8 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 



more accurately described as " Transformism," 

 that is, the theory of the derivative character of 

 living things. What Darwin did was to put forward 

 a means to explain this derivation, namely, Natural 

 Selection, to which he added some subsidiary 

 factors such as Sexual Selection. I have no time 

 to deal in any adequate manner with the pre- 

 Darwinian transformists, but this may be said, 

 that, apart from pagan writers who foreshadowed 

 it at least, it has in its essence been a subject of 

 discussion amongst the great Catholic writers 

 since the time of St. Augustine of Hippo. I am 

 not enough of a theologian to decide, nor, since 

 theologians differ on the point, am I sufficiently 

 foolish to attempt to decide, how far St. Augustine 

 was or was not what would be called an evolution- 

 ist to-day. To me, at least, it seems as if the lang- 

 uage of Peter Lombard and of St. Thomas Aquinas 

 in commenting on St. Augustine, makes it clear 

 that the teaching of the greatest and most in- 

 fluential Doctor in the history of the Church is 

 quite consonant with any reasonable theory of 

 evolution nay that it is broad and comprehensive 

 enough to provide not only for whatever limited 

 degree of evolution is yet fairly established, but 

 even for anything that has even a remote proba- 

 bility of being proven in the future. Nor am I 

 deterred from coming to that conclusion by the 

 very obvious criticism that the Saint did not state 

 the doctrine with the clearness with which it is 

 now laid down, a thing which no reasonable person 

 would expect him to have done. 



It seems to me that he stated it " proleptically," 



