680 
to pass in the United States, to conditions of life and 
especially to political institutions. These agencies, 
however, do little unless they are such as to change 
the breed. External changes may indeed give an 
opportunity to special strains, which then acquire 
ascendency. The industrial developments which 
began at the end of the eighteenth century, for in- 
stance, gave a chance to strains till then submerged, 
and their success involved the decay of most of the 
old aristocratic families. But the demagogue who 
would argue from the rise of the one and the fall of 
the other that the original relative positions were not 
justifiable altogether mistakes the facts. 
Conditions give opportunities but cause no varia- 
tions. For example, in Athens, to which I just re- 
ferred, the universality of cultivated discernment could 
never have come to pass but for the institution of 
slavery which provided the opportunity, but slavery 
was in no sense a cause of that development, for many 
other populations have lived on slaves and remained 
altogether inconspicuous. 
The long-standing controversy as to the relative 
importance of nature and nurture, to use Galton’s 
“convenient jingle of words,’ is drawing to an end, 
and of the overwhelmingly greater significance of 
nature there is no longer any possibility of doubt. It 
may be well briefly to recapitulate the arguments on 
which naturalists rely in coming to this decision both 
as regards races and individuals. First as regards 
human individuals, there is the common experience 
that children of the same parents reared under con- 
ditions sensibly identical may develop quite differently, 
exhibiting in character and aptitudes a segregation 
just as great as in their colours or hair-forms. Con- 
versely all the more marked aptitudes have at various 
times appeared and not rarely reached perfection in 
circumstances the least favourable for their develop- 
ment. Next, appeal can be made to the universal 
experience of the breeder, whether of animals or 
plants, that strain is absolutely essential, that though 
bad conditions may easily enough spoil a good strain, 
yet that under the best conditions a bad strain will 
never give a fine result. It is faith, not evidence, 
which encourages educationists and economists to 
hope so greatly in the ameliorating effects of the 
conditions of life. Let us consider what they can do 
and what they cannot. By reference to some sen- 
tences in a charming though pathetic book, ‘‘ What 
Is, and What Might Be,” by Mr. Edmond Holmes, 
which will be well known in the Educational Section, 
I may make the point of view of us naturalists clear. 
I take Mr. Holmes’s pronouncement partly because 
he is an enthusiastic believer in the efficacy of nur- 
ture as opposed to nature, and also because he illus- 
trates his views by frequent appeals to biological 
analogies which help us to a common ground. 
Wheat badly cultivated will give a bad yield, though, 
as Mr. Holmes truly says, wheat of the same strain 
in similar soil well cultivated may give a good har- 
vest. But, having witnessed the success of a great 
natural teacher in helping unpromising peasant 
children to develop their natural powers, he gives us 
another botanical parallel. Assuming that the wild 
bullace is the origin of domesticated plums, he tells 
us that by cultivation the bullace can no doubt be 
improved so far as to become a better bullace, but 
by no means can the bullace be made to bear plums. 
All this is sound biology; but translating these facts 
into the human analogy, he declares that the work of 
the successful teacher shows that. with man the facts 
are otherwise, and that the average rustic child, whose 
normal ideal is ‘‘bullacehood,’”’ can become the rare 
exception, developing to a stage corresponding with 
that of the plum. But the naturalist knows exactly 
NO?123309, VOL. 103 
NATURE 
| where the parallel is at fault. 
[AUGUST 27, 1914 
For the wheat and 
the bullace are both breeding approximately true, 
whereas the human crop, like jute and various cottons, 
is in a state of polymorphic mixture. The popula- 
tion of many English villages may be compared with 
the crop which would result from sowing a bushel 
of kernels gathered mostly from the hedges, with an 
occasional few from an orchard. If anyone asks how 
it happens that there are any plum-kernels in the 
sample at all, he may find the answer perhaps in 
spontaneous ‘variation, but more probably in the 
appearance of a long-hidden recessive. For the want 
of that genetic variation, consisting probably, as I 
have argued, in loss of inhibiting factors, by which 
the plum arose from the wild form, neither food, nor 
education, nor hygiene can in any way atone. Many 
wild plants are half-starved through competition, and 
transferred to garden soil they grow much bigger; 
so good conditions might certainly enable the bullace 
population to develop beyond the stunted physical and 
mental stature they commonly attain, but plums they 
can never be. Modern statesmanship aims rightly 
at helping those who have got sown as wildings to 
come into their proper class; but let not anyone sup- 
pose such a policy democratic in its ultimate effects, 
for no course of action can be more effective in 
strengthening the upper classes whilst weakening the 
lower. 
In all practical schemes for social reform the con- 
genital diversity, the essential polymorphism of all 
civilised communities must be recognised as a funda- 
mental fact, and reformers should rather direct their 
efforts to facilitating and rectifying class-distinctions 
than to any futile attempt to abolish them. The 
teaching of biology is perfectly clear. We are what 
we are by virtue of our differentiation. The value of 
civilisation has in all ages been doubted. Since, 
however, the first variations were not strangled in 
their birth, we are launched on that course of varia- 
bility of which civilisation is the consequence. We 
cannot go back to homogeneity again, and differ- 
entiated we are likely to continue. For a period 
measures designed to create a spurious homogeneity 
may be applied. Such attempts will, I anticipate, 
be made when the present unstable social state 
reaches a climax of instability, which may not be long 
hence. Their effects can be but evanescent. The 
instability is due not to inequality, which is inherent 
and congenital, but rather to the fact that in periods 
of rapid change like the present, convection-currents 
are set up such that the elements of the strata get 
intermixed and the apparent stratification corresponds 
only roughly with the genetic. In a few generations 
under uniform conditions these elements settle in 
their true levels once more. 
In such equilibrium is content most surely to be 
expected. To the naturalist the broad lines of solu- 
tion of the problems of social discontent are evident. 
They lie neither in vain dreams of a mystical and 
disintegrating equality, nor in the promotion of that 
malignant individualism which in older civilisations 
has threatened mortification of the humbler organs, 
but rather in a physiological co-ordination of the 
constituent parts of the social organism. The rewards 
of commerce are grossly out of proportion to those 
attainable by intellect or industry. Even regarded as 
compensation for a dull life, they far exceed the value 
of the services rendered to the community. Such 
disparity is an incident of the abnormally rapid 
growth of population and is quite indefensible as a 
permanent social condition. | Nevertheless, capital, 
distinguished as a provision for offspring, is a eugenic 
institution; and unless human instinct undergoes 
some profound and improbable variation, abolition of 
