Influence of Environment 255 



into new environments, created by the activities of preceding gen- 

 erations. To a certain extent the young of higher animals learn 

 useful lessons from their parents, and in social animals the en- 

 vironment has to a certain extent been made by preceding genera- 

 tions, but such social inheritance is founded largely on instinct 

 and it changes almost, perhaps quite, as slowly as does the germ- 

 plasm. However, when social inheritance is founded largely on 

 intelligence it may change and progress very rapidly; intelligence 

 is a great time-saver as compared with instinct, and owinjg to 

 this rapid change in social inheritance every human generation 

 is born into a new environment, different from that of any pre- 

 vious generation. On the other hand, even the most intelligent 

 wild animals such as monkeys, wolves, foxes and elephants, do 

 not by their own activities change their natural and social environ- 

 ments from generation to generation. 



Because of our social inheritance the extrinsic conditions of life 

 continue to grow more complex age after age, while our inherited 

 natures remain relatively unchanged. All moralists, all religions, 

 have recognized the very general experience among men of a sense 

 of imperfection and of disharmony with social and ethical stand- 

 ards. Huxley held that the spirit of ethics was opposed to the, 

 spirit of evolution. Metchnikoff finds these disharmonies due to 

 the survival of bestial instincts in man. Galton finds the sense of 

 sin to be due to the fact that the development of our inherited na- 

 ture has not kept pace with the development of our moral civiliza- 

 tion. Our psychical, social and moral environment has come to us 

 from the past with ever-increasing increments, every age standing 

 on the shoulders of the preceding one. The aspirations, impulses, 

 responsibilities of modern life have become enormous and our 

 inherited natures and abilities have not essentially improved. So- 

 cial heredity has outrun germinal heredity and the intellectual, 

 social and moral responsibilities of our times are too great for 

 many men. Civilization is a strenuous affair, with impulses and 

 compulsions which are difficult for the primitive man to fulfil, and 



