The Popes and Science

Another of the distinguished scientists of the eighteenth century who taught for a time at Rome was Father Beccaria, whose name is well known in the history of electricity. When not yet forty years of age he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, always a much envied distinction, and as a consequence of his election some of his important papers relating to electricity and various astronomical subjects were sent to the Royal Society and published by them. While no great discovery in physical science is attached to his name, few men did as much as he to awaken enthusiasm and experimental investigation into science in his time. He was one of the pioneers of the great scientific movement of the nineteenth century. Priestley called him one of the most eminent of all the workers in electricity on the Continent, and Professor Chrystal, in his article on electricity, in the Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition), gives him an important place. He had been trained to be a professor of experimental physics for his Order, and at this time every one of the teaching orders with colleges at Rome had distinguished men among their faculties.

The well-known astronomer, Father Piazzi, whose discovery of Ceres, the first of the planetoids found in the space between Mars and Jupiter, caused great excitement among astronomers, and whose subsequent work in astronomy brought him membership in many of the scientific academies of Europe, had been for some time a student and a teacher in Rome. While there he was a colleague of Professor Chiaramonti, who later became Pope Pius VII. During all his subsequent brilliant scientific career his special friendship with the Pope continued, and with all his many memberships in scientific bodies he remained a member also of the Theatine religious order which he had entered at a very early age.

After the restoration of the Jesuits the work in the sciences reverted once more to the Jesuits at the Roman College and the Vatican Observatory was discontinued. The interest of the Popes in science, however, was very well illustrated by the apostolic letter of Leo XII, Quod divina sapientia, which gave instructions to all Catholic educational institutions, as to observatories, publications and intercourse with foreign scientists.

The Jesuits at the Roman College reached noteworthy distinction for their astronomical work during the nineteenth century. Father Secchi came to be looked upon as probably one of the most distinguished astronomers in Europe. He received many prizes for his observations, for his invention of instruments and for important discoveries. His work on the sun, published in his book, Le Soleil, represents some of the most important contributions ever made to this department. It was translated into most modern languages. His observations on the corona of the sun during eclipses and especially photographs of the corona, place him among the great original contributors to modern astronomical knowledge. He made a critical examination and classification of the spectra of four thousand stars entailing an enormous amount of work. He believed firmly that it was no use making observations unless they were thoroughly recorded and made available for others. His literary work in astronomy is almost incredible. He sent nearly 700 communications to 42 scientific journals, over 300 of which appeared in the Comptes Rendues and in the Astronomische Nachrichten, the French and German journals of astronomy that are the authoritative records of contemporary scientific work. In this country Newcomb and Langley quote from Secchi frequently and use his illustrations. He was the founder of a new branch of astronomy, Stellar Spectroscopy, and Secchi's types of solar spectra will probably ever remain an essential illustration in astronomical text-books.

Another of the astronomers who did excellent work among the Jesuits at the Roman College during the nineteenth century was Father De Vico, whose determination of the rotation period of Venus and the inclination of its axis was considered so exhaustive that it was not questioned for half a century. He also measured the eccentric position of Saturn in his rings and observed the motions of the two inner moons of this planet which had not been seen before this time except by Herschel. Father De Vico also discovered eight comets, one of them being the well-known comet with a period of rotation of five and a half years which bears his name. Father De Vico and Father Secchi were driven from Rome by the Revolution of 1848, but were brought back to continue their work just as soon as it was possible. In the meantime they continued to be personal friends of successive Popes, encouraged in every way, aided in their work and looked upon as ornaments of the Church. They were thoroughly respected by their Order and there was never the slightest question of any possibility of all their studies in science and all their profound investigation of the deepest scientific subjects disturbing their faith in any way.

One of the well-known contributors to astronomy during the nineteenth century was Father Benedict Sestini, who for his mathematical ability was appointed assistant to Father De Vico of the Roman Observatory. He was banished from Rome with his brother Jesuits by the Revolution of 1848, and taught at Georgetown College, Washington, D. C, for many years. His principal work is his catalogue of star colors, published in the Memoirs of the Roman College, 1845-47. He had very keen vision and fine skill with the brush, so that his catalogue, which embodies the entire B.A.C. Star Catalogue, from the North Pole to thirty degrees south of the equator, will be invaluable for deciding the question whether there are stars variable in color. He made a series of sunspot drawings which were engraved and published as appendix A of the United States Naval Observatory volume for 1847, printed in 1853. He was the teacher of mathematics and astronomy to the American Jesuit students and wrote a series of text-books for that purpose.

As we have said, the Italian government suppressed the Roman College, declaring it State property and this prevented further work in the observatory there, which had been for nearly half a century under Father Secchi and Father De Vico, one of the most important centres in the world of astronomical advance. Beggared by the Roman confiscations which compelled the Popes to cut off all their support of scientific and educational work except what related closely to clerical education, it was not until 1888 that Pope Leo XIII found himself in a position to re-establish a Roman observatory in connection with the Vatican. In 1888 the Italian clergy, for the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Pope Leo XIII, presented to him, knowing from his interest in science how agreeable such a gift would be to him, a collection of astronomical instruments and the Gregorian tower was selected once more for its former purposes and the Barnabite, Father Denza, the well-known founder of the Italian Meteorological Society, became the official head. Pope Leo XIII ceded to the Vatican Observatory a second tower more than 400 metres distant from the Gregorian. As this was of immense strength, the lower walls being some five yards in thickness, it seemed strong and firm enough to support the thirteen-inch photographic refractor which was ordered from Gauthier. Seven volumes of observations were published during the next fifteen years, four under Father Denza, a fifth under Father Lais and the last two under Father Rodriguez, an Augustinian, who was a specialist in meteorology.

The last Pope, Pius X, encouraged the Vatican Observatory in every way. The Gregorian tower being near the Vatican Library and too distant from the observatory was restored to its original library purpose and given over to the housing of the collection of Historical Archives. The second round tower of the old Leonine Fortress, together with the adjoining summer residence of Leo XIII, was devoted to astronomical work. Father Hagan, S.J., who had been distinguished for mathematical studies in connection with astronomy here in America, was chosen as the director, and there has been a magnificent development of the astronomical work. There is a new sixteen-inch visual telescope in the second tower, called the Torre Pio X. There are four rotary domes covering the astrographic refractor in the Leonine Tower, and some excellent work is being accomplished. Every encouragement is given to it as far as the limited means of the Pope will permit, and a fine library is being collected for future workers.

APPENDIX VII.

THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE

There is a very general impression in many minds in our time that from the very beginning of Christianity the interest of Church men in the other world was so great that human attention was diverted just as far as possible from concerns of all kinds with the stage of existence through which man is passing here and now. As a consequence, there has been the feeling that from the earliest time the Church was opposed to science and scientific education, partly because this represented a rather compelling diversion from other-worldly interests, but mainly because it gave men control over natural forces which made life more comfortable, raised men up in their own estimation and was opposed to the spirit of humble faith best suited to the adherents of Christianity. Hence it is concluded that there was always a Church policy of deliberate opposition to science and indeed to all intellectual development. This attitude is often declared to be best represented by the expression attributed to one of the Fathers of the Church, "Heaven lies open to the simple of mind, the little ones of the earth, and the ignorant bear it away better than those who are proud of intellect."

Any such impression with regard to the Fathers of the Church as to the establishment of a policy of opposition to science and education is quite erroneous and entirely contrary to the general trend of their writings, even though it may be apparently substantiated by expressions taken at random from the writings of the Fathers at moments when they were emphasizing the truth that has always been so manifest, that from the knowing ones of earth,–and our use of the word knowing in the phrase is not complimentary,–especially from those who are conceited in their knowingness, many things are concealed that are revealed to those who are simple of heart and mind. It has seemed worth while, however, to devote an appendix to this subject of the real attitude of the Fathers to science. As Father Leahy, in his "Astronomical Essays," Boston (Washington Press, 1910), has answered Professor White's assumptions on this subject with a knowledge of the Fathers I could not hope to emulate, I have preferred to avail myself of his permission to quote him at length.

"By the Fathers we understand in general the Christian writers in the Church's early history. In the West the period may be held to have terminated with Isidore of Seville of the seventh century, and in the East with John of Damascus of the eighth. The important writers of this epoch number between fifty and a hundred, and their works constitute, as may be imagined, a body of literature of vast extent.

Our only present concern is to learn, if possible, what was the general attitude of this army of ecclesiastical writers towards the physical sciences, especially the science of astronomy. Explicit treatises on astronomy we shall not, indeed, expect them to supply. For their works when massed are seen to constitute a library of theology, and in such a collection we should no more look for scientific treatises than in a modern library for law. But inasmuch as the Fathers of the Church have been accused, by Andrew D. White and others, of having stayed and even thwarted the advance of science, it becomes the interest and the duty of the apologist to hunt up their scientific allusions that we may learn to what extent the charges made are true.

The Standstill of Science .–It has often been alleged as derogatory to the accomplishments of the Fathers, that they contributed nothing to the progress of scientific knowledge. From our modern standpoint we may be tempted to esteem this failure of theirs as a cardinal sin. But it would be wrong in this instance, as in every other, to render a verdict of guilt too hastily. We of the twentieth century are prone to forget that there are other fields of profitable intellectual exploration besides the physical, and that there may be objects of research and thought worthier of study than the material world.

The Fathers of the Church were philosophers and theologians occupied with the problems of the world's origin and destiny, higher themes, surely, than any with which physical science is concerned. It is the fashion of the day to praise the ancient Greeks at the expense of the patristic and medieval theologians. But the distinction is to a large extent inconsistent, since both bodies of writers were at work upon the selfsame themes. Philosophers like the Greeks, the Fathers were like them moralists as well, engaged in the elaboration of right rules of conduct. Finally, unlike the Greeks, the Fathers were Scriptural scholars, many of them of extensive erudition, in homily and commentary expounding with wonderful assiduity the Sacred Books in which they believed that God had given His revelation to man.

Analogous Examples .–Should we be surprised, then, if men so occupied failed to add much to the world's store of scientific knowledge? Though it were admitted, as it cannot be in its entirety, that they left physical science just where they found it, could not an explanation be discovered that would exonerate them from all blame? To justify such an apology, we do not even need to transport ourselves in spirit back to their time, a process which, however, strict fairness would demand. But in our own era we can think easily of dozens and hundreds of men of highest respectability and most beneficent accomplishment, men of books and men of affairs, jurists, statesmen, historians and others, who have themselves done little or nothing for the onward march of Science. That the careers of these men are profitless, who shall allege?

Again, the present writer has often thought of the almost parallel example of the ancient Romans. It makes their history but little less illustrious to learn that this conquering people did nothing for Science's advance. Till Pliny of the first century after Christ, what Roman was a scientist? They were a nation of soldiers, statesmen, orators and jurists, and for seven hundred years they pursued through such avenues their triumphant course. Yet what writer of to-day rises to charge them with a cardinal sin, because Science remained at a standstill among them for seven full centuries? With these seven centuries can we not properly compare the later seven in which the Christian Fathers were the teachers of the civilized world?

Heritage from the Greeks .–Objection will be made, no doubt, that the Fathers began their career with fairer start than the Romans, forasmuch as they were the direct heirs of the astronomy and physics of ancient Hellas. And they will be incriminated with having abused their precious heritage, by not merely letting it lie fallow but by raising every possible obstruction to its further cultivation. Such is the tenor of Andrew D. White's accusations against them.

This well-known writer smiles at the puerilities of patristic science. He cites from among them Cosmas of Egypt as having propounded a perfectly childish theory of the structure of the earth and grafted it on the science of theology. The ready answer to this particular charge is that Cosmas' conception of the universe belonged to cosmogony and not theology, and further that it had no influence on subsequent thought. Returning to the general arraignment, White rebukes the Fathers for having clung so tenaciously to false opinions regarding the shape of the earth, the motion of the heavens, and the nature of the firmament. And, most seriously of all, he charges the Fathers with indifference and even hostility to the study of science itself.

In a few short paragraphs it is impossible to give an adequate rejoinder to these damaging complaints. But they demand some sort of reply, however inadequate it be, as emanating from an American scholar and statesman of high rank, and embodied in a work that has free and wide circulation among our college students.

Defence of Their Doctrine .–The first palliation for the reputed offence of the Fathers is that whatever false science they retail, was practically all of it derived from the very sources which it is the fashion of the day to laud in the highest degree. As far as was consistent with their faith, the Christian Fathers were the pupils of the Greeks. It was the latter and not the patristic writers who invented the false theories of a solid firmament and a motionless earth. If Europe and Arabia down to the Renaissance believed in the Geocentric system, it was because they trusted Ptolemy the Greek, till then admittedly the greatest of astronomers. And a similar ancestry could be traced, we venture to say, for all or the major part of their scientific errors as far as these may have extended.

Restrictions Made by the Fathers .–But if the Fathers were in general the heirs of the Greeks, they were not guilty of the mistake of accepting the inheritance in its entirety. To a large extent they could discern the chaff from the wheat, and were actually at pains to make the separation. It ought to be known that the scientific literature of the Grecians is teeming with the wildest and vainest of speculations regarding all matters within the scope of astronomical science. Here as elsewhere, the Greeks speculated endlessly, contradictorily, emptily, and almost aimlessly. In unfounded speculation they discoursed on all manner of astronomical subjects, the shape and size and distance of the sun, its nature and that of the moon and stars, and so on almost indefinitely, with scarcely any agreement or concomitance of opinion. There were almost as many diverse opinions as there were men.

To this motley assemblage of groundless and conflicting theories the Fathers had full access through the medium of Plutarch, the Greek compiler. Eusebius, for example, the Father of Church History, quotes Plutarch on just these topics for over thirty pages. If Eusebius and the other Fathers grew impatient with all this ill-assorted mass of soi-disant science, shall we charge them as Dr. White does with having been false to the interest of science? Should we not rather maintain that they helped save science from its enemies?

Opposition to Science .–It is only in the light of these indisputable facts that we can understand the sayings of the Fathers in which, as quoted by White, they upbraid science for its inutility. Be it noted in passing that White is wont to quote them not literally but freely, and apart from their context. Lactantius, Eusebius, Augustine, and Basil, these are the four whom he selects as representative. They are truly representative, and indeed any one of them might stand for all.

Let Eusebius be our particular choice, for he discusses astronomy more completely than the others. White alleges (Warfare, Vol. I, p. 91) that Eusebius endeavored to bring scientific studies into contempt, and quotes him as saying, "It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them [scientific investigators], but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things."

Who would guess from this brief epitome of Eusebius' views that the latter had devoted to the subject more than thirty pages? Who could possibly surmise that he had taken pains to write out, under the guidance of Plutarch, all the known opinions of the Greeks on some thirty-nine problems, all but two or three of them astronomical? Let the curious read Eusebius for themselves in the fifteenth book of his Praelectio Evangelica. They will there discover what White might have well acknowledged, that on not one of the problems are the Greek philosophers in agreement. On the nature of the sun there are nine opinions, on its size four, on its shape an equal number, on the moon's nature seven. And this discrepancy of judgment continues to the end. Moreover a large proportion of the theories are of the most fantastic sort.

In the face of this chaotic wilderness of diverse, fluctuating and contradictory teachings, what could Eusebius do but turn away in impatience, and take up in their stead the only truth of which he felt certain, the truth of the Gospel? Such was his actual procedure. "Does it not seem to you that we have rightly and deservedly departed from the curiosity of all these men, so idle and so full of error?" He confesses frankly that he can see no fruit or utility for man in the teachings he has quoted. And he appeals for his complete justification to Socrates, the wisest of the Greeks, who in his day had adopted precisely the same stand. This and no other is the argument and spirit of Eusebius.

No Opposition to True Science .–This was the temper, also, that actuated the other Fathers named, Lactantius, Basil, and Augustine. No doubt these men valued spiritual knowledge above material. But it by no means follows from this that they undervalued Science. They were scholars of extensive culture, Basil a graduate of Athens, Augustine of Carthage, and Lactantius styled because of his proficiency the Christian Cicero. They were well acquainted with the learning of the Greeks. That they rebelled against the scientific fantasies of the latter, is not a proof that they were hostile to the advance of Science itself.

In the Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis expresses a sentiment quite similar to theirs. "Surely a humble husbandman that serveth God, is better than a proud philosopher who, neglecting himself, is occupied in studying the course of the heavens." Like the Fathers, à Kempis had reason to be disgusted with the astronomy of his time, for it was beginning to be impregnated again with the virus of Astrology. By refusing to follow such pseudo-scientific teachings, both à Kempis and the Fathers did a real if seemingly negative service to the science of astronomy.

"He was born under a lucky star." Language of this sort, used now only in pleasantry, recalls a form of superstition which was once accepted seriously by all men throughout the civilized world. In many a period, mankind has believed literally that the stars and planets exercised a real influence in shaping human lives. And there have been many epochs, ancient, medieval, and even modern, when astrology, the telling of fortunes by the stars, was given a rank among the learned professions.

Even now there occur occasional sporadic outbreaks of the same superstition. Along with other quacks and necromancers, astrologers are still occasionally in evidence, advertising their trade through the columns of the press. Indeed it is affirmed by the Catholic Encyclopedia that the growth of occultistic ideas is reintroducing astrology into society.

Errors of Astrology .–Whatever the popularity of this practice in the past, and whatever its prospective vogue in the near future, it is to be set down without qualification or hesitation as a delusion and a snare. To suppose that the heavenly bodies have an influence on human conduct is in its origin a pagan error, closely allied with the pagan myth that the sun, moon and stars are presided over by as many separate deities. Only thus could have originated the delusion that Jupiter and Venus would procure a blessed destiny, and Mars and Saturn a troubled one, for the children born at the time of their rising.

Nor can the cult be justified by an array of the names of those who have been its votaries. It is true that many astronomers in the past, including the great Kepler himself, have practised the astrological art, casting horoscopes for their clients. But in most cases it would be found, at least in the modern period, that these scientists merely yielded through tolerance to the weakness of their age. In true astronomy there is no place whatever for astrology.