XII.] THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 303 



it would be easy to give numerous examples. It will be 

 better, however, only to cite one or two authorities of 

 weight. Perhaps no writer of the earlier Christian 

 ages could be quoted whose authority is more generally 

 recognized than that of St. Augustin. The same may be 

 said, of the mediaeval period, for St. Thomas Aquinas ; and, 

 since the movement of Luther, Suarez may be taken as a 

 writer widely venerated as an authority and one whose 

 orthodoxy has never been questioned. 



It must be borne in mind that for a considerable time 

 after even the last of these writers no one had disputed the 

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

 at least of the kinds of animals and plants inhabiting it. 

 It becomes therefore much more striking if views formed 

 under such a condition of opinion are found to harmonize 

 with modern ideas regarding " Creation " and organic life. 



Now St. Augustin insists in a very remarkable manner 

 on the merely derivative sense in which God's creation of 



influenced by the theological faculty of the Sorbonne to recant his theory 

 of the earth, and how Voltaire, on the other, allowed his prejudices to get 

 the better, if not of his judgment, certainly of his expression of it. Think- 

 ing that fossil remains of shells, &c., were evidence in favour of orthodox 

 views, Voltaire, Sir Charles Lyell (Principles, p. 56) tells us, "endeavoured 

 to inculcate scepticism as to the real nature of such shells, and to recall 

 from contempt the exploded dogma of the sixteenth century, that they 

 were sports of nature. He also pretended that vegetable impressions were 

 not those of real plants." .... " He would sometimes, in defiance of all 

 consistency, shift his ground when addressing the vulgar ; and, admitting 

 the true nature of the shells collected in the Alps and other places, pretend 

 that they were Eastern species, which had fallen from the hats of pilgrims 

 coming from Syria. The numerous essays written by him on geological 

 subjects were all calculated to strengthen prejudices, partly because he was 

 ignorant of the real state of the science, and partly from his bad frith." 

 As to the harmony between many early Church writers of great authority 

 and modern views regarding certain matters of geology, see " Geology and 

 Revelation," by the Rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D., London, 1870. 



