XIII 

 THE QUALITATIVE PROBLEM 



We now approach the second part of the problem, and turn 

 from a consideration of the quantity to a consideration of the 

 quahty of the population. In the second and third chapters we 

 found that reproduction was a necessity, and that to the fact of 

 reproduction can be traced the origin of problems both of quantity 

 and of quality. In the third chapter we further found that the 

 position of animals and plants in a state of nature as regards 

 problems of quality was in its broadest aspect simple. The 

 changes in the forms of organisms, which, when viewed as a whole, 

 we call evolution, are due to changes in the physical basis from 

 which new generations arise. The long procession of organisms, 

 usually of increasing complexity, from the simplest type to the 

 immediate ancestor of rational man, thus owes its being to a long 

 procession of changes in the germ-cells. 



When treating of the quantitative problem among men, we 

 considered a large amount of evidence which bears also upon 

 quality, and this evidence, supplemented as and where necessary, 

 will enable us to make some estimate of the importance of quali- 

 tative changes among men. This is the object of the remaining 

 chapters. We have to try and estimate how far human history 

 is comparable with changes among species in a state of nature — is 

 due, in other words, to germinal changes. There are two other 

 possible causes of change among men — the direct influence of the 

 environment and the influence of tradition — and in order to 

 estimate the importance of germinal change, it will be necessary 

 also to consider what importance is attributable to these two 

 factors. To one of them — namely to tradition — we shall find 

 reason to attribute great importance. Tradition, in fact, comes 

 ultimately to be of more importance than germinal change among 

 the underlying causes of history. But tradition is profoundly 

 influenced by the quantity of population among other factors, and, 

 therefore, to the extent to which this is so, the determining factor 

 in human history is still bound up with the population problem. 



