Prometheus, or, biology and the advancement of man / by H.S. Jennings.

  • Herbert Spencer Jennings
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Prometheus, or, biology and the advancement of man / by H.S. Jennings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    68/112 (page 64)
    PROMETHEUS environment as almost powerless ; a vicious fallacy, not supported by the results of investigation. We are warned not to admit to America certain peoples now differing from ourselves, on the basis of the resounding assertion that biology informs us that the environ¬ ment can bring out nothing whatever but the hereditary characters. Such an assertion is perfectly empty and idle ; if true, it is merely by definition : any¬ thing that the environment brings out is hereditary, if the word hereditary has any meaning. But from this we leam nothing whatever as to what a new environment will bring out. It may bring out characteristics that have never before appeared in that race. What the race will show under the new environment cannot be deduced from general biological principles. Only [66]