356 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



the soul of man directly, and his body indirectly or 

 by the operation of secondary causes. In both 

 cases, however, He is really and truly the Creator, 

 and there is nothing in the theory which is in any 

 wise derogatory to His power or wisdom. We 

 simply admit for the body of man what we have 

 seen may readily be admitted for the rest of the ani- 

 mate world creation through the agency of second- 

 ary causes, instead of direct and immediate creation 

 without the concurrence of any of God's creatures. 



This view of the derivative origin of Adam's 

 body, is also quite in harmony with other principles 

 laid down both by the great Bishop of Hippo and 

 the Angel of the Schools. For they both taught, 

 that in the beginning God created, in the absolute 

 and primary sense of creation, only corporeal ele- 

 ments and spiritual substances. Plants, animals and 

 even man, did not exist as we know them in natura 

 propria ; but only potentially, receiving their full de- 

 velopment afterwards per volumina s&culorum. 

 They existed only in what the saint calls seminal 

 reasons in rationibus seminalibus ;* and the produc- 

 tion of the manifold forms of life, man included, 

 which now adorn our planet, was the work of Evolu- 

 tion, viz., secondary causes acting under the con- 



1 " Et ideo concede," says St. Thomas ..." quod ra- 

 tiones seminales dicuntur virtutes activae completas in natura 

 cum propriis passivis, ut calor et frigus, et forma ignis, et virtus 

 solis, et hujusmodi ; et dicuntur seminales non propter esse im- 

 perfectum quod habeant, sicut virtus formativa in semine, sed 

 quia rerum individuis primo creatis, hujusmodi virtutes collatae 

 sunt per opera sex dierum, ut ex eis quasi ex quibusdam semini- 

 bus producerentur et multiplicarentur res naturales." " Sentent.," 

 lib. II, dist. 18, quaest. i ma , art. 2. 



