oy MR. DARWIN’S CRITICS 127 
_ manifestations of miraculous power and perpetual 
r “catastrophes.” Creation is not a miraculous 
' interference with the laws of Nature, but the very 
institution of those laws. Law and regularity, 
not arbitrary intervention, was the patristic ideal 
of creation. With this notion they admitted, 
- without difficulty, the most surprising origin of 
living creatures, provided it took place by daw. 
They held that when God said, “ Let the waters 
produce,” “ Let the earth produce,’ He conferred 
forces on the elements of earth and water which 
enabled them naturally to produce the various 
species of organic beings. This power, they 
thought, remains attached to the elements 
throughout all fime. The same writer quotes 
St. Augustin and St. Thomas Aqdinas, to the 
effect that, ‘in the institution of Nature, we do not 
look for miracles, but /for the laws of Nature.’ 
And, again, St. BasilV speaks of the continued 
operation of natural laws in the production of all 
organisms, 
“So much for the writers of early and medizval 
times. As to the present day, the author can 
confidently affirm that there are many as well 
versed in theology as Mr. Darwin is in his own 
department of natural knowledge, who would not 
be disturbed by the thorough demonstration of his 
theory. Nay, they would not even be in the least 
painfully affected at witnessing the generation of 
animals of complex organisation by the skilful 
