SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL HEREDITY 293 



the moral code of each race accommodating itself 

 to the customs of its society. In modern nations the 

 whole series of actions toward which the ideas of 

 right and wrong are directed has been built up 

 by social heredity. These moral codes have slowly 

 developed. Whether or not the higher civilized 

 races have a higher moral sense than the lower, they 

 certainly have a much more developed set of moral 

 codes, and these determine the moral status of indi- 

 viduals. Eear two men with the same attributes 

 under different environments and they will develop 

 a different moral tone. It may be that they would 

 develop an equal moral sense of the urgency to do 

 right, whatever the conditions in which they might be 

 placed ; but they would apply that sense differently 

 according to their environment. Educate them from 

 birth in the family of a Turk, and they would acquire 

 Turkish notions of what is right and wrong which 

 would be quite distinct from the ideas of the English- 

 man. Educate them from birth in a Chinese family, 

 and their moral nature would become different still. 

 Educate them in a savage tribe, and their ideas as 

 to right and wrong will be those of a savage. These 

 statements are abundantly proved by instances. In 

 each case the moral sense may be equally clear and 

 strong, but the environment determines the applica- 

 tion of the moral sense to practical life. In short, 

 moral codes are clearly the result of the environment. 

 They are not inborn but learned by each individual 

 from his surroundings. They are transmitted by 

 social, but in no sense by organic heredity. 



The Family. — Even the question of the foundation 

 of the human family, we must recognize, is a matter 

 not wholly of organic, but to a large extent of social 



