SPIRITUAL HEREDITY 215 



— their number is large — difficulties appear to sur- 

 round both views. Their habit of interpreting things 

 in evolutionary and physical terms makes it difficult 

 for them to accept the hypothesis of the special creation 

 of individual souls; and this difficulty is not wholly 

 removed by a theoretical rejection of naturahsm. On 

 the other hand, the notion that an indivisible entity, 

 such as the soul is considered to be, can reproduce itself 

 by natural generation seems incredible, because hope- 

 lessly unimaginable. Modern science may, therefore, 

 be said to leave the question at issue unanswered.^ 



Dr. Tennant says,^ "Heredity, in the strict sense of 

 inheritance by birth or descent and not in that of ap- 

 propriation of environment, cannot take place 'in the 

 region of spiritual personahty.'" Admitting that 

 mental qualities are inherited, he adds, "But their 

 transmission takes place only in the form of modified 

 physical structure, with which the psychical quality is 

 necessarily correlated ; it is mediated solely through the 

 body." This makes for the creationist view, and, in 

 a very subtle and vague form, he appears to accept it.^ 

 He says that it is "a debatable question" whether St. 



1 Biological science, as science, has indeed no direct concern with 

 the problem of the soul's origin, for its subject-matter is the organ- 

 ism. The heredity which it investigates is physical. 



2 He discusses the subject in Origin of Sin, pp. 31-35. 



3 He borrows from Lotze. "The soul ... is, as it were, a 'uni- 

 formly maintained act of God,' begotten from Himself when the 

 organism with which it is destined to be associated has been prepared; 

 He is the One which supplies underlying unity to the many, and they, 

 despite that unity in Him, when once arisen, are independent things." 

 Op. cit., p. S3. 



