LAWS CONTROLLING HUMAN SOCIAL HEREDITY 343 



responsibility, though perhaps we may improve the 

 race inheritance if we can properly control mar- 

 riages. But for the vast and complicated structure 

 of civilization which has been built upon this founda- 

 tion mankind is responsible, and each person who 

 lives his life among men is responsible for a certain 

 share in shaping the evolution of the future. 



7. The hope for the future must lie largely in the 

 development of the ethical nature. For the advance 

 of civilized society there is a need for organization 

 and the ethical nature alone teaches the necessity of 

 sacrifice which is the key of organization. Religion, 

 therefore, cannot be left out of the development of 

 society, for that alone gives vitality to ethics, offers 

 a reason for the sacrifices of present interests, and 

 thus furnishes the cement necessary for lasting 

 union. Education without religion makes cold, cal- 

 culating men, with self-centered interests, and any 

 system of social advance which leaves out the reli- 

 gious side of nature leaves out the one force that 

 makes possible lasting organization upon which civ- 

 ilization depends. Society not only has been, but 

 must remain, ethical in its tendency and aims. New 

 laws, new customs, new conditions, may all be desir- 

 able and all have their influence. But unless they 

 involve as a central factor the elevation of the ethical 

 nature of man, they will be futile in the end from lack 

 of vitality. That great series of influences which in 

 our Western nations are called religions, since they 

 furnish the only real grounds for sacrifice and right 

 living, are, after all, the hope for the future, rather 

 than education or any system of laws and customs 

 that mav be devised. 



Although in the organic evolution of animals 



