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Evohition and its Consequences. "jt, 



Now, what my intention was is plainly shown by the 

 ^vords I used. I said: 'Considering how extremely recent 

 are these biological speculations, it might hardly be expected 

 a priori that writers of earlier ages should have given 

 expression to doctrines harmonising in any degree with such 

 very modern views ; nevertheless this is certainly the case.' 

 And so it is. 



Of Suarez I said, he opposes those who maintain the 

 absolute creation of substantial forms, and he distinctly 

 ,asserts derivative (potential) creation. And this is true. 



Although Professor Huxley has conveyed the impression 

 that I adduced Suarez as a witness to evolution, I cannot 

 think he intended so to do. He surely could not have 

 imagined me so absurd as to maintain that ancient writers 

 held that modern view ; to attribute to them the holding of 

 such a conception would be to represent them as nothing less 

 than inspired. For certainly no notion of the kind could 

 have been present, even in a dream, to the minds of such 

 thinkers. In their eyes (as in the eyes of most till within the 

 last century) scientific facts must have seemed to tell in the 

 opposite direction. 



All I maintained, and all that I thought any one could 

 have supposed me to maintain, was that these writers 

 asserted abstract principles which perfectly harmonise with 

 the requirements of modern science, and have, as it were, 

 provided for the reception of its most advanced speculations. 

 \ My words were : ' The possibility of such phenomena, 

 thojagh hy no means actually foreseen, has yet been fully 

 provided for in the old philosophy centuries before Darwin.' 

 And that this is the case can be proved to demonstration. 

 The really important matter, however, is not what were my 

 expressions, but what is the fact as to the compatability of 

 evolution with the strictest orthodoxy ? We shall see how, 

 by Professor Huxley's very fortunate misapprehension of my 



