"SPECIAL CREATION' 1 147 



therefore, from the point of fact or of knowledge 

 as we now possess it, and we can do so without 

 imagining that, in so doing, we are contemplating 

 a method which is anything else but the carrying 

 out of a creative plan, existing perfect and com- 

 plete and from all eternity in the mind of the 

 Being Whose conception it was and by whose fiat 

 it came to pass. Moreover, each form produced 

 is a special creation, since it was specially designed 

 to be as it is and to appear when it did, just as the 

 clockmaker intends his clock to strike twelve at 

 noon, though he can hardly be said to make it 

 strike at that moment. Hence to place special 

 creation in antagonism to evolution is really to 

 use an ambiguous phraseology. No doubt it 

 is not easy to find the proper phraseology. Some 

 have employed the terms " immediate " and 

 " mediate," to which also a certain amount of 

 ambiguity is attached. Perhaps " direct " and 

 " derivative " might convey more accurate ideas ; 

 but whatever terminology we adopt, we are still 

 safe in saying that whether God makes things or 

 makes them make themselves He is creating 

 them and specially creating them. 



This is not the place to enter into any elaborate 

 discussion as to the truth of the theory of evolu- 

 tion. Few will be found to deny the statement 

 that it is a theory which does explain Nature as 

 we see it and as we learn its history in the past, 

 but that does not necessarily prove that it is true. 

 St. Thomas Aquinas, dealing with the movements 

 of the planets, makes a very important statement 

 when he tells us, in so many words, that, though 



