20 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



this notion, they admitted without difficulty the most 

 surprising origin of living creatures, provided it took 

 place by law. They held that when God said, ' Let the 

 waters produce,' ' Let the earth produce/ He conferred 

 forces on the elements of earth and water, which enabled 

 them naturally to produce the various species of organic 

 beings. This power, they thought, remains attached to 

 the elements throughout all time." x The same writer 

 quotes St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to the 

 effect that, " in the institution of nature, we do not look 

 for miracles, but for the laws of nature." 2 And, again, 

 St. Basil, 3 speaks of the continued operation of natural 

 laws in the production of all organisms. 4 



So much for writers of early and mediaeval times. As 

 to the present day, the Author can confidently affirm that 

 there are many as well versed in theology as Mr. Darwin 

 is in his own department of natural knowledge, who would 

 not be disturbed by the thorough demonstration of his 

 theory. Nay, they would not even be in the least pain- 

 fully affected at- witnessing the generation of animals of 

 complex organization by the skilful artificial arrangement 

 of natural forces, and the production, in the future, of 

 a fish, by means analogous to those by which we now 

 produce urea. 



And this because they know that the possibility of such 



1 TJie Rambler, March 1860, vol. xii. p. 372. 



2 "In prima institutione naturae non quzeritur miraoulum, sed quid 

 natura rerum habeat, ut Augustinus elicit, lib. ii. sup. Gen. ad lit. c. 1." 

 (St. Thomas, Sum. I 83 . Ixvii. 4, ad 3.) 



3 " Hexaeni." Horn. ix. p. 81. 



4 Since the first edition of this work appeared, the notice given of it in 

 the Dublin Review for April 1871, demonstrates how great a mistake 

 those make who think that the strictest orthodoxy is necessarily unfriendly 

 to advanced physical science. 



