第3章 進化 n.12 - 生物学の進歩と地質学の進歩
その後の地質学の進歩は,化石に多くの生命の死滅形態が記録されていることから(ために),生物学の進歩とからみ合っている。世界の古さに関する限り,地質学と神学とは,6「日」を6(つの)「時代」と解釈するべきであると同意することで折り合うことが出来た。しかし,動物の生命に関しては,神学は多くの極めて明確な見解を持っており,それを科学と調和させることはますます困難であることが分った。(即ち神学者たちは次のような見解を持っていた)。(アダムとイブによる)人類の堕落前は,動物は互に捕食することはまったくなかった。現存する全ての動物は,(ノアの)箱舟の中に代表として選ばれた種類に属している。(原注:この見解にも難点がないわけではなかった。聖アウグスティヌスは蝿(のようなもの)をどうして神は創造したのか理解できないと告白している。ルターはもっと大胆に蝿は悪魔によって創造されたものであり,ルターが良書を書こうとすると彼の注意をそらそうとする,と断定している。後者の意見は確かにもっともらしい(注:ルターは執筆時に蝿に悩まされたのだろうという,ラッセルの冗談)。 現在では絶滅してしまった種は,ほとんど例外なくノアの大洪水の時に溺死した。種は不変であり,それぞれの種は,(神による)創造の別々の行為により生じたものである。これらの命題のいかなるものも疑問を抱くことは神学者たちの敵意を招く運命にあった(のである)。 |
Chapter 3: Evolution, n.12It was chiefly the Mosaic chronology that had kept men from adopting this point of view at an earlier date, and the upholders of Genesis made vehement onslaughts on Hutton and his disciple Playfair. "The party feeling," says Lyell, (note: Principles of Geology, eleventh edition, Vol. I, p. 78) " excited against the Huttonian doctrines, and the open disregard of candour and temper in the controversy will hardly be credited by the reader, unless he recalls to his recollection that the mind of the English public was at that time in a state of feverish excitement. A class of writers in France had been labouring industriously for many years, to diminish the influence of the clergy, by sapping the foundations of the Christian faith ; and their success, and the consequences of the Revolution, had alarmed the most resolute minds, while the imagination of the more timid was continually haunted by dread of innovation, as by the phantom of some fearful dream." By 1795, almost all the well-to-doin England saw in every un-Biblical doctrine an attack upon property and a threat of the guillotine. For many years, British opinion was far less liberal than before the Revolution.The further progress of geology is entangled with that of biology, owing to the multitude of extinct forms of life of which fossils preserve a record. In so far as the antiquity of the world was concerned, geology and theology could come to terms by agreeing that the six "days" were to be interpreted as six "ages." But on the subject of animal life theology had a number of very definite views, which it was found increasingly difficult to reconcile with science. No animals preyed on each other until after the Fall ; all animals now existing belong to species represented in the ark (note: This opinion was not without its difficulties. St. Augustine confessed himself ignorant as to God's reason for creating flies. Luther, more boldly, decided that they had been created by the Devil, to distract him when writing good books. The latter opinion is certainly plausible.) ; the species now extinct were, with few exceptions, drowned in the flood. Species are immutable, and each has resulted from a separate act of creation. To question any of these propositions was to incur the hostility of theologians. |