CHAPTER II 



OKGANIC INHEKITANCE 



The writer is not a pure scientist but a practi- 

 cal worker who has devoted many years to a 

 study of the actual problems of childhood. 

 Some of the apparent laws of biology, as pro- 

 mulgated by various interpreters, seem to point 

 to a sort of hopeless determinism. An effort is 

 here made to glance at these laws from a 

 different angle, to see if a more encouraging out- 

 look cannot be maintained. 



Wliich is the preponderating and all-impor- 

 tant influence in life, nature or nurture, 

 heredity or environment f Both are vitally im- 

 portant, but which must be stressed in our 

 thought and action? Upon the answer to this 

 question depends much of our attitude toward 

 some of the pressing problems of life. If the 

 first is over-emphasized, we will, at best, be 

 landed in a sort of benevolent fatalism; if the 



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