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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: already there, a part of the existing order of things; and is he not
the son of his father and heir therefore of the paternal skill?
Not that such inherited aptness is recognized scientifically; it is
simply taken for granted instinctively. It is but a halfhearted
intuition, however, for the possibility of an inheritance from the
mother's side is as out of the question as if her severance from her
own family had an ex post facto effect. As for his individual
predilection in the matter, nature has considerately conformed to
custom by giving him none. He becomes a cabinet-maker, for instance,
because his ancestors always have been cabinet-makers. He inherits
the family business as a necessary part of the family name. He is
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