MAN 67 



It would seem definitely advisable, however, that man do 

 nothing that would interfere with the natural variability of 

 his germ plasma. This, in addition to the mutations which 

 may occur in the future, could in the long run produce for 

 the benefit of some future civilization the necessary flexi- 

 bility of the hereditary pattern that would make more likely 

 the voluntary solution of the social problem. At present, 

 most men are simply not sufficiently gifted with an innate 

 desire to cooperate to make the fundamental solution easy. 

 It should be noted that nature is not always selecting toward 

 rugged individuals. In many instances the selective pressure 

 in a society has been toward altruism. It is true that natural 

 selection is as likely to be retrogressive as progressive, but 

 man is still a very young species and an optimist might be 

 pardoned if he looks forward hopefully for desirable natural 

 changes. Certainly, if man retains too high a degree of 

 rugged individualism, if his innate selfishness is not curbed 

 voluntarily or involuntarily, he cannot progress much be- 

 yond his present level. 



In the meantime some evolutionists feel there is another 

 factor at work, a factor which is peculiar to man only, 

 namely, a sort of "inheritance of acquired social characters." 

 It is better expressed, I think, as the "transmission of ac- 

 quired social characters." E. W. Sinnott, C. H. Wadding- 

 ton, G. G. Simpson, and others before them have considered 

 this possibility. Most students of organic evolution reject 

 the Lamarckian doctrine of acquired characters in inherit- 

 ance and, as has been noted in Chapter 4, orient adaptation 

 through the interplay of genes in populations, guided by se- 

 lection. The idea of "acquired social characters," however, 

 has taken a strong hold on these men who think Lamarck's 

 hypothesis has possibilities if applied to man's society. 



Lamarck, the only really important predecessor of Dar- 

 win, thought that the production of new organs and new 

 parts of an organism resulted from "new needs and desires," 

 and from the new movements and evolvements which these 



