and directs the universe, whose will is law and whose acts are not limited by law replaces the Greek philosophy. The earth which the Greeks were beginning to conceive of as a globe becomes a flat surface. Above is the sky supported at the edges in some fashion by pillars. The sky is the solid firmament often thought of as made of ice. Somewhere above the sky is heaven. The stars are taken out of a closet and hung nightly in the sky by God. The lower side of the earth was the "antipodes" and later on there was much discussion as to whether this was inhabited. The fact that such beings would have their feet above their heads even if they did not fall into space settled this question in the negative. Somewhere further down was hell, whose glowing colors were often reflected in the evening sky when the sun had passed beyond the edge of the world. The early Christians were too busily employed either in maintaining existence on earth or getting ready for heaven to pay much attention to nature. Gradually the canon of the Bible took form. Early in the fourth century Lactantius, who amusingly declared that man was so named because made from the earth, “homo ex humo,” struck the note which dominated theology for fifteen hundred years. The statements of the Bible, literally interpreted, are to be the final authority in all matters. This conception was fastened upon the church by the man who marks the end of the old era as well as the beginning of the new. Augustine (A.D. 354-430) sought to harmonize Aristotle with the biblical accounts of creation. He did not accept the statements of Genesis as exact and did not hesitate to explain them. Yet in his commentary on Genesis he wrote: "Nothing is to be accepted save on the author ity of scripture, since greater is that authority than all the powers of the human mind." 2 The origin of matter gave him trouble. Augustine said: "Although the world has been made of some material, that very same material must have been made out of nothing." 3 Hence all life developed out of nothing. He said further that the essence or seed of heaven, earth and life was created by God, not the finished product. There were two kinds of germs: (1) the visible, put directly by God into plants and animals, and (2) the invisible, which developed only under favorable conditions. "Certain very small animals may not have been created on the fifth and sixth days, but may have originated later from putrefying matter." Man with his soul was the direct product of God, but other forms of life may have arisen gradually from the "casual energy and potency" of the seed. Independent and liberal as Augustine was, we find him holding to the conception that "all diseases of Christians" were caused by the devils common in the air, and interpreting the saying of Jesus "compel them to come in " as a Divine warrant for the slaughter of heretics." 5 After Augustine the appeal was not to evidence and observation, but to authority. If new facts appeared they were denied or explained in conformity with old beliefs. With few exceptions for over a millennium men in Europe did not question the principle established by Augustine, while fire and the stake silenced those who were obstinate. By an appeal to supposed truth man did his best to prevent himself from discovering the real truth 2 WHITE, A. D. Warfare of Science with Theology, Vol. I, p. 25. 3 Ibid., p. 5. 4 CLODD, EDW. Pioneers of Evolution, p. 74. 5 Ibid., p. 75. about the world in which he lived. Strange to say, the grim reality of this great struggle is dimly realized even today by the majority who call themselves educated. I can only hope that any one chancing to read this chapter may be moved to read Andrew D. White's "Warfare of Science with Theology" that he may gain a greater appreciation of the cost of his intellectual heritage. The constant efforts to explain and interpret Genesis made necessary by new discoveries led to most interesting and amusing results. Ingenious speculation produced the idea that the world was instantly created and yet that the process took six days. Aquinas, the great follower of Aristotle and Augustine, refined this by saying that the essence was instantly created but the shaping took six days. The Genesis account said that light and darkness appear on the first day although the sun and moon are not created till the fourth. This difficulty is circumvented by the idea that darkness and light are independent entities. As Ambrose said, "We must remember that the light of day is one thing and the light of the sun, moon and stars another the sun by his rays appearing to add luster to the daylight. For before sunrise the day dawns, but is not in full refulgence, for the sun adds still further to its splendor." & 6 If God was all-powerful and all on earth was designed for man, how was it that injurious animals were created? The answer was found to lie in the result of sin. Before Adam fell there was no sin, no suffering, no antagonism between different species. Bede said: "Thus fierce and poisonous animals were created for terrifying man (be6 WHITE, A. D. o. c., p. 13. 7 cause God foresaw that he would sin) in order that he might be made aware of the final punishment of hell.” Peter Lombard thought "no created things would have been hurtful to man had he not sinned: they became hurtful for the sake of terrifying and punishing vice or of proving and perfecting virtue: they were created harmless and on account of sin became hurtful." Wesley wrote: "None of these attempted to devour or in any wise hurt one another: . . . the spider was as harmless as the fly, and did not lie in wait for blood." Watson, the evangelical reformer of the eighteenth century, thought the serpent had been punished for his sins. "We have no reason at all to believe that the animal had a serpentine form in any mode or degree until its transformation: that he was then degraded to a reptile to go upon his belly imports, on the contrary, an entire loss and alteration of the original form."7 Augustine thought that many forms of life were superfluous, yet that in some way they completed the design of nature, while Luther held flies to be the images of devils and heretics sent by the devil to bother him while reading. The appeal to authority produced other results in the field of natural history equally interesting. "Hence such contributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when pursued effaces his tracks with the end of his own tail, that the pelican nurses her young with her own blood, that serpents lay aside their venom before drinking, that the salamander quenches fire, that the hyena can talk with shepherds, that certain birds are born of the fruit of a certain tree when it happens to fall into the water, with other masses of science equally valuable." 8 Bartholomew, 7 WHITE, A. D. o. c., pp. 28, 29. 8 Ibid., p. 33. 9 an English Franciscan, in his book "The Properties of Things" which went through ten editions in the fifteenth century and was much used by preachers tells us that "If the crocodile findeth a man by the water's brim he slayeth him, then he weepeth over him and swalloweth him." Bestiaries such as that of William of Normandy were widely employed. "Pious use was made of this science, especially by monkish preachers. The phenix rising from his ashes proves the doctrine of the resurrection; the structure and mischief of monkeys proves the existence of demons; the fact that certain monkeys have no tails proves that Satan has been shorn of his glory; the weasel, which 'constantly changes its place' is a type of the man estranged from the word of God, who findeth no rest.' The Dominican Nider in the "Ant Hill" asserted that the Ethiopian ants were as large as dogs and had horns. He thought they typified the heretics, Wyclif and Huss, who "bark and bite against the truth." At the end of the seventeenth century Father Kircher, a Jesuit professor at Rome, was sure that sirens and griffins were among the animals taken into the ark. " 10 The Protestant Reformation, in spite of its protest against the authority of tradition as set forth by the church, instead of introducing the rule of reason but served to strengthen the position of the Bible as the source of knowledge. Luther and Calvin held as firmly to its literal interpretation as did Bossuet or Aquinas. Luther denounced reason as the "arch-whore," "the devil's bride." He called Aristotle "prince of darkness, horrid impostor, public and professed liar, beast and twice execrable." To Copernicus he is equally complimentary: 9 WHITE, A. D. o. c., p. 34. 10 Ibid., p. 35. |