68 Social Environment 



The difference between the biologic evolu- 

 tion of the prehuman species and the social 

 evolution of man may be seen in the develop- 

 ment of flying. Nature produced the bird 

 apparently from reptilian ancestors through 

 many poorly adapted and only partially suc- 

 cessful types up to the efficient species now 

 existing. In this process of evolution the 

 poorly adapted necessarily were crowded out 

 and destroyed by the better adapted. Step by 

 step, through variation, competition, and selec- 

 tion, through experiment and waste, life at 

 last sprang into the air upon the fully devel- 

 oped wing. The same ambition taking con- 

 scious form in man reaches its fruition in a 

 rapid burst of invention, through forms of 

 monoplane, biplane, and airship, arising first 

 in the medium of the creative imagination, 

 and taking rapidly changing shapes in wood 

 and metal through acquired mechanical tech- 

 nique. The process is carried on without the 

 change of man's physical inheritance, while the 

 results of the experimentation preserved in 

 printed symbols become the common property 

 of all peoples for all time. The evolution of 

 the bird required, through natural selection, a 

 wholesale waste of life, for the individual bird 



