History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Part 16

And Kepler comes: he leads science on to greater victories. Copernicus, great as he was, could not disentangle scientific reasoning entirely from the theological bias: the doctrines of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as to the necessary superiority of the circle had vitiated the minor features of his system, and left breaches in it through which the enemy was not slow to enter; but Kepler sees these errors, and by wonderful genius and vigour he gives to the world the three laws which bear his name, and this fortress of science is complete. He thinks and speaks as one inspired. His battle is severe. He is solemnly warned by the Protestant Consistory of Stuttgart "not to throw Christ's kingdom into confusion with his silly fancies," and as solemnly ordered to "bring his theory of the world into harmony with Scripture": he is sometimes abused, sometimes ridiculed, sometimes imprisoned. Protestants in Styria and Wurtemberg, Catholics in Austria and Bohemia, press upon him but Newton, Halley, Bradley, and other great astronomers follow, and to science remains the victory.(73)

(73) For Campanella, see Amabile, Fra Tommaso Campanella, Naples, 1882, especially vol. iii; also Libri, vol. iv, pp. 149 et seq. Fromundus, speaking of Kepler's explanation, says, "Vix teneo ebullientem risum."

This is almost equal to the New York Church Journal, speaking of John Stuart Mill as "that small sciolist," and of the preface to Dr. Draper's great work as "chippering." How a journal, generally so fair in its treatment of such subjects, can condescend to such weapons is one of the wonders of modern journalism. For the persecution of Kepler, see h.e.l.ler, Geschichte der Physik, vol. i, pp. 281 et seq; also Reuschle, Kepler und die Astronomie, Frankfurt a. M., 1871, pp. 87 et seq. There is a poetic justice in the fact that these two last-named books come from Wurtemberg professors. See also The New-Englander for March, 1884, p. 178.

Yet this did not end the war. During the seventeenth century, in France, after all the splendid proofs added by Kepler, no one dared openly teach the Copernican theory, and Ca.s.sini, the great astronomer, never declared for it. In 1672 the Jesuit Father Riccioli declared that there were precisely forty-nine arguments for the Copernican theory and seventy-seven against it. Even after the beginning of the eighteenth century--long after the demonstrations of Sir Isaac Newton--Bossuet, the great Bishop of Meaux, the foremost theologian that France has ever produced, declared it contrary to Scripture.

Nor did matters seem to improve rapidly during that century. In England, John Hutchinson, as we have seen, published in 1724 his Moses' Principia maintaining that the Hebrew Scriptures are a perfect system of natural philosophy, and are opposed to the Newtonian system of gravitation; and, as we have also seen, he was followed by a long list of noted men in the Church. In France, two eminent mathematicians published in 1748 an edition of Newton's Principia; but, in order to avert ecclesiastical censure, they felt obliged to prefix to it a statement absolutely false.

Three years later, Boscovich, the great mathematician of the Jesuits, used these words: "As for me, full of respect for the Holy Scriptures and the decree of the Holy Inquisition, I regard the earth as immovable; nevertheless, for simplicity in explanation I will argue as if the earth moves; for it is proved that of the two hypotheses the appearances favour this idea."

In Germany, especially in the Protestant part of it, the war was even more bitter, and it lasted through the first half of the eighteenth century. Eminent Lutheran doctors of divinity flooded the country with treatises to prove that the Copernican theory could not be reconciled with Scripture. In the theological seminaries and in many of the universities where clerical influence was strong they seemed to sweep all before them; and yet at the middle of the century we find some of the clearest-headed of them aware of the fact that their cause was lost.(74)

(74) For Ca.s.sini's position, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol.

xiii, p. 175. For Riccioli, see Daunou, Etudes Historiques, vol. ii, p. 439. For Boussuet, see Bertrand, p. 41. For Hutchinson, see Lyell, Principles of Geology, p. 48. For Wesley, see his work, already cited.

As to Boscovich, his declaration, mentioned in the text, was in 1746, but in 1785 he seemed to feel his position in view of history, and apologized abjectly; Bertrand, pp. 60, 61. See also Whewell's notice of Le Sueur and Jacquier's introduction to their edition of Newton's Principia. For the struggle in Germany, see Zoeckler, Geschichte der Beziehungenzwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft, vol. ii, pp. 45 et seq.

In 1757 the most enlightened perhaps in the whole line of the popes, Benedict XIV, took up the matter, and the Congregation of the Index secretly allowed the ideas of Copernicus to be tolerated. Yet in 1765 Lalande, the great French astronomer, tried in vain at Rome to induce the authorities to remove Galileo's works from the Index. Even at a date far within our own nineteenth century the authorities of many universities in Catholic Europe, and especially those in Spain, excluded the Newtonian system. In 1771 the greatest of them all, the University of Salamanca, being urged to teach physical science, refused, making answer as follows: "Newton teaches nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician; and Ga.s.sendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth as Aristotle does."

Vengeance upon the dead also has continued far into our own century. On the 5th of May, 1829, a great mult.i.tude a.s.sembled at Warsaw to honour the memory of Copernicus and to unveil Thorwaldsen's statue of him.

Copernicus had lived a pious, Christian life; he had been beloved for unostentatious Christian charity; with his religious belief no fault had ever been found; he was a canon of the Church at Frauenberg, and over his grave had been written the most touching of Christian epitaphs.

Naturally, then, the people expected a religious service; all was understood to be arranged for it; the procession marched to the church and waited. The hour pa.s.sed, and no priest appeared; none could be induced to appear. Copernicus, gentle, charitable, pious, one of the n.o.blest gifts of G.o.d to religion as well as to science, was evidently still under the ban. Five years after that, his book was still standing on the Index of books prohibited to Christians.

The edition of the Index published in 1819 was as inexorable toward the works of Copernicus and Galileo as its predecessors had been; but in the year 1820 came a crisis. Canon Settele, Professor of Astronomy at Rome, had written an elementary book in which the Copernican system was taken for granted. The Master of the Sacred Palace, Anfossi, as censor of the press, refused to allow the book to be printed unless Settele revised his work and treated the Copernican theory as merely a hypothesis. On this Settele appealed to Pope Pius VII, and the Pope referred the matter to the Congregation of the Holy Office. At last, on the 16th of August, 1820, it was decided that Settele might teach the Copernican system as established, and this decision was approved by the Pope. This aroused considerable discussion, but finally, on the 11th of September, 1822, the cardinals of the Holy Inquisition graciously agreed that "the printing and publication of works treating of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun, in accordance with the general opinion of modern astronomers, is permitted at Rome." This decree was ratified by Pius VII, but it was not until thirteen years later, in 1835, that there was issued an edition of the Index from which the condemnation of works defending the double motion of the earth was left out.

This was not a moment too soon, for, as if the previous proofs had not been sufficient, each of the motions of the earth was now absolutely demonstrated anew, so as to be recognised by the ordinary observer.

The parallax of fixed stars, shown by Bessel as well as other noted astronomers in 1838, clinched forever the doctrine of the revolution of the earth around the sun, and in 1851 the great experiment of Foucault with the pendulum showed to the human eye the earth in motion around its own axis. To make the matter complete, this experiment was publicly made in one of the churches at Rome by the eminent astronomer, Father Secchi, of the Jesuits, in 1852--just two hundred and twenty years after the Jesuits had done so much to secure Galileo's condemnation.(75)

(75) For good statements of the final action of the Church in the matter, see Gebler; also Zoeckler, ii, 352. See also Bertrand, Fondateurs de l'Astronomie moderne, p. 61; Flammarion, Vie de Copernic, chap. ix. As to the time when the decree of condemnation was repealed, there have been various pious attempts to make it earlier than the reality. Artaud, p. 307, cited in an apologetic article in the Dublin Review, September, 1865, says that Galileo's famous dialogue was published in 1714, at Padua, entire, and with the usual approbations.

The same article also declares that in 1818, the ecclesiastical decrees were repealed by Pius VII in full Consistory. Whewell accepts this; but Cantu, an authority favourable to the Church, acknowledges that Copernicus's work remained on the Index as late as 1835 (Cantu, Histoire universelle, vol. xv, p. 483); and with this Th. Martin, not less favourable to the Church, but exceedingly careful as to the facts, agrees; and the most eminent authority of all, Prof. Reusch, of Bonn, in his Der Index der vorbotenen Bucher, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, p. 396, confirms the above statement in the text. For a clear statement of Bradley's exquisite demonstration of the Copernican theory by reasonings upon the rapidity of light, etc., and Foucault's exhibition of the rotation of the earth by the pendulum experiment, see Hoefer, Histoire de l'Astronomie, pp. 492 et seq. For more recent proofs of the Copernican theory, by the discoveries of Bunsen, Bischoff, Benzenberg, and others, see Jevons, Principles of Science.

VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY OVER GALILEO.

Any history of the victory of astronomical science over dogmatic theology would be incomplete without some account of the retreat made by the Church from all its former positions in the Galileo case.

The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult. A little skilful warping of Scripture, a little skilful use of that time-honoured phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius, that the Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go, but how men go to heaven, and a free use of explosive rhetoric against the pursuing army of scientists, sufficed.

But in the older Church it was far less easy. The retreat of the sacro-scientific army of Church apologists lasted through two centuries.

In spite of all that has been said by these apologists, there no longer remains the shadow of a doubt that the papal infallibility was committed fully and irrevocably against the double revolution of the earth. As the doc.u.ments of Galileo's trial now published show, Paul V, in 1616, pushed on with all his might the condemnation of Galileo and of the works of Copernicus and of all others teaching the motion of the earth around its own axis and around the sun. So, too, in the condemnation of Galileo in 1633, and in all the proceedings which led up to it and which followed it, Urban VIII was the central figure. Without his sanction no action could have been taken.

True, the Pope did not formally sign the decree against the Copernican theory THEN; but this came later. In 1664 Alexander VII prefixed to the Index containing the condemnations of the works of Copernicus and Galileo and "all books which affirm the motion of the earth" a papal bull signed by himself, binding the contents of the Index upon the consciences of the faithful. This bull confirmed and approved in express terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly, the condemnation of "all books teaching the movement of the earth and the stability of the sun."(76)

(76) See Rev. William W. Roberts, The Pontifical Decrees against the Doctrine of the Earth's Movement, London, 1885, p. 94; and for the text of the papal bull, Speculatores domus Israel, pp. 132, 133, see also St.

George Mivart's article in the Nineteenth Century for July, 1885. For the authentic publication of the bull, see preface to the Index of 1664, where the bull appears, signed by the Pope. The Rev. Mr. Roberts and Mr. St. George Mivart are Roman Catholics and both acknowledge that the papal sanction was fully given.

The position of the mother Church had been thus made especially difficult; and the first important move in retreat by the apologists was the statement that Galileo was condemned, not because he affirmed the motion of the earth, but because he supported it from Scripture. There was a slight appearance of truth in this. Undoubtedly, Galileo's letters to Castelli and the grand d.u.c.h.ess, in which he attempted to show that his astronomical doctrines were not opposed to Scripture, gave a new stir to religious bigotry. For a considerable time, then, this quibble served its purpose; even a hundred and fifty years after Galileo's condemnation it was renewed by the Protestant Mallet du Pan, in his wish to gain favour from the older Church.

But nothing can be more absurd, in the light of the original doc.u.ments recently brought out of the Vatican archives, than to make this contention now. The letters of Galileo to Castelli and the Grand-d.u.c.h.ess were not published until after the condemnation; and, although the Archbishop of Pisa had endeavoured to use them against him, they were but casually mentioned in 1616, and entirely left out of view in 1633.

What was condemned in 1616 by the Sacred Congregation held in the presence of Pope Paul V, as "ABSURD, FALSE IN THEOLOGY, AND HERETICAL, BECAUSE ABSOLUTELY CONTRARY TO HOLY SCRIPTURE," was the proposition that "THE SUN IS THE CENTRE ABOUT WHICH THE EARTH REVOLVES"; and what was condemned as "ABSURD, FALSE IN PHILOSOPHY, AND FROM A THEOLOGIC POINT OF VIEW, AT LEAST, OPPOSED TO THE TRUE FAITH," was the proposition that "THE EARTH IS NOT THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE AND IMMOVABLE, BUT HAS A DIURNAL MOTION."

And again, what Galileo was made, by express order of Pope Urban, and by the action of the Inquisition under threat of torture, to abjure in 1633, was "THE ERROR AND HERESY OF THE MOVEMENT OF THE EARTH."

What the Index condemned under sanction of the bull issued by Alexander VII in 1664 was, "ALL BOOKS TEACHING THE MOVEMENT OF THE EARTH AND THE STABILITY OF THE SUN."

What the Index, prefaced by papal bulls, infallibly binding its contents upon the consciences of the faithful, for nearly two hundred years steadily condemned was, "ALL BOOKS WHICH AFFIRM THE MOTION OF THE EARTH."

Not one of these condemnations was directed against Galileo "for reconciling his ideas with Scripture."(77)

(77) For the original trial doc.u.ments, copied carefully from the Vatican ma.n.u.scripts, see the Roman Catholic authority, L'Epinois, especially p. 35, where the princ.i.p.al doc.u.ment is given in its original Latin; see also Gebler, Die Acten des galilei'schen Processes, for still more complete copies of the same doc.u.ments. For minute information regarding these doc.u.ments and their publication, see Favaro, Miscellanea Galileana Inedita, forming vol. xxii, part iii, of the Memoirs of the Venetian Inst.i.tute for 1887, and especially pp. 891 and following.

Having been dislodged from this point, the Church apologists sought cover under the statement that Galileo was condemned not for heresy, but for contumacy and want of respect toward the Pope.

There was a slight chance, also, for this quibble: no doubt Urban VIII, one of the haughtiest of pontiffs, was induced by Galileo's enemies to think that he had been treated with some lack of proper etiquette: first, by Galileo's adhesion to his own doctrines after his condemnation in 1616; and, next, by his supposed reference in the Dialogue of 1632 to the arguments which the Pope had used against him.

But it would seem to be a very poor service rendered to the doctrine of papal infallibility to claim that a decision so immense in its consequences could be influenced by the personal resentment of the reigning pontiff.

Again, as to the first point, the very language of the various sentences shows the folly of this a.s.sertion; for these sentences speak always of "heresy" and never of "contumacy." As to the last point, the display of the original doc.u.ments settled that forever. They show Galileo from first to last as most submissive toward the Pope, and patient under the papal arguments and exactions. He had, indeed, expressed his anger at times against his traducers; but to hold this the cause of the judgment against him is to degrade the whole proceedings, and to convict Paul V, Urban VIII, Bellarmin, the other theologians, and the Inquisition, of direct falsehood, since they a.s.signed entirely different reasons for their conduct. From this position, therefore, the a.s.sailants retreated.(78)

(78) The invention of the "contumacy" quibble seems due to Monsignor Marini, who appears also to have manipulated the original doc.u.ments to prove it. Even Whewell was evidently somewhat misled by him, but Whewell wrote before L'Epinois had shown all the doc.u.ments, and under the supposition that Marini was an honest man.

The next rally was made about the statement that the persecution of Galileo was the result of a quarrel between Aristotelian professors on one side and professors favouring the experimental method on the other.

But this position was attacked and carried by a very simple statement.

If the divine guidance of the Church is such that it can be dragged into a professorial squabble, and made the tool of a faction in bringing about a most disastrous condemnation of a proved truth, how did the Church at that time differ from any human organization sunk into decrepitude, managed nominally by simpletons, but really by schemers? If that argument be true, the condition of the Church was even worse than its enemies have declared it; and amid the jeers of an unfeeling world the apologists sought new shelter.

The next point at which a stand was made was the a.s.sertion that the condemnation of Galileo was "provisory"; but this proved a more treacherous shelter than the others. The wording of the decree of condemnation itself is a sufficient answer to this claim. When doctrines have been solemnly declared, as those of Galileo were solemnly declared under sanction of the highest authority in the Church, "contrary to the sacred Scriptures," "opposed to the true faith," and "false and absurd in theology and philosophy"--to say that such declarations are "provisory" is to say that the truth held by the Church is not immutable; from this, then, the apologists retreated.(79)

(79) This argument also seems to have been foisted upon the world by the wily Monsignor Marini.

Still another contention was made, in some respects more curious than any other: it was, mainly, that Galileo "was no more a victim of Catholics than of Protestants; for they more than the Catholic theologians impelled the Pope to the action taken."(80)