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History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom

A >> Andrew Dickson White >> History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom




But even such champions as these could not stay the progress of
thought. While they seemed to be carrying everything before them
in France, researches in philology made at such centres of
thought as the Sorbonne and the College of France were
undermining their last great fortress. Curious indeed is it to
find that the Sorbonne, the stronghold of theology through so
many centuries, was now made in the nineteenth century the
arsenal and stronghold of the new ideas. But the most striking
result of the new tendency in France was seen when the greatest
of the three champions, Lamennais himself, though offered the
highest Church preferment, and even a cardinal's hat, braved the
papal anathema, and went over to the scientific side.[419]

[419] For Johnson's work, showing how Moses learned the alphabet,
see the Collection of Discourses by Rev. John Johnson, A. M.,
Vicar of Kent, London, 1728, p. 42, and the preface. For
Beattie, see his Theory of Language, London, 1788, p. 98; also
pp. 100, 101. For Adam Clarke, see, for the speech cited, his
Miscellaneous Works, London, 1837; for the passage from his
Commentary, see the London edition of 1836, vol. i, p. 93; for
the other passage, see Introduction to Bibliographical
Miscellany, quoted in article, Origin of Language and
Alphabetical Characters, in Methodist Magazine, vol. xv, p. 214.
For De Bonald, see his Recherches Philosophiques, part iii, chap.
ii, De l'Origine du Language, in his Oeuvres, Bruxelles, 1852,
vol. i, Les Soirees de Saint Petersbourg, deuxieme entretien,
passim. For Lamennais, see his Oeuvres Completes, Paris, 1836-
'37, tome ii, pp.78-81, chap. xv of Essai sur l'Indifference en
Matiere de Religion.


In Germany philological science took so strong a hold that its
positions were soon recognised as impregnable. Leaders like the
Schlegels, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and above all Franz Bopp and
Jacob Grimm, gave such additional force to scientific truth that
it could no longer be withstood. To say nothing of other
conquests, the demonstration of that great law in philology which
bears Grimm's name brought home to all thinking men the evidence
that the evolution of language had not been determined by the
philosophic utterances of Adam in naming the animals which
Jehovah brought before him, but in obedience to natural law.

True, a few devoted theologians showed themselves willing to lead
a forlorn hope; and perhaps the most forlorn of all was that of
1840, led by Dr. Gottlieb Christian Kayser, Professor of
Theology at the Protestant University of Erlangen. He does not,
indeed, dare put in the old claim that Hebrew is identical with
the primitive tongue, but he insists that it is nearer it than
any other. He relinquishes the two former theological
strongholds--first, the idea that language was taught by the
Almighty to Adam, and, next, that the alphabet was thus taught to
Moses--and falls back on the position that all tongues are thus
derived from Noah, giving as an example the language of the
Caribbees, and insisting that it was evidently so derived. What
chance similarity in words between Hebrew and the Caribbee tongue
he had in mind is past finding out. He comes out strongly in
defence of the biblical account of the Tower of Babel, and
insists that "by the symbolical expression `God said, Let us go
down,' a further natural phenomenon is intimated, to wit, the
cleaving of the earth, whereby the return of the dispersed became
impossible--that is to say, through a new or not universal flood,
a partial inundation and temporary violent separation of great
continents until the time of the rediscovery" By these words the
learned doctor means nothing less than the separation of Europe
from America.

While at the middle of the nineteenth century the theory of the
origin and development of language was upon the continent
considered as settled, and a well-ordered science had there
emerged from the old chaos, Great Britain still held back, in
spite of the fact that the most important contributors to the
science were of British origin. Leaders in every English church
and sect vied with each other, either in denouncing the
encroachments of the science of language or in explaining them
away.

But a new epoch had come, and in a way least expected. Perhaps
the most notable effort in bringing it in was made by Dr.
Wiseman, afterward Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. His is
one of the best examples of a method which has been used with
considerable effect during the latest stages of nearly all the
controversies between theology and science. It consists in
stating, with much fairness, the conclusions of the scientific
authorities, and then in persuading one's self and trying to
persuade others that the Church has always accepted them and
accepts them now as "additional proofs of the truth of
Scripture." A little juggling with words, a little amalgamation
of texts, a little judicious suppression, a little imaginative
deduction, a little unctuous phrasing, and the thing is done.
One great service this eminent and kindly Catholic champion
undoubtedly rendered: by this acknowledgment, so widely spread
in his published lectures, he made it impossible for Catholics or
Protestants longer to resist the main conclusions of science.
Henceforward we only have efforts to save theological
appearances, and these only by men whose zeal outran their
discretion.

On both sides of the Atlantic, down to a recent period, we see
these efforts, but we see no less clearly that they are mutually
destructive. Yet out of this chaos among English-speaking
peoples the new science began to develop steadily and rapidly.
Attempts did indeed continue here and there to save the old
theory. Even as late as 1859 we hear the eminent Presbyterian
divine, Dr. John Cumming, from his pulpit in London, speaking of
Hebrew as "that magnificent tongue--that mother-tongue, from
which all others are but distant and debilitated progenies."

But the honour of producing in the nineteenth century the most
absurd known attempt to prove Hebrew the primitive tongue belongs
to the youngest of the continents, Australia. In the year 1857
was printed at Melbourne The Triumph of Truth, or a Popular
Lecture on the Origin of Languages, by B. Atkinson,
M.R.C.P.L.--whatever that may mean. In this work, starting with
the assertion that "the Hebrew was the primary stock whence all
languages were derived," the author states that Sanskrit is "a
dialect of the Hebrew," and declares that "the manuscripts found
with mummies agree precisely with the Chinese version of the
Psalms of David." It all sounds like Alice in Wonderland.
Curiously enough, in the latter part of his book, evidently
thinking that his views would not give him authority among
fastidious philologists, he says, "A great deal of our consent to
the foregoing statements arises in our belief in the Divine
inspiration of the Mosaic account of the creation of the world
and of our first parents in the Garden of Eden." A yet more
interesting light is thrown upon the author's view of truth, and
of its promulgation, by his dedication: he says that, "being
persuaded that literary men ought to be fostered by the hand of
power," he dedicates his treatise "to his Excellency Sir H.
Barkly," who was at the time Governor of Victoria.

Still another curious survival is seen in a work which appeared
as late as 1885, at Edinburgh, by William Galloway, M.A., Ph.D.,
M.D. The author thinks that he has produced abundant
evidence to prove that "Jehovah, the Second Person of the
Godhead, wrote the first chapter of Genesis on a stone pillar,
and that this is the manner by which he first revealed it to
Adam; and thus Adam was taught not only to speak but to read and
write by Jehovah, the Divine Son; and that the first lesson he
got was from the first chapter of Genesis." He goes on to say:
"Jehovah wrote these first two documents; the first containing
the history of the Creation, and the second the revelation of
man's redemption,...for Adam's and Eve's instruction; it is
evident that he wrote them in the Hebrew tongue, because that was
the language of Adam and Eve." But this was only a flower out of
season.

And, finally, in these latter days Mr. Gladstone has touched
the subject. With that well-known facility in believing anything
he wishes to believe, which he once showed in connecting
Neptune's trident with the doctrine of the Trinity, he floats
airily over all the impossibilities of the original Babel legend
and all the conquests of science, makes an assertion regarding
the results of philology which no philologist of any standing
would admit, and then escapes in a cloud of rhetoric after his
well-known fashion.

This, too, must be set down simply as a survival, for in the
British Isles as elsewhere the truth has been established. Such
men as Max Muller and Sayce in England,--Steinthal, Schleicher,
Weber, Karl Abel, and a host of others in Germany,--Ascoli and De
Gubernatis in Italy,--and Whitney, with the scholars inspired by
him, in America, have carried the new science to a complete
triumph. The sons of Yale University may well be proud of the
fact that this old Puritan foundation was made the headquarters
of the American Oriental Society, which has done so much for the
truth in this field.[420]

[420] For Mr. Gladstone's view, see his Impregnable Rock of Holy
Scripture, London, 1890, pp. 241 et seq. The passage connecting
the trident of Neptune with the Trinity is in his Juventus Mundi.
To any American boy who sees how inevitably, both among Indian
and white fishermen, the fish spear takes the three-pronged form,
this utterance of Mr. Gladstone is amazing.



V. SUMMARY.


It may be instructive, in conclusion, to sum up briefly the
history of the whole struggle.

First, as to the origin of speech, we have in the beginning the
whole Church rallying around the idea that the original language
was Hebrew; that this language, even including the medieval
rabbinical punctuation, was directly inspired by the Almighty;
that Adam was taught it by God himself in walks and talks; and
that all other languages were derived from it at the "confusion
of Babel."

Next, we see parts of this theory fading out: the inspiration of
the rabbinical points begins to disappear. Adam, instead of
being taught directly by God, is "inspired" by him.

Then comes the third stage: advanced theologians endeavour to
compromise on the idea that Adam was "given verbal roots and a
mental power."

Finally, in our time, we have them accepting the theory that
language is the result of an evolutionary process in obedience to
laws more or less clearly ascertained. Babel thus takes its
place quietly among the sacred myths.

As to the origin of writing, we have the more eminent theologians
at first insisting that God taught Adam to write; next we find
them gradually retreating from this position, but insisting that
writing was taught to the world by Noah. After the retreat from
this position, we find them insisting that it was Moses whom God
taught to write. But scientific modes of thought still
progressed, and we next have influential theologians agreeing
that writing was a Mosaic invention; this is followed by another
theological retreat to the position that writing was a
post-Mosaic invention. Finally, all the positions are
relinquished, save by some few skirmishers who appear now and
then upon the horizon, making attempts to defend some subtle
method of "reconciling" the Babel myth with modern science.

Just after the middle of the nineteenth century the last stage of
theological defence was evidently reached--the same which is seen
in the history of almost every science after it has successfully
fought its way through the theological period--the declaration
which we have already seen foreshadowed by Wiseman, that the
scientific discoveries in question are nothing new, but have
really always been known and held by the Church, and that they
simply substantiate the position taken by the Church. This new
contention, which always betokens the last gasp of theological
resistance to science, was now echoed from land to land. In
1856 it was given forth by a divine of the Anglican Church,
Archdeacon Pratt, of Calcutta. He gives a long list of eminent
philologists who had done most to destroy the old supernatural
view of language, reads into their utterances his own wishes, and
then exclaims, "So singularly do their labours confirm the
literal truth of Scripture."

Two years later this contention was echoed from the American
Presbyterian Church, and Dr. B. W. Dwight, having stigmatized as
"infidels" those who had not incorporated into their science the
literal acceptance of Hebrew legend, declared that "chronology,
ethnography, and etymology have all been tortured in vain to make
them contradict the Mosaic account of the early history of man."
Twelve years later this was re-echoed from England. The Rev.
Dr. Baylee, Principal of the College of St. Aidan's, declared,
"With regard to the varieties of human language, the account of
the confusion of tongues is receiving daily confirmation by all
the recent discoveries in comparative philology." So, too, in
the same year (1870), in the United Presbyterian Church of
Scotland, Dr. John Eadie, Professor of Biblical Literature and
Exegesis, declared, "Comparative philology has established the
miracle of Babel."

A skill in theology and casuistry so exquisite as to contrive
such assertions, and a faith so robust as to accept them,
certainly leave nothing to be desired. But how baseless these
contentions are is shown, first, by the simple history of the
attitude of the Church toward this question; and, secondly, by
the fact that comparative philology now reveals beyond a doubt
that not only is Hebrew not the original or oldest language upon
earth, but that it is not even the oldest form in the Semitic
group to which it belongs. To use the words of one of the most
eminent modern authorities, "It is now generally recognised that
in grammatical structure the Arabic preserves much more of the
original forms than either the Hebrew or Aramaic."

History, ethnology, and philology now combine inexorably to place
the account of the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of
races at Babel among the myths; but their work has not been
merely destructive: more and more strong are the grounds for
belief in an evolution of language.

A very complete acceptance of the scientific doctrines has been
made by Archdeacon Farrar, Canon of Westminster. With a
boldness which in an earlier period might have cost him dear, and
which merits praise even now for its courage, he says: "For all
reasoners except that portion of the clergy who in all ages have
been found among the bitterest enemies of scientific discovery,
these considerations have been conclusive. But, strange to say,
here, as in so many other instances, this self-styled
orthodoxy--more orthodox than the Bible itself--directly
contradicts the very Scriptures which it professes to explain,
and by sheer misrepresentation succeeds in producing a needless
and deplorable collision between the statements of Scripture and
those other mighty and certain truths which have been revealed to
science and humanity as their glory and reward."

Still another acknowledgment was made in America through the
instrumentality of a divine of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
whom the present generation at least will hold in honour not only
for his scholarship but for his patriotism in the darkest hour of
his country's need--John McClintock. In the article on
Language, in the Biblical Cyclopaedia, edited by him and the Rev.
Dr. Strong, which appeared in 1873, the whole sacred theory is
given up, and the scientific view accepted.[421]

[421] For Kayser, see his work, Ueber die Ursprache, oder uber
eine Behauptung Mosis, dass alle Sprachen der Welt von einer
einzigen der Noahhischen abstammen, Erlangen, 1840; see
especially pp. 5, 80, 95, 112. For Wiseman, see his Lectures on
the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, London,
1836. For examples typical of very many in this field, see the
works of Pratt, 1856; Dwight, 1858; Jamieson, 1868. For citation
from Cumming, see his Great Tribulation, London, 1859, p. 4; see
also his Things Hard to be Understood, London, 1861, p. 48. For
an admirable summary of the work of the great modern
philologists, and a most careful estimate of the conclusions
reached, see Prof. Whitney's article on Philology in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. A copy of Mr. Atkinson's book is in the
Harvard College Library, it having been presented by the Trustees
of the Public Library of Victoria. For Galloway, see his
Philosophy of the Creation, Edinburgh and London, 1885, pp. 21,
238, 239, 446. For citation from Baylee, see his Verbal
Inspiration the True Characteristic of God's Holy Word, London,
1870, p. 14 and elsewhere. For Archdeacon Pratt, see his
Scripture and Science not at Variance, London, 1856, p. 55. For
the citation from Dr. Eadie, see his Biblical Cyclopaedia,
London, 1870, p. 53. For Dr. Dwight, see The New-Englander, vol.
xvi, p. 465. For the theological article referred to as giving
up the sacred theory, see the Cyclopaedia of Biblical,
Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, prepared by Rev. John
McClintock, D. D., and James Strong, New York, 1873, vol. v, p.
233. For Arabic as an earlier Semitic development than Hebrew,
as well as for much other valuable information on the questions
recently raised, see article Hebrew, by W. R. Smith, in the
latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For quotation
from Canon Farrar, see his language and Languages, London, 1878,
pp. 6,7.


It may, indeed, be now fairly said that the thinking leaders of
theology have come to accept the conclusions of science regarding
the origin of language, as against the old explanations by myth
and legend. The result has been a blessing both to science and
to religion. No harm has been done to religion; what has been
done is to release it from the clog of theories which thinking
men saw could no longer be maintained. No matter what has become
of the naming of the animals by Adam, of the origin of the name
Babel, of the fear of the Almighty lest men might climb up into
his realm above the firmament, and of the confusion of tongues
and the dispersion of nations; the essentials of Christianity, as
taught by its blessed Founder, have simply been freed, by
Comparative Philology, from one more great incubus, and have
therefore been left to work with more power upon the hearts and
minds of mankind.

Nor has any harm been done to the Bible. On the contrary, this
divine revelation through science has made it all the more
precious to us. In these myths and legends caught from earlier
civilizations we see an evolution of the most important religious
and moral truths for our race. Myth, legend, and parable seem,
in obedience to a divine law, the necessary setting for these
truths, as they are successively evolved, ever in higher and
higher forms. What matters it, then, that we have come to know
that the accounts of Creation, the Fall, the Deluge, and much
else in our sacred books, were remembrances of lore obtained from
the Chaldeans? What matters it that the beautiful story of
Joseph is found to be in part derived from an Egyptian romance,
of which the hieroglyphs may still be seen? What matters it that
the story of David and Goliath is poetry; and that Samson, like
so many men of strength in other religions, is probably a
sun-myth? What matters it that the inculcation of high duty in
the childhood of the world is embodied in such quaint stories as
those of Jonah and Balaam? The more we realize these facts, the
richer becomes that great body of literature brought together
within the covers of the Bible. What matters it that those who
incorporated the Creation lore of Babylonia and other Oriental
nations into the sacred books of the Hebrews, mixed it with their
own conceptions and deductions? What matters it that Darwin
changed the whole aspect of our Creation myths; that Lyell and
his compeers placed the Hebrew story of Creation and of the
Deluge of Noah among legends; that Copernicus put an end to the
standing still of the sun for Joshua; that Halley, in
promulgating his law of comets, put an end to the doctrine of
"signs and wonders"; that Pinel, in showing that all insanity is
physical disease, relegated to the realm of mythology the witch
of Endor and all stories of demoniacal possession; that the Rev.
Dr. Schaff, and a multitude of recent Christian travellers
in Palestine, have put into the realm of legend the story of
Lot's wife transformed into a pillar of salt; that the
anthropologists, by showing how man has risen everywhere from low
and brutal beginnings, have destroyed the whole theological
theory of "the fall of man"? Our great body of sacred literature
is thereby only made more and more valuable to us: more and more
we see how long and patiently the forces in the universe which
make for righteousness have been acting in and upon mankind
through the only agencies fitted for such work in the earliest
ages of the world--through myth, legend, parable, and poem.



CHAPTER XVIII.

FROM THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS TO COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY,

I. THE GROWTH OF EXPLANATORY TRANSFORMATION MYTHS.


A few years since, Maxime Du Camp, an eminent member of the
French Academy, travelling from the Red Sea to the Nile through
the Desert of Kosseir, came to a barren slope covered with
boulders, rounded and glossy.

His Mohammedan camel-driver accounted for them on this wise:

"Many years ago Hadji Abdul-Aziz, a sheik of the dervishes, was
travelling on foot through this desert: it was summer: the sun
was hot and the dust stifling; thirst parched his lips, fatigue
weighed down his back, sweat dropped from his forehead, when
looking up he saw--on this very spot--a garden beautifully green,
full of fruit, and, in the midst of it, the gardener.

"`O fellow-man,' cried Hadji Abdul-Aziz, `in the name of Allah,
clement and merciful, give me a melon and I will give you my
prayers.'"

The gardener answered: `I care not for your prayers; give me
money, and I will give you fruit.'

"`But,' said the dervish, `I am a beggar; I have never had
money; I am thirsty and weary, and one of your melons is all that
I need.'

"`No,' said the gardener; `go to the Nile and quench your
thirst.'

"Thereupon the dervish, lifting his eyes toward heaven, made this
prayer: `O Allah, thou who in the midst of the desert didst make
the fountain of Zem-Zem spring forth to satisfy the thirst of
Ismail, father of the faithful: wilt thou suffer one of thy
creatures to perish thus of thirst and fatigue? '

"And it came to pass that, hardly had the dervish spoken, when an
abundant dew descended upon him, quenching his thirst and
refreshing him even to the marrow of his bones.

"Now at the sight of this miracle the gardener knew that the
dervish was a holy man, beloved of Allah, and straightway offered
him a melon.

"`Not so,' answered Hadji Abdul-Aziz; `keep what thou hast, thou
wicked man. May thy melons become as hard as thy heart, and thy
field as barren as thy soul!'

"And straightway it came to pass that the melons were changed
into these blocks of stone, and the grass into this sand, and
never since has anything grown thereon."

In this story, and in myriads like it, we have a survival of that
early conception of the universe in which so many of the leading
moral and religious truths of the great sacred books of the world
are imbedded.

All ancient sacred lore abounds in such mythical explanations of
remarkable appearances in nature, and these are most frequently
prompted by mountains, rocks, and boulders seemingly misplaced.

In India we have such typical examples among the Brahmans as the
mountain-peak which Durgu threw at Parvati; and among the
Buddhists the stone which Devadatti hurled at Buddha.

In Greece the Athenian, rejoicing in his belief that Athena
guarded her chosen people, found it hard to understand why the
great rock Lycabettus should be just too far from the Acropolis
to be of use as an outwork; but a myth was developed which
explained all. According to this, Athena had intended to make
Lycabettus a defence for the Athenians, and she was bringing it
through the air from Pallene for that very purpose; but,
unfortunately, a raven met her and informed her of the wonderful
birth of Erichthonius, which so surprised the goddess that she
dropped the rock where it now stands.

So, too, a peculiar rock at Aegina was accounted for by a long
and circumstantial legend to the effect that Peleus threw it at
Phocas.

A similar mode of explaining such objects is seen in the
mythologies of northern Europe. In Scandinavia we constantly
find rocks which tradition accounts for by declaring that they
were hurled by the old gods at each other, or at the early
Christian churches.

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