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. 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. Dr. Cattell's argument, then,
while admissible, can not properly be urged against the fact that
ability is mainly dependent on inheritance.
We need not stop with the conclusion that equality of training or
opportunity is unable to level the inborn differences between men. We
can go even farther, and produce evidence to show that equality of
training _increases the differences_ in results achieved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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