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HEREDITY
AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

806

^Tl^^^.

4

HEREDITY

AND

CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

BY

AMORY H. BRADFORD

/ZSS^

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1902

A a rights reservtd

R/IAR 1904

Copyright, 1895,
By M ACM ill an AND CO.

Set up and electrotyped November, 1895. Reprinted October,
1896; January, 1899 '■ January, 1902.

NorfaootJ ^rrss

J. S. Gushing &. Co. - Berwick i Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

|l -V

a

8^0 tJje iPltmorg of mg Jfiotfjet

PREFACE

During the last twenty-five years there have
been great changes in the thought of the world.
At the beginning of that time the doctrine of
evolution was just coming to the front and had
hardly begun to be applied to the sciences of
theology and of human society. The very word
sociology was nearly if not quite unknown. The
method of human reasoning was largely a priori.
But during the last few years all has been
changed. Now the science of sociology has
taken its place beside theology, and even dis-
putes its claim to be queen of the sciences ; now
theology itself is studied inductively. Its teachers
no longer form their theories and then endeavour
to adjust facts to them; but they study the facts
of human nature and divine revelation and from
them derive their theories. In some respects
the progress of science has affected theology
very little. It has in no way altered our doc-
trines of God, of the need of human redemption,
or of the fact that such redemption has been

VIU

PREFACE

provided. But, on the other hand, it has given
a philosophical basis for what the early theo-
logians loosely called " original sin ; " it has made
necessary an entirely new study of the doctrine
of the will and of human accountability. More
than most persons dream, the old ways of pre-
senting such truths have disappeared, and would
no longer be tolerated even by those that call
themselves conservc^tives. There is no philo-
sophical basis for the ideas of reprobation and
condemnation for sins never committed. There
is no longer need of arguing against such teach-
ing ; it has gone, and would nevermore be heard
if it were not raised from its grave every now
and then by over-zealous opponents, who igno-
rantly imagine that they are fighting against
living antagonists. It would be a great gain
in Christian pulpits if there could be a clearer
understanding of what is already dead and buried.
The living forces of evil are so numerous and
so vital that no time should be spent in battling
against exploded theories.

Among all the changes wrought by science,
no fact is clearer than that it has made essential
an entirely new system of education. The old
educators studied books ; the new study life : the
old emphasized knowledge; the new say, Not

PREFACE ix

less knowledge but more careful study of the
pupil. Formerly the world asked, What do
these teachers know about arithmetic, grammar,
geography, etc. .-" but now the inquiry is also,
What do these teachers know about children ?

In the same way, all that belongs to the sphere
of penology has undergone a radical transforma-
tion. The old theories were that the offender
was an object of vengeance, and that it was the
duty of government merely to protect itself and
punish law-breakers ; but the new teaching is
that no criminal ceases to be a man, and that
government is charged not only with the pro-
tection of its citizens but also with the salvation
of its offenders. This teaching is yet only dimly
realized, and is still vigorously denounced by
many v/ho have not fully grasped the teachings
of Christ ; but it is steadily making headway, and
it cannot be long before the redemptive duties
of government will be better appreciated. In
order that that duty may be properly discharged,
the criminal classes must be carefully studied in
themselves. What are these men in their essen-
tial nature .-• What tendencies are in them ?
Where did their tendencies come from .-• What
forces are at work upon them .-' No man is fit
to make laws for criminal classes that has not

3j PREFACE

made a study of heredity and the circumstances
in which human life is passed.

Moreover, in these days, in theological circles
at least, much is being said about "the return
to Christ," and the demand is that all questions
of theology and sociology should be referred to
Him for adjustment. All this is well; but the
return to Christ means not only a return to His
teaching but a new study of His person. Why
should He be trusted more than others ? If He
is to be ranked in the category of the world's
teachers, the return to Christ means one thing ;
if He was a unique Being who cannot be classi-
fied with the seers, sages, and masters of the
past, the answer will be altogether different.
This book is not an attempt at anything original
in the way of scientific investigation ; it takes
facts that are now the commonplaces of science
and endeavours to apply them to some of the
problems that face every Christian thinker and
worker, and, indeed, almost every man of every
phase of faith who seeks the welfare of his
fellow-men. It is not offered as a solution of
ever-recurring problems, but it is hoped that it
may help at least a little toward their solution.
The problems of the ages are the same. Each
generation as it passes adds a little to the sum

PREFACE

XI

of human knowledge, and some time in the long
future, as the result of the labours of those that
have gone before them, we may hope that men
will no more see " through a glass darkly, but
face to face." In the meantime, it is occasion
for devout thanksgiving that, largely as the re-
sult of recent scientific progress, the views con-
cerning duty and responsibility are becoming
juster and more humane ; the outlook on the
world's weakness and sorrow, its vice and crime,
not quite so discouraging ; the doctrines concern-
ing God and human destiny far more worthy of
His immortal children.

It remains for me only to say that this book
condenses many years of study and thought.
Its chapters have been written at different times
and for different occasions ; some of them have
seen the light in magazines and reviews, but
it is my hope that they may be found not without
unity in thought and aim, even though their form
may sometimes suggest the diverse circumstances
under which they have been prepared. In almost
every case I have made full acknowledgment
of my indebtedness to various authors. In a
few instances, however, the full reference has
been lost. In such cases I have still referred
to the authors, when known, without attempt-

xli PREFACE

ing to say exactly where the quotations may be
found.

I would seem ungrateful did I not here ac-
knowledge the valuable assistance that I have
received in the way of revision from my friend,
the Rev. William Forbes Cooley, of Chatham,
N.J., who has rendered me most efficient ser-
vice, and from my tireless secretary. Miss J. E.
Lockwood, who has read and worked over these
chapters until she must almost know them by
heart.

AMORY H. BRADFORD.

First Congregational Church,

MONTCLAIR, New Jersey,

June 29, 1895.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

The Law of Heredity i

CHAPTER II
Theories of Heredity 14

CHAPTER III
Physical Heredity 23

CHAPTER IV
Intellectual and Moral Heredity 35

CHAPTER V
Environment 53

CHAPTER VI
The Problem of the Will 70

CHAPTER VI

The Problem of the Home ...... 102

xiii

xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII
The Problem of Education

PAGB
I 20

CHAPTER IX
The Problem of Pauperism . . . • • -139

CHAPTER X
The Problem of Vice and Crime I73

CHAPTER XI
The Problem of Sin and the Race . . . • ^97

CHAPTER XII
The Problem of Faith 214

CHAPTER XIII
The Problem of the Person of Christ . . . .242

CHAPTER XIV c

Conclusion ^7°

Index ^77

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN
PROBLEMS

CHAPTER I

THE LAW OF HEREDITY

The problem of which this book is a study is the
relation of heredity and environment to thought
and conduct, with especial reference to the facts
and theories of religion ; or, phrasing it differently,
heredity and environment as factors to be con-
sidered by students of theology and ethics, and
by servants of humanity. My object is purely
^ practical. While I have studied the subject care-
t fully for many years, I cannot claim to be, in the
*^ strict scientific sense, an original investigator.
^ In these pages the well-attested results of the
researches of others are gathered and weighed,
not so much for a more exact knowledge of the
subjects themselves, as for a clearer understand-
ing of their bearing upon the life of man and the
modifications they call for in the theories concern-
ing human duty and responsibility.

2 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

No careful observer can have failed to note that
there is a growing freedom and an ampler knowl-
edge in the treatment of all the problems that
most clearly concern the individual and society.
The sanctity of facts is now unquestioned. It is,
no doubt, easier to study man from the standpoint
of the speculative philosopher or the dogmatic
theologian than by inductive research into our
essential nature and actual environment, but the
result of the former process is only deeper dark-
ness. Inductive study alone can furnish reliable
knowledge concerning duty and responsibility —
what man ought to do and to answer for.

I begin with a definition of terms, though that
is hardly necessary, since few words are now
better understood than heredity and environ-
ment. Heredity is the law through which the
individual receives from his parents by birth his
chief vital forces and tendencies, his physical and
spiritual capital ; environment consists of " all the
events and conditions " ^ surrounding him after-
wards that modify his nature and change the
tendency of his life.

Two laws govern the transmission of life, viz.
the law of uniformity, and the law of diversity.
The latter is shrouded in mystery. It is the sub-

1 The Jukes, Dugdale, p. I2.

^

THE LAW OF HEREDITY 3

ject of much controversy, and will be considered
later.

"Heredity," says Ribot, "is that biological law
by which all beings endowed with life tend to
repeat themselves in their descendants ; it is for
the species what personal identity is for the indi-
vidual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged
amid incessant variation ; by it Nature ever copies
and imitates herself." ^ According to Weismann,
it is " the process which renders possible that per-
sistence of organic beings throughout successive
generations, which is generally thought to be so
well understood and to need no special explana-
tion." ^ It is "that property of an organism by
which its peculiar nature is transmitted to its
descendants."^ Each child not only is related
to the whole race as a species, but is in a peculiar
sense the offspring of individuals, bearing within
him signs of his parentage, not only in his bodily
organism, but also, with equal clearness, in his
mental and spiritual constitution.'* And this an-
cestral influence is so prevailing that the charac-
teristics of the child and all his tendencies, if not

^ Heredity', Ribot, ji__u

2 Essays on Heredity, Weismann, Oxford Translation, p. 71.

8 Ibid. p. 72.

* A Physician's Problems, Elam, p. I.

A HEREDITY AND CHRISTLIN PROBLEMS

determined before his birth, are at least so clearly
defined, that for him to go outside the lines laid
down by his ancestry will be very difficult.

The law of heredity I make no effort to estab-
lish ; I assume it. It is not doubted by careful
students of human nature, any more than by stu-
dents of biology. The mistake should not be
made of supposing that it is a new discovery, one
of the as yet unproven hypotheses of modern
science ; or that we owe our knowledge of it to
Charles Darwin, August Weismann, and a few
other scientists. These men have indeed done
much in this field of research, but heredity and
environment have been recognized as the most
potent forces in the development of life as long
as history has been written.

In what sense is there a law of heredity }
Laws in nature are known only as the results
of processes of induction. From the phenomena
of nature and life an invariable order is inferred.
The something in obedience to which that order
results we call laws, and to a knowledge of these
we rise by the study of apparently isolated facts.
" Suppose," says Ribot, " all the facts of the
physical and moral universe reduced to a thou-
sand secondary laws, and these to a dozen prim-
itive laws, which are the final and irreducible

THE LAW OF HEREDITY 5

elements of the world ; let us represent each by
a thread of peculiar colour, itself formed by a col-
lection of finer threads ; a superior force — God,
Nature, Chance, it matters not what — is ever
weaving, knotting, and unknotting these, and
transforming them into various patterns. To the
ordinary mind there is nothing besides these knots
and these patterns ; for it these are the only
reality ; beyond them it knows nothing, suspects
nothing. But the man of science sets to work ;
he unties the knots, unravels the patterns, and
shows that all the reality is in the threads. Then
the antagonism between fact and law disappears;
facts are but a synthesis of laws, laws an analysis
of facts." ^ If, now, we unravel the fabric of
human life, shall we find the threads of heredity
in its warp .-' Without doubt we shall. There
are easily verified facts in abundance which
make it evident that heredity is a veritable law,
holding true at once in the physical, the mental,
and the moral spheres.

(i) By the act of generation all that distin-
guishes species as species is invariably transmit-
ted. " Like produces like." Monkeys always
give birth to monkeys ; birds to birds ; fish are
the offspring of fish ; and human beings inva-

1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 136.

6 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

riably spring from human parents. No question
is ever raised as to whether "like produces like"
so far as it concerns the transmission of the char-
acteristics of the species.

(2) Race peculiarities are also invariably trans-
mitted. The child of Caucasian parents — of the
pure stock — is always Caucasian in colour, in
figure, in mental aptitudes, in moral tendencies.
"A spaniel was ne'^er produced by a bull-dog,"
nor a canary by an eagle. A Shetland pony
never gave birth to an Arab steed, nor a South-
ern mustang to the great dray-horses whose legs
of iron transport the produce of our cities. Pure-
blooded whites never have negro children, or vice
versa.

(3) Family and individual characteristics are
also hereditary. The aquiline nose of the Bour-
bon family, the fecundity of the Guises and Mont-
morencies, the taste for natural history of the
Darwins, and the faculty — not to say genius —
of the Bachs for music are too well known to need
more than mention. On the fact that purely in-
dividual characteristics are hereditary are based
many of the rules of life insurance. Men expect
that children will resemble their parents, or not
very remote ancestors, as regards tendencies to
health or disease.

THE LAW OF HEREDITY

7

Therefore I think we may say with Ribot,
" Heredity always governs those broadly general
characteristics which determine the species, always
those less general characteristics which constitute
the variety, and often individual characteristicSo
Hence the evident conclusion that heredity is
the law, non-heredity the exception. Suppose a
■father and mother — both large, strong, healthy,
active, and intelligent — produce a son and a
daughter possessing the opposite qualities. In
this instance, wherein heredity seems completely
set aside, it still holds good that the differences
between parents and children are but slight as
compared with the resemblances." ^

Heredity acts in four ways:^ —

(i) Direct- Heredity, when the qualities of both
parents are transmitted to their offspring. Of
this there are two forms : — •

ia) When the child takes after both parents
equally. Of this there are probably no perfect
examples. The disturbing conditions are so nu-
merous as to make this type all but impossible ;
so that practically there is always in the child
a preponderance of one of the parents.

{b) When the child takes after both parents,

1 Heredity^ Ribot, pp. 144, 145.

2 Ibid. p. 147.

8 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

but more especially resembles one of them.
Here, again, there are two forms: (i) When
the heredity takes place in the same sex; and
(2) when it occurs between different sexes, —
the more common form.

(2) Reversional Heredity, Atavism, consists in
the reproduction in the descendants of the moral
or physical qualities of their ancestors. It occurs
frequently between grandfather and grandson,
grandmother and granddaughter.

(3) Collateral, or Indirect Heredity, which is
of rarer occurrence than the foregoing, exists,
as indicated by its name, between individuals and
their ancestors in the indirect line, — uncle or
grand-uncle and nephew, aunt and niece. It is
another form of atavism, and occurs where there
is " ' representation of collaterals in the physical
and moral character of the progeny.' We often
observe," Ribot continues, "between distant rela-
tives . . . striking resemblances of conformation,
face, inclinations, passions, character, deformity,
and disease." ^

(4) Heredity of Influence, very rare from the
physiological point of view, and probably not
proved in any single instance in the moral order.
" It consists in the reproduction in the children

'^Heredity, Ribot, pp, 170, 171.

THE LAW OF HEREDITY ^

by a second marriage of some peculiarity belong-
ing to a former spouse." ^ Of this I will not
speak. It has no special bearing on the present
line of thought.

It is not within the scope of this paper to show
that this classification is correct. It rests on an
extended induction of facts which has been made
with great care by such general investigators as
Lamarck, Darwin, Mivart, and Wallace, and such
special students of heredity as Lucas, Morel,
Ribot, Galton, Elam, and Brooks.

There are exceptions to this law, but they are
neither so numerous nor so inexplicable as are
sometimes supposed.

Spontaneity has undoubted play, and in cases
of genius seems to have supreme control; but it
is a question whether a more careful induction of
facts would not show what are called exceptions,
or spontaneous variations from the primitive type,
to be in thousands of instances only suppressed
or exaggerated heredity. In many other cases
they could doubtless be traced to the influence
of prenatal environment. It is true that beauti-
ful children are sometimes born of ugly parents.
So, also, there are on record numerous cases of
monstrosities, such as that of Edward Lambert

^ Heredity, Ribot, p. 147.

lO HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

and his sons and grandchildren, which I will
mention again, where the conflict between the
tendency to return to the normal type and the
tendency toward reproduction is plainly discern-
ible. Besides these the following apparent ex-
ceptions to our law have been noted. Pericles
had two imbeciles and one maniac in his family.
Thucydides was the father of a fool and a block-
head. The great Germanicus was the father of
Caligula, Vespasian of Domitian, and Marcus
Aurelius of Commodus. "And," says Lucas, "in
modern history it is enough to mention the sons
of Henry IV., Louis XIV., and of Cromwell."

Concerning all exceptions to the law of hered-
ity there are two theories : (i) That of Lucas,
who holds that " the biologic fact of generation
is governed by two laws, — one of spontaneity,
the other of heredity." (2) That of Ribot, who
maintains that "the causes of spontaneity are
only accidental ; it is never more than a chance,
the result of the fortuitous play and concurrence
of natural laws ; but it is not the effect of any
distinct and special law. On this theory there
would be one law of heredity with its excep-
tions, not two laws, the one of heredity, the
other of spontaneity."^

^ Heredity, Ribot, p. 199.

THE LAW OF HEREDITY 1 1

Brooks inclines to the former view. Accord-
ing to him, " We find in all except the lowest
organisms that heredity is brought about by two
dissimilar reproductive elements, and we find that
each organism is the resultant of two factors —
heredity and variation." ^ Again: "The fact," he
says, " that variation is due to the male influence,
and that the action upon the male parent of un-
natural or changed conditions results in the varia-
bility of the child, is well shown by crossing the
hybrid with the pure species, for when the male
hybrid is crossed with a pure female the children
are much more variable than those born of a
hybrid mother by a pure father."^ In other
words, Brooks makes the predominant influence
of the male parent, and not mere chance, the
cause of variation. Heredity, then, would be
the special function of the female line.

The position of Schopenhauer in his purely
metaphysical system is substantially this, although
his starting-point is antipodal. As interpreted by
Ribot he held that " Whatever is primary and
fundamental in the individual — character, pas-
sions, tendencies — is inherited from the father;
the intelligence, a secondary and derivative fac-

^ Heredity, Brooks, p. 314.
"^ Ibid. p. 321.

12 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

ulty, directly from the mother. He was pleased
to imagine that he found in his own person the
irrefutable evidence of this doctrine. Intellectual
and subtle like his mother, who had literary tastes
and lived in Goethe's circle at Weimar, he was,
like his father, shy, obstinate, intractable ; he
was a man of ' scowling mien and of fantastic
judgments.' "^

It has been often affirmed also that sons re-
semble their mothers and daughters their fathers.
A careful examination of statistical tables, such
as those of Galton, shows that the reverse is so
often true as to vitiate all theories which rest on
that foundation. With the object of our inquiry
the causes of variation might seem to be of sec-
ondary importance. The relation of heredity
to the will, to character, to religion, seems at
first to be the same, whatever the theory as to
the cause of the exceptions. A very serious fact,
however, and a far-reaching question confront
us at this point. The fact is that the word varia-
tion is only a general term for the beginnings of
improvement or of decline. The question is,
whether man can so control or influence varia-
tion as to insure progress and prevent degenera-
tion } In other words, Can acquired traits be

^ Heredity, Ribot, p. 154.

THE LAW OF HEREDITY 1 3

transmitted to descendants ? This introduces us
to a great discussion in which, in our time, Her-
bert Spencer and August Weismann are the
leaders. Without entering into that discussion,
I shall in the next chapter endeavour to interpret
the two theories.

CHAPTER II

THEORIES OF HEREDITY

Students of biology have ranged themselves
into hostile camps, controversy between which
has at times raged with a severity almost worthy
of theologians in the days of bell, book, and
candle. On the one side are those that believe
in the transmissibility of acquired characteristics,
and on the other those that disbelieve in it.
Latterly, these parties have been led by Herbert
Spencer and August Weismann, the latter a pro-
fessor in the University of Freiburg ; Charles
Darwin being on the side of Spencer, and Hackel
on the side of Weismann. Of these masters of
science, the latter has probably the greater repu-
tation as an original investigator, while the
former is the pre-eminent English philosopher
of our time. It is not easy to state in simple
terms the exact difference between their theories.
They agree as to the fact of heredity, and differ
but little in their definitions. They are at vari-
ance chiefly in their explanations of the process
by which heredity works. Darwin, Spencer, and

14

1

THEORIES OF HEREDITY 1 5

•
their school teach that acquired characteristics
are transmitted. Datwin supported the doctrii^
by his hypothesis of pangenesis. Very sm^
particles, he thought, infinitesimal in size, are
constantly thrown off from all the cells of the
body ; " these particles collect in the reproductive
cells, and hence any change arising in the organ-
ism at any time during its life is represented in
the reproductive cells." ^ The moment an ex-
planation of the process by which characteristics
are transmitted is attempted, the difficulty of the
problem is apparent. Thus it is said, that there
is growing up in our time a race of near-sighted
men and women. The clear vision of the days
when our ancestors roamed the forests and were
dependent on the sense of sight for protection
has disappeared. The habit of seeing objects at
short range in course of time made many men
near-sighted ; they handed down the peculiarity
to their children, who increased it, and in turn
transmitted it, and so congenital near-sightedness
became common. In the same way the presence
of disease in many families is accounted for, and
also the possession of exceptional gifts of body
and mind. In the opinion of these masters of

1 TAe Variaiion of Animals and Plants under Domestication,
Darwin, Vol. II. pp. 349-399.

1 6 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

biological science, heredity preserves and trans-
mits the physical, mental, and moral accumula-
tions of the past as surely and manifestly as a
parent passes on to his children the fortune
which he has acquired.

The teaching of Weismann is theoretically very
different ; but when applied to the life of the indi-
vidual and to society much of its antagonism to
Spencer's doctrine disappears. Weismann began
his inaugural lecture as Pro-Rector of the Univer-
sity of Freiburg in 1883 by asserting the reality of
heredity with much positiveness and amplitude,
and by accepting the statement of Hackel regard-
ing it, that reproduction is ** an overgrowth of the
individual." ^ He denied that acquired character-
istics are transmitted, however, and insisted that
variability is the result of organic changes in the
reproductive cells, which changes are the result
chiefly of the fortuitous combinations of certain
elements in the germ-cells. He concedes, how-
ever, that during formative periods of the indi-
vidual, environment may affect the germ-cells
directly. Thus the fact that short-sightedness is
increasing he also would doubtless account for by
heredity, but, instead of saying that short-sighted-
ness became hereditary when first acquired, he

1 Essays on Heredity, Weismann, p. 72.

^ THEORIES OF HEREDITY ig

latter only arise when they have been preceded
by corresponding changes in the former, then we
can, up to a certain point, understand the princi-
ple of heredity ; or, at any rate, we can conceive
that the human mind may at some time be capa-
ble of understanding it. We may at least main-
tain that it has been rendered intelligible, for we
can thus trace heredity back to growth ; we can
thus look upon reproduction as an overgrowth of
the individual, and can thus distinguish between
a succession of species and a succession of indi-
viduals, because in the latter succession the germ-
plasm remains similar, while in the succession of
the former it becomes different." ^

I will now endeavour, by familiar illustrations,
to make clearer these apparently opposing theo-
ries. According to the view of those who believe
that acquired characteristics are transmitted, hu-
man life is like a clear stream which flows from
the mountains. On its way it passes through one
region after another in endless succession, re-
ceiving in its varied course something from a
thousand rills and rivulets on the surface and in
the soil, so that it is no longer pure as at first, but
carries with it many and varied substances from
many and varied districts. In other words, the

1 Essays on Heredity, Weismann, pp. 105, 106.

20 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

original river is now a kind of composite stream,
in which is something from every locality through
which it has flowed. Such, say Spencer and his
school, is the life which is in every man ; it is not
as it came from the primal source, but as all liv-
ing beings have made it. But Weismann would
say that the life of man is rather a stream flow-
ing underground from the mountains to the sea,
and rising now and then in fountains, some of
which are saline, some sulphuric, some tinctured
with iron, and that the differences in the foun-
tains are due entirely to the soil passed through
in breaking forth to the surface, the mother-
stream down underneath all the salt, sulphur, and
iron flowing on toward the sea substantially
unchanged.

When, now, these theories are applied to
human beings, the counsels they would have for
workers for humanity would be widely different
but for Weismann's concession about the direct
influence of environment on the reproductive
cells, for without that his theory would put the
forces of heredity entirely beyond human control
and shut us up to the use of the environment of,
and personal appeals to, the individual for all
morally progressive work. As it is, the outlook
is more hopeful. If acquired characteristics are

■7

THEORIES OF HEREDITY 2 1

transmitted, the original substance of our life is
at present in part corrupted, and in part devel-
oped and improved ; and if evil tends to wear
itself out, and good characteristics have in them
elements of endurance, then the prospect for man
is good, since the final supremacy of the good
seems to be foreshadowed.

If, on the other hand, the stream of being
flowing on from age to age remains unchanged
by any individual acquisitions, but may be af-
fected by changes in environment, then, as civ-
ilization advances, as life asserts itself, as the
environment improves, it is evident that the river
of life will soon cease to rise into fountains
through any strata which will taint its primal
sweetness, and will show itself in springs in
which it shall be sweet and pure and cool as
when it first gushed from the mountain's side.
Individuals are hampered ; the men they might
be they are not ; they are failures or wrecks, not
because there is not good life in them, but be-
cause it cannot get expression. If Spencer is
right, and acquired characteristics are transmis-
sible, then it is the duty and the privilege of
the Christian man to work for the creation of
such conditions as will put in the place of the ten-
dencies toward evil which now exist better traits

22 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

of character, that, these being transmitted, may-
result in nobler types of manhood. If Weismann
is correct, and the peculiarities of individuals
are due to their environment, then the problem
is simpler still, and all that any can do, or need
do, is to seek to make possible a full and true
expression of the normal human life.

I have gone somewhat particularly into this
difference of theory, not to discuss the scientific
question at issue, but to show that the Christian
problems I am to consider are not greatly affected
by the theory of heredity that may be adopted.

'}

CHAPTER III

PHYSICAL HEREDITY

It will help us to form intelligent opinions
concerning the law of heredity if we consider it
more in detail, and with illustrations. Two laws
govern the transmission of life, viz. the law of
uniformity, and the law of diversity. Under the
law of uniform transmission of organization chil-
dren receive from their parents not only the gen-
eral physical characteristics of their parents, " but
also their mental and moral constitutions."^ This
resemblance is not only in their original and essen-
tial characteristics, but, some maintain, " even in
acquired habits of life, of intellect, of virtue, of
vice."i Under the law of diversity deformity and
ugliness give birth to manly strength and beauty ;
the sick bear offspring remarkable for health; "vir-
tue is succeeded by vice, intellect by imbecility,
and the converse of all these phenomena."^ The
one law accounts for all that comes from the past ;
the other law for all that is new and peculiar in
the development of life.

1 A Physician'' s Problems, Elam, p. 4.
21

24 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Illustrations of the action of heredity may be
found in great abundance in the works of Darwin,
Weismann, Maudsley, Galton, Elam, and the many
other students of this fascinating subject. " Hered-
itary influence may manifest itself in the limbs, the
trunk, the head, even in the nails and the hair,
but especially in the countenance, expression, or
characteristic features." ^ These facts were often
observed in ancient times. Among the Romans
we read of the Nasones, Labeones, Buccones, Cap-
itones, etc. The significance of these names is in
the fact that all were derived from hereditary pecu-
liarities. The family of the Bentivoglios were dis-
tinguished by a small but evident tumour which
occurred in generation after generation, and which
acted as a kind of barometer, predicting atmo-
spheric changes, and growing larger when the
wind became moist. ^

An illustration of indirect heredity is taken
from Quatrefages. He says, as quoted by Ribot :
" I am acquainted with a family into which mar-
ried a grand-niece of the illustrious Bailli de Suf-
fren Saint-Tropez, the last French commander
in the great Indian wars against the English,
with Hyder Ali for his ally. This lady had two

^ See Heredity, Ribot, p. 2.
2 Ibid.

PHYSICAL HEREDITY 2$

sons, the younger of whom, judging from a very-
fine portrait, bore a very striking resemblance to
his great-great-uncle, but was not at all like his
father or mother. The celebrated sailor, there-
fore, and his great-great-nephew reproduced, with
an interval of four generations between them, the
features of a common ancestor." ^ This is a case
of indirect heredity, or atavism, acting in both
branches.

Among the curiosities of this subject are the
examples of anomalies and monstrosities. The
case of Edward Lambert is often cited. His
" whole body, with the exception of the face,
the palms of the hands, and the soles of the
feet, was covered with a sort of carapace of horny
excrescences, which rattled against each other.
He was the father of six children, all of whom
from the age of six weeks presented the same
singularity," ^ which was kept up through five
generations. Sexdigitism is hereditary, and some
have declared that even peculiarities of hand-
writing are transmitted. The handwriting of
Abraham Lincoln, grandson of the martyr-pres-
ident, is said to be almost exactly like that of
his grandfather; and yet the grandfather died

1 Heredity^ Ribot, p. 172.

2 ii)id. p. 7.

26 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

when the grandson was very young, if not be-
fore he was born. The Bourbon family has
always been distinguished by the aquiline nose.

Ribot gives a curious instance showing that
sometimes one of the parents transmits the entire
physical, the other the entire spiritual, nature.
He says : " The most curious and incontestable
instance of this is the case of Lislet-Geoffrey,
engineer in Mauritius. He was the son of a
white man and a very stupid negress. In phys-
ical constitution he was as much a negro as his
mother ; he had the features, the complexion, the
woolly hair, and the peculiar odour of his race. . . .
He was so thoroughly a white as regards intel-
lectual development that he succeeded in van-
quishing the prejudices of blood, so strong in the
colonies, and in being admitted into the most
aristocratic houses. At the time of his death
he was Corresponding Member of the Academy
of Sciences." ^

In Washington Territory I myself saw an
instance which seems more like the inheritance
by a daughter of the entire nature of her father.
The young woman, about thirty years of age,
was one of the most beautiful in form, feature,
and complexion, one of the most attractive in

1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 155.

7

PHYSICAL HEREDITY

27

speech and graceful in manner that I ever met.
Imagine my amazement when I was shown her
mother — a stupid old squaw, who seemed hardly-
more than an inert mass of fat. The young
woman was the daughter of an officer of the
Hudson's Bay Company and of this squaw whom
he had married. In any drawing-room in the
world the daughter would have attracted atten-
tion by her beauty, and she no more resembled
her mother than a lily resembles a heap of sand.
Heredity affects the size and shape of the body.
Frederick William I. had his favourite regiment
of giants, whom he would not allow to marry
women of stature inferior to their own. Their
offspring were gigantic, and their descendants,
the most superb specimens of physical manhood
in Europe, are still to be seen in various parts
of Germany.^ It may be traced in the com-
plexion. Plutarch mentions a Greek woman who
gave birth to a negro child, and was brought to
trial for adultery, but it transpired that she was
descended in the fourth degree from an Ethio-
pian. The story is officially vouched for of a
negro woman who gave birth to a white child,
and was terrified at what she supposed would
be the inference of her husband, until he told

1 See Heredity, Ribot, p. 3.

28 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

her that his father was white, and that, for many-
generations, there had been a white child in some
branch of the family.^ These, of course, are
instances of atavism, which, in the silk-worm,
appears even after more than a hundred genera-
tions.

Heredity influences the internal organism, the
heart, the osseous, muscular, and nervous sys-
tems, and the siz»^ and form of the cerebral con-
volutions. Some families for generations are
distinguished by fecundity ; such were the Mont-
morencies, the Condes, and Guises. Longevity
runs in families. In some the line of threescore
and ten is almost always reached, while others
seldom have aged members. The Turgot family
is mentioned as one in which the fifty-ninth year
was rarely passed.

Diseases run in families. One is peculiarly
liable to consumption, another to insanity, another
to rheumatism. Life insurance companies base
their calculations on this fact. A consumptive
parent is believed to entail on his offspring a
tendency to consumption. A friend of mine was
refused life insurance in one of our largest com-
panies because his mother died of consumption,
although he himself was a strong man, and his

^ See Heredity, Ribot, p. 169.

1

PHYSICAL HEREDITY 20

father was vigorous at nearly seventy. M. Es-
quirol says that one-half the cases of insanity
amongst the higher classes in France, and about
one-third amongst the lower classes, have been
inherited from parents or ancestors. According
to one authority, seventy-seven per cent, of the
cases at the Bicetre were hereditary, and, accord-
ing to Dr. Burrows, eighty-four per cent. Two
important considerations in regard to this ques-
tion should be given full weight : first, that the
native inferiority or taint may be of very differ-
ent degrees of intensity, so as, on the one hand,
to conspire only with certain more or less power-
ful exciting causes, or, on the other hand, to give
rise to insanity even amongst the most favourable
external circumstances. Second, that not only
insanity in the parents, but any form of nervous
disease in them — epilepsy, hysteria, and even
neuralgia — may predispose to insanity in the
offspring ; as, conversely, insanity in a parent
may predispose to other kinds of nervous diseases
in the offspring.^ What is true of consumption
and insanity is true of all nervous diseases, of
gout, dyspepsia, skin diseases, and so on through
the list.

^ Physiology and Pathology of the Mind, Second Edition, London,
P- 243.

h

30 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

This is the place to consider the heredity of the
tendency toward intemperance. No one believes
that intemperance itself is transmissible ; but that
the physical condition that makes intemperance
easy, and, if circumstances favour, almost inevi-
table, is transmitted is clearly taught by all stu-
dents of this subject whom I know. On this point
testimony is required, and only that of experts
will be offered. Eiam quotes the following from
the " Psychological Journal : " "The most startling
problem connected with intemperance is, that not
only does it affect the health, morals, and intelli-
gence of the offspring of its votaries, but that tJicy
also inherit the fatal tendency and feel a craving for
the very beverages which have acted as poisons on
their system fro jn the commencemeitt of tJieir being!' ^

Morel, one of the ablest investigators of this
subject, says : " I have never seen the patient
cured of his propensity whose tendencies to drink
were derived from the hereditary predisposition
given to him by his parents."

Dr. Hutchison says : " I have seen only one case
completely cured, and that after a seclusion of two
years' duration. In general, it is not cured ; and
no sooner is the patient liberated than he mani-
fests all the symptoms of the disease. . . . Such

1 A Physician^ P>-oble?>is, Elam, p. 40.

/

PHYSICAL HEREDITY

31

individuals are sane only when confined in an
asylum." ^

We now come to one of the most terrible feat-
ures of this terrible habit. The vice of one gen-
eration, when inherited, does not appear in the
second generation merely as a habit, but in most
cases as a disease. This disease, known as oino-
mania or dipsomania, is easily distinguished from
ordinary intemperate habits. It is described as
" an impulsive desire for stimulating drinks, un-
controllable by any motives that can be addressed
to the understanding or conscience, in which self-
interest, self-esteem, friendship, love, religion, are
appealed to in vain ; in which the passion for
drink is the master-passion, and subdues to itself
every other desire and faculty of the soul."^ Of
this class M. Morel says : " Such cases present
themselves to our observation with the predomi-
nance of a phenomenon of the psychical order,
which I have already had occasion to mention, i.e.
a complete abolition of all moral sentiments. One
might say that no distinction between good and
evil remains in the minds of these degraded
beings. . . . They quit their homes without
troubling themselves where they may go ; they

1 A Physician'' s Problems, Elam, p. 41.

2 Ibid. p. 73.

32 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

cannot explain the motives of their disorderly-
tendencies ; their existence is passed in the ex-
tremest apathy, the most absolute indifference,
and volition seems to be replaced by a stupid
automatism." 1 Dr. Elam says: ''Theoretically con-
sidered, this impulsive tendency may probably
not be absolutely irresistible, but practically, it is
almost, if not altogether so."^

What has been said of intemperance is still
more true of the opium habit. Sometimes the
use of opium manifests itself in a succeeding gen-
eration in the craving for intoxicating liquors, and
sometimes in a craving for opium. The elder
Coleridge was an opium eater, and he used to say
that in all his relations of life his will was power-
less. Hartley Coleridge inherited his father's
imperious desire for stimulants, and with it his
weakness of power to resist. His brother thus
wrote of him when he was young : " A certain
infirmity of will had already shown itself. His
sensibility was intense, and he had not where-
withal to control it. He could not open a letter
without trembling. He shrank from mental pain ;
he was beyond measure impatient of constraint.
. , . He yielded, as it were unconsciously, to slight

1 A Physician' s Problems, Elam, p. 74.
* Ibid. p. 74.

PHYSICAL HEREDITY

33

temptations, — slight in themselves and slight to
him, — as if swayed by a mechanical impulse,
apart from his own volition. It looked like an
organic defect, a congenital imperfection." ^ He
wrote of himself : —

" O ! woful impotence of weak resolve,
Recorded rashly to the writer's shame,

Days pass away, and time's large orbs revolve,
And every day beholds me still the same;

Till oft neglected purpose loses aim,

And hope becomes a flat, unheeded lie."

Thus we are forced to face the fact that he who
forms his own character is at the same time help-
ing to form the character of subsequent gener-
ations. The pleasures of one generation may
become the curses of the next. The continuity
of the race is a terrible and remorseless reality.
Streams of tendency, hot with passion- and lust
and lurid with disease, flow from generation to
generation. We are not simply ourselves ; we
are also products of the past.

These illustrations show in a general way the
operations of the law. But narrow the range of
observation. Particular qualities, dispositions, and
habits are subject to the operation of this law.
We now face a fact of solemn and awful signifi-

^ A Physician's Problems^ Elam, p. 75.
D

34 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

cance. Because of the interaction of the laws
of uniformity and diversity in heredity, it is
not possible always to predict just what physical
characteristics will be transmitted. Health, or
disease, or organic peculiarities may not recur,
inherent intellectual or moral qualities may not
always be transmitted ; " but," says Dr. Elam, " an
acqiih'ed and habitual vice zvill rarely fail to leave
its trace upon one or more of the offspring, either in
its original form or one closely allied. . . . The
habit of the parent becomes the all but irresistible
instinct of the child ; the voluntarily adopted and
cherished vice of the father or mother becomes
the overpowering impulse of the son or daughter ;
the organic tendency is excited to the uttermost,
and the power of will and of conscience is pro-
portionately weakened, — weighty considerations in
forming a judgment on the responsibility of those
so fatally affected by this direct inheritance of
crime. And so it is by a natural law, and not
by any arbitrary or unjust interpolation of divine
vengeance, that the sins of the parents are visited
upon the children, — that the fathers eat sour
grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." ^

1 A Physician'' s Problems, Elam, p. 5.

CHAPTER IV

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY

The subject of heredity becomes far more
interesting and more complicated when we ap-
proach the sphere of mind. Physical illustra-
tions are more easily verified than mental and
moral. Many that unhesitatingly grant the oper-
ation of this law in the bodily organism strenu-
ously deny that its action can be traced in the
realm of intellect and morals. But examples of
intellectual and moral heredity are not difficult
to find. The influence of ancestry on those now
living is freely acknowledged by nearly all great
educators and religious teachers. Ribot says :
" This [heredity] holds good also of psychical
qualities : a given animal possesses not only the
general instincts of the species, but also the
peculiar instincts of the race. The negro inher-
its not only the psychological faculties which are
common to all men, but also a certain peculiar
form of mental constitution, namely, an excess
of sensibility and imagination, sensual tendencies,
etc." 1

1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 144.
35

36

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Dr. Moore says : " Our education may be said
to begin with our forefathers. The child of the
morally instructed is most capable of instruction,
and intellectual excellence is generally the result
of ages of mental cultivation.

" Sir A. Carlisle says that many years since an
old schoolmaster told him that, in the course of
his personal experience, he had observed a re-
markable difference in the capacities of children
for learning, which was connected with the educa-
tion and aptitude of their parents ; that the chil-
dren of people accustomed to arithmetic learned
figures quicker than those of differently edu-
cated persons ; while the children of classical
scholars more easily learned Latin and Greek ;
and that, notwithstanding a few striking excep-
tions, the natural dulness of children born of
uneducated parents was proverbial." ^ "I think,"
says a careful observer, " the hereditary powers
will generally be found best calculated to do that
which the parents, through successive generations,
have done." ^

The investigations of biologists have been de-
voted to physiological rather than to psychological
phenomena; but another class of investigators

^ A Physician''s Problems, Elam, pp. 32, 33.
2 Ibid. p. 33.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY

37

have, with Hke care, studied the action of the
law in the region of the mind. This inquiry
brings us no doubt to questions at issue between
materiahsts and spirituaHsts, but the answer is
unaffected by that discussion. If mind is the
product of matter, and heredity is a physiological
law, then of course it concerns the whole man.
If the spiritual nature is independent, if it dwells
in the body as a man in his house, then there are
distinct phenomena to which the appeal can be
made. If, in the third place, there is a mutual
relation between the body and the mind, if each
modifies the other, and heredity is a law of the
material organism, then it must also be a law
which so intimately concerns the mind's action as
to make its study essential to any scheme of spir-
itual philosophy. The investigations of Galton
are almost entirely in the sphere of mind, and
he has certainly shown that mental and moral
characteristics are hereditary ; that a child resem-
bles its parents quite as closely in mind as in body.
In tables illustrating the heredity of the imagi-
nation, I find a list of fifty-one of the most eminent
poets of the world, and of that number twenty-two
are known to have had illustrious relatives. Prob-
ably many more of them had relatives who pos-
sessed the soul of genius, without the opportunity

38 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

for its manifestation. The family of yEschylus
numbered eight poets. Burns had his mother's
sensibiUty.

Coleridge was a poet and a metaphysician. The
following abridged list of his descendants is taken
from Galton. His son Hartley was also a poet,
and subject in his precocious childhood to visions.
His imagination was singularly vivid, and of a
morbid character. He inherited also his father's
love for stimulants. The Rev. Derwent Coleridge,
another son, was an author likewise, and principal
of the Chelsea Training College. The daughter,
Sara, was also a writer, and possessed all her
father's individual characteristics. She married
her cousin, and of this union was born Herbert
Coleridge, a philologist. If, now, the lineages of
Goethe, Hugo, Milton, etc., are studied, it will
hardly need an argument to show that heredity
works among the poets.

Among artists, it is sufficient to note that Flax-
man was the son of a moulder of plaster casts ;
Thorwaldsen was the son of a poor sculptor ; and
Raphael's father was a painter, as was also the
mother of Vandyke ; but the law may be studied
further in the families of Bassano and Bellini,
Paul Veronese, Carracci, Murillo, Teniers, Titian,
and Van Der Velde.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY 39

^he hereditary character of musical talent is
well known. Allegri, author of the " Miserere,"
was of the same family as Correggio the painter,
and the artistic talents are probably radically one,
whether they be manifested in rh3^thm, in colour,
or in sweet sounds. Andrea Amati was only the
most illustrious member of a family of violinists
at Cremona ; Mozart's father was a violinist ;
Beethoven was the son of a tenor singer ; and
Mendelssohn was of a musical family. The Bachs
supply perhaps the most distinguished instance of
mental heredity on record. The family began in
1550, and lasted through eight generations, to the
year 1800. During a period of nearly two hun-
dred years it produced a number of artists of the
first rank. There is no other instance of so many^
remarkable talents in a single family. Its head
was Weit Bach, a baker of Presburg, who used
to seek relaxation from labour in music and song.
He had two sons, who commenced the unbroken
line of musicians of the same name that, for nearly
two centuries, may be said to have overrun Thu-
ringia, Saxony, and Franconia. They were all
organists or church singers. When they had be-
come too numerous to live near each other, and
the members of the family were scattered abroad,
they resolved to meet once a year on a stated day,

40

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

with a view to keeping up a sort of patriarchal
bond of union. This custom was continued until
nearly the middle of the eighteenth century, and
very often there gathered together more than one
hundred persons bearing the name of Bach —
men, women, and children. In this family are
mentioned twenty-nine eminent musicians. Fetis,
in his " Dictionnaire Biographique," mentions fifty-
seven members of this family.

As further evidence of mental heredity note,
among scientists, the families of Aristotle, Bacon,
Bentham, and James Watt; and among men of
letters, the families of Addison, Thomas Arnold,
Hallam, Macaulay, Seneca, and Madame de Stael.
Dr. Galton attempted to prove that genius is
hereditary. The following are samples of his
many illustrations.

The Adams Family.^
John Adams, second President of the United States.
John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States.
Charles Francis Adams, Minister to England, etc.
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., scholar and statesman.
John Quincy Adams, son of Charles Francis, student of social

problems.

The Darwin Family. ^

Dr. Erasmus Darwin, physician, physiologist, and poet ; his
father a man of letters, eminent in his time.

'^Hereditary Genius, Galton, p. 124. "^ Ibid. p. 209,

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY ^j

Charles Darwin, son of Erasmus, died young after having
won the gold medal of Edinburgh University for a medi-
cal essay.

Dr. Robert Darwin of Shrewsbury, also a son of Erasmus,
an eminent physician.

Charles Darwin, the illustrious modern naturalist, grandson
of Erasmus : one of his sons was second wrangler at
Cambridge in 1868, and is a Professor of Mathematics
there ; another was second in the Woolwich examina-
tion of the same year, while a third is a distinguished
teacher of botany at Cambridge.

M. E. Caro, of the Institute of France, review-
ing this part of his work, argues that Galton has
not proved genius to be hereditary, but simply
that special faculties are transmitted. He says
the solitary great men, like Bossuet, Pascal,
Byron, Goethe, Dante, Shakespeare, cannot be
accounted for either by organic evolution, the in-
tellectual medium, or generation. " To this day
the great gift of inspiration in science, poetry,
and art has not revealed its secret. Those sover-
eign minds, precisely by what they possess that
is incommunicable, rise high and alone above the
flood of generations which precede and follow
them, and, by reason of this superior side of their
nature, they do not belong to nature. Those
exalted originals in mind who tower above man-
kind have no fathers and leave no sons in the

42 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

blood. Notwithstanding Mr. Galton, the least
hereditary thing in the world is genius." ^ But
M. Caro's conclusions do not affect the law of
heredity; he only maintains that the examples
of loftiest genius are exceptions to the law and
unaccounted for by any law. Who might not ask
himself, what law of heredity can account for
Martin Luther and John Calvin, for Shakespeare
and Wordsworth, for Florence Nightingale and
Abraham Lincoln ? In attempting to account
for these, it must be remembered that sons are
quite as likely to resemble their mothers as their
fathers. The mothers of great men are usually
unknown; and what genius and power among
women have been shut out of sight of the world,
or perhaps, alas, suppressed, history does not
tell. We know that Commodus resembled Faus-
tina and not Aurelius ; that Caligula was not
like his father, but the very picture of his detesta-
ble mother, Agrippina; we know that Napoleon
IL was as much like the weak Marie Louise, as
Napoleon L was like the magnificently strong and
brave Letizia Ramolino ; we know that Goethe
resembled his mother, and that Lord Byron re-
ceived, if not his genius, certainly his temper and
uncontrollable passion, from the maternal side.

^ Popular Science Monthly, December, 1883.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY 43

Now, great men are more apt than others to
marry mediocre or inferior wives. They are
attracted by what they do not find in themselves.
As a consequence, their children are not their
equals ; their greatness has been diluted. The
children are not like themselves alone or their an-
cestors, but like their wives and the families from
which the latter sprang. Still, eliminating that
which is usually ascribed to genius, and compar-
ing characters, habits, and ways of doing things,
children invariably resemble their parents more
than they differ from them.

So far as our knowledge goes at present,
after every ancestral allowance has been made,
certain lonely great souls still rise above human-
ity, as the Alps and Andes above the earth.
The genesis of genius is as mysterious as the
genesis of life. If there is a law of heredity,
the evidence for its operation in the sphere of
mind is as clear, as positive, and as complete
as the evidence of its operation in the sphere
of matter.

Physical characteristics, we have seen, are trans-
mitted, and education and accident often make
their impress upon children. Thus far we have
been only advancing toward the fact that the
moral nature of man is subject to hereditary law.

44 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

In making this plain we shall study the action of
heredity in pauperism, vice, and crime.

The moral nature is subject to hereditary law.
It is so in the sense that a disposition, a habib
of the will, a condition of temperament, may be
transmitted, and may become a force so strong
as to be almost irresistible. Lecky says : " There
are men whose whole lives are spent in willing
one thing and der>iring the opposite," which is
only a variation of the apostle's words, " But I
see another law in my members, warring against
the law in my mind." (Romans vii. 23.)

James I. of England and VI. of Scotland is
one of the most mournful figures in English
annals. How could it be otherwise with the son
of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her first cousin,
Darnley, whom she married when she was only
nineteen years of age .-'

It was not strange that Agrippina, wife of
Germanicus, should have been the mother of
Caligula, and of that still more detestable Agrip-
pina, the mother of Nero. Nor was it strange
that Domitius, who married the second Agrippina,
should have said that from himself and his wife
nothing good could come.^

Lord Byron's mother is thus described : " Little

1 Parejits" Guide^ Mrs. Hester Pendleton, p. 32.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY

45

is known of the early history of Mrs. Byron, but
quite enough of the extraordinary violence of her
temper, and its effects upon her health after any
sudden explosion of choler, to warrant the belief
that some cerebral disease occasioned that degree
of excitability which is quite unparalleled in the
history of any lady of sane mind." ^ It is not
strange that Macaulay could write of a man born
of such a mother : " Never had any writer so vast
a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, mis-
anthropy, and despair. That Marah was never
dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts could
exhaustj its perennial waters of bitterness. Never
was there such variety in monotony as that of
Byron. From maniac laughter to piercing lam-
entation, there was not a single note of human
anguish of which he was not master." ^

The law of heredity in its relation to pauperism
and crime has been exhaustively treated by R. L.
Dugdale, in his little monograph, entitled " The
Jukes^' in which the unhappy descendants of one
neglected and vicious girl are traced through
many generations. It is a book to be carefully
studied by all interested in the relation of sociol-
ogy to theology. Its facts are almost too terrible
to be summarized. It shows that a very large pro-
1 Parents' Guide, Mrs. Hester Pendleton, p. 21. ^ /^/(/. p_ 22.

46

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

portion of the descendants of this woman became
licentious, in the course of six generations 52.40
per cent, of the females being harlots and 23.50 per
cent, of the children illegitimate ; that there were
7.50 times more paupers among the women than
among the average women of the State, and nine
times more paupers among the male descendants
than among the average men of the State, while
of the sick among them 56.47 were paupers.
Of seven hundred cases examined, two hundred
and eighty became pauperized adults ; and this
study covered but about one-third of the family.
Moreover, of these seven hundred only twenty-
two had acquired property, and eight of those
had lost what they had gained. Seventy-six
are known to have been convicted of crimes
and punished, while it is scarcely to be doubted
that more than double that number were really
criminals. The diseases from which they suffered
were among the most terrible and debasing known
to the medical profession ; in other words, the
unmistakable wages of sin.^ It is possible that
this is an exceptional case, but it is more than

^ The result of the investigations of Mr. Dugdale have been
before the pubhc for several years. They are repeated here in the
hope that they may possibly reach some readers who may not be
acquainted with his almost startling little book.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY

47

probable that the records of crime in other States
would show cases equally striking.

If any law is well established it is the law of
heredity, as manifested in the transmission of qual-
ities and tendencies that lead to vice, pauperism,
and crime. Indeed, much of pauperism is only
one manifestation, and much of vice is largely the
outcome, of physical disease, the hereditary nature
of which we have already discovered. A large
proportion of the dangerous classes have received
from a vicious ancestry qualities and tendencies
which, with their environment, they are almost
powerless to resist. That which is the heritage
of intemperate and licentious parents, — a weak-
ened vital state which almost destroys ambition
and makes labour seem impossible, — society de-
nounces as laziness. But we are always at first
what others make us. Our parents determine the
time and place of our birth, and the surroundings
into which we shall come, and from them, or
through them, come our characteristics. The vir-
tues and vices of those who have lived in other
ages reach into our time and affect us. Disease,
habit, moral and intellectual tendencies and qual-
ities, vices and virtues, all are in the stream of
heritage which comes from the past. There are
exceptions, no doubt, to this law, and in it are

48 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

many "unexplored remainders." For a time, and
for no manifest reason, one quality will neutralize
another ; but the great fact remains beyond chal-
lenge that the past is at work in the present, its
power reaching down through the ages, to all the
race, modifying every human life, touching and
influencing every individual's thought and will,
and, more than any other force, colouring history.
A question of tremendous import arises at this
point. Is heredity as active in the direction of
blessing as of bane .'' Is a tendency toward virtue
as surely transmitted as a tendency toward vice .-'
We should expect the law to work impartially
whether for good or for ill ; yet, as a matter of
fact, the most striking examples of heredity seem
to be in the line of evil. There are special rea-
sons for this. A process of decay is always more
rapid than a process of growth. An apple rots
more quickly than it ripens. The spread of poison
in the blood is quicker than its possible eradication
from the system. There is nothing to indicate
that a perfectly pure and virtuous man would not
as surely and readily transmit a tendency toward
purity and virtue as some men do toward the
opposites of these ; but no man is perfectly pure
and virtuous. All are more or less corrupted and
perverted. A transmitted nature carries with it

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY 40

the taints, the specks of decay, which have existed
in the parents or been handed down from ances-
tors ; and those degenerative tendencies will, in
the nature of the case, work faster than the re-
deeming, constructive ones. A tainted nature,
such as science, as well as religion, assures us
that we all have, will reproduce itself and its seeds
of death with it. That which is born of the spirit
is spirit ; but that which is born of spirit tainted
by the corruptions of the flesh is still tainted.
The best are only struggling upward. The presi-
dent of a great university said he would give
years of his life if he could forget the scenes
and thoughts which came to him from his youth.
Forces inside tend downward, and forces outside
co-operate. Therefore the operation of this law
in a redemptive process must be slower than its
operation in a deteriorating process, and spiritual
heredity will assert itself less quickly than sensual
heredity. Moreover, it is not to be forgotten that
it is rarely possible for virtuous conduct to produce
radical organic improvement in the body, while
bodily degeneration, and consequent structural
changes in the reproductive cells, are among the
most common effects of courses of vice. Further-
more, the time of reproduction in the human spe-
cies is largely when the passions are hot, and

CO HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

before the influences of religion have had time
to complete their work. A man may have been
a drunkard from his twentieth to his twenty-fifth
year. Then, reforming, he lives an exemplary
life. At thirty he marries, and becomes a father

— a father with a pure will, but with a physical
nature from which the poison of alcohol is not yet
purged. His child may be born with a thirst for
stimulants. Still the thirst is weaker than it
would have been had he been born five years
before. The tendency downward is not so strong,
and the tendency upward is stronger. The child,
however, partakes of the double nature of the
parent — a struggling moral nature and a tainted
physical nature. It may be that new circumstances
have given an opportunity for latent germs of evil
tendency, which started first in his grandfather, to
manifest themselves in him. Beyond a doubt such
experiences are common in the physical organism

— why should they not be manifest also in a
tainted moral nature pointing toward some long-
forgotten vice .''

I conclude, then, that the sweep of this law
is the same in the spiritual as in the physical
sphere. None the less, however, must the re-
demption of the world, as distinguished from that
of individuals, be sought by the bringing into

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY

51

life, in Christian homes, of a higher spiritual
stock, who, in turn, shall produce their own kind,
free from the bondage of the body.

Over against the advantage that evil seems to
have over good, however, is to be set a more
hopeful fact. It is, that evil always carries within
itself the seeds of decay, but that virtue and truth
have in themselves seeds of endurance and
growth. This truth never had more forcible ex-
pression than in the Ten Commandments, which
distinctly state that the consequences of sin run
through three and four generations, while the
results of righteousness endure to a thousand
generations. Wrong-doing may work ruin more
swiftly than virtue works blessedness, but the
result of the latter is more lasting. A father may
commit a crime and the taint of the evil may be
in his blood, but it will be purged from it in time,
while his virtues will continue their blessed influ-
ence long after the results of his evil have disap-
peared. This is one of the facts which tend to
make men optimists. It shows that heredity is
a potent factor in the regeneration, as it is also
sometimes in the degeneration, of the world. It
works for good under difficulty at present, owing
to the deep-seated taint in human nature. It
will achieve redemption far more speedily as that

C2 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

taint grows less and less. Nature may be severe,
but she is neither cruel nor malign. In the long
run her processes always work blessing for the
race. No child is condemned because of the sin
of his parents, and though many suffer because
of such sins, yet the successive generations are
quickly taken in hand by nature, and sooner or
later purified from hereditary taint — a redemptive
process that has received too little attention from
the writers of our theologies and theodicies.

CHAPTER V

ENVIRONMENT

Men start out, then, in existence with a vital
capital supplied by their ancestry, which is modi-
fied more or less by the law of diversity. From
the moment that individual life begins, however, —
not merely from birth, — another factor becomes
the supremely important one ; supremely im-
portant, not because it is necessarily dominant,
but because it is the only one at that stage under
human control. This factor, therefore, the factor
of environment, compels the attention of every
student of sociology and religion. Indeed, it may
be doubted if the part played by it in civilization
is not even greater than that played by heredity.
Side by side with the latter is this other influence,
at once modifying it and being modified by it, —
the influence of the environment in which the
human being is placed. The tendencies of every
man are fixed before he sees the light ; the actu-
ality of every man — his very character, in fact —
is always more or less determined by the condi-
tions of his birth and life. Environment, then,

53

CA HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

is " the sum of the influences and agencies which
affect an organism from without."^ It is the sum
' of all that is extrinsic to a human being, and which
in any way touches or influences him from the
beginning of his career.

Among the influences which have most to do
with human growth are, the soil and climate, the
food the man eats, the amount of work he is com-
pelled to do, the degree of civilization at the time,
the state of morals in society, and the examples
and ideals which he most frequently sees. Other
causes — some good, some evil, some mixed —
also play their part in deflecting him from the
course on which he originally started. Illustra-
tions of the effects of environment in the lower
orders of life, among animals and plants, are most
abundant and beautiful, but they are not within
the scope of this book ; those desiring to pursue
this line of investigation are referred to the works
of the great modern naturalists, especially the
English and German. We have to do with en-
vironment in its relation to the life of man as a
moral being and a member of society ; and con-
cerning this there is little difference of opinion
between the various schools of scientific thought.
There is general agreement that, mighty as is the

^ Century Dictionary.

ENVIRONMENT 55

agency of heredity, it can be, and usually is, modi-
fied, for good or for evil, by environment. The
action of Jacob in putting rods before the eyes of
Laban's cattle, that the strong ones might have
offspring " ring-streaked," shows that the crafty
patriarch understood the influence of surround-
ings on the life and physical appearance of
animals.^ And the care with which the laws of
Moses dealt with the sanitary and hygienic con-
dition of the people in the Exodus shows that the
Hebrew lawgiver knew that there was a vital re-
lation between the circumstances in which human
beings live and their moral and spiritual character.
Climate is one of the most potent factors in
•the moulding of character. Differences in the
nature of men are largely the result of the con-
test between the individual and the various ele-
mental forces and influences, in which he is but
partially successful, and by which " he becomes
unnaturally or morbidly removed from the primi-
tive type." All a man's circumstances help to
determine his life and the character of his diver-
gence from the original type. The effect of cli-
mate is evident and easy of observation. Those
that live in malarial regions bear the marks of
their residence in their bodies and send them
1 Genesis xxx. 25-41.

56 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

down the generations. There are amazing differ-
ences between the Esquimau, gorging himself with
whale-blubber, and the refined and subtle thinkers
among the Brahmins in India. Italians and Afri-
cans carry within themselves something of the
heat of southern and tropical suns. Germans
and Swedes, like their climate, are cooler. There
is gradually accomplished a physical change in
those who live in the tropics. Heat makes exer-
tion difficult; hence the intense and continued
activity of northern people is seldom known in
the south. If a dweller among the tropics re-
moves to a northern zone, in due time his physi-
cal constitution, and with it his moral also, is
modified. In other words, life adjusts itself to
environment.

One of the most curious of the illustrations of
the effect of climate upon bodily constitution is
that of the Ouechua Indians, of the lofty plains
of Peru. From the constant inhalation of the
air at a very high altitude their chests and lungs
gradually became extraordinarily developed, the
cells being larger and more numerous than
among Europeans. " Mr. D. Forbes," says Dar-
win, " carefully measured many Aymaras, an
allied race living at a height of between ten and
fifteen thousand feet, and he informs me that

ENVIRONMENT cy

they differ conspicuously from the men of all
other races seen by him in the circumference and
length of their bodies. In his table of measure-
ments, the stature of each man is taken at one
thousand, and the other measurements are re-
duced to this standard. It is here seen that the
extended arms of the Aymaras are shorter than
those of Europeans, and much shorter than
those of the negroes. The legs are likewise
shorter." ^ Those huge lungs developed at the
expense of other parts led Mr. Darwin to con-
clude that there can be " no doubt but that resi-
dence during many generations at a great elevation
tends, both directly and indirectly, to induce in-
herited modifications in the proportions of the
body." 2 It is well known that Europeans and
Americans cannot long live in many parts of
Africa where the natives thrive. Among all
examples of climatic influence few are more im-
pressive than the following, concerning those
whose days are passed among salt marshes :
"Visiting the village of Hiers," says M. Melier,
"we saw children of twelve years of age who
appeared but six or eight, so puny and undevel-
oped were they. Their dirty gray colour is not
only pale, but, as it were, tarnished. Meagre

1 Descent of Man, Darwin, p. 34. 2 /^^^ p_ ^^

c8 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

in limb and swelled in feature, they have only
the abdomen developed, and almost all have in-
curable congestions. For a long time the canton
was unable to furnish the military contingent.
The greater part of the young men were rejected
either for defect of stature or on account of gen-
eral feebleness. It often happened that amongst
those drawn not one was found fit for service. It
has occurred also that in certain years not one re-
mained of the prescribed class ; none had arrived
at the age required ; all were dead, for the most
part in their infancy. . . . The aspect of the
country, and of the race that inhabits it, carries
deep sadness to the mind of the observer. It is
a tomb, on the borders of which the inhabitants
spend a weary existence, and seem daily to meas-
ure its depths. They are aged at thirty ; broken
and decrepit at fifty." ^

Such an environment must leave its impress
on the body, and its effect be transmitted to off-
spring. Those living amidst it will find not only
their physical constitution affected, but their
higher nature also. They will necessarily see
everything in a different way from those who live
in the midst of health and beauty. God, life, duty,
will all inevitably be coloured a dismal, deadly

^ Quoted in A Physician's Probleins, Elam, p. lOO.

ENVIRONMENT 59

shade, peculiar to their conditions of life; and
to expect such people to see things in the same
light as we see them, or to hold them to the same
accountability, is, to say the least, unreasonable.

Climate, however, is but one of many elements
of environment. Illustrations of the influence of
trades and modes of life on human development
are familiar to all readers of Darwin's " Descent of
Man," Watchmakers and engravers are proverbi-
ally near-sighted, while those who live much in the
open air are long-sighted. " Short-sight and long-
sight certainly tend to be inherited." ^ Europeans
are inferior to savages in the strength and clear-
ness of their sight, and this is probably due to the
indoor life of the people, and to the transmission
from generation to generation of the effect of the
less frequent use of the eyes for observing objects
at long distances. Blumenbach, as reported by
Darwin, has observed that the nasal cavities in the
skull of American Indians are unusually large,
and connects this fact with their wonderful power
of detecting objects by the sense of smell.^ It is
said that the Mongolians of Northern Asia have
well-nigh perfect senses, and it has been inferred
that " the great breadth of their skulls across the

1 Descent of Man, Darwin, p. 1,^.

2 Ibid. p. 34.

5o HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

zygomas " is the result of the perfection of their
organs of sense.^

Then the whole life of man is influenced by the
amount and quality of food which he receives.
Cooks have much to do with the thinking and the
morals of the world. The state of society, whether
it is one of war or peace, also leaves its impress
on the character. It is well known that the
children born just after the French Revolution
were of a peculiarly nervous temperament ; and
the number of insane patients in France for some
years afterward was very great.

Environment may also put its impress on the
individual before his birth. It may either modify
or intensify heredity. The mother of Napoleon
was a woman well prepared by nature for such a
son. She accompanied her husband in his cam-
paigns, riding with the troops on horseback, and
encamping in a tent at night. Napoleon was born
in the midst of war, and the life of the mother
before his birth was passed in the midst of the
soldiery. He was a true son of Mars. On the
other hand, his son, whom he fondly hoped would
perpetuate his name, was weak, indolent, and
inefficient like his mother, Marie Louise. When
some one said to the Emperor, " Sire, the educa-

1 Descent of Man, Darwin, p. 34.

ENVIRONMENT 6j

tion of your son should be watched over with
great attention ; he must be educated so that
he may replace you," he replied, " Replace mc !
I could not replace myself ; I am the child of
circumstances." With equal truth he might have
said, " I am the child of Letizia Ramolino, while
my boy is the child of Marie Louise." The differ-
ence between Napoleon I. and Napoleon II. was
the difference between their mothers, multiplied
by the difference between their environments,
both before and after birth.

Let us now apply this general law in the sphere
of morals. We have seen how surroundings
affect the physical nature. A consumptive in
the East by the sea may become strong and well
in Colorado ; that is, a favourable environment
may counteract heredity. A well man from Colo-
rado may remove to the seaboard, and consump-
tion be developed, a tendency to which he may
transmit to his offspring ; that is, a bad environ-
ment may develop a pernicious heredity. So, too,
when a child of pure and noble parents is placed
in the midst of vice, it is probable that he will be
influenced by his surroundings, though less easily
than one of vicious parentage. So, in general,
those who live in the midst of virtue, refinement,
and culture are themselves refined, loving books,

62 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

music, art, and pure companions ; while those who
grow to manhood in the midst of ignorance are
usually content to be ignorant. On the other
hand, remove a child of vice and illegitimacy to
pure and refining influences ; he will probably be
influenced by the life about him, although the
struggle with his passions will be severer and
longer, and without the constant restraint of good
environment there will be great danger of a
relapse.

Some time ago one of our periodicals published
the story of a young woman who had been attached
to a missionary house in the tropics. Although
she had been educated in the habits of civilization,
after a time she returned to her own people, and
was soon living again in the nudity and savagery
that characterized her race. When she was with
Europeans, she adopted civilized customs ; when
she returned to her people, she reverted to theirs.
Her environment determined her habits.

The influence of heredity, however, should never
be forgotten. It is sometimes said that if two
children were exchanged in their cradles, a child
of the slums being put in the place of a child of
wealth and culture, the former would grow up
cultivated and refined and the latter coarse and
degraded. It is quite probable ; yet, the conclu-

ENVIRONMENT

63

sion that the outcome was due to environment
alone would not be inevitable until it was proved
that the two children were true representatives of
their respective classes. In the midst of the slums
are not a few persons of natural refinement who
have been carried down by sheer misfortune ; and
it is well known that many who are rich and intel-
lectually cultivated are morally weak — and some
of them vile. The child of the coarse rich will
gravitate downward as naturally as a child born
of the lower classes ; and the child having good
blood in his veins will naturally rise, even though
born in the slums. The influence of environment
is strong enough without having ascribed to it the
effects of heredity also.

This allowance being made, one broad fact
remains. A child born in a swarming tenement
where pauperism and crime abound ; where a
dozen people sometimes live in a single room ;
where both parents are intemperate ; where words
and actions are alike vile ; where gin palaces con-
stantly invite ; where there is only poor food to
eat, and liquor is given even to infants, must be a
totally different being in tendencies, in desires, and
in ability, from a child of pure parents, born in a
Christian home, where the surroundings make for
righteousness, and where good food, pure air, and

64

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

abundance of sunlight are ministers of health. To
class such differently nurtured children together,
and hold them to the same standards of responsi-
bility, is in accordance neither with common sense
nor common morality.

I proceed now to inquire which is the stronger
force in determining character, heredity or environ-
ment ? If I understand Ribot, he adopts the views
of Burdach, which he quotes as follows : " Hered-
ity has actually more power over our mental con-
stitution and our character than all external
influences, physical or moral." ^ Again Ribot
says : " We restrict education, as we think, within
its just limits when we say that its power is never
absolute, and that it exerts no efficacious action
except upon mediocre natures." ^ Again: "We
must ever bear in mind these facts, and be careful
not to believe that education explains everything.
We would not, however, in the least detract from
its importance. Education, after centuries of
effort, has made us what we are. Moreover, to
bear sway over average minds is in itself a grand
part to play ; for though it is the higher minds
that act, it is mediocre minds that react, and his-
tory teaches that the progress of humanity is as
much the result of the reactions which communi-

1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 346. 2 Jbid^ p. ^^g.

i

'■A I

ENVIRONMENT 65

cate motion, as of the actions which first determine
it." ^ The idea of Ribot is that the thousands of
years of peculiar environment of separate races
has not made very radical changes in the nature
of those races. It would appear from his con-
clusion that Carlyle was right when he said,
" Civilization is only a covering underneath which
the savage nature of man continually burns with
an infernal fire."

Be the case with men of genius as it may, my
own observations — and this is a phase of the
subject that any observing person can study —
have led me to the firm conclusion that, with
men in general, where there is no organic defect,
as in insanity or idiocy, environment is the stronger
force ; but that where there is such defect, hered-
ity is the dominating factor. Indeed, I think the
testimony of all workers for the reform of the
vicious and outcast is in substantial accord on
this point. The moral instructor of the Massa-
chusetts Reformatory told me that more than
eighty per cent, of the inmates of that institution
after discharge live honourable lives, at least to the
extent that they are never again committed for
crime. On the other hand, it is well known that
a large proportion of those who are sent to the

1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 351.
F

66 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

state prisons return. The difference between the
two classes is not due, probably, in the slightest
degree to differences of moral heritage, but is due
entirely to the difference in nature between the
Reformatory, which seeks by good surroundings,
education, and moral influences to develop the
latent manhood in the convict, and the average
prison, which is merely a place of punishment.
The experience of such organizations as the Chil-
dren's Aid Society, which seeks to save children
by placing them in new and better conditions,
points to the same conclusion ; it all is favourable
to the theory that environment will modify hered-
ity, and when given a fair chance has power to
redeem it. It has been proved, for example, that
the evils of illegitimacy may be largely counter-
acted by education and healthful association.
Improvement in environment means the purifi-
cation of heritage. Bad lineage does not neces-
sarily doom a child, but it makes the chances
almost infinite that unless the conditions of his
life be changed, depravity will continue. It does
not determine the destiny by itself alone, but it
will do so if not counteracted. Usually improved
circumstances result in a corresponding elevation
of character and life. However vile a child's
ancestry may be, if he is placed where every-

i

ENVIRONMENT 6/

thing that he sees and hears becomes a motive to
purity and honour, the good in him will be stim-
ulated and will increase, the evil will be repressed,
and habits of virtue and righteousness will be
formed, — the fair promise of virtuous maturity.
If this were not true, the good would reproduce
the good, the tainted the tainted, and the vile the
vile, to the end of time, and redemption there
could be none, except, perchance, by the direct
intervention of the Almighty. In my opinion all
that makes life worth living for many, and all that
saves from pessimism those who are possessed
with enthusiasm for humanity, is the fact that
heredity, when there is no incurable structural
defect, may be modified by environment; that
there is always something in a human being which
can respond to education and religion, and which
may be expected to respond to them when circum-
stances do not obstruct. Even Ribot, who seems
not to appreciate the commanding position that,
owing to the conflicting elements in heredity, envi-
ronment holds, feels obliged to confess that it " has
made us what we are." That may be an overstate-
ment, for the last word on evolution and the prim-
itive endowment of man has not yet been spoken ;
but it seems indubitable that on this modifying
and elevating power of environment depends very

68 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

largely the possibility of reform, of civilization,
and of religion. If heredity cannot be overcome,
philanthropic work is a futile grappling with fate.
That it can be modified, and the evil in it con-
quered, is beyond a reasonable doubt. With even
the worst ancestry the influence of good surround-
ings, the presence of high and fine ideals, and
sometimes even hatred of the stream of tendency,
may make what wouid otherwise have been a man-
ifestation of evil, the white flower of beautiful and
beneficent character. No one should despair be-
cause of evil in his blood. Such taints should be
recognized, and their development guarded against;
but no stream of heredity is either all good or all
bad. If circumstances favour the evil, the evil
will probably appear in character and conduct ; if
the environment favours the growth of the tenden-
cies toward rectitude and purity, the evil will go
out of sight and out of power to harm, and virtue
will prevail. In every soul there are two foun-
tains, one of sweet, and one of bitter waters ;
which of these shall prevail and flood the spirit
depends on the outlet afforded to each, and if the
individual develops in holiness, it depends also
more and more on his own sovereign will.

The importance of reaching the forces of he-
redity as early as possible with right training is

ENVIRONMENT.

69

evident. Delay means opportunity for evil envi-
ronment to appeal to evil in the soul. The nearer
to the moment of birth the influence of purity,
healthfulness, and religion can be brought, the
greater the probability that they will become pre-
dominant forces in determining character and con-
duct

CHAPTER VI

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL

The question which underlies all morality is this
— Is man really a responsible being, or is he the
mere product of his ancestry and a combination of
circumstances ? Does he act automatically accord-
ing to tendencies inherited or impressed upon him,
or is there within each man something other than
the ancestral and the external factors ? The pre-
sumption certainly seems to be against the latter
alternative. If heredity determines the physical
features ; if it shows itself in the temper, the tem-
perament, and the intellectual individuality, what
reason is there to suppose that the will maintains
a lonely independence ? Indeed, what is the will ?
Is it a faculty, or department, of the personality ?
or is it an individual possession ? If it is the man
choosing, then all that influences the man must
influence the will. If he is born with a love of
the beautiful, he will choose to be surrounded by
things which will satisfy that taste. On the other
hand, if his parentage is vicious, and the streams
of heredity are bad, he will naturally, unless some

70

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL

n

almost miraculous power interferes, choose the
coarse and the evil. If the will is the man willing,
it must be modified by all that modifies the person-
ality. It seems at first as if we must grant that
the will of each human being is determined before
his birth, and that its choices are as sure as the
movements of the stars. If, however, we say that
the will is something independent of the other
faculties, something outside the influence of phys-
ical causation, we are met instantly with the
demand for evidence. It is not to be denied that,
approaching this subject as we have through a
study of the lower faculties, the presumption is
against such an hypothesis. There are facts, how-
ever, to support the hypothesis, and to overthrow
the presumption against it ; for not infrequently
men break from the lines in which they were born,
and seem to be almost independent of their ances-
try. Though they are the offspring of vicious
and criminal generations, they rise to pure and
even lofty character. Doubtless they have to fight
heredity, but they have a power which enables
them to fight it successfully. John Bunyan
belonged to this class ; Jerry McAuley, the thief
who, reversing a long career of crime, went to
his grave full of honour and usefulness, and most
of the converts made by the missionaries, all

72 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

show that, whatever the power of vicious heritage,
there was in these men a force sufficient for its
resistance. The example of Marcus AureHus is in
point. He was a descendant of a long line of
vicious ancestors, and yet his life was like a white
flower in the midst of a world of pollution. The
principle of atavism complicates our problem.
Ribot cites an instance of a murderous disposition
reappearing in a granddaughter who had a homi-
cidal mania, although her parents were apparently
free from any such taint.^ If a man born of
pure and honourable parentage is likely to be as-
sailed with evil from remote generations which he
cannot resist, what place is left for free will .-' In
considering this question two broad facts are to be
kept in mind.

(i) The relation of body and will cannot be
determined by physiological or biological science,
so far as can now be seen. I make this state-
ment in the full recognition of the claims which
have recently been made that the phenomena of
the will may be explained by physiological exper-
iments ; for it is well known that in the midst
of the most morbid physical conditions arise often
the finest specimens of manly character.

(2) All such discussions as that of Edwards'

1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 92.

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL 73

"On the Will," and the essays of the philosophers
and theologians of a century ago, are more or
less to one side of the question of to-day. The
probable correctness of the theory of evolution
presents problems which must be solved before
the earlier speculations can be considered. The
will must now be viewed in connection with fac-
tors introduced by physical science. Anything
that ignores these has no claim on the thought
of a nineteenth-century student. The ability to
choose is a fact the explanation of which is not
yet in sight. With the present data it is doubtful
if anything more can be done than to collect and
collate evidence bearing on the subject, and thus
take some steps toward a rational explanation.

I. It is evident that choices, whether they be
the whole man willing or the action of a separate
faculty, while they may not be determined by
heredity, nor formed by environment, must be
more or less influenced by them. Perhaps there
is no stronger or truer illustration of this state-
ment than is found in " Elsie Venner," which is
probably only a leaf from a physician's expe-
rience. That was a case of the influence of
prenatal environment. The beautiful, untamable
girl's character was shaped, and her career
determined, by an experience of her mother's

74

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

— the bite of a serpent — before her child's
birth. The daughter was, of course, utterly-
passive and irresponsible at the time ; how far
was she responsible as she grew up ? How far
was her conduct under her control ? Was there
any power within her that could say to those
tendencies reaching back to the time before birth,
" Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther " ?
As developed by Dr. Holmes, no room is left
for an affirmative reply. Choices, no doubt, are
usually according to the motives presented ; but
motives have power, not according to any inher-
ent force, but according to the response awak-
ened in the one upon whom they act. One is
born of sensual parents, with a strong animal
nature ; another is almost free from animal ten-
dencies. It needs no argument to show that
while one will respond readily and naturally to
the seductions of sensuality, the other will turn
with little or no effort to the contemplation of
intellectual or spiritual beauty. Each naturally
goes to his own place. If desire, or aptitude,
has anything to do with the determination of
choices, then the probability is that men will
choose according to their desires. We may go
further, and say that, unless the prospect of
some higher good is introduced, men will always

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL 75

choose according to those desires that are deter-
mined either by heredity or by some experience
that has overcome heredity.

Let us now consider some ilkistrations which
show that choices are modified by heredity. The
facts would probably not be doubted by many care-
ful students of human life. The question whether
acquired characteristics can be transmitted, touches
only the particular kind of influence that may be
exerted over one generation by its predecessors.
If Dr. Weismann is right, and acquired traits are
never transmitted, it is still true, as he and all biol-
ogists teach, that natural traits and tendencies are
handed down, and that ancestral environment also
reaches a controlling hand to future generations
through its direct influence on the reproductive
cells.

Be the true scientific doctrine in the abstract
what it may, there is great unanimity in the belief
that children of drunkards inherit a taste for liquor.
They are born with diseased brain-cells. As a
tendency to certain forms of disease runs in cer-
tain families, so tendencies toward the appetites
and passions of parents appear in their offspring.
Those tendencies may not be resistless, but they
are real. When a child of drunken parents is
tempted to take liquor, there will be all the allure-

76 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

ments faced by the child of temperate parents,
plus a natural craving of which the latter knows
nothing, and the choice of the former will inevita-
bly be more or less influenced by his vital inheri-
tance. True, he may have been so shocked and
disgraced by what he has seen among those whom
he loves, that he abhors the sight of that which
has worked ruin for them. Even then, the case is
not changed. The grave fact is that the will is so
hedged around with influences and tendencies in
such cases, that it is impossible for us to call it
free. He who feels a burning thirst for liquor
may be said to be in a sense free to choose as he
thinks best, but what he will actually think best at
that moment will be determined in all probability
by his physical condition. Jonathan Edwards ar-
gued that the will is as the greatest apparent good.
That contention, though it antedated by a long
time the modern discoveries in heredity, is quite in
harmony with them ; for his famous dictum in the
/ last analysis means that men always choose what
seems best, which depends very much upon their
physical state at the moment of choice, and that is
very largely a matter of heredity.

The peculiar aptitudes of many for special stud-
ies are too well known to require more than men-
tion. A young man, free to choose his profession

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL 77

for himself, is yet born with a passion for music.
Wherever he goes sweet sounds start whole sym-
phonies in his soul, and discord is as painful as a
bodily hurt. That youth may choose to be a law-
yer or a merchant, but whatever choice he makes,
he will make it with a chorus of entreating voices
calling him toward music. In all likelihood he
will become a musician, even though the advice
of friends be against it, and all prospects of
worldly promotion invite him elsewhere. What
has decided his destiny ? His own choice. Yes,
— but what determined his choice .-* The fact, )
either that he was the son of musicians, or that
he has inherited tastes which, by the principle of
atavism, have skipped generations and reasserted
themselves in him.

The tendency towards sensuality is perhaps the
strongest of the innate tendencies. Sins against
purity are committed usually under a kind of spell.
The temptation has a hypnotic influence. Pas-
sion rises, and silently but swiftly pervades and
benumbs the moral faculties ; it hides the faces
of beseeching friends ; it dulls and deadens the
conscience ; it makes evil seem good, and, for the
moment, obliterates the memory of purity and
goodness. No power is so strong. Love is the
greatest blessing in the world when it is pure, but

78 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

it is a fury when it is inflamed with evil desire.
A man cherishes wife and child, church and home,
with real affection, and yet in a moment his star
has fallen, and he has committed an awful sin.
He is perfectly sincere in saying that he did not
mean to go astray, and that he hates his evil
ways. What, then, is the explanation .-* It is,
that in him were two men : one visible, frank,
open, manly, desiring good things; another out of
sight, and perhaps unknown, who is ever waiting
for an opportunity to rush into the field of con-
sciousness and manifest his vileness. Where did
that unknown man come from ? From where the
individual originated ; from the human life cur-
rent. St. Paul knew that unseen man well ; he
knew what it was to desire one thing and do
another. What I wish to make plain is, that this
friend of ours who has sinned so grievously was
not altogether a free man. In him by nature was
much of the animal, more, perhaps, than in the
average of men ; or, perhaps, his will was consti-
tutionally weak, and consequently less able to con-
trol the animal nature. Therefore his choices are,
largely, the choices of the still more animal ances-
tors whose evil influence has not been altogether
eliminated from his blood. It is hardly to be
doubted that a large proportion of those who fall

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL

79

into unchastity do so as the result of an impulse
which is inherited, and which is as much a part
of their being as the power of thought itself.
Why does some woman you know outrage de-
cency ? Let me answer by asking, Do you know
how her mother lived ? When you know that,
whether you blame her less or more, you will no
longer wonder. A few boys were playing in a
vacant lot in an eastern town. A quarrel arose,
and soon they were throwing stones. One was
hit, and ran home for his older brother. That
young man, a manly. Christian fellow, came to
where the little boys were, and, when one of them
made what seemed to him an insulting remark,
quick as thought knocked the little fellow down,
injuring him severely. Afterward, the young
man, deeply and really penitent, said, " I am so
quick tempered." He was indeed, but where did
he get his temper ? Did he coolly go to a shop
and purchase it .-• Such commodities are not on
sale. The father and mother of the youth sup-
ply the explanation. Two hands really struck
down the little boy : the visible hand of the
■ youth, and the unseen hand which reached out
of the past. The blame was laid on the former
alone ; but was he alone blameworthy } A slight
study of human life tends to make most persons

3o HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

charitable. If all real sin is in the will, sinners
are less guilty than many imagine.

Thus far we have been dealing with the plain
and simple facts of life concerning which there
is scarcely a possibility of disagreement; with
|i a class of facts that led Professor Huxley to
say that even murderers do what they cannot
avoid doing, and are no more worthy of punish-
ment than those who do what, in accordance
with traditional theories, are called virtuous acts.
It is evident that our thought is moving steadily
toward a problem which philosophers hesitate to
approach, and which theologians often gladly
ignore, nam.ely, the problem of the origin and
the contents of the personality. Is each soul
an emanation, fresh and unpolluted, from a divine
fountain of being } If so, the grave fact confronts
us that the divine in humanity is limited and
easily tainted ; and we naturally ask how environ-
ment could so swiftly and surely debase that which
is from God .-* Or, is the spiritual nature derived,
like the body, from parents and ancestors .-' What
then .-* Why, then, the laws of inheritance hold
sway in the realm of the spirit ; men are what
they were born. They are bundles of tendencies
handed down from the past, and all by nature
love what they were born to love, and do what

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL gi

they were born to do. This is precisely the
conclusion of materialism. It is not strange
that those who are exclusive students of physical
science are usually fatalists. There is no free-
dom if man is simply a product of his ancestry
and his environment. Hence we find Dr. Mauds-
ley saying : " There is a destiny made for a man
by his ancestors, and no one can elude, were
he able to attempt it, the tyranny of his organi-
zation." Again he says: '"The wicked are not
wicked by deliberate choice of the advantages
of wickedness, which are a delusion, or of the
pleasures of wickedness, which are a snare, but
by an inclination of their natures which makes
the evil good to them, and the good evil ; that
they choose the gratification of a present indul-
gence in spite of the chance or certainty of
future punishment and suffering, is often a proof,
not only of a natural affinity for evil, but of a
deficient understanding and a feeble will." It
is difficult to see how this conclusion can be
evaded. It is not a question of what should be,
but of what is. The intellect and the will may
be crippled as easily as the limbs. Where a
man is born with a weak will and strong animal
nature, his tendency will be toward animalism ;
but where, on the other hand, he is born with

82 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

a strong will and noble instincts, each choice
will place him higher in the scale of manhood.
This statement has the force of a demonstration :
choices are always more or less influenced by
heredity. Dr. Maudsley says again : " Crime is
not in all cases a simple affair of yielding to an
evil impulse or a vicious passion which might
be checked were ordinary control exercised ; it
is clearly sometimes the result of an actual
neurosis which has close relations of nature
and descent to other neuroses ; and this neurosis
is the physical result of physiological laws of
production and evolution. Why should we think
of man as possessed of a fixed moral and will
power any more than of a fixed intellectual
power } " The force of this reasoning is all but
irresistible.

II. It is only when we turn away from these
facts which, when the approach is made from
the side of physical science, seem the nearest
and most imperative, that we realize that there
is another realm whose phenomena are some-
what less distinct, perhaps, but no less certain
and commanding, — phenomena which modify con-
clusions that would otherwise be inevitable.

Some choices are clearly independent of, and
even in opposition to, both what is known of the

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL

83

individual's hereditary bias and what would be
expected from his environment. These lead us
into a new world, and to the study of a new set
of forces. By a distinct and evident act of choice,
when all known hereditary influence would keep
them where they are, men frequently repudiate
their old associations, and without the slightest
compulsion choose a new environment. I know
a coloured woman whose heritage is vicious, and
even criminal; furthermore, all the circumstances
in which she lived in childhood were such as
tended to the development of passion ; but not-
withstanding blood and environment, she has
turned from her old surroundings and her old
friends, and has made a new life for herself.
Almost single-handed, so far as can be seen, she
has created for herself new and finer conditions.
Some may call this an example of atavism. Yes,
perhaps, to some degree ; but atavism in a negress
can scarcely be very potent for spiritual develop-
ment : the ancestry carries a strong animalism.

Another case, in many respects still more re-
markable, is that of a woman whose home was
utterly distasteful to her ; there was not the least
love between herself and her husband. For years
the condition seemed to be growing worse, and
the disruption of the home seemed not improb-

§4 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

able ; at least she had no encouragement to think
that there would be any improvement in it. Sud-
denly a wonderful change came over that house-
hold. She faced the fact that if she did not
overcome the pernicious conditions, no one would.
So far as could be seen, jiot one human influence
touched her that had not been upon her for many
years. By a simple act of will she decided that
a new domestic life must begin ; and it did. A
more superb act of will I have never known. This
could scarcely have been atavism, for long before
that time her physical constitution had matured;
and it was not environment, for that was strongly
against the course which she adopted. Here is
a signal fact well worthy of scientific study, a fact
which those who were most perfectly acquainted
with it saw to be unrelated to any physical or
social cause. Maudsley insists that the will is
determined by causes rather than by motives ; in
this case no new cause for the new action is dis-
coverable. It was an act of will, due to motives,
but not to any physical or social cause.

Whatever unbelievers in Christianity may assert
concerning other things, they would not deny that
great changes are wrought in character and con-
duct by what is called conversion. The super-
natural cause would doubtless be denied, but the

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL 85

change in the individual would not be disputed.
I am not attempting to account for these changes,
but only to show that there are facts outside the
physical series as unquestionable, and probably
as numerous, as those within it, which have a
claim on the attention of all who seek a scien-
tific explanation of the life of man. Illustrations
by the thousand could be given of those whose
heredity was bad enough to bind them to evil as
with chains of steel ; whose actual indulgence in
vicious courses had been long continued ; and
whose environment was full of gross and selfish
influences, who yet without cause (using cause as
a force in the physical series) were truly con-
verted. If it be thought that motives more or
less selfish, such as desire for outward prosperity,
account for the change in some, this explanation
utterly fails in the case of those who surrender
all that ministers to selfishness, and devote them-
selves to undoing the mischief of their previous
lives. When the phenomena of conversion in thou-
sands of instances are studied scientifically, what
is discovered .-• Events without a physical cause ;
an absolute revolution in character and life, due
neither to any discoverable element of heredity,
nor to any difference in environment. Due to
what, then .-' Either to a sovereign act of will,

86 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

or to a change of spiritual environment which
Christians call the presence of the Holy Ghost, —
probably to both. I once read a paper on hered-
ity to one who is now in the front rank of his
profession — a man of fine and noble character.
As point after point was made, an aspect of
solemnity crept over the face of the hearer. Be-
fore the reading had ceased, he was called out
of the room, and taking the chair he had occupied
I saw written on a scrap of paper on the table
these words, " That is true, and my heredity is
all pure devil." Afterward I found that what
he had written was probably true. Yet he de-
termined that the devil should be chained, and
chained he has been ; with full many a tendency
toward base living, the man walks the earth every-
where useful and deservedly honoured. A Chris-
tian would doubtless call this an example of the
Spirit's work in that man, and quite justly ; but
even the Spirit of God does little without the con-
sent of the individual. Every converted man is
primarily what he has made himself, by his own
choice, as a pure act of will. If the Spirit of
God compels any to virtue, then freedom in
them is a fiction as truly as if their character
were due to irresistible heredity or to any other
compulsion.

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL

87

Another illustration is that of a person whose
life has been spent in dissipation, — both the re-
sult and the confirmation of an inherited tendency
to drunkenness. His life for fifty years is that
of an inebriate. Now, on the theory that the
material organization is absolute master, we can
expect nothing but that he will go on irretrievably
to a drunkard's death. Suddenly, however, he
alters his course. He does it, no doubt, in re-
sponse to motives, but motives which are not
physical and cannot be stated in physical terms.
His case, moreover, is not isolated ; it is one of a
large number, some of them very conspicuous ;
cases of men who have changed the course of
their lives in the face of the furious storms of
evil tendency that come sweeping down the gen-
erations and gather energy with every added year.
Of such there are two explanations, and two only.
One is, that tke power of--G9d has manifested
itself, and that something has been done for that
man by a power outside of himself. But those
who believe that, would never doubt that the
power of God moved along the lines of the man's
own will. And, philosophically, such an inter-
vention is a matter of inference entirely, not of
observation. The other explanation is that the
real man within the physical organism has as-

88 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

serted himself to the overthrow of the dominion
of bodily appetites. Many will reject the first ex-
planation; they will refuse to acknowledge divine
intervention. Such are driven to acknowledge
the existence of free will, — a power within and
beneath the physical nature, which is able to
assert itself, and take the seat of authority and
control ; driven to it under pain of believing that
one without freedom, whose course has been ab-
solutely fixed by heredity and environment, has
changed that course without help ; that is, that
the boulder flying down the Matterhorn suddenly
stops, and of itself begins to roll upward. The
Christian explanation certainly seems the rational
one ; namely, that the choice has been made by
the will, while help both to make and to execute
the choice has come from above.

Let us now review the ground already traversed.
A study of physical facts alone makes it appear
that no act of choice is unrelated to physical
conditions inside and outside the man willing.
Logically, therefore, no man is solely blamable
for his vicious conduct, or alone praiseworthy for
the elevation of his character. A thousand hands,
instead of one, strike the blow which makes a
man a murderer. He is not the only crirninal.
A long line of ancestors, and society itself, are

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL

89

partners in the crime. In a certain real sense
men do what they must do, for they have abso-
lutely no option as to what forces they shall in-
herit ; and hardly more voice in determining what
influences shall mould them in the plastic period
of life. On the other hand, quite opposite facts
are equally evident. Men actually do antagonize
and overcome their vital inheritance, defy their
environment, and, without dependence upon either,
choose to live as if they were the children of a
virtuous ancestry and subject only to refined con-
ditions. These truths are apparently contradic-
tory, and yet one is as evident as the other.
Two boys are the children of drunken parents ;
their home is one room of a tenement in which a
dozen other persons eat and sleep ; their school is
the street. All that bad blood and evil conditions
can do for them is done. Some day the elder
in a fit of drunken fury strikes a murderous blow.
He is arrested, arraigned, tried, condemned, ex-
ecuted ; he alone, though at the bar of God he
has many accomplices. Equally, and possibly
still more culpable, are the society which makes
it possible for such degraded creatures to be born ;
the State, which allows saloons on every corner,
and permits such wretched tenements as the child-
hood home of these boys ; and the men who own

QO HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

those buildings, anxious rather for rent than for
the welfare of human beings. The other boy,
however, son of the same drunken parents and
brought up amidst the same vileness, is no longer
there. His evil heritage has been overcome, and
his circumstances changed ; he is a gentleman
of wealth, of culture, of real and unaffected good-
ness. What has made the difference .-' Not so-
ciety, for the surroundings of the lads were alike
bad. The younger may have received from his
ancestry certain good tendencies that his brother
did not ; but so far as can be traced the legacy
has been the same. What shall we think about
this remarkable and impressive contrast .'' I know
no answer except this : in every man there is an
untainted power, something which passes from
generation to generation untouched by change,
and that in this ultimate essence of personality
rests the power of choice, which may be shut in
by evil conditions and tied to a thousand evil
tendencies, but which is in its nature free, and
is rarely, if ever, entirely denied expression.
At least it may be said that no fact in the
physical series militates against the doctrine of
human freedom which may not immediately be
met and fully balanced by a fact in the spiritual
series.

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL qj

For many years I have studied this problem of
freedom in its relation to the physical organism.
Abstract speculations concerning it are of little
value. The question is one of science, physical
and mental science ; and that leads to the follow-
ing conclusion : a study of physical science alone
I necessitates the belief that there is no such thing
[as freedom, and that our faith in its reality is, as
Herbert Spencer says, " an inveterate illusion ; "
that man is no more free than a leaf in a tornado
or a feather in Niagara. But it is unscientific to
stop with a study of physical facts. The spiritual
realm is as real and as evident as the physical,
and investigation of the latter results in the con-
viction that in a certain sense man is free, though
not so free as to be unmodified by the physical
sphere in and through which he must live.

III. We have now reached this point: the evi-
dence which indicates that freedom is a fiction is
balanced by facts on the other side which indicate
that it is a reality. Is there no other evidence
that can be brought in to turn the scale one way
or the other .'' There remains one unequivocal
witness in favour of freedom whose deliverance
for most thinkers will ever have decisive force,
namely, consciousness. How do we know that
we are free .'' Consciousness bears witness to free-

Q2 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

dom; But what is consciousness, and why is it to
be trusted ? Consciousness is an ultimate fact.
It cannot be analyzed ; its contents may be par-
tially enumerated, but they cannot be accounted
for. It is like perception through the senses, or
the apprehension of distinctions of thought. Who
can tell why certain impressions on the retina of
the eye give him sensations of colour and form .?
Who can tell why he thinks .? Consciousness is
like conscience. Who can tell why he feels that
he ought to do right and ought not to do wrong .?
Now the soul's sense of freedom is not only a
direct perception of fact; it is something more
than the result of a single intuition; it is rather
the connected product of a thousand intuitions,
and so is woven into the very texture of conscious-
ness and from it cannot be separated. All men
are conscious that they are free ; none can either
vindicate or explain that consciousness. In my
judgment the discussion as to the validity of the
argument from consciousness — whether its testi-
mony is to be accepted — is the very heart of the
problem of freedom. If consciousness is a reliable
witness the case is proved, even if the problem is
not fully solved. Against this citadel therefore
Dr. Henry Maudsley, in his book entitled " Body
and Will," directs his heaviest ordnance. He

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL ^3

closes Chapter II. as follows : " At this pomt, then,
I hope to have said enough to establish my second
proposition, and having first proved to the meta-
physician that consciousness does not tell him
that he has such a will as he imagines, to have
now proved that it has not the authority to tell
him that his will is undetermined. He has based
upon its declaration a superstructure which it is
unable to bear. Be the doctrine of an undeter-
mined entity true or not, consciousness is not
competent to decide the question by an immediate
intuition." ^ It does not seem to me that Dr.
Maudsley proves his assertions. At first, indeed,
it appears as if even consciousness itself must be
modified by the physical constitution ; as if it had
various degrees of intensity and validity ; but, on
second thought, that is not so evident. For
instance, a man knows that he exists ; conscious-
ness tells him so ; and the vividness of that
knowledge is not in any way dependent on either
heredity, or environment, or bodily condition. I
think — consciousness tells me that ; I will —
consciousness tells me that ; and that knowledge
is at first hand, and entirely untouched by the sub-
sequent inquiry as to whether what I think and
what I will are determined by causes having exis-

1 Body and Will., Maudsley, p. 36.

94

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

tence outside myself. If, now, I know that I am,
that I think, that I will, then I know that con-
cerning the fundamental questions consciousness
is a reliable witness. But if consciousness tells
me that I will, it at the same instant assures me
that I am free ; I believe in my freedom on the
same authority that I believe in my existence. It
may seem to be abandoning the field of science to
fall back in this discussion on the testimony of
consciousness, but, however much we may try to
escape from it, consciousness always asserts itself,
and never utters one uncertain sound concerning
fundamental questions. I recognize the force of
all that Dr. Maudsley says : "A state of conscious-
ness that is at all definite, whether of internal or
external origin, cannot certainly be either the sub-
jective or the objective thing in itself : it is a rela-
tion of self and not-self, and implicates the one as
necessarily as the other term. Cogito, ergo s?im,
' 1 think, therefore I am,' has a ring of transcen-
dental authority, until we interpolate after ' I ' the
quietly suppressed, but none the less surreptitiously
understood, 'who am,' and let it read, as it should
read, thus, — ' I (who am) think, therefore I am ' ;
after which it does not appear to carry us beyond
the simple and subjectively irreducible fact of
consciousness, beneath which, it must not be for-

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL

95

gotten, there is in all cases the more fundamental
fact of an organism that is one."^ It is not clear
how the unity of the organism can affect the fact
of consciousness. A man's organism, whatever it
may be, does not affect the fact that he sees out-
ward objects ; and consciousness is the eye which
sees within. It does bear clear and positive evi-
dence to freedom. I am speaking of normal
states. There are, of course, diseases of the mind,
and abnormal states which are hardly as yet clearly
developed diseases. Of these I am not now speak-
ing. Consciousness is ultimate ; to challenge its
deliverances when they are uniform in all climes
and all ages is to launch out on the shoreless, har-
bourless ocean of utter scepticism. Now, scarcely
any deliverance of consciousness is more uniform
and universal — semper, iibiqiie, ah oiiinibiis — than
that of freedom. We — and all men — choose
spontaneously, without ever asking whether we
have the power of choice, any more than we ask
if we have sight when attention is directed toward

... iJ'^

a specific obiect. The value of this testimony is . ^ x^
recognized in all human mstitutions. Society .^^»*''°1-^>V'^
organized on the presumption of freedom. Every '"
law on the statute-books of the world presumes
that it may be both obeyed and violated, and

^ Body and Will, Maudsley, p. 37.

g6 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

equally that each individual in a normal condition
may choose for himself either to obey or disobey.
All penal institutions presuppose the power of
choice misused. Every invitation of religion is an
indication of belief that men are able to rise supe-
rior to their innate tendencies and their circum-
stances, and choose for themselves the best things.
And society in general has virtually unquestioning
faith in the principle. When wrong has been
done, the common judgment of men, after all due
allowance has been made for palliating circum-
stances, holds transgressors responsible for their
choices. Human institutions are no doubt imper-
fect, but they do not in their inmost and essential
nature bear witness to falsehood. Consciousness,
in spite of all voices that attempt to smother it,
utters its unceasing assertion of freedom.

What, now, may we say to the inevitable inquiry
concerning the nature of the will ? I reply in a
passage quoted from Ribot, which perhaps comes
as near as we shall soon get to an answer. It is
as follows : —

" Wundt, in a very remarkable and important
work, full of facts and ideas, which unites to
the experimental and positive method of English
psychology a certain German boldness without
rashness, puts the question of free will under a

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL

97

different form. We have already seen that he
protests against conclusions drawn from statistics,
showing that in human acts there is a vari-
able element which statistical science may rightly
enough overlook, but which the psychologist must
endeavour to reassert ; that, moreover, if statistics
disclose to us the external causes of voluntary
activity, they leave us in absolute ignorance of
its internal causes. These internal causes consti-
tute what Wundt very well denominates the per-
sonal factor {der personliche Factor^

" External factors, he says, we denominate mo-
tives, but not causes of will. ' Between motive
and cause there exists an essential difference. A
cause necessarily produces its effect ; not so a
motive. It is true that a cause may be neutral-
ized by another cause, or transformed into its
effect, but in this transformation we can always
track the effect of the prior cause and even
measure it. A motive, on the other hand, can
only either determine or not determine the will ;
in the latter case, we have no means of knowing
its effect. The uncertainty of this connection
between the motive and the will is based solely
on the existence of the personal factor.'

" What, then, is this personal factor which thus
mysteriously breaks in on the series of causes and

H

98

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

effects ? It is ' the internal essence of the per-
sonality, the character.' There we must look for
the root of will. ' Character is the sole immediate
cause of voluntary activity. Motives are always
only indirect causes. Betwixt motives and the
causality of character there is this great differ-
ence, that motives either are or may readily
become conscious, whereas this causality is ever
absolutely unconscious.' Hence character — per-
sonality — must forever remain an enigma, so
far as its inmost nature is concerned ; it is the
indeterminable Ding an sick of Kant. * The mo-
tives which determine the will are a part of the
universal concatenation of causes ; but the per-
sonal factor, wherewith will commences, does not
enter into this concatenation. Whether this in-
most essence of personality, upon which, in the
last resort, rests all the difference between indi-
viduals, is itself subject to causality, we can never
decide on the ground of direct experience.

" ' When it is asserted that the character of
man is a product of air and light, of education
and of destiny, of food and climate, and that it
is necessarily predetermined by these influences,
like every natural phenomenon, the conclusion is
absolutely undemonstrable. Education and des-
tiny presuppose a character which determines

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL qq

them : that is here taken to be an effect which
is partly a cause. But the facts of psychical
heredity make it very highly probable that, could
we reach the initial point of the individual life,
we should there find an independent germ of
personality {^Selbstdndiger) which cannot be de-
termined from without, inasmuch as it precedes
all external determination.'

" We readily accept this doctrine of Wundt. It
possesses the advantage of showing, on the one
hand, that free will, considered in its essence, is a
noumenon ; and on the other hand, that on the
ground of experience the fatalistic and the ordi-
nary view are not irreconcilable ; but, inasmuch as
the ultimate roots of the will repose in the uncon-
scious, we may suspect such a reconciliation, but
we cannot establish it. We will abide by this con-
clusion. We have elsewhere endeavoured to show
— and we will not repeat our argument — that
psychology, even experimental psychology, must
admit a certain element which comes before us as
a fact ; this we call the ego, the person, the charac-
ter: no other word will designate it properly, but
of it we can only say that it is that which in us is
inmost, and which distinguishes and differentiates
us from what is not ourselves ; this it is by which
our ideas, our sentiments, our sensations, our voli-

lOO HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

tions, are given to us as ours, and not as the phe-
nomena of something outside ourselves. And we
put the question, whether the instinct of self-pres-
ervation, which is so strong in animals, may not be
this individual principle, cleaving stubbornly to ex-
istence, and struggling to maintain its hold on life ?
" If now we study the part played by person-
ality, not now in psychology, but in history, the
problem occurs in the same terms, and seems
resolvable in the same way. The individual is
subject to the laws of nature, both physical and
moral, and is governed by them. But beyond the
almost boundless field of determinism we have
had a glimpse of the possibility, and even the
necessity, of an autonomy, a spontaneity. So,
too, in history, where the action of natural laws is
great, where, indeed, it is nearly everything, we
must also assign its due part to personality, as
represented especially by great men. ' The expe-
dition of Alexander and the poetry of Homer are
both due to individuals. But had Alexander never
lived it is probable that the course of history would
have been other than it has been ; and if Homer
had not lived perhaps the religion and the manners
of the Greeks would have taken another form.
. . . Individual will, therefore, exerts a great
influence, . . . yet this influence is but a momen-

THE PROBLEM OF THE WILL iqi

tary cause. Homer changed the manners of the
Greeks only because the Greeks made his poetic
creations their own ; and Alexander could never
have made his mark so deeply in history were it
not that his will had the same ground as the gen-
eral will.'

" Both history and psychology, then, appear to
lead us to the conclusion that determinism does
not suffice to explain everything. But if we push
our inquiries still further, we are met by a fresh
difficulty. With regard to this personality —
whose true nature we despair of knowing, because
it rests in the unfathomable depths of the uncon-
scious — do we at least know whence it is, what is
its origin ? " ^

This question, Ribot declares, leads us to an
enigma which he will not attempt to solve. The
fact of freedom leads to the fact of personality,
and the individual personality leads at last to the
source of all personality. The most that we can
say is that we know that we are free, but that our
freedom is modified by heredity and environment,
and by the fountain of personality from which
we have sprung, but of which we know little.

* Heredity, Ribot, pp. 341, 344.

CHAPTER VII

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME

The fact of heredity is not at all a modern
discovery. It has been recognized by laws and
customs from the earliest ages ; and in most times
it has been honoured in that concrete manifesta-
tion of it, — the family. Hereditary rights, of
which the world has heard so much, imply in a
certain sense continuance of individual existence.
The son of a king succeeds to the throne without
regard to his fitness, but solely because of his
relation to his father. In the son the family is
presumed to continue its reign.

Hence the common term, " the reigning family."
The right which the father won by force is passed
on by inheritance, which is simply the parent liv-
ing again in his child. If a man dies without a
will, the State passes the property on to his widow
and his children, the latter receiving about two-
thirds of it. The laws of the State therefore still
favour the old family idea of society, that the indi-
vidual does not altogether cease to exist at death.

The solidarity of the race, which rests on the

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME

103

fact that men compose one great family and are
sharers in a common vital heritage, is a doctrine
that few deny. Socialism rests on it, as do all sys-
tems of government, from the autocracy of Russia
to the republic of America. The honour shown
to the family in the past is, in part at least, justified
by the influence of families on the development
of events. The de' Medicis, Bourbons, Hohenzol-
lerns, Stuarts, Napoleons, and many others have
from generation to generation not only exhibited
the same traits, but acted an important part in
the world's development. Proverbs seldom lie.
" Blood will tell " is one of the oldest and most
familiar of these universal witness-bearers.

In this chapter we are to consider the relation
of Heredity to the Home, or the problems of
the family, — problems that are among the most
pressing and practical of our time. Before there
can be a home, there must be marriage. Promis-
cuous mingling of the sexes is the destruction of the
family ; and yet it is neither the only nor perhaps
the most common cause of domestic demoraliza-
tion. The men and women who, in one direc-
tion, have performed such good service in the
cause of Divorce Reform often approach the sub-
ject on the side of a priori theory rather than on
the side of actual human nature and the causes

I04

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

which limit it, and too often pervert it. Ap-
parently their idea is that divorce is an effect of
lax laws concerning the marriage relation, and
that men and women can be made faithful by
legislative act. A more careful study would show
that divorces are many, not so much because there
is an open door of escape from the marriage rela-
tion, as because so many are married in form who
are never joined in spirit.

Thousands whom God has forever separated
are joined in matrimony by human ceremonies.
The bonds of genuine love are very rarely broken ;
bonds of passion, bonds of convenience, bonds of
caprice, will be broken in thousands of cases, what-
ever be the sanctions the State puts upon them.
It may be best for society to make almost indis-
soluble the bonds of those who are formally mar-
ried, but it should not be forgotten that by so
doing illicit relations will be vastly multiplied ;
and that where only human laws stand in the way,
some avenue of escape from unbearable domestic
relations is sure to be found and justified. The
case of George Eliot is an illustration. The first
wife of George Henry Lewes had, it is said, been
guilty of breach of her vows which had been
condoned. Consequently Mr. Lewes had no case
in the courts.

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME

105

There was only a mere formal union existing
between that man and that woman. In process
of time Mrs. Lewes became insane ; but still,
by human law, her husband was prevented from
making a home for himself, although by an act
of her own his wife had violated the law, both
human and divine. At last she became incu-
rably insane. Then Mr. Lewes and Miss Evans
determined to defy custom and public opinion,
and be man and wife. They were strong enough
to face the opposition. What they did openly,
thousands do quietly by a change of residence, or
by living the double life which is easily possible
in the cities. The family as an institution rests
on marriage ; and real marriage — that which is
something more than a contrivance for the per-
petuation of the race — depends on the union of
two souls. That union of souls is as essential to
marriage as a physical union is the fact that is
too often overlooked. In order that this essential
union may be truly consummated, there must be
between a man and a woman something which
baffles analysis, a kind of mutual attraction which
calls for companionship and makes association a
delight. This something can be defined nega-
tively better than positively. All of us know per-
sons whose characters are beyond criticism, who

I06 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

occupy high social positions, who have culture
and refinement, and yet who are supremely dis-
tasteful to us. If absent, they are never missed ;
if present, they are an annoyance. All that can
be said is that they and we are not congenial.
There is such a thing as natural repulsion, which
is possibly a physical quality. There is absolutely
no explanation of this phenomenon ; but it exists.
If two persons with such antipathies are brought
together, and tied together by a million ceremo-
nies, there will never be a home. It cannot be
truly said that God hath joined them together,
even though Church and State have combined
to sanction the union. A sense of honour or
religious principle or repugnance to evil may
restrain the parties from other alliances ; but
there will never be anything but the form, the
outer shell of true wedlock. Hence the question,
who may marry, deserves far more careful treat-
ment than it has usually received. If any sub-
ject has claims on the thought of the ablest,
most scientific, and most spiritual intellects, it
is this subject of marriage, and who should be
allowed to assume its solemn obligations. On
this point I have a few suggestions to make.
Those who are not in the truest sense compan-
ionable, and who, after suitable intercourse, do

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME jq?

not find each other's presence thoroughly agree-
able, should not, under any circumstances, be
joined together for life. The example of the
royal families of Europe is responsible for many
ill-assorted unions. Royalty asks about social
equality, seldom about character and harmony
of spirit. Two conditions must be met, or there
will be no security for enjoyable or helpful
wedded life. There should be, first of all, this
subtle, personal attraction which makes each
essential, or at least agreeable, to the other ;
and, second, such an identity of interests, tastes,
and faculties as will make the continuance of
the companionship possible. The more difficult
question is, of course, how may these be secured ?
As a slight contribution to the understanding of
this subject I venture to offer a few propositions,
from which there will probably be little dissent : —
(i) Homes are designed for the perpetuation
and improvement of the race, physically, intellect-
ually, and mofally.

(2) Homes should be for health, rather than for
the perpetuation of disease.

(3) Homes should be for moral as well as physi-
cal health.

(4) Homes should conduce to the growth and
happiness of both parents and children.

I08 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

If these propositions are true, it is clear that
those who are in the line of succession to ances-
tral disease should think twice, nay, many times,
before marrying. A woman who is inclined to
yield her hand to the son of an insane or a con-
sumptive parent, must face the fact that unless
she can create conditions unfavourable to the de-
velopment of the disease, it is very likely to mani-
fest itself in one or more of her own children.
Often this fact will start questions terribly hard to
answer. A young man in whose family insanity
has appeared repeatedly, must decide whether he
will take the chance of handing the fearful disease
down as a heritage to his children. It may be
right to take the risk, for changed circumstances
often reduce it greatly. Moreover, there may be
reason to believe that the disease has so far run
its course as no longer to be dangerous. But the
question is one to be met, and not ignored ; the
question whether, under the circumstances, it
would not be better for all concerned if he were
to say, " I must do my part in eliminating this
evil from humanity : that means to stifle my dear-
est longings ; but in so doing I shall only be fol-
lowing in the steps of Him who pleased not
Himself, but bore our diseases." This is a cru-
cial conclusion to come to, and hard, indeed, are

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME joq

the circumstances that drive one to it ; but should
a. man or a woman with every prospect of hand-
ing down a deadly disease, and perhaps adding to
its power, simply for a few months or years of
personal satisfaction, open the door for that dis-
ease to work havoc in a new generation ? Our
responsibility for those who are to come after us
cannot be evaded. This principle should not,
of course, be carried to extremes, for disease is
a part of the common human heritage ; but those
parents who are wise and Christian will not allow
it to be ignored by their children.

What is true of tendency to disease is true also
of tendency to vice. As we have seen, the evil
of one generation is almost sure to reproduce
itself in the succeeding, unless in some way the
tendency toward it is checked or turned aside, as
often it may be, if not in the first generation, then
in the second. Often people say, " I do not see
how it is that my son should have a tendency to
vice. I do all I can for him. Neither of his
parents has a taste for liquor, but he drinks for
the love of it." How about his grandparents ?
The principle of atavism is not to be forgotten.

The tendencies toward intemperance are not
resistless ; they may be kept from growth ; but
they are real, and must not be ignored. Hence

no HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

parents must face this question, Are we willing
to have our child wed one of intemperate parent-
age, however acceptable personally ? A question
of grave import ; for the morbid craving may
yet be excited in the one who now seems to be
without it, and may reappear in full power in
the children. If this seems cruel and unjust,
none the less should it be made prominent, and
kept prominent.

All suffer more or less for the wickedness or
weakness of others, and this fact is perhaps no
more cruel than many that seem less so, but,
whether cruel or not, it should be faced. It is
certainly no more cruel for a young woman to
find herself compelled by conscience to deny her-
self a home, than for a married woman to be
compelled to suffer for her husband's wickedness.
Much sorrow in this world would be saved if there
were less unwillingness to see things as they are.
One of the things needing to be thus seen is that
some persons ought never to become parents.
Years ago I met a woman who was unusually
beautiful and accomplished. Her hand was
sought again and again by those who admired
her exceptional gifts and graces ; yet she never
married. Her reason, given to a friend through
whom it reached me, was this : " My grandfather

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME m

was intemperate ; my father died intemperate ; I
have a brother who is a drunkard ; the love of
Hquor is in the blood, and I will never be a party to
perpetuating this terrible tendency." Not all who
have intemperate relations are shut up, morally,
to this Spartan choice ; but she, in her circum-
stances, did exactly right, and this world would
be far happier if women and men in general did
but share her noble spirit.

From the propositions already laid down it
follows also, and quite as certainly, that careful
attention should be given to the probabilities of
continued mutual congeniality of the two persons
involved. The son of a dear friend of mine is
far more likely to be permanently congenial to
my daughter, than the son of one who is distaste-
ful to me. There is a grave risk that the latter
will in time affect her with a sense of personal
antagonism. These seem trivial things, almost
beneath attention ; but the Romeos and Juliets
have existence chiefly in plays and novels, while
the Montagues and Capulets are perpetuating
strife in every community. Parents are under
obligations, far too frequently neglected, to seek
as companions for their children those whom they
have reason to believe will be companionable and
attractive throughout life. With the greatest care

112 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

there may indeed still be failure, but it will not be
failure due to neglect. No doubt, in matrimony,
as in the kitchen, " Too many cooks spoil the
broth." Children often really know more than
their parents in matters of the heart. It is folly,
of course, to make rigid rules concerning what
in its nature is not amenable to rules ; but still
these principles as principles are of fundamental
importance, much more important than legislation
concerning divorce. The real problem is not,
how those who are joined in name, but are as
separate as the poles in heart, can be compelled
to keep up the mockery of a union, but, how the
union can be made so real and vital that the
suggestion of a divorce would be regarded as
an insult. To this end marriage should not be
left as a theme for sensational preachers to use
as a means for filling empty churches. Neither
should it be classed with the insoluble problems.
We should not be content to do nothing, because
love will brook no rules ; but, as those who have
to deal with life and immortal destinies, we should
study facts in the light of the latest and most
thorough science, and do all that is possible to
help the young to realize that marriage is for
health, for morality, and for ever-increasing hap-
piness in the most beautiful of relationships. If it

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME 113

is not possible to point out clearly how these ends
may certainly be secured, at least much good will
be done in showing how certain courses naturally
tend toward physical and moral death.

There is another side to this subject of the
home ; it is that of the training of children. About
that are to be said many things which will come
more properly in the next chapter on The Prob-
lems of Education. Some things, however, belong
here, as they relate especially to children in the
home.

If all children were alike, the problem of train-
ing a family would be comparatively easy ; the
process which had succeeded with one could be
repeated with the others. But no two children
are precisely alike. Each is an individual, and
therefore essentially unique. I was once at dinner
with a friend, whose daughters were at the table.
A glance showed that they were not alike, though
they were twins. One was blonde ; the other bru-
nette. One was quick ; the other slow and shrewd.
It was very evident that, should their parents adopt
exactly the same methods with those children, one
would certainly fail to receive the discipline and
culture which she needed. We frequently hear
the remark, " This child is unlike all others in my
family." Wherever that is true, the difference

114

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

must be considered in the training, or parental
discipline will be a failure. In other words, par-
ents cannot do their duty by their children unless
they carefully study individual peculiarities. These
peculiarities, moreover, should be traced to their
source in parents or ancestry. A girl is morose
and given to melancholy. Let the parents ex-
amine themselves, and see if they have not be-
queathed the unhappy disposition to her. Probably
if free from it now, one or the other of them pos-
sessed it earlier in life. Let such a parent, instead
of being impatient with his daughter, go back to
his own feelings at the same age, and ask what,
in the light of subsequent experience, would have
been the best discipline for him then ? One boy
has a temper like a flame of fire ; where did he
get it .'' It is rarely hard to tell. Another has a
tendency to secret vice or open wickedness ; did
not those who have brought him into the world
in their youth pursue courses which account for
his tendencies .-* Such inquiries complicate neces-
sarily the problem of responsibility. Each human
being is free, and therefore responsible, in a meas-
ure ; and yet no child has any voice in saying
where he shall be born, what blood shall course
in his veins, what tendencies shall impel, or what
aspirations thrill him. These two facts are, there-

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME

115

fore, to be kept always to the front. The respon-
sibiHty of each individual should be emphasized
when the child is dealt with ; and yet, when
courses of training are being decided upon, the
child should be regarded not simply as an indi-
vidual, but as an offspring, another link in the
age-long chain of human life. The more the
underlying unity of parent and child is realized,
the better it will be for both. The parent should
remember that the vice which he reproves in his
child is in a sense his also ; his even though he
turned from it years ago. Dr. Bushnell, in his
"Christian Nurture," has wisely said, that it is
better to confer with children concerning our
weaknesses and wrong-doings, than to condemn
them for theirs ; for, in condemning them, we
condemn ourselves in them. For example, a child
is sullen " and reserved ; is it the result of wilful-
ness or of nature } If wilfulness, it should be
reproved ; but if it is a natural defect, inquire
where it came from. It will probably be found
to have come through the parents. In that case,
instead of reproof, let there be conference some-
what as follows : " My child, I can understand
how you feel ; I used to feel as you do, and I
do now at times ; but I am trying very hard to
put away these evils, and you must try to do

Il6 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

it too. Come, let us work together. I do not
blame you for your feelings, for I know you
got them from me, as I got them from my
father. And, now, let us see if we can't conquer
our infirmity."

Such a conference would have a better effect
than a score of reproofs, and, moreover, it would
be but simple justice. If the objectionable trait
comes by inheritance, common sense must deter-
mine what is the wisest thing to say.

Parents should always be just to their children.
The latter are not responsible for their existence,
nor for their tendencies, nor for the circumstances
in which they live. Perception of these facts,
recognition of the law of heredity, will lead
parents to be patient, and save them from much
injustice ; many things otherwise hopelessly ob-
scure in their children's characters it will explain ;
it will enable them, by recalling what helped and
hindered them in earlier days, to decide what
will be most helpful to their children, and make
possible an adjustment of treatment to nature,
so that the worst elements may be more surely
eliminated, and the best given opportunity and
stimulus for growth ; and it will enable parents
more wisely to advise their children concerning

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME 117

the grave matter of marriage, and the beginning
of a home.

Study of the law of heredity will by no means
solve all social problems ; but it does shed light on
the pathway of man, and make more distinct the
course of right human conduct in some most im-
portant matters. It is not claimed, however, that
because the law itself has as yet been studied by
parents all too little, that therefore the facts of
heredity have been altogether ignored by them.
Not at all. " The love of God is broader than the
measure of man's mind," and He has so ordered
things that parental instinct — that brooding, con-
stant affection for offspring which finds its culmi-
nation in humanity — often blindly, but surely,
chooses the best methods of training, and by its
fervour and constancy accomplishes what clearer
sight, and even perfect science, with less ardent
affection could not accomplish.

The home has many enemies, some open, more
of them covert. The tendency which results from
the possession of wealth to have no settled place
of abode, to migrate from one hotel to another,
making impossible the sweet domesticity of sim-
pler life ; the gregariousness of huge apartment
houses instead of single dwellings ; the factory

II S HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

life of the manufacturing towns ; and, perhaps
most of all, the influx of a subtle paganism which
quietly ignores and shirks responsibility, — all
these make imperative a careful study of facts
relating to the home, which is the foundation
of all national prosperity and of pure and endur-
ing civilization. After all has been said, the best
guarantee of the perpetuity of pure and faithful
home life is found in mutual love, founded on
knowledge, on companionableness, and on that
perfect adaptation of one soul to another which
makes life in common a beautiful and enduring
harmony. This end cannot be secured by arti-
ficial means ; but it may be promoted by leading
parents and young people to a wise and thorough
study of certain great truths of life, truths which
it has been the object of this chapter to bring
before the reader.

Love, therefore, is the word of power, and the
final word regarding the home. Indeed love,
human and divine, is the foundation and central
pillar of the home. However much help we
may gain from the study of heredity and envi-
ronment, that study leaves us at last where all
inquiry must end — in the consciousness that
after man has done his utmost, if his ideals are

THE PROBLEM OF THE HOME ug

ever realized and he and his children become
either useful or happy, they all must be taken
in hand by the love of God, and made subjects
of that regenerating grace which can no more
be explained than the source and the destination
of the wind, but the results of which are more
sure and splendid than the autumn harvests.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION

Nothing in modern life is more significant and
prophetic than the widespread and constantly in-
creasing interest in education which is seen in all
the civilized countries of Europe and America,
and in many of the semi-civilized nations of Asia.
This revival of interest in education is coincident
with the now general acceptance of evolution by
scientific thinkers. Evolution is compelling men
to rewrite their psychologies, their treatises on
ethics, and even their theological creeds ; and it
would be strange indeed if it did not assert its
authority over education. To some extent it has
probably done so ; and yet its executive agents,
heredity and environment, are still given scant
honour in this great department where they are
nearly omnipotent.

We have seen that heredity is not often an
absolutely irresistible force. That which is poten-
tial does not inevitably manifest itself. More-
over, heredity is constantly modified by environ-
ment. In a vacuum, rock would remain rock

1 20

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 121

forever ; but heat, moisture, frost, pelting rain,
and driving wind gradually destroy, not the rock
itself, but the form in. which it existed. Now,
every child is the product of the generations
before him. He is not himself alone, but a
being packed with potencies derived from no
one knows how many or what personalities that
have lived before him. The problem of educa-
tion is, by means of environment, to modify, and
as far as possible destroy, the evil and bring the
good into expression and power. Nor is this all ;
for tendencies to good, when improperly bal-
anced, are more or less mischievous. Education,
therefore, has to do with the elimination of ten-
dencies toward deterioration and the proper de-
velopment and balancing of tendencies toward
good. The word education is fossil history. It
implies heredity, for it indicates something to be
drawn out; and as that something could not
originate with the child, it must have been trans-
mitted. The word presupposes powers which
have come from others and which are to be
trained. So of the word culture. Where does
culture begin } It should begin with birth. The
age of impression is quite as important as the
age of reason. But culture implies something to
cultivate. That something is not implanted by

122 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

teachers, but is always inborn. This is clearly-
recognized by the three authors who in our time
have written most helpfully on this subject.
Emerson says : " A man is the prisoner of his
power." Powers of individuals are poorly bal-
anced. " A topical memory makes him an alma-
nac ; a talent for debate, a disputant ; skill to
get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar.
Culture reduces these inflammations by invoking
the aid of other powers against the dominant
talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers."
" Culture," he thinks, " cannot begin too early.
... I find, too, that the chance for apprecia-
tion is much increased by being the son of an
appreciator, and that these boys who now grow
up are caught not only years too late, but two or
three births too late, to make the best scholars
of." He says also that the end of culture is "to
train away all impediment and mixture and leave
nothing but pure power." ^

On the same subject Matthew Arnold quotes
Montesquieu as follows : " The first motive which
ought to impel us to study is the desire to aug-
ment the excellence of our nature, and to render
an intelligent being yet more intelligent. "^ Princi-

1 Essay on Culture^ Emerson.

"^ Culture and Anarchy, Arnold, p. 6.

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 123

pal Shairp's idea of the end to be reached is not
different. He quotes approvingly the words of
Leighton : " The only sufficient object for a man
must be something which adds to and perfects
his nature." 1 The difference between Emerson
and Arnold on the one side, and Shairp and his
school on the other, is not in the idea of what
education is to do, but in the means to be used.
They all agree that education is the process by
which inherent powers are to reach their highest
and finest growths. It has been wisely said that
" to develop childhood to virtue, power, and due
freedom is the supreme end of education, to which
everything else must be subordinated as means."
A secondary object is the acquisition of knowl-
edge, but even this is subsidiary. Knowledge is
not always desirable for its own sake. It is valu-
able as a means. Study which leaves the man-
hood narrow and contracted, and fills the head
only as gold fills a miser's purse, is not worth the
effort required for its acquisition. But how gen-
erally the practice belies the theory. In most
schools there is almost total neglect of what
ought to be the fundamental principle in educa-
tion. On the other hand, instead of adapting
the training to the actual needs of the child, in-

1 Culture and Religion, Shairp, p. 99.

124 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

stead of seeking to eliminate the evil and pre-
vent any single power from growing abnormally
at the expense of the others, our systems of edu-
cation commonly ignore the constitutional differ-
ences in children, treating them all alike, as if
they had been subject to the same hereditary and
environing influences ; instead of making their
business the bringing out, developing to the full,
and making harmonious whatever is best, these
systems make it exactly the reverse, — a process
of implanting, regardless, too, of the nature of
the soil, and often of sheer cramming.

All schemes of culture should begin with the
recognition that each child is different from every
other ; that the lines of difference run far back,
and therefore are not superficial, and that, in
order to secure the highest efficiency, systems of
education should be adapted to the individuals to
be reached. Every child possesses characteristics
which are the results of forces running through
generations, for which it is not responsible, and
which can be changed only by the most carefully
planned and wisely adjusted discipline. Then,
there are in most children special modifications
of natural traits due to circumstances, tendencies
that have been weakened here, and given new
impulse there, which are sometimes quickly dis-

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 125

cerned, and sometimes lie deep. Two illustrations
occur to me. A few years ago, when address-
ing the children in the Newark City Home at
Verona, N. J., my attention was attracted to two
boys occupying a seat directly in front of me.
One was thin and pale, his fingers were long
and slim, his eyes blue, his hair light, his cheeks
sunken. There was little of the animal in him,
little of anything, apparently, but sensitiveness.
His seat-mate was his opposite in every respect.
His hair was black and stood on end as if electric,
his eyes burned like coals, his mouth and chin
resembled those of a bull-dog, his face was florid ;
he was evidently full of animal nature and pas-
sion. Those two boys were what they were by
nature. They had probably come from the same
sphere in society. They were products of dif-
ferent lines of descent. Could the best results in
them possibly be reached by identical processes
of education ? Consider, now, a case in a very
different social grade. In a certain school was a
young lady, a daughter of New England parents
of fine culture, and well qualified to direct her
study and stimulate her aspirations. The advan-
tages of sympathy, congenial taste, and oppor-
tunity had been theirs, and they in turn were
handing these real blessings to their child. In the

126 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

same community and the same school was the
daughter of a labourer. Her home gave her no
help whatever; ignorance and wickedness were
her environment ; and she had especially strong
tendencies toward degeneration. But in the com-
munity were better influences that had kindled
within her ambitions and aspirations. Here are
typical cases : one girl with blood and home in
her favour ; the other with neither, but still with
possibilities which may be developed. The two
classes come to our public and private schools,
and are often treated precisely alike. They are
given the same books ; the same subjects are
presumed to interest ; the same ability is pre-
supposed ; the same tasks are required ; and the
same standards are imposed. If there is any
such thing as a science of education, do we catch
sight of it in this system ? In ten years those
two young women may conceivably occupy the
same relative positions ; they may be equally cult-
ured and respectable ; but it will never be by the
use of the same methods.

If, now, it be granted that heredity and environ-
ment differentiate the pupils in our schools so that
no two, even from the same family, are exactly
alike, and so that they come to the teacher's
hands each with his own peculiar powers and

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION

127

faculties to be developed, the problem of educa-
tion becomes complicated and difficult.

By the study of what men are we learn of what
they are capable, and it is only by study of the
child that we shall solve the problem of his proper
education. Says Dr. Stanley Hall : " There is
one thing in nature, and one alone, fit to inspire
all true men and women with more awe and rev-
erence than Kant's starry heavens, and that is,
the soul and body of the healthy young child.
Heredity has freighted it with all the results
of parental well and ill doing, and filled it with
reverberations from the past more vast than
science can explore ; and on its right develop-
ment depends the entire future of civilization two
or three decades hence. Simple as childhood
seems, there is nothing harder to know ; and
responsive as it is to every influence about it,
nothing is harder to guide. To develop childhood
to virtue, power, and due freedom is the supreme
end of education, to which everything else must
be subordinated as means. Just as to command
inanimate nature we must constantly study, love,
and obey her, so to control child-nature we must
first and perhaps still more piously study, love,
and obey it. The best of us have far more to
learn from children than we can ever hope to

128 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

teach them ; and what we succeed in teaching, at
least beyond the merest rudiments, will always be
proportionate to the knowledge we have the wit
to get from and about them." ^

So, too, a child who has never had home disci-
pline, or anything to awaken aspiration, needs
a special form of training ; his education is not
complete until he has learned obedience and his
eyes have been opened to higher things. The
child who is all imagination should, by proper
methods, be brought to understand that he is
human ; and I know no better way to teach a boy
that he is not to live by imagination alone than to
set him to the study of mathematics. On the
other hand, the pupil who is commonplace and
prosaic should have his life illuminated and ex-
panded by familiarity with imaginative literature,
especially poetry.

Room for spontaneity should be left in all sys-
tems of education. Genius flowers in most unex-
pected places. Not always do children of fine
and quick aptitudes come from homes of culture.
Log-cabins produced Lincoln and Garfield. It is
the teacher with his eyes on the child-life, rather
than on so many pages of arithmetic or geogra-
phy, who will be able to detect the unique intellect

1 North American Review, February, 1885.

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 129

as soon as it appears, and he will adapt his
methods accordingly.

When this ideal is contrasted with the systems
in common, if not universal use, what do we find ?
I hope I shall not be misunderstood as blaming
teachers for what belongs at the door of the
system in which they are compelled to work. Is
it not true that little if any attention is given to
the study of child-life ? In most of our schools
is not the supreme duty to go through certain
text-books in the time allotted ? So much Caesar
must be read, so many pages of history and of
arithmetic must be completed. Why ? Is the
end of education to cram a child with Latin,
history, and arithmetic .-' Is it not better that
one example should be thoroughly and completely
understood than that forty should be worked
mechanically, and perhaps accidentally.? What
sense is there in a rigid requirement that a certain
number of pages shall be traversed, if discipline
and the balancing of faculties is the end of educa-
tion ? What knowledge of child-life, what adapta-
tion to peculiarities, is displayed in such methods.!*
A well-known writer on this subject once said in
private conversation : " I look back to many of
the schools I attended in my own childhood with
unlimited disgust. I was not taught. I was put

K

130 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

into a procession and marched through so many
years of school-life, and then let out. I never
liked mathematics, but to this day I believe the
aversion could have been overcome by a few
hours' patient, careful training, with no step taken
until the reason for it was understood. Further-
more, if the study was worthy of pursuit, then,
simply because of my natural antipathy, it should
have been taught with more thoroughness and
patience than those studies in which I rejoiced."

But let us put the blame of this condition of
things where it belongs. These views were once
stated to a distinguished educator. He replied :
" I agree with you perfectly, but what can I do .-'
It is my duty to examine teachers, but my hands
are so tied that I can do nothing." " Is it not
often true that a teacher who may be an expert
in reading children, and in adapting to them the
instruction they most need, could not pass your
examinations ? " He replied : " Undoubtedly, and
I am disgusted with the whole system." I once
asked a company of several teachers, how many
had ever had their attention called to the duty of
discriminating among their pupils as to natural
powers and faculties ? All but one replied that
it was a neglected topic, and that one said he
had heard a few lectures on the subject in a

i

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION j^j

normal school in Pennsylvania. In other words,
while the most important part of education is the
development and balancing of what is within the
child, until recently little has been offered to
teachers to fit them for this part of the work.
What would be thought of a medical college
that devoted all its attention to materia medica,
and taught none of the principles of diagnosis ?
True education studies the child first and most ;
it regards him as a product How can faculties
and tendencies be developed and balanced when
no attention is given to what they are .'' And
how, furthermore, can they be studied thoroughly
so long as the fact is ignored that each child is
little more than a stream of tendencies from the
past coming into manifestation in the individual
to be instructed .-'

It must not be supposed that we have no teach-
ers who rise to their high privilege. Probably
there are in most of the larger schools some who
realize this ideal of the teacher, but they do so in
general rather because of natural gifts than be-
cause of the system under which they have been
trained.

" One of the most hopeful things in education
is the dawn of better and more objective ways of
studying the mind and its growth. The old-fash-

132 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

ioned philosophies, on which so many present
methods of teaching are based, which are still
well intrenched in most of our normal schools,
seem imposing with their vast generalization, but
are too introspective for youth, are formal, and,
where most absolute, least harmonious among
themselves. They have done great good, and it
is not needful here to point out their grave de-
fects. But better and more modern methods of
research into the phenomena and laws of the soul,
more consonant with the demands of modern, and
especially American life and thought, as special-
ized and co-operative as science, slowly doing over
again the work of the great thinkers of the past
century, and without losing their positive result,
removing their limitations, enriching and apply-
ing their insights — these are now slowly but
surely working out a true natural history of
man's nascent faculties. Here is the heart of
the pedagogy of to-day and of to-morrow, where
the science and philosophy of education join
friendly hands with the practical teacher, and
here he who would speak with authority, and be
heard in the new departure already ripening, must
study with patience and love the psychology of the
growing, playing, learning child and youth. Thus
alone we can, in the language of the ' Laches,'

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION 133

make the education of our children our own
education."^

The serious practical difficulty in the way of
such teaching cannot be disregarded. Political
managers usually care nothing for methods of
education which put no money into their pockets
and win no votes for their party. Penny-wise and
pound-foolish taxpayers refuse the appropriations
which are necessary to make possible the best
methods in education. ' But no reform is easy. It
is misconstrued, maligned, opposed with all arts,
until it wins, and then its opposers profess always
to have been its advocates. Progress will halt in
every direction when difficulty is sufficient ground
for despair. There is an inherent difficulty, how-
ever, as well as a political one. It lies in the
fact that it seems scarcely possible in the public
schools to recognize the individuality of the pupils.
It will be said, and truly, that our systems of
education are directed not toward distinguishing
but toward common characteristics ; and properly
so, since that in which all are alike is more and
greater than that in which they differ. There is
indeed in this fact a difficulty which is real, and
neither fictitious nor trifling. It does not appear
how the thronged public schools could be so con-

^ Dr. Stanley Hall, North American Review, February, 1885.

134

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

ducted that the eccentricities of individuals should
be met. In private schools the difficulty is not
so great, though it does not altogether disappear.
The only practical scheme which suggests itself
is the proper training of those to whom are com-
mitted the responsibilities of teaching. In order
that this pedagogic ideal may be realized, knowl-
edge of human nature must always be placed
above acquaintance with books. In the prepa-
ration of the teacher, and in the examinations
through which he passes, this requirement should
be always given the first place. Since what con-
cerns the training of teachers for their office ap-
plies largely to parents also, I pass to that part
of my theme.

Herbert Spencer has written wisely on this
subject. " If by some strange chance not a ves-
tige of us descended to the remote future save
a pile of our school-books, or some college exam-
ination papers, we may imagine how puzzled an
antiquary of the period would be on finding in
them no indication that the learners were ever
likely to be parents (or teachers). 'This must
have been the curriculum for their celibates,' we
may fancy him concluding. ' I perceive here an
elaborate preparation for many things ; especially
for reading: the books of extinct nations and of

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION j^-

co-existing nations (from which, indeed, it seems
clear that these people had very little worth read-
ing in their own tongue), but I find no reference
whatever to the bringing up of children. They
could not have been so absurd as to omit all
training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evi-
dently, then, this was the school course for one
of their monastic orders.'"^ The irony of this
passage is well deserved. No system of educa-
tion gives the slightest attention to training our
youth for the discharge of what will sometime
be their most important and sacred obligation.
If the training of parents is thus neglected, so
that it is common for them to have little idea of
what is in their own children, and to be unable
to adapt their teaching to the latter's needs, it is
not surprising that teachers are not better pre-
pared for their office. Few ever attempt what
is not expected of them. What Mr. Spencer says
about the young mother applies equally to the
teacher of young children : " But a few years
ago she was at school, where her memory was
crammed with words and names and dates, and
her reflective faculties scarcely in the slightest
degree exercised ; where not one idea was given
her respecting the methods of dealing with the

1 Education, Herbert Spencer, p. 55.

136 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

opening mind of childhood ; and where her dis-
cipline did not in the least fit her for thinking
out methods of her own. . . . And now see her
with an unfolding human character committed to
her charge ; see her profoundly ignorant of the
phenomena with which she has to deal. . . . She
knows nothing about the nature of the emotions,
their order of evolution, their functions, or where
use ends and abuse begins." ^ One sentence more
from Mr. Spencer : " Some acquaintance with the
first principles of physiology and the elementary
truths of psychology is indispensable for the right
bringing up of children." ^

Before education can be what it should and
may be, there must be introduced into the cur-
riculum that which may perhaps be called the
study of human nature ; children and young
people should be trained to see what is in man,
just as they are trained to find rare plants in the
field and moss agates in the mountains. More
careful nurture in the home will swiftly follow,
and that in turn will not tolerate systems of
culture in which all pupils are treated as if they
were manufactured products cast in a single
mould. In the building of a palace granite is
used for foundation, marble for walls and statues,

^ Education, Herbert Spencer, p. 58. ^ Ibid. pp. 63, 64.

THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION j^y

precious stones and fair colours for ornamen-
tation and decoration. All inorganic things are
not presumed to be exactly alike. Much less
is there monotony among human souls. Shelley
and Kant were no more alike than a lark and
a dray-horse, yet in England they would have
been put into the same educational hopper.
Mrs. Browning and Adam Smith were at oppo-
site intellectual poles, yet in our public schools
they would be compelled to submit to the same
discipline. Better no training than that which
effaces individuality.

I emphasize, then, the fact that each child is
at first a combination of streams of tendency
from past generations, with a mysterious element
of personality developing in course of time, to
which appeal can be made. If left to himself,
he is likely to go whithersoever those streams
from the past may tend. But the tendencies
may be modified by training ; the evil may be
allowed no congenial air in which to grow, and
be at length practically eliminated, while the good
may be immeasurably strengthened by a new
and better environment. Precisely this is the
function of education. It should bring to bear
on child-life such influences as will cause imper-
fection and bias to disappear, and lead to the

138

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

fullest possible development tendencies to the
true, the beautiful, and the good. To reach this
high ideal it must be intelligent ; it must work
according to a plan ; its instruments must know
pupils better even than books ; must always
adapt methods to personalities ; and must be
fully persuaded that the culture of an immortal
spirit is as great a mission as the exploration of
the stellar universe. The practical difficulty in
this adaptation of training can be largely over-
come by making parents and teachers acquainted
with child-life. This involves a knowledge, not
only of the pupils, but of their ancestry. A
teacher will be able to do better work for his
scholars if he knows something of their fathers
and grandfathers. Blood always tells. Properly
understood, pedigree of human beings is a more
worthy study than chemistry or astronomy. Edu-
cation should evolve that which is best in its
object. Jean Paul says : " It is only mediocrity
which supplants that of others by its own." The
Master said : " I come not to destroy, but to fulfil."
The best teacher never seeks to efface an indi-
viduality, but by effacing himself seeks to draw
out to full and beautiful proportions the noblest
and best in every child committed to his care.

CHAPTER IX

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM

In Mexico and in Persia a shaft of wood and
a stick make a plough, and in the greater part of
the earth the dole of money is about all there is
of charity. Even in Europe and America efforts
at reform have heretofore seldom advanced be-
yond attempts to cure individual suffering and sin.
Now, however, certain neglected factors in the
problem are beginning to receive more attention,
and though the progress toward a solution is as
yet small, the trend of things is in the right
direction. " How is it possible to relieve want
and destitution without serious moral harm to
the recipients, injury to the community, and, in
the end, increasing the amount of suffering .'* "
This inquiry Mr. Francis Peek placed at the
beginning of a paper read at one of the Charity
Organization Conferences in London, in 1879.
It is the inquiry which puzzles all who seek to
ameliorate the condition of the poor. An attempt
to discuss the question in a single chapter would
be sure evidence of never having studied it.

139

I40 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Therefore, at present, I shall consider only cer-
tain phases of the subject ; namely, pauperism as
related to heredity and environment. I will not
speak of those only temporarily in financial dis-
tress, — always a large class ; nor yet of those
who are able to earn a decent living, but who
have few luxuries, and only a limited number
of comforts. The condition of such needs im-
provement; but, judging from recent events in
this country and in Europe, they are able to
work out their own salvation, and are doing so
surely and swiftly. Neither will I pause to
speak of the insane, or the children of virtuous
parents who are left without help. None of
these should be forgotten, but they cannot be
considered here.

Pauperism denotes a condition. That condi-
tion has been defined as "the state of voluntary
want," — a very inadequate definition. All who
are voluntarily in want are paupers, but not all
paupers are such voluntarily. Some choose pau-
perism ; to them it is preferable to labour. Others
are born into pauperism, and such would often
gladly rise out of it, but cannot. They remain
paupers from lack of faculty rather than from
choice. A weight is upon them, — the weight
of the sins of past generations. It crushes like

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM j^j

a mountain. Then there are those who, from
earhest childhood, have had surroundings which
were vicious and wretched. These are often
physically, morally, intellectually diseased. They
are children of the outcast ; they scarcely can be
said to have had parents, never a home ; they
were simply born and left. How large the num-
ber of these is may easily be imagined after an
examination of the conditions of life in large
cities. Members of this class seldom dream
that there is anything higher for them. Their
environment so hardens them to filth and per-
version that they do not know what it is to
aspire. These two large classes — those who
are paupers by heredity, and those who are
such by environment — are the hardest to reach,
and the most misunderstood and neglected.

What are the causes of pauperism — the worst
form of poverty } The answer has been already
suggested.

(i) Heredity. — Paupers are largely the chil-
dren of paupers. This is most evident in the
older countries. We know that not only do
characteristics of body and mind run in families,
but that diseases do the same ; not only does tal-
ent follow family lines, but so do criminal propen-
sities ; and, moreover, so do those physical and

142

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

moral characteristics which tend toward pau-
perism. Mr. Dugdale's studies in this field are
well known. With most minute care he has,
by examinations running through six genera-
tions, found pauperism hereditary ; and as the
result of an inductive study he makes the state-
ment that the heredity of the tendency to pau-
perism is quite as indisputable as that to crime
or disease. This, of course, is only the natural
presumption from the general law of heredity.
If, through many generations, the Bourbon family
is distinguished by the Bourbon nose, and the
Bach family by talent for music, we should
expect to find the descendants of Margaret Juke
both criminals and paupers. It may be doubted
whether pauperism is not more a disease than
a crime. Laziness is easily denounced ; it is not
so easily understood. It results largely from lack
of vitality. Where there is abundant vitality the
individual either ceases to be a drone or becomes
a criminal. Hence Mr. Dugdale says : " Crime, as
compared to pauperism, indicates vigour." But
what does lack of vitality signify .■* Plainly,
defective parentage. As men are born with
physical deformity, so are they born with mental
and moral deformity. A child of intemperance
comes into the world diseased. So of the off-

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM

143

spring of the licentious. The parents have been
debilitated thereby, and their weakness is trans-
mitted to the children. Intemperance and licen-
tiousness often go together, and paupers are born
of such wedlock. Mr. Dugdale says again :
" Hereditary pauperism seems to be more fixed
than hereditary crime ; for very much of crime
is the misdirection of faculty, and is amenable
to discipline, while very much of pauperism is
due to the absence of vital power, the lines of
pauperism being, in many cases, identical with
the lines of organic disease of mind or body, as
insanity, consumption, syphilis, which cause, from
generation to generation, the successive extinction
of capacity till death supervenes." ^ I have found
nothing on this subject so concise and compre-
hensive as Mr. Dugdale's "Tentative Inductions
on Pauperism," which I quote as follows i^ —

" I. Pauperism is an indication of weakness of
some kind, either youth, disease, old age, injury ;
or, for women, childbirth.

"2. It is divisible into hereditary and induced
pauperism.

"3. Hereditary pauperism rests chiefly upon
disease in some form, tends to terminate in ex-

1 The Jukes, Dugdale, p. 50.

2 Ibid. pp. 37, 38.

144 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

tinction, and may be called the sociological
aspect of physical degeneration.

"4. The debility and diseases which enter
most largely in its production are the result of
sexual licentiousness.

" 5. Pauperism in adult age, especially in the
meridian of life, indicates a hereditary tendency
which may or may not be modified by the envi-
ronment.

"6. Pauperism follows men more frequently
than women, indicating a decided tendency to
hereditary pauperism.

"7. The different degrees of adult pauper-
ism, from out-door relief to almshouse charity,
indicate in the main different gradations of wan-
ing vitality. In this light the whole question is
opened up, whether indolence, which the dog-
matic aphorism says 'is the root of all evil,'
is not, after all, a mark of undervitalization,
and an effect which acts only as a secondary
cause.

" 8. Induced pauperism results from bad ad-
ministration of the law, or temporary weakness
or disability in the recipient.

"9. The pauperism of childhood is an acci-
dent of life rather than a hereditary character-
istic.

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM j^r

" lo. The youngest child has a tendency to
become the pauper of the family.

"II. Youngest children are more likely than
the older ones to become the inmates of the
poorhouse through the misconduct or misfort-
une of parents.

" 12. Such younger children, who remain in-
mates of the almshouse long enough to form
associations that live in the memory and habits
that continue in the conduct, have a greater
tendency to revert spontaneously to that condi-
tion whenever any emergency of life overtakes
them, and domesticate there more readily than
older children whose greater strength has kept
them out during youth.

"13. Induced pauperism may lead to the es-
tablishment of the hereditary form."

Mr. Dugdale's studies confirm my own less
thorough investigations. Pauperism is primarily
caused by lack of vitality, or transmitted weak-
ness. That lack of vitality carries with it ten-
dencies to thriftless habits and animal vices
which almost invariably manifest themselves in
character and conduct. The pauper is not only
the slave of poverty, but also the natural prey
of licentiousness and intemperance.

Though statistics show that the children of

146

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

paupers usually become paupers, they do not
show by any means that all pauperism, or even
the largest part of it, is to be accounted for in
this way.

(2) Environment. — A vicious environment is
an even more potent agent in producing pauper-
ism. Debilitated physical conditions make exertion
distasteful, and sometimes impossible. A vitiated
vital condition makes many men insensible to
moral motives. In others repeated failure in
the attempts to rise to better things has resulted
in despair, and despair is inert, except toward
evil. Let me quote a passage from "The Bitter
Cry of Outcast London:" "Every room in these
rotten and reeking tenement houses contains a
family, often two. In one cellar a sanitary in-
spector reports finding a father, mother, three
children, and four pigs ! . . . Here are seven
people living in one underground kitchen, and
a little dead child lying in the same room.
Elsewhere is a poor widow, her three children,
and a child who had been dead thirteen days.
Her husband, who was a cabman, had shortly
before committed suicide. ... In another room
nine brothers and sisters, from twenty-nine years
of age downward, live, eat, and sleep together.
Here is a mother who turns her children into

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 147

the Street in the early evening because she lets
her room for immoral purposes until long after
midnight, when the poor little wretches creep
back again, if they have not found some mis-
erable shelter elsewhere." What must be the
effect where such is the social environment of
a lifetime ? How idle to expect to uplift thou-
sands upon thousands of such people by a few
soup-houses, a few visitors, and here and there
mission chapels ! What are these among so
many ? Several years ago the almshouses of
New York were carefully inspected, and nearly
ten thousand of their inmates personally inter-
viewed. Few were found who had ever owned
any property. Thirty-two per cent, were wholly
illiterate, and only thirty per cent, had received
a fair common-school education. Eighty-five per
cent, of the men had been intemperate, and forty-
two per cent, among the women. Fifty-five per
cent, had intemperate fathers, and over eighty-
two per cent, intemperate mothers. Overcrowd-
ing, intemperance, and the social evil act and
react on the pauper, and produce a progeny of
weakness, vice, and crime.

Dr. A. J. F. Behrends, in " Socialism and
Christianity," says that the primary and purely
personal causes of pauperism are " idleness and

148 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

improvidence." Later in the same lecture he
says : " Illiteracy, intemperance, overcrowding,
and the looseness of the marriage tie, — these
are the four social causes of pauperism." The
latter statement is undoubtedly true, but the for-
mer is open to exception. It does not go to the
root of the matter. Defective parentage, caused
by disease, intemperance, sexual excesses, and the
exhaustion of vitality through overwork, is the pri-
mary and personal cause of pauperism. " Idleness
and improvidence " naturally, and almost inevit-
ably, follow, and tend to reproduce themselves
according to the same law by which they exist.

Among the elements that go to make an
environment conducive to pauperism are the
following : —

(a) The tendency of the population to congregate
in cities. — The mountains and valleys and even
the prairies have streams running to the cities.
Most of those who go to the towns are not
skilled labourers ; they are without trades, and
are impelled thither by desire for excitement.
Their services are not wanted. Their capital,
if they have any, is soon spent. If they have
not sense and spirit enough to return home, they
are soon on the street begging, perhaps stealing.
If they could be induced to go back to the country

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM j^q

there would be hope for them, — their only hope,
indeed, for this world.

(b) Overcrowding. — Overcrowding, partially
consequent on the rush to the cities, partially
the result of the greed of the landlords, par-
tially due to the fact that labourers must be near
the places of work, is a chief cause of evil envi-
ronment. What tongue or pen can describe its
distressing and disgusting features .-' Read the
testimonies of Lord Shaftesbury and of Mr. H. C.
Meyer, an American engineer, before the Royal
Commission in London in 1884, on the Housing
of the Working Classes, published in the "Blue
Book " of the following year. They show that
most of the poor are rarely paupers at first. They
must be near their work, and are therefore com-
pelled to take such accommodations as are avail-
able. Few such families in the densely populated
districts can afford more than one room ; and con-
cerning life in a single room a part of Lord
Shaftesbury's testimony — most of which is too
terrible to repeat — is as follows: "The effect
of the one-room system is physically and morally
beyond all description. In the first place, the
one-room system always leads, so far as I have
seen, to the one-bed system. If you go into these
single rooms you may sometimes find two beds,

I50

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

but you generally find one bed occupied by the
whole family. ... It is impossible to say how
fatal the result of that is. In the first place, it
is totally destructive of all benefit from education.
It is a benefit to the children to be absent during
the day at school, but when they return to their
houses, in one hour they unlearn almost everything
they have acquired during the day. . . . The
one-room system may go on very well while there
are a husband and wife and young children, but
when the children have reached the age of eight
or ten, and have to sleep in the same room as
their parents, or with others, from that hour the
consequences are most fearful both to their morals
and to their health. In the one-room system,
where the inmates are many, you cannot introduce
a sufficient amount of air. How remedy all this ?
You must either insist upon a man taking two
rooms, or else you must separate the children
from the adults. Either case seems to be an im-
possible supposition."

Let us now consider conditions not yet fully
obsolete in this country. In 1879 the Tenement
House Act was passed. Testifying before the
same London Commission, Mr. H. C. Meyer, of
New York, said : "Prior to that act about ninety
per cent, of the city lot could be covered. The

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 151

authorities could not well reach old dwellings
that were built for other purposes and that were
subsequently converted into tenement houses ;
such buildings always had a large proportion of
dark inside rooms. The division of land in our
city is very unfortunate. The blocks are four
hundred feet long by two hundred feet deep ; the
streets are sixty feet wide, and ninety per cent, of
each one-hundred-foot lot could be covered. The
buildings were usually put up five stories high,
and the landlord usually tried to provide for four
families on a floor. You can imagine in our cli-
mate, from May until the last of September, the
condition of the occupants of a large proportion
of the inside rooms, with for two months the tem-
perature averaging over eighty degrees." Indeed,
no city suffers more from overcrowding than New
York, The tenth ward has a density of 243,000
to the square mile. A space of less than thirty
acres in the fourth ward shelters 17,611 persons,
nearly 600 to a plot two hundred feet square.
Sixteen families in a single twenty-five-foot dwell-
ing is a common arrangement. One hundred
souls in a single tenement of that size is not
unusual, and in some cases this number is
doubled. It is said that there are 94,000 families
in Berlin who live with a single room to a family,

152 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

and that 25,000 of these families burrow in ccl
lars. In such conditions homes are impossible.
Vice and pauperism naturally spring from such
soil. The districts most overcrowded contain
the greatest number and the vilest of dram-
shops and the most unblushing licentiousness.
When it is remembered that those who live in
such circumstances are not strong, either physi-
cally, mentally, or morally, the certainty of pau-
perism is inevitable.

Lord Shaftesbury said they had found that
workmen lost, on an average, about twenty days
each year from causes directly related to over-
crowded and unsanitary dwellings. He was
asked if he had seen the pamphlet called : " Is
it the Sty that makes the Pig, or the Pig the
Sty .'' " His answer was : " I am certain that a
great many people who are in that condition
have been made so by the condition of the houses
in which they live." He then gives the gene-
sis of a pauper family. "A young artisan in
the prime of life, an intelligent, active young
man, capable of making his forty or fifty shil-
lings a week, comes up to London ; he must
have lodgings near his work ; he is obliged to
take, he and his wife, the first house that he
can find. ... In a very short time, of course,

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 153

his health is broken down ; he himself succumbs.
The wife falls into despair; in vain she tries to
keep her house clean ; her children increase
upon her, and at last they become reckless, and
with recklessness comes drinking, immorality,
and all the consequences of utter despair." ^

Overcrowding means vitiated air, proximity to
vice, consequent temptation, and usually indul-
gence in evil. Such conditions induce a weak-
ened state, morally and physically. When the
body is weak, ambition dead, and the gate that
looks toward hope closed and barred, the man
is already on the verge of despair, and pauper-
ism is then almost inevitable. The victims of
such conditions are not responsible for them.
Their pauperism is not voluntary want. The
greed of employers and property owners on the
one hand, and the failure of the public in mat-
ters of sanitation, education, and the like, on
the other, are primarily responsible. Only soci-
ety has the power to change them, and on so-
ciety therefore rests the duty of making them
impossible. An undertaker, who was also a
house-owner, was besought by Octavia Hill to
improve his tenements, on the ground that they
would be more profitable to him. He replied :

^ " Housing of the Working Classes," Blue Book, p. 5.

154

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

" O, mum, it's not the rents I depend on for
my profits, it's the funerals ! " Such a brute
exists, and carries on his work, because those
who have the abihty and the wisdom do not lift
up hands and weapons of law and drive him from
the face of the earth. Somebody is responsible
for pauperism and its attendant wretchedness
and crime; but it is quite as often the man who
sits in the ceiled house, and the woman who
dresses in lace and diamonds, as the tramp
who begs or the thief who steals.

One need not be a socialist to see that there
is no way to get rid of a destructive and vicious
environment until the State makes overcrowd-
ing impossible, compels those who build houses
for rental to make them comfortable, healthful,
decent, and even supplies such tenements itself
where capitalists refuse to do so.

(c) Intemperance. — This source and element
of vicious environment will be treated of at
length in the next chapter. It is unnecessary
to speak of it here. There is no evil of our
time more prolific of pauperism.

(d) The esprit de corps of the pauper class. —
Strange to say, this is an important element of
evil and demoralizing environment, and is as evi-
dent in the ranks of pauperism and crime as it

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 155

was in Napoleon's armies. It does not apply to
the temporarily poor, those who have not lost
remembrance of better things, but to paupers
as distinguished from the poor. They argue that
society owes them a living, and they exult in get-
ting it without work. The chief of this clan is
the fellow who induces society to do the most
for him with the least trouble to himself. His
example is a vicious inspiration. Children born
amidst such an environment are subject, during
their formative years, to the influence of degrad-
ing ideals, and stimulated by examples of clever
baseness. Hence it comes that the esprit de
corps of pauperism is one of the most fruitful
causes of its increase.

(e) Disregard of the marriage relation. — This
prepares a fruitful soil for pauperism. When
children are born outside of wedlock, or to those
for whom wedlock has no sanctity, the responsi-
bilities of parents are lightly esteemed. Under
such conditions thousands of street waifs come
into being. The father commonly does not know
of their existence, the mother is engrossed with
the struggle for existence and the indulgence of
her vices, and the child is set adrift to become a
pauper and, all too often, a criminal. How large
this class is, the crowded Maisenhaus in Vienna

156 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

and the Foundling Hospital in London give a
faint indication.

(f) Indiscriminate giving. — When to other con-
tributory causes of pauperism is added the indis-
criminate giving of the charitable, it ceases to
be a wonder that there are so many paupers,
and only seems strange that there are not more.
Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, of the Charity
Organization Society of New York, in a paper
read before a club of that city, charged the
Christian churches with direct responsibility for
a large part of pauperism. Indiscriminate giv-
ing leads paupers to reckon on the doles of the
benevolent as a regular source of revenue irre-
spective of merit or genuine need. "The com-
mittee appointed in Bristol, England, a few
years ago, to inquire into the condition of the
poor, reports : * No remedy can be found for the
pauperism and mendicancy of Bristol till a higher
tone exists in regard to the sin of inconsiderate
dispensation to the poor.' 'Careless almsgiving,'
says Mr. William Low, ' produces, directly, such
vices as imposture, improvidence, drunkenness,
servility, religious pretence.' " Twenty years
ago one in every eighteen in London was a pau-
per. Charity organization followed upon knowl-
edge of this fact; and, as a result, pauperism, at

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 157

the end of seventeen years, had been reduced
from forty-two to twenty-two in every thousand.
Sooner or later nearly every pastor finds that
his church is aiding those who use piety as a
cloak for laziness. The rector of a large parish
in New York discovered that at one time his
church contributed largely to the support of two
maiden ladies supposed to be poor but worthy,
who, on investigation, were found to be owners of
the large tenement in which they lived. There
are organized gangs of paupers in all great cities
who make begging a business. Some "work"
the churches ; others, the Sunday-schools ; still
others go from house to house. They are adroit,
persistent, and innocent in manner ; and they
continue their line of business because it pays.
It would not pay were it not for misplaced
charity. There is truth in the French epi-
gram, " Charity creates one-half of the misery
she relieves, but cannot relieve one-half of the
misery she creates."

This study of the factors of the problem of
pauperism has been necessary before intelligent
suggestions could be offered concerning its solu-
tion. In all attempted solutions there should be
constant reference to the removal of the causes
of the evil. Occasional gifts to the poor con-

158

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

stitute but a mere local treatment of symptoms.
They are like the rubbing of a superficial bodily
irritation when the seat of the difficulty is
within ; though there is a temporary soothing
of the trouble, the inflammation is really in-
creased. So the more one relieves pauperism
by indiscriminate giving, the more it is aggra-
vated. The real questions to be considered are
two : (i) How may an industrious and virtuous
stock be substituted for that which breeds pau-
pers ? (2) How may the conditions of living be
so improved that the pauper class shall no longer
be recruited from the ranks of the frugal and in-
dustrious .'' Speaking again in general terms, the
reply is, that there is one and the same answer for
both questions. Without ignoring the possibilities
of appeal to the personality of the very poor, the
chief way in which a hard-working and frugal stock
can be secured is by a change in the existing
environment ; and the way offering the greatest
promise that the pauper class will no more be
augmented from other classes, is that of secur-
ing such conditions as shall make men unwill-
ing, even for selfish reasons, to sink to lower
levels.

Let us now note a few principles which are
well established by scientific investigation.

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM

159

(i) "Where the organization is structurally
modified, as in idiocy and insanity, or organically
weak, as in many diseases, the heredity is the
preponderating factor in determining the career;
but it is, even then, capable of marked modifica-
tion for better or worse by the character of the
environment. In other words, capacity, physical
and mental, is limited and determined mainly by
heredity." ^

(2) "Where the conduct depends on the knowl-
edge of moral obligation (excluding insanity and
idiocy), the environment has more influence than
the heredity. . . . The use to which capacity
shall be put is largely governed by the imper-
sonal training or agency of environment." ^

(3) The correction for vicious heredity is
change of environment.

(4) " Environment tends to produce habits
which may become hereditary, especially so in
pauperism and licentiousness."^

" If these conclusions are correct, then the
whole question of the control of crime and pau-
perism becomes possible, within wide limits, if
the necessary training can be made to reach
over two or three generations. From the above
considerations the logical induction seems to be

1 The Jukes, Dugdale, p. 65. « /^£^. p. 66. « Ibid

l60 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

that environment is the ultimate controlling fac-
tor in determining careers, placing heredity as
an organized result of invariable environment." ^

These principles are fundamental. Heredity
may be changed by environment. The lungs
of the ancient Peruvians became expanded —
structurally changed — because of the rarefied
air they breathed. The white child of the trop-
ics delights in heat which would enervate a
dweller in northern lands, and yet their ances-
tors sprang from the same racial stock. Change
in environment has caused change in organism.
The principle holds also in the moral sphere.

We have, then, an answer to the question.
What can be done to diminish pauperism .'' We
must change the environment of the poor.
Those who accept the words of St. Paul, "We,
then, that are strong ought to bear the infirmi-
ties of the weak," as expressing a universal
principle, must devote themselves to the crea-
tion of new and more healthy conditions in
which those below them can live and improve.
Not, however, by individual effort alone; organized
society, that is, the State, must also do its part.

What can the State do .-' It can make it im-
possible for individuals or corporations to monop-

^ The Jukes, Dugdale, p. 66.

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM jgj

olize the land. This evil is only beginning to
show itself in the United States ; but in Europe
it exists on a vast scale. The State can so pro-
tect citizens in their right to the land that no
one shall be denied a home who desires one of
his own and is able to pay for it ; and none who
are willing to devote themselves to agriculture
shall be kept from it while land is lying idle.

The State should not allow the erection for
residence of buildings unfit to be abodes for
human beings. It may be a question whether
the State should assume the functions of a land-
lord, though I can see no more reason why it
should carry our mail than why it should build
our houses. It will hardly be questioned, how-
ever, that building laws can be passed and en-
forced, compelling landlords to erect only such
dwellings as shall make homes possible, and
subjecting all that are erected to periodic and
rigid inspection. Overcrowding should be made
as criminal as stealing. Laws forbid overcrowd-
ing on the sea ; why not on the land .-• This evil
is persistent and vital, but it can be eradicated.
If any doubt, let them read the account of the
changed condition of Whitechapel since the Eng-
lish Building Acts were enforced. ^

^ See New Review, October, 1889.

1 62 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

The State can do something by passing uni-
form marriage and divorce laws, and compelling
proper provision for many children who would
otherwise grow up in neglect.

It can also diminish, and, with the advance of
public sentiment, finally abolish, the saloon, and
thus remove a most prolific source of pauperism.

The State can attach to the postal service a
system of Penny Savings Banks, so that there
shall be before all people, even little children, a
constant incentive to industry and frugality. The
people will trust the nation when they would not
'crust individuals. And it should be as universal
as the postal system, so that not only in cities
but also in towns and country districts there may
be an opportunity of investing small sums.

We thus see that it is within the power of the
State to make monopoly in land impossible ; to
compel the erection of dwellings which shall put
a premium on decent living and good behaviour,
the dwellings to be rented at prices which the
poor can pay ; to pass uniform marriage laws ; to
abolish the saloon ; and to establish Postal Penny
Savings Banks, in all these ways creating a better
environment for the people. And it can do one
thing more, — it can make pauperism criminal.
Certain localities do this now, but there would be

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 163

no serious encroachment on the rights of the indi-
vidual if general laws to this effect were enacted.

What can churches do toward the creation of
conditions which shall do away with pauperism ?
They can utterly refuse aid to any but those who
on full investigation are proved to be deserving.
This would cut off the support of thousands who
find it easy to impose on the kind-hearted, and
whose sole ground of confidence is that their
statements will never be investigated. So far as
practicable, churches should work through charity
organization societies, to which all cases requiring
help should be referred for investigation. But
churches are jealous, and object to intrusion. A
Church Exchange has been suggested in which,
on stated occasions, the officers having charge of
the beneficence of the churches, Roman Catholic
and Protestant, should meet and compare notes,
and thus learn whether they have not members
in common who in one ward believe in Apostolic
Succession, in Close Communion in another, in
High Calvinism in a third, their chameleon creeds
being due entirely to their insatiable appetite for
doles. A Church Exchange would be feasible
in villages and small cities, but perhaps the char-
ity organization plan is better for large cities.

But, more than all else, churches can effect

l^A HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

much by rising to an appreciation of the fact that
the gospel is for the whole life of man. Jesus
Christ came to save men in this world as well as
in the world to come. Whatever ennobles and
beautifies humanity ; whatever makes possible a
worthy life for man as a child of God here and
now, belongs to the mission of the Church, and
should be recognized and publicly confessed by
it as belonging to that mission. Nor is that all ;
for the best effect, this large and generous con-
ception of Christianity should be preached in
churches whose doors and pews are free to all,
— so free that a tramp may feel at Hberty to
be there, even though he sleeps. There are
churches and churches. Some content them-
selves with sustaining the worship of the sanctu-
ary for the elect who are able to pay for pews ;
others, though they keep the pew system, make
their places of worship the religious centres and
homes of the community, and organize to move
in solid phalanx on the ranks of vice and degra-
dation. The Congregational Union of London
might well be studied by all churches. It works
systematically. It provides for the poor, preach-
ing, bright and cheerful entertainments, and work
for those who are willing to work ; it puts boots
on children, and sends them to school ; it pro-

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM 165

vides five o'clock breakfasts on Sunday morning,
where men are fed before being asked to listen
to sermons ; it searches for the deserving who
are willing to emigrate and sends them to the
colonies ; it allows no heedless giving, but strives
in all ways to open the door of hope before those
who live in darkness and despair. The Secretary
of this Union issued "The Bitter Cry of Out-
cast London," that exceedingly bitter cry which
has echoed around the world. It was significant,
showing that the Church was far in advance
of Parliament in its appreciation of the social
condition and needs of England.

Thus in various ways churches can do much
toward creating an environment which shall min-
imize pauperism. They can refuse to counte-
nance almsgiving except on fullest investigation ;
they can give up their prejudices and sectarian
rivalries, and organize a Church Exchange by
which only the deserving shall be helped ; they
can work through the charity organization so-
cieties ; and, better than all, they can realize
that Christ came to save men, body and soul ;
they can preach this generous gospel, and can
give themselves to a wider, more intelligent,
and more Christlike ministration which will up-
lift men, restore them to manhood, and thus

1 66 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

help them toward, if not into, the kingdom of
God.

What can individuals do to create an environment
which shall gradually exterminate pauperism ?

They can learn that giving to beggars is giving
to multiply beggars. They can remember that
even paupers are children of God for whom Christ
died, and therefore worthy of best and most
thoughtful efforts for improvement. The current
philosophy says, The fittest will survive : let the
rest die. The religion of Christ says, That
maxim as applied to men is just only as regards
their characteristics, of which indeed only the
fittest should survive. It does not and cannot
apply to the men themselves, since all men,
being children of God, are supremely fit. The
very fact that a human being is sick, weak, poor,
an outcast and a vagabond, is the strongest
possible appeal for effort toward his salvation.
Let individuals look upon humanity from the
point of view of Christ, and they will not
be long in finding ways in which environment
can be bettered and caused to make for right-
eousness.

A gentleman of wealth started the Polytechnic
Institute on Regent Street in London. It edu-
cates to industry and high ideals about fifteen

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM igy

hundred young people each year. Paupers are
seldom, if ever, found among those who have
studied there. A number of Oxford and Cam-
bridge students live and work in the University
and Public School Settlements and the Mansfield
House, East and South London. There young
men from the universities go, not technically to
be missionaries, though in a missionary spirit, but
to improve the conditions of life at Whitechapel.
Toynbee Hall, the Oxford House, Mansfield
House in the East, and Browning Hall in the
South, — the worst districts of London, — show
what certain individuals are doing to solve the
problem of pauperism. They live among the peo-
ple, go among them, and try to elevate their local
affairs. They are on the poor-boards and the
school-boards; — the head of Mansfield House is
an alderman; — they assist the police in the sup-
pression of vice, and the like, and thus are them-
selves trained for larger and better work in the
future. What these young men and women
are doing in England is being done by others
equally consecrated in this country, in Andover
House, Boston; in Hull House, Chicago; in the
Whittier House, Jersey City; in the University
and College Settlements in New York and in
many other cities.

1(58 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

The hero and heroine of " All Sorts and Condi-
tions of Men " are believed to be well known, and
their work to have been the inspiration of Mr.
Besant's book. He described an ideal Palace of
Delight which a few years ago had no existence.
To-day it is a veritable reality. In 1887 it was
opened by the Queen, — a vast institution with
industrial classes, art classes, a cooking school, a
hall seating two or three thousand people, where
the best music in the kingdom is to be heard as
frequently as at the West End ; an art gallery, in
which at least once has been seen the finest col-
lection of modern paintings to be found in Great
Britain. And this music, this art, these libraries
and reading-rooms, these places for amusement
and improvement, are to be enjoyed by any
dweller in the heart of East London for a merely
nominal admission. Crowds go there. Life is
made nobler and sweeter. Young men and
maidens drawn from music-halls and saloons see
something worth thinking and talking about.
Boys and girls with some natural gifts are sought
out and trained to arts and industries. In ad-
dition to these, travel classes are formed, and
men, women, and children are taken to the coun-
try for excursions in which recreation and instruc-
tion are combined. And, still better, the poor

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM igg

and friendless are brought near to pure and noble
spirits, who show them that none have any greater
privilege than being permitted to uplift those who
suffer and those who sin.

But perhaps the most helpful of all agencies
started by individuals in this crusade against
pauperism was the experiment of Octavia Hill.
It is no longer an experiment, but an assured and
magnificent success. It occurred to her to go into
the heart of London's poorest districts, take old
buildings and make them clean and well-equipped
dwellings, and as soon as possible replace them
with new ones. She laid her plan before John
Ruskin, and he furnished most, if not all, of the
money for the venture. Miss Hill carried her
scheme into effect in person. She not only trans-
formed old rookeries, making them comfortable
and healthful, but took up her residence in one of
them, kept the stairs and halls as clean as her own
rooms, filled the vacant places with flowers, be-
came the friend and helper of the women and
children, set an example of careful housekeeping
which was a constant inspiration, and then in-
sisted that her rents should be paid. She demon-
strated that, however it may be among animals,
among human beings the "sty" has much to do
with making the pig. In other words, she proved

170 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

that people who have decent homes and a chance
to see beautiful things are usually influenced by
these things. Her example has already been fol-
lowed, to some extent, in Europe and America,
and it is likely that by following and extending
it in the future most will be done toward solving
our problem.

These are hints to the Christian worker, and
most suggestive phenomena to the Christian stu-
dent. Similar and more familiar phenomena are
to be found in the work of the Children's Aid
Society of New York, and in the model tenements
which have been erected in some of our cities.
They all illustrate the principle to which atten-
tion is here directed, — that environment affects
character. Our only hope that the problem of
pauperism will ever be solved is in the fact that
new and higher conditions always do much for the
improvement of human nature, however degraded
it may have become.

At the same time the inscrutable element of
personality must never be overlooked, even in
the lowest. Individual responsibility is an ulti-
mate reality. We begin life where others put us,
but after that we choose for ourselves. Heredity
furnishes each man his capital, but compels none
in its use. However much is done for the eleva-

THE PROBLEM OF PAUPERISM

171

tion of the pauper and lowest classes, all efforts
must fail unless they succeed in awakening their
consciousness of responsibility and consequent
ability. This fact gives dignity and importance
to personal appeals which have no other object
than the reinforcing of weak wills. To accomplish
this supreme result no force is more potent than
friendship, and the efforts of those who in public
and private, but always in a spirit of love, impress
upon the weak the fact that they possess responsi-
bility, and that others are interested in them and
waiting in right ways to help.

At the close of this discussion I record my con-
viction that no permanent work for humanity will
ever be accomplished without heeding the follow-
ing fundamental Christian truth.

All men — paupers, thieves, murderers — are
children of God, and therefore worth saving ; they
are destined for an endless existence, and therefore
the most heroic and self-sacrificing effort in their
behalf becomes a privilege and an honour.

Finally, efforts for the amelioration of human-
ity require time for successful result. The bale-
ful effects of evil inheritance — which are like
streams running through many generations — are
not easily overcome. In character, as in disease,
more than one generation is needed to eradicate

1/2

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

evil tendencies. But, as tlie pliysical constitution is
changed for the better if kept long enough in pure
air and bright sunshine, so the lowest and most
degraded humanity becomes ennobled and beauti-
fied if taken out of its surroundings of idleness,
vice, and crime, and kept in the tonic air of pure
example and loving associations, and beneath the
bright and tender sky of the eternal Father's love.

CHAPTER X

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME

We have seen that while the tendencies of a
man are fixed at his birth, yet what he is actually
is determined by an "infinite number of influences
which have a powerful effect upon his ultimate
constitution for good or evil ; " and we have con-
sidered briefly the bearing of these truths upon
the problem of pauperism. It remains to be said
that a large part of intemperance, also, and of
licentiousness and crime, is produced by heredity
and induced by environment ; and that conse-
quently all intelligent and successful effort for
the removal of these evils must begin with a study
of the relation of these agencies to the facts.

Heredity, Environ7nent, aiid Intemperance. — In
a previous chapter the general fact that a tendency
to intemperance is very often inherited has been
pointed out ; it is my purpose here to add the tes-
timony of a few specialists too honoured to allow of
a suggestion of partisanship, and then to consider
the relation of the fact to the problem of reform.

173

174

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Dr. T. D. Crothers, of Walnut Lodge, Hartford,
in a paper on "Inebriety and Heredity" (1886),
makes the following statements : " Alcoholic hered-
ity, or the transmission of a special tendency to
use spirits or any narcotic, to excess, is much more
common than is supposed. ... In the line of di-
rect heredity — or those inebriates whose parents or
grandparents used spirits to excess — we find that
about one in every three cases can be traced to
inebriate ancestors." "Quite a large proportion
of these parents are moderate, or only occasional
excessive users of spirits. If the father is a mod-
erate drinker, and the mother a nervous, consump-
tive woman, or one with a weak, nervous organi-
zation, inebriety very often follows in the children.
If both parents use wine or beer on the table
continuously, temperate, sober children will be the
exception. If the mother uses various forms of
alcoholic drinks as medicines, or narcotic drugs
for real or imaginary purposes, the inebriety of
the children is very common. Many cases have
been noted of mothers using wine, beer, or some
form of alcoholic drinks, for lung trouble, or other
affections, and the children born during this period
have been inebriates, while others born before and
after this drink-period have been temperate."

In the group of heredities called indirect, Dr.

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME

175

Crothers finds the cause of about one-fourth of all
inebriety.

But the influence on succeeding generations of
evil habit — or its equivalent in the form of disease
— goes farther than the formation of a tendency to
alcoholism. Of the group called by Dr. Crothers
" complex border-land cases," or those where an-
cestors have been victims of diseases which tend
toward the drink-habit, or to conditions which
favour it, he says, not only that "fully one-fourth
of all inebriates are of this class," but also
that, " in these cases there seems to be in certain
families a regular cycle of degenerative diseases.
Thus in one generation great eccentricity, genius,
and a high order of emotional development. . . .
In the next generation insane, inebriates, feeble-
minded, or idiots. In the third generation pau-
pers, criminals, tramps, epileptics, idiots, insane,
consumptives, and inebriates. In the fourth
generation they die out, or may swing back to
great genius, pioneers and heroes, or leaders of
extreme movements." The study of a large num-
ber of inebriates shows both mental and physical
legacies of evil from parents. " Bad-shaped heads
and bodies, retarded or excessive growth, club
feet, cleft palate, defective eyesight, great gross-
ness of organization, or extreme frailty of develop-

1/6

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

ment, are common among children of this class.
Mental heredity is equally clear. Mental insta-
bility and mental feebleness are common. From
this mental heritage result : (i) diminution of
longevity ; (2) the race with the evil entail must
die out ; (3) where this heredity is retarded, or
accelerated, by union with different currents of
heredity, strange compounds result, as, for exam-
ple, if to alcoholic-heredity is united a heritage of
insanity, idiocy and all grades of criminals, pau-
pers, and mixed insanities follow."

Ribot says: "The passion known as dipso-
mania, or alcoholism, is so frequently transmitted
that all are agreed in considering its heredity as
the rule. Not, however, that the passion for drink
is always transmitted in that identical form, for
it often degenerates into mania, idiocy, and hal-
lucination. Conversely, insanity in the parents
may become alcoholism in the descendants. This
continued metamorphosis plainly shows how near
passion comes to insanity, how closely the succes-
sive generations are connected, and, consequently,
what a weight of responsibility rests on each in-
dividual." 1 Dr. Morel, of Paris, had " an opportu-
nity of proving the hereditary effects of alcoholism
in the 'children of the Commune.' He inquired
into the mental state of one hundred and fifty

1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 85.

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME

177

children, ranging from ten to seventeen years of
age, most of whom had been taken with arms in
their hands behind the barricades. 'This exami-
nation,' he says, 'has confirmed me in my previous
convictions' as to the baneful effects produced by
alcohol, not only in the individuals who use this
detestable drink to excess, but also in their de-
scendants. On their depraved physiognomy is
impressed the threefold stamp of physical, intel-
lectual, and moral degeneracy.' " ^ Dr. Elam, after
describing the effects of inebriety on the indi-
vidual using alcohol, says : " All this, fearful as
it is, would be comparatively of trifling impor-
tance, did the punishment descend only on the
individual concerned, and terminate there. Un-
fortunately this is not so, for there is no phase
of humanity in which hereditary influence is so
marked and characteristic as in this. The chil-
dren unquestionably do suffer for or from the
sins of the parent, even unto untold generations.
And thus the evil spreads from the individual to
the family, from family to community and to the
population at large, which is endangered in its
highest interests by the presence and contact of
2i 'morbid variety' m its midst." ^ Erasmus Dar-

1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 87.

^A Physician^ s Problems, Elam, pp. 108, 109.

N

178 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

win, in his "Botanical Garden" (1781), says : "It
is remarkable that all the diseases from drinking
spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to be-
come hereditary, even to the third generation,
gradually increasing, if the cause be continued,
till the family becomes extinct." ^

Intemperance is both a vice and a disease.
As a disease, it results from many causes, chief
among which is heredity, though environment
also plays its part. Dr. Crothers accounts for by
far the largest part — at least three-fourths — of
all inebriety either by direct or indirect heredity.

As a vice, the chief agent in promoting it is
environment. The wonder is that so few are
intemperate rather than so many. The perni-
cious environment is very complex and difficult
of analysis. Example does much ; discontent
and wretchedness do more.

Many are miserable as a consequence of drink,
more drink because they are miserable. Misery
as a cause of inebriety is a department of inquiry
that the professional reformer seldom touches.
Unhappy marriages are responsible for much
intemperance,

" I myself must mix with action
Lest I wither by despair,"

1 Fou7idation of Death, Gustafson, p. 174.

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME ijg

explains not only much of the mad activity of
our time, but a large part of its dissipation also.
An environment of suffering, with little trust in
Providence, or faith that happiness in the sequel
works with righteousness, results in attempts to
drown consciousness in alcohol, or to dull it with
opiates. Moderate drinking does not always or
usually, among the better classes, end in drunken-
ness. Its evil appears more in the second gen-
eration than in the first ; but failure in business,
unhappy domestic life, ill-health long continued,
change the cry in " Locksley Hall " to

" I must drown myself in liquor
Lest I wither by despair."

Intemperance is of course a potent cause of
misery; but the reverse is equally true, — misery
is the cause of intemperance. What strong and
perennial fountains, then, of the thirst for strong
drink must the slums of our great cities be,
where tens and even hundreds of thousands of
people live amidst conditions which forbid aspira-
tion and even decency, and invite despondency
and despair ! Often the saloon is under the same
roof, and the sight and fumes of liquor constantly
present ; while the food is so coarse that any-
thing which promises to help digest it, is welcome.
Add to this that most of the restraint which

l8o HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

comes from the approval of the good is absent,
and the wonder is that so many live decent
lives. The poor drinking-water is a contribu-
tory cause of intemperance. Where vile water is
supplied to the people, a large proportion of them
will prefer beer, which is usually made with water
from artesian wells, to water that comes in pipes
saturated by the filth of sewers. In many cities
any very considerable temperance reform is impos-
sible until a good water supply is secured.

Tenement-house education, too, is an ever-active
influence for evil. Children grow where the social
atmosphere is vile, the words they hear are vic-
ious, and liquor is the common drink. A child
born and reared in such circumstances is almost
past praying for, unless he is taken out of them
and placed where purity and virtue can have a
fair chance with him. A large number of those
who become drunkards are young men who live
in cities and towns, in boarding-houses. A young
man works all day. Evening comes ; where shall
he go .■* He has no fire in his room, and is not
wanted at his lodgings. He naturally craves
society ; where shall he get it .-• In the street }
The streets of any large city at night are full of
temptations. He thinks he will try the Young
Men's Christian Association. That is for mem-

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME

I8l

bers. He thinks he can at least go into the
reading-room ; but there he often finds a sign
saying, "Any persons not members must apply at
the desk for permission to enter." He goes out.
Shall he go to a church ? The churches are closed,
and as cold and gloomy as prisons. Not so the
saloon ; that is always open. There he finds music
and papers, rational and decent amusement, and
a lot of genial fellows ; and the devil manipulates
all. I have walked the streets of large cities, try-
ing to find some place in which I could pass the
evening pleasantly ; and the only doors open to me,
with my resources, were those of the theatre, the
saloon, and what is equally persistent and more
infamous. The wonder is that men in such cir-
cumstances are as decent as they are. Some of
them are sons of drunkards, and are now amidst
conditions that tend to develop all that is bad
in them. The exigencies of daily life place
them where the odds are against sobriety and
decency. Heredity has too often furnished a
nature more or less vitiated ; environment now
surrounds it with fascinating allurements, and
intemperance follows as naturally as a harvest
from the sowing of seed.

Heredity, Environment, and Crime. — The he-
reditary nature of the criminal propensity is un-

1 82 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

questionable. By this is not meant simply that
criminals are children of criminals^ but also that
they inherit such traits of physical and psychi-
cal constitution as naturally lead to crime. Ri-
bot says : " The heredity of the tendency to
thieving is so generally admitted that it would
be superfluous to bring together here facts which
abound in every record of judicial proceedings."
He cites as an illustration the genealogy of the
Chretien family from Dr. Despine's "Psychol-
ogic Naturelle."

" The father had three sons : Pierre, Thomas,
and Jean-Baptiste. i. Pierre had a son, Jean-
Francois, who was condemned for life to hard
labour for robbery and murder. 2. Thomas had
two sons : (i) Francois, condemned to hard labour
for murder, and (2) Martin, condemned to death
for murder. Martin's son died in Cayenne,
whither he had been transported for robbery,
3. Jean-Baptiste had a son, Jean-Frangois, whose
wife was Marie Taure (belonging to a family
of incendiaries). This Jean-Frangois had seven
children : (i) Jean-Frangois, found guilty of sev-
eral robberies, died in prison ; (2) Benoist, fell
off a roof which he had scaled, and was killed ;
(3) X , nicknamed Clain, found guilty of sev-
eral robberies, died at the age of twenty-five ;

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME

183

(4) Marie-Reine, died in prison, whither she had
been sent for theft ; (5) Marie-Rose, same fate,
same deeds ; (6) Victor, now in jail for theft ; (7)
Victorine, married one Lemaire ; their son was
condemned to death for murder and robbery."
Ribot adds: "We have given this instance
because it cuts short all explanations drawn
from the influence of education and example.
Doubtless it is difficult in many cases to
determine what is due to education, and what
to nature ; and the children of thieves are not
very likely to be trained to honesty by their
parents ; but still nature is always the stronger
agency." ^

The studies of Mr. Dugdale among State-prison
convicts in New York State reveal some start-
ling facts. They show the part played, both by
heredity and environment, in the production of
criminals. Two hundred and thirty-three cases
were examined, and the examination so far veri-
fied as to be considered reliable. Of this number,
23.03 per cent were of neurotic stock. By neu-
rotic stock is meant "those who are descended
from, related to by blood, or are themselves
either idiotic, insane, epileptic, paralytic, or other-

^ Ribot, Heredity, p. 91.

1 84

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

wise nervously disordered." Forty and seventy-
seven hundredths per cent, were orphans; 46.78
per cent, had been neglected in childhood ; 75.63
per cent, were habitual criminals ; 22.74 P^r cent,
were House of Refuge boys; 17.16 per cent, were
of criminal families ; 22.31 per cent, were of pauper
stock ; 42.49 per cent, were of intemperate family;
35.05 per cent, were habitual drunkards ; and
79.41 per cent, were without trade. Of the two
hundred and thirty-three examined, the figures
show that nearly one in every four was born
of nervously disordered parentage. Mr. Dugdale
says: "This close relationship between nervous
disorders and crime runs parallel with the expe-
rience of England, where ' the ratio of insane to
sane criminals is thirty-four times as great as
the ratio of lunatics to the whole population of
England ; or, if we take half the population
to represent the adults which supply the con-
vict prisons we shall have the criminal lunatics
in excess in the high proportion of seventeen
to one.'"^ "It has been said that 'whatever
is physiologically right is morally right,' and
here we have a confirmation of that saying by
its converse, that whatever is physiologically un-

^ The Jukes, Dugdale, revised edition, p. 86.

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME jgc

sound is morally rotten ; for we find that murder,
rape, and arson — crimes which arouse our abhor-
rence and indignation the most, for which the
law awards the most severe penalties, and which
all men in all nations are agreed to look upon as
unpardonable — are perpetrated by a class of men
whose probable capacity for self-government is
twice and a half less than that of criminals who
prey upon property, and whose probable mental
unsoundness is thirty-four times greater than that
of the average community." ^

About forty-three per cent, of the criminals
examined were of intemperate family, as were
fifty-one per cent, of the House of Refuge boys.
We find that 79.41 per cent, never learned a
trade, and presumptively were in the condition
of those for whom Satan finds mischief.

Failure to learn a trade is chargeable usually
to the parents, and doubtless the indifference to,
or aversion for, sustained industry indicated by
that failure was a part of their legacy to their
children. A terrible fact is the large number of
House of Refuge boys found in the prisons, —
nearly twenty-three per cent, of all the convicts
examined. Of that number ninety-eight per cent.

1 The Jukes, Dugdale, revised edition, p. 87.

1 86 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

were habitual criminals. These figures go far to
support Mr. Dugdale's statement that Houses of
Refuge are the " nurseries, not the reformatories,
of crime." ^ Concerning diseases among crim-
inals, Dr. Bruce Thompson says : " In all my
experience I have never seen such an accumula-
tion of morbid appearances as I witness in the
post-mortem examinations of the prisoners who die
here. Scarcely one of them can be said to die of
one disease, for almost every organ of the body is
more or less diseased ; and the wonder to me is
that life could have been supported in such a dis-
eased frame. Their moral nature seems equally
diseased with their physical frame ; and whilst
their mode of life in prison reanimates their
physical health, I doubt whether their minds are
equally benefited, if improved at all. On a close
acquaintance with criminals, of eighteen years'
standing, I consider that nine in ten are of
inferior intellect, but that all are excessively
cunning." ^

But figures and testimonies are scarcely needed
to prove that a criminal ancestry, especially
when reinforced by criminal environment, will
surely lead to crime and degeneration. To

1 The Jukes, Dugdale, revised edition, p. vii,

2 Quoted in The Jukes, Dugdale, p. 95.

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME 187

expect otherwise would be to look for the
reversal of the law that what is sown will be
reaped. Ancestry determines tendency ; actual-
ity is usually a product of heritage and surround-
ing. When both are criminal, the probabilities
are overwhelming that the offspring will be
criminal.

Before there can be progress toward the
removal of intemperance or crime, there must be
a careful study of the causes of these evils.
Diagnosis in social disease, as in physical, should
precede resort to remedies. Until recently, there
has been almost total neglect of what have been
abundantly shown to be important factors in the
problem of reform. " Lend a Hand " contains the
following : " Dr. Holmes has said, ' The patient
may almost always be saved, if the doctor is called
in time, but he should be called two or three
hundred years before the patient is born.' It is
not quite convenient for the new charity of to-day
to root out the seeds of the pauper disease found
in the seventeenth and the sixteenth centuries,
but it does the next best thing ; it seeks to cure
the pauperism of the twentieth and succeeding
centuries by shutting up the pauper-factories of
to-day." The history of society's dealing with the
classes mentioned in this paper is mournful read-

iSS HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

ing. Even well-meant attempts at philanthropy
have been so poorly administered that they have
often increased rather than diminished the evils
at which they were directed.

Temperance-workers have wasted their energies
in agitation for laws impossible to execute in large
cities, and have left the intemperate in unim-
proved conditions of temptation and tendency.
The only attempt of which I have heard at a
careful study of the relation of heredity to inebri-
ety by such reforms is the Bureau of Heredity
of the W. C. T. U., and this is of recent date.
Temperance agitators have almost uniformly
ignored the duty of providing something better
for those from whom an evil indulgence is taken.
Inquiries concerning how the masses live ; con-
cerning sanitary conditions, and their relation to
the virtue and vice of the people ; concerning the
causes of pauperism and crime, have seldom been
started by professional agitators. Law-makers
have done perhaps less. Those who were elected
because they were the tools of criminal-makers
have devoted their hours of idleness to ignoring
the questions which were to be decided by their
votes.

Others have gone on year after year making
laws concerning tramps, and tramps have multi-

THE PROBLEM OF VICE .\ND CRIME igg

plied in spite of the laws. Laws have as yet not
touched the heart of the problems which are
pressing upon us. Social theorists have done
little more.

Single-tax men would bring the millennium by
putting all taxes on land ; and labour-reformers
would bring a better day by a revolution in the
social order. Whatever the wisdom or folly of
these schemes, they have as yet scarcely touched
the stern conditions of increasing degeneration.
Until the movement of heredity is changed,
physical and moral deterioration will move side
by side in ever-expanding streams. In the long
run no reform can prevail which does not look
toward the creation of a sober, clean, and law-
abiding stock. If a temperance revival were to
result in all the inmates of a tenement house of
adult years signing the pledge, and even if the
further marvel should come to pass that they keep
it, that would be no sure ground for supposing
that the children born during the years of their
parents' inebriety will continue temperate. If, on
the other hand, the region where those people
lived is changed ; if they are accustomed to virtue
and decency, and have before them examples of
true manhood and womanhood, and are enabled so
to live that home is a blessed fact and not a farce,

IQO HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

it will make comparatively little difference whether
or not the pledge is taken. In other words, re-
demption of the environment is the indispensable
condition of redemption of the inhabitants. Or-
ganisms respond to their environment. Men are
like their surroundings. If reform, in any of the
departments considered in this chapter, is ever per-
manent, it will be as a result of such influences
brought to bear on society as shall make a new
and better environment, and consequently a better
stock.

The practical question then arises as to how
these ends may be realized. Not by any treat-
ment of the vicious and criminal classes which
fails to recognize, and to hold them to a recogni-
tion of, freedom and responsibility. No doubt the
study of heredity makes faith in freedom difficult.
All that is added to the one seems to be sub-
tracted from the other. This, we have seen, is
not the whole truth, however. Freedom is real ;
and men must be continually confronted with it
and its attendant responsibility.

Until they are born again, if men think they are
not accountable, they will follow their selfish incli-
nations ; and if society teaches that they are driven
by forces over which they have no control, they
will, by and by, turn those forces on society to its

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME jqi

ruin. There is no hope for the man who has no
faith in his possibiHties and his responsibiUty. If
the inner testimony to freedom is discredited, the
last bulwark against chaos is broken down. All
forms of philosophical thought which teach that
man is but a fortuitous grouping of atoms, or which
allow that even heredity can fetter the will with-
out deranging the mind, so far as they prevail, sap
the foundations of improvement.

Environment may be bettered, but environment
without consciousness of freedom and responsi-
i bility will not long have influence over a man of
depraved heredity. It is precisely because it is
presumed that there is something in all men, how-
ever degraded, which can respond to better things,
that better things are, or should be, provided. A
hog in a palace would be a hog to its death. The
splendour would make no impression on his nature.
But a " Bridge-boy," a character so well known in
London, in the same place would be transformed.
There is something in him to which appeal can be
made. Neither heredity nor environment destroys
responsibility. If drunkards were treated as crim-
inals, there would be a surprising manifestation of
power to resist temptation.

But inebriates and criminals are very often
unfortunates as well as wrong-doers ; they are in

IQ2 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

large proportion diseased, and should be treated
pathologically as well as judicially. This work
can be successful only when based on a true
diagnosis, that is, an accurate knowledge of the
trouble and its causes. The intemperance which
results from misery will be cured but in small
measure without a removal of the misery. If this
is not done, and alcohol is prohibited, it will either
be obtained surreptitiously or some other means
of vicious indulgence will take its place, and the
last estate, perchance, be worse than the first.
As a last resort, wretchedness will turn to suicide.
Intemperance caused by domestic infelicity will
be diminished, not so much by " Maine laws "
and "moral suasion," as by such education, and
perhaps restraint, as shall make ill-assorted mar-
riages less frequent.

Mendicancy is largely the natural result of
intemperance and licentiousness. Laws against
tramps may change the form of the evil, — perhaps
to a more dangerous form, — but until parents,
and their children after them, are made to realize
that the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,
this scourge in some form is likely to continue.

So long as houses of refuge and prisons are
schools of crime, it is vain to expect any large
improvement in police reports.

THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME 1Q3

One fault in the past has been that reform
has resided too largely in the abstract. Specific
remedies for specific evils should be the rule.
Reformatory effort should be directed, as it has
signally failed to be directed in the past, toward
the production of pure and inspiring environment,
to the end that coming generations, if not our
own, may reap the benefit in manlier men and
more womanly women.

Reform along the lines indicated in this paper
has already begun. The model dwelling-houses
in London and in New York are hints of what
is possible in improving one part of the environ-
ment of the lowest classes. The Children's Aid
Society, already mentioned, with its nearly one
hundred thousand children transported from city
wickedness to the comparative moral healthfulness
of the country, is a success which some day will
be still better appreciated than it is now. Tem-
perance workers at last are beginning to realize
that the best way to get rid of the tendency to
inebriety is to crowd it out with something good.
The most hopeful movement in the temperance
world to-day, among the lower classes, is found
in the English coffee-houses and Te-to-tums.
The late Dr. Dale, of Birmingham, in 1884 told
me that the chief of police informed him that
o

194

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

crime had diminished one-half in that city since
the coffee-houses and boys' schools were opened.
Standing: within a short distance of the Seven
Dials, in London, in the same year, I asked a
policeman whether crime had increased or de-
creased in his precinct in recent years. " In ten
years it has decreased fully one-half," was the
reply. "What has wrought the change .'' " "The
coffee-houses and the boys' clubs." In other
words, even in the slums of "the toy-shop of
Europe," and in the very heart of London's
wretchedness, a few wise, strong, patient, liberal
men and women have worked this change in the
criminal records by opening a few coffee-houses,
schools, and improved dwellings.

Efforts in these directions should be multiplied.
Movements like the University Colony in East
London and the University Extension System of
Lectures should be started in all our cities, and
the scholarship and refinement of Harvard and
Yale and Princeton brought into helpful sympathy
with the Bowery and Water Street.

Already we have our Andover House, our Hull
House, our Whittier House, our University and
College Settlements, our University Lectures, our
Fresh-air Funds, our Association of East Side
Workers. These are a beginning ; but they must

THE PROBLEM OP^ VICE AND CRIME ig^

be multiplied a hundredfold before the tide of
vice and crime will ebb materially.

Wise reform will not fail to recognize the force
of heredity whether for the continuance and multi-
plication of human ills, or for their diminution.
It will do but little good to work for individuals
here and there. Such conditions must be created
as will redeem the human life-stream itself. It
may be that the greatness of this task will stagger
the thought and shake the courage of some. It
is scarcely to be denied that the study of human
nature as conditioned by heredity and environ-
ment is depressing in its initial stages. It makes
humanity seem like clay in the hands of an in-
exorable and remorseless potter ; but it will save
an immense waste of time, effort, and means, and,
by and by, the depression will change to hope, as
it is seen that the same law that necessitates
degeneration under certain conditions, under other
conditions works regeneration ; and the hope will
change to inspiration when it is realized that even
the means which are in the feeblest hands may
make beneficent, and full of blessing, that which
before has seemed only a curse.

One fact, at least, can scarcely be questioned
any longer : reform must be along positive rather
than negative lines. The intemperate must be

196

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

given something better than liquor ; the pauper
something that will stimulate, without exhausting,
his feeble vitality ; the criminal some nobler object
for his ambition and his energies than that which
he is now seeking.

CHAPTER XI

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE

In one of George W. Cable's stories of old
Creole days in New Orleans occurs the descrip-
tion of a sermon, from which I make the following
extract: "My friends," he said, — this was near
the beginning, — "the angry words of God's Book
are very merciful — they are meant to drive us
home ; but the tender words, my friends, they are
sometimes terrible ! Notice these, the tender-
est words of the tenderest prayer that ever came
from the lips of a blessed martyr — the dying
words of the holy St. Stephen : * Lord, lay not
this sin to their charge.' Is there nothing dread-
ful in that ? Read it thus : ' Lord, lay not this
sin to their charge.' Not to the charge of those
who stoned them } To whose charge then .-* Go
ask the holy St. Paul. Three years afterward,
praying in the temple at Jerusalem, he answered
that question : ' I stood by and consented.' He
answered for himself only ; but the day must
come when all that wicked council that sent St.
Stephen away to be stoned, and all that city of

197

198

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Jerusalem, must hold up the hand and say : ' We,
also, Lord ; we stood by.' Ah ! friends, under the
simpler meaning of that dying saint's prayer for the
pardon of his murderers is hidden the terrible truth
that we shall all have a share in 07te another's sins."

Again he says : " Ah ! if it v/ere merely my own
sins that I had to answer for, I might hold up my
head before the rest of mankind ; but no, no, my
friends, we cannot look each other in the face, for
each has helped the other to sin. Oh, where is
there any room in this world of common disgrace
for pride .-' Even if we had no common hope, a
common despair ought to bind us together and
forever silence the voice of scorn."

This extract from an imaginary sermon is a
vivid illustration of the familiar truth: No man
liveth to himself. We share in one another's
sins. In a certain real sense there is no crime
committed by an individual in which all the rest
of the community are not participants. Nothing
seems more absurd at first thought than to say
that pure and noble men have part in murders,
adulteries, and robberies. They make laws to
prevent such crimes. Nothing could be more
repulsive than complicity with what they hate ;
and yet, far more than most dream, men in
general are partners in the transgressor's guilt.

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE iqq

No man is entirely a new creation. Each
comes into the world marked by the peculiari-
ties of his time, his condition, and his parents.
Each man is the product of his ancestry, modi-
fied or intensified by his surroundings. The
time and circumstances of his birth, and all his
natural faculties, are determined before he was
born. Each individual has the tools given to
him with which he must do his work. He
cannot choose for himself what shall be the
size of his brain, what shall be his temperament,
what things he shall like or dislike, whether he
shall be quick-tempered or phlegmatic, whether
he shall be artistic or prosaic.

Each has to take what is given, — his vital
heritage, whatever its shortcomings, whatever
its bias, — and do the best he can with it. In-
heritance reaches far back and to many people ;
and by it come tendencies to certain sins. As
tendencies to rheumatism and epilepsy run in
families, so also in clearly defined lines do ten-
dencies to intemperance, pauperism, and various
crimes. It has been proved that most of those
whom we ostracize as tramps are physically dis-
eased, not enough to destroy responsibility, but
enough to make exertion more burdensome to
them than to others.

200 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Specialists are agreed in declaring that inebri-
ety, though the result of vice, is a disease, with
clearly defined symptoms, and that it is often the
result of inherited tendencies. Every one knows
that a man who inherits a taste for liquor is in
far greater peril than the children of the tem-
perate. A distinguished clergyman once said
that he did . not dare to taste wine, because he
had a natural taste for liquor, handed down by a
long line of cider-drinking ancestors. Men are
born with tendencies to certain forms of sin
which make it easy to yield to temptation and
hard to resist. Now, he who transmits to a de-
scendant a tendency which makes sin easy is a
partner with that descendant in his guilt.

With the introduction of the factor of environ-
ment, of the action of which I shall speak pres-
ently, the subject becomes complicated. Men are
not only what heredity has made them, but the
very fibre of their natures is affected by their
surroundings ; and the impressions thus made,
be they invigorating or debilitating, uplifting or
degrading, are transmitted to their offspring.
Hence, if in our time we help to produce condi-
tions which make it easy for a man to do wrong,
and he yields to the temptation, and by his fall
his nature is changed so that his children come

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE 20I

into being diseased morally and physically, then,
when the child does wrong not only is he to be
blamed, but the father who did wrong before him,
and those who made circumstances which led the
father into sin. Thus the line of responsibility
runs backward, and stops — who can tell where?
If each person came into existence perfectly wise,
with a strong will, and with no tendencies toward
either good or evil ; and if each could choose
just when and where he would first see the light,
and who would train him, even then it could not
be said that every man is responsible for himself
alone, and no man for another ; but all would be
far more nearly independent than at present. If
a young man born of respectable and sober
parents comes into a city environment, is thrown
into the company of the intemperate and vile,
and after a while, though formerly averse to evil,
becomes vicious, that young man is blameworthy
for yielding, but he shares his guilt with his
tempters and with those who suffered the con-
ditions to exist which made his fall, if not im-
perative, at least probable. If, now, in the course
of years, he continues in evil ways, and has a
family of his own, they will see the light not in
the clear day of his childhood, but with their eyes
dimmed and their powers weakened by his vices.

202 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Those children, with weaker wills, and stronger
tendencies than he had originally to intemperance
and other vices, have to face the same tempta-
tions. Manifestly they will fall far more easily,
unless new and spiritually healthful forces super-
vene. When one of them in intoxication is borne
from the gin palace, who are to be held culpable
for his downfall ? He himself, because he did
not use the will he had. His parents, because
they indulged in courses which brought him into
the world morally and physically infirm ; those also,
certainly, who first led his parents into wrong ;
and those, too, who consent that the deadly forces
of degeneration shall continue to work. Thus
disregard of physical and moral law, the con-
sequences of which are hardly seen at first, in
following generations blossoms into vice and vio-
lence. The unity of the race is terribly real.
Diseases that no facts in the individual life can
account for point gaunt fingers of blame from one
generation to another. Not a murderer is hung,
not a daughter starts on the downward way, but
a great company, like those who were present at
the stoning of Stephen, stand by consenting to
the ruin. This is what gives point to the
appeals of those who plead for purity, for tem-
perance, for the observance of the laws of health ;

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE 203

for no misstep and no crime, unless counteracted,
fails in som^ way to send its blight down the
generations.

Society is responsible for a vicious, sin-gener-
ating environment in other ways, however, than
that of consent. The sins of the individual be-
long also to society, because public sentiment is
the ordinary arbiter of what constitutes right and
wrong. In one set of circumstances the heroic
virtues, such as courage, endurance, and the like,
are honoured. A man is helped to be brave and
honourable by the conversation he hears and the
books within his reach. If public sentiment
brands a coward as infamous, few will turn from
the face of an enemy. Not many are heroes in
their own strength alone. Heroism is a cord of
many strands ; in it are woven individual will,
tendencies from the past, the influence of exam-
ple, and the consciousness of how others will
regard actions. A noble character is the result
of many causes. It is stimulated by applause,
and encouraged by lofty ideals. If a man is
situated where little value is placed on life, where
the appeal to the sword or pistol is instantaneous
and legitimate, he who shoots another is not a
lonely criminal. He is an exponent of the crimi-
nality in which he lives. A person born in the

204 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

splendid court of Louis XIV. could not in the
nature of the case have the same thought about
purity and love as one trained under the influence
of fine domestic and social ideals. To go astray-
then was the rule, and society shared the guilt of
the wrong-doers.

I do not excuse those who in the free exercise
of their wills — and all have some freedom —
have chosen to do wrong ; but surely, in such
circumstances, no man is solitary in his guilt. If
it is the custom of society to excuse moral delin-
quencies, then those who are morally weak will
find that custom behind them pushing them
toward the evil from which they naturally shrink.
All who help to make the sentiment that speaks
lightly of evil participate in the guilt of those who
fall. He who leads the suicide to the precipice
shares the guilt of his self-destruction. Mr. Cable,
in the imaginary sermon from which I have quoted,
uses the following illustration: "I once knew a
man who was carefully taught from infancy to
manhood this single only principle of life — de-
fiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not even
gain, but defiance, defiance to God, defiance to
man, defiance to nature, defiance to reason, de-
fiance and defiance and defiance. This man be-
came a smuggler, and at last a pirate in the Gulf

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE 20$

of Mexico. (Lord, lay not that sin to his charge
alone.) But a strange thing followed.

"Being in command of men of a sort that re-
quired to be kept at the austerest distance, he
now found himself separated from the human
world, and thrown into solemn companionship
with the sea, with the air, with the storm, with
the calm, the heavens by day, the heavens by
night. My friends, that was the first time in his
life he ever found himself in really good company.
. , . That man, looking out night after night upon
the grand and holy spectacle of the starry deep
above and the watery deep below, was sure to find
himself sooner or later mastered by the convic-
tion that the great Author of this majestic crea-
tion keeps account of it ; and one night there
came to him, like a spirit walking on the sea, the
awful silent question : My account with God, how
does it stand .-• Ah, friends, this is a question
which the book of nature does not answer. Did
I say the book of nature is a catechism ? Yes.
But after it answers the first question with God,
nothing but questions follow. And so one day
this man gave a ship full of merchandise for one
little book which answered these questions. God
help him to understand it ! And God help you.
Monsieur, and you, Madame, sitting here in your

2o6 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

smuggled clothes, to beat upon the breast with
me, and cry, ' I, too, Lord, I, too, stood by and
consented.' "^

The priest in the story wished to show that
those who made smuggling lucrative were guilty
with the pirate, and he was right.

And it is equally true that all who help in
any way to make dishonesty profitable, and the
law of chastity to be held in light esteem, are
making it easier for frail ones to fall. The safety
of the weak is in a strong public sentiment
which brands iniquity as infamous, and calls
crimes by their right names. Those who help
to make the public sentiment, if that sentiment
condones sin, are partners in guilt with those
who transgress the moral order.

The strong should bear the infirmities of the
weak. There are multitudes who do little think-
ing for themselves ; to whom what society allows
is right, and what it condemns is wrong. It
may be said that each should use his own judg-
ment and will. Suppose he does, but uses them
where the prevailing ideals are false and examples
are evil and misleading, is there no allowance
to be made for his errors ? Those are culpable

1 Old Creole Days, Cable, Vol. I. p. 22.

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE 207

who fail to exercise their own powers conscien-
tiously, but not more so than those who see
more clearly and act more decidedly, and yet
fail to hold up high, true standards and show
worthy examples. With the increase of civili-
zation and wealth in our land there is a grow-
ing tendency to tolerate evil if it is garbed
in fine clothes. But vice in high places, even
more than in the lower strata of society, stimu-
lates vice. Exaltation is no excuse for wicked-
ness. By as much as a man has great ability,
lofty position, or any gift which can lead or
mislead others, he is under bonds to be good
and do good. The example of a lecherous prince
blinds the eyes of those who have no very clear
conviction as to the essential glory of chastity.
If gambling is common among the rich, the
poor will take to it without compunction. If
an author haloes illicit relations with the touch
of genius, the young who are dazzled by his
greatness will copy the vices he fails to con-
demn more than the virtues he holds up for
admiration.

It is through this force of influence that some
of the most eminent personages in history have
wrought immeasurable evil. If the rich dress
as well as they can afford, the poor will dress

2o8 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

better than they can afford. If the millionaire
sips his wine, the hod-carrier will insist on his
whiskey. It may be said that the fact that one
does what in itself is not harmful to him, is no
reason why he should be classed as a partner in
blame with those who do what is harmful for them.
If all were equally strong that might be true, but
there are many gradations in humanity, and the
higher attract tl:e lower as naturally as the
moon the tides. No man can keep his influence
to himself. Public opinion determines what
people try to do. If it honours only those
things which are safe and healthful, no one in
following it will be led to evil ; if it popularizes
what one-half the world can enjoy only at its
peril, then those who make the public sentiment
are responsible for the peril in which half the
world finds itself.

One whom I was once trying to lift to a
higher and better life answered my appeal with
this single, sad sentence, in which seemed con-
densed the plaint of many sighs and the falling
of many tears, " Oh, I am so weak ! " which
meant, not only that, but also this unuttered but
still evident thought, "and there are so many
to take advantage of my weakness." If the tem-
perate allow places where allurements to evil are

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE R.A.CE 2OQ

constantly open to the weak, if they do not do
all they can to make it impossible for any to get
pleasure or gain by the degradation of their fel-
low-men, their very neglect is in part the cause
of the moral ruin of all who enter those gates
of death, and they are in a real sense partners
in guilt with those who fall. If by our careless-
ness or love of ease we allow vice to flaunt it-
self and crime to go unpunished, so that others
are ruined, we cannot escape our measure of
condemnation. If our influence is not all in
favour of high moral standards, we help to de-
stroy morality. If we honour those who are vile,
we help others on the downward path. If the
cultured palliate vice in those who are eminent,
they practically say that moral character is not
imperative. The mass of men are not astute
enough to understand why vice should be con-
doned in Burns and Goethe and condemned in
carpenters and clerks. Influence is a very sub-
tle but a very real force. It is like a stream
of pure water. If kept pure, it carries health
and blessing everywhere. If fouled, it breeds
disease and death ; and all who contaminate it
even in the slightest, or who do not use their
ability to preserve its purity, are more or less
responsible for its deadly effects.

210 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

I have thus tried to show how the race sins in
the individual. Men transmit tendencies to evil
to their descendants ; those tendencies result in
open sin, and those who start the evil are not
free from the blood of those who fall. Public
sentiment looks leniently on crimes, and speaks
sneeringly of virtues, and thus the weak, who
seldom make fine discriminations, are encouraged
in vicious courses.

Those who give the heredity, and those who
make the sentiment, are sometimes more culpable
than those whose overt acts of wrong they abhor;
for they sin against greater light and with larger
ability to resist.

Nothing in this chapter must be understood as
denying the ability of any to choose the good
when once it is presented.

The problem of inheritance versus free will is
full of mystery, but of one thing we are sure, and
on it we must rest, — we all may choose the right.
Every one has some freedom ; none are utterly
driven to sin ; all who have done wrong are
conscious of their wrong ; none are altogether
able to excuse their guilt. But the crimes of
some are not so black as they seem to us at first;
while, on the other hand, large classes of respect-
able people are not so guiltless as they seem, are

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE 2II

silent partners, in fact, in works of destruction.
Tiiis view of life is not popular. Especially do
those who preach a religion of culture fail to
recognize it.

The tendency of the higher education, where
the responsibility of service is not emphasized,
is to separate classes ; to cause the educated to
withdraw themselves from unpleasant and dis-
couraging conditions. It is much more delightful
to converse with congenial friends than to do
the work requisite for honest politics, to labour
for the enactment of wise laws, and to insist on
their execution ; but if, by the withdrawal of the
cultured classes from the responsibilities of citi-
zens, evil conditions become common, then those
who thus escape from turmoil and strife become
accessories to the crimes they might have pre-
vented. He who sees a ship going on the rocks
and sounds no warning is scarcely less guilty than
he who turns its prow toward the breakers. A
saloon is allowed to work ruin, because men who
might cause its removal never try to do so : a
young man is enticed into that place and induced
to drink ; under the influence of that drink he
kills a comrade. Who is the murderer.? The
man who fired the shot. Certainly, but also his
tempters, and, in a degree, those who might have

212 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

closed that place of temptation, and have neg-
lected to do so.

The solidarity of the race is a terrible but
evident reality. All are of one blood. If the
< ommon life is polluted by the vice of any single
individual, then the lot of all others is harder ;
and their tendencies to evil are stronger. But
if, on the other hand, any man rises to a loftier
and purer manhooa than his parents or his neigh-
bours, he does his part not only in purifying him-
self but also in ameliorating society and improving
the race.

These facts should make all lenient in their
judgments of their fellow-men, and especially
careful about punishment. Who should be pun-
ished, the one that applied the fuse, or the one
that laid the train .-•

No man liveth to himself. The individual's
sin is his own, and yet it belongs to the race
also. Equally the virtue of the individual is not
his own alone ; it also is a product into which
have gone the toils, tears, sacrifices, prayers of
millions who never heard his name.

This study brings to light one thought which
in our time is having wide recognition, and that
is, that Jesus Christ is a social, as well as an in-
dividual. Saviour. His mission is to states and

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND THE RACE 213

institutions as truly as to individuals. Hence
He organized a kingdom, that is, a new social
order; and that kingdom is advanced by the
conversion of men, but also by the gradual rais-
ing of ideals, by the improving of social customs,
by the transforming of states.

Our Master has relations to individuals ; but
the race belongs to Him also, and He is influenc-
ing it, lifting it to better things, and slowly but
surely creating a new, unselfish, and redeemed
society.

CHAPTER XII

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH

The object of this chapter is to consider the
relation of natural causes to some subjects in the
sphere of religion. It is taken for granted in
many quarters that a man can determine his re-
ligious faith as easily as, with a table of luxuries
before him, he can decide what he will eat and
drink. A more careful study of human life, how-
ever, shows that it is strictly true that no act is un-
related, not even that of recognition of the truth ;
but that every act, every volition, every thought,
has connection in one way or another with the
whole man. A long line of associated facts re-
quiring consideration lies behind every rational con-
cept and every act of faith. In the last analysis,
a man's religious faith is an expression of what_ he
is ; as Emerson says, he " bears beliefs as a tree
bears apples." ^ The common thought has been
exactly the reverse. We have been accustomed to
say that a man is what his faith is. That is, in-
deed, one aspect of the truth, but the other aspect,

^ Essay on Worship.
214

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 21?

that what a man is will determine what his faith
will be, is quite as real. The statements of the
Scriptures are in harmony with this teaching.
" Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see
God." The other text, as a man " thinketh in his
heart, so is he," cannot be quoted in reply, for the
real meaning of it is that the internal state, not the
outward seeming, is the real thing about every
man. Before we can answer the question. What
should a man believe ? we must be able to answer
the other question, What can he and what must he
believe ? Few truths can be considered purely in
the abstract ; the personal factor is always present,
giving colour to the truth according to the nature
of him who views it. The difference may not be
great, but as there is something individual in each
man, so there is always something individual in
his way of seeing and interpreting the truths pre-
sented to him. It is inevitable, therefore, that to
a considerable degree a man's theological beliefs
should be according to his intellectual and moral
heritage and the circumstances in which he lives.
As the will is the man willing, so belief is the man
believing. This is not to deny that truth has an
objective existence, but to affirm that objective
truth will be perceived by the individual in propor-
tion to the clearness of his spiritual sight and the

2i6 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

quickness of his mental operations, and also ac-
cording as intellect or emotion be predominant in
his constitution. Therefore we are brought to the
conviction that : —

Heredity and environment have much to do in
determining the moral and theological bias of
every man. Within limits, both a man's creed and
his character are influenced by his ancestry and
by his surroundings. This influence is not abso-
lute determinism, and does not preclude responsi-
bility ; but there is no reason to regard the moral
life as any less related to the past, or any less
susceptible to atmospheres of good or evil, than
the physical life. It is as true that men think like
their fathers as that they look like them. It is
as unnatural for some to be religious as it is nat-
ural for others. Every year a man lives, every
year his ancestors lived, and the conditions amidst
which his life and theirs have been spent, reach
into and colour his religion, both as to creed and
as to ideals. All cannot think alike. Until all
have the same faculties with exactly the same
development, and live in exactly the same circum-
stances, it is folly to expect uniformity in religious
opinions, — a truth of which the Hapsburgs of
Austria and Spain and the Stuarts of England had
no conception, to the world's bitter sorrow. The

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 217

Bible to one man is plain, literal, and prosaic.
Every word means just what it says. When it is
read, that is all there is of it. To another it flames
with spiritual suggestion ; its sublime prophecies,
the choral melody of the Psalms, the awful splen-
dours of Job and Ezekiel, and the great visions of
the Apocalypse, are doors into a world of which
the literal sense is only a symbol. The two men
are not blamable for seeing differently. One
never threw away an imagination, and the other
never had one. They interpret the same objective
revelation according to the nature of their respec-
tive individualities. Instead of expecting all to
see alike, to give to each word an equal emphasis,
and to do fealty to precisely the same ideal, —
never the same to two persons, — the duty of each
to live according to the highest light he can get
should be asserted and enforced. Standards will
differ. Those are not nearest alike who profess
their faith in the same words, but those who with
equal earnestness and prayer strive to realize in
the outward world the truth as it is disclosed to
them. The spirit of a man is more than his intel-
lectual conclusions. " If any man willeth to do
His will, he shall know," said the Master. Views
of truth and beauty will vary with individuals.
That should be expected. Because there are

2i8 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

wide differences in forms of expression and inter-
pretation, it no more follows that one is all wrong
and another all right, or that there is no real truth,
than, because one thinks the moon to be the size
of a half-dollar and another thinks it the size of a
half-bushel, it follows therefore that there is no
moon. Opinions concerning religion differ as do
the people who hold them. This is only transfer-
ring to the religion;: sphere what all recognize in
every other sphere. The effect of the recognition
of this fact will be greater emphasis upon the
spirit and character of man than upon his intellect-
ual beliefs. The motto of the rising church will
be, " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness." Truth itself is a unit; but the
truth that each man holds is only a fraction, and a
fraction modified by ancestors and circumstances.
Inability to interpret doctrines in the same terms
should be expected ; but failure to search for truth
and to be loyal to it should be regarded as the sin
against the Holy Ghost. Not, What does a man
believe ? but, What is his attitude toward the Spirit
of Truth ? is the all-important question. In other
words, the teachable mind and the loyal spirit are
the surest signs of spiritual life, and these are
within the reach of every man's volition.

The doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ is the

i

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 2IQ

central doctrine of the Christian revelation. It
distinguishes Jesus from all other masters. The
study of heredity gives an altogether new signifi-
cance to the word salvation. Its primary idea is
of one who has lost his way, finding it again ; of
one sick, restored to health ; of one in peril, being
given a way of escape. But we do not proceed
far in this study before we realize that that from
which men need salvation is a state or condition
into which they are born. The tendencies to evil
which burn in the veins are not chosen ; they are
not taken in at some specific time ; they are dis-
covered, and the discovery is usually an awful and
humiliating surprise. Most are sometime rudely
shocked by finding themselves the abode of pas-
sions of whose existence they had heretofore been
ignorant. This condition is not sin, since sin
implies guilt, and no one is blamable for anything
which he does not choose, and which at first, at
least, he would repudiate with loathing. Different
thinkers have given different names lo this state,
such as sin, depravity, evil, imperfect development.
It has been ascribed to the effect of a wrong choice
on the part of the first human ancestor, and it has
been regarded as a necessary stage in the evolution
of humanity. The differences between philoso-
phers and theologians concerning innate tendency

220 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

to wrong-doing are only superficial. They agree
in the fact ; they differ in the name by which that
fact is defined. Original sin, however much the
term may have been abused, and false as is its
first suggestion, is a terrible and persistent reality.
Now salvation, to be a thing desired, must be
deliverance from the state out of which evil acts
grow. That this state or condition is something
which is transmitted, few who have studied human
life or history would question. Theories about it
may differ, but the sad reality remains that all
men in all ages have tendencies which sooner or
later result in acts that violate the moral reason
and are condemned by conscience. Salvation, if
it is worth having, must, therefore, be more than
remission of penalty, deserved or undeserved ; it
must be nothing less than the purification of a
stream of inheritance. It reaches far beyond the
outward act, and has to do with the fountains of
being. No man is really saved who is merely for-
given ; or, as the late Dr. Dale was wont to say,
so forgiven that conscience and the eternal law of
righteousness are satisfied. When our Lord said,
" I am come that ye might have life," He spoke
the word which better than any other defined His
mission. To be conscious that one is forgiven,
and yet that at the same time he is so polluted

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 221

that he cannot beget a child without handing on
to that child a nature which will be as bad as if
his father had never been forgiven, is not salvation
in any real sense. What we need is not only par-
don, but such a clarification of the fountains of
being as will make us the parents of those whose
tendencies shall be upward ; and nothing less is
worthy the name of salvation. It was said of the
Master, "His name shall be called Jesus, because
He shall save the people from their sins ; " but
the people are not saved from their sins when
there are within them streams of tendency waiting
only an opportunity of sweeping away all noble
aspirations and holy volitions. There is a pro-
found significance in the phrase " new birth," or
"birth from above." It indicates that the whole
personality is so changed that that which was
foul has become pure, and that which formerly
begat evil, now by a law equally binding produces
a progeny with a movement toward holiness.
When we speak of what we need, an attempt to
put evident facts into Biblical forms is unneces-
sary. Salvation can mean no less than deliverance
from tendencies toward evil and voluntary wrong-
doing ; it means also deliverance from the necessity
of transmitting to others a polluted nature. If it
be said that that is contrary to facts, the only reply

222 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

must be, that nothing less than this is salvation
worthy of the name. If Jesus Christ does not
supply this new life, He is no true Saviour. A
fruitful field for theological investigation would be
an inductive study of the transmissibility of the
spiritual hfe which is in Jesus Christ. Is it true
that those who truly accept and obey Him are so
regenerated that their children are born in His
likeness, as those who live without His life are
born simply into the likeness of the first man ?
This is a question which can be answered wisely
only with facts ; facts so carefully gathered and
classified as to leave no question concerning their
value. What an inductive study of this subject
would reveal is not now known, but there can be
no doubt but that the study of heredity has made
it plain that that only is salvation which imparts a
new and dominant life, putting in the place of in-
born tendencies toward sin, new and predominant
tendencies toward holiness. These tendencies may
coexist, but the tendencies toward evil will no
longer occupy the places of power in the person-
ality. Nothing is more terrible than the thought
that we bring into being immortal spirits who by
an eternal and changeless law are possessed of a
nature which will surely lead to wrong, and that
whatever relief may come to us individually the

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 223

same corrupted nature must be remorselessly
transmitted. What man who faces these facts
could dare to become a parent ! When the word
is given its deepest and truest significance, there is
disclosed this superlative truth, — salvation must be
not only deliverance from the guilt of sin and the
power of sin, but also escape from the operation of
the law by which a corrupt nature is inherited and
of necessity propagated in those who come after
us. Nothing less is worth the acceptance ; noth-
ing more could be desired. Salvation is deliver-
ance from the law of heredity, so far as it concerns
the possession and the necessary transmission of
an evil nature. It is the substitution of a pure
stock for one that was vitiated and weak. What
less than this could St. Paul have had in mind
when he wrote, " Even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, waiting . . . for the redemption of the
body " ; or, " The creature itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the
glorious liberty of the children of God .'' "

Salvation as deliverance from corrupt heredity
is not often made prominent, but it requires plain
though delicate treatment. The majority of man-
kind probably come into existence by accident.
Beings so born, and endowed with more poten-
cies toward evil than virtue, need nothing so

224 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

much as emancipation from the bondage of their
parentage. Precisely that seems to be assured
through the new birth. The subject of salvation
is not here discussed as a Scriptural doctrine ; it
has relations to what may be called corporate
depravity, and those only have occupied our
thought. Thus much is forced upon us by a
study of human nature. But I cannot forbear
one remark suggested by what has already been
said. The follower of Christ ought to get more
out of his faith than most Christians do. Those
who accept the new life from Christ, we believe,
are not only actually made new creatures, but are
in a new and spiritual succession whose legacy to
the future is the very life which they have re-
ceived from Christ. This is what earnest souls
have desired. While I have not intended to
treat this subject theologically, perhaps it may
not be out of place to call attention to the fact
that all Scripture doctrines have an ampler sig-
nificance the moment they are studied in terms
of life. In order to learn what salvation really
means, the reading of no sacred book is necessary,
but rather a careful examination of the human
condition. The depraved human condition, under
an inexorable law of reproduction, is one fact;
escape from that condition and from the neces-

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 221;

sity of reproducing evil, to a holy and truly spirit-
ual state, and the privilege of handing that nature
on to future generations, is what we mean by sal-
vation, and the proclamation of this truth is the
gospel.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is fundamental
in Christianity as that of salvation is central and
distinguishing. It means that God is present and
efficient in the life of the individual and of the
race ; that He is the ultimate personality, and
that He touches and influences spirits, as the
light touches and colours flowers. The law of
heredity presents a series of facts which at first
seem to leave no place for action on human beings
by a personality from the outside ; but heredity
does not preclude the freedom of men, and there-
fore we must assume that it does not exclude the
free direct action of the Almighty. God moving
human spirits according to His own will is God
the Holy Spirit. This is one fact. The inquiry
of those who accept Christian teaching therefore
is : How may the ministry of the Spirit be recon-
ciled with the fact that men receive from those
who have gone before them their natural endow-
ments of ability and tendency ? Every individual
is apparently under inflexible laws, and in the end
is what heredity and environment make him ; and
■ Q

226 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

yet he is supposed to be responsive to the ministry
of the Spirit of God. How may these apparent
contradictions be reconciled ? This inquiry brings
us to another which has not yet been fully an-
swered,— What constitutes human environment?
Is it composed only of what we call nature, and
of men in their individual and corporate relations ?
Or, is there, besides these, what may be termed
an environment of spirit ? The influences which
mould the life of man are not all material : the
most potent are not light and shade, heat and
moisture, but others more impalpable which come
from the spirits which men are, and by which all
are surrounded. Materialists alone would limit
the social environment to material organisms ; all
others believe that in it are beings whose force is
the most potent that has to do with the growth
and modification of human personality. Not
bodies, but spirits, constitute the social environ-
ment. The Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit
means not only that each man is surrounded by
human spirits, but also that his days are passed in
the presence of the absolute, the universal Spirit
immanent in the universe. When we speak of
environment, we include not only the physical
conformation of the country, the brightness or
dulness of the skies, the climate, the houses in

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 227

which we live, the people among whom we dwell,
the institutions of which we are a part, but also
the factor, most constant of all, from which none
ever escape, — God, the Spirit, whose touch, softer
than light, never for a moment is absent from the
human spirit. Our inquiry concerns not the rela-
tion of a remote sovereign to subjects in a re-
morseless series of physical causation, but rather
the influence of environment on heredity. In pre-
ceding chapters it has been already sufficiently
emphasized that in the making of man environ-
ment is the stronger force. If a child with vile
inheritance can be placed where the predominant
influences make for moral and spiritual health,
the probabilities are that he will grow into virtue
and manly strength. If the atmosphere favours
intellectual culture, even the most stupid will
probably respond to its inspirations. Whatever
tendencies may be in the blood, if the environ-
ment is spiritual the growth should be toward
spirituality. With some it will be slow; with
others, swift; with all it should be sure.

But if the Spirit of God is constant and uni-
versal, how do any fail to show the transforming
influences of divine environment .-' That inquiry
leads back to the question of freedom. Enough
here to say that there is no real contradiction.

228 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Light fills the spaces, while a man from ignorance
may remain in a cave, or from choice dwell in
darkness. The Divine Spirit is everywhere opera-
tive, but some, not knowing it, may continue in filth
and animalism, and others, fascinated by the flesh,
may choose only what will gratify appetite. The
Spirit of God is the divine factor in the environ-
ment of every human being. If a man chooses,
he may resist all improving influences ; and if he
wills to do so, he can conquer all the vicious ten-
dencies inherited from past generations. Both
the human and divine elements in environment
may be resisted, and both may be gladly wel-
comed. That a flower of necessity receives colour
from the light, while a man may respond to his
environment or not as he chooses, is among the
problems which remain to be solved. But the
mystery is not so great as at first appears, because
the divine is not the sole factor in any man's
environment. In proportion as the environment
of a man is exclusively good, the probabilities are
multiplied that he will be good, whatever his
inborn tendencies. Therefore, the real problem
which faces all who are engaged in such studies
as the present is, how may all human beings
be brought under the constant and exclusive in-
fluence of a spiritual environment .-' The best

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 229

way to secure what is commonly desired — a bap-
tism of the Holy Spirit — is to put ourselves where
the prevailing influences will be spiritual. If the
example of the early Christians on the day of
Pentecost be cited as illustrating the reverse, I
must remind my readers that the Holy Ghost fell
on those who were separated temporarily from the
world, and who were all together in one place with
one mind and one heart, seeking a common bless-
ing. But no general conclusion can be drawn from
exceptional illustrations. The Scripture represents
the Spirit of God as universal, constant, and for
all ; and when I am asked, as I have been. How
do you reconcile the ministry of the Spirit with
the evident facts concerning heredity and environ-
ment .'' I reply, the Spirit is a part of all envi-
ronment; a power as constant and pervasive as
solar energy ; therefore the chief privilege of all
who have that knowledge, and have yielded to
that sway, is to endeavour to help others to see
and to respond to the Being who never has to be
sought, and who besets all men behind and before.
A consideration of questions in dispute in theology
is unnecessary now. Whether the Holy Spirit is
a person or only a power ; whether He is present
in the church as not in the world, and whether,
since the day of Pentecost He has been efficient

230 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

as never before, we need not ask. The vital ques-
tion for us is, Is there any place left for divine
activity when man is explained to be the product
of his birth and the circumstances in which he
grows ? That question I have tried to answer.
God is the largest part of every man's environ-
ment, and if there were no power of resistance
every man would as naturally grow toward holi-
ness as flowers toward light. But holiness implies
freedom, and freedom the possibility of resistance,
and so, though no man can ever go beyond the
reach of the Spirit of God, every man may resist
the influences which are intended to make him
holy as God is holy.

There remains yet one other aspect of this
subject. The Author of nature is not affected
by our theories concerning natural causes. Nat-
ural causes are only methods for the manifesta-
tion of divine energy. Every natural cause is
God acting. But the phrase " natural causes "
seems to exclude His free action. That free
action we have been accustomed to call super-
natural, but all causes are, in a measure, super-
natural. This is the inquiry, Is there any place
left for the interposition of God in the affairs
of human life ? I reply, there is nothing in the
fact that men are the children of their parents,

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 2^1

or that they are modified by their circumstances,
to justify the supposition that God, who is a
Spirit, may not at any time and in any way inter-
pose new forces in the midst of those which are
supposed to be the only normal ones impelling
growth. Given a God who is absolutely free, no
law can obstruct His activity — not even the eter-
nal law of righteousness, since that is but the
shadow of His holiness. Whether the action of
these laws ever has been interrupted is a ques-
tion of fact, not one for speculation. To sup-
pose that the Divine Spirit could not interpose
at His own pleasure would be to deny to Him
the freedom asserted for man. Further into this
question we need not enter. Enough to be as-
sured that no human being will ever be outside
the reach of that Holy Spirit of God, who in
the beginning brooded on the face of the waters,
and whose ministry of sympathy, comfort, con-
viction of sin, and interpretation of truth will
never fail from among men. The hope of the
future lies in the realization by individuals that
none are ever for a moment forsaken by God,
and that the ministry of His Spirit is constant,
impartial, pervasive, and never-failing. As fast
as men have the vision of God, and are made
to appreciate that He is their Sun, the source of

232 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

their life, the power to which they may be joined,
the goal toward which they are pressing, the
transforming power of the divine in their spir-
itual environment proves more than a match for
all the streams of evil inheritance, however far
they have come from the past.

The facts heretofore considered suggest a
needed modification in the manner of presenting
the doctrines of sin, responsibility, and penalty.
Science now testifies positively to two tremendous
facts. On the one hand, it shows the all but
prevailing influence of inherited tendencies ; on
the other, the inevitable and remorseless result
of the violation of law. The problem of indi-
vidual human destiny, studied in tke light of
nature alone, is very complicated, and its out-
come is heavily shadowed. Heredity impels men
strongly and persistently to violation of law, and,
when they yield to their impulses, a law of
retribution takes them in hand and does not let
them go until they have paid the uttermost far-
thing. " Nature," says Professor Huxley, " always
checkmates without haste and without remorse,
never overlooking a mistake, or making the
slightest allowance for ignorance." The reign of
law makes the consequences of violation of law
(which is sin) apparently hopeless. It is a dark

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 233

picture which science paints for us. Human
beings are not what they make themselves, but
what they are made. Then they are doomed
to long-drawn suffering and death, because they
are what they could not help being. This, as
has been said, is Calvinism with God left out;
and it is the whole story of human life to all who
deny the reality of spiritual religion ; for with
them death, for the individual, ends all. Chris-
tianity paints the same picture, but with different
colours. It places the brightness of possible
escape, and of heavenly endowment and environ-
ment, over against this Dantean hell of death
in life. The law of retribution is not denied or
minimized ; but a Power is brought to view that
is able to deliver in spite of it. Salvation — all
that is implied in the great word grace — is in
the heart of the Christian faith ; but it is salva-
tion for those who accept the terms of salvation,
terms strictly in accord with the laws revealed
by science. I have said that the law of retri-
bution is not denied ; it is time, however, in view
of the discoveries of science, that it was defined
anew. Retribution is not something arbitrary,
but the final result of the choice of the individual ;
wrong-doing and suffering are inseparably bound
together, yet surely the degree to which the

234

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

choice was predetermined, and the wrong-doing
shared or caused by others, must be taken into
account by the Judge of all. And by us, wrong-
doers of very different kinds — those who make
mistakes and those who deliberately transgress —
should not be classed together indiscriminately,
either in guilt or in punishment. " It is very
singular," says Dr. Holmes, " that we recognize
all the bodily defects that unfit a man for military
service, and all the intellectual ones that limit
his range of thought ; but always talk at him as
though all his moral powers were perfect. . . .
Some persons talk about the human will as if
it stood on a high lookout with plenty of light,
and elbow room reaching to the horizon. Doc-
tors are constantly noticing how it is tied up
and darkened by inferior organization, by dis-
ease, and all sorts of crowding interferences ; until
they get to look upon Hottentots and Indians —
and many of their own race too — as a kind
of self-conscious blood-clocks, with very limited
power of self-determination ; and they find it as
hard to hold a child accountable in any moral
point of view for inherited bad temper, or ten-
dency to drunkenness, as they would to blame
him for inheriting gout or asthma." ^ Dr. Elam

1 Quoted in A Physician's Problems, Elam, p. 59.

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 235

says : " The man who inherits from his parents
an impulsive or easily tempted nature and an
inert will and judgment, and commits a crime
under the influence of strong emotion, can no
more be placed in the same category of responsi-
bility with a man of more favourable constitution
and temperament, than can a man who steals a
loaf under the pangs of starvation, with the mer-
chant who commits a forgery to afford him the
means of prolonging a guilty career." ^ All are
not alike. The greatest sin is sin against the
greatest light and with the greatest ability to
resist. He who is weakened and diseased because
of the vices of his ancestors reaches the period
of accountability with his hands tied. Those
who look beyond a universe of forces and laws
to a Father whose heart loves all His children
must not forget that He bears our griefs and
carries our sorrows, and in all our afflictions is
afflicted, and that what is inherited, instead of
adding to a man's condemnation, if justice and
love are not lies, is counted in his favour. Neglect
to make allowance for the facts of heredity, and
the classing of all transgressors in one common
herd, as if all the good belonged above a certain
invisible line and all the wicked below it, has

^ A Physician'' s Problems, Elam, p. 59.

236 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

helped to bring the doctrine of retribution into
disfavour with many who are ready to say with

Whittier : —

"The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above;
I know not of His hate, — I know
His goodness and His love."

The fact of retribution is evident and awful
enough. It ought to be guarded against the im-
putation of injustice. It is unjust and unreason-
able to count evil-doers who have had a good moral
heritage and a good environment no more guilty
than those whose minds and hearts are stained
and poisoned, and whose wills are weakened, by
the vice of many generations. This is not the
place for a full discussion of this subject. There
is room, however, for the question, whether there
is anything Christian, and, indeed, anything but
hideous caricature in the way the doctrines of
original sin, total depravity, and endless retribu-
tion have sometimes been preached, as though
the hapless individual, through no action and so
no responsibility on his part, were damned into
an earthly existence only to be damned a second
time into another still more horrible. This unfort-
unate, and as we believe most untrue, presentation
of a great and beneficent truth is responsible for

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 23?

much unbelief among intelligent classes. What
is called irreligion is often only a revolt against
gross misrepresentation of a good and gracious
God. Much has been said about the responsi-
bility of man to God; it is time that emphasis
was placed on the responsibility of God to man.
This is not said that wrong-doing may be justi-
fied, but that our Father may not be misrep-
resented. Every man who is true to his own
intellectual processes and to his highest intuitions
must acknowledge that the more heavily a man
is weighed down with evil tendencies when he
comes into conscious existence, the more allow-
ance ought to be made for his acts of wrong-doing.
If a man's nature is totally depraved from his
birth, it is irreverence and impiety to presume
that the Deity holds him to the same «,<xounta-
bility as the one who has possession of untainted
and unweakened powers. Into the vexed ques-
tion of the penalties of the future I do not enter,
except to say that, in that realm of which so little
is known, the agency of heredity and environment
in the case of every human being will have full
allowance. To teach the contrary is to ask think-
ing men to disregard their reason and stultify
their moral intuitions.

Considered by itself, a study of the subject of

2->8 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

heredity leads quickly to pessimism ; but, with
a proper understanding of it, it may lead to faith,
and become an aid in apologetics. Its testimony,
strong and unequivocal, is that the progress of
the race depends on faith in spiritual things. If
there is no revelation from God, and no possibility
of knowing God ; if there is no soul in man
apart from some vital principle of his body ; if
there is no reasonable basis for belief in life
after death, then there is no conceivable motive
strong enough to induce men to make a stand
against the malign tendencies in their blood
or the debasing influences of their environment.
It is indeed possible to change the course of
heredity, but to do so requires resolution, self-
denial, and watchfulness ; and, if death ends all,
why struggle .'' If into that sleep no dreams can
come, then I, for one, am ready to justify suicide,
and to declare that the greatest fools are those
who deny themselves any pleasures that will not
in this life give them pain.

The future of humanity depends on the ques-
tion whether there can be brought to bear upon
the human will any motive strong enough to in-
duce a man to fight inherited evil, and to put
forth efforts to improve the circumstances in
which his children and neigrhbours must live.

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 239

That question carries with it the problem of man-
kind, and that question Christianity meets with
the gospel as its full and satisfactory answer.
The Christian answer vindicates its claim to be
the true one, by what it can do and is doing for
men. It unites the three strongest motives that
can appeal to a human being. It teaches that
men are more than cogs in a machine, or even than
• individuals in a family; it presents Love pleading
with a being able to respond to love and sorely
needing it ; and it brings to bear the mighty in-
centive of the endless life to stimulate a true
self-love, and also to act as a cause of fear. The
appeal is to love, self-love, and to fear. Greater
inducements to resist evil tendencies and unfa-
vourable conditions cannot be conceived. These
three motives Christianity puts before all men.
Most that has been done for man and by man
in the way of culture, in the development of char-
ities, in the improvement of the social order, in
the inspiration of lofty ideals, has been in response
to this appeal. No evidence of the divine origin
of Christianity is more convincing than this : it
furnishes motives strong enough to inspire the
individual and the race to constant effort toward
better things. Evolution prophesies a golden age
for the race ; it has nothing to offer to the indi-

240 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

vidual. Perfection which rises on personal anni-
hilation may be a satisfactory theory as applied
to the brute creation, but as applied to the trou-
bled world of mankind it is a stone offered to the
hungry. Christianity makes progress possible by
supplying adequate motives for progress, namely,
God, the Father and Lover of all ; the possible
salvation of all ; and the certainty of endless exist-
ence, which alone makes God and salvation worth
having. If these doctrines are facts, then efforts
to uplift humanity are natural, inevitable, and
full of promise ; if they are not facts, but merely
projections of bright fancies, illusions that men
have conjured up wherewith to cheat themselves,
then, let the poor starve, the quicker the better ;
let the weak go down, that the strong may have
room ; let the struggle for existence, with its occa-
sional comedy and universal tragedy, go on as it
will. With the burdened millions, then, the hap-
piest man is he who soonest gets off the stage.
Progress is conditioned on something to live for.
If there is no God, no soul, no life after death,
life with a large part of the race, and with increas-
ing years with the greater part of the race, is not
worth living. Thus the happiness of man depends
upon the validity of the truths which are central
in the teaching of Jesus Christ. But that which

THE PROBLEM OF FAITH 24 1

always and everywhere makes for blessing can-
not be false. We conclude, therefore, that the
strongest and only sufficient counter influence to
the pessimism which logically results from a one-
sided study of this subject is derived from the
religion of Christ. The ideas of God and of salva-
tion— the possibility of escape from vicious lega-
cies— and of immortality, were taught not for
the first time by Jesus Christ, but it was He who
gave them sufficient sanction for the credence
of thoughtful men, and made them truths rather
than theories in the world ; and it is His teach-
ing regarding them which is now, as it has been
for eighteen centuries, the surest antidote to the
depression which must be felt when we face the
awful mysteries by which we are surrounded.

R

CHAPTER XIII

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST

In Studying the relation of heredity to the
various social and theological problems we come
quickly to the inquiry, How do you account for
Jesus Christ ? Laying aside speculation, and con-
sidering only facts which are uncontested by all
who grant the historical accuracy of the Gospels,
how is the phenomenal life and career of Jesus of
Nazareth to be explained ? To make some sug-
gestions toward an answer to this question is the
object of this chapter.

It will be well briefly to recall a few of the
replies which have been given to our inquiry.
Some writers have been satisfied to say, He was
a unique spiritual genius. Genius can never be
accounted for by heredity, and the problem in no
way differs from that which we face when asked
to account for Dante, Luther, Goethe, Shake-
speare, and Shelley. Men of genius are always
outside all categories. They are what the biolo-
gists would call " sports."

Another class satisfy themselves and attempt to
242

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 243

satisfy others by simply answering, He was not
a man, and laws usually applicable to humanity
have no relation to Him. He was God. Argu-
ment, of course, is of no avail with those who
have no difficulties to be removed; but for most
of the world such a reply is without value.

Still another class, of which Ernest Renan is
perhaps the most plausible representative, at-
tempt to explain the unique personality of Jesus
by the environment in which He was placed. His
ethical teaching, it is said, was His legacy from
the prophets ; with the very air He inhaled lofty
spiritual ideals ; He was the consummate flower
of Judaism, growing in what was practically the
centre of the world and of the ages. The vari-
ous influences of intellectual and spiritual atmos-
phere, the shining hopes of a people long trained
to think divine thoughts, left their impress upon
His sensitive spirit, and account for all that was
peculiar in His teaching and in Himself, except
that impalpable something which we call genius.
But this explanation leaves out of account all
that was most characteristic of Jesus.

None of these answers are sufficient. To say
that He was only a supreme spiritual genius is
to ignore the simplest facts of His life ; while to
be content to say that He was singularly sensitive

244 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

to the intellectual and spiritual atmosphere and
to the ideals of His age, is to leave untouched the
question, Where did that man, who was affected
by such influences as no other who ever lived, get
His sensitive nature ?

Physically Jesus was a Jew, and probably re-
sembled other Jews, although all the ideals of the
artists, and all the traditions concerning Him,
represent Him as having nothing characteristi-
cally national in His appearance. No conclusion,
however, can be drawn from this fact, and we
grant that in physical traits He was like other
men of His nation and time. When we come
to His personality as manifested in His ethical
teachings. His ideals for himself and for human-
ity. His intuitions of things unseen and infinite.
His reversals of standards of thought and conduct
which had behind them the authority of antiquity,
then the importance of our inquiry appears.
Renan says : " This nature at once smiling and
grand was the whole education of Jesus. He
learned to read and write, doubtless, according to
the method of the East, which consists in putting
into the hands of the child a book, from which
he repeats in concert with his little school-fellows
until he knows it by heart. It is doubtful, how-
ever, whether He really understood the Hebrew

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 245

writings in their original tongue." ^ " It is not
probable that He knew Greek." ^ Our problem
is this, How do we account for this man whose
whole education was derived from " nature smil-
ing and grand ; " who probably knew neither
Hebrew nor Greek, and yet who has taught
wisdom and religion to the highest and lowest
alike from His time until our own .'' He had a
spiritual insight of a finer and truer quality than
any other man of His race or of any other race,
so far as we know, ever possessed. He had an
unparalleled consciousness of God. Something
like that consciousness had been in others. Moses
is represented as having seen the divine glory in
the bush that burned but was not consumed ;
Isaiah said that he saw the Lord, and many
others had similar experiences ; but their visions,
or glimpses, or intuitions, were little like the sight
of Jesus, who seemed to live with God, whom
with perfect naturalness He called His Father.
The more carefully this fact is examined, the
more clearly it is seen to be without parallel. His
words concerning the Deity were evidently the
voice of personal experience. He speaks as one
who sees God, while others speak as those who

1 Life of Jesus, Renan, p. 72.

2 Ibid. p. 73.

246 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

have heard about God, or who have drawn infer-
ences concerning Him as the result of rational
processes. There is a quality of intimacy and
acquaintance with the Deity in the words of Jesus
unlike the awe-struck humiliation of Isaiah, or the
inspired meditation of the Psalmist. He was a
Jew, and yet His sympathy was wide as human-
ity. Occasionally the greatest of the prophets
had visions of a kingdom coterminous with human-
ity, but those visions were of far-off times and dim
and uncertain in details. Jesus was born in Judea,
and yet was not a Jew. All His ancestry was in
one category ; He seemed to belong in an en-
tirely different one. Every prejudice of His na-
tion against other nations was absent from Him.
The whole world was his fatherland, and all men
who loved God and their fellow-men were His
brethren. This may not seem remarkable until it
is remembered that race prejudices are almost un-
conquerable. His people were intensely national-
istic and narrow ; He was positively humanistic
and broad. His people imagined themselves to be
the favourites of the Almighty ; He declared that
all were favourites who did right and obeyed God,
His reputed father and mother were citizens of
Judea; He was a citizen of the world. Where did
those qualities come from .'' We search in vain for

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 247

anything like them among His great ancestors.
Isaiah was nearest like Him, but He was far
away; and while Isaiah spoke glowing words
about a time when sectional and national lines
would go down, he himself was an intense patriot.
The unique characteristics of Jesus become
more apparent when His teaching is examined
in detail. He was surrounded by those who were
slaves of the letter, who magnified the unessential :
but He spoke one clear message concerning the su-
premacy of the spirit. Not the letter, but the spirit ;
not the form, but the substance ; not the outward
conduct, but the inner state of the heart, according
to His teaching, are the tests of character. He
still further reversed the teaching of His age.
Revenge against enemies had been considered
almost a national virtue. He lived near to a great
Roman highway, and must have been familiar
with the ethical teachings which followed the
Roman armies. The idea of love to enemies,
that no man could possess a holy character until
he could say that he loved those who did him evil,
was utterly foreign to His nation and to the
atmosphere in which He lived. To the Jews
the Romans were brutal dogs, and to the Ro-
mans the Jews were a nation of cringing, sneak-
ing, money-loving hypocrites. Yet in the midst

248 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

of such surroundings arose this man who had no
training but that of nature and of the Jewish
and Roman environment in which His days were
passed. He taught the conditions to which the
world is slowly but surely approximating. When
all the good in all the ideals of the philosophers
and social reformers is realized, therein will be
only what Jesus taught concerning the value of
man, and his relations to his fellow-men and to
the universe. He was utterly unlike the men of
His time in His relation to God ; in His sympa-
thies, which were wide as the world ; in the fact
that He reversed almost all the teaching with
which He was familiar. Of course there were
probably lessons that came out of the pure heart
of that young mother which strangely influenced
His career, but what, and how many they were,
we may not know. Enough for us that so far as
we can understand He was as utterly unlike His
fellow-men and His time as a great golden-hearted
lily is unlike the muck of a mountain lake in which
it grows.

To all these facts must be added another, — His
parents were poor. He was compelled to work
with His hands for a livelihood. The silent years
in the life of Jesus were without doubt passed
as the same years were passed by others of His

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 240

countrymen of the same station in life. He was
acquainted with drudgery. This is undisputed.
There was little time for intellectual growth.
Others have been trained in the schools ; by the
path of meditation, like Buddha, or of dialectics,
like Plato, they have learned the lessons which
lie deep in our common humanity; but Jesus died
at about the age that most find themselves quali-
fied for strong thinking. He knew few books,
probably none but the Old Testament and some
commentaries upon it. He had relatively few
opportunities to feel the influence of the great
world-currents of thought, and if He had come
into touch with them He would have had little
time to study their significance. No one else
situated as He was has spoken such thoughts or
had such visions. Philo and Josephus may be
cited, but, although Jews, both had the advantages
of intellectual training and travel. All the treas-
ures of Alexandrian libraries were enjoyed by at
least one of them. What they learned by inves-
tigation, association with men, and the companion-
ship of literature, the young peasant knew by
intuition ; with all that was valuable in their train-
ing and investigation, Jesus seemed to have been
possessed from His birth. He could not have
been taught this by others. That were to suppose

250 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

a miracle as strange as any of those which a too
credulous church has woven around His infancy.
Amid these and similar historical conditions His
days were passed. Could His environment have
made Him ? Can it explain Him ? " There was
a fine fitness in His being a Jew, a Son of Abra-
ham, the Hebrew. The supreme religious person
of the race fitly came from its most religious fam-
ily. He was the personification of its genius, the
heir of its work. It had created the history that
made Him possible, the men to whom He was intel-
ligible and through whom He could be revealed to
the world. But He transcended its powers of pro-
duction ; He was more and greater than its native
energies could create. The splendid religious
genius of Israel had issued in Judaism, and which
of its two great parties could produce a Christ ?
The Sadducees would not own Him. He be-
longed to no ruling family, had no priestly blood
in His veins ; was one whose very meddling with
religion deserved nothing less than death. And
Pharisaism was as incapable of forming Him. . . .
It was fundamentally increative, radically infer-
tile. . . . All its wisdom is the wisdom of the inter-
preter ; all its goodness the goodness of the school.
But Jesus is throughout the very antithesis and
contradiction of Pharisaism. . . . His historical

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 25 1

conditions, while equal to the making of a Rabbi,
were not equal to the creation of a Universal
Teacher." 1 The force of this reasoning is still
more evident when, leaving the historical conditions
which were the environment of Jesus, we come to
our own time. We live in the splendour of an age
which inherits the intellectual treasures of Greece;
the religious riches of the Hebrew people, in addi-
tion to all the teaching and influence of Jesus, and
of those whose lives were moulded by personal
contact with Him, as well as all the development
of the Christian centuries. We live in circum-
stances which make the world practically one ; when ^
the wealth of the intellect of all lands and ages,
and all motives toward religion, are the common
possessions of every child in even the most humble
circumstances. And yet, with the accumulated
and improved heredity, and the influence of the
better environment, there have been none born
since Jesus whom the world thinks of comparing
with Him. No other land, no other civilization, no
other religion, nor all combined, after nearly two
thousand years of continued evolution, have pro-
duced another Master who in the slightest degree
dims the glory of the young Carpenter of Nazareth.
This is a fact worthy of considerate attention.

1 Studies in the Life of Christ, Fairbairn, pp. 27, 28.

252 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

But this is not all. By common consent Jesus
has been the spiritual teacher of all the ages since
His words were known. Even Strauss does not
hesitate to say : " And among these improvers of
the ideal of humanity, Jesus stands at all events
in the first class. He introduced features into it
which were wanting to it before, or had continued
undeveloped ; reduced the dimensions of others
which prevented its universal application ; impor-
ted to it, by the religious aspect which He gave it,
a more lofty consecration, and bestowed upon it,
by embodying it in His own person, the most vital
warmth ; while the religious society which took its
rise from Him provided for this ideal the widest
acceptance among mankind."^ Remember that,
after all the pruning which this critic gives to the
Gospel narrative, this is his conclusion concerning
what beyond doubt must be accorded to the person
of the historic Jesus.

Renan did not speak any too strongly when he
wrote of Jesus as " the incomparable man to whom
the universal conscience has decreed the title of
Son of God, and that with justice, since He caused
religion to take a step in advance incomparably
greater than any other in the past and probably
than any yet to come." ^

^ New Life of Jesus, Strauss, Vol. II. p. 437.
2 Life of Jesus, Renan, p. 64.

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 253

Has any other spiritual or social teacher taken
one step in advance of Jesus in His teaching
concerning God, concerning duty, concerning the
ideal for the individual and society ? If so, I am
ignorant of his name. Moreover, His teaching
is reverently and gratefully acknowledged to be
the inspiration of nearly all the advanced thought
of our time, as it has been of every era since He
became well known. There is a large difference
of opinion in the interpretation of His teachings,
but little concerning their value and their leader-
ship toward the far-away goal of humanity. In-
deed He has both set the goal, and is leading
the movement toward the prize. Whatever the
theory concerning the person of Jesus, few would
deny that with Him a new era opened in history.
He was the germ of a new spiritual evolution.
There is a deep reason for the unanimity with
which modern civilization dates all events from
His birth. Principal Caird closes his work on
" The Evolution of Religion " with these words :
"This long, unhasting process of the evolution
of religion is itself the best evidence we can have
that there is a divine meaning in the world, and
that mankind have not laid the sacrifice of their
efforts and their thoughts, their prayers and their
tears, upon the altar of an unknown or unknow-

2 54 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

able God." That sentiment derives most of its
significance from the fact that Jesus has lived.
Whether He be considered as the germ of a new
evolution, or as the One who more than any other
has led the movement of humanity toward the
divine, matters little in our present discussion.

There is still another characteristic of the
teaching of Jesus which must not be overlooked.
It adjusts itself to all times and conditions. This
is not the quality of " depth " which has made
it the study and inspiration of subsequent ages,
but something altogether different. His teach-
ings are principles of universal application, so
that when an Oriental receives them he thinks
of Jesus as " The Oriental Christ," and when
Occidentals study them they think of Him as
belonging to the West. This element of adjusta-
bility, while difficult of definition, is as real as
any force in the history of thought. If one is
asked. What was the attitude of Jesus toward
the problems which are vexing our time .-• the
reply would be, Our problems are our own.
They did not then exist. They are the product
of millions of forces, not the least of which are
the discoveries of science. And yet all must con-
fess that the teachings of Jesus have vital rela-
tion to nineteenth-century problems, and that

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 255

they are capable of solution only by those who
approach them in His spirit and apply to them
the truth which He revealed. His ethics are
principles, not laws. Laws have relation to
times and places ; principles adjust themselves
to all times and all places.

Concerning the facts thus far enumerated, there
is little, if any, disagreement among those who
have tried to solve the problem of the person of
Jesus. We have not assumed His sinlessness or
His divinity ; we have assumed nothing but the
substantial historical accuracy of the Gospels. A
careful study of them shows us a man who lived
in the daily consciousness of God as Father ;
who believed He was on intimate terms with the
Deity ; who never argued or attempted to prove
anything, but simply said what He saw; and His
words concerning the Being behind the visible
universe whom men call God, have been the most
convincing and satisfying yet spoken by philoso-
pher, moralist, or seer. " He turned the whole
mighty current of human history. He planted
himself deep in the inmost soul of things, and
this great Christendom is throbbing with the
breath of His life to this hour. And not only
do our Christianities, and Protestant Reforma-
tions, and our Landings of Pilgrims taking pos-

256 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

session of new worlds and dedicating them Christo
et EcclesicB, and our Declarations of human rights,
and our suppressions of huge rebellions against
God and man, and whole races emancipated, —
not only do these bear witness that Jesus com-
muned with the heart of the world until it burned
again ; but even these wild vagaries of the imag-
ination, these doctrines of miraculous and immacu-
late conceptions, and trinities, and double natures,
and infinite atonements, and I know not what, —
these likewise show what a hand of power must
have been laid upon the inmost springs of human
thought and feeling by Him who has given occa-
sion to such extravagant speculations."^ Thus,
more than thirty years ago, wrote one of the
ablest and most conservative of Unitarian divines.
Those who do not acknowledge the deity of
Jesus Christ, as simple students of religion and
history readily and gratefully grant all the facts
essential to our argument at this time.

Whoever that Nazarene peasant was. He uttered
the superlative message concerning the Deity.
And this man who died young without intellect-
ual or spiritual training; so far as we know,
without the revelations which come to most sen-

1 Introduction to Schenkel's Character of Jesus, by Dr. W. H.
Furness, Vol. I. p. x.

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 257

sitive souls through long-continued sorrow and
pain ; who had no teacher but nature, and few if
any books but the Old Testament ; who was un-
known to the world, and who by experience knew
not the world, has been "the Great Teacher" from
His day to out own. He reversed the ethical and
political standards of the past; He antagonized
the ideals of His nation ; He proved Himself a
brother in humanity ; He spoke words which the
ages have heeded, in language which the ages
have loved ; and, when a mere youth having, by
devotion to what He held to be true, brought His
own fate on Himself, He disappeared from his-
tory as a criminal — as do all men who dare to
face and antagonize the established order.

The details as to the change of social customs
and ideals through His influence, and as to the
debt of civilization to Him, are not within the
limits of this discussion. The record is written,
and all who will may read. Our one question
is. Can this unique Being be accounted for by
heredity and environment.? If not, there will
remain another question about which we have
positive convictions, but to which we shall not at
this time attempt an answer.

One of two forms of heredity must be invoked
by those who would explain the person of Jesus

258

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

as they account for other men, viz. Direct Hered-
ity, or Atavism. But when we turn from this
young man, who was the world's Great Teacher,
to His mother, Mary, and His reputed father,
Joseph, there is nothing whatever in them to indi-
cate that they were His parents. Art, poetry, and
the religious spirit have idealized Mary, but when
we leave those ideal realms and come to the common
world of fact, we find nothing remarkable in her.
Raphael and Murillo have painted her as surpass-
ingly beautiful and spiritual, but history shows
nothing unique, either in her appearance or her
character. She differed not greatly from other
peasant maidens of the land and time. Neither
Joseph nor Mary apparently were possessed of
exceptional ability or remarkable spiritual insight.
It may be said that comparatively little is known
of women in our own time, that probably in that
time they lived in still greater seclusion, and
that therefore it is entirely conceivable that Mary
may have been a spiritual genius, as the mother
of Goethe was an intellectual genius. If that
were true, it would be expected that some indica-
tion of the fact would appear in her other children,
but they were, with one possible exception, very
commonplace. They had no appreciation of
Jesus, and showed no signs of relationship to Him.

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST

259

If there was any such genius, it must have come
by way of His mother, and there is no evidence
that she was possessed either of exceptional char-
acter, exceptional ability, or exceptional spirit-
ual insight. The Roman Church has almost
apotheosized Mary, but it must not be forgotten
that the process began with Jesus. From what
He was, an inference was drawn concerning what
His mother must have been. If, however, there
had been nothing known of Jesus, and nothing
except what is recorded in the New Testament
known about Mary, there is no probability that
from the knowledge of the mother the Church
would have created its claims concerning the
unique character and personality of the Son. In
His reputed parents is seen nothing of those ele-
ments of spiritual and intellectual power which
made Jesus the Teacher and the Exemplar of
succeeding centuries.

But not only was Jesus unlike Joseph and
Mary ; He was also without the slightest resem-
blance, in all that constituted His personality,
to the other members of their family. Other
children were born to those peasants, and all of
them were as unlike Jesus as were Joseph and
Mary. Napoleon was a transcendent genius, but
he resembled his mother in face, figure, and char-

26o HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

acter; and while he towered above his family
as a mountain above its foothills, yet there was
an evident family resemblance, and in him all
the distinguishing traits of the family were pres-
ent in superlative growth. Not so in that house-
hold of Nazareth. The only other one of its
members known to the world was James — but
how unlike Jesus he was! "The tendencies of
this James were, according to the notices of him by
the Apostle Paul, strictly Judaistic and in ecclesi-
astical tradition he is represented as having lived
... as a perfect Essenico-Ebionitish saint, in his
ascetic conduct more resembling John the Baptist
than Jesus. The probability that he was not the
real brother, but only a cousin of Jesus, has been
attempted to be made out from the fact that the
names of James and Joses, which the Nazarenes
give as the names of two brothers of Jesus, are
stated elsewhere by Matthew (xxvii. 56) to be
those of two sons of another Mary, who is taken
to be the same person as John (xix. 25) designates
as the sister of the mother of Jesus." ^ In reply
it may be said that brothers often differ. True ;
yet usually not in all their characteristics but only
in the more prominent ones, while in others they
strikingly resemble each other. We have not the

1 New Life of Jesus, Strauss, Vol. I. p. 260.

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 26 1

data for positive assertion, but so far as we know,
these brothers resembled one another in nothing.
To be sure, James became a Christian, and was
Bishop of Jerusalem, but his conception of Chris-
tianity was like that of the Baptist rather than like
that of Jesus. The argument becomes cumulative
when it is remembered that not only were Jesus
and James unlike, but that they were the most
alike of any of the family. This argument is sig-
nificant. Jesus, if such a figure may be allowed
in that Galilean household, was like a swan in a
brood of chickens ; or, better perhaps, like a prince
in a household of peasants. A study of the
family of Joseph and Mary, so far as it is known,
furnishes no clew to the personality of Jesus. It
only complicates the problem which we face when
we endeavour to account for Him as the consum-
mate flower of His family and His race.

If we hold to the theory that He was the nat-
ural child of Joseph and Mary, the conclusion is
inevitable — either He was a genius, and to be
regarded as " sports " are regarded in biology, or
He is the result of atavism. According to the
theory of atavism, the characteristics of an indi-
vidual are not derived from his parents, but from
some remote ancestors. But here we get no light.
What marvellous spiritual prodigies may have

262 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

lived in Judea and been hidden somewhere in the
centuries before Jesus was born we know not ; but
it is hard to believe that any such had existence,
since none could have lived in circumstances more
unfavourable for their manifestation than Jesus
Himself. From that carpenter's home in Naza-
reth He became the world's Teacher and Leader
toward the divine, and if He had ancestors pos-
sessed of the same superlative qualities, why did
not one of them in five hundred years exert influ-
ence enough to cause a ripple on the surface of
Jewish society ? If He is to be accounted for by
atavism, when and where did the ancestor live
whom He resembled ? No such name appears
anywhere in the long history of the Jewish people.
Moreover, Jesus was unlike the heroes of His
nation. Isaiah prophesied the coming of an ideal
king, but to him that king was to rule on an
earthly throne, and would be little like the sover-
eign in the realm of spirit which Jesus has proved
Himself. As we have already noted, his country-
men were intensely nationalistic ; Jesus was uni-
versal in His sympathies. They looked for the
day when the world would revolve around Mount
Zion ; He, when all men would be united in the
worship of the one God who is a Spirit. He be-
longed to the world at large which He had never

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 263

seen ; they to the nation of which they were big-
oted partisans. If we try to account for Him by
atavism, we have to imagine the existence of an-
cestors of whom there is no historical record.

There remains yet one other possible explana-
tion which by some is seriously and even rever-
ently advanced. It is said Jesus was unique ; the
loftiest height ever reached by humanity ; " the
one whose worship will grow young without ceas-
ing," but He was what the biologists call a
"sport." Let us treat this theory with the re-
spect which it deserves. We freely grant that
nothing should ever be ascribed to the super-
natural which admits of a natural interpretation.
What is a " sport .-' " In science it is " an animal
or plant, or any part of one, that varies suddenly
or singularly from the normal type or structure,
and is usually of transient character and not
perpetuated. A sport is generally an individ-
ual variation of apparently spontaneous origin."
(Century Dictionary.) Only in this way can we
account for the men of supreme genius, like
Luther, Shakespeare, Shelley, and Keats. But
when this explanation is applied to Jesus, does
it satisfy ? It may be the prejudice of long
years of Christian training, but for one I must
pronounce it utterly unsatisfactory. I cannot

264 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

co-ordinate Jesus even with the men of " supreme
genius." If any are content to accept this ex-
planation of that marvellous personality whose
" story will melt the noblest hearts " as long as
men love righteousness and truth they must surely
be allowed the privilege, while with equal earnest-
ness we who also desire to be loyal to the truth
find in Him qualities which forbid His classifica-
tion even with men of the loftiest genius. In the
first place, the number of such men who remain
unaccounted for after their mothers are known
as well as their fathers is not large. But the
mother of Jesus is known as well as the mothers of
most ancients, and nothing either in the New Tes-
tament records or in authentic tradition warrants
her classification among the great and silent souls
who have swayed the world through their sons.
Indeed, who shall constitute the list of supreme and
utterly lonely men of genius who, intellectually and
spiritually, are like Melchizedek, without father
and without mother.? Is there any name which
forces itself upon attention except that of Shake-
speare ? And perhaps it would be better to wait
until the question whether the real genius was
Shakespeare or Bacon is settled before drawing
any very weighty inferences from him.

In this study it will be observed that nowhere

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 265

has there been the slightest mention of what are
so generally recognized as the miraculous elements
in the person and career of Jesus of Nazareth.
Those lie entirely outside the field of our investi-
gation. If, however, the validity of His miracles
is granted, it becomes still more evident that the
presence of Jesus in the world cannot be explained
as we explain that of other, even of most excep-
tional men. I have great sympathy with Herder
as interpreted by Strauss. " Is it necessary," asks
Herder, "that fire should have fallen from heaven
two thousand years ago in order to enable us to
see the light of the sun at this day ? Must the
laws of nature have been arrested in order to con-
vince us now of the intrinsic truth, beauty, and
necessity of Christ's moral kingdom ? Let us
rather thank God that this kingdom exists, and,
instead of brooding over miracles, try to compre-
hend its true nature ; its nature itself must be its
evidence to our minds, else all the miracles and
prophecies ever wrought or accomplished are for
us unsaid, unwrought, unprofitable."^ The unique
character and work of Jesus are not at all depend-
ent on the miraculous elements in the story of
His life, and I have chosen to omit them alto-
gether from this study. The incontestable facts

^New Life of Jesus, Strauss, Vol. I. p. lO.

266 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

are quite wonderful enough to start the inquiry
which is here made ; the facts not only of the
man Jesus when He lived in Judea and Galilee,
but also of His posthumous ministry, and His
influence which has been so pervasive and vital
for nineteen centuries.

In character, in spiritual insight, in knowledge
of man, and of what all men feel must be the
truth of God ; in ability to see into the very heart
of "human life's mystery" and to penetrate the
depth of humanity's need ; in ability to speak the
word which His own age needed and all ages since
have needed, this Galilean peasant, whose youth
and young manhood were filled with monotonous
toil ; who had never travelled ; who knew few if
any books ; who had no teacher but a sweet and
gracious mother, has surpassed all the ideal heroes.
In a public ministry of only a few months He
transcended the wisdom of the philosophers, the
intellectual and spiritual forces of the universities,
and, more than any other, led men — all men,
men of the most diverse tastes and prejudices —
toward God. It is impossible for me to think that
nature, even as glorious as that in which His
youth was spent, taught Him all these lessons.
No great poet or artist ever came from the midst
of such scenery. If He is explained by natural

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST 267

environment, the question remains, Why has na-
ture produced no successor to Jesus ? Switzer-
land and Thibet have contributed no names to
the list of the world's intellectual and spiritual
leaders, or even to that of her great artists and
poets. Natural environment influences the body,
not much the intellectual and spiritual environ-
ment. But around this Man the Oriental and
the Occidental alike gather, and each seems to
find in Him a brother, a teacher, and a friend.

There have been many attempts to explain
the character and personality of Jesus. My ob-
ject is not to add another to that list, but rather
to show that the data do not exist which war-
rant any one in attempting to classify Him with
other men as a product of heredity and environ-
ment. He seems, indeed, to have been without
father and without mother. Whoever He was,
and whatever the explanation of His presence
on this earth of ours, He was an exception
among men ; not in such a sense as to break
the continuity of humanity, but clearly to make
it impossible to account for Him as we account
for heroes and men of genius. If, now, any of
my readers desire to push their questioning
farther, and ask. How, then, do you explain His
presence .!• I must reply that this is not a book

268 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

on theology. Such questions belong to the
sphere of theology. It is enough here to show
that the usual theories fail when applied to Jesus
of Nazareth. For myself, it is easier and in
every way more satisfactory to believe that the
Man Jesus was chosen of God to manifest His
glory unto men, as no other man ever was ; to
believe that the unique Man was prepared by
birth and discipline for His unique and awful
service, than to attempt to classify Him with
Homer and Plato, Dante and Shakespeare, even
if He be given the highest place among all who
have influenced and taught and served the race.
It is enough here, however, to show that so far
as can be seen He was not the sole product of
the narrow and bigoted people among whom
He was born ; and that the serene skies above
Nazareth, His toiling and oppressed countrymen,
His life as a working carpenter, and the tyran-
nical rule of the conquering Romans, could not
have made Him the supreme spiritual Teacher
and Leader, the One who has done most to lead
humanity toward the divine.

What, then, shall we believe .-• I prefer to go
to my New Testament for my answer, and since
this book is not intended to solve such problems,
to the New Testament I must send my readers

THE PROBLEM OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST

269

for their answer. For myself, I am satisfied that
there is a profound and glorious truth in these
words spoken to Mary by the Angel of the
Annunciation : " The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee; and the power of the Most High
shall overshadow thee ; wherefore also that which
is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of
God." (Luke i. 35.)

CONCLUSION

In this book I have tried to set forth clearly and
fairly some facts illustrating the relation of the
laws of heredity and of environment to human
life, human conduct, and human belief, including
religious life and thought. Among the matters
emphasized as of greatest importance are these:

However bad the vital inheritance, it may be
modified and changed by good environment.

Therefore it is the duty of Christian workers
and thinkers to be very careful that those whom
they would help to elevate and save have not only
a correct presentation of truth, but also a helpful
environment to minister to the growth of that
truth.

The influence of natural causes on the will is
great and constant, but the testimony of con-
sciousness is in favour of human freedom, and
that testimony is final.

Until Christian philosophy has achieved a new
and profounder adjustment of the facts of life to
the consciousness of human freedom, the con-
sciousness of responsibility, the innate recog-

270

CONCLUSION 271

nition of the "ought" and "ought not," afford a
sufficient basis for appeals to men not to yield
themselves as slaves to heredity. Vice, pauper-
ism, and crime will not be eradicated until they
are regarded as symptoms of a deep and deadly
disease, the tendency to which is remorselessly
transmitted, and which can be helpfully treated
only by a radical and long-continued change in
environment.

All theories of education should be tested by
the facts which have been brought out in this dis-
cussion, it being the chief credential of the new
education that it studies the child before it gives
the child anything to study.

The welfare and perpetuity of the home re-
quire a wise and careful consideration of the two
subjects, heredity and environment, in order that
those not properly mated may never be married,
and that parents may adapt the training of their
children to their individual peculiarities.

That faith alone which of all the religions of
the world supplies motives sufficient to inspire
even the most degraded to rise against and tri-
umph over evil heritage, may be presumed to rest
on an immovable foundation. It has the strongest
of possible arguments in its favour, the argument
of redeemed human lives.

272 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

Finally, the natural laws of which we have been
treating have one signal exception ; one supreme
fiofure stands above their utmost reach. What-
ever may be the conclusion concerning other men,
it is impossible to account for the personality of
Jesus of Nazareth by either heredity or environ-
ment, or by both. Whether He be human or
divine, or both in one. He is in the history of the
race absolutely and unapproachably unique.

The study of these questions which force them-
selves so constantly upon the thought of all who
observe with any care the facts of life is not with-
out its beneficial effect. He who knows what
men are, and what their tendencies are, will not
easily misjudge his brother. The growth of that
charity which thinketh no evil is greatly stimu-
lated by accurate knowledge of our fellow-men
and of the conditions in which their lives are
passed.

He who understands the vitality of an evil act
will hesitate long before he does that which can
never be recalled, and which, like Frankenstein,
may return again and again to disturb and make
miserable the author of its being. If we could
retain within ourselves the consequences of our
misdeeds, we might perhaps be willing to take the
chances as to their results ; but no man liveth to

CONCLUSION 273

himself, and the indiscretions of youth and the
malice of age alike reach far into the future, and
determine the tendencies of those whom we shall
never see until we stand face to face with them in
the judgment-day.

But evil, after all, has in itself the seeds of its
own decay. In a far truer sense than we often
dream "the wages of sin is death." On the other
hand, righteousness, and that alone, has in itself
the assurance of endless growth. The law of
reproduction for good reaches as far as the law
of reproduction for evil, and while evil tends to
death, good has the promise of eternal life. The
hope of the future is in " the outpopulating power
of a Christian stock." Whatever the tendencies
in humanity, and wherever they come from, the
evolution of history points toward a time when
man will be "no longer half akin to brute;"
when that law of nature whose function is the
conservation of that which has come from the
past will receive and transmit to the future only
that which will make for blessing. No man need
despair because of his ancestry ; no one by birth
is altogether bad ; in every one are tendencies
toward holiness which will surely assert them-
selves if the opportunity is given; therefore the
endeavour of all should be to live so constantly in

274 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

the environment of God that purity and virtue,
Hght and love, may grow as naturally and surely
from the evil conditions of their lives as lilies and
roses from the soil of their gardens. Nature is
beneficent, and all her laws are ministers of love
— this is the gospel which is written so clearly
in the history of the race that all who will may
read.

In the Vatican Gallery in Rome is the famous
antique group, Laocoon and his sons in the coils
of the serpents. The awful agony of the men,
depicted in the straining and protuberant muscles,
the look of despair, the futile fight against the
inevitable, the slimy folds and hissing tongues of
the monsters, are real as life and terrible as death.
This group has been and by many is still regarded
as a true symbol of human existence. To them
the serpents which have come up out of the sea
of unfathomable mystery which surrounds our
mortal life are the two great facts of heredity and
environment, and in their silent and remorseless
embrace, with griefs, struggles, agonies, despairs
unutterable, millions yearly are crushed, and
crushed at length to death ; and still the slimy
folds coil on and on through the centuries, stain-
ing the earth with tears and blood.

Such is life to those who never look beyond the

CONCLUSION 275

material world. Another group in Rome is to
my mind truer to the facts of human life, albeit
some of the greatest of those facts are in the
future. In the Church of the Cappuchini is
Guido's painting of St. Michael and the Dragon.
Upon the angel's face the sunlight rests. Eternal
youth flashes from his eyes and breathes from his
body ; beneath his feet, prostrate and helpless,
is the dragon, with the spear of light at his head.
It is the victory of good over evil. The marble
group is the symbol of what life would be without
God revealed in Christ, and of what it now seems
to those who have no faith ; the painting is the
symbol of what it is to men of spiritual vision.
Between the two symbols stretch, no doubt, ages
of toil and conflict, of struggle and death ; but
nature's laws are not merciless ; they are expres-
sions of Him who Himself is love ; and sometime
eternal Love will realize the ideal depicted in the
painting. Sometime the race, purified and re-
newed by vital relations with Hirn who is the life,
will bless the sweep and universality of that law
which often now works so mysteriously and fate-
fully, the law which conserves the blessings of the
generations, accumulates them, and sends them
down in streams of light to make glad generations
yet to come. Then what seem now to the faith-

2/6

HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS

less to be serpents shall be regarded as angels of
mercy, whose beneficent ministry will never fail,
as slowly but surely they lead the race toward
the "one far-off divine event to which the whole
creation moves," in which every man and all
men shall have reached the stature of the ful-
ness of Christ.

INDEX

Adams family, 41.

Addison, 40.

yEschylus, 38.

Agrippina, 43, 45.

Alcoholism, 176.

Allegri, 39.

"All Sorts and Conditions of

Men," 168.
Amati, Andrea, 39.
Andover House, 167, 194.
Animals, effects of environment

on, 54.
Aristotle, 40.

Arnold, Matthew, 122, 123. .
Arnold, Thomas, 40.
Association of East Side Workers,

195.
Atavism, 8, 25, 28, 72, 77, 83, 84,

109, 258, 261.
Aurelius, Marcus, 10, 43, 72.
Aymaras, 56.

Bach family, 6, 39, 142.

Bacon, 40, 264.

Bailli de Suffren Saint-Tropez, 24.

Bassano, 39.

Beethoven, 39.

Behrends, Dr. A. J. F., 147.

Bellini, 39.

Bentham, 40.

Bentivoglios, 24.

Besant, Walter, 168.

" Bitter Cry of Outcast London,"

146, 165.
Blumenbach, 59.
Bossuet, 41.

" Botanical Garden," 178.
Bourbon family, 6, 103, 142.
Brahmins, 56,
Brooks, 9, II.
Browning Hall, 167.
Browning, Mrs., 137.
Buccones, 24.
Buddha, 249.
Bunyan, 71.
Burdach, 64.

" Bureau of Heredity," 188.
Burns, 38, 209.
Burrows, Dr., 29.
Bushnell, Dr., 115.
Byron, 38, 41, 43, 45.

Cable, George W., 197, 204.
Caird, Principal, 253.
Caligula, 10, 43, 45.
Calvin, John, 42.
Calvinism, 233.
Capitones, 24.
Carlisle, Sir A., 36.
Carlyle, 65.
Caro, M. E., 4I.
Carracci, 39.

277

2/8

INDEX

Charity Organization Society, 156,

163.
Children's Aid Society, 66, 170,

193-

Chretien family, 182.

"Christian Nurture," 115.

Churches' duty towards pauper-
ism, 163.

Church Exchange, 163.

Coffee Houses, 193.

Coleridge, 32, 38.

College settlements, 194.

Commodus, 10, 43.

Commune, Children of the, 176.

Conde family, 28.

Congeniality, III.

Congregational Union of Lon-
don, 164.

Conscience, 92.

Consciousness, 92.

Conversion, 85.

Correggio, 39.

Crime, 34, 46, 159, 182, 187.

Crothers, Dr. T. D., 174, 178.

Cromwell, lo.

Culture, 121.

Dale, Dr., 194.

Dante, 41, 242, 268.

Darnley, 44.

Darwin, Charles, 4, 9, 14, 24, 56,

59-
Darwin, Erasmus, 177.
Darwin family, 6, 41.
de' Medicis, 103.
Despine, Dr., 182.
de Stael, Madame, 40.
Dipsomania, 31, 176.
Disease, 15, 28.

Diversity, Law of, 2, 23, 34.
Divorce, 103, 112.
Domitian, 10.
Domitius, 45.

Dugdale, R. L., 46, 142, 143,
145, 183.

Edwards, Jonathan, 72, 76.
Elam, 9, 24, 30, 32, 34, 177, 234.
Eliot, George, 104.
" Elsie Venner," 73.
Emerson, 122, 123, 214.
English Building Acts, 1 61.
Environment, definition of, 2, 53;

changes heredity, 160.
Esquimau, 56.
Esquirol, M., 29.
Evolution, doctrine of, 73, 120.
" Evolution of Religion," 253.

Fairbairn, Principal, 251.

Faustina, 43.

Flaxman, 39.

Forbes, D., 56.

Foundling Hospital, London,

156.
Frankenstein, 272.
Frederick William L, 27.
French Revolution, 60.
Fresh Air Funds, 195.

Galton, 9, 12, 24, 37, 40, 41.

Garfield, 128.

Genius, 40.

Germanicus, lo, 45.

Goethe, 38, 41, 43, 209, 242, 258.

Gospel, The, 239.

Guido, 275.

Guise family, 6, 28.

INDEX

279

Hackel, 14, 16,

Hallam, 40.

Hall, Dr. Stanley, 127, 133.

Hapsburgs, 216.

Henry IV., 10.

Herder, 265.

Heredity, definition of, 2, 3. The
law recognized, 4, 102. Direct,
7, 174, 258. Reversional, 8,
25. Collateral or Indirect, 8,
174. Of Influence, 8. Excep-
tions to the law, 9, 10.

Hill, Octavia, 153, 169.

HohenzoUern family, 103.

Holmes, Dr., 74, 187, 234.

Holy Spirit, 86, 225-230.

Homer, 268.

Housing of the working classes,
149.

Hugo, 38.

Hull House, 167, 194.

Hutchison, Dr., 30.

Huxley, Professor, 80, 232.

Indians, American, 59.
Indiscriminate giving, 156.
Insanity, 108, 176.
Intemperance, 30, 75, 87, 109,

142, 145, 154, 173, 178, 187,

192, 200.
Isaiah, 245, 246, 247, 262.

James I, 44.
Josephus, 249.
Juke, Margaret, 142.
"Jukes, The," 46, 159.

Kant, 98, 137.
Keats, 263.

Labeones, 24.

Lamarck, 9.

Lambert, Edward, 9, 25.

Laocoon, 274.

Laziness, 47, 142.

Lecky, 44.

Leighton, 123.

"Lend a Hand," 187.

Letizia Ramolino, 43, 61,

Lewes, George Henry, 104.

Licentiousness, 143, 145, 159,

192.
Lincoln, Abraham, 25, 42, 128.
Lislet-Geoffrey, 26.
Longevity, 28.
Louis XIV, 10, 204.
Lowell, Josephine Shaw, 156.
Low, William, 156.
Lucas, 9, 10.
Luther, Martin, 42, 242, 263.

Macaulay, 40, 45.

McAuley, Jerry, 71.

Maisenhaus, Vienna, 155.

Mansfield House, 167.

Marie Louise, 43, 61.

Mary, Queen of Scots, 44.

Massachusetts Reformatory, 65.

Materialism, 81.

Maudsley, 24, 81, 82, 84, 93, 94.

Melier, M., 57.

Mendelssohn, 39.

Meyer, H. C, 149, 150.

Milton, 38.

Mivart, g.

Model tenements, 170, 193.

Mongolians, 59.

Montesquieu, 122.

Montmorency family, 6, 28.

28o

INDEX

Moore, Dr., 36.
Morel, 9, 30, 31, 176.

Moses, 245.
Mozart, 39.
Murillo, 39, 258.
Musical talent, 39, 77.

Napoleon I, 43, 60, 259.

Napoleon II, 43, 60.

Napoleon family, 103.

Nasones, 24.

" Natural causes," 230.

Near-sightedness, 15, 59.

Nero, 45.

Neurosis, 82.

"New Birth," 221, 224.

Nightingale, Florence, 42.

OiNOMANIA, 31.

Opium habit, 32.

« Oriental Christ, The," 254.

" Original sin," 220, 236.

Overcrowding, 149.

Oxford House, 167.

Pangenesis, 15.
Pascal, 41.
Paul, Jean, 138.
Paul, Saint, 78, 160.
Pauperism, 46. Hereditary, 143-

144. Induced, 143-145.
Peek, Francis, 139.
Pericles, 10.
Personality, 80.
Philo, 249.

Physical Science, 73, 81, 82, 91.
Plants, effects of environment on,

54-
Plato, 249, 268.

Plutarch, 27.

Poetic talent, 37.

Polytechnic Institute, London,

166.
" Psychological Journal," 30.
" Psychologie Naturelle," 182.

QUATREFAGES, 24.
Quechua Indians, 56.

Raphael, 39, 258.

Renan, Ernest, 243, 244, 252.

Retribution, 233-236.

Ribot, 4, 7, 8, 9, II, 24, 26, 35,

64, 67, 72, 96, 176, 182, 183.
Ruskin, John, 169.

Saint Michael and the Dragon,

275-
Salvation, 219-225, 233.
Schopenhauer, il.
Seneca, 40.
Sensuality, 77.
Sexdigitism, 25.
Shaftesbury, Lord, 149, 152.
Shairp, Principal, 123.
Shakespeare, 41, 42, 242, 263,

264, 268.
Shelley, 137, 242, 263.
Smith, Adam, 137.
" Socialism and Christianity," 147.
Social problems, 117.
Solidarity of the Race, 102, 202-

212.
Spencer, Herbert, 13, 14, 16, 20,

21, 91, 134, 135, 136.
" Sports," 242, 261, 263.
Strauss, 252, 260, 265.
Stuart family, 103, 216.

INDEX

:8i

Temper, 79.

Tenement House Act, 150.

Teniers, 39.

Te-to-tums, 193.

Thompson, Dr. Bruce, 186.

Thorwaldsen, 39.

Thucydides, 10.

Titian, 39.

Toynbee Hall, 167.

Transmission of characteristics of
species, 5. Peculiarities of
race, 5. Family and individ-
ual characteristics, 5. Ac-
quired characteristics, 12, 14-
22, 75.

Turgot family, 28.

Uniformity, Law of, 2, 23, 34.
University Colony, 194.

University Extension, 194.
University Settlements, 194.

Van Der Velde, 39.

Vandyke, 39.

Variation, causes of, 12, 15, 16.

Veronese, Paul, 39.

Vespasian, 10.

Vice, 34, 47, 109.

Virtue, 48.

Wallace, 9.

Watt, James, 40.

Weismann, August, 4, 13, 14, 16,

18, 20, 22, 24, 75.
Whittier House, 167, 194.
Will, Its nature, 96.
" Will, On the," 73.
Wordsworth, 42.
Wundt, 96.

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