248 THE CONTROL OF LIFE 



§ 9. The Social Heritage 

 In considering the role of natural selection among 

 animals, we saw that great importance probably at- 

 taches to the external system of linkages, or web of 

 life, which is always becoming more intricate from age 

 to age. It is very useful to apply this idea to Man, 

 whose nature varies slowly in its hereditary fibre, though 

 its expression in the individual is extraordinarily modifi- 

 able and educable. The hope of social selection working 

 well is obviously increased by the fact that man can 

 register so many of his evolutionary gains outside of 

 himself in social organisations and institutions, laws and 

 traditions, literature and art. He cannot move very 

 fast Mmself , but his face is in the right direction on the 

 whole, and his extrinsic registration of stable things that 

 last helps to keep him from slipping down the rungs of 

 his steep ladder. 



Perhaps we do not sufficiently realise the extent to 

 which man projects himself into outside things, en- 

 registering in them his ideas and ideals. The streets 

 of a city are often hung with invisible memorials — an 

 inspiration to the educated eye, the regionally trained 

 mind. In a good, as well as in a bad sense, it is true 

 what the prophet Habakkuk said : " The stone shall 

 cry out of the wall." The pity is that we are so badly 

 educated and have so little imagination. 



It may not be a waste of time to linger over a familiar 

 instance of Man's power of enregistering his gains out- 

 side himself. We know how some of the great pieces 

 of literature, which are common property among men 



