1871 DEFENDER OF CATHOLIC ORTHODOXY 63 



metaphysics, so that, by an odd turn of events, he 

 appeared in the novel character of a defender of 

 Catholic orthodoxy against an attempt from within 

 that Church to prove that its teachings have in 

 reality always been in harmony with the requirements 

 of modern science. For Mr. Mivart, while twitting 

 the generality of men of science with their ignorance 

 of the real doctrines of his church, gave a reference 

 to the Jesuit theologian Suarez, the latest great 

 representative of scholasticism, as following St. 

 Augustine in asserting, not direct, but derivative 

 creation, that is to say, evolution from primordial 

 matter endued with certain powers. Startled by 

 this statement, Huxley investigated the works of the 

 learned Jesuit, and found not only that Mr. Mivart's 

 reference to the Metaphysical Disputations was not to 

 the point, but that in the "Tractatus de opere sex 

 Dierum," Suarez expressly and emphatically rejects 

 this doctrine and reprehends Augustine for asserting it. 



By great good luck (he writes to Darwin from St. 

 Andrews) there is an excellent library here, with a good 

 copy of Suarez, in a dozen big folios. Among these I 

 dived, to the great astonishment of the librarian, and 

 looking into them as " the careful robin eyes the delver's 

 toil " (vide Idylls}, I carried off the two venerable clasped 

 volumes which were most promising. 



So I have come out in the new character of a defender 

 of Catholic orthodoxy, and upset Mivart out of the mouth 

 of his own prophet. 



Darwin himself was more than pleased with the 

 article, and wrote enthusiastically (see Life and 



