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Nature and nurture are just another way of saying "genetics" and "environment", respectively.

Galton was, I believe, a nephew of Charles Darwin, the famous natural historian who advanced the theory of natural selection. Galton was interested in a number of topics that would now be considered within the realm of psychology. Of particular relevance to this lecture's topic was his work on the question of genetics and environmental factors in the development of intelligence. Galton had a bit of an agenda going: he was trying to show, amongst other things, that the upper classes were more intelligent than the lower classes due to their breeding. The roots for this thinking involve a number of Victorian era social theories that we unfortunately don't have time to go into here. Suffice it to say that Galton's studies led him to view genetics and environment in opposition in the development of a person's intelligence. That is, he advocated a position of Nature vs. Nurture.

Somewhat later Richard Mulcaster took a look at the issue of genetics and environmental influence and arrived at a different position: that Nature and Nurture interact in highly complex ways to produce a person's intelligence, temperment, personality, etc. This view of the interaction of genetic and environmental factor is the commonly held position of most psychologists today, although there is often debate as to just how much genetic or environmental factors affect different features.