t the reddening of the water
was caused by dense masses of minute insects. News of this explanation
having reached the bishop, he took the field against it; he denounced
this scientific discovery as "a Satanic abyss" (abyssum Satanae), and
declared "The reddening of the water is NOT natural," and "when God
allows such a miracle to take place Satan endeavours, and so do his
ungodly, self-reliant, self-sufficient, and worldly tools, to make it
signify nothing." In face of this onslaught Linnaeus retreated; he tells
his correspondent that "it is difficult to say anything in this matter,"
and shields himself under the statement "It is certainly a miracle that
so many millions of creatures can be so suddenly propagated," and "it
shows undoubtedly the all-wise power of the Infinite."

The great naturalist, grown old and worn with labours for science, could
no longer resist the contemporary theology; he settled into obedience
to it, and while the modification of his early orthodox view was, as we
have seen, quietly imbedded in the final edition of his great work, he
made no special effort to impress it upon the world. To all appearance
he continued to adhere to the doctrine that all existing species had
been created by the Almighty "in the beginning," and that since "the
beginning" no new species had appeared.

Yet even his great authority could not arrest the swelling tide;
more and more vast became the number of species, more and more
incomprehensible under the old theory became the newly ascertained
facts in geographical distribution, more and more it was felt that the
universe and animated beings had come into existence by some process
other than a special creation "in the beginning," and the question was
constantly pressing, "By WHAT process?"

Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century one man was at work on
natural history who might have contributed much toward an answer to this
question: this man was Buffon. His powers of research and thought were
remarkable, and his gift in presenting results of research and thought
showed genius. He had caught the idea of an evolution in Nature by the
variation of species, and was likely to make a great advance with it;
but he, too, was made to feel the power of theology.

As long as he gave pleasing descriptions of animals the Church petted
him, but when he began to deduce truths of philosophical import the
batteries of the Sorbonne were opened upon him; he was made to know t