84 WHAT IS LIFE 



Such persons would be forgetful if not ignorant 

 of the fact that the theory of spontaneous generation 

 was held by many, perhaps by all the Fathers of the 

 Church, and that St. Thomas Aquinas himself when 

 rebuking Avicenna for teaching spontaneous genera- 

 tion did so because Avicenna held the thesis that 

 it was by the power of matter alone that life arose, 

 whereas, as St. Thomas says, if matter does produce 

 life it is because the Creator has given it the power 

 to do so. 1 



In fact such a transition from non-living to 

 living matter at some period is far the most likely 

 thing to have occurred. What we claim is that, if 

 it occurred, it did so at the will of the Creator and 

 by virtue of the powers which He gave to it, nor 

 do we deny that it is possible that that power is 

 still inherent in non-living matter and may even 

 be continually manifested, though we are unable 

 to recognise the fact. " If," says Fr. Sharpe, 2 

 " against all probability, life could be shown to be 

 spontaneously generated from matter, this would 

 merely mean that the sentient or vegetative soul 

 [which one may also speak of as the vital principle 

 or under any other term which connotes the exist- 

 ence of an extra-physical agency in living matter] 

 is a resultant from certain chemical combinations, 



1 Summa Theol. 1. p. q. 71, art. 1, ad 1 um. 



2 The Principles of Christianity, 1906, p. 56. 



