HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN 

 SOCIOLOGY 



CHAPTER I 



THE FACTORS OF EVOLUTION 



The first modern writer to direct attention to the role of the 

 racial factor in history was the Comte de Gobineau, who, in his 

 work on the Inequality of the Human Races, gave an eloquent 

 description of the causes which appear to bring about the rise 

 and fall of nations.^ Gobineau's work was but httle noticed at 

 the time, and it was in Germany, among the Wagnerian circle 

 at Bayreuth, that the reputation of the author was first estab- 

 lished. Gobineau's writings, considered from a strictly his- 

 torical point of view, cannot be regarded as in any way increasing 

 our knowledge of the causes determining the birth and death of 

 nations in any concrete case. It is rather the general idea of 

 the Essai sur I'lnegcditd that is of value, for Gobineau was 

 the first historian to see in the racial factor the fundamental 

 condition of aU social evolution. 



The theory of social evolution advanced by Gobineau in 1853 

 has fouLud ample confirmation in the biological discoveries which 

 have taken place since his time, especially in those associated 

 with the name of Charles Darwin. The pubhcation of the 



^ Joseph Artliur de Gobineau, Essai sur I'Inegalite des Eaces Humaines. 

 4 vols. Paris, 1853 ; 2nd edition, 1876. 



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