ASPECTS OF KINETIC EVOLUTION 335 



heredity have no doubt adequate physiological causes resident 

 in the species, but as far as the environment is concerned they 

 seem to be thoroughly spontaneous and fortuitous. They ap- 

 pear without notice and bring their own new and complete 

 heredity with them ; their very appearance signifies and consists 

 in an abrupt modification of heredity. The environment may 

 reject the new character and extinguish all the individuals with 

 the modified system of heredity ; it may limit heredity through 

 selection, but it does not mould or modify heredity. 



Heredity has been defined, in accordance with Professor 

 Lankester's view, as the sum of past environments, but this 

 statement, as usually understood, is only partial and misleading. 

 It is true only to the extent that it means that the heredity of a 

 species is a summary of the variations which the environments 

 have permitted it to retain. The idea, for example, that im- 

 proved environments will change the inherent characters of 

 backward races of mankind or of the deficient and criminal 

 classes of our populations, as often stated by philanthropists, is 

 founded on teleological inferences, and not on concrete observa- 

 tions. New environments may permit new and desirable char- 

 acters to be put forth which the selection of adverse conditions 

 has forbidden hitherto, but humanitarians seldom have patience 

 with such time-consuming methods of improvement. Moreover, 

 if they were to view the subject from a biological standpoint 

 they would soon appreciate the desirability of selecting the good 

 stocks for further amelioration instead of wasting their efforts, 

 relatively, at least, upon unworthy materials, in the vain hope of 

 realizing an unnatural ideal of equality. Ethical considera- 

 tions which concern only the relations of individuals and or- 

 ganized social bodies are often applied to racial and other 

 questions as purely biological as those of the relations of species 

 and subspecies in any other department of nature. Our chief 

 duty with reference to the really backward and deficient races 

 is to keep them from bringing about the deterioration of our 

 own, as almost inevitably occurs when a higher race comes in 

 contact with a lower. The qualities and standards which con- 

 duce to fitness in a higher civilization are of little or no signi- 

 ficance in a lower, and rapidly deteriorate. This does not 



