submit this as a real answer to these endless disputes. But further, granted that neither factor in itself produces any actuality, which is normally the weightier of the two factors? We must make the qualification, “normally,” because such a thing as disease or poison, included in the environmental factor, will dominate the result, completely overshadowing the importance of whatever heredity gave. Such things apart, however, we may be thoroughly assured that heredity is the weightier of the two factors. The more we study education, the more we recognise its true nature. Indeed, the more we realise its ideal, the more do we realise its limitations. The more we study education the more important does heredity appear. If the reader has not had opportunities of observing children for himself let him refer to such a book as Mr. Galton's _Inquiries into Human Faculty_, and he will begin to realise how large is the factor given by inheritance and how relatively small is the factor given by education. =Education can educate only what heredity gives.=--Heredity, as the eugenist must never forget, gives not actualities but only potentialities. It depends upon circumstances whether they shall become actualities. That, however, we all know. No one supposes that education is superfluous or impotent. We do, however, persistently forget the converse truth that education, on the other hand, makes no definite contribution, but merely multiplies--or alas, divides--the potentialities given by inheritance. These potentialities constitute a limiting condition which no education can transcend. Education can educate only what heredity gives. Long ago Helvetius thought, as did Kant, that the differences between men were due to differences in education. But it is not so. We make, of course, the most ridiculous claims for education. The remark wrongly attributed to the Duke of Wellington, that “the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton,” is an instance in point. Recently, when Francis Thompson, the poet, died, the local newspaper of his birthplace said that it should be proud to have produced him. We may laugh at this conception of the genesis of genius, but we all talk in this fashion. A genius was educated at Eton, and we say that Eton produced him. The truth is, of course, that Eton failed to destroy him. (One says Eton for convenience, but the name of any accepted school will do.) If Eton produced him, why does not it produce thousands like him? There is plenty of material: but it is not the right material. We should cease to speak, in our pride for our own _Alma Mater_ or our own methods, as if education created genius or anything else. Men are born unequal. To realise the nature of education is not only to avoid the popular assumption that an ideal education will do everything for us, forgetting that no amount of polishing will make pewter shine like silver; it is not only to send us back to the principle of selection