Critiques and addresses by Thomas Henry Huxley X PREFACE . opinions of Father Suarez has placed him. So much more, in fact, has Mr. Mivart's ingenuity impressed me than any other feature of his reply, that I shall take the liberty of re-stating the main issue between us; and, for the present , leaving that issue alone to the judgment of the public. In his book on the " Genesis of Species " Mr . Mivart , after discussing the opinions of sundry Catholic writers of authority, among whom he especially ...
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Critiques and addresses by Thomas Henry Huxley X PREFACE . opinions of Father Suarez has placed him. So much more, in fact, has Mr. Mivart's ingenuity impressed me than any other feature of his reply, that I shall take the liberty of re-stating the main issue between us; and, for the present , leaving that issue alone to the judgment of the public. In his book on the " Genesis of Species " Mr . Mivart , after discussing the opinions of sundry Catholic writers of authority, among whom he especially includes St . Augustin , St . Thoma -s Aquinas , and the Jesuit Suarez , proceeds to say: " It is then evident that ancient and most venerable theological authorities distinctly assert derivative creation, and thus their teachings harmonize with all that modem science can possibly require ." By the " derivative creation " of organic forms, Mr . Mivart understands, ** that God created them by conferring on the material world the power to evolve them under suitable conditions." On the contrary, I proved by evidence, which Mr. Mivart does not venture to impugn, that Suarez, in his "Tractatus de Opere sex Dierum, " expressly rejects St . Augustin's and St . Thomas ' views; that he vehemently advocates the literal interpretation of the account of the creation given in the Book of Genesis ; and that he treats with utter scorn the notion that the Almighty could have used the language of that Fook, unless He meant it to be taken literallv. 1 1 regret that ia one part of my essay on " Mr. Darwin's Critics/ * I re the sense and not the very words of this passage, as a quotation; and that, by an oversight, the inverted commas rtmain in the present edition (see p. 267). PBEFACJS . xi Mr. Mivaxt , therefore, either has read Suarez and has totaUy misrepresented him-a hypothesis which. I hope I need hardly say, I do not for a moment en- tertain: or, he has got his information at second hand , and has himself been deceived. But in that case, it is surely an imprudence on his part, to reproach me with having ' 'read Suarez ad hoc, and evidently without the guidance of anyone familiar with that author." No doubt, in the matter of guidance, Mr. Mivart has the advantage of me. Nevertheless , the guides who supplied him with his references to Suarez ' " Metaphysica /' while they left him in ignorance of the existence of the " Tractatus ," are guides with whose services it might be better to dispense; leaders who wilfully shut their eyes, being even more liable to lodge one in a ditch, than blind leaders . Contents Administrative nihilism -- The school boards: what they can do, and what they may do -- On medical education -- Yeast -- On the formation of coal -- On coral and coral reefs -- On the methods and results of ethnology -- On some fixed points in British ethnology -- Palaeontology and the doctrine of evolution -- Mr. Darwin's critics -- The genealogy of animals -- Bishop Berkeley on the metaphysics of sensation.
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