6 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



celebrated disciple of Albertus Magnus, remarks drily on this 

 subject : " The beginning of the world (and of man) is not a 

 matter of knowledge but of revelation ". 



Even the naturalists and mystics of more modern times, 

 such as Valentin Weigel, Theophrastus, Paracelsus, Cardanus 

 and Telesius, do not go very deeply into the question as to how 

 and whence man came into the world, but occupy themselves 

 instead in attempting to establish the true relation between 

 divinely created man (microcosm) and the universe (macrocosm). 

 Cartesius, even while admitting that God created man, cannot 

 explain the actual process of creation, and when Leibnitz ad- 

 vances his theory of a world constructed of animate monads 

 proceeding, according to predestined plan, from the first monad, 

 God, by means of ceaseless radiations from the Godhead, he 

 still does not show us how the special creation of man from these 

 monads is to be explained. 



If we examine the views of the natural philosophers of the 

 more positive school down to the most recent times we find the 

 same result. Even assuming an omnipotent and omniscient 

 God as Creator of the world and man, thought is still baffled 

 as to the manner of their creation. 



The Almighty had but to will, and all organisms, up to man 

 himself, God's own image, stood complete before him. 



This was the view held by all those philosophers who found 

 satisfaction in an analytical exposition of detail, while their 

 faith in the Scriptures remained unshaken. Linnaeus, to whom 

 we owe the establishment of the theory of species, cannot rid 

 his mind of the conviction that every form of life had its original 

 corresponding species, and that of every living creature, includ- 

 ing man, God first created a pair. Cuvier, the great authority 

 on comparative anatomy, firmly supported the theory that all 

 created species are original and immutable, and explained the 

 occurrence of new species in consecutive geological strata as 

 resulting from vast upheavals in certain parts of the world, 

 whither, later on, living beings from other parts found their 

 way. 



Agassiz likewise accepted the theory of these devastating 

 revolutions, but is more consistent in that he supposes an 

 intervention of the Creator after each upheaval, and, feeling 



