Thomas was a drunkard from heredity, and was saved by environment.
William was always steady from heredity and environment.
Stephen was steady from heredity, almost became a drunkard from
environment, and was finally saved by new environment.
John owed his ruin to his grandfather and his shopmates.
Thomas owed his safety to his shopmates, who rescued him from the taint
of his grandfather's evil legacy.
William owed his safety to his blood.
Stephen, after being endangered by his companions, was saved by his
wife.
Assuming all other conditions to be equal, and all other traits of
character similar, how are we to blame one or praise another of these
four brothers? Each is what descent and surroundings have made him.
An apple tree cannot bear bananas. A rose tree cannot bear lilies. A
rose tree in good soil bears well; a rose tree in bad soil bears poorly.
In times of drought the crops perish for lack of water. In rainy weather
the hay rots instead of drying.
Let us now consider some of the arguments actually used in denying the
power of environment.
Some little time ago the Rev. R. J. Campbell, of the London City Temple,
preached a sermon on environment. From a report of that sermon I take
the following passage:
His argument was that it was all nonsense to say that environment made
the man. The man who had any manhood in him could rise above and beyond
his environment, just as Bunyan soared above his tin kettles.
This is an example of the confusion of mind into which educated men fall
when they deal with this simple subject.
Mr. Campbell's first mistake is the mistake of separating heredity from
environment. Of course, it is nonsense to say that environment makes the
man. But who did say anything so silly?
Heredity "makes the man," and environment modifies him. Having made that
clear, let us consider Mr. Campbell's second sentence:
The man who had any manhood in him could rise above and beyond his
environment, just as Bunyan soared above his tin kettles.
Mr. Campbell says: "The man who has any manhood in him." But suppose
he has not any manhood in him! Suppose he is a poor human weed born
of weeds. Can he bear wheat or roses? And if he only bears prickles or
poison, who is to blame? Not the man, surely, for he did not choose his
parents nor his nature. Shall we blame a mongrel born of curs of low
degree' because he is not a bulldog?
A man can only realise the nature that he has, and can only realise that
in accordance with environment.
But this same sentence shows that Mr. Campbell does not understand what
we mean when we use the word "environment".
For he tells us that a man can rise above and beyond his environment.
Now, a man's environment is composed of every external influence which
affects him in any way, from the moment of his birth to the moment of
his death.
Therefore a man cannot rise above and beyond his environment until he
ceases to exist.
Mr. Campbell cites John Bunyan as a man who "rose above his
environment." The fact being that Bunyan's good environment saved him
from his bad environment.
From the preface to my edition of _The Pilgrim's Progress_ I quote the
following suggestive words:
How was it, one naturally asks, that a man of little education could
produce two centuries ago a masterpiece which is still read wherever the
English language is spoken, and has been translated into every European
tongue? It is not sufficient to answer that the author of the work was a
genius: it is necessary to show _what the conditions were which enabled
his genius to develop itself_, led him to find the form of expression
which best suited its character, and secured for what if produced
immediate popularity and lasting fame.
Bunyan was a poor boy of very little education. But he was born with a
great imagination, a sensitive nature, and keen powers of assimilation.
He was, in short, a born literary genius.
In his youth he got amongst bad companions, and led a lewd and wicked
sort of life.
How, then, came he to reform his life, and to write his wonderful book?
To listen to Mr. Campbell, one would suppose that the tinker's boy
rose against his environment, and without any help for good from that
environment. But did he?
We find he served for some years in Cromwell's army. Would the fierce
religious atmosphere of Cromwellian camps have no effect upon his
sensitive and imaginative nature?
We find that he and his wife read together two religious books: _The
Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven_ and Bishop Bayley's _Practice of Piety_.
Would such books, so read, make no impression upon his impressionable
mind?
We find that he was drawn to go to church. That he was "over-run with
the spirit of superstition." Would that affect him naught?
We find that his neighbours at last took him "to a very godly man, a new
and religious man, _and did much marvel_ to see such a great and famous
alteration in my life and manners."
Beyond this we need not go. The religious soldiers of Cromwell, the
pious books and the pious wife, the spirit of superstition, and the
godly man, were all parts of John Bunyan's environment, and, acting upon
the peculiar nature given to him by heredity, these and other facts of
his environment lifted him up, made him what we know, and enabled him to
write his glorious book. Instead of a man who rose above his environment
we have in Bunyan a man who was led by one kind of environment to gamble
and drink and blaspheme, and by another kind of environment was made
into a fanatical religious enthusiast.
John Bunyan was John Bunyan when he played tipcat, and used profane
language on the Sabbath. Up to that time the "manhood that was in him"
had not saved John Bunyan.
If, as Mr. Campbell suggests, it is the inherent manhood that saves
a man, how was it that Bunyan's manhood, up to a certain point in his
life, failed to raise him above his environment.
And, when the change came, what was it that brought that change about?
Bunyan had only the same manhood: the same manhood which had already
been defeated by the environment. How was it that same manhood now
served to raise him above the environment?
John Bunyan was the same John Bunyan; it was the environment that
changed. It was the pious Ironsides, the pious wife, the godly man, the
atmosphere of superstition, that made John Bunyan the profane tinker
into John Bunyan the man of religion.
Bad environment got John Bunyan down: there is no doubt of that. Good
environment lifted him up. The manhood was the same at both periods. It
was the environment that changed.
If ever there was an example of the power of environment to save or sink
a man, that example is John Bunyan, tinker and poet.
Another instance of misunderstanding is afforded by Mr. G. K.
Chesterton, who, in an article in the _Daily News_, argues against the
power of heredity and environment, as follows:
The well-bred man--literally speaking, that is the man with a heredity
and environment much above the normal--can put forth all the cardinal
sins like scarlet flowers in summer. He has lands that meet the horizon,
but he steals like a starving man. He has had armies of comrades in
great colleges, yet he snarls like a hunchback hissed in the street He
has treasuries of gold that he cannot remember; yet he goads poor men
for their rent like a threadbare landlady in the Harrow Road. He is
only meant to be polite in public, and he cannot even be that. The whole
system of his country and constitution only asks one thing of him, that
he should not be an unpresentable beast--and he often is. That is a type
of aristocrat that does from time to time recur to remind us of what is
the real answer to the argument for aristocracy founded on heredity and
environment. The real answer to it is in two words--Original Sin.
Had Mr. Chesterton understood the subject upon which he wrote the above
picturesque but fallacious paragraph, he never would have sent it to
the Press. But he is always falling into blunders about heredity and
environment because he has never learnt what heredity and environment
are.
He seems to think that the West End means good environment, and that the
East End means bad environment. He seems to think that noble blood means
good heredity, and that simple blood means bad heredity.