t would seem
impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after
the discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still
studied for a long time.

From the time the first person said and proved that the number of births
or of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that
mode of government is determined by certain geographical and economic
conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce
migrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had been built
were destroyed in their essence.

By refuting these new laws the former view of history might have been
retained; but without refuting them it would seem impossible to continue
studying historic events as the results of man's free will. For if a
certain mode of government was established or certain migrations
of peoples took place in consequence of such and such geographic,
ethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those
individuals who appear to us to have established that mode of government
or occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as the cause.

And yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with the
laws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology,
and geology, which directly contradict its assumptions.

The struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly
fought out in physical philosophy. Theology stood on guard for the
old views and accused the new of violating revelation. But when truth
conquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new
foundation.

Just as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding between
the old and the new conception of history, and theology in the same way
stands on guard for the old view, and accuses the new view of subverting
revelation.

In the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes
passion and stifles truth. On the one hand there is fear and regret for
the loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other
is the passion for destruction.

To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy,
it seemed that if they admitted that truth it would destroy faith in
God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the
son of Nun. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to
Voltaire for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy destroyed
religion, and he utili