SOCIAL HEREDITY 259 



strictly the science only of the evolution of the 

 individual. It is not the science of the evolution 

 of society. This latter science rests fundamentally 

 on a principle which is never encountered in the 

 evolution of the individual. It may be noticed 

 in the world with which Darwin dealt that the 

 mechanism through which Power has been accumu- 

 lated and perfected in the individual in the rise 

 upwards through orders and types to the highest 

 forms of life is always the same. The entire order 

 of progress rests on the single fact of the continued 

 transmission of the winning qualities from genera- 

 tion to generation through heredity in the individual. 

 In a few words the Darwinian hypothesis may be 

 summarized. We are met in life by the fact of 

 universal variation. Every organism is variable 

 throughout. 1 Darwin exhibited the process of 

 natural selection, sorting out from this variation 

 the characters useful to the individual in the struggle 

 for existence, that is to say, the characters upon 

 which Power rested. The universal means by which 

 the gains of progress thus hall-marked as they arose 

 were held and increased was the transmission of the 

 winning qualities from generation to generation 

 through inborn heredity in the individual. In the 



1 Or as Dr. James Johnstone has recently put it in extreme 

 form, " Every character of an organism or of a part or organ 

 of an organism is variable " (Science Progress, April 1916). 



