SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL HEREDITY 287 



attempts made to compare human evolution with 

 that of animals. Writers have failed to see that the 

 problem of the evolution of civilization and society is 

 totally different from that of the evolution in the 

 lower realms of nature. The one is an evolution of 

 the organic nature, and the other the evolution of a 

 purely artificial product. It may be that a certain 

 parallel can be drawn, but the utterly different 

 nature of the two should convince us that they are 

 controlled by different laws. Man is endowed at 

 birth with certain innate powers, but from the very 

 day of his existence there is being added to them a 

 large and ever-increasing number of artificial or 

 acquired characters. These are impressed upon his 

 nature by the action of his environment. The same 

 thing is true, to be sure, of other animals, but the 

 relative importance of these two phases of nature is 

 different in man and animals. Among animals the 

 innate powers, including those of organic structure 

 and those of instinct, are by far the most impor- 

 tant, while the new features that are added during 

 life, as results of the action of environment upon 

 them, are comparatively unimportant. With man, 

 while the powers with which he is born are cer- 

 tainly important, the factors added to his nature, 

 especially his mental nature, by the action of the 

 environment upon him, are much the greater and 

 become in adult life by far the most important 

 part of his attributes. Since such attributes are 

 acquired rather than congenital, they have rarely 

 entered into discussions as factors in evolution, inas- 

 much as they are not transmitted by heredity as 

 ordinarily understood. But, as we have seen, they 

 are transmitted by social inheritance. 



