The popes and science : the history of papal relations to science during the middle ages down to our own time

Front matter

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Dedication

to pope pius x.

Your Holiness :

It is with very great pleasure that I avail myself of the permission obtained for me by my good friend Archbishop Farley, of New York, to dedicate this volume to Your Holiness. Four years ago, when I had the privilege of an audience, Your Holiness spoke very earnestly of the Apostolate of the press and of the lecture platform. The words impressed me profoundly and have often recurred to my mind. They led me to devote much of my time during these years to the study and publication of the records of the Papal relations to science and education. I am now very glad to be able to lay at the feet of Your Holiness a volume which sets the attitude of the Popes to Science in an entirely different light from that in which it is usually placed by English-speaking historians at least. I am sorry that the cause of the Church and of the Popes has not fallen to better hands. I willingly assume all the responsibility for any misstatements that may have crept into the treatment for the first time of so large a subject, and only hope that the truth, which I have found so different from what I had been led to believe, may redound to the glory of Holy Mother Church and the universal appreciation of the beneficent mission of the Vicar of Christ upon earth. This shall not be the last volume of this kind, God willing, and I hope always to remain,

Preface

to the KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS EDITION

Nothing in recent years has given me more pleasure than to accede to the wishes of the Supreme Officers of the Knights of Columbus to publish a large edition of this work for brother Knights. Knowing as I do how much our great order is laboring to accomplish and not unsuccessfully for the cause of truth and patriotism and the progress of Catholicity in this country, I consider it a privilege to be allowed thus to co-operate in the work. There is scarcely any more vexed question in history than the attitude of the Catholic Church towards science. Here is the story as the documents tell it. Some of the best authorities in the history of medicine in Europe and America have been generous in their praise of The Popes and Science as a distinct contribution to the history of science, and have not hesitated to declare that it puts an entirely new aspect on the old vexed question. I am glad to think then that my brother Knights shall have before them the documentary evidence enabling them to contradict many of the false popular notions with regard to the Church's supposed opposition to science. I am sure that through them there will come a wide diffusion of the truth in this matter. Superficial scholarship has led to the acceptance of many quite erroneous impressions, but fortunately we are getting at the sources of history and every new development shows how misunderstood, whether deliberately or indeliberately, has been the position of the Catholic Church in the past. Nowhere is this more true than in all that regards the relations of the Popes and the Church to science, yet nowhere is the simple truth as founded on contemporary documents a more striking vindication of the Church. The cultivation of science is not her duty and had ecclesiastics been indifferent they could not have been blamed. They are said to have been bitterly opposed. The details of the history of science serve to show that the Church was as much a patron of science in every way, as of painting, sculpture, architecture, the decorative arts, of the making of beautiful books, of beautiful needlework, of music, of poetry, of every phase of education. The story of what the Church did for all these I have told in detail in another volume, The Thirteenth The Greatest of Centuries. In this the story of Papal patronage of science, quite as sedulous and liberal, stands out clearly as one of the great facts of history. Our Holy Father, Pope Pius X., graciously accepted the dedication of the volume on its appearance in its first edition. I am glad indeed that the second edition, still bearing his name in the dedication, appears under the auspices of his devoted sons in America, my brother Knights of Columbus. Our Lady s Day, March 25, 191 1.

PREFACE.

For years, as a student and physician, I listened to remarks from teachers and professional friends as to the opposition of the Popes to science, until finally, much against my will, I came to believe that there had been many Papal documents issued, which intentionally or otherwise hampered the progress of science. Interest in the history of medicine led me to investigate the subject for myself. To my surprise, I found that the supposed Papal opposition to science was practically all founded on an exaggeration of the significance of the Galileo incident. As a matter of history, the Popes were as liberal patrons of science as of art. In the Renaissance period, when their patronage of Raphael and Michel Angelo and other great artists did so much for art, similar relations to Columbus, Eustachius, and Caesalpinus, and later to Steno and Malpighi, our greatest medical discoverers, had like results for science. The Papal Medical School was for centuries the greatest medical school in Europe, and its professors were the most distinguished medical scientists of the time. This is a perfectly simple bit of history that anyone may find for himself in any reliable history of medicine. The medical schools were the scientific departments of the universities practically down to the nineteenth century. In them were studied botany, zoology and the biological sciences generally, chemistry, physics, mineralogy and even astronomy, because of the belief that the stars influenced human constitutions. The Popes in fostering medical schools (there were four of them in the Papal dominions, and two of them, Bologna and Rome, were the greatest medical schools for several centuries) were acting as wise and beneficent patrons of science. Many of the greatest scientists of the Middle Ages were clergymen. Some of the greatest of them were canonized as saints. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas are typical examples^ At least one Pope had been a distinguished scientist before being elected to the Papacy. For seven centuries the Popes selected as their physicians the greatest medical scientists of the vi THE POPES AND SCIENCE

time, and the list of Papal physicians is the worthiest series of names connected by any bond in the history of medicine, far surpassing in scientific import even the roll of the faculty of any medical school.

In a word, I failed to find any trace of Papal opposition to true science in any form. On the contrary, I found abundant evidence of their having been just as liberal and judicious patrons of science as they were of art and education in all forms. I found also that those who write most emphatically about Papal opposition to science, know nothing at all of the history of science, and above all of medicine and of surgery, during three very precious centuries. Because they know nothing about it they think there was none, and go out of their way to find a reason for its absence, while all the time there is a wondrous series of chapters of science for those who care to look for them. This is the story that I have tried to tell in this book.

This material is, I think, gathered into compact form for the first time. No one knows better than I do how many defects are probably in the volume. What I have tried to do is to present a large subject in a popular way, and at the same time with such references to readily available authorities as would make the collection of further information comparatively easy. I am sorry that the book has had to take on a controversial tone. No one feels more than I do that controversy seldom advances truth. There are certain false notions, however, which have the prestige of prominent names behind them, which simply must be flatly contradicted. I did not seek the controversy, for when I began to publish the original documents in the subject I mentioned no names. Controversy was forced on me, but not until I had made it a point to meet and spend many pleasant hours with the writer whose statements I must impugn, because they so flagrantly contradict the simple facts of medical history.