414 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.* 
P EOPLE who have received sufficient education to tell them of the his- 
tory of Europe during the middle or dark ages, are aware of the fear- 
ful contests which took place between religion — then under the guardianship 
of Papal administration — and science, the pursuit then of the few. The 
history of Galileo, Vesalius, Copernicus- — or Kopernik, as he is sometimes 
styled — which ought to be popularised most extensively, shows what the 
Church has done towards repressing knowledge in times gone by. And in 
this respect we must not be too severe on the Roman Church, though it 
was powerfully excited against the progress of science ; for we find that even 
Luther himself, whom Protestants are always singing the praises of, was 
in his way as completely opposed to scientific advance as many of the 
Papal inquisitors. Dr. Dickson shows us this in the following passage : — 
“ Justice compels me to say that the founders of Protestantism were no less 
zealous against the new scientific doctrine. Said Martin Luther, i People 
gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth 
revolves, not the heavens or firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever 
wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is, 
of course, the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astro- 
nomy. But Sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to 
stand still and not the earth.’ ” And to this quotation from Luther might 
be added many others, more especially from the writings of Philip Melanc- 
thon, all of which condemn, not less strongly than the Papal powers, the 
scientific philosopher. 
But it is remarkable that the power of the Church — whether that of Rome 
or of England — is exerted as industriously, if not as successfully, against 
science in the present day as it was in the times of Pope Paul V. There is 
no incorrectness in the following statement which is made by Dr. Tyndall in 
the preface to the book before us : — u In our day the Roman Church above all 
others aims at the revival and perpetuation of this wrong — striving after a 
domination which she never fitted herself to exercise, and which if exercised 
-could only bring calamity on the human race. Ignorance alone can give her 
any chance of success ; but with ignorance to work upon, her conduct in 
Spain may be taken as a gentle illustration of what it would do elsewhere. 
Gentle, I say, because unabashed as she seems, we must ascribe some power 
of restraint to the knowledge that her operations are carried on in the full 
blaze of intellectual day.” 
But if we would see how far religious opposition to freedom of thought 
has gone even within the past twenty-five years, we have only to refer to 
two instances which Dr. White very wisely calls attention to. In 1864 a 
number of men in England drew up a declaration which was signed by a 
definite few, who expressed their “ sincere regret that researches into 
scientific thought are perverted by some in our time into occasion for casting 
doubt upon the truth and authority of the Holy ScripUires .” Nine-tenths of 
* “The Warfare of Science.” By A. D. White, LL.D., President of 
Cornell University, with Prefatory Note by Professor Tyndall. London : 
Henry S. King and Co. 1876. 
