Darwinian principles applied to History 537 
The operation of these principles cannot be denied. Man is still 
an animal, subject to zoological as well as mechanical laws. The 
dark influence of heredity continues to be effective ; and psychical 
development had begun in lower organic forms,—perhaps with life 
itself. The organic and the social struggles for existence are mani- 
festations of the same principle. Environment and climatic influence 
must be called in to explain not only the differentiation of the great 
racial sections of humanity, but also the varieties within these sub- 
species and, it may be, the assimilation of distinct varieties. Ritter’s 
Anthropogeography has opened a useful line of research. But on 
the other hand, it is urged that, in explaining the course of history, 
these principles do not take us very far, and that it is chiefly for the 
primitive ultra-prehistoric period that they can account for human 
development. It may be said that, so far as concerns the actions and 
movements of men which are the subject of recorded history, physical 
environment has ceased to act mechanically, and in order to affect 
their actions must affect their wills first; and that this psychical 
character of the causal relations substantially alters the problem. 
The development of human societies, it may be argued, derives a 
completely new character from the dominance of the conscious 
psychical element, creating as it does new conditions (inventions, 
social institutions, etc.) which limit and counteract the operation of 
natural selection, and control and modify the influence of physical 
environment. Most thinkers agree now that the chief clews to the 
growth of civilisation must be sought in the psychological sphere. 
Imitation, for instance, is a principle which is probably more signifi- 
cant for the explanation of human development than natural selection. 
Darwin himself was conscious that his principles had only a very 
restricted application in this sphere, as is evident from his cautious 
and tentative remarks in the 5th chapter of his Descent of Man. He 
applied natural selection to the growth of the intellectual faculties 
and of the fundamental social instincts, and also to the differentiation 
of the great races or “sub-species” (Caucasian, African, etc.) which 
differ in anthropological character’. 
16. But if it is admitted that the governing factors which 
concern the student of social development are of the psychical order, 
the preliminary success of natural science in explaining organic 
1 Darwinian formulae may be suggestive by way of analogy. For instance, it is 
characteristic of social advance that a multitude of inventions, schemes and plans are 
framed which are never carried out, similar to, or designed for the same end as, an 
invention or plan which is actually adopted because it has chanced to suit better the 
particular conditions of the hour (just as the works accomplished by an individual 
statesman, artist or savant are usually only a residue of the numerous projects conceived 
by his brain). This process in which so much abortive production occurs is analogous to 
elimination by natural selection. 
