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Title: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

Author: John William Draper

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Most recently updated: October 29, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE ***

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

CONTENTS

PREFACE.

HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN
RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.

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 in the same apartment; not unfrequently,
domestic animals were their companions; in such a confusion of the family,
it was impossible that modesty or morality could be maintained. The bed

was usually a bag of straw, a wooden log served as a pillow. Personal
cleanliness was utterly unknown; great officers of state, even dignitaries so
high as the Archbishop of Canterbury, swarmed with vermin; such, it is
related, was the condition of Thomas a Becket, the antagonist of an English
king. To conceal personal impurity, perfumes were necessarily and
profusely used. The citizen clothed himself in leather, a garment which,
with its ever-accumulating impurity, might last for many years. He was
considered to be in circumstances of ease, if he could procure fresh meat
once a week for his dinner. The streets had no sewers; they were without
pavement or lamps. After nightfall, the chamber-shatters were thrown open,
and slops unceremoniously emptied down, to the discomfiture of the
wayfarer tracking his path through the narrow streets, with his dismal
lantern in his hand.
Aeneas Sylvius, who afterward became Pope Pius II., and was therefore a
very competent and impartial writer, has left us a graphic account of a
journey he made to the British Islands, about 1430. He describes the houses
of the peasantry as constructed of stones put together without mortar; the
roofs were of turf, a stiffened bull's-hide served for a door. The food
consisted of coarse vegetable products, such as peas, and even the bark of
trees. In some places they were unacquainted with bread.
Cabins of reeds plastered with mud, houses of wattled stakes,
chimneyless peat-fires from which there was scarcely an escape for the
smoke, dens of physical and moral pollution swarming with vermin, wisps
of straw twisted round the limbs to keep off the cold, the ague-stricken
peasant, with no help except shrine-cure! How was it possible that the
population could increase? Shall we, then, wonder that, in the famine of
1030, human flesh was cooked and sold; or that, in that of 1258, fifteen
thousand persons died of hunger in London? Shall we wonder that, in some
of the invasions of the plague, the deaths were so frightfully numerous that
the living could hardly bury the dead? By that of 1348, which came from
the East along the lines of commercial travel, and spread all over Europe,
one-third of the population of France was destroyed.
Such was the condition of the peasantry, and of the common inhabitants
of cities. Not much better was that of the nobles. William of Malmesbury,
speaking of the degraded manners of the Anglo-Saxons, says: "Their
nobles, devoted to gluttony and voluptuousness, never visited the church,

but the matins and the mass were read over to them by a hurrying priest in
their bedchambers, before they rose, themselves not listening. The common
people were a prey to the more powerful; their property was seized, their
bodies dragged away to distant countries; their maidens were either thrown
into a brothel, or sold for slaves. Drinking day and night was the general
pursuit; vices, the companions of inebriety, followed, effeminating the
manly mind." The baronial castles were dens of robbers. The Saxon
chronicler records how men and women were caught and dragged into those
strongholds, hung up by their thumbs or feet, fire applied to them, knotted
strings twisted round their heads, and many other torments inflicted to
extort ransom.
All over Europe, the great and profitable political offices were filled by
ecclesiastics. In every country there was a dual government: 1. That of a
local kind, represented by a temporal sovereign; 2. That of a foreign kind,
acknowledging the authority of the pope, This Roman influence was, in the
nature of things, superior to the local; it expressed the sovereign will of one
man over all the nations of the continent conjointly, and gathered
overwhelming power from its compactness and unity. The local influence
was necessarily of a feeble nature, since it was commonly weakened by the
rivalries of conterminous states, and the dissensions dexterously provoked
by its competitor. On not a single occasion could the various European
states form a coalition against their common antagonist. Whenever a
question arose, they were skillfully taken in detail, and commonly mastered.
The ostensible object of papal intrusion was to secure for the different
peoples moral well-being; the real object was to obtain large revenues, and
give support to vast bodies of ecclesiastics. The revenues thus abstracted
were not infrequently many times greater than those passing into the
treasury of the local power. Thus, on the occasion of Innocent IV.
demanding provision to be made for three hundred additional Italian clergy
by the Church of England, and that one of his nephews—a mere boy—
should have a stall in Lincoln Cathedral, it was found that the sum already
annually abstracted by foreign ecclesiastics from England was thrice that
which went into the coffers of the king.
While thus the higher clergy secured every political appointment worth
having, and abbots vied with counts in the herds of slaves they possessed—
some, it is said, owned not fewer than twenty thousand—begging friars
pervaded society in all directions, picking up a share of what still remained

to the poor. There was a vast body of non-producers, living in idleness and
owning a foreign allegiance, who were subsisting on the fruits of the toil of
the laborers. It could not be otherwise than that small farms should be
unceasingly merged into the larger estates; that the poor should steadily
become poorer; that society, far from improving, should exhibit a
continually increasing demoralization. Outside the monastic institutions no
attempt at intellectual advancement was made; indeed, so far as the laity
were concerned, the influence of the Church was directed to an opposite
result, for the maxim universally received was, that "ignorance is the
mother of devotion."
The settled practice of republican and imperial Rome was to have swift
communication with all her outlying provinces, by means of substantial
bridges and roads. One of the prime duties of the legions was to construct
them and keep them in repair. By this, her military authority was assured.
But the dominion of papal Rome, depending upon a different principle, had
no exigencies of that kind, and this duty accordingly was left for the local
powers to neglect. And so, in all directions, the roads were almost
impassable for a large part of the year. A common means of transportation
was in clumsy carts drawn by oxen, going at the most but three or four
miles an hour. Where boat-conveyance along rivers could not be had, pack-
horses and mules were resorted to for the transportation of merchandise, an
adequate means for the slender commerce of the times. When large bodies
of men had to be moved, the difficulties became almost insuperable. Of
this, perhaps, one of the best illustrations may be found in the story of the
march of the first Crusaders. These restraints upon intercommunication
tended powerfully to promote the general benighted condition. Journeys by
individuals could not be undertaken without much risk, for there was
scarcely a moor or a forest that had not its highwaymen.
An illiterate condition everywhere prevailing, gave opportunity for the
development of superstition. Europe was full of disgraceful miracles. On all
the roads pilgrims were wending their way to the shrines of saints,
renowned for the cures they had wrought. It had always been the policy of
the Church to discourage the physician and his art; he interfered too much
with the gifts and profits of the shrines. Time has brought this once
lucrative imposture to its proper value. How many shrines are there now in
successful operation in Europe?

For patients too sick to move or be moved, there were no remedies
except those of a ghostly kind—the Pater-noster or the Ave. For the
prevention of diseases, prayers were put up in the churches, but no sanitary
measures were resorted to. From cities reeking with putrefying filth it was
thought that the plague might be stayed by the prayers of the priests, by
them rain and dry weather might be secured, and deliverance obtained from
the baleful influences of eclipses and comets. But when Halley's comet
came, in 1456, so tremendous was its apparition that it was necessary for
the pope himself to interfere. He exorcised and expelled it from the skies. It
slunk away into the abysses of space, terror-stricken by the maledictions of
Calixtus III., and did not venture back for seventy-five years!
The physical value of shrine-cures and ghostly remedies is measured by
the death-rate. In those days it was, probably, about one in twenty-three,
under the present more material practice it is about one in forty.
The moral condition of Europe was signally illustrated when syphilis was
introduced from the West Indies by the companions of Columbus. It spread
with wonderful rapidity; all ranks of persons, from the Holy Father Leo X.
to the beggar by the wayside, contracting the shameful disease. Many
excused their misfortune by declaring that it was an epidemic proceeding
from a certain malignity in the constitution of the air, but in truth its spread
was due to a certain infirmity in the constitution of man—an infirmity
which had not been removed by the spiritual guidance under which he had
been living.
To the medical efficacy of shrines must be added that of special relics.
These were sometimes of the most extraordinary kind. There were several
abbeys that possessed our Savior's crown of thorns. Eleven had the lance
that had pierced his side. If any person was adventurous enough to suggest
that these could not all be authentic, he would have been denounced as an
atheist. During the holy wars the Templar-Knights had driven a profitable
commerce by bringing from Jerusalem to the Crusading armies bottles of
the milk of the Blessed Virgin, which they sold for enormous sums; these
bottles were preserved with pious care in many of the great religious
establishments. But perhaps none of these impostures surpassed in audacity
that offered by a monastery in Jerusalem, which presented to the beholder
one of the fingers of the Holy Ghost! Modern society has silently rendered
its verdict on these scandalous objects. Though they once nourished the

piety of thousands of earnest people, they are now considered too vile to
have a place in any public museum.
How shall we account for the great failure we thus detect in the
guardianship of the Church over Europe? This is not the result that must
have occurred had there been in Rome an unremitting care for the spiritual
and material prosperity of the continent, had the universal pastor, the
successor of Peter, occupied himself with singleness of purpose for the
holiness and happiness of his flock.
The explanation is not difficult to find. It is contained in a story of sin
and shame. I prefer, therefore, in the following paragraphs, to offer
explanatory facts derived from Catholic authors, and, indeed, to present
them as nearly as I can in the words of those writers.
The story I am about to relate is a narrative of the transformation of a
confederacy into an absolute monarchy.
In the early times every church, without prejudice to its agreement with
the Church universal in all essential points, managed its own affairs with
perfect freedom and independence, maintaining its own traditional usages
and discipline, all questions not concerning the whole Church, or of primary
importance, being settled on the spot.
Until the beginning of the ninth century, there was no change in the
constitution of the Roman Church. But about 845 the Isidorian Decretals
were fabricated in the west of Gaul—a forgery containing about one
hundred pretended decrees of the early popes, together with certain spurious
writings of other church dignitaries and acts of synods. This forgery
produced an immense extension of the papal power, it displaced the old
system of church government, divesting it of the republican attributes it had
possessed, and transforming it into an absolute monarchy. It brought the
bishops into subjection to Rome, and made the pontiff the supreme judge of
the clergy of the whole Christian world. It prepared the way for the great
attempt, subsequently made by Hildebrand, to convert the states of Europe
into a theocratic priest-kingdom, with the pope at its head.
Gregory VII., the author of this great attempt, saw that his plans would be
best carried out through the agency of synods. He, therefore, restricted the
right of holding them to the popes and their legates. To aid in the matter, a
new system of church law was devised by Anselm of Lucca, partly from the
old Isidorian forgeries, and partly from new inventions. To establish the

supremacy of Rome, not only had a new civil and a new canon law to be
produced, a new history had also to be invented. This furnished needful
instances of the deposition and excommunication of kings, and proved that
they had always been subordinate to the popes. The decretal letters of the
popes were put on a par with Scripture. At length it came to be received,
throughout the West, that the popes had been, from the beginning of
Christianity, legislators for the whole Church. As absolute sovereigns in
later times cannot endure representative assemblies, so the papacy, when it
wished to become absolute, found that the synods of particular national
churches must be put an end to, and those only under the immediate control
of the pontiff permitted. This, in itself, constituted a great revolution.
Another fiction concocted in Rome in the eighth century led to important
consequences. It feigned that the Emperor Constantine, in gratitude for his
cure from leprosy, and baptism by Pope Sylvester, had bestowed Italy and
the Western provinces on the pope, and that, in token of his subordination,
he had served the pope as his groom, and led his horse some distance. This
forgery was intended to work on the Frankish kings, to impress them with a
correct idea of their inferiority, and to show that, in the territorial
concessions they made to the Church, they were not giving but only
restoring what rightfully belonged to it.
The most potent instrument of the new papal system was Gratian's
Decretum, which was issued about the middle of the twelfth century. It was
a mass of fabrications. It made the whole Christian world, through the
papacy, the domain of the Italian clergy. It inculcated that it is lawful to
constrain men to goodness, to torture and execute heretics, and to confiscate
their property; that to kill an excommunicated person is not murder; that the
pope, in his unlimited superiority to all law, stands on an equality with the
Son of God!
As the new system of centralization developed, maxims, that in the olden
times would have been held to be shocking, were boldly avowed—the
whole Church is the property of the pope to do with as he will; what is
simony in others is not simony in him; he is above all law, and can be called
to account by none; whoever disobeys him must be put to death; every
baptized man is his subject, and must for life remain so, whether he will or
not. Up to the end of the twelfth century, the popes were the vicars of Peter;
after Innocent III. they were the vicars of Christ.

But an absolute sovereign has need of revenues, and to this the popes
were no exception. The institution of legates was brought in from
Hildebrand's time. Sometimes their duty was to visit churches, sometimes
they were sent on special business, but always invested with unlimited
powers to bring back money over the Alps. And since the pope could not
only make laws, but could suspend their operation, a legislation was
introduced in view to the purchase of dispensations. Monasteries were
exempted from episcopal jurisdiction on payment of a tribute to Rome. The
pope had now become "the universal bishop;" he had a concurrent
jurisdiction in all the dioceses, and could bring any cases before his own
courts. His relation to the bishops was that of an absolute sovereign to his
officials. A bishop could resign only by his permission, and sees vacated by
resignation lapsed to him. Appeals to him were encouraged in every way for
the sake of the dispensations; thousands of processes came before the Curia,
bringing a rich harvest to Rome. Often when there were disputing claimants
to benefices, the pope would oust them all, and appoint a creature of his
own. Often the candidates had to waste years in Rome, and either died
there, or carried back a vivid impression of the dominant corruption.
Germany suffered more than other countries from these appeals and
processes, and hence of all countries was best prepared for the Reformation.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the popes made gigantic
strides in the acquisition of power. Instead of recommending their favorites
for benefices, now they issued mandates. Their Italian partisans must be
rewarded; nothing could be done to satisfy their clamors, but to provide for
them in foreign countries. Shoals of contesting claimants died in Rome;
and, when death took place in that city, the Pope claimed the right of giving
away the benefices. At length it was affirmed that he had the right of
disposing of all church-offices without distinction, and that the oath of
obedience of a bishop to him implied political as well as ecclesiastical
subjection. In countries having a dual government this increased the power
of the spiritual element prodigiously.
Rights of every kind were remorselessly overthrown to complete this
centralization. In this the mendicant orders were most efficient aids. It was
the pope and those orders on one side, the bishops and the parochial clergy
on the other. The Roman court had seized the rights of synods,
metropolitans, bishops, national churches. Incessantly interfered with by the
legates, the bishops lost all desire to discipline their dioceses; incessantly

interfered with by the begging monks, the parish priest had become
powerless in his own village; his pastoral influence was utterly destroyed by
the papal indulgences and absolutions they sold. The money was carried off
to Rome.
Pecuniary necessities urged many of the popes to resort to such petty
expedients as to require from a prince, a bishop, or a grand-master, who had
a cause pending in the court, a present of a golden cup filled with ducats.
Such necessities also gave origin to jubilees. Sixtus IV. established whole
colleges, and sold the places at three or four hundred ducats. Innocent VIII.
pawned the papal tiara. Of Leo X. it was said that he squandered the
revenues of three popes, he wasted the savings of his predecessor, he spent
his own income, he anticipated that of his successor, he created twenty-one
hundred and fifty new offices and sold them; they were considered to be a
good investment, as they produced twelve per cent. The interest was
extorted from Catholic countries. Nowhere in Europe could capital be so
well invested as at Rome. Large sums were raised by the foreclosing of
mortgages, and not only by the sale but the resale of offices. Men were
promoted, for the purpose of selling their offices again.
Though against the papal theory, which denounced usurious practices, an
immense papal banking system had sprung up, in connection with the
Curia, and sums at usurious interest were advanced to prelates, place-
hunters, and litigants. The papal bankers were privileged; all others were
under the ban. The Curia had discovered that it was for their interest to have
ecclesiastics all over Europe in their debt. They could make them pliant,
and excommunicate them for non-payment of interest. In 1327 it was
reckoned that half the Christian world was under excommunication: bishops
were excommunicated because they could not meet the extortions of
legates; and persons were excommunicated, under various pretenses, to
compel them to purchase absolution at an exorbitant price. The
ecclesiastical revenues of all Europe were flowing into Rome, a sink of
corruption, simony, usury, bribery, extortion. The popes, since 1066, when
the great centralizing movement began, had no time to pay attention to the
internal affairs of their own special flock in the city of Rome. There were
thousands of foreign cases, each bringing in money. "Whenever," says the
Bishop Alvaro Pelayo, "I entered the apartments of the Roman court clergy,
I found them occupied in counting up the gold-coin, which lay about the
rooms in heaps." Every opportunity of extending the jurisdiction of the

Curia was welcome. Exemptions were so managed that fresh grants were
constantly necessary. Bishops were privileged against cathedral chapters,
chapters against their bishops; bishops, convents, and individuals, against
the extortions of legates.
The two pillars on which the papal system now rested were the College
of Cardinals and the Curia. The cardinals, in 1059, had become electors of
the popes. Up to that time elections were made by the whole body of the
Roman clergy, and the concurrence of the magistrates and citizens was
necessary. But Nicolas II. restricted elections to the College of Cardinals by
a two-thirds vote, and gave to the German emperor the right of
confirmation. For almost two centuries there was a struggle for mastery
between the cardinal oligarchy and papal absolutism. The cardinals were
willing enough that the pope should be absolute in his foreign rule, but they
never failed to attempt, before giving him their votes, to bind him to accord
to them a recognized share in the government. After his election, and before
his consecration, he swore to observe certain capitulations, such as a
participation of revenues between himself and the cardinals; an obligation
that he would not remove them, but would permit them to assemble twice a
year to discuss whether he had kept his oath. Repeatedly the popes broke
their oath. On one side, the cardinals wanted a larger share in the church
government and emoluments; on the other, the popes refused to surrender
revenues or power. The cardinals wanted to be conspicuous in pomp and
extravagance, and for this vast sums were requisite. In one instance, not
fewer than five hundred benefices were held by one of them; their friends
and retainers must be supplied, their families enriched. It was affirmed that
the whole revenues of France were insufficient to meet their expenditures.
In their rivalries it sometimes happened that no pope was elected for several
years. It seemed as if they wanted to show how easily the Church could get
on without the Vicar of Christ.
Toward the close of the eleventh century the Roman Church became the
Roman court. In place of the Christian sheep gently following their
shepherd in the holy precincts of the city, there had arisen a chancery of
writers, notaries, tax-gatherers, where transactions about privileges,
dispensations, exemptions, were carried on; and suitors went with petitions
from door to door. Rome was a rallying-point for place-hunters of every
nation. In presence of the enormous mass of business-processes, graces,
indulgences, absolutions, commands, and decisions, addressed to all parts

of Europe and Asia, the functions of the local church sank into
insignificance. Several hundred persons, whose home was the Curia, were
required. Their aim was to rise in it by enlarging the profits of the papal
treasury. The whole Christian world had become tributary to it. Here every
vestige of religion had disappeared; its members were busy with politics,
litigations, and processes; not a word could be heard about spiritual
concerns. Every stroke of the pen had its price. Benefices, dispensations,
licenses, absolutions, indulgences, privileges, were bought and sold like
merchandise. The suitor had to bribe every one, from the doorkeeper to the
pope, or his case was lost. Poor men could neither attain preferment, nor
hope for it; and the result was, that every cleric felt he had a right to follow
the example he had seen at Rome, and that he might make profits out of his
spiritual ministries and sacraments, having bought the right to do so at
Rome, and having no other way to pay off his debt. The transference of
power from Italians to Frenchmen, through the removal of the Curia to
Avignon, produced no change—only the Italians felt that the enrichment of
Italian families had slipped out of their grasp. They had learned to consider
the papacy as their appanage, and that they, under the Christian
dispensation, were God's chosen people, as the Jews had been under the
Mosaic.
At the end of the thirteenth century a new kingdom was discovered,
capable of yielding immense revenues. This was Purgatory. It was shown
that the pope could empty it by his indulgences. In this there was no need of
hypocrisy. Things were done openly. The original germ of the apostolic
primacy had now expanded into a colossal monarchy.
NEED OF A GENERAL COUNCIL. The Inquisition had made the papal
system irresistible. All opposition must be punished with death by fire. A
mere thought, without having betrayed itself by outward sign, was
considered as guilt. As time went on, this practice of the Inquisition became
more and more atrocious. Torture was resorted to on mere suspicion. The
accused was not allowed to know the name of his accuser. He was not
permitted to have any legal adviser. There was no appeal. The Inquisition
was ordered not to lean to pity. No recantation was of avail. The innocent
family of the accused was deprived of its property by confiscation; half
went to the papal treasury, half to the inquisitors. Life only, said Innocent
III., was to be left to the sons of misbelievers, and that merely as an act of
mercy. The consequence was, that popes, such as Nicolas III., enriched their

families through plunder acquired by this tribunal. Inquisitors did the same
habitually.
The struggle between the French and Italians for the possession of the
papacy inevitably led to the schism of the fourteenth century. For more than
forty years two rival popes were now anathematizing each other, two rival
Curias were squeezing the nations for money. Eventually, there were three
obediences, and triple revenues to be extorted. Nobody, now, could
guarantee the validity of the sacraments, for nobody could be sure which
was the true pope. Men were thus compelled to think for themselves. They
could not find who was the legitimate thinker for them. They began to see
that the Church must rid herself of the curialistic chains, and resort to a
General Council. That attempt was again and again made, the intention
being to raise the Council into a Parliament of Christendom, and make the
pope its chief executive officer. But the vast interests that had grown out of
the corruption of ages could not so easily be overcome; the Curia again
recovered its ascendency, and ecclesiastical trading was resumed. The
Germans, who had never been permitted to share in the Curia, took the
leading part in these attempts at reform. As things went on from bad to
worse, even they at last found out that all hope of reforming the Church by
means of councils was delusive. Erasmus exclaimed, "If Christ does not
deliver his people from this multiform ecclesiastical tyranny, the tyranny of
the Turk will become less intolerable." Cardinals' hats were now sold, and
under Leo X. ecclesiastical and religious offices were actually put up to
auction. The maxim of life had become, interest first, honor afterward.
Among the officials, there was not one who could be honest in the dark, and
virtuous without a witness. The violet-colored velvet cloaks and white
ermine capes of the cardinals were truly a cover for wickedness.
The unity of the Church, and therefore its power, required the use of
Latin as a sacred language. Through this, Rome had stood in an attitude
strictly European, and was enabled to maintain a general international
relation. It gave her far more power than her asserted celestial authority,
and, much as she claims to have done, she is open to condemnation that,
with such a signal advantage in her hands, never again to be enjoyed by any
successor, she did not accomplish much more. Had not the sovereign
pontiffs been so completely occupied with maintaining their emoluments
and temporalities in Italy, they might have made the whole continent
advance like one man. Their officials could pass without difficulty into

every nation, and communicate without embarrassment with each other,
from Ireland to Bohemia, from Italy to Scotland. The possession of a
common tongue gave them the administration of international affairs with
intelligent allies everywhere, speaking the same language.
Not without cause was the hatred manifested by Rome to the restoration
of Greek and introduction of Hebrew, and the alarm with which she
perceived the modern languages forming out of the vulgar dialects. Not
without reason did the Faculty of Theology in Paris re-echo the sentiment
that, was prevalent in the time of Ximenes, "What will become of religion if
the study of Greek and Hebrew be permitted?" The prevalence of Latin was
the condition of her power; its deterioration, the measure of her decay; its
disuse, the signal of her limitation to a little principality in Italy. In fact, the
development of European languages was the instrument of her overthrow.
They formed an effectual communication between the mendicant friars and
the illiterate populace, and there was not one of them that did not display in
its earliest productions a sovereign contempt for her.
The rise of the many-tongued European literature was therefore
coincident with the decline of papal Christianity; European literature was
impossible under Catholic rule. A grand, a solemn, an imposing religious
unity enforced the literary unity which is implied in the use of a single
tongue.
While thus the possession of a universal language so signally secured her
power, the real secret of much of the influence of the Church lay in the
control she had so skillfully obtained over domestic life. Her influence
diminished as that declined. Coincident with this was her displacement in
the guidance of international relations by diplomacy.
CATHOLICITY AND CIVILIZATION. In the old times of Roman
domination the encampments of the legions in the provinces had always
proved to be foci of civilization. The industry and order exhibited in them
presented an example not lost on the surrounding barbarians of Britain,
Gaul, and Germany. And, though it was no part of their duty to occupy
themselves actively in the betterment of the conquered tribes, but rather to
keep them in a depressed condition that aided in maintaining subjection, a
steady improvement both in the individual and social condition took place.
Under the ecclesiastical domination of Rome similar effects occurred. In
the open country the monastery replaced the legionary encampment; in the

village or town, the church was a centre of light. A powerful effect was
produced by the elegant luxury of the former, and by the sacred and solemn
monitions of the latter.
In extolling the papal system for what it did in the organization of the
family, the definition of civil policy, the construction of the states of
Europe, our praise must be limited by the recollection that the chief object
of ecclesiastical policy was the aggrandizement of the Church, not the
promotion of civilization. The benefit obtained by the laity was not through
any special intention, but incidental or collateral.
There was no far-reaching, no persistent plan to ameliorate the physical
condition of the nations. Nothing was done to favor their intellectual
development; indeed, on the contrary, it was the settled policy to keep them
not merely illiterate, but ignorant. Century after century passed away, and
left the peasantry but little better than the cattle in the fields.
Intercommunication and locomotion, which tend so powerfully to expand
the ideas, received no encouragement; the majority of men died without
ever having ventured out of the neighborhood in which they were born. For
them there was no hope of personal improvement, none of the bettering of
their lot; there were no comprehensive schemes for the avoidance of
individual want, none for the resistance of famines. Pestilences were
permitted to stalk forth unchecked, or at best opposed only by mummeries.
Bad food, wretched clothing, inadequate shelter, were suffered to produce
their result, and at the end of a thousand years the population of Europe had
not doubled.
If policy may be held accountable as much for the births it prevents as for
the deaths it occasions, what a great responsibility there is here!
In this investigation of the influence of Catholicism, we must carefully
keep separate what it did for the people and what it did for itself. When we
think of the stately monastery, an embodiment of luxury, with its closely-
mown lawns, its gardens and bowers, its fountains and many murmuring
streams, we must connect it not with the ague-stricken peasant dying
without help in the fens, but with the abbot, his ambling palfrey, his hawk
and hounds, his well-stocked cellar and larder. He is part of a system that
has its centre of authority in Italy.. To that his allegiance is due. For its
behoof are all his acts. When we survey, as still we may, the magnificent
churches and cathedrals of those times, miracles of architectural skill—the

only real miracles of Catholicism—when in imagination we restore the
transcendently imposing, the noble services of which they were once the
scene, the dim, religious-light streaming in through the many-colored
windows, the sounds of voices not inferior in their melody to those of
heaven, the priests in their sacred vestments, and above all the prostrate
worshipers listening to litanies and prayers in a foreign and unknown
tongue, shall we not ask ourselves, Was all this for the sake of those
worshipers, or for the glory of the great, the overshadowing authority at
Rome?
But perhaps some one may say, Are there not limits to human exertion—
things which no political system, no human power, no matter how excellent
its intention, can accomplish? Men cannot be raised from barbarism, a
continent cannot be civilized, in a day!
The Catholic power is not, however, to be tried by any such standard. It
scornfully rejected and still rejects a human origin. It claims to be
accredited supernaturally. The sovereign pontiff is the Vicar of God upon
earth. Infallible in judgment, it is given to him to accomplish all things by
miracle if need be. He had exercised an autocratic tyranny over the intellect
of Europe for more than a thousand years; and, though on some occasions
he had encountered the resistances of disobedient princes, these, in the
aggregate, were of so little moment, that the physical, the political power of
the continent may be affirmed to have been at his disposal.
Such facts as have been presented in this chapter were, doubtless, well
weighed by the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century, and brought
them to the conclusion that Catholicism had altogether failed in its mission;
that it had become a vast system of delusion and imposture, and that a
restoration of true Christianity could only be accomplished by returning to
the faith and practices of the primitive times. This was no decision suddenly
arrived at; it had long been the opinion of many religious and learned men.
The pious Fratricelli in the middle ages had loudly expressed their belief
that the fatal gift of a Roman emperor had been the doom of true religion. It
wanted nothing more than the voice of Luther to bring men throughout the
north of Europe to the determination that the worship of the Virgin Mary,
the invocation of saints, the working of miracles, supernatural cures of the
sick, the purchase of indulgences for the perpetration of sin, and all other
evil practices, lucrative to their abettors, which had been fastened on

Christianity, but which were no part of it, should come to an end.
Catholicism, as a system for promoting the well-being of man, had plainly
failed in justifying its alleged origin; its performance had not corresponded
to its great pretensions; and, after an opportunity of more than a thousand
years' duration, it had left the masses of men submitted to its influences,
both as regards physical well-being and intellectual culture, in a condition
far lower than what it ought to have been.

CHAPTER XI.
SCIENCE IN RELATION TO MODERN CIVILIZATION.

Illustration of the general influences of Science from the
history of America.

THE INTRODUCTION OF SCIENCE INTO EUROPE.—It passed from
Moorish Spain to Upper Italy, and was favored by the absence
of the popes at Avignon.—The effects of printing, of
maritime adventure, and of the Reformation—Establishment of
the Italian scientific societies.

THE INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE.—It changed the mode
and the direction of thought in Europe.—The transactions of
the Royal Society of London, and other scientific societies,
furnish an illustration of this.

THE ECONOMICAL INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE is illustrated by the
numerous mechanical and physical inventions, made since the
fourteenth century.—Their influence on health and domestic
life, on the arts of peace and of war.

Answer to the question, What has Science done for humanity?

EUROPE, at the epoch of the Reformation, furnishes us with the result of
the influences of Roman Christianity in the promotion of civilization.
America, examined in like manner at the present time, furnishes us with an
illustration of the influences of science.
SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION. In the course of the seventeenth
century a sparse European population had settled along the western Atlantic
coast. Attracted by the cod-fishery of Newfoundland, the French had a little
colony north of the St. Lawrence; the English, Dutch, and Swedes, occupied
the shore of New England and the Middle States; some Huguenots were
living in the Carolinas. Rumors of a spring that could confer perpetual
youth—a fountain of life—had brought a few Spaniards into Florida.
Behind the fringe of villages which these adventurers had built, lay a vast
and unknown country, inhabited by wandering Indians, whose numbers
from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence did not exceed one hundred
and eighty thousand. From them the European strangers had learned that in
those solitary regions there were fresh-water seas, and a great river which
they called the Mississippi. Some said that it flowed through Virginia into
the Atlantic, some that it passed through Florida, some that it emptied into

the Pacific, and some that it reached the Gulf of Mexico. Parted from their
native countries by the stormy Atlantic, to cross which implied a voyage of
many months, these refugees seemed lost to the world.
But before the close of the nineteenth century the descendants of this
feeble people had become one of the great powers of the earth. They had
established a republic whose sway extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
With an army of more than a million men, not on paper, but actually in the
field, they had overthrown a domestic assailant. They had maintained at sea
a war-fleet of nearly seven hundred ships, carrying five thousand guns,
some of them the heaviest in the world. The tonnage of this navy amounted
to half a million. In the defense of their national life they had expended in
less than five years more than four thousand million dollars. Their census,
periodically taken, showed that the population was doubling itself every
twenty-five years; it justified the expectation that at the close of that century
it would number nearly one hundred million souls.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. A silent continent had been changed into a
scene of industry; it was full of the din of machinery and the restless
moving of men. Where there had been an unbroken forest, there were
hundreds of cities and towns. To commerce were furnished in profusion
some of the most important staples, as cotton, tobacco, breadstuffs. The
mines yielded incredible quantities of gold, iron, coal. Countless churches,
colleges, and public schools, testified that a moral influence vivified this
material activity. Locomotion was effectually provided for. The railways
exceeded in aggregate length those of all Europe combined. In 1873 the
aggregate length of the European railways was sixty-three thousand three
hundred and sixty miles, that of the American was seventy thousand six
hundred and fifty miles. One of them, built across the continent, connected
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
But not alone are these material results worthy of notice. Others of a
moral and social kind force themselves on our attention. Four million negro
slaves had been set free. Legislation, if it inclined to the advantage of any
class, inclined to that of the poor. Its intention was to raise them from
poverty, and better their lot. A career was open to talent, and that without
any restraint. Every thing was possible to intelligence and industry. Many of
the most important public offices were filled by men who had risen from
the humblest walks of life. If there was not social equality, as there never