he
present case at what point in the historical series there is a break
or division? At what step are we to be asked to suppose that the order
of nature was stopped, and a non-natural soul introduced?... The
theologian is content in the case of individual development of the egg
to admit the fact of individual evolution, and to make assumptions
which lie altogether outside the region of scientific inquiry. So,
too, it would seem only reasonable that he should deal with the
historical series, and frankly accept the natural evolution of man
from lower animals, declaring dogmatically, if he so please, but not
as an inference of the same order as are the inferences of science,
that something called the soul arrived at any point in the series
which he may think suitable. At the same time, it would appear to be
sufficient even for the purposes of the theologian, to hold that
whatever the two above-mentioned series of living thing contain or
imply, they do so as the result of a natural and uniform process of
development, that there has been one 'miracle' once and for all
time....

"The difficulties which the theologian has to meet when he is called
upon to give some account of the origin and nature of the soul
certainly cannot be said to have been increased by the establishment
of the Darwinian theory. For from the earliest days of the Church,
ingenious speculation has been lavished on the subject.

"St. Augustine says (I give a translation of the Latin original):
'With regard to the four following opinions concerning the soul--viz.
(1) whether souls are handed on from parent to child by propagation;
or (2) are suddenly created in individuals at birth; or (3) existing
already elsewhere are divinely sent into the bodies of the new-born;
or (4) slip into them of their own motion--it is undesirable for
anyone to make a rash pronouncement, since up to the present time the
question has never been discussed and decided by catholic writers of
holy books on account of its obscurity and perplexity--or, if it has
been dealt with, no such treatises have hitherto come into my hands.'"

There must be many who will be glad to shake off the illusion of
explanation which is no explanation, and to escape from the futile
discussion of the possible behaviour of spirits and ghosts born in the
dreams of primaeval savages. They will gladly accept the conclusion
that the marvellous qualities and activities of living things and that
inscrutable wo