x PREFACE. 



opinions of Father Suarez has placed him. So much 

 more, in fact, has Mr. Mivart's ingenuity impressed 

 me than any other feature of his reply, that I shall 

 take the liberty of re-stating the main issue between 

 us ; and, for the present, leaving that issue alone to 

 the judgment of the public. 



In his book on the " Genesis of Species " Mr. Mivart, 

 after discussing the opinions of sundry Catholic writers 

 of authority, among whom he especially includes St. 

 Augustin, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Jesuit Suarez, 

 proceeds to say : " It is then evident that ancient 

 and most venerable theological authorities distinctly 

 assert derivative creation, and thus their teachings 

 harmonize with all that modern science can possibly 

 require," l By the " derivative creation " of organic 

 forms, Mr. Mivart understands, " that God created 

 them by conferring on the material world the power 

 to evolve them under suitable conditions/' 



On the contrary, I proved by evidence, which Mr. 

 Mivart does not venture to impugn, that Suarez, 

 in his "Tractatus de Opere sex Dierum," expressly 

 rejects St. Augustin's and St. Thomas' views y ; that he 

 vehemently advocates the literal interpretation of the 

 account of the creation given in the Book of Genesis ; 

 and that he treats with utter scorn the notion that 

 the Almighty could have used the language of that 

 Book, unless He meant it to be taken literally. 



1 1 regret that in one part of my essay on " Mr. Darwin's Critics," I gave 

 the sense and not the very words of this passage, as a quotation ; and that, by 

 an oversight, the inverted commas remain in the present edition (see p. 267). 



