370 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 



ations are handed down to later generations 

 through custom, tradition, history. We do not 

 inherit through the germ cells the effects on 

 our ancestors of their training and environ- 

 ment, but we do inherit, in the property sense 

 of that word, their environment, customs, in- 

 stitutions. In short the experiences and ac- 

 complishments of past generations are not 

 inherited through the germ cells but are inher- 

 ited through society. In this sense "We are 

 the heirs of all the ages." 



Because of this social inheritance the ex- 

 trinsic conditions of life continue to grow more 

 complex age after age, while our inherited na- 

 tures remain unchanged. All moralists, all 

 religions, have recognized the very general ex- 

 perience among men of a sense of imperfec- 

 tion and of disharmony with social and ethical 

 standards. Huxley held that the spirit of 

 ethics was opposed to the spirit of evolution. 

 MetchnikofT finds these disharmonies due to 

 the survival of bestial instincts in man. Galton 

 finds the sense of sin to be due to the fact 

 that the development of our inherited nature 

 has not kept pace with the development of our 



