NATURE AND NURTURE 77 



;. tmns, — and the beneficial influence of the " Lamarckian factors," 



IJB far as this influence is beneficial, is not an explanation, but a 



I^Kt, that itself calls for explanation. 



■■^ Is there any evidence that the influence of nurture is inherently- 

 beneficial ? If there is not, must we not believe that all its effects, 

 except those which result from preexisting adaptive nature, will 



IIB haphazard, so far as their fitness for the needs of living things 

 TS in question? Will they not be identical with what Darwin has 

 called ** fortuitous variation " ? 



It scarcely seems necessary to point out, at this late day, that 

 Darwin's assertion that an event is '' fortuitous " is not to be inter- 

 preted as belief that it is due to Chance, or that it is out of the 

 chain of natural causation. If, with Aristotle, we say the rain 

 does not fall to make the farmer's corn grow, any more than it 

 falls to spoil his corn, all we mean is that we discover no connec- 

 tion between the physical causes of the shower and the farmer's 

 needs. 



Few are bold enough to assert that what we fail to discover 

 does not exist, although all must admit that it explains nothing. 



The hypothesis that the rain falls to spoil the farmer's corn is 

 inadmissible, not because we know it to be untrue, but because we 

 find no evidence of its truth, and no value in its practical applica- 

 tion. If, in the absence of an adaptive nature, we find no con- 

 nection between the effects of nurture and the needs of living 

 things, then nurture is fortuitous, so far as we are concerned, as 

 an explanation of adaptive structure. 



So far as I can see, there is no a priori reason why nurture 

 might not give rise to adaptive structures, as perfect and admi- 

 rable as the heart or the eye, although we find, as a matter of fact, 

 that injurious nurture is just as compatible with the system of 

 things as beneficial nurture. Nor is the difficulty at all diminished 

 by the belief that a necessary law of universal progress or evolu- 

 tion gives to nurture a beneficent impetus; for men of science 

 repudiate the opinion that natural laws are rulers and governors 

 over nature ; looking with suspicion on all " necessary " or " uni- 

 versal " laws. 



The production of words and sentences and great works of 

 literature and science, by running type through a hopper, is not 



