John Draper ..............................................................................................................................................1

WHOEVER has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the mental condition of the intelligent

classes in Europe and America, must have perceived that there is a great and rapidlyincreasing departure

from the public religious faith, and that, while among the more frank this divergence is not concealed, there is

a far more extensive and far more dangerous secession, private and unacknowledged.

So widespread and so powerful is this secession, that it can neither be treated with contempt nor with

punishment. It cannot be extinguished by derision, by vituperation, or by force. The time is rapidly

Ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world. Military fervor in behalf of faith has

disappeared. Its only souvenirs are the marble effigies of crusading knights, reposing in the silent crypts of

That a crisis is impending is shown by the attitude of the great powers toward the papacy. The papacy

represents the ideas and aspirations of twothirds of the population of Europe. It insists on a political

supremacy in accordance with its claims to a divine origin and mission, and a restoration of the mediaeval

order of things, loudly declaring that it will accept no reconciliation with modern civilization.

The antagonism we thus witness between Religion and Science is the continuation of a struggle that

commenced when Christianity began to attain political power. A divine revelation must necessarily be

intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising

from the progressive intellectual development of man. But our opinions on every subject are continually

Can we exaggerate the importance of a contention in which every thoughtful person must take part whether

he will or not? In a matter so solemn as that of religion, all men, whose temporal interests are not involved in

existing institutions, earnestly desire to find the truth. They seek information as to the subjects in dispute, and

The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two

contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from

No one has hitherto treated the subject from this point of view. Yet from this point it presents itself to us as a

A few years ago, it was the politic and therefore the proper course to abstain from all allusion to this

controversy, and to keep it as far as possible in the background. The tranquillity of society depends so much

on the stability of its religious convictions, that no one can be justified in wantonly disturbing them. But faith

is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence

between them, impossible to conceal, must take place. It then becomes the duty of those whose lives have

made them familiar with both modes of thought, to present modestly, but firmly, their views; to compare the

antagonistic pretensions calmly, impartially, philosophically. History shows that, if this be not done, social

misfortunes, disastrous and enduring, will ensue. When the old mythological religion of Europe broke down

under the weight of its own inconsistencies, neither the Roman emperors nor the philosophers of those times

did any thing adequate for the guidance of public opinion. They left religious affairs to take their chance, and

accordingly those affairs fell into the hands of ignorant and infuriated ecclesiastics, parasites, eunuchs, and

The intellectual night which settled on Europe, in consequence of that great neglect of duty, is passing away;

we live in the daybreak of better things. Society is anxiously expecting light, to see in what direction it is

drifting. It plainly discerns that the track along which the voyage of civilization has thus far been made, has

Though deeply impressed with such thoughts, I should not have presumed to write this book, or to intrude on

the public the ideas it presents, had I not made the facts with which it deals a subject of long and earnest

meditation. And I have gathered a strong incentive to undertake this duty from the circumstance that a

"History of the Intellectual Development of Europe," published by me several years ago, which has passed

through many editions in America, and has been reprinted in numerous European languages, English, French,

In collecting and arranging the materials for the volumes I published under the title of "A History of the

American Civil War," a work of very great labor, I had become accustomed to the comparison of conflicting

statements, the adjustment of conflicting claims. The approval with which that book has been received by the

American public, a critical judge of the events considered, has inspired me with additional confidence. I had

also devoted much attention to the experimental investigation of natural phenomena, and had published many

wellknown memoirs on such subjects. And perhaps no one can give himself to these pursuits, and spend a

large part of his life in the public teaching of science, without partaking of that love of impartiality and truth

which Philosophy incites. She inspires us with a desire to dedicate our days to the good of our race, so that in

the fading light of life's evening we may not, on looking back, be forced to acknowledge how unsubstantial

Though I have spared no pains in the composition of this book, I am very sensible how unequal it is to the

subject, to do justice to which a knowledge of science, history, theology, politics, is required; every page

should be alive with intelligence and glistening with facts. But then I have remembered that this is only as it

were the preface, or forerunner, of a body of literature, which the events and wants of our times will call

forth. We have come to the brink of a great intellectual change. Much of the frivolous reading of the present

will be supplanted by a thoughtful and austere literature, vivified by endangered interests, and made fervid by

What I have sought to do is, to present a clear and impartial statement of the views and acts of the two

contending parties. In one sense I have tried to identify myself with each, so as to comprehend thoroughly

their motives; but in another and higher sense I have endeavored to stand aloof, and relate with impartiality

I therefore trust that those, who may be disposed to criticise this book, will bear in mind that its object is not

to advocate the views and pretensions of either party, but to explain clearly, and without shrinking those of

both. In the management of each chapter I have usually set forth the orthodox view first, and then followed it

In thus treating the subject it has not been necessary to pay much regard to more moderate or intermediate

opinions, for, though they may be intrinsically of great value, in conflicts of this kind it is not with the

moderates but with the extremists that the impartial reader is mainly concerned. Their movements determine

For this reason I have had little to say respecting the two great Christian confessions, the Protestant and

Greek Churches. As to the latter, it has never, since the restoration of science, arrayed itself in opposition to

the advancement of knowledge. On the contrary, it has always met it with welcome. It has observed a

reverential attitude to truth, from whatever quarter it might come. Recognizing the apparent discrepancies

between its interpretations of revealed truth and the discoveries of science, it has always expected that

satisfactory explanations and reconciliations would ensue, and in this it has not been disappointed. It would

In speaking of Christianity, reference is generally made to the Roman Church, partly because its adherents

compose the majority of Christendom, partly because its demands are the most pretentious, and partly

because it has commonly sought to enforce those demands by the civil power. None of the Protestant

Churches has ever occupied a position so imperiousnone has ever had such widespread political

influence. For the most part they have been averse to constraint, and except in very few instances their

As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She has never attempted to throw odium or

inflict social ruin on any human being. She has never subjected any one to mental torment, physical torture,

least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or promoting her ideas. She presents herself unstained by

cruelties and crimes. But in the Vatican we have only to recall the Inquisitionthe hands that are now

raised in appeals to the Most Merciful are crimsoned. They have been steeped in blood!

There are two modes of historical composition, the artistic and the scientific. The former implies that men

give origin to events; it therefore selects some prominent individual, pictures him under a fanciful form, and

makes him the hero of a romance. The latter, insisting that human affairs present an unbroken chain, in which

each fact is the offspring of some preceding fact, and the parent of some subsequent fact, declares that men

do not control events, but that events control men. The former gives origin to compositions, which, however

much they may interest or delight us, are but a grade above novels; the latter is austere, perhaps even

repulsive, for it sternly impresses us with a conviction of the irresistible dominion of law, and the

insignificance of human exertions. In a subject so solemn as that to which this book is devoted, the romantic

and the popular are altogether out of place. He who presumes to treat of it must fix his eyes steadfastly on

that chain of destiny which universal history displays; he must turn with disdain from the phantom

If any thing were needed to show us the untrustworthiness of artistic historical compositions, our personal

experience would furnish it. How often do our most intimate friends fail to perceive the real motives of our

everyday actions; how frequently they misinterpret our intentions! If this be the case in what is passing

before our eyes, may we not be satisfied that it is impossible to comprehend justly the doings of persons who

In selecting and arranging the topics now to be presented, I have been guided in part by "the Confession" of

the late Vatican Council, and in part by the order of events in history. Not without interest will the reader

remark that the subjects offer themselves to us now as they did to the old philosophers of Greece. We still

deal with the same questions about which they disputed. What is God? What is the soul? What is the world?

How is it governed? Have we any standard or criterion of truth? And the thoughtful reader will earnestly ask,

I first direct attention to the origin of modern science as distinguished from ancient, by depending on

observation, experiment, and mathematical discussion, instead of mere speculation, and shall show that it was

a consequence of the Macedonian campaigns, which brought Asia and Europe into contact. A brief sketch of

Then with brevity I recall the wellknown origin of Christianity, and show its advance to the attainment of

imperial power, the transformation it underwent by its incorporation with paganism, the existing religion of

the Roman Empire. A clear conception of its incompatibility with science caused it to suppress forcibly the

Schools of Alexandria. It was constrained to this by the political necessities of its position.

The parties to the conflict thus placed, I next relate the story of their first open struggle; it is the first or

Southern Reformation. The point in dispute had respect to the nature of God. It involved the rise of

Mohammedanism. Its result was, that much of Asia and Africa, with the historic cities Jerusalem, Alexandria,

and Carthage, were wrenched from Christendom, and the doctrine of the Unity of God established in the

This political event was followed by the restoration of science, the establishment of colleges, schools,

libraries, throughout the dominions of the Arabians. Those conquerors, pressing forward rapidly in their

intellectual development, rejected the anthropomorphic ideas of the nature of God remaining in their popular

belief, and accepted other more philosophical ones, akin to those that had long previously been attained to in

India. The result of this was a second conflict, that respecting the nature of the soul. Under the designation of

Averroism, there came into prominence the theories of Emanation and Absorption. At the close of the middle

ages the Inquisition succeeded in excluding those doctrines from Europe, and now the Vatican Council has

Meantime, through the cultivation of astronomy, geography, and other sciences, correct views had been

gained as to the position and relations of the earth, and as to the structure of the world; and since Religion,

resting itself on what was assumed to be the proper interpretation of the Scriptures, insisted that the earth is

the central and most important part of the universe, a third conflict broke out. In this Galileo led the way on

the part of Science. Its issue was the overthrow of the Church on the question in dispute. Subsequently a

subordinate controversy arose respecting the age of the world, the Church insisting that it is only about six

thousand years old. In this she was again overthrown The light of history and of science had been gradually

spreading over Europe. In the sixteenth century the prestige of Roman Christianity was greatly diminished by

the intellectual reverses it had experienced, and also by its political and moral condition. It was clearly seen

by many pious men that Religion was not accountable for the false position in which she was found, but that

the misfortune was directly traceable to the alliance she had of old contracted with Roman paganism. The

obvious remedy, therefore, was a return to primitive purity. Thus arose the fourth conflict, known to us as the

Reformationthe second or Northern Reformation. The special form it assumed was a contest respecting the

standard or criterion of truth, whether it is to be found in the Church or in the Bible. The determination of this

involved a settlement of the rights of reason, or intellectual freedom. Luther, who is the conspicuous man of

the epoch, carried into effect his intention with no inconsiderable success; and at the close of the struggle it

We are now in the midst of a controversy respecting the mode of government of the world, whether it be by

incessant divine intervention, or by the operation of primordial and unchangeable law. The intellectual

movement of Christendom has reached that point which Arabism had attained to in the tenth and eleventh

centuries; and doctrines which were then discussed are presenting themselves again for review; such are those

Offered under these general titles, I think it will be found that all the essential points of this great controversy

are included. By grouping under these comprehensive heads the facts to be considered, and dealing with each

group separately, we shall doubtless acquire clear views of their interconnection and their historical

I have treated of these conflicts as nearly as I conveniently could in their proper chronological order, and, for

The attitude of Roman Christianity in the impending conflict, as defined by the Vatican Council.

The attention of many truthseeking persons has been so exclusively given to the details of sectarian

dissensions, that the long strife, to the history of which these pages are devoted, is popularly but little known.

Having tried to keep steadfastly in view the determination to write this work in an impartial spirit, to speak

with respect of the contending parties, but never to conceal the truth, I commit it to the considerate judgment

Religious condition of the Greeks in the fourth century before Christ. Their invasion of the Persian Empire

brings them in contact with new aspects of Nature, and familiarizes them with new religious systems. The

military, engineering, and scientific activity, stimulated by the Macedonian campaigns, leads to the

establishment in Alexandria of an institute, the Museum, for the cultivation of knowledge by experiment,

GREEK MYTHOLOGY. No spectacle can be presented to the thoughtful mind more solemn, more mournful,

than that of the dying of an ancient religion, which in its day has given consolation to many generations of

Four centuries before the birth of Christ, Greece was fast outgrowing her ancient faith. Her philosophers, in

their studies of the world, had been profoundly impressed with the contrast between the majesty of the

operations of Nature and the worthlessness of the divinities of Olympus. Her historians, considering the

orderly course of political affairs, the manifest uniformity in the acts of men, and that there was no event

occurring before their eyes for which they could not find an obvious cause in some preceding event, began to

suspect that the miracles and celestial interventions, with which the old annals were filled, were only fictions.

They demanded, when the age of the supernatural had ceased, why oracles had become mute, and why there

Traditions, descending from immemorial antiquity, and formerly accepted by pious men as unquestionable

truths, had filled the islands of the Mediterranean and the conterminous countries with supernatural

wonders enchantresses, sorcerers, giants, ogres, harpies, gorgons, centaurs, cyclops. The azure vault was

the floor of heaven; there Zeus, surrounded by the gods with their wives and mistresses, held his court,

engaged in pursuits like those of men, and not refraining from acts of human passion and crime.

A seacoast broken by numerous indentations, an archipelago with some of the most lovely islands in the

world, inspired the Greeks with a taste for maritime life, for geographical discovery, and colonization. Their

ships wandered all over the Black and Mediterranean Seas. The timehonored wonders that had been

glorified in the "Odyssey," and sacred in public faith, were found to have no existence. As a better knowledge

of Nature was obtained, the sky was shown to be an illusion; it was discovered that there is no Olympus,

nothing above but space and stars. With the vanishing of their habitation, the gods disappeared, both those of

EFFECTS OF DISCOVERY AND CRITICISM. But this did not take place without resistance. At first, the

public, and particularly its religious portion, denounced the rising doubts as atheism. They despoiled some of

the offenders of their goods, exiled others; some they put to death. They asserted that what had been believed

by pious men in the old times, and had stood the test of ages, must necessarily be true. Then, as the opposing

evidence became irresistible, they were content to admit that these marvels were allegories under which the

wisdom of the ancients had concealed many sacred and mysterious things. They tried to reconcile, what now

in their misgivings they feared might be myths, with their advancing intellectual state. But their efforts were

in vain, for there are predestined phases through which on such an occasion public opinion must pass. What it

has received with veneration it begins to doubt, then it offers new interpretations, then subsides into dissent,

In their secession the philosophers and historians were followed by the poets. Euripides incurred the odium of

heresy. Aeschylus narrowly escaped being stoned to death for blasphemy. But the frantic efforts of those who

are interested in supporting delusions must always end in defeat. The demoralization resistlessly extended

through every branch of literature, until at length it reached the common people.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Greek philosophical criticism had lent its aid to Greek philosophical discovery in

this destruction of the national faith. It sustained by many arguments the widespreading unbelief. It

compared the doctrines of the different schools with each other, and showed from their contradictions that

man has no criterion of truth; that, since his ideas of what is good and what is evil differ according to the

country in which he lives, they can have no foundation in Nature, but must be altogether the result of

education; that right and wrong are nothing more than fictions created by society for its own purposes. In

Athens, some of the more advanced classes had reached such a pass that they not only denied the unseen, the

supernatural, they even affirmed that the world is only a daydream, a phantasm, and that nothing at all

The topographical configuration of Greece gave an impress to her political condition. It divided her people

into distinct communities having conflicting interests, and made them incapable of centralization. Incessant

domestic wars between the rival states checked her advancement. She was poor, her leading men had become

corrupt. They were ever ready to barter patriotic considerations for foreign gold, to sell themselves for

Persian bribes. Possessing a perception of the beautiful as manifested in sculpture and architecture to a degree

never attained elsewhere either before or since, Greece had lost a practical appreciation of the Good and the

While European Greece, full of ideas of liberty and independence, rejected the sovereignty of Persia, Asiatic

Greece acknowledged it without reluctance. At that time the Persian Empire in territorial extent was equal to

half of modern Europe. It touched the waters of the Mediterranean, the Aegean, the Black, the Caspian, the

Indian, the Persian, the Red Seas. Through its territories there flowed six of the grandest rivers in the

worldthe Euphrates, the Tigris, the Indus, the Jaxartes, the Oxus, the Nile, each more than a thousand

miles in length. Its surface reached from thirteen hundred feet below the sealevel to twenty thousand feet

above. It yielded, therefore, every agricultural product. Its mineral wealth was boundless. It inherited the

prestige of the Median, the Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Chaldean Empires, whose annals reached back

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Persia had always looked upon European Greece as politically insignificant, for it

had scarcely half the territorial extent of one of her satrapies. Her expeditions for compelling its obedience

had, however, taught her the military qualities of its people. In her forces were incorporated Greek

mercenaries, esteemed the very best of her troops. She did not hesitate sometimes to give the command of her

armies to Greek generals, of her fleets to Greek captains. In the political convulsions through which she had

passed, Greek soldiers had often been used by her contending chiefs. These military operations were attended

by a momentous result. They revealed, to the quick eye of these warlike mercenaries, the political weakness

of the empire and the possibility of reaching its centre. After the death of Cyrus on the battlefield of

Cunaxa, it was demonstrated, by the immortal retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon, that a Greek army

That reverence for the military abilities of Asiatic generals, so profoundly impressed on the Greeks by such

engineering exploits as the bridging of the Hellespont, and the cutting of the isthmus at Mount Athos by

Xerxes, had been obliterated at Salamis, Platea, Mycale. To plunder rich Persian provinces had become an

irresistible temptation. Such was the expedition of Agesilaus, the Spartan king, whose brilliant successes

were, however, checked by the Persian government resorting to its timeproved policy of bribing the

neighbors of Sparta to attack her. "I have been conquered by thirty thousand Persian archers," bitterly

exclaimed Agesilaus, as he reembarked, alluding to the Persian coin, the Daric, which was stamped with the

THE INVASION OF PERSIA BY GREECE. At length Philip, the King of Macedon, projected a renewal of

these attempts, under a far more formidable organization, and with a grander object. He managed to have

himself appointed captaingeneral of all Greece not for the purpose of a mere foray into the Asiatic satrapies,

but for the overthrow of the Persian dynasty in the very centre of its power. Assassinated while his

preparations were incomplete, he was succeeded by his son Alexander, then a youth. A general assembly of

Greeks at Corinth had unanimously elected him in his father's stead. There were some disturbances in Illyria;

Alexander had to march his army as far north as the Danube to quell them. During his absence the Thebans

with some others conspired against him. On his return he took Thebes by assault. He massacred six thousand

of its inhabitants, sold thirty thousand for slaves, and utterly demolished the city. The military wisdom of this

severity was apparent in his Asiatic campaign. He was not troubled by any revolt in his rear.

THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN. In the spring B.C. 334 Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia. His

army consisted of thirtyfour thousand foot and four thousand horse. He had with him only seventy talents in

money. He marched directly on the Persian army, which, vastly exceeding him in strength, was holding the

line of the Granicus. He forced the passage of the river, routed the enemy, and the possession of all Asia

Minor, with its treasures, was the fruit of the victory. The remainder of that year he spent in the military

organization of the conquered provinces. Meantime Darius, the Persian king, had advanced an army of six

hundred thousand men to prevent the passage of the Macedonians into Syria. In a battle that ensued among

the mountaindefiles at Issus, the Persians were again overthrown. So great was the slaughter that Alexander,

and Ptolemy, one of his generals, crossed over a ravine choked with dead bodies. It was estimated that the

Persian loss was not less than ninety thousand foot and ten thousand horse. The royal pavilion fell into the

conqueror's hands, and with it the wife and several of the children of Darius. Syria was thus added to the

Greek conquests. In Damascus were found many of the concubines of Darius and his chief officers, together

Before venturing into the plains of Mesopotamia for the final struggle, Alexander, to secure his rear and

preserve his communications with the sea, marched southward down the Mediterranean coast, reducing the

cities in his way. In his speech before the council of war after Issus, he told his generals that they must not

pursue Darius with Tyre unsubdued, and Persia in possession of Egypt and Cyprus, for, if Persia should

regain her seaports, she would transfer the war into Greece, and that it was absolutely necessary for him to be

sovereign at sea. With Cyprus and Egypt in his possession he felt no solicitude about Greece. The siege of

Tyre cost him more than half a year. In revenge for this delay, he crucified, it is said, two thousand of his

prisoners. Jerusalem voluntarily surrendered, and therefore was treated leniently: but the passage of the

Macedonian army into Egypt being obstructed at Gaza, the Persian governor of which, Betis, made a most

obstinate defense, that place, after a siege of two months, was carried by assault, ten thousand of its men were

massacred, and the rest, with their wives and children, sold into slavery. Betis himself was dragged alive

round the city at the chariotwheels of the conqueror. There was now no further obstacle. The Egyptians,

who detested the Persian rule, received their invader with open arms. He organized the country in his own

interest, intrusting all its military commands to Macedonian officers, and leaving the civil government in the

CONQUEST OF EGYPT. While preparations for the final campaign were being made, he undertook a

journey to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, which was situated in an oasis of the Libyan Desert, at a distance of

two hundred miles. The oracle declared him to be a son of that god who, under the form of a serpent, had

beguiled Olympias, his mother. Immaculate conceptions and celestial descents were so currently received in

those days, that whoever had greatly distinguished himself in the affairs of men was thought to be of

supernatural lineage. Even in Rome, centuries later, no one could with safety have denied that the city owed

its founder, Romulus, to an accidental meeting of the god Mars with the virgin Rhea Sylvia, as she went with

her pitcher for water to the spring. The Egyptian disciples of Plato would have looked with anger on those

who rejected the legend that Perictione, the mother of that great philosopher, a pure virgin, had suffered an

immaculate conception through the influences of Apollo, and that the god had declared to Ariston, to whom

she was betrothed, the parentage of the child. When Alexander issued his letters, orders, and decrees, styling

himself "King Alexander, the son of Jupiter Ammon," they came to the inhabitants of Egypt and Syria with

an authority that now can hardly be realized. The free thinking Greeks, however, put on such a supernatural

pedigree its proper value. Olympias, who, of course, better than all others knew the facts of the case, used

jestingly to say, that "she wished Alexander would cease from incessantly embroiling her with Jupiter's wife."

Arrian, the historian of the Macedonian expedition, observes, "I cannot condemn him for endeavoring to

draw his subjects into the belief of his divine origin, nor can I be induced to think it any great crime, for it is

very reasonable to imagine that he intended no more by it than merely to procure the greater authority among

GREEK CONQUEST OF PERSIA. All things being thus secured in his rear, Alexander, having returned into

Syria, directed the march of his army, now consisting of fifty thousand veterans, eastward. After crossing the

Euphrates, he kept close to the Masian hills, to avoid the intense heat of the more southerly Mesopotamian

plains; more abundant forage could also thus be procured for the cavalry. On the left bank of the Tigris, near

Arbela, he encountered the great army of eleven hundred thousand men brought up by Darius from Babylon.

The death of the Persian monarch, which soon followed the defeat he suffered, left the Macedonian general

master of all the countries from the Danube to the Indus. Eventually he extended his conquest to the Ganges.

The treasures he seized are almost beyond belief. At Susa alone he foundso Arrian saysfifty thousand

EVENTS OF THE CAMPAIGNS. The modern military student cannot look upon these wonderful campaigns

without admiration. The passage of the Hellespont; the forcing of the Granicus; the winter spent in a political

organization of conquered Asia Minor; the march of the right wing and centre of the army along the Syrian

Mediterranean coast; the engineering difficulties overcome at the siege of Tyre; the storming of Gaza; the

isolation of Persia from Greece; the absolute exclusion of her navy from the Mediterranean; the check on all

her attempts at intriguing with or bribing Athenians or Spartans, heretofore so often resorted to with success;

the submission of Egypt; another winter spent in the political organization of that venerable country; the

convergence of the whole army from the Black and Red Seas toward the nitre covered plains of

Mesopotamia in the ensuing spring; the passage of the Euphrates fringed with its weeping willows at the

broken bridge of Thapsacus; the crossing of the Tigris; the nocturnal reconnaissance before the great and

memorable battle of Arbela; the oblique movement on the field; the piercing of the enemy's centrea

manoeuvre destined to be repeated many centuries subsequently at Austerlitz; the energetic pursuit of the

Persian monarch; these are exploits not surpassed by any soldier of later times.

A prodigious stimulus was thus given to Greek intellectual activity. There were men who had marched with

the Macedonian army from the Danube to the Nile, from the Nile to the Ganges. They had felt the

hyperborean blasts of the countries beyond the Black Sea, the simooms and sandtempests of the Egyptian

deserts. They had seen the Pyramids which had already stood for twenty centuries, the hieroglyphcovered

obelisks of Luxor, avenues of silent and mysterious sphinxes, colossi of monarchs who reigned in the

morning of the world. In the halls of Esarhaddon they had stood before the thrones of grim old Assyrian

kings, guarded by winged bulls. In Babylon there still remained its walls, once more than sixty miles in

compass, and, after the ravages of three centuries and three conquerors, still more than eighty feet in height;

there were still the ruins of the temple of cloud encompassed Bel, on its top was planted the observatory

wherein the weird Chaldean astronomers had held nocturnal communion with the stars; still there were

vestiges of the two palaces with their hanging gardens in which were great trees growing in midair, and the

wreck of the hydraulic machinery that had supplied them with water from the river. Into the artificial lake

with its vast apparatus of aqueducts and sluices the melted snows of the Armenian mountains found their

way, and were confined in their course through the city by the embankments of the Euphrates. Most

EFFECT ON THE GREEK ARMY. If Chaldea, Assyria, Babylon, presented stupendous and venerable

antiquities reaching far back into the night of time, Persia was not without her wonders of a later date. The

pillared halls of Persepolis were filled with miracles of artcarvings, sculptures, enamels, alabaster libraries,

obelisks, sphinxes, colossal bulls. Ecbatana, the cool summer retreat of the Persian kings, was defended by

seven encircling walls of hewn and polished blocks, the interior ones in succession of increasing height, and

of different colors, in astrological accordance with the seven planets. The palace was roofed with silver tiles,

its beams were plated with gold. At midnight, in its halls the sunlight was rivaled by many a row of naphtha

cressets. A paradisethat luxury of the monarchs of the Eastwas planted in the midst of the city. The

Persian Empire, from the Hellespont to the Indus, was truly the garden of the world.

EFFECTS ON THE GREEK ARMY. I have devoted a few pages to the story of these marvelous campaigns,

for the military talent they fostered led to the establishment of the mathematical and practical schools of

Alexandria, the true origin of science. We trace back all our exact knowledge to the Macedonian campaigns.

Humboldt has well observed that an introduction to new and grand objects of Nature enlarges the human

mind. The soldiers of Alexander and the hosts of his campfollowers encountered at every march unexpected

and picturesque scenery. Of all men, the Greeks were the most observant, the most readily and profoundly

impressed. Here there were interminable sandy plains, there mountains whose peaks were lost above the

clouds. In the deserts were mirages, on the hillsides shadows of fleeting clouds sweeping over the forests.

They were in a land of ambercolored datepalms and cypresses, of tamarisks, green myrtles, and oleanders.

At Arbela they had fought against Indian elephants; in the thickets of the Caspian they had roused from his

lair the lurking royal tiger. They had seen animals which, compared with those of Europe, were not only

strange, but colossalthe rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the camel, the crocodiles of the Nile and the

Ganges. They had encountered men of many complexions and many costumes: the swarthy Syrian, the

olivecolored Persian. the black African. Even of Alexander himself it is related that on his deathbed he

caused his admiral, Nearchus, to sit by his side, and found consolation in listening to the adventures of that

sailorthe story of his voyage from the Indus up the Persian Gulf. The conqueror had seen with

astonishment the ebbing and flowing of the tides. He had built ships for the exploration of the Caspian,

supposing that it and the Black Sea might be gulfs of a great ocean, such as Nearchus had discovered the

Persian and Red Seas to be. He had formed a resolution that his fleet should attempt the circumnavigation of

Africa, and come into the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Herculesa feat which, it was affirmed, had

INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF PERSIA. Not only her greatest soldiers, but also her greatest

philosophers, found in the conquered empire much that might excite the admiration of Greece. Callisthenes

obtained in Babylon a series of Chaldean astronomical observations ranging back through 1,903 years; these

he sent to Aristotle. Perhaps, since they were on burnt bricks, duplicates of them may be recovered by

modern research in the clay libraries of the Assyrian kings. Ptolemy, the Egyptian astronomer, possessed a

Babylonian record of eclipses, going back 747 years before our era. Longcontinued and close observations

were necessary, before some of these astronomical results that have reached our times could have been

ascertained. Thus the Babylonians had fixed the length of a tropical year within twentyfive seconds of the

truth; their estimate of the sidereal year was barely two minutes in excess. They had detected the precession

of the equinoxes. They knew the causes of eclipses, and, by the aid of their cycle called Saros, could predict

them. Their estimate of the value of that cycle, which is more than 6,585 days, was within nineteen and a half

INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF PERSIA. Such facts furnish incontrovertible proof of the patience and

skill with which astronomy had been cultivated in Mesopotamia, and that, with very inadequate instrumental

means, it had reached no inconsiderable perfection. These old observers had made a catalogue of the stars,

had divided the zodiac into twelve signs; they had parted the day into twelve hours, the night into twelve.

They had, as Alistotle says, for a long time devoted themselves to observations of staroccultations by the

moon. They had correct views of the structure of the solar system, and knew the order of the emplacement of

Not without interest do we still look on specimens of their method of printing. Upon a revolving roller they

engraved, in cuneiform letters, their records, and, running this over plastic clay formed into blocks, produced

ineffaceable proofs. From their tilelibraries we are still to reap a literary and historical harvest. They were

not without some knowledge of optics. The convex lens found at Nimroud shows that they were not

unacquainted with magnifying instruments. In arithmetic they had detected the value of position in the digits,

What a spectacle for the conquering Greeks, who, up to this time, had neither experimented nor observed!

ITS RELIGIOUS CONDITION. But Greek intellectual development, due thus in part to a more extended

view of Nature, was powerfully aided by the knowledge then acquired of the religion of the conquered

country. The idolatry of Greece had always been a horror to Persia, who, in her invasions, had never failed to

destroy the temples and insult the fanes of the bestial gods. The impunity with which these sacrileges had

been perpetrated had made a profound impression, and did no little to undermine Hellenic faith. But now the

worshiper of the vile Olympian divinities, whose obscene lives must have been shocking to every pious man,

was brought in contact with a grand, a solemn, a consistent religious system having its foundation on a

philosophical basis. Persia, as is the case with all empires of long duration, had passed through many changes

of religion. She had followed the Monotheism of Zoroaster; had then accepted Dualism, and exchanged that

for Magianism. At the time of the Macedonian expedition, she recognized one universal Intelligence, the

Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, the most holy essence of truth, the giver of all good. He was

not to be represented by any image, or any graven form. And, since, in every thing here below, we see the

resultant of two opposing forces, under him were two coequal and coeternal principles, represented by the

imagery of Light and Darkness. These principles are in neverending conflict. The world is their

In the old legends of Dualism, the Evil Spirit was said to have sent a serpent to ruin the paradise which the

Good Spirit had made. These legends became known to the Jews during their Babylonian captivity.

The existence of a principle of evil is the necessary incident of the existence of a principle of good, as a

shadow is the necessary incident of the presence of light. In this manner could be explained the occurrence of

evil in a world, the maker and ruler of which is supremely good. Each of the personified principles of light

and darkness, Ormuzd and Ahriman, had his subordinate angels, his counselors, his armies. It is the duty of a

good man to cultivate truth, purity, and industry. He may look forward, when this life is over, to a life in

another world, and trust to a resurrection of the body, the immortality of the soul, and a conscious future

In the later years of the empire, the principles of Magianism had gradually prevailed more and more over

those of Zoroaster. Magianism was essentially a worship of the elements. Of these, fire was considered as the

most worthy representative of the Supreme Being. On altars erected, not in temples, but under the blue

canopy of the sky, perpetual fires were kept burning, and the rising sun was regarded as the noblest object of

human adoration. In the society of Asia, nothing is visible but the monarch; in the expanse of heaven, all

DEATH OF ALEXANDER. Prematurely cut off in the midst of many great projects Alexander died at

Babylon before he had completed his thirtythird year (B.C. 323). There was a suspicion that he had been

poisoned. His temper had become so unbridled, his passion so ferocious, that his generals and even his

intimate friends lived in continual dread. Clitus, one of the latter, he in a moment of fury had stabbed to the

heart. Callisthenes, the intermedium between himself and Aristotle, he had caused to be hanged, or, as was

positively asserted by some who knew the facts, had had him put upon the rack and then crucified. It may

have been in selfdefense that the conspirators resolved on his assassination. But surely it was a calumny to

associate the name of Aristotle with this transaction. He would have rather borne the worst that Alexander

A scene of confusion and bloodshed lasting many years ensued, nor did it cease even after the Macedonian

generals had divided the empire. Among its vicissitudes one incident mainly claims our attention. Ptolemy,

who was a son of King Philip by Arsinoe, a beautiful concubine, and who in his boyhood had been driven

into exile with Alexander, when they incurred their father's displeasure, who had been Alexander's comrade

in many of his battles and all his campaigns, became governor and eventually king of Egypt.

FOUNDATION OF ALEXANDER. At the siege of Rhodes, Ptolemy had been of such signal service to its

citizens that in gratitude they paid divine honors to him, and saluted him with the title of Soter (the Savior).

By that designationPtolemy Soterhe is distinguished from succeeding kings of the Macedonian dynasty

He established his seat of government not in any of the old capitals of the country, but in Alexandria. At the

time of the expedition to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, the Macedonian conqueror had caused the

foundations of that city to be laid, foreseeing that it might be made the commercial entrepot between Asia and

Europe. It is to be particularly remarked that not only did Alexander himself deport many Jews from

Palestine to people the city, and not only did Ptolemy Soter bring one hundred thousand more after his siege

of Jerusalem, but Philadelphus, his successor, redeemed from slavery one hundred and ninetyeight thousand

of that people, paying their Egyptian owners a just money equivalent for each. To all these Jews the same

privileges were accorded as to the Macedonians. In consequence of this considerate treatment, vast numbers

of their compatriots and many Syrians voluntarily came into Egypt. To them the designation of Hellenistical

Jews was given. In like manner, tempted by the benign government of Soter, multitudes of Greeks sought

refuge in the country, and the invasions of Perdiccas and Antigonus showed that Greek soldiers would desert

The population of Alexandria was therefore of three distinct nationalities: 1. Native Egyptians 2. Greeks; 3.

Greek architects and Greek engineers had made Alexandria the most beautiful city of the ancient world. They

had filled it with magnificent palaces, temples, theatres. In its centre, at the intersection of its two grand

avenues, which crossed each other at right angles, and in the midst of gardens, fountains, obelisks, stood the

mausoleum, in which, embalmed after the manner of the Egyptians, rested the body of Alexander. In a

funereal journey of two years it had been brought with great pomp from Babylon. At first the coffin was of

pure gold, but this having led to a violation of the tomb, it was replaced by one of alabaster. But not these, not

even the great lighthouse, Pharos, built of blocks of white marble and so high that the fire continually

burning on its top could be seen many miles off at seathe Pharos counted as one of the seven wonders of

the worldit is not these magnificent achievements of architecture that arrest our attention; the true, the

most glorious monument of the Macedonian kings of Egypt is the Museum. Its influences will last when even

THE ALEXANDRIAN MUSEUM. The Alexandrian Museum was commenced by Ptolemy Soter, and was

completed by his son Ptolemy Philadelphus. It was situated in the Bruchion, the aristocratic quarter of the

city, adjoining the king's palace. Built of marble, it was surrounded with a piazza, in which the residents

might walk and converse together. Its sculptured apartments contained the Philadelphian library, and were

crowded with the choicest statues and pictures. This library eventually comprised four hundred thousand

volumes. In the course of time, probably on account of inadequate accommodation for so many books, an

additional library was established in the adjacent quarter Rhacotis, and placed in the Serapion or temple of

Serapis. The number of volumes in this library, which was called the Daughter of that in the Museum, was

eventually three hundred thousand. There were, therefore, seven hundred thousand volumes in these royal

Alexandria was not merely the capital of Egypt, it was the intellectual metropolis of the world. Here it was

truly said the Genius of the East met the Genius of the West, and this Paris of antiquity became a focus of

fashionable dissipation and universal skepticism. In the allurements of its bewitching society even the Jews

forgot their patriotism. They abandoned the language of their forefathers, and adopted Greek.

In the establishment of the Museum, Ptolemy Soter and his son Philadelphus had three objects in view: 1.

The perpetuation of such knowledge as was then in the world; 2. Its increase; 3. Its diffusion.

1. For the perpetuation of knowledge. Orders were given to the chief librarian to buy at the king's expense

whatever books he could. A body of transcribers was maintained in the Museum, whose duty it was to make

correct copies of such works as their owners were not disposed to sell. Any books brought by foreigners into

Egypt were taken at once to the Museum, and, when correct copies had been made, the transcript was given

to the owner, and the original placed in the library. Often a very large pecuniary indemnity was paid. Thus it

is said of Ptolemy Euergetes that, having obtained from Athens the works of Euripides, Sophocles, and

Aeschylus, he sent to their owners transcripts, together with about fifteen thousand dollars, as an indemnity.

On his return from the Syrian expedition he carried back in triumph all the Egyptian monuments from

Ecbatana and Susa, which Cambyses and other invaders had removed from Egypt. These he replaced in their

original seats, or added as adornments to his museums. When works were translated as well as transcribed,

sums which we should consider as almost incredible were paid, as was the case with the Septuagint

2. For the increase of knowledge. One of the chief objects of the Museum was that of serving as the home of

a body of men who devoted themselves to study, and were lodged and maintained at the king's expense.

Occasionally he himself sat at their table. Anecdotes connected with those festive occasions have descended

to our times. In the original organization of the Museum the residents were divided into four

facultiesliterature; mathematics, astronomy, medicine. Minor branches were appropriately classified under

one of these general heads; thus natural history was considered to be a branch of medicine. An officer of very

great distinction presided over the establishment, and had general charge of its interests. Demetrius Phalareus,

perhaps the most learned man of his age, who had been governor of Athens for many years, was the first so

appointed. Under him was the librarian, an office sometimes held by men whose names have descended to

ORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM. In connection with the Museum were a botanical and a zoological

garden. These gardens, as their names import, were for the purpose of facilitating the study of plants and

animals. There was also an astronomical observatory containing armillary spheres, globes, solstitial and

equatorial armils, astrolabes, parallactic rules, and other apparatus then in use, the graduation on the divided

instruments being into degrees and sixths. On the floor of this observatory a meridian line was drawn. The

want of correct means of measuring time and temperature was severely felt; the clepsydra of Ctesibius

answered very imperfectly for the former, the hydrometer floating in a cup of water for the latter; it measured

variations of temperature by variations of density. Philadelphus, who toward the close of his life was haunted

with an intolerable dread of death, devoted much of his time to the discovery of an elixir. For such pursuits

the Museum was provided with a chemical laboratory. In spite of the prejudices of the age, and especially in

spite of Egyptian prejudices, there was in connection with the medical department an anatomical room for the

dissection, not only of the dead, but actually of the living, who for crimes had been condemned.

3. For the diffusion of knowledge. In the Museum was given, by lectures, conversation, or other appropriate

methods instruction in all the various departments of human knowledge. There flocked to this great

intellectual centre, students from all countries. It is said that at one time not fewer than fourteen thousand

were in attendance. Subsequently even the Christian church received from it some of the most eminent of its

The library in the Museum was burnt during the siege of Alexandria by Julius Caesar. To make amends for

this great loss, that collected by Eumenes, King of Pergamus, was presented by Mark Antony to Queen

Cleopatra. Originally it was founded as a rival to that of the Ptolemies. It was added to the collection in the

SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF THE MUSEUM. It remains now to describe briefly the philosophical basis of the

In memory of the illustrious founder of this most noble institutionan institution which antiquity delighted

to call "The divine school of Alexandria"we must mention in the first rank his "History of the Campaigns

of Alexander." Great as a soldier and as a sovereign, Ptolemy Soter added to his glory by being an author.

Time, which has not been able to destroy the memory of our obligations to him, has dealt unjustly by his

As might be expected from the friendship that existed between Alexander, Ptolemy, and Aristotle, the

Aristotelian philosophy was the intellectual cornerstone on which the Museum rested. King Philip had

committed the education of Alexander to Aristotle, and during the Persian campaigns the conqueror

contributed materially, not only in money, but otherwise, toward the "Natural History" then in preparation.

The essential principle of the Aristotelian philosophy was, to rise from the study of particulars to a

knowledge of general principles or universals, advancing to them by induction. The induction is the more

certain as the facts on which it is based are more numerous; its correctness is established if it should enable us

to predict other facts until then unknown. This system implies endless toil in the collection of facts, both by

experiment and observation; it implies also a close meditation on them. It is, therefore, essentially a method

of labor and of reason, not a method of imagination. The failures that Aristotle himself so often exhibits are

no proof of its unreliability, but rather of its trustworthiness. They are failures arising from want of a

ETHICAL SCHOOL OF THE MUSEUM. Some of the general results at which Aristotle arrived are very

grand. Thus, he concluded that every thing is ready to burst into life, and that the various organic forms

presented to us by Nature are those which existing conditions permit. Should the conditions change, the

forms will also change. Hence there is an unbroken chain from the simple element through plants and animals

The inductive philosophy thus established by Aristotle is a method of great power. To it all the modern

advances in science are due. In its most improved form it rises by inductions from phenomena to their causes,

and then, imitating the method of the Academy, it descends by deductions from those causes to the detail of

While thus the Scientific School of Alexandria was founded on the maxims of one great Athenian

philosopher, the Ethical School was founded on the maxims of another, for Zeno, though a Cypriote or

Phoenician, had for many years been established at Athens. His disciples took the name of Stoics. His

doctrines long survived him, and, in times when there was no other consolation for man, offered a support in

the hour of trial, and an unwavering guide in the vicissitudes of life, not only to illustrious Greeks, but also to

THE PRINCIPLES OF STOICISM. The aim of Zeno was, to furnish a guide for the daily practice of life, to

make men virtuous. He insisted that education is the true foundation of virtue, for, if we know what is good,

we shall incline to do it. We must trust to sense, to furnish the data of knowledge, and reason will suitably

combine them. In this the affinity of Zeno to Aristotle is plainly seen. Every appetite, lust, desire, springs

from imperfect knowledge. Our nature is imposed upon us by Fate, but we must learn to control our passions,

and live free, intelligent, virtuous, in all things in accordance with reason. Our existence should be

intellectual, we should survey with equanimity all pleasures and all pains. We should never forget that we are

freemen, not the slaves of society. "I possess," said the Stoic, "a treasure which not all the world can rob me

ofno one can deprive me of death." We should remember that Nature in her operations aims at the

universal, and never spares individuals, but uses them as means for the accomplishment of her ends. It is,

therefore, for us to submit to Destiny, cultivating, as the things necessary to virtue, knowledge, temperance,

fortitude, justice. We must remember that every thing around us is in mutation; decay follows reproduction,

and reproduction decay, and that it is useless to repine at death in a world where every thing is dying. As a

cataract shows from year to year an invariable shape, though the water composing it is perpetually changing,

so the aspect of Nature is nothing more than a flow of matter presenting an impermanent form. The universe,

considered as a whole, is unchangeable. Nothing is eternal but space, atoms, force. The forms of Nature that

STOICISM IN THE MUSEUM. We must bear in mind that the majority of men are imperfectly educated,

and hence we must not needlessly offend the religious ideas of our age. It is enough for us ourselves to know

that, though there is a Supreme Power, there is no Supreme Being. There is an invisible principle, but not a

personal God, to whom it would be not so much blasphemy as absurdity to impute the form, the sentiments,

the passions of man. All revelation is, necessarily, a mere fiction. That which men call chance is only the

effect of an unknown cause. Even of chances there is a law. There is no such thing as Providence, for Nature

proceeds under irresistible laws, and in this respect the universe is only a vast automatic engine. The vital

force which pervades the world is what the illiterate call God. The modifications through which all things are

running take place in an irresistible way, and hence it may be said that the progress of the world is, under

The soul of man is a spark of the vital flame, the general vital principle. Like heat, it passes from one to

another, and is finally reabsorbed or reunited in the universal principle from which it came. Hence we must

not expect annihilation, but reunion; and, as the tired man looks forward to the insensibility of sleep, so the

philosopher, weary of the world, should look forward to the tranquillity of extinction. Of these things,

however, we should think doubtingly, since the mind can produce no certain knowledge from its internal

resources alone. It is unphilosophical to inquire into first causes; we must deal only with phenomena. Above

all, we must never forget that man cannot ascertain absolute truth, and that the final result of human inquiry

into the matter is, that we are incapable of perfect knowledge; that, even if the truth be in our possession, we

What, then, remains for us? Is it not thisthe acquisition of knowledge, the cultivation of virtue and of

friendship, the observance of faith and truth, an unrepining submission to whatever befalls us, a life led in

PLATONISM IN THE MUSEUM. But, though the Alexandrian Museum was especially intended for the

cultivation of the Aristotelian philosophy, it must not be supposed that other systems were excluded.

Platonism was not only carried to its full development, but in the end it supplanted Peripateticism, and

through the New Academy left a permanent impress on Christianity. The philosophical method of Plato was

the inverse of that of Aristotle. Its starting point was universals, the very existence of which was a matter of

faith, and from these it descended to particulars, or details. Aristotle, on the contrary, rose from particulars to

Plato, therefore, trusted to the imagination, Aristotle to reason. The former descended from the

decomposition of a primitive idea into particulars, the latter united particulars into a general conception.

Hence the method of Plato was capable of quickly producing what seemed to be splendid, though in reality

unsubstantial results; that of Aristotle was more tardy in its operation, but much more solid. It implied

endless labor in the collection of facts, a tedious resort to experiment and observation, the application of

demonstration. The philosophy of Plato is a gorgeous castle in the air; that of Aristotle a solid structure,

An appeal to the imagination is much more alluring than the employment of reason. In the intellectual decline

of Alexandria, indolent methods were preferred to laborious observation and severe mental exercise. The

schools of NeoPlatonism were crowded with speculative mystics, such as Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MUSEUM. The Alexandrian school offers the first example of that system

which, in the hands of modern physicists, has led to such wonderful results. It rejected imagination, and made

its theories the expression of facts obtained by experiment and observation, aided by mathematical

discussion. It enforced the principle that the true method of studying Nature is by experimental interrogation.

The researches of Archimedes in specific gravity, and the works of Ptolemy on optics, resemble our present

investigations in experimental philosophy, and stand in striking contrast with the speculative vagaries of the

older writers. Laplace says that the only observation which the history of astronomy offers us, made by the

Greeks before the school of Alexandria, is that of the summer solstice of the year B.C. 432. by Meton and

Euctemon. We have, for the first time, in that school, a combined system of observations made with

instruments for the measurement of angles, and calculated by trigonometrical methods. Astronomy then took

It does not accord with the compass or the intention of this work to give a detailed account of the

contributions of the Alexandrian Museum to the stock of human knowledge. It is sufficient that the reader

should obtain a general impression of their character. For particulars, I may refer him to the sixth chapter of

EUCLIDARCHIMEDES. It has just been remarked that the Stoical philosophy doubted whether the mind

can ascertain absolute truth. While Zeno was indulging in such doubts, Euclid was preparing his great work,

destined to challenge contradiction from the whole human race. After more than twentytwo centuries it still

survives, a model of accuracy, perspicuity, and a standard of exact demonstration. This great geometer not

only wrote on other mathematical topics, such as Conic Sections and Porisms, but there are imputed to him

treatises on Harmonics and Optics, the latter subject being discussed on the hypothesis of rays issuing from

With the Alexandrian mathematicians and physicists must be classed Archimedes, though he eventually

resided in Sicily. Among his mathematical works were two books on the Sphere and Cylinder, in which he

gave the demonstration that the solid content of a sphere is twothirds that of its circumscribing cylinder. So

highly did he esteem this, that he directed the diagram to be engraved on his tombstone. He also treated of the

quadrature of the circle and of the parabola; he wrote on Conoids and Spheroids, and on the spiral that bears

his name, the genesis of which was suggested to him by his friend Conon the Alexandrian. As a

mathematician, Europe produced no equal to him for nearly two thousand years. In physical science he laid

the foundation of hydrostatics; invented a method for the determination of specific gravities; discussed the

equilibrium of floating bodies; discovered the true theory of the lever, and invented a screw, which still bears

his name, for raising the water of the Nile. To him also are to be attributed the endless screw, and a peculiar

form of burningmirror, by which, at the siege of Syracuse, it is said that he set the Roman fleet on fire.

ERATOSTHENESAPOLLONIUSHIPPARCHUS. Eratosthenes, who at one time had charge of the

library, was the author of many important works. Among them may be mentioned his determination of the

interval between the tropics, and an attempt to ascertain the size of the earth. He considered the articulation

and expansion of continents, the position of mountainchains, the action of clouds, the geological submersion

of lands, the elevation of ancient seabeds, the opening of the Dardanelles and the straits of Gibraltar, and the

relations of the Euxine Sea. He composed a complete system of the earth, in three booksphysical,

mathematical, historicalaccompanied by a map of all the parts then known. It is only of late years that the

fragments remaining of his "Chronicles of the Theban Kings" have been justly appreciated. For many

centuries they were thrown into discredit by the authority of our existing absurd theological chronology.

It is unnecessary to adduce the arguments relied upon by the Alexandrians to prove the globular form of the

earth. They had correct ideas respecting the doctrine of the sphere, its poles, axis, equator, arctic and antarctic

circles, equinoctial points, solstices, the distribution of climates, etc. I cannot do more than merely allude to

the treatises on Conic Sections and on Maxima and Minima by Apollonius, who is said to have been the first

to introduce the words ellipse and hyperbola. In like manner I must pass the astronomical observations of

Alistyllus and Timocharis. It was to those of the latter on Spica Virginis that Hipparchus was indebted for his

great discovery of the precession of the eqninoxes. Hipparchus also determined the first inequality of the

moon, the equation of the centre. He adopted the theory of epicycles and eccentrics, a geometrical conception

for the purpose of resolving the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies on the principle of circular

movement. He also undertook to make a catalogue of the stars by the method of alineations that is, by

indicating those that are in the same apparent straight line. The number of stars so catalogued was 1,080. If he

thus attempted to depict the aspect of the sky, he endeavored to do the same for the surface of the earth, by

marking the position of towns and other places by lines of latitude and longitude. He was the first to construct

THE SYNTAXIS OF PTOLEMY. In the midst of such a brilliant constellation of geometers, astronomers,

physicists, conspicuously shines forth Ptolemy, the author of the great work, "Syntaxis," "a Treatise on the

Mathematical Construction of the Heavens." It maintained its ground for nearly fifteen hundred years, and

indeed was only displaced by the immortal "Principia" of Newton. It commences with the doctrine that the

earth is globular and fixed in space, it describes the construction of a table of chords, and instruments for

observing the solstices, it deduces the obliquity of the ecliptic, it finds terrestrial latitudes by the gnomon,

describes climates, shows how ordinary may be converted into sidereal time, gives reasons for preferring the

tropical to the sidereal year, furnishes the solar theory on the principle of the sun's orbit being a simple

eccentric, explains the equation of time, advances to the discussion of the motions of the moon, treats of the

first inequality, of her eclipses, and the motion of her nodes. It then gives Ptolemy's own great

discoverythat which has made his name immortal the discovery of the moon's evection or second

inequality, reducing it to the epicyclic theory. It attempts the determination of the distances of the sun and

moon from the earthwith, however, only partial success. It considers the precession of the equinoxes, the

discovery of Hipparchus, the full period of which is twentyfive thousand years. It gives a catalogue of 1,022

stars, treats of the nature of the milkyway, and discusses in the most masterly manner the motions of the

planets. This point constitutes another of Ptolemy's claims to scientific fame. His determination of the

planetary orbits was accomplished by comparing his own observations with those of former astronomers,

INVENTION OF THE STEAMENGINE. In the Museum of Alexandria, Ctesibius invented the fireengine.

His pupil, Hero, improved it by giving it two cylinders. There, too, the first steamengine worked. This also

was the invention of Hero, and was a reaction engine, on the principle of the eolipile. The silence of the halls

of Serapis was broken by the waterclocks of Ctesibius and Apollonius, which drop by drop measured time.

When the Roman calendar had fallen into such confusion that it had become absolutely necessary to rectify it,

Julius Caesar brought Sosigenes the astronomer from Alexandria. By his advice the lunar year was abolished,

the civil year regulated entirely by the sun, and the Julian calendar introduced.

The Macedonian rulers of Egypt have been blamed for the manner in which they dealt with the religious

sentiment of their time. They prostituted it to the purpose of statecraft, finding in it a means of governing

POLICY OF THE PTOLEMIES. But doubtless they defended this policy by the experience gathered in those

great campaigns which had made the Greeks the foremost nation of the world. They had seen the

mythological conceptions of their ancestral country dwindle into fables; the wonders with which the old poets

adorned the Mediterranean had been discovered to be baseless illusions. From Olympus its divinities had

disappeared; indeed, Olympus itself had proved to be a phantom of the imagination. Hades had lost its

From the woods and grottoes and rivers of Asia Minor the local gods and goddesses had departed; even their

devotees began to doubt whether they had ever been there. If still the Syrian damsels lamented, in their

amorous ditties, the fate of Adonis, it was only as a recollection, not as a reality. Again and again had Persia

changed her national faith. For the revelation of Zoroaster she had substituted Dualism; then under new

political influences she had adopted Magianism. She had worshiped fire, and kept her altars burning on

mountaintops. She had adored the sun. When Alexander came, she was fast falling into pantheism.

On a country to which in its political extremity the indigenous gods have been found unable to give any

protection, a change of faith is impending. The venerable divinities of Egypt, to whose glory obelisks had

been raised and temples dedicated, had again and again submitted to the sword of a foreign conqueror. In the

land of the Pyramids, the Colossi, the Sphinx, the images of the gods had ceased to represent living realities.

They had ceased to be objects of faith. Others of more recent birth were needful, and Serapis confronted

Osiris. In the shops and streets of Alexandria there were thousands of Jews who had forgotten the God that

Tradition, revelation, time, all had lost their influence. The traditions of European mythology, the revelations

of Asia, the timeconsecrated dogmas of Egypt, all had passed or were fast passing away. And the Ptolemies

But the Ptolemies also recognized that there is something more durable than forms of faith, which, like the

organic forms of geological ages, once gone, are clean gone forever, and have no restoration, no return. They

recognized that within this world of transient delusions and unrealities there is a world of eternal truth.

That world is not to be discovered through the vain traditions that have brought down to us the opinions of

men who lived in the morning of civilization, nor in the dreams of mystics who thought that they were

inspired. It is to be discovered by the investigations of geometry, and by the practical interrogation of Nature.

The day will never come when any one of the propositions of Euclid will be denied; no one henceforth will

call in question the globular shape of the earth, as recognized by Eratosthenes; the world will not permit the

great physical inventions and discoveries made in Alexandria and Syracuse to be forgotten. The names of

Hipparchus, of Apollonius, of Ptolemy, of Archimedes, will be mentioned with reverence by men of every

THE MUSEUM AND MODERN SCIENCE. The Museum of Alexandria was thus the birthplace of modern

science. It is true that, long before its establishment, astronomical observations had been made in China and

Mesopotamia; the mathematics also had been cultivated with a certain degree of success in India. But in none

of these countries had investigation assumed a connected and consistent form; in none was physical

experimentation resorted to. The characteristic feature of Alexandrian, as of modern science, is, that it did not

restrict itself to observation, but relied on a practical interrogation of Nature.

monotheism.Christianity spreads over the Roman Empire. The circumstances under which it attained

imperial power make its union with Paganism a political necessity.Tertullian's description of its doctrines

and practices.Debasing effect of the policy of Constantine on it.Its alliance with the civil power.Its

incompatibility with science.Destruction of the Alexandrian Library and prohibition of

philosophy.Exposition of the Augustinian philosophy and Patristic science generally.The Scriptures

IN a political sense, Christianity is the bequest of the Roman Empire to the world.

At the epoch of the transition of Rome from the republican to the imperial form of government, all the

independent nationalities around the Mediterranean Sea had been brought under the control of that central

power. The conquest that had befallen them in succession had been by no means a disaster. The perpetual

wars they had maintained with each other came to an end; the miseries their conflicts had engendered were

Not only as a token of the conquest she had made but also as a gratification to her pride, the conquering

republic brought the gods of the vanquished peoples to Rome. With disdainful toleration, she permitted the

worship of them all. That paramount authority exercised by each divinity in his original seat disappeared at

once in the crowd of gods and goddesses among whom he had been brought. Already, as we have seen,

through geographical discoveries and philosophical criticism, faith in the religion of the old days had been

MONOTHEISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. The kings of all the conquered provinces had vanished; in their

stead one emperor had come. The gods also had disappeared. Considering the connection which in all ages

has existed between political and religious ideas, it was then not at all strange that polytheism should

manifest a tendency to pass into monotheism. Accordingly, divine honors were paid at first to the deceased

The facility with which gods were thus called into existence had a powerful moral effect. The manufacture of

a new one cast ridicule on the origin of the old Incarnation in the East and apotheosis in the West were fast

filling Olympus with divinities. In the East, gods descended from heaven, and were made incarnate in men; in

the West, men ascended from earth, and took their seat among the gods. It was not the importation of Greek

skepticism that made Rome skeptical. The excesses of religion itself sapped the foundations of faith.

Not with equal rapidity did all classes of the population adopt monotheistic views. The merchants and

lawyers and soldiers, who by the nature of their pursuits are more familiar with the vicissitudes of life, and

have larger intellectual views, were the first to be affected, the land laborers and farmers the last.

THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY When the empire in a military and political sense had reached its

culmination, in a religious and social aspect it had attained its height of immorality. It had become thoroughly

epicurean; its maxim was, that life should be made a feast, that virtue is only the seasoning of pleasure, and

temperance the means of prolonging it. Diningrooms glittering with gold and incrusted with gems, slaves in

superb apparel, the fascinations of female society where all the women were dissolute, magnificent baths,

theatres, gladiators, such were the objects of Roman desire. The conquerors of the world had discovered that

the only thing worth worshiping is Force. By it all things might be secured, all that toil and trade had

laboriously obtained. The confiscation of goods and lands, the taxation of provinces, were the reward of

successful warfare; and the emperor was the symbol of force. There was a social splendor, but it was the

In one of the Eastern provinces, Syria, some persons in very humble life had associated themselves together

for benevolent and religious purposes. The doctrines they held were in harmony with that sentiment of

universal brotherhood arising from the coalescence of the conquered kingdoms. They were doctrines

The Jewish people at that time entertained a belief, founded on old traditions, that a deliverer would arise

among them, who would restore them to their ancient splendor. The disciples of Jesus regarded him as this

longexpected Messiah. But the priesthood, believing that the doctrines he taught were prejudicial to their

interests, denounced him to the Roman governor, who, to satisfy their clamors, reluctantly delivered him over

His doctrines of benevolence and human brotherhood outlasted that event. The disciples, instead of

scattering, organized. They associated themselves on a principle of communism, each throwing into the

common stock whatever property he possessed, and all his gains. The widows and orphans of the community

were thus supported, the poor and the sick sustained. From this germ was developed a new, and as the events

proved, allpowerful societythe Church; new, for nothing of the kind had existed in antiquity; powerful,

for the local churches, at first isolated, soon began to confederate for their common interest. Through this

As we have said, the military domination of Rome had brought about universal peace, and had generated a

sentiment of brotherhood among the vanquished nations. Things were, therefore, propitious for the rapid

diffusion of the newlyestablishedthe Christian principle throughout the empire. It spread from Syria

through all Asia Minor, and successively reached Cyprus, Greece, Italy, eventually extending westward as far

Its propagation was hastened by missionaries who made it known in all directions. None of the ancient

Political conditions determined the boundaries of the new religion. Its limits were eventually those of the

Roman Empire; Rome, doubtfully the place of death of Peter, not Jerusalem, indisputably the place of the

death of our Savior, became the religious capital. It was better to have possession of the imperial seven hilled

IT GATHERS POLITICAL POWER. For many years Christianity manifested itself as a system enjoining

three thingstoward God veneration, in personal life purity, in social life benevolence. In its early days of

feebleness it made proselytes only by persuasion, but, as it increased in numbers and influence, it began to

exhibit political tendencies, a disposition to form a government within the government, an empire within the

empire. These tendencies it has never since lost. They are, in truth, the logical result of its development. The

Roman emperors, discovering that it was absolutely incompatible with the imperial system, tried to put it

down by force. This was in accordance with the spirit of their military maxims, which had no other means but

In the winter A.D. 302'3, the Christian soldiers in some of the legions refused to join in the timehonored

solemnities for propitiating the gods. The mutiny spread so quickly, the emergency became so pressing, that

the Emperor Diocletian was compelled to hold a council for the purpose of determining what should be done.

The difficulty of the position may perhaps be appreciated when it is understood that the wife and the daughter

of Diocletian himself were Christians. He was a man of great capacity and large political views; he

recognized in the opposition that must be made to the new party a political necessity, yet he expressly

enjoined that there should be no bloodshed. But who can control an infuriated civil commotion? The church

of Nicomedia was razed to the ground; in retaliation the imperial palace was set on fire, an edict was openly

insulted and torn down. The Christian officers in the army were cashiered; in all directions, martyrdoms and

massacres were taking place. So resistless was the march of events, that not even the emperor himself could

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPEROR. It had now become evident that the Christians constituted a powerful

party in the state, animated with indignation at the atrocities they had suffered, and determined to endure

them no longer. After the abdication of Diocletian (A.D. 305), Constantine, one of the competitors for the

purple, perceiving the advantages that would accrue to him from such a policy, put himself forth as the head

of the Christian party. This gave him, in every part of the empire, men and women ready to encounter fire and

sword in his behalf; it gave him unwavering adherents in every legion of the armies. In a decisive battle, near

the Milvian bridge, victory crowned his schemes. The death of Maximin, and subsequently that of Licinius,

removed all obstacles. He ascended the throne of the Caesarsthe first Christian emperor.

Place, profit, powerthese were in view of whoever now joined the conquering sect. Crowds of worldly

persons, who cared nothing about its religious ideas, became its warmest supporters. Pagans at heart, their

influence was soon manifested in the paganization of Christianity that forthwith ensued. The emperor, no

better than they, did nothing to check their proceedings. But he did not personally conform to the ceremonial

TERTULLIAN'S EXPOSITION OF CHRISTIANITY. That we may clearly appreciate the modifications

now impressed on Christianitymodifications which eventually brought it in conflict with sciencewe

must have, as a means of comparison, a statement of what it was in its purer days. Such, fortunately, we find

in the "Apology or Defense of the Christians against the Accusations of the Gentiles," written by Tertullian,

at Rome, during the persecution of Severus. He addressed it, not to the emperor, but to the magistrates who

sat in judgment on the accused. It is a solemn and most earnest expostulation, setting forth all that could be

said in explanation of the subject, a representation of the belief and cause of the Christians made in the

imperial city in the face of the whole world, not a querulous or passionate ecclesiastical appeal, but a grave

historical document. It has ever been looked upon as one of the ablest of the early Christian works. Its date is

With no inconsiderable skill Tertullian opens his argument. He tells the magistrates that Christianity is a

stranger upon earth, and that she expects to meet with enemies in a country which is not her own. She only

asks that she may not be condemned unheard, and that Roman magistrates will permit her to defend herself;

that the laws of the empire will gather lustre, if judgment be passed upon her after she has been tried but not

if she is sentenced without a hearing of her cause; that it is unjust to hate a thing of which we are ignorant,

even though it may be a thing worthy of hate; that the laws of Rome deal with actions, not with mere names;

but that, notwithstanding this, persons have been punished because they were called Christians, and that

He then advances to an exposition of the origin, the nature, and the effects of Christianity, stating that it is

founded on the Hebrew Scriptures, which are the most venerable of all books. He says to the magistrates:

"The books of Moses, in which God has inclosed, as in a treasure, all the religion of the Jews, and

consequently all the Christian religion, reach far beyond the oldest you have, even beyond all your public

monuments, the establishment of your state, the foundation of many great citiesall that is most advanced

by you in all ages of history, and memory of times; the invention of letters, which are the interpreters of

sciences and the guardians of all excellent things. I think I may say morebeyond your gods, your temples,

your oracles and sacrifices. The author of those books lived a thousand years before the siege of Troy, and

more than fifteen hundred before Homer." Time is the ally of truth, and wise men believe nothing but what is

certain, and what has been verified by time. The principal authority of these Scriptures is derived from their

venerable antiquity. The most learned of the Ptolemies, who was surnamed Philadelphus, an accomplished

prince, by the advice of Demetrius Phalareus, obtained a copy of these holy books. It may be found at this

day in his library. The divinity of these Scriptures is proved by this, that all that is done in our days may be

found predicted in them; they contain all that has since passed in the view of men.

Is not the accomplishment of a prophecy a testimony to its truth? Seeing that events which are past have

vindicated these prophecies, shall we be blamed for trusting them in events that are to come? Now, as we

believe things that have been prophesied and have come to pass, so we believe things that have been told us,

but not yet come to pass, because they have all been foretold by the same Scriptures, as well those that are

These Holy Scriptures teach us that there is one God, who made the world out of nothing, who, though daily

seen, is invisible; his infiniteness is known only to himself; his immensity conceals, but at the same time

discovers him. He has ordained for men, according to their lives, rewards and punishments; he will raise all

the dead that have ever lived from the creation of the world, will command them to reassume their bodies,

and thereupon adjudge them to felicity that has so end, or to eternal flames. The fires of hell are those hidden

flames which the earth shuts up in her bosom. He has in past times sent into the world preachers or prophets.

The prophets of those old times were Jews; they addressed their oracles, for such they were, to the Jews, who

have stored them up in the Scriptures. On them, as has been said, Christianity is founded, though the

Christian differs in his ceremonies from the Jew. We are accused of worshiping a man, and not the God of the

Jews. Not so. The honor we bear to Christ does not derogate from the honor we bear to God.

On account of the merit of these ancient patriarchs, the Jews were the only beloved people of God; he

delighted to be in communication with them by his own mouth. By him they were raised to admirable

greatness. But with perversity they wickedly ceased to regard him; they changed his laws into a profane

worship. He warned them that he would take to himself servants more faithful than they, and, for their crime,

punished them by driving them forth from their country. They are now spread all over the world; they wander

in all parts; they cannot enjoy the air they breathed at their birth; they have neither man nor God for their

king. As he threatened them, so he has done. He has taken, in all nations and countries of the earth, people

more faithful than they. Through his prophets he had declared that these should have greater favors, and that

a Messiah should come, to publish a new law among them. This Messiah was Jesus, who is also God. For

God may be derived from God, as the light of a candle may be derived from the light of another candle. God

and his Son are the selfsame Goda light is the same light as that from which it was taken.

The Scriptures make known two comings of the Son of God; the first in humility, the second at the day of

judgment, in power. The Jews might have known all this from the prophets, but their sins have so blinded

them that they did not recognize him at his first coming, and are still vainly expecting him. They believed

that all the miracles wrought by him were the work of magic. The doctors of the law and the chief priests

were envious of him; they denounced him to Pilate. He was crucified, died, was buried, and after three days

rose again. For forty days he remained among his disciples. Then he was environed in a cloud, and rose up to

heavena truth far more certain than any human testimonies touching the ascension of Romulus or of any

Tertullian then describes the origin and nature of devils, who, under Satan, their prince, produce diseases,

irregularities of the air, plagues, and the blighting of the blossoms of the earth, who seduce men to offer

sacrifices, that they may have the blood of the victims, which is their food. They are as nimble as the birds,

and hence know every thing that is passing upon earth; they live in the air, and hence can spy what is going

on in heaven; for this reason they can impose on men reigned prophecies, and deliver oracles. Thus they

announced in Rome that a victory would be obtained over King Perseus, when in truth they knew that the

battle was already won. They falsely cure diseases; for, taking possession of the body of a man, they produce

in him a distemper, and then ordaining some remedy to he used, they cease to afflict him, and men think that

Though Christians deny that the emperor is a god, they nevertheless pray for his prosperity, because the

general dissolution that threatens the universe, the conflagration of the world, is retarded so long as the

glorious majesty of the triumphant Roman Empire shall last. They desire not to be present at the subversion

of all Nature. They acknowledge only one republic, but it is the whole world; they constitute one body,

worship one God, and all look forward to eternal happiness. Not only do they pray for the emperor and the

magistrates, but also for peace. They read the Scriptures to nourish their faith, lift up their hope, and

strengthen the confidence they have in God. They assemble to exhort one another; they remove sinners from

their societies; they have bishops who preside over them, approved by the suffrages of those whom they are

to conduct. At the end of each month every one contributes if he will, but no one is constrained to give; the

money gathered in this manner is the pledge of piety; it is not consumed in eating and drinking, but in feeding

the poor, and burying them, in comforting children that are destitute of parents and goods, in helping old men

who have spent the best of their days in the service of the faithful, in assisting those who have lost by

shipwreck what they had, and those who are condemned to the mines, or have been banished to islands, or

shut up in prisons, because they professed the religion of the true God. There is but one thing that Christians

have not in common, and that one thing is their wives. They do not feast as if they should die tomorrow, nor

build as if they should never die. The objects of their life are innocence, justice, patience, temperance,

To this noble exposition of Christian belief and life in his day, Tertullian does not hesitate to add an ominous

warning to the magistrates he is addressing ominous, for it was a forecast of a great event soon to come to

pass: "Our origin is but recent, yet already we fill all that your power acknowledgescities, fortresses,

islands, provinces, the assemblies of the people, the wards of Rome, the palace, the senate, the public places,

and especially the armies. We have left you nothing but your temples. Reflect what wars we are able to

undertake! With what promptitude might we not arm ourselves were we not restrained by our religion, which

Before he closes his defense, Tertullian renews an assertion which, carried into practice, as it subsequently

was, affected the intellectual development of all Europe. He declares that the Holy Scriptures are a treasure

from which all the true wisdom in the world has been drawn; that every philosopher and every poet is

indebted to them. He labors to show that they are the standard and measure of all truth, and that whatever is

From Tertullian's able work we see what Christianity was while it was suffering persecution and struggling

for existence. We have now to see what it became when in possession of imperial power. Great is the

difference between Christianity under Severus and Christianity after Constantine. Many of the doctrines

PAGANIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY. Two causes led to the amalgamation of Christianity with paganism:

1. The political necessities of the new dynasty; 2. The policy adopted by the new religion to insure its spread.

1. Though the Christian party had proved itself sufficiently strong to give a master to the empire, it was never

sufficiently strong to destroy its antagonist, paganism. The issue of the struggle between them was an

amalgamation of the principles of both. In this, Christianity differed from Mohammedanism, which

absolutely annihilated its antagonist, and spread its own doctrines without adulteration.

Constantine continually showed by his acts that he felt he must be the impartial sovereign of all his people,

not merely the representative of a successful faction. Hence, if he built Christian churches, he also restored

pagan temples; if he listened to the clergy, he also consulted the haruspices; if he summoned the Council of

Nicea, he also honored the statue of Fortune; if he accepted the rite of baptism, he also struck a medal bearing

his title of "God." His statue, on the top of the great porphyry pillar at Constantinople, consisted of an ancient

image of Apollo, whose features were replaced by those of the emperor, and its head surrounded by the nails

feigned to have been used at the crucifixion of Christ, arranged so as to form a crown of glory.

Feeling that there must be concessions to the defeated pagan party, in accordance with its ideas, he looked

with favor on the idolatrous movements of his court. In fact, the leaders of these movements were persons of

CHRISTIANITY UNDER CONSTANTINE. 2. To the emperora mere worldlinga man without any

religious convictions, doubtless it appeared best for himself, best for the empire, and best for the contending

parties, Christian and pagan, to promote their union or amalgamation as much as possible. Even sincere

Christians do not seem to have been averse to this; perhaps they believed that the new doctrines would

diffuse most thoroughly by incorporating in themselves ideas borrowed from the old, that Truth would assert

her self in the end, and the impurity be cast off. In accomplishing this amalgamation, Helena, the

empressmother, aided by the court ladies, led the way. For her gratification there were discovered, in a

cavern at Jerusalem, wherein they had lain buried for more than three centuries, the Savior's cross, and those

of the two thieves, the inscription, and the nails that had been used. They were identified by miracle. A true

relicworship set in. The superstition of the old Greek times reappeared; the times when the tools with which

the Trojan horse was made might still be seen at Metapontum, the sceptre of Pelops at Chaeroneia, the spear

of Achilles at Phaselis, the sword of Memnon at Nicomedia, when the Tegeates could show the hide of the

Calydonian boar and very many cities boasted their possession of the true palladium of Troy; when there

were statues of Minerva that could brandish spears, paintings that could blush, images that could sweat, and

As years passed on, the faith described by Tertullian was transmuted into one more fashionable and more

debased. It was incorporated with the old Greek mythology. Olympus was restored, but the divinities passed

under other names. The more powerful provinces insisted on the adoption of their timehonored conceptions.

Views of the Trinity, in accordance with Egyptian traditions, were established. Not only was the adoration of

Isis under a new name restored, but even her image, standing on the crescent moon, reappeared. The

wellknown effigy of that goddess, with the infant Horus in her arms, has descended to our days in the

beautiful, artistic creations of the Madonna and Child. Such restorations of old conceptions under novel forms

were everywhere received with delight. When it was announced to the Ephesians that the Council of that

place, headed by Cyril, had decreed that the Virgin should be called "the Mother of God," with tears of joy

they embraced the knees of their bishop; it was the old instinct peeping out; their ancestors would have done

This attempt to conciliate worldly converts, by adopting their ideas and practices, did not pass without

remonstrance from those whose intelligence discerned the motive. "You have," says Faustus to Augustine,

"substituted your agapae for the sacrifices of the pagans; for their idols your martyrs, whom you serve with

the very same honors. You appease the shades of the dead with wine and feasts; you celebrate the solemn

festivities of the Gentiles, their calends, and their solstices; and, as to their manners, those you have retained

without any alteration. Nothing distinguishes you from the pagans, except that you hold your assemblies

apart from them." Pagan observances were everywhere introduced. At weddings it was the custom to sing

INTRODUCTION OF ROMAN RITES. Let us pause here a moment, and see, in anticipation, to what a

depth of intellectual degradation this policy of paganization eventually led. Heathen rites were adopted, a

pompous and splendid ritual, gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras, waxtapers, processional services, lustrations,

gold and silver vases, were introduced. The Roman lituus, the chief ensign of the augurs, became the crozier.

Churches were built over the tombs of martyrs, and consecrated with rites borrowed from the ancient laws of

the Roman pontiffs. Festivals and commemorations of martyrs multiplied with the numberless fictitious

discoveries of their remains. Fasting became the grand means of repelling the devil and appeasing God;

celibacy the greatest of the virtues. Pilgrimages. were made to Palestine and the tombs of the martyrs.

Quantities of dust and earth were brought from the Holy Land and sold at enormous prices, as antidotes

against devils. The virtues of consecrated water were upheld. Images and relics were introduced into the

churches, and worshiped after the fashion of the heathen gods. It was given out that prodigies and miracles

were to be seen in certain places, as in the heathen times. The happy souls of departed Christians were

invoked; it was believed that they were wandering about the world, or haunting their graves. There was a

multiplication of temples, altars, and penitential garments. The festival of the purification of the Virgin was

invented to remove the uneasiness of heathen converts on account of the loss of their Lupercalia, or feasts of

Pan. The worship of images, of fragments of the cross, or bones, nails, and other relics, a true fetich worship,

was cultivated. Two arguments were relied on for the authenticity of these objectsthe authority of the

Church, and the working of miracles. Even the wornout clothing of the saints and the earth of their graves

were venerated. From Palestine were brought what were affirmed to be the skeletons of St. Mark and St.

James, and other ancient worthies. The apotheosis of the old Roman times was replaced by canonization;

tutelary saints succeed to local mythological divinities. Then came the mystery of transubstantiation, or the

conversion of bread and wine by the priest into the flesh and blood of Christ. As centuries passed, the

paganization became more and more complete. Festivals sacred to the memory of the lance with which the

Savior's side was pierced, the nails that fastened him to the cross, and the crown of thorns, were instituted.

Though there were several abbeys that possessed this last peerless relic, no one dared to say that it was

We may read with advantage the remarks made by Bishop Newton on this paganization of Christianity. He

asks: "Is not the worship of saints and angels now in all respects the same that the worship of demons was in

former times? The name only is different, the thing is identically the same, . . . the deified men of the

Christians are substituted for the deified men of the heathens. The promoters of this worship were sensible

that it was the same, and that the one succeeded to the other; and, as the worship is the same, so likewise it is

performed with the same ceremonies. The burning of incense or perfumes on several altars at one and the

same time; the sprinkling of holy water, or a mixture of salt and common water, at going into and coming out

of places of public worship; the lighting up of a great number of lamps and waxcandles in broad daylight

before altars and statues of these deities; the hanging up of votive offerings and rich presents as attestations of

so many miraculous cures and deliverances from diseases and dangers; the canonization or deification of

deceased worthies; the assigning of distinct provinces or prefectures to departed heroes and saints; the

worshiping and adoring of the dead in their sepulchres, shrines, and relics; the consecrating and bowing down

to images; the attributing of miraculous powers and virtues to idols; the setting up of little oratories, altars,

and statues in the streets and highways, and on the tops of mountains; the carrying of images and relics in

pompous procession, with numerous lights and with music and singing; flagellations at solemn seasons under

the notion of penance; a great variety of religious orders and fraternities of priests; the shaving of priests, or

the tonsure as it is called, on the crown of their heads; the imposing of celibacy and vows of chastity on the

religious of both sexesall these and many more rites and ceremonies are equally parts of pagan and popish

superstition. Nay, the very same temples, the very same images, which were once consecrated to Jupiter and

the other demons, are now consecrated to the Virgin Mary and the other saints. The very same rites and

inscriptions are ascribed to both, the very same prodigies and miracles are related of these as of those. In

short, almost the whole of paganism is converted and applied to popery; the one is manifestly formed upon

the same plan and principles as the other; so that there is not only a conformity, but even a uniformity, in the

DEBASEMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. Thus far Bishop Newton; but to return to the times of Constantine:

though these concessions to old and popular ideas were permitted and even encouraged, the dominant

religious party never for a moment hesitated to enforce its decisions by the aid of the civil power an aid

which was freely given. Constantine thus carried into effect the acts of the Council of Nicea. In the affair of

Arius, he even ordered that whoever should find a book of that heretic, and not burn it, should be put to death.

In like manner Nestor was by Theodosius the Younger banished to an Egyptian oasis.

The pagan party included many of the old aristocratic families of the empire; it counted among its adherents

all the disciples of the old philosophical schools. It looked down on its antagonist with contempt. It asserted

that knowledge is to be obtained only by the laborious exercise of human observation and human reason.

The Christian party asserted that all knowledge is to be found in the Scriptures and in the traditions of the

Church; that, in the written revelation, God had not only given a criterion of truth, but had furnished us all

that he intended us to know. The Scriptures, therefore, contain the sum, the end of all knowledge. The clergy,

Thus came into prominence what were termed sacred and profane knowledge; thus came into presence of

each other two opposing parties, one relying on human reason as its guide, the other on revelation. Paganism

leaned for support on the learning of its philosophers, Christianity on the inspiration of its Fathers

The Church thus set herself forth as the depository and arbiter of knowledge; she was ever ready to resort to

the civil power to compel obedience to her decisions. She thus took a course which determined her whole

future career: she became a stumblingblock in the intellectual advancement of Europe for more than a

The reign of Constantine marks the epoch of the transformation of Christianity from a religion into a political

system; and though, in one sense, that system was degraded into an idolatry, in another it had risen into a

development of the old Greek mythology. The maxim holds good in the social as well as in the mechanical

world, that, when two bodies strike, the form of both is changed. Paganism was modified by Christianity;

THE TRINITARIAN DISPUTE. In the Trinitarian controversy, which first broke out in EgyptEgypt, the

land of Trinitiesthe chief point in discussion was to define the position of "the Son." There lived in

Alexandria a presbyter of the name of Arius, a disappointed candidate for the office of bishop. He took the

ground that there was a time when, from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at which

he commenced to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be

older than his son. But this assertion evidently denied the coeternity of the three persons of the Trinity; it

suggested a subordination or inequality among them, and indeed implied a time when the Trinity did not

exist. Hereupon, the bishop, who had been the successful competitor against Arius, displayed his rhetorical

powers in public debates on the question, and, the strife spreading, the Jews and pagans, who formed a very

large portion of the population of Alexandria, amused themselves with theatrical representations of the

contest on the stagethe point of their burlesques being the equality of age of the Father and his Son.

Such was the violence the controversy at length assumed, that the matter had to be referred to the emperor. At

first he looked upon the dispute as altogether frivolous, and perhaps in truth inclined to the assertion of Arius,

that in the very nature of the thing a father must be older than his son. So great, however, was the pressure

laid upon him, that he was eventually compelled to summon the Council of Nicea, which, to dispose of the

conflict, set forth a formulary or creed, and attached to it this anathema: "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic

Church anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that, before he

was begotten, he was not, and that he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is

created, or changeable, or alterable." Constantine at once enforced the decision of the council by the civil

A few years subsequently the Emperor Theodosius prohibited sacrifices, made the inspection of the entrails

of animals a capital offense, and forbade any one entering a temple. He instituted Inquisitors of Faith, and

ordained that all who did not accord with the belief of Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, and Peter, the Bishop

of Alexandria, should be driven into exile, and deprived of civil rights. Those who presumed to celebrate

Easter on the same day as the Jews, he condemned to death. The Greek language was now ceasing to be

At this time the bishopric of Alexandria was held by one Theophilus. An ancient temple of Osiris having

been given to the Christians of the city for the site of a church, it happened that, in digging the foundation for

the new edifice, the obscene symbols of the former worship chanced to be found. These, with more zeal than

modesty, Theophilus exhibited in the marketplace to public derision. With less forbearance than the

Christian party showed when it was insulted in the theatre during the Trinitarian dispute, the pagans resorted

to violence, and a riot ensued. They held the Serapion as their headquarters. Such were the disorder and

bloodshed that the emperor had to interfere. He dispatched a rescript to Alexandria, enjoining the bishop,

Theophilus, to destroy the Serapion; and the great library, which had been collected by the Ptolemies, and

THE MURDER OF HYPATIA. The bishopric thus held by Theophilus was in due time occupied by his

nephew St. Cyril, who had commended himself to the approval of the Alexandrian congregations as a

successful and fashionable preacher. It was he who had so much to do with the introduction of the worship of

the Virgin Mary. His hold upon the audiences of the giddy city was, however, much weakened by Hypatia,

the daughter of Theon, the mathematician, who not only distinguished herself by her expositions of the

doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, but also by her comments on the writings of Apollonius and other geometers.

Each day before her academy stood a long train of chariots; her lectureroom was crowded with the wealth

and fashion of Alexandria. They came to listen to her discourses on those questions which man in all ages has

asked, but which never yet have been answered: "What am I? Where am I? What can I know?"

Hypatia and Cyril! Philosophy and bigotry. They cannot exist together. So Cyril felt, and on that feeling he

acted. As Hypatia repaired to her academy, she was assaulted by Cyril's moba mob of many monks.

Stripped naked in the street, she was dragged into a church, and there killed by the club of Peter the Reader.

The corpse was cut to pieces, the flesh was scraped from the bones with shells, and the remnants cast into a

fire. For this frightful crime Cyril was never called to account. It seemed to be admitted that the end

So ended Greek philosophy in Alexandria, so came to an untimely close the learning that the Ptolemies had

done so much to promote. The "Daughter Library," that of the Serapion, had been dispersed. The fate of

Hypatia was a warning to all who would cultivate profane knowledge. Henceforth there was to be no freedom

for human thought. Every one must think as the ecclesiastical authority ordered him, A.D. 414. In Athens

itself philosophy awaited its doom. Justinian at length prohibited its teaching, and caused all its schools in

PELAGIUS. While these events were transpiring in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, the spirit

that had produced them was displaying itself in the West. A British monk, who had assumed the name of

Pelagius, passed through Western Europe and Northern Africa, teaching that death was not introduced into

the world by the sin of Adam; that on the contrary he was necessarily and by nature mortal, and had he not

sinned he would nevertheless have died; that the consequences of his sins were confined to himself, and did

not affect his posterity. From these premises Pelagius drew certain important theological conclusions.

At Rome, Pelagius had been received with favor; at Carthage, at the instigation of St. Augustine, he was

denounced. By a synod, held at Diospolis, he was acquitted of heresy, but, on referring the matter to the

Bishop of Rome, Innocent I., he was, on the contrary, condemned. It happened that at this moment Innocent

died, and his successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgment and declared the opinions of Pelagius to be

orthodox. These contradictory decisions are still often referred to by the opponents of papal infallibility.

Things were in this state of confusion, when the wily African bishops, through the influence of Count

Valerius, procured from the emperor an edict denouncing Pelagins as a heretic; he and his accomplices were

condemned to exile and the forfeiture of their goods. To affirm that death was in the world before the fall of

CONDEMNATION OF PELAGIUS. It is very instructive to consider the principles on which this strange

decision was founded. Since the question was purely philosophical, one might suppose that it would have

been discussed on natural principles; instead of that, theological considerations alone were adduced. The

attentive reader will have remarked, in Tertullian's statement of the principles of Christianity, a complete

absence of the doctrines of original sin, total depravity, predestination, grace, and atonement. The intention of

Christianity, as set forth by him, has nothing in common with the plan of salvation upheld two centuries

subsequently. It is to St. Augustine, a Carthaginian, that we are indebted for the precision of our views on

In deciding whether death had been in the world before the fall of Adam, or whether it was the penalty

inflicted on the world for his sin, the course taken was to ascertain whether the views of Pelagius were

accordant or discordant not with Nature but with the theological doctrines of St. Augustine. And the result

has been such as might be expected. The doctrine declared to be orthodox by ecclesiastical authority is

overthrown by the unquestionable discoveries of modern science. Long before a human being had appeared

upon earth, millions of individualsnay, more, thousands of species and even generahad died; those

which remain with us are an insignificant fraction of the vast hosts that have passed away.

A consequence of great importance issued from the decision of the Pelagian controversy. The book of

Genesis had been made the basis of Christianity. If, in a theological point of view, to its account of the sin in

the garden of Eden, and the transgression and punishment of Adam, so much weight had been attached, it

also in a philosophical point of view became the grand authority of Patristic science. Astronomy, geology,

geography, anthropology, chronology, and indeed all the various departments of human knowledge, were

ST. AUGUSTINE. As the doctrines of St. Augustine have had the effect of thus placing theology in

antagonism with science, it may be interesting to examine briefly some of the more purely philosophical

views of that great man. For this purpose, we may appropriately select portions of his study of the first

chapter of Genesis, as contained in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth books of his "Confessions."

These consist of philosophical discussions, largely interspersed with rhapsodies. He prays that God will give

him to understand the Scriptures, and will open their meaning to him; he declares that in them there is

The face of creation testifies that there has been a Creator; but at once arises the question, "How and when

did he make heaven and earth? They could not have been made IN heaven and earth, the world could not

have been made IN the world, nor could they have been made when there was nothing to make them of." The

solution of this fundamental inquiry St. Augustine finds in saying, "Thou spakest, and they were made."

But the difficulty does not end here. St. Augustine goes on to remark that the syllables thus uttered by God

came forth in succession, and there must have been some created thing to express the words. This created

thing must, therefore, have existed before heaven and earth, and yet there could have been no corporeal thing

before heaven and earth. It must have been a creature, because the words passed away and came to an end but

Moreover, it is plain that the words thus spoken could not have been spoken successively, but

simultaneously, else there would have been time and change succession in its nature implying time;

whereas there was then nothing but eternity and immortality. God knows and says eternally what takes place

CRITICISM OF ST. AUGUSTINE. St. Augustine then defines, not without much mysticism, what is meant

by the opening words of Genesis: "In the beginning." He is guided to his conclusion by another scriptural

passage: "How wonderful are thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast thou made them all." This "wisdom" is "the

"But," he adds, "some one may ask, 'What was God doing before he made the heaven and the earth? for, if at

any particular moment he began to employ himself, that means time, not eternity. In eternity nothing

transpiresthe whole is present.' " In answering this question, he cannot forbear one of those touches of

rhetoric for which he was so celebrated: "I will not answer this question by saying that he was preparing hell

for priers into his mysteries. I say that, before God made heaven and earth, he did not make any thing, for no

creature could be made before any creature was made. Time itself is a creature, and hence it could not

"What, then, is time? The past is not, the future is not, the presentwho can tell what it is, unless it be that

which has no duration between two nonentities? There is no such thing as 'a long time,' or 'a short time,' for

there are no such things as the past and the future. They have no existence, except in the soul."

The style in which St. Augustine conveyed his ideas is that of a rhapsodical conversation with God. His

works are an incoherent dream. That the reader may appreciate this remark, I might copy almost at random

"This then, is what I conceive, O my God, when I hear thy Scripture saying, In the beginning God made

heaven and earth: and the earth was invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep, and not

mentioning what day thou createdst them; this is what I conceive, that because of the heaven of

heavensthat intellectual heaven, whose intelligences know all at once, not in part, not darkly, not through a

glass, but as a whole, in manifestation, face to face; not this thing now, and that thing anon; but (as I said)

know all at once, without any succession of times; and because of the earth, invisible and without form,

without any succession of times, which succession presents 'this thing now, that thing anon;' because, where

there is no form, there is no distinction of things; it is, then, on account of these two, a primitive formed, and

a primitive formless; the one, heaven, but the heaven of heavens; the other, earth, but the earth movable and

without form; because of these two do I conceive, did thy Scripture say without mention of days, In the

beginning God created the heaven and the earth. For, forthwith it subjoined what earth it spake of; and also in

that the firmament is recorded to be created the second day, and called heaven, it conveys to us of which

"Wondrous depth of thy words! whose surface behold! is before us, inviting to little ones; yet are they a

wondrous depth, O my God, a wondrous depth! It is awful to look therein; an awfulness of honor, and a

trembling of love. The enemies thereof I hate vehemently; O that thou wouldst slay them with thy twoedged

sword, that they might no longer be enemies to it: for so do I love to have them slain unto themselves, that

As an example of the hermeneutical manner in which St. Augustine unfolded the concealed facts of the

Scriptures, I may cite the following from the thirteenth book of the "Confessions;" his object is to show that

the doctrine of the Trinity is contained in the Mosaic narrative of the creation:

"Lo, now the Trinity appears unto me in a glass darkly, which is thou my God, because thou, O Father, in him

who is the beginning of our wisdom, which is thy wisdom, born of thyself, equal unto thee and coeternal, that

is, in thy Son, createdst heaven and earth. Much now have we said of the heaven of heavens, and of the earth

invisible and without form, and of the darksome deep, in reference to the wandering instability of its spiritual

deformity, unless it had been converted unto him, from whom it had its then degree of life, and by his

enlightening became a beauteous life, and the heaven of that heaven, which was afterward set between water

and water. And under the name of God, I now held the Father, who made these things; and under the name of

the beginning, the Son, in whom he made these things; and believing, as I did, my God as the Trinity, I

searched further in his holy words, and lo! thy Spirit moved upon the waters. Behold the Trinity, my

That I might convey to my reader a just impression of the character of St. Augustine's philosophical writings,

I have, in the two quotations here given, substituted for my own translation that of the Rev. Dr. Pusey, as

contained in Vol. I. of the "Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church," published at Oxford, 1840.

Considering the eminent authority which has been attributed to the writings of St. Augustine by the religious

world for nearly fifteen centuries, it is proper to speak of them with respect. And indeed it is not necessary to

do otherwise. The paragraphs here quoted criticise themselves. No one did more than this Father to bring

science and religion into antagonism; it was mainly he who diverted the Bible from its true office a guide

to purity of lifeand placed it in the perilous position of being the arbiter of human knowledge, an

audacious tyranny over the mind of man. The example once set, there was no want of followers; the works of

the great Greek philosophers were stigmatized as profane; the transcendently glorious achievements of the

Museum of Alexandria were hidden from sight by a cloud of ignorance, mysticism, and unintelligible jargon,

out of which there too often flashed the destroying lightnings of ecclesiastical vengeance.

A divine revelation of science admits of no improvement, no change, no advance. It discourages as needless,

and indeed as presumptuous, all new discovery, considering it as an unlawful prying into things which it was

What, then, is that sacred, that revealed science, declared by the Fathers to be the sum of all knowledge?

It likened all phenomena, natural and spiritual, to human acts. It saw in the Almighty, the Eternal, only a

THE PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY. As to the earth, it affirmed that it is a flat surface, over which the sky is

spread like a dome, or, as St. Augustine tells us, is stretched like a skin. In this the sun and moon and stars

move, so that they may give light by day and by night to man. The earth was made of matter created by God

out of nothing, and, with all the tribes of animals and plants inhabiting it, was finished in six days. Above the

sky or firmament is heaven; in the dark and fiery space beneath the earth is hell. The earth is the central and

most important body of the universe, all other things being intended for and subservient to it.

As to man, he was made out of the dust of the earth. At first he was alone, but subsequently woman was

formed from one of his ribs. He is the greatest and choicest of the works of God. He was placed in a paradise

near the banks of the Euphrates, and was very wise and very pure; but, having tasted of the forbidden fruit,

and thereby broken the commandment given to him, he was condemned to labor and to death.

The descendants of the first man, undeterred by his punishment, pursued such a career of wickedness that it

became necessary to destroy them. A deluge, therefore, flooded the face of the earth, and rose over the tops of

the mountains. Having accomplished its purpose, the water was dried up by a wind.

From this catastrophe Noah and his three sons, with their wives, were saved in an ark. Of these sons, Shem

remained in Asia and repeopled it. Ham peopled Africa; Japhet, Europe. As the Fathers were not acquainted

Let us listen to what some of these authorities say in support of their assertions. Thus Lactantius, referring to

the heretical doctrine of the globular form of the earth, remarks: "Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to

believe that the crops and the trees on the other side of the earth hang downward, and that men have their feet

higher than their heads? If you ask them how they defend these monstrosities, how things do not fall away

from the earth on that side, they reply that the nature of things is such that heavy bodies tend toward the

centre, like the spokes of a wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the centre to the

heavens on all sides. Now, I am really at a loss what to say of those who, when they have once gone wrong,

steadily persevere in their folly, and defend one absurd opinion by another." On the question of the antipodes,

St. Augustine asserts that "it is impossible there should be inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth, since

no such race is recorded by Scripture among the descendants of Adam." Perhaps, however, the most

unanswerable argument against the sphericity of the earth was this, that "in the day of judgment, men on the

It is unnecessary for me to say any thing respecting the introduction of death into the world, the continual

interventions of spiritual agencies in the course of events, the offices of angels and devils, the expected

conflagration of the earth, the tower of Babel, the confusion of tongues, the dispersion of mankind, the

interpretation of natural phenomena, as eclipses, the rainbow, etc. Above all, I abstain from commenting on

the Patristic conceptions of the Almighty; they are too anthropomorphic, and wanting in sublimity.

Perhaps, however, I may quote from Cosmas Indicopleustes the views that were entertained in the sixth

century. He wrote a work entitled "Christian Topography," the chief intent of which was to confute the

heretical opinion of the globular form of the earth, and the pagan assertion that there is a temperate zone on

the southern side of the torrid. He affirms that, according to the true orthodox system of geography, the earth

is a quadrangular plane, extending four hundred days' journey east and west, and exactly half as much north

and south; that it is inclosed by mountains, on which the sky rests; that one on the north side, huger than the

others, by intercepting the rays of the sun, produces night; and that the plane of the earth is not set exactly

horizontally, but with a little inclination from the north: hence the Euphrates, Tigris, and other rivers, running

southward, are rapid; but the Nile, having to run uphill, has necessarily a very slow current.

The Venerable Bede, writing in the seventh century, tells us that "the creation was accomplished in six days,

and that the earth is its centre and its primary object. The heaven is of a fiery and subtile nature, round, and

equidistant in every part, as a canopy from the centre of the earth. It turns round every day with ineffable

rapidity, only moderated by the resistance of the seven planets, three above the sunSaturn, Jupiter, Mars

then the sun; three belowVenus, Mercury, the moon. The stars go round in their fixed courses, the northern

perform the shortest circle. The highest heaven has its proper limit; it contains the angelic virtues who

descend upon earth, assume ethereal bodies, perform human functions, and return. The heaven is tempered

with glacial waters, lest it should be set on fire. The inferior heaven is called the firmament, because it

separates the superincumbent waters from the waters below. The firmamental waters are lower than the

spiritual heaven, higher than all corporeal beings, reserved, some say, for a second deluge; others, more truly,

Was it for this preposterous schemethis product of ignorance and audacitythat the works of the Greek

philosophers were to be given up? It was none too soon that the great critics who appeared at the

Reformation, by comparing the works of these writers with one another, brought them to their proper level,

Of this presumptuous system, the strangest part was its logic, the nature of its proofs. It relied upon

miracleevidence. A fact was supposed to he demonstrated by an astounding illustration of something else!

An Arabian writer, referring to this, says: "If a conjurer should say to me, 'Three are more than ten, and in

proof of it I will change this stick into a serpent,' I might be surprised at his legerdemain, but I certainly

should not admit his assertion." Yet, for more than a thousand years, such was the accepted logic, and all over

Since the party that had become dominant in the empire could not furnish works capable of intellectual

competition with those of the great pagan authors, and since it was impossible for it to accept a position of

inferiority, there arose a political necessity for the discouragement, and even persecution, of profane learning.

The persecution of the Platonists under Valentinian was due to that necessity. They were accused of magic,

and many of them were put to death. The profession of philosophy had become dangerousit was a state

crime. In its stead there arose a passion for the marvelous, a spirit of superstition. Egypt exchanged the great

men, who had made her Museum immortal, for bands of solitary monks and sequestered virgins, with which

The Egyptians insist on the introduction of the worship of the Virgin MaryThey are resisted by Nestor, the

Patriarch of Constantinople, but eventually, through their influence with the emperor, cause Nestor's exile

The Arabian Reformation.Mohammed is brought in contact with the NestoriansHe adopts and extends

their principles, rejecting the worship of the Virgin, the doctrine of the Trinity, and every thing in opposition

to the unity of God.He extinguishes idolatry in Arabia, by force, and prepares to make war on the Roman

Empire.His successors conquer Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, North Africa, Spain, and invade France.

As the result of this conflict, the doctrine of the unity of God was established in the greater part of the Roman

EmpireThe cultivation of science was restored, and Christendom lost many of her most illustrious capitals,

THE policy of the Byzantine court had given to primitive Christianity a paganized form, which it had spread

over all the idolatrous populations constituting the empire. There had been an amalgamation of the two

parties. Christianity had modified paganism, paganism had modified Christianity. The limits of this

adulterated religion were the confines of the Roman Empire. With this great extension there had come to the

Christian party political influence and wealth. No insignificant portion of the vast public revenues found their

way into the treasuries of the Church. As under such circumstances must ever be the case, there were many

competitors for the spoilsmen who, under the mask of zeal for the predominant faith, sought only the

ECCLESIASTICAL DISPUTES. Under the early emperors, conquest had reached its culmination; the empire

was completed; there remained no adequate objects for military life; the days of warpeculation, and the

plundering of provinces, were over. For the ambitious, however, another path was open; other objects

presented. A successful career in the Church led to results not unworthy of comparison with those that in

The ecclesiastical, and indeed, it may be said, much of the political history of that time, turns on the struggles

of the bishops of the three great metropolitan citiesConstantinople, Alexandria, Romefor supremacy:

Constantinople based her claims on the fact that she was the existing imperial city; Alexandria pointed to her

commercial and literary position; Rome, to her souvenirs. But the Patriarch of Constantinople labored under

the disadvantage that he was too closely under the eye, and, as he found to his cost, too often under the hand,

of the emperor. Distance gave security to the episcopates of Alexandria and Rome.

ECCLESIASTICAL DISPUTES. Religious disputations in the East have generally turned on diversities of

opinion respecting the nature and attributes of God; in the West, on the relations and life of man. This

peculiarity has been strikingly manifested in the transformations that Christianity has undergone in Asia and

Europe respectively. Accordingly, at the time of which we are speaking, all the Eastern provinces of the

Roman Empire exhibited an intellectual anarchy. There were fierce quarrels respecting the Trinity, the

essence of God, the position of the Son, the nature of the Holy Spirit, the influences of the Virgin Mary. The

triumphant clamor first of one then of another sect was confirmed, sometimes by miracleproof, sometimes

by bloodshed. No attempt was ever made to submit the rival opinions to logical examination. All parties,

however, agreed in this, that the imposture of the old classical pagan forms of faith was demonstrated by the

facility with which they had been overthrown. The triumphant ecclesiastics proclaimed that the images of the

Polytheistic ideas have always been held in repute by the southern European races, the Semitic have

maintained the unity of God. Perhaps this is due to the fact, as a recent author has suggested, that a diversified

landscape of mountains and valleys, islands, and rivers, and gulfs, predisposes man to a belief in a multitude

of divinities. A vast sandy desert, the illimitable ocean, impresses him with an idea of the oneness of God.

Political reasons had led the emperors to look with favor on the admixture of Christianity and paganism, and

doubtless by this means the bitterness of the rivalry between those antagonists was somewhat abated. The

heaven of the popular, the fashionable Christianity was the old Olympus, from which the venerable Greek

divinities had been removed. There, on a great white throne, sat God the Father, on his right the Son, and then

the blessed Virgin, clad in a golden robe, and "covered with various female adornments;" on the left sat God

the Holy Ghost. Surrounding these thrones were hosts of angels with their harps. The vast expanse beyond

was filled with tables, seated at which the happy spirits of the just enjoyed a perpetual banquet.

If, satisfied with this picture of happiness, illiterate persons never inquired how the details of such a heaven

were carried out, or how much pleasure there could be in the ennui of such an eternally unchanging,

unmoving scene, it was not so with the intelligent. As we are soon to see, there were among the higher

ecclesiastics those who rejected with sentiments of horror these carnal, these materialistic conceptions, and

raised their protesting voices in vindication of the attributes of the Omnipresent, the Almighty God.

EGYPTIAN DOCTRINES. In the paganization of religion, now in all directions taking place, it became the

interest of every bishop to procure an adoption of the ideas which, time out of mind, had been current in the

community under his charge. The Egyptians had already thus forced on the Church their peculiar Trinitarian

views; and now they were resolved that, under the form of the adoration of the Virgin Mary, the worship of

THE NESTORIANS. It so happened that Nestor, the Bishop of Antioch, who entertained the philosophical

views of Theodore of Mopsuestia, had been called by the Emperor Theodosius the Younger to the Episcopate

of Constantinople (A.D. 427). Nestor rejected the base popular anthropomorphism, looking upon it as little

better than blasphemous, and pictured to himself an awful eternal Divinity, who pervaded the universe, and

had none of the aspects or attributes of man. Nestor was deeply imbued with the doctrines of Aristotle, and

attempted to coordinate them with what he considered to be orthodox Christian tenets. Between him and

Cyril, the Bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria, a quarrel accordingly arose. Cyril represented the paganizing,

Nestor the philosophizing party of the Church. This was that Cyril who had murdered Hypatia. Cyril was

determined that the worship of the Virgin as the Mother of God should be recognized, Nestor was determined

that it should not. In a sermon delivered in the metropolitan church at Constantinople, he vindicated the

attributes of the Eternal, the Almighty God. "And can this God have a mother?" he exclaimed. In other

sermons and writings, he set forth with more precision his ideas that the Virgin should be considered not as

the Mother of God, but as the mother of the human portion of Christ, that portion being as essentially distinct

PERSECUTION AND DEATH OF NESTOR. Instigated by the monks of Alexandria, the monks of

Constantinople took up arms in behalf of "the Mother of God." The quarrel rose to such a pitch that the

emperor was constrained to summon a council to meet at Ephesus. In the mean time Cyril had given a bribe

of many pounds of gold to the chief eunuch of the imperial court, and had thereby obtained the influence of

the emperor's sister. "The holy virgin of the court of heaven thus found an ally of her own sex in the holy

virgin of the emperor's court." Cyril hastened to the council, attended by a mob of men and women of the

baser sort. He at once assumed the presidency, and in the midst of a tumult had the emperor's rescript read

before the Syrian bishops could arrive. A single day served to complete his triumph. All offers of

accommodation on the part of Nestor were refused, his explanations were not read, he was condemned

unheard. On the arrival of the Syrian ecclesiastics, a meeting of protest was held by them. A riot, with much

bloodshed, ensued in the cathedral of St. John. Nestor was abandoned by the court, and eventually exiled to

an Egyptian oasis. His persecutors tormented him as long as he lived, by every means in their power, and at

his death gave out that "his blasphemous tongue had been devoured by worms, and that from the heats of an

The overthrow and punishment of Nestor, however, by no means destroyed his opinions. He and his

followers, insisting on the plain inference of the last verse of the first chapter of St. Matthew, together with

the fiftyfifth and fiftysixth verses of the thirteenth of the same gospel, could never be brought to an

acknowledgment of the perpetual virginity of the new queen of heaven. Their philosophical tendencies were

soon indicated by their actions. While their leader was tormented in an African oasis, many of them

emigrated to the Euphrates, and established the Chaldean Church. Under their auspices the college of Edessa

was founded. From the college of Nisibis issued those doctors who spread Nestor's tenets through Syria,

Arabia, India, Tartary, China, Egypt. The Nestorians, of course, adopted the philosophy of Aristotle, and

translated the works of that great writer into Syriac and Persian. They also made similar translations of later

works, such as those of Pliny. In connection with the Jews they founded the medical college of

Djondesabour. Their missionaries disseminated the Nestorian form of Christianity to such an extent over

Asia, that its worshipers eventually outnumbered all the European Christians of the Greek and Roman

Churches combined. It may be particularly remarked that in Arabia they had a bishop.

THE PERSIAN CAMPAIGN. The dissensions between Constantinople and Alexandria had thus filled all

Western Asia with sectaries, ferocious in their contests with each other, and many of them burning with

hatred against the imperial power for the persecutions it had inflicted on them. A religious revolution, the

consequences of which are felt in our own times, was the result. It affected the whole world.

We shall gain a clear view of this great event, if we consider separately the two acts into which it may be

decomposed: 1. The temporary overthrow of Asiatic Christianity by the Persians; 2. The decisive and final

1. It happened (A.D. 590) that, by one of those revolutions so frequent in Oriental courts, Chosroes, the

lawful heir to the Persian throne, was compelled to seek refuge in the Byzantine Empire, and implore the aid

of the Emperor Maurice. That aid was cheerfully given. A brief and successful campaign restored Chosroes

But the glories of this generous campaign could not preserve Maurice himself. A mutiny broke out in the

Roman army, headed by Phocas, a centurion. The statues of the emperor were overthrown. The Patriarch of

Constantinople, having declared that he had assured himself of the orthodoxy of Phocas, consecrated him

emperor. The unfortunate Maurice was dragged from a sanctuary, in which he had sought refuge; his five

sons were beheaded before his eyes, and then he was put to death. His empress was inveigled from the church

of St. Sophia, tortured, and with her three young daughters beheaded. The adherents of the massacred family

were pursued with ferocious vindictiveness; of some the eyes were blinded, of others the tongues were torn

out, or the feet and hands cut off, some were whipped to death, others were burnt.

When the news reached Rome, Pope Gregory received it with exultation, praying that the hands of Phocas

might be strengthened against all his enemies. As an equivalent for this subserviency, he was greeted with the

title of "Universal Bishop." The cause of his action, as well as of that of the Patriarch of Constantinople, was

doubtless the fact that Maurice was suspected of Magrian tendencies, into which he had been lured by the

Persians. The mob of Constantinople had hooted after him in the streets, branding him as a Marcionite, a sect

With very different sentiments Chosroes heard of the murder of his friend. Phocas had sent him the heads of

Maurice and his sons. The Persian king turned from the ghastly spectacle with horror, and at once made ready

THE EXPEDITION OF HERACLIUS. The Exarch of Africa, Heraclius, one of the chief officers of the state,

also received the shocking tidings with indignation. He was determined that the imperial purple should not be

usurped by an obscure centurion of disgusting aspect. "The person of this Phocas was diminutive and

deformed; the closeness of his shaggy eyebrows, his red hair, his beardless chin, were in keeping with his

cheek, disfigured and discolored by a formidable scar. Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he

indulged in an ample privilege of lust and drunkenness." At first Heraclius refused tribute and obedience to

him; then, admonished by age and infirmities, he committed the dangerous enterprise of resistance to his son

of the same name. A prosperous voyage from Carthage soon brought the younger Heraclius in front of

Constantinople. The inconstant clergy, senate, and people of the city joined him, the usurper was seized in his

INVASION OF CHOSROES. But the revolution that had taken place in Constantinople did not arrest the

movements of the Persian king. His Magian priests had warned him to act independently of the Greeks,

whose superstition, they declared, was devoid of all truth and justice. Chosroes, therefore, crossed the

Euphrates; his army was received with transport by the Syrian sectaries, insurrections in his favor everywhere

breaking out. In succession, Antioch, Caesarea, Damascus fell; Jerusalem itself was taken by storm; the

sepulchre of Christ, the churches of Constantine and of Helena were given to the flames; the Savior's cross

was sent as a trophy to Persia; the churches were rifled of their riches; the sacred relics, collected by

superstition, were dispersed. Egypt was invaded, conquered, and annexed to the Persian Empire; the Patriarch

of Alexandria escaped by flight to Cyprus; the African coast to Tripoli was seized. On the north, Asia Minor

was subdued, and for ten years the Persian forces encamped on the shores of the Bosporus, in front of

In his extremity Heraclius begged for peace. "I will never give peace to the Emperor of Rome," replied the

proud Persian, "till he has abjured his crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun." After a long

delay terms were, however, secured, and the Roman Empire was ransomed at the price of "a thousand talents

of gold, a thousand talents of silver, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a thousand virgins."

But Heraclius submitted only for a moment. He found means not only to restore his affairs but to retaliate on

the Persian Empire. The operations by which he achieved this result were worthy of the most brilliant days of

INVASION OF CHOSROES Though her military renown was thus recovered, though her territory was

regained, there was something that the Roman Empire had irrecoverably lost. Religious faith could never be

restored. In face of the world Magianism had insulted Christianity, by profaning her most sacred

placesBethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvaryby burning the sepulchre of Christ, by rifling and destroying the

churches, by scattering to the winds priceless relics, by carrying off, with shouts of laughter, the cross.

Miracles had once abounded in Syria, in Egypt, in Asia Minor; there was not a church which had not its long

catalogue of them. Very often they were displayed on unimportant occasions and in insignificant cases. In

this supreme moment, when such aid was most urgently demanded, not a miracle was worked.

Amazement filled the Christian populations of the East when they witnessed these Persian sacrileges

perpetrated with impunity. The heavens should have rolled asunder, the earth should have opened her

abysses, the sword of the Almighty should have flashed in the sky, the fate of Sennacherib should have been

2. But, dreadful as it was, the Persian conquest was but a prelude to the great event, the story of which we

have now to relatethe Southern revolt against Christianity. Its issue was the loss of ninetenths of her

MOHAMMED. In the summer of 581 of the Christian era, there came to Bozrah, a town on the confines of

Syria, south of Damascus, a caravan of camels. It was from Mecca, and was laden with the costly products of

South ArabiaArabia the Happy. The conductor of the caravan, one Abou Taleb, and his nephew, a lad of

twelve years, were hospitably received and entertained at the Nestorian convent of the town.

The monks of this convent soon found that their young visitor, Halibi or Mohammed, was the nephew of the

guardian of the Caaba, the sacred temple of the Arabs. One of them, by name Bahira, spared no pains to

secure his conversion from the idolatry in which he had been brought up. He found the boy not only

precociously intelligent, but eagerly desirous of information, especially on matters relating to religion.

In Mohammed's own country the chief object of Meccan worship was a black meteoric stone, kept in the

Caaba, with three hundred and sixty subordinate idols, representing the days of the year, as the year was then

At this time, as we have seen, the Christian Church, through the ambition and wickedness of its clergy, had

been brought into a condition of anarchy. Councils had been held on various pretenses, while the real motives

were concealed. Too often they were scenes of violence, bribery, corruption. In the West, such were the

temptations of riches, luxury, and power, presented by the episcopates, that the election of a bishop was often

disgraced by frightful murders. In the East, in consequence of the policy of the court of Constantinople, the

Church had been torn in pieces by contentions and schisms. Among a countless host of disputants may be

mentioned Arians, Basilidians, Carpocratians, Collyridians, Eutychians, Gnostics, Jacobites, Marcionites,

Marionites, Nestorians, Sabellians, Valentinians. Of these, the Marionites regarded the Trinity as consisting

of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Virgin Mary; the Collyridians worshiped the Virgin as a

divinity, offering her sacrifices of cakes; the Nestorians, as we have seen, denied that God had "a mother."

They prided themselves on being the inheritors, the possessors of the science of old Greece.

But, though they were irreconcilable in matters of faith, there was one point in which all these sects agreed

ferocious hatred and persecution of each other. Arabia, an unconquered land of liberty, stretching from the

Indian Ocean to the Desert of Syria, gave them all, as the tide of fortune successively turned, a refuge. It had

been so from the old times. Thither, after the Roman conquest of Palestine, vast numbers of Jews escaped;

thither, immediately after his conversion, St. Paul tells the Galatians that he retired. The deserts were now

filled with Christian anchorites, and among the chief tribes of the Arabs many proselytes had been made.

Here and there churches had been built. The Christian princes of Abyssinia, who were Nestorians, held the

By the monk Bahira, in the convent at Bozrah, Mohammed was taught the tenets of the Nestorians; from

them the young Arab learned the story of their persecutions. It was these interviews which engendered in him

a hatred of the idolatrous practices of the Eastern Church, and indeed of all idolatry; that taught him, in his

wonderful career, never to speak of Jesus as the Son of God, but always as "Jesus, the son of Mary." His

untutored but active mind could not fail to be profoundly impressed not only with the religious but also with

the philosophical ideas of his instructors, who gloried in being the living representatives of Aristotelian

science. His subsequent career shows how completely their religious thoughts had taken possession of him,

and repeated acts manifest his affectionate regard for them. His own life was devoted to the expansion and

extension of their theological doctrine, and, that once effectually established, his successors energetically

As Mohammed grew to manhood, he made other expeditions to Syria. Perhaps, we may suppose, that on

these occasions the convent and its hospitable in mates were not forgotten. He had a mysterious reverence for

that country. A wealthy Meccan widow Chadizah, had intrusted him with the care of her Syrian trade. She

was charmed with his capacity and fidelity, and (since he is said to have been characterized by the possession

of singular manly beauty and a most courteous demeanor) charmed with his person. The female heart in all

ages and countries is the same. She caused a slave to intimate to him what was passing in her mind, and, for

the remaining twentyfour years of her life, Mohammed was her faithful husband. In a land of polygamy, he

never insulted her by the presence of a rival. Many years subsequently, in the height of his power, Ayesha,

who was one of the most beautiful women in Arabia, said to him: "Was she not old? Did not God give you in

me a better wife in her place?" "No, by God!" exclaimed Mohammed, and with a burst of honest gratitude,

"there never can be a better. She believed in me when men despised me, she relieved me when I was poor and

His marriage with Chadizah placed him in circumstances of ease, and gave him an opportunity of indulging

his inclination to religious meditation. It so happened that her cousin Waraka, who was a Jew, had turned

Christian. He was the first to translate the Bible into Arabic. By his conversation Mohammed's detestation of

After the example of the Christian anchorites in their hermitages in the desert, Mohammed retired to a grotto

in Mount Hera, a few miles from Mecca, giving himself up to meditation and prayer. In this seclusion,

contemplating the awful attributes of the Omnipotent and Eternal God, he addressed to his conscience the

solemn inquiry, whether he could adopt the dogmas then held in Asiatic Christendom respecting the Trinity,

the sonship of Jesus as begotten by the Almighty, the character of Mary as at once a virgin, a mother, and the

By his solitary meditations in the grotto Mohammed was drawn to the conclusion that, through the cloud of

dogmas and disputations around him, one great truth might be discernedthe unity of God. Leaning against

the stem of a palmtree, he unfolded his views on this subject to his neighbors and friends, and announced to

them that he should dedicate his life to the preaching of that truth. Again and again, in his sermons and in the

Koran, he declared: "I am nothing but a public preacher.... I preach the oneness of God." Such was his own

conception of his socalled apostleship. Henceforth, to the day of his death, he wore on his finger a sealring

VICTORIES OF MOHAMMED. It is well known among physicians that prolonged fasting and mental

anxiety inevitably give rise to hallucination. Perhaps there never has been any religious system introduced by

selfdenying, earnest men that did not offer examples of supernatural temptations and supernatural

commands. Mysterious voices encouraged the Arabian preacher to persist in his determination; shadows of

strange forms passed before him. He heard sounds in the air like those of a distant bell. In a nocturnal dream

he was carried by Gabriel from Mecca to Jerusalem, and thence in succession through the six heavens. Into

the seventh the angel feared to intrude and Mohammed alone passed into the dread cloud that forever

enshrouds the Almighty. "A shiver thrilled his heart as he felt upon his shoulder the touch of the cold hand of

His public ministrations met with much resistance and little success at first. Expelled from Mecca by the

upholders of the prevalent idolatry, he sought refuge in Medina, a town in which there were many Jews and

Nestorians; the latter at once became proselytes to his faith. He had already been compelled to send his

daughter and others of his disciples to Abyssinia, the king of which was a Nestorian Christian. At the end of

six years he had made only fifteen hundred converts. But in three little skirmishes, magnified in subsequent

times by the designation of the battles of Beder, of Ohud, and of the Nations, Mohammed discovered that his

most convincing argument was his sword. Afterward, with Oriental eloquence, he said, "Paradise will be

found in the shadow of the crossing of swords." By a series of wellconducted military operations, his

enemies were completely overthrown. Arabian idolatry was absolutely exterminated; the doctrine he

proclaimed, that "there is but one God," was universally adopted by his countrymen, and his own apostleship

DEATH OF MOHAMMED. Let us pass over his stormy life, and hear what he says when, on the pinnacle of

Steadfast in his declaration of the unity of God, he departed from Medina on his last pilgrimage to Mecca, at

the head of one hundred and fourteen thousand devotees, with camels decorated with garlands of flowers and

fluttering streamers. When he approached the holy city, he uttered the solemn invocation: "Here am I in thy

service, O God! Thou hast no companion. To thee alone belongeth worship. Thine alone is the kingdom.

With his own hand he offered up the camels in sacrifice. He considered that primeval institution to be equally

sacred as prayer, and that no reason can be alleged in support of the one which is not equally strong in

From the pulpit of the Caaba he reiterated, "O my hearers, I am only a man like yourselves." They

remembered that he had once said to one who approached him with timid steps: "Of what dost thou stand in

awe? I am no king. I am nothing but the son of an Arab woman, who ate flesh dried in the sun."

He returned to Medina to die. In his farewell to his congregation, he said: "Every thing happens according to

the will of God, and has its appointed time, which can neither be hastened nor avoided. I return to him who

sent me, and my last command to you is, that ye love, honor, and uphold each other, that ye exhort each other

to faith and constancy in belief, and to the performance of pious deeds. My life has been for your good, and

In his dying agony, his head was reclined on the lap of Ayesha. From time to time he had dipped his hand in

a vase of water, and moistened his face. At last he ceased, and, gazing steadfastly upward, said, in broken

Shall we speak of this man with disrespect? His precepts are, at this day, the religious guide of one third of

DOCTRINES OF MOHAMMED. In Mohammed, who had already broken away from the ancient idolatrous

worship of his native country, preparation had been made for the rejection of those tenets which his Nestorian

teachers had communicated to him, inconsistent with reason and conscience. And, though, in the first pages

of the Koran, he declares his belief in what was delivered to Moses and Jesus, and his reverence for them

personally, his veneration for the Almighty is perpetually displayed. He is horrorstricken at the doctrine of

the divinity of Jesus, the Worship of Mary as the mother of God, the adoration of images and paintings, in his

eyes a base idolatry. He absolutely rejects the Trinity, of which he seems to have entertained the idea that it

His first and ruling idea was simply religious reformto overthrow Arabian idolatry, and put an end to the

wild sectarianism of Christianity. That he proposed to set up a new religion was a calumny invented against

him in Constantinople, where he was looked upon with detestation, like that with which in after ages Luther

But, though he rejected with indignation whatever might seem to disparage the doctrine of the unity of God,

he was not able to emancipate himself from anthropomorphic conceptions. The God of the Koran is

altogether human, both corporeally and mentally, if such expressions may with propriety be used. Very soon,

however, the followers of Mohammed divested themselves of these base ideas and rose to nobler ones.

The view here presented of the primitive character of Mohammedanism has long been adopted by many

competent authorities. Sir William Jones, following Locke, regards the main point in the divergence of

Mohammedanism from Christianity to consist "in denying vehemently the character of our Savior as the Son,

and his equality as God with the Father, of whose unity and attributes the Mohammedans entertain and

express the most awful ideas." This opinion has been largely entertained in Italy. Dante regarded Mohammed

only as the author of a schism, and saw in Islamism only an Arian sect. In England, Whately views it as a

corruption of Christianity. It was an offshoot of Nestorianism, and not until it had overthrown Greek

Christianity in many great battles, was spreading rapidly over Asia and Africa, and had become intoxicated

with its wonderful successes, did it repudiate its primitive limited intentions, and assert itself to be founded

THE FIRST KHALIF. Mohammed's life had been almost entirely consumed in the conversion or conquest of

his native country. Toward its close, however, he felt himself strong enough to threaten the invasion of Syria

and Persia. He had made no provision for the perpetuation of his own dominion, and hence it was not without

a struggle that a successor was appointed. At length Abubeker, the father of Ayesha, was selected. He was

There is a very important difference between the spread of Mohammedanism and the spread of Christianity.

The latter was never sufficiently strong to over throw and extirpate idolatry in the Roman Empire. As it

advanced, there was an amalgamation, a union. The old forms of the one were vivified by the new spirit of

the other, and that paganization to which reference has already been made was the result.

THE MOHAMMEDAN HEAVEN. But, in Arabia, Mohammed overthrew and absolutely annihilated the old

idolatry. No trace of it is found in the doctrines preached by him and his successors. The black stone that had

fallen from heaventhe meteorite of the Caabaand its encircling idols, passed totally out of view. The

essential dogma of the new faith"There is but one God"spread without any adulteration. Military

successes had, in a worldly sense made the religion of the Koran profitable; and, no matter what dogmas may

As to the popular doctrines of Mohammedanism, I shall here have nothing to say. The reader who is

interested in that matter will find an account of them in a review of the Koran in the eleventh chapter of my

"History of the Intellectual Development of Europe." It is enough now to remark that their heaven was

arranged in seven stories, and was only a palace of Oriental carnal delight. It was filled with blackeyed

concubines and servants. The form of God was, perhaps, more awful than that of paganized Christianity.

Anthropomorphism will, however, never be obliterated from the ideas of the unintellectual. Their God, at the

best, will never be any thing more than the gigantic shadow of a mana vast phantom of humanity like

one of those Alpine spectres seen in the midst of the clouds by him who turns his back on the sun.

Abubeker had scarcely seated himself in the khalifate, when he put forth the following proclamation:

In the name of the most merciful God! Abubeker to the rest of the true believers, health and happiness. The

mercy and blessing of God be upon you. I praise the most high God. I pray for his prophet Mohammed.

INVASION OF SYRIA. "This is to inform you that I intend to send the true believers into Syria, to take it out

of the hands of the infidels. And I would have you know that the fighting for religion is an act of obedience to

On the first encounter, Khaled, the Saracen general, hard pressed, lifted up his hands in the midst of his army

and said: "O God! these vile wretches pray with idolatrous expressions and take to themselves another God

besides thee, but we acknowledge thy unity and affirm that there is no other God but thee alone. Help us, we

beseech thee, for the sake of thy prophet Mohammed, against these idolaters." On the part of the Saracens the

conquest of Syria was conducted with ferocious piety. The belief of the Syrian Christians aroused in their

antagonists sentiments of horror and indignation. "I will cleave the skull of any blaspheming idolater who

says that the Most Holy God, the Almighty and Eternal, has begotten a son." The Khalif Omar, who took

Jerusalem, commences a letter to Heraclius, the Roman emperor: "In the name of the most merciful God!

Praise be to God, the Lord of this and of the other world, who has neither female consort nor son." The

Saracens nicknamed the Christians "Associators," because they joined Mary and Jesus as partners with the

It was not the intention of the khalif to command his army; that duty was devolved on Abou Obeidah

nominally, on Khaled in reality. In a parting review the khalif enjoined on his troops justice, mercy, and the

observance of fidelity in their engagements he commanded them to abstain from all frivolous conversation

and from wine, and rigorously to observe the hours of prayer; to be kind to the common people among whom

FALL OF BOZRAH. Eastward of the river Jordan is Bozrah, a strong town where Mohammed had first met

his Nestorian Christian instructors. It was one of the Roman forts with which the country was dotted over.

Before this place the Saracen army encamped. The garrison was strong, the ramparts were covered with holy

crosses and consecrated banners. It might have made a long defense. But its governor, Romanus, betrayed his

trust, and stealthily opened its gates to the besiegers. His conduct shows to what a deplorable condition the

population of Syria had come. After the surrender, in a speech he made to the people he had betrayed, he

said: "I renounce your society, both in this world and that to come. And I deny him that was crucified, and

whosoever worships him. And I choose God for my Lord, Islam for my faith, Mecca for my temple, the

Moslems for my brethren, Mohammed for my prophet, who was sent to lead us in the right way, and to exalt

the true religion in spite of those who join partners with God." Since the Persian invasion, Asia Minor, Syria,

and even Palestine, were full of traitors and apostates, ready to join the Saracens. Romanus was but one of

many thousands who had fallen into disbelief through the victories of the Persians.

FALL OF DAMASCUS. From Bozrah it was only seventy miles northward to Damascus, the capital of

Syria. Thither, without delay, the Saracen army marched. The city was at once summoned to take its

optionconversion, tribute, or the sword. In his palace at Antioch, barely one hundred and fifty miles still

farther north, the Emperor Heraclius received tidings of the alarming advance of his assailants. He at once

dispatched an army of seventy thousand men. The Saracens were compelled to raise the siege. A battle took

place in the plains of Aiznadin, the Roman army was overthrown and dispersed. Khaled reappeared before

Damascus with his standard of the black eagle, and after a renewed investment of seventy days Damascus

From the Arabian historians of these events we may gather that thus far the Saracen armies were little better

than a fanatic mob. Many of the men fought naked. It was not unusual for a warrior to stand forth in front and

challenge an antagonist to mortal duel. Nay, more, even the women engaged in the combats. Picturesque

narratives have been handed down to us relating the gallant manner in which they acquitted themselves.

FALL OF JERUSALEM. From Damascus the Saracen army advanced northward, guided by the snowclad

peaks of Libanus and the beautiful river Orontes. It captured on its way Baalbec, the capital of the Syrian

valley, and Emesa, the chief city of the eastern plain. To resist its further progress, Heraclius collected an

army of one hundred and forty thousand men. A battle took place at Yermuck; the right wing of the Saracens

was broken, but the soldiers were driven back to the field by the fanatic expostulations of their women. The

conflict ended in the complete overthrow of the Roman army. Forty thousand were taken prisoners, and a vast

number killed. The whole country now lay open to the victors. The advance of their army had been east of the

Jordan. It was clear that, before Asia Minor could be touched, the strong and important cities of Palestine,

which was now in their rear, must be secured. There was a difference of opinion among the generals in the

field as to whether Caesarea or Jerusalem should be assailed first. The matter was referred to the khalif, who,

rightly preferring the moral advantages of the capture of Jerusalem to the military advantages of the capture

of Caesarea, ordered the Holy City to be taken, and that at any cost. Close siege was therefore laid to it. The

inhabitants, remembering the atrocities inflicted by the Persians, and the indignities that had been offered to

the Savior's sepulchre, prepared now for a vigorous defense. But, after an investment of four months, the

Patriarch Sophronius appeared on the wall, asking terms of capitulation. There had been misunderstandings

among the generals at the capture of Damascus, followed by a massacre of the fleeing inhabitants.

Sophronius, therefore, stipulated that the surrender of Jerusalem should take place in presence of the khalif

himself Accordingly, Omar, the khalif, came from Medina for that purpose. He journeyed on a red camel,

carrying a bag of corn and one of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern waterbottle. The Arab conqueror

entered the Holy City riding by the side of the Christian patriarch and the transference of the capital of

Christianity to the representative of Mohammedanism was effected without tumult or outrage. Having

ordered that a mosque should be built on the site of the temple of Solomon, the khalif returned to the tomb of

Heraclius saw plainly that the disasters which were fast settling on Christianity were due to the dissensions of

its conflicting sects; and hence, while he endeavored to defend the empire with his armies, he sedulously tried

to compose those differences. With this view he pressed for acceptance the Monothelite doctrine of the nature

of Christ. But it was now too late. Aleppo and Antioch were taken. Nothing could prevent the Saracens from

overrunning Asia Minor. Heraclius himself had to seek safety in flight. Syria, which had been added by

Pompey the Great, the rival of Caesar, to the provinces of Rome, seven hundred years previously Syria,

the birthplace of Christianity, the scene of its most sacred and precious souvenirs, the land from which

Heraclius himself had once expelled the Persian intruderwas irretrievably lost. Apostates and traitors had

wrought this calamity. We are told that, as the ship which bore him to Constantinople parted from the shore,

Heraclius gazed intently on the receding hills, and in the bitterness of anguish exclaimed, "Farewell, Syria,

It is needless to dwell on the remaining details of the Saracen conquest: how Tripoli and Tyre were betrayed;

how Caesarea was captured; how with the trees of Libanus and the sailors of Phoenicia a Saraeen fleet was

equipped, which drove the Roman navy into the Hellespont; how Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades, were

ravaged, and the Colossus, which was counted as one of the wonders of the world, sold to a Jew, who loaded

nine hundred camels with its brass; how the armies of the khalif advanced to the Black Sea, and even lay in

OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIANS. The fall of Jerusalem! the loss of the metropolis of Christianity! In the

ideas of that age the two antagonistic forms of faith had submitted themselves to the ordeal of the judgment

of God. Victory had awarded the prize of battle, Jerusalem, to the Mohammedan; and, notwithstanding the

temporary successes of the Crusaders, after much more than a thousand years in his hands it remains to this

day. The Byzantine historians are not without excuse for the course they are condemned for taking: "They

have wholly neglected the great topic of the ruin of the Eastern Church." And as for the Western Church,

even the debased popes of the middle agesthe ages of the Crusadescould not see without indignation

that they were compelled to rest the claims of Rome as the metropolis of Christendom on a false legendary

story of a visit of St. Peter to that city; while the true metropolis, the grand, the sacred place of the birth, the

life, the death of Christ himself, was in the hands of the infidels! It has not been the Byzantine historians

alone who have tried to conceal this great catastrophe. The Christian writers of Europe on all manner of

subjects, whether of history, religion, or science, have followed a similar course against their conquering

antagonists. It has been their constant practice to hide what they could not depreciate, and depreciate what

INVASION OF EGYPT. I have not space, nor indeed does it comport with the intention of this work, to

relate, in such detail as I have given to the fall of Jerusalem, other conquests of the Saracensconquests

which eventually established a Mohammedan empire far exceeding in geographical extent that of Alexander,

and even that of Rome. But, devoting a few words to this subject, it may be said that Magianism received a

worse blow than that which had been inflicted on Christianity; The fate of Persia was settled at the battle of

Cadesia. At the sack of Ctesiphon, the treasury, the royal arms, and an unlimited spoil, fell into the hands of

the Saracens. Not without reason do they call the battle of Nehavend the victory of victories." In one direction

they advanced to the Caspian, in the other southward along the Tigris to Persepolis. The Persian king fled for

his life over the great Salt Desert, from the columns and statues of that city which had lain in ruins since the

night of the riotous banquet of Alexander. One division of the Arabian army forced the Persian monarch over

the Oxus. He was assassinated by the Turks. His son was driven into China, and became a captain in the

Chinese emperor's guards. The country beyond the Oxus was reduced. It paid a tribute of two million pieces

of gold. While the emperor at Peking was demanding the friendship of the khalif at Medina, the standard of

Among the generals who had greatly distinguished themselves in the Syrian wars was Amrou, destined to be

the conqueror of Egypt; for the khalifs, not content with their victories on the North and East, now turned

their eyes to the West, and prepared for the annexation of Africa. As in the former cases, so in this, sectarian

treason assisted them. The Saracen army was hailed as the deliverer of the Jacobite Church; the Monophysite

Christians of Egypt, that is, they who, in the language of the Athanasian Creed, confounded the substance of

the Son, proclaimed, through their leader, Mokaukas, that they desired no communion with the Greeks, either

in this world or the next, that they abjured forever the Byzantine tyrant and his synod of Chalcedon. They

hastened to pay tribute to the khalif, to repair the roads and bridges, and to supply provisions and intelligence

FALL OF ALEXANDRIA. Memphis, one of the old Pharaonic capitals, soon fell, and Alexandria was

invested. The open sea behind gave opportunity to Heraclius to reenforce the garrison continually. On his

part, Omar, who was now khalif sent to the succor of the besieging army the veteran troops of Syria. There

were many assaults and many sallies. In one Amrou himself was taken prisoner by the besieged, but, through

the dexterity of a slave, made his escape. After a siege of fourteen months, and a loss of twentythree

thousand men, the Saracens captured the city. In his dispatch to the Khalif, Amrou enumerated the splendors

of the great city of the West "its four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres, twelve

thousand shops for the sale of vegetable food, and forty thousand tributary Jews."

So fell the second great city of Christendomthe fate of Jerusalem had fallen on Alexandria, the city of

Athanasius, and Arius, and Cyril; the city that had imposed Trinitarian ideas and Mariolatry on the Church. In

his palace at Constantinople Heraclius received the fatal tidings. He was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed

as if his reign was to be disgraced by the downfall of Christianity. He lived scarcely a month after the loss of

But if Alexandria had been essential to Constantinople in the supply of orthodox faith, she was also essential

in the supply of daily food. Egypt was the granary of the Byzantines. For this reason two attempts were made

by powerful fleets and armies for the recovery of the place, and twice had Amrou to renew his conquest. He

saw with what facility these attacks could be made, the place being open to the sea; he saw that there was but

one and that a fatal remedy. "By the living God, if this thing be repeated a third time I will make Alexandria

as open to anybody as is the house of a prostitute!" He was better than his word, for he forthwith dismantled

FALL OF CARTHAGE. It was not the intention of the khalifs to limit their conquest to Egypt. Othman

contemplated the annexation of the entire NorthAfrican coast. His general, Abdallah, set out from Memphis

with forty thousand men, passed through the desert of Barca, and besieged Tripoli. But, the plague breaking

All attempts were now suspended for more than twenty years. Then Akbah forced his way from the Nile to

the Atlantic Ocean. In front of the Canary Islands he rode his horse into the sea, exclaiming: "Great God! if

my course were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on to the unknown kingdoms of the West, preaching

the unity of thy holy name, and putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship any other gods than

These Saracen expeditions had been through the interior of the country, for the Byzantine emperors,

controlling for the time the Mediterranean, had retained possession of the cities on the coast. The Khalif

Abdalmalek at length resolved on the reduction of Carthage, the most important of those cities, and indeed

the capital of North Africa. His general, Hassan, carried it by escalade; but reenforcements from

Constantinople, aided by some Sicilian and Gothic troops, compelled him to retreat. The relief was, however,

only temporary. Hassan, in the course of a few months renewed his attack. It proved successful, and he

Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage, three out of the five great Christian capitals, were lost. The fall of

Constantinople was only a question of time. After its fall, Rome alone remained.

In the development of Christianity, Carthage had played no insignificant part. It had given to Europe its Latin

form of faith, and some of its greatest theologians. It was the home of St. Augustine.

Never in the history of the world had there been so rapid and extensive a propagation of any religion as

Mohammedanism. It was now dominating from the Altai Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, from the centre of

CONQUEST OF SPAIN. The Khalif Alwalid next authorized the invasion of Europe, the conquest of

Andalusia, or the Region of the Evening. Musa, his general, found, as had so often been the case elsewhere,

two effective allies sectarianism and treasonthe Archbishop of Toledo and Count Julian the Gothic

general. Under their lead, in the very crisis of the battle of Xeres, a large portion of the army went over to the

invaders; the Spanish king was compelled to flee from the field, and in the pursuit he was drowned in the

With great rapidity Tarik, the lieutenant of Musa, pushed forward from the battlefield to Toledo, and thence

northward. On the arrival of Musa the reduction of the Spanish peninsula was completed, and the wreck of

the Gothic army driven beyond the Pyrenees into France. Considering the conquest of Spain as only the first

step in his victories, he announced his intention of forcing his way into Italy, and preaching the unity of God

in the Vatican. Thence he would march to Constantinople, and, having put all end to the Roman Empire and

Christianity, would pass into Asia and lay his victorious sword on the footstool of the khalif at Damascus.

But this was not to be. Musa, envious of his lieutenant, Tarik, had treated him with great indignity. The

friends of Tarik at the court of the khalif found means of retaliation. An envoy from Damascus arrested Musa

in his camp; he was carried before his sovereign, disgraced by a public whipping, and died of a broken heart.

INVASION OF FRANCE. Under other leaders, however, the Saracen conquest of France was attempted. In a

preliminary campaign the country from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Loire was secured. Then

Abderahman, the Saracen commander, dividing his forces into two columns, with one on the east passed the

Rhone, and laid siege to Arles. A Christian army, attempting the relief of the place, was defeated with heavy

loss. His western column, equally successful, passed the Dordogne, defeated another Christian army,

inflicting on it such dreadful loss that, according to its own fugitives, "God alone could number the slain." All

Central France was now overrun; the banks of the Loire were reached; the churches and monasteries were

despoiled of their treasures; and the tutelar saints, who had worked so many miracles when there was no

necessity, were found to want the requisite power when it was so greatly needed.

The progress of the invaders was at length stopped by Charles Martel (A.D. 732). Between Tours and

Poictiers, a great battle, which lasted seven days, was fought. Abderahman was killed, the Saracens retreated,

The banks of the Loire, therefore, mark the boundary of the Mohammedan advance in Western Europe.

Gibbon, in his narrative of these great events, makes this remark: "A victorious line of march had been

prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loirea repetition of an

equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland."

INSULT TO ROME. It is not necessary for me to add to this sketch of the military diffusion of

Mohammedanism, the operations of the Saracens on the Mediterranean Sea, their conquest of Crete and

Sicily, their insult to Rome. It will be found, however, that their presence in Sicily and the south of Italy

Their insult to Rome! What could be more humiliating than the circumstances under which it took place

(A.D. 846)? An insignificant Saracen expedition entered the Tiber and appeared before the walls of the city.

Too weak to force an entrance, it insulted and plundered the precincts, sacrilegiously violating the tombs of

St. Peter and St. Paul. Had the city itself been sacked, the moral effect could not have been greater. From the

church of St. Peter its altar of silver was torn away and sent to AfricaSt. Peter's altar, the very emblem of

Constantinople had already been besieged by the Saracens more than once; its fall was predestined, and only

postponed. Rome had received the direst insult, the greatest loss that could be inflicted upon it; the venerable

churches of Asia Minor had passed out of existence; no Christian could set his foot in Jerusalem without

permission; the Mosque of Omar stood on the site of the Temple of Solomon. Among the ruins of Alexandria

the Mosque of Mercy marked the spot where a Saracen general, satiated with massacre, had, in contemptuous

compassion, spared the fugitive relics of the enemies of Mohammed; nothing remained of Carthage but her

blackened ruins. The most powerful religious empire that the world had ever seen had suddenly come into

existence. It stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Chinese Wall, from the shores of the Caspian to those of

the Indian Ocean, and yet, in one sense, it had not reached its culmination. The day was to come when it was

to expel the successors of the Caesars from their capital, and hold the peninsula of Greece in subjection, to

dispute with Christianity the empire of Europe in the very centre of that continent, and in Africa to extend its

dogmas and faith across burning deserts and through pestilential forests from the Mediterranean to regions

DISSENSIONS OF THE ARABS. But, though Mohammedanism had not reached its culmination, the

dominion of the khalifs had. Not the sword of Charles Martel, but the internal dissension of the vast Arabian

Empire, was the salvation of Europe. Though the Ommiade Khalifs were popular in Syria, elsewhere they

were looked upon as intruders or usurpers; the kindred of the apostle was considered to be the rightful

representative of his faith. Three parties, distinguished by their colors, tore the khalifate asunder with their

disputes, and disgraced it by their atrocities. The color of the Ommiades was white, that of the Fatimites

green, that of the Abassides black; the last represented the party of Abbas, the uncle of Mohammed. The

result of these discords was a tripartite division of the Mohammedan Empire in the tenth century into the

khalifates of Bagdad, of Cairoan, and of Cordova. Unity in Mohammedan political action was at an end, and

Christendom found its safeguard, not in supernatural help, but in the quarrels of the rival potentates. To

internal animosities foreign pressures were eventually added and Arabism, which had done so much for the

intellectual advancement of the world, came to an end when the Turks and the Berbers attained to power.

The Saracens had become totally regardless of European oppositionthey were wholly taken up with their

domestic quarrels. Ockley says with truth, in his history: "The Saracens had scarce a deputy lieutenant or

general that would not have thought it the greatest affront, and such as ought to stigmatize him with indelible

disgrace, if he should have suffered himself to have been insulted by the united forces of all Europe. And if

any one asks why the Greeks did not exert themselves more, in order to the extirpation of these insolent

invaders, it is a sufficient answer to any person that is acquainted with the characters of those men to say that

As to their contempt, this instance may suffice: Nicephorus, the Roman emperor, had sent to the Khalif

HarounalRaschid a threatening letter, and this was the reply: "In the name of the most merciful God,

HarounalRaschid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog! I have read thy letter, O thou

son of an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my reply!" It was written in letters of

POLITICAL EFFECT OF POLYGAMY. A nation may recover the confiscation of its provinces, the

confiscation of its wealth; it may survive the imposition of enormous warfines; but it never can recover

from that most frightful of all waracts, the confiscation of its women. When Abou Obeidah sent to Omar

news of his capture of Antioch, Omar gently upbraided him that he had not let the troops have the women. "If

they want to marry in Syria, let them; and let them have as many female slaves as they have occasion for." It

was the institution of polygamy, based upon the confiscation of the women in the vanquished countries, that

secured forever the Mohammedan rule. the children of these unions gloried in their descent from their

conquering fathers. No better proof can be given of the efficacy of this policy than that which is furnished by

North Africa. The irresistible effect of polygamy in consolidating the new order of things was very striking.

In little more than a single generation, the Khalif was informed by his officers that the tribute must cease, for

MOHAMMEDANISM. Mohammedanism, as left by its founder, was an anthropomorphic religion. Its God

was only a gigantic man, its heaven a mansion of carnal pleasures. From these imperfect ideas its more

intelligent classes very soon freed themselves, substituting for them others more philosophical, more correct.

Eventually they attained to an accordance with those that have been pronounced in our own times by the

Vatican Council as orthodox. Thus AlGazzali says: "A knowledge of God cannot be obtained by means of

the knowledge a man has of himself, or of his own soul. The attributes of God cannot be determined from the

attributes of man. His sovereignty and government can neither be compared nor measured."

By the influence of the Nestorians and Jews, the Arabians are turned to the cultivation of Science. They

modify their views as to the destiny of man, and obtain true conceptions respecting the structure of the

world.They ascertain the size of the earth, and determine its shape. Their khalifs collect great libraries,

patronize every department of science and literature, establish astronomical observatories.They develop

the mathematical sciences, invent algebra, and improve geometry and trigonometry.They collect and

translate the old Greek mathematical and astronomical works, and adopt the inductive method of

Aristotle.They establish many colleges, and, with the aid of the Nestorians, organize a publicschool

system.They introduce the Arabic numerals and arithmetic, and catalogue and give names to the

stars.They lay the foundation of modern astronomy, chemistry, and physics, and introduce great

"IN the course of my long life," said the Khalif Ali, "I have often observed that men are more like the times

they live in than they are like their fathers." This profoundly philosophical remark of the soninlaw of

Mohammed is strictly true; for, though the personal, the bodily lineaments of a man may indicate his

parentage, the constitution of his mind, and therefore the direction of his thoughts, is determined by the

When Amrou, the lieutenant of the Khalif Omar, conquered Egypt, and annexed it to the Saracenic Empire,

he found in Alexandria a Greek grammarian, John surnamed Philoponus, or the Laborlover. Presuming on

the friendship which had arisen between them, the Greek solicited as a gift the remnant of the great library

a remnant which war and time and bigotry had spared. Amrou, therefore, sent to the khalif to ascertain his

pleasure. "If," replied the khalif, "the books agree with the Koran, the Word of God, they are useless, and

need not be preserved; if they disagree with it, they are pernicious. Let them be destroyed." Accordingly, they

were distributed among the baths of Alexandria, and it is said that six months were barely sufficient to

Although the fact has been denied, there can be little doubt that Omar gave this order. The khalif was an

illiterate man; his environment was an environment of fanaticism and ignorance. Omar's act was an

THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY BURNT. But it must not be supposed that the books which John the

Laborlover coveted were those which constituted the great library of the Ptolemies, and that of Eumenes,

King of Pergamus. Nearly a thousand years had elapsed since Philadelphus began his collection. Julius

Caesar had burnt more than half; the Patriarchs of Alexandria had not only permitted but superintended the

dispersion of almost all the rest. Orosius expressly states that he saw the empty cases or shelves of the library

twenty years after Theophilus, the uncle of St. Cyril, had procured from the Emperor Theodosius a rescript

for its destruction. Even had this once noble collection never endured such acts of violence, the mere wear

and tear, and perhaps, I may add, the pilfering of a thousand years, would have diminished it sadly. Though

John, as the surname he received indicates, might rejoice in a superfluity of occupation, we may be certain

that the care of a library of half a million books would transcend even his welltried powers; and the cost of

preserving and supporting it, that had demanded the ample resources of the Ptolemies and the Caesars, was

beyond the means of a grammarian. Nor is the time required for its combustion or destruction any indication

of the extent of the collection. Of all articles of fuel, parchment is, perhaps, the most wretched. Paper and

papyrus do excellently well as kindlingmaterials, but we may be sure that the bathmen of Alexandria did

not resort to parchment so long as they could find any thing else, and of parchment a very large portion of

There can, then, be no more doubt that Omar did order the destruction of this library, under an impression of

its uselessness or its irreligious tendency, than that the Crusaders burnt the library of Tripoli, fancifully said

to have consisted of three million volumes. The first apartment entered being found to contain nothing but the

Koran, all the other books were supposed to be the works of the Arabian impostor, and were consequently

committed to the flames. In both cases the story contains some truth and much exaggeration. Bigotry,

however, has often distinguished itself by such exploits. The Spaniards burnt in Mexico vast piles of

American picturewritings, an irretrievable loss; and Cardinal Ximenes delivered to the flames, in the

squares of Granada, eighty thousand Arabic manuscripts, many of them translations of classical authors.

We have seen how engineering talent, stimulated by Alexander's Persian campaign, led to a wonderful

development of pure science under the Ptolemies; a similar effect may be noted as the result of the Saracenic

The friendship contracted by Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, with John the Grammarian, indicates how

much the Arabian mind was predisposed to liberal ideas. Its step from the idolatry of the Caaba to the

monotheism of Mohammed prepared it to expatiate in the wide and pleasing fields of literature and

philosophy. There were two influences to which it was continually exposed. They conspired in determining

its path. These were1. That of the Nestorians in Syria; 2. That of the Jews in Egypt.

INFLUENCE OF THE NESTORIANS AND JEWS. In the last chapter I have briefly related the persecution

of Nestor and his disciples. They bore testimony to the oneness of God, through many sufferings and

martyrdoms. They utterly repudiated an Olympus filled with gods and goddesses. "Away from us a queen of

Such being their special views, the Nestorians found no difficulty in affiliating with their Saracen conquerors,

by whom they were treated not only with the highest respect, but intrusted with some of the most important

offices of the state. Mohammed, in the strongest manner, prohibited his followers from committing any

injuries against them. Jesuiabbas, their pontiff, concluded treaties both with the Prophet and with Omar, and

subsequently the Khalif HarounalRaschid placed all his public schools under the superintendence of John

To the influence of the Nestorians that of the Jews was added. When Christianity displayed a tendency to

unite itself with paganism, the conversion of the Jews was arrested; it totally ceased when Trinitarian ideas

were introduced. The cities of Syria and Egypt were full of Jews. In Alexandria alone, at the time of its

capture by Amrou, there were forty thousand who paid tribute. Centuries of misfortune and persecution had

served only to confirm them in their monotheism, and to strengthen that implacable hatred of idolatry which

they had cherished ever since the Babylonian captivity. Associated with the Nestorians, they translated into

Syriac many Greek and Latin philosophical works, which were retranslated into Arabic. While the Nestorian

was occupied with the education of the children of the great Mohammedan families, the Jew found his way

FATALISM OF THE ARABIANS. Under these influences the ferocious fanaticism of the Saracens abated,

their manners were polished, their thoughts elevated. They overran the realms of Philosophy and Science as

quickly as they had overrun the provinces of the Roman Empire. They abandoned the fallacies of vulgar

In a world devoted to idolatry, the sword of the Saracen had vindicated the majesty of God. The doctrine of

fatalism, inculcated by the Koran, had powerfully contributed to that result. "No man can anticipate or

postpone his predetermined end. Death will overtake us even in lofty towers. From the beginning God hath

settled the place in which each man shall die." In his figurative language the Arab said: "No man can by flight

escape his fate. The Destinies ride their horses by night. . . . Whether asleep in bed or in the storm of battle,

the angel of death will find thee." "I am convinced," said Ali, to whose wisdom we have already referred"I

am convinced that the affairs of men go by divine decree, and not by our administration." The Mussulmen are

those who submissively resign themselves to the will of God. They reconciled fate and freewill by saying,

"The outline is given us, we color the picture of life as we will." They said that, if we would overcome the

This dark doctrine prepared its devotees for the accomplishment of great thingsthings such as the Saracens

did accomplish. It converted despair into resignation, and taught men to disdain hope. There was a proverb

But many of the incidents of war showed plainly that medicines may assuage pain, that skill may close

wounds, that those who are incontestably dying may be snatched from the grave. The Jewish physician

became a living, an accepted protest against the fatalism of the Koran. By degrees the sternness of

predestination was mitigated, and it was admitted that in individual life there is an effect due to freewill;

that by his voluntary acts man may within certain limits determine his own course. But, so far as nations are

concerned, since they can yield no personal accountability to God, they are placed under the control of

In this respect the contrast between the Christian and the Mohammedan nations was very striking: The

Christian was convinced of incessant providential interventions; he believed that there was no such thing as

law in the government of the world. By prayers and entreaties he might prevail with God to change the

current of affairs, or, if that failed, he might succeed with Christ, or perhaps with the Virgin Mary, or through

the intercession of the saints, or by the influence of their relics or bones. If his own supplications were

unavailing, he might obtain his desire through the intervention of his priest, or through that of the holy men

of the Church, and especially if oblations or gifts of money were added. Christendom believed that she could

change the course of affairs by influencing the conduct of superior beings. Islam rested in a pious resignation

to the unchangeable will of God. The prayer of the Christian was mainly an earnest intercession for benefits

hoped for, that of the Saracen a devout expression of gratitude for the past. Both substituted prayer for the

ecstatic meditation of India. To the Christian the progress of the world was an exhibition of disconnected

impulses, of sudden surprises. To the Mohammedan that progress presented a very different aspect. Every

corporeal motion was due to some preceding motion; every thought to some preceding thought; every

historical event was the offspring of some preceding event; every human action was the result of some

foregone and accomplished action. In the long annals of our race, nothing has ever been abruptly introduced.

There has been an orderly, an inevitable sequence from event to event. There is an iron chain of destiny, of

which the links are facts; each stands in its preordained placenot one has ever been disturbed, not one has

ever been removed. Every man came into the world without his own knowledge, he is to depart from it

perhaps against his own wishes. Then let him calmly fold his hands, and expect the issues of fate.

Coincidently with this change of opinion as to the government of individual life, there came a change as

respects the mechanical construction of the world. According to the Koran, the earth is a square plane, edged

with vast mountains, which serve the double purpose of balancing it in its seat, and of sustaining the dome of

the sky. Our devout admiration of the power and wisdom of God should be excited by the spectacle of this

vast crystalline brittle expanse, which has been safely set in its position without so much as a crack or any

other injury. Above the sky, and resting on it, is heaven, built in seven stories, the uppermost being the

habitation of God, who, under the form of a gigantic man, sits on a throne, having on either side winged

THEY MEASURE THE EARTH. These ideas, which indeed are not peculiar to Mohammedanism, but are

entertained by all men in a certain stage of their intellectual development as religious revelations, were very

quickly exchanged by the more advanced Mohammedans for others scientifically correct. Yet, as has been the

case in Christian countries, the advance was not made without resistance on the part of the defenders of

revealed truth. Thus when AlMamun, having become acquainted with the globular form of the earth, gave

orders to his mathematicians and astronomers to measure a degree of a great circle upon it, Takyuddin, one of

the most celebrated doctors of divinity of that time, denounced the wicked khalif, declaring that God would

assuredly punish him for presumptuously interrupting the devotions of the faithful by encouraging and

diffusing a false and atheistical philosophy among them. AlMamun, however, persisted. On the shores of

the Red Sea, in the plains of Shinar, by the aid of an astrolabe, the elevation of the pole above the horizon

was determined at two stations on the same meridian, exactly one degree apart. The distance between the two

stations was then measured, and found to be two hundred thousand Hashemite cubits; this gave for the entire

circumference of the earth about twentyfour thousand of our miles, a determination not far from the truth.

But, since the spherical form could not be positively asserted from one such measurement, the khalif caused

another to be made near Cufa in Mesopotamia. His astronomers divided themselves into two parties, and,

starting from a given point, each party measured an arc of one degree, the one northward, the other

southward. Their result is given in cubits. If the cubit employed was that known as the royal cubit, the length

of a degree was ascertained within onethird of a mile of its true value. From these measures the khalif

THEIR PASSION FOR SCIENCE. It is remarkable how quickly the ferocious fanaticism of the Saracens was

transformed into a passion for intellectual pursuits. At first the Koran was an obstacle to literature and

science. Mohammed had extolled it as the grandest of all compositions, and had adduced its unapproachable

excellence as a proof of his divine mission. But, in little more than twenty years after his death, the

experience that had been acquired in Syria, Persia, Asia Minor, Egypt, had produced a striking effect, and Ali

the khalif reigning at that time, avowedly encouraged all kinds of literary pursuits. Moawyah, the founder of

the Ommiade dynasty, who followed in 661, revolutionized the government. It had been elective, he made it

hereditary. He removed its seat from Medina to a more central position at Damascus, and entered on a career

of luxury and magnificence. He broke the bonds of a stern fanaticism, and put himself forth as a cultivator

and patron of letters. Thirty years had wrought a wonderful change. A Persian satrap who had occasion to pay

homage to Omar, the second khalif, found him asleep among the beggars on the steps of the Mosque of

Medina; but foreign envoys who had occasion to seek Moawyah, the sixth khalif, were presented to him in a

magnificent palace, decorated with exquisite arabesques, and adorned with flowergardens and fountains.

THEIR LITERATURE. In less than a century after the death of Mohammed, translations of the chief Greek

philosophical authors had been made into Arabic; poems such as the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," being

considered to have an irreligious tendency from their mythological allusions, were rendered into Syriac, to

gratify the curiosity of the learned. Almansor, during his khalifate (A.D. 753775), transferred the seat of

government to Bagdad, which he converted into a splendid metropolis; he gave much of his time to the study

and promotion of astronomy, and established schools of medicine and law. His grandson,

HarounalRaschid (A.D. 786), followed his example, and ordered that to every mosque in his dominions a

school should be attached. But the Augustan age of Asiatic learning was during the khalifate of AlMamun

(A.D. 813832). He made Bagdad the centre of science, collected great libraries, and surrounded himself

The elevated taste thus cultivated continued after the division of the Saracen Empire by internal dissensions

into three parts. The Abasside dynasty in Asia, the Fatimite in Egypt, and the Ommiade in Spain, became

THEY ORIGINATE CHEMISTRY. In letters the Saracens embraced every topic that can amuse or edify the

mind. In later times, it was their boast that they had produced more poets than all other nations combined. In

science their great merit consists in this, that they cultivated it after the manner of the Alexandrian Greeks,

not after the manner of the European Greeks. They perceived that it can never be advanced by mere

speculation; its only sure progress is by the practical interrogation of Nature. The essential characteristics of

their method are experiment and observation. Geometry and the mathematical sciences they looked upon as

instruments of reasoning. In their numerous writings on mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, it is interesting to

remark that the solution of a problem is always obtained by performing an experiment, or by an instrumental

observation. It was this that made them the originators of chemistry, that led them to the invention of all

kinds of apparatus for distillation, sublimation, fusion, filtration, etc.; that in astronomy caused them to

appeal to divided instruments, as quadrants and astrolabes; in chemistry, to employ the balance, the theory of

which they were perfectly familiar with; to construct tables of specific gravities and astronomical tables, as

those of Bagdad, Spain, Samarcand; that produced their great improvements in geometry, trigonometry, the

invention of algebra, and the adoption of the Indian numeration in arithmetic. Such were the results of their

preference of the inductive method of Aristotle, their declining the reveries of Plato.

THEIR GREAT LIBRARIES. For the establishment and extension of the public libraries, books were

sedulously collected. Thus the khalif AlMamun is reported to have brought into Bagdad hundreds of

camelloads of manuscripts. In a treaty he made with the Greek emperor, Michael III., he stipulated that one

of the Constantinople libraries should be given up to him. Among the treasures he thus acquired was the

treatise of Ptolemy on the mathematical construction of the heavens. He had it forthwith translated into

Arabic, under the title of "Almagest." The collections thus acquired sometimes became very large; thus the

Fatimite Library at Cairo contained one hundred thousand volumes, elegantly transcribed and bound. Among

these, there were six thousand five hundred manuscripts on astronomy and medicine alone. The rules of this

library permitted the lending out of books to students resident at Cairo. It also contained two globes, one of

massive silver and one of brass; the latter was said to have been constructed by Ptolemy, the former cost three

thousand golden crowns. The great library of the Spanish khalifs eventually numbered six hundred thousand

volumes; its catalogue alone occupied fortyfour. Besides this, there were seventy public libraries in

Andalusia. The collections in the possession of individuals were sometimes very extensive. A private doctor

refused the invitation of a Sultan of Bokhara because the carriage of his books would have required four

There was in every great library a department for the copying or manufacture of translations. Such

manufactures were also often an affair of private enterprise. Honian, a Nestorian physician, had an

establishment of the kind at Bagdad (A.D. 850). He issued versions of Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Galen,

etc. As to original works, it was the custom of the authorities of colleges to require their professors to prepare

treatises on prescribed topics. Every khalif had his own historian. Books of romances and tales, such as "The

Thousand and One Arabian Nights' Entertainments," bear testimony to the creative fancy of the Saracens.

Besides these, there were works on all kinds of subjectshistory, jurisprudence, politics, philosophy,

biographies not only of illustrious men, but also of celebrated horses and camels. These were issued without

any censorship or restraint, though, in later times, works on theology required a license for publication.

Books of reference abounded, geographical, statistical, medical, historical dictionaries, and even abridgments

or condensations of them, as the "Encyclopedic Dictionary of all the Sciences, by Mohammed Abu Abdallah.

Much pride was taken in the purity and whiteness of the paper, in the skillful intermixture of

variouslycolored inks, and in the illumination of titles by gilding and other adornments.

The Saracen Empire was dotted all over with colleges. They were established in Mongolia, Tartary, Persia,

Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Morocco, Fez, Spain. At one extremity of this vast region, which

far exceeded the Roman Empire in geographical extent, were the college and astronomical observatory of

Samarcand, at the other the Giralda in Spain. Gibbon, referring to this patronage of learning, says: "The same

royal prerogative was claimed by the independent emirs of the provinces, and their emulation diffused the

taste and the rewards of science from Samarcand and Bokhara to Fez and Cordova. The vizier of a sultan

consecrated a sum of two hundred thousand pieces of gold to the foundation of a college at Bagdad, which he

endowed with an annual revenue of fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits of instruction were communicated,

perhaps, at different times, to six thousand disciples of every degree, from the son of the noble to that of the

mechanic; a sufficient allowance was provided for the indigent scholars, and the merit or industry of the

professors was repaid with adequate stipends. In every city the productions of Arabic literature were copied

and collected, by the curiosity of the studious and the vanity of the rich." The superintendence of these

schools was committed with noble liberality sometimes to Nestorians, sometimes to Jews. It mattered not in

what country a man was born, nor what were his religious opinions; his attainment in learning was the only

thing to be considered. The great Khalif AlMamun had declared that "they are the elect of God, his best and

most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties; that the teachers

of wisdom are the true luminaries and legislators of this world, which, without their aid, would again sink

After the example of the medical college of Cairo, other medical colleges required their students to pass a

rigid examination. The candidate then received authority to enter on the practice of his profession. The first

medical college established in Europe was that founded by the Saracens at Salerno, in Italy. The first

THE ARABIAN SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT. It would far transcend the limits of this book to give an

adequate statement of the results of this imposing scientific movement. The ancient sciences were greatly

extendednew ones were brought into existence. The Indian method of arithmetic was introduced, a

beautiful invention, which expresses all numbers by ten characters, giving them an absolute value, and a

value by position, and furnishing simple rules for the easy performance of all kinds of calculations. Algebra,

or universal arithmeticthe method of calculating indeterminate quantities, or investigating the relations that

subsist among quantities of all kinds, whether arithmetical or geometricalwas developed from the germ

that Diophantus had left. Mohammed Ben Musa furnished the solution of quadratic equations, Omar Ben Ibra

him that of cubic equations. The Saracens also gave to trigonometry its modern form, substituting sines for

chords, which had been previously used; they elevated it into a separate science. Musa, above mentioned, was

the author of a "Treatise on Spherical Trigonometry." AlBaghadadi left one on landsurveying, so excellent,

that by some it has been declared to be a copy of Euclid's lost work on that subject.

ARABIAN ASTRONOMY. In astronomy, they not only made catalogues, but maps of the stars visible in

their skies, giving to those of the larger magnitudes the Arabic names they still bear on our celestial globes.

They ascertained, as we have seen, the size of the earth by the measurement of a degree on her surface,

determined the obliquity of the ecliptic, published corrected tables of the sun and moon fixed the length of the

year, verified the precession of the equinoxes. The treatise of Albategnius on "The Science of the Stars" is

spoken of by Laplace with respect; he also draws attention to an important fragment of IbnJunis, the

astronomer of Hakem, the Khalif of Egypt, A.D. 1000, as containing a long series of observations from the

time of Almansor, of eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets, occultations of

starsobservations which have cast much light on the great variations of the system of the world. The

Arabian astronomers also devoted themselves to the construction and perfection of astronomical instruments,

to the measurement of time by clocks of various kinds, by clepsydras and sundials. They were the first to

In the experimental sciences, they originated chemistry; they discovered some of its most important

reagents sulphuric acid, nitric acid, alcohol. They applied that science in the practice of medicine, being

the first to publish pharmacopoeias or dispensatories, and to include in them mineral preparations. In

mechanics, they had determined the laws of falling bodies, had ideas, by no means indistinct, of the nature of

gravity; they were familiar with the theory of the mechanical powers. In hydrostatics they constructed the

first tables of the specific gravities of bodies, and wrote treatises on the flotation and sinking of bodies in

water. In optics, they corrected the Greek misconception, that a ray proceeds from the eye, and touches the

object seen, introducing the hypothesis that the ray passes from the object to the eye. They understood the

phenomena of the reflection and refraction of light. Alhazen made the great discovery of the curvilinear path

of a ray of light through the atmosphere, and proved that we see the sun and moon before they have risen, and

AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURE. The effects of this scientific activity are plainly perceived in the

great improvements that took place in many of the industrial arts. Agriculture shows it in better methods of

irrigation, the skillful employment of manures, the raising of improved breeds of cattle, the enactment of wise

codes of rural laws, the introduction of the culture of rice, and that of sugar and coffee. The manufactures

show it in the great extension of the industries of silk, cotton, wool; in the fabrication of cordova and

morocco leather, and paper; in mining, casting, and various metallurgic operations; in the making of Toledo

Passionate lovers of poetry and music, they dedicated much of their leisure time to those elegant pursuits.

They taught Europe the game of chess; they gave it its taste for works of fictionromances and novels. In

the graver domains of literature they took delight: they had many admirable compositions on such subjects as

the instability of human greatness; the consequences of irreligion; the reverses of fortune; the origin, duration,

and end of the world. Sometimes, not without surprise, we meet with ideas which we flatter ourselves have

originated in our own times. Thus our modern doctrines of evolution and development were taught in their

schools. In fact, they carried them much farther than we are disposed to do, extending them even to inorganic

or mineral things. The fundamental principle of alchemy was the natural process of development of metalline

bodies. "When common people," says Al Khazini, writing in the twelfth century, "hear from natural

philosophers that gold is a body which has attained to perfection of maturity, to the goal of completeness,

they firmly believe that it is something which has gradually come to that perfection by passing through the

forms of all other metallic bodies, so that its gold nature was originally lead, afterward it became tin, then

brass, then silver, and finally reached the development of gold; not knowing that the natural philosophers

mean, in saying this, only something like what they mean when they speak of man, and attribute to him a

completeness and equilibrium in nature and constitutionnot that man was once a bull, and was changed

into an ass, and afterward into a horse, and after that into an ape, and finally became a man."

Philosophical views of the Orientals.The Vedic theology and Buddhism assert the doctrine of emanation

and absorption.It is advocated by Aristotle, who is followed by the Alexandrian school, and subsequently

Connection of this doctrine with the theory of conservation and correlation of force.Parallel between the

origin and destiny of the body and the soul.The necessity of founding human on comparative psychology.

Averroism, which is based on these facts, is brought into Christendom through Spain and Sicily.

History of the repression of Averroism.Revolt of Islam against it.Antagonism of the Jewish

synagogues.Its destruction undertaken by the papacy.Institution of the Inquisition in Spain.Frightful

persecutions and their results.Expulsion of the Jews and Moors.Overthrow of Averroism in

THE pagan Greeks and Romans believed that the spirit of man resembles his bodily form, varying its

appearance with his variations, and growing with his growth. Heroes, to whom it had been permitted to

descend into Hades, had therefore without difficulty recognized their former friends. Not only had the

THE SOUL. The primitive Christians, whose conceptions of a future life and of heaven and hell, the abodes

of the blessed and the sinful, were far more vivid than those of their pagan predecessors, accepted and

intensified these ancient ideas. They did not doubt that in the world to come they should meet their friends,

and hold converse with them, as they had done here upon earth an expectation that gives consolation to the

human heart, reconciling it to the most sorrowful bereavements, and restoring to it its dead.

In the uncertainty as to what becomes of the soul in the interval between its separation from the body and the

judgmentday, many different opinions were held. Some thought that it hovered over the grave, some that it

wandered disconsolate through the air. In the popular belief, St. Peter sat as a doorkeeper at the gate of

heaven. To him it had been given to bind or to loose. He admitted or excluded the Spirits of men at his

pleasure. Many persons, however, were disposed to deny him this power, since his decisions would be

anticipatory of the judgmentday, which would thus be rendered needless. After the time of Gregory the

Great, the doctrine of purgatory met with general acceptance. A restingplace was provided for departed

That the spirits of the dead occasionally revisit the living, or haunt their former abodes, has been in all ages,

in all European countries, a fixed belief, not confined to rustics, but participated in by the intelligent. A

pleasing terror gathers round the winter'sevening fireside at the stories of apparitions, goblins, ghosts. In the

old times the Romans had their lares, or spirits of those who had led virtuous lives; their larvae or lemures,

the spirits of the wicked; their manes, the spirits of those of whom the merits were doubtful. If human

testimony on such subjects can be of any value, there is a body of evidence reaching from the remotest ages

to the present time, as extensive and unimpeachable as is to be found in support of any thing whatever, that

these shades of the dead congregate near tombstones, or take up their secret abode in the gloomy chambers of

ASIATIC PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEWS. While these opinions have universally found popular acceptance in

Europe, others of a very different nature have prevailed extensively in Asia, and indeed very generally in the

higher regions of thought. Ecclesiastical authority succeeded in repressing them in the sixteenth century, but

they never altogether disappeared. In our own times so silently and extensively have they been diffused in

Europe, that it was found expedient in the papal Syllabus to draw them in a very conspicuous manner into the

open light; and the Vatican Council, agreeing in that view of their obnoxious tendency and secret spread, has

in an equally prominent and signal manner among its first canons anathematized all persons who hold them.

"Let him be anathema who says that spiritual things are emanations of the divine substance, or that the divine

essence by manifestation or development becomes all things." In view of this authoritative action, it is

Ideas respecting the nature of God necessarily influence ideas respecting the nature of the soul. The eastern

Asiatics had adopted the conception of an impersonal God, and, as regards the soul, its necessary

EMANATION AND ABSORPTION. Thus the Vedic theology is based on the acknowledgment of a

universal spirit pervading all things. "There is in truth but one Deity, the supreme Spirit; he is of the same

nature as the soul of man." Both the Vedas and the Institutes of Menu affirm that the soul is an emanation of

the allpervading Intellect, and that it is necessarily destined to be reabsorbed. They consider it to be without

form, and that visible Nature, with all its beauties and harmonies, is only the shadow of God.

Vedaism developed itself into Buddhism, which has become the faith of a majority of the human race. This

system acknowledges that there is a supreme Power, but denies that there is a supreme Being. It contemplates

the existence of Force, giving rise as its manifestation to matter. It adopts the theory of emanation and

absorption. In a burning taper it sees an effigy of manan embodiment of matter, and an evolution of force.

If we interrogate it respecting the destiny of the soul, it demands of us what has become of the flame when it

is blown out, and in what condition it was before the taper was lighted. Was it a nonentity? Has it been

annihilated? It admits that the idea of personality which has deluded us through life may not be

instantaneously extinguished at death, but may be lost by slow degrees. On this is founded the doctrine of

transmigration. But at length reunion with the universal Intellect takes place, Nirwana is reached, oblivion is

attained, a state that has no relation to matter, space, or time, the state into which the departed flame of the

extinguished taper has gone, the state in which we were before we were born. This is the end that we ought to

hope for; it is reabsorption in the universal Force supreme bliss, eternal rest.

Through Aristotle these doctrines were first introduced into Eastern Europe; indeed, eventually, as we shall

see, he was regarded as the author of them. They exerted a dominating influence in the later period of the

Alexandrian school. Philo, the Jew, who lived in the time of Caligula, based his philosophy on the theory of

emanation. Plotinus not only accepted that theory as applicable to the soul of man, but as affording an

illustration of the nature of the Trinity. For, as a beam of light emanates from the sun, and as warmth

emanates from the beam when it touches material bodies, so from the Father the Son emanates, and thence

the Holy Ghost. From these views Plotinus derived a practical religious system, teaching the devout how to

pass into a condition of ecstasy, a foretaste of absorption into the universal mundane soul. In that condition

the soul loses its individual consciousness. In like manner Porphyry sought absorption in or union with God.

He was a Tyrian by birth, established a school at Rome, and wrote against Christianity; his treatise on that

subject was answered by Eusebius and St. Jerome, but the Emperor Theodosius silenced it more effectually

by causing all the copies to be burnt. Porphyry bewails his own unworthiness, saying that he had been united

to God in ecstasy but once in eightysix years, whereas his master Plotinus had been so united six times in

sixty years. A complete system of theology, based on the theory of emanation, was constructed by Proclus,

who speculated on the manner in which absorption takes place: whether the soul is instantly reabsorbed and

reunited in the moment of death, or whether it retains the sentiment of personality for a time, and subsides

ARABIC PSYCHOLOGY. From the Alexandrian Greeks these ideas passed to the Saracen philosophers,

who very soon after the capture of the great Egyptian city abandoned to the lower orders their

anthropomorphic notions of the nature of God and the simulachral form of the spirit of man. As Arabism

developed itself into a distinct scientific system, the theories of emanation and absorption were among its

characteristic features. In this abandonment of vulgar Mohammedanism, the example of the Jews greatly

assisted. They, too, had given up the anthropomorphism of their ancestors; they had exchanged the God who

of old lived behind the veil of the temple for an infinite Intelligence pervading the universe, and, avowing

their inability to conceive that any thing which had on a sudden been called into existence should be capable

of immortality, they affirmed that the soul of man is connected with a past of which there was no beginning,,

In the intellectual history of Arabism the Jew and the Saracen are continually seen together. It was the same

in their political history, whether we consider it in Syria, in Egypt, or in Spain. From them conjointly Western

Europe derived its philosophical ideas, which in the course of time culminated in Averroism; Averroism is

philosophical Islamism. Europeans generally regarded Averroes as the author of these heresies, and the

orthodox branded him accordingly, but he was nothing more than their collector and commentator. His works

invaded Christendom by two routes: from Spain through Southern France they reached Upper Italy,

engendering numerous heresies on their way; from Sicily they passed to Naples and South Italy, under the

But, long before Europe suffered this great intellectual invasion, there were what might, perhaps, be termed

sporadic instances of Orientalism. As an example I may quote the views of John Erigena (A.D. 800) He had

adopted and taught the philosophy of Aristotle had made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of that philosopher,

and indulged a hope of uniting philosophy and religion in the manner proposed by the Christian ecclesiastics

who were then studying in the Mohammedan universities of Spain. He was a native of Britain.

In a letter to Charles the Bald, Anastasius expresses his astonishment "how such a barbarian man, coming

from the very ends of the earth, and remote from human conversation, could comprehend things so clearly,

and transfer them into another language so well." The general intention of his writings was, as we have said,

to unite philosophy with religion, but his treatment of these subjects brought him under ecclesiastical censure,

and some of his works were adjudged to the flames. His most important book is entitled "De Divisione

Erigena's philosophy rests upon the observed and admitted fact that every living thing comes from something

that had previously lived. The visible world, being a world of life, has therefore emanated necessarily from

some primordial existence, and that existence is God, who is thus the originator and conservator of all.

Whatever we see maintains itself as a visible thing through force derived from him, and, were that force

withdrawn, it must necessarily disappear. Erigena thus conceives of the Deity as an unceasing participator in

Nature, being its preserver, maintainer, upholder, and in that respect answering to the soul of the world of the

Greeks. The particular life of individuals is therefore a part of general existence, that is, of the mundane soul.

If ever there were a withdrawal of the maintaining power, all things must return to the source from which

they issuedthat is, they must return to God, and be absorbed in him. All visible Nature must thus pass back

into "the Intellect" at last. "The death of the flesh is the auspices of the restitution of things, and of a return to

their ancient conservation. So sounds revert back to the air in which they were born, and by which they were

maintained, and they are heard no more; no man knows what has become of them. In that final absorption

which, after a lapse of time, must necessarily come, God will be all in all, and nothing exist but him alone." "I

contemplate him as the beginning and cause of all things; all things that are and those that have been, but now

are not, were created from him, and by him, and in him. I also view him as the end and intransgressible term

of all things. . . . There is a fourfold conception of universal Naturetwo views of divine Nature, as origin

and end; two also of framed Nature, causes and effects. There is nothing eternal but God."

The return of the soul to the universal Intellect is designated by Erigena as Theosis, or Deification. In that

final absorption all remembrance of its past experiences is lost. The soul reverts to the condition in which it

was before it animated the body. Necessarily, therefore, Erigena fell under the displeasure of the Church.

It was in India that men first recognized the fact that force is indestructible and eternal. This implies ideas

more or less distinct of that which we now term its "correlation and conservation." Considerations connected

with the stability of the universe give strength to this view, since it is clear that, were there either an increase

or a diminution, the order of the world must cease. The definite and invariable amount of energy in the

universe must therefore be accepted as a scientific fact. The changes we witness are in its distribution.

But, since the soul must be regarded as an active principle, to call a new one into existence out of nothing is

necessarily to add to the force previously in the world. And, if this has been done in the case of every

individual who has been born, and is to be repeated for every individual hereafter, the totality of force must

Moreover, to many devout persons there is something very revolting in the suggestion that the Almighty is a

servitor to the caprices and lusts of man, and that, at a certain term after its origin, it is necessary for him to

Considering man as composed of two portions, a soul and a body, the obvious relations of the latter may cast

much light on the mysterious, the obscure relations of the former. Now, the substance of which the body

consists is obtained from the general mass of matter around us, and after death to that general mass it is

restored. Has Nature, then, displayed before our eyes in the origin, mutations, and destiny of the material part,

the body, a revelation that may guide us to a knowledge of the origin and destiny of the companion, the

"God has created the spirit of man out of a drop of his own light; its destiny is to return to him. Do not

deceive yourself with the vain imagination that it will die when the body dies. The form you had on your

entrance into this world, and your present form, are not the same; hence there is no necessity of your

perishing, on account of the perishing of your body. Your spirit came into this world a stranger, it is only

sojourning, in a temporary home. From the trials and tempests of this troublesome life, our refuge is in God.

In reunion with him we shall find eternal resta rest without sorrow, a joy without pain, a strength without

infirmity, a knowledge without doubt, a tranquil and yet an ecstatic vision of the source of life and light and

glory, the source from which we came." So says the Saracen philosopher, AlGazzali (A.D. 1010).

In a stone the material particles are in a state of stable equilibrium; it may, therefore, endure forever. An

animal is in reality only a form through which a stream of matter is incessantly flowing. It receives its

supplies, and dismisses its wastes. In this it resembles a cataract, a river, a flame. The particles that compose

it at one instant have departed from it the next. It depends for its continuance on exterior supplies. It has a

In the great problem of psychology we cannot expect to reach a scientific result, if we persist in restricting

ourselves to the contemplation of one fact. We must avail ourselves of all accessible facts. Human

psychology can never be completely resolved except through comparative psychology. With Descartes, we

must inquire whether the souls of animals be relations of the human soul, less perfect members in the same

series of development. We must take account of what we discover in the intelligent principle of the ant, as

well as what we discern in the intelligent principle of man. Where would human physiology be, if it were not

Brodie, after an exhaustive consideration of the facts, affirms that the mind of animals is essentially the same

as that of man. Every one familiar with the dog will admit that that creature knows right from wrong, and is

conscious when he has committed a fault. Many domestic animals have reasoning powers, and employ proper

means for the attainment of ends. How numerous are the anecdotes related of the intentional actions of the

elephant and the ape! Nor is this apparent intelligence due to imitation, to their association with man, for wild

animals that have no such relation exhibit similar properties. In different species, the capacity and character

greatly vary. Thus the dog is not only more intelligent, but has social and moral qualities that the cat does not

Du BoisReymond makes this striking remark: "With awe and wonder must the student of Nature regard that

microscopic molecule of nervous substance which is the seat of the laborious, constructive, orderly, loyal,

dauntless soul of the ant. It has developed itself to its present state through a countless series of generations."

What an impressive inference we may draw from the statement of Huber, who has written so well on this

subject: "If you will watch a single ant at work, you can tell what he will next do!" He is considering the

matter, and reasoning as you are doing. Listen to one of the many anecdotes which Huber, at once truthful

and artless, relates: "On the visit of an overseer ant to the works, when the laborers had begun the roof too

soon, he examined it and had it taken down, the wall raised to the proper height, and a new ceiling

constructed with the fragments of the old one." Surely these insects are not automata, they show intention.

They recognize their old companions, who have been shut up from them for many months, and exhibit

sentiments of joy at their return. Their antennal language is capable of manifold expression; it suits the

While solitary insects do not live to raise their young, social insects have a longer term, they exhibit moral

affections and educate their offspring. Patterns of patience and industry, some of these insignificant creatures

will work sixteen or eighteen hours a day. Few men are capable of sustained mental application more than

Similarity of effects indicates similarity of causes; similarity of actions demands similarity of organs. I would

ask the reader of these paragraphs, who is familiar with the habits of animals, and especially with the social

relations of that wonderful insect to which reference has been made, to turn to the nineteenth chapter of my

work on the "Intellectual Development of Europe," in which he will find a description of the social system of

the Incas of Peru. Perhaps, then, in view of the similarity of the social institutions and personal conduct of the

insect, and the social institutions and personal conduct of the civilized Indianthe one an insignificant

speck, the other a manhe will not be disposed to disagree with me in the opinion that "from bees, and

wasps, and ants, and birds, from all that low animal life on which he looks with supercilious contempt, man is

The views of Descartes, who regarded all insects as automata, can scarcely be accepted without modification.

Insects are automata only so far as the action of their ventral cord, and that portion of their cephalic ganglia

It is one of the functions of vesicularnervous material to retain traces or relics of impressions brought to it

by the organs of sense; hence, nervous ganglia, being composed of that material, may be considered as

registering apparatus. They also introduce the element of time into the action of the nervous mechanism. An

impression, which without them might have forthwith ended in reflex action, is delayed, and with this

duration come all those important effects arising through the interaction of many impressions, old and new,

There is no such thing as a spontaneous, or self originated, thought. Every intellectual act is the

consequence of some preceding act. It comes into existence in virtue of something that has gone before. Two

minds constituted precisely alike, and placed under the influence of precisely the same environment, must

give rise to precisely the same thought. To such sameness of action we allude in the popular expression

"common sense"a term full of meaning. In the origination of a thought there are two distinct conditions:

the state of the organism as dependent on antecedent impressions, and on the existing physical circumstances.

In the cephalic ganglia of insects are stored up the relics of impressions that have been made upon the

common peripheral nerves, and in them are kept those which are brought in by the organs of special sense

the visual, olfactive, auditory. The interaction of these raises insects above mere mechanical automata, in

In all cases the action of every nervecentre, no matter what its stage of development may be, high or low,

depends upon an essential chemical conditionoxidation. Even in man, if the supply of arterial blood be

stopped but for a moment, the nervemechanism loses its power; if diminished, it correspondingly declines;

if, on the contrary, it be increasedas when nitrogen monoxide is breathedthere is more energetic action.

Two fundamental ideas are essentially attached to all our perceptions of external things: they are SPACE and

TIME, and for these provision is made in the nervous mechanism while it is yet in an almost rudimentary

state. The eye is the organ of space, the ear of time; the perceptions of which by the elaborate mechanism of

these structures become infinitely more precise than would be possible if the sense of touch alone were

There are some simple experiments which illustrate the vestiges of ganglionic impressions. If on a cold,

polished metal, as a new razor, any object, such as a wafer, be laid, and the metal be then breathed upon, and,

when the moisture has had time to disappear, the wafer be thrown off, though now the most critical

inspection of the polished surface can discover no trace of any form, if we breathe once more upon it, a

spectral image of the wafer comes plainly into view; and this may be done again and again. Nay, more, if the

polished metal be carefully put aside where nothing can deteriorate its surface, and be so kept for many

Such an illustration shows how trivial an impression may be thus registered and preserved. But, if, on such an

inorganic surface, an impression may thus be indelibly marked, how much more likely in the purposely

constructed ganglion! A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a permanent trace, a trace

which might be made visible by resorting to proper processes. Photographic operations are cases in point.

The portraits of our friends, or landscape views, may be hidden on the sensitive. surface from the eye, but

they are ready to make their appearance as soon as proper developers are resorted to. A spectre is concealed

on a silver or glassy surface until, by our necromancy, we make it come forth into the visible world. Upon the

walls of our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out and our

retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have

If, after the eyelids have been closed for some time, as when we first awake in the morning, we suddenly and

steadfastly gaze at a brightlyilluminated object and then quickly close the lids again, a phantom image is

perceived in the indefinite darkness beyond us. We may satisfy ourselves that this is not a fiction, but a

reality, for many details that we had not time to identify in the momentary glance may be contemplated at our

leisure in the phantom. We may thus make out the pattern of such an object as a lace curtain hanging in the

window, or the branches of a tree beyond. By degrees the image becomes less and less distinct; in a minute or

two it has disappeared. It seems to have a tendency to float away in the vacancy before us. If we attempt to

Such a duration of impressions on the retina proves that the effect of external influences on nervevesicles is

not necessarily transitory. In this there is a correspondence to the duration, the emergence, the extinction, of

impressions on photographic preparations. Thus, I have seen landscapes and architectural views taken in

Mexico developed, as artists say, months subsequently in New Yorkthe images coming out, after the long

voyage, in all their proper forms and in all their proper contrast of light and shade. The photograph had

forgotten nothing. It had equally preserved the contour of the everlasting mountains and the passing smoke of

Are there, then, contained in the brain more permanently, as in the retina more transiently, the vestiges of

impressions that have been gathered by the sensory organs? Is this the explanation of memorythe Mind

contemplating such pictures of past things and events as have been committed to her custody. In her silent

galleries are there hung micrographs of the living and the dead, of scenes that we have visited, of incidents in

which we have borne a part? Are these abiding impressions mere signalmarks, like the letters of a book,

which impart ideas to the mind? or are they actual pictureimages, inconceivably smaller than those made for

us by artists, in which, by the aid of a microscope, we can see, in a space not bigger than a pinhole, a whole

The phantom images of the retina are not perceptible in the light of the day. Those that exist in the sensorium

in like manner do not attract our attention so long as the sensory organs are in vigorous operation, and

occupied in bringing new impressions in. But, when those organs become weary or dull, or when we

experience hours of great anxiety, or are in twilight reveries, or are asleep, the latent apparitions have their

vividness increased by the contrast, and obtrude themselves on the mind. For the same reason they occupy us

in the delirium of fevers, and doubtless also in the solemn moments of death. During a third part of our life,

in sleep, we are withdrawn from external influences; hearing and sight and the other senses are inactive,but

the neversleeping Mind, that pensive, that veiled enchantress, in her mysterious retirement, looks over the

ambrotypes she has collectedambrotypes, for they are truly unfading impressionsand, combining them

together, as they chance to occur, constructs from them the panorama of a dream.

Nature has thus implanted in the organization of every man means which impressively suggest to him the

immortality of the soul and a future life. Even the benighted savage thus sees in his visions the fading forms

of landscapes, which are, perhaps, connected with some of his most pleasant recollections; and what other

conclusion can be possibly extract from those unreal pictures than that they are the foreshadowings of another

land beyond that in which his lot is cast? At intervals he is visited in his dreams by the resemblances of those

whom he has loved or hated while they were alive; and these manifestations are to him incontrovertible

proofs of the existence and immortality of the soul. In our most refined social conditions we are never able to

shake off the impressions of these occurrences, and are perpetually drawing from them the same conclusions

that our uncivilized ancestors did. Our more elevated condition of life in no respect relieves us from the

inevitable operation of our own organization, any more than it relieves us from infirmities and disease. In

these respects, all over the globe men are on an equality. Savage or civilized, we carry within us a mechanism

which presents us with mementoes of the most solemn facts with which we can be concerned. It wants only

moments of repose or sickness, when the influence of external things is diminished, to come into full play,

and these are precisely the moments when we are best prepared for the truths it is going to suggest. That

mechanism is no respecter of persons. It neither permits the haughtiest to be free from the monitions, nor

leaves the humblest without the consolation of a knowledge of another life. Open to no opportunities of being

tampered with by the designing or interested, requiring no extraneous human agency for its effect, out always

present with every man wherever he may go, it marvelously extracts from vestiges of the impressions of the

past overwhelming proofs of the realities of the future, and, gathering its power from what would seem to be

a most unlikely source, it insensibly leads us, no matter who or where we may be, to a profound belief in the

immortal and imperishable, from phantoms which have scarcely made their appearance before they are ready

The insect differs from a mere automaton in this, that it is influenced by old, by registered impressions. In the

higher forms of animated life that registration becomes more and more complete, memory becomes more

perfect. There is not any necessary resemblance between an external form and its ganglionic impression, any

more than there is between the words of a message delivered in a telegraphic office and the signals which the

telegraph may give to the distant station; any more than there is between the letters of a printed page and the

acts or scenes they describe, but the letters call up with clearness to the mind of the reader the events and

An animal without any apparatus for the retention of impressions must be a pure automatonit cannot have

memory. From insignificant and uncertain beginnings, such an apparatus is gradually evolved, and, as its

development advances, the intellectual capacity increases. In man, this retention or registration reaches

perfection; he guides, himself by past as well as by present impressions; be is influenced by experience; his

A most important advance is made when the capability is acquired by any animal of imparting a knowledge

of the impressions stored up in its own nervecentres to another of the same kind. This marks the extension

of individual into social life, and indeed is essential thereto. In the higher insects it is accomplished by

antennal contacts, in man by speech. Humanity, in its earlier, its savage stages, was limited to this: the

knowledge of one person could be transmitted to another by conversation. The acts and thoughts of one

But tradition has its limit. The faculty of speech makes society possiblenothing more.

Not without interest do we remark the progress of development of this function. The invention of the art of

writing gave extension and durability to the registration or record of impressions. These, which had hitherto

been stored up in the brain of one man, might now be imparted to the whole human race, and be made to

endure forever. Civilization became possiblefor civilization cannot exist without writing, or the means of

From this psychological point of view we perceive the real significance of the invention of printinga

development of writing which, by increasing the rapidity of the diffusion of ideas, and insuring their

In the foregoing paragraphs, relating to nervous impressions, their registry, and the consequences, that spring

from them, I have given an abstract of views presented in my work on "Human Physiology," published in

1856, and may, therefore, refer the reader to the chapter on "Inverse Vision, or Cerebral Sight;" to Chapter

XIV., Book I.; and to Chapter VIII., Book II.; of that work, for other particulars.

The only path to scientific human psychology is through comparative psychology. It is a long and wearisome

Is there, then, a vast spiritual existence pervading the universe, even as there is a vast existence of matter

pervading ita spirit which, as a great German author tells us, "sleeps in the stone, dreams in the animal,

awakes in man?" Does the soul arise from the one as the body arises from the other? Do they in like manner

return, each to the source from which it has come? If so, we can interpret human existence, and our ideas may

still be in unison with scientific truth, and in accord with our conception of the stability, the unchangeability

To this spiritual existence the Saracens, following Eastern nations, gave the designation "the Active

Intellect." They believed that the soul of man emanated from it, as a raindrop comes from the sea, and, after

a season, returns. So arose among them the imposing doctrines of emanation and absorption. The active

In one of its forms, as we have seen, this idea was developed by Chakia Mouni, in India, in a most masterly

manner, and embodied in the vast practical system of Buddhism; in another, it was with less power presented

But, perhaps we ought rather to say that Europeans hold Averroes as the author of this doctrine, because they

saw him isolated from his antecedents. But Mohammedans gave him little credit for originality. He stood to

them in the light of a commentator on Aristotle, and as presenting the opinions of the Alexandrian and other

philosophical schools up to his time. The following excerpts from the "Historical Essay on Averroism," by

M. Renan, will show how closely the Sarscenic ideas approached those presented above:

This system supposes that, at the death of an individual, his intelligent principle or soul no longer possesses a

separate existence, but returns to or is absorbed in the universal mind, the active intelligence, the mundane

soul, which is God; from whom, indeed, it had originally emanated or issued forth.

The universal, or active, or objective intellect, is uncreated, impassible, incorruptible, has neither beginning

nor end; nor does it increase as the number of individual souls increases. It is altogether separate from matter.

It is, as it were, a cosmic principle. This oneness of the active intellect, or reason, is the essential principle of

the Averroistic theory, and is in harmony with the cardinal doctrine of Mohammedanismthe unity of God.

The individual, or passive, or subjective intellect, is an emanation from the universal, and constitutes what is

termed the soul of man. In one sense it is perishable and ends with the body, but in a higher sense it endures;

for, after death, it returns to or is absorbed in the universal soul, and thus of all human souls there remains at

last but onethe aggregate of them all, life is not the property of the individual, it belongs to Nature. The

end of, man is to enter into union more and more complete with the active intellectreason. In that the

happiness of the soul consists. Our destiny is quietude. It was the opinion of Averroes that the transition from

the individual to the universal is instantaneous at death, but the Buddhists maintain that human personality

continues in a declining manner for a certain term before nonentity, or Nirwana, is attained.

Philosophy has never proposed but two hypotheses to explain the system of the world: first, a personal God

existing apart, and a human soul called into existence or created, and thenceforth immortal; second, an

impersonal intelligence, or indeterminate God, and a soul emerging from and returning to him. As to the

origin of beings, there are two opposite opinions: first, that they are created from nothing; second, that they

come by development from preexisting forms. The theory of creation belongs to the first of the above

Philosophy among the Arabs thus took the same direction that it had taken in China, in India, and indeed

throughout the East. Its whole spirit depended on the admission of the indestructibility of matter and force. It

saw an analogy between the gathering of the material of which the body of man consists from the vast store

of matter in Nature, and its final restoration to that store, and the emanation of the spirit of man from the

Having thus indicated in sufficient detail the philosophical characteristics of the doctrine of emanation and

absorption, I have in the next place to relate its history. It was introduced into Europe by the Spanish Arabs.

Spain was the focal point from which, issuing forth, it affected the ranks of intelligence and fashion all over

The Spanish khalifs had surrounded themselves with all the luxuries of Oriental life. They had magnificent

palaces, enchanting gardens, seraglios filled with beautiful women. Europe at the present day does not offer

more taste, more refinement, more elegance, than might have been seen, at the epoch of which we are

speaking, in the capitals of the Spanish Arabs. Their streets were lighted and solidly paved. The houses were

frescoed and carpeted; they were warmed in winter by furnaces, and cooled in summer with perfumed air

brought by underground pipes from flowerbeds. They had baths, and libraries, and dininghalls, fountains

of quicksilver and water. City and country were full of conviviality, and of dancing to the lute and mandolin.

Instead of the drunken and gluttonous wassail orgies of their Northern neighbors, the feasts of the Saracens

were marked by sobriety. Wine was prohibited. The enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia were spent

by the Moors in sequestered, fairylike gardens or in orangegroves, listening to the romances of the

storyteller, or engaged in philosophical discourse; consoling themselves for the disappointments of this life

by such reflections as that, if virtue were rewarded in this world, we should be without expectations in the life

to come; and reconciling themselves to their daily toil by the expectation that rest will be found after

In the tenth century the Khalif Hakein II. had made beautiful Andalusia the paradise of the world. Christians,

Mussulmen, Jews, mixed together without restraint. There, among many celebrated names that have

descended to our times, was Gerbert, destined subsequently to become pope. There, too, was Peter the

Venerable, and many Christian ecclesiastics. Peter says that he found learned men even from Britain pursuing

astronomy. All learned men, no matter from what country they came, or what their religious views, were

welcomed. The khalif had in his palace a manufactory of books, and copyists, binders, illuminators. He kept

bookbuyers in all the great cities of Asia and Africa. His library contained four hundred thousand volumes,

Throughout the Mohammedan dominions in Asia, in Africa, and in Spain, the lower order of Mussulmen

entertained a fanatical hatred against learning. Among the more devoutthose who claimed to be

orthodox there were painful doubts as to the salvation of the great Khalif AlMamunthe wicked khalif,

as they called himfor he had not only disturbed the people by introducing the writings of Aristotle and

other Greek heathens, but had even struck at the existence of heaven and hell by saying that the earth is a

globe, and pretending that he could measure its size. These persons, from their numbers, constituted a

Almansor, who usurped the khalifate to the prejudice of Hakem's son, thought that his usurpation would be

sustained if he put himself at the head of the orthodox party. He therefore had the library of Hakem searched,

and all works of a scientific or philosophical nature carried into the public places and burnt, or thrown into

the cisterns of the palace. By a similar court revolution Averroes, in his old agehe died A.D. 1193was

expelled from Spain; the religious party had triumphed over the philosophical. He was denounced as a traitor

to religion. An opposition to philosophy had been organized all over the Mussulman world. There was hardly

a philosopher who was not punished. Some were put to death, and the consequence was, that Islam was full

Into Italy, Germany, England, Averroism had silently made its way. It found favor in the eyes of the

Franciscans, and a focus in the University of Paris. By very many of the leading minds it had been accepted.

But at length the Dominicans, the rivals of the Franciscans, sounded an alarm. They said it destroys all

personality, conducts to fatalism, and renders inexplicable the difference and progress of individual

intelligences. The declaration that there is but one intellect is an error subversive of the merits of the saints, it

is an assertion that there is no difference among men. What! is there no difference between the holy soul of

Peter and the damned soul of Judas? are they identical? Averroes in this his blasphemous doctrine denies

creation, providence, revelation, the Trinity, the efficacy of prayers, of alms, and of litanies; he disbelieves in

So, too, among the Jews who were then the leading intellects of the world, Averroism had been largely

propagated. Their great writer Maimonides had thoroughly accepted it; his school was spreading it in all

directions. A furious persecution arose on the part of the orthodox Jews. Of Maimonides it had been formerly

their delight to declare that he was "the Eagle of the Doctors, the Great Sage, the Glory of the West, the Light

of the East, second only to Moses." Now, they proclaimed that he had abandoned the faith of Abraham; had

denied the possibility of creation, believed in the eternity of the world; had given himself up to the

manufacture of atheists; had deprived God of his attributes; made a vacuum of him; had declared him

inaccessible to prayer, and a stranger to the government of the world. The works of Maimonides were

committed to the flames by the synagogues of Montpellier, Barcelona, and Toledo.

Scarcely had the conquering arms of Ferdinand and Isabella overthrown the Arabian dominion in Spain,

when measures were taken by the papacy to extinguish these opinions, which, it was believed, were

Until Innocent IV. (1243), there was no special tribunal against heretics, distinct from those of the bishops.

The Inquisition, then introduced, in accordance with the centralization of the times, was a general and papal

tribunal, which displaced the old local ones. The bishops, therefore, viewed the innovation with great dislike,

considering it as an intrusion on their rights. It was established in Italy, Spain, Germany, and the southern

The temporal sovereigns were only too desirous to make use of this powerful engine for their own political

purposes. Against this the popes strongly protested. They were not willing that its use should pass out of the

The Inquisition, having already been tried in the south of France, had there proved to be very effective for the

suppression of heresy. It had been introduced into Aragon. Now was assigned to it the duty of dealing with

In the old times under Visigothic rule these people had greatly prospered, but the leniency that had been

shown to them was succeeded by atrocious persecution, when the Visigoths abandoned their Arianism and

became orthodox. The most inhuman ordinances were issued against thema law was enacted condemning

them all to be slaves. It was not to be wondered at that, when the Saracen invasion took place, the Jews did

whatever they could to promote its success. They, like the Arabs, were an Oriental people, both traced their

lineage to Abraham, their common ancestor; both were believers in the unity of God. It was their defense of

that doctrine that had brought upon them the hatred of their Visigothic masters.

Under the Saracen rule they were treated with the highest consideration. They became distinguished for their

wealth and their learning. For the most part they were Aristotelians. They founded many schools and

colleges. Their mercantile interests led them to travel all over the world. They particularly studied the science

of medicine. Throughout the middle ages they were the physicians and bankers of Europe. Of all men they

saw the course of human affairs from the most elevated point of view. Among the special sciences they

became proficient in mathematics and astronomy; they composed the tables of Alfonso, and were the cause of

the voyage of De Gama. They distinguished themselves greatly in light literature. From the tenth to the

fourteenth century their literature was the first in Europe. They were to be found in the courts of princes as

The orthodox clergy in Navarre had excited popular prejudices against them. To escape the persecutions that

arose, many of them feigned to turn Christians, and of these many apostatized to their former faith. The papal

nuncio at the court of Castile raised a cry for the establishment of the Inquisition. The poorer Jews were

accused of sacrificing Christian children at the Passover, in mockery of the crucifixion; the richer were

Dominican monk, the confessor of Queen Isabella, that princess solicited a bull from the pope for the

establishment of the Holy Office. A bull was accordingly issued in November, 1478, for the detection and

suppression of heresy. In the first year of the operation of the Inquisition, 1481, two thousand victims were

burnt in Andalusia; besides these, many thousands were dug up from their graves and burnt; seventeen

thousand were fined or imprisoned for life. Whoever of the persecuted race could flee, escaped for his life.

Torquemada, now appointed inquisitorgeneral for Castile and Leon, illustrated his office by his ferocity.

Anonymous accusations were received, the accused was not confronted by witnesses, torture was relied upon

for conviction; it was inflicted in vaults where no one could hear the cries of the tormented. As, in pretended

mercy, it was forbidden to inflict torture a second time, with horrible duplicity it was affirmed that the

torment had not been completed at first, but had only been suspended out of charity until the following day!

The families of the convicted were plunged into irretrievable ruin. Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition,

computes that Torquemada and his collaborators, in the course of eighteen years, burnt at the stake ten

thousand two hundred and twenty persons, six thousand eight hundred and sixty in effigy, and otherwise

punished ninetyseven thousand three hundred and twentyone. This frantic priest destroyed Hebrew Bibles

wherever be could find them, And burnt six thousand volumes of Oriental literature at Salamanca, under an

imputation that they inculcated Judaism. With unutterable disgust and indignation, we learn that the papal

government realized much money by selling to the rich dispensations to secure them from the Inquisition.

But all these frightful atrocities proved failures. The conversions were few. Torquemada, therefore, insisted

on the immediate banishment of every unbaptized Jew. On March 30, 1492, the edict of expulsion was

signed. All unbaptized Jews, of whatever age, sex, or condition, were ordered to leave the realm by the end of

the following July. If they revisited it, they should suffer death. They might sell their effects and take the

proceeds in merchandise or bills of exchange, but not in gold or silver. Exiled thus suddenly from the land of

their birth, the land of their ancestors for hundreds of years, they could not in the glutted market that arose

sell what they possessed. Nobody would purchase what could be got for nothing after July. The Spanish

clergy occupied themselves by preaching in the public squares sermons filled with denunciations against their

victims, who, when the time for expatriation came, swarmed in the roads and filled the air with their cries of

despair. Even the Spanish onlookers wept at the scene of agony. Torquemada, however, enforced the

Of the banished persons some made their way into Africa, some into Italy; the latter carried with them to

Naples shipfever, which destroyed not fewer than twenty thousand in that city, and devastated that

peninsula; some reached Turkey, a few England. Thousands, especially mothers with nursing children,

infants, and old people, died by the way; many of them in the agonies of thirst.

This action against the Jews was soon followed by one against the Moors. A pragmatica was issued at

Seville, February, 1502, setting forth the obligations of the Castilians to drive the enemies of God from the

land, and ordering that all unbaptized Moors in the kingdoms of Castile and Leon above the age of infancy

should leave the country by the end of April. They might sell their property, but not take away any gold or

silver; they were forbidden to emigrate to the Mohammedan dominions; the penalty of disobedience was

death. Their condition was thus worse than that of the Jews, who had been permitted to go where they chose.

Such was the fiendish intolerance of the Spaniards, that they asserted the government would be justified in

What an ungrateful return for the toleration that the Moors in their day of power had given to the Christians!

No faith was kept with the victims. Granada had surrendered under the solemn guarantee of the full

enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. At the instigation of Cardinal Ximenes that pledge was broken, and,

after a residence of eight centuries, the Mohammedans were driven out of the land.

The coexistence of three religions in Andalusiathe Christian, the Mohammedan, the Mosaichad given

opportunity for the development of Averroism or philosophical Arabism. This was a repetition of what had

occurred at Rome, when the gods of all the conquered countries were confronted in that capital, and universal

disbelief in them all ensued. Averroes himself was accused of having been first a Mussulman, then a

Christian, then a Jew, and finally a misbeliever. It was affirmed that he was the author of the mysterious book

In the middle ages there were two celebrated heretical books, "The Everlasting Gospel," and the "De Tribus

Impostoribus." The latter was variously imputed to Pope Gerbert, to Frederick II., and to Averroes. In their

unrelenting hatred the Dominicans fastened all the blasphemies current in those times on Averroes; they

never tired of recalling the celebrated and outrageous one respecting the eucharist. His writings had first been

generally made known to Christian Europe by the translation of Michael Scot in the beginning of the

thirteenth century, but long before his time the literature of the West, like that of Asia, was full of these ideas.

We have seen how broadly they were set forth by Erigena. The Arabians, from their first cultivation of

philosophy, had been infected by them; they were current in all the colleges of the three khalifates.

Considered not as a mode of thought, that will spontaneously occur to all men at a certain stage of intellectual

development, but as having originated with Aristotle, they continually found favor with men of the highest

culture. We see them in Robert Grostete, in Roger Bacon, and eventually in Spinoza. Averroes was not their

inventor, be merely gave them clearness and expression. Among the Jews of the thirteenth century, he had

completely supplanted his imputed master. Aristotle had passed away from their eyes; his great commentator,

Averroes, stood in his place. So numerous were the converts to the doctrine of emanation in Christendom,

that Pope Alexander IV. (1255) found it necessary to interfere. By his order, Albertus Magnus composed a

work against the "Unity of the Intellect." Treating of the origin and nature of the soul, he attempted to prove

that the theory of "a separate intellect, enlightening man by irradiation anterior to the individual and surviving

the individual, is a detestable error." But the most illustrious antagonist of the great com mentator was St.

Thomas Aquinas, the destroyer of all such heresies as the unity of the intellect, the denial of Providence, the

impossibility of creation; the victories of "the Angelic Doctor" were celebrated not only in the disputations of

the Dominicans, but also in the works of art of the painters of Florence and Pisa. The indignation of that saint

knew no bounds when Christians became the disciples of an infidel, who was worse than a Mohammedan.

The wrath of the Dominicans, the order to which St. Thomas belonged, was sharpened by the fact that their

rivals, the Franciscans, inclined to Averroistic views; and Dante, who leaned to the Dominicans, denounced

Averroes as the author of a most dangerous system. The theological odium of all three dominant religions

was put upon him; he was pointed out as the originator of the atrocious maxim that "all religions are false,

although all are probably useful." An attempt was made at the Council of Vienne to have his writings

absolutely suppressed, and to forbid all Christians reading them. The Dominicans, armed with the weapons of

the Inquisition, terrified Christian Europe with their unrelenting persecutions. They imputed all the infidelity

of the times to the Arabian philosopher. But he was not without support. In Paris and in the cities of Northern

Italy the Franciscans sustained his views, and all Christendom was agitated with these disputes.

Under the inspiration of the Dominicans, Averroes oceanic to the Italian painters the emblem of unbelief.

Many of the Italian towns had pictures or frescoes of the Day of Judgment and of Hell. In these Averroes not

unfrequently appears. Thus, in one at Pisa, he figures with Arius, Mohammed, and Antichrist. In another he is

represented as overthrown by St. Thomas. He had become an essential element in the triumphs of the great

Dominican doctor. He continued thus to be familiar to the Italian painters until the sixteenth century. His

Such is, in brief, the history of Averroism as it invaded Europe from Spain. Under the auspices of Frederick

II., it, in a less imposing manner, issued from Sicily. That sovereign bad adopted it fully. In his "Sicilian

Questions" he had demanded light on the eternity of the world, and on the nature of the soul, and supposed he

had found it in the replies of Ibn Sabin, an upholder of these doctrines. But in his conflict with the papacy be

In Upper Italy, Averroism long maintained its ground. It was so fashionable in high Venetian society that

every gentleman felt constrained to profess it. At length the Church took decisive action against it. The

Lateran Council, A.D. 1512, condemned the abettors of these detestable doctrines to be held as heretics and

infidels. As we have seen, the late Vatican Council has anathematized them. Notwithstanding that stigma, it

is to be borne in mind that these opinions are held to be true by a majority of the human race.

Scriptural view of the world: the earth a flat surface; location of heaven and hell.

Scientific view: the earth a globe; its size determined; its position in and relations to the solar system.The

three great voyages.Columbus, De Gama, Magellan.Circumnavigation of the earth.Determination of

The discoveries of Copernicus.Invention of the telescope.Galileo brought before the Inquisition.His

Attempts to ascertain the dimensions of the solar system.Determination of the sun's parallax by the transits

Ideas respecting the dimensions of the universe.Parallax of the stars. The plurality of worlds asserted by

I HAVE now to present the discussions that arose respecting the third great philosophical problemthe

An uncritical observation of the aspect of Nature persuades us that the earth is an extended level surface

which sustains the dome of the sky, a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters beneath; that the

heavenly bodiesthe sun, the moon, the starspursue their way, moving from east to west, their

insignificant size and motion round the motionless earth proclaiming their inferiority. Of the various organic

forms surrounding man none rival him in dignity, and hence he seems justified in concluding that every thing

has been created for his usethe sun for the purpose of giving him light by day, the moon and stars by night.

Comparative theology shows us that this is the conception of Nature universally adopted in the early phase of

intellectual life. It is the belief of all nations in all parts of the world in the beginning of their civilization:

geocentric, for it makes the earth the centre of the universe; anthropocentric, for it makes man the central

object of the earth. And not only is this the conclusion spontaneously come to from inconsiderate glimpses of

the world, it is also the philosophical basis of various religious revelations, vouchsafed to man from time to

time. These revelations, moreover, declare to him that above the crystalline dome of the sky is a region of

eternal light and happinessheaventhe abode of God and the angelic hosts, perhaps also his own abode

after death; and beneath the earth a region of eternal darkness and misery, the habitation of those that are evil.

On the basis of this view of the structure of the world great religious systems have been founded, and hence

powerful material interests have been engaged in its support. These have resisted, sometimes by resorting to

bloodshed, attempts that have been made to correct its incontestable errorsa resistance grounded on the

suspicion that the localization of heaven and hell and the supreme value of man in the universe might be

That such attempts would be made was inevitable. As soon as men began to reason on the subject at all, they

could not fail to discredit the assertion that the earth is an indefinite plane. No one can doubt that the sun we

see today is the selfsame sun that we saw yesterday. His reappearance each morning irresistibly suggests

that he has passed on the underside of the earth. But this is incompatible with the reign of night in those

regions. It presents more or less distinctly the idea of the globular form of the earth.

The earth cannot extend indefinitely downward; for the sun cannot go through it, nor through any crevice or

passage in it, Since he rises and sets in different positions at different seasons of the year. The stars also move

To reconcile revelation with these innovating facts, schemes, such as that of Cosmas Indicopleustes in his

Christian Topography, were doubtless often adopted. To this in particular we have had occasion on a former

page to refer. It asserted that in the northern parts of the flat earth there is an immense mountain, behind

At a very remote historical period the mechanism of eclipses had been discovered. Those of the moon

demonstrated that the shadow of the earth is always circular. The form of the earth must therefore be

globular. A body which in all positions casts a circular shadow must itself be spherical. Other considerations,

with which every one is now familiar, could not fail to establish that such is her figure.

But the determination of the shape of the earth by no means deposed her from her position of superiority.

Apparently vastly larger than all other things, it was fitting that she should be considered not merely as the

centre of the world, but, in truth, asthe world. All other objects in their aggregate seemed utterly

Though the consequences flowing from an admission of the globular figure of the earth affected very

profoundly existing theological ideas, they were of much less moment than those depending on a

determination of her size. It needed but an elementary knowledge of geometry to perceive that correct ideas

on this point could be readily obtained by measuring a degree on her surface. Probably there were early

attempts to accomplish this object, the results of which have been lost. But Eratosthenes executed one

between Syene and Alexandria, in Egypt, Syene being supposed to be exactly under the tropic of Cancer. The

two places are, however, not on the same meridian, and the distance between them was estimated, not

measured. Two centuries later, Posidonius made another attempt between Alexandria and Rhodes; the bright

star Canopus just grazed the horizon at the latter place, at Alexandria it rose 7 1/2 degrees. In this instance,

also, since the direction lay across the sea, the distance was estimated, not measured. Finally, as we have

already related, the Khalif AlMamun made two sets of measures, one on the shore of the Red Sea, the other

near Cufa, in Mesopotamia. The general result of these various observations gave for the earth's diameter

This approximate determination of the size of the earth tended to depose her from her dominating position,

and gave rise to very serious theological results. In this the ancient investigations of Aristarchus of Samos,

one of the Alexandrian school, 280 B.C., powerfully aided. In his treatise on the magnitudes and distances of

the sun and moon, he explains the ingenious though imperfect method to which he had resorted for the

solution of that problem. Many ages previously a speculation had been brought from India to Europe by

Pythagoras. It presented the sun as the centre of the system. Around him the planets revolved in circular

orbits, their order of position being Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, each of them being

supposed to rotate on its axis as it revolved round the sun. According to Cicero, Nicetas suggested that, if it

were admitted that the earth revolves on her axis, the difficulty presented by the inconceivable velocity of the

There is reason to believe that the works of Aristarchus, in the Alexandrian Library, were burnt at the time of

the fire of Caesar. The only treatise of his that has come down to us is that above mentioned, on the size and

Aristarchus adopted the Pythagorean system as representing the actual facts. This was the result of a

recognition of the sun's amazing distance, and therefore of his enormous size. The heliocentric system, thus

regarding the sun as the central orb, degraded the earth to a very subordinate rank, making her only one of a

But this is not the only contribution conferred on astronomy by Aristarchus, for, considering that the

movement of the earth does not sensibly affect the apparent position of the stars, he inferred that they are

incomparably more distant from us than the sun. He, therefore, of all the ancients, as Laplace remarks, had

the most correct ideas of the grandeur of the universe. He saw that the earth is of absolutely insignificant size,

when compared with the stellar distances. He saw, too, that there is nothing above us but space and stars.

But the views of Aristarchus, as respects the emplacement of the planetary bodies, were not accepted by

antiquity; the system proposed by Ptolemy, and incorporated in his "Syntaxis," was universally preferred. The

physical philosophy of those times was very imperfectone of Ptolemy's objections to the Pythagorean

system being that, if the earth were in motion, it would leave the air and other light bodies behind it. He

therefore placed the earth in the central position, and in succession revolved round her the Moon, Mercury,

Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn; beyond the orbit of Saturn came the firmament of the fixed stars. As to

the solid crystalline spheres, one moving from east to west, the other from north to south, these were a fancy

The Ptolemaic system is, therefore, essentially a geocentric system. It left the earth in her position of

superiority, and hence gave no cause of umbrage to religious opinions, Christian or Mohammedan. The

immense reputation of its author, the signal ability of his great work on the mechanism of the heavens,

sustained it for almost fourteen hundred yearsthat is, from the second to the sixteenth century.

In Christendom, the greater part of this long period was consumed in disputes respecting the nature of God,

and in struggles for ecclesiastical power. The authority of the Fathers, and the prevailing belief that the

Scriptures contain the sum, of all knowledge, discouraged any investigation of Nature. If by chance a passing

interest was taken in some astronomical question, it was at once settled by a reference to such authorities as

the writings of Augustine or Lactantius, not by an appeal to the phenomena of the heavens. So great was the

preference given to sacred over profane learning that Christianity had been in existence fifteen hundred years,

The Mohammedan nations did much better. Their cultivation of science dates from the capture of Alexandria,

A.D. 638. This was only six years after the death of the Prophet. In less than two centuries they had not only

become acquainted with, but correctly appreciated, the Greek scientific writers. As we have already

mentioned, by his treaty with Michael III., the khalif AlMamun had obtained a copy of the "Syntaxis" of

Ptolemy. He had it forthwith translated into Arabic. It became at once the great authority of Saracen

astronomy. From this basis the Saracens had advanced to the solution of some of the most important

scientific problems. They had ascertained the dimensions of the earth; they had registered or catalogued all

the stars visible in their heavens, giving to those of the larger magnitudes the names they still bear on our

maps and globes; they determined the true length of the year, discovered astronomical refraction, invented the

pendulumclock, improved the photometry of the stars, ascertained the curvilinear path of a ray of light

through the air, explained the phenomena of the horizontal sun and moon, and why we see those bodies

before they have risen and after they have set; measured the height of the atmosphere, determining it to be

fiftyeight miles; given the true theory of the twilight, and of the twinkling of the stars. They had built the

first observatory in Europe. So accurate were they in their observations, that the ablest modern

mathematicians have made use of their results. Thus Laplace, in his "Systeme du Monde," adduces the

observations of AlBatagni as affording incontestable proof of the diminution of the eccentricity of the

earth's orbit. He uses those of IbnJunis in his discussion of the obliquity of the ecliptic, and also in the case

These represent but a part, and indeed but a small part, of the services rendered by the Arabian astronomers,

in the solution of the problem of the nature of the world. Meanwhile, such was the benighted condition of

Christendom, such its deplorable ignorance, that it cared nothing about the matter. Its attention was engrossed

by imageworship, transubstantiation, the merits of the saints, miracles, shrinecures.

This indifference continued until the close of the fifteenth century. Even then there was no scientific

inducement. The inciting motives were altogether of a different kind. They originated in commercial rivalries,

and the question of the shape of the earth was finally settled by three sailors, Columbus, De Gama, and,

The trade of Eastern Asia has always been a source of immense wealth to the Western nations who in

succession have obtained it. In the middle ages it had centred in Upper Italy. It was conducted along two

linesa northern, by way of the Black and Caspian Seas, and camelcaravans beyondthe headquarters of

this were at Genoa; and a southern, through the Syrian and Egyptian ports, and by the Arabian Sea, the

headquarters of this being at Venice. The merchants engaged in the latter traffic had also made great gains in

The Venetians had managed to maintain amicable relations with the Mohammedan powers of Syria and

Egypt; they were permitted to have consulates at Alexandria and Damascus, and, notwithstanding the military

commotions of which those countries had been the scene, the trade was still maintained in a comparatively

flourishing condition. But the northern or Genoese line had been completely broken up by the irruptions of

the Tartars and the Turks, and the military and political disturbances of the countries through which it passed.

The Eastern trade of Genoa was not merely in a precarious conditionit was on the brink of destruction.

The circular visible horizon and its dip at sea, the gradual appearance and disappearance of ships in the

offing, cannot fail to incline intelligent sailors to a belief in the globular figure of the earth. The writings of

the Mohammedan astronomers and philosophers had given currency to that doctrine throughout Western

Europe, but, as might be expected, it was received with disfavor by theologians. When Genoa was thus on the

very brink of ruin, it occurred to some of her mariners that, if this view were correct, her affairs might be re

established. A ship sailing through the straits of Gibraltar westward, across the Atlantic, would not fail to

reach the East Indies. There were apparently other great advantages. Heavy cargoes might be transported

He tells us that his attention was drawn to this subject by the writings of Averroes, but among his friends he

numbered Toscanelli, a Florentine, who had turned his attention to astronomy, and had become a strong

advocate of the globular form. In Genoa itself Columbus met with but little encouragement. He then spent

many years in trying to interest different princes in his proposed attempt. Its irreligious tendency was pointed

out by the Spanish ecclesiastics, and condemned by the Council of Salamanca; its orthodoxy was confuted

from the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Prophecies, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the writings of the

FathersSt. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St. Basil, St Ambrose.

At length, however, encouraged by the Spanish Queen Isabella, and substantially aided by a wealthy

seafaring family, the Pinzons of Palos, some of whom joined him personally, he sailed on August 3, 1492,

with three small ships, from Palos, carrying with him a letter from King Ferdinand to the GrandKhan of

Tartary, and also a chart, or map, constructed on the basis of that of Toscanelli. A little before midnight,

October 11, 1492, he saw from the forecastle of his ship a moving light at a distance. Two hours subsequently

a signal gun from another of the ships announced that they had descried land. At sunrise Columbus landed

On his return to Europe it was universally supposed that he had reached the eastern parts of Asia, and that

therefore his voyage bad been theoretically successful. Columbus himself died in that belief. But numerous

voyages which were soon undertaken made known the general contour of the American coastline, and the

discovery of the Great South Sea by Balboa revealed at length the true facts of the case, and the mistake into

which both Toscanelli and Columbus had fallen, that in a voyage to the West the distance from Europe to

Asia could not exceed the distance passed over in a voyage from Italy to the Gulf of Guineaa voyage that

In his first voyage, at nightfall on September 13, 1492, being then two and a half degrees east of Corvo, one

of the Azores, Columbus observed that the compass needles of the ships no longer pointed a little to the east

of north, but were varying to the west. The deviation became more and more marked as the expedition

advanced. He was not the first to detect the fact of variation, but he was incontestably the first to discover the

line of no variation. On the returnvoyage the reverse was observed; the variation westward diminished until

the meridian in question was reached, when the needles again pointed due north. Thence, as the coast of

Europe was approached, the variation was to the east. Columbus, therefore, came to the conclusion that the

line of no variation was a fixed geographical line, or boundary, between the Eastern and Western

Hemispheres. In the bull of May, 1493, Pope Alexander VI. accordingly adopted this line as the perpetual

boundary between the possessions of Spain and Portugal, in his settlement of the disputes of those nations.

Subsequently, however, it was discovered that the line was moving eastward. It coincided with the meridian

By the papal bull the Portuguese possessions were limited to the east of the line of no variation. Information

derived from certain Egyptian Jews had reached that government, that it was possible to sail round the

continent of Africa, there being at its extreme south a cape which could be easily doubled. An expedition of

three ships under Vasco de Gama set sail, July 9, 1497; it doubled the cape on November 20th, and reached

Calicut, on the coast of India, May 19, 1498. Under the bull, this voyage to the East gave to the Portuguese

Until the cape was doubled, the course of De Gama's ships was in a general manner southward. Very soon, it

was noticed that the elevation of the polestar above the horizon was diminishing, and, soon after the equator

was reached, that star had ceased to be visible. Meantime other stars, some of them forming magnificent

constellations, had come into viewthe stars of the Southern Hemisphere. All this was in conformity to

theoretical expectations founded on the admission of the globular form of the earth.

The political consequences that at once ensued placed the Papal Government in a position of great

embarrassment. Its traditions and policy forbade it to admit any other than the flat figure of the earth, as

revealed in the Scriptures. Concealment of the facts was impossible, sophistry was unavailing. Commercial

prosperity now left Venice as well as Genoa. The front of Europe was changed. Maritime power had departed

But the Spanish Government did not submit to the advantage thus gained by its commercial rival without an

effort. It listened to the representations of one Ferdinand Magellan, that India and the Spice Islands could be

reached by sailing to the west, if only a strait or passage through what had now been recognized as "the

American Continent" could be discovered; and, if this should be accomplished, Spain, under the papal bull,

would have as good a right to the India trade as Portugal. Under the command of Magellan, an expedition of

five ships, carrying two hundred and thirty seven men, was dispatched from Seville, August 10, 1519.

Magellan at once struck boldly for the South American coast, hoping to find some cleft or passage through

the continent by which he might reach the great South Sea. For seventy days he was becalmed on the line; his

sailors were appalled by the apprehension that they had drifted into a region where the winds never blew, and

that it was impossible for them to escape. Calms, tempests, mutiny, desertion, could not shake his resolution.

After more than a year he discovered the strait which now bears his name, and, as Pigafetti, an Italian, who

was with him, relates, he shed fears of joy when he found that it had pleased God at length to bring him

where he might grapple with the unknown dangers of the South Sea, "the Great and Pacific Ocean."

Driven by famine to eat scraps of skin and leather with which his rigging was here and there bound, to drink

water that had gone putrid, his crew dying of hunger and scurvy, this man, firm in his belief of the globular

figure of the earth, steered steadily to the northwest, and for nearly four months never saw inhabited land. He

estimated that he had sailed over the Pacific not less than twelve thousand miles. He crossed the equator, saw

once more the polestar, and at length made landthe Ladrones. Here he met with adventurers from

Sumatra. Among these islands he was killed, either by the savages or by his own men. His lieutenant,

Sebastian d'Elcano, now took command of the ship, directing her course for the Cape of Good Hope, and

encountering frightful hardships. He doubled the cape at last, and then for the fourth time crossed the equator.

On September 7, 1522, after a voyage of more than three years, he brought his ship, the San Vittoria, to

anchor in the port of St. Lucar, near Seville. She had accomplished the greatest achievement in the history of

The San Vittoria, sailing westward, had come back to her startingpoint. Henceforth the theological doctrine

Five years after the completion of the voyage of Magellan, was made the first attempt in Christendom to

ascertain the size of the earth. This was by Fernel, a French physician, who, having observed the height of the

pole at Paris, went thence northward until be came to a place where the height of the pole was exactly one

degree more than at that city. He measured the distance between the two stations by the number of

revolutions of one of the wheels of his carriage, to which a proper indicator bad been attached, and came to

the conclusion that the earth's circumference is about twentyfour thousand four hundred and eighty Italian

Measures executed more and more carefully were made in many countries: by Snell in Holland; by Norwood

between London and York in England; by Picard, under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences, in

France. Picard's plan was to connect two points by a series of triangles, and, thus ascertaining the length of

the arc of a meridian intercepted between them, to compare it with the difference of latitudes found from

celestial observations. The stations were Malvoisine in the vicinity of Paris, and Sourdon near Amiens. The

difference of latitudes was determined by observing the zenithdistances, of delta Cassiopeia. There are two

points of interest connected with Picard's operation: it was the first in which instruments furnished with

telescopes were employed; and its result, as we shall shortly see, was to Newton the first confirmation of the

At this time it had become clear from mechanical considerations, more especially such as had been deduced

by Newton, that, since the earth is a rotating body, her form cannot be that of a perfect sphere, but must be

that of a spheroid, oblate or flattened at the poles. It would follow, from this, that the length of a degree must

The French Academy resolved to extend Picard's operation, by prolonging the measures in each direction,

and making the result the basis of a more accurate map of France. Delays, however, took place, and it was not

until 1718 that the measures, from Dunkirk on the north to the southern extremity of France, were completed.

A discussion arose as to the interpretation of these measures, some affirming that they indicated a prolate,

others an oblate spheroid; the former figure may be popularly represented by a lemon, the latter by an orange.

To settle this, the French Government, aided by the Academy, sent out two expeditions to measure degrees of

the meridianone under the equator, the other as far north as possible; the former went to Peru, the latter to

Swedish Lapland. Very great difficulties were encountered by both parties. The Lapland commission,

however, completed its observations long before the Peruvian, which consumed not less than nine years. The

results of the measures thus obtained confirmed the theoretical expectation of the oblate form. Since that time

many extensive and exact repetitions of the observation have been made, among which may be mentioned

those of the English in England and in India, and particularly that of the French on the occasion of the

introduction of the metric system of weights and measures. It was begun by Delambre and Mechain, from

Dunkirk to Barcelona, and thence extended, by Biot and Arago, to the island of Formentera near Minorea. Its

Besides this method of direct measurement, the figure of the earth may be determined from the observed

number of oscillations made by a pendulum of invariable length in different latitudes. These, though they

confirm the foregoing results, give a somewhat greater ellipticity to the earth than that found by the

measurement of degrees. Pendulums vibrate more slowly the nearer they are to the equator. It follows,

From the most reliable measures that have been made, the dimensions of the earth may be thus stated:

Greater or equatorial diameter ............. 7,925 miles. Less or polar diameter ......................7,899 " Difference

Such was the result of the discussion respecting the figure and size of the earth. While it was yet

undetermined, another controversy arose, fraught with even more serious consequences. This was the conflict

respecting the earth's position with regard to the sun and the planetary bodies.

Copernicus, a Prussian, about the year 1507, had completed a book "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly

Bodies." He had journeyed to Italy in his youth, had devoted his attention to astronomy, and had taught

mathematics at Rome. From a profound study of the Ptolemaic and Pythagorean systems, he had come to a

conclusion in favor of the latter, the object of his book being to sustain it. Aware that his doctrines were

totally opposed to revealed truth, and foreseeing that they would bring upon him the punishments of the

Church, be expressed himself in a cautious and apologetic manner, saying that he had only taken the liberty

of trying whether, on the supposition of the earth's motion, it was possible to find better explanations than the

ancient ones of the revolutions of the celestial orbs; that in doing this he had only taken the privilege that had

been allowed to others, of feigning what hypothesis they chose. The preface was addressed to Pope Paul III.

Full of misgivings as to what might be the result, he refrained from publishing his book for thirtysix years,

thinking that "perhaps it might be better to follow the examples of the Pythagoreans and others, who

delivered their doctrine only by tradition and to friends." At the entreaty of Cardinal Schomberg he at length

published it in 1543. A copy of it was brought to him on his deathbed. Its fate was such as he had

anticipated. The Inquisition condemned it as heretical. In their decree, prohibiting it, the Congregation of the

Index denounced his system as "that false Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the Holy Scriptures."

Astronomers justly affirm that the book of Copernicus, "De Revolutionibus," changed the face of their

science. It incontestably established the heliocentric theory. It showed that the distance of the fixed stars is

infinitely great, and that the earth is a mere point in the heavens. Anticipating Newton, Copernicus imputed

gravity to the sun, the moon, and heavenly bodies, but he was led astray by assuming that the celestial

motions must be circular. Observations on the orbit of Mars, and his different diameters at different times,

In thus denouncing the Copernican system as being in contradiction to revelation, the ecclesiastical

doubtless deeply moved by inferential considerations. To dethrone the earth from her central dominating

position, to give her many equals and not a few superiors, seemed to diminish her claims upon the Divine

regard. If each of the countless myriads of stars was a sun, surrounded by revolving globes, peopled with

responsible beings like ourselves, if we had fallen so easily and had been redeemed at so stupendous a price

as the death of the Son of God, how was it with them? Of them were there none who had fallen or might fall

During the year 1608 one Lippershey, a Hollander, discovered that, by looking through two glass lenses,

combined in a certain manner together, distant objects were magnified and rendered very plain. He had

invented the telescope. In the following year Galileo, a Florentine, greatly distinguished by his mathematical

and scientific writings, hearing of the circumstance, but without knowing the particulars of the construction,

invented a form of the instrument for himself. Improving it gradually, he succeeded in making one that. could

magnify thirty times. Examining the moon, he found that she had valleys like those of the earth, and

mountains casting shadows. It had been said in the old times that in the Pleiades there were formerly seven

stars, but a legend related that one of them had mysteriously disappeared. On turning his telescope toward

them, Galileo found that he could easily count not fewer than forty. In whatever direction he looked, be

On the night of January 7, 1610, he perceived three small stars in a straight line, adjacent to the planet Jupiter,

and, a few evenings later, a fourth. He found that these were revolving in orbits round the body of the planet,

and, with transport, recognized that they presented a miniature representation of the Copernican system.

The announcement of these wonders at once attracted universal attention. The spiritual authorities were not

slow to detect their tendency, as endangering the doctrine that the universe was made for man. In the creation

of myriads of stars, hitherto invisible, there must surely have been some other motive than that of

It had been objected to the Copernican theory that, if the planets Mercury and Venus move round the sun in

orbits interior to that of the earth, they ought to show phases like those of the moon; and that in the case of

Venus, which is so brilliant and conspicuous, these phases should be very obvious. Copernicus himself had

admitted the force of the objection, and had vainly tried to find an explanation. Galileo, on turning his

telescope to the planet, discovered that the expected phases actually exist; now she was a crescent, then

halfmoon, then gibbous, then full. Previously to Copernicus, it was supposed that the planets shine by their

own light, but the phases of Venus and Mars proved that their light is reflected. The Aristotelian notion, that

celestial differ from terrestrial bodies in being incorruptible, received a rude shock from the discoveries of

Galileo, that there are mountains and valleys in the moon like those of the earth, that the sun is not perfect,

but has spots on his face, and that he turns on his axis instead of being in a state of majestic rest. The

apparition of new stars had already thrown serious doubts on this theory of incorruptibility.

These and many other beautiful telescopic discoveries tended to the establishment of the truth of the

Copernican theory and gave unbounded alarm to the Church. By the low and ignorant ecclesiastics they were

denounced as deceptions or frauds. Some affirmed that the telescope might be relied on well enough for

terrestrial objects, but with the heavenly bodies it was altogether a different affair. Others declared that its

invention was a mere application of Aristotle's remark that stars could be seen in the daytime from the bottom

of a deep well. Galileo was accused of imposture, heresy, blasphemy, atheism. With a view of defending

himself, he addressed a letter to the Abbe Castelli, suggesting that the Scriptures were never intended to be a

scientific authority, but only a moral guide. This made matters worse. He was summoned before the Holy

Inquisition, under an accusation of having taught that the earth moves round the sun, a doctrine "utterly

contrary to the Scriptures." He was ordered to renounce that heresy, on pain of being imprisoned. He was

directed to desist from teaching and advocating the Copernican theory, and pledge himself that he would

neither publish nor defend it for the future. Knowing well that Truth has no need of martyrs, be assented to

For sixteen years the Church had rest. But in 1632 Galileo ventured on the publication of his work entitled

"The System of the World," its object being the vindication of the Copernican doctrine. He was again

summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, accused of having asserted that the earth moves round the sun. He

was declared to have brought upon himself the penalties of heresy. On his knees, with his hand on the Bible,

he was compelled to abjure and curse the doctrine of the movement of the earth. What a spectacle! This

venerable man, the most illustrious of his age, forced by the threat of death to deny facts which his judges as

well as himself knew to be true! He was then committed to prison, treated with remorseless severity during

the remaining ten years of his life, and was denied burial in consecrated ground. Must not that be false which

requires for its support so much imposture, so much barbarity? The opinions thus defended by the Inquisition

One of the greatest of modern mathematicians, referring to this subject, says that the point here contested was

one which is for mankind of the highest interest, because of the rank it assigns to the globe that we inhabit. If

the earth be immovable in the midst of the universe, man has a right to regard himself as the principal object

of the care of Nature. But if the earth be only one of the planets revolving round the sun, an insignificant

body in the solar system, she will disappear entirely in the immensity of the heavens, in which this system,

The triumphant establishment of the Copernican doctrine dates from the invention of the telescope. Soon

there was not to be found in all Europe an astronomer who had not accepted the heliocentric theory with its

essential postulate, the double motion of the earth movement of rotation on her axis, and a movement of

revolution round the sun. If additional proof of the latter were needed, it was furnished by Bradley's great

discovery of the aberration of the fixed stars, an aberration depending partly on the progressive motion of

light, and partly on the revolution of the earth. Bradley's discovery ranked in importance with that of the

precession of the equinoxes. Roemer's discovery of the progressive motion of light, though denounced by

Fontenelle as a seductive error, and not admitted by Cassini, at length forced its way to universal acceptance.

Next it was necessary to obtain correct ideas of the dimensions of the solar system, or, putting the problem

In the time of Copernicus it was supposed that the sun's distance could not exceed five million miles, and

indeed there were many who thought that estimate very extravagant. From a review of the observations of

Tycho Brahe, Kepler, however, concluded that the error was actually in the opposite direction, and that the

estimate must be raised to at least thirteen million. In 1670 Cassini showed that these numbers were

altogether inconsistent with the facts, and gave as his conclusion eightyfive million.

The transit of Venus over the face of the sun, June 3, 1769, had been foreseen, and its great value in the

solution of this fundamental problem in astronomy appreciated. With commendable alacrity various

governments contributed their assistance in making observations, so that in Europe there were fifty stations,

in Asia six, in America seventeen. It was for this purpose that the English Government dispatched Captain

Cook on his celebrated first voyage. He went to Otaheite. His voyage was crowned with success. The sun

rose without a cloud, and the sky continued equally clear throughout the day. The transit at Cook's station

lasted from about halfpast nine in the morning until about halfpast three in the afternoon, and all the

But, on the discussion of the observations made at the different stations, it was found that there was not the

accordance that could have been desiredthe result varying from eightyeight to one hundred and nine

million. The celebrated mathematician, Encke, therefore reviewed them in 1822'24, and came to the

conclusion that the sun's horizontal parallax, that is, the angle under which the semidiameter of the earth is

seen from the sun, is 8 576/1000 seconds; this gave as the distance 95,274,000 miles. Subsequently the

observations were reconsidered by Hansen, who gave as their result 91,659,000 miles. Still later, Leverrier

made it 91,759,000. Airy and Stone, by another method, made it 91,400,000; Stone alone, by a revision of the

old observations, 91,730,000; and finally, Foucault and Fizeau, from physical experiments, determining the

velocity of light, and therefore in their nature altogether differing from transit observations, 91,400,000. Until

the results of the transit of next year (1874) are ascertained, it must therefore be admitted that the distance of

This distance once determined, the dimensions of the solar system may be ascertained with ease and

precision. It is enough to mention that the distance of Neptune from the sun, the most remote of the planets at

By the aid of these numbers we may begin to gain a just appreciation of the doctrine of the human destiny of

the universethe doctrine that all things were made for man. Seen from the sun, the earth dwindles away to

a mere speck, a mere dustmote glistening in his beams. If the reader wishes a more precise valuation, let

him hold a page of this book a couple of feet from his eye; then let him consider one of its dots or full stops;

that dot is several hundred times larger in surface than is the earth as seen from the sun!

Of what consequence, then, can such an almost imperceptible particle be? One might think that it could be

removed or even annihilated, and yet never be missed. Of what consequence is one of those human monads,

of whom more than a thousand millions swarm on the surface of this all but invisible speck, and of a million

of whom scarcely one will leave a trace that he has ever existed? Of what consequence is man, his pleasures

Among the arguments brought forward against the Copernican system at the time of its promulgation, was

one by the great Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, originally urged by Aristarchus against the Pythagorean

system, to the effect that, if, as was alleged, the earth moves round the sun, there ought to be a change of the

direction in which the fixed stars appear. At one time we are nearer to a particular region of the heavens by a

distance equal to the whole diameter of the earth's orbit than we were six months previously, and hence there

ought to be a change in the relative position of the stars; they should seem to separate as we approach them,

and to close together as we recede from them; or, to use the astronomical expression, these stars should have

The parallax of a star is the angle contained between two lines drawn from itone to the sun, the other to the

At that time, the earth's distance from the sun was greatly underestimated. Had it been known, as it is now,

that that distance exceeds ninety million miles, or that the diameter of the orbit is more than one hundred and

In reply to Tycho, it was said that, since the parallax of a body diminishes as its distance increases, a star may

be so far off that its parallax may be imperceptible. This answer proved to be correct. The detection of the

parallax of the stars depended on the improvement of instruments for the measurement of angles.

The parallax of alpha Centauri, a fine double star of the Southern Hemisphere, at present considered to be the

nearest of the fixed stars, was first determined by Henderson and Maclear at the Cape of Good Hope in

1832'33. It is about ninetenths of a second. Hence this star is almost two hundred and thirty thousand times

as far from us as the sun. Seen from it, if the sun were even large enough to fill the whole orbit of the earth,

or one hundred and eighty million miles in diameter, he would be a mere point. With its companion, it

revolves round their common centre of gravity in eightyone years, and hence it would seem that their

The star 61 Cygni is of the sixth magnitude. Its parallax was first found by Bessel in 1838, and is about

onethird of a second. The distance from us is, therefore, much more than five hundred thousand times that

of the sun. With its companion, it revolves round their common centre of gravity in five hundred and twenty

There is reason to believe that the great star Sirius, the brightest in the heavens, is about six times as far off as

alpha Centauri. His probable diameter is twelve million miles, and the light he emits two hundred times more

brilliant than that of the sun. Yet, even through the telescope, he has no measurable diameter; be looks merely

The stars, then, differ not merely in visible magnitude, but also in actual size. As the spectroscope shows,

they differ greatly in chemical and physical constitution. That instrument is also revealing to us the duration

of the life of a star, through changes in the refrangibility of the emitted light. Though, as we have seen, the

nearest to us is at an enormous and all but immeasurable distance, this is but the first stepthere are others

the rays of which have taken thousands, perhaps millions, of years to reach us! The limits of our own system

are far beyond the range of our greatest telescopes; what, then, shall we say of other systems beyond? Worlds

Have these gigantic bodiesmyriads of which are placed at so vast a distance that our unassisted eyes

cannot perceive themhave these no other purpose than that assigned by theologians, to give light to us?

Does not their enormous size demonstrate that, as they are centres of force, so they must be centres of

While yet these facts were very imperfectly knownindeed, were rather speculations than factsGiordano

Bruno, an Italian, born seven years after the death of Copernicus, published a work on the "Infinity of the

Universe and of Worlds;" he was also the author of "Evening Conversations on AshWednesday," an

apology for the Copernican system, and of "The One Sole Cause of Things." To these may be added an

allegory published in 1584, "The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast." He had also collected, for the use of

future astronomers, all the observations he could find respecting the new star that suddenly appeared in

Cassiopeia, A.D. 1572, and increased in brilliancy, until it surpassed all the other stars. It could be plainly

seen in the daytime. On a sudden, November 11th, it was as bright as Venus at her brightest. In the following

March it was of the first magnitude. It exhibited various hues of color in a few months, and disappeared in

The star that suddenly appeared in Serpentarius, in Kepler's time (1604), was at first brighter than Venus. It

lasted more than a year, and, passing through various tints of purple, yellow, red, became extinguished.

Originally, Bruno was intended for the Church. He had become a Dominican, but was led into doubt by his

meditations on the subjects of transubstantiation and the immaculate conception. Not caring to conceal his

opinions, he soon fell under the censure of the spiritual authorities, and found it necessary to seek refuge

successively in Switzerland, France, England, Germany. The coldscented sleuthhounds of the Inquisition

followed his track remorselessly, and eventually hunted him back to Italy. He was arrested in Venice, and

In England he had given lectures on the plurality of worlds, and in that country had written, in Italian, his

most important works. It added not a little to the exasperation against him, that he was perpetually declaiming

against the insincerity; the impostures, of his persecutorsthat wherever he went he found skepticism

varnished over and concealed by hypocrisy; and that it was not against the belief of men, but against their

pretended belief, that he was fighting; that he was struggling with an orthodoxy that had neither morality nor

In his "Evening Conversations" he had insisted that the Scriptures were never intended to teach science, but

morals only; and that they cannot be received as of any authority on astronomical and physical subjects.

Especially must we reject the view they reveal to us of the constitution of the world, that the earth is a flat

surface, supported on pillars; that the sky is a firmamentthe floor of heaven. On the contrary, we must

believe that the universe is infinite, and that it is filled with selfluminous and opaque worlds, many of them

inhabited; that there is nothing above and around us but space and stars. His meditations on these subjects

had brought him to the conclusion that the views of Averroes are not far from the truththat there is an

Intellect which animates the universe, and of this Intellect the visible world is only an emanation or

manifestation, originated and sustained by force derived from it, and, were that force withdrawn, all things

would disappear. This everpresent, allpervading Intellect is God, who lives in all things, even such as seem

not to live; that every thing is ready to become organized, to burst into life. God is, therefore, "the One Sole

Bruno may hence be considered among philosophical writers as intermediate between Averroes and Spinoza.

The latter held that God and the Universe are the same, that all events happen by an immutable law of Nature,

by an unconquerable necessity; that God is the Universe, producing a series of necessary movements or acts,

On the demand of the spiritual authorities, Bruno was removed from Venice to Rome, and confined in the

prison of the Inquisition, accused not only of being a heretic, but also a heresiarch, who had written things

unseemly concerning religion; the special charge against him being that he had taught the plurality of worlds,

a doctrine repugnant to the whole tenor of Scripture and inimical to revealed religion, especially as regards

the plan of salvation. After an imprisonment of two years he was brought before his judges, declared guilty of

the acts alleged, excommunicated, and, on his nobly refusing to recant, was delivered over to the secular

authorities to be punished "as mercifully as possible, and without the shedding of his blood," the horrible

formula for burning a prisoner at the stake. Knowing well that though his tormentors might destroy his body,

his thoughts would still live among men, he said to his judges, "Perhaps it is with greater fear that you pass

the sentence upon me than I receive it." The sentence was carried into effect, and he was burnt at Rome,

No one can recall without sentiments of pity the sufferings of those countless martyrs, who first by one party,

and then by another, have been brought for their religious opinions to the stake. But each of these had in his

supreme moment a powerful and unfailing support. The passage from this life to the next, though through a

hard trial, was the passage from a transient trouble to eternal happiness, an escape from the cruelty of earth to

the charity of heaven. On his way through the dark valley the martyr believed that there was an invisible hand

that would lead him, a friend that would guide him all the more gently and firmly because of the terrors of the

flames. For Bruno there was no such support. The philosophical opinions, for the sake of which he

surrendered his life, could give him no consolation. He must fight the last fight alone. Is there not something

very grand in the attitude of this solitary man, something which human nature cannot help admiring, as he

stands in the gloomy hall before his inexorable judges? No accuser, no witness, no advocate is present, but

the familiars of the Holy Office, clad in black, are stealthily moving about. The tormentors and the rack are in

the vaults below. He is simply told that he has brought upon himself strong suspicions of heresy, since he has

said that there are other worlds than ours. He is asked if he will recant and abjure his error. He cannot and

will not deny what he knows to be true, and perhapsfor he had often done so beforehe tells his judges

that they, too, in their hearts are of the same belief. What a contrast between this scene of manly honor, of

unshaken firmness, of inflexible adherence to the truth, and that other scene which took place more than

fifteen centuries previously by the fireside in the hall of Caiaphas the highpriest, when the cock crew, and

"the Lord turned and looked upon Peter" (Luke xxii. 61)! And yet it is upon Peter that the Church has

grounded her right to act as she did to Bruno. But perhaps the day approaches when posterity will offer an

expiation for this great ecclesiastical crime, and a statue of Bruno be unveiled under the dome of St. Peter's at

Scriptural view that the Earth is only six thousand years old, and that it was made in a week.Patristic

chronology founded on the ages of the patriarchs.Difficulties arising from different estimates in different

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

Discovery by Cassini of the oblateness of the planet Jupiter.Discovery by Newton of the oblateness of the

Earth.Deduction that she has been modeled by mechanical causes.Confirmation of this by geological

discoveries respecting aqueous rocks; corroboration by organic remains. The necessity of admitting

enormously long periods of time. Displacement of the doctrine of Creation by that of Evolution

The timescale and spacescale of the world are infinite.Moderation with which the discussion of the Age

THE true position of the earth in the universe was established only after a long and severe conflict. The

Church used whatever power she had, even to the infliction of death, for sustaining her ideas. But it was in

vain. The evidence in behalf of the Copernican theory became irresistible. It was at length universally

admitted that the sun is the central, the ruling body of our system; the earth only one, and by no means the

largest, of a family of encircling planets. Taught by the issue of that dispute, when the question of the age of

the world presented itself for consideration, the Church did not exhibit the active resistance she had displayed

on the former occasion. For, though her traditions were again put in jeopardy, they were not, in her judgment,

so vitally assailed. To dethrone the Earth from her dominating position was, so the spiritual authorities

declared, to undermine the very foundation of revealed truth; but discussions respecting the date of creation

might within certain limits be permitted. Those limits were, however, very quickly overpassed, and thus the

It was not possible to adopt the advice given by Plato in his "Timaeus," when treating of this subject the

origin of the universe: "It is proper that both I who speak and you who judge should remember that we are

but men, and therefore, receiving the probable mythological tradition, it is meet that we inquire no further

into it." Since the time of St. Augustine the Scriptures had been made the great and final authority in all

matters of science, and theologians had deduced from them schemes of chronology and cosmogony which

It is not necessary for us to do more than to allude to some of the leading features of these schemes; their

peculiarities will be easily discerned with sufficient clearness. Thus, from the six days of creation and the

Sabbathday of rest, since we are told that a day is with the Lord as a thousand years, it was inferred that the

duration of the world will be through six thousand years of suffering, and an additional thousand, a

millennium of rest. It was generally admitted that the earth was about four thousand years old at the birth of

Christ, but, so careless had Europe been in the study of its annals, that not Until A.D. 627 had it a proper

chronology of its own. A Roman abbot, Dionysius Exiguus, or Dennis the Less, then fixed the vulgar era, and

The method followed in obtaining the earliest chronological dates was by computations, mainly founded on

the lives of the patriarchs. Much difficulty was encountered in reconciling numerical discrepancies. Even if,

as was taken for granted in those uncritical ages, Moses was the author of the books imputed to him, due

weight was not given to the fact that he related events, many of which took place more than two thousand

years before he was born. It scarcely seemed necessary to regard the Pentateuch as of plenary inspiration,

since no means had been provided to perpetuate its correctness. The different copies which had escaped the

chances of time varied very much; thus the Samaritan made thirteen hundred and seven years from the

Creation to the Deluge, the Hebrew sixteen hundred and fiftysix, the Septuagint twentytwo hundred and

sixtythree. The Septuagint counted fifteen hundred years more from the Creation to Abraham than the

Hebrew. In general, however, there was an inclination to the supposition that the Deluge took place about two

thousand years after the Creation, and, after another interval of two thousand years, Christ was born. Persons

who had given much attention to the subject affirmed that there were not less than one hundred and

thirtytwo different opinions as to the year in which the Messiah appeared, and hence they declared that it

was inexpedient to press for acceptance the Scriptural numbers too closely, since it was plain, from the great

differences in different copies, that there had been no providential intervention to perpetuate a correct

reading, nor was there any mark by which men could be guided to the only authentic version. Even those held

in the highest esteem contained undeniable errors. Thus the Septuagint made Methuselah live until after the

It was thought that, in the antediluvian world, the year consisted of three hundred and sixty days. Some even

affirmed that this was the origin of the division of the circle into three hundred and sixty degrees. At the time

of the Deluge, so many theologians declared, the motion of the sun was altered, and the year became five

days and six hours longer. There was a prevalent opinion that that stupendous event occurred on November

2d, in the year of the world 1656. Dr. Whiston, however, disposed to greater precision, inclined to postpone it

to November 28th. Some thought that the rainbow was not seen until after the flood; others, apparently with

better reason, inferred that it was then first established as a sign. On coming forth from the ark, men received

permission to use flesh as food, the antediluvians having been herbivorous! It would seem that the Deluge

had not occasioned any great geographical changes, for Noah, relying on his antediluvian knowledge,

proceeded to divide the earth among his three sons, giving to Japhet Europe, to Shem Asia, to Ham Africa.

No provision was made for America, as he did not know of its existence. These patriarchs, undeterred by the

terrible solitudes to which they were going, by the undrained swamps and untracked forests, journeyed to

In seventy years the Asiatic family had increased to several hundred. They had found their way to the plains

of Mesopotamia, and there, for some motive that we cannot divine, began building a tower "whose top might

reach to heaven." Eusebius informs us that the work continued for forty years. They did not abandon it until a

miraculous confusion of their language took place and dispersed them all over the earth. St. Ambrose shows

that this confusion could not have been brought about by men. Origen believes that not even the angels

The confusion of tongues has given rise to many curious speculations among divines as to the primitive

speech of man. Some have thought that the language of Adam consisted altogether of nouns, that they were

monosyllables, and that the confusion was occasioned by the introduction of polysyllables. But these learned

men must surely have overlooked the numerous conversations reported in Genesis, such as those between the

Almighty and Adam, the serpent and Eve, etc. In these all the various parts of speech occur. There was,

however, a coincidence of opinion that the primitive language was Hebrew. On the general principles of

The Greek Fathers computed that, at the time of the dispersion, seventytwo nations were formed, and in this

conclusion St. Augustine coincides. But difficulties seem to have been recognized in these computations; thus

the learned Dr. Shuckford, who has treated very elaborately on all the foregoing points in his excellent work

"On the Sacred and Profane History of the World connected," demonstrates that there could not have been

more than twentyone or twentytwo men, women, and children, in each of those kingdoms.

A very vital point in this system of chronological computation, based upon the ages of the patriarchs, was the

great length of life to which those worthies attained. It was generally supposed that before the Flood "there

was a perpetual equinox," and no vicissitudes in Nature. After that event the standard of life diminished one

half, and in the time of the Psalmist it had sunk to seventy years, at which it still remains. Austerities of

climate were affirmed to have arisen through the shifting of the earth's axis at the Flood, and to this ill effect

were added the noxious influences of that universal catastrophe, which, "converting the surface of the earth

into a vast swamp, gave rise to fermentations of the blood and a weakening of the fibres."

With a view of avoiding difficulties arising from the extraordinary length of the patriarchal lives, certain

divines suggested that the years spoken of by the sacred penman were not ordinary but lunar years. This,

though it might bring the age of those venerable men within the recent term of life, introduced, however,

another insuperable difficulty, since it made them have children when only five or six years old.

Sacred science, as interpreted by the Fathers of the Church, demonstrated these facts: 1. That the date of

Creation was comparatively recent, not more than four or five thousand years before Christ; 2. That the act of

Creation occupied the space of six ordinary days; 3. That the Deluge was universal, and that the animals

which survived it were preserved in an ark; 4. That Adam was created perfect in morality and intelligence,

Of these points and others that might be mentioned there were two on which ecclesiastical authority felt that

it must insist. These were: 1. The recent date of Creation; for, the remoter that event, the more urgent the

necessity of vindicating the justice of God, who apparently had left the majority of our race to its fate, and

had reserved salvation for the few who were living in the closing ages of the world; 2. The perfect condition

of Adam at his creation, since this was necessary to the theory of the fall, and the plan of salvation.

Theological authorities were therefore constrained to look with disfavor on any attempt to carry back the

origin of the earth, to an epoch indefinitely remote, and on the Mohammedan theory of the evolution of man

from lower forms, or his gradual development to his present condition in the long lapse of time.

From the puerilities, absurdities, and contradictions of the foregoing statement, we may gather how very

unsatisfactory this socalled sacred science was. And perhaps we may be brought to the conclusion to which

Dr. Shuckford, above quoted, was constrained to come, after his wearisome and unavailing attempt to

coordinate its various parts: "As to the Fathers of the first ages of the Church, they were good men, but not

Sacred cosmogony regards the formation and modeling of the earth as the direct act of God; it rejects the

Scientific cosmogony dates from the telescopic discovery made by Cassinian Italian astronomer, under

whose care Louis XIV. placed the Observatory of Paristhat the planet Jupiter is not a sphere, but an oblate

spheroid, flattened at the poles. Mechanical philosophy demonstrated that such a figure is the necessary result

of the rotation of a yielding mass, and that the more rapid the rotation the greater the flattening, or, what

From considerationspurely of a mechanical kind Newton had foreseen that such likewise, though to a

less striking extent, must be the figure of the earth. To the protuberant mass is due the precession of the

equinoxes, which requires twentyfive thousand eight hundred and sixtyeight years for its completion, and

also the nutation of the earth's axis, discovered by Bradley. We have already had occasion to remark that the

Two facts are revealed by the oblateness of the earth: 1. That she has formerly been in a yielding or plastic

condition; 2. That she has been modeled by a mechanical and therefore a secondary cause.

But this influence of mechanical causes is manifested not only in the exterior configuration of the globe of

the earth as a spheroid of revolution, it also plainly appears on an examination of the arrangement of her

If we consider the aqueous rocks, their aggregate is many miles in thickness; yet they undeniably have been

of slow deposit. The material of which they consist has been obtained by the disintegration of ancient lands;

it has found its way into the watercourses, and by them been distributed anew. Effects of this kind, taking

place before our eyes, require a very considerable lapse of time to produce a wellmarked result a water

deposit may in this manner measure in thickness a few inches in a centurywhat, then, shall we say as to the

The position of the coastline of Egypt has been known for much more than two thousand years. In that time

it has made, by reason of the detritus brought down by the Nile, a distinctlymarked encroachment on the

Mediterranean. But all Lower Egypt has had a similar origin. The coastline near the mouth of the

Mississippi has been well known for three hundred years, and during that time has scarcely made a

perceptible advance on the Gulf of Mexico; but there was a time when the delta of that river was at St. Louis,

more than seven hundred miles from its present position. In Egypt and in Americain fact, in all

countriesthe rivers have been inch by inch prolonging the land into the sea; the slowness of their work and

the vastness of its extent satisfy us that we must concede for the operation enormous periods of time.

To the same conclusion we are brought if we consider the filling of lakes, the deposit of travertines, the

denudation of hills, the cutting action of the sea on its shores, the undermining of cliffs, the weathering of

Sedimentary strata must have been originally deposited in planes nearly horizontal. Vast numbers of them

have been forced, either by paroxysms at intervals or by gradual movement, into all manner of angular

inclinations. Whatever explanations we may offer of these innumerable and immense tilts and fractures, they

The coalbearing strata in Wales, by their gradual submergence, have attained a thickness of 12,000 feet; in

Nova Scotia of 14,570 feet. So slow and so steady was this submergence, that erect trees stand one above

another on successive levels; seventeen such repetitions may be counted in a thickness of 4,515 feet. The age

of the trees is proved by their size, some being four feet in diameter. Round them, as they gradually went

down with the subsiding soil, calamites grew, at one level after another. In the Sydney coalfield fiftynine

Marine shells, found on mountaintops far in the interior of continents, were regarded by theological writers

as an indisputable illustration of the Deluge. But when, as geological studies became more exact, it was

proved that in the crust of the earth vast freshwater formations are repeatedly intercalated with vast marine

ones, like the leaves of a book, it became evident that no single cataclysm was sufficient to account for such

results; that the same region, through gradual variations of its level and changes in its topographical

surroundings, had sometimes been dry land, sometimes covered with fresh and sometimes with sea water. It

became evident also that, for the completion of these changes, tens of thousands of years were required.

To this evidence of a remote origin of the earth, derived from the vast superficial extent, the enormous

thickness, and the varied characters of its strata, was added an imposing body of proof depending on its fossil

remains. The relative ages of formations having been ascertained, it was shown that there has been an

advancing physiological progression of organic forms, both vegetable and animal, from the oldest to the most

recent; that those which inhabit the surface in our times are but an insignificant fraction of the prodigious

multitude that have inhabited it heretofore; that for each species now living there are thousands that have

become extinct. Though special formations are so strikingly characterized by some predominating type of life

as to justify such expressions as the age of mollusks, the age of reptiles, the age of mammals, the introduction

of the newcomers did not take place abruptly. as by sudden creation. They gradually emerged in an

antecedent age, reached their culmination in the one which they characterize, and then gradually died out in a

succeeding. There is no such thing as a sudden creation, a sudden strange appearancebut there is a slow

metamorphosis, a slow development from a preexisting form. Here again we encounter the necessity of

admitting for such results long periods of time. Within the range of history no wellmarked instance of such

development has been witnessed, and we speak with hesitation of doubtful instances of extinction. Yet in

Since thus, within the experience of man, no case of metamorphosis or development has been observed, some

have been disposed to deny its possibility altogether, affirming that all the different species have come into

existence by separate creative acts. But surely it is less unphilosophical to suppose that each species has been

evolved from a predecessor by a modification of its parts, than that it has suddenly started into existence out

of nothing. Nor is there much weight in the remark that no man has ever witnessed such a transformation

taking place. Let it be remembered that no man has ever witnessed an act of creation, the sudden appearance

Abrupt, arbitrary, disconnected creative acts may serve to illustrate the Divine power; but that continuous

unbroken chain of organisms which extends from palaeozoic formations to the formations of recent times, a

chain in which each link hangs on a preceding and sustains a succeeding one, demonstrates to us not only that

the production of animated beings is governed by law, but that it is by law that has undergone no change. In

its operation, through myriads of ages, there has been no variation, no suspension.

The foregoing paragraphs may serve to indicate the character of a portion of the evidence with which we

must deal in considering the problem of the age of the earth. Through the unintermitting labors of geologists,

so immense a mass has been accumulated, that many volumes would be required to contain the details. It is

drawn from the phenomena presented by all kinds of rocks, aqueous, igneous, metamorphic. Of aqueous

rocks it investigates the thickness, the inclined positions, and how they rest unconformably on one another;

how those that are of freshwater origin are intercalated with those that are marine; how vast masses of

material have been removed by slowacting causes of denudation, and extensive geographical surfaces have

been remodeled; how continents have undergone movements of elevation and depression, their shores sunk

under the ocean, or seabeaches and seacliffs carried far into the interior. It considers the zoological and

botanical facts, the fauna and flora of the successive ages, and how in an orderly manner the chain of organic

forms, plants, and animals, has been extended, from its dim and doubtful beginnings to our own times. From

facts presented by the deposits of coalcoal which, in all its varieties, has originated from the decay of

plantsit not only demon strates the changes that have taken place in the earth's atmosphere, but also

universal changes of climate. From other facts it proves that there have been oscillations of temperature,.

periods in which the mean heat has risen, and periods in which the polar ices and snows have covered large

One school of geologists, resting its argument on very imposing evidence, teaches that the whole mass of the

earth, from being in a molten, or perhaps a vaporous condition, has cooled by radiation in the lapse of

millions of ages, until it has reached its present equilibrium of temperature. Astronomical observations give

great weight to this interpretation, especially so far as the planetary bodies of the solar system are concerned.

It is also supported by such facts as the small mean density of the earth, the increasing temperature at

increasing depths, the phenomena of volcanoes and injected veins, and those of igneous and metamorphic

rocks. To satisfy the physical changes which this school of geologists contemplates, myriads of centuries are

But, with the views that the adoption of the Copernican system has given us, it is plain that we cannot

consider the origin and biography of the earth in an isolated way; we must include with her all the other

members of the system or family to which she belongs. Nay, more, we cannot restrict ourselves to the solar

system; we must embrace in our discussions the starry worlds. And, since we have become familiarized with

their almost immeasurable distances from one another, we are prepared to accept for their origin an

immeasurably remote time. There are stars so far off that their light, fast as it travels, has taken thousands of

years to reach us, and hence they must have been in existence many thousands of years ago.

Geologists having unanimously agreedfor perhaps there is not a single dissenting voicethat the

chronology of the earth must be greatly extended, attempts have been made to give precision to it. Some of

these have been based on astronomical, some on physical principles. Thus calculations founded on the known

changes of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, with a view of determining the lapse of time since the

beginning of the last glacial period, have given two hundred and forty thousand years. Though the general

postulate of the immensity of geological times may be conceded, such calculations are on too uncertain a

But, considering the whole subject from the present scientific standpoint, it is very clear that the views

presented by theological writers, as derived from the Mosaic record, cannot be admitted. Attempts have been

repeatedly made to reconcile the revealed with the discovered facts, but they have proved to be

unsatisfactory. The Mosaic time is too short, the order of creation incorrect, the divine interventions too

anthropomorphic; and, though the presentment of the subject is in harmony with the ideas that men have

entertained, when first their minds were turned to the acquisition of natural knowledge, it is not in accordance

with their present conceptions of the insignificance of the earth and the grandeur of the universe.

Among late geological discoveries is one of special interest; it is the detection of human remains and human

works in formations which, though geologically recent, are historically very remote.

The fossil remains of men, with rude implements of rough or chipped flint, of polished stone, of bone, of

bronze, are found in Europe in caves, in drifts, in peat beds. They indicate a savage life, spent in hunting

and fishing. Recent researches give reason to believe that, under low and base grades, the existence of man

can be traced back into the tertiary times. He was contemporary with the southern elephant, the rhinoceros

leptorhinus, the great hippopotamus, perhaps even in the miocene contemporary with the mastodon.

At the close of the Tertiary period, from causes not yet determined, the Northern Hemisphere underwent a

great depression of temperature. From a torrid it passed to a glacial condition. After a period of prodigious

length, the temperature again rose, and the glaciers that had so extensively covered the surface receded. Once

more there was a decline in the heat, and the glaciers again advanced, but this time not so far as formerly.

This ushered in the Quaternary period, during which very slowly the temperature came to its present degree.

The water deposits that were being made required thousands of centuries for their completion. At the

beginning of the Quaternary period there were alive the cavebear, the cavelion, the amphibious

hippopotamus, the rhinoceros with chambered nostrils, the mammoth. In fact, the mammoth swarmed. He

delighted in a boreal climate. By degrees the reindeer, the horse, the ox, the bison, multiplied, and disputed

with him his food. Partly for this reason, and partly because of the increasing heat, he became extinct. From

middle Europe, also, the reindeer retired. His departure marks the end of the Quaternary period.

Since the advent of man on the earth, we have, therefore, to deal with periods of incalculable length. Vast

changes in the climate and fauna were produced by the slow operation of causes such as are in action at the

present day. Figures cannot enable us to appreciate these enormous lapses of time.

It seems to be satisfactorily established, that a race allied to the Basques may be traced back to the Neolithic

age. At that time the British Islands were undergoing a change of level, like that at present occurring in the

Scandinavian Peninsula. Scotland was rising, England was sinking. In the Pleistocene age there existed in

Central Europe a rude race of hunters and fishers closely allied to the Esquimaux.

In the old glacial drift of Scotland the relics of man are found along with those of the fossil elephant. This

carries us back to that time above referred to, when a large portion of Europe was covered with ice, which

had edged down from the polar regions to southerly latitudes, and, as glaciers, descended from the summits

of the mountainchains into the plains. Countless species of animals perished in this cataclysm of ice and

In his primitive savage condition, living for the most part on fruits, roots, shellfish, man was in possession

of a fact which was certain eventually to insure his civilization. He knew how to make a fire. In peat beds,

under the remains of trees that in those localities have long ago become extinct, his relics are still found, the

implements that accompany him indicating a distinct chronological order. Near the surface are those of

bronze, lower down those of bone or horn, still lower those of polished stone, and beneath all those of

chipped or rough stone. The date of the origin of some of these beds cannot be estimated at less than forty or

The caves that have been examined in France and elsewhere have furnished for the Stone age axes, knives,

lance and arrow points, scrapers, hammers. The change from what may be termed the chipped to the polished

stone period is very gradual. It coincides with the domestication of the dog, an epoch in huntinglife. It

embraces thousands of centuries. The appearance of arrowheads indicates the invention of the bow, and the

rise of man from a defensive to an offensive mode of life. The introduction of barbed arrows shows how

inventive talent was displaying itself; bone and horn tips, that the huntsman was including smaller animals,

and perhaps birds, in his chase; bone whistles, his companionship with other huntsmen or with his dog. The

scrapingknives of flint indicate the use of skin for clothing, and rude bodkins and needles its manufacture.

Shells perforated for bracelets and necklaces prove how soon a taste for personal adornment was acquired;

the implements necessary for the preparation of pigments suggest the painting of the body, and perhaps

tattooing; and batons of rank bear witness to the beginning of a social organization.

With the utmost interest we look upon the first germs of art among these primitive men. They have left its

rude sketches on pieces of ivory and flakes of bone, and carvings, of the animals contemporary with them. In

these prehistoric delineations, sometimes not without spirit, we have mammoths, combats of reindeer. One

presents us with a man harpooning a fish, another a huntingscene of naked men armed with the dart. Man is

the only animal who has the propensity of depicting external forms, and of availing himself of the use of fire.

Shellmounds, consisting of bones and shells, some of which may be justly described as of vast extent, and

of a date anterior to the Bronze age, and full of stone implements, bear in all their parts indications of the use

of fire. These are often adjacent to the existing coasts sometimes, however, they are far inland, in certain

instances as far as fifty miles. Their contents and position indicate for them a date posterior to that of the

great extinct mammals, but prior to the domesticated. Some of these, it is said, cannot be less than one

The lakedwellings in Switzerlandhuts built on piles or logs, wattled with boughswere, as may be

inferred from the accompanying implements, begun in the Stone age, and continued into that of Bronze. In

the latter period the evidences become numerous of the adoption of an agricultural life.

It must not be supposed that the periods into which geologists have found it convenient to divide the progress

of man in civilization are abrupt epochs, which hold good simultaneously for the whole human race. Thus the

wandering Indians of America are only at the present moment emerging from the Stone age. They are still to

be seen in many places armed with arrows, tipped with flakes of flint. It is but as yesterday that some have

So far as investigations have gone, they indisputably refer the existence of man to a date remote from us by

many hundreds of thousands of years. It must be borne in mind that these investigations are quite recent, and

confined to a very limited geographical space. No researches have yet been made in those regions which

We are thus carried back immeasurably beyond the six thousand years of Patristic chronology. It is difficult

to assign a shorter date for the last glaciation of Europe than a quarter of a million of years, and human

existence antedates that. But not only is it this grand fact that confronts us, we have to admit also a primitive

animalized state, and a slow, a gradual development. But this forlorn, this savage condition of humanity is in

strong contrast to the paradisiacal happiness of the garden of Eden, and, what is far in ore serious, it is

I have been induced to place the subject of this chapter out of its proper chronological order, for the sake of

presenting what I had to say respecting the nature of the world more completely by itself. The discussions

that arose as to the age of the earth were long after the conflict as to the criterion of truththat is, after the

Reformation; indeed, they were substantially included in the present century. They have been conducted with

so much moderation as to justify the term I have used in the title of this chapter, "Controversy," rather than

"Conflict." Geology has not had to encounter the vindictive opposition with which astronomy was assailed,

and, though, on her part, she has insisted on a concession of great antiquity for the earth, she has herself

pointed out the unreliability of all numerical estimates thus far offered. The attentive reader of this chapter

cannot have failed to observe inconsistencies in the numbers quoted. Though wanting the merit of exactness,

those numbers, however, justify the claim of vast antiquity, and draw us to the conclusion that the timescale

Differences of belief arise among the early ChristiansAn ineffectual attempt is made to remedy them by

The papacy resorts to auricular confession and the Inquisition.It perpetrates frightful atrocities for the

Effect of the discovery of the Pandects of Justinian and development of the canon law on the nature of

The Reformation establishes the rights of individual reason.Catholicism asserts that the criterion of truth is

in the Church. It restrains the reading of books by the Index Expurgatorius, and combats dissent by such

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

For Science the criterion of truth is to be found in the revelations of Nature: for the Protestant, it is in the

"WHAT is truth?" was the passionate demand of a Roman procurator on one of the most momentous

occasions in history. And the Divine Person who stood before him, to whom the interrogation was addressed,

Often and vainly had that demand been made beforeoften and vainly has it been made since. No one has

When, at the dawn of science in Greece, the ancient religion was disappearing like a mist at sunrise, the pious

and thoughtful men of that country were thrown into a condition of intellectual despair. Anaxagoras

plaintively exclaims, "Nothing can be known, nothing can be learned, nothing can be certain, sense is limited,

intellect is weak, life is short." Xenophanes tells us that it is impossible for us to be certain even when we

utter the truth. Parmenides declares that the very constitution of man prevents him from ascertaining absolute

truth. Empedocles affirms that all philosophical and religious systems must be unreliable, because we have no

criterion by which to test them. Democritus asserts that even things that are true cannot impart certainty to us;

that the final result of human inquiry is the discovery that man is incapable of absolute knowledge; that, even

if the truth be in his possession, he cannot be certain of it. Pyrrho bids us reflect on the necessity of

suspending our judgment of things, since we have no criterion of truth; so deep a distrust did he impart to his

followers, that they were in the habit of saying, "We assert nothing; no, not even that we assert nothing."

Epicurus taught his disciples that truth can never be determined by reason. Arcesilaus, denying both

intellectual and sensuous knowledge, publicly avowed that he knew nothing, not even his own ignorance!

The general conclusion to which Greek philosophy came was thisthat, in view of the contradiction of the

evidence of the senses, we cannot distinguish the true from the false; and such is the imperfection of reason,

It might be supposed that a revelation from God to man would come with such force and clearness as to settle

all uncertainties and overwhelm all opposition. A Greek philosopher, less despairing than others, had

ventured to affirm that the coexistence of two forms of faith, both claiming to be revealed by the omnipotent

God, proves that neither of them is true. But let us remember that it is difficult for men to come to the, same

conclusion as regards even material and visible things, unless they stand at the same point of view. If discord

and distrust were the condition of philosophy three hundred years before the birth of Christ, discord and

distrust were the condition of religion three hundred years after his death. This is what Hilary, the Bishop of

Poictiers, in his wellknown passage written about the time of the Nicene Council, says:

"It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous that there are, as many creeds as opinions among men, as

many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us, because we

make creeds arbitrarily and explain them as arbitrarily. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new creeds to

describe invisible mysteries; we repent of what we have done; we defend those who repent; we anathematize

those whom we defend; we condemn either the doctrines of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others;

and, reciprocally tearing each other to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin."

These are not mere words; but the import of this selfaccusation can be realized fully only by such as are

familiar with the ecclesiastical history of those times. As soon as the first fervor of Christianity as a system of

benevolence had declined, dissensions appeared. Ecclesiastical historians assert that "as early as the second

century began the contest between faith and reason, religion and philosophy, piety and genius." To compose

these dissensions, to obtain some authoritative expression, some criterion of truth, assemblies for consultation

were resorted to, which eventually took the form of councils. For a long time they had nothing more than an

advisory authority; but, when, in the fourth century, Christianity had attained to imperial rule, their dictates

became compulsory, being enforced by the civil power. By this the whole face of the Church was changed.

Oecumenical councilsparliaments of Christianityconsisting of delegates from all the churches in the

world, were summoned by the authority of the emperor; he presided either personally or nominally in

themcomposed all differences, and was, in fact, the Pope of Christendom. Mosheim, the historian, to

whom I have more particularly referred above, speaking of these times, remarks that "there was nothing to

exclude the ignorant from ecclesiastical preferment; the savage and illiterate party, who looked on all kinds of

learning, particularly philosophy, as pernicious to piety, was increasing; " and, accordingly, "the disputes

carried on in the Council of Nicea offered a remarkable example of the greatest ignorance and utter confusion

of ideas, particularly in the language and explanations of those who approved of the decisions of that

council." Vast as its influence has been, "the ancient critics are neither agreed concerning the time nor place

in which it was assembled, the number of those who sat in it, nor the bishop who presided. No authentic acts

of its famous sentence have been committed to writing, or, at least, none have been transmitted to our times."

The Church had now become what, in the language of modern politicians, would be called "a confederated

republic." The will of the council was determined by a majority vote, and, to secure that, all manner of

intrigues and impositions were resorted to; the influence of court females, bribery, and violence, were not

spared. The Council of Nicea had scarcely adjourned,when it was plain to all impartial men that, as a

method of establishing a criterion of truth in religious matters, such councils were a total failure. The

minority had no rights which the majority need respect. The protest of many good men, that a mere majority

vote given by delegates, whose right to vote had never been examined and authorized, could not be received

as ascertaining absolute truth, was passed over with contempt, and the consequence was, that council was

assembled against council, and their jarring and contradictory decrees spread perplexity and confusion

throughout the Christian world. In the fourth century alone there were thirteen councils adverse to Arius,

fifteen in his favor, and seventeen for the semiAriansin all, fortyfive. Minorities were perpetually

The impartial ecclesiastical historian above quoted, moreover, says that "two monstrous and calamitous

errors were adopted in this fourth century: 1. That it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie when, by that

means, the interests of the Church might be promoted. 2. That errors in religion, when maintained and

adhered to after proper admonition, were punishable with civil penalties and corporal tortures."

Not without astonishment can we look back at what, in those times, were popularly regarded as criteria of

truth. Doctrines were considered as established by the number of martyrs who had professed them, by

miracles, by the confession of demons, of lunatics, or of persons possessed of evil spirits: thus, St. Ambrose,

in his disputes with the Arians, produced men possessed by devils, who, on the approach of the relics of

certain martyrs, acknowledged, with loud cries, that the Nicean doctrine of the three persons of the Godhead

was true. But the Arians charged him with suborning these infernal witnesses with a weighty bribe. Already,

ordeal tribunals were making their appearance. During the following six centuries they were held as a final

resort for establishing guilt or innocence, under the forms of trial by cold water, by duel, by the fire, by the

What an utter ignorance of the nature of evidence and its laws have we here! An accused man sinks or swims

when thrown into a pond of water; he is burnt or escapes unharmed when he holds a piece of redhot iron in

his hand; a champion whom he has hired is vanquished or vanquishes in single fight; he can keep his arms

outstretched like a cross, or fails to do so longer than his accuser, and his innocence or guilt of some imputed

Is it surprising that all Europe was filled with imposture miracles during those ages?miracles that are a

But the inevitable day came at length. Assertions and doctrines based upon such preposterous evidence were

involved in the discredit that fell upon the evidence itself. As the thirteenth century is approached, we find

unbelief in all directions setting in. First, it is plainly seen among the monastic orders, then it spreads rapidly

among the common people. Books, such as "The Everlasting Gospel," appear among the former; sects, such

as the Catharists, Waldenses, Petrobrussians, arise among the latter. They agreed in this, "that the public and

established religion was a motley system of errors and superstitions, and that the dominion which the pope

had usurped over Christians was unlawful and tyrannical; that the claim put forth by Rome, that the Bishop of

Rome is the supreme lord of the universe, and that neither princes nor bishops, civil governors nor

ecclesiastical rulers, have any lawful power in church or state but what they receive from him, is utterly

To withstand this flood of impiety, the papal government established two institutions: 1. The Inquisition; 2.

Auricular confessionthe latter as a means of detection, the former as a tribunal for punishment.

In general terms, the commission of the Inquisition was, to extirpate religious dissent by terrorism, and

surround heresy with the most horrible associations; this necessarily implied the power of determining what

constitutes heresy. The criterion of truth was thus in possession of this tribunal, which was charged "to

discover and bring to judgment heretics lurking in towns, houses, cellars, woods, caves, and fields." With

such savage alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the interests of religion, that between 1481 and

1808 it had punished three hundred and forty thousand persons, and of these nearly thirtytwo thousand had

been burnt! In its earlier days, when public opinion could find no means of protesting against its atrocities, "it

often put to death, without appeal, on the very day that they were accused, nobles, clerks, monks, hermits,

and lay persons of every rank." In whatever direction thoughtful men looked, the air was full of fearful

shadows. No one could indulge in freedom of thought without expecting punishment. So dreadful were the

proceedings of the Inquisition, that the exclamation of Pagliarici was the exclamation of thousands: "It is

The Inquisition destroyed the sectaries of Southern France in the thirteenth century. Its unscrupulous

atrocities extirpated Protestantism in Italy and Spain. Nor did it confine itself to religious affairs; it engaged

in the suppression of political discontent. Nicolas Eymeric, who was inquisitorgeneral of the kingdom of

Aragon for nearly fifty years, and who died in 1399, has left a frightful statement of its conduct and appalling

This disgrace of Christianity, and indeed of the human race, had different constitutions in different countries.

The papal Inquisition continued the tyranny, and eventually superseded the old episcopal inquisitions. The

authority of the bishops was unceremoniously put aside by the officers of the pope.

By the action of the fourth Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, the power of the Inquisition was frightfully

increased, the necessity of private confession to a priestauricular confessionbeing at that time formally

established. This, so far as domestic life was concerned, gave omnipresence and omniscience to the

Inquisition. Not a man was safe. In the hands of the priest, who, at the confessional, could extract or extort

from them their most secret thoughts, his wife and his servants were turned into spies. Summoned before the

dread tribunal, he was simply informed that he lay under strong suspicions of heresy. No accuser was named;

but the thumbscrew, the stretchingrope, the boot and wedge, or other enginery of torture, soon supplied

Notwithstanding all this power, the Inquisition failed of its purpose. When the heretic could no longer

confront it, he evaded it. A dismal disbelief stealthily pervaded all Europe,a denial of Providence, of the

immortality of the soul, of human freewill, and that man can possibly resist the absolute necessity, the

destiny which envelops him. Ideas such as these were cherished in silence by multitudes of persons driven to

them by the tyrannical acts of ecclesiasticism. In spite of persecution, the Waldenses still survived to

propagate their declaration that the Roman Church, since Constantine, had degenerated from its purity and

sanctity; to protest against the sale of indulgences, which they said had nearly abolished prayer, fasting, alms;

to affirm that it was utterly useless to pray for the souls of the dead, since they must already have gone either

to heaven or hell. Though it was generally believed that philosophy or science was pernicious to the interests

of Christianity or true piety, the Mohammedan literature then prevailing in Spain was making converts

among all classes of society. We see very plainly its influence in many of the sects that then arose; thus, "the

Brethren and Sisters of the Free. Spirit" held that "the universe came by emanation from God, and would

finally return to him by absorption; that rational souls are so many portions of the Supreme Deity; and that

the universe, considered as one great whole, is God." These are ideas that can only be entertained in an

advanced intellectual condition. Of this sect it is said that many suffered burning with unclouded serenity,

with triumphant feelings of cheerfulness and joy. Their orthodox enemies accused them of gratifying their

passions at midnight assemblages in darkened rooms, to which both sexes in a condition of nudity repaired. A

similar accusation, as is well known, was brought against the primitive Christians by the fashionable society

The influences of the Averroistic philosophy were apparent in many of these sects. That Mohammedan

system, considered from a Christian point of view, led to the heretical belief that the end of the precepts of

Christianity is the union of the soul with the Supreme Being; that God and Nature have the same relations to

each other as the soul and the body; that there is but one individual intelligence; and that one soul performs

all the spiritual and rational functions in all the human race. When, subsequently, toward the time of the

Reformation, the Italian Averroists were required by the Inquisition to give an account of themselves, they

attempted to show that there is a wide distinction between philosophical and religious truth; that things may

be philosophically true, and yet theologically false an exculpatory device condemned at length by the

But, in spite of auricular confession, and the Inquisition, these heretical tendencies survived. It has been truly

said that, at the epoch of the Reformation, there lay concealed, in many parts of Europe, persons who

entertained the most virulent enmity against Christianity. In this pernicious class were many Aristotelians,

such as Pomponatius; many philosophers and wits, such as Bodin, Rabelais, Montaigne; many Italians, as

Miracleevidence began to fall into discredit during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The sarcasms of the

HispanoMoorish philosophers had forcibly drawn the attention of many of the more enlightened

ecclesiastics to its illusory nature. The discovery of the Pandects of Justinian, at Amalfi, in 1130, doubtless

exerted a very powerful influence in promoting the study of Roman jurisprudence, and disseminating better

notions as to the character of legal or philosophical evidence. Hallam has cast some doubt on the wellknown

story of this discovery, but he admits that the celebrated copy in the Laurentian library, at Florence, is the

only one containing the entire fifty books. Twenty years subsequently, the monk Gratian collected together

the various papal edicts, the canons of councils, the declarations of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, in

a volume called "The Decretum," considered as the earliest authority in canon law. In the next century

Gregory IX. published five books of Decretals, and Boniface VIII. subsequently added a sixth. To these

followed the Clementine Constitutions, a seventh book of Decretals, and "A Book of Institutes," published

together, by Gregory XIII., in 1580, under the title of "Corpus Juris Canonici." The canon law had gradually

gained enormous power through the control it had obtained over wills, the guardianship of orphans,

The rejection of miracleevidence, and the substitution of legal evidence in its stead, accelerated the

approach of the Reformation. No longer was it possible to admit the requirement which, in former days,

Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his treatise, "Cur Deus Homo," had enforced, that we must first

believe without examination, and may afterward endeavor to understand what we have thus believed. When

Cajetan said to Luther, "Thou must believe that one single drop of Christ's blood is sufficient to redeem the

whole human race, and the remaining quantity that was shed in the garden and on the cross was left as a

legacy to the pope, to be a treasure from which indulgences were to be drawn," the soul of the sturdy German

monk revolted against such a monstrous assertion, nor would he have believed it though a thousand miracles

had been worked in its support. This shameful practice of selling indulgences for the commission of sin

originated among the bishops, who, when they had need of money for their private pleasures, obtained it in

that way. Abbots and monks, to whom this gainful commerce was denied, raised funds by carrying about

relics in solemn procession, and charging a fee for touching them. The popes, in their pecuniary straits,

perceiving how lucrative the practice might become, deprived the bishops of the right of making such sales,

and appropriated it to themselves, establishing agencies, chiefly among the mendicant orders, for the traffic.

Among these orders there was a sharp competition, each boasting of the superior value of its indulgences

through its greater influence at the court of heaven, its familiar connection with the Virgin Mary and the

saints in glory. Even against Luther himself, who had been an Augustinian monk, a calumny was circulated

that he was first alienated from the Church by a traffic of this kind having been conferred on the Dominicans,

instead of on his own order, at the time when Leo X. was raising funds by this means for building St. Peter's,

at Rome, A.D. 1517. and there is reason to think that Leo himself, in the earlier stages of the Reformation,

Indulgences were thus the immediate inciting cause of the Reformation, but very soon there came into light

the real principle that was animating the controversy. It lay in the question, Does the Bible owe its

authenticity to the Church? or does the Church owe her authenticity to the Bible? Where is the criterion of

It is not necessary for me here to relate the well known particulars of that controversy, the desolating wars

and scenes of blood to which it gave rise: how Luther posted on the door of the cathedral of Wittemberg

ninetyfive theses, and was summoned to Rome to answer for his offense; how he appealed from the pope,

illinformed at the time, to the pope when he should have been better instructed; how he was condemned as a

heretic, and thereupon appealed to a general council; how, through the disputes about purgatory,

transubstantiation, auricular confession, absolution, the fundamental idea which lay at the bottom of the

whole movement came into relief, the right of individual judgment; how Luther was now excommunicated,

A.D. 1520, and in defiance burnt the bull of excommunication and the volumes of the canon law, which he

denounced as aiming at the subversion of all civil government, and the exaltation of the papacy; how by this

skillful manoeuvre he brought over many of the German princes to his views; how, summoned before the

Imperial Diet at Worms, he refused to retract, and, while he was bidden in the castle of Wartburg, his

doctrines were spreading, and a reformation under Zwingli broke out in Switzerland; how the principle of

sectarian decomposition embedded in the movement gave rise to rivalries and dissensions between the

Germans and the Swiss, and even divided the latter among themselves under the leadership of Zwingli and of

Calvin; how the Conference of Marburg, the Diet of Spires, and that at Augsburg, failed to compose the

troubles, and eventually the German Reformation assumed a political organization at Smalcalde. The quarrels

between the Lutherans and the Calvinists gave hopes to Rome that she might recover her losses.

Leo was not slow to discern that the Lutheran Reformation was something more serious than a squabble

among some monks about the profits of indulgencesales, and the papacy set itself seriously at work to

overcome the revolters. It instigated the frightful wars that for so many years desolated Europe, and left

animosities which neither the Treaty of Westphalia, nor the Council of Trent after eighteen years of debate,

could compose. No one can read without a shudder the attempts that were made to extend the Inquisition in

foreign countries. All Europe, Catholic and Protestant, was horror stricken at the Huguenot massacre of St.

Bartholomew's Eve (A.D. 1572). For perfidy and atrocity it has no equal in the annals of the world.

The desperate attempt in which the papacy had been engaged to put down its opponents by instigating civil

wars, massacres, and assassinations, proved to be altogether abortive. Nor had the Council of Trent any better

result. Ostensibly summoned to correct, illustrate, and fix with perspicacity the doctrine of the Church, to

restore the vigor of its discipline, and to reform the lives of its ministers, it was so manipulated that a large

majority of its members were Italians, and under the influence of the pope. Hence the Protestants could not

The issue of the Reformation was the acceptance by all the Protestant Churches of the dogma that the Bible is

a sufficient guide for every Christian man. Tradition was rejected, and the right of private interpretation

assured. It was thought that the criterion of truth had at length been obtained.

The authority thus imputed to the Scriptures was not restricted to matters of a purely religious or moral kind;

it extended over philosophical facts and to the interpretation of Nature. Many went as far as in the old times

Epiphanius had done: he believed that the Bible contained a complete system of mineralogy! The Reformers

would tolerate no science that was not in accordance with Genesis. Among them there were many who

maintained that religion and piety could never flourish unless separated from learning and science. The fatal

maxim that the Bible contained the sum and substance of all knowledge, useful or possible to mana maxim

employed with such pernicious effect of old by Tertullian and by St. Augustine, and which had so often been

enforced by papal authoritywas still strictly insisted upon. The leaders of the Reformation, Luther and

Melanchthon, were determined to banish philosophy from the Church. Luther declared that the study of

Aristotle is wholly useless; his vilification of that Greek philosopher knew no bounds. He is, says Luther,

"truly a devil, a horrid calumniator, a wicked sycophant, a prince of darkness, a real Apollyon, a beast, a most

horrid impostor on mankind, one in whom there is scarcely any philosophy, a public and professed liar, a

goat, a complete epicure, this twice execrable Aristotle." The schoolmen were, so Luther said, "locusts,

caterpillars, frogs, lice." He entertained an abhorrence for them. These opinions, though not so emphatically

expressed, were entertained by Calvin. So far as science is concerned, nothing is owed to the Reformation.

In the annals of Christianity the most illomened day is that in which she separated herself from science. She

compelled Origen, at that time (A.D. 231) its chief representative and supporter in the Church, to abandon his

charge in Alexandria, and retire to Caesarea. In vain through many subsequent centuries did her leading men

spend themselves inas the phrase then went"drawing forth the internal juice and marrow of the

Scriptures for the explaining of things." Universal history from the third to the sixteenth century shows with

what result. The dark ages owe their darkness to this fatal policy. Here and there, it is true, there were great

men, such as Frederick II. and Alphonso X., who, standing at a very elevated and general point of view, had

detected the value of learning to civilization, and, in the midst of the dreary prospect that ecclesiasticism had

created around them, had recognized that science alone can improve the social condition of man.

The infliction of the deathpunishment for difference of opinion was still resorted to. When Calvin caused

Servetus to be burnt at Geneva, it was obvious to every one that the spirit of persecution was unimpaired. The

offense of that philosopher lay in his belief. This was, that the genuine doctrines of Christianity had been lost

even before the time of the Council of Nicea; that the Holy Ghost animates the whole system of Nature, like a

soul of the world, and that, with the Christ, it will be absorbed, at the end of all things, into the substance of

the Deity, from which they had emanated. For this he was roasted to death over a slow fire. Was there any

distinction between this Protestant autodafe and the Catholic one of Vanini, who was burnt at Toulouse, by

The invention of printing, the dissemination of books, had introduced a class of dangers which the

persecution of the Inquisition could not reach. In 1559, Pope Paul IV. instituted the Congregation of the

Index Expurgatorius. "Its duty is to examine books and manuscripts intended for publication, and to decide

whether the people may be permitted to read them; to correct those books of which the errors are not

numerous, and which contain certain useful and salutary truths, so as to bring them into harmony with the

doctrines of the Church; to condemn those of which the principles are heretical and pernicious; and to grant

the peculiar privilege of perusing heretical books to certain persons. This congregation, which is sometimes

held in presence of the pope, but generally in the palace of the Cardinalpresident, has a more extensive

jurisdiction than that of the Inquisition, as it not only takes cognizance of those books that contain doctrines

contrary to the Roman Catholic faith, but of those that concern the duties of morality, the discipline of the

Church, the interests of society. Its name is derived from the alphabetical tables or indexes of heretical books

The Index Expurgatorius of prohibited books at first indicated those works which it was unlawful to read;

but, on this being found insufficient, whatever was not permitted was prohibitedan audacious attempt to

prevent all knowledge, except such as suited the purposes of the Church, from reaching the people.

The two rival divisions of the Christian Church Protestant and Catholicwere thus in accord on one

point: to tolerate no science except such as they considered to be agreeable to the Scriptures. The Catholic,

being in possession of centralized power, could make its decisions respected wherever its sway was

acknowledged, and enforce the monitions of the Index Expurgatorius; the Protestant, whose influence was

diffused among many foci in different nations, could not act in such a direct and resolute manner. Its mode of

procedure was, by raising a theological odium against an offender, to put him under a social bana course

As we have seen in former chapters, an antagonism between religion and science had existed from the earliest

days of Christianity. On every occasion permitting its display it may be detected through successive

centuries. We witness it in the downfall of the Alexandrian Museum, in the cases of Erigena and Wiclif, in

the contemptuous rejection by the heretics of the thirteenth century of the Scriptural account of the Creation;

but it was not until the epoch of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, that the efforts of Science to burst from the

thraldom in which she was fettered became uncontrollable. In all countries the political power of the Church

had greatly declined; her leading men perceived that the cloudy foundation on which she had stood was

dissolving away. Repressive measures against her antagonists, in old times resorted to with effect, could be

no longer advantageously employed. To her interests the burning of a philosopher here and there did more

harm than good. In her great conflict with astronomy, a conflict in which Galileo stands as the central figure,

she received an utter overthrow; and, as we have seen, when the immortal work of Newton was printed, she

could offer no resistance, though Leibnitz affirmed, in the face of Europe, that "Newton had robbed the Deity

of some of his most excellent attributes, and had sapped the foundation of natural religion."

From the time of Newton to our own time, the divergence of science from the dogmas of the Church has

continually increased. The Church declared that the earth is the central and most important body in the

universe; that the sun and moon and stars are tributary to it. On these points she was worsted by astronomy.

She affirmed that a universal deluge had covered the earth; that the only surviving animals were such as had

been saved in an ark. In this her error was established by geology. She taught that there was a first man, who,

some six or eight thousand years ago, was suddenly created or called into existence in a condition of physical

and moral perfection, and from that condition he fell. But anthropology has shown that human beings existed

far back in geological time, and in a savage state but little better than that of the brute.

Many good and wellmeaning men have attempted to reconcile the statements of Genesis with the

discoveries of science, but it is in vain. The divergence has increased so much, that it has become an absolute

May we not, then, be permitted to examine the authenticity of this book, which, since the second century, has

been put forth as the criterion of scientific truth? To maintain itself in a position so exalted, it must challenge

In the early Christian ages, many of the most eminent Fathers of the Church had serious doubts respecting the

authorship of the entire Pentateuch. I have not space, in the limited compass of these pages, to present in

detail the facts and arguments that were then and have since been adduced. The literature of the subject is

now very extensive. I may, however, refer the reader to the work of the pious and learned Dean Prideaux, on

"The Old and New Testament connected," a work which is one of the literary ornaments of the last century.

He will also find the subject more recently and exhaustively discussed by Bishop Colenso. The following

paragraphs will convey a sufficiently distinct impression of the present state of the controversy:

The Pentateuch is affirmed to have been written by Moses, under the influence of divine inspiration.

Considered thus, as a record vouchsafed and dictated by the Almighty, it commands not only scientific but

But here, in the first place, it may be demanded, Who or what is it that has put forth this great claim in its

Not the work itself. It nowhere claims the authorship of one man, or makes the impious declaration that it is

Not until after the second century was there any such extravagant demand on human credulity. It originated,

not among the higher ranks of Christian philosophers, but among the more fervid Fathers of the Church,

Every age, from the second century to our times, has offered men of great ability, both Christian and Jewish,

who have altogether repudiated these claims. Their decision has been founded upon the intrinsic evidence of

the books themselves. These furnish plain indications of at least two distinct authors, who have been

respectively termed Elohistic and Jehovistic. Hupfeld maintains that the Jehovistic narrative bears marks of

having been a second original record, wholly independent of the Elohistic. The two sources from which the

narratives have been derived are, in many respects, contradictory of each other. Moreover, it is asserted that

the books of the Pentateuch are never ascribed to Moses in the inscriptions of Hebrew manuscripts, or in

printed copies of the Hebrew Bible, nor are they styled "Books of Moses" in the Septuagint or Vulgate, but

It is clear that they cannot be imputed to the sole authorship of Moses, since they record his death. It is clear

that they were not written until many hundred years after that event, since they contain references to facts

which did not occur until after the establishment of the government of kings among the Jews.

No man may dare to impute them to the inspiration of Almighty Godtheir inconsistencies, incongruities,

contradictions, and impossibilities, as exposed by many learned and pious moderns, both German and

English, are so great. It is the decision of these critics that Genesis is a narrative based upon legends; that

Exodus is not historically true; that the whole Pentateuch is unhistoric and nonMosaic; it contains the most

extraordinary contradictions and impossibilities, sufficient to involve the credibility of the

wholeimperfections so many and so conspicuous that they would destroy the authenticity of any modern

Hengstenberg, in his "Dissertations on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch," says: "It is the unavoidable fate of

a spurious historical work of any length to be involved in contradictions. This must be the case to a very great

extent with the Pentateuch, if it be not genuine. If the Pentateuch is spurious, its histories and laws have been

fabricated in successive portions, and were committed to writing in the course of many centuries by different

individuals. From such a mode of origination, a mass of contradictions is inseparable, and the improving

To the above conclusions I may add that we are expressly told by Ezra (Esdras ii. 14) that he himself, aided

by five other persons, wrote these books in the space of forty days. He says that at the time of the Babylonian

captivity the ancient sacred writings of the Jews were burnt, and gives a particular detail of the circumstances

under which these were composed. He sets forth that he undertook to write all that had been done in the

world since the beginning. It may be said that the books of Esdras are apocryphal, but in return it may be

demanded, Has that conclusion been reached on evidence that will withstand modern criticism? In the early

ages of Christianity, when the story of the fall of man was not considered as essential to the Christian system,

and the doctrine of the atonement had not attained that precision which Anselm eventually gave it, it was very

generally admitted by the Fathers of the Church that Ezra probably did so compose the Pentateuch. Thus St.

Jerome says, "Sive Mosem dicere volueris auctorem Pentateuchi, sive Esdram ejusdem instauratorem operis,

non recuso." Clemens Alexandrinus says that when these books had been destroyed in the captivity of

Nebuchadnezzar, Esdras, having become inspired prophetically, reproduced them. Irenaeus says the same.

The incidents contained in Genesis, from the first to the tenth chapters inclusive (chapters which, in their

bearing upon science, are of more importance than other portions of the Pentateuch), have been obviously

compiled from short, fragmentary legends of various authorship. To the critical eye they all, however, present

peculiarities which demonstrate that they were written on the banks of the Euphrates, and not in the Desert of

Arabia. They contain many Chaldaisms. An Egyptian would not speak of the Mediterranean Sea as being

west of him, an Assyrian would. Their scenery and machinery, if such expressions may with propriety be

used, are altogether Assyrian, not Egyptian. They were such records as one might expect to meet with in the

cuneiform impressions of the tile libraries of the Mesopotamian kings. It is affirmed that one such legend,

that of the Deluge, has already been exhumed, and it is not beyond the bounds of probability that the

From such Assyrian sources, the legends of the creation of the earth and heaven, the garden of Eden, the

making of man from clay, and of woman from one of his ribs, the temptation by the serpent, the naming of

animals, the cherubim and flaming sword, the Deluge and the ark, the drying up of the waters by the wind,

the building of the Tower of Babel, and the confusion of tongues, were obtained by Ezra. He commences

abruptly the proper history of the Jews in the eleventh chapter. At that point his universal history ceases; he

It is of this restriction that the Duke of Argyll, in his book on "Primeval Man," very graphically says:

In the genealogy of the family of Shem we have a list of names which are names, and nothing more to us. It is

a genealogy which neither does, nor pretends to do, more than to trace the order of succession among a few

families only, out of the millions then already existing in the world. Nothing but this order of succession is

given, nor is it at all certain that this order is consecutive or complete. Nothing is told us of all that lay behind

that curtain of thick darkness, in front of which these names are made to pass; and yet there are, as it were,

momentary liftings, through which we have glimpses of great movements which were going on, and had been

long going on beyond. No shapes are distinctly seen. Even the direction of those movements can only be

guessed. But voices are heard which are as the voices of many waters." I agree in the opinion of Hupfeld, that

"the discovery that the Pentateuch is put together out of various sources, or original documents, is beyond all

doubt not only one of the most important and most pregnant with consequences for the interpretation of the

historical books of the Old Testament, or rather for the whole of theology and history, but it is also one of the

most certain discoveries which have been made in the domain of criticism and the history of literature.

Whatever the anticritical party may bring forward to the contrary, it will maintain itself, and not retrograde

again through any thing, so long as there exists such a thing as criticism; and it will not be easy for a reader

upon the stage of culture on which we stand in the present day, if he goes to the examination unprejudiced,

and with an uncorrupted power of appreciating the truth, to be able to ward off its influence."

What then? shall we give up these books? Does not the admission that the narrative of the fall in Eden is

legendary carry with it the surrender of that most solemn and sacred of Christian doctrines, the atonement?

Let us reflect on this! Christianity, in its earliest days, when it was converting and conquering the world,

knew little or nothing about that doctrine. We have seen that, in his "Apology," Tertullian did not think it

worth his while to mention it. It originated among the Gnostic heretics. It was not admitted by the

Alexandrian theological school. It was never prominently advanced by the Fathers. It was not brought into its

present commanding position until the time of Anselm Philo Judaeus speaks of the story of the fall as

symbolical; Origen regarded it as an allegory. Perhaps some of the Protestant churches may, with reason, be

accused of inconsistency, since in part they consider it as mythical, in part real. But, if, with them, we admit

that the serpent is symbolical of Satan, does not that cast an air of allegory over the whole narrative?

It is to be regretted that the Christian Church has burdened itself with the defense of these books, and

voluntarily made itself answerable for their manifest contradictions and errors. Their vindication, if it were

possible, should have been resigned to the Jews, among whom they originated, and by whom they have been

transmitted to us. Still more, it is to be deeply regretted that the Pentateuch, a production so imperfect as to be

unable to stand the touch of modern criticism, should be put forth as the arbiter of science. Let it be

remembered that the exposure of the true character of these books has been made, not by captious enemies,

While thus the Protestant churches have insisted on the acknowledgment of the Scriptures as the criterion of

truth, the Catholic has, in our own times, declared the infallibility of the pope. It may be said that this

infallibility applies only to moral or religious things; but where shall the line of separation be drawn?

Onmiscience cannot be limited to a restricted group of questions; in its very nature it implies the knowledge

Doubtless, if the fundamental principles of Italian Christianity be admitted, their logical issue is an infallible

pope. There is no need to dwell on the unphilosophical nature of this conception; it is destroyed by an

examination of the political history of the papacy, and the biography of the popes. The former exhibits all the

errors and mistakes to which institutions of a confessedly human character have been found liable; the latter

It was not possible that the authoritative promulgation of the dogma of papal infallibility should meet among

enlightened Catholics universal acceptance. Serious and widespread dissent has been produced. A doctrine

so revolting to commonsense could not find any other result. There are many who affirm that, if infallibility

exists anywhere, it is in oecumenical councils, and yet such councils have not always agreed with each other.

There are also many who remember that councils have deposed popes, and have passed judgment on their

clamors and contentions. Not without reason do Protestants demand, What proof can be given that

infallibility exists in the Church at all? what proof is there that the Church has ever been fairly or justly

represented in any council? and why should the truth be ascertained by the vote of a majority rather than by

that of a minority? How often it has happened that one man, standing at the right point of view, has descried

the truth, and, after having been denounced and persecuted by all others, they have eventually been

constrained to adopt his declarations! Of many great discoveries, has not this been the history?

It is not for Science to compose these contesting claims; it is not for her to determine whether the criterion of

truth for the religious man shall be found in the Bible, or in the oecumenical council, or in the pope. She only

asks the right, which she so willingly accords to others, of adopting a criterion of her own. If she regards

unhistorical legends with disdain; if she considers the vote of a majority in the ascertainment of truth with

supreme indifference; if she leaves the claim of infallibility in any human being to be vindicated by the stern

logic of coming eventsthe cold impassiveness which in these matters she maintains is what she displays

toward her own doctrines. Without hesitation she would give up the theories of gravitation or undulations, if

she found that they were irreconcilable with facts. For her the volume of inspiration is the book of Nature, of

which the open scroll is ever spread forth before the eyes of every man. Confronting all, it needs no societies

for its dissemination. Infinite in extent, eternal in duration, human ambition and human fanaticism have never

been able to tamper with it. On the earth it is illustrated by all that is magnificent and beautiful, on the

There are two conceptions of the government of the world: 1. By Providence; 2. By Law.The former

Kepler discovers the laws that preside over the solar system.His works are denounced by papal

authority.The foundations of mechanical philosophy are laid by Da Vinci.Galileo discovers the

fundamental laws of Dynamics.Newton applies them to the movements of the celestial bodies, and shows

that the solar system is governed by mathematical necessity.Herschel extends that conclusion to the

Evidences of the control of law in the construction of the earth, and in the development of the animal and

The reign of law is exhibited by the historic career of human societies, and in the case of individual man.

Two interpretations may be given of the mode of government of the world. It may be by incessant divine

To the adoption of the former a priesthood will always incline, since it must desire to be considered as

standing between the prayer of the votary and the providential act. Its importance is magnified by the power it

claims of determining what that act shall be. In the pre Christian (Roman) religion, the grand office of the

priesthood was the discovery of future events by oracles, omens, or an inspection of the entrails of animals,

and by the offering of sacrifices to propitiate the gods. In the later, the Christian times, a higher power was

claimed; the clergy asserting that, by their intercessions, they could regulate the course of affairs, avert

Not without reason, therefore, did they look upon the doctrine of government by unvarying law with disfavor.

It seemed to depreciate their dignity, to lessen their importance. To them there was something shocking in a

God who cannot be swayed by human entreaty, a cold, passionless divinitysomething frightful in fatalism,

But the orderly movement of the heavens could not fail in all ages to make a deep impression on thoughtful

observersthe rising and setting of the sun; the increasing or diminishing light of the day; the waxing and

waning of the moon; the return of the seasons in their proper courses; the measured march of the wandering

planets in the skywhat are all these, and a thousand such, but manifestations of an orderly and unchanging

procession of events? The faith of early observers in this interpretation may perhaps have been shaken by the

occurrence of such a phenomenon as an eclipse, a sudden and mysterious breach of the ordinary course of

natural events; but it would be resumed in tenfold strength as soon as the discovery was made that eclipses

Astronomical predictions of all kinds depend upon the admission of this factthat there never has been and

never will be any intervention in the operation of natural laws. The scientific philosopher affirms that the

condition of the world at any given moment is the direct result of its condition in the preceding moment, and

the direct cause of its condition in the subsequent moment. Law and chance are only different names for

About fifty years after the death of Copernicus, John Kepler, a native of Wurtemberg, who had adopted the

heliocentric theory, and who was deeply impressed with the belief that relationships exist in the revolutions

of the planetary bodies round the sun, and that these if correctly examined would reveal the laws under which

those movements take place, devoted himself to the study of the distances, times, and velocities of the

planets, and the form of their orbits. His method was, to submit the observations to which he had access, such

as those of Tycho Brahe, to computations based first on one and then on another hypothesis, rejecting the

hypothesis if he found that the calculations did not accord with the observations. The incredible labor he had

undergone (he says, "I considered, and I computed, until I almost went mad") was at length rewarded, and in

1609 he published his book, "On the Motions of the Planet Mars." In this he had attempted to reconcile the

movements of that planet to the hypothesis of eccentrics and epicycles, but eventually discovered that the

orbit of a planet is not a circle but an ellipse, the sun being in one of the foci, and that the areas swept over by

a line drawn from the planet to the sun are proportional to the times. These constitute what are now known as

the first and second laws of Kepler. Eight years subsequently, he was rewarded by the discovery of a third

law, defining the relation between the mean distances of the planets from the sun and the times of their

revolutions; "the squares of the periodic times are proportional to the cubes of the distances." In "An Epitome

of the Copernican System," published in 1618, he announced this law, and showed that it holds good for the

satellites of Jupiter as regards their primary. Hence it was inferred that the laws which preside over the grand

movements of the solar system preside also over the less movements of its constituent parts.

The conception of law which is unmistakably conveyed by Kepler's discoveries, and the evidence they gave

in support of the heliocentric as against the geocentric theory, could not fail to incur the reprehension of the

Roman authorities. The congregation of the Index, therefore, when they denounced the Copernican system as

utterly contrary to the Holy Scriptures, prohibited Kepler's "Epitome" of that system. It was on this occasion

that Kepler submitted his celebrated remonstrance: "Eighty years have elapsed during which the doctrines of

Copernicus regarding the movement of the earth and the immobility of the sun have been promulgated

without hinderance, because it was deemed allowable to dispute concerning natural things, and to elucidate

the works of God, and now that new testimony is discovered in proof of the truth of those

doctrinestestimony which was not known to the spiritual judgesye would prohibit the promulgation of

None of Kepler's contemporaries believed the law of the areas, nor was it accepted until the publication of the

"Principia" of Newton. In fact, no one in those times understood the philosophical meaning of Kepler's laws.

He himself did not foresee what they must inevitably lead to. His mistakes showed how far he was from

perceiving their result. Thus he thought that each planet is the seat of an intelligent principle, and that there is

a relation between the magnitudes of the orbits of the five principal planets and the five regular solids of

geometry. At first he inclined to believe that the orbit of Mars is oval, nor was it until after a wearisome study

that he detected the grand truth, its elliptical form. An idea of the incorruptibility of the celestial objects had

led to the adoption of the Aristotelian doctrine of the perfection of circular motions, and to the belief that

there were none but circular motions in the heavens. He bitterly complains of this as having been a fatal "thief

of his time." His philosophical daring is illustrated in his breaking through this timehonored tradition.

In some most important particulars Kepler anticipated Newton. He was the first to give clear ideas respecting

gravity. He says every particle of matter will rest until it is disturbed by some other particlethat the earth

attracts a stone more than the stone attracts the earth, and that bodies move to each other in proportion to their

masses; that the earth would ascend to the moon onefiftyfourth of the distance, and the moon would move

toward the earth the other fiftythree. He affirms that the moon's attraction causes the tides, and that the

2. The period of discovery of their real motions, and particularly of the laws of the planetary revolutions; this

3. The period of the ascertainment of the causes of those laws. It was the epoch of Newton.

The passage of the second into the third period depended on the development of the Dynamical branch of

mechanics, which had been in a stagnant condition from the time of Archimedes or the Alexandrian School.

In Christian Europe there had not been a cultivator of mechanical philosophy until Leonardo da Vinci, who

was born A.D. 1452. To him, and not to Lord Bacon, must be attributed the renaissance of science. Bacon

was not only ignorant of mathematics, but depreciated its application to physical inquiries. He

contemptuously rejected the Copernican system, alleging absurd objections to it. While Galileo was on the

brink of his great telescopic discoveries, Bacon was publishing doubts as to the utility of instruments in

scientific investigations. To ascribe the inductive method to him is to ignore history. His fanciful

philosophical suggestions have never been of the slightest practical use. No one has ever thought of

To Da Vinci I shall have occasion to allude more particularly on a subsequent page. Of his works still

remaining in manuscript, two volumes are at Milan, and one in Paris, carried there by Napoleon. After an

interval of about seventy years, Da Vinci was followed by the Dutch engineer, Stevinus, whose work on the

principles of equilibrium was published in 1586. Six years afterward appeared Galileo's treatise on

To this great Italian is due the establishment of the three fundamental laws of dynamics, known as the Laws

It had been supposed that continuous movements, such, for instance, as those of the celestial bodies, could

only be maintained by a perpetual consumption and perpetual application of force, but the first of Galileo's

laws declared that every body will persevere in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, until it is

compelled to change that state by disturbing forces. A clear perception of this fundamental principle is

essential to a comprehension of the elementary facts of physical astronomy. Since all the motions that we

witness taking place on the surface of the earth soon come to an end, we are led to infer that rest is the natural

condition of things. We have made, then, a very great advance when we have become satisfied that a body is

equally indifferent to rest as to motion, and that it equally perseveres in either state until disturbing forces are

applied. Such disturbing forces in the case of common movements are friction and the resistance of the air.

When no such resistances exist, movement must be perpetual, as is the case with the heavenly bodies, which

Forces, no matter what their difference of magnitude may be, will exert their full influence conjointly, each as

though the other did not exist. Thus, when a ball is suffered to drop from the mouth of a cannon, it falls to the

ground in a certain interval of time through the influence of gravity upon it. If, then, it be fired from the

cannon, though now it may be projected some thousands of feet in a second, the effect of gravity upon it will

be precisely the same as before. In the intermingling of forces there is no deterioration; each produces its own

In the latter half of the seventeenth century, through the works of Borelli, Hooke, and Huyghens, it had

become plain that circular motions could be accounted for by the laws of Galileo. Borelli, treating of the

motions of Jupiter's satellites, shows how a circular movement may arise under the influence of a central

force. Hooke exhibited the inflection of a direct motion into a circular by a supervening central attraction.

The year 1687 presents, not only an epoch in European science, but also in the intellectual development of

man. It is marked by the publication of the "Principia" of Newton, an incomparable, an immortal work.

On the principle that all bodies attract each other with forces directly as their masses, and inversely as the

squares of their distances, Newton showed that all the movements of the celestial bodies may be accounted

for, and that Kepler's laws might all have been predicted the elliptic motionsthe described areas the

relation of the times and distances. As we have seen, Newton's contemporaries had perceived how circular

motions could be explained; that was a special case, but Newton furnished the solution of the general

problem, containing all special cases of motion in circles, ellipses, parabolas, hyperbolasthat is, in all the

The Alexandrian mathematicians had shown that the direction of movement of falling bodies is toward the

centre of the earth. Newton proved that this must necessarily be the case, the general effect of the attraction of

all the particles of a sphere being the same as if they were all concentrated in its centre. To this central force,

thus determining the fall of bodies, the designation of gravity was given. Up to this time, no one, except

Kepler, had considered how far its influence reached. It seemed to Newton possible that it might extend as far

as the moon, and be the force that deflects her from a rectilinear path, and makes her revolve in her orbit

round the earth. It was easy to compute, on the principle of the law of inverse squares, whether the earth's

attraction was sufficient to produce the observed effect. Employing the measures of the size of the earth

accessible at the time, Newton found that the moon's deflection was only thirteen feet in a minute; whereas, if

his hypothesis of gravitation were true, it should be fifteen feet. But in 1669 Picard, as we have seen,

executed the measurement of a degree more carefully than had previously been done; this changed the

estimate of the magnitude of the earth, and, therefore, of the distance of the moon; and, Newton's attention

having been directed to it by some discussions that took place at the Royal Society in 1679, he obtained

Picard's results, went home, took out his old papers, and resumed his calculations. As they drew to a close, he

became so much agitated that he was obliged to desire a friend to finish them. The expected coincidence was

established. It was proved that the moon is retained in her orbit and made to revolve round the earth by the

force of terrestrial gravity. The genii of Kepler had given place to the vortices of Descartes, and these in their

In like manner the earth, and each of the planets, are made to move in an elliptic orbit round the sun by his

attractive force, and perturbations arise by reason of the disturbing action of the planetary masses on one

another. Knowing the masses and the distances, these disturbances may be computed. Later astronomers have

even succeeded with the inverse problem, that is, knowing the perturbations or disturbances, to find the place

and the mass of the disturbing body. Thus, from the deviations of Uranus from his theoretical position, the

Newton's merit consisted in this, that he applied the laws of dynamics to the movements of the celestial

bodies, and insisted that scientific theories must be substantiated by the agreement of observations with

When Kepler announced his three laws, they were received with condemnation by the spiritual authorities,

not because of any error they were supposed to present or to contain, but partly because they gave support to

the Copernican system, and partly because it was judged inexpedient to admit the prevalence of law of any

kind as opposed to providential intervention. The world was regarded as the theatre in which the divine will

was daily displayed; it was considered derogatory to the majesty of God that that will should be fettered in

any way. The power of the clergy was chiefly manifested in the influence the were alleged to possess in

changing his arbitrary determinations. It was thus that they could abate the baleful action of comets, secure

fine weather or rain, prevent eclipses, and, arresting the course of Nature, work all manner of miracles; it was

thus that the shadow had been made to go back on the dial, and the sun and the moon stopped in midcareer.

In the century preceding the epoch of Newton, a great religious and political revolution had taken place the

Reformation. Though its effect had not been the securing of complete liberty for thought, it bad weakened

many of the old ecclesiastical bonds. In the reformed countries there was no power to express a

condemnation of Newton's works, and among the clergy there was no disposition to give themselves any

concern about the matter. At first the attention of the Protestant was engrossed by the movements of his great

enemy the Catholic, and when that source of disquietude ceased, and the inevitable partitions of the

Reformation arose, that attention was fastened upon the rival and antagonistic Churches. The Lutheran, the

Calvinist, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, had something more urgent on hand than Newton's

So, uncondemned, and indeed unobserved, in this clamor of fighting sects, Newton's grand theory solidly

established itself. Its philosophical significance was infinitely more momentous than the dogmas that these

persons were quarreling about. It not only accepted the heliocentric theory and the laws discovered by

Kepler, but it proved that, no matter what might be the weight of opposing ecclesiastical authority, the sun

MUST be the centre of our system, and that Kepler's laws are the result of a mathematical necessity. It is

But what is the meaning of all this? Plainly that the solar system is not interrupted by providential

interventions, but is under the government of irreversible lawlaw that is itself the issue of mathematical

The telescopic observations of Herschel I. satisfied him that there are very many double starsdouble not

merely because they are accidentally in the same line of view, but because they are connected physically,

revolving round each other. These observations were continued and greatly extended by Herschel II. The

elements of the elliptic orbit of the double star zeta of the Great Bear were determined by Savary, its period

being fiftyeight and onequarter years; those of another, sigma Coronae, were determined by Hind, its

period being more than seven hundred and thirtysix years. The orbital movement of these double suns in

ellipses compels us to admit that the law of gravitation holds good far beyond the boundaries of the solar

system; indeed, as far as the telescope can reach, it demonstrates the reign of law. D'Alembert, in the

Introduction to the Encyclopaedia, says: "The universe is but a single fact; it is only one great truth."

Shall we, then, conclude that the solar and the starry systems have been called into existence by God, and that

he has then imposed upon them by his arbitrary will laws under the control of which it was his pleasure that

Or are there reasons for believing that these several systems came into existence not by such an arbitrary fiat,

The following are some peculiarities displayed by the solar system as enumerated by Laplace. All the planets

and their satellites move in ellipses of such small eccentricity that they are nearly circles. All the planets

move in the same direction and nearly in the same plane. The movements of the satellites are in the same

direction as those of the planets. The movements of rotation of the sun, of the planets, and the satellites, are in

It is impossible that so many coincidences could be the result of chance! Is it not plain that there must have

been a common tie among all these bodies, that they are only parts of what must once have been a single

But if we admit that the substance of which the solar system consists once existed in a nebulous condition,

and was in rotation, all the above peculiarities follow as necessary mechanical consequences. Nay, more, the

formation of planets, the formation of satellites and of asteroids, is accounted for. We see why the outer

planets and satellites are larger than the interior ones; why the larger planets rotate rapidly, and the small ones

slowly; why of the satellites the outer planets have more, the inner fewer. We are furnished with indications

of the time of revolution of the planets in their orbits, and of the satellites in theirs; we perceive the mode of

formation of Saturn's rings. We find an explanation of the physical condition of the sun, and the transitions of

condition through which the earth and moon have passed, as indicated by their geology.

But two exceptions to the above peculiarities have been noted; they are in the cases of Uranus and Neptune.

The existence of such a nebulous mass once admitted, all the rest follows as a matter of necessity. Is there

not, however, a most serious objection in the way? Is not this to exclude Almighty God from the worlds he

First, we must be satisfied whether there is any solid evidence for admitting the existence of such a nebulous

The nebular hypothesis rests primarily on the telescopic discovery made by Herschel I., that there are

scattered here and there in the heavens pale, gleaming patches of light, a few of which are large enough to be

visible to the naked eye. Of these, many may be resolved by a sufficient telescopic power into a congeries of

stars, but some, such as the great nebula in Orion, have resisted the best instruments hitherto made.

It was asserted by those who were indisposed to accept the nebular hypothesis, that the nonresolution was

due to imperfection in the telescopes used. In these instruments two distinct functions may be observed: their

lightgathering power depends on the diameter of their object mirror or lens, their defining power depends on

the exquisite correctness of their optical surfaces. Grand instruments may possess the former quality in

perfection by reason of their size, but the latter very imperfectly, either through want of original

configuration, or distortion arising from flexure through their own weight. But, unless an instrument be

perfect in this respect, as well as adequate in the other, it may fail to decompose a nebula into discrete points.

Fortunately, however, other means for the settlement of this question are available. In 1846, it was discovered

by the author of this book that the spectrum of an ignited solid is continuousthat is, has neither dark nor

bright lines. Fraunhofer had previously made known that the spectrum of ignited gases is discontinuous.

Here, then, is the means of determining whether the light emitted by a given nebula comes from an

incandescent gas, or from a congeries of ignited solids, stars, or suns. If its spectrum be discontinuous, it is a

In 1864, Mr. Huggins made this examination in the case of a nebula in the constellation Draco. It proved to

Subsequent observations have shown that, of sixty nebulae examined, nineteen give discontinuous or gaseous

It may, therefore, be admitted that physical evidence has at length been obtained, demonstrating the existence

of vast masses of matter in a gaseous condition, and at a temperature of incandescence. The hypothesis of

Laplace has thus a firm basis. In such a nebular mass, cooling by radiation is a necessary incident, and

condensation and rotation the inevitable results. There must be a separation of rings all lying in one plane, a

generation of planets and satellites all rotating alike, a central sun and engirdling globes. From a chaotic

mass, through the operation of natural laws, an organized system has been produced. An integration of matter

If such be the cosmogony of the solar system, such the genesis of the planetary worlds, we are constrained to

extend our views of the dominion of law, and to recognize its agency in the creation as well as in the

But, again, it may be asked: "Is there not something profoundly impious in this? Are we not excluding

We have often witnessed the formation of a cloud in a serene sky. A hazy point, barely perceptiblea little

wreath of mistincreases in volume, and becomes darker and denser, until it obscures a large portion of the

heavens. It throws itself into fantastic shapes, it gathers a glory from the sun, is borne onward by the wind,

and, perhaps, as it gradually came, so it gradually disappears, melting away in the untroubled air.

Now, we say that the little vesicles of which this cloud was composed arose from the condensation of

watervapor preexisting in the atmosphere, through reduction of temperature; we show how they assumed

the form they present. We assign optical reasons for the brightness or blackness of the cloud; we explain, on

mechanical principles, its drifting before the wind; for its disappearance we account on the principles of

chemistry. It never occurs to us to invoke the interposition of the Almighty in the production and fashioning

of this fugitive form. We explain all the facts connected with it by physical laws, and perhaps should

But the universe is nothing more than such a clouda cloud of suns and worlds. Supremely grand though it

may seem to us, to the Infinite and Eternal Intellect it is no more than a fleeting mist. If there be a multiplicity

of worlds in infinite space, there is also a succession of worlds in infinite time. As one after another cloud

replaces cloud in the skies, so this starry system, the universe, is the successor of countless others that have

preceded itthe predecessor of countless others that will follow. There is an unceasing metamorphosis, a

If, on physical principles, we account for minor meteorological incidents, mists and clouds, is it not

permissible for us to appeal to the same principle in the origin of worldsystems and universes, which are

only clouds on a spacescale somewhat larger, mists on a timescale somewhat less transient? Can any man

place the line which bounds the physical on one side, the supernatural on the other? Do not our estimates of

the extent and the duration of things depend altogether on our point of view? Were we set in the midst of the

great nebula of Orion, how transcendently magnificent the scene! The vast transformations, the condensations

of a fiery mist into worlds, might seem worthy of the immediate presence, the supervision of God; here, at

our distant station, where millions of miles are inappreciable to our eyes, and suns seem no bigger than motes

in the air, that nebula is more insignificant than the faintest cloud. Galileo, in his description of the

constellation of Orion, did not think it worth while so much as to mention it. The most rigorous theologian of

those days would have seen nothing to blame in imputing its origin to secondary causes, nothing irreligious in

failing to invoke the arbitrary interference of God in its metamorphoses. If such be the conclusion to which

we come respecting it, what would be the conclusion to which an Intelligence seated in it might come

respecting us? It occupies an extent of space millions of times greater than that of our solar system; we are

invisible from it, and therefore absolutely insignificant. Would such an Intelligence think it necessary to

From the solar system let us descend to what is still more insignificanta little portion of it; let us descend to

our own earth. In the lapse of time it has experienced great changes. Have these been due to incessant divine

interventions, or to the continuous operation of unfailing law? The aspect of Nature perpetually varies under

our eyes, still more grandly and strikingly has it altered in geological times. But the laws guiding those

changes never exhibit the slightest variation. In the midst of immense vicissitudes they are immutable. The

present order of things is only a link in a vast connected chain reaching back to an incalculable past, and

There is evidence, geological and astronomical, that the temperature of the earth and her satellite was in the

remote past very much higher than it is now. A decline so slow as to be imperceptible at short intervals, but

manifest enough in the course of many ages, has occurred. The heat has been lost by radiation into space.

The cooling of a mass of any kind, no matter whether large or small, is not discontinuous; it does not go on

by fits and starts; it takes place under the operation of a mathematical law, though for such mighty changes as

are here contemplated neither the formula of Newton, nor that of Dulong and Petit, may apply. It signifies

nothing that periods of partial decline, glacial periods, or others of temporary elevation, have been

intercalated; it signifies nothing whether these variations may have arisen from topographical variations, as

those of level, or from periodicities in the radiation of the sun. A periodical sun would act as a mere

perturbation in the gradual decline of heat. The perturbations of the planetary motions are a confirmation, not

Now, such a decline of temperature must have been attended by innumerable changes of a physical character

in our globe. Her dimensions must have diminished through contraction, the length of her day must have

lessened, her surface must have collapsed, and fractures taken place along the lines of least resistance; the

density of the sea must have increased, its volume must have become less; the constitution of the atmosphere

must have varied, especially in the amount of watervapor and carbonic acid that it contained; the barometric

These changes, and very many more that might be mentioned, must have taken place not in a discontinuous

but in an orderly manner, since the masterfact, the decline of heat, that was causing them, was itself

But not alone did lifeless Nature submit to these inevitable mutations; living Nature was also simultaneously

An organic form of any kind, vegetable or animal, will remain unchanged only so long as the environment in

which it is placed remains unchanged. Should an alteration in the environment occur, the organism will either

Destruction is more likely to happen as the change in the environment is more sudden; modification or

Since it is demonstrably certain that lifeless Nature has in the lapse of ages undergone vast modifications;

since the crust of the earth, and the sea, and the atmosphere, are no longer such as they once were; since the

distribution of the land and the ocean and all manner of physical conditions have varied; since there have

been such grand changes in the environment of living things on the surface of our planetit necessarily

follows that organic Nature must have passed through destructions and transformations in correspondence

That such extinctions, such modifications, have taken place, how copious, how convincing, is the evidence!

Here, again, we must observe that, since the disturbing agency was itself following a mathematical law, these

Such considerations, then, plainly force upon us the conclusion that the organic progress of the world has

been guided by the operation of immutable lawnot determined by discontinuous, disconnected, arbitrary

interventions of God. They incline us to view favorably the idea of transmutations of one form into another,

In this manner is presented to our contemplation the great theory of Evolution. Every organic being has a

place in a chain of events. It is not an isolated, a capricious fact, but an unavoidable phenomenon. It has its

place in that vast, orderly concourse which has successively risen in the past, has introduced the present, and

is preparing the way for a predestined future. From point to point in this vast progression there has been a

gradual, a definite, a continuous unfolding, a resistless order of evolution. But in the midst of these mighty

If we examine the introduction of any type of life in the animal series, we find that it is in accordance with

transformation, not with creation. Its beginning is under an imperfect form in the midst of other forms, of

which the time is nearly complete, and which are passing into extinction. By degrees, one species after

another in succession more and more perfect arises, until, after many ages, a culmination is reached. From

Thus, though the mammal type of life is the characteristic of the Tertiary and postTertiary periods, it does

not suddenly make its appearance without premonition in those periods. Far back, in the Secondary, we find

it under imperfect forms, struggling, as it were, to make good a foothold. At length it gains a predominance

So, too, of reptiles, the characteristic type of life of the Secondary period. As we see in a dissolving view, out

of the fading outlines of a scene that is passing away, the dim form of a new one emerging, which gradually

gains strength, reaches its culmination, and then melts away in some other that is displacing it, so reptilelife

doubtfully, appears, reaches its culmination, and gradually declines. In all this there is nothing abrupt; the

How could it be otherwise? The hotblooded animals could not exist in an atmosphere so laden with carbonic

acid as was that of the primitive times. But the removal of that noxious ingredient from the air by the leaves

of plants under the influence of sunlight, the enveloping of its carbon in the earth under the form of coal, the

disengagement of its oxygen, permitted their life. As the atmosphere was thus modified, the sea was involved

in the change; it surrendered a large part of its carbonic acid, and the limestone hitherto held in solution by it

was deposited in the solid form. For every equivalent of carbon buried in the earth, there was an equivalent of

carbonate of lime separated from the sea not necessarily in an amorphous condition, most frequently under

an organic form. The sunshine kept up its work day by day, but there were demanded myriads of days for the

work to be completed. It was a slow passage from a noxious to a purified atmosphere, and an equally slow

passage from a coldblooded to a hot blooded type of life. But the physical changes were taking place under

the control of law, and the organic transformations were not sudden or arbitrary providential acts. They were

the immediate, the inevitable consequences of the physical changes, and therefore, like them, the necessary

For a more detailed consideration of this subject, I may refer the reader to Chapters I, II., VII, of the second

Is the world, then, governed by law or by providential interventions, abruptly breaking the proper sequence of

To complete our view of this question, we turn finally to what, in one sense, is the most insignificant, in

another the most important, case that can be considered. Do human societies, in their historic career, exhibit

the marks of a predetermined progress in an unavoidable track? Is there any evidence that the life of nations

May we conclude that, in society, as in the individual man, parts never spring from nothing, but are evolved

If any one should object to or deride the doctrine of the evolution or successive development of the animated

forms which constitute that unbroken organic chain reaching from the beginning of life on the globe to the

present times, let him reflect that he has himself passed through modifications the counterpart of those he

disputes. For nine months his type of life was aquatic, and during that time he assumed, in succession, many

distinct but correlated forms. At birth his type of life became aerial; he began respiring the atmospheric air;

new elements of food were supplied to him; the mode of his nutrition changed; but as yet he could see

nothing, hear nothing, notice nothing. By degrees conscious existence was assumed; he became aware that

there is an external world. In due time organs adapted to another change of food, the teeth, appeared, and a

change of food ensued. He then passed through the stages of childhood and youth, his bodily form

developing, and with it his intellectual powers. At about fifteen years, in consequence of the evolution which

special parts of his system had attained, his moral character changed. New ideas, new passions, influenced

him. And that that was the cause, and this the effect, is demonstrated when, by the skill of the surgeon, those

parts have been interfered with. Nor does the development, the metamorphosis, end here; it requires many

years for the body to reach its full perfection, many years for the mind. A culmination is at length reached,

and then there is a decline. I need not picture its mournful incidents the corporeal, the intellectual

enfeeblement. Perhaps there is little exaggeration in saying that in less than a century every human being on

the face of the globe, if not cut off in an untimely manner, has passed through all these changes.

Is there for each of us a providential intervention as we thus pass from stage to stage of life? or shall we not

rather believe that the countless myriads of human beings who have peopled the earth have been under the

But individuals are the elementary constituents of communitiesnations. They maintain therein a relation

like that which the particles of the body maintain to the body itself. These, introduced into it, commence and

Like the individual, the nation comes into existence without its own knowledge, and dies without its own

consent, often against its own will. National life differs in no particular from individual, except in this, that it

is spread over a longer span, but no nation can escape its inevitable term. Each, if its history be well

considered, shows its time of infancy, its time of youth, its time of maturity, its time of decline, if its phases

In the phases of existence of all, so far as those phases are completed, there are common characteristics, and,

as like accordances in individuals point out that all are living under a reign of law, we are justified in

inferring that the course of nations, and indeed the progress of humanity, does not take place in a chance or

random way, that supernatural interventions never break the chain of historic acts, that every historic event

has its warrant in some preceding event, and gives warrant to others that are to follow..

But this conclusion is the essential principle of Stoicismthat Grecian philosophical system which, as I have

already said, offered a support in their hour of trial and an unwavering guide in the vicissitudes of life, not

only to many illustrious Greeks, but also to some of the great philosophers, statesmen, generals, and emperors

of Rome; a system which excluded chance from every thing, and asserted the direction of all events by

irresistible necessity, to the promotion of perfect good; a system of earnestness, sternness, austerity,

virtuea protest in favor of the commonsense of mankind. And perhaps we shall not dissent from the

remark of Montesquieu, who affirms that the destruction of the Stoics was a great calamity to the human race;

To the principle of government by law, Latin Christianity, in its papal form, is in absolute contradiction. The

history of this branch of the Christian Church is almost a diary of miracles and supernatural interventions.

These show that the supplications of holy men have often arrested the course of Natureif, indeed, there be

any such course; that images and pictures have worked wonders; that bones, hairs, and other sacred relics,

have wrought miracles. The criterion or proof of the authenticity of many of these objects is, not an

unchallengeable record of their origin and history, but an exhibition of their miracleworking powers.

Is not that a strange logic which finds proof of an asserted fact in an inexplicable illustration of something

Even in the darkest ages intelligent Christian men must have had misgivings as to these alleged providential

or miraculous interventions. There is a solemn grandeur in the orderly progress of Nature which profoundly

impresses us; and such is the character of continuity in the events of our individual life that we instinctively

doubt the occurrence of the supernatural in that of our neighbor. The intelligent man knows well that, for his

personal behoof, the course of Nature has never been checked; for him no miracle has ever been worked; he

attributes justly every event of his life to some antecedent event; this he looks upon as the cause, that as the

consequence. When it is affirmed that, in his neighbor's behalf, such grand interventions have been

vouchsafed, he cannot do otherwise than believe that his neighbor is either deceived, or practising deception.

As might, then, have been anticipated, the Catholic doctrine of miraculous intervention received a rude shock

at the time of the Reformation, when predestination and election were upheld by some of the greatest

theologians, and accepted by some of the greatest Protestant Churches. With stoical austerity Calvin declares:

"We were elected from eternity, before the foundation of the world, from no merit of our own, but according

to the purpose of the divine pleasure." In affirming this, Calvin was resting on the belief that God has from all

eternity decreed whatever comes to pass. Thus, after the lapse of many ages, were again emerging into

prominence the ideas of the Basilidians wad Valentinians, Christian sects of the second century, whose

Gnostical views led to the engraftment of the great doctrine of the Trinity upon Christianity. They asserted

that all the actions of men are necessary, that even faith is a natural gift, to which men are forcibly

determined, and must therefore be saved, though their lives be ever so irregular. From the Supreme God all

things proceeded. Thus, also, came into prominence the views which were developed by Augustine in his

work, "De dono perseverantiae." These were: that God, by his arbitrary will, has selected certain persons

without respect to foreseen faith or good works, and has infallibly ordained to bestow upon them eternal

happiness; other persons, in like manner, he has condemned to eternal reprobation. The Sublapsarians

believed that "God permitted the fall of Adam;" the Supralapsarians that "he predestinated it, with all its

pernicious consequences, from all eternity, and that our first parents had no liberty from the beginning." In

this, these sectarians disregarded the remark of St. Augustine: "Nefas est dicere Deum aliquid nisi bonum

Is it true, then, that "predestination to eternal happiness is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before

the foundations of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed by his council, secret to us, to deliver from

curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen out of mankind?" Is it true that of the human family there

are some who, in view of no fault of their own, Almighty God has condemned to unending torture, eternal

In 1595 the Lambeth Articles asserted that "God from eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life;

certain he hath reprobated." In 1618 the Synod of Dort decided in favor of this view. It condemned the

remonstrants against it, and treated them with such severity, that many of them had to flee to foreign

countries. Even in the Church of England, as is manifested by its seventeenth Article of Faith, these doctrines

Probably there was no point which brought down from the Catholics on the Protestants severer condemnation

than this, their partial acceptance of the government of the world by law. In all Reformed Europe miracles

ceased. But, with the cessation of shrinecure, reliccure, great pecuniary profits ended. Indeed, as is well

known, it was the sale of indulgences that provoked the Reformationindulgences which are essentially a

permit from God for the practice of sin, conditioned on the payment of a certain sum of money to the priest.

Philosophically, the Reformation implied a protest against the Catholic doctrine of incessant divine

intervention in human affairs, invoked by sacerdotal agency; but this protest was far from being fully made

by all the Reforming Churches. The evidence in behalf of government by law, which has of late years been

offered by science, is received by many of them with suspicion, perhaps with dislike; sentiments which,

however, must eventually give way before the hourlyincreasing weight of evidence.

Shall we not, then, conclude with Cicero, who, quoted by Lactantius, says: "One eternal and immutable law

For more than a thousand years Latin Christianity controlled the intelligence of Europe, and is responsible for

That result is manifested by the condition of the city of Rome at the Reformation, and by the condition of the

Continent of Europe in domestic and social life.European nations suffered under the coexistence of a dual

government, a spiritual and a temporal.They were immersed in ignorance, superstition,

discomfort.Explanation of the failure of CatholicismPolitical history of the papacy: it was transmuted

from a spiritual confederacy into an absolute monarchy.Action of the College of Cardinals and the

The advantages accruing to Europe during the Catholic rule arose not from direct intention, but were

The general result is, that the political influence of Catholicism was prejudicial to modern civilization.

LATIN Christianity is responsible for the condition and progress of Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth

It will be convenient to limit to the case of Europe what has here to be presented, though, from the claim of

the papacy to superhuman origin, and its demand for universal obedience, it should strictly be held to account

for the condition of all mankind. Its inefficacy against the great and venerable religions of Southern and

Eastern Asia would furnish an important and instructive theme for consideration, and lead us to the

conclusion that it has impressed itself only where Roman imperial influences have prevailed; a political

Doubtless at the inception of the Reformation there were many persons who compared the existing social

condition with what it had been in ancient times. Morals had not changed, intelligence had not advanced,

society had little improved. From the Eternal City itself its splendors had vanished. The marble streets, of

which Augustus had once boasted, had disappeared. Temples, broken columns, and the long, arcaded vistas

of gigantic aqueducts bestriding the desolate Campagna, presented a mournful scene. From the uses to which

they had been respectively put, the Capitol had been known as Goats' Hill, and the site of the Roman Forum,

whence laws had been issued to the world, as Cows' Field. The palace of the Caesars was hidden by mounds

of earth, crested with flowering shrubs. The baths of Caracalla, with their porticoes, gardens, reservoirs, had

long ago become useless through the destruction of their supplying aqueducts. On the ruins of that grand

edifice, "flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous trees extended in everwinding labyrinths upon immense

platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air." Of the Coliseum, the most colossal of Roman ruins, only

about onethird remained. Once capable of accommodating nearly ninety thousand spectators, it had, in

succession, been turned into a fortress in the middle ages, and then into a stonequarry to furnish material for

the palaces of degenerate Roman princes. Some of the popes had occupied it as a woollenmill, some as a

saltpetre factory; some had planned the conversion of its magnificent arcades into shops for tradesmen. The

iron clamps which bound its stones together had been stolen. The walls were fissured and falling. Even in our

own times botanical works have been composed on the plants which have made this noble wreck their home.

"The Flora of the Coliseum" contains four hundred and twenty species. Among the ruins of classical

buildings might be seen broken columns, cypresses, and mouldy frescoes, dropping from the walls. Even the

vegetable world participated in the melancholy change: the myrtle, which once flourished on the Aventine,

had nearly become extinct; the laurel, which once gave its leaves to encircle the brows of emperors, had been

But perhaps it may be said the popes were not responsible for all this. Let it be remembered that in less than

one hundred and forty years the city had been successively taken by Alaric, Genseric, Rieimer, Vitiges, Totila

; that many of its great edifices had been converted into defensive works. The aqueducts were destroyed by

Vitiges, who ruined the Campagna; the palace of the Caesars was ravaged by Totila; then there had been the

Lombard sieges; then Robert Guiscard and his Normans had burnt the city from the Antonine Column to the

Flaminian Gate, from the Lateran to the Capitol; then it was sacked and mutilated by the Constable Bourbon;

again and again it was flooded by inundations of the Tiber and shattered by earthquakes. We must, however,

bear in mind the accusation of Machiavelli, who says, in his "History of Florence," that nearly all the

barbarian invasions of Italy were by the invitations of the pontiffs, who called in those hordes! It was not the

Goth, nor the Vandal, nor the Norman, nor the Saracen, but the popes and their nephews, who produced the

dilapidation of Rome! Limekilns had been fed from the ruins, classical buildings had become

stonequarries for the palaces of Italian princes, and churches were decorated from the old temples.

Churches decorated from the temples! It is for this and such as this that the popes must be held responsible.

Superb Corinthian columns bad been chiseled into images of the saints. Magnificent Egyptian obelisks had

been dishonored by papal inscriptions. The Septizonium of Severus had been demolished to furnish materials

for the building of St. Peter's; the bronze roof of the Pantheon had been melted into columns to ornament the

The great bell of Viterbo, in the tower of the Capitol, had announced the death of many a pope, and still

desecration of the buildings and demoralization of the people went on. Papal Rome manifested no

consideration, but rather hatred, for classical Rome, The pontiffs had been subordinates of the Byzantine

sovereigns, then lieutenants of the Frankish kings, then arbiters of Europe; their government had changed as

much as those of any of the surrounding nations; there had been complete metamorphoses in its maxims,

objects, claims. In one point only it had never changedintolerance. Claiming to be the centre of the

religious life of Europe, it steadfastly refused to recognize any religious existence outside of itself, yet both in

a political and theological sense it was rotten to the core. Erasmus and Luther heard with amazement the

The historian Ranke, to whom I am indebted for many of these facts, has depicted in a very graphic manner

the demoralization of the great metropolis. The popes were, for the most part, at their election, aged men.

Power was, therefore, incessantly passing into new hands. Every election was a revolution in prospects and

expectations. In a community where all might rise, where all might aspire to all, it necessarily followed that

every man was occupied in thrusting some other into the background. Though the population of the city at the

inception of the Reformation had sunk to eighty thousand, there were vast crowds of placemen, and still

greater ones of aspirants for place. The successful occupant of the pontificate had thousands of offices to give

awayoffices from many of which the incumbents had been remorselessly ejected; many had been created

for the purpose of sale. The integrity and capacity of an applicant were never inquired into; the points

considered were, what services has he rendered or can he render to the party? how much can he pay for the

preferment? An American reader can thoroughly realize this state of things. At every presidential election he

witnesses similar acts. The election of a pope by the Conclave is not unlike the nomination of an American

William of Malmesbury says that in his day the Romans made a sale of whatever was righteous and sacred

for gold. After his time there was no improvement; the Church degenerated into an instrument for the

exploitation of money. Vast sums were collected in Italy; vast sums were drawn under all manner of

pretenses from surrounding and reluctant countries. Of these the most nefarious was the sale of indulgences

for the perpetration of sin. Italian religion had become the art of plundering the people.

For more than a thousand years the sovereign pontiffs had been rulers of the city. True, it had witnessed many

scenes of devastation for which they were not responsible; but they were responsible for this, that they had

never made any vigorous, any persistent effort for its material, its moral improvement. Instead of being in

these respects an exemplar for the imitation of the world, it became an exemplar of a condition that ought to

be shunned. Things steadily went on from bad to worse, until at the epoch of the Reformation no pious

The papacy, repudiating science as absolutely incompatible with its pretensions, had in later years addressed

itself to the encouragement of art. But music and painting, though they may be exquisite adornments of life,

contain no living force that can develop a weak nation into a strong one; nothing that can permanently assure

the material wellbeing or happiness of communities; and hence at the time of the Reformation, to one who

thoughtfully considered her condition, Rome had lost all living energy. She was no longer the arbiter of the

physical or the religious progress of the world. For the progressive maxims of the republic and the empire,

she had substituted the stationary maxims of the papacy. She had the appearance of piety and the possession

of art. In this she resembled one of those friarcorpses which we still see in their brown cowls in the vaults of

From this view of the Eternal City, this survey of what Latin Christianity had done for Rome itself, let us turn

to the whole European Continent. Let us try to determine the true value of the system that was guiding

The condition of nations as to their wellbeing is most precisely represented by the variations of their

population. Forms of government have very little influence on population, but policy may control it

It has been very satisfactorily shown by authors who have given attention to the subject, that the variations of

population depend upon the interbalancing of the generative force of society and the resistances to life.

By the generative force of society is meant that instinct which manifests itself in the multiplication of the

race. To some extent it depends on climate; but, since the climate of Europe did not sensibly change between

the fourth and the sixteenth centuries, we may regard this force as having been, on that continent, during the

By the resistances to life is meant whatever tends to make individual existence more difficult of support.

Among such may be enumerated insufficient food, inadequate clothing, imperfect shelter.

It is also known that, if the resistances become inappreciable, the generative force will double a population in

The resistances operate in two modes: 1. Physically; since they diminish the number of births, and shorten the

term of the life of all. 2. Intellectually; since, in a moral, and particularly in a religious community, they

postpone marriage, by causing individuals to decline its responsibilities until they feel that they are competent

to meet the charges and cares of a family. Hence the explanation of a longrecognized fact, that the number

The increase of population keeps pace with the increase of food; and, indeed, such being the power of the

generative force, it overpasses the means of subsistence, establishing a constant pressure upon them. Under

these circumstances, it necessarily happens that a certain amount of destitution must occur. Individuals have

As illustrations of the variations that have occurred in the population of different countries, may be

mentioned the immense diminution of that of Italy in consequence of the wars of Justinian; the depopulation

of North Africa in consequence of theological quarrels; its restoration through the establishment of

Mohammedanism; the increase of that of all Europe through the feudal system, when estates became more

valuable in proportion to the number of retainers they could supply. The crusades caused a sensible

diminution, not only through the enormous army losses, but also by reason of the withdrawal of so many

ablebodied men from marriagelife. Similar variations have occurred on the American Continent. The

population of Mexico was very quickly diminished by two million through the rapacity and atrocious cruelty

of the Spaniards, who drove the civilized Indians to despair. The same happened in Peru.

The population of England at the Norman conquest was about two million. In five hundred years it had

scarcely doubled. It may be supposed that this stationary condition was to some extent induced by the papal

policy of the enforcement of celibacy in the clergy. The "legal generative force" was doubtless affected by

that policy, the "actual generative force" was not. For those who have made this subject their study have long

ago been satisfied that public celibacy is private wickedness. This mainly determined the laity, as well as the

government in England, to suppress the monasteries. It was openly asserted that there were one hundred

In my history of the "American Civil War," I have presented some reflections on this point, which I will take

the liberty of quoting here: "What, then, does this stationary condition of the population mean? It means, food

obtained with hardship, insufficient clothing, personal uncleanness, cabins that could not keep out the

weather, the destructive effects of cold and heat, miasm, want of sanitary provisions, absence of physicians,

uselessness of shrinecure, the deceptiveness of miracles, in which society was putting its trust; or, to sum up

a long catalogue of sorrows, wants, and sufferings, in one termit means a high deathrate.

"But more; it means deficient births. And what does that point out? Marriage postponed, licentious life,

"To an American, who lives in a country that was yesterday an interminable and impenetrable desert, but

which today is filling with a population doubling itself every twentyfive years at the prescribed rate, this

awful waste of actual and contingent life cannot but be a most surprising fact. His curiosity will lead him to

inquire what kind of system that could have been which was pretending to guide and develop society, but

which must be held responsible for this prodigious destruction, excelling, in its insidious result, war,

pestilence, and famine combined; insidious, for men were actually believing that it secured their highest

temporal interests. How different now! In England, the, same geographical surface is sustaining ten times the

population of that day, and sending forth its emigrating swarms. Let him, who looks back, with veneration on

These variations in the population of Europe have been attended with changes in distribution. The centre of

population has passed northward since the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire. It has since

We may now examine somewhat more minutely the character of the resistances which thus, for a thousand

years, kept the population of Europe stationary. The surface of the Continent was for the most part covered

with pathless forests; here and there it was dotted with monasteries and towns. In the lowlands and along the

rivercourses were fens, sometimes hundreds of miles in extent, exhaling their pestiferous miasms, and

spreading agues far and wide. In Paris and London, the houses were of wood daubed with clay, and thatched

with straw or reeds. They had no windows, and, until the invention of the sawmill, very few had wooden

floors. The luxury of a carpet was unknown; some straw, scattered in the room, supplied its place. There were

no chimneys; the smoke of the illfed, cheerless fire escaped through a hole in the roof. In such habitations

there was scarcely any protection from the weather. No attempt was made at drainage, but the putrefying

garbage and rubbish were simply thrown out of the door. Men, women, and children, slept in the same

apartment; not unfrequently, domestic animals were their companions; in such a confusion of the family, it

was impossible that modesty or morality could be maintained. The bed was usually a bag of straw, a wooden

log served as a pillow. Personal cleanliness was utterly unknown; great officers of state, even dignitaries so

high as the Archbishop of Canterbury, swarmed with vermin; such, it is related, was the condition of Thomas

a Becket, the antagonist of an English king. To conceal personal impurity, perfumes were necessarily and

profusely used. The citizen clothed himself in leather, a garment which, with its everaccumulating impurity,

might last for many years. He was considered to be in circumstances of ease, if he could procure fresh meat

once a week for his dinner. The streets had no sewers; they were without pavement or lamps. After nightfall,

the chambershatters were thrown open, and slops unceremoniously emptied down, to the discomfiture of the

wayfarer tracking his path through the narrow streets, with his dismal lantern in his hand.

Aeneas Sylvius, who afterward became Pope Pius II., and was therefore a very competent and impartial

writer, has left us a graphic account of a journey he made to the British Islands, about 1430. He describes the

houses of the peasantry as constructed of stones put together without mortar; the roofs were of turf, a

stiffened bull'shide served for a door. The food consisted of coarse vegetable products, such as peas, and

Cabins of reeds plastered with mud, houses of wattled stakes, chimneyless peatfires from which there was

scarcely an escape for the smoke, dens of physical and moral pollution swarming with vermin, wisps of straw

twisted round the limbs to keep off the cold, the aguestricken peasant, with no help except shrinecure!

How was it possible that the population could increase? Shall we, then, wonder that, in the famine of 1030,

human flesh was cooked and sold; or that, in that of 1258, fifteen thousand persons died of hunger in

London? Shall we wonder that, in some of the invasions of the plague, the deaths were so frightfully

numerous that the living could hardly bury the dead? By that of 1348, which came from the East along the

lines of commercial travel, and spread all over Europe, onethird of the population of France was destroyed.

Such was the condition of the peasantry, and of the common inhabitants of cities. Not much better was that of

the nobles. William of Malmesbury, speaking of the degraded manners of the AngloSaxons, says: "Their

nobles, devoted to gluttony and voluptuousness, never visited the church, but the matins and the mass were

read over to them by a hurrying priest in their bedchambers, before they rose, themselves not listening. The

common people were a prey to the more powerful; their property was seized, their bodies dragged away to

distant countries; their maidens were either thrown into a brothel, or sold for slaves. Drinking day and night

was the general pursuit; vices, the companions of inebriety, followed, effeminating the manly mind." The

baronial castles were dens of robbers. The Saxon chronicler records how men and women were caught and

dragged into those strongholds, hung up by their thumbs or feet, fire applied to them, knotted strings twisted

All over Europe, the great and profitable political offices were filled by ecclesiastics. In every country there

was a dual government: 1. That of a local kind, represented by a temporal sovereign; 2. That of a foreign

kind, acknowledging the authority of the pope, This Roman influence was, in the nature of things, superior to

the local; it expressed the sovereign will of one man over all the nations of the continent conjointly, and

gathered overwhelming power from its compactness and unity. The local influence was necessarily of a

feeble nature, since it was commonly weakened by the rivalries of conterminous states, and the dissensions

dexterously provoked by its competitor. On not a single occasion could the various European states form a

coalition against their common antagonist. Whenever a question arose, they were skillfully taken in detail,

and commonly mastered. The ostensible object of papal intrusion was to secure for the different peoples

moral wellbeing; the real object was to obtain large revenues, and give support to vast bodies of

ecclesiastics. The revenues thus abstracted were not infrequently many times greater than those passing into

the treasury of the local power. Thus, on the occasion of Innocent IV. demanding provision to be made for

three hundred additional Italian clergy by the Church of England, and that one of his nephewsa mere

boy should have a stall in Lincoln Cathedral, it was found that the sum already annually abstracted by

foreign ecclesiastics from England was thrice that which went into the coffers of the king.

While thus the higher clergy secured every political appointment worth having, and abbots vied with counts

in the herds of slaves they possessedsome, it is said, owned not fewer than twenty thousandbegging

friars pervaded society in all directions, picking up a share of what still remained to the poor. There was a

vast body of nonproducers, living in idleness and owning a foreign allegiance, who were subsisting on the

fruits of the toil of the laborers. It could not be otherwise than that small farms should be unceasingly merged

into the larger estates; that the poor should steadily become poorer; that society, far from improving, should

exhibit a continually increasing demoralization. Outside the monastic institutions no attempt at intellectual

advancement was made; indeed, so far as the laity were concerned, the influence of the Church was directed

to an opposite result, for the maxim universally received was, that "ignorance is the mother of devotion."

The settled practice of republican and imperial Rome was to have swift communication with all her outlying

provinces, by means of substantial bridges and roads. One of the prime duties of the legions was to construct

them and keep them in repair. By this, her military authority was assured. But the dominion of papal Rome,

depending upon a different principle, had no exigencies of that kind, and this duty accordingly was left for

the local powers to neglect. And so, in all directions, the roads were almost impassable for a large part of the

year. A common means of transportation was in clumsy carts drawn by oxen, going at the most but three or

four miles an hour. Where boatconveyance along rivers could not be had, packhorses and mules were

resorted to for the transportation of merchandise, an adequate means for the slender commerce of the times.

When large bodies of men had to be moved, the difficulties became almost insuperable. Of this, perhaps, one

of the best illustrations may be found in the story of the march of the first Crusaders. These restraints upon

intercommunication tended powerfully to promote the general benighted condition. Journeys by individuals

could not be undertaken without much risk, for there was scarcely a moor or a forest that had not its

An illiterate condition everywhere prevailing, gave opportunity for the development of superstition. Europe

was full of disgraceful miracles. On all the roads pilgrims were wending their way to the shrines of saints,

renowned for the cures they had wrought. It had always been the policy of the Church to discourage the

physician and his art; he interfered too much with the gifts and profits of the shrines. Time has brought this

once lucrative imposture to its proper value. How many shrines are there now in successful operation in

For patients too sick to move or be moved, there were no remedies except those of a ghostly kindthe

Paternoster or the Ave. For the prevention of diseases, prayers were put up in the churches, but no sanitary

measures were resorted to. From cities reeking with putrefying filth it was thought that the plague might be

stayed by the prayers of the priests, by them rain and dry weather might be secured, and deliverance obtained

from the baleful influences of eclipses and comets. But when Halley's comet came, in 1456, so tremendous

was its apparition that it was necessary for the pope himself to interfere. He exorcised and expelled it from

the skies. It slunk away into the abysses of space, terrorstricken by the maledictions of Calixtus III., and did

The physical value of shrinecures and ghostly remedies is measured by the deathrate. In those days it was,

probably, about one in twentythree, under the present more material practice it is about one in forty.

The moral condition of Europe was signally illustrated when syphilis was introduced from the West Indies by

the companions of Columbus. It spread with wonderful rapidity; all ranks of persons, from the Holy Father

Leo X. to the beggar by the wayside, contracting the shameful disease. Many excused their misfortune by

declaring that it was an epidemic proceeding from a certain malignity in the constitution of the air, but in

truth its spread was due to a certain infirmity in the constitution of manan infirmity which had not been

To the medical efficacy of shrines must be added that of special relics. These were sometimes of the most

extraordinary kind. There were several abbeys that possessed our Savior's crown of thorns. Eleven had the

lance that had pierced his side. If any person was adventurous enough to suggest that these could not all be

authentic, he would have been denounced as an atheist. During the holy wars the TemplarKnights had

driven a profitable commerce by bringing from Jerusalem to the Crusading armies bottles of the milk of the

Blessed Virgin, which they sold for enormous sums; these bottles were preserved with pious care in many of

the great religious establishments. But perhaps none of these impostures surpassed in audacity that offered by

a monastery in Jerusalem, which presented to the beholder one of the fingers of the Holy Ghost! Modern

society has silently rendered its verdict on these scandalous objects. Though they once nourished the piety of

thousands of earnest people, they are now considered too vile to have a place in any public museum.

How shall we account for the great failure we thus detect in the guardianship of the Church over Europe?

This is not the result that must have occurred had there been in Rome an unremitting care for the spiritual and

material prosperity of the continent, had the universal pastor, the successor of Peter, occupied himself with

The explanation is not difficult to find. It is contained in a story of sin and shame. I prefer, therefore, in the

following paragraphs, to offer explanatory facts derived from Catholic authors, and, indeed, to present them

The story I am about to relate is a narrative of the transformation of a confederacy into an absolute monarchy.

In the early times every church, without prejudice to its agreement with the Church universal in all essential

points, managed its own affairs with perfect freedom and independence, maintaining its own traditional

usages and discipline, all questions not concerning the whole Church, or of primary importance, being settled

Until the beginning of the ninth century, there was no change in the constitution of the Roman Church. But

about 845 the Isidorian Decretals were fabricated in the west of Gaula forgery containing about one

hundred pretended decrees of the early popes, together with certain spurious writings of other church

dignitaries and acts of synods. This forgery produced an immense extension of the papal power, it displaced

the old system of church government, divesting it of the republican attributes it had possessed, and

transforming it into an absolute monarchy. It brought the bishops into subjection to Rome, and made the

pontiff the supreme judge of the clergy of the whole Christian world. It prepared the way for the great

attempt, subsequently made by Hildebrand, to convert the states of Europe into a theocratic priestkingdom,

Gregory VII., the author of this great attempt, saw that his plans would be best carried out through the agency

of synods. He, therefore, restricted the right of holding them to the popes and their legates. To aid in the

matter, a new system of church law was devised by Anselm of Lucca, partly from the old Isidorian forgeries,

and partly from new inventions. To establish the supremacy of Rome, not only had a new civil and a new

canon law to be produced, a new history had also to be invented. This furnished needful instances of the

deposition and excommunication of kings, and proved that they had always been subordinate to the popes.

The decretal letters of the popes were put on a par with Scripture. At length it came to be received,

throughout the West, that the popes had been, from the beginning of Christianity, legislators for the whole

Church. As absolute sovereigns in later times cannot endure representative assemblies, so the papacy, when it

wished to become absolute, found that the synods of particular national churches must be put an end to, and

those only under the immediate control of the pontiff permitted. This, in itself, constituted a great revolution.

Another fiction concocted in Rome in the eighth century led to important consequences. It feigned that the

Emperor Constantine, in gratitude for his cure from leprosy, and baptism by Pope Sylvester, had bestowed

Italy and the Western provinces on the pope, and that, in token of his subordination, he had served the pope

as his groom, and led his horse some distance. This forgery was intended to work on the Frankish kings, to

impress them with a correct idea of their inferiority, and to show that, in the territorial concessions they made

to the Church, they were not giving but only restoring what rightfully belonged to it.

The most potent instrument of the new papal system was Gratian's Decretum, which was issued about the

middle of the twelfth century. It was a mass of fabrications. It made the whole Christian world, through the

papacy, the domain of the Italian clergy. It inculcated that it is lawful to constrain men to goodness, to torture

and execute heretics, and to confiscate their property; that to kill an excommunicated person is not murder;

that the pope, in his unlimited superiority to all law, stands on an equality with the Son of God!

As the new system of centralization developed, maxims, that in the olden times would have been held to be

shocking, were boldly avowedthe whole Church is the property of the pope to do with as he will; what is

simony in others is not simony in him; he is above all law, and can be called to account by none; whoever

disobeys him must be put to death; every baptized man is his subject, and must for life remain so, whether he

will or not. Up to the end of the twelfth century, the popes were the vicars of Peter; after Innocent III. they

But an absolute sovereign has need of revenues, and to this the popes were no exception. The institution of

legates was brought in from Hildebrand's time. Sometimes their duty was to visit churches, sometimes they

were sent on special business, but always invested with unlimited powers to bring back money over the Alps.

And since the pope could not only make laws, but could suspend their operation, a legislation was introduced

in view to the purchase of dispensations. Monasteries were exempted from episcopal jurisdiction on payment

of a tribute to Rome. The pope had now become "the universal bishop;" he had a concurrent jurisdiction in all

the dioceses, and could bring any cases before his own courts. His relation to the bishops was that of an

absolute sovereign to his officials. A bishop could resign only by his permission, and sees vacated by

resignation lapsed to him. Appeals to him were encouraged in every way for the sake of the dispensations;

thousands of processes came before the Curia, bringing a rich harvest to Rome. Often when there were

disputing claimants to benefices, the pope would oust them all, and appoint a creature of his own. Often the

candidates had to waste years in Rome, and either died there, or carried back a vivid impression of the

dominant corruption. Germany suffered more than other countries from these appeals and processes, and

hence of all countries was best prepared for the Reformation. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

the popes made gigantic strides in the acquisition of power. Instead of recommending their favorites for

benefices, now they issued mandates. Their Italian partisans must be rewarded; nothing could be done to

satisfy their clamors,. but to provide for them in foreign countries. Shoals of contesting claimants died in

Rome; and, when death took place in that city, the Pope claimed the right of giving away the benefices. At

length it was affirmed that he had the right of disposing of all churchoffices without distinction, and that the

oath of obedience of a bishop to him implied political as well as ecclesiastical subjection. In countries having

a dual government this increased the power of the spiritual element prodigiously.

Rights of every kind were remorselessly overthrown to complete this centralization. In this the mendicant

orders were most efficient aids. It was the pope and those orders on one side, the bishops and the parochial

clergy on the other. The Roman court had seized the rights of synods, metropolitans, bishops, national

churches. Incessantly interfered with by the legates, the bishops lost all desire to discipline their dioceses;

incessantly interfered with by the begging monks, tho parish priest had become powerless in his own village;

his pastoral influence was utterly destroyed by the papal indulgences and absolutions they sold. The money

Pecuniary necessities urged many of the popes to resort to such petty expedients as to require from a prince, a

bishop, or a grandmaster, who bad a cause pending in the court, a present of a golden cup filled with ducats.

Such necessities also gave origin to jubilees. Sixtus IV. established whole colleges, and sold the places at

three or four hundred ducats. Innocent VIII. pawned the papal tiara. Of Leo X. it was said that he squandered

the revenues of three popes, he wasted the savings of his predecessor, he spent his own income, he

anticipated that of his successor, he created twentyone hundred and fifty new offices and sold them; they

were considered to be a good investment, as they produced twelve per cent. The interest was extorted from

Catholic countries. Nowhere in Europe could capital be so well invested as at Rome. Large sums were raised

by the foreclosing of mortgages, and not only by the sale but the resale of offices. Men were promoted, for

Though against the papal theory, which denounced usurious practices, an immense papal banking system had

sprung up, in connection with the Curia, and sums at usurious interest were advanced to prelates, place.

hunters, and litigants. The papal bankers were privileged; all others were under the ban. The Curia had

discovered that it was for their interest to have ecelesiastics all over Europe in their debt. They could make

them pliant, and excommunicate them for nonpayment of interest. In 1327 it was reckoned that half the

Christian world was under excommunication: bishops were excommunicated because they could not meet the

extortions of legates; and persons were excommunicated, under various pretenses, to compel them to

purchase absolution at an exorbitant price. The ecclesiastical revenues of all Europe were flowing into Rome,

a sink of corruption, simony, usury, bribery, extortion. The popes, since 1066, when the great centralizing

movement began, had no time to pay attention to the internal affairs of their own special flock in the city of

Rome. There were thousands of foreign cases, each bringing in money. "Whenever," says the Bishop Alvaro

Pelayo, "I entered the apartments of the Roman court clergy, I found them occupied in counting up the

goldcoin, which lay about the rooms in heaps." Every opportunity of extending the jurisdiction of the Curia

was welcome. Exemptions were so managed that fresh grants were constantly necessary. Bishops were

privileged against cathedral chapters, chapters against their bishops; bishops, convents, and individuals,

The two pillars on which the papal system now rested were the College of Cardinals and the Curia. The

cardinals, in 1059, had become electors of the popes. Up to that time elections were made by the whole body

of the Roman clergy, and the concurrence of the magistrates and citizens was necessary. But Nicolas II.

restricted elections to the College of Cardinals by a two thirds vote, and gave to the German emperor the

right of confirmation. For almost two centuries there was a struggle for mastery between the cardinal

oligarchy and papal absolutism. The cardinals were willing enough that the pope should be absolute in his

foreign rule, but the never failed to attempt, before giving him their votes, to bind him to accord to them a

recognized share in the government. After his election, and before his consecration, he swore to observe

certain capitulations, such as a participation of revenues between himself and the cardinals; an obligation that

lie would not remove them, but would permit them to assemble twice a year to discuss whether he had kept

his oath. Repeatedly the popes broke their oath. On one side, the cardinals wanted a larger share in the church

government and emoluments; on the other, the popes refused to surrender revenues or power. The cardinals

wanted to be conspicuous in pomp and extravagance, and for this vast sums were requisite. In one instance,

not fewer than five hundred benefices were held by one of them; their friends and retainers must be supplied,

their families enriched. It was affirmed that the whole revenues of France were insufficient to meet their

expenditures. In their rivalries it sometimes happened that no pope was elected for several years. It seemed as

if they wanted to show how easily the Church could get on without the Vicar of Christ.

Toward the close of the eleventh century the Roman Church became the Roman court. In place of the

Christian sheep gently following their shepherd in the holy precincts of the city, there had arisen a chancery

of writers, notaries, taxgatherers, where transactions about privileges, dispensations, exemptions, were

carried on; and suitors went with petitions from door to door. Rome was a rallyingpoint for placehunters of

every nation. In presence of the enormous mass of businessprocesses, graces, indulgences, absolutions,

commands, and decisions, addressed to all parts of Europe and Asia, the functions of the local church sank

into insignificance. Several hundred persons, whose home was the Curia, were required. Their aim was to rise

in it by enlarging the profits of the papal treasury. The whole Christian world had become tributary to it. Here

every vestige of religion had disappeared; its members were busy with politics, litigations, and processes; not

a word could be heard about spiritual concerns. Every stroke of the pen had its price. Benefices,

dispensations, licenses, absolutions, indulgences, privileges, were bought and sold like merchandise. The

suitor had to bribe every one, from the doorkeeper to the pope, or his case was lost. Poor men could neither

attain preferment, nor hope for it; and the result was, that every cleric felt he had a right to follow the

example he had seen at Rome, and that he might make profits out of his spiritual ministries and sacraments,

having bought the right to do so at Rome, and having no other way to pay off his debt. The transference of

power from Italians to Frenchmen, through the removal of the Curia to Avignon, produced no changeonly

the Italians felt that the enrichment of Italian families had slipped out of their grasp. They had learned to

consider the papacy as their appanage, and that they, under the Christian dispensation, were God's chosen

At the end of the thirteenth century a new kingdom was discovered, capable of yielding immense revenues.

This was Purgatory. It was shown that the pope could empty it by his indulgences. In this there was no need

of hypocrisy. Things were done openly. The original germ of the apostolic primacy had now expanded into a

NEED OF A GENERAL COUNCIL. The Inquisition had made the papal system irresistible. All opposition

must be punished with death by fire. A mere thought, without having betrayed itself by outward sign, was

considered as guilt. As time went on, this practice of the Inquisition became more and more atrocious.

Torture was resorted to on mere suspicion. The accused was not allowed to know the name of his accuser. He

was not permitted to have any legal adviser. There was no appeal. The Inquisition was ordered not to lean to

pity. No recantation was of avail. The innocent family of the accused was deprived of its property by

confiscation; half went to the papal treasury, half to the inquisitors. Life only, said Innocent III., was to be left

to the sons of misbelievers, and that merely as an act of mercy. The consequence was, that popes, such as

Nicolas III., enriched their families through plunder acquired by this tribunal. Inquisitors did the same

The struggle between the French and Italians for the possession of the papacy inevitably led to the schism of

the fourteenth century. For more than forty years two rival popes were now anathematizing each other, two

rival Curias were squeezing the nations for money. Eventually, there were three obediences, and triple

revenues to be extorted. Nobody, now, could guarantee the validity of the sacraments, for nobody could be

sure which was the true pope. Men were thus compelled to think for themselves. They could not find who

was the legitimate thinker for them. They began to see that the Church must rid herself of the curialistic

chains, and resort to a General Council. That attempt was again and again made, the intention being to raise

the Council into a Parliament of Christendom, and make the pope its chief executive officer. But the vast

interests that had grown out of the corruption of ages could not so easily be overcome; the Curia again

recovered its ascendency, and ecclesiastical trading was resumed. The Germans, who had never been

permitted to share in the Curia, took the leading part in these attempts at reform. As things went on from bad

to worse, even they at last found out that all hope of reforming the Church by means of councils was

delusive. Erasmus exclaimed, "If Christ does not deliver his people from this multiform ecclesiastical

tyranny, the tyranny of the Turk will become less intolerable." Cardinals' hats were now sold, and under Leo

X. ecclesiastical and religious offices were actually put up to auction. The maxim of life had become, interest

first, honor afterward. Among the officials, there was not one who could be honest in the dark, and virtuous

without a witness. The violetcolored velvet cloaks and white ermine capes of the cardinals were truly a

The unity of the Church, and therefore its power, required the use of Latin as a sacred language. Through this,

Rome had stood in an attitude strictly European, and was enabled to maintain a general international relation.

It gave her far more power than her asserted celestial authority, and, much as she claims to have done, she is

open to condemnation that, with such a signal advantage in her hands, never again to be enjoyed by any

successor, she did not accomplish much more. Had not the sovereign pontiffs been so completely occupied

with maintaining their emoluments and temporalities in Italy, they might have made the whole continent

advance like one man. Their officials could pass without difficulty into every nation, and communicate

without embarrassment with each other, from Ireland to Bohemia, from Italy to Scotland. The possession of a

common tongue gave them the administration of international affairs with intelligent allies everywhere,

Not without cause was the hatred manifested by Rome to the restoration of Greek and introduction of

Hebrew, and the alarm with which she perceived the modern languages forming out of the vulgar dialects.

Not without reason did the Faculty of Theology in Paris reecho the sentiment that, was prevalent in the time

of Ximenes, "What will become of religion if the study of Greek and Hebrew be permitted?" The prevalence

of Latin was the condition of her power; its deterioration, the measure of her decay; its disuse, the signal of

her limitation to a little principality in Italy. In fact, the development of European languages was the

instrument of her overthrow. They formed an effectual communication between the mendicant friars and the

illiterate populace, and there was not one of them that did not display in its earliest productions a sovereign

The rise of the manytongued European literature was therefore coincident with the decline of papal

Christianity; European literature was impossible under Catholic rule. A grand, a solemn, an imposing

religious unity enforced the literary unity which is implied in the use of a single tongue.

While thus the possession of a universal language so signally secured her power, the real secret of much of

the influence of the Church lay in the control she had so skillfully obtained over domestic life. Her influence

diminished as that declined. Coincident with this was her displacement in the guidance of international

CATHOLICITY AND CIVILIZATION. In the old times of Roman domination the encampments of the

legions in the provinces had always proved to be foci of civilization. The industry and order exhibited in them

presented an example not lost on the surrounding barbarians of Britain, Gaul, and Germany. And, though it

was no part of their duty to occupy themselves actively in the betterment of the conquered tribes, but rather to

keep them in a depressed condition that aided in maintaining subjection, a steady improvement both in the

Under the ecclesiastical domination of Rome similar effects occurred. In the open country the monastery

replaced the legionary encampment; in the village or town, the church was a centre of light. A powerful effect

was produced by the elegant luxury of the former, and by the sacred and solemn monitions of the latter.

In extolling the papal system for what it did in the organization of the family, the definition of civil policy,

the construction of the states of Europe, our praise must be limited by the recollection that the chief object of

ecclesiastical policy was the aggrandizement of the Church, not the promotion of civilization. The benefit

obtained by the laity was not through any special intention, but incidental or collateral.

There was no farreaching, no persistent plan to ameliorate the physical condition of the nations. Nothing

was done to favor their intellectual development; indeed, on the contrary, it was the settled policy to keep

them not merely illiterate, but ignorant. Century after century passed away, and left the peasantry but little

better than the cattle in the fields. Intercommunication and locomotion, which tend so powerfully to expand

the ideas, received no encouragement; the majority of men died without ever having ventured out of the

neighborhood in which they were born. For them there was no hope of personal improvement, none of the

bettering of their lot; there were no comprehensive schemes for the avoidance of individual want, none for

the resistance of famines. Pestilences were permitted to stalk forth unchecked, or at best opposed only by

mummeries. Bad food, wretched clothing, inadequate shelter, were suffered to produce their result, and at the

If policy may be held accountable as much for the births it prevents as for the deaths it occasions, what a

In this investigation of the influence of Catholicism, we must carefully keep separate what it did for the

people and what it did for itself. When we think of the stately monastery, an embodiment of luxury, with its

closelymown lawns, its gardens and bowers, its fountains and many murmuring streams, we must connect it

not with the aguestricken peasant dying without help in the fens, but with the abbot, his ambling palfrey, his

hawk and hounds, his wellstocked cellar and larder. He is part of a system that has its centre of authority in

Italy.. To that his allegiance is due. For its behoof are all his acts. When we survey, as still we may, the

magnificent churches and cathedrals of those times, miracles of architectural skillthe only real miracles of

Catholicismwhen in imagination we restore the transcendently imposing, the noble services of which they

were once the scene, the dim, religiouslight streaming in through the manycolored windows, the sounds of

voices not inferior in their melody to those of heaven, the priests in their sacred vestments, and above all the

prostrate worshipers listening to litanies and prayers in a foreign and unknown tongue, shall we not ask

ourselves, Was all this for the sake of those worshipers, or for the glory of the great, the overshadowing

But perhaps some one may say, Are there not limits to human exertionthings which no political system, no

human power, no matter how excellent its intention, can accomplish? Men cannot be raised from barbarism, a

The Catholic power is not, however, to be tried by any such standard. It scornfully rejected and still rejects a

human origin. It claims to be accredited supernaturally. The sovereign pontiff is the Vicar of God upon earth.

Infallible in judgment, it is given to him to accomplish all things by miracle if need be. He had exercised an

autocratic tyranny over the intellect of Europe for more than a thousand years; and, though on some

occasions he had encountered the resistances of disobedient princes, these, in the aggregate, were of so little

moment, that the physical, the political power of the continent may be affirmed to have been at his disposal.

Such facts as have been presented in this chapter were, doubtless, well weighed by the Protestant Reformers

of the sixteenth century, and brought them to the conclusion that Catholicism had altogether failed in its

mission; that it had become a vast system of delusion and imposture, and that a restoration of true

Christianity could only be accomplished by returning to the faith and practices of the primitive times. This

was no decision suddenly arrived at; it had long been the opinion of many religious and learned men. The

pious Fratricelli in the middle ages had loudly expressed their belief that the fatal gift of a Roman emperor

had been the doom of true religion. It wanted nothing more than the voice of Luther to bring men throughout

the north of Europe to the, determination that the worship of the Virgin Mary, the invocation of saints, the

working of miracles, supernatural cures of the sick, the purchase of indulgences for the perpetration of sin,

and all other evil practices, lucrative to their abettors, which had been fastened on Christianity, but which

were no part of it, should come to an end. Catholicism, as a system for promoting the wellbeing of man, had

plainly failed in justifying its alleged origin; its performance had not corresponded to its great pretensions;

and, after an opportunity of more than a thousand years' duration, it had left the masses of men submitted to

its influences, both as regards physical wellbeing and intellectual culture, in a condition far lower than what

THE INTRODUCTION OF SCIENCE INTO EUROPE.It passed from Moorish Spain to Upper Italy, and

was favored by the absence of the popes at Avignon.The effects of printing, of maritime adventure, and of

THE INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE.It changed the mode and the direction of thought in

Europe.The transactions of the Royal Society of London, and other scientific societies, furnish an

THE ECONOMICAL INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE is illustrated by the numerous mechanical and physical

inventions, made since the fourteenth century.Their influence on health and domestic life, on the arts of

EUROPE, at the epoch of the Reformation, furnishes us with the result of the influences of Roman

Christianity in the promotion of civilization. America, examined in like manner at the present time, furnishes

SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION. In the course of the seventeenth century a sparse European population bad

settled along the western Atlantic coast. Attracted by the codfishery of Newfoundland, the French had a

little colony north of the St. Lawrence; the English, Dutch, and Swedes, occupied the shore of New England

and the Middle States; some Huguenots were living in the Carolinas. Rumors of a spring that could confer

perpetual youtha fountain of lifehad brought a few Spaniards into Florida. Behind the fringe of villages

which these adventurers had built, lay a vast and unknown country, inhabited by wandering Indians, whose

numbers from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence did not exceed one hundred and eighty thousand. From

them the European strangers had learned that in those solitary regions there were freshwater seas, and a

great river which they called the Mississippi. Some said that it flowed through Virginia into the Atlantic,

some that it passed through Florida, some that it emptied into the Pacific, and some that it reached the Gulf of

Mexico. Parted from their native countries by the stormy Atlantic, to cross which implied a voyage of many

But before the close of the nineteenth century the descendants of this feeble people had become one of the

great powers of the earth. They had established a republic whose sway extended from the Atlantic to the

Pacific. With an army of more than a million men, not on paper, but actually in the field, they had overthrown

a domestic assailant. They had maintained at sea a warfleet of nearly seven hundred ships, carrying five

thousand guns, some of them the heaviest in the world. The tonnage of this navy amounted to half a million.

In the defense of their national life they had expended in less than five years more than four thousand million

dollars. Their census, periodically taken, showed that the population was doubling itself every twentyfive

years; it justified the expectation that at the close of that century it would number nearly one hundred million

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. A silent continent had been changed into a scene of industry; it was full of the

din of machinery and the restless moving of men. Where there had been an unbroken forest, there were

hundreds of cities and towns. To commerce were furnished in profusion some of the most important staples,

as cotton, tobacco, breadstuffs. The mines yielded incredible quantities of gold, iron, coal. Countless

churches, colleges, and public schools, testified that a moral influence vivified this material activity.

Locomotion was effectually provided for. The railways exceeded in aggregate length those of all Europe

combined. In 1873 the aggregate length of the European railways was sixtythree thousand three hundred

and sixty miles, that of the American was seventy thousand six hundred and fifty miles. One of them, built

But not alone are these material results worthy of notice. Others of a moral and social kind force themselves

on our attention. Four million negro slaves had been set free. Legislation, if it inclined to the advantage of

any class, inclined to that of the poor. Its intention was to raise them from poverty, and better their lot. A

career was open to talent, and that without any restraint. Every thing was possible to intelligence and

industry. Many of the most important public offices were filled by men who had risen from the humblest

walks of life. If there was not social equality, as there never can be in rich and prosperous communities, there

It may perhaps be said that much of this material prosperity arose from special conditions, such as had never

occurred in the case of any people before, There was a vast, an open theatre of action, a whole continent

ready for any who chose to take possession of it. Nothing more than courage and industry was needed to

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM AMERICAN HISTORY. But must not men be animated by a great principle who

successfully transform the primeval solitudes into an abode of civilization, who are not dismayed by gloomy

forests, or rivers, mountains, or frightful deserts, who push their conquering way in the course of a century

across a continent, and hold it in subjection? Let us contrast with this the results of the invasion of Mexico

and Peru by the Spaniards, who in those countries overthrew a wonderful civilization, in many respects

superior to their owna civilization that had been accomplished without iron and gunpowdera civilization

resting on an agriculture that had neither horse, nor ox, nor plough. The Spaniards had a clear base to start

from, and no obstruction whatever in their advance. They ruined all that the aboriginal children of America

had accomplished. Millions of those unfortunates were destroyed by their cruelty. Nations that for many

centuries had been living in contentment and prosperity, under institutions shown by their history to be

suitable to them, were plunged into anarchy; the people fell into a baneful superstition, and a greater part of

their landed and other property found its way into the possession of the Roman Church.

I have selected the foregoing illustration, drawn from American history, in preference to many others that

might have been taken from European, because it furnishes an instance of the operation of the acting

principle least interfered with by extraneous conditions. European political progress is less simple than

QUARREL BETWEEN FRANCE AND THE PAPACY. Before considering its manner of action, and its

results, I will briefly relate how the scientific principle found an introduction into Europe.

INTRODUCTION OF SCIENCE INTO EUROPE. Not only had the Crusades, for many years, brought vast

sums to Rome, extorted from the fears or the piety of every Christian nation; they had also increased the

papal power to a most dangerous extent. In the dual governments everywhere prevailing in Europe, the

spiritual had obtained the mastery; the temporal was little better than its servant.

From all quarters, and under all kinds of pretenses, streams of money were steadily flowing into Italy. The

temporal princes found that there were left for them inadequate and impoverished revenues. Philip the Fair,

King of France (A.D. 1300), not only determined to check this drain from his dominions, by prohibiting the

export of gold and silver without his license; he also resolved that the clergy and the ecclesiastical estates

should pay their share of taxes to him. This brought on a mortal contest with the papacy. The king was

excommunicated, and, in retaliation, he accused the pope, Boniface VIII., of atheism; demanding that he

should be tried by a general council. He sent some trusty persons into Italy, who seized Boniface in his palace

at Anagni, and treated him with so much severity, that in a few days he died. The succeeding pontiff,

The French king was determined that the papacy should be purified and reformed; that it should no longer be

the appanage of a few Italian families, who were dexterously transmuting the credulity of Europe into

cointhat French influence should prevail in it. He Therefore came to an understanding with the cardinals; a

French archbishop was elevated to the pontificate; he took the name of Clement V. The papal court was

removed to Avignon, in France, and Rome was abandoned as the metropolis of Christianity.

MOORISH SCIENCE INTRODUCED THROUGH FRANCE. Seventy years elapsed before the papacy was

restored to the Eternal City (A.D. 1376). The diminution of its influence in the peninsula, that had thus

occurred, gave opportunity for the memorable intellectual movement which soon manifested itself in the

great commercial cities of Upper Italy. Contemporaneously, also, there were other propitious events. The

result of the Crusades had shaken the faith of all Christendom. In an age when the test of the ordeal of battle

was universally accepted, those wars had ended in leaving the Holy Land in the hands of the Saracens; the

many thousand Christian warriors who had returned from them did not hesitate to declare that they had found

their antagonists not such as had been pictured by the Church, but valiant, courteous, just. Through the gay

cities of the South of France a love of romantic literature had been spreading; the wandering troubadours had

been singing their songssongs far from being restricted to ladye love and feats of war; often their burden

was the awful atrocities that had been perpetrated by papal authority the religious massacres of

Languedoc; often their burden was the illicit amours of the clergy. From Moorish Spain the gentle and gallant

idea of chivalry had been brought, and with it the noble sentiment of "personal honor," destined in the course

EFFECT OF THE GREAT SCHISM. The return of the papacy to Rome was far from restoring the influence

of the popes over the Italian Peninsula. More than two generations had passed away since their departure,

and, had they come back even in their original strength, they could not have resisted the intellectual progress

that had been made during their absence. The papacy, however, came back not to rule, but to be divided

against itself, to encounter the Great Schism. Out of its dissensions emerged two rival popes; eventually there

were three, each pressing his claims upon the religious, each cursing his rival. A sentiment of indignation

soon spread all over Europe, a determination that the shameful scenes which were then enacting should be

ended. How could the dogma of a Vicar of God upon earth, the dogma of an infallible pope, be sustained in

presence of such scandals? Herein lay the cause of that resolution of the ablest ecclesiastics of those times

(which, alas for Europe! could not be carried into effect), that a general council should be made the

permanent religious parliament of the whole continent, with the pope as its chief executive officer. Had that

intention been accomplished, there would have been at this day no conflict between science and religion; the

convulsion of the Reformation would have been avoided; there would have been no jarring Protestant sects.

But the Councils of Constance and Basle failed to shake off the Italian yoke, failed to attain that noble result.

Catholicism was thus weakening; as its leaden pressure lifted, the intellect of man expanded. The Saracens

had invented the method of making paper from linen rags and from cotton. The Venetians had brought from

China to Europe the art of printing. The former of these inventions was essential to the latter. Hence forth,

without the possibility of a check, there was intellectual intercommunication among all men.

INVENTION OF PRINTING. The invention of printing was a severe blow to Catholicism, which had,

previously, enjoyed the inappreciable advantage of a monopoly of intercommunication. From its central seat,

orders could be disseminated through all the ecclesiastical ranks, and fulminated through the pulpits. This

monopoly and the amazing power it conferred were destroyed by the press. In modern times, the influence of

the pulpit has become insignificant. The pulpit has been thoroughly supplanted by the newspaper.

Yet, Catholicism did not yield its ancient advantage without a struggle. As soon as the inevitable tendency of

the new art was detected, a restraint upon it, under the form of a censorship, was attempted. It was made

necessary to have a permit, in order to print a book. For this, it was needful that the work should have been

read, examined, and approved by the clergy. There must be a certificate that it was a godly and orthodox

book. A bull of excommunication was issued in 1501, by Alexander VI., against printers who should publish

pernicious doctrines. In 1515 the Lateran Council ordered that no books should be printed but such as had

been inspected by the ecclesiastical censors, under pain of excommunication and fine; the censors being

directed "to take the utmost care that nothing should be printed contrary to the orthodox faith." There was

But these frantic struggles of the powers of ignorance were unavailing. Intellectual intercommunication

among men was secured. It culminated in the modern newspaper, which daily gives its contemporaneous

intelligence from all parts of the world. Reading became a common occupation. In ancient society that art

was possessed by comparatively few persons. Modern society owes some of its most striking characteristics

EFFECTS OF MARITIME ENTERPRISE. Such was the result of bringing into Europe the manufacture of

paper and the printingpress. In like manner the introduction of the mariner's compass was followed by

imposing material and moral effects. These werethe discovery of America in consequence of the rivalry of

the Venetians and Genoese about the India trade; the doubling of Africa by De Gama; and the

circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan. With respect to the last, the grandest of all human undertakings, it

is to be remembered that Catholicism had irrevocably committed itself to the dogma of a flat earth, with the

sky as the floor of heaven, and hell in the underworld. Some of the Fathers, whose authority was held to be

paramount, had, as we have previously said, furnished philosophical and religious arguments against the

globular form. The controversy had now suddenly come to an endthe Church was found to be in error.

The correction of that geographical error was by no means the only important result that followed the three

great voyages. The spirit of Columbus, De Gama, Magellan, diffused itself among all the enterprising men of

Western Europe. Society had been hitherto living under the dogma of "loyalty to the king, obedience to the

Church." It had therefore been living for others, not for itself. The political effect of that dogma had

culminated in the Crusades. Countless thousands had perished in wars that could bring them no reward, and

of which the result had been conspicuous failure. Experience had revealed the fact that the only gainers were

the pontiffs, cardinals, and other ecclesiastics in Rome, and the shipmasters of Venice. But, when it became

known that the wealth of Mexico, Peru, and India, might be shared by any one who had enterprise and

courage, the motives that had animated the restless populations of Europe suddenly changed. The story of

Cortez and Pizarro found enthusiastic listeners everywhere. Maritime adventure supplanted religious

If we attempt to isolate the principle that lay at the basis of the wonderful social changes that now took place,

we may recognize it without difficulty. Heretofore each man had dedicated his services to his

superiorfeudal or ecclesiastical; now he had resolved to gather the fruits of his exertions himself.

Individualism was becoming predominant, loyalty was declining into a sentiment. We shall now see how it

INDIVIDUALISM. Individualism rests on the principle that a man shall be his own master, that he shall have

liberty to form his own opinions, freedom to carry into effect his resolves. He is, therefore, ever brought into

To remove the stagnation of centuries front European life, to vivify suddenly what had hitherto been an inert

mass, to impart to it individualism, was to bring it into conflict with the influences that had been oppressing

it. All through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries uneasy strugglings gave a premonition of what was

coming. In the early part of the sixteenth (1517), the battle was joined. Individualism found its embodiment

in a sturdy German monk, and therefore, perhaps necessarily, asserted its rights under theological forms.

There were some preliminary skirmishes about indulgences and other minor matters, but very soon the real

cause of dispute came plainly into view. Martin Luther refused to think as he was ordered to do by his

ecclesiastical superiors at Rome; he asserted that he had an inalienable right to interpret the Bible for himself.

At her first glance, Rome saw nothing in Martin Luther but a vulgar, insubordinate, quarrelsome monk.

Could the Inquisition have laid hold of him, it would have speedily disposed of his affair; but, as the conflict

went on, it was discovered that Martin was not standing alone. Many thousands of men, as resolute as

himself, were coming up to his support; and, while he carried on the combat with writings and words, they

THE REFORMATION. The vilification which was poured on Luther and his doings was so bitter as to be

ludicrous. It was declared that his father was not his mother's husband, but an impish incubus, who had

deluded her; that, after ten years' struggling with his conscience, he had become an atheist; that he denied the

immortality of the soul; that he had composed hymns in honor of drunkenness, a vice to which he was

unceasingly addicted; that he blasphemed the Holy Scriptures, and particularly Moses; that he did not believe

a word of what he preached; that he had called the Epistle of St. James a thing of straw; and, above all, that

the Reformation was no work of his, but, in reality, was due to a certain astrological position of the stars. It

was, however, a vulgar saying among the Roman ecclesiastics that Erasmus laid the egg of the Reformation,

Rome at first made the mistake of supposing that this was nothing more than a casual outbreak; she failed to

discern that it was, in fact, the culmination of an internal movement which for two centuries had been going

on in Europe, and which had been hourly gathering force; that, had there been nothing else, the existence of

three popesthree obedienceswould have compelled men to think, to deliberate, to conclude for

themselves. The Councils of Constance and Basle taught them that there was a higher power than the popes.

The long and bloody wars that ensued were closed by the Peace of Westphalia; and then it was found that

Central and Northern Europe had cast off the intellectual tyranny of Rome, that individualism had carried its

DECOMPOSITION OF PROTESTANTISM. But it was impossible that the establishment of this right of

private judgment should end with the rejection of Catholicism. Early in the movement some of the most

distinguished men, such as Erasmus, who had been among its first promoters, abandoned it. They perceived

that many of the Reformers entertained a bitter dislike of learning, and they were afraid of being brought

under bigoted caprice. The Protestant party, having thus established its existence by dissent and separation,

must, in its turn, submit to the operation of the same principles. A decomposition into many subordinate sects

was inevitable. And these, now that they had no longer any thing to fear from their great Italian adversary,

commenced partisan warfares on each other. As, in different countries, first one and then another sect rose to

power, it stained itself with cruelties perpetrated upon its competitors. The mortal retaliations that had

ensued, when, in the chances of the times, the oppressed got the better of their oppressors, convinced the

contending sectarians that they must concede to their competitors what they claimed for themselves; and thus,

from their broils and their crimes, the great principle of toleration extricated itself. But toleration is only an

intermediate stage; and, as the intellectual decomposition of Protestantism keeps going on, that transitional

condition will lead to a higher and nobler state the hope of philosophy in all past ages of the worlda

social state in which there shall be unfettered freedom for thought. Toleration, except when extorted by fear,

can only come from those who are capable of entertaining and respecting other opinions than their own. It

can therefore only come from philosophy. History teaches us only too plainly that fanaticism is stimulated by

TOLERATION. The avowed object of the Reformation was, to remove from Christianity the pagan ideas and

pagan rites engrafted upon it by Constantine and his successors, in their attempt to reconcile the Roman

Empire to it. The Protestants designed to bring it back to its primitive purity; and hence, while restoring the

ancient doctrines, they cast out of it all such practices as the adoration of the Virgin Mary and the invocation

of saints. The Virgin Mary, we are assured by the Evangelists, had accepted the duties of married life, and

borne to her husband several children. In the prevailing idolatry, she had ceased to be regarded as the

DA VINCI. The science of the Arabians followed the invading track of their literature, which had come into

Christendom by two routesthe south of France, and Sicily. Favored by the exile of the popes to Avignon,

and by the Great Schism, it made good its foothold in Upper Italy. The Aristotelian or Inductive philosophy,

clad in the Saracenic costume that Averroes had given it, made many secret and not a few open friends. It

found many minds eager to receive and able to appreciate it. Among these were Leonardo da Vinci, who

proclaimed the fundamental principle that experiment and observation are the only reliable foundations of

reasoning in science, that experiment is the only trustworthy interpreter of Nature, and is essential to the

ascertainment of laws. He showed that the action of two perpendicular forces upon a point is the same as that

denoted by the diagonal of a rectangle, of which they represent the sides. From this the passage to the

proposition of oblique forces was very easy. This proposition was rediscovered by Stevinus, a century later,

and applied by him to the explanation of the mechanical powers. Da Vinci gave a clear exposition of the

theory of forces applied obliquely on a lever, discovered the laws of friction subsequently demonstrated by

Amontons, and understood the principle of virtual velocities. He treated of the conditions of descent of bodies

along inclined planes and circular arcs, invented the cameraobscura, discussed correctly several

physiological problems, and foreshadowed some of the great conclusions of modern geology, such as the

nature of fossil remains, and the elevation of continents. He explained the earthlight reflected by the moon.

With surprising versatility of genius he excelled as a sculptor, architect, engineer; was thoroughly versed in

the astronomy, anatomy, and chemistry of his times. In painting, he was the rival of Michel Angelo; in a

competition between them, he was considered to have established his superiority. His "Last Supper," on the

wall of the refectory of the Dominican convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, is well known, from the numerous

ITALIAN SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. Once firmly established in the north of Italy, Science soon extended

her sway over the entire peninsula. The increasing number of her devotees is indicated by the rise and rapid

multiplication of learned societies. These were reproductions of the Moorish ones that had formerly existed in

Granada and Cordova. As if to mark by a monument the track through which civilizing influences had come,

the Academy of Toulouse, founded in 1345, has survived to our own times. It represented, however, the gay

literature of the south of France, and was known under the fanciful title of "the Academy of Floral Games."

The first society for the promotion of physical science, the Academia Secretorum Naturae, was founded at

Naples, by Baptista Porta. It was, as Tiraboschi relates, dissolved by the ecclesiastical authorities. The

Lyncean was founded by Prince Frederic Cesi at Rome; its device plainly indicated its intention: a lynx, with

its eyes turned upward toward heaven, tearing a tripleheaded Cerberus with its claws. The Accademia del

Cimento, established at Florence, 1657, held its meetings in the ducal palace. It lasted ten years, and was then

suppressed at the instance of the papal government; as an equivalent, the brother of the grandduke was made

a cardinal. It numbered many great men, such as Torricelli and Castelli, among its members. The condition of

admission into it was an abjuration of all faith, and a resolution to inquire into the truth. These societies

extricated the cultivators of science from the isolation in which they had hitherto lived, and, by promoting

Returning now from this digression, this historical sketch of the circumstances under which science was

introduced into Europe, I pass to the consideration of its manner of action and its results.

INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE. The influence of science on modern civilization has been

twofold: 1. Intellectual; 2. Economical. Under these titles we may conveniently consider it.

Intellectually it overthrew the authority of tradition. It refused to accept, unless accompanied by proof, the

dicta of any master, no matter how eminent or honored his name. The conditions of admission into the Italian

Accademia del Cimento, and the motto adopted by the Royal Society of London, illustrate the position it took

It rejected the supernatural and miraculous as evidence in physical discussions. It abandoned signproof such

as the Jews in old days required, and denied that a demonstration can be given through an illustration of

something else, thus casting aside the logic that had been in vogue for many centuries.

In physical inquiries, its mode of procedure was, to test the value of any proposed hypothesis, by executing

computations in any special case on the basis or principle of that hypothesis, and then, by performing an

experiment or making an observation, to ascertain whether the result of these agreed with the result of the

THEORIES OF GRAVITATION AND PHLOGISTON. Newton, suspecting that the influence of the earth's

attraction, gravity, may extend as far as the moon, and be the force that causes her to revolve in her orbit

round the earth, calculated that, by her motion in her orbit, she was deflected from the tangent thirteen feet

every minute; but, by ascertaining the space through which bodies would fall in one minute at the earth's

surface, and supposing it to be diminished in the ratio of the inverse square, it appeared that the attraction at

the moon's orbit would draw a body through more than fifteen feet. He, therefore, for the time, considered his

hypothesis as unsustained. But it so happened that Picard shortly afterward executed more correctly a new

measurement of a degree; this changed the estimated magnitude of the earth, and the distance of the moon,

which was measured in earthsemidiameters. Newton now renewed his computation, and, as I have related

on a previous page, as it drew to a close, foreseeing that a coincidence was about to be established, was so

much agitated that he was obliged to ask a friend to complete it. The hypothesis was sustained.

A second instance will sufficiently illustrate the method under consideration. It is presented by the chemical

theory of phlogiston. Stahl, the author of this theory, asserted that there is a principle of inflammability, to

which he gave the name phlogiston, having the quality of uniting with substances. Thus, when what we now

term a metallic oxide was united to it, a metal was produced; and, if the phlogiston were withdrawn, the metal

passed back into its earthy or oxidized state. On this principle, then, the metals were compound bodies, earths

SCIENCE AND ECCLESIASTICISM. But during the eighteenth century the balance was introduced as an

instrument of chemical research. Now, if the phlogistic hypothesis be true, it would follow that a metal

should be the heavier, its oxide the lighter body, for the former contains somethingphlogistonthat has

been added to the latter. But, on weighing a portion of any metal, and also the oxide producible from it, the

latter proves to be the heavier, and here the phlogistic hypothesis fails. Still further, on continuing the

investigation, it may be shown that the oxide or calx, as it used to be called, has become heavier by

To Lavoisier is usually attributed this test experiment; but the fact that the weight of a metal increases by

calcination was established by earlier European experimenters, and, indeed, was well known to the Arabian

chemists. Lavoisier, however, was the first to recognize its great importance. In his hands it produced a

The abandonment of the phlogistic theory is an illustration of the readiness with which scientific hypotheses

are surrendered, when found to be wanting in accordance with facts. Authority and tradition pass for nothing.

Every thing is settled by an appeal to Nature. It is assumed that the answers she gives to a practical

Comparing now the philosophical principles on which science was proceeding, with the principles on which

ecclesiasticism rested, we see that, while the former repudiated tradition, to the latter it was the main support

while the former insisted on the agreement of calculation and observation, or the correspondence of reasoning

and fact, the latter leaned upon mysteries; while the former summarily rejected its own theories, if it saw that

they could not be coordinated with Nature, the latter found merit in a faith that blindly accepted the

inexplicable, a satisfied contemplation of "things above reason." The alienation between the two continually

increased. On one side there was a sentiment of disdain, on the other a sentiment of hatred. Impartial

witnesses on all hands perceived that science was rapidly undermining ecclesiasticism.

MATHEMATICS. Mathematics had thus become the great instrument of scientific research, it had become

the instrument of scientific reasoning. In one respect it may be said that it reduced the operations of the mind

to a mechanical process, for its symbols often saved the labor of thinking. The habit of mental exactness it

encouraged extended to other branches of thought, and produced an intellectual revolution. No longer was it

possible to be satisfied with miracleproof, or the logic that had been relied upon throughout the middle ages.

Not only did it thus influence the manner of thinking, it also changed the direction of thought. Of this we may

be satisfied by comparing the subjects considered in the transactions of the various learned societies with the

But the use of mathematics was not limited to the verification of theories; as above indicated, it also

furnished a means of predicting what had hitherto been unobserved. In this it offered a counterpart to the

prophecies of ecclesiasticism. The discovery of Neptune is an instance of the kind furnished by astronomy,

But, while this great instrument led to such a wonderful development in natural science, it was itself

The germ of algebra may be discerned in the works of Diophantus of Alexandria, who is supposed to have

lived in the second century of our era. In that Egyptian school Euclid had formerly collected the great truths

of geometry, and arranged them in logical sequence. Archimedes, in Syracuse, had attempted the solution of

the higher problems by the method of exhaustions. Such was the tendency of things that, had the patronage of

To the Arabians we owe our knowledge of the rudiments of algebra; we owe to them the very name under

which this branch of mathematics passes. They had carefully added, to the remains of the Alexandrian

School, improvements obtained in India, and had communicated to the subject a certain consistency and

form. The knowledge of algebra, as they possessed it, was first brought into Italy about the beginning of the

thirteenth century. It attracted so little attention, that nearly three hundred years elapsed before any European

work on the subject appeared. In 1496 Paccioli published his book entitled "Arte Maggiore," or "Alghebra."

In 1501, Cardan, of Milan, gave a method for the solution of cubic equations; other improvements were

contributed by Scipio Ferreo, 1508, by Tartalea, by Vieta. The Germans now took up the subject. At this time

The publication of the Geometry of Descartes, which contains the application of algebra to the definition and

investigation of curve lines (1637), constitutes an epoch in the history of the mathematical sciences. Two

years previously, Cavalieri's work on Indivisibles had appeared. This method was improved by Torricelli and

others. The way was now open, for the development of the Infinitesimal Calculus, the method of Fluxions of

Newton, and the Differential and Integral Calculus of Leibnitz. Though in his possession many years

previously, Newton published nothing on Fluxions until 1704; the imperfect notation he employed retarded

very much the application of his method. Meantime, on the Continent, very largely through the brilliant

solutions of some of the higher problems, accomplished by the Bernouillis, the Calculus of Leibnitz was

universally accepted, and improved by many mathematicians. An extraordinary development of the science

now took place, and continued throughout the century. To the Binomial theorem, previously discovered by

Newton, Taylor now added, in his "Method of Increments," the celebrated theorem that bears his name. This

was in 1715. The Calculus of Partial Differences was introduced by Euler in 1734. It was extended by

D'Alembert, and was followed by that of Variations, by Euler and Lagrange, and by the method of Derivative

But it was not only in Italy, in Germany, in England, in France, that this great movement in mathematics was

witnessed; Scotland had added a new gem to the intellectual diadem with which her brow is encircled, by the

grand invention of Logarithms, by Napier of Merchiston. It is impossible to give any adequate conception of

the scientific importance of this incomparable invention. The modern physicist and astronomer will most

cordially agree with Briggs, the Professor of Mathematics in Gresham College, in his exclamation: "I never

saw a book that pleased me better, and that made I me more wonder!" Not without reason did the immortal

Kepler regard Napier "to be the greatest man of his age, in the department to which he had applied his

abilities." Napier died in 1617. It is no exaggeration to say that this invention, by shortening the labors,

But here I must check myself. I must remember that my present purpose is not to give the history of

mathematics, but to consider what science has done for the advancement of human civilization. And now, at

once, recurs the question, How is it that the Church produced no geometer in her autocratic reign of twelve

With respect to pure mathematics this remark may be made: Its cultivation does not demand appliances that

are beyond the reach of most individuals. Astronomy must have its observatory, chemistry its laboratory; but

mathematics asks only personal disposition and a few books. No great expenditures are called for, nor the

services of assistants. One would think that nothing could be more congenial, nothing more delightful, even

Shall we answer with Eusebius, "It is through contempt of such useless labor that we think so little of these

matters; we turn our souls to the exercise of better things?" Better things! What can be better than absolute

truth? Are mysteries, miracles, lying impostures, better? It was these that stood in the way!

The ecclesiastical authorities had recognized, from the outset of this scientific invasion, that the principles it

was disseminating were absolutely irreconcilable with the current theology. Directly and indirectly, they

struggled against it. So great was their detestation of experimental science, that they thought they had gained

a great advantage when the Accademia del Cimento was suppressed. Nor was the sentiment restricted to

Catholicism. When the Royal Society of London was founded, theological odium was directed against it with

so much rancor that, doubtless, it would have been extinguished, had not King Charles II. given it his open

and avowed support. It was accused of an intention of "destroying the established religion, of injuring the

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. We have only to turn over the pages of its Transactions to discern

how much this society has done for the progress of humanity. It was incorporated in 1662, and has interested

itself in all the great scientific movements and discoveries that have since been made. It published Newton's

"Principia;" it promoted Halley's voyage, the first scientific expedition undertaken by any government; it

made experiments on the transfusion of blood, and accepted Harvey's discovery of the circulation. The

encouragement it gave to inoculation led Queen Caroline to beg six condemned criminals for experiment, and

then to submit her own children to that operation. Through its encouragement Bradley accomplished his great

discovery, the aberration of the fixed stars, and that of the nutation of the earth's axis; to these two

discoveries, Delambre says, we owe the exactness of modern astronomy. It promoted the improvement of the

thermometer, the measure of temperature, and in Harrison's watch, the chronometer, the measure of time.

Through it the Gregorian Calendar was introduced into England, in 1752, against a violent religious

opposition. Some of its Fellows were pursued through the streets by an ignorant and infuriated mob, who

believed it had robbed them of eleven days of their lives; it was found necessary to conceal the name of

Father Walmesley, a learned Jesuit, who had taken deep interest in the matter; and, Bradley happening to die

during the commotion, it was declared that he had suffered a judgment from Heaven for his crime!

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. If I were to attempt to do justice to the merits of this great society, I

should have to devote many pages, to such subjects as the achromatic telescope of Dollond; the dividing

engine of Ramsden, which first gave precision to astronomical observations, the measurement of a degree on

the earth's surface by Mason and Dixon; the expeditions of Cook in connection with the transit of Venus; his

circumnavigation of the earth; his proof that scurvy, the curse of long seavoyages, may be avoided by the

use of vegetable substances; the polar expeditions; the determination of the density of the earth by

Maskelyne's experiments at Scheliallion, and by those of Cavendish; the discovery of the planet Uranus by

Herschel; the composition of water by Cavendish and Watt; the determination of the difference of longitude

between London and Paris; the invention of the voltaic pile; the surveys of the heavens by the Herschels; the

development of the principle of interference by Young, and his establishment of the undulatory theory of

light; the ventilation of jails and other buildings; the introduction of gas for city illumination; the

ascertainment of the length of the secondspendulum; the measurement of the variations of gravity in

different latitudes; the operations to ascertain the curvature of the earth; the polar expedition of Ross; the

invention of the safetylamp by Davy, and his decomposition of the alkalies and earths; the electromagnetic

discoveries of Oersted and Faraday; the calculating engines of Babbage; the measures taken at the instance

of Humboldt for the establishment of many magnetic observatories; the verification of contemporaneous

magnetic disturbances over the earth's surface. But it is impossible, in the limited space at my disposal, to

give even so little as a catalogue of its Transactions. Its spirit was identical with that which animated the

Accademia del Cimento, and its motto accordingly was "Nullius in Verba." It proscribed superstition, and

INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE. Not for a moment must it be supposed that in these great attempts, these great

Successes, the Royal Society stood alone. In all the capitals of Europe there were Academies, Institutes, or

Societies, equal in distinction, and equally successful in promoting human knowledge and modern

The scientific study of Nature tends not only to correct and ennoble the intellectual conceptions of man; it

serves also to ameliorate his physical condition. It perpetually suggests to him the inquiry, how he may make,

The investigation of principles is quickly followed by practical inventions. This, indeed, is the characteristic

In former ages wars were made for the procuring of slaves. A conqueror transported entire populations, and

extorted from them forced labor, for it was only by human labor that human labor could be relieved. But

when it was discovered that physical agents and mechanical combinations could be employed to

incomparably greater advantage, public policy underwent a change; when it was recognized that the

application of a new principle, or the invention of a new machine, was better than the acquisition of an

additional slave, peace became preferable to war. And not only so, but nations possessing great slave or serf

populations, as was the care in America and Russia, found that considerations of humanity were supported by

SCIENTIFIC INVENTIONS. Thus we live in a period of which a characteristic is the supplanting of human

and animal labor by machines. Its mechanical inventions have wrought a social revolution. We appeal to the

natural, not to the supernatural, for the accomplishment of our ends. It is with the "modern civilization" thus

arising that Catholicism refuses to be reconciled. The papacy loudly proclaims its inflexible repudiation of

this state of affairs, and insists on a restoration of the medieval condition of things.

That a piece of amber, when rubbed, will attract and then repel light bodies, was a fact known six hundred

years before Christ. It remained an isolated, uncultivated fact, a mere trifle, until sixteen hundred years after

Christ. Then dealt with by the scientific methods of mathematical discussion and experiment, and practical

application made of the result, it has permitted men to communicate instantaneously with each other across

continents and under oceans. It has centralized the world. By enabling the sovereign authority to transmit its

mandates without regard to distance or to time, it has revolutionized statesmanship and condensed political

In the Museum of Alexandria there was a machine invented by Hero, the mathematician, a little more than

one hundred years before Christ. It revolved by the agency of steam, and was of the form that we should now

call a reactionengine. This, the germ of one of the most important inventions ever made, was remembered as

Chance had nothing to do with the invention of the modern steamengine. It was the product of meditation

and experiment. Ia the middle of the seventeenth century several mechanical engineers attempted to utilize

the properties of steam; their labors were brought to perfection by Watt in the middle of the eighteenth.

The steamengine quickly became the drudge of civilization. It performed the work of many millions of men.

It gave, to those who would have been condemned to a life of brutal toil, the opportunity of better pursuits.

Its earliest application was in such operations as pumping, wherein mere force is required. Soon, however, it

vindicated its delicacy of touch in the industrial arts of spinning and weaving. It created vast manufacturing

establishments, and supplied clothing for the world. It changed the industry of nations.

In its application, first to the navigation of rivers, and then to the navigation of the ocean, it more than

quadrupled the speed that had heretofore been attained. Instead of forty days being requisite for the passage,

the Atlantic might now be crossed in eight. But, in land transportation, its power was most strikingly

displayed. The admirable invention of the locomotive enabled men to travel farther in less than an hour than

The locomotive has not only enlarged the field of human activity, but, by diminishing space, it has increased

the capabilities of human life. In the swift transportation of manufactured goods and agricultural products, it

The perfection of ocean steamnavigation was greatly promoted by the invention of the chronometer, which

rendered it possible to find with accuracy the place of a ship at sea. The great drawback on the advancement

of science in the Alexandrian School was the want of an instrument for the measurement of time, and one for

the measurement of temperaturethe chronometer and the thermometer; indeed, the invention of the latter is

essential to that of the former. Clepsydras, or waterclocks, had been tried, but they were deficient in

accuracy. Of one of them, ornamented with the signs of the zodiac, and destroyed by certain primitive

Christians, St. Polycarp significantly remarked, "In all these monstrous demons is seen an art hostile to God."

Not until about 1680 did the chronometer begin to approach accuracy. Hooke, the contemporary of Newton,

gave it the balancewheel, with the spiral spring, and various escapements in succession were devised, such

as the anchor, the deadbeat, the duplex, the remontoir. Provisions for the variation of temperature were

introduced. It was brought to perfection eventually by Harrison and Arnold, in their hands becoming an

accurate measure of the flight of time. To the invention of the chronometer must be added that of the

reflecting sextant by Godfrey. This permitted astronomical observations to be made, notwithstanding the

Improvements in ocean navigation are exercising a powerful influence on the distribution of mankind. They

DOMESTIC IMPROVEMENT. But not alone have these great discoveries and inventions, the offspring of

scientific investigation, changed the lot of the human race; very many minor ones, perhaps individually

insignificant, have in their aggregate accomplished surprising effects. The commencing cultivation of science

in the fourteenth century gave a wonderful stimulus to inventive talent, directed mainly to useful practical

results; and this, subsequently, was greatly encouraged by the system of patents, which secure to the

originator a reasonable portion of the benefits of his skill. It is sufficient to refer in the most cursory manner

to a few of these improvements; we appreciate at once how much they have done. The introduction of the

sawmill gave wooden floors to houses, banishing those of gypsum, tile, or stone; improvements cheapening

the manufacture of glass gave windows, making possible the warming of apartments. However, it was not

until the sixteenth century that glazing could be well done. The cutting of glass by the diamond was then

introduced. The addition of chimneys purified the atmosphere of dwellings, smoky and sooty as the huts of

savages; it gave that indescribable blessing of northern homesa cheerful fireside. Hitherto a hole in the

roof for the escape of the smoke, a pit in the midst of the floor to contain the fuel, and to be covered with a lid

when the curfewbell sounded or night came, such had been the cheerless and inadequate means of warming.

MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. Though not without a bitter resistance on the part of the clergy, men

began to think that pestilences are not punishments inflicted by God on society for its religious shortcomings,

but the physical consequences of filth and wretchedness; that the proper mode of avoiding them is not by

praying to the saints, but by insuring personal and municipal cleanliness. In the twelfth century it was found

necessary to pave the streets of Paris, the stench in them was so dreadful At once dysenteries and spotted

fever diminished; a sanitary condition approaching that of the Moorish cities of Spain, which had been paved

for centuries, was attained. In that now beautiful metropolis it was forbidden to keep swine, an ordinance

resented by the monks of the abbey of St. Anthony, who demanded that the pigs of that saint should go where

they chose; the government was obliged to compromise the matter by requiring that bells should be fastened

to the animals' necks. King Philip, the son of Louis the Fat, had been killed by his horse stumbling over a

sow. Prohibitions were published against throwing slops out of the windows. In 1870 an eyewitness, the

author of this book, at the close of the pontifical rule in Rome, found that, in walking the orduredefiled

streets of that city, it was more necessary to inspect the earth than to contemplate the heavens, in order to

preserve personal purity. Until the beginning of the seventeenth century, the streets of Berlin were never

swept. There was a law that every countryman, who came to market with a cart, should carry back a load of

Paving was followed by attempts, often of an imperfect kind, at the construction of drains and sewers. It had

become obvious to all reflecting men that these were necessary to the preservation of health, not only in

towns, but in isolated houses. Then followed the lighting of the public thoroughfares. At first houses facing

the streets were compelled to have candles or lamps in their windows; next the system that had been followed

with so much advantage in Cordova and Granadaof having public lampswas tried, but this was not

brought to perfection until the present century, when lighting by gas was invented. Contemporaneously with

By the sixteenth century, mechanical inventions and manufacturing improvements were exercising a

conspicuous influence on domestic and social life. There were lookingglasses and clocks on the walls,

mantels over the fireplaces. Though in many districts the kitchenfire was still supplied with turf, the use of

coal began to prevail. The table in the diningroom offered new delicacies; commerce was bringing to it

foreign products; the coarse drinks of the North were supplanted by the delicate wines of the South.

Icehouses were constructed. The bolting of flour, introduced at the windmills, had given whiter and finer

bread. By degrees things that had been rarities became commonIndiancorn, the potato, the turkey, and,

conspicuous in the long list, tobacco. Forks, an Italian invention, displaced the filthy use of the fingers. It

may be said that the diet of civilized men now underwent a radical change. Tea came from China, coffee

from Arabia, the use of sugar from India, and these to no insignificant degree supplanted fermented liquors.

Carpets replaced on the floors the layer of straw; in the chambers there appeared better beds, in the wardrobes

cleaner and more frequentlychanged clothing. In many towns the aqueduct was substituted for the public

fountain and the streetpump. Ceilings which in the old days would have been dingy with soot and dirt, were

now decorated with ornamental frescoes. Baths were more commonly resorted to; there was less need to use

perfumery for the concealment of personal odors. An increasing taste for the innocent pleasures of

horticulture was manifested, by the introduction of many foreign flowers in the gardensthe tuberose, the

auricula, the crown imperial, the Persian lily, the ranunculus, and African marigolds. In the streets there

Among the dull rustics mechanical improvements forced their way, and gradually attained, in the implements

for ploughing, sowing, mowing, reaping, thrashing, the perfection of our own times.

MERCANTILE INVENTIONS. It began to be recognized, in spite of the preaching of the mendicant orders,

that poverty is the source of crime, the obstruction to knowledge; that the pursuit of riches by commerce is far

better than the acquisition of power by war. For, though it may be true, as Montesquieu says, that, while

commerce unites nations, it antagonizes individuals, and makes a traffic of morality, it alone can give unity to

MEDICAL IMPROVEMENTS. Though, instead of a few pages, it would require volumes to record

adequately the ameliorations that took place in domestic and social life after science began to exert its

beneficent influences, and inventive talent came to the aid of industry, there are some things which cannot be

passed in silence. From the port of Barcelona the Spanish khalifs had carried on an enormous commerce, and

they with their coadjutorsJewish merchants had adopted or originated many commercial inventions,

which, with matters of pure science, they had transmitted to the trading communities of Europe. The art of

bookkeeping by double entry was thus brought into Upper Italy. The different kinds of insurance were

adopted, though strenuously resisted by the clergy. They opposed fire and marine insurance, on the ground

that it is a tempting of Providence. Life insurance was regarded as an act of interference with the

consequences of God's will. Houses for lending money on interest and on pledges, that is, banking and

pawnbroking establishments, were bitterly denounced, and especially was indignation excited against the

taking of high rates of interest, which was stigmatized as usurya feeling existing in some backward

communities up to the present day. Bills of exchange in the present form and terms were adopted, the office

of the public notary established, and protests for dishonored obligations resorted to. Indeed, it may be said,

with but little exaggeration, that the commercial machinery now used was thus introduced. I have already

remarked that, in consequence of the discovery of America, the front of Europe had been changed. Many rich

Italian merchants and many enterprising Jews, had settled in Holland England, France, and brought into those

countries various mercantile devices. The Jews, who cared nothing about papal maledictions, were enriched

by the pontifical action in relation to the lending of money at high interest; but Pius II., perceiving the

mistake that had been made, withdrew his opposition. Pawnbroking establishments were finally authorized

by Leo X., who threatened excommunication of those who wrote against them. In their turn the Protestants

now exhibited a dislike against establishments thus authorized by Rome. As the theological dogma, that the

plague, like the earthquake, is an unavoidable visitation from God for the sins of men, began to be doubted,

attempts were made to resist its progress by the establishment of quarantines. When the Mohammedan

discovery of inoculation was brought from Constantinople in 1721, by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, it was

so strenuously resisted by the clergy, that nothing short of its adoption by the royal family of England

brought it into use. A similar resistance was exhibited when Jenner introduced his great improvement,

vaccination; yet a century ago it was the exception to see a face unpitted by smallpox now it is the

exception to see one so disfigured. In like manner, when the great American discovery of anaesthetics was

applied in obstetrical cases, it was discouraged, not so much for physiological reasons, as under the pretense

that it was an impious attempt to escape from the curse denounced against all women in Genesis iii. 16.

MAGIC AND MIRACLES. Inventive ingenuity did not restrict itself to the production of useful

contrivances, it added amusing ones. Soon after the introduction of science into Italy, the houses of the

virtuosi began to abound in all kinds of curious mechanical surprises, and, as they were termed, magical

effects. In the latter the invention of the magiclantern greatly assisted. Not without reason did the

ecclesiastics detest experimental philosophy, for a result of no little importance ensuedthe juggler became

a successful rival to the miracleworker. The pious frauds enacted in the churches lost their wonder when

brought into competition with the tricks of the conjurer in the marketplace: he breathed flame, walked on

burning coals, held redhot iron in his teeth, drew basketfuls of eggs out of his mouth, worked miracles by

marionettes. Yet the old idea of the supernatural was with difficulty destroyed. A horse, whose master had

taught him many tricks, was tried at Lisbon in 1601, found guilty of being, possessed by the devil, and was

DISCOVERIES IN ASTRONOMY AND CHEMISTRY. Once fairly introduced, discovery and invention

have unceasingly advanced at an accelerated pace. Each continually reacted on the other, continually they

sapped supernaturalism. De Dominis commenced, and Newton completed, the explanation of the rainbow;

they showed that it was not the weapon of warfare of God, but the accident of rays of light in drops of water.

De Dominis was decoyed to Rome through the promise of an archbishopric, and the hope of a cardinal's hat.

He was lodged in a fine residence, but carefully watched. Accused of having suggested a concord between

Rome and England, he was imprisoned in the castle of St Angelo, and there died. He was brought in his

coffin before an ecclesiastical tribunal, adjudged guilty of heresy, and his body, with a heap of heretical

books, was cast into the flames. Franklin, by demonstrating the identity of lightning and electricity, deprived

Jupiter of his thunderbolt. The marvels of superstition were displaced by the wonders of truth. The two

telescopes, the reflector and the achromatic, inventions of the last century, permitted man to penetrate into the

infinite grandeurs of the universe, to recognize, as far as such a thing is possible, its illimitable spaces, its

measureless times; and a little later the achromatic microscope placed before his eyes the world of the

infinitely small. The airballoon carried him above the clouds, the diving bell to the bottom of the sea. The

thermometer gave him true measures of the variations of heat; the barometer, of the pressure of the air. The

introduction of the balance imparted exactness to chemistry, it proved the indestructibility of matter. The

discovery of oxygen, hydrogen, and many other gases, the isolation of aluminum, calcium, and other metals,

showed that earth and air and water are not elements. With an enterprise that can never be too much

commended, advantage was taken of the transits of Venus, and, by sending expeditions to different regions,

the distance of the earth from the sun was determined. The step that European intellect had made between

1456 and 1759 was illustrated by Halley's comet. When it appeared in the former year, it was considered as

the harbinger of the vengeance of God, the dispenser of the most dreadful of his retributions, war, pestilence,

famine. By order of the pope, all the churchbells in Europe were rung to scare it away, the faithful were

commanded to add each day another prayer; and, as their prayers had often in so marked a manner been

answered in eclipses and droughts and rains, so on this occasion it was declared that a victory over the comet

had been vouchsafed to the pope. But, in the mean time, Halley, guided by the revelations of Kepler and

Newton, had discovered that its motions, so far from being controlled by the supplications of Christendom,

were guided in an elliptic orbit by destiny. Knowing that Nature bad denied to him an opportunity of

witnessing the fulfillment of his daring prophecy, he besought the astronomers of the succeeding generation

INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. Whoever will in a spirit of impartiality examine what had been done

by Catholicism for the intellectual and material advancement of Europe, during her long reign, and what has

been done by science in its brief period of action, can, I am persuaded, come to no other conclusion than this,

that, in instituting a comparison, he has established a contrast. And yet, how imperfect, how inadequate is the

catalogue of facts I have furnished in the foregoing pages! I have said nothing of the spread of instruction by

the diffusion of the arts of reading and writing, through public schools, and the consequent creation of a

reading community; the modes of manufacturing public opinion by newspapers and reviews, the power of

journalism, the diffusion of information public and private by the postoffice and cheap mails, the individual

and social advantages of newspaper advertisements. I have said nothing of the establishment of hospitals, the

first exemplar of which was the Invalides of Paris; nothing of the improved prisons, reformatories,

penitentiaries, asylums, the treatment of lunatics, paupers, criminals; nothing of the construction of canals, of

sanitary engineering, or of census reports; nothing of the invention of stereotyping, bleaching by chlorine, the

cottongin, or of the marvelous contrivances with which cottonmills are filledcontrivances which have

given us cheap clothing, and therefore added to cleanliness, comfort, health; nothing of the grand

advancement of medicine and surgery, or of the discoveries in physiology, the cultivation of the fine arts, the

improvement of agriculture and rural economy, the introduction of chemical manures and farmmachinery. I

have not referred to the manufacture of iron and its vast affiliated industries; to those of textile fabrics; to the

collection of museums of natural history, antiquities, curiosities. I have passed unnoticed the great subject of

the manufacture of machinery by itselfthe invention of the sliderest, the planingmachine, and many

other contrivances by which engines can be constructed with almost mathematical correctness. I have said

nothing adequate about the railway system, or the electric telegraph, nor about the calculus, or lithography,

the airpump, or the voltaic battery; the discovery of Uranus or Neptune, and more than a hundred asteroids;

the relation of meteoric streams to comets; nothing of the expeditions by land and sea that have been sent

forth by various governments for the determination of important astronomical or geographical questions;

nothing of the costly and accurate experiments they have caused to be made for the ascertainment of

fundamental physical data. I have been so unjust to our own century that I have made no allusion to some of

its greatest scientific triumphs: its grand conceptions in natural history; its discoveries in magnetism and

electricity; its invention of the beautiful art of photography; its applications of spectrum analysis; its attempts

to bring chemistry under the three laws of Avogadro, of Boyle and Mariotte, and of Charles; its artificial

production of organic substances from inorganic material, of which the philosophical consequences are of the

utmost importance; its reconstruction of physiology by laying the foundation of that science on chemistry; its

improvements and advances in topographical surveying and in the correct representation of the surface of the

globe. I have said nothing about rifledguns and armored ships, nor of the revolution that has been made in

the art of war; nothing of that gift to women, the sewingmachine; nothing of the noble contentions and

What a catalogue have we here, and yet how imperfect! It gives merely a random glimpse at an

everincreasing intellectual commotiona mention of things as they casually present themselves to view.

How striking the contrast between this literary, this scientific activity, and the stagnation of the middle ages!

The intellectual enlightenment that surrounds this activity has imparted unnumbered blessings to the human

race. In Russia it has emancipated a vast serf population; in America it has given freedom to four million

negro slaves. In place of the sparse dole of the monasterygate, it has organized charity and directed

legislation to the poor. It has shown medicine its true function, to prevent rather than to cure disease. In

statesmanship it has introduced scientific methods, displacing random and empirical legislation by a

laborious ascertainment of social facts previous to the application of legal remedies. So conspicuous, so

impressive is the manner in which it is elevating men, that the hoary nations of Asia seek to participate in the

boon. Let us not forget that our action on them must be attended by their reaction on us. If the destruction of

paganism was completed when all the gods were brought to Rome and confronted there, now, when by our

wonderful facilities of locomotion strange nations and conflicting religions are brought into common

presencethe Mohammedan, the Buddhist, the Brahmanmodifications of them all must ensue. In that

conflict science alone will stand secure; for it has given us grander views of the universe, more awful views

AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS. The spirit that has imparted life to this movement, that has

animated these discoveries and inventions, is Individualism; in some minds the hope of gain, in other and

nobler ones the expectation of honor. It is, then, not to be wondered at that this principle found a political

embodiment, and that, during the last century, on two occasions, it gave rise to social convulsionsthe

American and the French Revolutions. The former has ended in the dedication of a continent to

Individualismthere, under republican forms, before the close of the present century, one hundred million

people, with no more restraint than their common security requires, will be pursuing an unfettered career. The

latter, though it has modified the political aspect of all Europe, and though illustrated by surprising military

successes, has, thus far, not consummated its intentions; again and again it has brought upon France fearful

disasters. Her dual form of governmenther allegiance to her two sovereigns, the political and the

spiritualhas made her at once the leader and the antagonist of modern progress. With one hand she has

enthroned Reason, with the other she has reestablished and sustained the pope. Nor will this anomaly in her

conduct cease until she bestows a true education on all her children, even on those of the humblest rustic.

SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION. The intellectual attack made on existing opinions by the French

Revolution was not of a scientific, but of a literary character; it was critical and aggressive. But Science has

never been an aggressor. She has always acted on the defensive, and left to her antagonist the making of

wanton attacks. Nevertheless, literary dissent is not of such ominous import as scientific; for literature is, in

If, now, we demand, What has science done for the promotion of modern civilization; what has it done for the

happiness, the wellbeing of society? we shall find our answer in the same manner that we reached a just

estimate of what Latin Christianity had done. The reader of the foregoing paragraphs would undoubtedly

infer that there must have been an amelioration in the lot of our race; but, when we apply the touchstone of

statistics, that inference gathers precision. Systems of philosophy and forms of religion find a measure of

their influence on humanity in censusreturns. Latin Christianity, in a thousand years, could not double the

population of Europe; it did not add perceptibly to the term of individual life. But, as Dr. Jarvis, in his report

to the Massachusetts Board of Health, has stated, at the epoch of the Reformation "the average longevity in

Geneva was 21.21 years, between 1814 and 1833 it was 40.68; as large a number of persons now live to

seventy years as lived to forty, three hundred years ago. In 1693 the British Government borrowed money by

selling annuities on lives from infancy upward, on the basis of the average longevity. The contract was

profitable. Ninetyseven years later another tontine, or scale of annuities, on the basis of the same

expectation of life as in the previous century, was issued. These latter annuitants, however, lived so much

longer than their predecessors, that it proved to be a very costly loan for the government. It was found that,

while ten thousand of each sex in the first tontine died under the age of twentyeight, only five thousand

seven hundred and seventytwo males and six thousand four hundred and sixteen females in the second

We have been comparing the spiritual with the practical, the imaginary with the real. The maxims that have

been followed in the earlier and the later period produced their inevitable result. In the former that maxim

Indications of the approach of a religious crisis.The predominating Christian Church, the Roman,

perceives this, and makes preparation for it.Pius IX convokes an Oecumenical CouncilRelations of the

different European governments to the papacy.Relations of the Church to Science, as indicated by the

Acts of the Vatican Council in relation to the infallibility of the pope, and to Science.Abstract of decisions

Controversy between the Prussian Government and the papacy.It is a contest between the State and the

Church for supremacyEffect of dual government in EuropeDeclaration by the Vatican Council of its

position as to ScienceThe dogmatic constitution of the Catholic faith.Its definitions respecting God,

Revelation, Faith, Reason.The anathemas it pronounces.Its denunciation of modern civilization.

General review of the foregoing definitions, and acts.Present condition of the controversy, and its future

PREDOMINANCE OF CATHOLICITY. No one who is acquainted with the present tone of thought in

Christendom can hide from himself the fact that an intellectual, a religious crisis is impending.

In all directions we see the lowering skies, we hear the mutterings of the coming storm. In Germany, the

national party is arraying itself against the ultramontane; in France, the men of progress are struggling against

the unprogressive, and in their contest the political supremacy of that great country is wellnigh neutralized or

lost. In Italy, Rome has passed into the hands of an excommunicated king. The sovereign pontiff, feigning

that he is a prisoner, is fulminating from the Vatican his anathemas, and, in the midst of the most convincing

proofs of his manifold errors, asserting his own infallibility. A Catholic archbishop with truth declares that

the whole civil society of Europe seems to be withdrawing itself in its public life from Christianity. In

England and America, religious persons perceive with dismay that the intellectual basis of faith has been

undermined by the spirit of the age. They prepare for the approaching disaster in the best manner they can.

The most serious trial through which society can pass is encountered in the exuviation of its religious

restraints. The history of Greece and the history of Rome exhibit to us in an impressive manner how great are

the perils. But it is not given to religions to endure forever. They necessarily undergo transformation with the

intellectual development of man. How many countries are there professing the same religion now that they

It is estimated that the entire population of Europe is about three hundred and one million. Of these, one

hundred and eightyfive million are Roman Catholics, thirtythree million are Greek Catholics. Of

Protestants there are seventyone million, separated into many sects. Of Jews, five million; of

Of the religious subdivisions of America an accurate numerical statement cannot be given. The whole of

Christian South America is Roman Catholic, the same may be said of Central America and of Mexico, as also

of the Spanish and French West India possessions. In the United States and Canada the Protestant population

predominates. To Australia the same remark applies. In India the sparse Christian population sinks into

insignificance in presence of two hundred million Mohammedans and other Oriental denominations. The

Roman Catholic Church is the most widely diffused and the most powerfully organized of all modern

societies. It is far more a political than a religious combination. Its principle is that all power is in the clergy,

and that for laymen there is only the privilege of obedience. The republican forms under which the Churches

existed in primitive Christianity have gradually merged into an absolute centralization, with a man as

viceGod at its head. This Church asserts that the divine commission under which it acts comprises civil

government; that it has a right to use the state for its own purposes, but that the state has no right to

intermeddle with it; that even in Protestant countries it is not merely a coordinate government, but the

sovereign power. It insists that the state has no rights over any thing which it declares to be in its domain, and

that Protestantism, being a mere rebellion, has no rights at all; that even in Protestant communities the

It is plain, therefore, that of professing Christians the vast majority are Catholic; and such is the authoritative

demand of the papacy for supremacy, that, in any survey of the present religious condition of Christendom,

regard must be mainly had to its acts. Its movements are guided by the highest intelligence and skill.

Catholicism obeys the orders of one man, and has therefore a unity, a compactness, a power, which Protestant

denominations do not possess. Moreover, it derives inestimable strength from the souvenirs of the great name

Unembarrassed by any hesitating sentiment, the papacy has contemplated the coming intellectual crisis. It has

pronounced its decision, and occupied what seems to it to be the most advantageous ground.

THE OECUMENICAL COUNCIL. Pius IX., by a bull dated June 29, 1868, convoked an Oecumenical

Council, to meet in Rome, on December 8, 1869. Its sessions ended in July, 1870. Among other matters

submitted to its consideration, two stand forth in conspicuous prominencethey are the assertion of the

infallibility of the Roman pontiff, and the definition of the relations of religion to science.

The views of the Oriental Churches were, for the most part, unfavorable. They affirmed that they saw a desire

in the Roman pontiff to set himself up as the head of Christianity, whereas they recognized the Lord Jesus

Christ alone as the head of the Church. They believed that the Council would only lead to new quarrels and

scandals. The sentiment of these venerable Churches is well shown by the incident that, when, in 1867, the

Nestorian Patriarch Simeon had been invited by the Chaldean Patriarch to return to Roman Catholic unity, he,

in his reply, showed that there was no prospect for harmonious action between the East and the West: "You

invite me to kiss humbly the slipper of the Bishop of Rome; but is he not, in every respect, a man like

yourselfis his dignity superior to yours? We will never permit to be introduced into our holy temples of

worship images and statues, which are nothing but abominable and impure idols. What! shall we attribute to

EXPECTATIONS OF THE PAPACY. Eventually, the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, from all regions

Rome had seen very plainly that Science was not only rapidly undermining the dogmas of the papacy, but

was gathering great political power. She recognized that all over Europe there was a fastspreading secession

She looked, therefore, with deep interest on the PrussoAustrian War, giving to Austria whatever

encouragement she could. The battle of Sadowa was a bitter disappointment to her.

With satisfaction again she looked upon the breaking out of the FrancoPrussian War, not doubting that its

issue would be favorable to France, and therefore favorable to her. Here, again, she was doomed to

Having now no further hope, for many years to come, from external war, she resolved to see what could be

done by internal insurrection, and the present movement in the German Empire is the result of her

Had Austria or had France succeeded, Protestantism would have been overthrown along with Prussia.

But, while these military movements were being carried on, a movement of a different, an intellectual kind,

was engaged in. Its principle was, to restore the wornout mediaeval doctrines and practices, carrying them

ENCYCLICAL LETTER AND SYLLABUS. Not only was it asserted that the papacy has a divine right to

participate in the government of all countries, coordinately with their temporal authorities, but that the

supremacy of Rome in this matter must be recognized; and that in any question between them the temporal

And, since the endangering of her position had been mainly brought about by the progress of science, she

presumed to define its boundaries, and prescribe limits to its authority. Still more, she undertook to denounce

These measures were contemplated soon after the return of his Holiness from Gaeta in 1848, and were

undertaken by the advice of the Jesuits, who, lingering in the hope that God would work the impossible,

supposed that the papacy, in its old age, might be reinvigorated. The organ of the Curia proclaimed the

absolute independence of the Church as regards the state; the dependence of the bishops on the pope; of the

diocesan clergy on the bishops; the obligation of the Protestants to abandon their atheism, and return to the

fold; the absolute condemnation of all kinds of toleration. In December, 1854, in an assembly of bishops, the

pope had proclaimed the dogma of the immaculate conception. Ten years subsequently he put forth the

The Encyclical Letter is dated December 8, 1864. It was drawn up by learned ecclesiastics, and subsequently

debated at the Congregation of the Holy Office, then forwarded to prelates, and finally gone over by the pope

ENCYCLICAL LETTER AND SYLLABUS. Many of the clergy objected to its condemnation of modern

civilization. Some of the cardinals were reluctant to concur in it. The Catholic press accepted it, not, however,

without misgivings and regrets. The Protestant governments put no obstacle in its way; the Catholic were

embarrassed by it. France allowed the publication only of that portion proclaiming the jubilee; Austria and

Italy permitted its introduction, but withheld their approval. The political press and legislatures of Catholic

countries gave it an unfavorable reception. Many deplored it as likely to widen the breach between the

Church and modern society. The Italian press regarded it as determining a war, without truce or armistice,

between the papacy and modern civilization. Even in Spain there were journals that regretted "the obstinacy

and blindness of the court of Rome, in branding and condemning modern civilization."

It denounces that "most pernicious and insane opinion, that liberty of conscience and of worship is the right

of every man, and that this right ought, in every wellgoverned state, to be proclaimed and asserted by law;

and that the will of the people, manifested by public opinion (as it is called), or by other means, constitutes a

supreme law, independent of all divine and human rights." It denies the right of parents to educate their

children outside the Catholic Church. It denounces "the impudence" of those who presume to subordinate the

authority of the Church and of the Apostolic See, "conferred upon it by Christ our Lord, to the judgment of

the civil authority." His Holiness commends, to the venerable brothers to whom the Encyclical is addressed,

incessant prayer, and, "in order that God may accede the more easily to our and your prayers, let us employ in

all confidence, as our mediatrix with him, the Virgin Mary, mother of God, who sits as a queen upon the right

hand of her onlybegotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in a golden vestment, clothed around with various

CONVOCATION OF THE COUNCIL. Plainly, the principle now avowed by the papacy must bring it into

collision even with governments which had heretofore maintained amicable relations with it. Great

dissatisfaction was manifested by Russia, and the incidents that ensued drew forth from his Holiness an

allocution (November, 1866) condemnatory of the course of that government. To this, Russia replied, by

Undeterred by the result of the battle of Sadowa (July, 1866), though it was plain that the political condition

of Europe was now profoundly affected, and especially the relations of the papacy, the pope delivered an

allocution (June 27, 1867), confirming the Encyclical and Syllabus. He announced his intention of convoking

Accordingly, as we have already mentioned, in the following year (June 29, 1868), a bull was issued

convoking that Council. Misunderstandings, however, had now sprung up with Austria. The Austrian

Reichsrath had adopted laws introducing equality of civil rights for all the inhabitants of the empire, and

restricting the influence of the Church. This produced on the part of the papal government an expostulation.

Acting as Russia had done, the Austrian Government found it necessary to abrogate the Concordat of 1855.

In France, as above stated, the publication of the entire Syllabus was not permitted; but Prussia, desirous of

keeping on good terms with the papacy, did not disallow it. The exacting disposition of the papacy increased.

It was openly declared that the faithful must now sacrifice to the Church, property, life, and even their

intellectual convictions. The Protestants and the Greeks were invited to tender their submission.

THE VATICAN COUNCIL. On the appointed day, the Council opened. Its objects were, to translate the

Syllabus into practice, to establish the dogma of papal infallibility, and define the relations of religion to

science. Every preparation had been made that the points determined on should be carried. The bishops were

informed that they were coming to Rome not to deliberate, but to sanction decrees previously made by an

infallible pope. No idea was entertained of any such thing as free discussion. The minutes of the meetings

were not permitted to be inspected; the prelates of the opposition were hardly allowed to speak. On January

22, 1870, a petition, requesting that the infallibility of the pope should be defined, was presented; an

opposition petition of the minority was offered. Hereupon, the deliberations of the minority were forbidden,

and their publications prohibited. And, though the Curia had provided a compact majority, it was found

expedient to issue an order that to carry any proposition it was not necessary that the vote should be near

unanimity, a simple majority sufficed. The remonstrances of the minority were altogether unheeded.

As the Council pressed forward to its object, foreign authorities became alarmed at its reckless determination.

A petition drawn up by the Archbishop of Vienna, and signed by several cardinals and archbishops, entreated

his Holiness not to submit the dogma of infallibility for consideration, "because the Church has to sustain at

present a struggle unknown in former times, against men who oppose religion itself as an institution baneful

to human nature, and that it is inopportune to impose upon Catholic nations, led into temptation by so many

machinations, more dogmas than the Council of Trent proclaimed." It added that "the definition demanded

would furnish fresh arms to the enemies of religion, to excite against the Catholic Church the resentment of

men avowedly the best." The Austrian primeminister addressed a protest to the papal government, warning

it against any steps that might lead to encroachments on the rights of Austria. The French Government also

addressed a note, suggesting that a French bishop should explain to the Council the condition and the rights

of France. To this the papal government replied that a bishop could not reconcile the double duties of an

ambassador and a Father of the Council. Hereupon, the French Government, in a very respectful note,

remarked that, to prevent ultra opinions from becoming dogmas, it reckoned on the moderation of the

bishops, and the prudence of the Holy Father; and, to defend its civil and political laws against the

encroachments of the theocracy, it had counted on public reason and the patriotism of French Catholics. In

these remonstrances the NorthGerman Confederation joined, seriously pressing them on the consideration

On April 23d, Von Arnim, the Prussian embassador, united with Daru, the French minister, in suggesting to

the Curia the inexpediency of reviving mediaeval ideas. The minority bishops, thus encouraged, demanded

now that the relations of the spiritual to the secular power should be determined before the pope's infallibility

was discussed, and that it should be settled whether Christ had conferred on St. Peter and his successors a

INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. No regard was paid to this, not even delay was consented to. The Jesuits,

who were at the bottom of the movement, carried their measures through the packed assembly with a high

hand. The Council omitted no device to screen itself from popular criticism. Its proceedings were conducted

with the utmost secrecy; all who took part in them were bound by a solemn oath to observe silence.

On July 13th, the votes were taken. Of 601 votes, 451 were affirmative. Under the majority rule, the measure

was pronounced carried, and, five days subsequently, the pope proclaimed the dogma of his infallibility. It

has often been remarked that this was the day on which the French declared war against Prussia. Eight days

afterward the French troops were withdrawn from Rome. Perhaps both the statesman and the philosopher will

admit that an infallible pope would be a great harmonizing element, if only commonsense could

Hereupon, the King of Italy addressed an autograph letter to the pope, setting forth in very respectful terms

the necessity that his troops should advance and occupy positions "indispensable to the security of his

Holiness, and the maintenance of order;" that, while satisfying the national aspirations, the chief of

Catholicity, surrounded by the devotion of the Italian populations, "might preserve on the banks of the Tiber

To this his Holiness replied in a brief and caustic letter: "I give thanks to God, who has permitted your

majesty to fill the last days of my life with bitterness. For the rest, I cannot grant certain requests, nor

conform with certain principles contained in your letter. Again, I call upon God, and into his hands commit

my cause, which is his cause. I pray God to grant your majesty many graces, to free you from dangers, and to

THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT. The Italian troops met with but little resistance. They occupied Rome on

September 20, 1870. A manifesto was issued, setting forth the details of a plebiscitum, the vote to be by

ballot, the question, "the unification of Italy." Its result showed how completely the popular mind in Italy is

emancipated from theology. In the Roman provinces the number of votes on the lists was 167,548; the

number who voted, 135,291; the number who voted for annexation, 133,681; the number who voted against

it, 1,507; votes annulled, 103. The Parliament of Italy ratified the vote of the Roman people for annexation by

a vote of 239 to 20. A royal decree now announced the annexation of the Papal States to the kingdom of Italy,

and a manifesto was issued indicating the details of the arrangement. It declared that "by these concessions

the Italian Government seeks to prove to Europe that Italy respects the sovereignty of the pope in conformity

AFFAIRS IN PRUSSIA. In the PrussoAustrian War it had been the hope of the papacy, to restore the

German Empire under Austria, and make Germany a Catholic nation. In the Franco German War the French

expected ultramontane sympathies in Germany. No means were spared to excite Catholic sentiment against

the Protestants. No vilification was spared. They were spoken of as atheists; they were declared incapable of

being honest men; their sects were pointed out as indicating that their secession was in a state of dissolution.

"The followers of Luther are the most abandoned men in all Europe." Even the pope himself, presuming that

the whole world had forgotten all history, did not hesitate to say, "Let the German people understand that no

Meantime, among the clergy of Germany a party was organized to remonstrate against, and even resist, the

papal usurpation. It protested against "a man being placed on the throne of God," against a viceGod of any

kind, nor would it yield its scientific convictions to ecclesiastical authority. Some did not hesitate to accuse

the pope himself of being a heretic. Against these insubordinates excommunications began to be fulminated,

and at length it was demanded that certain professors and teachers should be removed from their offices, and

infallibilists substituted. With this demand the Prussian Government declined to comply.

The Prussian Government had earnestly desired to remain on amicable terms with the papacy; it had no wish

to enter on a theological quarrel; but gradually the conviction was forced upon it that the question was not a

religious but a political onewhether the power of the state should be used against the state. A teacher in a

gymnasium had been excommunicated; the government, on being required to dismiss him, refused. The

Church authorities denounced this as an attack upon faith. The emperor sustained his minister. The organ of

the infallible party threatened the emperor with the opposition of all good Catholics, and told him that, in a

contention with the pope, systems of government can and must change. It was now plain to every one that the

question had become, "Who is to be master in the state, the government or the Roman Church? It is plainly

impossible for men to live under two governments, one of which declares to be wrong what the other

commands. If the government will not submit to the Roman Church, the two are enemies." A conflict was

thus forced upon Prussia by Romea conflict in which the latter, impelled by her antagonism to modern

ACTION OF THE PRUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. The government, now recognizing its antagonist, defended

itself by abolishing the Catholic department in the ministry of Public Worship. This was about midsummer,

1871. In the following November the Imperial Parliament passed a law that ecclesiastics abusing their office,

to the disturbance of the public peace, should be criminally punished. And, guided by the principle that the

future belongs to him to whom the school belongs, a movement arose for the purpose of separating the

THE CHURCH A POLITICAL POWER. The Jesuit party was extending and strengthening an organization

all over Germany, based on the principle that state legislation in ecclesiastical matters is not binding. Here

was an act of open insurrection. Could the government allow itself to be intimidated? The Bishop of

Ermeland declared that he would not obey the laws of the state if they touched the Church. The government

stopped the payment of his salary; and, perceiving that there could be no peace so long as the Jesuits were

permitted to remain in the country, their expulsion was resolved on, and carried into effect. At the close of

1872 his Holiness delivered an allocution, in which he touched on the "persecution of the Church in the

German Empire," and asserted that the Church alone has a right to fix the limits between its domain and that

of the statea dangerous and inadmissible principle, since under the term morals the Church comprises all

the relations of men to each other, and asserts that whatever does not assist her oppresses her. Hereupon, a

few days subsequently (January 9, 1873), four laws were brought forward by the government: 1. Regulating

the means by which a person might sever his connection with the Church; 2. Restricting the Church in the

exercise of ecclesiastical punishments; 3. Regulating the ecclesiastical power of discipline, forbidding bodily

chastisement, regulating fines and banishments granting the privilege of an appeal to the Royal Court of

Justice for Ecclesiastical Affairs, the decision of which is final; 4. Ordaining the preliminary education and

appointment of priests. They must have had a satisfactory education, passed a public examination conducted

by the state, and have a knowledge of philosophy, history, and German literature. Institutions refusing to be

These laws demonstrate that Germany is resolved that she will no longer be dictated to nor embarrassed by a

few Italian noble families; that she will be master of her own house. She sees in the conflict, not an affair of

religion or of conscience, but a struggle between the sovereignty of state legislation and the sovereignty of

the Church. She treats the papacy not in the aspect of a religious, but of a political power, and is resolved that

the declaration of the Prussian Constitution shall be maintained, that "the exercise of religious freedom must

DUAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE. With truth it is affirmed that the papacy is administered not

oecumenically, not as a universal Church, for all the nations, but for the benefit of some Italian families.

Look at its composition! It consists of pope, cardinal bishops, cardinal deacons, who at the present moment

are all Italians; cardinal priests, nearly all Italians; ministers and secretaries of the Sacred Congregation in

Rome, all Italians. France has not given a pope since the middle ages. It is the same with Austria, Portugal,

Spain. In spite of all attempts to change this system of exclusion, to open the dignities of the Church to all

Catholicism, no foreigner can reach the holy chair. It is recognized that the Church is a domain given by God

to the princely Italian families. Of fiftyfive members of the present College of Cardinals, forty are

The stumblingblock to the progress of Europe has been its dual system of government. So long as every

nation had two sovereigns, a temporal one at home and a spiritual one in a foreign landthere being

different temporal masters in different nations, but only one foreign master for all, the pontiff at Romehow

was it possible that history should present us with any thing more than a narrative of the strifes of these rival

powers? Whoever will reflect on this state of things will see how it is that those nations which have shaken

off the dual form of government are those which have made the greatest advance. He will discern what is the

cause of the paralysis which has befallen France. On one hand she wishes to be the leader of Europe, on the

other she clings to a dead past. For the sake of propitiating her ignorant classes, she enters upon lines of

policy which her intelligence must condemn. So evenly balanced are the two sovereignties under which she

lives, that sometimes one, sometimes the other, prevails; and not unfrequently the one uses the other as an

INTENTIONS OF THE POPE. But this dual system approaches its close. To the northern nations, less

imaginative and less superstitious, it had long ago become intolerable; they rejected it summarily at the epoch

of the Reformation, notwithstanding the protestations and pretensions of Rome, Russia, happier than the rest,

has never acknowledged the influence of any foreign spiritual power. She gloried in her attachment to the

ancient Greek rite, and saw in the papacy nothing more than a troublesome dissenter from the primitive faith.

In America the temporal and the spiritual have been absolutely divorcedthe latter is not permitted to have

any thing to do with affairs of state, though in all other respects liberty is conceded to it. The condition of the

New World also satisfies us that both forms of Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, have lost their expansive

power; neither can pass beyond its longestablished boundarylinethe Catholic republics remain Catholic,

the Protestant Protestant. And among the latter the disposition to sectarian isolation is disappearing; persons

of different denominations consort without hesitation together. They gather their current opinions from

Pius IX., in the movements we have been considering, has had two objects in view: 1. The more thorough

centralization of the papacy, with a spiritual autocrat assuming the prerogatives of God at its head; 2. Control

The logical consequence of the former of these is political intervention. He insists that in all cases the

temporal must subordinate itself to the spiritual power; all laws inconsistent with the interests of the Church

must be repealed. They are not binding on the faithful. In the preceding pages I have briefly related some of

the complications that have already occurred in the attempt to maintain this policy.

THE SYLLABUS. I now come to the consideration of the manner in which the papacy proposes to establish

its intellectual control; how it defines its relation to its antagonist, Science, and, seeking a restoration of the

The Encyclical and Syllabus present the principles which it was the object of the Vatican Council to carry

into practical effect. The Syllabus stigmatizes pantheism, naturalism, and absolute rationalism, denouncing

such opinions as that God is the world; that there is no God other than Nature; that theological matters must

be treated in the same manner as philosophical ones, that the methods and principles by which the old

scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no longer suitable to the demands of the age and the progress of

science; that every man is free to embrace and profess the religion he may believe to be true, guided by the

light of his reason; that it appertains to the civil power to define what are the rights and limits in which the

Church may exercise authority; that the Church has not the right of availing herself of force or any direct or

indirect temporal power; that the Church ought to be separated from the state and the state from the Church;

that it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion shall be held as the only religion of the state, to the

exclusion of all other modes of worship; that persons coming to reside in Catholic countries have a right to

the public exercise of their own worship; that the Roman pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and

agree with, the progress of modern civilization. The Syllabus claims the right of the Church to control public

schools, and denies the right of the state in that respect; it claims the control over marriage and divorce.

Such of these principles as the Council found expedient at present to formularize, were set forth by it in "The

Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Faith." The essential points of this constitution, more especially as

regards the relations of religion to science, we have now to examine. It will be understood that the following

does not present the entire document, but only an abstract of what appear to be its more important parts.

CONSTITUTION OF CATHOLIC FAITH. This definition opens with a severe review of the principles and

"The rejection of the divine authority of the Church to teach, and the subjection of all things belonging to

religion to the judgment of each individual, have led to the production of many sects, and, as these differed

and disputed with each other, all belief in Christ was overthrown in the minds of not a few, and the Holy

Scriptures began to be counted as myths and fables. Christianity has been rejected, and the reign of mere

Reason as they call it, or Nature, substituted; many falling into the abyss of pantheism, materialism, and

atheism, and, repudiating the reasoning nature of man, and every rule of right and wrong, they are laboring to

overthrow the very foundations of human society. As this impious heresy is spreading everywhere, not a few

Catholics have been inveigled by it. They have confounded human science and divine faith.

"But the Church, the Mother and Mistress of nations, is ever ready to strengthen the weak, to take to her

bosom those that return, and carry them on to better things. And, now the bishops of the whole world being

gathered together in this Oecumenical Council, and the Holy Ghost sitting therein, and judging with us, we

have determined to declare from this chair of St. Peter the saving doctrine of Christ, and proscribe and

"OF GOD, THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS.The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church believes that

there is one true and living God, Creator and Lord of Heaven and Earth, Almighty, Eternal, Immense,

Incomprehensible, Infinite in understanding and will, and in all perfection. He is distinct from the world. Of

his own most free counsel he made alike out of nothing two created creatures, a spiritual and a temporal,

angelic and earthly. Afterward be made the human nature, composed of both. Moreover, God by his

providence protects and governs all things, reaching from end to end mightily, and ordering all things

harmoniously. Every thing is open to his eyes, even things that come to pass by the free action of his

"OF REVELATION.The Holy Mother Church holds that God can be known with certainty by the natural

light of human reason, but that it has also pleased him to reveal himself and the eternal decrees of his will in a

supernatural way. This supernatural revelation, as declared by the Holy Council of Trent, is contained in the

books of the Old and New Testament, as enumerated in the decrees of that Council, and as are to be had in

the old Vulgate Latin edition. These are sacred because they were written under the inspiration of the Holy

Ghost. They have God for their author, and as such have been delivered to the Church.

"And, in order to restrain restless spirits, who may give erroneous explanations, it is decreedrenewing the

decision of the Council of Trentthat no one may interpret the sacred Scriptures contrary to the sense in

which they are interpreted by Holy Mother Church, to whom such interpretation belongs."

"OF FAITH.Inasmuch as man depends on God as his Lord, and created reason is wholly subject to

uncreated truth, he is bound when God makes a revelation to obey it by faith. This faith is a supernatural

virtue, and the beginning of man's salvation who believes revealed things to be true, not for their intrinsic

truth as seen by the natural light of reason, but for the authority of God in revealing them. But, nevertheless

that faith might be agreeable to reason, God willed to join miracles and prophecies, which, showing forth his

omnipotence and knowledge, are proofs suited to the understanding of all. Such we have in Moses and the

prophets, and above all in Christ. Now, all those things are to be believed which are written in the word of

God, or handed down by tradition, which the Church by her teaching has proposed for belief.

"No one can be justified without this faith, nor shall any one, unless he persevere therein to the end, attain

everlasting life. Hence God, through his onlybegotten Son, has established the Church as the guardian and

teacher of his revealed word. For only to the Catholic Church do all those signs belong which make evident

the credibility of the Christian faith. Nay, more, the very Church herself, in view of her wonderful

propagation, her eminent holiness, her exhaustless fruitfulness in all that is good, her Catholic unity, her

unshaken stability, offers a great and evident claim to belief, and an undeniable proof of her divine mission.

Thus the Church shows to her children that the faith they hold rests on a most solid foundation. Wherefore,

totally unlike is the condition of those who, by the heavenly gift of faith, have embraced the Catholic truth,

"OF FAITH AND REASON.Moreover, the Catholic Church has ever held and now holds that there exists

a twofold order of knowledge, each of which is distinct from the other, both as to its principle and its object.

As to its principle, because in the one we know by natural reason, in the other by divine faith; as to the object,

because, besides those things which our natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries

"Reason, indeed, enlightened by faith, and seeking, with diligence and godly sobriety, may, by God's gift,

come to some understanding, limited in degree, but most wholesome in its effects, of mysteries, both from

the analogy of things which are naturally known and from the connection of the mysteries themselves with

one another and with man's last end. But never can reason be rendered capable of thoroughly understanding

mysteries as it does those truths which form its proper object. For God's mysteries, in their very nature, so far

surpass the reach of created intellect, that, even when taught by revelation and received by faith, they remain

covered by faith itself, as by a veil, and shrouded, as it were, in darkness as long as in this mortal life.

"But, although faith be above reason, there never can be a real disagreement between them, since the same

God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has given man's soul the light of reason, and God cannot deny

himself, nor can one truth ever contradict another. Wherefore the empty shadow of such contradiction arises

chiefly from this, that either the doctrines of faith are not understood and set forth as the Church really holds

them, or that the vain devices and opinions of men are mistaken for the dictates of reason. We therefore

pronounce false every assertion which is contrary to the enlightened truth of faith. Moreover, the Church,

which, together with her apostolic office of teaching, is charged also with the guardianship of the deposits of

faith, holds likewise from God the right and the duty to condemn 'knowledge, falsely so called,' 'lest any man

be cheated by philosophy and vain deceit.' Hence all the Christian faithful are not only forbidden to defend,

as legitimate conclusions of science, those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith,

especially when condemned by the Church, but are rather absolutely bound to hold them for errors wearing

THE VATICAN ANATHEMAS. "Not only is it impossible for faith and reason ever to contradict each other,

but they rather afford each other mutual assistance. For right reason establishes the foundation of faith, and,

by the aid of its light, cultivates the science of divine things; and faith, on the other hand, frees and preserves

reason from errors, and enriches it with knowledge of many kinds. So far, then, is the Church from opposing

the culture of human arts and sciences, that she rather aids and promotes it in many ways. For she is not

ignorant of nor does she despise the advantages which flow from them to the life of man; on the contrary, she

acknowledges that, as they sprang from God, the Lord of knowledge, so, if they be rightly pursued, they will,

through the aid of his grace, lead to God. Nor does she forbid any of those sciences the use of its own

principles and its own method within its own proper sphere; but, recognizing this reasonable freedom, she

takes care that they may not, by contradicting God's teaching, fall into errors, or, overstepping the due limits,

"For the doctrine of faith revealed by God has not been proposed, like some philosophical discovery, to be

made perfect by human ingenuity, but it has been delivered to the spouse of Christ as a divine deposit, to be

faithfully guarded and unerringly set forth. Hence, all tenets of holy faith are to be explained always

according to the sense and meaning of the Church; nor is it ever lawful to depart therefrom under pretense or

color of a more enlightened explanation. Therefore, as generations and centuries roll on, let the

understanding, knowledge, and wisdom of each and every one, of individuals and of the whole Church, grow

apace and increase exceedingly, yet only in its kind; that is to say retaining pure and inviolate the sense and

"Who denies the one true God, Creator and Lord of all things, visible and invisible.

"Who says that the substance or essence of God, and of all things, is one and the same.

"Who says that finite things, both corporeal and spiritual, or at least spiritual things, are emanations of the

divine substance; or that the divine essence, by manifestation or development of itself, becomes all things.

"Who does not acknowledge that the world and all things which it contains were produced by God out of

"Who shall say that man can and ought to, of his own efforts, by means of, constant progress, arrive, at last,

"Who shall refuse to receive, for sacred and canonical, the books of Holy Scripture in their integrity, with all

their parts, according as they were enumerated by the holy Council of Trent, or shall deny that they are

"Who shall say that human reason is in such wise independent, that faith cannot be demanded of it by God.

"Who shall say that divine revelation cannot be rendered credible by external evidences.

"Who shall say that no miracles can be wrought, or that they can never be known with certainty, and that the

"Who shall say that divine revelation includes no mysteries, but that all the dogmas of faith may be

"Who shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one may be allowed

"Who shall say that it may at any time come to pass, in the progress of science, that the doctrines set forth by

the Church must be taken in another sense than that in which the Church has ever received and yet receives

THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. The extraordinary and, indeed, it may be said, arrogant assumptions

contained in these decisions were far from being received with satisfaction by educated Catholics. On the part

of the German universities there was resistance; and, when, at the close of the year, the decrees of the Vatican

Council were generally acquiesced in, it was not through conviction of their truth, but through a disciplinary

By many of the most pious Catholics the entire movement and the results to which it had led were looked

upon with the sincerest sorrow. Pere Hyacinthe, in a letter to the superior of his order, says : "I protest against

the divorce, as impious as it is insensate, sought to be effected between the Church, which is our eternal

mother, and the society of the nineteenth century, of which we are the temporal children, and toward which

we have also duties and regards. It is my most profound conviction that, if France in particular, and the Latin

race in general, are given up to social, moral, and religious anarchy, the principal cause undoubtedly is not

Catholicism itself, but the manner in which Catholicism has for a long time been understood and practised."

Notwithstanding his infallibility, which implies omniscience, his Holiness did not foresee the issue of the

FrancoPrussian War. Had the prophetical talent been vouchsafed to him, he would have detected the

inopportuneness of the acts of his Council. His request to the King of Prussia for military aid to support his

temporal power was denied. The excommunicated King of Italy, as we have seen, took possession of Rome.

A bitter papal encyclical, strangely contrasting with the courteous politeness of modern statepapers, was

issued, November 1, 1870, denouncing the acts of the Piedmontese court, "which had followed the counsel of

the sects of perdition." In this his Holiness declares that he is in captivity, and that he will have no agreement

with Belial. He pronounces the greater excommunication, with censures and penalties, against his

antagonists, and prays for "the intercession of the immaculate Virgin Mary, mother of God, and that of the

Of the various Protestant denominations, several had associated themselves, for the purposes of consultation,

under the designation of the Evangelical Alliance. Their last meeting was held in New York, in the autumn of

1873. Though, in this meeting, were gathered together many pious representatives of the Reformed Churches,

European and American, it had not the prestige nor the authority of the Great Council that had just previously

closed its sessions in St. Peters, at Rome. It could not appeal to an unbroken ancestry of far more than a

thousand years; it could not speak with the authority of an equal and, indeed, of a superior to emperors and

kings. While profound intelligence and a statesmanlike, worldly wisdom gleamed in every thing that the

Vatican Council had done, the Evangelical Alliance met without a clear and precise view of its objects,

without any definitelymarked intentions. Its wish was to draw into closer union the various Protestant

Churches, but it had no wellgrounded hope of accomplishing that desirable result. It illustrated the

necessary working, of the principle on which those Churches originated. They were founded on dissent and

Yet in the action of the Evangelical Alliance may be discerned certain very impressive facts. It averted its

eyes from its ancient antagonistthat antagonist which had so recently loaded the Reformation with

contumely and denunciationit fastened them, as the Vatican Council had done, on Science. Under that

dreaded name there stood before it what seemed to be a spectre of uncertain form, of hourlydilating

proportions, of threatening aspect. Sometimes the Alliance addressed this stupendous apparition in words of

THE VATICAN CONSTITUTION CRITICISED. The Alliance failed to perceive that modern Science is the

legitimate sisterindeed, it is the twinsister of the Reformation. They were begotten together and were

born together. It failed to perceive that, though there is an impossibility of bringing into coalition the many

conflicting sects, they may all find in science a point of connection; and that, not a distrustful attitude toward

It remains now to offer some reflections on this "Constitution of the Catholic Faith," as defined by the

For objects to present themselves under identical relations to different persons, they must be seen from the

same point of view. In the instance we are now considering, the religious man has his own especial station;

the scientific man another, a very different one. It is not for either to demand that his coobserver shall admit

that the panorama of facts spread before them is actually such as it appears to him to be.

The Dogmatic Constitution insists on the admission of this postulate, that the Roman Church acts under a

divine commission, specially and exclusively delivered to it. In virtue of that great authority, it requires of all

men the surrender of their intellectual convictions, and of all nations the subordination of their civil power.

But a claim so imposing must be substantiated by the most decisive and unimpeachable credentials; proofs,

not only of an implied and indirect kind, but clear, emphatic, and to the point; proofs that it would be

The Church, however, declares, that she will not submit her claim to the arbitrament of human reason; she

If this be admitted, all bar requirements must necessarily be assented to, no matter how exorbitant they may

With strange inconsistency the Dogmatic Constitution deprecates reason, affirming that it cannot determine

the points under consideration, and yet submits to it arguments for adjudication. In truth, it might be said that

the whole composition is a passionate plea to Reason to stultify itself in favor of Roman Christianity.

With points of view so widely asunder, it is impossible that Religion and Science should accord in their

representation of things. Nor can any conclusion in common be reached, except by an appeal to Reason as a

There are many religions in the world, some of them of more venerable antiquity, some having far more

numerous adherents, than the Roman. How can a selection be made among them, except by such an appeal to

Reason? Religion and Science must both submit their claims and their dissensions to its arbitrament.

Against this the Vatican Council protests. It exalts faith to a superiority over reason; it says that they

constitute two separate orders of knowledge, having respectively for their objects mysteries and facts. Faith

deals with mysteries, reason with facts. Asserting the dominating superiority of faith, it tries to satisfy the

On the other hand, Science turns away from the incomprehensible, and rests herself on the maxim of Wiclif:

"God forceth not a man to believe that which he cannot understand." In the absence of an exhibition of

satisfactory credentials on the part of her opponent, she considers whether there be in the history of the

papacy, and in the biography of the popes, any thing that can adequately sustain a divine commission, any

thing that can justify pontifical infallibility, or extort that unhesitating obedience which is due to the

One of the most striking and vet contradictory features of the Dogmatic Constitution is, the reluctant homage

it pays to the intelligence of man. It presents a definition of the philosophical basis of Catholicism, but it veils

from view the repulsive features of the vulgar faith. It sets forth the attributes of God, the Creator of all

things, in words fitly designating its sublime conception, but it abstains from affirming that this most awful

and eternal Being was born of an earthly mother, the wife of a Jewish carpenter, who has since become the

queen of heaven. The God it depicts is not the God of the middle ages, seated on his golden throne,

surrounded by choirs of angels, but the God of Philosophy. The Constitution has nothing to say about the

Trinity, nothing of the worship due to the Virginon the contrary, that is by implication sternly condemned;

nothing about transubstantiation, or the making of the flesh and blood of God by the priest; nothing of the

invocation of the saints. It bears on its face subordination to the thought of the age, the impress of the

THE PASSAGE OF EUROPE TO LLAMAISM. Such being the exposition rendered to us respecting the

attributes of God, it next instructs us as to his mode of government of the world. The Church asserts that she

possesses a supernatural control over all material and moral events. The priesthood, in its various grades, can

determine issues of the future, either by the exercise of its inherent attributes, or by its influential invocation

of the celestial powers. To the sovereign pontiff it has been given to bind or loose at his pleasure. It is

unlawful to appeal from his judgments to an Oecumenical Council, as if to an earthly arbiter superior to him.

Powers such as these are consistent with arbitrary rule, but they are inconsistent with the government of the

world by immutable law. Hence the Dogmatic Constitution plants itself firmly in behalf of incessant

providential interventions; it will not for a moment admit that in natural things there is an irresistible

But has not the order of civilization in all parts of the world been the same? Does not the growth of society

resemble individual growth? Do not both exhibit to us phases of youth, of maturity, of decrepitude? To a

person who has carefully considered the progressive civilization of groups of men in regions of the earth far

apart, who has observed the identical forms under which that advancing civilization has manifested itself, is it

not clear that the procedure is determined by law? The religious ideas of the Incas of Peru and the emperors

of Mexico, and the ceremonials of their courtlife, were the same as those in Europethe same as those in

Asia. The current of thought had been the same. A swarm of bees carried to some distant land will build its

combs and regulate its social institutions as other unknown swarms would do, and so with separated and

disconnected swarms of men. So invariable is this sequence of thought and act, that there are philosophers

who, transferring the past example offered by Asiatic history to the case of Europe, would not hesitate to

sustain the propositiongiven a bishop of Rome and some centuries, and you will have an infallible pope:

given an infallible pope and a little more time, and you will have LlamaismLlamaism to which Asia has

As to the origin of corporeal and spiritual things, the Dogmatic Constitution adds a solemn emphasis to its

declarations, by anathematizing all those who bold the doctrine of emanation, or who believe that visible

Nature is only a manifestation of the Divine Essence. In this its authors had a task of no ordinary difficulty

before them. They must encounter those formidable ideas, whether old or new, which in our times are so

strongly forcing themselves on thoughtful men. The doctrine of the conservation and correlation of Force

yields as its logical issue the timeworn Oriental emanation theory; the doctrines of Evolution and

Development strike at that of successive creative acts. The former rests on the fundamental principle that the

quantity of force in the universe is invariable. Though that quantity can neither be increased nor diminished,

the forms under which Force expresses itself may be transmuted into each other. As yet this doctrine has not

received complete scientific demonstration, but so numerous and so cogent are the arguments adduced in its

behalf, that it stands in an imposing, almost in an authoritative attitude. Now, the Asiatic theory of emanation

and absorption is seen to be in harmony with this grand idea. It does not hold that, at the conception of a

human being, a soul is created by God out of nothing and given to it, but that a portion of the already

existing, the divine, the universal intelligence, is imparted, and, when life is over, this returns to and is

absorbed in the general source from which it originally came. The authors of the Constitution forbid these

In like manner they dispose of the doctrines of Evolution and Development, bluntly insisting that the Church

believes in distinct creative acts. The doctrine that every living form is derived from some preceding form is

scientifically in a much more advanced position than that concerning Force, and probably may he considered

as established, whatever may become of the additions with which it has recently been overlaid.

In her condemnation of the Reformation, the Church carries into effect her ideas of the subordination of

reason to faith. In her eyes the Reformation is an impious heresy, leading to the abyss of pantheism,

materialism, and atheism, and tending to overthrow the very foundations of human society. She therefore

would restrain those "restless spirits" who, following Luther, have upheld the "right of every man to interpret

the Scriptures for himself." She asserts that it is a wicked error to admit Protestants to equal political

privileges with Catholics, and that to coerce them and suppress them is a sacred duty; that it is abominable to

permit them to establish educational institutions. Gregory XVI. denounced freedom of conscience as an

insane folly, and the freedom of the press a pestilent error, which cannot be sufficiently detested.

But how is it possible to recognize an inspired and infallible oracle on the Tiber, when it is remembered that

again and again successive popes have contradicted each other; that popes have denounced councils, and

councils have denounced popes; that the Bible of Sixtus V. had so many admitted errorsnearly two

thousandthat its own authors had to recall it? How is it possible for the children of the Church to regard as

"delusive errors" the globular form of the earth, her position as a planet in the solar system, her rotation on

her axis, her movement round the sun? How can they deny that there are antipodes, and other worlds than

ours? How can they believe that the world was made out of nothing, completed in a week, finished just as we

see it now; that it has undergone no change, but that its parts have worked so indifferently as to require

THE ERRORS OF ECCLESIASTICISM. When Science is thus commanded to surrender her intellectual

convictions, may she not ask the ecclesiastic to remember the past? The contest respecting the figure of the

earth, and the location of heaven and hell, ended adversely to him. He affirmed that the earth is an extended

plane, and that the sky is a firmament, the floor of heaven, through which again and again persons have been

seen to ascend. The globular form demonstrated beyond any possibility of contradiction by astronomical

facts, and by the voyage of Magellan's ship, he then maintained that it is the central body of the universe, all

others being in subordination to it, and it the grand object of God's regard. Forced from this position, he next

affirmed that it is motionless, the sun and the stars actually revolving, as they apparently do, around it. The

invention of the telescope proved that here again he was in error. Then he maintained that all the motions of

the solar system are regulated by providential intervention; the "Principia" of Newton demonstrated that they

are due to irresistible law. He then affirmed that the earth and all the celestial bodies were created about six

thousand years ago, and that in six days the order of Nature was settled, and plants and animals in their

various tribes introduced. Constrained by the accumulating mass of adverse evidence, he enlarged his days

into periods of indefinite lengthonly, however, to find that even this device was inadequate. The six ages,

with their six special creations, could no longer be maintained, when it was discovered that species, slowly

emerged in one age, reached a culmination in a second, and gradually died out in a third: this overlapping

from age to age would not only have demanded creations, but recreations also. He affirmed that there had

been a deluge, which covered the whole earth above the tops of the highest mountains, and that the waters of

this flood were removed by a wind. Correct ideas respecting the dimensions of the atmosphere, and of the

sea, and of the operation of evaporation, proved how untenable these statements are. Of the progenitors of the

human race, he declared that they had come from their Maker's hand perfect, both in body and mind, and had

subsequently experienced a fall. He is now considering how best to dispose of the evidence continually

Is it at all surprising that the number of those who hold the opinions of the Church in light esteem should so

rapidly increase? How can that be received as a trustworthy guide in the invisible, which falls into so many

errors in the visible? How can that give confidence in the moral, the spiritual, which has so signally failed in

the physical? It is not possible to dispose of these conflicting facts as "empty shadows," "vain devices,"

"fictions coming from knowledge falsely so called," "errors wearing the deceitful appearance of truth," as the

Church stigmatizes them. On the contrary, they are stern witnesses, bearing emphatic and unimpeachable

testimony against the ecclesiastical claim to infallibility, and fastening a conviction of ignorance and

Convicted of so many errors, the papacy makes no attempt at explanation. It ignores the whole matter Nay,

more, relying on the efficacy of audacity, though confronted by these facts, it lays claim to infallibility.

SEPARATION OF CATHOLICISM AND CIVILIZATION. But, to the pontiff, no other rights can be

conceded than those he can establish at the bar of Reason. He cannot claim infallibility in religious affairs,

and decline it in scientific. Infallibility embraces all things. It implies omniscience. If it holds good for

theology, it necessarily holds good for science. How is it possible to coordinate the infallibility of the papacy

Does it not, then, become needful to reject the claim of the papacy to the employment of coercion in the

maintenance of its opinions; to repudiate utterly the declaration that "the Inquisition is an urgent necessity in

view of the unbelief of the present age," and in the name of human nature to protest loudly against the

ferocity and terrorism of that institution? Has not conscience inalienable rights?

An impassable and hourlywidening gulf intervenes between Catholicism and the spirit of the age.

Catholicism insists that blind faith is superior to reason; that mysteries are of more importance than facts. She

claims to be the sole interpreter of Nature and revelation, the supreme arbiter of knowledge; she summarily

rejects all modern criticism of the Scriptures, and orders the Bible to be accepted in accordance with the

views of the theologians of Trent; she openly avows her hatred of free institutions and constitutional systems,

and declares that those are in damnable error who regard the reconciliation of the pope with modern

SCIENCE AND PROTESTANTISM. But the spirit of the age demandsis the human intellect to be

subordinated to the Tridentine Fathers, or to the fancy of illiterate and uncritical persons who wrote in the

earlier ages of the Church? It sees no merit in blind faith, but rather distrusts it. It looks forward to an

improvement in the popular canon of credibility for a decision between fact and fiction. It does not consider

itself bound to believe fables and falsehoods that have been invented for ecclesiastical ends. It finds no

argument in behalf of their truth, that traditions and legends have been longlived; in this respect, those of the

Church are greatly inferior to the fables of paganism. The longevity of the Church itself is not due to divine

protection or intervention, but to the skill with which it has adapted its policy to existing circumstances. If

antiquity be the criterion of authenticity, the claims of Buddhism must be respected; it has the superior

warrant of many centuries. There can be no defense of those deliberate falsifications of history, that

concealment of historical facts, of which the Church has so often taken advantage. In these things the end

Then has it in truth come to this, that Roman Christianity and Science are recognized by their respective

adherents as being absolutely incompatible; they cannot exist together; one must yield to the other; mankind

SCIENCE AND FAITH. While such is, perhaps, the issue as regards Catholicism, a reconciliation of the

Reformation with Science is not only possible, but would easily take place, if the Protestant Churches would

only live up to the maxim taught by Luther, and established by so many years of war. That maxim is, the

right of private interpretation of the Scriptures. It was the foundation of intellectual liberty. But, if a personal

interpretation of the book of Revelation is permissible, how can it be denied in the case of the book of

Nature? In the misunderstandings that have taken place, we must ever bear in mind the infirmities of men.

The generations that immediately followed the Reformation may perhaps be excused for not comprehending

the full significance of their cardinal principle, and for not on all occasions carrying it into effect. When

Calvin caused Servetus, to be burnt, he was animated, not by the principles of the Reformation, but by those

of Catholicism, from which he had not been able to emancipate himself completely. And when the clergy of

influential Protestant confessions have stigmatized the investigators of Nature as infidels and atheists, the

same may be said. For Catholicism to reconcile itself to Science, there are formidable, perhaps insuperable

obstacles in the way. For Protestantism to achieve that great result there are not. In the one case there is a

bitter, a mortal animosity to be overcome; in the other, a friendship, that misunderstandings have alienated, to

CIVILIZATION AND RELIGION. But, whatever may be the preparatory incidents of that great impending

intellectual crisis which Christendom must soon inevitably witness, of this we may rest assured, that the silent

secession from the public faith, which in so ominous a manner characterizes the present generation, will find

at length political expression. It is not without significance that France reenforces the ultramontane

tendencies of her lower population, by the promotion of pilgrimages, the perpetration of miracles, the

exhibition of celestial apparitions. Constrained to do this by her destiny, she does it with a blush. It is not

without significance that Germany resolves to rid herself of the incubus of a dual government, by the

exclusion of the Italian element, and to carry to its completion that Reformation which three centuries ago she

left unfinished. The time approaches when men must take their choice between quiescent, immobile faith and

everadvancing Sciencefaith, with its mediaeval consolations, Science, which is incessantly scattering its

material blessings in the pathway of life, elevating the lot of man in this world, and unifying the human race.

Its triumphs are solid and enduring. But the glory which Catholicism might gain from a conflict with material

ideas is at the best only like that of other celestial meteors when they touch the atmosphere of the

Though Guizot's affirmation that the Church has always sided with despotism is only too true, it must be

remembered that in the policy she follows there is much of political necessity. She is urged on by the pressure

of nineteen centuries. But, if the irresistible indicates itself in her action, the inevitable manifests itself in her

life. For it is with the papacy as with a man. It has passed through the struggles of infancy, it has displayed

the energies of maturity, and, its work completed, it must sink into the feebleness and querulousness of old

age. Its youth can never be renewed. The influence of its souvenirs alone will remain. As pagan Rome threw

her departing shadow over the empire and tinctured all its thoughts, so Christian Rome casts her parting

INADMISSIBLE CLAIMS OF CATHOLICISM. Will modern civilization consent to abandon the career of

advancement which has given it so much power and happiness? Will it consent to retrace its steps to the

semibarbarian ignorance and superstition of the middle ages? Will it submit to the dictation of a power,

which, claiming divine authority, can present no adequate credentials of its office; a power which kept

Europe in a stagnant condition for many centuries, ferociously suppressing by the stake and the sword every

attempt at progress; a power that is founded in a cloud of mysteries; that sets itself above reason and

commonsense; that loudly proclaims the hatred it entertains against liberty of thought and freedom in civil

institutions; that professes its intention of repressing the one and destroying the other whenever it can find the

opportunity; that denounces as most pernicious and insane the opinion that liberty of conscience and of

worship is the right of every man; that protests against that right being proclaimed and asserted by law in

every wellgoverned state; that contemptuously repudiates the principle that the will of the people,

manifested by public opinion (as it is called) or by other means, shall constitute law; that refuses to every

man any title to opinion in matters of religion, but holds that it is simply his duty to believe what he is told by

the Church, and to obey her commands; that will not permit any temporal government to define the rights and

prescribe limits to the authority of the Church; that declares it not only may but will resort to force to

discipline disobedient individuals; that invades the sanctify of private life, by making, at the confessional, the

wife and daughters and servants of one suspected, spies and informers against him; that tries him without an

accuser, and by torture makes him bear witness against himself; that denies the right of parents to educate

their children outside of its own Church, and insists that to it alone belongs the supervision of domestic life

and the control of marriages and divorces; that denounces "the impudence" of those who presume to

subordinate the authority of the Church to the civil authority, or who advocate the separation of the Church

from the state; that absolutely repudiates all toleration, and affirms that the Catholic religion is entitled to be

held as the only religion in every country, to the exclusion of all other modes of worship; that requires all

laws standing in the way of its interests to be repealed, and, if that be refused, orders all its followers to

ISSUE OF THE CONFLICT. This power, conscious that it can work no miracle to serve itself, does not

hesitate to disturb society by its intrigues against governments, and seeks to accomplish its ends by alliances

Claims such as these mean a revolt against modern civilization, an intention of destroying it, no matter at

what social cost. To submit to them without resistance, men must be slaves indeed!

As to the issue of the coming conflict, can any one doubt? Whatever is resting on fiction and fraud will be

overthrown. Institutions that organize impostures and spread delusions must show what right they have to

exist. Faith must render an account of herself to Reason. Mysteries must give place to facts. Religion must

relinquish that imperious, that domineering position which she has so long maintained against Science. There

must be absolute freedom for thought. The ecclesiastic must learn to keep himself within the domain he has

chosen, and cease to tyrannize over the philosopher, who, conscious of his own strength and the purity of his

motives, will bear such interference no longer. What was written by Esdras near the willowfringed rivers of

Babylon, more than twentythree centuries ago, still holds good: "As for Truth it endureth and is always