community comes closer home; the principles which have been recognized
within the church and the neighborhood must be carried on to reshape
institutions, industries, the whole social organism.

The moral idea is thus reaffirmed and extended, but how can man attain
that ideal? By using his free will, said the Stoic. By the grace of God
obtained through prayer, said the Christian. Is man then free, or is he
the passive creature of a greater power, and of what nature is that
power? Now, where theologians have sought to define the Deity, and to
conceive his government of his creatures in terms of a personal affection
and will, scientists, contenting themselves with observation of facts,
have shown that each man is what he is and does what he does partly
because of what his parents and remoter ancestors were and did before
him, and partly because of the forces of climate, institutions,
education, companionship, event, which surround him from his birth to his
grave. Heredity and Environment, these are

"the hands
That reach through Nature, moulding Man."

It looks at first as if the old dispute between free will and necessity
were settled at last, and man were indeed a creature of inscrutable fate.
Yet, in the very act of acknowledging certain ideals of character as
desirable, we become conscious of an impulse and initial effort--call it
automatic or call it voluntary--toward attaining those ideals. As a
matter of practice, we speedily recognize that both Heredity and
Environment are in a degree under human control. If they are deities,
they are accessible to prayers, the prayers which are watchfulness and
obedience. Man is always at work to better the environment of himself
and his fellows. As he sees more clearly that his true good is character
and the noble self, he shapes his environment more intelligently and
resolutely to that end. As to heredity, while the individual is
powerless over his own lot, he is in a degree potential over those who
are to succeed him. The conception of duty is enlarged by the
obligations of marriage and parenthood, in a wise selection and
thoughtful care for the future offspring.

Heredity and Environment, then, are partly the servants of man. Yet
largely they are his lords and masters. In a degree, but only in a
degree, do we make ourselves what we are. And while the degree of that
self-determining power can never be known, we learn to be charitable
toward other