SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL HEREDITY 297 



heritance alone, and not training, that is concerned in 

 the origin of the moral instinct. They point out the 

 continuation, generation after generation in the same 

 family, of the same general moral tone, of sometimes 

 high, sometimes a lower moral sense, and they insist 

 that it is hopeless to expect a high moral sense in the 

 inheritance of a family that has shown a different 

 character for some generations. They point to the 

 several now famous families of such evil inheritance, 

 which prove that moral sense is a matter of organic 

 inheritance and not training ; and they give instances 

 of members of these families that had been removed 

 from their families and reared under new sur- 

 roundings, but who in spite of all give evidence of 

 their own evil moral tendencies. Upon such facts 

 as these they base the conclusion that only by inherit- 

 ance and selection can the moral tone of the race be 

 preserved. On the other hand, an opposite view is 

 held by others, who point out that in these famous 

 families the children during their young plastic years 

 are always reared under influences that tend to 

 develop a low moral tone, and who insist that the 

 fact that continued generations of such families show 

 a succession of criminals, is to be accounted for as 

 much by training as by inheritance. They emphasize 

 the fact that during the training of the child he is 

 little by little taught by his parents or by others the 

 meaning of right and wrong, is even taught the words 

 ''right" and ''wrong," and that thus, to a large 

 extent at least, his whole idea of moral obligation is 

 a matter of teaching from his surroundings rather 

 than innate intuition. 



•To decide sharply for either of these two views 

 is at present premature. Indeed, it seems probable 



