REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSION. 427 



tury ago. Materialists then bethought themselves 

 that abiogenesis might be urged as an argument in 

 favor of Materialism. Theologians, in their eager- 

 ness to answer the objection, denied the fact instead 

 of denying the inference. Later on, men of science 

 discovered that so far as evidence goes abiogenesis 

 is not a fact, and, still later, it dawned upon a few 

 theologians that whether a fact or not, it is quite 

 immaterial so far as theology is concerned. Whether 

 non-living matter may ever give rise to living mat- 

 ter, science is unable to state with absolute certainty, 

 but should it ultimately be shown that spontaneous 

 generation is a fact, we should simply say with the 

 Fathers and Doctors of the Church : The Creator 

 gave to inorganic matter the power, under suitable 

 conditions, of evolving itself into organic matter, and 

 thus science and Dogma would be in harmony. 1 



1 The illustrious Gladstone referring to this subject in his 

 admirable introduction to the " People's Bible History," writes 

 as follows : "Suppose for a moment that it were found, or cou Id- 

 be granted in the augmentation of science that the first and lowest 

 forms of life had been evolved from lifeless matter as their im- 

 mediate antecedent. What statement of Holy Scripture would 

 be shaken by the discovery ? What would it prove to us, ex- 

 cept that there had been given to certain inanimate substances 

 the power, when they were brought into certain combinations, 

 of reappearing in some of the low forms which live, but live 

 without any of the worthier prerogatives of life ? No conclu- 

 sion would follow for reasonable men, except the perfectly 

 rational conclusion that the Almighty had seen fit to endow 

 with certain powers in particular circumstances, and to with- 

 hold from them in other circumstances, the material elements 

 which He had created, and of which it was surely for Him to 

 determine the conditions of existence and productive power, 

 and the sphere and manner of their operation." 



In his 4> Psychology," Rosmini has a couple of chapters on 

 spontaneous generation and the animation of the elements of 

 matter, which the reader will find curious and interesting. Re- 

 ferring to spontaneous generation as an argument in favor of 



