heories the
Fathers had full access through the medium of Plutarch, the Greek
compiler. Eusebius, for example, the Father of Church History,
quotes Plutarch on just these topics for over thirty pages. If
Eusebius and the other Fathers grew impatient with all this
ill-assorted mass of _soi-disant_ science, shall we charge them as
Dr. White does with having been false to the interest of science?
Should we not rather maintain that they helped save science from its
enemies?

_Opposition to Science_.--It is only in the light of these
indisputable facts that we can understand the sayings of the Fathers
in which, as quoted by White, they upbraid science for its
inutility. Be it noted in passing that White is wont to quote them
not literally but freely, and apart from their context. Lactantius,
Eusebius, Augustine, and Basil, these are the four whom he selects
as representative. They are truly representative, and indeed any one
of them might stand for all.

Let Eusebius be our particular choice, for he discusses astronomy
more completely than the others. White alleges (_Warfare_, Vol. I,
p. 91) that Eusebius endeavored to bring scientific studies into
contempt, and quotes him as saying, "It is not through ignorance of
the things admired by them [scientific investigators], but through
contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these
matters, turning our souls to better things."

Who would guess from this brief epitome of Eusebius' views that the
latter had devoted to the subject more than thirty pages? Who could
possibly surmise that he had taken pains to write out, under the
guidance of Plutarch, all the known opinions of the Greeks on some
thirty-nine problems, all but two or three of them astronomical? Let
the curious read Eusebius for themselves in the fifteenth book of
his _Praelectio Evangelica_. They will there discover what White
might have well acknowledged, that on not one of the problems are
the Greek philosophers in agreement. On the nature of the sun there
are nine opinions, on its size four, on its shape an equal number,
on the moon's nature seven. And this discrepancy of judgment
continues to the end. Moreover a large proportion of the theories
are of the most fantastic sort.

In the face of this chaotic wilderness of diverse, fluctuating and
contradictory teachings, what could Eusebius do but turn away in
impatienc