The Freedom of Science

Behold the wisdom of the world that is put before us: “In order to arrive at a definite conclusion by our own philosophical reasoning (on the existence of God and the possibility of miracles) what a multitude of things must be presupposed!” Thus we are informed in a philosophical novel of modern times which aims at proving the incompatibility of the Catholic duty to believe with the freedom of the intellect [Katholische Studenten, by A. Friedwald (nom de plume). An explanation of the ideas contained in it is given by the Academia 18, 1905-6, December and March. The ideas found in the novel are also advanced by A. Messer, Einführung in die Erkenntnistheorie, 1909, p. 158 seq.]. And Prof. Rhodius, who put the ideas of the novel in formulas, teaches: “The question whether our knowledge could penetrate beyond what we know by our experience and even our senses, is answered, as you know, in the negative by a noted philosophical school. Hence, before attacking those metaphysical questions regarding the existence of God and His relations to the world, we must first try to have definite views as to the essence of human knowledge, of its criterion, its scope, and of the degrees of its certainty. But these preliminary questions of theoretic knowledge, how difficult and perplexing they are! You probably have not the faintest idea into what a mass of individual problems the main questions must be dissected, nor what a multitude of heterogeneous views are struggling here against one another” (p. 181).

Consider how shortsighted a wisdom is manifested by these words. Is it seriously intended to summon the peasant from his plough, the old grandmother from behind the stove, and lead them into the lecture rooms of the university in order that they might there listen to lectures on phenomenalism, and positivism, and realism, and criticism, until their heads are swimming? Or else can they not hope to arrive at the truth? Do they seriously think that the truth asked for by every man, the truth in the most vital questions of mankind, is the exclusive privilege of a few college professors? And how very few. More than twenty-four hundred years have elapsed since the days of Pythagoras, and yet modern philosophy still stands before the first preliminary question in all knowledge, whether a man can know what the eye does not see. “Many views are at variance there.” If this be the only way for mankind to reach certain truth, then we are indeed in a pitiful plight!

We esteem philosophy and its subtle questions, and we heartily wish our Catholic young men in college to obtain a more thorough philosophical training. But if, involved in theories, one will lose his insight into the world and human life to such a degree as to make of the “wisdom of the world” an isolated narrow speculation which boasts of being alone able to discover the higher truths, while withering in neurasthenic doubt – such wisdom should be left to its deserved fate, sterility.

Or should it be possible to the ideal of Protestantism – and therefore also of the modern spirit – to console mankind by pointing out that the knowledge of the question which concerns us most deeply, “the knowledge of God and the knowledge of good, remains but a leading idea and problem, though we are confident of advancing nearer to its solution”? Is thus mankind to be eternally without light in the most important questions and problems? Every little plant and animal is equipped by nature with everything it needs – and man alone to be a failure? The young shoots of the tree strive to bring forth blossoms and fruit, and succeed; the bird flies off in the fall in quest of a new home, and finds it; hunger and thirst demand food and get it; only the aim of the human mind shall never be fulfilled – he alone shall ever pine without hope! —Dicentes se esse sapientes stulti facti sunt. What a difference between such principles and the grand thoughts of Christianity! A difference like that between peace and eternal restless doubt, like that between man's dignity and man's degradation, between man's short-sightedness and the wisdom of God.

Hence the result of our discussion is: independent of science mankind has its positive convictions, independent of science it finds here rest and gratification in its longing for truth. Scientific study and research are for the purpose of setting these truths in a brighter light, of defending the patrimony of mankind. But the fosterer of science must not claim the freedom to ignore these positive convictions in himself and in others, to endanger the patrimony of mankind by doubts and attacks instead of protecting it, much less must he condemn the human mind to the eternal labour of Sisyphus, to the eternal rolling of a huge stone which, recoiling, must always be lifted anew.

Chapter IV. Accusations And Objections

Among the notable facts in history one stands out prominently, it is more remarkable than any other, and evokes serious thought. It is the fact that the Christian religion, especially its foremost representative, the Catholic Church, concerning which every unbiassed critic is bound to admit that none has made more nations moral, happy and great than this Church; that nowhere else has virtue and holiness flourished more than in her; that no one else has laboured more for truth and purity of morals; that nevertheless there is not, and never was, an institution which has more enemies, which has been more persecuted, than the Catholic Church. This fact will suggest to every serious-minded critic the question, whether we have not here focussed that tremendous struggle, which truth and justice have ever waged in the bosom of mankind against error and passions – an image of the struggle raging in every human breast. The Church recognizes in this fact the fulfilment of the prophecy of her Founder: “And ye shall be hated by all men for my name's sake” (Luke xxi. 17). And the Church may add, that in her alone this prophecy is being fulfilled.

The Enemy of Progress

In her journey through the centuries the Church has had to listen to many accusations because she, the keeper of the truth entrusted to her care, has refused to respond to the demand to accept unconditionally the ideals devised by existing fashions. Cantavimus vobis et non saltastis (we have piped to you and you have not danced). Therefore the Church has been called reactionary; the heretics of the first centuries of Christianity denounced her as the enemy of the higher gnosis; a later period denounced her as an enemy of the genuine humanism, in the eighteenth century she was denounced as the enemy of enlightenment, to-day she is denounced as the enemy of progress. Again the Church is accused before the judicial bar of the children of the age. They desire to eat plentifully from the tree of knowledge, but the Church, they say, prevents them. They wish to climb the heights of human perfection, to ascend higher than any preceding generation, but the Church holds them back. She will keep them in the fetters of her guardianship. And with a keen, searching eye the smart children of our age have looked the old Church over, taking notice of everything, anxious to put her in the wrong.

Their charges do not fail to make an impression, even on the Church herself. She wishes to justify herself before the plaintiffs, and still more before her own children who trust in her. Thus she has not hesitated in declaring loudly on most solemn occasions that she is not an enemy of noble science and of human progress, and with great earnest she takes exception to this charge.

No wonder, one might say, that the Church makes such assurances. It is time for her to realize that unless she can clear herself from it this accusation will be her moral ruin at a time when the banner of progress is held aloft, and when even the Catholic world shares in that progress. True, but let us not forget this: if there is anything characteristic of the Catholic Church it is her frankness and honesty. She is not afraid to proclaim her doctrines and judgments before the whole world; she leaves her Index and Syllabus open for inspection, openly avowing that she is the irreconcilable enemy of that emancipated freedom proclaimed by modern liberalism as the ideal of the age. It is the honesty which she inherited from her Founder, who told the truth to friend and enemy, to His disciples and to the Scribes, to Nicodemus, that lonely night, and to Caiaphas. With the same straightforwardness the Church declares that she feels not enmity but sympathy toward civilization. A fair-minded critic will admit here again that the Church is in earnest. “Far from opposing the fostering of human arts and sciences, the Church is supporting and promoting them in various ways,” declares the Vatican Council. “The Church does not underrate nor despise their advantages for human life: on the contrary, it avows that they, coming as they do from God, the Master of the sciences, also lead to God by aid of His grace, when properly used” (Sess. III, c. 4). The Church has put this accusation on the list of errors of the age condemned by Pius X. (Sent. 57). She feels the charge as an injury.

The Testimony of History

Nevertheless, in anti-ecclesiastical circles it is taken very often for an established fact that the Roman Church has ever tried her best to hamper the progress of science, or has suppressed it, or at least scowled at it. How could it be otherwise? they say. How could she favour the progress made in enlightening reason or in advancing human knowledge? Must she not fear for its intellectual sway over men whom she keeps under the yoke of faith? Must she not fear that they might awaken from the slumber in which they were held prisoners by the suggestive force of her authority, held to be transcendental; that they might awaken to find out the truth for themselves? And what is the use of science? He that believes will be saved: hence faith suffices. If we wish to hear the accusation in the language of militant science, here it is: “Outside the monastic institutions no attempt at intellectual advancement was made (in the Middle Ages), indeed, so far as the laity were concerned, the influence of the Church was directed to an opposite result, for the maxim universally received was, that ‘ignorance is the mother of devotion’ ” (J. W. Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science).

This is the train of thought and the result of anti-ecclesiastical a-priorism and its historical research. Are the plain facts of history in accord with it? The first and immediate task of the Church is certainly not to disseminate science: her task, first of all, lies in the province of morals and religion. But as she is the highest power of morality and religion, she stands in the midst of mankind's intellectual life, and cannot but come in contact with its other endeavours, owing to the close unity of that life. Hence, let us ask history, not about everything it might tell us in this respect, but about one thing only.

We do not wish to show how the Church, headed by the Papacy, has become the mother of Western civilization and culture. Nor shall we enumerate the merits of the Church in art, nor point out the alertness she has certainly shown, in her walk through the centuries, by taking up the intellectual achievements of the time and assimilating them with her moral and religious treasure of faith, withal preserved unchanged. The old Church had done this with the treasures of ancient learning and science; “this spirit of Christianity proved itself by the facility with which Christian thinkers gathered the truth contained in the systems of old philosophy, and, even before that, by assimilating those old truths into Christian thought, the beginning of which had already been made in the New Testament. They were appropriated, without hesitating experiment, without wavering, and were given their place in a higher order” (O. Willmann, Gesch. des Idealismus, 2d ed., II, 1907, 67). This, she unceasingly continues to do, as proved by the high standard of Catholic life and Catholic science at the present, a fact not even disputed by opponents. We point only incidentally to the foundation and the fostering of primary schools by the Church. It is an historical fact that public education began to thrive only with the freer unfolding of the Church.

The first elementary schools were those of the monasteries. Later on there were established after their pattern the cathedral and chapter schools, then the parish schools. Still later there came the town and village schools – all of ecclesiastical origin, or at least under the direction of the Church and in close connection with her. As early as 774 we find an ecclesiastical school law, to the effect that each Bishop should found an ecclesiastical school in his episcopal town and appoint a competent teacher to instruct “according to the tradition of the Romans.” Eugene II. ordained in 826 anew that efficient teachers should be provided for the cathedral schools wherever needed, who were “to lecture on the sciences and the liberal arts with zeal.” “All Bishops should have the liberal arts taught at their churches,”was a resolution of the Council held in Rome in 1079 by Gregory VII.We read in the acts of the Lateran Synod of 1179: “Inasmuch as it behooves the Church, like a loving mother, to see to it that poor children who cannot count upon the support of their parents should not lack opportunity of learning to read and make progress, there should at every cathedral church be given an adequate prebend to the teacher – who is to teach the clerics of this church and the poor pupils gratuitously” (E. Michael, Gesch. des Deutschen Volkes II, 1899, 370). School education flourished more and more; in the thirteenth century it was in full bloom. In Germany even many unimportant places, market towns, boroughs, and villages had their schools at that time. In Mayence and its immediate neighbourhood there were, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, seven chapter schools; at Muenster at least four schools; the clerical schools at Erfurt had an attendance of no less than 1,000 pupils. About the year 1400 the diocese of Prague alone had 460 schools. In the middle Rhine district, about the year 1500, many counties had an elementary school for every radius of two leagues; even rural communities with 500 to 600 inhabitants, like Weisenau near Mainz, and Michaelstadt in Odenwald, did not lack schools. (J. Janssen, Gesch. des Deutschen Volkes, 15th ed., 1890, 26; cf. Michael, 1. c. 402, 417-419; Palacky, Gesch. v. Boehmen, III, 1, p. 186). Even in far-off Transylvania there was, as early as the fourteenth century, no village without a church and a school (K. Th. Becker, Die Volksschule der Siebenbuerger Sachsen, 1894, y; Michael, 430). There is no doubt that this flourishing state of schools was due in the first place to the stimulus, support, and unselfish effort of the Church.

But we will not dwell longer on this subject. We wish, however, to point out more plainly something more closely related to our subject, viz., the attitude of the Church towards the universities, at a time when the most prominent nurseries of science were first coming into existence and beginning to flourish, when they began to exert their influence upon the civilization of Europe. Here, in the first place, it should become clear whether it be true that the Church has ever looked upon the progress of science with suspicion or even suppressed it. History teaches, in this instance again, that no one has shown more interest, more devotion, more readiness, to make sacrifices in promoting the establishment and growth of the university, than the Church.

When, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the thirst for knowledge, stronger than at any time in history, made itself felt in the Christian countries of Europe, there were erected in the universities great international homes of science, so as to gratify the deeply felt need of education. And thousands hastened to these places to acquire the knowledge of the period, overcoming all difficulties, then much greater than now. A recent writer remarks about this not without reason: “The academic instruction met on part of the thronging thousands with a psychic disposition more favourable than at any other time. In a way it was here a case of first love” (W. Muench, Zukunftspaedagogik, 1908, 337). At the universities of the Middle Ages there were taught theology, ecclesiastical and civil law, the liberal arts, and medicine. But not in the manner that all four faculties were everywhere represented. Theology especially was quite frequently lacking, though the aim was to have all sciences represented. What since the beginning of the thirteenth century was first of all understood by a university were studia generalia– then the usual name for universities, in contradistinction to studium particulare. Universities enjoyed the privilege of having their academic degrees honoured everywhere, and their graduates could teach anywhere. The universities were of an international character. Hence it happened that at the German universities there were sitting in quest of knowledge by the side of Germans also foreign youths, from Scotland, Sweden, and Norway, from Italy and France, all contending for academic honours – a moment which unquestionably contributed in no small degree to the improvement of education.

Prior to the Reformation, universities were not state institutions, as they are at present in Europe, but free, independent corporations. They were complete in themselves, they made their own statutes, had their own jurisdiction, and many other privileges. The modern university enjoys but a small remnant of those ancient prerogatives. In a public speech, made in the presence of the Duke of Saxony, the Leipsic professor, Johann Kone, could say in 1445: “No king, no chancellor, has any right to interfere with our privileges and exemptions; the university rules itself, and changes and improves its statutes according to its needs” (Janssen, 1. c. 91).

Up to the year 1300 there were no less than 23 universities established in Italy, 5 in France, 2 in England, 4 in Spain, and 1 in Portugal. “Had all intentions been realized, Europe would have had by the year 1400 no fewer than 55 universities, including Paris and Bologna. But of 9 of them there are extant only the charter deeds that were never executed. At any rate, there were 46 of them, of which 37 or 39 existed at the turn of the fourteenth century; a considerable number, which was not known till recent years” (Denifle). Germany, Austria, and Hungary shared in 8: Prague, Cracow, Vienna, Fuenfkirchen, Ofen, Heidelberg, Cologne, and Erfurt. Within fifty years, from 1460 to 1510, no less than 9 universities were founded in Germany – a clear proof of the generous enthusiasm for science of that period.

By their fostering and founding of universities, secular princes have won the lasting gratitude of posterity, and so have the municipalities of a later period for showing an even greater zeal than those princes. But it was indisputably the Church that bestowed upon these homes of learning and culture the greatest benevolence and support for their foundation and maintenance.

In the first place, history shows that the majority of them were founded by Papal charters. Since universities were understood to have the power of conferring degrees of international value, they had to be universally acknowledged; this could be effected only by an authority of universal recognition; hence by the Roman-German Emperor – as the supreme prince of the world-wide Christian monarchy, or by the Pope, who was considered in the first place. He was the general Father and Teacher of Christendom; this is why Papal charters were so zealously sought after, in addition to imperial charters. Of the 44 universities called into existence before the year 1400, 31 were founded by Papal charters. A similar condition prevailed in the fifteenth century and afterwards, up to the Reformation. This was no interference in foreign affairs: such an interpretation would have caused just surprise in the Middle Ages. That the highest spiritual power on earth should have the first claim in education was a matter of general concession. And certainly the manner in which the Church made use of this right, to speak with an historian of the universities, forms “one of the most important, and by no means least inglorious, parts of an activity so manifold and difficult” (V. A. Huber, Die Englischen Universitaeten, I, 1839, p. 14).

These Papal charters breathe a warm benevolence for science. Everywhere we find the wish expressed, that studies thrive in those places which are most suitable for the effectual spread of science, and that the different countries have a sufficient number of scientifically trained men.

Read, for instance, the charter given by Pope Boniface VIII. to Pamiers and Avignon, or the Letter of Privileges granted to Coimbra by Clement V. (apud Denifle, 793, 524), or Pius II.'s Bull founding the university of Basle. The Pope says here about the aim of science: “Among the various blessings to which man may by the grace of God attain in this mortal life, the last place is not to be given to persevering study, by which man may gain the pearl of the sciences, which point out the way to a good and happy life, and by their excellence elevate the learned men above the uneducated. Science makes man like to God, and enables him to clearly perceive the secrets of the world. It aids the unlearned, it elevates to sublime heights those born in the lowliest condition.” “For this reason the Holy See has always promoted the sciences, given them homes, and provided for their wants, that they might flourish, so that men, well directed, might the more easily acquire so lofty a human happiness, and, when acquired, share it with others.” This was the longing desire that led to the opening at Basle of “a plentiful spring of science, of whose fulness all those may draw who desire to be introduced into the study of the mysteries of Scripture and learning.” Even prior to this, the same Pope had written to the Duke Louis of Bavaria: “The Apostolic See desires the widest possible extension of science,” which, “while other things are exhausted by dissemination, is the only thing that expands the more the greater the number of those reached by it”(apud Janssen, 1. c, p. 89).

But the Church was not satisfied with granting charters. She also gave very substantial material aid to most of the universities. The Popes maintained two universities at Rome, one of them connected with the Papal Curia, a sort of court-school. It was founded by Innocent IV., in order that the many who came to the Papal court from all parts of Christendom might satisfy also their thirst for knowledge. Theology, law, especially civil law, medicine, and languages, including Oriental languages, were taught there. Besides this there was another university at Rome, founded by Boniface VIII. for a similar purpose: it did not flourish long, though in 1514 it counted no less than eighty-eight professors. Many attempts to found or support universities would have proved abortive had not the Popes provided for the salaries of professors by prebends and stipends, and by allotting to that end a portion of the income of priests and churches. Bishops, too, proved themselves zealous patrons of the universities (Paulsen, Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts, 2d ed., I, 1898, p. 27).

Thus, to cite a few examples of German universities, there was in 1532, with the consent of the Archbishop Arnest, a contribution raised by the clergy for the endowment of the university of Prague, to which the various cloisters and chapters, especially those at Prague, contributed. With the money thus raised the Archbishop purchased property, the income from which was to provide salaries for the professors. Twelve professors received from Urban V. the canonicates of the church of All Saints (Denifle, 598). Erfurt university was given 4 canonicates, Cologne 11, Greifswald still more. Similarly Tuebingen, Breslau, Rostock, Wittenberg, and Freiburg were cared for (Kaufmann, Die Gesch. der Deutschen Universitaeten, II, 1896, p. 34, seq.). Vienna found a benefactor in the pastor of Gars, who on October 13, 1370, founded a purse for 3 sublectors and 1 scholar. Heidelberg received 10 canonicates. Its great benefactor was the learned Johann von Dalberg, first curator of the university, and later Bishop of Worms. Under him Heidelberg reached the zenith of its lustre, and laid the foundation of almost all that has won it the reputation it at present enjoys. By his co-operation the first chair of Greek was founded; to him the foundation of the college library is due, which later on gained world-wide fame under the name of “Palatina.” He further collected a private library, rich in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew books, the use of which was open to all scientists. “The Rhenish Literary Society” attained its greatest prominence under his direction (Janssen, 1. c. 100-105). Ingolstadt, too, obtained its needed income by the donation of rich church-prebends, to such an extent that the “endowments netted the university about 2,500 florins,” a very large sum for that time (Kaufmann, 1. c. 38). Prantl also admits in regard to Ingolstadt: “The Papal Curia did its best to furnish the university”(Gesch. der Ludwig-Maximilian in Ingolstadt, 1872, I, 19, apud Janssen, 1. c. p. 9).