When we have eliminated from human nature the vicious tendencies which are due either to immaturity or to the numberless influences that come under the general head of environment, we shall find that a very small percentage remain to be accounted for. We need not have recourse to the doctrine of original sin in order to account for these. So far I have said nothing about heredity, partly because its influence on the moral development of the individual is, I think, very small compared with that of environment, and partly because it is impossible to consider the extent and character of its influence, without going deeply into certain large and complicated problems. For example, it would be impossible for me to say much about the current, though gradually waning, belief in the force of heredity, without saying something about its Far Eastern equivalent, the belief in re-incarnation,--in other words, without asking whether a man inherits from his parents and other ancestors, or from his former selves. That different persona are born with widely different moral tendencies and propensities, is as certain as that some strains of wheat are hardier and more productive than others. And it is possible, and even probable, that there are exceptional cases of moral evil which point to congenital depravity, and cannot otherwise be accounted for. But in these admissions I am making no concession to the believer in original sin; for he regards human nature as such as congenitally depraved, and therefore can take no cognisance of exceptional cases of congenital depravity, cases which by breaking the rule that the new-born child is morally and spiritually healthy, may be said to prove it. In fine, then, all moral evil can be accounted for on grounds which are quite compatible with the assumption that the normal child is healthy, on all the planes of his being, at the moment of his birth. That he carries with him into the world the capacity for being affected by adverse influences of various kinds, is undeniable; but so does every other living thing; and if congenital depravity is to be predicated of him for that reason, it must also be predicated of every new-born animal and plant.