THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 



1T9 



THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE TWO HUNDKED YEAKS AGO. 1 



By CARCS STEENE. 



IT is interesting to observe the scientific treat- 

 ment two or three hundred years ago of such 

 questions as the origin of species and the migra- 

 tion of the human race. I do not mean the pure- 

 ly theological treatment of these subjects, for be- 

 lief in the letter has ever been ready with its so- 

 lutions of such difficult problems, but I mean the 

 honest striving and mental effort of candid men 

 to establish a harmony between Eevelation, Rea- 

 son, and Discovery. In this respect, it appears 

 to me that a book by Abraham Milius, on the 

 " Origin of Animals and the Migration of Peo- 

 ples," 2 published in the third quarter of the sev- 

 enteenth century, at Salzburg, under the high ap- 

 probation of the archbishop of that see, is wor- 

 thy of a pretty thorough examination. This work 

 shows, better than any other I know of, what a 

 botch is made of our theories of the universe 

 when Reason and Revelation exchange compli- 

 ments and make compromises with each other. 

 It also shows what a powerful influence the dis- 

 covery of America and Australia, with their 

 wealth of unknown animals and plants, exercised 

 upon the traditional theories of the universe — 

 theories that were undisturbed even by the dis- 

 coveries of Copernicus and Kepler. 



I would remark that this work, originally 

 written in Latin, was accessible to me only in 

 the German translation of the Austrian Kreisphy- 

 sikus, Christoph Bitterkraut, 3 a work of 400 

 pages ; and, in view of the free and even arbi- 

 trary dealing of the translator with the original, 

 it may be that for many a contradiction in the 

 text the translator alone is answerable. Of the 

 life and rank of the author, or the date of publica- 

 tion of the original, unfortunately, I have no in- 

 formation. It is an agreeable surprise to find in 

 a work published in the seventeenth century by 

 permission of the church authorities a far freer 

 exposition of the Scriptures than would be likely 

 to be permitted in the same circles nowadays. 

 The author promisingly sets out with a eulogy on 

 human reason, which, as he says, can neither be 

 driven nor tied, but which unerringly pursues its 



1 Translated from the German by J. Fitzgerald, 

 A.M. 



2 " De Origine Animalium et Migratione Populo- 

 rum." 



3 " Merkwiirdiger Diskursz von dem Ursprung der 

 Thier und Aufzug der VSlcker," 1670. 



object of " bringing to light what is hidden, .and 

 exploring the unknown." Of those persons who 

 make no use of " this so precious prerogative 

 above other animals bestowed upon them, and 

 indeed, as it were, inherited by them," it is said 

 that they " voluntarily confine themselves within 

 the narrowness of the imbecility and ignorance 

 of irrational brute beasts, from which they differ 

 little if at all." Among the subjects the investi- 

 gation of which suggests itself to man's reason, 

 one of the most important is declared to be this : 

 " How did not only man but all other animals 

 also originally come into existence, and then how 

 did they spread over the whole world and all its 

 parts, there to dwell and to take up their abode ? " 

 "Be it," says the author in another place, " that 

 such questions are rather over-curious, still they 

 appear to be not altogether without reason." In 

 the words above quoted it strikes us as some- 

 thing unusual, in the author's day, that he speaks 

 of "man and other animals," thus reckoning man 

 among animals, for a sharp line of demarkation 

 was made between the two, in view of the ques- 

 tion of creation. 



We readily incline to the supposition that the 

 view held by a Linne, a Cuvier, an Agassiz, ac- 

 cording to -which the Creator with his own hands 

 fashioned every living thing, whether plant, or 

 animal, or man, was the original doctrine of the 

 Church. But this is entirely erroneous. The 

 Christian Church has, ever since the origin of 

 dogmatic theology, reserved exclusively to man 

 the privilege of having sprung directly from the 

 hands of the Creator, and has characterized as 

 false and contradictory of the Scriptures the sup- 

 position that plants and animals had a like ori- 

 gin. St. Ambrose and St. Basil, in their obser- 

 vations on the "work of the six days" (hexaem- 

 eron), held that the words " Let the earth bring 

 forth grass, the herb," etc., and " Let the waters 

 bring forth abundantly the moving creature that 

 hath life," are to be so understood that water 

 and land have been endowed with the property 

 of bearing all sorts of animals and plants and 

 that this power remains, so that new plants, and 

 animals may still come into existence without 

 any parents. In fact it was even held that the 

 work of the sixth day is as yet by no means com- 

 pleted, and that in particular insects and all 



