Corresponding to these in plant-life we have—

(1) If two acorns from the same tree were sown, the one in a deep clay soil and a favourable situation, the other in a light sandy soil and an unfavourable situation, the former would in time develop into a large and shapely, the latter into a puny and misshapen oak-tree. It would be the same, mutatis mutandis, with two human beings who were exposed from their earliest days to widely different permanent influences.

(2) If wheat of a certain strain were sown on the same day in two adjoining fields, one of which was well farmed and the other badly farmed, the resulting crops would differ widely in yield and value. It would be the same with two human beings, one of whom (to take a pertinent example) attended a school of Utopian tendencies, and the other a school of a more conventional type. Of all moralising (or demoralising) influences education is by far the most important, owing to the fact that it can do more, and is in a position to do more, than any other influence either to foster or to hinder growth.

The influence of weather on plant-life is, of course, enormous. In one year the fruit-crop in a given neighbourhood is a failure: in another year it gluts the market. One explanation of this fact, which has its exact analogies in human life, will be given in the next paragraph.

(3) All forms of life are exposed to the attacks of enemies of various kinds. Whether they shall beat off those attacks or succumb to them depends in large measure on the nature of the growth that they are making; and this again depends, largely if not wholly, on the nature of the general influences to which they have been exposed. For many years I lived in a district in which hops were grown on a large scale; and I naturally took an interest in the staple industry of my adopted county. I noticed that whenever (during the summer months) there came a spell of cold winds from the north-east—winds which tend to arrest plant-growth—the hop-bines were at once assailed by blight and other pests, and the safety of the growing crop was imperilled. And I noticed further that when the wind got round to the south-west, and warm showers began to stimulate the growth of the flagging plants, the pests that had assailed them disappeared as if by magic, and the anxieties of the growers were relieved. As it is with plants, so it is with human beings. They too have their enemies,—temptations of various kinds and other evil influences that "war against the soul." And they too will be able to beat off their assailants just so far as their own growth is vigorous and healthy; and will succumb to their attacks, to their own serious detriment, just so far as their own growth is feeble and sickly.

The bearing of this fact on the problem of the origin of moral evil is obvious. That the evils which assail the organism, be it a plant or a human being, are not inherent in its nature, is proved by the fact that when the growth of the organism is normal and unimpeded, the assailants are always beaten off. As it is the growth of the organism—the development of its own nature—which enables it to resist the evils that threaten it, we must assume that its nature is good. Indeed the evils that threaten it are called evils for no other reason than that they imperil its well-being; and it follows that in calling them evils we imply that the organism is intrinsically good.

When we have eliminated from human nature the vicious tendencies which are due either to immaturity or to the numberless influences that come under the general head of environment, we shall find that a very small percentage remain to be accounted for. We need not have recourse to the doctrine of original sin in order to account for these. So far I have said nothing about heredity, partly because its influence on the moral development of the individual is, I think, very small compared with that of environment, and partly because it is impossible to consider the extent and character of its influence, without going deeply into certain large and complicated problems. For example, it would be impossible for me to say much about the current, though gradually waning, belief in the force of heredity, without saying something about its Far Eastern equivalent, the belief in re-incarnation,—in other words, without asking whether a man inherits from his parents and other ancestors, or from his former selves. That different persona are born with widely different moral tendencies and propensities, is as certain as that some strains of wheat are hardier and more productive than others. And it is possible, and even probable, that there are exceptional cases of moral evil which point to congenital depravity, and cannot otherwise be accounted for. But in these admissions I am making no concession to the believer in original sin; for he regards human nature as such as congenitally depraved, and therefore can take no cognisance of exceptional cases of congenital depravity, cases which by breaking the rule that the new-born child is morally and spiritually healthy, may be said to prove it.

In fine, then, all moral evil can be accounted for on grounds which are quite compatible with the assumption that the normal child is healthy, on all the planes of his being, at the moment of his birth. That he carries with him into the world the capacity for being affected by adverse influences of various kinds, is undeniable; but so does every other living thing; and if congenital depravity is to be predicated of him for that reason, it must also be predicated of every new-born animal and plant.

But the final proof that Man is by nature a child of God, is one which has already been hinted at, and will presently be further developed,—namely, that growth—the healthy, vigorous growth of the whole human being, the harmonious development of his whole nature—is in its essence a movement towards moral and spiritual perfection. And the final proof that the doctrine of Man's congenital depravity is false is the practical one that the doctrine is ever tending to fulfil its own gloomy predictions, and to justify its own low estimate of human nature,—in other words, that by making education repressive and devitalising, by introducing externalism, with its endless train of attendant evils, into Man's daily life, and by making him disbelieve in and even despair of himself, it has done more perhaps than all other influences added together to deprave his heart and to wreck his life.