The traces of consumption may become fainter, or be wholly effaced: the inherent tendency to vice or crime may be eradicated.

And so heredity, from being a curse, may become a blessing.

We acknowledge that in the matter of our birth, as in our nature generally, there are previous circumstances which affect us.

But upon this platform of circumstances or within this wall of necessity, we have still the power of creating a life for ourselves by the informing energy of the human will.
There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger.

All the children born in his state are foundlings.