THE CHILD AND HEREDITY 165 



which the child can be educated. It is not without reason 

 that, as we have seen, the apologists of man's spiritual life 

 have recoiled from this doctrine, and have either sought 

 to endow man with some power or other which stood free 

 from this chain of necessary causation, or have endeavoured 

 to discredit the deliverances of natural science as hypo- 

 thetical and sought refuge in faith, based upon ignorance. 

 But the first of these methods is certainly doomed to fail. 

 Its very success brings failure. For precisely in the degree 

 to which the self-conscious ego is withdrawn from real 

 connection with the world, in which it is placed in order 

 to realise itself, does that realisation become unintelligible. 

 We cannot afford to deny or mystify man's intercourse 

 with the world, by interaction with which his powers are 

 evolved ; and intercourse is impossible if there is no real 

 or ontological relation between these factors. And as to the 

 second method, even while admitting that this doctrine of 

 evolution is only a hypothesis, and that even the surest 

 deliverances of natural science are only in process of being 

 proved, I should consider the tenure of our moral and 

 religious beliefs very insecure if they could be held only 

 on the condition of discrediting natural science. 



Rather than avail ourselves of either of these methods, 

 let us seek to discover what consequences really do follow 

 if we accept this doctrine of evolution and heredity as true. 



I believe it possible that in this doctrine, rightly under- 

 stood, there may be found the best defence of man's 

 spiritual interests. The importance of the issue justifies 

 close inquiry. 



In the first place, then, it is to be noticed that the result 

 of this view is not to naturalise man, but to rationalise his 

 antecedents. 



