History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom

by Andrew Dickson White

(266) For magic in prehistoric times and survivals of it since, with
abundant citation of authorities, see Tylor, Primitive Culture, chap.
iv; also The Early History of Mankind, by the same author, third
edition, pp. 115 et seq., also p. 380.; also Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual,
and Religion, vol. i, chap iv. For magic in Egypt, see Lenormant,
Chaldean Magic, chaps. vi-viii; also Maspero, Histoire Ancienne des
Peuples de l'Orient; also Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization,
p. 282, and for the threat of magicians to wreck heaven, see ibid, p.
17, note, and especially the citations from Chabas, Le Papyrus Magique
Harris, in chap. vii; also Maury, La Magie et l'Astrologie dans
l'Antiquite et au Moyen Age. For magic in Chaldea, see Lenormant as
above; also Maspero and Sayce, pp. 780 et seq. For examples of magical
powers in India, see Max Muller's Sacred Books of the East, vol. xvi,
pp. 121 et seq. For a legendary view of magic in Media, see the Zend
Avesta, part i, p. 14, translated by Darmsteter; and for a more highly
developed view, see the Zend Avesta, part iii, p. 239, translated by
Mill. For magic in Greece and Rome, and especially in the Neoplatonic
school, as well as in the Middle Ages, see especially Maury, La Magie
et l'Astrologie, chaps. iii-v. For various sorts of magic recognised and
condemned in our sacred books, see Deuteronomy xviii, 10, 11; and for
the burning of magical books at Ephesus under the influence of St.
Paul, see Acts xix, 14. See also Ewald, History of Israel, Martineau's
translation, fourth edition, vol. iii, pp. 45-51. For a very elaborate
summing up of the passages in our sacred books recognizing magic as a
fact, see De Haen, De Magia, Leipsic, 1775, chaps. i, ii, and iii, of
the first part. For the general subject of magic, see Ennemoser, History
of Magic, translated by Howitt, which, however, constantly mixes sorcery
with magic proper.

The first distinct impulse toward a higher view of research into natural laws was given by the philosophers of Greece. It is true that philosophical opposition to physical research was at times strong, and that even a great thinker like Socrates considered certain physical investigations as an impious intrusion into the work of the gods. It is also true that Plato and Aristotle, while bringing their thoughts to bear upon the world with great beauty and force, did much to draw mankind away from those methods which in modern times have produced the best results.

Plato developed a world in which the physical sciences had little if any real reason for existing; Aristotle, a world in which the same sciences were developed largely indeed by observation of what is, but still more by speculation on what ought to be. From the former of these two great men came into Christian theology many germs of medieval magic, and from the latter sundry modes of reasoning which aided in the evolution of these; yet the impulse to human thought given by these great masters was of inestimable value to our race, and one legacy from them was especially precious—the idea that a science of Nature is possible, and that the highest occupation of man is the discovery of its laws. Still another gift from them was greatest of all, for they gave scientific freedom. They laid no interdict upon new paths; they interposed no barriers to the extension of knowledge; they threatened no doom in this life or in the next against investigators on new lines; they left the world free to seek any new methods and to follow any new paths which thinking men could find.

This legacy of belief in science, of respect for scientific pursuits, and of freedom in scientific research, was especially received by the school of Alexandria, and above all by Archimedes, who began, just before the Christian era, to open new paths through the great field of the inductive sciences by observation, comparison, and experiment.(267)

(267) As to the beginnings of physical science in Greece, and of
the theological opposition to physical science, also Socrates's view
regarding certain branches as interdicted to human study, see Grote's
History of Greece, vol. i, pp. 495 and 504, 505; also Jowett's
introduction to his translation of the Timaeus, and Whewell's History
of the Inductive Sciences. For examples showing the incompatibility of
Plato's methods in physical science with that pursued in modern times,
see Zeller, Plato and the Older Academy, English translation by Alleyne
and Goodwin, pp. 375 et. seq. The supposed opposition to freedom of
opinion in the Laws of Plato, toward the end of his life, can hardly
make against the whole spirit of Greek thought.

The establishment of Christianity, beginning a new evolution of theology, arrested the normal development of the physical sciences for over fifteen hundred years. The cause of this arrest was twofold: First, there was created an atmosphere in which the germs of physical science could hardly grow—an atmosphere in which all seeking in Nature for truth as truth was regarded as futile. The general belief derived from the New Testament Scriptures was, that the end of the world was at hand; that the last judgment was approaching; that all existing physical nature was soon to be destroyed: hence, the greatest thinkers in the Church generally poured contempt upon all investigators into a science of Nature, and insisted that everything except the saving of souls was folly.

This belief appears frequently through the entire period of the Middle Ages; but during the first thousand years it is clearly dominant. From Lactantius and Eusebius, in the third century, pouring contempt, as we have seen, over studies in astronomy, to Peter Damian, the noted chancellor of Pope Gregory VII, in the eleventh century, declaring all worldly sciences to be "absurdities" and "fooleries," it becomes a very important element in the atmosphere of thought.(268)

(268) For the view of Peter Damian and others through the Middle Ages
as to the futility of scientific investigation, see citations in Eicken,
Geschichte und System der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, chap. vi.

Then, too, there was established a standard to which all science which did struggle up through this atmosphere must be made to conform—a standard which favoured magic rather than science, for it was a standard of rigid dogmatism obtained from literal readings in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. The most careful inductions from ascertained facts were regarded as wretchedly fallible when compared with any view of nature whatever given or even hinted at in any poem, chronicle, code, apologue, myth, legend, allegory, letter, or discourse of any sort which had happened to be preserved in the literature which had come to be held as sacred.

For twelve centuries, then, the physical sciences were thus discouraged or perverted by the dominant orthodoxy. Whoever studied nature studied it either openly to find illustrations of the sacred text, useful in the "saving of souls," or secretly to gain the aid of occult powers, useful in securing personal advantage. Great men like Bede, Isidore of Seville, and Rabanus Maurus, accepted the scriptural standard of science and used it as a means of Christian edification. The views of Bede and Isidore on kindred subjects have been shown in former chapters; and typical of the view taken by Rabanus is the fact that in his great work on the Universe there are only two chapters which seem directly or indirectly to recognise even the beginnings of a real philosophy of nature. A multitude of less-known men found warrant in Scripture for magic applied to less worthy purposes.(269)