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THEORIES OF HEREDITY 2 1 



transmitted, the original substance of our life is 

 at present in part corrupted, and in part devel- 

 oped and improved ; and if evil tends to wear 

 itself out, and good characteristics have in them 

 elements of endurance, then the prospect for man 

 is good, since the final supremacy of the good 

 seems to be foreshadowed. 



If, on the other hand, the stream of being 

 flowing on from age to age remains unchanged 

 by any individual acquisitions, but may be af- 

 fected by changes in environment, then, as civ- 

 ilization advances, as life asserts itself, as the 

 environment improves, it is evident that the river 

 of life will soon cease to rise into fountains 

 through any strata which will taint its primal 

 sweetness, and will show itself in springs in 

 which it shall be sweet and pure and cool as 

 when it first gushed from the mountain's side. 

 Individuals are hampered ; the men they might 

 be they are not ; they are failures or wrecks, not 

 because there is not good life in them, but be- 

 cause it cannot get expression. If Spencer is 

 right, and acquired characteristics are transmis- 

 sible, then it is the duty and the privilege of 

 the Christian man to work for the creation of 

 such conditions as will put in the place of the ten- 

 dencies toward evil which now exist better traits 



