t had been
the general belief of the Christian world down to the period now under
consideration, that the origin of this planet was not more remote than a
few thousand years; and that since the creation the deluge was the only
great catastrophe by which considerable change had been wrought on the
earth's surface. On the other hand, the opinion was scarcely less
general, that the final dissolution of our system was an event to be
looked for at no distant period. The era, it is true, of the expected
millennium had passed away; and for five hundred years after the fatal
hour when the annihilation of the planet had been looked for, the monks
remained in undisturbed enjoyment of rich grants of land bequeathed to
them by pious donors, who, in the preamble of deeds beginning
"appropinquante mundi termino"----"appropinquante magno judicii die,"
left lasting monuments of the popular delusion.[42]

But although in the sixteenth century it had become necessary to
interpret certain prophecies respecting the millennium more liberally,
and to assign a more distant date to the future conflagration of the
world, we find, in the speculations of the early geologists, perpetual
allusion to such an approaching catastrophe; while in all that regarded
the antiquity of the earth, no modification whatever of the opinions of
the dark ages had been effected. Considerable alarm was at first excited
when the attempt was made to invalidate, by physical proofs, an article
of faith so generally received; but there was sufficient spirit of
toleration and candor amongst the Italian ecclesiastics, to allow the
subject to be canvassed with much freedom. They even entered warmly into
the controversy themselves, often favoring different sides of the
question; and however much we may deplore the loss of time and labor
devoted to the defence of untenable positions, it must be conceded that
they displayed far less polemic bitterness than certain writers who
followed them "beyond the Alps," two centuries and a half later.

CONTROVERSY AS TO THE REAL NATURE OF FOSSIL ORGANIC REMAINS.

_Mattioli--Falloppio._--The system of scholastic disputations,
encouraged in the universities of the middle ages, had unfortunately
trained men to habits of indefinite argumentation; and they often
preferred absurd and extravagant propositions, because greater skill was
required to maintain them; the end and object of these intellectual
combats being victory, and not truth. No