Article 1. Whether Man is Immediately from God

134. Omitting, as we warned (n. 112), the things which pertain to the individual days of creation, we at once enter upon the disputation concerning the origin and nature of man. Since many things concerning this matter are usually treated in philosophy, we touch here only those things which more properly approach the explaining and vindicating of Catholic dogma.

135. Scripture often asserts, and the Fathers confirm, that man is the most excellent work of visible creation. But they derive the preeminence of man especially under a threefold head. a) From the time at which man was founded. "It was not fitting," says St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Making of Man, c. 2), "that the one who was to rule should exist before those over whom he was to preside with power. For after the kingdom had first been prepared, then next it was fitting that the king be designated. For this reason the creator of this universe first built a certain royal seat for him who was to rule." St. Gregory Nazianzen teaches the same (Oration 43); Zacharias of Mytilene (On the Making of the World); Severian of Gabala (Oration 4), etc. b) From the mode by which he was founded. "Although," says St. Gregory the Great (Moralia, book 9, c. 27), "all things were created through the Word co-eternal with the Father, nevertheless, in the very account of creation it is shown how much man is preferred to all animals, how much even to heavenly things, though insensible. Indeed he spoke all things, and they were made. But when he decides to make man, he first sends forth this, which must be reverently weighed, saying: Let us make man to our image and likeness. Namely, because a rational creature was being founded, he seemed to be made, as it were, with counsel. As if by study he is formed from the earth, and by the inspiration of the Founder he is raised up in the power of a vital spirit: namely, so that he who was being made to the image of the Founder might exist not through the voice of command, but through the dignity of the operation." St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Making of Man, c. 3), Tertullian (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, c. 5), etc., have the same. c) From the nature of man. "He made you (O man)," says St. Peter Chrysologus (Sermon 148), "to be earth, so that you might be lord of earthly things, and might be common with them in communion of the same substance; yet he did not so equal you to earthly things that he would not also, by animating you from heaven, make you equal to heavenly things; and so that reason might be common to you with God, and body common with beasts, he gave you a soul from heaven, he gave you a body from earth, so that in you the bound concord of heaven and earth might be preserved." St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory the Great, etc., teach the same.

136. At the same time, however, St. John Chrysostom warns (Homily 2 on Genesis): "God formed man from the slime of the earth: if we are willing to attend to this, no small doctrine of humility is offered to us. For when we have considered from where our nature received the beginning of its constitution, even if we raise our brows six hundred times, we shall press them down and be humbled, and, weighing the quality of our substance, we shall learn modesty."

137. The immediate origin of man from God is attacked in two ways. For some, such as rationalists and biblical neoterics, contend that the things narrated concerning it in Genesis must be taken not literally but mythically. Others, by arguments drawn from the natural sciences, try to show that man has an origin common with the beasts (see Perrone). Therefore we shall treat the question theologically and philosophically.

138. The Vatican Council (Dei Filius, chapter 1) teaches that "God ... founded from nothing each creature, spiritual and corporeal, namely the angelic and the worldly, and then the human as something common constituted from spirit and body." The Lateran Council had defined the same (n. 27). From this theologians deduce that it is a truth of faith that the first parents were immediately founded by God (see Perrone, Knoll, Jungmann, etc.). For the decree of each Council speaks at the same time and in the same way concerning Angels, the world, and man; but it is established that the Angels and the world were immediately founded by God. Therefore.

139. In order that this Catholic doctrine be understood, it must be noted: a) that the matter concerns not only the soul, but also the body, so that man himself was immediately founded by God.

b) That the soul indeed is immediately created by God; but the body, as is clear from the Mosaic narrative, was not immediately created, but was founded from the slime of the earth, and was created only mediately (n. 30); and therefore the first parents are said to have been founded by God.

c) That the first parents are said to have been immediately founded by God in order to exclude the error of those who affirm that man came forth either from the fecundity of the earth, or from an egg, etc. Hence, although the body was not immediately created, nevertheless, since it was immediately founded by God, there is asserted a special and immediate action of God, distinct from that by which he created the earth, by which he conserves all things, and by which he concurs with all the operations of creatures.

d) That in the cited chapter of the Vatican and Lateran Councils the question is not touched whether God used the ministry of Angels in the formation of Adam. More commonly the Fathers deny that a ministry of Angels of this kind was employed. Yet if the matter concerns the possibility of employing it, "it could have happened," says St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 91, a. 2, ad 1, "that they displayed some ministry in the formation of the body of the first man, just as they will display it in the last resurrection by gathering the dust."

Explaining this, Suarez, On the Work of the Six Days, book 3, c. 1, n. 5, observes: "Two things can be considered in the formation of that body. One is the local gathering of earth into a place apt and suitable for disposing that body; the other is the organization and suitable disposition of that human matter. The first of these could easily have been done by the ministry of Angels. And St. Thomas speaks especially of that in the cited article 2, ad 1, bringing forward as an example the ministry which Angels will display in the last resurrection by gathering human ashes. But that ministry does not suffice for Angels to be said to have created man, or to have formed his body, just as neither in the resurrection would it suffice for Angels to be said to have created or formed the bodies of those rising again, because that ministry is very remote, through the mere application of matter. Augustine explains this by various examples, book 9 of On Genesis Literally, chapter 15."

Then, n. 6, he adds: "I am speaking of that body as it was then made and prepared for the reception of the soul; for when man comes to be through natural generation, that organization and disposition of the body is made by natural power from the generator. Yet, with the order of natural propagation set aside, that work cannot be done by any created cause, whether elemental or heavenly, whether by all together, and much less by Angels, who cannot naturally transmute matter or alter bodies through themselves; but the organization of the body of the first man was not made by way of natural generation, as is known through itself; therefore it could be made by God alone." See, if you please, the things which follow.

e) That not only Adam, but also Eve, from whom human nature also was propagated, was immediately founded by God as to soul and body. We note this especially because difficulties are usually sought from the things which are said concerning the creation of woman in order to exclude the literal sense.

There really was an opinion of Cajetan that the narrative concerning the creation of woman must be understood allegorically. "For he says," says Suarez, cited place, chapter 2, n. 5, "that by the removal of the rib was signified the diminution of strength from the mind of the man on account of his wife; and that by the rib was signified the social life between man and wife; and that by the rib, insofar as only one is named, was signified the weakness of woman; and in that which is said, that God filled up flesh in place of it, was signified that the diminution of strength in the man on account of his wife is compensated by the fruit of offspring." But this opinion is rightly branded by all with the mark of temerity.

PROP. XIV. The first parents, as is established from divine revelation, were immediately founded by God.

Proof I, from Scripture. Genesis 1:26 and following reads: "And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him preside over the fishes of the sea, and the birds of heaven, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping thing which moves on the earth. And God created man to his image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them." And Genesis 2:7, 18, 20: "Therefore the Lord God formed man from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul ... The Lord God also said: It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper like himself ... Therefore the Lord God sent sleep into Adam, and when he had fallen asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh in place of it. And the Lord God built the rib, which he had taken from Adam, into a woman: and he brought her to Adam."

The human beings whose formation is described in the first and second chapter of Genesis are altogether the same. The difference is only in this, that the production of Adam and Eve, which is narrated summarily in the first chapter, without the mode being explained, is declared more richly in the second. Hence, if the recited words of Sacred Scripture are taken in the obvious and literal sense, they without doubt disclose that man was immediately founded by God. But they must be taken in the literal and obvious sense. Therefore.

The major is explained. God is presented as saying, "Let us make man to our image and likeness"; and it is added, "and he created him, etc." Therefore no intermediate agent is mentioned; indeed rather such an agent is excluded, for he creates who creates to his own likeness. If the discourse is about the soul, this cannot be produced except through creation properly so called, which belongs to God alone. If it is about the body of man, God is said to have formed it, fashioned it from the slime of the earth, namely, to have disposed the slime which he had already created so that it would be apt and would demand to be informed by a soul: "he breathed into his face the breath of life." But all these things, taken in the obvious sense, exhibit the immediate action of God.

The minor is proved. Omitting the common arguments, it is enough here to show that in the Scriptures allusion is often made to the formation of man in such a way that it must be taken according to the letter. Thus, for example, Psalm 102:14: "He (God) knew our frame. He remembered that we are dust." Job 10:8-9: "Your hands made me, and fashioned me wholly round about: remember, I ask, that you made me as clay, and will bring me back into dust." Chapter 33, verse 4: "The Spirit of God made me, and the breath of the Almighty gave me life"; verse 6: "Behold, God made me just as he made you, and I too was formed from the same clay." Wisdom 7:1: "I too am indeed a mortal man and from the race of that earthly one who was made first." Ecclesiasticus 18:1: "God created man from the earth, and made him according to his own image."

Likewise, as to the production of woman from the rib of the man, the literal sense is required: a) by the context, as is clear from the words of Adam, who, having awakened, said: this now is bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh; b) by the nature of the book of Moses, which is historical; c) by the other things which are narrated there, and which, according to all, must be taken literally; d) by parallelism. For Matthew 19:4 and following says: "Have you not read that he who made man from the beginning made them male and female? And he said: For this reason a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cling to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined, let man not separate." And 1 Timothy 2:13: "For Adam was formed first, then Eve." And 1 Corinthians 11:8-9: "For the man is not from the woman, but the woman from the man. For the man was not created on account of the woman, but the woman on account of the man." And 11:12: "For as the woman is from the man, so also the man is through the woman: but all things are from God."

To these Suarez adds a reason in the cited chapter 2, n. 5. For after reporting the metaphorical exposition of Cajetan which we gave above, he observes: "The words of Scripture which narrate the action of God, even if they are said to have some metaphor either in the thing done or in the mode of action, must necessarily signify some action, so that they may be true in some sense. But those words, he took, he filled up, he built, signify action, indeed actions. Therefore, even if metaphor were permitted in the words, it is always necessary for the truth that at least metaphorically some action of God be signified. But none is explained by Cajetan, nor can one easily be thought out, even if license of inventing be granted."

Proof II, from the Fathers. For a) several so assert that man was immediately founded by God that they exclude even the ministry of Angels. Thus St. Basil (Homily 9 on the Hexaemeron); St. Ambrose (Hexaemeron, book 6, c. 7, n. 40); St. Augustine (On Genesis Literally, book 9, c. 15); Theodoret (on Genesis, q. 19).

b) They openly take literally the things narrated in Genesis concerning the formation of man and woman. Thus St. Basil in the cited homily 9, at the end of which he has a discourse concerning the creation of man, says: "When I hear grass, I understand grass; and plant, and fish, and beast, and cattle, all things as they have been said, so I receive them; for I am not ashamed of the Gospel." And a little below he rebukes those who, having left behind the literal sense, seek only allegories and sell their own inventions as utterances of the Holy Spirit. St. Jerome (Commentary on the Epistle to Philemon): "Does someone believe in God the Founder? He cannot believe unless he first believes that concerning his saints the things which have been written are true: that Adam was formed by God, Eve fashioned from his rib and side, Enoch translated, etc."

c) They so admire the formation of man that they manifestly profess a special and immediate divine operation. Thus St. John Chrysostom (Homily 15 on Genesis): "The Lord God built the rib he had received into a woman. An admirable saying, overcoming our reason by too great an excellence! For all things which are done by the Lord are of this sort. For this is no less than that man be formed from dust." St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 12), from the fact that God produced the body of Adam from clay and woman from his rib, proves against the Jews that God also could have brought it about that a virgin should bear a son.

d) Although the Fathers hand down diverse allegorical expositions and various reasons concerning the formation of woman from the rib of Adam, nevertheless all suppose the historical truth and the literal sense of the fact. Thus, for example, St. Augustine (Tractate 9 on John, n. 10) says: "Adam sleeps, that Eve may be made; Christ dies, that the Church may be made. While Adam sleeps, Eve is made from his side; when Christ is dead, his side is struck by the lance, so that the Sacraments may flow forth, by which the Church is formed." This also the Council of Vienne taught, Clementine 1, On the Highest Trinity. See Summa Theologiae I, q. 92, a. 2.

140. Compare St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 91 and 92; Suarez, On the Work of the Six Days, book 3, c. 1 and 2, where the objections also can be seen.

141. Naturalists have always distinguished, and even now the more celebrated Naturalists distinguish, among species, varieties, and stocks; and, taught by experience, they have especially established this law: 1. that from individuals of one species individuals of a different stock and variety can be produced and propagated, but not individuals of a different species; and 2. that the conjunction of individuals of different species either is altogether sterile, or, if it is endowed with some fecundity, is never such that hybrid individuals can be propagated as a new species. Therefore species have indefinite fecundity, but according to identity of type, and consequently they are called stable or immutable.

142. Those who are now called Transformists deny this law. For their principle is transformation, the conversion of one species into another, the origin of one species from another. Namely, they say that just as from individuals of one species, whether vegetal or animal, different varieties and stocks can arise and be propagated within the same species, so also different species can arise and be propagated.

143. If one asks by what means different species are produced in this system, two principal means are usually assigned. The first is what Darwin calls natural selection; the other is what Lamarck and others place in the exercise of the organs and in the effort to which the subject is instinctively incited for satisfying some need.

144. As to the first, the cited author first observes the mode by which varieties are obtained by human industry, whether in the cultivation of plants or in the procreation of animals: namely, the more excellent individuals are selected, mixed together or joined, and thus increase and diversity are obtained. Thus, for example, if a red spot appears in a flower of white color, this variety can be propagated through the seeds of that flower in which that spot is present; for the flowers which are born from it generally have the same spot. Indeed, since that spot is accustomed to grow through successive generations, if the same industry is repeated, after a lapse of time, from a flower originally white, a flower of red color will at last germinate. So also, for example, if horses are selected which are destined for the propagation of the species, perfection and increase, and in the course of time also variety, can be obtained. What in this matter is attributed to human industry, nature also does in its own way: by the selection of nature, gradually and imperceptibly useful varieties are accumulated in the same living being, while useless or less perfect ones are rejected.

145. To explain this natural selection Darwin introduced the law which he calls "struggle for existence." Namely, he supposes that every species of living things tends to propagate itself by geometrical progression; hence in the course of time individuals are wonderfully multiplied. But means sufficient for life are lacking for all; therefore a struggle begins among them, for each one wishes to preserve its own life. In this struggle, however, those individuals will conquer which, better disposed by nature, are situated in better conditions; therefore the outcome will be what Darwin calls "survival of the fittest." An almost similar struggle, with the same outcome, is found in the vegetable kingdom. Now the more perfect individuals which survive will, by the ordinary law, beget a more perfect offspring; and when that offspring then enters the same struggle with the same outcome, after a long series of generations there will be had a collection of individuals in which the more perfect qualities are accumulated, namely, a new stock. And since, they say, what is commonly called a variety or stock is in reality nothing other than an incipient species, after a long series of generations, by the aforesaid process, a new species will arise.

146. From this two things would seem to follow: 1. that there is a transformation of species indefinitely; 2. that a transformation of this sort takes place by constant progress from good to better. Nevertheless, according to Darwin, the law which he calls the law of permanence stands against the first consequence. This law consists in this, that transformation takes place as long as there is in the individuals an uncertain and vague form, needing a particular determination; but when nature has acquired entirely definite characters, it acquires stability and cannot be converted into others. The same author admits the other consequence, concerning constant progress; but since the evidence of fact contradicts that constant progress, he afterwards does not fear to deny the same consequence.

147. As to the second means of the transformation of species, Lamarck relies upon the physiological fact that use and exercise perfect the organs. Hence, if animals are situated in new conditions by which they are excited to greater and more frequent efforts, over an interval of time new organs are formed. And conversely, if, from new conditions, some parts of the body are not exercised, by that very fact they can gradually be lost. But when new organs have been acquired, a new species of animals arises. Thus, for example, if a bird cannot procure food for itself anywhere except in the sea, compelled by necessity, they say, it will extend its toes over the surface of the water; by efforts of this sort more frequently repeated, the skin which joins the toes at the base gradually becomes a member useful for swimming. To refresh the mind, it will be pleasant to read how, according to Darwin, man acquired that form of body which he now has: The Descent of Man, vol. 1, "Manner of Development," for example, p. 145 and following, Appleton, 1871.

148. Is this general theory to be applied to man himself? At the beginning, the authors of the system hesitated in this matter, uncertain; but now they themselves openly profess what their disciples immediately recognized, namely, that man is nothing other than a certain lower animal transformed. But if someone asks for the proximate stock of the human race, some assign the troglodyte ape, while others assign some extinct species of apes. For Darwin notes that the apes now existing have entirely determined characters; and therefore the law of permanence forbids that they be converted into another species. But since a great similarity prevails between man and the apes, especially the anthropomorphic ones (chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan), it is easy to infer that both man and the apes derive their origin from the same parent. If one asks further about the first progenitors of man, Lamarck assigns two primitive forms, very imperfect organic beings, which he names proto-organisms. Darwin, however, admits four or five primitive forms, which he calls prototypes, although at the same time he intimates the hope that with time and study all will be brought back to one. Finally, if one asks the origin of the primitive forms themselves, Lamarck asserts that they were brought forth from rude and inorganic matter through spontaneous generation; Darwin, however (Athenaeum, Apr. 25, 1863, p. 554), confesses that he is wholly ignorant of the first origin of life.

149. This whole system concerning the transformation of species is certainly opposed to the dogma concerning the origin of man immediately from God. It is also opposed to the diversity of species immediately from God, which seems to be handed down in Genesis (concerning which question we do not now have to treat; see Suarez, On the Work of the Six Days, chapters 7 and 10). But, as is clear, of itself it does not exclude the dogma concerning God the Creator, provided at least that God had created the matter from which plants, animals, and man were first brought forth. Although Darwin expressly seems to profess this dogma, nevertheless many of his disciples, especially in Germany, have denied it; so that Hoffmann and Pfaff attribute the rapid propagation of the system of transformation to the possibility of excluding God the Creator by it. See Reusch, la Bibbia e la Natura, cited edition, lecture 27.

150. At the end of this brief exposition, let it be permitted to observe that, although the Transformists preach progress, they in no way promote it. For if we consider their error, it is not new; for Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, book 3, says: "and therefore concerning the origin of men and quadrupeds one might not absurdly conjecture, if they were once brought forth from the earth, that this happened in one of two ways: either that they first existed as from a worm, or that they were produced from eggs." But after these modes have been set forth, he says: "therefore, if there was any beginning of existing for living things, it is manifest that it happened in one of these two modes." And Empedocles, as Lucretius witnesses, book 5, imagined that the earth brought forth separately the members of the human body, which afterwards came together by chance and formed man. The very law "survival of the fittest" is an ancient error, which Aristotle reports in Physics 2.8. But by their system they instill such an idea of human nature that it can truly be said: "Man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he was compared to foolish beasts, and became like them." Psalm 48:12.

151. From the things said in the preceding section, four things must be distinguished in the present question: 1. the denial of the dogma of creation; 2. the affirmation of spontaneous generation; 3. the transformation of plants and animals from one species into another; 4. the application of this system to explaining the origin of man.

152. Against the denial of the dogma of creation nothing must now be said: both because that denial, as we have seen, is not a necessary consequence of the system of the Transformists, and because we sufficiently asserted and defended the dogma of creation in the preceding disputation.

153. Nor is it necessary for the present question to treat directly of spontaneous generation. For even if spontaneous generation of certain primitive forms were granted, the origin of man could not be explained from it unless one admitted the transformation of species even in perfect living things, and extended this transformation to man himself. But since on this occasion some calumniate the doctrine of St. Thomas and the scholastics, we shall briefly note a few things.

154. a) What naturalists think at the present time concerning spontaneous generation can be seen in Reusch (La Bibbia e la Natura, lecture 26, cited edition). But whatever may be the case concerning the question whether the scholastics taught spontaneous generation in entirely the same sense as Lamarck, it is certain that they unanimously and constantly taught that the species of all animals cannot, according to the order of things, be traced back either immediately or mediately to spontaneous generation. "Avicenna held," says St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 71, single article, ad 1, "that all animals can be generated from some mixture of the elements without seed, even by way of nature. But this seems unfitting, because nature proceeds to its effects by determinate means. Hence those things which are naturally generated from seed cannot naturally be generated without seed. And therefore it must be said otherwise, that in the natural generation of animals the active principle is the formative power which is in the seed, in those things which are generated from seed.... But in the first institution of things the active principle was the Word of God, which produced the animals from elemental matter." And Suarez, On the Work of the Six Days, book 2, chapter 10, n. 2, treating of the first formation of perfect animals, says: "A whole species cannot begin through natural generation, because each individual is procreated by another like itself; and therefore one must necessarily stop at some first individual not generated by another like itself. Nor could that first one have been generated from seed alone, because neither can that seed naturally come to be unless it is separated from an animal, nor can it be conserved or brought through to the forming of a fetus except in the womb of some generating animal. Nor also could the species of such living things, or their first individuals, have been introduced into the world through universal causes alone, namely the sun and the stars, as is also demonstrated from Philosophy against Avicenna and other ancient Philosophers. Therefore it was necessary that the first individuals of these living things be made immediately by the author of nature."

b) Hence it is clear that the doctrine of the scholastics has nothing in common with the system of the transformation of species which Darwin now holds with others. Indeed, to overturn it, the scholastics used the same direct argument by which it is now attacked. Namely, it is established by experience that perfect animals arise only through generation from individuals of the same species; but nature has a determinate mode of acting; therefore, according to the order of nature, perfect animals cannot arise in another way, etc. St. Thomas repeats this principle very often. See, for example, besides the place just cited, Summa Theologiae I, q. 92, a. 1, ad 2; a. 4, corpus, etc.

c) Nor from the fact that the scholastics teach that all inferior forms, not excluding the soul of brutes, are educed from the potency of matter, does it follow in any way that naturally from a living thing of one species an animal of another species can be produced. For according to the scholastics, not from any matter disposed in any manner whatever can any form whatever naturally be educed: "nature ... from determinate matter produces something in a determinate species"; nor can any created active power whatever educe any form whatever from matter, which St. Thomas often teaches belongs to God alone, even with the Angels excluded. Hence, in order that the souls of brutes be educed from the potency of matter in a natural mode, there is required, besides determinate matter, the active power of a generator of the same species. But the souls of the first brutes, although they are not said to have been created but educed from the potency of matter, nevertheless were not educed by the power of any created agent, but by a special divine action. "Although the production," says Suarez, cited chapter 10, n. 3, "of those animals is sometimes called creation, nevertheless it was not from nothing, but from preexisting matter, yet in a mode proper to the author of nature.... It is called creation in a broad mode, both so that it may be distinguished from ordinary generation, and so that it may be denoted that there was a certain mode of production proper to the author of nature." And St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 91, when he had objected to himself that that which exists in a corporeal creature according to causal reasons can be produced by some created power, replies: "A thing is said to preexist according to causal reasons in creatures in two ways: in one way according to active and passive potency, so that it can not only come to be from preexisting matter, but also so that some preexisting creature can do this. In another way according to passive potency only, namely so that it can come to be from preexisting matter by God."

d) But that the souls of brutes are not created, but are educed from the potency of matter: 1. is the doctrine of St. Thomas, and common, as all know, among the scholastics; 2. is proved philosophically by the best reasons, the principal one of which is that each thing is related to coming-to-be as it is related to being; but the souls of brutes are dependent upon matter, and in this they differ essentially from the human soul; therefore they also ought to come to be dependently upon matter, and consequently they are not properly created (n. 9); 3. the contrary opinion, according to which the souls of brutes cannot be produced except through creation by God, is often asserted without any proof whatever; and when they attempt to prove it, they bring forward no argument which was not foreseen by the scholastics and to which they did not reply. Therefore in this case that frequent excuse for departing from the common opinion of the scholastics does not avail, namely, that some new fact, new experience, etc., unknown to them, now compels one to abandon them. Therefore, if it is difficult to understand that some still hold that the souls of brutes are not produced except through creation, it is altogether astonishing that this opinion is called by them philosophically certain.

e) It is still more astonishing that they wish to confirm the same opinion from Scripture, relying on this argument, that in Genesis 1:21 the word barah is employed, which, they say, by its own force signifies to create. For 1. the most approved Theologians deny this (n. 32). Gesenius, at the word barah, shows that by its native force it does not signify creation from nothing; that in the kal form it is used in the Scriptures when divine action is concerned; and he brings examples from Scripture in which that divine action expressed by the said word in the said form is certainly not creation from nothing. The first production of the souls of brutes, although it is not creation from nothing, nevertheless requires, as we said, an action proper to God. Therefore, by admitting that the souls of brutes were first educed from the potency of matter through divine action, the force of barah in kal is now preserved according to biblical usage. 2. In those things which are referred in Genesis to the production of animals, the word create, form, etc., is employed indifferently; and especially chapter 2, verse 19 says: "Therefore, the Lord God having formed from the ground all the living things of the earth, etc." 3. Indeed Suarez rightly notes, cited chapter 10, n. 4: "From this it can rightly be gathered that all the forms, or souls, of those living things, however perfect short of man, were educed from the potency of matter; for that is what those words signify, let the earth produce a living soul, which are immediately distributed to all species by those words, cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the earth, which Cajetan rightly noted, and Perrer. agrees." 4. Even if the souls of brutes are said to have been first con-created by God (for the whole composite would be said to have been created), it would not follow from this that when animals would thereafter be produced by way of natural generation, their souls are created and are not educed from the potency of matter.

f) But if the danger should frighten some that the Transformists may abuse this doctrine of the scholastics, we shall answer two things. 1. The fear is empty, since we ought not to fear anything except legitimate absurd inferences from some doctrine; but the inference of the Transformists would neither be legitimate, as we have shown, nor is it admitted by the Doctors. 2. Rather let them beware lest their own opinion offer some danger to unbelievers. For these could reason in their own way (whether rightly or wrongly we do not say) as follows: according to Catholic Doctors, the reason why the human soul cannot be produced except through creation is that neither in acting nor in being does it depend upon matter; but, according to you, the same mode of production is necessary for the soul of brutes. Therefore.

155. As to the transformation of species, it must first be said that when the matter concerns explaining the origin of man, we could, absolutely speaking, abstain from treating this general question. For whatever may be the case concerning the system of the Transformists as regards plants and living things, it is certain, once the nature of the human soul has been considered, that it cannot be transferred to man. But this is easily shown from those things which are established in philosophy concerning the essential distinction between sense and reason, concerning the spirituality of the human soul, and concerning its necessary origin through creation by God. Among other things which treat this argument, Liberatore (Del Composto umano, chapter 4, article 8), Hettinger (Apologie du Christianisme, vol. 1, chapter 7), Dublin Review (July 1871, Evolution and Faith, from p. 24), etc., can be seen.

156. Nevertheless the Transformists, who certainly confuse even sense with reason (Darwin, Descent of Man, vol. 2, p. 390), do not make as much of this argument as of that one taken from the similarity of the body of man with the bodies of living things; and therefore it is worth the effort at least briefly to indicate how they can be attacked by the same weapons.

157. PROP. XV. 1. The principle which the Transformists assume is repugnant to experience and is altogether arbitrary; 2. the means which they assign for effecting transformation are insufficient; 3. the proofs which they adduce prove nothing.

Proof of the first part. The principle which the Transformists assume is that all animals derive their origin from certain prototypes, and that animals of one species arise from individuals of another species, just as different varieties and stocks are had in the same species. But this principle is repugnant to experience. Therefore.

Proof of the minor. By constant experience we are taught that fish arise from fish, birds from birds, a horse from a horse; namely, generally animals are propagated in no other way except from individuals of the same species. Darwin himself finally admits this (Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. 1. 2., c. 16). Therefore.

You will say with Darwin. 1. From the species now existing there arise only individuals of the same species, because these living things have now acquired entirely determinate characters; and consequently the law of permanence forbids it, etc. 2. Transmutations do not take place except through a long series of years, and therefore in a non-sensible mode. Therefore the argument from present experience does not prove.

I reply. 1. That law of permanence seems at last to concede what we defend, the stability of species. 2. If existing species, and especially man, took their origin through a long period of years from animals having vague and uncertain forms, we would have to find intermediate forms of this sort. But they are not found; indeed we have the contrary from experience. In fact, a) historically it is established that animals have retained the same form and the same habits, as is clear from the most ancient sculptures of the Egyptians, from those things which occur in the Sacred Writers concerning certain animals, from Aristotle's history of animals, from the comparisons of Homer, etc. b) In the strata of the earth many remains of plants and animals are found, but there is no trace either of primitive forms or of intermediate transitions from less perfect forms to more perfect ones; indeed fossils exhibit definite characters. c) Hence the Transformists themselves concede that man's progenitors are still unknown (Darwin, Origin of Species, c. 9). So true is what the Transformists continually proclaim, namely, that their system rests on facts!

From these things it is sufficiently established that the principle of the Transformists is arbitrary. But let us imagine that we behold with our own eyes the transmutation of animals from one species into another. Would it follow from this that all species of living things come from one or several most imperfect primitive forms? Could not God himself at least have constituted various species from the beginning? Could not he especially have founded man himself in a perfect state? And universal tradition of all peoples reports that this was done. Therefore, from whatever side the principle of the Transformists is considered, it must be called arbitrary.

Proof of the second part. The means which they assign are reduced to the effort and exercise of organs from the new necessities and desires of the living thing, to the influence of the surroundings in which the animal is situated, and to natural selection. But these means are insufficient. Therefore.

Proof of the minor as to the first. Desires and efforts must necessarily correspond to the very principle from which they proceed and by which they are determined, that is, to the very nature and faculties of living things. Not only right reason but experience shows this. Therefore desires, efforts, and the exercise of members cannot produce a new nature. As to the second: the influence of external surroundings is determined by the very subject which receives it; whence it happens that plants and animals in the same surroundings are modified in a different mode, each in a mode conformable to its own nature. Therefore. Why, while the laws of nature remain the same, do the same transformations not now take place? As to the third: Darwin himself, who previously attributed almost everything to natural selection, afterwards asserted that it has only the principal parts in transformation; and finally, when experience resisted his assertion, he confessed that the causes of transformation are unknown. Behold again how the theory of the Transformists always rests on facts! But concerning this matter consult especially Mivart (Genesis of Species, introductory material).

Proof of the third part. All the arguments of the Transformists, although illustrated by many things, can at most be reduced to three. The first is: the body of animals, especially of anthropomorphic apes, considered physiologically, anatomically, and pathologically, presents a great similarity with the human body; therefore they have a common origin. The second is: the eggs and embryos of all living things, especially vertebrates, are similar, and they retain this similarity for a long time until they unfold their proper form; therefore they have the same origin. The third is: there are in the human body some imperfect parts which are of no utility, and whose existence is well explained by positing that they are remnants of organs perfect and useful in the ancestors, which afterwards, made useless from new circumstances, from natural selection, etc., were gradually and imperceptibly lost. Thus, for example, the coccyx in man is a vestige of a tail; the hairs by which the human body is covered here and there are a vestige of a hairy covering over the whole body of the ancestors, etc. Therefore man has his origin from those living things in which those parts were perfect.

But, we say, none of these arguments proves. Therefore.

Proof of the minor as to the first. For a) the similarity between the structure of the human body and the body of brutes indeed shows that we agree with them in sensitive life, or in genus; but in no way does it prove that we agree with them also in species, since the specific difference is reason, of which brutes are deprived. In other words, the body, the matter, agrees; but the soul, the form, differs. But the form gives specific being. b) If from the sole similarity between the body of brutes and the body of men identity of origin and species can be argued, from dissimilarity we can argue diversity of origin and species. c) Indeed, a fortiori; for the dissimilarities are greater, and are such that they present an entirely different type, as De Quatrefages among others well shows (Rapport sur les progres de l'anthropologie, 2nd part, ch. 8, § 1, "origine de l'homme - l'homme descend-il du singe?"). d) The Transformists themselves concede and show this great dissimilarity, such as Huxley, Buchner, Moleschott, and Darwin himself (Descent of Man, c. n.). e) Nor can they weaken the force of this confession by saying that there is a still greater dissimilarity among the apes themselves. For the more celebrated Naturalists teach the contrary, such as Aeby, Bischoff, etc. The Transformists themselves teach the contrary, who, when they proclaim a greater dissimilarity between apes and apes, consider only one member or organ; whereas the dissimilarity between men and apes appears in all organs. Finally the Transformists themselves teach the contrary, when, on the basis even of dissimilarity, they deny that man arises from existing species of apes, while by the experience of all, men are born from men.

Proof of the minor as to the second. For a) the difference among the eggs and embryos of all vertebrates does not appear for some time; but from this it cannot be deduced that it does not exist. b) In reality, if they did not differ among themselves, why and how would it happen that the eggs and embryos of one species always develop into animals of the same species, although they are found in the same external surroundings as the eggs and embryos of another species? c) The Transformists themselves, finally, contradicting themselves according to custom, concede that the eggs and embryos of different animals must differ among themselves. Thus, for example, Buchner, Haeckel, etc.

Proof of the minor as to the third. For a) granted that the Transformists are ignorant of the use of some parts of the human body, and that they do not see that they contribute anything to adornment, etc., it is not rightly argued that they are useless. Hence St. Augustine wisely observes (On Genesis against the Manichaeans, book 1, c. 16): "if an unskilled man has entered the workshop of some craftsman, he sees there many instruments whose causes he does not know; and if he is very foolish, he thinks them superfluous. But if, incautious, he falls into the furnace, or wounds himself with some sharp tool, he thinks many things there are harmful; but because the craftsman knows their use, he laughs at his foolishness. So in this world some dare to rebuke many things whose causes they do not see. For many things, even if they are not necessary for our house, nevertheless in them the integrity of the universe is completed." b) Since, according to the Transformists, man has his origin from certain prototypes, it would have to be explained not only how he now does not have a tail, which they say his parents had, but also how his parents acquired it, since their predecessors did not yet have it. Darwin says that the progenitors acquired a tail from the necessity of defending themselves against insects; but since, according to him, they acquired it by an insensible and slow progress, they would have been deprived of this means for perhaps several hundreds of thousands of years! c) They call certain parts of the human body remnants insofar as they already suppose that which had to be proved, namely, that man derives his origin from an animal of another species, for example one having a tail. But this is called in Logic a begging of the question.

158. Therefore, if the question concerns not those things which God by his omnipotent power can absolutely work in creatures, but those things which according to the natural course, which alone the adversaries consider, ought to happen, let us conclude with St. Augustine, whose authority some abuse: "This whole most customary course of nature," he says (On Genesis Literally, book 9, c. 32), "has certain natural laws of its own, according to which even the spirit of life, which is a creature, has certain appetites of its own, determined in a certain way, which even an evil will cannot exceed. And the elements of this corporeal world have their definite force and quality, what each thing is able or not able to do, what can or cannot be made from what. From these, as from the first beginnings of things, all things which are generated receive in their own time the beginnings and developments, and the ends and departures, of each one's own kind. Hence it happens that from a grain of wheat a bean is not born, nor wheat from a bean, nor man from cattle, nor cattle from man. Therefore there is one mode of things ... by which that herb germinates thus, that one thus; that age bears, that one does not bear; man can speak, cattle cannot. The reasons of these and similar modes are not only in God, but are also implanted and con-created in created things themselves. But that wood cut from the earth, dry, polished, without any root, without earth and water, should suddenly flower and bear fruit; that a sterile woman should bear in old age after youth; that an ass should speak; and if there is anything of this sort, he gave in another mode, so that ... they would not have these things in natural motion, but in that by which they were so created that their nature would be more fully subject to a more powerful will."

See Civilta Cattolica, series VIII, vol. 4, pp. 293 and 530; vol. 5, pp. 36, 400, 688; vol. 6, p. 270; vol. 7, pp. 272, 525; where you will find the things which we have touched upon in few words more fully developed and confirmed by the authority of naturalists and by the confessions of Transformists who are by no means consistent with themselves. Cf. also Reusch, la Bibbia e la Natura, lectures 27 and 28; where you will also find a long catalogue of the more celebrated Naturalists who still defend the immutability of species. Mivart, Genesis of Species; Etudes Religieuses, March 1872, "Darwinisme et Logique."