The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1912-03-05
The "Heredity"
Excuse.

A vagrant pleaded before a Cleve-
land police judge that his whole life
has been cursed by his having been
christened in babyhood with whiskey.
What small excuses serve some peo-
pie as satisfactory justification of their
failure!
It's quite the usual thing for a man
to plead that he is drunkard and a
good for nothing because his father
was such before him.
There's the conqmonest plea of all
heredity, and it's the silliest. Ninety
nine drunkards in every hundred will
tell you that the taste was forced
upon them under some peculiar con-
dition. They lie--every one Of them.
The drunkard does not live who at
one period Of his life had not a nat
ural repugnance to drink, and did not,
of his own accord and against the
protest of his stomach and his better
nature, batter down that repugnance
and acquire the taste.
Heredity has its limitations. More
alluring lies and self decisions have
been hung on that word 'heredity'
than on any other perhaps in all the
lexicon Of specious sophistry.
Man is born of a great father and a
good mother. Does that make him
great and good? Oh no. 1t is never
claimed that heredity works that way.
The man who gets ahead In life is
usually content to take the credit 20
himself. But the man who goes to the
devil always accuses somebody else cf
having CREASED the ways
This is not denying that there is
some force In heredity and more In
early training and environment but it
10 a force that except in rare cases
may be overcome or rightly directed.
And out OF inherited faults often bloom
great virtues. The knowledge that
you have a weak spot is reason 20
guard yourself there reason that a
man with the right stuff in him will
obey.
To one OF Americas greatest actors
was transmitted by his father a double
tendency-one for the stage, the other
for the bottle. The son cultivated the
first and repressed the second, and
achieved worldwide fame. According
to the commonly accepted notions con-
corning heredity he should have re-
versed the order and gone to the
gutter.
Heredity is so easy a way Of &C.
counting for wrong tendencies that IL
appeals as irresistably to certain
| classes OF scientific experts" as il
does to criminals, drunkards and
loafers. Quacks gain repute for pro-
fundity by holding forth on the laws
of heredity" as IL they were mysterious
ukases issued from behind natures
veil which few can understand but
| none can resist. Nine-tenths OF It al
is mere tommy
Lots Of people who are not criminals
but just morally lazy, plead in defense
of their sins that they are the SUM
OF their ancestors" Thus they de-
rive the comforting but character rot
ting conclusion that they are not re-
| sponsive for their deeds.
! Every man, il he be a man at all, Is
master Of his own conduct. Yes. he Il
master, too. Of his own thoughts. pur.
poses, ideals and everything OF high
importance in the makeup OF his
character. There is nothing in the
world that is more tyrannical yet more
tractable than the human will. You
will is either your best friend or you
worst enemy. By cultivation you car
make 1t whichever you please.
A man may inherit from parents oil
remoter ancestors. a nervous weakness.
through which he may the more easil,