By reason of this doctrine, the Louvain professor claims that St. Augustine was an evolutionist, and so, indeed, he was, if by evolution is meant a gradual production of organisms from inorganic matter. But if, on the contrary, by evolution is meant a progressive differentiation and multiplication of organic species by transmutation of preëxistent forms of life, or, in other words, if evolution is taken in its usual sense as synonym for transformism, then nothing could be more absurdly anachronistic than to ascribe the doctrine to St. Augustine. The subject of the gradual process postulated by the latter was, not living, but _inorganic_, matter, and the process was conceived as leading to the _formation_, and not the transformation, of species. The idea of variable inheritance did not occur to St. Augustine, and he conceived organisms, once they were in existence, as being propagated exclusively by univocal reproduction (_generatio univoca_). It is the fixist, therefore, rather than the transformist, who is entitled to exploit the Augustinian hypothesis. In fact, it is only the vicious ambiguity and unlimited elasticity of the term evolution, which avail to extenuate the astounding confusion of ideas and total lack of historic sense, that can bracket together under a common term the ideology of Darwin and the view of St. Augustine. § 2. The Argument in the Concrete But it is our task to criticize the theory of transformism, and not to throw a life-line to fixism, by advocating gradual formation of species as the only feasible alternative to gradual transformation of species. Perhaps, this particular life-line will not be appreciated any way; for the fixist may, not without reason, prefer to rest his case on the contention that the intrinsic _time-value_ of geological formations is far too problematic for certain conclusions of any sort. In maintaining this position, he will have the support of some present-day geologists, and can point, as we shall see, to facts that seem to bear out his contention. In fact, the cogency of the palæontological argument appears to be at its maximum in the abstract, and to evaporate the moment we carry it into the concrete. The lute seems perfect, until we begin to play thereon, and then we discover certain rifts that mar the effect. It is to these rifts that our attention must now be turned.