296 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



things, without parentage, out of the potentiality of 

 matter, or, what amounts to the same thing, it in- 

 cludes the proximate disposition of matter for the 

 Evolution of organic from inorganic matter, and the 

 higher from the lower forms of life. God, conse- 

 quently, " must have been the sole efficient Cause of 

 the organization requisite, and, therefore, in the 

 strictest sense, He is said to have formed such living 

 things, and, in particular, the human body, out of pre- 

 existent matter." 



In the teachings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas 

 respecting the creation and Evolution of the sum of 

 all things, there is nothing uncertain, equivocal or 

 vacillating. True to the declaration of the Inspired 

 Record, and true to the faith of the Church from 

 the earliest ages of her history, they teach that in 

 the beginning God created all things, visible and in- 

 visible, and that He still continues to protect and 

 govern by His Providence all things which He hath 

 made, " reaching from end to end mightily, and or- 

 dering all things sweetly." They tell us, not only 

 that the Creator is " Lord of Heaven and earth, Al- 

 mighty, Eternal, Immense, Incomprehensible, Infin- 

 ite in intelligence, in will and in all perfections," not 

 only that He is " absolutely simple and immutable 

 spiritual substance, really and essentially distinct 

 from the world," but also that he is omnipresent, 

 omniscient ; that for Him there is no past nor future ; 

 that all is present, and that " all things are bare 

 and open to His eyes." 8 



1 Wisdom, viii, i. 

 2 Heb. iv, 13. 



