A REJOINDER 125 



and better conditions, their bad characteristics will not 

 have a chance of developing. This plea, it seems to me, 

 falls hopelessly to the ground, in the light of the facts 

 which I have described. It is not only in this island 

 that these facts exist. They are everywhere around 

 us. They are in our pauper institutions, in our 

 reformatories, in our prisons, in our schools, in our 

 daily life, and in many cultured homes, the good 

 names of which have been disgraced by the deeds 

 of an adopted son or daughter, chosen from an 

 unhappy stock ; so that they who have been deceived 

 and whose delusions have vanished, may say in the 

 hour of their remorse to those who have disappointed 

 them and have crushed the pearls of their benevolence 

 and cherished hopes : " Annon sicut lac mulsisti me, 

 et sicut caseum coagulasti me ? " 



I will next attempt to deal with Dr. Cobbett's 

 contention from another aspect. We may consider 

 the question of habitual alcoholism and drunkenness. 

 Now, I think all will agree that a permanent change 

 of environment, in the sense that social tradition 

 and custom have altered, has been brought about 

 and that it has been operating for at least two 

 generations. Yet both these forms of vice are 

 common, and to such an extent that in these latter 

 days, optimistic Chancellors have turned into futile 

 moralists. Every experience of our social life points 

 the conclusion that a traditional inheritance of 

 external concepts is incapable of exercising any 

 useful influence, except upon those whose physiological 

 inheritance is so constituted, that it spontaneously 

 responds to the external agents. 



