If the two infants had been exchanged there would have been no
Darwin in America and no Lincoln in England." And so he continues,
urging that in the production of scientific men, at least, education is
more important than eugenics.
This line of argument contains a great deal of obvious truth, but is
subject to a somewhat obvious objection, if it is pushed too far. It is
certainly true that the exact field in which a man's activities will
find play is largely determined by his surroundings and education. Young
men in the United States are now becoming lawyers or men of science, who
would have become ministers had they been born a century or two ago. But
this environmental influence seems to us a minor one, for the man who is
highly gifted in some one line is usually, as all the work of
differential psychology shows, gifted more than the average in many
other lines. Opportunity decides in just what field his life work shall
lie; but he would be able to make a success in a number of fields.
Darwin born in America would probably not have become the Darwin we
know, but it is not to be supposed that he would have died a "mute,
inglorious Milton": it is not likely that he would have failed to make
his mark in some line of human activity.
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