p. 16 (576) | A Cowardly Plea

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 3, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 36.

A Cowardly Plea.

A prominent daily truly says that “heredity does more harm as a doctrine than as a fact,” and continues:—

Heredity is so easy a way of accounting for crime that it appeals irresistibly to both criminals and a certain class of “scientific experts.” And lots of people who are not criminals, but just morally lazy, plead in defense of their sins that they are “the sum of their ancestors.” Thus they derive the comfortable but character-rotting conclusion that they are not responsible for their evil deeds.

To burden our ancestors with all our moral defects while we make no effort to overcome them, is moral suicide. The article above quoted from further says:—

So far from heredity, when this side of insanity, exempting one from moral responsibility, it really increases that responsibility. The knowledge that you have a weak spot, is a command to guard yourself there—a command that a self-respecting man will obey. Encouraging the belief that, because you are tempted by feeble nerves or tainted blood, you have a sort of right to fall, is but the Satanic voice of self-indulgence, a voice which is pleasant to the ear of every man, no matter who or what his ancestors were.

Cowards plead heredity for their sins; brave men give battle to the devil that is in them, whether that devil be a family guest of ancient standing or an agreeable new-comer introducing himself with the alluring proposal that you join him in a “good time.”

He who will choose God’s will, the way of right, has all the moral forces of the universe on his side.