"
In one of the great men of the following century appeared a gleam
of healthful criticism: Albert the Great, in his work on the
animals, dissents from the widespread belief that certain birds
spring from trees and are nourished by the sap, and also from the
theory that some are generated in the sea from decaying wood.
But it required many generations for such scepticism to produce
much effect, and we find among the illustrations in an edition of
Mandeville published just before the Reformation not only careful
accounts but pictured representations both of birds and of beasts
produced in the fruit of trees.[37]
This general employment of natural science for pious purposes went
on after the Reformation. Luther frequently made this use of it,
and his example controlled his followers. In 1612, Wolfgang Franz,
Professor of Theology at Luther's university, gave to the world his
sacred history of animals, which went through many editions. It
contained a very ingenious classification, describing "natural
dragons," which have three rows of teeth to each jaw, and he
piously adds, "the principal dragon is the Devil.
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