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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But, considering the whole subject from the present scientific
stand-point, it is very clear that the views presented by
theological writers, as derived from the Mosaic record, cannot be
admitted. Attempts have been repeatedly made to reconcile the
revealed with the discovered facts, but they have proved to be
unsatisfactory. The Mosaic time is too short, the order of
creation incorrect, the divine interventions too anthropomorphic;
and, though the presentment of the subject is in harmony with the
ideas that men have entertained, when first their minds were
turned to the acquisition of natural knowledge, it is not in
accordance with their present conceptions of the insignificance
of the earth and the grandeur of the universe.

Among late geological discoveries is one of special interest; it
is the detection of human remains and human works in formations
which, though geologically recent, are historically very remote.

The fossil remains of men, with rude implements of rough or
chipped flint, of polished stone, of bone, of bronze, are found
in Europe in caves, in drifts, in peat- beds. They indicate a
savage life, spent in hunting and fishing. Recent researches give
reason to believe that, under low and base grades, the existence
of man can be traced back into the tertiary times. He was
contemporary with the southern elephant, the rhinoceros
leptorhinus, the great hippopotamus, perhaps even in the miocene
contemporary with the mastodon.

At the close of the Tertiary period, from causes not yet
determined, the Northern Hemisphere underwent a great depression
of temperature. From a torrid it passed to a glacial condition.
After a period of prodigious length, the temperature again rose,
and the glaciers that had so extensively covered the surface
receded. Once more there was a decline in the heat, and the
glaciers again advanced, but this time not so far as formerly.
This ushered in the Quaternary period, during which very slowly
the temperature came to its present degree. The water deposits
that were being made required thousands of centuries for their
completion. At the beginning of the Quaternary period there were
alive the cave-bear, the cave-lion, the amphibious hippopotamus,
the rhinoceros with chambered nostrils, the mammoth. In fact, the
mammoth swarmed. He delighted in a boreal climate. By degrees the
reindeer, the horse, the ox, the bison, multiplied, and disputed
with him his food. Partly for this reason, and partly because of
the increasing heat, he became extinct. From middle Europe, also,
the reindeer retired. His departure marks the end of the
Quaternary period.

Since the advent of man on the earth, we have, therefore, to deal
with periods of incalculable length. Vast changes in the climate
and fauna were produced by the slow operation of causes such as
are in action at the present day. Figures cannot enable us to
appreciate these enormous lapses of time.

It seems to be satisfactorily established, that a race allied to
the Basques may be traced back to the Neolithic age. At that time
the British Islands were undergoing a change of level, like that
at present occurring in the Scandinavian Peninsula. Scotland was
rising, England was sinking. In the Pleistocene age there existed
in Central Europe a rude race of hunters and fishers closely
allied to the Esquimaux.

In the old glacial drift of Scotland the relics of man are found
along with those of the fossil elephant. This carries us back to
that time above referred to, when a large portion of Europe was
covered with ice, which had edged down from the polar regions to
southerly latitudes, and, as glaciers, descended from the summits
of the mountain-chains into the plains. Countless species of
animals perished in this cataclysm of ice and snow, but man
survived.

In his primitive savage condition, living for the most part on
fruits, roots, shell-fish, man was in possession of a fact which
was certain eventually to insure his civilization. He knew how to
make a fire. In peat- beds, under the remains of trees that in
those localities have long ago become extinct, his relics are
still found, the implements that accompany him indicating a
distinct chronological order. Near the surface are those of
bronze, lower down those of bone or horn, still lower those of
polished stone, and beneath all those of chipped or rough stone.
The date of the origin of some of these beds cannot be estimated
at less than forty or fifty thousand years.

The caves that have been examined in France and elsewhere have
furnished for the Stone age axes, knives, lance and arrow points,
scrapers, hammers. The change from what may be termed the chipped
to the polished stone period is very gradual. It coincides with
the domestication of the dog, an epoch in hunting-life. It
embraces thousands of centuries. The appearance of arrow-heads
indicates the invention of the bow, and the rise of man from a
defensive to an offensive mode of life. The introduction of
barbed arrows shows how inventive talent was displaying itself;
bone and horn tips, that the huntsman was including smaller
animals, and perhaps birds, in his chase; bone whistles, his
companionship with other huntsmen or with his dog. The
scraping-knives of flint indicate the use of skin for clothing,
and rude bodkins and needles its manufacture. Shells perforated
for bracelets and necklaces prove how soon a taste for personal
adornment was acquired; the implements necessary for the
preparation of pigments suggest the painting of the body, and
perhaps tattooing; and batons of rank bear witness to the
beginning of a social organization.

With the utmost interest we look upon the first germs of art
among these primitive men. They have left its rude sketches on
pieces of ivory and flakes of bone, and carvings, of the animals
contemporary with them. In these prehistoric delineations,
sometimes not without spirit, we have mammoths, combats of
reindeer. One presents us with a man harpooning a fish, another a
hunting-scene of naked men armed with the dart. Man is the only
animal who has the propensity of depicting external forms, and of
availing himself of the use of fire.

Shell-mounds, consisting of bones and shells, some of which may
be justly described as of vast extent, and of a date anterior to
the Bronze age, and full of stone implements, bear in all their
parts indications of the use of fire. These are often adjacent to
the existing coasts sometimes, however, they are far inland, in
certain instances as far as fifty miles. Their contents and
position indicate for them a date posterior to that of the great
extinct mammals, but prior to the domesticated. Some of these, it
is said, cannot be less than one hundred thousand years old.

The lake-dwellings in Switzerland--huts built on piles or logs,
wattled with boughs--were, as may be inferred from the
accompanying implements, begun in the Stone age, and continued
into that of Bronze. In the latter period the evidences become
numerous of the adoption of an agricultural life.

It must not be supposed that the periods into which geologists
have found it convenient to divide the progress of man in
civilization are abrupt epochs, which hold good simultaneously
for the whole human race. Thus the wandering Indians of America
are only at the present moment emerging from the Stone age. They
are still to be seen in many places armed with arrows, tipped
with flakes of flint. It is but as yesterday that some have
obtained, from the white man, iron, fire-arms, and the horse.

So far as investigations have gone, they indisputably refer the
existence of man to a date remote from us by many hundreds of
thousands of years. It must be borne in mind that these
investigations are quite recent, and confined to a very limited
geographical space. No researches have yet been made in those
regions which might reasonably be regarded as the primitive
habitat of man.

We are thus carried back immeasurably beyond the six thousand
years of Patristic chronology. It is difficult to assign a
shorter date for the last glaciation of Europe than a quarter of
a million of years, and human existence antedates that. But not
only is it this grand fact that confronts us, we have to admit
also a primitive animalized state, and a slow, a gradual
development. But this forlorn, this savage condition of humanity
is in strong contrast to the paradisiacal happiness of the garden
of Eden, and, what is far in ore serious, it is inconsistent with
the theory of the Fall.

I have been induced to place the subject of this chapter out of
its proper chronological order, for the sake of presenting what I
had to say respecting the nature of the world more completely by
itself. The discussions that arose as to the age of the earth
were long after the conflict as to the criterion of truth--that
is, after the Reformation; indeed, they were substantially
included in the present century. They have been conducted with so
much moderation as to justify the term I have used in the title
of this chapter, "Controversy," rather than "Conflict." Geology
has not had to encounter the vindictive opposition with which
astronomy was assailed, and, though, on her part, she has
insisted on a concession of great antiquity for the earth, she
has herself pointed out the unreliability of all numerical
estimates thus far offered. The attentive reader of this chapter
cannot have failed to observe inconsistencies in the numbers
quoted. Though wanting the merit of exactness, those numbers,
however, justify the claim of vast antiquity, and draw us to the
conclusion that the time-scale of the world answers to the
space-scale in magnitude.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONFLICT RESPECTING THE CRITERION OF TRUTH.

Ancient philosophy declares that man has no means of ascertaining
the truth.

Differences of belief arise among the early Christians--An
ineffectual attempt is made to remedy them by Councils.--Miracle
and ordeal proof introduced.

The papacy resorts to auricular confession and the
Inquisition.--It perpetrates frightful atrocities for the
suppression of differences of opinion.

Effect of the discovery of the Pandects of Justinian and
development of the canon law on the nature of evidence.--It
becomes more scientific.

The Reformation establishes the rights of individual
reason.--Catholicism asserts that the criterion of truth is in
the Church. It restrains the reading of books by the Index
Expurgatorius, and combats dissent by such means as the massacre
of St. Bartholomew's Eve.

Examination of the authenticity of the Pentateuch as the
Protestant criterion.--Spurious character of those books.

For Science the criterion of truth is to be found in the
revelations of Nature: for the Protestant, it is in the
Scriptures; for the Catholic, in an infallible Pope.

"WHAT is truth?" was the passionate demand of a Roman procurator
on one of the most momentous occasions in history. And the Divine
Person who stood before him, to whom the interrogation was
addressed, made no reply--unless, indeed, silence contained the
reply.

Often and vainly had that demand been made before--often and
vainly has it been made since. No one has yet given a
satisfactory answer.

When, at the dawn of science in Greece, the ancient religion was
disappearing like a mist at sunrise, the pious and thoughtful men
of that country were thrown into a condition of intellectual
despair. Anaxagoras plaintively exclaims, "Nothing can be known,
nothing can be learned, nothing can be certain, sense is limited,
intellect is weak, life is short." Xenophanes tells us that it is
impossible for us to be certain even when we utter the truth.
Parmenides declares that the very constitution of man prevents
him from ascertaining absolute truth. Empedocles affirms that all
philosophical and religious systems must be unreliable, because
we have no criterion by which to test them. Democritus asserts
that even things that are true cannot impart certainty to us;
that the final result of human inquiry is the discovery that man
is incapable of absolute knowledge; that, even if the truth be in
his possession, he cannot be certain of it. Pyrrho bids us
reflect on the necessity of suspending our judgment of things,
since we have no criterion of truth; so deep a distrust did he
impart to his followers, that they were in the habit of saying,
"We assert nothing; no, not even that we assert nothing."
Epicurus taught his disciples that truth can never be determined
by reason. Arcesilaus, denying both intellectual and sensuous
knowledge, publicly avowed that he knew nothing, not even his own
ignorance! The general conclusion to which Greek philosophy came
was this--that, in view of the contradiction of the evidence of
the senses, we cannot distinguish the true from the false; and
such is the imperfection of reason, that we cannot affirm the
correctness of any philosophical deduction.

It might be supposed that a revelation from God to man would come
with such force and clearness as to settle all uncertainties and
overwhelm all opposition. A Greek philosopher, less despairing
than others, had ventured to affirm that the coexistence of two
forms of faith, both claiming to be revealed by the omnipotent
God, proves that neither of them is true. But let us remember
that it is difficult for men to come to the, same conclusion as
regards even material and visible things, unless they stand at
the same point of view. If discord and distrust were the
condition of philosophy three hundred years before the birth of
Christ, discord and distrust were the condition of religion three
hundred years after his death. This is what Hilary, the Bishop of
Poictiers, in his well-known passage written about the time of
the Nicene Council, says:

"It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous that there are,
as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as
inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are
faults among us, because we make creeds arbitrarily and explain
them as arbitrarily. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new
creeds to describe invisible mysteries; we repent of what we have
done; we defend those who repent; we anathematize those whom we
defend; we condemn either the doctrines of others in ourselves,
or our own in that of others; and, reciprocally tearing each
other to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin."

These are not mere words; but the import of this self-accusation
can be realized fully only by such as are familiar with the
ecclesiastical history of those times. As soon as the first
fervor of Christianity as a system of benevolence had declined,
dissensions appeared. Ecclesiastical historians assert that "as
early as the second century began the contest between faith and
reason, religion and philosophy, piety and genius." To compose
these dissensions, to obtain some authoritative expression, some
criterion of truth, assemblies for consultation were resorted to,
which eventually took the form of councils. For a long time they
had nothing more than an advisory authority; but, when, in the
fourth century, Christianity had attained to imperial rule, their
dictates became compulsory, being enforced by the civil power. By
this the whole face of the Church was changed. Oecumenical
councils--parliaments of Christianity--consisting of delegates
from all the churches in the world, were summoned by the
authority of the emperor; he presided either personally or
nominally in them--composed all differences, and was, in fact,
the Pope of Christendom. Mosheim, the historian, to whom I have
more particularly referred above, speaking of these times,
remarks that "there was nothing to exclude the ignorant from
ecclesiastical preferment; the savage and illiterate party, who
looked on all kinds of learning, particularly philosophy, as
pernicious to piety, was increasing; " and, accordingly, "the
disputes carried on in the Council of Nicea offered a remarkable
example of the greatest ignorance and utter confusion of ideas,
particularly in the language and explanations of those who
approved of the decisions of that council." Vast as its influence
has been, "the ancient critics are neither agreed concerning the
time nor place in which it was assembled, the number of those who
sat in it, nor the bishop who presided. No authentic acts of its
famous sentence have been committed to writing, or, at least,
none have been transmitted to our times." The Church had now
become what, in the language of modern politicians, would be
called "a confederated republic." The will of the council was
determined by a majority vote, and, to secure that, all manner of
intrigues and impositions were resorted to; the influence of
court females, bribery, and violence, were not spared. The
Council of Nicea had scarcely adjourned,--when it was plain to
all impartial men that, as a method of establishing a criterion
of truth in religious matters, such councils were a total
failure. The minority had no rights which the majority need
respect. The protest of many good men, that a mere majority vote
given by delegates, whose right to vote had never been examined
and authorized, could not be received as ascertaining absolute
truth, was passed over with contempt, and the consequence was,
that council was assembled against council, and their jarring and
contradictory decrees spread perplexity and confusion throughout
the Christian world. In the fourth century alone there were
thirteen councils adverse to Arius, fifteen in his favor, and
seventeen for the semi-Arians--in all, forty-five. Minorities
were perpetually attempting to use the weapon which majorities
had abused.

The impartial ecclesiastical historian above quoted, moreover,
says that "two monstrous and calamitous errors were adopted in
this fourth century: 1. That it was an act of virtue to deceive
and lie when, by that means, the interests of the Church might be
promoted. 2. That errors in religion, when maintained and adhered
to after proper admonition, were punishable with civil penalties
and corporal tortures."

Not without astonishment can we look back at what, in those
times, were popularly regarded as criteria of truth. Doctrines
were considered as established by the number of martyrs who had
professed them, by miracles, by the confession of demons, of
lunatics, or of persons possessed of evil spirits: thus, St.
Ambrose, in his disputes with the Arians, produced men possessed
by devils, who, on the approach of the relics of certain martyrs,
acknowledged, with loud cries, that the Nicean doctrine of the
three persons of the Godhead was true. But the Arians charged him
with suborning these infernal witnesses with a weighty bribe.
Already, ordeal tribunals were making their appearance. During
the following six centuries they were held as a final resort for
establishing guilt or innocence, under the forms of trial by cold
water, by duel, by the fire, by the cross.

What an utter ignorance of the nature of evidence and its laws
have we here! An accused man sinks or swims when thrown into a
pond of water; he is burnt or escapes unharmed when he holds a
piece of red-hot iron in his hand; a champion whom he has hired
is vanquished or vanquishes in single fight; he can keep his arms
outstretched like a cross, or fails to do so longer than his
accuser, and his innocence or guilt of some imputed crime is
established! Are these criteria of truth?

Is it surprising that all Europe was filled with imposture
miracles during those ages?--miracles that are a disgrace to the
common-sense of man!

But the inevitable day came at length. Assertions and doctrines
based upon such preposterous evidence were involved in the
discredit that fell upon the evidence itself. As the thirteenth
century is approached, we find unbelief in all directions setting
in. First, it is plainly seen among the monastic orders, then it
spreads rapidly among the common people. Books, such as "The
Everlasting Gospel," appear among the former; sects, such as the
Catharists, Waldenses, Petrobrussians, arise among the latter.
They agreed in this, "that the public and established religion
was a motley system of errors and superstitions, and that the
dominion which the pope had usurped over Christians was unlawful
and tyrannical; that the claim put forth by Rome, that the Bishop
of Rome is the supreme lord of the universe, and that neither
princes nor bishops, civil governors nor ecclesiastical rulers,
have any lawful power in church or state but what they receive
from him, is utterly without foundation, and a usurpation of the
rights of man."

To withstand this flood of impiety, the papal government
established two institutions: 1. The Inquisition; 2. Auricular
confession--the latter as a means of detection, the former as a
tribunal for punishment.

In general terms, the commission of the Inquisition was, to
extirpate religious dissent by terrorism, and surround heresy
with the most horrible associations; this necessarily implied the
power of determining what constitutes heresy. The criterion of
truth was thus in possession of this tribunal, which was charged
"to discover and bring to judgment heretics lurking in towns,
houses, cellars, woods, caves, and fields." With such savage
alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the interests
of religion, that between 1481 and 1808 it had punished three
hundred and forty thousand persons, and of these nearly
thirty-two thousand had been burnt! In its earlier days, when
public opinion could find no means of protesting against its
atrocities, "it often put to death, without appeal, on the very
day that they were accused, nobles, clerks, monks, hermits, and
lay persons of every rank." In whatever direction thoughtful men
looked, the air was full of fearful shadows. No one could indulge
in freedom of thought without expecting punishment. So dreadful
were the proceedings of the Inquisition, that the exclamation of
Pagliarici was the exclamation of thousands: "It is hardly
possible for a man to be a Christian, and die in his bed."

The Inquisition destroyed the sectaries of Southern France in the
thirteenth century. Its unscrupulous atrocities extirpated
Protestantism in Italy and Spain. Nor did it confine itself to
religious affairs; it engaged in the suppression of political
discontent. Nicolas Eymeric, who was inquisitor-general of the
kingdom of Aragon for nearly fifty years, and who died in 1399,
has left a frightful statement of its conduct and appalling
cruelties in his "Directorium Inquisitorum."

This disgrace of Christianity, and indeed of the human race, had
different constitutions in different countries. The papal
Inquisition continued the tyranny, and eventually superseded the
old episcopal inquisitions. The authority of the bishops was
unceremoniously put aside by the officers of the pope.

By the action of the fourth Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, the power
of the Inquisition was frightfully increased, the necessity of
private confession to a priest--auricular confession--being at
that time formally established. This, so far as domestic life was
concerned, gave omnipresence and omniscience to the Inquisition.
Not a man was safe. In the hands of the priest, who, at the
confessional, could extract or extort from them their most secret
thoughts, his wife and his servants were turned into spies.
Summoned before the dread tribunal, he was simply informed that
he lay under strong suspicions of heresy. No accuser was named;
but the thumb-screw, the stretching-rope, the boot and wedge, or
other enginery of torture, soon supplied that defect, and,
innocent or guilty, he accused himself!

Notwithstanding all this power, the Inquisition failed of its
purpose. When the heretic could no longer confront it, he evaded
it. A dismal disbelief stealthily pervaded all Europe,--a denial
of Providence, of the immortality of the soul, of human
free-will, and that man can possibly resist the absolute
necessity, the destiny which envelops him. Ideas such as these
were cherished in silence by multitudes of persons driven to them
by the tyrannical acts of ecclesiasticism. In spite of
persecution, the Waldenses still survived to propagate their
declaration that the Roman Church, since Constantine, had
degenerated from its purity and sanctity; to protest against the
sale of indulgences, which they said had nearly abolished prayer,
fasting, alms; to affirm that it was utterly useless to pray for
the souls of the dead, since they must already have gone either
to heaven or hell. Though it was generally believed that
philosophy or science was pernicious to the interests of
Christianity or true piety, the Mohammedan literature then
prevailing in Spain was making converts among all classes of
society. We see very plainly its influence in many of the sects
that then arose; thus, "the Brethren and Sisters of the Free.
Spirit" held that "the universe came by emanation from God, and
would finally return to him by absorption; that rational souls
are so many portions of the Supreme Deity; and that the universe,
considered as one great whole, is God." These are ideas that can
only be entertained in an advanced intellectual condition. Of
this sect it is said that many suffered burning with unclouded
serenity, with triumphant feelings of cheerfulness and joy. Their
orthodox enemies accused them of gratifying their passions at
midnight assemblages in darkened rooms, to which both sexes in a
condition of nudity repaired. A similar accusation, as is well
known, was brought against the primitive Christians by the
fashionable society of Rome.

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