Books: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

J >> John William Draper >> History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

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No one can recall without sentiments of pity the sufferings of
those countless martyrs, who first by one party, and then by
another, have been brought for their religious opinions to the
stake. But each of these had in his supreme moment a powerful and
unfailing support. The passage from this life to the next, though
through a hard trial, was the passage from a transient trouble to
eternal happiness, an escape from the cruelty of earth to the
charity of heaven. On his way through the dark valley the martyr
believed that there was an invisible hand that would lead him, a
friend that would guide him all the more gently and firmly
because of the terrors of the flames. For Bruno there was no such
support. The philosophical opinions, for the sake of which he
surrendered his life, could give him no consolation. He must
fight the last fight alone. Is there not something very grand in
the attitude of this solitary man, something which human nature
cannot help admiring, as he stands in the gloomy hall before his
inexorable judges? No accuser, no witness, no advocate is
present, but the familiars of the Holy Office, clad in black, are
stealthily moving about. The tormentors and the rack are in the
vaults below. He is simply told that he has brought upon himself
strong suspicions of heresy, since he has said that there are
other worlds than ours. He is asked if he will recant and abjure
his error. He cannot and will not deny what he knows to be true,
and perhaps--for he had often done so before--he tells his judges
that they, too, in their hearts are of the same belief. What a
contrast between this scene of manly honor, of unshaken firmness,
of inflexible adherence to the truth, and that other scene which
took place more than fifteen centuries previously by the fireside
in the hall of Caiaphas the high-priest, when the cock crew, and
"the Lord turned and looked upon Peter" (Luke xxii. 61)! And yet
it is upon Peter that the Church has grounded her right to act as
she did to Bruno. But perhaps the day approaches when posterity
will offer an expiation for this great ecclesiastical crime, and
a statue of Bruno be unveiled under the dome of St. Peter's at
Rome.

CHAPTER VII.

CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE AGE OF THE EARTH.

Scriptural view that the Earth is only six thousand years old,
and that it was made in a week.--Patristic chronology founded on
the ages of the patriarchs.--Difficulties arising from different
estimates in different versions of the Bible.

Legend of the Deluge.--The repeopling.--The Tower of Babel; the
confusion of tongues.--The primitive language.

Discovery by Cassini of the oblateness of the planet
Jupiter.--Discovery by Newton of the oblateness of the
Earth.--Deduction that she has been modeled by mechanical
causes.--Confirmation of this by geological discoveries
respecting aqueous rocks; corroboration by organic remains.-- The
necessity of admitting enormously long periods of time.
--Displacement of the doctrine of Creation by that of Evolution--
Discoveries respecting the Antiquity of Man.

The time-scale and space-scale of the world are
infinite.--Moderation with which the discussion of the Age of the
World has been conducted.

THE true position of the earth in the universe was established
only after a long and severe conflict. The Church used whatever
power she had, even to the infliction of death, for sustaining
her ideas. But it was in vain. The evidence in behalf of the
Copernican theory became irresistible. It was at length
universally admitted that the sun is the central, the ruling body
of our system; the earth only one, and by no means the largest,
of a family of encircling planets. Taught by the issue of that
dispute, when the question of the age of the world presented
itself for consideration, the Church did not exhibit the active
resistance she had displayed on the former occasion. For, though
her traditions were again put in jeopardy, they were not, in her
judgment, so vitally assailed. To dethrone the Earth from her
dominating position was, so the spiritual authorities declared,
to undermine the very foundation of revealed truth; but
discussions respecting the date of creation might within certain
limits be permitted. Those limits were, however, very quickly
overpassed, and thus the controversy became as dangerous as the
former one had been.

It was not possible to adopt the advice given by Plato in his
"Timaeus," when treating of this subject-- the origin of the
universe: "It is proper that both I who speak and you who judge
should remember that we are but men, and therefore, receiving the
probable mythological tradition, it is meet that we inquire no
further into it." Since the time of St. Augustine the Scriptures
had been made the great and final authority in all matters of
science, and theologians had deduced from them schemes of
chronology and cosmogony which had proved to be stumbling-blocks
to the advance of real knowledge.

It is not necessary for us to do more than to allude to some of
the leading features of these schemes; their peculiarities will
be easily discerned with sufficient clearness. Thus, from the six
days of creation and the Sabbath-day of rest, since we are told
that a day is with the Lord as a thousand years, it was inferred
that the duration of the world will be through six thousand years
of suffering, and an additional thousand, a millennium of rest.
It was generally admitted that the earth was about four thousand
years old at the birth of Christ, but, so careless had Europe
been in the study of its annals, that not Until A.D. 627 had it a
proper chronology of its own. A Roman abbot, Dionysius Exiguus,
or Dennis the Less, then fixed the vulgar era, and gave Europe
its present Christian chronology.

The method followed in obtaining the earliest chronological dates
was by computations, mainly founded on the lives of the
patriarchs. Much difficulty was encountered in reconciling
numerical discrepancies. Even if, as was taken for granted in
those uncritical ages, Moses was the author of the books imputed
to him, due weight was not given to the fact that he related
events, many of which took place more than two thousand years
before he was born. It scarcely seemed necessary to regard the
Pentateuch as of plenary inspiration, since no means had been
provided to perpetuate its correctness. The different copies
which had escaped the chances of time varied very much; thus the
Samaritan made thirteen hundred and seven years from the Creation
to the Deluge, the Hebrew sixteen hundred and fifty-six, the
Septuagint twenty-two hundred and sixty-three. The Septuagint
counted fifteen hundred years more from the Creation to Abraham
than the Hebrew. In general, however, there was an inclination to
the supposition that the Deluge took place about two thousand
years after the Creation, and, after another interval of two
thousand years, Christ was born. Persons who had given much
attention to the subject affirmed that there were not less than
one hundred and thirty-two different opinions as to the year in
which the Messiah appeared, and hence they declared that it was
inexpedient to press for acceptance the Scriptural numbers too
closely, since it was plain, from the great differences in
different copies, that there had been no providential
intervention to perpetuate a correct reading, nor was there any
mark by which men could be guided to the only authentic version.
Even those held in the highest esteem contained undeniable
errors. Thus the Septuagint made Methuselah live until after the
Deluge.

It was thought that, in the antediluvian world, the year
consisted of three hundred and sixty days. Some even affirmed
that this was the origin of the division of the circle into three
hundred and sixty degrees. At the time of the Deluge, so many
theologians declared, the motion of the sun was altered, and the
year became five days and six hours longer. There was a prevalent
opinion that that stupendous event occurred on November 2d, in
the year of the world 1656. Dr. Whiston, however, disposed to
greater precision, inclined to postpone it to November 28th. Some
thought that the rainbow was not seen until after the flood;
others, apparently with better reason, inferred that it was then
first established as a sign. On coming forth from the ark, men
received permission to use flesh as food, the antediluvians
having been herbivorous! It would seem that the Deluge had not
occasioned any great geographical changes, for Noah, relying on
his antediluvian knowledge, proceeded to divide the earth among
his three sons, giving to Japhet Europe, to Shem Asia, to Ham
Africa. No provision was made for America, as he did not know of
its existence. These patriarchs, undeterred by the terrible
solitudes to which they were going, by the undrained swamps and
untracked forests, journeyed to their allotted possessions, and
commenced the settlement of the continents.

In seventy years the Asiatic family had increased to several
hundred. They had found their way to the plains of Mesopotamia,
and there, for some motive that we cannot divine, began building
a tower "whose top might reach to heaven." Eusebius informs us
that the work continued for forty years. They did not abandon it
until a miraculous confusion of their language took place and
dispersed them all over the earth. St. Ambrose shows that this
confusion could not have been brought about by men. Origen
believes that not even the angels accomplished it.

The confusion of tongues has given rise to many curious
speculations among divines as to the primitive speech of man.
Some have thought that the language of Adam consisted altogether
of nouns, that they were monosyllables, and that the confusion
was occasioned by the introduction of polysyllables. But these
learned men must surely have overlooked the numerous
conversations reported in Genesis, such as those between the
Almighty and Adam, the serpent and Eve, etc. In these all the
various parts of speech occur. There was, however, a coincidence
of opinion that the primitive language was Hebrew. On the general
principles of patristicism, it was fitting that this should be
the case.

The Greek Fathers computed that, at the time of the dispersion,
seventy-two nations were formed, and in this conclusion St.
Augustine coincides. But difficulties seem to have been
recognized in these computations; thus the learned Dr. Shuckford,
who has treated very elaborately on all the foregoing points in
his excellent work "On the Sacred and Profane History of the
World connected," demonstrates that there could not have been
more than twenty-one or twenty-two men, women, and children, in
each of those kingdoms.

A very vital point in this system of chronological computation,
based upon the ages of the patriarchs, was the great length of
life to which those worthies attained. It was generally supposed
that before the Flood "there was a perpetual equinox," and no
vicissitudes in Nature. After that event the standard of life
diminished one- half, and in the time of the Psalmist it had sunk
to seventy years, at which it still remains. Austerities of
climate were affirmed to have arisen through the shifting of the
earth's axis at the Flood, and to this ill effect were added the
noxious influences of that universal catastrophe, which,
"converting the surface of the earth into a vast swamp, gave rise
to fermentations of the blood and a weakening of the fibres."

With a view of avoiding difficulties arising from the
extraordinary length of the patriarchal lives, certain divines
suggested that the years spoken of by the sacred penman were not
ordinary but lunar years. This, though it might bring the age of
those venerable men within the recent term of life, introduced,
however, another insuperable difficulty, since it made them have
children when only five or six years old.

Sacred science, as interpreted by the Fathers of the Church,
demonstrated these facts: 1. That the date of Creation was
comparatively recent, not more than four or five thousand years
before Christ; 2. That the act of Creation occupied the space of
six ordinary days; 3. That the Deluge was universal, and that the
animals which survived it were preserved in an ark; 4. That Adam
was created perfect in morality and intelligence, that he fell,
and that his descendants have shared in his sin and his fall.

Of these points and others that might be mentioned there were two
on which ecclesiastical authority felt that it must insist. These
were: 1. The recent date of Creation; for, the remoter that
event, the more urgent the necessity of vindicating the justice
of God, who apparently had left the majority of our race to its
fate, and had reserved salvation for the few who were living in
the closing ages of the world; 2. The perfect condition of Adam
at his creation, since this was necessary to the theory of the
fall, and the plan of salvation.

Theological authorities were therefore constrained to look with
disfavor on any attempt to carry back the origin of the earth, to
an epoch indefinitely remote, and on the Mohammedan theory of the
evolution of man from lower forms, or his gradual development to
his present condition in the long lapse of time.

From the puerilities, absurdities, and contradictions of the
foregoing statement, we may gather how very unsatisfactory this
so-called sacred science was. And perhaps we may be brought to
the conclusion to which Dr. Shuckford, above quoted, was
constrained to come, after his wearisome and unavailing attempt
to coordinate its various parts: "As to the Fathers of the first
ages of the Church, they were good men, but not men of universal
learning."

Sacred cosmogony regards the formation and modeling of the earth
as the direct act of God; it rejects the intervention of
secondary causes in those events.

Scientific cosmogony dates from the telescopic discovery made by
Cassini--an Italian astronomer, under whose care Louis XIV.
placed the Observatory of Paris--that the planet Jupiter is not a
sphere, but an oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles.
Mechanical philosophy demonstrated that such a figure is the
necessary result of the rotation of a yielding mass, and that the
more rapid the rotation the greater the flattening, or, what
comes to the same thing, the greater the equatorial bulging must
be.

From considerations--purely of a mechanical kind-- Newton had
foreseen that such likewise, though to a less striking extent,
must be the figure of the earth. To the protuberant mass is due
the precession of the equinoxes, which requires twenty-five
thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight years for its completion,
and also the nutation of the earth's axis, discovered by Bradley.
We have already had occasion to remark that the earth's
equatorial diameter exceeds the polar by about twenty-six miles.

Two facts are revealed by the oblateness of the earth: 1. That
she has formerly been in a yielding or plastic condition; 2. That
she has been modeled by a mechanical and therefore a secondary
cause.

But this influence of mechanical causes is manifested not only in
the exterior configuration of the globe of the earth as a
spheroid of revolution, it also plainly appears on an examination
of the arrangement of her substance.

If we consider the aqueous rocks, their aggregate is many miles
in thickness; yet they undeniably have been of slow deposit. The
material of which they consist has been obtained by the
disintegration of ancient lands; it has found its way into the
water-courses, and by them been distributed anew. Effects of this
kind, taking place before our eyes, require a very considerable
lapse of time to produce a well-marked result-- a water deposit
may in this manner measure in thickness a few inches in a
century--what, then, shall we say as to the time consumed in the
formation of deposits of many thousand yards?

The position of the coast-line of Egypt has been known for much
more than two thousand years. In that time it has made, by reason
of the detritus brought down by the Nile, a distinctly-marked
encroachment on the Mediterranean. But all Lower Egypt has had a
similar origin. The coast-line near the mouth of the Mississippi
has been well known for three hundred years, and during that time
has scarcely made a perceptible advance on the Gulf of Mexico;
but there was a time when the delta of that river was at St.
Louis, more than seven hundred miles from its present position.
In Egypt and in America--in fact, in all countries--the rivers
have been inch by inch prolonging the land into the sea; the
slowness of their work and the vastness of its extent satisfy us
that we must concede for the operation enormous periods of time.

To the same conclusion we are brought if we consider the filling
of lakes, the deposit of travertines, the denudation of hills,
the cutting action of the sea on its shores, the undermining of
cliffs, the weathering of rocks by atmospheric water and carbonic
acid.

Sedimentary strata must have been originally deposited in planes
nearly horizontal. Vast numbers of them have been forced, either
by paroxysms at intervals or by gradual movement, into all manner
of angular inclinations. Whatever explanations we may offer of
these innumerable and immense tilts and fractures, they would
seem to demand for their completion an inconceivable length of
time.

The coal-bearing strata in Wales, by their gradual submergence,
have attained a thickness of 12,000 feet; in Nova Scotia of
14,570 feet. So slow and so steady was this submergence, that
erect trees stand one above another on successive levels;
seventeen such repetitions may be counted in a thickness of 4,515
feet. The age of the trees is proved by their size, some being
four feet in diameter. Round them, as they gradually went down
with the subsiding soil, calamites grew, at one level after
another. In the Sydney coal-field fifty-nine fossil forests occur
in superposition.

Marine shells, found on mountain-tops far in the interior of
continents, were regarded by theological writers as an
indisputable illustration of the Deluge. But when, as geological
studies became more exact, it was proved that in the crust of the
earth vast fresh-water formations are repeatedly intercalated
with vast marine ones, like the leaves of a book, it became
evident that no single cataclysm was sufficient to account for
such results; that the same region, through gradual variations of
its level and changes in its topographical surroundings, had
sometimes been dry land, sometimes covered with fresh and
sometimes with sea water. It became evident also that, for the
completion of these changes, tens of thousands of years were
required.

To this evidence of a remote origin of the earth, derived from
the vast superficial extent, the enormous thickness, and the
varied characters of its strata, was added an imposing body of
proof depending on its fossil remains. The relative ages of
formations having been ascertained, it was shown that there has
been an advancing physiological progression of organic forms,
both vegetable and animal, from the oldest to the most recent;
that those which inhabit the surface in our times are but an
insignificant fraction of the prodigious multitude that have
inhabited it heretofore; that for each species now living there
are thousands that have become extinct. Though special formations
are so strikingly characterized by some predominating type of
life as to justify such expressions as the age of mollusks, the
age of reptiles, the age of mammals, the introduction of the
new-comers did not take place abruptly. as by sudden creation.
They gradually emerged in an antecedent age, reached their
culmination in the one which they characterize, and then
gradually died out in a succeeding. There is no such thing as a
sudden creation, a sudden strange appearance--but there is a slow
metamorphosis, a slow development from a preexisting form. Here
again we encounter the necessity of admitting for such results
long periods of time. Within the range of history no well-marked
instance of such development has been witnessed, and we speak
with hesitation of doubtful instances of extinction. Yet in
geological times myriads of evolutions and extinctions have
occurred.

Since thus, within the experience of man, no case of
metamorphosis or development has been observed, some have been
disposed to deny its possibility altogether, affirming that all
the different species have come into existence by separate
creative acts. But surely it is less unphilosophical to suppose
that each species has been evolved from a predecessor by a
modification of its parts, than that it has suddenly started into
existence out of nothing. Nor is there much weight in the remark
that no man has ever witnessed such a transformation taking
place. Let it be remembered that no man has ever witnessed an act
of creation, the sudden appearance of an organic form, without
any progenitor.

Abrupt, arbitrary, disconnected creative acts may serve to
illustrate the Divine power; but that continuous unbroken chain
of organisms which extends from palaeozoic formations to the
formations of recent times, a chain in which each link hangs on a
preceding and sustains a succeeding one, demonstrates to us not
only that the production of animated beings is governed by law,
but that it is by law that has undergone no change. In its
operation, through myriads of ages, there has been no variation,
no suspension.

The foregoing paragraphs may serve to indicate the character of a
portion of the evidence with which we must deal in considering
the problem of the age of the earth. Through the unintermitting
labors of geologists, so immense a mass has been accumulated,
that many volumes would be required to contain the details. It is
drawn from the phenomena presented by all kinds of rocks,
aqueous, igneous, metamorphic. Of aqueous rocks it investigates
the thickness, the inclined positions, and how they rest
unconformably on one another; how those that are of fresh-water
origin are intercalated with those that are marine; how vast
masses of material have been removed by slow-acting causes of
denudation, and extensive geographical surfaces have been
remodeled; how continents have undergone movements of elevation
and depression, their shores sunk under the ocean, or sea-beaches
and sea-cliffs carried far into the interior. It considers the
zoological and botanical facts, the fauna and flora of the
successive ages, and how in an orderly manner the chain of
organic forms, plants, and animals, has been extended, from its
dim and doubtful beginnings to our own times. From facts
presented by the deposits of coal-coal which, in all its
varieties, has originated from the decay of plants--it not only
demon strates the changes that have taken place in the earth's
atmosphere, but also universal changes of climate. From other
facts it proves that there have been oscillations of
temperature,. periods in which the mean heat has risen, and
periods in which the polar ices and snows have covered large
portions of the existing continents --glacial periods, as they
are termed.

One school of geologists, resting its argument on very imposing
evidence, teaches that the whole mass of the earth, from being in
a molten, or perhaps a vaporous condition, has cooled by
radiation in the lapse of millions of ages, until it has reached
its present equilibrium of temperature. Astronomical observations
give great weight to this interpretation, especially so far as
the planetary bodies of the solar system are concerned. It is
also supported by such facts as the small mean density of the
earth, the increasing temperature at increasing depths, the
phenomena of volcanoes and injected veins, and those of igneous
and metamorphic rocks. To satisfy the physical changes which this
school of geologists contemplates, myriads of centuries are
required.

But, with the views that the adoption of the Copernican system
has given us, it is plain that we cannot consider the origin and
biography of the earth in an isolated way; we must include with
her all the other members of the system or family to which she
belongs. Nay, more, we cannot restrict ourselves to the solar
system; we must embrace in our discussions the starry worlds.
And, since we have become familiarized with their almost
immeasurable distances from one another, we are prepared to
accept for their origin an immeasurably remote time. There are
stars so far off that their light, fast as it travels, has taken
thousands of years to reach us, and hence they must have been in
existence many thousands of years ago.

Geologists having unanimously agreed--for perhaps there is not a
single dissenting voice--that the chronology of the earth must be
greatly extended, attempts have been made to give precision to
it. Some of these have been based on astronomical, some on
physical principles. Thus calculations founded on the known
changes of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, with a view of
determining the lapse of time since the beginning of the last
glacial period, have given two hundred and forty thousand years.
Though the general postulate of the immensity of geological times
may be conceded, such calculations are on too uncertain a
theoretical basis to furnish incontestable results.

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