154 MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATE 



important. But we may easily forget that genuine 

 breadth requires us to acknowledge, and reckon with, 

 all established conclusions which come within our 

 intelligence. And if any two of them defy our efforts 

 adequately to explain their unity, we should none the 

 less hold to the one without abandoning hold on the 

 other.^ This is breadth, and it also constitutes an 

 essential qualification of a catholic temper. 



The propositions which we are to compare in this 

 lecture are contained in the theory of the natural evo- 

 lution of species and in the catholic doctrine of man's 

 primitive state. In making this comparison I do not 

 undertake to expound the hidden mysteries which, if 

 we understood them, would enable us to explain the 

 precise manner in which physical evolution and man's 

 original state of grace are made to constitute an un- 

 broken continuity of divine working. What I shall 

 endeavour to show is that to accept both of the prop- 

 ositions in question is possible without either stulti- 

 fication of mind or provable violation of the principle 

 of continuity upon which physical scientists rightly 

 insist. 



The premise upon which my argument depends is 

 that the physical and the superphysical are equally 

 genuine but distinct factors in the history of this uni- 



1 Dr. Tennant, in Origin of Sin, pp. 18-20, quite fails to do 

 justice to Dr. Mozley's argument to this effect. It is not meant 

 that we can escape real contradiction by an appeal to mystery; but 

 that when two truths are severally seen to he established, our ina- 

 bility to explain their harmony does not require us to reject one of 

 them. 



