.312 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



the social heritage which is handed from age to age 

 may become greater and greater by accumulation, 

 can be modified by law, by precept, by advice, and 

 by education. The statutes which our legislatures 

 create, the customs which our families develop, the 

 laws which our nations devise, the education which 

 civilization puts into the hands of its members — 

 all these, although they do not affect organic develop- 

 ment, do profoundly affect social development. 

 Each age sees a greater improvement in the appre- 

 ciation of the value of those facts which are instilled 

 into the mind by education, in comparison with those 

 that are simply innate. The savage has little appre- 

 ciation of the value of training, and his children be- 

 come largely what their inherited nature makes them, 

 molded by the simple environment which surrounds 

 them. But civilized man recognizes that this mold- 

 ing process contributes a greater part in making the 

 history of man than do his innate powers. Thus 

 man is becoming less and less a creature which his 

 inherited powers alone would make him. He be- 

 comes more and more an artificial product, modified 

 more and more profoundly by education with each 

 generation. Under these conditions, a governing 

 family, or even a single individual, though he breeds 

 no offspring, may guide evolution, and thus be an 

 extraordinarily potent factor in development; and 

 the influence which such families or individuals have 

 is brought about by conscious, intelligent action and 

 not, as in the organic world, through the unconscious 

 inheritance of innate traits of character. 



The Influence op the Individual 

 Among Animals — One of the most striking and 



