308 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



recognize that the educated mind is vastly superior 

 to the uneducated; even though they may have been 

 equal at first. This is equally true of the ethical 

 nature. This phase of the child's life too is subjected 

 to the training of his home, of his neighbors, and of 

 the hosts of other influences that surround him dur- 

 ing his young years, until two persons who had at 

 birch an equal endowment of moral as well as mental 

 sense may become almost world-wide from each 

 other. The primary attributes which the individual 

 possesses, moral as well as mental, he owes, largely 

 at least, to the fortune or misfortune of his birth, 

 that is, of his organic inheritance ; but what he does 

 with these attributes, whether they increase or de- 

 crease, whether they become keener or more dulled 

 and how they are applied to practical life, depend 

 ..upon social inheritance. 



Natural Selection No Longer the Sine Qua Non 



OP Progress 



The new laws of social inheritance have brought 

 it about that progress is no longer dependent upon 

 the rigid action of natural selection. Among the 

 lower animals a rigid selection based upon a struggle 

 for existence has appeared to be a necessary factor 

 in advance. It has been forcibly pointed out that 

 such a selection is necessary, not only to produce 

 advance but even to protect from degradation those 

 already developed. Even if the recent mutation 

 theory be accepted, which makes new types sudden in 

 their origin, instead of gradual as Darwin supposed, 

 it would still be necessary to have a rigid selection to 

 preserve the valuable and discard the useless types. 

 Among animals it appears that the withdrawal of 



