Religion and science; Religion and science -- History; Science -- History
But justice forbids our raising an outcry against Roman Catholicism
alone for this. In 1864 a number of excellent men in England drew
up a declaration to be signed by students in the natural sciences,
expressing "sincere regret that researches into scientific truth are
perverted by some in our time into occasion for casting doubt upon the
truth and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures." Nine-tenths of the
leading scientific men of England refused to sign it. Nor was this the
worst. Sir John Herschel, Sir John Bowring, and Sir W. R. Hamilton,
administered, through the press, castigations which roused general
indignation against the proposers of the circular, and Prof. De Morgan,
by a parody, covered memorial and memorialists with ridicule. It was
the old mistake, and the old result followed in the minds of multitudes
of thoughtful young men.[156]
And in yet another Protestant country this same wretched mistake
was made. In 1868, several excellent churchmen in Prussia thought
it their duty to meet for the denunciation of "science falsely so
called." Two results followed: Upon the great majority of these really
self-sacrificing men--whose first utterances showed crass ignorance of
the theories they attacked--there came quiet and widespread contempt;
upon Pastor Knak, who stood forth and proclaimed views of the universe
which he thought Scriptural, but which most schoolboys knew to be
childish, came a burst of good-natured derision from every quarter of
the German nation.[157]
Warfare of this sort against Science seems petty indeed; but it is to
be guarded against in Protestant countries not less than in Catholic;
it breaks out in America not less than in Europe. I might exhibit many
proofs of this. Do conscientious Roman bishops in France labor to keep
all advanced scientific instruction under their own control--in their
own universities and colleges; so do very many not less conscientious
Protestant clergymen in our own country insist that advanced education
in science and literature shall be kept under control of their own
sectarian universities and colleges, wretchedly one-sided in their
development, and miserably inadequate in their equipment: did a leading
Spanish university, until a recent period, exclude professors holding
the Newtonian theory; so does a leading American college exclude
professors holding the Darwinian theory: have Catholic colleges in
Italy rejected excellent candidates for professorships on account of
"unsafe" views regarding the Immaculate Conception; so are Protestant
colleges in America every day rejecting excellent candidates on
account of "unsafe" views regarding the Apostolic Succession, or the
Incarnation, or Baptism, or the Perseverance of the Saints.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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