JuLT 2, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



19 



heredity; but that character and actual ability 

 would be found to be profoundly modified by 

 environment. In fact, the whole experience of the 

 human race speaks for this assumption. If the 

 opposite were true, then why should the state go 

 to the expense of maintaining schools, for a man's 

 effectiveness would not depend on his environ- 

 ment but upon his inheritance. 



I am glad to answer tliis point because I 

 think that some of the confusion which ordi- 

 narily accompanies the discussion of this 

 time-honored question may be lessened; and I 

 should like at the same time to state my own 

 position in the matter. I have never claimed 

 that great alterations in the environment of 

 man would not produce any results. 



It is, at the outset, both necessary and easy 

 to recognize that there are in general two ways 

 that a man may stand in relation to his en- 

 vironment. First, it may be an environment 

 from which he can not escape, try as hard as 

 he may ; and second, it may be one from which 

 he can escape, if the inherent tendencies are 

 strong enough. These two arbitrary classes 

 may shade into each other at times; but I 

 think it will aid in clearing up some of the 

 usual perplexity which clings about the sub- 

 ject, if I am permitted to formulate these two 

 categories. An accident which afFects the 

 brain or sight, a long term of imprisonment, 

 or confinement to a desert island, may serve 

 as examples of environments from which there 

 is no escape. In a like way the same may be 

 said of the epoch, or period of civilization in 

 which a man's life falls. All such environ- 

 ments must a priori modify character more 

 than conditions from which there is a ready, 

 or even possible, escape should the innate 

 impulses crave it. Now the complete cessa- 

 tion of all schools of education would be 

 establishing an environment from which there 

 would be no escape. Except that there would 

 still be libraries, it would be like returning to 

 the educational possibilities at the time of the 

 Teutonic tribes. It would be suddenly chang- 

 ing one period of civilization into another. 

 This would of course work a profound detri- 

 ment to all mankind. But there would still 

 be marked individual differences of achieve- 

 ment. 



Now the point is that in any given age, or 

 in any one civilization, there are always these 

 marked differences of achievement or moral 

 character. The question then arises — Are the 

 differences in environment which have ordi- 

 narily existed in the past, within any one age, 

 or do exist at the present time, of sufficient 

 magnitude or force to cause evident or meas- 

 urable differences among men? 



At least within modern centuries, and since 

 the days of serfdom, it is possible for a man 

 to pass from one set of surroundings into 

 another if the inborn desires and abilities are 

 strong enough. Thus here we have a condi- 

 tion coming under the head of an environment 

 of the second class or one from which escape 

 is possible, and therefore we do not expect to 

 find environment working at its maximum, 

 as we do for instance in experimental zoology 

 where the conditions are imposed and unes- 

 capable. But more important than this gen- 

 eral argument is the fact that no one has 

 shown that such variations in surroundings as 

 occur in the average lives of human beings 

 (riches or poverty, good or bad education, 

 etc.) are in any way responsible for the 

 rougher differences found among men. I say 

 rougher differences because it is only into 

 rough grades and scales of difference that 

 psychic qualities have so far been classified 

 by the few investigators who have worked 

 upon such problems. I suppose that even the 

 ordinary variations in circumstances which 

 befall mankind produce some change in char- 

 acter and achievement. I do not know. All 

 I say is that no one has succeeded in demon- 

 strating it. I myself searched for it in the 

 statistics of royalty by five different methods, 

 but failed to find it there. I concluded that 

 the force of environment is in general slight, 

 in accounting for mental and moral differ- 

 ences, perhaps measurable when more delicate 

 methods should be devised. Galton, from a 

 study of twins," places " nature " over " nur- 

 ture," though only vaguely so ; but Thorndike, 

 in his " Measurements of Twins," ^ goes fur- 



= " Inquiries into Human Faculty," 1883. 

 ^ Arch, of Philosophy, Psychology and Seientifio 

 Methods, No. 1, September, 1905. 



