174 ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



whole family would be benefited. The son born into this 

 family would receive by education the knowledge of the 

 better way of living. He would, naturally, during his own 

 lifetime, learn still more, making the life of his family a little 

 more comfortable than was that in his father's home. His 

 son would therefore be born into a more favorable family 

 environment than that in which he passed his own early 

 life. Thus from generation to generation, through experi- 

 ence, the results of which would be handed on by education, 

 the standard of living would be improved in the families of 

 the descendants of this savage. Great progress might be 

 thus made without any change in the inborn nature of the 

 children from generation to generation. 



Continuing the illustration, we may suppose a child of 

 the tenth (or thousandth) generation to be stolen from its 

 parents at birth and removed from the improved family en- 

 vironment, to be taken to a primitive savage home similar 

 to that of his savage ancestor with whom our illustration 

 started. We have no reason to believe that under these 

 circumstances the higher culture of his ancestors for nine 

 generations would cause him to lead any better life than 

 if his ancestors had remained primitive savages. The nine 

 generations of advancing culture secured by education need 

 not have produced any change in innate character in the 

 descendants. The social progress may have been secured 

 without any real evolution. 



Social progress and evolution may, therefore, be very 

 different things. The former is secured chiefly through the 

 transmission by education of the knowledge and moral tone 

 reached through experience, and by the summation genera- 

 tion after generation of these increments of progress. Evo- 



