74 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



This brings us to St. Augustine's theory of the evolution of 

 organic life from inorganic matter, which Dorlodot sophisti- 

 cally construes as supporting the theory of descent. Accord- 

 ing to St. Augustine, for whose view the Angelic Doctor ex- 

 pressed a deliberate preference, the creation of the corporeal 

 world was the result of a single creative act, having an imme- 

 diate effect in the case of minerals, and a remote or postponed 

 effect in the case of plants and animals (cf. *'De Genesi ad 

 litteram," lib. V, c. 5). Living beings, therefore, were cre- 

 ated, not in actuality, but in germ. God imparted to the ele- 

 ments the power of producing the various plants and animals 

 in their proper time and place. Hence living beings were cre- 

 ated causally rather than formally, by the establishment of 

 causal mechanisms or natural agencies especially ordained to 

 bring about the initial formation of the ancestral forms of life. 

 The Divine act initiating these "natural processes" {rationes 

 seminales, rationes causales) in inorganic, and not in living, 

 matter, was instantaneous, but the processes, which terminated 

 in the formation of plants and animals, in their appointed time 

 and place, were in themselves gradual and successive. Thus 

 by an influx of Divine power the earth was made pregnant 

 with the promise of every form of life — ^'Sicut matres gravidas 

 sunt foetibus, sic ipse mundus est gravidus causis nascentiumJ' 

 (Augustine, lib. Ill, ''de Trinitate," c. 9.) 



By reason of this doctrine, the Louvain professor claims 

 that St. Augustine was an evolutionist, and so, indeed, he was, 

 if by evolution is meant a gradual production of organisms 

 from inorganic matter. But if, on the contrary, by evolution 

 is meant a progressive differentiation and multiplication of 

 organic species by transmutation of preexistent forms of life, 

 or, in other words, if evolution is taken in its usual sense as 

 synonym for transformism, then nothing could be more ab- 

 surdly anachronistic than to ascribe the doctrine to St. Augus- 

 tine. The subject of the gradual process postulated by the 

 latter was, not living, but inorganic, matter, and the process 

 was conceived as leading to the formation, and not the trans- 



