34 2 Habit and Instinct. 



where he contends that language renders possible the 

 handing on of experience irrespective of transmission by 

 heredity. " Might we not," he asks,* " define civilization 

 in general as the sum of the contrivances which enable 

 human beings to advance independently of heredity ? " 



According to this conception of human progress, then, 

 organic heredity keeps up a mean level possibly even 

 permits only a diminishing average of mental capacity, 

 with which succeeding generations have to deal with an 

 ever-evolving environment of mental products. And this 

 mean level, or even diminishing average, of mental 

 capacity, together with the wide variation around the 

 mean, is due to the comparative absence of natural 

 selection. 



It is clear that, in this handing on of experience irrespec- 

 tive of transmission by heredity, there is an enormous 

 extension of that tradition which we have already seen 

 to be a factor, though only a subordinate one, in the 

 life of animals. But the question for special considera- 

 tion now is whether, in view of these facts, there is any 

 increment of human faculty in civilized races on which 

 to base an argument for hereditary transmission. Writing 

 in 1890,f I expressed myself somewhat guardedly on the 

 subject. With regard to the diffusion of knowledge, I 

 suggested that this, though it brings more grist to the 

 intellectual mill, may have no effect in raising the mean 



* "Darwinism and Politics," 3rd edition, p. 101. In the same essay, 

 is an able criticism of Mr. Wallace's contention that the large brains of 

 savages are inexplicable on the theory of natural selection. The large 

 brain was required to deal with a complex environment ; the somewhat 

 larger brains of civilized folk with an environment of a different order of 

 complexity ; and it is this environment, rather than brain-power, which is 

 now undergoing development in civilized society. Mr. Ritchie unfortunately 

 does not avoid the error of identifying to some extent the effects of conscious 

 choice with those of natural selection. See p. 106. 



f "Animal Life and Intelligence," pp. 500, 501. 



