The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1943-11-20

When one confronts the expert
ence of good fortune in biological
endowment and conditioning cir
cumstance. two propositions emerge.
First, good heredity alone does not
settle everything, because the bet
ter the heredity the more import
ant is a good environment. Sec
ond, good heredity and good en-
vironment together do not decisive
" settle everything, because the
better the heritage and the more
fortunate the circumstances, the
more important, not the less, be-
,, comes the individuals conscious
personal response.
A priceless violin, made Of the
best wood, needs the more to be
cared for under good conditions;
and furthermore, such violin, SO
cared for, only makes more i'm
portant the playing of it. To be
! sure, no analogy can adequately
represent the reciprocal intimacy
of body and spirit, but in some such
way the better our heredity, the
more important is our environment,
and the better our heredity and en-
vironment together, the more i'm
portant is our personal response.
When this proposition is trans
lated into terms of biography it
rings true. Granted that great
personalities may have had prom
Using hereditary start, and that one
can discern the powerful effect of
envircning conditions on their de-
velopment, yet Beethoven without
Beethoven's personal response
would be unimaginable. Helen KEEL
ler's victorious spirit certainly does
not seem to be the willy-nilly re-
suit of heredity and circumstance.
Only an obsessing of priori theory
can lead one to brush aside as nom
existent or Intellectual her con-
scious handling of her life's data,
her highly distinctive conformation
of life with a personal rejoinder.
Moreover, the disastrous misuse
of fine heredity and environment is
too familiar phenomenon to be
doubted. Children are not CO.
ercively destined to well-integrat-
ed personalities because they are
well born and we'll bestead, Iden-
tical twins, of like genes and similar
environment, can travel diverse
paths to noticeably different per-
Sonal results. The better the here
dity, the more good environment
matters; the better the heredity
and the environment together, the
more personal response counts.
If, when heritage and circum-
stance are thus fortunate, the in
dividual's distinctive handling of
LIES data IS an indispensable fac
tor in building personality, at what
stage in the descending scale of
such good fortune can one suppose
that that factor disappears? If per-
sonal response is operative in using
a fortunate situation to great ends,
is it not also operative when de-
| plorable situation is mastered, and
some man, hard put to it by han
dicaps and limited in natal endoW-
ment, becomes, nontheless, an adj
mirable person?
Here lies mans central respon-
sibility from which he has no right
in any situation, by any excuse, to
exempt himself. We are willing to
accept such responsibility when we
succeed; when by dint of decision
and effort we achieve desired end,
we are sure we had a share in that.
No Chopin, writing music in the
@f 1r;,
up one quill pen after another and
pacing his room in a frenzy, could
believe that the finished nocturne
was merely the fated result of
genes and general environment. His