546 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



of the irrationalism of those who would fain see in our religious 

 institutions a mere superstructure, a mere development of 

 primitive ideas concerning the Hfe of the dead, destined to dis- 

 appear with the advance of social evolution. The very fact of 

 the complete adaptation of these religious institutions to the 

 social life of the Western world shows them to respond to a 

 want of our civilisation ; for had the environment not been favour- 

 able, these religious institutions could never have been evolved. 

 The history of the Church shows the latter to have adapted 

 herself with equal ease to the most heterogeneous situations : 

 in the Middle Ages she was a feudal power ; to-day she shows 

 herself not less capable of adaptation to a wholly di£Eerent 

 environment, as may be seen by a glance at her progress in the 

 United States. But if the Church be thus capable of adapting 

 herself to all the changing needs of the Western world, what 

 does this mean if not that the Western world, in all the numerous 

 phases of its evolution, has a fundamental need of a suprasocial 

 and supra -rational ideal embodied in an institution which, while 

 changing its outward forms to adapt them to changed situations, 

 remains unchanged in its essential parts ? The " dogmatic 

 intolerance " of the Church is a symbol of the unity underlying 

 the diversity of social forms. This underlying unity is expressed 

 by the law that a society, in order to survive in the struggle for 

 existence, must contain a majority of persons with well-developed 

 social instincts and of well-developed biological fitness. That 

 law is immutable ; and all the outward changes in the form and 

 structure of societies are brought about by the imperative neces- 

 sity of conforming to that law ; that is to say, all such outward 

 changes are adaptations to the environment — adaptations which 

 are indispensable if a society is to survive in the struggle for 

 existence. The Church it is which embodies the suprasocial 

 principles of integration and solidarity which alone can secure 

 adequate social adaptation. For a society is possessed of reason 

 and consciousness ; and it can, if it will, knowingly deviate 



