ent permanent
influences.

(2) If wheat of a certain strain were sown on the same day in two
adjoining fields, one of which was well farmed and the other badly
farmed, the resulting crops would differ widely in yield and value.
It would be the same with two human beings, one of whom (to take a
pertinent example) attended a school of Utopian tendencies, and the
other a school of a more conventional type. Of all moralising (or
demoralising) influences education is by far the most important,
owing to the fact that it can do more, and is in a position to do
more, than any other influence either to foster or to hinder growth.

The influence of weather on plant-life is, of course, enormous. In
one year the fruit-crop in a given neighbourhood is a failure: in
another year it gluts the market. One explanation of this fact,
which has its exact analogies in human life, will be given in the
next paragraph.

(3) All forms of life are exposed to the attacks of enemies of
various kinds. Whether they shall beat off those attacks or succumb
to them depends in large measure on the nature of the growth that
they are making; and this again depends, largely if not wholly, on
the nature of the general influences to which they have been exposed.
For many years I lived in a district in which hops were grown on a
large scale; and I naturally took an interest in the staple industry
of my adopted county. I noticed that whenever (during the summer
months) there came a spell of cold winds from the north-east--winds
which tend to arrest plant-growth--the hop-bines were at once
assailed by blight and other pests, and the safety of the growing
crop was imperilled. And I noticed further that when the wind got
round to the south-west, and warm showers began to stimulate the
growth of the flagging plants, the pests that had assailed them
disappeared as if by magic, and the anxieties of the growers were
relieved. As it is with plants, so it is with human beings. They too
have their enemies,--temptations of various kinds and other evil
influences that "war against the soul." And they too will be able to
beat off their assailants just so far as their own growth is vigorous
and healthy; and will succumb to their attacks, to their own serious
detriment, just so far as their own growth is feeble and sickly.

The bearing of this fact on the problem of the origin of moral evil
is obvious. That the evils which assail the organism, be it a plant
or a human