88 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



serted himself to the overthrow of the dominion 

 of bodily appetites. Many will reject the first ex- 

 planation; they will refuse to acknowledge divine 

 intervention. Such are driven to acknowledge 

 the existence of free will, — a power within and 

 beneath the physical nature, which is able to 

 assert itself, and take the seat of authority and 

 control ; driven to it under pain of believing that 

 one without freedom, whose course has been ab- 

 solutely fixed by heredity and environment, has 

 changed that course without help ; that is, that 

 the boulder flying down the Matterhorn suddenly 

 stops, and of itself begins to roll upward. The 

 Christian explanation certainly seems the rational 

 one ; namely, that the choice has been made by 

 the will, while help both to make and to execute 

 the choice has come from above. 



Let us now review the ground already traversed. 

 A study of physical facts alone makes it appear 

 that no act of choice is unrelated to physical 

 conditions inside and outside the man willing. 

 Logically, therefore, no man is solely blamable 

 for his vicious conduct, or alone praiseworthy for 

 the elevation of his character. A thousand hands, 

 instead of one, strike the blow which makes a 

 man a murderer. He is not the only crirninal. 

 A long line of ancestors, and society itself, are 



