84 Evolution and its Consequences 



It is surely not less prudent than it is just, to refrain from 

 speaking authoritatively of that which we have not studied 

 and do not comprehend. The fact is that Professor Huxley 

 has completely misapprehended the significance of the 

 passages he quotes. No wonder if reasoning perfectly lucid 

 to those who have the key appears a mere 'darkening of 

 counsel ' to those who have not mastered the elements of the 

 systems they criticise. 



To say that Suarez ' rejects Mr. Mivart's view ' is absurd, 

 because no such view could by any possibility have been 

 present to the mind of any one of his day. To say that any- 

 thing in the passage quoted is, even in the faintest degree, 

 inconsistent with that view, is an utter mistake. This is 

 plain from the doctrine as to the infusion of every soul into 

 every infant, which was generally received at the period when 

 Suarez wrote. 



This doctrine was that the human foetus is at first 

 animated by a vegetative soul, then by a sentient soul, and 

 only afterwards, at some period before birth, with a rational 

 souL Not that two souls were supposed ever to coexist, 

 for the appearance of one was thought to coincide with 

 the disappearance of its predecessor — the sentient soul 

 including in it all the powers of the vegetative soul, 

 and the rational soul all those of the two others. The 

 doctrine of distinct souls, which Professor Huxley attributes 

 to me as a fatal consequence of my hypothesis, is simply 

 the doctrine of St. Thomas himself. He says (Qusest. Ixxvi., 

 art. 3, ad. 3) : — ' Dicendum quod prius embryo habet 

 animam quae est sensitiva tantum, qua ablata advenit per- 

 fectior anima quae est simul sensitiva et intellectiva ut infra 

 plenius ostendetur.' Also (Qusest. cxviii., art. 2, ad. 2): — 

 ' Dicendum est quod anima prseexistit in embryone, a prin- 

 cipio quidem nutritiva, postmodum autem sensitiva et tandem 

 intellectiva.' 



