Josef Donat - The Freedom of Science

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. Everywhere we shall have those tense oppositions between sovereign Humanity and Christianity, between Knowledge and Faith, between Law and Freedom; everywhere those questions on the Rights and Obligations of Science, on Catholic Thought, and on Catholic Doctrinal Beliefs and Duties.

May it fall to the lot of this book to be able to communicate to many a reader, interested in such topics, words of enlightenment and explanation – to some for the strengthening of their convictions, to others for the correction, perhaps, of their erroneous views. At home, while winning the sympathy of many readers, it has not failed to encounter also antagonism. This was to be expected. The resolute championing of the principles of the Christian view of the world, as well as many a candid expression of views touching the intellectual impoverishment and the ever-shifting position of unshackled Freethinking, must necessarily arouse such antagonism. May the present volume meet on the other side of the Atlantic with a large share of that tolerance which is put into actual practice there, and is there not merely an empty phrase on the lips of men! May it contribute something to the better and fuller understanding of the saying of that great English scientist, William Thomson: “Do not be afraid of being free-thinkers! If you think strongly enough, you will be forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all religion.”

Finally, I may be allowed to express my sincere thanks to the publisher for undertaking the work of this translation.

May it accomplish much good.

J. Donat.

University Innsbruck,

Christmas, 1913.

The German original is replete with references to works especially in the German language, the author having with great care quoted title and page whenever referring to an author. Since many of these references are of value only to those familiar with the German, they have been abbreviated or omitted in this English version, whenever they would seem to needlessly encumber its pages.

Those desirous of verifying quotations will be enabled to do so in all instances by a reference to the German original.

If a question is destined to agitate and divide for considerable length of time the minds of men, it must undoubtedly have its root deep in the entire intellectual life of the times; it must be anchored in profound philosophical thought, in theories of life. From this source it derives its power of captivating the minds. All this applies to the question of the Freedom of Science. If, then, we desire a thorough understanding of this question, we must first of all seek and examine its deeper lying philosophical basis; we must trace the threads which so closely unite it to the intellectual life and effort of the times.

But before we begin our study, let us remember a rule of the great orator and philosopher of ancient Rome; a rule only too often forgotten in our times: “Every philosophical discussion, of anything whatsoever, should begin with a definition, in order to make clear what the discussion is about” ( Cicero , De Officiis, I, 2). If we would form a judgment as to the demand of science for freedom, as to the justification of this demand, as to its compatibility or incompatibility with the duty of faith, the first question that naturally arises is: What is the purport of this demand, what does it mean? Only after we have clearly circumscribed this demand can we approach its philosophical presumptions and test its basis.

What, then, do we understand by Science, and what freedom may be granted to it?

When a man of Northern or Central Europe hears of science, his thoughts generally turn to the universities and their teachers. To him the university is the home of science, there its numerous branches dwell in good fellowship, there hundreds of men have consecrated themselves to its service. In those parts of Europe it is customary for men of science to be university professors. Of what university is he? is asked. Celebrated scientists, like Helmholtz , Liebig , Hertz , Kirchhoff ; philosophers, like Kant , Fichte , Schelling , Hegel , Herbart ; great philologists, historians, and so on, were university professors.

For all that, science and university are not necessarily inseparable things. The university needs science, but science does not absolutely need the university. Science was in the world before the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the time when France and Italy built their first universities; and also since then science has been enriched by the achievements of many a genius who never occupied a university chair. Pythagoras , Aristotle , St. Augustine belonged to no universities; Copernicus , Newton , and Kepler never taught in the higher schools. In the countries of Western Europe and America the man of science and the university professor are to this day not so much identical in person. Therefore, if the freedom of science applies principally to the higher schools and their teachers, this is not its exclusive application. Science and university are not identical terms.