1896.] Psychology. 253 



show an emphasis of just this direction in its variations. So the fact 

 of Social Heredity— the fact of acute use of consciousness in ontogeny 

 — becomes an element in phylogeny, also, even on the Preformist 



Besides, when we remember that the permanence of a habit learned 

 by one individual is largely conditioned by the learning of the same 

 habits of others (notably of the opposite sex) in the same environment, 

 we see that an enormous premium must have been put on variations of 

 a social kind — those which brought different individuals into some 

 kind of joint action or cooperation. Wherever this appeared, not only 

 would habits be maintained, but new variations, having all the force of 

 double hereditary tendency, might also be expected. But consciousness 

 is, of course, the prime variation through which cooperation is secured. 

 All of which means, if I am right, that the rise of consciousness is of 

 direct help to the Preformist in accounting for race habits— notably 

 those known as gregarious, cooperative, social. 



3. (7 of Cope's table). " The rational mind is developed by exper- 

 ience, through memory and classification." This, too, I accept, pro- 

 vided the term « classification ' has a meaning that psychologists agree 

 to. So the question is again: Can the higher mental functions be 

 evolved from the lower without calling in Epigenesis? I think so. 

 Here it seems to me that the fact of Social Heredity is the main and 

 controlling consideration. It is notorious how meagre the evidence 

 is that a son inherits or has the peculiar mental traits of parents beyond 

 those traits contained in the parents' own heredity. Galton has shown 

 how rare a thing it is for artistic, literary or other marked talent to 

 descend to the second generation. Instead, we find such exhibitions 

 showing themselves in many individuals at about the same time, in the 

 same communities, and under the same social conditions, etc. Groups 

 of artists, musicians, literary men, appear, as it were, as social outbursts. 

 The presuppositions of genius— dark as the subject is— seem to be 

 great power ef learning or absorbing, marked gifts or proclivities of a 

 personal kind which are not directly inherited but fall under the head 

 of sports or variations, and then a social environment of high level in 

 the direction of these sports. The details of the individual development, 

 inside of the general proclivity which he has, are determined by his 

 social environment, not by his natural heredity. And I think the 

 phylogenetic origin of the higher mental functions, thought, self-con- 

 sciousness, etc., must have been similar. I have devoted space to a 

 detailed account of the social factors involved in the evolution of these 

 higher faculties in my book. 



