I know a man in New York City who had what is called a "family history" of consumption, who was rejected on that account by every life insurance company in this country thirty years ago. Well, that frightened him within an inch of his life; but with that inch he set to work to build his house "facing the other way," as he expressed it to me when I met him ten years ago, when he was, as he still is, a hale, hearty old gentleman. He is not and never could have been exactly robust; but he is as well, as happy and as content as the average man who has not inherited his unfortunate potentiality. It is true that nothing but intelligent and wise care all these years, nothing but his temperate and judicious life, could have compassed this end. I use the word temperate in its general sense. So far as I know he has not denied himself any of the best of life, which he has been amply able to secure; but he has at all times kept his house "facing the other way." His hereditary threat, while it has not driven him with a lash, has, it is true, lived in the back yard--which it does and will and must with us all, no matter what our environment or wisdom may be; but we need not foolishly throw open the windows, swing back the doors and invite it to take possession, while our own individuality moves down into the coal cellar.
I have taken as illustrations in both of these papers inherited disease and its developments, but this is done only for convenience and because it will explain more fully, clearly and easily to most people what is meant. That our heredity is equally strong and certain in its mental and moral potentialities and tendencies is also true.* It is likewise true that the environment--the conditions under which we develop, curb or direct our natural tendencies--has a great and modifying rôle to play.
* "Alienists hold, in general, that a large proportion of mental diseases are the result of degeneracy; that is, they are the offspring of drunken, insane, syphilitic and consumptive parents, and suffer from the action of heredity."--Dr. Arthur McDonald, author of "Criminology."
It is sometimes asked, if children were changed in the cradle, and those of fortunate parentage carried to the slums to be nurtured and taught and those from the slums.