Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/216

like produces like, and replaced by another law in virtue of which contraries produce their contraries.

These are the views of those who assume to give a purely natural explanation of the transmission of evil: and we see that reason eventually attains the same conclusion as the dogma, although it does so by different means. there are speculative but not practical differences between the one and the other. In order to comprehend the immense distinction that exists between the natural and the supernatural explanation of the fact that we are investigating, it is essential to look beyond this fact. We then perceive the inadequacy of the human explanation and the entire adequacy of the divine. This fullness of evidence will become more apparent as we continue our investigations. At present my design is only to explain and demonstrate the dogma of transmission; a dogma which, without weakening what is really true in the explication, according to a natural point of view, rectifies whatever it contains that is incomplete and false.

Natural reason designates as misfortune what is transmitted to us. Dogma gives three designations: sin, penalty, and misfortune—it being misfortune wherein it is inevitable, penalty wherein it is voluntary on the part of God, and sin wherein it is voluntary on the part of man. The wonder is that this misfortune, which is a real misfortune, is yet so in such a manner that it becomes a happiness; and that this penalty, which is a real penalty, is yet so in such a manner that it becomes a remedy; and that this sin, which is a real sin, is yet so in such a manner that it is converted in to a blessing: felix culpa. In this great plan of God, more than in any other of his designs, that supreme wisdom is con-