The chief epoch of course in the narrative, is the infusion of the rational soul into the new organism, from which date the specific nature of man is determined and further essential transformation ceases.3

ORIGIN OF THE FIRST HUMAN SOUL.-DARWINIAN THEORY.-The modern doctrine of Evolution ramifies into a large number of sciences, and its satisfactory discussion involves a multitude of questions pertaining to Biology, Geology, Physical Astronomy, Rational Theology, and Scriptural Theology, as well as Psychology. In the very limited space at our disposal here, it would of course be worse than useless to attempt anything beyond the most restricted treatment of the bearing of the theory on the origin of the human soul. There are, it is scarcely necessary to observe, profound differences of opinion amongst upholders of Evolution as regards its range, and the nature of the agencies directing its course. For our present purpose, however, we may roughly group evolutionists of all shades into four classes:

First, there is the most extreme sect, whom we may fairly describe as the Atheistic Materialistic school. These philosophers are not very explicit as regards the origin of life on the earth. Since, however, Geogony establishes that there must have

3 The English reader wishing to study this doctrine of St. Thomas, which has acquired considerable interest in connexion with the modern theory of Evolution, will find an elaborate treatment of the question in Father Harper's Metaphysics of the School, Vol. II. pp. 553-561. Having shown that St. Thomas's teaching of a "progressive development of being" in all embryonic life is in harmony with the most recent physiological science, he urges that "this theory serves to throw light on the perfection of the cosmic order. For, the truth of the teaching for which we are contending once admitted, not only must we acknowledge a gradual evolution of the whole complex and multiform universe of material substances from a few simple elements created in the beginning; but it is also manifest that this wondrous evolution is, so to say, more or less epitomized in the germ-history of each living individual in that universe. Successive Forms march through the captive Matter gradually evolved from the predisposed Subject; till they reach their climax where the potentiality of Matter fails, and the creative power of God supplies the needed Form." (p. 560.)

been such a beginning, they presumably suppose that life was initiated by a fortuitous concourse of particles of dead matter. Its development thenceforward was governed solely by the law of Natural Selection. The action of this law may be described in the statement that "those individuals to which casual variations in structure or habit afford advantages in the struggle for existence will tend to triumph over their rivals, and to perpetuate these utilities in their offspring." In the lapse of immense ages of time these variations become wider and more marked, until finally we arrive at the vast multiplicity of species which dwell upon the globe to-day. In this view man is the highest being in the universe, but his intellect has its source in the properties of inorganic matter; and all things in the world, the human eye as well as the instincts of the bee, are ultimately the result not of a designing Mind, but of the fortuitous collisions of blind material forces. We have in the course of the present work exposed a few of the intrinsic absurdities inherent in all such materialistic theories, and the reader will find others discussed in the volume on Natural Theology.

A second class of evolutionists, whilst holding that all living species have been gradually evolved from one, or perhaps from a few original types, nevertheless conceive the course of development to have been designed and directed by a Superior Intelligence; and to this Being they would also ascribe the production of the primitive. living creatures. Writers of this school do not, as a rule, give a very satisfactory account of the genesis of the first man. They seem to consider that the human soul possesses to-day a spiritual nature, whilst they appear to believe that in the remote past it was gradually evolved out of a non-spiritual principle, which animated the lowest forms of animal life. This opinion is also obviously in conflict with the Christian doctrine, that Adam was formed by a special act of God.

The third school agree with the second in maintaining that all the lower animals, and the bodily frame of the first man, may have been produced by a divinely directed evolution from a few, possibly from a single

original type; but they are clear and emphatic in teaching that the first rational soul, and consequently the first human being, cannot have arisen by Evolution. It must, they assert, have been brought into existence by the special creative intervention of God. In this view, God may have formed the body of Adam out of the organism of some highly developed animal, which He modified as much as was requisite, and then infused with a rational soul.

It is sometimes urged that this hypothesis makes Adam the offspring of an ape, that he would therefore owe filial reverence and obedience to a brute parent, and that, consequently, the theory is degrading to human nature. Now, it seems to us that such a line of argument is based on a complete misinterpretation of the view in question. Whatever real dignity man has got comes from the soul, not from the body; and in any case it is not easy to see that an animal organism, developed to as high a state of perfection as physical laws can bring it, is baser material to form the body of man than the "slime" of the earth.5 The Bible and Christian moralists of all ages continually impress on us that man's body is but dust, and that its proximate future is corruption and worms. Similarly as regards parental rights: the fact that the constituents of the first human frame were derived from a living but irrational animal could no more constitute a claim for filial obligations than does the metaphorical parentage of Mother Earth. On the grounds of reason alone there can, it seems to us, be no cogent argument framed against such a hypothesis when carefully stated. It is

4 Writers of this school maintain, moreover, that their teaching is in harmony with Scripture. Dr. Mivart, as is well known, is the chief representative of this doctrine here at home. Cf. Genesis of Species, c. xii.

5 On the text, " 'Formavit igitur Dominus Deus hominem de limo terræ," M. d'Estienne fairly urges, "Toute la question est de savoir si ce limon-cette boue-doit s'interpréter nécessairement dans le sens strictement littéral, ou si l'on peut loisiblement admettre cette interprétation: 'de limo jam viventi, jam animato."" Cf. Le Transformisme et la Discussion Libre. (Revue des Questions Scientifiques, January, 1889.)

indisputable that God could form the body of the first man as easily out of a living organism as out of dead matter. And were the general doctrine of Evolution demonstrated as regards all other animal organisms, there would in the light of pure reason be obviously—from the likeness of the life history of the individual human body to that of the brute—a fair presumption in favour of a similar origin.

The real question, then, for the Catholic is: Can the revealed doctrine of Holy Writ be reconciled with this theory? The most general and reasonable Canon of Scriptural interpretation is that the natural and literal sense of a passage is always to be accepted, until sufficiently cogent reason can be adduced for deviating from that meaning. The problem, therefore, is: Taking all scientific evidence in favour of Evolution on the one side, and on the other the presumption in favour of the literal signification of the particular Scriptural texts directly bearing on the point, the meanings literal and mystical attached to other passages related to the former, the consensus of traditional theological teaching, as far as this testimony may fairly be cited on what is, at least in certain important aspects, a new question, together with the scientific objections urged against the development hypothesis-taking, we say, all this evidence into account-is the evolutionist interpretation of Holy Writ legitimate? The question thus stated is not for the rational psychologist, but for the theologian to answer. The Church has not yet made any pronouncement on the subject, and it would under the circumstances seem unjustifiable to condemn the wider interpretation as absolutely untenable. At the same time the Catholic student of science must be prepared to admit that the Church is certainly capable of deciding

6 There is little doubt that the great majority of theologians up to the present look on this interpretation as unsafe; but there are some writers of credit to be found on its side. Père Leroy, O.P., an author well versed both in Theology and Natural Science, is perhaps the most distinguished theological advocate of Evolution. He has, moreover, secured the approval of his work by Père Monsabré, as not being in conflict with Faith. (Cf. L'Evolution des espèces organiques, 1887. Paris: Perin.)

on the point if occasion arise. The Church in defining articles of faith may at times indirectly determine a scientific truth, or a question of historical fact, and the Catholic must be ready to believe that an infallible authority will not be permitted to err in such matters.

A fourth class of thinkers, whilst allowing that all the lower animals may, through the instrumentality of natural laws, have been gradually evolved by God from a few original types, and that such a view is reconcilable with Revelation, hold that even the material part of man cannot be admitted to have thus arisen. They maintain that man's position in the universe, in spite of the fact of his being an animal, is so unique, that even the animal factor in his nature must have had a mode of origin differing from that of inferior species and peculiar to himself. Whilst granting that the language of the Bible describing the production of brutes may be interpreted in a free or metaphorical sense, they consider that the passages referring to man must be accepted according to the strictest and most literal signification.

Finally, opposed to all forms of evolutionism alike, stand many thoughtful men, who are so impressed, both by the atheistic dogmatism of the most extreme sect of Darwinians, and by the numerous weighty scientific objections which the new theory seems utterly unable to explain, that they believe the only rational course in a question of such grave moment is to stand firmly by the verbal translation of the Mosaic account, and to reject the development creed no matter how limited or explained.

The business of the rational psychologist, fortunately for us, is neither the Theology nor the Philosophy of the Evolution hypothesis, whether as applied to the animal species or even to the body of man: our official concern is with the human soul. Now, apart altogether from Faith and Revelation, we maintain on the grounds. of pure reason that:

The Human Soul cannot be the result of gradual evolution from a non-spiritual principle. The argument by which we have established that each individual rational soul owes