History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

by John William Draper

While thus the higher clergy secured every political appointment worth having, and abbots vied with counts in the herds of slaves they possessed—some, it is said, owned not fewer than twenty thousand—begging friars pervaded society in all directions, picking up a share of what still remained to the poor. There was a vast body of non-producers, living in idleness and owning a foreign allegiance, who were subsisting on the fruits of the toil of the laborers. It could not be otherwise than that small farms should be unceasingly merged into the larger estates; that the poor should steadily become poorer; that society, far from improving, should exhibit a continually increasing demoralization. Outside the monastic institutions no attempt at intellectual advancement was made; indeed, so far as the laity were concerned, the influence of the Church was directed to an opposite result, for the maxim universally received was, that "ignorance is the mother of devotion."

The settled practice of republican and imperial Rome was to have swift communication with all her outlying provinces, by means of substantial bridges and roads. One of the prime duties of the legions was to construct them and keep them in repair. By this, her military authority was assured. But the dominion of papal Rome, depending upon a different principle, had no exigencies of that kind, and this duty accordingly was left for the local powers to neglect. And so, in all directions, the roads were almost impassable for a large part of the year. A common means of transportation was in clumsy carts drawn by oxen, going at the most but three or four miles an hour. Where boat-conveyance along rivers could not be had, pack-horses and mules were resorted to for the transportation of merchandise, an adequate means for the slender commerce of the times. When large bodies of men had to be moved, the difficulties became almost insuperable. Of this, perhaps, one of the best illustrations may be found in the story of the march of the first Crusaders. These restraints upon intercommunication tended powerfully to promote the general benighted condition. Journeys by individuals could not be undertaken without much risk, for there was scarcely a moor or a forest that had not its highwaymen.

An illiterate condition everywhere prevailing, gave opportunity for the development of superstition. Europe was full of disgraceful miracles. On all the roads pilgrims were wending their way to the shrines of saints, renowned for the cures they had wrought. It had always been the policy of the Church to discourage the physician and his art; he interfered too much with the gifts and profits of the shrines. Time has brought this once lucrative imposture to its proper value. How many shrines are there now in successful operation in Europe?

For patients too sick to move or be moved, there were no remedies except those of a ghostly kind—the Pater-noster or the Ave. For the prevention of diseases, prayers were put up in the churches, but no sanitary measures were resorted to. From cities reeking with putrefying filth it was thought that the plague might be stayed by the prayers of the priests, by them rain and dry weather might be secured, and deliverance obtained from the baleful influences of eclipses and comets. But when Halley's comet came, in 1456, so tremendous was its apparition that it was necessary for the pope himself to interfere. He exorcised and expelled it from the skies. It slunk away into the abysses of space, terror-stricken by the maledictions of Calixtus III., and did not venture back for seventy-five years!

The physical value of shrine-cures and ghostly remedies is measured by the death-rate. In those days it was, probably, about one in twenty-three, under the present more material practice it is about one in forty.

The moral condition of Europe was signally illustrated when syphilis was introduced from the West Indies by the companions of Columbus. It spread with wonderful rapidity; all ranks of persons, from the Holy Father Leo X. to the beggar by the wayside, contracting the shameful disease. Many excused their misfortune by declaring that it was an epidemic proceeding from a certain malignity in the constitution of the air, but in truth its spread was due to a certain infirmity in the constitution of man—an infirmity which had not been removed by the spiritual guidance under which he had been living.

To the medical efficacy of shrines must be added that of special relics. These were sometimes of the most extraordinary kind. There were several abbeys that possessed our Savior's crown of thorns. Eleven had the lance that had pierced his side. If any person was adventurous enough to suggest that these could not all be authentic, he would have been denounced as an atheist. During the holy wars the Templar-Knights had driven a profitable commerce by bringing from Jerusalem to the Crusading armies bottles of the milk of the Blessed Virgin, which they sold for enormous sums; these bottles were preserved with pious care in many of the great religious establishments. But perhaps none of these impostures surpassed in audacity that offered by a monastery in Jerusalem, which presented to the beholder one of the fingers of the Holy Ghost! Modern society has silently rendered its verdict on these scandalous objects. Though they once nourished the piety of thousands of earnest people, they are now considered too vile to have a place in any public museum.

How shall we account for the great failure we thus detect in the guardianship of the Church over Europe? This is not the result that must have occurred had there been in Rome an unremitting care for the spiritual and material prosperity of the continent, had the universal pastor, the successor of Peter, occupied himself with singleness of purpose for the holiness and happiness of his flock.

The explanation is not difficult to find. It is contained in a story of sin and shame. I prefer, therefore, in the following paragraphs, to offer explanatory facts derived from Catholic authors, and, indeed, to present them as nearly as I can in the words of those writers.

The story I am about to relate is a narrative of the transformation of a confederacy into an absolute monarchy.