Evolution of Evolution-Theory. 215 



adaptation an idea which has often recurred in the 

 minds of evolutionists, but which seems to await ade- 

 quate exposition in the hands of some other supreme 

 combination of philosopher and naturalist. 



The foundations so firmly laid by Aristotle remained 

 almost unbuilt upon till the scientific renaissance at the 

 end of the sixteenth century; only here and Medieval 

 there did some strenuous worker raise a Period - 

 corner a few feet higher; often, indeed, the outline of 

 the whole was obscured by rubbish. There were, how- 

 ever, two important influences which should be borne 

 in mind the influence of the fathers and schoolmen, and 

 the influence of Arabic science. 



Within the church there were two movements which 

 are still discernible that of the literal and that of the 

 liberal party. The literalists may be represented, for 

 instance, by such "an extreme conservative" as the 

 famous Spanish Jesuit Suarez (1548-1617); they reacted 

 against Aristotelianism, and held firmly to the ipsissima 

 verba of the Mosaic cosmogony. The liberal party, 

 represented, for instance, by Augustine (353-430), and 

 in extreme form by Bruno (1548-1600), were wisely 

 content to define creation as the institution of the order 

 of nature, and some of them found no difficulty in com- 

 bining with this a more or less clear acceptance of 

 evolution-ideas. 



Among the Arabs science found, for a time, an environ- 

 ment more congenial than Europe afforded ; it was there 

 that the Aristotelian tradition was kept most vigorously 

 alive, it was there that his works were first translated 

 (between 813 and 833), and accepted as a treasure to be 

 traded with, not merely hidden in a napkin and buried 

 in the ground. Avicenna (930-1037) expresses the 

 "culmination of Arabic science", but, after a period of 

 glimmering, the light failed. 



Towards the end of the sixteenth century, under a 

 variety of potent influences, science reasserted itself as 

 a natural development and discipline of the scientific 

 human spirit, and, in the vigour of conscious Renaissance, 

 youth, threw off the cramping bonds of a warped Aris- 

 totelian tradition, and put away the childish things with 



