228 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE' 



Thoiigli molded for centuries to an obedience unparal- 

 leled in any other country, except Spain, the Irish intel- 

 lect is beginning to show signs of independence; demand- 

 ing a diet more suited to its years than the pabulum of 

 the Middle Ages. As for the recent manifesto in which 

 Pope, Cardinal, Archbishops, and Bishops are united in 

 one grand anathema, its character and fate are shadowed 

 forth by the Vision of Nebuchadnezzar recorded in the 

 Book of Daniel. It resembles the image, whose form was 

 terrible, but the gold, and silver, and brass, and iron of 

 which rested upon feet of clay. And a stone smote the 

 feet of clay; and the iron, and the brass, and the silver, 

 and the gold, were broken in pieces together, and became 

 like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind 

 carried them away. 



Monsignor Capel has recently been good enough to 

 proclaim at once the friendliness of his Church toward 

 true science, and her right to determine what true science 

 is. Let us dwell for a moment on the proofs of her scien- 

 tific competence. When Halley's comet appeared in 1456 

 it was regarded as the harbinger of God's vengeance, the 

 dispenser of war, pestilence, and famine, and by order of 

 the Pope the church bells of Europe were rung to scare 

 the monster away. An additional daily prayer was added 

 to the supplications of the faithful. The comet in due 

 time disappeared, and the faithful were comforted by the 

 assurance that, as in previous instances relating to eclipses, 

 droughts, and rains, so also as regards this "nefarious'* 

 comet, \dctory had been vouchsafed to the Church. 



Both Pythagoras and Copernicus had taught the helio- 

 centric doctrine — that the earth revolves round the sun. 

 In the exercise of her right to determine what true science 



