THE CONSISTENCY OF " SCIENCE."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 21, 14 September 1883, Page 17

THE CONSISTENCY OF " SCIENCE."

(From the New York Freeman's Journal)' It is the opinion of a correspondent that Catholic journals are behind the times in not giving a large space to the J deductions of modern science. '• Science," he says , " in spite of the complaints of the retrogressive, is as infallible as any natural thing can be. It is founded on facts, and its consistency makes it powerful, and nntil its arguments are met in the Catholic press, young men of education will prefer to take sides with Darwin and Huxley against the Catechism, " etc. Young men do many foolish things, especially young men cursed with tbe "little learning " which the public schools and the newspaper furnish It is the habit of Catholic young men of this thin culture to believe everything said against the Church. A dry rot kills all the

manliness in them. Catholics are always wrong. That is under* stood by these "scholars," who talk glibly of books which they have read through newspaper reviews. We are not aware that there is any. contradiction of Darwin or Huxley by tbe Catechism, so long as Darwin or Huxley does not attempt to invade spheres beyon-l the reach of the microscope or the dissecting knife— so long as he who makes a boast of relying on the evidences of his senses does not say that what he can not see does not exist. Faith is not founded on the evidence of the senses. Science is. How can they contradict each other ? One might as well talk of parallel lines meeting. Our Freethinkers boast of the exactness of modern science. And many of our young men— Catholics by baptism— are led into indifferentism by these brilliant boasts. When Prof. Huxley tells us something new about the action of the glaoiera, tlnre is no reason why we should not listen with respect ; but when he declares that the doctrine of the Resurrection of the soul is untenable because goats eat grass from graves, it is plain that the scientist has got beyond his depth. Our correspondent, doubtless a young man of "culture"' who, ha says, "seldom reais a Catholic paper," might learn a fe*i things with advantage. Among these, that* the science he exilts i* Very exict and contradictory. Darwin and Qaatrefages, Haeckel and Virschow, might be quoted in support of this assertion. In the book of the Abb 6 Moigno, " L 99 Splendeurs de la Foi," there are a hundred instances ready at hand. Our public-school correspondent has probably never heard of the Abbe Moierno, a scientist who is considered by the high priests of modern science worthy of honour. It is the fashion of these public - schools sciolists to sneer at names they have never heard. But, at least, our correspondent has heard of the names that Abbd Moigno quotes. Figuier and Maury both agree that the agent which produced the first terrestrial formations was Fire. Two great names in Science : and these two great names give weight to the fire theory. Then come Dupaigne and Choyer. Water, they say — everything was produced in water. But A^assiz contradicts them all. Ice, he says — the world in the beginning was covered with ice. He . even tells us how thick this ice was. And yet a hundred " cultured " voices tell us that modern science is consistent 1 D'Omalius and Darwin hold firmly to evolution and the gradual perfecion of creatures by evolution and natural selection from primal types. D'Orbigny, another scientist, denies this point blank. Larousse and Rossi hold that the remains of various beings found are the remains of men and animals that lived contemporaneously. Lyell denies this, and asserts that these remains belonged to different epochs and were afterward mixed. Tyndall holds that the solidification of the globe began in the centre ; Laplace, at the surface. Zobrowsky teaches that the glacial epoch lasted 226,000 years ; Lyell, 180,000 years ; Karenger, 15.000 years ; Gastaldi, 1,000 years ; De Rosemond, that it is not certain that the glacial epoch of the geologists ever existed ! Lambert declares that geology is a science. Bornemann calls it a mass of theories without foundation I The Abbe Moigno multiplies examples. It is for this shapeless mass of hypotheses that the Faith of centuries is to be surrendered. It is for this series of contradictions chat Hope and Love are declared irreconcilable with common sense. Yet who has reconciled the theories of these exact scientists ? When a young man writes or talks of the " exactness " of science and of the weakness of the Christian religion, the thoughtful observer may at once set him down as very shallow or very superficial, and quote Pope : " A little learning is a dangerous thing ; Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring."