MATERIALISTIC EVOLUTION 35 



minds of men with the theory of evolution, we 

 have made plain how absurd was the statement 

 of Huxley regarding evolution, that: "One of its 

 greatest merits is that it occupies a position of 

 complete and irreconcilable antagonism to that 

 vigorous and consistent enemy of the highest in- 

 tellectual, moral and social life of mankind the 

 Catholic Church." : He had devoted a few brief 

 moments of a certain idle afternoon, as I recall 

 it, to glancing at the voluminous tomes of the 

 great Jesuit theologian Suarez, had dipped his 

 little cockle-shell into that vasty sea of profound 

 metaphysical lore with which he might well have 

 buffeted for years, and forthwith believed he 

 understood all the Catholic Church had to say on 

 the subject of science. The fact was that he had 

 merely confirmed his own complete ignorance of 

 the matter. Others who have spoken with equal 

 assurance can be found to have not even extended 

 their own original researches so far as he. 



Curiously enough, in this connection, it was 

 Huxley himself who after a somewhat more 

 thorough study of the Galileo case wrote to St. 

 George Mivart: "I gave some attention to the 

 case of Galileo when I was in Italy, and I arrived 

 at the conclusion that the Pope and the College 

 of Cardinals had rather the best of it." 1 



"Thomas H. Huxley, "Darwiniana," p. 147. 

 ""Life and Letters," II t p. 113. 



