4 Environment and Efficiency 



vironment ; what the living creature is, or has to start with, 

 in virtue of its hereditary relation, what it does in the course 

 of its activity, what surrounding influences play upon it, 

 these are the three determining factors of life." l What they 

 hesitate to accept are such sweeping statements as those 

 just quoted, which entirely eliminate Function and Environ- 

 ment as determining factors of character. 



Again, Mr. Mudge asserts that "vice" or " degeneracy" 

 occurs originally as a " mutation " (i.e. a spontaneous varia- 

 tion), and is thus handed down in the germ-plasm from one 

 generation to the next. But if we admit that our Class A is 

 largely made up of "degenerates," how can we prove that 

 what may have arisen as a " variation " is necessarily handed 

 down? 



To quote Professor Thomson again, "Variations are 

 more or less transmissible, but they are not always trans- 

 mitted. . . . Even where there is reason to believe that an 

 offspring has inherited a predisposition to a particular disease, 

 it does not necessarily follow that this item in the inheritance 

 must be expressed in development. 2 ... If it does not find 

 appropriate nurture it will not express itself ; it may simply 

 lie latent and be expressed in the next generation. Eventually, 

 whether it find expression or not, it may die away altogether 

 just as useful variations seem sometimes to disappear." 3 



The question naturally arises how are we to distinguish 

 between what is " innate," i.e. arising as a germinal variation, 

 and what has been " acquired " as the result of nurture or 

 function. For instance, a disease which persists in a family for 

 several generations may have originated, in the first place, not 

 as a " variation" but as a '" modification " the result of an 

 unhealthy neighbourhood or trade ; but if the same conditions 

 are reimpressed on each succeeding generation, that is, if the 

 children live in the same environment and work at the same 



1 Heredity, p. 3. * Ibid., p. 296, 



3 Ibid., p. 258, 



