Nature Vs. Nurture

Victorian polymath Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's half-cousin, popularized the phrase in his 1874 book English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture. Though Shakespeare paired the words in The Tempest (1611), Galton transformed them into a scientific framework. His 1869 Hereditary Genius laid groundwork for the debate. The underlying question—nature versus environment—dates to Ancient Greece, but Galton's alliterative phrasing crystallized the modern formulation.