l66 MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATE 



relation to the principle of continuity. Let me repeat 

 an illustration previously employed. No physical law 

 ,is more completely established by science than that 

 ' of gravitation, and yet its effects are constantly reversed 

 by voluntary agency. This happens, for instance, 

 whenever a ball is thrown into the air by a human 

 hand. But such an occurrence is not considered by 

 anyone either to violate the law of gravitation or to 

 subvert the principle of continuity. The reason is 

 simple. Men assume, whether they are willing to 

 acknowledge the fact in terms or not, that the work- 

 ing of continuity is determined by a larger scheme than 

 can be described by purely physical terms. 



Many factors are working together in nature, and 

 some of them are superphysical. The superphysical 

 includes and finds explanation in personality, and the 

 limits of personality cannot be determined by physical 

 science. But the intelligibility of the physical order 

 can be explained only when we assume that a supreme 

 Person exists, and that His comprehensive plan affords 

 the true and ultimate explanation of the continuities 

 which are discovered in the physical universe. 



The question which has to be met in determining 

 the credibiHty of catholic doctrine as to man's prim- 

 itive state is not whether the principle of continuity 

 can be broken, for there is no division of opinion on 

 that question. It concerns the scope of the plan that 

 accounts for continuity. Consequently the issue is 

 not between continuity and discontinuity, but between 

 rival cosmical philosophies — the naturahstic and the 



