Woods: "Nature vs. Nurture" Not a Good Expression 427 



quickly) from one who has (accent on 

 the good) a good nature. So we may 

 have good-natured people who may be 

 lazy, dirty, and incompetent. It is only 

 by stressing the last word that we can 

 convey in good nature anything of the 

 Galtonian usage of the word. 



The word heredity is also far from 

 ideal as an expression of scientific ex- 

 actitude. In the first place, we have our 

 "social heredity" or even our "heredity 

 from God," though these usages are 

 usually pretty clearly differentiated, and 

 it is evident from the text that we are 

 talking about something other than the 

 functioning of reproductive germ-cells. 

 The chief difficulty in using the word 

 heredity is that to many people heredity 

 either means all that one is at birth, or 

 means all that one has for an ancestry. 

 Neither of these conceptions is in ac- 

 cordance with modern views on the 

 method of reproductive generation and 

 therefore it is undesirable to use the 

 word heredity in either of these senses. 



All that one is at birth is already 

 a compound resultant of germ-plasm 

 and environment. All that one has for 

 an ancestry may amount to little. It is 

 solely a question of how the ancestral 

 germ-plasms are sorted and arranged in 

 any particular case. 



The word "heredity" should be un- 

 derstood to signify all that is contained 

 in the original fertilized cell (zygote) 

 from which all the subsequent cells are, 

 by cell-division, produced. If the 

 chromosomes are found to be the sole 

 intracellular agencies controlling the 

 normal development of the body, then 

 the word "heredity" may be considered 

 as synonymous with chromosomes, and 

 to say a man has a good heredity is to 

 say he has good chromosomes. If, as 

 is more probable, other portions of the 

 cell enter somewhat into the matter, 

 though to a limited extent, then the 

 word "heredity" is almost, though not 

 quite, an equivalent of the word 

 •chromosomes. 



OF THE SAME HEREDITY 



George and John Seiffert, of York, Pa., eighteen 

 years old. (Fig. 24.) 



