Page - 99 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

99Enlightened and Jesuit Networks, and a New Node of Science Latin and German of a tract by Van Swieten30 that offered a fully natural expla- nation of the phenomena serving as a basis for vampire beliefs (such as the processes of fermentation and lack of oxygen as reasons for the slower decom- position of the body). Remarkably, before delving into the specific subject mat- ter of vampirism, in his introduction Van Swieten presented a view of the rela- tionship between science and religion not at all incompatible with that outlined above with reference to the Catholic Reform.31 He acknowledges the existence of miracles especially as proofs for the omnipotence of God resorted to as a means of conversion, whether in the early days of Christianity, or in modern missions. He is even willing to recognize Satan’s power as real. The question is not, Van Swieten stresses, whether “extraordinary effects” have tak- en place, but whether they can be demonstrated to have arisen from super- natural causes. He goes on to suggest that since the sciences and the arts have taken momentum, the natural causes of many effects that formerly left the ignorant in marvel have been clear- ly discovered. Take, for example, the eclipses, which threw entire peoples, for whom these appeared as miracles, into the most frightful terror and anxiety in old times. However, the improvement of astronomy has dis- pelled all this terror. […] We calmly contemplate the omnipotence of the Creator, who moves these huge bodies in such an infinitely vast space with such a precision, throughout so many centuries, that even the weak human understanding has been enabled to calculate with exactitude their return at a certain time in future centuries.32 It is only the ignorant who can be deceived by charlatans and impostors into wonderment at the sight of the works of gunpowder, electricity, or optical de- vices, but the progress of knowledge reduces the number of genuine miracles. Van Swieten, the apparently uncompromising promoter of rational reform, speaks here a language familiar from the program of Catholic Reform, gaining further impetus from the Enlightenment preoccupation with progress. In de- veloping this combination, he has been shown to have relied on recent devel- opments in Italian enlightened Catholicism, especially the works of Lodovico 30 Remarques sur le vampyrisme de Sylésie de l’an 1755, faites à s.m.i. et R.; republished as an appendix in [Andreas Ulrich Mayer], Abhandlung des Daseyns der Gespenster, nebst einem Anhange von Vampyrismus (Augsburg: n.p., 1768). In October 1756, an Italian edition ap- peared in Rovereto, and according to the preface of the 1768 version, it was also translated into German in February 1756. 31 Cf. above, “Introduction,” 11–17. 32 Van Swieten, “Vampyrismus,” in [Meyer], Abhandlung, appendix, 7–8.