lic Instruction, having at its head the Minister of State, Duruy. The storming party in the French Senate was led by a venerable and conscientious prelate, Cardinal de Bonnechose.
It was charged by Monseigneur de Bonnechose and his party, that the tendencies of the teachings of these professors were fatal to religion and morality. A heavy artillery of phrases was hurled, such as "sapping the foundations," etc., "breaking down the bulwarks," etc., etc., and withal a new missile was used with much effect, the epithet of "materialist."
The result can be easily guessed. Crowds came to the lecture-rooms of these professors, and the lecture-room of Prof. See, the chief offender, was crowded to suffocation.
A siege was begun in due form. A young physician was sent by the cardinal's party into the heterodox camp as a spy. Having heard one lecture of Prof. See, he returned with information that seemed to promise easy victory to the besieging party. He brought a terrible statement, one that seemed enough to overwhelm See, Vulpian, Duruy, and the whole hated system of public instruction in France.
Good Cardinal Bonnechose seized the tremendous weapon. Rising in his place in the Senate he launched a most eloquent invective against the Minister of State who could protect such a fortress of impiety as the College of Medicine; and, as a climax, he asserted, on the evidence of his spy fresh from Prof. See's lecture-room, that the professor had declared, in his lecture of the day before, that so long as he had the honor to hold his professorship he would combat the false idea of the existence of the soul (idée de l'ame). The weapon seemed resistless, and the wound fatal; but M. Duruy rose and asked to be heard.
His statement was simply that he held in his hand documentary proofs that Prof. See never made such a declaration. He held the notes used by Prof. See in his lecture. Prof. See, it appeared, belonged to a school in medical science which combated the idea of an art (idée d'un art) in medicine. The real expression used was l'idée d'un art—the idea of an art; the expression which the imagination of the cardinal's eager emissary made of it was l'idée d'une ame—the idea of a soul.
The forces of the enemy were immediately turned. They retreated in confusion amid the laughter of all France; and a well-meant attempt to check what was feared might be dangerous in science simply ended in bringing ridicule on religion, and thrusting still deeper into the minds of thousands of men that most mistaken of all mistaken ideas—the conviction that religion and science are enemies.[1]
- ↑ For general account of the Vulpian and See matter, see Revue des Deux Mondes, 31 Mai, 1868. "Chronique de la Quinzaine," pp. 763-765. As to the result on popular thought may be noted the following comment on the affair by the Revue which is as free as possible from any thing like rabid anti-ecclesiastical ideas: "Elle a été vraiment curieuse, instructive, assez triste et même un peu amusante."
