But fathers too are disgraced. A child does not have to be taught to sin. Remove all inhibitions and prohibitions and he will bring his parents to the grave in sorrow. If the child is humored and no real efforts are made to counteract its evil propensities, it will assuredly grow more self-willed and intractable. We are transgressors by internal disposition before we are so in external acts.
Original sin is transmitted as leprosy is conveyed to the children of lepers.
They contend that some people are not subject to inordinate affections, but are respectable and law-abiding citizens. There are two answers to that objection. First, although, everything else being equal, such a conclusion is logical, it will not necessarily follow that all men will manifest the corruption in the same manner, or even to the same extent. For while none of these things, nor all of them combined, can produce any change in a person's nature, they are factors which exert an influence on his outward conduct. There are diversities in men's lives, but original sin has the same defiling effects upon all hearts.