Most sociologists begin their inquiries with a false premise that might be summarized as: Man is a conditioned animal. The environment in which he lives conditions his thinking and his actions. Change the environment and you change the man.

With this I strongly disagree. Man is a being created by God having a body linking him to this material world and a soul linking him to the spiritual world and to God. Man has been made in the image and the likeness of God. As Saint John wrote "God is LOVE" so may we write of man that man is love.

Now the philosophy that underlies my comments may be at variance with many other's, but I think that quite a few have sought a more Christian or at least a religious explanation of this mystery.

Much should be said about the virtue of love. In outline form let me prepare the way for future discussions. Some have said that sex is the basic urge in man. But they are wrong. The basic urge in man is survival. Love is secondary. It should not be necessary to say that it is strong enough to be the moving force for all human relations. I suggest that sex would be too broad a term and that lust is a perversion of sex.

Love is the natural bond between people. The child loves so easily because it is so natural to him. Yet the fact that people hate and are filled with lust and pursue sex for its own sake cannot be denied. The question is simply why this perversion of a normal and natural affection? The Christian religion explains that the cause of perversion is to be found in Original and Actual Sin.

Original Sin may be defined as that tendency in every man to turn his love inward, directing it toward himself. This is the basis for sins of pride and egotism, self-seeking and self-gratification. Actual Sin can be

called the actions which man performs deliberately without regard for the consequences thus continuing the deflection of love inward. For love to develop and expand as it was meant to do there must be a reciprocal action. Any thwarting of that expression of love has in it the seeds of perversion.

Perversion should be understood as (1) the turning of love toward one's self; (2) the turning of love into hostility when rejected or not returned; (3) the turning of love into lust when physical gratification becomes the primary motivation. The beginnings of perversion, then, are in Original Sin.

It is not hard to trace the perversion of love in man. The child loves so trustingly and so naturally. But as he grows to the age of accountability or to that age when he is responsible for his actions he is also growing more aware of himself as an individual with his own wants and wishes to be fulfilled. His love becomes selfcentered. His circle of loved ones narrows rather than widens as it might have continued to do without Original Sin. He loves a few select persons. And should they fail to respond in the expected way, should they deprive him of love the way is established for further deterioration, further perversion.

Let it be understood that love is neither homosexual nor heterosexual. (The definition of heterosexuality most commonly accepted is that restriction of love for a woman, while the restriction of one's love for a man is called homosexuality. At best that is an artificial division. Evidence shows that many men cross the line many times during their life.) Society has imposed this artificiality on man. It would be interesting to see what would happen if society no longer required absolute adherence to this distinction. Obviously the propagation

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