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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
My book is ready for the printer, and as I begin this preface my eye lights upon the crowd of Russian peasants at work on the Neva under my windows. With pick and shovel they are letting the rays of the April sun into the great ice barrier which binds together the modern quays and the old granite fortress where lie the bones of the Romanoff Czars. This barrier is already weakened; it is widely decayed, in many places thin, and everywhere treacherous; but it is, as a whole, so broad, so crystalli
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I. THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE.
I. THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE.
Among those masses of cathedral sculpture which preserve so much of medieval theology, one frequently recurring group is noteworthy for its presentment of a time-honoured doctrine regarding the origin of the universe. The Almighty, in human form, sits benignly, making the sun, moon, and stars, and hanging them from the solid firmament which supports the "heaven above" and overarches the "earth beneath." The furrows of thought on the Creator's brow show that in this work he is obliged to contrive
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II. THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS REGARDING THE ANIMALS AND MAN.
II. THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS REGARDING THE ANIMALS AND MAN.
In one of the windows of the cathedral at Ulm a mediaeval glass-stainer has represented the Almighty as busily engaged in creating the animals, and there has just left the divine hands an elephant fully accoutred, with armour, harness, and housings, ready-for war. Similar representations appear in illuminated manuscripts and even in early printed books, and, as the culmination of the whole, the Almighty is shown as fashioning the first man from a hillock of clay and extracting from his side, wit
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III. THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, OF AN EVOLUTION IN ANIMATED
III. THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, OF AN EVOLUTION IN ANIMATED
NATURE. We have seen, thus far, how there came into the thinking of mankind upon the visible universe and its inhabitants the idea of a creation virtually instantaneous and complete, and of a Creator in human form with human attributes, who spoke matter into existence literally by the exercise of his throat and lips, or shaped and placed it with his hands and fingers. We have seen that this view came from far; that it existed in the Chaldaeo-Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, and probably in
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IV. THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY.
IV. THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY.
Darwin's Origin of Species had come into the theological world like a plough into an ant-hill. Everywhere those thus rudely awakened from their old comfort and repose had swarmed forth angry and confused. Reviews, sermons, books light and heavy, came flying at the new thinker from all sides. The keynote was struck at once in the Quarterly Review by Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. He declared that Darwin was guilty of "a tendency to limit God's glory in creation"; that "the principle of natural se
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I. THE FORM OF THE EARTH.
I. THE FORM OF THE EARTH.
Among various rude tribes we find survivals of a primitive idea that the earth is a flat table or disk, ceiled, domed, or canopied by the sky, and that the sky rests upon the mountains as pillars. Such a belief is entirely natural; it conforms to the appearance of things, and hence at a very early period entered into various theologies. In the civilizations of Chaldea and Egypt it was very fully developed. The Assyrian inscriptions deciphered in these latter years represent the god Marduk as in
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II. THE DELINEATION OF THE EARTH.
II. THE DELINEATION OF THE EARTH.
Every great people of antiquity, as a rule, regarded its own central city or most holy place as necessarily the centre of the earth. The Chaldeans held that their "holy house of the gods" was the centre. The Egyptians sketched the world under the form of a human figure, in which Egypt was the heart, and the centre of it Thebes. For the Assyrians, it was Babylon; for the Hindus, it was Mount Meru; for the Greeks, so far as the civilized world was concerned, Olympus or the temple at Delphi; for th
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III. THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH.
III. THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH.
Even while the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth was undecided, another question had been suggested which theologians finally came to consider of far greater importance. The doctrine of the sphericity of the earth naturally led to thought regarding its inhabitants, and another ancient germ was warmed into life—the idea of antipodes: of human beings on the earth's opposite sides. In the Greek and Roman world this idea had found supporters and opponents, Cicero and Pliny being among the form
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IV. THE SIZE OF THE EARTH.
IV. THE SIZE OF THE EARTH.
But at an early period another subject in geography had stirred the minds of thinking men—THE EARTH'S SIZE. Various ancient investigators had by different methods reached measurements more or less near the truth; these methods were continued into the Middle Ages, supplemented by new thought, and among the more striking results were those obtained by Roger Bacon and Gerbert, afterward Pope Sylvester II. They handed down to after-time the torch of knowledge, but, as their reward among their contem
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V. THE CHARACTER OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE.
V. THE CHARACTER OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE.
It would be hardly just to dismiss the struggle for geographical truth without referring to one passage more in the history of the Protestant Church, for it shows clearly the difficulties in the way of the simplest statement of geographical truth which conflicted with the words of the sacred books. In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life at Geneva on the charge of Arianism. Servetus had rendered many services to scientific truth, and one of these was an edition of Ptolemy's G
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I. THE OLD SACRED THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
I. THE OLD SACRED THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
The next great series of battles was fought over the relations of the visible heavens to the earth. In the early Church, in view of the doctrine so prominent in the New Testament, that the earth was soon to be destroyed, and that there were to be "new heavens and a new earth," astronomy, like other branches of science, was generally looked upon as futile. Why study the old heavens and the old earth, when they were so soon to be replaced with something infinitely better? This feeling appears in S
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II. THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY.
II. THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY.
But, on the other hand, there had been planted, long before, the germs of a heliocentric theory. In the sixth century before our era, Pythagoras, and after him Philolaus, had suggested the movement of the earth and planets about a central fire; and, three centuries later, Aristarchus had restated the main truth with striking precision. Here comes in a proof that the antagonism between theological and scientific methods is not confined to Christianity; for this statement brought upon Aristarchus
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III. THE WAR UPON GALILEO.
III. THE WAR UPON GALILEO.
On this new champion, Galileo, the whole war was at last concentrated. His discoveries had clearly taken the Copernican theory out of the list of hypotheses, and had placed it before the world as a truth. Against him, then, the war was long and bitter. The supporters of what was called "sound learning" declared his discoveries deceptions and his announcements blasphemy. Semi-scientific professors, endeavouring to curry favour with the Church, attacked him with sham science; earnest preachers att
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IV. VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO.
IV. VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO.
While news of triumphant attacks upon him and upon the truth he had established were coming in from all parts of Europe, Galileo prepared a careful treatise in the form of a dialogue, exhibiting the arguments for and against the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems, and offered to submit to any conditions that the Church tribunals might impose, if they would allow it to be printed. At last, after discussions which extended through eight years, they consented, imposing a humiliating condition—a prefa
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V. RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
V. RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
We return now to the sequel of the Galileo case. Having gained their victory over Galileo, living and dead, having used it to scare into submission the professors of astronomy throughout Europe, conscientious churchmen exulted. Loud was their rejoicing that the "heresy," the "infidelity" the "atheism" involved in believing that the earth revolves about its axis and moves around the sun had been crushed by the great tribunal of the Church, acting in strict obedience to the expressed will of one P
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VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
Any history of the victory of astronomical science over dogmatic theology would be incomplete without some account of the retreat made by the Church from all its former positions in the Galileo case. The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult. A little skilful warping of Scripture, a little skilful use of that time-honoured phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius, that the Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go, but how men go to heaven, and a free use of explosive r
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I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
Few things in the evolution of astronomy are more suggestive than the struggle between the theological and the scientific doctrine regarding comets—the passage from the conception of them as fire-balls flung by an angry God for the purpose of scaring a wicked world, to a recognition of them as natural in origin and obedient to law in movement. Hardly anything throws a more vivid light upon the danger of wresting texts of Scripture to preserve ideas which observation and thought have superseded,
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II. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
II. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
Out of this belief was developed a great series of efforts to maintain the theological view of comets, and to put down forever the scientific view. These efforts may be divided into two classes: those directed toward learned men and scholars, through the universities, and those directed toward the people at large, through the pulpits. As to the first of these, that learned men and scholars might be kept in the paths of "sacred science" and "sound learning," especial pains was taken to keep all k
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III. THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM.
III. THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM.
Vigorous as Mather's argument is, we see scepticism regarding "signs" continuing to invade the public mind; and, in spite of his threatenings, about twenty years after we find a remarkable evidence of this progress in the fact that this scepticism has seized upon no less a personage than that colossus of orthodoxy, his thrice illustrious son, Cotton Mather himself; and him we find, in 1726, despite the arguments of his father, declaring in his Manuductio: "Perhaps there may be some need for me t
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IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.—THE FINAL VICTORY OF SCIENCE.
IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.—THE FINAL VICTORY OF SCIENCE.
Attempts were now made to compromise. It was declared that, while some comets were doubtless supralunar, some must be sublunar. But this admission was no less fatal on another account. During many centuries the theory favoured by the Church had been, as we have seen, that the earth was surrounded by hollow spheres, concentric and transparent, forming a number of glassy strata incasing one another "like the different coatings of an onion," and that each of these in its movement about the earth ca
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I. GROWTH OF THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS.
I. GROWTH OF THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS.
Among the philosophers of Greece we find, even at an early period, germs of geological truth, and, what is of vast importance, an atmosphere in which such germs could grow. These germs were transmitted to Roman thought; an atmosphere of tolerance continued; there was nothing which forbade unfettered reasoning regarding either the earth's strata or the remains of former life found in them, and under the Roman Empire a period of fruitful observation seemed sure to begin. But, as Christianity took
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II. EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
II. EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
But the scientific method could not be entirely hidden; and, near the beginning of the seventeenth century, De Clave, Bitaud, and De Villon revived it in France. Straightway the theological faculty of Paris protested against the scientific doctrine as unscriptural, destroyed the offending treatises, banished their authors from Paris, and forbade them to live in towns or enter places of public resort.(137) The champions of science, though depressed for a time, quietly laboured on, especially in I
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III. THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE, BASED ON THE FLOOD OF NOAH.
III. THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE, BASED ON THE FLOOD OF NOAH.
Long before the end of the struggle already described, even at a very early period, the futility of the usual scholastic weapons had been seen by the more keen-sighted champions of orthodoxy; and, as the difficulties of the ordinary attack upon science became more and more evident, many of these champions endeavoured to patch up a truce. So began the third stage in the war—the period of attempts at compromise. The position which the compromise party took was that the fossils were produced by the
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IV. FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.—THE VICTORY OF SCIENCE COMPLETE.
IV. FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.—THE VICTORY OF SCIENCE COMPLETE.
Before concluding, it may be instructive to note a few especially desperate attempts at truces or compromises, such as always appear when the victory of any science has become absolutely sure. Typical among the earliest of these may be mentioned the effort of Carl von Raumer in 1819. With much pretension to scientific knowledge, but with aspirations bounded by the limits of Prussian orthodoxy, he made a laboured attempt to produce a statement which, by its vagueness, haziness, and "depth," shoul
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I. THE SACRED CHRONOLOGY.
I. THE SACRED CHRONOLOGY.
In the great ranges of investigation which bear most directly upon the origin of man, there are two in which Science within the last few years has gained final victories. The significance of these in changing, and ultimately in reversing, one of the greatest currents of theological thought, can hardly be overestimated; not even the tide set in motion by Cusa, Copernicus, and Galileo was more powerful to bring in a new epoch of belief. The first of these conquests relates to the antiquity of man
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II. THE NEW CHRONOLOGY.
II. THE NEW CHRONOLOGY.
But all investigators were not so docile as Wilkinson, and there soon came a new train of scientific thought which rapidly undermined all this theological chronology. Not to speak of other noted men, we have early in the present century Young, Champollion, and Rosellini, beginning a new epoch in the study of the Egyptian monuments. Nothing could be more cautious than their procedure, but the evidence was soon overwhelming in favour of a vastly longer existence of man in the Nile Valley than coul
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I. THE THUNDER-STONES.
I. THE THUNDER-STONES.
While the view of chronology based upon the literal acceptance of Scripture texts was thus shaken by researches in Egypt, another line of observation and thought was slowly developed, even more fatal to the theological view. From a very early period there had been dug from the earth, in various parts of the world, strangely shaped masses of stone, some rudely chipped, some polished: in ancient times the larger of these were very often considered as thunderbolts, the smaller as arrows, and all of
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II. THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS.
II. THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS.
At the middle of the nineteenth century came the beginning of a new epoch in science—an epoch when all these earlier discoveries were to be interpreted by means of investigations in a different field: for, in 1847, a man previously unknown to the world at large, Boucher de Perthes, published at Paris the first volume of his work on Celtic and Antediluvian Antiquities, and in this he showed engravings of typical flint implements and weapons, of which he had discovered thousands upon thousands in
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CHAPTER VIII. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY
CHAPTER VIII. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY
In the previous chapters we have seen how science, especially within the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has thoroughly changed the intelligent thought of the world in regard to the antiquity of man upon our planet; and how the fabric built upon the chronological indications in our sacred books—first, by the early fathers of the Church, afterward by the medieval doctors, and finally by the reformers and modern orthodox chronologists—has virtually disappeared before an entirely different vie
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CHAPTER IX. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY.
CHAPTER IX. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY.
We have seen that, closely connected with the main lines of investigation in archaeology and anthropology, there were other researches throwing much light on the entire subject. In a previous chapter we saw especially that Lafitau and Jussieu were among the first to collect and compare facts bearing on the natural history of man, gathered by travellers in various parts of the earth, thus laying foundations for the science of comparative ethnology. It was soon seen that ethnology had most importa
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CHAPTER X. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY.
CHAPTER X. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY.
The history of art, especially as shown by architecture, in the noblest monuments of the most enlightened nations of antiquity; gives abundant proofs of the upward tendency of man from the rudest and simplest beginnings. Many columns of early Egyptian temples or tombs are but bundles of Nile reeds slightly conventionalized in stone; the temples of Greece, including not only the earliest forms, but the Parthenon itself, while in parts showing an evolution out of Egyptian and Assyrian architecture
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I. GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY.
I. GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY.
The popular beliefs of classic antiquity regarding storms, thunder, and lightning, took shape in myths representing Vulcan as forging thunderbolts, Jupiter as flinging them at his enemies, Aeolus intrusting the winds in a bag to Aeneas, and the like. An attempt at their further theological development is seen in the Pythagorean statement that lightnings are intended to terrify the damned in Tartarus. But at a very early period we see the beginning of a scientific view. In Greece, the Ionic philo
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II. DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS.
II. DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS.
While the fathers and schoolmen were labouring to deduce a science of meteorology from our sacred books, there oozed up in European society a mass of traditions and observances which had been lurking since the days of paganism; and, although here and there appeared a churchman to oppose them, the theologians and ecclesiastics ere long began to adopt them and to clothe them with the authority of religion. Both among the pagans of the Roman Empire and among the barbarians of the North the Christia
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III. THE AGENCY OF WITCHES.
III. THE AGENCY OF WITCHES.
But, while this comparatively harmless doctrine of thwarting the powers of the air by fetiches and bell-ringing was developed, there were evolved another theory, and a series of practices sanctioned by the Church, which must forever be considered as among the most fearful calamities in human history. Indeed, few errors have ever cost so much shedding of innocent blood over such wide territory and during so many generations. Out of the old doctrine—pagan and Christian—of evil agency in atmospheri
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IV. FRANKLIN'S LIGHTNING-ROD.
IV. FRANKLIN'S LIGHTNING-ROD.
But in the midst of these efforts by Catholics like Father Vincent and by Protestants like John Wesley to save the old sacred theory, it received its death-blow. In 1752 Franklin made his experiments with the kite on the banks of the Schuylkill; and, at the moment when he drew the electric spark from the cloud, the whole tremendous fabric of theological meteorology reared by the fathers, the popes, the medieval doctors, and the long line of great theologians, Catholic and Protestant, collapsed;
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CHAPTER XII. FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
CHAPTER XII. FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
I. In all the earliest developments of human thought we find a strong tendency to ascribe mysterious powers over Nature to men and women especially gifted or skilled. Survivals of this view are found to this day among savages and barbarians left behind in the evolution of civilization, and especially is this the case among the tribes of Australia, Africa, and the Pacific coast of America. Even in the most enlightened nations still appear popular beliefs, observances, or sayings, drawn from this
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I. THE EARLY AND SACRED THEORIES OF DISEASE.
I. THE EARLY AND SACRED THEORIES OF DISEASE.
Nothing in the evolution of human thought appears more inevitable than the idea of supernatural intervention in producing and curing disease. The causes of disease are so intricate that they are reached only after ages of scientific labour. In those periods when man sees everywhere miracle and nowhere law,—when he attributes all things which he can not understand to a will like his own,—he naturally ascribes his diseases either to the wrath of a good being or to the malice of an evil being. This
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—THE LIFE OF XAVIER AS A TYPICAL EXAMPLE.
—THE LIFE OF XAVIER AS A TYPICAL EXAMPLE.
Legends of miracles have thus grown about the lives of all great benefactors of humanity in early ages, and about saints and devotees. Throughout human history the lives of such personages, almost without exception, have been accompanied or followed by a literature in which legends of miraculous powers form a very important part—a part constantly increasing until a different mode of looking at nature and of weighing testimony causes miracles to disappear. While modern thought holds the testimony
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III. THE MEDIAEVAL MIRACLES OF HEALING CHECK MEDICAL SCIENCE.
III. THE MEDIAEVAL MIRACLES OF HEALING CHECK MEDICAL SCIENCE.
So it was that, throughout antiquity, during the early history of the Church, throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed down to a comparatively recent period, testimony to miraculous interpositions which would now be laughed at by a schoolboy was accepted by the leaders of thought. St. Augustine was certainly one of the strongest minds in the early Church, and yet we find him mentioning, with much seriousness, a story that sundry innkeepers of his time put a drug into cheese which metamorphosed tra
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—"PASTORAL MEDICINE" CHECKS SCIENTIFIC EFFORT.
—"PASTORAL MEDICINE" CHECKS SCIENTIFIC EFFORT.
Especially prejudicial to a true development of medical science among the first Christians was their attribution of disease to diabolic influence. As we have seen, this idea had come from far, and, having prevailed in Chaldea, Egypt, and Persia, had naturally entered into the sacred books of the Hebrews. Moreover, St. Paul had distinctly declared that the gods of the heathen were devils; and everywhere the early Christians saw in disease the malignant work of these dethroned powers of evil. The
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V. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO ANATOMICAL STUDIES.
V. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO ANATOMICAL STUDIES.
Yet a more serious stumbling-block, hindering the beginnings of modern medicine and surgery, was a theory regarding the unlawfulness of meddling with the bodies of the dead. This theory, like so many others which the Church cherished as peculiarly its own, had really been inherited from the old pagan civilizations. So strong was it in Egypt that the embalmer was regarded as accursed; traces of it appear in Greco-Roman life, and hence it came into the early Church, where it was greatly strengthen
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VI. NEW BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.
VI. NEW BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.
In spite of all these opposing forces, the evolution of medical science continued, though but slowly. In the second century of the Christian era Galen had made himself a great authority at Rome, and from Rome had swayed the medical science of the world: his genius triumphed over the defects of his method; but, though he gave a powerful impulse to medicine, his dogmatism stood in its way long afterward. The places where medicine, such as it thus became, could be applied, were at first mainly the
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VII. THEOLOGICAL DISCOURAGEMENT OF MEDICINE.
VII. THEOLOGICAL DISCOURAGEMENT OF MEDICINE.
While various churchmen, building better than they knew, thus did something to lay foundations for medical study, the Church authorities, as a rule, did even more to thwart it among the very men who, had they been allowed liberty, would have cultivated it to the highest advantage. Then, too, we find cropping out every where the feeling that, since supernatural means are so abundant, there is something irreligious in seeking cure by natural means: ever and anon we have appeals to Scripture, and e
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VIII. FETICH CURES UNDER PROTESTANTISM.—THE ROYAL TOUCH.
VIII. FETICH CURES UNDER PROTESTANTISM.—THE ROYAL TOUCH.
The Reformation made no sudden change in the sacred theory of medicine. Luther, as is well known, again and again ascribed his own diseases to "devils' spells," declaring that "Satan produces all the maladies which afflict mankind, for he is the prince of death," and that "he poisons the air"; but that "no malady comes from God." From that day down to the faith cures of Boston, Old Orchard, and among the sect of "Peculiar People" in our own time, we see the results among Protestants of seeking t
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IX. THE SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE FOR ANATOMY.
IX. THE SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE FOR ANATOMY.
We may now take up the evolution of medical science out of the medieval view and its modern survivals. All through the Middle Ages, as we have seen, some few laymen and ecclesiastics here and there, braving the edicts of the Church and popular superstition, persisted in medical study and practice: this was especially seen at the greater universities, which had become somewhat emancipated from ecclesiastical control. In the thirteenth century the University of Paris gave a strong impulse to the t
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X. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO INOCULATION, VACCINATION, AND THE USE OF
X. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO INOCULATION, VACCINATION, AND THE USE OF
ANAESTHETICS. I hasten now to one of the most singular struggles of medical science during modern times. Early in the last century Boyer presented inoculation as a preventive of smallpox in France, and thoughtful physicians in England, inspired by Lady Montagu and Maitland, followed his example. Ultra-conservatives in medicine took fright at once on both sides of the Channel, and theology was soon finding profound reasons against the new practice. The French theologians of the Sorbonne solemnly
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XI. FINAL BREAKING AWAY OF THE THEOLOGICAL THEORY IN MEDICINE.
XI. FINAL BREAKING AWAY OF THE THEOLOGICAL THEORY IN MEDICINE.
While this development of history was going on, the central idea on which the whole theologic view rested—the idea of diseases as resulting from the wrath of God or malice of Satan—was steadily weakened; and, out of the many things which show this, one may be selected as indicating the drift of thought among theologians themselves. Toward the end of the eighteenth century the most eminent divines of the American branch of the Anglican Church framed their Book of Common Prayer. Abounding as it do
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I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW OF EPIDEMICS AND SANITATION.
I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW OF EPIDEMICS AND SANITATION.
A very striking feature in recorded history has been the recurrence of great pestilences. Various indications in ancient times show their frequency, while the famous description of the plague of Athens given by Thucydides, and the discussion of it by Lucretius, exemplify their severity. In the Middle Ages they raged from time to time throughout Europe: such plagues as the Black Death and the sweating sickness swept off vast multitudes, the best authorities estimating that of the former, at the m
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II. GRADUAL DECAY OF THEOLOGICAL VIEWS REGARDING SANITATION.
II. GRADUAL DECAY OF THEOLOGICAL VIEWS REGARDING SANITATION.
We have seen how powerful in various nations especially obedient to theology were the forces working in opposition to the evolution of hygiene, and we shall find this same opposition, less effective, it is true, but still acting with great power, in countries which had become somewhat emancipated from theological control. In England, during the medieval period, persecutions of Jews were occasionally resorted to, and here and there we hear of persecutions of witches; but, as torture was rarely us
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III. THE TRIUMPH OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
III. THE TRIUMPH OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
But by those standing in the higher places of thought some glimpses of scientific truth had already been obtained, and attempts at compromise between theology and science in this field began to be made, not only by ecclesiastics, but first of all, as far back as the seventeenth century, by a man of science eminent both for attainments and character—Robert Boyle. Inspired by the discoveries in other fields, which had swept away so much of theological thought, he could no longer resist the convict
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IV. THE RELATION OF SANITARY SCIENCE TO RELIGION.
IV. THE RELATION OF SANITARY SCIENCE TO RELIGION.
The question may now arise whether this progress in sanitary science has been purchased at any real sacrifice of religion in its highest sense. One piece of recent history indicates an answer to this question. The Second Empire in France had its head in Napoleon III, a noted Voltairean. At the climax of his power he determined to erect an Academy of Music which should be the noblest building of its kind. It was projected on a scale never before known, at least in modern times, and carried on for
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I. THEOLOGICAL IDEAS OF LUNACY AND ITS TREATMENT.
I. THEOLOGICAL IDEAS OF LUNACY AND ITS TREATMENT.
Of all the triumphs won by science for humanity, few have been farther-reaching in good effects than the modern treatment of the insane. But this is the result of a struggle long and severe between two great forces. On one side have stood the survivals of various superstitions, the metaphysics of various philosophies, the dogmatism of various theologies, the literal interpretation of various sacred books, and especially of our own—all compacted into a creed that insanity is mainly or largely dem
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II. BEGINNINGS OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.
II. BEGINNINGS OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.
We have now seen the culmination of the old procedure regarding insanity, as it was developed under theology and enforced by ecclesiasticism; and we have noted how, under the influence of Luther and Calvin, the Reformation rather deepened than weakened the faith in the malice and power of a personal devil. Nor was this, in the Reformed churches any more than in the old, mere matter of theory. As in the early ages of Christianity, its priests especially appealed, in proof of the divine mission, t
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III. THE FINAL STRUGGLE AND VICTORY OF SCIENCE.—PINEL AND TUKE.
III. THE FINAL STRUGGLE AND VICTORY OF SCIENCE.—PINEL AND TUKE.
The theological current, thus re-enforced, seemed to become again irresistible; but it was only so in appearance. In spite of it, French scepticism continued to develop; signs of quiet change among the mass of thinking men were appearing more and more; and in 1672 came one of great significance, for, the Parliament of Rouen having doomed fourteen sorcerers to be burned, their execution was delayed for two years, evidently on account of scepticism among officials; and at length the great minister
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I. THE EPIDEMICS OF "POSSESSION."
I. THE EPIDEMICS OF "POSSESSION."
In the foregoing chapter I have sketched the triumph of science in destroying the idea that individual lunatics are "possessed by devils," in establishing the truth that insanity is physical disease, and in substituting for superstitious cruelties toward the insane a treatment mild, kindly, and based upon ascertained facts. The Satan who had so long troubled individual men and women thus became extinct; henceforth his fossil remains only were preserved: they may still be found in the sculptures
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II. BEGINNINGS OF HELPFUL SCEPTICISM.
II. BEGINNINGS OF HELPFUL SCEPTICISM.
But near the end of the eighteenth century a fact very important for science was established. It was found that these manifestations do not arise in all cases from supernatural sources. In 1787 came the noted case at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire. A girl working in a cotton manufactory there put a mouse into the bosom of another girl who had a great dread of mice. The girl thus treated immediately went into convulsions, which lasted twenty-four hours. Shortly afterward three other girls were seiz
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III. THEOLOGICAL "RESTATEMENTS."—FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW
III. THEOLOGICAL "RESTATEMENTS."—FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW
AND METHODS. But, happily, long before these latter occurrences, science had come into the field and was gradually diminishing this class of diseases. Among the earlier workers to this better purpose was the great Dutch physician Boerhaave. Finding in one of the wards in the hospital at Haarlem a number of women going into convulsions and imitating each other in various acts of frenzy, he immediately ordered a furnace of blazing coals into the midst of the ward, heated cauterizing irons, and dec
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I. THE SACRED THEORY IN ITS FIRST FORM.
I. THE SACRED THEORY IN ITS FIRST FORM.
Among the sciences which have served as entering wedges into the heavy mass of ecclesiastical orthodoxy—to cleave it, disintegrate it, and let the light of Christianity into it—none perhaps has done a more striking work than Comparative Philology. In one very important respect the history of this science differs from that of any other; for it is the only one whose conclusions theologians have at last fully adopted as the result of their own studies. This adoption teaches a great lesson, since, w
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II. THE SACRED THEORY OF LANGUAGE IN ITS SECOND FORM.
II. THE SACRED THEORY OF LANGUAGE IN ITS SECOND FORM.
But the war was soon to be waged on a wider and far more important field. The inspiration of the Hebrew punctuation having been given up, the great orthodox body fell back upon the remainder of the theory, and intrenched this more strongly than ever: the theory that the Hebrew language was the first of all languages—that which was spoken by the Almighty, given by him to Adam, transmitted through Noah to the world after the Deluge—and that the "confusion of tongues" was the origin of all other la
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III. BREAKING DOWN OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
III. BREAKING DOWN OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
We have now seen the steps by which the sacred theory of human language had been developed: how it had been strengthened in every land until it seemed to bid defiance forever to advancing thought; how it rested firmly upon the letter of Scripture, upon the explicit declarations of leading fathers of the Church, of the great doctors of the Middle Ages, of the most eminent theological scholars down to the beginning of the eighteenth century, and was guarded by the decrees of popes, kings, bishops,
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IV. TRIUMPH OF THE NEW SCIENCE.
IV. TRIUMPH OF THE NEW SCIENCE.
Such was that chaos of thought into which the discovery of Sanskrit suddenly threw its great light. Well does one of the foremost modern philologists say that this "was the electric spark which caused the floating elements to crystallize into regular forms." Among the first to bring the knowledge of Sanskrit to Europe were the Jesuit missionaries, whose services to the material basis of the science of comparative philology had already been so great; and the importance of the new discovery was so
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V. SUMMARY.
V. SUMMARY.
It may be instructive, in conclusion, to sum up briefly the history of the whole struggle. First, as to the origin of speech, we have in the beginning the whole Church rallying around the idea that the original language was Hebrew; that this language, even including the medieval rabbinical punctuation, was directly inspired by the Almighty; that Adam was taught it by God himself in walks and talks; and that all other languages were derived from it at the "confusion of Babel." Next, we see parts
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I. THE GROWTH OF EXPLANATORY TRANSFORMATION MYTHS.
I. THE GROWTH OF EXPLANATORY TRANSFORMATION MYTHS.
A few years since, Maxime Du Camp, an eminent member of the French Academy, travelling from the Red Sea to the Nile through the Desert of Kosseir, came to a barren slope covered with boulders, rounded and glossy. His Mohammedan camel-driver accounted for them on this wise: "Many years ago Hadji Abdul-Aziz, a sheik of the dervishes, was travelling on foot through this desert: it was summer: the sun was hot and the dust stifling; thirst parched his lips, fatigue weighed down his back, sweat droppe
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II. MEDIAEVAL GROWTH OF THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS.
II. MEDIAEVAL GROWTH OF THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS.
The history of myths, of their growth under the earlier phases of human thought and of their decline under modern thinking, is one of the most interesting and suggestive of human studies; but, since to treat it as a whole would require volumes, I shall select only one small group, and out of this mainly a single myth—one about which there can no longer be any dispute—the group of myths and legends which grew upon the shore of the Dead Sea, and especially that one which grew up to account for the
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III. POST-REFORMATION CULMINATION OF THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS.—BEGINNINGS
III. POST-REFORMATION CULMINATION OF THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS.—BEGINNINGS
OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM. The first effect of the Protestant Reformation was to popularize the older Dead Sea legends, and to make the public mind still more receptive for the newer ones. Luther's great pictorial Bible, so powerful in fixing the ideas of the German people, showed by very striking engravings all three of these earlier myths—the destruction of the cities by fire from heaven, the transformation of Lot's wife, and the vile origin of the hated Moabites and Ammonites; and we find the
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IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.—TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.—TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
The theological effort to compromise with science now came in more strongly than ever. This effort had been made long before: as we have seen, it had begun to show itself decidedly as soon as the influence of the Baconian philosophy was felt. Le Clerc suggested that the shock caused by the sight of fire from heaven killed Lot's wife instantly and made her body rigid as a statue. Eichhorn suggested that she fell into a stream of melted bitumen. Michaelis suggested that her relatives raised a monu
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I. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF HOSTILITY TO LOANS AT INTEREST.
I. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF HOSTILITY TO LOANS AT INTEREST.
Among questions on which the supporters of right reason in political and social science have only conquered theological opposition after centuries of war, is the taking of interest on loans. In hardly any struggle has rigid adherence to the letter of our sacred books been more prolonged and injurious. Certainly, if the criterion of truth, as regards any doctrine, be that of St. Vincent of Lerins—that it has been held in the Church "always, everywhere, and by all"—then on no point may a Christian
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II. RETREAT OF THE CHURCH, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC.
II. RETREAT OF THE CHURCH, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC.
But about the middle of the seventeenth century Sir Robert Filmer gave this doctrine the heaviest blow it ever received in England. Taking up Dr. Fenton's treatise, he answered it, and all works like it, in a way which, however unsuitable to this century, was admirably adapted to that. He cites Scripture and chops logic after a masterly manner. Characteristic is this declaration: "St. Paul doth, with one breath, reckon up seventeen sins, and yet usury is none of them; but many preachers can not
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I. THE OLDER INTERPRETATION.
I. THE OLDER INTERPRETATION.
The great sacred books of the world are the most precious of human possessions. They embody the deepest searchings into the most vital problems of humanity in all its stages: the naive guesses of the world's childhood, the opening conceptions of its youth, the more fully rounded beliefs of its maturity. These books, no matter how unhistorical in parts and at times, are profoundly true. They mirror the evolution of man's loftiest aspirations, hopes, loves, consolations, and enthusiasms; his hates
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II. BEGINNINGS OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
II. BEGINNINGS OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
At the base of the vast structure of the older scriptural interpretation were certain ideas regarding the first five books of the Old Testament. It was taken for granted that they had been dictated by the Almighty to Moses about fifteen hundred years before our era; that some parts of them, indeed, had been written by the corporeal finger of Jehovah, and that all parts gave not merely his thoughts but his exact phraseology. It was also held, virtually by the universal Church, that while every na
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III. THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
III. THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
The science of biblical criticism was, as we have seen, first developed mainly in Germany and Holland. Many considerations there, as elsewhere, combined to deter men from opening new paths to truth: not even in those countries were these the paths to preferment; but there, at least, the sturdy Teutonic love of truth for truth's sake, strengthened by the Kantian ethics, found no such obstacles as in other parts of Europe. Fair investigation of biblical subjects had not there been extirpated, as i
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IV. THE CLOSING STRUGGLE.
IV. THE CLOSING STRUGGLE.
The storm aroused by Essays and Reviews had not yet subsided when a far more serious tempest burst upon the English theological world. In 1862 appeared a work entitled The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined its author being Colenso, Anglican Bishop of Natal, in South Africa. He had formerly been highly esteemed as fellow and tutor at Cambridge, master at Harrow, author of various valuable text-books in mathematics; and as long as he exercised his powers within the limits of po
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V. VICTORY OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY METHODS.
V. VICTORY OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY METHODS.
While this struggle for the new truth was going on in various fields, aid appeared from a quarter whence it was least expected. The great discoveries by Botta and Layard in Assyria were supplemented by the researches of Rawlinson, George Smith, Oppert, Sayce, Sarzec, Pinches, and others, and thus it was revealed more clearly than ever before that as far back as the time assigned in Genesis to the creation a great civilization was flourishing in Mesopotamia; that long ages, probably two thousand
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VI. RECONSTRUCTIVE FORCE OF SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM.
VI. RECONSTRUCTIVE FORCE OF SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM.
For all this dissolving away of traditional opinions regarding our sacred literature, there has been a cause far more general and powerful than any which has been given, for it is a cause surrounding and permeating all. This is simply the atmosphere of thought engendered by the development of all sciences during the last three centuries. Vast masses of myth, legend, marvel, and dogmatic assertion, coming into this atmosphere, have been dissolved and are now dissolving quietly away like icebergs
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