mously over nurture when the differences of
nurture do not exceed what is commonly to be found among persons of
the same rank of society and in the same country. My fear is, that
my evidence may seem to prove too much, and be discredited on that
account, as it appears contrary to all experience that nurture
should go for so little. But experience is often fallacious in
ascribing great effects to trifling circumstances. Many a person has
amused himself with throwing bits of stick into a tiny brook and
watching their progress; how they are arrested, first by one chance
obstacle, then by another; and again, how their onward course is
facilitated by a combination of circumstances. He might ascribe much
importance to each of these events, and think how largely the
destiny of the stick had been governed by a series of trifling
accidents. Nevertheless all the sticks succeed in passing down the
current, and in the long-run, they travel at nearly the same rate. So
it is with life, in respect to the several accidents which seem to
have had a great effect upon our careers. The one element, that
varies in different individuals, but is constant in each of them, is
the natural tendency; it corresponds to the current in the stream,
and inevitably asserts itself.

Much stress is laid on the persistence of moral impressions made in
childhood, and the conclusion is drawn, that the effects of early
teaching must be important in a corresponding degree. I acknowledge
the fact, so far as has been explained in the chapter on Early
Sentiments, but there is a considerable set-off on the other side.
Those teachings that conform to the natural aptitudes of the child
leave much more enduring marks than others. Now both the teachings
and the natural aptitudes of the child are usually derived from its
parents. They are able to understand the ways of one another more
intimately than is possible to persons not of the same blood, and
the child instinctively assimilates the habits and ways of thought
of its parents. Its disposition is "educated" by them, in the true
sense of the word; that is to say, it is evoked, not formed by them.
On these grounds I ascribe the persistence of many habits that date
from early home education, to the peculiarities of the instructors
rather than to the period when the instruction was given. The marks
left on the memory by the instructions of a foster-mother are soon
sponged clean away. Consider the history of the cuckoo