TRAITS NOT TRANSMISSIBLE 111 



ercise, so he may his sense of justice, or purity, 

 or honesty. Why he emphasizes this or that in 

 his growth is as mysterious as why he chooses 

 this or that avocation ; but it is just as little trace- 

 able to heredity. No man is born a lawyer; no 

 man is born a hero. 



The transmissibility of Adam's sin or its 

 moral effects can not take the form of transmis- 

 sion from the individual father to his son; for of 

 such transmission there is not the slightest evi- 

 dence. Indeed, it is not thought of in that form. 

 The form of its popular belief is that the whole 

 human race now occupy a common level of de- 

 pravity, and that individual exhibitions of wicked- 

 ness are chargeable not to the nature derived 

 from one's immediate ancestors, but to one's 

 choice. Each individual, unless evidently a degen- 

 erate, must bear his own moral responsibility. 

 Logically, then, the conclusion which this popular 

 belief must draw is that, as a consequence of 

 Adam's sin, God gave to the whole race a differ- 

 ent and a lower moral constitution than it had 

 possessed before. 



As thus conceived there is no possibility of in- 

 vestigation: for we have no knowledge of what 

 the constitution of the race was before the as- 

 sumed fall. But the conclusion can not be upheld 

 on the foundation of heredity: for the transmis- 

 sion of moral qualities, which of course are ac- 

 quired, is not provided for by the working of 

 heredity. The belief must rest upon a special act 



