The Freedom of Science

by Josef Donat

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.