THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. ior 



in which we talk of people inheriting land or 

 furniture or railway shares. Language renders 

 possible an accumulation of experience, a 

 storing up of achievements, which makes 

 advance rapid and secure among human 

 beings in a way impossible among the lower 

 animals. Indeed, might we not define civilisa- 

 tion in general as the sum of those contrivances 

 which enable human beings to advance inde- 

 pendently of heredity ? Civilisation is healthiest 

 when it works along with heredity. Mankind 

 never becomes completely independent of the 

 effects of heredity. And the highest civilisa- 

 tion falling to the inheritance of a decaying 

 race will not prevent, and may even hasten its 

 decay and extinction. On the other hand, 

 though the race perishes, the civilisation need 

 not be lost, but may be handed on to worthier 

 and more capable heirs. 



Consciousness, reflection, language, are all 

 obviously advantages in the struggle for exist- 

 ence to the beings possessing them ; and it is 

 much the simplest hypothesis to ascribe the 

 origin of all of them to natural selection, in- 

 stead of postulating a mysterious intrusion 

 from without. As Mr. Wallace himself says : 



