Adaptations of Plants and Animals: Natural Theology.
Natural adaptations and some of the problems which they suggest were much studied during this period. Bock and Cesalpini had discussed still earlier the mechanisms of climbing plants, aquatic plants, and plants which throw their seeds to a distance. Swammerdam figured, not for the first time, the sporangia and spores of a fern; Hooke the peristome of a moss. The early volumes of the Académie des Sciences contain many studies of natural contrivances. Perrault described the retractile claw of the lion, the pointed papillæ on its tongue, the ruminant stomach and the spiral valve of a shark's intestine. He improved upon Hooke's account of the structure of a feather, and his magnified figures of a bit of an ordinary quill and of a bit of an ostrich-plume might be inserted into any modern treatise on animal structure.[7] Poupart followed the later stages of the development of a feather. Méry gave a minute yet animated description of the wood-pecker's tongue, explaining how it is rendered effective for the picking up of insects, how it is protruded and retracted, how it is stowed away when not in use. Tournefort figured the oblique fibres of a leguminous pod, which he called muscles, and showed how they twist the valves and squeeze out the seeds.
Natural theology was much in the thoughts of the naturalists who studied and wrote between 1660 and 1740. Ray discoursed upon the Wisdom of God as manifested in the Creation. Swammerdam regularly closed the divisions of his Biblia Naturæ with expressions of pious admiration. A long list of books expressly devoted to the same theme might be given.[8] One weakness of the natural theologians was their habit of looking upon the universe as existing for the convenience of man. Still more fatal was the partiality with which they stated the facts. While they dwell upon the adaptations which secure the welfare of particular animals or plants, they are silent about the sufferings caused by natural processes.