The standards for estimating the life and character of men, namely, human customs, morals, and religions, are such recent acquisitions, geologically speaking, that they have, as yet, very slightly if at all influenced the germ-cells. They are acquired (somatic) characteristics, and not congenital (germinal) qualities. They are preëminently the creations of environment. If the infants of a Catholic family which is descended from a long line of Catholic ancestors were to be placed and retained in a purely Mohammedan environment, heredity would carry no Christian customs, morals or religion into that environment, but, on the contrary, the Mohammedan surroundings would instill new customs, different ethical ideas, and a different religion. This illustrates how very feebly indeed are germ-cells correspondingly impressed by pure acquired characters. It is almost certain that the translation of somatic changes into germinal changes is appallingly slow. As far, then, as social customs, morals, and religion are concerned, the average man is, in our opinion, infinitely more the creature of nurture than of nature. But, as far as his temperament, his emotional nature, his judgment, his strength of will, in short, his physical and therefore his mental constitution, are concerned, he is almost absolutely the creature of heredity. The equilibrium of qualities or heritages in the average man, resident in a given, stable community, is in harmony with the average customs, ethical ideas, and religious beliefs of that community. But in all stable communities there are men whose resultant of heritages, some in one direction and some in another, places them out of harmony with the average of their social environment, and they are looked upon, some as idiots, some as geniuses, some as criminals, and others as saints, and so on. So that again we may say that a man’s character in a community is the resultant of an hereditary physical constitution, and his environment. Some men may inherit such a physical constitution that in spite of the best environment they are much debased below the average man; others may possess such heritages that, notwithstanding adverse circumstances, they reach a level of character much above the average man. And there are all gradations between the two extremes.
SECTION III.
UNSTABLE ENVIRONMENT.
UNSTABLE ENVIRONMENT.
Where living creatures are in harmony with their surroundings,—where, in other words, they are adapted to their environment,—and where, further, this environment is apparently in a state of equilibrium; there we find the fewest and least marked variations in the living creatures. To the casual observer the face of nature maintains the same guise from year to year. The earth seems solid and unyielding; the mountains appear to be everlasting; the restless waters of rivers and brooks seemingly move and throb in the same channel; the tides ebb and flow in apparently unchanging ocean beds; the birds and flowers and woodlands look alike from year to year; and all the varied phenomena of nature appear completed and permanent, as if the present world were constructed in an unyielding mold.
But nothing is fixed and rigid in nature. The earth itself travels rapidly through space and brings in due season spring, summer, autumn and winter; revolves upon its axis and alternates the starry night with sunshine; and periodically changes its orbit so that at one time the northern pole has a temperate climate where water lilies may grow, and at another period presents an arctic climate with impassable barriers of ice. Ice and frost and other forces are breaking up the rocks of mountains, making larger and smaller fragments and even powder; the rains descend and the mountain brooks are swollen to resistless torrents which carry the fragments and mud to the rivers, and these latter take the mud on to the ocean.
Thus, by degrees, the mountains, hills and all the earth are being eroded and the great bulk of the detritus carried by the rivers to the sea and deposited along the sea margins. Thus sedimentation goes along with erosion, and gradually marginal sea bottoms of immense thickness are formed, which will in time be consolidated into rocks and uplifted as dry land. The ceaseless grinding of waves and tides erodes the coast line and adds débris to the marginal sea bottom. The finest sediment is carried out by the tides so far as to reach the ocean currents, and thus is strewn broadcast over portions of deep-sea bottom, and will also in due time be consolidated into rock.