Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/20

8 Unfortunately, De Maillet fell between two ranks of adversaries. On one side, the Church authorities denounced him as a freethinker; on the other, Voltaire ridiculed him as a devotee. Feeling that his greatest danger was from the orthodox theologians, De Maillet endeavored to protect himself by disguising his name in the title of his book, and by so wording its preface and dedication that, if persecuted, he could declare it a mere sport of fancy; he therefore announced it as the reverie of a Hindu sage imparted to a Christian missionary. But this strategy availed nothing; he had allowed his Hindu sage to suggest that the days of creation named in Genesis might be long periods of time, and this, with other ideas of equally fearful import, was fatal. Though the book was in type in 1735, it was not published till 1748 three years after his death.

On the other hand, the heterodox theology of Voltaire was also aroused; and, as De Maillet had seen in the presence of fossils on high mountains a proof that these mountains were once below the sea, Voltaire recognized an argument for the deluge of Noah, and ridiculed the new thinker without mercy.

Hence it is that, between these two extremes of theology, De Maillet has received no recognition until very recently the greatest men of science in England and France have united in giving him his due. But his work was not lost, even in his own day; Robinet and Bonnet pushed forward victoriously on helpful lines.

In the second half of the eighteenth century a great barrier was thrown across this current—the authority of Linnæus. He was the most eminent naturalist of his time, a wide observer, a close thinker; but the atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had his being was saturated with biblical theology, and this permeated all his thinking.

He who visits the tomb of Linnæus to-day, entering the beautiful cathedral of Upsala by its southern porch, sees above it, wrought in stone, the Hebrew legend of creation. In a series of medallions the Almighty—in human form—accomplishes the work of each creative day. In due order he puts in place the solid firmament with the waters above it, the sun, moon, and stars within it, the beasts, birds, and plants below it, and finishes his task by taking man out of a little hillock of "the earth beneath," and woman out of man's side. Doubtless Linnæus, as he went to his devotions, often smiled at this childlike portrayal. Yet he was never able to break away from the idea it embodied. At times, in face of the difficulties which beset the orthodox theory, he ventured to favor some slight concessions; but what he might expect if he sanctioned the new view he learned to his cost: warnings came speedily both from the Catholic and Protestant sides.

At a time when the most eminent prelates of the older Church