Schopenhauer was the first to classify people according to nature and
nurture. Just where he first used the categories I do not know, but I
know that he is responsible for them. “Nature” is physical and mental
character and disposition, taken most broadly; “nurture” is bringing up,
environment, studies, scholarship, and experience, also in the broadest
sense of those words. Both together present what a man is, what he is
able to do, what he wants to do. A classification, then, according to
nature and nurture is a classification according to essence and
character. The influence of a man’s nature on his face, we know, or try
to know, but what criminal relationships his nurture may develop for us,
we are altogether ignorant of. There are all sorts of intermediaries,
connections and differences between what the goddess of civilization
finds to prize, and what can be justified only by a return to simplicity
and nature.