THE INFLUENCES OF NURTUEE 105 



of racial welfare, modifications are not entailed because 

 an advantageous constitution is thus saved from being 

 damaged by dints and bufietings incident on the che- 

 quered life of the individual body. 



If it be said that it is incredible that individual expe- 

 rience counts for nought in evolution, the answer must 

 be that is not asserted. The individual experience 

 affords the opportunity for playing the cards which 

 germinal variability puts in the organism's hands, the 

 opportunity for testing the survival value of new de- 

 partures whose origin is from within. 



§ 4. Nurture of the Higher Faculties 

 As we have seen, Man's natural inheritance includes 

 on the mental and moral side (1) a common stock of 

 intellectual and emotional capacities (shared in some 

 measure by all mankind, but varying greatly in inten- 

 sity or potential), (2) a common stock of fundamental 

 instinctive predispositions and springs of conduct, and 

 (3) a number of individual traits or idiosyncrasies. 



Now, while the respiratory movements of the new- 

 born child are set a-going almost automatically by a 

 change in the physico-chemical character of the blood, 

 and are continued almost automatically throughout 

 life, so finely adjusted according to need that they are 

 rarely at fault in healthy people, it is surely very dif- 

 ferent with the higher mental and moral capacities. 

 They are not Hke so many musical boxes in our brain 

 that may be set a-going with a touch and then left 

 alone. They are more like seeds which rec[uire to be 



