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SCIENCE 



N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 763 



tional institutions and opportunities for a 

 career than to stock, and is thus evidence in 

 favor of scientific productivity being in the 

 main due to opportunity rather than to hered- 

 ity. It is probable that if the 1Y4 babies born 

 in New England who became leading scientific 

 men had been exchanged with babies born in 

 the south, the scientific productivity of New 

 England would not in that generation have 

 been materially decreased, nor the scientific 

 productivity of the south have been greatly 

 increased. It is certain that there would not 

 have been 174 leading scientific men from the 

 extreme southern states and only seven from 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut. If the stock 

 of the southern states remains undiluted, it 

 may, as social conditions change, produce even 

 more scientific men per thousand of its popula- 

 tion than New England has hitherto produced. 

 Japan had no scientific men a generation ago 

 and China has none now, but it may be that in 

 a few years their contributions to science will 

 rival ours. 



The second point discussed by Dr. Woods 

 is my qualified inference that the fact that 

 those regions which have produced more scien- 

 tific men have not produced men of higher 

 average performance is against the theory that 

 scientific productivity is mainly due to hered- 

 ity. Dr. Woods says that this would doubtless 

 be a very strong argument if it should be sub- 

 stantiated by further statistics. His discus- 

 sion of my statistics does not seem to alter the 

 interpretation put on them. He, however, 

 brings forward new data of interest, which 

 show that the scientific men produced by 

 Massachusetts are slightly above the average 

 and that Massachusetts has produced far more 

 than its share of men of unusual eminence. 

 These facts do not, however, afEect my argu- 

 ment. It would be expected that the educa- 

 tional advantages and opportunities for re- 

 search in Massachusetts would give its scien- 

 tific men a higher average standing than those 

 elsewhere, even though their native ability 

 were the same. It is surprising that this does 



cook. Some oookerells can be trained better than 

 others, but there are innumerable cockerells that 

 might be trained and are not. 



not show at all in the 1,000 leading men of 

 science and but slightly in the 4,131 included 

 in the " Biographical Directory." In the case 

 of men of exceptional genius, I agree with 

 Dr. Woods that they can not be regarded as 

 the product of their environment. But it 

 may interpose a veto on their performances. 

 There may be " mute inglorious " Emersons in 

 southern churchyards. Lincoln was as great 

 a writer as Emerson; but it is in a way a 

 chance that he made his Gettysburg speech. 

 It is likely, but not proved, that one region of 

 this country or one of its racial stocks has 

 more potential men of genius than another. 



While views such as those of Dr. Galton 

 when he says " The impression that all this 

 evidence leaves on the mind is one of some 

 wonder whether nurture can do anything at 

 all " or of Professor Pearson when he says 

 " We inherit our parents' tempers, our parents' 

 conscientiousness, shyness and ability, even 

 [to the same extent] as we inherit their stat- 

 ure, forearm and span," seem to be extreme, 

 I hold, as stated in the paper quoted by Dr. 

 Woods, that " kinds of character and degrees 

 of ability are mainly innate." But I believe 

 also that there is in this country a vast amount 

 of the character and ability required for scien- 

 tific productivity which is not used for this 

 purpose, and that the quantity, though not the 

 quality, of our scientific work could be in- 

 creased to almost any extent. What a man 

 can do is prescribed by heredity; what he does 

 is determined by circumstance. 



J. McKeen Cattell 



GENERA WITHOUT SPECIES 



The views on genera without species held 

 by Dr. J. A. Allen, as expressed in Science, 

 June 11, 1909, may possibly be shared by a 

 few entomologists interested in restricted 

 groups and by many students of higher forms 

 of life, such as birds and animals. It is not 

 remarkable that an ornithologist or mammal- 

 ogist, whose entire number of subjects scarcely 

 equals that of the species of a single family 

 of some orders of insects, should hold that 

 personal judgment should enter into the solv- 

 ing of this important problem. It is the man 



