NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE, g 



were eulogizing debauched princes like Louis XV, and using the 

 unspeakably vile casuistry of Suarez in the education of the priest- 

 hood as to the relations of men to women, the modesty of the 

 papal authorities was so shocked by Linnaeus's proofs of a sexual 

 system in plants that for many years his writings were prohibited 

 in the Papal States and in various other parts of Europe where 

 clerical authority was strong enough to resist the new scientific 

 current. Not until 1773 did one of the more broad-minded cardi- 

 nals Zelanda succeed in gaining permission that Prof. Minasi 

 should discuss the Linnsean system at Rome. 



And Protestantism was quite as oppressive. In a letter to 

 Eloius, Linnaeus tells of the rebuke given to science by one of the 

 great Lutheran prelates of Sweden, Bishop Svedberg. From vari- 

 ous parts of Europe detailed statements had been sent to the Royal 

 Academy of Science that water had been turned into blood, and 

 well-meaning ecclesiastics had seen in this an indication of the 

 wrath of God, certainly against the regions in which these mira- 

 cles had occurred and possibly against the whole world. A mira- 

 cle of this sort appearing in Sweden, Linnaeus looked into it care- 

 fully and found that the reddening of the water was caused by 

 dense masses of minute insects. News of this explanation having 

 reached the bishop, he took the field against it ; he denounced this 

 scientific discovery as " a Satanic abyss " (abyssum Satanm), and 

 declared " The reddening of the water is not natural," and " when 

 God allows such a miracle to take place Satan endeavors, and so 

 do his ungodly, self-reliant, self -sufficient, and worldly tools, to 

 make it signify nothing/' In face of this onslaught Linnaeus re- 

 treated.; he tells his correspondent that " it is difficult to say any- 

 thing in this matter," and shields himself under the statement " It 

 is certainly a miracle that so many millions of creatures can be so 

 suddenly propagated," and "it shows undoubtedly the all-wise 

 power of the Infinite." 



The great naturalist, now grown old and worn with labors for 

 science, could no longer resist the contemporary theology ; he set- 

 tled into obedience to it, and continued to adhere to the doctrine 

 that all existing species had been created by the Almighty " in the 

 beginning," and that since " the beginning " no new species had 

 appeared. 



Yet even his great authority could not resist the swelling tide ; 

 more and more vast became the number of species, more and more 

 incomprehensible under the old theory became the newly ascer- 

 tained facts in geographical distribution, more and more it was 

 felt that the universe and animated beings had come into exist- 

 ence by some process other than special creation, and the question 

 was constantly pressing, " By what process ? " 



Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century one man was 



