22 THE RELATIVE STRENGTH OF NURTURE AND NATURE 



an unhealthy trade of the father and the drinking of the pan-nts 

 seem to have very little influence on the physique of the children. 

 r. -wding, bad economic conditions, bad physical and moral 

 conditions of the parents have practically no effect on the intelligence, 

 eyesight, glands and hearing of the children. It is possible that better 

 measurements of environmental characters than we yet possess may 

 show more correlation, and it is also possible that other characters 

 may prove more influential. But so far as our researches reach we 

 think we have shown that it is quite easy to demonstrate a large 

 hereditary factor, and it is not at all an easy thing to show that any 

 of the environmental factors we have measured up to the present time 

 have any important effect on the children. Not only are the correla- 

 tions low but we have reason to think that such small correlations as 

 exist may be secondary results of racial or hereditary influences. 



Practically all social legislation has been based on the assumption 

 that better environment meant race progress, whereas the link between 

 the two is probably that a genuine race progress will result in a better 

 environment. The views of philanthropists and of those who insist 

 that the race can be substantially bettered by changed environment 

 appeal to our sympathies, but these reformers have yet to prove their 

 creed. As far as our investigations have yet gone they show that 

 improvement in social conditions will not compensate for a bad 

 hereditary influence ; the problem of physical and mental degeneration 

 cannot be solved by preventing mothers from working, by closing 

 public-houses, or by erecting model dwellings. The only way to keep 

 a nation strong mentally and physically is to see to it that each new 

 generation is derived chiefly from the fitter members of the generation 

 before. 



