the Pope, the Jesuits were suppressed in 1773, the Roman College
passed from their hands and the real reason for allowing the Vatican
Observatory on the Papal grounds to fall into disuse was manifest, for
the Popes at once took up the question of re-establishing their own
observatory. Not long after the suppression we find Monsignor Filippo
Luigi Gilii placed in charge of the reorganized Roman Observatory by
Cardinal Zelada, who had been appointed Vatican Librarian in 1780, and
who found the old Gregorian tower available as a centre of
astronomical observation and investigation of which Rome had been
deprived since the suppression of the Roman College. After the
restoration of the Jesuits early in the nineteenth century, the Roman
College was opened once more and distinguished Jesuits, some of them
with world-wide reputations, did their work there. With the occupation
of Rome by the Italian government in 1870 the Jesuits were banished,
the Roman College with its observatory was once more deprived of the
learned expert direction of the Fathers of the Order, and once more
efforts were made for the re-establishment of a Vatican observatory
which is now in existence and under the direction of a Jesuit.
Another of the distinguished scientists of the eighteenth century who
taught for a time at Rome was Father Beccaria, whose name is well
known in the history of electricity. When not yet forty years of age
he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, always a much
envied distinction, and as a consequence of his election some of his
important papers relating to electricity and various astronomical
subjects were sent to the Royal Society {480} and published by them.
While no great discovery in physical science is attached to his name,
few men did as much as he to awaken enthusiasm and experimental
investigation into science in his time. He was one of the pioneers of
the great scientific movement of the nineteenth century. Priestley
called him one of the most eminent of all the workers in electricity
on the Continent, and Professor Chrystal, in his article on
electricity, in the Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition), gives him
an important place. He had been trained to be a professor of
experimental physics for his Order, and at this time every one of the
teaching orders with colleges at Rome had distinguished men among
their faculties.
The well-known astronomer, Father Piazzi, whose discovery of Ceres,
the first of the planetoids found in the space between Mars and
Jupiter, caused great excitement among astronomers, and whose
subsequent work in astronomy brought him membership in many of the
scientific academies of Europe, had been for some time a student and a
teacher in Rome. While there he was a colleague of Professor
Chiaramonti, who later became Pope Pius VII. During all his subsequent
brilliant scientific career his special friendship with the Pope
continued, and with all his many memberships in scientific bodies he
remained a member also of the Theatine religious order which he had
entered at a very early age.
After the restoration of the Jesuits the work in the sciences reverted
once more to the Jesuits at the Roman College and the Vatican
Observatory was discontinued. The interest of the Popes in science,
however, was very well illustrated by the apostolic letter of Leo XII,
_Quod divina sapientia_, which gave instructions to all Catholic
educational institutions, as to observatories, publications and
intercourse with foreign scientists.
The Jesuits at the Roman College reached noteworthy distinction for
their astronomical work during the nineteenth century. Father Secchi
came to be looked upon as probably one of the most distinguished
astronomers in Europe. He received many prizes for his observations,
for his invention of instruments and for important discoveries. His
work on the sun, published in his book, _Le Soleil_, represents some
of the most important contributions ever made to this department. It
was translated into most modern languages. His observations on the
corona of the sun during eclipses and especially photographs of the
corona, place him among the great original contributors to modern
astronomical knowledge. He made a critical examination and
classification of the spectra of four thousand stars entailing an
enormous amount of {481} work. He believed firmly that it was no use
making observations unless they were thoroughly recorded and made
available for others. His literary work in astronomy is almost
incredible. He sent nearly 700 communications to 42 scientific
journals, over 300 of which appeared in the _Comptes Rendues_ and in
the _Astronomische Nachrichten_, the French and German journals of
astronomy that are the authoritative records of contemporary
scientific work. In this country Newcomb and Langley quote from Secchi
frequently and use his illustrations. He was the founder of a new
branch of astronomy, Stellar Spectroscopy, and Secchi's types of solar
spectra will probably ever remain an essential illustration in
astronomical text-books.
Another of the astronomers who did excellent work among the Jesuits at
the Roman College during the nineteenth century was Father De Vico,
whose determination of the rotation period of Venus and the
inclination of its axis was considered so exhaustive that it was not
questioned for half a century. He also measured the eccentric position
of Saturn in his rings and observed the motions of the two inner moons
of this planet which had not been seen before this time except by
Herschel. Father De Vico also discovered eight comets, one of them
being the well-known comet with a period of rotation of five and a
half years which bears his name. Father De Vico and Father Secchi were
driven from Rome by the Revolution of 1848, but were brought back to
continue their work just as soon as it was possible. In the meantime
they continued to be personal friends of successive Popes, encouraged
in every way, aided in their work and looked upon as ornaments of the
Church. They were thoroughly respected by their Order and there was
never the slightest question of any possibility of all their studies
in science and all their profound investigation of the deepest
scientific subjects disturbing their faith in any way.
One of the well-known contributors to astronomy during the nineteenth
century was Father Benedict Sestini, who for his mathematical ability
was appointed assistant to Father De Vico of the Roman Observatory. He
was banished from Rome with his brother Jesuits by the Revolution of
1848, and taught at Georgetown College, Washington, D. C, for many
years. His principal work is his catalogue of star colors, published
in the Memoirs of the Roman College, 1845-47. He had very keen vision
and fine skill with the brush, so that his catalogue, which embodies
the entire B.A.C. Star Catalogue, from the North Pole to thirty
degrees south of the equator, will be invaluable for deciding the
question {482} whether there are stars variable in color. He made a
series of sunspot drawings which were engraved and published as
appendix A of the United States Naval Observatory volume for 1847,
printed in 1853. He was the teacher of mathematics and astronomy to
the American Jesuit students and wrote a series of text-books for that
purpose.
As we have said, the Italian government suppressed the Roman College,
declaring it State property and this prevented further work in the
observatory there, which had been for nearly half a century under
Father Secchi and Father De Vico, one of the most important centres in
the world of astronomical advance. Beggared by the Roman confiscations
which compelled the Popes to cut off all their support of scientific
and educational work except what related closely to clerical
education, it was not until 1888 that Pope Leo XIII found himself in a
position to re-establish a Roman observatory in connection with the
Vatican. In 1888 the Italian clergy, for the celebration of the Golden
Jubilee of Pope Leo XIII, presented to him, knowing from his interest
in science how agreeable such a gift would be to him, a collection of
astronomical instruments and the Gregorian tower was selected once
more for its former purposes and the Barnabite, Father Denza, the
well-known founder of the Italian Meteorological Society, became the
official head. Pope Leo XIII ceded to the Vatican Observatory a second
tower more than 400 metres distant from the Gregorian. As this was of
immense strength, the lower walls being some five yards in thickness,
it seemed strong and firm enough to support the thirteen-inch
photographic refractor which was ordered from Gauthier. Seven volumes
of observations were published during the next fifteen years, four
under Father Denza, a fifth under Father Lais and the last two under
Father Rodriguez, an Augustinian, who was a specialist in meteorology.
The last Pope, Pius X, encouraged the Vatican Observatory in every
way. The Gregorian tower being near the Vatican Library and too
distant from the observatory was restored to its original library
purpose and given over to the housing of the collection of Historical
Archives. The second round tower of the old Leonine Fortress, together
with the adjoining summer residence of Leo XIII, was devoted to
astronomical work. Father Hagan, S.J., who had been distinguished for
mathematical studies in connection with astronomy here in America, was
chosen as the director, and there has been a magnificent development
of the astronomical work. There is a new sixteen-inch visual telescope
in the second tower, {483} called the _Torre Pio X_. There are four
rotary domes covering the astrographic refractor in the Leonine Tower,
and some excellent work is being accomplished. Every encouragement is
given to it as far as the limited means of the Pope will permit, and a
fine library is being collected for future workers.
{484}
APPENDIX VII.
THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE.
There is a very general impression in many minds in our time that from
the very beginning of Christianity the interest of Church men in the
other world was so great that human attention was diverted just as far
as possible from concerns of all kinds with the stage of existence
through which man is passing here and now. As a consequence, there has
been the feeling that from the earliest time the Church was opposed to
science and scientific education, partly because this represented a
rather compelling diversion from other-worldly interests, but mainly
because it gave men control over natural forces which made life more
comfortable, raised men up in their own estimation and was opposed to
the spirit of humble faith best suited to the adherents of
Christianity. Hence it is concluded that there was always a Church
policy of deliberate opposition to science and indeed to all
intellectual development. This attitude is often declared to be best
represented by the expression attributed to one of the Fathers of the
Church, "Heaven lies open to the simple of mind, the little ones of
the earth, and the ignorant bear it away better than those who are
proud of intellect."
Any such impression with regard to the Fathers of the Church as to the
establishment of a policy of opposition to science and education is
quite erroneous and entirely contrary to the general trend of their
writings, even though it may be apparently substantiated by
expressions taken at random from the writings of the Fathers at
moments when they were emphasizing the truth that has always been so
manifest, that from the knowing ones of earth,--and our use of the
word knowing in the phrase is not complimentary,--especially from
those who are conceited in their knowingness, many things are
concealed that are revealed to those who are simple of heart and mind.
It has seemed worth while, however, to devote an appendix to this
subject of the real attitude of the Fathers to science. As Father
Leahy, in his "Astronomical Essays," Boston (Washington Press, 1910),
has answered Professor White's assumptions on this subject with a
knowledge of the Fathers I could not hope to emulate, I have preferred
to avail myself of his permission to quote him at length.
{485}
"By the Fathers we understand in general the Christian writers in
the Church's early history. In the West the period may be held to
have terminated with Isidore of Seville of the seventh century, and
in the East with John of Damascus of the eighth. The important
writers of this epoch number between fifty and a hundred, and their
works constitute, as may be imagined, a body of literature of vast
extent.
Our only present concern is to learn, if possible, what was the
general attitude of this army of ecclesiastical writers towards the
physical sciences, especially the science of astronomy. Explicit
treatises on astronomy we shall not, indeed, expect them to supply.
For their works when massed are seen to constitute a library of
theology, and in such a collection we should no more look for
scientific treatises than in a modern library for law. But inasmuch
as the Fathers of the Church have been accused, by Andrew D. White
and others, of having stayed and even thwarted the advance of
science, it becomes the interest and the duty of the apologist to
hunt up their scientific allusions that we may learn to what extent
the charges made are true.
_The Standstill of Science_.--It has often been alleged as
derogatory to the accomplishments of the Fathers, that they
contributed nothing to the progress of scientific knowledge. From
our modern standpoint we may be tempted to esteem this failure of
theirs as a cardinal sin. But it would be wrong in this instance, as
in every other, to render a verdict of guilt too hastily. We of the
twentieth century are prone to forget that there are other fields of
profitable intellectual exploration besides the physical, and that
there may be objects of research and thought worthier of study than
the material world.
The Fathers of the Church were philosophers and theologians occupied
with the problems of the world's origin and destiny, higher themes,
surely, than any with which physical science is concerned. It is the
fashion of the day to praise the ancient Greeks at the expense of
the patristic and medieval theologians. But the distinction is to a
large extent inconsistent, since both bodies of writers were at work
upon the selfsame themes. Philosophers like the Greeks, the Fathers
were like them moralists as well, engaged in the elaboration of
right rules of conduct. Finally, unlike the Greeks, the Fathers were
Scriptural scholars, many of them of extensive erudition, in homily
and commentary expounding with wonderful assiduity the Sacred Books
in which they believed that God had given His revelation to man.
_Analogous Examples_.--Should we be surprised, then, if men so
occupied failed to add much to the world's store of scientific
knowledge? Though it were admitted, as it cannot be in its entirety,
that they left physical science just where they found it, could not
an explanation be discovered that would exonerate them from all
blame? To justify such an apology, we do not even need to transport
ourselves in spirit back to their time, a process which, however,
strict fairness would demand. But in our own era we can think easily
of dozens and hundreds of men of highest respectability and most
beneficent accomplishment, men of books and men of affairs, jurists,
statesmen, historians and others, who have {486} themselves done
little or nothing for the onward march of Science. That the careers
of these men are profitless, who shall allege?
Again, the present writer has often thought of the almost parallel
example of the ancient Romans. It makes their history but little
less illustrious to learn that this conquering people did nothing
for Science's advance. Till Pliny of the first century after Christ,
what Roman was a scientist? They were a nation of soldiers,
statesmen, orators and jurists, and for seven hundred years they
pursued through such avenues their triumphant course. Yet what
writer of to-day rises to charge them with a cardinal sin, because
Science remained at a standstill among them for seven full
centuries? With these seven centuries can we not properly compare
the later seven in which the Christian Fathers were the teachers of
the civilized world?
_Heritage from the Greeks_.--Objection will be made, no doubt, that
the Fathers began their career with fairer start than the Romans,
forasmuch as they were the direct heirs of the astronomy and physics
of ancient Hellas. And they will be incriminated with having abused
their precious heritage, by not merely letting it lie fallow but by
raising every possible obstruction to its further cultivation. Such
is the tenor of Andrew D. White's accusations against them.
This well-known writer smiles at the puerilities of patristic
science. He cites from among them Cosmas of Egypt as having
propounded a perfectly childish theory of the structure of the earth
and grafted it on the science of theology. The ready answer to this
particular charge is that Cosmas' conception of the universe
belonged to cosmogony and not theology, and further that it had no
influence on subsequent thought. Returning to the general
arraignment, White rebukes the Fathers for having clung so
tenaciously to false opinions regarding the shape of the earth, the
motion of the heavens, and the nature of the firmament. And, most
seriously of all, he charges the Fathers with indifference and even
hostility to the study of science itself.
In a few short paragraphs it is impossible to give an adequate
rejoinder to these damaging complaints. But they demand some sort of
reply, however inadequate it be, as emanating from an American
scholar and statesman of high rank, and embodied in a work that has
free and wide circulation among our college students.
_Defence of Their Doctrine_.--The first palliation for the reputed
offence of the Fathers is that whatever false science they retail,
was practically all of it derived from the very sources which it is
the fashion of the day to laud in the highest degree. As far as was
consistent with their faith, the Christian Fathers were the pupils
of the Greeks. It was the latter and not the patristic writers who
invented the false theories of a solid firmament and a motionless
earth. If Europe and Arabia down to the Renaissance believed in the
Geocentric system, it was because they trusted Ptolemy the Greek,
till then admittedly the greatest of astronomers. And a similar
ancestry could be traced, we venture to say, for all or the major
part of their scientific errors as far as these may have extended.
_Restrictions Made by the Fathers_.--But if the Fathers were in
{487} general the heirs of the Greeks, they were not guilty of the
mistake of accepting the inheritance in its entirety. To a large
extent they could discern the chaff from the wheat, and were
actually at pains to make the separation. It ought to be known that
the scientific literature of the Grecians is teeming with the
wildest and vainest of speculations regarding all matters within the
scope of astronomical science. Here as elsewhere, the Greeks
speculated endlessly, contradictorily, emptily, and almost
aimlessly. In unfounded speculation they discoursed on all manner of
astronomical subjects, the shape and size and distance of the sun,
its nature and that of the moon and stars, and so on almost
indefinitely, with scarcely any agreement or concomitance of
opinion. There were almost as many diverse opinions as there were
men.
To this motley assemblage of groundless and conflicting theories the
Fathers had full access through the medium of Plutarch, the Greek
compiler. Eusebius, for example, the Father of Church History,
quotes Plutarch on just these topics for over thirty pages. If
Eusebius and the other Fathers grew impatient with all this
ill-assorted mass of _soi-disant_ science, shall we charge them as
Dr. White does with having been false to the interest of science?
Should we not rather maintain that they helped save science from its
enemies?
_Opposition to Science_.--It is only in the light of these
indisputable facts that we can understand the sayings of the Fathers
in which, as quoted by White, they upbraid science for its
inutility. Be it noted in passing that White is wont to quote them
not literally but freely, and apart from their context. Lactantius,
Eusebius, Augustine, and Basil, these are the four whom he selects
as representative. They are truly representative, and indeed any one
of them might stand for all.
Let Eusebius be our particular choice, for he discusses astronomy
more completely than the others. White alleges (_Warfare_, Vol. I,
p. 91) that Eusebius endeavored to bring scientific studies into
contempt, and quotes him as saying, "It is not through ignorance of
the things admired by them [scientific investigators], but through
contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these
matters, turning our souls to better things."
Who would guess from this brief epitome of Eusebius' views that the
latter had devoted to the subject more than thirty pages? Who could
possibly surmise that he had taken pains to write out, under the
guidance of Plutarch, all the known opinions of the Greeks on some
thirty-nine problems, all but two or three of them astronomical? Let
the curious read Eusebius for themselves in the fifteenth book of
his _Praelectio Evangelica_. They will there discover what White
might have well acknowledged, that on not one of the problems are
the Greek philosophers in agreement. On the nature of the sun there
are nine opinions, on its size four, on its shape an equal number,
on the moon's nature seven. And this discrepancy of judgment
continues to the end. Moreover a large proportion of the theories
are of the most fantastic sort.
In the face of this chaotic wilderness of diverse, fluctuating and
contradictory teachings, what could Eusebius do but turn away in
impatience, and take up in their stead the only truth of which he
{488} felt certain, the truth of the Gospel? Such was his actual
procedure. "Does it not seem to you that we have rightly and
deservedly departed from the curiosity of all these men, so idle and
so full of error?" He confesses frankly that he can see no fruit or
utility for man in the teachings he has quoted. And he appeals for
his complete justification to Socrates, the wisest of the Greeks,
who in his day had adopted precisely the same stand. This and no
other is the argument and spirit of Eusebius.
_No Opposition to True Science_.--This was the temper, also, that
actuated the other Fathers named, Lactantius, Basil, and Augustine.
No doubt these men valued spiritual knowledge above material. But it
by no means follows from this that they undervalued Science. They
were scholars of extensive culture, Basil a graduate of Athens,
Augustine of Carthage, and Lactantius styled because of his
proficiency the Christian Cicero. They were well acquainted with the
learning of the Greeks. That they rebelled against the scientific
fantasies of the latter, is not a proof that they were hostile to
the advance of Science itself.
In the Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis expresses a sentiment
quite similar to theirs. "Surely a humble husbandman that serveth
God, is better than a proud philosopher who, neglecting himself, is
occupied in studying the course of the heavens." Like the Fathers, a
Kempis had reason to be disgusted with the astronomy of his time,
for it was beginning to be impregnated again with the virus of
Astrology. By refusing to follow such pseudo-scientific teachings,
both a Kempis and the Fathers did a real if seemingly negative
service to the science of astronomy.
"He was born under a lucky star." Language of this sort, used now
only in pleasantry, recalls a form of superstition which was once
accepted seriously by all men throughout the civilized world. In
many a period, mankind has believed literally that the stars and
planets exercised a real influence in shaping human lives. And there
have been many epochs, ancient, medieval, and even modern, when
astrology, the telling of fortunes by the stars, was given a rank
among the learned professions.
Even now there occur occasional sporadic outbreaks of the same
superstition. Along with other quacks and necromancers, astrologers
are still occasionally in evidence, advertising their trade through
the columns of the press. Indeed it is affirmed by the Catholic
Encyclopedia that the growth of occultistic ideas is reintroducing
astrology into society.