CHAPTER VIII 



HEREDITY 



The fact that in forms of life lower than the human, 

 and lacking conscious perceptions of cause and effect, there 

 exists and operates a system producing moral conduct, 

 yet not dependent upon instructive leadership, nor upon a 

 law given in revelation, invites further inquiry as to the 

 origin of such system. The same source supplies similar 

 inspiration to all grades of life. Doubtless it supplies it 

 with fullest effects in the highest grades, although the 

 clearest view of it is to be found in the lowest, where the 

 causes reveal themselves more directly. 



And so again to seek a truth in its simplest phase, know- 

 ing that its essence is the same there as elsewhere, let obser- 

 vation recur to the simple gregarious animals which live in 

 amity, instinctively associating in groups, and acting in 

 concert, and rejoining the organized groups when sepa- 

 rated, and evidently obeying a sense of obligation in that 

 conduct. Why do they do it? It has been noted that it is 

 a survival of conduct which has been preferred or promoted, 

 by a natural method of selection for fitness. But that is 

 an incomplete explanation. How do the young of a new 

 generation come to perform these beneficial actions. They 

 are endowed with the instinct for them when too young to 



54 



