stigation?

How unpractical and how absurd is Virchow's demand--that only
ascertained facts and no problematic theories shall be admitted in
teaching--will be still more strikingly shown by a glance over the
remaining provinces of human knowledge. What, indeed, will be left of
history, of philology, of political science, of jurisprudence, if we
restrict the teaching of them to absolutely-ascertained and
established facts. What of "science" will remain to them if the idea
which endeavours to discern the causes of the facts is banished? if
the problems, the theories, the hypotheses, which seek these causes
may not be generally taught? And that philosophy--the science of
knowing--by which all the common results of human knowledge are to be
bound up into one grand and harmonious whole--that philosophy, I say,
must not be generally taught, is, according to Virchow, quite
self-evident.

Finally, there remains nothing but theology. Theology alone is the one
true science, and its dogmas alone may be taught as certain. Of
course! for it proceeds directly from revelation, and only divine
revelation can be "quite certain;" it alone can never err. Yes,
incredible as it sounds, Virchow, the sceptical opponent of dogma, the
leader of the fight for "liberty of science," Virchow now finds the
only sure basis for instruction in the dogmas of the Church. After all
that has gone before, the following memorable sentence leaves no doubt
on this score:--"Every attempt to transform our problems into dogmas,
to introduce our conjectures as a basis of instruction, particularly
any attempt simply to dispossess the Church and to supplant her dogma
by a creed of descent--ay, gentlemen--this attempt must fail, and in
its ruin will entail the greatest peril on the position of science in
general."

The shouts of triumph of the whole clerical press over Virchow's
Munich address is thus rendered perfectly intelligible, for it is well
known that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth
than over ten just men." When Rudolf Virchow, the "notorious
materialist," the "advanced radical," the "great supporter of the
atheism of science," is so suddenly converted, when he proclaims
loudly and publicly that the dogmas of the Church are the only sure
basis of instruction, then the Church militant may well sing "Hosanna
in the highest!" Only one thing is to be regretted, that Virchow has
not more clearly defined which of the many different c