THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



FEBHUARY, 1888. 



KEW CHAPTERS IN THE WAEFAEE OF SCIEI^CE. 



Br ANDEEW DICKSON WHITE, 



lATE PEE3IDEIfT OF CORNELL TINIVEKSITT. 



IT. — GEOLOGY. 



AMONG the philosophers of Greece and Rome we find, even at an 

 early period, germs of geological truth, and — what is of vast 

 importance — an atmosphere in which such germs could grow. These 

 germs were transmitted to Roman thought ; an atmosphere of toler- 

 ance continued ; there was nothing which forbade unfettered reason- 

 ing either upon the earth's strata or upon the remains of former life 

 found in them, and under the empire a period of fruitful observation 

 seemed sure to begin. 



But, as Christianity took control of the world, there came a great 

 change. The eai'liest attitude of the Church toward geology and its 

 kindred sciences was indifferent, and even contemptuous. According 

 to the prevailing belief, the earth was a "fallen world," and was soon 

 to be destroyed. Why, then, should it be studied ? Why, indeed, 

 give a thought to it ? The scorn which Lactantius had cast upon the 

 study of astronomy was extended largely to other sciences. St. Jerome 

 summed up the general feeling of the Church in his time by assert- 

 ing that the broken and twisted crust of the ruined earth exhibits the 

 wrath of God against human sin. St. Augustine showed this feeling at 

 various times in a very marked degree.* 



But the germs of scientific knowledge and thought developed in 



* For a compact and admirable statement as to the dawn of geological conceptions in 

 Greece and Rome, see Mr. Lester Ward's masterly essay on paleobotany in the " Fifth 

 Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey," for 1883-'84. For the reference 

 to St. Jerome, see Shields's "Final Philosophy," p. 119; also Lycll's "Introduction to 

 Geology," vol. i, chapter ii. As to the reasons why Greek philosophers did comparatively 

 so little for geology, see D'Archiac, " Geologic," p. 13. 

 VOL. XXXII. — 28 



