We might go over the battle-fields of Social Science in Protestant countries, and note the opposition of conscientious men to the taking of the census, in Sweden and in the United States, on account of the terms in which the numbering of Israel is spoken of in the Old Testament.' And we might also see how, on similar grounds, religious scruples have been avowed against so beneficial a thing as Life Insurance. tium posui eam et in circuitu ejus terras; " and the second reads in the Vulgate "in medio terræ," and in the Septuagint èπ TÒV ὀμφαλὸν τῆς γῆς. That the literal centre of the earth was meant, see proof in St. Jerome, Commentar. in Ezekiel, lib. ii., and for general proof, see Leopardi, "Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi," pp. 207, 208. For an idea of orthodox geography in the middle ages, see Wright's Essay on Archæology, vol. ii., chapter "On the Map of the World in Hereford Cathedral." For an example of the depth to which this idea of Jerusalem as the centre had entered into the thinking of the great poet of the middle ages, see Dante, Inferno, Canto xxxiv. : "E se' or sotto l'emisperio giunto, Ch' è opposito a quel, che la gran secca 1 See Michaelis, Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, 1874, vol. ii., p. 3. The writer of the present article himself witnessed the reluctance of a very conscientious man to answer the questions of a census marshal, Mr. Lewis Hawley, of Syracuse, N. Y., and this reluctance was based upon the reasons assigned in II. Samuel chapter xxiv. 1, and I. Chronicles, chapter xxi. 1, for the numbering of the children of Israel. 2 See De Morgan, Paradoxes, pp. 214–220. SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION. But an outline of this kind would be too meagre without some sketch of the warfare on instruction in science. Not without profit would it be to note more at length how instruction in the Copernican theory was kept out of the Church universities in every great Catholic country of Europe; how they concealed the discovery of the spots on the sun; how many of them excluded the Newtonian demonstrations; how, down to the present time, the two great universities of Protestant England and nearly all her intermediate colleges, under clerical supervision, have excluded the natural and physical sciences as far as possible; and how, from probably nine-tenths of the universities and colleges of the United States, the students are graduated with either no knowledge or with clerically emasculated knowledge of the most careful modern thought on the most important problems in the various sciences, in history, and in criticism. From the dismissal of the scientific professors from the University of Salamanca by Ferdinand VII. of Spain, in the beginning of this century, down to sundry dealings with scientific men in our own land and time, we might study another interesting phase of the same warfare; but, passing all this, I shall simply present a few typical conflicts that have occurred within the last ten years. During the years 1867 and 1868 the war which had been long smouldering in France, between the Church and the whole system of French advanced education, came to an outbreak. Toward the end of the last century, after the Church had held possession of advanced instruction in France for more than a thousand years, and had, so far as it was able, made experimental science contemptible; and after the Church authorities had deliberately resisted and wrecked Turgot's noble plans for the establishment of a system of public schools, the French nation decreed the establishment of the most thorough and complete system of the higher public instruction then known. It was kept under lay control, and became one of the great glories of France. But, emboldened by the restoration of the Bourbons, the Church began to undermine the hated system, and in 1868 had made such progress that all was ready for an assault. Foremost among the leaders of the besieging party was the Bishop of Orleans-Dupanloup-a man of much buzzing vigor. In various ways, and especially in an open letter, he had fought the "Materialism" of the School of Medicine at Paris, and especially were his attacks leveled at Professors Vulpian and See, and the Minister of Public Instruction, Duruy, a man of great merit, whose only crime was a quiet resistance to clerical control.1 In these writings, Bishop Dupanloup stigmatized Darwin, Huxley, Lyell, and others, as authors of "shameful theories," and made especial use of the recent phrase of a naturalist, that "it is more glorious to be a monkey perfected than an Adam degenerated." The direct attack was made in the French Senate, and the storming party in that body was led by a venerable and conscientious prelate, Cardinal de Bonnechose. It was charged by Archbishop de Bonnechose and his party, that the tendencies of the teachings of these professors were fatal to religion and morality. A heavy artillery of phrases was hurled, such as "sapping the foundations," etc., "breaking down the bulwarks," etc., etc., and, withal, a new missile was used with much effect, the epithet of "materialist." The result can be easily guessed ; crowds came to the lecture-rooms of these professors, and the lecture-room of Prof. See, the chief offender, was crowded to suffocation. A siege was begun in due form. A young physician was sent by the cardinal's party into the heterodox camp as a spy. Having heard one lecture of Prof. See, he returned with information 1 For Dupanloup, Lettre à un Cardinal, see the Revue de Therapeutique, 1868, p. 221. that seemed to promise easy victory to the besieging party. He brought a terrible statement, one that seemed enough to overwhelm See, Vulpian, Duruy, and the whole hated system of public instruction in France. Good Cardinal Bonnechose seized the tremendous weapon. Rising in his place in the Senate, he launched a most eloquent invective against the Minister of State who could protect such a fortress of impiety as the College of Medicine; and, as a climax, he asserted, on the evidence of his spy fresh from Prof. See's lecture-room, that the professor had declared, in his lecture of the day before, that so long as he had the honor to hold his professorship he would combat the false idea of the existence of the soul. The weapon seemed resistless, and the wound fatal; but M. Duruy rose and asked to be heard. His statement was simply that he held in his hand documentary proofs that Prof. See never made such a declaration. He held the notes used by Prof. See in his lecture. Prof. See, it appeared, belonged to a school in medical science which combated the idea of an art in medicine. The inflamed imagination of the cardinal's too eager emissary had, as the lecture notes proved, led him into a sad mistake as to words and thoughts, and had exhibited Prof. See as treating a theological when he was discussing a purely scientific ques |