XL] MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 263 



exerts ; and every new substantial form being thus 

 conditioned, and in part, at any rate, caused, by a 

 pre-existing something, cannot be said to 'be created 

 out of nothing. 



But as the whole tenor of the context shows, Suarez_ 

 applies this argumentation merely to the evolution of 

 material substantial forms in the ordinary course of 

 nature. How the substantial forms of" animals and 

 plants primarily originated, is a question to which, so far 

 as I am able to discover, he does not so much as allude 

 in his " Metaphysical Disputations." Nor was there any 

 necessity that he should do so, inasmuch as he has 

 devoted a separate treatise of considerable bulk to the 

 discussion of all the problems which arise out of the 

 account of the creation which is given in the Book of 

 Genesis. And it is a matter of wonderment to me that 

 Mr. Mivart, who somewhat sharply reproves "Mr. 

 Darwin and others " for not acquainting themselves with 

 the true teachings of his Church, should allow himself to 

 be indebted to a heretic like myself for a knowledge of 

 the existence of that " Tractatus de opere sex Dierum/' 1 

 in which the learned Father, of whom he justly speaks, 

 as " an authority widely venerated, and whose orthodoxy 

 has never been questioned/' directly opposes all those 

 opinions, for which Mr. Mivart claims the shelter of his 

 authority. 



In the tenth and eleventh chapters of the first book 

 of this treatise, Suarez inquires in what sense the word 

 " day/' as employed in the first chapter of Genesis, is 

 to be taken. He discusses the views of Philo and of 

 Augustin on this question, and rejects them. He 

 suggests that the approval of their allegorizing inter- 



i " Tractatus de opere sex Dierum, seu de Universi Creatione, quatenus sex 

 diebus perfecta esse, in libro Genesis cap. i. refertur, et praesertim de produc- 

 tione hominis in statu innocentise." Ed. Birckmann, 1622. 



