Vv MR. DARWIN’S CRITICS 135 
-concluditur, formas substantiales materiales non fieri ex nihilo, 
- quia fiunt ex materia, que in suo genere per se concurrit, et 
-influit ad esse, et fieri talium formarum ; quia, sicut esse non 
- possunt nisi affixe materie, a qua sustententur in esse : ita nec 
- fieri possunt, nisi earum effectio et penetratio in eadem materia 
' sustentetur. Et hec est propria et per se differentia inter 
_ effectionem ex nihilo, et ex aliquo, propter quam, ut infra 
 ostendemus, prior modus efficiendi superat vim finitam natu- 
Yaliam agentium, non vero posterior. 
**14, Ex his etiam constat, proprie de his formis dici non 
ereari, sed educi de potentia materi.” } 
If I may venture to interpret these hard say- 
ings, Suarez conceives that the evolution of 
substantial forms in the ordinary course of nature, 
is conditioned not only by the existence of the 
materia prima, but also by a certain “ concurrence 
and influence” which that materia exerts; and 
eyery new substantial form being thus conditioned, 
and in part, at any rate, caused, by a pre-existing 
something, cannot be said to be created out of 
nothing. 
But as the whole tenor of the context shows, 
Suarez applies this argumentation merely to the 
evolution of material substantial forms in the 
ordinary course of nature. How the substantial 
forms of animals and plants primarily originated, 
is a question to which, so far as I am able to 
discover, he does not so much as allude in his 
“Metaphysical Disputations.” Nor was there any 
necessity that he should do so, inasmuch as he 
1 Suarez, loc. eit. Disput. xv. § ii. 
