[Footnote 1: "Tractatus de opere sex Dierum, seu de Universi Creatione, quatenus sex diebus perfecta esse, in libro Genesis cap. i. refertur, et praesertim de productioue hominis in statu innocentiae." Ed. Birckmann, 1622.] And in chapter xii. 3, Suarez further observes:-- "Ratio enim retinendi veram significationem diei naturalis est illa communis, quod verba Scripturae non sunt ad metaphoras transferenda, nisi vel necessitas cogit, vel ex ipsa scriptura constet, et maximè in historica narratione et ad instructionem fidei pertinente: sed haec ratio non minus cogit ad intelligendum propriè dierum numerum, quam diei qualitatem, QUIA NON MINUS UNO MODO QUAM ALIO DESTRUITUR SINCERITAS, IMO ET VERITAS HISTORIAE. Secundo hoc valde confirmant alia Scripturae loca, in quibus hi sex dies tanquam veri, et inter se distincti commemorantur, ut Exod. 20 dicitur, _Sex diebus operabis et facies omnia opera tua, septimo autem die Sabbatum Domini Dei tui est_. Et infra: _Sex enim diebus fecit Dominus caelum et terram et mare et omnia quae in eis sunt_, et idem repetitur in cap. 31. In quibus locis sermonis proprietas colligi potest tum ex aequiparatione, nam cum dicitur: _sex diebus operabis_, propriissimè intelligitur: tum quia non est verisimile, potuisse populum intelligere verba illa in alio sensu, et è contrario incredibile est, Deum in suis praeceptis tradendis illis verbis ad populum fuisse loquutum, quibus deciperetur, falsum sensum concipiendo, si Deus non per sex veros dies opera sua fecisset." These passages leave no doubt that this great doctor of the Catholic Church, of unchallenged authority and unspotted orthodoxy, not only declares it to be Catholic doctrine that the work of creation took place in the space of six natural days; but that he warmly repudiates, as inconsistent with our knowledge of the Divine attributes, the supposition that the language which Catholic faith requires the believer to hold that God inspired, was used in any other sense than that which He knew it would convey to the minds of those to whom it was addressed. And I think that in this repudiation Father Suarez will have the sympathy of every man of common uprightness, to whom it is certainly "incredible" that the Almighty should have acted in a manner which He would esteem dishonest and base in a man. But the belief that the universe was created in six natural days is hopelessly inconsistent with the doctrine of evolution, in so far as it applies to the stars and planetary bodies; and it can be made to agree with a belief in the evolution of living beings only by the supposition that the plants and animals, which are said to have been created on the third, fifth, and six days, were merely the primordial forms, or rudiments, out of which existing plants and animals have been evolved; so that, on these days, plants and animals were not created actually, but only potentially.