142 MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS v 



authority, and whose orthodoxy has never been 

 questioned." 



But Mr. Mivart does not hesitate to push his 

 attempt to harmonise science with Catholic 

 orthodoxy to its utmost limit ; and, while 

 assuming that the soul of man "arises from 

 immediate and direct creation," he supposes that 

 his body was " formed at first (as now in each 

 separate individual) by derivative, or secondary 

 creation, through natural laws " (p. 331). 



This means, I presume, that an animal, having 



the corporeal form and bodily powers of man, may 



t have been developed out of some lower form of 



\ life by a process of evolution ; and that, after this 



anthropoid animal had existed for a longer or 



shorter time, God made a soul by direct creation, 



and put it into the manlike body, which, hereto- 



. fore, had been devoid of that anima rationalis, 



which is supposed to be man's distinctive 



character. 



This hypothesis is incapable of either proof or 

 disproof, and therefore may be true ; but if 

 Suarez is any authority, it is not Catholic 

 doctrine. " Nulla est in homine forma educta de 

 potentia materise," 1 is a dictum which is absolutely 

 inconsistent with the doctrine of the natural 

 evolution of any vital manifestation of the human 

 body. 



Moreover, if man existed as an animal before 

 1 Disput. xv. x. No. 27. 



I 



