these: "What caused the creation of the stars on the fourth
day?" "Were beasts of prey and venomous animals created before, or
after, the fall of Adam? If before, how can their creation be reconciled
with God's goodness; if afterward, how can their creation be reconciled
to the letter of God's Word?" "Why were only beasts and birds brought
before Adam to be named, and not fishes and marine animals?" "Why did
the Creator not say, 'Be fruitful and multiply,' to plants as well as to
animals?"(127)

(127) See Augustine, De Genesi, ii, 13, 15, et seq.; ix, 12 et seq. For
the reference to St. Jerome, see Shields, Final Philosophy, p. 119; also
Leyell, Introduction to Geology, vol. i, chap. ii.

Sundry answers to these and similar questions formed the main
contributions of the greatest of the Latin fathers to the scientific
knowledge of the world, after a most thorough study of the biblical text
and a most profound application of theological reasoning. The results
of these contributions were most important. In this, as in so many
other fields, Augustine gave direction to the main current of thought in
western Europe, Catholic and Protestant, for nearly thirteen centuries.

In the ages that succeeded, the vast majority of prominent scholars
followed him implicitly. Even so strong a man as Pope Gregory the Great
yielded to his influence, and such leaders of thought as St. Isidore,
in the seventh century, and the Venerable Bede, in the eighth, planting
themselves upon Augustine's premises, only ventured timidly to extend
their conclusions upon lines he had laid down.

In his great work on Etymologies, Isidore took up Augustine's attempt to
bring the creation into satisfactory relations with the book of Genesis,
and, as to fossil remains, he, like Tertullian, thought that they
resulted from the Flood of Noah. In the following century Bede developed
the same orthodox traditions.(128)

(128) For Isidore, see the Etymologiae, xi, 4, xiii, 22. For Bede, see
the Hexaemeron, i, ii, in Migne, tome xci.

The best guess, in a geological sense, among the followers of St.
Augustine was made by an Irish monkish scholar, who, in order to
diminish the difficulty arising from the distribution of animals,
especially in view of the fact that the same animals are found in
Ireland as in England, held that various lands now separated were once
connected. But, alas! the exigencies of theology forced him to place
their separati