{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34067/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34067","id":"gutenberg_34067","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34067","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)","Category: History - Religious","Category: Science - Biology","Category: Science - Physics","Catholics","Religion and science","Scientists -- Biography"],"text":"Produced by Don Kostuch\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's note]\n\n  This is derived from a copy on the Internet Archive:\n    http://www.archive.org/details/catholicchurchme008742mbp\n\n  Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly\n  braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred\n  in the original book.\n\n  Obvious spelling errors have been corrected but \"inventive\" and\n  inconsistent spelling is left unchanged.\n\n  Extended quotations and citations are indented.\n\n  Footnotes have been renumbered to avoid ambiguity, and relocated\n  to the end of the enclosing paragraph.\n\n[End Transcriber's note]\n\n\n\nCATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE\n\n\n[FIRST SERIES]\n\n\nSKETCHES OF THE LIVES OF CATHOLIC\nECCLESIASTICS WHO WERE AMONG\nTHE GREAT FOUNDERS IN SCIENCE\n\nBy\n\nJAMES J. WALSH, K.ST.G., M.D., PH.D., LITT.D.\n\n_Dean and Professor of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases\nat Fordham University School of Medicine; Professor\nof Physiological Psychology in the Cathedral College, New York;\nMember of A.M.A., N.Y. State Med. Soc.,\nA.A.A.S., Life Mem of N.Y. Historical Society._\n\n\n\nSECOND EDITION\n\n\n\nPHILADELPHIA\n\nAmerican Ecclesiastical Review\n\nThe Dolphin Press\n\nMCMX.\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT. 1906, 1910\n\nAmerican Ecclesiastical Review\n\nThe Dolphin Press\n\n\n\n\"A sorrow's crown of sorrow.\"\n\n\n\nTHIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO THE\nMEMORY OF MY MOTHER\n\n{vii}\n\nPREFACE.\n\nThe following sketches of the lives of clergymen who were great\nscientists have appeared at various times during the past five years\nin Catholic magazines. They were written because the materials for\nthem had gradually accumulated during the preparation of various\ncourses of lectures, and it seemed advisable to put them in order in\nsuch a way that they might be helpful to others working along similar\nlines. They all range themselves naturally around the central idea\nthat the submission of the human reason to Christian belief, and of\nthe mind and heart to the authority of the Church, is quite compatible\nwith original thinking of the highest order, and with that absolute\nfreedom of investigation into physical science, which has only too\noften been said to be quite impossible to churchmen. For this reason\nfriends have suggested that they should be published together in a\nform in which they would be more easy of consultation than when\nscattered in different periodicals. It was urged, too, that they would\nthus also be more effective for the cause which they uphold. This\nfriendly suggestion has been yielded to, whether justifiably or not\nthe reader must decide for himself. There is so great a flood of\nbooks, good, bad, and indifferent, ascribing their existence to the\nadvice of well-meaning friends, that we poor authors are evidently not\nin a position to judge for ourselves of the merit of our works or of\nthe possible interest they may arouse.\n\n{viii}\n\nI have to thank the editors of the _American Catholic Quarterly\nReview_, of the _Ave Maria_, and of _The Ecclesiastical Review_ and\n_The Dolphin_, for their kind permission to republish the articles\nwhich appeared originally in their pages. All of them, though\nsubstantially remaining the same, have been revised, modified in a\nnumber of particulars, and added to very considerably in most cases.\n\nThe call for a second edition--the third thousand--of this little\nbook is gratifying. Its sale encouraged the preparation of a Second\nSeries of CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE, and now the continued demand\nsuggests a Third Series, which will be issued during the year. Some\nminor corrections have been made in this edition, but the book is\nsubstantially the same.\n\n{ix}\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n                                                                PAGE\n\nPREFACE                                                           ix\n\nI.    THE SUPPOSED OPPOSITION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION              3\n\nII.   COPERNICUS AND HIS TIMES                                    15\n\nIII.  BASIL VALENTINE. FOUNDER OF MODERN CHEMISTRY                45\n\nIV.   LINACRE: SCHOLAR, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST                         79\n\nV.    FATHER KIRCHER, S.J. SCIENTIST, ORIENTALIST, AND COLLECTOR  111\n\nVI.   BISHOP STENSEN: ANATOMIST AND FATHER OF GEOLOGY            137\n\nVII.  ABBE HAUeY: FATHER OF CRYSTALLOGRAPHY                       169\n\nVIII. ABBOT MENDEL: A NEW OUTLOOK IN HEREDITY                    195\n\n\n{x}\n\n{1}\n\nI.\n\nTHE SUPPOSED OPPOSITION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION.\n\n{2}\n\n{3}\n\nI.\n\nTHE SUPPOSED OPPOSITION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION.\n\nA common impression prevails that there is serious, if not invincible,\nopposition between science and religion. This persuasion has been\nminimized to a great degree in recent years, and yet sufficient of it\nremains to make a great many people think that, if there is not entire\nincompatibility between science and religion, there is at least such a\ndiversity of purposes and aims in these two great realms of human\nthought that those who cultivate one field are not able to appreciate\nthe labors of those who occupy themselves in the other. Indeed, it is\nusually accepted as a truth that to follow science with assiduity is\npractically sure to lead to unorthodoxy in religion. This is supposed\nto be especially true if the acquisition of scientific knowledge is\npursued along lines that involve original research and new\ninvestigation. Somehow, it is thought that any one who has a mind free\nenough from the influence of prejudice and tradition to become an\noriginal thinker or investigator, is inevitably prone to abandon the\nold orthodox lines of thought in respect to religion.\n\nLike a good many other convictions and persuasions that exist more or\nless as {4} commonplaces in the subconscious intellects of a great\nmany people, this is not true. Our American humorist said that it is\nnot so much the ignorance of mankind that makes him ridiculous as the\nknowing so many things \"that ain't so.\" The supposed opposition\nbetween science and religion is precisely an apposite type of one of\nthe things \"that ain't so.\" It is so firmly fixed as a rule, however,\nthat many people have accepted it without being quite conscious of the\nfact that it exists as one of the elements influencing many of their\njudgments--a very important factor in their apperception.\n\nNow, it so happens that a number of prominent original investigators\nin modern science were not only thoroughly orthodox in their religious\nbeliefs, but were even faithful clergymen and guiding spirits for\nothers in the path of Christianity. The names of those who are\nincluded in the present volume is the best proof of this. The series\nof sketches was written at various times, and yet there was a central\nthought guiding the selection of the various scientific workers. Most\nof them lived at about the time when, according to an unfortunate\ntradition that has been very generally accepted, the Church dominated\nhuman thinking so tyrannously as practically to preclude all notion of\noriginal investigation in any line of thought, but especially in\nmatters relating to physical science. Most of the men whose lives are\nsketched lived during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and first half of the\n{5} seventeenth centuries. All of them were Catholic clergymen of high\nstanding, and none of them suffered anything like persecution for his\nopinions; all remained faithful adherents of the Church through long\nlives.\n\nIt is hoped that this volume, without being in any sense\ncontroversial, may tend to throw light on many points that have been\nthe subject of controversy; and by showing how absolutely free these\ngreat clergymen-scientists were to pursue their investigations in\nscience, it may serve to demonstrate how utterly unfounded is the\nprejudice that would declare that the ecclesiastical authorities of\nthese particular centuries were united in their opposition to\nscientific advance.\n\nThere is no doubt that at times men have been the subject of\npersecution because of scientific opinions. In all of these cases,\nwithout exception, however--and this is particularly true of such men\nas Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and Michael Servetus--a little\ninvestigation of the personal character of the individuals involved in\nthese persecutions will show the victims to have been of that\nespecially irritating class of individuals who so constantly awaken\nopposition to whatever opinions they may hold by upholding them\noverstrenuously and inopportunely. They were the kind of men who could\nsay nothing without, to some extent at least, arousing the resentment\nof those around them who still clung to older ideas. We all know this\nclass of individual very well. {6} In these gentler modern times we\nmay even bewail the fact that there is no such expeditious method of\ndisposing of him as in the olden time. This is not a defence of what\nwas done in their regard, but is a word of explanation that shows how\nhuman were the motives at work and how unecclesiastical the\nprocedures, even though church institutions, Protestant and Catholic\nalike, were used by the offended parties to rid them of obnoxious\nargumentators.\n\nIn this matter it must not be forgotten that persecution has been the\nvery common associate of noteworthy advances in science, quite apart\nfrom any question of the relations between science and religion. There\nhas scarcely been a single important advance in the history of applied\nscience especially, that has not brought down upon the devoted head of\nthe discoverer, for a time at least, the ill-will of his own\ngeneration. Take the case of medicine, for instance. Vesalius was\npersecuted, but not by the ecclesiastical authorities. The bitter\nopposition to him and to his work came from his colleagues in\nmedicine, who thought that he was departing from the teaching of\nGalen, and considered that a cardinal medical heresy not to be\nforgiven. Harvey, the famous discoverer of the circulation of the\nblood, lost much of his lucrative medical practice after the\npublication of his discovery, because his medical contemporaries\nthought the notion of the heart pumping blood through the arteries to\nbe so foolish that they refused to {7} admit that it could come from a\nman of common sense, much less from a scientific physician. Nor need\nit be thought that this spirit of opposition to novelty existed only\nin the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Almost in our own time\nSemmelweis, who first taught the necessity for extreme cleanliness in\nobstetrical work, met with so much opposition in the introduction of\nthe precautions he considered necessary that he was finally driven\ninsane. His methods reduced the mortality in the great lying-in\nhospitals of Europe from nearly ten per cent for such cases down to\nless than one per cent, thus saving many thousands of lives every\nyear.\n\nDespite this very natural tendency to decry the value of new\ndiscoveries in science and the opposition they aroused, it will be\nfound that the lives of these clergymen scientists show us that they\nmet with much more sympathy in their work than was usually accorded to\noriginal investigators in science in other paths in life. This is so\ndifferent from the ordinary impression in the matter that it seems\nworth while calling it to particular attention. While we have selected\nlives of certain of the great leaders in science, we would not wish it\nto be understood that these are the only ones among the clergymen of\nthe last four centuries who deserve an honorable place high up in the\nroll of successful scientific investigators. Only those are taken who\nillustrate activity in sciences that are supposed to have been\nespecially forbidden to clergymen. It {8} has been said over and over\nagain, for instance, that there was distinct ecclesiastical opposition\nto the study of chemistry. Indeed, many writers have not hesitated to\nsay that there was a bull, or at least a decree, issued by one or more\nof the popes forbidding the study of chemistry. This, is not only not\ntrue, but the very pope who is said to have issued the decree, John\nXXII, was himself an ardent student of the medical sciences. We still\npossess several books from him on these subjects, and his decree was\nmeant only to suppress pseudo-science, which, as always, was\nexploiting the people for its own ends. The fact that a century later\nthe foundation of modern chemical pharmacology was laid by a\nBenedictine monk, Basil Valentine, shows how unfounded is the idea\nthat the papal decree actually hampered in any way the development of\nchemical investigation or the advance of chemical science.\n\nOwing to the Galileo controversy, astronomy is ordinarily supposed to\nhave been another of the sciences to which it was extremely indiscreet\nat least, not to say dangerous, for a clergyman to devote himself. The\ngreat founder of modern astronomy, however, Copernicus, was not only a\nclergyman, but one indeed so faithful and ardent that it is said to\nhave been owing to his efforts that the diocese in which he lived did\nnot go over to Lutheranism during his lifetime, as did most of the\nother dioceses in that part of Germany. The fact that Copernicus's\nbook was involved in the Galileo trial has rendered his {9} position\nstill further misunderstood, but the matter is fully cleared up in the\nsubsequent sketch of his life. As a matter of fact, it is in astronomy\nparticularly that clergymen have always been in the forefront of\nadvance; and it must not be forgotten that it was the Catholic Church\nthat secured the scientific data necessary for the correction of the\nJulian Calendar, and that it was a pope who proclaimed the\nadvisability of the correction to the world. Down to our own day there\nhave always been very prominent clergymen astronomers. One of the best\nknown names in the history of the astronomy of the nineteenth century\nis that of Father Piazzi, to whom we owe the discovery of the first of\nthe asteroids. Other well-known names, such as Father Secchi, who was\nthe head of the papal observatory at Rome, and Father Perry, the\nEnglish Jesuit, might well be mentioned. The papal observatory at Rome\nhas for centuries been doing some of the best work in astronomy\naccomplished anywhere, although it has always been limited in its\nmeans, has had inadequate resources to draw on, and has succeeded in\naccomplishing what it has done only because of the generous devotion\nof those attached to it.\n\nTo go back to the Galileo controversy for a moment, there seems no\nbetter answer to the assertion that his trial shows clearly the\nopposition between religion, or at least ecclesiastical authorities,\nand science, than to recall, as we have done, in writing the\naccompanying sketch of the {10} life of Father Kircher, S.J., that\njust after the trial Roman ecclesiastics very generally were ready to\nencourage liberally a man who devoted himself to all forms of physical\nscience, who was an original thinker in many of them, who was a great\nteacher, whose writings did more to disseminate knowledge of advances\nin science than those of any man of his time, and whose idea of the\ncollection of scientific curiosities into a great museum at Rome\n(which still bears his name) was one of the fertile germinal\nsuggestions in which modern science was to find seeds for future\ngrowth.\n\nIt is often asserted that geology was one of the sciences that was\ndistinctly opposed by churchmen; yet we shall see that the father of\nmodern geology, one of the greatest anatomists of his time, was not\nonly a convert to Catholicity, but became a clergyman about the time\nhe was writing the little book that laid the foundation of modern\ngeology. We shall see, too, that, far from religion and science\nclashing in him, he afterwards was made a bishop, in the hope that he\nshould be able to go back to his native land and induce others to\nbecome members of that Church wherein he had found peace and\nhappiness.\n\nIn the modern times biology has been supposed to be the special\nsubject of opposition, or at least fear, on the part of ecclesiastical\nauthorities. It is for this reason that the life of Abbot Mendel has\nbeen introduced. While working in {11} his monastery garden in the\nlittle town of Bruenn in Moravia, this Augustinian monk discovered\ncertain precious laws of heredity that are considered by progressive\ntwentieth-century scientists to be the most important contributions to\nthe difficult problems relating to inheritance in biology that have\nbeen made.\n\nThese constitute the reasons for this little book on Catholic\nclergymen scientists. It is published, not with any ulterior motives,\nbut simply to impress certain details of truth in the history of\nscience that have been neglected in recent years and, by presenting\nsympathetic lives of great clergymen scientists, to show that not only\nis there no essential opposition between science and religion, but on\nthe contrary that the quiet peace of the cloister and of a religious\nlife have often contributed not a little to that precious placidity of\nmind which seems to be so necessary for the discovery of great, new\nscientific truths.\n\n\n{12}\n\nII.\n\nCOPERNICUS AND HIS TIMES.\n\n\n{13}\n\nAll the vast and most progressive systems that human wisdom has\nbrought forth as substitutes for religion, have never succeeded in\ninteresting any but the learned, the ambitious, or at most the\nprosperous and happy. But the great majority of mankind can never come\nunder these categories. The great majority of men are suffering, and\nsuffering from moral as well as physical evils. Man's first bread is\ngrief, and his first want is consolation. Now which of these systems\nhas ever consoled an afflicted heart, or repeopled a lonely one? Which\nof these teachers has ever shown men how to wipe away a tear?\nChristianity alone has from the beginning promised to console man in\nthe sorrows incidental to life by purifying the inclinations of his\nheart, and she alone has kept her promise.--MONTALEMBERT,\nIntroduction to _Life of St. Elizabeth_.\n\n{14}\n\n\n\n[Illustration: NICOLAO COPERNICO]\n\n\n\n{15}\n\nII.\n\nCOPERNICUS AND HIS TIMES.\n\nThe association of the name of Copernicus with that of Galileo has\nalways cast an air of unorthodoxy about the great astronomer. The\ncondemnation of certain propositions in his work on astronomy in which\nCopernicus first set forth the idea of the universe as we know it at\npresent, in contradistinction to the old Ptolemaic system of\nastronomy, would seem to emphasize this suspicion of unorthodox\nthinking. He is rightly looked upon as one of the great pioneers of\nour modern physical science, and, as it is generally supposed that\nscientific tendencies lead away from religion, there are doubtless\nmany who look upon Copernicus as naturally one of the leaders in this\nrationalistic movement. It is forgotten that scarcely any of the great\noriginal thinkers have escaped the stigma of having certain\npropositions in some of their books condemned, and that this indeed is\nonly an index of the fallibility of the human mind and of the need\nthere is for some authoritative teacher. The sentences in Copernicus's\nbook requiring correction were but few, and were rather matters of\nterminology than of actual perversion of accepted teaching. It was as\nsuch that their modification was suggested. In spite of this, the {16}\nimpression remains that Copernicus must be considered as a\nrationalizing scientist, the first in a long roll of original\nscientific investigators whose work has made the edifice of\nChristianity totter by removing many of the foundation-stones of its\ntraditional authority.\n\nIt is rather surprising, in view of this common impression with regard\nto Copernicus, to find him, according to recent biographers, a\nfaithful clergyman in honor with his ecclesiastical superiors, a\ndistinguished physician whose chief patients were clerical friends of\nprominent position and the great noblemen of his day, who not only\nretained all his faith and reverence for the Church, but seems to have\nbeen especially religious, a devoted adherent of the Blessed Virgin\nMother of God, and the author of a series of poems in her honor that\nconstitute a distinct contribution to the literature of his time.\n\nAll this should not be astonishing, however; for in the list of the\nchurchmen of the half century just before the great religious revolt\nin Germany are to be found some of the best known names in the history\nof the intellectual development of the race. This statement is so\ncontrary to the usual impression that obtains in regard to the\ncharacter of that period as to be a distinct source of surprise to the\nordinary reader of history who has the realization of its truth thrust\nupon him for the first time. Just before the so-called Reformation,\nthe clergy are considered to have been so sunk in ignorance, or at\nleast to {17} have been so indifferent to intellectual pursuits and so\ncramped in mind as regards progress, or so timorous because of\ninquisition methods, that no great advances in thought, and especially\nnone in science, could possibly be looked for from them. To find,\nthen, that not only were faithful churchmen leaders in thought,\ndiscoverers in science, organizers in education, initiators of new\nprogress, teachers of the New Learning, but that they were also\ntypical representatives and yet prudent directors of the advancing\nspirit of that truly wonderful time, is apt to make us think that\nsurely--as the Count de Maistre said one hundred years ago, and the\nCambridge Modern History repeats at the beginning of the twentieth\ncentury when treating of this very period--\"history has been a\nconspiracy against the truth.\"\n\nNot quite fifty years before Luther's movement of protest began--that\nis, in 1471--there passed away in a little town in the Rhineland a man\nwho has been a greater spiritual force than perhaps any other single\nman that has ever existed. This was Thomas a Kempis, a product of the\nschools of the Brethren of the Common Life, a teaching order that\nduring these fifty years before the Protestant Revolution had over ten\nthousand pupils in its schools in the Rhineland and the Netherlands\nalone. As among these pupils there occur such names as Erasmus,\nNicholas of Cusa, Agricola, not to mention many less illustrious, some\nidea of this old teaching institution, that has been very aptly\ncompared to our {18} modern Brothers of the Christian Schools, can be\nrealized.\n\nKempis was a worthy initiator of a great half century. He had among\nhis contemporaries, or followers in the next generation, such men as\nGrocyn, Dean Colet, and Linacre in England, Cardinal Ximenes in Spain,\nand Copernicus in Germany. Considering the usual impression in this\nmatter as regards the lack of interest at Rome in serious study, it is\ncuriously interesting to realize how closely these great scholars and\nthinkers were in touch with the famous popes of the Renaissance\nperiod. The second half of the sixteenth century saw the elevation to\nthe papacy of some of the most learned and worthy men that have ever\noccupied the Chair of Peter. In 1447 Nicholas V became pope, and\nduring his eight years of pontificate initiated a movement of sympathy\nwith modern art and letters that was never to be extinguished. To him\nmore than to any other may be attributed the foundation of the Vatican\nLibrary. To him also is attributed the famous expression that \"no art\ncan be too lofty for the service of the Church.\" He was succeeded by\nCalixtus III, a patron of learning, who was followed by Pius II, the\nfamous AEneas Sylvius, one of the greatest scholars and most learned\nmen of his day, who had done more for the spread of culture and of\neducation in the various parts of Europe than perhaps any other alive\nat the time.\n\nThe next Pope, Paul II, accomplished much {19} during a period of\ngreat danger by arousing the Christian opposition to the Saracens. His\nencouragement and material aid to the Hungarians, who were making a\nbold stand against the Oriental invaders, merit for him a place in the\nrole of defenders of civilization. To him is due the introduction of\nthe recently discovered art of printing and its installation on a\nsumptuous scale worthy of the center of Christian culture. His\nsuccessor, Sixtus IV, deserves the title of the founder of modern\nRome. Bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, libraries, churches--all\nowe to his fostering care their restoration and renewed foundation. He\nmade it the purpose of his life to attract distinguished humanistic\nscholars to his capital, and Rome became the metropolis of culture and\nlearning as well as the mother city of Christendom.\n\nUnder such popes it is no wonder that Rome and the cities of Italy\ngenerally became the homes of art and culture, centers of the new\nhumanistic learning and the shelters of the scholars of the outer\nworld. The Italian universities entered on a period of intellectual\nand educational development as glorious almost as the art movement\nthat characterized the time. As this was marked by the work of such\nmen as that universal genius Leonardo da Vinci, of Michael Angelo,\npoet, painter, sculptor, architect; of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio,\nwhose contemporaries were worthy of them in every way, some idea can\nbe attained of the wonderful era that developed. No {20} wonder\nscholars in every department of learning flocked to Italy for\ninspiration and the enthusiasm bred of scholarly fellowship in such an\nenvironment. From England came men like Linacre, Selling, Grocyn, and\nDean Colet; Erasmus came from the Netherlands, and Copernicus from\nPoland. Copernicus there obtained that scientific training which was\nlater to prove so fruitful in his practical work as a physician and in\nhis scientific work as the founder of modern astronomy.\n\nIt may be as well to say at the beginning that even Copernicus was not\nthe first to suggest that the earth moved, and not the sun; and that,\ncuriously enough, his anticipator was another churchman, Nicholas of\nCusa, the famous Bishop of Brixen. Readers of Janssen's _History of\nthe German People_ will remember that the distinguished historian\nintroduces his monumental work by a short sketch of the career of\nCusanus, as he is called, who may be well taken as the typical\npre-Reformation scholar and clergyman. Cusa wrote in a\nmanuscript--which is still preserved in the hospital of Cues, or\nCusa--published for the first time by Professor Clemens in 1847: \"I\nhave long considered that this earth can not be fixed, but moves as do\nthe other stars--_sed movetur ut aliae stellae_.\" What a curious\ncommentary these words, written more than half a century before\nGalileo was born, form on the famous expression so often quoted\nbecause supposed to have been drawn from Galileo by the condemnation\nof his doctrine at Rome: {21} _E pur se muove_--\"and yet it moves!\"\nCusanus was a Cardinal, the personal friend of three popes, and he\nseems to have had no hesitation in expressing his opinion in the\nmatter. In the same manuscript the Cardinal adds: \"And to my mind the\nearth revolves upon its axis once in a day and a night.\" Cusanus was,\nmoreover, one of the most independent thinkers that the world has ever\nseen, yet he was intrusted by the pope about the middle of the\nfifteenth century with the reformation of abuses in the Church in\nGermany. The pope seems to have been glad to be able to secure a man\nof such straightforward ways for his reformatory designs.\n\nThe ideas of Nicholas of Cusa with regard to knowledge and the liberty\nof judgment in things not matters of faith can be very well\nappreciated from some of his expressions. \"To know and to think,\" he\nsays in one passage, \"to see the truth with the eye of the mind is\nalways a joy. The older a man grows, the greater is the pleasure it\naffords him; and the more he devotes himself to the search after\ntruth, the stronger grows his desire of possessing it. As love is the\nlife of the heart, so is the endeavor after knowledge and truth the\nlife of the mind. In the midst of the movements of time, of the daily\nwork of life, of its perplexities and contradictions, we should lift\nour gaze fearlessly to the clear vault of heaven and seek ever to\nobtain a firmer grasp of, and keener insight into, the origin of all\ngoodness and duty, the capacities of our own hearts and minds, {22}\nthe intellectual fruits of mankind throughout the centuries, and the\nwondrous works of nature around us; but ever remembering that in\nhumility alone lies true greatness, and that knowledge and wisdom are\nalone profitable in so far as our lives are governed by them.\"\n[Footnote 1] It is no wonder, then, that the time was ripe for\nCopernicus and his great work in astronomy, nor that that work should\nbe accomplished while he was a canon of a cathedral and for a time the\nvicar-general of a diocese.\n\nIt is now nearly five years since Father Adolph Muller, S.J.,\nprofessor of Astronomy in the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome,\nand director of a private observatory on the Janiculum in that city,\nwrote his historical scientific study [Footnote 2] of the great\nfounder of modern astronomy. The book has been reviewed, criticized\nand discussed very thoroughly since then, and has been translated into\nseveral languages. The latest translation was into Italian, the work\nof Father Pietro Mezzetti, S.J., [Footnote 3] and was published in\nRome at the end of 1902--having had the benefit {23} of the author's\nrevision. The historical details, then, of Copernicus's life may be\nconsidered to have been cast into definite shape, and his career may\nbe appreciated with confidence as to the absolute accuracy and\nessential significance of all its features.\n\n\n\n  [Footnote 1: _History of the German People at the Close of the\n  Middle Ages_. By Johannes Janssen  Translated from the German by M A\n  Mitchell and A M Christie. Vol I, p. 3.]\n\n  [Footnote 2: _Nikolaus Kopernicus, Der Altmeister der neueren\n  Astronomie, Ein Lebens und Kultur Bild_. Von Adolf Muller, S.J.]\n\n  [Footnote 3: Professor of Astronomy and Physics at the Pontifical\n  Leonine College of Anagni]\n\n\n\nNicholas Copernicus--to give him the Latin and more usual form of his\nname--was the youngest of four children of Niclas Copernigk, who\nremoved from Cracow in Poland to Thorn in East Prussia (though then a\ncity of Poland), where he married Barbara Watzelrode, a daughter of\none of the oldest and wealthiest families of the province. His\nmother's brother, after having been a canon for many years in the\ncathedral of Frauenburg, was elected Bishop of the Province of\nErmland. The future astronomer was born in 1473, at a time when Thorn,\nafter having been for over two hundred years under the rule of the\nTeutonic Knights, had for some seven years been under the dominion of\nthe King of Poland. There were two boys and two girls in the family;\nand their fervent Catholicity can be judged from the fact that all of\nthem, parents and children, were inscribed among the members of the\nThird Order of St. Dominic. Barbara, the older sister, became a\nreligious in the Cistercian Convent of Kulm, of which her aunt\nCatherine was abbess, and of which later on she herself became abbess.\nAndrew, the oldest son, became a priest; and Nicholas, the subject of\nthis sketch, at least assumed, as we shall see, all the {24}\nobligations of the ecclesiastical life, though it is not certain that\nhe received the major religious orders.\n\nCopernicus's collegiate education was obtained at the University of\nCracow, at that time one of the most important seats of learning in\nEurope. The five-hundredth anniversary of the founding of this\nUniversity was celebrated with great pomp only a few years ago. Its\norigin, however, dates back to the times of Casimir the Great, at the\nend of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. Its\nfoundation was due to the same spirit of enthusiastic devotion to\nletters that gave us all the other great universities of the\nthirteenth century. The original institution was so much improved by\nJagello, King of Poland, at the beginning of the fifteenth century,\nthat it bears his name and is known as the Jagellonian University. It\nwas very natural for Copernicus to go back to his father's native city\nfor his education; but his ambitious spirit was not content with the\nopportunities afforded there. He does not seem to have taken his\nacademic degrees, and the tradition that he received his doctorate in\nmedicine at the University of Cracow cannot be substantiated by any\ndocumentary evidence.\n\nAt Cracow, Copernicus devoted himself mainly to classical studies,\nthough his interest in astronomy seems to have been awakened there. In\nfact, it is said that his desire to be able to read Ptolemy's\nastronomy in the original Greek, and {25} to obtain a good copy of it,\nled him to look to Italy for his further education. During his years\nat Cracow, however, he seems to have made numerous observations in\nastronomy, as most of the astronomical data in his books are found\nreduced to the meridian of Cracow. The observatory of Frauenburg, at\nwhich his work in astronomy in later life was carried on, was on the\nsame meridian; so that it is difficult to say, as have some of his\nbiographers, that, since Cracow was the capital of his native country,\nmotives of patriotism influenced him to continue his observations\naccording to this same meridian. Copernicus was anxious, no doubt, to\ncome in contact with some of the great astronomers at the universities\nof Italy, whom he knew by reputation and whose work was attracting\nattention all over Europe at that time.\n\nHow faithfully Copernicus applied himself to his classical studies can\nbe best appreciated from some Latin poems written by him during his\nstudent days. These poems are an index, too, of the personal character\nof the man, and give some interesting hints of the religious side of\nhis character. Altogether there are seven Latin odes, each ode\ncomposed of seven strophes. The seven odes are united by a certain\ncommunity of interest or succession of subjects. All of them refer to\nthe history of the Redeemer either in types or in reality. In the\nfirst one the prophets prefigure the appearance of the Saviour; in the\nsecond the patriarchs sigh for His coming; the {26} third depicts the\nscene of the Nativity in the Cave of Bethlehem; the fourth is\nconcerned with the Circumcision and the imposition of the Name chosen\nby the Holy Ghost; the fifth treats of the Star and the Magi and their\nguidance to the Manger; the sixth concerns the presentation in the\nTemple; and the seventh, the scene in which Jesus at the age of twelve\ndisputes with the doctors in the Temple at Jerusalem.\n\nCopernicus's recent biographers have called attention particularly to\nthe poetical beauties with which he surrounds every mention of the\nBlessed Virgin and her qualities. As is evident even from our brief\nresume of the subjects of the odes, the themes selected are just those\nin which the special devotion of the writer to the Mother of the\nSaviour could be very well brought out. There are, besides, a number\nof astronomical allusions which stamp the poems as the work of\nCopernicus, and which have been sufficient to defend their\nauthenticity against the attacks made by certain critics, who tried to\npoint out how different was the style from that of Copernicus's later\nyears in his scientific writings. The tradition of authorship is,\nhowever, too well established on other grounds to be disturbed by\ncriticism of this sort. The poems were dedicated to the Pope. In\nwriting poetry Copernicus was only doing what Tycho Brahe and Kepler,\nhis great successors in astronomy, did after him; and the argument\nwith regard to the difference of style in the two kinds of writings\nwould hold also as regards these authors.\n\n{27}\n\nCopernicus's years as a boy and man--that is, up to the age of\nthirty-five--corresponded with a time of great intellectual activity\nin Europe. This fact is not as generally recognized as it should be,\nfor intellectual activity is supposed to have awakened after the\nso-called Reformation. During the years from 1472 to 1506, however,\nthere were founded in Germany alone no less than six universities:\nthose of Ingolstadt, Treves, Tubingen, Mentz, Wittenberg, and\nFrankfort-on-the-Oder. These were not by any means the first great\ninstitutions of learning that arose in Germany. The universities of\nPrague and Vienna were more than a century old, and, with Heidelberg,\nCologne, Erfurt, Leipsic, and Rostock, besides Greifswald and\nFreiburg, founded about the middle of the fifteenth century, had\nreached a high state of development, and contained larger numbers of\nstudents, with few exceptions, than these same institutions have ever\nhad down to our own day. In most cases their charters were derived\nfrom the pope; and most of the universities were actually recognized\nas ecclesiastical institutions, in the sense that their officials held\necclesiastical authority.\n\nAt this time--the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the\nsixteenth century--it was not unusual for students, in their\nenthusiasm for learning, to attempt to exhaust nearly the whole round\nof university studies. Medicine seems to have been a favorite subject\nwith scholars who were widely interested in knowledge for its own {28}\nsake. Almost at the same time that Copernicus was studying in Italy,\nthe distinguished English Greek scholar, Linacre, was also engaged in\nwhat would now be called post-graduate work at various Italian\nuniversities, and in the household of Lorenzo the Magnificent at\nFlorence, with whose son--so much did Lorenzo think of him--he was\nallowed to study Greek. Linacre (as will be seen more at length in the\nsketch of his life in this volume), besides being the greatest Greek\nscholar of his time, the friend later of More and Colet and Erasmus in\nLondon, was also the greatest physician in England.\n\nTo those familiar with the times, it may be a source of surprise to\nthink of Copernicus, interested as we know him to have been in\nliterature and devoted so cordially to astronomy, yet taking up\nmedicine as a profession. He seems, however, to have been led to do so\nby his distinguished teacher, Novara, who realized the talent of his\nPolish pupil for mathematics and astronomy and yet felt that he should\nhave some profession in life. A century ago Coleridge, the English\nwriter, said that a literary man should have some other occupation.\nOliver Wendell Holmes improved upon this by adding: \"And, as far as\npossible, he should confine himself to the other occupation.\" Novara\nseems to have realized that Copernicus might be under the necessity of\nknowing how to do something else besides making astronomical\nobservations, in order to gain his living; and as medicine was {29}\nsatisfyingly scientific, the old teacher suggested his taking it up as\na profession. Copernicus made his medical studies in Ferrara and\nPadua, and obtained his doctorate with honors from Ferrara.\n\nCopernicus seems to have taken up the practice of his profession\nseriously, and to have persevered in it to the end of his life. His\nbiographers say that in the exercise of his professional duties he was\nanimated by the spirit of a person who had devoted himself to the\necclesiastical life. While he did not publicly practise his\nprofession, he was ever ready to assist the poor; and he also acquired\ngreat reputation in the surrounding country for his medical attendance\nupon clerics of all ranks. This continued to be the case,\nnotwithstanding the fact that after the death of his uncle his mother\ninherited considerable wealth, and the family circumstances changed so\nmuch that he might well have given up any labors that were meant only\nto add to his income. In a word, he seems to have had a sincere\ninterest in his professional work, and to have continued its exercise\nbecause of the opportunities it afforded for the satisfaction of a\nmind devoted to scientific research.\n\nCopernicus acquired considerable reputation by his medical services.\nHis friend Giese speaks of him as a very skilful physician, and even\ncalls him a second AEsculapius. Maurice Ferber, who became Bishop of\nErmland in 1523, suffered from a severe chronic illness that began\nabout 1529. He obtained permission from the canons {30} of the\ncathedral to have Doctor Copernicus, whose ability and zeal he never\nceased to praise, to come from the cathedral town where he ordinarily\nresided to Heilsburg, in order to have him near him. Bishop Ferber's\nsuccessor, Dantisco, also secured Copernicus's aid in a severe\nillness, and declared that his restoration to health was mainly due to\nthe efforts of his learned physician. Giese was so confident of the\nDoctor's skill that when he became Bishop of Kulm and on one of his\nepiscopal visitations fell ill at a considerable distance from\nCopernicus's place of residence, he insisted on having the astronomer\ndoctor brought to take care of him.\n\nIn 1541 Duke Albert of Prussia became very much worried over the\nillness of one of his most trusted counsellors. In his distress he had\nrecourse to Copernicus, and his letter asking the Canon of the\nCathedral of Frauenburg to come to attend the patient is still extant.\nHe says that the cure of the illness is \"very much at his heart\"; and,\nas every other means has failed, he hopes Copernicus will do what he\ncan for the assistance of his faithful and valued counsellor.\nCopernicus yielded to the request, and the counsellor began to improve\nshortly after his arrival. At the end of some weeks the Duke wrote\nagain to the canons of the cathedral asking that the leave of absence\ngranted to Copernicus should be extended in order to enable him to\ncomplete the cure which had been so happily begun. In this second\nletter the Duke talks of Copernicus as a {31} most skilful and learned\nphysician. At the end of the month there is a third letter from the\nDuke, in which he thanks all the canons of the cathedral for their\ngoodness in having granted the desired permission, and he adds that he\nshall ever feel under obligations \"for the assistance rendered by that\nvery worthy and excellent physician, Nicholas Copernicus, a doctor who\nis deserving of all honor.\" Not long afterward, when Copernicus's book\non astronomy was published, a copy of it was sent to the Duke, and he\nreplied that he was deeply grateful for it, and that he should always\npreserve it as a souvenir of the most learned and gentlest of men.\n\nThere are a number of notes on the art of medicine made by Copernicus\nin the books of the cathedral library at Frauenburg. They serve to\nshow how faithful a student he was, and to a certain extent give an\nidea of the independent habit of mind which he brought to the\ninvestigation of medicine as well as to the study of astronomy.\nUnfortunately, these have not as yet found an editor; but it is to be\nhoped that we shall soon know more of the medical thinking of a man\nover whose mind tradition, in the unworthier sense of that word,\nexercised so little influence.\n\nIn 1530 Copernicus wrote a short prelude to the longer work on\nastronomy which he was to publish later. The propositions contained in\nthis work show how far he had advanced on the road to his ultimate\ndiscovery. After a few words of introduction, the following seven\naxioms are laid down:--\n\n{32}\n\n1. The celestial spheres and their orbits have not a single center.\n\n2. The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only\nthe center of gravity and of the moon's orbit.\n\n3. The planes of the orbits lie around the sun, which may be\nconsidered as the center of the universe.\n\n4. The distance from the earth to the sun compared with that from the\nearth to the fixed stars is extremely small.\n\n5. The daily motion of the heavenly sphere is apparent that is, it is\nan effect of the rotary motion of the earth upon it axis.\n\n6. The apparent motions of the moon and of the sun are so different\nbecause of the effect produced by the motion of the earth.\n\n7. The movements of the earth account for the apparent retrograde\nmotion and other irregularities of the movements of the planets. It is\nenough to assume that the earth alone moves, in order to explain all\nthe other movements observed in the heavens.\n\nIt is no wonder that one of his bishop-friends, Frisio, writing to\nanother bishop-friend, Dantisco, said: \"If Copernicus succeeds in\ndemonstrating the truth of his thesis--and we may well consider that\nhe will from this prelude--he will give us a new heaven and a new\nearth.\" This shorter exposition of Copernicus's views was found in\nmanuscript in the imperial library in Vienna only about a quarter of a\ncentury ago. {33} It is mentioned by Tycho Brahe in one of his works\non astronomy in which he reviews the various contemporary advances\nmade in the knowledge of the heavens.\n\nThe publication of Copernicus's great work, \"De Revolutionibus Orbium\nCelestium,\" was delayed until he was advanced in years, because his\nastronomical opinions were constantly progressing; and, with the\npatience of true genius, he was not satisfied with anything less than\nthe perfect expression of truth as he saw it. It has sometimes been\nsaid that it was delayed because Copernicus feared the storm of\nreligious persecution which he foresaw it would surely arouse. How\nutterly without foundation is this pretence, which has unfortunately\ncrept into serious history, can be seen from the fact that Pope Paul\nIII accepted the dedication of the work; and of the twelve popes who\nimmediately followed Paul not one even thought of proceeding against\nCopernicus's work. His teaching was never questioned by any of the\nRoman Congregations for nearly one hundred years after his death.\nGalileo's injudicious insistence in his presentation of Copernicus's\ndoctrine, on the novelties of opinion that controverted\nlong-established beliefs, was then responsible for the condemnation by\nthe Congregation of the Index; and, as we shall see, this was not\nabsolute, but only required that certain passages should be corrected.\nThe corrections demanded were unimportant as regards the actual\nscience, and {34} merely insisted that Copernicus's teaching was\nhypothesis and not yet actual demonstration.\n\nIt must not be forgotten, after all, that the reasons advanced by\nCopernicus for his idea of the movements of the planets were not\nsupported by any absolute demonstration, but only by reasons from\nanalogy. Nearly a hundred years later than his time, even after the\nfirst discoveries had been made by the newly constructed telescopes,\nin Galileo's day, there was no absolute proof of the true system of\nthe heavens. The famous Jesuit astronomer, Father Secchi, says the\nreasons adduced by Galileo were no real proofs: they were only certain\nanalogies, and by no means excluded the possibility of the contrary\npropositions with regard to the movements of the heavens being true.\n\"None of the real proofs for the earth's rotation upon its axis were\nknown at the time of Galileo, nor were there direct conclusive\narguments for the earth's moving around the sun.\" Even Galileo himself\nconfessed that he had not any strict demonstration of his views, such\nas Cardinal Bellarmine requested. He wrote to the Cardinal, \"The\nsystem seems to be true;\" and he gave as a reason that it corresponded\nto the phenomena.\n\nAccording to the astronomers of the time, however, the old Ptolemaic\nsystem, in the shape in which it was explained by the Danish\nastronomer Tycho Brahe, who was acknowledged as the greatest of\nEuropean astronomers, appeared to give quite a satisfactory\nexplanation of the {35} phenomena observed. The English philosopher,\nLord Bacon, more than a decade after Galileo's announcement,\nconsidered that there were certain phenomena in nature contrary to the\nCopernican theory, and so he rejected it altogether. This was within a\nfew years of the condemnation by the Congregation at Rome. As pointed\nout by Father Heinzle, S.J., in his article on Galileo in the\n\"Catholic World\" for 1887, \"science was so far from determining the\nquestion of the truth or falsity of either the Ptolemaic or the\nCopernican system that shortly before 1633, the year of Galileo's\ncondemnation, a number of savants, such as Fromond in Louvain, Morin\nin Paris, Berigard in Pisa, Bartolinus in Copenhagen, and Scheiner in\nRome, wrote against Copernicanism.\"\n\nAs we have said, Copernicus's book was not condemned unconditionally\nby the Roman authorities, but only until it should be corrected. This\nassured protection to the principal part of the work, and the warning\nissued by the Roman Congregation in the year 1820 particularizes the\ndetails that had to be corrected. It is interesting to note that\nwhenever Copernicus is spoken of in this Monitum it is always in\nflattering terms as a \"noble astrologer\"--the word astrologer having\nat that time no unworthy meaning. The whole work is praised and its\nscientific quality acknowledged.\n\nThe passages requiring correction were not many. In the first book, at\nthe beginning of the {36} fifth chapter, Copernicus made the\ndeclaration that \"the immobility of the earth was not a decided\nquestion, but was still open to discussion.\" In place of these words\nit was suggested that the following should be inserted: \"In order to\nexplain the apparent motions of the celestial bodies, it is a matter\nof indifference whether we admit that the earth occupies a place in\nthe middle of the heavens or not.\"\n\nIn the eighth chapter of the first book, Copernicus said: \"Why, then,\nthis repugnance to concede to our globe its own movement as natural to\nit as is its spherical form? Why prefer to make the whole heavens\nrevolve around it, with the great danger of disturbance that would\nresult, instead of explaining all these apparent movements of the\nheavenly bodies by the real rotation of the earth, according to the\nwords of AEneas, 'We are carried from the port, and the land and the\ncities recede'?\" This passage was to be modified as follows: \"Why not,\nthen, admit a certain mobility of the earth corresponding to its form,\nsince the whole universe of which we know the bounds is moved,\nproducing appearances which recall to the mind the well-known saying\nof AEneas in Virgil, 'The land and the cities recede'?\"\n\nToward the end of the same chapter Copernicus, continuing the same\ntrain of thought, says: \"I do not fear to add that it is incomparably\nmore unreasonable to make the immense vault of the heavens revolve\nthan to admit the {37} revolution of our little terrestrial globe.\"\nThis passage was to be modified as follows: \"In one case as well as in\nthe other--that is, whether we admit the rotation of the earth or that\nof the heavenly spheres--we encounter the same difficulties.\"\n\nThe ninth chapter of the first book begins with these words: \"There\nbeing no difficulty in admitting, then, the mobility of the earth, let\nus proceed to see whether it has one or a number of movements, and\nwhether, therefore, our earth is a simple planet like the other\nplanets.\" The following words were to be substituted: \"Supposing,\nthen, that the earth does move, it is necessary to examine whether\nthis movement is multiple or not.\"\n\nToward the middle of the tenth chapter Copernicus declares: \"I do not\nhesitate to defend the proposition that the earth, accompanied by the\nmoon, moves around the sun;\" while the wording of this proposition had\nto be changed so as to substitute the term \"admit\" for \"defend.\" The\ntitle of the eleventh chapter, \"Demonstration of the Triple Movement\nof the Earth,\" was modified to read as follows: \"The Hypothesis of the\nTriple Movement of the Earth, and the Reasons Therefor.\" The title of\nthe twentieth chapter of the fourth book originally read: \"On the Size\nof the Three Stars [_Sidera_], the sun, the moon, and the earth.\" The\nword \"stars\" was removed from this title, the earth not being\nconsidered as a star. The concluding words of {38} the tenth chapter\nof the first book, \"So great is the magnificent work of the Omnipotent\nArtificer,\" had to be cancelled, because they expressed an assurance\nof the truth of his system not warranted by knowledge. With these few\nunimportant changes, any one might read and study Copernicus's work\nwith perfect freedom.\n\nTraditions to the contrary notwithstanding, Galileo, because of the\nfriendship and encouragement of the churchmen in Italy, had been\nplaced in conditions eminently suited for study and investigation.\nSeveral popes and a number of prominent ecclesiastics were his\nconstant friends and patrons. The perpetual secretary of the Paris\nAcademy of Sciences, M. Bertrand, himself a great mathematician and\nhistorian, declares that the long life of Galileo was one of the most\nenviable that is recorded in the history of science. \"The tale of his\nmisfortunes has confirmed the triumph of the truth for which he\nsuffered. Let us tell the whole truth. This great lesson was learned\nwithout any profound sorrow to Galileo; and his long life, considered\nas a whole, was one of the most serene and enviable in the history of\nscience.\"\n\nCopernicus, like Galileo, had clerical friends to thank for an\nenvironment that proved the greatest possible aid to his scientific\nwork. His position as Canon of the Cathedral of Frauenburg provided\nhim with learned leisure, while his clerical friends took just enough\ninterest in his investigations and the preliminary {39} announcements\nof his discoveries to make his pursuit of astronomical studies to some\ndefinite conclusion a worthy aim in life. It was this assistance that\nenabled him to publish his book eventually and bring his great theory\nbefore the world.\n\nCopernicus, far from having any leanings toward the so-called \"reform\"\nmovement (as has often been asserted), was evidently a staunch\nsupporter of his friend and patron Bishop Maurice Ferber, of Ermland,\nwho kept his see loyal to Rome at a time when the secularization of\nthe Teutonic order and the falling away of many bishops all around him\nmake his position as a faithful son of the Church and that of his\ndiocese noteworthy in the history of that time and place. It may well\nbe said that under less favorable conditions Copernicus's work might\nnever have been finished. As it was, his book met with great\nopposition from the Reformers, but remained absolutely acceptable even\nto the most rigorous churchmen until Galileo's unfortunate insistence\non the points of it that were opposed to generally accepted theories.\n\nDuring all his long life Copernicus remained one of the simplest of\nmen. Genius as he was, he could not have failed to realize how great\nwas the significance of the discoveries he had made in astronomy. In\nspite of this he continued to exercise during a long career the simple\nduties of his post as Canon of the Cathedral of Frauenberg, nor did he\nfail to give such time as was asked of him for the medical treatment\nof the {40} poor or of his friends, the ecclesiastics of the\nneighborhood. These duties--as he seems to have considered them--must\nhave taken many precious hours from his studies, but they were given\nunstintingly. When he came to die, his humility was even more\nprominent than during life. It was at his own request that there was\ngraven upon his tombstone simply the prayer, \"I ask not the grace\naccorded to Paul, not that given to Peter: give me only the favor Thou\ndidst show to the thief on the cross.\" There is perhaps no better\nexample in all the world of the simplicity of true genius nor any\nbetter example of how sublimely religious may be the soul that has far\ntranscended the bounds of the scientific knowledge of its own day.\n\nThe greatness of Copernicus's life-work can best be realized from the\nextent to which he surpassed even well-known contemporaries in\nastronomy and from his practical anticipation of the opinions of some\nof his greatest successors. Even Tycho Brahe, important though he is\nin the history of astronomical science, taught many years after\nCopernicus's death the doctrine that the earth is the center of the\nuniverse. Newton had in Copernicus a precursor who divined the theory\nof universal gravitation; and even Kepler's great laws, especially the\nelliptical form of the orbits of the planets, are at least hinted at\nin Copernicus's writings. He is certainly one of the most original\ngeniuses of all times; and it is interesting to find that the\ncompleteness of his {41} scholarly career, far from being rendered\nabortive by friction with ecclesiastical superiors, as we might\nimagine probable from the traditions that hang around his name, was\nrather made possible by the sympathy and encouragement of clerical\nfriends and Church authorities. Copernicus, the scholar, astronomer,\nphysician, and clergyman, is a type of the eve of the Reformation\nperiod, and his life is the best possible refutation of the slanders\nwith regard to the unprogressiveness of the Church and churchmen of\nthat epoch which have unfortunately been only too common in the\nhistories of the time.\n\n{42}\n\n{43}\n\nIII.\n\nBASIL VALENTINE, FOUNDER OF MODERN CHEMISTRY.\n\n{44}\n\nLet us, then, banish into the world of fiction that affirmation so\nlong repeated by foolish credulity which made monasteries an asylum\nfor indolence and incapacity, for misanthropy and pusillanimity, for\nfeeble and melancholic temperaments, and for men who were no longer\nfit to serve society in the world. Monasteries were never intended to\ncollect the invalids of the world. It was not the sick souls, but on\nthe contrary the most vigorous and healthful the human race has ever\nproduced, who presented themselves in crowds to fill\nthem.--MONTALEMBERT, _Monks of the West_.\n\n{45}\n\nIII.\n\nBASIL VALENTINE, FOUNDER OF MODERN CHEMISTRY.\n\nThe Protestant tradition which presumes a priori that no good can\npossibly have come out of the Nazareth of the times before the\nReformation, and especially the immediately preceding century, has\nserved to obscure to an unfortunate degree the history of several\nhundred years extremely important in every department of education.\nStrange as it may seem to those unfamiliar with the period, it is in\nthat department which is supposed to be so typically modern\nthe--physical sciences--that this neglect is most serious. Such a hold\nhas this Protestant tradition on even educated minds that it is a\nsource of great surprise to most people to be told that there were in\nmany parts of Europe original observers in the physical sciences all\nduring the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries who were\ndoing ground-breaking work of the highest value, work that was\ndestined to mean much for the development of modern science.\nSpeculations and experiments with regard to the philosopher's stone\nand the transmutation of metals are supposed to fill up all the\ninterests of the alchemists of those days. As a matter of fact,\nhowever, men were making original observations of very {46} profound\nsignificance, and these were considered so valuable by their\ncontemporaries that, though printing had not yet been invented, even\nthe immense labor involved in copying large folio volumes by hand did\nnot suffice to deter them from multiplying the writings of these men\nand thus preserving them for future generations, until the\nprinting-press came to perpetuate them.\n\nAt the beginning of the twentieth century, with some of the supposed\nfoundations of modern chemistry crumbling to pieces under the\ninfluences of the peculiarly active light thrown upon older chemical\ntheories by the discovery of radium and the radio-active elements\ngenerally, there is a reawakening of interest in some of the old-time\nchemical observers whose work used to be laughed at as so unscientific\nand whose theory of the transmutation of elements into one another was\nconsidered so absurd. The idea that it would be impossible under any\ncircumstances to convert one element into another belongs entirely to\nthe nineteenth century. Even so distinguished a mind as that of\nNewton, in the preceding century, could not bring itself to\nacknowledge the modern supposition of the absurdity of metallic\ntransformation, but, on the contrary, believed very firmly in this as\na basic chemical principle and confessed that it might be expected to\noccur at any time. He had seen specimens of gold ores in connexion\nwith metallic copper, and had concluded that this was a manifestation\nof the natural transformation of one of these yellow metals into the\nother.\n\n{47}\n\nWith the discovery that radium transforms itself into helium, and that\nindeed all the so-called radio-activities of the very heavy metals are\nprobably due to a natural transmutation process constantly at work,\nthe ideas of the older chemists cease entirely to be a subject for\namusement. The physical chemists of the present day are very ready to\nadmit that the old teaching of the absolute independence of something\nover seventy elements is no longer tenable, except as a working\nhypothesis. The doctrine of matter and form taught for so many\ncenturies by the scholastic philosophers which proclaimed that all\nmatter is composed of two principles, an underlying material\nsubstratum and a dynamic or informing principle, has now more\nacknowledged verisimilitude, or lies at least closer to the generally\naccepted ideas of the most progressive scientists, than it has at any\ntime for the last two or three centuries. Not only the great\nphysicists, but also the great chemists, are speculating along lines\nthat suggest the existence of but one form of matter, modified\naccording to the energies that it possesses under a varying physical\nand chemical environment. This is, after all, only a restatement in\nmodern terms of the teaching of St. Thomas of Aquin in the thirteenth\ncentury.\n\nIt is not surprising, then, that there should be a reawakening of\ninterest in the lives of some of the men who, dominated by the earlier\nscholastic ideas and by the tradition of the possibility of finding\nthe philosopher's stone, which would {48} transmute the baser metals\ninto the precious metals, devoted themselves with quite as much zeal\nas any modern chemist to the observation of chemical phenomena. One of\nthe most interesting of these--indeed he might well be said to be the\ngreatest of the alchemists--is the man whose only name that we know is\nthat which appears on a series of manuscripts written in the High\nGerman dialect of the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the\nsixteenth century. That name is Basil Valentine, and the writer,\naccording to the best historical traditions, was a Benedictine monk.\nThe name Basil Valentine may only have been a pseudonym, for it has\nbeen impossible to trace it among the records of the monasteries of\nthe time. That the writer was a monk there seems to be no doubt, for\nhis writings in manuscript and printed form began to have their vogue\nat a time when there was little likelihood of their being attributed\nto a monk unless an indubitable tradition connected them with some\nmonastery.\n\nThis Basil Valentine (to accept the only name we have), as we can\njudge very well from his writings, eminently deserves the designation\nof the last of the alchemists and the first of the chemists. There is\npractically a universal recognition of the fact now that he deserves\nalso the title of Founder of Modern Chemistry, not only because of the\nvalue of the observations contained in his writings, but also because\nof the fact that they proved so suggestive to certain {49} scientific\ngeniuses during the century succeeding Valentine's life. Almost more\nthan to have added to the precious heritage of knowledge for mankind\nis it a boon for a scientific observer to have awakened the spirit of\nobservation in others and to be the founder of a new school of\nthought. This Basil Valentine undoubtedly did.\n\nBesides, his work furnishes evidence that the investigating spirit was\nabroad just when it is usually supposed not to have been, for the\nThuringian monk surely did not do all his investigating alone, but\nmust have received as well as given many a suggestion to his\ncontemporaries.\n\nIn the history of education there are two commonplaces that are\nappealed to oftener than any other as the sources of material with\nregard to the influence of the Catholic Church on education during the\ncenturies preceding the Reformation. These are the supposed idleness\nof the monks, and the foolish belief in the transmutation of metals\nand the search for the philosopher's stone which dominated the minds\nof so many of the educated men of the time. It is in Germany\nespecially that these two features of the pre-Reformation period are\nsupposed to be best illustrated. In recent years, however, there has\ncome quite a revolution in the feelings even of those outside of the\nChurch with regard to the proper appreciation of the work of the\nmonastic scholars of these earlier centuries. Even though some of them\ndid dream golden dreams over their alembics, the love of knowledge\nmeant {50} more to them, as to the serious students of any age, than\nanything that might be made by it. As for their scientific beliefs, if\nthere can be a conversion of one element into another, as seems true\nof radium, then the possibility of the transmutation of metals is not\nso absurd as, for a century or more, it has seemed; and it is not\nimpossible that at some time even gold may be manufactured out of\nother metallic materials.\n\nOf course, a still worthier change of mind has come over the attitude\nof educators because of the growing sense of appreciation for the\nwonderful work of the monks of the Middle Ages, and even of those\ncenturies that are supposed to show least of the influence of these\ngroups of men who, forgetting material progress, devoted themselves to\nthe preservation and the cultivation of the things of the spirit. The\nimpression that would consider the pre-Reformation monks in Germany as\nunworthy of their high calling in the great mass is almost entirely\nwithout foundation. Obscure though the lives of most of them were,\nmany of them rose above their environment in such a way as to make\ntheir work landmarks in the history of progress for all time.\n\nBecause their discoveries are buried in the old Latin folios that are\ncontained only in the best libraries, not often consulted by the\nmodern scientist, it is usually thought that the scientific\ninvestigators of these centuries before the Reformation did no work\nthat would be worth while considering in our present day. It is only\nsome {51} one who goes into this matter as a labor of love who will\nconsider it worth his while to take the trouble seriously to consult\nthese musty old tomes. Many a scholar, however, has found his labor\nwell rewarded by the discovery of many an anticipation of modern\nscience in these volumes so much neglected and where such\ntreasure-trove is least expected. Professor Clifford Allbutt, the\nRegius Professor of physics at the University of Cambridge, in his\naddress on \"The Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery Down to\nthe End of the Sixteenth Century,\" which was delivered at the St.\nLouis Congress of Arts and Sciences during the Exposition in 1904, has\nshown how much that is supposed to be distinctly modern in medicine,\nand above all in surgery, was the subject of discussion at the French\nand Italian universities of the thirteenth century. William Salicet,\nfor instance, who taught at the University of Bologna, published a\nlarge series of case histories, substituted the knife for the Arabic\nuse of the cautery, described the danger of wounds of the neck,\ninvestigated the causes of the failure of healing by first intention,\nand sutured divided nerves. His pupil, Lanfranc, who taught later at\nthe University of Paris, went farther than his master by\ndistinguishing between venous and arterial hemorrhage, requiring\ndigital compression for an hour to stop hemorrhage from the _venae\npulsatiles_--the pulsating veins, as they were called--and if this\nfailed because of the size of the vessel, {52} suggesting the\napplication of a ligature. Lanfranc's chapter on injuries to the head\nstill remains a noteworthy book in surgery that establishes beyond a\ndoubt how thoughtfully practical were these teachers in the medieval\nuniversities. It must be remembered that at this time all the teachers\nin universities, even those in the medical schools as well as those\noccupied with surgery, were clerics. Professor Allbutt calls attention\nover and over again to this fact, because it emphasizes the\nthoroughness of educational methods, in spite of the supposed\ndifficulties that would lie in the way of an exclusively clerical\nteaching staff.\n\nIn chemistry the advances made during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and\nfifteenth centuries were even more noteworthy than those in any other\ndepartment of science. Albertus Magnus, who taught at Paris, wrote no\nless than sixteen treatises on chemical subjects, and, notwithstanding\nthe fact that he was a theologian as well as a scientist and that his\nprinted works filled sixteen folio volumes, he somehow found the time\nto make many observations for himself and performed numberless\nexperiments in order to clear up doubts. The larger histories of\nchemistry accord him his proper place and hail him as a great founder\nin chemistry and a pioneer in original investigation.\n\nEven St. Thomas of Aquin, much as he was occupied with theology and\nphilosophy, found some time to devote to chemical questions. After\n{53} all, this is only what might have been expected of the favorite\npupil of Albertus Magnus. Three treatises on chemical subjects from\nAquinas's pen have been preserved for us, and it is to him that we are\nsaid to owe the origin of the word amalgam, which he first used in\ndescribing various chemical methods of metallic combination with\nmercury that were discovered in the search for the genuine\ntransmutation of metals.\n\nAlbertus Magnus's other great scientific pupil, Roger Bacon, the\nEnglish Franciscan friar, followed more closely in the physical\nscientific ways of his great master. Altogether he wrote some eighteen\ntreatises on chemical subjects. For a long time it was considered that\nhe was the inventor of gunpowder, though this is now known to have\nbeen introduced into Europe by the Arabs. Roger Bacon studied\ngunpowder and various other explosive combinations in considerable\ndetail, and it is for this reason that he obtained the undeserved\nreputation of being an original discoverer in this line. How well he\nrealized how much might be accomplished by means of the energy stored\nup in explosives can perhaps be best appreciated from the fact that he\nsuggested that boats would go along the rivers and across the seas\nwithout either sails or oars and that carriages would go along the\nstreets without horse or man power. He considered that man would\neventually invent a method of harnessing these explosive mixtures and\nof utilizing their energies for his purposes without {54} danger. It\nis curiously interesting to find, as we begin the twentieth century,\nand gasolene is so commonly used for the driving of automobiles and\nmotor boats and is being introduced even on railroad cars in the West\nas the most available source of energy for suburban traffic, that this\ngeneration should only be fulfilling the idea of the old Franciscan\nfriar of the thirteenth century, who prophesied that in explosives\nthere was the secret of eventually manageable energy for\ntransportation purposes.\n\nSucceeding centuries were not as fruitful in great scientists as the\nthirteenth, and yet at the beginning of the fourteenth there was a\npope, three of whose scientific treatises--one on the transmutation of\nmetals, which he considers an impossibility, at least as far as the\nmanufacture of gold and silver was concerned; a treatise on diseases\nof the eyes, of which Professor Allbutt [Footnote 4] says that it was\nnot without its distinctive practical value, though compiled so early\nin the history of eye surgery; and, finally, his treatise on the\npreservation of the health, written when he was himself over eighty\nyears of age--are all considered by good authorities as worthy of the\nbest scientific spirit of the time. This pope was John XXII, of whom\nit has been said over and over again by Protestant historians that he\nissued a bull forbidding chemistry, though he was himself one of the\nenthusiastic students of chemistry {55} in his younger years and\nalways retained his interest in the science. [Footnote 5]\n\n  [Footnote 4: Address cited]\n\n  [Footnote 5: For the refutation of this calumny with regard to John\n  XXII, see \"Pope John XXII and the supposed Bull forbidding\n  Chemistry,\" by James J. Walsh, Ph. D., LL. D., in the _Medical\n  Library and Historical Journal_, October, 1905.]\n\nDuring the fourteenth century Arnold of Villanova, the inventor of\nnitric acid, and the two Hollanduses kept up the tradition of original\ninvestigation in chemistry. Altogether there are some dozen treatises\nfrom these three men on chemical subjects. The Hollanduses\nparticularly did their work in a spirit of thoroughly frank, original\ninvestigation. They were more interested in minerals than in any other\nclass of substances, but did not waste much time on the question of\ntransmutation of metals. Professor Thompson, the professor of\nchemistry at Edinburgh, said in his history of chemistry many years\nago that the Hollanduses have very clear descriptions of their\nprocesses of treating minerals in investigating their composition,\nwhich serve to show that their knowledge was by no means entirely\ntheoretical or acquired only from books or by argumentation.\n\nBefore the end of this fourteenth century, according to the best\nauthorities on this subject, Basil Valentine, the more particular\nsubject of our essay, was born.\n\nValentine's career is a typical example of the personally obscure but\nintellectually brilliant lives {56} which these old monks lived. It\nseems probable, according to the best authorities, as we have said,\nthat his work began shortly before the middle of the fifteenth\ncentury, although most of what was important in it was accomplished\nduring the second half. It would not be so surprising, as most people\nwho have been brought up to consider the period just before the\nReformation in Germany as wanting in progressive scholars might\nimagine, for a supremely great original investigator to have existed\nin North Germany about this time. After all, before the end of the\ncentury, Copernicus, the Pole, working in northern Germany, had\nannounced his theory that the earth was not the center of the\nuniverse, and had set forth all that this announcement meant. To a\nbishop-friend who said to him, \"But this means that you are giving us\na new universe,\" he replied that the universe was already there, but\nhis theory would lead men to recognize its existence. In southern\nGermany, Thomas a Kempis, who died in 1471, had traced for man the\noutlines of another universe, that of his own soul, from its\nmystically practical side. These great Germans were only the worthy\ncontemporaries of many other German scholars scarcely less\ndistinguished than these supreme geniuses. The second half of the\nfifteenth century, the beginning of the Renaissance in Germany as well\nas Italy, is that wonderful time in history when somehow men's eyes\nwere opened to see farther and their minds broadened to gather in more\nof the truth of {57} man's relation to the universe, than had ever\nbefore been the case in all the centuries of human existence, or than\nhas ever been possible even in these more modern centuries, though\nsupposedly we are the heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of\ntime.\n\nComing as he did before printing, when the spirit of tradition was\neven more rife and dominating than it has been since, it is almost\nneedless to say that there are many curious legends associated with\nthe name of Basil Valentine. Two centuries before his time, Roger\nBacon, doing his work in England, had succeeded in attracting so much\nattention even from the common people, because of his wonderful\nscientific discoveries, that his name became a by-word and many\nstrange magical feats were attributed to him. Friar Bacon was the\ngreat wizard even in the plays of the Elizabethan period. A number of\nthe same sort of myths attached themselves to the Benedictine monk of\nthe fifteenth century. He was proclaimed in popular story to have been\na wonderful magician. Even his manuscript, it was said, had not been\npublished directly, but had been hidden in a pillar in the church\nattached to the monastery and had been discovered there after the\nsplitting open of the pillar by a bolt of lightning from heaven. It is\nthe extension of this tradition that has sometimes led to the\nassumption that Valentine lived in an earlier century, some even going\nso far as to say that he, too, like Roger Bacon, was a product of the\n{58} thirteenth century. It seems reasonably possible, however, to\nseparate the traditional from what is actual in his existence, and\nthus to obtain some idea at least of his work, if not of the details\nof his life. The internal evidence from his works enable the historian\nof science to place him within a half century of the discovery of\nAmerica.\n\nOne of the stories told with regard to Basil Valentine, because it has\nbecome a commonplace in philology, has made him more generally known\nthan any of his actual discoveries. In one of the most popular of the\nold-fashioned text-books of chemistry in use a quarter of a century\nago, in the chapter on Antimony, there was a story that I suppose\nstudents never forgot. It was said that Basil Valentine, a monk of the\nMiddle Ages, was the discoverer of this substance. After having\nexperimented with it in a number of ways, he threw some of it out of\nhis laboratory one day, where the swine of the monastery, finding it,\nproceeded to gobble it up together with some other refuse. He watched\nthe effect upon the swine very carefully, and found that, after a\npreliminary period of digestive disturbance, these swine developed an\nenormous appetite and became fatter than any of the others. This\nseemed a rather desirable result, and Basil Valentine, ever on the\nsearch for the practical, thought that he might use the remedy to good\npurpose even on the members of the community.\n\nNow, some of the monks in the monastery were of rather frail health\nand delicate constitution, {59} and he thought that the putting on of\na little fat in their case might be a good thing. Accordingly he\nadministered, surreptitiously, some of the salts of antimony, with\nwhich he was experimenting, in the food served to these monks. The\nresult, however, was not so favorable as in the case of the hogs.\nIndeed, according to one, though less authentic, version of the story,\nsome of the poor monks, the unconscious subjects of the experiment,\neven perished as the result of the ingestion of the antimonial\ncompounds. According to the better version they suffered only the\nusual unpleasant consequences of taking antimony, which are, however,\nquite enough for a fitting climax to the story. Basil Valentine called\nthe new substance which he had discovered antimony, that is, opposed\nto monks. It might be good for hogs, but it was a form of monks' bane,\nas it were. [Footnote 6]\n\n  [Footnote 6: It is curious to trace how old are the traditions on\n  which some of these old stories that must now be rejected, are\n  founded. I have come upon the story with regard to Basil Valentine\n  and the antimony and the monks in an old French medical encyclopedia\n  of biography, published in the seventeenth century, and at that time\n  there was no doubt at all expressed as to its truth. How much older\n  than this it may be I do not know, though it is probable that it\n  comes from the sixteenth century, when the _kakoethes scribendi_\n  attacked many people because of the facility of printing, and when\n  most of the good stories that have so worried the modern dry-as-dust\n  historian in his researches for their correction became a part of\n  the body of supposed historical tradition.]\n\n{60}\n\nUnfortunately for most of the good stories of history, modern\ncriticism has nearly always failed to find any authentic basis for\nthem, and they have had to go the way of the legends of Washington's\nhatchet and Tell's apple. We are sorry to say that that seems to be\ntrue also of this particular story. Antimony, the word, is very\nprobably derived from certain dialectic forms of the Greek word for\nthe metal, and the name is no more derived from _anti_ and _monachus_\nthan it is from _anti_ and _monos_ (opposed to single existence),\nanother fictitious derivation that has been suggested, and one whose\netymological value is supposed to consist in the fact that antimony is\npractically never found alone in nature.\n\nNotwithstanding the apparent cloud of unfounded traditions that are\nassociated with his name, there can be no doubt at all of the fact\nthat Valentinus--to give him the Latin name by which he is commonly\ndesignated in foreign literatures--was one of the great geniuses who,\nworking in obscurity, make precious steps into the unknown that enable\nhumanity after them to see things more clearly than ever before. There\nare definite historical grounds for placing Basil Valentine as the\nfirst of the series of careful observers who differentiated chemistry\nfrom the old alchemy and applied its precious treasures of information\nto the uses of medicine. It was because of the study of Basil\nValentine's work that Paracelsus broke away from the Galenic\ntraditions, so supreme in medicine up to his time, {61} and began our\nmodern pharmaceutics. Following on the heels of Paracelsus came Van\nHelmont, the father of modern medical chemistry, and these three did\nmore than any others to enlarge the scope of medication and to make\nobservation rather than authority the most important criterion of\ntruth in medicine. Indeed, the work of these three men dominated\nmedicine, or at least the department of pharmaceutics, down almost to\nour own day, and their influence is still felt in drug-giving.\n\nWhile we do not know the absolute date of either the birth or the\ndeath of Basil Valentine and are not sure even of the exact period in\nwhich he lived and did his work, we are sure that a great original\nobserver about the time of the invention of printing studied mercury\nand sulphur and various salts, and above all, introduced antimony to\nthe notice of the scientific world, and especially to the favor of\npractitioners of medicine. His book, \"The Triumphal Chariot of\nAntimony,\" is full of conclusions not quite justified by his premises\nnor by his observations. There is no doubt, however, that the\nobservational methods which he employed did give an immense amount of\nknowledge and formed the basis of the method of investigation by which\nthe chemical side of medicine was to develop during the next two or\nthree centuries. Great harm was done by the abuse of antimony, but\nthen great harm is done by the abuse of anything, no matter how good\nit may be. For a {62} time it came to be the most important drug in\nmedicine and was only replaced by venesection.\n\nThe fact of the matter is that doctors were looking for effects from\ntheir drugs, and antimony is, above all things, effective. Patients,\ntoo, wished to see the effect of the medicines they took. They do so\neven yet, and when antimony was administered there was no doubt about\nits working.\n\nSome five years ago, when Sir Michael Foster, M.D., professor of\nphysiology in the University of Cambridge, England, was invited to\ndeliver the Lane lectures at the Cooper Medical College, in San\nFrancisco, he took for his subject \"The History of Physiology.\" In the\ncourse of his lecture on \"The Rise of Chemical Physiology\" he began\nwith the name of Basil Valentine, who first attracted men's attention\nto the many chemical substances around them that might be used in the\ntreatment of disease, and said of him:--\n\n  He was one of the alchemists, but in addition to his inquiries into\n  the properties of metals and his search for the philosopher's stone,\n  he busied himself with the nature of drugs, vegetable and mineral,\n  and with their action as remedies for disease. He was no anatomist,\n  no physiologist, but rather what nowadays we should call a\n  pharmacologist. He did not care for the problem of the body, all he\n  sought to understand was how the constituents of the soil and of\n  plants might be treated so as to be available for healing the sick\n  and how they produced their effects. We apparently owe to him the\n  introduction of many chemical substances, for instance, of {63}\n  hydrochloric acid, which he prepared from oil of vitriol and salt,\n  and of many vegetable drugs. And he was apparently the author of\n  certain conceptions which, as we shall see, played an important part\n  in the development of chemistry and of physiology. To him, it seems,\n  we owe the idea of the three \"elements,\" as they were and have been\n  called, replacing the old idea of the ancients of the four\n  elements--earth, air, fire, and water. It must be remembered,\n  however, that both in the ancient and in the new idea the word\n  \"element\" was not intended to mean that which it means to us now, a\n  fundamental unit of matter, but a general quality or property of\n  matter. The three elements of Valentine were (1) sulphur, or that\n  which is combustible, which is changed or destroyed, or which at all\n  events disappears during burning or combustion; (2) mercury, that\n  which temporarily disappears during burning or combustion, which is\n  dissociated in the burning from the body burnt, but which may be\n  recovered, that is to say, that which is volatile, and (3) salt,\n  that which is fixed, the residue or ash which remains after burning.\n\n\nThe most interesting of Basil Valentine's books, and the one which has\nhad the most enduring influence, is undoubtedly \"The Triumphal Chariot\nof Antimony.\" It has been translated and has had a wide vogue in every\nlanguage of modern Europe. Its recommendation of antimony had such an\neffect upon medical practice that it continued to be the most\nimportant drug in the pharmacopoeia down almost to the middle of the\nnineteenth century. If any proof were needed that Basil Valentine or\nthat the author of the books that go under that name was a monk, it\nwould be found in the {64} introduction to this volume, which not only\nstates that fact very clearly, but also in doing so makes use of\nlanguage that shows the writer to have been deeply imbued with the old\nmonastic spirit. I quote the first paragraph of this introduction in\norder to make clear what I mean. The quotation is taken from the\nEnglish translation of the work as published in London in 1678.\nCuriously enough, seeing the obscurity surrounding Valentine himself,\nwe do not know for sure who made the translation. The translator\napologizes somewhat for the deeply religious spirit of the book, but\nconsiders that he was not justified in eliminating any of this. Of\ncourse, the translation is left in the quaint old-fashioned form so\neminently suited to the thoughts of the old master, and the spelling\nand use of capitals is not changed:\n\n  Basil Valentine--His Triumphant Chariot of Antimony Since I, Basil\n  Valentine, by Religious Vows am bound to live according to the Order\n  of St. Benedict, and that requires another manner of spirit of\n  Holiness than the common state of Mortals exercised in the profane\n  business of this World; I thought it my duty before all things, in\n  the beginning of this little book, to declare what is necessary to\n  be known by the pious Spagyrist [old-time name for medical chemist],\n  inflamed with an ardent desire of this Art, as what he ought to do,\n  and whereunto to direct his aim, that he may lay such foundations of\n  the whole matter as may be stable; lest his Building, shaken with\n  the Winds, happen to fall, and the whole Edifice to be involved in\n  shameful Ruine, {65} which otherwise, being founded on more firm and\n  solid principles, might have continued for a long series of time\n  Which Admonition I judged was, is and always will be a necessary\n  part of my Religious Office; especially since we must all die, and\n  no one of us which are now, whether high or low, shall long be seen\n  among the number of men For it concerns me to recommend these\n  Meditations of Mortality to Posterity, leaving them behind me, not\n  only that honor may be given to the Divine Majesty, but also that\n  Men may obey him sincerely in all things.\n\n  In this my Meditation I found that there were five principal heads,\n  chiefly to be considered by the wise and prudent spectators of our\n  Wisdom and Art. The first of which is, Invocation of God. The\n  second, Contemplation of Nature The third, True Preparation. The\n  fourth, the Way of Using. The fifth, Utility and Fruit. For he who\n  regards not these, shall never obtain place among true Chymists, or\n  fill up the number of perfect Spagyrists. Therefore, touching these\n  five heads, we shall here following treat and so far declare them,\n  as that the general Work may be brought to light and perfected by an\n  intent and studious Operator.\n\nThis book, though the title might seem to indicate it, is not devoted\nentirely to the study of antimony, but contains many important\nadditions to the chemistry of the time. For instance, Basil Valentine\nexplains in this work how what he calls the spirit of salt might be\nobtained. He succeeded in manufacturing this material by treating\ncommon salt with oil of vitriol and heat. From the description of the\nuses to which he put the end product of his chemical manipulation, it\nis evident that under the name of spirit of salt {66} he is describing\nwhat we now know as hydrochloric acid. This is the first definite\nmention of it in the history of science, and the method suggested for\nits preparation is not very different from that employed even at the\npresent time. He also suggests in this volume how alcohol may be\nobtained in high strengths. He distilled the spirit obtained from wine\nover carbonate of potassium, and thus succeeded in depriving it of a\ngreat proportion of its water.\n\nWe have said that he was deeply interested in the philosopher's stone.\nNaturally this turned his attention to the study of metals, and so it\nis not surprising to find that he succeeded in formulating a method by\nwhich metallic copper could be obtained. The substance used for the\npurpose was copper pyrites, which was changed to an impure sulphate of\ncopper by the action of oil of vitriol and moist air. The sulphate of\ncopper occurred in solution, and the copper could be precipitated from\nit by plunging an iron bar into it. Basil Valentine recognized the\npresence of this peculiar yellow metal and studied some of its\nqualities. He does not seem to have been quite sure, however, whether\nthe phenomenon that he witnessed was not really a transmutation of the\niron into copper, as a consequence of the other chemicals present.\n\nThere are some observations on chemical physiology, and especially\nwith regard to respiration, in the book on antimony which show their\nauthor to have anticipated the true explanation of the {67} theory of\nrespiration. He states that animals breathe, because the air is needed\nto support their life, and that all the animals exhibit the phenomenon\nof respiration. He even insists that the fishes, though living in\nwater, breathe air, and he adduces in support of this idea the fact\nthat whenever a river is entirely frozen the fishes die. The reason\nfor this being, according to this old-time physiologist, not that the\nfishes are frozen to death, but that they are not able to obtain air\nin the ice as they did in the water, and consequently perish.\n\nThere are many testimonies to the practical character of all his\nknowledge and his desire to apply it for the benefit of humanity. The\nold monk could not repress the expression of his impatience with\nphysicians who gave to patients for diseases of which they knew\nlittle, remedies of which they knew less. For him it was an\nunpardonable sin for a physician not to have faithfully studied the\nvarious mixtures that he prescribed for his patients, and not to know\nnot only their appearance and taste and effect, but also the limits of\ntheir application. Considering that at the present time it is a\nfrequent source of complaint that physicians often prescribe remedies\nwith whose physical appearances they are not familiar, this complaint\nof the old-time chemist alchemist will be all the more interesting for\nthe modern physician. It is evident that when Basil Valentine allows\nhis ire to get the better of him it is because of his indignation over\nthe {68} quacks who were abusing medicine and patients in his time, as\nthey have ever since. There is a curious bit of aspersion on mere\nbook-learning in the passage that has a distinctly modern ring, and\none feels the truth of Russell Lowell's expression that to read a\ngreat genius, no matter how antique, is like reading a commentary in\nthe morning paper, so up-to-date does genius ever remain:--\n\n  And whensoever I shall have occasion to contend in the School with\n  such a Doctor, who knows not how himself to prepare his own\n  medicines, but commits that business to another, I am sure I shall\n  obtain the Palm from him; for indeed that good man knows not what\n  medicines he prescribes to the sick; whether the color of them be\n  white, black, grey, or blew, he cannot tell; nor doth this wretched\n  man know whether the medicine he gives be dry or hot, cold or humid;\n  but he only knows that he found it so written in his Books, and\n  thence pretends knowledge (or as it were, Possession) by\n  Prescription of a very long time; yet he desires to further\n  Information Here again let it be lawful to exclaim, Good God, to\n  what a state is the matter brought! what goodness of minde is in\n  these men! what care do they take of the sick! Wo, wo to them! in\n  the day of Judgment they will find the fruit of their ignorance and\n  rashness, then they will see Him whom they pierced, when they\n  neglected their Neighbor, sought after money and nothing else;\n  whereas were they cordial in their profession, they would spend\n  Nights and Days in Labour that they might become more learned in\n  their Art, whence more certain health would accrew to the sick with\n  their Estimation and greater glory to themselves. But since Labour\n  is tedious to them, they commit the {69} matter to chance, and being\n  secure of their Honour, and content with their Fame, they (like\n  Brawlers) defend themselves with a certain garrulity, without any\n  respect had to Confidence or Truth.\n\nPerhaps one of the reasons why Valentine's book has been of such\nenduring interest is that it is written in an eminently human vein and\nout of a lively imagination. It is full of figures relating to many\nother things besides chemistry, which serve to show how deeply this\ninvestigating observer was attentive to all the problems of life\naround him. For instance, when he wants to describe the affinity that\nexists between many substances in chemistry, and which makes it\nimpossible for them not to be attracted to one another, he takes a\nfigure from the attractions that he sees exist among men and women.\nThere are some paragraphs with regard to the influence of the passion\nof love that one might think rather a quotation from an old-time\nsermon than from a great ground-breaking book in the science of\nchemistry.\n\n  Love leaves nothing entire or sound in man; it impedes his sleep; he\n  cannot rest either day or night; it takes off his appetite that he\n  hath no disposition either to meat or drink by reason of the\n  continual torments of his heart and mind. It deprives him of all\n  Providence, hence he neglects his affairs, vocation and business. He\n  minds neither study, labor nor prayer; casts away all thoughts of\n  anything but the body beloved; this is his study, this his most vain\n  occupation. If to lovers the success be not answerable to their\n  wish, or so soon {70} and prosperously as they desire, how many\n  melancholies henceforth arise, with griefs and sadnesses, with which\n  they pine away and wax so lean as they have scarcely any flesh\n  cleaving to the bones Yea, at last they lose the life itself, as may\n  be proved by many examples! for such men, (which is an horrible\n  thing to think of) slight and neglect all perils and detriments,\n  both of the body and life, and of the soul and eternal salvation\n\nIt is evident that human nature is not different in our sophisticated\ntwentieth century from that which this observant old monk saw around\nhim in the fifteenth. He continues:--\n\n  How many testimonies of this violence which is in love, are daily\n  found? for it not only inflames the younger sort, but it so far\n  exaggerates some persons far gone in years as through the burning\n  heat thereof, they are almost mad Natural diseases are for the most\n  part governed by the complexion of man and therefore invade some\n  more fiercely, others more gently; but Love, without distinction of\n  poor or rich, young or old, seizeth all, and having seized so blinds\n  them as forgetting all rules of reason, they neither see nor hear\n  any snare.\n\nBut then the old monk thinks that he has said enough about this\nsubject and apologizes for his digression in another paragraph that\nshould remove any lingering doubt there may be with regard to the\ngenuineness of his monastic character. The personal element in his\nconfession is so naive and so simply straightforward that instead of\nseeming to be the result of conceit, and so repelling the reader, it\nrather attracts his {71} kindly feeling for its author. The paragraph\nwould remind one in certain ways of that personal element that was to\nbecome more popular in literature after Montaigne had made such\nextensive use of it.\n\n  But of these enough; for it becomes not a religious man to insist\n  too long upon these cogitations, or to give place to such a flame in\n  his heart. Hitherto (without boasting I speak it) I have throughout\n  the whole course of my life kept myself safe and free from it, and I\n  pray and invoke God to vouchsafe me his Grace that I may keep holy\n  and inviolate the faith which I have sworn, and live contented with\n  my spiritual spouse, the Holy, Catholick Church. For no other reason\n  have I alleaged these than that I might express the love with which\n  all tinctures ought to be moved towards metals, if ever they be\n  admitted by them into true friendship, and by love, which permeates\n  the inmost parts, be converted into a better state\n\nThe application of the figure at the end of his long digression is\ncharacteristic of the period in which he wrote and to a considerable\nextent also of the German literary methods of the time.\n\nIn this volume on the use of antimony there are in most of the\neditions certain biographical notes which have sometimes been accepted\nas authentic, but oftener rejected. According to these, Basil\nValentine was born in a town in Alsace, on the southern bank of the\nRhine. As a consequence of this, there are several towns that have\nlaid claim to being his birthplace. M. Jean Reynaud, the distinguished\nFrench {72} philosophical writer of the first half of the nineteenth\ncentury, once said that Basil Valentine, like Ossian and Homer, had\nmany towns claim him years after his death. He also suggested that,\nlike those old poets, it was possible that the writings sometimes\nattributed to Basil Valentine were really the work not of one man, but\nof several individuals. There are, however, many objections to this\ntheory, the most forceful of which is the internal evidence of the\nbooks themselves and their style and method of treatment. Other\nbiographic details contained in \"The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony\"\nare undoubtedly more correct. According to them, Basil Valentine\ntravelled in England and Holland on missions for his Order, and went\nthrough France and Spain on a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella.\n\nBesides this work, there is a number of other books of Basil\nValentine's, printed during the first half of the sixteenth century,\nthat are well-known and copies of which may be found in most of the\nimportant libraries. The United States Surgeon General's Library at\nWashington contains several of the works on medical subjects, and the\nNew York Academy of Medicine Library has some valuable editions of his\nworks. Some of his other well-known books, each of which is a\ngood-sized octavo volume, bear the following descriptive titles (I\ngive them in English, though, as they are usually to be found, they\nare in Latin, sixteenth-century {73} translations of the original\nGerman): \"The World in Miniature: or, The Mystery of the World and of\nHuman Medical Science,\" published at Marburg, 1609;--\"The Chemical\nApocalypse: or, The Manifestation of Artificial Chemical Compounds,\"\npublished at Erfurt in 1624;--\"A Chemico-Philosophic Treatise\nConcerning Things Natural and Preternatural, Especially Relating to\nthe Metals and the Minerals,\" published at Frankfurt in\n1676;--\"Haliography: or, The Science of Salts: A Treatise on the\nPreparation, Use and Chemical Properties of All the Mineral, Animal\nand Vegetable Salts,\" published at Bologna in 1644;--\"The Twelve Keys\nof Philosophy,\" Leipsic, 1630.\n\nThe great interest manifested in Basil Valentine's work at the\nRenaissance period can be best realized from the number of manuscript\ncopies and their wide distribution. His books were not all printed at\none place, but, on the contrary, in different portions of Europe. The\noriginal edition of \"The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony\" was published\nat Leipsic in the early part of the sixteenth century. The first\neditions of the other books, however, appeared at places so distant\nfrom Leipsic as Amsterdam and Bologna, while various cities of\nGermany, as Erfurt and Frankfurt, claim the original editions of still\nother works. Many of the manuscript copies still exist in various\nlibraries in Europe; and while there is no doubt that some unimportant\nadditions to the supposed works of Basil Valentine have come {74} from\nthe attribution to him of scientific treatises of other German\nwriters, the style and the method of the principal works mentioned are\nentirely too similar not to have been the fruit of a single mind and\nthat possessed of a distinct investigating genius setting it far above\nany of its contemporaries in scientific speculation and observation.\n\nThe most interesting feature of all of Basil Valentine's writings that\nare extant is the distinctive tendency to make his observations of\nspecial practical utility. His studies in antimony were made mainly\nwith the idea of showing how that substance might be used in medicine.\nHe did not neglect to point out other possible uses, however, and knew\nthe secret of the employment of antimony in order to give sharpness\nand definition to the impression produced by metal types. It would\nseem as though he was the first scientist who discussed this subject,\nand there is even some question whether printers and type founders did\nnot derive their ideas in this matter from Basil Valentine, rather\nthan he from them. Interested as he was in the transmutation of\nmetals, he never failed to try to find and suggest some medicinal use\nfor all of the substances that he investigated. His was no greedy\nsearch for gold and no accumulation of investigations with the idea of\nbenefiting only himself. Mankind was always in his mind, and perhaps\nthere is no better demonstration of his fulfilment of the character of\nthe monk than this constant {75} solicitude to benefit others by every\nbit of investigation that he carried out. For him with medieval\nnobleness of spirit the first part of every work must be the\ninvocation of God, and the last, though no less important than the\nfirst, must be the utility and fruit for mankind that can be derived\nfrom it.\n\n{76}\n\n{77}\n\nIV.\n\nLINACRE: SCHOLAR, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST.\n\n\n{78}\n\nLinacre, as Dr. Payne remarks, \"was possessed from his youth till his\ndeath by the enthusiasm of learning. He was an idealist devoted to\nobjects which the world thought of little use.\" Painstaking, accurate,\ncritical, hypercritical perhaps, he remains to-day the chief literary\nrepresentative of British Medicine. Neither in Britain nor in Greater\nBritain have we maintained the place in the world of letters created\nfor us by Linacre's noble start. Quoted by Osler in _AEquanimitas_.\n\n\n\n[Illustration: THOMAS LINACRE]\n\n\n{79}\n\nIV.\n\nLINACRE: SCHOLAR, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST.\n\nNot long ago, in one of his piquant little essays, Mr. Augustine\nBirrell discussed the question as to what really happened at the time\nof the so-called Reformation in England. There is much more doubt with\nregard to this matter, even in the minds of non-Catholics, than is\nusually suspected. Mr. Birrell seems to have considered it one of the\nmost important problems, and at the same time not by any means the\nleast intricate one, in modern English history. The so-called High\nChurch people emphatically insist that there is no break in the\ncontinuity of the Church of England, and that the modern Anglicanism\nis a direct descendant of the old British Church. They reject with\nscorn the idea that it was the Lutheran movement on the Continent\nwhich brought about the changes in the Anglican Church at that time.\nProtestantism did not come into England for a considerable period\nafter the change in the constitution of the Anglican Church, and when\nit did come its tendencies were quite as subversal of the authority of\nthe Anglican as of the Roman Church, Protestantism is the mother of\nNonconformism in England. It can be seen, then, that the question as\nto what did really take place in the time {80} of Henry VIII and of\nEdward VI is still open. It has seemed to me that no little light on\nthis vexed historical question will be thrown by a careful study of\nthe life of Dr. Linacre, who, besides being the best known physician\nof his time in England, was the greatest scholar of the English\nRenaissance period, yet had all his life been on very intimate terms\nwith the ecclesiastical authorities, and eventually gave up his\nhonors, his fortune, and his profession to become a simple priest of\nthe old English Church.\n\nConsidering the usually accepted notions as to the sad state of\naffairs supposed to exist in the Church at the beginning of the\nsixteenth century, this is a very remarkable occurrence, and deserves\ncareful study to determine its complete significance, for it tells\nbetter than anything else the opinion of a distinguished contemporary.\nFew men have ever been more highly thought of by their own generation.\nNone has been more sincerely respected by intimate friends, who were\nthemselves the leaders of the thought of their generation, than Thomas\nLinacre, scholar, physician and priest; and his action must stand as\nthe highest possible tribute to the Church in England at that time.\n\nHow unimpaired his practical judgment of men and affairs was at the\ntime he made his change from royal physician to simple priest can best\nbe gathered from the sagacity displayed in the foundation of the Royal\nCollege of Physicians, an institution he was endowing with the {81}\nwealth he had accumulated in some twenty years of most lucrative\nmedical practice. The Royal College of Physicians represents the first\nattempt to secure the regulation of the practice of medicine in\nEngland, and, thanks to its founder's wonderful foresight and\npractical wisdom, it remains down to our own day, under its original\nconstitution, one of the most effective and highly honored of British\nscientific foundations. No distinction is more sought at the present\ntime by young British medical men, or by American or even Continental\ngraduates in medicine, than the privilege of adding to their names the\nletters \"F.R.C.P.(Eng.),\" Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of\nEngland. The College worked the reformation of medical practice in\nEngland, and its methods have proved the suggestive formulae for many\nanother such institution and for laws that all over the world protect,\nto some extent at least, the public from quacks and charlatans.\n\nLinacre's change of profession at the end of his life has been a\nfruitful source of conjecture and misconception on the part of his\nbiographers. Few of them seem to be able to appreciate the fact,\ncommon enough in the history of the Church, that a man may, even when\nwell on in years, give up everything to which his life has been so far\ndirected, and from a sense of duty devote himself entirely to the\nattainment of \"the one thing necessary.\" Linacre appears only to have\ndone what many another in the history of {82} the thirteenth,\nfourteenth, and fifteenth centuries did without any comment; but his\nEnglish biographers insist on seeing ulterior motives in it, or else\nfail entirely to understand it. The same action is not so rare even in\nour own day that it should be the source of misconception by later\nwriters.\n\nDr. S. Weir Mitchell has, in the early part of _Dr. North and His\nFriends_, a very curious passage with regard to Linacre. One of the\ncharacters, St. Clair, says: \"I saw, the other day, at Owen's, a life\nof one Linacre, a doctor, who had the luck to live about 1460 to 1524,\nwhen men knew little and thought they knew all. In his old age he took\nfor novelty to reading St. Matthew. The fifth, sixth, and seventh\nchapters were enough. He threw the book aside and cried out, 'Either\nthis is not the Gospel, or we are not Christians.' What else could he\nsay?\" St. Clair uses the story to enforce an idea of his own, which he\nstates as a question, as follows: \"And have none of you the courage to\nwrestle with the thought I gave you, that Christ could not have\nexpected the mass of men to live the life He pointed out as desirable\nfor the first disciples of His faith?\"\n\nDr. Mitchell's anecdote is not accepted by Linacre's biographers\ngenerally, though it is copied by Dr. Payne, the writer of the article\non Linacre in the (English) _Dictionary of National Biography_, who,\nhowever, discredits it somewhat. The story is founded on Sir John\nCheke's {83} account of the conversion of Linacre. It is very\ndoubtful, however, whether Linacre's deprecations of the actions of\nChristians had reference to anything more than the practice of false\nswearing so forcibly denounced in the Scriptures, which had apparently\nbecome frequent in his time. This is Selden's version of the story as\nquoted by Dr. Johnson, who was Linacre's well-known biographer. Sir\nJohn Cheke in his account seems to hint that this chance reading of\nthe Scriptures represented the first occasion Linacre had ever taken\nof an opportunity to read the New Testament. Perhaps we are expected\nto believe that, following the worn-out Protestant tradition of the\nold Church's discouraging of the reading of the Bible, and of the\nextreme scarcity of copies of the Book, this was the first time he had\never had a good opportunity to read it. This, of course, is nonsense.\n\nLinacre's early education had been obtained at the school of the\nmonastery of Christ Church at Canterbury, and the monastery schools\nall used the New Testament as a text-book, and as the offices of the\nday at which the students were required to attend contain these very\npassages from Matthew which Linacre is supposed to have read for the\nfirst time later in life, this idea is preposterous. Besides, Linacre,\nas one of the great scholars of his time, intimate friend of Sir\nThomas More, of Dean Colet, and Erasmus, can scarcely be thought to\nfind his first copy of the Bible only when advanced in years. This is\n{84} evidently a post-Reformation addition, part of the Protestant\ntradition with regard to the supposed suppression of the Scriptures in\npre-Reformation days, which every one acknowledges now to be without\nfoundation.\n\nLinacre, as many another before and since, seems only to have realized\nthe true significance of the striking passages in Matthew after life's\nexperiences and disappointments had made him take more seriously the\nclauses of the Sermon on the Mount. There is much in fifth, sixth, and\nseventh Matthew that might disturb the complacent equanimity of a man\nwhose main objects in life, though pursued with all honorable\nunselfishness, had been the personal satisfaction of wide scholarship\nand success in his chosen profession.\n\nWith regard to Sir John Cheke's story, Dr. John Noble Johnson, who\nwrote the life of Thomas Linacre, [Footnote 7] which is accepted as\nthe authoritative biography by all subsequent writers, says: \"The\nwhole statement carries with it an air of invention, if not on the\npart of Cheke himself, at least on that of the individual from whom he\nderives it, and it is refuted by {85} Linacre's known habits of\nmoderation and the many ecclesiastical friendships which, with a\nsingle exception, were preserved without interruption until his death.\nIt was a most frequent mode of silencing opposition to the received\nand established tenets of the Church, when arguments were wanting, to\nbrand the impugner with the opprobrious titles of heretic and infidel,\nthe common resource of the enemies to innovation in every age and\ncountry.\"\n\n  [Footnote 7: \"The Life of Thomas Linacre,\" Doctor in Medicine,\n  Physician to King Henry VIII, the Tutor and Friend of Sir Thomas\n  More and the Founder of the College of Physicians in London By John\n  Noble Johnson, M D., late Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians,\n  London. Edited by Robert Graves, of the Inner Temple, Barrister at\n  Law London: Edward Lumley, Chancery Lane 1835.]\n\nThe interesting result of the reflections inspired in Linacre by the\nreading of Matthew was, as has been said, the resignation of his high\noffice of Royal Physician and the surrender of his wealth for the\nfoundation of chairs in Medicine and Greek at Oxford and Cambridge.\nWith the true liberal spirit of a man who wished to accomplish as much\ngood as possible, his foundations were not limited to his own\nUniversity of Oxford. After these educational foundations, however,\nhis wealth was applied to the endowment of the Royal College of\nPhysicians and its library, and to the provision of such accessories\nas might be expected to make the College a permanently useful\ninstitution, though left at the same time perfectly capable of that\nevolution which would suit it to subsequent times and the development\nof the science and practice of medicine.\n\nIt is evident that the life of such a man can scarcely fail to be of\npersonal as well as historic interest.\n\n{86}\n\nThomas Linacre was born about 1460--the year is uncertain--at\nCanterbury. Nothing is known of his parents or their condition, though\nthis very silence in their regard would seem to indicate that they\nwere poor and obscure. His education was obtained at the school of the\nmonastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, then presided over by the\nfamous William Selling, the first of the great students of the new\nlearning in England. Selling's interest seems to have helped Linacre\nto get to Oxford, where he entered at All Souls' College in 1480. In\n1484 he was elected a Fellow of the College, and seems to have\ndistinguished himself in Greek, to which he applied himself with\nspecial assiduity under Cornelio Vitelli. Though Greek is sometimes\nspoken of as having been introduced into Western Europe only at the\nbeginning of the sixteenth century, Linacre undoubtedly laid the\nfoundation of that remarkable knowledge of the language which he\ndisplayed at a later period of his life, during his student days at\nOxford in the last quarter of the fifteenth century.\n\nLinacre went to Italy under the most auspicious circumstances. His old\ntutor and friend at Canterbury, Selling, who had become one of the\nleading ecclesiastics of England, was sent to Rome as an Ambassador by\nHenry VII. He took Linacre with him. A number of English scholars had\nrecently been in Italy and had attracted attention by their geniality,\nby their thorough-going devotion to scholarly studies, {87} and by\ntheir success in their work. Selling himself had made a number of firm\nfriends among the Italian students of the New Learning on a former\nvisit, and they now welcomed him with enthusiasm and were ready to\nreceive his protege with goodwill and provide him with the best\nopportunities for study. As a member of the train of the English\nambassador, Linacre had an entree to political circles that proved of\ngreat service to him, and put him on a distinct footing above that of\nthe ordinary English student in Italy.\n\nPartly because of these and partly because of his own interesting and\nattractive personal character, Linacre had a number of special\nopportunities promptly placed at his disposal. Church dignitaries in\nRome welcomed him and he was at once received into scholarly circles\nwherever he went in Italy. Almost as soon as he arrived in Florence,\nwhere he expected seriously to take up the study of Latin and Greek,\nhe became the intimate friend of the family of Lorenzo de' Medici, who\nwas so charmed with his personality and his readily recognizable\ntalent that he chose him for the companion of his son's studies and\nreceived him into his own household.\n\nPolitian was at this time the tutor of the young de' Medici in Latin,\nand Demetrius Chalcondylas the tutor in Greek. Under these two eminent\nscholars Linacre obtained a knowledge of Latin and Greek such as it\nwould have been impossible to have obtained under any other {88}\ncircumstances, and which with his talents at once stamped him as one\nof the foremost humanistic scholars in Europe. While in Florence he\ncame in contact with Lorenzo the Magnificent's younger son, who\nafterwards became Leo X. The friendship thus formed lasted all during\nLinacre's lifetime, and later on he dedicated at least one of his\nbooks to Alexander de' Medici after the latter's elevation to the\npapal throne.\n\nIt is no wonder that Linacre always looked back on Italy as the Alma\nMater--the fond mother in the fullest sense of the term--to whom he\nowed his precious opportunities for education and the broadest\npossible culture. In after-life the expression of his feelings was\noften tinged with romantic tenderness. It is said that when he was\ncrossing the Alps, on his homeward journey, leaving Italy after\nfinishing his years of apprenticeship of study, standing on the\nhighest point of the mountains from which he could still see the\nItalian plains, he built with his own hands a rough altar of stone and\ndedicated it to the land of his studies--the land in which he had\nspent six happy years--under the fond title of _Sancta Mater\nStudiorum_.\n\nAt first, after his return from Italy, Linacre lectured on Greek at\nOxford. Something of the influence acquired over English students and\nthe good he accomplished may be appreciated from the fact that with\nGrocyn he had such students as More and the famous Dean Colet. Erasmus\nalso was attracted from the Netherlands and {89} studied Greek under\nLinacre, to whom he refers in the most kindly and appreciative terms\nmany times in his after life. Linacre wrote books besides lecturing,\nand his work on certain fine points in the grammar of classical\nLatinity proved a revelation to English students of the old classical\nlanguages, for nothing so advanced as this had ever before been\nattempted outside Italy. In one of the last years of the fifteenth\ncentury Linacre was appointed tutor to Prince Arthur, the elder\nbrother of Henry VIII, to whom it will be remembered that Catherine of\nAragon had been betrothed before her marriage with Henry. Arthur's\nuntimely death, however, soon put an end to Linacres' tutorship.\n\nAs pointed out by Einstein, the reputation of Grocyn and Linacre was\nnot confined to England, but soon spread all over the Continent. After\nthe death of the great Italian humanists of the fifteenth century, who\nhad no worthy successors in the Italian peninsula, these two men\nbecame the principal European representatives of the New Learning.\nThere were other distinguished men, however, such as Vives, the\nSpaniard; Lascaris, the Greek; Buda, or Budaeus, the Frenchman, and\nErasmus, whom we have already mentioned--all of whom joined at various\ntimes in praising Linacre.\n\nSome of Linacre's books were published by the elder Aldus at Venice;\nand Aldus is even said to have sent his regrets on publishing his\nedition of Linacre's translation of \"The Sphere {90} of Proclus,\" that\nthe distinguished English humanist had not forwarded him others of his\nworks to print. Aldus appreciatively added the hope that the eloquence\nand classic severity of style in Linacre's works and in those of the\nEnglish humanists generally \"might shame the Italian philosophers and\nscholars out of their uncultured methods of writing.\"\n\nAugusta Theodosia Drane (Mother Raphael), in her book on \"Christian\nSchools and Scholars,\" gives a very pleasant picture of how Dean\nColet, Eramus, and More used at this time to spend their afternoons\ndown at Stepney (then a very charming suburb of London), of whose\nparish church Colet was the vicar. They stopped at Colet's house and\nwere entertained by his mother, to whom we find pleasant references in\nthe letters that passed between these scholars. Linacre was also often\nof the party, and the conversations between these greatest students\nand literary geniuses of their age would indeed be interesting\nreading, if we could only have had preserved for us, in some way, the\ntable-talk of those afternoons. Erasmus particularly was noted for his\nwit and for his ability to turn aside any serious discussions that\nmight arise among his friends, so as to prevent anything like\nunpleasant argument in their friendly intercourse. A favorite way\nseems to have been to insist on telling one of the old jokes from a\nclassic author whose origin would naturally be presumed to be much\nlater than the date the New Learning had found for it.\n\n{91}\n\nDean Colet's mother appears to have been much more than merely the\nconventional hostess. Erasmus sketches her in her ninetieth year with\nher countenance still so fair and cheerful that you would think she\nhad never shed a tear. Her son tells in some of his letters to Erasmus\nand More of how much his mother liked his visitors and how agreeable\nshe found their talk and witty conversation. They seem to have\nappreciated her in turn, for in Mother Raphael's chapter on English\nScholars of the Renaissance there is something of a description of her\ngarden, in which were to be found strawberries, lately brought from\nHolland, some of the finer varieties of which Mrs. Colet possessed\nthrough Erasmus's acquaintance in that country. Mrs. Colet also had\nsome of the damask roses that had lately been introduced into England\nby Linacre, who was naturally anxious that the mother of his friend\nshould have the opportunity to raise some of the beautiful flowers he\nwas so much interested in domesticating in England.\n\nIt is a very charming picture, this, of the early humanists in\nEngland, and very different from what might easily be imagined by\nthose unfamiliar with the details of the life of the period. Linacre\nwas later to give up his worldly emoluments and honors and become a\nclergyman, in order to do good and at the same time satisfy his own\ncraving for self-abnegation. More was to rise to the highest positions\nin England, and then for conscience' sake was to suffer death {92}\nrather than yield to the wishes of his king in a matter in which he\nsaw principle involved. Dean Colet himself was to be the ornament of\nthe English clergy and the model of the scholar clergyman of the eve\nof the Reformation, to whom many generations were to look back as a\nworthy object of reverence. Erasmus was to become involved first with\nand then against Luther, and to be offered a cardinal's hat before his\ndeath. His work, like Newman's, was done entirely in the intellectual\nfield. Meantime, in the morning of life, all of them were enjoying the\npleasures of friendly intercourse and the charms of domestic felicity\nunder circumstances that showed that their study of humanism and their\nadmiration for the classics impaired none of their sympathetic\nhumanity or their appreciation of the innocent delights of the\npresent.\n\nFor us, however, Linacre's most interesting biographic details are\nthose which relate to medicine, for, besides his humanistic studies\nwhile in Italy, Linacre graduated in medicine, obtaining the degree of\ndoctor at Padua. The memory of the brilliant disputation which he\nsustained in the presence of the medical faculty in order to obtain\nhis degree is still one of the precious traditions in the medical\nschool of Padua. He does not seem to have considered his medical\neducation finished, however, by the mere fact of having obtained his\ndoctor's degree, and there is a tradition of his having studied later\nat Vicenza under Nicholas Leonicenus, the most celebrated {93}\nphysician and scholar in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century,\nwho many years afterwards referred with pardonable pride to the fact\nthat he had been Linacre's teacher in medicine.\n\nIt may seem strange to many that Linacre, with all his knowledge of\nthe classics, should have devoted himself for so many years to the\nstudy of medicine in addition to his humanistic studies. It must not\nbe forgotten, however, that the revival of the classics of Latin and\nGreek brought with it a renewed knowledge of the great Latin and Greek\nfathers of medicine, Hippocrates and Galen. This had a wonderful\neffect in inspiring the medical students of the time with renewed\nenthusiasm for the work in which they were engaged. A knowledge of the\nclassics led to the restoration of the study of anatomy, botany, and\nof clinical medicine, which had been neglected in the midst of\napplication to the Arabian writers in medicine during the preceding\ncenturies. The restoration of the classics made of medicine a\nprogressive science in which every student felt the possibility of\nmaking great discoveries that would endure not only for his own\nreputation but for the benefit of humanity.\n\nThese thoughts seem to have attracted many promising young men to the\nstudy of medicine. The result was a period of writing and active\nobservation in medicine that undoubtedly makes this one of the most\nimportant of literary medical eras. Some idea of the activity of the\nwriters of the time can be gathered from the important {94} medical\nbooks--most of them large folios which were printed during the last\nhalf of the sixteenth century in Italy. There is a series of these\nbooks to be seen in one of the cases of the library of the\nSurgeon-General at Washington, which, though by no means complete,\nmust be a source of never-ending surprise to those who are apt to\nthink of this period as a _saison morte_ in medical literature.\n\nThere must have been an extremely great interest in medicine to\njustify all this printing. Some of the books are among the real\nincunabula of the art of printing. For instance, in 1474 there was\npublished at Bologna De Manfredi's \"Liber de Homine;\" at Venice, in\n1476, Petrus de Albano's work on medicine; and in the next twenty\nyears from the same home of printing there came large tomes by\nAngelata, a translation of Celsus, and Aurelius Cornelius and\nArticellus's \"Thesaurus Medicorum Veterum,\" besides several\ntranslations of Avicenna and Platina's work \"De Honesta Voluptate et\nValetudine.\" At Ferrara, Arculanus's great work was published, while\nat Modena there appeared the \"Hortus Sanitatis,\" or Garden of Health,\nwhose author was J. Cuba. There were also translations from other\nArabian authors on medicine in addition to Avicenna, notably a\ntranslation of Rhazes Abu Bekr Muhammed Ben Zankariah Abrazi, a\ndistinguished writer among the Arabian physicians of the Middle Ages.\n\nLinacre's translations of Galen remain still the {95} standard, and\nthey have been reprinted many times. As Erasmus once wrote to a\nfriend, in sending some of these books of Galen, \"I present you with\nthe works of Galen, now by the help of Linacre speaking better Latin\nthan they ever before spoke Greek.\" Linacre also translated Aristotle\ninto Latin, and Erasmus paid them the high compliment of saying that\nLinacre's Latin was as lucid, as straightforward, and as thoroughly\nintelligible as was Aristotle's Greek. Of the translations of\nAristotle unfortunately none is extant. Of Galen we have the \"De\nSanitate Tuenda,\" the \"Methodus Medendi,\" the \"De Symptomatum\nDifferentiis et Causis,\" and the \"De Pulsuum Usu.\" The latter\nparticularly is a noteworthy monograph on an important subject, in\nwhich Galen's observations were of great value. Under the title, \"The\nSignificance of the Pulse,\" it has been translated into English, and\nhas influenced many generations of English medical men.\n\nWhile we have very few remains of Linacre's work as a physician, there\nseems to be no doubt that he was considered by all those best capable\nof judging, to stand at the head of his profession in England. To his\ncare, as one of his biographers remarked, was committed the health of\nthe foremost in Church and State. Besides being the Royal Physician,\nhe was the regular medical attendant of Cardinal Wolsey, of Archbishop\nWarham, the Primate of England, of Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester,\nthe Keeper {96} of the Privy Seal, and of Sir Reginald Bray, Knight of\nthe Garter and Lord High Treasurer, and of all of the famous scholars\nof England.\n\nErasmus, whilst absent in France, writes to give him an account of his\nfeelings, and begs him to prescribe for him, as he knows no one else\nto whom he can turn with equal confidence. After a voyage across the\nchannel, during which he had been four days at sea--making a passage\nby the way that now takes less than two hours--Erasmus describes his\ncondition, his headache, with the glands behind his ears swollen, his\ntemples throbbing, a constant buzzing in his ears; and laments that no\nLinacre was at hand to restore him to health by skilful advice. In a\nsubsequent letter he writes from Paris to ask for a copy of a\nprescription given him while in London by Linacre, but which a stupid\nservant had left at the apothecary shop, so that Erasmus could not\nhave it filled in Paris.\n\nAn instance of his skill in prognosis, the most difficult part of the\npractice of medicine according to Hippocrates and all subsequent\nauthorities, is cited by all his biographers, with regard to his\nfriend William Lily, the grammarian. Lily was suffering from a\nmalignant tumor involving the hip, which surgeons in consultation had\ndecided should be removed. Linacre plainly foretold that its removal\nwould surely prove fatal, and the event verified his unfavorable\nprognosis. Generally it seems to have been considered that his opinion\nwas of great value in all {97} serious matters, and it was eagerly\nsought for. Some of the nobility and clergy of the time came even from\nthe Continent over to England by no means an easy journey, even for a\nhealthy man in those days, as can be appreciated from Erasmus's\nexperience just cited--in order to obtain Linacre's opinion.\n\nOne of Erasmus's letters to Billibaldus Pirckheimer contains a\nparticular account of the method of treatment by which he was relieved\nof his severe pain under Linacre's direction in a very tormenting\nattack of renal colic. The details, especially the use of poultice\napplications as hot as could be borne, show that Linacre thoroughly\nunderstood the use of heat in the relaxation of spasm, while his\ncareful preparation of the remedies to be employed in the presence of\nthe patient himself would seem to show that he had a very high\nappreciation of how much the mental state of the patient and the\nattitude of expectancy thus awakened may have in giving relief even in\ncases of severe pain.\n\nThe only medical writings of Linacre's that we possess are\ntranslations. We have said already that the reversion at the end of\nthe fifteenth century to the classical authorities in medicine\nundoubtedly did much to introduce the observant phase of medical\nscience, which had its highest expression in Vesalius at the beginning\nof the sixteenth century and continued to flourish so fruitfully\nduring the next two centuries at most of the Italian universities. His\ntranslations then {98} were of themselves more suggestive\ncontributions to medicine than would perhaps have been any even of his\noriginal observations, since the mind of his generation was not ready\nas yet to be influenced by discoveries made by contemporaries.\n\nThe best proof of Linacre's great practical interest in medicine is\nhis realization of the need for the Royal College of Physicians and\nhis arrangements for it.\n\nThe Roll of the College, which comprises biographical sketches of all\nthe eminent physicians whose names are recorded in the annals from the\nfoundation of the College in 1518, and is published under the\nauthority of the College itself, contains the best tribute to\nLinacre's work that can possibly be paid. It says: \"The most\nmagnificent of Linacre's labors was the design of the Royal College of\nPhysicians of London--a standing monument of the enlightened views\nand generosity of its projectors. In the execution of it Linacre stood\nalone, for the munificence of the Crown was limited to a grant of\nletters patent; whilst the expenses and provision of the College was\nleft to be defrayed out of his own means, or of those who were\nassociated with him in its foundation.\" \"In the year 1518,\" says Dr.\nJohnson, [Footnote 8] \"when Linacre's scheme was carried into effect,\nthe practice of medicine was scarcely elevated above that of the\nmechanical arts, nor was the majority of its practitioners {99} among\nthe laity better instructed than the mechanics by whom these arts were\nexercised. With the diffusion of learning to the republics and states\nof Italy, establishments solely for the advancement of science had\nbeen formed with success; but no society devoted to the interests of\nlearning yet existed in England, unfettered by a union with the\nhierarchy, or exempted from the rigors and seclusions which were\nimposed upon its members as the necessary obligation of a monastic and\nreligious life. In reflecting on the advantages which had been derived\nfrom these institutions, Linacre did not forget the impossibility of\nadapting rules and regulations which accorded with the state of\nsociety in the Middle Ages to the improved state of learning in his\nown, and his plans were avowedly modelled on some similar community of\nwhich many cities of Italy afforded rather striking examples.\"\n\n  [Footnote 8: _Life of Linacre_, London, 1835.]\n\nSome idea of the state into which the practice of medicine had fallen\nin England before Linacre's foundation of the Royal College of\nPhysicians may be gathered from the words of the charter of the\nCollege. \"Before this period a great multitude of ignorant persons, of\nwhom the greater part had no insight into physic, nor into any other\nkind of learning--some could not even read the letters on the book, so\nfar forth that common artificers as smiths, weavers and women--boldly\nand accustomably took upon them great cures to the high displeasure of\nGod, great infamy to the faculty, and the grievous hurt, {100} damage,\nand destruction of many of the King's liege people.\"\n\nAfter the foundation of the College there was a definite way of\ndeciding formally who were, or were not, legally licensed to practise.\nAs a consequence, when serious malpractice came to public notice,\nthose without a license were occasionally treated in the most summary\nmanner. Stowe, in his chronicles, gives a very vivid and picturesque\ndescription of the treatment of one of these quacks who had been\nespecially flagrant in his imposition upon the people. A counterfeit\ndoctor was set on horseback, his face to the horse's tail, the tail\nbeing forced into his hand as a bridle, a collar of jordans about his\nneck, a whetstone on his breast, and so led through the city of London\nwith ringing of basins, and banished. \"Such deceivers,\" continued the\nold chronicler, \"no doubt are many, who being never trained up in\nreading or practice of physics and Chirurgery do boast to do great\ncures, especially upon women, as to make them straight that before\nwere crooked, corbed, or crumped in any part of their bodies and other\nsuch things. But the contrary is true. For some have received gold\nwhen they have better deserved the whetstone.\" [Footnote 9] Human\nnature has not changed very much in the {101} four centuries since\nLinacre's foundation, and while the model that he set in the matter of\nproviding a proper licensing body for physicians has done something to\nlessen the evils complained of, the abuses still remain; and the old\nchronicler will find in our time not a few who, in his opinion, might\ndeserve the whetstone. We can scarcely realize how much Linacre\naccomplished by means of the Royal College of Physicians, or how great\nwas the organizing spirit of the man to enable him to recognize the\nbest way out of the chaos of medical practice in his time.\n\n  [Footnote 9: \"To get the whetstone\" is an old English expression,\n  meaning to take the prize for lying. It is derived from the old\n  custom of driving rogues, whose wits were too sharp, out of town\n  with a whetstone around their necks.]\n\n\"The wisdom of Linacre's plan,\" wrote Dr. Friend, \"speaks for itself.\nHis scheme, without doubt, was not only to create a good understanding\nand unanimity among his own profession (which of itself was an\nexcellent thought), but to make them more useful to the public. And he\nimagined that by separating them from the vulgar empirics and setting\nthem upon such a reputable foot of distinction, there would always\narise a spirit of emulation among men liberally educated, which would\nanimate them in pursuing their inquiries into the nature of diseases\nand the methods of cure for the benefit of mankind; and perhaps no\nfounder ever had the good fortune to have his designs succeed more to\nhis wish.\"\n\nHis plans with regard to the teaching of medicine at the two great\nEnglish Universities did not succeed so well, but that was the fault\nnot of Linacre nor of the directions left in his will, but {102} of\nthe times, which were awry for educational matters. Notwithstanding\nLinacre's bequest of funds for two professorships at Oxford and one at\nCambridge, it is typical of the times that the chairs were not founded\nfor many years. During Henry VIII's time, the great effort of\ngovernment was not to encourage new foundations but to break up old\nones, in order to obtain money for the royal treasury, so that\neducational institutions of all kinds suffered eclipse. The first\nformal action with regard to the Linacre bequest was taken in the\nthird year of Edward VI. Two lectureships were established in Merton\nCollege, Oxford, and one in St. John's College, Cambridge. Linacre's\nidea had been that these foundations should be University\nlectureships, but Anthony Wood says that the University had lost in\nprestige so much during Henry VIII's time that it was considered\npreferable to attach the lectureships to Merton College, which had\nconsiderable reputation because of its medical school. During\nElizabeth's time these Linacre lectureships sank to be sinecures and\nfor nearly a hundred years served but for the support of a fellowship.\nThe Oxford foundation was revived in 1856 by the University\nCommissioners, and the present splendid foundation of the lectures in\nphysiology bears Linacre's name in honor of his original grant.\n\nAt the age of about fifty Linacre was ordained priest. His idea in\nbecoming a clergyman, as confessed in letters to his friends, was\npartly in {103} order to obtain leisure for his favorite studies, but\nalso out of the desire to give himself up to something other than the\nmere worldly pursuits in which he had been occupied during all his\nprevious life. His biographer, Dr. Johnson, says: \"In examining the\nmotives of this choice of Linacre's, it would seem that he was guided\nless by the expectation of dignity and preferment than by the desire\nof retirement and of rendering himself acquainted with those writings\nwhich might afford him consolation in old age and relief from the\ninfirmities which a life of assiduous study and application had tended\nto produce.\"\n\nThe precise time of Linacre's ordination is not known, nor is it\ncertain whether he was ordained by Archbishop Warham of Canterbury, or\nby Cardinal Wolsey, the Archbishop of York. He received his first\nclerical appointment from Warham, by whom he was collated to the\nrectory of Mersham in Kent. He held this place scarcely a month, but\nhis resignation was followed by his installation as prebend in the\nCathedral of Wells, and by an admission to the Church of Hawkhurst in\nKent, which he held until the year of his death. Seven years later he\nwas made prebend in the Collegiate Chapel of St. Stephen, Westminster,\nand in the following year he became prebendary of South Newbold in the\nChurch of York. This was in the year 1518. In the following year he\nreceived the dignified and lucrative appointment of presenter to the\nCathedral of York, for which he was indebted to Cardinal Wolsey, to\nwhom {104} about this time he dedicated his translation of Galen \"On\nthe Use of the Pulse.\" He seems also to have held several other\nbenefices during the later years of his life, although some of them\nwere resigned within so short a time as to make it difficult to\nunderstand why he should have accepted them, since the expenses of\ninstitution must have exceeded the profits which were derived from\nthem during the period of possession. Linacre owed his clerical\nopportunities during the last years of his life particularly to\nArchbishop Warham, who, as ambassador, primate, and chancellor,\noccupied a large and honorable place in the history of the times.\nErasmus says of him in one of his letters: \"Such were his vigilance\nand attention in all matters relating to religion and to the offices\nof the Church that no concern which was foreign to them seemed ever to\ndistract him. He had sufficient time for a scrupulous performance of\nthe accustomed exercises of prayer, for the almost daily celebration\nof the Mass, for twice or thrice hearing divine service, for\ndetermining suits, for receiving embassies, for consultation with the\nking when matters of moment required his presence, for the visitation\nof churches when regulation was needed, for the welcome of frequently\ntwo hundred guests, and lastly for a literary leisure.\"\n\nAs the close friend of such men, it is evident that Linacre must have\naccomplished much good as a clergyman; and it seems not unlikely that\nhis frequent changes of rectorship were rather {105} due to the fact\nthat the Primate wished to make use of his influence in various parts\nof his diocese for the benefit of religion than for any personal\nmotives on Linacre's part, who, in order to enter the service of the\nChurch, had given up so much more than he could expect as a clergyman.\n\nLinacre as a clergyman continued to deserve the goodwill and esteem of\nall his former friends, and seems to have made many new ones. At the\ntime of his death he was one of the most honored individuals in\nEngland. All of his biographers are agreed in stating that he was the\nrepresentative Englishman of his time, looked up to by all his\ncontemporaries, respected and admired by those who had not the\nopportunity of his intimate acquaintance, and heartily loved by\nfriends, who were themselves some of the best men of the time.\n\nThe concluding paragraph of the appreciation of Linacre's character in\n_Lives of British Physicians_ [Footnote 10] is as follows: \"To sum up\nhis character it was said of him that no Englishman of his day had had\nsuch famous masters, namely, Demetrius and Politian of Florence; such\nnoble patrons, Lorenzo de' Medici, Henry VII and Henry VIII; such\nhigh-born scholars, the Prince Arthur and Princess Mary of England; or\nsuch learned friends, for amongst the latter were to be enumerated\nErasmus, Melanchthon, Latimer, {106} Tonstal, and Sir Thomas More.\"\nHis biographer might have added the names of others of the\npre-Reformation period, men of culture and character whose merits only\nthe historical researches of recent years have brought out--Prior\nSelling, Dean Colet (though his friendship was unfortunately\ninterrupted), Archbishop Warham, Cardinal Wolsey, Grocyn, and further\nscholars and churchmen.\n\n  [Footnote 10: London. John Murray, 1830.]\n\nDr. J. F. Payne, in summing up the opinion of Linacre held by his\ncontemporaries, in the \"Dictionary of National Biography\" (British),\npays a high tribute to the man. \"Linacre's personal character was\nhighly esteemed by his contemporaries. He was evidently capable of\nabsolute devotion to a great cause, animated by genuine public spirit\nand a boundless zeal for learning.\" Erasmus sketches him humorously in\nthe \"Encomium Moriae\" (The Praise of Foolishness)--with a play on the\nword _Moriae_ in reference to his great friend, Thomas More, of whom\nErasmus thought so much--showing him a tireless student. The\ndistinguished foreign scholar, however, considered Linacre as an\nenthusiast in recondite studies, but no mere pedant. Dr. Payne closes\nhis appreciation with these words: \"Linacre had, it would seem, no\nenemies.\"\n\nCaius, the distinguished English physician and scholar, himself one of\nthe best known members of the Royal College of Physicians and the\nfounder of Caius College, Cambridge, sketches {107} Linacre's\ncharacter (he had as a young man known him personally) in very\nsympathetic vein. As Dr. Caius was one of the greatest Englishmen of\nhis time in the middle of the sixteenth century, his opinion must\ncarry great weight. It is to him that we owe the famous epitaph that\nfor long in old St. Paul's, London, was to be read on Linacre's\ntombstone:--\n\n  \"_Fraudes dolosque mire perosus, fidus amicis, omnibus ordinibus\n  juxta carus_. A stern hater of deceit and underhand ways, faithful\n  to his friends, equally dear to all classes,\"\n\nSurely this is a worthy tribute to the great physician, clergyman,\nscholar, and philanthropist of the eve of the Reformation in England.\n\n\n{108}\n\nV.\n\nFATHER KIRCHER, S.J.:\n\nSCIENTIST, ORIENTALIST, AND COLLECTOR.\n\n{109}\n\nOportet autem neque recentiores viros in his fraudare quae vel\nrepererunt vel recte secuti sunt; et tamen ea quae apud antiquiores\naliquos posita sunt auctoribus suis reddere.--CELSUS _de Medicina_.\n\n\n{110}\n\n[Illustration: ATHANASIUS KIRCHER]\n\n\n{111}\n\n\nV.\n\n\nFATHER KIRCHER, S.J.: SCIENTIST, ORIENTALIST, AND COLLECTOR.\n\n\nExcept in the minds of the unconquerably intolerant, the Galileo\ncontroversy has in recent years settled down to occupy something of\nits proper place in the history of the supposed conflict between\nreligion and science. In touching the subject in the life of\nCopernicus we suggested that it has come to be generally recognized,\nas M. Bertrand, the perpetual Secretary of the Paris Academy of\nSciences, himself a distinguished mathematician and historian,\ndeclares, that \"the great lesson for those who would wish to oppose\nreason with violence was clearly to be read in Galileo's story, and\nthe scandal of his condemnation was learned without any profound\nsorrow to Galileo himself; and his long life, considered as a whole,\nwas the most serene and enviable in the history of science.\" Somehow,\nnotwithstanding the directness of this declaration, there is still\nleft in the minds of many an impression rather difficult to eradicate\nthat there was definite, persistent opposition to everything\nassociated with scientific progress among the churchmen of the time of\nGalileo.\n\nPerhaps no better answer to this unfortunate, because absolutely\nuntrue, impression could be in {112} formulated than is to be found in\na sketch of the career of Father Athanasius Kircher, the distinguished\nJesuit who for so many years occupied himself with nearly every branch\nof science in Rome, under the fostering care of the Church. He had\nbeen Professor of Physics, Mathematics, and Oriental Languages at\nWuerzburg, but was driven from there by the disturbances incident to\nthe Thirty Years' War, in 1631. He continued his scientific\ninvestigation at Avignon. From here, within two years after Galileo's\ntrial in 1635, he was, through the influence of Cardinal Barberini,\nsummoned to Rome, where he devoted himself to mathematics at first,\nand then to every branch of science, as well as the Oriental\nlanguages, not only with the approval, but also with the most liberal\npecuniary aid from the ecclesiastical authorities of the papal court\nand city.\n\nSome idea of the breadth of Father Kircher's scientific sympathy and\nhis genius for scientific observation and discovery, which amounted\nalmost to intuition, may be gathered from the fact that to him we owe\nthe first definite statement of the germ theory of disease; and he\nseems to have been the first to recognize the presence of what are now\ncalled microbes. At the same time his works on magnetism contained not\nonly all the knowledge of his own time, but also some wonderful\nsuggestions as to the possibilities of the development of this\nscience. His studies with regard to light are almost as epochal as\nthose with regard to magnetism. Besides these, he {113} was the first\nto find any clue to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and yet found time to\nwrite a geographical work on Latium, the country surrounding Rome, and\nto make collections for his museum which rendered it in its time the\nbest scientific collection in the world. It may very well indeed be\nsaid that visitors to Rome with scientific tendencies found as much\nthat was suggestive in Father Kircher's museum--the \"Kircherianum,\" as\nit came to be called--as artists and sculptors and architects found in\nthe Vatican collections of the papal city.\n\nAll of this work was accomplished within the half century after\nGalileo's trial, for Father Kircher died in 1680, at the age of\nseventy-eight, having lived, as so many of the great scientists have\ndone, a long life in the midst of the most persistent activity.\nKircher, more than perhaps any other, can be said to be the founder of\nmodern natural science. Before any one else, in a practical way, he\nrealized the necessity for the collection of an immense amount of\ndata, if science was to be founded on the broad, firm foundation of\nobserved truth. The principle which had been announced by Bacon in the\n\"Novum Organon\"--\"to take all that comes rather than to choose, and to\nheap up rather than to register\"--was never carried out as fully as by\nFather Kircher. As Edmund Gosse said in the June number of _Harper's_,\n1904, \"Bacon had started a great idea, but he had not carried it out.\nHe is not the founder, he is the prophet {114} of modern physical\nscience. To be in direct touch with nature, to adventure in the\nunexplored fields of knowledge, and to do this by carrying out an\nendless course of slow and sure experiments, this was the counsel of\nthe 'Novum Organon.'\" Bacon died in 1626, and scarcely more than a\ndecade had passed before Kircher was carrying out the work thus\noutlined by the English philosopher in a way that was surprisingly\nsuccessful, even looked at from the standpoint of our modern science.\nNeedless to say, however, it was not because of Bacon's suggestion\nthat he did so, for it is more than doubtful whether he knew of\nBacon's writings until long after the lines of his life-work had been\ntraced by his own inquiring spirit. The fulness of time had come. The\ninductive philosophy was in the air. Bacon's formulae, which the\nEnglish philosopher never practically applied, and Father Kircher's\nassiduous collection of data, were but expressions of the spirit of\nthe times. How faithfully the work of the first modern inductive\nscientist was accomplished we shall see.\n\nIt may be easily imagined that a certain interest in Father Kircher,\napart from his scientific attainments and the desire to show how much\nand how successful was the attention given to natural science by\nchurchmen about the time of the Galileo controversy, might influence\nthis judgment of the distinguished Jesuit's scientific accomplishments.\nWith regard to his discoveries in medicine especially, and above all\nhis {115} announcement of the microbic origin of contagious disease,\nit may be thought that this was a mere chance expression and not at\nall the result of serious scientific conclusions. Tyndall, however,\nthe distinguished English physicist, would not be the one to give\ncredit for scientific discoveries, and to a clergyman in a distant\ncentury, unless there was definite evidence of the discovery. It is\nnot generally known that to the great English physicist we owe the\nalmost absolute demonstration of the impossibility of spontaneous\ngeneration, together with a series of studies showing the existence\neverywhere in the atmosphere of minute forms of life to which\nfermentative changes and also the infectious diseases--though at that\ntime this was only a probability--are to be attributed. When Tyndall\nwas reviewing, in the midst of the controversy over spontaneous\ngeneration, the question of the microbic origin of disease, he said:\n\"Side by side with many other theories has run the germ theory of\nepidemic disease. The notion was expressed by Kircher and favored by\nLinnaeus, that epidemic diseases may be due to germs which enter the\nbody and produce disturbance by the development within the body of\nparasitic forms of life.\"\n\nHow much attention Father Kircher's book on the pest or plague, in\nwhich his theory of the micro-organismal origin of disease is put\nforward, attracted from the medical profession can be understood from\nthe fact that it was submitted to three of the most distinguished\nphysicians in {116} Rome before being printed, and that their\ntestimony to its value as a contribution to medicine prefaced the\nfirst edition. They are not sparing in their praise of it. Dr. Joseph\nBenedict Sinibaldus, who was the Professor of the Practice of Medicine\nin the Roman University at the time, says that \"Father Kircher's book\nnot only contains an excellent resume of all that is known about the\npest or plague, but also as many valuable hints and suggestions on the\norigin and spread of the disease, which had never before been made.\"\nHe considers it a very wonderful thing that a non-medical man should\nhave been able to place himself so thoroughly in touch with the\npresent state of medicine in respect to this disease and then point\nout the conditions of future progress.\n\nDr. Paul Zachias, who was a distinguished Roman physician of the time,\nsaid that he had long known Father Kircher as an eminent writer on\nother subjects, but that after reading his book on the pest he must\nconsider him also distinguished in medical writing. He says: \"While he\nhas set his hand at other's harvests, he has done it with so much\nwisdom and prudence as to win the admiration of the harvesters already\nin the field.\" He adds that there can be no doubt that it would be a\nsource of profit for medical men to read this little book and that it\nwill undoubtedly prove beneficial to future generations. Testimony of\nanother kind to the value of Father Kircher's book is to be found in\nthe fact {117} that within a half-year after its publication in Latin\nit appeared in several other languages. It is too much the custom of\nthese modern times to consider that scientific progress in the\ncenturies before our own and its immediate predecessor was likely to\nattract little attention for many years, and was especially slow to\nmake its way into foreign countries. Anything, however, of real\nimportance in science took but a very short time to travel from one\ncountry to another in Europe in the seventeenth century, and the fact\nthat scientific men generally used Latin as a common language made the\nspread of discoveries and speculations much easier even than at the\npresent time. Our increased means of communication have really only\nserved to allow sensational announcements of a progress in\nscience--which is usually no progress at all--to be spread quite as\neffectually in modern times as were real advances in the older days.\n\nThere is no good account of Father Kircher's life available in\nEnglish, and it has seemed only proper that the more important at\nleast of the details of the life of the man who thus anticipated the\nbeginnings of modern bacteriology and of the relations of\nmicro-organisms to disease, should not be left in obscurity. His life\nhistory is all the more interesting and important because it\nillustrates the interest of the churchmen of the time, and especially\nof the Roman ecclesiastical authorities, in all forms of science; for\nFather Kircher is undoubtedly one of the greatest scholars of {118}\nhistory and one of the scientific geniuses in whose works can be\nfound, as the result of some wonderful principles of intuition\nincomprehensible to the slower intellectual operations of ordinary\nmen, anticipations of many of the discoveries of the after-time. There\nis scarcely a modern science he did not touch upon, and nothing that\nhe touched did he fail to illuminate. His magnificent collections in\nthe museum of the Roman College demonstrate very well his extremely\nwide interests in all scientific matters.\n\nThe history of Father Kircher's career furnishes perhaps the best\npossible refutation of the oft-repeated slander that Jesuit education\nwas narrow and was so founded upon and rooted in authority that\noriginal research and investigation, in scientific matters\nparticularly, were impossible, and that it utterly failed to encourage\nnew discoveries of any kind. As a matter of fact, Kircher was not only\nnot hampered in his work by his superiors or by the ecclesiastical\nauthorities, but the respect in which he was held at Rome enabled him\nto use the influence of the Church and of great churchmen all over the\nworld, with the best possible effect, for the assembling at the Roman\nCollege of objects of the most various kinds, illustrating especially\nthe modern sciences of archeology, ethnology, and paleontology,\nbesides Egyptian and Assyrian history.\n\nAthanasius Kircher was born 2 May, 1602, at Geisa, near Fulda, in\nSouth Germany. He was educated at the Jesuit College of Fulda, and at\n{119} the early age of sixteen, having completed his college course,\nentered the Jesuit novitiate at Mainz. After his novitiate he\ncontinued his philosophical and classical studies at Paderborn and\ncompleted his years of scholastic teaching in various cities of South\nGermany--Munster, Cologne, and Coblenz--finally finishing his\neducation by theological studies at Cologne and Mainz.\n\nToward the end of the third decade of the seventeenth century he\nbecame Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Wuerzburg. Here his\ninterest in Oriental languages began, and he established a special\ncourse in this subject at the University of Wuerzburg. During the\nThirty Years' War, however, the invasion of Germany very seriously\ndisturbed university work, and finally in 1631 Father Kircher was sent\nby his superiors to Avignon in South France, where he continued his\nteaching some four years, attracting no little attention by his wide\ninterest in many sciences and by various scientific works that showed\nhim to be a man of very broad genius.\n\nIn 1635, through the influence of Cardinal Barberini, he was summoned\nto Rome, where he became Professor of Mathematics and Oriental\nLanguages in the famous Roman College of the Jesuits, which was\nconsidered at that time one of the greatest educational institutions\nin the world. His interest in science, however, was not lessened by\nteaching duties that would apparently have demanded all his time; and,\nas we shall see, he continued to issue books on the most diverse {120}\nscientific subjects, most of them illustrated by absolutely new\nexperimental observations and all of them attracting widespread\nattention.\n\nFather Kircher began his career as a writer on science at the early\nage of twenty-seven, when he issued his first work on magnetism. The\ntitle of this volume, \"Ars Magnesia tum Theorematice tum Problematice\nProposita,\" shows that the subject was not treated entirely from a\nspeculative standpoint. Indeed, in the preface he states that he hopes\nthat the principal value of the book will be found in the fact that\nthe knowledge of magnetism is presented by a new method, with special\ndemonstrations, and that the conclusions are confirmed by various\npractical uses and long-continued experience with magnets of various\nkinds.\n\nAlthough it may be a source of great surprise, Father Kircher's genius\nwas essentially experimental. He has been spoken of not infrequently\nas a man who collected the scientific information of his time in such\na way as to display, as says the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, \"a wide\nand varied learning, but that he was a man singularly devoid of\njudgment and critical discernment.\" He was in some respects the direct\nopposite of the opinion thus expressed, since his learning was always\nof a practical character, and there are very few subjects in this\nwriting which he has not himself illustrated by means of new and\ningenious experiments.\n\nPerhaps the best possible proof of this is to be {121} found in the\nfact that his second scientific work was on the construction of\nsun-dials, and that one of the discoveries he himself considered most\nvaluable was the invention of a calculating machine, as well as of a\ncomplicated arrangement for illustrating the positions of the stars in\nthe heavens. He constructed, moreover, a large burning-glass in order\nto demonstrate the possibility of the story told of Archimedes, that\nhe had succeeded in burning the enemy's ships in the harbor at\nSyracuse by means of a large lens.\n\nBut Father Kircher's surest claim to being a practical genius is to be\nfound in his invention of the magic lantern. It was another Jesuit,\nAquilonius, in his work on optics, issued in 1613, who had first\nsought to explain how the two pictures presented to the two eyes are\nfused into one, and it was in a practical demonstration of this by\nmeans of lenses that Kircher hit upon the invention of the projecting\nstereoscope.\n\nAfter his call to Rome our subject continued his work on magnetism,\nand in 1641 issued a further treatise on the subject called \"Magnes\"\nor \"De Arte Magnetica.\" While he continued to teach Oriental languages\nand issued in 1644 a book with the title \"Lingua AEgyptiaca\nRestituta,\" he also continued to apply himself especially to the\ndevelopment of physical science. Accordingly in 1645 there appeared\nhis volume \"Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae.\" This was a treatise on light,\nillustrated, as was his treatise on magnetism, by many original\nexperiments and demonstrations.\n\n{122}\n\nDuring the five years until 1650 the department of acoustics came\nunder his consideration, so that in that year we have from his pen a\ntreatise called \"Musurgia Universalis,\" with the subtitle, \"The Art of\nHarmony and Discord; a treatise on the whole doctrine of sound with\nthe philosophy of music treated from the standpoint of practical as\nwell as theoretic science.\" During the next five years astronomy was\nhis special hobby, and the result was in 1656 a treatise on astronomy\ncalled \"Iter Celeste.\" This contained a description of the earth and\nthe heavens and discussed the nature of the fixed and moving stars,\nwith various considerations as to the composition and structure of\nthese bodies. A second volume on this subject appeared in 1660.\n\nThe variety of Father Kircher's interests in science was not yet\nexhausted, however. Five years after the completion of his two volumes\non astronomy there came one on \"Mundus Subterraneus.\" This treated of\nthe modern subjects of geology, metallurgy, and mineralogy, as well as\nthe chemistry of minerals. It also contained a treatise on animals\nthat live under the ground, and on insects. This was considered one of\nthe author's greatest books, and the whole of it was translated into\nFrench, whilst abstracts from it, especially the chapters on poisons,\nappeared in most of the other languages of Europe. Part of it was\ntranslated even into English, though seventeenth-century Englishmen\nwere loath to draw their inspiration from Jesuit writers.\n\n{123}\n\nJesuits were, however, at this time generally acknowledged on the\nContinent to be leaders in every department of thought, sympathetic\ncoadjutors in every step in scientific progress. Strange as it may\nappear to those who will not understand the Jesuit spirit of love for\nlearning, two of the most distinguished scientists whose names are\nimmortal in the history of physical sciences in different departments\nduring this century, Kepler and Harvey, were on intimate terms of\nfriendship with the Jesuits of Germany. Harvey, on the occasion of a\nvisit to the Continent, stopped for a prolonged visit with the Jesuits\nat Cologne, so that some of his English friends joked him about the\npossibility of his making converts of the Jesuits. These witticisms,\nhowever, did not seem to distract Harvey very much, for he returned on\na subsequent occasion to spend some further days with his Jesuit\nscientific friends along the Rhine.\n\nIn the meantime Father Kircher was issuing notable books on his always\nfavorite subject of the Oriental languages. In 1650 there appeared\n\"Obeliscus Pamphilius,\" containing an explanation of the hieroglyphics\nto be found on the obelisk which by the order of Innocent X, a member\nof the Pamfili family, was placed in the Piazza Navona by Bernini.\nThis is no mere pamphlet, as might be thought, but a book of 560\npages. In 1652 there appeared \"OEdipus AEgyptiacus,\" that is, the\nrevealer of the sphinx-like riddle of the Egyptian ancient languages.\nIn 1653 a second volume of this appeared, and in 1655 a third {124}\nvolume. It was considered so important that it was translated into\nRussian and other Slav languages, besides several other European\nlanguages. His book, \"Lingua AEgyptiaca Restituta,\" which appeared in\n1644, when Kircher was forty-two years of age, is considered to be of\nvalue yet in the study of Oriental languages, and was dedicated to the\npatron, Emperor Ferdinand III, whose liberality made its publication\npossible.\n\nIt is often a subject for conjecture just how science was studied and\ntaught in centuries before the nineteenth, and just what text-books\nwere employed. A little familiarity with Father Kircher's\npublications, however, will show that there was plenty of very\nsuitable material for text-books to be found in his works. Under his\nown direction, what at the present time would be called a text-book of\nphysics, but which at that time was called \"Physiologia\nExperimentalis,\" was issued, containing all the experimental and\ndemonstrative parts of his various books on chemistry, physics, music,\nmagnetism, and mechanics, as well as acoustics and optics. This formed\nthe groundwork of most text-books of science for a full century\nafterwards. Indeed, until the beginning of the distinctly modern\nscience of chemistry with the discoveries of Priestley and Lavoisier,\nthere was to be little added of serious import in science.\n\nPerhaps the most commendable feature of Father Kircher's books is the\nfact that he himself seems never to have considered that he had {125}\nexhausted a subject. The first work he published was on magnetism.\nSome twelve years later he returned to the subject, and wrote a more\nextensive work, containing many improvements over the first volume.\nThe same thing is true of his studies in sound. In 1650, when not\nquite fifty years of age, he issued his \"Musurgia Universalis,\" a\nsub-title of which stated that it contains the whole doctrine of sound\nand the practical and theoretical philosophy of music. A little over\ntwenty years later, however, he published the \"Phonurgia Nova,\" the\nsub-title of which showed that it was mainly concerned with the\nexperimental demonstration of various truths in acoustics and with the\ndevelopment of the doctrine he had originally stated in the\n\"Musurgia.\"\n\nIt is no wonder that his contemporaries spoke of him as the _Doctor\ncentum artium_--the teacher of a hundred arts--for there was\npractically no branch of scientific knowledge in his time in which he\nwas not expert. Scientific visitors to Rome always considered it one\nof the privileges of their stay in the papal city to have the\nopportunity to meet Father Kircher, and it was thought a very great\nhonor to be shown through his museum by himself.\n\nOf course, it is difficult for present-day scientists to imagine a man\nexhausting the whole round of science in this way. Many who have read\nbut little more than the titles of Father Kircher's many books are\naccordingly prone to speak of him as a mine of information, but\nwithout any {126} proper critical judgment. He has succeeded,\naccording to them, in heaping together an immense amount of\ninformation, but it is of the most disparate value. There is no doubt\nthat he took account of many things in science that are manifestly\nabsurd. Astrology, for instance, had not, in his time, gone out of\nfashion entirely, and he refers many events in men's lives to the\ninfluence of the stars. He even made rules for astrological\npredictions, and his astronomical machine for exhibiting the motions\nof the stars was also meant to be helpful in the construction of\nastrological tables. It must not be forgotten, however, that in his\ntime the best astronomers, like Tycho Brahe and even Kepler, had not\nentirely given up the idea of the influence of the stars over man's\ndestiny.\n\nAs regards other sciences, there are details of information that may\nappear quite as superstitious as the belief in astrology. Kircher, for\ninstance, accepted the idea of the possibility of the transmutation of\nmetals. It is to be said, though, that all mankind were convinced of\nthis possibility, and indeed not entirely without reason. All during\nthe nineteenth century scientists believed very firmly in the absolute\nindependence of chemical elements and their utter\nnon-interchangeability. As the result of recent discoveries, however,\nin which one element has apparently been observed giving rise to\nanother, much of this doctrine has come to be considered as\nimprobable, and now the idea of possible transmutation of {127} metals\nand other chemical elements into one another appears not so absurd as\nit was half a century ago.\n\nAny one who will take up a text-book of science of a century ago will\nfind in it many glaring absurdities. It will seem almost impossible\nthat a scientific thinker, in his right senses, could have accepted\nsome of the propositions that are calmly set down as absolute truths.\nEvery generation has made itself ridiculous by knowing many things\n\"that are not so,\" and even ours is no exception. Father Kircher was\nnot outside this rule, though he was ahead of his generation in the\ncritical faculty that enabled him to eliminate many falsities and to\nilluminate half-truths in the science of his day.\n\nUndoubtedly the most interesting of Father Kircher's scientific books\nis his work On the Pest, with some considerations on its origin, mode\nof distribution, and treatment, which about the middle of the\nseventeenth century gathered together all the medical theories of the\ntimes as to the causation of contagious disease, discussed them with\ncritical judgment and reached conclusions which anticipate much of\nwhat is most modern in our present-day medicine. It is this work of\nFather Kircher's that is now most often referred to, and very\ndeservedly so, because it is one of the classics which represents a\nlandmark in knowledge for all time. It merits a place beside such\nbooks as Harvey on the Circulation of Blood, or even Vesalius on Human\n{128} Anatomy. As we have seen, it is now quoted from by our best\nrecent authorities who attempt seriously to trace the history of the\nmicrobic theory of disease, and its conclusions are the result of\nlogical processes and not the mere chance lighting upon truth of a\nmind that had the theories of the time before it. In it Father\nKircher's genius is best exhibited. It has the faults of his too ready\ncredibility; and his desire to discuss all possible phases of the\nquestion, even those which are now manifestly absurd, has led him into\nwhat prove to be useless digressions. But on the whole it represents\nvery well the first great example of the application of the principle\nof inductive science to modern medicine. All the known facts and\nobservations are collected and discussed, and then the conclusions are\nsuggested.\n\nIt is very interesting to trace the development of Father Kircher's\nideas with regard to the origin, causation, and communication of\ndisease, because in many points he so clearly anticipates medical\nknowledge that has only come to be definitely accepted in very recent\ntimes. It has often been pointed out that Sir Robert Boyle declared\nthat the processes of fermentation and those which brought about\ninfectious disease, were probably of similar nature, and that the\nscientist who solved the problem of the cause of fermentation would\nthrow great light on the origin of these diseases. This prophetic\nremark was absolutely verified when Pasteur, a chemist who had solved\nthe problem of fermentation, also solved {129} the weightier questions\nconnected with human diseases. Before even Boyle, however, Father\nKircher had expressed his opinion that disease processes were similar\nto those of putrefaction. He considered that putrefaction was due to\nthe presence of certain _corpuscula_, as he called them, and these he\nsaid were also probably active in the causation of infectious disease.\n\nHe was not sure whether or not these _corpuscula_ were living, in the\nsense that they could multiply of themselves. He considered, however,\nthat this was very probable. As to their distribution, he is\nespecially happy in his anticipations of modern medical progress.\nWhile he considered it very possible that they were carried through\nthe air, he gives it as his deliberate opinion that living things were\nthe most frequent agents for the distribution of the corpuscles of\ndisease. He is sure that they are carried by flies, for instance, and\nthat they may be inoculated by the stings of such insects as fleas or\nmosquitoes. He even gives some examples that he knew of in which this\nwas demonstrated. Still more striking is his insistence on the fact\nthat such a contagious disease as pest may be carried by cats and dogs\nand other domestic animals. The cat seemed to him to be associated\nwith special danger in this matter, and he gives an example of a\nnunnery which had carefully protected itself against possible\ninfection, but had allowed a cat to come in, with the result that some\ncases of the disease developed.\n\n{130}\n\nAn interesting bit of discussion is to be found in the chapter in\nwhich Father Kircher takes up the consideration of the problem whether\ninfectious disease can ever be produced by the imagination. He is\nspeaking particularly of the pest, but there is more than a suspicion\nthat under the name pest came at times of epidemics many of our modern\ncontagious diseases. Father Kircher says that there is no doubt that\nworry plays an important role in predisposing persons to take the\ndisease. He does not consider, however, that it can originate of\nitself, or be engendered in the person without contact with some\nprevious case of pest. With regard to the question of predisposition\nhe is very modern. He points out that many persons do not take the\ndisease, because evidently of some protective quality which they\npossess. He is sure, too, that the best possible protection comes from\nkeeping in good, general health.\n\nA curious suggestion is that with regard to the grave-diggers and\nundertakers. It has often been noted in Italy, so Father Kircher\nasserts, that these individuals as a rule did not succumb to the\ndisease, notwithstanding their extreme exposure, when the majority of\nthe population were suffering from it. Toward the end of the epidemic,\nhowever, at the time when the townspeople were beginning to rejoice\nover its practical disappearance, it was not unusual to have these\ncaretakers of the dead brought down with the disease--often, too, in\nfatal form. Father {131} Kircher considers that only strong and\nhealthy individuals would take up such an occupation. That the\nsatisfaction of accomplishing a large amount of work and making money\nkept them in good health. Later on, however, as the result of overwork\nduring the time of the epidemic and also of discouragement because\nthey saw the end of prosperous times for them, they became predisposed\nto the disease and then fell victims.\n\nWith regard to the prevention of the pest in individual cases, Father\nKircher has some very sensible remarks. He says that physicians as a\nrule depend on certain medicinal protectives or on amulets which they\ncarry. The amulets he considers to be merely superstitious. The\nsweet-smelling substances that are sometimes employed are probably\nwithout any preventive action. Certain physicians employed a\nprophylactic remedy made up of very many substances. This is what in\nmodern days we would be apt to call a \"gunshot prescription.\" It\ncontained so many ingredients that it was hoped that some one of them\nwould hit the right spot and prove effective. Father Kircher has\nanother name for it. We do not know whether it is original with him,\nbut in any case it is worth while remembering. He calls it a \"calendar\nprescription,\" because when written it resembled a list of the days of\nthe month.\n\nHis opinion of this \"calendar prescription\" is not very high. It seems\nto him that if one ingredient did good, most of the others would be\n{132} almost as sure to do harm. The main factor in prophylaxis to his\nmind was to keep in normal health, and this seemed not quite\ncompatible with frequent recourse to a prescription containing so many\ndrugs that were almost sure to have no good effect and might have an\nill effect. It is all the more interesting to find these common-sense\nviews because ordinarily Father Kircher is set down as one who\naccepted most of the traditions of his time without inquiring very\ndeeply into their origin or truth, simply reporting them out of the\nfulness of his rather pedantic information. In most cases it will be\nfound, however, that, like Herodotus, reporting the curious things\nthat had been told him in his travels, he is very careful to state\nwhat are his own opinions and what he owes to others and gives place\nto, though without attaching much credence to them.\n\nIt must not be forgotten that his great contemporaries, Von Helmont\nand Paracelsus, were not free from many of the curious scientific\nsuperstitions of their time, though they had, like him, in many\nrespects the true scientific spirit. Von Helmont, for instance, was a\nfirm believer in the doctrine of spontaneous generation, and even went\nso far as to consider that it had its application to animals of rather\nhigh order. For instance, one of his works contains a rather famous\nprescription to bring about the spontaneous generation of mice. What\nwas needed was a jar of meal kept in a dark corner covered by some\nsoiled linen. After three weeks these elements {133} would be found to\nhave bred mice. Too much must not be expected, then, of Kircher in the\nmatter of crediting supposedly scientific traditions.\n\nIt may seem surprising that Father Kircher's book did not produce a\ngreater impression upon the medical research work and teaching of the\nday and lead to an earlier development of microbiology. Unfortunately,\nhowever, the instruments of precision necessary for such a study were\nnot then at hand, and the gradual loss of prestige of the book is\ntherefore readily to be understood. The explanation of this delay in\nthe development of science is very well put by Crookshank, who is the\nprofessor of comparative pathology and bacteriology at King's College,\nLondon, and one of the acknowledged authorities on these subjects in\nthe medical world. Professor Crookshank says, at the beginning of the\nfirst chapter of his text-book on bacteriology, in which he traces the\norigin of the science, that the first attempt to demonstrate the\nexistence of the _contagium vivum_ dates back almost to the discovery\nof the microscope:--[Footnote 11]\n\n    [Footnote 11: _A Text-Book of Bacteriology_. Including the\n    Etiology and Prevention of Infectious Diseases By Edgar M.\n    Crookshank. Fourth Edition London, 1896]\n\n  Athanasius Kircher nearly two and a half centuries ago expressed his\n  belief that there were definite micro-organisms to which diseases\n  were attributable. The microscope had revealed that all decomposing\n  {134} substances swarmed with countless micro-organisms which were\n  invisible to the naked eye, and Kircher sought for similar organisms\n  in disease, which he considered might be due to their agency. The\n  microscopes which he describes obviously could not admit of the\n  possibility of studying or even detecting the micro-organisms which\n  are now known to be associated with certain diseases; and it is not\n  surprising that his teaching did not at the time gain much\n  attention. They were destined, however, to receive a great impetus\n  from the discoveries which emanated not long after from the father\n  of microscopy, Leeuwenhoek.\n\nThis reference to Kircher's work, however, shows that more cordial\nappreciation of his scientific genius has come in our day, and it\nseems not unlikely that in the progress of more accurate and detailed\nknowledge of scientific origins his reputation will grow as it\ndeserves. With that doubtless will come a better understanding of the\ntrue attitude of the scholars of the time--so many of whom were\nchurchmen--to so-called physical science in contradistinction to\nphilosophy, in which of course they had always been profoundly\ninterested. The work done by Kircher could never have been\naccomplished but for the sympathetic interest of those who are falsely\nsupposed to have been bitterly opposed to all progress in the natural\nsciences, but whose opposition was really limited to theoretic phases\nof scientific inquiry that threatened, as has scientific theory so\noften since, to prove directly contradictory to revealed truth.\n\n\n{135}\n\nVI.\n\nBISHOP STENSEN: ANATOMIST AND FATHER OF GEOLOGY.\n\n{136}\n\nGod makes sages and saints that they may be fountain-heads of wisdom\nand virtue for all who yearn and aspire: and whoever has superior\nknowledge or ability is thereby committed to more effectual and\nunselfish service of his fellow-men. If the love of fame be but an\ninfirmity of noble souls, the craving of professional reputation is\nbut conceit and vanity. To be of help, and to be of help not merely to\nanimals, but to immortal, pure, loving spirits this is the noblest\nearthly fate.--BISHOP SPALDING: _The Physician's Calling and\nEducation_.\n\n\n\n[Illustration: NICOLAUS STENONIS]\n\n\n{137}\n\nVI.\n\nBISHOP STENSEN, ANATOMIST AND FATHER OF GEOLOGY.\n\nIn the sketch of the life of Father Athanasius Kircher, the\ndistinguished Jesuit scientist, mathematician, and Orientalist, I\ncalled attention to the fact that, at the very time when Galileo was\ntried and condemned at Rome, because of his abuse of Scripture for the\ndemonstration of scientific thesis, a condemnation which has been\noften since proclaimed to be due to the Church's intolerant opposition\nto science, the ecclesiastical authorities at Rome invited Father\nKircher, who was at that time teaching mathematics in Germany, to come\nto Rome, and during the next half-century encouraged him in every way\nin the cultivation of all the physical sciences of the times. It was\nto popes and cardinals, as well as to influential members of his own\norder of the Jesuits, that Father Kircher owed his opportunities for\nthe foundation of a complete and magnificent museum, illustrating many\nphases of natural science--the first of its kind in the world, and\nwhich yet continues to be one of the noteworthy collections.\n\nDuring the decade in which the condemnation of Galileo and the\ninvitation of Father Kircher to Rome took place, there was born, at\n{138} Copenhagen, a man whose career of distinction in science was to\nprove even more effectively than that of Kircher, if possible, that\nthere was no opposition in ecclesiastical circles in Italy, during\nthis century, to the development of natural science even in\ndepartments in respect to which the Church has, over and over again,\nbeen said to be specially intolerant. This scientist was Nicholas\nStensen, the discoverer of the duct of the parotid gland, which\nconducts saliva into the mouth, and the founder, in the truest sense\nof the word, of the modern science of geology. Stensen's discovery of\nthe duct which has since borne his name was due to no mere accident;\nfor he was one of the really great anatomists of all time, and one\ndistinguished particularly for his powers of original observation and\ninvestigation. To have the two distinctions, then, of a leader in\nanatomy and a founder in geology, stamps him as one of the supreme\nscientific geniuses of all time, a man not only of a fruitfully\ninquiring disposition of mind, but also one who possessed a very\ndefinite realization of how important for the cause of scientific\ntruth is the necessity of testing all ideas with regard to things\nphysical, by actual observations of nature and by drawing conclusions\nnot wider than the observed facts.\n\nNotwithstanding this characteristically scientific temper of mind,\nwhich, according to most modern ideas, at least, would seem to be sure\nto lead him away from religious truth, Stensen at the {139} very\nheight of his career as a scientist, while studying anatomy and\ngeology in Italy, became a convert from Lutheranism, in which he had\nbeen born, to Catholicity, and thereafter made it one of the prime\nobjects of his life to bring as many others as possible of the\nseparated brethren into the fold of the Church. When he accepted the\nprofessorship of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen, it was with\nthe definite idea that he might be able to use the influence of his\nposition to make people realize how much of religious truth there was\nin the old Church from which they had been separated in the preceding\ncentury. After a time, however, his zeal led him to resign his\nposition, and ask to be made a priest, in order that he might be able\nmore effectively to fulfil what he now considered the main purpose of\nhis life, the winning of souls to the Church. As, since his\nconversion, he had given every evidence of the most sincere piety and\nhumble simplicity, his desires were granted. His book on geology,\nhowever, was partly written during the very time when he was preparing\nfor sacred orders, and was warmly welcomed by all his Catholic\nfriends. After spending some time as a missionary, and attracting a\ngreat deal of attention by his devout life and by the many friends and\nconverts he succeeded in making, the recently converted Duke of\nHanover asked that the zealous Danish convert should be made bishop of\nhis capital city. This request was immediately granted, and Stensen\nspent several years {140} in the hardest missionary labor in his new\nfield. As a matter of fact, his labors proved too much for his rather\ndelicate constitution, and he died at the comparatively early age of\nforty-eight. The visitor to the University of Copenhagen marvels to\nfind among the portraits of her professors of anatomy one in the robes\nof a Roman Catholic bishop. This is Stensen. In 1881, when the\nInternational Geographical Congress met at Bologna, it adjourned at\nthe end of the session to Florence to unveil a bust of Stensen, over\nhis tomb there. Here evidently is a man whose life is well worth\nstudying, because of all that it means for the history of his time.\n\nNicholas Stensen--or, as he is often called, Steno, because this is\nthe Latin form of his name, and Latin was practically exclusively\nused, during his age, in scientific circles all over Europe--was born\n20 January, 1638, in Copenhagen. His father died while he was\ncomparatively young, and his mother married again, both her husbands\nbeing goldsmiths in high repute for their skill, and both of them in\nrather well-to-do circumstances. His early education was obtained at\nCopenhagen, and the results displayed in his attainments show how well\nit must have been conducted. Later in life he spoke and wrote Latin\nvery fluently and had, besides, a very thorough knowledge of Greek and\nof Hebrew. Of the modern languages, German, French, Italian, and Low\nDutch he knew very well, mainly from residence in the various\ncountries in which they {141} are spoken. A more unusual attainment at\nthat time, and one showing the ardor of his thirst for knowledge, was\nan acquaintance with English. In early life he was especially fond of\nmathematics and, indeed, it was almost by accident that this did not\nbecome his chosen field of educational development.\n\nAt eighteen he became a student of the University of Copenhagen, and\nafter some preliminary studies in philosophy and philology devoted\nhimself mainly to medicine. At this time the Danish University was\nespecially distinguished for its work in anatomy. The famous family of\nBartholini, who had for several generations been teaching there, had\nproved a copious source of inspiration for the students in their\ndepartment, and as a consequence original investigation of a high\norder, with enthusiasm for the development of anatomical science, had\nbecome the rule. The external situation was not favorable to learning,\nfor Denmark was engaged in harassing and costly wars during a\nconsiderable portion of the seventeenth century; yet the work\naccomplished here was, undoubtedly, some of the best in Europe. Young\nStensen had the advantage of having Thomas Bartholini as his\npreceptor, and soon, because of his enthusiasm for science, as friend\nand father.\n\nStensen had been at the University scarcely two years when the city of\nCopenhagen was besieged by the Swedes. Professor Lutz, of the\nUniversity of St. Louis, who has recently written {142} an article on\nStensen, which appeared in the _Medical Library and Historical\nJournal_ for July, 1904, says of this period:\n\n  A regiment of students numbering two hundred and sixty-six, called\n  \"the black coats\" on account of their dark clothes, was formed for\n  the defence of the city; upon its roster we find the name of young\n  Steno. During the day they were at work mending the ramparts, and\n  the nights were spent in repelling the attacks of the enemy. In the\n  course of this long siege, the city was compelled to cope with a\n  more formidable enemy than the Swedes--famine with all its\n  horrors--before relief came in the shape of provisions and\n  reinforcements furnished by the Dutch fleet. Throughout these\n  turbulent days the student soldiers rendered valuable services to\n  their country, and though it be true that \"inter arma silent\n  musae\"--\"the war gods do not favor the muses\"--it appears\n  nevertheless that Steno attended the lectures and dissections which\n  were conducted by the teachers in the intervals when the student\n  were not on duty.\n\nAfter some three years spent at the University of Copenhagen, Stensen,\nas was the custom of the times, went to pursue his post-graduate\nstudies in a foreign university. Bartholini furnished him with a\nletter of recommendation to Professor Blasius, who was teaching\nanatomy at Amsterdam in Holland. Amsterdam had become famous during\nthe seventeenth century for the very practical character of its\nanatomical teaching. As the result of the cordial commendation of\nBartholini, Stensen became an inmate of the house of Professor\nBlasius, and was given {143} special opportunities to pursue his\nanatomical studies for himself. He had been but a very short time at\nAmsterdam, when he made the discovery to which his name has ever since\nbeen attached, that of the duct of the parotid gland. Stensen's\ndiscovery was made while he was dissecting the head of a sheep. He\nfound shortly afterwards, however, that the canal could be\ndemonstrated to exist in the dog, though it was not so large a\nstructure. Blasius seems to have been rather annoyed at the fact that\na student, just beginning work with him, should make so important a\ndiscovery, and wished to claim the honor of it for himself. There is\nno doubt, however, now, notwithstanding the discussion over the\npriority of the discovery which took place at the time, that Stensen\nwas the first to make this important observation.\n\nNot long before, Wharton, an English observer, had demonstrated the\nexistence of a canal leading from the submaxillary gland into the\nmouth. This might have been expected to lead to the discovery of other\nglandular ducts, but so far had not. As a matter of fact, the function\nof the parotid gland was not well understood at this time. During the\ndiscussion as to priority of discovery, Steno pointed out one fact\nwhich he very properly considers as the most conclusive proof that\nBlasius did not discover the duct of the gland. He says: \"Blasius\nshows plainly in his treatise 'De Medicina Generali' that he has never\nsought for the duct, for he does not assign {144} to it either the\nproper point of beginning or ending, and assigns to the parotid gland\nitself so unworthy a function as that of furnishing warmth to the ear,\nso that if I were not perfectly sure of having once shown him the duct\nmyself, I should be tempted to say that he had never seen it.\"\n\nBartholini settled the controversy, and at the same time removed any\ndiscouragement that might have arisen in his young pupil's mind, by\nwriting to him:--\n\n  Your assiduity in investigating the secrets of the human body, as\n  well as your fortunate discoveries, are highly praised by the\n  learned of your country. The fatherland congratulates itself upon\n  such a citizen, I upon such a pupil, through whose efforts anatomy\n  makes daily progress, and our lympathic vessels are traced out more\n  and more. You divide honors with Wharton, since you have added to\n  his internal duct an external one, and have thereby discovered the\n  sources of the saliva concerning which many have hitherto dreamed\n  much, but which no one has (permit the expression) pointed out with\n  the finger. Continue, my Steno, to follow the path to immortal glory\n  which true anatomy holds out to you.\n\nUnder the stimulus of such encouragement, it is no wonder that Stensen\ncontinued his original work with eminent success. He published an\nextensive article on the glands of the eye and the vessels of the\nnose.\n\nBartholini wrote to him again: \"Your fame is growing from day to day,\nfor your pen and your sharp eye know no rest.\" Later he wrote {145}\nagain: \"You may count upon the favor of the king as well as upon the\napplause of the learned.\" After three years at the University of\nAmsterdam, Steno returned to Copenhagen, where he published his\n\"Anatomical Observations Concerning the Muscles and Glands.\" It was in\nthis book that he announced his persuasion that the heart was a\nmuscle. As he said himself, \"the heart has been considered the seat of\nnatural warmth, the throne of the soul; but if you examine it more\nclosely, it turns out to be nothing but a muscle. The men of the past\nwould not have been so grossly mistaken with regard to it, had they\nnot preferred their imaginary theories to the results of the simple\nobservation of nature.\" It is easy to understand that this observation\ncreated a very great sensation. It had much to do with overthrowing\ncertain theoretic systems of medicine, and nearly a century later the\ndistinguished physiologist, Haller, did not hesitate to proclaim the\nvolume in which it occurs, as a \"golden book.\"\n\nStensen's studies in anatomy stamp him as an original genius of a high\norder, and this is all the more remarkable because his career occurs\njust in those years when there were distinguished discoverers in\nanatomy in every country in Europe. When Stensen began his work in\nanatomy, Harvey was still alive. The elder Bartholini, the first who\never established an anatomical museum, was another of his\ncontemporaries. Among the names of distinguished anatomists {146} with\nwhom Stensen was brought intimately in contact during the course of\nhis studies in Holland, France and Italy are those of Swammerdam, Van\nHorne, and Malpighi. There is no doubt that his intercourse with such\nmen sharpened his own intellectual activity, and increased his\nenthusiasm for original investigation in contradistinction to the mere\naccumulation of information.\n\nHis contemporaries, indeed, exhausted most of the adjectives of the\nLatin language in trying to express their appreciation of his acuity\nof observation. He was spoken of as _oculatissimus_--that is, as\nbeing all eyes, _subtilissimus, acutissimus, sagacissimus_ in his\nknowledge of the human body, and as the most perspicacious anatomist\nof the time. Leibnitz and Haller were in accord in considering him one\nof the greatest of anatomists. In later years this admiration for\nStensen's genius has not been less enthusiastically expressed. Haeser,\nin his \"History of Medicine,\" the third edition of which appeared at\nJena in 1879, says: \"Among the greatest anatomists of the seventeenth\ncentury belongs Nicholas Steno, the most distinguished pupil of Thomas\nBartholini. Steno was rightly considered in his own time as one of the\ngreatest of anatomical discoverers. There is scarcely any part of the\nhuman body the knowledge of which was not rendered more complete by\nhis investigations.\"\n\nThe most valuable discovery made by Stensen was undoubtedly that the\nheart is a muscle. It {147} must not be forgotten that in his time,\nHarvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood was not yet\ngenerally accepted; indeed, there were many who considered the theory\n(as they called it) of the English investigator as one of the passing\nfads of medicine. Two significant discoveries, made after Harvey,\nserved, however, to establish the theory of the circulation of the\nblood on a firm basis and to make it a definite medical doctrine. The\nmost important of these was Malpighi's discovery that the\ncapillaries--that is, the minute vessels at the end of the arterial\ntree on the surface of the body and in various organs--served as the\ndirect connexion between the veins and the arteries. This demonstrated\njust how the blood passed from the arterial to the venous system.\nScarcely less important, however, for the confirmation of Harvey's\nteaching was Stensen's demonstration of the muscular character of the\ntissue of the heart.\n\nSome of his observations upon muscles are extremely interesting, and,\nthough he made many mistakes in explaining their function, he added\nnot a little to the anatomical and physiological knowledge of the time\nin their regard. He seems to have been one of the first to recognize\nthe fact that in the higher animals the heart may continue to beat for\na considerable time after the animal is apparently dead; and, indeed,\nthat by irritation of the removed heart, voluntary contractions may be\nbrought about which will continue spontaneously for some moments.\n\n{148}\n\nWith regard to the objections made by some, that such studies as these\nupon muscles could scarcely be expected to produce any direct result\nfor the treatment of disease, or in the ordinary practice of medicine,\nStensen said in reply that it is only on the basis of the anatomical,\nphysiological, and pathological observation that progress in medicine\nis to be looked for. In spite, then, of the discouragement of the\nmany, who look always for immediate practical results, Stensen\ncontinued his investigation, and even proposed to make an extended\nstudy of the mechanism of the muscular action.\n\nIn the meantime, however, there had gradually been coming into his\nlife another element which was to prove more absorbing than even his\nzeal for scientific discovery. It is this which constitutes the\nessential index of the man's character and has been sadly\nmisunderstood by many of his biographers.\n\nSir Michael Foster, of Cambridge, England, in his \"Lectures on the\nHistory of Physiology,\" originally delivered as the Lane Lectures at\nCooper Medical College, San Francisco, said:--\n\n  While thus engaged, still working at physiology, Stensen turned his\n  versatile mind to other problems, as well as to those of comparative\n  anatomy, and especially to those of the infant, indeed hardly as yet\n  born, science of geology. His work \"De solido intra solidum\" is\n  thought by geologists to be a brilliant effort toward the beginning\n  of their science\n\n  In 1672 he returned for a while to his native city of {149}\n  Copenhagen, but within two years he was back again at Florence; and\n  then there came to him, while as yet a young man of some thirty-six\n  summers, a sudden and profound change in his life.\n\n  In his early days he had heard much, too much perhaps, of the\n  doctrines of Luther. Probably he had been repelled by the austere\n  devotion which ruled the paternal roof. And, as his answer to\n  Bossuet shows, his university life and studies, his intercourse with\n  the active intellects of many lands, and his passion for inquiry\n  into natural knowledge, had freed him from passive obedience to\n  dogma. He doubtless, as did many others of his time, looked upon\n  himself as one of the enlightened, as one raised above the barren\n  theological questions which were moving the minds of lesser men\n\nYet it was out of this sceptical state of mind, that life in Italy and\nintimate contact with ecclesiastics and religious, so often said to be\nlikely not to have any such effect, brought this acute scientific mind\ninto the Catholic Church. Nor did he become merely a formal adherent,\nbut an ardent believer, and then an enthusiastic proselytizer. One\nAmerican writer of a history of medicine, in his utter failure to\ncomprehend or sympathize with the change that came over Stensen,\nspeaks of him as having become at the end of his life a mere\n\"peripatetic converter of heretics.\" This phase of Stensen's life has,\nhowever, as ample significance as any that preceded it.\n\nSteno's expectations of the professorship of anatomy at Copenhagen\nwere disappointed, but the appointment went to Jacobson, whose work\nindeed is scarcely less distinguished than that of {150} his\nunsuccessful rival. The next few years Stensen passed in Paris, where\nhe was assiduous in making dissections, and where he attracted much\nattention; and then, somewhat later, in Italy; in 1665 and 1666 he was\nin Rome. Thence he went to Florence, in order to perfect himself in\nItalian. The next few years he spent in this city, having received the\nappointment of body physician to the Grand Duke, as well as an\nappointment of visiting physician, as we would call it now, to the\nHospital of Santa Maria Nuova.\n\nIt was while at Florence that the whole current of Stensen's life was\nchanged by his conversion to Catholicity. His position as physician to\nthe Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova brought him frequently into the\napothecary shop attached to the hospital. As a result he came to know\nvery well the religious in charge of the department, Sister Maria\nFlavia, the daughter of a well-known Tuscan family. At this time she\nhad been for some thirty-five years a nun. Before long she learned\nthat the distinguished young physician, at this time scarcely thirty\nyears of age, who was such a pleasant gentleman in all his ways, was a\nLutheran. She began, as she told afterwards, first by prayer, and then\nby friendly suggestions, to attempt to win him to the Catholic Church.\nStensen, who seems already to have been well-disposed toward the\nChurch, and who had always been known for a wonderful purity of heart\nand simplicity of character, listened very willingly to the naive\nwords of the {151} old religious, who might very well have been his\nmother.\n\nMany years later, by the command of her confessor, the good Sister\nrelated the detailed story of his conversion. She began very simply by\ntelling him one day that if he did not accept the true Catholic faith,\nhe would surely go to hell. He listened to this without any\nimpatience, and she said it a number of other times, half jokingly\nperhaps, but much more than half in earnest. As he listened so kindly,\nshe said to him one day that he must pray every day to God to let him\nknow the truth. This he promised to do and, as she found out from his\nservant (what is it these nuns do not find out?) he did pray every\nevening. One day, while he was in the apothecary shop, the Angelus\nbell rang, and she asked him to say the Angelus. He was perfectly\nwilling to say the first part of the Hail Mary, but he did not want to\nsay the second part, as he did not believe in the invocation of the\nBlessed Virgin and the saints. Then she asked him to visit the Church\nof the Blessed Virgin, the Santissima Nunziata, which he did. After\nthis she suggested to him that he should abstain from meat on Fridays\nand Saturdays, which he promised to do, and which the good nun found\nout once more from his servant, he actually did do. And then the\nreligious thought it was time to suggest that he should consult a\nclergyman, and his conversion was not long delayed.\n\nYoung Stensen seems to have been the object {152} of solicitude on the\npart of a number of the good, elderly women with whom he was brought\nin contact. He discussed with Signora Arnolfini the great difficulty\nhe had in believing the mystery of the Eucharist. Another good woman,\nthe Signora Lavinia Felice, seeing how interested he was in things\nCatholic, succeeded in bringing him to the notice of a prominent\nJesuit in Florence. As his friend, Sister Maria Flavia, had\nrecommended the same Father to him, he followed the advice all the\nmore readily, and it was not long before his last doubts were solved.\n\nIt was after his conversion that Stensen received his invitation to\nbecome the professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen. Much\nas he had become attached to Florence, the thought of returning to his\nnative city was sweet; and then besides he hoped that he might be able\nto influence his countrymen in their views toward the Catholic Church.\nIt was not long, however, before the bigotry of his compatriots made\nlife so unpleasant for him in Copenhagen that he resigned his position\nand returned to Italy. Various official posts in Florence were open\nfor him, but now he had resolved to devote himself to the service of\nthe Church, and so he became a priest. His contemporary, the Cardinal\nArchbishop of Florence, said with regard to him: \"Already as a member\nof a Protestant sect he had lived a life of innocence and had\npractised all the moral virtues. After his conversion he had marked\nout for himself so severe a method of life and had {153} remained so\ntrue to it that in a very short time he reached a high degree of\nperfection.\" The Archbishop does not hesitate to say that he had\nbecome a man of constant union with God and entirely dead to himself.\nThere was very little hesitation, then, in accepting him as a\ncandidate for the priesthood, and as his knowledge of theology was\nvery thorough, most of the delay in raising him to that dignity came\nfrom his own humility and his desire to prepare himself properly for\nthe privilege. He made the exercises of St. Ignatius as part of his\npreparation, and after his ordination it was a source of remark with\nhow much devotion he said his first and all succeeding Masses. It was\nnot long before the piety of Stensen's life attracted great attention.\nAt this time he was in frequent communication with such men as Spinoza\nand Leibnitz, the distinguished philosophers. It is curious to think\nof the ardent mystic, the pantheistic philosopher, and the speculative\nscientist, so different in character, having many interests in common.\n\nIt was during these years in Italy that Stensen did what must be\nconsidered, undoubtedly, his most important work, even more important,\nif possible, than his anatomical discoveries. This was his foundation\nof the science of geology. As has been well said in a prominent\ntext-book of geology, his book on this subject sets him in that group\nof men who as prophets of science often run far ahead of their times\nto point out the path which later centuries will follow in the road of\n{154} knowledge. It is rather surprising to find that the seventeenth\ncentury must enjoy the privilege of being considered the cradle of\ngeological knowledge. There is no doubt, however, that the great\nprinciples of the science were laid down in Stensen's little book,\nwhich he intended only to be an introduction to a more extensive work,\nbut the latter was unfortunately never completed, nor, indeed, so far\nas we are able to decide now, ever seriously begun.\n\nOne of the basic principles of the science of geology Stensen taught\nas follows: \"If a given body of definite form, produced according to\nthe laws of nature, be carefully examined, it will show in itself the\nplace and manner of its origin.\" This principle he showed would apply\nso comprehensively that the existence of many things, hitherto\napparently inexplicable, became rather easy of solution. It must not\nbe forgotten that before this time two explanations for the existence\nof peculiar bodies, or of ordinary bodies, in peculiar places, had\nbeen offered. According to one school of thought, the fossils found\ndeep in the earth, or sometimes in the midst of rocks, had been\ncreated there. It was as if the creative force had run beyond the\nordinary bounds of nature and had produced certain things, ordinarily\nassociated with life, even in the midst of dead matter. The other\nexplanation suggested was that the flood had in its work of\ndestruction upon earth caused many anomalous displacements of living\nthings, and had buried some of the {155} animals under such\ncircumstances that later they were found even beneath rocks, or deep\ndown in the earth, far beyond where the animals could be supposed to\nhave penetrated by any ordinary means during life.\n\nStensen had observed very faithfully the various strata that are to be\nfound wherever special appearances of the earth's surface were\nexposed, or wherever deep excavations were made. His explanation of\nhow these various strata are formed will serve to show, perhaps better\nthan anything else, how far advanced he was in his realization of\nideas that are supposed to belong only to modern geology. He said:\n\"The powdery layers of the earth's surface must necessarily at some\ntime have been held in suspension in water, from which they were\nprecipitated by their own weight. The movement of the fluid scattered\nthe precipitate here and there and gave to it a level surface.\"\n\n\"Bodies of considerable circumference,\" Stensen continues, \"which are\nfound in the various layers of the earth, followed the laws of gravity\nas regards their position and their relations to one another. The\npowdery material of the earth's strata took on so completely the form\nof the bodies which it surrounded that even the smallest apertures\nbecame filled up and the powdery layer fitted accurately to the\nsurface of the object and even took something of its polish.\"\n\nWith regard to the composition of the various strata of the earth, the\nfather of geology {156} considered that if in a layer of rock all the\nportions are of the same kind there is no reason to deny that such a\nlayer came into existence at the time of creation, when the whole\nsurface of the earth was covered with fluid. If, however, in any one\nstratum portions of another stratum are found, or if the remains of\nplants or animals occur, there is no doubt that such a stratum had not\nits origin at the time of creation, but came into existence later.\n\nIf there is to be found in a stratum traces of sea salt, or the\nremains of sea animals, or portions of vessels, or such like objects,\nwhich are only to be encountered at the bottom of the sea, then it\nmust be considered that this portion of the earth's surface once was\nbelow the sea level, though it may happen that this occurred only by\nthe accident of a flood of some kind. The great distance from the sea,\nor other body of water, at the present time, may be due to the sinking\nof the water level in the neighborhood, or by the rising up of a\nmountain from some internal terrestrial cause in the interval of time.\nHe continues:--\n\n  If one finds in any layer remains of branches of trees, or herbs,\n  then it is only right to conclude that these objects were brought\n  together because of flood or of some such condition in the place\n  where they are now found. If in a layer coal and ashes and burnt\n  clay or other scorched bodies are found, then it seems sure that\n  some place in the neighborhood of a watercourse a fire took place,\n  and this is all the more sure when the whole layer consists of ashes\n  and {157} coal. Whenever in the same place the material of which all\n  the layers is composed is the same, there seems to be no doubt that\n  the fluid to which the stratum owes its origin did not at different\n  times obtain different material for its building purposes.\n\nIn respect to the mountains and their formation, Stensen said very\ndefinitely:--\n\n  All the mountains which we see now have not existed from the\n  beginning of things. Mountains do not, however, grow as do plants.\n  The stones of which mountains are composed have only a certain\n  analogy with the bones of animals, but have no similarity in\n  structure or in origin, nor have they the same function and purpose.\n  Mountain ranges, or chains of mountains as some prefer to call them,\n  do not always run in certain directions, though this has sometimes\n  been claimed. Such claims correspond neither to reason nor to\n  observation. Mountains may be very much disturbed in the course of\n  years. Mountain peaks rise and fall somewhat. Chasms open and shut\n  here and there in them, and though there are those who pretend that\n  it is only the credulous who will accept the stories of such\n  happenings, there is no doubt that they have been established on\n  trustworthy evidence.\n\nIn the course of his observations in Italy, Stensen had seen many\nmussel shells, which had been gathered from various layers of the\nearth's surface. With regard to the shells themselves, he said that\nthere could be no doubt that they had come as the excretion of the\nmantle of the mussel, and that the differences that could be noted in\nthem were in accordance with the varying forms of these animals. He\npointed out, however, that some of the mussel shells found in {158}\nstrata of rock were really mussel shells in every respect as regards\nthe material of which they were composed as well as their interior\nstructure and their external form, so that there could be no possible\nquestion of their origin. On the other hand, a certain number of the\nso-called mussel shells were not composed of the ordinary materials of\nwhich such shells are usually made up; but had indeed only the\nexternal form of genuine shells. Stensen considered, however, that\neven these must be regarded as originating in real mussel shells, the\noriginal substance having been later on replaced by other material. He\nexplained this replacement process in very much the same way that we\nnow suggest the explanation of various processes of petrification.\nThere is no doubt that in this he went far beyond his contemporaries,\nand pointed out very clearly what was to be the teaching of\ngenerations long after his own.\n\nThe same principles he applied to mussel shells, Stensen considered\nmust have their application also to all other portions of animal\nbodies, teeth, bones, whole skeletons, and even more perishable animal\nmaterials that might be found buried in the earth's strata. His\ntreatment of the question of the remains of plants was quite as\nsatisfactory as that of the animals. He distinguished between the\nimpressions of plants, the petrification of plants, the carbonization\nof plants, and then dwelt somewhat on the tendency of certain minerals\nto form dendrites, that is, branching {159} processes which look not\nunlike plants. He pointed out how easy it is to be deceived by these\nappearances, and stated very clearly the distinction between real\nplants and such simulated ones.\n\nIt will be scarcely necessary for us to apologize for having given so\nmuch space to Stensen's work on geology. Many distinguished\nscientists, however, have insisted that no greater advance at the\nbirth of a science was ever made than that which Stensen accomplished\nin his geological work. Hoffman says that after carefully studying the\nwork, he has come to the conclusion that of the successors of Stensen,\nno student of the mountains down to Werner's day had succeeded in\ncomprehending so many fruitful points of view in geology. None of his\ngreat successors in geology has succeeded in introducing so many new\nideas into the science as the first great observer. For several\ncenturies most of his successors in geology remained far behind him in\ncreative genius, and so there is little progress worth while noting in\nthe knowledge of the method of earth formation, until almost the\nbeginning of the nineteenth century, though his little book was\nwritten in 1668 and 1669.\n\nLeibnitz regretted very much that Stensen did not complete his work on\ngeology as he originally intended. Had he succeeded in gathering\ntogether all of his original observations, illustrated by the material\nhe had collected, his work would have had much greater effect. As it\nwas, the golden truth which he had expressed in such {160} few words,\nwithout being able always to state just how he had come to his\nconclusions, was only of avail to science in a limited way. Men had to\nrepeat his observations long years afterwards in order to realize the\ntruth of what he had laid down. Leibnitz considered that it took more\nthan a century for geological science to reach the point at which it\nhad been left by Steno's work, and which he had reached at a single\nbound. There is scarcely a single modern geologist interested at all\nin the history of the science who has not paid a worthy tribute to\nSteno's great basic discoveries in the science. It was not a matter\nfor surprise, then, that the International Congress of Geologists\nwhich met at Bologna in 1881 assembled at his tomb in Florence in\norder to do him honor, after the regular sessions of the Congress had\nclosed. They erected to his memory a tablet with the following\nscription:\n\n  \"Nicolae Stenonis imaginem vides hospes quam aere collato docti\n  amplius mille ex universo terrarum orbe insculpendam curarunt in\n  memoriam ejus diei IV cal. Octobr. an. MDCCCLXXXI quo geologi post\n  conventum Bononiae habitum praeside Joanne Capellinio equite hue\n  peregrinati sunt atque adstantibus legatis flor Municipii et R.\n  Instituti Altiorum doctrinarum cineres viri inter geologos et\n  anatomicos praestantissimi in hujus templi hypogaeo laurea corona\n  honoris gratique animi ergo honestaverunt.\" [Footnote 12]\n\n    [Footnote 12: You behold here, traveller, the bust of Nicholas\n    Steno as it was set up by more than a thousand scientists from all\n    over the world, as a memorial to him, on the fourth of the Kalends\n    of October, 1881. The geologists of the world, after their meeting\n    in Bologna, under the presidency of Count John Capellini, made a\n    pilgrimage to his tomb, and in the presence of the chosen\n    representatives of the municipality, and of the learned professors\n    of the University, honored the mortal ashes of this man,\n    illustrious among geologists and anatomists.]\n\n\n{161}\n\nStensen's work brought him in contact with some of the distinguished\nmen of the seventeenth century, all of whom learned to appreciate his\nbreadth of intelligence and acuity of judgment. We have already\nmentioned his epistolary relation with Spinoza, and have said\nsomething about the controversy with Leibnitz, into which, in spite of\nhis disinclination to controversy generally, he was drawn by the\ncircumstances of the time and the solicitation of friends. Another\ngreat thinker of the century with whom he was brought into intimate\nrelationship was Des Cartes, the distinguished philosopher. In fact,\nDes Cartes's system of thought influenced Stensen not a little, and he\nfelt, when describing the function of muscles in the human body, and\nespecially when he demonstrated that the heart was a muscle, that the\nmechanical notions he was thus introducing into anatomy were likely to\nprove confirmatory of Des Cartes's philosophic speculations. Almost\nmore than any other, Stensen was the father of many ideas that have\nsince become common, with regard to the physics of the human body and\nits qualities as a machine.\n\nWith his breadth of view, from familiarity {162} with the progress of\nscience generally in his time, Steno's discussions of the reason for\nthe lack of exact knowledge and for the prevalence of error, in spite\nof enthusiastic investigation, are worth while appreciating. He\nconsidered that the reason why so many portions of natural science are\nstill in doubt is that in the investigation of natural objects no\ncareful distinction is made between what is known to a certainty and\nwhat is known only with a certain amount of assurance. He discusses\nthe question of deductive and inductive science, and considers that\neven those who depend on experience will not infrequently be found in\nerror, because their conclusions are wider than their premises, and\nbecause it only too often happens that they admit principles as true\nfor which they have no sure evidence. Stensen considered it important,\ntherefore, not to hurry on in the explanation of things, but, so far\nas possible, to cling to old-time principles that had been universally\naccepted, since nearly always these would be found to contain fruitful\ngerms of truth.\n\nHe was universally acknowledged as one of the greatest original\nthinkers of his time, and his conversion to the Church did much to\ndissipate religious prejudices among those of German nationality. His\ninfluence over distinguished visitors who came to Florence, and who\nwere very glad to have the opportunity of making his acquaintance, was\nsuch that not a few Northern visitors became, like himself, converts\nto the Church.\n\n{163}\n\nIt was in the midst of this that the request of the Duke of Hanover\ncame that he should consent to become the bishop of his capital city.\nIt was only after Stensen had been put under holy obedience that he\nwould consent to accept the proffered dignity. His first thought was\nto distribute all his goods among the poor, and betake himself even\nwithout shoes on his feet, on a pedestrian journey to Rome. First,\nhowever, he made a pilgrimage to Loretto, where he arrived so overcome\nby the fatigue of the journey that the clergyman who took care of him\nwhile there, insisted on his accepting a pair of shoes from him,\nthough he could not prevail upon him to travel in any other way than\non foot.\n\nHis first action, after his consecration as bishop, was to write a\nletter, sending his episcopal benediction to Sister Maria Flavia, to\nwhom he felt he owed the great privilege of his life. His lasting\nsense of satisfaction and consolation in his change of religion may be\nappreciated from what is, perhaps, the most interesting personal\ndocument that we have from Stensen's own hand, in which, on the\neighteenth anniversary of his conversion, he writes to a friend to\ndescribe his feelings. \"To-morrow,\" he says, \"I shall finish, God\nwilling, the eighteenth year of my happy life as a member of the\nChurch. I wish to acknowledge once more my thankfulness for the part\nwhich you took under God in my conversion. As I hope to have the grace\nto be grateful to Him forever, so I sigh for the opportunity to\nexpress {164} my thankfulnes to you and your family. I can feel that\nmy own ingratitude toward God, my slowness in His service, make me\nunworthy of His graces; but I hope that you who have helped me to\nenter his service will not cease to pray, so that I may obtain pardon\nfor the past and grace for the future, in order in some measure to\nrepay all the favors that have been conferred on me.\"\n\nThe distinguishing characteristic of his life as a bishop was his\ninsistence on poverty as the principal element of his existence. He\nrefused to enter his diocese in state in the carriage which the Duke\noffered to provide for him, but proceeded there on foot. No question\nof supposed dignity could make him employ a number of servants, and\nhis only retainers were converts made by himself, who helped in the\nhousehold and whom he treated quite as equals. He became engaged in\none controversy on religious matters, but said that he did not\nconsider that converts had ever been made by controversies. He\ncompared it, indeed, to the gladiatorial contests in which the\ncontestants had their heads completely enveloped in armor, so as to\nprevent any possible penetration of the weapons of an opponent. He\ninsisted especially that in religious controversies the contending\nparties do not realize the significance given to words by each other,\nand that therefore no good can result.\n\nAfter a time, Stensen did not find his work in Hamburg very\nsatisfactory, because it was typically a missionary country, and the\nJesuit {165} missionaries who had been introduced were accomplishing\nall that could be hoped for. Accordingly, when the Duke of\nMecklenburg-Schwerin became a convert to the Catholic Church, and\nasked that Stensen should be sent as a bishop into his dukedom, the\nrequest was complied with. Here, in the hardest kind of labor as a\nmissionary, and in the midst of poverty that was truly apostolic,\nStensen worked out the remaining years of his life. At his death he\nwas looked upon as almost a saint. Notwithstanding his close\nrelationship with two reigning princes, he did not leave enough\npersonal effects to defray the expenses of his funeral. Besides his\nbishop's ring, and the very simple episcopal cross he wore, he had\nnothing of any value except some relics of St. Francis Xavier, St.\nIgnatius Loyola, and St. Philip Neri, which he had prized above all\nother treasures.\n\nHis missionary labors had not been marked by any very striking success\nin the number of converts made. In this his life would seem to have\nbeen a bitter personal disappointment. He never looked upon it as\nsuch, however, but continued to be eminently cheerful and friendly\nuntil the end. As a matter of fact, the influence of his career was to\nbe felt much more two centuries after his death than during his\nlifetime. At the present moment, his life is well known in northern\nGermany, thanks to the biographic sketch written by Father Plenkers\nfor the _Stimmen aus Maria Laach_, which has been very widely {166}\ncirculated since its appearance in 1884. Something of the reaction\namong scientific minds in Germany toward a healthier orthodoxy of\nfeeling, with regard to great religious questions, is undoubtedly due\nto the spread of the knowledge of the career of the great anatomist\nand geologist who gave up his scientific work for the sake of the\nspread of the higher truth.\n\nAfter his death the Medici family asked for and obtained the privilege\nof having his body buried in San Lorenzo at Florence, with the members\nof the princely Medici house. More and more do visitors realize that\nthe tablet over his remains chronicles the death of a man who was\nundoubtedly one of the world's great scientists, and one of the most\noriginal thinkers of his time, and that time a period greatly fertile\nin the history of science.\n\n{167}\n\nVII.\n\nABBE HAUeY, FATHER OF CRYSTALLOGRAPHY.\n\n\n{168}\n\nThey continue this day as they were created, perfect in number and\nmeasure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on\nthem we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in\nmeasurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we\nreckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are\nessential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning\ncreated not only heaven and earth, but the materials of which heaven\nand earth consist.--CLERK MAXWELL _On the Molecule_, \"Nature,\" Vol.\nVIII. 1873.\n\n\n\n[Illustration: RENE JUST HAUeY]\n\n\n{169}\n\nVII.\n\nABBE HAUeY, [Footnote 13] FATHER OF CRYSTALLOGRAPHY\n\n  [Footnote 13: Pronounced a-ue (Century Dictionary), Nearly\n  Represented By _ah-we_.]\n\nModern learning is gradually losing something of the self-complacency\nthat characterized it in so constantly harboring the thought that the\nmost important discoveries in physical science came in the nineteenth\ncentury. A more general attention to critical history has led to the\nrealization that many of the primal discoveries whose importance made\nthe development of modern science possible, came in earlier centuries,\nthough their full significance was not then fully appreciated. The\nfoundations of most of our modern sciences were, indeed, laid in the\neighteenth century, but some of them came much earlier. It is genius\nalone that is able to break away from established traditions of\nknowledge, and, stepping across the boundary into the unknown, blaze a\npath along which it will be easy for subsequent workers to follow.\nOnly in recent years has the due meed of appreciation for these great\npioneers become part of the precious traditions of scientific\nknowledge.\n\nWe have seen that clergymen were great original investigators in\nscience in the older times and we shall find, though it may be a\nsource of {170} astonishment to most people that even our modern\nscience has had some supreme original workers, during the last two\ncenturies, in the ranks of the Catholic clergy.\n\nThe eighteenth century was not behind the seventeenth in original\ncontributions made to science by clergymen. About the middle of the\ncentury, a Premonstratensian monk, Procopius Dirwisch by name, of the\nlittle town of Prenditz in Bohemia, demonstrated the identity of\nelectrical phenomena with lightning, thus anticipating the work of our\nown Franklin. Dirwisch dared to set up a lightning-conductor, by which\nduring thunderstorms he obtained sparks from clouds, and also learned\nto appreciate the danger involved in this experiment. When, in 1751,\nhe printed his article on this subject, he pointed out this danger.\nHis warning, however, was not always heeded, and at least one\nsubsequent experimenter was struck dead by a charge of electricity.\n\nJust at the junction of the last two centuries, Father Piazzi enriched\nthe realm of science by one of the most important of modern\ndiscoveries in astronomy. On the night of 31 December, 1800--1\nJanuary, 1801, he discovered the little planet Ceres. This was the\nfirst of the asteroids, so many more of which were to be revealed to\nastronomical study during the next half-century. Father Piazzi's\ndiscovery was made, not by accident, but as the result of detailed\nastronomical work of the most painstaking character. He {171} had set\nout to make a map of the heavens, and to determine and locate the\nabsolute position of all the visible stars. He had succeeded in\ncataloguing over 7,000 stars when his attention was called to one,\nhitherto supposed to be fixed, which he found had moved, during the\ninterval between two observations, from its original position. He made\nstill other observations, and thus determined the fact that it was a\nplanetoid and not a fixed star with which he had to deal. Needless to\nsay, his discovery proved a strong incentive to patient astronomical\nstudy of the same kind; and it is to these, rather than to great\nsingle discoveries, that we owe whatever progress in astronomy was\nmade during the nineteenth century.\n\nContemporary with both of these last-mentioned men, and worthy to\nshare in the scientific honors that were theirs, was the Abbe Hauey,\nwho toward the end of the second half of the eighteenth century\nfounded the science of crystallography; made a series of observations\nthe value of which can never be disputed, originated theories some of\nwhich have served down to our own time as the basis of crystal\nknowledge, and attracted the attention of many students to the new\nscience because of his charming personal character and his winning\nteaching methods. His life is a typical example of the value of work\ndone in patient obscurity, founded on observation, and not on\nbrilliant theories; and what he accomplished stamps him as one of the\ngreat {172} scientific geniuses of all time--one of the men who\nwidened the bounds of knowledge in directions hitherto considered\ninaccessible to the ordinary methods of human investigation.\n\nIt is a commonplace of the lecturer on popular science at the present\nday, that the impulse to the development of our modern scientific\ndiscoveries which became so marked toward the end of the eighteenth\ncentury, was due in a noteworthy degree to the work of the French\nEncyclopedists. Their bringing together of all the details of\nknowledge in a form in which it could be readily consulted, and in\nwhich previous progress and the special lines of advance could be\nrealized, might be expected to prove a fruitful source of suggestive\ninvestigation. As a matter of fact, however, a detailed knowledge of\nthe past in science often seems to be rather a hindrance than a help\nto original genius, always prone to take its own way if not too much\ndisturbed by the conventional knowledge already gained. Most of the\ngreat discoverers in science were comparatively young men when they\nbegan their careers as original investigators; and it was apparently\ntheir freedom from the incubus of too copious information that left\ntheir minds untrammelled to follow their own bent in seeking for\ncauses where others had failed to find any hints of possible\ndevelopments.\n\nThis was certainly the case with regard to many of those distinguished\nfounders who lived in centuries prior to the nineteenth. Most of {173}\nthem were men under thirty years of age, and not one of them had been\nnoted, before he began his own researches, for the extent of his\nknowledge in the particular department of science in which his work\nwas to prove so fruitful. Their lives illustrate the essential\ndifference there is between theory and observation in science. The\ntheorizer reaches conclusions that are popular as a rule in his own\ngeneration, and receives the honor due to a progressive scientist; the\nobserver usually has his announcements of what he has actually seen\nscouted by those who are engaged in the same studies, and it is only\nsucceeding generations who appreciate how much he really accomplished.\n\nThis was especially exemplified in the case of the Abbe Hauey, whose\nwork in crystallography was to mean so much. What he learned was not\nfrom books, but from contact with the actual objects of his department\nof science; and it is because the example of a life like this can\nscarcely fail to serve a good purpose for the twentieth-century\nstudent, in impressing the lesson of the value of observation as\nopposed to theory, that its details are retold.\n\nRene Just Hauey was born 28 February, 1743, in the little village of\nSaint-Just, in the Department of Oise, somewhat north of the center of\nFrance. Like many another great genius, he was the son of very poor\nparents. His father was a struggling linen-weaver, who was able to\nsupport himself only with difficulty. At first {174} there seemed to\nbe no other prospect for his eldest son than to succeed to his\nfather's business. Certainly there seemed to be no possibility that he\nshould be able to gain his livelihood by any other means than by the\nwork of his hands.\n\nFortunately, however, there was in Hauey's native town a\nPremonstratensian monastery, and it was not long before some of the\nmonks began to notice that the son of the weaver was of an especially\npious disposition and attended church ceremonies very faithfully. The\nchance was given to him to attend the monastery school, and he\nsucceeded admirably in his studies. As a consequence, the prior had\nhis attention directed to the boy, and found in him the signs of a\nsuperior intelligence. He summoned the lad's parents and discussed\nwith them the possibility of obtaining for their son an education.\nThere were many difficulties in the way, but the principal one was\ntheir absolute financial inability to help him. If the son was to\nobtain an education, it must be somehow through his own efforts, and\nwithout any expense to his parents.\n\nThe prior thereupon obtained for young Hauey a position as a member of\na church choir in Paris; and, later, some of those to whom he had\nrecommended the boy secured for him a place in the college of Navarre.\nHere, during the course of a few years, he made such an impression\nupon the members of the faculty that they asked him to become one of\nthe teaching corps of the institution. It was a very modest position\nthat he {175} held, and his salary scarcely more than paid for his\nboard and clothes and a few books. Hauey was well satisfied, however,\nbecause his position provided him with opportunities for pursuing the\nstudies for which he cared most. At this time he was interested mainly\nin literature, and succeeded in learning several languages, which were\nto be of considerable use to him later on in his scientific career.\n\nAfter some years spent in the college of Navarre he was ordained\npriest, and not long afterward became a member of the faculty of the\ncollege of Cardinal Lemoine. Here his position was somewhat better,\nand he was brought in contact with many of the prominent scholars of\nParis. He seems, however, to have been quite contented in his rather\nnarrow circle of interests, and was not specially anxious to advance\nhimself. It is rather curious to realize that a man who was later to\nspend all his time in the pursuit of the physical sciences, knew\npractically nothing at all about them, and certainly had no special\ninterest in any particular branch of science, until he reached the age\nof almost thirty years.\n\nEven then his first introduction to serious science did not come\nbecause of any special interest that had been aroused in his own mind,\nbut entirely because of his friendship for a distinguished old\nfellow-professor, whose walks he used to share, and who was deeply\ninterested in botany. This was the Abbe Lhomond, a very {176}\nwell-known scholar, to whom we owe a number of classic text-books\narranged especially for young folk.\n\nThe Abbe's recreation consisted in botanizing expeditions; and Hauey,\nwho had chosen the kindly old priest as his spiritual director, was\nhis most frequent companion. Occasionally, when M. Lhomond was ailing,\nand unable to take his usual walks, Hauey spent the time with him. He\nrather regretted the fact that he did not know enough about botany to\nbe able to make collections of certain plants to bring to the\nprofessor at such times, in order that the latter might not entirely\nmiss his favorite recreation. Accordingly, one summer when he was on\nhis vacation at his country home, he asked one of the\nPremonstratensian monks, who was very much interested in botany, to\nteach him the principles of the science, so as to enable him to\nrecognize various plants. Of course his request was granted. He\nexpected to have a pleasant surprise for Abbe Lhomond on his return,\nand to draw even closer in his friendly relations with him, because of\ntheir mutual interest in what the old Abbe called his _scientia\namabilis_ (lovely science). His little plan worked to perfection, and\nthere was won for the study of physical science a new recruit, who was\nto do as much as probably any one of his generation to extend\nscientific knowledge in one department, though that department was\nrather distant from botany.\n\nHauey's interest in botany, however, was to {177} prove only temporary.\nIt brought him in contact with other departments of natural history,\nand it was not long before he found that his favorite study was that\nof minerals, and especially of the various forms of crystals. So\nabsorbed did he become in this subject that nothing pleased him better\nthan the opportunity to spend long days in the investigation of the\ncomparative size and shape of the crystals in the museum at Paris. A\nfriend has said of him that, whether they were the most precious\nstones and gems or the most worthless specimens of ordinary minerals,\nit was always only their crystalline shape that interested Hauey.\nDiamonds he studied, but only in order to determine their angles; and\napparently they had no more attraction for him than any other\nwell-defined crystal--much less, indeed, than some of the more complex\ncrystalline varieties, which attracted his interest because of the\ndifficulty of the problems they presented.\n\nLike many another advance in science, Hauey's first great original step\nin crystallography was the result of what would be called a lucky\naccident. These accidents, however, be it noted, happen only to\ngeniuses who are capable of taking advantage of them. How many a man\nhad seen an apple fall from a tree before this little circumstance\ngave Newton the hint from which grew, eventually, the laws of gravity!\nMany a man, doubtless, had seen little boys tapping on logs of wood,\nto hear how well sound was {178} carried through a solid body, without\ngetting from this any hint, such as Laennec derived from it, for the\ninvention of the stethoscope. So, too, many a person before Hauey's\ntime had seen a crystal fall and break, leaving a smooth surface,\nwithout deriving any hint for the explanation of the origin of\ncrystals.\n\nAccording to the familiar story, Hauey was one day looking over a\ncollection of very fine crystals in the house of Citizen Du Croisset,\nTreasurer of France. He was examining an especially fine specimen of\ncalcspar, when it fell from his hands and was broken. Of course the\nvisitor was much disturbed by this accident. His friend, however, in\norder to show him that he was not at all put out at the breaking of\nthe crystal, insisted on Hauey's taking it with him for purposes of\nstudy, as they had both been very much interested in the perfectly\nsmooth plane of the fracture. As Hauey himself says, this broken\nportion had a peculiarly brilliant lustre, \"polished, as it were by\nnature,\" as beautifully as the outer portions of the crystal; thus\ndemonstrating that in building up of so large a crystal there must\nhave been certain steps of progress, at any of which, were the\nformation arrested, smooth surfaces would be found.\n\nOn taking the crystal home, Hauey proceeded further to break up the\nsmaller fragment; and he soon found that he could remove slice after\nslice of it, until there was no trace of the original prism, but in\nplace of it a rhomboid, {179} perfectly similar to Iceland spar, and\nlying in the middle of what was the original prism. This fact seemed\nto him very important. From it he began the development of a theory of\ncrystallization, using this observation as the key. Before this time\nit had been hard for students of mineralogy to understand how it was\nthat substances of the same composition might yet have what seemed to\nbe different crystalline forms. Calcspar, for instance, might be found\ncrystallized in forms, apparently, quite at variance with one another.\n\nBy his studies, however, Hauey was able to determine that whenever\nsubstances of the same composition crystallized, even though the\nexternal form of the crystals seemed to be different, all of them were\nfound to have the same internal nucleus. Whenever the mineral under\nobservation was chemically different from another, then the nucleus\nalso had a distinctive character; and so there came the law that all\nsubstances of the same kind crystallized in the same way,\nnotwithstanding apparent differences. Indeed, one of the first results\nof this law was the recognition of the fact that when the crystalline\nforms of two minerals were essentially different, then, no matter how\nsimilar they might be, there was sure to be some chemical difference.\nThis enabled Hauey to make certain prophecies with regard to the\ncomposition of minerals.\n\nA number of different kinds of crystals had been classed together\nunder the name of {180} heavyspar. Some of these could not, by the\nsplitting process, be made to produce _nuclei_ of similar forms, and\nthe angles of the crystals were quite different. Hauey insisted that,\nin spite of close resemblances, there was an essential distinction in\nthe chemical composition of these two different crystalline\nformations; and before long careful investigation showed that, while\nmany of the specimens called heavyspar contain barium, some of them\ncontain a new substance--strontium--which had been very little\nstudied heretofore. This principle did not prove to be absolute in its\napplication; but the amount of truth in it attracted attention to the\nsubject of crystallography because of the help which that science\nwould afford in the easy recognition of the general chemical\ncomposition of mineral substances. The most important part of Hauey's\nwork was the annunciation of the law of symmetry. He emphasized the\nfact that the forms of crystals are not irregular or capricious, but\nare very constant and definite, and founded on absolutely fixed and\nascertainable laws. He even showed that, while from certain\ncrystalline nuclei sundry secondary forms may be derived, there are\nother forms that cannot by any possibility occur. Any change of\ncrystalline form noticed in his experiments led to a corresponding\nchange along all similar parts of the crystal. The angles, the edges,\nthe faces, were modified in the same way, at the same time. All these\nelements of mensuration within the crystal Hauey thought could be\nindicated by rational coefficients.\n\n{181}\n\nCrystallography, however, did not absorb all Hauey's attention. He\nfurther demonstrated his intellectual power by following out other\nimportant lines of investigation that had been suggested by his study\nof crystals. It is to him more than to any other, for instance, that\nis due the first steps in our knowledge of pyro-(or thermo-)\nelectricity. Mr. George Chrystal, professor of mathematics at the\nUniversity of St. Andrews, in the article on electricity written for\nthe ninth edition of the Encyclopedia, says it was reserved for the\nAbbe Hauey in his Treatise on Mineralogy to throw a clear light on this\ncurious branch of the science of electricity.\n\nTo those who are familiar with the history of the development of this\nscience it will be no surprise to find a clergyman playing a prominent\nrole in its development. During the days of the beginning of\nelectricity many ecclesiastics seem to have been particularly\ninterested in the curious ways of electrical phenomena, and as a\nconsequence they are the original discoverers of some of the most\nimportant early advances. Not long before this, Professor Gordon, a\nScotch Benedictine monk who was teaching at the University of Erfurt,\nconstructed the first practical electrical machine. Kleist, who is one\nof the three men to whom is attributed the discovery of the principle\nof storing and concentrating electricity, and who invented the Leyden\nJar, which was named after the town where it was first manufactured,\nwas also a member of a Religious Order. As {182} we have already\nstated, Dirwisch, the Premonstratensian monk, set up a\nlightning-conductor by which he obtained sparks from the clouds even\nbefore our own Franklin.\n\nAbbe Hauey was only following a very common precedent, then, when he\nsucceeded by his original research in setting the science of\npyro-electricity firmly on its feet. It is true, others before him had\nnoted that substances like tourmaline possessed electrical properties.\nThere is even some good reason for thinking that the _lyncurium_ of\nthe ancients which, according to certain of the Greek philosophers,\nespecially Theophrastus, who seems to have made a close study of the\nsubject, attracted light bodies, was really our modern tourmaline. In\nmodern times the Dutch found this mineral in Ceylon and, because it\nattracted ashes and other light substances to itself, called it\n_aschentriker_--that is, attractor of ashes. Others had still further\nexperimented with this curious substance and its interesting\nelectrical phenomena. It remained for Abbe Hauey, however, to\ndemonstrate the scientific properties of tourmaline and the relations\nwhich its electrical phenomena bore toward the crystalline structure\nof the mineral. He showed that the electricity of tourmaline decreases\nrapidly from the summits or poles toward the middle of the crystal. As\na matter of fact, at the middle of the crystal its electrical power\nbecomes imperceptible.\n\nHe showed also that each particle of a crystal {183} that exhibits\npyro-electricity is itself a source of the same sort of electricity\nand exhibits polarity. His experimental observations served to prove\nalso that the pyro-electric state has an important connexion with the\nwant of symmetry in the crystals of the substances that exhibit this\ncurious property. In tourmaline, for instance, he found the vitreous\ncharge always at the summit of the crystal which had six faces, and\nthe resinous electricity at the summit of the crystal with three\nfaces.\n\nHis experiments soon showed him, too, that there were a number of\nother substances, besides tourmaline, which possessed this same\nelectrical property when subjected to heat in the crystalline stage.\nAmong these were the Siberian and Brazilian topaz, borate of magnesia,\nmesotype, sphene, and calamine. In all of these other pyro-electrical\ncrystals, Hauey detected a corresponding deviation from the rules of\nsymmetry in their secondary crystals to that which occurs in\ntourmaline. In a word, after he had concluded his experiments and\nobservations there was very little left for others to add to this\nbranch of science, although such distinguished men as Sir David\nBrewster in England were among his successors in the study of the\npeculiar phenomena of pyro-electricity.\n\nIt may naturally enough be thought that, born in the country, of poor\nparents, and compelled to work for his living, Hauey would at least\nhave the advantage of rugged health to help him in his {184} career.\nHe had been a delicate child, however; and his physical condition\nnever improved to such an extent as to inure him to hardships of any\nkind. One of his biographers has gone so far as to say that his life\nwas one long malady. The only distraction from his almost constant\nsuffering was his studies. Yet this man lived to be nearly eighty\nyears of age, and accomplished an amount of work that might well be\nenvied even by the hardiest.\n\nIn the midst of his magnificent success as a scientist, Hauey was\nfaithful to all his obligations as a priest. His name was known\nthroughout Europe, and many of the scientific societies had considered\nthat they were honoring themselves by conferring titles, or degrees,\nupon him; but he continued to be the humble, simple student that he\nhad always been.\n\nAt the beginning of the Revolution, Abbe Hauey was among the priests\nwho refused the oath which the Republican government insisted on their\ntaking, and which so many of them considered derogatory to their duty\nas churchmen. Those who refused were thrown into prison, Hauey among\nthem. He did not seem to mind his incarceration much, but he was not a\nlittle perturbed by the fact that the officers who made the arrest\ninsisted on taking his precious papers, and that his crystals were all\ntossed aside and many of them broken. For some time he was kept in\nconfinement with a number of other members of the faculty of the\nUniversity, mainly {185} clergymen, in the Seminary of St. Firmin,\nwhich had been turned into a temporary jail.\n\nHauey did not allow his studies to be entirely interrupted by his\nimprisonment. He succeeded in obtaining permission to have his\ncabinets of crystals brought to his cell, and he continued his\ninvestigation of them. It was not long before powerful friends, and\nespecially his scientific colleague, Gregory St. Hilaire, interested\nthemselves in his case, and succeeded in obtaining his liberation.\nWhen the order for his release came, however, Hauey was engaged on a\nvery interesting problem in crystallography, and he refused to\ninterrupt his work and leave the prison. It was only after\nconsiderable persuasion that he consented to go the next morning. It\nmay be added that only two weeks later many from this same prison were\nsent to the guillotine.\n\nIt is rather remarkable that the Revolutionary government, after his\nrelease, did not disturb him in any way. He was so much occupied with\nhis scientific pursuits that he seems to have been considered\nabsolutely incapable of antagonizing the government; and, as he had no\nenemies, he was not denounced to the Convention. This was fortunate,\nbecause it enabled him to pursue his studies in peace. There was many\nanother member of the faculty of the University who had not the same\ngood fortune. Lavoisier was thrown into prison, and, in spite of all\nthe influence that could be brought to bear, the great discoverer of\noxygen met his death by the guillotine. At least {186} two others of\nthe professors in the physical department, Borda and De Lambre, were\ndismissed from their posts. Hauey, though himself a priest who had\nrefused to take the oath, and though he continued to exercise his\nreligious functions, did not hesitate to formulate petitions for his\nimprisoned scientific friends; yet, because of his well-known\ngentleness of character, this did not result in arousing the enmity of\nany members of the government, or attracting such odious attention as\nmight have made his religious and scientific work extremely difficult\nor even prevented it entirely.\n\nNotwithstanding the stormy times of the French Revolution and the\nstirring events going on all round him in Paris, Hauey continued to\nstudy his crystals in order to complete his observations; and then he\nembodied his investigations and his theories in his famous \"Treatise\non Crystallography.\" This attracted attention not only on account of\nthe evident novelty of the subject, but more especially because of the\nvery thorough method with which Hauey had accomplished his work. His\nstyle, says the historian of crystallography, was \"perspicuous and\nelegant. The volume itself was noteworthy for its clear arrangement\nand full illustration by figures.\" In spite of its deficiencies, then\ndeficiencies which must exist in any ground-breaking work--this\nmonograph has had an enduring influence. Some of the most serious\nflaws in his theory were soon brought to light because of the very\nstimulus afforded by his investigations.\n\n{187}\n\nAs to the real value of his treatise, perhaps no better estimate can\nbe formed than that given by Cuvier in his collection of historical\neulogies (Vol. III, p. 155): \"In possession of a large collection, to\nwhich there flowed from all sides the most varied minerals, arranged\nwith the assistance of young, enthusiastic, and progressive students,\nit was not long before there was given back to Hauey the time which he\nhad apparently wasted over other things. In a few years he raised up a\nwondrous monument, which brought as much glory to France as it did\nsomewhat later to himself. After centuries of neglect, his country at\none bound found itself in the first rank in this department of natural\nscience. In Hauey's book are united in the highest degree two qualities\nwhich are seldom associated. One of these is that it was founded on an\noriginal discovery which had sprung entirely from the genius of its\nauthor; and the other is that this discovery is pursued and developed\nwith almost unheard-of persistence down even to the least important\nmineral variety. Everything in the work is great, both as regards\nconception and detail. It is as complete as the theory it announces.\"\n\nIt was not surprising, then, that, after the death of Professor\nDolomieu, Hauey should be raised to the chair of mineralogy and made\ndirector of that department in the Paris Museum of Natural History.\nHere he was to have new triumphs. We have already said that his book\nwas noted for the elegance of its style and its perspicuity. {188} As\nthe result of this absolute clearness of ideas, and completeness and\nsimplicity of expression, Hauey attracted to him a large number of\npupils. Moreover, all those interested in the science, when they came\nin contact with him, were so charmed by his grace and simplicity of\nmanner that they were very glad to attend his lectures and to be\nconsidered as his personal friends. Among his listeners were often\nsuch men as La Place, Berthollet, Fourcroy, Lagrange and Lavoisier.\n\nIt was not long before honors of all kinds, degrees from universities\nand memberships in scientific societies all over Europe, began to be\nheaped upon Hauey. They did not, however, cause any change in the\nmanners or mode of life of the simple professor of old times. Every\nday he continued to take his little walks through the city, and was\nvery glad to have opportunity to be of assistance to others. He showed\nstrangers the way to points of interest for which they inquired,\nwhenever it was necessary, obtained entrance cards for them to the\ncollection; and not a few of those who were thus enabled to take\nadvantage of his kindness failed to realize who the distinguished man\nwas to whom they owed their opportunities. His old-fashioned clothing\nstill continued to be quite good enough for him, and his modest\ndemeanor and simple speech did not betray in any way the distinguished\nscientist he had become.\n\nSome idea of the consideration in which the {189} Abbe Hauey was held\nby his contemporaries may be gathered from the fact that several of\nthe reigning monarchs of Europe, as well as the heirs apparent to many\nthrones, came at some time or other to visit him, to see his\ncollection, and to hear the kindly old man talk on his hobby. There\nwas only one other scientist in the nineteenth century--and that was\nPasteur, toward the end of it--who attracted as much attention from\nroyalty. Among Hauey's visitors were the King of Prussia, the Emperor\nof Austria, the Archduke John, as well as the Emperor of Russia and\nhis two brothers, Nicholas and Michael, the first of whom succeeded\nhis elder brother, Alexander, to the throne, and half a century later\nwas ruling Russia during the Crimean War. The Prince Royal of Denmark\nspent a portion of each year for several years with Hauey, being one of\nhis intimates, who was admitted to his room while he was confined to\nhis bed, and who was permitted to share his personal investigations\nand scientific studies.\n\nHis most striking characteristic was his suavity toward all. The\nhumblest of his students was as sure to receive a kindly reception\nfrom him, and to have his difficulties solved with as much patience as\nthe most distinguished professor in this department. It was said that\nhe had students of all classes. The attendants at the normal school\nwere invited to visit him at his house, and he permitted them to learn\nall his secrets. When they came to him for a whole {190} day, he\ninsisted on taking part in their games, and allowed them to go home\nonly after they had taken supper with him. All of them looked upon him\nas a personal friend, and some of them were more confidential with him\nthan with their nearest relatives. Many a young man in Paris during\nthe troublous times of the Revolutionary period found in the good Abbe\nHauey not only a kind friend, but a wise director and another father.\n\nIt is said that one day, when taking his usual walk, he came upon two\nformer soldiers who were just preparing to fight a duel and were on\ntheir way to the dueling ground. He succeeded in getting them to tell\nhim the cause of their quarrel, and after a time tempted them to come\nwith him into what I fear we should call at the present day a saloon.\nHere, over a glass of wine, he finally persuaded them to make peace\nand seal it effectually. It is hard to reconcile this absolute\nsimplicity of character and kindness of heart with what is sometimes\nassumed to be the typical, distant, abstracted, self-centered ways of\nthe great scientist.\n\nFew men have had so many proofs of the lofty appreciation of great\ncontemporaries. Many incidents serve to show how much Napoleon thought\nof the distinguished scholar who had created a new department of\nscience and attracted the attention of the world to his splendid work\nat Paris. Not long after he became emperor, Napoleon named him\nHonorary Canon of the {191} Cathedral of Notre Dame; and when he\nfounded the Legion of Honor, he made the Abbe one of the original\nmembers. Shortly after these dignities had been conferred upon him, it\nhappened that the Abbe fell ill; and Napoleon, having sent his own\nphysician to him, went personally to call on him in his humble\nquarters, saying to the physician: \"Remember that you must cure Abbe\nHauey, and restore him to us as one of the glories of our reign.\" After\nNapoleon's return from Elba, he told the Abbe that the latter's\n\"Treatise on Crystallography\" was one of the books that he had\nspecially selected to take with him to Elba, to while away the leisure\nthat he thought he would have for many years. Abbe Hauey's independence\nof spirit, and his unselfish devotion to his native country, may be\nbest appreciated from the tradition that after the return from Elba,\nwhen there was a popular vote for the confirmation of Napoleon's\nsecond usurpation, the old scientist voted, No.\n\nIn spite of his constant labor at his investigations, his uniformly\nregular life enabled him to maintain his health, and he lived to the\nripe age of over seventy-nine. Toward the end of his career, he did\nnot obtain the recognition that his labors deserved. After the\nRestoration, he was not in favor with the new authorities in France,\nand he accordingly lost his position as professor at the University.\nThe absolute simplicity of life that he had always maintained now\nstood him in good stead; and, notwithstanding the {192} smallness of\nhis income, he did not have to make any change in his ordinary\nroutine. Unfortunately, an accidental fall in his room at the\nbeginning of his eightieth year confined him to his bed; and then his\nhealth began to fail very seriously. He died on the 3 June, 1822.\n\nHe had shown during his illness the same gentleness and humility, and\neven enthusiasm for study whenever it was possible, that had always\ncharacterized him. While he was confined to his bed he divided his\ntime between prayer, attention to the new edition of his works which\nwas about to appear, and his interest for the future of those students\nwho had helped him in his investigations. Cuvier says of him that \"he\nwas as faithful to his religious duties as he was in the pursuit of\nhis studies. The profoundest speculations with regard to weighty\nmatters of science had not kept him from the least important duty\nwhich ecclesiastical regulations might require of him.\" There is,\nperhaps, no life in all the history of science which shows so clearly\nhow absolutely untrue is the declaration so often made, that there is\nessential opposition between the intellectual disposition of the\ninquiring scientist and those other mental qualities which are\nnecessary to enable the Christian to bow humbly before the mysteries\nof religion, acknowledge all that is beyond understanding in what has\nbeen revealed, and observe faithfully all the duties that flow from\nsuch belief.\n\n{193}\n\nVIII.\n\nABBOT MENDEL: A NEW OUTLOOK IN HEREDITY.\n\n\n\nThere is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having\nbeen originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one;\nand that, while this planet has gone circling on according to the\nfixed law of gravity from so simple a beginning, endless forms, most\nbeautiful and most wonderful, have been and are being evolved.--\nClosing sentence of DARWIN'S _Origin of Species_.\n\n\n{194}\n\n[Illustration: GREGOR MENDEL]\n\n\n{195}\n\n\nVIII.\n\nABBOT MENDEL, [Footnote 14]: A NEW, OUTLOOK IN HEREDITY.\n\n  [Footnote 14: The portrait of Abbot Mendel which precedes this\n  sketch was kindly furnished by the Vicar of the Augustinian\n  Monastery of Bruenn. It represents him holding a fuchsia, his\n  favorite flower, and was taken in 1867, just as he was completing\n  the researches which were a generation later to make his name so\n  famous. The portrait has for this reason a very special interest as\n  a human document. We may add that the sketch of Abbot Mendel which\n  appears here was read by the Very Rev. Klemens Janetschek, the\n  Vicar of the Monastery, who suggested one slight change in it, so\n  that it may be said to have had the revision of one who knew him and\n  his environment very well.]\n\n\nScientific progress does not run in cycles of centuries, and as a rule\nit bears no relationship to the conventional arrangement of years. As\nhas been well said--for science a new century begins every second.\nThere are interesting coincidences, however, of epoch-making\ndiscoveries in science corresponding with the beginning of definite\neras in time that are at least impressive from a mnemonic standpoint,\nif from no other.\n\nThe very eve of the nineteenth century saw the first definite\nformulation of the theory of evolution. Lamarck, the distinguished\nFrench biologist, stated a theory of development in nature which,\nalthough it attracted very little attention {196} for many years after\nits publication, has come in our day to be recognized as the most\nsuggestive advance in biology in modern times.\n\nAs we begin the twentieth century, the most interesting question in\nbiology is undoubtedly that of heredity. Just at the dawn of the\ncentury three distinguished scientists, working in different\ncountries, rediscovered a law with regard to heredity which promises\nto be even more important for the science of biology in the twentieth\ncentury than was Lamarck's work for the nineteenth century. This law,\nwhich, it is thought, will do more to simplify the problems of\nheredity than all the observations and theories of nineteenth-century\nworkers, and which has already done much more to point out the methods\nby which observation, and the lines along which experimentation shall\nbe best directed so as to replace elaborate but untrustworthy\nscientific theorizing by definite knowledge, was discovered by a\nmember of a small religious community in the little-known town of\nBruenn, in Austria, some thirty-five years before the beginning of the\npresent century.\n\nConsidering how generally, in English-speaking countries at least, it\nis supposed that the training of a clergyman and particularly that of\na religious unfits him for any such initiative in science, Father\nMendel's discovery comes with all the more emphatic surprise. There is\nno doubt, however, in the minds of many of the most prominent\npresent-day workers in biology that his {197} discoveries are of a\nground-breaking character that will furnish substantial foundation for\na new development of scientific knowledge with regard to heredity.\n\nLest it should be thought that perhaps there is a tendency to make\nFather Mendel's discovery appear more important here than it really\nis, because of his station in life, it seems desirable to quote some\nrecent authoritative expressions of opinion with regard to the value\nof his observations and the importance of the law he enunciated, as\nwell as the principle which he considered to be the explanation of\nthat law.\n\nIn the February number of _Harper's Monthly_ for 1903, Professor\nThomas Hunt Morgan, Professor of Biology at Bryn Mawr, and one of the\nbest known of our American biologists, whose recent work on\n\"Regeneration\" has attracted favorable notice all over the world,\ncalls attention to the revolutionary character of Mendel's discovery.\nHe considers that recent demonstrations of the mathematical truth of\nMendel's Law absolutely confirm Mendel's original observations, and\nthe movement thus initiated, in Professor Morgan's eyes, gives the\nfinal _coup de grace_ to the theory of natural selection. \"If,\" he\nsays, \"we reject Darwin's theory of natural selection as an\nexplanation of evolution, we have at least a new and promising outlook\nin another direction and are in a position to answer the oft-heard but\nunscientific query of those who must cling to some dogma: if you\nreject Darwin, what better have you to offer?\"\n\n{198}\n\nProfessor Edmund B. Wilson, the Director of the Zoological Laboratory\nof Columbia University, called attention in _Science_ (19 December,\n1902) to the fact that studies in cytology, that is to say,\nobservations on the formation, development, and maturation of cells,\nconfirm Mendel's principles of inheritance and thus furnish another\nproof of the truth of these principles.\n\nTwo students working in Professor Wilson's laboratory have obtained\ndefinite evidence in favor of the cytological explanation of Mendel's\nprinciples, and have thus made an important step in the solution of\none of the important fundamental mysteries of cell development in the\nvery early life of organisms.\n\nIn a paper read before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences last\nyear, Professor W. E. Castle, of Harvard University, said with regard\nto Mendel's Law of Heredity:--\n\n  What will doubtless rank as one of the greatest discoveries in the\n  study of biology, and in the study of heredity, perhaps the\n  greatest, was made by Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, in the garden\n  of his cloister, some forty years ago. The discovery was announced\n  in the proceedings of a fairly well-known scientific society, but\n  seems to have attracted little attention, and to have been soon\n  forgotten. The Darwinian theory then occupied the centre of the\n  scientific stage, and Mendel's brilliant discovery was all but\n  unnoticed for a third of a century. Meanwhile, the discussion\n  aroused by Weissman's germ plasm theory, in particular the idea of\n  the non-inheritance of acquired characters, put the scientific\n  public into a more receptive frame of mind. Mendel's law was\n  rediscovered {199} independently by three different botanists,\n  engaged in the study of plant hybrids--de Vries, Correns, and\n  Tschermak, in the year 1900. It remained, however, for a zoologist,\n  Bateson, two years later, to point out the full importance and the\n  wide applicability of the law. Since then the Mendelian discoveries\n  have attracted the attention of biologists generally.\n  [Footnote 15]\n\n    [Footnote 15: This paper was originally published in part in the\n    _Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences_, Vol.\n    xxxviii, No. 18, January, 1903. It may be found complete in\n    _Science_ for 25 September, 1903.]\n\n\nProfessor Bateson, whose book on Mendel's \"Principles of Heredity\" is\nthe best popular exposition in English of Mendel's work, says that an\nexact determination of the laws of heredity will probably produce more\nchange in man's outlook upon the world and in his power over nature\nthan any other advance in natural knowledge that can be clearly\nforeseen. No one has better opportunities of pursuing such work than\nhorticulturists and stockbreeders. They are daily witnesses of the\nphenomena of heredity. Their success also depends largely on a\nknowledge of its laws, and obviously every increase in that knowledge\nis of direct and special importance to them.\n\nAfter thus insisting on the theoretic and practical importance of the\nsubject, Professor Bateson says:--\n\n  As regards the Mendelian principles which it is the chief aim of\n  this introduction to present clearly before the reader, it may be\n  said that by the {200} application of those principles we are\n  enabled to reach and deal in a comprehensive manner with phenomena\n  of a fundamental nature, lying at the very root of all conceptions\n  not merely of the physiology of reproduction and heredity, but even\n  of the essential nature of living organisms; and I think that I use\n  no extravagant words when, in introducing Mendel's work to the\n  notice of the Royal Horticultural Society's Journal, I ventured to\n  declare that his experiments are worthy to rank with those which\n  laid the foundation of the atomic laws of chemistry.\n\nProfessor L. H. Bailey, who is the Director of the Horticultural\nDepartment at Cornell University and the editor of the authoritative\n_Encyclopedia of Horticulture_, was one of the first of recent\nscientists to call attention to Mendel's work. It was, we believe,\nbecause of a reference to Mendel's papers by Bailey that Professor de\nVries was put on the track of Mendel's discoveries and found that the\nAustrian monk had completely anticipated the work at which he was then\nengaged. In a recent issue of _The Independent_, of New York,\nProfessor Bailey said:--\n\n  The teaching of Mendel strikes at the root of two or three difficult\n  and vital problems. It presents a new conception of the proximate\n  mechanism of heredity. The hypothesis of heredity that it suggests\n  will focus our attention along new lines, and will, I believe,\n  arouse as much discussion as Weissmann's hypothesis, and it is\n  probable that it will have a wider influence. Whether it expresses\n  the actual means of heredity or not, it is yet much too early to\n  say. But the hypothesis (which Father Mendel evolved in order to\n  explain the reasons for his law as he saw them) is even a {201}\n  greater contribution to science than the so-called Mendel's Law as\n  to the numerical results of hybridization. In the general discussion\n  of evolution Mendel's work will be of the greatest value because it\n  introduces a new point of view, challenges old ideas and opinions,\n  gives us a new theory for discussion, emphasizes the great\n  importance of actual experiments for the solution of many questions\n  of evolution, and then forces the necessity for giving greater\n  attention to the real characters and attributes of plants and\n  animals than to the vague groups that we are in the habit of calling\n  species.\n\nIt is very evident that a man of whose work so many authorities are\nagreed that it is the beginning of a new era in biology, and\nespecially in that most interesting of all questions, heredity, must\nbe worthy of close acquaintance. Hence the present sketch of his\ncareer and personality, as far as they are ascertainable, for his\nmodesty, and the failure of the world to recognize his worth in his\nlifetime, have unfortunately deprived us of many details that would\nhave been precious.\n\nGregor Johann Mendel was born 27 July, 1822, at Heinzendorf, nor far\nfrom Odrau, in Austrian Silesia. He was the son of a well-to-do\npeasant farmer, who gave him every opportunity of getting a good\neducation when he was young. He was educated at Olmutz, in Moravia,\nand after graduating from the college there, at the age of twenty-one,\nhe entered as a novice the Augustinian Order, beginning his novitiate\nin 1843 in the Augustinian monastery Koenigen-kloster, in Altbruenn. He\nwas very successful in {202} his theological studies, and in 1846 he\nwas ordained priest. He seems to have made a striking success as a\nteacher, especially of natural history and physics, in the higher\nRealschule in Bruenn. He attracted the attention of his superiors, who\nwere persuaded to give him additional opportunities for the study of\nthe sciences, particularly of biological science, for which he had a\ndistinct liking and special talents.\n\nAccordingly, in 1851 he went to Vienna for the purpose of doing\npost-graduate work in the natural sciences at the university there.\nDuring the two years he spent at this institution he attracted\nattention by his serious application to study, but apparently without\nhaving given any special evidence of the talent for original\nobservation that was in him. In 1853 he returned to the monastery in\nAltbruenn, and at the beginning of the school year became a teacher at\nthe Realschule in Bruenn. He remained in Bruenn for the rest of his\nlife, dying at the comparatively early age of sixty-two, in 1884.\nDuring the last sixteen years of his life he held the position of\nabbot of the monastery, the duties of which prevented him from\napplying himself as he probably would have desired, to the further\ninvestigation of scientific questions.\n\nThe experiments on which his great discoveries were founded were\ncarried out in the garden of the monastery during the sixteen years\nfrom 1853 to 1868. How serious was his scientific devotion may be\ngathered from the fact that in {203} establishing the law which now\nbears his name, and which was founded on observations on peas, some\n10,000 plants were carefully examined, their various peculiarities\nnoted, their ancestry carefully traced, the seeds kept in definite\norder and entirely separate, so as to be used for the study of certain\nqualities in their descendants, and the whole scheme of\nexperimentation planned with such detail that for the first time in\nthe history of studies in heredity, no extraneous and inexplicable\ndata were allowed to enter the problem. Besides his work on plants,\nMendel occupied himself with other observations of a scientific\ncharacter on two subjects which were at that time attracting\nconsiderable attention. These were the state and condition of the\nground-water--a subject which was thought to stand at the basis of\nhygienic principles at the time and which had occupied the attention\nof the distinguished Professor Pettenkofer and the Munich School of\nHygiene for many years--and weather observations. At that time\nPettenkofer, the most widely known of sanitary scientists, thought\nthat he was able to show that the curve of frequency of typhoid fever\nin the different seasons of the year depended upon the closeness with\nwhich the ground-water came to the surface. Authorities in hygiene\ngenerally do not now accept this supposed law, for other factors have\nbeen found which are so much more important that, if the ground-water\nhas any influence, it can be neglected. Mendel's observations in the\nmatter {204} were, however, in line with the scientific ideas of the\ntime and undoubtedly must be considered of value.\n\nThe other subject in which Mendel interested himself was meteorology.\nHe published in the journal of the Bruenn Society of Naturalists a\nseries of statistical observations with regard to the weather. Besides\nthis he organized in connexion with the Realschule in Bruenn a series\nof observation stations in different parts of the country around; and\nat the time when most scientists considered meteorological problems to\nbe too complex for hopeful solution, Mendel seems to have realized\nthat the questions involved depended rather on the collation of a\nsufficient number of observations and the deduction of definite laws\nfrom them than on any theoretic principles of a supposed science of\nthe weather.\n\nThe man evidently had a genius for scientific observations. His\npersonal character was of the highest. The fact that his fellow-monks\nselected him as abbot of the monastery shows the consideration in\nwhich he was held for tact and true religious feeling. There are many\nstill alive in Bruenn who remember him well and cannot say enough of\nhis kindly disposition, the _froeliche Liebenswuerdigkeit_ (which means\neven more than our personal magnetism), that won for him respect and\nreverence from all. He is remembered, not only for his successful\ndiscoveries, and not alone by his friends and the fellow-members of\nthe Naturalist Society, but by practically all his {205}\ncontemporaries in the town; and it is his lovable personal character\nthat seems to have most impressed itself on them.\n\nHe was for a time the president of the Bruenn Society of Naturalists,\nwhile also abbot of the monastery. This is, perhaps, a combination\nthat would strike English-speaking people as rather curious, but seems\nto have been considered not out of the regular course of events in\nAustria.\n\nFather Mendel's introduction to his paper on plant hybridization,\nwhich describes the result of the experiments made by him in deducing\nthe law which he announces, is a model of simple straightforwardness.\nIt breathes the spirit of the loftiest science in its clear-eyed\nvision of the nature of the problem he had to solve, the factors which\nmake up the problem, and the experimental observations necessary to\nelucidate it. We reproduce the introductory remarks here from the\ntranslations made of them by the Royal Horticultural Society of\nEngland. [Footnote 16] Father Mendel said at the beginning of his\npaper as read 8 February, 1865:--\n\n    [Footnote 16: The original paper was published in the\n    \"Verhandlungen des Naturforscher-Vereins,\" in Bruenn, Abhandlungen,\n    iv, that is, the proceedings of the year 1865, which were\n    published in 1866. Copies of these transactions were exchanged\n    with all the important scientific journals, especially those in\n    connexion with important societies and universities throughout\n    Europe, and the wonder is that this paper attracted so little\n    attention.]\n\n  Experience of artificial fertilization such as is affected with\n  ornamental plants in order to obtain new variations in color, has\n  led to the experiments, the {206} details of which I am about to\n  discuss. The striking regularity with which the same hybrid forms\n  always reappeared whenever fertilization took place between the same\n  species, induced further experiments to be undertaken, the object of\n  which was to follow up the developments of the hybrid in a number of\n  successive generations of their progeny.\n\n  Those who survey the work that has been done in this department up\n  to the present time will arrive at the conviction that among all the\n  numerous experiments made not one has been carried out to such an\n  extent and in such a way as to make it possible to determine the\n  number of different forms under which the offspring of hybrids\n  appear, or to arrange these forms with certainty, according to their\n  separate generations, or to ascertain definitely their statistical\n  relations.\n\nThese three primary necessities for the solution of the problem of\nheredity--namely, first, the number of different forms under which the\noffspring of hybrids appear; secondly, the arrangement of these forms,\nwith definiteness and certainty, as regards their relations in the\nseparate generation; and thirdly, the statistical results of the\nhybridization of the plants in successive generations, are the secret\nof the success of Mendel's work, as has been very well said by\nBateson, in commenting on this paragraph in his work on Mendel's\n\"Principles of Heredity.\" This was the first time that any one had\never realized exactly the nature of the problems presented in, their\nnaked simplicity. \"To see a problem well is more than half to solve\nit,\" and this proved to be the case with Mendel's straightforward\nvision of the nature of the experiments required for advance in our\nknowledge of heredity.\n\n{207}\n\nWhile Mendel was beginning his experiments almost absolutely under the\nguidance of his own scientific spirit, and undertaking his series of\nobservations in the monastery garden without any reference to other\nwork in this line, he knew very well what distinguished botanists were\ndoing in this line and was by no means presumptuously following a\nstudy of the deepest of nature's problems without knowing what others\nhad accomplished in the matter in recent years. In the second\nparagraph of his introduction he quotes the men whose work in this\nscience was attracting attention, and says that to this object\nnumerous careful observers, such a Koelreuter, Gaertner, Herbert, Lecoq,\nWichura and others, had devoted a part of their lives with\ninexhaustible perseverance.\n\nTo quote Mendel's own words:--\n\n  Gaertner, especially in his work, \"Die Bastarderzeugung im\n  Pflanzenreiche,\" [Footnote 17] has recorded very valuable\n  observations; and quite recently Wichura published the results of\n  some profound observations on the hybrids of the willow. That so far\n  no generally applicable law governing the formation and development\n  of hybrids has been successfully formulated can hardly be wondered\n  at by anyone who is acquainted with the extent of the task and can\n  appreciate the difficulties with which experiments of this class\n  have to contend. A final decision can only be arrived at when we\n  shall have before us the results of the changed detailed experiments\n  made on plants belonging to the most diverse orders. It requires\n  some courage indeed to undertake a labor of such far-reaching\n  extent; it appears, however, to be the only right way by which we\n  can finally reach the solution of a question the importance of which\n  can not be overestimated in connexion with the history of the\n  evolution of organic forms.\n\n  The paper now presented records the results of such a detailed\n  experiment. This experiment was practically confined to a small\n  plant group, and is now after eight years' pursuit concluded in all\n  essentials. Whether the plan upon which the separate experiments\n  were conducted and carried out was the best suited to attain the\n  desired end is left to the friendly decision of the reader.\n\n    [Footnote 17: The Production of Hybrids in the Vegetable Kingdom.]\n\n{208}\n\n\nMendel's discoveries with regard to peas and the influence of heredity\non them, were founded on very simple, but very interesting,\nobservations. He found that if peas of different colors were taken,\nthat is to say, if, for instance, yellow-colored peas were crossed\nwith green, the resulting pea seeds were, in the great majority of\ncases, of yellow color. If the yellow-colored peas obtained from such\ncrossing were planted and allowed to be fertilized only by pollen from\nplants raised from similar seeds, the succeeding generation, however,\ndid not give all yellow peas, but a definite number of yellow and a\ndefinite number of green. In other words, while there might have been\nexpected a permanence of the yellow color, there was really a\nreversion in a number of the plants apparently to the type of the\ngrandparent. Mendel tried the same experiment with seeds of different\nshape. Certain peas are rounded and certain others are wrinkled. When\nthese were crossed, the next generation {209} consisted of wrinkled\npeas, but the next succeeding generation presented a definite number\nof round peas besides the wrinkled ones, and so on as before. He next\nbred peas with regard to other single qualities, such as the color of\nthe seed coat, the inflation or constriction of the pod, as to the\ncoloring of the pod, as to the distribution of the flowers along the\nstem, as to the length of the stem, finding always, no matter what the\nquality tested, the laws of heredity he had formulated always held\ntrue.\n\nWhat he thus discovered he formulated somewhat as follows: In the case\nof each of the crosses the hybrid character, that is, the quality of\nthe resultant seed, resembles one of the parental forms so closely\nthat the other escapes observation completely or cannot be detected\nwith certainty. This quality thus impressed on the next generation,\nMendel called the dominant quality. As, however, the reversion of a\ndefinite proportion of the peas in the third generation to that\nquality of the original parent which did not appear in the second\ngeneration was found to occur, thus showing that, though it cannot be\ndetected, it is present, Mendel called it the recessive quality. He\ndid not find transitional forms in any of his experiments, but\nconstantly observed that when plants were bred with regard to two\nspecial qualities, one of those qualities became dominant in the\nresultant hybrid, and the other became recessive, that is, present\nthough latent and ready to produce its effects upon a definite\nproportion of the succeeding generation.\n\n{210}\n\nRemembering, then, that Mendel means by hybrid the result of the\ncrossing of two distinct species, his significant discovery has been\nstated thus: The hybrid, whatever its own character, produces ripe\ngerm cells, which bear only the pure character of one parent or the\nother. Thus, when one parent has the character \"A,\" in peas, for\nexample, a green color, and the other the character \"B,\" in peas once\nmore a yellow color, the hybrid will have in cases of simple dominance\nthe character \"AB\" or \"BA,\" but with the second quality in either case\nnot noticeable. Whatever the character of the hybrid may be, that is\nto say, to revert to the example of the peas, whether it be green or\nyellow, its germ cells when mature will bear either the character \"A\"\n(green), or the character \"B\" (yellow), but not both.\n\nAs Professor Castle says: \"This perfectly simple principle is known as\nthe law of segregation, or the law of the purity of the germ cells. It\nbids fair to prove as fundamental to a right understanding of the\nfacts of heredity as is the law of definite proportions in chemistry.\nFrom it follow many important consequences.\"\n\nTo follow this acute observer's work still further by letting the\ncrossbreds fertilize themselves, Mendel raised a third generation. In\nthis generation were individuals which showed the dominant character\nand also individuals which presented the recessive character. Such an\nobservation had of course been made in a good many instances before.\n\n{211}\n\nBut Mendel noted--and this is the essence of the new discovery in his\nobservations--that in this third generation the numerical proportion\nof dominants to recessives is in the average of a series of cases\napproximately constant--being, in fact, as three to one. With almost\nabsolute regularity this proportion was maintained in every case of\ncrossing of pairs of characters, quite opposed to one another, in his\npea plants. In the first generation, raised from his crossbreds, or,\nas he calls them, hybrids, there were seventy-five per cent dominants\nand twenty-five per cent recessives.\n\nWhen these plants were again self-fertilized and the offspring of each\nplant separately sown, a new surprise awaited the observer. The\nprogeny of the recessives remained pure recessive; and in any number\nof subsequent generations never produced the dominant type again, that\nis, never reverted to the original parent, whose qualities had failed\nto appear in the second generation. When the seeds obtained by\nself-fertilizing the plants with the dominant characteristics were\nsown, it was found by the test of progeny that the dominants were not\nall of like nature, but consisted of two classes--first, some which\ngave rise to pure dominants; and secondly, others which gave a mixed\noffspring, composed partly of recessives, partly of dominants. Once\nmore, however, the ratio of heredity asserted itself and it was found\nthat the average numerical proportions were constant--those with pure\ndominant {212} offspring being to those with mixed offspring as one to\ntwo. Hence, it was seen that the seventy-five per cent of dominants\nare not really of identical constitution, but consist of twenty-five\nper cent which are pure dominants and fifty per cent which are really\ncrossbreds, though like most of the crossbreds raised by crossing the\ntwo original varieties, they exhibit the dominant character only.\n\nThese fifty crossbreds have mixed offspring; these offspring again in\ntheir numerical proportion follow the same law, namely, three\ndominants to one recessive. The recessives are pure like those of the\nlast generation, but the dominants can, by further self-fertilization\nand cultivation of the seeds produced, be again shown to be made up of\npure dominant and crossbreds in the same proportion of one dominant to\ntwo crossbreds.\n\nThe process of breaking up into the parent forms is thus continued in\neach successive generation, the same numerical laws being followed so\nfar as observation has gone. As Mendel's observations have now been\nconfirmed by workers in many parts of the world, investigating many\ndifferent kinds of plants, it would seem that this law which he\ndiscovered has a basis in the nature of things and is to furnish the\nfoundation for a new and scientific theory of heredity, while at the\nsame time affording scope for the collection of observations of the\nmost valuable character with a definite purpose and without any\ntheoretic bias.\n\n{213}\n\nThe task of the practical breeder who seeks to establish or fix a new\nvariety produced by cross-breeding in a case involving two variable\ncharacters is simply the isolation and propagation of that one in each\nsixteen of the second generation offspring which will be pure as\nregards the desired combination of characters. Mendel's discovery, by\nputting the breeder in possession of this information enables him to\nattack this problem systematically with confidence in the outcome,\nwhereas hitherto his work, important and fascinating as it is, has\nconsisted largely of groping for a treasure in the dark. The greater\nthe number of separately variable characters involved in a cross, the\ngreater will be the number of new combinations obtainable; the greater\ntoo will be the number of individuals which it will be necessary to\nraise in order to secure all the possible combinations; and the\ngreater again will be the difficulty of isolating the pure, that is,\nthe stable forms in such as are similar to them in appearance, but\nstill hybrid in one or more characters.\n\nThe law of Mendel reduces to an exact science the art of breeding in\nthe case most carefully studied by him, that of entire dominance. It\ngives to the breeder a new conception of \"purity.\" No animal or plant\nis \"pure,\" simply because it is descended from a long line of\nancestors, possessing a desired combination of characters; but any\nanimal or plant is pure if it produces _gametes_--that is, particles\nfor conjugation of only one sort--even though its grandparents may\namong {214} themselves have possessed opposite characters. The\nexistence of purity can be established with certainty only by suitable\nbreeding tests, especially by crossing with recessives; but it may be\nsafely assumed for any animal or plant, descended from parents which\nwere like each other and had been shown by breeding tests to be pure.\n\nThis naturally leads us to what some biologists have considered to be\nthe most important part of his work--the theory which he elaborated to\nexplain his results, the principle which he considers to be the basis\nof the laws he discovered. Mendel suggests as following logically from\nthe results of his experiments and observations a certain theory of\nthe constitution of germinal particles. He has put this important\nmatter so clearly himself and with such little waste of words that it\nseems better to quote the translation of the passage as given by\nProfessor Bateson, [Footnote 18] than to attempt to explain it in\nother words. Mendel says:--\n\n    [Footnote 18: Bateson: _Mendel's Principles of Heredity_.\n    Cambridge. The University Press. 1902.]\n\n  The results of the previously described experiments induced further\n  experiments, the results of which appear fitted to afford some\n  conclusions as regards the composition of the egg and pollen-cells\n  of hybrids. An important matter for consideration is afforded in\n  peas (_pisum_) by the circumstance that among the progeny of the\n  hybrids constant forms appear, and that this occurs, too, in all\n  combinations of the associated characters. So far as experience\n  goes, we find it in every {215} case confirmed that constant progeny\n  can only be formed when the egg-cells and the fertilizing pollen are\n  of like character, so that both are provided with the material for\n  creating quite similar individuals, as is the case with the normal\n  fertilization of pure species.\n\n  We must therefore regard it as essential that exactly similar\n  factors are at work also in the production of the constant forms in\n  the hybrid plants. Since the various constant forms are produced in\n  one plant, or even in one flower of a plant, the conclusion appears\n  logical that in the ovaries of the hybrids there are formed as many\n  sorts of egg-cells and in the anthers as many sorts of pollen-cells\n  as there are possible constant combination forms, and that these egg\n  and pollen-cells agree in their internal composition with those of\n  the separate forms.\n\n  In point of fact, it is possible to demonstrate theoretically that\n  this hypothesis would fully suffice to account for the development\n  of the hybrids in the separate generations, if we might at the same\n  time assume that the various kinds of egg and pollen-cells were\n  formed in the hybrids on the average in equal numbers.\n\nBateson says in a note on this passage that this last and the\npreceding paragraph contain the essence of the Mendelian principles of\nheredity. Mendel himself, after stating this hypothesis, gives the\ndetails of a series of experiments by which he was able to decide that\nthe theoretic considerations suggested were founded in the nature of\nplants and their germinal cells.\n\nIt will, of course, be interesting to realize what the bearing of\nMendel's discoveries is on the question of the stability of species as\nwell as on the origin of species. Professor Morgan, in his {216}\narticle on Darwinism in the \"Light of Modern Criticism,\" already\nquoted, says the important fact (with regard to Mendel's Law) from the\npoint of view of the theory of evolution is that \"the new species have\nsprung fully armed from the old ones, like Minerva from the head of\nJove.\" \"From de Vries's results,\" he adds, \"we understand better how\nit is that we do not see new forms arising, because they appear, as it\nwere, fully equipped over night. Old species are not slowly changed\ninto new ones, but a shaking up of the old organization takes place\nand the egg brings forth a new species. It is like the turning of the\nkaleidoscope, a slight shift and the new figure suddenly appears. It\nneeds no great penetration to see that this point of view is entirely\ndifferent from the conception of the formation of new species by\naccumulating individual variations, until they are carried so far that\nthe new form may be called a new species.\"\n\nWith regard to this question of the transformation of one species into\nanother, Mendel himself, in the concluding paragraphs of his article\non hybridization, seems to agree with the expressions of Morgan. He\nquotes Gaertner's opinion with apparent approval: \"Gaertner, by the\nresults of these transformation experiments was led to oppose the\nopinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant\nspecies and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He\nperceives in the complete transformation of one species into another\nan indubitable proof that {217} species are fixed within limits beyond\nwhich they cannot change.\" \"Although this opinion,\" adds Mendel,\n\"cannot be unconditionally accepted, we find, on the other hand, in\nGaertner's experiments a noteworthy confirmation of that supposition\nregarding the variability of cultivated plants which has already been\nexpressed.\" This expression of opinion is not very definite, and\nBateson, in what Professor Wilson of Columbia calls his \"recent\nadmirable little book on Mendel's principles,\" adds the following note\nthat may prove of service in elucidating Mendel's meaning, as few men\nhave entered so fully into the understanding of Mendel's work as\nBateson, who introduced him to the English-speaking scientific public,\n\"The argument of this paragraph appears to be that though the general\nmutability of natural species might be doubtful, yet among cultivated\nplants the transference of characters may be accomplished and may\noccur by _integral steps_ [italics ours], until one species is\ndefinitely 'transformed' into the other.\"\n\nNeedless to say, this is quite different from the gradual\ntransformation of species that Darwinism or Lamarckism assumes to take\nplace. One species becomes another _per saltum_ in virtue of some\nspecial energy infused into it, some original tendency of its\nintrinsic nature, not because of gradual modification by forces\noutside of the organisms, nor because of the combination of influences\nthey are subjected to from without and within, because of tendency to\nevolute plus {218} environmental forces. This throws biology back to\nthe permanency of species in themselves, though successive generations\nmay be of different species, and does away with the idea of missing\nlinks, since there are no gradual connecting gradations.\n\nA very interesting phase of Mendel's discoveries is concerned with the\nrelative value of the egg-cell and the pollen-cell, as regards their\neffect upon future generations. It is an old and oft-discussed problem\nas to which of these germinal particles is the more important in its\ninfluence upon the transmission of parental qualities. Mendel's\nobservations would seem to decide definitely that, in plants and, by\nimplication, in animals, since the germinal process is biogenetically\nsimilar, the value of both germinal particles is exactly equal.\n\nIn a note, Mendel says:--\n\n  _In pisum_ (i. e. in peas), it is beyond doubt that, for the\n  formation of the new embryo, a perfect union of the elements of both\n  fertilizing cells must take place. How could we otherwise explain\n  that, among the offspring of the hybrids, both original types\n  reappear in equal numbers, and with all their peculiarities? If the\n  influence of the egg-cell upon the pollen-cell were only external,\n  if it fulfilled the role of a nurse only, then the result of each\n  artificial fertilization could be no other than that the developed\n  hybrid should exactly resemble the pollen parent, or, at any rate,\n  do so very closely. These experiments, so far, have in no wise been\n  confirmed. An evident proof of the complete union of the contents of\n  both cells is afforded by the {219} experience gained on all sides,\n  that it is immaterial as regards the form of the hybrid which of the\n  original species is the seed cell, or which the pollen parent!\n\nThis is the first actual demonstration of the equivalent value of both\ngerminal particles as regards their influence on transmission\ninheritance in future generations.\n\nIt is only by simplifying the problem so that all disturbing factors\ncould be eliminated that Mendel succeeded in making this\ndemonstration. Too many qualities have hitherto been considered with\nconsequent confusion as to the results obtained.\n\nIt is of the genius of the man that he should have been able to\nsucceed in seeing the problem in simple terms while it is apparently\nso complex, and thus obtain results that are as far-reaching as the\nproblem they solve is basic in its character.\n\nBateson, in his work Mendel's _Principles of Heredity_, says:--\n\n  It may seem surprising that a work of such importance should so long\n  have failed to find recognition and to become current in the world\n  of science. It is true that the Journal in which it appeared is\n  scarce, but this circumstance has seldom long delayed general\n  recognition. The cause is unquestionably to be found in that neglect\n  of the experimental study of the problem of species which supervened\n  on the general acceptance of the Darwinian doctrine. The problem of\n  species, as Koelreuter, Gaertner, Naudin, Wichura, and the hybridists\n  of the middle of the nineteenth century conceived it, attracted\n  thenceforth no workers.\n\n{220}\n\n  The question, it was imagined, had been answered and the debate\n  ended. No one felt much interest in the matter. A host of other\n  lines of work was suddenly opened up, and in 1865 the more original\n  investigators naturally found these new methods of research more\n  attractive than the tedious observations of hybridizers, whose\n  inquiries were supposed, moreover, to have led to no definite\n  results.\n\n  In 1868 appeared the first edition of Darwin's _Animals and Plants_,\n  marking the very zenith of these studies with regard to hybrids and\n  the questions in heredity which they illustrate, and thenceforth the\n  decline in the experimental investigation of evolution and the\n  problem of species have been studied. With the rediscovery and\n  confirmation of Mendel's work by de Vries, Correns and Tschermak in\n  1900 a new era begins. Had Mendel's work come into the hands of\n  Darwin it is not too much to say that the history of the development\n  of evolutionary philosophy would have been very different from that\n  which we have witnessed.\n\n  That Mendel's work, appearing as it did at a moment when several\n  naturalists of the first rank were still occupied with these\n  problems, should have passed wholly unnoted, will always remain\n  inexplicable, the more so as the Bruenn society exchanged its\n  publication with most of the great academies of Europe, including\n  both the Royal and the Linnean societies of London.\n\nThe whole history of Mendel's work, its long period without effect\nupon scientific thought, its thoroughly simple yet satisfactory\ncharacter, its basis in manifold observations of problems simplified\nto the last degree, and its present complete acceptance illustrate\nvery well the chief defect of the last two generations of workers in\nbiology. {221} There has been entirely too much theorizing, too much\neffort at observations for the purpose of bolstering up preconceived\nideas--preaccepted dogmas of science that have proved false in the\nend--and too little straightforward observation and simple reporting\nof the facts without trying to have them fit into any theory\nprematurely, that is until their true place was found. This will be\nthe criterion by which the latter half of nineteenth century biology\nwill be judged; and because of failure here much of our supposed\nprogress will have no effect on the current of biological progress,\nbut will represent only an eddy in which there was no end of bustling\nmovement manifest but no real advance.\n\nAs stated very clearly by Professor Morgan at the beginning of this\npaper, and Professor Bateson near the end, Darwin's doctrine of\nnatural selection as the main factor in evolution and its practically\nuniversal premature acceptance by scientific workers in biology are\nundoubtedly responsible for this. The present generation may well be\nwarned, then, not to surrender their judgment to taking theories, but\nto wait in patience for the facts in the case, working, not\ntheorizing, while they wait.","title":"Catholic Churchmen in Science [First Series]: Sketches of the Lives of Catholic Ecclesiastics Who Were Among the Great Founders in Science","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":51143}