f creation, in all the glow of the
truest poetry, ennobled the study even among those whom logic drew away
from it.

But, as a matter of course, in the early Church and throughout the
Middle Ages all such studies were cast in a theologic mould. Without
some purpose of biblical illustration or spiritual edification they were
considered futile too much prying into the secrets of Nature was very
generally held to be dangerous both to body and soul; only for showing
forth God's glory and his purposes in the creation were such studies
praiseworthy. The great work of Aristotle was under eclipse. The early
Christian thinkers gave little attention to it, and that little was
devoted to transforming it into something absolutely opposed to his
whole spirit and method; in place of it they developed the Physiologus
and the Bestiaries, mingling scriptural statements, legends of the
saints, and fanciful inventions with pious intent and childlike
simplicity. In place of research came authority--the authority of the
Scriptures as interpreted by the Physio Cogus and the Bestiaries--and
these remained the principal source of thought on animated Nature for
over a thousand years.

Occasionally, indeed, fear was shown among the rulers in the Church,
even at such poor prying into the creation as this, and in the fifth
century a synod under Pope Gelasius administered a rebuke to the
Physiologus; but the interest in Nature was too strong: the great
work on Creation by St. Basil had drawn from the Physiologus precious
illustrations of Holy Writ, and the strongest of the early popes,
Gregory the Great, virtually sanctioned it.

Thus was developed a sacred science of creation and of the divine
purpose in Nature, which went on developing from the fourth century to
the nineteenth--from St. Basil to St. Isidore of Seville, from Isidore
to Vincent of Beauvais, and from Vincent to Archdeacon Paley and the
Bridgewater Treatises.

Like all else in the Middle Ages, this sacred science was developed
purely by theological methods. Neglecting the wonders which the
dissection of the commonest animals would have afforded them, these
naturalists attempted to throw light into Nature by ingenious use of
scriptural texts, by research among the lives of the saints, and by the
plentiful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong men as
St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the unicorn and dragons
mentioned in the Scriptures and of the phoenix