=Man’s relation to the past.=--Each new being at the initial of life is the sum total of all the influences, good and bad, of his ancestry back to Adam. The child is largely the product of his parents. He is not a duplicate of either, but the product of their blended personalities, being influenced much by his grand-parents, less and less as his ancestry becomes more and more remote. During embryonic and fetal development the child will tend to unfold in all departments of its nature according to the pattern received from its ancestors, but this may be more or less influenced by maternal impressions. After birth the child has two agents that will ever be active, heredity and environment. These two agents at their best are never perfect. Hence the child will ever need a third agent, the grace of God. =Why children in the same home differ.=--Here is a family of five children. They differ from each other quite as much as if they represented five families. Now, if heredity does not explain this difference, then the children, having the same environment, would be alike. The children in the same home differ from each other for the reason that the parents, at the creative moment, did not sustain to each child the same combination of physical, mental and moral relations. At the creative moment of the second child the parents were not in the same physical, mental and moral states they were at the creative moment of the first. They had each changed in their physical states of health, their mental interests and in their moral and religious convictions and experiences. For the same reason each child differs from all the others in the family. Though they had the same environments, no two were alike. So great is the influence of heredity that no two people can be made alike by giving to them the same environment. =Twins.=--If two persons could receive the same heredity and environment, they would be exactly alike. The nearest approach we have to this is in the case of twins. Nearly one-half of twins are so much alike [Illustration: LOUISE AND MAY CARTER, TWINS.] that it is difficult to tell them apart. Other twins resemble each other more than children in the same home born months apart. =Why some are alike and others are not.=--If the creative moment of twins were the same, or nearly the same, the parents sustained to each the same combination of influences. If their creative moments occurred hours or even days apart, then there was time for one or both parents to sustain a different relation to one, from that they sustained to the other. This accounts for the difference between some twins. Not only do twins resemble each other physically, but often their mental and moral tastes and tendencies are very much alike.