CHAPTER V 



MENTAL AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 

 Continued 



THE ADVANTAGE OF CIVILIZED ENVIRONMENT. 

 As said by Romanes, civilized man enjoys 

 advantages over savage man, far in advance 

 even of those which arise from a settled state 

 of society. Whether we agree with Lamarck concern- 

 ing the heredity of acquired characters or not, there is 

 a very noticeable difference between the hereditary 

 traits of a civilized man, and those of an uncivilized 

 one. In one sense they both inherit their environments. 

 There is a transmittal of intellect, when once acquired; 

 and it is not inherited, until it is acquired by some or- 

 ganism. It may have required many generations of 

 variations, which an environment of refining education 

 would give, before the barbarous habits, and instincts, 

 were finally extinct in offspring; but such change cer- 

 tainly must have been made, at some time in the evolu- 

 tion of a race, from a low condition, to a higher one. 

 The evolution of the Anglo-Saxon race, from the con- 

 dition it was in, when it first settled in England, to its 

 present condition, is a very remarkable instance of such 

 evolution. 



Refined parents, of the present Anglo-Saxon race, 

 hand down to their children such traits, of structure 

 and function, as would distinguish them, were they 

 brought up in a savage tribe. While it required a 

 thousand, or more, years of advancement to make the 

 Anglo-Saxon what he is, yet it would perhaps require 

 the same length of time to degrade him to his former 

 condition. All society has been evolved by the com- 



132 



