212 THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST. 
ultimately living matter by the simple action of forces, or, better still, 
of powers inherent in matter, or which at least were gga in it in 
days gone by.” 
“The creationist theory admits a special intervention of God at the 
beginning of each of the groups which we now call species.” 
Between these two extremes there are many theories. 
The guiding principles of the Catholic interpretation of the Sacred 
Scriptures are, according to Dorlodot, 
1) The Encyclical Providentissimus Deus of Nov. 18, 1898, and, 
2) The decrees of the Biblical Commission. 
The author examines the general question in the light of the two 
guiding principles just mentioned, and arrives at the following con- 
clusion,— 
“We cannot find in Holy Scripture, interpreted according to the rules 
of Catholic exegesis, any convincing argument against the theory of 
natural evolution—even that of absolute evolution, for the sacred text 
does not justify the conclusion that the appearance of species was due 
to a special intervention on the part of God.” 
A number of statements in the first Conference seem to call for com- 
ment. On page 11, for instance, we read;—‘‘And, speaking generally, we 
must reject a priori any interpretation which would make a text of Holy 
Writ a divine instruction upon a subject belonging to the physical or 
natural sciences.” The translator seems to have foreseen that this state- 
ment would not go unchallenged. To forestall criticism, he quotes two 
propositions from the encyclical of Leo XIII., which, he says, warrant 
the author’s conclusion. The propositions are;— 
“1) The Holy Ghost so moved the sacred writers that they wrote all 
those things and only those things which He Himself ordained, and 
“2) The Holy Ghost, who spoke through the sacred writers, did not 
wish to teach men those things which He Himself ordained.” 
On page 39, we read,—“the term reptile does not mean for a naturalist 
a crawling animal, and this is especially true of the reptiles of the 
secondary epoch.” 
This statement is, at least, inexact. Snakes, lizards, ete., are certainly 
“erawling animals” in the sense of the author. But the naturalist com- 
prehends all of them under the term “reptile.” 
Again, on page 40 there is this statement,—“the birds of to-day no 
lenger possess teeth.” This is true of adult birds. But the embryo has, 
if not actual teeth, at least the dental ridges. (Kingsley, p. 231). 
The second conference,—‘Darwinism in the Light of Tradition and 
Catholic Philosophy”—contains four propositions. These are;— 
1) The teaching of the Fathers is very favorable to the theory of 
absolute natural evolution; 
2) Aristotelian scholastics generally limited the theory of absolute 
natural evolution to a section of living beings for scientific reasons 
(spontaneous generation) but still, all the docters remained faithful to 
