ept
this than to reach a calm consideration of the Papal relations to the
medical sciences. Medicine is supposed to be the sort of practical
{16} subject that, in spite of prejudice, the ecclesiastical
authorities could not neglect and were not able to suppress. Science
in general, however, is supposed to be so distinctly opposed to what
was at least considered religious truth, that the Church could not
very well do anything else than prevent its development, or at least
hamper its progress to such an extent that it was only with the
lifting of the ecclesiastical incubus in our own day, that any great
scientific advances came in the physical sciences. This is an entirely
false impression emphasized by the ridiculous intolerance of writers
who knew practically nothing of the real history of science in the
Middle Ages, wrote their own prejudices large into the story of the
times, and did great positive harm to the cause of truth by a pretense
of knowledge they did not have, but which so many confidingly believed
them to possess.

But it will at once be said, what of Galileo? Does not his case show
the anti-scientific temper of churchmen? Nearly half a century ago,
Cardinal Newman in his Apologia characteristically observed that this
very case sufficed to prove that the Church did not set herself
against scientific progress, for this is the "one stock argument" to
the contrary, "the exception which proves the rule." Commenting upon
the Galileo incident, Professor Augustus de Morgan, in his article on
the Motion of the Earth in the English Encyclopedia, has expressed
exactly the same conclusion. He is an authority not likely to be
suspected of Catholic sympathy. He says:

"The Papal power must upon the whole have been moderately used in
matters of philosophy, if we may judge by the great stress laid on
this one case of Galileo. It is the standing proof that an authority
which has {17} lasted a thousand years was all the time occupied in
checking the progress of thought(!) There are certainly one or two
other instances, but those who make most of the outcry do not know
them."

There is no doubt that Galileo was prosecuted by the Roman inquisition
on account of his astronomical teachings. We would be the last to deny
that this was a deplorable mistake made by persons in ecclesiastical
authority, who endeavored to make a Church tribunal the judge of
scientific truth, a function altogether alien to its charact