EARLY VIEWS 47 



creation, assuming that that account should be taken 

 literally, and should be regarded because of its inspira- 

 tion as scientifically accurate. The conclusion that 

 the purpose of bibhcal inspiration did not include a 

 revelation beforehand of the results of scientific inves- 

 tigation, although clearly expressed in the twelfth cen- 

 tury by Peter Lombard,^ did not emerge in modern 

 thought until the unscientific nature of the opening 

 chapters of Genesis had been estabhshed by the results 

 of nineteenth-century scientific induction. Thus it was 

 that theologians adopted the theory of special crea- 

 tions and of the fixity of existing species; and the idea 

 of mutation of species, upon which the modern evolu- 

 tionary hypothesis depends, was alien in the eighteenth 

 century to the minds both of theologians and scien- 

 tists.^ 



As early as 1761, however. Buff on had come to regard 

 species as to some extent mutable, although he main- 

 tained a fixity of type among the larger animals. He 

 sought to explain the mutations of species by the trans- 

 mission to offspring of variations caused by environment. 

 Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who 

 died in 1802, devoted some attention to the problem 

 of evolution, as did also Treviranus; but Jean-Baptiste 

 Lamarck (i 744-1829) stood sponsor for the first seri- 



1 Sentences, Lib. 11. Dist. 23. Given by Pusey, Un-Science, not 

 Science, Adverse to Faith, pp. 6. 7, who also cites St. Augustine, de 

 Gen. ad Lit. i. 39, upon the folly of supporting physical theories by 

 an appeal to Scripture. 



2 It made very slow headway until after the publication of Dar- 

 win's theory, 1858-1859. 



