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driven on by this hereditary tendency, takes such sweets as it can get, in spite of the prohibitory command of the parents, immediately it is called a bad child, and the orthodox christian attributes it to original sin, while the infidel believer in heredity begins to search for some criminal amongst its ancestors in order that the propensity to steal may be traced according to "scientific rules" of heredity. But allow the child free access to the sugar bowl, and he is no longer a thief, but a good boy, fat and jolly, his mother's joy. So you see the hereditary taint in the child is not a moral quality at all, and only his acts are moral or immoral, in so far as they are in accord with, or in violation of, the moral standard recognized by his associates.
It matters not how many generations of ill-fed or degraded individuals may make up the ancestry of any person; if he may satisfy his craving for food whenever he is hungry, freely and fully, and has such association and surrounding as to draw out and develop the nobler faculties, all the hereditary taint of a long line of degraded and hungry ancestors can not prevent him from becoming, at least, an average man.
Traits and characteristics of even the physical structure are so easily influenced by environments that we never see two children of the same parents that are exactly alike, either in features or disposition. They all may have the family resemblance, some may have the features of the father, some the mother and others of the grand parents, but, owing to prenatal and antenatal conditions, and possibly other causes too subtile for us to trace, they all differ in a greater or lesser degree. It will be seen from the observation of these facts that the effect of heredity upon persons is modified by numerous other influences, known and unknown, some within our power to control and some beyond our power to control. This being the case it is evident that those who object to putting our theories into practice, or to trying to gain freedom, because people are too degraded as a result of enslavement, do not understand the effect of environment upon the individual. The illustration of the child that loves sweets is applicable to nearly every action that is counted moral or immoral, and is the result of hereditary tendency. No matter what desires a person may have, if he or she be free to satisfy this desire, its satisfaction would not be immoral. The desire to kill others, which some upholders of law claim is so common, is not inherited to any such extent as they seem to imagine, and under free conditions, wherein there is nothing to fight over, and everything tends to stimulate and increase the social instincts, that desire would make itself manifest in deeds of violence only on rare and unusual occasions. The desire to get something for nothing; to hoard wealth; to take advantage of one's fellows; all these desires that are said to be inherited, and to make freedom impracticable, are not hereditary tendencies at all. If all had the opportunity to produce for themselves, or co-operatively, they would not care to get "something for nothing" from one another. If they felt sure of plenty all their life, they would have no desire to hoard. If all stood on an equal footing, and praise was not bestowed upon those who are "above" others, no one would care to take advantage of his fellows. It follows, then, that when environment is taken into consideration, we have nothing to fear from hereditary taint in contemplating unbounded freedom.
Survival of the Fittest.
Now that evolution is a recognized fact, and its evidences are discerned by a large nmber of persons in all walks of life, the upholders of the present order of things seek to prove the "naturalness" and perpetuity of present social and economic conditions by asserting that all these things are an evolution, consequently could not be otherwise. In excuse, or justification, for the inequalities that exist they tell us that it is according to natural law, that the fittest must survive.
