608 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



when study of these general truths, as illustrated throughout the living 

 world, has woven them into the conceptions of things, is there gained 

 an adequately-strong conviction that enormous mischief must result 

 from ignoring them. 1 



Biological truths and their corollaries, presented under these spe- 

 cial forms as bases for sociological conclusions, are introductory to a 

 more general biological truth including them a general biological 

 truth which underlies all rational legislation. I refer to the truth 

 that every species of organism, including the human, is always adapt- 

 ing itself, both directly and indirectly, to its conditions of existence. 



The actions which have produced every variety of man the ac- 

 tions which have established in the Negro and the Hindoo constitu- 

 tions that thrive in climates fatal to Europeans, and in the Fuegian 

 a constitution enabling him to bear without clothing an inclemency 

 almost too great for other races well clothed the actions which have 

 developed in the Tartar races nomadic habits that are almost insur- 

 mountable, while they have given to North-American Indians desires 

 and aptitudes which, fitting them for a hunting-life, make a civilized 

 life intolerable the actions doing this, are also ever at work mould- 

 ing citizens into correspondence with their circumstances. While the 

 bodily natures of citizens are being fitted to the physical influences 

 and industrial activities of their locality, their mental natures are be- 

 ing fitted to the structure of the society they live in. Though, as we 

 have seen, there is always an approximate fitness of the social unit to 

 its social aggregate, yet the fitness can never be more than approxi- 

 mate, and readjustment is always going on. Could a society remain 

 unchanged, something like a permanent equilibrium between the na- 

 ture of the individual and the nature of the society would presently 

 be reached. But the type of each society is continually being modi- 

 fied by two causes by growth, and by the actions, warlike or other, 

 of adjacent societies. Increase in the bulk of a society inevitably 

 leads to change of structure ; as also does any alteration in the ratio 

 of the predatory to the industrial activities. Hence continual social 

 metamorphosis, involving continual alteration of the conditions under 

 which the citizen lives, produces in him an adaptation of character 

 which, tending toward completeness, is ever made incomplete by fur- 

 ther social metamorphosis. 



While, however, each society, and each successive phase of each 

 society, presents conditions more or less special, to which the natures 

 of citizens adapt themselves, there are certain general conditions 



1 Probably most readers will conclude that in this, and in the preced: ig Section, I 

 am simply carrying out the views of Mr. Darwin in their applications to the human race. 

 Under the circumstances, perhaps, I shall be excused for pointing out that the same be- 

 liefs, otherwise expressed, are contained in Chapters XXV. and XXYIII. of " Social 

 Statics," published in December, 1850. 



