SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL HEREDITY 285 



development of a man with that of other animals 

 along the lines just mentioned. Suppose we could 

 bring up a child entirely without contact with 

 its imrents or any other members of the race to 

 which it belonged. Or even suppose that a 

 child could be brought up without acquiring the 

 one human attribute of language; what would be 

 the result upon the individual thus influenced? Of 

 course such an experiment as this is an impossibility, 

 and we can judge the results only from inference. 

 But the inference is clear enough, and probably no 

 one will ever hesitate to regard it as correct. We 

 know positively from observation that the intellec- 

 tual nature, and even the moral nature, of an individ- 

 ual is closely dependent upon the conditions under 

 which the individual is reared. We know that a child 

 brought up under the influences of an English com- 

 munity develops different qualities from what he 

 would develop if he had been brought up under the 

 influence of the Turks. We know of instances where 

 European children have been stolen from their par- 

 ents at an early age and brought up amid a tribe of 

 savages. These examples show that such individuals 

 acquire not only the customs and habits but also the 

 methods of thinking, and even the moral instincts 

 of the human beings with whom they have been in 

 contact during their early years. The intelligence, 

 the method of thinking, even the moral sense and 

 conscience of the individual, are dependent in large 

 degree upon the character of the people with whom 

 he is placed during his youth. We must unhesitat- 

 ingly conclude that all these factors are stimulated 

 to develop in the human mind largely, if not wholly, 

 by the action of its environment. These facts are 



