CHARACTER OF MAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1925, Page 10

CHARACTER OF MAN.

HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. PSYCHOLOGY CLASS LECTURE. The New Plymouth W.E.A. psychology class held its weekly meeting in the Technical -College on Monday evening, the subject of the lecture being “Heredity and environment in human development.” Mr. G. H. Dolby presided over a good attendance. A human being, said the lecturer (Mr. W. A. Sneat), was at any time of his life tlie product of two influences, heredity and environment. Writers had for long made a distinction -between hereditary “nature” and environing “nurture.” By "nature” was here meant all that was involved in the natural inheritance of the individual, and by "nurture” or environment was meant all manner of surrounding influences — climate, soil, scenery, house, food, work, play, education and the general social atmosphere. This useful distinction ■between the natural inheritance and the influences that played upon it had unfortunately led to thh two sets of influences being set against each other, whereas they -should be recognised as supplementary to each other. They were two necessary factors in a joint result.

Heredity was a limiting factor, determining not only what traits a man should possess, but also the limits of their possible development. W liile it was recognised that no matter what stimulus was applied a child could not be made to grow to twenty feet in height, the existence of similar limitations with respect to mental or moral development was not always conceded. But limitations existed, and environmental stimuli could not develop traits which were not potentially present.

It was often assumed that some habit or trait of character had been inherited where fuller analysis might show- it to depend upon early environmental influences. Many things might happen in the first four 'or five years of life, of which the individual had no memory -but •which might yet influence him for life. Some characteristics observed in an individual might have been transmitted from the parent, not bv way of inheritance, -but by means of imitation or suggestion in" early life, there was a strong tendency in modern investigation to reduce the exaggerated importance previously accorded to the hereditary influences, and to emphasise the environmental factor in the determination of character. This development was of the greatest practical importance. If nervous or moral disease was ingrained, it left the patient in bondage to the disease with little hope of deliverance. Nothing did -more to perpetuate such disorders than the false conviction that they were ingrained. Upon society the result of attributing to heredity what was due to environment had been hardly less serious . Men had contented themselves with the easy “explanation” of “bad heredity,” and had left untouched certain environmental conditions which were within their power to ameliorate. It was a matter of common knowledge that a single experience might change an individual’s whole attitude towards life and make a complete change in his character. For example, bitterness of character might be produced by a disappointment. Such occurrences were particularly liable to cause permanent defects if they occurred in childhood, and if they were repressed and forgotten. A question which had vexed students of heredity and driven them into opposing camps was that the inheritance or non-inheritance of acquired characteristics—whether the habits and activities of the parent had any effect on those of the child. If the contention that acquired characters were not transmissible were true, it followed that educa-

tion, in the popular sense of the term, was for one generation only, and that no amount of learning on the part of the parent _would make the offspring less innately stupid. There had, however, always been opposition to the view that habits and their effects were not transmitted, but for long the opponents had exercised little influence. It became almost a biological dogma that under no circumstances could the effects of habits be handed on to posterity. Recent experiments by eminent biologists had, however, provided new and striking evidence from three independent sources, showing that acquired characters are passed on to posterity and that the exercise of a habit on the part of an animal rendered the formation of the habit easier in the offspring. The newly-inherited habit did not persist in its full strength if the young were not exposed to the same environmental conditions as their parents, but the demonstration of the inheritability of the effects of habit was likely to have a revolutionary effect upon many current views on hereditv.