OEIGINS 25 



degenerate nervous constitution. Children of 

 such parents will probably be physically weak or 

 idiotic or criminal. Thus physical heredity of 

 physical consequences is freely admitted and 

 greatly to be emphasized. 



But it will be readily noted that this is not 

 the inheritance which has given rise to the doc- 

 trine of Original Sin. We pass to a considera- 

 tion of the second class : those who violate moral 

 standards. Here we are dealing with fleshly lust 

 and sinful gratification. The sinfulness, however, 

 does not directly consist in the physical act, ac- 

 cording to the general estimate of mankind; but 

 in the violation of certain moral standards that 

 society has erected governing the sexual relation. 

 So that we have no reason to expect that the fruit 

 of this sin will be shown in the physical nature 

 or constitution of the child ; but as a moral fault, 

 if the law of heredity holds, it should be mani- 

 fest in the moral constitution. Does the law of 

 heredity manifest itself in the moral nature of 

 illegitimate children! Are they more vicious, 

 more morally perverse, more inaccessible to vir- 

 tuous influence than other children? There are 

 no known facts to establish the affirmative of this. 

 In Eoman Catholic countries of South America 

 from fifty to ninety per cent of the children are 

 born out of wedlock, or were previous to the en- 

 actment of recent civil marriage laws. These 

 children can not be differentiated from others by 

 any marks of vice or sinfulness. They start, so 



