Introduction 3 



Society. Mr. C. P. Mudge, in the Mendel Journal for 1909, 

 says : " It is tacitly assumed by the exponents of this senti- 

 ment (the sentiment of the modern social reformer), that the 

 qualities of the individual depend upon his environment, that 

 he is vicious because of the viciousness of his surroundings, 

 and good because his environment is made up of good 

 influences. 



" It is entirely wrong there is no justification for it in all 

 the realms of fact. The very converse is true, for in social 

 life the environment is the product of the individual, and not 

 vice versa. 



"The stunted individuals are not the product of a one- 

 roomed tenement, but the one-roomed tenement is the expres- 

 sion of the inherent incapacity of this race to be able to do 

 anything better for itself; it is the natural outcome of their 

 already existing physical, moral, or intellectual degeneration. 

 These degenerates are ' mutations,' and breed true to their 

 degeneracy." 



Again, referring to the Tasmanians, Mr. Mudge says : 

 " The life they lived was the product of their desires. 

 They were not the product of their mode of life ; they made 

 their life, not their life made them. It is the same with our 

 own social classes. The mode of life of the higher strata is 

 the outcome of their inherent qualities, in just the same way 

 that the mode of life in the lower is the outcome of their inborn 

 desires and capacities. The higher classes are the outcome 

 of their evolution, the lower of theirs. The social conditions 

 are the products of the social classes, not the social classes the 

 products of social conditions." 



Extravagant statements of this kind are obviously open to 

 criticism. In the first place, few people who have seriously 

 studied this subject are prepared to maintain that environ- 

 ment is the only factor in determining character. They admit 

 that within certain limits we are hereditarily determined ; that, 

 as Professor Thomson says, (< Heredity, function and en- 



