gradation, and still more of stagnation[15]. Science,
indeed, utters no word of promise at all as to the ultimate result of
all this evolution[16]. It is faith, of whatsoever sort, not science,
that can make us optimistic as to the issue of human history.

But no doubt the Bible does throughout postulate the existence of sin;
and it claims that sin everywhere, and from the first, has been a cause
of degradation in the individual and the race. Now here is the real
point at issue in the relations of religion and science. The {80} main
question is not about human origins or a primaeval fall. It is simply
on the comparatively easy field of actual human existence. Is human
freedom--freedom within limits to choose and act--a reality? Can man
therefore misuse this freedom to do what he need not have done and
ought not to have done? And has he, in fact, constantly been doing
morally wrong things, wilfully and knowingly, which he need not have
done? Does, therefore, the area of human history present at every
stage a result or product which human wilfulness and lawlessness, that
is, sin, has contributed to spoil and to degrade below its natural
level? Now it is this--the real existence of countless human actions
which need not have been and ought not to have been--which contemporary
science, with a necessitarian bias, is largely occupied in denying.
Granted the reality within limits--limits which have no doubt often
been grossly exaggerated, but granted the reality within due limits--of
human freedom, and therefore the possibility and reality of actual sin
and guilt and degradation which need not have been, I do not believe
there remains any serious conflict in the moral region between religion
and science. The conflict, I say, is continually {81} being taken back
into the region of original sin or the original fall. But this is a
quite secondary area of debate, in which I believe there can be no
serious disagreement, if there is agreement in the primary area of
actual human sin. The universal moral consciousness and common sense
of man bears witness to the fact that we can do and do do what we ought
and need not. It recognizes, moreover, the moral truth of St. Paul's
idea that this lawlessness of the will has its perverting effects on
the intelligence and on the passions. The human conscience then
responds to St. Paul's account of the origin and history of human sin,
and of its fruits both in the individual and in