in eternity, not in time. Nor have they a conception of a creation by law—a creation through the Logos—that eternal Reason, that all-providing Wisdom—whose hand stretched the line upon it, and whose right hand held the plummet; a scintilla of which enlightens every man that cometh into the world. Talk of their bringing forward this doctrine of evolution as a new discovery! They have, indeed, elaborated it in many new applications, but, as to the doctrine itself as a new proposition in philosophy, it was already old when Pythagoras was a school-master. Evolution new in philosophy, and the poetic or anthropomorphic notion of special creations a dogma of theology! Why, we are almost tempted to believe, with the satirist, that "nowadays men read every thing but books!" Even the (so-called) narrow-minded, ignorant schoolmen of the dark ages (very dark to those who consult not the numerous authors of the period)—even these made a broad distinction between the act, so to speak, the moment which called matter into existence, and that which merely modifies its forms and appearances. The former they dignify with the supreme title, creation (creatio), while the latter they called eduction or evolution (eductio). Looking to the continuance of the creative energy, and yet according to the law—according to, and by, definite and fixed properties, so to speak, with which matter is endowed—the term eduction is generally preferred by them; but evolution is also used for the same thing indifferently. And a late author, but of the same school in metaphysics, summing up their cosmological doctrines, and showing a reconciliation of the controversy concerning the relation of the Creator to the universe, from their point of view, known as the doctrines of harmony and assistance, says that the advocates of the latter doctrine taught that "God works not in his creation except according to the constant and general laws determined from the beginning" (Branchereau, "Cosmology," p. 70). And the still more general doctrine, also maintained by them, that "all beings admit of evolution by gradations to perfection according to their several natures," goes as far as Mr. Spencer, or any other philosopher, has gone, in the enunciation of general principles on this subject, and from a more elevated position (Branchereau, "Ontology," p. 56).
This very fact, that the highest theological philosophers and doctors, from St. Augustine down to our own times—as shown by Mr. Mivart and others—have never had any difficulty on the subject of the abstract question of the creation of the Cosmos, and the eduction of infinite variety from primordial matter by and according to constant law, however ignorant the same authors may have been of facts in Nature, and however jejune their notions of history and physics, ought to be sufficient to quiet us as to the legitimacy of our investigations; in short, that there is no more danger to orthodoxy (as the word is) in this endeavor to discover and trace the steps and stages of the development of life, than there is in the application of chemistry to the
