Every social improvement since has been the outcome of that doctrine in one form or another.

The conviction that the character and lot of man are indefinitely modifiable for good, was the indispensable antecedent to any general and energetic endeavour to modify the conditions that surround him.

The omnipotence of early instruction, of laws, of the method of social order, over the infinitely plastic impulses of the human creature--this was the maxim which brought men of such widely different temperament and leanings to the common enterprise.

Everybody can see what wide and deep-reaching bearings such a doctrine possessed; how it raised all the questions connected with psychology and the formation of character; how it went down to the very foundation of morals; into what fresh and unwelcome sunlight it brought the articles of the old theology; with what new importance it clothed all the relations of real knowledge and the practical arts; what intense interest it lent to every detail of economics and legislation and government.
The deadly chagrin with which churchmen saw the encyclopedic fabric rising was very natural.

The teaching of the Church paints man as fallen and depraved.