ACQUIRED CHARACTERS 211 



give plausibility to the objection that we know of no 

 mechanical means by which a moral change could 

 affect the germ-cell. We certainly have no evidence 

 that the means must be mechanical, and no knowledge 

 is available which warrants a dogmatic denial of any 

 effect of acquired moral change upon offspring. 



Our reckoning with Weismann's position has thus 

 far been based upon the assumption that the doctrine 

 of original sin involves the transmission of an acquired 

 character, and upon the necessity of such an assump- 

 tion depends the pertinence of Weismann's position to 

 that doctrine. Inasmuch as protestant writers regard 

 man's primitive state as wholly natural, they are com- 

 pelled to regard the truth of Weismannism as throwing 

 them on the defensive. Catholic theologians are not 

 under the same necessity. According to their doctrine, 

 man's primitive righteousness was due to supernat- 

 ural causes, and his fall was not the acquisition of a 

 new natural character, — not a modification of human 

 nature, — but the loss of special endowments of grace. 



It is quite true that the results of this loss of grace can 

 be described by such terms as ''natural corruption," 

 "moral disease," "spiritual wounds," and the Hke. 

 But such descriptions, so far as catholic doctrine deter- 

 mines their interpretation, do not necessarily imply that 

 human nature has been modified. They are appH- 

 cable to the original state of human nature as viewed 

 from a purely evolutionary standpoint. According 

 to the evolutionary theory primitive man possessed a 

 nature in which inherited animal propensities were 



