vi Environment and Efficiency 



child in mind and body; that no good Samaritan, however many 

 may pass along the road, will ever prevail to find real shelter, 

 or restoration, or healing for the wounded and the hurt and the 

 incapacitated. It is even maintained that two robbers can be 

 identified, chief outlaws on the high-road of human life, and that 

 of these two, Heredity and Environment, the second is power- 

 less against the first : if he should turn pitiful, as in the case 

 of the man that was mildest of mood in the story of the Babes 

 in the Wood, he will not be strong enough to stay his mate ; 

 we are dealing with factors, of which the first is irremediable, 

 even if the second should be removable or capable of meliora- 

 tion. At least this appears to be the judgment of a certain 

 very logical school of Eugenists. Miss Thomson, in the 

 pages that follow, attempts to apply the test of statistical 

 experiment to the problem, and to find out for us whether 

 Environment is adequate to unsay what Heredity has been 

 proclaiming ore rotundo ; her close and careful investigations, 

 not disfigured by undue optimism, will be encouraging to 

 those who believe that both man and his world can be made 

 demonstrably better, and do not insist that it shall be done 

 all at once (in which plea for the help of adequate Time they 

 appear to have the backing of the Intelligent part of the 

 Universe itself). 



The problem is not a new one, in any sense except that 

 the study is closer, and the statistics more extended : all 

 philosophers are at work upon it, and all saints. Here is 

 a suggestive extract from the writings of Jacob Boehme, 

 who qualifies both as philosopher and as saint. According 

 to Jacob, what we have to know is the Signatura Rerum, 

 the hidden quality which is expressing itself in Nature and 

 especially in Organic Nature and Life ; for, says he : 



" If an herb be transplanted out of a bad soil into a good, 

 then it soon gets a stronger body, and a more pleasant smell 

 and power, and shows the inward essence externally ; and 

 there is nothing created or born in nature, but it also manifests 



