Until about a hundred years ago scientists almost universally thought it impossible for a stone to fall from the skies—not to mention a rain of stones. Of the big meteor that fell at Agram in 1751 the learned Vienna professor, Stuetz, wrote in 1790 as follows: “That iron had fallen from the skies may have been believed in Germany in 1751 even by its enlightened minds, owing to the uncertainty then prevailing in regard to physics and natural history. In our times, however, it were unpardonable to consider similar fairy tales even probable.”Some museums threw away their collections of meteors, fearing they would appear ridiculous by keeping them. In that very year, 1790, a meteor fell near the city of Juillac in France, and the mayor of the town sent a report of it to the French Academy of Sciences, signed by three hundred eye-witnesses. But the wise men of the academy knew better. Referee Bertholon said: “It is a pity for a town to have so foolish a mayor,” and added: “It is sad to see the whole municipality certifying by affidavit to a folk-saga that can only be pitied. What more can I say of an affidavit like that? Comment is self-evident to a philosophically trained mind who reads this authentic testimonial about an evidently false fact, about a physically impossible phenomenon.” A. Deluc, in other respects a sober-minded man, and a scientist, even remarked that should a stone like that fall before his feet, then he would have to admit that he had seen it, but nevertheless would not believe it. Vaudin remarked: “Better to deny such incredible things than to have to try to explain them.” Thus taught the French Academy of that time (apud Braun, Ueber Kosmogonie, 3d ed., 1905, 378 seq.). And now science is teaching the contrary. Everybody knows that such falling meteors are not only possible, but that they fall about seven hundred times a year on our earth.
Do not these examples bear a striking resemblance to the attitude of many of the representatives of modern science towards facts and truths of our faith?
This has not been said with a view of detracting from the [pg 120] reputation of science. Not at all. It has fallen to the lot of man to be subject to error. The above was said to recall that fact. Science is not so infallible as to be able to claim the right to ignore, in religious and ethical questions, faith and the Church, and even to usurp the place of the faith given by God, in order to lead its disciples upon the new paths of a delivered mankind.
Chapter III. Unprepossession Of Research.
What It Is.
In the year 1901 a case, insignificant in itself, caused great excitement in and even beyond the scientific world. What had happened? At the University of Strassburg, in a territory for the most part Catholic, no less than one-third of the students were Catholic, yet of the seventy-two professors sixty-one were Protestant, six Israelites and but four Catholics (according to the report of the Secretary of State, Koeller, in the 115th session of the Reichstag, January 11, 1901). The government resolved, in view of the state of affairs, to give more consideration, when appointing professors, to the Catholic members of the university. Even the non-Catholic members of the Bundesrat desired it. A vacancy occurring in the faculty of history, the government, besides appointing the Protestant professor proposed by the faculty of philosophy, decided to create a new chair to be filled by a Catholic.
The appointment of a Catholic professor of history was regarded as seriously endangering science. The storm broke. The venerable historian, Th. Mommsen, who had been a champion of liberty in the revolution of 1848, promptly gave the alarm. In the Munich “Neueste Nachrichten” there appeared over his signature an article that created a general sensation. “German university circles,” he said, in his solemn protest, “are pervaded by a feeling of degradation. Our vital nerve is unprejudiced research; research that does not find what it seeks and expects to find, owing to purposes, considerations, and restraints that serve other, practical ends extraneous to science—but finds what logically and historically appears to the conscientious scientist the right thing, truthfulness. The appointment of a college teacher whose freedom is restricted by barriers [pg 122] is laying the axe to the root of German science. The call to a chair of history, or philosophy, of one who must be a Catholic or a Protestant, and who must serve this or that confession, is tantamount to compelling him to set bounds to his work whenever the results might be awkward for a religious dogma.” And he concludes with a ringing appeal for the solidarity of the representatives of science: “Perhaps I am not deceived in the hope of having given expression to the sentiments of our colleagues.” This statement of the famous scientist, conceived in the temper of his days of '48, was soon softened, if not neutralized, by a subsequent statement from his pen. But the spark had already started the fire. From most universities there came letters of approval and praise of his courageous stand, in behalf of the honour of the universities and of German science. On the other hand, some gave vent to their regret of his hot-spurred action. Since then the song of unprejudiced science has been sung in countless variations and keys, ending as a rule with the chorus: Hence the believing, especially Catholics, cannot be true scientists. For this was the central idea of Mommsen's protest, and in that sense it had been understood.