CHAPTER V 



ENVIRONMENT 



Men start out, then, in existence with a vital 

 capital supplied by their ancestry, which is modi- 

 fied more or less by the law of diversity. From 

 the moment that individual life begins, however, — 

 not merely from birth, — another factor becomes 

 the supremely important one ; supremely im- 

 portant, not because it is necessarily dominant, 

 but because it is the only one at that stage under 

 human control. This factor, therefore, the factor 

 of environment, compels the attention of every 

 student of sociology and religion. Indeed, it may 

 be doubted if the part played by it in civilization 

 is not even greater than that played by heredity. 

 Side by side with the latter is this other influence, 

 at once modifying it and being modified by it, — 

 the influence of the environment in which the 

 human being is placed. The tendencies of every 

 man are fixed before he sees the light ; the actu- 

 ality of every man — his very character, in fact — 

 is always more or less determined by the condi- 

 tions of his birth and life. Environment, then, 



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