There is no lack of efforts to improve the race, by this method of
direct change of the environment. It involves two assumptions, which are
sometimes made explicitly, sometimes merely taken for granted. These
are:
1. That changes in a man's surroundings, or, to use the more technical
biological term, in his nurture, will change the nature that he has
inherited.
2. That such changes will further be transmitted to his children.
Any one who proposes methods of race betterment, as we do in the present
book, must meet these two popular beliefs. We shall therefore examine
the first of them in this chapter, and the second in Chapter II.
Galton adopted and popularized Shakespere's antithesis of _nature_ and
_nurture_ to describe a man's inheritance and his surroundings, the two
terms including everything that can pertain to a human being. The words
are not wholly suitable, particularly since nature has two distinct
meanings,--human nature and external nature. The first is the only one
considered by Galton. Further, nurture is capable of subdivision into
those environmental influences which do not undergo much change,--e.g.,
soil and climate,--and those forces of civilization and education which
might better be described as culture.
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