436 LESSONS FEOM NATURE. [CHAP. XIV. 



yet that even there the exceptions he admits bring out still 

 more clearly how completely I was justified in adducing him 

 as a witness to the compatibility of evolution \\ith the 

 principles of the scholastic philosophy. 



So much then for the teaching of Suarez as to the nature 

 of the creative act and the admission of the evolution of even 

 certain new organic forms by natural causes. 



Let us turn now to a much more important subject. 



Besides and in addition to this view it is a most remark- 



Thefactof able circumstance that ideas should have been 



expressed of a distinctly evolutionary character by 



the highest theological authority, even as regards the very 



fact of creation, as an historical event. 



Few things seem to me more striking than that such an 

 anticipation, as it were, should have been enunciated by one 

 of the greatest teachers the Church has ever known, a doctor 

 the authority of whose writings is not surpassed by that of 

 any of the Fathers I mean St. Augustin. As I said in my 

 book, &quot; it must be borne in mind that no one had disputed 

 the generally received belief as to the small age of the world, 

 or of the kinds of animals and plants inhabiting it.&quot; Never 

 theless, as I have shown, the teaching of St. Augustin was 

 distinct with respect to the potential creation of animals and 

 plants. That great source of Western theology held that the 

 whole creation spoken of in Genesis took place in one instant; 

 that all created things were created at once, &quot; potentialiter 

 atque causaliter&quot; so that it accords with his teaching if we 

 believe in the gradual development of species, the slow evolu 

 tion, &quot; per temporum moras,&quot; into actual existence of what 

 God created potentially in the beginning. 



Now the greatest representatives of Catholic theology are 

 unquestionably St. Augustin and St. Thomas Aquinas, and this 

 being, as almost every one knows, the case, it is inconceivable 

 how a teacher like Professor Huxley could write as he has 

 done regarding the consequences of a divergence of Suarez 

 from their expressed opinions. 



If, as Suarez suggests, St. Thomas followed St. Augustin 



