THE EVOLUTION IDEA 109 



Augustine (353-430) 



Augustine drew this distinction still more 

 sharply, as CotterilP and Guttler" show, between 

 the virtual creation of organisms, the ratio semi- 

 nalis, and the actual visible coming forth of 

 things out of formless matter. All development 

 takes its natural course through the powers im- 

 parted to matter by the Creator. Even the cor- 

 poreal structure of man himself is according to 

 this plan and therefore a product of this natural 

 development. Augustine, as to the origin of life, 

 took his ground half-w^ay between biogenesis and 

 abiogenesis. From the beginning there had ex- 

 isted two kinds of germs of living things : first, 

 visible ones, placed by the Creator in animals 

 and plants ; and second, invisible ones, latent and 

 becoming active only under certain conditions of 

 combination and temperature. It is these which 

 produce plants and animals in great numbers 

 without any cooperation of existing organisms. 

 Augustine thus sought a naturalistic interpreta- 

 tion of the Mosaic record, or a potential rather 

 than a special creation, and taught that in the 

 institution of Nature we should not look for 



iHenry Cotterill: Does Science Aid Faith in Regard to Crea- 

 tion? 1883, pp. 63-75. 



^C. Giittler: Lorenz Oken und Sein Verhdltnis zur Modernen 

 Entwickelungslehre. 



