VI.
DRAPER ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION.[1]
SOME twelve years ago, Dr. Draper published a
bulky volume entitled "A History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe," in which his professed
purpose was to show that nations or races pass through
certain definable epochs of development, analogous to
the periods of infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, and
old age in individuals. But while announced with due
formality, the carrying out of the argument was left for
the most part to the headings and running-titles of the
several chapters, while in the text the author peacefully
meandered along down the stream of time, giving us a
succession of pleasant though somewhat threadbare
anecdotes, as well as a superabundance of detached and
fragmentary opinions on divers historical events, having
apparently quite forgotten that he had started with a
thesis to prove. In the arrangement of his "running
heads," some points were sufficiently curious to require
a word of explanation, as, for example, when the early
ages of Christianity were at one time labelled as an
epoch of progress and at another time as an epoch of
decrepitude. But the argument and the contents never
got so far en rapport with each other as to clear up such
points as this. On the contrary, each kept on the even
tenour of its way without much regard to the other.
From the titles of the chapters one was led to expect
some comprehensive theory of European civilization
continuously expounded. But the text merely showed
a great quantity of superficial and second-hand information,
serving to illustrate the mental idiosyncrasies of
the author. Among these idiosyncrasies might be noted
a very inadequate understanding of the part played by
Rome in the work of civilization, a singular lack of
appreciation of the political and philosophical achievements
of Greece under Athenian leadership, a strong
hostility to the Catholic Church, a curious disposition
to overrate semi-barbarous. or abortive civilizations, such
as those of the old Asiatic and native American communities,
at the expense of Europe, and, above all, an
undiscriminating admiration for everything, great or
small, that has ever worn the garb of Islam or been
associated with the career of the Saracens. The discovery
that in some respects the Mussulmans of the
Middle Ages were more highly cultivated than their
Christian contemporaries, has made such an impression
on Dr. Draper's mind that it seems to be as hard for
him to get rid of it as it was for Mr. Dick to keep the
execution of Charles I. out of his "Memorial." Even
in an essay on the "Civil Policy of America," the turbaned
sage figures quite prominently; and it is needless
to add that he reappears, as large as life, when the
subject of discussion is the attitude of science toward
religion.
Speaking briefly with regard to this matter, we may
freely admit that the work done by the Arabs, in scientific
inquiry as well as in the making of events, was
very considerable. It was a work, too, the value of
which is not commonly appreciated in the accounts of
European history written for the general reader, and we
have no disposition to find fault with Dr. Draper for
describing it with enthusiasm. The philosophers of
Bagdad and Cordova did excellent service in keeping
alive the traditions of Greek physical inquiry at a time
when Christian thinkers were too exclusively occupied
with transcendental speculations in theology and logic.
In some departments, as in chemistry and astronomy,
they made original discoveries of considerable value;
and if we turn from abstract knowledge to the arts of
life, it cannot be denied that the mediæval Mussulmans
had reached a higher plane of material comfort than
their Christian contemporaries. In short, the work of
all kinds done by these people would furnish the judicious
advocate of the claims of the Semitic race with
materials for a pleasing and instructive picture. Dr.
Draper, however, errs, though no doubt unintentionally,
by so presenting the case as to leave upon the reader's
mind the impression that all this scientific and practical
achievement was the work of Islamism, and that the
Mohammedan civilization was of a higher type than the
Christian. It is with an apparent feeling of regret that
he looks upon the ousting of the Moors from dominion
in Spain; but this is a mistaken view. As regards
the first point, it is a patent fact that scientific inquiry
was conducted at the cost of as much theological obloquy
in the Mohammedan as in the Christian world.
It is true there was more actual tolerance of heresy on
the part of Moslem governments than was customary in
Europe in those days; but this is a superficial fact, which
does not indicate any superiority in Moslem popular
sentiment. The caliphate or emirate was a truly absolute
despotism, such as the Papacy has never been,
and the conduct of a sceptical emir in encouraging
scientific inquiry goes but little way toward proving
anything like a general prevalence of tolerance or of
free-thinking. And this brings us to the second point,
—that Mohammedan civilization was, on the whole,
rather a skin-deep affair. It was superficial because of
that extreme severance between government and people
which has never existed in European nations within
historic times, but which has always existed among the
principal races that have professed Moslemism. Nowhere
in the Mohammedan world has there ever been
what we call a national life, and nowhere do we find in
its records any trace of such an intellectual impulse,
thrilling through every fibre of the people and begetting
prodigious achievements in art, poetry, and philosophy,
as was awakened in Europe in the thirteenth century
and again in the fifteenth. Under the peculiar form of
unlimited material and spiritual despotism exemplified
in the caliphate, a few men may discover gases or comment
on Aristotle, but no general movement toward
political progress or philosophical inquiry is possible.
Such a society is rigid and inorganic at bottom, whatever
scanty signs of flexibility and life it may show
at the surface. There is no better illustration of this,
when well considered, than the fact that Moorish civilization
remained, politically and intellectually, a mere
excrescence in Spain, after having been fastened down
over half the country for nearly eight centuries.
But we are in danger of forgetting our main theme, as
Dr. Draper seems to do, while we linger with him over
these interesting wayside topics. We may perhaps be
excused, however, if we have not yet made any very
explicit allusion to the "Conflict between Religion and
Science," because this work seems to be in the main a
repetition
en petit of the "Intellectual Development of
Europe," and what we have said will apply as well to
one as to the other. In the little book, as in the big
one, we hear a great deal about the Arabs, and something
about Columbus and Galileo, who made men
accept sundry truths in the teeth of clerical opposition;
and, as before, we float gently down the current of history
without being over well-informed as to the precise
didactic purpose of our voyage. Here, indeed, even our
headings and running-titles do not materially help us,
for though we are supposed to be witnessing, or mayhap
assisting in, a perennial conflict between "science" and
"religion," we are nowhere enlightened as to what the
cause or character of this conflict is, nor are we enabled
to get a good look at either of the parties to the strife.
With regard to it "religion" especially are we left in the
dark. What this dreadful thing is towards which "science"
is always playing the part of Herakles towards
the Lernæan Hydra, we are left to gather from the course
of the narrative. Yet, in a book with any valid claim
to clearsightedness, one would think such a point as
this ought to receive very explicit preliminary treatment.
The course of the narrative, however, leaves us in little
doubt as to what Dr. Draper means by a conflict between
science and religion. When he enlarges on the
trite story of Galileo, and alludes to the more modern
quarrel between the Church and the geologists, and does
this in the belief that he is thereby illustrating an antagonism
between religion and science, it is obvious that
he identifies the cause of the anti-geologists and the
persecutors of Galileo with the cause of religion. The
word "religion" is to him a symbol which stands for
unenlightened bigotry or narrow-minded unwillingness
to look facts in the face. Such a conception of religion
is common enough, and unhappily a great deal has been
done to strengthen it by the very persons to whom the
interests of religion are presumed to be a professional
care. It is nevertheless a very superficial conception,
and no book which is vitiated by it can have much
philosophic value. It is simply the crude impression
which, in minds unaccustomed to analysis, is left by the
fact that theologians and other persons interested in
religion are usually alarmed at new scientific truths,
and resist them with emotions so highly wrought that
they are not only incapable of estimating evidence, but
often also have their moral sense impaired, and fight
with foul means when fair ones fail. If we reflect carefully
on this class of phenomena, we shall see that
something besides mere pride of opinion is involved
in the struggle. At the bottom of changing theological
beliefs there lies something which men perennially
value, and for the sake of which they cling to the beliefs
as long as possible. That which they value is not itself
a matter of belief, but it is a matter of conduct; it is
the searching after goodness,—after a higher life than
the mere satisfaction of individual desires. All animals
seek for fulness of life; but in civilized man this craving
has acquired a moral significance, and has become
a spiritual aspiration; and this emotional tendency,
more or less strong in the human race, we call religious
feeling or religion. Viewed in this light, religion is not
only something that mankind is never likely to get rid
of, but it is incomparably the most noble as well as the
most useful attribute of humanity.
Now, this emotional prompting toward completeness
of life requires, of course, that conduct should be guided,
as far as possible, in accordance with a true theory of the
relations of man to the world in which he lives. Hence,
at any given era the religious feeling will always be
found enlisted in behalf of some theory of the universe.
At any time, whatever may be their shortcomings in
practice, religious men will aim at doing right according
to their conceptions of the order of the world. If men's
conceptions of the order of nature remained constant,
no apparent conflict between their religious feelings and
their knowledge need ever arise. But with the first
advance in our knowledge of nature the case is altered.
New and strange theories are naturally regarded with
fear and dislike by persons who have always been
accustomed to find the sanction and justification of their
emotional prompting toward righteousness in old familiar
theories which the new ones are seeking to supplant.
Such persons oppose the new doctrine because their
engrained mental habits compel them to believe that its
establishment will in some way lower men's standard
of life, and make them less careful of their spiritual
welfare. This is the case, at all events, when theologians
oppose scientific conclusions on religious grounds,
and not simply from mental dulness or rigidity. And,
in so far as it is religious feeling which thus prompts
resistance to scientific innovation, it may be said, with
some appearance of truth, that there is a conflict
between religion and science.
But there must always be two parties to a quarrel,
and our statement has to be modified as soon as we
consider what the scientific innovator impugns. It is
not the emotional prompting toward righteousness, it
is not the yearning to live im Guten, Ganzen,
Wahren,
that he seeks to weaken; quite likely he has all this as
much at heart as the theologian who vituperates him.
Nor is it true that his discoveries, in spite of him, tend
to destroy this all-important mental attitude. It would
be ridiculous to say that the fate of religious feeling is
really involved in the fate of grotesque cosmogonies and
theosophies framed in the infancy of men's knowledge
of nature; for history shows us quite the contrary.
Religious feeling has survived the heliocentric theory
and the discoveries of geologists; and it will be none
the worse for the establishment of Darwinism. It is
the merest truism to say that religion strikes its roots
deeper down into human nature than speculative opinion,
and is accordingly independent of any particular
set of beliefs. Since, then, the scientific innovator does
not, either voluntarily or involuntarily, attack religion,
it follows that there can be no such "conflict" as that
of which Dr. Draper has undertaken to write the history.
The real contest is between one phase of science
and another; between the more-crude knowledge of
yesterday and the less-crude knowledge of to-day. The
contest, indeed, as presented in history, is simply the
measure of the difficulty which men find in exchanging
old views for new ones. All along, the practical question
has been, whether we should passively acquiesce in
the crude generalizations of our ancestors or venture
actively to revise them. But as for the religious sentiment,
the perennial struggle in which it has been engaged
has not been with scientific inquiry, but with the
selfish propensities whose tendency is to make men lead
the lives of brutes.
The time is at hand when the interests of religion
can no longer be supposed to be subserved by obstinate
adherence to crude speculations bequeathed to us from
pre-scientific antiquity. One good result of the
doctrine of evolution, which is now gaining sway in all
departments of thought, is the lesson that all our opinions
must be held subject to continual revision, and
that with none of them can our religious interests be
regarded as irretrievably implicated. To any one who
has once learned this lesson, a book like Dr. Draper's
can be neither interesting nor useful. He who has not
learned it can derive little benefit from a work which in
its very title keeps open an old and baneful source of
error and confusion.
November. 1875.
[[1]]
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. by John
William Draper, M. D., LL. D. Fourth edition. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1875. 12mo, pp. xxii., 373. (International Scientific
Series, XII.)