HERITAGE OF THE INDIVIDUAL 297 



physically and mentally is determined not by its heritage 

 alone nor by its environing conditions alone, but by both 

 in intricate combination. Although apparently we do 

 not inherit the effects on our forebears of their surroundings 

 and training, nevertheless we are the heirs to their mores, 

 which entails added responsibilities as well as opportunities 

 for each succeeding generation. Thus 'social heredity' bids 

 fair to outstrip our conservative and essentially unchanging 

 inherited nature. The EUTHENIST emphasizes nurture, the 

 EUGENIST emphasizes nature. As is so often the case, how- 

 ever, when doctrines are opposed, the truth combines both; 

 though we cannot doubt, knowing what we know of the 

 genetic constitution of organisms, that from the standpoint 

 of permanent advance racial rather than individual - 

 the path to progress is through EUGENICS, the science of 

 being well born. "This distinction between heritage and 

 acquirements leaves a fatalistic impression in many minds, 

 and to some extent this is justified. We cannot get away 

 from inheritance. On the other hand, although the organism 

 changes slowly in its heritable organization, it is very modi- 

 fiable individually; and this is Man's particular secret to 

 correct his internal organic inheritance by what we may call 

 his external heritage of material and spiritual influences." 

 (Thomson.) (Fig. 152.) 



It is therefore clear that the problem of human improve- 

 ment has two aspects: in the first place, the effects of culture 

 on the individual which, though not inherited, are cumulative 

 from generation to generation through training; and secondly, 

 racial betterment through breeding the best. But the 

 reader may well ask: What is the possibility of anything 

 much better than the present best if heredity is essentially a 

 recombination of the characters of our forebears a turn of 

 the kaleidoscope? 



