112 FROM THE GREEKS TO DARWIN 



the seed, not by material substance, but by causal 

 energy and potency; 



even so as in the grain itself there were invisibly all 

 things simultaneously, which were in time to grow 

 into the tree, so the world itself is to be thought of, 

 when God simultaneously created all things, as hav- 

 ing at the same time in itself all things that were 

 made in it and vdih it, when the day itself was cre- 

 ated : not only the heaven, w ith the sun and moon and 

 stars, and so forth, but also those things which the 

 water and the earth produced potentialiter atque cau- 

 saliter, before that, in due time, and after long de- 

 lays, they grew up in such manner as they are now 

 known to us in those works of God which He is work- 

 ing even to the present hour. 



Erigena (800- ) 



With Augustine the progress of comment 

 upon the interpretation of Genesis came nearly 

 to an end. As Guttler observes, men in the clois- 

 ters and other centers of culture turned to medi- 

 cine and ethics ; yet, even in this dark period, an 

 occasional friend of the gradual-creation idea 

 appeared. Such was John Scotus Erigena, who 

 simply borrowed from Aristotle and Augustine : 



From the Uncreated Creating Principles go forth 

 created and self-created beings under the embracing 

 causce primordiales. These causce are equivalent to 

 the Greek 'ideas,' that is the kinds, the eternal forms 



