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CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE
[FIRST SERIES]
SKETCHES OF THE LIVES OF CATHOLIC
ECCLESIASTICS WHO WERE AMONG
THE GREAT FOUNDERS IN SCIENCE
By
JAMES J. WALSH, K.ST.G., M.D., PH.D., LITT.D.
_Dean and Professor of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases
at Fordham University School of Medicine; Professor
of Physiological Psychology in the Cathedral College, New York;
Member of A.M.A., N.Y. State Med. Soc.,
A.A.A.S., Life Mem of N.Y. Historical Society._
SECOND EDITION
PHILADELPHIA
American Ecclesiastical Review
The Dolphin Press
MCMX.
COPYRIGHT. 1906, 1910
American Ecclesiastical Review
The Dolphin Press
"A sorrow's crown of sorrow."
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO THE
MEMORY OF MY MOTHER
{vii}
PREFACE.
The following sketches of the lives of clergymen who were great
scientists have appeared at various times during the past five years
in Catholic magazines. They were written because the materials for
them had gradually accumulated during the preparation of various
courses of lectures, and it seemed advisable to put them in order in
such a way that they might be helpful to others working along similar
lines. They all range themselves naturally around the central idea
that the submission of the human reason to Christian belief, and of
the mind and heart to the authority of the Church, is quite compatible
with original thinking of the highest order, and with that absolute
freedom of investigation into physical science, which has only too
often been said to be quite impossible to churchmen. For this reason
friends have suggested that they should be published together in a
form in which they would be more easy of consultation than when
scattered in different periodicals. It was urged, too, that they would
thus also be more effective for the cause which they uphold. This
friendly suggestion has been yielded to, whether justifiably or not
the reader must decide for himself. There is so great a flood of
books, good, bad, and indifferent, ascribing their existence to the
advice of well-meaning friends, that we poor authors are evidently not
in a position to judge for ourselves of the merit of our works or of
the possible interest they may arouse.
{viii}
I have to thank the editors of the _American Catholic Quarterly
Review_, of the _Ave Maria_, and of _The Ecclesiastical Review_ and
_The Dolphin_, for their kind permission to republish the articles
which appeared originally in their pages. All of them, though
substantially remaining the same, have been revised, modified in a
number of particulars, and added to very considerably in most cases.
The call for a second edition--the third thousand--of this little
book is gratifying. Its sale encouraged the preparation of a Second
Series of CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE, and now the continued demand
suggests a Third Series, which will be issued during the year. Some
minor corrections have been made in this edition, but the book is
substantially the same.
{ix}
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE ix
I. THE SUPPOSED OPPOSITION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION 3
II. COPERNICUS AND HIS TIMES 15
III. BASIL VALENTINE. FOUNDER OF MODERN CHEMISTRY 45
IV. LINACRE: SCHOLAR, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST 79
V. FATHER KIRCHER, S.J. SCIENTIST, ORIENTALIST, AND COLLECTOR 111
VI. BISHOP STENSEN: ANATOMIST AND FATHER OF GEOLOGY 137
VII. ABBE HAUeY: FATHER OF CRYSTALLOGRAPHY 169
VIII. ABBOT MENDEL: A NEW OUTLOOK IN HEREDITY 195
{x}
{1}
I.
THE SUPPOSED OPPOSITION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION.
{2}
{3}
I.
THE SUPPOSED OPPOSITION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION.
A common impression prevails that there is serious, if not invincible,
opposition between science and religion. This persuasion has been
minimized to a great degree in recent years, and yet sufficient of it
remains to make a great many people think that, if there is not entire
incompatibility between science and religion, there is at least such a
diversity of purposes and aims in these two great realms of human
thought that those who cultivate one field are not able to appreciate
the labors of those who occupy themselves in the other. Indeed, it is
usually accepted as a truth that to follow science with assiduity is
practically sure to lead to unorthodoxy in religion. This is supposed
to be especially true if the acquisition of scientific knowledge is
pursued along lines that involve original research and new
investigation. Somehow, it is thought that any one who has a mind free
enough from the influence of prejudice and tradition to become an
original thinker or investigator, is inevitably prone to abandon the
old orthodox lines of thought in respect to religion.
Like a good many other convictions and persuasions that exist more or
less as {4} commonplaces in the subconscious intellects of a great
many people, this is not true. Our American humorist said that it is
not so much the ignorance of mankind that makes him ridiculous as the
knowing so many things "that ain't so." The supposed opposition
between science and religion is precisely an apposite type of one of
the things "that ain't so." It is so firmly fixed as a rule, however,
that many people have accepted it without being quite conscious of the
fact that it exists as one of the elements influencing many of their
judgments--a very important factor in their apperception.
Now, it so happens that a number of prominent original investigators
in modern science were not only thoroughly orthodox in their religious
beliefs, but were even faithful clergymen and guiding spirits for
others in the path of Christianity. The names of those who are
included in the present volume is the best proof of this. The series
of sketches was written at various times, and yet there was a central
thought guiding the selection of the various scientific workers. Most
of them lived at about the time when, according to an unfortunate
tradition that has been very generally accepted, the Church dominated
human thinking so tyrannously as practically to preclude all notion of
original investigation in any line of thought, but especially in
matters relating to physical science. Most of the men whose lives are
sketched lived during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and first half of the
{5} seventeenth centuries. All of them were Catholic clergymen of high
standing, and none of them suffered anything like persecution for his
opinions; all remained faithful adherents of the Church through long
lives.
It is hoped that this volume, without being in any sense
controversial, may tend to throw light on many points that have been
the subject of controversy; and by showing how absolutely free these
great clergymen-scientists were to pursue their investigations in
science, it may serve to demonstrate how utterly unfounded is the
prejudice that would declare that the ecclesiastical authorities of
these particular centuries were united in their opposition to
scientific advance.
There is no doubt that at times men have been the subject of
persecution because of scientific opinions. In all of these cases,
without exception, however--and this is particularly true of such men
as Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and Michael Servetus--a little
investigation of the personal character of the individuals involved in
these persecutions will show the victims to have been of that
especially irritating class of individuals who so constantly awaken
opposition to whatever opinions they may hold by upholding them
overstrenuously and inopportunely. They were the kind of men who could
say nothing without, to some extent at least, arousing the resentment
of those around them who still clung to older ideas. We all know this
class of individual very well. {6} In these gentler modern times we
may even bewail the fact that there is no such expeditious method of
disposing of him as in the olden time. This is not a defence of what
was done in their regard, but is a word of explanation that shows how
human were the motives at work and how unecclesiastical the
procedures, even though church institutions, Protestant and Catholic
alike, were used by the offended parties to rid them of obnoxious
argumentators.
In this matter it must not be forgotten that persecution has been the
very common associate of noteworthy advances in science, quite apart
from any question of the relations between science and religion. There
has scarcely been a single important advance in the history of applied
science especially, that has not brought down upon the devoted head of
the discoverer, for a time at least, the ill-will of his own
generation. Take the case of medicine, for instance. Vesalius was
persecuted, but not by the ecclesiastical authorities. The bitter
opposition to him and to his work came from his colleagues in
medicine, who thought that he was departing from the teaching of
Galen, and considered that a cardinal medical heresy not to be
forgiven. Harvey, the famous discoverer of the circulation of the
blood, lost much of his lucrative medical practice after the
publication of his discovery, because his medical contemporaries
thought the notion of the heart pumping blood through the arteries to
be so foolish that they refused to {7} admit that it could come from a
man of common sense, much less from a scientific physician. Nor need
it be thought that this spirit of opposition to novelty existed only
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Almost in our own time
Semmelweis, who first taught the necessity for extreme cleanliness in
obstetrical work, met with so much opposition in the introduction of
the precautions he considered necessary that he was finally driven
insane. His methods reduced the mortality in the great lying-in
hospitals of Europe from nearly ten per cent for such cases down to
less than one per cent, thus saving many thousands of lives every
year.
Despite this very natural tendency to decry the value of new
discoveries in science and the opposition they aroused, it will be
found that the lives of these clergymen scientists show us that they
met with much more sympathy in their work than was usually accorded to
original investigators in science in other paths in life. This is so
different from the ordinary impression in the matter that it seems
worth while calling it to particular attention. While we have selected
lives of certain of the great leaders in science, we would not wish it
to be understood that these are the only ones among the clergymen of
the last four centuries who deserve an honorable place high up in the
roll of successful scientific investigators. Only those are taken who
illustrate activity in sciences that are supposed to have been
especially forbidden to clergymen. It {8} has been said over and over
again, for instance, that there was distinct ecclesiastical opposition
to the study of chemistry. Indeed, many writers have not hesitated to
say that there was a bull, or at least a decree, issued by one or more
of the popes forbidding the study of chemistry. This, is not only not
true, but the very pope who is said to have issued the decree, John
XXII, was himself an ardent student of the medical sciences. We still
possess several books from him on these subjects, and his decree was
meant only to suppress pseudo-science, which, as always, was
exploiting the people for its own ends. The fact that a century later
the foundation of modern chemical pharmacology was laid by a
Benedictine monk, Basil Valentine, shows how unfounded is the idea
that the papal decree actually hampered in any way the development of
chemical investigation or the advance of chemical science.
Owing to the Galileo controversy, astronomy is ordinarily supposed to
have been another of the sciences to which it was extremely indiscreet
at least, not to say dangerous, for a clergyman to devote himself. The
great founder of modern astronomy, however, Copernicus, was not only a
clergyman, but one indeed so faithful and ardent that it is said to
have been owing to his efforts that the diocese in which he lived did
not go over to Lutheranism during his lifetime, as did most of the
other dioceses in that part of Germany. The fact that Copernicus's
book was involved in the Galileo trial has rendered his {9} position
still further misunderstood, but the matter is fully cleared up in the
subsequent sketch of his life. As a matter of fact, it is in astronomy
particularly that clergymen have always been in the forefront of
advance; and it must not be forgotten that it was the Catholic Church
that secured the scientific data necessary for the correction of the
Julian Calendar, and that it was a pope who proclaimed the
advisability of the correction to the world. Down to our own day there
have always been very prominent clergymen astronomers. One of the best
known names in the history of the astronomy of the nineteenth century
is that of Father Piazzi, to whom we owe the discovery of the first of
the asteroids. Other well-known names, such as Father Secchi, who was
the head of the papal observatory at Rome, and Father Perry, the
English Jesuit, might well be mentioned. The papal observatory at Rome
has for centuries been doing some of the best work in astronomy
accomplished anywhere, although it has always been limited in its
means, has had inadequate resources to draw on, and has succeeded in
accomplishing what it has done only because of the generous devotion
of those attached to it.
To go back to the Galileo controversy for a moment, there seems no
better answer to the assertion that his trial shows clearly the
opposition between religion, or at least ecclesiastical authorities,
and science, than to recall, as we have done, in writing the
accompanying sketch of the {10} life of Father Kircher, S.J., that
just after the trial Roman ecclesiastics very generally were ready to
encourage liberally a man who devoted himself to all forms of physical
science, who was an original thinker in many of them, who was a great
teacher, whose writings did more to disseminate knowledge of advances
in science than those of any man of his time, and whose idea of the
collection of scientific curiosities into a great museum at Rome
(which still bears his name) was one of the fertile germinal
suggestions in which modern science was to find seeds for future
growth.
It is often asserted that geology was one of the sciences that was
distinctly opposed by churchmen; yet we shall see that the father of
modern geology, one of the greatest anatomists of his time, was not
only a convert to Catholicity, but became a clergyman about the time
he was writing the little book that laid the foundation of modern
geology. We shall see, too, that, far from religion and science
clashing in him, he afterwards was made a bishop, in the hope that he
should be able to go back to his native land and induce others to
become members of that Church wherein he had found peace and
happiness.
In the modern times biology has been supposed to be the special
subject of opposition, or at least fear, on the part of ecclesiastical
authorities. It is for this reason that the life of Abbot Mendel has
been introduced. While working in {11} his monastery garden in the
little town of Bruenn in Moravia, this Augustinian monk discovered
certain precious laws of heredity that are considered by progressive
twentieth-century scientists to be the most important contributions to
the difficult problems relating to inheritance in biology that have
been made.
These constitute the reasons for this little book on Catholic
clergymen scientists. It is published, not with any ulterior motives,
but simply to impress certain details of truth in the history of
science that have been neglected in recent years and, by presenting
sympathetic lives of great clergymen scientists, to show that not only
is there no essential opposition between science and religion, but on
the contrary that the quiet peace of the cloister and of a religious
life have often contributed not a little to that precious placidity of
mind which seems to be so necessary for the discovery of great, new
scientific truths.
{12}
II.
COPERNICUS AND HIS TIMES.
{13}
All the vast and most progressive systems that human wisdom has
brought forth as substitutes for religion, have never succeeded in
interesting any but the learned, the ambitious, or at most the
prosperous and happy. But the great majority of mankind can never come
under these categories. The great majority of men are suffering, and
suffering from moral as well as physical evils. Man's first bread is
grief, and his first want is consolation. Now which of these systems
has ever consoled an afflicted heart, or repeopled a lonely one? Which
of these teachers has ever shown men how to wipe away a tear?
Christianity alone has from the beginning promised to console man in
the sorrows incidental to life by purifying the inclinations of his
heart, and she alone has kept her promise.--MONTALEMBERT,
Introduction to _Life of St. Elizabeth_.
{14}
[Illustration: NICOLAO COPERNICO]
{15}
II.
COPERNICUS AND HIS TIMES.
The association of the name of Copernicus with that of Galileo has
always cast an air of unorthodoxy about the great astronomer. The
condemnation of certain propositions in his work on astronomy in which
Copernicus first set forth the idea of the universe as we know it at
present, in contradistinction to the old Ptolemaic system of
astronomy, would seem to emphasize this suspicion of unorthodox
thinking. He is rightly looked upon as one of the great pioneers of
our modern physical science, and, as it is generally supposed that
scientific tendencies lead away from religion, there are doubtless
many who look upon Copernicus as naturally one of the leaders in this
rationalistic movement. It is forgotten that scarcely any of the great
original thinkers have escaped the stigma of having certain
propositions in some of their books condemned, and that this indeed is
only an index of the fallibility of the human mind and of the need
there is for some authoritative teacher. The sentences in Copernicus's
book requiring correction were but few, and were rather matters of
terminology than of actual perversion of accepted teaching. It was as
such that their modification was suggested. In spite of this, the {16}
impression remains that Copernicus must be considered as a
rationalizing scientist, the first in a long roll of original
scientific investigators whose work has made the edifice of
Christianity totter by removing many of the foundation-stones of its
traditional authority.
It is rather surprising, in view of this common impression with regard
to Copernicus, to find him, according to recent biographers, a
faithful clergyman in honor with his ecclesiastical superiors, a
distinguished physician whose chief patients were clerical friends of
prominent position and the great noblemen of his day, who not only
retained all his faith and reverence for the Church, but seems to have
been especially religious, a devoted adherent of the Blessed Virgin
Mother of God, and the author of a series of poems in her honor that
constitute a distinct contribution to the literature of his time.
All this should not be astonishing, however; for in the list of the
churchmen of the half century just before the great religious revolt
in Germany are to be found some of the best known names in the history
of the intellectual development of the race. This statement is so
contrary to the usual impression that obtains in regard to the
character of that period as to be a distinct source of surprise to the
ordinary reader of history who has the realization of its truth thrust
upon him for the first time. Just before the so-called Reformation,
the clergy are considered to have been so sunk in ignorance, or at
least to {17} have been so indifferent to intellectual pursuits and so
cramped in mind as regards progress, or so timorous because of
inquisition methods, that no great advances in thought, and especially
none in science, could possibly be looked for from them. To find,
then, that not only were faithful churchmen leaders in thought,
discoverers in science, organizers in education, initiators of new
progress, teachers of the New Learning, but that they were also
typical representatives and yet prudent directors of the advancing
spirit of that truly wonderful time, is apt to make us think that
surely--as the Count de Maistre said one hundred years ago, and the
Cambridge Modern History repeats at the beginning of the twentieth
century when treating of this very period--"history has been a
conspiracy against the truth."
Not quite fifty years before Luther's movement of protest began--that
is, in 1471--there passed away in a little town in the Rhineland a man
who has been a greater spiritual force than perhaps any other single
man that has ever existed. This was Thomas a Kempis, a product of the
schools of the Brethren of the Common Life, a teaching order that
during these fifty years before the Protestant Revolution had over ten
thousand pupils in its schools in the Rhineland and the Netherlands
alone. As among these pupils there occur such names as Erasmus,
Nicholas of Cusa, Agricola, not to mention many less illustrious, some
idea of this old teaching institution, that has been very aptly
compared to our {18} modern Brothers of the Christian Schools, can be
realized.
Kempis was a worthy initiator of a great half century. He had among
his contemporaries, or followers in the next generation, such men as
Grocyn, Dean Colet, and Linacre in England, Cardinal Ximenes in Spain,
and Copernicus in Germany. Considering the usual impression in this
matter as regards the lack of interest at Rome in serious study, it is
curiously interesting to realize how closely these great scholars and
thinkers were in touch with the famous popes of the Renaissance
period. The second half of the sixteenth century saw the elevation to
the papacy of some of the most learned and worthy men that have ever
occupied the Chair of Peter. In 1447 Nicholas V became pope, and
during his eight years of pontificate initiated a movement of sympathy
with modern art and letters that was never to be extinguished. To him
more than to any other may be attributed the foundation of the Vatican
Library. To him also is attributed the famous expression that "no art
can be too lofty for the service of the Church." He was succeeded by
Calixtus III, a patron of learning, who was followed by Pius II, the
famous AEneas Sylvius, one of the greatest scholars and most learned
men of his day, who had done more for the spread of culture and of
education in the various parts of Europe than perhaps any other alive
at the time.
The next Pope, Paul II, accomplished much {19} during a period of
great danger by arousing the Christian opposition to the Saracens. His
encouragement and material aid to the Hungarians, who were making a
bold stand against the Oriental invaders, merit for him a place in the
role of defenders of civilization. To him is due the introduction of
the recently discovered art of printing and its installation on a
sumptuous scale worthy of the center of Christian culture. His
successor, Sixtus IV, deserves the title of the founder of modern
Rome. Bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, libraries, churches--all
owe to his fostering care their restoration and renewed foundation. He
made it the purpose of his life to attract distinguished humanistic
scholars to his capital, and Rome became the metropolis of culture and
learning as well as the mother city of Christendom.
Under such popes it is no wonder that Rome and the cities of Italy
generally became the homes of art and culture, centers of the new
humanistic learning and the shelters of the scholars of the outer
world. The Italian universities entered on a period of intellectual
and educational development as glorious almost as the art movement
that characterized the time. As this was marked by the work of such
men as that universal genius Leonardo da Vinci, of Michael Angelo,
poet, painter, sculptor, architect; of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio,
whose contemporaries were worthy of them in every way, some idea can
be attained of the wonderful era that developed. No {20} wonder
scholars in every department of learning flocked to Italy for
inspiration and the enthusiasm bred of scholarly fellowship in such an
environment. From England came men like Linacre, Selling, Grocyn, and
Dean Colet; Erasmus came from the Netherlands, and Copernicus from
Poland. Copernicus there obtained that scientific training which was
later to prove so fruitful in his practical work as a physician and in
his scientific work as the founder of modern astronomy.
It may be as well to say at the beginning that even Copernicus was not
the first to suggest that the earth moved, and not the sun; and that,
curiously enough, his anticipator was another churchman, Nicholas of
Cusa, the famous Bishop of Brixen. Readers of Janssen's _History of
the German People_ will remember that the distinguished historian
introduces his monumental work by a short sketch of the career of
Cusanus, as he is called, who may be well taken as the typical
pre-Reformation scholar and clergyman. Cusa wrote in a
manuscript--which is still preserved in the hospital of Cues, or
Cusa--published for the first time by Professor Clemens in 1847: "I
have long considered that this earth can not be fixed, but moves as do
the other stars--_sed movetur ut aliae stellae_." What a curious
commentary these words, written more than half a century before
Galileo was born, form on the famous expression so often quoted
because supposed to have been drawn from Galileo by the condemnation
of his doctrine at Rome: {21} _E pur se muove_--"and yet it moves!"
Cusanus was a Cardinal, the personal friend of three popes, and he
seems to have had no hesitation in expressing his opinion in the
matter. In the same manuscript the Cardinal adds: "And to my mind the
earth revolves upon its axis once in a day and a night." Cusanus was,
moreover, one of the most independent thinkers that the world has ever
seen, yet he was intrusted by the pope about the middle of the
fifteenth century with the reformation of abuses in the Church in
Germany. The pope seems to have been glad to be able to secure a man
of such straightforward ways for his reformatory designs.
The ideas of Nicholas of Cusa with regard to knowledge and the liberty
of judgment in things not matters of faith can be very well
appreciated from some of his expressions. "To know and to think," he
says in one passage, "to see the truth with the eye of the mind is
always a joy. The older a man grows, the greater is the pleasure it
affords him; and the more he devotes himself to the search after
truth, the stronger grows his desire of possessing it. As love is the
life of the heart, so is the endeavor after knowledge and truth the
life of the mind. In the midst of the movements of time, of the daily
work of life, of its perplexities and contradictions, we should lift
our gaze fearlessly to the clear vault of heaven and seek ever to
obtain a firmer grasp of, and keener insight into, the origin of all
goodness and duty, the capacities of our own hearts and minds, {22}
the intellectual fruits of mankind throughout the centuries, and the
wondrous works of nature around us; but ever remembering that in
humility alone lies true greatness, and that knowledge and wisdom are
alone profitable in so far as our lives are governed by them."
[Footnote 1] It is no wonder, then, that the time was ripe for
Copernicus and his great work in astronomy, nor that that work should
be accomplished while he was a canon of a cathedral and for a time the
vicar-general of a diocese.
It is now nearly five years since Father Adolph Muller, S.J.,
professor of Astronomy in the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome,
and director of a private observatory on the Janiculum in that city,
wrote his historical scientific study [Footnote 2] of the great
founder of modern astronomy. The book has been reviewed, criticized
and discussed very thoroughly since then, and has been translated into
several languages. The latest translation was into Italian, the work
of Father Pietro Mezzetti, S.J., [Footnote 3] and was published in
Rome at the end of 1902--having had the benefit {23} of the author's
revision. The historical details, then, of Copernicus's life may be
considered to have been cast into definite shape, and his career may
be appreciated with confidence as to the absolute accuracy and
essential significance of all its features.
[Footnote 1: _History of the German People at the Close of the
Middle Ages_. By Johannes Janssen Translated from the German by M A
Mitchell and A M Christie. Vol I, p. 3.]
[Footnote 2: _Nikolaus Kopernicus, Der Altmeister der neueren
Astronomie, Ein Lebens und Kultur Bild_. Von Adolf Muller, S.J.]
[Footnote 3: Professor of Astronomy and Physics at the Pontifical
Leonine College of Anagni]
Nicholas Copernicus--to give him the Latin and more usual form of his
name--was the youngest of four children of Niclas Copernigk, who
removed from Cracow in Poland to Thorn in East Prussia (though then a
city of Poland), where he married Barbara Watzelrode, a daughter of
one of the oldest and wealthiest families of the province. His
mother's brother, after having been a canon for many years in the
cathedral of Frauenburg, was elected Bishop of the Province of
Ermland. The future astronomer was born in 1473, at a time when Thorn,
after having been for over two hundred years under the rule of the
Teutonic Knights, had for some seven years been under the dominion of
the King of Poland. There were two boys and two girls in the family;
and their fervent Catholicity can be judged from the fact that all of
them, parents and children, were inscribed among the members of the
Third Order of St. Dominic. Barbara, the older sister, became a
religious in the Cistercian Convent of Kulm, of which her aunt
Catherine was abbess, and of which later on she herself became abbess.
Andrew, the oldest son, became a priest; and Nicholas, the subject of
this sketch, at least assumed, as we shall see, all the {24}
obligations of the ecclesiastical life, though it is not certain that
he received the major religious orders.
Copernicus's collegiate education was obtained at the University of
Cracow, at that time one of the most important seats of learning in
Europe. The five-hundredth anniversary of the founding of this
University was celebrated with great pomp only a few years ago. Its
origin, however, dates back to the times of Casimir the Great, at the
end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. Its
foundation was due to the same spirit of enthusiastic devotion to
letters that gave us all the other great universities of the
thirteenth century. The original institution was so much improved by
Jagello, King of Poland, at the beginning of the fifteenth century,
that it bears his name and is known as the Jagellonian University. It
was very natural for Copernicus to go back to his father's native city
for his education; but his ambitious spirit was not content with the
opportunities afforded there. He does not seem to have taken his
academic degrees, and the tradition that he received his doctorate in
medicine at the University of Cracow cannot be substantiated by any
documentary evidence.
At Cracow, Copernicus devoted himself mainly to classical studies,
though his interest in astronomy seems to have been awakened there. In
fact, it is said that his desire to be able to read Ptolemy's
astronomy in the original Greek, and {25} to obtain a good copy of it,
led him to look to Italy for his further education. During his years
at Cracow, however, he seems to have made numerous observations in
astronomy, as most of the astronomical data in his books are found
reduced to the meridian of Cracow. The observatory of Frauenburg, at
which his work in astronomy in later life was carried on, was on the
same meridian; so that it is difficult to say, as have some of his
biographers, that, since Cracow was the capital of his native country,
motives of patriotism influenced him to continue his observations
according to this same meridian. Copernicus was anxious, no doubt, to
come in contact with some of the great astronomers at the universities
of Italy, whom he knew by reputation and whose work was attracting
attention all over Europe at that time.
How faithfully Copernicus applied himself to his classical studies can
be best appreciated from some Latin poems written by him during his
student days. These poems are an index, too, of the personal character
of the man, and give some interesting hints of the religious side of
his character. Altogether there are seven Latin odes, each ode
composed of seven strophes. The seven odes are united by a certain
community of interest or succession of subjects. All of them refer to
the history of the Redeemer either in types or in reality. In the
first one the prophets prefigure the appearance of the Saviour; in the
second the patriarchs sigh for His coming; the {26} third depicts the
scene of the Nativity in the Cave of Bethlehem; the fourth is
concerned with the Circumcision and the imposition of the Name chosen
by the Holy Ghost; the fifth treats of the Star and the Magi and their
guidance to the Manger; the sixth concerns the presentation in the
Temple; and the seventh, the scene in which Jesus at the age of twelve
disputes with the doctors in the Temple at Jerusalem.
Copernicus's recent biographers have called attention particularly to
the poetical beauties with which he surrounds every mention of the
Blessed Virgin and her qualities. As is evident even from our brief
resume of the subjects of the odes, the themes selected are just those
in which the special devotion of the writer to the Mother of the
Saviour could be very well brought out. There are, besides, a number
of astronomical allusions which stamp the poems as the work of
Copernicus, and which have been sufficient to defend their
authenticity against the attacks made by certain critics, who tried to
point out how different was the style from that of Copernicus's later
years in his scientific writings. The tradition of authorship is,
however, too well established on other grounds to be disturbed by
criticism of this sort. The poems were dedicated to the Pope. In
writing poetry Copernicus was only doing what Tycho Brahe and Kepler,
his great successors in astronomy, did after him; and the argument
with regard to the difference of style in the two kinds of writings
would hold also as regards these authors.
{27}
Copernicus's years as a boy and man--that is, up to the age of
thirty-five--corresponded with a time of great intellectual activity
in Europe. This fact is not as generally recognized as it should be,
for intellectual activity is supposed to have awakened after the
so-called Reformation. During the years from 1472 to 1506, however,
there were founded in Germany alone no less than six universities:
those of Ingolstadt, Treves, Tubingen, Mentz, Wittenberg, and
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. These were not by any means the first great
institutions of learning that arose in Germany. The universities of
Prague and Vienna were more than a century old, and, with Heidelberg,
Cologne, Erfurt, Leipsic, and Rostock, besides Greifswald and
Freiburg, founded about the middle of the fifteenth century, had
reached a high state of development, and contained larger numbers of
students, with few exceptions, than these same institutions have ever
had down to our own day. In most cases their charters were derived
from the pope; and most of the universities were actually recognized
as ecclesiastical institutions, in the sense that their officials held
ecclesiastical authority.
At this time--the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth century--it was not unusual for students, in their
enthusiasm for learning, to attempt to exhaust nearly the whole round
of university studies. Medicine seems to have been a favorite subject
with scholars who were widely interested in knowledge for its own {28}
sake. Almost at the same time that Copernicus was studying in Italy,
the distinguished English Greek scholar, Linacre, was also engaged in
what would now be called post-graduate work at various Italian
universities, and in the household of Lorenzo the Magnificent at
Florence, with whose son--so much did Lorenzo think of him--he was
allowed to study Greek. Linacre (as will be seen more at length in the
sketch of his life in this volume), besides being the greatest Greek
scholar of his time, the friend later of More and Colet and Erasmus in
London, was also the greatest physician in England.
To those familiar with the times, it may be a source of surprise to
think of Copernicus, interested as we know him to have been in
literature and devoted so cordially to astronomy, yet taking up
medicine as a profession. He seems, however, to have been led to do so
by his distinguished teacher, Novara, who realized the talent of his
Polish pupil for mathematics and astronomy and yet felt that he should
have some profession in life. A century ago Coleridge, the English
writer, said that a literary man should have some other occupation.
Oliver Wendell Holmes improved upon this by adding: "And, as far as
possible, he should confine himself to the other occupation." Novara
seems to have realized that Copernicus might be under the necessity of
knowing how to do something else besides making astronomical
observations, in order to gain his living; and as medicine was {29}
satisfyingly scientific, the old teacher suggested his taking it up as
a profession. Copernicus made his medical studies in Ferrara and
Padua, and obtained his doctorate with honors from Ferrara.
Copernicus seems to have taken up the practice of his profession
seriously, and to have persevered in it to the end of his life. His
biographers say that in the exercise of his professional duties he was
animated by the spirit of a person who had devoted himself to the
ecclesiastical life. While he did not publicly practise his
profession, he was ever ready to assist the poor; and he also acquired
great reputation in the surrounding country for his medical attendance
upon clerics of all ranks. This continued to be the case,
notwithstanding the fact that after the death of his uncle his mother
inherited considerable wealth, and the family circumstances changed so
much that he might well have given up any labors that were meant only
to add to his income. In a word, he seems to have had a sincere
interest in his professional work, and to have continued its exercise
because of the opportunities it afforded for the satisfaction of a
mind devoted to scientific research.
Copernicus acquired considerable reputation by his medical services.
His friend Giese speaks of him as a very skilful physician, and even
calls him a second AEsculapius. Maurice Ferber, who became Bishop of
Ermland in 1523, suffered from a severe chronic illness that began
about 1529. He obtained permission from the canons {30} of the
cathedral to have Doctor Copernicus, whose ability and zeal he never
ceased to praise, to come from the cathedral town where he ordinarily
resided to Heilsburg, in order to have him near him. Bishop Ferber's
successor, Dantisco, also secured Copernicus's aid in a severe
illness, and declared that his restoration to health was mainly due to
the efforts of his learned physician. Giese was so confident of the
Doctor's skill that when he became Bishop of Kulm and on one of his
episcopal visitations fell ill at a considerable distance from
Copernicus's place of residence, he insisted on having the astronomer
doctor brought to take care of him.
In 1541 Duke Albert of Prussia became very much worried over the
illness of one of his most trusted counsellors. In his distress he had
recourse to Copernicus, and his letter asking the Canon of the
Cathedral of Frauenburg to come to attend the patient is still extant.
He says that the cure of the illness is "very much at his heart"; and,
as every other means has failed, he hopes Copernicus will do what he
can for the assistance of his faithful and valued counsellor.
Copernicus yielded to the request, and the counsellor began to improve
shortly after his arrival. At the end of some weeks the Duke wrote
again to the canons of the cathedral asking that the leave of absence
granted to Copernicus should be extended in order to enable him to
complete the cure which had been so happily begun. In this second
letter the Duke talks of Copernicus as a {31} most skilful and learned
physician. At the end of the month there is a third letter from the
Duke, in which he thanks all the canons of the cathedral for their
goodness in having granted the desired permission, and he adds that he
shall ever feel under obligations "for the assistance rendered by that
very worthy and excellent physician, Nicholas Copernicus, a doctor who
is deserving of all honor." Not long afterward, when Copernicus's book
on astronomy was published, a copy of it was sent to the Duke, and he
replied that he was deeply grateful for it, and that he should always
preserve it as a souvenir of the most learned and gentlest of men.
There are a number of notes on the art of medicine made by Copernicus
in the books of the cathedral library at Frauenburg. They serve to
show how faithful a student he was, and to a certain extent give an
idea of the independent habit of mind which he brought to the
investigation of medicine as well as to the study of astronomy.
Unfortunately, these have not as yet found an editor; but it is to be
hoped that we shall soon know more of the medical thinking of a man
over whose mind tradition, in the unworthier sense of that word,
exercised so little influence.
In 1530 Copernicus wrote a short prelude to the longer work on
astronomy which he was to publish later. The propositions contained in
this work show how far he had advanced on the road to his ultimate
discovery. After a few words of introduction, the following seven
axioms are laid down:--
{32}
1. The celestial spheres and their orbits have not a single center.
2. The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only
the center of gravity and of the moon's orbit.
3. The planes of the orbits lie around the sun, which may be
considered as the center of the universe.
4. The distance from the earth to the sun compared with that from the
earth to the fixed stars is extremely small.
5. The daily motion of the heavenly sphere is apparent that is, it is
an effect of the rotary motion of the earth upon it axis.
6. The apparent motions of the moon and of the sun are so different
because of the effect produced by the motion of the earth.
7. The movements of the earth account for the apparent retrograde
motion and other irregularities of the movements of the planets. It is
enough to assume that the earth alone moves, in order to explain all
the other movements observed in the heavens.
It is no wonder that one of his bishop-friends, Frisio, writing to
another bishop-friend, Dantisco, said: "If Copernicus succeeds in
demonstrating the truth of his thesis--and we may well consider that
he will from this prelude--he will give us a new heaven and a new
earth." This shorter exposition of Copernicus's views was found in
manuscript in the imperial library in Vienna only about a quarter of a
century ago. {33} It is mentioned by Tycho Brahe in one of his works
on astronomy in which he reviews the various contemporary advances
made in the knowledge of the heavens.
The publication of Copernicus's great work, "De Revolutionibus Orbium
Celestium," was delayed until he was advanced in years, because his
astronomical opinions were constantly progressing; and, with the
patience of true genius, he was not satisfied with anything less than
the perfect expression of truth as he saw it. It has sometimes been
said that it was delayed because Copernicus feared the storm of
religious persecution which he foresaw it would surely arouse. How
utterly without foundation is this pretence, which has unfortunately
crept into serious history, can be seen from the fact that Pope Paul
III accepted the dedication of the work; and of the twelve popes who
immediately followed Paul not one even thought of proceeding against
Copernicus's work. His teaching was never questioned by any of the
Roman Congregations for nearly one hundred years after his death.
Galileo's injudicious insistence in his presentation of Copernicus's
doctrine, on the novelties of opinion that controverted
long-established beliefs, was then responsible for the condemnation by
the Congregation of the Index; and, as we shall see, this was not
absolute, but only required that certain passages should be corrected.
The corrections demanded were unimportant as regards the actual
science, and {34} merely insisted that Copernicus's teaching was
hypothesis and not yet actual demonstration.
It must not be forgotten, after all, that the reasons advanced by
Copernicus for his idea of the movements of the planets were not
supported by any absolute demonstration, but only by reasons from
analogy. Nearly a hundred years later than his time, even after the
first discoveries had been made by the newly constructed telescopes,
in Galileo's day, there was no absolute proof of the true system of
the heavens. The famous Jesuit astronomer, Father Secchi, says the
reasons adduced by Galileo were no real proofs: they were only certain
analogies, and by no means excluded the possibility of the contrary
propositions with regard to the movements of the heavens being true.
"None of the real proofs for the earth's rotation upon its axis were
known at the time of Galileo, nor were there direct conclusive
arguments for the earth's moving around the sun." Even Galileo himself
confessed that he had not any strict demonstration of his views, such
as Cardinal Bellarmine requested. He wrote to the Cardinal, "The
system seems to be true;" and he gave as a reason that it corresponded
to the phenomena.
According to the astronomers of the time, however, the old Ptolemaic
system, in the shape in which it was explained by the Danish
astronomer Tycho Brahe, who was acknowledged as the greatest of
European astronomers, appeared to give quite a satisfactory
explanation of the {35} phenomena observed. The English philosopher,
Lord Bacon, more than a decade after Galileo's announcement,
considered that there were certain phenomena in nature contrary to the
Copernican theory, and so he rejected it altogether. This was within a
few years of the condemnation by the Congregation at Rome. As pointed
out by Father Heinzle, S.J., in his article on Galileo in the
"Catholic World" for 1887, "science was so far from determining the
question of the truth or falsity of either the Ptolemaic or the
Copernican system that shortly before 1633, the year of Galileo's
condemnation, a number of savants, such as Fromond in Louvain, Morin
in Paris, Berigard in Pisa, Bartolinus in Copenhagen, and Scheiner in
Rome, wrote against Copernicanism."