13--15, and many other references{266} to the same effect could easily be given, but these may suffice.
It is then evident that ancient and most venerable theological authorities distinctly assert _derivative_ creation, and thus harmonize with all that modern science can possibly require.
It may indeed truly be said with Roger Bacon, "The saints never condemned many an opinion which the moderns think ought to be condemned."[278] The various extracts given show clearly how far "evolution" is from any necessary opposition to the most orthodox theology.

The same may be said of spontaneous generation.

The most recent form of it, lately advocated by Dr.
H.Charlton Bastian,[279] teaches that matter exists in two different forms, the crystalline (or statical) and the colloidal (or dynamical) conditions.

It also teaches that colloidal matter, when exposed to certain conditions, presents the phenomena of life, and that it can be formed from crystalline matter, and thus that the _prima materia_ of which these are diverse forms contains potentially all the multitudinous kinds of animal and vegetable existence.

This theory moreover harmonizes well with the views here advocated, for just as crystalline matter builds itself, under suitable conditions, along _certain definite lines_, so analogously colloidal matter has _its definite lines and directions_ of development.