HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT —173 
favorable conditions for development, nor just how much he 
can endure in the way of adverse circumstances without some 
of the more undesirable characters of his family line under- 
going development and getting the upper hand. 
By any and all counts, with our animals and plants and with 
ourselves we are bound to maintain the most favorable environ- 
ment possible, but it should be on the score of its influence 
upon development, not under the mistaken idea that it can take 
the place of heredity or in any other way compensate for the 
failure of inheritance or mistakes of the ancestors. 
The function of environment is to assist or to hinder in 
development. If environment is then so mighty a factor, is not 
the old tradition right after all? No. The characters of the 
family line are planted before birth by the particular ancestry, 
whatever that may be. In all cases they are both good and bad. 
In the best families and the purest blood, plant or animal, the 
bad have been reduced to a relatively low intensity and a cor- 
responding low probability of development. In the worst fami- 
lies, unfortunately, the bad characters are the strongest ones, 
likely to develop even under the best conditions, because the 
better faculties are in low intensity — mathematically low in 
power. 
Now the character of the individual in his own personality 
will depend not so much upon his total inheritance as upon the 
particular characters that develop, and these will depend very 
largely, though not entirely, upon the conditions with which he 
is surrounded, especially in early life. 
To illustrate: Take ten ears of corn that look exactly alike. 
Plant them separately in rows, side by side, giving to each the 
same soil and the same cultivation; that is, surround them 
with the same conditions and opportunities. Will they yield 
alike ? Most assuredly not. They may differ as much as 50 
per cent, and possibly more. Why? They were bred differ- 
ently; they inherited different powers of germination and of 
vigor in obtaining and assimilating the plant food of the soil, 
