the
woman; or because, having received the general Divine command
relative to generation, they awaited the special command relative to
time.

Reply Obj. 3: Beasts are without reason. In this way man becomes, as
it were, like them in coition, because he cannot moderate
concupiscence. In the state of innocence nothing of this kind would
have happened that was not regulated by reason, not because delight
of sense was less, as some say (rather indeed would sensible delight
have been the greater in proportion to the greater purity of nature
and the greater sensibility of the body), but because the force of
concupiscence would not have so inordinately thrown itself into such
pleasure, being curbed by reason, whose place it is not to lessen
sensual pleasure, but to prevent the force of concupiscence from
cleaving to it immoderately. By "immoderately" I mean going beyond
the bounds of reason, as a sober person does not take less pleasure
in food taken in moderation than the glutton, but his concupiscence
lingers less in such pleasures. This is what Augustine means by the
words quoted, which do not exclude intensity of pleasure from the
state of innocence, but ardor of desire and restlessness of the mind.
Therefore continence would not have been praiseworthy in the state of
innocence, whereas it is praiseworthy in our present state, not
because it removes fecundity, but because it excludes inordinate
desire. In that state fecundity would have been without lust.

Reply Obj. 4: As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26): In that state
"intercourse would have been without prejudice to virginal integrity;
this would have remained intact, as it does in the menses. And just
as in giving birth the mother was then relieved, not by groans of
pain, but by the instigations of maturity; so in conceiving, the
union was one, not of lustful desire, but of deliberate action."
_______________________

QUESTION 99

OF THE CONDITION OF THE OFFSPRING AS TO THE BODY
(In Two Articles)

We must now consider the condition of the offspring--first, as
regards the body; secondly, as regards virtue; thirdly, in knowledge.
Under the first head there are two points of inquiry:

(1) Whether in the state of innocence children would have had full
powers of the body immediately after birth?

(2) Whether all infants would have been of the male sex?
_______________________

FIRST ARTICLE [I, Q. 99, Art. 1]

Whether in the State of Innocence Children Wo