THE CHILD AND HEREDITY 169 



environment may bring, do for him, except simply make 

 him what he already is? Have we not denied not only 

 the transmission of acquired characters, but the possibility 

 of acquiring anything that is really new? 



I reply that no answer except a fatalistic one is possible 

 to these questions if we start from the ordinary presup- 

 position, to which I have already alluded, namely, that the 

 more we attribute to heredity the less we can attribute to 

 the environment ; or that in taking the child from the 

 power of the one we place him under the power of the 

 other. If heredity and environment are thus taken as 

 opposed, or as acting singly, the possibility of that identity 

 in change which the progressive attainment of rational 

 character implies disappears. For the first means mere 

 fixity, and the second mere change. The first denies the 

 improvement of the self ; the second dissipates the self. 



But I should like to question this assumption of the 

 opposition of heredity and environment, or of their alter- 

 nate sway over human life. The fact is that life in all its 

 activities implies their interaction. The child is never 

 under the dominion of one of them to the exclusion of 

 the other, for they signify nothing so long as they are held 

 apart. Except for the environment his powers would 

 remain potential only, and mere potentiality, whatever it 

 means, is not actuality ; and similarly, on the other hand, 

 the mere environment has no significance, and its influence 

 is not real where there are no powers that can utilise it. 

 The entire meaning and power of both lies in their relation. 

 They are what they are through mutual implication. 



And, further, seeing that they enter as factors into 

 organic life, the increase of the one does not imply the 

 diminution of the other. On the contrary, the larger the 



