84 THE CONTEOL OF LIFE 



that affect development : in Man's case, home, school, 

 town, country, cosmic surroundings, food and drink, 

 work and play, exercise and rest, companions and 

 teachers, examples and traditions. It rises from funda- 

 mental influences, such as those of food and fresh air, 

 to the supreme influences of the social heritage. 



§2. NUKTURE AND DEVELOPMENT 



Our first proposition is that the fullness of develop- 

 ment depends in part on the adequacy of the nurture. 

 A niggardly nurture may mean an imperfect unfolding 

 of the hereditary nature ; a rich nurture may mean its 

 fine blossoming. The constituents of our inheritance 

 are like buds. It does not seem as if we can in any 

 way add to or subtract from their number, but to some 

 extent nurture determines whether a bud of a bad 

 quality will remain sleeping or unfold its loathsome- 

 ness, whether a bud of good quality will open out in a 

 half-hearted way or with vigour. The inheritance is 

 the seed-corn ; nurture is the soil and the sunshine, the 

 wind and the rain and the morning dew. Nurture 

 cannot change bad seed into good, nor conversely, but 

 it may determine whether the crops yield thirty-fold or 

 a hundred-fold. No amount of nurture can make the 

 Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots, but 

 nurture can work miracles in field and garden, in school 

 and college. Nurture cannot make a silk purse out of a 

 sow's ear, but it often determines whether a man becomes- 

 a good citizen or a waster. One of the leading experi- 

 menters, Professor T. H. Morgan, writes : " It is a common 



