2i6 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



quickness of his mental operations, and also ac- 

 cording as intellect or emotion be predominant in 

 his constitution. Therefore we are brought to the 

 conviction that : — 



Heredity and environment have much to do in 

 determining the moral and theological bias of 

 every man. Within limits, both a man's creed and 

 his character are influenced by his ancestry and 

 by his surroundings. This influence is not abso- 

 lute determinism, and does not preclude responsi- 

 bility ; but there is no reason to regard the moral 

 life as any less related to the past, or any less 

 susceptible to atmospheres of good or evil, than 

 the physical life. It is as true that men think like 

 their fathers as that they look like them. It is 

 as unnatural for some to be religious as it is nat- 

 ural for others. Every year a man lives, every 

 year his ancestors lived, and the conditions amidst 

 which his life and theirs have been spent, reach 

 into and colour his religion, both as to creed and 

 as to ideals. All cannot think alike. Until all 

 have the same faculties with exactly the same 

 development, and live in exactly the same circum- 

 stances, it is folly to expect uniformity in religious 

 opinions, — a truth of which the Hapsburgs of 

 Austria and Spain and the Stuarts of England had 

 no conception, to the world's bitter sorrow. The 



