514 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL RESULTS 



inheritance is likely to be slow. Thus we are led to look for 

 other than germinal origins of social variations ; thus we are 

 led to suspect that when a social evolutionary process — up or 

 down — is rapid, there must be super-organic factors at work. 

 The distinction between organismal and social variations is 

 obvious. The distinction between inborn variations and ac- 

 quired modifications (which may be very rapidly diffused) will 

 be alluded to later on. 



While the facts seem to suggest that most of the organic 

 variations which occur in civilised communities are simply 

 slightly novel combinations and permutations in that complex 

 system of ancestral contributions which we call our natural 

 inheritance, the recent work of investigators like Bateson and 

 De Vries has led us to recognise that discontinuous or transilient 

 variations are of not infrequent occurrence in organisms. A 

 " new departure," a remarkable change of organic equilibrium 

 may suddenly appear, and may come to stay, especially if it be 

 favoured by inbreeding or some form of isolation It seems 

 certain that a definite breed of cattle may arise in a single farm- 

 yard, may be inbred until it attains dominant prepotency, and 

 may after a while persist in its integrity in spite of occasional 

 inter-crossing. If this be so, we can better understand how a 

 particular human strain — such as " the Celtic type " — may be 

 so prepotent that it persists as an important social factor in spite 

 of much mingling of stocks. On the other hand, a genius is a 

 transilient variation who usually does not come to stay, except 

 as an immortal spirit embodied in literature or art. 



The view that man has a range of psychical variability as 

 large as his range of physical variability is small, does not seem 

 to us supported by facts. The view that man's psychical varia- 

 tions are independent of natural inheritance is contradicted 

 by careful investigations, such as those of Karl Pearson (1903). 

 The useful fact to emphasise is that man, though slowly or 

 slightly variable, is rapidly and exceedingly modifiable, and that 



