HEREDITY AND EUGENICS. 295 
concerning this second principle of life. But to my mind the 
professor’s suggestion becomes still more difficult in view of the 
Scripture doctrine of sin. If the soul be a super-added entity direct 
from the Infinite then there can be no hereditary taint of sin or 
tendency to it in the soul unless the Infinite Creator Himself be 
sinful. To that conclusion I am sure the professor would not desire 
to lead us. The only other alternative so far as I can see is that the 
hereditary taint of sin is simply in the body and not in the soul at 
all. Consequently the only real gospel for our sinful race is the new 
science of eugenics. To eliminate sin from the world of humanity 
all that is necessary is to quicken the action of the supposed process 
of evolution and we shall have “the new earth” if not the “new 
heavens wherein dwelleth righteousness.” I am bound to say also 
that I do not see what reason there was for the awful tragedy of 
Calvary, and why it should have been postponed to so late a period 
in the world’s history when by a correction of the faulty physical 
organization of the first generations of mankind, the whole sad story 
of our race might have been avoided. 
There is one other sentence to which I would refer. Four pages 
further on I read, “ Religion greets each soul as it appears and invests 
it at once with an environment which shall be a matrix for its personal 
development, knowing that even from unpromising ‘stock’ souls of 
pure lustre and high spirituality are possible because they are found,” 
and in a little aside the professor spoke of the value of baptism. As 
I heard it I could not help thinking of a visit I paid to the Peniten- 
tiary at Melbourne when I was in Australia. I asked the warder 
who took me round if they ever had any Roman Catholics there. 
“Oh yes,” he replied, ‘“‘a good many.” ‘And do you ever get any 
members of the Church of England here ?” ‘Oh yes, we get some 
of them.” ‘ And do you ever have any Methodists?” “ Well, yes, 
afew.” ‘“ And do you ever get any Baptists here ?” “ Oh no, we never 
get any Baptists here.” I am afraid therefore that the ‘‘ matrix” 
afforded by baptism as an entrance to the Church is too often a 
failure, and that the only true matrix is that unto which we pass 
when we enter into Christ by a living conscious personal faith. ‘If 
any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things have passed 
away, and all things have become new.” 
Dr. HEywoop-SmiTH said that Dr. Archdale Reid and others 
had maintained acquired characteristics were not transmissible, but 
U 
