PARENT AND OFFSPRING 395 



we want to make money from the product. What are we doing 

 to make sure that the next generation of men and women shall 

 be physically, intellectually, and morally as effective as the 

 laws of heredity will enable us to make them ? 



406. Controlling human environment. No one of us can 

 now determine what our own heiedity shall be. That has 

 been settled for us. We can decide, in a measure, what 

 shall be the heredity of those who are to come after us. 

 We can do much toward changing our environment so that 

 defects in our own heredity may not lead to consequences so 

 undesirable as might otherwise result. 



A weakened body may often be strengthened by judicious 

 care and exercise so that a hereditary weakness may be almost 

 or entirely overcome. We can curb a hereditary tendency 

 until it is almost or quite inoperative. We can create for 

 ourselves new and artificial environments which shall enable 

 us to turn a harmful or worthless hereditary tendency into 

 efficiency and a high type of usefulness. It is a heavy task 

 to stem the tide of nature, and he who would do it must 

 prepare for an effort in which some have failed and some 

 have succeeded. It is worth the effort, for what is better 

 than to turn weakness into efficiency ? 



