The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

The upper-crust forum for scholarly, polite, and respectful discussions only. Heavily moderated. Rated G.
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

It will be observed, even from this sketch, that, while the
learned Father Augustin thus comes infallibly to the mediae-
val conclusion, he does so very largely by scientific and es-
sentially modern processes, giving unwonted prominence to
observation, and at times twisting scientific observation into
the strand with his metaphysics. The observations and
methods of his science are sometimes shrewd, sometimes
comical. Good examples of the latter sort are such as his
observing that the comet stood very near the summit of
Vesuvius, and his reasoning that its tail was kept in place by
its stickiness. But observations and reasonings of this sort
are always the first homage paid by theology to science as
the end of their struggle approaches.

Equally striking is an example seen a little later in an-
other part of Europe ; and it is the more noteworthy because
Halley and Newton had already fully established the mod-
ern scientific theory. Just at the close of the seventeenth
century the Jesuit Reinzer, professor at Linz, put forth his
Meteorologia PhilosopJiico-Politica, in which all natural phe-
nomena received both a physical and a moral interpretation.

It was profusely and elaborately illustrated, and on account
of its instructive contents was in 1712 translated into Ger-
man for the unlearned reader. The comet receives, of course,
great attention. " It appears," says Reinzer, " only then in
the heavens when the latter punish the earth, and through
it [the comet] not only predict but bring to pass all sorts of
calamity. . . . And, to that end, its tail serves for a rod, its
hair for weapons and arrows, its light for a threat, and its
heat for a sign of anger and vengeance." Its warnings are
threefold: (i) "Comets, generated in the air, betoken natu-
rally drought, wind, earthquake, famine, and pestilence."
(2) " Comets can indirectly, in view of their material, be-
token wars, tumults, and the death of princes ; for, being hot
and dry, they bring the moistnesses in the
human body to an extraordinary heat and dryness, increasing
the gall; and, since the emotions depend on the tempera-
ment and condition of the body, men are through this change
driven to violent deeds, quarrels, disputes, and finally to
arms : especially is this the result with princes, who are
more delicate and also more arrogant than other men, and
whose moistnesses are more liable to inflammation of this
sort, inasmuch as they live in luxury and seldom restrain
themselves from those things which in such a dry state of
the heavens are especially injurious." (3) *' All comets, what-
ever prophetic significance they may have naturally in and
of themselves, are yet principally, according to the Divine
pleasure, heralds of the death of great princes, of war, and
of other such great calamities ; and this is known and proved,
first of all, from the words of Christ himself: ' Nation shall
rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom ; and
great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and
pestilences ; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be
from heaven.'
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

While such pains was taken to keep the more highly
educated classes in the paths of scriptural science and
sound learning" at the universities, equal efforts were made
to preserve the cometary orthodoxy of the people at large
by means of the pulpits. Out of the mass of sermons for
this purpose which were widely circulated I will select just
two as typical, and they are worthy of careful study as show-
ing some special dangers of applying theological methods to
scientific facts. In the second half of the sixteenth century
the recognised capital of orthodox Lutheranism was Magde-
burg, and in the region tributary to this metropolis no
Church official held a more prominent station than the " Su-
perintendent," or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Alt-
mark. It was this dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name,
who at Magdeburg, in 1578, gave to the press his Theological
Reminder of the Nezv Comet. After deprecating as blasphe-
mous the attempt of Aristotle to explain the phenomenon
otherwise than as a supernatural warning from God to sinful
man, he assures his hearers that " whoever would know the
comet's real source and nature must not merely gape and
stare at the scientific theory that it is an earthy, greasy,
tough, and sticky vapour and mist, rising into the upper air
and set ablaze by the celestial heat." Far more important
for them is it to know what this vapour is. It is really, in
the opinion of Celichius, nothing more or less than *' the
thick smoke of human sins, rising, every day, every hour,
every moment, full of stench and horror, before the face of
God, and becoming gradually so thick as to form a comet,
with curled and plaited tresses, which at last is kindled by
the hot and fiery anger of the Supreme Heavenly Judge."
He adds that it is probably only through the prayers and
tears of Christ that this blazing monument of human deprav-
ity becomes visible to mortals. In support of this theory,
he urges the " coming up before God " of the wickedness of
Sodom and Gomorrah and of Nineveh, and especially the
words of the prophet regarding Babylon, '' Her stench and
rottenness is come up before me." That the anger of God
can produce the conflagration without any intervention of
Nature is proved from the Psalms, '' He sendeth out his
word and melteth them." From the position of the comet,
its course, and the direction of its tail he augurs especially
the near approach of the judgment day, though it may also
betoken, as usual, famine, pestilence, and war. '' Yet even
in these days," he mourns, '' there are people reckless and
giddy enough to pay no heed to such celestial warnings, and
these even cite in their own defence the injunction of Jere-
miah not to fear signs in the heavens." This idea he ex-
plodes, and shows that good and orthodox Christians, while
not superstitious like the heathen, know well " that God is
not bound to his creation and the ordinary course of Nature,
but must often, especially in these last dregs of the world,
resort to irregular means to display his anger at human
guilt."

The other typical case occurred in the following century
and in another part of Germany. Conrad Dieterich was,
during the first half of the seventeenth century, a Lutheran
ecclesiastic of the highest authority. His ability as a theo-
logian had made him Archdeacon of Marburg, Professor of
Philosophy and Director of Studies at the University of
Giessen, and " Superintendent," or Lutheran bishop, in south-
western Germany. In the year 1620, on the second Sunday
in Advent, in the great Cathedral of Ulm, he developed the
orthodox doctrine of comets in a sermon, taking up the ques-
tions : I. What are comets? 2. What do they indicate ? 3.
What have we to do with their significance? This sermon
marks an epoch. Delivered in that stronghold of German
Protestantism and by a prelate of the highest standing, it
was immediately printed, prefaced by three laudatory poems
from different men of note, and sent forth to drive back the
scientific, or, as it was called, the "godless," view of comets.
The preface shows that Dieterich was sincerely alarmed by
the tendency to regard comets as natural appearances. His
text was taken from the twenty-fifth verse of the twenty-first
chapter of St. Luke : *' And there shall be signs in the sun,
and in the moon, and in the stars ; and upon the earth dis-
tress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves
roaring." As to what comets are, he cites a multitude of
philosophers, and, finding that they differ among themselves,
he uses a form of argument not uncommon from that day to
this, declaring that this difference of opinion proves that
there is no solution of the problem save in revelation, and
insisting that comets are " signs especially sent by the Al-
mighty to warn the earth." An additional proof of this he
finds in the forms of comets. One, he says, took the form of
a trumpet; another, of a spear; another, of a goat; another,
of a torch ; another, of a sword ; another, of an arrow ; an-
other, of a sabre ; still another, of a bare arm. From these
forms of comets he infers that we may divine their purpose.

As to their creation, he quotes John of Damascus and other
early Church authorities in behalf of the idea that each
comet is a star newly created at the Divine command, out of
nothing, and that it indicates the wrath of God. As to their
purpose, having quoted largely from the Bible and from
Luther, he winds up by insisting that, as God can make
nothing in vain, comets must have some distinct object ; then,
from Isaiah and Joel among the prophets, from Matthew,
Mark, and Luke among the evangelists, from Origen and
John Chrysostom among the fathers, from Luther and Me-
lanchthon among the Reformers, he draws various texts more
or less conclusive to prove that comets indicate evil and
only evil ; and he cites Luther's Advent sermon to the effect
that, though comets may arise in the course of Nature, they
are still signs of evil to mankind. In answer to the theory
of sundry naturalists that comets are made up of "a certain
fiery, warm, sulphurous, saltpetery, sticky fog," he declaims :
"Our sins, our sins: they are the fiery heated vapours, the
thick, sticky, sulphurous clouds which rise from the earth
toward heaven before God." Throughout the sermon Die-
terich pours contempt over all men who simpl}^ investigate
comets as natural objects, calls special attention to a comet
then in the heavens resembling a long broom or bundle of
rods, and declares that he and his hearers can only con-
sider it rightly " when we see standing before us our Lord
God in heaven as an angry father with a rod for his chil-
dren." In answer to the question what comets signify,
he commits himself entirely to the idea that they indicate
the wrath of God, and therefore calamities of every sort.

Page after page is filled with the records of evils following
comets. Beginning with the creation of the world, he in-
sists that the first comet brought on the deluge of Noah, and
cites a mass of authorities, ranging from Moses and Isaiah
to Albert the Great and Melanchthon, in support of the
view that comets precede earthquakes, famines, wars, pesti-
lences, and every form of evil. He makes some parade of
astronomical knowledge as to the greatness of the sun and
moon, but relapses soon into his old line of argument. Im-
ploring his audience not to be led away from the well-estab-
lished belief of Christendom and the principles of their
fathers, he comes back to his old assertion, insists that "our
sins are the inflammable material of which comets are made,"
and winds up with a most earnest appeal to the Almighty to
spare his people.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

Similar efforts from the pulpit were provoked by the
great comet of 1680. Typical among these was the effort
in Switzerland of Pastor Heinrich Erni, who, from the Cathe-
dral of Zurich, sent a circular letter to the clergy of that
region showing the connection of the eleventh and twelfth
verses of the first chapter of Jeremiah with the comet,
giving notice that at his suggestion the authorities had pro-
claimed a solemn fast, and exhorting the clergy to preach
earnestly on the subject of this warning.

Nor were the interpreters of the comet's message con-
tent with simple prose. At the appearance of the comet of
1618, Grasser and Gross, pastors and doctors of theology at
Basle, put forth a collection of doggerel rhymes to fasten
the orthodox theory into the minds of school-children and
peasants. One of these may be translated :

"I am a Rod in God's right hand
Threatening the German and foreign land."

Others for a similar purpose taught :

"Eight things there be a Comet brings,
When it on high doth horrid range :
Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings,

War, Earthquakes, Floods, and Direful Change."

Great ingenuity was shown in meeting the advance of
science, in the universities and schools, with new texts of
Scripture ; and Stephen Spleiss, Rector of the Gymnasium
at Schaffhausen, got great credit by teaching that in the
vision of Jeremiah the *' almond rod " was a tailed comet,
and the ' seething pot " a bearded one.

It can be easily understood that such authoritative utter-
ances as that of Dieterich must have produced a great effect
throughout Protestant Christendom ; and in due time we
see their working in New England. That same tendency to
provincialism, which, save at rare intervals, has been the
bane of Massachusetts thought from that day to this, ap-
peared; and in 1664 we find Samuel Danforth arguing from
the Bible that " comets are portentous signals of great and
notable changes," and arguing from history that they " have
been many times heralds of wrath to a secure and impenitent
world." He cites especially the comet of 1652, which ap-
peared just before Mr. Cotton's sickness and disappeared
after his death. Morton also, in his Memorial recording the
death of John Putnam, alludes to the comet of 1662 as "a
very signal testimony that God had then removed a bright
star and a shining light out of the heaven of his Church here
into celestial glory above." Again he speaks of another
comet, insisting that " it was no fiery meteor caused by ex-
halation, but it was sent immediately by God to awaken the
secure world," and goes on to show how in that year " it
pleased God to smite the fruits of the earth — namely, the
wheat in special — with blasting and mildew, whereby much
of it was spoiled and became profitable for nothing, and
much of it worth little, being light and empty. This was
looked upon by the judicious and conscientious of the land
as a speaking providence against the unthankfulness of many,
... as also against voluptuousness and abuse of the good
creatures of God by licentiousness in drinking and fashions
in apparel, for the obtaining whereof a great part of the
principal grain was oftentimes unnecessarily expended."
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

But in 1680 a stronger than either of these seized upon
the doctrine and wielded it with power. Increase Mather,
so open always to ideas from Europe, and always so power-
ful for good or evil in the colonies, preached his sermon on
" Heaven's i\larm to the World, . . . wherein is shown that
fearful sights and signs in the heavens are the presages of
o-reat calamities at hand." The texts were taken from the
book of Revelation: "And the third angel sounded, and
there fell a great star from heaven, burning, as it were a
lamp," and " Behold, the third woe cometh quickly." In
this, as in various other sermons, he supports the theolog-
ical cometary theory fully. He insists that " we are fallen
into the dregs of time," and that the day of judgment is evi-
dently approaching. He explains away the words of Jere-
miah — " Be not dismayed at signs in the heavens " — and
shows that comets have been forerunners of nearly every
form of evil. Having done full justice to evils thus presaged
in scriptural times, he begins a similar display in modern
history by citing blazing stars which foretold the invasions
of Goths, Huns, Saracens, and Turks, and warns gainsayers
by citing the example of Vespasian, who, after ridiculing a
comet, soon died. The general shape and appearance of
comets, he thinks, betoken their purpose, and he cites Ter-
tullian to prove them " God's sharp razors on mankind,
whereby he doth poll, and his scythe whereby he doth shear
down multitudes of sinful creatures." At last, rising to a
fearful height, he declares : " For the Lord hath fired his
beacon in the heavens among the stars of God there ; the
fearful sight is not yet out of sight. The warning piece of
heaven is going off. Now, then, if the Lord discharge his
murdering pieces from on high, and men be found in their
sins unfit for death, their blood shall be upon them." And
again, in an agony of supplication, he cries out : " Do we see
the sword blazing over us? Let it put us upon crying to
God, that the judgment be diverted and not return upon us
again so speedily. . . . Doth God threaten our very heavens?
I pray unto him, that he would not take away stars and
send comets to succeed them."
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

Two years later, in August, 1682, he followed this with
another sermon on " The Latter Sign," " wherein is showed
that the voice of God in signal providences, especially when
repeated and iterated, ought to be hearkened unto." Here,
too, of course, the comet comes in for a large share of atten-
tion. But his tone is less sure : even in the midst of all his
arguments appears an evident misgiving. The thoughts of
Newton in science and Bayle in philosophy were evidently
tending to accomplish the prophecy of Seneca. Mather's
alarm at this is clear. His natural tendency is to uphold the
idea that a comet is simply a fire-ball flung from the hand of
an avenging God at a guilty world, but he evidently feels
obliged to yield something to the scientific spirit ; hence,
in the Discourse concerning Comets, published in 1683, he de-
clares : '' There are those who think that, inasmuch as com-
ets may be supposed to proceed from natural causes, there
is no speaking voice of Heaven in them beyond what is to
be said of all other works of God. But certain it is that
many things which may happen according to the course of
Nature are portentous signs of Divine anger and prognostics
of great evils hastening upon the world." He then notices
the eclipse of August, 1672, and adds : " That year the col-
lege was eclipsed by the death of the learned president
there, worthy Mr. Chauncey ; and two colonies — namely,
Massachusetts and Plymouth — by the death of two gov-
ernors, who died within a twelvemonth after. . . . Shall,
then, such mighty works of God as comets are be insignifi-
can't things?"

Vigorous as Mather's argument is, we see scepticism re-
garding *' signs " continuing to invade the public mind ; and,
in spite of his threatenings, about twenty years after we find
a remarkable evidence of this progress in the fact that this
scepticism has seized upon no less a personage than that
colossus of orthodoxy, his thrice illustrious son, Cotton
Mather himself.

Curiously enough, for this scientific scepticism in Cotton
Mather there was a cause identical with that which had
developed superstition in the mind of his father. The same
provincial tendency to receive implicitly any new Euro-
pean fashion in thinking or speech wrought upon both,
plunging one into superstition and drawing the other out
of it.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

European thought, which New England followed, had at
last broken away in great measure from the theological view
of comets as signs and wonders. The germ of this emanci-
pating influence was mainly in the great utterance of Seneca ;
and we find in nearly every century some evidence that this
germ was still alive. This life became more and more evi-
dent after the Reformation period, even though theologians
in every Church did their best to destroy it. The first series
of attacks on the old theological doctrine were mainly
founded in philosophic reasoning. As early as the first
half of the sixteenth century we hear Julius Caesar Scaliger
protesting against the cometary superstition as '' ridiculous
folly." Of more real importance was the treatise of Blaise
de Vigenere, published at Paris in 1578. In this little book
various statements regarding comets as signs of wrath or
causes of evils are given, and then followed by a very gentle
and quiet discussion, usually tending to develop that health-
ful scepticism which is the parent of investigation. A fair
example of his mode of treating the subject is seen in his
dealing with a bit of *' sacred science." This was simply
that " comets menace princes and kings with death because
they live more delicately than other people ; and, therefore,
the air thickened and corrupted by a comet would be natu-
rally more injurious to them than to common folk who live
on coarser food." To this De Vigenere answers that there
are very many persons who live on food as delicate as that
enjoyed by princes and kings, and yet receive no harm from
comets. He then goes on to show that many of the greatest
monarchs in history have met death without any comet to
herald it.

In the same year thoughtful scepticism of a similar sort
found an advocate in another part of Europe. Thomas
Erastus, the learned and devout professor of medicine at
Heidelberg, put forth a letter dealing in the plainest terms
with the superstition. He argued especially that there could
be no natural connection between the comet and pestilence,
since the burning of an exhalation must tend to purify rather
than to infect the air. In the following year the eloquent
Hungarian divine Dudith published a letter in which the
theological theory was handled even more shrewdly ; for he
argued that, if comets were caused by the sins of mortals,
they would never be absent from the sky. But these utter-
ances were for the time brushed aside by the theological
leaders of thought as shallow or impious.

In the seventeenth century able arguments against the
superstition, on general grounds, began to be multiplied. In
Holland, Balthasar Bekker opposed this, as he opposed the
witchcraft delusion, on general philosophic grounds ; and
Lubienitzky wrote in a compromising spirit to prove that
comets were aS often followed by good as by evil events.
In France, Pierre Petit, formerly geographer of Louis XIII,
and an intimate friend of Descartes, addressed to the young
Louis XIV a vehement protest against the superstition,
basing his arguments not on astronomy, but on common
sense. A very effective part of the little treatise was
devoted to answering the authority of the fathers of the
early Church. To do this, he simply reminded his readers
that St. Augustine and St. John Damascenus had also op-
posed the doctrine of the antipodes. The book did good
service in France, and was translated in Germany a few
years later.

All these were denounced as infidels and heretics, yet
none the less did they set men at thinking, and prepare the
way for a far greater genius ; for toward the end of the
same century the philosophic attack was taken up by. Pierre
Bayle, and in the whole series of philosophic champions he
is chief. While professor at the University of Sedan he had
observed the alarm caused by the comet of 1680, and he now
brought all his reasoning powers to bear upon it. Thoughts
deep and witty he poured out in volume after volume.
Catholics and Protestants were alike scandalized. Catholic
France spurned him, and Jurieu, the great Reformed divine,
called his cometary views '' atheism," and tried hard to have
Protestant Holland condemn him. Though Bayle did not
touch immediately the mass of mankind, he wrought with
power upon men who gave themselves the trouble of think-
ing. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church that theolo-
gians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter, left it
to Bayle ; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptural doc-
trine of comets, he tore down much else : of all men in his
time, no one so thoroughly prepared the way for Voltaire.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

Bayle's whole argument is rooted in the prophecy of
Seneca. He declares: ''Comets are bodies subject to the
ordinary law of Nature, and not prodigies amenable to no
law." He shows historically that there is no reason to re-
gard comets as portents of earthly evils. As to the fact that
such evils occur after the passage of comets across the sky,
he compares the person believing that comets cause these
evils to a woman looking out of a window into a Paris street
and believing that the carriages pass because she looks out.
As to the accomplishment of some predictions, he cites the
shrewd saying of Henry IV, to the effect that ' the public
will remember one prediction that comes true better than
all the rest that have proved false." Finally, he sums up by
saying : The more we study man, the more does it appear
that pride is his ruling passion, and that he affects grandeur
even in his misery. Mean and perishable creature that he
is, he has been able to persuade men that he can not die with-
out disturbing the whole course of Nature and obliging the
heavens to put themselves to fresh expense in order to light
his funeral pomp. Foolish and ridiculous vanity ! If we
had a just idea of the universe, we should soon comprehend
that the death or birth of a prince is too insignificant a mat-
ter to stir the heavens."

This great philosophic champion of right reason was fol-
lowed by a literary champion hardly less famous ; for Fonte-
nelle now gave to the French theatre his play of The Comet,
and a point of capital importance in France was made by
rendering the army of ignorance ridiculous.

Such was the line of philosophic and literary attack, as
developed from Scaliger to Fontenelle. But beneath and
in the midst of all of it, from first to last, giving firmness,
strength, and new sources of vitality to it, was the steady
development of scientific effort ; and to the series of great
men who patiently wrought and thought out the truth by
scientific methods through all these centuries belong the
honours of the victory.

For generations men in various parts of the world had
been making careful observations on these strange bodies.
As far back as the time when Luther and Melanchthon and
Zwingli were plunged into alarm by various comets from
1531 to 1539, Peter Apian kept his head sufficiently cool to
make scientific notes of their paths through the heavens.
A little later, when the great comet of 1556 scared popes,
emperors, and reformers alike, such men as Fabricius at Vi-
enna and Heller at Nuremberg quietly observed its path.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

In vain did men like Dieterich and Heerbrand and Celich
from various parts of Germany denounce such observations
and investigations as impious ; they were steadily continued,
and in 1577 came the first which led to the distinct founda-
tion of the modern doctrine. In that year appeared a comet
which again plunged Europe into alarm. In every European
country this alarm was strong, but in Germany strongest of
all. The churches were filled with terror-stricken multi-
tudes. Celich preaching at Magdeburg was echoed by
Heerbrand preaching at Tubingen, and both these from
thousands of other pulpits. Catholic and Protestant, through-
out Europe. In the midst of all this din and outcry a few
men quietly but steadily observed the monster; and Tycho
Brahe announced, as the result, that its path lay farther from
the earth than the orbit of the moon. Another great astro-
nomical genius, Kepler, confirmed this. This distinct be-
ginning of the new doctrine was bitterly opposed by theo-
logians ; they denounced it as one of the evil results of that
scientific meddling with the designs of Providence against
which they had so long declaimed in pulpits and professors'
chairs ; they even brought forward some astronomers am-
bitious or wrong-headed enough to testify that Tycho and
Kepler were in error.

Nothing could be more natural than such opposition ;
for this simple announcement by Tycho Brahe began a new
era. It shook the very foundation of cometary superstition.
The Aristotelian view, developed by the theologians, was
that what lies within the moon's orbit appertains to the earth
and is essentially transitory and evil, while what lies beyond
it belongs to the heavens and is permanent, regular, and
pure. Tycho Brahe and Kepler, therefore, having by means
of scientific observation and thought taken comets out of the
category of meteors and appearances in the neighbourhood
of the earth, and placed them among the heavenly bodies,
dealt a blow at the very foundations of the theological argu-
ment, and gave a great impulse to the idea that comets are
themselves heavenly bodies moving regularly and in obedi-
ence to law.



IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.— THE FINAL
VICTORY OF SCIENCE.

Attempts were now made to compromise. It was de-
clared that, while some comets were doubtless supralunar,
some must be sublunar. But this admission was no less
fatal on another account. During many centuries the theory
favoured by the Church had been, as we have seen, that the
earth was surrounded by hollow spheres, concentric and
transparent, forming a number of glassy strata incasing one
another " like the different coatings of an onion," and that
each of these in its movement about the earth carries one or
more of the heavenly bodies. Some maintained that these
spheres were crystal ; but Lactantius, and with him various
fathers of the Church, spoke of the heavenly vault as made
of ice. Now, the admission that comets could move be-
yond the moon was fatal to this theory, for it sent them
crashing through these spheres of ice or crystal, and there-
fore through the whole sacred fabric of the Ptolemaic
theory.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

Here we may pause for a moment to note one of the
chief differences between scientific and theological reasoning
considered in themselves. Kepler's main reasoning as to
the existence of a law for cometary movement was right ;
but his secondary reasoning, that comets move nearly in
straight lines, was wrong. His right reasoning was devel-
oped by Gassendi in France, by Borelli in Italy, by Hevel
and Doerfel in Germany, by Eysat and Bernouilli in Switz-
erland, by Percy and — most important of all, as regards
mathematical demonstration — by Newton in England. The
general theory, which was true, they accepted and devel-
oped ; the secondary theory, which was found untrue, they
rejected ; and, as a result, both of what they thus accepted
and of what they rejected, was evolved the basis of the
whole modern cometary theory. '

Very different was this from the theological method. As
a rule, when there arises a thinker as great in theology as
Kepler in science, the whole mass of his conclusions ripens
into a dogma. His disciples labour not to test it, but to es-
tablish it ; and while, in the Catholic Church, it becomes a
dogma to be believed or disbelieved under the penalty of
damnation, it becomes in the Protestant Church the basis
for one more sect.

Various astronomers laboured to develop the truth dis-
covered by Tycho and strengthened by Kepler. Cassini
seemed likely to win for Italy the glory of completing the
great structure ; but he was sadly fettered by Church influ-
ences, and was obliged to leave most of the work to others.
Early among these was Hevel. He gave reasons for be-
lieving that comets move in parabolic curves toward the
sun. Then came a man who developed this truth further —
Samuel Doerfel ; and it is a pleasure to note that he was a
clergyman. The comet of 1680, which set Erni in Switzer-
land, Mather in New England, and so many others in all
parts of the world at declaiming, set Doerfel at thinking.
Undismayed by the authority of Origen and St. John Chrys-
ostom, the arguments of Luther, Melanchthon, and Zwingli,
the outcries of Celich, Heerbrand, and Dieterich, he pon-
dered over the problem in his little Saxon parsonage, until
in 1681 he set forth his proofs that comets are heavenly
bodies moving in parabolas of which the sun is the focus.
Bernouilli arrived at the same conclusion ; and, finally, this
great series of men and works was closed by the greatest of
all, when Newton, in 1686, having taken the data furnished
by the comet of 1680, demonstrated that comets are guided
in their movements by the same principle that controls the
planets in their orbits. Thus was completed the evolution
of this new truth in science.

Yet we are not to suppose that these two great series of
philosophical and scientific victories cleared the field of all
opponents. Declamation and pretended demonstration of
the old theologic view were still heard ; but the day of com-
plete victory dawned when Halley, after most thorough ob-
servation and calculation, recognised the comet of 1682 as
one which had already appeared at stated periods, and fore-
told its return in about seventy-five years ; and the battle
was fully won when Clairaut, seconded by Lalande and Mme.
Lepaute, predicted distinctly the time when the comet would
arrive at its perihelion, and this prediction was verified *
Then it was that a Roman heathen philosopher was proved
more infallible and more directly under Divine inspiration
than a Roman Christian pontiff; for the very comet which
the traveller finds to-day depicted on the Bayeux tapestry
as portending destruction to Harold and the Saxons at the
Norman invasion of England, and which was regarded by
Pope Calixtus as portending evil to Christendom, was found
six centuries later to be, as Seneca had prophesied, a heav-
enly body obeying the great laws of the universe, and com-
ing at regular periods. Thenceforth the whole ponderous
enginery of this superstition, with its proof-texts regarding
" signs in the heavens," its theological reasoning to show the
moral necessity of cometary warnings, and its ecclesiastical
fulminations against the ' atheism, godlessness, and infidel-
ity " of scientific investigation, was seen by all thinking
men to be as weak against the scientific method as Indian
arrows against needle guns. Copernicus, Galileo, Cassini,
Doerfel, Newton, Halley, and Clairaut had gained the
victory.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Maksutov
_Emeritus
Posts: 12480
Joined: Thu Mar 07, 2013 8:19 pm

Re: The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

Post by _Maksutov »

It is instructive to note, even after the main battle was
lost, a renewal of the attempt, always seen under like circum-
stances, to effect a compromise, to establish a ''safe science "
on grounds pseudo-scientific and pseudo-theologic. Luther,
with his strong common sense, had foreshadowed this ; Kep-
ler had expressed a willingness to accept it. It was insisted
that comets might be heavenly bodies moving in regular
orbits, and even obedient to law, and yet be sent as " signs in
the heavens." Many good men clung longingly to this phase
of the old belief, and in 1770 Semler, professor at Halle, tried
to satisfy both sides. He insisted that, while from a scien-
tific point of view comets could not exercise any physical
influence upon the world, yet from a religious point of view
they could exercise a moral influence as reminders of the
Just Judge of the Universe.

So hard was it for good men to give up the doctrine of
" signs in the heavens," seemingly based upon Scripture and
exercising such a healthful moral tendency ! As is always
the case after such a defeat, these votaries of " sacred sci-
ence " exerted the greatest ingenuity in devising statements
and arguments to avert the new doctrine. Within our own
century the great Catholic champion, Joseph de Maistre,
echoed these in declaring his belief that comets are special
warnings of evil. So, too, in Protestant England, in 1818,
the Gentleman s Magazine stated that under the malign influ-
ence of a recent comet " flies became blind and died early in
the season," and '' the wife of a London shoemaker had four
children at a birth." And even as late as 1829 Mr. Forster,
an English physician, published a work to prove that comets
produce hot summers, cold winters, epidemics, earthquakes,
clouds of midges and locusts, and nearly every calamity
conceivable. He bore especially upon the fact that the
comet of 1665 was coincident with the plague in London,
apparently forgetting that the other great cities of England
and the Continent were not thus visited ; and, in a climax,
announces the fact that the comet of 1663 "made all the cats
in Westphalia sick."

There still lingered one little cloud-patch of superstition,
arising mainly from the supposed fact that comets had really
been followed by a marked rise in temperature. Even this
poor basis for the belief that they might, after all, affect
earthly affairs was swept away, and science won here an-
other victory ; for Arago, by thermometric records carefully
kept at Paris from 1735 to 1781, proved that comets had pro-
duced no effect upon temperature. Among multitudes of
similar examples he showed that, in some years when several
comets appeared, the temperature was lower than in other
years when few or none appeared. In 1737 there were two
comets, and the weather was cool; in 1785 there was no
comet, and the weather was hot ; through the whole fifty
years it was shown that comets were sometimes followed
by hot weather, sometimes by cool, and that no rule was
deducible. The victory of science was complete at every
point.

But in this history there was one little exhibition so curi-
ous as to be worthy of notice, though its permanent effect
upon thought was small. Whiston and Burnet, so devoted
to what they considered sacred science, had determined that
in some way comets must be instruments of Divine wrath.
One of them maintained that the deluge was caused by the
tail of a comet striking the earth ; the other put forth the
theory that comets are places of punishment for the damned
— in fact, " frying hells." The theories of Whiston and Bur-
net found wide acceptance also in Germany, mainly through
the all-powerful mediation of Gottsched, so long, from his
professor's chair at Leipsic, the dictator of orthodox thought,
who not only wrote a brief tractate of his own upon the
subject, but furnished a voluminous historical introduction
to the more elaborate treatise of Heyn. In this book,
which appeared at Leipsic in 1742, the agency of comets in
the creation, the flood, and the final destruction of the world
is fully proved. Both these theories were, however, soon
discredited.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
Post Reply