;
yet here and there stronger thinkers broke loose from this entanglement
and helped somewhat to disentangle others.(20)

(20) For Bede's view of the ark and the origin of insects, see his
Hexaemeron, i and ii; for Isidore, see the Etymologiae, xi, 4, and xiii,
22; for Peter Lombard, see Sent., lib. ii, dist. xv, 4 (in Migne,
cxcii, 682); for St. Thomas Aquinas as to the laws of Nature, see Summae
Theologica, i, Quaest. lxvii, art. iv; for his discussion on Avicenna's
theory of the origin of animals, see ibid., i Quaest. lxxi, vol. i,
pp. 1184 and 1185, of Migne's edit.; for his idea as to the word of God
being the active producing principle, see ibid., i, Quaest. lxxi, art.
i; for his remarks on species, see ibid, i, Quaest. lxxii, art. i;
for his ideas on the necessity of the procreation of man, see ibid, i,
Quaest. lxxii, art. i; for the origin of animals from putrefaction,
see ibid, i, Quaest. lxxix, art. i, 3; for Cornelius a Lapide on the
derivative creation of animals, see his In Genesim Comment., cap. i,
cited by Mivart, Genesis of Species, p. 282; for a reference to Suarez's
denunciation of the view of St. Augustine, see Huxley's Essays.

At the close of the Middle Ages, in spite of the devotion of the
Reformed Church to the letter of Scripture, the revival of learning and
the great voyages gave an atmosphere in which better thinking on the
problems of Nature began to gain strength. On all sides, in every field,
men were making discoveries which caused the general theological view to
appear more and more inadequate.

First of those who should be mentioned with reverence as beginning to
develop again that current of Greek thought which the system drawn
from our sacred books by the fathers and doctors of the Church had
interrupted for more than a thousand years, was Giordano Bruno. His
utterances were indeed vague and enigmatical, but this fault may well be
forgiven him, for he saw but too clearly what must be his reward for
any more open statements. His reward indeed came--even for his faulty
utterances--when, toward the end of the nineteenth century, thoughtful
men from all parts of the world united in erecting his statue on the
spot where he had been burned by the Roman Inquisition nearly three
hundred years before.

After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth century,
Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human thought: his
theories, however superseded now, gave a gre