QUESTION AT ISSUE 189 



catholic doctrine as to the cause of his present moral 

 condition is otherwise credible, can this doctrine stand 

 the test of comparison with the established results of 

 evolutionary science? The doctrine referred to con- 

 tains two propositions: — that Adam's sin caused his 

 loss of grace and reversion to a state of nature, involving 

 concupiscence and physical mortality; and that this 

 fallen condition has been transmitted to his posterity. 

 It is only the second of these propositions that can be 

 affected in any way by evolutionary science, for obvi- 

 ously no imaginable result of physical or biological 

 investigation could reduce the certainty that a state of 

 grace, and whatever supernatural advantages are 

 afforded thereby, must be subverted and lost when 

 wilful sin is committed. No human being can sin 

 without thereby giving his animal nature the whip- 

 hand; and the incongruity between such a result and 

 a retention of his original and supernatural advantages, 

 as described in catholic doctrine, hardly needs to be 

 argued.^ 



1 Two objections of Dr. Tennant, based upon other than evolu- 

 tionary grounds, and therefore not discussed in the main text, ought 

 perhaps to be noticed. See his Origin of Sin, pp. 27-31. 



(a) He urges the diflSculty of accounting for sin on the part of 

 beings whose disposition had been made righteous. Such an objec- 

 tion seems to be based upon an uncatholic conception of original 

 righteousness. All that catholic doctrine on this point teaches is 

 that the natural propensities of the flesh in our first parents were 

 counterbalanced — not nullified — by supernatural grace. The 

 possibility of carnal motives appealing to the will and causing tempta- 

 tion remained. What grace secured for Adam was sufficient spiritual 

 motive and power invariably to resist temptation — in short, full 



