I HOPE the reader will not fight shy of heredity. I trust he will find
it quite simple and interesting; and I promise him to use no unfamiliar
words, nor to trouble him with difficult and tedious scientific
expositions.
I deal with heredity before environment, because it is needful to take
them one at a time, and heredity comes first; as birth before schooling.
But we must not fall into the bad habit of thinking of heredity and
environment apart from each other, for it is _both_, and not either of
them that make man's character.
It is often said that neither heredity nor environment accounts for a
man's conduct. And that is true. But it is true, also, that heredity
_and_ environment account for every quality in the human "make-up." A
pianist, an artist, or a cricketer is "made as well as born," and so is
every man. A good batsman is a good batsman for two reasons: (1) He was
born with good sight, steady; nerves, and sound sense, all of which he
owes to his ancestors. (2) He has been well taught, or has practised
well, and this practice, this endeavour to succeed, he owes to his
inherited ambition, and to the precept and example of other men. So if
a man plays a fiddle well, or steers a ship well, or devotes his life to
charity, the excellence is always due to heredity _and_ environment.
For the cricketer would never have been a cricketer, nor the violinist
a violinist, had he been born in a country where cricket and violin
playing were unknown. And, on the other hand, a man bred amongst
cricketers or musicians will never excel in music nor in cricket unless
he has what is called "a gift"; and the gift is "heredity."