SUGGESTIONS OF SOCIOLOGY. 519 



This never occurs as an accretion from without; it 

 always implies some measure of amalgamation and 

 intermixture, in ideas, if not also physically, and the 

 result is variation. Strong societary forms may 

 exterminate weak ones, but they cannot swallow 

 them as Pharaoh's lean kine did, and be unaffected. 

 The incidentally weaker organisation may pro- 

 foundly change the stronger, and victory may be 

 after all to the vanquished. 



An important consideration, which seems to have 

 been overlooked by some writers, is that the ques- 

 tion of the inheritance of acquired characters (trans- 

 mission of modifications) assumes quite a different 

 aspect when we pass from plants and animals or in- 

 dividual men to societary forms. While it remains 

 true that the natural inheritance of the component 

 individuals probably does not include modifications, 

 and that the changes most to be trusted are the slow 

 organic or constitutional variations, it must not be 

 forgotten that the external heritage embodied in tra- 

 dition and custom, in laws written and unwritten, 

 in literature and art, and so on, admits of what is 

 practically the transmission of acquired characters. 

 Thus social modifications induced by environment 

 or function have in social evolution a direct signifi- 

 cance. 



This note on social inheritance suggests a cross 

 reference to Galton's work on filial regression, which 

 shows us, he says, that even a nation moves as a 

 great fraternity. 



(B) Directive Factors. The essay of Malthus in 

 1798 contains the first modern recognition of the 

 sociological importance of " the struggle for exist- 

 ence,'^ a phrase which he used. In the hands of Dar- 

 win, Wallace, Spencer, Huxley, and Haeckel, the idea 

 acquired sufficient validity to form the basis of a 



