But, alas! the exigencies of theology forced him to place their separation later than the Flood.

Happily for him, such facts were not yet known as that the kangaroo is found only on an island in the South Pacific, and must therefore, according to his theory, have migrated thither with all his progeny, and along a causeway so curiously constructed that none of the beasts of prey, who were his fellow-voyagers in the ark, could follow him.
These general lines of thought upon geology and its kindred science of zoology were followed by St.Thomas Aquinas and by the whole body of medieval theologians, so far as they gave any attention to such subjects.
The next development of geology, mainly under Church guidance, was by means of the scholastic theology.

Phrase-making was substituted for investigation.

Without the Church and within it wonderful contributions were thus made.

In the eleventh century Avicenna accounted for the fossils by suggesting a "stone-making force";( 129) in the thirteenth, Albert the Great attributed them to a "formative quality;"(130) in the following centuries some philosophers ventured the idea that they grew from seed; and the Aristotelian doctrine of spontaneous generation was constantly used to prove that these stony fossils possessed powers of reproduction like plants and animals.( 131) (129) Vis lapidifica.
(130) Virtus formativa.
(131) See authorities given in Mr.Ward's assay, as above.
Still, at various times and places, germs implanted by Greek and Roman thought were warmed into life.