84 HEREDITY 



The dogmatists should avoid this controversy in 

 its present stages. It will not satisfy their love of 

 positive assertions, and their tendency to make such 

 assertions does not serve to its solution.^ 



CHAPTER XI 



THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF HEREDITY 

 AND ENVIRONMENT 



AccoEDiNG to science, all living things are deter- 

 mined by two factors, heredity and environment, and 

 by those alone. This dogma applies to all vital and 

 psychic activities, the human will most certainly in- 

 cluded.^ But ere we come to look into it more 

 closely, let us obviate a frequent misconception. 

 Shakespeare's parents were unremarkable, and he 

 had six quite commonplace brothers. Plainly, then, 

 he did not inherit his genius ; and no one will main- 

 tain that it was produced by his environment, — poeta 

 nascitur, non jit. What, then, becomes of the asser- 

 tion that every living thing, in all its activities, is 

 conditioned and determined by heredity and en- 

 vironment ? 



The objection depends upon a most excusable mis- 

 conception. Certainly Shakespeare's parents could 

 not have written " Hamlet," even in collaboration ; 

 certainly his environment did not generate " Hamlet " 

 within him. His genius was innate, inborn ; the poet 



1 The relations of psychology to this controversy are discussed in 

 the chapter, " The Origin of our Ideas," in the author's companion 

 volume on "Psychology." 



2 See "Psychology," "The Human Will." 



