been, "Let the earth bring forth the living four-footed
creatures."

Obj. 2: Further, a genus ought not to be opposed to its species. But
beasts and cattle are quadrupeds. Therefore quadrupeds ought not to
be enumerated as a class with beasts and cattle.

Obj. 3: Further, as animals belong to a determinate genus and
species, so also does man. But in the making of man nothing is said
of his genus and species, and therefore nothing ought to have been
said about them in the production of other animals, whereas it is
said "according to its genus" and "in its species."

Obj. 4: Further, land animals are more like man, whom God is recorded
to have blessed, than are birds and fishes. But as birds and fishes
are said to be blessed, this should have been said, with much more
reason, of the other animals as well.

Obj. 5: Further, certain animals are generated from putrefaction,
which is a kind of corruption. But corruption is repugnant to the
first founding of the world. Therefore such animals should not have
been produced at that time.

Obj. 6: Further, certain animals are poisonous, and injurious to man.
But there ought to have been nothing injurious to man before man
sinned. Therefore such animals ought not to have been made by God at
all, since He is the Author of good; or at least not until man had
sinned.

_On the contrary,_ Suffices the authority of Scripture.

_I answer that,_ As on the fifth day the intermediate body, namely, the
water, is adorned, and thus that day corresponds to the second day; so
the sixth day, on which the lowest body, or the earth, is adorned by
the production of land animals, corresponds to the third day. Hence
the earth is mentioned in both places. And here again Augustine says
(Gen. ad lit. v) that the production was potential, and other holy
writers that it was actual.

Reply Obj. 1: The different grades of life which are found in
different living creatures can be discovered from the various ways in
which Scripture speaks of them, as Basil says (Hom. viii in Hexaem.).
The life of plants, for instance, is very imperfect and difficult to
discern, and hence, in speaking of their production, nothing is said
of their life, but only their generation is mentioned, since only in
generation is a vital act observed in them. For the powers of
nutrition and growth are subordinate to the generative life, as will
be shown later on (Q. 78, A. 2). But amongst animals, those that
live on land are, g