A WILD STRAWBERRY.—Nature Gave us This.A WILD STRAWBERRY.—Nature Gave us This.
CULTIVATED STRAWBERRY.—Good Heredity and Environment Produced This.CULTIVATED STRAWBERRY.—Good Heredity and Environment Produced This.
popular breeds of fine poultry; the Pointer and Setter dogs; the Poland China, Berkshire and Duroc hogs; the Southdown and Merino sheep; the Durham, Jersey and Holstein cattle; Percheron, Coach and Hambletonian horses. Nature gave us the long-horned, crooked-limbed, brindle-haired wild cow; nature and man have produced the Durham. Nature gave us the wild horse that could trot at best a mile in six minutes and, when well broken, was worth twelve dollars and a half; nature and man have produced the Hambletonian that makes a mile in less than two minutes and sells for twenty thousand. Nature gave us the razor-backed, long-snouted, acorn-splitting Arkansas hog; nature and man have produced the beautiful grunter of the barnyard and the performing pig of the circus. The careless breeder or unaided nature could not have produced these results in centuries of time. Man proudly claims the honor of making these improvements. He maintains great stock shows and stock journals, visits foreign countries and pays fabulous prices that he may constantly improve his stock. He secures large appropriations from government revenues with which to prevent the spread of hog cholera among his hogs and Texas fever among his cattle. So great is man’s interest in these improvements that nearly all men take one or more agricultural, bee, poultry and stock journals and their wives takepoodle dog journals. Why this interest? Money and pleasure.
Money and pleasure more valuable than manhood.—We have seen what man has accomplished among the vegetables, fruits and domestic animals, now let us study his wisdom in the application of these agencies in the human family. When we study man in relation to the world about him, his physical, mental and moral possibilities, and from Revelation, we get a glimpse of what the human race ought to be. In both sacred and profane history we find some specimens of noble, ideal manhood. On the farm and in the shop, behind the counter and at the bar, in congress and in senate, on the platform and in the pulpit, we find some, who, by inheritance, environment, personal effort and the grace of God, have become examples of ideal manhood. But look at men in the mass. How few examples of perfect manhood do you find in a crowd of ten thousand men? Look at the enervated and stunted fathers; the nervous and sickly mothers; the puny and weakly children; the poorly developed bodies and dwarfed minds. Why should sixty-seven per cent. of our children be physically or mentally defective at birth? Why should one hundred and sixty-five children out of every thousand born in country places and two hundred and twenty in the cities, die in their first year? Ninety-five per cent. of the well-cared-forlower animals are perfect at birth and ninety per cent. grow to old age and are rarely sick. Why should crime, insanity, feeble-mindedness and epilepsy have increased three hundred per cent. during the last twenty years? Why this remarkable improvement among vegetables, fruits and domestic animals, and this appalling degeneracy among men? Love of money and pleasure explains the one; man’s fallen condition explains the other. Dollars and pleasure in one; sacrifice, manhood and womanhood in the other.
Heredity versus environment.—If there is nothing in heredity, and all in the environment, given the same environment, the offspring from the vicious horse will be as easily broken and be as safe as the offspring from the docile horse; the offspring from the horse that can make a mile at best in six minutes can be trained to trot as fast as the offspring whose parents could make a mile in less than two minutes.
My contention is that the same intelligence that has produced the beautiful fragrant rose, the splendid vegetables, the luscious fruits and our present improved varieties of domestic animals, can produce similar improvements in the human family.
Heredity applied by the early Romans.—In the early history of Rome, custom and law made it a special honor to be a Roman mother. She was surrounded by examples of courage, bravery, strength,power, heroism and purity. Special homage was shown her on the streets, at the arena, and when viewing the marching victorious armies. Such treatment and such environment made it possible for the Roman mother to become a real help in making Rome the mistress of the world. Had this courtesy, gallantry, manly attention, respect and reverence for girlhood, womanhood, wifehood and motherhood continued, Rome might never have fallen. Have we the gallantry, courtesy, respect and reverence for womanhood as in former days? A quarter of a century ago it was indeed a rare thing that a man would be so thoughtless as to smoke or swear in the presence of a woman; now it is a very common occurrence.
Plato’s views.—Plato, a heathen philosopher, born more than two thousand years ago, who never heard of the Bible or the Savior, made a careful study of the laws of heredity, and for the improvement of men suggested laws that would do honor to our day. In his Republic he suggested that parentageable married people be prohibited from the use of wine. Wine included all alcoholic drinks. He also suggested that the inferior classes should be restricted in marriage and that marriage should be encouraged among the superior classes. Under the teaching of Plato, Lycurgus, in his reign, assuming that children were more the property of the nation than of their own parents,sought to have all children well born. In two hundred years that small nation is said to have produced twenty-eight of the master minds of the world.
Genius is hereditary.—Aristotle’s father was a scholar and a philosopher. Beecher’s father was a scholarly preacher. William Pitt’s father at the age of twenty-seven was at the head of the English government. Lord Bacon’s father was a great scholar and statesman. Darwin was the product of several generations containing a number of geniuses.
The Bach family of musicians in Germany is a fine example of musical heredity. Among them were nineteen musicians of eminence. Fifty-seven of their names are found in the Dictionary of Music. At family reunions there were counted as many as two hundred and fifty church organists and choir leaders. The genius for music appears to be as easily transmitted as that for art or militarism. There appears to be only a very few exceptions among the great musical geniuses.
Cæsar, Alexander, Wellington and Hannibal seem to have inherited a genius for war. Napoleon Bonaparte’s Corsican mother, before his birth, accompanied her husband to the field of war, exposing herself to deprivation and danger, and being elated and thrilled by every victory. When a child, he showed the military spirit. As a man of eighteen and twenty he was afailure and attempted suicide. When twenty-three he was given a chance to quell a raging mob in Paris, and crushed it in his first effort. From that time until England chained him he conquered everything before him.
From the days of the Crusades to the war with Spain we find the Lees were military leaders. Cromwell and Grant appear to be exceptions to the rule.
Max Jukes.—Vice, as well as virtue, runs in families. Max Jukes was born in 1703. Both he and his wife were born of inferior parents. He was a drinking man and seemed to delight in breaking law. His wife was a common prostitute. We have identified and studied eleven hundred and three of his descendants. One hundred and twenty-six were thieves and murderers and spent several years in the penal institutions, ninety female prostitutes, one hundred and forty-five drunkards; two hundred and eighty-five were viciously diseased and four hundred had either consumption, epilepsy, or were feeble-minded. Eleven hundred and three were delinquents—not one a good citizen. They cost New York a million and a quarter dollars.
Jonathan Edwards.—Jonathan Edwards was born in 1720. He and his wife had splendid heredity. They were well educated. They were converted to Christ in childhood. We have identified and studiedthirteen hundred and ninety-four of their descendants. We find thirteen university presidents; one hundred and twenty-three college and university professors; thirty-two eminent authors; ninety-six physicians; over two hundred ministers; four hundred successful business men; one vice president; mayors of large cities, U. S. senators and congressmen; ministers to foreign ports; only one left a stain on the family record—Aaron Burr who fought a duel with Alexander Hamilton.
The potency of heredity.—Suppose that the environments of these two families could have been reversed and their heredity left the same, could you then have written the figures after Max Jukes that we have written after Edwards, or vice versa? No real student of sociological conditions believes that we could. Environment certainly had much to do with both of these families; but all students of heredity believe that in these families heredity was as great as, or even a greater factor than, environment. The dependent and delinquent descendants of Max Jukes were the products of bad heredity, bad environment and the rejection of Christ; the great and good descendants of Edwards were the products of good heredity, good environment and the grace of God.
Bible and heredity.—In the Old and New Testament, the writers of nearly every book appear to recognizethe potency of heredity. We can refer to only a few of them here as proof of the fact of heredity. God told Sampson’s mother that she must drink no strong wine and eat no impure food.
David gives a most excellent statement of the results of good heredity: “But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness unto children’s children.” The word fear, as applied in this case, means perfect obedience prompted by respect, reverence and love for one in authority.
The Jews, who could trace their lineal descent to Abraham, often boasted of their inherited superiority over other Jews and people of other nations.
Paul, writing to Timothy, said, “When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice,” etc. In this statement Paul accounts, in part at least, for the strong faith and beautiful Christian character of Timothy, on the basis of heredity.
David explains the sins of his life as being due, in part at least, to a bad heredity. “I was shapen in sin and in iniquity did my mother conceive me.”
Iniquities of fathers visited upon their children.—In Exodus 20:5, we find a most remarkable statement of the hereditary results of obedience to law and of disobedience. “I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous
RESULTS OF “PERSONAL LIBERTY.”—The young man whose picture appears on this page was studied by the author. His sister who died at the age of five months was afflicted like himself. The initial of their lives occurred during the drunken debauch of their father.RESULTS OF “PERSONAL LIBERTY.”—The young man whose picture appears on this page was studied by the author. His sister who died at the age of five months was afflicted like himself. The initial of their lives occurred during the drunken debauch of their father.
PROTECTED.—The above illustration of highly bred, highly trained and highly protected animals, showing a cow valued at $13,000, hogs valued at over $4,000 each and a horse at $5,000, serves as a striking contrast to the illustration on the opposite page.PROTECTED.—The above illustration of highly bred, highly trained and highly protected animals, showing a cow valued at $13,000, hogs valued at over $4,000 each and a horse at $5,000, serves as a striking contrast to the illustration on the opposite page.
God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me, and showing mercy to thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” This is a much misunderstood passage. God does not arbitrarily choose to force a punishment upon an innocent child whose father ignorantly or viciously violated law any more than he breaks the leg or neck of a man who accidentally or with suicidal intent falls from the top of a building. God has wisely placed all men under a variety of laws. The laws are all planned for man’s good. If we keep all law, we develop manhood and womanhood. By the agency of heredity we transmit to our children the possibility of manhood and womanhood superior to that which we inherited. If we constantly violate law, we acquire physical, mental and moral degeneracy and transmit to our posterity defective conditions. In this way God has planned for each succeeding generation to become superior to the preceding one.
The statement is made that the iniquities of fathers are visited upon their children unto the third and fourth generations, and that “righteousness” is shown unto “thousands of them” (generations).
Why did God limit his first statement to the third and fourth generation? Because there is no fifth generation of continuous and unbroken iniquity. Hereare two modern proofs of the truthfulness of this ancient text.
A modern proof.—Two thousand erring girls were interrogated with reference to the sobriety of their parents. Seventy per cent. had either drunken fathers or drunken mothers, or both. In one state penitentiary the author found seventy-two per cent. of the inmates had either drunken fathers or drunken mothers, or both. Recent investigations in one of the state reformatories for women show eighty-five per cent, had either drunken fathers or mothers, or both. Twenty-two per cent. of the feeble-minded, the insane and the epileptic had the initials of their lives to take place during a drunken debauch.
Here is a husband and wife; both are habitually under the influence of alcohol. Suppose their children follow their example and marry companions addicted to strong drink, and the children of the next generation follow the example of their parents and marry companions addicted to strong drink, and this is continued, what will be the result? There will be no fifth generation. In the first generation might have been found a daughter in the house of shame, a son in the chain gang of crime, a feeble-minded child, an epileptic, or one or more alcoholics. As a result of four generations of consecutive drunkenness, degeneracy would become so great as to result in complete sterility.
Another proof.—In every institution for the feeble-minded are to be found inmates who have the “Hotchinson notched teeth,” “crowfoot tracts” in the palate and throat, certain marks on the body—scientific proofs that such are congenital syphilitics. Some ancestor, two or three generations gone by, lived an immoral life, became infected with a vicious disease and transmitted the degenerative influences down the line to where it ended in complete degeneracy.
Who is responsible?—Is this a punishment from God upon innocent, helpless children? No. God is in no sense responsible for it. Is nature? No. Who is responsible? Men who sow their wild oats and boast of their “personal liberty” to do as they please. Have God and nature any part in this? Yes. God and nature in infinite interest, mercy and love for the unborn millions who would be blighted with inconceivable degeneracy and suffering, should they be born of such degenerate parents, say, “We have given these descendants four generations in which to prevent further degeneracy by marrying into pure and sober families, by reformation or by redemption,” and since they have not availed themselves of these restorative and redemptive means, reproduction must cease.
Morbid heredity and bad environment.—Bad environment and bad heredity explain the presence of every convict in our penal institutions and every inmatein the asylums. Laws and political administration that tolerate, regulate and encourage strong drink and social immorality, the two chief causes of degeneracy, and the parents who indulged in these iniquities, are largely responsible for these thousands of defective and delinquent beings who are crowding our asylums and penal institutions to a dangerous and unsanitary overflowing.
Father, son and grand-son, uncles and cousins galore crowd these institutions. Much of their mail is from relatives and bears the postmark of a similar institution, showing that crime and insanity run in families.
Man’s development originally under two agencies.—It is evident that God originally placed man’s development under the intelligent control of heredity and environment. If man had as wisely applied these agencies to his own improvement as he now does to the improvement of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, he would have developed to the highest possible physical, mental and moral attainments.
His fall.—Man’s present condition of hereditary and acquired degeneracy clearly reveals that somewhere in human history he has thrown himself out of harmony with physical, mental and moral laws governing his well-being. The record of man’s fall as given in Genesis is at least the figure of a great fact in humanhistory. Man’s fall involved the violation of some law or laws vitally related to his physical, mental and moral natures.
Need of a third agency.—The results of his fall were transmissible. In his fallen state he was not able to use heredity and environment to their normal capacity. His fall resulted in abnormal heredity and environment. Without an additional agency fallen man was incapable of recovery. Hence his need of redemption and the Redeemer. Now man has at his command his intelligence, his will and the grace of God, by which he may improve himself, improve his environment, and as a result of his improved physical, mental and moral condition, he may transmit to his posterity the possibilities of manhood and womanhood superior to what he himself inherited. Just to the extent that man has received a good or a bad heredity, keeps or violates law, accepts or rejects the grace of God, just to that extent does he recover or degenerate, create a good or a bad environment, and will transmit a good or a bad heredity to his posterity.
Greatest blessing of parents.—What is the greatest blessing of parentage? “Riches,” is the answer. Lots of fools think that. The greatest blessing of parents to their children is a good heredity. What a child is at birth he has received largely fromhis parents. What he receives at birth largely determines his future.
Greatest blessing of society.—What is the greatest blessing of society to a child? It is a good environment. Parents can form only a part of their child’s environment. Society as a whole furnishes the environment of a child. No individual, no class of men, no lawmaker, no municipality, county, state or nation has the shadow of a moral right to place by vote or official act, or permit by passive toleration a lascivious picture, a vile book, a questionable resort, a place of vice, a saloon or a gambling den that may lead a boy or girl to ruin. Whoever assumes that right is an enemy to the social and moral well-being of society. God’s greatest gift to men is salvation through His Son. Bad heredity and environment are the only difficulties in the way of all men’s accepting Christ. The complete effects of any one or two of these agencies are impossible without the normal application of the other. No one can wholly take the place of the other two, and no two can wholly take the place of the other one. These three agencies should be ever active in every life.
Three agencies necessary.—You might as well try to make a triangle out of two sides as to try to produce physical, mental and moral perfection in man bythe use of environment and the grace of God, when the individual has inherited little or no physical, mental and moral basis for development. If a child has received ideal heredity, but is left without educational opportunities and compelled to grow up in an immoral atmosphere, never entering a Sunday school or church, it would be impossible for him to develop scholarship or Christian character. If one has good heredity and good environment and leaves the grace of God out of his life, he is not what a man should be and will fall short of the true object of life.
Is there a remedy?—If man’s present degeneracy had its origin in the violation of law; if the evil physical, mental and moral effects have, in some measure, been transmitted from one generation to succeeding ones, until all men are more or less hereditarily degenerate; is there a remedy, or are we the subjects of fate? Must each succeeding generation continue to inherit a possible increase of degeneracy as we have done in the past?
Relation of the three agencies.—Nature and man create environment. The tendency of nature is to furnish only good environment for man. Man has it in his power to help or to hinder nature. The more depraved man is the more he hinders nature and produces for himself and others a bad environment. If hereditary degeneracy could be eliminated fromthe race, there would be no immoral environment. Bad environment is produced by degenerate men. Degeneracy is both inherited and acquired. Inherited degeneracy indulged, and acquired degeneracy are both transmissible. If it were possible, under present conditions, for one never to violate a law as a result of God’s grace and his own volition he could not directly and personally transmit tendencies towards evil, and he would transmit his inherited tendencies towards evil in a less degree than he inherited them. Even with ideal heredity, environment and the grace of God, one or more generations could not entirely overcome the bad effects of all preceding generations.
The need of Christ.—Each individual is the sum total of all the influences, good and bad, of all preceding lineal generations. The inherited good and bad antagonize each other and are modified by environment and the grace of God. If the good predominates, the bent of that individual will be toward the good, and vice versa. His approach to perfection will be determined by his heredity, his environment and by his relation to Christ. Since all men always will be the sum total of all the influences of the past, they will always need the Christ. There will always be enough temptations in the world to develop the heroic in man.
The race can be improved.—But it is reasonable that through the ideal application of these three agenciesone generation can to a very marked degree overcome the evil effects of the past and transmit less degeneracy than it received. If each individual would embrace the grace of God, create for himself and others an ideal environment, this process continued would ultimately give us a race free from the present serious condition of physical, mental and moral degeneracy. If this conclusion is not practical, logical and correct, then science and revelation fail to give us a remedy for present race degeneracy. If this is the correct solution of our physical, mental, social and moral problems, all education, legislation, religious and personal efforts to bring about race regeneration will continue to fail until the three-fold scientific and scriptural gospel of good heredity,good environment and the grace of God for every child, finds its proper place in all our personal efforts, teaching, administration, legislation, and preaching.
Life is real.—What is life? Many theories have been offered by the leading materialistic students of the past and present, but all have signally failed to tell us what life is in its ultimate essence. All attempts to discover life by aid of the scalpel, microscope and chemical analysis have likewise failed. This class of scientists has made several attempts to explain life as being the phenomena of matter undergoing certain peculiar chemical changes, or due to molecular motion. They have failed to recognize two great realms of existence, the material and the immaterial, the visible and the invisible, the tangible and the intangible. Life, physical, mental and spiritual, though invisible and immaterial, is none the less real in its essence.
The materialists have tried hard to explain reproduction and heredity on a physical basis. By this method they have failed to explain many of the most common facts.
The germ cell.—The difference between the germ cells of the lower animals and man is not in their structure, or their chemical elements, but in their inherentlife. Here are three germ cells. As fast as the scientist is capable of analyzing them they may be absolutely identical in their physical anatomy, yet one may contain the life of a rabbit, another the life of a dog, and still another the soul of a man. The physical anatomy does not determine whether the offspring is to be a rabbit, a dog, or a human being. It is the resident life that determines this. Physical organs are the mediums through which life reproduces itself. The heredity of the offspring is determined by the many influences brought to bear upon it before birth and upon the lives of the ancestors.
Masculine and feminine principal.—The organic world is pregnant with two primary and vital principles, the masculine and the feminine. Every plant, lower animal, and man is reproduced by the union of these principles. In the lower forms of plant and animal life these two principles reside in the same organism. Reproduction takes place within the parent organism by the union of these two natures. The parent organism divides and becomes two distinct organisms. This is reproduction by division.
Reproduction in the lower forms of life.—In the next higher forms of plant and animal life these two principles reside in the same individuals, but in separate organs. These organs possessing the female nature produce seeds or eggs. The organs possessingthe male nature produce a fertilizing substance called pollen or semen. Reproduction takes place by the fusion of the male and female cells.
In the higher animals and man these principles reside in separate individuals. In some mysterious way the procreative cells have residing within themselves, in rudimentary form, all the attributes of the parents.
Sex is in the life principle.—Once sex was considered a part of the physical organism. Now we are beginning to see that sex is vitally and substantially related to life. When a little plant comes into the world it is because the masculine and feminine sex principles have united on the plane of physical life. Like begets like. The baby plant did not possess animal life, intellectual life, or moral life for the reason that the parent plant could not transmit a form of life it did not possess in its masculine and feminine nature.
When the little animal comes into this world it is because the masculine and feminine principles have united on the plane of instinctive animal life and, among the higher classes of animals, rudimentary mental life.
Reproduction man.—Man is organized on higher planes than the rest of the organic world. Man possesses not only the highest form of physical life, but also mental and spiritual life. Sex in man is primarily and substantially related to his physical, mental andspiritual life. The sperm cell of the father is formed from his blood and possesses the essence of his three-fold nature. The germ cell of the mother is formed from her blood and possesses the essence of her three-fold nature. When these two cells, masculine and feminine, unite under proper conditions, a human being having a physical, mental and moral nature, is started upon its endless voyage, nine months before it makes its visible appearance in the world. When God made the body of primitive man He “breathed into him the breath of life (Hebrew lives) and man became a living soul,” having power of self-propagation and the power to transmit potential procreative power from one generation to another.
Man’s relation to the past.—Each new being at the initial of life is the sum total of all the influences, good and bad, of his ancestry back to Adam. The child is largely the product of his parents. He is not a duplicate of either, but the product of their blended personalities, being influenced much by his grand-parents, less and less as his ancestry becomes more and more remote. During embryonic and fetal development the child will tend to unfold in all departments of its nature according to the pattern received from its ancestors, but this may be more or less influenced by maternal impressions. After birth the child has two agents that will ever be active, heredity and environment.These two agents at their best are never perfect. Hence the child will ever need a third agent, the grace of God.
Why children in the same home differ.—Here is a family of five children. They differ from each other quite as much as if they represented five families. Now, if heredity does not explain this difference, then the children, having the same environment, would be alike. The children in the same home differ from each other for the reason that the parents, at the creative moment, did not sustain to each child the same combination of physical, mental and moral relations. At the creative moment of the second child the parents were not in the same physical, mental and moral states they were at the creative moment of the first. They had each changed in their physical states of health, their mental interests and in their moral and religious convictions and experiences. For the same reason each child differs from all the others in the family. Though they had the same environments, no two were alike. So great is the influence of heredity that no two people can be made alike by giving to them the same environment.
Twins.—If two persons could receive the same heredity and environment, they would be exactly alike. The nearest approach we have to this is in the case of twins. Nearly one-half of twins are so much alike
Louise and May Carter, Twins.Louise and May Carter, Twins.
that it is difficult to tell them apart. Other twins resemble each other more than children in the same home born months apart.
Why some are alike and others are not.—If the creative moment of twins were the same, or nearly the same, the parents sustained to each the same combination of influences. If their creative moments occurred hours or even days apart, then there was time for one or both parents to sustain a different relation to one, from that they sustained to the other. This accounts for the difference between some twins. Not only do twins resemble each other physically, but often their mental and moral tastes and tendencies are very much alike.
Twin brothers.—I once met twin brothers sixty-seven years old. They had been lost to each other for fourteen years. They still resembled each other, dressed alike, wore their beards and hair alike, talked and laughed alike. Sixty-seven years had not greatly modified their physical and mental resemblance. Twin children usually inherit similar perfections or imperfections. This I have noticed for a number of years. Where I am now writing is a club-footed, rheumatic boy. His twin brother is feeble-minded. In an adjoining state a few days ago I studied a young man who was helpless from his arms down. His twin sister was helpless at birth and died in childhood.These examples indicate that the before-birth influences being the same, were the causes of these defects in the offspring.
An objection answered.—A man said to me, “I don’t believe in heredity.” I asked him why he did not. He replied, “I know of a drunken father who had four sons; two were dissipated from their youth and two were ‘teetotalers.’ If the father had had anything to do with this, all would have been drunkards.”
My reply was, “The father through the laws of heredity may have transmitted to two of his boys tendencies toward drunkenness and to the other two, tendencies toward sobriety. In the case of the first two, the father might have, in his mental and moral natures, favored intemperance, longed for alcohol, or been on a drunken debauch at the initial of their lives. With reference to the last two, the father might have temporarily reformed, mentally and morally, he might have been strongly opposed to the use of strong drink at the initial of their lives.
“Again the mother might have had very light convictions on temperance prior to the birth of the first two and very strong mental and moral opposition prior to the birth of the last two. Again something in the form of environment may have led the last two to overcome their inherited tendencies toward drink.”
Materialistic theory fails.—Materialistic philosophers admit that heredity tends to reproduce the likeness of the parents in the child. They try to explain this on a purely physical basis. Prof. Huxley, Mr. Spencer and the more modern Weismann, while they have each coined some new technical terms with which to convey their materialistic ideas, suppose that each procreative cell, masculine and feminine, contains a representative material something from every atom of the respective body from which it was formed. In this way the child has a body with marked resemblance to its parents. Since, according to their theory, all mental and moral phenomena are due to chemical changes and molecular disturbances in the brain, and since the child inherited a brain like its parents, the molecular movements of the child’s brain will be like the molecular movements in the brains of its parents; hence it will have inherited the mental and moral characteristics of the father and mother.
Life is a unit.—It takes only a few days for the procreative cells to be elaborated and matured. Here is a child. The initial of its life occurred twenty years after its parents had their right arms amputated. How could the procreative cells that formed the initial of that child’s life have in them a material representation from the right arms of those parents that had been amputated twenty years before the birth of thechild? Suppose that the parents had undergone a much larger mutilation of the body, leaving them only the organs necessary to continued life and propagation, would the child have inherited the absent parts? Yes. Why? For the reason that sex is in the life of the individual, and not simply in the material substance of the body. A human body may have had some of the members removed but the physical life remains a unit. The embryo formed by the union of a masculine and a feminine cell will have a unit of physical life. During the nine months of gestation this unit of embryonic physical life will be incarnated in a unit of physical organism. Should a lobe of the brain of each parent, through which some mental or moral attribute functions, be removed, the child would inherit a unit of brain organism, for the reason that it inherited from the parents a unit of mental and moral life.
Sex a resident part of life.—These illustrations show that sex is vitally related to the physical, mental and moral life; that the physical nature of the child is the product of the union of the masculine and feminine principles of the physical life of the parents represented in the procreative cells; that the mental nature of the child is the product of the union of the masculine and feminine principles of the mental life of the parents represented in the procreative cells; that the spiritual nature of the child is the product of the unionof the masculine and feminine principles of the spiritual life of the parents represented in the procreative cells. The three-fold life of a child is the product of the blending of the three-fold life of its parents.
Heredity explained.—The Bible tells us that “the blood is the life.” Science cannot express this truth better. The three-fold expressions of life are not in the blood. The blood furnishes life for every cell. Physical, mental and moral states are influenced by the conditions of the blood. These three natures meet and influence each other in the blood. Jesus appealed to the will of the patient. “Wilt thou be made whole?” “Arise, take up thy bed and walk.” “Stretch forth thy hand.” Jesus recognized the influence of the mind, expressed in will, as well as the spiritual expressed in faith, as a means of physical restoration. Every successful doctor, whatever may be his medical views, recognizes the value of a strong purpose to recover.
Effects of different mental states.—Men and animals alike lick a fresh wound. Nature teaches them that the saliva alleviates pain and heals the wound. If an angry person bites you, or you lick a wound after an hour of intense anger, you have a wound with all the symptoms of poison and it will be difficult to cure. Hundreds of cases are on record where angry mothers nursing their babies have therebythrown them into convulsions or spasms. Jealousy will result in digestive disturbances. One can grieve so much over the loss of property or some member of the home by death as to injure the health. It is claimed that a great chemist took the various secretions from a subject that had been intensely angry for hours and succeeded in removing from the various secretions more than a score of poisons. In the case of another subject swayed by holy impulses, the kindest of feelings, the purest of love, he removed more than a score of wholesome, nutritious ingredients without a single poison.
Mental and moral states influence the offspring.—If right mental and moral states will give to the saliva, secreted from the blood, curative properties; and wrong mental and moral states will give the saliva a poisonous nature; if right mental and moral states influence the milk secreted by the breasts of a mother in a normal way; and wrong mental and moral states will so influence the mother’s blood as to throw her four-months-old nursing babe into spasms, cannot the father’s mental and moral states influence the creative secretions from his blood, and the mother’s mental and moral states, at the creative moment and during the nine months of embryonic and fetal development, influence the creative and life sustaining and life-developing secretions from her blood?
Who was to blame?—I once met a family during one of my lecture courses and was entertained in the home over night. Their children, five in number, all during my lecture picked at each other, scratched each other, fought each other, fussed, quarreled and cried. As we rode in the carriage to their home and during our visit those youngsters kept up this same line of entertainment. After I had retired the man stepped into my room and whispered to me that he and his wife were in great trouble, that they had been at the point of separation for ten years and asked me to teach them how to live happily together, and to be less miserable. I asked him to tell me the cause of their inharmony. “Oh, there is but one trouble between wife and me!” He spoke as if that were quite insignificant. Finally he told me that the trouble in the home was, “neither of us can control our tempers.” As he left my room I realized that for once in life I had a government contract on my hands. Then I mused: “Ten years of quarreling, ten years of disagreement, ten years of family feuds and family strife and these parents have transmitted more of bad disposition to their children than the children will be able to conquer in a lifetime, or these parents will be able to whip out of them before they are of age, chasing them around over a three-hundred-acre farm.” Continuing my meditation I thought: “If I had the power tomake laws, I would make a law of mercy for such unfortunate children as these. That law would provide that where parents transmit as much unnecessary devilment to their children as these parents have to theirs, that the children should have the legal right to whip their daddies and mammies.”
The child not an exact duplicate of either parent.—These parents had produced their mental and moral states in their children.
These illustrations will help you to understand the philosophy of heredity. The two cells that unite to form the initial of every new life are elaborated from the blood of their respective parents and each cell has the physical, mental and moral natures of its parents in potential form. Were it possible for a child to inherit its size, form, features, disposition, tendencies, etc., from only one of its parents, and to grow to maturity uninfluenced by environment and education, it would necessarily be an exact duplicate of that parent. Because of its dual parentage, the maternal impressions received before birth, and the ever varying influences of environment and education, the child will be unlike any other person that ever lived.
The child resembles both.—These cells often remain in the bodies of the respective parents for several days before the initial of a life takes place. It followsthat the mental and moral states, as well as the physical condition of the parents, for many days before conception takes place, will influence the child. There is no doubt but the remote conditions of the parents are transmitted, but not so certainly and so fully as the existing, or recently existing, states of the parents. At the initial moment the three natures of each of the parents will be greatly modified in the union of the cells. If the separate natures of the parents did not blend in the child, the child would have two mental natures, two moral natures and two physical natures. The modification of the inherited tendencies from each parent will depend largely upon the relative strength of these natures in the parents. Hence, where the same characteristic exists in each parent it will appear in the child in a reduced, duplicated or exaggerated form.
Prenatal opportunities.—During prenatal life, the forming child in the mother’s body is supplied with its physical, mental and moral building material from the mother’s blood. During the first twelve months of its postnatal life, or the period of lactation, the mother’s blood, environment and education are the child’s sources of physical development. During these periods the child is almost wholly pliable in the hands of its physical sculptors and mental and moral teachers.The prenatal existence of a child affords the parents their greatest opportunity to train the child, “in the way it should go.”
Mother’s advantage.—From these facts we see that the mother has the advantage of the father in influencing the forming body, the plastic brain and the sensitive soul of the child. Owing to the double standard of morals it is certainly a blessing to the world that this is true. Whatever is undesirable in the father, especially in his moral life, in a measure may be overcome by the mother. The story of Abraham’s two sons, Isaac, the true son, and Ishmael, the son of the bond woman, is a familiar illustration of this truth. Isaac became a good man; Ishmael became a bad man, the founder of the Ishmaelites, “whose hand was against every man.” Do you recall to memory a mother fallen in character? What has become of her children? Daughters fallen and sons worthless, often without an exception.
Suppose women all lived as men do, what would be the effect on the coming generation? Suppose men and women were alike temperate, honest, truthful and pure, our civilization would be as much superior to the present as the present civilization is superior to heathenism.
The mother’s larger hereditary influence proven.—Do you recall a drunken mother? Howabout the children? Dissipated and delinquent. A young lawyer, gifted, conceited, ambitious and eager for position and power had, according to his views, but one thing in his way to the goal of success—money. After thinking over the surest and best methods of getting money he decided to marry it. His first opportunity was a wealthy feeble-minded heiress. He married her. To their marriage five children were born. Three were positively mentally weak. The other two were noticeably so. Of these two, the first was a natural thief and the other a natural liar. Only one child resembled the young lawyer, the last one.
When training should begin.—It was a saying of a Yale president that “a child’s training should begin with its grandparents.” Another has said, “A child’s training should begin one hundred years before it is born.” There is more truth in those quaint sayings than many are willing to accept. Most parents give their children no premeditated and intelligent prenatal training, and many think that when the child has become accountable is soon enough for its training to begin.
Children products of blind chance.—There is an idea among many that every child comes straight from God and made to His order, and that parents are obediently to receive them when God sends them. Letthe child be beautiful or homely, blonde or brunette, girl or boy, strong or feeble-minded, good or bad, no matter, God gave the child. Some think these things are all accidents, fortunes or misfortunes, or they belong to “the unknowable.” There are no accidents. Every effect has its cause. Nothing comes by chance alone. Unalterable and invariable law governs everything. The law of heredity is as unerring as the law of gravitation. Our ignorance of the law does not prevent its operation.
Robbed of their birthright.—The great mass of people are not well-born. Aside from the degenerate criminal and the feeble-minded, universally recognized products of heredity, most people are below what nature would teach us they should be. They were born with mediocre capacities for business success and intellectual attainment. Give them the earliest and best advantages and training that this country affords and marked improvements will be made by them, but they will not make great men in any line of life work, for the simple reason that they cannot. It takes some natural capacity for the highest success.
Occasionally a child of unusual gifts is born of parents much below the average. The parents and their friends are likely to believe the gift to be a special divine bestowment. But, if the child’s prenatal history could be fully known this would be accountedfor on the basis of hereditary law. The unscientific farmer may occasionally raise a fine ear of corn or a very large crop of potatoes. But the intelligent, scientific farmer raises only the best.
Sowing wild oats.—If girls were addicted to loafing on the streets, swearing and telling vulgar stories, smoking and drinking, gambling and going to questionable places, we should not consider this good training for wifehood and motherhood. No intelligent man would choose such a girl to be the wife of his bosom, the queen of his home, the mother of his children. He is an ardent believer in the training of girls before marriage for wifehood and motherhood. Boys who engage in any of these sins are as much unfitting themselves for parentage as girls would be. “Oh, but a reformed rake makes the best husband.” If he makes the shadow of one, it will be a miracle of grace that he does it. No “rake” can in his own strength make a good father. If by God’s help he makes a good husband and father, this will be done in spite of his former life, and, not because he had been a “rake.” Sowing wild oats in youth does not make it easier to be good in after life, but more difficult. Boys and young men should live with a view to husbandhood and fatherhood.
Immature parents.—Experienced stock raisers will not breed inferior or immature stock. If one or bothanimals to be used for breeding purposes be young, immature, the offspring will be inferior. All leading physiologists place man’s maturity at about twenty-four and a woman’s at about twenty. If continence in thought and life controlled our social relations, it would be best for the human family if marriage did not take place until maturity. Under existing social conditions, sexual dissipation, and its dangers, it is perhaps best, in some cases, that they marry a few years younger. But for fifteen-and sixteen-year-old girls and nineteen-and twenty-year-old boys to marry is a decided physiological and psychological mistake. Children can no more parent normal children than can pigs, colts, and kids parent normal young. A great sociologist says that four to six per cent. more children whose mothers married at sixteen will die in their first year than among children whose mothers married at twenty; and that six to ten per cent. more children whose fathers married at twenty will die in their first year than among children whose fathers married at twenty-four.
An ideal family.—At the close of a lecture on heredity in a college town, a gentleman invited me to take dinner at his home the next day. I accepted his invitation. From eleven o’clock to twelve he and I sat in front of his little cottage home chatting pleasantly. When the college bell announced the noonhour, he turned and said, “When my two boys and my girl return home for dinner I want you to study them as examples of intelligently applied laws of parental preparation, prenatal training, good environment and the Grace of God.”
A few minutes later my attention was called to the rattling of the gate. Turning, I beheld two fine specimens of physical manhood and an equally fine specimen of physical womanhood. On closer acquaintance I found they were leaders in all their classes, leaders in the best circles of society and leaders in church work.
Dinner over, the young people returned to college; dishes were cleared away, and father, mother and I sat in front of that same cottage home; the conversation naturally drifted to heredity and to the young people. The father humbly but proudly said, “Professor, if wife and I should sell all we have, including our wardrobe, we could not raise $1,500. We have never been ambitious for broad acres of land, a palatial home or heavy deposits in the bank. We have had just one all-controlling purpose in our married life, and that has been to give to the world a family of children who will honor us after we are dead, be a blessing to the world and glorify God.” My reply was, “You have certainly erected to your memory three splendid monuments, monuments far granderthan if you had worn out your muscle and brains in the production of sordid silver and gold and had left to your children a round million, and they, out of their gratitude, had erected to your memory a marble shaft piercing the very sky.”
I said it then, I have repeated it many times since, “I wish I had the money to pay the transportation and hotel bills of this family on my lecture trips and at the close of a lecture on heredity, could call this family to the platform as a living example of intelligently applied principles of eugenics.” If the initial moment of every child born into this world were intelligently planned for, its prenatal rights respected, its advent warmly welcomed, its environments wisely chosen and it were early led to accept Christ, every family would be equal to this family, and the next generation much superior to this. Will you, gentle reader, model your ideals after this home, teach these truths to others, and teach them to teach these truths to still others? If you will, then you will have done your part towards the world’s redemption.
Indications of constitutional degeneracy.—Feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, insanity, scrofula, cancer, rheumatism and gout are the outward indications of constitutional degeneracy and inherited tendencies which are often transmitted from one generation to another of a deteriorating family. These conditions in nearly every instance were due either to strong drink or to sexual sin. In most cases consumption may be added to the above list.
Choosing a degenerate companion.—If you and your family have a clear record of physical, mental and moral health, you can form habits of vice or marry into a family addicted to vice or into a family constitutionally degenerate and hand down to your posterity hereditary conditions and tendencies.
A clear bill of health to your children.—If you and your family have a bad record of health, you can, by a virtuous and temperate life, strict observance of the laws of health, and an intelligent choice of a companion, largely overcome the effectsof bad heredity and environment in yourself and transmit a clean bill of health to your children.
Neurotics.—Don’t marry into a neurotic family. Your partner might become insane and your children be afflicted.
Drunkards.—Don’t marry into a family where there are several drunkards and don’t marry a person addicted to strong drink. Remember that you are choosing the father or the mother of your children; and that choice is final. If children could choose their parents, they would hesitate before making such a choice.
Consumptives.—If you are suffering from any form of tubercular disease, you should not marry. Neither should you marry one having consumption, nor into a family where consumption is common. It is possible to overcome all tendencies to consumption and to effect a cure in the earliest stages.
Consumption and cancer.—For a person having consumption to marry into a home where cancer is common would be a combination fraught with great danger to the offspring. The children would be handicapped from birth with frail bodies, liable to similar diseases, and most of them would die during adolescence, or before. The worst results follow where both companions have inherited the same disease.
A low vitality.—A parent cannot transmit to thechild what he does not possess himself. Children of immoral parents, invalid parents, feeble-minded parents, sexually exhausted parents will necessarily inherit impoverished vitality.
The immature.—In all countries where immature marriages are tolerated or encouraged the children are small, wretched, unhealthy and shortlived. This was observed in the days of Greece, in past generations in France, to-day in India and may be observed wherever encouraged in our country. From four to ten per cent, more children born of immature parents will die in the first year than among children of matured parents. Idiocy and physical imperfections; a lack of energy and courage will be quite common among them. As a rule girls mature at twenty and boys at twenty-four. Marriage earlier than these ages should be considered immature.
Difference as to age.—The young man, as a rule, should be four to six years older than his bride. Unless a man’s strength and vigor are exceptionally well maintained, he should not become a father after he is fifty. Sociologists claim that a larger per cent. of the children born after their fathers were fifty become sexual offenders, dishonest and criminals than among children whose fathers were younger.
Criminals.—Don’t marry into a family where there is a number of criminals. Where crime is commonin a family you will find many of the outward signs of constitutional degeneracy mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Frequency of crime in a family indicates deterioration.
Wealth should have no influence.—The choice of a companion should not be influenced by money interests, base desires, or any other unworthy motive. If one’s choice is influenced in one of these ways domestic harmony and well-born children will not be possible.
Masculine women and feminine men.—Don’t marry an effeminate man. Don’t marry a masculine woman. The masculine should predominate in man. The feminine should predominate in woman. Where the feminine nature predominates in the wife and the masculine nature in the husband soul-union will be possible, domestic harmony will prevail and the children will be well-born.
Marriage of cousins.—Don’t marry into a family where first and second cousins have married for several generations. This custom gradually leads to constitutional degeneracy. Should first cousins marry where there have been no previous intermarriages, no serious defects will likely be transmitted to the children.
Value of chastity.—True marriage is based on genuine, pure love and the harmonious mental andtemperamental adaptation. True love between the sexes is the child of the sex life. When lascivious thinking and habits change sexuality into sensuality lust becomes a substitute for love. If the real cause of divorce were known it would be found in most cases to be due to the dissipation of the vital energy, which is the basis of love. In nearly every case man is responsible for his home’s being wrecked. In the choice of a companion, chastity is of vital importance.
Temperaments.—Authorities recognize three distinct temperaments: the motive, the vital and the nervous or mental. Where the motive organs, the muscles and bones, predominate, the physical powers will be most prominent. Where the vital organs, indicated by a heavy-set body and a full chest, predominate, the manifestations of life will be most prominent. Where the nervous system predominates, the mental powers will be most prominent.
Motive temperament.—The motive temperament is indicated by bones broad and large; muscles slim, firm and tough; the individual is tall, angular, brow prominent, cheek-bones high, shoulders broad, chest full, eyes and hair usually dark. Such persons are usually very pronounced in their views; firm, ambitious, stern and severe. Two persons having very pronounced motive temperaments should not marry.There would be two bosses in the home and the children would be willful and unsociable.
Nervous temperament.—The nervous temperament is indicated by sharp features, light frame, head rather large, face oval, forehead high, eyes expressive, movements quick, neck slender and feelings usually intense. Should parties of this temperament marry disagreements would be frequent and the children would be delicate, weak and over precocious.
Vital temperament.—The vital temperament is indicated by a rather low, heavy-set body, hands and feet small, neck short and thick, chest full, shoulders broad, face and head round, hair and eyes generally light. Persons of this temperament are, as a rule, not great students, inclined to be impulsive, very sociable, versatile, cheerful and ardent and liable to be fickle. Where these characteristics are very pronounced, marriage with a person of another temperament would be advisable. However, most persons of the vital type have a harmonious, balanced temperament. Here likes may marry like.
Like should not marry like.—If one has a very pronounced motive temperament he should choose a companion having a more plump and symmetrical form, with a genial and yielding nature. This would be conducive to domestic harmony and would give the children a favorable heredity.
The law of compliments.—One with a pronounced nervous temperament should select a companion having a vital temperament or one having a moderate motive temperament. If young people were prompted by unselfish motives and a pure chaste love, mistakes in marriage would be extremely rare. Where choice of a companion is determined by financial interests, sensual desire, or other selfish motives, the soul is denied its prerogative in the selection of a mate. No man in a normal condition and prompted by unselfish motives would select for his companion a masculine woman, a consumptive, a neurotic or one with an excessive motive or nervous temperament, and vice versa. The subjective minds of possible soul-mates come naturally and easily to comprehend each other’s joys and sorrows, longings and love. Most married people are fairly well-mated and comparatively happy. Their adaptation to each other and their soul oneness grew out of a natural affinity to which they unselfishly yielded rather than from an intelligent choice based on a knowledge of the laws of adaptation.
Mismates.—Perhaps one-half of the married are not well-mated, for reasons already stated. Owing to the fact that so many are mismated, a condition growing out of artificial and unnatural social, economic and moral conditions, the advice of this chaptershould be carefully studied by young people before they make the choice of a life companion.
Atavism.—All students of natural history have occasionally observed among plants and animals the reappearance of something that belonged to their remote progenitors, but which did not belong to their immediate parents. This tendency for remote ancestral characteristics to reappear after lying dormant for one or more generations, is called atavism. This fact is sometimes observed in the human family.
Examples.—As a rule, when one child in the home possesses some marked morbid tendency or special gift not possessed by other members of the family, it can be accounted for on the basis of some initial or maternal impression. But this is not always true. A deaf mute may be born in a home and the cause traced to some remote deaf mute ancestor. Consumption, insanity and other diseases may disappear for one or more generations and then reappear. This is a fact recognized by many physicians.
Two first cousins from families remarkably free from intemperance were ruined by intemperance. Both seemed powerless from the first indulgence to resist the habit. One was dissipated from childhood, the other did not begin until he was twenty and was a wreck in six brief years. Their grandfather wasa periodic drinker. The appetite had slumbered in one generation but broke out in the next.
Love the basis of marriage.—In the choice of a life companion one should be absolutely sure that his choice is prompted by pure and unselfish love. If love in courtship and marriage is genuine it will have but one idol. Selfish interests and base desires may lead one to admire and worship more than one, but this is not love.
Chastity the basis of genuine love.—This genuine love that draws young people into beautiful courtship, happy marriage and makes them one is vitally related to the sex nature. Without sexuality this expression of the affectional nature would not be possible. When this God-honored, love-creating nature is converted into sensuality, lust, not love, reigns in courtship and marriage.
Love tested.—The genuineness of love may be tested in several ways. Whenever the choice is largely determined by financial interests or social prestige the parties are drawn to each other for selfish reasons, and not by unmixed love. If a young woman wins a companion by wearing low-necked dresses, permitting young men to hold her hands, play with her hair, kiss and caress her, by going with them to public dances, and low theatrical entertainments, she makesher appeal on the plane of the sensual. Courtship and marriage on this plane are a travesty on love. It is not always easy for the vigorous and healthy to distinguish between selfish interest, base desire and love. A good test would be for lovers to cease their calls and correspondence for ten days; meanwhile they should attend social functions and call on and accept calls from others. If they find it impossible to admire and love some other person and their love for each other remains intense and warm under these conditions, they may safely conclude that their love is genuine.
The right of a child to receive good heredity.—Every child has an absolute right to be well-born. To receive a good inheritance is worth infinitely more than to be born in a palace and inherit millions in money. The prenatal period of a child is more important than any other period in its earthly life. Parents are responsible to the child, to society and to God for what they bequeath to the child at birth. The child well trained till its birth is fully half trained. If the child inherits a good basis for a strong and healthy body, mind and morals, it can make a success in life. It is true that some parents prefer leaving the physical, mental and moral possibilities of their children to providence or “blind chance,” to practicing a little self-denial. But it is certainly the desire of all thoughtful parents to have their children well-born.
Planning for the initial of a life.—The initial of every child should be intelligently planned. Only parents who have their sexual nature under control, or those who can and will bring it under control, cando this. This can be done most easily by parents who in their youth were trained to see that the primary use of the sexual energy and function is to build up and maintain perfect manhood and womanhood through life and for procreative purposes in the married life, and not for unrestricted selfish pleasure.