34 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



cance. Because of the interaction of the laws 

 of uniformity and diversity in heredity, it is 

 not possible always to predict just what physical 

 characteristics will be transmitted. Health, or 

 disease, or organic peculiarities may not recur, 

 inherent intellectual or moral qualities may not 

 always be transmitted ; " but," says Dr. Elam, " an 

 acqiih'ed and habitual vice zvill rarely fail to leave 

 its trace upon one or more of the offspring, either in 

 its original form or one closely allied. . . . The 

 habit of the parent becomes the all but irresistible 

 instinct of the child ; the voluntarily adopted and 

 cherished vice of the father or mother becomes 

 the overpowering impulse of the son or daughter ; 

 the organic tendency is excited to the uttermost, 

 and the power of will and of conscience is pro- 

 portionately weakened, — weighty considerations in 

 forming a judgment on the responsibility of those 

 so fatally affected by this direct inheritance of 

 crime. And so it is by a natural law, and not 

 by any arbitrary or unjust interpolation of divine 

 vengeance, that the sins of the parents are visited 

 upon the children, — that the fathers eat sour 

 grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge." ^ 



1 A Physician'' s Problems, Elam, p. 5. 



