102 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



these eflfects is proved by the existence of fossil re- 

 mains of aquatic and other animals on many moun- 

 tains " (cf. Osborn's From the Greeks to Darwin, 

 p. 76). A similar explanation of fossils was given 

 by the engineer-artist Leonardo de Vinci in the fif- 

 teenth century, and by the potter Bernard Palissy, 

 in the sixteenth century; but thence onward, for 

 more than a hundred years, the earth was as a sealed 

 book to man. The earlier chapters of its history, 

 once reopened, have never been closed again. Varied 

 as were the theories of the causes which wrought 

 manifold changes on its surface, they agreed in de- 

 manding a far longer time-history than the Church 

 was willing to allow. If the reasoning of the geolo- 

 gists was sound, the narrative in Genesis was a myth. 

 Hence the renewal of struggle between the Christian 

 Church and Science, waged, at first, over the six 

 days of the Creation. 



Here and there, in bygone days, a sceptical voice 

 had been raised in denial of the Mosaic authorship 

 of the Pentateuch. Such was that of La Peyrere 

 who, in 1655, published an instalment of a work in 

 which he anticipated what is nowadays accepted, 

 but what then was akin to blasphemy to utter. For 

 not only does he doubt whether Moses had any 

 hand in the writings attributed to him: he rejects 

 the orthodox view of sufifering and death as the 

 penalties of Adam's disobedience ; and gives rational- 

 istic interpretation of the appearance of the star of 

 Bethlehem, and of the darkness at the Crucifixion. 



