BIOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY 79 



end-product of that development, can be altered far 

 more rapidly than in any other organism. Finally, 

 it is possible, as is being increasingly realized, thus to 

 accumulate experience relating to the alteration of 

 biological inheritance, and so eventually to substitute 

 conscious purpose for blind natural selection in man's 

 future evolution. 



Next point : by means of speech, tradition, and 

 invention, man has been enabled to extend his bio- 

 logical environment — in other words, that part of the 

 cosmos with which he stands in relation — till it has 

 reached an enormously greater size than that of any 

 other organism. He is learning ever more facts about 

 the celestial bodies, studying stars that are at an in- 

 conceivable distance from him. He is able to travel 

 at will to all parts of the globe. He can penetrate by 

 means of tradition to remote periods of the past : as 

 Mr. Wells has forcibly put it, a modern Englishman 

 can know more of the world in the Classical Epoch 

 than could the most learned Greek or Roman. And 

 even when he can no more get into contact with ideas, 

 he can still unravel facts : flint implements help him 

 to the history of man, fossils to that of life, rocks to 

 that of the globe, stars to that of the solar system. 

 In time, as well as in space, his environment enlarges 

 to a size that is for practical purposes infinite, whereas 

 no other organism can penetrate beyond its own 

 memories, or, at most, do more than profit by those 

 of the generation immediately before it. Professor 



