128 Some Implications of the Incarnation [CH. 



blem ceases to have any meaning. And this is possible. 

 But we followed our thought out carefully, and it led 

 us to the conclusion that such a disability existed. It is 

 unsafe simply to assume we were wrong, when our con- 

 clusion brings us face to face with a difficulty ; especially 

 when the whole feeling of men for generations upon 

 generations has tended to establish the belief that a 

 disability is imposed upon the race by past sin ; even if 

 that belief is only in part intuitive; even if it is mainly 

 based on a false theory of creation. Assuming that we 

 were right in believing in the existence of original sin 

 in the sense defined, it is almost impossible not to answer 

 the above questions in the affirmative. Surely, Christ 

 came to earth to be the perfection of manhood, not 

 merely to be an example of the best that was possible 

 to manhood gone wrong, and eternally limited by that 

 going wrong. He took upon Himself manhood, with all 

 its limitations; He bore the burden of conscious isola- 

 tion from God upon the Cross, and the isolation of all 

 manhood was upon Him. But He was not Himself, 

 even as man, eternally barred out from God, else were 

 no atonement possible. His manhood passed, through 

 isolation, into perfect union with Godhead. But what 

 do we mean by saying that He experienced to the full 

 the isolation of manhood? I think we mean that as 

 man He entered so completely into the sense of isolation 

 that it filled His whole Being for the time, to the ex- 

 clusion of the personal sense of eternal life. We have 

 said 1 that "The second kenosis was the acceptance of 

 the voluntary misuse of the powers which progress had 

 brought and all its consequences, and acceptance of the 

 results of a choice of that which was not free in prefer- 

 ence to that which tended towards greater freedom. 

 It was the acceptance, not only of the necessary pain 

 of becoming, but of the penalty of failure. It was the 

 1 Evolution and the Need of Atonement, and edn, p. 166. 



