History of Astronomy^ in Nature for 1891, and 
especially in the issues of June 4th and July 2d ; also his Dawn of Astronomy ^ pas- 
sim. For a recent and conservative statement as to the date of Mena, see Flinders 
Petrie, History of Egypt^ London, 1894, chap. ii. For delineations of vases, etc, 
showing Grecian proportion and beauty of form under the fourth and fifth dynasties, 
see Prisse, vol. ii, Art Jndustriel, As to the philological question, and the develop- 
ment of language in Egypt, with the hieroglyphic system of writing, see Rawlin- 
son's Egypt, London, 1881, chap, xiii ; also Lenormant ; also Max Diincker, Ge- 
schichte des Alterthums^ Abbott's translation, 1877. As to the medical papyrus of 
Berlin, see Brugsdi, vol. i, p. 58, but especially the Papyrus Ebers. As to the cor- 
ruption of later copies of Manetho and fidelity of originals as attested by the monu- 
ments, see Biugsch, chap. iv. On the accuracy of the present Egyptian chronol- 
ogy as regards long periods, see ibid., vol. i, p. 32. As to the pottery found deep 
in the Nile and the value of Homer's discovery, see Peschel, Races of Man, New 
York, 1876, pp. 42-44. For succinct statement, see also Laing, Problems of the 
Future, p. 94. For confirmatory proofs from Assyriology, see Sayce, Lectures on 
the Religion of the Babylonians (Hibbert Lectures for 1887). London, 1887, intro- 
ductory chapter, and especially pp. 21-25. See also Laing, Human Origins, chap, 
ii, for an excellent summary. For an account of flint implements recently found 
in gravel terraces fifteen hundred feet above the present level of the Nile, and show- 
ing evidences of an age vastly greater even than those dug out of the gravel at 
Thebes, see article by Flinders Petrie in London Times of April i8th, 1895. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN AND PREHISTORIC 

ARCHEOLOGY. 

I. THE THUNDER-STONES. 

While the view of chronology based upon the literal ac- 
ceptance of Scripture texts was thus shaken by researches 
in Egypt, another line of observation and thought was slowly 
developed, even more fatal to the theological view. 

From a very early period there had been dug from the 
earth, in various parts of the world, strangely shaped masses 
of stone, some rudely chipped, some polished : in ancient 
times the larger of these were very often considered as 
thunderbolts, the smaller as arrows, and all of them as 
weapons which had been hurled by the gods and other 
supernatural personages. Hence a sort of sacredness at- 
tached to them. In Chaldea, they were built into the wall 
of temples; in Egypt, they were strung about the necks of 
the dead ; in India, fine specimens are to this day seen upon 
altars, receiving prayers and sacrifices. 

Naturally these beliefs were brought into the Christian 
mythology and adapted to it. During the Middle Ages 
many of these well-wrought stones were venerated as weap- 
ons, which during the " war in heaven " had been used in 
driving forth Satan and his hosts ; hence in the eleventh cen- 
tury an Emperor of the East sent to the Emperor of the West 
a " heaven axe " ; and in the twelfth century a Bishop of 
Rennes asserted the value of thunder-stones as a divinely- 
appointed means of securing success in battle, safety on the 
sea, security against thunder, and immunity from unpleasant 

dreams. Even as late as the seventeenth century a French 

266 



THE THUNDER-STONES. 267 

ambassador brought a stone hatchet, which still exists in the 
museum at Nancy, as a present to the Prince-Bishop of Ver- 
dun, and claimed for it health-giving virtues. 

In the last years of the sixteenth century Michael Mer- 
cati tried to prove that the " thunder-stones " were weap- 
ons or implements of early races of men; but from some 
cause his book was not published until the following cen- 
tury, when other thinkers had begun to take up the same 
idea, and then it had to contend with a theory far more ac- 
cordant with theologic modes of reasoning in science. This 
was the theory of the learned Tollius, who in 1649 told the 
world that these chipped or smoothed stones were " gener- 
ated in the sky by a fulgurous exhalation conglobed in a 
cloud by the circumposed humour.*' "^ 

But about the beginning of the eighteenth century a fact 
of great importance was quietly established. In the year 
171 5 a large pointed weapon of black flint was found in con- 
tact with the bones of an elephant, in a gravel bed near 
Gray's Inn Lane, in London. The world in general paid no 
heed to this : if the attention of theologians was called to it, 
they dismissed it summarily with a reference to the Deluge 
of Noah ; but the specimen was labelled, the circumstances 
regarding it were recorded, and both specimen and record 
carefully preserved. 

In 1723 Jussieu addressed the French Academy on The 
Origin and Uses of Thunder-stones. He showed that recent 
travellers from various parts of the world had brought a 
number of weapons and other implements of stone to France, 
and that they were essentially similar to what in Europe had 
been known as " thunder-stones." A year later this fact was 
clinched into the scientific mind of France by the Jesuit 
Lafitau, who published a work showing the similarity be- 
tween the customs of aborigines then existing in other lands 
and those of the early inhabitants of Europe. So began, in 
these works of Jussieu and Lafitau, the science of Compara- 
tive Ethnography. 

But it was at their own risk and peril that thinkers drew 
from these discoveries any conclusions as to the antiquity of 
man. Montesquieu, having ventured to hint, in an early edi- 
tion of his Persian Letters^ that the world might be much 



268 ANTIQUITY OF 3IAX AXD PREHISTORIC ARCHEOLOGY. 

older than had been generally supposed, was soon made to 
feel danger both to his book and to himself, so that in suc- 
ceeding editions he suppressed the passage. 

In 1730 Mahudel presented a paper to the French Acad- 
emy of Inscriptions on the so-called ** thunder-stones,** and 
also presented a series of plates which showed that these 
were stone implements, which must have been used at an 
early period in human history. 

In 1778 Buffon, in his J^pcqtus de la Nature^ intimated his 
belief that ** thunder-stones " were made by early races of 
men ; but he did not press this view, and the reason for his 
reserve was obvious enough: he had already one quarrel 
with the theolog^ns on his hands, which had cost him dear 
— public retraction and humiliation. His declaration, there- 
fore, attracted little notice. 

In the year 1800 another fact came into the minds of 
thinking men in England. In that year John Frere pre- 
sented to the London Society of Antiquaries sundry flint im- 
plements found in the clay beds near Hoxne : that they were 
of human make was certain, and, in view of the undisturbed 
depths in which they were found, the theory was suggested 
that the men who made them must have lived at a very an- 
cient geological epoch ; yet even this discovery and theory 
passed like a troublesome dream, and soon seemed to be for- 
gotten. 

About twenty years later Dr. Buckland published a dis- 
cussion of the subject, in the light of various discoveries in 
the drift and in caves. It received wide attention, but the- 
ology was soothed by his temporary concession that these 
striking relics of human handiwork, associated with the re- 
mains of various extinct animals, were proofs of the Deluge 
of Noah. 

In 1823 Bou6, of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, 
showed to Cuvier sundry human bones found deep in the 
alluvial deposits of the upper Rhine, and suggested that they 
were of an early geological period ; this Cuvier virtually, if 
not explicitly, denied. Great as he was in his own field, he 
was not a great geologist ; he, in fact, led geology astray for 
many years. Moreover, he lived in a time of reaction ; it 
was the period of the restored Bourbons, of the Voltairean 



THE THUNDER-STONES. 269 

King Louis XVIII, governing to please orthodoxy. Bou6*s 
discovery was, therefore, at first opposed, then enveloped in 
studied silence. 

Cuvier evidently thought, as Voltaire had felt under simi- 
lar circumstances, that "among wolves one must howl a ^ 
little " ; and his leading disciple, filie de Beaumont, who sue- 
ceeded him in the sway over geological science in France, 
was even more opposed to the new view than his great mas- 
ter had been. Bout's discoveries were, therefore, appar- 
ently laid to rest forever.* 

In 1825 Kent's Cavern, hear Torquay, was explored by 
the Rev. Mr. McEnery, a Roman Catholic clergyman, who 
seems to have been completely overawed by orthodox opin- 
ion in England and elsewhere ; for, though he found human 
bones and implements mingled with remains of extinct ani- 
mals, he kept his notes in manuscript, and they were only 
brought to light more than thirty years later by Mr. Vivian. 

The coming of Charles X, the last of the French Bour- 
bons, to the throne, made the orthodox pressure even greater. 
It was the culmination of the reactionary period — the time 
in France when a clerical committee, sitting at the Tuileries, 
took such measures as were necessary to hold in check all 
science that was not perfectly " safe " ; the time in Austria 
when Kaiser Franz made his famous declaration to sundry 
professors, that what he wanted of them was simply to train ? 
obedient subjects, and that those who did not make this their 
purpose would be dismissed ; the time in Germany when 
Nicholas of Russia and the princelings and ministers under 
his control, from the King of Prussia downward, put forth 
all their might in behalf of "scriptural science ** ; the time in 
Italy when a scientific investigator, arriving at any conclu- 

♦ For the general history of early views regarding stone implements, see the 
first chapters in Cartailhac, La France PrMstorique ; also Joly, V Homme avant 
Us Mitaux ; also Lyell, Lubbock, and Evans. For lightning-stones in China and 
elsewhere, see citation from a Chinese encyclopaedia of 1662, in Tylor, Early His^ 
tary of Mankind^ p. 209. On the universality of this belief, on the surviving use 
of stone implements even into civilized times, and on their manufacture to-day, see 
ibid., chapter viii. For the treatment of Bout's discovery, see especially Mortillet, 
Le Pr/historique, Pails, 1885, p. 11. For the suppression of the passage in Mon- 
tesquieu's Persian Letters, see Letter 113, cited in Schlosser's History of the Eighth 
eenth Century (English translation), vol. i, p. 135. 



2 JO ASTIQCITT OF 3CAX AXD P&EHISTOBIC AMCSUEOLOC^. 



urm distrusted bj the Chorciu was sore of kxing^ his place 
and in dans^er d losing his iibcrtj; the time in England 
when what iittle science was taught was held in doe submis- 
sion to Archdeacon Palej; the time in the United States 
when the first thing essential in science was» thatjt be^ad- 
ju^ed to the ideas of rerival exhorter&. 

Yet men deroted to scientific truth laboured oo ; and in 
1828 Toumal, of Narbonne, discovered in the caTem of Bize 
specimens of human industry, with a fragment of a human 
skeleton, among bones of extinct animals. In the following 
year Christol published accounts of his excavations in the 
caverns of Gard ; he had found in position, and under condi- 
tions which forbade the idea of after-disturbance, human re- 
mains mixed with bones of the extinct hjena of the early 
Quaternary period. Little general notice was taken of this, 
for the reactionary orthodox atmosphere involved such dis- 
coveries in darknc^ 

But in the French Revolution of 1830 the old politico- 
theological system collapsed: Charles X and his advisers 
fled for their lives; the other continental monarchs got 
glimpses of new light; the priesthood in charge of educa- 
tion were put on their good behaviour for a time, and a better 
era began. 

Under the constitutional monarchy of the house of Or- 
leans in France and Belgium less attention was therefore 
paid by Government to the saving of souls ; and we have 
in rapid succession new discoveries of remains of human in- 
dustry, and even of human skeletons so mingled with bones 
of extinct animals as to give additional proofs that the origin 
of man was at a period vastly earlier than any which theolo- 
gians had dreamed of. 

A few years later the reactionary clerical influence 
against science in this field rallied again. Schmerling in 
1833 had explored a multitude of caverns in Belgium, espe- 
cially at Engis and Engihoul, and had found human skulls 
and bones closely associated with bones of extinct animals, 
such as the cave bear, hyena, elephant, and rhinoceros, while 
mingled with these were evidences of human workmanship 
in the shape of chipped flint implements; discoveries of a 
similar sort had been made by De Serres in France and by 



THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 27 1 

Lund in Brazil ; but, at least as far as continental Europe 
was concerned, these discoveries were received with much 
coolness both by Catholic leaders of opinion in France and 
Belgium and by Protestant leaders in England and Holland. 
Schmerling himself appears to have been overawed, and 
gave forth a sort of apqlogetic theory, half scientific, half 
theologic, vainly hoping to satisfy the clerical side. / 

Nor was it much better in England. Sir Charles Lyell, 
so devoted a servant of prehistoric research thirty years 
later, was still holding out against it on the scientific side ; 
and, as to the theological side, it was the period when that 
great churchman. Dean Cockburn, was insulting geologists 
from the pulpit of York Minster, and the Rev. Mellor Brown 
denouncing geology as " a black art," " a forbidden prov- 
ince " ; and when, in America, Prof. Moses Stuart and others 
like him were belittling the work of Benjamin Silliman and 
Edward Hitchcock. 

In 1840 Godwin Austin presented to the Royal Geo- 
logical Society an account of his discoveries in Kent's Cav- 
ern, near Torquay, and especially of human bones and imple- 
ments mingled with bones of the elephant, rhinoceros, cave 
bear, hyena, and other extinct animals; yet this memoir, 
like that of McEnery fifteen years before, found an atmos- 
phere so unfavourable that it was not published. 



IL THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 

At the middle of the nineteenth century came the begin- 
ning of a new epoch in science — an epoch when all these 
earlier discoveries were to be interpreted by means of in- 
vestigations in a different field: for, in 1847, ^ "^^m prevL 
ously unknown to the world at large, Boucher de Perthes, 
published at Paris the first volume of his work on Celtic and 
Antediluvian Antiquities, and in this he showed engravings of 
typical flint implements and weapons, of which he had dis- 
covered thousands upon thousands in the high drift beds 
near Abbeville, in northern France. 

The significance of this discovery was great indeed — far 
greater than Boucher himself at first supposed. The very 



rrrr -js JLkJt ssr:. i 






•: 'X >i:j 



^litx w^rt livnii: 



aarXKrt* 'X 







Ct 



to 



onr IB vsis oc rcseardi 



Hh ir^yrk vas the resoli oi 
ai»d Uv^/a^^Li. Year after rear a iosxc oc 
rt^^irpu :ad iu^ into tbcse higiv^iCrTaced graTcl <icposzts oC 
t>i^ river Soxnme^ axid in his book he now gaTc xa tbe first 
full i^/rru, tiut results of his labour. So far as France vas 
coriC>!TDed, he was met at first bj vbat he caSs *~a coospiiacj 
fA %it^ice/' and then br a contemptooos oppostioo amoog 
fjTii^'A'fX vcitntists, at tbc head of whom stood £lie dc Beau- 

ThiS h'ravy, sluggish opposition seemed immovable : noth- 
jfig that iV^ucher could do or saj appeared to lig^hten the 
prcv^urc of the orthodox theological opinion behind it ; not 
even hif^ belief that these fossils were remains of men drowned 
at the I>clugc of Noah, and that thej were proofs of the lit- 
eral exactness of Genesis seemed to help the matter. His 
opponents felt instinctively that such discoveries boded dan- 
ger V) the accepted view, and they were right: Boucher 
hirnvrif %(><)n saw the folly of trying to account for them by 
the (orthodox theory. 

And it must be confessed that not a little force was added 
to the opposition by certain characteristics of Boucher de 
Perthes himself. Gifted, far-sighted, and vigorous as he was, 
he was his own worst enemy. Carried away by his own dis- 
c;r)V(!ries, he jumped to the most astounding conclusions. The 
engravings in the later volume of his great work, showing 
what he thought to be human features and inscriptions upon 



THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 273 

some of the flint implements, are worthy of a comic almanac ; 
and at the National Museum of Archaeology at St. Germain, 
beneath the shelves bearing the remains which he discovered, 
which mark the beginning of a new epoch in science, are 
drawers containing specimens hardly worthy of a penny 
museum, but from which he drew the most unwarranted 
inferences as to the language, religion, and usages of prehis- 
toric man. 

Boucher triumphed none the less. Among his bitter op- 
ponents at first was Dr. RigoUot, who in 1855, searching 
earnestly for materials to refute the innovator, dug into the 
deposits of St. Acheul — and was converted: for he found 
implements similar to those of Abbeville, making still more 
certain the existence of man during the Drift period. So, 
too, Gaudry a year later made similar discoveries. 

But most important was the evidence of the truth which 
now came from other parts of France and from other coun- 
tries. The French leaders in geological science had been 
held back not only by awe of Cuvier but by recollections 
of Scheuchzer. Ridicule has always been a serious weapon in 
France, and the ridicule which finally overtook the supporters 
of the attempt of Scheuchzer, Mazurier, and others, to square 
geology with Genesis, was still remembered. From the 
great body of French geologists, therefore, Boucher secured 
at first no aid. His support came from the other side of the 
Channel. The most eminent English geologists, such as 
Falconer, Prestwich, and Lyell, visited the beds at Abbeville 
and St. Acheul, convinced themselves that the discoveries of 
Boucher, Rigollot, and their colleagues were real, and then 
quietly but firmly told England the truth. 

And now there appeared a most effective ally in France. 
The arguments used against Boucher de Perthes and some 
of the other early investigators of bone caves had been that 
the implements found might have been washed about and 
turned over by great floods, and therefore that they might 
be of a recent period ; but in 1861 Edward Lartet published 
an account of his own excavations at the Grotto of Aurignac, 
and the proof that man had existed in the time of the Quater- 
nary animals was complete. This grotto had been carefully 
sealed in prehistoric times by a stone at its entrance; no 
19 



274 AXTI^UITY OF MAX ASD WREHlSTOmx: AKCHJEOUOCT. 



snttrfcrence from disturbing currents oc vatcr had 
sibiC ; hZid Lartet found, in place, boots oc ei^i oct c£ i^pif 
of tbe main species of ammajs vhicn charactrrizr the Qia- 
tcmar J pcrivd in Europe ; and up3a tbcm carks oc mmng 
iniplemeotSv and in the midst oi tncm coais aod asc^cs. 

Qosc upon these came the excavadons at Ejzics br Laxtct 
and his English colleague, Christj. In both these men there 
was a carefulness in making researches and a sobrictT in 
stating results which conrerted manj of those who had been 
repelled bj the enthusiasm of Boucher dc Pcrtbesw The 
two ccJleagues found in the stony deposits made bv the 
water dropping from the roof of the cave at Evzies the 
bones of numerous animals extinct or departed to arctic 
regions— one of these a vertebra of a reindeer with a flint 
lance-head still fast in it, and with these were found evi- 
dences of fire. 

Discoveries like these were thoroughly convincing ; vet 
there still remained here and there gainsayers in the sup- 
posed interest of Scripture, and these, in spite of the con- 
vincing array of facts, insisted that in some way, by some 
combination of circumstances, these bones of extinct animals 
of vastly remote periods might have been brought into con- 
nection with all these human bones and implements of human 
make in all these different places, refusing to admit that 
these ancient relics of men and animals were of the same 
period. Such gainsayers virtually adopted the reasoning of 
quaint old Persons, who, having maintained that God created 
the world " about five thousand sixe hundred and odde yeares 
agoe," added, " And if they aske what God was doing before 
this short number of yeares, we answere with St. Augustine 
replying to such curious questioners, that He was framing 
Hell for them." But a new class of discoveries came to 
silence this opposition. At La Madeleine in France, at the 
Kessler cave in Switzerland, and at various other places, were 
found rude but striking carvings and engravings on bone 
and stone representing sundry specimens of those long-van- 
ished species ; and these specimens, or casts of them, were 
soon to be seen in all the principal museums. They showed 
the hairy mammoth, the cave bear, and various other ani- 
mals of the Quaternary period, carved rudely but vigorously 



THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 



275 



by contemporary men ; and, to complete the significance of 
these discoveries, travellers returning from the icy regions 
of North America brought similar carvings of animals now 
existing in those regions, made by the Eskimos during their 
long arctic winters to-day.* 

As a result of these discoveries and others like them, 
showing that man was not only contemporary with long- 
extinct animals of past geological epochs, but that he had 
already developed into a stage of culture above pure sav- 
agery, the tide of thought began to turn. Especially was this 
seen in 1863, when Lyell published the first edition of his 
Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man \ and the fact that 
he had so long opposed the new ideas gave force to the clear 
and conclusive argument which led him to renounce his 
early scientific beliefs. 

Research among the evidences ot man's existence in the 
early Quaternary, and possibly in the Tertiary period, was 
now pressed forward along the whole line. In 1864 Gabriel 
Mortillet founded his review devoted to this subject ; and in 
1865 the first of a series of scientific congresses devoted to 
such researches was held in Italy. These investigations 
went on vigorously in all parts of France and spread rapidly 



• For the explorations in Belgium, see Dupont, Le Temps Prihistorique en Bel- 
gifue. For the discoveries by McEnery and Godwin Austin, see Lubbock, Pre^ 
kistorU Times, London, 1869, chap, z ; also Cartailhac, Joly, and others above 
cited. For Boucher de Perthes, see his AntiquiUs Celtiques et AnUdilutdenneSf 
Paris, i847-*64, vol. iii, pp. 526 et seq. For sundry extravagances of Boucher de 
Perthes, see Reinach, Description raisann^ du Mus^e de St.-Ger main-en- Laye, 
Paris, 18S9, vol. i, pp. 16 et seq. For the mixture of sound and absurd results in 
Boucher's work, see Cartailhac as above, p. 19. Boucher had published in 1838 a 
work entitled De la Cr/ation, but it seems to have dropped dead from the press. 
For the attempts of Scheuchzer to reconcile geology and Genesis by means of the 
//omo diluvii testis, and similar " diluvian fossils," see the chapter on Geology in 
this series. The original specimens of those prehistoric engravings upon bone and 
stone may be best seen at the Archaeological Museum of St.-Germain and the British 
Museum. For engravings of some of the most recent, see especially Dawkins's 
Earfy Man in Britain, chap, vii, and the Description du Musie de St, -Germain, As 
to the Kessler etchings and their antiquity, see D. G. Brinton, in Science, August 12, 
1893. For comparison of this prehistoric work with that produced to-day by the 
Eskimos and others, see Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, chapters x and xiv. For 
very striking exhibitions of this same artistic gift in a higher field to-day by de- 
scendants of the barbarian tribes of northern America, see the very remarkable 
illustrations in ^\v^i, Danish Greenland, London, 1877, especially those in chap. xiv. 



2 













<;f hussia (kails ir#d 1^x>k i'yjZAZ rr:7-g"]itd "■'iir rSrse- rttzsins. 

Wni^iju^ rtrKilts were Ttr^jrjtc^ 

Etj^ciillr ijotewortij were ti* ::n^^r cxzljrsiioos of 
the car« a^ drift throogbout the Briiish Islsrkds. The 
divcoverv bv O^Cfoel \Vo«L in iS6i. cc fiiat tDC-ls in the same 
strata with booes of tiie earlier lorms of tbe rria-xieros. vas 
but tji/icsd of many. A thorough examinadoo of the cairms 
of Brixham and Torquar, bv PengcIIj and ochers. made it 
still more evident that man had existed in the early Quatcr- 
narj period. The existence of a period before the Gladal 
epoch or between different glacial epochs in EnglaixL when 
the Englishman was a savage, using rude stone tools, was 
then fully ascertained, and, what was more significant, there 
were clearly shown a gradation and evolution even in the 
history of that period. It was found that this ancient Stone 
epoch showed progress and development- In the upper lay- 
ers of the caves, with remains of the reindeer, who* although 
he has migrated from these regions, still exists in more 
northern climates, were found stone implements revealing 
some little advance in civilization ; next below these, sealed 
up in the stalagmite, came, as a rule, another layer, in which 
the remains of reindeer were rare and those of the mammoth 
more frequent, the implements found in this stratum being 
less skilfully made than those in the upper and more recent 
layers ; and, finally, in the lowest levels, near the floors of 
these ancient caverns, with remains of the cave bear and others 
of the most ancient extinct animals, were found stone imple- 
ments evidently of a yet ruder and earlier stage of human 
progress. No fairly unprejudiced man can visit the cave 
and museum at Torquay without being convinced that there 
were a gradation and an evolution in these beginnings of 
human civilization. The evidence is complete ; the masses 
of breccia taken from the cave, with the various soils, im- 
plements, and bones carefully kept in place, put this progress 
beyond a doubt. 



THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 277 

All this indicated a great antiquity for the human race, 
but in it lay the germs of still another great truth, even more 
important and more serious in its consequences to the older 
theologic view, which will be discussed in the following 
chapter. 

But new evidences came in, showing a yet greater antiqui- 
ty of man. Remains of animals were found in connection 
with human remains, which showed not only that man was 
living in times more remote than the earlier of the new in- 
vestigators had dared dream, but that some of these early 
periods of his existence must have been of immense length, 
embracing climatic changes betokening diflferent geological 
periods ; for with remains of fire and human implements 
and human bones were found not only bones of the hairy 
mammoth and cave bear, woolly rhinoceros, and reindeer, 
which could only have been deposited there in a time of 
arctic cold, but bones of the hyena, hippopotamus, sabre- 
toothed tiger, and the like, which could only have been de- 
posited when there was in these regions a torrid climate. 
The conjunction of these remains clearly showed that man 
had lived in England early enough and long enough to pass 
through times when there was arctic cold and times when 
there was torrid heat ; times when great glaciers stretched 
far down into England and indeed into the continent, and 
times when England had a land connection with the European 
continent, and the European continent with Africa, allowing 
tropical animals to migrate freely from Africa to the middle 
regions of England. 

The question of the origin of man at a period vastly ear- 
lier than the sacred chronologists permitted was thus abso- 
lutely settled, but among the questions regarding the exist- 
ence of man at a period yet more remote, the Drift period, 
there was one which for a time seemed to give the cham- 
pions of science some difficulty. The orthodox leaders in 
the time of Boucher de Perthes, and for a considerable time 
afterward, had a weapon of which they made vigorous use : 
the statement that no human bones had yet been discovered 
in the drift. The supporters of science naturally answered 
that few if any other bones as small as those of man had been 
found, and that this fact was an additional proof of the great 



i-i jt*r:ivv:rT :» jctjp ak. it33e:stzb3z *.^-y*-'r.-«— 



4£ii.Mriu£i 't'jr hUAVt ic^Kunnas ic inrmaT » itiliubtfiTit: zc-ii^i 
r.:fci I ^:x^isr*TWjt ai ^3*^7 5si remains :c us umis rrmui. ii:^i:e 
i.vwmi;t '^r *n*x rsirxx ^ iiioiaii. imi icnsr szxsiL bmcs si^- 

vx.'W's. i:uc z-itc »±i lift iccr:r ic ptnc'usrr. Dtciar^f rii: 

f,ad nfzfjr^y^* h;ca- The r«alr o: tiis iras ?ha? ibe nisn erf 
*<,ittt«: rtit oblig^ to ac-k=r:f»l*dgt thii lie Mouliii Qui- 
l^fy>n divyyverr was iv^x prorca. 

But ere i^-^ig human bo&es vere fion^d ia tlic deposits of 
the eariy ^/■jatemary period, or indeed o: an cariier period, 
in various other parts of the world, and the question regard- 
ifi^ f r*e Moulin ^>ui;^on relic was of little impDrtance. 

U'e have «:*n that researches regarding the existence of 
prehistoric man in England and on the Continent were at 
first rnainly made in the cas-ems; but the existence of man 
in the earliest Quaternary j>eriod was confirmed on both sides 
of the English Channel, in a way even more striking, by the 
iJose examination of the drift and early gravel dej>osits. 
'I he results arrived at by Boucher de Perthes were amply 
confirmed in England. Rude stone implements were found 
in terraces a hundred feet and more above the levels at 
which various rivers of Great Britain now flow, and under 
circumstances which show that, at the time when they were 
deposited, tfic rivers of Great Britain in many cases w^ere 
entirely different from those of the present period, and 
formed parts of the river system of the European continent. 
Kesearches in the high terraces above the Thames and the 
Ouse, as well as at other points in Great Britain, placed 
beyond a doubt the fact that man existed on the British 



THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 



279 



Islands at a time when they were connected by solid land 
with the Continent, and made it clear that, within the period 
of the existence of man in northern Europe, a large portion 
of the British Islands had been sunk to depths between 
fifteen hundred and twenty-five hundred feet beneath the 
Northern Ocean, — had risen again from the water, — had 
formed part of the continent of Europe, and had been in 
unbroken connection with Africa, so that elephants, bears, 
tigers, lions, the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, of species 
now mainly extinct, had left their bones in the same deposits 
with human implements as far north as Yorkshire. More- 
over, connected with this fact came in the new conviction, 
forced upon geologists by the more careful examination of 
the earth and its changes, that such elevations and depres- 
sions of Great Britain and other parts of the world were not 
necessarily the results of sudden cataclysms, but generally 
of slow processes extending through vast cycles of years — 
processes such as are now known to be going on in various 
parts of the world. Thus it was that the six or seven thou- 
sand years allowed by the most liberal theologians of former 
times were seen more and more clearly to be but a mere 
nothing in the long succession of ages since the appearance 
of man. 

Confirmation of these results was received from various 
other parts of the world. In Africa came the discovery of 
flint implements deep in the hard gravel of the Nile Valley 
at Luxor and on the high hills behind Esneh. In America 
the discoveries at Trenton, N. J., and at various places in 
Delaware, Ohio, Minnesota, and elsewhere, along the south- 
ern edge of the drift of the Glacial epochs, clinched the new 
scientific truth yet more firmly ; and the statement made by 
an eminent American authority is, that " man was on this 
continent when the climate and ice of Greenland extended to 
the mouth of New York harbour.'* The discoveries of pre- 
historic remains on the Pacific coast, and especially in Brit- 
ish Columbia, finished completely the last chance at a rea- 
sonable contention by the adherents of the older view. As 
to these investigations on the Pacific slope of the United 
States, the discoveries of Whitney and others in California 
had been so made and announced that the judgment of scicn- 



2to AXTI^/UITV or MAN AND MLEHISTORIC AUCELEi^LOOT. 



ti5c men regarding them was suspended nntil cric Tisit cf 
perhaps the greatest living authoritj in his depamncnr. Al- 
fred Ruisel Wallace, in iSS'. He coairmcd tie view of 
Prof. Whitnev and others with the statement that - btjth the 
actual remains and works of man found deep under the lava- 
flows of Pliocene age show that he existed in the Xew World 
at least as earlr as in the Old." To this mav be added the 
discoveries in British Columbia, which prove that, since man 
existed in these regions, •* valleys have been filled up b v dri:t 
from the waste of mountains to a depth in some cases of 
fifteen hundred feet ; this covered bv a succession of tu^s. 
ashes, and lava-streams from volcanoes long since extinct. 
and finally cut down by the present rivers through beds of 
solid basalt, and through this accumulation of lavas and 
gravels." The immense antiquity of the human remains in 
the gravels of the Pacific coast is summed up by a most emi- 
nent English authority and declared to be proved, *' first, by 
the present river systems being of subsequent date, some- 
times cutting through them and their superincumbent lava- 
cap to a depth of two thousand feet ; secondly, by the great 
denudation that has taken place since they were dep)osited, 
for they sometimes lie on the summits of mountains six thou- 
sand feet high ; thirdly, by the fact that the Sierra Nevada 
has been partly elevated since their formation." * 

* For the general subject of investigations in British prehistoric remains, see es- 
pecially Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain and kit Place in tk£ Tertiary Fe^ 
riodf ly^indon, i8y>. For Boucher de Perthes's account of his discovery of the 
human jaw at Moulin Quignon, see his Antiquii/s Celtiques et AnUJiluviennes^ vol. 
iii, p. 542 et seq.. Appendix- For an excellent account of special investigations in 
the high terrace-) above the Thames, see J. Allen Brown, F. G. S., Paljeclitkic Man 
in Northwest Middlesex, Ix>ndon, 1SS7. For discoveries in America, and the cita- 
tion regarding ihem, see Wright, The Ice Age in North Ameriea, New Vork, 18S9, 
chap. xxi. Very remarkable examples of these specimens from the drift at Trenton 
may l>e seen in Prof. Abl>ott's collections at the University of Pennsylvania. For 
an admirable statement, see Prof. Henry \V. Haynes, in Wright, as above. For 
proofs of the vast antiquity of man upon the Pacific coast, cited in the text, see 
Skertchley, F. G. S., in i\\t Journal 0/ the Anthropological Institute for 1SS7, p. 336 ; 
tee also Wallace, Darwinism^ London, 1890, chap, xv ; and for a summary, as cited. 
Laing, Prohlems of the Future^ London, 18S9. For a striking summary of the 
evidence that man lived before the last submergence of Britain, see Brown, PaUoh 
lit hie Man in Northwest Middlesex, as above cited. For proofs that man existed 
in a perifxi when the streams were flowing hundreds of feet above their present 
level, sec ibid., p. 33. As to the evidence of the action of the sea and of glacial ac* 



THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 28 1 

As an important supplement to these discoveries of an- 
cient implements came sundry comparisons made by emi- 
nent physiologists between human skulls and bones found in 
different places and under circumstances showing vast an- 
tiquity. 

Human bones had been found under such circumstances 
as early as 1835 at Cannstadt near Stuttgart, and in 1856 
in the Neanderthal near Diisseldorf; but in more recent 
searches they had been discovered in a multitude of places, 
especially in Germany, France, Belgium, England, the Cau- 
casus, Africa, and North and South America. Comparison 
of these bones showed that even in that remote Quaternary 
period there were great differences of race, and here again 
came in an argument for the yet earlier existence of man on 
the earth ; for long previous periods must have been required 

tion in the Welsh bone cayes after the remains of extinct animals and weapons of 
human workmanship had been deposited, see ibid., p. 198. For a good statement 
of the slowness of the submergence and emergence of Great Britain, with an illus- 
tration from the rising of the shore of Finland, see ibid., pp. 47, 48. As to the flint 
implements of Pakeolithic man in the high terraced gravels throughout the Thames 
Valley, associated with bones of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, etc., see Brown, p. 
31. For still more conclusive proofs that man inhabited North Wales before the 
last submergence of the greater* part of the British Islands to a depth of twelve 
hundred to fourteen hundred feet, see ibid., pp. 199, 200. For maps showing the 
connection of the British river system with that of the Continent, see Boyd Daw- 
kins, Early Man in Britain^ London, 1880, pp. 18, 41, 73 ; also Lyell, Antiquity 
of Man ^ chap. xiv. As to the long continuance of the early Stone period, see 
James Geikie, Thi Great Ice Age^ New York, 1888,* p. 402. As to the impossibil- 
ity of the animals of arctic and torrid regions living together or visiting the same 
place at different times in the same year, see Geikie, as above, pp. 421 et seq. ; and 
for a conclusive argument that the animals of the period assigned lived in England 
not since, but before, the Glacial period, or in the interglacial period, see ibid., p. 
459. For a very candid statement by perhaps the foremost leader of the theo- 
logical rear-guard, admitting the insuperable difficulties presented by the Old Tes- 
tament chronology as regards the Creation and the Deluge, see the Duke of Argyll's 
Primeval Man^ pp. 90-100, and especially pp. 93, 124. For a succinct statement 
on the general subject, see Laing, Problems of the Future^ London. 1889, chapters 
▼ and vi. For discoveries of prehistoric implements in India, sec notes by Bruce 
Foote, F. G. S., in the British Journal of the Anthropological Institute for 1886 
and 1887. For similar discoveries in South Africa, see Gooch, m Journal of the 
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland^ vol. xi, pp. 124 et seq. For 
proofs of the existence of Palaeolithic man in Egypt, see Mock, Ilaynes, Pitt-Riv- 
ers, Flinders-Petrie, and others, cited at length in the next chapter. For the cor- 
roborative and concurrent testimony of ethnology, philology, and history to the vast 
antiquity of man, see Tylor, Anthropology^ chap. i« 



282 ANTIQUITY OF MAN AND PREHISTORIC ARCUjEOLOGY. 

to develop such racial differences. Considerations of this 
kind gave a new impulse to the belief that man's existence 
might even date back into the Tertiary period. The evi- 
dence for this -earlier origin of man was ably summed up. 
not only by its brilliant advocate, Mortillet, but by a former 
opponent, one of the most conservative of modem anthro- 
pologists, Quatrefages; and the conclusion arrived at by 
both was, that man did really exist in the Tertiary period. 
The acceptance of this conclusion was also seen in the more 
recent work of Alfred Russel Wallace, who, though very 
cautious and conservative, placed the origin of man not only 
in the Tertiary period, but in an earlier stage of it than most 
had dared assign — even in the Miocene. 

The first thing raising a strong presumption, if not giving 
proof, that man existed in the Tertiary, was the fact that 
from all explored parts of the world came in more and more 
evidence that in the earlier Quaternary man existed in dif- 
ferent, strongly marked races and in great numbers. From 
all regions which geologists had explored, even from those 
the most distant and different from each other, came this 
same evidence — from northern Europe to southern Africa; 
from France to China ; from New Jersey to British Colum- 
bia ; from British Columbia to Peru. The development of 
man in such numbers and in so many different regions, with 
such differences of race and at so early a period, tnust have 
required a long previous time. 

This argument was strengthened by discoveries of bones 
bearing marks apparently made by cutting instruments, in 
the Tertiary formations of France and Italy, and by the dis- 
coveries of what were claimed to be flint implements by the 
Abb6 Bourgeois in France, and X)f implements and human 
bones by Prof. Capellini in Italy. 

On the other hand, some of the more cautious men of 
science are still content to say that the existence of man in 
the Tertiary period is not yet proven. As to his existence 
throughout the Quaternary epoch, no new proofs are needed ; 
even so determined a supporter of the theological side as 
the Duke of Argyll has been forced to yield to the evidence. 

Of attempts to make an exact chronological statement 
throwing light on the length of the various prehistoric peri- 



THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 283 

ods, the most notable have been those by M. Morlot, on the 
accumulated strata of the Lake of Geneva ; by GilIi6ron, on 
the silt of Lake Neufchitel ; by Horner, in the delta deposits 
of Egypt ; and by Riddle, in the delta of the Mississippi. 
But while these have failed to give anything like an exact 
result, all these investigations together point to the central 
truth, so amply established, of the vast antiquity of man, and 
the utter inadequacy of the chronology given in our sacred 
books. The period of man's past life upon our planet, which 
has been fixed by the universal Church, "always, every- 
where, and by all," is thus perfectly proved to be insignifi- 
cant compared with those vast geological epochs during 
which man is now known to have existed.* 



* As to the evidence of man in the Tertiary period, see works already cited, 
especially Quatrefages, Cartailhac, and Mortillet. For an admirable summary, 
see Laing, Human Origins ^ chap. viiL See also, for a summing up of the 
evidence in favour of man in the Tertiary period, Quatrefages, Histoire GindraU 
dis Races Humaines^ in the BibUothique Ethnologique^ Paris, 1887, chap. iv. As 
to the earlier view, see Vogt, Lectures on Man^ London, 1864, lecture xi. For a 
thorough and convincing refutation of Sir J. W. Dawson's attempt to make the old 
and new Stone periods coincide, see H. W. Haynes, in chap, vi of the History of 
America^ edited by Justin Winsor. For development of various important points 
in the relation of anthropology to the human occupancy of our planet, see Topinard, 
Anthropology^ London, 1890, chap. ix. 



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vi'i-v ca-**t*i u7«:c e'oiezce a'7s:i .I'-iT irr:;rra;jarLe 5s ccc- 
rir:':*?- H-irr. ":•:•. "wi O-"^ i* trrr: re'^^nninir -l 1 vase ciirg^ 
i.-^ tnf *a.f:.i ir^i zi'rti'is :c t.tii;^^" urirn tto:: — j. ciujr^ even 
ZT'ir- sr.n'c:-:x *r:J-"i -^i- i-jc-rciriisTiiC rv Crcerzicns ari 
Gi-il^:. ■v.-.-fn :!-:'?T 5ubsrl*.u'.e*i ::r a universe in wiiicii sea 
xiii i-.in'tr.s r-iv :Lv-'i ir*:***: :r!«f earth a imiverse iz. 'jvhich the 
ear:!-: is "ru: '.he .Trnr-st z^iia :r a::c: rev.Hvin^ wirh ccher 
w.r.'if. ^j-Tx^J" i-"'i sc::j.!ler. aircut: the sxm: and all these 
fjrrrini;: ru: :re irr.*:r.:z inn -irre nbie svstems. 

Ev-r v^TL^:^, "the 'rei^inni":;^: :r zzins ei^ctive thinkinfj upon 
th'? ^"^a: rr-.'iri'fm'i ir-jc:'! -ii:. t'.v: an ':a;^':nistic views have 
exist-::*! ztz'i^'^'-^-^ -h*;; li:* :: the haman race c^oa eartfa. 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 285 

The first of these is the belief that man was created " in the 
beginning " a perfect being, endowed with the highest moral 
and intellectual powers, but that there came a •* fall," and, as 
its result, the entrance into the world of evil, toil, sorrow, 
and death. 

Nothing could be more natural than such an explanation 
of the existence of evil, in times when men saw everywhere 
miracle and nowhere law. It is, under such circumstances, 
by far the most easy of explanations, for it is in accordance 
with the appearances of things : men adopted it just as nat- 
urally as they adopted the theory that the Almighty hangs 
up the stars as lights in the solid firmament above the earth, 
or hides the sun behind a mountain at night, or wheels the 
planets around the earth, or flings comets as "signs and 
wonders " to scare a wicked world, or allows evil spirits to 
control thunder, lightning, and storm, and to cause diseases 
of body and mind, or opens the " windows of heaven " to let 
down " the waters that be above the heavens,** and thus to 
give rain upon the earth. 

A belief, then, in a primeval period of innocence and 
perfection — moral, intellectual, and physical — from which 
men for some fault fell, is perfectly in accordance with what 
we should expect. 
I Among the earliest known records of our race we find 

this view taking shape in the Chaldean legends of war be- 
. tween the gods, and of a fall of man ; both of which seemed 
necessary to explain the existence of fevil. 

In Greek mythology perhaps the best-known statement 
was made by Hesiod : to him it was revealed, regarding the 
men of the most ancient times, that they were at first " a 
golden race," that ** as gods they were wont to live, with a 
life void of care, without labour and trouble ; nor was wretch- 
ed old age at all impending ; but ever did they delight them- 
selves out of the reach of all ills, and they died as if over- 
come by sleep ; all blessings were theirs : of its own will the 
fruitful field would bear them fruit, much and ample, and 
they gladly used to reap the labours of their hands in quiet- 
ness along with many good things, being rich in flocks and 
true to the blessed gods.*' But there came a " fall," caused 
b}' human curiosity. Pandora, the first woman created, 



286 THE -FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 

received a vase which, by divine comniand, was to remaia 
closed; but she was tempted to open it, and troubles, 
sorrow, and disease escaped into the world, hope alone re- 
maining. 

So, too, in Roman mythological poetry the well-known 
picture by Ovid is but one among the many exhibitions of 
this same belief in a primeval golden age — a Satumian cycle; 
one of the constantly recurring attempts, so universal and so 
natural in the early history of man, to account for the exist- 
ence of evil, care, and toil on earth by explanatory myths 
and legends. 

This view, growing out of the myths, legends, and the- 
ologies of earlier peoples, we also find embodied in the sacred 
tradition of the Jews, and especially in one of the documents 
which form the impressive poem beginning the books attrib- 
uted to Moses. As to the Christian Church, no word of its 
Blessed Founder indicates that it was committed by him to 
this theory, or that he even thought it worthy of his atten- 
tion. How, like so many other dogmas never dreamed of by 
Jesus of Nazareth and those who knew him best, it was de- 
veloped, it does not lie within the province of this chapter to 
point out ; nor is it worth our while to dwell upon its evolu- 
tion in the early Church, in the Middle Ages, at the Reforma- 
tion, and in various branches of the Protestant Church : suf- 
fice it that, though among English-speaking nations by far 
the most important influence in its favour has come from Mil- 
ton's inspiration rather than from that of older sacred books, "^ 
no doctrine has been more universally accepted, "always, 
everywhere, and by all," from the earliest fathers of the 
Church down to the present hour. 

On the other hand appeared at an early period the oppo- 
site view — that mankind, instead of having fallen from a high 
intellectual, moral, and religious condition, has slowly risen 
from low and brutal beginnings. In Greece, among the phi- 
losophers contemporary with Socrates, we find Critias de- 
picting a rise of man, from a time when he was beastlike and 
lawless, through a period when laws were developed, to a 
time when morality received enforcement from religion ; but 
among all the statements of this theory the most noteworthy 
is that given by Lucretius in his great poem on The Nature 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 287 

of Things, Despite its errors, it remains among the most re- 
markable examples of, prophetic insight in the history of our 
race. The inspiratiog^ of Lucretius gave him almost mirac- 
ulous glimpses of truth ; his view of the development of 
civilization from the rudest beginnings to the height of its 
achievements is a wonderful growth, rooted in observation 
and thought, branching forth into a multitude of striking 
facts and fancies ; and among these is the statement regard- 
ing the sequence of inventions : 



" Man's earliest arms were fingers, teeth, and nails, 
And stones and fragments from the branching woods ; 
Then copper next ; and last, as latest traced. 
The tyrant, iron." 

Thus did the poet prophesy one of the most fruitful 
achievements of modern science : the discovery of that series 
of epochs which has been so carefully studied in our century. 

Very striking, also, is the statement of Horace, though 
his idea is evidently derived from Lucretius. He dwells 
upon man's first condition on earth as low and bestial, and 
pictures him lurking in caves, progressing from the use of 
his fists and nails, first to clubs, then to arms which he had 
learned to forge, and, finally, to the invention of the names 
of things, to literature, and to laws.* 

During the medipsval ages of faith this view was almost 

• For the passage in Hesiod, as given, see the Works and Days ^ lines 109-120. 
in Banks's translation. As to Horace, see the Satires^ i, 3, 99. As to the relation 
of the poetic account of the Fall in Genesis to Chaldean myths, see Smith, ChaU 
dean Account of Genesis, pp. 13, 17. For a very instructive separation of the 
Jehovistic and Elohistic parts of Genesis, with the account of the *' Fall '* as given 
in the former, see Lenormant, La Gin^se, Paris, 1883, pp. 166-168 ; also Bacon, 
Genesis of Genesis, Of the lines of Lucretius — 

" Arma antiqua, manus, ungues, dentesque fuerunt, 
Et lapides, et item sylvarum fragmina rami, 
Posterius ferri vis est, aerisque reperta, 
Sed prior aeris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus " — 

the translation given is that of Good. For a more exact prose translation, see 
Munro's Lucretius, fourth edition, which is much more careful, at least in the 
proof-reading, than the first edition. As regards Lucretius's prophetic insight into 
some of the greatest conclusions of modem science, see Munro's translation and 
notes, fourth edition, book v, notes ii, p. 335. On the relation of several pas- 
sages in Horace to the ideas of Lucretius, see Munro as above. For the passage 
from Luther, see the Table Ta/A, Hazlitt's translation, p. 242. 



2>;> 







.%r>v^* 4. i -#-->■'-•. tc -^ ..^ • T —3 — u^«. . -•— .- X — f. ._ .c 

Hra of '- :r.* FilL" Bocia espieciillj. brflliin: 2:5 Trerr ris 

•/^rvx^^* f^ ^j "^ '■ "y^ '%T V a*'cr-'#^-r* '--r-^-^'^ a"?^"""^.* •-•» ■-■ -4-— --•» 

of ^^Tfi^ral human dettrioraiion. 

Early in the eighteenth century V:co presente-i the rh:- 
^/v^/^hv of h:»torv as an ur^ward raovemeat o: rraa out c: 
anirna!:-,m and i>arbari*ra. This idea took firm hold ur-r- 
human rhocj;rht, and in the follo'winar centuries such z:en 25 
ly:\-.irt'^ ^tA Tur;fot gave new force to ir. 

1 :.': ir:vc'-tigations of the last forty years have shown :h2: 
LMcnztlr-, and Horace were inspired prophets: what thej 
<-.a'A' by th'; 'rxcrcise of reason illumined by poetic genius, has 
\/^j:u now thoroughly based upon facts carefully ascertained 
and arranged— until Thomsen and Nilsson. the northern ar- 
r,h»;ologists, have brought these prophecies to evident fulnl- 
m^rnt, by presenting a scientific classification dividing the age 
of prehistoric man in various parts of the world between an 
old ston^: p^rriod, a new stone period, a period of beaten 
copper, a period of bronze, and a period of iron, and array- 
ing vast masses of facts from all parts of the world, fitting 
thoroughly into each other, strengthening each other, and 
showing br-yond a doubt that, instead of a /a//, there has 
been a ri.w of man, from the earliest indications in the Qua- 
t(rrnary, r^r even, possibly, in the Tertiary period.* 



• For V;inini, sec Topinard, hUments d' Anthropologies p. 52, For a brief ind 
<M refill suifiiii.'iry of the ajjcncy of Eccard in Germany, Goguet in France, Hoare in 
hn(;land, and others in various parts of Europe, as regards this development of the 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 289 

The first blow at the fully developed doctrine of " the 
Fall " came, as we have seen, from geology. According to 
that doctrine, as held quite generally from its beginnings 
among the fathers and doctors of the primitive Church 
down to its culmination in the minds of great Protestants 
like John Wesley, the statement in our sacred books that 
"death entered the world by sin " was taken as a historic 
fact, necessitating the conclusion that, before the serpent 
persuaded Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, death on our 
planet was unknown. Naturally, when geology revealed, in 
the strata of a period long before the coming of man on 
earth, a vast multitude of carnivorous tribes fitted to destroy 
their fellow-creatures on land and sea, and within the fossil- 
ized skeletons of many of these the partially digested remains 
of animals, this doctrine was too heavy to be carried, and it 
was quietly dropped. ' • . '. ..- 

But about the middle of the nineteenth century the doc- 
trine of the rise of man as opposed to the doctrine of his 
" fall ** received a great accession of strength from a source 
most unexpected. As we saw in the last chapter, the facts 
proving the great antiquity of man foreshadowed a new and 
even more remarkable idea regarding him. We saw, it is 
true, that the opponents of Boucher de Perthes, while they 
could not deny his discovery of human implements in the 
drift, were successful in securing a verdict of " Not proven " 
as regarded his discovery of human bones ; but their triumph 
was short-lived. Many previous discoveries, little thought 
of up to that time, began to be studied, and others were 
added which resulted not merely in confirming the truth 
regarding the antiquity of man, but in establishing another 
doctrine which the opponents of science regarded with vastly 
greater dislike — the doctrine that man has not fallen from an 



scientific view during the eighteenth century, see Mortillet, Z^ Pr/kisUnHque, Paris, 
1885, chap. i. For the agency of Bodin, Bacon, Descartes, and Pascal, see Flint, 
Philosophy of Histoty^ introduction, pp. 28 et seq. For a shorter summary, see 
Lubbock, Prehistoric Man, For the statements by the northern archaeologists, see 
Nilsson, Worsaae, and the other main works cited in this article. For a generous 
statement regarding the gpreat services of the Danish archaeologists in this field, see 
Quatrefages, introduction to Cartailhac, Les Ages Prihistoriques de VEspagtu et du 
Portugal, 

SO 



290 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



original high estate in which he was created about six thou- 
sand years ago, but that, from a period vastly earlier than 
any warranted by the sacred chronologists, he has been, in 
spite of lapses and deteriorations, rising. 

A brief review of this new growth of truth may be use- 
ful. As early as 1835 Prof. Jaeger had brought out from a 
quantity of Quaternary remains dug up long before at Cann- 
stadt, near Stuttgart, a portion of a human skull, apparently 
of very low type. A battle raged about it for a time, but 
this finally subsided, owing to uncertainties arising from the 
circumstances of the discovery. 

In 1856, in the Neanderthal, near Diisseldorf, among Qua- 
ternary remains gathered on the floor of a grotto, another 
skull was found bearing the same evidence of a low human 
type. As in the case of the Cannstadt skull, this again was 
fiercely debated, and finally the questions regarding it were 
allowed to remain in suspense. But new discoveries were 
made : at Eguisheim, at Brux, at Spy, and elsewhere, human 
skulls were found of a similarly low type ; and, while each of 
the earlier discoveries was open to debate, and either, had no 
other been discovered, might have been considered an ab- 
normal specimen, the combination of all these showed con- 
clusively that not only had a race of men existed at that re- 
mote period, but that it was of a type as low as the lowest, 
perhaps below the lowest, now known. 

Research was now redoubled, and, as a result, human 
skulls and complete skeletons of various types began to be 
discovered in the ancient deposits of many other parts of 
the world, and especially in France, Belgium, Germany, the 
Caucasus, Africa, and North and South America. 

But soon began to emerge from all these discoveries a 
fact of enormous importance. The skulls and bones found 
at Cro Magnon, Solutr6, Furfooz, Grenelle, and elsewhere, 
were compared, and it was thus made certain that various 
races had already appeared and lived in various grades of 
civilization, even in those exceedingly remote epochs ; that 
even then there were various strata of humanity ranging 
from races of a very low to those of a very high type ; and 
that upon any theory — certainly upon the theory of the 
origin of mankind from a single pair — two things were evi- 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



291 



dent: first, that long, slow processes during vast periods of 
time must have been required for the differentiation of these 
races, and for the evolution of man up to the point where 
the better specimens show him, certainly in the early Qua- 
ternary and perhaps in the Tertiary period ; and, secondly, 
that there had been from the first appearance of man, of 
which we have any traces, an upward tendency.* 

This second conclusion, the upward tendency of man 
from low beginnings, was made more and more clear by 
bringing into relations with these remains of human bodies 
and of extinct animals the remains of human handiwork. As 
stated in the last chapter, the river drift and bone caves in 
Great Britain, France, and other parts of the world, revealed 
a progression, even in the various divisions of the earliest 
Stone period; for, beginning at the very lowest strata of 
these remains, on the floors of the caverns, associated mainly 
with the bones of extinct animals, such as the cave bear, the 
hairy elephant, and the like, were the rudest implements ; 
then, in strata above these, sealed in the stalagmite of the 
cavern floors, lying with the bones of animals extinct but 
more recent, stone implements were found, still rude, but, as 
a rule, of an improved type ; and, finally, in a still higher 
stratum, associated with bones of animals like the reindeer 
and bison, which, though not extinct, have departed to other 
climates, were rude stone implements, on the whole of a still 
better workmanship. Such was the foreshadowing, even at 
that early rude Stone period, of the proofs that the tendency 

* For Wesley's statement of the amazing consequences of the entrance of death 
into the world by sin, see citations from his sermon on The Fall of Man in the 
chapter on Geology. For Boucher de Perthes, see his Life by Ledieu, especially 
chapters v and xix ; also letters in the appendix ; also Les Antiquit/s Celtiques it 
AnUdiltnnenniSy as cited in previous chapters of this work. For an account of the 
Neanderthal man and other remains mentioned, see Quatrefages, Human Species^ 
chap. xxtI ; also Mortillet, Le Prihistorique^ Paris, 1885, pp. 232 €t seq, ; also other 
writen cited in this chapter. For the other discoveries mentioned, see the same 
lonrcet. For an engraving of the skull and the restored human face of the Nean- 
derthal man, see Reinach, Antiquit/s NationaUs^ etc., vol. i, p. 138. For the vast 
regions over which that early race spread, see Quatrefages as above, p. 307. See 
also the same author, Histoire G/n/rale des Races Humaines^ in the Bibliothkque 
Etknahgique^ Paris, 1887, p. 4. In the vast mass of literature bearing on this sub 
ject, see Quatrefages, Dupont, Reinach, Joly, Mortillet, Tylor, and Lubbock, in 
works cited through these chapters. 



t:-:l •j*j-l cs" ill%' jls^ iarrziopico 









ryj^t. zjTSJ-ji ir::r-2£:' •-v§--H1* :c Hi* N :ni — r irrzra-rrzixir. 5»: 




p-iit ,:/M ''^ri tn* s::or« c: t^* iii.t:r, zr-^i";? j cc ^^-e.^ 



fc^r« Tr,it tr.*rr^ shtll-i.^ap* irtrt x±zj SLnd-ici iras ct5 
t:-^ izitW^ of ovsttrs and tie Ifke :>u=ii in ih-ra i 
lir^frr than anj ikOTr :ou-i ca ih:/5« ciasts: ibcir sltc s? fir 
frora b«r*^ liice that of th* csrresxosdiiij Tarieties which 
DO'-r <!:x:*t in the brackish waters o: the Baluc, was £a rrerj 
cavt iiice that of thc/sc varieties which oalj thrive ia the 
watitr% of the oi.-en salt sea. Here was a clear indicatfoa that 
at th<t ti.Tie -A'hen man forced these shell-heaps those coasts 
wcrf: ia far more ofrect coraniunication with the salt sea 
tr»an at \jr^:v:ul, and that su3cient tinie must have elapsed 
hxu^j: that yiv'vA to have wrought enormous chaag^es ia sea 
and land throughout those regions. 

Scatt';rcd through these heaps were found indications of 
a grade of civilization when man still used implements of 
stone, but implements and weapons which, though still rude, 
showed a progress from those of the drift and earlv cave 
l}f:ruAf some of them being of polished stone. 

With these were other evidences that civilization had 
progressed. With implements rude enough to have sur- 
vived from early peri* ids, other implements never known in 
the drift and bone caves began to appear, and, though there 
were few if any bones of other domestic animals, the remains 
of dogs were found ; everything showed that there had been 
a progress in civilization between the former Stone epoch 
and this. 

The second series of discoveries in Scandinavia was made 
in the peat-beds : these were generally formed in hollows or 
bowls varying in depth from ten to thirty feet, and a section 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 293 

of them, like a section of the deposits in the bone caverns, 
showed a gradual evolution of human culture. The lower 
strata in these great bowls were found to be made up chiefly 
of mosses and various plants matted together with the trunks 
of fallen trees, sometimes of very large diameter; and the 
botanical examination of the lowest layer of these trees and 
plants in the various bowls revealed a most important fact : 
for this layer, the first in point of time, was always of the 
Scotch fir — which now grows nowhere in the Danish islands, 
and can not be made to grow anywhere in them — and of 
plants which are now extinct in these regions, but have re- 
treated within the arctic circle. Coming up from the bot- 
tom of these great bowls there was found above the first 
layer a second, in which were matted together masses of 
oak trees of different varieties ; these, too, were relics of a 
bygone epoch, since the oak has almost entirely disappeared 
from Denmark. Above these came a third stratum made up 
of fallen beech trees ; and the beech is now, and has been 
since the beginning of recorded history, the most common 
tree of the Danish Peninsula. 

Now came a second fact of the utmost importance as con- 
nected with the first. Scattered, as a rule, through the lower 
of these deposits, that of the extinct fir trees and plants, were 
found implements and weapons of smooth stone ; in the 
layer of oak trees were found implements of bronze ; and 
among the layer of beeches were found implements and 
weapons of iron. 

The general result of these investigations in these two 
sources, the shell mounds and the peat deposits, was the 
same: the first civilization evidenced in them was marked 
by the use of stone implements more or less smooth, show- 
ing a progress from the earlier rude Stone period made 
known by the bone caves ; then came a later progress to a 
higher civilization, marked by the use of bronze implements; 
and, finally, a still higher development when iron began to 
be used. 

The labours of the Danish archaeologists have resulted in 
the formation of a great museum at Copenhagen, and on the 
specimens they have found, coupled with those of the drift 
and bone caves, is based the classification between the main 



I 



2r^ THE -FALL OF MAX* AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 

periods or divisions in the evolution of the huniaa race ab«OTC 
referred to. 

It was not merclv in Scandinavian lands that these re- 
suits were reached : substantiallv the same discoveries were 
made in Ireland and France, in Sardinia and Portugal in 
Japan and in Brazil, in Cuba and in the United States : in 
fact, as a rule, in nearly every part of the world which was 
thoroughly examined.* 

But from another quarter came a yet more striking indi- 
cation of this same evolution. As far back as the year 1SJ9 
there were discovered, in the Lake of Zurich, piles and 
other antiquities indicating a former existence of human 
dwellings, standing in the water at some distance from the 
shore ; but the usual mixture of thoughtlessness and dread 
of new ideas seems to have prevailed, and nothing was done 
until about 1853, when new discoveries of the same kind 
were followed up vigorously, and Riitimeyer, Keller, Troy- 
on, and others showed not only in the Lake of Zurich, 
but in many other lakes in Switzerland, remains of former 
habitations, and, in the midst of these, great numbers of 
relics, exhibiting the grade of civilization which those lake- 
dwellers had attained. 

Here, too, were accumulated proofs of the upward tend- 
ency of the human race. Implements of polished stone, 
bone, leather, pottery of various grades, woven cloth, bones 



• For the general subject, see Mortillet, Le Prehistoriqut^ p. 49.8, et p^issim. 
For examples of the rude stone implements, improving as we go from earlier to 
later layers in the bone caves, see Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain^ chap, vii, 
p. 1 36 ; also Quatrefages, Human Species^ New York, 1879, pp. 305 et seq. An in- 
teresting gleam of light is thrown on the subject in De Baye, GrotUs Pr/histcriqua 
de la Marne^ pp. 31 ^/ seq. ; also Evans, as cited in the previous chapter. For 
the more recent investigations in the Danish shell-heaps, sec Boyd Dawkins, Early 
Man in Britain^ pp. 303, 304. For these evidences of advanced ciWIization in the 
shell-heaps, see Mortillet, p. 49S. He, like Nilsson, says that onlv the bones of 
the dog were found ; but compare Dawkins, p. 305. For the very full list of these 
di:»coveries, with their bearing on each other, see Mortillet, p. 499. As to those in 
Scandinavian countries, see Nilsson, The Primitit*e Inhabitants of Scandinavia^ 
third edition, with Introduction by Lubbock, London, i863 ; also the Pre^Histcrj 
of the Norths by Worsaae, English translation, London, 18S6. For shell-mounds 
and their contents in the Spanish Peninsula, see Cartailhac's greater work already 
cited. For summary of such discoveries throughout the world, sec Mortillet, Le 
Pr/historique^ pp. 497 et seq. 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



295 



of several kinds of domestic animals, various sorts of grain, 
bread which had been preserved by charring, and a multi- 
tude of evidences of progress never found among the earlier, 
ruder relics of civilization, showed yet more strongly that 
man had arrived here at a still higher stage than his prede- 
cessor of the drift, cave, and shell-heap periods, and had 
gone on from better to better. 

Very striking evidences of this upward tendency were 
found in each class of implements. As by comparing the 
chipped flint implements of the lower and earlier strata in 
the cave period with those of the later and upper strata we 
saw progress, so, in each of the periods of polished stone, 
bronze, and iron, we see, by similar comparisons, a steady 
progress from rude to perfected implements ; and especially 
is this true in the remains of the various lake-dwellings, for 
among these can be traced out constant increase in the va- 
riety of animals domesticated, and gradual improvements in 
means of subsistence and in ways of living. 

Incidentally, too, a fact, at first sight of small account, 
but on reflection exceedingly important, was revealed. The 
earlier bronze implements were frequently found to imitate 
in various minor respects implements of stone; in other 
words, forms were at first given to bronze implements 
natural in working stone, but not natural in working 
bronze. This showed the direction of the development — 
that it was upward from stone to bronze, not downward 
from bronze to stone; that it was progress rather than 
decline. 

These investigations were supplemented by similar re- 
searches elsewhere. In many other parts of the world it 
was found that lake-dwellers had existed in different grades 
of civilization, but all within a certain range, intermediate 
between the cave-dwellers and the historic period. To ex- 
plain this epoch of the lake-dwellers History came in with 
the account given by Herodotus of the lake-dwellings on 
Lake Prasias, which gave protection from the armies of Per- 
sia. Still more important, Comparative Ethnography showed 
that to-day, in various parts of the world, especially in New 
Guinea and West Africa, races of men are living in lake- 
dwellings built upon piles, and with a range of implements 



296 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



and weapons strikingly like many of those discovered in 
these ancient lake deposits of Switzerland. 

In Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Scot- 
land, and other countries, remains of a different sort were 
also found, throwing light on this progress. The cromlechs, 
cranogs, mounds, and the like, though some of them indicate 
the work of weaker tribes pressed upon by stronger, show, 
as a rule, the same upward tendency. 

At a very early period in the history of these discoveries, 
various attempts were made — nominally in the interest of 
religion, but really in the interest of sundry creeds and 
catechisms framed when men knew little or nothing of natu- 
ral laws — to break the force of such evidences of the progress 
and development of the human race from lower to higher. 
Out of all the earlier efforts two may be taken as fairly typ- 
ical, for they exhibit the opposition to science as developed 
under two different schools of theology, each working in its 
own way. The first of these shows great ingenuity and 
learning, and is presented by Mr. Southall in his book, pub- 
lished in 1875, entitled The Recent Origin of the World, In 
this he grapples first of all with the difficulties presented by 
the early date of Egyptian civilization, and the keynote of 
his argument is the statement made by an eminent Egyptol- 
ogist, at a period before modern archaeological discoveries 
were well understood, that ** Egypt laughs the idea of a rude 
Stone age, a polished Stone age, a Bronze age, an Iron age, 
to scorn." 

Mr. Southall's method was substantially that of the late 
excellent Mr. Gosse in geology. Mr. Gosse, as the readers 
of this work may remember, felt obliged, in the supposed in- 
terest of Genesis, to urge that safety to men's souls might be 
found in believing that, six thousand years ago, the Almighty, 
for some inscrutable purpose, suddenly set Niagara pouring 
very near the spot where it is pouring now ; laid the various 
strata, and sprinkled the fossils through them like plums 
through a pudding ; scratched the glacial grooves upon the 
rocks, and did a vast multitude of things, subtle and cunning, 
little and great, in all parts of the world, required to delude >^ 
geologists of modern times into the conviction that all these + 
things were the result of a steady progress through long 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



297 



epochs. On a similar plan, Mr. Southall proposed, at the 
very beginning of his book, as a final solution of the prob- 
lem, the declaration that Egypt, with its high civilization in 
the time of Mena, with its races, classes, institutions, arrange- 
ments, language, monuments — all indicating an evolution 
through a vast previous history — was a sudden creation 
which came fully made from the hands of the Creator. To 
use his own words, " The Egyptians had no Stone age, and 
were born civilized." 

There is an old story that once on a time a certain jovial 
King of France, making a progress through his kingdom, 
was received at the gates of a provincial town by the may- 
or's deputy, who began his speech on this wise : " May it 
please your Majesty, there are just thirteen reasons why His 
Honour the Mayor can not be present to welcome you this 
morning. The first of these reasons is that he is dead."^ On 
this the king graciously declared that this first reason was 
sufficient, and that he would not trouble the mayor's deputy 
for the twelve others. 

So with Mr. Southall's argument : one simple result of 
scientific research out of many is all that it is needful to 
state, and this is, that in these later years we have a new and 
convincing evidence of the existence of prehistoric man in 
Egypt in his earliest, rudest beginnings ; the very same evi- 
dence which we find in all other parts of the world which 
have been carefully examined. This evidence consists of 
stone implements and weapons which have been found in 
Egypt in such forms, at such points, and in such positions 
that when studied in connection with those found in all 
other parts of the world, from New Jersey to California, 
from France to India, and from England to the Andaman 
Islands, they force upon us the conviction that civilization 
in Egypt, as in all other parts of the world, was developed 
by the same slow process of evolution from the rudest be- 
ginnings. 

It is true that men learned in Egyptology had discour- 
aged the idea of an earlier Stone age in Egypt, and that 
among these were Lepsius and Brugsch ; but these men 
were not trained in prehistoric archaeology ; their devotion 
to the study of the monuments of Egyptian civilization had 



298 THE -FALL OF MAX" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 

evidently drawn them awav from sympathy, and indeed 
from acquaintance, with the work of men like Boucher de 
Perthes, Lartet, Nilsson, Troyon, and Dawkins. But a new 
era was beginning. In 1867 Worsaae called attention to the 
prehistoric implements found on the borders of Egypt : two 
years later Arcelin discussed such stone implements found 
beneath the soil of Sakkara and Gizeh, the verv focus of 
the earliest Egyptian ci\'iIization ; in the same year Haray 
and Lenormant found such implements washed out from 
the depths higher up the Nile at Thebes, near the tombs of 
the kings ; and in the following year they exhibited more 
flint implements found at various other places. Coupled 
with these discoveries was the fact that Homer and Linant 
found a copper knife at twenty-four feet, and pottery at sixty 
feet, below the surface. In 1872 Dr. Reil, director of the 
baths at Helouan, near Cairo, discovered implements of 
chipped flint; and in 1877 Dr. Jukes Brown made similar 
discoveries in that region. In 1878 Oscar Fraas, summing 
up the question, showed that the stone implements were 
mainly such as are found in the prehistoric deposits of other 
countries, and that, Zittel having found them in the Libyan 
Desert, far from the oases, there was reason to suppose that 
these implements were used before the region became a des- 
ert and before Egypt was civilized. Two years later Dr. 
Mook, of Wiirzburg, published a work giving the results of 
his investigations, with careful drawings of the rude stone 
implements discovered by him in the upper Nile Valley, and 
it was evident that, while some of these implements differed 
slightly from those before known, the great mass of them 
were of the character so common in the prehistoric deposits 
of other parts of the world. 

A yet more important contribution to this mass of facts 
was made by Prof. Henry Haynes, of Boston, who in the 
winter of 1877 and 1878 began a very thorough investigation 
of the subject, and discovered, a few miles east of Cairo, 
many flint implements. The significance of Haynes's dis- 
coveries was twofold : First, there were, among these, stone 
axes like those found in the French drift beds of St. Acheul, 
showing that the men who made or taught men how to 
make these in Egypt were passing through the same phase 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



299 



of savagery as that of Quaternary France ; secondly, he 
found a workshop for making these implements, proving that 
these flint implements were not brought into Egypt by in- 
vaders, but were made to meet the necessities of the country. 
From this first field Prof. Haynes went to Helouan, north of 
Cairo, and there found, as Dr. Reil had done, various worked 
flints, some of them like those discovered by M. Rivifere in 
the caves of southern France ; thence he went up the Nile 
to Luxor, the site of ancient Thebes, began a thorough 
search in the Tertiary limestone hills, and found multitudes 
of chipped stone implements, some of them, indeed, of origi- 
nal forms, but most of forms common in other parts of the 
world under similar circumstances, some of the chipped 
stone axes corresponding closely to those found in the drift 
beds of northern France. 

AH this seemed to show conclusively that, long ages be- 
fore the earliest period of Egyptian civilization of which the 
monuments of the first dynasties give us any trace, mankind 
in the Nile Valley was going through the same slow prog- 
ress from the period when, standing just above the brutes, 
he defended himself with implements of rudely chipped 
stone. 

But in 1881 came discoveries which settled the question 
entirely. In that year General Pitt-Rivers, a Fellow of the 
Royal Society and President of the Anthropological Insti- 
tute, and J. F. Campbell, Fellow of the Royal Geographical 
Society of England, found implements not only in alluvial 
deposits, associated with the bones of the zebra, hyena, and 
other animals which have since retreated farther south, but, 
at Djebel Assas, near Thebes, they found implements of 
chipped flint in the hard, stratified gravel, from six and a 
half to ten feet below the surface; relics evidently, as Mr. 
Campbell says, "beyond calculation older than the oldest 
Egyptian temples and tombs." They certainly proved that 
Egyptian civilization had not issued in its completeness, and 
all at once, from the hand of the Creator in the time of 
Mena. Nor was this all. Investigators of the highest char- 
acter and ability — men like Hull and Flinders Petrie — re- 
vealed geological changes in Egypt requiring enormous pe- 
riods of time, and traces of man's handiwork dating from a 



300 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



period when the waters in the Nile Valley extended hun- 
dreds of feet above the present level. Thus was ended the 
contention of Mr. Southall. 

Still another attack upon the new scientific conclusions 
came from France, when in 1883 the Abb6 Hamard, Priest 
of the Oratory, published his Age of Stone and Primitive Man, 
He had been especially vexed af the arrangement of pre- 
historic implements by periods at the Paris Exposition of 
1878; he bitterly complains of this as having an anti-Chris- 
tian tendency, and rails at science as " the idol of the day." 
He attacks Mortillet, one of the leaders in French archae- 
ology, with a great display of contempt; speaks of the 
" venom *' in books on prehistoric man generally ; complains 
that the Church is too mild and gentle with such monstrous 
doctrines ; bewails the concessions made to science by some 
eminent preachers ; and foretells his own martyrdom at the 
hands of men of science. 

Efforts like this accomplished little, and a more legitimate 
attempt was made to resist the conclusions of archaeology 
by showing that knives of stone were used in obedience to 
a sacred ritual in Egypt for embalming, and in Judea for cir- 
cumcision, and that these flint knives might have had this 
later origin. But the argument against the conclusions 
drawn from this view was triple : First, as we have seen, not 
only stone knives, but axes and other implements of stone 
similar to those of a prehistoric period in western Europe 
were discovered ; secondly, these implements were discov- 
ered in the hard gravel drift of a period evidently far earlier 
than that of Mena; and, thirdly, the use of stone imple- 
ments in Egyptian and Jewish sacred functions within the 
historic period, so far from weakening the force of the argu- 
ments for the long and slow development of Egyptian civili- 
zation from the men who used rude flint implements to the 
men who built and adorned the great temples of the early 
dynasties, is really an argument in favour of that long evolu- 
tion. A study of comparative ethnology has made it clear 
that the sacred stone knives and implements of the Egyptian 
and Jewish priestly ritual were natural survivals of that pre- 
vious period. For sacrificial or ritual purposes, the knife of 
stone was considered more sacred than the knife of bronze or 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



301 



iron, simply because it was ancient; just as to-day, in India, 
Brahman priests kindle the sacred fire not with matches or 
flint and steel, but by a process found in the earliest, lowest 
stages of human culture — by violently boring a pointed stick 
into another piece of wood until a spark comes ; and just as 
to-day, in Europe and America, the architecture of the Mid- 
dle Ages survives as a special religious form in the erection 
of our most recent churches, and to such an extent that 
thousands on thousands of us feel that we can not worship 
fitly unless in the midst of windows, decorations, vessels, im- 
plements, vestments, and ornaments, no longer used for other 
purposes, but which have survived in sundry branches of 
the Christian Church, and derived a special sanctity from 
the fact that they are of ancient origin. 

Taking, then, the whole mass of testimony together, even 
though a plausible or very strong argument against single 
evidences may be made here and there, the force of its com- 
bined mass remains, and leaves both the vast antiquity of 
man and the evolution of civilization from its lowest to its 
highest forms, as proved by the prehistoric remains of Egypt 
and so many other countries in all parts of the world, be- 
yond a reasonable doubt. Most important of all, the recent 
discoveries in Assyria have thrown a new light upon the 
evolution of the dogma of "the fall of man.** Reverent 
scholars like George Smith, Sayce, Delitzsch. Jensen, Schra- 
der, and their compeers have found in the Ninevite records 
the undoubted source of that form of the fall legend which 
was adopted by the Hebrews and by them transmitted to 
Christianity.* 



• For Mr. Southall's views, see his Recent Origin of Man, p. 20, and elsewhere. 
For Mr. Gosse's views, see his Omphalos as cited in the chapter on Geology in this 
work. For a summary of the work of Arcelin, Hamy, Lenormant, Richard. Lub- 
bock, Mook, and Haynes, see Mortillet, Le Prikistorique, passim. As to Zittel's 
discovery, see Oscar Fraas's Aus dem Orient, Stuttgart, 1878. As to the striking 
similarities of the stone implements found in Egypt with those found in the drift 
and bone caves, see Mook's monograph, Wurzburg, 1880, cited in the next chap- 
ter, especially Plates IX, XI, XII. For even more striking reproductions of photo- 
graphs showing this remarkable similarity between Egyptian and European chipped 
stone remains, see H. W. Haynes, Paleolithic Implements in Upper Egypt, Boston. 
1881. See also Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, chap, i, pp. 8, 9, 44, 102, 316, 
329. As to stone implements used by priests of Jehovah, priests of Baal, priests 



302 



THE -FAi-L OF MAX" AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



of Molodi, priests cf Odin, and Eupdaa priests, u religions snrvivals, see CartaH- 
hac as abcre, 6 and 7 : also Lane:, in De LoTnes. Expedition to the Dead Sea ; 
also Nilssaa, Frimisvse Imis HtsnT i ef Scamdinazia^ pp. 96, 97 ; also Sayce, He- 
rMsSMS^ p. 171. note F::r the discoreries by Pin- Rivers, see the Journal cf the 
Anzkrcp.'L-p:^ InstihtU :f Grtzi Britsim emd Irelamd for iS32, voL xi, pp. 3S2 
et sep : and for CxspbeL's deciadDQ regarding them, see ibid., pp. 396, 397. For 
£u:t5 trmmed sp in the vcrds, ** It is most probable that Egypt at a remote period 
passed like many ocher co^n:nes throogh its stone period,** see Hilton Price, 
F. S- A^ F. G. S, paper in the Jciema: cf the Arckaological Institute of Great Brit- 
mi» and Irelamd i:>z xSi^. p. fc. Spedmens of palzolithic implements from Egypt 
— knxTcs. azTOwheads, spearheads, f ikrs, and the like, both of peculiar and ordinary 
foxms — may be seen in Tarlocs m^sezms^ bat e^>edally in that of Prof. Haynes, of 
Bostoo. Some interesting light is also throvn into the subject by the specimens 
obtained by General Wilson and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution at Wash- 
ington. For the Abbi Hamard's anark, see his L'Age de la Pierre et VHcmme 
Pwimitif Faris» i5?3— especially his pre&.ce. For the stone weapton found in the 
high drift behind Esneh. see Flinders Petrie, Hiskry cf R^pt^ chap. L Of these 
by Piit> Rivers and others Maspero appears to know nothing. 



CHAPTER IX. 
THE ''FALL OF MAN'' AND ETHNOLOGY. 

We have seen that, closely connected with the main lines 
of investigation in archaeology and anthropology, there 
were other researches throwing much light on the entire 
subject. In a previous chapter we saw especially that La- 
fitau and Jussieu were among the first to collect and com- 
pare facts bearing on the natural history of man, gathered 
by travellers in various parts of the earth, thus laying foun- 
dations for the science of comparative ethnology. It was 
soon seen that ethnology had most important bearings upon 
the question of the material, intellectual, moral, and religious 
evolution of the human race; in every civilized nation, 
therefore, appeared scholars who began to study the char- 
acteristics of various groups of men as ascertained from 
travellers, and to compare the results thus gained with each 
other and with those obtained by archaeology. 

Thus, more and more clear became the evidences that / 
the tendency of the race has been upward from low begin-' 
nings. It was found that groups of men still existed possess- 
ing characteristics of those in the early periods of develop- 
ment to whom the drift and caves and shell-heaps and pile- 
dwellings bear witness; groups of men using many of the 
same implements and weapons, building their houses in the 
same way, seeking their food by the same means, enjoying 
the same amusements, and going through the same general 
stages of culture ; some being in a condition correspond- 
ing to the earlier, some to the later, of those early periods. 

From all sides thus came evidence that we have still 
upon the earth examples of all the main stages in the devel- 
opment of human civilization ; that from the period when 

303 



304 THE -FALL OF ^iAS" AND ETHNOLOGY. 

man appears little above the brutes, and with little if any re- 
ligion in any accepted sense of the word, these examples can 
be arranged in an ascending series leading to the highest 
planes which humanity has reached ; that philosophic ob- 
servers may among these examples study existing beliefs, 
usages, and institutions back through earlier and earlier 
forms, until, as a rule, the whole evolution can be easily 
divined if not fully seen. Moreover, the basis of the whole 
structure became more and more clear: the fact that "the 
lines of intelligence have always been what they are, and 
have always operated as they do now ; that man has pro- 
gressed from the simple to the complex, from the particular 
to the general." 

As this evidence from ethnology became more and more 
strong, its significance to theology aroused attention, and 
naturally most determined efforts were made to break its 
force. On the Continent the two great champions of the 
Church in this field were De Maistre and De Donald ; but 
the two attempts which may be especially recalled as the 
most influential among English-speaking peoples were those 
of Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, and the Duke of Argyll. 

First in the combat against these new deductions of 
science was Whately. He was a strong man, whose breadth 
of thought and liberality in practice deserve all honour; 
but these very qualities drew upon him the distrust of his 
orthodox brethren ; and, while his writings were powerful 
in the first half of the present century to break down 
many bulwarks of unreason, he seems to have been con- 
stantly in fear of losing touch with the Church, and 
therefore to have promptly attacked some scientific rea- 
sonings, which, had he been a layman, not holding a brief 
for the Church, he would probably have studied with more 
care and less prejudice. He was not slow to see the deeper 
significance of archaeology and ethnology in their relations 
to the theological conception of " the Fall," and he set the 
battle in array against them. 

His contention was, to use his own words, that " no com- 
munity ever did or ever can emerge unassisted by external 
helps from a state of utter barbarism into anything that can 
be called civilization " ; and that, in short, all imperfectly 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY. 



305 



civilized, barbarous, and savage races are but fallen descend- 
ants of races more fully civilized. This view was urged 
with his usual ingenuity and vigour, but the facts proved 
too strong for him : they made it clear, first, that many races 
were without simple possessions, instruments, and arts which 
never, probably, could have been lost if once acquired — as, 
for example, pottery, the bow for shooting, various domesti- 
cated animals, spinning, the simplest principles of agricul- 
ture, household economy, and the like ; and, secondly, it was 
shown as a simple matter of fact that various savage and 
barbarous tribes had raised themselves by a development of 
means which no one from outside could have taught them ; 
as in the cultivation and improvement of various indigenous 
plants, such as the potato and Indian com among the Indians 
of North America ; in the domestication of various animals 
peculiar to their own regions, such as the llama among the 
Indians of South America ; in the making of sundry fabrics 
out of materials and by processes not found among other na- 
tions, such as the bark cloth of the Polynesians ; and in the 
development of weapons peculiar to sundry localities, but 
known in no others, such as the boomerang in Australia. 

Most effective in bringing out the truth were such works 
as those of Sir John Lubbock and Tylor ; and so conclusive 
were they that the arguments of Whately were given up as 
untenable by the other of the two great champions above 
referred to, and an attempt was made by him to form the 
diminishing number of thinking men supporting the old 
theological view on a new line of defence. 

This second champion, the Duke of Argyll, was a man of 
wide knowledge and strong powers in debate, whose high 
moral sense was amply shown in his adhesion to the side of 
the American Union in the struggle against disunion and 
slavery, despite the overwhelming majority against him in 
the high aristocracy to which he belonged. As an honest 
man and close thinker, the duke was obliged to give up 
completely the theological view of the antiquity of man. 
The whole biblical chronology as held by the universal 
Church, "always, everywhere, and by all," he sacrificed, and 
gave all his powers in this field to support the theory of 
the Fall." Noblesse oblige \ the duke and his ancestors had 






yf^ 



i»fcr ir'ju. ^ itart?: umii-x dyrnsi rssalT 

VfcTV-ii. MiVi;^^. iiruti- raixri vrrt tb* rmudus a: zzx-ihzti 

aiid crirtra o^f t'j rcsa'Xt aad izicif:zK3ii psn*^ u: in* cltx. 
iri**:T*; ti«t cvacitiviii zK:cx:!£2Lrr to 2 cimiinxxzairr ii. lii-ir 

bca)^ of cuiturt. To use Lis own ward^. ibc w*ai:*r ncs 
wt-r-j; "•drivtta Irj the siron^fr to ii>c wojds and ri^zks." sd 
titat tbej bccanie "' mere outcasts oi: ti>c fcusum race-*" 

In ai2swer to itiSt while it was ooncwSfii, irsL. thai tbcrt 
havt been examples of weaker tribes sinking in the <^-a> a: 
culture after eycsipin^ from the stronger into regiios iniii- 
v^/urable to civilization, and. secondly, that manj pDwerfcI 
nations have declined and decavcd, it was shown inat the 
men in the m^At remote and unfavourable regions hare not 
alwav^ ^^en the lowest in the scale: that men have been :rc- 
queniiy found "among the woods and rocks" in a Ligicr 
f>tate of civiiization than on the fertile plains, such examples 
\M:iir^ cited as Mexico, Peru, and even Scotland ; and that, 
while there were many examples of special and local de- 
cline, overwhelming masses of facts point to prepress as a 
rule. 

The improbability, not to say impossibility, of many of 
the conclusions arrived at by the duke appeared more and 
more strongly as more became known of the lower tribes of 
mankind. It was necessary on his theory to suppose many 
things which our knowledge of the human race absolutely 
forbids us to l>clicve : for example, it was necessary to suj)- 
posc tliat the Australians or New Zealanders, having once 
possessed so simple and convenient an art as that of the pot- 
ter, had lost every trace of it ; and that the same tribes, hav- 
ing once had so simple a means of saving labour as the 
s[jindle or small stick weighted at one end for spinning, 
had given it up and gone back to twisting threads with the 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY. 



307 



hand. In fact, it was necessary to suppose that one of the 
main occupations of man from ** the beginning *' had been 
the forgetting of simple methods, processes, and implements 
which all experience in the actual world teaches us are never 
entirely forgotten by peoples who have once acquired them. 

Some leading arguments of the duke were overthrown 
by simple statements of fact. Thus, his instance of the Eski- 
mo as pushed to the verge of habitable America, and there- 
fore living in the lowest depths of savagery, which, even 
if it were true, by no means proved a general rule, was de- 
prived of its force by the simple fact that the Eskimos are by 
no means the lowest race on the American continent, and 
that various tribes far more centrally and advantageously 
placed, as, for instance, those in Brazil, are really inferior to 
them in the scale of culture. Again, his statement that "in 
Africa there appear to be no traces of any time when the 
natives were not acquainted with the use of iron," is met by 
the fact that from the Nile Valley to the Cape of Good Hope 
we find, wherever examination has been made, the same early 
stone implements which in all other parts of the world pre- 
cede the use of iron, some of which would not have been 
made had their makers possessed iron. The duke also tried 
to show that there were no distinctive epochs of stone, bronze, 
and iron, by adducing the fact that some stone implements 
are found even in some high civilizations. This is indeed a 
fact. We find some few European peasants to-day using 
stone mallet-heads ; but this proves simply that the old stone 
mallet-heads have survived as implements cheap and effective. 

The argument from Comparative Ethnology in support of 
the view that the tendency of mankind is upward has re- 
ceived strength from many sources. Comparative Philology 
shows that in the less civilized, barbarous, and savage races 
childish forms of speech prevail — frequent reduplications 
and the like, of which we have survivals in the later and 
even in the most highly developed languages. In various 
languages, too, we find relics of ancient modes of thought in 
the simplest words and expressions used for arithmetical cal- 
culations. Words and phrases for this purpose are frequently 
found to be derived from the words for hands, feet, fingers, 
and toes, just as clearly as in our own language some of our 



3o8 THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY. 

Simplest measures of length are shown by their names to 
have been measures of parts of the human body, as the cubit, 
the foot, and the like, and therefore to date from a time when 
exactness was not required. To add another out of many 
examples, it is found to-day that various rude nations go 
through the simplest arithmetical processes by means of 
pebbles. Into our own language, through the Latin, has 
come a word showing that our distant progenitors reckoned 
in this way : the word calculate gives us an absolute proof 
of this. According to the theory of the Duke of Argyll, 
men ages ago used pebbles {calculi) in performing the sim- 
plest arithmetical calculations because we to-day ** calculate'^ 
No reduction to absurdity could be more thorough. The 
simple fact must be that we ** calculate ** because our remote 
ancestors used pebbles in their arithmetic. 

Comparative Literature and Folklore also show among 
peoples of a low culture to-day childish modes of viewing 
nature, and childish ways of expressing the relations of man 
to nature, such as clearly survive from a remote ancestry ; 
noteworthy among these are the beliefs in witches and fairies, 
and multitudes of popular and poetic expressions in the most 
civilized nations. 

So, too, Comparative Ethnography, the basis of Ethnology, 
shows in contemporary barbarians and savages a childish love 
of playthings and games, of which we have many survivals. 

All these facts, which were at first unobserved or ob- 
served as matters of no significance, have been brought into 
connection with a fact in biology acknowledged alike by all 
important schools ; by Agassiz on one hand and by Darwin 
on the other — namely, as stated by Agassiz, that " the young 
states of each species and group resemble older forms of the 
same group,** or, as stated by Darwin, that " in two or more 
groups of animals, however much they may at first diflfer 
from each other in structure and habits, if they pass through 
closely similar embryonic stages, we may feel almost assured 
that they have descended from the same parent form, and 
are therefore closely related.'* * 



♦ Yox the stone forms given to early bronze axes, etc., see Nilsson, Primitive 
Inhabitants of Scandinavia^ London, i863, Lubbock's Introduction, P* 3i ; <^d 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY. 309 

for plates, see Lubbock's Prehistoric Man^ chap, ii ; also Cartailhac, Les Ages 
Pr/historiques de VEspagne et du Portugal^ p. 227 ; also Keller, Lake Dwellings \ 
also Troyon, Habitations Lacustres\ also Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Great 
Britain^ p. 292 ; also Lubbock, p. 6 ; also Lyell, Antiquity of Man^ chap. ii. For 
the cranogs, etc., in the north of Europe, see Munro, Ancient Scottish Lake DwelU 
imgSf Edinburgh, 1882. For mounds and greater stone constructions in the ex- 
treme south of Europe, see Cartailhac's work on Spain and Portugal above cited, 
part iii, chap. iiL For the source of Mr. Southall's contention, see Brugsch, Egypt 
of the Pharaohs, For the two sides of the question whether in the lowest grades 
of savagery there is really any recognition of a superior power, or anything which 
can be called, in any accepted sense, religion, compare Quatrefages with Lubbock, 
in works already cited. For a striking but rather ad captandum effort to show that 
there is a moral and religious sense in the very lowest Australian tribes, see one of 
the discourses of Archbishop Vaughan on Science and ^^/(fi^w, Baltimore, 1879. 
For one out of multitudes of striking and instructive resemblances in ancient stone 
implements and those now in use among sundry savage tribes, see comparison be- 
tween old Scandinavian arrowheads and those recently brought from Tierra del 
Fuego, in Nilsson as above, especially in Plate V. For a brief and admirable 
statement of the arguments on both sides, see Sir J. Lubbock's Dundee paper, 
given in the appendix to the American edition of his Origin of Civilization^ etc. 
For the general argument referred to between Whately and the Duke of Argyll on 
one side and Lubbock on the other, see Lubbock's Dundee paper as above cited ; 
Tylor, Early History of Mankind^ especially p. 193 ; and the Duke of Argyll, 
Primeval Afan^ part iv. For difficulties of savages in arithmetic, see Lubbock, as 
above, pp. 459 et seq. For a very temperate and judicial view of the whole ques- 
tion, see Tylor as above, chaps, vii and xiii. For a brief summary of the scientific 
position regarding the stagnation and deterioration of races, resulting in the state- 
ment that such deterioration " in no way contradicts the theory that civilization 
itself is developed from low to high stages," see Tylor, Anthropology, chap. i. For 
striking examples of the testimony of language to upward progress, see Tylor, 
chap. xii. 



CHAPTER X. 
THE ''FALL OF AfAX" AND HISTORY. 

The historj' of art, especially as shown by architecture, 
in the noblest monuments of the most enlightened nations of 
antiquity, gives abundant proofs of the upward tendency of 
man from the rudest and simplest beginnings. Many col- 
umns of early Egyptian temples or tombs are but bundles of 
Nile reeds slightly conventionalized in stone; the temples 
of Greece, including not only the earliest forms, but the Par- 
thenon itself, while in parts showing an evolution out of 
Egyptian and Assyrian architecture, exhibit frequent remi- 
niscences and even imitations of earlier constructions in 
wood ; the mediaeval cathedrals, while evolved out of Roman 
and Byzantine structures, constantly show unmistakable sur- 
vivals of prehistoric construction.* 

So, too, general history has come in, illustrating the un- 
known from the known: the development of man in the 
prehistoric period from his development within historic 
times. Nothing is more evident from history than the fact 
that weaker bodies of men driven out by stronger do not 
necessarily relapse into barbarism, but frequently rise, even 
under the most unfavourable circumstances, to a civilization 



* As to evolution in architecture, and especially of Greek forms and ornaments 
out of £g\'ptian and Assyrian, with sur\nvals in stone architecture of forms ob- 
tained in Egypt when reeds were used, and in Greece when wood construction 
prevailed, see Fergusson's Handbook of Architecture^ vol. i, pp. loo, 228. 233, and 
elsewhere ; also Oifried MuUer, Ancient Art and its Remains^ English translation, 
London, 1852, pp. 219, passim. For a very brief but thorough statement, sec A. 
Mangnard's paper in the Proceedings of the Anurican Oriental Society, October, 
1889, entitled Reminiscences of Egypt in Doric Architecture, On the general sub- 
ject, see Ilommel, Bahylonien^ ch. i, and Meyer, Alterthum^ i, § 199. 

310 



• 
THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY. 



311 



equal or superior to that from which they have been ban- 
ished. Out of very many examples showing this law of 
upward development, a few may be taken as typical. The 
Slavs, who sank so low under the pressure of stronger races 
that they gave the modern world a new word to express the 
most hopeless servitude, have developed powerful civiliza- 
tions peculiar to themselves ; the barbarian tribes who ages 
ago took refuge amid the sand-banks and morasses of Hol- 
land, have developed one of the world's leading centres of 
civilization ; the wretched peasants who about the fifth cen- 
tury took refuge from invading hordes among the lagoons 
and mud banks of Venetia, developed a power in art, arms, 
and politics which is among the wonders of human history ; 
the Puritans, driven from the civilization of Great Britain to 
the unfavourable climate, soil, and circumstances of early 
New England, — the Huguenots, driven from France, a coun- 
try admirably fitted for the highest growth of civilization, to 
various countries far less fitted for such growth, — the Irish 
peasantry, driven in vast numbers from their own island to 
other parts of the world on the whole less fitted to them — 
all are proofs that, as a rule, bodies of men once enlightened, 
when driven to unfavourable climates and brought under the 
most depressing circumstances, not only retain what en- 
lightenment they have, but go on increasing it. Besides 
these, we have such cases as those of criminals banished to 
various penal colonies, from whose descendants has been 
developed a better morality ; and of pirates, like those of 
the Bounty, whose descendants, in a remote Pacific island, 
became sober, steady citizens. Thousands of examples show 
the prevalence of this same rule — that men in masses do not 
forget the main gains of their civilization, and that, in spite 
of deteriorations, their tendency is upward. 

Another class of historic facts also testifies in the most 
striking manner to this same upward tendency : the decline 
and destruction of various civilizations brilliant but hope- 
lessly vitiated. These catastrophes are seen more and more 
to be but steps in this development. The crumbling away 
of the great ancient civilizations based upon despotism, 
whether the despotism of monarch, priest, or mob — the de- 
cline and fall of Roman civilization, for example, which, in 



3»2 



THE -FALL OF MAN" AXD 



his most remarkable generalization. Guizot has shown to 
have been necessary to the development of the richer civili- 
zation of modem Europe : the terrible struggle and loss of 
the Crusades, which once appeared to be a mere catastrophe, 
but are now seen to have brought in, with the downfall of 
feudalism, the beginnings of the centralizing, civilizing mo- 
narchical period ; the French Revolution, once thought a 
mere outburst of diabolic passion, but now seen to be an 
unduly delayed transition from the monarchical to the coo- 
stitutional epoch : all show that even widespread deteriora- 
tion and decline — often, indeed, the greatest political and 
moral catastrophes — so far from leading to a fall of mankind, 
tend in the long run to raise humanity to higher planes. 

Thus, then, Anthropology and its handmaids. Ethnology, 
Philology, and History, have wrought out, beyond a doubt, 
proofs of the upward evolution of humanity since the ap- 
pearance of man upon our planet. 

Nor have these researches been confined to progress in 
man's material condition. Far more important evidences 
have been found of upward evolution in his family, social, 
moral, intellectual, and religious relations. The light thrown 
on this subject by such men as Lubbock, Tylor, Herbert 
Spencer, Buckle, Draper, Max Miiller, and a multitude of 
others, despite mistakes, baitings, stumblings, and occasional 
following of delusive paths, is among the greatest glories of 
the century now ending. From all these investigators in 
their various fields, holding no brief for any system sacred 
or secular, but seeking truth as truth, comes the same gen- 
eral testimony of the evolution of higher out of lower. The 
process has been indeed slow and painful, but this does not 
prove that it may not become more rapid and less fruitful in 
sorrow as humanity goes on.* 

While, then, it is not denied that many instances of re- 
trogression can be found, the consenting voice of unbiased 
investigators in all lands has declared more and more that 
the beginnings of our race must have been low and brutal, 
and that the tendency has been upward. To combat this 



* As to the goo<l effects of migration, see Waitz, Introduction to Anthropology^ 
London, 1863, p. 345. 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY. 



313 



conclusion by examples of decline and deterioration here 
and there has become impossible : as well try to prove that, 
because in the Mississippi there are eddies in which the cur- 
rents flow northward, there is no main stream flowing south- 
ward ; or that, because trees decay and fall, there is no law 
of upward growth from germ to trunk, branches, foliage, 
and fruit. 

A very striking evidence that the theological theory had 
become untenable was seen when its main supporter in the 
scientific field, Von Martins, in the full ripeness of his pow- 
ers, publicly declared his conversion to the scientific view. 

Yet, while the tendency of enlightened human thought 
in recent times is unmistakable, the struggle against the 
older view is not yet ended. The bitterness of the Ahh6 
Hamard in France has been carried to similar and even 
greater extremes among sundry Protestant bodies in Europe 
and America. The simple truth of history makes it a neces- 
sity, unpleasant though it be, to chronicle two typical exam- 
ples in the United States. 

In the year 1875 a leader in American industrial enter- 
prise endowed at the capital of a Southern State a university 
which bore his name. It was given into the hands of one of 
the religious sects most powerful in that region, and a bishop 
of that sect became its president. To its chair of Geology 
was called Alexander Winchell, a scholar who had already 
won eminence as a teacher and writer in that field, a pro- 
fessor greatly beloved and respected in the two universities 
with which he had been connected, and a member of the 
sect which the institution of learning above referred to rep- 
resented. 

But his relations to this Southern institution were des- 
tined to be brief. That his lectures at the Vanderbilt Uni- 
versity were learned, attractive, and stimulating, even his 
enemies were forced to admit ; but he was soon found to be- 
lieve that there had been men earlier than the period as- 
signed to Adam, and even that all the human race are not 
descended from Adam. His desire was to reconcile science 
and Scripture, and he was now treated by a Methodist Epis- 
copal Bishop in Tennessee just as, two centuries before, La 
Peyrfere had been treated, for a similar efiort, by a Roman 



314 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY. 



Catholic vicar-general in Belgium. The publication of a 
series of articles on the subject, contributed bj the pro- 
fessor to a Northern religious newspaper at its own request, 
brought matters to a climax ; for, the articles having fallen 
under the notice of a leading Southwestern organ of the de- 
nomination controlling the Vanderbilt University, the result 
was a most bitter denunciation of Prof. Winchell and of his 
views. Shortly afterward the professor was told by Bishop 
McTyeire that "our people are of the opinion that such 
views are contrary to the plan of redemption,[]^aiid was re-- 
quested by the bishop to quietly resign his chair. To this 
the professor made the fitting reply : " If the board of trus- 
tees have the manliness to dismiss me for cause, and declare 
the cause, I prefer that they should do it. No power on 
earth could persuade me to resign." 

" We do not propose," said the bishop, with quite gratui- 
tous suggestiveness, •* to treat you as the Inquisition treated 
Galileo." 

" But what you propose is the same thing," rejoined Dr. 
Winchell. " It is ecclesiastical proscription for an opinion 
which must be settled bv scientific evidence." 

Twenty-four hours later Dr. Winchell was informed that 
his chair had been abolished, and its duties, with its salarv, 
added to those of a colleague ; the public were given to un- 
derstand that the reasons were purely economic; the ban- 
ished scholar was heaped with official compliments, evi- 
dently in hope that he would keep silence. 

Such was not Dr. WinchcU's view. In a frank letter to 
the leading journal of the university town he stated the 
whole matter. The intolerance-hating press of the country, 
religious and secular, did not hold its peace. In vain the 
authorities of the university waited for the storm to blow 
over. It was evident, at last, that a defence must be made, 
and a local organ of the sect, which under the editorship of 
a fellow-professor had always treated Dr. Winchell's views 
with the luminous inaccuracy which usually characterizes a 
professor's ideas of a rivars teachings, assumed the task. In 
the articles which followed, the usual scientific hypotheses 
as to the creation were declared to be " absurd," " vague and 
unintelligible," " preposterous and gratuitous." This new 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY. 



315 



champion stated that " the objections drawn from the fossil- 
iferous strata and the like are met by reference to the anal- 
ogy of Adam and Eve, who presented the phenomena of 
adults when they were but a day old, and by the Flood of 
Noah and other cataclysms, which, with the constant change 
of Nature, are sufficient to account for the phenomena in 
question " ! 

Under inspiration of this sort the Tennessee Conference 
of the religious body in control of the university had already, 
in October, 1878, given utterance to its opinion of unsancti- 
fied science as follows : ** This is an age in which scientific 
atheism, having divested itself of the habiliments that most 
adorn and dignify humanity, walks abroad in shameless den- 
udation. The arrogant and impertinent claims of this * sci- 
ence, falsely so called,' have been so boisterous and persist- 
ent, that the unthinking mass have been sadly deluded ; but 
our university alone has had the courage to lay its young 
but vigorous hand upon the mane of untamed Speculation 
and say, * We will have no more of this.' " 

It is a consolation to know how the result, thus devoutly 
sought, has been achieved ; for in the " ode " sung at the lay- 
ing of the corner-stone of a new theological building of the 
same university, in May, 1880, we read : 

" Science and Revelation here 
In perfect harmony appear, 
Guiding young feet along the road 
Through grace and Nature up to God." 

It is also pleasing to know that, while an institution call- 
ing itself a university thus violated the fundamental princi- 
ples on which any institution worthy of the name must be 
based, another institution which has the glory of being the 
first in the entire North to begin something like a university 
organization — the State University of Michigan — recalled 
Dr. Winchell at once to his former professorship, and hon- 
oured itself by maintaining him in that position, where, un- 
hampered, he was thereafter able to utter his views in the 
midst of the largest body of students on the American con- 
tinent. 

Disgraceful as this history was to the men who drove 



-l6 THE -FALL OF MAN" ASD HISTORY. 

out Dr. Winchell, the\- but succrcded, as various similar 
bodies of men making similar efforts have done, in advanc- 
inj: iheir supposed \TCtim to higher position and more coro- 
manciing influence.* 

A :e»- years after this suppression of earnest ChiistiaD 
thought at an institution of learning in the western part oi 
our Sou: hem States, there appeared a similar attempt in 
sundry sea5x>ard States of the South. 

As far hack as the vear iS^- the Presbvteriim Svnod of 

• • * « ^ 

Mississippi passed the following resolution: 

•' ir^ij-^z-ic. We live in an age in which the most insidious 
attacks are made on revealed religion through the natural 
sciences, ai^d as it behooves the Church at all times to have 
men ca:\ab:e oi defendinc^ the faith once delivered to the 
saints: 

•'-v.N.vr'i-'i!. That this presbytery recommend the endow- 
ment v>: a rr.vessorshir^ cc Natural Science as connected 
w::h rrve.:i>i re-igi:ci in one or more of oar theological 
sen^inarirs." 

r,:rsiiir.: :; :r.is res^.s:t5:»n such a chair was established 
ir. :hr :re:J:ici<r"^ sf-minary at Cj^uTrbia. S, C and James 
\Vo:o.r.*»* >»:.> :Lry»:i:r:ei rr::>ss:r. Pr, Woodrow seems 
T,-^ r:. ^r ^;^r^. i.i~:-i.r'!T r:tfi ::r the r*:»si:i:'n — a devoted 
0.r':>:::." r."«r.. ^rr;r::r^ :he Prrsryif riaz: standards of faith 
::t A* r.^T. r.c r-.i r^-rr. rcj-.-^r.: -.it. ar.-i at the same time giv- 

c.^r^r. .:s: /'*> ;•■. sc?;*^^. 7~ crr^t r^attinl eDic-wi^ents he 
<::.t: "»:.:i.-.,.t^ t: i.r-r.Tf z: the rr:::h in this field. 



^. •* 



i«*««« ^« ^ « 



Vis::..-^ :\.";'vr ^^ — iif :r«- i!rruiir.taDJ^ of manv of the 



,n>i; N > . ^^. }" .V :i« ii's: ini7KTria.r - iimxmr.ucuiL re ^is - ii tp' s . see :i»e /i 

I. ,". ..-,1 . .- ■ .;.' \.t' n. :^~^ T.x riu r-irrcrsaci.it -w-ii Icsinp Vc- 

* ■■•,.',■ '^.■i . ♦■ '* ;v^;■.'- .MT lu-'-'u. "n- it Tie ' "i.-en-i. Anir^^:eK. _"tae it^^ 3*7*. 

:. >'"*■ j.ii* t.r :^: ^i:-;!«r jj^'sinrnnsn: zf ^iu tultict, ses tie 
> .. . -. • ■. .-f .1 * i •• -:, --■*-^. '\n- :tw ^irzttsr rmrsi ;c ihs rrrar't a d« 



.V ' 



• » 



r...-ni o - -^ <.'!. T\.t r.T^i "rr"£i:i.Ti. Jfc- ao.: i-cnc-i 



1.1. '\'>. ■ >-.v K >^nv * u.'!.- M' v." i ".'SXT. 



THE TALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY. 



317 



foremost scientific investigators, became a student in univer- 
sity lecture rooms and laboratories, an interested hearer in 
scientific conventions, and a correspondent of leading men 
of science at home and abroad. As a result, he came to the 
conclusion that the hypothesis of evolution is the only one 
which explains various leading facts in natural science. This 
he taught, and he also taught that such a view is not incom- 
patible with a true view of the sacred Scriptures. 

In 1882 and 1883 the board of directors of the theological 
seminary, in fear that " scepticism in the world is using 
alleged discoveries in science to impugn the Word of God," 
requested Prof. Woodrow to state his views in regard to 
evolution. The professor complied with this request in a 
very powerful address, which was published and widely cir- 
culated, to such effect that the board of directors shortly 
afterward passed resolutions declaring the theory of evolu- 
tion as defined by Prof. Woodrow not inconsistent with per- 
fect soundness in the faith. 

In the year 1884 alarm regarding Dr. Woodrow's teach- 
ings began to show itself in larger proportions, and a minor- 
ity report was introduced into the Synod of South Carolina 
declaring that " the synod is called upon to decide not upon 
the question whether the said views of Dr. Woodrow con- 
tradict the Bible in its highest and absolute sense, but upon 
the question whether they contradict the interpretation of 
the Bible by the Presbyterian Church in the United States." 

Perhaps a more self-condemnatory statement was never 
presented, for it clearly recognized, as a basis for intolerance, 
at least a possible difference between " the Interpretation of 
the Bible by the Presbyterian Church " and the teachings of 
" the Bible in its highest and absolute sense." 

This hostile movement became so strong that, in spite of 
the favourable action of the directors of the seminarv, and 
against the efforts of a broad-minded minority in the repre- 
sentative bodies having ultimate charge of the institution, 
the delegates from the various synods raised a storm of or- 
thodoxy and drove Dr. Woodrow from his post. Happily, 
he was at the same time professor in the University of South 
Carolina in the same city of Columbia, and from his chair in 
that institution he continued to teach natural science with 



t:1 thz *ik'r zw TSjk3* asz HZsnaT. 



ac vj» ir.-T^rs.". "nej perriaCfiC in hearing' ^lini : fmfecd. ±c 

••s*/^ "^^^"^ " r^ ■"•r *■"!»• *"*#"<1T ^ ^g ^^ i *> ■ '' i"7r* '•"^■•V^«ri»-^ ■ ■ " m ^ m ■ 'r ■ 

cgnrzi^rj. inii "ar ie was turned car oc his r*:srii:a Tfri do 
occ<.r:j--:':T f-.r cartf.il cefe:ice. aac. nidecc- wiricuc ctg 
tr.e forrri 'IT oc a trial W-^Il did an enimcnt bat tiiic^iti^l 
diTfnft o: tr.e Sjcthcm Pr^sbjtffrian Caorcn declare r^-»r - the 
xnetii'Vi o: croccd-ir* t > descr: j CTcLntiijn by the ina-'orirr 
in tr.e Cr.urch 15 viciijos and suicidal"* and that - logical 
dTna-tiit* hi- been Ti.5ed to ret out a snrooscd £re in tic 
^I'^^i^T 5t',rles o: our house, and all the familv in tiic house a: 
that." Wiielj. too. did he refer to the majoritj as - sovizg 
in the fields oc the Cnurch the thorns of its errors* and cnm- 
berir.^ lis :,a:h •srith the iL'zris and ruin of its own foLlT." 

To ^^.^^e recent cases mav be added the exDuision c: 
Prof. Tov from teaching ur.der ecclesiastical control at 
Lotjisvilie. and hU election to a :ar more influential chair 
a* Harvard L'niversity ; the driving- out from the American 
Coii'r^e at Beyrout of the young profess*Drs who accepted 
evolution as probable, and the rise of one of them. Mr. Nimr. 
to a far more commanding position than that which he left 
— the control of three leading journals at Cairo: the driving 
out of Robertson Smith from his position at Edinburg-h. and 
his reception into the far more imf)ortant and induentia! 
prof'rssorship at the English University of Cambridge : and 
muitir.Lides of similar cases. From the davs when Henrv 
Dunster, the first President of Harvard College, was driven 
from his presidency, as Cotton Mather said, for " falling into 
the briers of Antipedobaptism " until now, the same spirit is 
shown in all such attempts. In each we have generally, on 
one side, a body of older theologians, who since their youth 
have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, sundry pro- 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY. 



319 



fessors who do not wish to rewrite their lectures, and a mass 
of unthinking ecclesiastical persons of little or no importance 
save in making up a retrograde majority in an ecclesiastical 
tribunal ; on the other side we have as generally the think- 
ing, open-minded, devoted men who have listened to the 
revelation of their own time as well as of times past, and 
who are evidently thinking the future thought of the world. 

Here we have survivals of that same oppression of thought 
by theology which has cost the modern world so dear; the 
system which forced great numbers of professors, under 
penalty of deprivation, to teach that the sun and planets 
revolve about the earth ; that comets are fire-balls flung by 
an angry God at a wicked world ; that insanity is diabolic 
possession ; that anatomical investigation of the human frame 
is sin against the Holy Ghost ; that chemistry leads to sor- 
cery ; that taking interest for money is forbidden by Scrip- 
ture ; that geology must conform to ancient Hebrew poetry. 
From the same source came in Austria the rule of the " Im- 
maculate Oath," under which university professors, long be- 
fore the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was defined 
by the Church, were obliged to swear to their belief in that 
dogma before they were permitted to teach even arithmetic 
or geometry; in England, the denunciation of inoculation 
against smallpox; in Scotland, the protests against using 
chloroform in childbirth as " vitiating the primal curse 
against woman ** ; in France, the use in clerical schools of a 
historical text-book from which Napoleon was left out ; and, 
in America, the use of Catholic manuals in which the In- 
quisition is declared to have been a purely civil tribunal, or 
Protestant manuals in which the Puritans are shown to have 
been all that we could now wish they had been. 

So, too, among multitudes of similar efforts abroad, we 
have during centuries the fettering of professors at English 
and Scotch universities by test oaths, subscriptions to ar- 
ticles, and catechisms without number. In our own country 
we have had in a vast multitude of denominational colleges, 
as the first qualification for a professorship, not ability in the 
subject to be taught, but fidelity to the particular shibboleth 
of the denomination controlling the college or university. 

Happily, in these days such attempts generally defeat 



'"IK -'«:^ ^F i._; " era _HHrrncr- 



V v.;^!-'* -.T- -•r'e^r^i; 1.-17. inn -rfi^-:i 






;r;''*rf/'. »':^^-L;;iii • itnrM^ mftn.-Tiuiizjsn. ^-^UEDC- Tien, mnr "lae 

r r.i .11* -:*^ jwir. r,n :i lines: -H'^^surunr^ iiut iirsr^LjT 
-tii^f^-r v» .t.'\Tt T^*;! vis x saui Ji smsaiics i^- r— isisac 









./• ■ ■ \ i' > ' ?■>*'•'>'' 5» •■ ''• •*■>•' V '^.••■■^•^ *■ •"W""y •*'i* •— ^ -• ,»,».^_s»5^ 

t'.ii'i A ii .';;;."; v/.'r. -//i'rr.c'!: : and :n tr-C otner cnurcreSw esre- 
'.^j.:/ j.'i Ar;,':ri'',a, -AhKC tr*er^ is yet miich to be cesirei. the 
'^* .*/,'. f»'; ':/*':ri'^:^' in manv of them to Alexander Winchelu 
'AU'\ ♦?.': fr';'"f'/fri j.;:v';n to vicA's like his, augur well for a 
I/' ft/f ?.t;iN: /^,f \'..\u'^\ ifi the future. 

Iror/i th': -xi'mcf: of Anthropology, when rightly viewed 
;r, a wnol'-. has ^ornc the jjrcatcst aid to those who work to 
a'lvarir,/: r'-W^nou rathor than to promote any particular sys- 
it*in ffi \h''(f\ff*^y\ UtT Anthropology and its subsidiary sci- 
t'U(j"\ ^how more and more that man, since coming upon the 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY. 32 1 

earth, has risen, from the period when he had little, if any, 
idea of a great power above him, through successive stages 
of fetichism, shamanism, and idolatry, toward better forms of 
belief, making him more and more accessible to nobler forms 
of religion. ■ The same sciences show, too, within the historic 
period, the same tendency, and especially within the events 
covered by our sacred books, a progress from fetichism, of 
which so many evidences crop out in the early Jewish 
worship as shown in the Old Testament Scriptures, through 
polytheism, when Jehovah was but " a god above all gods/' 
through the period when he was " a jealous God/' capri- 
cious and cruel, until he is revealed in such inspired utter- 
ances as those of the nobler Psalms, the great passages in 
Isaiah, the sublime preaching of Micah, and, above all^ 
through the ideal given to the world by Jesus of Nazareth. 

Well indeed has an eminent divine of the Church of Eng- 
land in our own time called on Christians to rejoice over this 
evolution, " between the God of Samuel, who ordered infants 
to be slaughtered, and the God of the Psalmist, whose tender 
mercies are over all his works; between the God of the 
Patriarchs, who was always repenting, and the God of the 
Apostles, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, 
with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning ; 
between the God of the Old Testament, who walked in the 
garden in the cool of the day, and the God of the New Tes- 
tament, whom no man hath seen nor can see ; between the 
God of Leviticus, who was so particular about the sacrificial 
furniture and utensils, and the God of the Acts, who dwelleth 
not in temples made with hands ; between the God who 
hardened Pharaoh's heart, and the God who will have all 
men to be saved ; between the God of Exodus, who is merci- 
ful only to those who love him, and the God of Christ — the 
heavenly Father — who is kind unto the unthankful and the 
evil." . 

However overwhelming, then, the facts may be which 
Anthropology, History, and their kindred sciences may, in 
the interest of simple truth, establish against the theolog- 
ical doctrine of " the Fall " ; however completely they may 
fossilize various dogmas, catechisms, creeds, confessions, 
" plans of salvation " and " schemes of redemption," which 
22 



322 



THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY. 



have been evolved from the great minds of the theological 
period : science, so far from making inroads on religion, or 
even upon our Christian development of it, will strengthen 
all that is essential in it, giving new and nobler paths to 
man's highest aspirations. For the one great, legitimate, 
scientific conclusion of anthropology is, that, more and more, 
a better civilization of the world, despite all its survivals of 
savagery and barbarism, is developing men and women on 
whom the declarations of the nobler Psalms, of Isaiah, of 
Micah, the Sermon on the Mount, the first great command- 
ment, and the second, which is like unto it, St. Paul's praise 
of charity and St. James's definition of " pure religion and 
undefiled," can take stronger hold for the more effective and 
more rapid uplifting of our race.* 



* For the resolution of the Presbyterian Synod of Mississippi in 1S57, see ProC 
Woodrow's speech before the Synod of South Carolina, October 27 and 28, 1884, 
p. 6. As to the action of the Board of Directors of the Theological Seminary of 
Columbia, see ibid. As to the minority report in the S3mod of South Carolina, 
see ibid., p. 24. For the pithy sentences regarding the conduct of the majority in 
the synods toward Dr. Woodrow, see the Rev. Mr. Flinn's article in the Soutktm 
Presbyterian Review for April, 1885, p. 272, and elsewhere. For the restrictions 
regarding the teaching of the Copemican theory and the true doctrine of comets in 
German universities, see various histories of astronomy, especially Madlcr. For 
the immaculate oath {Immaculaten-Eid ) as enforced upon the Austrian professors, 
sec Luftkandl, Die Josephinischen Id^en, For tlie efTort of the Church in France, 
after the restoration of the Bourbons, to teach a history of that country from which 
the name of Napoleon should be left out, see Father Loriquet's famous Uistoire de 
France h F Usage de la Jeunesse, Lyon, 1820. vol. ii ; see especially table of contents 
at the end. The book bears on its title-page the well-known initials of the Jesuit 
motto. A. M. D. G. (Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam). For examples in England and 
Scotland, see various English histories, and especially Buckle's chapters on Scot- 
land. For a longer collection of examples showing the suppression of anything 
like unfettered thought upon scientific subjects in American colleges, see Inaugural 
Address at the Opening of Cornell University^ by the author of these chapters. For 
the citation regarding the evolution of better and nobler ideas of God, sec Church 
and Creed'. Sennons preached in the Chapel of the Foundling Hospital, London, 
by A. \V. Momerie. M. A., LL. D., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in King's 
College, London, London, 1890. For a very vigorous utterance on the other side, 
see a recent charge of the Bishop of Gloucester. 



CHAPTER XI. 

FROM " THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR " 

TO METEOROLOGY. 

I. GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY. 

The popular beliefs of classic antiquity regarding storms, 
thunder, and lightning, took shape in myths representing 
Vulcan as forging thunderbolts, Jupiter as flinging them at 
his enemies, JEolus intrusting the winds in a bag to ^Eneas, 
and the like. An attempt at their, further theological devel- 
opment is seen in the Pythagorean statement that lightnings 
are intended to terrify the damned in Tartarus. 

But at a very early period we see the beginning of a 
scientific view. In Greece, the Ionic philosophers held that 
such phenomena are obedient to law. Plato, Aristotle, and 
many lesser lights, attempted to account for them on natural 
grounds ; and their explanations, though crude, were based 
upon observation and thought. In Rome, Lucretius, Seneca, 
Pliny, and others, inadequate as their statements were, im- 
planted at least the germs of a science. But, as the Chris- 
tian Church rose to power, this evolution was checked ; the 
new leaders of thought found, in the Scriptures recognized 
by them as sacred, the basis for a new view, or rather for a 
modification of the old view. 

This ending of a scientific evolution based upon observa- 
tion and reason, and this beginning of a sacred science based 
upon the letter of Scripture and on theology, are seen in 
the utterances of various fathers in the early Church. As 
to the general features of this new development, Tertullian 
held that sundry passages of Scripture prove lightning iden- 
tical with hell-fire ; and this idea was transmitted from gen- 
eration to generation of later churchmen, who found an 

323 



324 fT^OM -THE PiOXCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR.^ 

esr-eciai sijpport of Tcrtullian's view in the sulphurous smell 
exp-erieaccd during thundcrslorms. St. Hilary thought the 
firmament verv much lower than the heavens, and that it 
was created not onlj for the support of the upper waters, 
but 2lso far the tempering of our atmosphere.* St- Am- 
br:«se held that thunder is caused by the winds breaking 
through the solid firmament, and cited from the prophet 
Amos the sublime passage regarding - Him that establisheth 
the thunders." * He shows, indeed, some conception of the 
true source of rain : but his whole reasoning is limited bj 
various scriptural texts. He lays great stress upon the firma- 
ment as a solid outer shell of the universe : the heavens be 
holds to be not far outside this outer shelU and argues regard- 
ing their character from St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians 
and from the one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm. As to 
- the waters which are above the firmament," he takes up 
the objection of thcrse who hold that, this outside of the uni- 
verse being sphericaL the waters must slide off it, especially 
i: the firmament revolves : and he points out that it is by no 
means certain that the .'^A::sil^ of the firmament is spherical, 
and insists that, if it does revolve, the water is just what is 
neeced to lubricate ani c>:I its axis. 

St. Jerome held that God at the Creation, having spread 
out the firmament between heaven and earth, and having 
separated the upper waters from the lower, caused the upper 
waters to be frozen into ice. fa order to keep ail in place. 
A rr>:: of this vie-w Jerome found in the words of Ezekiel 
re^rariir.^ "the crvstal stretched above the cherubim." ± 

The germinal princip'e in accordance with which all 
these the'-'iries were evolved was most clearly proclaimed 

♦ F:r TfmlLi=. see the J^\ .-jn^i jrrir. c 47: iLso Aa^rrsciB de Aiige> 

h"^ J. •.r.ifc',- .V.-i.y»-/0.:Tfc-4r. r. Co. Fee H-Ltry. see Sm r.'uln. CXXXl' (Mignc 

* " FLrrjjis :.-i::r-u.** ■ .Vzios :t. it : ±e rinse d:e5 dcc apcear in oar Tcr- 

: F- r Ar-Vr^e. >ee lie .V^.r:r^f-.-»c. I r» v. .-a?. 5» 4. : l:r> liL op. 5 (Mignc, Paf^. 

-T^.-.. v:l \ V. rr. :45-:*-\ i^t. :r-i . T'*e raisa« js t«? !":ifcri!CLdoa of rhe heaTcshr 
i\< •> i> :M'.:*'s: •*reiz-'s .-«■= :7^ iioizi: T^^tTi oi b e ai casli stellts ardeniibos 
rvT'iV''''-^- -.*cr* i:Ti-i rr.'T-..i<:r:n rrecessari-? rrssccxit. a: Lstra oibem ctslL ct 
>■- -n .7 :«?::: r^Au-.iirifC i::.i-i. ;--l* il-'a :er»e:i:L> liis isomdix tesnpcrarel ? "* For 
Tir.^o;;. j<e *2i> ir/r--v*j. Ivii, cap* c ♦,Mi^e, Fi^^ Zjs^, tv:! tkL ?- 659)^ 



GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY. 325 

to the world by St. Augustine in his famous utterance: 
" Nothing is to be accepted save on the authority of Scrip- 
ture, since greater is that authority than all the powers 
of the human mind." * No treatise was safe thereafter 
which did not breathe the spirit and conform to the letter of 
this maxim. Unfortunately, what was generally understood 
by the " authority of Scripture " was the tyranny of sacred 
books imperfectly transcribed, viewed through distorting su- 
perstitions, and frequently interpreted by party spirit. 

Following this precept of St. Augustine there were de- 
veloped, in every field, theological views of science which 
have never led to a single truth — which, without exception, 
have forced mankind away from the truth, and have caused 
Christendom to stumble for centuries into abysses of error 
and sorrow. In meteorology, as in every other science with 
which he dealt, Augustine based everything upon the letter 
of the sacred text ; and it is characteristic of the result that 
this man, so great when untrammelled, thought it his duty 
to guard especially the whole theory of the " waters above 
the heavens." 

In the sixth century this theological reasoning was still 
further developed, as we have seen, by Cosmas Indicopleus- 
tes. Finding a sanction for the old Egyptian theory of the 
universe in the ninth chapter of Hebrews, he insisted that 
the earth is a flat parallelogram, and that from its outer 
edges rise immense walls supporting the firmament; then, 
throwing together the reference to the firmament in Gene- 
sis and the outburst of poetry in the Psalms regarding the 
" waters that be above the heavens," he insisted that over 
the terrestrial universe are solid arches bearing a vault sup- 
porting a vast cistern " containing the waters " ; finally, tak- 
ing from Genesis the expression regarding the " windows of 
heaven," he insisted that these windows are opened and 
closed by the angels whenever the Almighty wishes to send 
rain upon the earth or to withhold it. 

* " Major est quippe Scriptune hujus auctoritas, quam omnis humani ingenii 
capacitas." — Augustine, De Genesi ad Lit.^ lib. ii, cap. 5 (Migne, Pair. ImL^ vol. 
xxxiv, pp. 266, 267). Or, as he is cited by Vincent of Beauvais (Spec, Nat,^ lib. iv, 
q8) : " Non est aliquid temere diffiniendum, sed quantum Scripture dicit accipicn- 
dum, cujus major est auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii capacitas." 



^-M^ FROM THE -P3LINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR' 



t-r:> 



Tab was accepted bj the universal Church as a vast 
contributioo to thought: for several centuries it was thf 
orthodox doctrine, and various leaders in theology devoted 
themsel%-es to developing and supplementing it. 

About the beginning of the seventh century, Isidore. 
Bishop of Seville, was the ablest prelate in Christendom, and 
was showing those great qualities which led to his enrol- 
ment among the saints of the Church. His theological view 
of science marks an epoch. As to the '" waters above the 
firmament,'* Isidore contends that thev must be lewer than 
the uppermost heaven, though higher than the lower heaven, 
because in the one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm they are 
mentioned after the heavenly bodies and the ** heaven of 
heavens," but before the terrestrial elements. As to their pur- 
pose, he hesitates between those who held that they were 
stored up there by the prescience of God for the destruc- 
tion of the world at the Flood, as the words of Scripture that 
** the windows of heaven were opened '* seemed to indicate, 
and those who held that they were kept there to moderate 
the heat of the heavenly bodies. As to the firmament, he is 
in doubt whether it envelops the earth " like an eggshell/* 
or is merely spread over it " like a curtain " ; for he holds 
that the passage in the one hundred and fourth Psalm may 
be used to support either view. 

Having laid these scriptural foundations, Isidore shows 
considerable power of thought ; indeed, at times, when he 
discusses the rainbow, rain, hail, snow, and frost, his theories 
are rational, and give evidence that, if he could have broken 
away from his adhesion to the letter of Scripture, he might 
have given a strong impulse to the evolution of a true 



science.* 



About a century later appeared, at the other extremitv 
of Europe, the second in the trio of theological men of sci- 
ence in the early Middle Ages — Bede the Venerable. The 
nucleus of his theory also is to be found in the accepted view 



• For Cosmxs, see hb Topographia Christiana (in Montfancon, CoUecHo ncva 
patrum, vol. ii^ and the more complete account of his theory giren in the chapter 
on GeL\^raphy in this work. For Isidore, see the Etymohgia^ lib. xiii, cap. 7-9, /> 
ordine creaturarum^ cap. 3, 4, and De natura rerum, cap. 29, 30(Migne, Pair. Lat^ 
vol. Ixxxii, pp. 476, 477, vol. Ixxxiii, pp. 920-922, 1001-1003). 



GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY. 



327 



of the " firmament " and of the " waters above the heavens," 
derived from Genesis. The firmament he holds to be spher- 
ical, and of a nature subtile and fiery ; the upper heavens, he 
says, which contain the angels, God has tempered with ice, 
lest they inflame the lower elements. As to the waters placed 
above the firmament, lower than the spiritual heavens, but 
higher than all corporeal creatures, he says, " Some declare 
that they were stored there for the Deluge, but others, more 
correctly, that they are intended to temper the fire of the 
stars." He goes on with long discussions as to various ele- 
ments and forces in Nature, and dwells at length upon the 
air, of which he says that the upper, serene air is over the 
heavens ; while the lower, which is coarse, with humid exha- 
lations, is sent off from the earth, and that in this are light- 
ning, hail, snow, ice, and tempests, finding proof of this in the 
one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm, where these are com- 
manded to " praise the Lord from the cJarth." * 

So great was Bede's authority, that nearly all the anony- 
mous speculations of the next following centuries upon these 
subjects were eventually ascribed to him. In one of these 
spurious treatises an attempt is made to get new light upon 
the sources of the waters above the heavens, the main reli- 
ance being the sheet containing the animals let down from 
heaven, in the vision of St. Peter. Another of these treat- 
ises is still more curious, for it endeavours to account for 
earthquakes and tides by means of the leviathan mentioned 
in Scripture. This characteristic passage runs as follows: 
"Some say that the earth contains the animal leviathan, 
and that he holds his tail after a fashion of his own, so that 
it is sometimes scorched by the sun, whereupon he strives 
to get hold of the sun, and so the earth is shaken by the mo- 
tion of his indignation ; he drinks in also, at times, such huge 
masses of the waves that when he belches them forth all the 
seas feel their effect." And this theological theory of the 
tides, as caused by the alternate suction and belching of 
leviathan, went far and wide.f 



* See Bede, De natura rerum (Migne, Patr, Lat.^ vol. xc). 
t See the treatise De mundi constitutione^ in Bcde*s Opera (Migne, Patr, Lat., 
vol. xc, p. 884). 



328 FROM THE "PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR.* 

In the writings thus covered with the name of Bede 
there is much showing a scientific spirit, which might have 
come to something of permanent value had it not been ham- 
pered by the supposed necessity of conforming to the letter 
of Scripture. It is as startling as it is refreshing to hear one 
of these mediaeval theorists burst out as follows against those 
who are content to explain everything by the power of 
God : " What is more pitiable than to say that a thing is, 
because God is able to do it, and not to show any reason 
why it is so, nor any purpose for which it is so ; just as if 
God did everything that he is able to do! You talk like 
one who says that God is able to make a calf out of a log. 
But dui he ever do it? Either, then, show a reason why a 
thing is so, or a purpose wherefore it is so, or else cease to 
declare it so/* * 

The most i>ermanent contribution of Bede to scientific 
thought in this field was his revival of the view that the 
firmament is made of ice ; and he supported this from the 
words in the twenty-sixth chapter of Job, " He bindeth up 
the waters in his thick cloud, and the^cloud is not rent under 
them/' 

About the beginning of the ninth century appeared the 
third in that triumvirate of churchmen who were the oracles 
of sacred science throughout the early Middle Ages — Raba- 
nus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda and Archbishop of Mayence. 
Starting, like all his predecessors, from the first chapter of 
Genesis, borrowing here and there from the ancient phi- 
losophers, and excluding everything that could conflict with 
the letter of Scripture, he follows, in his work upon the uni- 
verse, his two predecessors, Isidore and Bede, developing 
especially St. Jerome's theory, drawn from Ezekiel, that the 
firmament is strong enough to hold up the " waters above 
the heavens," because it is made of ice. 

For centuries the authority of these three great teachers 
was unquestioned, and in countless manuals and catechisms 

* For this remonstrance, see the EUmenia philosophic ^ in Bede's Opera (Migne* 
Pair, LaLy vol. xc, p. 1 139). This treatise, which has also been printed, under the 
title of De phihsophia mundi^ among the works of Honorias of Antan, is believed 
by modem scholars (Haur^u, Werner, Poc^e) to be the production of William of 
Conches. 



GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY. 329 

their doctrine was translated and diluted for the common 
mind. But about the second quarter of the twelfth centu- 
ry a priest, Honorius of Autun, produced several treatises 
which show that thought on this subject had made some 
little progress. He explained the rain rationally, and mainly 
in the modern manner ; with the thunder he is less success- 
ful, but insists that the thunderbolt " is not stone, as some 
assert." His thinking is vigorous and independent. Had 
theorists such as he been many, a new science could have 
been rapidly evolved, but the theological current was too 
strong. * 

The strength of this current which overwhelmed the 
thought of Honorius is seen again in the work of the Domin- 
ican monk, John of San Geminiano, who in the thirteenth 
century gave forth his Sumnta de Exemplis for the use of 
preachers in his order. Of its thousand pages, over two 
hundred are devoted to illustrations drawn from the heavens 
and the elements. A characteristic specimen is his explana- 
tion of the Psalmist's phrase, " The arrows of the thunder." 
These, he tells us, are forged out of a dry vapour rising from 
the earth and kindled by the heat of the upper air, which 
then, coming into contact with a cloud just turning into rain, 
" is conglutinated like flour into dough," but, being too hot 
to be extinguished, its particles become merely sharpened at 
the lower end, and so blazing arrows, cleaving and burning 
everything they touch.f 

But far more important, in the thirteenth century, was the 
fact that the most eminent scientific authority of that age, 
Albert the Great, Bishop of Ratisbon, attempted to reconcile 
the speculations of Aristotle with theological views derived 
from the fathers. In one very important respect he im- 



* For Rabanus Maanis, see the Comment, in Gausim and De Universe (Migne, 
Pair. Lat , vol. cvii, cxi. For a charmingly naive example of the primers referred 
to, see the little Anglo-Saxon manual of astronomy, sometimes attributed to XXirac ; 
it is in the vernacular, but is translated in Wright's Popular Treatises on Seience 
during the Middle Ages, Bede is, of course, its chief source. For Honorius, see 
the De imagine mundi and Hexameron (Migne, Patr, Lat^ vol. clxxii). The De 
philosophia mundi, the most rational of all, is, however, believed by modem schol- 
ars to be unjustly ascribed to him. 5)ee note above. • 

\ See Joannes k S. Geminiano, Summa, c 75. 



330 



FROM THE "PRINXE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR." 



proved upon the meteorological views of his great master. 
The thunderbolt, he says, is no mere fire, but the product of 
black clouds containing much mud, which, when it is baked 
by the intense heat, forms a fiery black or red stone that 
falls from the sky, tearing beams and crushing walls in its 
course : such he has seen with his own eyes.* 

The monkish encyclopedists of the later Middle Ages 
added little to these theories. As we glance over the pages 
of Vincent of Beauvais, the monk Bartholomew, and Wil- 
liam of Conches, we note only a growing deference to the 
authority of Aristotle as supplementing that of Isidore and 
Bede and explaining sacred Scripture. Aristotle is treated 
like a Church father, but extreme care is taken not to go 
beyond the great maxim of St Augustine ; then, little by 
little, Bede and Isidore fall into the background, Aristotle 
fills the whole horizon, and his utterances are second in 
sacredness only to the text of Holy Writ. 

A curious illustration of the difficulties these mediaeval 
scholars had to meet in reconciling the scientific theories of 
Aristotle with the letter of the Bible is seen in the case of 
the rainbow. It is to the honour of Aristotle that his con- 
clusions regarding the rainbow, though slightly erroneous, 
were based upon careful observation and evolved by reason- 
ing alone; but his Christian commentators, while anxious to 
follow him, had to bear in mind the scriptural statement that 
Ciod had created the rainbow as a sign to Noah that there 
should never again be a Flood on the earth. Even so bold a 
thinker as Cardinal d'Ailly, whose speculations as to the 
lioo^raphv of the earth did so much afterward in stimulating 
CvUiimbus, faltered before this statement, acknowledging 
that liod alone could explain it; but suggested that possibly 
novor before the Deluge had a cloud been suffered to take 
s\K h a position toward the sun as to cause a rainbow. 

The learned cardinal was also constrained to believe that 
^01 tain stars and constellations have something to do in caus- 
ing; the rain, since these would best explain Noah's fore- 



• s.o \r.vitUN M Apius, 2 J Sr>it., Of-* vol. xv, p. 137, a. (cited by Heller. C^sci. 
J *'j.w,V \v^l ». p, i>4' ar.vi hi> Zj.yt Mttkaurorum, III. iv, 18 (of which I have 
^«^a iK»- o»Uuxn\ ol Venice. I455\ 



GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY. 



331 



knowledge of the Deluge. In connection with this scrip- 
tural doctrine of winds came a scriptural doctrine of earth- 
quakes : they were believed to be caused by winds issuing 
from the earth, and this view was based upon the passage in 
the one hundred and thirty-fifth Psalm, " He bringeth the 
wind out of his treasuries." * 

Such were the main typical attempts during nearly four- 
teen centuries to build up under theological guidance and 
within scriptural limitations a sacred science of meteorology. 
But these theories were mainly evolved in the effort to es- 
tablish a basis and general theory of phenomena : it still re- 
mained to account for special manifestations, and here came 
a twofold development of theological thought. 

On one hand, these phenomena were attributed to the 
Almighty, and, on the other, to Satan. As to the first of 
these theories, we constantly find the Divine wrath mentioned 
by the earlier fathers as the cause of lightning, hailstorms, 
hurricanes, and the like. 

In the early days of Christianity we see a curious 
struggle between pagan and Christian belief upon this point. 
Near the close of the second century the Emperor Marcus 
Aurelius, in his effort to save the empire, fought a hotly con- 
tested battle with the Quadi, in what is now Hungary. 
While the issue of this great battle was yet doubtful there 
came suddenly a blinding storm beating into the faces of the 
Quadi, and this gave the Roman troops the advantage, en- 
abling Marcus Aurelius to win a decisive victory. Votaries 
of each of the great religions claimed that this storm was 
caused by the object of their own adoration. The pagans 
insisted that Jupiter had sent the storm in obedience to their 
prayers, and on the Antonine Column at Rome we may still 
see the figure of Olympian Jove casting his thunderbolts 
and pouring a storm of rain from the open heavens against 
the Quadi. On the other hand, the Christians insisted that 
the storm had been sent by Jehovah in obedience to their 

* For D* Ailly, sec his Concordia tutronomica veritatis cum theohgia (Paris, 1483 
— in the Imago mundi — and Venice, 1490) ; also Eck's commentary on Aristotle's 
Meteorologica (Augsburg, 1519)1 lib. ii, nota 2 ; also Reisch, Margarita philosophical 
lib. ix, c. z8. 



352 FltOM THE -PiOXCE OF THE POWER OF THE AUL" 

prajcrs: and TcrtuIIiin. Easebius, St. Gr^ory of Xjssa, 
and St. Jerosse were an^Do^ those who insisted upon this 
meteorol >gical miracle: the first two, indeed, in the fer- 
vour of their ar^inenis for its realitr, allowing^ themselves 
to be carried coosiderabiv bevood exact historical truth.* 

As time went on. the fathers developed this view more 
and more from various texts in the Jewish and Christian 
sacred booksL substituting for Jupiter flinging^ his thunder- 
bolts the Almig^tv wrapped in thunder and sending^ forth 
his lightnings. Through the Middle Ages this was fostered 
nndl it came to be accepted as a mere truism, entering into 
all mediaeval thinking, and was still further developed bj an 
attempt to specify the particular sins which were thus pun- 
ished. Thus even the ratioaal Florentine historian Vil- 
bni ascribed floods and &rcs to the ^ too great pride of the 
citv of Florence and the ingratitude of the citizens toward 
God/' which, *• of course,** says a recent historian, ** meant 
their insufficient attendon to the ceremonies of religion/' f 

In the thirteenth century the Cistercian monk, Csesarius 
of Heisterbach. popularized the doctrine in central Europe. 
His rich collection of anecdotes for the illustration of re- 
ligious truths was the favourite recreative reading in the con- 
vents lor three centuries^ and exercised great influence over 
the thought of the later Middle Ages* In this work he re- 
lates several instances of the Divine use of lightning, both for 
rescue anJ tor punishment. Thus he tells us how the stew- 
ard uv/-'c.Tizr:aoi ot his own monastery was saved from the 
clutch o: a robber by a clap of thunder which, in answer to 
his prayer, burst suddenly from the sky and frightened the 
bandit irora his purpose : how, in a Saxon theatre, twentv 
men were struck down, while a priest escaped, not because 
he was n^^t a greater sinner than the rest, but because the 
thunderbolt had respect for bis profession ! It is Caesarius, 
too, who tells us the story of the priest of Treves, struck by 
lightning in his own church, whither he had gone to ring 



* F'?r :he aathortits, pagtm and Christian, «e the note of MeriToIe. in his /fiV- 
i^ry }f t/u Romans muier tfie Empire, chap. JLviii. He refSets £br still CtiUer cxt^ 
tiiuns to Fynes Clint-^n's Fasti Rjm., p. 24. 

f See Troilope, History jf Florence^ toI. i» p. 64. 



GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY. 



333 



the bell against the storm, and whose sins were revealed by 
the course of the lightning, for it tore his clothes from him 
and consumed certain parts of his body, showing that the 
sins for which he was punished were vanity and unchastity.* 

This mode of explaining the Divine interference more 
minutely is developed century after century, and we find 
both Catholics and Protestants assigning as causes of un- 
pleasant meteorological phenomena whatever appears to them 
wicked or even unorthodox. Among the English Reform- 
ers, Tyndale quotes in this kind of argument the thirteenth 
chapter of I. Samuel, showing that, when God gave Israel a 
king, it thundered and rained. Archbishop Whitgift, Bishop 
Bale, and Bishop Pilkington insisted on the same view. In 
Protestant Germany, about the same period, Plieninger took 
a dislike to the new Gregorian calendar and published a vol- 
ume of Brief Reflections, in which he insisted that the ele- 
ments had given utterance to God's anger against it, calling 
attention to the fact that violent storms raged over almost 
all Germany during the very ten days which the Pope had 
taken out for the correction of the year, and that great 
floods began with the first days of the corrected year.f 

Early in the seventeenth century, Majoli, Bishop of Vol- 
toraria, in southern Italy, produced his huge work Dies Ca- 
nicularii, or Dog Days, which remained a favourite encyclo- 
paedia in Catholic lands for over a hundred years. Treat- 
ing of thunder and lightning, he compares them to bombs 
against the wicked, and says that the thunderbolt is "an 
exhalation condensed and cooked into stone," and that " it 
is not to be doubted that, of all instruments of God's venge- 
ance, the thunderbolt is the chief " ; that by means of it 
Sennacherib and his army were consumed ; that Luther was 
struck by lightning in his youth as a caution against depart- 
ing from the Catholic faith ; that blasphemy and Sabbath- 
breaking are the sins to which this punishment is especially 

♦ See Cxsarius Heisterbacensis, Dialogus miraculorum^ lib. x, c. 28-30. 

t For Tyndale, see his Doctrinal Treatises^ p. 194, and for Whitgift, sec his 
Works^ vol. ii, pp. 477-483 ; Bale, fVorJts, pp. 244, 245 ; and IMIkington, Works, 
pp. 177. 536 (all in Parker Society Publications), Bishop Bale cites especially Job 
xxxviii, Ecclcsiasticus xiii, and Revelation viii, as supporting the theory. For PUe- 
ninger's words, see Jansscn, Geschichte des cUutschen Volkes, vol. v, p. 35a 



334 



FROM THE "PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR.** 



assigned, and he cites the case of Dathan and Abiram. Fifty 
years later the Jesuit Stengel developed this line of thought 
still further in four thick quarto volumes on the judgments 
of God, adding an elaborate schedule for the use of preachers 
in the sermons of an entire year. Three chapters were de- 
voted to thunder, lightning, and storms. That the author 
teaches the agency in these of diabolical powers goes without 
saying ; but this can only act, he declares, by Divine permis- 
sion, and the thunderbolt is always the finger of God, which 
rarely strikes a man save for his sins, and the nature of the 
special sin thus punished may be inferred from the bodily or- 
gans smitten. A few years later, in Protestant Swabia, Pas- 
tor Gcorg Nuber issued a volume of " weather-sermons," in 
which he discusses nearly every sort of elemental disturb- 
ances — storms, floods, droughts, lightning, and hail. These, 
he says, come direct from God for human sins, yet no doubt 
with discrimination, for there are five sins which God espe- 
cially punishes with lightning and hail — namely, impenitence, 
incredulity, neglect of the repair of churches, fraud in the 
payment of tithes to the clergy, and oppression of subordi- 
nates, each of which points he supports with a mass of scrip- 
tural texts.* 

This doctrine having become especially precious both 
to Catholics and to Protestants, there were issued hand- 
books of prayers against bad weather : among these was the 
Spiritual Thunder and Storm Booklet, produced in 1731 by a 
Protestant scholar, Stoltzlin, whose three or four hundred 
pages of prayer and song, ** sighs for use when it lightens 
fearfully," and '* cries of anguish when the hailstorm is 
drawing on," show a wonderful adaptability to all pos- 
sible meteorological emergencies. The preface of this vol- 
ume is contributed by Prof. Dilherr, pastor of the great 
church of St. Sebald at Nuremberg, who, in discussing the 
Pi vine purposes of storms, adds to the three usually assigned 
namolv, Ciod's wish to manifest his power, to display his 
,u\i;cr, and to drive sinners to repentance — a fourth, which, 



• Vol M^ioli. SCO Pi.'s Cim., I, i : for Stengel, sec the De judiciis divinis, vol. 
U. y\^ \^ < ». .^"^1 cspcviAlly the example of the impurus et saltator sacerdos, fuU 
*MH, .,»«;». J /*.,». \\> ::t\ a;. For Nuber, see his Ccncicmis wuUorUa, Ulxn, 1661. 



GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY. 335 

he says, is that God may show us " with what sort of a storm- 
bell he will one day ring in the last judgment." 

About the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth cen- 
tury we find, in Switzerland, even the eminent and rational 
Professor of Mathematics, Scheuchzer, publishing his Physica 
Sacra^ with the Bible as a basis, and forced to admit that the 
elements, in the most literal sense, utter the voice of God. 
The same pressure was felt in New England. Typical are 
the sermons of Increase Mather on The Voice of God in Stormy 
IVinds. He especially lays stress on the voice of God speak- 
ing to Job out of the whirlwind, and upon the text, " Stormy 
wind fulfilling his word." He declares, ** When there are 
great tempests, the angels oftentimes have a hand there- 
in, .. . yea, and sometimes evil angels." He gives several 
cases of blasphemers struck by lightning, and says, " Noth- 
ing can be more dangerous for mortals than to contemn 
dreadful providences, and, in particular, dreadful tempests." 

His distinguished son. Cotton Mather, disentangled him- 
self somewhat from the old view, as he had done in the 
interpretation of comets. In his Christian Philosopher, his 
Thoughts for the Day of Rain, and his Sermon preached at the 
Time of t/u Late Storm (in 1723), he is evidently tending to- 
ward the modern view. Yet, from time to time, the older 
view has reasserted itself, and in France, as recently as the 
year 1870, we find the Bishop of Verdun ascribing the drought 
afflicting his diocese to the sin of Sabbath-breaking.* 

This theory, which attributed injurious meteorological 
phenomena mainly to the purposes of God, was a natural de- 
velopment, and comparatively harmless ; but at a very early 
period there was evolved another theory, which, having 
been ripened into a doctrine, cost the earth dear indeed. 
Never, perhaps, in the modern world has there been a 
dogma more prolific of physical, mental, and moral agony 



♦ For StOltzlin, sec his GfistUchts Donner^ und WeUer-BU.hUin (Zarich, 1731). 
For Increase Mather, see his The Voice of God^ etc. (Boston, 1704). This rare 
volume is in the rich collection of the American Antiquarian Society at Worces- 
ter. For Cgtton Mather's view, see the chapter From Sin^ns and Wonders to 
LaWt in this work. For the Bishop of Verdun, see the Semaine relig, de Lor-' 
raine, 1870, p. 445 (cited by " Paul Parfait," in his Dossier des Pilerinages, pp. 
141-143). 



336 FROM THE "PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR." 

throughout whole nations and during whole centuries. This 
theory, its development by theology, its fearful results to 
mankind, and its destruction by scientific observation and 
thought, will next be considered. 

II. DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS. 

While the fathers and schoolmen were labouring to de- 
duce a science of meteorology from our sacred books, there 
oozed up in European society a mass of traditions and ob- 
servances which had been lurking since the days of pagan- 
ism ; and, although here and there appeared a churchman 
to oppose them, the theologians and ecclesiastics ere long 
began to adopt them and to clothe them with the authority 
of religion. 

Both among the pagans of the Roman Empire and among 
the barbarians of the North the Christian missionaries had 
found it easier to prove the new God supreme than to prove 
the old gods powerless. Faith in the miracles of the new 
religion seemed to increase rather than to diminish faith in 
the miracles of the old; and the Church at last began ad- 
mitting the latter as facts, but ascribing them to the devil. 
Jupiter and Odin sank into the category of ministers of 
Satan, and transferred to that master all their former powers. 
A renewed study of Scripture by theologians elicited over- 
whelming proofs of the truth of this doctrine. Stress was 
especially laid on the declaration of Scripture, " The gods 
of the heathen are devils."* Supported by this and other 
texts, it soon became a dogma. So strong was the hold it 
took, under the influence of the Church, that not until late 
in the seventeenth century did its substantial truth begin to 
be questioned. 

With no field of action had the sway of the ancient deities 
been more identified than with that of atmospheric phenom- 
ena. The Roman heard Jupiter, and the Teuton heard Thor, 
in the thunder. Could it be doubted that these powerful 
beings would now take occasion, unless hindered by the 
command of the Almighty, to vent their spite against those 

* For so the Vulgate and all the early versions rendered Ps. zcvi, 5. 



DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS. 



337 



who had deserted their altars? Might not the Almighty 
himself be willing to employ the malice of these powers of 
the air against those who had offended him ? 

It was, indeed, no great step, for those whose simple 
faith accepted rain or sunshine as an answer to their prayers, 
to suspect that the untimely storms or droughts, which baf- 
fled their most earnest petitions, were the work of the arch- 
enemy, " the prince of the power of the air." 

The great fathers of the Church had easily found war- 
rant for this doctrine in Scripture. St. Jerome declared 
the air to be full of devils, basing this belief upon various 
statements in the prophecies of Isaiah and in the Epistle to 
the Ephesians. St. Augustine held the same view as be- 
yond controversy.* 

During the Middle Ages this doctrine of the diabolical 
origin of storms went on gathering strength. Bede had full 
faith in it, and narrates various anecdotes in support of it. 
St. Thomas Aquinas gave it his sanction, saying in his all- 
authoritative Sumtftay ** Rains and winds, and whatsoever 
occurs by local impulse alone, can be caused by demons." 
** It is," he says, " a dogma of faith that the demons can pro- 
duce wind, storms, and rain of fire from heaven." 

Albert the Great taught the same doctrine, and showed 
how a certain salve thrown into a spring produced whirl- 
winds. The great Franciscan — the " seraphic doctor " — 
St. Bonaventura, whose services to theology earned him 
one of the highest places in the Church, and to whom Dante 
gave special honour in paradise, set upon this belief his high 
authority. The lives of the saints, and the chronicles of the 
Middle Ages, were filled with it. Poetry and painting ac- 
cepted the idea and developed it. Dante wedded it to verse, 
and at Venice this thought may still be seen embodied in 

♦ For St. Jerome, see his Com. in Ep. ad Ephesios 0ib. iii, cap. 6) ; commenting 
on the text, " Our battle is not with flesh and blood," he explains this as mean- 
ing the devils in the air, and adds : " Nam et in alio loco de dxmonibus quod in 
aere isto vagentur. Apostolus ait : In quibus ambulastis aliquando juxta saculum 
mundi istitts^ secundum principem poUstatis aeris spiritus^ qui nunc operatur in 
filios diffidentict (Eph. ii, 2). Hxc autem omnium doctonim opinio est, quod aer 
iste qui coclum et terram medius dividcns, inane appellatur, plenus sit contrariis 
fortitudinibus.'* See also his Com, in Isaiam^ lib. xiii, cap. 50 (Migne, Pair, 
Lat,^ vol. xxiv, p. 477). For Augustine, see the De Civitate Dei^ passim, 

23 



33$ FROM THE -PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR.* 

one of the grand pictures of Bordone : a shipload of demons 
is seen approaching Venice in a storm, threatening destruc- 
tion to the city, but St. Mart St. George, and St. Nicholas 
attack the vessel, and disperse the hellish crew * 

The popes again and again sanctioned this doctrine, and 
it was amalgamated with various local superstitions, pious 
imaginations* and interesting arguments, to strike the fancy 
o: the people at large. A strong argument in favour of a 
diabolical origin ot the thunderbolt was afforded by the 
eccentricities ot its operation- These attracted especial at- 
tention in the Middle Ages, and the popular love of marvel 
generallrevi isoLiced phenomena into rules. Thus it was 
said that the lightning strikes the sword in the sheath, gold 
in the rurse. the foot in the shoe, leaving sheath and purse 
asd shoe ushamed : that it consames a human being inter- 
cal'y w::hout in;uri=:g the skia : that it destroys nets in the 
wa:;rr. rut cot on the land : that it kills ooe man, and leaves 
urt:ocvhe*i arsocher stajicizg beside him: that it can tear 
thrc^c^h JL hocse xrc est^r the earth without moving^ a stone 
rr.^rr ::sl vLice : that it iz'urr^? the heart o£ a tree, but not the 
b^iri: :>jl: \v:3e S? r»:c5ccei bv it. while r^risi^ns struck bv it 

*osc :'"v." ^xrcTOcr : t^a: a rraz s hair =:av re crcsucied bv it 

* - ' • 

^v.'^c vccu-iar Ti'resi.Trerri rra-ie rruch :: by the a!Ie- 
sc-rr-.^£r:jt:rs -"i :i::e iaT. w:;r? usei hi zioral lessons 
-•■ vu v:: T'T-is :^e Car:=eLite. Mittiiias Farinator, 
o. V ^vM. \ 'Tc i: t'sf "-".'ce > : vz hrscizof c:c:r£led early in 
:^c ? :,r»cr:> cvrr^"'" " "^* r-r-jrcs hamibcrk :: illustrative 
c\.i •VNC^ '^^" vrv^C'^cv^ iter I.t-'rn.-^ .-{trwuT. rz-is a spiritual 

*" vs ^•cc'T'* ?c ^•^- V -*.rusc i-Ti 3»:Tf':i:s^ -rtil. ia the 



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>^-.- ,. . . *•-. • \' ..".■•^ < -ill 

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:t Ot:r—x> "^i-afmEi. see tie I}e 



"i. - 5» >>Tr 



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"Kv »K _»■•*.* t*W''*u.. _.,-^>^tv-?, ^,-" 



is£ :3nr »rn 



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DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS. 339 

fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, we find its 
bloom in a multitude of treatises by the most learned of the 
Catholic and Protestant divines, and its fruitage in the tor- 
ture chambers and on the scaffolds throughout Christendom. 
At the Reformation period, and for nearly two hundred 
years afterward, Catholics and Protestants vied with each 
other in promoting this growth. John Eck, the great oppo- 
nent of Luther, gave to the world an annotated edition of 
Aristotle's Physics, which was long authoritative in the Ger- 
man universities ; and, though the text is free from this doc- 
trine, the woodcut illustrating the earth's atmosphere shows 
most vividly, among the clouds of mid-air, the devils who 
there reign supreme. * 

Luther, in the other religious camp, supported the super- 
stition even more zealously, asserting at times his belief that 
the winds themselves are only good or evil spirits, and de- 
claring that a stone thrown into a certain pond in his native 
region would cause a dreadful storm because of the devils 
kept prisoners there.f 

Just at the close of the same century, Catholics and Prot- 
estants welcomed alike the great work of Delrio. In this, 
the power of devils over the elements is proved first from 
the Holy Scriptures, since, he declares, " they show that 
Satan brought fire down from heaven to consume the ser- 
vants and flocks of Job, and that he stirred up a violent 
wind, which overwhelmed in ruin the sons and daughters of 
Job at their feasting." Next, Delrio insists on the agreement 
of all the orthodox fathers, that it was the devil himself who 
did this, and attention is called to the fact that the hail with 
which the Egyptians were punished is expressly declared in 
Holy Scripture to have been brought by the evil angels. 
Citing from the Apocalypse, he points to the four angels 
standing at the four comers of the earth, holding back the 
winds and preventing their doing great damage to mortals ; 
and he dwells especially upon the fact that the devil is called 
by the apostle a " prince of the power of the air." He then 

* See Eck, AristoUlis MeUorologica^ Aug^sburg, 1519* 

f For Luther, see the Table Talk\ also Michelct, Zf/> ^/ ZmM^ (translated 
by Hazlitt, p. 321). 



340 FROM THE 'PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR." 

goes on to cite the great fathers of the Church — Clement, 
Jerome, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.* 

This doctrine was spread not only in ponderous treatises, 
but in light literature and by popular illustrations. In the 
Compendium Maleficarum of the Italian monk Guacci, perhaps 
the most amusing book in the whole literature of witchcraft, 
we may see the witch, in propria persona, riding the diabolic 
goat through the clouds while the storm rages around and 
beneath her ; and we may read a rich collection of anecdotes, 
largely contemporary, which establish the required doctrine 
beyond question. 

The first and most natural means taken against this work 
of Satan in the air was prayer ; and various petitions are to 
be found scattered through the Christian liturgies — some 
very beautiful and touching. This means of escape has been 
relied upon, with greater or less faith, from those days to 
these. Various mediaeval saints and reformers, and devoted 
men in all centuries, from St. Giles to John Wesley, have 
used it with results claimed to be miraculous. Whatever 
theory any thinking man may hold in the matter, he will cer- 
tainly not venture a reproachful word : such prayers have been 
in all ages a natural outcome of the mind of man in trouble, t 

But against the " power of the air " were used other means 
of a very different character and tendency, and foremost 
among these was exorcism. In an exorcism widely used 
and ascribed to Pope Gregory XIII, the formula is given: 
" I, a priest of Christ, ... do command ye, most foul spirits, 
who do stir up these clouds, . . . that ye depart from them, 
and disperse yourselves into wild and untilled places, that 

* For Delrio, see his Disquisitiones Magica^ first printed at Li^e in 1599- 
1600/ but reprinted again and again throughout the seventeenth century. His in- 
terpretation of Psalm Ixxviii, 47-49, ^^ apparently shared by the translators of our 
own authorized version. For citations by him, see Revelation vii, i ; Ephesians ii, 
2. Even according to modem commentators (e. g., Alford), the word here trans- 
lated "power" denotes not mighty but government^ courts hierarchy \ and in this 
sense it was always used by the ecclesiastical writers, whose conception is best 
rendered by our plural — "powers." See Delrio, Disquisitiones MagictB^ lib. ii, 
c. II. 

t For Guacci, see his Compendium Maleficarum (Milan, i6o8). For the cases 
of St. Giles, John Wesley, and others stilling the tempests, sec Brewer, Diction- 
ary of Miracles t s. v. Prayer, 



DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS. 34 1 

ye may be no longer able to harm men or animals or fruits 
or herbs, or whatsoever is designed for human use." But 
this is mild, indeed, compared to some later exorcisms, as 
when the ritual runs : " All the people shall rise, and the 
priest, turning toward the clouds, shall pronounce these 
words : * I exorcise ye, accursed demons, who have dared to 
use, for the accomplishment of your iniquity, those powers 
of Nature by which God in divers ways worketh good to 
mortals; who stir up winds, gather vapours, form clouds, 
and condense them into hail. ... I exorcise ye, . . . that 
ye relinquish the work ye have begun, dissolve the hail, 
scatter the clouds, disperse the vapours, and restrain the 
winds.* " The rubric goes on to order that then there shall 
be a great fire kindled in an open place, and that over it the 
sign of the cross shall be made, and the dne hundred and 
fourteenth Psalm chanted, while malodorous substances, 
among them sulphur and asafoetida, shall be cast into the 
flames. The purpose seems to have been literally to " smoke 
out " Satan.* 

Manuals of exorcisms became important — some bulky 
quartos, others handbooks. Noteworthy among the latter 
is one by the Italian priest Locatelli, entitled Exorcisms most 
Powerful and Efficacious for the Dispelling of Aerial Tempests^ 
whether raised by Demons at tJuir own Instance or at the Beck 
of some Servant of tJie Devil, \ 

The Jesuit Gretser, in his famous book on Benedictions 
and Maledictions, devotes a chapter to this subject, dismiss- 
ing summarily the scepticism that questions the power of 
devils over the elements, and adducing the story of Job as 
conclusive. % 

Nor was this theory of exorcism by any means confined 
to the elder Church. Luther vehemently upheld it, and 



♦ Sec Polidonis Valerius, Practica exorcistamm ; also the Thesaurus exorcismo^ 
rum (Cologne, 1626), pp. 158-162. 

t That is, Exotcismi^ etc. A " corrected " second edition was printed at Lay- 
bach, 1680, in 24mo, to which is appended another manual of Preces et eonjuratumts 
contra aireas tempesiaUs^ omnibus sacerdotibus utiles et neeessaria^ printed at the 
monastery of Kempten (in Bavana) in 1667. The latter bears as epigraph the 
passage from the gospels describing (Christ s stilling of the winds 

} See Gretser, De benedictionibus et maUdieticnibuSf lib. ii, c. 48. 



-r:? JX.iC r3iX '2SL3iGE 0«^ THZ r^ySUL O*" TSE 



» ".c *,*VtT ^'g etrracT i^xirac tr=d^r 2=*d Iigrtning^. ce- 
C'-irin^r '"^* 1*5 i:a*i ccific :v:»:3ii tie c«re slzh c: tic cross. 
"» .!H. *,zjt 'ifmCL "^ 1 lit" TT "sr^ V3S iii^ w'fsr,. sr^TTiCittit to n-ui 



T<«->»»^» — « ' .^.iv.^ 



Fr' c: t:i/» ^eg''':^^g ct th-* Middle A^es uni£ lysi^ after 
tr.-* R^f'.rmitioa tr^ cir^ciclc^ give ample illustration 
of trjt i^cot^^zL C3e c: scch exorcisms- So strong was 
th^ '>t'.:*: in tbetn tiit it forced itself into minds corar^ira- 
tirtlr T^iZi'jC^ acd foucd utterazxc in treatises of much im- 

But, since exorcisms were foond at times ineffectual, 
other means were sought, and espcciallv fetiches of various 
Vifts. One of the earliest of these appeared when Pope 
Alexander I, according to tradition, ordained that holv 
water should be kept in churches and bedchambers to drive 
avray deviU. -•- Another safeguard was found in relics, and 
of similar efficacv were the so-called "^conception billets*' 
sold by the Carmelite monks. They contained a formula 
upon consecrated paper, at which the devil might well turn 
pale. Buried in the comer of a field, one of these was 
thou^jht to give protection against bad weather and destruc- 
tive insects.^ 

But highest in repute during centuries was ihz Agnus Dei 
— a piece of wax blessed by the Pope s own hand, and 
stamped with the well-known device representing the " Lamb 
of (iod." Its powers were so marvellous that Pope Urban 
V thou;jht three of these cakes a fitting gift from himself to 
the Greek Emperor. In the Latin doggerel recounting their 
virtues, their meteorological efficacy stands first, for especial 
stress is laid on their power of dispelling the thunder. The 
stress thus laid by Pope Urban, as the infallible guide of 
('hristenflom, on the efficacy of this fetich, gave it great 
value throughout Europe, and the doggerel verses reciting 

• So, ftt li-.iNt, says Grctser (in his De ben, et maL, as above). 

f " Instituit ut aqua quam sanctam appellamus sale admixta interpositis sacris 
orntirinihuH et in tcmplis et in cubiculis ad fiigandos dsemones retineretnr." — Pla- 
liiia, l'it,r rontif. But the story is from the False Decretals. 

\ Sec Kydbcrj;, The Magic of the Middle Ages, translated by Edgren, pp. 
63-(>(>. 



DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS. 343 

its virtues sank deep into the popular mind. It was con- 
sidered a most potent means of dispelling hail, pestilence, 
storms, conflagrations, and enchantments; and this feeling 
was deepened by the rules and rites for its consecration. So 
solemn was the matter, that the manufacture and sale of this 
particular fetich was, by a papal bull of 1471, reserved for 
the Pope himself, and he only performed the required cere- 
mony in the first and seventh years of his pontificate. Stand- 
ing unmitred, he prayed: **0 God, ... we humbly beseech 
thee that thou wilt bless these waxen forms, figured with the 
image of an innocent lamb, . . . that, at the touch and sight 
of them, the faithful may break forth into praises, and that 
the crash of hailstorms, the blast of hurricanes, the violence 
of tempests, the fury of winds, and the malice of thunder- 
bolts may be tempered, and evil spirits flee and tremble be- 
fore the standard of thy holy cross, which is graven upon 
them." * 

Another favourite means with the clergy of the older 
Church for bringing to naught the ** power of the air," was 
found in great processions bearing statues, relics, and holy 

* These pious charms are still in use in the Church, and may be found described 
in any ecclesiastical cyclopaedia. The doggerel verses run as follows : 

** Tonitrua magna terret, Inimicos nostros domat, 

£t peccata nostra delet ; Pnegnantem cum partu salvat, 

Ab incendio pneservat, Dona dignis multa confert, 

A submersione servat, Utque malis mala defert. 

A morte cita liberat, Portio, qnamvis parva sit, 

£t Cacodaemones fugat, Ut magna tamen proficit." 

See these verses cited in full faith, so late as 1743, in Father Vincent of Berg's En^ 
chiridium^ pp. 23, 24, where is an ample statement of the virtues of the Agnus DH^ 
and instructions for its use. A full account of the rites used in consecrating this 
fetich, with the prayers and benedictions which gave colour to this theory of the 
powers of the Agnus Dei^ may be found in the ritual of the Church. I have used the 
edition entitled Saerarum eeremcniarum sive rituum SantUt Romance EccUsia Hbri 
treSf Rome, 1560, in folio. The form of the papal prayer is as follows: "Deus, 
. . . te suppliciter deprecamur, nt . . . has cereas formas, innocentissimi agni 
imagine figuratas, benedicere . . . digneris, nt per ejus tactum et visum fideles in- 
vitentur ad laudes, fragor grandinum, procella turbinum, impetus tempestatum, ven- 
torum rabies, infcsta tonitrua temperentur, fugiant atqne tremiscant maligni spiritns 
ante Sanctx Crucut vex ilium, quod in illis exsculptum est. . . ." (Sacr, Cer. Rom, 
EccL, as above). If any are curious as to the extent to which this consecrated wax 
was a specific for all spiritual and most temporal ills during the sixteenth and sev- 
enteenUi centuries, let them consult the Jesuit Littera amnut, passim. 



344 



FROM THE "PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR. 



f* 



emblems through the streets. Yet even these were not 
always immediately effective. One at Li6ge, in the thir- 
teenth century, thrice proved unsuccessful in bringing rain, 
when at last it was found that the image of the Virgin had 
been forgotten ! A new procession was at once formed, the 
Salve Regina sung, and the rain came down in such torrents 
as to drive the devotees to shelter.* 

In Catholic lands this custom remains to this day, and 
very important features in these processions are the statues 
and the reliquaries of patron saints. Some of these excel in 
bringing sunshine, others in bringing rain. The Cathedral 
of Chartres is so fortunate as to possess sundry relics of 
St. Taurin, especially potent against dry weather, and 
some of St. Piat, very nearly as infallible against wet 
weather. In certain regions a single saint gives protection 
alternately against wet and dry weather — as, for example, 
St. Godeberte at Noyon. Against storms St. Barbara is 
very generally considered the most powerful protectress; 
but, in the French diocese of Limoges, Notre Dame de Crocq 
has proved a most powerful rival, for when, a few years 
since, all the neighbouring parishes were ravaged by storms, 
not a hailstone fell in the canton which she protected. In 
the diocese of Tarbes, St. Exupfere is especially invoked 
against hail, peasants flocking from all the surrounding 
country to his shrine, f 

But the means of baffling the powers of the air which 
came to be most widely used was the ringing of consecrated 
church bells. 

This usage had begun in the time of Charlemagne, and 
there is extant a prohibition of his against the custom of 
baptizing bells and of hanging certain tags % on their tongues 
as a protection against hailstorms; but even Charlemagne 



* John of Winterthur describes many such processions in Switzerland in the 
thirteenth century, and all the monkish chronicles speak of them. See also Ryd- 
berg, Magic of the Middle Ages^ p. 74. 

f As to protection by special saints as stated, see the Guide du touriste et du 
pilerin h Chartres^ 1867 (cited by " Paul Parfait," in his Dossier des PhUrinages) ; 
also pp. 139-145 of the Dossier, 

X Pertica. See Montanus, Hist. Nachricht von den Glocken (Chemnitz, 1 726), 
p. 121 ; and Meyer, Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters^ p. 186. 



DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS. 



345 



was powerless against this current of mediaeval superstition. 
Theological reasons were soon poured into it, and in the 
year 968 Pope John XIII gave it the highest ecclesiastical 
sanction by himself baptizing the great bell of his cathedral 
church, the Lateran, and christening it with his own name.* 

This idea was rapidly developed, and we soon find it 
supported in ponderous treatises, spread widely in sermons, 
and popularized in multitudes of inscriptions cast upon the 
bells themselves. This branch of theological literature may 
still be studied in multitudes of church towers throughout 
Europe. A bell at Basel bears the inscription, ** Ad fugan- 
dos demones." Another, in Lugano, declares ** The sound 
of this bell vanquishes tempests, repels demons, and sum- 
mons men." Another, at the Cathedral of Erfurt, declares 
that it can " ward off lightning and malignant demons." A 
peal in the Jesuit church at the university town of Pont-k- 
Mousson bore the words, " They praise God, put to flight 
the clouds, affright the demons, and call the people." This 
is dated 1634. Another bell in that part of France declares, 
" It is I who dissipate the thunders " {Ego sum qui dissipo toni- 
trua),j^ 

Another, in one of the forest cantons of Switzerland, 
bears a doggerel couplet, which may be thus translated : 

" On the devil my spite 111 vent. 
And, God helping, bad weather prevent." J 

Very common were inscriptions embodying this doctrine in 
sonorous Latin. 

Naturally, then, there grew up a ritual for the consecra- 
tion of bells. Knollys, in his quaint translation of the old 



♦ For statements regarding Pope John and bell superstitions, see Higgins's 
Anacalypsis, vol. ii, p. 70. Sec also Platina, ViUg Ponii/,, s. v. John XIII, and 
Baronitts, AnnaUs EccUsiastici, sub anno 968. The conjecture of Baronins that 
the bell was named after St. John the Baptist, is even more startling than the ac- 
cepted tradition of the Pope's sponsorship, 

f For these illustrations, with others equally striking, see Meyer, Der Aber^ 
glaube des MitUlalters, pp. 185, 186. For the later examples, see Germain, An-- 
ciennes cloches lorraines (Nancy, 1885), pp. 23, 27. 

t " An dem Tfifel will ich mich rftchen, 

Mit der hilf gotz alle bdsen wetter zerbrechen." 

(See Meyer, as above.) 



j4^. FkOX ::i£X -FLZSiCE Cf THE P-?WEk OF THE AliL- 

chntidrjt-r Siridiiii. riirts xs ibc usagrt it lie ^nrnj .V £ng:"dsii 
'•]n jvii.t s:»nt 'ii d-urcies" art tbc belies used. And 

^ ^ ^ 

£rsi. i:»ri..'-'JL. irier urns: hernge Su, as liit Brshcij' max |rcie 
rjund iiii:r-:': iheri. Wriiie aiuer ht imih sajde cenen 
PsL.meE. lit c.^ht.zrsz*rjL wthuszzziC saiit, aiid mingieii ihtzn 
Xozt^^iiVT. vberwiir. iie Tassrieiii lie belie diiiarciiilT bciti: 
wiiiiii tiic '»-i:^:n:i. aner vrxieii: h drie, and -iriib bolx cTrf 
CTL-ire^i ii: :t the sipie cc ibe crosse. and j-rcjeiii G-cid, I'^'f 
vbaii tier 5.":^2ill ttzhzx or sDiiiMSe ibaT bell- 2l11 the disceizi-tes 
of ibe devjll mhj TStrjsiiC avax. baxic ibrodrxiig:, iigbte3> 
ict^- '■'x^desL- aiid iwc'iesics- aad all unteizjieraie weaibers 
mix be ai-HT^LSped- Wnan be baib w:;-Te oci the crosse o: 
vjlt •■rxtb a liiiei; cicAb- be cakeir serea oiber crosses in 
tbe sane, arid •■rhbii: ooe cmlx. Afier saxir:g cenen Psalmes, 
be lakeih a naxre zc sfsz&Vfsrs and serseib the bei "■"iihixu and 
prajeih G->d to s^eade h gocri lacke. In inanx places ibex 
icake a sreii dxiier- aad hrpc a rcasi as ii were at a solemnc 
wecdii^g--** * 

Tbe&t r-ell bi;'ds:i:s becarce maticis o: great impDrtance. 
P':':,*es- iir:r^. and prelates were z-ro-JC to stand as STK>a5ors. 
F^ur '-f :it cells a: tre Cathedral o: VeiKiilles baxing: been 
cestrcjed durir^ tbe French Rexclurica- four new ones 
were 'r£z:izt-d. := the fch of January-, 2S24- the Voltaircan 
Kinz. L:--i5 XVI II. and tie j:::us Duchess d'AngouIenie 
Stan [iin.2^ as si!,''ns^rs- 

In svn:e c: these ceremonies zeal arr-cars to haxe outrun 
kn:: w'.ecre. and : ne of Liithers stcries. at the expense of the 
elder Church, was that certain authorities thus christened a 
bell " H :sanna," supposing that to be the canae of a woman. 

To add to the eiEcacx of such ba::»tisni5, water was some- 
times bro-zht from the rixer Jordan. -*• 

The p ravers used at bell baptisms fullx recognise this 
doctrine. The ritual of Paris embraces the petition that, 
*■ whensoever this bell shall sound, it shall drive awax the 



* S!t: din's C"nm^n£zri^i, Ec^Iish tnaslidoc, as aborc, foL 354 (!£b. xxi, sab 

♦ Sc« M :-•-*=-*. a.? ibrrc, who cl:cs B^dL. LMikertAum tvr Lmii^rv, p. 294, 
for the r^ttsntn: :2ii: cluit belli wer« carried 10 tbc Jcrdan br p3ghz2s fcr this 



DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS. 347 

malign influences of the assailing spirits, the horror of their 
apparitions, the rush of whirlwinds, the stroke of lightning, 
the harm of thunder, the disasters of storms, and all the 
spirits of the tempest." Another prayer begs that "the 
sound of this bell may put to flight the fiery darts of the 
enemy of men ** ; and others vary the form but not the sub- 
stance of this petition. The great Jesuit theologian. Bellar- 
min, did indeed try to deny the reality of this baptism ; but 
this can only be regarded as a piece of casuistry suited to 
Protestant hardness of heart, or as strategy in the warfare 
against heretics. * 

Forms of baptism were laid down in various manuals 
sanctioned directly by papal authority, and sacramental effi- 
cacy was everywhere taken for granted, f The development 
of this idea in the older Church was too strong to be re- 
sisted ; X but, as a rule, the Protestant theologians of the Ref- 
ormation, while admitting that storms were caused by Satan 
and his legions, opposed the baptism of bells, and denied the 
theory of their influence in dispersing storms. Luther, while 
never doubting that troublesome meteorological phenomena 
were caused by devils, regarded with contempt the idea that 



* For prayers at bell baptbms, see Arago, (Euz/r^St Paris, 1854, vol. iv, p. 32a. 

f As has often been pointed out, the ceremony was in all its details— even to 
the sponsors, the wrapping a garment about the baptized, the baptismal fee, the 
feast — ^precisely the same as when a child was baptized. Magius, who is no scep- 
tic, relates from his own experience an instance of this sort, where a certain 
bishop stood sponsor for two bells, giving them both his own name — William. (See 
his Df Tintinnabulis^ vol. xiv.) 

\ And no wonder, when the oracle of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, expressly 
pronounced church bells, " provided they have been duly consecrated and bap- 
tized," the foremost means of ** frustrating the atmospheric mischiefs of the devil," 
and likened steeples in which bells are ringing to a hen brooding her chickens, 
** for the tones of the consecrated metal repel the demons and avert storm and 
lightning " ; when pre-Reformation preachers of such universal currency as Jo- 
annes Herolt declared, " Bells, as all agree, are baptized with the result that they 
are secure from the power of Satan, terrify the demons, compel the powers " ; when 
Geiler of Kaiscrsberg especially commended bell-ringing as a means of beating off 
the devil in storms ; and when a canonist like Durandus explained the purpose of 
the rite to be, that " the demons hearing the trumpets of the Eternal King, to wit, 
the bells, may flee in terror, and may cease from the stirring up of tempests." 
See Herolt, Sermorus DiscipuK^ vol. xvii, and Durandus, De ritibus eccUsia^ vol. 
ii, p. 12. I owe the first of these citations to Rydberg, and the others to Mon- 
tanus. For Geiler, see Dacheux, GeiUr de Kaisersberg^ pp. 280, a8i. 



«/>ic THE -jarsirz :y rsz ?cnrsL if rsz: i 







:^r^rr.T. bi\ry^ Hv.c^r declared r»15szcs ^.tiii leili ^ 



tf*^-*^ r^ iiarr»*r% *-tr,t :jL,j'j'wtfl dc^ ; iz.*t ires« icizljics 



5;i-^ r-^rj ;f<tt>trir:v ih^r^ bj th€ 



Toward tir><5 tnd of th^ siittttith cent=:rT tiie El-i-zTrir :z 
Sax^ynj \tnct\y forbade the ringing of bells zriizs^ s:;r:=5u 
^^ii^^^fi p^TMUi^-^ -u>^ ifT^LjtT instead : bat the c:i5C -c: ttss ztc 
V-# easily driven out of the Protestant Church, ard in s.iC'^ 
rjuarter^ wa% developed a Protestant theory o: a rarficaliscic 
•^^rt, av.rif>in;f the good effects of bcIl-ringing £a stcrrzs ::• 
the calling V-^ether of the devout for prayer or to the scz- 
ge^tion of prayers during storms at night. As late as ihe 
end of the viventeenth century we find the bells of Prrte<- 
tant churches in northern Germany rung for the dispellir^ 
of ternfyrsfs. In Catholic Austria this bell-ringing seeizs \j 
have fy;corne a nuisance in the last century, for the Einpercr 
J'/V:ph II found it necessary to issue an edict against it: 
hut this d^>ctrinc had gained too large headway to be ar- 
rested by argument or edict, and the bells may be heard 
ringing during storms to this day in various remote dis- 
tricts in Kuropc, t For this was no mere superficial view. 



• 'I he ha{itr>m of f^lU was, indeed, one of the express complaints of the Ger- 
man I'roiirnfanl princc^i at the Rcfonnation. See their Gravam. OtU. Germjm. 
Grav., p. 5f. For llrx>f>€r, see his Early Writings, p. 197 (in Parker SMtty 
rublifntioni). For Tilkington, sec his Works, p. 177 (« same). Among others 
»harinj{ thc^c opinions were Tyndalc, Bishop Ridley, Archbishop Sandys, Becon, 
Calf hill, and K^^kcw. It is to be noted that all these speak of the rite as *• baptism." 

t I' or Klcctor of Saxony, see Peuchen. Disp. circa UmpestaUs, Jena, 1697. For 
the rrotft'.tanl theory of bclU, sec, e. g., the Condones Selectct of Superintendent 
Coniad Dirtrrlch (cited by Tcuchen, Disp, circa tcmpestaUs), For Protestant 
rinninj; of liclU to disi>el tempests, see Schwimmer, Pkysicalisckt Luftfragen, 
i(tt)2 (litcd !»y I'cuchcn, as aliovc). He pictures the whole population of a Thu- 
rin^iati dihtricl flocking to the churches on the approach of a storm. 



DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS. 



349 



It was really part of a deep theological current steadily de- 
veloped through the Middle Ages, the fundamental idea of 
the whole being the direct influence of the bells upon the 
** Power of the Air ** ; and it is perhaps worth our while to go 
back a little and glance over the coming of this current into 
the modern world. Having grown steadily through the 
Middle Ages, it appeared in full strength at the Reformation 
period ; and in the sixteenth century Olaus Magnus, Arch- 
bishop of Upsala and Primate of Sweden, in his great work 
on the northern nations, declares it a well-established fact 
that cities and harvests may be saved from lightning by the 
ringing of bells and the burning of consecrated incense, 
accompanied by prayers ; and he cautions his readers that 
the workings of the thunderbolt are rather to be marvelled 
at than inquired into. Even as late as 1673 the Franciscan 
professor Lealus, in Italy, in a schoolbook which was re- 
ceived with great applause in his region, taught unhesitat- 
ingly the agency of demons in storms, and the power of bells 
over them, as well as the jxjrtentousness of comets and the 
movement of the heavens by angels. He dwells especially, 
too, upon the perfect protection afforded by the waxen Ag7ius 
Dei. How strong this current was, and how difficult even 
for philosophical minds to oppose, is shown by the fact that 
both Descartes and Francis Bacon speak of it with respect, 
admitting the fact, and suggesting very mildly that the 
bells may accomplish this purpose by the concussion of the 



air.* 



But no such moderate doctrine sufficed, and the re- 
nowned Bishop Binsfeld, of Treves, in his noted treatise on 
the credibility of the confessions of witches, gave an entire 
chapter to the effect of bells in calming atmospheric dis- 
turbances. Basing his general doctrine upon the first chap- 
ter of Job and the second chapter of Ephesians, he insisted 
on the reality of diabolic agency in storms ; and then, by 
theological reasoning, corroborated by the statements ex- 
torted in the torture chamber, he showed the efficacy of bells 

• For Olaus Magnus* sec the De gentibus septentrionalibus (Rome, 1555), lib. 
i, c. 12, 13. For Descartes, see his De meteor, ^ c. 7. For Bacon, see his Natural 
History^ cent. 2, 127. In his Historia Ventorum he again alludes to the belief, 
and without comment. 



-^^ riivx "TEX 'Jir^rx :€r tht pi^vix u? r 



c-:»:iunr ''. r.? ::::2i.i^ irtriir in* sue u: tiie seremfrEnir ctl- 
lurr A: inic yt^rTA'jZi — ciit irtriifC ic Isaai Nfiirxiiij — Fzibcr 
Aurwy-^^ "^ Aurtu^. rtniir :c tii* Ciementrnt Coli^rt 2: 
K'-citt T's-i*-:ibirtri uiiD*:r "jut rJTTrfrs: Cbcr^ amiiDrirr his j?r- 

ii:^ Cunsimo'.c:-. in »: -Lint l i»i:ri.#d. liicj zr^ verr iirz»3rSB2: 
fei 'ni-z^'juriziZ vii-t iiai :#t*x ito-thcted under rbt inrxKOiCf 
y: irj^nuvgj diiriiir neLrlj scTrenjKai imndred jchts. Tris 
>:2jnrtrd irtrad 'j: i zrsLt c-_Ci;er?: £i ibf: bean o: ChrisienDDis 
tfc.-:2^ tic;:: *• ti«* siirts: rKixef j Eg-Hins: tinnder is TV.aT irrddi 
«x:r H'-^lj M'.inirr ti*: Cr^rci: practises, xxeidc-t, the rinsring 
of '>tl5 Trbei: A tiundrrbi'li 2=:p«end5: tbcncc j'dHows 1 
tv-xvld t^trL p bTsi::^! arid idotsJ — a pfcjacal. becansr tbc 
vrjiir: Tsrivuslj dist-urbs 2z>d a^iitaies ibe air. and br a^iia- 
tivn ciijitrrses lb*: bic exha'^aiicos and disptels ibe ti under; 
but the nvrzJ efect is the more certain, becansc bj tbe sonnd 
tbt laitiif ul art stirred to pour forth tbcir prajcrs. bv which 
tber win from God tbe taming awaj of the thunderbolt." 
Htrre TTt set in ibis branch of thought, as in so manj cither?, 
at tb':: clove o: tbe seventeenth centurr. tbe dawn of rar::>n£- 
i*;nrj. Father De Angelis now keeps demoniacal influence is 
tfje back^ro-jTjd. Little, indeed, is said of the efficiency :: 
}yrjU in putting to flight tbe legions of Satan : the wise pro- 
ifzWjT is evidently preparing for that inevitable compromise 
which we sec in the historv of everv science when it is 
clear that it can no longer be suppressed by ecclesiastical ful- 
rninations.+ 

III. THE AGENXY OF WITCHES. 

Hut, while this comparatively harmless doctrine of thwart- 
ing the powers of the air b}' fetiches and bell-ringing was 
developed, there were evolved another theory, and a series 
of practices sanctioned by the Church, which must forever 
be considered as among the most fearful calamities in human 

♦ Sec IJinsfcId, Dg Confessionbus Male/,, pp. 308-314, edition of 1623. 
t For l>c Angclis, see his Lectianes MtUoroL^ p. 75. 



THE AGENCY OV WITCHES. 35 1 

history. Indeed, few errors have ever cost so much shed- 
ding of innocent blood over such wide territory and during 
so many generations. Out of the old doctrine — pagan and 
Christian— of evil agency in atmospheric phenomena was 
evolved the belief that certain men, women, and children 
may secure infernal aid to produce whirlwinds, hail, frosts, 
floods, and the like. 

As early as the ninth century one great churchman, Ago- 
bard, Archbishop of Lyons, struck a heavy blow at this 
superstition. His work. Against tlie Absurd Opinion of the 
Vulgar touching Hail and Thunder^ shows him to have been 
one of the most devoted apostles of right reason whom hu- 
man history has known. By argument and ridicule, and at 
times by a lofty eloquence, he attempted to breast this tide. 
One passage is of historical significance. He declares : ** The 
wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness ; 
things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no 
one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe."* 

All in vain ; the tide of superstition continued to roll on ; 
great theologians developed it and ecclesiastics favoured it ; 
until as we near the end of the mediaeval period the infallible 
voice of Rome is heard accepting it, and clinching this belief 
into the mind of Christianity. For, in 1437, Pope Eugene 
IV, by virtue of the teaching power conferred on him by 
the Almighty, and under the divine guarantee against any 
possible error in the exercise of it, issued a bull exhorting 
the inquisitors of heresy and witchcraft to use greater dili- 
gence against the human agents of the Prince of Darkness, 
and especially against those who have the power to produce 
bad weather. In 1445 Pope Eugene returned again to the 
charge, and again issued instructions and commands infal- 
libly committing the Church to the doctrine. But a greater 
than Eugene followed, and stamped the idea yet more deeply 
into the mind of the Church. On the 7th of December, 
1484, Pope Innocent VIII sent forth his bull Summis Beside- 
rantcs. Of all documents ever issued from Rome, imperial 

♦ For a very interesting statement of Agobard's position and work, with cita- 
tions from his Liber contra insulsam vulgi opinionem de grandine et tonitruis^ sec 
Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaval Thought^ pp. 40 et seq. The works 
of Agobard are in vol. civ of Migne's Patrol, Lot 



352 



FROM THE -PRIXCE OF THE POWER OF THZ Ali-^ 



or papal, this has doubtless, first and last, cost ti:* ^rr2.r£sc 
shedding of innocent blood. Yet no dociuze-i -w-is cxe: 
more clearly dictated by conscience. Inspired bj tre soriz- 
tural command, '* Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," F-i* 
Innocent exhorted the clergy of Germany to leave zjz- ne^is 
untried to detect sorcerers, and especially those wLcr zj evil 
weather destroy vineyards, gardens, meadows, a^d growing 
crops. These precepts were based upon various texts cz 
Scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the b:i:k 
of Job; and, to carry them out, witch-finding inquisftr-rs 
were authorized by the Pope to scour Europe. especiLIv 



Germany, and a manual was prepared for their use — the 
Witch-Hammer, J fa/Zeus ilaUficarum, In this manual, which 
was revered for centuries, both in Catholic and Protestant 
countries, as almost divinely inspired, the doctrine of Satanic 
agency in atmospheric phenomena was further developed, 
and various means of detecting and punishing it were dwelt 
upon.* 

With the application of torture to thousands of women, 
in accordance with the precepts laid down in the yfalh-us^ it 
was not difficult to extract masses of proof for this sacred 
theory of meteorology. The poor creatures, writhing on 
the rack, held in horror by those who had been nearest and 
dearest to them, anxious only for death to relieve their suf- 
ferings, confessed to anything and everything that would 
satisfy the inquisitors and judges. All that was needed was 
that the inquisitors should ask leading questions f and sug- 

• For the bull of Pope Eugene, sec Ra3maldiis, AnnaUs EccL, pp. 1437, 144$- 
The Latin text of the bull Summis Desiderantes may be found in the \faUnu 
Makficarum^ in Binsfeld's De Canfessumibus cited below, or in RoskoflTs GesckickU 
des Teufels (Leipsic, 1869), vol. i, pp. 222-225. There is, so far as I know, no 
goo<l analysis, in any English book, of the contents of the Witch-Hamwur ; bet 
such may be found in RoskofiTs Geschichte dts Teufels^ or in Soldan's Gt-sckickU 
der Ilexenprotesse. Its first dated edition is that of 1489 ; but Prof. Burr has 
shown that it was printed as early as i486. It was, happily, never translated into 
any modem tongue. 

f For still extant lists of such questions, see the Zeitschrift fUr dtutsckt Cmltur- 
geschichU for 1858, pp. 522-528, or Diefenbach, Der Hexenwahn in Deutsckland^ 
pp. 15-17. Father Vincent of Berg (in his -£m-^iri^*i/«) gives a similar list for 
use by priests in the confession of the accused. Manuscript lists of this sort which 
have actually done service in the courts of Baden and Bavaria may be seen in the 
library of Cornell University. 



THE AGENCY OF WITCHES. 353 

gest satisfactory answers : the prisoners, to shorten the tor- 
ture, were sure sooner or later to give the answer required, 
even though they knew that this would send tbem to the 
stake or scaffold. Under the doctrine of ** excepted cases," 
there was no limit to torture for persons accused of heresy 
or witchcraft; even the safeguards which the old pagan 
world had imposed upon torture were thus thrown down, 
and the prisoner must confess. 

The theological literature of the Middle Ages was thus 
enriched with numberless statements regarding modes of 
Satanic influence on the weather. Pathetic, indeed, are the 
records; and none more so than the confessions of these 
poor creatures, chiefly women and children, during hundreds 
of years, as to their manner of raising hailstorms and tem- 
pests. Such confessions, by tens of thousands, are still to be 
found in the judicial records of Germany, and indeed of all 
Europe. Typical among these is one on which great stress 
was laid during ages, and for which the world was first in- 
debted to one of these poor women. Crazed by the agony 
of torture, she declared that, returning with a demon through 
the air from the witches* sabbath, she was dropped upon 
the earth in the confusion which resulted among the hellish 
legions when they heard the bells sounding the Ave Maria, 
It is sad to note that, after a contribution so valuable to 
sacred science, the poor woman was condemned to the 
flames. This revelation speedily ripened the belief that, 
whatever might be going on at the witches* sabbath — no 
matter how triumphant Satan might be — at the moment of 
sounding the consecrated bells the Satanic power was para- 
lyzed. This theory once started, proofs came in to support 
it, during a hundred years, from the torture chambers in all 
parts of Europe. 

Throughout the later Middle Ages the Dominicans had 
been the main agents in extorting and promulgating these 
revelations, but in the centuries following the Reformation 
the Jesuits devoted themselves with even more keenness and 
vigour to the same task. Some curious questions inciden- 
tally arose. It was mooted among the orthodox authorities 
whether the damage done by storms should or should not 
be assessed upon the property of convicted witches. The 
24 



354 



FlOiC THE -PaiXCE OF THE POWEi OF THZ i. 



th^AO^ariS inclined dcddciW zo tic afcrnadve . me 
OQ tnc whcicr Lo the ncganTc* 



la 5uitc ot these tort ares. Iigfamfng' ir.c z^mzescs irm- 
tinadd. ar*d ifrcat men arose in tic Ororcii iiir::u;r3cur E 
rope in every gencratioa to point out new cmeirfcs I'lr 
ilycrj^tTT oi - wcather-makcrs.'" and new mcticiis iir - 
iag r.ieir macbisatioos to nangtit, 

B'jt here aad there, sts earlv as the sixteenth cgn cj^ - * 
begin to sec thinkers endcaTOuring to mccifj :r :cccse 
these methods- At that time Paracclsos called arr^titiiia u 
the reverberation ot cannon as eipiaining the roLlfr^ ic li:;^- 
der, but he was confronted by one of his grcaiesc citirez:- 
poraries. Jean Bodin. as superstitious in natural as he w:zs 
rational in political science, made sport of the scientifc the- 
ory, and declared thunder to be **a flaming cxhalaxf-jc sec fn 
motion by evil spirits, and hurled downward with a ^ttku 
crash and a horrible smell of sulphur." In support cc rhi 
view, he dwelt upon the confessions of tortured witchesw 
upon the acknowledged agency of demons in the Will-c -ihe- 
wLsp, and specially upon the passage in the one hundred aizd 
fourth Psalm, " Who maketh his angeb spirits, his rrinisters 
a flaming fire." 

To resist such powerful arguments by such powerful =i-c 
was dangerous indeed. In 15 13, Pomponatius, professor 21 
Padua, published a volume of Doubts as to tfu Fourth E^K'k :f 
Aristotle s Meteorologica, and also dared to question this power 
of devils ; but he soon found it advisable to explain that, 
while as a philosopher he might doubt, yet as a Christian he 
of course believed everything taught by Mother Church — 
devils and all — and so escaped the fate of several others who 
dared to question the agency of witches in atmospheric and 
other disturbances. 

A few years later Agrippa of Nettesheim made a some- 
what similar effort to breast this theological tide in northern 
Europe. He had won a great reputation in various fields, 
but especially in natural science, as science was then under- 
stood. Seeing the folly and cruelty of the prevailing theory, 

♦ For prx>fs of the vigour of the Jesuits in this persecution, sec not only the 
histories of witchcraft, but also the Annua littera of the Jesuits themselves, /oxmi. 



THE AGENCY OF WITCHES. 



355 



he attempted to modify it, and in 1518, as Syndic of Metz, 
endeavoured to save a poor woman on trial for witchcraft. 
But the chief inquisitor, backed by the sacred Scriptures, 
the papal bulls, the theological faculties, and the monks, was 
too strong for him ; he was not only forced to give up his 
office, but for this and other offences of a similar sort was im- 
prisoned, driven from city to city and from country to coun- 
try, and after his death his clerical enemies, especially the 
Dominicans, pursued his memory with calumny, and placed 
over his grave probably the most malignant epitaph ever 
written. 

As to argument, these efforts were met especially by 
Jean Bodin in his famous book, the D^monomanie des SorcierSj 
published in 1580. It was a work of great power by a man 
justly considered the leading thinker in France, and perhaps 
in Europe. All the learning of the time, divine and human, 
he marshalled in support of the prevailing theory. With in- 
exorable logic he showed that both the veracity of sacred 
Scripture and the infallibility of a long line of popes and 
councils of the Church were pledged to it, and in an elo- 
quent passage this great publicist warned rulers and judges 
against any mercy to witches — citing the example of King 
Ahab condemned by the prophet to die for having pardoned 
a man worthy of death, and pointing significantly to King 
Charles IX of France, who, having pardoned a sorcerer, died 
soon afterward.* 

In the last years of the sixteenth century the persecu- 
tions for witchcraft and magic were therefore especially 
cruel ; and in the western districts of Germany the main in- 
strument in them was Binsfeld, Suffragan Bishop of Treves. 

* To the argument cited above, Bodin adds : '* Id certissimam doemonis prsesen- 
tiam signiBcat : nam ubicunque dsemones cum hominibus nefaria societatis fide 
copulantur, fccdissimum semper relinquunt sulphuris odorem, quod sortilegi ssepis- 
sime experiuntur et confitentur." See Bodin's Universa Natura Theatrum^ Frank- 
fort, 1597, pp. 208-211. The first edition of the book by Pomponatius, which was 
the earliest of his writings, is excessively rare, but it was reprinted at Venice just a 
half-century later. It is in his Dt incantattonibus^ however, that he speaks espe- 
cially of devils. As to Pomponatius, see, besides these, Creighton's History of the 
Pap<uy during the Reformation^ and an excellent essay in Franck's Moralistes et 
Philosophes, For Agrippa, sec his biography by Prof. Henry Morley, London, 1856. 
For Bodin, see a statement of his general line of argument in Lecky, Rationalism 
in Europe^ vol. i, chap. i. 






.A. 



S^,')»*rv in/C ^ «n -rr.* ij;iir :i;r iiULseii -imcijn 



-»r.nif^r, tf%!1 •x^m^^tric* ^<ir "inis ieiceri -mn irni tis ^luse 

^ -^ -• 

;.rrt<i v.<t 3iar.:i?v:rlsc cr^ciscacsd. and L.:«:« ni-.irx -rrr- i 

Tr^ ;n<j-iiiir/>r^ r^rir^s' -rr->firit their "vflL :ic«:n iim. n 

Cr.,irch. ir/1 tr-rfrr-o^forwar-i kept oicgmr j intftrr 5xir - . r^» 
ksifiO^ JSuvi a? t:rr.<*:^ in prUoci. Et^ti this was cccs-ier^i ric 
Uifr.t Ji p'jr*Hrim«it. artd his arcri-cccdj. rie Jesifi I>*iriir, 
4'V,;iir'ii'! that, ryif, for hii d'tath bj the plague, iie wiiiJi iiiT^ 

7 hat *rii^ •hr';at vtrai not unnieanin^ had be^- 5e:n a :eT 
y^iar^ 'rariiTr iri a cav!: even ir.ore nocfrd. azd ir ibe s^jne 
^ify. fi'irinjf the last decades -jf the sixteenrh cezturj. EKe- 
trich I'ia/'le, an eminent iarist, was rector of th^ UniTersirr 
of Treve's, and ohief judge of the Electoral Court, and b: 
the latter capacity be had to pass judgment upca p^rs-rcs 
tri'rd on the capital charge of magic and witchcraft. For 
a time he yielded to the long line of authorities^ ecclesi- 
astical and judicial, supporting the reality of this crime: but 
he at. last seerns to have realized that it was unreal, and 
that the confessions in his torture chamber, of compacts 
with Satan, riding on brrx>msticks to the witch-sabbath. 



• What frr/iain* of the manuscript of Loos, which until recently was sapposcd 
\*t b^ lo-.t, yi%% f'/un^f, hi'I'I^n away *fTi the shelves of the old Jesatt library at Treves, 
Ky Mr, (tfor^fc, IJnr.oln iJurr, now a professor at Cornell University; and Prof 
Uutt'k ropy of ihr. manuscript is now in the library of that institution. For a fbll 
n't'tuut of thf ilivjovrry and its sijjnificance, see the N'rw York Xation for No- 
v#-fnl»rr ft, |HH6. The facts regarding the after-life of Loos were discovered by 
f'rof, fturr in manuscript records at I^russcls. 



THE AGENCY OF WITCHES. 357 

raising tempests, producing diseases, and the like, were 
either the results of madness or of willingness to confess 
anything and everything, and even to die, in order to shorten 
the fearful tortures to which the accused were in all cases 
subjected until a satisfactory confession was obtained. 

On this conviction of the unreality of many at least of the 
charges Flade seems to have acted, and he at once received 
his reward. He was arrested by the authority of the arch- 
bishop and charged with having sold himself to Satan — the 
fact of his hesitation in the persecution being perhaps what 
suggested his guilt. He was now, in his turn, brought into 
the torture chamber over which he had once presided, was 
racked until he confessed everything which his torturers 
suggested, and finally, in 1589, was strangled and burnt. 

Of that trial a record exists in the library of Cornell 
University in the shape of the original minutes of the case, 
and among them the depositions of Flade when under tor- 
lure, taken down from his own lips in the torture chamber. 
In these depositions this revered and venerable scholar and 
jurist acknowledged the truth of every absurd charge 
brought against him — anything, everything, which would end 
the fearful torture: compared with that, death was nothing.* 

Nor was even a priest secure who ventured to reveal the 
unreality of magic. When Friedrich Spee, the Jesuit poet 
of western Germany, found, in taking the confessions of those 
about to be executed for magic, that without exception, just 
when about to enter eternity and utterly beyond hope of 
pardon, they all retracted their confessions made under tor- 
ture, his sympathies as a man rose above his loyalty to his 
order, and he published his Cautio Criminalis as a warning, 
stating with entire moderation the facts he had observed 
and the necessity of care. But he did not dare publish it 
under his own name, nor did he even dare publish it in a 
Catholic town ; he gave it to the world anonymously, and, 
in order to prevent any tracing of the work to him through 
the confessional, he secretly caused it to be published in the 
Protestant town of Rinteln. 



♦ For the case of Flade, see the careful study by Prof. Burr, The Fate of Die* 
tfich Flade ^ in the Papers of the American Historical Association^ 1 89 1. 



• t 






•* 'f ' V 'f ' * /» 



■ J ' ■ ■■-* . i . . 

■ t »■ ' i . »■ ". 






THE AGENCY OF WITCHES. 



359 



Protestantism fell into the superstition as fully as Cathol- 
icism. In the same century John Wier, a disciple of 
Agrippa, tried to frame a pious theory which, while satisfy- 
ing orthodoxy, should do something to check the frightful 
cruelties around him. In his book De Prcestigiis Damonutn, 
published in 1563, he proclaimed his belief in witchcraft, but 
suggested that the compacts with Satan, journeys through 
the air on broomsticks, bearing children to Satan, raising 
storms and producing diseases — to which so many women 
and children confessed under torture — were delusions sug- 
gested and propagated by Satan himself, and that the per- 
sons charged with witchcraft were therefore to be consid- 
ered " as possessed " — that is, rather as sinned against than 
sinning.* 

But neither Catholics nor Protestants would listen for 
a moment to any such suggestion. Wier was bitterly de- 
nounced and persecuted. Nor did Bekker, a Protestant 
divine in Holland, fare any better in the following century. 
For his World Bewitched^ in which he ventured not only to 
question the devil's power over the weather, but to deny 
his bodily existence altogether, he was solemnly tried by the 
synod of his Church and expelled from his pulpit, while his 
views were condemned as heresy, and overwhelmed with a 
flood of refutations whose mere catalogue would fill pages ; 
and these cases were typical of many. 

The Reformation had, indeed, at first deepened the super- 
stition ; the new Church being anxious to show itself equally 
orthodox and zealous with the old. During the century 
following the first great movement, the eminent Lutheran 
jurist and theologian Benedict Carpzov, whose boast was 
that he had read the Bible fifty-three times, especially dis- 
tinguished himself by his skill in demonstrating the reality 
of witchcraft, and by his cruelty in detecting and punishing 
it. The torture chambers were set at work more vigorously 
than ever, and a long line of theological jurists followed to 
maintain the system and to extend it. 

in a French one. Remigius's manual was entitled Damonclatreia^ and was first 
printed at Lyons in 1595. 

• For Wier, or Weyer, see, beside his own works, the excellent biography by 
Prof. Binz, of Bonn. 



360 FROM THE -PRINXE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR.' 

To argue against it, or even doubt it, was cxccctiiaglj 
dangerous. Even as late as the beginning of the eighteecth 
century, when Christian Thomasius, the greatest and bravest 
German between Luther and Lessing, began the efforts 
which put an end to it in Protestant Gerroanv, he did not 
dare at first, bold as he was, to attack it in his own name, 
but presented his views as the university thesis of an irre- 
sponsible student.* 

The same stubborn resistance to the g^dual encroach- 
ment of the scientific spirit upon the orthodox doctrine of 
witchcraft was seen in Great Britain* Typical as to the 
attitude both of Scotch and English Protestants were the 
theory and practice of King James I, himself the author of a 
book on Demonology^ and nothing if not a theologian. As to 
theory, his treatise on Demonology supported the worst fea- 
tures of the superstition; as to practice, he ordered the 
learned and acute work of Reginald Scot, Tlu Discaveru of 
Witc/tcraft^ one of the best treatises ever written on the sub- 
ject, to be burned by the hangman, and he applied his own 
knowledge to investigating the causes of the tempests which 
beset his bride on her voyage from Denmark. Skilful use 
of unlimited torture soon brought these causes to light. A 
Dr. Fian, while his legs were crushed in the "boots" and 
wedges were driven under his finger nails, confessed that 
several hundred witches had gone to sea in a sieve from the 
port of Leith, and had raised storms and tempests to drive 
back the princess. 

With the coming in of the Puritans the persecution was 
even more largely, systematically, and cruelly developed. 
The great witch-finder, Matthew Hopkins, having gone 
through the county of Suffolk and tested multitudes of poor 
old women by piercing them with pins and needles, declared 
that county to be infested with witches. Thereupon Par- 
liament issued a commission, and sent two eminent Presby- 
terian divines to accompany it, with the result that in 



♦ For Thomasius, sec his various biographies by Luden and others ; also the 
treatises on witchcraft of Soldan and others. Manuscript notes of his lectures, and 
copies of his earliest books on witchcraft as well as on other forms of folly, are to 
be found in the library of Cornell University. 



THE AGENCY OF WITCHES. 



361 



that county alone sixty persons were hanged for witchcraft 
in a single year. In Scotland matters were even worse. 
The auto da f^ of Spain was celebrated in Scotland under 
another name, and with Presbyterian ministers instead of 
Roman Catholic priests as the main attendants. At Leith, 
in 1664, nine women were burned together. Condemnations 
and punishments of women in batches were not uncommon. 
Torture was used far more freely than in England, both in 
detecting witches and in punishing them. The natural argu- 
ment developed in hundreds of pulpits was this : If the AH- 
wise God punishes his creatures with tortures infinite in 
cruelty and duration, why should not his ministers, as far as 
they can, imitate him ? 

The strongest minds in both branches of the Protestant 
Church in Great Britain devoted themselves to maintaining 
the superstition. The newer scientific modes of thought, 
and especially the new ideas regarding the heavens, revealed 
first by Copernicus and Galileo and later by Newton, Huy- 
gens, and Halley, were gradually dissipating the whole do- 
main of the Prince of the Power of the Air ; but from first 
to last a long line of eminent divines, Anglican and Calvin- 
istic, strove to resist the new thought. On the Anglican 
side, in the seventeenth century, Meric Casaubon, Doctor 
of Divinity and a high dignitary of Canterbury, — Henry 
More, in many respects the most eminent scholar in the 
Church, — Cudworth, by far the most eminent philosopher, 
and Dr. Joseph Glanvil, the most cogent of all writers in 
favour of witchcraft, supported the orthodox superstition in 
treatises of great power ; and Sir Matthew Hale, the great- 
est jurist of the period, condemning two women to be burned 
for witchcraft, declared that he based his judgment on the 
direct testimony of Holy Scripture. On the Calvinistic side 
were the great names of Richard Baxter, who applauded 
some of the worst cruelties in England, and of Increase and 
Cotton Mather, who stimulated the worst in America ; and 
these marshalled in behalf of this cruel superstition a long 
line of eminent divines, the most earnest of all, perhaps, b&. 
ing John Wesley. 

Nor was the Lutheran Church in Sweden and the other 
Scandinavian countries behind its sister churches, either in 



rift lir» ,fVi*nr.r.C ^.i*r» U -ne les^'tns VTS Iii-'ii..r:t;:i. tt, r ^ 







«. •/% 4.<v^ 









v>r* -i/h'y if* *:.': h ■-.':. '>l^r rariJcs of the cler^ ?::i:«i —•"•'.iIIt 

if*;; ♦r,'rir owfi [irorr,or:on impossible. 

By tK'r r/^;^jrirjjfjjf o: the eighteenth cent-rv the i:<:tri-e 
wa^ ':v)'!':ritl V fWxuz out. Where torture hiLC reen abclished, 
or ':y':f» made milder " weather-makers'' no linger confessed. 
;irid th': fundamental prW^s in which the systeni -aras rooted 
wf'j': f:v'y\"ttl]y slippinjif away. Even the g^reat ihe-Dlc^an 
Iromiiri'lus, at the University of Louvain, the oracle of his 
Uir/% who had demonstrated the futility of the Copemican 
th'^ory, had iori:sf:(m this and made the inevitable attempt 
at ^//mpromise, declaring that devils, thoug^h o/fin, are not 
aiituiyu or rv^Tfi for the most part the causes of thunder. The 
I'-arrird Irsiiit C'as[;ar Schott, whose Physica Curiosa was 
ori'r of thr: most [;o[)ular books of the seventeenth century, 
also vnntiircd to make the same mild statement. But even 



THE AGENCY OF WITCHES. 363 

such concessions by such great champions of orthodoxy did 
not prevent frantic efforts in various quarters to bring the 
world back under the old dogma: as late as 1743 there was 
published in Catholic Germany a manual by Father Vincent 
of Berg, in which the superstition was taught to its fullest 
extent, with the declaration that it was issued for the use of 
priests under the express sanction of the theological pro- 
fessors of the University of Cologne ; and twenty-five years 
later, in 1768, we find in Protestant England John Wesley 
standing firmly for witchcraft, and uttering his famous dec- 
laration, " The giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving 
up of the Bible." The latest notable demonstration in Scot- 
land was made as late as 1773, when "the divines of the 
Associated Presbytery " passed a resolution declaring their 
belief in witchcraft, and deploring the general scepticism re- 
garding it.* 



* For Carpzov and his successors, see authorities already given. The best 
account of James's share in the extortion of confessions may be found in the collec- 
tion of Curious Tracts published at Edinburgh in 182a See also King James's 
own Demonologie^ and Pitcaim's Criminal Trials of Scotland^ vol. i, part ii, pp. 213- 
223. For Casaubon, see his Credulity and Incredulity in Things Natural^ pp. 66, 
67. For Glanvil, More, Casaubon, Baxter, Wesley, and others named, see Lecky, 
as above. As to Increase Mather, in his sermons, already cited, on The Voice of 
God in Stormy Winds^ Boston, 1704, he says: "When there are great tempests, 
the Angels oftentimes have a Hand therein. . . . Yea, and sometimes, by Divine 
Permission, Evil Angels have a Hand in such Storms and Tempests as are very 
hurtful to Men on the Earth." Yet "for the most part, such Storms are sent by 
the Providence of God as a Sign of His Displeasure for the Sins of Men," and 
sometimes " as Prognosticks and terrible Warnings of Great Judgements not far 
off.'* From the height of his erudition Mather thus rebukes the timid voice of 
scientific scepticism : " There are some who would be esteemed the Wits of the 
World, that ridicule those as Superstitious and Weak Persons, which look upon 
Dreadful Tempests as Prodromous of other Judgements. Nevertheless, the most 
Learned and Judicious Writers, not only of the Gentiles, but amongst Chris- 
tians, have Embraced such a Persuasion ; their Sentiments therein being Con- 
firmed by the Experience of many Ages." For another curious turn given to this 
theory, with reference to sanitary science, see Deodat Lawson's famous sermon at 
Salem, in 1692, on Christ* s Fidelity a Shield against Satan* s Afalignity, p. 21 of the 
second edition. For Cotton Mather, see his biography by Barrett Wendell, pp. 
91, 92 ; also the chapter on Diabolism and Hysteria in this work. For Fromundus, 
see his Meteorologica (London, 1656), lib. iii, c. 9, and lib. ii, c. 3. For Schott, 
see his Physica Curiosa (edition of Wlirzburg, 1667), p. 1249. For Father Yin- 
cent of Berg, see his Enchiridium quadripartitum (Cologne, 1743). Besides 
benedictions and exorcisms for all emergencies, it contains full directions for the 



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v* \\i^jr ' T "'sn.^r " tn. ZZ:. ijrtsm— i-.i'^T' :t 



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^ir r--*rv>^ ^ar. ir, -riT. -t«* _uir 



rronrr 



rr...o^. rvL-r i^Su-^ i^'-tr rrtrrr n i rsci-x-s: 







'/: '/. zu",r*i z.:i*^r'>.\ f,r'v^,:.. but is 5e=.t cirecilj ij &:.i r 
V:,:, ^> \y<.i\'\ ir**;^'.at^s in the Psalzi. -out cc His se 
\,.'Afj'/.*' At to tr**: hailstorm, he Lavs great stress urcc 
(/i;j;ffi'r; of r.rjil v^r»t by the Almighty upon E^pt.ind clinc 
^11 by ifr;i/irii( that G'-yi showed at Mount Sir^ his rurp 
f// nt^rt.i': th': r/^xly before impressing the conscience. 



tjre 



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ncnes 



ff*%'.%i'At.* »r^, *A 'K*: Af^nu: /mi, ind^A is'.ther Mcre^ panacea caZe-i "/rVrJ/ri; 
f,'>f 1^-.* *-ff«-^ *.■/«: a^^iift^t *r/il \xymtr\, — gi*»« fonnabc to t« wort for prjCecrisi 
it'/>iu%^ th^ '>7il,— -vjjjj;;^?* a Ii*t of *i{fn% br whidi diabolical possesaoa ssax Y< 
f'//4rfin/-'J, ar.'l ;/f«;y.rif/<t> the qne'-ttions to be asked bj priests in the examizia:::^ 
tii ■♦»?/ K/:t, I OT V/e^l<:7, iee \i\% Journal i^jX 1768. The whole cxtatioa is gives ia 



FRANKLIN'S LIGHTNING-ROD. 365 

While the theory of diabolical agency in storms was thus 
drooping and dying, very shrewd efforts were made at com- 
promise. The first of these attempts we have already noted, 
in the effort to explain the efficacy of bells in storms by their 
simple use in stirring the faithful to prayer, and in the con- 
cession made by sundry theologians, and even by the great 
Lord Bacon himself, that church bells might, under the sanc- 
tion of Providence, disperse storms by agitating the air. 
This gained ground somewhat, though it was resisted by 
one eminent Church authority, who answered shrewdly that, 
in that case, cannon would be even more pious instruments. 
Still another argument used in trying to save this part of 
the theological theory was that the bells were consecrated 
instruments for this purpose, " like the horns at whose blow- 
ing the walls of Jericho fell." * /•.-•? 

But these compromises were of little avail. In 1766 
Father Sterzinger attacked the very groundwork of the 
whole diabolic theory. He was, of course, bitterly assailed, 
insulted, and hated ; but the Church thought it best not to 
condemn him. More and more the ** Prince of the Power 
of the Air " retreated before the lightning-rod of Franklin. 
The older Church, while clinging to the old theory, was 
finally obliged to confess the supremacy of Franklin's theory 
practically ; for his lightning-rod did what exorcisms, and 
holy water, and processions, and the Agnus Dei, and the ring- 
ing of church bells, and the rack, and the burning of witches, 
had failed to do. This was clearly seen, even by the poorest 
peasants in eastern France, when they observed that the 
grand spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which neither the sacred- 
ness of the place, nor the bells within it, nor the holy water 
and relics beneath it, could protect from frequent injuries by 
lightning, was once and for all protected by Franklin's rod. 
Then came into the minds of multitudes the answer to the 
question which had so long exercised the leading theologians 
of Europe and America, namely, " Why should the Al- 
mighty strike his own consecrated temples, or suffer Satan 
to strike them ? ** 



• For Kokcn, see his Offenharung GotUs in Wetter^ Hildesheim, 1756 ; and 
for the answer to Bacon, see Gretser's De benedictionibus^ lib. ii, cap. 46. 



366 FROM THE -PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE *^^ 

Yet even this practfcai solutioa of the qaesticn t9"2s act 
received wirhcut ocoosition- 

la America the earthquake of 175; was wideij ascrfbed 
csoeciallv in Massachusetts, to Franklin's rod. The Rev. 
Thomas Prince, pastor oc the Old South Churciu puhiissei 
a sermon on the subject, and in the appendix expressed trc 
opinion that the frequencv ct earthquakes maj fae due tc 
the erection of •* iron p«:ints invented bv the sagacious Mr. 
Franklin," He joes on to ar^ue that •* in B^Dston are mere 
erected than anywhere else in New England, and Bt:sc:a 
seems to be more dreadfuUv shaken. Oh 1 there is no z^t- 
tina: out of the mi^htv hand of God." 

Three rears Later, John Adams, speaking^ of a CGnvera- 
tion with .\rbuthnoC a B>st jn physician, says : - He be^aa 
to prate upon the presumpdtjn of philosophy in erectfn^ irra 
rods to draw the lightning- from the clouds. He railed and 
foamed aa^ainst the points and the presumption that erected 
them. He talked of presuming upon &3d, as Peter at- 
tempted to walk upon the water, and of attempting to ccn- 
trol the artillery of heaven." 

As late as 1770 reLigi-i-us scruples regarding Ii^htiiizg- 
rods were sti'.l relt, the theory being that, as thunder azd 
lightning were tokens of the Divine dispLeasure. it was im- 
cietv to i-rever.t their d-jin^r their full work. Fortunatelv. 
Pro:. J jhn Winthr op. o: Harvard, showed himself wise in 
this, as in 5* j many other things : in a lecture on earthquakes 
he occosed the djzrAz.2,:iz the-jlos-v: and as to arguments 
against Franklin's rods, he decLired. - It is as much ourdutr 
to secure ourselves against the e?ects of lightning as a^jainst 
those of rain. snow, and wini by the means God has put 
into our nanns- 

Still, for some years theological sentiment had to be re- 
Z^ritd careful. V. In Philadelnhia, a t}or'uIar lecturer on sci- 
ence ;:r some time after Franklin's discijvery thought it best 
in advtrtisins: his lectures to exnlain that " the erection of 
*.:ghtn:n^-r:ds is not chargeable with presumption nor in- 
consistent with anv of the principles ei;her of natural or 

i * '^ 

• » • • • • « ^» 



* K^^ri'iz^ cppcsidiLQ zz TrxzklL^'i rzds is AnuencMt see Priace's 



FRANKLIN'S LIGHTNING-ROD. 367 

In England, the first lightning conductor upon a church 
was not put up until 1762, ten years after Franklin's discov- 
ery. The spire of St. Bride's Church in London was greatly 
injured by lightning in 1750, and in 1764 a storm so wrecked 
its masonry that it had to be mainly rebuilt; yet for years 
after this the authorities refused to attach a lightning-rod. 
The Protestant Cathedral of St. Paul's, in London, was not 
protected until sixteen years after Franklin's discovery, and 
the tower of the great Protestant church at Hamburg not 
until a year later still. As late as 1783 it was declared 
in Germany, on excellent authority, that within a space 
of thirty-three years nearly four hundred towers had 
been damaged and one hundred and twenty bell-ringers 
killed. 

In Roman Catholic countries a similar prejudice was 
shown, and its cost at times was heavy. In Austria, the 
church of Rosenberg, in the mountains of Carinthia, was 
struck so frequently and with such loss of life that the peas- 
ants feared at last to attend service. Three times was the 
spire rebuilt, and it was not until 1778 — twenty-six years 
after Franklin's discovery — that the authorities permitted a 
rod to be attached. Then all trouble ceased. 

A typical case in Italy was that of the tower of St. Mark's, 
at Venice. In spite of the angel at its summit and the bells 
consecrated to ward oflf the powers of the air, and the relics 
in the cathedral hard by, and the processions in the adjacent 
square, the tower was frequently injured and even ruined by 
lightning. In 1388 it was badly shattered; in 1417, and 
again in 1489, the wooden spire surmounting it was utterly 
consumed; it was again greatly injured in 1548, 1565, 1653, 
and in 1745 was struck so powerfully that the whole tower, 
which had been rebuilt of stone and brick, was shattered in 
thirty-seven places. Although the invention of Franklin 
had been introduced into Italy by the physicist Beccaria, 
the tower of St. Mark's still went unprotected, and was again 
badly struck in 1761 and 1762; and not until 1766 — fourteen 

especially p. 23 ; also Quincy, History of Harvard University^ vol. ii, p. 219 ; also 
Works of John Adams^ vol. ii, pp. 51, 52 ; also Parton's Life of Franklin^ vol. i, 
p. 294. 















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Li '.r.TSc. in all parts of EurTze. h:ii :i-: 

^-i :.r :-:-;Mr:r.z on srorms. ::r :: 
."-.-I .:: .:^:::r.:r.:5: an»^ ten:resrs. ^ni : 
: *. vr.-^ : :ie air. were still alliTre: 

" r~ .... 

... - - --^■.. .'» ^2 'jii kitKAk ' '^'C 5L«.*i n eiii,r^ . 
^ i-r:::^ lemrests: the P-^iiih or Itali. 
^-lii-i :: :av fees tor souncir;^ bells 
r : z u : t h 't u .1 i ve rsa 1 t e n 'i e r. c v : a v : u 

use o: the li^htnincr-rod, and ■":' 
lere men can be relieved ot the ruir.: 
.■jrical disturbances in accordance w: 
: av:raj:e. based up«3n the ascertained : 
S'A to'j. th'ju^^h many a poor seam: 
that has be-jn bathed in holv water. 



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* V'.T r':!irM/i-.': in Enc^m-l to protect churches with Franklin's rods. s« 
I'r,rM.i-v, ///./ r' • / r. \--!r: .:.y, L.in !i.n. 1775, voL i, pp. 407, 46 c cf Stj. 
f .•;i: irr.i.ii: on l.i.'Unin.^ in tile Edinburgh Rtvitiu for October, ES44. 



FRANKLIN'S LIGHTNING-ROD. 369 

that has touched some relic, the tendency among mariners 
is to value more and more those warnings which are sent 
far and wide each day over the earth and under the sea by 
the electric wires in accordance with laws ascertained by 
observation. 

Yet, even in our own time, attempts to revive the old 
theological doctrine of meteorology have not been wanting. 
Two of these, one in a Roman Catholic and another in a 
Protestant country, will serve as types of many, to show 
how completely scientific truth has saturated and permeated 
minds supposed to be entirely surrendered to the theological 
view. 

The Island of St. Honorat, just off the southern coast 
of France, is deservedly one of the places most venerated in 
Christendom. The monastery of L^rins, founded there in 
the fourth century, became a mother of similar institutions 
in western Europe, and a centre of religious teaching for 
the Christian world. In its atmosphere, legends and myths 
grew in beauty and luxuriance. Here, as the chroniclers 
tell us, at the touch of St. Honorat, burst forth a stream 
of living water, which a recent historian of the monastery 
declares a greater miracle than that of Moses ; here he de- 
stroyed, with a touch of his staff, the reptiles which infested 
the island, and then forced the sea to wash away their foul 
remains. Here, to please his sister, Sainte-Marguerite, a 
cherry tree burst into full bloom every month; here he 
threw his cloak upon the waters and it became a raft, which 
bore him safely to visit the neighbouring island ; here St. 
Patrick received from St. Just the staff with which he imi- 
tated St. Honorat by driving all reptiles from Ireland. 

Pillaged by Saracens and pirates, the island was made all 
the more precious by the blood of Christian martyrs. Popes 
and kings made pilgrimages to it; saints, confessors, and 
bishops went forth from it into all Europe ; in one of its cells 
St. Vincent of L^rins wrote that famous definition of pure 
religion which, for nearly fifteen hundred years, has virtually 
superseded that of St. James. Naturally, the monastery 
became most illustrious, and its seat "the Mediterranean 
Isle of Saints." 

But toward the close of the last century, its inmates hav- 
25 



370 



FROM THE "PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR. 



M 



ing become slothful and corrupt, it was dismantled, all 
save a small portion torn down, and the island became 
the property first of impiety, embodied in a French ac- 
tress, and finally of heresy, embodied in an English clergy- 
man. 

Bought back for the Church by the Bishop of Fr6jus in 
1859, there was little revival of life for twelve years. Then 
came the reaction, religious and political, after the humilia- 
tion of France and the Vatican by Germany ; and of this 
reaction the monastery of St. Honorat was made one of 
the most striking outward and visible signs. Pius IX inter- 
ested himself directly in it, called into it a body of Cistercian 
monks, and it became the chief seat of their order in France. 
To restore its sacredness the strict system of La Trappe was 
established — labour, silence, meditation on death. The word 
thus given from Rome was seconded in France by cardinals, 
archbishops, and all churchmen especially anxious for pro- 
motion in this world or salvation in the next. Worn-out 
dukes and duchesses of the Faubourg Saint-Germain united 
in this enterprise of pious reaction with the frivolous young- 
sters, i\\t pctits crev^s, who haunt the purlieus of Notre Dame 
de Lorette. The great church of the monastery was hand- 
somely rebuilt and a multitude of altars erected ; and beau- 
tiful frescoes and stained windows came from the leaders 
of the reaction. The whole effect was, perhaps, somewhat 
theatrical and thin, but it showed none the less earnestness 
in making the old " Isle of Saints " a protest against the 
hated modern world. 

As if to bid defiance still further to modern liberalism, 
great store of relics was sent in ; among these, pieces of the 
true cross, of the white and purple robes, of the crown of 
thorns, sponge, lance, and winding-sheet of Christ, — the hair, 
robe, veil, and girdle of the Blessed Virgin ; relics of St. 
John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Paul, 
St. Barnabas, the four evangelists, and a multitude of other 
saints: so many that the bare mention of these treasures 
requires twenty-four distinct heads in the official catalogue 
recently published at the monastery. Besides all this — 
what was considered even more powerful in warding ofl 
harm from the revived monastery — the bones of Christian 



FRANKLIN'S LIGHTNING-ROD. 



371 



martyrs were brought from the Roman catacombs and laid 
beneath the altars.* 

All was thus conformed to the mediaeval view ; nothing 
was to be left which could remind one of the nineteenth 
century ; the " ages of faith " were to be restored in their 
simplicity. Pope Leo XIII commended to the brethren the 
writings of St. Thomas Aquinas as their one great object 
of study, and works published at the monastery dwelt upon 
the miracles of St. Honorat as the most precious refuta- 
tion of modern science. 

High in the cupola, above the altars and relics, were 
placed the bells. Sent by pious donors, they were solemnly 
baptized and consecrated in 1871, four bishops officiating, a 
multitude of the faithful being present from all parts of 
Europe, and the sponsors of the great tenor bell being the 
Bourbon claimant to the ducal throne of Parma and his 
duchess. The good bishop who baptized the bells conse- 
crated them with a formula announcing their efficacy in 
driving away the " Prince of the Power of the Air," and the 
lightning and tempests he provokes. 

And then, above all, at the summit of the central spire, 
high above relics, altars, and bells, was placed — a lightning- 
rod /^ 

The account of the monastery, published under the direc- 
tion of the present worthy abbot, more than hints at the 
saving, by its bells, of a ship which was wrecked a few years 
since on that coast ; and yet, to protect the bells and church 
and monks and relics from the very foe whom, in the mediae- 
val faith, all these were thought most powerful to drive 
away, recourse was had to the scientific discovery of that 
" arch-infidel," Benjamin Franklin ! 

Perhaps the most striking recent example in Protestant 
lands of this change from the old to the new occurred not 

* See the Guide des Viiiteurs d Utins^ published at the monastery in 1880, 
p. 204 ; also the Histoire de Urins^ mentioned below. 

f See Guide^ as above, p. 84. Les Isles de L^rins, by the Abb6 Alliez (Paris, 
i860), and the Histoire de Urins^ by the same author, are the authorities for the 
general history of the abbey, and are especially strong in presenting the miracles 
of St. Honorat, etc. The Cartulaire of the monastery, recently published, is 
also valuable. But these do not cover the recent revival, for an account of which 
recourse must be had to the very interesting and naKve Guide already cited. 



372 



FROM THE "PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR. 



»» 



long since in one of the great Pacific dependencies of the 
British crown. At a time of severe drought an appeal was 
made to the bishop, Dr. Moorhouse, to order public prayers 
for rain. The bishop refused, advising the petitioners for 
the future to take better care of their water supply, virtually 
telling them, " Heaven helps those who help themselves/' 
But most noteworthy in this matter was it that the English 
Government, not long after, scanning the horizon to find 
some man to take up the good work laid down by the la- 
mented Bishop Fraser, of Manchester, chose Dr. Moorhouse; 
and his utterance upon meteorology, which a few genera- 
tions since would have been regarded by the whole Church 
as blasphemy, was universally alluded to as an example of 
strong good sense, proving him especially fit for one of the 
most important bishoprics in England. 

Throughout Christendom, the prevalence of the convic- 
tion that meteorology is obedient to laws is more and more 
evident. In cities especially, where men are accustomed 
each day to see posted in public places charts which show 
the storms moving over various parts of the country, and to 
read in the morning papers scientific prophecies as to the 
weather, the old view can hardly be very influential. 

Significant of this was the feeling of the American people 
during the fearful droughts a few years since in the States 
west of the Missouri. No days were appointed for fasting 
and prayer to bring rain ; there was no attribution of the 
calamity to the wrath of God or the malice of Satan ; but 
much was said regarding the folly of our people in allow- 
ing the upper regions of their vast rivers to be denuded of 
forests, thus subjecting the States below to alternations of 
drought and deluge. Partly as a result of this, a beginning 
has been made of teaching forest culture in many schools, 
tree-planting societies have been formed, and "Arbor Day" 
is recognised in several of the States. A true and noble 
theology can hardly fail to recognise, in the love of Nature * 
and care for our fellow-men thus promoted, something far I 
better, both from a religious and a moral point of view, than ' 
any efforts to win the Divine favour by flattery, or to avert i 
Satanic malice by fetichism. i 



CHAPTER XII. 
FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 

I. 

In all the earliest developments of human thought we 
find a strong tendency to ascribe mysterious powers over 
Nature to men and women especially gifted or skilled. Sur- 
vivals of this view are found to this day among savages and 
barbarians left behind in the evolution of civilization, and 
especially is this the case among the tribes of Australia, 
Africa, and the Pacific coast of America. Even in the most 
enlightened nations still appear popular beliefs, observances, 
or sayings, drawn from this earlier phase of thought. 

Between the prehistoric savage developing this theory, 
and therefore endeavouring to deal with the powers of Na- 
ture by magic, and the modern man who has outgrown it, 
appears a long line of nations struggling upward through it. 
As the hieroglyphs, cuneiform inscriptions, and various 
other records of antiquity are read, the development of this 
belief can be studied in Egypt, India, Babylonia, Assyria, 
Persia, and Phoenicia. From these civilizations it came into 
the early thought of Greece and Rome, but especially into 
the Jewish and Christian sacred books. Both in the Old 
Testament and in the New we find magic, witchcraft, and 
soothsaying constantly referred to as realities.* 

* For magic in prehistoric times and survivals of it since, with abundant cita^ 
tion of authorities, see Tylor, Primititfe Culture^ chap, iv ; also The Early History 
of Mankind^ by the same author, third edition, pp. 115 et seq,^ also p. 380; also 
Andrew Lang, Myth^ Ritual^ and Religion^ vol. i, chap. iv. For magic in Egypt, 
see Lenormant, Chaldean Afagic^ chaps, vi-viii ; also Maspero, Histoire Ancienne 
des Peuples de l* Orient ; also Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Citnlisation, p. 
282, and for the threat of the magicians to wreck heaven, see ibid., p. 17, note, 
and especially the citations from Chabas, Le Papyrus Afagique Harris^ in chap. 

373 



X 



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■■, :_: ,■•. i.. 1. 



7 i-- 1 5 - 1 z: -; 






^ ■ ^ 












J » -• » 






■ # 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 375 

next against investigators on new lines ; they left the world 
free to seek any new methods and to follow any new paths 
which thinking men could find. 

This legacy of belief in science, of respect for scien- 
tific pursuits, and of freedom in scientific research, was 
especially received by the school of Alexandria, and above 
all by Archimedes, who began, just before the Christian 
era, to open new paths through the great field of the 
inductive sciences by observation, comparison, and experi- 
ment.* 

The establishment of Christianity, beginning a new evo- 
lution of theology, arrested the normal development of the 
physical sciences for over fifteen hundred years. The cause 
of this arrest was twofold : First, there was created an atmos- 
phere in which the germs of physical science could hardly 
grow — an atmosphere in which all seeking in Nature for 
truth as truth was regarded as futile. The general belief de- 
rived from the New Testament Scriptures was, that the end 
of the world was at hand ; that the last judgment was ap- 
proaching ; that all existing physical nature was soon to be 
destroyed : hence, the greatest thinkers in the Church gen- 
erally poured contempt upon all investigators into a science 
of Nature, and insisted that everything except the saving of 
souls was folly. 

This belief appears frequently through the entire period 
of the Middle Ages ; but during the first thousand years it is 
clearly dominant. From Lactantius and Eusebius, in the 
third century, pouring contempt, as we have seen, over 
studies in astronomy, to Peter Damian, the noted chancellor 
of Pope Gregory VII, in the eleventh century, declaring 
all worldly sciences to be " absurdities " and ** fooleries," it 

* As to the beginnings of physical science in Greece, and of the theological 
opposition to physical science, also Socrates's view regarding certain branches as 
intei dieted to human study, see Grote's History of Greece^ vol. i, pp. 495 and 504, 
505 ; also Jowett's introduction to his translation of the Timaus, and Wheweirs 
History of the Inductive Sciences, For examples showing the incompatibility of 
Plato's methods in physical science with that pursued in modem times, see Zeller, 
Plato and the Older Academy^ English translation by Alleyne and Goodvrin, pp. 
375 et seq. The supposed opposition to freedom of opinion in the Laws of Plato, 
toward the end of his life, can hardly make against the whole spirit of Greek 
thought. 



3;< FkOM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AXD PHYSICS. 



becomes a very important element in the atmcK-bcrc zz 
thought.* 

Then, too, there was established a standard to wrier. aZ 
science which did struggle up through this atmosp»herc ^r=s 
be made to conform — a standard which favoured cia^r 
rather than science, for it was a standard of rigid doexnarfss 
obtained from literal readings in the Jewish and Chrisrfia 
Scriptures. The most careful inductions from ascertained 
facts were regarded as wretchedly fallible when comparc-i 
with any view of nature whatever given or even hinted it 
in any poem, chronicle, code, apologue, myth, legend, alle- 
gory, letter, or discourse of any sort which had happened 
to be preserved in the literature which had come to be held 
as sacred. 

For twelve centuries, then, the physical sciences were 
thus discouraged or per\-erted by the dominant orthodoxv. 
Whoever studied nature studied it either opcnlv to find 
illustrations of the sacred text, useful in the ^ saving of souls.** 
or secretly to gain the aid of occult powers, useful in secur- 
ing personal advantage. Great men like Bede, Isidore of 
Seville, and Rabanus Maurus, accepted the scriptural stand- 
ard of science and used it as a means of Christian edification. 
The views of Bede and Isidore on kindred subjects have 
been shown in former chapters ; and typical of the view 
taken by Rabanus is the fact that in his great work on the 
Universe there are only two chapters which seem directly or 
indirectly to recognise even the beginnings of a real phi- 
losophy of nature. A multitude of less-known men found 
warrant in Scripture for mag^c applied to less worthy pur- 
poses.+ 

* For the view of Petci Damian and others through the Middle Ages as to the 
futility of Mrientific investigaiion, see citations in Eicken, Geschickit und SysUm 
der mitUlalterlichtn Weltanschauung^ chap. vi. 

f As typical examples, see the utterances of Eusebius and Lactantius regarding 
astronomers given in the chapter on Astronomy. For a summary of Rabanus 
Maurus's doctrine of physics, see Heller, GeschichU dtr Physik^ vol. i, pp. 172 et 
seq. For Bede and Isidore, see the earlier chapters of this work. For an excel- 
lent statement regarding the application of scriptural standards to scientific re> 
search in the Middle Ages, see Kretschmer, Die physische Erdkunde im christUchen 
MittelalUry pp. 5 et seq. For the distinctions in magic recognised in the mediaeval 
Church, see the long catalogue of various sorts given in the Abb^ Migne's £ncych»^ 
pidie TMoiogique, third series, article Alagie, 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 377 

But after the thousand years had passed to which vari- 
ous thinkers in the Church, upon supposed scriptural war- 
rant, had lengthened out the term of the earth's existence, 
** the end of all things " seemed further off than ever ; and 
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, owing to causes 
which need not be dwelt upon here, came a great revival of 
thought, so that the forces of theology and of science seemed 
arrayed for a contest. On one side came a revival of re- 
ligious fervour, and to this day the works of the cathedral 
builders mark its depth and strength ; on the other side 
came a new spirit of inquiry incarnate in a line of powerful 
thinkers. 

First among these was Albert of Bollstadt, better known 
as Albert the Great, the most renowned scholar of his time. 
Fettered though he was by the methods sanctioned in the 
Church, dark as was all about him, he had conceived better 
methods and aims; his eye pierced the mists of scholasti- 
cism ; he saw the light, and sought to draw the world toward 
it. He stands among the great pioneers of physical and 
natural science ; he aided in giving foundations to botany 
and chemistry ; he rose above his time, and struck a heavy 
blow at those who opposed the possibility of human life on 
opposite sides of the earth ; he noted the influence of moun- 
tains, seas, and forests upon races and products, so that 
Humboldt justly finds in his works the germs of physical 
geography as a comprehensive science. 

But the old system of deducing scientific truth from 
scriptural texts was renewed in the development of scholas- 
tic theology ; and ecclesiastical power, acting through thou- 
sands of subtle channels, was made to aid this development. 
The old idea of the futility of physical science and of the 
vast superiority of theology was revived. Though Albert's 
main effort was to Christianize science, he was dealt with 
by the authorities of the Dominican order, subjected to sus- 
picion and indignity, and only escaped persecution for sor- 
cery by yielding to the ecclesiastical spirit of the time, and 
working finally in theological channels by scholastic methods. 

It was a vast loss to the earth ; and certainly, of all or- 
ganizations that have reason to lament the pressure of eccle- 
siasticism which turned Albert the Great from natural phi- 



378 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



losophy to theology, foremost of all in regret should be the 
Christian Church, and especially the Roman branch of it 
Had there been evolved in the Church during the thirteenth 
century a faith strong enough to accept the truths in natural 
science which Albert and his compeers could have given, 
and to have encouraged their growth, this faith and this en- 
couragement would to this day have formed the greatest 
argument for proving the Church directly under Divine 
guidance ; they would have been among the brightest jew- 
els in her crown. The loss to the Church by this want of 
faith and courage has proved in the long run even greater 
than the loss to science.* 

The next great man of that age whom the theological 
and ecclesiastical forces of the time turned from the right 
path was Vincent of Beauvais. During the first half of the 
twelfth century he devoted himself to the study of Nature 
in several of her most interesting fields. To astronomy, bot- 
any, and zoology he gave special attention, but in a larger 
way he made a general study of the universe, and in a series 
of treatises undertook to reveal the whole field of science. 
But his work simply became a vast commentary on the ac- 
count of creation given in the book of Genesis. Beginning 
with the work of the Trinity at the creation, he goes on to 
detail the work of angels in all their fields, and makes excur- 
sions into every part of creation, visible and invisible, but 
always with the most complete subordination of his thought 
to the literal statements of Scripture. Could he have taken 

* For a very careful discussion of Albert's strength in investigation and weak- 
ness in yielding to scholastic authority, ^ee Kopp, Ansichten Uhcr die Aufgabe dir 
Oumie von Geber bis Stahly Braunschweig, 1875, pp. 64 et seq, Yoi a very extended 
and enthusiastic biographical sketch, see Pouchet. For comparison of his work 
with that of Thomas Aquinas, sec Milman, History of Latin Christianity^ vol. vi, 
p. 461. " II 6tat aussi tr^s-habile dans les arts m^aniques, ce que le fit soup9onner 
d'etre sorcier " (Sprengel, Histoire de la M/decine^ vol. ii, p. 389). For Albert's biog- 
raphy treated strictly in accordance with ecclesiastical methods, s^e Albert the Great, 
by Joachim Sighart, translated by the Rev. T. A. Dickson, of the Order of Preach- 
ers, published under the sanction of the Dominican censor and of the Cardinal 
Archbishop of Westminster, London, 1876. How an Englishman like Cardinal 
Manning could tolerate among Englishmen such an unctuous glossing over of his- 
torical truth is one of the wonders of contemporary history. For choice specimens, 
see chapters ii and iv. For one of the best and most recent summaries, see Heller, 
Geschickte der Fhysik, Stuttgart, 1882, vol. i, pp. 179 et seq. 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



379 



the path of experimental research, the world would have 
been enriched with most precious discoveries ; but the force 
which had given wrong direction to Albert of BoUstadt, 
backed as it was by the whole ecclesiastical power of his 
time, was too strong, and in all the life labour of Vincent 
nothing appears of any permanent value. He reared a struc- 
ture which the adaptation of facts to literal interpretations of 
Scripture and the application of theological subtleties to na- 
ture combine to make one of the most striking monuments 
of human error.* 

But the theological spirit of the thirteenth century gained 
its greatest victory in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. In 
him was the theological spirit of his age incarnate. Al- 
though he yielded somewhat at one period to love of natu- 
ral science, it was he who finally made that great treaty or 
compromise which for ages subjected science entirely to 
theology. He it was who reared the most enduring bar- 
rier against those who in that age and in succeeding ages 
laboured to open for science the path by its own methods 
toward its own ends. 

He had been the pupil of Albert the Great, and had 
gained much from him. Through the earlier systems of phi- 
losophy, as they were then known, and through the earlier 
theologic thought, he had gone with great labour and vig- 
our; and all his mighty powers, thus disciplined and cul- 
tured, he brought to bear in making a truce which was to 
give theology permanent supremacy over science. 

The experimental method had already been practically 
initiated : Albert of BoUstadt and Roger Bacon had begun 
their work in accordance with its methods ; but St. Thomas 
gave all his thoughts to bringing science again under the 
sway of theological methods and ecclesiastical control. In 
his commentary on Aristotle's treatise upon Heaven and 
Earth he gave to the world a striking example of what his 
method could produce, illustrating all the evils which arise 
in combining theological reasoning and literal interpretation 
of Scripture with scientific facts ; and this work remains to 

* For Vincent de Beauvais, see Audes sur Vincent de Beauvais^ par TAbb^ 
Bourgeat, chaps, xii, xiii, and xiv ; also Pouchet, Histoire des Sciences NatunUes 
au Moyen Age, Paris, 1853, pp. 470 et seq, ; also other histories cited hereafter. 



38o FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 

this day a monument of scientific genius perverted by the- 
ology.* 

The ecclesiastical power of the time hailed him as a de- 
liverer ; it was claimed that miracles were vouchsafed, prov- 
ing that the blessing of Heaven rested upon his labours, and 
among the legends embodying this claim is that given by 
the Bollandists and immortalized by a renowned painter. 
The great philosopher and saint is represented in the habit 
of his order, with book and pen in hand, kneeling before the 
image of Christ crucified, and as he kneels the image thus 
addresses him : " Thomas, thou hast written well concerning 
me; what price wilt thou receive for thy labour?" The 
myth-making faculty of the people at large was also brought 
into play. According to a widespread and circumstantial 
legend, Albert, by magical means, created an android — an 
artificial man, living, speaking, and answering all questions 
with such subtlety that St. Thomas, unable to answer its 
reasoning, broke it to pieces with his staff. 

Historians of the Roman Church like Rohrbacher, and 
historians of science like Pouchet, have found it convenient 
to propitiate the Church by dilating upon the glories of St. 
Thomas Aquinas in thus making an alliance between re- 
ligious and scientific thought, and laying the foundations for 
a " sanctified science " ; but the unprejudiced historian can 
not indulge in this enthusiastic view : the results both for the 
Church and for science have been most unfortunate. It was 
a wretched delay in the evolution of fruitful thought, for 
the first result of this great man's great compromise was to 
close for ages that path in science which above all others 
leads to discoveries of value — the experimental method — 
and to reopen that old path of mixed theology and science 
which, as Hallam declares, "after three or four hundred 
years had not untied a single knot or added one unequivocal 
truth to the domain of philosophy " — the path which, as all 
modern history proves, has ever since led only to delusion 
and evil.f 

♦ For citations showing this subordination of science to theology, see Eicken, 
chap. vi. 

+ For the work of Aquinas, see his Liber de Ccclo et Mundo, section xx ; also, 
Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquin, by Archbishop Vaughan, pp. 459 et seq. 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 38 1 

The theological path thus opened by these strong men 
became the main path for science during ages, and it led 
the world ever further and further from any fruitful fact or 
useful method. Roger Bacon's investigations already begun 
were discredited : worthless mixtures of scriptural legends 
with imperfectly authenticated physical facts took their 
place. Thus it was that for twelve hundred years the minds 
in control of Europe regarded all real science as futile^ and 
diverted the great current of earnest thought into theology. 

The next stage in this evolution was the development of 
an idea which acted with great force throughout the Mid- 
dle Ages — the idea that science is dangerous. This belief 
was also of very ancient origin. From the time when the 
Egyptian magicians made their tremendous threat that 
unless their demands were granted they would reach out to 
the four corners of the earth, pull down the pillars of heav- 
en, wreck the abodes of the gods above and crush those of 
men below, fear of these representatives of science is evi- 
dent in the ancient world. 

But differences in the character of magic were recog- 
nised, some sorts being considered useful and some baleful. 
Of the former was magic used in curing diseases, in deter- 

For his labours in natural science, see Hoefer, Histoire de la Chimie^ Paris, 1843, 
vol. i, p. 381. For theological views of science in the Middle Ages, and rejoicing 
thereat, see Pouchet, Hist, des Set. Nat. au Mayen Age^ ubi supra, Pouchet says : 
'* En g^n^ral au milieu du moyen ige les sciences sont essentiellement chr^tiennes, 
leur but est tout-&-fait religieux, et elles semblent beaucoup moins s'inqui^ter de 
I'avancement intcllectuel de Thomme que de son salut etemel." Pouchet calls this 
'* conciliation " into a " harmonieux ensemble " ** la plus glorieuse des conqu^tes in- 
tellectuelles du moyen Hge." Pouchet belongs to Rouen, and the shadow of Rouen 
Cathedral seems thrown over all his history. See, also, I'Abb^ Rohrbacher, Hist, 
de r£glise Catholique^ Paris, 1858, vol. xviii, pp. 421 et seq. The abbe dilates upon 
the fact that " the Church organizes the agreement of all the sciences by the labours 
of St. Thomas of Aquin and his contemporaries." For the complete subordination 
of science to theology by St. Thomas, see Eicken, chap. vi. For the theological 
character of science in the Middle Ages, recognised by a Protestant philosophic his- 
torian, see the well-known passage in Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe ; 
and by a noted Protestant ecclesiastic, see Bishop Hampden's Life of Thomas 
Aquinas^ chaps, xxxvi, xxxvii ; see also Hallam, Middle Ages, chap. ix. For deal- 
ings of Pope John XXII, of the Kings of France and England, and of the Repub- 
lic of Venice, see Figuier, VAlckimie et les Akhimistes, pp. 140, 141, where, in a 
note, the text of the bull Spondet pariter is given. For popular legends regarding 
Albert and St. Thomas, see Eliphas L^vi, Hist, de la Magie^ liv. iv, chap. iv. 



382 FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AXD PHYSICS. 

mining times auspicious for enterprises, and even in contrib- 
nting to amusement : of the latter was magic used to bring 
disease and death on men and animals or tempests upon the 
growing crops. Hence gradually arose a general distinction 
between white magic, which dealt openly with the more 
beneficent means of nature, and black magic, which dealt 
secretly with occult, malignant powers. 

Down to the Christian era the fear of magic rarely led to 
any persecution very systematic or very cruel. While in 
Greece and Rome laws were at times enacted against magi- 
cians, they were only occasionally enforced with rigour, and 
finally, toward the end of the pagan empire, the feeling 
against them seemed dying out altogether. As to its more 
kindly phases, men like Marcus Aurelius and Julian did not 
hesitate to consult those who claimed to foretell the future. 
As to black magic, it seemed hardly worth while to enact 
severe laws, when charms, amulets, and even gestures could 
thwart its worst machinations. 

Moreover, under the old empire a real science was com- 
ing in, and thought was progressing. Both the theory and 
practice of magic were more and more held up to ridicule. 
Even as early a writer as Ennius ridiculed the idea that 
magicians, who were generally poor and hungry themselves, 
could bestow wealth on others ; Pliny, in his Natural Philoso- 
phy, showed at' great length their absurdities and cheatery ; 
others followed in the same line of thought, and the whole 
theory, except among the very lowest classes, seemed dying 
out. 

But with the development of Christian theology came 
a change. The idea of the active interference of Satan in 
magic, which had come into the Hebrew mind with especial 
force from Persia during the captivity of Israel, had passed '^ 
from the Hebrew Scriptures into Christianity, and had been 
made still stronger by various statements in the New Testa- 
ment. Theologians- laid stress especially upon the famous 
utterances of the Psalmist that "all the gods of the heathen 
are devils," and of St. Paul that,** the things which the Gen- 
tiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils"; and it was widely 
held that these devils were naturally indignant at their de- 
thronement and anxious to wreak vengeance upon Chris- 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 383 

tianity. Magicians were held to be active agents of these 
dethroned gods, and this persuasion was strengthened by 
sundry old practitioners in the art of magic — impostors who 
pretended to supernatural powers, and who made use of old 
rites and phrases inherited from paganism. 

Hence it was that as soon as Christianity came into 
power it more than renewed the old severities against the 
forbidden art, and one of the first acts of the Emperor Con- 
stantine after his conversion was to enact a most severe law 
against magic and magicians, under which the main offender 
might be burned alive. But here, too, it should be noted that 
a distinction between the two sorts of magic was recognised, 
for Constantine shortly afterward found it necessary to 
issue a proclamation stating that his intention was only to 
prohibit deadly and malignant magic ; that he had no inten- 
tion of prohibiting magic used to cure diseases and to pro- 
tect the crops from hail and tempests. But as new emperors 
came to the throne who had not in them that old leaven of 
paganism which to the last influenced Constantine, and as 
theology obtained a firmer hold, severity against magic in- 
creased. Toleration of it, even in its milder forms, was 
more and more denied. Black magic and white were classed 
together. 

This severity went on increasing and threatened the sim- 
plest efforts in physics and chemistry ; even the science of 
mathematics was looked upon with dread. By the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, the older theology having arrived 
at the climax of its development in Europe, terror of magic 
and witchcraft took complete possession of the popular 
mind. In sculpture, painting, and literature it appeared in 
forms ever more and more striking. The lives of saints 
were filled with it. The cathedral sculpture embodied it in 
every part. The storied windows made it all the more im- 
pressive. The missal painters wrought it not only into 
prayer books, but, despite the fact that hardly a trace of the 
belief appears in the Psalms, they illustrated it in the great 
illuminated psalters from which the noblest part of the service 
was sung before the high altar. The service books showed 
every form of agonizing petition for delivery from this dire 
influence, and every form of exorcism for thwarting it. 



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FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 385 

Thus began a long series of demonstrations against magic 
from the centre of Christendom. In 1437, and again in 1445, 
Pope Eugene IV issued bulls exhorting inquisitors to be 
more diligent in searching out and delivering over to pun- 
ishment magicians and witches who produced bad weather, 
the result being that persecution received a fearful impulse. 
But the worst came forty years later still, when, in 1484. there 
came the yet more terrible bull of Pope Innocent VIII, known 
as Summis Desiderantes, which let inquisitors loose upon Ger- 
many, with Sprenger at their head, armed with the Witc/h 
Hammer J the fearful manual Malleus Maleficarum, to torture 
and destroy men and women by tens of thousands for sor- 
cery and magic. Similar bulls were issued in 1504 by Julius 
II, and in 1523 by Adrian VI. 

The system of repression thus begun lasted for hundreds 
of years. The Reformation did little to change it, and in 
Germany, where Catholics and Protestants vied with each 
other in proving their orthodoxy, it was at its worst. On 
German soil more than one hundred thousand victims are 
believed to have been sacrificed to it between the middle of 
the fifteenth and the middle of the sixteenth centuries. 

Thus it was that from St. Augustine to St. Thomas 
Aquinas, from Aquinas to Luther, and from Luther to Wes- 
ley, theologians of both branches of the Church, with hardly 
an exception, enforced the belief in magic and witchcraft, 
and, as far as they had power, carried out the injunction, 
*• Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." 

How this was ended by the progress of scientific modes 
of thought I shall endeavour to show elsewhere : here we 
are only concerned with the effect of this widespread terror- 
ism on the germs and early growth of the physical sciences. 

Of course, the atmosphere created by this persecution 
of magicians was deadly to any open beginnings of experi- 
mental science. The conscience of the time, acting in obe- 
dience to the highest authorities of the Church, and, as was 
supposed, in defence of religion, now brought out a missile 
which it hurled against scientific investigators with deadly 
effect. The mediaeval battlefields of thought were strewn 
with various forms of it. This missile was the charge of un- 
lawful compact with Satan, and it was most effective. We 
26 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 387 

with power in many sciences, and his knowledge was sound 
and exact. By him, more than by any other man of the 
Middle Ages, was the world brought into the more fruitful 
paths of scientific thought — the paths which have led to the 
most precious inventions; and among these are clocks, 
lenses, and burning specula, which were given by him to the 
.world, directly or indirectly. In his writings are found 
formulae for extracting phosphorus, manganese, and bis- 
muth. It is even claimed, with much appearance of justice, 
that he investigated the power of steam, and he seems to 
have very nearly reached some of the principal doctrines of 
modern chemistry. But it should be borne in mind that his 
^method oi investigation was even greater than its results. In 
an age when theological subtilizing was alone thought to 
give the title of scholar, he insisted on real reasoning and 
the aid of natural science by mathematics ; in an age when 
experimenting was sure to cost a man his reputation, and 
was likely to cost him his life, he insisted on experimenting, 
and braved all its risks. Few greater men have lived. As 
we follow Bacon's process of reasoning regarding the refrac- 
tion of light, we see that he was divinely inspired. ' 

. On this man came the brunt of the battle. The most con- 
scientious men of his time thought it their duty to fight him, 
and they fought him steadily and bitterly. His sin was not 
disbelief in Christianity, not want of fidelity to the Church, 
not even dissent from the main lines of orthodoxy ; on the 
contrary, he showed in all his writings a desire to strength- 
en Christianity, to build up the Church, and to develop 
orthodoxy. He was attacked and condemned mainly be- 
cause he did not believe that philosophy had become conl9 
plete, and that nothing more was to be learned ; he was con- 
demned, as his opponents expressly declared, " on account 
of certain suspicious novelties " — '^propter quasdam novitates 
suspectas^ 

Upon his return to Oxford, about 1250, the forces of un- 
reason beset him on all sides. Greatest of all his enemies was 
Bonaventura. This enemy was the theologic idol of the pe- 
riod : the learned world knew him as the "seraphic Doctor " ; 
Dante gave him an honoured place in the great poem of the 
Middle Ages ; the Church finally enrolled him among the 



3S3 



F1U>M M.\GIC TO CHEXISTRY AXD FHVSKS. 



saints. By force of gfreat ability in theology he had bccxjct 
in the middle of the thirteenth century, general oi the Fraa- 
ciscan order : thus, as Bacon's master, his hands were h^ 
heavily on the new teaching, so that m 1257 the troGiicsoBX 
monk was forbidden to lecture: all men w^erc soicruaiT 
warned not to listen to his teaching, and he was ordered to 
Paris, to be kept under surveillance by the mooastic axzthori 
ties. Herein was exhibited another of the myriad examples 
showing the care exercised over scientific teaching bv tic 
Church. The reasons for thus dealing with Bacoa were 
evident : First, he had dared attempt scientific explanatiocs 
of natural phenomena, which under the mystic theology oc 
the Middle Ages had been referred simply to sapematunl 
causes. Typical was his explanation of the causes and char- 
acter of the rainbow. It was clear, cogent, a great step in 
the right direction as regards physical science : but there, in 
the book of Genesis, stood the legend regarding the origin 
of the rainbow, supposed to have been dictated immediatdT 
by the Holy Spirit ; and, according to that, the ** bow in the 
cloud " was not the result of natural laws, but a " sign " ar- 
bitrarily placed in the heavens for the simple purpose of 
assuring mankind that there was not to be another universal 
delude. 

But this was not the worst: another theological idea was 
arrayed against him — the idea of Satanic intervention in 
science; hence he was attacked with that goodly missile 
which with the epithets "infidel" and '* atheist" has decided 
the fate of so many battles — the charge of magic and com- 
pact with Satan. 

He defended himself with a most unfortunate weapon— 
a weapon which exploded in his hands and injured him 
more than the enemy ; for he argued against the idea of 
compacts with Satan, and showed that much which is as- 
cribed to demons results from natural means. This added 
fuel to the flame. To limit the power of Satan was deemed 
hardly less impious than to limit the power of God. 

The most powerful protectors availed him little. His 
friend Guy of Foulques, having^ in 1265 been made Pope under 
the name of Clement IV, shielded him for a time; but the 
fury of the enemy was too strong, and when he made ready 



• FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 389 

to perform a few experiments before a small audience, we 
are told that all Oxford was in an uproar. It was believed 
that Satan was about to be let loose. Everywhere priests, 
monks, fellows, and students rushed about, their garments 
streaming in the wind, and everywhere rose the cry, " Down 
with the magician ! " and this cry, " Down with the magi- 
cian ! " resounded from cell to cell and from hall to hall. 

Another weapon was also used upon the battlefields of 
science in that time with much effect. The Arabs had made 
many noble discoveries in science, and Averroes had, in the 
opinion of many, divided the honours with St. Thomas 
Aquinas; these facts gave the new missile — it was the 
epithet " Mohammedan " ; this, too, was flung with effect at 
Bacon. 

The attack now began to take its final shape. The two 
great religious orders, Franciscan and Dominican, then in all 
the vigour of their youth, vied with each other in fighting 
the new thought in chemistry and physics. St. Dominic 
solemnly condemned research by experiment and obser- 
vation ; the general of the Franciscan order took similar 
ground. In 1243 the Dominicans interdicted every member 
of their order from the study of medicine and natural philos- 
ophy, and in 1287 this interdiction was extended to the study 
of chemistry. 

In 1278 the authorities of the Franciscan order assembled 
at Paris, solemnly condemned Bacon's teaching, and the gen- 
eral of the Franciscans, Jerome of Ascoli, afterward Pope, 
threw him into prison, where he remained for fourteen 
years. Though Pope Clement IV had protected him, Popes 
Nicholas III and IV, by virtue of their infallibility, decided 
that he was too dangerous to be at large, and he was only 
released at the age of eighty — but a year or two before 
death placed him beyond the reach of his enemies. How 
deeply the struggle had racked his mind may be gathered 
from that last affecting declaration of his, " Would that I 
had not given myself so much trouble for the love of 
science ! ** 

The attempt has been made by sundry champions of the 
Church to show that some of Bacon's utterances against 
ecclesiastical and other corruptions in his time were the 




yp FROM MAGIC TO CHEMI5TXT ASTD ISI: 

main cause of the scrcritT whidi the Onsox^ 

ercised against bim« This helps the Oticxii 

if it be well based ; but it is doc veil 

his utterances of this sort made him 

true, but the charges on which St. 

him, and Jerome of Ascoli imprisoocd him. 

popes kept him in prison for foorteen rears 

ous novelties '* and suspected sorocrr. | 

Sad is it to think of what this g^eat man migi:! hxre pm. 
to the yf€}r\A had ecclesiasticism allowed the g:ift. He kii 
the key of treasures which would hare freed maTrkirri im 
ages of error and misery. With his disc o ieaics 2s a bsk 
with his method as a guide, what might doC the warid ime 
gained ! Nor was the wrong done to that age alone : it vs 
done to this age also. The nineteenth century was juib eca 
at the same time with the thirteenth. But for that isttrc 
ence with science the nineteenth century would be cnjora; 
discoveries which will not be reached before the twodcA 
century, and even later. Thousands of precious lives siaH 
be lost, tens of thousands shall suffer discomfort, pim 
lion, sickness, poverty, ignorance, for lack of discoTcriss 
and mcth^xls which, but for this mistaken dealing wiii 
Ko^cr Bacon and his compeers, would now be blessing ii« 
earth. 

In two recent years sixty thousand children died in Eng 
land and in Wales of scarlet fever; probably quite as man] 
rlied in the United States. Had not Bacon been hindered 
we should have had in our hands, by this time, the means t( 
save two thirds of these victims; and the same is truce 
typhoid, typhus, cholera, and that great class of diseases c 
whose physical causes science is just beginning to get a 
inkling. Put together all the efforts of all the atheists wh 
have ever lived, and they have not done so much harm t 
Christianity and the world as has been done by the narroii 
minded, conscientious men who persecuted Roger Bacoi 
and closed the path which he gave his life to open. 

But despite the persecution of Bacon and the defectio 
of those who ought to have followed him, champions of th 
experimental method rose from time to time during the su< 
cccding centuries. We know little of them personally ; ou 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 391 

main knowledge of their efforts is derived from the endeav- 
ours of their persecutors. 

Under such guidance the secular rulers were naturally 
vigorous. In France Charles V forbade, in 1380, the pos- 
session of furnaces and apparatus necessary for chemical 
processes ; under this law the chemist John Barrillon was 
thrown into prison, and it was only by the greatest effort 
that his life was saved. In England Henry IV, in 1404, is- 
sued a similar decree. In Italy the Republic of Venice, in 
141 8, followed these examples. The judicial torture and 
murder of Antonio de Dominis were not simply for heresy ; 
his investigations in the phenomena of light were an addi- 
tional crime. In Spain everything like scientific research 
was crushed out among Christians. Some earnest efforts 
were afterward made by Jews and Moors, but these were 
finally ended by persecution ; and to this hour the Spanish 
race, in some respects the most gifted in Europe, which be- 
gan its career with everything in its favour and with every 
form of noble achievement, remains in intellectual develop- 
ment behind every other in Christendom. 

To question the theological view of physical science was, 
even long after the close of the Middle Ages, exceedingly 
perilous. We have seen how one of Roger Bacon's unpar- 
donable offences was his argument against the efficacy of 
magic, and how, centuries afterward, Cornelius Agrippa, 
Weyer, Flade, Loos, Bekker, and a multitude of other inves- 
tigators and thinkers, suffered confiscation of property, loss 
of position, and even torture and death, for similar views.* 

♦ For an account of Bacon's treatise, De Nuiliiate Magia^ sec Hoefer. For 
the uproar caused by Bacon's teaching at Oxford, see Kopp, Gnchichte der ChemU^ 
Braunschweig, 1869, vol. i, p. 63 ; and for a somewhat reactionary discussion of 
Bacon's relation to the progress of chemistry, see a recent work by the same author, 
Ansichttn Uber die Aufgabe der Chemie^ Braunschweig, 1874, pp. 85 et seq. ; also, 
for an excellent summary, see Hoefer, Hist, de la Chimie^ vol. i, pp. 368 et seq. For 
probably the most thorough study of Bacon's general works in science, and for his 
views of the universe, see Prof. Werner, Die Kosmologie und allgemeine NaturUhre 
des Roger Baco^ Wien, 1879. For summaries of his work in other fields, sec Whew- 
ell, vol. i, pp. 367, 368 ; Draper, p. 438 ; Saisset, Descartes et ses Pr^urseurs^ 
deuxi^me ^ition, pp. 397 et seq. ; Nourrisson, Progris de la Pens/e humaine, pp. 
271, 272 ; Sprengel, Histcire de la AfAiecine^ Paris, 1865, vol. ii, p. 397 ; Cuvier, 
Jiistoire des Sciences Naturelles^ vol. i, p. 417. As to Bacon's orthodoxy, see Sais- 
set, pp. 53, 55. For special examination of causes of Bacon's condemnation, see 



392 FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 

The theological atmosphere, which in consequence set- 
tled down about the great universities and colleges, seemed 
likely to stifle all scientific effort in every part of Europe, 
and it is one of the great wonders in human history that in 
spite of this deadly atmosphere a considerable body of think- 
ing men, under such protection as they could secure, still 
persisted in devoting themselves to the physical sciences. 

In Italy, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, came 
a striking example of the difficulties which science still en- 
countered even after the Renaissance had undermined the 
old beliefs. At that time John Baptist Porta was conduct- 
ing his investigations, and, despite a considerable mixture 
of pseudo-science, tbey were fruitful. His was not ** black 
magic," claiming the aid of Satan, but " white magic," bring- 
ing into service the laws of nature — the precursor of applied 



Waddington, cited by Saisset, p. 14. For a brief but admirable statement of Roger 
Bacon's relation to the world in his time, and of what he might have done had he 
not been thwarted by theology, see D511inger, Studies in European History^ Eng- 
lish translation, London, 1890, pp. 178, 179. For a good example of the danger of 
denying the full power of Satan, even in much more recent times and in a Protes- 
tant country, see account of treatment of Bekker's Moftde EnehanU by the theolo- 
gians of Holland, in Nisard, Ilistoire des Livres Populaires^ vol. i, pp. 172, 173. 
Kopp, in his Ansichten^ pushes criticism even to some scepticism as to Roger 
Bacon being the discoverer of many of the things generally attributed to him ; but, 
after all deductions are carefully made, enough remains to make Bacon the greatest 
benefactor to humanity during the Middle Ages. For Roger Bacon's deep devotion 
to religion and the Church, see citation and remarks in Schneider, Roger Bacon^ 
Augsburg, 1873, p. 112 ; also, citation from the Opus Majus in Eicken, chap. vi. 
On Bacon as a " Mohammedan," see Saisset, p. 17. For the interdiction of studies 
in physical science by the Dominicans and Franciscans, see Henri Martin, Histoire 
d: France^ vol. iv, p. 283. For the suppression of chemical teaching by the Parlia- 
ment of Paris, see ibid., vol. xii, pp. 14, 15. For proofs that the world is steadily 
working toward great discoveries as to the cause and prevention of zymotic dis- 
eases and of their propagation, see Beale's Disease Germs, Baldwin Latham's 
Sanitary Engineering, Michel Levy's Traits a' liygiine Publique et Priz>/e. For 
a summary of the bull Spondent pariter, and for an example of injury done by it, 
see Schneider, Geschichte der Akhemie, p. 160; and for a studiously moderate 
statement, Milman, Latin Christianity, book xii, chap. vi. For character and gen- 
eral efforts of John XXII, see Lea, Inquisition, vol. iii, p. 436, also pp. 452 et seq. 
For the character of the two papal briefs, see Kydberg, p. 177. For the bull Sum- 
mis DcsideranttSy see previous chapters of this work. For Antonio de Dominis, see 
Montucla, Hist, dcs Math^matiques, vol. i, p. 705 ; Humboldt, Cosmos ; Libri, vol. 
iv, pp. 145 et seq. For Weyer, Flade, Bekker, Loos, and others, see the chapters 
of this work on Meteorology, Demoniacal Possession and Insanity, and Diabolism 
and Hysteria, 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



393 



science. His book on meteorology was the first in which 
sound ideas were broached on this subject ; his researches 
in optics gave the world the camera obscura, and possibly 
the telescope ; in chemistry hej seems to have been the first 
to show how to reduce the metallic oxides, and thus to have 
laid the foundation of several important industries. He did 
much to change natural philosophy from a black art to a 
vigorous open science. He encountered the old ecclesias- 
tical policy. The society founded by him for physical re- 
search, " I Secreti," was broken up, and he was summoned 
to Rome by Pope Paul III and forbidden to continue his 
investigations. 

So, too, in France. In 1624, some young chemists at 
Paris having taught the experimental method and cut loose 
from Aristotle, the faculty of theology beset the Parliament 
of Paris, and the Parliament prohibited these new chemical 
researches under the severest penalties. 

The same war continued in Italy. Even after the belief 
in magic had been seriously weakened, the old theological 
fear and dislike of physical science continued. In 1657 
occurred the first sitting of the Accademia del Cimento at 
Florence, under the presidency of Prince Leopold de* Med- 
ici. This academy promised great things for science ; it 
was open to all talent; its only fundamental law was **the 
repudiation of any favourite system or sect of philosophy, 
and the obligation to investigate Nature by the pure light of 
experiment " ; it entered into scientific investigations with 
energy. Borelli in mathematics, Redi in natural history, 
and many others, enlarged the boundaries of knowledge. 
Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, projectiles, digestion, 
and the incompressibility of water were studied by the right 
method and with results that enriched the world. 

The academy was a fortress of science, and siege was 
soon laid to it. The votaries of scholastic learning de- 
nounced it as irreligious, quarrels were fomented, Leopold 
was bribed with a cardinal's hat and drawn away to Rome, 
and, after ten years of beleaguering, the fortress fell : Borelli 
was left a beggar; Oliva killed himself in despair. 

So, too, the noted Academy of the Lincei at times in- 
curred the ill will of the papacy by the very fact that it 



394 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



included thoughtful investigators. It was " patronized " by 
Pope Urban VIII in such manner as to paralyze it, and it 
was afterward vexed by Pope Gregory XVI. Even in our 
own time sessions of scientific associations were discouraged 
and thwarted by as kindly a pontiff as Pius IX.* 

A hostility similar in kind, though less in degree, was 
shown in Protestant countries. 

Even after Thomasius in Germany and Voltaire in France 
and Beccaria in Italy had given final blows to the belief in 
magic and witchcraft throughout Christendom, the tradi- 
tional orthodox distrust of the physical sciences continued 
for a long time. 

In England a marked dislike was shown among various 
leading ecclesiastics and theologians towards the Royal So- 
ciety, and later toward the Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science ; and this dislike, as will hereafter be seen, 
sometimes took shape in serious opposition. 

As a rule, both in Protestant and Catholic countries in- 
struction in chemistry and physics was for a long time dis- 
couraged by Church authorities ; and, when its suppression 
was no longer possible, great pains were taken to subordi- 
nate it to instruction supposed to be more fully in accord- 
ance with the older methods of theological reasoning. 



* For Porta, see the English translation of his main summary, Natural Afagick^ 
London, 1658. The first chapters are especially interesting, as showing what the 
word •* magic " had come to mean in the mind of a man in whom mediaeval and 
modem ideas were curiously mixed ; see also Hoefer, Histoire de la Chimin, vol. ii, 
pp. 102-106 ; also Kopp ; also Sprengel, Histoire (U la M^decine^ vol. iii, p. 239 ; also 
Musset-Pathay. For the Accademia del Cimento, see Napier, Florentine History^ 
vol. V, p. 485 ; Tiraboschi, Storia delta Litteratura ; Henri Martin, Histoire de 
France ; Jevons. Principles of Science, vol. ii, pp. 36-40. For value attached to 
Borelli's investigations by Newton and Huygens, see Brewster's Life of Sir Jsaac 
Newton, London, 1875, pp. 128, 129. Libri, in his Essai sur GaliUe, p. 37, says 
that Oliva was summoned to Rome and so tortured by the Inquisition that, to 
escape further cruelty, he ended his life by throwing himself from a window. For 
interference by Pope Gregory XVI with the Academy of the Lincei, and with 
public instruction generally, see Carutti, Storia delta Accademia dei Lincei, p. 126. 
Pius IX, with all his geniality, seems to have allowed his hostility to voluntary 
associations to carry him very far at times. For his answer to an application made 
through Lord Odo Russell regarding a society for the prevention of cruelty to 
animals and his answer that *' such an association could not be sanctioned by the 
Holy See, being founded on a theological error, to wit, that Christians owed any 
duties to animals," see Frances Power Cobbe, Hopes of the Human Race, p. 207. 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



395 



I have now presented in outline the more direct and open 
struggle of the physical sciences with theology, mainly as an 
exterior foe. We will next consider their warfare with the 
same foe in its more subtle form, mainly as a vitiating and 
sterilizing principle in science itself. 

We have seen thus far, first, how such men as Eusebius, 
Lactantius, and their compeers, opposed scientific investiga- 
tion as futile ; next, how such men as Albert the Great, St. 
Thomas Aquinas, and the multitude who followed them, 
turned the main current of mediaeval thought from science 
to theology ; and, finally, how a long line of Church author- 
ities from Popes John XXII and Innocent VIII, and the 
heads of the great religious orders, down to various theolo- 
gians and ecclesiastics, Catholic and Protestant, of a very 
recent period, endeavoured first to crush and afterward to 
discourage scientific research as dangerous. 

Yet, injurious as all this was to the evolution of science, 
there was developed something in many respects more de- 
structive; and this was the influence of mystic theology, 
penetrating, permeating, vitiating, sterilizing nearly every 
branch of science for hundreds of years. Among the forms 
taken by this development in the earlier Middle Ages we find 
a mixture of physical science with a pseudo-science obtained 
from texts of Scripture. In compounding this mixture, Jews 
and Christians vied with each other. In this process the 
sacred books were used as a fetich ; every word, every let- 
ter, being considered to have a divine and hidden meaning. 
By combining various scriptural letters in various abstruse 
ways, new words of prodigious significance in magic were 
obtained, and among them the great word embracing the 
seventy-two mystical names of God — the mighty word 
^' Schemhamphorasy Why should men seek knowledge by 
observation and experiment in the book of Nature, when 
the book of Revelation, interpreted by the Kabbalah, opened 
such treasures to the ingenious believer? 

So, too, we have ancient mystical theories of number 
which the theological spirit had made Christian, usurping 
an enormous place in mediseval science. The sacred power 
of the number three was seen in the Trinity ; in the three 
main divisions of the universe — the empyrean, the heavens, 



396 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



and the earth ; in the three angelic hierarchies; in the three 
choirs of seraphim, cherubim, and thrones; in the three of 
dominions, virtues, and powers ; in the three of principalities, 
archangels, and angels ; in the three orders in the Church — 
bishops, priests, and deacons ; in the three classes — the bap- 
tized, the communicants, and the monks; in the three de- 
grees of attainment — light, purity, and knowledge ; in the 
three theological virtues — faith, hope, and charity — ^and in 
much else. All this was brought into a theologico-scientific 
relation, then and afterward, with the three dimensions of 
space ; with the three divisions of time — past, present, and 
future; with the three realms of the visible world — sky, 
earth, and sea; with the three constituents of man — body, 
soul, and spirit; with the threefold enemies of man — the 
world, the flesh, and the devil ; with the three kingdoms in 
nature — mineral, vegetable, and animal ; with " the three 
colours" — red, yellow, and blue; with "the three eyes of 
the honey-bee " — and with a multitude of other analogues 
equally precious. The sacred power of the number seven 
was seen in the seven golden candlesticks and the seven 
churches in the Apocalypse ; in the seven cardinal virtues 
and the seven deadly sins ; in the seven liberal arts and the 
seven devilish arts, and, above all, in the seven sacraments. 
And as this proved in astrology that there could be only 
seven planets, so it proved in alchemy that there must be 
exactly seven metals. The twelve apostles were connected 
with the twelve signs in the zodiac, and with much in phys- 
ical science. The seventy-two disciples, the seventy-two in- 
terpreters of the Old Testament, the seventy-two mj'stical 
names of God, were connected with the alleged fact in 
anatomy that there were seventy-two joints in the human 
frame. 

Then, also, there were revived such theologic and meta- 
physical substitutes for scientific thought as the declaration 
that the perfect line is a circle, and hence that the planets 
must move in absolute circles — a statement which led astron- 
omy astray even when the great truths of the Copernican 
theory were well in sight ; also, the declaration that nature 
abhors a vacuum — a statement which led physics astray 
until Torricelli made his experiments ; also, the declaration 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 307 

that we see the lightning before we hear the thunder be- 
cause " sight is nobler than hearing." 

In chemistry we have the same theologic tendency to 
magic, and, as a result, a muddle of science and theology, 
which from one point of view seems blasphemous and from 
another idiotic, but which none the less sterilized physical 
investigation for ages. That debased Platonism which had 
been such an important factor in the evolution of Christian 
theology from the earliest days of the Church continued its 
work. As everything in inorganic nature was supposed to 
have spiritual significance, the doctrines of the Trinity and 
Incarnation were turned into an argument in behalf of the 
philosopher's stone; arguments for the scheme of redemp- 
tion and for transubstantiation suggested others of similar 
construction to prove the transmutation of metals ; the doc- 
trine of the resurrection ot the human body was by similar 
mystic jugglery connected with the processes of distillation 
and sublimation. Even after the Middle Ages were past, 
strong men seemed unable to break away from such reason- 
ing as this — among them such leaders as Basil Valentine in 
the fifteenth century, Agricola in the sixteenth, and Van 
Helmont in the seventeenth. 

The greatest theologians contributed to the welter of un- 
reason from which this pseudo-science was developed. One 
question largely discussed was, whether at the Redemption 
it was necessary for God to take the human form. Thomas 
Aquinas answered that it was necessary, but William Oc- 
cam and Duns Scotus answered that it was not ; that God 
might have taken the form of a stone, or of a log, or of a 
beast. The possibilities opened to wild substitutes for sci- 
ence by this sort of reasoning were infinite. Men have often 
asked how it was that the Arabians accomplished so much 
in scientific discovery as compared with Christian investiga- 
tors ; but the answer is easy : the Arabians were compara- 
tively free from these theologic allurements which in Chris- 
tian Europe flickered in the air on all sides, luring men into 
paths which led no-whither. 

Strong investigators, like Arnold of Villanova, Raymond 
LuUy, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, and their compeers, were 
thus drawn far out of the only paths which led to fruitful 



ULC^M MJhsac ra csz 



c» K?^ »: 






Viaosaz 'OC BeaxLTazs nrmtryt tsac as cae Bcauc dfccLMcs tut 
X'^^aiu viEea &Te huwf' c d jezrs otd. kad 
bfrn. be txr»t iiarre pogsrvsrti alcscxnacaK 




It vas loadlT dedared 
stnoe vas prored bj tiic weeds of Sc Jocui in the Rercia- 
tirjtt. *" To bim that awcroamcth I viH grre a white stooc'' 
Ti^ reasooablcxiess of scekxng^ to drrdop gold oot ot the 
haacr metals was Ir^ man j geoeraticKis based upon tbc doc- 
trioe o€ the resurrcctkn of tbe ph jscai bodj. which, thoogn 
explicxtlj denied bj St. PanL ind bec om e a part €< the 
creed of the Church. Martin Lather was espei ia uv drawn 
to beliere in the alchemi^ic doctrine of transmntatioo br 
this analogr. The Bibte was ererrwhere used, both amon^ 
Protestants and Catholics, in support of these mrstic adul 
terations of science, and one writer, as late as 175 1. based 
his alchemistic arguments on more than a hundred passages 
of Scripture. As an example of this sort of reasoning, we 
have a proof that the elect will preserve the philosopher's 
stone until the last judgment, drawn from a passage in St 
Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians^ '* We have this treasure in 
earthen vessels." 

The greatest thinkers devoted themselves to adding new 
ingredients to this strange mixture of scientific and theolc^c 
thought. The Catholic philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the 
Protestant mysticism of Jacob Boehme. and the alchemistic 
reveries of Basil Valentine were all cast into this seething 
mass. 

And when alchemy in its old form had been discredited, 
we find scriptural arguments no less perverse, and even 
comical, used on the other side. As an example of this, just 
before the great discoveries by Stahl, we find the valuable 
scientific efforts of Becher opposed with the following syl- 
logism : ** King Solomon, according to the Scriptures, pos- 
sessed the united wisdom of heaven and earth ; but King 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND- PHYSICS. 



599 



Solomon knew nothing about alchemy [or chemistry in. the 
form it then took], and sent his vessels to Ophir to seek gold, 
and levied taxes upon his subjects ; ergo alchemy [or chem- 
istry] has no reality or truth/' And we find that Becher is 
absolutely turned away from his labours, and obliged to de- 
vote himself to proving that Solomon used more money than 
he possibly could have obtained from Ophir or his subjects, 
and therefore that he must have possessed a knowledge Of 
chemical methods and the philosopher's stone as the result 
of them.* 

Of the general reasoning enforced by theology regarding 
physical science, every age has shown examples ; yet out of 
them all I will select but two, and these are given because 

* For an ei^tract from Agrippa's Occulta Philosophia giving examples of the 
way in which mystical names were obtained from the Bible, see Rydberg, Magic 
of the Middle Ages, pp. 143 // seq. For the germs of many mystic beliefs regard- 
ing number and the like, which were incorporated into mediaeval theology, see 
Zeller, Plato and the Older Academy^ English translation, pp. 254 and 572, and 
elsewhere. As to the connection of spiritual things with inorganic nature in rela- 
tion to chemistry, see Eicken, p. 634. On the injury to science wroaght by Plato- 
nism acting through mediaeval theology, see Hoefer, Histoire de la Chimie^ voL i, p. 
90. As to the influence of mysticism upon strong men in science, see Hoefer ; 
also Kopp, Geschichte der A k hemic ^ vol. i, p. 211. For a very curious Catholic 
treatise on sacred numbers, see the Abb^ Auber, Symbolisme Rcligieux^ Paris, 1870 ; 
also Detzel, Christliche Ikonographie^ pp. 44 // scq. ; and for an equally important 
Protestant work, see Samuell, Seven the Sacred Number^ London, 1887. It b in- 
teresting to note that the latter writer, having been forced to give up the seven 
planets, consoles himself with the statement that ** the earth is the seventh planet, 
counting from Neptune and calling the asteroids one " (see p. 426). For the elec- 
trum magicum^ the seven metals composing it, and its wonderful qualities, see ex- 
tracts from Paracelsus's writings in Hartmann's Life of Paracelsus, London, 1887, 
pp. 169 et seq. As to the more rapid transmission of light than sound, the follow- 
ing expresses- the scholastic method well : *' What is the cause why we see sooner 
the lightning than we heare the thunder clappe? That is because our sight is both 
nobler and sooner perceptive of its object than our eare ; as being the more active 
part, and priore to our hearing : besides, the visible species are more subtile and 
less corporeal than the audible species." — Person's Varieties^ Meteors, p. 82. For 
Basil Valentine's view, see Hoefer, vol. i, pp. 453-465 ; Schmieder, Geschichte der 
Alchemie^ pp. 197-209 ; Allgemeine deutsche Biographic, article Basilius. For the 
discussions referred to on possibilities of God assuming forms of stone, or log, or beast, 
see Lippert, Christenthum, Volksglaube, und Volksbrauch, pp. 372, 373, where cita- 
tions are given, etc. For the syllogism regarding Solomon, see Figuier, LAlchimie 
et les Alchimistes, pp. 106, 107. For careful appreciation of Becher's position in 
the history of chemistry, see Kopp, Ansichten Uber die Aufgabe der Chemie, etc., 
von Gcber bis Stahl, Braunschweig, 1875, pp. 201 et seq. For the text proving the 
existence of the philosopher's stone from the book of Revelation, see Figuier, p. 22. 



400 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



they show how this mixture of theological with scientific ideas 
took hold upon the strongest supporters of better reasoning 
even after the power of mediasval theology seemed broken. 

The first of these examples is Melanchthon. He was the 
scholar of the Reformation, and justly won the title '* Pre- 
ceptor of Germany." His mind was singularly open, his 
sympathies broad, and his usual freedom from bigotry drew 
down upon him that wrath of Protestant heresy-hunters 
which embittered the last years of his life and tortured him 
upon his deathbed. During his career at the University of 
VVittenberg he gave a course of lectures on physics, and in 
these he dwelt upon scriptural texts as affording scientific 
proofs, accepted the interference of the devil in physical phe- 
nomena as in other things, and applied the mediaeval method 
throughout his whole work.* 

Yet far more remarkable was the example, a century 
later, of the man who more than any other led the world out 
of the path opened by Aquinas, and into that through which 
modern thought has advanced to its greatest conquests. 
Strange as it may at first seem, Francis Bacon, whose keen- 
ness of sight revealed the delusions of the old path and the 
promises of the new, and whose boldness did so much to 
turn the world from the old path into the new, presents in 
his own writings one of the most striking examples of the 
evil he did so much to destroy. 

The Novujn Organon, considering the time when it came 
from his pen, is doubtless one of the greatest exhibitions of 
genius in the history of human thought. It showed the 
modern world the way out of the scholastic method and 
reverence for dogma into the experimental method and 
reverence for fact. In it occur many passages which show 
that the great philosopher was fully alive to the danger both 
to religion and to science arising from their mixture. He 
declares that the " corruption of philosophy from supersti- 
tion and theology introduced the greatest amount of evil 
both into whole systems of philosophy and into their parts." 
He denounces those who " have endeavoured to found a 



* For Mclanchthon's ideas on physics, see his Initio Doctrina PkysioF^ Witten- 
berg, 1557, especially ])p. 243 and 274 ; also in vol. xiii of Bretschncider*s edition 
of the collected works, and especially pp. 339-343. 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



401 



natural philosophy on the books of Genesis and Job and 
other sacred Scriptures, so 'seeking the dead among the 
living.' " He speaks of the result as " an unwholesome mix- 
ture of things human and divine ; not merely fantastic phi- 
losophy, but heretical religion." He refers to the opposition 
of the fathers to the doctrine of the rotundity of the earth, 
and says that, " thanks to some of them, you may find the 
approach to any kind of philosophy, however improved, en- 
tirely closed up.** He charges that some of these divines 
are " afraid lest perhaps a deeper inquiry into nature should 
penetrate beyond the allowed limits of sobriety *' ; and final- 
ly speaks of theologians as sometimes craftily conjecturing 
that, if science be little understood, " each single thing can 
be referred more easily to the hand and rod of God," and 
says, " This is nothing more or less than wishing to please God 
by a lie'' 

No man who has reflected much upon the annals of his 
race can, without a feeling of awe, come into the presence 
of such clearness of insight and boldness of utterance, and 
the first thought of the reader is that, of all men, Francis 
Bacon is the most free from the unfortunate bias he con- 
demns ; that he, certainly, can not be deluded into the old 
path. But as we go on through his main work we are sur- 
prised to find that the strong arm of Aquinas has been 
stretched over the intervening ages, and has laid hold upon 
this master-thinker of the seventeenth century ; for only a 
few chapters beyond those containing the citations already 
made we find Bacon alluding to the recent voyage of Colum- 
bus, and speaking of the prophecy of Daniel regarding the 
latter days, that " many shall run to and fro, and knowledge 
be increased,** as clearly signifying " that . . . the circum- 
navigation of the world and the increase of science should 
happen in the same age.** * 

In his g^eat work on the Advancement of Learning the 
firm grasp which the methods he condemned held upon him 
is shown yet more clearly. In the first book of it he asserts 
that " that excellent book of Job, if it be revolved with dili- 



* See the Novum Organon^ translated by the Rev. G. W. Kitchin, Oxford, 
1855, chaps. Uv and Ixxxiz. 

27 



402 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



• 

gence, will be found pregnant and swelling with natural phi- 
losophy," and he endeavours to show that in it the " round- 
ness of the earth," the " fixing of the stars, ever standing at 
equal distances," the " depression of the southern pole," the 
** matter of generation," and " matter of minerals " are " with 
great elegancy noted." But, curiously enough, he uses to 
support some of these truths the very texts which the fathers 
of the Church used to destroy them, and those for which 
he finds Scripture warrant most clearly are such as science 
has since disproved. So, too, he says that Solomon was en- 
abled in his Proverbs, " by donation of God, to compile a 
natural history of all verdure." * 

Such was the struggle of the physical sciences in general. 
Let us now look briefly at one special example out of many, 
which reveals, as well as any, one of the main theories which 
prompted theological interference with them. 

It will doubtless seem amazing to many that for ages the 
weight of theological thought in Christendom was thrown 
against the idea of the suffocating properties of certain gases, 
and especially of carbonic acid. Although in antiquity we see 
men forming a right theory of gases in mines, w^e find that, 
early in the history of the Church, St. Clement of Alexan- 
dria put forth the theory that these gases are manifestations 
of diabolic action, and that, throughout Christendom, suffo- 
cation in caverns, wells, and cellars was attributed to the 
direct action of evil spirits. Evidences of this view abound 
through the mediaeval period, and during the Reformation 
period a great authority, Agricola, one of the most earnest 
and truthful of investigators, still adhered to the belief that 
these gases in mines were manifestations of devils, and he 
specified two classes — one of malignant imps, who blow out 
the miners' lamps, and the other of friendly imps, who 



* See Bacon, Advancement of Learning, edited by W. Aldis Wright, London, 
1873, pp. 47, 48. Certainly no more striking examples of the strength of the evil 
which he had all along been denouncing could be exhibited than these in his own 
writings. Nothing better illustrates the sway of the mediaeval theology, or better 
explains his blindness to the discoveries of Cop>emicus and to the ex|>eriments of 
Gilbert. For a very contemptuous statement of Lord Bacon's claim to his position 
as a philosopher, see Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus^ Leipsic, 1S74, vol. i, p. 
219. For a more just statement, see Brewster, Life of Sir Isaac Newton, Sec 
also Jevons, Principles of Science, London, 1874, voL ii, p. 298. 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 403 

simply tease the workmen in various ways. He went so far 
as to say that one of these spirits in the Saxon mine of Anna- 
berg destroyed twelve workmen at once by the power of his 
breath. 

At the end of the sixteenth century we find a writer on 
mineralogy complaining that the mines in France and Ger- 
many had been in large part abandoned on account of 
the "evil spirits of metals which had taken possession of 
them." 

Even as late as the seventeenth century, Van Helmont, 
after he had broken away from alchemy and opened one of 
the great paths to chemistry — even after he had announced 
to the world the existence of various gases and the mode of 
their generation — was not strong enough to free himself from 
theologic bias; he still inclined to believe that the gases he 
had discovered, were in some sense living spirits, beneficent 
or diabolical. 

But ^t various periods glimpses of the truth had been 
gained. The ancient view had not been entirely forgotten ; 
and as far back as the first part of the thirteenth century 
Albert the Great suggested a natural cause in the possibility 
of exhalations from minerals causing a " corruption of the 
air " ; but he, as we have seen, was driven or dragged off 
into theological studies, and the world relapsed into the 
theological view. 

Toward the end of the fifteenth century there had come 
a great genius laden with important truths in chemistry, but 
for whom the world was not ready — Basil Valentine. His 
discoveries anticipated much that has brought fame and for- 
tune to chemists since, yet so fearful of danger was he that 
his work was carefully concealed. Not until after his death 
was his treatise on alchemy found, and even then it was for 
a long time not known where and when he lived. The papal 
bull, Spondent paritcr, and the various prohibitions it bred, 
forcing other alchemists to conceal their laboratories, led 
him to let himself be known during his life at Erfurt simply 
as an apothecary, and to wait until after his death to make 
a revelation of truth which during his lifetime might have 
cost him dear. Among the legacies of this greatest of the 
alchemists was the doctrine that the air which asphyxiates 



404 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



workers in mines is similar to that which is produced by fer- 
mentation of malt, and a recommendation that, in order to 
drive away the evil and to prevent serious accidents, fires 
be lighted and jets of steam used to ventilate the mines- 
stress being especially laid upon the idea that the danger in 
the mines is produced by " exhalations of metals." 

Thanks to men like Valentine, this idea of the interfer- 
ence of Satan and his minions with the mining industry 
was gradually weakened, and the working of the deserted 
mines was resumed ; yet even at a comparatively recent 
period we find it still lingering, and among leading divines 
in the very heart of Protestant Germany. In 171 5 a 
cellar-digger having been stifled at Jena, the medical 
faculty of the university decided that the cause was not the 
direct action of the devil, but a deadly gas. Thereupon 
Prof. Loescher, of the University of Wittenberg, entered a 
solemn protest, declaring that the decision of the medical 
faculty was " only a proof of the lamentable license which 
has so taken possession of us, and which, if we are not ear- 
nestly on our guard, will finally turn away from us the bless- 
ing of God/'* But denunciations of this kind could not 
hold back the little army of science ; in spite of adverse in- 
fluences, the evolution of physics and chemistry went on. 
More and more there rose men bold enough to break away 
from theological methods and strong enough to resist ec- 
clesiastical bribes and threats. As alchemy in its first 
form, seeking for the philosopher's stone and the transmuta- 
tion of metals, had given way to alchemy in its second form, 
seeking for the elixir of life and remedies more or less 
magical for disease, so now the latter yielded to the search 
for truth as truth. More and more the "solemnly consti- 
tuted impostors" were resisted in every field. A great 
line of physicists and chemists began to appear.f 



♦ For Loescher's protest, see Julian Schmidt, GeschichU des geistigen Lebens^ 
etc., vol. i, p. 319. 

f For the general view of noxious gases as imps of Satan, see Hoefer, Histoire 
de la Chimie, vol. i, p. 350 ; vol. ii, p. 48. For the work of Black, Priestley, Berg- 
mann, and others, see main authorities already cited, and especially the admirable 
paper of Dr. R. G. Eccles on Th^ Evolution of Chemistry, New York, D. Apple- 
ton & Co., 1891. For the treatment of Priestley, see Spence's Essays, London. 
1892 ; also Rutt, Life and Correspondence of Priestley, vol. ii, pp. 115 // seq. 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



40s 



II. 

Just at the middle of the seventeenth century, and at 
the very centre of opposition to physical science, Robert 
Boyle began the new epoch in chemistry. Strongly influ- 
enced by the writings of Bacon and the discoveries of Gali- 
leo, he devoted himself to scientific research, establishing at 
Oxford a laboratory and putting into it a chemist from Stras- 
burg. For this he was at once bitterly attacked. In spite of 
his high position, his blameless life, his liberal gifts to char- 
ity and learning, the Oxford pulpit was especially severe 
against him, declaring that his researches were destroying 
religion and his experiments undermining the university. 
Public orators denounced him, the wits ridiculed him, and 
his associates in the peerage were indignant that he should 
condescend to pursuits so unworthy. But Boyle pressed 
on. His discoveries opened new paths in various directions 
and gave an impulse to a succession of vigorous investiga- 
tors. Thus began the long series of discoveries culminating 
in those of Black, Bergmann, Cavendish, Priestley, and La- 
voisier, who ushered in the chemical science of the nine- 
teenth century. 

Yet not even then without a sore struggle against un- 
reason. And it must here be noticed that this unreason was 
not all theological. The unreasoning heterodox when in- 
trusted with irresponsible power can be as short-sighted and 
cruel as the unreasoning orthodox. Lavoisier, one of the 
best of our race, not only a great chemist but a true man, 
was sent to the scaffold by the Parisian mob, led by bigoted 
** liberals*' and atheists, with the sneer that the republic 
had no need of savants. As to Priestley, who had devoted 
his life to science and to every good work among his fel- 
low-men, the Birmingham mob, favoured by the Anglican 
clergymen who harangued them as " fellow-churchmen,** 
wrecked his house, destroyed his library, philosophical in- 
struments, and papers containing the results of long years of 
scientific research, drove him into exile, and would have 
murdered him if they could have laid their hands upon him. 

Nor was it entirely his devotion to rational liberty, nor 



4o6 FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICSu 

even his disbelief in the doctrine of the Trinitv, which 
brought on this catastrophe. That there was a deep distrust 
of his scientific pursuits, was evident when the leaders of the 
mob took pains to use his electrical apparatus to set fire to 
his papers. 

Still, though theological modes of thought continued to 
sterilize much effort in chemistry, the old influence was more 
and more thrown off, and truth sought more and more for 
truth's sake. ** Black magic " with its Satanic machinery 
vanished, only reappearing occasionally among marvel- 
mongers and belated theologians. " White magic ** became 
legerdemain. 

In the early years of the nineteenth century, physical re- 
search, though it went on with ever-increasing vigour, felt 
in various wavs the reaction which followed the French 
Revolution. It was not merely under the Bourbons and 
Hapsburgs that resistance was offered ; even in England the 
old spirit lingered long. As late as 1832, when the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science first visited Ox- 
ford, no less amiable a man than John Keble — at that time a 
power in the university — condemned indignantly the con- 
ferring of honorary degrees upon the leading men thus 
brought together. In a letter of that date to Dr. Pusey he 
complained bitterly, to use his own words, that " the Oxford 
doctors have truckled sadly to the spirit of the times in re- 
ceiving the hotchpotch of philosophers as they did." It is 
interesting to know that among the men thus contemptu- 
ously characterized were Brewster, Faraday, and Dalton. 

Nor was this a mere isolated exhibition of feeling; it 
lasted many years, and was especially shown on both sides 
of the Atlantic in all higher institutions of learning where 
theology was dominant. Down to a period within the 
memory of men still in active life, students in the sciences, 
not only at Oxford and Cambridge but at Harvard and 
Yale, were considered a doubtful if not a distinctly inferior 
class, intellectually and socially — to be relegated to different 
instructors and buildings, and to receive their degrees on a 
different occasion and with different ceremonies from those 
appointed for students in literature. To the State Univer- 
sity of Michigan, among the greater American institutions 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



407 



of learning which have never possessed or been possessed 
by a theological seminary, belongs the honour of first break- 
ing down this wall of separation. 

But from the middle years of the century chemical 
science progressed with ever-accelerating force, and the 
work of Bunsen, Kirch hofiF, Dalton, and Faraday has, in the 
last years of the century, led up to the establishment of 
Mendeleef's law, by which chemistry has become predictive, 
as astronomy had become predictive by the calculations of 
Newton, and biology by the discoveries of Darwin. 

While one succession of strong men were thus develop- 
ing chemistry out of one form of magic, another succession 
were developing physics out of another form. 

First in this latter succession may be mentioned that line 
of thinkers who divined and reasoned out great physical 
laws — a line extending from Galileo and Kepler and Newton 
to Ohm and Faraday and Joule and Helmholtz. These, by 
revealing more and more clearly the reign of law, steadily 
undermined the older theological view of arbitrary influence 
in nature. Next should be mentioned the line of profound 
observers, from Galileo and Torricelli to Kelvin. These 
have as thoroughly undermined the old theologic substitu- 
tion of phrases for facts. When Galileo dropped the differ- 
ing weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, he began the 
end of Aristotelian authority in physics. When Torricelli 
balanced a column of mercury against a column of water 
and each of these against a column of air, he ended the theo- 
logic phrase that " nature abhors a vacuum." When New- 
ton approximately determined the velocity of sound, he 
ended the theologic argument that we see the flash before 
we hear the roar because "sight is nobler than hearing." 
When Franklin showed that lightning is caused by elec- 
tricity, and Ohm and Faraday proved that electricity obeys 
ascertained laws, they ended the theological idea of a divin- 
ity seated above the clouds and casting thunderbolts. 

Resulting from the labour of both these branches of phys- 
ical science, we have the establishment of the great laws of 
the indestructibility of matter, the correlation of forces, and 
chemical affinity. Thereby is ended, with various other 
sacred traditions, the theological theory of a visible uni- 



4o8 FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 

verse created out of nothing, so firmly imbedded in the the- 
ological thought of the Middle Ages and in the Westmin- 
ster Catechism.* 

In our own time some attempt has been made to renew 
this war against the physical sciences. Joseph de Maistre, 
uttering his hatred of them, declaring that mankind has paid 
too dearly for them, asserting that they must be subjected 
to theology, likening them to fire — ^good when confined and 
dangerous when scattered about — has been one of the main 
leaders among those who can not relinquish the idea that 
our body of sacred literature should be kept a controlling 
text-book of science. The only effect of such teachings has 
been to weaken the legitimate hold of religion upon men. 

In Catholic countries exertion has of late years been 
mainly confined to excluding science or diluting it in univer- 
sity teachings. Early in the present century a great effort 
was made by Ferdinand VII of Spain. He simply dismissed 
the scientific professors from the University of Salamanca, 
and until a recent period there has been general exclusion 
from Spanish universities of professors holding to the New- 
tonian physics. So, too, the contemporary Emperor of Aus- 
tria attempted indirectly something of the same sort ; and at 
a still later period Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX dis- 
couraged, if they did not forbid, the meetings of scientific 
associations in Italy. In France, war between theology and 
science, which had long been smouldering, came in the years 
1867 and 1868 to an outbreak. Toward the end of the last 
century, after the Church had held possession of advanced 
instruction for more than a thousand years, and had, so far 
as it was able, kept experimental science in servitude — after 

* For a reappearance of the fundamental doctrines of black magic among theolo- 
gians, see Rev. Dr. Jewett, Professor of Pastoral Theology in the Prot. Episc. Gen. 
Theolog. Seminary of New York, Diabolology : The Person and Kingdom of Satan, 
New York, 1889. For their reappearance among theosophists, see Eliphas L^vi, 
Histoire de la Magie, especially the final chapters. For opposition to Boyle and 
chemical studies at Oxford in the latter half of the seventeenth century, see the 
address of Prof Dixon, F. R. S., before the British Association, 1894. For the 
recent progress of chemistry, and opposition to its earlier development at Oxford, 
see Lord Salisbury's address as President of the British Association, in 1894. For 
the Protestant survival of the medieval assertion that the universe was created out 
•of nothing, see the Westminster Catechism, question 15. 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



409 



it had humiliated BuEFon in natural science, thrown its 
weight against Newton in the physical sciences, and wrecked 
Turgot's noble plans for a system of public instruction — the 
French nation decreed the establishment of the most thor- 
ough and complete system of higher instruction in science 
ever known. It was kept under lay control and became one 
of the glories of France ; but, emboldened by the restoration 
of the Bourbons in 181 5, the Church began to undermine 
this hated system, and in 1868 had made such progress that 
all was ready for the final assault. 

Foremost among the leaders of the besieging party was 
the Bishop of Orleans, Dupanloup, a man of many winning 
characteristics and of great oratorical power. In various 
ways, and especially in an open letter, he had fought the 
" materialism '* of science at Paris, and especially were his 
attacks levelled at Profs. Vulpian and S6e and the Minister 
of Public Instruction, Duruy, a man of great merit, whose 
only crime was devotion to the improvement of education 
and to the promotion of the highest research in science.* 

The main attack was made rather upon biological science 
than upon physics and chemistry, yet it was clear that all 
were involved together. 

The first onslaught was made in the French Senate, and 
the storming party in that body was led by a venerable and 
conscientious prelate. Cardinal de Bonnechose, Archbishop 
of Rouen. It was charged by him and his party that the 
tendencies of the higher scientific teaching at Paris were 
fatal to religion and morality. Heavy missiles were hurled 
— such phrases as "sapping the foundations," "breaking 
down the bulwarks," and the like ; and, withal, a new missile 
was used with much effect — the epithet " materialist." 

The results can be easily guessed : crowds came to the 
lecture-rooms of the attacked professors, and the lecture- 
room of Prof. S6e, the chief offender, was crowded to suffo- 
cation. 

A siege was begun in due form. A young physician was 



* For the exertions of the restored Bourbons to crush the universities of Spain, 
see Hubbard, Hist, Contemporaine de VEspagne^ Paris, 1878, chaps, i and iii. For 
Dupanloup, Lettre d un Cardinal^ sec the Revue de Th/rapcutique of 1868, p. 22 x. 



• 55 i 




cl vc .i^n: iTiT^ctiT^ a^-iinst tie Minister of Stare who cocld 
protect sac's a^ fortress >f inpfetj as tie CoCIege « Mcii- 
ciac : and. a$ a cIiti.^y. he asserted, oa the evideiK^c of his 
spy fresh fron: Prof. See's lectarc-rooas- that the professor 
ha.d declared, in his lectsre of the daj before, that so Ixi^ 
as he had the hooocir to hold his professorship be woold 
combat the false idea of the existence of the souL The 
meSiZ/'in seen:ed resistless and the wound fataL bat M. Do- 
ruT rose and asked to be heard. 

His statement was simpir that he held in his hand docu- 
mcnury proofs that Prof. S6e never made such a declara- 
tion. He held the notes used bv Prof. See in his lecture. 
Prof. Se';. it appeared, belong^cd to a school in meiiical sci- 
ence w:»ich combated certain ideas regarding^ medicine as 
an art. The irifiimed ima^nation of the cardinal's heresv- 
huntin^ emissary had, as the lecture-notes proved, led him 
to mistake the word " art " for " dmc\'' and to exhibit Prof. See 
as irfi2Lling a theological when he was discussing a purelv 
scientific question. Of the existence of the soul the pro- 
fessor had said nothing. 

The forces of the enemv were immediatelv turned : thev 
retreated in confusion, amid the laughter of all France : and 
a quiet, dignified statement as to the rights of scientific in- 
structors by Wurtz, dean of the faculty, completed their 
discomfiture. Thus a well-meant attempt to check science 
simply ended in bringing ridicule on religion, and in thrusting 
still deeper into the minds of thousands of men that most 
mistaken of all mistaken ideas : the conviction that religrion 
and science are enemies.* 



* VoT a general account of the Vulpian and 5>ec matter. «ee Rrvue dts Deux 
MomUs^ 31 mai, 1S65, "Chronique de la Quinzaine," pp. 763-765. As to the result 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. ^n 

But justice forbids raising an outcry against Roman 
Catholicism for this. In 1864 a number of excellent men in 
England drew up a declaration to be signed by students in 
the natural sciences, expressing " sincere regret that re- 
searches into scientific truth are perverted by some in our 
time into occasion for casting doubt upon the truth and au- 
thenticity of the Holy Scriptures." Nine tenths of the lead- 
ing scientific men of England refused to sign it ; nor was this 
all : Sir John Herschel, Sir John Bowring, and Sir W. R. 
Hamilton administered, through the press, castigations which 
roused general indignation against the proposers of the cir- 
cular, and Prof. De Morgan, by a parody, covered memorial 
and memorialists with ridicule. It was the old mistake, and 
the old result followed in the minds of multitudes of thought- 
ful young men.* 

And in yet another Protestant country this same mistake 
was made. In 1868 several excellent churchmen in Prus- 
sia thought it their duty to meet for the denunciation of 
" science falsely so called." Two results followed : upon the 
great majority of these really self-sacrificing men — whose 
first utterances showed complete ignorance of the theories 
they attacked — there came quiet and widespread contempt ; 
upon Pastor Knak, who stood forth and proclaimed views of 
the universe which he thought scriptural, but which most 
schoolboys knew to be childish, came a burst of good-na- 
tured derision from every quarter of the German nation, f 

But in all the greater modern nations warfare of this 
kind, after the first quarter of the nineteenth century, became 
more and more futile. While conscientious Roman bishops, 
and no less conscientious Protestant clergymen in Europe 
and America continued to insist that advanced education, 
not only in literature but in science, should be kept under 
careful control in their own sectarian universities and col- 
leges, wretchedly one-sided in organization and inadequate 

on popular thought, may be noted the following comment on the affair by the 
Rti'ue^ which is as free as possible from anything like rabid anti-ecclesiastical ideas : 
" Elle a ^t^ vraiment curieuse, instructive, assez triste et m^me un peu amusante." 
For Wurtz's statement, see Revue de Thirapeutique for 1868, p. 303. 
* De Morgan, Paradoxes^ pp. 421-428 ; ako Daubeny's Essays, 
\ See the Berlin newspapers for the summer of 1868, especially Kladdcradatsch. 



4:2 



,jZ Z-j CH23Cin.T iSO ?HT2 







tie l3:=-ict:ifcre 

of pr<i^«sor*i:ps ei-ki h vldiz:^ ciLsarisfictorj views rtgiard- 
inij the Iscarxsri-^o. or \z12zz Biptso. or ibe Ap^solic Suc- 
cessioeu or CjriizLZ.zi^j^ zr Elders, or the PersrrcraEOC oc the 
Saints : and TrhiLe boch Caii >lfc and Procescist ccclesissiics 
were o:>en!v or sccrctiT Treedinz out ot uniTerstr fiOiltfes 
all who showed wi":r>gn€ss to cooader iafrlj the ideas of 
E^rwin. a movenieat was cnietlj ia progress destined to 
take instruction, and especiallj instroctiaci ia the physical 
and natural sciences* out of its old subordination to theolo^ 
and ecclesiasticisni.* 

The most striking b^innings of this moTemeni had been 
seen when, in the darkest period of the French Revolution, 
there was founded at Paris the great Conserratory of Arts 
and Trades, and when, in the eariv rears of the nineteenth 
centur)', scienti&c and technical education spread quietly 
upfon the Continent. By the middle of the century France 
and Germany were dotted with well-equipped technical and 
scientific schools, each having chemical and physical labora- 
tories. 

The English-speaking lands lagged behind. In England, 
Oxford and Cambridge showed few if any signs of this 
movement, and in the United States, down to 1S50, evi- 
dences of it were few and feeble. Very significant is it that, 
at that period, while Yale College had in its faculty Silliman 
and Olmsted — the professor of chemistry and the professor 
of physics most widely known in the United States — it had 
no physical or chemical laboratory in the modem sense, and 



• Whatever may be thought of the system of philosophy adrocated by Presi- 
dent Mc<*o»h at Princeton, every thinking man most honour him for the large way 
in which he, at lea<it, broke away from the traditions of that centre of thought ; pre- 
vcntc'], v^ far as he was able, persecution of scholars for holding to the Darwinian 
view ; and paved the way for the highest researches in physical science in that uni- 
versity. For a most eloquent statement of the opposition of modem physical sci- 
ence to medi»::val theological views, as shown in the case of Sir Isaac Newton, sec 
Dr. Thomas Chalmers, cited in Gore, Art of ScUntiJic Discovery^ London, iSjS, 
p. 247. 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



413 



confined its instruction in these subjects to examinations 
upon a text-book and the presentation of a few lectures. At 
the State University of Michigan, which had even then taken 
a foremost place in the higher education west of the Great 
Lakes, there was very meagre instruction in chemistry and 
Virtually none in physics. This being the state of things in 
the middle of the century in institutions remarkably free 
from clerical control, it can be imagined what was the posi- 
tion of scientific instruction in smaller colleges and univer- 
sities where theological considerations were entirely domi- 
nant. 

But in 1 85 1, with the International Exhibition at London, 
began in Great Britain and America a movement in favour 
of scientific education ; men of wealth and public spirit be- 
gan making contributions to them, and thus came the growth 
of a new system of instruction in which Chemistry and 
Physics took just rank. 

By far the most marked feature in this movement was 
seen in America, when, in 1857, Justin S. Morrill, a young 
member of Congress from Vermont, presented the project 
of a law endowing from the public lands a broad national 
system of colleges in which scientific and technical studies 
should be placed on an equality with studies in classical lit- 
erature, one such college to be established in every State of 
the Union. The bill, though opposed mainly by representa- 
tives from the Southern States, where doctrinaire politics 
and orthodox theology were in strong alliance with negro 
slavery, was passed by both Houses of Congress, but vetoed 
by President Buchanan, in whom the doctrinaire and ortho- 
dox spirit was incarnate. But Morrill persisted and again 
presented nis bill, which was again carried in spite of the 
opposition of the Southern members, and again vetoed in 
1859 by President Buchanan. Then came the civil war; 
but Morrill and his associates did not despair of the repub- 
lic. In the midst of all the measures for putting vast armies 
into the field and for saving the Union from foreign interfer- 
ence as well as from domestic anarchy, they again passed the 
bill, and in 1862, in the darkest hour of the struggle for na- 
tional existence, it became a law by the signature of Presi- 
dent Lincoln. 



414 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



And here it should not be unrecorded, that, while the vast 
majority of the supporters of the measure were laymen, most 
efficient service was rendered by a clergyman, the Rev. Dr. 
Amos Brown, born in New Hampshire, but at that time an 
instructor in a little village of New York. His ideas were 
embodied in the bill, and his efforts did much for its passage. 

Thus was established, in every State of the American 
Union, at least one institution in which scientific and tech- 
nical studies were given equal rank with classical, and pro- 
moted by laboratories for research in physical and natural 
science. Of these institutions there are now nearly fifty : all 
have proved valuable, and some of them, by the addition of 
splendid gifts from individuals and from the States in which 
they are situated, have been developed into great univer- 
sities. 

Nor was this all. Many of the older universities and col- 
leges thus received a powerful stimulus in the new direction. 
The great physical and chemical laboratories founded by 
gifts from publicspirited individuals, as at Harvard, Yale, 
and Chicago, or by enlightened State legislators, as in Michi- 
gan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Kansas, and Nebraska, 
have also become centres from which radiate influences 
favouring the unfettered search for truth as truth. 

This system has been long enough in operation to enable 
us to note in some degree its effects on religion, and these 
are certainly such as to relieve those who have feared that 
religion was necessarily bound up with the older instruction 
controlled by theology. While in Europe, by a natural re- 
action, the colleges under strict ecclesiastical control have 
sent forth the most powerful foes the Christian Church has 
ever known, of whom Voltaire and Diderot and Volney and 
Sainte-Beuve and Renan are types, no such effects have been 
noted in these newer institutions. While the theological 
way of looking at the universe has steadily )uelded, there has 
been no sign of any tendency toward irreligion. On the 
contrary, it is the testimony of those best acquainted with 
the American colleges and universities during the last forty- 
five years that there has been in them a great gain, not only 
as regards morals, but as regards religion in its highest and 
best sense. The reason is not far to seek. Under the old 



FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS. 



415 



American system the whole body of students at a university 
were confined to a single course, for which the majority 
cared little and very many cared nothing, and, as a result, 
widespread idleness and dissipation were inevitable. Under 
the new system, presenting various courses, and especially 
courses in various sciences, appealing to different tastes and 
aims, the great majority of students are interested, and conse- 
quently indolence and dissipation have steadily diminished. 
Moreover, in the majority of American institutions of learn- 
ing down to the middle of the century, the main reliance for 
the religious culture of students was in the perfunctory pres- 
entation of sectarian theology, and the occasional stirring 
up of what were called " revivals," which, after a period of 
unhealthy stimulus, inevitably left the main body of students 
in a state of religious and moral reaction and collapse. This 
method is now discredited, and in the more important 
American universities it has become impossible. Religious 
truth, to secure the attention of the modern race of students 
in the better American institutions, is presented, not by " sen- 
sation preachers,*' but by thoughtful, sober-minded scholars. 
Less and less avail sectarian arguments ; more and more im- 
pressive becomes the presentation of fundamental religious 
truths. The result is, that while young men care less and 
less for the great mass of petty, cut-and-dried sectarian for- 
mulas, they approach the deeper questions of religion with 
increasing reverence. 

While striking differences exist between the European 
universities and those of the United States, this at least may 
be said, that on both sides of the Atlantic the great majority 
of the leading institutions of learning are under the sway of 
enlightened public opinion as voiced mainly by laymen, and 
that, this being the case, the physical and natural sciences 
are henceforth likely to be developed normally, and without 
fear of being sterilized by theology or oppressed by ecclesi- 
asticism. 



END OF VOLUME ONE. 



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