Transmission of Acquired Characteristics.
One of the great disputes of biology is that concerning the question of whether or not parents may transmit to their offspring their personal "acquired characteristics" as well as those inherited from their line of ancestors. One side of the controversy points to the observed cases of children and grandchildren resembling each other, physically, mentally, and morally, in acquired characteristics; but the other side explains these facts as due to environment rather than to heredity.
The best authorities seem to favor a middle-view, holding that acquired characteristics may be and are transmitted as "tendencies" in the offspring. Thus as each succeeding generation manifests the acquired tendency, it adds a cumulative force to the family heredity. At the same time they hold that "environment" is needed to "draw out" the inherited "tendency." For instance, a child born with evil tendencies, and placed in an evil environment, will most likely manifest evil conduct. The same child, if placed in a good environment, will not have the evil tendencies "drawn out" by the environment, and will probably not manifest evil conduct. The same rule applies to the child drawn with good "tendencies." In short, it is held that heredity and environment tend to balance each other—the "something within" is called out (or not called out) by the "something without." The life of the individual is held to be a continuous action and reaction between heredity and environment, and both of these elements must be taken into consideration when we think of the subject.
Shute says: "As influencing a man's life and character, which is the strongest factor, heredity or environment?" In our opinion, as the result of long study and reading, where we have an average man of a sound mind in a sound body, there environment will be the strongest factor whether for good or evil—that is, in men in general, who have no organic defect, such as insanity or idiocy, and allied affections, the stronger force is environment; but in those having such defect, heredity is the controlling power, and we may add, the destroying power.