THE TREND OF THE RACE 
CHAPTER I 
AN INTRODUCTORY ORIENTATION 
“Tt is the paradox and tragedy of high civilization that, in the 
present and in all preceding ages, its tendency has been to destroy or 
eliminate just those mental superiorities by which it has been built up 
and which are essential for its maintenance and further progress.”— 
Wm. McDougall, Eugenics Rev. 5, 297. 
In any discussion of the biological evolution of man it is essen- 
tial to distinguish clearly between changes in the hereditary 
qualities of human beings and changes in what human beings 
owe to the environment and institutions under which they live. 
The latter are matters of what Prof. Baldwin has called social 
heredity as distinguished from the heredity which has its physical 
basis in the germ plasm. Man’s physical and social heredity 
while easily distinguished, at least theoretically, have very inti- 
mate relations. It is obvious that social heredity is largely 
dependent upon the innate qualities of men. No civilization 
could possibly be supported by creatures with the inheritance of 
the anthropoid apes, and it might happen that civilization would 
not long endure among people no higher than the lowest races of 
mankind. The innate endowments of races constitute a basic 
factor conditioning the nature of every type of civilization and 
every historic movement, although we may not be able to trace 
the precise way in which their effects are wrought out in the 
complex relations of human society. 
If the social heredity of man depends largely on his biological 
heredity, the latter in turn may be profoundly influenced by the 
kind of social environment under which men live. Those who 
accept the Lamarckian theory that acquired characteristics may 
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