( Ixxxvi ) 



How then did the fixity of species become an article of 

 belief in later yeai'S ] Aubrey Moore traces it to the influence 

 of Milton's account of creation in the seventh book of 

 "Paradise Lost" (1. 414, et seq.), and Professor Huxley 

 had still earlier suggested the same cause in bis "American 

 Addresses." I cannot help thinking that the belief had even 

 more to do with the spirit of the age which spoke, and spoke 

 for all time, with jNlilton for its interpreter, — the spirit of the 

 Puritan movement, with its insistence on literal interpreta- 

 tion and verbal inspiration. 



John Ray was Milton's younger contemporary, and many 

 writers, including Aubrey Moore, have thought that with him 

 began the idea of the fixity of species. Sir AVilliam Thiselton 

 Dyer has, however, recently pointed out, that a conception 

 similar to Ray's may be traced to Kaspar Bauhin (1550-1624) 

 and to Jung (1587-1657).* 



From Ray we pass to Linnaeus with his often -quoted 

 definition, " Species tot sunt, quot diversas formas ab initio 

 produxit Infinitum Ens, quae formae, secundum generationis 

 inditas leges produxere plures, at sibi semper similes." Of 

 the Ray-Linna3us-Cuvier conception of species, which found its 

 most precise and authoritative expression in the above-quoted 

 latin sentence, Dr. F. A. Dixey has well said that it ' ' left 

 order where it found confusion, but in substituting exactness 

 of de6nition for the vague conceptions of a former age, it did 

 much to obscure the rudimentary notions of organic evolution 

 which had influenced naturalists and philosophers from 

 Aristotle downwards." f At the same time it is by no means 

 improbable, as Dixey has suggested, that the Linnean concep- 

 tion " of the Ideality and fixity of species perhaps marks a 

 necessary stage in the progress of scientific enquiry," | 



The Linnean idea of special creation has no place in the 

 realm of science ; it is a theological dogma. The formation 

 of species, said Darwin in a letter to Lyell, " has hitherto 

 been viewed as beyond law ; in fact, this branch of science 



* "The Edinburgli Review," Oct. 1902, p. 370. 



t "Nature," June 19, 1902, p. 169. For the history of these early 

 ideas upon evohition see "From the Greeks to Darwin," by H. F. Osborn, 

 New York, 1894. 



X "Church Quarterly Review," Oct. 1902, Art. II, p. 28. 



