TRAITS NOT TRANSMISSIBLE 105 



characters reappeared with constancy generation 

 after generation. But this was acquired or modi- 

 ficational, not heredity or innate resemblance, as 

 shown by the fact that removal from the garden 

 to poor gravelly soil was followed by a reappear- 

 ance of the original Alpine characteristics." 

 ( Thomson : ' ' Heredity, ' ' 184. ) So a parent whose 

 upright character is due to his environment may 

 be the father of a son, who in similar moral in- 

 fluences is like him. That sequence kept up for 

 a few generations, however, would have no effect 

 through heredity to keep a son from evil charac- 

 ter who was brought up under evil influences dur- 

 ing the formative period of his life. We can 

 transmit to our children human nature, which is 

 in itself neither moral nor immoral. Environ- 

 ment makes the child moral or immoral, without 

 regard to who was his parent, in so far as any 

 influence outside of his own freedom accounts for 

 what he is. 



James Harvey Robinson, professor of History 

 in Columbia University, says: " Almost all biolo- 

 gists now agree that acquired characters are not 

 transmitted hereditarily; for we do not come 

 about in a way to permit this. The assiduity of 

 one generation in acquiring increasing culture or 

 its lethargy in neglecting the heritage of the past 

 does not affect the minute egg from which the 

 next generation springs. Culture does not get 

 into the blood; not even language, man's earliest 

 characteristic achievement. Had Aristotle him- 



