laws controlling human social heredity 327 



Social Heeedity and Language 



Social heredity gives us further light upon the 

 question raised in an earlier chapter — why no ani- 

 mals have developed a language. We have seen that 

 animals have the beginnings of language, but that in 

 man alone these beginnings developed into speech. 

 Apart from the difference in intelligence of man and 

 other animals, we find in the factors discussed in this 

 chapter another reason why language has developed 

 only in man. 



Language is a phenomenon that can be transferred 

 from generation to generation only by social hered- 

 ity. It is a purely artificial product, an acquired 

 character, and is never handed on by organic hered- 

 ity. The child, at birth, inherits from his parents 

 the power of learning language, but no trace of lan- 

 guage itself. This he acquires by being taught, that 

 is, by social heredity. Now, social heredity, as we 

 have seen, has very little influence upon animals. 

 Animals are controlled by organic heredity almost 

 alone, and since language is not transmitted by 

 organic heredity, it could never be handed from gen- 

 eration to generation. It could never accumulate, as 

 it does by social heredity. 



The last statement is really the solution of the 

 problem. Language is an extremely complex phe- 

 nomenon, so complex that it could never be devel- 

 oped anew by a single individual during his short 

 life. If two children were removed in infancy from 

 the rest of mankind, and from that time on lived 

 together, they would very likely develop some means 

 of communicating with each other; but they would 

 not in their short lives develop such a complicated 



