SOCIAL HEREDITY 265 



blighting and retrograde conceptions which ever 

 influenced the mind of civilization came to obtain 

 wide currency in the West . As soon as the Darwinian 

 hypothesis was accepted it was correctly perceived 

 that it made all change and progress in life dependent 

 on the laws of inheritance in the individual. At 

 the same time it exhibited the qualities thus trans- 

 mitted by inborn heredity as relatively so fixed 

 and unchangeable that they were to be considered 

 as almost beyond control in the lifetime of the 

 individual. 



Up to the time that Darwin published the Origin 

 of Species a different idea had been widely prevalent 

 in Western thought and particularly in all teachings 

 founded on the characteristic religious beliefs of 

 the West that the mind of each generation as 

 represented in the child was practically a blank 

 sheet upon which good or evil might be written in 

 the future according to the nature of the training or 

 the nature of the education to which the young 

 were subjected. Human character was presented 

 in this conception as the result of training, and the 

 note which underlay the effort of nearly all social 

 and religious reformers had been a note of emphasis 

 on the paramount importance of the environment 

 in which the young were to be reared and educated. 



One of the most revolutionary results of the 



