THE

WARFARE OF SCIENCE.

BY
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D.,

PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
1888.

TO

HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE,

OF BROOKLYN, N. Y.,

A CHRISTIAN MAN, WHO HAS PROVED THAT HE WELCOMES

ALL TRUTH, AND FEARS NONE,

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS INSCRIBED,

WITH FEELINGS OF

THOROUGH RESPECT AND ESTEEM.

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PREFATORY NOTE.

In its earlier abridged form this address wasgiven as a Phi Beta Kappa oration at Brown University,and, as a lecture, at New York, Boston,New Haven, Ann Arbor, and elsewhere. In thatform, substantially, it was published in The PopularScience Monthly. I have now given it carefulrevision, correcting some errors, and extending itlargely by presenting new facts and developingvarious points of interest in the general discussion.Among the subjects added or rewrought are: inAstronomy, the struggle of Galileo and the retreatof the Church after its victory; in Chemistry andPhysics, the compromise between Science andTheology made by Thomas Aquinas, and the unfortunateroute taken by Science in consequence;in Anatomy and Medicine, the earlier growth of[Pg 6]ecclesiastical distrust of these sciences; in ScientificEducation, the dealings of various Europeanuniversities with scientific studies; in Politicaland Social Science, a more complete statementof the opposition of the Church, on Scripturalgrounds, to the taking of interest for money;and, in the conclusion, a more careful summing up.If I have seemed to encumber the text with notes,it has been in the intention to leave no importantassertion unsupported; and in the hope that others—lessengrossed with administrative care thanmyself—may find in them indications for moreextended studies in various parts of the strugglewhich I have but sketched.

A. D. W.

Cornell University, March, 1876.

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THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.

I purpose to present an outline of the great,sacred struggle for the liberty of science—a strugglewhich has lasted for so many centuries, andwhich yet continues. A hard contest it has been;a war waged longer, with battles fiercer, withsieges more persistent, with strategy more shrewdthan in any of the comparatively transient warfareof Cæsar or Napoleon or Moltke.

I shall ask you to go with me through some ofthe most protracted sieges, and over some of thehardest-fought battle-fields of this war. We willlook well at the combatants; we will listen to thebattle-cries; we will note the strategy of leaders,the cut and thrust of champions, the weight of missiles,the temper of weapons; we will look also atthe truces and treaties, and note the delusive impotencyof all compromises in which the warriorsfor scientific truth have consented to receive direction[Pg 8]or bias from the best of men uninspired bythe scientific spirit, or unfamiliar with scientificmethods.

My thesis, which, by an historical study of thiswarfare, I expect to develop, is the following: In