c
est propria et per se differentia inter effectionem ex nihilo,
et ex aliquo, propter quam, ut infra ostendemus, prior modus
effciendi superat vim finitam naturaliam agentium, non vero
posterior.

"14. Ex his etiam constat, proprie de his formis dici non
creari, sed educi de potentia materiae."[1]

[Footnote 1: Suarez, _loc. cit_. Disput. xv. Sec. 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," I 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 allegorizing 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