566 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But justice forbids our raising an outcry against Roman Catholi- 

 cism alone for this. In 1864 a number of excellent men in Euoland 

 drew up a declaration to be signed by students in the natural sci- 

 ences, expressing " sincere regret that researches into scientific truth 

 are perverted by some in our time into occasion for casting doubt 

 upon the truth and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures." Nine-tenths 

 of the leading scientific men of England refused to sign it. Xor was 

 this the worst. Sir John Herschel, Sir John Bowring, and Sir W. E. 

 Hamilton, administered, through the press, castigations which roused 

 general indignation against the proposers of the circular, and Prof. 

 De Morgan, by a parody, covered memorial and memorialists with ridi- 

 cule. It was the old mistake, and the old result followed in the minds 

 of multitudes of thoughtful young men.* 



And in yet another Protestant country this same wretched mis- 

 take was made. In 1868, several excellent Churchmen in Prussia 

 thought it their duty to meet for the denunciation of " Science falsely 

 so called." Two results followed. Upon the great majority of these 

 really self-sacrificing men whose first utterances showed crass igno- 

 rance of the theories they attacked there came quiet and wide-spread 

 contempt ; upon Pastor Knak, who stood forth and proclaimed views 

 of the universe which he thought scriptural, but which most school- 

 boys knew to be childish, came a burst of good-natured derision from 

 every quarter of the German nation." 



Warfare of this sort against Science seems petty indeed ; but it is 

 to be guarded against in Protestant counti-ies not less than Catholic ; 

 it breaks out in America not less than in Europe. I might exhibit 

 many proofs of this. Do conscientious Roman bishops in France 

 labor to keep all advanced scientific instruction nnder their own con- 

 trol in their own universities and colleges ; so do very many not 

 less conscientious Protestant clergymen in our own country insist that 

 advanced education in science and literature shall be kej^t under con- 

 trol of their own sectarian universities and colleges, wretchedly one- 

 sided in their development, and miserably inadequate in their equip- 

 ment : did a leading Spanish university, until a recent period, exclude 

 professors holding the Newtonian theory ; so does a leading American 

 college exclude professors holding the Darwinian theory : have Cath- 

 olic colleges in Italy rejected excellent candidates for professorships 

 on account of " unsafe " views regarding the Immaculate Concej)tion ; 

 so are Protestant colleges in America every day rejecting excellent 

 candidates on account of " unsafe " views regarding the Apostolic 

 Succession, or the Incarnation, or Baptism, or the Perseverance of 

 the Saints. 



And how has all this system resulted. In the older nations, by 

 a natural reaction, these colleges under strict ecclesiastical control 



' De Morgan, " Paradoxes," pp. 421-428 ; also Daubeny's "Essays." 



- See the Berlin newspapers fur the summer of 18GS, especially Kladderadatuch. 



