THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



purely static theory. The next step was to assign to 

 the Creation the establishment of the main frame- 

 work of the earth and to think of that configuration 

 as enduring with slight changes for sixteen hundred 

 years. Then came the wrath of God to overwhelm 

 men, animals, and the world, with a universal Deluge. 

 During this convulsion, it was possible to imagine 

 that any mysterious and unknown thing might occur. 

 Clergy and laity turned with relief to this reconcilia- 

 tion of religion and science. It was generally agreed 

 that the mysterious waters of the flood, which could 

 mount higher than the mountains in about a month's 

 time and then in another month subside, disappear, 

 and leave the earth dry and vegetated, could also be 

 endowed with cataclysmic activity. We find it to 

 have been the accepted belief that the entire surface 

 of the earth had been converted in that brief period 

 into a general mass of paste. Unknown forces then 

 acted upon this paste, sorted it, changed it into sedi- 

 mentary rock, and laid it down in the general order 

 we now find the different strata, although they have 

 been more or less disturbed and crumpled by the later 

 upheaving force of volcanoes and earthquakes. What 

 was more likely than that an enormous number of 

 animals and plants were caught and died in this ooze 

 which afterwards became petrified as fossils'? This 

 theory satisfied the world as true science. 



The great naturalist, Linnaeus, found no difficulty 

 in reconciling his scientific work with complete ac- 



C 130 3 



