29 [One chief reason why a miracle is incredible for the skeptic, is the difficulty of working it. If the miracle were easy of execution for man-who for the skeptic is the measure of power-his disbelief of it would disappear. In reference to this objection, Augustine calls attention to the fact, that so far as difficulty of performance is concerned, the products of nature are as impossible to man as supernatural products. Aaron could no more have made an almond rod blossom and fructuate on an almond tree, than off it. That a miracle is difficult to be wrought is, consequently, no good reason for disbelieving its reality.-W.G.T.S.]
34 [Augustine is not alone in his belief that the bee is an exception to the dictum; omne animal ex ovo. As late as 1744, Thorley, an English "scientist," said that "the manner in which bees propagate their species is entirely hid from the eyes of all men; an 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 is so great, that erroneous opinions in one province are compatible with correct ones in the other. It does not follow that because Augustine 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.]
35 [The English translator renders "virtus" in its secondary sense of "goodness." Augustine employs it here, in its primary sense of "energy," "force."-W.G.T.S.]
39 [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 out of nothing."-Germs are originated ex nihilo, and fall 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 from creation. See the writer's Theological Essays, 133-137.-W.G.T.S.]
41 Ex. vii. 12, and viii. 7, 18, 19.
63 ["Substance," from sub stans, is a passive term, denoting latent and potential being. "Essence," from esse, is an active term, denoting energetic being. The schoolmen, as Augustine does here, preferred the latter term to the former, though employing both to designate the divine nature.-W.G.T.S.]
70 Ex. ii. 15 and iii. 7, and Acts vii. 29-33.
88 [The reference here is to the difference between a theophany, and an incarnation; already alluded to, in the note on p. 149.-W.G. T. S.]