Is it not fair, then, to assume that this relative's greater endowment
in the latter case is due to heredity?
Conditions are the same, whether males or females be considered. The
royal families of Europe offer a test case because for them the
environment is nearly uniformly favorable. A study of them shows great
mental and moral differences between them, and critical evidence
indicates that these differences are largely due to differences in
heredity. Differences of opportunity do not appear to be largely
responsible for the achievements of the individuals.
But, it is sometimes objected, opportunity certainly is responsible for
the appearance of much talent that would otherwise never appear. Take
the great increase in the number of scientific men in Germany during the
last half century, for example. It can not be pretended that this is due
to an increased birth-rate of such talent; it means that the growth of
an appreciation of scientific work has produced an increased amount of
scientific talent. J. McKeen Cattell has argued this point most
carefully in his study of the families of one thousand American men of
science (_Popular Science Monthly_, May, 1915). "A Darwin born in China
in 1809," he says, "could not have become a Darwin, nor could a Lincoln
born here on the same day have become a Lincoln had there been no Civil
War.
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