SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL HEREDITY 303 



oped in the individual by the environment, though 

 not transmitted by organic heredity, are just as 

 surely, and in some cases more surely, handed on to 

 the next generation by laws of their own. At least 

 this is true concerning the action of the force upon 

 the human race. It is this phase of the conception 

 that warrants the 'use of the term ''heredity" as 

 descriptive of the force. It is manifest that the older 

 phrase — ''the influence of the environment" — con- 

 tained neither of these two conceptions. While, there- 

 fore, the force of social heredity in one sense is no 

 more than the influence of the environment upon suc- 

 cessive generations, in another sense it is much more, 

 since it furnishes a basis for an evolution of its own 

 kind quite independent of organic evolution as com- 

 monly understood. Moreover, it becomes a force 

 which has had a vast deal to do with the evolution 

 of human civilization, is, in short, civilization itself; 

 but it is a force which has had only the smallest part 

 to play in the evolution of the lower animals. It is 

 distinctly a force of human rather than animal evo- 

 lution. 



One other factor contained in social inheritance 

 not commonly included in the term "environment" 

 is the action upon the individual of training. The 

 environment as commonly understood includes the 

 surroundings in which an animal lives, which may 

 have direct action upon him. It does not commonly 

 take cognizance of the fact that the activities of an 

 animal from birth are producing a series of changes 

 in his nature, physical and mental, which make 

 very different adults in accordance with the nature 

 of his activities. This is commonly included under 

 the term "training," sometimes called "nur- 



