1881.J The Future “ Martyrdom of Science 203 
inspiration. Nay, she is even denounced as willing to enter 
into a concordat with Religion ! 
Let us look at the subject from another side. What first 
led the fathers of the Church to turn an unfavourable eye 
upon natural science ? They considered themselves — whe- 
ther rightly or wrongly is not here the question — entitled to 
the spiritual guidance of mankind. They were, in their 
own undeniably sincere belief, the depositories, guardians, 
and promulgators of truths of transcendent importance to 
the destinies of mankind.* We can well understand how, 
filled with such notions, they must regard the teachers of 
any other doCtrines with mistrust and jealousy. However 
true might be the tenets of the “philosophers,” they were 
looked on by the Church as mere trifling, calculated at the 
best to withdraw men’s minds from their eternal interests. 
Even, therefore, where no positive contradiction could be 
traced between Science and Revelation, a feud was inevi- 
table, in which the more powerful party considered itself to 
be merely suppressing something “injurious to society.” 
If we now contrast the position of the early Church with 
that of our “ advanced thinkers ” of the present day, we 
shall discern a considerable degree of analogy. The same 
advanced thinkers — rightly or wrongly it here matters not— 
conceive that they are the custodians and champions of 
certain principles for which, they wish at all hazards to 
secure predominance. They have “ reforms,” possibly revo- 
lutions, to effeCt, and they are angry at every one who 
refuses to give them his attention, — angrier still and jealous 
of every man who seeks to engage the public mind with 
other, and in their opinion comparatively unimportant, sub- 
jects. Ebenezer Elliott, the “ Corn-Law Rhymer,” takes 
occasion to denounce bitterly the working-class naturalist, 
who spends his leisure in the woods, studying the habits of 
inseCts, instead of taking part in public meetings and reading 
political organs. The agitator of to-day, like the saint of 
old, brooks neutrality even less than opposition. Those who 
are not with him he thinks against him ; those who will not 
be his brothers he must kill ! All the time, energy, atten- 
tion, wealth, expended in research into the secrets of Nature, 
he views as not merely wasted, but as something stolen from 
his “ movements.” Hence he has the same general diffused 
ill-will to Science which was felt by the Church in the earlier 
part of her career. 
* The reader may consult Whewell, Philosophy of the Indudtive Sciences, 
ii., 151 and 153, and History of the Inductive Sciences, i., 267 and 423 ; Enne* 
Moser, History of Magic, i., 355 ; Quinet, Ultramontanism, 52, 58, 71. 
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