164 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



There are not now, he holds, and so far as we know there never 

 have been any pure races, the so-called historical races being 

 compounds formed by the amalgamation of separate ethnic 

 groups and by cross-fertilization of cultures. 



As all social development has resulted primarily from inter- 

 group struggle, there has been no opportunity for selection as a 

 result of struggle between individuals, hence no increase in the 

 innate mental capacity of man but only in knowledge due to 

 social heredity. 1 



In discussing the origin of social classes Gumplowicz uses 

 biological analogies but his interpretation of biological evolution 

 is far from satisfactory. He makes heredity and adaptation 

 (Erblichkeit und Anpassung) the two opposing methods of 

 explaining the origin of species, or again, autogenesis and evolu- 

 tion (Autogenismus und Evolutionismus) . 2 By the first he seems 

 to mean spontaneous variation and its hereditary transmission 

 and by the latter physiological changes in the developing organ- 

 ism to adapt it to its environment and the transmission of these 

 slight variations to the offspring. Two other terms are used, the 

 latter of which seems entirely out of place in biology: originality 

 and imitation (Originalitat und Imitation). 3 Applying these laws 

 to the formation of social classes he says: 



We have seen how some classes (the ruling, the peasant and the business 

 classes) arose out of the union of heterogeneous ethnical elements; how their 

 differences and individuality, original in each case, date from the time 

 previous to the union and persist later when they form part of the state, 

 because both the anthropological and moral peculiarities of each help to 



1 Grundriss, pp. 211 ., 222 f. 



2 Ibid., p. 135. The use of these terms by Gumplowicz is unfortunate and 

 does not correspond to modern terminology. In biology we have spontaneous 

 or inborn and acquired variations. The first are inherited, the latter probably 

 not. In social evolution, however, these acquired variations or habits are handed 

 on by so-called social heredity, but both processes may be explained by the 

 principle of adaptation, for those variations which handicap the individual, species, 

 class or group too much, prevent survival in the struggle for existence. 



3 " Auf doppelte Art entstehen naturliche Gebilde, originar und sekundar. Es 

 gibt in der Natur sozusagen zwei entgegengesetzte Stromungen, die sich immer 

 und iiberall begegnen, und die wir Originalitat und Imitation nennen konnten. 



"Was namlich die Natur originell, auf eine uns unbekannte ' schopferische* 

 Art geschaffen hat, das entsteht auch haufig unter dem Einfluss ausserer, uns wohl 



