158 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



VI. COUNT VON HOENSBROECH'S SPEECH. 



This speaker came forward having under his arm 

 three thick books, viz. Wasmann's Biology and 

 Theory of Evolution ; Canon Law, by Father Wernz, 

 the present General of the Society of Jesus ; and the 

 Index of Prohibited Books, by Father Hilger, S. J. 



Count von Hoensbroech spoke for twenty 

 minutes, but, without referring to the theory of 

 evolution, he talked about the Russian censorship 

 of books exercised by the Jesuits, about the Roman 

 Index of prohibited books, about the Syllabus, 

 about Canon Law and about the Vatican Council, 

 and from these sources he tried to prove a priori 

 that Father Wasmann, being a Jesuit and a good 

 Catholic, could not be a ' free scientist.' 1 



In all this there was not the slightest reference 

 to my Berlin lectures from the scientific point of 

 view. The whole speech was nothing but one of 

 those tirades against the Catholic Church, which we 



1 According to this speaker, there has, in fact, never existed among good 

 Catholics 'an explorer in the domain of natural science.' He seems un- 

 aware of the fact that the great Copernicus was a Catholic canon of 

 Frauenburg. The unscientific character of von Hoensbroech's remarks on 

 the Koman Index has already been pointed out in the Kolnische 

 Volkszeitung, 1907, No. 498, in an article signed ' Also a Representative of 

 Science.' 



The sharpest condemnation of von Hoensbroech's behaviour at the 

 evening discussion was pronounced by a Protestant critic, who does not 

 personally accept even the theistic point of view. His article, entitled 

 ' A New Scientist,' and signed Pilatus (Dr. V. Naumann), appeared in the 

 Deutsches Volksblatt, 1907, Nos. 72-74. 



