“Knowledge does no Harm”?
“The increase and spread of knowledge” (this is a further objection) “can never harm society, only benefit its interests” (Von Amira). Hence, do not get alarmed: nothing is to be feared from science. The apostles of the enlightened eighteenth century tried to quiet their age with similar assertions. “It is not true,” says Lessing, “that speculations about God and divine things have ever done harm to society; not the speculations did it—but the folly and tyranny to forbid them.”
If this were amended to read true knowledge can never do harm, then the mind might be set at rest, although even then it might become dangerous to teach the truth without discrimination or caution. Not all are ripe for every truth: truth can often be misunderstood, lead to false conclusions. Thus, it may become certain, perhaps, that a much-worshipped relic, a much-visited shrine, is not genuine: nevertheless in giving such explanation to simple, pious people one would have to display caution in order to keep them from doubting even the tenets of the creed.
But there is also false knowledge; can this “never do harm but only benefit?” Will all knowledge exert the same influence, whether the Christian tenets of love and mercy, or Nietzsche's moral for the wealthy, whether young people are given to read Christian books, or those of Haeckel, Buechner, and Strauss? The story is told of Voltaire, that he sent all servants out of the room when he had friends for guests and philosophical discussions started at the dining-table, because he did not wish to have his throat cut the next night. So this free-thinker, too, did not think that all knowledge is beneficial.
But, we are further assured, let science peacefully pursue its way; if it should err it will correct itself.
It is true, sciences of obvious subjects, that have no direct [pg 327] relation to moral conduct of life, do, sooner or later, correct their mistakes; recent physics has corrected the mistakes of the physics of past ages; historical errors, too, are disappearing with the times. Quite different is the matter when philosophical-religious questions are at issue. Pantheism, subjectivism, “scientific” rejection of faith, are errors, grave errors, yet it does not follow that they will fall of themselves into desuetude; they may prevail for a long time, may return with the regularity of certain diseases. Their error is not tangible, and the desires of the heart incline to them by the law of least resistance. From the earliest ages to this day the same philosophical errors have returned, in varied form.
But let us assume that this would be the case; that these errors, too, would disappear after some time, disappear for good. Is it demanded that the errors in the meanwhile ought to have free play? Shall the surgeon be allowed to perform risky experiments on the patient, because later on he will realize that his act was objectionable? Will the father hand to his son an improper book, consoling himself that truth must prevail in the end, even though defeated temporarily?
These are delusions of the abstract intellectualism of our times, which sees all salvation and human perfection merely in learning and knowledge, and forgets that knowledge signifies education and benefit for mankind only when attached to truth and moral order. Not knowledge, but knowledge of the truth, and moral dignity, make for civilization and perfection; knowledge no longer controlled by truth and ethics becomes the hireling of the low passions, and fights for their freedom.
“The Vehicle of Truth.”
Back of the urgent demands for unrestricted freedom in teaching stands invariably a thought that operates with palsying effect upon the minds: to wit, that science is the embodiment of truth, a genius carrying the unextinguishable beacon of light: to silence it would be to resist the truth.
Our first thought when we began our dissertation of the Freedom of Science was, that science is not the poetical being so [pg 328] often described: it is an individual activity, a product of the human mind, sharing its defects and weaknesses. For this reason science is not the infallible bearer of the truth; least of all in the higher questions of life, where its eyes are dimmed, and where inclinations of the heart still further obscure its strength of vision. And this is admitted, even to the point of despairing of the ability to find the truth on these questions, and if one is not ready to admit this, the fact is made apparent by a glance at the countless errors exhibited in the history of human thinking.
Is error to have the same right that truth has? If wholesome beverage may rightly be offered to anybody, can, with the same right, poison be given? May one follow his false sense of truth, calling it science, and teach anything he thinks right?
Moreover, is not this science, which, according to its exponents, need not regard anything but its own method, entirely a special kind of science? Indeed it is, as we have learned to know it. We have learned to know this free science, with its autonomous subjectivism, that shapes its changing views according to personal experience; this feeble but proud scepticism; we have learned of those ominous imperatives, that banish everything divine from the horizon of knowledge—a science with its torch turned upside down. And its aim—negation. The beautiful thought is frequently expressed that science, especially the science of our universities, is to act as the leader in the mental life of the nation, “a universal Parliament of science, which would represent the authoritative power so urgently needed by our discordant and sceptical age, an age that has lost faith in authority.”
The idea is beautiful, it is sublime; it coincides with a conception of the divine Spirit, who has already realized it, though, it is true, in another manner. The divine Spirit has founded in the bosom of mankind such a centre of mental life; namely, the Church. She, and only she, bears all the marks of the universal teacher of truth. By virtue of divine aid the Church alone has the prerogative of infallibility, as necessary to the teacher of the nations; human philosophy is not infallible, least of all a science that despairs of the highest truth, nay, that often [pg 329] deals with it as the cat does with the mouse. A teacher of the nations must possess unity of doctrine. The Church has this unity, her view of the world stands before us in perfect concord; while discord reigns in the philosophy of a free mankind, one thought opposed to another. The Church is holy, holy in her moral laws, holy in her service of the truth; she never shirks truth, not even where truth is painful; the Church never surrenders the truth to human passions. The Church is Catholic, general, for the learned and the unlearned; she is apostolic, with faithful hand she preserves for all generations the spiritual patrimony of the forefathers. And the unbelieving science of liberalism, where is its holiness, when its eye cannot bear the sight of heaven? when it numbers among its admirers all the unholy elements of humanity? Where is its catholicity, its reverence for traditions, its historic sense, the indispensable requirement for the teacher of centuries? The ruins of overthrown truths, amongst which wanton thought holds its orgies, bear witness to the unfitness of infidel science to be the teacher of mankind.
Serious Charges.
The science of our day must often listen to charges of the gravest nature. They are uttered not only by servants of the Church, but in public meetings, legislative bodies, and in numerous articles by the press: science, we are told, has become a danger to faith and morals, it has become the teacher of irreligion, a leader in the war against Christianity. The force of the accusation is felt and attempts are made to ward it off. And then we are assured that science is not the enemy of religion, nor of the precious possessions of society.
It is clear, without further proof, that science in itself cannot be a social danger; hence the charge cannot apply to science in general, but only to that special brand of science cultivated in an anti-Christian spirit. The assurance from its champions, that their intentions are the best, may often be a proof that they do not realize the scope of their doctrines; nevertheless, it cannot be denied that this science has become, through its principles, as taught in lectures and in print, the greatest [pg 330] danger to the religious-moral possessions of our nations and to the foundations of public order, hence an unlimited freedom for the activities of this science means unlimited freedom for a destructive power that spells ruin to our mental culture.
Can the principles of this science be anything but a danger? Their sharp antagonism to the principle of authority, must it not undermine the respect for state authority, must it not strengthen the elements of social disorder? Its contempt of sacred traditions, must it not become a danger to everything existing? “If all mankind were of one opinion,” it teaches, “and but one single man were of a different opinion, then mankind would have no more right to impose silence on him than he to silence all of mankind, if he could,” must not such an individualism become the fertile soil of revolutionary ideas? Its ethics without religion tells every one that his own individuality is the court of last resort for his moral doings, that moral laws are subject to change, and must such views not become a danger to moral order? Finally, the separation of mankind from God and its eternal destiny, must it not necessarily lead the whole of life to materialism? and from the scullery it is not far to the sewer. Through its antagonism to Christian faith this science becomes the chief factor in dechristianizing the nations.
It is objected that this accusation is not true, because science addresses itself to professional circles only; the people, of course, cannot digest these things, therefore religion is to be preserved for the people.
Why this distinction? The principles of liberal science of to-day are either true or they are not true. If not true, why profess them? If they are true, as is vehemently asserted, then why should the people be excluded from a true view of the world? Have the people not an equal right to the truth in important questions, equal right to light and happiness? Ah, the consequences of this doctrine of freedom are feared; it is feared the people's natural logic would take hold of these principles and draw from them its conclusions. And by that very fear these principles stand condemned of themselves. The truth can stand its consequences, as does the Christian view [pg 331] of the world; and the more zealously its consequences are pursued, the more blessed the fruits. It is otherwise with error. Therefore, if the principles of liberal science cannot stand their consequences, they must be erroneous. “Consider chiefly to be good that which enhances when communicated to others,” is a wise maxim of the Pythagoreans. Anything spelling damage and ruin, when communicated to others, is not good, but evil.
Nor is it true that science confines itself to professional circles. Any one who does not lead the isolated existence of pedantry knows that this is not the case. What the professor of our day teaches in the lecture room, finds its way into the minds of his students, and from there into preparatory and public schools; ideas committed by the scientific writer to paper and print, go into all the world, and, transformed into popular speech, become the common property of the millions. The flood of books, pamphlets, and leaflets attacking and vilifying the Christian tenets of faith is ever swelling, and day by day tons of this literature are spread without hindrance over Christian countries. There is not a single book against the Christian truth, be its author named Feuerbach, Strauss, Darwin, Haeckel, Carneri, Nietzsche, or otherwise, that does not soon circulate in popular editions in every country, or at least has to lend its subject to pamphlets and booklets, which then carry these “results of science” to every nook and corner, to the remotest backwoods village. And the fruits? All those who in these days profess infidelity and radicalism, they all unanimously profess adherence to modern free science.
Tell Me with Whom Thou Goest.
In stately array they come along nowadays, free-thinkers and freemasons, free-religionists and representatives of the free view of the world, monists, agitators for “free school” and socialists, all impetuously active in the service of anti-Christianity, bent on reviving and spreading ancient heathendom. All are avowed disciples of free science, all spread its doctrines, and all work for the popularizing of their ideas. There they press on, the living proof that modern science, as far as it is infidel, has become, [pg 332] voluntarily or involuntarily, the teacher of radicalism, of paganism, and the leader in the battle against religion and Christian morals.
And in its train is marching Free-thought in all its varieties. Its aim at destruction, its dismal designs against religion and state, have become manifest in its books and conventions; for instance, the international free-thinker conventions lately held at Rome and at Prague were plainly of anarchistical sentiment. In their midst we see men of science, academic teachers. Under their auspices are arranged “scientific lectures” to make known the “results of modern science,” with the conviction that this will suffice for the overthrow of religion; they demand that “the instruction in public institutions be only a scientific one”; itinerant orators are sent to speak with preference on “Science and the Church,” on the theocratic view of the world and free science. The doctrines of liberal science are adopted by freemasonry, its rallying-cry is “freedom from God, freedom of the human reason.” And following the band-wagon of free science, we see a shouting and jeering multitude, its clenched fists threatening any one who would dare to attack this fine science, their liberator from the yoke of religion; they are the thousands of the common people, whose faith has been torn out of their hearts, and, with faith, also peace and good morals. We see marching there hundreds from the ranks of youth, who in the heedless impulse of their inexperience have cast off belief, and, with belief, frequently all moral discipline; they, too, look upon science as their liberator. The morally inferior part of mankind, which declares anything to be ethical that “promotes life”; which fights against “love-denying views” and against obsolete maxims of morals, it, too, follows in the tracks of free science. And wherever the issue is to fight Christian institutions, under the name of marriage-reform, free-school, or what not, there we are sure to see representatives of science and of universities, and to hear them hold forth for free science.
Where the purpose is to kindle the fires of revolt against religious authority, there we are certain to meet in the first rank the modern teachers of science.
[pg 333]Science and its representatives have an ideal vocation. They should be the hearth of the spiritual goods of the nations; new and wholesome forces should at all times emanate from the abodes of science, and the people should look up with confidence to these watch-towers of knowledge and truth. What a shocking contrast to this exalted ideal it is, to hear time and again the believing people and their leaders raise a complaining and indignant voice against a science that has become a most dangerous antagonist to their holiest goods! Is it not painful to see the devout mother apprehensively cautioning her son, who departs for the university, not to let his faith be taken from him by teaching and association? Is it not sad to observe that it has become the common saying: “He has lost his faith at the university”? Is it not regrettable to see that Catholic universities have become necessary to preserve the ideal goods of the Christian religion? It is unavoidable that such complaints are sometimes exaggerated. In their generality they include universities that have given small reason for them; honourable men and representatives of sciences who should not be reproached are being mixed up in these charges. But it is true, nevertheless, that many have given such occasion. Is it not true also that many remain silent instead of protesting in the name of true science? that they feel it incumbent upon themselves to protect such a procedure, for the sake of the freedom of science?
For a generation and longer, Haeckel misused science to make war upon religion, and went to the extreme in his scientific outrageousness, not even stopping at forgery. Professor W. His had already in 1875 expressed his opinion of Haeckel in relation to the false drawings of his embryonic illustrations in the words: “Others may respect Haeckel as an active and reckless leader: in my judgment he has on account of his methods forfeited the right to be considered an equal in the circle of serious investigators.” When Dr. Brass, a member of the Kepler Bund, recently disclosed new forgeries of this kind, it should have been made the occasion for a protest in the interest of science and its freedom against such methods. Instead of that, however, forty-six professors of biology and zoölogy published a statement in defence of Haeckel, declaring that while not approving of Haeckel's method in some instances, they condemned in the interest of science and of freedom of teaching most strongly the war waged against Haeckel by Brass and the Kepler Bund. Is the freedom to use methods like Haeckel's included in the freedom of teaching, which they consider must be defended? Can it surprise any one that this freedom of teaching is viewed with concern?
[pg 334]Much excitement was caused a few years ago by a pamphlet of an Austrian professor. Another Austrian professor, of high rank in science, criticized the pamphlet as “A reckless and absolute negation of the foundation of the Christian dogma in the widest sense of the word, proclaimed as the verdict of science and of common sense. It is replete with blasphemous jokes, such as may usually be heard only in the most vulgar places.”
A cry of indignation was raised by the Catholic people of the Tyrol against this base insult to their creed; it was shown that the author of this pamphlet had misused his lectures on Catholic Canon Law, to speak to his Catholic students disdainfully of the Divinity of Christ, of the Sacraments, of the Church, and the prime foundations of Christianity. Upon indictment by the public prosecutor, the pamphlet was condemned in Court as a libel upon the Christian religion.
It was expected that the representatives of science, in defence of the threatened honour of science, would repudiate all community of interest with a production that was merely the expression of an anti-Christian propaganda. That expectation was not fulfilled; on the contrary, those in authority at the Austrian universities, and numerous professors of other countries, joined in a protest against the violation of the rights of a professor, against the attacks on freedom of science. They demanded full immunity for the author of the libel. Even the state department of Religion and Education expressed the opinion that the accused “had only availed himself of the right of free research.”Is this the freedom in teaching that is to be protected by the state? And yet there are those who indignantly deny that there is danger for religion in this freedom!
He who really has at heart the honour of science and of the universities, and is inspired by their ideals, should bear in mind that to realize these ideals the first thing necessary is public confidence: not the confidence of a revolutionizing minority,—a scrutiny of those elements that give them their plaudits ought to arouse reflection,—but the confidence of earnest, conservative circles of the uncorrupted people.
In academic circles the increasing lack of respect for the university and its teachers is complained of. Professor Von Amira writes: “Thirty years ago the academic teacher was reverenced by the highest society; his association was sought; he had no need of any other title than the one that told what he was. To-day we see a different picture, particularly as to the title 'professor.' To-day they smile at it. Nowadays, if a professor desires to impress, he must bear a title designating something else than what he really is. A literature has grown up that deals with the decline of the universities. The fact of a decline is taken for granted, only its causes and remedies are discussed. And this is not all. Invectives are bestowed upon the institutions, upon the teachers as a body, upon the individual teacher. And there is no one to take up [pg 335]the cudgels in our defence!” A fact suggesting earnest self-examination, and the resolution not to forfeit still more this respect. It is not sufficient to repudiate with indignation the complaints. Nor will it do to pretend a respect for religion and Christianity, and a desire to see both preserved, that are not really felt. What is needed is the admission that the road taken is the wrong one.
The Responsibility before History.
The distressing fact is realized that the worm of immorality is devouring in our day the marrow of the most civilized nations. It is also known that its wretched victims are in no class so numerous as in the class of college men. Earnest-minded men and women are raising a warning cry, and are forming societies to stem the ruin of the nations. The alarm bell is ringing through the lands.
Remarkable words on this subject are those written not long ago by Paulsen: “It looks as if all the demons had been let loose at this moment to devastate the basis of the people's life. Those who know Germany through reading only, through its comic weeklies, its plays, its novels, the windows of its bookshops, the lectures delivered and attended by male and female, must arrive at the opinion that the paramount question to the German people just now is whether the restrictions put on the free play of the sexual impulse by custom and law are evil and should be abolished?” Paulsen puts the responsibility for it upon the sophistry on the sexual instinct and the present naturalism in the view of the world: “The prevailing naturalism in the view of world and life is leading to astonishing aberrations of judgment, and this is true also of men otherwise discerning. If man is nothing else but a system of natural instincts, similar in this to the rest of living beings, then, indeed, no one can tell what other purpose life could have than the gratification of all instincts.... Reformation of ideas—this is the cry heard in all streets; cast off a Christianity hostile to life, that is killing in embryo thousands of possibilities for happiness. True, even in past ages young people were not spared temptation. But the barriers were stronger; traditional, moral, religious sentiment, and sensible views. Our time has pulled down these barriers; young people everywhere are advised by all the leading lights of the day: old morals and religion are dead, slain by modern science; the old commandments are the obsolete fetters of superstition. We know now their origin; they are but auto-suggestions of common consciousness which mistakes them for voices from another world, that has been deposed long since by the scientific thought of to-day.”
These are words of indignation of a well-meaning friend of mankind. Do they not rebound upon the speaker himself [pg 336] to become terrible self-accusations for him and others, who, while perhaps of similar well-meaning sentiment, are actually working for the annihilation of the moral-religious sentiment, as Paulsen himself has done by his books?
“The old religion is dead, slain by science,” is proclaimed in innumerable passages of his books; the idea of another world has long been disposed of by the scientific reasoning of the present time, “hence a philosophy,” he tells us, “which insists upon the thesis that certain natural processes make it necessary to assume a metaphysical principle, or a supernatural agency, will always have science for an irreconcilable opponent.” “It will be difficult for a future age to understand,” he writes elsewhere, “how our times so complacently could cling to a system of religious instruction originated many centuries ago under entirely different conditions of intellectual life, and which in many points forms the decided opposite to facts and notions which, outside of the school, are taken by our times for granted.” In respect to morals, too, one can do without a supernatural law. “According to the view presented here, ethics as a science does not depend on belief.... Moral laws are the natural laws of the human-historical life of time and place.... Nor does it seem advisable in pedagogical-practical respect to make the force or the significance of ethical commands dependent on a matter so uncertain as the belief in a future life.” We might cite many similar expressions from his writings.
It is significant that they have to condemn their own science in view of its sad consequences.
Paulsen loudly demands restriction for the freedom of art, for the industry of lewdness, for the literature of perversity.
He says: “The English people, admired by us because of their liberal principles and free institutions, are less afraid to show by the sternest means the door to salacious minds ... the feeling of responsibility for preserving the roots of the strength of the people's life is in England far more wide awake than with us, who still feel in our bones the fear of censure and the policeman's club.... But what are the things committed by our nasty trades and the publications in their service other than so many assaults upon our liberty? Are they not primarily an assault upon the inner freedom of adolescent youth who are made slaves of their lowest instincts by the industries of these merchants? Therefore admonish the hangman not to be swerved by the plea of freedom.”
No one will deny approval to these words. But do they not, again, become a severe condemnation of the reckless freedom [pg 337] in teaching, that claims the right to assault without hindrance the truths which are the foundation of our nation? If art must not become a danger, why may science? If the artist is asked to take into consideration the innocence and weal of young people, if he is cautioned not to follow solely “his sense for beauty,” why should the teacher be allowed to follow his “sense for truth” without regard for anything else? If no statute of limitation and restriction exist for science, neither prescribed nor prohibited ideas for the academic teacher, why should there be any prohibited “æsthetic principles” for the artist? Manifestly, because here the absurdity of this freedom is more clearly perceptible, because it leads to shamelessness. At this juncture, therefore, they are constrained to concede the untenability and the senselessness of the unlimited human freedom, that is defended with so much volubility.
Paulsen points to an age in which, similarly to our times, progressive men arose and, in the name of science, discarded religion and morals; they called themselves men of science, sages, “sophists.” “It is remarkable that the very same occurrence was observed more than 2,000 years ago, when Plato experienced it in his time with the young people of Athens, who became fascinated by similar sophistical speech.”
The noble Sage of Greece had caustic words for Protagoras, the champion of sophistry, and his brethren in spirit: “If cobblers and tailors were to put in worse condition the shoes and clothes they receive for improving, this would soon be known and they would starve; not so Protagoras, who is corrupting quietly the whole of Hellas, and who has dismissed his disciples in a worse state than he received them, and this for more than forty years.... Not Protagoras alone, but many others did this before and after him. Did they knowingly deceive and poison the youth or did they not realize what they were doing? Are we to assume that these men, praised by many for their sagacity, have done so in ignorance? No, they were not blind to their acts, but blind were the young people who paid them for instruction, blind were their parents who confided them to these sophists, blindest were the communities that admitted them instead of turning them away.”
What a responsibility to co-operate in the intellectual corruption of entire generations! And the corruption by dechristianizing is increasing in all circles, owing to the misuse of science. That the condition is not even worse is not the merit of this science, nor evidence of the harmlessness of its [pg 338] freedom; it is the merit of the after effect of a Christian past, which continues to influence, consciously or unconsciously, the thought and feeling even of those circles that seem to be long since estranged from Christianity.
Concerning the decline of morality in our age Paulsen observes: “Foerster rightly emphasizes the fact that the old Church rendered an imperishable service in moralizing and spiritualizing our life, by urging first of all the discipline of the will, and by raising heroes of self-denial in the persons of her Saints. That we still draw from this patrimony I, too, do not doubt. That we waste it carelessly is indeed the great danger.”
“It was a wonderfully balmy evening in the fall of 1905,” relates Rev. L. Ballet, missionary in Japan, “and the sun had just set behind Mount Fiji. Unexpectedly a young Japanese appeared in front of me, desiring to talk to me. I noticed that he was a young student. I bade him enter, and we saluted each other with a low bow, as persons meeting for the first time. I asked him to take a seat opposite to me, and took advantage of the first moments of silence to take a good look at him. But imagine my astonishment when his first question was, ‘Do you believe life is worth living?’ asked in an earnest but calm manner. I confess this question from lips so young alarmed me and went to my heart like a thrust. ‘Why, certainly,’ was my reply, ‘life is worth living, and living good. How do you come to ask a question that sounds so strange from the lips of a young man? You certainly do not desire to follow the example of your fellow-countryman Fijimura Misao, who jumped into the abyss from Mount Kegon?’—‘No, sir, at least not yet. I confess, however, that I feel my hesitation to be cowardice, for I have made this resolution for some time. In my opinion man is purely a thing of blind accident, a wretched, ephemeral fly without importance, without value. Why then prolong a life in which a little pleasure is added to so much sorrow, so much disappointment; a life that at any rate finally melts away into nothing? I am more and more convinced that this is the truth.’—‘And what brought you to such views?’—‘Well, science, philosophy, the books which I have read for pastime or study. If it were only the opinion of our few Japanese scientists one might hesitate; but the science, the philosophy, of Europe, translated and expounded by our writers, teach the same thing. God, soul, future life, all is idle delusion. Nothing is eternal but only matter. After twenty, thirty, sixty years, man dies, and there remains nothing of him but his body, which will decay in order to pass into other beings, matter like he was. This is what science teaches us; a hard doctrine, I confess; but what is there to be said against it, considering the positive results of scientific research?’ ”
Great responsibility is borne by a science that despoils mankind of its best, of all that gives it comfort and support in [pg 339] life! In faraway Japan there is not the spiritual power of Christianity to counteract the misuse of science; the poison does its work and there is no antidote.
That the Christian nations “carelessly waste their patrimony, that, indeed, is the great danger.”