178 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



sentiment, a deed, or a person, by wliicli we become 

 truly inspired. It is not the intellect, but the heart 

 and will, through which and b}^ which we are con- 

 trolled. It is not the precepts of life, but life it- 

 self, by which alone we are begotten and born unto 

 life. 



" Now, there are two ways in which living power, 

 personal power, the power of a will, may enter a soul 

 and give it life ; the one is when God's will works upon 

 us, and the other when our wills work upon one an- 

 other. God's will may directly penetrate ours, enabling 

 us to will and to do of his good pleasure ; and our own 

 wills, thus inspired, may be the torch to kindle other 

 wills with the same inspiration. It is in only one of 

 these two ways that a human soul can be truly in- 

 spired ; and, without a true inspiration, no amount of 

 instruction, whether in duty, or life, or anything else, 

 will change a single moral propensity." 



Even though a Lincoln may rise above his heredi- 

 tary position or his surroundings, they are the school 

 in which he is trained ; the gymnasium in which his 

 mental and moral fibre is strengthened. Family and 

 social life form thus the element of man's environment 

 by which he is mostly moulded, and to which he most 

 naturally and completely conforms. Let us therefore 

 briefly trace the origin of this new element of man's 

 environment, and then notice the effect upon him of 

 conformity to its laws, and see whither these would 

 lead him. 



"We have already seen that intra-uterine develop- 

 ment of the young was being carried ever farther by 

 mammals, and we found one explanation of this in the 



*Seelye : Christian Missions, p. 154. 



