EVOLUTION BEFORE DARWIN II 
naissance with marvelous vitality, starting the world 
to think afresh great thoughts that would not die, but 
would grow from that time on with ever-widening 
scope. 
Among the Jews and early Christians the stately 
and beautiful account in Genesis sufficed for all the 
needs of minds fully occupied with other questions. 
With the growth of philosophy among Christian 
minds again came the need of a satisfactory solution. 
St. Augustine was probably the greatest of the so- 
called “Fathers” of the church. His mind was emi- 
nently philosophical, and he was learned in the writ- 
ings of the older Greeks. He believed the language 
of Genesis to mean that in the beginning God planted 
in chaos the seed that afterward sprang up into the 
heavens and the earth. He further says that the six ; 
days of creation were not days of time, but a series i 
of causes, and that, in the order described as these ; 
six days, God planted in chaos the various beginnings ° 
of things. These in the fullness of time sprang up 
into the world as we know it now. The problem was 
not a question about which the church cared to trouble 
itself, and with the oncoming of the Dark Ages the 
whole matter dropped nearly out of the thoughts of 
men. 
When the times began to lighten we find the school- 
men, among the greatest of whom was Thomas 
