8 THE RELATIVE STRENGTH OF 



consideration of this second modification due to 

 environment. We have solely to deal with the 

 problem of the extent to which the offspring are 

 modified by an indirect environmental factor, namely 

 the occupations and habits of their parents and the 

 condition of their homes. We are not considering {b), 

 for we are dealing with stu^diving children, and not 

 with the selective infantile deathrate. Now the 

 influence of the parental environmental factor on the 

 welfare of children is of fundamental importance, 

 quite apart from the selective infantile deathrate 

 and the possibility of the inheritance of acquired 

 characters. It is at present and has been in the 

 past the chief direction of legislative and philan- 

 thropic attack on social evils. Degeneracy of every 

 form has been attributed to poverty, bad housing, 

 unhealthy trades, drinking, industrial occupation of 

 women, and other direct or indirect environmental 

 influences on offspring. If we could by education, 

 by legislation, or by social effort change the environ- 

 mental conditions, would the race at once rise to a 

 markedly higher standard of physique and mentality .-^ 

 Much, if not the whole battle for social reform has 

 been based on the assumption that this question was 

 obviously to be answered in the affirmative. No 

 direct investigation has really ever been made of 

 the intensity of the influence of environment on 

 man. To modify the obviously repellent was the 

 immediate instinct of the more gently nurtured and 

 controlling social class. Was this direction of social 

 reform really capable of effecting any substantial 

 change .'^ Nay by lessening the selective deathrate 



