HUMAN AND ANIMAL EVOLUTION CONTRASTED 39 



from the child of Peking or of the mid- African sav- 

 age village. The social inheritance is sure, for it is 

 totally impossible for a man to be reared in an en- 

 vironment and not to be molded by it. A child of 

 red-haired, English-speaking parents may not have 

 red hair, but he must speak English if he is brought 

 up by his parents. So cial in heritance is dependent 

 solely upon the environment m wnicn the chi ld-JS- 

 r eared, and is as certain as the enviro nment. To be 

 sure, different individuals absorb this inhel-itance in 

 different degrees, especially certain phases of it con- 

 nected with what we call the moral nature; but all 

 absorb some of it, and the integrity of the man who 

 has been reared under one set of influences, as well as 

 the vices of the man of the slums, are to a large 

 extent — one might almost say wholly, if he did not 

 believe in personal initiative — due to the inheritance 

 which society has given him. 



The Jukes family has often been quoted as illus- 

 trating the effects of inheritance where for genera- 

 tion after generation the offspring of the original 

 pair have produced criminals. The Edwards family 

 is in the same way used to illustrate the effects of 

 good inheritance, since this family produced genera- 

 tion after generation college presidents and pro- 

 fessors, as well as other eminent men of learning. 

 We will not attempt to doubt the effect of organic 

 inheritance in these cases, but they may just as well 

 be used to illustrate our point of the inevitable 

 effects of social heredity. It must be remembered 

 that the Jukes children were reared amid crime and 

 profligacy, and were from childhood taught, both 

 consciously and unconsciously, that crime was some- 

 thing to be respected. No wonder they became crim- 



