8 ANTICIPA TION AND INTERPRE TA TION OF NA TURE. 



status as a theory in the contemporary philosophy. 

 Singularly enough, Milton's epics appeared shortly 

 afterwards, exerting an equally profound influence 

 upon English Protestant thought, so that Huxley 

 has aptly termed Special Creation, ' the Miltonic 

 hypothesis.' Thus the opportunity of a free, un- 

 checked development out of natural science was lost. 

 During the long Middle Ages, the Evolution 

 idea made no advance. Finally it began to retro- 

 gress, when Greek natural philosophy shared in the 

 general suppression of the rationalistic movement 

 of thought of Arabic origin. Later the hard and 

 fast conceptions and definitions of species, devel- 

 oped in the rapid rise of systematic Botany and 

 Zoology, were grafted upon the Mosaic account of 

 the Creation, establishing a Special Creation theory 

 for the origin of each species. Later still, when 

 it was discovered in Paleontology that species of 

 different kinds had succeeded each other in time, 

 the ' Special ' theory was again remodelled to 

 cover a succession of creations extending: down 

 almost to the present day. Thus an ecclesiasticaP 

 dogma developed into a pseudo-scientific theory 

 full of inconsistencies but stoutly maintained by 

 leading zoologists and botanists. ^i 



-^ The history of the central Evolution idea be- 

 fore Darwin therefore follows its rise and fall as 

 the broad explanation of the history of life, which 

 we must throw into contrast with the steady rise 

 of the special knowledge of the lesser ideas which 



