subject with which they may be dealing, wish nevertheless to damage
the author of some view with which they think fit to disagree. What
they do is not to go and learn something about the subject; . . .
but they abuse the originator of the view they question, in a
general manner, and wind up by saying that, 'After all, you know,
the principles and method of this author are totally opposed to the
canons of the Baconian philosophy.' Then everybody applauds, as a
matter of course, and agrees that it must be so."
Lord Bacon himself so little understood true science that he condemned
Copernicanism because it failed to solve the problems of the universe,
and condemned Dr. Gilbert, the great founder in Magnetism, whose work
was the best {103} exemplification of inductive science of that time.
Of course Bacon did not invent science nor its methods. He was only a
publicist popularizing them. They had existed in the minds of all
logical thinkers from the beginning. His great namesake, Friar Bacon,
much better deserves to be thought a pioneer in modern physical
science than the chancellor,--and he was a mediaeval university man.
We are prone to think of the old-time universities as classical or
literary schools with certain limited post-graduate features, more or
less distantly smacking of science. The reason for this is easy to
understand. It is because out of such classical and literary colleges
our present universities, with their devotion to science, were
developed or transformed during the last generation or two. It is to
be utterly ignorant of mediaeval education, however, to think that the
classical and literary schools are types of university work in the
Middle Ages. The original universities of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries paid no attention to language at all except
inasmuch as Latin, the universal language, was studied in order that
there might be a common ground of understanding. Latin was not studied
at all, however, from its literary side; to style as such the
professors in the old mediaeval universities and the writers of the
books of the time paid no attention. Indeed it was because of this
neglect of style in literature and of the niceties of classical Latin
that the university men of recent centuries before our own, {104} so
bitterly condemned the old, mediaeval teachers and were so utterly
unsympathetic with their teaching and methods. We, however, have come
once more into a time when style means little, indeed, entirely too
little, and when the matter is supposed to be everything, and we
should have more sympathy with our older forefathers in education who
were in the same boat. We have inherited traditions of
misunderstanding in this matter, but we should know the reasons for
them and then they will disappear.
As a matter of fact, exactly the same thing happened in our modern
change of university interests during the latter half of the
nineteenth century as happened in the latter half of the fifteenth
century in Italy, and in the next century throughout Europe. With the
fall of Constantinople the Greeks were sent packing by the Turks and
they carried with them into Italy manuscripts of the old Greek
authors, examples of old Greek art and the classic spirit of devotion
to literature as such. A new educational movement termed the study of
the humanities had been making some way in Italy during the preceding
half-century before the fall of Constantinople, but now interest in it
came with a rush. The clergymen, the nobility, even the women of the
time became interested in the New Learning, as it was called. Private
schools of various kinds were opened for the study of it, and
everybody considered that it was the one thing that people who {105}
wanted to keep up to date, smart people, for they have always been
with us, should not fail to be familiar with. The humanities became
the fashion, just as science became the fashion in the nineteenth
century. Fashion has a wonderfully pervasive power and it runs in
cycles in intellectual matters as well as in clothes.
The devotees of the New Learning demanded a place for it in the
universities. University faculties perfectly confident, as university
faculties always are, that what they had in the curriculum was quite
good enough, and conservative enough to think that what had been good
enough for their forefathers was surely good enough also for this
generation, refused to admit the new studies. For a considerable
period, therefore, the humanities had to be pursued in institutions
apart from the universities. Indeed it was not until the Jesuits
showed how valuable classical studies might be made for developmental
purposes and true education that they were admitted into the
universities.
Note the similarity with certain events in our own time in all this.
Two generations ago the universities refused to admit science. They
were training men in their undergraduate departments by means of
classical literature. They argued exactly as did the old mediaeval
universities with regard to the new learning, that they had no place
for science. Science had to be learned, then, in separate institutions
for a time. The scientific {106} educational movement made its way,
however, until finally it was admitted into the university curricula.
Now we are in the midst of an educational period when the classics are
losing in favor so rapidly that it seems as though it would not be
long before they would be entirely replaced by the sciences, except,
in so far as those are concerned who are looking for education in
literature and the classic languages for special purposes.
It will be interesting, then, to trace the story of the old mediaeval
universities as far as the science in their curriculum was concerned,
because it represents much more closely than we might have imagined,
or than is ordinarily thought, the preceding phase of education to the
classical period which we have seen go out of fashion to so great an
extent in the last two generations. We shall readily find that at
least as much time was devoted in the mediaeval universities to the
physical sciences as in our own, and that the culture sciences filled
up the rest of the curriculum. Philosophy, which occupied so prominent
a place in older university life, was not only a culture science, but
physical science as well, as indeed the name natural philosophy, which
remained almost down to our day, attests.
Physical science was not the sole object of these mediaeval
institutions of learning, but they were thoroughly scientific. The
main object of the universities in the olden time was to secure such
{107} discussion of the problems of man's relation to the universe, to
his Creator, to his fellow-creatures and to the material world as
would enable him to appreciate his rights and duties and to use his
powers. Huxley declared that the trivium and quadrivium, the seven
liberal arts studied in the mediaeval universities, probably
demonstrate a clearer and more generous comprehension of what is meant
by culture than the curriculum of any modern university. Language was
learned through grammar, the science of language. Reasoning was
learned through logic, the science of reasoning; the art of expression
through rhetoric, a combination of art and science with applications
to practical life. Mathematics was studied with a zeal and a success
that only those who know the history of mediaeval mathematics can at
all appreciate. Cantor, the German historian of mathematics, in
hundreds of pages of a large volume, has told the story of the
development of mathematics during the centuries before the
Renaissance, that is from the thirteenth to the fifteenth, in a way
that makes it very clear that the teaching at the universities in this
subject was not dry and sterile, but eminently productive, successful
in research, and with constant additions to knowledge such as live
universities ought to make.
Then there was astronomy, metaphysics, theology, music and law and
medicine. The science of law was developed and, above all, great {108}
collections of laws made for purposes of scientific study. Of
astronomy every one was expected to know much, of medicine we shall
have considerable to say hereafter, but in the meantime it is well to
recall that these mediaeval centuries maintained a high standard of
medical education and brought some wonderful developments in the
sciences allied to medicine and above all in their applications to
therapeutics. Surgery never reached so high a plane of achievement
down to our own time, as during the period when it was studied so
faithfully and developed so marvellously at the mediaeval
universities. It was inasmuch as a knowledge of physics was needed for
the development of metaphysics that the mediaeval schoolmen devoted
themselves to the study of nature. They turned with as much ardor and
devotion as did Herbert Spencer in the nineteenth century, to the
accumulation of such information with regard to nature as would enable
them to draw conclusions, establish general principles and lay firm
foundations for reasonings with regard to the creature and the
Creator. It is, above all, this phase of mediaeval teaching work, of
the schoolmen's ardent interest that is misunderstood, often ignored
and only too frequently misrepresented in the modern time.
For instance, in the discussion of the status of matter in the
universe the scholastics and notably Thomas Aquinas had come to the
conclusion that matter was absolutely indestructible. He {109} even
went so far as to say that man could not destroy it, and God would not
annihilate it. _Nihil omnino in nihilum redigetur_--nothing at all
will ever be reduced to nothingness, was his dictum as the conclusion
of a course of lectures on this subject. He saw the changes in matter
all round him that were supposed to be destructive, the burnings, the
vaporizations, the solutions, the putrefactions and all the rest, but
he knew that these only brought changes in matter and not destruction
of the underlying substance. For him, as for all the scholastic
philosophers, matter was composed of two principles, as they were
called. One of these was prime matter and the other form. To prime
matter, one of these, matter or substance owed all its negative
qualities, inertia and the like. To form, the dynamic element or
principle, it owed all its individuating qualities. Prime matter was
the same in all things. Form was the energy or bundle of energies, the
dynamic principle, as we have said, which entering into prime matter,
made the different kinds of matter that we speak of.
It is extremely interesting to compare this old scholastic teaching
with the modern ideas of the composition of matter and especially the
notions which have come to us from researches in physical chemistry in
recent years. Our scientists no longer believe that we have some
eighty different elements, essentially different kinds of matter, that
cannot by any chance or process be changed one {110} into another. We
have seen one form of elementary matter changing into another, helium
emanations becoming radium, have heard of Professor Ramsay's
transmutation of various elements, and have about come to the
conclusion that in the radio-active substances we have a wonderful
transmuting power. A prominent American professor of chemistry
declared not long since that he would like to treat a large quantity
of lead ore in order to extract from it all the silver which so
constantly occurs in connection with it in the natural state, and then
having put the lead ore aside for a score of years, would like to
examine it again, confident that he would find traces of silver in it
once more, which had developed as a consequence of the radio-activity
present in the substance and which is constantly changing lead into
silver in small quantities. Newton's declaration, when he saw crystals
of gold in connection with copper, that gold had been developed from
the copper, seemed very foolish a century ago, but no one would
consider it so at the present moment.
We are prone to think that these old mediaeval philosophers accepting
to some extent at least the philosopher's stone with its supposed
capacity for changing baser metals into precious, and with their
acceptance of the transmutation of substances, cannot have had any
real scientific bent of mind. We are coming to the realization,
however, that in many ways by pure reasoning, in {111} conjunction
with such observation as they had at hand, they anticipated our most
recent conclusions in very marvellous ways. We know now that radium,
or at least radio-active substances, represent the philosopher's stone
of the olden time. We are not surprised at the transmutation of metals
and of substances, on the contrary, we are looking for it.
I remember once stating the old theory of matter and form to a
distinguished professor in chemistry in this country, and he was
struck by the similarity of it to what are the present accepted ideas
of the composition of matter. He asked why this teaching was not more
generally known. I had to tell him that in every Catholic school of
philosophy, it was taught as a basic doctrine, and that far from being
concealed it was the very touchstone of Catholic philosophic teaching,
and had often been the subject of deprecation and contemptuous remarks
on the part of those who thought that it represented somewhat foolish
old-fashioned teaching handed down to us from the backwardness and
abysm of time.
We have demonstrated the indestructibility of matter in modern times
by experimental methods. The mediaeval schoolmen reached similar
conclusions, however, by strict reasoning from the premises of
observation that they had in the olden times. We may be apt to think
that they knew very little about nature and the details of physical
science, but that will be only because we do not {112} know their
great books. Albertus Magnus is a typical example of a renowned
teacher of the thirteenth century who was, however, at the same time a
highly respected member of his order, holding important official
positions in it and thoroughly honored and respected by his
ecclesiastical superiors so that he was made a bishop, yet writing
volumes of observation with regard to nearly every phase of physical
science. A list of his books reads like a section of a catalogue of a
library of physical science. I have told the story of his career in
the second series of "Catholic Churchmen in Science," but the names of
his volumes are sufficient to show what sort of work he was doing. He
has volumes on chemistry, botany, on physics, on cosmography, on
animal locomotion, on respiration, on generation and corruption, on
age and death and life, on phases of psychology, the soul, sense and
sensation, memory, sleep, the intellect and many another subject.
Those who think that there was no attention paid to science in the
Middle Ages must know nothing at all of Albertus Magnus' work.
Above all, those who talk thus are entirely ignorant of all that Roger
Bacon did. Roger Bacon himself was a student of the University of
Paris. He was a professor there. He corresponded with the scientists
of Europe quite as frequently or at least as significantly as
professors of the modern time do with each other. Students submitted
their discoveries to him. We {113} have Peregrinus' letter to him with
regard to magnetism and electricity and know of others. We have his
own books, in which he treats not only the scientific problems, but
inventions and applied science of all kinds. At the present time his
interest in aeronautics has a special appeal to us. He was sure that
men would sometime make a successful airship. He even thought that he
could make one himself, but his experiments proved unsuccessful. His
theory of it was very interesting. In his work "De Secretis Artis et
Naturae Operibus" he writes that a machine could be constructed in
which a man sitting in the centre might move wings by means of a crank
and thus, quite after the fashion of birds, fly through the air. It
was he who wrote that the time would come when carriages would move
along the roads without men or horses to pull them. At the moment he
was experimenting with gunpowder. He realized, therefore, that
sometime men would harness explosives and use them for motor purposes.
That is, of course, just what we are doing with gasolene.
He suggested that boats would run over the water without oars and
without sails. He was anticipating our motor boat. He taught that
light moves with a definite rate of velocity, though that fact was not
demonstrated for several centuries after his time. He worked out most
of the theory of lenses as we have it at the present time. He was sure
that experiment and {114} observation constituted the only way by
which knowledge of nature could be obtained. In this he was but
following his great teacher Albertus Magnus, who insisted that in
natural philosophy experiment alone brought sure knowledge;
_"Experimentum solum certificat in talibus."_ are his own words. Roger
Bacon's devotion to mathematics shows how thoroughly scientific was
the trend of his mind. Without mathematics he was sure that one could
not reach scientific knowledge, or that what one did get was without
certainty. Some of his expressions in this matter are strikingly
modern. It is no wonder that his writings and teachings were so great
a surprise to his generation that the Pope ordered him to write out
his knowledge in books. Without this order we would not have had Roger
Bacon's great works, for his vow of poverty voluntarily taken forbade
him to be possessed of sufficient money to enable him to purchase
writing materials, which were then very expensive.
Indeed the mathematics of the mediaeval universities is the best proof
of the seriousness of their devotion to science and, may it also be
said, of their success. Cantor, in his "History of Mathematics," and
he is the great authority in the matter, devotes nearly 100 pages of
his second volume to the mathematicians of the thirteenth century
alone, two of whom, Leonard of Pisa and Jordanus Nemorarius, did so
much in arithmetic, in the theory of numbers, and in geometry, {115}
as to work a revolution in mathematics. They had great disciples like
John of Holywood (probably a town near Dublin), Johannes Campanus and
others. No wonder that at the end of the century Roger Bacon said,
"For without mathematics nothing worth knowing in philosophy can be
obtained," and again, "for he who knows not mathematics cannot know
any other science; what is more, he cannot discover his own ignorance
or find its proper remedy." The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw
even more important work done. Cantor has half a dozen men in the
fifteenth century to whom he devotes more than twenty-five pages each.
How the place of this in mediaeval teaching can have escaped the
notice of those who insist so much on the neglect of science during
the Middle Ages, is hard to understand. This alone would convict them
of ignorance of what they are talking about.
The educational genius of the great university century, the
thirteenth, the man who influenced his contemporaries and succeeding
generations more than any other, was Thomas Aquinas, to whom the
Church, for his knowledge and goodness, gave the title of saint. If
any further proof that these centuries were interested in science were
needed, or that the universities in which he was the leading light as
scholar and professor in the thirteenth century, and as the great
master to whom all looked reverentially after, were developing
scientific studies, it would be found in {116} his works. Philosophy
is developed scientifically in his "Contra Gentes" and theology,
scientifically in his great "Summa." It is the very austerity of the
scientific qualities of these books that have made them forbidding for
many modern readers, who, therefore, have failed to understand the
scientific spirit of the time. St. Thomas Aquinas, however, was, as I
suggested at the beginning of this, deeply interested in every form of
information with regard to what we now call physical science. He
evidently drank in with avidity all that had been observed with regard
to living creatures and, when we come to analyze his works with care
and read his books with the devotion of his own students, we find many
anticipations of what is most modern in our science.
The indestructibility of matter, matter and form, that is the doctrine
of the unity of the basis of matter, the conservation of energy in the
sense that the forms of matter change but do not disappear, all these
were commonplaces in his thought and teaching. I have recently had
occasion to point out how close he came to that thought in modern
biology which is probably considered to be one of our most modern
contributions to the theory of evolution. It is expressed by the
formula of Herbert Spencer, "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."
According to this the completed human being repeats in the course of
its development the history of the race, that is to say, the varying
phases of foetal development {117} in the human embryo, from the
single cell in which it originates up to the perfect being as it is
born into the world, retrace the history by which from the single-cell
being man has gradually developed. The whole theory of evolution is
supposed by many people to be modern, but of course it is not. This
particular phase of it, however, is thought surely to be modern. It is
sometimes spoken of as the fundamental law of biogeny. In recent years
serious doubts have been thrown on it, but with that we have nothing
to do here.
It is very curious to find, however, that St. Thomas, in his teaching
with regard to the origin and development of the human being, says,
almost exactly, what the most ardent supporters of this so-called
fundamental biogenetic law proclaimed in recent years. He says that
"the higher a form is in the scale of being and the farther it is
removed from mere material form, the more intermediate forms must be
passed through before the finally perfect form is reached. Therefore,
in the generation of animal and man--these having the most perfect
forms--there occur many intermediate forms in generations and
consequently destruction, because the generation of one being is the
destruction of another." St. Thomas does not hesitate to draw his
conclusions from this doctrine without hesitation. He proclaims that
the human material is first animated by a vegetative soul or principle
of life, and then by an animal soul and only ultimately, when the
matter has {118} been properly prepared for it, by a rational soul. He
said:
"The vegetative soul, therefore, which is first in the embryo, while
it lives the life of a plant, is destroyed, and there succeeds a
more perfect soul, which is at once nutrient and sentient, and for
that time the embryo lives the life of an animal: upon the
destruction of this there succeeds the rational soul, infused from
without."