.

But the possibility of applying biological results to sociology with
any hope of enlightenment depends on an understanding of the
questions, How? and Why? It is important to know what the phenomena
are, but it is yet more important to know how? and for what reason?
they have come about. Thus we are led forward always from facts to
their efficient causes. Women are found to differ from men in this or
that respect. But this in itself decides nothing. As soon as we are
informed as to any one difference, we must seek out its cause; and
this we must do over and over again. Hundreds of women must be
interrogated, observed and reported upon--and then what? Shall we know
the answer to our problem? Certainly not. In each case we must ask: Is
this difference we have found between the sexes a natural inborn
quality of woman, whether it be physical or psychical, that must be
regarded as a right and unalterable part of her woman character, or is
it an acquired, and therefore changeable, modification that has been
superimposed upon her through the artificial sexual, social and
economic circumstances of her environment? The mere asking of this
question will give many new discoveries.

Life is a relation between two forces: on the one hand the organism
and on the other the external conditions that form the environment.
These two processes are known as Nature and Nurture, they are
complementary and inseparable, and they act together. Thus the
organism modifies its surroundings, and is in turn modified by them.
But every life possesses in great degree the power of self-adaptation,
and, broadly speaking, it is true that no matter under what conditions
it may be compelled to live, it will mould its own life into harmony
with those conditions and thus continue its existence, and this
whether it is compelled to adopt a more perfect or a less perfect
character. It becomes evident that an appropriate environment is
necessary if the Nature is to be expressed, or expressed fully;
otherwise life cannot realise development. The environment is
constantly checking and modifying the inheritance. Nurture supplies
the liberating stimulus to the inheritance, and growth is limited, in
exact measurement by the Nurture stimuli available. Human advancement
is, of course, widely different from the slow progress in the lower
forms of life, but it is fundamentally the same. Experience is
continually spreading over new fields and bringing about a more wide