THE PATH OF DEGENERATION IN SOCIOLOGY 20*7 



societies or institutions, and not in the disappearance 

 of complete classes of institutions. 



These reservations being understood, we will 

 mention a few more or less obvious cases in which 

 degeneration does retrace the footsteps of progressive 

 evolution. 



1. Tithings, hundreds and counties in England. 

 In the chapter dealing with the pathway of degenera- 

 tion in Transformisme social, G. Degreef mentions 

 the following interesting facts : 



" Mr Herbert Spencer, after describing the forma- 

 tion of tithings, hundreds and counties in England 

 under the Anglo-Saxon regime, observes that the 

 tithings along with their courts of justice were the 

 first to disappear, then the hundreds followed, though 

 some vestiges of their old courts of justice remained, 

 and only the counties and the county courts were 

 left intact. Now we have historical proofs that 

 English counties along with their courts of justice 

 were created before the hundreds, and the hundreds 

 before the tithings." 1 



2. Order of elimination of vario'us racial elements 

 in a country. In his interesting work Civiliza- 

 tion et depopulation, 2 Dumont mentions certain 

 facts which go to show that the inhabitants of poor 

 districts, who are nevertheless of pure racial descent, 

 have a birth-rate higher than that of the members 

 of the population who are not aboriginal, and who 



1 Degreef, Le transformisme social, p. 450. 



2 P. 156. 



