30 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



perpetual search after manifestations of miraculous powers 

 and perpetual ' catastrophes.' Creation is not a miraculous 

 interference with the laws of Nature, but the very institu- 

 tion of those laws. Law and regularity, not arbitrary in- 

 tervention, was the patristic ideal of creation. With 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 ele- 

 ments 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." 10 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 Na- 

 ture." u And, again, St. Basil, 18 speaks of the continued 

 operation of natural laws in the production of all organ- 

 isms. 



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 painful- 

 ly affected at witnessing the generation of animals of com- 

 plex 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 

 phenomena, though by no means actually foreseen, has yet 



10 The Rambler, March, 1860, vol. xii., p. 372. 



11 " In prima institutione naturae non quseritur miraculum, sed quid 

 natura rerum habeat, ut Augustinus dicit, lib. ii., sup. Gen. and lit. c. ]." 

 (St. Thomas, Sura. I 86 . Ixvii. 4, ad 3.) 



12 " Hexaem." Horn, ix., p. 81. 



