THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



the idea that God created the actual world from 

 potential seeds, or the logoi spermatikoi, of the 

 Stoics, and which these historians have erroneously 

 interpreted to mean progressive and naturalistic de- 

 velopment. Augustine also began as a Manichaeist 

 and thus held less strongly to the literal interpretation 

 of the Scriptures as an infallible statement of natural 

 phenomena. He was liberal enough to warn Chris- 

 tians not to try to controvert the statements of the 

 heathens in regard to obviously true facts of nature 

 by quoting the Scriptures which must be held to be 

 authoritative only in ethics. Although he was a Stoic 

 in philosophy he added nothing to their doctrine and 

 he was quick enough to part company with them in 

 their most important belief in the atomic theory as 

 he saw that this view of nature tended inevitably to 

 materialism. In his Letter to Dioscurus^ he pro- 

 nounced the keenest criticism against the atomic theo- 

 ry which has ever been written: "The bitterest of all 

 these follies lies in this, that the mere statement of it 

 does not suffice, without any argument, to arouse hor- 

 ror. On the contrary, men of great ability have under- 

 taken the task of carrying out extended arguments 

 of things whose mere mention prove them to be silly. 

 When one assumes atoms to exist; when one assumes 

 that they meet and separate in chance collisions, so 

 also one must assume that these mutually colliding 

 atoms affect a thing to determine its existence, to 

 limit its form, to determine its surface, deck it with 



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