Marshall Mather

John Ruskin Marshall Mather

Excerpt from the book:


Ancestry, disposition, and education are the three cardinal points determining the course and the consequence of human existence. Ancestry ranks first, for intellectual and moral greatness are hereditary; and though all great sons may not have had great fathers, the germ of their greatness lies somewhere in their families' past. In the quantity and quality of this inherited greatness, or, in other words, in disposition, the possibilities and attainments of the man are foreshadowed, for no one can rise above himself, nor become truly great in any other orbit save the one fixed for him at birth, and correspondent to his bent and natural powers. As for education, it is an instrument only, and limited by the potentiality of the material upon which it is brought to bear. It matters little how comprehensive and thorough it may be as a system; apart from the great laws of selection and development it remains powerless as a force in the improvement of the race. Thus, man is a product of the past as well as a factor in the future-a meeting-point as well as a starting-point, all that radiates from him being controlled by that converging in him. Hence, he who would faithfully estimate a man's life and labours must not only know what the man has himself done, but what others have done for him and in him, for, apart from the interpretative light of antecedents, the simplest and most uneventful life is enigmatical and unknown.


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