314 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



upon whether his germinal heritage has furnished 

 him with such a persistent mutation that he can hand 

 it on to his offspring. Moreover, if such mutations 

 do occur and form a controlling factor in evolution, 

 it still remains true that the individuals possessing 

 them influence the race only through their progeny. 

 If any animal should develop some mutation of ex- 

 treme value to his race, but should by accident be 

 prevented from leaving any offspring, his influence 

 upon the race would absolutely vanish and the race 

 be left exactly as if he had not been born. Among 

 animals, then, the general rule is that the individual 

 counts for nothing, and that the only way any indi- 

 vidual may count in the evolution of the race is by 

 the offspring which he leaves behind. 



Among Men. — In contrast to this picture stand the 

 possibilities of the human race under the influence of 

 social inheritance ; for social heredity makes it pos- 

 sible for the individual to leave an impression upon 

 the race totally independent of his offspring. With 

 mankind, the influence which an individual may have 

 in the process of evolution is not simply through the 

 offspring he may leave, and it cannot be said that 

 the man who leaves no offspring leaves no influence 

 upon the race. It is perfectly evident that a Caesar, 

 a Luther, a Napoleon, a Bismarck, a Lincoln, and 

 hosts of others that might be enumerated have ex- 

 erted a most profound influence on the evolution of 

 mankind. It is equally evident that they did not do 

 this through their offspring. Some of them left no 

 children at all, and those who did leave children owed 

 their influence upon the progress of mankind not to 

 their children, who were few, but to the hosts of man- 

 kind upon whom they had had an influence. What 



