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"A man's nature is like a seed, and his circumstances like the soil and climate in which the seed germinates and grows; the co-working of the two is indispensable to every vital process whatever, and they are so different in their functions that they cannot without inaccuracy be said to be in opposition. It would be absurd to ask whether the seed or the soil predominates in the formation of the tree.. . . Rather we may say that a child -- to improve a little on the first comparison -- is like a vine whose nature is to grow, but to grow not in any pre-determined direction, as east or west, up or down, but along whatever support it finds within reach. We have emulation by nature, but the direction in which emulation will lead us depends entirely upon the ideals suggested to us by our social experience. The well-nurtured boy emulates his own father and George Washington, but the child of a criminal, for precisely similar reasons, emulates his father and Blinkey Morgan or some other illustrious rascal. It is not necessary to suppose any organic difference between the two. . . .

"The point is, that a social career is not the sum and resultant of two forces similar in kind but more or less opposite in direction; it comes by the intimate union and cooperation of forces unlike in kind and hence not comparable in direction or magnitude. So soon as a child is born, the nature he brings with him begins to unite with the world into which he comes to form an indivisible product; that is to say, a character and a career. The union of nature and nurture is not one of addition or mixture but of growth, whereby the elements are altogether transformed into a new organic whole. One's nature acts selectively upon the environment, assimilating materials proper to itself; while at the same time the environment moulds the nature, and habits are formed which make the individual independent, in some degree, of changes in either.

"It may seem that one does, after all, select the objects of his imitation and emulation, and that in this way the individual nature determines its own destiny as moral or criminal. But this is only true with many limitations and conditions. Some of us are much freer than others and some periods of life afford more freedom than other periods; but no man at any time has anything like unrestricted freedom in the choice of the influences that control his life. A real freedom cannot exist until the individual is born into a world where there is opportunity for the development of his highest faculties through access to all the necessary influences. There are many children now growing up who are no more free to choose a moral career than an American baby is free to speak the Chinese language." (97)

It must be concluded that the attempt to attribute the social career of an individual chiefly to heredity on the one hand or to circumstances on the other, and to apportion to each an approximate per cent of influence, is a matter of scientific interest rather than practical value at the present time to those engaged in social reforms. That there are children so instinctively degenerate that neither instruction nor discipline can restore them to normality, is certainly true; but their number is relatively very small. It is even more certain that a large part of the degeneration which is dealt with by philanthropy could have been mitigated, if not wholly prevented, by a good environment. Professor Woods, in the endeavor to explain the overweening influence of heredity in the case of royalty, suggests that it may be that environment is most powerful in the lowest orders of nature, and that heredity becomes more and more influential in the higher orders. Whatever may be thought of this hypothesis it is undoubtedly true that the standard of fitness for those who are to survive and the environment which is to intensify or nullify their heredity tendencies are both within the control of a civilized society, and consequently, subject to change and improvement.

CHAPTER IV.
SOME CHARACTERISTIC SOCIAL CAUSES OF DEGENERATION.

In order to give any complete view of the social and industrial influences which tend to push the individual below the poverty line, it would be necessary to review nearly the whole of political economy, descriptive and theoretical; but we shall concern ourselves at present only with some of the more conspicuous external conditions which produce incapacity and degeneration in the individual. We must therefore pass by without consideration all the poverty-begetting causes that reside in the fluctuation of the purchasing power of money, although many concrete examples could be given of families pushed from the propertied class even across the pauper line by this influence. Neither can we concern ourselves with those changes in industry which have displaced large numbers of individuals, although presumably benefiting the community as a whole, and even laborers as a class. Neither can we take up the undue power of class over class, although it results in conditions which tend to degeneration in the individual, and may push him below the line of self-dependence; but our view for the most part must be limited to the direct influence of occupation and uncertain employment upon health, character, and capacity.