358 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



viduals which is at fault ; man for man, the Red Indian or the 

 Maori was probably equal in physique to the white ranchman or 

 bushman ; but that culture brought into especial development 

 by social evolution — greater intelligence, greater foresight, 

 greater skill in organisation — was bound to bring success to 

 those who possessed it. 



Thus, we may safely enunciate as a law of social evolution that 

 a race possessing social culture will be victorious in the struggle 

 for existence over a nation devoid of social culture, the physical 

 strength of either race being equal. But it would be a grievous 

 error to suppose that social culture is, by itself, any guarantee 

 of stability. Athens possessed social culture certainly un- 

 equalled by any of its rivals ; and Athens fell. The social 

 culture of Rome, even in the degenerate days of the later Em- 

 perors, was certainly much greater than that of the Huns or the 

 Vandals or the Goths, who possessed none ; and yet Rome fell 

 a victim to the " Barbarians." Social culture without biological 

 fitness is as useless as biological fitness without accompanying 

 social culture. Thus, we may supplement the law we have 

 stated above by saying that the race which is biologically fit and 

 socially unfit is likely to be successful in conflict with the race 

 which is biologically unfit and yet socially fit ; this social fitness 

 being a survival from days in which the race was both biologically 

 and socially evolved, for the attainment of social culture without 

 previous biological fitness is impossible. On the other hand, 

 the race which is biologically fit and socially imfit will be de- 

 feated and ultimately eliminated by the race possessing both 

 biological and social culture. Thus, we may express this socio- 

 logical law as follows : 



1. A race which is biologically fit and socially unfit is superior, 

 as regards the chances of victory in the immediate conflict, to a 

 race which is socially cultured, but biologically inferior. 



2. Such biological inferiority must in every case be a regres- 

 sion from a former condition of fitness ; for the attainment of 



