“Mr. Darwin and others may perhaps be excused if they have not devoted much time to the study of Christian philosophy; but they have no right to assume or accept without careful examination, as an unquestioned fact, that in that philosophy there is a necessary antagonism between the two ideas ‘creation’ and ‘evolution,’ as applied to organic forms.

“It is notorious and patent to all who choose to seek, that many distinguished Christian thinkers have accepted, and do accept, both ideas, i.e. both ‘creation’ and ‘evolution.’

“As much as ten years ago an eminently Christian writer observed:  ’The creationist theory does not necessitate the perpetual search after manifestations of miraculous power and perpetual “catastrophes.”  Creation is not a miraculous interference with the laws of nature, but the very institution of those laws.  Law and regularity, not arbitrary intervention, was the patristic ideal of creation.  With this notion they admitted, without difficulty, the most surprising origin of living creatures, provided it took place by law.  They held that when God said, “Let the waters produce,” “Let the earth produce,” He conferred forces on the elements of earth and water, which enabled them naturally to produce the various species of organic beings.  This power, they thought, remains attached to the elements throughout all time.’  The same writer quotes St. Augustin and St. Thomas Aquinas, to the effect that, ’in the institution of nature, we do not look for miracles, but for the laws of nature,’ And, again, St. Basil speaks of the continued operation of natural laws in the production of all organisms.

“So much for the writers of early and mediaeval times.  As to the present day, the author can confidently affirm that there are many as well versed in theology as Mr. Darwin is in his own department of natural knowledge, who would not be disturbed by the thorough demonstration of his theory.  Nay, they would not even be in the least painfully affected at witnessing the generation of animals of complex organization by the skilful artificial arrangement of natural forces, and the production, in the future, of a fish by means analogous to those by which we now produce urea.

“And this because they know that the possibility of such phenomena, though by no means actually foreseen, has yet been fully provided for in the old philosophy centuries before Darwin, or even centuries before Bacon, and that their place in the system can be at once assigned them without even disturbing its order or marring its harmony.

“Moreover, the old tradition in this respect has never been abandoned, however much it may have been ignored or neglected by some modern writers.  In proof of this, it may be observed that perhaps no post-mediaeval theologian has a wider reception amongst Christians throughout the world than Suarez, who has a separate section[1] in opposition to those who maintain the distinct creation of the various kinds—­or substantial forms—­of organic life” (pp. 19-21).