Science and Morals and Other Essays by Sir Windle Bertram Coghill Alan (top rated books of all time .TXT) đź“•
Read free book «Science and Morals and Other Essays by Sir Windle Bertram Coghill Alan (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Sir Windle Bertram Coghill Alan
- Performer: -
Read book online «Science and Morals and Other Essays by Sir Windle Bertram Coghill Alan (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕». Author - Sir Windle Bertram Coghill Alan
To give but one example of this attitude towards the Church, readers may be reminded that Huxley[23] called the Catholic Church "the vigorous enemy of the highest life of mankind," and rejoiced that evolution, "in addition to its truth, has the great merit of being in a position of irreconcilable antagonism to it." An utterly incorrect, even ignorant statement, by the way—but let that pass. The same writer, in a number of places, in season and out of season, as we may fairly say,[24] proclaims his wholly erroneous view that there is "a necessary antagonism between science and Roman Catholic doctrine." We need not labour this point. It is sufficiently obvious, nor does it need any catena of authorities to establish the fact, that outside the Church, and even, as we have hinted above, amongst the less-instructed of her own children, there is a prevalent idea that the allegation with which this paper proposes to deal is a true bill.
Those who give credit to the allegation must of course ignore certain very patent facts which are, it will be allowed, a little difficult to get over. They must commence by ignoring the historical fact that the greater number—almost all indeed—of the older Universities, places specially intended to foster and increase knowledge and research, owe their origin to Papal bulls. They must ignore the fact that vast numbers of scientific researches, often of fundamental importance, especially perhaps in the subjects of anatomy and physiology, emanated from learned men attached to seats of learning in Rome, and this during the Middle Ages, and that the learned men who were their authors quite frequently held official positions in the Papal Court. They must finally ignore the fact that a large number of the most distinguished scientific workers and discoverers in the past were also devout children of the Catholic Church. Stensen, "the Father of Geology" and a great anatomical discoverer as well, was a bishop; Mendel, whose name is so often heard nowadays in biological controversies, was an abbot. And what about Galvani, Volta, Pasteur, Schwann (the originator of the Cell Theory), van Beneden, Johannes Müller, admitted by Huxley to be "the greatest anatomist and physiologist among my contemporaries"?[25] What about Kircher, Spallanzani, Secchi, de Lapparent, to take the names of persons of different historical periods, and connected with different subjects, yet all united in the bond of the Faith? To point to these men—and a host of other names might be cited—is to overthrow at once and finally the edifice of falsehood reared by enemies of the Church, who, before erecting it, might reasonably have been asked to look to the security of their foundations.
Still there is the edifice, and as every edifice must rest on some kind of foundation or another, even if that foundation be nothing but sand, it may be useful and interesting to inquire, as I now propose to do, what foundation there is—if in fact there is any—for this particular allegation.
We might commence by interrogating the persons who make it. The probability is that the reply which would at once be drawn from most of them would amount to this: "Everybody knows it to be true." If the interrogated person is amongst those less imperfectly informed we shall probably be referred to Huxley or to some other writer. Or we may even find ourselves confronted with that greater knowledge—or less inspissated ignorance—which babbles about Galileo, the Inquisition, the Index, and the imprimatur.
Galileo and his case we shall consider later on, for he and it are really germane to the question with which we are dealing. The Inquisition has really nothing to do with the matter. The Index we also reserve for a later part of this essay. With the imprimatur we may now deal, since there is no doubt that there is a genuine misunderstanding on this subject on the part of some people who are misled perhaps through ignorance of Latin and quite certainly through ignorance of what the whole matter amounts to. Let us begin by reminding ourselves that, though the unchanging Church is now, so far as I am aware, the only body which issues an imprimatur, there were other instances of the exercise of such a privilege even in recent or comparatively recent days. There were Royal licences to print with which we need not concern ourselves. But, what is important, there was a time when the scientific authority of the day assumed the right of issuing an imprimatur. I take the first book which occurs to me, Tyson's Anatomie of a Pygmie, and for the sake of those who are not acquainted with it, I may add that this book is not only the foundation-stone of Comparative Anatomy, but also, through its appendix A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges of the Ancients, the foundation-stone of all folk-lore study. On the page fronting the title of this work the following appears:
17 Die Maij, 1699.
Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang sive Homo Sylvestris, etc. Authore Edvardo Tyson, M.D., R.S.S.
John Hoskins, V.P.R.S.
What does this mean? In the first place it shows, what all instructed persons know, that the Royal Society did then exercise the privilege of giving an imprimatur at any rate to books written by its own Fellows. It cannot be supposed that such imprimatur guaranteed the accuracy of all the statements made by Tyson, for we may feel sure that John Hoskins was quite unable to give any such assurance. We must assume that it meant that there was nothing in the book which would reflect discredit upon the Society of which Tyson was a Fellow and from which the imprimatur was obtained.
However this may be, the sway over its Fellows' publications was exercised, and indeed very excellent arguments might be adduced for the reassumption of such a sway even to-day.[26]
Though the imprimatur in question has fallen into desuetude, it is, as we all know, the commonest of things for the introductions to works of science to occupy some often considerable part of their space with acknowledgments of assistance given by learned friends who have read the manuscript or the proofs and made suggestions with the object of improving the book or adding to its accuracy. Any person who has written a book can feel nothing but gratitude towards those who have helped him to avoid the errors and slips to which even the most careful are subject.
So that such acknowledgments of assistance have come to be almost what the lawyers call "common form." What they really amount to is a proclamation on the part of the author that he has done his best to ensure that his book is free from mistakes. Now the imprimatur really amounts to the same thing, for it is, of course, confined to books or parts of books where theology or philosophy trenching upon theology is concerned. Thus a book may deal largely, perhaps mainly, with scientific points, yet necessarily include allusions to theological dogmas. The imprimatur to such a book would relate solely and entirely to the theological parts, just as the advice of an architectural authority on a point connected with that subject in a work in which it was mentioned only in an incidental manner, would refer to that point, and to nothing else. Perhaps it should be added, that no author is obliged to obtain an imprimatur any more than he is compelled to seek advice on any other point in connection with his book. "Nihil Obstat," says the skilled referee: "I see no reason to suppose that there is anything in all this which contravenes theological principles." To which the authority appealed to adds "imprimatur:" "Then by all means let it be printed." The procedure is no doubt somewhat more stately and formal than the modern system of acknowledgments, yet in actual practice there is but little to differentiate the two methods of ensuring, so far as is possible, that the work is free from mistakes. That neither the assistance of friends nor the imprimatur of authorities is infallible is proved by the facts that mistakes do creep into works of science, however carefully examined, and that more than one book with an imprimatur has, none the less, found its way on to the Index. Before leaving this branch of the subject one cannot refrain from calling attention to another point. How often in advertisements of books do we not see quotations from reviews in authoritative journals—a medical work from the Lancet, a physical or chemical from Nature? Frequently too we see "Mr. So-and-So, the well-known authority on the subject, says of this book, etc., etc." What are all these authoritative commendations but an imprimatur up to date?
Passing from the imprimatur to a closer consideration of our subject, it is above all things necessary to take the advice of Samuel Johnson and clear our minds of cant. Every person in this world—save perhaps a Robinson Crusoe on an otherwise uninhabited island, and he only because of his solitary condition—is in bondage more or less to others; that is to say, has his freedom more or less interfered with. That this interference is in the interests of the community and so, in the last analysis, in the interests of the person interfered with himself, in no way weakens the argument; it is rather a potent adjuvant to it. However much I may dislike him and however anxious I may be to injure him, I may not go out and set fire to my neighbour's house nor to his rick-yard, unless I am prepared to risk the serious legal penalties which will be my lot if I am detected in the act. I may not, if I am a small and active boy, make a slide in the public street in frosty weather, unless I am prepared—as the small boy usually is—to run the gauntlet of the police. In a thousand ways my freedom, or what I call my freedom, is interfered with: it is the price which I pay for being one item of a social organism and for being in turn protected against others, who, in virtue of that protection, are in their turn deprived of what they might call their liberty.
No one can have failed to observe that this interference with personal liberty becomes greater day by day. It is a tendency of modern governments, based presumably upon increased experience, to increase these protective regulations. Thus we have laws against adulteration of food, against the placing of buildings concerned with obnoxious trades in positions where people will be inconvenienced by them. We make persons suffering from infectious diseases isolate themselves, and if they cannot do this at home, we make them go to the fever hospital. Further, we insist upon the doctor, whose position resembles that of a confessor, breaking his obligation of professional secrecy and informing the authorities as to the illness of his patient. We interfere with the liberty of men and women to work as long as they like or to make their children labour for excessive hours. We insist upon dangerous machinery being fenced in. In a thousand ways we—the State—interfere with the liberty of our fellows. Finally, when the needs of the community are most pressing we interfere
Comments (0)