302 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



Others have supposed that by " evolution " was ne- 

 cessarily meant a denial of Divine action, a negation of 

 the providence of God. They have therefore combated 

 the theory of " evolution " in the imagined interest of 

 religion. 



It appears then that Christian thinkers are perfectly free 

 to accept the general evolution theory. But are there any 

 theological authorities to justify this view of the matter '( 



Now, considering how extremely recent are these' bio- 

 logical speculations, it might hardly be expected a priori 

 that writers of earlier ages should have given expression 

 to doctrines harmonizing in any degree with such very 

 modern views, 1 nevertheless this is certainly the case, and 



i It seems almost strange that modern English thought should so long 

 hold aloof from familiar communion with Christian writers of other ages 

 and countries. It is rarely indeed that acquaintance is shown with such 

 authors, though a bright example to the contrary was set by Sir William 

 Hamilton. Sir Charles Lyell (in his " Principles of Geology," 7th edition, 

 p. 35) speaks with approval of the early Italian geologists. Of Yallisneri 

 he says, " I return with pleasure to the geologists of Italy who preceded, 

 as has been already shown, the naturalists of other countries in their 

 investigations into the ancient history of the earth, and who still main- 

 tained a decided pre-eminence. They refuted and ridiculed the physico- 

 theological systems of Burnet, Whiston, and Woodward ; while Vallisneri, 

 in his comments on the Woodwarctian theory, remarked how much the 

 interests of religion, as well as of those of sound philosophy, had suffered 

 by perpetually mixing up the sacred writings with questions of physical 

 science." Again, he quotes the Carmelite friar Generelli, who, illustrating 

 Moro before the Academy of Cremona in 1749, strongly opposed those who 

 would introduce the supernatural into the domain of nature. "I hold in 

 utter abomination, most learned Academicians, those systems which are 

 built with their foundations in the air, and cannot be propped up without 

 a miracle, and I undertake, with the assistance of Moro, to explain to you 

 how these marine monsters were transported into the mountains by natural 

 causes." 



Sir Charles Lyell notices with exemplary impartiality the spirit of 

 intolerance on both sides : how in France, Buffon, on the one hand, was 



