8 Heredity and Social Progress 



simplifying the field, but it is an effective 

 remedy for loose language, and the distinctions 

 it permits will have a reality back of them. I 

 have used this test in defining terms and 

 believe it is the only one that suffices to eject 

 the superfluous. The size of dictionaries is 

 partly responsible for loose thinking. 



The parallelism of mind and matter is not 

 the only one of which use has been made. I 

 have assumed that there is a similar parallel 

 between economics and biology, using these 

 terms in a broad way as a study of the environ- 

 ment and of life. If the environment and the 

 environed organism are adjusted, the peculiari- 

 ties of the organism must correspond to those 

 of the environment. To meet each difference 

 in the environment some peculiarity in the 

 organism will have developed to fit it to the 

 situation. The distinctions in organisms run 

 parallel to those in the environment, and those 

 of the one may be expressed in terms of the 

 other. It should be possible, therefore, to find 

 real economic differences by checking against 

 lists of corresponding differences in the organ- 

 isms adjusted to these situations, and to test 



