NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 373 



NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 



By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, 



LATE PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 



II. METEOROLOGY.* 



r 



I HE popular beliefs of classic antiquity regarding storms, thunder, 

 and lightning, took shape in myths representing Vulcan as forging 

 thunderbolts, Jupiter as flinging them at his enemies, ^Eolus intrust- 

 ing the winds in a bag to iEneas, and the like. An attempt at their 

 further theological development is seen in the Pythagorean statement 

 that lightnings are intended to terrify the damned in Tartarus. 



But, at a very early period, we see the beginning of a scientific 

 view. In Greece, the Ionic philosophers held that such phenomena 

 are obedient to law ; Plato, Aristotle, and many lesser lights, attempted 

 to account for them on natural grounds ; and their explanations, though 

 crude, were based upon observation and thought. In Rome, Lucretius, 

 Seneca, Pliny, and others, inadequate as their statements were, im- 

 planted at least the germs of a science. But, as the Christian Church 

 rose to power, this evolution was checked ; the new leaders of thought 

 found, in the Scriptures recognized by them as sacred, the basis for a 

 new view, or rather for a modification of the old view. 



This ending of a scientific evolution based upon observation and 

 reason, and this beginning of a sacred science based upon the letter of 

 Scripture and on theology, are seen in the utterances of various Fathers 

 in the early Church. As to the general features of this new develop- 

 ment, Tertullian held that sundry passages of Scripture prove lightning 

 identical with hell-fire ; f and this idea was transmitted from generation 

 to generation of later churchmen, who found an especial support of 

 Tertullian's view in the sulphurous smell experienced during thunder- 

 storms. ;{; Saint Hilarion thought the firmament very much lower than 

 the heavens, and that it was created for the support of the upper waters, 

 as well as for the tempering of our atmosphere.* Saint Ambrose held 

 the firmament to be a solid vault, and the thunder to be caused by the 

 winds breaking through it ; citing from the prophet Amos the sublime 

 passage regarding " Him that establisheth the thunders." | He shows, 

 indeed, some conception of the true source of rain ; but his whole rea- 

 soning is limited by various scriptural texts. He lays great stress upon 

 the firmament as a solid outer shell of the universe : the heavens he 

 holds to be not far outside this outer shell, and argues regarding their 



* Sec " The Popular Science Monthly " for October, 18S5. 

 f See Tertullian, " Apol. contra gentes," c. 47. 



\ See, for example, Augustin de Angelis, " Lectura Meteorologia," 64. 



* See Hilarion, " In Psalm," cxxxv (Migne, " Patr. Lat.," ix, 773). 



|| " Firmans tonitrua " (Amos iv, 13) ; the phrase does not appear in our version. 



