New York , January 22, 1914. Copyright, 1914, by Joseph F. Wagner, New York The present work has already secured many friends in German Europe. An invitation has now been extended for its reception among the English-speaking countries, with the object that there, too, it may seek readers and friends, and communicate to them its thoughts—the ideas it has to convey and to interpret. While wishing it heartfelt success and good fortune on its journey, the Author desires it to convey his greetings to

The Author has a lively recollection of an expression which he heard a few years ago, in a conversation with an American professor, then journeying in Europe. “Here, they talk of tolerance,” he observed, “while in America we put it into practice.” The catch-word Freedom of Science will not, therefore, in every quarter of the world, serve as a call to arms, causing the opposing columns to engage in mutual conflict, as is the case in many portions of Europe. But certain it is that everywhere alike

If a question is destined to agitate and divide for considerable length of time the minds of men, it must undoubtedly have its root deep in the entire intellectual life of the times; it must be anchored in profound philosophical thought, in theories of life. From this source it derives its power of captivating the minds. All this applies to the question of the Freedom of Science. If, then, we desire a thorough understanding of this question, we must first of all seek and examine its deeper lying

For all that, science and university are not necessarily inseparable things. The university needs science, but science does not absolutely need the university. Science was in the world before the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the time when France and Italy built their first universities; and also since then science has been enriched by the achievements of many a genius who never occupied a university chair. Pythagoras , Aristotle , St. Augustine belonged to no universities; Copernicus , Newt

We ask again, what is that lawful freedom which man may claim for his scientific activity? In other words, what are the restraints which he may reject as unjust, and as enslaving the mind?—Here the ways part. Here, too, our question goes deeper, and touches something which moves men's minds very powerfully. Two different views of the world, two opposite conceptions of man and his thought, come here in collision. On the one hand there is the Christian view of the world: it is essentially also the

This view of the nature of human cognition and thought has gradually undergone an essential change, not indeed with those outside the influence of philosophical speculation, but with the representatives of modern philosophy, and those subject to its influence. Objectivism has been superseded by subjectivism. Its principle is this: cognition, imagination, and thought are not the intellectual apprehension of an objective world existing independent of us, of which we reproduce in ourselves a counte

What are those external powers that may interrupt or caution the scientist in his investigations and problems? Here we do not yet consider the scientist as a teacher, communicating to the public the result of his investigation, his ideas and views, from the university chair to his scientific audience, or to a wider circle of hearers by means of publications; we here regard him in his private study only, in the pursuit of which he perhaps encounters new questions, and new solutions suggest themse

We often meet with the most inconceivable notions. We are told quite seriously that the Church teaches, and that the Catholic has therefore to believe, that the earth is a flat disc surrounded by the sea, as the ancients believed; above it is a vault, below it hell-fire; that the earth stands still and the sun and stars revolve about it, just as Ptolemy of Egypt taught; that God created the whole world just as it is now in exactly six days of twenty-four hours each; that He made the sun and moon

For the sake of clearness we shall condense the substance of the thought into a brief form: The vital nerve of science, the condition under which alone it can exist, is unprepossession, that is, a straightforward honesty that knows of no other consideration than to aim at the truth for its own sake. The believer, the Catholic, cannot be unprepossessed, because he must pay regard to dogmas and Church-doctrine and precept. Therefore he is wanting in the most essential requisite of true science. He

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 slu

Thus runs the speech that is ever recurring in the literature of the day, in newspapers and magazines no less than in books. And this speech makes an impression on its hearers. Indeed, why should it not? After describing how these heroes of science in recent times marched on triumphantly from victory to victory, how they renewed the face of the earth, and became the pioneers of human progress, how can they fail to make a deep impression if in the same breath they state that these discoverers of

“Alas, how sad was the fate of these poor rebels! The rye soon began to languish till it lay prone on the ground; green leaves turned yellow, the flowers drooped, faded and withered. Then the plants began to grumble at the poplar. There it stood, its leaves a seared yellow. ‘What simpletons you are, brothers and sisters!’ it said. ‘Can't you see that now you are much more like yourselves than under the rule of the Sun? Now you are refined, independent beings, well rid of the sluggish health of y

What about the unprepossession of liberal science, especially in the province of philosophy and religion? It cannot be our intention to explore the whole territory in every direction. We shall keep to the central and main road, the road to which chiefly lead all other roads of life, we mean the attitude of this school of research towards the world beyond. We find this attitude to be one of persistent ignoring! Science cannot acknowledge the supernatural; this presumption, unproved and impossible

The Christian philosophy of a St. Thomas , which is, as even representatives of modern philosophy are constrained to admit, “a system carried out with clear perception and great sagacity” ( Paulsen ), contains many a principle, the intrinsic merit of which will be fully appreciated only when contrasted with the experiments of modern philosophy. An instance is the principle of the old school, that cognition is the likeness of that [pg 263] which is cognized. Apart from the cognition by sense, we

This was the question proposed some scores of years ago by D. Strauss to himself, and to those of his mind. With this question we will begin. To our forefathers, especially of the German nation, nothing was more sacred than the Christian religion; no people like the German has absorbed it so fully, has been so permeated with it. But now, wherever liberal science—here especially modern Protestant theology that brings liberal freedom of research into full application—wherever it has made the Chris

Here it may not be amiss to mention further distinctions. As we may distinguish in teaching three essentials, namely, the matter, the method, and the teacher, so there is a corresponding triple freedom of teaching. If we regard the matter, we meet with the demand, that no one be excluded in an unjust way from exercising his right to teach, that no single party should have the monopoly of teaching: the right to found free universities also belongs here. It is part of the freedom of teaching. As i

There cannot be any doubt that science must have freedom in teaching. But of what kind? One that is necessary and suitable. Yes, but what kind of freedom is that? Here is the crux of the question. Now we are again at the boundary line where we stood, when defining the freedom of science in general, at the parting of the ways of two contrary conceptions of man. One is the Christian idea, and also that of unbiassed reason. Man is a limited creature, depending on God, on truth and moral law, at the

What kind of a freedom in teaching, then, should be granted by the state? Unlimited freedom? This is, at any rate, not a necessary conclusion. The state must also grant freedom to the father for the education of his children, to the landowner for the culture of his fields, to the artist in the production of his works; but that freedom would not be understood to be an unlimited one, having no regard to the interests of society, but merely as the exclusion of unwarranted interference. Hence if the

Yet the objection is raised: theology is faith, or at least rests on faith. Faith, however, has nothing to do with science; faith is sentiment, whereas science is knowledge. That this view of faith is wrong, and the result of subjective agnosticism that denies to man any positive understanding of supernatural truths, we have shown repeatedly. Certainly, if faith were nothing but sentiment, no science could be built upon it; you cannot build stone houses upon water. But the Catholic faith is not

What are the reasons advanced? Many are advanced; the main reason is usually disguised; we shall treat of it when concluding. In the first place we are again met by the old tune of free science, which has been in our ears so long; the rooms of the colleges, it is said, are destined for a research which seeks truth with an undimmed eye, and not for blindfolded science confined to a prescribed path. No need to waste words on this. Just one more reference may be permitted us, namely, to the study o