“And at times I'm tempted to think that our way and the Kirk's way is not God's way, for we're apt to treat the natural man as altogether corrupt, and put him under over-strict pains and penalties, whereas there's matter in him that might be shaped to the purposes of grace. If there's original sin, there's likewise original innocemce.”
Source: Witch Wood (1927), Ch. IX "Before Lammas"
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John Buchan 145
British politician 1875–1940Related quotes

Letter to J.D. Hooker, 29 March 1863
In The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, volume 11, 1863; Frederick Burkhardt, Duncan Porter, Sheila Ann Dean, Jonathan R. Topham, Sarah Wilmot, editors; Cambridge University Press, September 1999, page 278
Sometimes paraphrased as “One might as well speculate about the origin of matter.”
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements

Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)

“Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.”
As quoted in Backstabbing for Beginners : My Crash Course in International Diplomacy (2008) by Michael Soussan, p. 316