A Plea for the Operation of a More 

 Virile Sentiment in Human Affairs. 



A Second Rejoinder. 



By GEORGE PERCIVAL MUDGE. 



Dr. Louis Cobbett, in his second reply, entitled 

 " Heredity or Environment," to my " Plea for the 

 Operation of a More Virile Sentiment in Human 

 Affairs," asserts " that both heredity and environ- 

 ment admittedly go to the making of man." He 

 then asks the crucial questions : " But in what 

 proportions ? How much of the finished article is 

 due to the quality of the raw material ? " In reply 

 to these questions of Dr. Cobbett, I shall argue 

 the thesis that in a sense, what a man as an 

 individual is, does not depend upon his envi- 

 ronment at all, but wholly upon his innate 

 constitution. Dr. Cobbett and others who adopt 

 his attitude, have apparently overlooked the 

 essential fact, that the capacity to respond to the 

 environment is as much an inborn character of an 

 individual, as the colour of his hair or the possession 

 of limbs instead of fins. Some men possess the 

 capacity of responding, others do not ; some have 

 it in great measure, others in less measure. All the 

 sentimental agitation that is fanning a great wave of 

 unmerited emotion over the surface of an ill-instructed 



