514 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE IN THE CENTURY. 



tionship. In virtue of natural inheritance the prim- 

 itive social group or small tribe has a physical unity, 

 which rises into a psychical one. As blood-relations, 

 they have certain characteristics in common, they 

 respond similarly to similar stimuli, the sense of kin- 

 ship grows. Peculiarities may be fixed by in-breed- 

 ing, and a consciousness of distinctiveness may be- 

 come vivid enough to be expressed in word or symbol. 

 A primitive sense of kinship may rise into an esprit 

 de corps, and that to a race-ideal and patriotism. It 

 must be remembered that the natural inheritance 

 (which includes psychical as well as physical fea- 

 tures, and not only obvious characters like shape of 

 nose, lips, and eyes but less definable characters like 

 fertility) must be distinguished from the hardly less 

 important external heritage expressed in custom and 

 myth, law and institution. Both are part of the 

 racial entail, but only the former is organically 

 transmitted. 



The sociological importance of the family can 

 hardly be over-estimated, and it should be remem- 

 bered that the researches of Starcke, Westermarck, 

 E. Grosse, H. Cunow, and others, have tended to un- 

 dermine the old conclusion of McLennan and Lub- 

 bock that a lawless promiscuity prevailed in the 

 early stages of social evolution. There seems no 

 good reason to doubt that monogamy was primitive. 



While carefully distinguishing the question of 

 validity from that of origin, it is important to con- 

 sider the evolutionist thesis that morality had and 

 has one of its centres around the hearth and the 

 cradle. 



According to Mr. Sutherland, the content of moral- 

 ity arises from parental, conjugal, and social sym- 

 pathy, and the sentiment of Duty is regarded as a sys- 



