The Doctrine of Special Creation.—About the seventeenth century a change came about which was largely owing to the writings and influence of a Spanish theologian named Suarez (1548-1617). Although Suarez is not the sole founder of this conception, it is certain, as Huxley has shown, that he engaged himself with the questions raised by the Biblical account of creation; and, furthermore, that he opposed the views that had been expressed by Augustine. In his tract upon the work of the six days (Tractatus de opere sex dierum) he takes exception to the views expressed by St. Augustine; he insisted that in the Scriptural account of creation a day of twenty-four hours was meant, and in all other cases he insists upon a literal interpretation of the Scriptures. Thus he introduced into theological thought the doctrine which goes under the name of special creation. The interesting feature in all this is that from the time of St. Augustine, in the fifth century, to the time when the ideas of Suarez began to prevail, in the seventeenth, there had been a harmonious relation between some of the leading theologians and scientific men in their outlook upon creation.
The opinion of Augustine and other theologians was largely owing to the influence of Aristotle. "We know," says Osborn, "that Greek philosophy tinctured early Christian theology; what is not so generally realized is that the Aristotelian notion of the development of life led to the true interpretation of the Mosaic account of the creation.
"There was in fact a long Greek period in the history of the evolutionary idea extending among the Fathers of the Church and later among some of the schoolmen, in their commentaries upon creation, which accord very closely with the modern theistic conception of evolution. If the orthodoxy of Augustine had remained the teaching of the Church, the final establishment of evolution would have come far earlier than it did, certainly during the eighteenth century instead of the nineteenth century, and the bitter controversy over this truth of nature would never have arisen."
The conception of special creation brought into especial prominence upon the Continent by Suarez was taken up by John Milton in his great epic Paradise Lost, in which he gave a picture of creation that molded into specific form the opinion of the English-speaking clergy and of the masses who read his book. When the doctrine of organic evolution was announced, it came into conflict with this particular idea; and, as Huxley has very pointedly remarked, the new theory of organic evolution found itself in conflict with the Miltonic, rather than the Mosaic cosmology. All this represents an interesting phase in intellectual development.
Forerunners of Lamarck.—We now take up the immediate predecessors of Lamarck. Those to be mentioned are Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Goethe.
Buffon (1707-1788) (Fig. 116), although of a more philosophical mind than many of his contemporaries, was not a true investigator. That is, he left no technical papers or contributions to science. From 1739 to the time of his death he was the superintendent of the Jardin du Roi. He was a man of elegance, with an assured position in society. He was a delightful writer, a circumstance that enabled him to make natural history popular. It is said that the advance sheets of Buffon's Histoire Naturelle were to be found on the tables of the boudoirs of ladies of fashion. In that work he suggested the idea that the different forms of life were gradually produced, but his timidity and his prudence led him to be obscure in what he said.
Fig. 116.—Buffon, 1707-1788.