50 HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENCE 



pushing, and enthusiastic. This was what the Middle Ages 

 had to do, and this was what they did." 10 



It is difficult for the scientist to understand the intellec- 

 tual outlook of the Middle Ages. Society was dominated, 

 during the greater portion of the period, by theological ideas. 

 Interest in secular studies had been obliterated. Belief in 

 the Bible, as the direct word of God to man, gave rise on the 

 one hand to allegorical and on the other to intensely literal 

 interpretations of the Scriptures. Obsessed with the belief 

 in allegories, men sought for occult meanings in nature, as 

 well as in the Biblical phraseology. The habits of animals, 

 the characteristics of birds, reptiles, plants, and various 

 natural objects such as stones and minerals were supposed to 

 possess a spiritual significance and to carry with them 

 lessons in conduct or morality. The people were credulous, 

 and stories of weird animals, like the phoenix and the unicorn 

 together with even stranger stories of real animals, were 

 received without question. 11 In biological science, the 

 accounts of animals appearing in the "Physiologi" or 

 "Bestiaries" are further examples of these forced interpre- 

 tations. 12 Even when the scriptural statements were 

 matter-of-fact and easy to understand, allegorical explana- 

 tions were often employed, or, if a natural explanation was 

 used, the application to current events was frequently made 

 with a literalness that now seems absurd. This state of 



10 Adams, G. B., "Civilization During the Middle Ages," p. 11. 



11 The subsequent medical doctrine of signatures, by which the fancied re- 

 semblances in shape or color between objects in nature and the parts of the 

 human body were held to be divine indications of the medicinal values of 

 certain plants or minerals, was an outgrowth of this belief in the allegorical 

 significance discoverable in the works of the Creator. 



12 The writings generally known under the title "Physiologus" or "Bestia- 

 rius" were the most important source of knowledge concerning animals during 

 the Medieval Period. They seem to have originated in the utilization of 

 natural history as a means of enforcing Christian doctrines. For almost a 

 thousand years these mystical and symbolic interpretations of animals men- 

 tioned in the Bible and others of a purely mythical character continued as an 

 authoritative source of information. See: Carus, J. V., "Geschichte der 

 Zoologie," Munich, 1872. 



