280 social heredity and social evolution 



Summary of Salient Conclusions 



It will make this discussion clearer if we briefly 

 summarize at this point the salient conclusions 

 reached in the previous chapters as to the history 

 and trend of social evolution. The more important 

 of these conclusions are as follows : 



1. Social evolution has been characterized by con- 

 stantly growing organizations. 



2. With the increasing size of organizations there 

 has been a corresponding increase placed upon the 

 value of the individual. 



3. Organization has been made possible only by 

 the possession of language, and this has been devel- 

 oped from small beginnings, slowly step by step, as 

 man has laboriously constructed it by experience and 

 teaching. 



4. The all pervading law of natural selection still 

 acts upon the evolution of the human race with an 

 irresistible force. But its action is so profoundly 

 iriodified by the artificial conditions introduced by 

 society that it sometimes fails to be recognized. 



5. Social evolution has, however, not been brought 

 about by natural selection or by selection at all but 

 by the action of the ethical nature which, since it 

 demands sacrifice, frequently acts in apparent oppo- 

 sition to the fundamental laws of self-preservation 

 and selfhood that controls the rest of the animal 

 kingdom. 



6. The ethical nature is based upon instinctive 

 impulses founded in the nature of man. 



7. Under the influence of developing society the 

 ethical instincts have universally produced codes of 

 morals which guide the lives of members of society 



