Science and Morals and Other Essays

by Sir Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

This is really what is meant by the tyranny of the Church; and it may now be useful to consider briefly what can be said for her position. We must begin by looking at the matter from the Church's standpoint. It is a good rule to endeavour to understand your opponent's position before you try to confute him; an excellent rule seldom complied with by anti-Catholic controversialists. Now the Church starts with the proposition that man has an immortal soul destined to eternal happiness or eternal misery, and she proceeds to claim that she has been divinely constituted to help man to enjoy a future of happiness. Of course these are opinions which all do not share, and with the arguments for and against which we cannot here deal. If a man is quite sure that he has no soul and that there is no hereafter there is nothing more to be said than: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Nothing very much matters in this world except that we should make ourselves as comfortable as we can during the few years we have to spend in it.

Again, there are others who, whilst believing the first doctrine set down above, will have none of the other. With them we enter into no argument here, and only say that to have a guide is better than to have no guide. Catholics, who accept gratefully her guidance, do believe that the Church can help a man to save his soul, and that she is entrusted, to that end, with certain powers. Her duty is to preserve and guard the Christian Revelation—the scheme of doctrine regarding belief and conduct by which Jesus Christ taught that souls were to be saved. She is not an arbitrary ruler. Her office is primarily that of Judge and Interpreter of the deposit of doctrine entrusted to her.

In this she claims to be safeguarded against error, though her infallible utterances would seem incredibly few, if summed up and presented to the more ignorant of her critics. She also claims to derive from her Founder legislative power by which she can make decrees, unmake them or modify and vary them to suit different times and circumstances. She rightfully claims the obedience of her children to this exercise of her authority, but such disciplinary enactments, by their very nature variable and modifiable, do not and cannot come within the province of her infallibility, and admittedly they need not be always perfectly wise or judicious. Such disciplinary utterances, it may be added, at least in the field of which we are treating, indeed in any field, are also incredibly few when due regard is had to the enormous number of cases passing under the Church's observation.

We saw just now that the State exercised a very large jurisdiction for the purpose of protecting the weak who were unable or little able to protect themselves. It is really important to remember, when we are considering the powers of the Church and her exercise of them, that these disciplinary powers are put in operation, not from mere arrogance or an arbitrary love of domination—as too many suppose—but with the primary intention of protecting and helping the weaker members of the flock. If the Church consisted entirely of theological experts a good deal of this exercise of disciplinary power might very likely be regarded as wholly unnecessary. Thus the Church freely concedes not only to priests and theologians, but to other persons adequately instructed in her teaching, full permission to read books which she has placed on her black list or Index—from which, in other words, she has warned off the weaker members of the flock.

The net of Peter, however, as all very well know, contains a very great variety of fish, and—to vary the metaphor—to the fisherman was given charge not only of the sheep—foolish enough, heaven knows!—but also of the still more helpless lambs. Thus it becomes the duty and the privilege of the successors of the fisherman to protect the sheep and the lambs, and not merely to protect them from wild beasts who may try to do harm from without, but quite as much from the wild rams of the flock who are capable of doing a great deal of injury from within. In one of his letters, from which quotation has already been made, the late Monsignor Benson sums up, in homely, but vivid language, the point with which we have just been dealing. "Here are the lambs of Christ's flock," he writes: "Is a stout old ram to upset and confuse them when he needn't ... even though he is right? The flock must be led gently and turned in a great curve. We can't all whip round in an instant. We are tired and discouraged and some of us are exceedingly stupid and obstinate. Very well; then the rams can't be allowed to make brilliant excursions in all directions and upset us all. We shall get there some day, if we are treated patiently. We are Christ's lambs after all."

The protection of the weak: surely, if it be deemed both just and wise on the part of the civil government to protect its subjects by legislation in regard to adulterated goods, contagious diseases, unhealthy workshops and dangerous machinery, why may not the Church safeguard her children, especially her weaker children, the special object of her care and solicitude, from noxious intellectual foods?

It is just here that the question of the Index arises. Put briefly, this is a list of books which are not to be read by Catholics unless they have permission to read them—a permission which, as we have just seen, is never refused when any good reason can be given for the request. I can understand the kind of person who says: "Exactly, locking up the truth; why not let everybody read just what they like?" To which I would reply that every careful parent has an Index Prohibitorius for his household; or ought to have one if he has not. I once knew a woman who allowed her daughter to plunge into Nana and other works of that character as soon as she could summon up enough knowledge of French to fathom their meaning. The daughter grew up and the result has not been encouraging to educationists thinking of proceeding on similar lines. The State also has its Index Prohibitorius and will not permit indecent books nor indecent pictures to be sold. Enough: let us again clear our minds of cant. There is a limit with regard to publications in every decent State and every decent house: it is only a question where the line is drawn. It is obvious that the Church must be permitted at least as much privilege in this matter as is claimed by every respectable father of a family.

We need not pursue the question of the Index any further, but before we leave it let us for a moment turn to another accusation levelled against Catholic men of science by anti-Catholic writers, that of concealing their real opinions on scientific matters, and even of professing views which they do not really hold, out of a craven fear of ecclesiastical denunciations. The attitude which permits of such an accusation is hardly courteous, but, stripped of its verbiage, that is the accusation as it is made. Now, as there are usually at least some smouldering embers of fire where there is smoke, there is just one small item of truth behind all this pother. No Catholic, scientific man or otherwise, who really honours his Faith would desire wilfully to advance theories apparently hostile to its teaching. Further, even if he were convinced of the truth of facts which might appear—it could only be "appear"—to conflict with that teaching, he would, in expounding them, either show how they could be harmonised with his religion, or, if he were wise, would treat his facts from a severely scientific point of view and leave other considerations to the theologians trained in directions almost invariably unexplored by scientific men. Perhaps the memory of old, far-off, unhappy events should not be recalled, but it is pertinent to remark that the troubles in connection with a man whose name once stood for all that was stalwart in Catholicism, did not originate in, nor were they connected with, any of the scientific books and papers of which the late Professor Mivart was the author, but with those theological essays which all his friends must regret that he should ever have written.

It may not be waste of time briefly to consider two of the instances commonly brought up as examples when the allegation with which we are dealing is under consideration.

First of all let us consider the case of Gabriel Fallopius, who lived—it is very important to note the date—1523-1562; a Catholic and a churchman. Now it is gravely asserted that Fallopius committed himself to misleading views, views which he knew to be misleading, because he thought that he was thereby serving the interest of the Church. What he said concerned fossils, then beginning to puzzle the scientific world of the day. Confronted with these objects and living, as he did, in an unscientific age, when the seven days of creation were interpreted as periods of twenty-four hours each and the universality of the Noachian deluge was accepted by everybody, it would have been something like a miracle if he had at once fathomed the true meaning of the shark's teeth, elephant's bones, and other fossil remains which came under his notice. His idea was that all these things were mere concretions "generated by fermentation in the spots where they were found," as he very quaintly and even absurdly put it. The accusation, however, is not that Fallopius made a mistake—as many another man has done—but that he deliberately expressed an opinion which he did not hold and did so from religious motives. Of course, this includes the idea that he knew what the real explanation was, for had he not known it, he could not have been guilty of making a false statement. There is no evidence whatever that Fallopius ever had so much as a suspicion of the real explanation, nor, it may be added, had any other man of science for the century which followed his death.