28 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



transmitted differently. These may be acquired, 

 they may be developed by education, they may be 

 consciously improved by our intelligence, and all the 

 improvements may be handed on to the next genera- 

 tion. The possibility of modifying the nature of the 

 inheritance we hand to our children does not, then, 

 hang upon such an uncontrollable and mysterious 

 phenomenon as the mixture of germ substances in 

 sex union, but it may depend directly upon our con- 

 scious efforts. Along these lines an advance in the 

 race may be brought about by improving the condi- 

 tions of life, even though we are forced to admit that 

 no amount of training can in the slightest modify the 

 characters that we transmit by organic heredity. 

 When we come to learn, as we shall in a later chap- 

 ter, that the characters transmitted by social heredity 

 far outnumber in scope and significance those trans- 

 mitted by organic heredity, the whole problem of the 

 improvement and advance of the human race assumes 

 a new aspect. That a good organic inheritance is 

 of value beyond conception no one will deny; and 

 certainly every effort that can be made along the 

 lines advocated by modern eugenics to improve the 

 heritage should receive the heartiest support by all 

 interested in the advance of the race. But if our 

 higher attributes are mostly the nature of acquired 

 characters which may be transmitted by social hered- 

 ity, then the future of the race does not seem quite so 

 hopeless, even though we do recognize the proficiency 

 of a Jukes family to produce criminals. Social char- 

 acters may be transmitted to posterity in many cases 

 in spite of an organic inheritance tending against 

 them. 



Significance of Social Heredity — The idea of social 



