The Popes and Science. James Joseph Walsh
are no longer held in the disrepute so ignorantly accorded them in the last century. It is recognized that scholastic philosophy represents a supremely great development of human thinking with regard to the relations of man to his Creator, to his fellow man, and to the universe. Even those who do not accept its conclusions now, if themselves educated men, no longer make little of those wonderful thinkers, but sympathize with their magnificent work. Only those who are ignorant of scholastic philosophy entirely, still continue to re-echo the expressions of critics whose opinions were founded on second-hand authorities and who confessedly had been unable to make anything out of the scholastics themselves. This field of philosophy was the real danger point for faith and the Church, yet its study was encouraged in every way, provided the philosophers kept within the bounds of their subject.
Just exactly the same thing was true in the realm of natural science. Strange as it may seem to those who have allowed themselves to be led into thinking that only for the last century or a little more have men made observations on nature, and only comparatively recently have the conclusions which they reached with regard to natural phenomena been of any real significance, there is no doubt at all that men made great achievements in physical science in the Middle Ages, some of which unfortunately were lost sight of later, but many of which remained to form the basis on which our modern scientific knowledge has been built. In order to obtain a proper appreciation of this, all that is necessary is to study the works of the investigating scholars of the early history of the universities, and see how much that is considered very modern they anticipated in their writings. They must be read for themselves, not be judged by excerpts chosen by prejudiced readers, much less by critics who were bent on not finding anything good in the Middle Ages. There is need of sympathetic interpretation to replace the ignorant contempt which has so far dominated this period of the history of education. The precious lesson that men may learn from the unfortunate misunderstanding, however, is how much old-time prejudice still dominates the attitude even of scholars–nay, even of scientists and educators, with regard to certain periods in history.
To most people it will be utterly uncomprehensible, however, that after all that they have heard about Church opposition to science and Papal discouragement of education as dangerous to faith, there should now be an absolute denial of the supposed grounds for the assertions in this matter. Most readers, even among educated people, will be very prone to think that their impressions in these matters cannot be entirely wrong, and that previous writers on the subject cannot have been either deceiving or deceived. In all that relates to the Roman Catholic Church, however, before the date of the so-called reformation, it is important to remember that there came into existence a definite body of Protestant tradition, the creation of the reformers who wished to blacken the memory of the Old Church as much as possible to justify their own apostasy, and who therefore spared no means to pervert the facts of history or to exaggerate the significance of historical details so as to produce this false impression. Subsequent generations were oftener deceived themselves than deceiving. They were sure that the Church was opposed to education and to science, and consequently it was not hard for them to read in certain incidents and documents a meaning quite other than their actual significance, because this added meaning agreed with their prejudices on these subjects.
Every advance in modern history, every modification of view that has been brought about by the critical historical method of recent times, has emphasized this point of view almost without exception. The distinguished philosophic and historical writer, the Comte de Maistre, in his Soirées of St. Petersburg about a century ago, declared that "History for the last three centuries (1500-1800) has been a conspiracy against the truth." Just about a century later the editors of the Cambridge Modern History, in the preface to the first volume of their monumental work, re-echoed the words of the Comte de Maistre almost literally in a pregnant paragraph which deserves to be in the note-book of everyone who is trying to get at the real truth of history. They said:
"Great additions have of late been made to our knowledge of the past; the long conspiracy against the revelation of truth has gradually given way, and competing historians all over the civilized world have been zealous to take advantage of the change. The printing of archives has kept pace with the admission of enquirers; and the total mass of new matter, which the last half-century has accumulated, amounts to many thousands of volumes. In view of changes and of gains such as these, it has become impossible for the historical writer of the present age to trust without reserve even to the most respected secondary authorities. The honest student finds himself continually deserted, retarded, misled by the classics of historical literature, and has to hew his own way through multitudinous transactions, periodicals and official publications in order to reach the truth.
"Ultimate history cannot be obtained in this generation; but, so far as documentary evidence is at command, conventional history can be discarded, and the point can be shown that has been reached on the road from one to the other."
The italics in this passage are ours, but the ideas they emphasize will serve to show how necessary it is for most of us to give up the supposed historical truth of the preceding generations and have an open mind for the newer ideas that are coming in as the result of the renewed consultation of original documents and primal sources of information. The present volume is written entirely with the idea of bringing out the facts of the relations of the Popes and the Church and the ecclesiastics, especially of the centuries before the reformation, to science and to scientific education. My own position as a professor of the history of medicine has necessarily made medical science very prominent in the book. This, however, far from being a disadvantage, is really an advantage, since the physical sciences of the medieval times gathered mainly around medicine, and it was chiefly physicians and medical students who devoted most time to them. After a detailed study of the history of medical science in the Middle Ages as well of its allied sciences, it becomes very clear that there was no trace of Papal or Church opposition to science as science, and, on the contrary, liberal patronage, abundant encouragement, and even pecuniary aid for the development of scientific education in every way.
What we have tried to give in this book, then, is the authoritative refutation of the supposed prohibition of the cultivation of certain departments of medical and allied sciences by the Popes, and sufficient information to enable students and teachers of science to realize that the ordinarily accepted notions with regard to opposition to science in the Middle Ages are founded on nothing more substantial than sublime ignorance of the facts of the history of science at that time. There was no bull against anatomy or dissection; no bull against chemistry; the Popes were the patrons of the great medical scientists and surgeons; the Papal Medical School was one of the best in the world and was sedulously fostered; the great scientists of the Middle Ages were clergymen, and many of them when they died were declared saints by the Church. The opposite impression is entirely a deduction from false premises with regard to the supposed attitude of the Church and churchmen. We shall furnish abundant authorities of the first rank and of value as absolute as there can be in present day history as to these questions. The consultation of these will furnish further material for those who desire to have real knowledge of the history of science in a magnificently original and greatly fruitful period.
THE SUPPOSED PAPAL PROHIBITION OF DISSECTION
There is a very general impression that the Roman Catholic Church was, during the Middle Ages, opposed to the practice of dissection, and that various ecclesiastical regulations and even Papal decrees were issued which prohibited, or at least limited to a very great degree, this necessary adjunct of medical teaching. These ecclesiastical censures are supposed to be in force, to some extent at least, even at the present time. The persuasion as to the minatory attitude of the Church in regard to dissection is so widespread among even supposedly well-educated professional men, that, as we have said in the introductory chapter, when there was question some time ago of opening a medical school in New York City under Catholic auspices as a department of Fordham University, a number of more than ordinarily intelligent physicians asked: What would be done about the study of anatomy, since in the circumstances suggested dissection would not be allowed? This false impression has been produced by writers in the history of science who have emphasized very strenuously the supposed opposition of the Church to science, and as these writers had a certain prestige as scholars their works have been widely read and their assertions have been unquestioned,