Читать книгу History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom - Andrew Dickson White - Страница 25

(51) On the teachings on Protestantism as regards the Copernican theory,

see citations in Canon Farrar's History of Interpretation, preface,

xviii; also Rev. Dr. Shields, of Princeton, The Final Philosophy, pp.

60, 61.

And Protestant peoples were not a whit behind Catholic in following out such teachings. The people of Elbing made themselves merry over a farce in which Copernicus was the main object of ridicule. The people of Nuremberg, a Protestant stronghold, caused a medal to be struck with inscriptions ridiculing the philosopher and his theory.

Why the people at large took this view is easily understood when we note the attitude of the guardians of learning, both Catholic and Protestant, in that age. It throws great light upon sundry claims by modern theologians to take charge of public instruction and of the evolution of science. So important was it thought to have "sound learning" guarded and "safe science" taught, that in many of the universities, as late as the end of the seventeenth century, professors were forced to take an oath not to hold the "Pythagorean"—that is, the Copernican—idea as to the movement of the heavenly bodies. As the contest went on, professors were forbidden to make known to students the facts revealed by the telescope. Special orders to this effect were issued by the ecclesiastical authorities to the universities and colleges of Pisa, Innspruck, Louvain, Douay, Salamanca, and others. During generations we find the authorities of these Universities boasting that these godless doctrines were kept away from their students. It is touching to hear such boasts made then, just as it is touching now to hear sundry excellent university authorities boast that they discourage the reading of Mill, Spencer, and Darwin. Nor were such attempts to keep the truth from students confined to the Roman Catholic institutions of learning. Strange as it may seem, nowhere were the facts confirming the Copernican theory more carefully kept out of sight than at Wittenberg—the university of Luther and Melanchthon. About the middle of the sixteenth century there were at that centre of Protestant instruction two astronomers of a very high order, Rheticus and Reinhold; both of these, after thorough study, had convinced themselves that the Copernican system was true, but neither of them was allowed to tell this truth to his students. Neither in his lecture announcements nor in his published works did Rheticus venture to make the new system known, and he at last gave up his professorship and left Wittenberg, that he might have freedom to seek and tell the truth. Reinhold was even more wretchedly humiliated. Convinced of the truth of the new theory, he was obliged to advocate the old; if he mentioned the Copernican ideas, he was compelled to overlay them with the Ptolemaic. Even this was not thought safe enough, and in 1571 the subject was intrusted to Peucer. He was eminently "sound," and denounced the Copernican theory in his lectures as "absurd, and unfit to be introduced into the schools."

To clinch anti-scientific ideas more firmly into German Protestant teaching, Rector Hensel wrote a text-book for schools entitled The Restored Mosaic System of the World, which showed the Copernican astronomy to be unscriptural.

Doubtless this has a far-off sound; yet its echo comes very near modern Protestantism in the expulsion of Dr. Woodrow by the Presbyterian authorities in South Carolina; the expulsion of Prof. Winchell by the Methodist Episcopal authorities in Tennessee; the expulsion of Prof. Toy by Baptist authorities in Kentucky; the expulsion of the professors at Beyrout under authority of American Protestant divines—all for holding the doctrines of modern science, and in the last years of the nineteenth century.(52)

(52) For treatment of Copernican ideas by the people, see The Catholic

World, as above; also Melanchthon, ubi supra; also Prowe, Copernicus,

Berlin, 1883, vol. i, p. 269, note; also pp. 279, 280; also Madler, i,

p.167. For Rector Hensel, see Rev. Dr. Shield's Final Philosophy, p. 60.

For details of recent Protestant efforts against evolution doctrines,

see the chapter on the Fall of Man and Anthropology in this work.

But the new truth could not be concealed; it could neither be laughed down nor frowned down. Many minds had received it, but within the hearing of the papacy only one tongue appears to have dared to utter it clearly. This new warrior was that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno. He was hunted from land to land, until at last he turned on his pursuers with fearful invectives. For this he was entrapped at Venice, imprisoned during six years in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome, then burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds. Still, the new truth lived on.

Ten years after the martyrdom of Bruno the truth of Copernicus's doctrine was established by the telescope of Galileo.(53)

(53) For Bruno, see Bartholmess, Vie de Jordano Bruno, Paris, 1846,

vol. i, p.121 and pp. 212 et seq.; also Berti, Vita di Giordano Bruno,

Firenze, 1868, chap. xvi; also Whewell, vol. i, pp. 272, 273. That

Whewell is somewhat hasty in attributing Bruno's punishment entirely

to the Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante will be evident, in spite

of Montucla, to anyone who reads the account of the persecution in

Bartholmess or Berti; and even if Whewell be right, the Spaccio would

never have been written but for Bruno's indignation at ecclesiastical

oppression. See Tiraboschi, vol. vii, pp. 466 et seq.

Herein was fulfilled one of the most touching of prophecies. Years before, the opponents of Copernicus had said to him, "If your doctrines were true, Venus would show phases like the moon." Copernicus answered: "You are right; I know not what to say; but God is good, and will in time find an answer to this objection." The God-given answer came when, in 1611, the rude telescope of Galileo showed the phases of Venus.(54)

(54) For the relation of these discoveries to Copernicus's work, see

Delambre, Histoire de l'Astronomie moderne, discours preliminaire,

p. xiv; also Laplace, Systeme du Monde, vol. i, p. 326; and for more

careful statements, Kepler's Opera Omnia, edit. Frisch, tome ii, p. 464.

For Copernicus's prophecy, see Cantu, Histoire Univerelle, vol. xv, p.

473. (Cantu was an eminent Roman Catholic.)