VIRILE SENTIMENT 49 



processes, without any artificial and compulsory 

 interference or help. And we may be sure that these 

 processes are benign ; biological teaching is clear 

 on that point. By these processes, throughout the 

 whole realm of nature, the maximum amount of 

 happiness and vigour is attained, with the minimum 

 amount of misery or pain. Human interference 

 but decreases the former, while increasing the latter. 

 It is better, in the faith of the greater religions, to 

 accept our destiny. 



I will come now to one of the principal objects 

 of this address, i.e., the refutation of the main as- 

 sumption, sometimes expressed and sometimes im- 

 plied, upon which this modern sentiment rests. 

 It is tacitly assumed by the exponents of this senti- 

 ment that the qualities of the individual depend 

 upon his environment ; that he is vicious because 

 of the viciousness of his surroundings, and good 

 because his environment is made up of good in- 

 fluences. It is entirely wrong ; there is no justi- 

 fication for it at all in the realm of fact. The very 

 converse is true, for in social life the environment 

 is the product of the individual, and not vice versa. 

 The stunted individuals are not the product of 

 a one-roomed tenement, but the one-roomed tenement 

 is the expression of the inherent incapacity of this 

 race to be able to do anything better for 

 itself. They are not undergoing physical de- 

 generation because they are living in a one-roomed 

 tenement — many a better man has done that — 

 but the one-roomed condition is the natural outcome 



