376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



inflame the lower elements ; as to the waters placed above the firma- 

 ment, lower than the spiritual heavens, but higher than all corporeal 

 creatures, he says, " Some declare that they were stored there for the 

 deluge, but others, more correctly, that they are intended to temper 

 the fire of the stars." He goes on with long discussions as to various 

 elements and forces in Nature, and dwells at length upon the air, of 

 which he says that the upper, serene air is over the heavens ; that the 

 other, w r hich is coarse with humid exhalations, is sent off from the 

 earth, and that in this are lightning, hail, snow, ice, and tempests, 

 finding proof of this in the one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm, where 

 these are commanded to "praise the Lord from the earth." * 



So great was Bede's authority that nearly all the anonymous specu- 

 lations of the next following centuries upon these subjects w r ere event- 

 ually ascribed to him. In one of these spurious treatises an attempt 

 is made to get new light upon the sources of the waters above the 

 heavens, the main reliance beinsr the sheet containing the animals let 

 down from heaven, in the vision of Saint Peter. Another of these 

 treatises is still more curious, for it endeavors to account for earth- 

 quakes and tides by means of the Leviathan mentioned in Scripture. 

 This characteristic passage runs as follows : " Some say that the earth 

 contains the animal Leviathan, and that he holds his tail after a fash- 

 ion of his own, so that it is sometimes scorched by the sun, whereupon 

 he strives to get hold of the sun, and so the earth is shaken by the 

 motion of his indignation ; he drinks in also, at times, such huge 

 masses of the waves that when he belches them forth all the seas feel 

 their effect." f And this theological theory of the tides, as caused by 

 the alternate suction and belching of Leviathan went far and wide. 



In the writings thus covered with the name of Bede, there is much 

 showing a scientific spirit, which might have come to something of 

 permanent value had it not been hampered by the supposed necessity 

 of conforming to the letter of Scripture. It is as startling as it is 

 refreshing to hear one of these mediaeval theorists burst out against 

 those who are content to explain everything by the power of God, as 

 follows : " What is more pitiable than to say that a thing is, because 

 God is able to do it, and not to show any reason why it is so, nor any 

 purpose for which it is so ; just as if God did everything that he is 

 able to do ! You talk like one who says that God is able to make a 

 calf out of a log. But did he ever do it? Either, then, show a rea- 

 son why a thing is so, or a purpose wherefore it is so, or else cease to 

 declare it so." \ 



* See Bede, " Dc natura rerum " (Migne, " Patr. Lat.," xc). 



\ See the treatise " De mundi constitutione," in Bede's " Opera " (Migne, " Patr. Lat.," 

 xc, 8S4). 



\ Sec "Elementa philosophioe," in Bede's "Opera" (Migne, "Patr. Lat.," xc, 1139). 

 This treatise, which has also been printed, under the tide of " De philosophia mundi," 

 among the works of Ilonorius of Anton, is believed by modern scholars (Haureau, Wer- 

 ner, Poole) to be the production of William of Conches. 



