MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATE 125 



provincial formularies is very real, so far as the dis- 

 cipline of particular portions of the Church is con- 

 cerned, we need to verify the catholicity of provincial 

 doctrine if we would remove all doubt as to its correctly 

 representing the mind of the universal Church. This 

 is, of course, a task for theologians rather than for 

 untrained behevers, who must necessarily assume that 

 the provincial teaching which they receive is substan- 

 tially sound and cathohc, unless they abandon them- 

 selves to the confusion of unintelhgent individualism. 

 The method by which theologians verify the cathoHcity 

 of provincial teaching is formulated in the well-known 

 Vincentian rule, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ah 

 ,omnibus. This means that the presumptive catholicity 

 of local doctrine is estabhshed when it is sufficiently 

 shown to be held by all existing cathohc churches, 

 to have been held from primitive days, and by the 

 generality of representative cathohc writers. In some 

 instances we may be unable to apply this rule with 

 exhaustive completeness. It is a rule of induction, 

 and the data for a universal induction may be unavail- 

 able. But we may be certain that we can always 

 make a sufficient induction for safe assurance in really 

 vital doctrine. 



To reduce what I have said to a brief conclusion: 

 The catholic doctrines of man's primitive state and 

 fall with which we are concerned contain such truths, 

 and such only, as are expressly or imphedly contained 

 in the teaching of every part of the Catholic Church 

 from the beginning, and have commanded the general 



