Social Consequences of Heredity. 369 



Heredity is a law of living nature, a biological law of destiny 

 and necessity, like physical laws a principle of conservatism and 

 stability. Hence it is that so soon as civilizations have attained 

 any growth, in accordance with the law of progress, of which varia- 

 tion is the essence, there arises a struggle between these two 

 principles, and then either progress must overthrow caste, as in 

 Greece, or caste hinder progress, as in India. 



From this antagonism between heredity and free-will flow some 

 weighty consequences. We will state these in the conclusion of 

 this work, when we shall be able to generalize the facts more fully. 

 We will now examine the relations between heredity and nobility. 



in. 



Nobility, whether we accept or reject it, has its natural causes. 

 It is the result of the original inequality of talents and characters. 

 History shows that though it has assumed various shapes, in 

 different countries and at different periods, it has always and 

 everywhere rested on a conscious and intentional selection, con- 

 solidated in an institution; this, at least, is what it has wished to 

 be. With the exception of China, where nobility is conferred on 

 principles the very reverse of those prevailing elsewhere, 1 we find 

 this distinction always based on heredity. In the ancient east 

 (India, Persia, Egypt, Assyria, etc.) where the rule of castes pre- 

 vailed, we do not find nobility in the modern sense of the word for 

 though nobility is often called a caste, the two things are in reality 

 incompatible. Nobility is impossible either in a community so 

 simple as to be included in three or four divisions, or in a very 

 mixed, very active community, such as that of the United States. 

 But the social state of the east resembled the symbolic ladder of 

 the worship of Mithra, each of the seven degrees of which was of 

 a particular metal and answered to a special initiation into the 

 infinite mysteries of the universe. Each man was born in his own 

 degree, of iron or silver, lead or gold, as the case might be, and 



1 In China, when the sovereign confers a title of nobility on a subject, that 

 title ennobles the ascendants, while the descendants remain commoners. This 

 anomaly is explained by the great importance attached by the Chinaman to the 

 cultus of his ancestors ; indeed, he scarcely knows any other religion than this. 



