236 INBKEEDING AND OUTBKEEDING 



have been the stock arguments of those sociologists who 

 believe every man a star of the lirst magnitude darkened 

 by lack of opportunity. Let us consider such cases in 

 some detail. 



The worst trouble with the euthenic idealists is that 

 superficially they are not so far wrong, although funda- 

 mentally they miss the point entirely. Greatness in this 

 world is governed by many factors. Appreciating Lincoln 

 and Franklin for all they were, it is still allowable to 

 question whether there were not some thousands of others 

 of the same periods who would have entered the Hall of 

 Fame had they been given the same political environ- 

 ments. Many of these contemporaries doubtless were 

 great in the callings to which they were turned by force of 

 circumstances ; but the world seldom makes a very wide 

 path to the door of him who makes a better mouse-trap 

 than his neighbor. Castle 18 has called attention to the 

 notable astronomers, the eminent biologists, inspired by 

 the teachings of Briinnow and of Agassiz. If Briinnow 

 had found a home at Princeton instead of Michigan, and 

 Agassiz a place at Yale instead of Harvard, new names 

 would be found among American astronomers and biolo- 

 gists, but their number would not be less. In short, one 

 may admit with the euthenist the role of chance, of oppor- 

 tunity, of personal influence, of political preferment, of 

 economic stress, in the moulding of men; one may ac- 

 knowledge the difficulties attending the ranking of the 

 great and the near-great; and yet abate not a jot or tittle 

 of the position that inherent capacity, inherited potenti- 

 ality, lies at the base of all. It is the one solid foundation 

 on which to build. 



Could one gauge the ability of the progenitors of 



