We've given him his flesh. We're his foster-parents, if you
like. But God and Humanity are his father and mother. I found all this
out one night on the roof in Sydney. He's a little bit of the spirit of
God incarnate for awhile."
"Keltic imagination," he said tentatively.
"Very well, then. If you don't like it my way, I'll put it in the
scientific way. You twitted me once for forgetting that biology applied
to us two. Doesn't it apply here? Biology shows that nature's pushing
out, paring down weaknesses and things that get in the way. If a
drunkard--who is a weakness, a scar on the face of nature--was going to
have drunkard babies, nature would make something happen to drunkards so
that they can't have children at all...."
"She does--in the last stages," murmured Louis.
"That's a good thing, perhaps. But I don't believe in inheriting things
like drinking. I don't believe my people inherited it at all. They
inherited a sort of temperament, perhaps--and it was the sort of
temperament that was accessible to drink-hunger. People talk about
drinking, or other weaknesses being in their families. Drinking seems to
be in most families nowadays, simply because people are slack and lazy
and drinking is the easiest and least expensive weakness to pander to.
But I certainly believe most hereditary weakness comes from legend or
from imitation.
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