Moral Responsibility. 35 



natural laws by the natural consequences of his acts, and by 

 them alone. There is no fact better established than that 

 attention to, or neglect of, diet, temperance, or hygiene, is 

 followed by peculiarly appropriate consequences ; as also 

 that in cases of constitutional defect, where wise conduct is 

 unavailing to secure the usual reward, so many are traceable 

 to the ignorance or carelessness of ancestors, as to justify the 

 conclusion that the principle holds good with the race when 

 it. seems to fail with the individual ; and though on any 

 principle of merit and demerit this could not be excused or 

 justified by any expedient, there is really nothing whatever 

 which detracts from the perfection of the course of nature. 

 Where the error has been carried to an extreme, death 

 ensues, sometimes without the extension of the evil to pos- 

 terity. When it is possible that in posterity the ill effects 

 might be counteracted by greater knowledge, the oppor- 

 tunity is afforded ; but when persistently neglected, injury 

 to the race is prevented by the extinction more or less rapid 

 of the family, which should form a salutary warning to 

 other individuals of the race. And such examples would 

 abwvys produce their visible good results were such effects 

 readily traceable to their causes. But that they are not is 

 the most powerful stimulus to their study ; and when phy- 

 siology is properly and generally understood, a key will be 

 held, fitted to the solution and remedy of most of such 

 difficulties. But this want of knowledge is also in fulfil- 

 ment of another law as vast and significant as any, and of 

 immense importance in every science. Without the urgent 

 want there could be no vigorous action. There is no motion, 

 physical or moral, but under the necessitation of the aggre- 

 gate of its antecedents ; and from man's most stringent 

 needs always arise his most effective energies. The more a 

 spring is bent the stronger is its rebound. The politico- 

 economical law of demand and supply pervades all sciences, 

 and forms only one of the innumerable bonds which knit 

 them together into one harmonious whole. 



I have dwelt upon hereditary evil for an illustration, as 

 being one of the most complex but pregnant problems of all, 

 and therefore the better test of a principle ; and I only wish 

 that I had time to do it justice. Viewed socially, the same 

 apparently anomalous facts furnish society with a reason, 

 which it could not otherwise learn, for discouraging in 

 individuals, acts which would ultimately tend to injure 

 the race. 



