40 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



inals ; so would most children, whatever their ances- 

 try, if reared under these conditions. Social heredity 

 surrounds each child with conditions which it is 

 impossible for him to escape and the influence of 

 which is most profound. Both organic and social 

 heredity have played a part in determining the life 

 of the Jukes and the Edwards families and likely 

 the latter as profound a part as the former. In 

 fiction we like to read of the child of the lower 

 classes rising above his surroundings and becom- 

 ing successful in a social life of a higher grade; 

 but in actual life these instances are rare indeed. 

 Where they do occur it will be always found that 

 some events in the child 's life brought him under new 

 influences, put him into a new environment, or 

 started new ideas and hopes in him — in short, that 

 he was brought under the influence of a new type of 

 social inheritance, and that his departure from the 

 general rule of his family is due to social inheritance. 

 The rule is that the child as he grows into man- 

 hood grows into the environment in which he is 

 reared and becomes a part of it — a rule rarely 

 broken. Social heredity is thus one of the most cer- 

 tain of forces and one which no one can escape. In 

 its certainty of action it stands at least on a par with 

 organic heredity. 



Social Attributes Transmitted by Social Heredity 



It will naturally be inferred that social heredity 

 will be concerned in the transmission of all that per- 

 tains directly to society. This force acts through 

 close associations of men which make it possible for 

 them to interact upon each other in such a way that 

 one individual may benefit from another and one geu- 



