334 Habit and Instinct. 



then is its position in the life of civilized man ? Let us 

 put the case in sharp antithesis to the conclusions of the 

 preceding paragraph. While mental evolution as such is 

 still dependent upon individual choice, it is no longer 

 wholly subservient to organic needs ; nor is it, save to a 

 limited extent, conditioned and controlled by natural selec- 

 tion. Mind to some extent escapes from its organic 

 thraldom, and is free to develop, still in accordance with 

 the natural laws of its own proper being, but in relation to 

 a new environment. And though continuity of mental 

 development in the race is still rendered possible by 

 organic heredity, mental progress is mainly due, not to 

 inherited increments of mental faculty, but to the handing 

 on of the results of human achievement by a vast extension 

 of that which we have seen to be a factor in animal life, 

 namely tradition. 



We must first endeavour to make good the position 

 that mental evolution in civilized man is no longer wholly 

 subservient to organic needs, and that it is no longer, save 

 to a limited extent, conditioned and controlled by natural 

 selection. The first point is so obvious and so generally 

 recognized as to stand in no need of detailed demonstration. 

 Among civilized races, at any rate, mental evolution has 

 far outstripped what is required to maintain bare organic 

 existence. Among lower races and savage tribes this is not 

 so markedly the case, and among them natural selection is 

 still no doubt a factor, though perhaps even with them a 

 diminishing factor, in progress. But it would seem that, 

 when we have to deal with civilized mankind, natural 

 selection is no longer a factor of predominant importance. 

 The microbe is indeed still at work eliminating the weakly, 

 notwithstanding all that medical skill can do; the 

 drunkard and the sensualist are still working out their own 

 physical damnation, the unchecked result of which would 



