NATURE, HISTORY, AND ETHICS 407 



extent, to forecast the future of the human race and to 

 lay down certain guiding rules that may be useful in 

 preparing the future. 



Sociology cannot, indeed, ever replace or displace 

 history. It can never tell us the real course of particular 

 racial developments. For instance, a sociological law 

 to the effect that races living on the sea-coast must 

 utilise the sea, because that is their only chance of 

 survival, cannot give us any information on the interest- 

 ing questions, how the first boat was built, who was its 

 inventor, and what gave him the idea. 



Nevertheless, in human history natural laws, which 

 include the laws of sociology, give us the right to use 

 certain evidence, so that we can reconstruct, in its 

 general outlines, a history of humanity that has a high 

 degree of probability. Let us try to determine the basis 

 of this history, which is of considerable importance to us. 



The first men lived in isolation or in families. Their 

 special habits we need not go into them in detail 

 were such that those had the advantage who entered 

 into close relations with their fellows, as they could then 

 help each other, and take better care of their offspring. 

 Thus natural selection would favour the more coherent 

 social groups. 



In this way men of a greater social disposition were 

 always selected. Those who continued to wander singly 

 through the forests were not so well placed in the 

 struggle for existence as those in community, and they 

 gradually but steadily disappeared. Again amongst the 

 social groups those individuals were constantly weeded 



