ABSTRACT
The influence of Aristotle over the philosophy and science of subsequent centuries was so profound that many of the early church fathers incorporated some of the prime ideas of the evolution doctrine into their teachings. Thus, Gregory of Nyssa taught that creation was merely potential. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages, copied after the teachings of Augustine, and claimed that in the first production of plants, the grass and trees were merely brought forth causaliter; that is, the earth “then received the power to produce them.” Thus the real idea of a direct creation was obscured, and according to this philosophy the evolution doctrine might be reconciled with the account of creation as given in the first chapter of Genesis. Buffon may be called father of the modern form of the evolution doctrine. He was much more of a speculator than a true scientist, a man “whose genius, unballasted by an adequate knowledge of facts.
