NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 299 



of such, teachings has been to weaken the legitimate hold of re- 

 ligion upon men. 



In Catholic countries the effort has been of late years mainly- 

 confined to excluding science or diluting it in university teach- 

 ings. Early in the present century a great effort was made by 

 Ferdinand VII of Spain. He simply dismissed the scientific pro- 

 fessors from the University of Salamanca, and until a recent 

 period there has been general exclusion from Spanish universi- 

 ties of professors holding to the Newtonian physics. So, too, the 

 contemporary Emperor of Austria attempted indirectly something 

 of the same sort ; and at a still later period Popes Gregory XVI 

 and Pius IX discouraged, if they did not forbid, the meetings of 

 scientific associations in Italy. In France, war between theology 

 and science, which had long been smoldering, came in the years 

 1867 and 1868 to an outbreak. Toward the end of the last century, 

 after the Church had held possession of advanced instruction for 

 more than a thousand years, and had, so far as it was able, kept 

 experimental science in servitude — after it had humiliated Buffon 

 in natural science, thrown its weight against Newton in the phys- 

 ical sciences, and wrecked Turgot's noble plans for a system of 

 public instruction — the French nation decreed the establishment 

 of the most thorough and complete system of higher instruction 

 in science ever known. It was kept under lay control, and became 

 one of the glories of France ; but, emboldened by the restoration 

 of the Bourbons in 1815, the Church began to undermine this 

 hated system, and in 1868 had made such progress that all was 

 ready for the final assault. 



Foremost among the leaders of the besieging party was the 

 Bishop of Orleans, Dupanloup, a man of many winning charac- 

 teristics and of great oratorical power. In various ways, and 

 especially in an open letter, he had fought the "materialism" of 

 science at Paris, and especially were his attacks leveled at Profs. 

 Vulpian and Sde, and the Minister of Public Instruction, Duruy, a 

 man of great merit, whose only crime was devotion to the im- 

 provement of education, and to the promotion of the highest re- 

 search in science.* 



The main attack was made rather upon biological science than 

 upon physics and chemistry, yet it was clear that all were involved 

 together. 



The first onslaught was made in the French Senate, and the 

 storming party in that body was led by a venerable and conscien- 

 tious prelate, Cardinal de Bonnechose, Archbishop of Rouen. It 

 was charged by him and his party that the tendencies of the 

 higher scientific teaching at Paris were fatal to religion and mo- 



* For Dupanloup, Lettre a un Cardinal, see the Revue de Therapeutique of 1868, p. 221. 



