The relative influence of inheritance and environment.
The Factors in Social Progress.—Two factors have greatly influenced the course of social evolution or social progress. These factors are inheritance and environment. By inheritance we mean the qualities, physical and mental, which each generation inherits from the generation preceding. By environment we mean the general surroundings, physical and social, in which the people live. Mankind influences these surroundings to a considerable extent and moulds them to his own needs, but in turn is also influenced by them. Everything that is characteristic of man is the result of these two forces, inheritance and environment. In some things the first is more important, in others the second. For example, under normal conditions the height of a man or woman is determined almost altogether by inheritance, for no one by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature. Intelligence, likewise, is to a large degree an inherited quality. But morals, manners, education, and personal habits are determined much more largely by environment than by inheritance.
Which is the more potent influence?
The respective influences of inheritance and environment cannot, however, be in all cases clearly separated. Both often work to produce the same result, as when a person who inherits a strong body and a sound mind is fortunate enough to be placed in an environment where both body and mind are developed by out-of-door life and a good education. Sometimes they work in opposite directions, as when a child starts life with a strong physique and good natural intelligence, but grows up in a crowded tenement amid sordid conditions which weaken the one and fail to afford scope for the other. We cannot say, therefore, that one factor is always stronger or weaker than the other. The social progress of the race is promoted by improving both influences. Environment especially can be improved by human effort. Man’s control of his inheritance is not nearly so complete, but everything that conduces to the betterment of health or education and promotes a higher morality is a step towards improving its influence.
The two forms of inheritance.
Physical and Social Inheritance.—The influence of inheritance is exerted from two quarters which may be distinguished by calling them physical and social. |(a) Physical.| By the former we mean the influence exerted upon human beings by the bodily and mental traits which are handed down to them by their own parents. Not all the characteristics of parents are transmitted to their children but mainly those which the parents themselves have inherited. Traits or qualities which have been acquired by the parents during their own lives do not ordinarily descend to their children.[[5]] Parents who are born feeble-minded will in all probability have feeble-minded children; but parents who acquire through education a high degree of learning and culture cannot transmit any of this to their children by inheritance. There is no royal road to learning. Some of us are born with better or worse possibilities than others, but we are all born illiterate.
(b) Social.
The other form of inherited influence is called our social heritage because it represents the whole accumulation of knowledge, habits, and expedients which have come down to us by the social process of teaching and learning. Each generation of mankind is enormously dependent upon its social inheritance; without it everything that we now call civilization would collapse in a very short time. Each generation takes over all the knowledge possessed by the one which went before; each generation adds something to this stock of knowledge, habits, and expedients for the benefit of the generation which comes after it. Each generation, if it is to live happily, must adapt this social inheritance to its own particular needs.
The two kinds of environment:
Physical and Social Environment.—The other great influence is that of environment. By physical environment we mean the conditions of nature and society in which man lives, moves, and has his being. Physical environment includes the geographic, climatic, and other natural conditions which surround the people. |(a) Physical.| These conditions have an important influence upon the trend of human development and they are not, for the most part, under man’s control. Man must adapt himself and his ways of life to them. In cold climates he must wear warm clothing, provide artificial heat in houses, and consume warmth-giving food. Groups of men must everywhere mould their occupations to the character of the soil, the natural resources, and the other conditions of the physical environment in which they live. It is because of differences in physical environment that the Southern states developed cotton-culture on a large scale and employed slave labor, while the Northern states gave their attention to farming and industry with free labor.