AITKMHX 



tion and societal selection are used interchangeably to deal 



processes that secure quite dilVerent forms of adaptation. 

 \\liat some writers call countcrselection, 88 or mi^ch vtim. 

 really t'.>rms of social selection. While it is not wise to try to 



.n mobile lif- processes which arc in | 



of flux and forming, it is at least worth the effort to make an 

 attemp- 1 classification. 



When a human being :cts in the way of ponder,,^ social iiMi- 

 tntions or aged customs driven by tlic momentum of antiquity, a 

 social seleetion takes place; the unlucky individual may be 

 .-rushed to physical exlerminat ion. or simply pushed out of the 

 if ordinary social intercourse. In any event a social selec- 

 tion quite ditVerent from natural selection occurs, and in the 

 long run the process seems to result in the survival of a race 

 of tractable and conforming individuals. 



Coiisidenni: this phenomenon we find that sociologists have not 

 always distinguished between selection that works on the pi 

 plane and selection that works on the psychic plane. This dig- 

 tinction is very important, for selection on the physical plane 

 involves the extermination of the individual and brings decisive 

 results. The antisocial, the innovators, the non-conformist ^. and 

 olVenders are once for all eliminated. Selection on the psychic 

 plane is milder. It merely modifies conduct and thought. It 

 fails to strike through to racial stock and secure a physical ba-is 

 for perpetuating its grains. 



<is examine this selective process that works on the physical 

 plane. It manifests JK ]f in various ways. Sometimes it in- 

 volves the killing of helpless non-producers the aged and the 

 infants as in parricide or infanticide. These victims of 

 power are not offenders a ( _ r ain<t social usare: their only sin is 

 that they stand in the way of group survival. In communities 

 when- thes.- practices flourish the stru _"_'] c for severe 



and food is searce, so that this established population policy of 



and C. A. Ell wood v Sociology in Its / \*pecta (New \<>rk. 



1918 



8A. (J. K.-I1. ' .,h,tion (New V.rk. 1015), -hap. vi. 



39 E. A. i: i ': :i'(l /'ou'/ 



of Sociolofj Y,,rk. 1!(>5), pp. 328-3n. 



