THE CHURCH AND MAN'S ORIGIN 197 



tually found; if it were shown that man must have 

 been made mediately and not directly by God 

 from the dust of the earth, as some have sought 

 to explain the Scripture passage? 



There is no need for this supposition. But we 

 may briefly state that under no circumstances will 

 the Church ever refuse to accept a scientific fact; 

 never will she show even the slightest hesitation 

 not merely to accept but heartily to welcome it. 

 But there must be question of certain facts, and 

 not of idle theories, found necessary to give con- 

 sistency to still other theories that in turn are 

 capable of no verification. This has been stated 

 often enough in these pages. Never will the 

 words of Leo XIII be retracted: "We declare 

 that every wise thought and every useful discov- 

 ery, wherever it may come from, should be glad- 

 ly and gratefully welcomed." 6 In other words, a 

 fact of science, no matter by whom it may be first 

 made known, will always be welcomed by her as 

 "a useful discovery," since it adds one more truth 

 to our very limited store of knowledge, as distinct 

 from theories and hypotheses with which the 

 world abounds, and so enables us to understand 

 God's works the better. No one need be con- 

 cerned about the "missing link." For the rest 

 we may repeat also the words of Pope Pius X, al- 

 ready quoted here: "Religion has no fear of sci- 

 ence. Christianity does not tremble before dis- 



' See Chapter VIII. 



