From such data as these, we conclude that mental inheritance is
considerably specialized. This conclusion is in accord with Burris'
finding (cited by Thorndike) that the ability to do well in some one
high school study is nearly or quite as much due to ancestry as is the
ability to do well in the course as a whole.
To sum up, we have reason to believe not only that one's mental
character is due largely to heredity, but that the details of it may be
equally due to heredity, in the sense that for any particular trait or
complex in the child there is likely to be found a similar trait or
complex in the ancestry. Such a conclusion should not be pushed to the
point of assuming inheritance of all sorts of dispositions that might be
due to early training; on the other hand, a survey of the whole field
would probably justify us in concluding that any given trait is _more
likely than not_ to be inherited. The effect of training in the
formation of the child's mental character is certainly much less than is
popularly supposed; and even for the traits that are most due to
training, it must never be forgotten that there are inherited mental
bases.
If the reader has accepted the facts presented in this chapter, and our
inferences from the facts, he will admit that mental differences between
men are at bottom due to heredity, just as physical differences are;
that they are apparently inherited in the same manner and in
approximately the same degree.
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