CHAPTER IX 



SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT 



WE have completed our hasty sketch of 

 human evolution. We have traced 

 its course and briefly analyzed the 

 chief factors and processes involved in the long 

 and slow upward progress. But our aim has 

 been practical rather than academic. We have 

 studied evolution mainly in order to discover 

 what light it can throw on present problems. It 

 seems necessary, therefore, before we close, to 

 attempt to apply the results of our theory to 

 present conditions and needs. 



This venture involves much repetition as well 

 as risk. Every upward step has been of the 

 nature of an experiment, whose results could not 

 be foretold. Every modification of habit, struc- 

 ture, or institution demands that we retain all 

 that we can of the good in the old with as much 

 added progress as is possible or safe. Progress 

 has been by steps, not by leaps or bounds. 



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