360 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



serviceable. Are those variations which produce new species caused 

 by the environment ? Can life be regarded as the resultant of physical 

 forces? Many zoologists and physiologists answer in the affirmative, 

 but it appears rather that life develops not on account of, but in large 

 measure in spite of, physical forces these tend to the dissipation of 

 energy, they are the causes of death rather than of life. So in like 

 manner it seems that the environment would tend to reduce the great 

 man to its level rather than to lift him above it Dante wrote in spite 

 of his surroundings, not on account of them. Still the environment 

 counts for much. If the seed of the white pine is dropped among New 

 England rocks it will grow into a small bush, if planted in the rich 

 soil of the south it will become a great tree. We have the 'Divine 

 Comedy' because Dante had 'the steep stairs and bitter bread' in place 

 of Beatrice. 



As the environment tends to reduce all things to' its level, so 

 heredity tends to maintain the type. Whence then the great man who 

 brings something new into the world? Carlyle had the same heredity 

 and the same initial environment as his brothers. Why should he write 

 of heroes and become one, while they remained peasants? Why, we 

 may ask the theory of organic evolution, should certain individuals of a 

 species possess variations tending to greater complexity, which lay 

 down the lines of evolution ? Perhaps all we can say is that the question 

 'why' is more in place in the nursery than in the laboratory. Why 

 heredity should maintain the type is as obscure as why new types should 

 arise. If the world were a chaos, no questions would be asked, as it is a 

 cosmos it must have a certain definite order. But if when we ask 

 'why' we really mean 'how,' then we have the plain way of science 

 before us. We can investigate the stability and variability of the type, 

 we can study the effects of the environment on the individual. We 

 know perhaps in a general way that any great war will find the material 

 at hand for the making of a Grant and a Lee, and, on the other hand, 

 that a Shelley may be what he is in spite of heredity and environment. 

 More exact knowledge can only come from an inductive study of facts. 



As in organic evolution the effects of variations are less obscure 

 than their causes, so in social evolution we can trace more easily the 

 influence of great men than we can account for their origin. As we 

 ascend the scale of animal life and human development the role of 

 social tradition becomes increasingly potent. A new trait in a single 

 individual among lower animals, even though it may be both useful 

 and stable, can have but an infinitesimal effect in altering the species. 

 In man a new advance made by a single individual becomes quickly 

 the common property of all. Let fire be discovered and we have a trait 

 that endows every one. Let the printing press be invented and each 

 can speak with a thousand tongues. Let Dante see . the ideal of 



