CHAPTER VII 



ACQUIRED TKAITS NOT TRANSMISSIBLE BY HEREDITY 



IN seeking for a statement of the doctrine of he- 

 reditary sin that would fairly represent the gen- 

 eral doctrine that has been held through the cen- 

 turies, we have found a considerable variation of 

 opinion. But Anselm and Augustin will agree 

 in the following summary : God created human na- 

 ture without sin. If Adam had not sinned, his 

 posterity would have been without sin. But by 

 sinning he corrupted human nature (not merely 

 himself as an individual, but human nature, of 

 which he was the only representative), and his 

 posterity now partake of the modified human na- 

 ture which he by sinning acquired. His acquired, 

 not created or, as we would now say, inborn trait, 

 is transmitted to posterity through heredity. 

 Both these teachers make a distinction between 

 human nature and the individual. They assume 

 that Adam was both in himself; that he sinned, 

 not as an individual, but as the embodiment of 

 human nature. In this they will hardly be justi- 

 fied. The accident of being the first individual 

 gave Adam no more power to modify human na- 

 ture than any other ancestor, unless we assume 

 in the start that heredity transmits acquired 



96 



