282 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



which are not created in it, except from the highest 

 essence, where nothing either springs up or dies, 

 either begins to be or ceases." But the Creator of 

 these seeds, the Cause of these causes, Causa 

 causarum, is at the same time the Creator of all 

 things that exist. He carefully distinguishes " God 

 creating and forming within, from the works of the 

 creature which are applied from without." " In the 

 creation of visible things it is God," he affirms, " that 

 works from within, but the exterior operations," 

 that is, the operations of creatures or those of 

 divers physical forces, " are applied by Him to that 

 nature of things wherein He creates all things." 

 " For," the Saint continues, " it is one thing to make 

 and administer the creature from the innermost and 

 highest turning point of causation, which He alone 

 does who is God, the Creator; but quite another 

 thing to apply some operation from without, in pro- 

 portion to the strength and faculties assigned to each 

 by Him, that that which is created may come forth 

 into being at this time or at that, or in this way or 

 that way. For all things, in the way of origin and 

 beginning, have already been created in a kind of 

 texture of the elements, in guadam textura element- 

 orum ; but they can come forth only when oppor- 

 tunity offers, acceptis opportunitatibus" ' 



1 "Aliud est enim ex intimo et summo causarum cardine con- 

 dere atque administrare creaturam, quod qui facit, solus creator 

 est Deus : aliud autem pro distributis ab illo viribus et iacultati- 

 bus aliquam operationem forts secus admovere, ut tune vel tune, 

 sic vel sic, exeat quod creatur. Ista quippe originaliter ac pri- 

 mordialiter in quadam textura elementorum cuncta jam creata 

 sunt, sed acceptis opportunitatibus prodeunt." " De Trinitate," 

 lib. Ill, cap. ix. In his great work, " De Genesi ad Litteram," 



