EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE i6i 



of thought which modern science has caused to prevail 

 give these conclusions an impressiveness that is apt 

 to be lacking to the arguments by which catholic doc- 

 trine is supported. The fact is that theological argu- ^ 

 ments have ceased to be interesting. The success 

 of modern science in laying bare the secrets of nature, 

 and the seeming sufficiency of scientific hypotheses, 

 ha^ve dazzled the modern mind, and have put theolog- 

 ical considerations out of court — especially when 

 they appear to go counter to the cosmological and 

 anthropological theories of experts in natural science. 

 Under such circumstances we ought not to be sur- 

 prised to find that behef in the doctrine of man's 

 primitive state of righteousness and grace has been 

 seriously weakened among professing Christians, and 

 that Christian apologists do not in this direction always 

 succeed in avoiding fatal compromise. This is partly 

 a result of their commendable efforts to get into sym- 

 pathetic touch with the modern mind, which bring 

 them more than they reaHze under the insidious influ- 

 ence of naturalistic forms of thought. But it is also 

 due in part, I believe, to the embarrassing effect of the 

 protestant's insistence upon the purely natural quality 

 of man's primitive state, and of repellent scholastic 

 opinions which are still thought by many apologists 

 to be involved in the doctrine of man's primitive state 

 .and fall. If man's primitive state was purely natural, 

 it is difficult to avoid the naturahstic inferences which 

 j bring it into Hne with the ancestral conditions of lower 

 » species, on the one hand, and ancient human sinful- 



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