HEREDITY. 23 



whatever its most prominent traits may be, he may 

 by strenuous effort, by judicious treatment, and a pure 

 and healthy life, do much to bring himself nearer to 

 that grand ideal of manhood which none of us approach 

 too closely. Nor can any man be engaged in a nobler 

 or holier work than purging the body of the sins of its 

 fathers. 



This, then, is heredity. This mysterious, unknown, 

 and possibly unknowable something which moulds the 

 child after the fashion of its parents. It is this law 

 which has made man what he now is ; it is this law 

 which shall make man what he may yet ba 



