54 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 941 



ment ? To charge defects at once to hered- 

 ity removes them from any possible control, 

 helps to make men irresponsible, excuses 

 them for making the least of their endow- 

 ments. To hold that everything has been 

 predetermined, that nothing is self deter- 

 mined, that all our traits and acts are fixed 

 beyond the possibility of change is an en- 

 ervating philosophy and is not good sci- 

 ence, for it does not accord with the evi- 

 dence. It is amazing that men whose daily 

 lives contradict this paralyzing philosophy 

 still hold it, as it were, in some water-tight 

 compartment of the brain, while in all the 

 other parts of their being their acts pro- 

 claim that they believe in their powers of 

 self control : they set themselves hard tasks, 

 they overcome great difficulties, they work 

 until it hurts, until they can say with 

 Johannes Miiller, "Es klebt blut an der 

 Arbeit," and yet in the philosophical com- 

 partment of their minds they can say that 

 it was all predetermined in heredity and 

 from the foundations of the world. 

 Whether all the phenomena of life and of 

 mind can be explained on the basis of a 

 purely mechanistic hypothesis or not, that 

 hypothesis must square with the facts and 

 not the facts with the hypothesis. It has 

 always been true of those who "sat apart 

 and reasoned high of fate, free will, fore- 

 knowledge absolute" that they have 

 "found no end in wandering mazes lost." 

 Whatever the way out of these mazes may 

 be — whether it be found in the varied 

 responses of an organism to the same stim- 

 ulus, in the immense complexity of the 

 mechanism involved, or in some form of 

 idealism which finds necessity not in nature 

 but in the spectator, and freedom not in 

 the spectator but in the agent — it is true 

 that for those who do not "sit apart and 

 reason high," but who deal merely with 

 evident phenomena, the way out of these 

 mazes is not to be found in denying the 

 actuality of inhibition, attention, and con- 



trol. Because we can find no place in our 

 philosophy and logic for self determination 

 shall we cease to be scientists and close our 

 eyes to the evidences? The first dutj^ of 

 science is to appeal to fact, and to settle 

 later with logic and philosophy. Is it not 

 a fact that the possibilities of our inherit- 

 ance depend for their realization upon 

 development, one of the most important 

 factors of which is use, functional activ- 

 ity, in response to stimuli? Is it not 

 a fact that our capacities are very much 

 greater than our habitual demands upon 

 them? Is it not a fact that belief in our 

 responsibility energizes our lives and gives 

 vigor to our mental and moral fiber? Is 

 it not a fact that shifting all responsibility 

 from men to their heredity or to that part 

 of their environment which is beyond their 

 control helps to make them irresponsible? 



This debilitating philosophy in which 

 everything is predetermined, in which 

 there is no possibility of change or control, 

 in which there is hypertrophy of intellect 

 and atrophy of will, is a symptom of sen- 

 ility, whether in men or nations. We need 

 to return to the joys of a childhood age in 

 which men believed themselves free to do, 

 to think, to strive, in which life was full of 

 high endeavor and the world was crowded 

 with great emprise. We need to think of 

 the possibilities of development as well as 

 of the limitations of heredity. Chance, 

 heredity, environment have settled many 

 things for us; we are hedged about by 

 bounds which we can not pass; but those 

 bounds are not so narrow as we are some- 

 times taught, and within them we have a 

 considerable degree of freedom and respon- 

 sibility. 



That which we are we are, 



One equal temper of heroic hearts 



Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 



To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 



Edwin G. Conklin 



Princeton, N. J. 



