NATURE AND NURTURE 91 



particular sort of elephant it shall be ; perhaps even 

 whether it shall be a good-natured, tamable elephant 

 or a dangerous, vicious animal ! I know a family of 

 people in which a dimple in the chin has been inher- 

 ited- through five generations, though there was nothing 

 peculiar, nothing having to do with dimples, in the 

 "nurture" of all those persons. To such apparent 

 trifles does the grip of heredity extend ! Surely, then, 

 it is all "nature," and "nurture" is a negligible factor! 



4. The matter is not so easily settled, though, for inten-eia- 

 when we come to study inheritance in detail we discover 



that the individual has a bundle of inherited qualities, factors in 



the m- 



For each of these qualities, or rather determiners ol dividual 



qualities, all the others act as an environment. The 



individual is thus complex, and the total result comes 



from the interactions of many forces, internal and ex- 



ternal. In man, at least, the inheritance is potentially 



richer than the possible development, so that choice 



partly determines the adult character. As Bergson 



states : "Life is a tendency, and the essence of a tend- 



ency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating by its 



very growth divergent directions among which the im- 



petus is divided. This we observe in ourselves, in the 



evolution of that special tendency which we call our 



character. Each of us, glancing back over his history, 



will find that his child-personality, though indivisible, 



united in itself diverse persons which could remain 



blended just because they were in their nascent state; 



this indecision, so charged with promise, is one of the 



greatest charms of childhood. But these interwoven 



personalities become incompatible in course of growth, 



and, as each of us can live b.ut one life, a choice must 



perforce be made. We choose in reality without ceas- 



ing ; without ceasing, also, we abandon many things. 



