James J. Walsh

“ The Roman Catholic Church then, as now, was a great democracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might not become a priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become a Pope of Christendom, and every chancellory in Europe was ruled by those learned, trained and accomplished men--the priesthood of that great and then dominant Church; and so, what kept government alive in the Middle Ages was this constant rise of the sap from the bottom, from the rank and file of the great body of the people through the open channels of the Roman Catholic priesthood. ”

“ In the modern time, however, it is almost the rule, that if a scholar who is not a scientist, and especially if he happens to be, as Dante was, a literary man, indulges in some scientific pursuits, he has at most but an interest in one branch of science. Quite as often as not he rather prides himself on knowing nothing at all about this department of knowledge. Specialism has invaded even scientific education, and a man specializes in some favorite department of science for his avocation, and is apt to know very little about other departments. ”

“ If he is to be considered in his proper historical light, as one who declares that the knowledge of the structure of the human body to a most minute degree is the foundation upon which all rational medicine and surgery must be built, then it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the pivotal moment when, in the development of science, the human body began to be anatomized. Nor is any fault to be found with the custom which has crowned with the laurels of universal appreciation the names of those men who began and who continued anatomical study, who vulgarized the practice of dissection. ”

“ Our millionaires have gathered, at immense expense, magnificent examples of the arts and crafts and beautiful books of the medieval and Renaissance periods. Our binders imitate their books, our artists study their works, we have revived their architecture and literature, are imitating their social ideas until, instead of "the dark ages," we have come to think of them as "the bright ages." What is not generally realized is that they are just as bright in science as they were in art, architecture, literature, and the arts and crafts. ”

“ We can build our bridge over the chasm of ignorance with stored material in which the thirteenth century was poor indeed; we can fix our bearings where then was no foundation; yet man may be well engaged when he knows not the ends of his work; and the schoolmen in digging for treasure cultivated the field of knowledge, even for Galileo and Harvey, for Newton and Darwin. Their many errors came not of indolence, for they were passionate workers ”

“ In his Opus Tertium, Bacon thus praises the merits of Peregrinus: "I know of only one person who deserves praise for his work in experimental philosophy, for he does not care for the discourses of men and their wordy warfare, but quietly and diligently pursues the work of wisdom. Therefore, what others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man contemplates in all their brilliancy because he is a master of experiment. Hence, he knows all of natural science, whether pertaining to medicine and alchemy, or to matters celestial or terrestrial. ”

“ It is not surprising that with this much of education abroad in the land men succeeded in making enduring literature in every form and in every country in Europe, and in setting examples of style in prose and verse that succeeding generations have nearly always gone back to admire lovingly. Such an amount of education and development of thinking could not have come without profound attention to science, and, as a matter of fact, there was much more anticipation of even what is most modern in our scientific thinking than most scholars seem to have any idea of. ”

“ As I show in the chapter The Medieval University Man and Science, Dante, the poet and literary man of the thirteenth century, had his mind stored with quite as much material information with regard to physical science and nature study, as any modern educated man. It is true that the men of the Middle Ages did not make observations on exactly the same things that we do, but to say either that they lacked powers of observation, or did not use their powers or failed to appreciate the value of such powers, is simply a display of ignorance of what they actually did. ”

“ If a man is ready to accept certain propositions on authority and without being able to understand them, and still more, if he accept them, realizing that he cannot understand them, it is considered to be impossible for him to be able to assume such a mental attitude towards science as would make him an original investigator.
It is almost needless to say to anyone who knows anything about the history of modern science--even nineteenth century science, that there is absolutely no foundation for this prejudice. ”

“ Piersol, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, said: "I have been reading the book with the keenest interest, for it indeed presents many subjects in what to me at least is a new light. Every man of science looks to the beacon--truth--as his guiding mark, and every opportunity to replace even time-honored misconceptions by what is really the truth must be welcomed." ”

“ Literally hundreds of {11} these hospitals were founded during the thirteenth century as the result of this initiative. Patients were not left to die, with only the hope of prayers to relieve their sufferings, but they were cared for as skilfully as the rising science of the time knew how and with the tenderness that religious care has always been able to give. For added consolation in the midst of their sufferings and as a fortifier against the thought of death, they had religion and all its beautiful influences, for which even Virchow, himself utterly unbelieving, cannot suppress a tribute. ”

“ Scientific men have, as a rule, been quite ready at all times to argue that an announced new discovery could not be true, that indeed it was absurd to think of it. The word nonsense is perhaps oftener on scientists' tongues than on any others'. It is not because he is deliberately opposed to scientific progress that this is the case with the scientist, but that he is so convinced of the ultimate significance of many things that he knows already, that he cannot readily bring himself to admit the idea of progress along lines with which he is familiar. ”

“ He wished, therefore, that in Cahors, "a copious, refreshing fountain of science should spring up and continue to flow, from whose abundance all the citizens might drink, and where those desirous of education might become imbued with knowledge so that the cultivators of wisdom might sow seed with success and all the student body become learned and eloquent and in every way distinguished, bearing abundant fruit which the Lord in His own good time would give them if they applied themselves with good will." ”

“ It makes their history but little less illustrious to learn that this conquering people did nothing for Science's advance. Till Pliny of the first century after Christ, what Roman was a scientist? They were a nation of soldiers, statesmen, orators and jurists, and for seven hundred years they pursued through such avenues their triumphant course. Yet what writer of to-day rises to charge them with a cardinal sin, because Science remained at a standstill among them for seven full centuries? ”

“ I foresee very well that I shall encounter no little opposition to my views, and I put my invention before the public with that anticipation. I realize, however, that envy and blame and even hatred and calumny have never failed to come to men who have illuminated art or science by their discoveries or have added to their perfection. I expect to have to submit to this danger myself, but I think that no one will be able to call any of my observations to account. ”

“ Deeply interested in science himself to the exclusion of nearly everything else, he could not understand how any generation and scarcely how any individual could live a deeply intellectual life without an absorbing interest in physical science. He seems to have had no conception of the fact that physical science is only a passing phase of man's interest, and that interests in philosophy, in art, in poetry, in literature are not only quite equal to science as a mental discipline, but must probably be considered to surpass it. ”

“ There has unfortunately been a definite persuasion that there could be nothing good in the Middle Ages, and therefore there has been no surprise that evil should be found there. Perhaps there is nothing sadder in present day education, than the fact that serious students and professors of science should thus have been led astray. Nothing shows more clearly the superficiality of our education than the fact that these unfounded statements with regard to the greatest period of education in history have been so universally accepted with so little question. ”

“ To talk of opposition between science and religion, then, with the most distinguished scientists of these centuries in friendly personal and official relations with the Popes, is to indulge in one of those absurdities common enough among those who must find matter for their condemnation of the Popes and the Church, but that every advance in modern history has pushed farther back into the rubbish chamber of outlived traditions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a man uses a term in medicine in a different sense to that which is ordinarily accepted, we consider him ignorant; but when he deliberately uses it in another sense for his own purposes because of a false significance attached to it in the popular mind, we have a special name for him.
The whole matter, however, resolves itself into the simple question, "Was dissection prevented and anatomical investigation hampered after the issuance of the bull?" This is entirely a question of fact. The history of anatomy will show whether dissection ceased or not at this time. ”

“ Many people have taken its significance of re-birth to mean that art and letters, and with them education and thinking, were born again into the modern world at this time with the coming in of the New Learning, just as if there had been nothing worth while talking about in these lines of human accomplishment in the preceding centuries. Taken in this sense, the word Renaissance is entirely a misnomer. Magnificent achievements in art and letters and every form of education preceded the Renaissance by at least three or four centuries. ”

“ The fact that the Popes constantly had near them, in the confidential capacity so inevitable between a man and his physician, scientists of prestige in their chosen profession, so often the teachers of their generation in medicine and almost as a rule interested in the sciences related to medicine and not infrequently in physical science generally, is the best possible evidence not only that there could not be opposition, but on the contrary that there must have been, so far as human assumption may go, a constant favorable attitude of mind of the Popes toward science. ”

“ Men must find some reason for their opposition, and they take the weapon that is handiest and that they are able to use with best effect. In an era when theological ideas were dominant, theology was ready at hand for this purpose, but any other ology will do just as well, and the history of science, even in the present day, will show that always some ology, regardless of human feelings, is used quite as ruthlessly and as cruelly as in the olden days. ”

“ Dante says:--
"Perceive ye not we are of a wormlike kind, Born to bring forth the angel butterfly, That soars to Judgment, and no screen doth find? Why doth your soul lift up itself on high? Ye are as insects yet but half complete, As worms in whom their growth fails utterly." ”

“ Six precious years of Ohm's life, at the very acme of his powers as an investigator, were thus spent away from the larger educational institutions and their opportunities for research, because men would not accept the great discovery that he had made, and could not be brought to understand that a genius might come along to revolutionize all their thinking, though he did his work from an obscure position, and practically attracted no attention {409} before he found this wonderful clue to the maze of electrical science, which meant so much for the elucidation of difficulties hitherto insoluble. ”

“ This sort of men look on philosophy as a book like the AEneid or Odyssey, and believe the truth is to be sought not in the world of nature, but only in comparison of texts. How wouldst thou have laughed, when at Pisa the leading Professor of the University there endeavored, in the presence of the Grand Duke, to tear away the new planets from Heaven with logical arguments, like magical exorcisms! ”

“ At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries some really imposing edifices were erected as hospitals, especially in towns of Italy. It was at this time that the artistic Italian mind seems to have realized the truth, which has only come to be recognized again in quite recent times, that a hospital building should be as fine a structure as the finances of a city will permit. It was felt that nothing was too good for the ailing citizens and that the city honored itself by making its public buildings a monument of artistic purpose. ”

“ As clearly as ever it was proclaimed, Bacon announces that an authority is worth only the reasons that he advances. These thirteenth century teachers are supposed, above all, to have fairly bowed down and worshipped at the shrine of Aristotle. Many of them doubtless did. In every generation the great mass of mankind must find someone to follow. As often as not, their leaders are much more fallible than Aristotle. Bacon, however, had no undue reverence for Aristotle or anyone else, and he realized that the blind following of Aristotle had done much harm. ”

“ There is no doubt that anatomy and surgery and every branch of medicine was cultivated much more assiduously and with much better opportunities provided for students down in Italy, than anywhere else in the world. This of itself alone shows the utter absurdity of the declarations that the Church was opposed to medical progress in any way, since the nearer the center of Christendom, the more ardor there was for investigation and the more liberty to pursue original researches. Other countries also began to wake up to the spirit of progress in medical education that was abroad. ”