THE CHILD AND HEREDITY 175 



1 and evil in the world at any moment is measured by the 

 actual volition of deeds which are right and wrong. Good 

 and evil exist, whether in the individual or in the race, by 

 constant re-creation, and they perish utterly with the acts 

 which they characterise. Heredity, therefore, cannot 

 touch them. Every man, as_moral) is a new^bein^. His 

 history begins and ends with his will. For although the 

 will is not detached from antecedents it sublates them, or 

 takes them up into itself, and in doing so transmutes them. 



What does persistjind might conceivablybc transmitted 

 is the modification set up in the individual's powers 

 through the doing of right or wrong actions. For 

 every action, mental or physical, recoils upon the faculty 

 which has produced it. And it is possible thus that there 

 may be an accumulation, not indeed of good or evil, but 

 of propensities to perform the one or the other. And 

 there is no doubt that this accumulation takes place within 

 the life of the individual. The creation of " habit," which 

 is one of the conditions of the acquirement of increased 

 power of any kind, would be unintelligible, if the doing 

 of acts left no trace upon the doer. 



But, if it be_tnae_^a^_^^/r^^baJ2^e^_ae^o^ran^ 

 mitted, then leyen tendencies to .good or evil cannot come. 



by_inheritance. ^No childjsjinrn vicing or virfiinnc; It_ 



is only by his own action that he can become the one or 

 the other. He is not even pre-disposed to virtue or vice, 

 unless, indeed, we identify the former with the innate 

 impulse towards self-realisation, characteristic of all life. 

 Not even the mojstimfoj^u^^ 



with a moral taint. What he inherits are powers, and 

 these undeniably may vary both in a relative and in an 

 absolute sense ; so that the appeal of the environment may 



