302 Heredity and Environment 



turbed by angry deities, the winds are let loose or stilled, the earth 

 trembles, the hills smoke, the sun and moon and stars travel in 

 their appointed courses as the gods will. 



In this primitive view of nature even inanimate objects were 

 supposed to be endowed with wills of their own, and many 

 modern men are sufficiently primitive to kick the chair over 

 which they stumble, or to swear that the devil has gotten into the 

 automobile. Of course the actions of all animate things were 

 held to be the result of choice ; the fly that dances on your head 

 or gets into the soup is doing it to annoy you ; the cats that yowl, 

 the dogs that howl, the maniacs that screech are possessed of 

 devils, evil wills, and should be punished. All good is the result 

 of good will, all evil of evil will. Some being, some volition, is 

 responsible for everything that happens. All nature is the ex- 

 pression of big or little wills, of good or bad wills, and the good 

 should be rewarded and the bad punished. 



This conception of nature finds its counterpart and probably 

 its origin in similar views concerning human conduct and respon- 

 sibility. According to this belief every man is the architect of 

 his own character ; the will is absolutely free ; no taint of heredity 

 or necessity rests on the mind or soul ; character is a tabula rasa, 

 upon which the self writes its own record as it chooses, and is 

 responsible for the result. Conduct whether good or bad, benevo- 

 lent or criminal, rational or irrational rests upon voluntary choice, 

 and for such choices men must be held responsible. To a great 

 extent this view of freedom and responsibility is the basis of 

 present systems of government, education, ethics and religion. 



II. The Mechanistic Conception of Nature and of 



Personality 



As contrasted with this voluntaristic view of nature and of 

 man consider the scientific conception of nature as a vast mechan- 

 ism, an endless chain of causes and effects. Science deals with 

 "the unfailing order of immortal nature," with the universality 

 of cause and effect, with the eternal stability and inevitability of 



