TEAITS NOT TRANSMISSIBLE 113 



The workings of the law of physical heredity 

 we can not gainsay. Whether we can construe it 

 or not in our apologetics, it remains an unques- 

 tioned fact. But we surely need not make the 

 problem more difficult by any exaggeration of the 

 facts. We should carefully study its workings 

 and know its extent and limitation before we make 

 it a problem or feel the need of its defense. 



1. God has written it in the constitution of 

 humanity. It is an implication of the solidarity 

 of the race. However much trouble it may seem 

 to have caused, its blessings are beyond all meas- 

 uring. Indeed, the race as known is an impossi- 

 bility without it. 



2. It tends to betterment. By its workings de- 

 fectives come to such a point that at last they 

 drop out, while anything in the direction of per- 

 fection tends to greater stability and greater re- 

 productiveness. So that we may say: the law 

 weeds out the poorest and preserves and increases 

 the best. 



3. While the race is physically a unit, morally 

 each individual is a unit, subject to influence from 

 others, but not to complete mastery. So the very 

 nature of morality is such having at its heart 

 individual freedom that there is no ground for 

 desiring that moral character be subject to hered- 

 ity or believing that it is. 



