THEISM A ND EVOLU TION. 285 



tions respecting the genesis of the world and its 

 inhabitants. 



The primordial Divine act of creation, according 

 to St. Thomas, following St. Augustine, consisted in 

 the creation, ex nihilo, of three classes of creatures ; 

 spiritual intelligences, the heavenly bodies and sim- 

 ple bodies, or elements. According to the physical 

 theories of the time, the composition of the celes- 

 tial bodies was supposed to be different from that 

 of the earth. They were supposed to be incapable 

 of generation or corruption ; ' to be constituted of 

 elementary matter, indeed, but matter unlike that 

 of sublunary bodies, in that it is incorruptible. We 

 now know that mediaeval philosophers were in error 

 on this point. Spectrum analysis has demonstrated 

 that all the celestial bodies have the same compo- 

 sition as our earth, and that the constitution of the 

 material universe is identical throughout its vast 

 expanse. Eliminating this error, which was one 

 of physics, and not one of philosophy or theology, 

 and one which in nowise impairs the teachings of 



1 The scholastic use of the words "generation" and "corrup- 

 tion " must carefully be distinguished from the ordinary meaning 

 of these terms. " In its widest sense," as Father Harper tells us, 

 " generation includes all new production even by the creative 

 act. In a more restricted sense, it includes all transformations, 

 accidental as well as substantial. In a still more restricted 

 sense, substantial transformations only. Yet more specially, 

 the natural production of living things ; most specially, the 

 natural production of man." Corruption, as understood by the 

 Schoolmen, means, not "retrograde transformation, such as 

 occurs, for instance, in the death of a living entity," but " the 

 dissolution of a body by the expulsion of that substantial form by 

 which it had been previously actuated. In the order of nature, 

 it is the invariable accompaniment of generation." Cf. "Meta- 

 physics of the School,'* vol. II, glossary, and pp. 273-279. 



