1 66 WHAT EVOLUTION IS 



table-manners, there is no certainty 

 that any of his descendants will show 

 these traits as they may his eye-color 

 or hair-color. Social inheritance is 

 accomplished on what may be de- 

 scribed as a Lamarckian model, for 

 the habits of one generation are modi- 

 fied and, as such, are handed on to the 

 next. But this, of course, is through 

 what one individual learns from an- 

 other and not through the germ, so 

 that when we speak of it as La- 

 marckian we are using that term in 

 a figurative way. 



The methods of social inheritance, 

 then, are very different from those of 

 germinal inheritance. They have a 

 superficial resemblance to the La- 

 marckian conception, and probably it 

 is this resemblance coupled with our 

 great familiarity with them in daily 

 life that predisposes us to the La- 

 marckian doctrine. It is a strange 



