sistenze, che sarebbe sbrigativo considerare puramente sentimentali. Se ne faceva interprete, ancora nel 1850, Tennyson in In Memoriam: prima ci si poteva consolare della crudeltà della natura dicendo che la natura, se non si curava degli individui, aveva care le specie; ma ora la geologia spazzava via anche quest'illusione. Are God and Nature then at strife, / That Nature lends such evil dreams? I So careful of the type she seems, / So careless of the single life; / That I, considering everywhere / Her secret meaning in her deeds, / And finding that of fifty seeds / She often brings but one to bear, / I falter where I firmly trod/ ... / 'So careful of the type?' but no./ From scarped cliff and quarried stone / She cries 'A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. / 'Thou makest thine appeal to me: / I bring to life, I bring to death: / The spirit does but mean the breath: / I know no more. 'And he, shall he, / Man, her last works, who seem'd so fair, / Such splendici purpose in his eyes, who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, / Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, / Who trusted God was love indeed / And love Creation's final law - Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw / With ravine, shriek'd against his creed - / Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, / Who battled for the True the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, / Or seal'd within the iron hills? / No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, / That tare each other in their slime, / Were mellow music match'd with him.14 (In Memoriam) Come si poteva pensare, suonava una vecchia obiezione, che ad un certo punto certi organismi cessassero improvvisamente di essere cari a Dio? Tanto più, osservava il teologo inglese George Bugg, che le presunte distruzioni erano attribuite a cause straordinarie, dato che nessuna causa attualmente operante era in grado di produrle, e 161
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTExMDY2NQ==