THE INHERITANCE OF MENTAL ABILITY loi 



Galton, however, did not fail to ascribe a certain degree of 

 importance to environment in the making of great men, but 

 it is probable that he unduly minimized its influence. The 

 number of distinguished men per century has rapidly increased 

 as civilization has advanced and as education has become more 

 widely diffused, but we cannot maintain that there has been a 

 commensurate increase in the amount of inherited ability in the 

 race. Great men appear more abundantly near centres of learn- 

 ing than in regions less subject to the intellectual leaven of 

 culture. It is true that many men born in poverty have attained 

 greatness only after a long struggle that seemed to develop their 

 intellectual powers and force of character. But there is no way 

 of ascertaining how many others there have been who might have 

 achieved greatness had they received the proper stimulus for 

 developing their latent power, or who may have become discour- 

 aged in their strivings by the deadening influence of a life of toil. 



Among people who are financially able to give their children 

 the advantages of a good school and college education, the 

 environmental conditions that tend to give rise to greatness in 

 a country like England are not apparently very unequal. Chil- 

 dren in families with intellectual tastes may have a somewhat 

 better chance to become distinguished than if they had a less 

 stimulating home environment. It cannot be assumed, however, 

 that the home of a great man usually affords a much better 

 nurser}'- for genius than many another home among people of 

 intelligence and culture. So far as environment is concerned it is 

 probable that the family of an English judge of the Court of 

 Chancery might be as favorable for the production of an eminent 

 person as the family of a Lord Chancellor. We might admit that 

 Galton underestimated environmental influence, but his critics 

 have never shown, with any degree of plausibility, that environ- 

 ment accounts for the striking tendency of eminent people to 

 have eminent near relatives. 



Valuable contributions to the subject on the inheritance of 

 ability were later made b}- Galton in his work on English Men 

 of Science, and especially in his volume on Noteworthy Families 



