HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 392, 15 September 1876, Page 3

HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

John William Draper, M.D., LL.D.

Part IV; The author has been, most of these years, in a high speculative mood, and then his errors are not so apparent. But whenever he condescends to touch the earth we find him once more at his old devices—making egregious, blunders in history, concealing whafcjs required for the' subject, and misrepresenting,almost every particular. We find him down among facts again when be treats, in chapter 6, "of the nature of .the. world." His account of Columbus is too brief. We have this houest statement (p. 15S), "So greaf was the preference given to sacred over profane learning, that Christianity had been in existence: .fifteen hundred vears, and,had not. produced a single astronomer," We deem this statement damaging for the Church, and there is certainly then less need for coucealing what she afterwards dici "produce" We have next a,, statement or" wbat Mohammedanism had done in mitch Jess time, as if it were inherently capable of manufacturing-men of science. Columbus is next mentioned—so briefly, aud in the ui'iial manner of concealing or withholding what is necessarr to a righteous view of tho man. Statements like Unsafenevei omitted (p. 160), "Columbus spent many yeais in trying to interest different princes in his proposed attempt. Its irreligious tendency was pointed out by the Spanish eeclesiaslic's, and condemned by the Council of Salamanca ; i!s orthodoxy tvas.confuied from the Peu'taicucb, the Psalms, the Prophesies, the Gospels, the. Epistles,'"and the Fathers." 13ut;ilie'folio'wing supplementary facts:are altogether neglected. Columbus lived a-o.d died in the faith of the Church. The Church ".produced" him. He first laid bis scheme'of land westward before John 11. of Portugal.' " This -monarch referred it to a jimio of nanucal'and scientific men,, who decided-against it." King John and-.the scientific'junto did woise. They stole Ibo idea, and secretly despatched a vessel in search of the New World. Tiiis und.eriai.-ing deservedly failed. Juan Perez de Marcbena, Superior of the 'Franciscan convent La Eabida, in Andalusia, was Columbus' first and truest patron. Ho took his motherless son in, aud was p. father to him. He'introduced the father to Ferdinand and Isa-' bella, and was bis friend nil through. And it was the lipman Catholic Q.ueen who nobly said, "l undertake ihe enterprise for my own.Crown of Casiile, and will pledge'iny jewels to nv'se Ihe necessary funds." Tuesc are facts "which Dr. Draperi-ould hoc have been ignorant of. Truth demanded lieshould bare t;iken notice of tbem. Bis view is s ; agubrly onesided tliem. CoociDicus conie3 in also for a. Word. These a-:aiu ore omitted, .The Cuu-*cli "produced" him. He was ; n "holy orders,"" pud enjoyed a "canonry at Triiucnberg," whil° he elaborated ids book '• Deßevolulionibus Orbimu. He did not complete his book in ,1507, as J'r. Diaper informs us, but in 1000. Ho Old noi; keep it thirty-six years beside Li in, afraid of the .authorities. He' kept ii by him duly twelve years. He did not express himself in a cautious and apologetic manner, "afraid of ihe puuishmeuts of the Church." " The language of Copernicus-is powerful and free, andbounds- forth : iVonj his inmost convif'.ious " (Cosmos, 2nd vol., p. 345). Dr. : Draper next tells us ;ins, rather remaikable for him, "Au the entreaty of Cardinal Schoinbe-g, Copernicus at length publisbe:! it in 154,5." Ent he does not make ti>is_ Cardinal out to be the Churoh, and eulogise inn? as a pa,' rou of science, as he, mads Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, ■put tp bo the Church, and denounced him asa bigot.' 'Galileo could not/have been overlooked."His easels, tooi'r'mind, the only genuine contact aud cohHicLbet'wceri reiigiODi'aiid Science to be found in the annals of Christianity. We are not defending tire Church—we have never meant to do,this* We ; are'wnling only in the in-' truth. All history should be impartially written, and especially when the tilings recorded are professedly matters of dispnte. • 3)r. Draper's usun l part;.'!i!y is abundantly apparent here' also. A;ic a_brief account oi Galileo, and of his abjura;ioa.of the doctrine o'' ihe movement of the ■earih,;--he says (p. 171), "What a spectacle! This venerable man, the most ilhisfriojs-o" 'bis age, forced by the threat of death to Ocx\y facts which his judges, as wed as uimself, knew to be true ! " Sad spectacle from another point of view also. These are some of rbe words o" the oath, "With a sincere heart and .unfeigned jhilh I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies." "It was a sad bom- in Ihe history of ecclesiastieism, but it was an almost equally sad one in. the. history of science," Galileo's intellectualabilhy was great —bis moral qualities were sadly deficient. He cursed his own inmost convictions, and never abated in his scientific pursuiis, what he had solemnly sworn to do., We quote Dr. Draper again (p. 172), " Galileo was" then committed to prison, treated with remorseless severity during Ihe remaining ten years of, his jii'e, and was denied burial in consecrated ground." Would you believe it! lie was only tour days in prison. Ho was then transferred to the palace-"of'the Tuscan Ambassador, and thcu to'the residence of his'friend Archbishop Piccoiomiui at Sienna. Iu six. lnomhs he was home in bis own villa at Plovoace, and shortly afterwards at Arcetri, under the care of his daughter. He never abandoned his philosophical pursuits. .. "He was buried in the Cathedral of Santa Croce." "'His biting satirical turn, more than his physical discoveries, was the cause of his misfortune." Some go even as far as to say, "No great man nad ever less claim to the title of martyr." (To he concluded in our next J