ORGANIC AND SOCIAL DETERIORATION 549 



concerning heredity and selection ; and, having examined the 

 nature of some of these facts, to inquire into the actual condition 

 of social evolution, in order to see whether, in the light of the 

 biological knowledge which we have gathered together under 

 the heading of the theory of descent, the direction of social 

 progress is actually tending towards a biological improvement 

 of the race. Our inquiry having led us to conclude that this 

 was not the case, we set ourselves the task, in the second place, 

 of trying to ascertain what conditions of social evolution would 

 be most favourable in order that the maximum both of organic 

 and of traditional progress might be realised. As traditional 

 progress — the progress of social evolution, properly so called — 

 cannot be efiected except by a race possessing organic fitness ; 

 and as the maintenance of traditional progress is dependent 

 on the maintenance of organic fitness, since a nation possessing 

 traditional superiority, but organically inferior, must succumb 

 before a nation which combines fitness in both respects ; we see 

 at once that a knowledge of the laws governing heredity and 

 selection — the factors on which organic fitness depends — is 

 indispensable to the sociologist. 



The result of our inquiry into the actual condition of social 

 evolution was not favourable ; grave symptoms exist which point 

 to a deterioration alike in the biological and traditional spheres 

 of Western civilisation. The figures we have given concerning 

 the increase of insanity, and the facts we have noticed in regard 

 to alcoholism and syphiHs, and to the general humanitarian 

 trend of modem culture, are not such as to inspire us with 

 optimism. Equally alarming are the figures we have given 

 relative to the comparative marriage and birth rates among the 

 different classes of the population, which point to a multiplica- 

 tion of the lower classes at the expense of the cultured ones. 

 And along with these symptoms of biological deterioration 

 we find symptoms, quite as unmistakable, which point to some- 

 thing radically wrong in the direction of our traditional evolu- 



