The nature and quality of his hair and his eyes, of his spine and his brain, of his passions and desires, were all settled _for_ and not _by_ him before he drew the breath of life. If we blame a man because he has inherited fickleness from an Italian grandfather, or praise him because he has inherited steadfastness from a Dutch grandmother, we are actually praising or blaming him because, before he was born, an Italian married a Hollander. If we blame a man for inheriting cupidity from an ancestor who was greedy and rapacious, or for inheriting licentious inclinations from an ancestor who was a rake, we are blaming him for failing to be born of better parents. Briefly, then, heredity makes, and environment modifies, a man's nature. And both these forces are _outside_ the man. Therefore man becomes that which he is by the action of forces outside himself. Therefore it is unjust to blame a man for being that which he is. Therefore it is unjust to blame him for doing that which he does. Therefore our human laws, which punish men for their acts, are unjust laws. Now, before we go fully into the meanings of the words "heredity" and "environment," let us make a short summary of the arguments above put forth. Since man did not create his own nature, man is not responsible for his own acts. Therefore all laws, human or divine, which punish man for his acts are unjust laws. CHAPTER THREE--WHERE DO OUR NATURES COME FROM? I HOPE the reader will not fight shy of heredity. I trust he will find it quite simple and interesting; and I promise him to use no unfamiliar words, nor to trouble him with difficult and tedious scientific expositions. I deal with heredity before environment, because it is needful to take them one at a time, and heredity comes first; as birth before schooling. But we must not fall into the bad habit of thinking of heredity and environment apart from each other, for it is _both_, and not either of them that make man's character.