118 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



oped in the race as well as in the individual does not 

 make its dictates any less imperative. 



The Moral Sense Started as a "Spontaneous 



Variation ' * 



One final question remains for brief considera- 

 tion. What has been shown in this outline is that 

 we can find numerous grades between the highly 

 developed moral sense of to-day and the lowest 

 condition among savages, and other intermediate 

 grades between this and the condition of social 

 habits among animals. It has been made evident 

 that the early families in which this ethical prin- 

 ciple developed would be the ones to survive, but it 

 has not been shown how it happened that any fam- 

 ilies did develop this new phase of character. If 

 some families in early times did develop these new 

 methods of action while others did not, we can 

 understand the survival of the former. But what 

 caused any of them to start in this new line? Per- 

 haps it may have been useful to man to make for 

 himself a model, and then to pattern his life after 

 this model to avoid the loss of self-respect, but this 

 does not explain how he ever came to form the habit 

 of creating such a model. The elimination of races 

 with the lower stage of development of the moral 

 sense does not explain the origin of races with that 

 sense highly developed. In order that this char- 

 acter should grow there must have been constant 

 departure from race habit, since a repetition of 

 custom could produce no advance. If each genera- 

 tion simply learned what it was taught, and thus de- 

 veloped a moral nature like its parents, advance 

 would be impossible. Some individuals must have 



