inborn character

It is not because he can imagine any other origin for the trait which is for the moment puzzling, but simply because he may be uncertain as to whether it is an inborn character, or one due to the subsequent action of circumstances.

It is impossible in the present state of knowledge to answer these questions satisfactorily, but the balance of evidence appears to favour the view that sex is an unalterable, inborn character.

As to the future of those changes, I will not add to what I have already said, but there is evidently much room for speculation; and those who best know the villagers—their brave patience, their sincerity, the excellent groundwork of their nature—and those who see how full of promise are the children, generation after generation, until hardship and neglect spoil them, will be slow to believe what leisured folk are so fond of saying—namely, that these lowly people owe their lowliness to defects in their inborn character.

There are men whose cards in life are so bad, whose temptations to vice, either from circumstances or inborn character, seem so overwhelming, that, though we may punish, and in a certain sense blame, we can scarcely look on them as more responsible than some noxious wild beast.

When they rule, things do not work out in accordance with set calculation or inborn character.