We do not doubt that the lecturer honestly believes what he says about the “heaviest blow” inflicted on the Holy Scriptures. But we would inform him that the Congregation of the Index does not make definitions of faith, and that its authority, however respectable, is disciplinary, not dogmatic. If he consulted our theologians, he would learn that not even œcumenical councils are considered infallible as to the reasons by which they support their decisions, but only as to the decisions themselves. Much less can the theologians of the Index bind our judgment by giving expression to their theological views. The books which they forbid are forbidden; but the reasons for which they are forbidden are not all necessarily incontrovertible, and this suffices to show that it is not “the Christian Church” that declared the Copernican system contrary to the Holy Scriptures, for the church never defined such a point; such a declaration was the expression of a theological view which was then common, but which had no dogmatic consequences and could give no “blow” to the Holy Scriptures. Dr. Draper remarks that evolution, too, has been declared to be “contrary to the Holy Scriptures.” The fact is true; but he should have added that the same hypothesis has been refuted by philosophy as a logical blunder, and rejected by science as a monstrous falsehood. Hence the two cases are not similar.
“Let us not be led astray,” continues Dr. Draper, “by the clamors of those who, not seeking the truth and not caring about it, are only championing their sect or attempting the perpetuation of their profits. My friends, let me plead with you. Don’t reject the theory of evolution. There is no thought of modern times that more magnifies the unutterable glory of Almighty God!”
How edifying! how pathetic! but how ludicrous on the lips of an unbeliever! For the God of the lecturer is no creator, as creation is inconsistent with the pretended eternity of matter; he is not omnipotent, for he cannot work miracles; he is not provident, for Dr. Draper rejects all intervention of the divine power in the government of the universe, and says that “the capricious intrusion of a supernatural agency has never yet occurred”; whence we see that God, according to him, would be an intruder, and even a capricious one, if he dared to meddle with the affairs of the material, moral, or intellectual world. Such being the God of the evolutionist, who does not see that the only meaning which can be legitimately attached to Dr. Draper’s words is that the theory of evolution “magnifies the unutterable glory of almighty matter” and does its best to suppress Almighty God?
He gives another grave warning to his clerical hearers:
“Remember, I beseech you, what was said by one of old times: ‘Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do. And now I say unto you, if this counsel be of men it will come to naught; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found to be fighting against God.’ Shall I continue the quotation?—‘And to him they all agreed.’”
This quotation from a speech of Gamaliel in the Jewish council would be appropriate, if the evolutionists, like the apostles, had wrought public miracles to prove their divine mission. In the case of the apostles all tended to prove that they were right, and that God was on their side. They spoke languages that they had never learned, they cured the sick without medicine, by a word or by their shadow, and filled the city with wonders which their enemies could not deny. When Mr. Darwin or Dr. Draper shall give us like evidences of their divine mission, we will “take heed to ourselves what we intend to do” with their doctrine; but, as things are now, everything compels us to look on them as emissaries and ministers of the kingdom of darkness. We cannot put in the same balance evolution and creation; for all the weight would be on the side of the latter. A dream, a nonentity, an unscientific fiction, a paralogism, have no weight; whilst effects without causes, conclusions without premises, phrases without meaning, weigh only on the conscience of modern thinkers, but without affecting in the least the balance of truth. Thus we are not afraid that we “be found fighting against God” while fighting for creation against evolution. The matter is too evident to need further explanation.
We are tired of following Dr. Draper through his tortuous reasonings, and the reader is probably equally tired. On the other hand, there is little need of exposing the mischievous glorification of modern science in which the lecturer indulges in the interest of his materialistic views. When we are told that “profound changes are taking place in our conceptions of the Supreme Being,” or that “the doctrine of evolution has for its foundation not the admission of incessant divine intervention, but a recognition of the original, the immutable fiat of God”—of a God, however, who did not create matter, and who must respect the dominion of universal and irreversible law under pain of being stigmatized as a “capricious intruder”—or when we are told that “the establishment of the theory of evolution has been due to the conjoint movement of all the sciences,” and that “Knowledge, fresh from so many triumphs, unfalteringly continues her movement on the works of Superstition and Ignorance,” we need no great acumen to understand the meaning of this “scientific” slang. Declamation is the great resource of demagogues and charlatans. Unfortunately, there are charlatans and demagogues even among the doctors of science, and their number, though small, is apt to increase in the same proportion as their vagaries are diffused among the rising generation. Catholics, thank God! are less exposed to seduction than sectaries who have no guide but their inconsistent theories; but even Catholics should be on their guard lest they, too, be poisoned by the foul and infectious atmosphere in which they live. Indeed, all the modern errors have been refuted; but when a taste for error becomes predominant, and such fables as evolution are styled “science,” then human weakness and human pride are easily drawn into the vortex of scepticism; and then we must be watchful and pray, for the time is at hand when even the elect, as the Gospel warns us, shall be in danger of seduction.
AFTER CASTEL-FIDARDO.