[From "Life and Character of Almeda A. Booth," June 22, 1876.]
We can study no life intelligently except in its relation to causes and results. Character is the chief element; for it is both a result and a cause—the result of all the elements and forces that combined to form it, and the chief cause of all that is accomplished by its possessor....
Every character is the joint product of nature and nurture. By the first, we mean those inborn qualities of body and mind inherited from parents, or rather from a long line of ancestors. Who shall estimate the effect of those latent forces, enfolded in the spirit of a new-born child, which may date back centuries, and find their origin in the unwritten history of remote ancestors—forces, the germs of which, enveloped in the solemn mystery of life, have been transmitted silently, from generation to generation, and never perish? All-cherishing Nature, provident and unforgetting, gathers up all these fragments that nothing may be lost, but that all may reappear in new combinations. Each new life is thus the "heir of all the ages," the possessor of qualities which only the events of life can unfold.
By the second element, nurture, culture, we designate all those influences which act upon this initial force of character, to retard or strengthen its development. There has been much discussion to determine which of these elements plays the more important part in the formation of character. The truth doubtless is, that sometimes the one and sometimes the other is the greater force; but so far as life and character are dependent upon voluntary action, the second is no doubt the element of chief importance.