The position of woman: actual and ideal / with preface by Sir Oliver Lodge.

Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The position of woman: actual and ideal / with preface by Sir Oliver Lodge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/192 (page 12)
    A few experiments are of more value than many platitudes, but the basis is still too narrow for safe generalization. We may notice in passing that we have deliberately refrained from discussing the tedious question of cranial capacity, because the sig- nificance of the comparison is not clear. It is difficult to believe much in the importance of slight quantitative differences in cranial capacity and the like—and, secondly, it seems very difficult to eliminate nurtural influences. Growth of the skull, as of other parts, is inhibited or exaggerated according to the abundance of appropriate stimull. 8. ‘Thanks to Weismann in particular, biologists have become vividly aware of the importance of distinguishing modifications from _ variations. Anyone can see that there are observed differences between the members of a species; some of these can be shown to be due to peculiarities in the individual’s ‘‘ nurture’ (food, atmosphere, sur- roundings, education, exercise, habits, etc.); which we sum up in the technical words Environ- ment and Function; and it is only when we subtract all these acquired modifications from the observed differences that we get at the really most interesting things—the inborn variations, the germinal new departures, which are the raw materials of evolution, and the basis of what we call individuality. Now it must be said firmly, that the great majority of even the current comparisons of man