guishing God's creating and forming within, things which are changeable, because there is
Cuap. VIII.] ON THE TRINITY. 61 yet sO many animals, without any previous commixture of male and female; whether on the land, or in the water, which yet grow, and by commingling bring forth others, while themselves sprang up without any union of parents. And certainly bees do not conceive the seeds of their young by commixture, but gather them as they lie scattered over the earth with their mouth." For the Creator of these invisible seeds is the Creator of all things Himself; since whatever comes forth to our sight by being born, receives the first beginnings of its course from hidden seeds, righteousness in our minds, yet men also are able to preach the gospel as an outward means, not only the good in sincerity, but also the evil in pretence;+ so in the creation of visible things it is God that works from within; but the exterior operations, whether of good or bad, of angels or men, or even of any kind of animal, according to His own absolute power, and to the distribution of faculties, and the several appetites for things pleasant, which He Himself has imparted, are applied by Him to that nature of things wherein He creates all things, in like manner as agriculture is to the soil. Wherefore I can no more call the bad angels, evoked by magic arts, the creators of the frogs and serpents, than I can say that bad men were creators of the corn crop, which J see to have sprung up through their labor.
and takes the successive increments of its proper size and its distinctive forms from these as it were original rules. As therefore we do not call parents the creators of men, nor farmers the creators of corn,—although itis by the outward application of their actions that the power? of God operates within for the creating these things;—so it is not right
15. Just as Jacob, again, was not the creator of the colors in the flocks, because he placed the various colored rods for the several mothers, as they drank, to look at in conceiving.s Yet neither were the cattle themselves creators of the variety of their own offspring, because the variegated image, impressed through their eyes by the sight of the varied rods, clave to their soul, but could affect the body that was animated by the spirit thus affected only through sympathy with this commingling, so far as to stain with color the tender beginnings of their offspring. For that they are so affected from themselves, whether the soul from the body, or the body to think not only the bad but even the good angels to be creators, if, through the subtilty of their perception and body, they know the seeds of things which to us are more hidden, and scatter them secretly through fit temperings of the elements, and so furnish opportunities of producing things, and of accelerating their increase. But neither do the good angels do these things, except as far as God commands, nor do the evil ones do them wrongfully, except as far as He righteously permits. For the malignity of the wicked one makes his own: will wrongful; but the power to do so, he receives rightfully, whether for his own punishment, or, in the case of others, for the punishment of the wicked, or for the praise of the good.
from the soul, arises in fruth from suitable reasons, which immutably exist in that highest wisdom of God Himself, which no extent of place contains; and which, while it is itself unchangeable, yet quits not one even of those things which are changeable, because there is not one of them that is not created by itself. For it was the unchangeable and invisible reason of the wisdom of God, by which all things are created, which caused not rods, but cattle, to be born from cattle; but that the color of the cattle conceived should be in any degree influenced by the variety of the rods, came to pass through the soul of the pregnant cattle being affected through their eyes from without, and so according to its own measure drawing inwardly within itself the rule of formation, which it received from the innermost power of its own Creator. How great, however, may be the power of the soul in affecting and changing corporeal substance (although certainly it cannot be called the creator of the body, because every cause of changeable and sensible substance, and all its
14. Accordingly, the Apostle Paul, distinguishing God's creating and forming within, from the operations of the creature which are applied from without, and drawing a similitude from agriculture, says, '"'I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.''3 As, therefore, in the case of spiritual life itself, no one except God can work t [Augustin is not alone in his belief that the bee is an exception to the dictum; omne animal ex ovo. As lateas 1744, Thorley, an English ' scientist, ' said that ''the manner in which bees propagate their species is entirely hid from the eyes of all men; and the most strict, diligent, and curious observers and inquisitors have not been able to discover it. It is a secret, and will remain a mystery. Dr. Butler says that they do not copulate as other living creatures do."' (Thorley : Melisselogia. Section viii.) The observations of Huber and others have disproved this opinion. Some infer that ignorance of physics proves ignorance of philosophy and theology. The difference between matter and mind isso great, that erroneous opinions in one province are compatible with correct ones in the other. It does not follow that because Augustin had wrong notions about bees, and no knowledge at all of the steam engine and telegraph, his knowledge of God and the soul was inferior to that of a modern materialist.—W.G.T.S.]
2('The English translator renders '' vzrfus'* in its secondary sense of '' goodness,"' Augustin employs it here, in its primary sense of '' energy," '' force.",—W.G.T.S.]
4 Phil, i, 18, 5 Gen, xxx. 41.
3 x Cor, ili. 6,
THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. [Boox III.
itn measure and number and weight:''? this is not only in the power of bad angels, but also of bad men, as I have shown above by the example of agriculture.
measure and number and weight, by which are brought to pass both its being at all and its being of such and such a nature, arise from the intelligible and unchangeable life, which is above all things, and which reaches even to the most distant and earthly things), is a very copious subject, and one not now necessary. But I thought the act of Jacob about the cattle should be noticed, for this reason, vz. in order that it might be perceived that, if the man who thus placed those rods cannot be called the creator of the colors in the lambs and kids; nor yet even the souls themselves of the mothers, which colored the seeds conceived in the flesh by the image of variegated color, conceived through the eyes of the body, so far as nature permitted it; much less can it be said that the creators of the frogs and serpents were the bad angels, through whom the magicians of Pharaoh then made them.
17. But lest the somewhat different condition of animals should trouble any one, in that they have the breath of life with the sense of desiring those things that are according to nature, and of avoiding those things that are contrary to it; we must consider also, how many men there are who know from what herbs or flesh, or from what juices or liquids you please, of whatever sort, whether so placed or so buried, or so bruised or so mixed, this or that animal iscommonly born; yet who can be so foolish as to dare to call himself the creator of these animals? Is it, therefore, to be wondered at, if just as any, the most worthless of men, can know whence such or such worms and flies are produced; so the evil angels in proportion to the subtlety of their perceptions discern in the more hidden seeds of the elements whence frogs and serpents are produced, and so through certain and known opportune combinations applying these seeds by secret movements, cause them to be created, but donotcreatethem? Only men do not marvel at those things that are usually done by men. But if any one chance to wonder at the quickness of those growths, in that those living beings were so quickly made, let him consider how even this may be brought about by men in proportion to the measure of human capability. For whence is it that the same bodies generate worms more quickly in summer than in winter, or in hotter than in colder places? Only these things are applied by men with so much the more difficulty, in proportion as their earthly and sluggish members are wanting in subtlety of perception, and in rapidity of bodily motion, And hence it arises that in the case of any kind of angels, in proportion as it is easier for them to draw out the proximate causes from the elements, so much the more marvellous is their rapidity in works of this kind.
CHAP, 9.—THE ORIGINAL CAUSE OF ALL THINGS
IS FROM GOD.
16. For it is one thing to make and administer the creature from the innermost and highest turning-point of causation, which He alone does who is God the Creator; but quite another thing to apply some operation from without in proportion to the strength and faculties assigned to each by Him, so that what is created may come forth into being at this time or at that, and in this or that way.
For all these things in the way of original and beginning have already been created in a kind of texture of the elements, but they come forth when they get the opportunity.' For as mothers are pregnant with young, so the world itself is pregnant with the causes of things that are born; which are not created in it, except from that highest essence, where nothing either springs up or dies, either bej.gins to be or ceases. But the applying from , without of adventitious causes, which, although ) they are not natural, yet are to be applied . according to nature, in order that those things
18. But He only is the creator who is the chief former of these things. Neither can any one be this, unless He with whom primarily rests the measure, number, and weight of all things existing; and He is God the one Creator, by whose unspeakable power it comes to pass, also, that what these angels were able to do if they were permitted, they are therefore not able to do because they are not permitted. For there is no other reason why they who made frogs and serpents were not able to make the most minute flies, unless because
) which are contained and hidden in the secret | bosom of nature may break forth and be out-
/wardly created in some way by the unfolding of the proper measures and numbers and weights which they have received in secret from Him ''who has ordered all things in t [This is the same as the theological distinction between substances and their modifications. 'the former,'' says Howe, *' are the proper object of creation strictly taken; the modifications of things are not properly created, in the strictest sense of creation, but are educed and brought forth out of those substantial things that were themselves created, or made outof nothing.''--Germs are originated ex x7hz¢o, and fail under creation proper; their evolution and development takes place according to the nature and inherent force of the germ, and falls under providence, in distinction ie aie See the writer's Theological Essays, 133-137.—W.
2 Wisd. xi, 20.