SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL HEREDITY 299 



upon a foundation of characters inherited by organic 

 heredity. So far as concerns these attributes, they 

 cannot be modified by training or education, but we 

 must rely upon breeding and selection to develop 

 them and to hold them at a high grade. But except 

 for these foundation stones practically all the rest 

 that pertains to civilization comes to man in a differ- 

 ent way, so that social heredity outweighs organic 

 heredity. The development of language is wholly a 

 matter of social heredity. The development of the 

 moral sense may be in part due to organic inherit- 

 ance, but it is certainly in part dependent upon 

 social inheritance. The evolution of the codes of 

 morals which determine the condition of civilization 

 of different peoples is wholly a matter of social 

 inheritance. Organization and centralization are to 

 be attributed partly to the social instincts which are 

 matters of organic inheritance, but partly also to 

 social inheritance, since they are largely determined 

 by custom, precept, and tradition as well as by intel- 

 ligent action. The type of the civilization that any 

 race of men has built has been due wholly to social 

 heredity, being determined by the environment and 

 by custom. The particular character of any nation, 

 depending as it does upon precept, custom, educa- 

 tion, and environment, is a matter of social and not 

 organic inheritance. The slow but continued tri- 

 umph of altruism, which is the great lesson from 

 social evolution, has been due to both organic and 

 social heredity. By normal processes of evolution 

 the human race has been equipped with altruistic 

 as well as egoistic instincts handed on probably by 

 organic inheritance. But the development of these 

 instincts and their application to actual life in the 



