!7] THEORIES OF NATURE AND NURTURE ^ 



In marked contrast to these two extreme views stands 

 the opinion of more moderate sociologists, who hold a 

 third theory that both nature and nurture are important. 

 As Professor Charles H. Cooley says : 



Nothing is more futile than general discussions of the relative 

 importance of heredity and environment. It is much like the 

 case of matter versus mind; both are indispensible to every 

 phase of life, and neither can exist apart from the other: they 

 are coordinate in importance and incommensurable in nature. 

 One might as well ask whether the soil or the seed predomin- 

 ates in the formation of a tree, as whether nature does more 

 for us then nurture. 1 



1 Charles Horton Cooley, Social Organisation (New York, 1909), p. 

 316. 



Professor Edward L. Thorndike admirably clarifies the whole sub- 

 ject when he says: 



It is impossible at present to estimate with security the relative shares 

 of original nature, due to sex, race, ancestry and accidental variation, 

 and of the environment, physical and social, in causing the differences 

 found in men. One can only learn the facts, and interpret them with 

 as little bias as possible, and try to secure more facts. . . . Many of 

 the false inferences about nature versus nurture are due to neglect of 

 the obvious facts : that if the environments are alike with respect to 

 a trait, the differences in respect to it are due entirely to original 

 nature; that if the original natures are alike with respect to a trait, 

 the differences are due entirely to differences in training; and that 

 the problem of relative shares, where both are effective, includes all 

 the separate problems of each kind of environment acting with each 

 kind of nature. Any one estimate for all cases would be absurd. 



Many disagreements spring from a confusion of what may be called 

 absolute achievement with what may be called relative achievement. 

 A man may move a long way from zero, and nevertheless be lowec 

 down than before in comparison with other men: absolute gain may 

 be relative loss. One thinker may attribute differences in achievement 

 almost wholly to nurture, while another holds nature to be nearly 

 supreme, though both thinkers possess just the same data, if the 

 former is thinking of absolute and the latter of relative achievement. 

 . . . The influences of environment are differential, the product vary- 

 ing not only in accord with the environmental force itself, but in accord 

 with the original nature upon which it operates. Edward L. Thorn- 

 dike, Educational Psychology, Briefer Course (New York, 1914), PP- 

 397-398. 



