Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/213

sin produces, in those who commit it, ravages and changes so radical as to physically and morally alter their primitive nature. When this happens, man, transmitting necessarily all that he constitutionally has, therefore transmits to his children, through generation, his constitutional conditions. For example, when the unrestrained indulgence of anger becomes the cause of a malady in the person addicted to this passion, and this infirmity becomes constitutional and organic, it is evident and natural that this person will transmit to his children, by means of generation, the constitutional and organic evil from which he suffers. this constitutional and organic evil, if we view it under its physical aspect, is simply a malady; but considered under a moral aspect, it becomes a predisposition of the flesh to subjugate the spirit by means of the passion which caused the infirmity. Who can doubt that the prevarication of Adam, which exceeded all others, must have changed, and did change, in a radical manner, his moral and physical constitution? This being so, it is clear that Adam transmitted to us through his blood the organic vice produced by sin, and the predisposition to commit sin, as a consequence of this vice.

It follows from this, that it is in vain to deny the dogma of the transmission of sin, if those who make this denial do not at the same time deny what they cannot refuse to receive without being utterly devoid of sense, namely, that sin, when it is great, has a sensible effect upon the constitution and organism of man, and that this organic and constitutional impression is transmitted from generation to generation, imparting to all a depraved constitution and organism.

It is equally in vain, in denying the transmissibility