Chapter V The Witnesses of the Incompatibility of Science and Faith
The Objection
We shall not go wrong in presuming that the reader, who has patiently followed our deductions, has had for some time in his mind the question: How about the representatives of scientific research themselves? Do not a large majority of them, perhaps virtually all, stand alien and repellant to Christian faith and its fundamental truths? We do not refer to our modern philosophers, for of them it might be said that their researches yield questionable speculations of individualistic stamp, rather than exact results. But there are the representatives of the more exact sciences, especially of the most exact of all, natural science. They may be considered the legitimate representatives of modern science, since their results are the most accurate, their methods the most strictly scientific; and are they not, every one of them, opposed to Christian faith, especially to its fundamental dogma? Is not Haeckel right when he states in the final summary of his “Welträtsel,” in which he so strongly insists on the incompatibility of religion and natural science: “I am supported by the accord of nearly all modern naturalists who have the courage to express their convictions”? Is it not true that A. von Humboldt is considered the prince of German naturalists? and yet in his voluminous “Kosmos” he not once mentions the name of God? Have not, with few exceptions, German naturalists, under Humboldt’s influence, turned against Christianity? (W. Menzel, Die letzten hundertzwanzig Jahre der Weltgeschichte, VI, 1860, p. 70; cfr. Pohle, P. Angelo Secchi, 1904, p. 6). Here indeed the antagonism between true scientific spirit and the faith seems to take shape in tangible reality, and to invalidate every argument to the contrary.
Thus runs the speech that is ever recurring in the literature of the day, in newspapers and magazines no less than in books. And this speech makes an impression on its hearers. Indeed, why should it not? After describing how these heroes of science in recent times marched on triumphantly from victory to victory, how they renewed the face of the earth, and became the pioneers of human progress, how can they fail to make a deep impression if in the same breath they state that these discoverers of truth have, almost to a man, broken with the ancient teachings of the Christian religion?
Without doubt the suggestive effect of such speculation must be very considerable with those who lack sufficient historical knowledge. The case is different with those better acquainted with the history of the natural sciences. They know that it is not true to state that the leading natural scientists, for the most part, or even unanimously, have rejected and denied Christian religion, that it is a lie and a falsification of history.
Let us illustrate it briefly. We do not, of course, mean to say, that if it were true that all the leading naturalists were infidels, the inference would necessarily follow that Christianity is untenable, and incompatible with science. Not at all. First of all, natural scientists who oppose Christianity could hardly ever come forward in the capacity of experts in this matter. For by venturing the assertion that world-matter and world-force are eternal and uncreated, that they develop by force of natural causality, by unending evolution, and not by the power and direction of an intelligent cause, they leave their own province and trespass on the domain of philosophy. These and similar questions are not solved by natural science research, by experiment, observation, or calculation, but are the subjects of philosophical speculation. Atheism, materialism, the denial of the soul’s immortality or of eternal destination, all these are philosophical matters, and a natural science theory of the world is a misconception about as absurd as a Swiss England or a Bavarian Spain.
As it is impossible to review here all scientists of the past centuries, to probe their bent of mind, we shall restrict ourselves in the following to scientists of the first rank, for to them the assertion above mentioned must chiefly refer. First of all, they were possessed of that spirit of scientific research claimed to be incompatible with the faith; and they, more than others, should have been conscious of this contradiction. It is plain that if they did not know anything of the claimed antagonism between the theories of evolution and of creation, between physical facts and spirituality of soul, between natural law and miracles; if it be shown that many of them were actually orthodox Christians, believing in the supernatural and yet enthusiastic friends of science, fathoming the laws of nature and yet unshaken in their faith, then the fact that inferior minds talk of a contradiction unknown to these great ones can no longer make much of an impression.
Therefore let us look over the long list of great scholars of the last centuries, those great men to whom we owe knowledge and discoveries that are our joy to this very day. Among them we shall find many who, in their life and thought, have plainly confessed themselves faithful Christians; we shall find that others were at least the opponents of atheism and materialism, that they clung to the fundamental truths of the Christian faith, and that is a matter of moment when the antagonism between natural science and faith is under discussion.
We shall not go back to the ancient representatives of natural science, men like Pythagoras, Aristotle, Archimedes, Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, and others of past ages, partly because there is no doubt about the religious views of those men, partly because research at their time was imperfect. We begin at the rise of modern natural science.
The Old Masters
At the threshold of modern natural science there stands the man who solved the riddle that had puzzled centuries before him, the father of modern astronomy, Nikolaus Copernicus. He had studied at the universities of Cracow, Bologna, Ferrara, and Padua, and while he was one of the foremost historians of his time, it was astronomy that had engaged his enthusiastic devotion from his youth. He was a Catholic priest, a Canon of Frauenberg. “If recent representatives of the Roman Church,” so writes the Protestant theologian, O. Zoeckler, “praise this Frauenberg Canon as a faithful son of their Church, this fact must be granted by Protestants, despite the frankness with which he opposed the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic theories taught by the scholastics, and despite his friendship with the Protestant Rheticus” (Gottes Zeugen im Reiche der Natur, 1906, p. 82). George Joachim, a native of Feldkirch, surnamed Rheticus, and a Protestant professor at Wittenberg, came to Copernicus at Frauenberg, and was cordially received. His praise for “his teacher” is unreserved. He speaks in the same admiring terms of Tiedemann Giese, in those days Bishop of Kulm.
For nearly forty years Copernicus sat in the modest observatory which he had erected at Frauenberg, studying and collecting the material for his book. Even after all this time this deliberate scholar, despite the urging of his friends, especially Bishop Tiedemann Giese and Cardinal Schoenberg, Archbishop of Capua, hesitated for ten years longer before publishing his discoveries. The work was entitled De revolutionibus orbium caelestium, libri VI, and was dedicated to Pope Paul III. The author himself could enjoy his achievement but very little. The first copy sent by the printer reached Copernicus on his deathbed, and a few hours later he breathed his last, on May 24, 1543.
In the introduction to his work this devout Christian scientist wrote: “Who would not be urged by the intimate intercourse with the work of His hands to the contemplation of the Most High, and to the admiration for the Omnipotent Architect of the universe, in whom is the highest happiness, and in whom is the perfection of all that is good?”
Without Copernicus there could have been no Kepler, without Kepler no Newton. These three men, in the words of a recent astronomer, belong inseparably together, they support and supplement one another. It might be fittingly asked, after which of these three the celestial system should be named; and were it possible to ask these three men for their opinion in this matter, they would probably all give the answer that has been ascribed to one or the other of them: Not my system, but God’s Order. Like Copernicus, so Kepler and Newton were profoundly religious men.
Johann Kepler, born of Protestant parents in Württemberg in 1571, was raised a Lutheran. In 1594 he was appointed professor of mathematics at a school in Graz, and after that he dwelt for the most time in Austria, which country became his second home. From Graz he was called to Prague to be mathematician at the imperial court, and from there to Linz to be professor at the college there. His last years were passed at Sagan and Ratisbon, where he died in 1630. Even after having left Austria he gratefully remembered the clementia austriaca and the favor archiducalis. Kepler’s astronomical achievements are known to everybody, especially his laws of the planets. With an untiring spirit of research he combined beautiful traits of character, cheerfulness, kindness, and modesty, but chiefly a profoundly religious mind. However, he was in difficult circumstances as far as his religious life was concerned. Quite early he came in conflict with the religious authorities of his confession, particularly for the reason that they considered Kepler’s Copernican views as against the Bible, a fact which the learned astronomer could not see. There were also other differences. The conflict became more and more aggravated. It cannot be denied that the Lutheran Church-authorities proceeded against Kepler with a lack of consideration never shown by Rome against men like Galileo. Kepler was expelled from the Lutheran Church, and despite his efforts to be reinstated the ban was never lifted.
Like Kepler, so was his predecessor at the Catholic court of Prague, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (died 1601), a devout Protestant, but the trials of Kepler were spared him. His erroneous idea that the Copernican system conflicted with Holy Writ kept him from subscribing to it: it led him to devise a system midway between Copernicusand Ptolemy. His religious sentiment is evidenced by a passage from a letter of his, written at his father’s death, “Although there are many consolations for me, of a religious nature based on Holy Writ, and of a philosophical kind drawn from the contemplation of the fate of all men and of the inconstancy of everything under the moon, it is a special comfort for me that my father departed so sweetly and piously from this valley of misery to the heavenly eternal home, where, according to St. Paul, we shall find a lasting abode.”
But let us return to Kepler. There is evidence that at various times in his life he wavered between his Lutheran confession and the Catholic faith, but that is as far as he went. He was of the opinion that the fundamental truths of both were in accord, and he would not presume to judge of the differences; he had taken a view-point of his own, from which he could not be made to recede. On the other hand, he was shocked when his fellow-Lutherans in Styria were on two occasions severely dealt with, although he personally had been treated with especial consideration. Otherwise his opinions on Catholic matters and the “wisdom” of the Catholic Church were eminently fair; he censured his co-religionists for their invidious attacks on Rome, and for their hesitancy in adopting the Gregorian reform of the calendar. He had friendly relation with many a Catholic scientist, was in correspondence with many Jesuits, was even frequently their guest, receiving stimulus, commendation, and scientific communications from them.
To Kepler the study of astronomy became largely a prayer; the finest of his scientific works he was wont to conclude with the doxology of the Psalmist, “Great is our Lord, and great is His power, and of His wisdom there is no number: praise Him ye Heavens; praise ye Him, O Sun, and Moon, ye Stars and light, and praise Him in your language. Thou, too, praise Him, O soul of mine, thy Lord, thy Creator, as long as it is granted to thee” (Harmonices Mundi, v. 9). His name and work is commemorated in the Keplerbund in Germany, which aims at the promotion of scientific knowledge in the sense of Kepler, in opposition to the misuse of natural science for purposes of materialism and atheism.
The work, begun so happily by Copernicus and Kepler, was completed by the great Englishman, Newton (died 1727). It was he who in his immortal work, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, laid bare the law of the universe, which compels the heavenly bodies to revolve about one another. Therewith the laws of Kepler, and consequently the Copernican hypothesis, became established. When, in 1727, this scientist, at the age of eighty-five, died, his mortal remains were entombed in Westminster Abbey, the Pantheon of the British nation. Lofty science and the reverent worship of his Creator were combined in the noble mind of this great Briton. In an appendix to his master-work, referred to above, he cited his proofs for the existence of God, and stated that “the entire order, as to space and time of all things existing, must have necessarily proceeded from the conception and will of an existing Being,” that “the admirable arrangement of sun, planets, and comets could only emanate from the decree and the design of an All-wise and Omnipotent Being,” that “we admire Him for His perfections, we adore and worship Him as the ruler of the world, we, the servants of the great Sovereign of the Universe.” According to Voltaire, it was stated by Newton’s disciple, Clarke, that his master invariably pronounced the name of God with reverent attitude and expression.
Inseparably connected with the history of the Copernican system there is the name, which recalls harsh accusations and painful memories, the name of Galileo. That he had nothing in common with the aims of those who have broken with faith and Christianity, nor with that hostility against his Church for which his name is so often misused, has been made evident by what we have said on another page (see page 189). Not only during his early life was his religious turn of mind evidenced, but also later on and up to the end of his life he continued to observe faithfully the duties of his religion.
One of the greatest physicists of recent times was Christian Huygens, who died in 1695 at his native city, The Hague. To him we owe the epoch-making discovery of the undulation of light, while Newton had held light to be a matter of emission. But while Huygens advanced over Newton in this respect, he paid tribute to human limitation by remaining prejudiced against Newton’s theory of gravitation, which he rejected. Huygens was a believing Christian.
In his philosophic dissertation “Kosmotheoros,” a posthumous work, he says in regard to the possibility of the celestial bodies being inhabited: “How could the investigator look up to God, the Creator of all these great worlds, otherwise but in the spirit of deepest reverence? Here it will be possible for us to find manifold proofs to demonstrate His providence and wonderful wisdom; likewise will our contemplation contend against those who are spreading false opinions, such as attributing the origin of the earth to the accidental union of atoms, or of the earth being without a beginning and without a creator.”
Religious fervour is still more pronounced in Huygens’ contemporary, Robert Boyle (died 1692), a son of Ireland. While he had made considerable achievements in physics, his chief fame lies in chemistry: he inaugurated the period in which chemistry became gradually an independent science. Although working in a different field of research, he is similar to Newton in many respects: like Newton and Huygens, his love of scientific studies induced him to remain unmarried, like Newton he found his last resting place in Westminster Abbey, but chiefly he is like Newton because of his pious, religious mind. He was much occupied with theological studies, and in them the demonstration from nature of the existence of God, and the author’s reverence for the Scriptures are most conspicuous: “In relation to the Bible,” he writes, “all the books of men, even the most learned, are like the planets that receive their light and brightness from the sun.” On his deathbed he made a foundation for apologetic lectures: the Boyle-lectures are held to this very day.
We shall have to pass by others. We might point to the English philosopher and statesman, Francis Bacon of Verulam (died 1626), who won his place in the history of natural science by his urging of the empiric method; we might point to W. Harvey (died 1658), the discoverer of the blood-circulation, a man of earnest and simple piety; we might mention the pious Albrecht von Haller (died 1777), J. Bernouilli(died 1728) the co-inventor of integral calculus, the man of whom his great disciple Euler relates that this Bernouilli, co-inventor of the most difficult of all calculations, this great mathematician, expressed regret in his old age that he had devoted so many years to science, and only few hours to religion, and that on his deathbed he admonished those around him to adhere to the Word of God because that alone is the word of life.
We shall name but one more, a son of northern Sweden, the famous botanist, Karl Linné (died 1778). He, too, found God in the living nature which he studied so diligently.
In commenting on his Systema naturae he writes: “Man, know thyself; in theological aspect, that thou art created with an immortal soul, after the image of God; in moral aspect, that thou alone art blessed with a rational soul for the praise of thy sublime Creator. I ask, why did God put man equipped thus in sense and spirit on this earth, where he perceives this wonderfully ordered nature? For what, but to praise and admire the invisible Master-builder for His magnificent work.”
These are the great masters and reformers of recent natural science, the men who opened up the paths which natural science of the present day is still pursuing; most of these savants were of a Christian mind, many of them even pious. There were but few indifferent or irreligious, such as E. Halley (died 1742), who computed the cycle of the comet since named after him, and G. de Buffon (died 1788): but they are a small minority. The period of highest achievement in modern natural science bears the stamp of religion; indeed, to a great extent it bears the halo of devotion and fervour. An incompatibility of research and faith, a solidarity of science and anti-Christian tendency, was never known to the mind of these great masters.
“Any one who has grasped even the elements of natural science, the unity of natural forces and their rigid conformity to laws, becomes a monist if he has the faculty for clear reasoning, and as to the others, there is no help for them anyway” (L. Plate, Ultramontane Weltanschauung und moderne Lebenskunde, 1907, 11). This sort of argument is shouted at us in manifold variations. How does that statement look in the light of history? Men like Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Linné, Boyle, thus knew nothing of the elements of natural science, nothing of the conformity to laws of natural forces: because they were neither monists nor atheists, but worshippers of the Creator of heaven and earth! A more painful contrast cannot be imagined than to see these great masters and pioneers rated as lesser minds, ignorant of real natural science, by those who trail far behind them and who are seeking their footsteps. The religious conviction of the natural scientists of a past age is sufficient proof that, not the research in natural science, but other causes lead minds to infidelity.
Modern Times
We turn to the nineteenth century. Does the picture perhaps change essentially in the century that has shown its children so much progress, that has disclosed so many secrets of nature, but has also taught irreligion to thousands of men? Does it become true now that natural science and Christian fundamental truths are opposed to each other in hostile attitude? Claims to this effect are not lacking. In fact, the number of those who refuse assent to the Christian religion is increasing. But even at this time we do not find such to be the majority of eminent scientists, and our inquiry is about eminent scientists, those who make the science of a period, not those who can hardly expect to have their names known by posterity. A considerable number, indeed the majority, of the master minds of natural science, even in the nineteenth century, reject materialism and atheism, and not infrequently they are pious Christians; another proof that just upon the deeper and more serious minds religion exercises a stronger power of attraction.
Let us commence with the astronomers.
“The sciences and their true representatives,” so states the renowned Mädler of Dorpat, “do not deserve the reproaches and imputations heaped upon them from a certain side, that they would estrange man from God, even turn him into an atheist... we hope to show of astronomy especially that just the contrary is taking place” (Reden und Abhandlungen über Gegenstände der Himmelskunde, 1870, 326).
The greatest astronomer of the nineteenth century, and one of the greatest discoverers of all ages, was undoubtedly William Herschel (died 1822). His son John Herschel (died 1871) became his “worthy successor, almost his peer, who won a fame nearly equal to that of the inherited name” (R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, 1877, 505). While not hostile to religion, the father had been so engrossed in his restless research, that religion received little attention, but religious thought and sentiment played a prominent part in the son. Time and again he opposed with zeal the materialistic-atheistic explanation of the universe. “Nothing is more unfounded than the objection made by some well-meaning but undiscerning persons, that the study of natural science induces a doubt of religion and of the immortality of the soul. Be assured that its logical effect upon any well-ordered mind must be just the opposite” (Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, 1830, 7).
It was Leverrier (died 1877), Director of the Paris Observatory, who by calculations ascertained the existence and exact position of the remotest planet Neptune even before it was discovered. When eventually Galle of Berlin really found the planet in the position indicated, Leverrier’s name became famous. But greater still were the achievements of this indefatigable investigator in respect to the known planets. When he presented to the French Academy the final part of his great work, the calculations of Jupiter and Saturnus, he said: “During our long labours, which it took us thirty-five years to complete, we needed the support obtained by the contemplation of one of the grandest works of creation, and by the thought that it strengthened in us the imperishable truths of a spiritualistic (i.e., non-materialistic) philosophy.” He was an orthodox Catholic, known as a Clerical. A newspaper complained of him that “Under the empire he was a clerical Senator, concerned with the interests of the altar no less than with those of the throne” (Kneller, Das Christenthum und die Vertreter der neueren Naturwissenschaft, 1904, 96. In the following pages we have made frequent use of the material gathered in this sterling work. See also James J. Walsh, Makers of Modern Medicine (1907); and the same author’s Catholic Churchmen in Science, I (1909), II (1910)).
One year after the death of Leverrier another scientist of the first rank died. It was A. Secchi (died 1878). Member of nearly all the scientific academies of the world, he was not only a faithful Christian, but also a priest: for forty-five years, and until his death, he wore the garb of the Society of Jesus. As an astronomer he has been named, not without good cause, the father of astrophysics: he ascertained the chemical composition of about 4,000 stars and classified them into what is known as Secchi’s four types of stars. As a physicist he wrote an important work on The Unity of Natural Forces. He was also an eminent meteorologist.
At the second International Exposition at Paris his meteorograph was quite a feature. The Kölnische Zeitung wrote, on March 2, 1878: “Visitors of the Italian Exhibition, at the second World’s Fair in Paris, could see the marvellous instrument which does the work of ten observers and surpasses them in accuracy. At the same time they could obtain all needed information about details and scope of the meteorograph from the exhibitor himself; for Secchi was there daily, devoting several hours to answering questions in any of the civilized languages of Europe. It is peculiarly interesting to observe the silent movement of the hands working day and night like registrars of the natural forces, and recording for every quarter of an hour with the utmost accuracy all changes in temperature, in humidity, every variance of the wind, any movement of the mercury in the barometer. Even the force of the wind and the time of rain is registered by this wonderful instrument.” The inventor, out of 40,000 art exhibitors, was awarded the great golden medal. He also received the insignia of an officer of the French Legion of Honor, while the Emperor of Brazil appointed him an officer of the “Golden Rose.”
The French scientist Moigno writes of Secchi: “Secchi was very pious, and as a worker he knew no limits. He was ever ready to evolve new scientific plans, to enter into new and long campaigns of observation. The mere list of his 800 works reveals him as one of the most intrepid workers of our century. And let this be considered: every one of these writings, no matter how brief, was the result of subtle and difficult researches and observations. And after devoting the day to arduous writing, he passed the night searching the skies”(Pohle, P. Angelo Secchi, 1904, 191).
In the nineteenth century, too, astronomy has not failed in its mission of leading to God. A long list could be named of believing astronomers of great achievements. For instance, the Roman astronomer Respighi (died 1889), a resolute Catholic. And Lamont, Director of the Observatory of Munich, whose Catholic orthodoxy was generally known. Heis (died 1877) likewise was a zealous Catholic: when he had finished his map of the sky, after 27 years of hard work, he sent one of the first copies to Pius IX. The astronomers Bessel and Olbersspeak in their letters of God, of the hereafter and Providence, in a way that has nothing in common with materialism.
Secchi was not the only priest and monk among the astronomers of the nineteenth century. The very first day of the century was made notable by the astronomical achievement of a monk. Joseph Piazzi, a member of the Theatine order (died 1826), discovered on that day the first asteroid, Ceres. The great mathematician Gauss named his first born son Joseph, in Piazzi’s honor.
It is, indeed, a remarkable fact, testifying strongly against the incompatibility of natural science and faith, that just the Catholic clergy, the prominent representatives of religion and faith, have contributed a large contingent to the number of natural scientists. Poggendorf’s Biographical Dictionary of the Exact Sciences contains, down to 1863, according to preface and recapitulation, the names and biographical sketches of 8,847 natural scientists. Of these, 862 are Catholic priests, amounting to 9.8 per cent. To appreciate these 10 per cent it must be taken into account that most of them were not connected with natural science by their position, but only through their personal interest, and most of them were engaged in other duties.
Mathematics, although not natural science proper, is inseparably connected with it. For this reason we may extend our consideration to mathematicians. We only point to the three greatest, Euler, Gauss, and Cauchy, and all three were religious men. Euler (died 1783 at Petersburg) has no peer in the recent history of science in prolific activity: ten times he was awarded the prize by the Paris Academy of Sciences. Cantor says of him: “Like most great mathematicians, Euler was profoundly religious, though without bigotry. He personally conducted every evening the private devotions at his home, and one of the few polemical books he wrote was a defence of revelation against the objections of free-thinkers.” Its publication at Berlin in 1747, in close proximity of the court of Frederick the Great, presupposed a certain moral courage. In this book he refers to the difficulties found in all sciences, even in geometry, adding: “By what right then can the free-thinkers demand of us to reject at once Holy Writ in its entirety, because of some difficulties which frequently are not even so important as those complained of in geometry?” Gauss (died 1855) is perhaps the greatest mathematician of all times. It sounds incredible, yet it is well attested, that as a child of three years, when in the workshop of his father, a plain mechanic, he was able to correct the father if he made a mistake in figuring out the wages paid to his journeymen. His biographer, Waltershausen, says of him: “The conviction of a personal existence after death, the firm belief in an ultimate Ruler of things, in an eternal, just, all-wise and all-powerful God, formed the foundation of his religious life, which, with his unsurpassed scientific researches, resolved itself into a perfect harmony.” Cauchy (died 1857) was a man of most extraordinary genius, whose creative genius knew how to discover new paths everywhere, and almost at every weekly meeting of the Paris Academy Cauchy had something new to offer. In addition he was a dutiful Catholic, and a member of St. Vincent’s Society. When, shortly before the February revolution, an onslaught upon the Jesuit schools was made, he defended them in two pamphlets.
One of them contains the following confession of faith: “I am a Christian, that is, I believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, with Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Descartes, Newton, Fermat, Leibnitz, Pascal, Grimaldi, Euler, Guldin, Boscovich, Gerdil; with all great astronomers, all great physicists, all great mathematicians of past centuries. I am also a Catholic, with the majority of them, and if asked for my reasons, I would enumerate them readily. By them it would be made clear that my conviction is not the result of inherited prejudices, but of profound inquiry. I am a sincere Catholic, as Corneille, Racine, La Bruyère, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fénelon were, and such as were and still are a large portion of the most eminent men of our times, among them those who have achieved most in the exact sciences, in philosophy and literature, and who have most prominently adorned our Academy”(Valson, Vie de Cauchy, I, 173). When near death, and told that the priest would bring the Holy Sacrament, he ordered the finest flowers of his garden used in the reception of the Lord.
We now come to the physicists. To begin with the most prominent representatives of the science of optics, which was developed especially during the first half of the century, there are to be named chiefly Fresnel, Frauenhofer, Fizeau, Foucault. A. Fresnel (died 1827), the originator of the modern theory of light, clung to his conviction of the spirituality and immortality of the soul. Frauenhofer (died 1826) showed himself to be a man of refinement and of kindness, which only occasionally was disturbed by natural irritability: he was much devoted to his religion, so that even his guests while at his house had to observe the abstinence prescribed by the Church; this was quite significant, considering the indifference of his times in this respect. Fizeau (died 1896), too, was a staunch Catholic, who fearlessly testified to his belief, even before the Paris Academy. Though his work was of the first rank, France’s chief marks of honour passed him by, and little notice was even given to his death. A significant fact. “These circumstances,” so writes Kneller, “induced us to inquire for particulars; and through the services of friends we obtained information in Paris from most reliable source that Fizeau was a faithful Christian, who fulfilled his religious duties. For this very reason his name had been stricken, at the Centenary of the Academy, from the list of candidates for the cross of the legion of honor, notwithstanding the fact that, on the strength of his scientific achievement, he should long have been Commander and even Grand Officer of this order.” Cornu was the only one to protest against this slight. Foucault (died 1868) had, in the time of his restless scientific work, taken an unsympathetic attitude towards the Catholic religion. In his last illness he returned, step by step, to his Creator and Redeemer, in whom he found his comfort, and he breathed his last in peace with God and the Church.
Foucault’s great countryman, Ampère (died 1836), the celebrated investigator in the fields of electricity, was also estranged from the Christian religion, but, after passing through torturing doubts, he regained undisturbed possession of his Catholic faith, and was a pious Christian at the time of his brilliant discoveries. He had frequent intercourse with A. F. Ozanam, and the discussion almost without exception turned to God. Then Ampère would cover his forehead with his hands, exclaiming: “How great God is! Ozanam! how great God is, and our knowledge is as nothing.” “This venerable head,” Ozanam relates of his friend, “covered with honours and full of knowledge, bowed down before the mysteries of the faith; he knelt at the same altars where before him Descartes and Pascal worshipped humbly, beside the poor widow and the small child, who perhaps were less humble than he” (A. F. Ozanam, Oeuvres Complètes, X, 37, and VIII, 89). As he was dying, and M. Deschamps, director of the college of Marseille, began to read aloud some passages from the “Imitation of Christ,” the dying man remarked that he knew the book by heart.
Another great discoverer in the domain of electricity, who had preceded Ampère, was Volta (died 1827). Like his great fellow countryman, Galvani (died 1798), who did not disdain to be a member of the third order of St. Francis, Volta was a staunch Catholic; every day he recited the rosary.
At Como, his home, he was daily seen to go to holy Mass and, on holidays, to the Sacraments. Those who passed his house on Saturdays saw a small lamp burning before the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary over his door. If the servant forgot to light the lamp, Volta did it himself. On Feast days, when visiting the parish church, the great electrician could be seen among the children, explaining the catechism to them.
A friend of Volta, the Canon Giacomo Ciceri, once was endeavoring to convert a dying man, who, however, refused to hear him, on the ground that whereas religion might be good for the common people, scientists did not need it, and he reckoned himself among them. Cicerithereupon reminded him of Volta. This made an impression upon the dying man, who declared that if Volta be seriously religious, and not only as a matter of convention, he would consent to receive the Sacraments. The Canon then requested Volta to write a few lines. Volta replied as follows: “I do not understand how anybody can doubt my sincerity and constancy in the religion which I profess, and which is that of Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church, wherein I was born and raised, and which I have professed all my life, inwardly and outwardly.... Should any misdemeanor on my part have prompted any one to suspect me of unbelief, then I will declare, for the purpose of making reparation... that I always have believed this Holy Catholic religion to be the only true and infallible one, and that I still think so, and I thank our dear Lord incessantly for having given me this belief, in which to live and to die is my resolution, in the firm hope of gaining the eternal life. It is true, I acknowledge this belief to be a gift of God, a supernatural belief; yet, I have not neglected human means to fortify myself in this belief, and to drive away all doubts that may arise to tempt me. For this reason, I have studied the faith diligently in its foundations, by reading apologetic and controversial writings, weighing the reasons for and against; a way, which supplies the strongest proof, and makes it most credible for the human reason to such a degree, that any noble mind, not perverted by sins and passions, cannot help embracing and loving it. I wish this profession, for which I was asked and which I willingly make, written and signed by my own hand, to be shown at will to any one, because I am not ashamed of the Gospel. May my writing bear good fruit.
Alexander Volta.
Milan
, January 6th, 1815.
(C. Grandi, Alessandro Volta, 1899, 575.)”
He who, for the first time, is made aware of the religious confession of the greatest natural scientists may perhaps be astonished. Hitherto, he had heard little of the Christian mind of these men, but a great deal about their alleged indifference for religion, and about their materialism and atheism. Now, suddenly, he sees a large number of them to be the enemies of atheism, many, indeed, to be zealous Christians.
This is due to the biographers: they dwell largely on the scientific achievement of a man, likewise on his human qualities, but his religion is often not mentioned at all. When, in 1888, a monument was erected to Ampère in his native city, Lyons, not a word in the speeches referred to the fact that he was a faithful Catholic. Nay, more; on one of the books seen on his monument is chiselled in bold letters the word “Encyclopédie.” Those unaware of the facts would infer that Ampère had been one of the Encyclopædists. His actual relation to this infamous work was that he had read it in his youth, but abhorred it in his later age.
The English physicist, Faraday (died 1867), according to Tyndall and Du Bois-Reymond the greatest experimentist of all times, was, like Volta and Ampère, of religious mind.
In a letter to a lady he wrote: “I belong to a small and despised Christian sect, known by the name of Sandemanians. Our hope is based upon the belief which is in Christ.” In 1847, he concluded his lectures at the Royal Institution with the following words: “In teaching us those things, our science should prompt us to think of Him whose works they are.” At a later lecture, he declared: “I have never encountered anything to cause a contradiction between things within the scope of man, and the higher things, relating to his future and unconceivable to (unaided) human mind” (Jones, The Life and Letters of Faraday).
Of the same bent of mind was Faraday’s fellow countryman, Maxwell (died 1879), known to every one who has studied the development of the theories of electricity. This ingenious theoretician of electrics, professor of experimental physics at Cambridge, was deeply religious. Every evening he led in the family prayer; he regularly attended divine service, and partook of the monthly communion of his denomination. Those more intimately acquainted with Maxwell agree, that he was one of the worthiest men they ever met.
Nothing could better illustrate his religious sentiment than the splendid prayer found among his posthumous papers: “Almighty God, Thou who hast created man after Thy image and hast given him a living soul, that he should search Thee and rule over Thy creatures, teach us to study the works by Thy hands that we may subject the earth for our use, and strengthen our reason for Thy service, and let us receive Thy holy word thus, that we may believe in Him whom Thou hast sent us to give us the knowledge of salvation and the forgiving of our sins, all of which we pray for in the name of the same Jesus Christ, our Lord” (Campbell-Garnett, The Life of J. C. Maxwell).
Maxwell’s devout mind is especially significant here, because, like Ampère and Volta, he occupied himself much with philosophical and theological questions. Every Sunday upon return from church he is said to have buried himself in his theological books.
Many others might be mentioned of English physicists of the past century, who combined religious belief with great knowledge. The peculiar trait of the English character to respect and preserve with piety the inherited institutions of the past, as against radicalism and the craze for innovation, manifests itself also in the absence of the immature and frivolous juggling with the great truths of the Christian past, not infrequently met with elsewhere. Let us mention but one more of England’s great men who have died in recent years. In December, 1907, the papers reported the death of William Thomson, latterly better known as Lord Kelvin. He lived to the age of 83 years, up to his death incessantly busy with scientific work. As early as 1855, Helmholtz described him as “one of the foremost mathematical physicists of Europe.7” The Berlin Academy of Science expressed high praise and admiration in its address felicitating Thomson on his Golden Jubilee. Undoubtedly, he merited this admiration also by stoutly defending from the viewpoint of science the necessity of a Divine Creator.
“We do not know,” he wrote, “at what moment a creation of matter or of energy fixed a beginning beyond which no speculation based on mechanical laws is able to lead us. In exact mechanics, if we were ever inclined to forget this barrier, we necessarily would be reminded of it by the consideration that reasoning, resting exclusively upon the law of mechanics, points to a time when the earth must have been uninhabited, and it also teaches us that our own bodies, like those of all living plants and animals, and fossils, are organized forms of matter for which science can give no other explanation than the will of a Creator, a truth, in support of which geological history offers rich evidence” (On Mechanical Antecedent of Motion, Heat and Light, 1884). “The only contribution of dynamics to theoretical biology consists in the absolute negation of an automatic beginning and automatic continuance of life” (Addresses and Speeches).
On May 1, 1902, the Rev. Prof. G. Henslow, according to the London Times, spoke at University College, before a big audience with the President of the University as chairman, on the subject “The Rationalism of To-day, an Examination of Darwinism.” On conclusion of the speech the venerable octogenarian, Lord Kelvin, arose and proposed a resolution of thanks to the speaker. While fully subscribing to the fundamental ideas of Prof. Henslow’s lecture, Lord Kelvin said, he could not assent to the proposition that natural science neither affirms nor denies the origin of life by a creative force. He stated that natural science does, positively, assert a creative force. Science forces every one to recognize a miracle within himself. That we are living, and moving, and existing, is not due to dead matter, but to a creating and directing force, and science forces us to accept this assumption as a tenet of faith. Lord Kelvin subsequently amplified these remarks in an article that appeared in the Nineteenth Century, of June, 1903. It concludes with the admonition, not to be afraid to think independently. “If you reason sharply, you will be forced by science to believe in God, who is the basis of all religion. You will find science to be, not an opponent of religion, but a support” (Times, May 8 and 15, 1903).
Such were the views of those to whom, in the first place, the establishment of natural science and its progress are due. It is not science and strong reasoning that lead away from God, but the lack of true science. Bacon said: Leviores gustus in philosophia movere fortasse animum ad atheismum, sed pleniores haustus ad Deum reducere. Another thing must be observed. Among those earnest men, earnest in the investigation of nature, and earnest in the consideration of questions of a supernatural life, there are many who made the religious question the subject of mature study, and who were well acquainted with the objections against religion and Christianity. But they cling to their religious persuasion only the more firmly. We may be reminded of men like Volta, Cauchy, Ampère, and Maxwell.
To speak of authorities, what comparison is there between these great scientists and discoverers, and those who are satisfied with the general assurance that “any one who has grasped the elements of natural sciences must become a monist,” and “that the supernatural exists only in the brain of the visionary and ignorant,” that, “in the same measure in which the victorious progress of modern knowledge of nature surpasses the scientific achievements of former centuries, the untenableness of all mystical views of life that tend to harness the reason in the yoke of so-called revelation has been made clear” (Haeckel), and who in such assurance find perfect intellectual gratification. They recall an incident at the Congress of English natural scientists, held at Belfast in 1874, when Tyndall delivered from the platform a materialistic lecture, and among the audience sat Maxwell, his superior in scientific research, who put down the lecture in doggerel rhyme, in a humorous vein, of course, but not without deserved sarcasm.
We proceed on our way, trying to make haste, and omitting many names that might be mentioned, limiting ourselves to the most prominent ones.
Among the chemists we name Lavoisier. A martyr to his science, he died under the guillotine of the Revolution in 1794; he had remained true to his Christian faith. The Swede, J. Berzelius (died 1848), openly professed his belief in God. Thénard (died 1859), the discoverer of boron, of a blue dye named after him, and of many other chemicals, was a staunch Catholic. The pastor of St. Sulpice could testify at his funeral as follows: “He attended church every Sunday, eyes and heart fixed on his prayer-book, and on solemn Feast days he received Holy Communion.... With Baron Thénard one of the greatest benefactors of my poor people is gone” (Kneller).
Dumas (died 1884), who is esteemed by his pupil Pasteur as the peer of Lavoisier, was also a practical Catholic, as was his compatriot Chevreul (died 1889). This great man had the rare good fortune to be present at his own centenary in 1886. At this great celebration he received an address by the Berlin Academy, stating that his name had a prominent place on the list of the great scientists who had carried the scientific repute of France to all quarters of the globe. When, in view of the mundane character of the celebration, the liberal press endeavoured to rank him among the representatives of unbelieving science, and this question being discussed in public, Chevreul felt himself constrained to proclaim his religious persuasion openly in a letter to Count de Montravel, in which he said: “I am simply a scientist, but those who know me, know also that I was born a Catholic, that I lead a Catholic life, and that I want to die a Catholic” (Civilta Cattolica, 1891, 292).
Two Germans may conclude the list of chemists, Schoenbein (died 1868) and J. Liebig (died 1873).
In his diary, “Menschen und Dinge,” 1885 (page 29), Schoenbeinwrites: “There are still people who fancy in their limited mind that, the deeper the human intellect penetrates the secrets of nature, the more extensive its knowledge, the wider its conception of the exterior world, the more it must forget the cause of all things. Many have gone even so far as to assert that natural science must lead to the denial of God. This view is without all foundation. He, who contemplates with open eyes, daily and hourly, the doings and workings of nature, will not only believe, but will actually perceive, and be firmly convinced, that there is not the smallest place in space where the divine does not reveal itself in the most magnificent and admirable way.” And in a similar strain Liebig writes: “Indeed, the greatness and infinite wisdom of the Creator of the world can be realized only by him who endeavours to understand His ideas as laid down in that immense book,—nature, in comparison to which everything that men otherwise know and tell of Him, appears like empty talk” (Die Chemie in ihrer Anwendung).
Now let us turn to the geographers. We merely mention Ritter (died 1859), the man who raised geography to the dignity of a science; he was a faithful Protestant, while biassed against the Catholic Church. In spite of this, a Catholic historian, J. Janssen, has sketched his life, in which we read: “Firm in his belief in the living God, and in the Incarnate Son of God, His Redeemer, he furnishes a clear and convincing proof that this faith, far from being a contradiction to natural science... alone enables man to acquire an extensive and deep knowledge of nature.” We give only passing notice to the founder of scientific crystallography, R. Hauy (died 1822), who was a dutiful Catholic priest. The geologists now will get a hearing.
Among them we meet, in the first place, the noted geologist and zoölogist, Cuvier (died 1832), a faithful Protestant: also the foremost French geologist of his time, L. De Beaumont (died 1874), “a Christian in all things and a steadfast Christian... which he remained through his whole life;” so Dumas testifies of him in his obituary (Comptes Rendus, 1874). Then there is J. Barrande, the untiring explorer of the antediluvian strata of Bohemia. He came in 1830 to Bohemia with the banished royal family, as Chambord’s teacher, and died 1883 at Frohsdorf near Vienna. He was a pious Catholic. The volumes of his works are nearly all dated on Catholic feasts. The recently deceased French geologist, A. De Lapparent, was a practical Catholic, and such were the two Belgian geologists, J. d’Omalius (died 1875), and A. Dumont (died 1857), to both of whom Belgium owes its geological exploration. The English geologists, Buckland (died 1856), Hitchcock(died 1864), and A. Sedgwick (died 1872), were ministers of the English Church. J. Dwight Dana (died 1895), the foremost geologist of North America, begins his celebrated text-book of geology with a homage to his Creator, and concludes it by paying tribute to Holy Writ. W. Dawson (died 1899) the worthy geological explorer of his native land, Canada, published several apologetic dissertations on the Bible and Nature. A kindred sentiment animated the German scientists, Bischof (died 1870), Quenstedt (died 1898), the geologist of Suabia Pfaff (died 1886), Schafhæutl (died 1890), and the equally pious as learned Swiss geologist O. Heer (died 1883). They all have much to say about the greatness of their Creator, but not a word of any insolvable contradictions between the Bible and geologic research.
As a last division of an imposing phalanx, there are now the biologists and physiologists. Modern biology, as the science of life, has in the eyes of many accomplished the bold deed of demonstrating the superfluity of a soul distinct from matter. Claim is made that it has sufficiently explained the sensitive and mental life by the sole agency of physical and chemical forces, and thus to have removed the boundary between live and dead matter. It is said, further, that biology in conjunction with zoölogy and botany has furnished proof that the wonderful organic forms of life may be explained by purely natural causes, without having to assume as an ultimate cause the act of a higher intelligence; that a never ceasing evolution is the sole ultimate cause,—creation is made superfluous by evolution. Biology is thus claimed to have refuted the old dualism of soul and matter, of world and God, and to have awarded the palm to monism.
Are the eminent representatives of this science really the materialists and monists they would have to be, if all this were true? The foremost physiologist of the nineteenth century was J. Müller (died 1858), buried in the Catholic cemetery at Berlin. He was a decided opponent of materialism; he not only contended for the existence of a spiritual soul, but also for an immaterial vital force in plants. Th. Schwann (died 1882) is the founder of the cellular theory. In the year 1839 he accepted a call to take the chair of anatomy at the Catholic University of Louvain. One of the most prominent physiologists of the nineteenth century was A. Volkmann (died 1877). He was a stout champion of the spirituality and immortality of the soul, of purposive cause in animated beings, and an opponent of Darwin’s theory. G. J. Mendel (died 1884) became by his work on Experimenting with Hybrid Plants the pioneer of the modern theory of hereditary transmission, adopted by modern biology; and scientists like H. de Vries, Correns, Tschermak, and Bateson followed his lead. “His important laws of hereditary transmission are the best so far offered by the research in this field” (Muckermann, Grundriss der Biologie). He was a Catholic priest, and the abbot of the Augustinian Monastery at Old-Brünn. Karl von Vierordt (died 1884) is well known by his “Manual of Physiology,” still in demand as a reference book in the libraries of universities. In 1865 he delivered a speech at the Tübingen University on the unity of science, concluding with this appeal to the students: “Until your religious notions become clear by a mature insight, trust in the well-meant assurance that the belief in the divinity of the religion of Jesus has not been put falsely into your heart. True piety is equally remote from narrow pietism as from freethinking indifference; it leaves to reason its full rights, but it also assures to us the faculty to be aware, in joyful confidence in Almighty Providence, of an immaterial and for us eternal destiny.” Ch. Ehrenberg (died 1876) is the explorer of the world of little things: of infusoria and protozoa. He did not countenance Haeckel’s materialism nor Darwin’s denial of teleology: to him they were fantastic theories and romances. A friend of his, and of the same mind, was K. von Martius, who admired God’s wisdom in the wonders of the world of vegetation. Long before his death he ordered his burial dress to be made of white cloth embroidered with a green cross,—“a cross because I am a Christian, and green in honour of botany.” Another renowned name may be mentioned, that of the Austrian anatomist J. Hyrtl (died 1894).
In the years when materialism was flourishing, Hyrtl was painfully grieved to see science fall into disrepute through the fault of individuals. He gave vent to his indignation on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the Vienna University (1864), when, having been elected Rector, and being considered the greatest celebrity at that college, he delivered his inaugural speech on the materialistic tendency of our times. Summing up he said: “I am at a loss how to explain what scientific grounds there are to defend and fortify a revival of the old materialistic views of an Epicurus and a Lucretius, and to endeavour to insure to it a permanent rule.... Its success is due to the boldness of its assertion and to the prevailing spirit of the time, which popularizes teachings of this sort the more willingly, the more danger they seem to entail for the existing order of things.” It was the same protest made some years later by another famous scientist against “the dangerous opinion that there were dogmas of natural science in inimical opposition to the highest ideals of the human mind.” He stated that “it would be a desirable reward for the efforts of our foremost naturalists to erect with the aid of anthropology a barrier to this error which is so demoralizing for the people” (J. Ranke, Der Mensch, 1894).
Hyrtl’s speech at once aroused a storm of indignation in the liberal press of Vienna, and the great scientist, until then honoured and extolled, became the object of denunciation and sneer. Thus was the freedom of science understood in those circles.
Haeckel was much vexed by two fellow scientists, M. von Baer (died 1876) and G. J. Romanes (died 1894). Baer was prominent in the science of evolution. He was led to theism by his studies. Romanes, a friend of Darwin, had been an adherent of materialism, but through serious study he returned to the belief in God and Christianity. His posthumous work, “Thoughts on Religion, a scientist’s religious evolution from Atheism to Christianity,” furnishes a brilliant voucher thereof. Romanes’s conversion was a sad blow for Haeckel. However, he constructed an explanation to give himself comfort. “When the news of this conversion,” he wrote, “was first circulated by a friend of Romanes, a zealous English Churchman, the assumption suggested itself to me that it was all a mystification and invention, for it is known that the fanatical champions of ecclesiastical superstition have never hesitated to pervert the truth to save their dogma. Later on, however, it was found that it was really an instance (analogous to the case of old Baer) of one of those interesting psychological metamorphoses with which I have dealt in Chapter 6 of my book. Romaneswas in his last years a sick man. It was pathological debility. The first condition, however, of an unbiassed, pure conception of reason is the normal condition of its organ. His phronema was not in a normal condition.” Haeckel will have to rank among those whose phronema is not in a normal condition a good many other natural scientists; indeed, most of those of higher standing.
Every one knows the celebrated name of Louis Pasteur (died 1895), the discoverer of various bacteria, of whom Huxley says that his manifold inventions have repaid to French industry the five billion francs indemnity which France had to pay to Germany after the war. It is equally well known that Pasteur was to his death a staunch Catholic. “As his soul departed, he held in his hands a small cross of brass, and his last words were the confession of faith and hope” (La Science Catholique, X, 1896, 182). The story is told that one of his pupils asked him how he could be so religious after all his thinking and studying. Pasteur replied: “Just because I have thought and studied, I remained religious like a man of Brittany, and had I thought and studied still more, I would be as religious as a woman of Brittany” (Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 1896, 385).
In the year 1859 great commotion was caused in the world of thought by the appearance of Darwin’s book on the “Origin of Species.”It stated that the various species had gradually evolved from most simple, primordial forms, and this by natural selection; not, therefore, in the sense that the Creator had put the laws of evolution into nature, but that in the struggle for existence the survival of the fittest was the result of natural selection. Soon it was claimed that man, too, in his rational life, was the result of an evolution from animal stages; indeed, the whole universe had arisen by the survival of the accidentally fittest. Evolution was to be substituted for creation. In Germany, E. Haeckel was the man who considered it the task of his life to spread those ideas as the established result of science. In our own time a belated high tide is sweeping over the intellectual lowlands.
Darwin himself was an agnostic; to begin with, he lacked all religious training; his mother had died early, his father was a free-thinker, and his education at school was rationalistic. The doubt of all higher truths, and finally, according to his own confession, the doubt respecting the power of reason, were his companions through life. Yet he confesses: “... I never was an atheist in the sense that I would deny the existence of God. I think, in general (and more so the older I grow), but not at all times, agnostic would be a more accurate description of my state of mind” (F. Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, I, 304). Remarkable, however, is the following passage at the end of Darwin’s chief work: “It is a great belief, indeed, of the Creator having breathed the embryo of all life surrounding us into a few forms, or in but one single form, and an endless row of most beautiful, most wonderful forms having evolved and are still evolving from such a simple beginning, while our planet, following the laws of gravitation, has steadily revolved in its circle.” What Darwin was lacking in a high degree was a philosophical training of the mind.
In itself the theory of evolution, which asserts the variability of species of animals and plants, is by no means opposed to religious truths. It neither includes a necessity of assuming the origin of the human soul from the essentially lower animal soul, nor is it an atheistic theory. On the contrary, such an evolution would most clearly certify to God’s wisdom in laying such a wonderful basis for the progress of nature, provided this theory could be proved by scientific facts; indeed, for an evolution within narrow limits, circumstantial evidence is not lacking. That there is no contradiction between the theory of evolution and the fundamental tenets of Christian Creed is sufficiently shown by the representatives of the theory. Lamarck(died 1829) and Saint-Hilaire (died 1844), both of them representatives of the theory of evolution long before Darwin, believed in God. There were, prior to Darwin, two celebrated Catholic scientists, to wit, Ampère and d’Omalius, who had decidedly taken the part of Saint-Hilairein his controversy with Cuvier. And also after Darwin, a number of Christian and Catholic scientists have contended for the idea of evolution, as, for instance, the pious Swiss geologist, Heer; also Quenstedt, Volkmann, and the American geologist, Ch. Lyell. More recently Catholic scientists have expressed themselves in favour of the theory of evolution; for instance, the noted zoölogist, E. Wasmann, and the geologists Lossen and W. Waagen, both of whom had to bring bitter sacrifices in their career on account of their Catholic faith.
Mature Science Respects Faith
There have now passed in review the great natural scientists of the past, those living at the present time we shall leave to the judgment of the future. Is it true, then, that the foremost representatives of natural science had the conviction that science and faith are incompatible? No! On the contrary, most of them, and the greatest of them, have professed the fundamental truths of religion, or have even been devout Christians themselves.
“Theism in natural science, or, if you prefer, in natural philosophy,”so says a modern scientist, “rests upon the basis of a fundamental view which an old formula has clothed in words as simple as they are sublime: ‘I believe in God, the Almighty Creator of Heaven and of Earth.’ This confession does not cling to theistic scientists like an egg-shell from the time of unsophisticated childhood faith; it is the result of their entire scientific thought and judgment. This conviction has been professed by the most discerning natural scientists of all ages”(J. Reinke, Naturwissenschaft und Religion).
Still it cannot be denied that some of the great scientists were of different mind, men like R. von Virchow, Tyndall, A. von Humboldt, Du Bois-Reymond. Nor shall it be disputed that, at the present time, a large number of men of average learning are on the side of unbelief. However, it must not be forgotten that unbelief is more frequently pretended to the outside world for appearance’s sake than it really dwells in the heart. This is, to a great extent, due to human respect, to public opinion, and the prevailing tendency of science. Then again, it must be remembered, that religiously minded scientists are often crowded out from the schools of science, with the natural result that the others predominate. Another point to be borne in mind is that the atheistic representatives of science are doing more to get themselves talked about; they are seeking more diligently the attention of public opinion. Men like Tyndall, Vogt, Moleschott, Haeckel, are known in larger circles than men like Faraday, Maxwell, Ampère, Volta, Pasteur, who, engaged in serious work, gave no time to making propaganda, as the others did by lecturing and popular writing for materialistic and monistic views in the name of science; they had no desire for the limelight of attention, and for posing as personified science.
All this does not change the fact that a very large number, indeed the largest number, of natural scientists of first rank were believers in God, or of pious, Christian mind. And that is of the greater importance. To do pioneer work in the field of science, to give impetus, to make progress, requires a penetrating and, at the same time, an independent mind, one that can rise above conventional commonplace. The fact that such men have largely been very religious, that they never belittled religion, weighs much more in the balance than the disparagement of inferior minds.
These, then, are the often-cited witnesses for the incompatibility of science and faith. While only taken from the province of natural science, they may in our case be deemed representative of science in general. For natural science is generally regarded the most exact of all, and as the one which, more than any other, has the scientific spirit said to be incompatible with faith, and which, by many, is believed to have brought about in the modern world of thought the irreconcilable conflict between faith and science. This is not so! Such antagonism does not exist. It cannot exist, because it is certain from the outset that both faith and science unfold the truth. Truth, however, can never be in conflict with truth. Nor has that antagonism ever existed historically in any of the great representatives of science. This antagonism is fictitious, it is false in its very essence. It is fabricated, either by distorting faith into a blind belief of absurd things, or else by distorting the human faculty of conception into infallible omniscience, or, the other extreme, by denying its faculty for a higher perception.
Faith has nothing to fear from a mature science that has arrived at the conviction of its cognitions, nor has it anything to fear from the great intellects who reason profoundly and seriously. But it has to fear mock-science and ignorance, and those small and superficial minds that aim at stretching their pseudo-knowledge to a gigantic infallibility.