




                          The Freedom of Science

                                    By

                         Joseph Donat, S.J., D.D.

                      Professor Innsbruck University

                                 New York

                             Joseph F. Wagner

                                   1914





CONTENTS


Imprimatur.
Author's Preface To The English Edition.
Translator's Note.
First Section. The Freedom of Science and its Philosophical Basis.
   Chapter I. Science And Freedom.
   Chapter II. Two Views Of The World And Their Freedom.
   Chapter III. Subjectivism And Its Freedom.
Second Section. Freedom of Research and Faith.
   Chapter I. Research And Faith In General.
   Chapter II. The Authority Of Faith And The Free Exercise Of Research.
   Chapter III. Unprepossession Of Research.
   Chapter IV. Accusations And Objections.
   Chapter V. The Witnesses of the Incompatibility Of Science And Faith.
Third Section. The Liberal Freedom of Research.
   Chapter I. Free From The Yoke Of The Supernatural.
   Chapter II. The Unscientific Method.
   Chapter III. The Bitter Fruit.
Fourth Section. Freedom of Teaching.
   Chapter I. Freedom Of Teaching And Ethics.
   Chapter II. Freedom Of Teaching And The State.
Fifth Section. Theology.
   Chapter I. Theology And Science.
   Chapter II. Theology And University.
Index.
Footnotes






IMPRIMATUR.


Nihil Obstat
REMIGIUS LAFORT, D.D.
_Censor_

Imprimatur
JOHN CARDINAL FARLEY
_Archbishop of New York_

NEW YORK, January 22, 1914.

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY JOSEPH F. WAGNER, NEW YORK





AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.


The present work has already secured many friends in German Europe. An
invitation has now been extended for its reception among the
English-speaking countries, with the object that there, too, it may seek
readers and friends, and communicate to them its thoughts--the ideas it has
to convey and to interpret. While wishing it heartfelt success and good
fortune on its journey, the Author desires it to convey his greetings to
its new readers.

This book has issued from the throes of dissension and strife, seeing the
light at a time when, in Austria and Germany, the bitter forces of
opposition, that range themselves about the shibboleth _Freedom of
Science_, were seen engaging in a combat of fiercer intensity than ever.
Yet, notwithstanding, this Child of Strife has learned the language of
Peace only. It speaks the language of an impartial objectivity which
endeavours, in a spirit of unimpassioned, though earnest, calm, to range
itself over the burning questions of the day--over those great
_Weltanschauung_ questions, that stand in such close relation with the
compendious motto: _Freedom of Science_. Yes, _Freedom_ and _Science_
serve, in our age and on both sides of the Atlantic, as trumpet-calls, to
summon together--often indeed to pit in deadly combat--the rival forces of
opposition. They are catch-words that tend to hold at fever-pitch the
intellectual life of modern civilization--agents as they are of such mighty
and far-reaching influences. On the one hand, Science, whence the moving
and leading ideas of the time take shape and form to go forth in turn and
subject to their sway the intellect of man; on the other, Freedom--that
Freedom of sovereign emancipation, that Christian Freedom of well-ordered
self-development, which determine the actions, the strivings of the human
spirit, even as they control imperceptibly the march of Science. While the
present volume is connected with this chain of profound problems, it
becomes, of itself, a representation of the intellectual life of our day,
with its far-reaching philosophical questions, its forces of struggle and
opposition, its dangers, and deep-seated evils.

The Author has a lively recollection of an expression which he heard a few
years ago, in a conversation with an American professor, then journeying
in Europe. "Here, they talk of tolerance," he observed, "while in America
we put it into practice." The catch-word _Freedom of Science_ will not,
therefore, in _every_ quarter of the world, serve as a call to arms,
causing the opposing columns to engage in mutual conflict, as is the case
in many portions of Europe. But certain it is that everywhere alike--in the
new world of America, as well as in the old world of Europe--the human
spirit has its attention engaged with the same identical questions--those
topics of nerve-straining interest that sway and surge about this same
catch-word like so many opposing forces