330 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



toward altruism, and hence toward the development 

 of the ethical nature. So emphatically is this true 

 that it is not an overstatement to say that altruism is 

 one of the results of the action of this new law of 

 social inheritance. 



That this is true may be first illustrated by a com- 

 parison of the instincts of the child and the adult. 

 The child in his early years is guided by the pure 

 primary instincts which are wholly egoistic. These 

 lead him to seek for his own pleasure, to yield to his 

 passions, to think only of self-interests; and in the 

 first few years of life nothing like an interest in 

 others is seen. But each year he becomes more and 

 more controlled by a second type of influences, by the 

 altruistic instinct, which gradually curbs the egoistic 

 instincts of childhood and leads him into a life con- 

 formable to the rules and customs of the social 

 organism. For the first year or two the child acts 

 out his natural animal instincts. After a little he 

 develops the moral sense and becomes more and more 

 controlled by artificial laws, by the acquired char- 

 acteristics of the social organism. Not until he 

 becomes an adult does he fully enter into his com- 

 plete social inheritance. Of course he is never freed 

 from his original instinct of egoism, but simply has 

 engrafted upon it a new instinct which causes him to 

 take an interest in others. Organic heredity, in 

 short, transmits animal instincts, and leads to the 

 placing of self-interests ahead of others. Social 

 heredity, as its action becomes gradually developed 

 in the individual, emphasizes the rights and interests 

 of others. Organic evolution is clearly egoistic; 

 social heredity is as plainly altruistic in its tendency. 



Social evolution, being thus based upon the new 



