We shall have to pass by others. We might point to the English philosopher and statesman, Francis Bacon of Verulam (died 1626), who won his place in the history of natural science by his urging of the empiric method; we might point to W. Harvey (died 1658), the discoverer of the blood-circulation, a man of earnest and simple piety; we might mention the pious Albrecht von Haller (died 1777), J. Bernouilli(died 1728) the co-inventor of integral calculus, the man of whom his great disciple Euler relates that this Bernouilli, co-inventor of the most difficult of all calculations, this great mathematician, expressed regret in his old age that he had devoted so many years to science, and only few hours to religion, and that on his deathbed he admonished those around him to adhere to the Word of God because that alone is the word of life.
We shall name but one more, a son of northern Sweden, the famous botanist, Karl Linné (died 1778). He, too, found God in the living nature which he studied so diligently.
In commenting on his Systema naturae he writes: “Man, know thyself; in theological aspect, that thou art created with an immortal soul, after the image of God; in moral aspect, that thou alone art blessed with a rational soul for the praise of thy sublime Creator. I ask, why did God put man equipped thus in sense and spirit on this earth, where he perceives this wonderfully ordered nature? For what, but to praise and admire the invisible Master-builder for His magnificent work.”
These are the great masters and reformers of recent natural science, the men who opened up the paths which natural science of the present day is still pursuing; most of these savants were of a Christian mind, many of them even pious. There were but few indifferent or irreligious, such as E. Halley (died 1742), who computed the cycle of the comet since named after him, and G. de Buffon (died 1788): but they are a small minority. The period of highest achievement in modern natural science bears the stamp of religion; indeed, to a great extent it bears the halo of devotion and fervour. An incompatibility of research and faith, a solidarity of science and anti-Christian tendency, was never known to the mind of these great masters.
“Any one who has grasped even the elements of natural science, the unity of natural forces and their rigid conformity to laws, becomes a monist if he has the faculty for clear reasoning, and as to the others, there is no help for them anyway” (L. Plate, Ultramontane Weltanschauung und moderne Lebenskunde, 1907, 11). This sort of argument is shouted at us in manifold variations. How does that statement look in the light of history? Men like Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Linné, Boyle, thus knew nothing of the elements of natural science, nothing of the conformity to laws of natural forces: because they were neither monists nor atheists, but worshippers of the Creator of heaven and earth! A more painful contrast cannot be imagined than to see these great masters and pioneers rated as lesser minds, ignorant of real natural science, by those who trail far behind them and who are seeking their footsteps. The religious conviction of the natural scientists of a past age is sufficient proof that, not the research in natural science, but other causes lead minds to infidelity.
Modern Times.
We turn to the nineteenth century. Does the picture perhaps change essentially in the century that has shown its children so much progress, that has disclosed so many secrets of nature, but has also taught irreligion to thousands of men? Does it become true now that natural science and Christian fundamental [pg 207] truths are opposed to each other in hostile attitude? Claims to this effect are not lacking. In fact, the number of those who refuse assent to the Christian religion is increasing. But even at this time we do not find such to be the majority of eminent scientists, and our inquiry is about eminent scientists, those who make the science of a period, not those who can hardly expect to have their names known by posterity. A considerable number, indeed the majority, of the master minds of natural science, even in the nineteenth century, reject materialism and atheism, and not infrequently they are pious Christians; another proof that just upon the deeper and more serious minds religion exercises a stronger power of attraction.
Let us commence with the astronomers.
“The sciences and their true representatives,” so states the renowned Mädler of Dorpat, “do not deserve the reproaches and imputations heaped upon them from a certain side, that they would estrange man from God, even turn him into an atheist ... we hope to show of astronomy especially that just the contrary is taking place” (Reden und Abhandlungen über Gegenstände der Himmelskunde, 1870, 326).
The greatest astronomer of the nineteenth century, and one of the greatest discoverers of all ages, was undoubtedly William Herschel (died 1822). His son John Herschel (died 1871) became his “worthy successor, almost his peer, who won a fame nearly equal to that of the inherited name” (R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, 1877, 505). While not hostile to religion, the father had been so engrossed in his restless research, that religion received little attention, but religious thought and sentiment played a prominent part in the son. Time and again he opposed with zeal the materialistic-atheistic explanation of the universe. “Nothing is more unfounded than the objection made by some well-meaning but undiscerning persons, that the study of natural science induces a doubt of religion and of the immortality of the soul. Be assured that its logical effect upon any well-ordered mind must be just the opposite” (Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, 1830, 7).