THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



ent wave of frenzied attack on Darwinianism many 

 people are still unwilling to give up Eden and the 

 Flood. Also, I am not certain but that Haeckel and 

 others still show the same shutting of the eyes to 

 facts in their absorption in the speculation that men 

 are mere mechanical machines which have assembled 

 themselves from the chemical elements. 



As interest in geology slowly increased, attention 

 began to be centred on fossils. Those who looked for 

 natural causes thought that they were freaks of na- 

 ture {lusus naturae^. Others believed that they were 

 the unsuccessful attempts of a mysterious formative 

 power or instinct of nature (the nisus fortnativus or 

 vis plastica) which could almost create life but suc- 

 ceeded only in producing counterfeits. The most near- 

 ly correct theorists imagined that a special air, or 

 humour, penetrated the earth and, mixed with water, 

 could fructify earth into petrifactions, or stony flesh 

 {^caro fossilis). Many ascribed them to the influence, 

 or exhalations, from the stars. 



It is probable that the majority saw in fossils, as 

 in all things, the immediate work of God. The more 

 humble merely dismissed the subject by stating that 

 He made them for His own, to us incomprehensible, 

 reasons. Others, who wished to lower the pride of the 

 intellect, believed that He scattered them in the rocks 

 to teach men, and especially geologists, the lesson of 

 humility when they would try in vain to penetrate the 

 mysteries of the Creation. There were also some who 



C 132 3 



