314 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



genius and the man who plods, in a common and significant 

 development. 



It is, therefore, on the side of just this endeavor that I write. 

 It seems that we have now at hand in our recent literature some 

 social truths of such generality that certain things may be said 

 of social progress which do not rob the genius of his credit, nor 

 of his influence, even though they do tend to explain him. They 

 go further, indeed, in that they explain him in the same terms 

 and to the same extent that they explain the common man and 

 society too. We may turn to these considerations. 



The first and most general position which has come as a new 

 insight, in the confusion of present-day discussion, is indicated 

 by a phrase which I have used elsewhere — "Social Heredity." 

 The theory of social heredity has been worked up through the 

 contributions, from different points of view, of several authors. 

 I shall first expound this point of view in my own way, bringing 

 out most prominently the aspects of social heredity which seem 

 to be of value for the true " appreciation " of the genius. What, 

 then, is social heredity ? 



This is a very easy question to answer, since the group of facts 

 which the phrase describes are extremely familiar — so much so 

 that the reader may despair, from such a commonplace beginning, 

 of getting any novelty from it. The social heritage is, of course, 

 all that a man or woman gets from the accumulated wisdom of 

 society. All that the ages have handed down — the literature, the 

 art, the habits of social conformity, the experience of social ills 

 the treatment of crime, the relief of distress, the education of the 

 young, the provision for the old — all, in fact, however described, 

 that we men owe to the ancestors whom we reverence, and to the 

 parents whose presence with us perhaps we cherish still. Their 

 struggles, the Fourth of July orator has told us, have bought our 

 freedom ; we enter into the heritage of their thought and wisdom 

 and heroism. All true ; we do. We all breathe a social atmos- 

 phere; and our growth is by this breathing-in of the tradition 

 and example of the past. 



Now, if this be the social heritage, we may go on to ask. Who 

 are to inherit it ? And to this we may again add the further 

 question. How does the one who is born to such a heritage as this 

 come into his inheritance ? And with this yet again. How may 

 he use his inheritance — to what end and under what limitations ? 

 These questions come so readily into the mind that we naturally 

 wish the discussion to cover them, even apart from the require- 

 ment which is urged upon us, in these latter days, that we make 

 all social discussion as biological as possible. The term heredity 



