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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



smaller animals produced from " sweat, transpi- 

 ration, and putrefaction," only came into being at 

 a far later period. Cornelius a Lapide reckoned 

 even the mouse among these epigoni of the crea- 

 tion. 



With such outward agreement as this between 

 Christian and heathen philosophy, we are not to 

 be surprised if in the work named above we find 

 arguments in favor of this continued creation. 

 We are informed how from a sod moistened with 

 May-dew one may produce eels to stock his pond, 

 and how from crabs' claws one may produce scor- 

 pions, to say nothing of the swarms of insects 

 which spring from bodies in the state of decom- 

 position. The Church was in full accord with 

 this doctrine ; indeed, such was her position with 

 regard to the hypothesis of spontaneous genera- 

 tion that when, in 1743, the English priest John 

 Turberville Needham observed the development 

 of the " wheat-eels" so called, she raised no ob- 

 jection to his quoting the Bible in favor of his 

 doctrine. According to Needham, Adam was pro- 

 duced in the same way from the creative earth, 

 and Eve sprung from Adam's body like the bud 

 of a polyp. Nay, when about the year 1674, in 

 Florence, Francisco Redi expressed doubts as to 

 the spontaneous generation of maggots in decom- 

 posing flesh, having observed that they entered 

 it in the form of eggs, the clergy raised the cry of 

 " Heresy ! " because in the book of Judges there 

 is mention of a swarm of bees springing from the 

 carcass of a lion. Thus do men change their 

 positions ! 



Our author appears to have agreed fully 

 with St. Basil in the doctrine that plants and 

 animals not only were produced in the first in- 

 stance by the power implanted in the earth, but 

 that " even at the present day, and in the same 

 manner, they do still take their rise from the 

 earth." He believed that he must apply his rea- 

 son even to propositions of faith, and he was 

 deeply concerned as to how this orthodox doc- 

 trine of the spontaneous generation of animals 

 was to be harmonized with the story of Noah's 

 deluge. "If wild animals and tame animals also 

 are produced by the innate and implanted force 

 of the earth, the Almighty God would never have 

 ordered Noah to take the animals with him into 

 the ark." There the well-founded scruples of our 

 author's conscience found expression. 



It is highly instructive to observe the distinc- 

 tion drawn between literal belief and reason, in 

 the middle of the seventeenth century, by a 

 stanch Christian believer, who thinks it worth 

 while to enter on a profound investigation of the 



question in what season of the year the world t 

 was created, and who adjudges this privilege to 

 the spring-time. He unconsciously rejects faith 

 and clings to reason. One cannot believe, he 

 says, in substance, that Noah and his family con- 

 cerned themselves about all manner of vermin to 

 save them from the flood, so that they might still 

 plague himself and all other men. Nor must we 

 omit to consider how, during the long continu- 

 ance of the deluge, he contrived to feed the rapa- 

 cious animals and to restrain them from rend- 

 ing the tame and the useful animals. True, 

 Origen came to the conclusion that the wild 

 beasts were nicely separated ; and St. Augustine 

 said that their wildness was during this time in 

 abeyance ; but, as the author thinks, this could 

 not have come to pass without a further miracle, 

 for wild animals must have sustenance.. " This 

 is very questionable. If the case were so, there 

 would not have been pair and pair of the unclean, 

 and seven and seven of the clean animals, as the 

 sacred text says, taken into the ark, but a great 

 multitude ; " so, therefore, he adds in substance, 

 to quiet consciences, we will suppose that they 

 learned by a miracle to do without food. His 

 own opinion he expresses more than once, that 

 "the devout Noah took with him into the ark 

 only his domestic, tame animals," so that the 

 pains of domestication might not be lost, and the 

 damage from the flood made greater ; " but the 

 noxious and rapacious animals were produced 

 anew from the earth." 



That animals can be created anew, the author 

 concludes from the fact that there are many ani- 

 mals that, of a certainty, never were created by 

 God, and nevertheless possess a special form and 

 life, namely, hybrids, as the mule, the lynx, and 

 the leopard. But these animals, because they 

 were not created by God, cannot fulfill the divine 

 command, "Be fruitful and increase!" As is 

 known, the lynx was at that time held to be a 

 hybrid between the wild-cat and the wolf, and the 

 leopard a hybrid between the lion and the pan- 

 ther. The author looks on the phenomenon of 

 hybrids as so strong a proof that creation cannot 

 have taken place immediate, that he investigates 

 the question as to who first raised a mule, coming 

 to the conclusion that it was Ana, son of Sibon, 

 an Idumsean, who lived in the days of Jacob and 

 Esau. 



The chief objection of our independent Bible 

 expounder against the story of Noah arose out of 

 the impossibility of Noah " bringing all animals 

 from the uttermost bounds and places of Ameri- 

 ca, and taking them into the ark, seeing that 



