For he tells us that a man can rise above and beyond his environment.
Now, a man's environment is composed of every external influence which affects him in any way, from the moment of his birth to the moment of his death.
Therefore a man cannot rise above and beyond his environment until he ceases to exist.
Mr. Campbell cites John Bunyan as a man who "rose above his environment." The fact being that Bunyan's good environment saved him from his bad environment.
From the preface to my edition of The Pilgrim's Progress I quote the following suggestive words:
How was it, one naturally asks, that a man of little education could produce two centuries ago a masterpiece which is still read wherever the English language is spoken, and has been translated into every European tongue? It is not sufficient to answer that the author of the work was a genius: it is necessary to show what the conditions were which enabled his genius to develop itself, led him to find the form of expression which best suited its character, and secured for what if produced immediate popularity and lasting fame.
Bunyan was a poor boy of very little education. But he was born with a great imagination, a sensitive nature, and keen powers of assimilation. He was, in short, a born literary genius.
In his youth he got amongst bad companions, and led a lewd and wicked sort of life.
How, then, came he to reform his life, and to write his wonderful book? To listen to Mr. Campbell, one would suppose that the tinker's boy rose against his environment, and without any help for good from that environment. But did he?
We find he served for some years in Cromwell's army. Would the fierce religious atmosphere of Cromwellian camps have no effect upon his sensitive and imaginative nature?