We find in his book on the _Origination of
Mankind_, published in 1685, the strictest devotion to a theory
of creation based upon the mere letter of Scripture, and a
complete inability to draw knowledge regarding the earth's
origin and structure from any other source.
While the Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Anglican Reformers clung to
literal interpretations of the sacred books, and turned their
faces away from scientific investigation, it was among their
contemporaries at the revival of learning that there began to
arise fruitful thought in this field. Then it was, about the
beginning of the sixteenth century, that Leonardo da Vinci, as
great a genius in science as in art, broached the true idea as
to the origin of fossil remains; and his compatriot, Fracastoro,
developed this on the modern lines of thought. Others in other
parts of Europe took up the idea, and, while mixing with it many
crudities, drew from it more and more truth. Toward the end of
the sixteenth century Bernard Palissy, in France, took hold of
it with the same genius which he showed in artistic creation;
but, remarkable as were his assertions of scientific realities,
they could gain little hearing.
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