]i 



:V 



252 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



students to hold pessimistic views as to the future of 

 the human race, and to tell us that man is going 

 downward instead of upward, as a result of this 

 withdrawal of the beneficent action of natural selec- 



tioji. 



/in considering this statement, we must point out 

 that there are two factors in human evolution; the 

 first is the evolution of the human body, the second 

 the evolution of human society; and the laws which 

 have controlled the development of the two are widely 

 different. The withdrawal of natural selection may 

 possibly have a tendency to degrade the physical 

 nature of man, although upon this question it is not 

 yet possible to give a categorical answer. But in 

 its relation to society and to the development of 

 intelligence, altruism, even though it be equivalent to 

 Weismann's panmixia, is distinctly elevating. If we 

 look at the history of man in a broad way, we soon 

 learn that altruism has not, after all, led to degrada- 

 tion ; that in the history of the past the law of altru- 

 ism instead of leading to degradation has led toward 

 elevation. The fact is that the general laws of 

 nature are wider than man's feeble vision. What- 

 ever effect ethical custom may have on man's phys- 

 ical nature, nothing is clearer than the fact that 

 those nations in which the principle of altruism has 

 become most developed are the rulers of the world. 

 Nations in which this principle has failed to develop 

 have remained in a lower state of development, or 

 have disappeared before the growing strength of 

 the nations where the ethical spirit has been fos- 

 tered. History shows us that altruism makes strong 

 nations, and that only by the development of the 

 ethical nature can man rise in strength and influ- 



