CONTROVERSY AND PROGRESS. 71 



The teachings of St. Gregory of Nyssa and of St. 

 Augustine were in this respect specially remarkable. 

 I have elsewhere 1 shown that the views of St. Greg- 

 ory respecting the origin of the visible universe, 

 were far more precise and comprehensive than were 

 those of the Ionian schools, and that he it was who 

 in very truth first laid the foundations of the nebu- 

 lar hypothesis, elaborated and rounded out long 

 centuries afterwards by Laplace, Herschel, and 

 Faye. It was the great bishop of Hippo who first 

 laid down the principles of theistic Evolution essen- 

 tially as they are held to-day. a He taught that God 

 created the various forms of animal and vegetable 

 life, not actually but potentially ; that He created 

 them derivatively and by the operation of natural 

 causes. And the teaching of St. Augustine respect- 

 ing potential creation was that which was approved 

 and followed by that great light of the Middle Ages, 

 St. Thomas Aquinas. 



In modern times Hobbes spoke of the principle 

 of struggle bellum omnium contra omnes sug- 

 gested by Heraclitus and insisted on so strongly by 

 contemporary evolutionists. In discussing the scho- 

 lastic doctrine of real specific essences, Locke devel- 

 opes the idea of the continuity of species, the central 

 idea of Darwinism and of the theory of organic Evo- 

 lution. He also speaks of the adaptation of organic 

 arrangements to " the neighborhood of the bodies 

 that surround us," and thus indicates a factor on 

 which modern evolutionists lay much stress when 



114 Bible, Science and Faith," part I, chaps, in and iv. 

 2 Ibid. 



