4 iS BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



accepted. "The truth is that all classes of theologians 

 departed from the original philosophical and scientific stand- 

 ards of some of the Fathers of the Church, and that special 

 creation became the universal teaching from the middle of 

 the sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth centuries." 



The Doctrine of Special Creation. About the seven- 

 teenth century a change came about which was largely owing 

 to the writings and influence of a Spanish theologian named 

 Suarez (1548-1617). Although Suarez is not the sole 

 founder of this conception, it is certain, as Huxley has shown, 

 that he engaged himself with the questions raised by the Bib- 

 lical account of creation; and, furthermore, that he opposed 

 the views that had been expressed by Augustine. In his 

 tract upon the work of the six days (Tractatus de opere sex 

 dierum) he takes exception to the views expressed by St. 

 Augustine; he insisted that in the Scriptural account of 

 creation a day of twenty-four hours was meant, and in all 

 other cases he insists upon a literal interpretation of the 

 Scriptures. Thus he introduced into theological thought the 

 doctrine which goes under the name of special creation. 

 The interesting feature in all this is that from the time of 

 St. Augustine, in the fifth century, to the time when the ideas 

 of Suarez began to prevail, in the seventeenth, there had been 

 a harmonious relation between some of the leading theolo- 

 gians and scientific men hi their outlook upon creation. 



The opinion of Augustine and other theologians was 

 largely owing to the influence of Aristotle. "We know," 

 says Osborn, " that Greek philosophy tinctured early Chris- 

 tian theology; what is not so generally realized is that the 

 Aristotelian notion of the development of life led to the true 

 interpretation of the Mosaic account of the creation. 



"There was in fact a long Greek period in the history 

 of the evolutionary idea extending among the Fathers of the 

 Church and later among some of the schoolmen, in their 



