1/ 



158 MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATE 



ance of animal propensities which in man's brute-an- 

 cestors were morally innocent in their gratification, 

 but which in men ought to be, and yet never are, per- 

 fectly regulated and restrained by moral considerations 

 (and motives. The moral capacity of mankind is not 

 sufficiently developed, in other words, to enable any 

 \ man completely to control his inherited and long- 

 ' estabhshed animal instincts and impulses. In brief, 

 I the conditions in man which his natural evolution 

 I appears to explain are precisely those which theolo- 

 / gians seek to account for by the doctrine of a fall from 

 ' original righteousness. Moreover, man is found to 

 possess no natural capacity to escape physical death. 

 He is by nature mortal. If, therefore, our conclu- 

 sions with regard to man's primitive state are to be 

 determined exclusively by the estabhshed results of 

 natural investigation, — an important if, — we must 

 surrender behef in the catholic doctrine. The pos- 

 sibility remains, of course, that other than purely 

 evolutionary factors had to do with man's original! \ 

 condition; and their presence can be accepted with-j 

 out stultifying the vahdity of the scientific conclusions'^' 

 which I have been defining. ^ 



-^ 3- A third result of scientific investigation can be 

 expressed as follows. Broadly speaking, the study ' 

 of prehistoric remains, of archaeology, of comparative 

 religion and of related departments of inquiry, estab- 

 lishes the contention that the moral depravity ^ of human 



1 That is, as estimated by Christian standards and externally 

 considered. The subjective culpability of ancient races is, of course, 



