The Object of the State.

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 state, for reasons of the commonwealth, were to restrict freedom of teaching, the restraint could not be considered unjust. The purpose of the state must not suffer injury; to attain this purpose the state has the right to demand, and must demand, all that is necessary to the purpose in view, even though it entails a restriction of somebody's freedom. Now for a definition of this purpose of the state.

Like any other society, the state seeks to attain a definite object, so much the more because the state is necessary to man, who otherwise would have to forego the things most needed in life; and but for the public co-operation of the many these could be attained not at all, or at least not sufficiently. To provide these things is the object of the state, viz., the public welfare of the citizens; it is to bring about public conditions which will enable the citizens to attain their temporal welfare. To this end the state must protect the rights of its subjects, and must protect and promote the public goods of economic life, but especially the spiritual benefits of morals and religion. The state, through its legislative, judicial, and executive functions, is to direct effectively the community to this end; therefore it is incumbent upon the state to care for the preservation and promotion of both material and spiritual benefits, for the protection of private rights, and for the conditions necessary to its own existence, even against the arbitrary will of its subjects.

Protection for the Spiritual Foundations of Life.

From this the conclusion naturally follows, that the state must not grant freedom to propound in public, by speech or writing, theories that will endanger the religious and moral goods of its citizens and the foundation of the state.

We claim that the state neglects a solemn duty if it permits without hindrance—we will not say, the ridicule and disparagement of religion and morals: the less so, as freedom to ridicule and to slander has nothing to do with freedom in teaching—but the public promulgation of theories which are either irreligious, or against morals, or against the state. Even though they be done in scientific form, injuries to the common weal remain injuries, and they do not change into something else by being committed in scientific form. The state must seek to prevent such injuries by strictly enforced penalties and by the selection of conscientious teachers. The enforcement of the principle may not be possible under circumstances, legislatures may lack insight or good will, or the complexion of the state may not admit of it for the time being, or permanently. Then we would simply see a regrettable condition, a government incapable of ridding itself of the morbid matter which is poisoning its marrow. But if there is good will and energy, one thing may always be done to check injurious influences, and that is the awakening and employment of forces of opposition.

The University of Halle is said to have been the first one to enjoy modern freedom in teaching. What, at that time, however, was meant by freedom in teaching, is shown by the words of Chr. Thomasius in 1694: “Thank God that He has prompted His Anointed (the prince) not to introduce here the yoke under which many are now and then languishing, but gracefully to grant our teachers the freedom of doctrines that are not against God and the state.” One hundred and fifty years later Minister Eichhorn advised the University of Koenigsberg that in natural sciences neither the individual freedom in teaching nor of research are limited, that the case is different, however, with philosophy as applied to life, with history, theology, and the science of laws. “The first requisite there,” he said, “is a proper bent of mind, which, however, can find its basis and its lasting support only in religion. With the proper bent of mind there will be no desire to teach doctrines which attack the roots of the very life of one's own country.”

Now, what considerations make it plain that the duty of the state is as stated? Two: consideration for its subjects, and consideration for the state itself. The state must protect the highest possessions of its citizens. For that reason men are by nature itself prompted to found states, so as to protect better their common goods, by the strong hand of an authority, against foes from within and without, and to enable them to bequeath those goods inviolate to their sons and grandsons. Hence they must demand of state-power not to tolerate conditions which would greatly jeopardize those goods, and certainly not to allow attacks thereon by its own educational organs. The highest spiritual benefits of civilization, and at the same time the necessary foundations of a well-ordered life, are, first of all, morality and religion; not morality alone, but also religion, do not forget this. Man's first duty is the duty of worshipping God, of recognizing and worshipping his Creator, the ultimate [pg 345] end of all things. A profound truth was stated by Aristotle, when, coupling the duties to God with those to parents, he said that those merit punishment who question the duty of worshipping the gods and of loving one's parents. Hence the first thing to be preserved to the nations is religion; it is in many ways their most precious possession, too. Not only do all nations possess religion, not excepting the most uncivilized; but there is no power that influences life and stirs the heart more than religion. Consider the religious wars of history; while they were surely deplorable, they demonstrate what religion is to man. Even in individuals who to all appearance are irreligious, religion never fully dies out; it appears there in false forms, or is their great puzzle, maybe the incubus of their lives, giving them no rest. Only in conjunction with firm religious principle can morality stand fast. Nowadays they work for ethics without religion, for education and school without God. Theoreticians in their four walls, removed from all real life, are busily working out systems of this sort. This new ethics has not yet stood the test of life, or, if it did, it has succeeded in gaining for its adherents only those who are at odds with religion and morals. These theories must first be otherwise attested before they may replace the old, well-tried religious foundations.

The noted and justly esteemed pedagogue, Fr. W. Foerster, writes: “On the part of free-thinkers vigorous complaint has been made that my book so decidedly confesses the unparalleled pedagogic strength of the Christian religion. The author therefore repeats emphatically that this confession has not grown out of an arbitrary metaphysical mood, but directly out of his moral-pedagogic studies. For over ten years of a long period of instructing the youth in ethics, he has been engaged exclusively in studying psychologically the problem of character-forming, and the result of his studies is his conviction that all attempts at educating youth without religion are absolutely futile. And, in the judgment of the author, the only reason why the notion that religion is superfluous in education is prevalent in such large circles of modern pedagogues, is, that they have no extensive practical experience in character-training, nor made thorough and concentrated studies.” “The fact is, that all education in which religion to all outward appearance is dispensed with, is still deeply influenced by the after-effect of religious sanction and religious earnestness. What education without religion really means will become more clearly known in the coming generation.”

[pg 346]

The state is zealous in protecting the property of its citizens, to which end a powerful police apparatus is constantly at work. If the state deems it its duty to interfere in this matter, must it not consider it a still higher duty to protect religion and morals, for the very reason that they are the property of its citizens, and even their most precious? Pro aris et focis, for home and altar, was what was fought for by the old Romans. Is it possible that a pagan government was more sterling and high-minded than the Christian state of the present? If it is to be the bearer of civilization, it ought to consider that man liveth not by bread alone. The only true mental civilization is the one which does not hamper but helps man in attaining his eternal goal.

Modern state power is being urged from all sides to take measures against the corruption of morals by the novel and the shop window, and not to look on apathetically when the consuming fire is spreading all about, in the name of art. Are the dangers to the spiritual health of society any less if reformers, in the name of science, shake at the foundations of matrimony, advocate polygamy, teach atheism? Because a so-called reformer has lost the fundamental truths of our moral-religious order, must all the rest submit to an attack upon the sacred possessions of themselves and their descendants?

That the rights of the teacher are not unrestricted was set forth by an American paper (“Science,” No. 321) in its comment upon the removal of certain professors: “There are barriers set to them on the one hand by the rights of the students, and by the rights of the college where he teaches, on the other. The college must preserve its reputation and its good name, the student must be protected against palpable errors and waste of time.... If a professor of sociology should attack the institution of matrimony, and propound the gospel of polygamy and of free love, then neither the right to teach his views nor his honesty of purpose would save him from dismissal. This is of course a very extreme case, not likely to happen.”

Is it so very extreme? Certainly not in regard to teaching by books. Listen: “From the foregoing it is self-evident that polygyny based upon the rivalry of men for women (analogous to the animal kingdom) presents the natural sexual practice of mankind. Whether there is to be preferred a simultaneous or a successive polygyny, or a combination of both, would depend on varying conditions. The ethical type of the sexual condition, viz., in general the desirable biological type, is the one that would best suit a polygyny based upon a selection of man.” It is taught further: “The monogamic principle of marriage in general is only conditionally favorable to civilization, whereas it is destructive of it constitutionally, hence in need of reform.” “Our contemporaneous sexual reform wave has not yet assumed the position of this knowledge; on the contrary, notwithstanding its revolutionary aspect in some particulars, it is still under the ban of the traditional ideal of marriage”; continence before marriage is an “absurd” proposition!

This new system of morals, fit for the barnyard, but for women the lowest degradation, is now to become the ideal of men, nay, even of women: “True motherly pride, true womanly dignity, are incompatible with the exclusiveness of the monogamic property principle. If our movement for sexual reform is to elevate us instead of plunging us into the mire, then this view must become part and parcel of our women.” “The picture of the motherly woman, of the woman with the pride of sexual modesty, instead of with the exciting desire of possession ... this picture must become the ideal of men, and sink down to the bottom of their soul and into the fibres of their nervous system; it must animate their fancy and awaken their sensual passions.”20 We stand right in the midst of the world of beasts!

This perilous moral teaching is allowed also in public lectures. On November 14, 1908, the “Allgemeine Rundschau” wrote: “Imagine a spacious concert-hall, brightly illuminated, every one of the many seats occupied, the boxes filled to the last place, the aisles crowded, by a most variegated audience: men and women, young maidens, youths with downy beard; gentlemen of high rank with their ladies, faces upon which are written a life of vast experience side by side with childish faces whose innocence is betrayed by their looks, and on the platform a university professor and physician, holding forth about the most intimate relations of sexual life: the unfitness of celibacy, the Catholic morals of matrimony, prostitution and prostitutes, the causes of adultery, ‘sterile marriage,’ onanism, and many kinds of perversities. The man is, moreover, speaking in a fashion that makes one forget the admonishments of conscience.”

The city council of Lausanne, in its meeting of February 10, 1907, prohibited Forel's lecture as an attack upon decency and public morals, making reference in its resolution to Forel's ideas as laid down in his book. In protest, Forel made a public statement, saying among other things: “If the council desires to be logical it would have to prohibit also the sale of my book.” We have no objection to make to his conclusion.

We stated that religion is man's first duty. This applies not only to the individual, but also—and this is forgotten too often—to the state. Man, by his nature, and hence in all forms of his life, including his citizenship, is obliged to have religion. He remains in all conditions the creature which is dependent upon God. And does not the state, too, owe special duties of gratitude to God? It owes its origin to God: the impulse to found states has been put into the human nature by its Creator; the state owes to God the foundation of its authority: in a thousand difficulties the state is thrown upon His help. Therefore a public divine service is found with all peoples. Does the state comply with this duty by silently supporting a public atheism when it might do otherwise? by even becoming its patron, when, posing as science, it ascends to the lecturing desk to teach adolescing youth?

Of course, free-thought is of a different opinion, especially the one of to-day. Its principle is: the state need not trouble itself about God and Religion, that is the private matter of each individual. In the eyes of free-thought the state is an imaginary being, hovering over the heads of its citizens; though they may be religious, the state itself should have no Religion. What absurdity! It is nothing short of nonsense to demand of the members of a state, the overwhelming majority of whom hold Religion to be true and necessary, that as a political community they are to act as if their Religion were false and worthless, as if to deny and to destroy it were quite proper. What else is the state but an organized aggregation of its citizens? To make of religious citizens, a state without Religion is just as absurd as a Catholic state composed wholly and entirely of Protestant citizens. This leads us to a further consideration. The state must protect its own foundations. Just as it must defend its existence against enemies from without, it must protect itself against those enemies from within, who, whether realizing the consequences or not, are by their actions actually shaking its foundations. These foundations consist of proper views on social and political principles, on morals and Religion. If the state does not intend to abolish itself, it must not permit doctrines to be disseminated which imperil these foundations and, consequently, the peaceful continuance of the state. In fact, no state power in its senses would permit a teacher, who directly attacks the validity of the state order, to continue; it would retire every professor of law who would dare to teach that regicide is permissible, or who would with the oratory of a Tolstoy preach the unnaturalness of a state possessing coercive power.

As a rule, open advocates of Socialism are kept out of college-chairs. And rightly so. So long as the adherents of Socialism see in the state but the product of the egotism of the ruling classes, and an institute for subjugating the masses, and in the obtainment of political power the means of doing away with this state of affairs, so long will it be impossible for the state to trust the education of the future citizen to a Socialist, nor can the latter, as an honest man, accept a position of trust from the state, much less bind himself by the oath of office to co-operate in the work of the state. Prof. C. Bornhakmakes the following comment: “The decisive point is not freedom in teaching, but the circumstance that the Socialist professor takes advantage of the respect connected with a state office, or of his position at a state institution, to undermine the state. A state that would stand for this would deserve nothing better than its abolition.”

And Paulsen similarly writes: “A state that would allow in the lecture rooms of its colleges Socialistic views to be taught as the results of science ... such a state will be looked for in vain.”

Hence it is certain the state cannot grant a freedom in teaching that would jeopardize the foundation of its existence. It must consequently recognize no freedom which, in lectures and publications, will seriously injure public morality and religion. Morality and religion are, first of all, the indispensable conditions for the continuance of the state.

Aristotle says the first duty of the state is to care for religion. Plato proposes heavy penalty for those who deny the existence of the gods; a well-ordered state, he claims, must care first of all for the fostering of religion. Plutarch calls religion the bond of every society and the foundation of the law. Cicero declares that there can be neither loyalty nor justice without regard for God. Valerius Maximuscould say of Rome: “It has ever been the principle of our city to give preference to religion before any other matter, even before the highest and most glorious benefits.” Washington, in his speech to Congress in 1789, declared religion and morality to be the most indispensable support of the commonweal. He stated that it would be in vain for one, who tries to wreck these two fundamental pillars of the social structure, to boast of his patriotism.

Without religion there can be no firm resistance by conscience against man's lower nature, no social virtues and sacrifices, there can only be egotism, the foe of all social order. No secure state-life can be built upon the principles that formed the basis of the French Revolution. So we see, generally and instinctively, the endeavour to prevent as much as possible anti-religious doctrines from being expounded directly to the broad masses of the people. This of itself is tantamount to the acknowledgment of their danger to the state. Yet, millions have tasted the fruit of an atheistic science, and the poison shows its effect; they have shaken off the yoke of religion; in its place dissatisfaction and bitterness are filling their breast, and fists are clenched against the existing order.

Bebel said in a speech in the German Reichstag, on September 16, 1878: “Gentlemen, you attack our views in respect to religion, because they are atheistic and materialistic. I acknowledge them to be so.... I firmly believe Socialism will ultimately lead to atheism. But these atheistic doctrines, that now are causing so much pain and trouble for you, by whom were they scientifically and philosophically demonstrated? Was it by Socialists? Men like Edgar and Bruno, Bauer, Feuerbach, David Strauss, Ernst Renan, were they Socialists? They were men of science.... What is allowed to the one—why should it be forbidden to the other?”

The notorious anarchist Vaillant said: “I have demonstrated to the physicians at Hotel-Dieu that my deed is the inexorable consequence of my philosophy, and of the philosophy of Buechner, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer.”

The youthful criminal Emil Herny read at his trial a memorandum wherein he said among other things: “I am an anarchist since 1891. Up to this time I was wont to esteem and even to idolize my country, the family, the state, and property.... Socialism is not able to change the present order. It upholds the principle of authority which, all affirmations of so-called free-thinkers notwithstanding, is an obsolete remnant of the belief in a higher power. I however was a materialist, atheist. My scientific researches taught me gradually the work of natural forces. I conceived that science had done away with the hypothesis of ‘God,’ which it needs no longer, hence that also the religious-authoritative doctrine of morals, built upon it, as upon a false foundation, had to disappear.”

What political wisdom would it be to honor as science any doctrine that becomes a social danger the moment it is taken seriously; what logic to denounce those as dangerous who are putting into practice a science that is hailed as the bearer of civilization!

One may object: How is the state to determine whether scientific doctrines are warranted or not warranted? The state has the conviction that in its political offices it has no organs for the cognition of scientific truth, for this reason it leaves science to self-regulation. Only the scientist, it is said, is able to revise the scientist.

Nothing but scholarly conceit can engender such ideas. Then any one would have the right to pin upon himself the badge of the scientist and become thereby completely immune. Thus, the bearers of practical political wisdom are declared incompetent to recognize the chief foundation of their state-structure; to realize, what daily experience and the experience of centuries teaches, that disbelief in God, even if sailing under false colors, undermines authority, that communism and upheaval of moral conceptions are tantamount to social danger. They are directed to depend for their information in such matters upon the latest ideas of impractical scientists. The fact is, the matters at issue have, with hardly an exception, long been decided. And where the Christian faith is concerned, the Church and the Christian centuries tell us clearly enough, what has hitherto been understood by Christianity. If the objection here advanced were true, then the state would not have a right to decide in the matter of exhibiting immoral pictures in show windows, without having argued the matter previously with representatives of art. The state would not be allowed to pronounce a death sentence because some scientists denounce capital punishment: the state would have to expunge “guilt,” “expiation,” and “liberty” from its penal code, because many recent scientists, by rejecting the freedom of choice, have removed the dividing line between crime and insanity, between punishment and correction.

One hundred and fifty years later MinisterEichhornadvised the University of Koenigsberg that in natural sciences neither the individual freedom in teaching nor of research are limited, that the case is different, however, with philosophy as applied to life, with history, theology, and the science of laws.“The first requisite there,”he said,“is a proper bent of mind, which, however, can find its basis and its lasting support only in religion. With the proper bent of mind there will be no desire to teach doctrines which attack the roots of the very life of one's own country.”

Now, what considerations make it plain that the duty of the state is as stated? Two: consideration for its subjects, and consideration for the state itself. The state must protect the highest possessions of its citizens. For that reason men are by nature itself prompted to found states, so as to protect better their common goods, by the strong hand of an authority, against foes from within and without, and to enable them to bequeath those goods inviolate to their sons and grandsons. Hence they must demand of state-power not to tolerate conditions which would greatly jeopardize those goods, and certainly not to allow attacks thereon by its own educational organs. The highest spiritual benefits of civilization, and at the same time the necessary foundations of a well-ordered life, are, first of all, morality and religion; not morality alone, but also religion, do not forget this. Man's first duty is the duty of worshipping God, of recognizing and worshipping his Creator, the ultimate [pg 345] end of all things. A profound truth was stated by Aristotle, when, coupling the duties to God with those to parents, he said that those merit punishment who question the duty of worshipping the gods and of loving one's parents. Hence the first thing to be preserved to the nations is religion; it is in many ways their most precious possession, too. Not only do all nations possess religion, not excepting the most uncivilized; but there is no power that influences life and stirs the heart more than religion. Consider the religious wars of history; while they were surely deplorable, they demonstrate what religion is to man. Even in individuals who to all appearance are irreligious, religion never fully dies out; it appears there in false forms, or is their great puzzle, maybe the incubus of their lives, giving them no rest. Only in conjunction with firm religious principle can morality stand fast. Nowadays they work for ethics without religion, for education and school without God. Theoreticians in their four walls, removed from all real life, are busily working out systems of this sort. This new ethics has not yet stood the test of life, or, if it did, it has succeeded in gaining for its adherents only those who are at odds with religion and morals. These theories must first be otherwise attested before they may replace the old, well-tried religious foundations.

The noted and justly esteemed pedagogue, Fr. W. Foerster, writes: “On the part of free-thinkers vigorous complaint has been made that my book so decidedly confesses the unparalleled pedagogic strength of the Christian religion. The author therefore repeats emphatically that this confession has not grown out of an arbitrary metaphysical mood, but directly out of his moral-pedagogic studies. For over ten years of a long period of instructing the youth in ethics, he has been engaged exclusively in studying psychologically the problem of character-forming, and the result of his studies is his conviction that all attempts at educating youth without religion are absolutely futile. And, in the judgment of the author, the only reason why the notion that religion is superfluous in education is prevalent in such large circles of modern pedagogues, is, that they have no extensive practical experience in character-training, nor made thorough and concentrated studies.” “The fact is, that all education in which religion to all outward appearance is dispensed with, is still deeply influenced by the after-effect of religious sanction and religious earnestness. What education without religion really means will become more clearly known in the coming generation.”

[pg 346]

The state is zealous in protecting the property of its citizens, to which end a powerful police apparatus is constantly at work. If the state deems it its duty to interfere in this matter, must it not consider it a still higher duty to protect religion and morals, for the very reason that they are the property of its citizens, and even their most precious? Pro aris et focis, for home and altar, was what was fought for by the old Romans. Is it possible that a pagan government was more sterling and high-minded than the Christian state of the present? If it is to be the bearer of civilization, it ought to consider that man liveth not by bread alone. The only true mental civilization is the one which does not hamper but helps man in attaining his eternal goal.

Modern state power is being urged from all sides to take measures against the corruption of morals by the novel and the shop window, and not to look on apathetically when the consuming fire is spreading all about, in the name of art. Are the dangers to the spiritual health of society any less if reformers, in the name of science, shake at the foundations of matrimony, advocate polygamy, teach atheism? Because a so-called reformer has lost the fundamental truths of our moral-religious order, must all the rest submit to an attack upon the sacred possessions of themselves and their descendants?

That the rights of the teacher are not unrestricted was set forth by an American paper (“Science,” No. 321) in its comment upon the removal of certain professors: “There are barriers set to them on the one hand by the rights of the students, and by the rights of the college where he teaches, on the other. The college must preserve its reputation and its good name, the student must be protected against palpable errors and waste of time.... If a professor of sociology should attack the institution of matrimony, and propound the gospel of polygamy and of free love, then neither the right to teach his views nor his honesty of purpose would save him from dismissal. This is of course a very extreme case, not likely to happen.”

Is it so very extreme? Certainly not in regard to teaching by books. Listen: “From the foregoing it is self-evident that polygyny based upon the rivalry of men for women (analogous to the animal kingdom) presents the natural sexual practice of mankind. Whether there is to be preferred a simultaneous or a successive polygyny, or a combination of both, would depend on varying conditions. The ethical type of the sexual condition, viz., in general the desirable biological type, is the one that would best suit a polygyny based upon a selection of man.” It is taught further: “The monogamic principle of marriage in general is only conditionally favorable to civilization, whereas it is destructive of it constitutionally, hence in need of reform.” “Our contemporaneous sexual reform wave has not yet assumed the position of this knowledge; on the contrary, notwithstanding its revolutionary aspect in some particulars, it is still under the ban of the traditional ideal of marriage”; continence before marriage is an “absurd” proposition!

This new system of morals, fit for the barnyard, but for women the lowest degradation, is now to become the ideal of men, nay, even of women: “True motherly pride, true womanly dignity, are incompatible with the exclusiveness of the monogamic property principle. If our movement for sexual reform is to elevate us instead of plunging us into the mire, then this view must become part and parcel of our women.” “The picture of the motherly woman, of the woman with the pride of sexual modesty, instead of with the exciting desire of possession ... this picture must become the ideal of men, and sink down to the bottom of their soul and into the fibres of their nervous system; it must animate their fancy and awaken their sensual passions.”20 We stand right in the midst of the world of beasts!

This perilous moral teaching is allowed also in public lectures. On November 14, 1908, the “Allgemeine Rundschau” wrote: “Imagine a spacious concert-hall, brightly illuminated, every one of the many seats occupied, the boxes filled to the last place, the aisles crowded, by a most variegated audience: men and women, young maidens, youths with downy beard; gentlemen of high rank with their ladies, faces upon which are written a life of vast experience side by side with childish faces whose innocence is betrayed by their looks, and on the platform a university professor and physician, holding forth about the most intimate relations of sexual life: the unfitness of celibacy, the Catholic morals of matrimony, prostitution and prostitutes, the causes of adultery, ‘sterile marriage,’ onanism, and many kinds of perversities. The man is, moreover, speaking in a fashion that makes one forget the admonishments of conscience.”

The city council of Lausanne, in its meeting of February 10, 1907, prohibited Forel's lecture as an attack upon decency and public morals, making reference in its resolution to Forel's ideas as laid down in his book. In protest, Forel made a public statement, saying among other things: “If the council desires to be logical it would have to prohibit also the sale of my book.” We have no objection to make to his conclusion.

Is it so very extreme? Certainly not in regard to teaching by books. Listen: “From the foregoing it is self-evident that polygyny based upon the rivalry of men for women (analogous to the animal kingdom) presents the natural sexual practice of mankind. Whether there is to be preferred a simultaneous or a successive polygyny, or a combination of both, would depend on varying conditions. The ethical type of the sexual condition, viz., in general the desirable biological type, is the one that would best suit a polygyny based upon a selection of man.” It is taught further: “The monogamic principle of marriage in general is only conditionally favorable to civilization, whereas it is destructive of it constitutionally, hence in need of reform.” “Our contemporaneous sexual reform wave has not yet assumed the position of this knowledge; on the contrary, notwithstanding its revolutionary aspect in some particulars, it is still under the ban of the traditional ideal of marriage”; continence before marriage is an “absurd” proposition!

“Our contemporaneous sexual reform wave has not yet assumed the position of this knowledge; on the contrary, notwithstanding its revolutionary aspect in some particulars, it is still under the ban of the traditional ideal of marriage”; continence before marriage is an“absurd”proposition!

This new system of morals, fit for the barnyard, but for women the lowest degradation, is now to become the ideal of men, nay, even of women: “True motherly pride, true womanly dignity, are incompatible with the exclusiveness of the monogamic property principle. If our movement for sexual reform is to elevate us instead of plunging us into the mire, then this view must become part and parcel of our women.” “The picture of the motherly woman, of the woman with the pride of sexual modesty, instead of with the exciting desire of possession ... this picture must become the ideal of men, and sink down to the bottom of their soul and into the fibres of their nervous system; it must animate their fancy and awaken their sensual passions.”20 We stand right in the midst of the world of beasts!

We stand right in the midst of the world of beasts!

This perilous moral teaching is allowed also in public lectures. On November 14, 1908, the “Allgemeine Rundschau” wrote: “Imagine a spacious concert-hall, brightly illuminated, every one of the many seats occupied, the boxes filled to the last place, the aisles crowded, by a most variegated audience: men and women, young maidens, youths with downy beard; gentlemen of high rank with their ladies, faces upon which are written a life of vast experience side by side with childish faces whose innocence is betrayed by their looks, and on the platform a university professor and physician, holding forth about the most intimate relations of sexual life: the unfitness of celibacy, the Catholic morals of matrimony, prostitution and prostitutes, the causes of adultery, ‘sterile marriage,’ onanism, and many kinds of perversities. The man is, moreover, speaking in a fashion that makes one forget the admonishments of conscience.”

The city council of Lausanne, in its meeting of February 10, 1907, prohibited Forel's lecture as an attack upon decency and public morals, making reference in its resolution to Forel's ideas as laid down in his book. In protest, Forel made a public statement, saying among other things: “If the council desires to be logical it would have to prohibit also the sale of my book.” We have no objection to make to his conclusion.

“If the council desires to be logical it would have to prohibit also the sale of my book.”We have no objection to make to his conclusion.

We stated that religion is man's first duty. This applies not only to the individual, but also—and this is forgotten too often—to the state. Man, by his nature, and hence in all forms of his life, including his citizenship, is obliged to have religion. He remains in all conditions the creature which is dependent upon God. And does not the state, too, owe special duties of gratitude to God? It owes its origin to God: the impulse to found states has been put into the human nature by its Creator; the state owes to God the foundation of its authority: in a thousand difficulties the state is thrown upon His help. Therefore a public divine service is found with all peoples. Does the state comply with this duty by silently supporting a public atheism when it might do otherwise? by even becoming its patron, when, posing as science, it ascends to the lecturing desk to teach adolescing youth?

Of course, free-thought is of a different opinion, especially the one of to-day. Its principle is: the state need not trouble itself about God and Religion, that is the private matter of each individual. In the eyes of free-thought the state is an imaginary being, hovering over the heads of its citizens; though they may be religious, the state itself should have no Religion. What absurdity! It is nothing short of nonsense to demand of the members of a state, the overwhelming majority of whom hold Religion to be true and necessary, that as a political community they are to act as if their Religion were false and worthless, as if to deny and to destroy it were quite proper. What else is the state but an organized aggregation of its citizens? To make of religious citizens, a state without Religion is just as absurd as a Catholic state composed wholly and entirely of Protestant citizens. This leads us to a further consideration. The state must protect its own foundations. Just as it must defend its existence against enemies from without, it must protect itself against those enemies from within, who, whether realizing the consequences or not, are by their actions actually shaking its foundations. These foundations consist of proper views on social and political principles, on morals and Religion. If the state does not intend to abolish itself, it must not permit doctrines to be disseminated which imperil these foundations and, consequently, the peaceful continuance of the state. In fact, no state power in its senses would permit a teacher, who directly attacks the validity of the state order, to continue; it would retire every professor of law who would dare to teach that regicide is permissible, or who would with the oratory of a Tolstoy preach the unnaturalness of a state possessing coercive power.

As a rule, open advocates of Socialism are kept out of college-chairs. And rightly so. So long as the adherents of Socialism see in the state but the product of the egotism of the ruling classes, and an institute for subjugating the masses, and in the obtainment of political power the means of doing away with this state of affairs, so long will it be impossible for the state to trust the education of the future citizen to a Socialist, nor can the latter, as an honest man, accept a position of trust from the state, much less bind himself by the oath of office to co-operate in the work of the state. Prof. C. Bornhakmakes the following comment: “The decisive point is not freedom in teaching, but the circumstance that the Socialist professor takes advantage of the respect connected with a state office, or of his position at a state institution, to undermine the state. A state that would stand for this would deserve nothing better than its abolition.”

And Paulsen similarly writes: “A state that would allow in the lecture rooms of its colleges Socialistic views to be taught as the results of science ... such a state will be looked for in vain.”

And Paulsen similarly writes: “A state that would allow in the lecture rooms of its colleges Socialistic views to be taught as the results of science ... such a state will be looked for in vain.”

Hence it is certain the state cannot grant a freedom in teaching that would jeopardize the foundation of its existence. It must consequently recognize no freedom which, in lectures and publications, will seriously injure public morality and religion. Morality and religion are, first of all, the indispensable conditions for the continuance of the state.

Aristotle says the first duty of the state is to care for religion. Plato proposes heavy penalty for those who deny the existence of the gods; a well-ordered state, he claims, must care first of all for the fostering of religion. Plutarch calls religion the bond of every society and the foundation of the law. Cicero declares that there can be neither loyalty nor justice without regard for God. Valerius Maximuscould say of Rome: “It has ever been the principle of our city to give preference to religion before any other matter, even before the highest and most glorious benefits.” Washington, in his speech to Congress in 1789, declared religion and morality to be the most indispensable support of the commonweal. He stated that it would be in vain for one, who tries to wreck these two fundamental pillars of the social structure, to boast of his patriotism.

declares that there can be neither loyalty nor justice without regard for God.Valerius Maximuscould say of Rome:“It has ever been the principle of our city to give preference to religion before any other matter, even before the highest and most glorious benefits.”Washington, in his speech to Congress in 1789, declared religion and morality to be the most indispensable support of the commonweal. He stated that it would be in vain for one, who tries to wreck these two fundamental pillars of the social structure, to boast of his patriotism.

Without religion there can be no firm resistance by conscience against man's lower nature, no social virtues and sacrifices, there can only be egotism, the foe of all social order. No secure state-life can be built upon the principles that formed the basis of the French Revolution. So we see, generally and instinctively, the endeavour to prevent as much as possible anti-religious doctrines from being expounded directly to the broad masses of the people. This of itself is tantamount to the acknowledgment of their danger to the state. Yet, millions have tasted the fruit of an atheistic science, and the poison shows its effect; they have shaken off the yoke of religion; in its place dissatisfaction and bitterness are filling their breast, and fists are clenched against the existing order.

Bebel said in a speech in the German Reichstag, on September 16, 1878: “Gentlemen, you attack our views in respect to religion, because they are atheistic and materialistic. I acknowledge them to be so.... I firmly believe Socialism will ultimately lead to atheism. But these atheistic doctrines, that now are causing so much pain and trouble for you, by whom were they scientifically and philosophically demonstrated? Was it by Socialists? Men like Edgar and Bruno, Bauer, Feuerbach, David Strauss, Ernst Renan, were they Socialists? They were men of science.... What is allowed to the one—why should it be forbidden to the other?”

The notorious anarchist Vaillant said: “I have demonstrated to the physicians at Hotel-Dieu that my deed is the inexorable consequence of my philosophy, and of the philosophy of Buechner, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer.”

The youthful criminal Emil Herny read at his trial a memorandum wherein he said among other things: “I am an anarchist since 1891. Up to this time I was wont to esteem and even to idolize my country, the family, the state, and property.... Socialism is not able to change the present order. It upholds the principle of authority which, all affirmations of so-called free-thinkers notwithstanding, is an obsolete remnant of the belief in a higher power. I however was a materialist, atheist. My scientific researches taught me gradually the work of natural forces. I conceived that science had done away with the hypothesis of ‘God,’ which it needs no longer, hence that also the religious-authoritative doctrine of morals, built upon it, as upon a false foundation, had to disappear.”

FeuerbachDavid StraussErnst Renan, were they Socialists? They were men of science.... What is allowed to the one—why should it be forbidden to the other?”

The notorious anarchist Vaillant said: “I have demonstrated to the physicians at Hotel-Dieu that my deed is the inexorable consequence of my philosophy, and of the philosophy of Buechner, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer.”

.”

The youthful criminal Emil Herny read at his trial a memorandum wherein he said among other things: “I am an anarchist since 1891. Up to this time I was wont to esteem and even to idolize my country, the family, the state, and property.... Socialism is not able to change the present order. It upholds the principle of authority which, all affirmations of so-called free-thinkers notwithstanding, is an obsolete remnant of the belief in a higher power. I however was a materialist, atheist. My scientific researches taught me gradually the work of natural forces. I conceived that science had done away with the hypothesis of ‘God,’ which it needs no longer, hence that also the religious-authoritative doctrine of morals, built upon it, as upon a false foundation, had to disappear.”

What political wisdom would it be to honor as science any doctrine that becomes a social danger the moment it is taken seriously; what logic to denounce those as dangerous who are putting into practice a science that is hailed as the bearer of civilization!

One may object: How is the state to determine whether scientific doctrines are warranted or not warranted? The state has the conviction that in its political offices it has no organs for the cognition of scientific truth, for this reason it leaves science to self-regulation. Only the scientist, it is said, is able to revise the scientist.

Nothing but scholarly conceit can engender such ideas. Then any one would have the right to pin upon himself the badge of the scientist and become thereby completely immune. Thus, the bearers of practical political wisdom are declared incompetent to recognize the chief foundation of their state-structure; to realize, what daily experience and the experience of centuries teaches, that disbelief in God, even if sailing under false colors, undermines authority, that communism and upheaval of moral conceptions are tantamount to social danger. They are directed to depend for their information in such matters upon the latest ideas of impractical scientists. The fact is, the matters at issue have, with hardly an exception, long been decided. And where the Christian faith is concerned, the Church and the Christian centuries tell us clearly enough, what has hitherto been understood by Christianity. If the objection here advanced were true, then the state would not have a right to decide in the matter of exhibiting immoral pictures in show windows, without having argued the matter previously with representatives of art. The state would not be allowed to pronounce a death sentence because some scientists denounce capital punishment: the state would have to expunge “guilt,” “expiation,” and “liberty” from its penal code, because many recent scientists, by rejecting the freedom of choice, have removed the dividing line between crime and insanity, between punishment and correction.

Protection for Christianity.

Hitherto we have, in respect to religion, considered chiefly the rational truths, which are the foundations of every religion and also common to non-Christian creeds; the existence of a supermundane God and of a life after death are the most important of them. The revealed Christian religion contains, beside these truths, some others, which supplement them and surround them like a living garland, viz., original sin, redemption, resurrection, the divinity of Christ, grace and the Sacraments, the existence of a Church with its God-given rights, indissolubility of matrimony, etc. Should state-power protect the Christian and Catholic religion by warding off attacks against it, though such attacks are made in scientific form? This, too, in a state in which perhaps other confessions are enjoying the freedom of worship?

It would seem superfluous to propose this question specifically. If, according to the gist of our argument, religion is to be protected, what other religion can be meant than the Christian religion? That is the religion of our nations; none other is. While the stated distinction may have more of an academic than a practical interest, the discussion of this question will not be idle, if only for the reason that it will shed even more light upon our previous statements. Besides, there are manifest efforts to dislodge Christianity from the life of our people, and with it all true religion, under the pretext of opposing church-doctrines and dogmatism. The war against Christianity has not since the days of a Celsus been waged as it is to-day.

We premise a principle of a general nature. Of conflicting religions and views of the world, only one can be true; this is clear to every one who still believes in truth. It is equally clear that this one truth only can have the right to come forward and to enlist support in public life as a spiritual power; error has no right to prevail against truth. Hence it will not do to say simply: There are also the convictions of minorities in the state; some claim that none of the existing religions is the right one, others have dropped all belief in God; in our times we wish to concede to any conviction the right to enter into competition with others, provided mockery and abuse are barred. These remarks are quite true, in the sense that neither the individual nor the state may directly interfere with conscience or prescribe opinions: leaving entirely aside the question whether any one really could have a serious conviction of atheism. The foregoing is true also in the sense that public avowal of opinion must not be hindered by individuals. To interpret this to mean that the state must grant freedom to any expression of doctrine would be a grave misconception of the social influence which false ideas are liable to exercise. Does the state grant this freedom to any kind of medical practice, [pg 353] whether exercised skilfully or awkwardly, conscientiously or unscrupulously?

Moral-religious error may in public life expect only tolerance—just as many other evils must be tolerated, because their prevention would cause greater evils to arise. This is the reason why the state may, and often must, grant freedom of worship even to false creeds, because its denial would give rise to greater harm to the public weal (St. Thomas, 2, 2 q. 10, 11). Freedom of teaching, likewise, must not be granted in the sense of acknowledging that false doctrines and truth have equal rights; this would amount to an assassination of truth. Freedom can be conceded to error for the one reason only, that by not granting it there would be engendered greater evils. Consequently, if a state-power, or the organs of its legislative part, are convinced that the Christian religion is the only true one, they cannot possibly concede to contrary doctrines the right to pose as the truth and thus deceive minds; they may be granted the same freedom in teaching only because restrictive laws can either not be enforced at all, or not without creating a disorder that would give rise to greater evils. Hence the lesser evil must be carefully ascertained.

With this general principle in mind, it is easily seen that a freedom large enough to include an open attack on the fundamental, rational, truths of religion and morals—this having been our subject hitherto—could be conceded only if disbelief and atheism had gained so much power as to make impossible its prohibition. In this case, however, the state should be conscious of the fact that it allows the undermining of its foundations. If, in another state, religious feeling were at so low an ebb, that the freedom of the Christian truth could not be obtained in any other way than by granting full freedom for everything, then even such unlimited freedom would be a good thing to be striven for; of itself a deplorable condition and contrary to God's intentions, but good as the lesser evil.

But let us return to the revealed religion. In the eyes of those who are convinced that the Christian religion, namely, the Catholic religion, is the only true religion, the ideal condition would be to have the entire population united in its faithful confession; then matters would simplify themselves in our case. But this ideal hardly exists anywhere. True, in many countries the population is almost wholly Christian; but the denominations are mixed, and many have separated at heart from Christianity. What standards, then, should rule in this case?

Looking at it specially, the demand of ethical reason is no doubt this: Nations and governments whose past was Christian, whose institutions and civilization are still Christian, and an overwhelming majority of whose members still think and believe in a Christian way, would fail in their gravest duties if they would expose or permit the Christian religion to remain unprotected against the attacks and the attempts at destruction by a false science, or by conceding to the adversaries of Christianity equal rights or even preference. The Christian religion will not be destroyed; but whole nations may lose it, and its loss will in great measure be the fault of those in whose hands their fate was laid. Here might be applied Napoleon's well-known saying: “The weakness of the highest authority is the greatest misfortune of the nations.”

It remains an anomaly that a state, the members of which for the most part are Christians, should treat this religion with indifference, and tolerate that its tenets and traditions be represented as fairy-tales and fables, its moral law as a danger to civilization, and perhaps its divine Founder as a victim of religious frenzy. If the state is the expression and the representative of its subjects, then such disharmony between public and private life is unnatural. Moreover, the Christian religion is held by the majority of its citizens to be the most precious legacy of their forefathers; they must demand from the state protection for their greatest good. And this may be claimed with even greater right by provinces where the population almost unanimously clings to the creed of their ancestors; at the colleges in these parts the faithful people will be entitled to protection more than elsewhere against dangers to its inherited religion. It would be unnatural in this case to apply the thoughtless principle of dealing uniformly with all provinces of the state. The state is not a heap of uniform pebbles, but an organism [pg 355] composed of different parts, each desiring to retain its own peculiar life.

Do not say this presumption does not admit of application to our conditions, the majority of the people of this age being long since estranged from Christianity. It is true, if we turn our eye only to the more conspicuous classes of society, the classes that control the newspapers and mould public opinion, this view might be admitted as to some countries. But if we look at the masses, those not infected by half-education, then this opinion is true no longer. And there are many who at heart are not so distant from faith as it would seem. In public life they pose as free-thinkers, but their domestic life bears frequently a Christian character. And often they approach more and more the faith, the older they grow. This is known to be the fact even of scientists. Instances are men like Ampère, Foucault, Flourens, Hermite, Bion, Biran, Fechner, Lotze, Romanes, Littré, and others. Plato claimed that no one who in his youth disputed the existence of the gods retained this view to his old age. “Christianity,” observes Savigny rightly, “is not only to be acknowledged as a rule of life, it has actually transformed the world, so that all our thoughts are ruled and penetrated by it, no matter how foreign, even hostile, to Christianity they may appear.”

It is a sign how deeply Christian religion has sunk its roots into the heart, that it remains the religion even for those who have turned away from it. To be sure, for our nations Christianity is the religion. For them the religion of a Confucius or Zoroaster does not enter into consideration; nor any of the products of modern religious foundations, which would replace Christianity with substitutions of all kinds of religious essences; they are on a level with the attempts at reconstructing sexual ethics: both are regrettable delusions. “Improvement” of Christian morality is tantamount to abandoning all morals, and desertion from the Christian religion, amongst our people, has always been apostasy from all religion. The Christian religion is so true, that no one can renounce it inwardly and then find peace in a self-made one. And all efforts aimed at displacing Christianity lead only to an abandonment of all religion.

Look at the number of people from whom slander and insinuation have torn their old religion to be replaced by another—a freer, higher religion; their moral decadence soon bears testimony of the religious consecration which has been given to them. Woe unto those authorities who, while able to oppose, are indifferent, and who lend a hand in causing Christian thought to withdraw more and more from our mental atmosphere, to be replaced by another spirit, a spirit that will gradually control the decision of the judge, the practice of the physician, the instruction of the teacher, and thus more and more enter into the life of the people.

It is not assured to those nations of Europe, whose public life is feeding to-day upon the remnants of their Christian past, that they will not relapse into a state of moral and religious barbarity. “Maybe civilized mankind, or our nation at least, is really losing its hold more and more upon definite moral standards,” so complains a modern pedagogue; “possibly the emancipation of sensuality will increase without end, perhaps we have passed forever the stage of true humanity and of a live idealism, and we shall henceforth glide downward.... These are no mere, feverish dreams; there is good reason for facing these possibilities with a determined eye, and no accidental or philosophical optimism can ignore them” (Münch).

“It is quite possible,” we are told by another, “that much will go down in our old Europe during the next centuries; and the downfall will not be restricted by any means to Church and Christianity, and in the crises that will come Europe will hardly get the needed support from an æsthetic heathendom, from the Monists' Union, or from the evidences of science” (Troeltsch).

If it does not come to it, it will not be the merit of authorities who let the vessel of state drift rudderless toward the rocks of dechristianization.

They do not realize that they greatly endanger thereby also the foundations of the state. The foundations of our governments rest upon Christianity. The Christian faith created the state, created matrimony, family, and the education of the youth; created the social virtues of loyalty and of obedience. What we have of religion is Christian, what we have of the religious support of morality is equally Christian; “Christianity, Christian faith, Christian formation of life penetrates all vital utterances of the Occidental world like an all-pervading element” (Paulsen).

It is one of the first principles of political prudence not to shake the foundations upon which the state rests. States and nations are not ephemeral beings, existing from one day to the other, they are historical structures measuring their lives by centuries; past generations join hands with present generations, deeds and customs of the fathers live on in their sons.

States must remain on the historical tracks on which they have travelled to success, at least until the new track has stood the test of reliability. So far anti-Christian philosophy has terribly shaken governments; it has not yet proved itself a state-conserving principle.

It is a sad condition to see the guardians of states, devoid of historical appreciation, allow their people to tear themselves away from the soil wherein reposed the roots from which they drew life and strength. Sad, too, that complaints are made of college-professors who abuse freedom in teaching by constructing an unproved contradiction between knowledge and faith, by misrepresenting Christian tenets, by lowering the prestige of the Church, by distorting her historical picture. It would be regrettable for a Christian state, if the complaint were justified that for the most part our colleges have become places where religion is ignored; where the name of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, is no longer mentioned; where the name of God never occurs in history, in natural and political science; where religion is considered the most unessential factor of mental life, a factor that has nothing to offer, that can answer no question—a treatment which, by the force of suggestion, must lead young men to think that religion is of no account. It is a banishment which in its effect is little different from an attack upon religion.

Sadder still would it be if the following view were to prevail at our colleges: “A right of the student to see protected and not destroyed any views and convictions, including those of a religious nature, which he may bring to the university from his home surroundings, from his preliminary education, as it is asserted time and again in the frequent complaints about the dechristianizing of youth at the universities—does not exist and cannot exist, because it would be in contradiction to the very essence of the university and its tasks” (Jodl).

Is not this the ethical principle of the bird of prey? Is it not allowed to guard the defenceless chick against the hawk? Christian people send their sons to the university, and demand that the education of the parental home be spared, that the inexperience of youth be not misused. The state must demand that the religious-moral education which it furthers in its public schools be not destroyed by the higher schools. Yet, all these rights must be silenced the moment the vision of the absolute freedom of teaching makes its appearance, since to refrain from dechristianizing the youth would be contrary to his tasks.

[pg 358]

If such abuse in the management of the power of knowledge, within and without colleges, is not counteracted by all possible means, then none need be surprised when a science free from religion and Christianity is followed by an elementary school free from religion, when in public and preparatory schools the free-thinking teacher is telling the pupils that there is no creation but only evolution, and that the gospels and biblical history are poetical stories such as the Nibelungenlied and the Iliad and Odyssey.

We cannot be astonished to find the following rules advocated for the instruction in public schools: “Religious instruction in schools should not differ from the instruction in other subjects, namely, one of full freedom, bound only by recognized documents and personalities of religious literature and religious science. The school must teach that which is, it must present the tenets of all times and all nations in so far as this is possible within its modest compass.... But if the pupil should ask, What really is? What position should the teacher assume toward this question? In my opinion, he should speak in plain terms. He should say: There are people who believe all that is taught by the different systems of religion.... The child may further ask of the teacher whether he himself believes. No teacher who claims the confidence of the children should shirk the answer. He may confess his faith or disbelief, without need of worry. It cannot hurt his prestige in the eyes of the child, because, if for no other reason, either way he will find himself in an equally large and good company” (Tews).

But we hear much more radical utterances. For instance, the official organ of teachers in a Catholic country urges defection from the Church in the following words: “How long will Social-Democracy, now so formidable, remain inactive against clerical arrogance? How much longer will it shirk a duty that is clear to the dullest eye? If the millions of our Social-Democrats, including the women and children, would break away from Rome, the priestcraft in Austria is as good as defeated. A grave responsibility rests upon the Social-Democratic leaders. Should they miss the moment to act, they will be judged by history!” (Deutsch-oesterreichische Lehrerzeitung, June 1, 1909).

Another organ of teachers declares Christianity to be nothing else but victorious heresy, for which Christ had to lay down His life the same as Giordano, Hus, and countless others. “The subject of religion as taught in the preparatory schools is for the most part taken from ages whose customs and morals are—happily—no longer ours.” We see radicalism rampant in large circles of public school teachers, demanding noisily, excitedly, and, of course, in the name of modern science and enlightenment, the abolition of the divine service, of prayer, and religious instruction in school, giving as reason that, “as to matters of mental freedom no difference should be made between a [pg 359]university and a village school.” That our people will “carelessly waste their Christian patrimony, this is the great danger.”

Our argument is not that only Catholics should be professors, nor even to limit the teaching office to Christians. But one thing must be demanded of the college-teacher, that he possess the pedagogic qualifications to render him competent of educating the hope of the Christian people. As a rule this demands a religious, Christian disposition. One thing the state must absolutely demand of the teacher, that he have appreciation for the foundations of the Christian state; he who has no understanding for the historical forms of the life of a nation, who even regards them with hostility, should remain away from this vocation.

In the United States the Jesuit Order has five free universities, founded and directed by the Order. Their professors are not all Catholics; there are professors of other creeds, even Jews. All work in harmony to the common end of the university.

Men who sincerely and conscientiously strive for the interests of science will everywhere show not only consideration, but even understanding and respect, for what is true in the ideas of others. “I gaze,” so writes Prof. Smolka, “upon the likenesses of my venerable Protestant masters, under whom I studied at Göttingen. Thirty-seven years have passed since I went to them, in full confidence to find in their school the leaders who would be free from the influence of the Catholic view of the world. To their profound knowledge I owe, first of all, the emancipation from the prejudices I was raised in, from the views of an atmosphere devoted to Indifferentism in which I had passed my youth. Prof. Waitz opened my eyes to the grandeur of the Catholic Church in the course of the centuries, in the repeated prostration of the Papacy and its ever-following rise to unsuspected heights, a fact unparalleled in the history of human institutions. Prof. Lotze rebuked me at the very beginning of my studies at Göttingen for a slighting remark about scholastic philosophy: later he imbued me with profound respect for it and for the wealth of problems it embraces. These scientists, Protestants without exception and in exclusively Protestant surroundings, inoculated me with sincere love for scientific truth, regardless of the consequences it would lead to. They also introduced the youthful mind to the tried methods of scientific research, indicating the boundaries where the domain of research ends and the right of dogma, or arbitrary rule of subjective imagination, begins.”

We premise a principle of a general nature. Of conflicting religions and views of the world, only one can be true; this is clear to every one who still believes in truth. It is equally clear that this one truth only can have the right to come forward and to enlist support in public life as a spiritual power; error has no right to prevail against truth. Hence it will not do to say simply: There are also the convictions of minorities in the state; some claim that none of the existing religions is the right one, others have dropped all belief in God; in our times we wish to concede to any conviction the right to enter into competition with others, provided mockery and abuse are barred. These remarks are quite true, in the sense that neither the individual nor the state may directly interfere with conscience or prescribe opinions: leaving entirely aside the question whether any one really could have a serious conviction of atheism. The foregoing is true also in the sense that public avowal of opinion must not be hindered by individuals. To interpret this to mean that the state must grant freedom to any expression of doctrine would be a grave misconception of the social influence which false ideas are liable to exercise. Does the state grant this freedom to any kind of medical practice, [pg 353] whether exercised skilfully or awkwardly, conscientiously or unscrupulously?

Moral-religious error may in public life expect only tolerance—just as many other evils must be tolerated, because their prevention would cause greater evils to arise. This is the reason why the state may, and often must, grant freedom of worship even to false creeds, because its denial would give rise to greater harm to the public weal (St. Thomas, 2, 2 q. 10, 11). Freedom of teaching, likewise, must not be granted in the sense of acknowledging that false doctrines and truth have equal rights; this would amount to an assassination of truth. Freedom can be conceded to error for the one reason only, that by not granting it there would be engendered greater evils. Consequently, if a state-power, or the organs of its legislative part, are convinced that the Christian religion is the only true one, they cannot possibly concede to contrary doctrines the right to pose as the truth and thus deceive minds; they may be granted the same freedom in teaching only because restrictive laws can either not be enforced at all, or not without creating a disorder that would give rise to greater evils. Hence the lesser evil must be carefully ascertained.

With this general principle in mind, it is easily seen that a freedom large enough to include an open attack on the fundamental, rational, truths of religion and morals—this having been our subject hitherto—could be conceded only if disbelief and atheism had gained so much power as to make impossible its prohibition. In this case, however, the state should be conscious of the fact that it allows the undermining of its foundations. If, in another state, religious feeling were at so low an ebb, that the freedom of the Christian truth could not be obtained in any other way than by granting full freedom for everything, then even such unlimited freedom would be a good thing to be striven for; of itself a deplorable condition and contrary to God's intentions, but good as the lesser evil.

But let us return to the revealed religion. In the eyes of those who are convinced that the Christian religion, namely, the Catholic religion, is the only true religion, the ideal condition would be to have the entire population united in its faithful confession; then matters would simplify themselves in our case. But this ideal hardly exists anywhere. True, in many countries the population is almost wholly Christian; but the denominations are mixed, and many have separated at heart from Christianity. What standards, then, should rule in this case?

Looking at it specially, the demand of ethical reason is no doubt this: Nations and governments whose past was Christian, whose institutions and civilization are still Christian, and an overwhelming majority of whose members still think and believe in a Christian way, would fail in their gravest duties if they would expose or permit the Christian religion to remain unprotected against the attacks and the attempts at destruction by a false science, or by conceding to the adversaries of Christianity equal rights or even preference. The Christian religion will not be destroyed; but whole nations may lose it, and its loss will in great measure be the fault of those in whose hands their fate was laid. Here might be applied Napoleon's well-known saying: “The weakness of the highest authority is the greatest misfortune of the nations.”

It remains an anomaly that a state, the members of which for the most part are Christians, should treat this religion with indifference, and tolerate that its tenets and traditions be represented as fairy-tales and fables, its moral law as a danger to civilization, and perhaps its divine Founder as a victim of religious frenzy. If the state is the expression and the representative of its subjects, then such disharmony between public and private life is unnatural. Moreover, the Christian religion is held by the majority of its citizens to be the most precious legacy of their forefathers; they must demand from the state protection for their greatest good. And this may be claimed with even greater right by provinces where the population almost unanimously clings to the creed of their ancestors; at the colleges in these parts the faithful people will be entitled to protection more than elsewhere against dangers to its inherited religion. It would be unnatural in this case to apply the thoughtless principle of dealing uniformly with all provinces of the state. The state is not a heap of uniform pebbles, but an organism [pg 355] composed of different parts, each desiring to retain its own peculiar life.

Do not say this presumption does not admit of application to our conditions, the majority of the people of this age being long since estranged from Christianity. It is true, if we turn our eye only to the more conspicuous classes of society, the classes that control the newspapers and mould public opinion, this view might be admitted as to some countries. But if we look at the masses, those not infected by half-education, then this opinion is true no longer. And there are many who at heart are not so distant from faith as it would seem. In public life they pose as free-thinkers, but their domestic life bears frequently a Christian character. And often they approach more and more the faith, the older they grow. This is known to be the fact even of scientists. Instances are men like Ampère, Foucault, Flourens, Hermite, Bion, Biran, Fechner, Lotze, Romanes, Littré, and others. Plato claimed that no one who in his youth disputed the existence of the gods retained this view to his old age. “Christianity,” observes Savigny rightly, “is not only to be acknowledged as a rule of life, it has actually transformed the world, so that all our thoughts are ruled and penetrated by it, no matter how foreign, even hostile, to Christianity they may appear.”

HermiteBionBiranFechnerLotzeRomanesLittré, and others.Platoclaimed that no one who in his youth disputed the existence of the gods retained this view to his old age.“Christianity,”observesSavignyrightly,“is not only to be acknowledged as a rule of life, it has actually transformed the world, so that all our thoughts are ruled and penetrated by it, no matter how foreign, even hostile, to Christianity they may appear.”

It is a sign how deeply Christian religion has sunk its roots into the heart, that it remains the religion even for those who have turned away from it. To be sure, for our nations Christianity is the religion. For them the religion of a Confucius or Zoroaster does not enter into consideration; nor any of the products of modern religious foundations, which would replace Christianity with substitutions of all kinds of religious essences; they are on a level with the attempts at reconstructing sexual ethics: both are regrettable delusions. “Improvement” of Christian morality is tantamount to abandoning all morals, and desertion from the Christian religion, amongst our people, has always been apostasy from all religion. The Christian religion is so true, that no one can renounce it inwardly and then find peace in a self-made one. And all efforts aimed at displacing Christianity lead only to an abandonment of all religion.

Look at the number of people from whom slander and insinuation have torn their old religion to be replaced by another—a freer, higher religion; their moral decadence soon bears testimony of the religious consecration which has been given to them. Woe unto those authorities who, while able to oppose, are indifferent, and who lend a hand in causing Christian thought to withdraw more and more from our mental atmosphere, to be replaced by another spirit, a spirit that will gradually control the decision of the judge, the practice of the physician, the instruction of the teacher, and thus more and more enter into the life of the people.

It is not assured to those nations of Europe, whose public life is feeding to-day upon the remnants of their Christian past, that they will not relapse into a state of moral and religious barbarity. “Maybe civilized mankind, or our nation at least, is really losing its hold more and more upon definite moral standards,” so complains a modern pedagogue; “possibly the emancipation of sensuality will increase without end, perhaps we have passed forever the stage of true humanity and of a live idealism, and we shall henceforth glide downward.... These are no mere, feverish dreams; there is good reason for facing these possibilities with a determined eye, and no accidental or philosophical optimism can ignore them” (Münch).

“It is quite possible,” we are told by another, “that much will go down in our old Europe during the next centuries; and the downfall will not be restricted by any means to Church and Christianity, and in the crises that will come Europe will hardly get the needed support from an æsthetic heathendom, from the Monists' Union, or from the evidences of science” (Troeltsch).

If it does not come to it, it will not be the merit of authorities who let the vessel of state drift rudderless toward the rocks of dechristianization.

(Münch).

“It is quite possible,” we are told by another, “that much will go down in our old Europe during the next centuries; and the downfall will not be restricted by any means to Church and Christianity, and in the crises that will come Europe will hardly get the needed support from an æsthetic heathendom, from the Monists' Union, or from the evidences of science” (Troeltsch).

Troeltsch).

If it does not come to it, it will not be the merit of authorities who let the vessel of state drift rudderless toward the rocks of dechristianization.

They do not realize that they greatly endanger thereby also the foundations of the state. The foundations of our governments rest upon Christianity. The Christian faith created the state, created matrimony, family, and the education of the youth; created the social virtues of loyalty and of obedience. What we have of religion is Christian, what we have of the religious support of morality is equally Christian; “Christianity, Christian faith, Christian formation of life penetrates all vital utterances of the Occidental world like an all-pervading element” (Paulsen).

It is one of the first principles of political prudence not to shake the foundations upon which the state rests. States and nations are not ephemeral beings, existing from one day to the other, they are historical structures measuring their lives by centuries; past generations join hands with present generations, deeds and customs of the fathers live on in their sons.

States must remain on the historical tracks on which they have travelled to success, at least until the new track has stood the test of reliability. So far anti-Christian philosophy has terribly shaken governments; it has not yet proved itself a state-conserving principle.

It is a sad condition to see the guardians of states, devoid of historical appreciation, allow their people to tear themselves away from the soil wherein reposed the roots from which they drew life and strength. Sad, too, that complaints are made of college-professors who abuse freedom in teaching by constructing an unproved contradiction between knowledge and faith, by misrepresenting Christian tenets, by lowering the prestige of the Church, by distorting her historical picture. It would be regrettable for a Christian state, if the complaint were justified that for the most part our colleges have become places where religion is ignored; where the name of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, is no longer mentioned; where the name of God never occurs in history, in natural and political science; where religion is considered the most unessential factor of mental life, a factor that has nothing to offer, that can answer no question—a treatment which, by the force of suggestion, must lead young men to think that religion is of no account. It is a banishment which in its effect is little different from an attack upon religion.

Sadder still would it be if the following view were to prevail at our colleges: “A right of the student to see protected and not destroyed any views and convictions, including those of a religious nature, which he may bring to the university from his home surroundings, from his preliminary education, as it is asserted time and again in the frequent complaints about the dechristianizing of youth at the universities—does not exist and cannot exist, because it would be in contradiction to the very essence of the university and its tasks” (Jodl).

Is not this the ethical principle of the bird of prey? Is it not allowed to guard the defenceless chick against the hawk? Christian people send their sons to the university, and demand that the education of the parental home be spared, that the inexperience of youth be not misused. The state must demand that the religious-moral education which it furthers in its public schools be not destroyed by the higher schools. Yet, all these rights must be silenced the moment the vision of the absolute freedom of teaching makes its appearance, since to refrain from dechristianizing the youth would be contrary to his tasks.

Is not this the ethical principle of the bird of prey? Is it not allowed to guard the defenceless chick against the hawk? Christian people send their sons to the university, and demand that the education of the parental home be spared, that the inexperience of youth be not misused. The state must demand that the religious-moral education which it furthers in its public schools be not destroyed by the higher schools. Yet, all these rights must be silenced the moment the vision of the absolute freedom of teaching makes its appearance, since to refrain from dechristianizing the youth would be contrary to his tasks.

[pg 358]

If such abuse in the management of the power of knowledge, within and without colleges, is not counteracted by all possible means, then none need be surprised when a science free from religion and Christianity is followed by an elementary school free from religion, when in public and preparatory schools the free-thinking teacher is telling the pupils that there is no creation but only evolution, and that the gospels and biblical history are poetical stories such as the Nibelungenlied and the Iliad and Odyssey.

We cannot be astonished to find the following rules advocated for the instruction in public schools: “Religious instruction in schools should not differ from the instruction in other subjects, namely, one of full freedom, bound only by recognized documents and personalities of religious literature and religious science. The school must teach that which is, it must present the tenets of all times and all nations in so far as this is possible within its modest compass.... But if the pupil should ask, What really is? What position should the teacher assume toward this question? In my opinion, he should speak in plain terms. He should say: There are people who believe all that is taught by the different systems of religion.... The child may further ask of the teacher whether he himself believes. No teacher who claims the confidence of the children should shirk the answer. He may confess his faith or disbelief, without need of worry. It cannot hurt his prestige in the eyes of the child, because, if for no other reason, either way he will find himself in an equally large and good company” (Tews).

But we hear much more radical utterances. For instance, the official organ of teachers in a Catholic country urges defection from the Church in the following words: “How long will Social-Democracy, now so formidable, remain inactive against clerical arrogance? How much longer will it shirk a duty that is clear to the dullest eye? If the millions of our Social-Democrats, including the women and children, would break away from Rome, the priestcraft in Austria is as good as defeated. A grave responsibility rests upon the Social-Democratic leaders. Should they miss the moment to act, they will be judged by history!” (Deutsch-oesterreichische Lehrerzeitung, June 1, 1909).

Another organ of teachers declares Christianity to be nothing else but victorious heresy, for which Christ had to lay down His life the same as Giordano, Hus, and countless others. “The subject of religion as taught in the preparatory schools is for the most part taken from ages whose customs and morals are—happily—no longer ours.” We see radicalism rampant in large circles of public school teachers, demanding noisily, excitedly, and, of course, in the name of modern science and enlightenment, the abolition of the divine service, of prayer, and religious instruction in school, giving as reason that, “as to matters of mental freedom no difference should be made between a [pg 359]university and a village school.” That our people will “carelessly waste their Christian patrimony, this is the great danger.”

But we hear much more radical utterances. For instance, the official organ of teachers in a Catholic country urges defection from the Church in the following words: “How long will Social-Democracy, now so formidable, remain inactive against clerical arrogance? How much longer will it shirk a duty that is clear to the dullest eye? If the millions of our Social-Democrats, including the women and children, would break away from Rome, the priestcraft in Austria is as good as defeated. A grave responsibility rests upon the Social-Democratic leaders. Should they miss the moment to act, they will be judged by history!” (Deutsch-oesterreichische Lehrerzeitung, June 1, 1909).

Another organ of teachers declares Christianity to be nothing else but victorious heresy, for which Christ had to lay down His life the same as Giordano, Hus, and countless others. “The subject of religion as taught in the preparatory schools is for the most part taken from ages whose customs and morals are—happily—no longer ours.” We see radicalism rampant in large circles of public school teachers, demanding noisily, excitedly, and, of course, in the name of modern science and enlightenment, the abolition of the divine service, of prayer, and religious instruction in school, giving as reason that, “as to matters of mental freedom no difference should be made between a [pg 359]university and a village school.” That our people will “carelessly waste their Christian patrimony, this is the great danger.”

We see radicalism rampant in large circles of public school teachers, demanding noisily, excitedly, and, of course, in the name of modern science and enlightenment, the abolition of the divine service, of prayer, and religious instruction in school, giving as reason that,“as to matters of mental freedom no difference should be made between a [pg 359]university and a village school.”That our people will“carelessly waste their Christian patrimony, this is the great danger.”

Our argument is not that only Catholics should be professors, nor even to limit the teaching office to Christians. But one thing must be demanded of the college-teacher, that he possess the pedagogic qualifications to render him competent of educating the hope of the Christian people. As a rule this demands a religious, Christian disposition. One thing the state must absolutely demand of the teacher, that he have appreciation for the foundations of the Christian state; he who has no understanding for the historical forms of the life of a nation, who even regards them with hostility, should remain away from this vocation.

In the United States the Jesuit Order has five free universities, founded and directed by the Order. Their professors are not all Catholics; there are professors of other creeds, even Jews. All work in harmony to the common end of the university.

Men who sincerely and conscientiously strive for the interests of science will everywhere show not only consideration, but even understanding and respect, for what is true in the ideas of others. “I gaze,” so writes Prof. Smolka, “upon the likenesses of my venerable Protestant masters, under whom I studied at Göttingen. Thirty-seven years have passed since I went to them, in full confidence to find in their school the leaders who would be free from the influence of the Catholic view of the world. To their profound knowledge I owe, first of all, the emancipation from the prejudices I was raised in, from the views of an atmosphere devoted to Indifferentism in which I had passed my youth. Prof. Waitz opened my eyes to the grandeur of the Catholic Church in the course of the centuries, in the repeated prostration of the Papacy and its ever-following rise to unsuspected heights, a fact unparalleled in the history of human institutions. Prof. Lotze rebuked me at the very beginning of my studies at Göttingen for a slighting remark about scholastic philosophy: later he imbued me with profound respect for it and for the wealth of problems it embraces. These scientists, Protestants without exception and in exclusively Protestant surroundings, inoculated me with sincere love for scientific truth, regardless of the consequences it would lead to. They also introduced the youthful mind to the tried methods of scientific research, indicating the boundaries where the domain of research ends and the right of dogma, or arbitrary rule of subjective imagination, begins.”

Fifth Section. Theology.

Chapter I. Theology And Science.

Now one other, the concluding point. So far our discussion has dealt almost exclusively with the profane sciences, and while there were often under discussion general principles, applying also to theology, we did not refer to the latter expressly for the reason that it occupies a special position in regard to our question. Theology is the science of the faith, its subjects are truths established by divine or inspired authority; hence, in teaching, authority plays a larger part in this than in any other science. For this reason much fault is found with theology, and many consider that it forfeits thereby its claim to rank as a science. They say it lacks all liberty, the results are prescribed; it lacks possibility of progress; nothing but rigid dogmas, rejecting all development and improvement; its vocation is exhausted by the incessant transmitting of the immutable; hence it lacks all the essential conditions of a true science, it has no claim to a place at the university; if it nevertheless has established itself at the university, as is the case in some countries, it must be considered as an alien body, a remnant of an obsolete time.

A keen eye cannot fail to detect in these words the prompting voice of that view of the world which rejects everything supernatural, and declares that Christian dogmatics and morals, and ideas of sin, redemption, humility of faith, cross, and self-denial, do no longer correspond to modern man. At bottom is the struggle between the two views of the world—one the philosophy of modern, sovereign man, the other the contemplation of the world in the light of Christianity: a process of repulsion, psychologically easily understood, by which the one seeks to expel [pg 378] the other from the position which it desires to occupy. A closer examination of the matter will show this.

Theology as a Science.

Is theology a science in the proper sense? May it rightly claim a place among the branches of human science? This shall be the first question to be answered. Theology, meaning the doctrine of God, is the science of the Revelation, or of the faith; of the Revelation which began in the Old Testament and reached its perfection in Christ, the Son of God, in whom appeared the fulness of God, the image of the glory of God, the perfection of all religion; the Revelation intrusted to the Church to be preserved infallibly, so that by these truths, and means of salvation, the Church might guide and enrich the life of believing mankind. Hence, in the broad sense in which it is understood now, theology is the science that gathers the revealed truths from their sources, endeavours to grasp and to defend them, and to deduce new truths from them; which also studies these truths and the means given for salvation, in their development and effect in the Christian life.

Thus it includes a wide range of subordinate branches, connected by a common object. The biblical sciences have for their subject Holy Writ; the sciences of introduction to the Bible deal with its external history, with historical criticism playing an important part; exegesis is occupied with the scientific interpretation of the text and uncovers the treasures of truth in Holy Writ, assisted in this task by hermeneutics and a number of philosophical-historical auxiliary sciences. Ecclesiastical history and its branches of patrology, history of dogma, ecclesiastical archæology, and art, and other auxiliary sciences, describe the doctrine of Revelation in its historical course through the centuries, and its development in the bosom of the Church. Dogmatics (with apologetics) and morals have the task to explain and defend the doctrine of faith and morals, as drawn from the Scriptures and from tradition, to deduce new truths from them and to unite them all in a system. Finally, Canon law, and even to a greater degree the departments of pastoral theology, homiletics, liturgy, show how the treasures of Revelation and Redemption find their realization in the practical life of the Church and of the Christian people.

Hence there cannot be any doubt but that theology is a science in the proper sense, unless a wrong definition of science is presumed. Of course, if we should identify science in general with empirical science, and scientific methods with the methods of natural sciences and mathematics, and refuse to recognize any results as scientific except those gained by observation and mathematical calculation, then, of course, theology would not be a science, nor would many other branches of knowledge come under this head; the fault, however, would lie with a narrow conception, that limits itself to the portion of human knowledge within its vision, ignoring everything that exists beyond its horizon.

What are we to understand by science? It is the systematic concentration of the knowledge and the research of things according to their causes; hence of our cognition of a subject that can be proved by careful demonstration to be certain or at least probable. This we find to be the case in theology. It is the sum total, systematically arranged, of knowledge and researches concerning the tenets of faith, considered in the abstract, in their history, and in their effects on the life of the Church. Applying the method of natural thought, theology first studies the presumptions and foundations of faith, examines the sources of revelation by the philosophical and historical-critical method, proves the doctrines of faith by these sources, endeavours to grasp these truths intellectually, by the methods of analytical and synthetical thinking, and to make clear their connection. We have here the same methods as applied in other sciences: ascertaining the facts, definition of terms, deduction, induction. In respect to the history of the Church and to Canon law their similarity with analogous profane sciences is at once obvious.

There is one difference: in the theological sciences there is active, not only rational research, but also the belief in revealed truths. In some departments, like that of ecclesiastical history, this difference is less pronounced, they proceed by the method of critically establishing and connecting the facts; but they, too, are guided by the conviction that there is in the life of the Church not only natural causation, but also supernatural principle. Dogmatics takes faith to a greater degree as its point of support, in order to connect natural reason with the convictions of faith, and how richly natural reason may unfold itself is shown in the works of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, on the great mysteries of the faith. As regards faith itself, we must keep in mind that it has a scientific foundation: the credibility of revelation is proven, it is a reasoning faith. It may be likened to history. The historian, on the testimony of his sources, believes in the actuality of human events, having convinced himself of the credibility of his sources; this belief becomes then his starting point for further researches of a pragmatical nature: he penetrates more deeply into the facts, and connects them according to their causal relations. The difference is this: the historian rests upon human authority, the theologian upon divine.

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 simply sentiment, it is a conviction of reason, based upon God's testimony that the revealed doctrines are true. In the same way that the historian—to use the comparison once more—believes positively in his historical facts, on the strength of the authority of a Livy or Tacitus, or accepts as proved some events of ancient times, relying upon the testimony of Babylonian tablets of clay or upon the pyramids, and makes these events his starting point for further researches, without having to fear objections to his work on the ground that knowledge and belief are incompatible; just so the theologian believes in his religious truths because they are vouched for by God's testimony. This proves that the foundation for his further thought is not formed [pg 381] by uncontrollable, irrational sentiment, but by a conviction of reason.

Hence, if by knowledge is meant nothing but a conviction of reason—and in this sense faith and knowledge are usually contrasted by modern philosophical writers—then faith is knowledge in the proper sense and a contradiction does not exist. If, however, knowledge is taken to be the understanding gained by personal insight without reliance on external testimony, then, of course, there is a distinction, and theology would not be a science, in so far as it believes; just as little as history would be a science, in so far as it believes its sources. But theology is a science, in so far as it makes use of experience and reason, examines its sources, draws from them the facts of faith, and makes them the starting point for its investigations.

Theology also has mysteries among its subjects, namely, truths whose actuality is cognizable, but whose contents, while not indeed inconsistent, yet remain obscure and incomprehensible to us. But even this does not impair its scientific character. Other sciences share with it this lot of human limitation. Instances are plentiful in natural science where the existence of natural forces of one kind or another is proven; of which it is able to form some idea, but cannot fathom; they remain a puzzle to science, sometimes presenting the greatest difficulties. For instance, ether, gravitation, electricity, the nature of motion, and so on. The noted physicist J. J. Thomson says: “Gravitation is the secret of secrets. But the very same holds good of all molecular forces, of magnetism, electricity, etc. There are in animated nature even more things we cannot understand. We could say that of the processes of living organisms we understand practically nothing. Our knowledge of indigestion, of propagation, of instinct, is so small that we can almost say it is limited to the enumeration of them. What we do know and understand is not one thousandth part of what would be necessary for a knowledge in any degree complete. ‘If we raise an arm,’ says Pasteur, ‘or put our teeth in action, we do something that no one can explain.’ ”

Theology and Progress.

With a very superficial conception of theology we might easily arrive at the opinion that it lacks a characteristic of science, which, in our time especially, is insisted upon, namely, progress. For it must adhere to dogmas and not go beyond them. Hence, seemingly, there is nothing to do for theology but to transmit unchangeable truths, perhaps in different aspects, but nevertheless the same truths.

It must be admitted that one kind of progress is barred in theology, as also in other sciences; to wit, the progress of incessant remodelling and reshaping, the continuous tearing down of the old facts, the eternal search after truth without ever gaining its possession.

This is often the progress demanded. “The new tuition,” it is said, “starts from the premise that the truth is to be searched for”(Paulsen). “Science is not a perfected doctrine, but a research, ever to be revised” (Harnack). It is particularly demanded of theology that it procure a further development of Christianity, and substitute for it thoughts which modern age has adopted and which it calls scientific thinking. “There remains the task,” they say, “of expressing faith and its objects so as to coincide with the conception formed by scientific thinking of the natural and historical reality” (Paulsen). Hence miracles, the divinity of Christ, and mysteries of any kind, must be eliminated; even the notion of a personal God will have to be changed to a pantheistic notion: “After the great revolution in our cosmic theories we can no longer think of God, the eternal holy Will that we revere as First Cause of all things, as the ‘first mover’ throning outside and above the universe, as Aristotle and Thomas did” (Paulsen).

Such a progress is impossible in theology, at least in Catholic theology, and in any other that still aims to be the theology of the Christian, revealed religion. It cannot be expected from theology, nor from any other science, that it will degrade itself to a fashionable science, that takes for its level not truth but the variable imperatives and moods of the times, and, destitute of character, changes with each varying fashion. The science of faith cannot assume this position, so much the less as it must be aware that its truths often clash with the inclinations of the human heart, and that its vocation is to lift up mankind, not to let itself be dragged down. This kind of progress therefore is barred. This, indeed, is not progress, but a hopeless wavering from pillar to post, a building and tearing down, acquiring without permanent possession, searching without finding.

True progress can be shown in theology as in any other science.

The possibility of progress is manifest, particularly, in Church-history, in the biblical and pastoral sciences: they are closely related to the profane-historical, philological, social, and juridical branches of science, hence theology shares in their progress. It would seem that dogmatics would have to forego progress. Its progress certainly cannot consist in changing the revealed doctrines, nor in interpreting differently in the course of times the formulas of creed; here the rule is, veritas Domini manet in aeternum. The development of dogmatic knowledge consists rather in the following: the revealed truths are in the course of the centuries more and more clearly perceived and more sharply circumscribed, more surely demonstrated, more and more extensively appreciated in their connections, relations, and deductions. The sources of Divine Revelation flow the richer the more they are drawn from; their truths are so substantial, so abundant in relation to knowledge and life, that, the more research advances, the less it reaches its limit. “No one gets nearer to the realization of truth than he who perceives that in divine things, no matter how far he progresses, there remains always something more to be examined” (Leo the Great).

Consider the progress in mathematics. No one will say the mathematician is doomed to stagnation because he cannot change the multiplication table or the geometrical propositions. The increasing mathematical literature, with its big volumes, contradicts this notion: but its growth of knowledge is not the zigzag progress of restless to and fro, it is the solid progress from the seed to the plant.

As early as the fifth century St. Vincent of Lerin described the progress in dogmatical knowledge: “Sed forsitan dicet aliquis: Nullusne ergo in Ecclesia Christi profectus habebitur religionis? Habeatur plane et maximus. Nam quis ille est tam invidus hominibus, tam exosus Deo, qui istud prohibere conetur? Sed ita tamen, ut vere profectus sit ille fidei, non permutatio. Siquidem ad profectum pertinet, ut in semetipsum quaeque res amplificetur; ad permutationem vero, ut aliquid ex alio in aliud transvertatur. Crescat igitur oportet et multum vehementerque proficiat tam singulorum quam omnium, tam unius hominis, quam totius Ecclesiae, aetatum ac saeculorum gradibus, intelligentia, scientia, sapientia, sed in suo duntaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu eademque sententia.... Quodeunque igitur in hac Ecclesiae Dei agricultura fide Patrum satum est, hoc idem filiorem industria decet excolatur et observetur, hoc idem floreat et maturescat, hoc idem proficiat et perficiatur. Fas est etenim, ut prisca illa coelestis philosophiae dogmata processu temporis excurentur, limentur, poliantur, sed nefas est, ut commutentur, nefas, ut detruncentur, ut mutilentur.”

The proof for the actual progress of theology is furnished by its history. It shows how theology has gradually grown from the first seed of the divine Word, placed by the hand of God's Son into the soil of humanity, until it became a great tree, rich in branches and leaves. The holiest men of the Christian centuries, equipped with the choicest mental forces, enlightened by the light of grace, have worked on its growth; toiling and praying, they filled libraries with their books.

It is not our intention to outline here a sketch of this development. A few hints may suffice. Hardly had the faith taken root in the civilized nations of the old times when researches were begun. A long list of Holy Fathers and ecclesiastical authors were the bearers of the first development. Drawing upon Greek philosophy in aid and to deepen their thought in the mental battle against the ancient pagan view of the world, against Judaism and heresy, they elucidated more and more the tenets of faith and morals, and endeavoured to draw ever more fully from their spiritual contents. We encounter among the shining host men like Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, Origines, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and many others, up to the powerful dogmatist of the old time, Augustine, who treated scientifically and often extensively the great dogmas of faith. Truly a voluminous theological literature with a plethora of genius and truth. The great edition of the Greek and Latin Fathers by Migne numbers 382 volumes in quarto, each of 1,500 pages or more in close print. Comparing with these 382 volumes the modest book of the Bible, which had been their foremost source, the progress of these centuries becomes manifest.

Soon the way was broken for systematizing the tenets of the faith, especially by St. John Damascene (eighth century). Scholasticism completed the work: it created a systematical whole and connected theology and philosophy, especially the Aristotelian, into a harmonious union. Its pioneers were St. Anselm and still more Petrus Lombard (died 1160). Then, in the Middle Ages, when universities began to flourish, there followed the great theologians Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Scotus, and chief of all Thomas of Aquin (died 1274), in whom scholasticism reached its perfection, and undeniably one of the greatest minds known in the history of science; distinguished by an astonishing prolificness, still more by a wealth and depth of thought combined with the greatest simplicity and lucidity in presenting truths, he will for ever remain unapproachable. The decline of scholasticism during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was followed by a new bloom, when the life of the Church, rejuvenated by the Council of Trent, gave birth to new forces in theology. The mighty tomes of men like Suarez, Lugo, Gregory of Valencia, Ruiz, Bañez, Billuart, and others joined the volumes of their predecessors and continued their work. At the same time the various departments of the science were branching off more and more, and became independent.

M. Canus created the theory of theological cognition as an introduction to dogmatics, Bellarmin and Th. Stapleton founded the newer controversial theology. Moral Theology became in the sixteenth century a separate science and was developed by men like Lugo, Laymann, Busembaum, Alphons of Liguori. Similarly a new period of research began in the biblical sciences. Not that the first foundations were laid at that time; there had been Origines, who had become the founder of biblical text criticism by his “Hexapla”; the Antioch school of exegetes, Chrysostomus, Hilarius, and especially Jerome. But it was fostered with renewed zeal. The great Antwerp and Paris polyglots furnished aids, men like Maldonatus, Salmeron, Toletus, Cornelius, á Lapide, wrote their exegetic works. To the seventeenth century belongs the creation of the propædeutics, by Richard Simon and Bernard Lami. The monumental work, “Cursus sacrae scripturae” (since 1885), containing so far thirty-six volumes, demonstrates, among other things, that there has been in recent years no standstill in the research in Holy Writ. In the province of ecclesiastical history, too, with its branches and auxiliary sciences, new life was awakened at that time. In the sixteenth century, when the defence of the creed by the witnesses of a former age became urgent, patristics and history of dogma enjoyed their first rise. Petavius was prominently connected with them. How these sciences have been fostered in the nineteenth century is indicated by the names of Mai, De Rossi, Hergenroether, Hefele, Pastor. There remains to be mentioned the gradual establishment of the science of Canon law, of the pastoral-theological departments which have attained an independent position since the close of the eighteenth century, and since then produced a voluminous literature. The fear of a standstill in theological research seems unwarranted in the light of its history. The errors of the present time will prevent a standstill. The more vehement the attacks by natural science and philosophy, by philology and archæology, the more they seek to shake the foundations of the Christian religion, the stronger theology must grow by the combat. The solid progress of our times in knowledge and methodics will not remain without influence; nor can the empirical, the historical-critical method, the theory of evolution, and so on, fail to exert their stimulating influence upon theology.

The progress that Catholic theology has made since the days of the Fathers, the vast amount of mental work it has performed, is perhaps made most clear by a glance at the “Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae,” by H. Hurter (2d ed., 3 vols.; the 3d ed. is in 6 vols., 5 being ready). It gives in concise briefness the biographical data and the more important works of Catholic theologians of greater repute. Counting the names there presented, we find not less than 3,900 from 1109 to 1563; about 2,900 from 1564 to 1663; about 3,900 between 1664 and 1763; finally, from 1764 to 1894 about 4,000 theological authors; hence in the period from 1109 to 1894 nearly 14,700 theologians. That these 14,700 scientists—and their number is not exhausted by this figure—should have written their works without offering in them any new knowledge, would surely be a bold assertion! In addition consider the long rows of tomes which some of them wrote. Perhaps it would not be wholly amiss to refer to the restless zeal of many of them, as recorded by their biographers. Baronius (died 1607) could truthfully assert before his death, that for thirty years he had never had sufficient sleep; he usually slept only four or five hours. Pierre Halloix (died 1656) likewise was content with four or five hours of rest. Dionysius Sanmarthanus (died 1725) gave only four hours to sleep and devoted less than half an hour daily to recreation; likewise Fr. Combéfis (died 1679), during the last forty years of his life. A. Fr. Orsi (died 1761) contented himself with three or four hours of sleep; Fr. Clement (died 1793) and H. Oberrauch(died 1808) are said to have slept but two hours daily. J. Caramuel de Lobkowicz (died 1682) persevered for fourteen hours every day at his books; Chr. Lupus (died 1681) even for fifteen hours daily. The theologian Lessius is characterized by “Parcissimus erat temporis, laboris pertinax”; the same holds good of hundreds of others of these men.

A science, enumerating its disciples by so many thousands, with the greatest intellects among its workers, which has commanded so much zeal and work for centuries, should be safe from the reproach of having back of it a history of stagnation.

Theology and Freedom of Science.

To many it seems obvious that theology lacks at least the other predicate of science, freedom; because it is bound to dogmas and ecclesiastical authorities, at least Catholic theology is.

Although this claim is pressed persistently and with confidence, we may dispose of it very briefly. The freedom missed in theology, and demanded in its behalf, is none other than the liberal freedom of science, the nature of which we have had sufficiently long under the searchlight, so that there remains nothing to be added. We have proved sufficiently that this freedom is not a freedom from unnatural fetters, but a dissolute subjectivism, that claims the right not to be bound to any unchangeable, religious truths. We admit that the Catholic theology does not possess THIS freedom. Convinced of the truth of the doctrines established by divine testimony, and by the infallible voice of the Church, theology sees not freedom but a sin against truth in the license to assert the contrary of what it has recognized as the truth.

[pg 387]

There is but one freedom which science may claim: it is freedom from hindrance in reaching the truth in its legitimate domain. If this truth is transmitted to science infallibly, by the highest instance of wisdom—and of this every theologian is convinced—how can science be said to be hindered thereby in attaining the truth? Restrained it is, but only by truth: truth, however, can only be a barrier to license, but not to precious freedom. This restraint theology shares with the rest of the sciences. The physicist is tied to the facts brought forth by the experiments of his laboratory; the astronomer is tied to the results reported to him by the instruments of his observatory, the historian is tied to the events disclosed by his sources. Moreover, all sciences are tied to their methods. In this way, and in no other way, the theologian, too, is tied to the facts given him by Revelation, and to his method. Every science has its own method. The astronomer gains his facts by observation and calculation, the mathematician arrives at his facts by calculation and study; the historian, by human testimony; the theologian, however, by divine testimony, at least as to fundamental truths. That they are transmitted to him not by his personal study, but by external testimony, does not matter; the historian too draws from such sources. Nor can theological knowledge be less certain because vouched for by divine authority: it makes it the more certain. Or is there no divine authority, and can there be none? This is exactly the silent presumption, which is the basis of the charge against theology. But where is the proof for it? It can only be demonstrated by denying the existence of a supermundane God; for, if there is an Almighty God, there can be no doubt that He can give a Revelation and demand belief.

Perhaps it may be said further, the theologian is not permitted to doubt his doctrines, hence he is prohibited from examining them; he surely cannot be unprepossessed.

We can refer to what we have previously said. Unprepossession demands but one thing, namely, not to assume something as true and certain that is false or unproved; it demands strong proofs for anything that needs proof. We may safely assert that there is no other science more exacting in this [pg 388] respect than Catholic theology, both of the present and of the past. It has not a single position that is not incessantly tested by attacks as to its tenability. Any one not unacquainted with theology, who knows the works of St. Thomas and of the later theologians, with their exact methods of thinking, who observes the conscientious work in Catholic biblical-exegetic, historical-critical field, must be convinced of the serious atmosphere of truth prevailing here. Unprepossession does not demand to doubt, time and again, that which has been positively proved, to rediscover it by new research. Positive facts are no longer a subject for research; in their case research has fully achieved its end. Methodical doubt, proper in scientific examination, is proper also in regard to religious truths.

Furthermore, the latitude of the theologian is much larger than presumed by those who derive their information solely from modern assertions about dogmatic bondage. One may safely assert that the freedom of movement of the mathematician is more limited by his principles, his train of thought more sharply prescribed, than is the case with the theologian. Of course the theologian is bound by everything he finds infallibly established directly by revelation and by the authority of the Church; or indirectly by the concurring teaching of the Fathers or the theologians; he is bound also by non-infallible decisions, especially those of congregations, though not absolutely and not irrevocably.

But this is only the smaller part of his province. In many departments, like the one of ecclesiastical history, there are almost no restrictions to his research, except those imposed by historical facts. Canon law and similar departments dealing with the laws of the Church, coincide in method and liberty of research with the profane science of law. Of all departments of theology, the dogmatical is the one most affected by the authority of faith. Yet even here a great deal is left to unhampered work. Many a void has to be filled, many a question solved, which the theology of the past has never taken up; even the defined truths still offer a large scope for personal work, in regard to demonstration, or to the philosophic-speculative penetration of the dogmas and their interpretation.

As a fact, the reader of theological literature, both old and new, will, in a multitude of cases, meet with unrestrained individuality.

Ecclesiastical Supervision of Teaching.

The Encyclica against Modernism (September 8, 1907) gave rise to fears that any free movement would henceforth be impossible for Catholic theology. These fears referred chiefly to the disciplinary measures, prescribed by the Encyclical for the purpose of supervising theological teaching in each diocese. Then came the papal Motu Proprio, of September 1, 1910, which, among other things, required the teacher of theology to confirm by oath his confession of the Creed and his intention to repudiate modernistic errors. Since then many a complaint has been heard about espionage and coercion. Similar complaint, about an imminent debasement of the Church, has been raised whenever important measures in the discipline of the Catholic Church were published, and they emanated primarily from the camp of the enemy.

It is not to be denied, however, that such an energetic call for watchfulness and action, issued from the highest ecclesiastical watchtower, like the one referred to, may lead in some cases to anxiety and false suspicions. This is no doubt regrettable; but it is an incident common to human legislation and will surprise no one who has any experience of life. A glance at these decrees will show that they are nothing more than an urgent injunction, and the exercise of that supervision of religious life and teaching which pertains to the authority of the Catholic Church, and which has been practised by her at all times. The language is urgent, it has a severity which is softened in the execution. Its explanation lies in the eminent danger of the modernistic movement to the continuance of Catholic life. Modernism, as described and condemned by the Encyclica, is nothing less than the absolute destruction of the Catholic faith, and of Christianity.

The Protestant theologian, Prof. Tröltsch, wrote after the publication of the Encyclica: “As viewed from the position of [pg 390] curialism and of the strict Catholic dogma, there existed a real danger. Catholicism had gotten into a state of inner fermentation, corresponding to the same condition caused by modern theology within the Protestant churches.”

The danger of Modernism is often enhanced by a deceptive semblance of the right faith, and by the pretence to urge only the righteous interests of modern progress against obsolete forms of thought and life, now and then also by its secret propaganda. Hence this intervention by a firm hand, and this only after having waited a long time. They were measures of prevention, like those taken to stave off a serious danger; the tidal wave receding, their urgency disappears automatically.

The German bishops stated in their pastoral letter of December 10, 1907, that in some Catholic lay-circles there was uneasiness about the Encyclical, fearing that it might endanger scientific endeavour and independence in thought and research, and that the Church intended to prohibit or render impossible co-operation in solving the problems of civilization. “May they all recognize,” they said, “how groundless such fears are! The Church desires to set bars only to one kind of freedom—the freedom to err.” If the rules and precepts of the Church do sound harsh sometimes, it is because the Church adheres unconditionally to the principle: The truth above all. “The Church has at no time opposed the true progress of civilization, but only that which hinders its progress: heedlessness, haste, the mania for innovation, the morbid aversion against the truth that comes from God. But we Catholic Christians can join free and unhampered, with all our strength and talent, in the peaceful strife of noble, intellectual work and genuine mental education.”

The fears of too great a pressure by the ecclesiastical authorities have been given trenchant expression in most recent times by a man who, while standing outside of the Catholic Church, has always shown himself well disposed towards it, namely, the noted pedagogue, Fr. W. Förster of Zurich. Förster has won merit and distinction by his manly and spirited defence of the Christian view in pedagogical science and mental culture. In the book referred to he again describes urgently the worthlessness and fatality of modern individualism, that knows a good deal about freedom but nothing of self-discipline, nor of authority or tradition, and which represents most superficial amateurism in the domain of religion and morals. Then he turns to criticize Church practice; and his criticism becomes a sharp accusation. His main charge is “fatal restraint of the spirit of universality.” “Some groups in the Church,” he asserts, “of mediocre learning, have established a clique rule, under which the others, the more creative and intensive souls, become the victims of intolerance, espionage, and false suspicion”; “universality, which unites the different mental tendencies, has given way to separation”; “everywhere a one-sided denunciatory information of the leading circles by accidentally ruling groups and factions; anxious intolerance for everything unusual, disciplinary austerity and unintelligent pedantry, individualistic and unchristian spirit of distrust and mutual espionage”; “levelling of the mental life”; “one is tired,” we are told, “of the spirit of incessant disciplining”; “of the invariable cold and disdainful forbidding and repression.”In the Middle Ages and earlier times it was different; then “universality was the ruling spirit, the working of the many into a unit full of life; this policy was changed for no other reason than because of the struggle of the Church against Protestantism.” “The greatest harm that Catholicism suffered by the great rupture of the sixteenth century is most likely seen in the tendency of the Church to view thenceforth religious freedom within Catholic Christianity with an anxious, even hostile eye.”

Readers of the literature of the day will recognize here views often met with during the last years, and the same excited note, which is quite in contrast to the even temper that ordinarily characterizes Förster's books. But what the reader will not find stated are the proofs for these enormous accusations.

Undeniably, things have happened in the wide range of ecclesiastical authority that cannot be approved. But where are the facts that would justify charges of such sweeping nature? A Protestant author can hardly be presumed to possess such a direct and positive insight into the ecclesiastical practice of the higher and the highest order, to give convincing strength to his bare assertion. Or is the number of dissatisfied voices that make these charges sufficient proof in itself? If the ecclesiastical authority be allowed, now and then, to emerge from its passiveness to take measures against dangerous doctrinal tendencies, is it not to be expected, as a matter of course, that some minds become disgruntled and complain about oppression and clique rule? Or must that right be denied the Church altogether? Förstersays himself: “The spirit of dignity and responsibility has never ruled all parts of the hierarchy in the same measure as now, and rarely if ever were there found in its leading circles so many men leading an almost holy life as at present.” And yet we are asked to believe that it was reserved exactly for this worthy hierarchy, and for these saintly men, to forget the traditions of the Church in the most irresponsible manner. One will have to say: “If Förster would examine without bias the situation and apply consistently in respect to authority the principles that he himself defends, he would be convinced that the Church could not have acted any differently than it did in regard to the regrettable events of the last years, and that it has ever been the aim of the Church, before the sixteenth century as after, to guard carefully the purity of traditions of faith against any attack” (Prof. G. Reinhold in a review of Förster's book).

The Church has never known a universality that did not oppose doctrinal errors. The Middle Ages did not know it; one need only read the many condemnations from Nicholas I. to Innocent VIII.; nor was such a universality known to the great Councils of ancient Christianity up to the Nicæan, which hurled its anathema against numerous teachings that opposed no dogmas defined at that time; nor did the Holy Fathers know such a universality, nor the Apostles, with their strict admonitions of unity of faith. The reply is made, the “Church must not yield the least of its fundamental truths,” that “its centralizing power ought to remain within the region of the most essential”; whereas she actually exercises it in the domain of the incidental. The ecclesiastical supervision of teaching has never limited itself to the most essential, nor would this practice ever accomplish the object to preserve pure the doctrine of faith. Furthermore, what is the “most essential” what is the “incidental”? Förster's book does not inform us about this most important question. The views against which the Church has made front in the last years, do they relate only to the incidental? Does this apply to the doctrines of a Rosmini and Lamennais, who are referred to in passing? No well-informed theologian will assert this.

We shall hardly be wrong in assuming that the charge of overstraining the ecclesiastical authority is based upon a presumption of a philosophical nature, which is in evidence in several other passages of the book—on the view, namely, that in religion the intellectual moment should recede before the mystical, before anticipation and inner experience. Hence the severe censure of “the narrow autocracy of the intellectual interpretation” against the “preponderance of the intellectual contemplation” in the Church, which is said to have become so prevalent as to exert unavoidably a paralyzing effect upon the entire religious life. Here we have the result of the notion that theory of life, religion, and faith, depend but little on rational knowledge. This notion is also in accord with the argument about the impossibility of an independent scientific ethics. We have discussed this elsewhere. We demonstrated that religion and faith relate to positive truths that can be realized, and that can therefore be accurately defined; they must be so defined. Of course this realization need not be a scientific one, it can be of the natural kind that is not clearly conscious of its reasons. Förster, too, touches upon this important distinction when quoting Saitschick: “The inner perception overtowers feeling and logical reason—here, too, lies the source of a light shining brighter, stronger, and incomparably more true than any light of reason”; and again, when his advice is, to foster to a greater extent the “inner perception.” What is felt here vaguely has long since been expressed much more lucidly in Christian philosophy.

Certainly a view that fails to lay, first of all, absolute stress on the protection of the doctrine of faith cannot understand the Catholic point of view; it will assume only too easily that the supervision relates to incidentals. It will also engender a criticism against which the Church may rightly protest, because it starts from presumptions that do not apply to the Church.

No one will be astonished to find a Protestant author lacking the clarified conception of the supernatural character of the Church that is possessed by the Catholic; to see him view the Church almost invariably in the light of a human organization, similar to the Protestant denominations which he may cite before the court of his individual reason and force to bow under the yoke of his criticism. The Catholic has a better understanding of the words: “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.” There will be foreign to his mind the idea that the Church has since the days of Reformation, for now nearly four centuries, deviated from the right way, and degenerated more and more to a separatistic and insignificant community; a church able to forget its traditions to the extent of grossly misconceiving its proper sphere of authority, and fettering itself in a narrow spirit to incidentals, could not keep his confidence any longer.

The Oath Against Modernism.

The Motu Proprio of September 1, 1910, decreed that teachers of theology, and also Catholic priests generally, had to bind themselves by oath to reject modernistic heresies, and to accept obediently the ecclesiastical precepts. Dispensed from this pledge were only the professors of theology at state institutions, to spare them difficulties with state authorities.

This anti-modernist oath at once became the signal for a storm of indignation, than which there has been hardly a greater one since the days of the Vatican Council. A cry was raised for freedom of science, for the exclusion of theological faculties, even for another “Kulturkampf.” The General Convention of German college professors, held at Leipzig January 7, 1911, issued a declaration to the effect that “All those who have taken the anti-modernist oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of an independent recognition of truth and of the exercise of their scientific conviction, hence they have forfeited all claim to be considered independent scientists.” Interpellations were made in legislative bodies, it was demanded that the option of taking the oath should be taken away from university professors, because “the dignity of the universities would be lowered if their members had the opportunity to bind themselves by such an oath.”

Even threats were made by statesmen, hinting at reprisals by the state, because its interests were being jeopardized, while, on the other hand, there were those who declared: “If the Catholic Church thinks it necessary for her ecclesiastical and religious interests to put her servants under oath, it is her own business; [pg 394] neither the state nor the Evangelical Church have a right to interfere” (Prime Minister Bethmann-Hollweg, in the Prussian Diet, on March 7, 1911).

The agitation of the minds will soon subside, as on former occasions of this kind; and, with calm restored, people will find, as J. G. Fichte told the impulsive F. Nicolai, one hundred and thirty years ago, that the fact has only just been discovered that the Catholics are Catholic.

Yes, indeed, the Catholics are Catholic, and desire to remain Catholic—this and nothing else is the gist of the anti-modernist oath. It does not oblige to anything else but what was believed and adhered to before. It obliges to accept the doctrines of faith; but they are the old truths of the Catholic Church, propounded and believed at all times, and the necessary inferences from them. Even the proposition that truths of faith can never be contradicted by the results of historical research, or by human science in general, is as old as faith itself. In addition, the oath avows obedient submission to Church precepts; but this has been demanded for centuries by the professio fidei Tridentina, a pledge by oath to which every professor of theology has been before obliged: Apostolicas et ecclesiasticas traditiones reliquasque eiusdem Ecclesiae observationes et constitutiones firmissime admitto et amplector. This was the opinion of all competent judges on this theological question. “We are convinced,” declared correctly a prominent theological institution, “that there is not assumed by this oath any obligation new in subject, and no obligation not already existing. The oath is but the affirmation of a duty already imposed by conscience” (the professors of Theology of Paderborn, December 12, 1910). The Breslau faculty said, in the same sense: “The faculty does not see in the so-called anti-modernist oath any new obligation, nor one exceeding the rule of faith ever adhered to by the faculty.” And this declaration was fully approved of by Rome.

Cardinal Kopp, at the session of the German Upper House on April 7, 1911, commented on these statements as follows: “Against the opinions of these circles (having a different opinion of the oath) I set the testimony and the statement of the most competent people, to wit, the professors of university faculties and also those at episcopal seminaries. Those who have taken the oath, as well as those who have refrained from it by the privilege granted them by the Holy See, they both declare positively that the oath does not contain any new obligations, nor does it impose new duties on them; hence that, on the contrary, they are not impeded in the pursuit of their tasks as teachers and of their scientific work of research. Now, gentlemen, I do not think it would be proper to insinuate that these earnest men, appointed by the Government, or at least in office by its consent, would make this declaration against their conviction and not in full sincerity.”

No wonder, therefore, that of the hundreds of thousands of Catholic priests hardly a handful have refused the oath.

Nor is there anything new in the obligation to swear and subscribe in writing to a confession of creed. Very often in the course of the centuries decrees of creed and symbols had to be subscribed to in writing. In the days of Jansenism, when priests were required to swear to and sign a statement, many Jansenists tried to dodge this oath, and the Jansenist Racine complained that this demand was unheard-of in the Church. Thereupon the learned theologian Tournelyand others cited a number of examples of this kind from the history of the Church.

Therefore the anti-modernist oath has not created anything new. Consequently it has not changed anything in regard to the freedom of theological research. It is the same as before; nor has the oath changed anything in the quality of theological professors, they merely promise to be what they must be anyway; nor can, for instance, the oath induce the Catholic priest, in teaching profane history, to present the history of the Reformation in a different light than before, and thus render him unfit to teach history; the oath has created no new, confessional differences, hence has given no justified cause for excitement—provided one has the needed theological comprehension of the oath. If one has not this insight, and will not trust to information from a competent source, then it will be the act of prudence to leave the test to the future; and we can await this test serenely.

We referred above to the declaration of German college teachers, to the effect that all who have taken the oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of independent cognition of truth. These stereotyped ideas we have so often heard, with the same haziness and inconsistency. “Because they have thereby expressed the renunciation of independent cognition of the truth,” namely, by the acceptance of certain doctrines. But is not every one who clings to his Christian belief bound by this very fact to certain doctrines? Does every one who still prays his Credo express the renunciation of his independence? If the argument quoted is to mean anything at all, it means the full rejection of all Christian duty to believe; indeed, this is the real sense of this “independent recognition of truth,” as we have already seen. But cannot some one, because of his conviction, renounce this independence and believe, and in this conviction accept the doctrines of the Church? If this conviction is his, and he affirms it by oath, how can any one see in this oath a want of freedom, nay, a renunciation of truth? If an atheist solemnly declared his intention to be and to remain an atheist, he would hardly be accused of lack of character by the advocates of modern freedom of thought. The judge, the military officer, the member of a legislature, the professor, who must all take the oath of allegiance,—all of these will have to be protected against the insinuation of disloyalty to truth. If a man affirms by oath his unalterable Catholic faith, he is without any hesitation accused of untruthfulness. The government has been urged to forbid this spontaneous exercise of Catholic sentiment. The inconsistency of modern catch-phrases can hardly be given more drastic expression. In order to guard the freedom of thought the government is to forbid one from pledging himself to his own principles; in order to remain an independent thinker a man must be forced by penal statute to confess unconditionally the brand of free science prescribed by a certain school and by no means have an opinion of his own; in order to be free in his research the teacher in theology must be tied to the catch-phrases of liberal philosophy. This is modern freedom, a hybrid of freedom and bondage, of sophistry and contradiction, of arrogance and barrenness of thought, which will exert its rule over the minds as long as they are guided by half-thinking.

Bonds of Love, not of Servitude.

People to whose mind Catholic thinking is foreign will never be able to appreciate the energetic activity of the Church authority.

On close examination, however, they will not deny that, if the Christian treasure of faith is to be preserved undiminished, if in the hopeless confusion and the unsteady vacillation of opinions in our days there is to be left anywhere a safe place for truth and unity of faith, this cannot be accomplished otherwise than in the shape of a strong authority that has the assurance of the aid of God.

The Catholic theologian may be permitted to point in exemplifying this fact to the recent history of Protestantism and of its theology. Protestantism does not acknowledge a teaching authority: its theology demands complete freedom of research and teaching, making the most extensive use of both. The result is the demoralization of the Christian faith, which is speeding with frightfully accelerated steps to total annihilation. The very danger which Modernism threatened to carry into the Catholic Church has overwhelmed Protestant theology: the metaphysical ideas of a modern philosophy penetrated it without check, and killed its Christian substance. The measures against Modernism were sharply criticized by many Protestants who, at the same time, laid stress upon the fact that nothing of the sort could happen among themselves. Indeed it could not, at least not consistently with Protestant principle. But there is not a single fact in all history which demonstrates more clearly the necessity of the Catholic authority of faith, than just the condition of Protestantism at the present time. On the part of believing Protestants this is admitted, if not expressly, then at least in practice. To stem the destructive work of liberal theology they resort to authority; invoke Evangelical formulas of confession, the traditional doctrine, sometimes even the aid of the state; neological preachers are disciplined by censures, even by dismissal, against the loud protest of the liberals. Such action is easily understandable; one cannot hear without sadness the cry for help of pious Protestantism, a cry that grows more desperate every day; one cannot help regretting its forlorn situation in view of the millions of souls whose salvation is jeopardized, who are in danger of being despoiled of the last remains of their Christian faith. Yet it must be admitted that this cry for authority and obedience signifies the abandoning of the Protestant principle, and the involuntary imitation and therefore acknowledgment of the Catholic principle—for the Catholic an incentive to cleave the more closely to his Church.

Many to whom the Catholic way of thinking is foreign, look upon the duty of obedience which ties the Catholic to his Church as a sort of servitude; to the Catholic it is the tie of love, uniting free people to a sacred authority. Many look upon the Church of Rome as a tyrannical curia, where Umbrian prelates are cracking their whips over millions of servile and ignorant souls; to the Catholic the Church is the divinely appointed institution of truth, that possesses his fullest confidence. He knows that history has given the most magnificent justification to the Catholic principle of authority. Opinions have come and gone, systems were born and have died, thrones of learning rose and fell; only one towering mental structure remained standing upon the rock of God-founded authority in the vast field of ruins with its wrecks of human wisdom. And its ancient Credo, prayed by all nations, is the same Credo once prayed by the martyrs.