Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Evolution (Biology)
"14. Ex his etiam constat, proprie de his formis dici non creari, sed educi
de potentia materiæ." [Footnote: Suarez, _loc. cit._ Disput. xv. §
ii.]
If I may venture to interpret these hard sayings, Suarez conceives that the
evolution of substantial forms in the ordinary course of nature, is
conditioned not only by the existence of the _materia prima_, but also
by a certain "concurrence and influence" which that _materia_ exerts;
and every new substantial form being thus conditioned, and in part, at any
rate, caused, by a pre-existing something, cannot be said to be created out
of nothing.
But as the whole tenor of the context shows, Suarez applies this
argumentation merely to the evolution of material substantial forms in the
ordinary course of nature. How the substantial forms of animals and plants
primarily originated, is a question to which, so far as I am able to
discover, he does not so much as allude in his "Metaphysical Disputations."
Nor was there any necessity that he should do so, inasmuch as he 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 "Tractatus de opere sex Dierum," [Footnote: _Tractatus
de opere sex Dierum, seu de Universi Creatione, quatenus sex diebus
perfecta esse, in libro Genesis cap. i. refertur, et praesertim de
productione hominis in statu innocentiae._ Ed. Birckmann, 1622.] 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 pro sua modestia
subterfugere vim argumenti potius quam aperte Augustinum inconstantiæ
arguere."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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