CONCLUSIONS 175 



to influences already existent in the germ, and therefore 

 heritable. Whatever environmental influences may do, 

 they can only work with these fixed hereditary tendencies. 

 And it is for this very reason that the potentialities ex- 

 pressed in the germ are of the utmost importance, forming, 

 as they do, the material for the progressive evolution of the 

 race. 



It is, then, to these fundamental hereditary qualities 

 that we have to devote our attention. Natural selection 

 being the keystone of the evolutionary process, we must 

 look to the same principle as a guide for the solution of the 

 " social question." For this problem does not mean only 

 the quest for the betterment of the individual born into 

 society — a problem which depends for its solution on the 

 procurement of favourable conditions for all (this is 

 generally called the " social problem," and thought to be 

 its sole and whole content) ; the problem implies, further- 

 more — and this is its most important part — the gradual 

 betterment of the race ; in other words, the progressive 

 development of man, be it in his physical, intellectual, or 

 moral capacity. Those who maintain that a change of 

 environment alone, however favourable, will have perma- 

 nent effects on succeeding generations, basing, as they do, 

 their belief on the presumed inheritance of acquired 

 characters, have, as repeatedly shown, little grounds for 

 such an assumption. Whatever environment may do for 

 the individual, its effects are not embodied as part and 

 parcel of the heritage of the progeny. " No degenerate 

 and feeble stock," says Karl Pearson, " will ever be con- 

 verted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated 

 effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. 

 Such means may render the individual members of the 

 stock passable if not strong members of society ; but the 

 same process will have to be gone through again and again 

 with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if 

 the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has 

 placed it, is able to increase in numbers." 



