A HEREDITY AND CHRISTLIN PROBLEMS 



determined before his birth, are at least so clearly 

 defined, that for him to go outside the lines laid 

 down by his ancestry will be very difficult. 



The law of heredity I make no effort to estab- 

 lish ; I assume it. It is not doubted by careful 

 students of human nature, any more than by stu- 

 dents of biology. The mistake should not be 

 made of supposing that it is a new discovery, one 

 of the as yet unproven hypotheses of modern 

 science ; or that we owe our knowledge of it to 

 Charles Darwin, August Weismann, and a few 

 other scientists. These men have indeed done 

 much in this field of research, but heredity and 

 environment have been recognized as the most 

 potent forces in the development of life as long 

 as history has been written. 



In what sense is there a law of heredity } 

 Laws in nature are known only as the results 

 of processes of induction. From the phenomena 

 of nature and life an invariable order is inferred. 

 The something in obedience to which that order 

 results we call laws, and to a knowledge of these 

 we rise by the study of apparently isolated facts. 

 " Suppose," says Ribot, " all the facts of the 

 physical and moral universe reduced to a thou- 

 sand secondary laws, and these to a dozen prim- 

 itive laws, which are the final and irreducible 



