Nor are there biographies of Franz Leydig, through whose extensive investigations all structural studies upon insects assumed a new aspect; Rudolph Leuckart, another conspicuous figure in zoölogical progress; Meckel, who stands at the beginning of the school of comparative anatomy in Germany; Rathke, who made a significant advance in comparative anatomy; Ramón y Cajal, whose histological research is of world-wide renown; Kowalevsky, whose work in embryology had enormous influence on all subsequent investigations; Wilhelm His, whose embryological investigations, especially in the development of the nervous system and the origin of nerve fibres, are of very marked importance; Dujardin, the discoverer of sarcode; Lacaze-Duthiers, one of France’s foremost zoölogical researchers; and Pouchet, who created a sensation with his experimentations in spontaneous generation.
Even suppose the Britannica’s editor should argue that the foregoing biologists are not of the very highest significance and therefore are not deserving of separate biographies, how then can he explain the fact that such British biologists as Alfred Newton, William Yarrell, John G. Wood, G. J. Allman, F. T. Buckland, and T. S. Cobbold, are given individual biographies with a detailed discussion of their work? What becomes of that universality of outlook on which he so prides himself? Or does he consider Great Britain as the universe?
As I have said, the foregoing notes do not aim at being exhaustive. To set down, even from an American point of view, a complete record of the inadequacies which are to be found in the Britannica’s account of modern science would require much more space than I can devote to it here. I have tried merely to indicate, by a few names and a few comparisons, the insular nature of this Encyclopædia’s expositions, and thereby to call attention to the very obvious fact that the Britannica is not “an international dictionary of biography,” but a prejudiced work in which English endeavor, through undue emphasis and exaggeration, is given the first consideration. Should this Encyclopædia be depended upon for information, one would get but the meagrest idea of the splendid advances which America has made in modern science. And, although I have here touched only on medicine and biology, the same narrow and provincial British viewpoint can be found in the Britannica’s treatment of the other sciences as well.
IX
INVENTIONS, PHOTOGRAPHY, ÆSTHETICS
In the matter of American inventions the Encyclopædia Britannica would appear to have said as little as possible, and to have minimized our importance in that field as much as it dared. And yet American inventors, to quote H. Addington Bruce, “have not simply astonished mankind; they have enhanced the prestige, power, and prosperity of their country.” The Britannica’s editors apparently do not agree with this; and when we think of the wonderful romance of American inventions, and the possibilities in the subject for full and interesting writing, and then read the brief, and not infrequently disdainful, accounts that are presented, we are conscious at once not only of an inadequacy in the matter of facts, but of a niggardliness of spirit.
Let us regard the Encyclopædia’s treatment of steam navigation. Under Steamboat we read: “The first practical steamboat was the tug ‘Charlotte Dundas,’ built by William Symington (Scotch), and tried in the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1802.... The trial was successful, but steam towing was abandoned for fear of injuring the banks of the canal. Ten years later Henry Bell built the ‘Comet,’ with side-paddle wheels, which ran as a passenger steamer on the Clyde; but an earlier inventor to follow up Symington’s success was the American, Robert Fulton....”
This practically sums up the history of that notable achievement. Note the method of presentation, with the mention of Fulton as a kind of afterthought. While the data may technically come within the truth, the impression given is a false one, or at least a British one. Even English authorities admit that Fulton established definitely the value of the steamboat as a medium for passenger and freight traffic; but here the credit, through implication, is given to Symington and Bell. And yet, if Symington is to be given so much credit for pioneer work, why are not William Henry, of Pennsylvania, John Stevens, of New Jersey, Nathan Read, of Massachusetts, and John Fitch, of Connecticut, mentioned also? Surely each of these other Americans was important in the development of the idea of steam as motive power in water.
Eli Whitney receives a biography of only two-thirds of a column; Morse, less than a column; and Elias Howe, only a little over half a column. Even Thomas Edison receives only thirty-three lines of biography—a mere statement of facts. Such a biography is an obvious injustice; and the American buyers of the Encyclopædia Britannica have just cause for complaining against such inadequacy. Edison admittedly is a towering figure in modern science, and an encyclopædia the size of the Britannica should have a full and interesting account of his life, especially since obscure English scientists are accorded far more liberal biographies.
Alexander Graham Bell, however, receives the scantiest biography of all. It runs to just fifteen lines! And the name of Daniel Drawbaugh is not mentioned. He and Bell filed their papers for a telephone on the same day; and it was only after eight years’ litigation that the Supreme Court decided in Bell’s favor—four judges favoring him and three favoring Drawbaugh. No reference is made of this interesting fact. Would the omission have occurred had Drawbaugh been an Englishman instead of a Pennsylvanian, or had not Bell been a native Scotchman?
The name of Charles Tellier, the Frenchman, does not appear in the Britannica. Not even under Refrigerating and Ice Making is he mentioned. And yet back in 1868 he began experiments which culminated in the refrigerating plant as used on ocean vessels to-day. Tellier, more than any other man, can be called the inventor of cold storage, one of the most important of modern discoveries, for it has revolutionized the food question and had far-reaching effects on commerce. Again we are prompted to ask if his name would have been omitted from the Britannica had he been an Englishman.
Another unaccountable omission occurs in the case of Rudolph Diesel. Diesel, the inventor of the Diesel engine, is comparable only to Watts in the development of power; but he is not considered of sufficient importance by the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica to be given a biography. And under Oil Engine we read: “Mr. Diesel has produced a very interesting engine which departs considerably from other types.” Then follows a brief technical description of it. This is the entire consideration given to Diesel, with his “interesting” engine, despite the fact that the British Government sent to Germany for him in order to investigate his invention!
Few names in the history of modern invention stand as high as Wilbur and Orville Wright. To them can be attributed the birth of the airplane. In 1908, to use the words of an eminent authority, “the Wrights brought out their biplanes and practically taught the world to fly.” The story of how these two brothers developed aviation is, according to the same critic, “one of the most inspiring chronicles of the age.” The Britannica’s editors, if we are to judge their viewpoint by the treatment accorded the Wright brothers in this encyclopædia, held no such opinion. Not only is neither of these men given a biography, but under Flight and Flying—the only place in the whole twenty-nine volumes where their names appear—they are accorded much less consideration than they deserve. Sir Hiram S. Maxim’s flying adventures receive more space.
A subject which unfortunately is too little known in this country and yet one in the development of which America has played a very important part, is pictorial photography. A double interest therefore attaches to the manner in which this subject is treated in the Britannica. Since the writer of the article was thoroughly familiar with the true conditions, an adequate record might have been looked for. But no such record was forthcoming. In the discussion of photography in this Encyclopædia the same bias is displayed as in other departments—the same petty insularity, the same discrimination against America, the same suppression of vital truth, and the same exaggerated glorification of England. In this instance, however, there is documentary proof showing deliberate misrepresentation, and therefore we need not attribute the shortcomings to chauvinistic stupidity, as we have so charitably done in similar causes.
In the article on Pictorial Photography in this aggressibly British reference work we find the following: “It is interesting to note that as a distinct movement pictorial photography is essentially of British origin, and this is shown by the manner in which organized photographic bodies in Vienna, Brussels, Paris, St. Petersburg, Florence, and other European cities, as well as in Philadelphia, Chicago, etc., following the example of London, held exhibitions on exactly similar lines to those of the London Photographic Salon, and invited known British exhibitors to contribute.” Then it is noted that the interchange of works between British and foreign exhibitors led, in the year 1900, “to a very remarkable cult calling itself ‘The New American School,’ which had a powerful influence on contemporaries in Great Britain.”
The foregoing brief and inadequate statements contain all the credit that is given America in this field. New York, where much of the foremost and important work was done, is not mentioned; and the name of Alfred Stieglitz, who is undeniably the towering figure in American photography as well as one of the foremost figures in the world’s photography, is omitted entirely. Furthermore, slight indication is given of the “powerful influence” which America has had; and the significant part she has played in photography, together with the names of the American leaders, is completely ignored, although there is quite a lengthy discussion concerning English photographic history, including credit to those who participated in it.
For instance, the American, Steichen, a world figure in photography and, of a type, perhaps the greatest who ever lived, is not mentioned. Nor are Gertrude Käsebier and Frank Eugene, both of whom especially the former, has had an enormous international influence in pictorial photography. And although there is a history of the formation of the “Linked Ring” in London, no credit is given to Stieglitz whose work, during twenty-five years in Germany and Vienna, was one of the prime influences in the crystallization of this brotherhood. Nor is there so much as a passing reference to Camera Work (published in New York) which stands at the head of photographic publications.
As I have said, there exists documentary evidence which proves the deliberate unfairness of this article. It is therefore not necessary to accept my judgment on the importance of Stieglitz and the work done in America. A. Horsley Hinton, who is responsible for the prejudiced article in the Encyclopædia, was the editor of The Amateur Photographer, a London publication; and in that magazine, as long ago as 1904, we have, in Mr. Hinton’s own words, a refutation of what he wrote for the Britannica. In the May 19 (1904) issue he writes: “We believe every one who is interested in the advance of photography generally, will learn with pleasure that Mr. Alfred Stieglitz, whose life-long and wholly disinterested devotion to pictorial photography should secure him a unique position, will be present at the opening of the next Exhibition of the Photographic Salon in London. Mr. Stieglitz was zealous in all good photographic causes long before the Salon, and indeed long before pictorial photography was discussed—with Dr. Vogel in Germany, for instance, twenty-five years ago.”
Elsewhere in this same magazine we read: “American photography is going to be the ruling note throughout the world unless others bestir themselves; indeed, the Photo-Secession (American) pictures have already captured the highest places in the esteem of the civilized world. Hardly an exhibition of first importance is anywhere held without a striking collection of American work, brought together and sent by Mr. Alfred Stieglitz. For the last two or three years in the European exhibitions these collections have secured the premier awards, or distinctions.” And again we find high praise of Steichen, “than whom America possesses no more brilliant genius among her sons who have taken up photography.”
These quotations—and many similar ones appeared over a decade ago in Mr. Hinton’s magazine—give evidence that Mr. Hinton was not unaware of the extreme importance of American photographic work or of the eminent men who took part in it; and yet in writing his article for the Britannica he has apparently carefully forgotten what he himself had previously written.
But this is not the only evidence we have of deliberate injustice in the Encyclopædia’s disgraceful neglect of our efforts in this line. In 1913, in the same English magazine, we find not only an indirect confession of the Britannica’s bias, but also the personal reason for that bias. Speaking of Stieglitz’s connection with that phase of photographic history to which Mr. Hinton was most intimately connected, this publication says: “At that era, and for long afterwards, Stieglitz was, in fact, a thorn in our sides. ‘Who’s Boss of the Show?’ inquires a poster, now placarded in London. Had that question been asked of the (London) Salon, an irritated whisper of honesty would have replied ‘Stieglitz.’ And ... we didn’t like it. We couldn’t do without him; but these torrential doctrines of his were, to be candid, a nuisance.... He is an influence; an influence for which, even if photography were not concerned, we should be grateful, but which, as it is, we photographers can never perhaps justly estimate.” After this frank admission the magazine adds: “Stieglitz—too big a man to need any ‘defense’—has been considerably misunderstood and misrepresented, and, in so far as this is so, photographers and photography itself are the losers.”
What better direct evidence could one desire than this naïf confession? Yes, Stieglitz, who, according to Mr. Hinton’s own former publication, was a thorn in that critic’s side, has indeed been “misrepresented”; but nowhere has he been neglected with so little excuse as in Mr. Hinton’s own article in the Britannica. And though—again according to this magazine—Stieglitz is “too big a man to need any ‘defense,’” I cannot resist defending him here; for the whole, petty, personal and degrading affair is characteristic of the Encyclopædia Britannica’s contemptible treatment of America and Americans.
Such flagrant political intriguing, such an obvious attempt to use the Encyclopædia to destroy America’s high place in the world of modern achievement, can only arouse disgust in the unprejudiced reader. The great light-bearer in the photographic field, Camera Work, if generally known and appreciated, would have put Mr. Hinton’s own inferior magazine out of existence as a power; and his omitting to mention it in his article and even in his bibliography, is a flagrant example of the Britannica’s refusal to tell the whole truth whenever that truth would harm England or benefit America.
In view of the wide and growing interest in æsthetics and of the immense progress which has been made recently in æsthetic research, one would expect to find an adequate and comprehensive treatment of that subject in a work like the Britannica. But here again one will be disappointed. The article on æsthetics reveals a parti pris which illy becomes a work which should be, as it claims to be, objective and purely informative. The author of the article is critical and not seldom argumentative; and, as a result, full justice is not done the theories and research of many eminent modern æstheticians. Twenty-two lines are all that are occupied in setting forth the æsthetic writers in Germany since Goethe and Schiller, and in this brief paragraph, many of the most significant contributors to the subject are not even given passing mention. And, incredible as it may seem, that division of the article which deals with the German writers is shorter than the division dealing with English writers!
One might forgive scantiness of material in this general article if it were possible to find the leading modern æsthetic theories set forth in the biographies of the men who conceived them. But—what is even more astonishing in the Encyclopædia’s treatment of æsthetics—there are no biographies of many of the scientists whose names and discoveries are familiar to any one even superficially interested in the subject. Several of these men, whose contributions have marked a new epoch in psychological and æsthetic research, are not even mentioned in the text of the Encyclopædia; and the only indication we have that they lived and worked is in an occasional foot-note. Their names do not so much as appear in the Index!
Külpe, one of the foremost psychologists and æstheticians, has no biography, and he is merely mentioned in a foot-note as being an advocate of the principle of association. Lipps, who laid the foundation of the new philosophy of æsthetics and formulated the hypothesis of Einfühlung, has no biography. His name appears once—under Æsthetics—and his theory is actually disputed by the critic who wrote the article. Groos, another important æsthetic leader, is also without a biography; and his name is not in the Britannica’s Index. Nor is Hildebrand, whose solutions to the problem of form are of grave importance, thought worthy of mention.
There is no excuse for such inadequacy, especially as England possesses in Vernon Lee a most capable interpreter of æsthetics—a writer thoroughly familiar with the subject, and one whose articles and books along this line of research have long been conspicuous for their brilliancy and thoroughness.
Furthermore, in this article we have another example of the Britannica’s contempt for American achievement. This country has made important contributions to æsthetics; and only an Englishman could have written a modern exposition of the subject without referring to the researches of William James and Hugo Münsterberg. The Lange-James hypothesis has had an important influence on æsthetic theory; and Münsterberg’s observations on æsthetic preference, form-perception and projection of feelings, play a vital rôle in the history of modern æsthetic science; but you will look in vain for any mention of these Americans’ work. Münsterberg’s Principles of Art Education is not even included in the bibliography.
X
PHILOSOPHY
One going to the Encyclopædia Britannica for critical information concerning philosophy will encounter the very essence of that spirit which is merely reflected in the other departments of the Encyclopædia’s culture. In this field the English editors and contributors of the Britannica are dealing with the sources of thought, and as a result British prejudice finds a direct outlet.
To be sure, it is difficult for a critic possessing the mental characteristics and the ethical and religious predispositions of his nation, to reveal the entire field of philosophy without bias. He has certain temperamental affinities which will draw him toward his own country’s philosophical systems, and certain antipathies which will turn him against contrary systems of other nations. But in the higher realms of criticism it is possible to find that intellectual detachment which can review impersonally the development of thought, no matter what tangential directions it may take. There have been several adequate histories of philosophy written by British critics, proving that it is not necessary for an Englishman to regard the evolution of thinking only through distorted and prejudiced eyes.
The Encyclopædia Britannica, however, evidently holds to no such just ideal in its exposition of philosophical research. Only in a very few of the biographies do we find evidences of an attempt to set forth this difficult subject with impartiality. As in its other departments, the Encyclopædia places undue stress on British thinkers: it accords them space out of all proportion to their relative importance, and includes obscure and inconsequent British moralists while omitting biographies of far more important thinkers of other nations.
This obvious discrepancy in space might be overlooked did the actual material of the biographies indicate the comparative importance of the thinkers dealt with. But when British critics consider the entire history of thought from the postulates of their own writers, and emphasize only those philosophers of foreign nationality who appeal to “English ways of thinking,” then it is impossible to gain any adequate idea of the philosophical teachings of the world as a whole. And this is precisely the method pursued by the Britannica in dealing with the history and development of modern thought. In nearly every instance, and in every important instance, it has been an English didactician who has interpreted for this Encyclopædia the teachings of the world’s leading philosophers; and there are few biographies which do not reveal British prejudice.
The modern English critical mind, being in the main both insular and middle-class, is dominated by a suburban moral instinct. And even among the few more scholarly critics there is a residue of puritanism which tinctures the syllogisms and dictates the deductions. In bringing their minds to bear on creative works these critics are filled with a sense of moral disquietude. At bottom they are Churchmen. They mistake the tastes and antipathies which have been bred in them by a narrow religious and ethical culture, for pure critical criteria. They regard the great men of other nations through the miasma of their tribal taboos.
This rigid and self-satisfied provincialism of outlook, as applied to philosophers in the Encyclopædia Britannica, is not, I am inclined to believe, the result of a deliberate attempt to exaggerate the importance of British thinkers and to underrate the importance of non-British thinkers. To the contrary, it is, I believe, the result of an unconscious ethical prejudice coupled with a blind and self-contented patriotism. But whatever the cause, the result is the same. Consequently, any one who wishes an unbiased exposition of philosophical history must go to a source less insular, and less distorted than the Britannica. Only a British moralist, or one encrusted with British morality, will be wholly satisfied with the manner in which philosophy is here treated; and since there are a great many Americans who have not, as yet, succumbed to English bourgeois theology and who do not believe, for instance, that Isaac Newton is of greater philosophic importance than Kant, this Encyclopædia will be of far more value to an Englishman than to an American.
The first distortion which will impress one who seeks information in the Britannica is to be found in the treatment of English empirical philosophers—that is, of John Locke, Isaac Newton, George Berkeley, Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, Joseph Butler, Mandeville, Hume, Adam Smith and David Hartley. Locke receives fifteen columns of detailed exposition, with inset headings. “He was,” we are told, “typically English in his reverence for facts” and “a signal example in the Anglo-Saxon world of the love of attainable truth for the sake of truth and goodness.” Then we are given the quotation: “If Locke made few discoveries, Socrates made none.” Furthermore, he was “memorable in the record of human progress.”
Isaac Newton receives no less than nineteen columns filled with specific and unstinted praise; and in the three-and-a-half column biography of George Berkeley we learn that Berkeley’s “new conception marks a distinct stage of progress in human thought”; that “he once for all lifted the problem of metaphysics to a higher level,” and, with Hume, “determined the form into which later metaphysical questions have been thrown.” Shaftesbury, whose main philosophical importance was due to his ethical and moral speculations in refutation of Hobbes’ egoism, is represented by a biography of four and a half columns!
Hume receives over fourteen columns, with inset headings; Adam Smith, nearly nine columns, five and a half of which are devoted to a detailed consideration of his Wealth of Nations. Hutcheson, the ethical moralist who drew the analogy between beauty and virtue—the doctrinaire of the moral sense and the benevolent feelings—is given no less than five columns; while Joseph Butler, the philosophic divine who, we are told, is a “typical instance of the English philosophical mind” and whose two basic premises were the existence of a theological god and the limitation of human knowledge, is given six and a half columns!
On the other hand, Mandeville receives only a column and two-thirds. To begin with, he was of French parentage, and his philosophy (according to the Britannica) “has always been stigmatized as false, cynical and degrading.” He did not believe in the higher Presbyterian virtues, and read hypocrisy into the vaunted goodness of the English. Although in a history of modern philosophy he is deserving of nearly equal space with Butler, in the Britannica he is given only a little over one-fifth of the space! Even David Hartley, the English physician who supplemented Hume’s theory of knowledge, is given nearly as much consideration as the “degrading” Mandeville. And Joseph Priestley, who merely popularized these theories, is given no less than two columns.
Let us turn now to what has been called the “philosophy of the enlightenment” in France and Germany, and we shall see the exquisite workings of British moral prejudice in all its purity. Voltaire, we learn, “was one of the most astonishing, if not exactly one of the more admirable, figures of letters.” He had “cleverness,” but not “genius”; and his great fault was an “inveterate superficiality.” Again: “Not the most elaborate work of Voltaire is of much value for matter.” (The biography, a derogatory and condescending one, is written by the eminent moralist, George Saintsbury.)
Condillac, who is given far less space than either Berkeley or Shaftesbury, only half of the space given Hutcheson, and only a little over one-third of the space given Joseph Butler, is set down as important for “having established systematically in France the principles of Locke.” But his “genius was not of the highest order”; and in his analysis of the mind “he missed out the active and spiritual side of human experience.” James Mill did not like him, and his method of imaginative reconstruction “was by no means suited to English ways of thinking.” This latter shortcoming no doubt accounts for the meagre and uncomplimentary treatment Condillac receives in the great British reference work which is devoted so earnestly to “English ways of thinking.”
Helvétius, whose theory of equality is closely related to Condillac’s doctrine of psychic passivity, is given even shorter shrift, receiving only a column and a third; and it is noted that “there is no doubt that his thinking was unsystematic.” Diderot, however, fares much better, receiving five columns of biography. But then, more and more “did Diderot turn for the hope of the race to virtue; in other words, to such a regulation of conduct and motive as shall make us tender, pitiful, simple, contented,”—an attitude eminently fitted to “English ways of thinking”! And Diderot’s one great literary passion, we learn, was Richardson, the English novelist.
La Mettrie, the atheist, who held no brief for the pious virtues or for the theological soul so beloved by the British, receives just half a column of biography in which the facts of his doctrine are set down more in sorrow than in anger. Von Holbach, the German-Parisian prophet of earthly happiness, who denied the existence of a deity and believed that the soul became extinct at physical death, receives only a little more space than La Mettrie—less than a column. But then, the uprightness of Von Holbach’s character “won the friendship of many to whom his philosophy was repugnant.”
Montesquieu, however, is given five columns with liberal praise—both space and eulogy being beyond his deserts. Perhaps an explanation of such generosity lies in this sentence which we quote from his biography: “It is not only that he is an Anglo-maniac, but that he is rather English than French in style and thought.”
Rousseau, on the other hand, possessed no such exalted qualities; and the biography of this great Frenchman is shorter than Adam Smith’s and only a little longer than that of the English divine, Joseph Butler! The Britannica informs us that Rousseau’s moral character was weak and that he did not stand very high as a man. Furthermore, he was not a philosopher; the essence of his religion was sentimentalism; and during the last ten or fifteen years of his life he was not sane. If you wish to see how unjust and biased is this moral denunciation of Rousseau, turn to any unprejudiced history of philosophy, and compare the serious and lengthy consideration given him, with the consideration given the English moral thinkers who prove such great favorites with the Britannica’s editors.
The German “philosophers of the enlightenment” are given even less consideration. Christian Wolff, whose philosophy admittedly held almost undisputed sway in Germany till eclipsed by Kantianism, receives only a column-and-a-half biography, only half the space given to Samuel Clarke, the English theological writer, and equal space with John Norris, the English philosophical divine, and with Arthur Collier, the English High Church theologian. Even Anthony Collins, the English deist, receives nearly as long a biography. Moses Mendelssohn draws only two and a half columns; Crusius, only half a column; Lambert, only a little over three-fourths of a column; Reimarus, only a column and a third, in which he is considered from the standpoint of the English deists; and Edelmann and Tetens have no biographies whatever!
Kant, as I have noted, receives less biographical space than Isaac Newton, and only about a fifth more space than does either John Locke or Hume. It is unnecessary to indicate here the prejudice shown by these comparisons. Every one is cognizant of Kant’s tremendous importance in the history of thought, and knows what relative consideration should be given him in a work like the Britannica. Hamann, “the wise man of the North,” who was the foremost of Kant’s opponents, receives only a column-and-a-quarter biography, in which he is denounced. His writings, to one not acquainted with the man, must be “entirely unintelligible and, from their peculiar, pietistic tone and scriptural jargon, probably offensive.” And he expressed himself in “uncouth, barbarous fashion.” Herder, however, another and lesser opponent of Kantianism, receives four and a half columns. Jacobi receives three; Reinhold, half a column; Maimon, two-thirds of a column; and Schiller, four and a half columns. Compare these allotments of space with: Thomas Hill Green, the English neo-Kantian, two and two-thirds columns; Richard Price, a column and three-fourths; Martineau, the English philosophic divine, five columns; Ralph Cudworth, two columns; and Joseph Butler, six and a half columns!
In the treatment of German philosophic romanticism the Encyclopædia Britannica is curiously prejudiced. The particular philosophers of this school—especially the ones with speculative systems—who had a deep and wide influence on English thought, are treated with adequate liberality. But the later idealistic thinkers, who substituted criticism for speculation, receive scant attention, and in several instances are omitted entirely. For English readers such a disproportioned and purely national attitude may be adequate, since England’s intellectualism is, in the main, insular. But, it must be remembered, the Britannica has assumed the character of an American institution; and, to date, this country has not quite reached that state of British complacency where it chooses to ignore all information save that which is narrowly relative to English culture. Some of us are still un-British enough to want an encyclopædia of universal information. The Britannica is not such a reference work, and the manner in which it deals with the romantic philosophers furnishes ample substantiation of this fact.
Fichte, for instance, whose philosophy embodies a moral idealism eminently acceptable to “English ways of thinking,” receives seven columns of biography. Schelling, whose ideas were tainted with mythical mysticism, but who was not an evolutionist in the modern sense of the word, receives five columns. Hegel, who was, in a sense, the great English philosophical idol and whose doctrines had a greater influence in Great Britain than those of any other thinker, is given no less than fifteen columns, twice the space that is given to Rousseau, and five-sixths of the space that is given to Kant! Even Schleiermacher is given almost equal space with Rousseau, and his philosophy is interpreted as an effort “to reconcile science and philosophy with religion and theology, and the modern world with the Christian church.” Also, the focus of his thought, culture and life, we are told, “was religion and theology.”
Schopenhauer is one of the few foreign philosophers who receive adequate treatment in the Encyclopædia Britannica. But Boström, in whose works the romantic school attained its systematic culmination, receives just twenty-four lines, less space than is devoted to Abraham Tucker, the English moralist, or to Garth Wilkinson, the English Swedenborgian; and about the same amount of space as is given to John Morell, the English Congregationalist minister who turned philosopher. And Frederick Christian Sibbern receives no biography whatever!
Kierkegaard, whose influence in the North has been profound, receives only half a column, equal space with Andrew Baxter, the feeble Scottish metaphysician; and only half the space given to Thomas Brown, another Scotch “philosopher.” Fries who, with Herbart, was the forerunner of modern psychology and one of the leading representatives of the critical philosophy, is given just one column; but Beneke, a follower of Fries, who approached more closely to the English school, is allotted twice the amount of space that Fries receives.
The four men who marked the dissolution of the Hegelian school—Krause, Weisse, I. H. Fichte and Feuerbach—receive as the sum total of all their biographies less space than is given to the English divine, James Martineau, or to Francis Hutcheson. (In combating Hegelianism these four thinkers invaded the precincts of British admiration.) In the one-column biography of Krause we are told that the spirit of his thought is difficult to follow and that his terminology is artificial. Weisse receives only twenty-three lines; and I. H. Fichte, the son of J. G. Fichte, receives only two-thirds of a column. Feuerbach, who marked the transition between romanticism and positivism and who accordingly holds an important position in the evolution of modern thought, is accorded a biography of a column and a half, shorter than that of Richard Price. Feuerbach, however, unlike Price, was an anti-theological philosopher, and is severely criticised for his spiritual shortcomings.
Let us glance quickly at the important philosophers of positivism as represented in the Encyclopædia Britannica. At the end of the seventeenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries the principal French philosophers representative of schools were de Maistre, Maine de Biran, Ampère, Saint-Simon and Victor Cousin. De Maistre, the most important philosopher of the principle of authority, is given a biography of a column and a third, is highly praised for his ecclesiasticism, and is permitted to be ranked with Hobbes. Maine de Biran receives a little over a column; Ampère, less than a column; and Saint-Simon, two and a third columns.
Victor Cousin is given the astonishing amount of space of eleven columns; but just why he should have been treated in this extravagant manner is not clear, for we are told that his search for principles was not profound and that he “left no distinctive, permanent principles of philosophy.” Nor does it seem possible that he should draw nearly as much space as Rousseau and Montesquieu combined simply because he left behind interesting analyses and expositions of the work of Locke and the Scottish philosophers. Even Comte is given only four and a half columns more.
The English philosophers of the nineteenth century before John Stuart Mill are awarded space far in excess of their importance, comparatively speaking. For instance, James Mill receives two columns of biography; Coleridge, who “did much to deepen and liberalize Christian thought in England,” five and three-fourths columns; Carlyle, nine and two-thirds columns; William Hamilton, two and three-fourths columns; Henry Mansel, a disciple of Hamilton’s, two-thirds of a column; Whewell, over a column; and Bentham, over three and a half columns.
Bentham’s doctrines “have become so far part of the common thought of the time, that there is hardly an educated man who does not accept as too clear for argument truths which were invisible till Bentham pointed them out.... The services rendered by Bentham to the world would not, however, be exhausted even by the practical adoption of every one of his recommendations. There are no limits to the good results of his introduction of a true method of reasoning into the moral and political sciences.” John Stuart Mill, whose philosophy is “generally spoken of as being typically English,” receives nine and a half columns; Charles Darwin, seven columns; and Herbert Spencer, over five.
Positivism in Germany is represented by Dühring in a biography which is only three-fourths of a column in length—an article which is merely an attack, both personal and general. “His patriotism,” we learn, “is fervent, but narrow and exclusive.” (Dühring idolized Frederick the Great.) Ardigò, the important Italian positivist, receives no mention whatever in the Encyclopædia, although in almost any adequate history of modern philosophy, even a brief one, you will find a discussion of his work.
With the exception of Lotze, the philosophers of the new idealism receive scant treatment in the Britannica. Hartmann and Fechner are accorded only one column each; and Wilhelm Wundt, whose æsthetic and psychological researches outstrip even his significant philosophical work, is accorded only half a column! Francis Herbert Bradley has no biography—a curious oversight, since he is English; and Fouillée receives only a little over half a column.
The most inadequate and prejudiced treatment in the Britannica of any modern philosopher is to be found in the biography of Nietzsche, which is briefer than Mrs. Humphry Ward’s! Not only is Nietzsche accorded less space than is given to such British philosophical writers as Dugald Stewart, Henry Sidgwick, Richard Price, John Norris, Thomas Hill Green, James Frederick Ferrier, Adam Ferguson, Ralph Cudworth, Anthony Collins, Arthur Collier, Samuel Clarke and Alexander Bain—an absurd and stupid piece of narrow provincial prejudice—but the biography itself is superficial and inaccurate. The supposed doctrine of Nietzsche is here used to expose the personal opinions of the tutor of Corpus Christi College who was assigned the task of interpreting Nietzsche to the readers of the Britannica. It would be impossible to gather any clear or adequate idea of Nietzsche and his work from this biased and moral source. Here middle-class British insularity reaches its high-water mark.
Other important modern thinkers, however, are given but little better treatment. Lange receives only three-fourths of a column; Paulsen, less than half a column; Ernst Mach, only seventeen lines; Eucken, only twenty-eight lines, with a list of his works; and Renouvier, two-thirds of a column. J. C. Maxwell, though, the Cambridge professor, gets two columns—twice the space given Nietzsche!
In the biography of William James we discern once more the contempt which England has for this country. Here is a man whose importance is unquestioned even in Europe, and who stands out as one of the significant figures in modern thought; yet the Encyclopædia Britannica, that “supreme book of knowledge,” gives him a biography of just twenty-eight lines! And it is Americans who are furnishing the profits for this English reference work!
Perhaps the British editors of this encyclopædia think that we should feel greatly complimented at having William James admitted at all when so many other important moderns of Germany and France and America are excluded. But so long as unimportant English philosophical writers are given biographies, we have a right to expect, in a work which calls itself an “international dictionary of biography,” the adequate inclusion of the more deserving philosophers of other nations.
But what do we actually find? You may hunt the Encyclopædia Britannica through, yet you will not see the names of John Dewey and Stanley Hall mentioned! John Dewey, an American, is perhaps the world’s leading authority on the philosophy of education; but the British editors of the Encyclopædia do not consider him worth noting, even in a casual way. Furthermore, Stanley Hall, another American, who stands in the front rank of the world’s genetic psychologists, is not so much as mentioned. And yet Hall’s great work, Adolescence, appeared five years before the Britannica went to press! Nor has Josiah Royce a biography, despite the fact that he was one of the leaders in the philosophical thought of America, and was even made an LL.D. by Aberdeen University in 1900. These omissions furnish excellent examples of the kind of broad and universal culture which is supposed to be embodied in the Britannica.
But these are by no means all the omissions of the world’s important modern thinkers. Incredible as it may seem, there is no biography of Hermann Cohen, who elaborated the rationalistic elements in Kant’s philosophy; of Alois Riehl, the positivist neo-Kantian; of Windelband and Rickert, whose contributions to the theory of eternal values in criticism are of decided significance to-day; of Freud, a man who has revolutionized modern psychology and philosophic determinism; of Amiel Boutroux, the modern French philosopher of discontinuity; of Henri Bergson, whose influence and popularity need no exposition here; of Guyau, one of the most effective critics of English utilitarianism and evolutionism; or of Jung.
When we add Roberto Ardigò, Weininger, Edelmann, Tetans, and Sibbern to this list of philosophic and psychologic writers who are not considered of sufficient importance to receive biographical mention in the Encyclopædia Britannica, we have, at a glance, the prejudicial inadequacy and incompleteness of this “great” English reference work. Nor can any excuse be offered that the works of these men appeared after the Britannica was printed. At the time it went to press even the most modern of these writers held a position of sufficient significance or note to have been included.
In closing, and by way of contrast, let me set down some of the modern British philosophical writers who are given liberal biographies; Robert Adamson, the Scottish critical historian of philosophy; Alexander Bain; Edward and John Caird, Scottish philosophic divines; Harry Calderwood, whose work was based on the contention that fate implies knowledge and on the doctrine of divine sanction; David George Ritchie, an unimportant Scotch thinker; Henry Sidgwick, an orthodox religionist and one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research; James H. Stirling, an expounder of Hegel and Kant; William Wallace, an interpreter of Hegel; and Garth Wilkinson, the Swedenborgian homeopath.
Such is the brief record of the manner in which the world’s modern philosophers are treated in the Encyclopædia Britannica. From this work hundreds of thousands of Americans are garnering their educational ideas.
XI
RELIGION
Throughout several of the foregoing chapters I have laid considerable emphasis on the narrow parochial attitude of the Britannica’s editors and on the constant intrusion of England’s middle-class Presbyterianism into nearly every branch of æsthetics. The Britannica, far from being the objective and unbiased work it claims to be, assumes a personal and prejudiced attitude, and the culture of the world is colored and tinctured by that viewpoint. It would appear self-obvious to say that the subject of religion in any encyclopædia whose aim is to be universal, should be limited to the articles on religious matters. But in the Encyclopædia Britannica this is not the case. As I have shown, those great artists and thinkers who do not fall within the range of bourgeois England’s suburban morality, are neglected, disparaged, or omitted entirely.
Not only patriotic prejudice, but evangelical prejudice as well, characterizes this encyclopædia’s treatment of the world’s great achievements; and nowhere does this latter bias exhibit itself more unmistakably than in the articles relating to Catholicism. The trickery, the manifest ignorance, the contemptuous arrogance, the inaccuracies, the venom, and the half-truths which are encountered in the discussion of the Catholic Church and its history almost pass the bounds of credibility. The wanton prejudice exhibited in this department of the Britannica cannot fail to find resentment even in non-Catholics, like myself; and for scholars, either in or out of the Church, this encyclopædia, as a source of information, is not only worthless but grossly misleading.
The true facts relating to the inclusion of this encyclopædia’s article on Catholicism, as showing the arrogant and unscholarly attitude of the editors, are as interesting to those outside of the Church as to Catholics themselves. And it is for the reason that these articles are typical of a great many of the Encyclopædia’s discussions of culture in general that I call attention both to the misinformation contained in them and to the amazing refusal of the Britannica’s editors to correct the errors when called to their attention at a time when correction was possible. The treatment of the Catholic Church by the Britannica is quite in keeping with its treatment of other important subjects, and it emphasizes, perhaps better than any other topic, not only the Encyclopædia’s petty bias and incompleteness, but the indefensible and mendacious advertising by which this set of books was foisted upon the American public. And it also gives direct and irrefutable substantiation to my accusation that the spirit of the Encyclopædia Britannica is closely allied to the provincial religious doctrines of the British bourgeoisie; and that therefore it is a work of the most questionable value.
Over five years ago T. J. Campbell, S. J., in The Catholic Mind, wrote an article entitled The Truth About the Encyclopædia Britannica—an article which, from the standpoint of an authority, exposed the utter unreliability of this Encyclopædia’s discussion of Catholicism. The article is too long to quote here, but enough of it will be given to reveal the inadequacy of the Britannica as a source of accurate information. “The Encyclopædia Britannica,” the article begins, “has taken an unfair advantage of the public. By issuing all its volumes simultaneously it prevented any protests against misstatements until the whole harm was done. Henceforth prudent people will be less eager to put faith in prospectuses and promises. The volumes were delivered in two installments a couple of months apart. The article Catholic Church, in which the animus of the Encyclopædia might have been detected, should naturally have been in the first set. It was adroitly relegated to the end of the second set, under the caption Roman Catholic Church.
“It had been intimated to us that the Encyclopædia’s account of the Jesuits was particularly offensive. That is our excuse for considering it first. Turning to it we found that the same old battered scarecrow had been set up. The article covers ten and a half large, double-columned, closely-printed pages, and requires more than an hour in its perusal. After reading it two or three times we closed the book with amazement, not at the calumnies with which the article teems and to which custom has made us callous, but at the lack of good judgment, of accurate scholarship, of common information, and business tact which it reveals in those who are responsible for its publication.
“It ought to be supposed that the subscribers to this costly encyclopædia had a right to expect in the discussion of all the questions presented an absolute or quasi-absolute freedom from partisan bias, a sincere and genuine presentation of all the results of the most modern research, a positive exclusion of all second-hand and discredited matter, and a scrupulous adherence to historical truth. In the article in question all these essential conditions are woefully lacking.
“Encyclopædias of any pretence take especial pride in the perfection and completeness of their bibliographies. It is a stamp of scholarship and a guarantee of the thoroughness and reliability of the article, which is supposed to be an extract and a digest of all that has been said or written on the subject. The bibliography annexed to the article on the Jesuits, is not only deplorably meagre, but hopelessly antiquated. Thus, for instance, only three works of the present century are quoted; one of them apparently for no reason whatever, viz.: The History of the Jesuits of North America, in three volumes, by Thomas Hughes, S. J., for, as far as we are able to see, the Encyclopædia article makes no mention of their being with Lord Baltimore in Maryland, or of the preceding troubles of the Jesuits in England, which were considered important enough for a monumental work, but evidently not for a compiler of the Encyclopædia. Again, the nine words, ‘laboring amongst the Hurons and Iroquois of North America,’ form the sum total of all the information vouchsafed us about the great missions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though we are referred to the seventy-three volumes of Thwaites’ edition of the Jesuits Relations. Had the author or editor even glanced at these books he might have seen that besides the Huron and Iroquois missions, which were very brief in point of time and very restricted in their territorial limitations, the Jesuit missions with the Algonquins extended from Newfoundland to Alaska, and are still continued; he would have found that most of the ethnological, religious, linguistic and geographical knowledge we have of aboriginal North America comes from those Jesuit Relations; and possibly without much research the sluggish reader would have met with a certain inconspicuous Marquette; but as Englishmen, up to the Civil War, are said to have imagined that the Mississippi was the dividing line between the North and South, the value of the epoch-making discovery of the great river never entered this slow foreigner’s mind. Nor is there any reference to the gigantic labors of the Jesuits in Mexico; but perhaps Mexico is not considered to be in North America.
“Nor is there in this bibliography any mention of the Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, nor of the Monumenta Pædagogica, nor is there any allusion to the great and learned works of Duhr, Tacchi-Venturi, Fouqueray, and Kroes, which have just been published and are mines of information on the history of the Society in Spain, Germany, Italy and France; and although we are told of the Historia Societatis Jesu by Orlandini, which bears the very remote imprint of 1620, is very difficult to obtain, and covers a very restricted period, there is apparently no knowledge of the classic work of Jouvency, nor is Sacchini cited, nor Polanco. The Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, by De Backer, not ‘Backer,’ as the Encyclopædia has it, is listed; but it is simply shocking to find that there was no knowledge of Sommervogel, who is the continuator of De Backer, and who has left us a most scholarly and splendid work which is brought down to our own times, and for which De Backer’s, notable though it be, was only a preparation. In brief, the bibliography is absolutely worthless, not only for a scholar, but even for the average reader.
“On the other hand it is quite in keeping with the character of the writers who were chosen for the article. The New York Evening Post informs us that before 1880, when a search for a suitable scribe for the Jesuit article was instituted, some one started on a hunt for Cardinal Newman, but the great man had no time. Then he thought of Manning, who, of course, declined, and finally knowing no other ‘Jesuit’ he gave the work to Littledale. Littledale, as everyone knows, was an Anglican minister, notorious not only for his antagonism to the Jesuits, but also to the Catholic Church. He gladly addressed himself to the task, and forthwith informed the world that ‘the Jesuits controlled the policy of Spain’; that ‘it was a matter of common knowledge that they kindled the Franco-Prussian war of 1870’; that ‘Pope Julius II dispensed the Father General from his vow of poverty,’ though that warrior Pope expired eight years before Ignatius sought the solitude of Manresa, and had as yet no idea of a Society of Jesus; again, that ‘the Jesuits from the beginning never obeyed the Pope’; that ‘in their moral teaching they can attenuate and even defend any kind of sin’; and, finally, not to be too prolix in this list of absurdities, that, prior to the Vatican Council, ‘they had filled up all the sees of Latin Christendom with bishops of their own selection.’
“It is true that only the last mentioned charge appears in the present edition, and it is a fortunate concession for Littledale’s suffering victims; for if ‘there are no great intellects among the Jesuits,’ and if they are only a set of ‘respectable mediocrities,’ as this ‘revised’ article tells us, they can point with pride to this feat which makes a dozen Franco-Prussian wars pale into insignificance alongside it. We doubt, however, if the 700 prelates who sat in the Vatican Council would accept that explanation of their promotion in the prelacy; and we feel certain that Cardinal Manning, who was one of the great figures in that assembly, would resent it, at least if it be true, as the Encyclopædia assures us, that he considered the suppression of the Society in 1773 to be the work of God, and was sure that another 1773 was coming.
“The wonder is that a writer who can be guilty of such absurdities should, after twenty years, be summoned from the dead as a witness to anything at all. But on the other hand it is not surprising when we see that the Rev. Ethelred Taunton, who is also dead and buried, should be made his yoke-fellow in ploughing over this old field, to sow again these poisonous weeds. There are many post-mortems in the Encyclopædia. Had the careless editors of the Encyclopædia consulted Usher’s Reconstruction of the English Church, they would have found Taunton described as an author ‘who makes considerable parade of the amount of his research, but has not gone very far and has added little, if anything, to what we knew before. As a whole, his book on The History of the Jesuits in England is uncritical and prejudiced.’
“Such is the authority the Encyclopædia appeals to for information. That is bad enough, but in the list of authors Taunton is actually described as a ‘Jesuit.’ Possibly it is one of the punishments the Almighty has meted out to him for his misuse of the pen while on earth. But he never did half the harm to the Jesuits by his ill-natured assaults as he has to the Encyclopædia in being mistaken for an ‘S. J.’; for although there are some people who will believe anything an encyclopædia tells them, there are others who are not so meek and who will be moved to inquire how, if the editor of this publication is so lamentably ignorant of the personality and antecedents of his contributors, he can vouch for the reliability of what newspaper men very properly call the stuff that comes into the office. We are not told who revised the writings of those two dead men, one of whom departed this life twenty, the other four years ago; and we have to be satisfied with a posthumous and prejudiced and partly anonymous account of a great Order, about which many important books have been written since the demise of the original calumniators, and with which apparently the unknown reviser is unacquainted.
“It may interest the public to know that many of these errors were pointed out to the managers of the Encyclopædia at their New York office when the matter was still in page proof and could have been corrected. Evidently it was not thought worth while to pay any attention to the protest.
“It is true that in the minds of some of their enemies, especially in certain parts of the habitable globe, Catholics have no right to resent anything that is said of their practices and beliefs, no matter how false or grotesque such statements may be; and, consequently, we are not surprised at the assumption by the Encyclopædia Britannica of its usual contemptuous attitude. Thus, for instance, on turning to the articles Casuistry and Roman Catholic Church we find them signed ‘St. C.’ Naturally and supernaturally to be under the guidance of a Saint C. or a Saint D. always inspires confidence in a Catholic; but this ‘St. C.’ turns out to be only the Viscount St. Cyres, a scion of the noble house of Sir Stafford Northcote, the one time leader of the House of Commons, who died in 1887. In the Viscount’s ancestral tree we notice that Sir Henry Stafford Northcote, first Baronet, has appended to his name the title ‘Prov. Master of Devonshire Freemasons.’ What ‘Prov.’ means we do not know, but we are satisfied with the remaining part of the description. The Viscount was educated at Eton, and Merton College, Oxford. He is a layman and a clubman, and as far as we know is not suspected of being a Catholic. A search in the ‘Who’s Who?’ failed to reveal anything on that point, though a glance at the articles over his name will dispense us from any worry about his religious status.
“We naturally ask why he should have been chosen to enlighten the world on Catholic topics? ‘Because,’ says the editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica, ‘the Viscount St. Cyres has probably more knowledge of the development of theology in the Roman Catholic Church than any other person in that Church.’
“The Church was unaware that it had at its disposal such a source of information. It will be news to many, but we are inclined to ask how the Viscount acquired that marvelous knowledge. It would require a life-long absorption in the study of divinity quite incompatible with the social duties of one of his station. Furthermore, we should like to know whence comes the competency of the editor to decide on the ability of the Viscount, and to pass judgment on the correctness of his contribution? That also supposes an adequate knowledge of all that the dogmatic, moral and mystic theologians ever wrote, a life-long training in the language and methods of the science, and a special intellectual aptitude to comprehend the sublime speculations of the Church’s divines.
“It will not be unkind to deny him such qualifications, especially now, for did he not tell his friends at the London banquet: ‘During all these (seven) years I have been busy in the blacksmith’s shop (of the editor’s room) and I do not hear the noise that is made by the hammers all around me’—nor, it might be added, does he hear what is going on outside the Britannica’s forge.
“Meantime, we bespeak the attention of all the Catholic theologians in every part of the world to the preposterous invitation to come to hear the last word about ‘the development of theology’ in the Catholic Church from a scholar whose claim to theological distinction is that ‘he has written about Fénélon and Pascal.’ The Britannica shows scant respect to Catholic scholarship and Catholic intelligence.”
Father Campbell then devotes several pages to a specific indictment of the misstatements and the glaring errors to be found in several of the articles relating to the Catholic Church. He quotes eight instances of St. Cyres’ inaccurate and personal accusations, and also many passages from the articles on Papacy, Celibacy and St. Catherine of Siena—passages which show the low and biased standard of scholarship by which they were written. The injustice contained in them is obvious even to a superficial student of history. At the close of these quotations he accuses the Britannica of being neither up-to-date, fair, nor well-informed. “It repeats old calumnies that have been a thousand times refuted, and it persistently selects the Church’s enemies who hold her up to ridicule and contempt. We are sorry for those who have been lavish in their praises of a book which is so defective, so prejudiced, so misleading and so insulting.”
It seems that while the Britannica’s contributions to the general misinformation of the world were being discussed, the editor wrote to one of his subscribers saying that the Catholics were very much vexed because the article on the Jesuits was not “sufficiently eulogistic.”
“He is evidently unaware,” Father Campbell goes on to comment, “that the Society of Jesus is sufficiently known both in the Church and the world not to need a monument in the graveyard of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Not the humblest Brother in the Order expected anything but calumny and abuse when he saw appended to the article the initials of the well-known assassins of the Society’s reputation. Not one was surprised, much less displeased, at the absence of eulogy, sufficient or otherwise; but, on the contrary, they were all amazed to find the loudly trumpeted commercial enterprise, which had been so persistently clamorous of its possession of the most recent results of research in every department of learning, endeavoring to palm off on the public such shopworn travesties of historical and religious truth. The editor is mistaken if he thinks they pouted. Old and scarred veterans are averse to being patted on the back by their enemies.
“It is not, however, the ill-judged gibe that compels us to revert to the Society, as much as the suspicion that the editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica seems to fancy that we had nothing to say beyond calling attention to his dilapidated bibliography, which he labels with the very offensive title of ‘the bibliography of Jesuitism’—a term which is as incorrect as it is insulting—or that we merely objected to the employment of two dead and discredited witnesses to tell the world what kind of an organization the Society is.
“It may be, moreover, that we misjudged a certain portion of the reading public in treating the subject so lightly, and as the Encyclopædia is continually reiterating the assertion that it has no ‘bias’ and that its statement of facts is purely ‘objective,’ a few concrete examples of the opposite kind of treatment—the one commonly employed—may not be out of place.
“We are told, for instance, that ‘the Jesuits had their share, direct or indirect, in the embroiling of States, in concocting conspiracies and in kindling wars. They were responsible by their theoretical teachings in theological schools for not a few assassinations’ (340). ‘They powerfully aided the revolution which placed the Duke of Braganza on the throne of Portugal, and their services were rewarded with the practical control of ecclesiastical and almost civil affairs in that kingdom for nearly one hundred years’ (344). ‘Their war against the Jansenists did not cease till the very walls of Port Royal were demolished in 1710, even to the very abbey church itself, and the bodies of the dead taken with every mark of insult from their graves and literally flung to the dogs to devour’ (345). ‘In Japan the Jesuits died with their converts bravely as martyrs to the Faith, yet it is impossible to acquit them of a large share of the causes of that overthrow’ (345). ‘It was about the same time that the grave scandal of the Chinese and Malabar rites began to attract attention in Europe and to make thinking men ask seriously whether the Jesuit missionaries in those parts taught anything which could fairly be called Christianity at all’ (348). ‘The political schemings of Parsons in England was an object lesson to the rest of Europe of a restless ambition and a lust of domination which were to find many imitators’ (348). ‘The General of the Order drove away six thousand exiled Jesuit priests from the coast of Italy, and made them pass several months of suffering on crowded vessels at sea to increase public sympathy, but the actual result was blame for the cruelty with which he had enhanced their misfortunes’ (346). ‘Clement XIV, who suppressed them, is said to have died of poison, but Tanucci and two others entirely acquit the Jesuits.’ ‘They are accountable in no small degree in France, as in England, for alienating the minds of men from the religion for which they professed to work’ (345).
“Very little of this can be characterized as ‘eulogistic,’ especially as interwoven in the story are malignant insinuations, incomplete and distorted statements, suppressions of truth, gross errors of fact, and a continual injection of personal venom which makes the argument not an ‘unbiased and objective presentment’ of the case, but the plea of a prejudiced prosecuting and persecuting attorney endeavoring by false testimony to convict before the bar of public opinion an alleged culprit, whose destruction he is trying to accomplish with an uncanny sort of delight.”
After having adduced a long list of instances which “reveal the rancor and ignorance of many of the writers hired by the Encyclopædia,” the article then points out “the fundamental untruthfulness” on which the Britannica is built. In a letter written by the Encyclopædia’s editor appears the following specious explanation: “Extreme care was taken by the editors, and especially by the editor responsible for the theological side of the work, that every subject, either directly or indirectly concerned with religion, should as far as possible be objective and not subjective in their presentation. The majority of the articles on the various Churches and their beliefs were written by members within the several communions, and, if not so written, were submitted to those most competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be, correction.”
Father Campbell in his answer to this letter says: “Without animadverting on the peculiar use of the English language by the learned English editor who tells us that ‘every subject’ should be ‘objective’ in their presentation, we do not hesitate to challenge absolutely the assertion that ‘the majority of the articles on the various Churches were written by members within the several communions, and if not so written were submitted to those most competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be, for correction.’ Such a pretence is simply amazing, and thoroughly perplexed, we asked: What are we supposed to understand when we are informed that ‘the majority of the articles on the various Churches and their beliefs were written by members within the several communions’?
“Was the article on The Roman Catholic Church written by a Catholic? Was the individual who accumulated and put into print all those vile aspersions on the Popes, the saints, the sacraments, the doctrines of the Church, a Catholic? Were the other articles on Casuistry, Celibacy, St. Catherine of Siena, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, written by a Catholic? The supposition is simply inconceivable, and it calls for more than the unlimited assurance of the Encyclopædia Britannica to compel us to accept it.
“But ‘they were submitted to the most competent judge for criticism and, if need be, correction.’ Were they submitted to any judge at all, or to any man of sense, before they were sent off to be printed and scattered throughout the English speaking world? Is it permissible to imagine for a moment that any Catholic could have read some of those pages and not have been filled with horror at the multiplied and studied insults to everything he holds most sacred in his religion? Or did ‘the editor responsible for the theological side of the work’ reserve for himself the right to reject or accept whatever recommended itself to his superior judgment?”