EVOLUTION OF MAN 177 



represent a period of time equal to the five to ten thousand 

 years of human history. 



Is it then hopeless ? Is there no probability of securing 

 real advance for man in innate character ? Must we content 

 ourselves with merely a veneering of civilization over the 

 fundamental savage nature ? 



The questions asked in the last few paragraphs force 

 themselves upon the attention of any candid student of 

 human evolution. The author does not claim to be able to 

 furnish a complete answer to them, but he would make a 

 few suggestions. 



Setting aside the inheritance of parental modifications, 

 of which we have no evidence, and whose reality seems so 

 improbable, we have the two factors natural selection and 

 sexual selection, aided by segregation. From the action of 

 natural selection we in considerable measure escape. (Com- 

 pare pages 169 to 172.) Even from the action of public 

 opinion, one of the most important elements in our environ- 

 ment, we in part escape by our adaptability. One whose 

 innate character is unsound may be trained to so conform, at 

 least outwardly, to the standards of the community that he 

 will be held in esteem and will succeed in rearing his family 

 in conditions of comfort. On the other hand, a boy of natu- 

 rally more desirable character may, by wrong training, be 

 brought into such relation to the community that he will be 

 destroyed. Survival in the struggle for existence among 

 humankind is influenced not by innate character alone, but 

 by what this character comes to be through training. This 

 greatly complicates the problem of securing, through survival 

 of the best adapted, an advance in innate character, i.e. true 

 evolution. The plasticity, or educability, of the human 



