SOCIAL HEREDITY 268 



direct to preconceived ends the mechanism of 

 heredity in the individual. This is a fundamental 

 error. Those who understand the science of Power 

 in society see that all Power in the future will be 

 in the hands of those who obtain possession of and 

 who direct to preconceived ends not the mechanism 

 of individual heredity but the mechanism of social 

 heredity. And the instrument of social heredity 

 is the organized Culture of society. 



What, therefore, is the peculiar nature of social 

 heredity, and what have we to do to obtain possession 

 of this source of omnipotent power in the future of 

 civilization ? 



The marked features of social heredity in which 

 it differs absolutely from that inborn heredity upon 

 which Darwinians and many general theorists 

 have attempted in the past to found a science of 

 society are as follows. In inborn heredity the 

 constituent qualities tend to be indefinitely persistent 

 and difficult to alter. Despite all the work which 

 has been done on the subject we have not yet 

 arrived at any real knowledge or control of the 

 causes of variation. The deeper our acquaintance 

 with the subject the more clearly we perceive its 

 uncertainties and its limited possibilities. 1 Slow 



1 The recent utterances of Bateson on the subject, and there 

 is no one whose knowledge of the facts and principles under- 



