PAPERS OX HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE 425 



of resistance are lessened thereby, and he falls an early 

 victim to disease. Nature detects even those who ap- 

 pear to be sound, but are rotten at the core. The Bible 

 says, 'The iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the 

 children to the third and fourth generations.' Science 

 shows clearly the truth of this statement. Where par- 

 ents are dissolute and victims of sinful habits, the chil- 

 dren also possess weakened constitutions as well as sin- 

 ful tendencies, either as a result of inheritance, or of 

 early environment and neglect. Where for only a few 

 generations parents are persistently vicious the stock 

 grows weakened, idiotic, and eventually becomes ex- 

 tinct. Persistent sinfulness is stamped out in a few years 

 by natural selection acting through heredity. In the 

 language of science the sinner is out of harmony with 

 his environment, and if he and his posterity will not or 

 can not change, natural selection will as surely cut off 

 his race as in the case of any other animal not in ad- 

 justment -with its environment. This is 'the power not 

 of ourselves that makes for righteousness.' Happily, in 

 a similar way the higher qualities of character developed 

 by the parents are also impressed upon the children by 

 early education and example. The Bible says. 'The 

 righteous shall inherit the earth,' and science assures us 

 that righteousness or right living makes for health and 

 length of life." 



Surely in this grossly materialistic age we may well 

 stress such ideals in our teaching of the fundamentals of 

 science to those who are the hope of the future. 



