History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

Produced by Charles Keller

HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE

By John William Draper, M. D., LL. D.

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK,

AUTHOR OF A TREATISE ON HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY, HISTORY OF THE

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE, HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN

CIVIL WAR, AND OF MANY EXPERIMENTAL MEMOIRS ON CHEMICAL AND

OTHER SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS

PREFACE.

WHOEVER has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the mental

condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and America, must have

perceived that there is a great and rapidly-increasing departure from

the public religious faith, and that, while among the more frank this

divergence is not concealed, there is a far more extensive and far more

dangerous secession, private and unacknowledged.

So wide-spread and so powerful is this secession, that it can neither be

treated with contempt nor with punishment. It cannot be extinguished by

derision, by vituperation, or by force. The time is rapidly approaching

when it will give rise to serious political results.

Ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world.

Military fervor in behalf of faith has disappeared. Its only souvenirs

are the marble effigies of crusading knights, reposing in the silent

crypts of churches on their tombs.

That a crisis is impending is shown by the attitude of the great powers

toward the papacy. The papacy represents the ideas and aspirations

of two-thirds of the population of Europe. It insists on a political

supremacy in accordance with its claims to a divine origin and mission,

and a restoration of the mediaeval order of things, loudly declaring

that it will accept no reconciliation with modern civilization.

The antagonism we thus witness between Religion and Science is the

continuation of a struggle that commenced when Christianity began

to attain political power. A divine revelation must necessarily be

intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in

itself, and view with disdain that arising from the progressive

intellectual development of man. But our opinions on every subject are

continually liable to modification, from the irresistible advance of

human knowledge.

Can we exaggerate the importance of a contention in which every

thoughtful person must take part whether he will or not? In a matter so

solemn as that of religion, all men, whose temporal interests are not

involved in existing institutions, earnestly desire to find the truth.

They seek information as to the subjects in dispute, and as to the

conduct of the disputants.

The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it

is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive

force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising

from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.

No one has hitherto treated the subject from this point of view. Yet

from this point it presents itself to us as a living issue--in fact, as

the most important of all living issues.

A few years ago, it was the politic and therefore the proper course to

abstain from all allusion to this controversy, and to keep it as far as

possible in the background. The tranquillity of society depends so

much on the stability of its religious convictions, that no one can

be justified in wantonly disturbing them. But faith is in its nature

unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and

eventually a divergence between them, impossible to conceal, must take

place. It then becomes the duty of those whose lives have made them

familiar with both modes of thought, to present modestly, but

firmly, their views; to compare the antagonistic pretensions calmly,

impartially, philosophically. History shows that, if this be not done,

social misfortunes, disastrous and enduring, will ensue. When the old

mythological religion of Europe broke down under the weight of its own

inconsistencies, neither the Roman emperors nor the philosophers of

those times did any thing adequate for the guidance of public opinion.

They left religious affairs to take their chance, and accordingly those

affairs fell into the hands of ignorant and infuriated ecclesiastics,

parasites, eunuchs, and slaves.

The intellectual night which settled on Europe, in consequence of that

great neglect of duty, is passing away; we live in the daybreak of

better things. Society is anxiously expecting light, to see in what

direction it is drifting. It plainly discerns that the track along which

the voyage of civilization has thus far been made, has been left; and

that a new departure, on all unknown sea, has been taken.

Though deeply impressed with such thoughts, I should not have presumed

to write this book, or to intrude on the public the ideas it presents,

had I not made the facts with which it deals a subject of long and

earnest meditation. And I have gathered a strong incentive to undertake

this duty from the circumstance that a "History of the Intellectual

Development of Europe," published by me several years ago, which has

passed through many editions in America, and has been reprinted in

numerous European languages, English, French, German, Russian, Polish,

Servian, etc., is everywhere received with favor.

In collecting and arranging the materials for the volumes I published

under the title of "A History of the American Civil War," a work of very

great labor, I had become accustomed to the comparison of conflicting

statements, the adjustment of conflicting claims. The approval with

which that book has been received by the American public, a critical

judge of the events considered, has inspired me with additional

confidence. I had also devoted much attention to the experimental

investigation of natural phenomena, and had published many well-known

memoirs on such subjects. And perhaps no one can give himself to these

pursuits, and spend a large part of his life in the public teaching of

science, without partaking of that love of impartiality and truth which

Philosophy incites. She inspires us with a desire to dedicate our days

to the good of our race, so that in the fading light of life's evening

we may not, on looking back, be forced to acknowledge how unsubstantial

and useless are the objects that we have pursued.

Though I have spared no pains in the composition of this book, I am

very sensible how unequal it is to the subject, to do justice to which

a knowledge of science, history, theology, politics, is required; every

page should be alive with intelligence and glistening with facts. But

then I have remembered that this is only as it were the preface, or

forerunner, of a body of literature, which the events and wants of our

times will call forth. We have come to the brink of a great intellectual

change. Much of the frivolous reading of the present will be supplanted

by a thoughtful and austere literature, vivified by endangered

interests, and made fervid by ecclesiastical passion.

What I have sought to do is, to present a clear and impartial statement

of the views and acts of the two contending parties. In one sense I have

tried to identify myself with each, so as to comprehend thoroughly their

motives; but in another and higher sense I have endeavored to stand

aloof, and relate with impartiality their actions.

I therefore trust that those, who may be disposed to criticise this

book, will bear in mind that its object is not to advocate the views

and pretensions of either party, but to explain clearly, and without

shrinking those of both. In the management of each chapter I have

usually set forth the orthodox view first, and then followed it with

that of its opponents.

In thus treating the subject it has not been necessary to pay much

regard to more moderate or intermediate opinions, for, though they may

be intrinsically of great value, in conflicts of this kind it is not

with the moderates but with the extremists that the impartial reader is

mainly concerned. Their movements determine the issue.

For this reason I have had little to say respecting the two great

Christian confessions, the Protestant and Greek Churches. As to the

latter, it has never, since the restoration of science, arrayed itself

in opposition to the advancement of knowledge. On the contrary, it has

always met it with welcome. It has observed a reverential attitude to

truth, from whatever quarter it might come. Recognizing the apparent

discrepancies between its interpretations of revealed truth and the

discoveries of science, it has always expected that satisfactory

explanations and reconciliations would ensue, and in this it has not

been disappointed. It would have been well for modern civilization if

the Roman Church had done the same.

In speaking of Christianity, reference is generally made to the

Roman Church, partly because its adherents compose the majority of

Christendom, partly because its demands are the most pretentious, and

partly because it has commonly sought to enforce those demands by

the civil power. None of the Protestant Churches has ever occupied a

position so imperious--none has ever had such wide-spread political

influence. For the most part they have been averse to constraint, and

except in very few instances their opposition has not passed beyond the

exciting of theological odium.

As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She

has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any human

being. She has never subjected any one to mental torment, physical

torture, least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or

promoting her ideas. She presents herself unstained by cruelties and

crimes. But in the Vatican--we have only to recall the Inquisition--the

hands that are now raised in appeals to the Most Merciful are crimsoned.

They have been steeped in blood!

There are two modes of historical composition, the artistic and the

scientific. The former implies that men give origin to events; it

therefore selects some prominent individual, pictures him under

a fanciful form, and makes him the hero of a romance. The latter,

insisting that human affairs present an unbroken chain, in which each

fact is the offspring of some preceding fact, and the parent of some

subsequent fact, declares that men do not control events, but that

events control men. The former gives origin to compositions, which,

however much they may interest or delight us, are but a grade above

novels; the latter is austere, perhaps even repulsive, for it sternly

impresses us with a conviction of the irresistible dominion of law, and

the insignificance of human exertions. In a subject so solemn as that to

which this book is devoted, the romantic and the popular are altogether

out of place. He who presumes to treat of it must fix his eyes

steadfastly on that chain of destiny which universal history displays;

he must turn with disdain from the phantom impostures of pontiffs and

statesmen and kings.

If any thing were needed to show us the untrustworthiness of artistic

historical compositions, our personal experience would furnish it. How

often do our most intimate friends fail to perceive the real motives of

our every-day actions; how frequently they misinterpret our intentions!

If this be the case in what is passing before our eyes, may we not

be satisfied that it is impossible to comprehend justly the doings of

persons who lived many years ago, and whom we have never seen.

In selecting and arranging the topics now to be presented, I have been

guided in part by "the Confession" of the late Vatican Council, and in

part by the order of events in history. Not without interest will the

reader remark that the subjects offer themselves to us now as they did

to the old philosophers of Greece. We still deal with the same questions

about which they disputed. What is God? What is the soul? What is the

world? How is it governed? Have we any standard or criterion of truth?

And the thoughtful reader will earnestly ask, "Are our solutions of

these problems any better than theirs?"

The general argument of this book, then, is as follows:

I first direct attention to the origin of modern science as

distinguished from ancient, by depending on observation, experiment,

and mathematical discussion, instead of mere speculation, and shall show

that it was a consequence of the Macedonian campaigns, which brought

Asia and Europe into contact. A brief sketch of those campaigns, and of

the Museum of Alexandria, illustrates its character.

Then with brevity I recall the well-known origin of Christianity, and

show its advance to the attainment of imperial power, the transformation

it underwent by its incorporation with paganism, the existing religion

of the Roman Empire. A clear conception of its incompatibility with

science caused it to suppress forcibly the Schools of Alexandria. It was

constrained to this by the political necessities of its position.

The parties to the conflict thus placed, I next relate the story of

their first open struggle; it is the first or Southern Reformation. The

point in dispute had respect to the nature of God. It involved the rise

of Mohammedanism. Its result was, that much of Asia and Africa, with the

historic cities Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Carthage, were wrenched from

Christendom, and the doctrine of the Unity of God established in the

larger portion of what had been the Roman Empire.

This political event was followed by the restoration of science, the

establishment of colleges, schools, libraries, throughout the dominions

of the Arabians. Those conquerors, pressing forward rapidly in their

intellectual development, rejected the anthropomorphic ideas of the

nature of God remaining in their popular belief, and accepted other more

philosophical ones, akin to those that had long previously been attained

to in India. The result of this was a second conflict, that respecting

the nature of the soul. Under the designation of Averroism, there came

into prominence the theories of Emanation and Absorption. At the

close of the middle ages the Inquisition succeeded in excluding those

doctrines from Europe, and now the Vatican Council has formally and

solemnly anathematized them.

Meantime, through the cultivation of astronomy, geography, and other

sciences, correct views had been gained as to the position and relations

of the earth, and as to the structure of the world; and since Religion,

resting itself on what was assumed to be the proper interpretation

of the Scriptures, insisted that the earth is the central and most

important part of the universe, a third conflict broke out. In this

Galileo led the way on the part of Science. Its issue was the overthrow

of the Church on the question in dispute. Subsequently a subordinate

controversy arose respecting the age of the world, the Church insisting

that it is only about six thousand years old. In this she was again

overthrown The light of history and of science had been gradually

spreading over Europe. In the sixteenth century the prestige of Roman

Christianity was greatly diminished by the intellectual reverses it

had experienced, and also by its political and moral condition. It was

clearly seen by many pious men that Religion was not accountable for

the false position in which she was found, but that the misfortune was

directly traceable to the alliance she had of old contracted with Roman

paganism. The obvious remedy, therefore, was a return to primitive

purity. Thus arose the fourth conflict, known to us as the

Reformation--the second or Northern Reformation. The special form it

assumed was a contest respecting the standard or criterion of

truth, whether it is to be found in the Church or in the Bible. The

determination of this involved a settlement of the rights of reason, or

intellectual freedom. Luther, who is the conspicuous man of the epoch,

carried into effect his intention with no inconsiderable success; and at

the close of the struggle it was found that Northern Europe was lost to

Roman Christianity.

We are now in the midst of a controversy respecting the mode of

government of the world, whether it be by incessant divine intervention,

or by the operation of primordial and unchangeable law. The intellectual

movement of Christendom has reached that point which Arabism had

attained to in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and doctrines which

were then discussed are presenting themselves again for review; such are

those of Evolution, Creation, Development.

Offered under these general titles, I think it will be found that all

the essential points of this great controversy are included. By grouping

under these comprehensive heads the facts to be considered, and dealing

with each group separately, we shall doubtless acquire clear views of

their inter-connection and their historical succession.

I have treated of these conflicts as nearly as I conveniently could in

their proper chronological order, and, for the sake of completeness,

have added chapters on--

An examination of what Latin Christianity has done for modern

civilization.

A corresponding examination of what Science has done.

The attitude of Roman Christianity in the impending conflict, as defined

by the Vatican Council.

The attention of many truth-seeking persons has been so exclusively

given to the details of sectarian dissensions, that the long strife, to

the history of which these pages are devoted, is popularly but little

known. Having tried to keep steadfastly in view the determination to

write this work in an impartial spirit, to speak with respect of the

contending parties, but never to conceal the truth, I commit it to the

considerate judgment of the thoughtful reader.

JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER

UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, December, 1873.

HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCE.

Religious condition of the Greeks in the fourth century

before Christ.--Their invasion of the Persian Empire brings

them in contact with new aspects of Nature, and familiarizes

them with new religious systems.--The military,

engineering, and scientific activity, stimulated by the

Macedonian campaigns, leads to the establishment in

Alexandria of an institute, the Museum, for the cultivation

of knowledge by experiment, observation, and mathematical

discussion.--It is the origin of Science.

GREEK MYTHOLOGY. No spectacle can be presented to the thoughtful

mind more solemn, more mournful, than that of the dying of an ancient

religion, which in its day has given consolation to many generations of

men.

Four centuries before the birth of Christ, Greece was fast outgrowing

her ancient faith. Her philosophers, in their studies of the world, had

been profoundly impressed with the contrast between the majesty of the

operations of Nature and the worthlessness of the divinities of Olympus.

Her historians, considering the orderly course of political affairs,

the manifest uniformity in the acts of men, and that there was no event

occurring before their eyes for which they could not find an obvious

cause in some preceding event, began to suspect that the miracles and

celestial interventions, with which the old annals were filled, were

only fictions. They demanded, when the age of the supernatural had

ceased, why oracles had become mute, and why there were now no more

prodigies in the world.

Traditions, descending from immemorial antiquity, and formerly accepted

by pious men as unquestionable truths, had filled the islands of

the Mediterranean and the conterminous countries with supernatural

wonders--enchantresses, sorcerers, giants, ogres, harpies, gorgons,

centaurs, cyclops. The azure vault was the floor of heaven; there Zeus,

surrounded by the gods with their wives and mistresses, held his court,

engaged in pursuits like those of men, and not refraining from acts of

human passion and crime.

A sea-coast broken by numerous indentations, an archipelago with some of

the most lovely islands in the world, inspired the Greeks with a taste

for maritime life, for geographical discovery, and colonization.

Their ships wandered all over the Black and Mediterranean Seas. The

time-honored wonders that had been glorified in the "Odyssey," and

sacred in public faith, were found to have no existence. As a better

knowledge of Nature was obtained, the sky was shown to be an illusion;

it was discovered that there is no Olympus, nothing above but space and

stars. With the vanishing of their habitation, the gods disappeared,

both those of the Ionian type of Homer and those of the Doric of Hesiod.

EFFECTS OF DISCOVERY AND CRITICISM. But this did not take place without

resistance. At first, the public, and particularly its religious

portion, denounced the rising doubts as atheism. They despoiled some

of the offenders of their goods, exiled others; some they put to death.

They asserted that what had been believed by pious men in the old times,

and had stood the test of ages, must necessarily be true. Then, as the

opposing evidence became irresistible, they were content to admit that

these marvels were allegories under which the wisdom of the ancients had

concealed many sacred and mysterious things. They tried to reconcile,

what now in their misgivings they feared might be myths, with their

advancing intellectual state. But their efforts were in vain, for there

are predestined phases through which on such an occasion public opinion

must pass. What it has received with veneration it begins to doubt, then

it offers new interpretations, then subsides into dissent, and ends with

a rejection of the whole as a mere fable.

In their secession the philosophers and historians were followed by

the poets. Euripides incurred the odium of heresy. Aeschylus narrowly

escaped being stoned to death for blasphemy. But the frantic efforts

of those who are interested in supporting delusions must always end in

defeat. The demoralization resistlessly extended through every branch of

literature, until at length it reached the common people.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Greek philosophical criticism had lent its aid to

Greek philosophical discovery in this destruction of the national faith.

It sustained by many arguments the wide-spreading unbelief. It compared

the doctrines of the different schools with each other, and showed from

their contradictions that man has no criterion of truth; that, since his

ideas of what is good and what is evil differ according to the country

in which he lives, they can have no foundation in Nature, but must be

altogether the result of education; that right and wrong are nothing

more than fictions created by society for its own purposes. In Athens,

some of the more advanced classes had reached such a pass that they not

only denied the unseen, the supernatural, they even affirmed that the

world is only a day-dream, a phantasm, and that nothing at all exists.

The topographical configuration of Greece gave an impress to her

political condition. It divided her people into distinct communities

having conflicting interests, and made them incapable of centralization.

Incessant domestic wars between the rival states checked her

advancement. She was poor, her leading men had become corrupt. They were

ever ready to barter patriotic considerations for foreign gold, to sell

themselves for Persian bribes. Possessing a perception of the beautiful

as manifested in sculpture and architecture to a degree never

attained elsewhere either before or since, Greece had lost a practical

appreciation of the Good and the True.

While European Greece, full of ideas of liberty and independence,

rejected the sovereignty of Persia, Asiatic Greece acknowledged it

without reluctance. At that time the Persian Empire in territorial

extent was equal to half of modern Europe. It touched the waters of

the Mediterranean, the Aegean, the Black, the Caspian, the Indian, the

Persian, the Red Seas. Through its territories there flowed six of the

grandest rivers in the world--the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Indus, the

Jaxartes, the Oxus, the Nile, each more than a thousand miles in length.

Its surface reached from thirteen hundred feet below the sea-level to

twenty thousand feet above. It yielded, therefore, every agricultural

product. Its mineral wealth was boundless. It inherited the prestige of

the Median, the Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Chaldean Empires, whose

annals reached back through more than twenty centuries.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Persia had always looked upon European Greece as

politically insignificant, for it had scarcely half the territorial

extent of one of her satrapies. Her expeditions for compelling its

obedience had, however, taught her the military qualities of its people.

In her forces were incorporated Greek mercenaries, esteemed the very

best of her troops. She did not hesitate sometimes to give the command

of her armies to Greek generals, of her fleets to Greek captains. In the

political convulsions through which she had passed, Greek soldiers had

often been used by her contending chiefs. These military operations were

attended by a momentous result. They revealed, to the quick eye of

these warlike mercenaries, the political weakness of the empire and

the possibility of reaching its centre. After the death of Cyrus on the

battle-field of Cunaxa, it was demonstrated, by the immortal retreat of

the ten thousand under Xenophon, that a Greek army could force its way

to and from the heart of Persia.

That reverence for the military abilities of Asiatic generals, so

profoundly impressed on the Greeks by such engineering exploits as the

bridging of the Hellespont, and the cutting of the isthmus at Mount

Athos by Xerxes, had been obliterated at Salamis, Platea, Mycale. To

plunder rich Persian provinces had become an irresistible temptation.

Such was the expedition of Agesilaus, the Spartan king, whose brilliant

successes were, however, checked by the Persian government resorting to

its time-proved policy of bribing the neighbors of Sparta to attack her.

"I have been conquered by thirty thousand Persian archers," bitterly

exclaimed Agesilaus, as he re-embarked, alluding to the Persian coin,

the Daric, which was stamped with the image of an archer.

THE INVASION OF PERSIA BY GREECE. At length Philip, the King of Macedon,

projected a renewal of these attempts, under a far more formidable

organization, and with a grander object. He managed to have himself

appointed captain-general of all Greece not for the purpose of a mere

foray into the Asiatic satrapies, but for the overthrow of the Persian

dynasty in the very centre of its power. Assassinated while his

preparations were incomplete, he was succeeded by his son Alexander,

then a youth. A general assembly of Greeks at Corinth had unanimously

elected him in his father's stead. There were some disturbances in

Illyria; Alexander had to march his army as far north as the Danube to

quell them. During his absence the Thebans with some others conspired

against him. On his return he took Thebes by assault. He massacred

six thousand of its inhabitants, sold thirty thousand for slaves, and

utterly demolished the city. The military wisdom of this severity was

apparent in his Asiatic campaign. He was not troubled by any revolt in

his rear.

THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN. In the spring B.C. 334 Alexander crossed the

Hellespont into Asia. His army consisted of thirty-four thousand foot

and four thousand horse. He had with him only seventy talents in money.

He marched directly on the Persian army, which, vastly exceeding him in

strength, was holding the line of the Granicus. He forced the passage of

the river, routed the enemy, and the possession of all Asia Minor, with

its treasures, was the fruit of the victory. The remainder of that

year he spent in the military organization of the conquered provinces.

Meantime Darius, the Persian king, had advanced an army of six hundred

thousand men to prevent the passage of the Macedonians into Syria. In

a battle that ensued among the mountain-defiles at Issus, the Persians

were again overthrown. So great was the slaughter that Alexander, and

Ptolemy, one of his generals, crossed over a ravine choked with dead

bodies. It was estimated that the Persian loss was not less than ninety

thousand foot and ten thousand horse. The royal pavilion fell into the

conqueror's hands, and with it the wife and several of the children of

Darius. Syria was thus added to the Greek conquests. In Damascus were

found many of the concubines of Darius and his chief officers, together

with a vast treasure.

Before venturing into the plains of Mesopotamia for the final struggle,

Alexander, to secure his rear and preserve his communications with the

sea, marched southward down the Mediterranean coast, reducing the cities

in his way. In his speech before the council of war after Issus, he told

his generals that they must not pursue Darius with Tyre unsubdued, and

Persia in possession of Egypt and Cyprus, for, if Persia should regain

her seaports, she would transfer the war into Greece, and that it was

absolutely necessary for him to be sovereign at sea. With Cyprus and

Egypt in his possession he felt no solicitude about Greece. The siege

of Tyre cost him more than half a year. In revenge for this delay,

he crucified, it is said, two thousand of his prisoners. Jerusalem

voluntarily surrendered, and therefore was treated leniently: but the

passage of the Macedonian army into Egypt being obstructed at Gaza, the

Persian governor of which, Betis, made a most obstinate defense, that

place, after a siege of two months, was carried by assault, ten thousand

of its men were massacred, and the rest, with their wives and children,

sold into slavery. Betis himself was dragged alive round the city at the

chariot-wheels of the conqueror. There was now no further obstacle. The

Egyptians, who detested the Persian rule, received their invader with

open arms. He organized the country in his own interest, intrusting

all its military commands to Macedonian officers, and leaving the civil

government in the hands of native Egyptians.

CONQUEST OF EGYPT. While preparations for the final campaign were being

made, he undertook a journey to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, which was

situated in an oasis of the Libyan Desert, at a distance of two hundred

miles. The oracle declared him to be a son of that god who, under

the form of a serpent, had beguiled Olympias, his mother. Immaculate

conceptions and celestial descents were so currently received in those

days, that whoever had greatly distinguished himself in the affairs of

men was thought to be of supernatural lineage. Even in Rome, centuries

later, no one could with safety have denied that the city owed its

founder, Romulus, to an accidental meeting of the god Mars with the

virgin Rhea Sylvia, as she went with her pitcher for water to the

spring. The Egyptian disciples of Plato would have looked with anger on

those who rejected the legend that Perictione, the mother of that

great philosopher, a pure virgin, had suffered an immaculate conception

through the influences of Apollo, and that the god had declared to

Ariston, to whom she was betrothed, the parentage of the child. When

Alexander issued his letters, orders, and decrees, styling himself "King

Alexander, the son of Jupiter Ammon," they came to the inhabitants of

Egypt and Syria with an authority that now can hardly be realized. The

free-thinking Greeks, however, put on such a supernatural pedigree its

proper value. Olympias, who, of course, better than all others knew the

facts of the case, used jestingly to say, that "she wished Alexander

would cease from incessantly embroiling her with Jupiter's wife."

Arrian, the historian of the Macedonian expedition, observes, "I cannot

condemn him for endeavoring to draw his subjects into the belief of his

divine origin, nor can I be induced to think it any great crime, for it

is very reasonable to imagine that he intended no more by it than merely

to procure the greater authority among his soldiers."

GREEK CONQUEST OF PERSIA. All things being thus secured in his rear,

Alexander, having returned into Syria, directed the march of his army,

now consisting of fifty thousand veterans, eastward. After crossing the

Euphrates, he kept close to the Masian hills, to avoid the intense heat

of the more southerly Mesopotamian plains; more abundant forage could

also thus be procured for the cavalry. On the left bank of the Tigris,

near Arbela, he encountered the great army of eleven hundred thousand

men brought up by Darius from Babylon. The death of the Persian monarch,

which soon followed the defeat he suffered, left the Macedonian general

master of all the countries from the Danube to the Indus. Eventually he

extended his conquest to the Ganges. The treasures he seized are almost

beyond belief. At Susa alone he found--so Arrian says--fifty thousand

talents in money.

EVENTS OF THE CAMPAIGNS. The modern military student cannot look

upon these wonderful campaigns without admiration. The passage of the

Hellespont; the forcing of the Granicus; the winter spent in a political

organization of conquered Asia Minor; the march of the right wing and

centre of the army along the Syrian Mediterranean coast; the engineering

difficulties overcome at the siege of Tyre; the storming of Gaza; the

isolation of Persia from Greece; the absolute exclusion of her navy from

the Mediterranean; the check on all her attempts at intriguing with

or bribing Athenians or Spartans, heretofore so often resorted to with

success; the submission of Egypt; another winter spent in the political

organization of that venerable country; the convergence of the whole

army from the Black and Red Seas toward the nitre-covered plains of

Mesopotamia in the ensuing spring; the passage of the Euphrates fringed

with its weeping-willows at the broken bridge of Thapsacus; the crossing

of the Tigris; the nocturnal reconnaissance before the great and

memorable battle of Arbela; the oblique movement on the field; the

piercing of the enemy's centre--a manoeuvre destined to be repeated

many centuries subsequently at Austerlitz; the energetic pursuit of

the Persian monarch; these are exploits not surpassed by any soldier of

later times.

A prodigious stimulus was thus given to Greek intellectual activity.

There were men who had marched with the Macedonian army from the Danube

to the Nile, from the Nile to the Ganges. They had felt the hyperborean

blasts of the countries beyond the Black Sea, the simooms and

sand-tempests of the Egyptian deserts. They had seen the Pyramids which

had already stood for twenty centuries, the hieroglyph-covered obelisks

of Luxor, avenues of silent and mysterious sphinxes, colossi of monarchs

who reigned in the morning of the world. In the halls of Esar-haddon

they had stood before the thrones of grim old Assyrian kings, guarded by

winged bulls. In Babylon there still remained its walls, once more than

sixty miles in compass, and, after the ravages of three centuries and

three conquerors, still more than eighty feet in height; there were

still the ruins of the temple of cloud encompassed Bel, on its top was

planted the observatory wherein the weird Chaldean astronomers had held

nocturnal communion with the stars; still there were vestiges of the two

palaces with their hanging gardens in which were great trees growing in

mid-air, and the wreck of the hydraulic machinery that had supplied

them with water from the river. Into the artificial lake with its vast

apparatus of aqueducts and sluices the melted snows of the Armenian

mountains found their way, and were confined in their course through

the city by the embankments of the Euphrates. Most wonderful of all,

perhaps, was the tunnel under the river-bed.

EFFECT ON THE GREEK ARMY. If Chaldea, Assyria, Babylon, presented

stupendous and venerable antiquities reaching far back into the night of

time, Persia was not without her wonders of a later date. The pillared

halls of Persepolis were filled with miracles of art--carvings,

sculptures, enamels, alabaster libraries, obelisks, sphinxes, colossal

bulls. Ecbatana, the cool summer retreat of the Persian kings, was

defended by seven encircling walls of hewn and polished blocks, the

interior ones in succession of increasing height, and of different

colors, in astrological accordance with the seven planets. The palace

was roofed with silver tiles, its beams were plated with gold. At

midnight, in its halls the sunlight was rivaled by many a row of naphtha

cressets. A paradise--that luxury of the monarchs of the East--was

planted in the midst of the city. The Persian Empire, from the

Hellespont to the Indus, was truly the garden of the world.

EFFECTS ON THE GREEK ARMY. I have devoted a few pages to the story of

these marvelous campaigns, for the military talent they fostered led

to the establishment of the mathematical and practical schools of

Alexandria, the true origin of science. We trace back all our exact

knowledge to the Macedonian campaigns. Humboldt has well observed that

an introduction to new and grand objects of Nature enlarges the human

mind. The soldiers of Alexander and the hosts of his camp-followers

encountered at every march unexpected and picturesque scenery. Of all

men, the Greeks were the most observant, the most readily and profoundly

impressed. Here there were interminable sandy plains, there mountains

whose peaks were lost above the clouds. In the deserts were mirages,

on the hill-sides shadows of fleeting clouds sweeping over the forests.

They were in a land of amber-colored date-palms and cypresses, of

tamarisks, green myrtles, and oleanders. At Arbela they had fought

against Indian elephants; in the thickets of the Caspian they had roused

from his lair the lurking royal tiger. They had seen animals which,

compared with those of Europe, were not only strange, but colossal--the

rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the camel, the crocodiles of the Nile

and the Ganges. They had encountered men of many complexions and many

costumes: the swarthy Syrian, the olive-colored Persian, the black

African. Even of Alexander himself it is related that on his death-bed

he caused his admiral, Nearchus, to sit by his side, and found

consolation in listening to the adventures of that sailor--the story of

his voyage from the Indus up the Persian Gulf. The conqueror had seen

with astonishment the ebbing and flowing of the tides. He had built

ships for the exploration of the Caspian, supposing that it and

the Black Sea might be gulfs of a great ocean, such as Nearchus had

discovered the Persian and Red Seas to be. He had formed a resolution

that his fleet should attempt the circumnavigation of Africa, and come

into the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Hercules--a feat which, it

was affirmed, had once been accomplished by the Pharaohs.

INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF PERSIA. Not only her greatest soldiers, but

also her greatest philosophers, found in the conquered empire much that

might excite the admiration of Greece. Callisthenes obtained in Babylon

a series of Chaldean astronomical observations ranging back through

1,903 years; these he sent to Aristotle. Perhaps, since they were on

burnt bricks, duplicates of them may be recovered by modern research

in the clay libraries of the Assyrian kings. Ptolemy, the Egyptian

astronomer, possessed a Babylonian record of eclipses, going back

747 years before our era. Long-continued and close observations were

necessary, before some of these astronomical results that have reached

our times could have been ascertained. Thus the Babylonians had fixed

the length of a tropical year within twenty-five seconds of the truth;

their estimate of the sidereal year was barely two minutes in excess.

They had detected the precession of the equinoxes. They knew the causes

of eclipses, and, by the aid of their cycle called Saros, could predict

them. Their estimate of the value of that cycle, which is more than

6,585 days, was within nineteen and a half minutes of the truth.

INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF PERSIA. Such facts furnish incontrovertible

proof of the patience and skill with which astronomy had been cultivated

in Mesopotamia, and that, with very inadequate instrumental means, it

had reached no inconsiderable perfection. These old observers had made

a catalogue of the stars, had divided the zodiac into twelve signs; they

had parted the day into twelve hours, the night into twelve. They had,

as Aristotle says, for a long time devoted themselves to observations of

star-occultations by the moon. They had correct views of the structure

of the solar system, and knew the order of the emplacement of the

planets. They constructed sundials, clepsydras, astrolabes, gnomons.

Not without interest do we still look on specimens of their method of

printing. Upon a revolving roller they engraved, in cuneiform letters,

their records, and, running this over plastic clay formed into blocks,

produced ineffaceable proofs. From their tile-libraries we are still

to reap a literary and historical harvest. They were not without some

knowledge of optics. The convex lens found at Nimroud shows that they

were not unacquainted with magnifying instruments. In arithmetic they

had detected the value of position in the digits, though they missed the

grand Indian invention of the cipher.

What a spectacle for the conquering Greeks, who, up to this time, had

neither experimented nor observed! They had contented themselves with

mere meditation and useless speculation.

ITS RELIGIOUS CONDITION. But Greek intellectual development, due thus

in part to a more extended view of Nature, was powerfully aided by the

knowledge then acquired of the religion of the conquered country. The

idolatry of Greece had always been a horror to Persia, who, in her

invasions, had never failed to destroy the temples and insult the fanes

of the bestial gods. The impunity with which these sacrileges had

been perpetrated had made a profound impression, and did no little to

undermine Hellenic faith. But now the worshiper of the vile Olympian

divinities, whose obscene lives must have been shocking to every

pious man, was brought in contact with a grand, a solemn, a consistent

religious system having its foundation on a philosophical basis. Persia,

as is the case with all empires of long duration, had passed through

many changes of religion. She had followed the Monotheism of Zoroaster;

had then accepted Dualism, and exchanged that for Magianism. At the time

of the Macedonian expedition, she recognized one universal Intelligence,

the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, the most holy

essence of truth, the giver of all good. He was not to be represented by

any image, or any graven form. And, since, in every thing here below, we

see the resultant of two opposing forces, under him were two coequal and

coeternal principles, represented by the imagery of Light and Darkness.

These principles are in never-ending conflict. The world is their

battle-ground, man is their prize.

In the old legends of Dualism, the Evil Spirit was said to have sent

a serpent to ruin the paradise which the Good Spirit had made. These

legends became known to the Jews during their Babylonian captivity.

The existence of a principle of evil is the necessary incident of the

existence of a principle of good, as a shadow is the necessary incident

of the presence of light. In this manner could be explained the

occurrence of evil in a world, the maker and ruler of which is supremely

good. Each of the personified principles of light and darkness, Ormuzd

and Ahriman, had his subordinate angels, his counselors, his armies. It

is the duty of a good man to cultivate truth, purity, and industry. He

may look forward, when this life is over, to a life in another world,

and trust to a resurrection of the body, the immortality of the soul,

and a conscious future existence.

In the later years of the empire, the principles of Magianism had

gradually prevailed more and more over those of Zoroaster. Magianism was

essentially a worship of the elements. Of these, fire was considered as

the most worthy representative of the Supreme Being. On altars erected,

not in temples, but under the blue canopy of the sky, perpetual fires

were kept burning, and the rising sun was regarded as the noblest object

of human adoration. In the society of Asia, nothing is visible but the

monarch; in the expanse of heaven, all objects vanish in presence of the

sun.

DEATH OF ALEXANDER. Prematurely cut off in the midst of many great

projects Alexander died at Babylon before he had completed his

thirty-third year (B.C. 323). There was a suspicion that he had been

poisoned. His temper had become so unbridled, his passion so ferocious,

that his generals and even his intimate friends lived in continual

dread. Clitus, one of the latter, he in a moment of fury had stabbed to

the heart. Callisthenes, the intermedium between himself and Aristotle,

he had caused to be hanged, or, as was positively asserted by some who

knew the facts, had had him put upon the rack and then crucified. It

may have been in self-defense that the conspirators resolved on his

assassination. But surely it was a calumny to associate the name of

Aristotle with this transaction. He would have rather borne the worst

that Alexander could inflict, than have joined in the perpetration of so

great a crime.

A scene of confusion and bloodshed lasting many years ensued, nor did it

cease even after the Macedonian generals had divided the empire. Among

its vicissitudes one incident mainly claims our attention. Ptolemy, who

was a son of King Philip by Arsinoe, a beautiful concubine, and who

in his boyhood had been driven into exile with Alexander, when they

incurred their father's displeasure, who had been Alexander's comrade

in many of his battles and all his campaigns, became governor and

eventually king of Egypt.

FOUNDATION OF ALEXANDER. At the siege of Rhodes, Ptolemy had been of

such signal service to its citizens that in gratitude they paid divine

honors to him, and saluted him with the title of Soter (the Savior).

By that designation--Ptolemy Soter--he is distinguished from succeeding

kings of the Macedonian dynasty in Egypt.

He established his seat of government not in any of the old capitals

of the country, but in Alexandria. At the time of the expedition to

the temple of Jupiter Ammon, the Macedonian conqueror had caused the

foundations of that city to be laid, foreseeing that it might be

made the commercial entrepot between Asia and Europe. It is to be

particularly remarked that not only did Alexander himself deport many

Jews from Palestine to people the city, and not only did Ptolemy Soter

bring one hundred thousand more after his siege of Jerusalem, but

Philadelphus, his successor, redeemed from slavery one hundred and

ninety-eight thousand of that people, paying their Egyptian owners a

just money equivalent for each. To all these Jews the same privileges

were accorded as to the Macedonians. In consequence of this considerate

treatment, vast numbers of their compatriots and many Syrians

voluntarily came into Egypt. To them the designation of Hellenistical

Jews was given. In like manner, tempted by the benign government of

Soter, multitudes of Greeks sought refuge in the country, and the

invasions of Perdiccas and Antigonus showed that Greek soldiers would

desert from other Macedonian generals to join is armies.

The population of Alexandria was therefore of three distinct

nationalities: 1. Native Egyptians 2. Greeks; 3. Jews--a fact that has

left an impress on the religious faith of modern Europe.

Greek architects and Greek engineers had made Alexandria the most

beautiful city of the ancient world. They had filled it with magnificent

palaces, temples, theatres. In its centre, at the intersection of its

two grand avenues, which crossed each other at right angles, and in the

midst of gardens, fountains, obelisks, stood the mausoleum, in

which, embalmed after the manner of the Egyptians, rested the body of

Alexander. In a funereal journey of two years it had been brought with

great pomp from Babylon. At first the coffin was of pure gold, but

this having led to a violation of the tomb, it was replaced by one of

alabaster. But not these, not even the great light-house, Pharos, built

of blocks of white marble and so high that the fire continually burning

on its top could be seen many miles off at sea--the Pharos counted

as one of the seven wonders of the world--it is not these magnificent

achievements of architecture that arrest our attention; the true, the

most glorious monument of the Macedonian kings of Egypt is the Museum.

Its influences will last when even the Pyramids have passed away.

THE ALEXANDRIAN MUSEUM. The Alexandrian Museum was commenced by Ptolemy

Soter, and was completed by his son Ptolemy Philadelphus. It was

situated in the Bruchion, the aristocratic quarter of the city,

adjoining the king's palace. Built of marble, it was surrounded with

a piazza, in which the residents might walk and converse together. Its

sculptured apartments contained the Philadelphian library, and were

crowded with the choicest statues and pictures. This library eventually

comprised four hundred thousand volumes. In the course of time, probably

on account of inadequate accommodation for so many books, an additional

library was established in the adjacent quarter Rhacotis, and placed

in the Serapion or temple of Serapis. The number of volumes in this

library, which was called the Daughter of that in the Museum, was

eventually three hundred thousand. There were, therefore, seven hundred

thousand volumes in these royal collections.

Alexandria was not merely the capital of Egypt, it was the intellectual

metropolis of the world. Here it was truly said the Genius of the East

met the Genius of the West, and this Paris of antiquity became a focus

of fashionable dissipation and universal skepticism. In the allurements

of its bewitching society even the Jews forgot their patriotism. They

abandoned the language of their forefathers, and adopted Greek.

In the establishment of the Museum, Ptolemy Soter and his son

Philadelphus had three objects in view: 1. The perpetuation of such

knowledge as was then in the world; 2. Its increase; 3. Its diffusion.

1. For the perpetuation of knowledge. Orders were given to the chief

librarian to buy at the king's expense whatever books he could. A body

of transcribers was maintained in the Museum, whose duty it was to make

correct copies of such works as their owners were not disposed to sell.

Any books brought by foreigners into Egypt were taken at once to the

Museum, and, when correct copies had been made, the transcript was given

to the owner, and the original placed in the library. Often a very large

pecuniary indemnity was paid. Thus it is said of Ptolemy Euergetes

that, having obtained from Athens the works of Euripides, Sophocles,

and Aeschylus, he sent to their owners transcripts, together with about

fifteen thousand dollars, as an indemnity. On his return from the Syrian

expedition he carried back in triumph all the Egyptian monuments from

Ecbatana and Susa, which Cambyses and other invaders had removed from

Egypt. These he replaced in their original seats, or added as adornments

to his museums. When works were translated as well as transcribed, sums

which we should consider as almost incredible were paid, as was the

case with the Septuagint translation of the Bible, ordered by Ptolemy

Philadelphus.

2. For the increase of knowledge. One of the chief objects of the Museum

was that of serving as the home of a body of men who devoted themselves

to study, and were lodged and maintained at the king's expense.

Occasionally he himself sat at their table. Anecdotes connected with

those festive occasions have descended to our times. In the original

organization of the Museum the residents were divided into four

faculties--literature; mathematics, astronomy, medicine. Minor branches

were appropriately classified under one of these general heads; thus

natural history was considered to be a branch of medicine. An officer of

very great distinction presided over the establishment, and had general

charge of its interests. Demetrius Phalareus, perhaps the most learned

man of his age, who had been governor of Athens for many years, was the

first so appointed. Under him was the librarian, an office sometimes

held by men whose names have descended to our times, as Eratosthenes,

and Apollonius Rhodius.

ORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM. In connection with the Museum were a

botanical and a zoological garden. These gardens, as their names import,

were for the purpose of facilitating the study of plants and animals.

There was also an astronomical observatory containing armillary spheres,

globes, solstitial and equatorial armils, astrolabes, parallactic

rules, and other apparatus then in use, the graduation on the divided

instruments being into degrees and sixths. On the floor of this

observatory a meridian line was drawn. The want of correct means of

measuring time and temperature was severely felt; the clepsydra of

Ctesibius answered very imperfectly for the former, the hydrometer

floating in a cup of water for the latter; it measured variations of

temperature by variations of density. Philadelphus, who toward the close

of his life was haunted with an intolerable dread of death, devoted much

of his time to the discovery of an elixir. For such pursuits the Museum

was provided with a chemical laboratory. In spite of the prejudices of

the age, and especially in spite of Egyptian prejudices, there was

in connection with the medical department an anatomical room for the

dissection, not only of the dead, but actually of the living, who for

crimes had been condemned.

3. For the diffusion of knowledge. In the Museum was given, by lectures,

conversation, or other appropriate methods instruction in all the

various departments of human knowledge. There flocked to this great

intellectual centre, students from all countries. It is said that at one

time not fewer than fourteen thousand were in attendance. Subsequently

even the Christian church received from it some of the most eminent of

its Fathers, as Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Athanasius.

The library in the Museum was burnt during the siege of Alexandria by

Julius Caesar. To make amends for this great loss, that collected

by Eumenes, King of Pergamus, was presented by Mark Antony to Queen

Cleopatra. Originally it was founded as a rival to that of the

Ptolemies. It was added to the collection in the Serapion.

SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF THE MUSEUM. It remains now to describe briefly the

philosophical basis of the Museum, and some of its contributions to the

stock of human knowledge.

In memory of the illustrious founder of this most noble institution--an

institution which antiquity delighted to call "The divine school of

Alexandria"--we must mention in the first rank his "History of the

Campaigns of Alexander." Great as a soldier and as a sovereign, Ptolemy

Soter added to his glory by being an author. Time, which has not been

able to destroy the memory of our obligations to him, has dealt unjustly

by his work. It is not now extant.

As might be expected from the friendship that existed between Alexander,

Ptolemy, and Aristotle, the Aristotelian philosophy was the intellectual

corner-stone on which the Museum rested. King Philip had committed the

education of Alexander to Aristotle, and during the Persian campaigns

the conqueror contributed materially, not only in money, but otherwise,

toward the "Natural History" then in preparation.

The essential principle of the Aristotelian philosophy was, to rise

from the study of particulars to a knowledge of general principles or

universals, advancing to them by induction. The induction is the

more certain as the facts on which it is based are more numerous; its

correctness is established if it should enable us to predict other facts

until then unknown. This system implies endless toil in the collection

of facts, both by experiment and observation; it implies also a close

meditation on them. It is, therefore, essentially a method of labor

and of reason, not a method of imagination. The failures that Aristotle

himself so often exhibits are no proof of its unreliability, but

rather of its trustworthiness. They are failures arising from want of a

sufficiency of facts.

ETHICAL SCHOOL OF THE MUSEUM. Some of the general results at which

Aristotle arrived are very grand. Thus, he concluded that every thing is

ready to burst into life, and that the various organic forms presented

to us by Nature are those which existing conditions permit. Should

the conditions change, the forms will also change. Hence there is an

unbroken chain from the simple element through plants and animals up to

man, the different groups merging by insensible shades into each other.

The inductive philosophy thus established by Aristotle is a method of

great power. To it all the modern advances in science are due. In

its most improved form it rises by inductions from phenomena to their

causes, and then, imitating the method of the Academy, it descends by

deductions from those causes to the detail of phenomena.

While thus the Scientific School of Alexandria was founded on the maxims

of one great Athenian philosopher, the Ethical School was founded on the

maxims of another, for Zeno, though a Cypriote or Phoenician, had for

many years been established at Athens. His disciples took the name of

Stoics. His doctrines long survived him, and, in times when there was no

other consolation for man, offered a support in the hour of trial, and

an unwavering guide in the vicissitudes of life, not only to illustrious

Greeks, but also to many of the great philosophers, statesmen, generals,

and emperors of Rome.

THE PRINCIPLES OF STOICISM. The aim of Zeno was, to furnish a guide

for the daily practice of life, to make men virtuous. He insisted that

education is the true foundation of virtue, for, if we know what is

good, we shall incline to do it. We must trust to sense, to furnish the

data of knowledge, and reason will suitably combine them. In this the

affinity of Zeno to Aristotle is plainly seen. Every appetite, lust,

desire, springs from imperfect knowledge. Our nature is imposed upon

us by Fate, but we must learn to control our passions, and live free,

intelligent, virtuous, in all things in accordance with reason. Our

existence should be intellectual, we should survey with equanimity all

pleasures and all pains. We should never forget that we are freemen, not

the slaves of society. "I possess," said the Stoic, "a treasure which

not all the world can rob me of--no one can deprive me of death." We

should remember that Nature in her operations aims at the universal, and

never spares individuals, but uses them as means for the accomplishment

of her ends. It is, therefore, for us to submit to Destiny, cultivating,

as the things necessary to virtue, knowledge, temperance, fortitude,

justice. We must remember that every thing around us is in mutation;

decay follows reproduction, and reproduction decay, and that it is

useless to repine at death in a world where every thing is dying. As a

cataract shows from year to year an invariable shape, though the water

composing it is perpetually changing, so the aspect of Nature is nothing

more than a flow of matter presenting an impermanent form. The universe,

considered as a whole, is unchangeable. Nothing is eternal but

space, atoms, force. The forms of Nature that we see are essentially

transitory, they must all pass away.

STOICISM IN THE MUSEUM. We must bear in mind that the majority of men

are imperfectly educated, and hence we must not needlessly offend the

religious ideas of our age. It is enough for us ourselves to know that,

though there is a Supreme Power, there is no Supreme Being. There is an

invisible principle, but not a personal God, to whom it would be not

so much blasphemy as absurdity to impute the form, the sentiments, the

passions of man. All revelation is, necessarily, a mere fiction. That

which men call chance is only the effect of an unknown cause. Even of

chances there is a law. There is no such thing as Providence, for Nature

proceeds under irresistible laws, and in this respect the universe is

only a vast automatic engine. The vital force which pervades the world

is what the illiterate call God. The modifications through which all

things are running take place in an irresistible way, and hence it may

be said that the progress of the world is, under Destiny, like a seed,

it can evolve only in a predetermined mode.

The soul of man is a spark of the vital flame, the general vital

principle. Like heat, it passes from one to another, and is finally

reabsorbed or reunited in the universal principle from which it came.

Hence we must not expect annihilation, but reunion; and, as the tired

man looks forward to the insensibility of sleep, so the philosopher,

weary of the world, should look forward to the tranquillity of

extinction. Of these things, however, we should think doubtingly, since

the mind can produce no certain knowledge from its internal resources

alone. It is unphilosophical to inquire into first causes; we must deal

only with phenomena. Above all, we must never forget that man cannot

ascertain absolute truth, and that the final result of human inquiry

into the matter is, that we are incapable of perfect knowledge; that,

even if the truth be in our possession, we cannot be sure of it.

What, then, remains for us? Is it not this--the acquisition of

knowledge, the cultivation of virtue and of friendship, the observance

of faith and truth, an unrepining submission to whatever befalls us, a

life led in accordance with reason?

PLATONISM IN THE MUSEUM. But, though the Alexandrian Museum was

especially intended for the cultivation of the Aristotelian philosophy,

it must not be supposed that other systems were excluded. Platonism was

not only carried to its full development, but in the end it supplanted

Peripateticism, and through the New Academy left a permanent impress on

Christianity. The philosophical method of Plato was the inverse of that

of Aristotle. Its starting-point was universals, the very existence of

which was a matter of faith, and from these it descended to particulars,

or details. Aristotle, on the contrary, rose from particulars to

universals, advancing to them by inductions.

Plato, therefore, trusted to the imagination, Aristotle to reason.

The former descended from the decomposition of a primitive idea into

particulars, the latter united particulars into a general conception.

Hence the method of Plato was capable of quickly producing what seemed

to be splendid, though in reality unsubstantial results; that of

Aristotle was more tardy in its operation, but much more solid. It

implied endless labor in the collection of facts, a tedious resort

to experiment and observation, the application of demonstration. The

philosophy of Plato is a gorgeous castle in the air; that of Aristotle

a solid structure, laboriously, and with many failures, founded on the

solid rock.

An appeal to the imagination is much more alluring than the employment

of reason. In the intellectual decline of Alexandria, indolent methods

were preferred to laborious observation and severe mental exercise. The

schools of Neo-Platonism were crowded with speculative mystics, such

as Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus. These took the place of the severe

geometers of the old Museum.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MUSEUM. The Alexandrian school offers the first

example of that system which, in the hands of modern physicists, has

led to such wonderful results. It rejected imagination, and made its

theories the expression of facts obtained by experiment and observation,

aided by mathematical discussion. It enforced the principle that the

true method of studying Nature is by experimental interrogation. The

researches of Archimedes in specific gravity, and the works of

Ptolemy on optics, resemble our present investigations in experimental

philosophy, and stand in striking contrast with the speculative vagaries

of the older writers. Laplace says that the only observation which the

history of astronomy offers us, made by the Greeks before the school

of Alexandria, is that of the summer solstice of the year B.C. 432.

by Meton and Euctemon. We have, for the first time, in that school,

a combined system of observations made with instruments for the

measurement of angles, and calculated by trigonometrical methods.

Astronomy then took a form which subsequent ages could only perfect.

It does not accord with the compass or the intention of this work to

give a detailed account of the contributions of the Alexandrian Museum

to the stock of human knowledge. It is sufficient that the reader should

obtain a general impression of their character. For particulars, I

may refer him to the sixth chapter of my "History of the Intellectual

Development of Europe."

EUCLID--ARCHIMEDES. It has just been remarked that the Stoical

philosophy doubted whether the mind can ascertain absolute truth. While

Zeno was indulging in such doubts, Euclid was preparing his great work,

destined to challenge contradiction from the whole human race. After

more than twenty-two centuries it still survives, a model of accuracy,

perspicuity, and a standard of exact demonstration. This great geometer

not only wrote on other mathematical topics, such as Conic Sections and

Prisms, but there are imputed to him treatises on Harmonics and Optics,

the latter subject being discussed on the hypothesis of rays issuing

from the eye to the object.

With the Alexandrian mathematicians and physicists must be classed

Archimedes, though he eventually resided in Sicily. Among his

mathematical works were two books on the Sphere and Cylinder, in

which he gave the demonstration that the solid content of a sphere is

two-thirds that of its circumscribing cylinder. So highly did he esteem

this, that he directed the diagram to be engraved on his tombstone. He

also treated of the quadrature of the circle and of the parabola; he

wrote on Conoids and Spheroids, and on the spiral that bears his name,

the genesis of which was suggested to him by his friend Conon the

Alexandrian. As a mathematician, Europe produced no equal to him for

nearly two thousand years. In physical science he laid the foundation

of hydrostatics; invented a method for the determination of specific

gravities; discussed the equilibrium of floating bodies; discovered the

true theory of the lever, and invented a screw, which still bears

his name, for raising the water of the Nile. To him also are to be

attributed the endless screw, and a peculiar form of burning-mirror, by

which, at the siege of Syracuse, it is said that he set the Roman fleet

on fire.

ERATOSTHENES--APOLLONIUS--HIPPARCHUS. Eratosthenes, who at one time had

charge of the library, was the author of many important works. Among

them may be mentioned his determination of the interval between

the tropics, and an attempt to ascertain the size of the earth. He

considered the articulation and expansion of continents, the position

of mountain-chains, the action of clouds, the geological submersion of

lands, the elevation of ancient sea-beds, the opening of the Dardanelles

and the straits of Gibraltar, and the relations of the Euxine Sea.

He composed a complete system of the earth, in three books--physical,

mathematical, historical--accompanied by a map of all the parts then

known. It is only of late years that the fragments remaining of his

"Chronicles of the Theban Kings" have been justly appreciated. For

many centuries they were thrown into discredit by the authority of our

existing absurd theological chronology.

It is unnecessary to adduce the arguments relied upon by the

Alexandrians to prove the globular form of the earth. They had correct

ideas respecting the doctrine of the sphere, its poles, axis, equator,

arctic and antarctic circles, equinoctial points, solstices, the

distribution of climates, etc. I cannot do more than merely allude to

the treatises on Conic Sections and on Maxima and Minima by Apollonius,

who is said to have been the first to introduce the words ellipse and

hyperbola. In like manner I must pass the astronomical observations

of Alistyllus and Timocharis. It was to those of the latter on Spica

Virginis that Hipparchus was indebted for his great discovery of the

precession of the eqninoxes. Hipparchus also determined the first

inequality of the moon, the equation of the centre. He adopted the

theory of epicycles and eccentrics, a geometrical conception for the

purpose of resolving the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies on the

principle of circular movement. He also undertook to make a catalogue

of the stars by the method of alineations--that is, by indicating those

that are in the same apparent straight line. The number of stars so

catalogued was 1,080. If he thus attempted to depict the aspect of

the sky, he endeavored to do the same for the surface of the earth, by

marking the position of towns and other places by lines of latitude and

longitude. He was the first to construct tables of the sun and moon.

THE SYNTAXIS OF PTOLEMY. In the midst of such a brilliant constellation

of geometers, astronomers, physicists, conspicuously shines forth

Ptolemy, the author of the great work, "Syntaxis," "a Treatise on the

Mathematical Construction of the Heavens." It maintained its ground

for nearly fifteen hundred years, and indeed was only displaced by the

immortal "Principia" of Newton. It commences with the doctrine that the

earth is globular and fixed in space, it describes the construction of a

table of chords, and instruments for observing the solstices, it deduces

the obliquity of the ecliptic, it finds terrestrial latitudes by the

gnomon, describes climates, shows how ordinary may be converted into

sidereal time, gives reasons for preferring the tropical to the sidereal

year, furnishes the solar theory on the principle of the sun's orbit

being a simple eccentric, explains the equation of time, advances to the

discussion of the motions of the moon, treats of the first inequality,

of her eclipses, and the motion of her nodes. It then gives Ptolemy's

own great discovery--that which has made his name immortal--the

discovery of the moon's evection or second inequality, reducing it to

the epicyclic theory. It attempts the determination of the distances of

the sun and moon from the earth--with, however, only partial success. It

considers the precession of the equinoxes, the discovery of Hipparchus,

the full period of which is twenty-five thousand years. It gives a

catalogue of 1,022 stars, treats of the nature of the milky-way, and

discusses in the most masterly manner the motions of the planets. This

point constitutes another of Ptolemy's claims to scientific fame. His

determination of the planetary orbits was accomplished by comparing

his own observations with those of former astronomers, among them the

observations of Timocharis on the planet Venus.

INVENTION OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. In the Museum of Alexandria, Ctesibius

invented the fire-engine. His pupil, Hero, improved it by giving it two

cylinders. There, too, the first steam-engine worked. This also was the

invention of Hero, and was a reaction engine, on the principle of

the eolipile. The silence of the halls of Serapis was broken by the

water-clocks of Ctesibius and Apollonius, which drop by drop measured

time. When the Roman calendar had fallen into such confusion that it

had become absolutely necessary to rectify it, Julius Caesar brought

Sosigenes the astronomer from Alexandria. By his advice the lunar year

was abolished, the civil year regulated entirely by the sun, and the

Julian calendar introduced.

The Macedonian rulers of Egypt have been blamed for the manner in which

they dealt with the religious sentiment of their time. They prostituted

it to the purpose of state-craft, finding in it a means of governing

their lower classes. To the intelligent they gave philosophy.

POLICY OF THE PTOLEMIES. But doubtless they defended this policy by the

experience gathered in those great campaigns which had made the Greeks

the foremost nation of the world. They had seen the mythological

conceptions of their ancestral country dwindle into fables; the wonders

with which the old poets adorned the Mediterranean had been discovered

to be baseless illusions. From Olympus its divinities had disappeared;

indeed, Olympus itself had proved to be a phantom of the imagination.

Hades had lost its terrors; no place could be found for it.

From the woods and grottoes and rivers of Asia Minor the local gods and

goddesses had departed; even their devotees began to doubt whether they

had ever been there. If still the Syrian damsels lamented, in their

amorous ditties, the fate of Adonis, it was only as a recollection, not

as a reality. Again and again had Persia changed her national faith. For

the revelation of Zoroaster she had substituted Dualism; then under new

political influences she had adopted Magianism. She had worshiped fire,

and kept her altars burning on mountain-tops. She had adored the sun.

When Alexander came, she was fast falling into pantheism.

On a country to which in its political extremity the indigenous gods

have been found unable to give any protection, a change of faith is

impending. The venerable divinities of Egypt, to whose glory obelisks

had been raised and temples dedicated, had again and again submitted

to the sword of a foreign conqueror. In the land of the Pyramids, the

Colossi, the Sphinx, the images of the gods had ceased to represent

living realities. They had ceased to be objects of faith. Others of more

recent birth were needful, and Serapis confronted Osiris. In the shops

and streets of Alexandria there were thousands of Jews who had forgotten

the God that had made his habitation behind the veil of the temple.

Tradition, revelation, time, all had lost their influence. The

traditions of European mythology, the revelations of Asia, the

time-consecrated dogmas of Egypt, all had passed or were fast passing

away. And the Ptolemies recognized how ephemeral are forms of faith.

But the Ptolemies also recognized that there is something more durable

than forms of faith, which, like the organic forms of geological ages,

once gone, are clean gone forever, and have no restoration, no return.

They recognized that within this world of transient delusions and

unrealities there is a world of eternal truth.

That world is not to be discovered through the vain traditions that

have brought down to us the opinions of men who lived in the morning of

civilization, nor in the dreams of mystics who thought that they were

inspired. It is to be discovered by the investigations of geometry,

and by the practical interrogation of Nature. These confer on humanity

solid, and innumerable, and inestimable blessings.

The day will never come when any one of the propositions of Euclid will

be denied; no one henceforth will call in question the globular shape of

the earth, as recognized by Eratosthenes; the world will not permit

the great physical inventions and discoveries made in Alexandria and

Syracuse to be forgotten. The names of Hipparchus, of Apollonius, of

Ptolemy, of Archimedes, will be mentioned with reverence by men of every

religious profession, as long as there are men to speak.

THE MUSEUM AND MODERN SCIENCE. The Museum of Alexandria was thus

the birthplace of modern science. It is true that, long before its

establishment, astronomical observations had been made in China and

Mesopotamia; the mathematics also had been cultivated with a certain

degree of success in India. But in none of these countries had

investigation assumed a connected and consistent form; in none was

physical experimentation resorted to. The characteristic feature of

Alexandrian, as of modern science, is, that it did not restrict itself

to observation, but relied on a practical interrogation of Nature.

CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY.--ITS TRANSFORMATION ON ATTAINING

IMPERIAL POWER.--ITS RELATIONS TO SCIENCE.

Religious condition of the Roman Republic.--The adoption of

imperialism leads to monotheism.--Christianity spreads over

the Roman Empire.--The circumstances under which it

attained imperial power make its union with Paganism a

political necessity.--Tertullian's description of its

doctrines and practices.--Debasing effect of the policy of

Constantine on it.--Its alliance with the civil power.--Its

incompatibility with science.--Destruction of the

Alexandrian Library and prohibition of philosophy.--

Exposition of the Augustinian philosophy and Patristic

science generally.--The Scriptures made the standard of

science.

IN a political sense, Christianity is the bequest of the Roman Empire to

the world.

At the epoch of the transition of Rome from the republican to the

imperial form of government, all the independent nationalities around

the Mediterranean Sea had been brought under the control of that central

power. The conquest that had befallen them in succession had been by no

means a disaster. The perpetual wars they had maintained with each

other came to an end; the miseries their conflicts had engendered were

exchanged for universal peace.

Not only as a token of the conquest she had made but also as a

gratification to her pride, the conquering republic brought the gods

of the vanquished peoples to Rome. With disdainful toleration, she

permitted the worship of them all. That paramount authority exercised by

each divinity in his original seat disappeared at once in the crowd of

gods and goddesses among whom he had been brought. Already, as we have

seen, through geographical discoveries and philosophical criticism,

faith in the religion of the old days had been profoundly shaken. It

was, by this policy of Rome, brought to an end.

MONOTHEISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. The kings of all the conquered provinces

had vanished; in their stead one emperor had come. The gods also had

disappeared. Considering the connection which in all ages has existed

between political and religious ideas, it was then not at all strange

that polytheism should manifest a tendency to pass into monotheism.

Accordingly, divine honors were paid at first to the deceased and at

length to the living emperor.

The facility with which gods were thus called into existence had a

powerful moral effect. The manufacture of a new one cast ridicule on

the origin of the old Incarnation in the East and apotheosis in the West

were fast filling Olympus with divinities. In the East, gods descended

from heaven, and were made incarnate in men; in the West, men ascended

from earth, and took their seat among the gods. It was not the

importation of Greek skepticism that made Rome skeptical. The excesses

of religion itself sapped the foundations of faith.

Not with equal rapidity did all classes of the population adopt

monotheistic views. The merchants and lawyers and soldiers, who by the

nature of their pursuits are more familiar with the vicissitudes of

life, and have larger intellectual views, were the first to be affected,

the land laborers and farmers the last.

THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY When the empire in a military and political

sense had reached its culmination, in a religious and social aspect

it had attained its height of immorality. It had become thoroughly

epicurean; its maxim was, that life should be made a feast, that

virtue is only the seasoning of pleasure, and temperance the means of

prolonging it. Dining-rooms glittering with gold and incrusted with

gems, slaves in superb apparel, the fascinations of female society where

all the women were dissolute, magnificent baths, theatres, gladiators,

such were the objects of Roman desire. The conquerors of the world had

discovered that the only thing worth worshiping is Force. By it all

things might be secured, all that toil and trade had laboriously

obtained. The confiscation of goods and lands, the taxation of

provinces, were the reward of successful warfare; and the emperor

was the symbol of force. There was a social splendor, but it was the

phosphorescent corruption of the ancient Mediterranean world.

In one of the Eastern provinces, Syria, some persons in very humble

life had associated themselves together for benevolent and religious

purposes. The doctrines they held were in harmony with that sentiment

of universal brotherhood arising from the coalescence of the conquered

kingdoms. They were doctrines inculcated by Jesus.

The Jewish people at that time entertained a belief, founded on old

traditions, that a deliverer would arise among them, who would restore

them to their ancient splendor. The disciples of Jesus regarded him

as this long-expected Messiah. But the priesthood, believing that the

doctrines he taught were prejudicial to their interests, denounced

him to the Roman governor, who, to satisfy their clamors, reluctantly

delivered him over to death.

His doctrines of benevolence and human brotherhood outlasted that

event. The disciples, instead of scattering, organized. They associated

themselves on a principle of communism, each throwing into the common

stock whatever property he possessed, and all his gains. The widows

and orphans of the community were thus supported, the poor and the sick

sustained. From this germ was developed a new, and as the events proved,

all-powerful society--the Church; new, for nothing of the kind had

existed in antiquity; powerful, for the local churches, at first

isolated, soon began to confederate for their common interest. Through

this organization Christianity achieved all her political triumphs.

As we have said, the military domination of Rome had brought about

universal peace, and had generated a sentiment of brotherhood among the

vanquished nations. Things were, therefore, propitious for the rapid

diffusion of the newly-established--the Christian--principle

throughout the empire. It spread from Syria through all Asia Minor,

and successively reached Cyprus, Greece, Italy, eventually extending

westward as far as Gaul and Britain.

Its propagation was hastened by missionaries who made it known in all

directions. None of the ancient classical philosophies had ever taken

advantage of such a means.

Political conditions determined the boundaries of the new religion. Its

limits were eventually those of the Roman Empire; Rome, doubtfully the

place of death of Peter, not Jerusalem, indisputably the place of the

death of our Savior, became the religious capital. It was better to have

possession of the imperial seven hilled city, than of Gethsemane and

Calvary with all their holy souvenirs.

IT GATHERS POLITICAL POWER. For many years Christianity manifested

itself as a system enjoining three things--toward God veneration, in

personal life purity, in social life benevolence. In its early days of

feebleness it made proselytes only by persuasion, but, as it increased

in numbers and influence, it began to exhibit political tendencies, a

disposition to form a government within the government, an empire within

the empire. These tendencies it has never since lost. They are, in

truth, the logical result of its development. The Roman emperors,

discovering that it was absolutely incompatible with the imperial

system, tried to put it down by force. This was in accordance with the

spirit of their military maxims, which had no other means but force for

the establishment of conformity.

In the winter A.D. 302-'3, the Christian soldiers in some of the legions

refused to join in the time-honored solemnities for propitiating the

gods. The mutiny spread so quickly, the emergency became so pressing,

that the Emperor Diocletian was compelled to hold a council for the

purpose of determining what should be done. The difficulty of the

position may perhaps be appreciated when it is understood that the wife

and the daughter of Diocletian himself were Christians. He was a man

of great capacity and large political views; he recognized in the

opposition that must be made to the new party a political necessity,

yet he expressly enjoined that there should be no bloodshed. But who can

control an infuriated civil commotion? The church of Nicomedia was razed

to the ground; in retaliation the imperial palace was set on fire, an

edict was openly insulted and torn down. The Christian officers in the

army were cashiered; in all directions, martyrdoms and massacres were

taking place. So resistless was the march of events, that not even the

emperor himself could stop the persecution.

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPEROR. It had now become evident that the

Christians constituted a powerful party in the state, animated with

indignation at the atrocities they had suffered, and determined to

endure them no longer. After the abdication of Diocletian (A.D. 305),

Constantine, one of the competitors for the purple, perceiving the

advantages that would accrue to him from such a policy, put himself

forth as the head of the Christian party. This gave him, in every part

of the empire, men and women ready to encounter fire and sword in his

behalf; it gave him unwavering adherents in every legion of the armies.

In a decisive battle, near the Milvian bridge, victory crowned his

schemes. The death of Maximin, and subsequently that of Licinius,

removed all obstacles. He ascended the throne of the Caesars--the first

Christian emperor.

Place, profit, power--these were in view of whoever now joined the

conquering sect. Crowds of worldly persons, who cared nothing about its

religious ideas, became its warmest supporters. Pagans at heart, their

influence was soon manifested in the paganization of Christianity that

forthwith ensued. The emperor, no better than they, did nothing to check

their proceedings. But he did not personally conform to the ceremonial

requirements of the Church until the close of his evil life, A.D. 337.

TERTULLIAN'S EXPOSITION OF CHRISTIANITY. That we may clearly appreciate

the modifications now impressed on Christianity--modifications which

eventually brought it in conflict with science--we must have, as a

means of comparison, a statement of what it was in its purer days.

Such, fortunately, we find in the "Apology or Defense of the Christians

against the Accusations of the Gentiles," written by Tertullian, at

Rome, during the persecution of Severus. He addressed it, not to the

emperor, but to the magistrates who sat in judgment on the accused. It

is a solemn and most earnest expostulation, setting forth all that could

be said in explanation of the subject, a representation of the belief

and cause of the Christians made in the imperial city in the face of the

whole world, not a querulous or passionate ecclesiastical appeal, but

a grave historical document. It has ever been looked upon as one of the

ablest of the early Christian works. Its date is about A.D. 200.

With no inconsiderable skill Tertullian opens his argument. He tells

the magistrates that Christianity is a stranger upon earth, and that she

expects to meet with enemies in a country which is not her own. She only

asks that she may not be condemned unheard, and that Roman magistrates

will permit her to defend herself; that the laws of the empire will

gather lustre, if judgment be passed upon her after she has been tried

but not if she is sentenced without a hearing of her cause; that it is

unjust to hate a thing of which we are ignorant, even though it may be a

thing worthy of hate; that the laws of Rome deal with actions, not with

mere names; but that, notwithstanding this, persons have been punished

because they were called Christians, and that without any accusation of

crime.

He then advances to an exposition of the origin, the nature, and the

effects of Christianity, stating that it is founded on the Hebrew

Scriptures, which are the most venerable of all books. He says to the

magistrates: "The books of Moses, in which God has inclosed, as in

a treasure, all the religion of the Jews, and consequently all the

Christian religion, reach far beyond the oldest you have, even beyond

all your public monuments, the establishment of your state, the

foundation of many great cities--all that is most advanced by you in all

ages of history, and memory of times; the invention of letters, which

are the interpreters of sciences and the guardians of all excellent

things. I think I may say more--beyond your gods, your temples, your

oracles and sacrifices. The author of those books lived a thousand years

before the siege of Troy, and more than fifteen hundred before Homer."

Time is the ally of truth, and wise men believe nothing but what is

certain, and what has been verified by time. The principal authority

of these Scriptures is derived from their venerable antiquity. The most

learned of the Ptolemies, who was surnamed Philadelphus, an accomplished

prince, by the advice of Demetrius Phalareus, obtained a copy of these

holy books. It may be found at this day in his library. The divinity of

these Scriptures is proved by this, that all that is done in our days

may be found predicted in them; they contain all that has since passed

in the view of men.

Is not the accomplishment of a prophecy a testimony to its truth? Seeing

that events which are past have vindicated these prophecies, shall we be

blamed for trusting them in events that are to come? Now, as we believe

things that have been prophesied and have come to pass, so we believe

things that have been told us, but not yet come to pass, because they

have all been foretold by the same Scriptures, as well those that are

verified every day as those that still remain to be fulfilled.

These Holy Scriptures teach us that there is one God, who made the world

out of nothing, who, though daily seen, is invisible; his infiniteness

is known only to himself; his immensity conceals, but at the same

time discovers him. He has ordained for men, according to their lives,

rewards and punishments; he will raise all the dead that have ever lived

from the creation of the world, will command them to reassume their

bodies, and thereupon adjudge them to felicity that has so end, or to

eternal flames. The fires of hell are those hidden flames which the

earth shuts up in her bosom. He has in past times sent into the world

preachers or prophets. The prophets of those old times were Jews; they

addressed their oracles, for such they were, to the Jews, who

have stored them up in the Scriptures. On them, as has been said,

Christianity is founded, though the Christian differs in his ceremonies

from the Jew. We are accused of worshiping a man, and not the God of

the Jews. Not so. The honor we bear to Christ does not derogate from the

honor we bear to God.

On account of the merit of these ancient patriarchs, the Jews were the

only beloved people of God; he delighted to be in communication with

them by his own mouth. By him they were raised to admirable greatness.

But with perversity they wickedly ceased to regard him; they changed

his laws into a profane worship. He warned them that he would take to

himself servants more faithful than they, and, for their crime, punished

them by driving them forth from their country. They are now spread all

over the world; they wander in all parts; they cannot enjoy the air they

breathed at their birth; they have neither man nor God for their king.

As he threatened them, so he has done. He has taken, in all nations

and countries of the earth, people more faithful than they. Through his

prophets he had declared that these should have greater favors, and that

a Messiah should come, to publish a new law among them. This Messiah was

Jesus, who is also God. For God may be derived from God, as the light

of a candle may be derived from the light of another candle. God and his

Son are the self-same God--a light is the same light as that from which

it was taken.

The Scriptures make known two comings of the Son of God; the first in

humility, the second at the day of judgment, in power. The Jews might

have known all this from the prophets, but their sins have so blinded

them that they did not recognize him at his first coming, and are still

vainly expecting him. They believed that all the miracles wrought by

him were the work of magic. The doctors of the law and the chief priests

were envious of him; they denounced him to Pilate. He was crucified,

died, was buried, and after three days rose again. For forty days he

remained among his disciples. Then he was environed in a cloud, and

rose up to heaven--a truth far more certain than any human testimonies

touching the ascension of Romulus or of any other Roman prince mounting

up to the same place.

Tertullian then describes the origin and nature of devils, who, under

Satan, their prince, produce diseases, irregularities of the air,

plagues, and the blighting of the blossoms of the earth, who seduce men

to offer sacrifices, that they may have the blood of the victims, which

is their food. They are as nimble as the birds, and hence know every

thing that is passing upon earth; they live in the air, and hence can

spy what is going on in heaven; for this reason they can impose on men

reigned prophecies, and deliver oracles. Thus they announced in Rome

that a victory would be obtained over King Perseus, when in truth they

knew that the battle was already won. They falsely cure diseases; for,

taking possession of the body of a man, they produce in him a distemper,

and then ordaining some remedy to be used, they cease to afflict him,

and men think that a cure has taken place.

Though Christians deny that the emperor is a god, they nevertheless pray

for his prosperity, because the general dissolution that threatens the

universe, the conflagration of the world, is retarded so long as the

glorious majesty of the triumphant Roman Empire shall last. They desire

not to be present at the subversion of all Nature. They acknowledge

only one republic, but it is the whole world; they constitute one body,

worship one God, and all look forward to eternal happiness. Not only do

they pray for the emperor and the magistrates, but also for peace. They

read the Scriptures to nourish their faith, lift up their hope, and

strengthen the confidence they have in God. They assemble to exhort one

another; they remove sinners from their societies; they have bishops who

preside over them, approved by the suffrages of those whom they are to

conduct. At the end of each month every one contributes if he will, but

no one is constrained to give; the money gathered in this manner is

the pledge of piety; it is not consumed in eating and drinking, but

in feeding the poor, and burying them, in comforting children that are

destitute of parents and goods, in helping old men who have spent the

best of their days in the service of the faithful, in assisting those

who have lost by shipwreck what they had, and those who are condemned

to the mines, or have been banished to islands, or shut up in prisons,

because they professed the religion of the true God. There is but one

thing that Christians have not in common, and that one thing is their

wives. They do not feast as if they should die to-morrow, nor build

as if they should never die. The objects of their life are innocence,

justice, patience, temperance, chastity.

To this noble exposition of Christian belief and life in his day,

Tertullian does not hesitate to add an ominous warning to the

magistrates he is addressing--ominous, for it was a forecast of a great

event soon to come to pass: "Our origin is but recent, yet already we

fill all that your power acknowledges--cities, fortresses, islands,

provinces, the assemblies of the people, the wards of Rome, the palace,

the senate, the public places, and especially the armies. We have

left you nothing but your temples. Reflect what wars we are able to

undertake! With what promptitude might we not arm ourselves were we not

restrained by our religion, which teaches us that it is better to be

killed than to kill!"

Before he closes his defense, Tertullian renews an assertion which,

carried into practice, as it subsequently was, affected the intellectual

development of all Europe. He declares that the Holy Scriptures are a

treasure from which all the true wisdom in the world has been drawn;

that every philosopher and every poet is indebted to them. He labors

to show that they are the standard and measure of all truth, and that

whatever is inconsistent with them must necessarily be false.

From Tertullian's able work we see what Christianity was while it was

suffering persecution and struggling for existence. We have now to

see what it became when in possession of imperial power. Great is the

difference between Christianity under Severus and Christianity after

Constantine. Many of the doctrines which at the latter period were

preeminent, in the former were unknown.

PAGANIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY. Two causes led to the amalgamation of

Christianity with paganism: 1. The political necessities of the new

dynasty; 2. The policy adopted by the new religion to insure its spread.

1. Though the Christian party had proved itself sufficiently strong to

give a master to the empire, it was never sufficiently strong to destroy

its antagonist, paganism. The issue of the struggle between them was an

amalgamation of the principles of both. In this, Christianity differed

from Mohammedanism, which absolutely annihilated its antagonist, and

spread its own doctrines without adulteration.

Constantine continually showed by his acts that he felt he must be the

impartial sovereign of all his people, not merely the representative

of a successful faction. Hence, if he built Christian churches, he also

restored pagan temples; if he listened to the clergy, he also consulted

the haruspices; if he summoned the Council of Nicea, he also honored the

statue of Fortune; if he accepted the rite of baptism, he also struck

a medal bearing his title of "God." His statue, on the top of the great

porphyry pillar at Constantinople, consisted of an ancient image of

Apollo, whose features were replaced by those of the emperor, and

its head surrounded by the nails feigned to have been used at the

crucifixion of Christ, arranged so as to form a crown of glory.

Feeling that there must be concessions to the defeated pagan party,

in accordance with its ideas, he looked with favor on the idolatrous

movements of his court. In fact, the leaders of these movements were

persons of his own family.

CHRISTIANITY UNDER CONSTANTINE. 2. To the emperor--a mere worldling--a

man without any religious convictions, doubtless it appeared best for

himself, best for the empire, and best for the contending parties,

Christian and pagan, to promote their union or amalgamation as much as

possible. Even sincere Christians do not seem to have been averse to

this; perhaps they believed that the new doctrines would diffuse most

thoroughly by incorporating in themselves ideas borrowed from the old,

that Truth would assert her self in the end, and the impurity be cast

off. In accomplishing this amalgamation, Helena, the empress-mother,

aided by the court ladies, led the way. For her gratification there were

discovered, in a cavern at Jerusalem, wherein they had lain buried for

more than three centuries, the Savior's cross, and those of the two

thieves, the inscription, and the nails that had been used. They were

identified by miracle. A true relic-worship set in. The superstition of

the old Greek times reappeared; the times when the tools with which the

Trojan horse was made might still be seen at Metapontum, the sceptre of

Pelops at Chaeroneia, the spear of Achilles at Phaselis, the sword

of Memnon at Nicomedia, when the Tegeates could show the hide of the

Calydonian boar and very many cities boasted their possession of the

true palladium of Troy; when there were statues of Minerva that could

brandish spears, paintings that could blush, images that could sweat,

and endless shrines and sanctuaries at which miracle-cures could be

performed.

As years passed on, the faith described by Tertullian was transmuted

into one more fashionable and more debased. It was incorporated with

the old Greek mythology. Olympus was restored, but the divinities passed

under other names. The more powerful provinces insisted on the adoption

of their time-honored conceptions. Views of the Trinity, in accordance

with Egyptian traditions, were established. Not only was the adoration

of Isis under a new name restored, but even her image, standing on the

crescent moon, reappeared. The well-known effigy of that goddess,

with the infant Horus in her arms, has descended to our days in

the beautiful, artistic creations of the Madonna and Child. Such

restorations of old conceptions under novel forms were everywhere

received with delight. When it was announced to the Ephesians that the

Council of that place, headed by Cyril, had decreed that the Virgin

should be called "the Mother of God," with tears of joy they embraced

the knees of their bishop; it was the old instinct peeping out; their

ancestors would have done the same for Diana.

This attempt to conciliate worldly converts, by adopting their ideas

and practices, did not pass without remonstrance from those whose

intelligence discerned the motive. "You have," says Faustus to

Augustine, "substituted your agapae for the sacrifices of the pagans;

for their idols your martyrs, whom you serve with the very same honors.

You appease the shades of the dead with wine and feasts; you celebrate

the solemn festivities of the Gentiles, their calends, and their

solstices; and, as to their manners, those you have retained without any

alteration. Nothing distinguishes you from the pagans, except that you

hold your assemblies apart from them." Pagan observances were everywhere

introduced. At weddings it was the custom to sing hymns to Venus.

INTRODUCTION OF ROMAN RITES. Let us pause here a moment, and see, in

anticipation, to what a depth of intellectual degradation this policy of

paganization eventually led. Heathen rites were adopted, a pompous

and splendid ritual, gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras, wax-tapers,

processional services, lustrations, gold and silver vases, were

introduced. The Roman lituus, the chief ensign of the augurs, became the

crozier. Churches were built over the tombs of martyrs, and consecrated

with rites borrowed from the ancient laws of the Roman pontiffs.

Festivals and commemorations of martyrs multiplied with the numberless

fictitious discoveries of their remains. Fasting became the grand means

of repelling the devil and appeasing God; celibacy the greatest of

the virtues. Pilgrimages were made to Palestine and the tombs of the

martyrs. Quantities of dust and earth were brought from the Holy Land

and sold at enormous prices, as antidotes against devils. The virtues

of consecrated water were upheld. Images and relics were introduced into

the churches, and worshiped after the fashion of the heathen gods. It

was given out that prodigies and miracles were to be seen in certain

places, as in the heathen times. The happy souls of departed Christians

were invoked; it was believed that they were wandering about the world,

or haunting their graves. There was a multiplication of temples, altars,

and penitential garments. The festival of the purification of the Virgin

was invented to remove the uneasiness of heathen converts on account of

the loss of their Lupercalia, or feasts of Pan. The worship of images,

of fragments of the cross, or bones, nails, and other relics, a true

fetich worship, was cultivated. Two arguments were relied on for the

authenticity of these objects--the authority of the Church, and the

working of miracles. Even the worn-out clothing of the saints and the

earth of their graves were venerated. From Palestine were brought what

were affirmed to be the skeletons of St. Mark and St. James, and other

ancient worthies. The apotheosis of the old Roman times was replaced by

canonization; tutelary saints succeed to local mythological divinities.

Then came the mystery of transubstantiation, or the conversion of bread

and wine by the priest into the flesh and blood of Christ. As centuries

passed, the paganization became more and more complete. Festivals sacred

to the memory of the lance with which the Savior's side was pierced,

the nails that fastened him to the cross, and the crown of thorns, were

instituted. Though there were several abbeys that possessed this last

peerless relic, no one dared to say that it was impossible they could

all be authentic.

We may read with advantage the remarks made by Bishop Newton on this

paganization of Christianity. He asks: "Is not the worship of saints and

angels now in all respects the same that the worship of demons was in

former times? The name only is different, the thing is identically

the same,... the deified men of the Christians are substituted for the

deified men of the heathens. The promoters of this worship were sensible

that it was the same, and that the one succeeded to the other; and,

as the worship is the same, so likewise it is performed with the same

ceremonies. The burning of incense or perfumes on several altars at one

and the same time; the sprinkling of holy water, or a mixture of salt

and common water, at going into and coming out of places of public

worship; the lighting up of a great number of lamps and wax-candles in

broad daylight before altars and statues of these deities; the hanging

up of votive offerings and rich presents as attestations of so many

miraculous cures and deliverances from diseases and dangers; the

canonization or deification of deceased worthies; the assigning of

distinct provinces or prefectures to departed heroes and saints; the

worshiping and adoring of the dead in their sepulchres, shrines, and

relics; the consecrating and bowing down to images; the attributing

of miraculous powers and virtues to idols; the setting up of little

oratories, altars, and statues in the streets and highways, and on

the tops of mountains; the carrying of images and relics in pompous

procession, with numerous lights and with music and singing;

flagellations at solemn seasons under the notion of penance; a great

variety of religious orders and fraternities of priests; the shaving of

priests, or the tonsure as it is called, on the crown of their heads;

the imposing of celibacy and vows of chastity on the religious of both

sexes--all these and many more rites and ceremonies are equally parts of

pagan and popish superstition. Nay, the very same temples, the very same

images, which were once consecrated to Jupiter and the other demons, are

now consecrated to the Virgin Mary and the other saints. The very same

rites and inscriptions are ascribed to both, the very same prodigies and

miracles are related of these as of those. In short, almost the whole

of paganism is converted and applied to popery; the one is manifestly

formed upon the same plan and principles as the other; so that there is

not only a conformity, but even a uniformity, in the worship of ancient

and modern, of heathen and Christian Rome."

DEBASEMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. Thus far Bishop Newton; but to return to the

times of Constantine: though these concessions to old and popular ideas

were permitted and even encouraged, the dominant religious party never

for a moment hesitated to enforce its decisions by the aid of the civil

power--an aid which was freely given. Constantine thus carried into

effect the acts of the Council of Nicea. In the affair of Arius, he even

ordered that whoever should find a book of that heretic, and not burn

it, should be put to death. In like manner Nestor was by Theodosius the

Younger banished to an Egyptian oasis.

The pagan party included many of the old aristocratic families of the

empire; it counted among its adherents all the disciples of the old

philosophical schools. It looked down on its antagonist with contempt.

It asserted that knowledge is to be obtained only by the laborious

exercise of human observation and human reason.

The Christian party asserted that all knowledge is to be found in the

Scriptures and in the traditions of the Church; that, in the written

revelation, God had not only given a criterion of truth, but had

furnished us all that he intended us to know. The Scriptures, therefore,

contain the sum, the end of all knowledge. The clergy, with the emperor

at their back, would endure no intellectual competition.

Thus came into prominence what were termed sacred and profane knowledge;

thus came into presence of each other two opposing parties, one relying

on human reason as its guide, the other on revelation. Paganism leaned

for support on the learning of its philosophers, Christianity on the

inspiration of its Fathers.

The Church thus set herself forth as the depository and arbiter of

knowledge; she was ever ready to resort to the civil power to compel

obedience to her decisions. She thus took a course which determined her

whole future career: she became a stumbling-block in the intellectual

advancement of Europe for more than a thousand years.

The reign of Constantine marks the epoch of the transformation of

Christianity from a religion into a political system; and though, in

one sense, that system was degraded into an idolatry, in another it had

risen into a development of the old Greek mythology. The maxim holds

good in the social as well as in the mechanical world, that, when two

bodies strike, the form of both is changed. Paganism was modified by

Christianity; Christianity by Paganism.

THE TRINITARIAN DISPUTE. In the Trinitarian controversy, which first

broke out in Egypt--Egypt, the land of Trinities--the chief point in

discussion was to define the position of "the Son." There lived in

Alexandria a presbyter of the name of Arius, a disappointed candidate

for the office of bishop. He took the ground that there was a time when,

from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at

which he commenced to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition

of the filial relation that a father must be older than his son. But

this assertion evidently denied the coeternity of the three persons of

the Trinity; it suggested a subordination or inequality among them,

and indeed implied a time when the Trinity did not exist. Hereupon, the

bishop, who had been the successful competitor against Arius, displayed

his rhetorical powers in public debates on the question, and, the strife

spreading, the Jews and pagans, who formed a very large portion of

the population of Alexandria, amused themselves with theatrical

representations of the contest on the stage--the point of their

burlesques being the equality of age of the Father and his Son.

Such was the violence the controversy at length assumed, that the matter

had to be referred to the emperor. At first he looked upon the dispute

as altogether frivolous, and perhaps in truth inclined to the assertion

of Arius, that in the very nature of the thing a father must be older

than his son. So great, however, was the pressure laid upon him, that

he was eventually compelled to summon the Council of Nicea, which, to

dispose of the conflict, set forth a formulary or creed, and attached to

it this anathema: "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes

those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and

that, before he was begotten, he was not, and that he was made out of

nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is created, or

changeable, or alterable." Constantine at once enforced the decision of

the council by the civil power.

A few years subsequently the Emperor Theodosius prohibited sacrifices,

made the inspection of the entrails of animals a capital offense, and

forbade any one entering a temple. He instituted Inquisitors of Faith,

and ordained that all who did not accord with the belief of Damasus, the

Bishop of Rome, and Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria, should be driven

into exile, and deprived of civil rights. Those who presumed to

celebrate Easter on the same day as the Jews, he condemned to death.

The Greek language was now ceasing to be known in the West, and true

learning was becoming extinct.

At this time the bishopric of Alexandria was held by one Theophilus. An

ancient temple of Osiris having been given to the Christians of the city

for the site of a church, it happened that, in digging the foundation

for the new edifice, the obscene symbols of the former worship chanced

to be found. These, with more zeal than modesty, Theophilus exhibited

in the market-place to public derision. With less forbearance than the

Christian party showed when it was insulted in the theatre during the

Trinitarian dispute, the pagans resorted to violence, and a riot ensued.

They held the Serapion as their headquarters. Such were the disorder and

bloodshed that the emperor had to interfere. He dispatched a rescript to

Alexandria, enjoining the bishop, Theophilus, to destroy the Serapion;

and the great library, which had been collected by the Ptolemies, and

had escaped the fire of Julius Caesar, was by that fanatic dispersed.

THE MURDER OF HYPATIA. The bishopric thus held by Theophilus was in due

time occupied by his nephew St. Cyril, who had commended himself to

the approval of the Alexandrian congregations as a successful and

fashionable preacher. It was he who had so much to do with the

introduction of the worship of the Virgin Mary. His hold upon the

audiences of the giddy city was, however, much weakened by Hypatia, the

daughter of Theon, the mathematician, who not only distinguished herself

by her expositions of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, but also by

her comments on the writings of Apollonius and other geometers. Each day

before her academy stood a long train of chariots; her lecture-room was

crowded with the wealth and fashion of Alexandria. They came to listen

to her discourses on those questions which man in all ages has asked,

but which never yet have been answered: "What am I? Where am I? What can

I know?"

Hypatia and Cyril! Philosophy and bigotry. They cannot exist together.

So Cyril felt, and on that feeling he acted. As Hypatia repaired to her

academy, she was assaulted by Cyril's mob--a mob of many monks. Stripped

naked in the street, she was dragged into a church, and there killed by

the club of Peter the Reader. The corpse was cut to pieces, the flesh

was scraped from the bones with shells, and the remnants cast into a

fire. For this frightful crime Cyril was never called to account. It

seemed to be admitted that the end sanctified the means.

So ended Greek philosophy in Alexandria, so came to an untimely close

the learning that the Ptolemies had done so much to promote. The

"Daughter Library," that of the Serapion, had been dispersed. The fate

of Hypatia was a warning to all who would cultivate profane knowledge.

Henceforth there was to be no freedom for human thought. Every one must

think as the ecclesiastical authority ordered him, A.D. 414. In Athens

itself philosophy awaited its doom. Justinian at length prohibited its

teaching, and caused all its schools in that city to be closed.

PELAGIUS. While these events were transpiring in the Eastern provinces

of the Roman Empire, the spirit that had produced them was displaying

itself in the West. A British monk, who had assumed the name of

Pelagius, passed through Western Europe and Northern Africa, teaching

that death was not introduced into the world by the sin of Adam; that

on the contrary he was necessarily and by nature mortal, and had he not

sinned he would nevertheless have died; that the consequences of his

sins were confined to himself, and did not affect his posterity. From

these premises Pelagius drew certain important theological conclusions.

At Rome, Pelagius had been received with favor; at Carthage, at the

instigation of St. Augustine, he was denounced. By a synod, held at

Diospolis, he was acquitted of heresy, but, on referring the matter to

the Bishop of Rome, Innocent I., he was, on the contrary, condemned. It

happened that at this moment Innocent died, and his successor, Zosimus,

annulled his judgment and declared the opinions of Pelagius to be

orthodox. These contradictory decisions are still often referred to

by the opponents of papal infallibility. Things were in this state of

confusion, when the wily African bishops, through the influence of Count

Valerius, procured from the emperor an edict denouncing Pelagins as

a heretic; he and his accomplices were condemned to exile and the

forfeiture of their goods. To affirm that death was in the world before

the fall of Adam, was a state crime.

CONDEMNATION OF PELAGIUS. It is very instructive to consider the

principles on which this strange decision was founded. Since the

question was purely philosophical, one might suppose that it would

have been discussed on natural principles; instead of that, theological

considerations alone were adduced. The attentive reader will have

remarked, in Tertullian's statement of the principles of Christianity,

a complete absence of the doctrines of original sin, total depravity,

predestination, grace, and atonement. The intention of Christianity,

as set forth by him, has nothing in common with the plan of salvation

upheld two centuries subsequently. It is to St. Augustine, a

Carthaginian, that we are indebted for the precision of our views on

these important points.

In deciding whether death had been in the world before the fall of Adam,

or whether it was the penalty inflicted on the world for his sin,

the course taken was to ascertain whether the views of Pelagius were

accordant or discordant not with Nature but with the theological

doctrines of St. Augustine. And the result has been such as might

be expected. The doctrine declared to be orthodox by ecclesiastical

authority is overthrown by the unquestionable discoveries of modern

science. Long before a human being had appeared upon earth, millions of

individuals--nay, more, thousands of species and even genera--had died;

those which remain with us are an insignificant fraction of the vast

hosts that have passed away.

A consequence of great importance issued from the decision of the

Pelagian controversy. The book of Genesis had been made the basis of

Christianity. If, in a theological point of view, to its account of the

sin in the garden of Eden, and the transgression and punishment of Adam,

so much weight had been attached, it also in a philosophical point

of view became the grand authority of Patristic science. Astronomy,

geology, geography, anthropology, chronology, and indeed all the various

departments of human knowledge, were made to conform to it.

ST. AUGUSTINE. As the doctrines of St. Augustine have had the effect of

thus placing theology in antagonism with science, it may be interesting

to examine briefly some of the more purely philosophical views of that

great man. For this purpose, we may appropriately select portions of

his study of the first chapter of Genesis, as contained in the eleventh,

twelfth, and thirteenth books of his "Confessions."

These consist of philosophical discussions, largely interspersed

with rhapsodies. He prays that God will give him to understand the

Scriptures, and will open their meaning to him; he declares that in

them there is nothing superfluous, but that the words have a manifold

meaning.

The face of creation testifies that there has been a Creator; but at

once arises the question, "How and when did he make heaven and earth?

They could not have been made IN heaven and earth, the world could not

have been made IN the world, nor could they have been made when there

was nothing to make them of." The solution of this fundamental inquiry

St. Augustine finds in saying, "Thou spakest, and they were made."

But the difficulty does not end here. St. Augustine goes on to remark

that the syllables thus uttered by God came forth in succession, and

there must have been some created thing to express the words. This

created thing must, therefore, have existed before heaven and earth, and

yet there could have been no corporeal thing before heaven and earth. It

must have been a creature, because the words passed away and came to an

end but we know that "the word of the Lord endureth forever."

Moreover, it is plain that the words thus spoken could not have been

spoken successively, but simultaneously, else there would have been time

and change--succession in its nature implying time; whereas there was

then nothing but eternity and immortality. God knows and says eternally

what takes place in time.

CRITICISM OF ST. AUGUSTINE. St. Augustine then defines, not without

much mysticism, what is meant by the opening words of Genesis: "In

the beginning." He is guided to his conclusion by another scriptural

passage: "How wonderful are thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast thou made

them all." This "wisdom" is "the beginning," and in that beginning the

Lord created the heaven and the earth.

"But," he adds, "some one may ask, 'What was God doing before he made

the heaven and the earth? for, if at any particular moment he began

to employ himself, that means time, not eternity. In eternity nothing

transpires--the whole is present.'" In answering this question, he

cannot forbear one of those touches of rhetoric for which he was so

celebrated: "I will not answer this question by saying that he was

preparing hell for priers into his mysteries. I say that, before God

made heaven and earth, he did not make any thing, for no creature could

be made before any creature was made. Time itself is a creature, and

hence it could not possibly exist before creation.

"What, then, is time? The past is not, the future is not, the

present--who can tell what it is, unless it be that which has no

duration between two nonentities? There is no such thing as 'a long

time,' or 'a short time,' for there are no such things as the past and

the future. They have no existence, except in the soul."

The style in which St. Augustine conveyed his ideas is that of a

rhapsodical conversation with God. His works are an incoherent dream.

That the reader may appreciate this remark, I might copy almost at

random any of his paragraphs. The following is from the twelfth book:

"This then, is what I conceive, O my God, when I hear thy Scripture

saying, In the beginning God made heaven and earth: and the earth was

invisible and without form, and darkness was upon the deep, and not

mentioning what day thou createdst them; this is what I conceive,

that because of the heaven of heavens--that intellectual heaven, whose

intelligences know all at once, not in part, not darkly, not through a

glass, but as a whole, in manifestation, face to face; not this thing

now, and that thing anon; but (as I said) know all at once, without any

succession of times; and because of the earth, invisible and without

form, without any succession of times, which succession presents 'this

thing now, that thing anon;' because, where there is no form, there

is no distinction of things; it is, then, on account of these two, a

primitive formed, and a primitive formless; the one, heaven, but the

heaven of heavens; the other, earth, but the earth movable and without

form; because of these two do I conceive, did thy Scripture say without

mention of days, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

For, forthwith it subjoined what earth it spake of; and also in that the

firmament is recorded to be created the second day, and called heaven,

it conveys to us of which heaven he before spake, without mention of

days.

"Wondrous depth of thy words! whose surface behold! is before us,

inviting to little ones; yet are they a wondrous depth, O my God, a

wondrous depth! It is awful to look therein; an awfulness of honor, and

a trembling of love. The enemies thereof I hate vehemently; O that thou

wouldst slay them with thy two-edged sword, that they might no longer be

enemies to it: for so do I love to have them slain unto themselves, that

they may live unto thee."

As an example of the hermeneutical manner in which St. Augustine

unfolded the concealed facts of the Scriptures, I may cite the following

from the thirteenth book of the "Confessions;" his object is to show

that the doctrine of the Trinity is contained in the Mosaic narrative of

the creation:

"Lo, now the Trinity appears unto me in a glass darkly, which is thou my

God, because thou, O Father, in him who is the beginning of our wisdom,

which is thy wisdom, born of thyself, equal unto thee and coeternal,

that is, in thy Son, createdst heaven and earth. Much now have we said

of the heaven of heavens, and of the earth invisible and without form,

and of the darksome deep, in reference to the wandering instability of

its spiritual deformity, unless it had been converted unto him, from

whom it had its then degree of life, and by his enlightening became a

beauteous life, and the heaven of that heaven, which was afterward

set between water and water. And under the name of God, I now held the

Father, who made these things; and under the name of the beginning, the

Son, in whom he made these things; and believing, as I did, my God as

the Trinity, I searched further in his holy words, and lo! thy Spirit

moved upon the waters. Behold the Trinity, my God!--Father, and Son, and

Holy Ghost Creator of all creation."

That I might convey to my reader a just impression of the character of

St. Augustine's philosophical writings, I have, in the two quotations

here given, substituted for my own translation that of the Rev. Dr.

Pusey, as contained in Vol. I. of the "Library of Fathers of the Holy

Catholic Church," published at Oxford, 1840.

Considering the eminent authority which has been attributed to the

writings of St. Augustine by the religious world for nearly fifteen

centuries, it is proper to speak of them with respect. And indeed it

is not necessary to do otherwise. The paragraphs here quoted criticise

themselves. No one did more than this Father to bring science and

religion into antagonism; it was mainly he who diverted the Bible

from its true office--a guide to purity of life--and placed it in the

perilous position of being the arbiter of human knowledge, an audacious

tyranny over the mind of man. The example once set, there was no want of

followers; the works of the great Greek philosophers were stigmatized

as profane; the transcendently glorious achievements of the Museum of

Alexandria were hidden from sight by a cloud of ignorance, mysticism,

and unintelligible jargon, out of which there too often flashed the

destroying lightnings of ecclesiastical vengeance.

A divine revelation of science admits of no improvement, no change, no

advance. It discourages as needless, and indeed as presumptuous, all new

discovery, considering it as an unlawful prying into things which it was

the intention of God to conceal.

What, then, is that sacred, that revealed science, declared by the

Fathers to be the sum of all knowledge?

It likened all phenomena, natural and spiritual, to human acts. It saw

in the Almighty, the Eternal, only a gigantic man.

THE PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY. As to the earth, it affirmed that it is a flat

surface, over which the sky is spread like a dome, or, as St. Augustine

tells us, is stretched like a skin. In this the sun and moon and stars

move, so that they may give light by day and by night to man. The earth

was made of matter created by God out of nothing, and, with all the

tribes of animals and plants inhabiting it, was finished in six days.

Above the sky or firmament is heaven; in the dark and fiery space

beneath the earth is hell. The earth is the central and most important

body of the universe, all other things being intended for and

subservient to it.

As to man, he was made out of the dust of the earth. At first he was

alone, but subsequently woman was formed from one of his ribs. He is the

greatest and choicest of the works of God. He was placed in a paradise

near the banks of the Euphrates, and was very wise and very pure; but,

having tasted of the forbidden fruit, and thereby broken the commandment

given to him, he was condemned to labor and to death.

The descendants of the first man, undeterred by his punishment, pursued

such a career of wickedness that it became necessary to destroy them. A

deluge, therefore, flooded the face of the earth, and rose over the tops

of the mountains. Having accomplished its purpose, the water was dried

up by a wind.

From this catastrophe Noah and his three sons, with their wives, were

saved in an ark. Of these sons, Shem remained in Asia and repeopled it.

Ham peopled Africa; Japhet, Europe. As the Fathers were not acquainted

with the existence of America, they did not provide an ancestor for its

people.

Let us listen to what some of these authorities say in support of their

assertions. Thus Lactantius, referring to the heretical doctrine of the

globular form of the earth, remarks: "Is it possible that men can be so

absurd as to believe that the crops and the trees on the other side of

the earth hang downward, and that men have their feet higher than their

heads? If you ask them how they defend these monstrosities, how things

do not fall away from the earth on that side, they reply that the nature

of things is such that heavy bodies tend toward the centre, like the

spokes of a wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from

the centre to the heavens on all sides. Now, I am really at a loss what

to say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere

in their folly, and defend one absurd opinion by another." On the

question of the antipodes, St. Augustine asserts that "it is impossible

there should be inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth, since

no such race is recorded by Scripture among the descendants of Adam."

Perhaps, however, the most unanswerable argument against the sphericity

of the earth was this, that "in the day of judgment, men on the other

side of a globe could not see the Lord descending through the air."

It is unnecessary for me to say any thing respecting the introduction of

death into the world, the continual interventions of spiritual agencies

in the course of events, the offices of angels and devils, the expected

conflagration of the earth, the tower of Babel, the confusion of

tongues, the dispersion of mankind, the interpretation of natural

phenomena, as eclipses, the rainbow, etc. Above all, I abstain from

commenting on the Patristic conceptions of the Almighty; they are too

anthropomorphic, and wanting in sublimity.

Perhaps, however, I may quote from Cosmas Indicopleustes the views

that were entertained in the sixth century. He wrote a work entitled

"Christian Topography," the chief intent of which was to confute the

heretical opinion of the globular form of the earth, and the pagan

assertion that there is a temperate zone on the southern side of the

torrid. He affirms that, according to the true orthodox system of

geography, the earth is a quadrangular plane, extending four hundred

days' journey east and west, and exactly half as much north and south;

that it is inclosed by mountains, on which the sky rests; that one on

the north side, huger than the others, by intercepting the rays of the

sun, produces night; and that the plane of the earth is not set exactly

horizontally, but with a little inclination from the north: hence the

Euphrates, Tigris, and other rivers, running southward, are rapid; but

the Nile, having to run up-hill, has necessarily a very slow current.

The Venerable Bede, writing in the seventh century, tells us that "the

creation was accomplished in six days, and that the earth is its centre

and its primary object. The heaven is of a fiery and subtile nature,

round, and equidistant in every part, as a canopy from the centre of the

earth. It turns round every day with ineffable rapidity, only moderated

by the resistance of the seven planets, three above the sun--Saturn,

Jupiter, Mars--then the sun; three below--Venus, Mercury, the moon. The

stars go round in their fixed courses, the northern perform the shortest

circle. The highest heaven has its proper limit; it contains the angelic

virtues who descend upon earth, assume ethereal bodies, perform human

functions, and return. The heaven is tempered with glacial waters, lest

it should be set on fire. The inferior heaven is called the firmament,

because it separates the superincumbent waters from the waters below.

The firmamental waters are lower than the spiritual heaven, higher than

all corporeal beings, reserved, some say, for a second deluge; others,

more truly, to temper the fire of the fixed stars."

Was it for this preposterous scheme--this product of ignorance and

audacity--that the works of the Greek philosophers were to be given

up? It was none too soon that the great critics who appeared at the

Reformation, by comparing the works of these writers with one another,

brought them to their proper level, and taught us to look upon them all

with contempt.

Of this presumptuous system, the strangest part was its logic, the

nature of its proofs. It relied upon miracle-evidence. A fact was

supposed to be demonstrated by an astounding illustration of something

else! An Arabian writer, referring to this, says: "If a conjurer should

say to me, 'Three are more than ten, and in proof of it I will change

this stick into a serpent,' I might be surprised at his legerdemain,

but I certainly should not admit his assertion." Yet, for more than

a thousand years, such was the accepted logic, and all over Europe

propositions equally absurd were accepted on equally ridiculous proof.

Since the party that had become dominant in the empire could not furnish

works capable of intellectual competition with those of the great pagan

authors, and since it was impossible for it to accept a position of

inferiority, there arose a political necessity for the discouragement,

and even persecution, of profane learning. The persecution of the

Platonists under Valentinian was due to that necessity. They were

accused of magic, and many of them were put to death. The profession

of philosophy had become dangerous--it was a state crime. In its stead

there arose a passion for the marvelous, a spirit of superstition. Egypt

exchanged the great men, who had made her Museum immortal, for bands of

solitary monks and sequestered virgins, with which she was overrun.

CHAPTER III.

CONFLICT RESPECTING THE DOCTRINE OF THE UNITY OF GOD.--THE

FIRST OR SOUTHERN REFORMATION.

The Egyptians insist on the introduction of the worship of

the Virgin Mary--They are resisted by Nestor, the Patriarch

of Constantinople, but eventually, through their influence

with the emperor, cause Nestor's exile and the dispersion of

his followers.

Prelude to the Southern Reformation--The Persian attack; its

moral effects.

The Arabian Reformation.--Mohammed is brought in contact

with the Nestorians--He adopts and extends their principles,

rejecting the worship of the Virgin, the doctrine of the

Trinity, and every thing in opposition to the unity of God.--

He extinguishes idolatry in Arabia, by force, and prepares

to make war on the Roman Empire.--His successors conquer

Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, North Africa, Spain, and invade

France.

As the result of this conflict, the doctrine of the unity of

God was established in the greater part of the Roman Empire--

The cultivation of science was restored, and Christendom

lost many of her most illustrious capitals, as Alexandria,

Carthage, and, above all, Jerusalem.

THE policy of the Byzantine court had given to primitive Christianity a

paganized form, which it had spread over all the idolatrous populations

constituting the empire. There had been an amalgamation of the two

parties. Christianity had modified paganism, paganism had modified

Christianity. The limits of this adulterated religion were the confines

of the Roman Empire. With this great extension there had come to the

Christian party political influence and wealth. No insignificant portion

of the vast public revenues found their way into the treasuries of the

Church. As under such circumstances must ever be the case, there were

many competitors for the spoils--men who, under the mask of zeal for the

predominant faith, sought only the enjoyment of its emoluments.

ECCLESIASTICAL DISPUTES. Under the early emperors, conquest had reached

its culmination; the empire was completed; there remained no adequate

objects for military life; the days of war-peculation, and the

plundering of provinces, were over. For the ambitious, however, another

path was open; other objects presented. A successful career in the

Church led to results not unworthy of comparison with those that in

former days had been attained by a successful career in the army.

The ecclesiastical, and indeed, it may be said, much of the political

history of that time, turns on the struggles of the bishops of the

three great metropolitan cities--Constantinople, Alexandria, Rome--for

supremacy: Constantinople based her claims on the fact that she was

the existing imperial city; Alexandria pointed to her commercial

and literary position; Rome, to her souvenirs. But the Patriarch of

Constantinople labored under the disadvantage that he was too closely

under the eye, and, as he found to his cost, too often under the hand,

of the emperor. Distance gave security to the episcopates of Alexandria

and Rome.

ECCLESIASTICAL DISPUTES. Religious disputations in the East have

generally turned on diversities of opinion respecting the nature and

attributes of God; in the West, on the relations and life of man. This

peculiarity has been strikingly manifested in the transformations that

Christianity has undergone in Asia and Europe respectively. Accordingly,

at the time of which we are speaking, all the Eastern provinces of

the Roman Empire exhibited an intellectual anarchy. There were fierce

quarrels respecting the Trinity, the essence of God, the position of the

Son, the nature of the Holy Spirit, the influences of the Virgin Mary.

The triumphant clamor first of one then of another sect was confirmed,

sometimes by miracle-proof, sometimes by bloodshed. No attempt was ever

made to submit the rival opinions to logical examination. All parties,

however, agreed in this, that the imposture of the old classical pagan

forms of faith was demonstrated by the facility with which they had been

overthrown. The triumphant ecclesiastics proclaimed that the images of

the gods had failed to defend themselves when the time of trial came.

Polytheistic ideas have always been held in repute by the southern

European races, the Semitic have maintained the unity of God. Perhaps

this is due to the fact, as a recent author has suggested, that a

diversified landscape of mountains and valleys, islands, and rivers, and

gulfs, predisposes man to a belief in a multitude of divinities. A vast

sandy desert, the illimitable ocean, impresses him with an idea of the

oneness of God.

Political reasons had led the emperors to look with favor on the

admixture of Christianity and paganism, and doubtless by this means the

bitterness of the rivalry between those antagonists was somewhat abated.

The heaven of the popular, the fashionable Christianity was the old

Olympus, from which the venerable Greek divinities had been removed.

There, on a great white throne, sat God the Father, on his right the

Son, and then the blessed Virgin, clad in a golden robe, and "covered

with various female adornments;" on the left sat God the Holy Ghost.

Surrounding these thrones were hosts of angels with their harps. The

vast expanse beyond was filled with tables, seated at which the happy

spirits of the just enjoyed a perpetual banquet.

If, satisfied with this picture of happiness, illiterate persons never

inquired how the details of such a heaven were carried out, or how much

pleasure there could be in the ennui of such an eternally unchanging,

unmoving scene, it was not so with the intelligent. As we are soon to

see, there were among the higher ecclesiastics those who rejected with

sentiments of horror these carnal, these materialistic conceptions, and

raised their protesting voices in vindication of the attributes of the

Omnipresent, the Almighty God.

EGYPTIAN DOCTRINES. In the paganization of religion, now in all

directions taking place, it became the interest of every bishop to

procure an adoption of the ideas which, time out of mind, had been

current in the community under his charge. The Egyptians had already

thus forced on the Church their peculiar Trinitarian views; and now they

were resolved that, under the form of the adoration of the Virgin Mary,

the worship of Isis should be restored.

THE NESTORIANS. It so happened that Nestor, the Bishop of Antioch, who

entertained the philosophical views of Theodore of Mopsuestia, had

been called by the Emperor Theodosius the Younger to the Episcopate

of Constantinople (A.D. 427). Nestor rejected the base popular

anthropomorphism, looking upon it as little better than blasphemous,

and pictured to himself an awful eternal Divinity, who pervaded the

universe, and had none of the aspects or attributes of man. Nestor

was deeply imbued with the doctrines of Aristotle, and attempted to

coordinate them with what he considered to be orthodox Christian tenets.

Between him and Cyril, the Bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria, a

quarrel accordingly arose. Cyril represented the paganizing, Nestor the

philosophizing party of the Church. This was that Cyril who had murdered

Hypatia. Cyril was determined that the worship of the Virgin as the

Mother of God should be recognized, Nestor was determined that it should

not. In a sermon delivered in the metropolitan church at Constantinople,

he vindicated the attributes of the Eternal, the Almighty God. "And can

this God have a mother?" he exclaimed. In other sermons and writings,

he set forth with more precision his ideas that the Virgin should be

considered not as the Mother of God, but as the mother of the human

portion of Christ, that portion being as essentially distinct from the

divine as is a temple from its contained deity.

PERSECUTION AND DEATH OF NESTOR. Instigated by the monks of Alexandria,

the monks of Constantinople took up arms in behalf of "the Mother of

God." The quarrel rose to such a pitch that the emperor was constrained

to summon a council to meet at Ephesus. In the mean time Cyril had

given a bribe of many pounds of gold to the chief eunuch of the imperial

court, and had thereby obtained the influence of the emperor's sister.

"The holy virgin of the court of heaven thus found an ally of her own

sex in the holy virgin of the emperor's court." Cyril hastened to the

council, attended by a mob of men and women of the baser sort. He

at once assumed the presidency, and in the midst of a tumult had the

emperor's rescript read before the Syrian bishops could arrive. A single

day served to complete his triumph. All offers of accommodation on the

part of Nestor were refused, his explanations were not read, he was

condemned unheard. On the arrival of the Syrian ecclesiastics, a meeting

of protest was held by them. A riot, with much bloodshed, ensued in the

cathedral of St. John. Nestor was abandoned by the court, and eventually

exiled to an Egyptian oasis. His persecutors tormented him as long as

he lived, by every means in their power, and at his death gave out that

"his blasphemous tongue had been devoured by worms, and that from the

heats of an Egyptian desert he had escaped only into the hotter torments

of hell!"

The overthrow and punishment of Nestor, however, by no means destroyed

his opinions. He and his followers, insisting on the plain inference of

the last verse of the first chapter of St. Matthew, together with the

fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth verses of the thirteenth of the same gospel,

could never be brought to an acknowledgment of the perpetual virginity

of the new queen of heaven. Their philosophical tendencies were soon

indicated by their actions. While their leader was tormented in an

African oasis, many of them emigrated to the Euphrates, and established

the Chaldean Church. Under their auspices the college of Edessa was

founded. From the college of Nisibis issued those doctors who spread

Nestor's tenets through Syria, Arabia, India, Tartary, China, Egypt.

The Nestorians, of course, adopted the philosophy of Aristotle, and

translated the works of that great writer into Syriac and Persian. They

also made similar translations of later works, such as those of

Pliny. In connection with the Jews they founded the medical college

of Djondesabour. Their missionaries disseminated the Nestorian form of

Christianity to such an extent over Asia, that its worshipers eventually

outnumbered all the European Christians of the Greek and Roman Churches

combined. It may be particularly remarked that in Arabia they had a

bishop.

THE PERSIAN CAMPAIGN. The dissensions between Constantinople and

Alexandria had thus filled all Western Asia with sectaries, ferocious

in their contests with each other, and many of them burning with hatred

against the imperial power for the persecutions it had inflicted on

them. A religious revolution, the consequences of which are felt in our

own times, was the result. It affected the whole world.

We shall gain a clear view of this great event, if we consider

separately the two acts into which it may be decomposed: 1. The

temporary overthrow of Asiatic Christianity by the Persians; 2. The

decisive and final reformation under the Arabians.

1. It happened (A.D. 590) that, by one of those revolutions so frequent

in Oriental courts, Chosroes, the lawful heir to the Persian throne, was

compelled to seek refuge in the Byzantine Empire, and implore the aid

of the Emperor Maurice. That aid was cheerfully given. A brief and

successful campaign restored Chosroes to the throne of his ancestors.

But the glories of this generous campaign could not preserve Maurice

himself. A mutiny broke out in the Roman army, headed by Phocas, a

centurion. The statues of the emperor were overthrown. The Patriarch

of Constantinople, having declared that he had assured himself of the

orthodoxy of Phocas, consecrated him emperor. The unfortunate Maurice

was dragged from a sanctuary, in which he had sought refuge; his five

sons were beheaded before his eyes, and then he was put to death. His

empress was inveigled from the church of St. Sophia, tortured, and

with her three young daughters beheaded. The adherents of the massacred

family were pursued with ferocious vindictiveness; of some the eyes were

blinded, of others the tongues were torn out, or the feet and hands cut

off, some were whipped to death, others were burnt.

When the news reached Rome, Pope Gregory received it with exultation,

praying that the hands of Phocas might be strengthened against all his

enemies. As an equivalent for this subserviency, he was greeted with the

title of "Universal Bishop." The cause of his action, as well as of that

of the Patriarch of Constantinople, was doubtless the fact that Maurice

was suspected of Magrian tendencies, into which he had been lured by the

Persians. The mob of Constantinople had hooted after him in the streets,

branding him as a Marcionite, a sect which believed in the Magian

doctrine of two conflicting principles.

With very different sentiments Chosroes heard of the murder of his

friend. Phocas had sent him the heads of Maurice and his sons. The

Persian king turned from the ghastly spectacle with horror, and at once

made ready to avenge the wrongs of his benefactor by war.

THE EXPEDITION OF HERACLIUS. The Exarch of Africa, Heraclius, one of

the chief officers of the state, also received the shocking tidings with

indignation. He was determined that the imperial purple should not be

usurped by an obscure centurion of disgusting aspect. "The person of

this Phocas was diminutive and deformed; the closeness of his shaggy

eyebrows, his red hair, his beardless chin, were in keeping with his

cheek, disfigured and discolored by a formidable scar. Ignorant of

letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged in an ample privilege of

lust and drunkenness." At first Heraclius refused tribute and obedience

to him; then, admonished by age and infirmities, he committed the

dangerous enterprise of resistance to his son of the same name. A

prosperous voyage from Carthage soon brought the younger Heraclius in

front of Constantinople. The inconstant clergy, senate, and people of

the city joined him, the usurper was seized in his palace and beheaded.

INVASION OF CHOSROES. But the revolution that had taken place in

Constantinople did not arrest the movements of the Persian king. His

Magian priests had warned him to act independently of the Greeks,

whose superstition, they declared, was devoid of all truth and justice.

Chosroes, therefore, crossed the Euphrates; his army was received with

transport by the Syrian sectaries, insurrections in his favor everywhere

breaking out. In succession, Antioch, Caesarea, Damascus fell; Jerusalem

itself was taken by storm; the sepulchre of Christ, the churches of

Constantine and of Helena were given to the flames; the Savior's cross

was sent as a trophy to Persia; the churches were rifled of their

riches; the sacred relics, collected by superstition, were dispersed.

Egypt was invaded, conquered, and annexed to the Persian Empire; the

Patriarch of Alexandria escaped by flight to Cyprus; the African coast

to Tripoli was seized. On the north, Asia Minor was subdued, and for

ten years the Persian forces encamped on the shores of the Bosporus, in

front of Constantinople.

In his extremity Heraclius begged for peace. "I will never give peace

to the Emperor of Rome," replied the proud Persian, "till he has abjured

his crucified God, and embraced the worship of the sun." After a long

delay terms were, however, secured, and the Roman Empire was ransomed at

the price of "a thousand talents of gold, a thousand talents of silver,

a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses, and a thousand virgins."

But Heraclius submitted only for a moment. He found means not only

to restore his affairs but to retaliate on the Persian Empire. The

operations by which he achieved this result were worthy of the most

brilliant days of Rome.

INVASION OF CHOSROES Though her military renown was thus recovered,

though her territory was regained, there was something that the Roman

Empire had irrecoverably lost. Religious faith could never be restored.

In face of the world Magianism had insulted Christianity, by profaning

her most sacred places--Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvary--by burning

the sepulchre of Christ, by rifling and destroying the churches, by

scattering to the winds priceless relics, by carrying off, with shouts

of laughter, the cross.

Miracles had once abounded in Syria, in Egypt, in Asia Minor; there was

not a church which had not its long catalogue of them. Very often they

were displayed on unimportant occasions and in insignificant cases. In

this supreme moment, when such aid was most urgently demanded, not a

miracle was worked.

Amazement filled the Christian populations of the East when they

witnessed these Persian sacrileges perpetrated with impunity. The

heavens should have rolled asunder, the earth should have opened her

abysses, the sword of the Almighty should have flashed in the sky, the

fate of Sennacherib should have been repeated. But it was not so. In the

land of miracles, amazement was followed by consternation--consternation

died out in disbelief.

2. But, dreadful as it was, the Persian conquest was but a prelude to

the great event, the story of which we have now to relate--the Southern

revolt against Christianity. Its issue was the loss of nine-tenths of

her geographical possessions--Asia, Africa, and part of Europe.

MOHAMMED. In the summer of 581 of the Christian era, there came to

Bozrah, a town on the confines of Syria, south of Damascus, a caravan

of camels. It was from Mecca, and was laden with the costly products of

South Arabia--Arabia the Happy. The conductor of the caravan, one Abou

Taleb, and his nephew, a lad of twelve years, were hospitably received

and entertained at the Nestorian convent of the town.

The monks of this convent soon found that their young visitor, Halibi or

Mohammed, was the nephew of the guardian of the Caaba, the sacred temple

of the Arabs. One of them, by name Bahira, spared no pains to secure his

conversion from the idolatry in which he had been brought up. He found

the boy not only precociously intelligent, but eagerly desirous of

information, especially on matters relating to religion.

In Mohammed's own country the chief object of Meccan worship was a

black meteoric stone, kept in the Caaba, with three hundred and sixty

subordinate idols, representing the days of the year, as the year was

then counted.

At this time, as we have seen, the Christian Church, through the

ambition and wickedness of its clergy, had been brought into a condition

of anarchy. Councils had been held on various pretenses, while the real

motives were concealed. Too often they were scenes of violence, bribery,

corruption. In the West, such were the temptations of riches, luxury,

and power, presented by the episcopates, that the election of a bishop

was often disgraced by frightful murders. In the East, in consequence of

the policy of the court of Constantinople, the Church had been torn in

pieces by contentions and schisms. Among a countless host of disputants

may be mentioned Arians, Basilidians, Carpocratians, Collyridians,

Eutychians, Gnostics, Jacobites, Marcionites, Marionites, Nestorians,

Sabellians, Valentinians. Of these, the Marionites regarded the Trinity

as consisting of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Virgin Mary;

the Collyridians worshiped the Virgin as a divinity, offering her

sacrifices of cakes; the Nestorians, as we have seen, denied that God

had "a mother." They prided themselves on being the inheritors, the

possessors of the science of old Greece.

But, though they were irreconcilable in matters of faith, there was one

point in which all these sects agreed--ferocious hatred and persecution

of each other. Arabia, an unconquered land of liberty, stretching from

the Indian Ocean to the Desert of Syria, gave them all, as the tide

of fortune successively turned, a refuge. It had been so from the old

times. Thither, after the Roman conquest of Palestine, vast numbers of

Jews escaped; thither, immediately after his conversion, St. Paul

tells the Galatians that he retired. The deserts were now filled with

Christian anchorites, and among the chief tribes of the Arabs many

proselytes had been made. Here and there churches had been built. The

Christian princes of Abyssinia, who were Nestorians, held the southern

province of Arabia--Yemen--in possession.

By the monk Bahira, in the convent at Bozrah, Mohammed was taught the

tenets of the Nestorians; from them the young Arab learned the story of

their persecutions. It was these interviews which engendered in him a

hatred of the idolatrous practices of the Eastern Church, and indeed of

all idolatry; that taught him, in his wonderful career, never to speak

of Jesus as the Son of God, but always as "Jesus, the son of Mary." His

untutored but active mind could not fail to be profoundly impressed not

only with the religious but also with the philosophical ideas of

his instructors, who gloried in being the living representatives of

Aristotelian science. His subsequent career shows how completely their

religious thoughts had taken possession of him, and repeated acts

manifest his affectionate regard for them. His own life was devoted to

the expansion and extension of their theological doctrine, and, that

once effectually established, his successors energetically adopted and

diffused their scientific, their Aristotelian opinions.

As Mohammed grew to manhood, he made other expeditions to Syria.

Perhaps, we may suppose, that on these occasions the convent and its

hospitable in mates were not forgotten. He had a mysterious reverence

for that country. A wealthy Meccan widow Chadizah, had intrusted him

with the care of her Syrian trade. She was charmed with his capacity

and fidelity, and (since he is said to have been characterized by the

possession of singular manly beauty and a most courteous demeanor)

charmed with his person. The female heart in all ages and countries is

the same. She caused a slave to intimate to him what was passing in her

mind, and, for the remaining twenty-four years of her life, Mohammed was

her faithful husband. In a land of polygamy, he never insulted her by

the presence of a rival. Many years subsequently, in the height of his

power, Ayesha, who was one of the most beautiful women in Arabia, said

to him: "Was she not old? Did not God give you in me a better wife in

her place?" "No, by God!" exclaimed Mohammed, and with a burst of honest

gratitude, "there never can be a better. She believed in me when men

despised me, she relieved me when I was poor and persecuted by the

world."

His marriage with Chadizah placed him in circumstances of ease, and gave

him an opportunity of indulging his inclination to religious meditation.

It so happened that her cousin Waraka, who was a Jew, had turned

Christian. He was the first to translate the Bible into Arabic. By his

conversation Mohammed's detestation of idolatry was confirmed.

After the example of the Christian anchorites in their hermitages in

the desert, Mohammed retired to a grotto in Mount Hera, a few miles from

Mecca, giving himself up to meditation and prayer. In this seclusion,

contemplating the awful attributes of the Omnipotent and Eternal God, he

addressed to his conscience the solemn inquiry, whether he could adopt

the dogmas then held in Asiatic Christendom respecting the Trinity, the

sonship of Jesus as begotten by the Almighty, the character of Mary as

at once a virgin, a mother, and the queen of heaven, without incurring

the guilt and the peril of blasphemy.

By his solitary meditations in the grotto Mohammed was drawn to the

conclusion that, through the cloud of dogmas and disputations around

him, one great truth might be discerned--the unity of God. Leaning

against the stem of a palm-tree, he unfolded his views on this subject

to his neighbors and friends, and announced to them that he should

dedicate his life to the preaching of that truth. Again and again, in

his sermons and in the Koran, he declared: "I am nothing but a public

preacher.... I preach the oneness of God." Such was his own conception

of his so-called apostleship. Henceforth, to the day of his death, he

wore on his finger a seal-ring on which was engraved, "Mohammed, the

messenger of God."

VICTORIES OF MOHAMMED. It is well known among physicians that prolonged

fasting and mental anxiety inevitably give rise to hallucination.

Perhaps there never has been any religious system introduced by

self-denying, earnest men that did not offer examples of supernatural

temptations and supernatural commands. Mysterious voices encouraged the

Arabian preacher to persist in his determination; shadows of strange

forms passed before him. He heard sounds in the air like those of a

distant bell. In a nocturnal dream he was carried by Gabriel from Mecca

to Jerusalem, and thence in succession through the six heavens. Into the

seventh the angel feared to intrude and Mohammed alone passed into the

dread cloud that forever enshrouds the Almighty. "A shiver thrilled his

heart as he felt upon his shoulder the touch of the cold hand of God."

His public ministrations met with much resistance and little success at

first. Expelled from Mecca by the upholders of the prevalent idolatry,

he sought refuge in Medina, a town in which there were many Jews and

Nestorians; the latter at once became proselytes to his faith. He had

already been compelled to send his daughter and others of his disciples

to Abyssinia, the king of which was a Nestorian Christian. At the end of

six years he had made only fifteen hundred converts. But in three little

skirmishes, magnified in subsequent times by the designation of the

battles of Beder, of Ohud, and of the Nations, Mohammed discovered that

his most convincing argument was his sword. Afterward, with Oriental

eloquence, he said, "Paradise will be found in the shadow of the

crossing of swords." By a series of well-conducted military operations,

his enemies were completely overthrown. Arabian idolatry was absolutely

exterminated; the doctrine he proclaimed, that "there is but one God,"

was universally adopted by his countrymen, and his own apostleship

accepted.

DEATH OF MOHAMMED. Let us pass over his stormy life, and hear what

he says when, on the pinnacle of earthly power and glory, he was

approaching its close.

Steadfast in his declaration of the unity of God, he departed from

Medina on his last pilgrimage to Mecca, at the head of one hundred

and fourteen thousand devotees, with camels decorated with garlands of

flowers and fluttering streamers. When he approached the holy city, he

uttered the solemn invocation: "Here am I in thy service, O God! Thou

hast no companion. To thee alone belongeth worship. Thine alone is the

kingdom. There is none to share it with thee."

With his own hand he offered up the camels in sacrifice. He considered

that primeval institution to be equally sacred as prayer, and that no

reason can be alleged in support of the one which is not equally strong

in support of the other.

From the pulpit of the Caaba he reiterated, "O my hearers, I am only a

man like yourselves." They remembered that he had once said to one who

approached him with timid steps: "Of what dost thou stand in awe? I am

no king. I am nothing but the son of an Arab woman, who ate flesh dried

in the sun."

He returned to Medina to die. In his farewell to his congregation, he

said: "Every thing happens according to the will of God, and has its

appointed time, which can neither be hastened nor avoided. I return to

him who sent me, and my last command to you is, that ye love, honor, and

uphold each other, that ye exhort each other to faith and constancy in

belief, and to the performance of pious deeds. My life has been for your

good, and so will be my death."

In his dying agony, his head was reclined on the lap of Ayesha. From

time to time he had dipped his hand in a vase of water, and moistened

his face. At last he ceased, and, gazing steadfastly upward, said, in

broken accents: "O God--forgive my sins--be it so. I come."

Shall we speak of this man with disrespect? His precepts are, at this

day, the religious guide of one-third of the human race.

DOCTRINES OF MOHAMMED. In Mohammed, who had already broken away from the

ancient idolatrous worship of his native country, preparation had been

made for the rejection of those tenets which his Nestorian teachers

had communicated to him, inconsistent with reason and conscience. And,

though, in the first pages of the Koran, he declares his belief in what

was delivered to Moses and Jesus, and his reverence for them personally,

his veneration for the Almighty is perpetually displayed. He is

horror-stricken at the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus, the Worship of

Mary as the mother of God, the adoration of images and paintings, in

his eyes a base idolatry. He absolutely rejects the Trinity, of which

he seems to have entertained the idea that it could not be interpreted

otherwise than as presenting three distinct Gods.

His first and ruling idea was simply religious reform--to overthrow

Arabian idolatry, and put an end to the wild sectarianism of

Christianity. That he proposed to set up a new religion was a calumny

invented against him in Constantinople, where he was looked upon with

detestation, like that with which in after ages Luther was regarded in

Rome.

But, though he rejected with indignation whatever might seem to

disparage the doctrine of the unity of God, he was not able to

emancipate himself from anthropomorphic conceptions. The God of the

Koran is altogether human, both corporeally and mentally, if such

expressions may with propriety be used. Very soon, however, the

followers of Mohammed divested themselves of these base ideas and rose

to nobler ones.

The view here presented of the primitive character of Mohammedanism

has long been adopted by many competent authorities. Sir William

Jones, following Locke, regards the main point in the divergence of

Mohammedanism from Christianity to consist "in denying vehemently the

character of our Savior as the Son, and his equality as God with the

Father, of whose unity and attributes the Mohammedans entertain and

express the most awful ideas." This opinion has been largely entertained

in Italy. Dante regarded Mohammed only as the author of a schism, and

saw in Islamism only an Arian sect. In England, Whately views it as a

corruption of Christianity. It was an offshoot of Nestorianism, and not

until it had overthrown Greek Christianity in many great battles, was

spreading rapidly over Asia and Africa, and had become intoxicated

with its wonderful successes, did it repudiate its primitive limited

intentions, and assert itself to be founded on a separate and distinct

revelation.

THE FIRST KHALIF. Mohammed's life had been almost entirely consumed

in the conversion or conquest of his native country. Toward its close,

however, he felt himself strong enough to threaten the invasion of Syria

and Persia. He had made no provision for the perpetuation of his own

dominion, and hence it was not without a struggle that a successor was

appointed. At length Abubeker, the father of Ayesha, was selected. He

was proclaimed the first khalif, or successor of the Prophet.

There is a very important difference between the spread of Mohammedanism

and the spread of Christianity. The latter was never sufficiently

strong to over throw and extirpate idolatry in the Roman Empire. As it

advanced, there was an amalgamation, a union. The old forms of the one

were vivified by the new spirit of the other, and that paganization to

which reference has already been made was the result.

THE MOHAMMEDAN HEAVEN. But, in Arabia, Mohammed overthrew and absolutely

annihilated the old idolatry. No trace of it is found in the doctrines

preached by him and his successors. The black stone that had fallen from

heaven--the meteorite of the Caaba--and its encircling idols, passed

totally out of view. The essential dogma of the new faith--"There is but

one God"--spread without any adulteration. Military successes had, in a

worldly sense made the religion of the Koran profitable; and, no matter

what dogmas may be, when that is the case, there will be plenty of

converts.

As to the popular doctrines of Mohammedanism, I shall here have nothing

to say. The reader who is interested in that matter will find an account

of them in a review of the Koran in the eleventh chapter of my "History

of the Intellectual Development of Europe." It is enough now to remark

that their heaven was arranged in seven stories, and was only a palace

of Oriental carnal delight. It was filled with black-eyed concubines

and servants. The form of God was, perhaps, more awful than that

of paganized Christianity. Anthropomorphism will, however, never be

obliterated from the ideas of the unintellectual. Their God, at the

best, will never be any thing more than the gigantic shadow of a man--a

vast phantom of humanity--like one of those Alpine spectres seen in the

midst of the clouds by him who turns his back on the sun.

Abubeker had scarcely seated himself in the khalifate, when he put forth

the following proclamation:

In the name of the most merciful God! Abubeker to the rest of the true

believers, health and happiness. The mercy and blessing of God be upon

you. I praise the most high God. I pray for his prophet Mohammed.

INVASION OF SYRIA. "This is to inform you that I intend to send the true

believers into Syria, to take it out of the hands of the infidels. And

I would have you know that the fighting for religion is an act of

obedience to God."

On the first encounter, Khaled, the Saracen general, hard pressed,

lifted up his hands in the midst of his army and said: "O God! these

vile wretches pray with idolatrous expressions and take to themselves

another God besides thee, but we acknowledge thy unity and affirm that

there is no other God but thee alone. Help us, we beseech thee, for the

sake of thy prophet Mohammed, against these idolaters." On the part of

the Saracens the conquest of Syria was conducted with ferocious piety.

The belief of the Syrian Christians aroused in their antagonists

sentiments of horror and indignation. "I will cleave the skull of any

blaspheming idolater who says that the Most Holy God, the Almighty

and Eternal, has begotten a son." The Khalif Omar, who took Jerusalem,

commences a letter to Heraclius, the Roman emperor: "In the name of the

most merciful God! Praise be to God, the Lord of this and of the other

world, who has neither female consort nor son." The Saracens nicknamed

the Christians "Associators," because they joined Mary and Jesus as

partners with the Almighty and Most Holy God.

It was not the intention of the khalif to command his army; that duty

was devolved on Abou Obeidah nominally, on Khaled in reality. In a

parting review the khalif enjoined on his troops justice, mercy, and the

observance of fidelity in their engagements he commanded them to abstain

from all frivolous conversation and from wine, and rigorously to observe

the hours of prayer; to be kind to the common people among whom they

passed, but to show no mercy to their priests.

FALL OF BOZRAH. Eastward of the river Jordan is Bozrah, a strong town

where Mohammed had first met his Nestorian Christian instructors. It was

one of the Roman forts with which the country was dotted over. Before

this place the Saracen army encamped. The garrison was strong, the

ramparts were covered with holy crosses and consecrated banners. It

might have made a long defense. But its governor, Romanus, betrayed his

trust, and stealthily opened its gates to the besiegers. His conduct

shows to what a deplorable condition the population of Syria had come.

After the surrender, in a speech he made to the people he had betrayed,

he said: "I renounce your society, both in this world and that to come.

And I deny him that was crucified, and whosoever worships him. And I

choose God for my Lord, Islam for my faith, Mecca for my temple, the

Moslems for my brethren, Mohammed for my prophet, who was sent to lead

us in the right way, and to exalt the true religion in spite of those

who join partners with God." Since the Persian invasion, Asia Minor,

Syria, and even Palestine, were full of traitors and apostates, ready to

join the Saracens. Romanus was but one of many thousands who had fallen

into disbelief through the victories of the Persians.

FALL OF DAMASCUS. From Bozrah it was only seventy miles northward to

Damascus, the capital of Syria. Thither, without delay, the Saracen army

marched. The city was at once summoned to take its option--conversion,

tribute, or the sword. In his palace at Antioch, barely one hundred and

fifty miles still farther north, the Emperor Heraclius received tidings

of the alarming advance of his assailants. He at once dispatched an army

of seventy thousand men. The Saracens were compelled to raise the

siege. A battle took place in the plains of Aiznadin, the Roman army

was overthrown and dispersed. Khaled reappeared before Damascus with his

standard of the black eagle, and after a renewed investment of seventy

days Damascus surrendered.

From the Arabian historians of these events we may gather that thus far

the Saracen armies were little better than a fanatic mob. Many of the

men fought naked. It was not unusual for a warrior to stand forth in

front and challenge an antagonist to mortal duel. Nay, more, even the

women engaged in the combats. Picturesque narratives have been

handed down to us relating the gallant manner in which they acquitted

themselves.

FALL OF JERUSALEM. From Damascus the Saracen army advanced northward,

guided by the snow-clad peaks of Libanus and the beautiful river

Orontes. It captured on its way Baalbec, the capital of the Syrian

valley, and Emesa, the chief city of the eastern plain. To resist its

further progress, Heraclius collected an army of one hundred and forty

thousand men. A battle took place at Yermuck; the right wing of the

Saracens was broken, but the soldiers were driven back to the field by

the fanatic expostulations of their women. The conflict ended in

the complete overthrow of the Roman army. Forty thousand were taken

prisoners, and a vast number killed. The whole country now lay open to

the victors. The advance of their army had been east of the Jordan.

It was clear that, before Asia Minor could be touched, the strong and

important cities of Palestine, which was now in their rear, must be

secured. There was a difference of opinion among the generals in the

field as to whether Caesarea or Jerusalem should be assailed first. The

matter was referred to the khalif, who, rightly preferring the moral

advantages of the capture of Jerusalem to the military advantages of the

capture of Caesarea, ordered the Holy City to be taken, and that at any

cost. Close siege was therefore laid to it. The inhabitants, remembering

the atrocities inflicted by the Persians, and the indignities that had

been offered to the Savior's sepulchre, prepared now for a vigorous

defense. But, after an investment of four months, the Patriarch

Sophronius appeared on the wall, asking terms of capitulation. There had

been misunderstandings among the generals at the capture of Damascus,

followed by a massacre of the fleeing inhabitants. Sophronius,

therefore, stipulated that the surrender of Jerusalem should take place

in presence of the khalif himself Accordingly, Omar, the khalif, came

from Medina for that purpose. He journeyed on a red camel, carrying

a bag of corn and one of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern

water-bottle. The Arab conqueror entered the Holy City riding by the

side of the Christian patriarch and the transference of the capital of

Christianity to the representative of Mohammedanism was effected without

tumult or outrage. Having ordered that a mosque should be built on the

site of the temple of Solomon, the khalif returned to the tomb of the

Prophet at Medina.

Heraclius saw plainly that the disasters which were fast settling on

Christianity were due to the dissensions of its conflicting sects; and

hence, while he endeavored to defend the empire with his armies, he

sedulously tried to compose those differences. With this view he pressed

for acceptance the Monothelite doctrine of the nature of Christ. But it

was now too late. Aleppo and Antioch were taken. Nothing could prevent

the Saracens from overrunning Asia Minor. Heraclius himself had to seek

safety in flight. Syria, which had been added by Pompey the Great,

the rival of Caesar, to the provinces of Rome, seven hundred years

previously--Syria, the birthplace of Christianity, the scene of its most

sacred and precious souvenirs, the land from which Heraclius himself had

once expelled the Persian intruder--was irretrievably lost. Apostates

and traitors had wrought this calamity. We are told that, as the ship

which bore him to Constantinople parted from the shore, Heraclius

gazed intently on the receding hills, and in the bitterness of anguish

exclaimed, "Farewell, Syria, forever farewell!"

It is needless to dwell on the remaining details of the Saracen

conquest: how Tripoli and Tyre were betrayed; how Caesarea was captured;

how with the trees of Libanus and the sailors of Phoenicia a Saracen

fleet was equipped, which drove the Roman navy into the Hellespont; how

Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades, were ravaged, and the Colossus, which

was counted as one of the wonders of the world, sold to a Jew, who

loaded nine hundred camels with its brass; how the armies of the khalif

advanced to the Black Sea, and even lay in front of Constantinople--all

this was as nothing after the fall of Jerusalem.

OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIANS. The fall of Jerusalem! the loss of

the metropolis of Christianity! In the ideas of that age the two

antagonistic forms of faith had submitted themselves to the ordeal of

the judgment of God. Victory had awarded the prize of battle, Jerusalem,

to the Mohammedan; and, notwithstanding the temporary successes of the

Crusaders, after much more than a thousand years in his hands it remains

to this day. The Byzantine historians are not without excuse for the

course they are condemned for taking: "They have wholly neglected the

great topic of the ruin of the Eastern Church." And as for the Western

Church, even the debased popes of the middle ages--the ages of the

Crusades--could not see without indignation that they were compelled

to rest the claims of Rome as the metropolis of Christendom on a false

legendary story of a visit of St. Peter to that city; while the true

metropolis, the grand, the sacred place of the birth, the life, the

death of Christ himself, was in the hands of the infidels! It has not

been the Byzantine historians alone who have tried to conceal this great

catastrophe. The Christian writers of Europe on all manner of subjects,

whether of history, religion, or science, have followed a similar

course against their conquering antagonists. It has been their constant

practice to hide what they could not depreciate, and depreciate what

they could not hide.

INVASION OF EGYPT. I have not space, nor indeed does it comport with the

intention of this work, to relate, in such detail as I have given to

the fall of Jerusalem, other conquests of the Saracens--conquests which

eventually established a Mohammedan empire far exceeding in geographical

extent that of Alexander, and even that of Rome. But, devoting a few

words to this subject, it may be said that Magianism received a worse

blow than that which had been inflicted on Christianity; The fate of

Persia was settled at the battle of Cadesia. At the sack of Ctesiphon,

the treasury, the royal arms, and an unlimited spoil, fell into the

hands of the Saracens. Not without reason do they call the battle of

Nehavend the "victory of victories." In one direction they advanced to

the Caspian, in the other southward along the Tigris to Persepolis.

The Persian king fled for his life over the great Salt Desert, from the

columns and statues of that city which had lain in ruins since the night

of the riotous banquet of Alexander. One division of the Arabian army

forced the Persian monarch over the Oxus. He was assassinated by the

Turks. His son was driven into China, and became a captain in the

Chinese emperor's guards. The country beyond the Oxus was reduced.

It paid a tribute of two million pieces of gold. While the emperor

at Peking was demanding the friendship of the khalif at Medina, the

standard of the Prophet was displayed on the banks of the Indus.

Among the generals who had greatly distinguished themselves in the

Syrian wars was Amrou, destined to be the conqueror of Egypt; for the

khalifs, not content with their victories on the North and East, now

turned their eyes to the West, and prepared for the annexation of

Africa. As in the former cases, so in this, sectarian treason assisted

them. The Saracen army was hailed as the deliverer of the Jacobite

Church; the Monophysite Christians of Egypt, that is, they who, in the

language of the Athanasian Creed, confounded the substance of the

Son, proclaimed, through their leader, Mokaukas, that they desired no

communion with the Greeks, either in this world or the next, that they

abjured forever the Byzantine tyrant and his synod of Chalcedon. They

hastened to pay tribute to the khalif, to repair the roads and bridges,

and to supply provisions and intelligence to the invading army.

FALL OF ALEXANDRIA. Memphis, one of the old Pharaonic capitals, soon

fell, and Alexandria was invested. The open sea behind gave opportunity

to Heraclius to reenforce the garrison continually. On his part, Omar,

who was now khalif sent to the succor of the besieging army the veteran

troops of Syria. There were many assaults and many sallies. In one Amrou

himself was taken prisoner by the besieged, but, through the dexterity

of a slave, made his escape. After a siege of fourteen months, and a

loss of twenty-three thousand men, the Saracens captured the city. In

his dispatch to the Khalif, Amrou enumerated the splendors of the great

city of the West "its four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four

hundred theatres, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable food,

and forty thousand tributary Jews."

So fell the second great city of Christendom--the fate of Jerusalem had

fallen on Alexandria, the city of Athanasius, and Arius, and Cyril; the

city that had imposed Trinitarian ideas and Mariolatry on the Church.

In his palace at Constantinople Heraclius received the fatal tidings.

He was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed as if his reign was to be

disgraced by the downfall of Christianity. He lived scarcely a month

after the loss of the town.

But if Alexandria had been essential to Constantinople in the supply

of orthodox faith, she was also essential in the supply of daily food.

Egypt was the granary of the Byzantines. For this reason two attempts

were made by powerful fleets and armies for the recovery of the place,

and twice had Amrou to renew his conquest. He saw with what facility

these attacks could be made, the place being open to the sea; he saw

that there was but one and that a fatal remedy. "By the living God, if

this thing be repeated a third time I will make Alexandria as open to

anybody as is the house of a prostitute!" He was better than his word,

for he forthwith dismantled its fortifications, and made it an untenable

place.

FALL OF CARTHAGE. It was not the intention of the khalifs to limit their

conquest to Egypt. Othman contemplated the annexation of the entire

North-African coast. His general, Abdallah, set out from Memphis with

forty thousand men, passed through the desert of Barca, and besieged

Tripoli. But, the plague breaking out in his army, he was compelled to

retreat to Egypt.

All attempts were now suspended for more than twenty years. Then Akbah

forced his way from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean. In front of the

Canary Islands he rode his horse into the sea, exclaiming: "Great God!

if my course were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on to the

unknown kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and

putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship any other gods

than thee."

These Saracen expeditions had been through the interior of the country,

for the Byzantine emperors, controlling for the time the Mediterranean,

had retained possession of the cities on the coast. The Khalif

Abdalmalek at length resolved on the reduction of Carthage, the most

important of those cities, and indeed the capital of North Africa.

His general, Hassan, carried it by escalade; but reenforcements from

Constantinople, aided by some Sicilian and Gothic troops, compelled

him to retreat. The relief was, however, only temporary. Hassan, in the

course of a few months renewed his attack. It proved successful, and he

delivered Carthage to the flames.

Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage, three out of the five great Christian

capitals, were lost. The fall of Constantinople was only a question of

time. After its fall, Rome alone remained.

In the development of Christianity, Carthage had played no insignificant

part. It had given to Europe its Latin form of faith, and some of its

greatest theologians. It was the home of St. Augustine.

Never in the history of the world had there been so rapid and extensive

a propagation of any religion as Mohammedanism. It was now dominating

from the Altai Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, from the centre of Asia

to the western verge of Africa.

CONQUEST OF SPAIN. The Khalif Alwalid next authorized the invasion of

Europe, the conquest of Andalusia, or the Region of the Evening.

Musa, his general, found, as had so often been the case elsewhere, two

effective allies sectarianism and treason--the Archbishop of Toledo and

Count Julian the Gothic general. Under their lead, in the very crisis

of the battle of Xeres, a large portion of the army went over to the

invaders; the Spanish king was compelled to flee from the field, and in

the pursuit he was drowned in the waters of the Guadalquivir.

With great rapidity Tarik, the lieutenant of Musa, pushed forward from

the battle-field to Toledo, and thence northward. On the arrival of Musa

the reduction of the Spanish peninsula was completed, and the wreck of

the Gothic army driven beyond the Pyrenees into France. Considering the

conquest of Spain as only the first step in his victories, he announced

his intention of forcing his way into Italy, and preaching the unity of

God in the Vatican. Thence he would march to Constantinople, and, having

put all end to the Roman Empire and Christianity, would pass into Asia

and lay his victorious sword on the footstool of the khalif at Damascus.

But this was not to be. Musa, envious of his lieutenant, Tarik, had

treated him with great indignity. The friends of Tarik at the court of

the khalif found means of retaliation. An envoy from Damascus arrested

Musa in his camp; he was carried before his sovereign, disgraced by a

public whipping, and died of a broken heart.

INVASION OF FRANCE. Under other leaders, however, the Saracen conquest

of France was attempted. In a preliminary campaign the country from the

mouth of the Garonne to that of the Loire was secured. Then Abderahman,

the Saracen commander, dividing his forces into two columns, with one

on the east passed the Rhone, and laid siege to Arles. A Christian army,

attempting the relief of the place, was defeated with heavy loss.

His western column, equally successful, passed the Dordogne, defeated

another Christian army, inflicting on it such dreadful loss that,

according to its own fugitives, "God alone could number the slain." All

Central France was now overrun; the banks of the Loire were reached;

the churches and monasteries were despoiled of their treasures; and

the tutelar saints, who had worked so many miracles when there was no

necessity, were found to want the requisite power when it was so greatly

needed.

The progress of the invaders was at length stopped by Charles Martel

(A.D. 732). Between Tours and Poictiers, a great battle, which lasted

seven days, was fought. Abderahman was killed, the Saracens retreated,

and soon afterward were compelled to recross the Pyrenees.

The banks of the Loire, therefore, mark the boundary of the Mohammedan

advance in Western Europe. Gibbon, in his narrative of these great

events, makes this remark: "A victorious line of march had been

prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks

of the Loire--a repetition of an equal space would have carried the

Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland."

INSULT TO ROME. It is not necessary for me to add to this sketch of the

military diffusion of Mohammedanism, the operations of the Saracens on

the Mediterranean Sea, their conquest of Crete and Sicily, their insult

to Rome. It will be found, however, that their presence in Sicily

and the south of Italy exerted a marked influence on the intellectual

development of Europe.

Their insult to Rome! What could be more humiliating than the

circumstances under which it took place (A.D. 846)? An insignificant

Saracen expedition entered the Tiber and appeared before the walls of

the city. Too weak to force an entrance, it insulted and plundered the

precincts, sacrilegiously violating the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Had the city itself been sacked, the moral effect could not have been

greater. From the church of St. Peter its altar of silver was torn

away and sent to Africa--St. Peter's altar, the very emblem of Roman

Christianity!

Constantinople had already been besieged by the Saracens more than once;

its fall was predestined, and only postponed. Rome had received the

direst insult, the greatest loss that could be inflicted upon it;

the venerable churches of Asia Minor had passed out of existence; no

Christian could set his foot in Jerusalem without permission; the Mosque

of Omar stood on the site of the Temple of Solomon. Among the ruins of

Alexandria the Mosque of Mercy marked the spot where a Saracen general,

satiated with massacre, had, in contemptuous compassion, spared the

fugitive relics of the enemies of Mohammed; nothing remained of Carthage

but her blackened ruins. The most powerful religious empire that the

world had ever seen had suddenly come into existence. It stretched from

the Atlantic Ocean to the Chinese Wall, from the shores of the Caspian

to those of the Indian Ocean, and yet, in one sense, it had not reached

its culmination. The day was to come when it was to expel the successors

of the Caesars from their capital, and hold the peninsula of Greece in

subjection, to dispute with Christianity the empire of Europe in the

very centre of that continent, and in Africa to extend its dogmas and

faith across burning deserts and through pestilential forests from the

Mediterranean to regions southward far beyond the equinoctial line.

DISSENSIONS OF THE ARABS. But, though Mohammedanism had not reached its

culmination, the dominion of the khalifs had. Not the sword of Charles

Martel, but the internal dissension of the vast Arabian Empire, was the

salvation of Europe. Though the Ommiade Khalifs were popular in Syria,

elsewhere they were looked upon as intruders or usurpers; the kindred

of the apostle was considered to be the rightful representative of his

faith. Three parties, distinguished by their colors, tore the khalifate

asunder with their disputes, and disgraced it by their atrocities. The

color of the Ommiades was white, that of the Fatimites green, that of

the Abassides black; the last represented the party of Abbas, the uncle

of Mohammed. The result of these discords was a tripartite division

of the Mohammedan Empire in the tenth century into the khalifates of

Bagdad, of Cairoan, and of Cordova. Unity in Mohammedan political action

was at an end, and Christendom found its safeguard, not in supernatural

help, but in the quarrels of the rival potentates. To internal

animosities foreign pressures were eventually added and Arabism, which

had done so much for the intellectual advancement of the world, came to

an end when the Turks and the Berbers attained to power.

The Saracens had become totally regardless of European opposition--they

were wholly taken up with their domestic quarrels. Ockley says with

truth, in his history: "The Saracens had scarce a deputy lieutenant or

general that would not have thought it the greatest affront, and such

as ought to stigmatize him with indelible disgrace, if he should have

suffered himself to have been insulted by the united forces of all

Europe. And if any one asks why the Greeks did not exert themselves

more, in order to the extirpation of these insolent invaders, it is a

sufficient answer to any person that is acquainted with the characters

of those men to say that Amrou kept his residence at Alexandria, and

Moawyah at Damascus."

As to their contempt, this instance may suffice: Nicephorus, the Roman

emperor, had sent to the Khalif Haroun-al-Raschid a threatening

letter, and this was the reply: "In the name of the most merciful God,

Haroun-al-Raschid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman

dog! I have read thy letter, O thou son of an unbelieving mother. Thou

shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my reply!" It was written in letters

of blood and fire on the plains of Phrygia.

POLITICAL EFFECT OF POLYGAMY. A nation may recover the confiscation

of its provinces, the confiscation of its wealth; it may survive the

imposition of enormous war-fines; but it never can recover from that

most frightful of all war-acts, the confiscation of its women. When

Abou Obeidah sent to Omar news of his capture of Antioch, Omar gently

upbraided him that he had not let the troops have the women. "If they

want to marry in Syria, let them; and let them have as many female

slaves as they have occasion for." It was the institution of polygamy,

based upon the confiscation of the women in the vanquished countries,

that secured forever the Mohammedan rule. The children of these unions

gloried in their descent from their conquering fathers. No better proof

can be given of the efficacy of this policy than that which is furnished

by North Africa. The irresistible effect of polygamy in consolidating

the new order of things was very striking. In little more than a single

generation, the Khalif was informed by his officers that the tribute

must cease, for all the children born in that region were Mohammedans,

and all spoke Arabic.

MOHAMMEDANISM. Mohammedanism, as left by its founder, was an

anthropomorphic religion. Its God was only a gigantic man, its heaven

a mansion of carnal pleasures. From these imperfect ideas its more

intelligent classes very soon freed themselves, substituting for them

others more philosophical, more correct. Eventually they attained to an

accordance with those that have been pronounced in our own times by the

Vatican Council as orthodox. Thus Al-Gazzali says: "A knowledge of God

cannot be obtained by means of the knowledge a man has of himself, or

of his own soul. The attributes of God cannot be determined from

the attributes of man. His sovereignty and government can neither be

compared nor measured."

CHAPTER IV.

THE RESTORATION OF SCIENCE IN THE SOUTH.

By the influence of the Nestorians and Jews, the Arabians

are turned to the cultivation of Science.--They modify

their views as to the destiny of man, and obtain true

conceptions respecting the structure of the world.--They

ascertain the size of the earth, and determine its shape.--

Their khalifs collect great libraries, patronize every

department of science and literature, establish astronomical

observatories.--They develop the mathematical sciences,

invent algebra, and improve geometry and trigonometry.--They

collect and translate the old Greek mathematical and

astronomical works, and adopt the inductive method of

Aristotle.--They establish many colleges, and, with the aid

of the Nestorians, organize a public-school system.--They

introduce the Arabic numerals and arithmetic, and catalogue

and give names to the stars.--They lay the foundation of

modern astronomy, chemistry, and physics, and introduce

great improvements in agriculture and manufactures.

"IN the course of my long life," said the Khalif Ali, "I have often

observed that men are more like the times they live in than they

are like their fathers." This profoundly philosophical remark of the

son-in-law of Mohammed is strictly true; for, though the personal, the

bodily lineaments of a man may indicate his parentage, the constitution

of his mind, and therefore the direction of his thoughts, is determined

by the environment in which he lives.

When Amrou, the lieutenant of the Khalif Omar, conquered Egypt, and

annexed it to the Saracenic Empire, he found in Alexandria a Greek

grammarian, John surnamed Philoponus, or the Labor-lover. Presuming on

the friendship which had arisen between them, the Greek solicited as a

gift the remnant of the great library--a remnant which war and time and

bigotry had spared. Amrou, therefore, sent to the khalif to ascertain

his pleasure. "If," replied the khalif, "the books agree with the Koran,

the Word of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if

they disagree with it, they are pernicious. Let them be destroyed."

Accordingly, they were distributed among the baths of Alexandria, and it

is said that six months were barely sufficient to consume them.

Although the fact has been denied, there can be little doubt that Omar

gave this order. The khalif was an illiterate man; his environment

was an environment of fanaticism and ignorance. Omar's act was an

illustration of Ali's remark.

THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY BURNT. But it must not be supposed that the

books which John the Labor-lover coveted were those which constituted

the great library of the Ptolemies, and that of Eumenes, King of

Pergamus. Nearly a thousand years had elapsed since Philadelphus began

his collection. Julius Caesar had burnt more than half; the Patriarchs

of Alexandria had not only permitted but superintended the dispersion

of almost all the rest. Orosius expressly states that he saw the empty

cases or shelves of the library twenty years after Theophilus, the uncle

of St. Cyril, had procured from the Emperor Theodosius a rescript for

its destruction. Even had this once noble collection never endured such

acts of violence, the mere wear and tear, and perhaps, I may add, the

pilfering of a thousand years, would have diminished it sadly.

Though John, as the surname he received indicates, might rejoice in a

superfluity of occupation, we may be certain that the care of a library

of half a million books would transcend even his well-tried powers; and

the cost of preserving and supporting it, that had demanded the ample

resources of the Ptolemies and the Caesars, was beyond the means of a

grammarian. Nor is the time required for its combustion or destruction

any indication of the extent of the collection. Of all articles of

fuel, parchment is, perhaps, the most wretched. Paper and papyrus do

excellently well as kindling-materials, but we may be sure that the

bath-men of Alexandria did not resort to parchment so long as they could

find any thing else, and of parchment a very large portion of these

books was composed.

There can, then, be no more doubt that Omar did order the destruction of

this library, under an impression of its uselessness or its irreligious

tendency, than that the Crusaders burnt the library of Tripoli,

fancifully said to have consisted of three million volumes. The first

apartment entered being found to contain nothing but the Koran, all the

other books were supposed to be the works of the Arabian impostor,

and were consequently committed to the flames. In both cases the story

contains some truth and much exaggeration. Bigotry, however, has often

distinguished itself by such exploits. The Spaniards burnt in Mexico

vast piles of American picture-writings, an irretrievable loss; and

Cardinal Ximenes delivered to the flames, in the squares of Granada,

eighty thousand Arabic manuscripts, many of them translations of

classical authors.

We have seen how engineering talent, stimulated by Alexander's Persian

campaign, led to a wonderful development of pure science under the

Ptolemies; a similar effect may be noted as the result of the Saracenic

military operations.

The friendship contracted by Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, with John

the Grammarian, indicates how much the Arabian mind was predisposed to

liberal ideas. Its step from the idolatry of the Caaba to the monotheism

of Mohammed prepared it to expatiate in the wide and pleasing fields

of literature and philosophy. There were two influences to which it

was continually exposed. They conspired in determining its path. These

were--1. That of the Nestorians in Syria; 2. That of the Jews in Egypt.

INFLUENCE OF THE NESTORIANS AND JEWS. In the last chapter I have briefly

related the persecution of Nestor and his disciples. They bore testimony

to the oneness of God, through many sufferings and martyrdoms. They

utterly repudiated an Olympus filled with gods and goddesses. "Away from

us a queen of heaven!"

Such being their special views, the Nestorians found no difficulty in

affiliating with their Saracen conquerors, by whom they were treated

not only with the highest respect, but intrusted with some of the most

important offices of the state. Mohammed, in the strongest manner,

prohibited his followers from committing any injuries against them.

Jesuiabbas, their pontiff, concluded treaties both with the Prophet and

with Omar, and subsequently the Khalif Haroun-al-Raschid placed all his

public schools under the superintendence of John Masue, a Nestorian.

To the influence of the Nestorians that of the Jews was added. When

Christianity displayed a tendency to unite itself with paganism, the

conversion of the Jews was arrested; it totally ceased when Trinitarian

ideas were introduced. The cities of Syria and Egypt were full of Jews.

In Alexandria alone, at the time of its capture by Amrou, there were

forty thousand who paid tribute. Centuries of misfortune and persecution

had served only to confirm them in their monotheism, and to strengthen

that implacable hatred of idolatry which they had cherished ever

since the Babylonian captivity. Associated with the Nestorians, they

translated into Syriac many Greek and Latin philosophical works, which

were retranslated into Arabic. While the Nestorian was occupied with

the education of the children of the great Mohammedan families, the Jew

found his way into them in the character of a physician.

FATALISM OF THE ARABIANS. Under these influences the ferocious

fanaticism of the Saracens abated, their manners were polished, their

thoughts elevated. They overran the realms of Philosophy and Science

as quickly as they had overrun the provinces of the Roman Empire. They

abandoned the fallacies of vulgar Mohammedanism, accepting in their

stead scientific truth.

In a world devoted to idolatry, the sword of the Saracen had vindicated

the majesty of God. The doctrine of fatalism, inculcated by the Koran,

had powerfully contributed to that result. "No man can anticipate or

postpone his predetermined end. Death will overtake us even in lofty

towers. From the beginning God hath settled the place in which each man

shall die." In his figurative language the Arab said: "No man can by

flight escape his fate. The Destinies ride their horses by night....

Whether asleep in bed or in the storm of battle, the angel of death will

find thee." "I am convinced," said Ali, to whose wisdom we have already

referred--"I am convinced that the affairs of men go by divine decree,

and not by our administration." The Mussulmen are those who submissively

resign themselves to the will of God. They reconciled fate and free-will

by saying, "The outline is given us, we color the picture of life as we

will." They said that, if we would overcome the laws of Nature, we must

not resist, we must balance them against each other.

This dark doctrine prepared its devotees for the accomplishment of great

things--things such as the Saracens did accomplish. It converted despair

into resignation, and taught men to disdain hope. There was a proverb

among them that "Despair is a freeman, Hope is a slave."

But many of the incidents of war showed plainly that medicines

may assuage pain, that skill may close wounds, that those who are

incontestably dying may be snatched from the grave. The Jewish physician

became a living, an accepted protest against the fatalism of the Koran.

By degrees the sternness of predestination was mitigated, and it was

admitted that in individual life there is an effect due to free-will;

that by his voluntary acts man may within certain limits determine his

own course. But, so far as nations are concerned, since they can yield

no personal accountability to God, they are placed under the control of

immutable law.

In this respect the contrast between the Christian and the Mohammedan

nations was very striking: The Christian was convinced of incessant

providential interventions; he believed that there was no such thing as

law in the government of the world. By prayers and entreaties he might

prevail with God to change the current of affairs, or, if that failed,

he might succeed with Christ, or perhaps with the Virgin Mary, or

through the intercession of the saints, or by the influence of their

relics or bones. If his own supplications were unavailing, he might

obtain his desire through the intervention of his priest, or through

that of the holy men of the Church, and especially if oblations or gifts

of money were added. Christendom believed that she could change the

course of affairs by influencing the conduct of superior beings. Islam

rested in a pious resignation to the unchangeable will of God. The

prayer of the Christian was mainly an earnest intercession for benefits

hoped for, that of the Saracen a devout expression of gratitude for the

past. Both substituted prayer for the ecstatic meditation of India.

To the Christian the progress of the world was an exhibition of

disconnected impulses, of sudden surprises. To the Mohammedan that

progress presented a very different aspect. Every corporeal motion was

due to some preceding motion; every thought to some preceding thought;

every historical event was the offspring of some preceding event; every

human action was the result of some foregone and accomplished action. In

the long annals of our race, nothing has ever been abruptly introduced.

There has been an orderly, an inevitable sequence from event to event.

There is an iron chain of destiny, of which the links are facts; each

stands in its preordained place--not one has ever been disturbed, not

one has ever been removed. Every man came into the world without his own

knowledge, he is to depart from it perhaps against his own wishes. Then

let him calmly fold his hands, and expect the issues of fate.

Coincidently with this change of opinion as to the government of

individual life, there came a change as respects the mechanical

construction of the world. According to the Koran, the earth is a square

plane, edged with vast mountains, which serve the double purpose of

balancing it in its seat, and of sustaining the dome of the sky. Our

devout admiration of the power and wisdom of God should be excited by

the spectacle of this vast crystalline brittle expanse, which has been

safely set in its position without so much as a crack or any other

injury. Above the sky, and resting on it, is heaven, built in seven

stories, the uppermost being the habitation of God, who, under the form

of a gigantic man, sits on a throne, having on either side winged bulls,

like those in the palaces of old Assyrian kings.

THEY MEASURE THE EARTH. These ideas, which indeed are not peculiar to

Mohammedanism, but are entertained by all men in a certain stage of

their intellectual development as religious revelations, were

very quickly exchanged by the more advanced Mohammedans for others

scientifically correct. Yet, as has been the case in Christian

countries, the advance was not made without resistance on the part

of the defenders of revealed truth. Thus when Al-Mamun, having become

acquainted with the globular form of the earth, gave orders to his

mathematicians and astronomers to measure a degree of a great circle

upon it, Takyuddin, one of the most celebrated doctors of divinity

of that time, denounced the wicked khalif, declaring that God would

assuredly punish him for presumptuously interrupting the devotions

of the faithful by encouraging and diffusing a false and atheistical

philosophy among them. Al-Mamun, however, persisted. On the shores of

the Red Sea, in the plains of Shinar, by the aid of an astrolabe, the

elevation of the pole above the horizon was determined at two stations

on the same meridian, exactly one degree apart. The distance between

the two stations was then measured, and found to be two hundred thousand

Hashemite cubits; this gave for the entire circumference of the earth

about twenty-four thousand of our miles, a determination not far

from the truth. But, since the spherical form could not be positively

asserted from one such measurement, the khalif caused another to be made

near Cufa in Mesopotamia. His astronomers divided themselves into two

parties, and, starting from a given point, each party measured an arc

of one degree, the one northward, the other southward. Their result

is given in cubits. If the cubit employed was that known as the royal

cubit, the length of a degree was ascertained within one-third of a mile

of its true value. From these measures the khalif concluded that the

globular form was established.

THEIR PASSION FOR SCIENCE. It is remarkable how quickly the ferocious

fanaticism of the Saracens was transformed into a passion for

intellectual pursuits. At first the Koran was an obstacle to

literature and science. Mohammed had extolled it as the grandest of all

compositions, and had adduced its unapproachable excellence as a proof

of his divine mission. But, in little more than twenty years after his

death, the experience that had been acquired in Syria, Persia, Asia

Minor, Egypt, had produced a striking effect, and Ali the khalif

reigning at that time, avowedly encouraged all kinds of literary

pursuits. Moawyah, the founder of the Ommiade dynasty, who followed in

661, revolutionized the government. It had been elective, he made it

hereditary. He removed its seat from Medina to a more central position

at Damascus, and entered on a career of luxury and magnificence. He

broke the bonds of a stern fanaticism, and put himself forth as a

cultivator and patron of letters. Thirty years had wrought a wonderful

change. A Persian satrap who had occasion to pay homage to Omar, the

second khalif, found him asleep among the beggars on the steps of the

Mosque of Medina; but foreign envoys who had occasion to seek Moawyah,

the sixth khalif, were presented to him in a magnificent palace,

decorated with exquisite arabesques, and adorned with flower-gardens and

fountains.

THEIR LITERATURE. In less than a century after the death of Mohammed,

translations of the chief Greek philosophical authors had been made into

Arabic; poems such as the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," being considered

to have an irreligious tendency from their mythological allusions, were

rendered into Syriac, to gratify the curiosity of the learned. Almansor,

during his khalifate (A.D. 753-775), transferred the seat of government

to Bagdad, which he converted into a splendid metropolis; he gave much

of his time to the study and promotion of astronomy, and established

schools of medicine and law. His grandson, Haroun-al-Raschid (A.D. 786),

followed his example, and ordered that to every mosque in his dominions

a school should be attached. But the Augustan age of Asiatic learning

was during the khalifate of Al-Mamun (A.D. 813-832). He made Bagdad the

centre of science, collected great libraries, and surrounded himself

with learned men.

The elevated taste thus cultivated continued after the division of the

Saracen Empire by internal dissensions into three parts. The Abasside

dynasty in Asia, the Fatimite in Egypt, and the Ommiade in Spain, became

rivals not merely in politics, but also in letters and science.

THEY ORIGINATE CHEMISTRY. In letters the Saracens embraced every topic

that can amuse or edify the mind. In later times, it was their boast

that they had produced more poets than all other nations combined. In

science their great merit consists in this, that they cultivated it

after the manner of the Alexandrian Greeks, not after the manner of the

European Greeks. They perceived that it can never be advanced by mere

speculation; its only sure progress is by the practical interrogation of

Nature. The essential characteristics of their method are experiment and

observation. Geometry and the mathematical sciences they looked upon

as instruments of reasoning. In their numerous writings on mechanics,

hydrostatics, optics, it is interesting to remark that the solution of

a problem is always obtained by performing an experiment, or by an

instrumental observation. It was this that made them the originators of

chemistry, that led them to the invention of all kinds of apparatus for

distillation, sublimation, fusion, filtration, etc.; that in astronomy

caused them to appeal to divided instruments, as quadrants and

astrolabes; in chemistry, to employ the balance, the theory of which

they were perfectly familiar with; to construct tables of specific

gravities and astronomical tables, as those of Bagdad, Spain, Samarcand;

that produced their great improvements in geometry, trigonometry, the

invention of algebra, and the adoption of the Indian numeration in

arithmetic. Such were the results of their preference of the inductive

method of Aristotle, their declining the reveries of Plato.

THEIR GREAT LIBRARIES. For the establishment and extension of the public

libraries, books were sedulously collected. Thus the khalif Al-Mamun

is reported to have brought into Bagdad hundreds of camel-loads of

manuscripts. In a treaty he made with the Greek emperor, Michael III.,

he stipulated that one of the Constantinople libraries should be given

up to him. Among the treasures he thus acquired was the treatise of

Ptolemy on the mathematical construction of the heavens. He had it

forthwith translated into Arabic, under the title of "Al-magest." The

collections thus acquired sometimes became very large; thus the Fatimite

Library at Cairo contained one hundred thousand volumes, elegantly

transcribed and bound. Among these, there were six thousand five hundred

manuscripts on astronomy and medicine alone. The rules of this library

permitted the lending out of books to students resident at Cairo. It

also contained two globes, one of massive silver and one of brass; the

latter was said to have been constructed by Ptolemy, the former cost

three thousand golden crowns. The great library of the Spanish khalifs

eventually numbered six hundred thousand volumes; its catalogue alone

occupied forty-four. Besides this, there were seventy public libraries

in Andalusia. The collections in the possession of individuals were

sometimes very extensive. A private doctor refused the invitation of a

Sultan of Bokhara because the carriage of his books would have required

four hundred camels.

There was in every great library a department for the copying or

manufacture of translations. Such manufactures were also often an

affair of private enterprise. Honian, a Nestorian physician, had an

establishment of the kind at Bagdad (A.D. 850). He issued versions of

Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Galen, etc. As to original works, it was

the custom of the authorities of colleges to require their professors

to prepare treatises on prescribed topics. Every khalif had his own

historian. Books of romances and tales, such as "The Thousand and One

Arabian Nights' Entertainments," bear testimony to the creative fancy

of the Saracens. Besides these, there were works on all kinds of

subjects--history, jurisprudence, politics, philosophy, biographies not

only of illustrious men, but also of celebrated horses and camels. These

were issued without any censorship or restraint, though, in later times,

works on theology required a license for publication. Books of reference

abounded, geographical, statistical, medical, historical dictionaries,

and even abridgments or condensations of them, as the "Encyclopedic

Dictionary of all the Sciences," by Mohammed Abu Abdallah. Much pride

was taken in the purity and whiteness of the paper, in the skillful

intermixture of variously-colored inks, and in the illumination of

titles by gilding and other adornments.

The Saracen Empire was dotted all over with colleges. They were

established in Mongolia, Tartary, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt,

North Africa, Morocco, Fez, Spain. At one extremity of this vast region,

which far exceeded the Roman Empire in geographical extent, were the

college and astronomical observatory of Samarcand, at the other the

Giralda in Spain. Gibbon, referring to this patronage of learning, says:

"The same royal prerogative was claimed by the independent emirs of the

provinces, and their emulation diffused the taste and the rewards of

science from Samarcand and Bokhara to Fez and Cordova. The vizier of a

sultan consecrated a sum of two hundred thousand pieces of gold to

the foundation of a college at Bagdad, which he endowed with an annual

revenue of fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits of instruction were

communicated, perhaps, at different times, to six thousand disciples

of every degree, from the son of the noble to that of the mechanic; a

sufficient allowance was provided for the indigent scholars, and the

merit or industry of the professors was repaid with adequate stipends.

In every city the productions of Arabic literature were copied and

collected, by the curiosity of the studious and the vanity of the rich."

The superintendence of these schools was committed with noble liberality

sometimes to Nestorians, sometimes to Jews. It mattered not in what

country a man was born, nor what were his religious opinions; his

attainment in learning was the only thing to be considered. The great

Khalif Al-Mamun had declared that "they are the elect of God, his best

and most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement

of their rational faculties; that the teachers of wisdom are the true

luminaries and legislators of this world, which, without their aid,

would again sink into ignorance and barbarism."

After the example of the medical college of Cairo, other medical

colleges required their students to pass a rigid examination. The

candidate then received authority to enter on the practice of his

profession. The first medical college established in Europe was that

founded by the Saracens at Salerno, in Italy. The first astronomical

observatory was that erected by them at Seville, in Spain.

THE ARABIAN SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT. It would far transcend the limits of

this book to give an adequate statement of the results of this imposing

scientific movement. The ancient sciences were greatly extended--new

ones were brought into existence. The Indian method of arithmetic was

introduced, a beautiful invention, which expresses all numbers by ten

characters, giving them an absolute value, and a value by position,

and furnishing simple rules for the easy performance of all kinds

of calculations. Algebra, or universal arithmetic--the method of

calculating indeterminate quantities, or investigating the relations

that subsist among quantities of all kinds, whether arithmetical or

geometrical--was developed from the germ that Diophantus had left.

Mohammed Ben Musa furnished the solution of quadratic equations,

Omar Ben Ibra him that of cubic equations. The Saracens also gave to

trigonometry its modern form, substituting sines for chords, which had

been previously used; they elevated it into a separate science.

Musa, above mentioned, was the author of a "Treatise on Spherical

Trigonometry." Al-Baghadadi left one on land-surveying, so excellent,

that by some it has been declared to be a copy of Euclid's lost work on

that subject.

ARABIAN ASTRONOMY. In astronomy, they not only made catalogues, but

maps of the stars visible in their skies, giving to those of the larger

magnitudes the Arabic names they still bear on our celestial globes.

They ascertained, as we have seen, the size of the earth by the

measurement of a degree on her surface, determined the obliquity of

the ecliptic, published corrected tables of the sun and moon fixed

the length of the year, verified the precession of the equinoxes. The

treatise of Albategnius on "The Science of the Stars" is spoken of by

Laplace with respect; he also draws attention to an important fragment

of Ibn-Junis, the astronomer of Hakem, the Khalif of Egypt, A.D. 1000,

as containing a long series of observations from the time of Almansor,

of eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets, occultations

of stars--observations which have cast much light on the great

variations of the system of the world. The Arabian astronomers also

devoted themselves to the construction and perfection of astronomical

instruments, to the measurement of time by clocks of various kinds, by

clepsydras and sun-dials. They were the first to introduce, for this

purpose, the use of the pendulum.

In the experimental sciences, they originated chemistry; they discovered

some of its most important reagents--sulphuric acid, nitric acid,

alcohol. They applied that science in the practice of medicine, being

the first to publish pharmacopoeias or dispensatories, and to include in

them mineral preparations. In mechanics, they had determined the laws

of falling bodies, had ideas, by no means indistinct, of the nature of

gravity; they were familiar with the theory of the mechanical powers. In

hydrostatics they constructed the first tables of the specific gravities

of bodies, and wrote treatises on the flotation and sinking of bodies

in water. In optics, they corrected the Greek misconception, that a

ray proceeds from the eye, and touches the object seen, introducing

the hypothesis that the ray passes from the object to the eye. They

understood the phenomena of the reflection and refraction of light.

Alhazen made the great discovery of the curvilinear path of a ray of

light through the atmosphere, and proved that we see the sun and moon

before they have risen, and after they have set.

AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURE. The effects of this scientific activity are

plainly perceived in the great improvements that took place in many

of the industrial arts. Agriculture shows it in better methods of

irrigation, the skillful employment of manures, the raising of improved

breeds of cattle, the enactment of wise codes of rural laws, the

introduction of the culture of rice, and that of sugar and coffee. The

manufactures show it in the great extension of the industries of silk,

cotton, wool; in the fabrication of cordova and morocco leather, and

paper; in mining, casting, and various metallurgic operations; in the

making of Toledo blades.

Passionate lovers of poetry and music, they dedicated much of their

leisure time to those elegant pursuits. They taught Europe the game of

chess; they gave it its taste for works of fiction--romances and novels.

In the graver domains of literature they took delight: they had many

admirable compositions on such subjects as the instability of human

greatness; the consequences of irreligion; the reverses of fortune; the

origin, duration, and end of the world. Sometimes, not without surprise,

we meet with ideas which we flatter ourselves have originated in our

own times. Thus our modern doctrines of evolution and development were

taught in their schools. In fact, they carried them much farther than we

are disposed to do, extending them even to inorganic or mineral

things. The fundamental principle of alchemy was the natural process of

development of metalline bodies. "When common people," says Al-Khazini,

writing in the twelfth century, "hear from natural philosophers that

gold is a body which has attained to perfection of maturity, to the

goal of completeness, they firmly believe that it is something which has

gradually come to that perfection by passing through the forms of all

other metallic bodies, so that its gold nature was originally lead,

afterward it became tin, then brass, then silver, and finally reached

the development of gold; not knowing that the natural philosophers mean,

in saying this, only something like what they mean when they speak of

man, and attribute to him a completeness and equilibrium in nature and

constitution--not that man was once a bull, and was changed into an

ass, and afterward into a horse, and after that into an ape, and finally

became a man."

CHAPTER V.

CONFLICT RESPECTING THE NATURE OF THE SOUL.--DOCTRINE OF

EMANATION AND ABSORPTION.

European ideas respecting the soul.--It resembles the form

of the body.

Philosophical views of the Orientals.--The Vedic theology

and Buddhism assert the doctrine of emanation and

absorption.--It is advocated by Aristotle, who is followed

by the Alexandrian school, and subsequently by the Jews and

Arabians.--It is found in the writings of Erigena.

Connection of this doctrine with the theory of conservation

and correlation of force.--Parallel between the origin and

destiny of the body and the soul.--The necessity of founding

human on comparative psychology.

Averroism, which is based on these facts, is brought into

Christendom through Spain and Sicily.

History of the repression of Averroism.--Revolt of Islam

against it.--Antagonism of the Jewish synagogues.--Its

destruction undertaken by the papacy.--Institution of the

Inquisition in Spain.--Frightful persecutions and their

results.--Expulsion of the Jews and Moors.--Overthrow of

Averroism in Europe.--Decisive action of the late Vatican

Council.

THE pagan Greeks and Romans believed that the spirit of man resembles

his bodily form, varying its appearance with his variations, and growing

with his growth. Heroes, to whom it had been permitted to descend into

Hades, had therefore without difficulty recognized their former friends.

Not only had the corporeal aspect been retained, but even the customary

raiment.

THE SOUL. The primitive Christians, whose conceptions of a future life

and of heaven and hell, the abodes of the blessed and the sinful, were

far more vivid than those of their pagan predecessors, accepted and

intensified these ancient ideas. They did not doubt that in the world

to come they should meet their friends, and hold converse with them, as

they had done here upon earth--an expectation that gives consolation to

the human heart, reconciling it to the most sorrowful bereavements, and

restoring to it its dead.

In the uncertainty as to what becomes of the soul in the interval

between its separation from the body and the judgment-day, many

different opinions were held. Some thought that it hovered over the

grave, some that it wandered disconsolate through the air. In the

popular belief, St. Peter sat as a door-keeper at the gate of heaven. To

him it had been given to bind or to loose. He admitted or excluded the

Spirits of men at his pleasure. Many persons, however, were disposed to

deny him this power, since his decisions would be anticipatory of the

judgment-day, which would thus be rendered needless. After the time

of Gregory the Great, the doctrine of purgatory met with general

acceptance. A resting-place was provided for departed spirits.

That the spirits of the dead occasionally revisit the living, or haunt

their former abodes, has been in all ages, in all European countries,

a fixed belief, not confined to rustics, but participated in by the

intelligent. A pleasing terror gathers round the winter's-evening

fireside at the stories of apparitions, goblins, ghosts. In the old

times the Romans had their lares, or spirits of those who had led

virtuous lives; their larvae or lemures, the spirits of the wicked;

their manes, the spirits of those of whom the merits were doubtful. If

human testimony on such subjects can be of any value, there is a body

of evidence reaching from the remotest ages to the present time, as

extensive and unimpeachable as is to be found in support of any thing

whatever, that these shades of the dead congregate near tombstones,

or take up their secret abode in the gloomy chambers of dilapidated

castles, or walk by moonlight in moody solitude.

ASIATIC PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEWS. While these opinions have universally found

popular acceptance in Europe, others of a very different nature have

prevailed extensively in Asia, and indeed very generally in the higher

regions of thought. Ecclesiastical authority succeeded in repressing

them in the sixteenth century, but they never altogether disappeared.

In our own times so silently and extensively have they been diffused in

Europe, that it was found expedient in the papal Syllabus to draw

them in a very conspicuous manner into the open light; and the Vatican

Council, agreeing in that view of their obnoxious tendency and secret

spread, has in an equally prominent and signal manner among its first

canons anathematized all persons who hold them. "Let him be anathema who

says that spiritual things are emanations of the divine substance, or

that the divine essence by manifestation or development becomes all

things." In view of this authoritative action, it is necessary now to

consider the character and history of these opinions.

Ideas respecting the nature of God necessarily influence ideas

respecting the nature of the soul. The eastern Asiatics had adopted the

conception of an impersonal God, and, as regards the soul, its necessary

consequence, the doctrine of emanation and absorption.

EMANATION AND ABSORPTION. Thus the Vedic theology is based on the

acknowledgment of a universal spirit pervading all things. "There is in

truth but one Deity, the supreme Spirit; he is of the same nature as the

soul of man." Both the Vedas and the Institutes of Menu affirm that

the soul is an emanation of the all-pervading Intellect, and that it is

necessarily destined to be reabsorbed. They consider it to be without

form, and that visible Nature, with all its beauties and harmonies, is

only the shadow of God.

Vedaism developed itself into Buddhism, which has become the faith of

a majority of the human race. This system acknowledges that there is a

supreme Power, but denies that there is a supreme Being. It contemplates

the existence of Force, giving rise as its manifestation to matter. It

adopts the theory of emanation and absorption. In a burning taper it

sees an effigy of man--an embodiment of matter, and an evolution of

force. If we interrogate it respecting the destiny of the soul, it

demands of us what has become of the flame when it is blown out, and in

what condition it was before the taper was lighted. Was it a nonentity?

Has it been annihilated? It admits that the idea of personality which

has deluded us through life may not be instantaneously extinguished at

death, but may be lost by slow degrees. On this is founded the doctrine

of transmigration. But at length reunion with the universal Intellect

takes place, Nirwana is reached, oblivion is attained, a state that has

no relation to matter, space, or time, the state into which the departed

flame of the extinguished taper has gone, the state in which we were

before we were born. This is the end that we ought to hope for; it is

reabsorption in the universal Force--supreme bliss, eternal rest.

Through Aristotle these doctrines were first introduced into Eastern

Europe; indeed, eventually, as we shall see, he was regarded as the

author of them. They exerted a dominating influence in the later period

of the Alexandrian school. Philo, the Jew, who lived in the time of

Caligula, based his philosophy on the theory of emanation. Plotinus

not only accepted that theory as applicable to the soul of man, but as

affording an illustration of the nature of the Trinity. For, as a beam

of light emanates from the sun, and as warmth emanates from the beam

when it touches material bodies, so from the Father the Son emanates,

and thence the Holy Ghost. From these views Plotinus derived a practical

religious system, teaching the devout how to pass into a condition of

ecstasy, a foretaste of absorption into the universal mundane soul.

In that condition the soul loses its individual consciousness. In like

manner Porphyry sought absorption in or union with God. He was a Tyrian

by birth, established a school at Rome, and wrote against Christianity;

his treatise on that subject was answered by Eusebius and St. Jerome,

but the Emperor Theodosius silenced it more effectually by causing all

the copies to be burnt. Porphyry bewails his own unworthiness, saying

that he had been united to God in ecstasy but once in eighty-six years,

whereas his master Plotinus had been so united six times in sixty years.

A complete system of theology, based on the theory of emanation, was

constructed by Proclus, who speculated on the manner in which absorption

takes place: whether the soul is instantly reabsorbed and reunited in

the moment of death, or whether it retains the sentiment of personality

for a time, and subsides into complete reunion by successive steps.

ARABIC PSYCHOLOGY. From the Alexandrian Greeks these ideas passed to

the Saracen philosophers, who very soon after the capture of the great

Egyptian city abandoned to the lower orders their anthropomorphic

notions of the nature of God and the simulachral form of the spirit of

man. As Arabism developed itself into a distinct scientific system,

the theories of emanation and absorption were among its characteristic

features. In this abandonment of vulgar Mohammedanism, the example of

the Jews greatly assisted. They, too, had given up the anthropomorphism

of their ancestors; they had exchanged the God who of old lived behind

the veil of the temple for an infinite Intelligence pervading the

universe, and, avowing their inability to conceive that any thing

which had on a sudden been called into existence should be capable of

immortality, they affirmed that the soul of man is connected with a past

of which there was no beginning, and with a future to which there is no

end.

In the intellectual history of Arabism the Jew and the Saracen are

continually seen together. It was the same in their political history,

whether we consider it in Syria, in Egypt, or in Spain. From them

conjointly Western Europe derived its philosophical ideas, which in

the course of time culminated in Averroism; Averroism is philosophical

Islamism. Europeans generally regarded Averroes as the author of these

heresies, and the orthodox branded him accordingly, but he was nothing

more than their collector and commentator. His works invaded Christendom

by two routes: from Spain through Southern France they reached Upper

Italy, engendering numerous heresies on their way; from Sicily they

passed to Naples and South Italy, under the auspices of Frederick II.

But, long before Europe suffered this great intellectual invasion, there

were what might, perhaps, be termed sporadic instances of Orientalism.

As an example I may quote the views of John Erigena (A.D. 800) He had

adopted and taught the philosophy of Aristotle had made a pilgrimage

to the birthplace of that philosopher, and indulged a hope of uniting

philosophy and religion in the manner proposed by the Christian

ecclesiastics who were then studying in the Mohammedan universities of

Spain. He was a native of Britain.

In a letter to Charles the Bald, Anastasius expresses his astonishment

"how such a barbarian man, coming from the very ends of the earth, and

remote from human conversation, could comprehend things so clearly, and

transfer them into another language so well." The general intention of

his writings was, as we have said, to unite philosophy with religion,

but his treatment of these subjects brought him under ecclesiastical

censure, and some of his works were adjudged to the flames. His most

important book is entitled "De Divisione Nature."

Erigena's philosophy rests upon the observed and admitted fact that

every living thing comes from something that had previously lived. The

visible world, being a world of life, has therefore emanated necessarily

from some primordial existence, and that existence is God, who is thus

the originator and conservator of all. Whatever we see maintains itself

as a visible thing through force derived from him, and, were that force

withdrawn, it must necessarily disappear. Erigena thus conceives of

the Deity as an unceasing participator in Nature, being its preserver,

maintainer, upholder, and in that respect answering to the soul of the

world of the Greeks. The particular life of individuals is therefore a

part of general existence, that is, of the mundane soul.

If ever there were a withdrawal of the maintaining power, all things

must return to the source from which they issued--that is, they must

return to God, and be absorbed in him. All visible Nature must thus

pass back into "the Intellect" at last. "The death of the flesh is the

auspices of the restitution of things, and of a return to their ancient

conservation. So sounds revert back to the air in which they were born,

and by which they were maintained, and they are heard no more; no man

knows what has become of them. In that final absorption which, after

a lapse of time, must necessarily come, God will be all in all, and

nothing exist but him alone." "I contemplate him as the beginning and

cause of all things; all things that are and those that have been, but

now are not, were created from him, and by him, and in him. I also view

him as the end and intransgressible term of all things.... There is a

fourfold conception of universal Nature--two views of divine Nature, as

origin and end; two also of framed Nature, causes and effects. There is

nothing eternal but God."

The return of the soul to the universal Intellect is designated by

Erigena as Theosis, or Deification. In that final absorption all

remembrance of its past experiences is lost. The soul reverts to the

condition in which it was before it animated the body. Necessarily,

therefore, Erigena fell under the displeasure of the Church.

It was in India that men first recognized the fact that force is

indestructible and eternal. This implies ideas more or less distinct

of that which we now term its "correlation and conservation."

Considerations connected with the stability of the universe give

strength to this view, since it is clear that, were there either

an increase or a diminution, the order of the world must cease. The

definite and invariable amount of energy in the universe must therefore

be accepted as a scientific fact. The changes we witness are in its

distribution.

But, since the soul must be regarded as an active principle, to call a

new one into existence out of nothing is necessarily to add to the force

previously in the world. And, if this has been done in the case of every

individual who has been born, and is to be repeated for every individual

hereafter, the totality of force must be continually increasing.

Moreover, to many devout persons there is something very revolting in

the suggestion that the Almighty is a servitor to the caprices and lusts

of man, and that, at a certain term after its origin, it is necessary

for him to create for the embryo a soul.

Considering man as composed of two portions, a soul and a body, the

obvious relations of the latter may cast much light on the mysterious,

the obscure relations of the former. Now, the substance of which the

body consists is obtained from the general mass of matter around us,

and after death to that general mass it is restored. Has Nature, then,

displayed before our eyes in the origin, mutations, and destiny of the

material part, the body, a revelation that may guide us to a knowledge

of the origin and destiny of the companion, the spiritual part, the

soul?

Let us listen for a moment to one of the most powerful of Mohammedan

writers:

"God has created the spirit of man out of a drop of his own light;

its destiny is to return to him. Do not deceive yourself with the vain

imagination that it will die when the body dies. The form you had on

your entrance into this world, and your present form, are not the

same; hence there is no necessity of your perishing, on account of the

perishing of your body. Your spirit came into this world a stranger, it

is only sojourning, in a temporary home. From the trials and tempests

of this troublesome life, our refuge is in God. In reunion with him we

shall find eternal rest--a rest without sorrow, a joy without pain, a

strength without infirmity, a knowledge without doubt, a tranquil and

yet an ecstatic vision of the source of life and light and glory, the

source from which we came." So says the Saracen philosopher, Al-Gazzali

(A.D. 1010).

In a stone the material particles are in a state of stable equilibrium;

it may, therefore, endure forever. An animal is in reality only a form

through which a stream of matter is incessantly flowing. It receives its

supplies, and dismisses its wastes. In this it resembles a cataract,

a river, a flame. The particles that compose it at one instant have

departed from it the next. It depends for its continuance on exterior

supplies. It has a definite duration in time, and an inevitable moment

comes in which it must die.

In the great problem of psychology we cannot expect to reach a

scientific result, if we persist in restricting ourselves to the

contemplation of one fact. We must avail ourselves of all accessible

facts. Human psychology can never be completely resolved except through

comparative psychology. With Descartes, we must inquire whether the

souls of animals be relations of the human soul, less perfect members in

the same series of development. We must take account of what we discover

in the intelligent principle of the ant, as well as what we discern in

the intelligent principle of man. Where would human physiology be, if

it were not illuminated by the bright irradiations of comparative

physiology?

Brodie, after an exhaustive consideration of the facts, affirms that

the mind of animals is essentially the same as that of man. Every one

familiar with the dog will admit that that creature knows right from

wrong, and is conscious when he has committed a fault. Many domestic

animals have reasoning powers, and employ proper means for the

attainment of ends. How numerous are the anecdotes related of the

intentional actions of the elephant and the ape! Nor is this apparent

intelligence due to imitation, to their association with man, for

wild animals that have no such relation exhibit similar properties. In

different species, the capacity and character greatly vary. Thus the dog

is not only more intelligent, but has social and moral qualities that

the cat does not possess; the former loves his master, the latter her

home.

Du Bois-Reymond makes this striking remark: "With awe and wonder must

the student of Nature regard that microscopic molecule of nervous

substance which is the seat of the laborious, constructive, orderly,

loyal, dauntless soul of the ant. It has developed itself to its present

state through a countless series of generations." What an impressive

inference we may draw from the statement of Huber, who has written so

well on this subject: "If you will watch a single ant at work, you can

tell what he will next do!" He is considering the matter, and reasoning

as you are doing. Listen to one of the many anecdotes which Huber, at

once truthful and artless, relates: "On the visit of an overseer ant to

the works, when the laborers had begun the roof too soon, he examined it

and had it taken down, the wall raised to the proper height, and a new

ceiling constructed with the fragments of the old one." Surely these

insects are not automata, they show intention. They recognize their old

companions, who have been shut up from them for many months, and exhibit

sentiments of joy at their return. Their antennal language is capable

of manifold expression; it suits the interior of the nest, where all is

dark.

While solitary insects do not live to raise their young, social insects

have a longer term, they exhibit moral affections and educate

their offspring. Patterns of patience and industry, some of these

insignificant creatures will work sixteen or eighteen hours a day. Few

men are capable of sustained mental application more than four or five

hours.

Similarity of effects indicates similarity of causes; similarity of

actions demands similarity of organs. I would ask the reader of these

paragraphs, who is familiar with the habits of animals, and especially

with the social relations of that wonderful insect to which reference

has been made, to turn to the nineteenth chapter of my work on

the "Intellectual Development of Europe," in which he will find a

description of the social system of the Incas of Peru. Perhaps, then, in

view of the similarity of the social institutions and personal conduct

of the insect, and the social institutions and personal conduct of the

civilized Indian--the one an insignificant speck, the other a man--he

will not be disposed to disagree with me in the opinion that "from bees,

and wasps, and ants, and birds, from all that low animal life on which

he looks with supercilious contempt, man is destined one day to learn

what in truth he really is."

The views of Descartes, who regarded all insects as automata, can

scarcely be accepted without modification. Insects are automata only

so far as the action of their ventral cord, and that portion of their

cephalic ganglia which deals with contemporaneous impressions, is

concerned.

It is one of the functions of vesicular-nervous material to retain

traces or relics of impressions brought to it by the organs of sense;

hence, nervous ganglia, being composed of that material, may be

considered as registering apparatus. They also introduce the element

of time into the action of the nervous mechanism. An impression, which

without them might have forthwith ended in reflex action, is delayed,

and with this duration come all those important effects arising through

the interaction of many impressions, old and new, upon each other.

There is no such thing as a spontaneous, or self-originated, thought.

Every intellectual act is the consequence of some preceding act. It

comes into existence in virtue of something that has gone before. Two

minds constituted precisely alike, and placed under the influence of

precisely the same environment, must give rise to precisely the same

thought. To such sameness of action we allude in the popular expression

"common-sense"--a term full of meaning. In the origination of a

thought there are two distinct conditions: the state of the organism

as dependent on antecedent impressions, and on the existing physical

circumstances.

In the cephalic ganglia of insects are stored up the relics of

impressions that have been made upon the common peripheral nerves, and

in them are kept those which are brought in by the organs of special

sense--the visual, olfactive, auditory. The interaction of these raises

insects above mere mechanical automata, in which the reaction instantly

follows the impression.

In all cases the action of every nerve-centre, no matter what its stage

of development may be, high or low, depends upon an essential chemical

condition--oxidation. Even in man, if the supply of arterial blood

be stopped but for a moment, the nerve-mechanism loses its power; if

diminished, it correspondingly declines; if, on the contrary, it

be increased--as when nitrogen monoxide is breathed--there is more

energetic action. Hence there arises a need of repair, a necessity for

rest and sleep.

Two fundamental ideas are essentially attached to all our perceptions

of external things: they are SPACE and TIME, and for these provision is

made in the nervous mechanism while it is yet in an almost rudimentary

state. The eye is the organ of space, the ear of time; the perceptions

of which by the elaborate mechanism of these structures become

infinitely more precise than would be possible if the sense of touch

alone were resorted to.

There are some simple experiments which illustrate the vestiges of

ganglionic impressions. If on a cold, polished metal, as a new razor,

any object, such as a wafer, be laid, and the metal be then breathed

upon, and, when the moisture has had time to disappear, the wafer be

thrown off, though now the most critical inspection of the polished

surface can discover no trace of any form, if we breathe once more upon

it, a spectral image of the wafer comes plainly into view; and this may

be done again and again. Nay, more, if the polished metal be carefully

put aside where nothing can deteriorate its surface, and be so kept for

many months, on breathing again upon it the shadowy form emerges.

Such an illustration shows how trivial an impression may be thus

registered and preserved. But, if, on such an inorganic surface, an

impression may thus be indelibly marked, how much more likely in the

purposely-constructed ganglion! A shadow never falls upon a wall without

leaving thereupon a permanent trace, a trace which might be made visible

by resorting to proper processes. Photographic operations are cases in

point. The portraits of our friends, or landscape views, may be hidden

on the sensitive surface from the eye, but they are ready to make their

appearance as soon as proper developers are resorted to. A spectre is

concealed on a silver or glassy surface until, by our necromancy, we

make it come forth into the visible world. Upon the walls of our most

private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether

shut out and our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the

vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done.

If, after the eyelids have been closed for some time, as when we

first awake in the morning, we suddenly and steadfastly gaze at a

brightly-illuminated object and then quickly close the lids again, a

phantom image is perceived in the indefinite darkness beyond us. We may

satisfy ourselves that this is not a fiction, but a reality, for many

details that we had not time to identify in the momentary glance may

be contemplated at our leisure in the phantom. We may thus make out the

pattern of such an object as a lace curtain hanging in the window, or

the branches of a tree beyond. By degrees the image becomes less and

less distinct; in a minute or two it has disappeared. It seems to have a

tendency to float away in the vacancy before us. If we attempt to follow

it by moving the eyeball, it suddenly vanishes.

Such a duration of impressions on the retina proves that the effect of

external influences on nerve-vesicles is not necessarily transitory.

In this there is a correspondence to the duration, the emergence, the

extinction, of impressions on photographic preparations. Thus, I have

seen landscapes and architectural views taken in Mexico developed, as

artists say, months subsequently in New York--the images coming out,

after the long voyage, in all their proper forms and in all their proper

contrast of light and shade. The photograph had forgotten nothing. It

had equally preserved the contour of the everlasting mountains and the

passing smoke of a bandit-fire.

Are there, then, contained in the brain more permanently, as in the

retina more transiently, the vestiges of impressions that have been

gathered by the sensory organs? Is this the explanation of memory--the

Mind contemplating such pictures of past things and events as have

been committed to her custody. In her silent galleries are there hung

micrographs of the living and the dead, of scenes that we have

visited, of incidents in which we have borne a part? Are these abiding

impressions mere signal-marks, like the letters of a book, which impart

ideas to the mind? or are they actual picture-images, inconceivably

smaller than those made for us by artists, in which, by the aid of a

microscope, we can see, in a space not bigger than a pinhole, a whole

family group at a glance?

The phantom images of the retina are not perceptible in the light of the

day. Those that exist in the sensorium in like manner do not attract our

attention so long as the sensory organs are in vigorous operation, and

occupied in bringing new impressions in. But, when those organs become

weary or dull, or when we experience hours of great anxiety, or are

in twilight reveries, or are asleep, the latent apparitions have their

vividness increased by the contrast, and obtrude themselves on the

mind. For the same reason they occupy us in the delirium of fevers, and

doubtless also in the solemn moments of death. During a third part of

our life, in sleep, we are withdrawn from external influences; hearing

and sight and the other senses are inactive, but the never-sleeping Mind,

that pensive, that veiled enchantress, in her mysterious retirement,

looks over the ambrotypes she has collected--ambrotypes, for they are

truly unfading impressions--and, combining them together, as they chance

to occur, constructs from them the panorama of a dream.

Nature has thus implanted in the organization of every man means which

impressively suggest to him the immortality of the soul and a future

life. Even the benighted savage thus sees in his visions the fading

forms of landscapes, which are, perhaps, connected with some of his

most pleasant recollections; and what other conclusion can be possibly

extract from those unreal pictures than that they are the foreshadowings

of another land beyond that in which his lot is cast? At intervals he is

visited in his dreams by the resemblances of those whom he has loved

or hated while they were alive; and these manifestations are to him

incontrovertible proofs of the existence and immortality of the soul.

In our most refined social conditions we are never able to shake off the

impressions of these occurrences, and are perpetually drawing from

them the same conclusions that our uncivilized ancestors did. Our more

elevated condition of life in no respect relieves us from the inevitable

operation of our own organization, any more than it relieves us from

infirmities and disease. In these respects, all over the globe men are

on an equality. Savage or civilized, we carry within us a mechanism

which presents us with mementoes of the most solemn facts with which we

can be concerned. It wants only moments of repose or sickness, when the

influence of external things is diminished, to come into full play, and

these are precisely the moments when we are best prepared for the truths

it is going to suggest. That mechanism is no respecter of persons. It

neither permits the haughtiest to be free from the monitions, nor leaves

the humblest without the consolation of a knowledge of another life.

Open to no opportunities of being tampered with by the designing or

interested, requiring no extraneous human agency for its effect,

out always present with every man wherever he may go, it marvelously

extracts from vestiges of the impressions of the past overwhelming

proofs of the realities of the future, and, gathering its power from

what would seem to be a most unlikely source, it insensibly leads us, no

matter who or where we may be, to a profound belief in the immortal and

imperishable, from phantoms which have scarcely made their appearance

before they are ready to vanish away.

The insect differs from a mere automaton in this, that it is influenced

by old, by registered impressions. In the higher forms of animated life

that registration becomes more and more complete, memory becomes more

perfect. There is not any necessary resemblance between an external form

and its ganglionic impression, any more than there is between the words

of a message delivered in a telegraphic office and the signals which

the telegraph may give to the distant station; any more than there

is between the letters of a printed page and the acts or scenes they

describe, but the letters call up with clearness to the mind of the

reader the events and scenes.

An animal without any apparatus for the retention of impressions must

be a pure automaton--it cannot have memory. From insignificant and

uncertain beginnings, such an apparatus is gradually evolved, and, as

its development advances, the intellectual capacity increases. In man,

this retention or registration reaches perfection; he guides, himself by

past as well as by present impressions; he is influenced by experience;

his conduct is determined by reason.

A most important advance is made when the capability is acquired by any

animal of imparting a knowledge of the impressions stored up in its own

nerve-centres to another of the same kind. This marks the extension of

individual into social life, and indeed is essential thereto. In the

higher insects it is accomplished by antennal contacts, in man by

speech. Humanity, in its earlier, its savage stages, was limited to

this: the knowledge of one person could be transmitted to another by

conversation. The acts and thoughts of one generation could be imparted

to another, and influence its acts and thoughts.

But tradition has its limit. The faculty of speech makes society

possible--nothing more.

Not without interest do we remark the progress of development of

this function. The invention of the art of writing gave extension and

durability to the registration or record of impressions. These, which

had hitherto been stored up in the brain of one man, might now be

imparted to the whole human race, and be made to endure forever.

Civilization became possible--for civilization cannot exist without

writing, or the means of record in some shape.

From this psychological point of view we perceive the real significance

of the invention of printing--a development of writing which, by

increasing the rapidity of the diffusion of ideas, and insuring their

permanence, tends to promote civilization and to unify the human race.

In the foregoing paragraphs, relating to nervous impressions, their

registry, and the consequences, that spring from them, I have given an

abstract of views presented in my work on "Human Physiology," published

in 1856, and may, therefore, refer the reader to the chapter on "Inverse

Vision, or Cerebral Sight;" to Chapter XIV., Book I.; and to Chapter

VIII., Book II.; of that work, for other particulars.

The only path to scientific human psychology is through comparative

psychology. It is a long and wearisome path, but it leads to truth.

Is there, then, a vast spiritual existence pervading the universe, even

as there is a vast existence of matter pervading it--a spirit which,

as a great German author tells us, "sleeps in the stone, dreams in the

animal, awakes in man?" Does the soul arise from the one as the body

arises from the other? Do they in like manner return, each to the source

from which it has come? If so, we can interpret human existence, and our

ideas may still be in unison with scientific truth, and in accord with

our conception of the stability, the unchangeability of the universe.

To this spiritual existence the Saracens, following Eastern nations,

gave the designation "the Active Intellect." They believed that the soul

of man emanated from it, as a rain-drop comes from the sea, and, after a

season, returns. So arose among them the imposing doctrines of emanation

and absorption. The active intellect is God.

In one of its forms, as we have seen, this idea was developed by Chakia

Mouni, in India, in a most masterly manner, and embodied in the vast

practical system of Buddhism; in another, it was with less power

presented among the Saracens by Averroes.

But, perhaps we ought rather to say that Europeans hold Averroes as

the author of this doctrine, because they saw him isolated from his

antecedents. But Mohammedans gave him little credit for originality.

He stood to them in the light of a commentator on Aristotle, and as

presenting the opinions of the Alexandrian and other philosophical

schools up to his time. The following excerpts from the "Historical

Essay on Averroism," by M. Renan, will show how closely the Sarscenic

ideas approached those presented above:

This system supposes that, at the death of an individual, his

intelligent principle or soul no longer possesses a separate existence,

but returns to or is absorbed in the universal mind, the active

intelligence, the mundane soul, which is God; from whom, indeed, it had

originally emanated or issued forth.

The universal, or active, or objective intellect, is uncreated,

impassible, incorruptible, has neither beginning nor end; nor does it

increase as the number of individual souls increases. It is altogether

separate from matter. It is, as it were, a cosmic principle. This

oneness of the active intellect, or reason, is the essential principle

of the Averroistic theory, and is in harmony with the cardinal doctrine

of Mohammedanism--the unity of God.

The individual, or passive, or subjective intellect, is an emanation

from the universal, and constitutes what is termed the soul of man. In

one sense it is perishable and ends with the body, but in a higher

sense it endures; for, after death, it returns to or is absorbed in the

universal soul, and thus of all human souls there remains at last

but one--the aggregate of them all, life is not the property of the

individual, it belongs to Nature. The end of, man is to enter into union

more and more complete with the active intellect--reason. In that the

happiness of the soul consists. Our destiny is quietude. It was the

opinion of Averroes that the transition from the individual to the

universal is instantaneous at death, but the Buddhists maintain that

human personality continues in a declining manner for a certain term

before nonentity, or Nirwana, is attained.

Philosophy has never proposed but two hypotheses to explain the system

of the world: first, a personal God existing apart, and a human soul

called into existence or created, and thenceforth immortal; second, an

impersonal intelligence, or indeterminate God, and a soul emerging from

and returning to him. As to the origin of beings, there are two opposite

opinions: first, that they are created from nothing; second, that they

come by development from pre-existing forms. The theory of creation

belongs to the first of the above hypotheses, that of evolution to the

last.

Philosophy among the Arabs thus took the same direction that it had

taken in China, in India, and indeed throughout the East. Its whole

spirit depended on the admission of the indestructibility of matter and

force. It saw an analogy between the gathering of the material of which

the body of man consists from the vast store of matter in Nature, and

its final restoration to that store, and the emanation of the spirit

of man from the universal Intellect, the Divinity, and its final

reabsorption.

Having thus indicated in sufficient detail the philosophical

characteristics of the doctrine of emanation and absorption, I have in

the next place to relate its history. It was introduced into Europe by

the Spanish Arabs. Spain was the focal point from which, issuing forth,

it affected the ranks of intelligence and fashion all over Europe, and

in Spain it had a melancholy end.

The Spanish khalifs had surrounded themselves with all the luxuries

of Oriental life. They had magnificent palaces, enchanting gardens,

seraglios filled with beautiful women. Europe at the present day does

not offer more taste, more refinement, more elegance, than might have

been seen, at the epoch of which we are speaking, in the capitals of the

Spanish Arabs. Their streets were lighted and solidly paved. The houses

were frescoed and carpeted; they were warmed in winter by furnaces, and

cooled in summer with perfumed air brought by underground pipes from

flower-beds. They had baths, and libraries, and dining-halls, fountains

of quicksilver and water. City and country were full of conviviality,

and of dancing to the lute and mandolin. Instead of the drunken and

gluttonous wassail orgies of their Northern neighbors, the feasts of the

Saracens were marked by sobriety. Wine was prohibited. The enchanting

moonlight evenings of Andalusia were spent by the Moors in sequestered,

fairy-like gardens or in orange-groves, listening to the romances of

the story-teller, or engaged in philosophical discourse; consoling

themselves for the disappointments of this life by such reflections

as that, if virtue were rewarded in this world, we should be without

expectations in the life to come; and reconciling themselves to their

daily toil by the expectation that rest will be found after death--a

rest never to be succeeded by labor.

In the tenth century the Khalif Hakein II. had made beautiful Andalusia

the paradise of the world. Christians, Mussulmen, Jews, mixed together

without restraint. There, among many celebrated names that have

descended to our times, was Gerbert, destined subsequently to

become pope. There, too, was Peter the Venerable, and many Christian

ecclesiastics. Peter says that he found learned men even from Britain

pursuing astronomy. All learned men, no matter from what country they

came, or what their religious views, were welcomed. The khalif had in

his palace a manufactory of books, and copyists, binders, illuminators.

He kept book-buyers in all the great cities of Asia and Africa. His

library contained four hundred thousand volumes, superbly bound and

illuminated.

Throughout the Mohammedan dominions in Asia, in Africa, and in Spain,

the lower order of Mussulmen entertained a fanatical hatred against

learning. Among the more devout--those who claimed to be orthodox--there

were painful doubts as to the salvation of the great Khalif

Al-Mamun--the wicked khalif, as they called him--for he had not only

disturbed the people by introducing the writings of Aristotle and other

Greek heathens, but had even struck at the existence of heaven and

hell by saying that the earth is a globe, and pretending that he could

measure its size. These persons, from their numbers, constituted a

political power.

Almansor, who usurped the khalifate to the prejudice of Hakem's son,

thought that his usurpation would be sustained if he put himself at

the head of the orthodox party. He therefore had the library of Hakem

searched, and all works of a scientific or philosophical nature carried

into the public places and burnt, or thrown into the cisterns of the

palace. By a similar court revolution Averroes, in his old age--he died

A.D. 1193--was expelled from Spain; the religious party had triumphed

over the philosophical. He was denounced as a traitor to religion.

An opposition to philosophy had been organized all over the Mussulman

world. There was hardly a philosopher who was not punished. Some

were put to death, and the consequence was, that Islam was full of

hypocrites.

Into Italy, Germany, England, Averroism had silently made its way.

It found favor in the eyes of the Franciscans, and a focus in the

University of Paris. By very many of the leading minds it had been

accepted. But at length the Dominicans, the rivals of the Franciscans,

sounded an alarm. They said it destroys all personality, conducts

to fatalism, and renders inexplicable the difference and progress

of individual intelligences. The declaration that there is but one

intellect is an error subversive of the merits of the saints, it is

an assertion that there is no difference among men. What! is there no

difference between the holy soul of Peter and the damned soul of Judas?

are they identical? Averroes in this his blasphemous doctrine denies

creation, providence, revelation, the Trinity, the efficacy of prayers,

of alms, and of litanies; he disbelieves in the resurrection and

immortality; he places the summum bonum in mere pleasure.

So, too, among the Jews who were then the leading intellects of the

world, Averroism had been largely propagated. Their great writer

Maimonides had thoroughly accepted it; his school was spreading it in

all directions. A furious persecution arose on the part of the orthodox

Jews. Of Maimonides it had been formerly their delight to declare that

he was "the Eagle of the Doctors, the Great Sage, the Glory of the West,

the Light of the East, second only to Moses." Now, they proclaimed that

he had abandoned the faith of Abraham; had denied the possibility of

creation, believed in the eternity of the world; had given himself up to

the manufacture of atheists; had deprived God of his attributes; made a

vacuum of him; had declared him inaccessible to prayer, and a stranger

to the government of the world. The works of Maimonides were committed

to the flames by the synagogues of Montpellier, Barcelona, and Toledo.

Scarcely had the conquering arms of Ferdinand and Isabella overthrown

the Arabian dominion in Spain, when measures were taken by the papacy

to extinguish these opinions, which, it was believed, were undermining

European Christianity.

Until Innocent IV. (1243), there was no special tribunal against

heretics, distinct from those of the bishops. The Inquisition, then

introduced, in accordance with the centralization of the times, was

a general and papal tribunal, which displaced the old local ones.

The bishops, therefore, viewed the innovation with great dislike,

considering it as an intrusion on their rights. It was established in

Italy, Spain, Germany, and the southern provinces of France.

The temporal sovereigns were only too desirous to make use of this

powerful engine for their own political purposes. Against this the popes

strongly protested. They were not willing that its use should pass out

of the ecclesiastical hand.

The Inquisition, having already been tried in the south of France, had

there proved to be very effective for the suppression of heresy. It had

been introduced into Aragon. Now was assigned to it the duty of dealing

with the Jews.

In the old times under Visigothic rule these people had greatly

prospered, but the leniency that had been shown to them was succeeded by

atrocious persecution, when the Visigoths abandoned their Arianism and

became orthodox. The most inhuman ordinances were issued against them--a

law was enacted condemning them all to be slaves. It was not to be

wondered at that, when the Saracen invasion took place, the Jews did

whatever they could to promote its success. They, like the Arabs, were

an Oriental people, both traced their lineage to Abraham, their common

ancestor; both were believers in the unity of God. It was their

defense of that doctrine that had brought upon them the hatred of their

Visigothic masters.

Under the Saracen rule they were treated with the highest consideration.

They became distinguished for their wealth and their learning. For

the most part they were Aristotelians. They founded many schools and

colleges. Their mercantile interests led them to travel all over the

world. They particularly studied the science of medicine. Throughout the

middle ages they were the physicians and bankers of Europe. Of all men

they saw the course of human affairs from the most elevated point of

view. Among the special sciences they became proficient in mathematics

and astronomy; they composed the tables of Alfonso, and were the cause

of the voyage of De Gama. They distinguished themselves greatly in light

literature. From the tenth to the fourteenth century their literature

was the first in Europe. They were to be found in the courts of princes

as physicians, or as treasurers managing the public finances.

The orthodox clergy in Navarre had excited popular prejudices against

them. To escape the persecutions that arose, many of them feigned to

turn Christians, and of these many apostatized to their former

faith. The papal nuncio at the court of Castile raised a cry for the

establishment of the Inquisition. The poorer Jews were accused of

sacrificing Christian children at the Passover, in mockery of the

crucifixion; the richer were denounced as Averroists. Under the

influence of Torquemada, a Dominican monk, the confessor of Queen

Isabella, that princess solicited a bull from the pope for the

establishment of the Holy Office. A bull was accordingly issued in

November, 1478, for the detection and suppression of heresy. In the

first year of the operation of the Inquisition, 1481, two thousand

victims were burnt in Andalusia; besides these, many thousands were dug

up from their graves and burnt; seventeen thousand were fined or

imprisoned for life. Whoever of the persecuted race could flee, escaped

for his life. Torquemada, now appointed inquisitor-general for Castile

and Leon, illustrated his office by his ferocity. Anonymous accusations

were received, the accused was not confronted by witnesses, torture was

relied upon for conviction; it was inflicted in vaults where no one

could hear the cries of the tormented. As, in pretended mercy, it was

forbidden to inflict torture a second time, with horrible duplicity it

was affirmed that the torment had not been completed at first, but had

only been suspended out of charity until the following day! The families

of the convicted were plunged into irretrievable ruin. Llorente, the

historian of the Inquisition, computes that Torquemada and his

collaborators, in the course of eighteen years, burnt at the stake ten

thousand two hundred and twenty persons, six thousand eight hundred and

sixty in effigy, and otherwise punished ninety-seven thousand three

hundred and twenty-one. This frantic priest destroyed Hebrew Bibles

wherever he could find them, And burnt six thousand volumes of Oriental

literature at Salamanca, under an imputation that they inculcated

Judaism. With unutterable disgust and indignation, we learn that the

papal government realized much money by selling to the rich

dispensations to secure them from the Inquisition.

But all these frightful atrocities proved failures. The conversions

were few. Torquemada, therefore, insisted on the immediate banishment

of every unbaptized Jew. On March 30, 1492, the edict of expulsion was

signed. All unbaptized Jews, of whatever age, sex, or condition, were

ordered to leave the realm by the end of the following July. If they

revisited it, they should suffer death. They might sell their effects

and take the proceeds in merchandise or bills of exchange, but not in

gold or silver. Exiled thus suddenly from the land of their birth, the

land of their ancestors for hundreds of years, they could not in

the glutted market that arose sell what they possessed. Nobody would

purchase what could be got for nothing after July. The Spanish clergy

occupied themselves by preaching in the public squares sermons filled

with denunciations against their victims, who, when the time for

expatriation came, swarmed in the roads and filled the air with their

cries of despair. Even the Spanish onlookers wept at the scene of agony.

Torquemada, however, enforced the ordinance that no one should afford

them any help.

Of the banished persons some made their way into Africa, some into

Italy; the latter carried with them to Naples ship-fever, which

destroyed not fewer than twenty thousand in that city, and devastated

that peninsula; some reached Turkey, a few England. Thousands,

especially mothers with nursing children, infants, and old people, died

by the way; many of them in the agonies of thirst.

This action against the Jews was soon followed by one against the Moors.

A pragmatica was issued at Seville, February, 1502, setting forth the

obligations of the Castilians to drive the enemies of God from the land,

and ordering that all unbaptized Moors in the kingdoms of Castile and

Leon above the age of infancy should leave the country by the end of

April. They might sell their property, but not take away any gold or

silver; they were forbidden to emigrate to the Mohammedan dominions; the

penalty of disobedience was death. Their condition was thus worse than

that of the Jews, who had been permitted to go where they chose. Such

was the fiendish intolerance of the Spaniards, that they asserted the

government would be justified in taking the lives of all the Moors for

their shameless infidelity.

What an ungrateful return for the toleration that the Moors in their

day of power had given to the Christians! No faith was kept with the

victims. Granada had surrendered under the solemn guarantee of the full

enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. At the instigation of

Cardinal Ximenes that pledge was broken, and, after a residence of eight

centuries, the Mohammedans were driven out of the land.

The coexistence of three religions in Andalusia--the Christian, the

Mohammedan, the Mosaic--had given opportunity for the development of

Averroism or philosophical Arabism. This was a repetition of what had

occurred at Rome, when the gods of all the conquered countries were

confronted in that capital, and universal disbelief in them all ensued.

Averroes himself was accused of having been first a Mussulman, then a

Christian, then a Jew, and finally a misbeliever. It was affirmed that

he was the author of the mysterious book "De Tribus Impostoribus."

In the middle ages there were two celebrated heretical books, "The

Everlasting Gospel," and the "De Tribus Impostoribus." The latter was

variously imputed to Pope Gerbert, to Frederick II., and to Averroes.

In their unrelenting hatred the Dominicans fastened all the blasphemies

current in those times on Averroes; they never tired of recalling the

celebrated and outrageous one respecting the eucharist. His writings had

first been generally made known to Christian Europe by the translation

of Michael Scot in the beginning of the thirteenth century, but long

before his time the literature of the West, like that of Asia, was full

of these ideas. We have seen how broadly they were set forth by Erigena.

The Arabians, from their first cultivation of philosophy, had been

infected by them; they were current in all the colleges of the three

khalifates. Considered not as a mode of thought, that will spontaneously

occur to all men at a certain stage of intellectual development, but as

having originated with Aristotle, they continually found favor with men

of the highest culture. We see them in Robert Grostete, in Roger Bacon,

and eventually in Spinoza. Averroes was not their inventor, he merely

gave them clearness and expression. Among the Jews of the thirteenth

century, he had completely supplanted his imputed master. Aristotle had

passed away from their eyes; his great commentator, Averroes, stood in

his place. So numerous were the converts to the doctrine of emanation

in Christendom, that Pope Alexander IV. (1255) found it necessary to

interfere. By his order, Albertus Magnus composed a work against the

"Unity of the Intellect." Treating of the origin and nature of the

soul, he attempted to prove that the theory of "a separate intellect,

enlightening man by irradiation anterior to the individual and surviving

the individual, is a detestable error." But the most illustrious

antagonist of the great commentator was St. Thomas Aquinas, the

destroyer of all such heresies as the unity of the intellect, the denial

of Providence, the impossibility of creation; the victories of "the

Angelic Doctor" were celebrated not only in the disputations of the

Dominicans, but also in the works of art of the painters of Florence

and Pisa. The indignation of that saint knew no bounds when Christians

became the disciples of an infidel, who was worse than a Mohammedan.

The wrath of the Dominicans, the order to which St. Thomas belonged, was

sharpened by the fact that their rivals, the Franciscans, inclined to

Averroistic views; and Dante, who leaned to the Dominicans, denounced

Averroes as the author of a most dangerous system. The theological odium

of all three dominant religions was put upon him; he was pointed out

as the originator of the atrocious maxim that "all religions are false,

although all are probably useful." An attempt was made at the Council

of Vienne to have his writings absolutely suppressed, and to forbid all

Christians reading them. The Dominicans, armed with the weapons of

the Inquisition, terrified Christian Europe with their unrelenting

persecutions. They imputed all the infidelity of the times to the

Arabian philosopher. But he was not without support. In Paris and in the

cities of Northern Italy the Franciscans sustained his views, and all

Christendom was agitated with these disputes.

Under the inspiration of the Dominicans, Averroes became to the Italian

painters the emblem of unbelief. Many of the Italian towns had pictures

or frescoes of the Day of Judgment and of Hell. In these Averroes not

unfrequently appears. Thus, in one at Pisa, he figures with Arius,

Mohammed, and Antichrist. In another he is represented as overthrown by

St. Thomas. He had become an essential element in the triumphs of the

great Dominican doctor. He continued thus to be familiar to the Italian

painters until the sixteenth century. His doctrines were maintained in

the University of Padua until the seventeenth.

Such is, in brief, the history of Averroism as it invaded Europe from

Spain. Under the auspices of Frederick II., it, in a less imposing

manner, issued from Sicily. That sovereign bad adopted it fully. In his

"Sicilian Questions" he had demanded light on the eternity of the world,

and on the nature of the soul, and supposed he had found it in the

replies of Ibn Sabin, an upholder of these doctrines. But in his

conflict with the papacy be was overthrown, and with him these heresies

were destroyed.

In Upper Italy, Averroism long maintained its ground. It was so

fashionable in high Venetian society that every gentleman felt

constrained to profess it. At length the Church took decisive action

against it. The Lateran Council, A.D. 1512, condemned the abettors of

these detestable doctrines to be held as heretics and infidels. As

we have seen, the late Vatican Council has anathematized them.

Notwithstanding that stigma, it is to be borne in mind that these

opinions are held to be true by a majority of the human race.

CHAPTER VI.

CONFLICT RESPECTING THE NATURE OF THE WORLD.

Scriptural view of the world: the earth a flat surface;

location of heaven and hell.

Scientific view: the earth a globe; its size determined; its

position in and relations to the solar system.--The three

great voyages.--Columbus, De Gama, Magellan.--

Circumnavigation of the earth.--Determination of its

curvature by the measurement of a degree and by the

pendulum.

The discoveries of Copernicus.--Invention of the telescope.--

Galileo brought before the Inquisition.--His punishment.--

Victory over the Church.

Attempts to ascertain the dimensions of the solar system.--

Determination of the sun's parallax by the transits of

Venus.--Insignificance, of the earth and man.

Ideas respecting the dimensions of the universe.--Parallax

of the stars.--The plurality of worlds asserted by Bruno.--

He is seized and murdered by the Inquisition.

I HAVE now to present the discussions that arose respecting the third

great philosophical problem--the nature of the world.

An uncritical observation of the aspect of Nature persuades us that the

earth is an extended level surface which sustains the dome of the sky,

a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters beneath; that the

heavenly bodies--the sun, the moon, the stars--pursue their way,

moving from east to west, their insignificant size and motion round the

motionless earth proclaiming their inferiority. Of the various organic

forms surrounding man none rival him in dignity, and hence he seems

justified in concluding that every thing has been created for his

use--the sun for the purpose of giving him light by day, the moon and

stars by night.

Comparative theology shows us that this is the conception of Nature

universally adopted in the early phase of intellectual life. It is the

belief of all nations in all parts of the world in the beginning of

their civilization: geocentric, for it makes the earth the centre of the

universe; anthropocentric, for it makes man the central object of the

earth. And not only is this the conclusion spontaneously come to from

inconsiderate glimpses of the world, it is also the philosophical basis

of various religious revelations, vouchsafed to man from time to time.

These revelations, moreover, declare to him that above the crystalline

dome of the sky is a region of eternal light and happiness--heaven--the

abode of God and the angelic hosts, perhaps also his own abode after

death; and beneath the earth a region of eternal darkness and misery,

the habitation of those that are evil. In the visible world is thus seen

a picture of the invisible.

On the basis of this view of the structure of the world great religious

systems have been founded, and hence powerful material interests have

been engaged in its support. These have resisted, sometimes by resorting

to bloodshed, attempts that have been made to correct its incontestable

errors--a resistance grounded on the suspicion that the localization of

heaven and hell and the supreme value of man in the universe might be

affected.

That such attempts would be made was inevitable. As soon as men began

to reason on the subject at all, they could not fail to discredit the

assertion that the earth is an indefinite plane. No one can doubt that

the sun we see to-day is the self-same sun that we saw yesterday. His

reappearance each morning irresistibly suggests that he has passed on

the underside of the earth. But this is incompatible with the reign of

night in those regions. It presents more or less distinctly the idea of

the globular form of the earth.

The earth cannot extend indefinitely downward; for the sun cannot go

through it, nor through any crevice or passage in it, Since he rises and

sets in different positions at different seasons of the year. The stars

also move under it in countless courses. There must, therefore, be a

clear way beneath.

To reconcile revelation with these innovating facts, schemes, such

as that of Cosmas Indicopleustes in his Christian Topography, were

doubtless often adopted. To this in particular we have had occasion on a

former page to refer. It asserted that in the northern parts of the flat

earth there is an immense mountain, behind which the sun passes, and

thus produces night.

At a very remote historical period the mechanism of eclipses had been

discovered. Those of the moon demonstrated that the shadow of the earth

is always circular. The form of the earth must therefore be globular.

A body which in all positions casts a circular shadow must itself be

spherical. Other considerations, with which every one is now familiar,

could not fail to establish that such is her figure.

But the determination of the shape of the earth by no means deposed

her from her position of superiority. Apparently vastly larger than all

other things, it was fitting that she should be considered not merely as

the centre of the world, but, in truth, as--the world. All other objects

in their aggregate seemed utterly unimportant in comparison with her.

Though the consequences flowing from an admission of the globular figure

of the earth affected very profoundly existing theological ideas, they

were of much less moment than those depending on a determination of her

size. It needed but an elementary knowledge of geometry to perceive that

correct ideas on this point could be readily obtained by measuring a

degree on her surface. Probably there were early attempts to accomplish

this object, the results of which have been lost. But Eratosthenes

executed one between Syene and Alexandria, in Egypt, Syene being

supposed to be exactly under the tropic of Cancer. The two places are,

however, not on the same meridian, and the distance between them was

estimated, not measured. Two centuries later, Posidonius made another

attempt between Alexandria and Rhodes; the bright star Canopus just

grazed the horizon at the latter place, at Alexandria it rose 7 1/2

degrees. In this instance, also, since the direction lay across the sea,

the distance was estimated, not measured. Finally, as we have already

related, the Khalif Al-Mamun made two sets of measures, one on the shore

of the Red Sea, the other near Cufa, in Mesopotamia. The general result

of these various observations gave for the earth's diameter between

seven and eight thousand miles.

This approximate determination of the size of the earth tended to

depose her from her dominating position, and gave rise to very serious

theological results. In this the ancient investigations of Aristarchus

of Samos, one of the Alexandrian school, 280 B.C., powerfully aided.

In his treatise on the magnitudes and distances of the sun and moon, he

explains the ingenious though imperfect method to which he had resorted

for the solution of that problem. Many ages previously a speculation had

been brought from India to Europe by Pythagoras. It presented the sun

as the centre of the system. Around him the planets revolved in circular

orbits, their order of position being Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,

Jupiter, Saturn, each of them being supposed to rotate on its axis as it

revolved round the sun. According to Cicero, Nicetas suggested that,

if it were admitted that the earth revolves on her axis, the difficulty

presented by the inconceivable velocity of the heavens would be avoided.

There is reason to believe that the works of Aristarchus, in the

Alexandrian Library, were burnt at the time of the fire of Caesar. The

only treatise of his that has come down to us is that above mentioned,

on the size and distance of the sun and moon.

Aristarchus adopted the Pythagorean system as representing the actual

facts. This was the result of a recognition of the sun's amazing

distance, and therefore of his enormous size. The heliocentric system,

thus regarding the sun as the central orb, degraded the earth to a very

subordinate rank, making her only one of a company of six revolving

bodies.

But this is not the only contribution conferred on astronomy by

Aristarchus, for, considering that the movement of the earth does not

sensibly affect the apparent position of the stars, he inferred that

they are incomparably more distant from us than the sun. He, therefore,

of all the ancients, as Laplace remarks, had the most correct ideas of

the grandeur of the universe. He saw that the earth is of absolutely

insignificant size, when compared with the stellar distances. He saw,

too, that there is nothing above us but space and stars.

But the views of Aristarchus, as respects the emplacement of the

planetary bodies, were not accepted by antiquity; the system proposed by

Ptolemy, and incorporated in his "Syntaxis," was universally preferred.

The physical philosophy of those times was very imperfect--one of

Ptolemy's objections to the Pythagorean system being that, if the earth

were in motion, it would leave the air and other light bodies behind it.

He therefore placed the earth in the central position, and in succession

revolved round her the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter,

Saturn; beyond the orbit of Saturn came the firmament of the fixed

stars. As to the solid crystalline spheres, one moving from east to

west, the other from north to south, these were a fancy of Eudoxus, to

which Ptolemy does not allude.

The Ptolemaic system is, therefore, essentially a geocentric system. It

left the earth in her position of superiority, and hence gave no cause

of umbrage to religious opinions, Christian or Mohammedan. The immense

reputation of its author, the signal ability of his great work on the

mechanism of the heavens, sustained it for almost fourteen hundred

years--that is, from the second to the sixteenth century.

In Christendom, the greater part of this long period was consumed

in disputes respecting the nature of God, and in struggles for

ecclesiastical power. The authority of the Fathers, and the prevailing

belief that the Scriptures contain the sum, of all knowledge,

discouraged any investigation of Nature. If by chance a passing interest

was taken in some astronomical question, it was at once settled by

a reference to such authorities as the writings of Augustine or

Lactantius, not by an appeal to the phenomena of the heavens. So

great was the preference given to sacred over profane learning that

Christianity had been in existence fifteen hundred years, and had not

produced a single astronomer.

The Mohammedan nations did much better. Their cultivation of science

dates from the capture of Alexandria, A.D. 638. This was only six years

after the death of the Prophet. In less than two centuries they had

not only become acquainted with, but correctly appreciated, the Greek

scientific writers. As we have already mentioned, by his treaty with

Michael III., the khalif Al-Mamun had obtained a copy of the "Syntaxis"

of Ptolemy. He had it forthwith translated into Arabic. It became at

once the great authority of Saracen astronomy. From this basis the

Saracens had advanced to the solution of some of the most important

scientific problems. They had ascertained the dimensions of the earth;

they had registered or catalogued all the stars visible in their

heavens, giving to those of the larger magnitudes the names they still

bear on our maps and globes; they determined the true length of the

year, discovered astronomical refraction, invented the pendulum-clock,

improved the photometry of the stars, ascertained the curvilinear

path of a ray of light through the air, explained the phenomena of the

horizontal sun and moon, and why we see those bodies before they have

risen and after they have set; measured the height of the atmosphere,

determining it to be fifty-eight miles; given the true theory of the

twilight, and of the twinkling of the stars. They had built the first

observatory in Europe. So accurate were they in their observations, that

the ablest modern mathematicians have made use of their results.

Thus Laplace, in his "Systeme du Monde," adduces the observations of

Al-Batagni as affording incontestable proof of the diminution of the

eccentricity of the earth's orbit. He uses those of Ibn-Junis in his

discussion of the obliquity of the ecliptic, and also in the case of the

problems of the greater inequalities of Jupiter and Saturn.

These represent but a part, and indeed but a small part, of the services

rendered by the Arabian astronomers, in the solution of the problem of

the nature of the world. Meanwhile, such was the benighted condition of

Christendom, such its deplorable ignorance, that it cared nothing

about the matter. Its attention was engrossed by image-worship,

transubstantiation, the merits of the saints, miracles, shrine-cures.

This indifference continued until the close of the fifteenth century.

Even then there was no scientific inducement. The inciting motives were

altogether of a different kind. They originated in commercial rivalries,

and the question of the shape of the earth was finally settled by three

sailors, Columbus, De Gama, and, above all, by Ferdinand Magellan.

The trade of Eastern Asia has always been a source of immense wealth to

the Western nations who in succession have obtained it. In the middle

ages it had centred in Upper Italy. It was conducted along two lines--a

northern, by way of the Black and Caspian Seas, and camel-caravans

beyond--the headquarters of this were at Genoa; and a southern, through

the Syrian and Egyptian ports, and by the Arabian Sea, the headquarters

of this being at Venice. The merchants engaged in the latter traffic had

also made great gains in the transport service of the Crusade-wars.

The Venetians had managed to maintain amicable relations with the

Mohammedan powers of Syria and Egypt; they were permitted to have

consulates at Alexandria and Damascus, and, notwithstanding the military

commotions of which those countries had been the scene, the trade was

still maintained in a comparatively flourishing condition. But the

northern or Genoese line had been completely broken up by the

irruptions of the Tartars and the Turks, and the military and political

disturbances of the countries through which it passed. The Eastern trade

of Genoa was not merely in a precarious condition--it was on the brink

of destruction.

The circular visible horizon and its dip at sea, the gradual appearance

and disappearance of ships in the offing, cannot fail to incline

intelligent sailors to a belief in the globular figure of the earth.

The writings of the Mohammedan astronomers and philosophers had given

currency to that doctrine throughout Western Europe, but, as might be

expected, it was received with disfavor by theologians. When Genoa was

thus on the very brink of ruin, it occurred to some of her mariners

that, if this view were correct, her affairs might be re-established.

A ship sailing through the straits of Gibraltar westward, across the

Atlantic, would not fail to reach the East Indies. There were apparently

other great advantages. Heavy cargoes might be transported without

tedious and expensive land-carriage, and without breaking bulk.

Among the Genoese sailors who entertained these views was Christopher

Columbus.

He tells us that his attention was drawn to this subject by the writings

of Averroes, but among his friends he numbered Toscanelli, a Florentine,

who had turned his attention to astronomy, and had become a strong

advocate of the globular form. In Genoa itself Columbus met with but

little encouragement. He then spent many years in trying to interest

different princes in his proposed attempt. Its irreligious tendency was

pointed out by the Spanish ecclesiastics, and condemned by the Council

of Salamanca; its orthodoxy was confuted from the Pentateuch, the

Psalms, the Prophecies, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the writings of

the Fathers--St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory, St.

Basil, St Ambrose.

At length, however, encouraged by the Spanish Queen Isabella, and

substantially aided by a wealthy seafaring family, the Pinzons of Palos,

some of whom joined him personally, he sailed on August 3, 1492, with

three small ships, from Palos, carrying with him a letter from King

Ferdinand to the Grand-Khan of Tartary, and also a chart, or map,

constructed on the basis of that of Toscanelli. A little before

midnight, October 11, 1492, he saw from the forecastle of his ship a

moving light at a distance. Two hours subsequently a signal-gun from

another of the ships announced that they had descried land. At sunrise

Columbus landed in the New World.

On his return to Europe it was universally supposed that he had reached

the eastern parts of Asia, and that therefore his voyage had been

theoretically successful. Columbus himself died in that belief. But

numerous voyages which were soon undertaken made known the general

contour of the American coast-line, and the discovery of the Great South

Sea by Balboa revealed at length the true facts of the case, and the

mistake into which both Toscanelli and Columbus had fallen, that in a

voyage to the West the distance from Europe to Asia could not exceed

the distance passed over in a voyage from Italy to the Gulf of Guinea--a

voyage that Columbus had repeatedly made.

In his first voyage, at nightfall on September 13, 1492, being then two

and a half degrees east of Corvo, one of the Azores, Columbus observed

that the compass needles of the ships no longer pointed a little to the

east of north, but were varying to the west. The deviation became more

and more marked as the expedition advanced. He was not the first to

detect the fact of variation, but he was incontestably the first to

discover the line of no variation. On the return-voyage the reverse

was observed; the variation westward diminished until the meridian in

question was reached, when the needles again pointed due north. Thence,

as the coast of Europe was approached, the variation was to the

east. Columbus, therefore, came to the conclusion that the line of

no variation was a fixed geographical line, or boundary, between

the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. In the bull of May, 1493, Pope

Alexander VI. accordingly adopted this line as the perpetual boundary

between the possessions of Spain and Portugal, in his settlement of the

disputes of those nations. Subsequently, however, it was discovered that

the line was moving eastward. It coincided with the meridian of London

in 1662.

By the papal bull the Portuguese possessions were limited to the east of

the line of no variation. Information derived from certain Egyptian

Jews had reached that government, that it was possible to sail round the

continent of Africa, there being at its extreme south a cape which could

be easily doubled. An expedition of three ships under Vasco de Gama set

sail, July 9, 1497; it doubled the cape on November 20th, and reached

Calicut, on the coast of India, May 19, 1498. Under the bull, this

voyage to the East gave to the Portuguese the right to the India trade.

Until the cape was doubled, the course of De Gama's ships was in a

general manner southward. Very soon, it was noticed that the elevation

of the pole-star above the horizon was diminishing, and, soon after the

equator was reached, that star had ceased to be visible. Meantime other

stars, some of them forming magnificent constellations, had come into

view--the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. All this was in conformity

to theoretical expectations founded on the admission of the globular

form of the earth.

The political consequences that at once ensued placed the Papal

Government in a position of great embarrassment. Its traditions and

policy forbade it to admit any other than the flat figure of the earth,

as revealed in the Scriptures. Concealment of the facts was impossible,

sophistry was unavailing. Commercial prosperity now left Venice as well

as Genoa. The front of Europe was changed. Maritime power had departed

from the Mediterranean countries, and passed to those upon the Atlantic

coast.

But the Spanish Government did not submit to the advantage thus

gained by its commercial rival without an effort. It listened to the

representations of one Ferdinand Magellan, that India and the Spice

Islands could be reached by sailing to the west, if only a strait or

passage through what had now been recognized as "the American Continent"

could be discovered; and, if this should be accomplished, Spain,

under the papal bull, would have as good a right to the India trade as

Portugal. Under the command of Magellan, an expedition of five ships,

carrying two hundred and thirty-seven men, was dispatched from Seville,

August 10, 1519.

Magellan at once struck boldly for the South American coast, hoping to

find some cleft or passage through the continent by which he might reach

the great South Sea. For seventy days he was becalmed on the line; his

sailors were appalled by the apprehension that they had drifted into a

region where the winds never blew, and that it was impossible for them

to escape. Calms, tempests, mutiny, desertion, could not shake his

resolution. After more than a year he discovered the strait which

now bears his name, and, as Pigafetti, an Italian, who was with him,

relates, he shed fears of joy when he found that it had pleased God at

length to bring him where he might grapple with the unknown dangers of

the South Sea, "the Great and Pacific Ocean."

Driven by famine to eat scraps of skin and leather with which his

rigging was here and there bound, to drink water that had gone putrid,

his crew dying of hunger and scurvy, this man, firm in his belief of the

globular figure of the earth, steered steadily to the northwest, and for

nearly four months never saw inhabited land. He estimated that he had

sailed over the Pacific not less than twelve thousand miles. He crossed

the equator, saw once more the pole-star, and at length made land--the

Ladrones. Here he met with adventurers from Sumatra. Among these islands

he was killed, either by the savages or by his own men. His lieutenant,

Sebastian d'Elcano, now took command of the ship, directing her course

for the Cape of Good Hope, and encountering frightful hardships. He

doubled the cape at last, and then for the fourth time crossed the

equator. On September 7, 1522, after a voyage of more than three years,

he brought his ship, the San Vittoria, to anchor in the port of St.

Lucar, near Seville. She had accomplished the greatest achievement in

the history of the human race. She had circumnavigated the earth.

The San Vittoria, sailing westward, had come back to her starting-point.

Henceforth the theological doctrine of the flatness of the earth was

irretrievably overthrown.

Five years after the completion of the voyage of Magellan, was made the

first attempt in Christendom to ascertain the size of the earth. This

was by Fernel, a French physician, who, having observed the height of

the pole at Paris, went thence northward until he came to a place where

the height of the pole was exactly one degree more than at that city.

He measured the distance between the two stations by the number of

revolutions of one of the wheels of his carriage, to which a proper

indicator bad been attached, and came to the conclusion that the earth's

circumference is about twenty-four thousand four hundred and eighty

Italian miles.

Measures executed more and more carefully were made in many countries:

by Snell in Holland; by Norwood between London and York in England; by

Picard, under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences, in France.

Picard's plan was to connect two points by a series of triangles,

and, thus ascertaining the length of the arc of a meridian intercepted

between them, to compare it with the difference of latitudes found from

celestial observations. The stations were Malvoisine in the vicinity

of Paris, and Sourdon near Amiens. The difference of latitudes was

determined by observing the zenith-distances, of delta Cassiopeia. There

are two points of interest connected with Picard's operation: it was the

first in which instruments furnished with telescopes were employed;

and its result, as we shall shortly see, was to Newton the first

confirmation of the theory of universal gravitation.

At this time it had become clear from mechanical considerations, more

especially such as had been deduced by Newton, that, since the earth is

a rotating body, her form cannot be that of a perfect sphere, but

must be that of a spheroid, oblate or flattened at the poles. It would

follow, from this, that the length of a degree must be greater near the

poles than at the equator.

The French Academy resolved to extend Picard's operation, by prolonging

the measures in each direction, and making the result the basis of a

more accurate map of France. Delays, however, took place, and it was not

until 1718 that the measures, from Dunkirk on the north to the southern

extremity of France, were completed. A discussion arose as to the

interpretation of these measures, some affirming that they indicated a

prolate, others an oblate spheroid; the former figure may be popularly

represented by a lemon, the latter by an orange. To settle this, the

French Government, aided by the Academy, sent out two expeditions to

measure degrees of the meridian--one under the equator, the other as

far north as possible; the former went to Peru, the latter to Swedish

Lapland. Very great difficulties were encountered by both parties. The

Lapland commission, however, completed its observations long before the

Peruvian, which consumed not less than nine years. The results of the

measures thus obtained confirmed the theoretical expectation of the

oblate form. Since that time many extensive and exact repetitions of the

observation have been made, among which may be mentioned those of the

English in England and in India, and particularly that of the French

on the occasion of the introduction of the metric system of weights

and measures. It was begun by Delambre and Mechain, from Dunkirk to

Barcelona, and thence extended, by Biot and Arago, to the island

of Formentera near Minorea. Its length was nearly twelve and a half

degrees.

Besides this method of direct measurement, the figure of the earth

may be determined from the observed number of oscillations made by a

pendulum of invariable length in different latitudes. These, though they

confirm the foregoing results, give a somewhat greater ellipticity

to the earth than that found by the measurement of degrees. Pendulums

vibrate more slowly the nearer they are to the equator. It follows,

therefore, that they are there farther from the centre of the earth.

From the most reliable measures that have been made, the dimensions of

the earth may be thus stated:

Greater or equatorial diameter..............7,925 miles.

Less or polar diameter......................7,899 "

Difference or polar compression............. 26 "

Such was the result of the discussion respecting the figure and size

of the earth. While it was yet undetermined, another controversy arose,

fraught with even more serious consequences. This was the conflict

respecting the earth's position with regard to the sun and the planetary

bodies.

Copernicus, a Prussian, about the year 1507, had completed a book "On

the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies." He had journeyed to Italy

in his youth, had devoted his attention to astronomy, and had taught

mathematics at Rome. From a profound study of the Ptolemaic and

Pythagorean systems, he had come to a conclusion in favor of the latter,

the object of his book being to sustain it. Aware that his doctrines

were totally opposed to revealed truth, and foreseeing that they would

bring upon him the punishments of the Church, he expressed himself in

a cautious and apologetic manner, saying that he had only taken the

liberty of trying whether, on the supposition of the earth's motion, it

was possible to find better explanations than the ancient ones of the

revolutions of the celestial orbs; that in doing this he had only

taken the privilege that had been allowed to others, of feigning what

hypothesis they chose. The preface was addressed to Pope Paul III.

Full of misgivings as to what might be the result, he refrained from

publishing his book for thirty-six years, thinking that "perhaps it

might be better to follow the examples of the Pythagoreans and others,

who delivered their doctrine only by tradition and to friends." At the

entreaty of Cardinal Schomberg he at length published it in 1543. A copy

of it was brought to him on his death-bed. Its fate was such as he had

anticipated. The Inquisition condemned it as heretical. In their decree,

prohibiting it, the Congregation of the Index denounced his system

as "that false Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the Holy

Scriptures."

Astronomers justly affirm that the book of Copernicus, "De

Revolutionibus," changed the face of their science. It incontestably

established the heliocentric theory. It showed that the distance of the

fixed stars is infinitely great, and that the earth is a mere point in

the heavens. Anticipating Newton, Copernicus imputed gravity to the sun,

the moon, and heavenly bodies, but he was led astray by assuming that

the celestial motions must be circular. Observations on the orbit of

Mars, and his different diameters at different times, had led Copernicus

to his theory.

In thus denouncing the Copernican system as being in contradiction to

revelation, the ecclesiastical authorities were doubtless deeply moved

by inferential considerations. To dethrone the earth from her central

dominating position, to give her many equals and not a few superiors,

seemed to diminish her claims upon the Divine regard. If each of the

countless myriads of stars was a sun, surrounded by revolving globes,

peopled with responsible beings like ourselves, if we had fallen so

easily and had been redeemed at so stupendous a price as the death of

the Son of God, how was it with them? Of them were there none who had

fallen or might fall like us? Where, then, for them could a Savior be

found?

During the year 1608 one Lippershey, a Hollander, discovered that, by

looking through two glass lenses, combined in a certain manner together,

distant objects were magnified and rendered very plain. He had invented

the telescope. In the following year Galileo, a Florentine, greatly

distinguished by his mathematical and scientific writings, hearing

of the circumstance, but without knowing the particulars of the

construction, invented a form of the instrument for himself. Improving

it gradually, he succeeded in making one that could magnify thirty

times. Examining the moon, he found that she had valleys like those of

the earth, and mountains casting shadows. It had been said in the old

times that in the Pleiades there were formerly seven stars, but a legend

related that one of them had mysteriously disappeared. On turning his

telescope toward them, Galileo found that he could easily count not

fewer than forty. In whatever direction he looked, he discovered stars

that were totally invisible to the naked eye.

On the night of January 7, 1610, he perceived three small stars in

a straight line, adjacent to the planet Jupiter, and, a few evenings

later, a fourth. He found that these were revolving in orbits round the

body of the planet, and, with transport, recognized that they presented

a miniature representation of the Copernican system.

The announcement of these wonders at once attracted universal attention.

The spiritual authorities were not slow to detect their tendency, as

endangering the doctrine that the universe was made for man. In the

creation of myriads of stars, hitherto invisible, there must surely have

been some other motive than that of illuminating the nights for him.

It had been objected to the Copernican theory that, if the planets

Mercury and Venus move round the sun in orbits interior to that of the

earth, they ought to show phases like those of the moon; and that in

the case of Venus, which is so brilliant and conspicuous, these phases

should be very obvious. Copernicus himself had admitted the force of

the objection, and had vainly tried to find an explanation. Galileo, on

turning his telescope to the planet, discovered that the expected phases

actually exist; now she was a crescent, then half-moon, then gibbous,

then full. Previously to Copernicus, it was supposed that the planets

shine by their own light, but the phases of Venus and Mars proved that

their light is reflected. The Aristotelian notion, that celestial differ

from terrestrial bodies in being incorruptible, received a rude shock

from the discoveries of Galileo, that there are mountains and valleys in

the moon like those of the earth, that the sun is not perfect, but has

spots on his face, and that he turns on his axis instead of being in a

state of majestic rest. The apparition of new stars had already thrown

serious doubts on this theory of incorruptibility.

These and many other beautiful telescopic discoveries tended to the

establishment of the truth of the Copernican theory and gave unbounded

alarm to the Church. By the low and ignorant ecclesiastics they were

denounced as deceptions or frauds. Some affirmed that the telescope

might be relied on well enough for terrestrial objects, but with the

heavenly bodies it was altogether a different affair. Others declared

that its invention was a mere application of Aristotle's remark that

stars could be seen in the daytime from the bottom of a deep well.

Galileo was accused of imposture, heresy, blasphemy, atheism. With a

view of defending himself, he addressed a letter to the Abbe Castelli,

suggesting that the Scriptures were never intended to be a scientific

authority, but only a moral guide. This made matters worse. He was

summoned before the Holy Inquisition, under an accusation of having

taught that the earth moves round the sun, a doctrine "utterly contrary

to the Scriptures." He was ordered to renounce that heresy, on pain of

being imprisoned. He was directed to desist from teaching and advocating

the Copernican theory, and pledge himself that he would neither publish

nor defend it for the future. Knowing well that Truth has no need of

martyrs, he assented to the required recantation, and gave the promise

demanded.

For sixteen years the Church had rest. But in 1632 Galileo ventured

on the publication of his work entitled "The System of the World," its

object being the vindication of the Copernican doctrine. He was again

summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, accused of having asserted

that the earth moves round the sun. He was declared to have brought

upon himself the penalties of heresy. On his knees, with his hand on the

Bible, he was compelled to abjure and curse the doctrine of the movement

of the earth. What a spectacle! This venerable man, the most illustrious

of his age, forced by the threat of death to deny facts which his judges

as well as himself knew to be true! He was then committed to prison,

treated with remorseless severity during the remaining ten years of

his life, and was denied burial in consecrated ground. Must not that

be false which requires for its support so much imposture, so much

barbarity? The opinions thus defended by the Inquisition are now objects

of derision to the whole civilized world.

One of the greatest of modern mathematicians, referring to this subject,

says that the point here contested was one which is for mankind of the

highest interest, because of the rank it assigns to the globe that we

inhabit. If the earth be immovable in the midst of the universe, man has

a right to regard himself as the principal object of the care of Nature.

But if the earth be only one of the planets revolving round the sun, an

insignificant body in the solar system, she will disappear entirely

in the immensity of the heavens, in which this system, vast as it may

appear to us, is nothing but an insensible point.

The triumphant establishment of the Copernican doctrine dates from the

invention of the telescope. Soon there was not to be found in all Europe

an astronomer who had not accepted the heliocentric theory with its

essential postulate, the double motion of the earth--movement of

rotation on her axis, and a movement of revolution round the sun.

If additional proof of the latter were needed, it was furnished by

Bradley's great discovery of the aberration of the fixed stars, an

aberration depending partly on the progressive motion of light, and

partly on the revolution of the earth. Bradley's discovery ranked

in importance with that of the precession of the equinoxes. Roemer's

discovery of the progressive motion of light, though denounced by

Fontenelle as a seductive error, and not admitted by Cassini, at length

forced its way to universal acceptance.

Next it was necessary to obtain correct ideas of the dimensions of the

solar system, or, putting the problem under a more limited form, to

determine the distance of the earth from the sun.

In the time of Copernicus it was supposed that the sun's distance could

not exceed five million miles, and indeed there were many who thought

that estimate very extravagant. From a review of the observations of

Tycho Brahe, Kepler, however, concluded that the error was actually in

the opposite direction, and that the estimate must be raised to at

least thirteen million. In 1670 Cassini showed that these numbers were

altogether inconsistent with the facts, and gave as his conclusion

eighty-five million.

The transit of Venus over the face of the sun, June 3, 1769, had been

foreseen, and its great value in the solution of this fundamental

problem in astronomy appreciated. With commendable alacrity various

governments contributed their assistance in making observations, so that

in Europe there were fifty stations, in Asia six, in America seventeen.

It was for this purpose that the English Government dispatched Captain

Cook on his celebrated first voyage. He went to Otaheite. His voyage

was crowned with success. The sun rose without a cloud, and the sky

continued equally clear throughout the day. The transit at Cook's

station lasted from about half-past nine in the morning until about

half-past three in the afternoon, and all the observations were made in

a satisfactory manner.

But, on the discussion of the observations made at the different

stations, it was found that there was not the accordance that could have

been desired--the result varying from eighty-eight to one hundred and

nine million. The celebrated mathematician, Encke, therefore reviewed

them in 1822-'24, and came to the conclusion that the sun's horizontal

parallax, that is, the angle under which the semi-diameter of the earth

is seen from the sun, is 8 576/1000 seconds; this gave as the distance

95,274,000 miles. Subsequently the observations were reconsidered

by Hansen, who gave as their result 91,659,000 miles. Still later,

Leverrier made it 91,759,000. Airy and Stone, by another method, made

it 91,400,000; Stone alone, by a revision of the old observations,

91,730,000; and finally, Foucault and Fizeau, from physical experiments,

determining the velocity of light, and therefore in their nature

altogether differing from transit observations, 91,400,000. Until the

results of the transit of next year (1874) are ascertained, it must

therefore be admitted that the distance of the earth from the sun is

somewhat less than ninety-two million miles.

This distance once determined, the dimensions of the solar system may

be ascertained with ease and precision. It is enough to mention that

the distance of Neptune from the sun, the most remote of the planets at

present known, is about thirty times that of the earth.

By the aid of these numbers we may begin to gain a just appreciation of

the doctrine of the human destiny of the universe--the doctrine that all

things were made for man. Seen from the sun, the earth dwindles away to

a mere speck, a mere dust-mote glistening in his beams. If the reader

wishes a more precise valuation, let him hold a page of this book a

couple of feet from his eye; then let him consider one of its dots or

full stops; that dot is several hundred times larger in surface than is

the earth as seen from the sun!

Of what consequence, then, can such an almost imperceptible particle be?

One might think that it could be removed or even annihilated, and yet

never be missed. Of what consequence is one of those human monads, of

whom more than a thousand millions swarm on the surface of this all

but invisible speck, and of a million of whom scarcely one will leave

a trace that he has ever existed? Of what consequence is man, his

pleasures or his pains?

Among the arguments brought forward against the Copernican system at the

time of its promulgation, was one by the great Danish astronomer, Tycho

Brahe, originally urged by Aristarchus against the Pythagorean system,

to the effect that, if, as was alleged, the earth moves round the sun,

there ought to be a change of the direction in which the fixed stars

appear. At one time we are nearer to a particular region of the heavens

by a distance equal to the whole diameter of the earth's orbit than we

were six months previously, and hence there ought to be a change in

the relative position of the stars; they should seem to separate as we

approach them, and to close together as we recede from them; or, to use

the astronomical expression, these stars should have a yearly parallax.

The parallax of a star is the angle contained between two lines drawn

from it--one to the sun, the other to the earth.

At that time, the earth's distance from the sun was greatly

under-estimated. Had it been known, as it is now, that that distance

exceeds ninety million miles, or that the diameter of the orbit is more

than one hundred and eighty million, that argument would doubtless have

had very great weight.

In reply to Tycho, it was said that, since the parallax of a body

diminishes as its distance increases, a star may be so far off that its

parallax may be imperceptible. This answer proved to be correct. The

detection of the parallax of the stars depended on the improvement of

instruments for the measurement of angles.

The parallax of alpha Centauri, a fine double star of the Southern

Hemisphere, at present considered to be the nearest of the fixed stars,

was first determined by Henderson and Maclear at the Cape of Good Hope

in 1832-'33. It is about nine-tenths of a second. Hence this star is

almost two hundred and thirty thousand times as far from us as the sun.

Seen from it, if the sun were even large enough to fill the whole orbit

of the earth, or one hundred and eighty million miles in diameter,

he would be a mere point. With its companion, it revolves round their

common centre of gravity in eighty-one years, and hence it would seem

that their conjoint mass is less than that of the sun.

The star 61 Cygni is of the sixth magnitude. Its parallax was first

found by Bessel in 1838, and is about one-third of a second. The

distance from us is, therefore, much more than five hundred thousand

times that of the sun. With its companion, it revolves round their

common centre of gravity in five hundred and twenty years. Their

conjoint weight is about one-third that of the sun.

There is reason to believe that the great star Sirius, the brightest

in the heavens, is about six times as far off as alpha Centauri. His

probable diameter is twelve million miles, and the light he emits two

hundred times more brilliant than that of the sun. Yet, even through the

telescope, he has no measurable diameter; he looks merely like a very

bright spark.

The stars, then, differ not merely in visible magnitude, but also in

actual size. As the spectroscope shows, they differ greatly in chemical

and physical constitution. That instrument is also revealing to us the

duration of the life of a star, through changes in the refrangibility of

the emitted light. Though, as we have seen, the nearest to us is at

an enormous and all but immeasurable distance, this is but the first

step--there are others the rays of which have taken thousands, perhaps

millions, of years to reach us! The limits of our own system are far

beyond the range of our greatest telescopes; what, then, shall we say of

other systems beyond? Worlds are scattered like dust in the abysses in

space.

Have these gigantic bodies--myriads of which are placed at so vast a

distance that our unassisted eyes cannot perceive them--have these no

other purpose than that assigned by theologians, to give light to us?

Does not their enormous size demonstrate that, as they are centres of

force, so they must be centres of motion--suns for other systems of

worlds?

While yet these facts were very imperfectly known--indeed, were rather

speculations than facts--Giordano Bruno, an Italian, born seven years

after the death of Copernicus, published a work on the "Infinity of

the Universe and of Worlds;" he was also the author of "Evening

Conversations on Ash-Wednesday," an apology for the Copernican system,

and of "The One Sole Cause of Things." To these may be added an allegory

published in 1584, "The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast." He had also

collected, for the use of future astronomers, all the observations he

could find respecting the new star that suddenly appeared in Cassiopeia,

A.D. 1572, and increased in brilliancy, until it surpassed all the other

stars. It could be plainly seen in the daytime. On a sudden, November

11th, it was as bright as Venus at her brightest. In the following March

it was of the first magnitude. It exhibited various hues of color in a

few months, and disappeared in March, 1574.

The star that suddenly appeared in Serpentarius, in Kepler's time

(1604), was at first brighter than Venus. It lasted more than a year,

and, passing through various tints of purple, yellow, red, became

extinguished.

Originally, Bruno was intended for the Church. He had become a

Dominican, but was led into doubt by his meditations on the subjects of

transubstantiation and the immaculate conception. Not caring to

conceal his opinions, he soon fell under the censure of the spiritual

authorities, and found it necessary to seek refuge successively in

Switzerland, France, England, Germany. The cold-scented sleuth-hounds of

the Inquisition followed his track remorselessly, and eventually hunted

him back to Italy. He was arrested in Venice, and confined in the Piombi

for six years, without books, or paper, or friends.

In England he had given lectures on the plurality of worlds, and in that

country had written, in Italian, his most important works. It added

not a little to the exasperation against him, that he was perpetually

declaiming against the insincerity; the impostures, of his

persecutors--that wherever he went he found skepticism varnished over

and concealed by hypocrisy; and that it was not against the belief of

men, but against their pretended belief, that he was fighting; that he

was struggling with an orthodoxy that had neither morality nor faith.

In his "Evening Conversations" he had insisted that the Scriptures were

never intended to teach science, but morals only; and that they cannot

be received as of any authority on astronomical and physical subjects.

Especially must we reject the view they reveal to us of the constitution

of the world, that the earth is a flat surface, supported on pillars;

that the sky is a firmament--the floor of heaven. On the contrary, we

must believe that the universe is infinite, and that it is filled with

self-luminous and opaque worlds, many of them inhabited; that there

is nothing above and around us but space and stars. His meditations

on these subjects had brought him to the conclusion that the views of

Averroes are not far from the truth--that there is an Intellect which

animates the universe, and of this Intellect the visible world is only

an emanation or manifestation, originated and sustained by force derived

from it, and, were that force withdrawn, all things would disappear.

This ever-present, all-pervading Intellect is God, who lives in all

things, even such as seem not to live; that every thing is ready to

become organized, to burst into life. God is, therefore, "the One Sole

Cause of Things," "the All in All."

Bruno may hence be considered among philosophical writers as

intermediate between Averroes and Spinoza. The latter held that God and

the Universe are the same, that all events happen by an immutable law

of Nature, by an unconquerable necessity; that God is the Universe,

producing a series of necessary movements or acts, in consequence of

intrinsic, unchangeable, and irresistible energy.

On the demand of the spiritual authorities, Bruno was removed from

Venice to Rome, and confined in the prison of the Inquisition, accused

not only of being a heretic, but also a heresiarch, who had written

things unseemly concerning religion; the special charge against him

being that he had taught the plurality of worlds, a doctrine repugnant

to the whole tenor of Scripture and inimical to revealed religion,

especially as regards the plan of salvation. After an imprisonment of

two years he was brought before his judges, declared guilty of the

acts alleged, excommunicated, and, on his nobly refusing to recant, was

delivered over to the secular authorities to be punished "as mercifully

as possible, and without the shedding of his blood," the horrible

formula for burning a prisoner at the stake. Knowing well that though

his tormentors might destroy his body, his thoughts would still live

among men, he said to his judges, "Perhaps it is with greater fear

that you pass the sentence upon me than I receive it." The sentence was

carried into effect, and he was burnt at Rome, February 16th, A.D. 1600.

No one can recall without sentiments of pity the sufferings of those

countless martyrs, who first by one party, and then by another, have

been brought for their religious opinions to the stake. But each of

these had in his supreme moment a powerful and unfailing support. The

passage from this life to the next, though through a hard trial, was the

passage from a transient trouble to eternal happiness, an escape from

the cruelty of earth to the charity of heaven. On his way through the

dark valley the martyr believed that there was an invisible hand that

would lead him, a friend that would guide him all the more gently and

firmly because of the terrors of the flames. For Bruno there was no

such support. The philosophical opinions, for the sake of which he

surrendered his life, could give him no consolation. He must fight the

last fight alone. Is there not something very grand in the attitude of

this solitary man, something which human nature cannot help admiring, as

he stands in the gloomy hall before his inexorable judges? No accuser,

no witness, no advocate is present, but the familiars of the Holy

Office, clad in black, are stealthily moving about. The tormentors and

the rack are in the vaults below. He is simply told that he has brought

upon himself strong suspicions of heresy, since he has said that there

are other worlds than ours. He is asked if he will recant and abjure

his error. He cannot and will not deny what he knows to be true, and

perhaps--for he had often done so before--he tells his judges that they,

too, in their hearts are of the same belief. What a contrast between

this scene of manly honor, of unshaken firmness, of inflexible adherence

to the truth, and that other scene which took place more than fifteen

centuries previously by the fireside in the hall of Caiaphas the

high-priest, when the cock crew, and "the Lord turned and looked upon

Peter" (Luke xxii. 61)! And yet it is upon Peter that the Church has

grounded her right to act as she did to Bruno. But perhaps the day

approaches when posterity will offer an expiation for this great

ecclesiastical crime, and a statue of Bruno be unveiled under the dome

of St. Peter's at Rome.

CHAPTER VII.

CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE AGE OF THE EARTH.

Scriptural view that the Earth is only six thousand years

old, and that it was made in a week.--Patristic chronology

founded on the ages of the patriarchs.--Difficulties arising

from different estimates in different versions of the Bible.

Legend of the Deluge.--The repeopling.--The Tower of Babel;

the confusion of tongues.--The primitive language.

Discovery by Cassini of the oblateness of the planet

Jupiter.--Discovery by Newton of the oblateness of the

Earth.--Deduction that she has been modeled by mechanical

causes.--Confirmation of this by geological discoveries

respecting aqueous rocks; corroboration by organic remains.--

The necessity of admitting enormously long periods of

time.--Displacement of the doctrine of Creation by that of

Evolution--Discoveries respecting the Antiquity of Man.

The time-scale and space-scale of the world are infinite.--

Moderation with which the discussion of the Age of the World

has been conducted.

THE true position of the earth in the universe was established only

after a long and severe conflict. The Church used whatever power she

had, even to the infliction of death, for sustaining her ideas. But

it was in vain. The evidence in behalf of the Copernican theory became

irresistible. It was at length universally admitted that the sun is the

central, the ruling body of our system; the earth only one, and by no

means the largest, of a family of encircling planets. Taught by the

issue of that dispute, when the question of the age of the world

presented itself for consideration, the Church did not exhibit the

active resistance she had displayed on the former occasion. For,

though her traditions were again put in jeopardy, they were not, in her

judgment, so vitally assailed. To dethrone the Earth from her dominating

position was, so the spiritual authorities declared, to undermine the

very foundation of revealed truth; but discussions respecting the date

of creation might within certain limits be permitted. Those limits were,

however, very quickly overpassed, and thus the controversy became as

dangerous as the former one had been.

It was not possible to adopt the advice given by Plato in his "Timaeus,"

when treating of this subject--the origin of the universe: "It is proper

that both I who speak and you who judge should remember that we are but

men, and therefore, receiving the probable mythological tradition, it

is meet that we inquire no further into it." Since the time of St.

Augustine the Scriptures had been made the great and final authority in

all matters of science, and theologians had deduced from them schemes of

chronology and cosmogony which had proved to be stumbling-blocks to the

advance of real knowledge.

It is not necessary for us to do more than to allude to some of the

leading features of these schemes; their peculiarities will be easily

discerned with sufficient clearness. Thus, from the six days of creation

and the Sabbath-day of rest, since we are told that a day is with the

Lord as a thousand years, it was inferred that the duration of the

world will be through six thousand years of suffering, and an additional

thousand, a millennium of rest. It was generally admitted that the

earth was about four thousand years old at the birth of Christ, but, so

careless had Europe been in the study of its annals, that not Until

A.D. 627 had it a proper chronology of its own. A Roman abbot, Dionysius

Exiguus, or Dennis the Less, then fixed the vulgar era, and gave Europe

its present Christian chronology.

The method followed in obtaining the earliest chronological dates was

by computations, mainly founded on the lives of the patriarchs. Much

difficulty was encountered in reconciling numerical discrepancies. Even

if, as was taken for granted in those uncritical ages, Moses was the

author of the books imputed to him, due weight was not given to the fact

that he related events, many of which took place more than two thousand

years before he was born. It scarcely seemed necessary to regard the

Pentateuch as of plenary inspiration, since no means had been provided

to perpetuate its correctness. The different copies which had escaped

the chances of time varied very much; thus the Samaritan made thirteen

hundred and seven years from the Creation to the Deluge, the Hebrew

sixteen hundred and fifty-six, the Septuagint twenty-two hundred and

sixty-three. The Septuagint counted fifteen hundred years more from the

Creation to Abraham than the Hebrew. In general, however, there was

an inclination to the supposition that the Deluge took place about two

thousand years after the Creation, and, after another interval of two

thousand years, Christ was born. Persons who had given much attention

to the subject affirmed that there were not less than one hundred

and thirty-two different opinions as to the year in which the Messiah

appeared, and hence they declared that it was inexpedient to press for

acceptance the Scriptural numbers too closely, since it was plain,

from the great differences in different copies, that there had been no

providential intervention to perpetuate a correct reading, nor was there

any mark by which men could be guided to the only authentic version.

Even those held in the highest esteem contained undeniable errors. Thus

the Septuagint made Methuselah live until after the Deluge.

It was thought that, in the antediluvian world, the year consisted

of three hundred and sixty days. Some even affirmed that this was

the origin of the division of the circle into three hundred and sixty

degrees. At the time of the Deluge, so many theologians declared, the

motion of the sun was altered, and the year became five days and six

hours longer. There was a prevalent opinion that that stupendous event

occurred on November 2d, in the year of the world 1656. Dr. Whiston,

however, disposed to greater precision, inclined to postpone it to

November 28th. Some thought that the rainbow was not seen until after

the flood; others, apparently with better reason, inferred that it was

then first established as a sign. On coming forth from the ark, men

received permission to use flesh as food, the antediluvians having been

herbivorous! It would seem that the Deluge had not occasioned any great

geographical changes, for Noah, relying on his antediluvian knowledge,

proceeded to divide the earth among his three sons, giving to Japhet

Europe, to Shem Asia, to Ham Africa. No provision was made for America,

as he did not know of its existence. These patriarchs, undeterred by the

terrible solitudes to which they were going, by the undrained swamps

and untracked forests, journeyed to their allotted possessions, and

commenced the settlement of the continents.

In seventy years the Asiatic family had increased to several hundred.

They had found their way to the plains of Mesopotamia, and there, for

some motive that we cannot divine, began building a tower "whose top

might reach to heaven." Eusebius informs us that the work continued for

forty years. They did not abandon it until a miraculous confusion of

their language took place and dispersed them all over the earth. St.

Ambrose shows that this confusion could not have been brought about by

men. Origen believes that not even the angels accomplished it.

The confusion of tongues has given rise to many curious speculations

among divines as to the primitive speech of man. Some have thought

that the language of Adam consisted altogether of nouns, that they were

monosyllables, and that the confusion was occasioned by the introduction

of polysyllables. But these learned men must surely have overlooked the

numerous conversations reported in Genesis, such as those between the

Almighty and Adam, the serpent and Eve, etc. In these all the various

parts of speech occur. There was, however, a coincidence of opinion

that the primitive language was Hebrew. On the general principles of

patristicism, it was fitting that this should be the case.

The Greek Fathers computed that, at the time of the dispersion,

seventy-two nations were formed, and in this conclusion St. Augustine

coincides. But difficulties seem to have been recognized in these

computations; thus the learned Dr. Shuckford, who has treated very

elaborately on all the foregoing points in his excellent work "On the

Sacred and Profane History of the World connected," demonstrates that

there could not have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two men, women,

and children, in each of those kingdoms.

A very vital point in this system of chronological computation, based

upon the ages of the patriarchs, was the great length of life to which

those worthies attained. It was generally supposed that before the Flood

"there was a perpetual equinox," and no vicissitudes in Nature. After

that event the standard of life diminished one-half, and in the time of

the Psalmist it had sunk to seventy years, at which it still remains.

Austerities of climate were affirmed to have arisen through the shifting

of the earth's axis at the Flood, and to this ill effect were added the

noxious influences of that universal catastrophe, which, "converting the

surface of the earth into a vast swamp, gave rise to fermentations of

the blood and a weakening of the fibres."

With a view of avoiding difficulties arising from the extraordinary

length of the patriarchal lives, certain divines suggested that the

years spoken of by the sacred penman were not ordinary but lunar years.

This, though it might bring the age of those venerable men within

the recent term of life, introduced, however, another insuperable

difficulty, since it made them have children when only five or six years

old.

Sacred science, as interpreted by the Fathers of the Church,

demonstrated these facts: 1. That the date of Creation was comparatively

recent, not more than four or five thousand years before Christ; 2. That

the act of Creation occupied the space of six ordinary days; 3. That

the Deluge was universal, and that the animals which survived it were

preserved in an ark; 4. That Adam was created perfect in morality and

intelligence, that he fell, and that his descendants have shared in his

sin and his fall.

Of these points and others that might be mentioned there were two on

which ecclesiastical authority felt that it must insist. These were:

1. The recent date of Creation; for, the remoter that event, the more

urgent the necessity of vindicating the justice of God, who apparently

had left the majority of our race to its fate, and had reserved

salvation for the few who were living in the closing ages of the

world; 2. The perfect condition of Adam at his creation, since this was

necessary to the theory of the fall, and the plan of salvation.

Theological authorities were therefore constrained to look with disfavor

on any attempt to carry back the origin of the earth, to an epoch

indefinitely remote, and on the Mohammedan theory of the evolution

of man from lower forms, or his gradual development to his present

condition in the long lapse of time.

From the puerilities, absurdities, and contradictions of the foregoing

statement, we may gather how very unsatisfactory this so-called sacred

science was. And perhaps we may be brought to the conclusion to

which Dr. Shuckford, above quoted, was constrained to come, after his

wearisome and unavailing attempt to coordinate its various parts: "As to

the Fathers of the first ages of the Church, they were good men, but not

men of universal learning."

Sacred cosmogony regards the formation and modeling of the earth as the

direct act of God; it rejects the intervention of secondary causes in

those events.

Scientific cosmogony dates from the telescopic discovery made by

Cassini--an Italian astronomer, under whose care Louis XIV. placed the

Observatory of Paris--that the planet Jupiter is not a sphere, but

an oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles. Mechanical philosophy

demonstrated that such a figure is the necessary result of the rotation

of a yielding mass, and that the more rapid the rotation the greater the

flattening, or, what comes to the same thing, the greater the equatorial

bulging must be.

From considerations--purely of a mechanical kind--Newton had foreseen

that such likewise, though to a less striking extent, must be the figure

of the earth. To the protuberant mass is due the precession of the

equinoxes, which requires twenty-five thousand eight hundred and

sixty-eight years for its completion, and also the nutation of the

earth's axis, discovered by Bradley. We have already had occasion to

remark that the earth's equatorial diameter exceeds the polar by about

twenty-six miles.

Two facts are revealed by the oblateness of the earth: 1. That she has

formerly been in a yielding or plastic condition; 2. That she has been

modeled by a mechanical and therefore a secondary cause.

But this influence of mechanical causes is manifested not only in

the exterior configuration of the globe of the earth as a spheroid of

revolution, it also plainly appears on an examination of the arrangement

of her substance.

If we consider the aqueous rocks, their aggregate is many miles in

thickness; yet they undeniably have been of slow deposit. The material

of which they consist has been obtained by the disintegration of ancient

lands; it has found its way into the water-courses, and by them been

distributed anew. Effects of this kind, taking place before our eyes,

require a very considerable lapse of time to produce a well-marked

result--a water deposit may in this manner measure in thickness a few

inches in a century--what, then, shall we say as to the time consumed in

the formation of deposits of many thousand yards?

The position of the coast-line of Egypt has been known for much more

than two thousand years. In that time it has made, by reason of the

detritus brought down by the Nile, a distinctly-marked encroachment on

the Mediterranean. But all Lower Egypt has had a similar origin. The

coast-line near the mouth of the Mississippi has been well known

for three hundred years, and during that time has scarcely made a

perceptible advance on the Gulf of Mexico; but there was a time when the

delta of that river was at St. Louis, more than seven hundred miles

from its present position. In Egypt and in America--in fact, in all

countries--the rivers have been inch by inch prolonging the land into

the sea; the slowness of their work and the vastness of its extent

satisfy us that we must concede for the operation enormous periods of

time.

To the same conclusion we are brought if we consider the filling of

lakes, the deposit of travertines, the denudation of hills, the

cutting action of the sea on its shores, the undermining of cliffs, the

weathering of rocks by atmospheric water and carbonic acid.

Sedimentary strata must have been originally deposited in planes nearly

horizontal. Vast numbers of them have been forced, either by paroxysms

at intervals or by gradual movement, into all manner of angular

inclinations. Whatever explanations we may offer of these innumerable

and immense tilts and fractures, they would seem to demand for their

completion an inconceivable length of time.

The coal-bearing strata in Wales, by their gradual submergence, have

attained a thickness of 12,000 feet; in Nova Scotia of 14,570 feet.

So slow and so steady was this submergence, that erect trees stand one

above another on successive levels; seventeen such repetitions may be

counted in a thickness of 4,515 feet. The age of the trees is proved

by their size, some being four feet in diameter. Round them, as they

gradually went down with the subsiding soil, calamites grew, at one

level after another. In the Sydney coal-field fifty-nine fossil forests

occur in superposition.

Marine shells, found on mountain-tops far in the interior of continents,

were regarded by theological writers as an indisputable illustration of

the Deluge. But when, as geological studies became more exact, it was

proved that in the crust of the earth vast fresh-water formations are

repeatedly intercalated with vast marine ones, like the leaves of a

book, it became evident that no single cataclysm was sufficient

to account for such results; that the same region, through gradual

variations of its level and changes in its topographical surroundings,

had sometimes been dry land, sometimes covered with fresh and sometimes

with sea water. It became evident also that, for the completion of these

changes, tens of thousands of years were required.

To this evidence of a remote origin of the earth, derived from the vast

superficial extent, the enormous thickness, and the varied characters of

its strata, was added an imposing body of proof depending on its fossil

remains. The relative ages of formations having been ascertained, it

was shown that there has been an advancing physiological progression of

organic forms, both vegetable and animal, from the oldest to the most

recent; that those which inhabit the surface in our times are but an

insignificant fraction of the prodigious multitude that have inhabited

it heretofore; that for each species now living there are thousands

that have become extinct. Though special formations are so strikingly

characterized by some predominating type of life as to justify such

expressions as the age of mollusks, the age of reptiles, the age of

mammals, the introduction of the new-comers did not take place abruptly.

as by sudden creation. They gradually emerged in an antecedent age,

reached their culmination in the one which they characterize, and then

gradually died out in a succeeding. There is no such thing as a

sudden creation, a sudden strange appearance--but there is a slow

metamorphosis, a slow development from a preexisting form. Here again

we encounter the necessity of admitting for such results long periods

of time. Within the range of history no well-marked instance of such

development has been witnessed, and we speak with hesitation of doubtful

instances of extinction. Yet in geological times myriads of evolutions

and extinctions have occurred.

Since thus, within the experience of man, no case of metamorphosis

or development has been observed, some have been disposed to deny its

possibility altogether, affirming that all the different species have

come into existence by separate creative acts. But surely it is less

unphilosophical to suppose that each species has been evolved from a

predecessor by a modification of its parts, than that it has suddenly

started into existence out of nothing. Nor is there much weight in

the remark that no man has ever witnessed such a transformation taking

place. Let it be remembered that no man has ever witnessed an act

of creation, the sudden appearance of an organic form, without any

progenitor.

Abrupt, arbitrary, disconnected creative acts may serve to illustrate

the Divine power; but that continuous unbroken chain of organisms which

extends from palaeozoic formations to the formations of recent times, a

chain in which each link hangs on a preceding and sustains a succeeding

one, demonstrates to us not only that the production of animated beings

is governed by law, but that it is by law that has undergone no change.

In its operation, through myriads of ages, there has been no variation,

no suspension.

The foregoing paragraphs may serve to indicate the character of a

portion of the evidence with which we must deal in considering the

problem of the age of the earth. Through the unintermitting labors of

geologists, so immense a mass has been accumulated, that many volumes

would be required to contain the details. It is drawn from the phenomena

presented by all kinds of rocks, aqueous, igneous, metamorphic. Of

aqueous rocks it investigates the thickness, the inclined positions,

and how they rest unconformably on one another; how those that are of

fresh-water origin are intercalated with those that are marine; how

vast masses of material have been removed by slow-acting causes of

denudation, and extensive geographical surfaces have been remodeled; how

continents have undergone movements of elevation and depression, their

shores sunk under the ocean, or sea-beaches and sea-cliffs carried far

into the interior. It considers the zoological and botanical facts, the

fauna and flora of the successive ages, and how in an orderly manner the

chain of organic forms, plants, and animals, has been extended, from its

dim and doubtful beginnings to our own times. From facts presented by

the deposits of coal-coal which, in all its varieties, has originated

from the decay of plants--it not only demon strates the changes that

have taken place in the earth's atmosphere, but also universal changes

of climate. From other facts it proves that there have been oscillations

of temperature, periods in which the mean heat has risen, and periods

in which the polar ices and snows have covered large portions of the

existing continents--glacial periods, as they are termed.

One school of geologists, resting its argument on very imposing

evidence, teaches that the whole mass of the earth, from being in a

molten, or perhaps a vaporous condition, has cooled by radiation in the

lapse of millions of ages, until it has reached its present equilibrium

of temperature. Astronomical observations give great weight to this

interpretation, especially so far as the planetary bodies of the solar

system are concerned. It is also supported by such facts as the small

mean density of the earth, the increasing temperature at increasing

depths, the phenomena of volcanoes and injected veins, and those of

igneous and metamorphic rocks. To satisfy the physical changes which

this school of geologists contemplates, myriads of centuries are

required.

But, with the views that the adoption of the Copernican system has given

us, it is plain that we cannot consider the origin and biography of the

earth in an isolated way; we must include with her all the other members

of the system or family to which she belongs. Nay, more, we cannot

restrict ourselves to the solar system; we must embrace in our

discussions the starry worlds. And, since we have become familiarized

with their almost immeasurable distances from one another, we are

prepared to accept for their origin an immeasurably remote time. There

are stars so far off that their light, fast as it travels, has taken

thousands of years to reach us, and hence they must have been in

existence many thousands of years ago.

Geologists having unanimously agreed--for perhaps there is not a single

dissenting voice--that the chronology of the earth must be greatly

extended, attempts have been made to give precision to it. Some of

these have been based on astronomical, some on physical principles. Thus

calculations founded on the known changes of the eccentricity of the

earth's orbit, with a view of determining the lapse of time since the

beginning of the last glacial period, have given two hundred and

forty thousand years. Though the general postulate of the immensity of

geological times may be conceded, such calculations are on too uncertain

a theoretical basis to furnish incontestable results.

But, considering the whole subject from the present scientific

stand-point, it is very clear that the views presented by theological

writers, as derived from the Mosaic record, cannot be admitted. Attempts

have been repeatedly made to reconcile the revealed with the discovered

facts, but they have proved to be unsatisfactory. The Mosaic time is

too short, the order of creation incorrect, the divine interventions

too anthropomorphic; and, though the presentment of the subject is in

harmony with the ideas that men have entertained, when first their

minds were turned to the acquisition of natural knowledge, it is not in

accordance with their present conceptions of the insignificance of the

earth and the grandeur of the universe.

Among late geological discoveries is one of special interest; it is the

detection of human remains and human works in formations which, though

geologically recent, are historically very remote.

The fossil remains of men, with rude implements of rough or chipped

flint, of polished stone, of bone, of bronze, are found in Europe in

caves, in drifts, in peat-beds. They indicate a savage life, spent in

hunting and fishing. Recent researches give reason to believe that,

under low and base grades, the existence of man can be traced back into

the tertiary times. He was contemporary with the southern elephant,

the rhinoceros leptorhinus, the great hippopotamus, perhaps even in the

miocene contemporary with the mastodon.

At the close of the Tertiary period, from causes not yet determined, the

Northern Hemisphere underwent a great depression of temperature. From

a torrid it passed to a glacial condition. After a period of prodigious

length, the temperature again rose, and the glaciers that had so

extensively covered the surface receded. Once more there was a decline

in the heat, and the glaciers again advanced, but this time not so far

as formerly. This ushered in the Quaternary period, during which very

slowly the temperature came to its present degree. The water deposits

that were being made required thousands of centuries for their

completion. At the beginning of the Quaternary period there were

alive the cave-bear, the cave-lion, the amphibious hippopotamus, the

rhinoceros with chambered nostrils, the mammoth. In fact, the mammoth

swarmed. He delighted in a boreal climate. By degrees the reindeer, the

horse, the ox, the bison, multiplied, and disputed with him his food.

Partly for this reason, and partly because of the increasing heat, he

became extinct. From middle Europe, also, the reindeer retired. His

departure marks the end of the Quaternary period.

Since the advent of man on the earth, we have, therefore, to deal with

periods of incalculable length. Vast changes in the climate and fauna

were produced by the slow operation of causes such as are in action at

the present day. Figures cannot enable us to appreciate these enormous

lapses of time.

It seems to be satisfactorily established, that a race allied to the

Basques may be traced back to the Neolithic age. At that time the

British Islands were undergoing a change of level, like that at present

occurring in the Scandinavian Peninsula. Scotland was rising, England

was sinking. In the Pleistocene age there existed in Central Europe a

rude race of hunters and fishers closely allied to the Esquimaux.

In the old glacial drift of Scotland the relics of man are found along

with those of the fossil elephant. This carries us back to that time

above referred to, when a large portion of Europe was covered with ice,

which had edged down from the polar regions to southerly latitudes, and,

as glaciers, descended from the summits of the mountain-chains into the

plains. Countless species of animals perished in this cataclysm of ice

and snow, but man survived.

In his primitive savage condition, living for the most part on fruits,

roots, shell-fish, man was in possession of a fact which was certain

eventually to insure his civilization. He knew how to make a fire. In

peat-beds, under the remains of trees that in those localities have

long ago become extinct, his relics are still found, the implements

that accompany him indicating a distinct chronological order. Near the

surface are those of bronze, lower down those of bone or horn, still

lower those of polished stone, and beneath all those of chipped or rough

stone. The date of the origin of some of these beds cannot be estimated

at less than forty or fifty thousand years.

The caves that have been examined in France and elsewhere have furnished

for the Stone age axes, knives, lance and arrow points, scrapers,

hammers. The change from what may be termed the chipped to the polished

stone period is very gradual. It coincides with the domestication of the

dog, an epoch in hunting-life. It embraces thousands of centuries. The

appearance of arrow-heads indicates the invention of the bow, and

the rise of man from a defensive to an offensive mode of life. The

introduction of barbed arrows shows how inventive talent was displaying

itself; bone and horn tips, that the huntsman was including smaller

animals, and perhaps birds, in his chase; bone whistles, his

companionship with other huntsmen or with his dog. The scraping-knives

of flint indicate the use of skin for clothing, and rude bodkins and

needles its manufacture. Shells perforated for bracelets and necklaces

prove how soon a taste for personal adornment was acquired; the

implements necessary for the preparation of pigments suggest the

painting of the body, and perhaps tattooing; and batons of rank bear

witness to the beginning of a social organization.

With the utmost interest we look upon the first germs of art among these

primitive men. They have left its rude sketches on pieces of ivory and

flakes of bone, and carvings, of the animals contemporary with them. In

these prehistoric delineations, sometimes not without spirit, we have

mammoths, combats of reindeer. One presents us with a man harpooning a

fish, another a hunting-scene of naked men armed with the dart. Man is

the only animal who has the propensity of depicting external forms, and

of availing himself of the use of fire.

Shell-mounds, consisting of bones and shells, some of which may be

justly described as of vast extent, and of a date anterior to the Bronze

age, and full of stone implements, bear in all their parts indications

of the use of fire. These are often adjacent to the existing coasts

sometimes, however, they are far inland, in certain instances as far

as fifty miles. Their contents and position indicate for them a date

posterior to that of the great extinct mammals, but prior to the

domesticated. Some of these, it is said, cannot be less than one hundred

thousand years old.

The lake-dwellings in Switzerland--huts built on piles or logs, wattled

with boughs--were, as may be inferred from the accompanying implements,

begun in the Stone age, and continued into that of Bronze. In the latter

period the evidences become numerous of the adoption of an agricultural

life.

It must not be supposed that the periods into which geologists have

found it convenient to divide the progress of man in civilization are

abrupt epochs, which hold good simultaneously for the whole human race.

Thus the wandering Indians of America are only at the present moment

emerging from the Stone age. They are still to be seen in many places

armed with arrows, tipped with flakes of flint. It is but as yesterday

that some have obtained, from the white man, iron, fire-arms, and the

horse.

So far as investigations have gone, they indisputably refer the

existence of man to a date remote from us by many hundreds of thousands

of years. It must be borne in mind that these investigations are quite

recent, and confined to a very limited geographical space. No researches

have yet been made in those regions which might reasonably be regarded

as the primitive habitat of man.

We are thus carried back immeasurably beyond the six thousand years of

Patristic chronology. It is difficult to assign a shorter date for the

last glaciation of Europe than a quarter of a million of years, and

human existence antedates that. But not only is it this grand fact that

confronts us, we have to admit also a primitive animalized state, and a

slow, a gradual development. But this forlorn, this savage condition

of humanity is in strong contrast to the paradisiacal happiness of the

garden of Eden, and, what is far more serious, it is inconsistent with

the theory of the Fall.

I have been induced to place the subject of this chapter out of its

proper chronological order, for the sake of presenting what I had to

say respecting the nature of the world more completely by itself. The

discussions that arose as to the age of the earth were long after the

conflict as to the criterion of truth--that is, after the Reformation;

indeed, they were substantially included in the present century. They

have been conducted with so much moderation as to justify the term

I have used in the title of this chapter, "Controversy," rather than

"Conflict." Geology has not had to encounter the vindictive opposition

with which astronomy was assailed, and, though, on her part, she has

insisted on a concession of great antiquity for the earth, she has

herself pointed out the unreliability of all numerical estimates thus

far offered. The attentive reader of this chapter cannot have failed to

observe inconsistencies in the numbers quoted. Though wanting the

merit of exactness, those numbers, however, justify the claim of vast

antiquity, and draw us to the conclusion that the time-scale of the

world answers to the space-scale in magnitude.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONFLICT RESPECTING THE CRITERION OF TRUTH.

Ancient philosophy declares that man has no means of

ascertaining the truth.

Differences of belief arise among the early Christians--An

ineffectual attempt is made to remedy them by Councils.--

Miracle and ordeal proof introduced.

The papacy resorts to auricular confession and the

Inquisition.--It perpetrates frightful atrocities for the

suppression of differences of opinion.

Effect of the discovery of the Pandects of Justinian and

development of the canon law on the nature of evidence.--It

becomes more scientific.

The Reformation establishes the rights of individual

reason.--Catholicism asserts that the criterion of truth is

in the Church. It restrains the reading of books by the

Index Expurgatorius, and combats dissent by such means as

the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve.

Examination of the authenticity of the Pentateuch as the

Protestant criterion.--Spurious character of those books.

For Science the criterion of truth is to be found in the

revelations of Nature: for the Protestant, it is in the

Scriptures; for the Catholic, in an infallible Pope.

"WHAT is truth?" was the passionate demand of a Roman procurator on one

of the most momentous occasions in history. And the Divine Person who

stood before him, to whom the interrogation was addressed, made no

reply--unless, indeed, silence contained the reply.

Often and vainly had that demand been made before--often and vainly has

it been made since. No one has yet given a satisfactory answer.

When, at the dawn of science in Greece, the ancient religion was

disappearing like a mist at sunrise, the pious and thoughtful men of

that country were thrown into a condition of intellectual despair.

Anaxagoras plaintively exclaims, "Nothing can be known, nothing can be

learned, nothing can be certain, sense is limited, intellect is weak,

life is short." Xenophanes tells us that it is impossible for us to be

certain even when we utter the truth. Parmenides declares that the

very constitution of man prevents him from ascertaining absolute truth.

Empedocles affirms that all philosophical and religious systems must

be unreliable, because we have no criterion by which to test them.

Democritus asserts that even things that are true cannot impart

certainty to us; that the final result of human inquiry is the discovery

that man is incapable of absolute knowledge; that, even if the truth be

in his possession, he cannot be certain of it. Pyrrho bids us reflect

on the necessity of suspending our judgment of things, since we have no

criterion of truth; so deep a distrust did he impart to his followers,

that they were in the habit of saying, "We assert nothing; no, not even

that we assert nothing." Epicurus taught his disciples that truth can

never be determined by reason. Arcesilaus, denying both intellectual and

sensuous knowledge, publicly avowed that he knew nothing, not even his

own ignorance! The general conclusion to which Greek philosophy came was

this--that, in view of the contradiction of the evidence of the

senses, we cannot distinguish the true from the false; and such is the

imperfection of reason, that we cannot affirm the correctness of any

philosophical deduction.

It might be supposed that a revelation from God to man would come with

such force and clearness as to settle all uncertainties and overwhelm

all opposition. A Greek philosopher, less despairing than others, had

ventured to affirm that the coexistence of two forms of faith, both

claiming to be revealed by the omnipotent God, proves that neither of

them is true. But let us remember that it is difficult for men to come

to the same conclusion as regards even material and visible things,

unless they stand at the same point of view. If discord and distrust

were the condition of philosophy three hundred years before the birth

of Christ, discord and distrust were the condition of religion three

hundred years after his death. This is what Hilary, the Bishop of

Poictiers, in his well-known passage written about the time of the

Nicene Council, says:

"It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous that there are, as many

creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, and as

many sources of blasphemy as there are faults among us, because we make

creeds arbitrarily and explain them as arbitrarily. Every year, nay,

every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mysteries; we

repent of what we have done; we defend those who repent; we anathematize

those whom we defend; we condemn either the doctrines of others in

ourselves, or our own in that of others; and, reciprocally tearing each

other to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin."

These are not mere words; but the import of this self-accusation can

be realized fully only by such as are familiar with the ecclesiastical

history of those times. As soon as the first fervor of Christianity as a

system of benevolence had declined, dissensions appeared. Ecclesiastical

historians assert that "as early as the second century began the contest

between faith and reason, religion and philosophy, piety and genius." To

compose these dissensions, to obtain some authoritative expression, some

criterion of truth, assemblies for consultation were resorted to, which

eventually took the form of councils. For a long time they had nothing

more than an advisory authority; but, when, in the fourth century,

Christianity had attained to imperial rule, their dictates became

compulsory, being enforced by the civil power. By this the whole face

of the Church was changed. Oecumenical councils--parliaments of

Christianity--consisting of delegates from all the churches in the

world, were summoned by the authority of the emperor; he presided either

personally or nominally in them--composed all differences, and was, in

fact, the Pope of Christendom. Mosheim, the historian, to whom I have

more particularly referred above, speaking of these times, remarks

that "there was nothing to exclude the ignorant from ecclesiastical

preferment; the savage and illiterate party, who looked on all kinds

of learning, particularly philosophy, as pernicious to piety, was

increasing;" and, accordingly, "the disputes carried on in the Council

of Nicea offered a remarkable example of the greatest ignorance and

utter confusion of ideas, particularly in the language and explanations

of those who approved of the decisions of that council." Vast as its

influence has been, "the ancient critics are neither agreed concerning

the time nor place in which it was assembled, the number of those who

sat in it, nor the bishop who presided. No authentic acts of its famous

sentence have been committed to writing, or, at least, none have been

transmitted to our times." The Church had now become what, in the

language of modern politicians, would be called "a confederated

republic." The will of the council was determined by a majority vote,

and, to secure that, all manner of intrigues and impositions were

resorted to; the influence of court females, bribery, and violence, were

not spared. The Council of Nicea had scarcely adjourned,--when it was

plain to all impartial men that, as a method of establishing a criterion

of truth in religious matters, such councils were a total failure. The

minority had no rights which the majority need respect. The protest of

many good men, that a mere majority vote given by delegates, whose right

to vote had never been examined and authorized, could not be received

as ascertaining absolute truth, was passed over with contempt, and the

consequence was, that council was assembled against council, and their

jarring and contradictory decrees spread perplexity and confusion

throughout the Christian world. In the fourth century alone there were

thirteen councils adverse to Arius, fifteen in his favor, and seventeen

for the semi-Arians--in all, forty-five. Minorities were perpetually

attempting to use the weapon which majorities had abused.

The impartial ecclesiastical historian above quoted, moreover, says

that "two monstrous and calamitous errors were adopted in this fourth

century: 1. That it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie when, by

that means, the interests of the Church might be promoted. 2. That

errors in religion, when maintained and adhered to after proper

admonition, were punishable with civil penalties and corporal tortures."

Not without astonishment can we look back at what, in those times, were

popularly regarded as criteria of truth. Doctrines were considered

as established by the number of martyrs who had professed them, by

miracles, by the confession of demons, of lunatics, or of persons

possessed of evil spirits: thus, St. Ambrose, in his disputes with the

Arians, produced men possessed by devils, who, on the approach of the

relics of certain martyrs, acknowledged, with loud cries, that the

Nicean doctrine of the three persons of the Godhead was true. But

the Arians charged him with suborning these infernal witnesses with a

weighty bribe. Already, ordeal tribunals were making their appearance.

During the following six centuries they were held as a final resort for

establishing guilt or innocence, under the forms of trial by cold water,

by duel, by the fire, by the cross.

What an utter ignorance of the nature of evidence and its laws have we

here! An accused man sinks or swims when thrown into a pond of water;

he is burnt or escapes unharmed when he holds a piece of red-hot iron

in his hand; a champion whom he has hired is vanquished or vanquishes in

single fight; he can keep his arms outstretched like a cross, or fails

to do so longer than his accuser, and his innocence or guilt of some

imputed crime is established! Are these criteria of truth?

Is it surprising that all Europe was filled with imposture miracles

during those ages?--miracles that are a disgrace to the common-sense of

man!

But the inevitable day came at length. Assertions and doctrines based

upon such preposterous evidence were involved in the discredit that fell

upon the evidence itself. As the thirteenth century is approached, we

find unbelief in all directions setting in. First, it is plainly seen

among the monastic orders, then it spreads rapidly among the common

people. Books, such as "The Everlasting Gospel," appear among the

former; sects, such as the Catharists, Waldenses, Petrobrussians, arise

among the latter. They agreed in this, "that the public and established

religion was a motley system of errors and superstitions, and that the

dominion which the pope had usurped over Christians was unlawful and

tyrannical; that the claim put forth by Rome, that the Bishop of Rome is

the supreme lord of the universe, and that neither princes nor bishops,

civil governors nor ecclesiastical rulers, have any lawful power in

church or state but what they receive from him, is utterly without

foundation, and a usurpation of the rights of man."

To withstand this flood of impiety, the papal government established two

institutions: 1. The Inquisition; 2. Auricular confession--the latter as

a means of detection, the former as a tribunal for punishment.

In general terms, the commission of the Inquisition was, to extirpate

religious dissent by terrorism, and surround heresy with the most

horrible associations; this necessarily implied the power of determining

what constitutes heresy. The criterion of truth was thus in possession

of this tribunal, which was charged "to discover and bring to judgment

heretics lurking in towns, houses, cellars, woods, caves, and fields."

With such savage alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the

interests of religion, that between 1481 and 1808 it had punished three

hundred and forty thousand persons, and of these nearly thirty-two

thousand had been burnt! In its earlier days, when public opinion could

find no means of protesting against its atrocities, "it often put to

death, without appeal, on the very day that they were accused, nobles,

clerks, monks, hermits, and lay persons of every rank." In whatever

direction thoughtful men looked, the air was full of fearful shadows. No

one could indulge in freedom of thought without expecting punishment. So

dreadful were the proceedings of the Inquisition, that the exclamation

of Pagliarici was the exclamation of thousands: "It is hardly possible

for a man to be a Christian, and die in his bed."

The Inquisition destroyed the sectaries of Southern France in the

thirteenth century. Its unscrupulous atrocities extirpated Protestantism

in Italy and Spain. Nor did it confine itself to religious affairs; it

engaged in the suppression of political discontent. Nicolas Eymeric, who

was inquisitor-general of the kingdom of Aragon for nearly fifty years,

and who died in 1399, has left a frightful statement of its conduct and

appalling cruelties in his "Directorium Inquisitorum."

This disgrace of Christianity, and indeed of the human race, had

different constitutions in different countries. The papal Inquisition

continued the tyranny, and eventually superseded the old episcopal

inquisitions. The authority of the bishops was unceremoniously put aside

by the officers of the pope.

By the action of the fourth Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, the power of

the Inquisition was frightfully increased, the necessity of private

confession to a priest--auricular confession--being at that time

formally established. This, so far as domestic life was concerned, gave

omnipresence and omniscience to the Inquisition. Not a man was safe.

In the hands of the priest, who, at the confessional, could extract or

extort from them their most secret thoughts, his wife and his servants

were turned into spies. Summoned before the dread tribunal, he was

simply informed that he lay under strong suspicions of heresy. No

accuser was named; but the thumb-screw, the stretching-rope, the boot

and wedge, or other enginery of torture, soon supplied that defect, and,

innocent or guilty, he accused himself!

Notwithstanding all this power, the Inquisition failed of its purpose.

When the heretic could no longer confront it, he evaded it. A dismal

disbelief stealthily pervaded all Europe,--a denial of Providence,

of the immortality of the soul, of human free-will, and that man can

possibly resist the absolute necessity, the destiny which envelops him.

Ideas such as these were cherished in silence by multitudes of persons

driven to them by the tyrannical acts of ecclesiasticism. In spite of

persecution, the Waldenses still survived to propagate their declaration

that the Roman Church, since Constantine, had degenerated from its

purity and sanctity; to protest against the sale of indulgences, which

they said had nearly abolished prayer, fasting, alms; to affirm that it

was utterly useless to pray for the souls of the dead, since they must

already have gone either to heaven or hell. Though it was generally

believed that philosophy or science was pernicious to the interests of

Christianity or true piety, the Mohammedan literature then prevailing

in Spain was making converts among all classes of society. We see very

plainly its influence in many of the sects that then arose; thus, "the

Brethren and Sisters of the Free. Spirit" held that "the universe came

by emanation from God, and would finally return to him by absorption;

that rational souls are so many portions of the Supreme Deity; and that

the universe, considered as one great whole, is God." These are ideas

that can only be entertained in an advanced intellectual condition. Of

this sect it is said that many suffered burning with unclouded serenity,

with triumphant feelings of cheerfulness and joy. Their orthodox enemies

accused them of gratifying their passions at midnight assemblages in

darkened rooms, to which both sexes in a condition of nudity repaired. A

similar accusation, as is well known, was brought against the primitive

Christians by the fashionable society of Rome.

The influences of the Averroistic philosophy were apparent in many of

these sects. That Mohammedan system, considered from a Christian point

of view, led to the heretical belief that the end of the precepts of

Christianity is the union of the soul with the Supreme Being; that God

and Nature have the same relations to each other as the soul and the

body; that there is but one individual intelligence; and that one soul

performs all the spiritual and rational functions in all the human race.

When, subsequently, toward the time of the Reformation, the Italian

Averroists were required by the Inquisition to give an account of

themselves, they attempted to show that there is a wide distinction

between philosophical and religious truth; that things may be

philosophically true, and yet theologically false--an exculpatory device

condemned at length by the Lateran Council in the time of Leo X.

But, in spite of auricular confession, and the Inquisition, these

heretical tendencies survived. It has been truly said that, at the

epoch of the Reformation, there lay concealed, in many parts of Europe,

persons who entertained the most virulent enmity against Christianity.

In this pernicious class were many Aristotelians, such as Pomponatius;

many philosophers and wits, such as Bodin, Rabelais, Montaigne; many

Italians, as Leo X., Bembo, Bruno.

Miracle-evidence began to fall into discredit during the eleventh and

twelfth centuries. The sarcasms of the Hispano-Moorish philosophers

had forcibly drawn the attention of many of the more enlightened

ecclesiastics to its illusory nature. The discovery of the Pandects

of Justinian, at Amalfi, in 1130, doubtless exerted a very powerful

influence in promoting the study of Roman jurisprudence, and

disseminating better notions as to the character of legal or

philosophical evidence. Hallam has cast some doubt on the well-known

story of this discovery, but he admits that the celebrated copy in the

Laurentian library, at Florence, is the only one containing the entire

fifty books. Twenty years subsequently, the monk Gratian collected

together the various papal edicts, the canons of councils, the

declarations of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, in a volume

called "The Decretum," considered as the earliest authority in canon

law. In the next century Gregory IX. published five books of Decretals,

and Boniface VIII. subsequently added a sixth. To these followed the

Clementine Constitutions, a seventh book of Decretals, and "A Book of

Institutes," published together, by Gregory XIII., in 1580, under the

title of "Corpus Juris Canonici." The canon law had gradually gained

enormous power through the control it had obtained over wills, the

guardianship of orphans, marriages, and divorces.

The rejection of miracle-evidence, and the substitution of legal

evidence in its stead, accelerated the approach of the Reformation. No

longer was it possible to admit the requirement which, in former days,

Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his treatise, "Cur Deus Homo,"

had enforced, that we must first believe without examination, and

may afterward endeavor to understand what we have thus believed. When

Cajetan said to Luther, "Thou must believe that one single drop of

Christ's blood is sufficient to redeem the whole human race, and the

remaining quantity that was shed in the garden and on the cross was left

as a legacy to the pope, to be a treasure from which indulgences were

to be drawn," the soul of the sturdy German monk revolted against such

a monstrous assertion, nor would he have believed it though a thousand

miracles had been worked in its support. This shameful practice of

selling indulgences for the commission of sin originated among the

bishops, who, when they had need of money for their private pleasures,

obtained it in that way. Abbots and monks, to whom this gainful commerce

was denied, raised funds by carrying about relics in solemn procession,

and charging a fee for touching them. The popes, in their pecuniary

straits, perceiving how lucrative the practice might become, deprived

the bishops of the right of making such sales, and appropriated it to

themselves, establishing agencies, chiefly among the mendicant orders,

for the traffic. Among these orders there was a sharp competition, each

boasting of the superior value of its indulgences through its greater

influence at the court of heaven, its familiar connection with the

Virgin Mary and the saints in glory. Even against Luther himself, who

had been an Augustinian monk, a calumny was circulated that he was

first alienated from the Church by a traffic of this kind having been

conferred on the Dominicans, instead of on his own order, at the time

when Leo X. was raising funds by this means for building St. Peter's, at

Rome, A.D. 1517. and there is reason to think that Leo himself, in the

earlier stages of the Reformation, attached weight to that allegation.

Indulgences were thus the immediate inciting cause of the Reformation,

but very soon there came into light the real principle that was

animating the controversy. It lay in the question, Does the Bible owe

its authenticity to the Church? or does the Church owe her authenticity

to the Bible? Where is the criterion of truth?

It is not necessary for me here to relate the well known particulars of

that controversy, the desolating wars and scenes of blood to which it

gave rise: how Luther posted on the door of the cathedral of Wittemberg

ninety-five theses, and was summoned to Rome to answer for his offense;

how he appealed from the pope, ill-informed at the time, to the pope

when he should have been better instructed; how he was condemned as a

heretic, and thereupon appealed to a general council; how, through the

disputes about purgatory, transubstantiation, auricular confession,

absolution, the fundamental idea which lay at the bottom of the whole

movement came into relief, the right of individual judgment; how Luther

was now excommunicated, A.D. 1520, and in defiance burnt the bull of

excommunication and the volumes of the canon law, which he denounced as

aiming at the subversion of all civil government, and the exaltation of

the papacy; how by this skillful manoeuvre he brought over many of the

German princes to his views; how, summoned before the Imperial Diet at

Worms, he refused to retract, and, while he was bidden in the castle of

Wartburg, his doctrines were spreading, and a reformation under Zwingli

broke out in Switzerland; how the principle of sectarian decomposition

embedded in the movement gave rise to rivalries and dissensions between

the Germans and the Swiss, and even divided the latter among themselves

under the leadership of Zwingli and of Calvin; how the Conference of

Marburg, the Diet of Spires, and that at Augsburg, failed to compose

the troubles, and eventually the German Reformation assumed a political

organization at Smalcalde. The quarrels between the Lutherans and the

Calvinists gave hopes to Rome that she might recover her losses.

Leo was not slow to discern that the Lutheran Reformation was something

more serious than a squabble among some monks about the profits of

indulgence-sales, and the papacy set itself seriously at work to

overcome the revolters. It instigated the frightful wars that for so

many years desolated Europe, and left animosities which neither the

Treaty of Westphalia, nor the Council of Trent after eighteen years of

debate, could compose. No one can read without a shudder the attempts

that were made to extend the Inquisition in foreign countries. All

Europe, Catholic and Protestant, was horror-stricken at the Huguenot

massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve (A.D. 1572). For perfidy and atrocity

it has no equal in the annals of the world.

The desperate attempt in which the papacy had been engaged to put down

its opponents by instigating civil wars, massacres, and assassinations,

proved to be altogether abortive. Nor had the Council of Trent any

better result. Ostensibly summoned to correct, illustrate, and fix with

perspicacity the doctrine of the Church, to restore the vigor of

its discipline, and to reform the lives of its ministers, it was so

manipulated that a large majority of its members were Italians, and

under the influence of the pope. Hence the Protestants could not

possibly accept its decisions.

The issue of the Reformation was the acceptance by all the Protestant

Churches of the dogma that the Bible is a sufficient guide for every

Christian man. Tradition was rejected, and the right of private

interpretation assured. It was thought that the criterion of truth had

at length been obtained.

The authority thus imputed to the Scriptures was not restricted

to matters of a purely religious or moral kind; it extended over

philosophical facts and to the interpretation of Nature. Many went as

far as in the old times Epiphanius had done: he believed that the Bible

contained a complete system of mineralogy! The Reformers would tolerate

no science that was not in accordance with Genesis. Among them there

were many who maintained that religion and piety could never flourish

unless separated from learning and science. The fatal maxim that the

Bible contained the sum and substance of all knowledge, useful or

possible to man--a maxim employed with such pernicious effect of old by

Tertullian and by St. Augustine, and which had so often been enforced

by papal authority--was still strictly insisted upon. The leaders of

the Reformation, Luther and Melanchthon, were determined to banish

philosophy from the Church. Luther declared that the study of Aristotle

is wholly useless; his vilification of that Greek philosopher knew no

bounds. He is, says Luther, "truly a devil, a horrid calumniator, a

wicked sycophant, a prince of darkness, a real Apollyon, a beast, a

most horrid impostor on mankind, one in whom there is scarcely any

philosophy, a public and professed liar, a goat, a complete epicure,

this twice execrable Aristotle." The schoolmen were, so Luther said,

"locusts, caterpillars, frogs, lice." He entertained an abhorrence

for them. These opinions, though not so emphatically expressed, were

entertained by Calvin. So far as science is concerned, nothing is owed

to the Reformation. The Procrustean bed of the Pentateuch was still

before her.

In the annals of Christianity the most ill-omened day is that in which

she separated herself from science. She compelled Origen, at that time

(A.D. 231) its chief representative and supporter in the Church, to

abandon his charge in Alexandria, and retire to Caesarea. In vain

through many subsequent centuries did her leading men spend themselves

in--as the phrase then went--"drawing forth the internal juice and

marrow of the Scriptures for the explaining of things." Universal

history from the third to the sixteenth century shows with what result.

The dark ages owe their darkness to this fatal policy. Here and there,

it is true, there were great men, such as Frederick II. and Alphonso X.,

who, standing at a very elevated and general point of view, had detected

the value of learning to civilization, and, in the midst of the dreary

prospect that ecclesiasticism had created around them, had recognized

that science alone can improve the social condition of man.

The infliction of the death-punishment for difference of opinion was

still resorted to. When Calvin caused Servetus to be burnt at Geneva, it

was obvious to every one that the spirit of persecution was unimpaired.

The offense of that philosopher lay in his belief. This was, that the

genuine doctrines of Christianity had been lost even before the time of

the Council of Nicea; that the Holy Ghost animates the whole system of

Nature, like a soul of the world, and that, with the Christ, it will

be absorbed, at the end of all things, into the substance of the Deity,

from which they had emanated. For this he was roasted to death over a

slow fire. Was there any distinction between this Protestant auto-da-fe

and the Catholic one of Vanini, who was burnt at Toulouse, by the

Inquisition, in 1629, for his "Dialogues concerning Nature?"

The invention of printing, the dissemination of books, had introduced

a class of dangers which the persecution of the Inquisition could not

reach. In 1559, Pope Paul IV. instituted the Congregation of the Index

Expurgatorius. "Its duty is to examine books and manuscripts intended

for publication, and to decide whether the people may be permitted to

read them; to correct those books of which the errors are not numerous,

and which contain certain useful and salutary truths, so as to bring

them into harmony with the doctrines of the Church; to condemn those

of which the principles are heretical and pernicious; and to grant the

peculiar privilege of perusing heretical books to certain persons.

This congregation, which is sometimes held in presence of the pope, but

generally in the palace of the Cardinal-president, has a more extensive

jurisdiction than that of the Inquisition, as it not only takes

cognizance of those books that contain doctrines contrary to the Roman

Catholic faith, but of those that concern the duties of morality, the

discipline of the Church, the interests of society. Its name is derived

from the alphabetical tables or indexes of heretical books and authors

composed by its appointment."

The Index Expurgatorius of prohibited books at first indicated

those works which it was unlawful to read; but, on this being found

insufficient, whatever was not permitted was prohibited--an audacious

attempt to prevent all knowledge, except such as suited the purposes of

the Church, from reaching the people.

The two rival divisions of the Christian Church--Protestant and

Catholic--were thus in accord on one point: to tolerate no science

except such as they considered to be agreeable to the Scriptures. The

Catholic, being in possession of centralized power, could make its

decisions respected wherever its sway was acknowledged, and enforce the

monitions of the Index Expurgatorius; the Protestant, whose influence

was diffused among many foci in different nations, could not act in such

a direct and resolute manner. Its mode of procedure was, by raising a

theological odium against an offender, to put him under a social ban--a

course perhaps not less effectual than the other.

As we have seen in former chapters, an antagonism between religion and

science had existed from the earliest days of Christianity. On every

occasion permitting its display it may be detected through successive

centuries. We witness it in the downfall of the Alexandrian Museum, in

the cases of Erigena and Wiclif, in the contemptuous rejection by the

heretics of the thirteenth century of the Scriptural account of the

Creation; but it was not until the epoch of Copernicus, Kepler, and

Galileo, that the efforts of Science to burst from the thraldom in which

she was fettered became uncontrollable. In all countries the political

power of the Church had greatly declined; her leading men perceived

that the cloudy foundation on which she had stood was dissolving away.

Repressive measures against her antagonists, in old times resorted

to with effect, could be no longer advantageously employed. To her

interests the burning of a philosopher here and there did more harm than

good. In her great conflict with astronomy, a conflict in which Galileo

stands as the central figure, she received an utter overthrow; and, as

we have seen, when the immortal work of Newton was printed, she could

offer no resistance, though Leibnitz affirmed, in the face of Europe,

that "Newton had robbed the Deity of some of his most excellent

attributes, and had sapped the foundation of natural religion."

From the time of Newton to our own time, the divergence of science from

the dogmas of the Church has continually increased. The Church declared

that the earth is the central and most important body in the universe;

that the sun and moon and stars are tributary to it. On these points

she was worsted by astronomy. She affirmed that a universal deluge had

covered the earth; that the only surviving animals were such as had

been saved in an ark. In this her error was established by geology. She

taught that there was a first man, who, some six or eight thousand years

ago, was suddenly created or called into existence in a condition of

physical and moral perfection, and from that condition he fell. But

anthropology has shown that human beings existed far back in geological

time, and in a savage state but little better than that of the brute.

Many good and well-meaning men have attempted to reconcile the

statements of Genesis with the discoveries of science, but it is in

vain. The divergence has increased so much, that it has become an

absolute opposition. One of the antagonists must give way.

May we not, then, be permitted to examine the authenticity of this book,

which, since the second century, has been put forth as the criterion of

scientific truth? To maintain itself in a position so exalted, it must

challenge human criticism.

In the early Christian ages, many of the most eminent Fathers of the

Church had serious doubts respecting the authorship of the entire

Pentateuch. I have not space, in the limited compass of these pages, to

present in detail the facts and arguments that were then and have since

been adduced. The literature of the subject is now very extensive. I

may, however, refer the reader to the work of the pious and learned Dean

Prideaux, on "The Old and New Testament connected," a work which is one

of the literary ornaments of the last century. He will also find the

subject more recently and exhaustively discussed by Bishop Colenso. The

following paragraphs will convey a sufficiently distinct impression of

the present state of the controversy:

The Pentateuch is affirmed to have been written by Moses, under the

influence of divine inspiration. Considered thus, as a record vouchsafed

and dictated by the Almighty, it commands not only scientific but

universal consent.

But here, in the first place, it may be demanded, Who or what is it that

has put forth this great claim in its behalf?

Not the work itself. It nowhere claims the authorship of one man, or

makes the impious declaration that it is the writing of Almighty God.

Not until after the second century was there any such extravagant

demand on human credulity. It originated, not among the higher ranks of

Christian philosophers, but among the more fervid Fathers of the Church,

whose own writings prove them to have been unlearned and uncritical

persons.

Every age, from the second century to our times, has offered men of

great ability, both Christian and Jewish, who have altogether repudiated

these claims. Their decision has been founded upon the intrinsic

evidence of the books themselves. These furnish plain indications of at

least two distinct authors, who have been respectively termed Elohistic

and Jehovistic. Hupfeld maintains that the Jehovistic narrative bears

marks of having been a second original record, wholly independent of the

Elohistic. The two sources from which the narratives have been derived

are, in many respects, contradictory of each other. Moreover, it is

asserted that the books of the Pentateuch are never ascribed to Moses

in the inscriptions of Hebrew manuscripts, or in printed copies of the

Hebrew Bible, nor are they styled "Books of Moses" in the Septuagint or

Vulgate, but only in modern translations.

It is clear that they cannot be imputed to the sole authorship of Moses,

since they record his death. It is clear that they were not written

until many hundred years after that event, since they contain references

to facts which did not occur until after the establishment of the

government of kings among the Jews.

No man may dare to impute them to the inspiration of Almighty God--their

inconsistencies, incongruities, contradictions, and impossibilities, as

exposed by many learned and pious moderns, both German and English,

are so great. It is the decision of these critics that Genesis is a

narrative based upon legends; that Exodus is not historically true; that

the whole Pentateuch is unhistoric and non-Mosaic; it contains the most

extraordinary contradictions and impossibilities, sufficient to involve

the credibility of the whole--imperfections so many and so conspicuous

that they would destroy the authenticity of any modern historical work.

Hengstenberg, in his "Dissertations on the Genuineness of the

Pentateuch," says: "It is the unavoidable fate of a spurious historical

work of any length to be involved in contradictions. This must be the

case to a very great extent with the Pentateuch, if it be not genuine.

If the Pentateuch is spurious, its histories and laws have been

fabricated in successive portions, and were committed to writing in the

course of many centuries by different individuals. From such a mode of

origination, a mass of contradictions is inseparable, and the improving

hand of a later editor could never be capable of entirely obliterating

them."

To the above conclusions I may add that we are expressly told by Ezra

(Esdras ii. 14) that he himself, aided by five other persons, wrote

these books in the space of forty days. He says that at the time of the

Babylonian captivity the ancient sacred writings of the Jews were burnt,

and gives a particular detail of the circumstances under which these

were composed. He sets forth that he undertook to write all that had

been done in the world since the beginning. It may be said that the

books of Esdras are apocryphal, but in return it may be demanded, Has

that conclusion been reached on evidence that will withstand modern

criticism? In the early ages of Christianity, when the story of the fall

of man was not considered as essential to the Christian system, and the

doctrine of the atonement had not attained that precision which Anselm

eventually gave it, it was very generally admitted by the Fathers of the

Church that Ezra probably did so compose the Pentateuch. Thus St. Jerome

says, "Sive Mosem dicere volueris auctorem Pentateuchi, sive Esdram

ejusdem instauratorem operis, non recuso." Clemens Alexandrinus

says that when these books had been destroyed in the captivity of

Nebuchadnezzar, Esdras, having become inspired prophetically, reproduced

them. Irenaeus says the same.

The incidents contained in Genesis, from the first to the tenth chapters

inclusive (chapters which, in their bearing upon science, are of more

importance than other portions of the Pentateuch), have been obviously

compiled from short, fragmentary legends of various authorship. To the

critical eye they all, however, present peculiarities which demonstrate

that they were written on the banks of the Euphrates, and not in the

Desert of Arabia. They contain many Chaldaisms. An Egyptian would not

speak of the Mediterranean Sea as being west of him, an Assyrian would.

Their scenery and machinery, if such expressions may with propriety be

used, are altogether Assyrian, not Egyptian. They were such records as

one might expect to meet with in the cuneiform impressions of the

tile libraries of the Mesopotamian kings. It is affirmed that one such

legend, that of the Deluge, has already been exhumed, and it is not

beyond the bounds of probability that the remainder may in like manner

be obtained.

From such Assyrian sources, the legends of the creation of the earth and

heaven, the garden of Eden, the making of man from clay, and of woman

from one of his ribs, the temptation by the serpent, the naming of

animals, the cherubim and flaming sword, the Deluge and the ark, the

drying up of the waters by the wind, the building of the Tower of

Babel, and the confusion of tongues, were obtained by Ezra. He commences

abruptly the proper history of the Jews in the eleventh chapter. At that

point his universal history ceases; he occupies himself with the story

of one family, the descendants of Shem.

It is of this restriction that the Duke of Argyll, in his book on

"Primeval Man," very graphically says:

In the genealogy of the family of Shem we have a list of names which are

names, and nothing more to us. It is a genealogy which neither does, nor

pretends to do, more than to trace the order of succession among a few

families only, out of the millions then already existing in the world.

Nothing but this order of succession is given, nor is it at all certain

that this order is consecutive or complete. Nothing is told us of all

that lay behind that curtain of thick darkness, in front of which

these names are made to pass; and yet there are, as it were, momentary

liftings, through which we have glimpses of great movements which were

going on, and had been long going on beyond. No shapes are distinctly

seen. Even the direction of those movements can only be guessed. But

voices are heard which are "as the voices of many waters." I agree in

the opinion of Hupfeld, that "the discovery that the Pentateuch is put

together out of various sources, or original documents, is beyond

all doubt not only one of the most important and most pregnant with

consequences for the interpretation of the historical books of the Old

Testament, or rather for the whole of theology and history, but it is

also one of the most certain discoveries which have been made in

the domain of criticism and the history of literature. Whatever the

anticritical party may bring forward to the contrary, it will maintain

itself, and not retrograde again through any thing, so long as there

exists such a thing as criticism; and it will not be easy for a reader

upon the stage of culture on which we stand in the present day, if he

goes to the examination unprejudiced, and with an uncorrupted power of

appreciating the truth, to be able to ward off its influence."

What then? shall we give up these books? Does not the admission that the

narrative of the fall in Eden is legendary carry with it the surrender

of that most solemn and sacred of Christian doctrines, the atonement?

Let us reflect on this! Christianity, in its earliest days, when it was

converting and conquering the world, knew little or nothing about that

doctrine. We have seen that, in his "Apology," Tertullian did not

think it worth his while to mention it. It originated among the Gnostic

heretics. It was not admitted by the Alexandrian theological school. It

was never prominently advanced by the Fathers. It was not brought into

its present commanding position until the time of Anselm Philo Judaeus

speaks of the story of the fall as symbolical; Origen regarded it as an

allegory. Perhaps some of the Protestant churches may, with reason, be

accused of inconsistency, since in part they consider it as mythical, in

part real. But, if, with them, we admit that the serpent is symbolical

of Satan, does not that cast an air of allegory over the whole

narrative?

It is to be regretted that the Christian Church has burdened itself with

the defense of these books, and voluntarily made itself answerable for

their manifest contradictions and errors. Their vindication, if it

were possible, should have been resigned to the Jews, among whom they

originated, and by whom they have been transmitted to us. Still more, it

is to be deeply regretted that the Pentateuch, a production so imperfect

as to be unable to stand the touch of modern criticism, should be put

forth as the arbiter of science. Let it be remembered that the exposure

of the true character of these books has been made, not by captious

enemies, but by pious and learned churchmen, some of them of the highest

dignity.

While thus the Protestant churches have insisted on the acknowledgment

of the Scriptures as the criterion of truth, the Catholic has, in our

own times, declared the infallibility of the pope. It may be said that

this infallibility applies only to moral or religious things; but where

shall the line of separation be drawn? Onmiscience cannot be limited

to a restricted group of questions; in its very nature it implies the

knowledge of all, and infallibility means omniscience.

Doubtless, if the fundamental principles of Italian Christianity be

admitted, their logical issue is an infallible pope. There is no need to

dwell on the unphilosophical nature of this conception; it is destroyed

by an examination of the political history of the papacy, and the

biography of the popes. The former exhibits all the errors and mistakes

to which institutions of a confessedly human character have been found

liable; the latter is only too frequently a story of sin and shame.

It was not possible that the authoritative promulgation of the dogma of

papal infallibility should meet among enlightened Catholics universal

acceptance. Serious and wide-spread dissent has been produced. A

doctrine so revolting to common-sense could not find any other result.

There are many who affirm that, if infallibility exists anywhere, it is

in oecumenical councils, and yet such councils have not always agreed

with each other. There are also many who remember that councils

have deposed popes, and have passed judgment on their clamors and

contentions. Not without reason do Protestants demand, What proof can

be given that infallibility exists in the Church at all? what proof is

there that the Church has ever been fairly or justly represented in

any council? and why should the truth be ascertained by the vote of a

majority rather than by that of a minority? How often it has happened

that one man, standing at the right point of view, has descried the

truth, and, after having been denounced and persecuted by all others,

they have eventually been constrained to adopt his declarations! Of many

great discoveries, has not this been the history?

It is not for Science to compose these contesting claims; it is not for

her to determine whether the criterion of truth for the religious man

shall be found in the Bible, or in the oecumenical council, or in the

pope. She only asks the right, which she so willingly accords to others,

of adopting a criterion of her own. If she regards unhistorical

legends with disdain; if she considers the vote of a majority in the

ascertainment of truth with supreme indifference; if she leaves the

claim of infallibility in any human being to be vindicated by the stern

logic of coming events--the cold impassiveness which in these matters

she maintains is what she displays toward her own doctrines. Without

hesitation she would give up the theories of gravitation or undulations,

if she found that they were irreconcilable with facts. For her the

volume of inspiration is the book of Nature, of which the open scroll

is ever spread forth before the eyes of every man. Confronting all, it

needs no societies for its dissemination. Infinite in extent, eternal

in duration, human ambition and human fanaticism have never been able

to tamper with it. On the earth it is illustrated by all that is

magnificent and beautiful, on the heavens its letters are suns and

worlds.

CHAPTER IX.

CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNIVERSE.

There are two conceptions of the government of the world: 1.

By Providence; 2. By Law.--The former maintained by the

priesthood.--Sketch of the introduction of the latter.

Kepler discovers the laws that preside over the solar

system.--His works are denounced by papal authority.--The

foundations of mechanical philosophy are laid by Da Vinci.--

Galileo discovers the fundamental laws of Dynamics.--Newton

applies them to the movements of the celestial bodies, and

shows that the solar system is governed by mathematical

necessity.--Herschel extends that conclusion to the

universe.--The nebular hypothesis.--Theological exceptions

to it.

Evidences of the control of law in the construction of the

earth, and in the development of the animal and plant

series.--They arose by Evolution, not by Creation.

The reign of law is exhibited by the historic career of

human societies, and in the case of individual man.

Partial adoption of this view by some of the Reformed

Churches.

Two interpretations may be given of the mode of government of the world.

It may be by incessant divine interventions, or by the operation of

unvarying law.

To the adoption of the former a priesthood will always incline, since

it must desire to be considered as standing between the prayer of the

votary and the providential act. Its importance is magnified by the

power it claims of determining what that act shall be. In the pre

Christian (Roman) religion, the grand office of the priesthood was the

discovery of future events by oracles, omens, or an inspection of the

entrails of animals, and by the offering of sacrifices to propitiate the

gods. In the later, the Christian times, a higher power was claimed; the

clergy asserting that, by their intercessions, they could regulate the

course of affairs, avert dangers, secure benefits, work miracles, and

even change the order of Nature.

Not without reason, therefore, did they look upon the doctrine of

government by unvarying law with disfavor. It seemed to depreciate

their dignity, to lessen their importance. To them there was something

shocking in a God who cannot be swayed by human entreaty, a cold,

passionless divinity--something frightful in fatalism, destiny.

But the orderly movement of the heavens could not fail in all ages to

make a deep impression on thoughtful observers--the rising and setting

of the sun; the increasing or diminishing light of the day; the waxing

and waning of the moon; the return of the seasons in their proper

courses; the measured march of the wandering planets in the sky--what

are all these, and a thousand such, but manifestations of an orderly and

unchanging procession of events? The faith of early observers in this

interpretation may perhaps have been shaken by the occurrence of such a

phenomenon as an eclipse, a sudden and mysterious breach of the ordinary

course of natural events; but it would be resumed in tenfold strength as

soon as the discovery was made that eclipses themselves recur, and may

be predicted.

Astronomical predictions of all kinds depend upon the admission of this

fact--that there never has been and never will be any intervention in

the operation of natural laws. The scientific philosopher affirms that

the condition of the world at any given moment is the direct result

of its condition in the preceding moment, and the direct cause of its

condition in the subsequent moment. Law and chance are only different

names for mechanical necessity.

About fifty years after the death of Copernicus, John Kepler, a native

of Wurtemberg, who had adopted the heliocentric theory, and who was

deeply impressed with the belief that relationships exist in the

revolutions of the planetary bodies round the sun, and that these if

correctly examined would reveal the laws under which those movements

take place, devoted himself to the study of the distances, times, and

velocities of the planets, and the form of their orbits. His method

was, to submit the observations to which he had access, such as those

of Tycho Brahe, to computations based first on one and then on another

hypothesis, rejecting the hypothesis if he found that the calculations

did not accord with the observations. The incredible labor he had

undergone (he says, "I considered, and I computed, until I almost went

mad") was at length rewarded, and in 1609 he published his book, "On the

Motions of the Planet Mars." In this he had attempted to reconcile the

movements of that planet to the hypothesis of eccentrics and epicycles,

but eventually discovered that the orbit of a planet is not a circle but

an ellipse, the sun being in one of the foci, and that the areas swept

over by a line drawn from the planet to the sun are proportional to the

times. These constitute what are now known as the first and second laws

of Kepler. Eight years subsequently, he was rewarded by the discovery

of a third law, defining the relation between the mean distances of the

planets from the sun and the times of their revolutions; "the squares of

the periodic times are proportional to the cubes of the distances." In

"An Epitome of the Copernican System," published in 1618, he announced

this law, and showed that it holds good for the satellites of Jupiter as

regards their primary. Hence it was inferred that the laws which preside

over the grand movements of the solar system preside also over the less

movements of its constituent parts.

The conception of law which is unmistakably conveyed by Kepler's

discoveries, and the evidence they gave in support of the heliocentric

as against the geocentric theory, could not fail to incur the

reprehension of the Roman authorities. The congregation of the Index,

therefore, when they denounced the Copernican system as utterly contrary

to the Holy Scriptures, prohibited Kepler's "Epitome" of that system. It

was on this occasion that Kepler submitted his celebrated remonstrance:

"Eighty years have elapsed during which the doctrines of Copernicus

regarding the movement of the earth and the immobility of the sun have

been promulgated without hinderance, because it was deemed allowable to

dispute concerning natural things, and to elucidate the works of God,

and now that new testimony is discovered in proof of the truth of those

doctrines--testimony which was not known to the spiritual judges--ye

would prohibit the promulgation of the true system of the structure of

the universe."

None of Kepler's contemporaries believed the law of the areas, nor was

it accepted until the publication of the "Principia" of Newton. In fact,

no one in those times understood the philosophical meaning of Kepler's

laws. He himself did not foresee what they must inevitably lead to. His

mistakes showed how far he was from perceiving their result. Thus he

thought that each planet is the seat of an intelligent principle, and

that there is a relation between the magnitudes of the orbits of the

five principal planets and the five regular solids of geometry. At first

he inclined to believe that the orbit of Mars is oval, nor was it until

after a wearisome study that he detected the grand truth, its elliptical

form. An idea of the incorruptibility of the celestial objects had

led to the adoption of the Aristotelian doctrine of the perfection of

circular motions, and to the belief that there were none but circular

motions in the heavens. He bitterly complains of this as having been a

fatal "thief of his time." His philosophical daring is illustrated in

his breaking through this time-honored tradition.

In some most important particulars Kepler anticipated Newton. He was the

first to give clear ideas respecting gravity. He says every particle of

matter will rest until it is disturbed by some other particle--that the

earth attracts a stone more than the stone attracts the earth, and that

bodies move to each other in proportion to their masses; that the earth

would ascend to the moon one-fifty-fourth of the distance, and the moon

would move toward the earth the other fifty-three. He affirms that the

moon's attraction causes the tides, and that the planets must impress

irregularities on the moon's motions.

The progress of astronomy is obviously divisible into three periods:

1. The period of observation of the apparent motions of the heavenly

bodies.

2. The period of discovery of their real motions, and particularly of

the laws of the planetary revolutions; this was signally illustrated by

Copernicus and Kepler.

3. The period of the ascertainment of the causes of those laws. It was

the epoch of Newton.

The passage of the second into the third period depended on the

development of the Dynamical branch of mechanics, which had been in

a stagnant condition from the time of Archimedes or the Alexandrian

School.

In Christian Europe there had not been a cultivator of mechanical

philosophy until Leonardo da Vinci, who was born A.D. 1452. To him, and

not to Lord Bacon, must be attributed the renaissance of science. Bacon

was not only ignorant of mathematics, but depreciated its application

to physical inquiries. He contemptuously rejected the Copernican system,

alleging absurd objections to it. While Galileo was on the brink of

his great telescopic discoveries, Bacon was publishing doubts as to

the utility of instruments in scientific investigations. To ascribe the

inductive method to him is to ignore history. His fanciful philosophical

suggestions have never been of the slightest practical use. No one has

ever thought of employing them. Except among English readers, his name

is almost unknown.

To Da Vinci I shall have occasion to allude more particularly on a

subsequent page. Of his works still remaining in manuscript, two volumes

are at Milan, and one in Paris, carried there by Napoleon. After an

interval of about seventy years, Da Vinci was followed by the Dutch

engineer, Stevinus, whose work on the principles of equilibrium was

published in 1586. Six years afterward appeared Galileo's treatise on

mechanics.

To this great Italian is due the establishment of the three fundamental

laws of dynamics, known as the Laws of Motion.

The consequences of the establishment of these laws were very important.

It had been supposed that continuous movements, such, for instance, as

those of the celestial bodies, could only be maintained by a perpetual

consumption and perpetual application of force, but the first of

Galileo's laws declared that every body will persevere in its state of

rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, until it is compelled to

change that state by disturbing forces. A clear perception of this

fundamental principle is essential to a comprehension of the elementary

facts of physical astronomy. Since all the motions that we witness

taking place on the surface of the earth soon come to an end, we are

led to infer that rest is the natural condition of things. We have made,

then, a very great advance when we have become satisfied that a body is

equally indifferent to rest as to motion, and that it equally perseveres

in either state until disturbing forces are applied. Such disturbing

forces in the case of common movements are friction and the resistance

of the air. When no such resistances exist, movement must be perpetual,

as is the case with the heavenly bodies, which are moving in a void.

Forces, no matter what their difference of magnitude may be, will exert

their full influence conjointly, each as though the other did not exist.

Thus, when a ball is suffered to drop from the mouth of a cannon, it

falls to the ground in a certain interval of time through the influence

of gravity upon it. If, then, it be fired from the cannon, though now

it may be projected some thousands of feet in a second, the effect

of gravity upon it will be precisely the same as before. In the

intermingling of forces there is no deterioration; each produces its own

specific effect.

In the latter half of the seventeenth century, through the works of

Borelli, Hooke, and Huyghens, it had become plain that circular motions

could be accounted for by the laws of Galileo. Borelli, treating of the

motions of Jupiter's satellites, shows how a circular movement may arise

under the influence of a central force. Hooke exhibited the inflection

of a direct motion into a circular by a supervening central attraction.

The year 1687 presents, not only an epoch in European science, but also

in the intellectual development of man. It is marked by the publication

of the "Principia" of Newton, an incomparable, an immortal work.

On the principle that all bodies attract each other with forces directly

as their masses, and inversely as the squares of their distances, Newton

showed that all the movements of the celestial bodies may be accounted

for, and that Kepler's laws might all have been predicted--the elliptic

motions--the described areas the relation of the times and distances. As

we have seen, Newton's contemporaries had perceived how circular motions

could be explained; that was a special case, but Newton furnished the

solution of the general problem, containing all special cases of motion

in circles, ellipses, parabolas, hyperbolas--that is, in all the conic

sections.

The Alexandrian mathematicians had shown that the direction of movement

of falling bodies is toward the centre of the earth. Newton proved that

this must necessarily be the case, the general effect of the attraction

of all the particles of a sphere being the same as if they were all

concentrated in its centre. To this central force, thus determining the

fall of bodies, the designation of gravity was given. Up to this time,

no one, except Kepler, had considered how far its influence reached. It

seemed to Newton possible that it might extend as far as the moon, and

be the force that deflects her from a rectilinear path, and makes her

revolve in her orbit round the earth. It was easy to compute, on the

principle of the law of inverse squares, whether the earth's attraction

was sufficient to produce the observed effect. Employing the measures

of the size of the earth accessible at the time, Newton found that the

moon's deflection was only thirteen feet in a minute; whereas, if his

hypothesis of gravitation were true, it should be fifteen feet. But in

1669 Picard, as we have seen, executed the measurement of a degree more

carefully than had previously been done; this changed the estimate of

the magnitude of the earth, and, therefore, of the distance of the moon;

and, Newton's attention having been directed to it by some discussions

that took place at the Royal Society in 1679, he obtained Picard's

results, went home, took out his old papers, and resumed his

calculations. As they drew to a close, he became so much agitated

that he was obliged to desire a friend to finish them. The expected

coincidence was established. It was proved that the moon is retained

in her orbit and made to revolve round the earth by the force of

terrestrial gravity. The genii of Kepler had given place to the vortices

of Descartes, and these in their turn to the central force of Newton.

In like manner the earth, and each of the planets, are made to move

in an elliptic orbit round the sun by his attractive force, and

perturbations arise by reason of the disturbing action of the planetary

masses on one another. Knowing the masses and the distances, these

disturbances may be computed. Later astronomers have even succeeded with

the inverse problem, that is, knowing the perturbations or disturbances,

to find the place and the mass of the disturbing body. Thus, from the

deviations of Uranus from his theoretical position, the discovery of

Neptune was accomplished.

Newton's merit consisted in this, that he applied the laws of dynamics

to the movements of the celestial bodies, and insisted that scientific

theories must be substantiated by the agreement of observations with

calculations.

When Kepler announced his three laws, they were received with

condemnation by the spiritual authorities, not because of any error they

were supposed to present or to contain, but partly because they gave

support to the Copernican system, and partly because it was judged

inexpedient to admit the prevalence of law of any kind as opposed to

providential intervention. The world was regarded as the theatre in

which the divine will was daily displayed; it was considered derogatory

to the majesty of God that that will should be fettered in any way. The

power of the clergy was chiefly manifested in the influence the were

alleged to possess in changing his arbitrary determinations. It was thus

that they could abate the baleful action of comets, secure fine weather

or rain, prevent eclipses, and, arresting the course of Nature, work all

manner of miracles; it was thus that the shadow had been made to go back

on the dial, and the sun and the moon stopped in mid-career.

In the century preceding the epoch of Newton, a great religious and

political revolution had taken place--the Reformation. Though its

effect had not been the securing of complete liberty for thought, it had

weakened many of the old ecclesiastical bonds. In the reformed countries

there was no power to express a condemnation of Newton's works, and

among the clergy there was no disposition to give themselves any concern

about the matter. At first the attention of the Protestant was engrossed

by the movements of his great enemy the Catholic, and when that source

of disquietude ceased, and the inevitable partitions of the Reformation

arose, that attention was fastened upon the rival and antagonistic

Churches. The Lutheran, the Calvinist, the Episcopalian, the

Presbyterian, had something more urgent on hand than Newton's

mathematical demonstrations.

So, uncondemned, and indeed unobserved, in this clamor of fighting

sects, Newton's grand theory solidly established itself. Its

philosophical significance was infinitely more momentous than the dogmas

that these persons were quarreling about. It not only accepted the

heliocentric theory and the laws discovered by Kepler, but it proved

that, no matter what might be the weight of opposing ecclesiastical

authority, the sun MUST be the centre of our system, and that Kepler's

laws are the result of a mathematical necessity. It is impossible that

they should be other than they are.

But what is the meaning of all this? Plainly that the solar system

is not interrupted by providential interventions, but is under the

government of irreversible law--law that is itself the issue of

mathematical necessity.

The telescopic observations of Herschel I. satisfied him that there are

very many double stars--double not merely because they are accidentally

in the same line of view, but because they are connected physically,

revolving round each other. These observations were continued and

greatly extended by Herschel II. The elements of the elliptic orbit of

the double star zeta of the Great Bear were determined by Savary, its

period being fifty-eight and one-quarter years; those of another, sigma

Coronae, were determined by Hind, its period being more than seven

hundred and thirty-six years. The orbital movement of these double suns

in ellipses compels us to admit that the law of gravitation holds good

far beyond the boundaries of the solar system; indeed, as far as the

telescope can reach, it demonstrates the reign of law. D'Alembert, in

the Introduction to the Encyclopaedia, says: "The universe is but a

single fact; it is only one great truth."

Shall we, then, conclude that the solar and the starry systems have been

called into existence by God, and that he has then imposed upon them by

his arbitrary will laws under the control of which it was his pleasure

that their movements should be made?

Or are there reasons for believing that these several systems came into

existence not by such an arbitrary fiat, but through the operation of

law?

The following are some peculiarities displayed by the solar system as

enumerated by Laplace. All the planets and their satellites move in

ellipses of such small eccentricity that they are nearly circles. All

the planets move in the same direction and nearly in the same plane. The

movements of the satellites are in the same direction as those of the

planets. The movements of rotation of the sun, of the planets, and the

satellites, are in the same direction as their orbital motions, and in

planes little different.

It is impossible that so many coincidences could be the result of

chance! Is it not plain that there must have been a common tie among

all these bodies, that they are only parts of what must once have been a

single mass?

But if we admit that the substance of which the solar system consists

once existed in a nebulous condition, and was in rotation, all the above

peculiarities follow as necessary mechanical consequences. Nay, more,

the formation of planets, the formation of satellites and of asteroids,

is accounted for. We see why the outer planets and satellites are larger

than the interior ones; why the larger planets rotate rapidly, and the

small ones slowly; why of the satellites the outer planets have more,

the inner fewer. We are furnished with indications of the time of

revolution of the planets in their orbits, and of the satellites in

theirs; we perceive the mode of formation of Saturn's rings. We find an

explanation of the physical condition of the sun, and the transitions of

condition through which the earth and moon have passed, as indicated by

their geology.

But two exceptions to the above peculiarities have been noted; they are

in the cases of Uranus and Neptune.

The existence of such a nebulous mass once admitted, all the rest

follows as a matter of necessity. Is there not, however, a most serious

objection in the way? Is not this to exclude Almighty God from the

worlds he has made?

First, we must be satisfied whether there is any solid evidence for

admitting the existence of such a nebulous mass.

The nebular hypothesis rests primarily on the telescopic discovery made

by Herschel I., that there are scattered here and there in the heavens

pale, gleaming patches of light, a few of which are large enough to be

visible to the naked eye. Of these, many may be resolved by a sufficient

telescopic power into a congeries of stars, but some, such as the great

nebula in Orion, have resisted the best instruments hitherto made.

It was asserted by those who were indisposed to accept the nebular

hypothesis, that the non-resolution was due to imperfection in the

telescopes used. In these instruments two distinct functions may be

observed: their light-gathering power depends on the diameter of their

object mirror or lens, their defining power depends on the exquisite

correctness of their optical surfaces. Grand instruments may possess

the former quality in perfection by reason of their size, but the latter

very imperfectly, either through want of original configuration, or

distortion arising from flexure through their own weight. But, unless an

instrument be perfect in this respect, as well as adequate in the other,

it may fail to decompose a nebula into discrete points.

Fortunately, however, other means for the settlement of this question

are available. In 1846, it was discovered by the author of this book

that the spectrum of an ignited solid is continuous--that is, has

neither dark nor bright lines. Fraunhofer had previously made known that

the spectrum of ignited gases is discontinuous. Here, then, is the means

of determining whether the light emitted by a given nebula comes from an

incandescent gas, or from a congeries of ignited solids, stars, or

suns. If its spectrum be discontinuous, it is a true nebula or gas; if

continuous, a congeries of stars.

In 1864, Mr. Huggins made this examination in the case of a nebula in

the constellation Draco. It proved to be gaseous.

Subsequent observations have shown that, of sixty nebulae examined,

nineteen give discontinuous or gaseous spectra--the remainder continuous

ones.

It may, therefore, be admitted that physical evidence has at length

been obtained, demonstrating the existence of vast masses of matter in a

gaseous condition, and at a temperature of incandescence. The hypothesis

of Laplace has thus a firm basis. In such a nebular mass, cooling by

radiation is a necessary incident, and condensation and rotation the

inevitable results. There must be a separation of rings all lying in

one plane, a generation of planets and satellites all rotating alike,

a central sun and engirdling globes. From a chaotic mass, through the

operation of natural laws, an organized system has been produced. An

integration of matter into worlds has taken place through a decline of

heat.

If such be the cosmogony of the solar system, such the genesis of the

planetary worlds, we are constrained to extend our views of the dominion

of law, and to recognize its agency in the creation as well as in the

conservation of the innumerable orbs that throng the universe.

But, again, it may be asked: "Is there not something profoundly impious

in this? Are we not excluding Almighty God from the world he has made?"

We have often witnessed the formation of a cloud in a serene sky. A hazy

point, barely perceptible--a little wreath of mist--increases in volume,

and becomes darker and denser, until it obscures a large portion of the

heavens. It throws itself into fantastic shapes, it gathers a glory

from the sun, is borne onward by the wind, and, perhaps, as it gradually

came, so it gradually disappears, melting away in the untroubled air.

Now, we say that the little vesicles of which this cloud was composed

arose from the condensation of water-vapor preexisting in the

atmosphere, through reduction of temperature; we show how they assumed

the form they present. We assign optical reasons for the brightness

or blackness of the cloud; we explain, on mechanical principles, its

drifting before the wind; for its disappearance we account on

the principles of chemistry. It never occurs to us to invoke the

interposition of the Almighty in the production and fashioning of this

fugitive form. We explain all the facts connected with it by physical

laws, and perhaps should reverentially hesitate to call into operation

the finger of God.

But the universe is nothing more than such a cloud--a cloud of suns and

worlds. Supremely grand though it may seem to us, to the Infinite and

Eternal Intellect it is no more than a fleeting mist. If there be a

multiplicity of worlds in infinite space, there is also a succession of

worlds in infinite time. As one after another cloud replaces cloud in

the skies, so this starry system, the universe, is the successor of

countless others that have preceded it--the predecessor of countless

others that will follow. There is an unceasing metamorphosis, a sequence

of events, without beginning or end.

If, on physical principles, we account for minor meteorological

incidents, mists and clouds, is it not permissible for us to appeal to

the same principle in the origin of world-systems and universes, which

are only clouds on a space-scale somewhat larger, mists on a time-scale

somewhat less transient? Can any man place the line which bounds

the physical on one side, the supernatural on the other? Do not our

estimates of the extent and the duration of things depend altogether

on our point of view? Were we set in the midst of the great nebula

of Orion, how transcendently magnificent the scene! The vast

transformations, the condensations of a fiery mist into worlds, might

seem worthy of the immediate presence, the supervision of God; here, at

our distant station, where millions of miles are inappreciable to our

eyes, and suns seem no bigger than motes in the air, that nebula is more

insignificant than the faintest cloud. Galileo, in his description of

the constellation of Orion, did not think it worth while so much as to

mention it. The most rigorous theologian of those days would have seen

nothing to blame in imputing its origin to secondary causes, nothing

irreligious in failing to invoke the arbitrary interference of God in

its metamorphoses. If such be the conclusion to which we come respecting

it, what would be the conclusion to which an Intelligence seated in it

might come respecting us? It occupies an extent of space millions of

times greater than that of our solar system; we are invisible from it,

and therefore absolutely insignificant. Would such an Intelligence think

it necessary to require for our origin and maintenance the immediate

intervention of God?

From the solar system let us descend to what is still more

insignificant--a little portion of it; let us descend to our own earth.

In the lapse of time it has experienced great changes. Have these been

due to incessant divine interventions, or to the continuous operation of

unfailing law? The aspect of Nature perpetually varies under our eyes,

still more grandly and strikingly has it altered in geological

times. But the laws guiding those changes never exhibit the slightest

variation. In the midst of immense vicissitudes they are immutable.

The present order of things is only a link in a vast connected chain

reaching back to an incalculable past, and forward to an infinite

future.

There is evidence, geological and astronomical, that the temperature of

the earth and her satellite was in the remote past very much higher than

it is now. A decline so slow as to be imperceptible at short intervals,

but manifest enough in the course of many ages, has occurred. The heat

has been lost by radiation into space.

The cooling of a mass of any kind, no matter whether large or small, is

not discontinuous; it does not go on by fits and starts; it takes

place under the operation of a mathematical law, though for such mighty

changes as are here contemplated neither the formula of Newton, nor that

of Dulong and Petit, may apply. It signifies nothing that periods of

partial decline, glacial periods, or others of temporary elevation, have

been intercalated; it signifies nothing whether these variations may

have arisen from topographical variations, as those of level, or from

periodicities in the radiation of the sun. A periodical sun would act as

a mere perturbation in the gradual decline of heat. The perturbations of

the planetary motions are a confirmation, not a disproof, of gravity.

Now, such a decline of temperature must have been attended by

innumerable changes of a physical character in our globe. Her dimensions

must have diminished through contraction, the length of her day must

have lessened, her surface must have collapsed, and fractures taken

place along the lines of least resistance; the density of the sea must

have increased, its volume must have become less; the constitution of

the atmosphere must have varied, especially in the amount of water-vapor

and carbonic acid that it contained; the barometric pressure must have

declined.

These changes, and very many more that might be mentioned, must have

taken place not in a discontinuous but in an orderly manner, since the

master-fact, the decline of heat, that was causing them, was itself

following a mathematical law.

But not alone did lifeless Nature submit to these inevitable mutations;

living Nature was also simultaneously affected.

An organic form of any kind, vegetable or animal, will remain unchanged

only so long as the environment in which it is placed remains unchanged.

Should an alteration in the environment occur, the organism will either

be modified or destroyed.

Destruction is more likely to happen as the change in the environment

is more sudden; modification or transformation is more possible as that

change is more gradual.

Since it is demonstrably certain that lifeless Nature has in the lapse

of ages undergone vast modifications; since the crust of the earth, and

the sea, and the atmosphere, are no longer such as they once were; since

the distribution of the land and the ocean and all manner of physical

conditions have varied; since there have been such grand changes in

the environment of living things on the surface of our planet--it

necessarily follows that organic Nature must have passed through

destructions and transformations in correspondence thereto.

That such extinctions, such modifications, have taken place, how

copious, how convincing, is the evidence!

Here, again, we must observe that, since the disturbing agency

was itself following a mathematical law, these its results must be

considered as following that law too.

Such considerations, then, plainly force upon us the conclusion that

the organic progress of the world has been guided by the operation of

immutable law--not determined by discontinuous, disconnected, arbitrary

interventions of God. They incline us to view favorably the idea of

transmutations of one form into another, rather than that of sudden

creations.

Creation implies an abrupt appearance, transformation a gradual change.

In this manner is presented to our contemplation the great theory of

Evolution. Every organic being has a place in a chain of events. It is

not an isolated, a capricious fact, but an unavoidable phenomenon. It

has its place in that vast, orderly concourse which has successively

risen in the past, has introduced the present, and is preparing the way

for a predestined future. From point to point in this vast progression

there has been a gradual, a definite, a continuous unfolding, a

resistless order of evolution. But in the midst of these mighty changes

stand forth immutable the laws that are dominating over all.

If we examine the introduction of any type of life in the animal series,

we find that it is in accordance with transformation, not with creation.

Its beginning is under an imperfect form in the midst of other forms,

of which the time is nearly complete, and which are passing into

extinction. By degrees, one species after another in succession more and

more perfect arises, until, after many ages, a culmination is reached.

From that there is, in like manner, a long, a gradual decline.

Thus, though the mammal type of life is the characteristic of the

Tertiary and post-Tertiary periods, it does not suddenly make its

appearance without premonition in those periods. Far back, in the

Secondary, we find it under imperfect forms, struggling, as it were, to

make good a foothold. At length it gains a predominance under higher and

better models.

So, too, of reptiles, the characteristic type of life of the Secondary

period. As we see in a dissolving view, out of the fading outlines of

a scene that is passing away, the dim form of a new one emerging, which

gradually gains strength, reaches its culmination, and then melts

away in some other that is displacing it, so reptile-life doubtfully,

appears, reaches its culmination, and gradually declines. In all this

there is nothing abrupt; the changes shade into each other by insensible

degrees.

How could it be otherwise? The hot-blooded animals could not exist in

an atmosphere so laden with carbonic acid as was that of the primitive

times. But the removal of that noxious ingredient from the air by the

leaves of plants under the influence of sunlight, the enveloping of its

carbon in the earth under the form of coal, the disengagement of its

oxygen, permitted their life. As the atmosphere was thus modified,

the sea was involved in the change; it surrendered a large part of its

carbonic acid, and the limestone hitherto held in solution by it was

deposited in the solid form. For every equivalent of carbon buried in

the earth, there was an equivalent of carbonate of lime separated from

the sea--not necessarily in an amorphous condition, most frequently

under an organic form. The sunshine kept up its work day by day, but

there were demanded myriads of days for the work to be completed. It was

a slow passage from a noxious to a purified atmosphere, and an equally

slow passage from a cold-blooded to a hot-blooded type of life. But the

physical changes were taking place under the control of law, and the

organic transformations were not sudden or arbitrary providential acts.

They were the immediate, the inevitable consequences of the physical

changes, and therefore, like them, the necessary issue of law.

For a more detailed consideration of this subject, I may refer the

reader to Chapters I, II., VII, of the second book of my "Treatise on

Human Physiology," published in 1856.

Is the world, then, governed by law or by providential interventions,

abruptly breaking the proper sequence of events?

To complete our view of this question, we turn finally to what, in one

sense, is the most insignificant, in another the most important, case

that can be considered. Do human societies, in their historic career,

exhibit the marks of a predetermined progress in an unavoidable track?

Is there any evidence that the life of nations is under the control of

immutable law?

May we conclude that, in society, as in the individual man, parts never

spring from nothing, but are evolved or developed from parts that are

already in existence?

If any one should object to or deride the doctrine of the evolution

or successive development of the animated forms which constitute that

unbroken organic chain reaching from the beginning of life on the globe

to the present times, let him reflect that he has himself passed through

modifications the counterpart of those he disputes. For nine months

his type of life was aquatic, and during that time he assumed, in

succession, many distinct but correlated forms. At birth his type of

life became aerial; he began respiring the atmospheric air; new elements

of food were supplied to him; the mode of his nutrition changed; but

as yet he could see nothing, hear nothing, notice nothing. By degrees

conscious existence was assumed; he became aware that there is an

external world. In due time organs adapted to another change of food,

the teeth, appeared, and a change of food ensued. He then passed through

the stages of childhood and youth, his bodily form developing, and with

it his intellectual powers. At about fifteen years, in consequence of

the evolution which special parts of his system had attained, his moral

character changed. New ideas, new passions, influenced him. And that

that was the cause, and this the effect, is demonstrated when, by the

skill of the surgeon, those parts have been interfered with. Nor does

the development, the metamorphosis, end here; it requires many years

for the body to reach its full perfection, many years for the mind. A

culmination is at length reached, and then there is a decline. I need

not picture its mournful incidents--the corporeal, the intellectual

enfeeblement. Perhaps there is little exaggeration in saying that in

less than a century every human being on the face of the globe, if not

cut off in an untimely manner, has passed through all these changes.

Is there for each of us a providential intervention as we thus pass

from stage to stage of life? or shall we not rather believe that the

countless myriads of human beings who have peopled the earth have been

under the guidance of an unchanging, a universal law?

But individuals are the elementary constituents of communities--nations.

They maintain therein a relation like that which the particles of the

body maintain to the body itself. These, introduced into it, commence

and complete their function; they die, and are dismissed.

Like the individual, the nation comes into existence without its own

knowledge, and dies without its own consent, often against its own will.

National life differs in no particular from individual, except in this,

that it is spread over a longer span, but no nation can escape its

inevitable term. Each, if its history be well considered, shows its

time of infancy, its time of youth, its time of maturity, its time of

decline, if its phases of life be completed.

In the phases of existence of all, so far as those phases are

completed, there are common characteristics, and, as like accordances in

individuals point out that all are living under a reign of law, we

are justified in inferring that the course of nations, and indeed the

progress of humanity, does not take place in a chance or random way,

that supernatural interventions never break the chain of historic acts,

that every historic event has its warrant in some preceding event, and

gives warrant to others that are to follow..

But this conclusion is the essential principle of Stoicism--that Grecian

philosophical system which, as I have already said, offered a support in

their hour of trial and an unwavering guide in the vicissitudes of

life, not only to many illustrious Greeks, but also to some of the great

philosophers, statesmen, generals, and emperors of Rome; a system which

excluded chance from every thing, and asserted the direction of all

events by irresistible necessity, to the promotion of perfect good; a

system of earnestness, sternness, austerity, virtue--a protest in favor

of the common-sense of mankind. And perhaps we shall not dissent from

the remark of Montesquieu, who affirms that the destruction of the

Stoics was a great calamity to the human race; for they alone made great

citizens, great men.

To the principle of government by law, Latin Christianity, in its papal

form, is in absolute contradiction. The history of this branch of

the Christian Church is almost a diary of miracles and supernatural

interventions. These show that the supplications of holy men have often

arrested the course of Nature--if, indeed, there be any such course;

that images and pictures have worked wonders; that bones, hairs, and

other sacred relics, have wrought miracles. The criterion or proof of

the authenticity of many of these objects is, not an unchallengeable

record of their origin and history, but an exhibition of their

miracle-working powers.

Is not that a strange logic which finds proof of an asserted fact in an

inexplicable illustration of something else?

Even in the darkest ages intelligent Christian men must have had

misgivings as to these alleged providential or miraculous interventions.

There is a solemn grandeur in the orderly progress of Nature which

profoundly impresses us; and such is the character of continuity in the

events of our individual life that we instinctively doubt the occurrence

of the supernatural in that of our neighbor. The intelligent man knows

well that, for his personal behoof, the course of Nature has never been

checked; for him no miracle has ever been worked; he attributes justly

every event of his life to some antecedent event; this he looks upon

as the cause, that as the consequence. When it is affirmed that, in his

neighbor's behalf, such grand interventions have been vouchsafed, he

cannot do otherwise than believe that his neighbor is either deceived,

or practising deception.

As might, then, have been anticipated, the Catholic doctrine of

miraculous intervention received a rude shock at the time of the

Reformation, when predestination and election were upheld by some of the

greatest theologians, and accepted by some of the greatest Protestant

Churches. With stoical austerity Calvin declares: "We were elected from

eternity, before the foundation of the world, from no merit of our own,

but according to the purpose of the divine pleasure." In affirming this,

Calvin was resting on the belief that God has from all eternity decreed

whatever comes to pass. Thus, after the lapse of many ages, were again

emerging into prominence the ideas of the Basilidians wad Valentinians,

Christian sects of the second century, whose Gnostical views led to the

engraftment of the great doctrine of the Trinity upon Christianity. They

asserted that all the actions of men are necessary, that even faith is

a natural gift, to which men are forcibly determined, and must therefore

be saved, though their lives be ever so irregular. From the Supreme God

all things proceeded. Thus, also, came into prominence the views which

were developed by Augustine in his work, "De dono perseverantiae." These

were: that God, by his arbitrary will, has selected certain persons

without respect to foreseen faith or good works, and has infallibly

ordained to bestow upon them eternal happiness; other persons, in like

manner, he has condemned to eternal reprobation. The Sublapsarians

believed that "God permitted the fall of Adam;" the Supralapsarians that

"he predestinated it, with all its pernicious consequences, from all

eternity, and that our first parents had no liberty from the beginning."

In this, these sectarians disregarded the remark of St. Augustine:

"Nefas est dicere Deum aliquid nisi bonum predestinare."

Is it true, then, that "predestination to eternal happiness is the

everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world

were laid, he hath constantly decreed by his council, secret to us,

to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen out of

mankind?" Is it true that of the human family there are some who, in

view of no fault of their own, Almighty God has condemned to unending

torture, eternal misery?

In 1595 the Lambeth Articles asserted that "God from eternity hath

predestinated certain men unto life; certain he hath reprobated." In

1618 the Synod of Dort decided in favor of this view. It condemned the

remonstrants against it, and treated them with such severity, that many

of them had to flee to foreign countries. Even in the Church of England,

as is manifested by its seventeenth Article of Faith, these doctrines

have found favor.

Probably there was no point which brought down from the Catholics on the

Protestants severer condemnation than this, their partial acceptance

of the government of the world by law. In all Reformed Europe miracles

ceased. But, with the cessation of shrine-cure, relic-cure, great

pecuniary profits ended. Indeed, as is well known, it was the sale

of indulgences that provoked the Reformation--indulgences which are

essentially a permit from God for the practice of sin, conditioned on

the payment of a certain sum of money to the priest.

Philosophically, the Reformation implied a protest against the Catholic

doctrine of incessant divine intervention in human affairs, invoked by

sacerdotal agency; but this protest was far from being fully made by

all the Reforming Churches. The evidence in behalf of government by law,

which has of late years been offered by science, is received by many of

them with suspicion, perhaps with dislike; sentiments which, however,

must eventually give way before the hourly-increasing weight of

evidence.

Shall we not, then, conclude with Cicero, who, quoted by Lactantius,

says: "One eternal and immutable law embraces all things and all times?"

CHAPTER X.

LATIN CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION.

For more than a thousand years Latin Christianity controlled

the intelligence of Europe, and is responsible for the

result.

That result is manifested by the condition of the city of

Rome at the Reformation, and by the condition of the

Continent of Europe in domestic and social life.--European

nations suffered under the coexistence of a dual government,

a spiritual and a temporal.--They were immersed in

ignorance, superstition, discomfort.--Explanation of the

failure of Catholicism--Political history of the papacy: it

was transmuted from a spiritual confederacy into an absolute

monarchy.--Action of the College of Cardinals and the Curia--

Demoralization that ensued from the necessity of raising

large revenues.

The advantages accruing to Europe during the Catholic rule

arose not from direct intention, but were incidental.

The general result is, that the political influence of

Catholicism was prejudicial to modern civilization.

LATIN Christianity is responsible for the condition and progress of

Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century. We have now to examine

how it discharged its trust.

It will be convenient to limit to the case of Europe what has here to

be presented, though, from the claim of the papacy to superhuman origin,

and its demand for universal obedience, it should strictly be held to

account for the condition of all mankind. Its inefficacy against the

great and venerable religions of Southern and Eastern Asia would furnish

an important and instructive theme for consideration, and lead us to

the conclusion that it has impressed itself only where Roman imperial

influences have prevailed; a political conclusion which, however, it

contemptuously rejects.

Doubtless at the inception of the Reformation there were many persons

who compared the existing social condition with what it had been in

ancient times. Morals had not changed, intelligence had not advanced,

society had little improved. From the Eternal City itself its splendors

had vanished. The marble streets, of which Augustus had once boasted,

had disappeared. Temples, broken columns, and the long, arcaded vistas

of gigantic aqueducts bestriding the desolate Campagna, presented a

mournful scene. From the uses to which they had been respectively put,

the Capitol had been known as Goats' Hill, and the site of the Roman

Forum, whence laws had been issued to the world, as Cows' Field. The

palace of the Caesars was hidden by mounds of earth, crested with

flowering shrubs. The baths of Caracalla, with their porticoes, gardens,

reservoirs, had long ago become useless through the destruction of their

supplying aqueducts. On the ruins of that grand edifice, "flowery glades

and thickets of odoriferous trees extended in ever-winding labyrinths

upon immense platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air." Of

the Coliseum, the most colossal of Roman ruins, only about one-third

remained. Once capable of accommodating nearly ninety thousand

spectators, it had, in succession, been turned into a fortress in the

middle ages, and then into a stone-quarry to furnish material for the

palaces of degenerate Roman princes. Some of the popes had occupied it

as a woollen-mill, some as a saltpetre factory; some had planned the

conversion of its magnificent arcades into shops for tradesmen. The iron

clamps which bound its stones together had been stolen. The walls were

fissured and falling. Even in our own times botanical works have been

composed on the plants which have made this noble wreck their home. "The

Flora of the Coliseum" contains four hundred and twenty species.

Among the ruins of classical buildings might be seen broken columns,

cypresses, and mouldy frescoes, dropping from the walls. Even the

vegetable world participated in the melancholy change: the myrtle, which

once flourished on the Aventine, had nearly become extinct; the laurel,

which once gave its leaves to encircle the brows of emperors, had been

replaced by ivy--the companion of death.

But perhaps it may be said the popes were not responsible for all this.

Let it be remembered that in less than one hundred and forty years the

city had been successively taken by Alaric, Genseric, Rieimer, Vitiges,

Totila; that many of its great edifices had been converted into

defensive works. The aqueducts were destroyed by Vitiges, who ruined the

Campagna; the palace of the Caesars was ravaged by Totila; then there

had been the Lombard sieges; then Robert Guiscard and his Normans had

burnt the city from the Antonine Column to the Flaminian Gate, from

the Lateran to the Capitol; then it was sacked and mutilated by the

Constable Bourbon; again and again it was flooded by inundations of the

Tiber and shattered by earthquakes. We must, however, bear in mind the

accusation of Machiavelli, who says, in his "History of Florence," that

nearly all the barbarian invasions of Italy were by the invitations of

the pontiffs, who called in those hordes! It was not the Goth, nor

the Vandal, nor the Norman, nor the Saracen, but the popes and their

nephews, who produced the dilapidation of Rome! Lime-kilns had been fed

from the ruins, classical buildings had become stone-quarries for the

palaces of Italian princes, and churches were decorated from the old

temples.

Churches decorated from the temples! It is for this and such as this

that the popes must be held responsible. Superb Corinthian columns bad

been chiseled into images of the saints. Magnificent Egyptian obelisks

had been dishonored by papal inscriptions. The Septizonium of Severus

had been demolished to furnish materials for the building of St.

Peter's; the bronze roof of the Pantheon had been melted into columns to

ornament the apostle's tomb.

The great bell of Viterbo, in the tower of the Capitol, had announced

the death of many a pope, and still desecration of the buildings

and demoralization of the people went on. Papal Rome manifested no

consideration, but rather hatred, for classical Rome, The pontiffs had

been subordinates of the Byzantine sovereigns, then lieutenants of the

Frankish kings, then arbiters of Europe; their government had changed as

much as those of any of the surrounding nations; there had been complete

metamorphoses in its maxims, objects, claims. In one point only it had

never changed--intolerance. Claiming to be the centre of the religious

life of Europe, it steadfastly refused to recognize any religious

existence outside of itself, yet both in a political and theological

sense it was rotten to the core. Erasmus and Luther heard with amazement

the blasphemies and witnessed with a shudder the atheism of the city.

The historian Ranke, to whom I am indebted for many of these facts,

has depicted in a very graphic manner the demoralization of the great

metropolis. The popes were, for the most part, at their election, aged

men. Power was, therefore, incessantly passing into new hands. Every

election was a revolution in prospects and expectations. In a community

where all might rise, where all might aspire to all, it necessarily

followed that every man was occupied in thrusting some other into the

background. Though the population of the city at the inception of the

Reformation had sunk to eighty thousand, there were vast crowds of

placemen, and still greater ones of aspirants for place. The

successful occupant of the pontificate had thousands of offices to give

away--offices from many of which the incumbents had been remorselessly

ejected; many had been created for the purpose of sale. The integrity

and capacity of an applicant were never inquired into; the points

considered were, what services has he rendered or can he render to the

party? how much can he pay for the preferment? An American reader can

thoroughly realize this state of things. At every presidential election

he witnesses similar acts. The election of a pope by the Conclave is not

unlike the nomination of an American president by a convention. In both

cases there are many offices to give away.

William of Malmesbury says that in his day the Romans made a sale of

whatever was righteous and sacred for gold. After his time there was

no improvement; the Church degenerated into an instrument for the

exploitation of money. Vast sums were collected in Italy; vast sums

were drawn under all manner of pretenses from surrounding and reluctant

countries. Of these the most nefarious was the sale of indulgences

for the perpetration of sin. Italian religion had become the art of

plundering the people.

For more than a thousand years the sovereign pontiffs had been rulers

of the city. True, it had witnessed many scenes of devastation for which

they were not responsible; but they were responsible for this, that they

had never made any vigorous, any persistent effort for its material, its

moral improvement. Instead of being in these respects an exemplar for

the imitation of the world, it became an exemplar of a condition that

ought to be shunned. Things steadily went on from bad to worse, until

at the epoch of the Reformation no pious stranger could visit it without

being shocked.

The papacy, repudiating science as absolutely incompatible with its

pretensions, had in later years addressed itself to the encouragement of

art. But music and painting, though they may be exquisite adornments

of life, contain no living force that can develop a weak nation into a

strong one; nothing that can permanently assure the material well-being

or happiness of communities; and hence at the time of the Reformation,

to one who thoughtfully considered her condition, Rome had lost all

living energy. She was no longer the arbiter of the physical or the

religious progress of the world. For the progressive maxims of the

republic and the empire, she had substituted the stationary maxims of

the papacy. She had the appearance of piety and the possession of art.

In this she resembled one of those friar-corpses which we still see in

their brown cowls in the vaults of the Cappuccini, with a breviary or

some withered flowers in its hands.

From this view of the Eternal City, this survey of what Latin

Christianity had done for Rome itself, let us turn to the whole European

Continent. Let us try to determine the true value of the system that was

guiding society; let us judge it by its fruits.

The condition of nations as to their well-being is most precisely

represented by the variations of their population. Forms of government

have very little influence on population, but policy may control it

completely.

It has been very satisfactorily shown by authors who have given

attention to the subject, that the variations of population depend

upon the interbalancing of the generative force of society and the

resistances to life.

By the generative force of society is meant that instinct which

manifests itself in the multiplication of the race. To some extent it

depends on climate; but, since the climate of Europe did not sensibly

change between the fourth and the sixteenth centuries, we may regard

this force as having been, on that continent, during the period under

consideration, invariable.

By the resistances to life is meant whatever tends to make individual

existence more difficult of support. Among such may be enumerated

insufficient food, inadequate clothing, imperfect shelter.

It is also known that, if the resistances become inappreciable, the

generative force will double a population in twenty-five years.

The resistances operate in two modes: 1. Physically; since they diminish

the number of births, and shorten the term of the life of all. 2.

Intellectually; since, in a moral, and particularly in a religious

community, they postpone marriage, by causing individuals to decline

its responsibilities until they feel that they are competent to meet

the charges and cares of a family. Hence the explanation of a

long-recognized fact, that the number of marriages during a given period

has a connection with the price of food.

The increase of population keeps pace with the increase of food; and,

indeed, such being the power of the generative force, it overpasses the

means of subsistence, establishing a constant pressure upon them. Under

these circumstances, it necessarily happens that a certain amount of

destitution must occur. Individuals have come into existence who must be

starved.

As illustrations of the variations that have occurred in the population

of different countries, may be mentioned the immense diminution of that

of Italy in consequence of the wars of Justinian; the depopulation of

North Africa in consequence of theological quarrels; its restoration

through the establishment of Mohammedanism; the increase of that of all

Europe through the feudal system, when estates became more valuable in

proportion to the number of retainers they could supply. The crusades

caused a sensible diminution, not only through the enormous army losses,

but also by reason of the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men

from marriage-life. Similar variations have occurred on the American

Continent. The population of Mexico was very quickly diminished by two

million through the rapacity and atrocious cruelty of the Spaniards, who

drove the civilized Indians to despair. The same happened in Peru.

The population of England at the Norman conquest was about two million.

In five hundred years it had scarcely doubled. It may be supposed that

this stationary condition was to some extent induced by the papal policy

of the enforcement of celibacy in the clergy. The "legal generative

force" was doubtless affected by that policy, the "actual generative

force" was not. For those who have made this subject their study have

long ago been satisfied that public celibacy is private wickedness. This

mainly determined the laity, as well as the government in England, to

suppress the monasteries. It was openly asserted that there were one

hundred thousand women in England made dissolute by the clergy.

In my history of the "American Civil War," I have presented some

reflections on this point, which I will take the liberty of quoting

here: "What, then, does this stationary condition of the population

mean? It means, food obtained with hardship, insufficient clothing,

personal uncleanness, cabins that could not keep out the weather,

the destructive effects of cold and heat, miasm, want of sanitary

provisions, absence of physicians, uselessness of shrine-cure, the

deceptiveness of miracles, in which society was putting its trust; or,

to sum up a long catalogue of sorrows, wants, and sufferings, in one

term--it means a high death-rate.

"But more; it means deficient births. And what does that point out?

Marriage postponed, licentious life, private wickedness, demoralized

society.

"To an American, who lives in a country that was yesterday an

interminable and impenetrable desert, but which to-day is filling with

a population doubling itself every twenty-five years at the prescribed

rate, this awful waste of actual and contingent life cannot but be a

most surprising fact. His curiosity will lead him to inquire what kind

of system that could have been which was pretending to guide and

develop society, but which must be held responsible for this prodigious

destruction, excelling, in its insidious result, war, pestilence, and

famine combined; insidious, for men were actually believing that it

secured their highest temporal interests. How different now! In England,

the same geographical surface is sustaining ten times the population

of that day, and sending forth its emigrating swarms. Let him, who looks

back, with veneration on the past, settle in his own mind what such a

system could have been worth."

These variations in the population of Europe have been attended with

changes in distribution. The centre of population has passed northward

since the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire. It

has since passed westward, in consequence of the development of

manufacturing industry.

We may now examine somewhat more minutely the character of the

resistances which thus, for a thousand years, kept the population of

Europe stationary. The surface of the Continent was for the most

part covered with pathless forests; here and there it was dotted with

monasteries and towns. In the lowlands and along the river-courses were

fens, sometimes hundreds of miles in extent, exhaling their pestiferous

miasms, and spreading agues far and wide. In Paris and London, the

houses were of wood daubed with clay, and thatched with straw or reeds.

They had no windows, and, until the invention of the saw-mill, very

few had wooden floors. The luxury of a carpet was unknown; some straw,

scattered in the room, supplied its place. There were no chimneys; the

smoke of the ill-fed, cheerless fire escaped through a hole in the roof.

In such habitations there was scarcely any protection from the weather.

No attempt was made at drainage, but the putrefying garbage and rubbish

were simply thrown out of the door. Men, women, and children, slept