THE WARFARE OF SCIEXCE. 565 



lie Instruction, having at its head the Minister of State, Duruy. The 

 storming party in the French Senate was led by a venerable and con- 

 scientious prelate, Cardinal de Bonnechose. 



It was charged by Monseigneur de Bonnechose and his party, that 

 the tendencies of the teachings of these professors were fatal to reli- 

 gion and morality. A heavy artillery of phrases was hurled, such as 

 " sapping the foundations," etc., " breaking down the bulwarks," etc., 

 etc., and withal a new missile was used Avith much effect, the epithet 

 of " materialist." 



The result can be easily guessed. Crowds came to the lecture- 

 rooms of these professors, and the lecture-room of Prof. See, the chief 

 offender, was crowded to suffocation. 



A siege was begun in due form. A young physician was sent by 

 the cardinal's party into the heterodox camp as a spy. Having heard 

 one lecture of Prof. See, he returned with information that seemed to 

 promise easy victory to the besieging party. He brought a terrible 

 statement, one that seemed enough to overwhelm See, Vulpian, Duruy, 

 and the whole hated system of public instruction in France. 



Good Cardinal Bonnechose seized the tremendous weapon. Rising 

 in his place in the Senate he launched a most eloquent invective against 

 the Minister of State who could protect such a fortress of impiety as 

 the College of Medicine ; and, as a climax, he asserted, on the evidence 

 of his spy fresh from Prof. See's lecture-room, that the professor had 

 declared, in his lecture of the day before, that so long as he had the 

 honor to hold his professorship he would combat the false idea of the 

 existence of the soul {idee de Vame). The weapon seemed resistless, 

 and the wound fatal ; but M. Duruy rose and asked to be heard. 



His statement was simply that he held in his hand documentary 

 proofs that Prof. See never made such a declaration. He held the 

 notes used by Prof. See in his lecture. Prof. See, it appeared, belonged 

 to a school in medical science which combated the idea of an art {idee 

 d\m art) in medicine. The real expression used was Videe d''un art 

 the idea of an art ; the expression which the inaagination of the 

 cardinal's eager emissary made of it was Videe d''une ame the idea 

 of a &oul. 



The forces of the enemy were immediately turned. They retreated 

 in confusion amid the laughter of all France ; and a well-meant at- 

 tempt to check what was feared might be dangerous in science simply 

 ended in bringing ridicule on religion, and thrusting still deeper into 

 the minds of thousands of men that most mistaken of all mistaken 

 ideas the conviction that religion and science are enemies.' 



' For general account of the Vulpian and See matter, see Revue des Deux Momles, 

 31 Mai, 1868. " Chronique de la Quinzaine," pp. 763-765. As to the result on popular 

 thought may be noted the following comment on the affair by the Revue which is as 

 free as possible from any thing like rabid anti-ecclesiastical ideas: " Elle a ete vraiment 

 curicuse, instructive, asscz triste et rneme un peu amusaiite." 



