Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/17

Rh naming "every living creature"; or to reconcile the dimensions of Noah's ark with the space required for preserving all of them, and the food of all sorts necessary for their sustenance, whether they were admitted by twos, as stated in one scriptural account, or by sevens, as stated in the other.

This latter subject gave especial trouble. Origen had dealt with it by suggesting that the cubit was six times greater than had been supposed. Bede explained Noah's ability to complete so large a vessel as the ark by supposing that he worked upon it during a hundred years; and, as to the provision of food taken into it, he declared that there was no need of a supply for more than one day, since God could throw the animals into a deep sleep or otherwise miraculously make one day's supply sufficient; he also lessened the strain on faith still more by diminishing the number of animals taken into the ark, supporting his view upon Augustine's theory of the later development of insects out of carrion.

Doubtless this theological necessity was among the main reasons which caused the theory—supported by St. Basil and St. Augustine—to be incorporated in the seventh century by St. Isidore of Seville into his great encyclopedic work which gave materials for thought on God and Nature to so many generations. He familiarized the theological world still further with the doctrine of secondary creation, giving such examples of it as that "bees are generated from decomposed veal, beetles from horseflesh, grasshoppers from mules, scorpions from crabs," and, in order to give still stronger force to the idea of such transformations, he dwells on the biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar, which appears to have taken strong hold upon mediæval thought in science, and declares that other human beings had been changed into animals, especially into swine, wolves, and owls.

This doctrine of after-creations went on gathering strength until, in the twelfth century, Peter Lombard, in his theological summary "The Sentences," so powerful in molding the thought of the Church, emphasizes the distinction between animals which spring from carrion and those which are created from earth and water; the former he holds to have been created "potentially," the latter "actually."

In the century following, this idea was taken up by St. Thomas Aquinas and virtually received from him its final form. In the "Summa," which remains the greatest work of mediæval thought, he accepts the idea that certain animals spring from the decaying bodies of plants and animals, and declares that they are produced by the creative word of God either actually or virtually. He develops this view by saying, "Nothing was made by God, after the six days of creation, absolutely new, but it was in some sense