which we went through. Moral traits, manners and customs, and other
habits and ideals of social importance must be acquired by each
successive generation.

=Heredity _versus_ Environment.= The question is often asked whether
heredity or the influence of environment has the most to do with the
final outcome of one's life. It is a rather useless question to ask, for
what a human being or anything else in the world does depends upon what
it is itself and what the things and forces are that act upon it.
Heredity sets a limitation for us, fixes the possibilities. The
circumstances of life determine what we will do with our inherited
abilities and characteristics. Hereditary influences incline us to be
tall or short, fat or lean, light or dark. The characteristics of our
memory, association, imagination, our learning capacity, etc., are
determined by heredity. Of course, how far these various aspects develop
is to some extent dependent upon the favorable or unfavorable influences
of the environment. What is possible for us to do is settled by
heredity; what we may actually do, what we may have the opportunity to
do, is largely a matter of the circumstances of life.

In certain parts of New England, the number of men who become famous in
art, science, or literature is very great compared to the number in some
other parts of our country. As far as we have any evidence, the native
stocks are the same in the two cases, but in New England the influences
turn men into the direction of science, art, and literature. Everything
there is favorable. In other parts of the country, the influences turn
men into other spheres of activity. They become large landowners, men of
business and affairs.

The question may be asked whether genius makes its way to the front in