NATURE AND NURTURE 91 



particular sort of elephant it shall be ; perhaps even 

 whether it shall be a good-natured, tamable elephant 

 or a dangerous, vicious animal ! I know a family of 

 people in which a dimple in the chin has been inher- 

 ited through five generations, though there was nothing 

 peculiar, nothing having to do with dimples, in the 

 ''nurture" of all those persons. To such apparent 

 trifles does the grip of heredity extend ! Surely, then, 

 it is all "nature," and "nurture" is a negligible factor! 



4. The matter is not so easily settled, though, for interreia- 

 when we come to study inheritance in detail we discover hereditary 

 that the individual has a bundle of inherited qualities, factors in 

 For each of these qualities, or rather determiners of dividual 

 qualities, all the others act as an environment. The 

 individual is thus complex, and the total result comes 

 from the interactions of many forces, internal and ex- 

 ternal. In man, at least, the inheritance is potentially 

 richer than the possible development, so that choice 

 partly determines the adult character. As Bergson 

 states : "Life is a tendency, and the essence of a tend- 

 ency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating by its 

 very growth divergent directions among which the im- 

 petus is divided. This we observe in ourselves, in the 

 evolution of that special tendency which we call our 

 character. Each of us, glancing back over his history, 

 will find that his child-personality, though indivisible, 

 united in itself diverse persons which could remain 

 blended just because they were in their nascent state ; 

 this indecision, so charged with promise, is one of the 

 greatest charms of childhood. But these interwoven 

 personalities become incompatible in course of growth, 

 and, as each of us can live but one life, a choice must 

 perforce be made. We choose in reality without ceas- 

 ing; without ceasing, also, we abandon many things. 



