428 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



Faith Has Nothing to Apprehend from Evolution. AA\ 



Suppose, then, that a demonstrative proof of the 

 theory of Evolution should eventually be given, a 

 proof such as would satisfy the most exacting and 

 the most skeptical, it is evident, from what has al- 

 ready been stated, that Catholic Dogma would re- 

 main absolutely intact and unchanged. Individual 

 theorists would be obliged to accommodate their 

 views to the facts of nature, but the doctrines of 

 the Church would not be affected in the slightest. 

 The hypothesis of St. Augustine and St. Thomas 

 Aquinas would then become a thesis, and all reason- 

 able and consistent men would yield ready, uncon- 

 ditional and unequivocal assent. 



And suppose, further, that in the course of time 

 science shall demonstrate a most highly improbable 

 event the animal origin of man as to his body. 

 There need, even then, be no anxiety so far as the 



Materialism, he says : " If the fact of spontaneous generation 

 does really occur in nature, it does not follow, as Cabanis main- 

 tained, that pure matter of itself passes into life. On the con- 

 trary, we must say that the matter itself was animate, and that 

 the principle of life which was in it, operating in its matter, 

 produced organism. In this way this great fact would be the 

 most manifest proof of an immaterial principle." Again : " Spon- 

 taneous generations would never prove that matter was dead ; 

 on the contrary, they would prove that it was alive." Further 

 on he declares that " if there should suddenly leap forth from 

 the ground a full-grown mastodon, or a rhinoceros, all that 

 would legitimately follow from the fact would be, that there was 

 a vital principle in the ground, and that this was the secret or- 

 ganizer of these huge bodies." Book IV, chap. xiv. 



As for Pantheism, he asserts in Book IV, chap, xv : " It is 

 altogether indifferent whether we admit that the animate sub- 

 stances in the universe are more or fewer, some or all, so long 

 as we admit that they are created, and, therefore, altogether 

 distinct from the Creator, Pantheism is excluded." 



