not pretend that we are merely dealing with a theoretical
possibility, but must pronounce sin to be _de facto_ natural to man as
well as inevitable--for who has ever avoided it? Let us observe what
follows: this, and no more, that sin is "natural" only in the sense in
which disease is "natural"--_viz._, as a disorder to which the human
frame may become subject, but nevertheless a disorder. As physical
disease entails a diminution of physical life, so sin entails a
diminution of {162} our moral and spiritual life, an alienation of the
soul from God; and while anyone may thus choose to describe sin--the
wilful misuse of faculties lent us for other ends--as natural, it is
significant that the result of sin is quite _un_natural, _viz._, a state
of disunion between the soul and God. So much is this the case that the
aim of all religion is to bring about a cessation of this unhappy state,
and to effect the healing of the discord created by man's transgression.
True religion treats sin, not as an error to be explained away, but as a
wall of partition to be broken down; the essential aim of religion is
atonement, man's reconciliation to God.

(2) But it is further urged that in historical retrospect, and in the
light of evolution, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in the
course of man's development from a savage and barbaric condition all
manner of ills--bloodshed, slavery, etc.--have been necessary stages; may
not, then, sin be claimed as constituting part of the Divine plan? And
if such was the case once, may it not be the case still? Here we are
dealing with a very obvious confusion; for while man is in a low and
undeveloped state, a good many acts which would be sins if committed by
people on a higher level, have not that character at all. It is quite
impossible, _e.g._, to read the Homeric poems and find in them any trace
or indication that deceit, war and massacres are {163} regarded with so
much as moral distaste; the men of the Homeric age had simply not risen
to that moral height, and it would be futile to judge them by the
standards of a more advanced civilisation. Undoubtedly, in its slow
evolution from sub-human origins, the race passes through long sub-moral
stages during which the animal instincts--"moods of tiger or of ape"--are
still in the ascendant; it is only gradually that man becomes aware of
certain practices with shame, disgust or remorse, and it is only then
that we can begin to speak of