CHAPTER XIV 



SOCIAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL RESULTS 



" Without heredity no amount of natural, sexual, or reproductive 

 selection would avail to progressively change, still less to differentiate, 

 living forms." — Karl Pearson. 



" The causes refer to our ancestors, our teachers, and the surrounding 

 conditions of society, and with the causes must the responsibility be pushed 

 backwards. The unhealthy parents, and not the immoral children, are 

 responsible ; the unfitted teacher, and not the misbehaving pupil, should be 

 blamed ; society, and not the criminal, is guilty. To take it in its most 

 general meaning, the cosmical elements, with their general laws, and not 

 we single mortals, are the fools." — Munsterberg. 



§ i. Relations of Biology and Sociology. 



§ 2. The Chief Value of the Sociological Appeal to Biology. 



§ 3. Originative Factors in Evolution. 



§ 4. Social Aspects of Heredity. 



§ 5. Directive Factors in Evolution. 



As the general results of biological investigation must apply, 

 mutatis mutandis, to man as well as to other organisms, we 

 naturally look to Biology for some practical guidance in re- 

 lation to human affairs. Thus what we have said in regard to 

 the heritability of predispositions to disease may be of some 

 practical utility. Similarly, the long discussion regarding the 

 transmission of acquired characters has some practical corol- 

 laries. When all is said, however, we cannot but feel that the 

 application of biological results is only beginning, and beginning 

 with a tardiness which is a reproach to human foresight. There 



510 



