may be a
mortal one to him, for, like the Biblical curse, it transmits itself
to generations, and leads to eternal perdition.

How terrible it is to think of punishment falling on the innocent head
of a child! and how evident it is that our present life is not
everything, but that it has a continuation, when we shall reap the
true rewards or the true punishments of our existence. The choice lies
to a great extent in our own hands. Shall we have a beautiful,
healthy, prolific son, or a deformed, unhealthy, barren son, incapable
of loving and understanding us? The hygiene of generation is the most
important part of moral hygiene. If the salvation of the individual
life can only be obtained by caring for the hygienic life of the whole
of humanity, it is only by rigorously following the laws of health and
the laws of life that the salvation of the species can be obtained.
Alcoholism, all poisons, overwork, constitutional maladies,
dissipation of nervous force, vice, and idleness, are all _causes_ of
degeneration. It was science which went on preaching these things for
the salvation of mankind, and by these means propagating virtue. But
above all, it inculcated the great principle of "pardon," which
hitherto had been one of the mysteries of religious morality.

A few years ago, no one, however pitiful and generous, could have
looked upon the delinquent with the same justice and pity as science
has done. It has pointed out that we are _all_ responsible for this
victim of social causes, that we must all accuse ourselves of the sins
committed by the inferior individual, and exert ourselves for his
regeneration by all the means in our power. It was only the saints who
had an intuition of this truth, when they offered their merits for all
men in common and accepted responsibility for the offenses of all.
"You will hold yourselves accountable," said St. John Chrysostom, "not
only for your own salvation, but for universal salvation; he who prays
must take upon himself the burden of the interests of the whole human
race."

It is certain that if a Tages had cleansed our whole race of its
deformities, and if an analogous morality had rendered us indifferent
to the illnesses, weaknesses, and sufferings of humanity,
regenerative science would not have been able to arise. It is only by
recognizing the effects that we can go back to the unhealthy causes,
and save humanity from danger. The _causes_ of death are as invisible
and intangi