He comes into the world just as his ancestors have made him. He did not choose his ancestors; he had nothing to do with the moulding of their natures. Every quality, good or bad, in his own nature, has been handed down to him by his forbears, without knowledge or consent.
How can we blame the new-born or unborn baby for the nature and arrangement of the cells—which are he?
Born into the world as he was made, he is a helpless infant, dependent upon his nurses and his teachers. He did not choose his nurses, nor his teachers; he cannot control their conduct towards him, nor test the truth nor virtue of the lessons he learns from them.
He grows older the nature he inherited from his ancestors is modified, for better or for worse, by the lessons and the treatment given to him by his nurses, his companions, and his teachers.
So, when he becomes a man he is that which his forbears and his fellow creatures have made him.
That is to say, he is the product of his heredity and his environment. He could not be otherwise.
How, then, can it be just to blame him for being that which he must be?
But, it may be objected, a man has power to change, or to conquer, his environment; to train, or to subdue, his original nature.
That depends upon the strength of his original nature (which his ancestors handed down to him) and of his environment—which consists, largely, of the actions of his fellow-creatures.
A man has power to do that which his forbears have made him able to do. He has power to do no more.