94 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
average ability of the Anglo-Saxon race is about two classes above 
the Negro race, but about an equal degree below the ancient 
Athenians. This confusion of innate and acquired characters is 
especially pronounced in his discussion of “ types,” where there is 
not a shred of evidence adduced in support of his contention that 
it is a matter of race-stock! rather than of social heredity. 
Indeed here his argument is largely analogical. 
Extensive investigations have been carried on during the past 
three years in connection with the Eugenics Laboratory in which 
the endeavor has been made to separate the influences of ‘ na- 
ture”? and “nurture” but they are only to a limited degree 
convincing, especially concerning the main thesis of both Galton 
and Pearson that the majority of each generation are the off- 
spring of a small per cent of those in the preceding generation 
composing the half of the population inferior in natural ability.? 
There is no question, today, among students of the subject, 
concerning the general facts of heredity, including the inheritance 
of mental and temperamental traits although these must be 
reduced to terms of the physical. There is great difference of 
opinion, however, as to the variability of the race-stock as a 
whole or on the average. In fact we do not know the unit 
characters and the combination of them which make for individual 
and social efficiency, and if we did, as Max Nordau has pointed 
out, selective breeding for “ points”? would probably result in 
lack of adaptability to general life conditions as is the case with 
thorough-bred animals.* 
One of the recent investigations at the Eugenics Laboratory 
proves absolutely nothing except the difficulty of securing social 
data of any real value for statistical purposes. This investiga- 
tion concerning The Influence of Defective Physique and Unfavor- 
able Home Environment on the Intelligence of School Children by 
Dr. David Heron, concludes that on the basis of the data there is 
“little sensible effect of nurture, environment, and physique on 
intelligence.”4 This finding is so at variance with the results of 
1 Hereditary Genius, pp. 350f. ‘This discussion based on Darwin’s theory of 
pangenesis was repudiated in the Preface to the 1892 edition. Cf. p. xiv. 
2 Lecture Series, no. ii, esp. pp. 16 ff. 
3 Sociological Papers, ii, p. 31. 4 Memoirs, no. viii, p. 58. 
