392 Appendix C 



some of those whom he quotes would reconstruct the relation 

 of biology to social evolution; and the position seems to be 

 fruitful enough. 



Readers at all versed in recent biological discussion may 

 remember the sort of fatalistic results which the new Neo-Dar- 

 winian theories of human evolution were supposed to bring. 

 If the discipline and the dissipation of parents have little or 

 no effect upon their children, we are asked, where is the place 

 of social reform and the motive to individual training ? The 

 answer to this comes through the line of teachings brought 

 together in this book. The individual is not born with a 

 physical heritage increased by his father's acts, but into 

 a social heritage which takes its character from the set of 

 conditions which the father also lived in and contributed to. 

 We all make these conditions better or worse, and we all profit 

 by them for better or for worse, in a new and truer sense. The 

 individual is redeemed from the capricious and accidental effects 

 of single lives lived for good or ill, but he inherits socially the 

 larger influences which make the social environment what it is, 

 and which represent a continuous social movement. 



We cannot dwell upon the special question which Professor 

 Morgan discusses with his usual clearness and force — such as 

 the relation of instinct to acquired habit, the function of sexual 

 selection, the details of the specific habits of mammals and 

 birds. These discussions may, however, well be brought to 

 the attention of biologists and psychologists. In conclusion, 

 we may notice emphatically the contrast between this book 

 and the work of those recent writers who deal with the same 

 large questions of heredity, degeneration, race-progress, etc., 

 having only scented biology from afar, and having learned 

 their anthropology from Lombroso and Nordau. 



