lived--it is very important to note the date--1523-1562; a Catholic and
a churchman. Now it is gravely asserted that Fallopius committed
himself to misleading views, views which he knew to be misleading,
because he thought that he was thereby serving the interest of the
Church. What he said concerned fossils, then beginning to puzzle the
scientific world of the day. Confronted with these objects and living,
as he did, in an unscientific age, when the seven days of creation were
interpreted as periods of twenty-four hours each and the universality of
the Noachian deluge was accepted by everybody, it would have been
something like a miracle if he had at once fathomed the true meaning of
the shark's teeth, elephant's bones, and other fossil remains which came
under his notice. His idea was that all these things were mere
concretions "generated by fermentation in the spots where they were
found," as he very quaintly and even absurdly put it. The accusation,
however, is not that Fallopius made a mistake--as many another man has
done--but that he deliberately expressed an opinion which he did not
hold and did so from religious motives. Of course, this includes the
idea that he knew what the real explanation was, for had he not known
it, he could not have been guilty of making a false statement. There is
no evidence whatever that Fallopius ever had so much as a suspicion of
the real explanation, nor, it may be added, had any other man of science
for the century which followed his death.
Then there arose another Catholic churchman, Nicolaus Stensen
(1631-1686), who, by the way, ended his days as a bishop, who did solve
the riddle, giving the answer which we accept to-day as correct, and on
whom was conferred by his brethren two hundred years later the title of
"The Father of Geology." It is a little difficult to understand how the
"unchanging Church" should have welcomed, or at least in no way objected
to, Stensen's views when the mere entertainment of them by Fallopius is
supposed to have terrified him into silence. But when the story of
Fallopius is mistold, as indicated above, it need hardly be said that
the story of Stensen is never so much as alluded to.
The real facts of the case are these: Fallopius was one of the most
distinguished men of science of his day. Every medical student becomes
acquainted with his name because it is attached to two parts of the
human body which he first described. He made a mistake about fossils,
and that is the plain truth--as we now know, a most absurd mistake, but
that is all. As we hinted above, he is very far from being the only
scientific man who has made a mistake. Huxley had a very bad fall over
_Bathybius_ and was man enough to admit that he was wrong. Curiously
enough, what Huxley thought a living thing really was a concretion, just
as what Fallopius thought a concretion had been a living thing.
Another extremely curious fact is that another distinguished man of
science, who lived three hundred years later than Fallopius and had all
the knowledge which had accumulated during that prolific period to
assist him, the late Philip Gosse, fell into the same pit as Fallopius.
As his son tells us, he wrote a book to prove that when the sudden act
of creation took place the world came into existence so constructed as
to bear the appearance of a place which had for æons been inhabited by
living things, or, as some of his critics unkindly put it, "that God hid
the fossils in the rocks in order to tempt geologists into infidelity."
Gosse had the real answer under his eyes which Fallopius had not, for
the riddle was unread in the latter's days. Yet Gosse's really
unpardonable mistake was attributed to himself alone, and "Plymouth
Brethrenism," which was the sect to which he belonged, was not saddled
with it, nor have the Brethren been called obscurantists because of it.
Of course there is a second string to the accusation we are dealing
with. If the scientific man did really express new and perhaps startling
opinions, they would have been much newer and much more startling had he
not held himself in for fear of the Church and said only about half of
what he might have said. It is the half instead of the whole loaf of the
former accusation. Thus, in its notice of Stensen, the current issue of
the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ says: "Cautiously at first, for fear of
offending orthodox opinion, but afterwards more boldly, he proclaimed
his opinion that these objects (_viz._ fossils) had once been parts of
living animals."
One may feel quite certain that if Stensen had not been a Catholic
ecclesiastic this notice would have run--and far more
truthfully--"Cautiously at first, until he felt that the facts at his
disposal made his position quite secure, and then more boldly, etc.
etc."
What in the ordinary man of science is caution, becomes cowardice in the
Catholic. We shall find another example of this in the case of Buffon
(1707-1788) often cited as that of a man who believed all that Darwin
believed and one hundred years before Darwin, and who yet was afraid to
say it because of the Church to which he belonged. This mistake is
partly due to that lamentable ignorance of Catholic teaching, not to say
that lamentable incapacity for clear thinking, on these matters, which
afflicts some non-Catholic writers. Let us take an example from an
eminently fairly written book, in which, dealing with Buffon, the author
says: "I cannot agree with those who think that Buffon was an
out-and-out evolutionist, who concealed his opinions for fear of the
Church. No doubt he did trim his sails--the palpably insincere _Mais
non, il est certain par la révélation que tous les animaux ont également
participé à la grâce de la création_, following hard upon the too bold
hypothesis of the origin of all species from a single one, is proof of
it." Of course it is nothing of the kind, for, whatever Buffon may have
meant, and none but himself could tell us, it is perfectly clear that
whether creation was mediate (as under transformism considered from a
Christian point of view it would be) or immediate, every created thing
would participate in the grace of creation, which is just the point
which the writer from whom the quotation has been made has missed.
The same writer furnishes us with the real explanation of Buffon's
attitude when he says that Buffon was "too sane and matter-of-fact a
thinker to go much beyond his facts, and his evolution doctrine remained
always tentative." Buffon, like many another man, from St. Augustine
down to his own times, considered the transformist explanation of living
nature. He saw that it unified and simplified the conceptions of species
and that there were certain facts which seemed strongly to support it.
But he does not seem to have thought that they were sufficient to
establish it and he puts forward his views in the tentative manner which
has just been suggested.
The fact is that those who father the accusations with which we have
been dealing either do not know, or scrupulously conceal their
knowledge, that what they proclaim to be scientific cowardice is really
scientific caution, a thing to be lauded and not to be decried.
Let us turn to apply the considerations with which we have been
concerned to the case of Galileo, to which generally misunderstood
affair we must very briefly allude, since it is the standby of
anti-Catholic controversialists. Monsignor Benson, in connection with
the quotation recently cited, proclaimed himself "a violent defender of
the Cardinals against Galileo." Perhaps no one will be surprised at his
attitude, but those who are not familiar with his _Life and Letters_
will certainly be surprised to learn that Huxley, after examining into
the question, "arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College
of Cardinals had rather the best of it."[28]
None the less it is the stock argument. Father Hull, S. J., whose
admirable, outspoken, and impartial study of the case[29] should be on
everybody's bookshelves, freely admits that the Roman Congregations made
a mistake in this matter and thus takes up a less favourable position
towards them than even the violently anti-Catholic Huxley.
No one will deny that the action of the Congregation was due to a desire
to prevent simple persons from having their faith upset by a theory
which seemed at the time to contradict the teaching of the Bible.
Remember that it was only a theory and that, when it was put forward,
and indeed for many years afterwards, it was not only a theory, but one
supported by no sufficient evidence. It was not in fact until many years
after Galileo's death that final and convincing evidence as to the
accuracy of his views was laid before the scientific world. There can be
but little doubt that if Galileo had been content to discuss his theory
with other men of science, and not to lay it down as a matter of proved
fact--which, as we have seen, it was not--he would never have been
condemned. Whilst we may admit, with Father Hull, that a mistake was
made in this case, we may urge, with Cardinal Newman, that it is the
only case in which such a thing has happened--surely a remarkable fact.
It is not for want of opportunities. Father Hull very properly cites
various cases where a like difficulty might possibly have arisen, but
where, as a matter of fact, it has not. For example, the geographical
universality of the Deluge was at one time, and that not so very long
ago, believed to be asserted by the Bible; while, on the other hand,
geologists seemed to be able to show, and in the event did show, that
such a view was scientifically untenable. The attention of theologians
having been called to this matter, and a further study made of passages
which until then had probably attracted but little notice, and quite
certainly had never been considered from the new point of view, it
became obvious that the meaning which had been attached to the passages
in question was not the necessary meaning, but on the contrary, a
strained interpretation of the words. No public fuss having arisen about
this particular difficulty, the whole matter was gradually and quietly
disposed of. As Father Hull says, "the new view gradually filtered down
from learned circles to the man in the street, so that nowadays the
partiality of the Deluge is a matter of commonplace knowledge among all
educated Christians, and is even taught to the rising generation in
elementary schools."
In accordance with the wise provisions of the Encyclical
_Providentissimus Deus_, with which all educated Catholics should make
themselves familiar, conflicts have been avoided on this, and on other
points, such as the general theory of evolution and the various problems
connected with it; the antiquity of man upon the earth and other
matters as to which science is still uncertain. Some of these points
might seem to conflict with the Bible and the teachings of the Church.
As Catholics we can rest assured that the true explanation, whenever it
emerges, cannot be opposed to the considered teaching of the Church.
What the Church does--and surely it must be clear that from her
standpoint she could not do less--is to instruct Catholic men of science
not to proclaim _as proved facts_ such modern theories--and there are
many of them--as still remain wholly unproved, when these theories are
such as might seem to conflict with the teaching of the Church. This is
very far from saying that Catholics are forbidden to study such
theories.
On the contrary, they are encouraged to do so, and that, need it be
said, with the one idea of ascertaining the truth? Men of science,
Catholic and otherwise, have, as a mere matter of fact, been time and
again encouraged by Popes and other ecclesiastical authorities to go on
searching for the truth, never, however, neglecting the wise maxim that
all things must be proved. So long as a theory is unproved, it must be
candidly admitted that it is a crime against science to proclaim it to
be incontrovertible truth, yet this crime is being committed every day.
It is really against it that the _magisterium_ of the Church is
exercised. The wholesome discipline which she exercises might also be
exercised to the great benefit of the ordinary reading public by some
central scientific authority, can such be imagined, endowed with the
right to say (and in any way likely to be listened to): "Such and such a
statement is interesting--even extremely interesting--but so far one
must admit that no sufficient proof is forthcoming to establish it as a
fact: it ought not, therefore, to be spoken of as other than a theory,
nor proclaimed as fact."
Such constraint when rightly regarded is not or would not be a shackling
of the human intellect, but a kindly and intelligent guidance of those
unable to form a proper conclusion themselves. Such is the idea of the
Church in the matter with which we have been dealing.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 23: _Darwiniana_, p. 147.]
[Footnote 24: See, for example, his _Life and Letters_,
i., 307.]
[Footnote 25: _Hume_, _English Men of Letters Series_, p. 135.]
[Footnote 26: Of course, it may be argued, no Fellow need have
applied for an _imprimatur_; he did it _ex majori cantelâ_ as
the lawyers say. This may be so, but the same applies to the
ecclesiastical _imprimatur_.]
[Footnote 27: The review from which the following quotations
are made appeared in _Nature_ on January 24, 1889.]
[Footnote 28: Vol. ii., p. 113.]
[Footnote 29: _Galileo and His Condemnation_, Catholic Truth
Society of England.]
V. SCIENCE AND THE WAR
Amongst various important matters now brought to a sharper focus in the
public eye, few, if any, require more careful attention than that which
is concerned with science, its value, its position, its teachings, and
how it should be taught. No one who has followed the domestic
difficulties due to our neglect of the warnings of scientific men can
fail to see how we have had to suffer because of the lax conduct of
those responsible for these things in the past.
Within the first few weeks after the war broke out--to take one
example--every medical man was the recipient of a document telling him
of the expected shortage in a number of important drugs and suggesting
the substitutes which he might employ. It was a timely warning; but it
need never have been issued if we had not allowed the manufacture of
drugs, and especially those of the so-called "synthetic" group, to drift
almost entirely into the hands of the Badische Aniline Fabrik, and
kindred firms in Germany. This difficulty, now partly overcome, is one
which never would have arisen but for the deaf ear turned to the
warnings of the scientific chemists. British pharmaceutical chemists,
with one or two exceptions, had been relying upon foreign sources not
only for synthetic drugs but actually for the raw materials of many of
their preparations--such, for example, as aconite, belladonna, henbane,
all of which can be freely grown--which even grow wild--in these
islands; even, incredible as it may seem, for foxglove leaves. These
things with many others were imported from Germany and Austria. Here
again leeway has had to be made up; but it ought never to have been
necessary, and now that the war is over steps should be taken to see
that it never need be necessary again. The encouragement of British
herb-gardens and of scientific experiment therein on the best method of
culture for the raw material of our organic medicines must certainly be
matters early taken in hand.
The classical example of the mortal injury done to British manufacture
by the British manufacturer's former contempt for the scientific man is
that of the aniline dyes, which are so closely associated with the
synthetic drugs as to form one subject of discussion. Quite early in the
war dye-stuffs ran short, and there was no means of replenishing the
stock in Britain, nor even in America, these products having formed the
staple of a colossal manufacture, with an enormous financial turnover,
in Germany.
Let us look at the history of these dyes. The first aniline dye was
discovered quite by accident, in 1856, by the late Professor W. H.
Perkin. He called it "mauve," from the French word for the mallow, the
colour of whose flower it somewhat resembled. In 1862 there was an
International Exhibition in London; and those who remembered it and its
predecessor of 1851 have declared that the case of aniline
dye-stuffs--for by that time quite a number of new pigments had been
discovered--excited at the later the same attention as that given to the
Koh-i-noor at the earlier. The invention, out of which grew the enormous
German business already alluded to, and with which has been associated
the discovery and manufacture of the synthetic drugs, was entirely
British in its inception and in its early stages. Moreover the raw
materials on which it depended, namely, gas-tar products, were to be had
in greater abundance in England than anywhere else. Yet, at the time
when the war broke out, this industry had been allowed almost entirely
to drift into German hands.
How was this? Let an expert reply. It was due, he tells us, to the
neglect of "the repeated warnings which have been issued since that
time" (_viz._ 1880, by which date the Germans had succeeded in capturing
the trade in question) "in no uncertain voice by Meldola, Green, the
Perkins (father and son), and many other English chemists." Further, he
continues, two causes have invariably been indicated for the transfer of
this industry to Germany--"first the neglect of organic chemistry in the
Universities and colleges of this country" (a neglect which has long
ceased), "and then the disregard by manufacturers of scientific methods
and assistance and total indifference to the practice of research in
connection with their processes and products." I remember talking some
twenty-five years ago to a highly educated young student of Birmingham
who was of German parentage though of English birth. He had just taken
the degree of Doctor of Science in London University, and was on the eve
of abandoning the adopted country of his parents for a position in the
research laboratories of the Badische company, where he would be one
among a number of chemists, running into hundreds, all engaged in
research on gas-tar products. At that moment the great Birmingham
gas-company was employing the services of one trained chemist.
Such was and is the neglect of science by business men. Could it have
been otherwise, considering their bringing up? Let me again be
reminiscent. I suppose the public school in England (not a Catholic
school, for I was then a Protestant) at which I pursued what were
described as studies did not in any very marked degree differ from its
sister schools throughout the country. How was science encouraged there?
One hour per week, exactly one-fifth of the time devoted weekly, not to
Greek and Latin (that would have been almost sacrilegious), but to the
writing of Greek and Latin prose and alleged Greek and Latin verse--that
was the amount of time which was devoted to what was called science. I
suppose I had an ingrained vocation for science, for it was the only
subject, except English composition, in which I ever felt interest at
school. If the vocation had not been there, any interest in the subject
must necessarily have been slain once for all in me, as I am sure it was
in scores of others, by the way it was taught; for the instruction was
confided to the ordinary form-master, who doled out his questions from a
text-book perfunctorily used and probably heartily despised by a man
brought up on strict classical or mathematical lines. Our manufacturer
is brought up in a school of this kind, and it would be a miracle if he
emerged from it with any respect for science. Things have changed now,
and for the better, as they have at most of the Universities; but we are
dealing with the generation of manufacturers of my age who were largely
responsible for the neglects now in question. Well, the boy left his
school and went to Oxford or Cambridge, neither of which then greatly
encouraged science. Its followers were, I believe, known as "Stinks
Men." At any rate it is only comparatively recently that we have seen
the splendid developments of to-day in those ancient institutions. One
relic of the ancient days gives us an illuminating idea of how things
used to be, just as a fossil shows us the environment of its day.[30]
Trinity College, Dublin, has fine provision for scientific teaching, and
a highly competent staff to teach. But in its constitution it shows the
attitude towards science which till lately informed the older
Universities.
Trinity College has in its Fellowship system one of the most important
series of pecuniary rewards perhaps in Europe, of an educational
character. A man has only once to pass an examination, admittedly one of
great severity and competitive in character, and thenceforward to go on
living respectably and doing such duties as are committed to him, to be
ensured an excellent and increasing income for life. How great the
rewards are will be gathered from the fact that a distinguished occupant
of one of these positions some years ago endeavoured--with complete
success--to enforce on me the importance of the Fellowship examination
by telling me that he had already received over £50,000 in emoluments as
a result of his success. He has received a good deal more since, and I
hope will continue to be the recipient of this shower of gold for many
years to come.[31] No doubt much might be urged for this system, which
was for a long time popular in China for the selection of Mandarins, and
I am not criticising it here. What I want to emphasise is that the
examination for these valuable positions is either classical or
mathematical, and there it ends. The greatest biologist in the world
would have as much chance of a Fellowship as the ragged urchin in the
street unless he could "settle Hoti's business" or elucidate [Greek: P]
or do other things of that kind. It is a luminous example of what
was--must we say is?--thought of science in certain academic circles.
Of course it may be urged--I have actually heard it urged--that nothing
is science save that which is treatable by mathematical methods. It was
a kind of inverted M. Jourdain who used this argument, a gentleman who
imagined himself to have been teaching science during a long life
without ever having effected what he supposed to be his object. Then,
again, our manufacturer, whose object in life is to make money, is
naturally, perhaps even necessarily, affected by the kind of salaries
which highly trained and highly eminent men of science receive by way of
reward for their work. Few, if any, receive anything like the emoluments
attaching to the position of County Court Judge, and I know of only one
case in which a Professor's income, to the delight and envy of all the
teaching profession, actually, for a few years, soared somewhat near the
empyrean of a Puisne Judge's reward.