212 ORIGINAL SIN 



too strong for the as yet undeveloped moral instincts 

 which called for their restraint. In brief, the conflict 

 which is now universally experienced between the 

 carnal and the spiritual parts of our nature is not 

 less truly a conflict because said to be the outcome of 

 natural evolution ; and it is precisely this state of natural 

 conflict to which catholic theologians suppose man to 

 have fallen when he lost the supernatural gifts which, 

 according to their doctrine, were designed to forestall 

 the conflict. Such a state of conflict, we maintain, is 

 a state of disease, whether it be regarded as exclusively 

 originated by natural evolution, or as resulting from a 

 loss of supernatural endowments. 



So far as catholic doctrine is concerned, we are 

 free to combine the two accounts. We may at once 

 acknowledge that natural evolution accounts for the 

 internal conflict which catholic theology explains by 

 its doctrine of the fall, and maintain that this conflict 

 would have been prevented from becoming actual, if 

 man had rightly employed the supernatural advantages 

 that were afforded to our first human parents. It is 

 as if a stream were to be diverted by artificial means in 

 order that destructive floods might be prevented, and 

 subsequent carelessness or malice were to cause a break 

 in the barriers and a resumption of the natural flow. 

 The result could rightly be explained by the original 

 nature of the stream, and yet the fact that it was due 

 to human carelessness would be undeniable. The 

 application of my illustration needs no elaborate ex- 

 planation. The original nature of man explains his 



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