x.] MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 223 



have not devoted much time to the study of Christian 

 philosophy ; but they have no right to assume or accept 

 without careful examination, as an unquestioned fact, 

 that in that philosophy there is a necessary antagonism 

 between the two ideas ' creation ' and ' evolution/ as 

 applied to organic forms. 



"It is notorious and patent to all who choose to 

 seek, that many distinguished Christian thinkers have 

 accepted, and do accept, both ideas, i.e. both ' creation ' 

 and ' evolution/ 



" As much as ten years ago an eminently Christian 

 writer observed : ' The creationist theory does not 

 necessitate the perpetual search after manifestations of 

 miraculous power and perpetual "catastrophes." Crea- 

 tion is not a miraculous interference with the laws of 

 nature, but the very institution of those laws. Law and 

 regularity, not arbitrary intervention, was the patristic 

 ideal of creation. With this notion they admitted, 

 without difficulty, the most surprising origin of living 

 creatures, provided it took place by law. They held 

 that when God said, " Let the waters produce," " Let the 

 earth produce," He conferred forces on the elements of 

 earth and water, which enabled them naturally to pro- 

 duce the various species of organic beings. This power, 

 they thought, remains attached to the elements through- 

 out all time/ The same writer quotes St. Augustin and 

 St. Thomas Aquinas, to the effect that, ' in the institution 

 of nature, we do not look for miraclss, but for the laws 

 of nature/ And, again, St. Basil speaks of the con- 

 tinued operation of natural laws in the production of all 



organisms. 



" So much for the writers of early and mediaeval times. 

 As to the present day, the author can confidently affirm 

 that there are many as well versed in theology as Mr. 

 Darwin is in his own department of natural knowledge, 



