v MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS 147 



be no less false. For them, the assertion that the 

 progenitors of all existing plants were made on the 

 third day, of animals on the fifth and sixth days, 

 in the forms they now present, is simply false. 

 Nor can they admit that man was made suddenly 

 out of the dust of the earth ; while it would be an 

 insult to ask an evolutionist whether he credits the 

 preposterous fable respecting the fabrication of 

 woman to which Suarez pins his faith. If Suarez 

 has rightly stated Catholic doctrine, then is 

 evolution utter heresy. And such I believe it to 

 be. In addition to the truth of the doctrine of 

 evolution, indeed, one of its greatest merits in 

 my eyes, is the fact that it occupies a position of 

 complete and irreconcilable antagonism to that 

 vigorous and consistent enemy of the highest intel- 

 lectual, moral, and social life of mankind the 

 Catholic Church. No doubt, Mr. Mivart, like 

 other putters of new wine into old bottles, is 

 actuated by motives which are worthy of respect, 

 and even of sympathy ; but his attempt has met 

 with the fate which the Scripture prophesies for 

 all such. 



Catholic theology, like all theologies which are 

 based upon the assumption of the truth of the 

 account of the origin of things given in the Book 

 of Genesis, being utterly irreconcilable with the 

 doctrine of evolution, the student of science, who is 

 satisfied that the evidence upon which the doctrine 

 of evolution rests, is incomparably stronger and 



L 2 



