48 SOME RECENT MISINTERPRETATIONS OF THE 



For example suppose we took 100 environmental factors rather 

 more I fancy than we could ever hope within a reasonable time to 

 modify by social or political effort and considered their intercorre- 

 lations to be of order -40. Then we should have to multiply by the 

 factor i -57. Thus with an average environmental correlation of -05, 

 the result would not be Vioo x -05, i.e. the '50 of independent environ- 

 mental factors, still less the unintelligible 100 x '05 of Mr Carr-Saunders' 

 notion, but only 1-57 x -05 = -078, or not a sixth part of the intensity 

 of the hereditary influence of a single parent ! 



I propose that we should now turn to a more detailed study of 

 environmental correlations in order to measure the applicability of 

 the above results. Five years ago in the lecture on Nature and Nurture, 

 the Problem of the Future, I put before my audience the Tables I and 

 II just reproduced (p. 40). The average value of the Nature factor 

 was -51 and of the Nurture factor -03. I never anticipated that any 

 one would be so misguided as to crudely multiply -03 by 17 and then 

 compare the result with the hereditary correlation for a single character 

 between a single pair of relatives. But I have learnt much in these 

 five years, and not the least important element of my knowledge is 

 the confirmation of my opinion that the great battle-cries of social 

 parties will in the present century turn on this problem of Nature 

 versus Nurture 1 . In the consciousness of this development the Galton 

 Laboratory has devoted much of its energies during this period to the 

 accumulation of data bearing on the influence of environment on child 

 welfare. Owing to the unremitting labours of my colleague Ethel M. 

 Elderton, we now know vastly more than we did five years ago. Where 

 we then knew one environmental correlation we now know a dozen; 

 further we have learnt the necessity for the classification of these 

 environmental factors, not only because certain classes are capable of 

 direct municipal control and others are not, but because certain classes 

 must be met by educative rather than by legislative action if they 

 present features which call for remedy 2 . If we term "environmental," 



1 Since this lecture was delivered the present war has come to test on a gigantic 

 scale how far free political institutions are compatible with the national organisation 

 requisite for national survival. However the war may ultimately end it cannot fail 

 to emphasise the movement towards national organisation as a necessity for existence. 

 This national organisation cannot stop short at organising the existing, it must face 

 the wider problem of how to obtain the highest type of citizen as material for 

 organisation. 



1 It is characteristic of this period of change that greater stress is being laid on 

 educative remedies, especially on the instruction of parents. This is in accord with 

 the result reached by the Galton' Laboratory that parental habit is far more influential 



