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The doctrine of heredity may seem to take out of our hands the

conduct of our own lives, but it is the idea, not the fact, which

is really terrible to us. For what we have received from our

ancestors is only a fraction of what we are, or may become. The

knowledge that drunkenness or insanity has been prevalent in a

family may be the best safeguard against their recurrence in a

future generation. The parent will be most awake to the vices or

diseases in his child of which he is most sensible within

himself. The whole of life may be directed to their prevention or

cure. The traces of consumption may become fainter, or be wholly

effaced: the inherent tendency to vice or crime may be

eradicated. And so heredity, from being a curse, may become a

blessing. We acknowledge that in the matter of our birth, as in

our nature generally, there are previous circumstances which

affect us.