Part 3 (1/2)

IV. SCIENCE IN ”BONDAGE”

Amongst the numerous taunts which are cast at the Catholic Church there is none more frequently employed, nor, it may be added, more generally believed, nor more injurious to her reputation amongst outsiders--even with her own less-instructed children themselves at times--than the allegation which declares that where the Church has full sway, science cannot flourish, can scarcely in fact exist, and that the Church will only permit men of science to study and to teach as and while she permits.

To give but one example of this att.i.tude towards the Church, readers may be reminded that Huxley[23] called the Catholic Church ”the vigorous enemy of the highest life of mankind,” and rejoiced that evolution, ”in addition to its truth, has the great merit of being in a position of irreconcilable antagonism to it.” An utterly incorrect, even ignorant statement, by the way--but let that pa.s.s. The same writer, in a number of places, in season and out of season, as we may fairly say,[24]

proclaims his wholly erroneous view that there is ”a necessary antagonism between science and Roman Catholic doctrine.” We need not labour this point. It is sufficiently obvious, nor does it need any catena of authorities to establish the fact, that outside the Church, and even, as we have hinted above, amongst the less-instructed of her own children, there is a prevalent idea that the allegation with which this paper proposes to deal is a true bill.

Those who give credit to the allegation must of course ignore certain very patent facts which are, it will be allowed, a little difficult to get over. They must commence by ignoring the historical fact that the greater number--almost all indeed--of the older Universities, places specially intended to foster and increase knowledge and research, owe their origin to Papal bulls. They must ignore the fact that vast numbers of scientific researches, often of fundamental importance, especially perhaps in the subjects of anatomy and physiology, emanated from learned men attached to seats of learning in Rome, and this during the Middle Ages, and that the learned men who were their authors quite frequently held official positions in the Papal Court. They must finally ignore the fact that a large number of the most distinguished scientific workers and discoverers in the past were also devout children of the Catholic Church. Stensen, ”the Father of Geology” and a great anatomical discoverer as well, was a bishop; Mendel, whose name is so often heard nowadays in biological controversies, was an abbot. And what about Galvani, Volta, Pasteur, Schwann (the originator of the Cell Theory), van Beneden, Johannes Muller, admitted by Huxley to be ”the greatest anatomist and physiologist among my contemporaries”?[25] What about Kircher, Spallanzani, Secchi, de Lapparent, to take the names of persons of different historical periods, and connected with different subjects, yet all united in the bond of the Faith? To point to these men--and a host of other names might be cited--is to overthrow at once and finally the edifice of falsehood reared by enemies of the Church, who, before erecting it, might reasonably have been asked to look to the security of their foundations.

Still there is the edifice, and as every edifice must rest on some kind of foundation or another, even if that foundation be nothing but sand, it may be useful and interesting to inquire, as I now propose to do, what foundation there is--if in fact there is any--for this particular allegation.

We might commence by interrogating the persons who make it. The probability is that the reply which would at once be drawn from most of them would amount to this: ”Everybody knows it to be true.” If the interrogated person is amongst those less imperfectly informed we shall probably be referred to Huxley or to some other writer. Or we may even find ourselves confronted with that greater knowledge--or less insp.i.s.sated ignorance--which babbles about Galileo, the Inquisition, the _Index_, and the _imprimatur_.

Galileo and his case we shall consider later on, for he and it are really germane to the question with which we are dealing. The Inquisition has really nothing to do with the matter. The _Index_ we also reserve for a later part of this essay. With the _imprimatur_ we may now deal, since there is no doubt that there is a genuine misunderstanding on this subject on the part of some people who are misled perhaps through ignorance of Latin and quite certainly through ignorance of what the whole matter amounts to. Let us begin by reminding ourselves that, though the unchanging Church is now, so far as I am aware, the only body which issues an _imprimatur_, there were other instances of the exercise of such a privilege even in recent or comparatively recent days. There were Royal licences to print with which we need not concern ourselves. But, what is important, there was a time when the scientific authority of the day a.s.sumed the right of issuing an _imprimatur_. I take the first book which occurs to me, Tyson's _Anatomie of a Pygmie_, and for the sake of those who are not acquainted with it, I may add that this book is not only the foundation-stone of Comparative Anatomy, but also, through its appendix _A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges of the Ancients_, the foundation-stone of all folk-lore study. On the page fronting the t.i.tle of this work the following appears:

_17 Die Maij, 1699._

_Imprimatur Liber cui t.i.tulus, Orang-Outang sive h.o.m.o Sylvestris, etc. Auth.o.r.e Edvardo Tyson, M.D., R.S.S._

_John Hoskins, V.P.R.S._

What does this mean? In the first place it shows, what all instructed persons know, that the Royal Society did then exercise the privilege of giving an _imprimatur_ at any rate to books written by its own Fellows.

It cannot be supposed that such _imprimatur_ guaranteed the accuracy of all the statements made by Tyson, for we may feel sure that John Hoskins was quite unable to give any such a.s.surance. We must a.s.sume that it meant that there was nothing in the book which would reflect discredit upon the Society of which Tyson was a Fellow and from which the _imprimatur_ was obtained.

However this may be, the sway over its Fellows' publications was exercised, and indeed very excellent arguments might be adduced for the rea.s.sumption of such a sway even to-day.[26]

Though the _imprimatur_ in question has fallen into desuetude, it is, as we all know, the commonest of things for the introductions to works of science to occupy some often considerable part of their s.p.a.ce with acknowledgments of a.s.sistance given by learned friends who have read the ma.n.u.script or the proofs and made suggestions with the object of improving the book or adding to its accuracy. Any person who has written a book can feel nothing but grat.i.tude towards those who have helped him to avoid the errors and slips to which even the most careful are subject.

So that such acknowledgments of a.s.sistance have come to be almost what the lawyers call ”common form.” What they really amount to is a proclamation on the part of the author that he has done his best to ensure that his book is free from mistakes. Now the _imprimatur_ really amounts to the same thing, for it is, of course, confined to books or parts of books where theology or philosophy trenching upon theology is concerned. Thus a book may deal largely, perhaps mainly, with scientific points, yet necessarily include allusions to theological dogmas. The _imprimatur_ to such a book would relate solely and entirely to the theological parts, just as the advice of an architectural authority on a point connected with that subject in a work in which it was mentioned only in an incidental manner, would refer to that point, and to nothing else. Perhaps it should be added, that no author is obliged to obtain an _imprimatur_ any more than he is compelled to seek advice on any other point in connection with his book. ”_Nihil Obstat_,” says the skilled referee: ”I see no reason to suppose that there is anything in all this which contravenes theological principles.” To which the authority appealed to adds ”_imprimatur_:” ”Then by all means let it be printed.”

The procedure is no doubt somewhat more stately and formal than the modern system of acknowledgments, yet in actual practice there is but little to differentiate the two methods of ensuring, so far as is possible, that the work is free from mistakes. That neither the a.s.sistance of friends nor the _imprimatur_ of authorities is infallible is proved by the facts that mistakes do creep into works of science, however carefully examined, and that more than one book with an _imprimatur_ has, none the less, found its way on to the _Index_. Before leaving this branch of the subject one cannot refrain from calling attention to another point. How often in advertis.e.m.e.nts of books do we not see quotations from reviews in authoritative journals--a medical work from the _Lancet_, a physical or chemical from _Nature_? Frequently too we see ”Mr. So-and-So, the well-known authority on the subject, says of this book, etc., etc.” What are all these authoritative commendations but an _imprimatur_ up to date?

Pa.s.sing from the _imprimatur_ to a closer consideration of our subject, it is above all things necessary to take the advice of Samuel Johnson and clear our minds of cant. Every person in this world--save perhaps a Robinson Crusoe on an otherwise uninhabited island, and he only because of his solitary condition--is in bondage more or less to others; that is to say, has his freedom more or less interfered with. That this interference is in the interests of the community and so, in the last a.n.a.lysis, in the interests of the person interfered with himself, in no way weakens the argument; it is rather a potent adjuvant to it. However much I may dislike him and however anxious I may be to injure him, I may not go out and set fire to my neighbour's house nor to his rick-yard, unless I am prepared to risk the serious legal penalties which will be my lot if I am detected in the act. I may not, if I am a small and active boy, make a slide in the public street in frosty weather, unless I am prepared--as the small boy usually is--to run the gauntlet of the police. In a thousand ways my freedom, or what I call my freedom, is interfered with: it is the price which I pay for being one item of a social organism and for being in turn protected against others, who, in virtue of that protection, are in their turn deprived of what they might call their liberty.

No one can have failed to observe that this interference with personal liberty becomes greater day by day. It is a tendency of modern governments, based presumably upon increased experience, to increase these protective regulations. Thus we have laws against adulteration of food, against the placing of buildings concerned with obnoxious trades in positions where people will be inconvenienced by them. We make persons suffering from infectious diseases isolate themselves, and if they cannot do this at home, we make them go to the fever hospital.

Further, we insist upon the doctor, whose position resembles that of a confessor, breaking his obligation of professional secrecy and informing the authorities as to the illness of his patient. We interfere with the liberty of men and women to work as long as they like or to make their children labour for excessive hours. We insist upon dangerous machinery being fenced in. In a thousand ways we--the State--interfere with the liberty of our fellows. Finally, when the needs of the community are most pressing we interfere most with the freedom of the subject. Thus, in these islands, we were recently living under a Defence of the Realm Act--with which no reasonable person quarrelled. Yet it forbad many things not only harmless in themselves but habitually permitted in times of peace. We were subject to penalties if we showed lighted windows: they must be shuttered or provided with heavy curtains. We might not travel in railway carriages at night with the blinds undrawn. The papers might not publish, nor we say in public, things which in time of peace would go unnoticed. There were a host of other matters to which allusion need not be made. Enough has been said to show that the State has and exerts the right to control the actions of those who belong to it, and that in time of stress it can and does very greatly intensify that control and does so without arousing any real or widespread discontent.

Of course we all grumble, but then everybody, except its own members, always does more or less grumble at anything done by any government: that is the ordinary state of affairs. But at any rate we submit ourselves, more or less gracefully, to this restraint because we persuade ourselves or are persuaded that it is for the good of the State and thus for the good of ourselves, both as private individuals and as members of the State.

And many of us, at any rate, comfort ourselves with the thought that a great many of the regulations which appear to be most tyrannical and most to interfere with the natural liberty of mankind are devised not with that end in view but with the righteous intention of protecting those weaker members of the body who are unable to protect themselves.

If the State does not stand by such members and offer itself as their s.h.i.+eld and support, it has no claim to our obedience, no real right to exist, and so we put up with the inconvenience, should such arise, on account of the protection given to the weaker members and often extended to those who would by no means feel pleased if they heard themselves thus described.

Let us subst.i.tute the Church for the State and let us remember that there are times when she is at closer grips with the powers of evil than may be the case at other times. The parallel is surely sufficiently close.

So far as earthly laws can control one, no one is obliged to be a member of the Catholic Church nor a citizen of the British Empire. I can, if I choose, emigrate to America, in process of time naturalise myself there and join the Christian Science organisation or any other body to which I find myself attracted. But as long as I remain a Catholic and a British citizen I must submit myself to the restrictions imposed by the bodies with which I have elected to connect myself. We arrive at the conclusion then that the ordinary citizen, even if he never adverts to the fact, is in reality controlled and his liberty limited in all sorts of directions.

Now the scientific man, in his own work, is subject to all sorts of limitations, apart altogether from the limitations to which, as an ordinary member of the State, he has to submit himself.

He is restricted by science: he is not completely free but is bound by knowledge--the knowledge which he or others have acquired.

To say he is limited by it is not to say that he is imprisoned by it or in bondage to it. ”One does not lose one's intellectual liberty when one learns mathematics,” says the late Monsignor Benson in one of his letters, ”though one certainly loses the liberty of doing sums wrong or doing them by laborious methods!”