TABOO AND GENETICS ii 



dously differentiated in functions, and that most 

 of the activities we look upon as distinctively 

 human depend upon the body rather than the 

 germ-cells. 



It follows that biology is the foundation 

 rather than the house, if we may use so crude 

 a figure. The solidity of the foundation is very 

 important, but it does not dictate the details as 

 to how the superstructure shall be arranged. 



Civilization would not be civilization if we 

 had to spend most of our time thinking about 

 the biological basis. If we wish to think of 

 " Nature's " proscriptions or plans as con- 

 trolling animal life, the anthropomorphism is 

 substantially harmless. But man keeps out of 

 the way of most of such proscriptions, has plans 

 of his own, and has acquired considerable skill 

 in varying his projects without running foul of 

 such biological prohibitions. 



It is time to abandon the notion that biology 

 prescribes in detail how we shall run society. 

 True, this foundation has never received a 

 surplus of intelligent consideration. Sometimes 

 human societies have built so foolishly upon it 

 that the result has been collapse. Somebody 

 is alwa3^s digging around it in quest of evidence 

 of some vanished idylhc state of things which, 

 having had and discarded, we should return to. 

 This little excursion into biology is made in the 

 full consciousness that social mandates are not 



