Note 21 — SAINT TERESA AND AVILA

"Just as the Church of Rome has absorbed Platonism in the doctrine of the Logos and of the Trinity, and has absorbed Aristotelianism in the doctrine of Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, so we may naturally expect that in its doctrine of its own nature, it will some day absorb formally, having long done so informally, the main ideas of that evolutionary philosophy, which many people regard as destined to complete its downfall; and that it will find in this philosophy—in the philosophy of the Darwins, the Spencers, and the Huxleys—a scientific explanation of its own teaching authority, like that which is found in Aristotle for its doctrine of Transubstantiation.... It may be said that the Roman Church itself developed without being conscious of its own scientific character, just as men were for ages unconscious of the circulation of their own blood.... Like an animal seeking nutriment it put forth its feelers or tentacles on all sides, seizing, tasting, and testing all forms of human thought, all human opinions, and all alleged discoveries. It absorbs some of these into itself, and extracts their nutritive principles; it immediately rejects some as poisonous or indigestible; and gradually expels from its system others, condemned as heresies, which it has accidentally or experimentally swallowed." W. H. Mallock: "Doctrine and Doctrinal Disruption." 1900.