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Show 16 ARISTOTELIAN SYSTEM. He a 11 u d es, 1.!'0 1' exa mple , to the upheavinOo' of one of the Eolian I·s lan d s, previ·o us t o a volcanic eruption. "The chang. es off the eart1l , 11 e says, are so Slow in comparison to the dura.t 10. n .o ourf lives, that they are overlooked (A.avGave') ; ~nd the m1g1 atwns o eople after great catastrophes, and th;~r removal to o:her Pre O'J·O ns, cause the event to be forgot.t en''!.•. .' \-Vhen we consid. er th~ acquaintance displayed by Anstotle w1th the destroymg and renovating powers of nature in his various works, the introductory and concluding passages of the twelfth chapter of his " Meteorics" are certainly very remarkable. In ~he fir~t tence he says " the distribution of land and sea m partl-sen ' 11 · b · cular regions does not endure th~oughout a tune, ~t ~t becomes sea in those parts where 1t was land, and a~a1~ It becomes land where it was sea, and there is reason for thmkmg that these changes take place according to ~ certain sy~ten~, and within a certain period." 'I'he concludwg observatiOn IS as follows : " As time never fails, and the universe is eternal, neither the Tanais., nor the Nile, can have flowed for ever. The plac~s where they rise were once dry, and there is a limit to thei1· operations, but there is none to time. So also of all othet rivers, they e;pring up and they perish, and the sea also continually deserts some lands and invades others. The same tracts, therefore, of the earth are not some alwa)'S sea, and others always continents, but every thing changes in the course of time." It seems, then, that the Greeks had not only derived from preceding nations, but had also, in some degree,. de.d uced from their own observations, the theory of great penod1eal revolu. tions in the inorO'anic world, but there is no ground for imagining that the; contemplated former chang~s in the .races of animals and plants. Even the fact, that marme remams were inclosed in solid rocks, although observed by many, and even made the groundwork of geological speculation, never stim~lated the industry or guided the inquiries of naturali.sts. !t IS not impossible that the theory of equivocal generatiOn might have enO'endered some indifference on this subject, and that a belief in° the spontaneous production of living beings f~om the earth, or corrupt matter, might have caused the orgamc world "' Lib, ii. cap. 14, H>, and 16, RE-CREATION' OF SPECIE~. 17 to appear so unstable and fluctuating, that phenomena indicative of former changes would not awaken intense curiosity. The Egyptians, it is true, had taught, and the Stoics had repeated, that the earth had once given birth to some monstrous animals, which existed no longer ; but the prevailing opinion seems to have been, that after each great catastrophe the same species of animals were created over again. 'rhis tenet is implied in a passage of Seneca, where, speaking of a future deluge, he says, " Every animal shall be generated anew, and men free from guilt shall be given to the earth*." An o]d Arabian version of the doctrine of the successive 1·evolutions of the globe, translated by Abraham Ecchellensis t, seems to form a singular exception to the general rule, for here we find the idea of different genera and species having been 'created. The Gerbanites, a sect of astronomers who flourished some centuries before the Christian era, taught as follows:-'' That after every period of thirty-six thousand years, there were produced twenty-five pair of every species of animals, male and female, from whom animals might be propagated and inhabit this lower world. But when a circulation of the heavenly orbs was completed, which is finished in that space of years, other genera and species of animals arc propagated, as also of plants and other things, and the first order is destroyed, and so it goes on for ever and ever :j:." ·~ Omne ex integro animal generabitur, uabiturque terris homo inscius scelemm. Quest. Nat. iii. c. 29. t This author was Regius Professor of Syriac anti Arabic at Paris, where, in 1685, he published a Latin translation of many Arabian MSS. on different departments of Jlhilosophy. This work has always been considere<l of high authority. t Gerbanitro docebant singulos triginta sex mille annos quadringentos, viginti quinque bina ex singulis animalium specie bus produci, marem scilicet nc feminarn, ex quibus nnimnlia propagantur, huncque inferiorem incolunt orbem. Absoluta autem crolestium orbium circulatione, quro illo annorum conficitur S}Jatio, iterum alia producuntur animalium genera et species, quemadmodum et plantarum aliarumque rerum, et primus destruitur ordo, sicque in infinitum producitur.-Histor. Orient. Suppl. rer Abrahamum Ecchellensum, Syrum Maronitam, cap. 7 et 8. ad calcem Chronici Oriental. Pa.risiis, e Typ. regia 1685. fol. Fortis fell into a singular mistake in rendering this passage, imagining that tho number twenty-five referred not to the pairs of every animal created, but to the number of new species created at one time ; and hence the doctrine of the Arabian sect appeared to coincide somewhat with his owa views; and, to bo consistent with his hypothesis, that man and some species of animals and plants are more modern than others.-Fortis, Mem. sur l'IIist. Nat. do l'Italic1 vol. i. p. 202. VoL. I. C |