land are alike and the season is the same for all. And here, in the case of social institutions, we touch upon a factor which takes us outside the region of pure psychology, for what persists in social life is not merely the ideas which pass from mind to mind, but the whole fabric of society into which each man finds himself born and which in large measure determines the circumstances of his life, and the methods by which alone he can make his way in the world. To pursue the case of the farmer, for example, he plows his land, not merely in imitation of his father, but because by certain laws of inheritance the land has become his in virtue of his sonship, and to work it is just the method which the social fabric provides for him to obtain his living. In other words, tradition not merely supplies him with certain ideas of what he may do, but fixes him in a position in which it is open to him to do certain things and not others.

Now, the growth of tradition will in a sense gravely modify the individual members of the society which maintains it. To any given set of institutions a certain assemblage of qualities, mental and physical, will be most appropriate, and these may differ as much as the qualities necessary for war differ from those of peaceful industry. Any tradition will obviously call forth from human beings the qualities appropriate to it, and it will in a sense select the individuals in which those qualities are the best developed and will tend to bring them to the top of the social fabric, but this is not to say that it will assert the same modification upon the stock that would be accomplished by the working of heredity. The hereditary qualities of the race may

remain the same, though the traditions have changed and though by them one set of qualities are kept permanently in abeyance, while the other are continually brought by exercise to the highest point of efficiency. According to the prevailing views of heredity, no amount of such exercise, however long repeated, would affect those innate characteristics of the stock which are handed on from parent to child, and thus it is conceivable that we might find very great social advances in any given direction without any modification of the inherited characteristics of the race. We are not to conclude that physical heredity is of no importance to the social order; it must be obvious that the better the qualities of the individuals constituting a race, the more easily they will fit themselves into good social traditions, the more readily they will advance those traditions to a still higher point of excellence, and the more stoutly they would resist deterioration. The qualities upon which the social fabric calls must be there, and the more readily they are forthcoming the more easily the social machine will work. Hence social progress necessarily implies a certain level of racial development, and its advance may always be checked by the limitations of the racial type. Nevertheless, if we look at human history as a whole, we are impressed with the stability of the great fundamental characteristics of human nature and the relatively sweeping character and often rapid development of social change. In view of this contrast we must hesitate to attribute any substantial share in human development to biological factors, and our hesitation is increased when we consider the factors on which social change depends.

THE PLACE

It is in the department of knowledge and industry that advance is most rapid and certain, and the reason is perfectly clear. It is that on this side each generation can build on the work of its predecessors. A man of very moderate mathematical capacity to-day can solve problems which puzzled Newton, because he has available the work of Newton and of many another since Newton's time. In the department of ethics the case is different. Each man's character has to be formed anew, and though teaching goes for much, it is not everything. The individual in the end works out his own salvation. Where there is true ethical ¡ sent.? progress is in the advance of ethical conceptions and principles which can be handed on; of laws and institutions which can be built up, maintained, and improved. That is to say, there is progress just where the factor of social tradition comes into play and just so far as its influence extends. If the tradition is broken, the race begins again where it stood before the tradition was formed. We may infer that while the race has been relatively stagnant, society has rapidly developed, and we must conclude that, whether for good or for evil, social changes are mainly determined, not by alterations of racial type, but by modifications of tradition due to the interactions of social causes. Progress is not racial, but social.

CHAPTER III

THE VALUE AND LIMITATIONS OF EUGENICS

WE have seen that social life consists in the interaction of human beings, and social evolution - whether progressive or the reverse-in the consequent formation and modification of what, for lack of a better single word, we may call the social tradition. Social improvement therefore is not the same as racial improvement. It is quite conceivable that with no change in the average level of racial capacity, the cumulative efforts of generations to better their life might produce a very great change in the social structure, and in point of fact it appears to be mainly by such a process of the summation of effort that the actual achievements of mankind have been effected. But at this point the biological critic may very fairly break in with a new criticism. 'Granted," he may say, "all that you urge on behalf of the social tradition. It still remains the incontestable truth that society is composed of individuals whose qualities determine the nature of their interactions. No doubt these qualities are very complex. Man is a being of mixed disposition. There is a mingling of gold and brass in every soul, and circumstances may decide which is to show on the surface. We grant then that there are wide limits of variation within which, without modification of the racial type, society may advance or retrograde. None the less we

come back to the qualities of individuals as the ultimate determinants. Their average merit must affect the standard of social action. Conceive the racial level— by which we mean the average level of hereditary endowment - raised, and to that extent you facilitate social progress. Conceive it lowered, and to that extent you arrest progress and favor deterioration." The contention thus modestly put cannot be denied. The very efforts that men make to improve their individual condition and the social order are themselves of course the outcome of their qualities; and if these qualities take shape and find expression in the medium of the social tradition, it is equally true that they form the ultimate reserve of energy underlying the social changes by which that tradition is maintained, improved, or destroyed "Very well then," the Eugenist proceeds, "it is admitted that the quality of the stock is of high importance. It is admitted also that natural selection is no longer capable of performing its function in weeding out inferior stocks. It is admitted that we cannot revert to the use of natural selection without destroying the characteristic work of civilization. We cannot undo the structure of mutual aid and mutual forbearance which civilized progress has painfully built up. What we can do is to substitute for natural a rational selection. We may discourage and even prevent the perpetuation of inferior stocks, and for this purpose a rational conception of fitness and a knowledge of the laws of heredity is all that we require. All that has been urged above against the conception of the struggle for existence may be true. It holds true none the less that selection is necessary to racial progress and

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