Via stulti recta in oculis ejus, qui autem sapiens est audit consilia, says the Wise Man. It is characteristic of the fool to be wise in his own eyes, and stubbornly to cling to his own judgment; but the prudent man seeks advice, and suffers his attention to be called to his mistakes.
The believing scientist, too, will submit to correction; should the rare case fall to his lot to have the Church condemn his work, he will know how to be generously obedient. Splendid examples are blazing the way for him. “Were we to draw up a list of the scientists, who, in a similar critical position as Fénelon, [pg 176] found strength in the virtue of obedience, and on the other hand a list of all those whose subjective scientific views did not allow them to submit, then we should perceive at a glance that their proud persistence in their own opinion has been injurious to true wisdom in the same degree as humble submission proved a benefit to science” (Hilgers, 412). Finally, he who is convinced that the Christian faith is the greatest heritance of truth from the past, which must be preserved in him, he will take no offence if the Church is not impressed even by names like Kant, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Strauss, men much featured as the captains of modern science and philosophy. In the eyes of the Church nothing is genuine and true science that is contrary to the testimony of God, and errors are errors even then when their perpetrator is receiving cheers and applause. Just as the state prohibits the physician from designedly assisting any one to commit suicide, even though the physician be a noted scientist, just so the Church opposes any one who assaults God's truth, be he journalist or philosopher.
Frequently the great number of forbidden books mentioned by the Index is pointed out. The Index of 1900 contains about 5,000 titles belonging to the last three centuries; of these about 1,300 belong to the nineteenth century. Quite a small number, considering the immense literature of the world. Yet it will look even smaller when compared, for instance, with the censure of books by the Prussian state.
In the year 1845 there appeared the following catalogue: “Index librorum prohibitorum, Catalogue of the books forbidden in Germany during 1844-1845, first volume.” The second volume was issued in 1846. The list is not complete: it does not contain, for instance, the names of prohibited newspapers and periodicals. Yet it contains 437 writings, forbidden by 570 decrees, i.e., two or three times as many as the entire number of German books of the nineteenth century enumerated by name in the Roman Index. The “Historisch-Politischen Blaetter”of 1840 contain an article beginning thus: “Veritas odium parit.In Prussia there are now prohibited nearly all Catholic journals and periodicals, and in order to begin the matter ab ovo they have grasped a welcome opportunity to throw interdicts at wholesale against works not yet published, or to render their circulation difficult to a degree amounting to prohibition.”
How the Prussian censorship proceeded in those days may be illustrated by another example. “At the time of the Vatican Council a publisher, Joseph Bachem, came to Dr. Westhoff, rector of the Seminary of Cologne, a man of venerable years, and told him of his misgivings about the dogma of the infallibility. In his youth he had been taught the maxim that that is Catholic which has been taught always, everywhere, [pg 177]and by everybody; yet he had until recently never found the doctrine of Papal Infallibility taught, neither in schools nor in text-books. Then the reverend old rector took the visitor by the hand and led him into the library of the seminary, where he showed him not less than sixteen catechisms that had been in use in the Archdiocese of Cologne during the eighteenth century, and which stated without exception, clearly and convincingly, the doctrine of Papal Infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The publisher in utter astonishment then asked how it was that this doctrine was not taught in later editions. Dr. Westhoff referred him to the Prussian censure, enforced until 1848, which had expunged this doctrine from all Catholic catechisms. From that moment Bachem no longer wavered in his opinions” (Koelnische Volkszeitung, September 7, 1893).
One may also remember Bismarck's press-campaign during the Kulturkampf. Professor Friedberg, Prussian court canonist, instigated this campaign, and in many ways devised the plan of attack. This much-praised liberalism—how tyrannically it proceeded against the Catholic press! The Frankfurter Zeitung in those days took a census of convictions due to the press law. According to the census, which “does not by far claim to be complete,” there were of newspaper editors sentenced in 1875—21 in January, 35 in February, 29 in March, 24 in April; in four months 137 newspaper writers were either fined or sent to jail. During the same period 30 newspapers were confiscated (Staatslexikon, IV, 550). This is not all. “We could mention at least three instances,” says P. Majunke in his History of the Kulturkampf, “where agents of the Berlin secret police have succeeded in obtaining a position on the editorial staff of Catholic papers, staying for a year or more. Besides serving as spies these fellows had to perform the task of agents provocateurs, viz., to incite the editors of Catholic papers to extreme utterances, similar to the denunciations suggested to correspondents of foreign Catholic organs for their papers.” This happened in a civilized state, despite its constitutional freedom of the press, by order of the same liberalism which always pretends to be full of righteous indignation when the Church prohibits books and puts them on the Index.
Towards the end of the last century, again with the aid of liberalism, laws against the socialists were drawn up. After they had been passed war was waged against socialistic literature. In the year 1886 there appeared a real Index Librorum Prohibitorum, its title read, “Social Democratic publications and societies prohibited by the imperial law against the dangerous designs of Social Democracy,” which law had then been in force eight years. A supplementary list was published two years later, in 1888. Hilgers makes this comment on it: “How many additional pamphlets have been condemned in the time from March 28, 1888, to September 30, 1890, we cannot state.” According to the foregoing official statement the average is 130 a year. Hence we assume that the printed matter prohibited during the twelve years that the law was in force amounted to between 15,000 and 16,000. This number of social democratic pamphlets forbidden within twelve years exceeds by far the number of all books prohibited by the Roman Index in the course [pg 178]of the entire nineteenth century—books that are the products of all countries in the world and dealing with all branches; the number of these German prohibitions is ten times that of Roman prohibitions. Indeed, in the course of a year and a half the new German Empire prohibited more writings of Germans than Rome had prohibited during the entire past century. We may mention here Goethe. In the atheism dispute, at the end of the eighteenth century, decision was rendered upon Goethe's advice against the philosopher Fichte; Fichte was discharged in spite of petitions and mediations in his favour. The liberal Grand Duke Karl August of Saxony Weimar granted in 1816, after the French conqueror had been overthrown, freedom of the press. Professor Oken of Jena availed himself of this privilege, and printed in his “Isis” contributions complaining about the government. Goethe had to advise what should be done against it. He thought that the paper should have been suppressed by the police at its very first announcement; “the measure neglected at the beginning is to be taken immediately and the paper is to be prohibited. By prohibiting the ‘Isis’ the trouble will be stopped at once” (Briefwechsel des Grossh. Karl August v. Sax.-Weimar-Eisenachmit Goethe, II, 1863, 90). And this was done, in spite of the freedom granted the press.
Frederick II. is called the Royal Free-thinker; and yet the general introduction of the book censure into Prussia occurred precisely during his reign. The first general censure edict was issued in 1749 and remained in force till the death of the king. All books, even those printed in foreign tongues, were subject to the censure. Even all episcopal and Papal proclamations were subjected to the royal censure. That the leaders in the Reformation and their successors were not prevented by their avowal of the principle of free research from exercising rigorous, often tyrannical, censure, not only against the Catholics but also against their fellow reformers, is well known.
M. Lehmann writes in the Preuss. Jahrb. 1902: “It claims to be infallible, this Papal Church, it wants to be to the faithful everything, in science and even in nationality. It offends every nation. The Index in the shape given it in 1900 by the present Pope proscribes the ‘Oeuvres du Philosophe de Sanssouci,’ Kant's ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’ Ranke's ‘History of the Popes,’ the greatest German king, the greatest German philosopher, and the greatest German historian” (1902, no. 8).
As to Frederick II., his own works appeared only after his death in 1788, and even then only in part; later on there were other editions. None of these is put on the Index. On this list we find since 1760 the “Oeuvres du Philosophe de Sanssouci.” Under this title appeared at first three volumes, in but a few copies, intended for the most intimate friends of the king. The first volume he soon withdrew and had it burned of his own accord; it contained the “Palladion” an imitation of Voltaire's “Pucelle,” a salacious work throughout. In 1762 a new edition was issued. It also contains a philosophical treatise denying the immortality of the soul; this treatise was also published separately and specially prohibited in 1767. A third work put on the Index is a spurious attack on the Popes published by order of King Frederick II., with a preface by him. Its author is said to have been the French [pg 179]abbé Jean Martin De Prades, reader to the king. These are the indicted works of Frederick II., all written in French and in substance French Voltairianism. Thus came the greatest German king on the Index!