NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 727 



Current legends, stories, and travelers' observations, poor as 

 they were, tended powerfully to stimulate curiosity in this field. 



Three centuries before the Christian era Aristotle had made 

 the first really great attempt to satisfy this curiosity ; he had 

 begun a development of studies in natural history which remains 

 one of the greatest achievements in the story of our race. 



But the feeling which we have already seen so strong in the 

 early Church that all study of Nature was futile in view of the 

 approaching end of the world, indicated so clearly in the New 

 Testament and voiced so powerfully by Lactantius and St. Augus- 

 tine held back this current of thought for many centuries. Still, 

 the better tendency in humanity continued to assert itself. There 

 was indeed an influence coming from the Hebrew Scriptures 

 themselves which wrought powerfully to this end. In spite of 

 all that Lactantius or St. Augustine might say as to the futility 

 of any study of Nature, the grand utterances in the Psalms re- 

 garding the beauties and wonders of creation, in all the glow of 

 the truest poetry, ennobled the study even among those whom 

 logic drew away from it. 



But, as a matter of course, in the early Church and through- 

 out the middle ages all such 'studies were cast in a theologic mold. 

 Without some purpose of biblical illustration or spiritual edifica- 

 tion they were considered futile ; too much prying into the secrets 

 of Nature was very generally held to be dangerous both to body 

 and soul ; only for showing forth God's glory and his purposes in 

 the creation were such studies praiseworthy. The great work of 

 Aristotle was under eclipse. The early Christian thinkers gave 

 little attention to it, and that little was devoted to transforming 

 it into something absolutely opposed to his whole spirit and 

 method. In place of it they developed the Physiologus and the 

 Bestiaries, in which scriptural statements, legends, and fanciful 

 inventions were mingled with pious intent and with childlike 

 simplicity. 



In place of research came authority the authority of the 

 Scriptures as interpreted by the Physiologus and the Bestiaries 

 and these remained the principal source of thought on animated 

 Nature for over a thousand years. 



Occasionally, indeed, fear was shown among the rulers in the 

 Church even of such poor prying into the creation as this, and 

 in the fifth century a synod under Pope Gelasius administered a 

 rebuke to the Physiologus ; but the interest in Nature was too 

 strong ; the great work on Creation by St. Basil had drawn from 

 the Physiologus precious illustrations of Holy Writ, and the 

 strongest of the early popes, Gregory the Great, virtually sanc- 

 tioned it. 



Thus was developed a sacred science of creation and of the 



