NEW CHAPTERS IX THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 597 



ploded ; the doctrine that fossils were the remains of animals drowned 

 at the Flood continued to be upheld by the great majority of theologi- 

 cal leaders for nearly three centuries as " sound doctrine," and as a 

 blessed means of reconciling science with Scripture.* To sustain this 

 scriptural view, efforts were put forth absolutely Herculean both by 

 Catholics and Protestants. 



In Germany, early in the seventeenth century (1612), Dr. Wolf- 

 gang Franz, Professor of Theology at Wittenberg, published his 

 " Sacred History of Animals," described dragons with three ranges of 

 teeth, and calmly added, " The greatest of these is the devil." This 

 book was influential upon thought for a hundred years. It claimed to 

 be designed for "students of theology and ministers of the word," and 

 especially to instruct clergymen how, in biblical fashion, to utilize the 

 various traits of animals to the edification of their hearers.f 



In France the learned Benedictine, Calmet, in his great works on 

 the Bible, accepted this view as late as the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century, believing the mastodon's bones exhibited by Mazurier to be 

 those of King Teutobocus, and held them valuable testimony to the 

 existence of the giants mentioned in Scripture and of the early in- 

 habitants of the earth overwhelmed by the Flood. | 



But the greatest champion appeared in England. We have already 

 seen how, near the close of the seventeenth century, Thomas Burnet 

 prepared the way in his " Sacred Theory of the Earth " by rejecting 

 the discoveries of Newton, and showing how sin led to the breaking 

 up of the " foundations of the great deep" ; and we have also seen how 

 W^histon, in his " New Theory of the Earth," while yielding a little 

 and accepting the discoveries of Newton, brought in a comet to aid 

 in producing the Deluge ; but far more important than these in his 

 permanent influence was John Woodward, professor at Gresham Col- 

 lege, a leader in scientific thought at the University of Cambridge, 

 and, as a patient collector of fossils and an earnest investigator of their 

 meaning, deserving of the highest respect. In 1695 he published his 

 " Natural History of the Earth," and rendered one great service to 

 science, for he yielded another point, and thus destroyed the founda- 

 tions for the old theory of fossils. He showed that they were not 

 " sports of Nature," or " models inserted by the Creator in the strata 

 for some inscrutable purpose," but that they were really remains of liv- 

 ing beings. So far, he rendered a great service both to science and 

 religion ; but, this done, the text of the Old Testament narrative and 

 the famous passage in St. Peter's Epistle were too strong for him, 



* See Audiat, " Vie de Palissy," p. 412, and Cantu, " Hist, universelle," vol. xv, 

 p. 492. 



f See Franz, "Historia Animalium," edition of 1671, especially in the preface; also 

 Perrier, "La Pbilosophie zoologique avant Darwin," Paris, 1884, p. 29. 



X See Calmet, "Dissertation sur les G cants," cited in Berger de Xivrey, "Traditions 

 teratologiques," p. 191. 



