would rather mate with the vulgar daughter of a shoddy contractor than with the most accomplished teacher. A gentleman feels that it is for him to earn the bread, and for his wife to take care of his home and children; but the fortune-hunter wants a wife who can do both. He is always a sensual, selfish brute; and it does not take long for his victim to find this out. One thing I know, which is, that a good education, with practical experience in the training and managing of children, far from unfitting, renders a woman all the more fit for being a good wife and mother; and he who gains the love of such a woman, even if she have not a penny, acquires a fortune of higher value than that of all the Astors.

I

CHAPTER XXIII.

IS GENIUS HEREDITARY?

HAVE sometimes thought that when God made man and breathed the breath of life into him, he gave him some of his own immortal Spirit, some of that Spirit which is ceaselessly active in forming new creations; and having thus endowed him with creative power, he gave him the faculty of speech to perpetuate his creations. Thus distinguished from the rest of the animal creation, which has life but not spirit, instinct but not reason, growth but no development, man needs only ceaseless effort to make himself truly the image of his Creator. All noble things are within his grasp, and

perfect happiness within his attainment.

But man has another spirit, which, for consistency's sake, we must assume to be given him by the same Creator: he has a spirit capable of evil action, and even of development in evil activity. This also has its purpose. The good spirit attains its noblest perfections in combating the evil. Without evil we could not conceive of good; without vice we could not conceive of virtue. Man's task, therefore, is to conquer and suppress the evil spirit, and to encourage and develop the

good; to avail himself of every opportunity for the exercise of virtue and the suppression of vice; and thus, by constant effort, to make the evil spirit minister to the good.

Certain it is, that this Heaven-born spirit is capable of infinite expansion, of boundless improvement. "The powers of nature," says Buckle, "notwithstanding their apparent magnitude, are limited and stationary; but the powers of man, so far as experience and analogy can guide us, are unlimited; nor are we possessed of any evidence which authorizes us to assign even an imaginary boundary at which the human intellect will, of necessity, be brought to a stand." What an inspiring thought this is! Is not this one of the intimations and assurances of immortality? How can we conceive of an eternity of sameness of existence? The future life must be, if at all, an immortality of progress, a ceaseless progression in all glorious things. "The eye of man hath not seen, nor hath his heart conceived, what is reserved for him that loves the Lord." Goethe says: "Man should believe in immortality; he has a right to this belief; it corresponds with the wants of his nature, and he may believe in the promises of religion. To me, the eternal existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity: if I work on incessantly till my death, nature is bound to give me another form of existence when the present one can no longer sustain my spirit."

All great minds have believed in the immortality of the soul. "Thought," says Bulwer Lytton, "is continually flowing through my mind. I scarcely know a moment in which I am awake and not thinking. Nor by thought do I mean mere reverie or castle-building; but a sus

tained process of thinking. I have always in my mind some distinct train of ideas which I seek to develop, or some positive truth which I am trying to arrive at. If I lived for a million years, I could not exhaust a millionth part of my thoughts. I know that I must be immortal, if only because I think."

Some people speak of hereditary talent, hereditary genius. This is a matter, the transmission of genius. from father to son, which is by no means certain. Good authorities deny it altogether, and declare that there is no proof of its existence. To point to examples here and there tends as much to disprove as to prove it; for these can doubtless be met by quite as many of a contrary nature. Mr. Buckle denies not only the existence of hereditary talent, but of hereditary vices and hereditary virtues; and declares that "whoever will critically examine the evidence will find that there is no proof of their existence." Virtues and talents cannot be bequeathed like an heirloom : they must, like other powers, be developed by education, by contact with the world, by experience; they must be made to grow up out of that free human nature and large general capacity common to all men. Every man must work out his own salvation. Who ever found that the sons of clergymen and saintly persons were noted for virtue? Who ever found that the sons of philosophers, heroes, and martyrs were like their fathers? There is a society in England whose object is to remove the children of criminals and paupers to the colonies; and the experience of this society tends to confirm Mr. Buckle's view. Its annual report shows that "the children of habitual and hardened criminals turn out, as far as can be judged, just as well as any other; the

two things needful being that they be removed when quite young from the vicious atmosphere in which they are born, and that the severance from the old influences be complete and final." Thus the Creator gives every child an equal chance at the start in life.

The philosopher Locke gives it as his opinion that "men have been much the same for natural endowments in all ages;" and Sir William Jones declares his conviction that "all men are born with an equal capacity for improvement." Now although it is true that every man comes into the world with certain peculiarities and proclivities derived from his ancestors, certain moods of temperament which he knows were peculiar to his fathers; yet the development and formation of his character, the shape and bent which these peculiarities take, are determined by the surroundings, the associations, the training, and the various experiences of early life. A part of that very development of character is the power he acquires of controlling these moods of temperament. Look at Byron. There was little or no genius in his ancestry, but a tremendous quantity of that savage, fiery, devil-may-care temperament of the Highland Celt, which he inherited in full measure from the maternal side of his house; and that dogged, moody, defiant temper of the Anglo Saxon, which he derived from the paternal side. Now had he only been carefully trained, had he only been taught to watch these tendencies and to govern them, that temperament might have been brought fully under control, and the character of the man, without detriment to his genius, might have been altogether different. His development was bad, hence the man turned out bad.

It would indeed be hard if any child found that, by