Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/10

4 scientific studies alone is sufficient proof of this. Never was science so arrogant as when Leo XIII. began to recommend to Catholics the study of sound philosophy. Twenty-five years ago, scientists everywhere were proclaiming oracularly, like Tyndall and Huxley among the English-speaking nations, the victory of science over religion, when Leo declared that there could be no question of victory where there was no conflict, and that only men who were ignorant of the true nature of religion and science could consider them mutually antagonistic. If to-day a Brunetière without fear of contradiction can proclaim science bankrupt, it is in a great measure because Leo’s Encyclical on the Study of St. Thomas and Scholastic Philosophy inspired Catholic scientists, and through their influence non-Catholic scientists as well, to study both theology and science more ardently, systematically, and conservatively, and with such success in reconciling their apparent disagreements that the best scientists of our day recognize how each is but a study from a different aspect of the same great First Cause and its effects, and that each must necessarily, therefore, be in accord with the other. Lord Kelvin’s words, “Science positively affirms Creative Power we are absolutely forced by science to believe with perfect confidence in a Directive Power,” and his further assertion, “If you think strong enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all religion; you will find science not antagonistic but helpful to religion,” are but a re-echo of Leo’s utterances a quarter of a century ago. A perusal of the Letters contained in this volume will satisfy the reader that in other spheres as well as in that of science, in education, sociology, and statesmanship, the late Pontiff, by adapting himself to his age and studying carefully its needs and possibilities, has so far influenced its thought and tendencies, and so plainly altered its current of events, as to have opened a new era in its history.