thought of sin, depravity, and punishment, as a hint of where the
scientific spirit may yet aid us. "The doctrine of predestination, of
original sin, of the innate depravity of man, the evil fate of the
greater part of the race, of the primacy of Satan in this world, of the
essential vileness of matter, of a malevolent Demiurgos subordinate to a
benevolent Almighty who has only lately revealed Himself, faulty as they
are, appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth than the liberal,
popular illusions that babies are all born good, and that the example of
corrupt society is responsible for their failure to remain so.... That
it is given to everybody to reach the ethical ideal if they will only
try; that all partial evil is universal good; and other optimistic
figments." "I suppose that all men with a clear sense of right and wrong
have descended into hell and stopped there quite long enough to know
what infinite punishment means."

[Sidenote: Transmission of Evil.]

Surely, the established truths of heredity confirm the doctrine that
man, if not born depraved, is born _deprived_ of tendencies toward good
essential to his own welfare and that of the race. "Where sin has once
taken hold of the race, the natural reproduction of life become
reproduction of life morally injured and faulty. With evil once begun,
the race is a succession of tainted individuals; an organism that works
toward continuance of evil. Not but that good is transmitted at the same
time, for it goes along with evil. Any virtue or value which is strong
enough to live will pass from generation to generation even while evil
is making the same journey."[6]

[Footnote 6: Outline of Christian Theology. Clarke, p. 242.]