136 MR DARWIN'S CRITICS v 



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 " Trac- 

 tatus de opere sex Dierum," * 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 allegorising interpretations by St. Thomas 

 Aquinas, merely arose out of St. Thomas's 

 modesty, and his desire not to seem openly to 

 controvert St. Augustin " voluisse Divus Thomas 



1 Tractatus de opere sex Dierum, scu de Univcrsi Crcatione, 

 quatenus sex diebus perfecta csse, in libro Genesis cap. i. refcrtur, 

 ft prccsrrtim de productions hominis in slatu innoceniicc. Ed. 

 Birckmann, 1622. 



