Tradition 105 



In social heredity, therefore, we have a more or less 

 conservative, progressive atmosphere of which I think 

 certain further remarks may be made. 



1. It secures adaptations of individuals all through the 

 animal world. ' Instead of limiting this influence to 

 human life, we have to extend it to all the gregarious 

 animals, to all the creatures that have any ability to 

 imitate, and finally to all animals who have consciousness 

 sufficient to enable them to make adjustments of their 

 own ; for such creatures will have young that can do the 

 same, and it is unnecessary to say that the children must 

 inherit what their fathers did by intelligence, when they 

 can do the same things by their own intelligence ' (from an 

 earlier page). 



2. // tends to set the direction of progress in evolution^ 

 not only giving the young the adaptations which the 

 adults already have, but also producing adjustments which 

 depend upon social cooperation ; thus variations i7i the 

 direction of sociality are selected a7id survive. ' When we 

 remember that the permanence of a habit learned by one 

 individual is largely conditioned by the learning of the 

 same habits by others (notably of the opposite sex) in the 

 same environment, we see that an enormous premium 

 must have been put on variations of a social kind — those 

 which brought different individuals into some kind of joint 

 action or cooperation. Wherever this appeared, not only 

 would habits be maintained, but new variations, having 

 all the force of double hereditary tendency, might also 

 be expected' (from an earlier page). Why is it that a 

 legitimate race of mulattoes does not arise and possess 

 the Southern states ? Is it not the social repugnance to 

 black-white marriages ? Remove or reverse this influence of 



