312 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



culture and social institutions certainly superior to those of their 

 adversaries ; but the biological inferiority of the Athenians is 

 certain. On the other hand, the Huns of Attila, who helped to 

 annihilate the empire of the Caesars, were possessed of un- 

 doubtedly immense biological superiority ; but they lacked all 

 social culture, and consequently all that stability which is derived 

 from social culture, and the result was that they were unable to 

 found anything enduring to replace what they had destroyed. 

 In order that a race may maintain itself, its progress in the domain 

 of tradition must be balanced by a corresponding progress in 

 physical well-being. Although cultural development may pos- 

 sess the greatest immediate importance — so that, for instance, a 

 biologically superior race lacking social culture may be defeated 

 by a race which is biologically equal, but which possesses social 

 stability — ^nevertheless, in the long run the race which is biologi- 

 cally degenerate will eventually succumb ; for this degeneracy of 

 its members will react on its institutions, and annihilate its 

 acquirements in the domain of sociology proper, social stabihty 

 ^ being ultimately dependent on biological capacity. One of the 

 best examples of such a case is afforded us by Rome. Rome 

 triumphed over the Gauls, not because the Roman was, as a whole, 

 biologically superior to his adversary, but because Rome pos- 

 sessed greater social culture. But precisely the conditions of 

 that social culture were such as to favour a biological regression 

 of the race ; which ultimately succumbed as a result of its own 

 internal degeneracy. Thus, if social progress, in the strict sense 

 of the word, is not necessarily synonymous with biological pro- 

 gress ; there is, nevertheless, connection between the two, in so 

 far as the biologically degenerate race cannot continue indefi- 

 nitely to maintain social stability. However perfect the in- 

 stitutions of a society may once have been, they cannot resist 

 the action of the biological regression of the race. On the other 

 hand, a race which is biologically superior is not by any means 

 necessarily possessed of social culture. The Red Indians, before 

 the advent of the white man, were a very fine race as regards 



