280 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



would be easy to give numerous examples. It will be bet- 

 ter, however, only to cite one or two authorities of weight. 

 Now, perhaps no writer of the earlier Christian ages could 

 be quoted whose authority is more generally recognized 

 than that of St. Augustine. The same may be said of the 

 mediaeval period, for St. Thomas Aquinas ; and, since the 



physico- theological systems of Burnet, Whiston, and Woodward ; while 

 Vallisneri, in his comments on the Woodwardian theory, remarked how 

 much the interests of religion, as well as 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 can- 

 not be propped up without a miracle, and I undertake, with the assist- 

 ance of Moro, to explain to you how these marine monsters were trans- 

 ported into the mountains by natural causes." 



Sir Charles Lyell notices with exemplary impartiality the spirit of in- 

 tolerance on both sides. How hi France, Buffon, on the one hand, was 

 influenced by the theological faculty of the Sorboune to recant his theory 

 of the earth, and how Voltaire, on the other, allowed his prejudices to 

 get the better, if not of his judgment, certainly of his expression of it. 

 Thinking that fossil remains of shells, etc., were evidence in favor of or- 

 thodox views, Voltaire, Sir Charles Lyell (Principles, p. 56) tells us, 

 " endeavored to inculcate skepticism as to the real nature of such shells, 

 and to recall from contempt the exploded dogma of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, that they were sports of Nature. He also pretended that vegetable 

 impressions were not those of real plants." ..." He would sometimes, 

 in defiance of all consistency, shift his ground when addressing the vul- 

 gar ; and, admitting the true nature of the shells collected in the Alps 

 and other places, pretend that they were Eastern species, which had 

 fallen from the hats of pilgrims coming from Syria. The numerous essays 

 written by him on geological subjects were all calculated to strengthen 

 prejudices, partly because he was ignorant of the real state of the science, 

 and partly from his bad faith." As to the harmony between many early 

 Church writers of great authority and modern views as regards certain 

 matters of geology, see " Geology and Revelation," by the Rev. Gerald 

 Molloy, D. D., London, 1870. 



