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SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 A STUDY OF THE EVOLUTIONARY 
 
 BASIS OF THE SCIENCE 
 
 OF SOCIETY 
 
 BY 
 ALBERT GALLOWAY KELLER 
 
 PBOPESSOB OF THE SCIENCE OF SOCIETY 
 IS TALE nNIVBKSITT 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 HM106 .K29 
 
 Societal evolution 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 032 560 090 
 
 Njto g0rfe 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1915 
 
 AH rights reserved 
 
COPTEIGHT, 1915, 
 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1915. 
 
 NorivooD ^reea 
 
 J. S. Gushing Co. —Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Fob many years the phraseology of evolution 
 has been current. Scientists use it because evo- 
 lution has come to be the underlying idea of 
 several modern sciences ; and less serious writ- 
 ers find their vocabularies colored by what has 
 now become a popular doctrine. Evolution is 
 the fashion, and to aflfect evolutionary termi- 
 nology is one method of lending a pseudo- 
 dignity to the trivial. All this is peculiarly 
 marked in writings having to do with socio- 
 logical subjects. 
 
 Naturally the terms originally used by Dar- 
 win and his followers have suffered, in passing 
 from hand to hand, a considerable amount of 
 damage. Like coins that have been circulating 
 indiscriminately, they have lost their sharpness 
 of outline and definiteness of superscription. 
 It is almost impossible to discover what some 
 authors who deal with social topics — let alone 
 the host of popular writers and orators — mean 
 by evolution. 
 
 In the endeavor, some years ago, to dispel 
 from my mind the vagueness of the evolution- 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 ary terminology which had settled there as the 
 result of reading along sociological lines, I went 
 back to Darwin and Huxley — to the mint, as 
 it were — and tried to get their conceptions 
 before me. This was a most useful enterprise, 
 and its results have been incorporated in my 
 thinking and teaching ever since. I have come 
 to believe that any fruitful study of the science 
 of society must rest upon a clear understand- 
 ing, even though it be but a layman's, of the 
 Darwinian theory. 
 
 Then came the question as to the vaUdity of 
 extending Darwinism and its terminology to 
 the life of human society. As to this matter, 
 I have come to believe that the Darwinian 
 factors of variation, selection, transmission, 
 and adaptation are active in the life of socie- 
 ties as in that of organisms. Selection, for ex- 
 ample, is none the less selection — not merely 
 like natural selection in a vague way — be- 
 cause it is observed in another field and is 
 seen there to act after another mode charac- 
 teristic of that field.^ And I have tried to get 
 at the nature of these evolutionary factors as 
 displayed in their societal mode. The outcome 
 of this study takes form in a simple, and in 
 
 1 Cf . pp. 14-16 below. 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 many ways obvious arrangement of well-known 
 facts; but because the results reached have 
 been of use to me and to my students, in get- 
 ting and keeping our bearings for the study of 
 the science of society, I pubUsh them, at length, 
 in the hope that some others may derive such 
 advantage from them. 
 
 The working out of this line has resulted in 
 an extension upon the conception of the folk- 
 ways, as developed by my predecessor. Pro- 
 fessor Sumner. This conception has always 
 seemed to me to be the link connecting or- 
 ganic and societal evolution, and the extension 
 of which I speak consists in good part in bring- 
 ing out that point of view, to which Sumner 
 himself gave no special attention.^ Regarding 
 this essay, as I do, as an extension of Sumner's 
 work, I have taken my quotations, so far as 
 I could, from his writings. 
 
 When it came to putting what follows into 
 book form, the choice was presented between 
 accompanying the argument with numbers of 
 cases in illustration, as one does in college lec- 
 tures, or of securing brevity and compactness 
 by reducing illustration to a minimum. The 
 latter alternative was chosen because, as it 
 
 ^ See Note at end of this volume. 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 seems to me, an essay generalizing about the 
 social order in which we all live is quite likely 
 to suggest its own cases, for or against, to any 
 mature reader who is interested; and then, as 
 a professional teacher, who has gotten to look- 
 ing at most things from the standpoint of his 
 vocation, I cannot ignore the fact that an ex- 
 positor generally gains by using his own illus- 
 trations. Much is left, in this book, to the 
 reader and the teacher. 
 
 I have received much and pointed criticism as 
 I have gone on. For a number of years I have 
 profited by the keen observation and thrusts of 
 my undergraduate students, and by the more 
 mature, though scarcely more helpful comments 
 of graduate scholars. But no other single per- 
 son has given me such penetrating criticism, 
 accompanied by such sturdy support, as has 
 my colleague in the science. Professor James E. 
 Cutler, of Western Reserve. His attentive read- 
 ing of my chapters has saved me from many 
 omissions and commissions, especially when it 
 was a matter of making a foray into the field 
 of appHed sociology. I herewith recognize my 
 obligations also to Professor Henry P. Fair- 
 child, of Yale, and to Messrs. Charles H. Ward 
 and Julius C. Peter, for especially enlightening 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 criticisms and suggestions ; and to a number of 
 other friends for reading and passing judgment 
 upon my manuscript. 
 
 ALBERT G. KELLER. 
 
 New Haven, 
 January 11, 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface v 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Evolution or the Human Type . . 17 
 
 n. Variation 43 
 
 m. Selection (Automatic) .... 53 
 
 rV. Rational Selection 90 
 
 V. Bational Selection {Continued) . . 128 
 
 VI. Countehselection 169 
 
 Vn. Transmission 208 
 
 Vlli. Adaptation 247 
 
 IX. Adaptation (Continued) .... 274 
 
 X. Adaptation (CoTvtinued) .... 306 
 
 Index 331 
 
 xl 
 
SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 On a number of counts, the natural scientist 
 is fairly an object of envy to the social scientist. 
 The former deals with things, gets verification 
 through repeated experiment, sets aside un- 
 reasonable prejudice by definite proof, attains 
 such certainty as to justify prediction. The 
 latter deals with the elusive hunaan factor, 
 may not deliberately experiment, faces what 
 looks like impregnable prepossession and tra- 
 dition at every turn, and cannot in general 
 arrive at more than a high degree of proba- 
 bihty. Furthermore, natural scientists have a 
 way of chmbing by standing on each other's 
 shoulders, whereas social scientists, much Uke 
 some philosophers and historians, seem to 
 feel that they must each begin at the bottom, 
 and start off by discrediting their forerunners. 
 No doubt some such unlikeness in method Ues 
 implicit in the different nature of the two fields ; 
 
2 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 but it is quite evident which of the two methods 
 is the successful one, and it should be the aim 
 of the social scientist who senses the situation 
 to align himself as much as possible with the 
 more promising procedure. 
 
 Such considerations start up before the mind 
 when one is led to reflect upon what evolution 
 means to these two types of scientific workers. 
 To natural science the discoveries of Darwin 
 meant new bearings, a perspective, a unifying 
 principle — and then the inevitable renewal of 
 confidence and burst of eager effort. The 
 idea of evolution showed no kinship with meta- 
 physical speculation. It was no dogma. It 
 is a concrete, proved process, demonstrated in 
 definite terms, and actually verified day by 
 day in the incidents of scientific progress. It 
 is this abundant and continuous verification, 
 not "intuition," which has lent it the force of 
 a major premise.^Njt is not a vague formula 
 which aims to include everything — which is 
 at the same time irrefutable and also useless 
 for the further prosecution of scientific labors 
 — but it is to the intellectually curious both a 
 cheering evidence of the success of scientific 
 method and a tool capable of effective use in 
 further discovery.^xNatural scientists mean 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 something definite and actual when they use 
 the Darwinian terms — variation, selection, 
 transmission, adaptation — and they are helped 
 to get somewhere by the clearness and signifi- 
 cance lent to their scientific terminology as 
 the result of Dar^-in's life and labors. 
 
 It would be strange if a set of conclusions 
 like Darwin's, drawn from such a number of 
 instances over several branches of natural 
 science, should prove apphcable only to the 
 field of his special inquiry. The fact is that the 
 doctrine of evolution has so held the interest, 
 hostile or devoted, of the world, that its in- 
 fluence, or at least its terminology, has pene- 
 trated into regions quite remote from those in 
 which Darwin labored. In a volume of essays 
 in commemoration of the centenary of the 
 birth of Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary 
 of the "Origin of Species," ^ notable scholars 
 from many fields united in recognizing their 
 indebtedness to the evolution theory. Here 
 was acknowledged in generous terms its in- 
 fluence, for example, upon the science of lan- 
 guage, upon history, and upon the study of 
 reKgions. 
 
 ^ "Darwin and Modem Science," ed. by A. C. Seward, 
 Cambridge, 1909. 
 
4 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 The influence of evolutionary reasoning has 
 reached out, then, beyond the field of its na- 
 tivity ; and it is undeniable that it has had its 
 effect upon the social sciences. But no one 
 can say that the evolutionary principle, as 
 commonly viewed by the social scientist, be he 
 economist, political scientist, or sociologist, 
 affords any such orientation, perspective, uni- 
 fication, inspiration, and positive aid as it does 
 in the realm of the natural sciences. It is an 
 idea which he may accept as a sort of phi- 
 losophy; it lingers in vague form about the 
 horizon ; it is invoked, from time to time, in a 
 general and unproductive sort of way. It is a 
 tenet rather than an instrument for the fur- 
 thering of scientific knowledge, a thing to be 
 discussed by way of formal logic and specula- 
 tion rather than proved and used over and 
 over again as a scientific verity. It is no tool 
 of research. If social scientists use the terms 
 variation, selection, and so on, they mean 
 nothing definite and actual by them; their 
 use of these terms is vaguely analogical and does 
 not help them to get anywhere. 
 
 Perhaps it is worth while to reflect upon the 
 reason for this condition of affairs. The 
 trouble is that the idea of evolution has come 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 to the social sciences through a medium, os- 
 tensibly scientific, but really philosophical. 
 It is not Darwinian evolution, in the majority 
 of cases, at all. The common persuasion of 
 the social scientists — who are generally too 
 Uttle versed in natural science — is that evo- 
 lution means Spencer. In his reading the 
 student of the social sciences becomes ac- 
 quainted with works which were written under 
 the spell of Spencer ; authors vary in their re- 
 lations with him from the glad discipleship of a 
 Fiske on through to the incensed hostility of the 
 orthodox, but they all unite in revering or as- 
 sailing him as the exponent of evolution. In 
 the natural sciences, on the contrary, not much 
 is heard of Spencer, but evolution means Dar- 
 winism. This is very significant of the unlike 
 conceptions of evolution in these two ranges of 
 science. 
 
 I have said that social scientists know too 
 little of natural science and its methods. This 
 is a pity, for it is peculiarly needful in the social 
 sciences to keep the feet firmly upon the ground 
 — and the ground is much more likely to be 
 there, and to be soHd, where experimentation 
 is, where verification is more positive, sub- 
 stantial, and unescapable, where it is a matter 
 
6 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 of observable, objective fact rather than of the 
 balancing of ideas. Darwin cannot be too well 
 known to any one who aspires to the name of 
 scientist ; and the facts about his life, character, 
 methods, and performances should be at the 
 finger-ends, especially of the man who aspires 
 to apply science to the study of human society. 
 With all his brilliance Spencer is really, for such 
 a person, an untrustworthy guide. He has been 
 passed upon by natural scientists, beginning 
 with the illustrious group of his contempo- 
 raries. Huxley, and even Darwin himself, were 
 familiar with both Spencer and his work; and 
 each, while marvelling at his powers, virtually 
 set him aside as a scientist. Says Darwin of 
 Spencer : 
 
 "I feel rather mean when I read him : I could bear, 
 and rather enjoy feeling that he was twice as ingenious 
 and clever as myself, but when I feel that he is about a 
 dozen times my superior, even in the master art of wrig- 
 gling, I feel aggrieved. If he had trained himself to 
 observe more, even if at the expense, by the law of balance- 
 ment, of some loss of thinking power, he would have been 
 a wonderful man." "I suspect that hereafter he wiU be 
 looked at as by far the greatest living philosopher in 
 England; perhaps equal to any that have lived." And, 
 again, "I find that my mind is so fixed by the inductive 
 method, that I cannot' appreciate deductive reasoning: 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 I must begin with a good body of facts and not from a 
 principle (in which I always suspect some fallacy) and 
 then as much deduction as you please. This may be 
 very narrow-minded; but the result is that such parts 
 of H. Spencer as I have read with care impress my mind 
 with the idea of his inexhaustible wealth of suggestion, 
 but never convince me ; and so I find it with some others. 
 I believe the cause to lie in the frequency with which I 
 have found first-formed theories [to be] erroneous." ' 
 
 Such was the judgment of Darwin. Huxley, 
 a close friend of Spencer, used to poke fun at 
 his "diabolical dialectics"; his classic joke, 
 about Spencer's idea of a tragedy being the 
 destruction of a grand hypothesis by a refrac- 
 tory fact, reflects the essential truth of the 
 matter as respects Spencer's scientific attitude. 
 The fact of it is, that Spencerian evolution 
 is a philosophy. The author called it that. 
 What he sought in the "Synthetic Philosophy" 
 was an inclusive formula. But such a universal 
 is not the aim of science at all. This formula 
 states that: "Evolution is an integration of 
 matter and concomitant dissipation of motion ; 
 during which the matter passes from an in- 
 definite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite 
 coherent heterogeneity; and during which the 
 
 1 "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," ed. by F. Darwin, 
 n, 239, 301, 371. 
 
8 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 retained motion undergoes a parallel trans- 
 formation." 1 Who can refute this ? Yet who 
 can use it ? It is doubtless true, yet the work- 
 ing scientist, impatient to be getting forward, 
 will ask : " If true, what of it ? To what end ? " 
 This formula, in comparison with the Dar- 
 winian factors, helps in no way toward scien- 
 tific discovery ; it is not the cloud by day, nor 
 yet the fire by night. Rather it is like the 
 vault of an overcast sky; it covers all things, 
 but nobody can get his directions from it and 
 fare forth. Similarly indicative of the philosoph- 
 ical trend of Spencerian evolution is the title 
 given by Fiske, Spencer's "American adher- 
 ent," to his major work : " Cosmic Philosophy." 
 Such a type of evolution must be unfettered; 
 it includes 
 
 " den ganzen Kreis der Schbpf ung . . . 
 Und wandelt mit bedacht' ger Schnelle 
 Vom Himmel durch die Welt zur Hblle !" 
 
 It would also appear that the followers of 
 Spencer generally come to identify evolution 
 with progress. Whatever Spencer himself said 
 or meant, this seems to have been one of the 
 chief residua left after immersion in his phi- 
 losophy of evolution. This view is not Dar- 
 
 1 "First Principles," § 145. 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 winian. Darwin speaks of improvement some- 
 times, and also of retrogression ; but both were 
 forms of adaptation to environment. This 
 was the basic idea, and it was one which could 
 be defined objectively, as progress cannot.-' 
 Darwin was not much interested in pure in- 
 ference. For instance, the idea, seized upon 
 with avidity by those who felt the speculative 
 spirit move, that all life came from one primor- 
 dial form rather than from several — the idea 
 of reduction of everything to a universal, 
 again — was regarded by Darwin as a matter 
 of little consequence. ^-He was after something 
 that stopped far short of a grand dogma or 
 -ism, and this he found in the idea of adapta- 
 tion*; as Romanes says,^ "The theory of 
 Darwin has to do with adaptations in all or- 
 ganic nature, whether they have to do with 
 species or not." Optimism and pessimism are 
 ahke impertinent when injected into science. 
 But if evolution meant progress, then it was an 
 optimistic philosophy, therein corresponding to 
 the mores of an optimistic age of material pros- 
 perity. Hence, in part, the vogue of the 
 Spencerians. 
 
 If the student in the social sciences is familiar 
 
 ' "Darwin and After Darwin," II, 161. 
 
10 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 only with the Spencerian idea of evolution, he 
 has a philosophy superior, in many respects, 
 notably clearness, to other systems, and which 
 is not disassociated entirely from science. But 
 he has at his service no such actually tested 
 instrument as has the natural scientist in what 
 he calls evolution. If the former is not cir- 
 cumscribed in his life interests and intellectual 
 curiosity, he must have felt that envy of the 
 natural scientist to which I referred at the 
 outset. Is it possible that he too should have 
 recourse to the same efficient instrument? 
 
 In other words, is it not possible to extend 
 Darwinian evolution into the field of the social 
 sciences without sacrificing the essence of its 
 value as exhibited in that of the natural 
 sciences? Writers in the former field have 
 occasionally tried to develop a "Social Dar- 
 winism." Much that is useful and suggestive 
 has been brought out as these authors have 
 striven in different ways to show the relation 
 of evolution as they saw it to human society 
 and its life ; but, to say the least, the Darwinian 
 idea did not take hold as a result of their min- 
 istrations. Haycraft,! Ritchie," Kidd,' and es- 
 
 ' "Darwinism and Race Progress." 
 
 ' "Darwinism and Politics." a "Social Evolution." 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 pecially Bagehot,^ have done service along these 
 lines ; Chapin's ^ and Conn's ' recent essays 
 are, in many ways, useful and admirable. But 
 I do not see that any of these has succeeded in 
 lending to social science anything akin to the 
 practical benefits enjoyed by natural science 
 as the result of the development of Darwinism. 
 From the side of the natural scientist the 
 efforts to extend evolution into the social field 
 began with Darwin himself, and it was for him 
 an unhappy project. All through the work of 
 Darwin one meets with suggestive hints as to 
 the attitude of an exponent of evolution toward 
 social customs and habitudes, but when he 
 attempted something more systematic, the 
 result was deplorable. It is evident to the 
 reader of the "Descent of Man" that, whatever 
 the cause, for once in his hfe Darwin has been 
 led to essay waters beyond his depth ; Chapters 
 IV and V of the "Descent" do not sound at 
 aU like Darwin. Because, in the interest of 
 completeness, he was led to attempt the treat- 
 ment of man's social qualities and institutions, 
 or for some other reason, Darwin in these chap- 
 
 ' "Physics and Politics." 
 
 ' "Introduction to the Study of Social Evolution." 
 
 ' "Social Heredity and Social Evolution." 
 
12 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 ters undertook to discuss such topics as the 
 origin of the moral sentiments. This part of 
 the "Descent" had better have been left un- 
 written, for, in default of the usual mountains 
 of data from which he was wont to draw his 
 weighty inductions, the great scientist was led 
 to wander hopelessly among the unfamiliar 
 and unfathomable quicksands of the metaphys- 
 ical and intuitional. In so doing he presents 
 but a sorry aspect to his admirers. 
 
 The contributions to the subject from other 
 natural scientists include many isolated, but 
 extremely suggestive passages. Here was 
 where Huxley shone above the rest. In 1900 
 there was an attempt on the part of three noted 
 natural scientists. Professors Haeckel, Conrad, 
 and Fraas, to elicit a work upon the topic : 
 "Was lernen wir aus den Prinzipien der 
 Descendenz-Theorie in Beziehung auf die inner- 
 politische Entwickelung und Gesetzgebung der 
 Staaten?" A prize contest was constituted, 
 the chief outcome of which was the publication 
 of the prize essay, by a surgeon, Dr. Schall- 
 mayer, entitled, "Vererbung und Auslese im 
 Lebenslauf der Vblker; Eine Staatswissen- 
 schaftliche Studie auf Grund der neueren 
 Biologic." This book was better than a con- 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 genes of suggestions ; it was a real attempt to 
 attack certain broad phases of society's life in 
 the light of the theory of evolution as modified 
 by a complete acceptance of Weismannism. 
 
 Further, as will be seen in some detail in a 
 later connection, those scientists who, headed 
 by the late veteran Francis Galton, have been 
 studying the problems which surround the 
 subject of eugenics, have set themselves to the 
 solution of certain broad questions involving 
 the whole future welfare of society. A journal 
 of eugenics has been founded, and an Archiv 
 fiir Rassenbiologie. The idea of applying Dar- 
 winism to the social sciences has been in the air 
 for some time. However, I cannot see that any 
 of these enterprises really attacks the general 
 issue as I have tried to set it forth. The question 
 I have asked myself is : Can the evolutionary 
 theory, according to Darwin and his followers 
 (I mean such followers as Weismann and De 
 Vries), be carried over into the social domain 
 without losing all or much of the significance 
 it possesses as apphed in the field of natural 
 science ? It is to this question that the present 
 essay addresses itself. 
 
 A point of attack suggested itself some time 
 ago while I was studying the clean-cut little 
 
14 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 chart of the evolutionary process constructed 
 by Wallace.^ It is evident that the salient 
 features of Darwinian evolution are variation, 
 heredity, and selection; and that out of the 
 operation of these three comes the fourth, 
 which is really the result of the process — adap- 
 tation. These are the simple and concrete 
 terms used all the time by the natural scientists. 
 The thought then occurred to me that if they 
 could be applied to social phenomena, we should 
 have the evolutionary formula carried over 
 into the social sciences. On general consider- 
 ations the balance of probability would be that 
 a generalization so broad and so universally ap- 
 plicable over a large part of the field of science 
 would not be utterly inapplicable over the whole 
 field. It should at least cast some light upon 
 the processes going on in the rest of the field. 
 It is clear enough that the idea of taking the 
 issue up as it is done here — of exploring the 
 nature of social variation, social selection, 
 social transmission, and social adaptation — 
 was suggested by the Darwinian system. These 
 terms are in use in sociological writings. The 
 analogy is obvious, and if the idea were merely 
 
 >Iii "Natural Selection and Tropical Nature" (London 
 1891), p. 166. 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 to carry it out, a book like this would be super- 
 fluous. But I do not know of any writers who 
 go systematically behind the analogy and try to 
 discover whether or not it covers a broad iden- 
 tity. I shall be charged, doubtless, with "rea- 
 soning from analogy," but I do not feel that the 
 charge is deserved. I find a something in the 
 social field which is variation, whether or not it 
 may be like what is called variation in the or- 
 ganic field; similarly social selection is selec- 
 tion and not merely like it. In the social field, 
 also, there is a means of transmission having 
 the essential attributes of heredity in nature ; ^ 
 and adaptation occurs in one range of phe- 
 nomena as in the other. These factors have 
 their societal ^ mode as they occur in the life of 
 
 ' The fact that certain factors of organic evolution, as, for 
 instance, heredity, are inapplicable on the social domain does not 
 alter the evolutionary character of social phenomena, provided 
 that effective substitutes exist to fill the places of the absent 
 factors. The trajectory of a projectile is still a parabola, whether 
 the motive force be air, gas, muscular reaction, or torsion. 
 
 • This adjective will be frequently used in what follows. I do 
 not wish to apologize for it in any way, for I think an adjectival 
 form corresponding to the noun " society," and signifying some- 
 thing much more definite than " social," is a present necessity in 
 the development of a science of society. Some of the vagueness 
 chargeable to sociological writing is undoubtedly due to the use 
 of " socius " where " societas " is or should be the real conception 
 in mind. 
 
16 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 society, just as they have their organic mode 
 when they appear in the life of organisms. 
 
 It would follow that if the salient and deter- 
 minative processes of organic evolution are re- 
 peated in their essence in the life of human so- 
 ciety, then we can say that there is such a thing 
 as societal evolution and that we have some 
 definite idea of what it is like. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 
 
 Viewed as an animal, man shows two strik- 
 ing phenomena : first, dispersal over all the 
 varieties of earthly environment as no other 
 animal is dispersed ; and, second, a homo- 
 geneity so thoroughgoing that it is impossible 
 to distinguish human species, let alone genera 
 and other wider categories. The widest di- 
 versity of environment; the narrowest simi- 
 larity of structure. At best only sub-species 
 or varieties are definable, and even here there 
 is such disagreement among classifiers as to 
 lend great confusion to the study of ethnology. 
 And the likenesses between men which bafl3e 
 the classifier are not alone to be found as be- 
 tween human beings separated in space over 
 the earth, but also as between those existing 
 in diflferent epochs of time. The Egyptian 
 records and the diluvial remains unite in pro- 
 claiming the absence of radical diversity over 
 the ages. In short, the influence of diverse 
 c 17 
 
18 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 environment and the passing of much time fail 
 to exhibit man as an animal much modified in 
 visible structure as the result of adaptation. 
 
 However, if we survey the groups of man- 
 kind scattered up and down the earth, and 
 consequently subject to the most diverse in- 
 fluences of natural environment, we find them 
 differing widely from one another in their 
 cultural response to surrounding physical con- 
 ditions.^ But this implies a mental reaction 
 on experience rather than an adaptation of a 
 physical order. The fact is that whatever 
 structural modification there is has been made 
 in the brain, and that the rapidity and success 
 of brain-adaptation has rendered bodily change 
 unnecessary, thus freeing man from the inevi- 
 table process as seen among plants and animals, 
 and as in them productive of structural char- 
 acters which are utilized successfully by bota- 
 nists and zoologists in their classifications. Very 
 likely actual structural changes are registered 
 in the brain; of some of these scientists have 
 an inkling, and others may sometime be observ- 
 
 i"The true difference of mankind," says Count Okuma, as 
 reported in the New York Times for October 4, 1914, "is neither 
 in the color of the skin nor in the frame of the body, but is, if 
 any, in the degree of culture itself. It is this difference that 
 distinguishes winner and loser in the struggle for existence." 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 19 
 
 able with the perfecting of scientific instru- 
 ments and methods. 
 
 At present, however, we are driven to a 
 roimdabout method of estimating these brain 
 changes. Mental changes emerge in the form 
 of ideas, and these are capable of materializa- 
 tion or reahzation. The complicated machine 
 is the materialization of the brain-action of its 
 inventors ; it is not mere wood and iron. Every 
 weapon, article of clothing, or other invention 
 (standing as a substitute for structural modi- 
 fication) is in a very literal sense an idea ma- 
 terialized or made real ; so are all systems and 
 economies in society — in a word, all human 
 institutions. The stage in which a people is, 
 in respect to the quantity and quality of its 
 reaKzed ideas, is called its stage of culture or 
 civilization. The height of a society's civiliza- 
 tion thiis becomes a measure of its members' 
 success in mental adaptation to the environ- 
 ment in which it Kves. 
 
 Physical adaptations can be observed, de- 
 scribed, explained, and classified along the lines 
 of an evolutionary series. So can mental 
 adaptations, though less directly. If races 
 cannot yet be classified as a result of the study 
 of the cerebrum itself, they can be classified on 
 
20 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 the criterion of the activity of that organ, as 
 displayed in the sum of materialized or realized 
 ideas. Hence the study of the course of civil- 
 ization, or of that of one of its factors, is as 
 much a study in evolution as is the investiga- 
 tion of the phases through which general ver- 
 tebrate structure, or the horse's hoof, proceeds. 
 The mode of evolution is changed ; the process 
 goes on. 
 
 Thus human evolution diverges from the 
 general course of antecedent evolution. But it is 
 not right to say that all human evolution is men- 
 tal, nor that mental evolution is absent in the 
 animal. The facts support no such position — to 
 occupy which would be to deny the validity of the 
 whole evolutionary theory, as applied to man, 
 by introducing an impassable period, barren 
 of transitions, at some point ; ^ it would be 
 to reaffirm the old-time catastrophic theory. 
 Mental and physical adaptation cannot be 
 exclusive of one another; the two are linked 
 together, as has been intimated. "Brain and 
 mind are reacting upon bone and muscle and 
 
 ^ "If," says Darwin ("Origin of Spedes," p. 174), "it could be 
 demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not 
 possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, sUght modi- 
 fications, my theory would absolutely break down." Absence 
 of transitions anywhere thus breaks the course of evolution. 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 21 
 
 subduing and moulding them to their own men- 
 tal ends. They are making of the body a fitter 
 expression of the higher mental life. The body 
 is becoming an expression of thought. Muscles 
 of speech and expression are more effective and 
 really more powerful than those of back and 
 legs " ^ — and so are fit criteria for natural selec- 
 tion. But for the present purpose there is 
 more to be gained by passing over the slight 
 observable physical adaptations in man and 
 concentrating attention upon the typical hu- 
 man mode — upon the succession of mental 
 adaptations to be seen in the course of civiH- 
 zation. 
 
 Human adaptation is thus typically of a 
 mental order. But it is not of one mind or of 
 a few minds. No civilization (sum or synthe- 
 sis of mental adaptations) of any importance 
 can be developed by individual or by limited 
 group, in isolation. There must be contact 
 and conflict of ideas, that their variations may 
 be sifted out and a residue of superior adapta- 
 tions preserved. Civilization is a function of 
 numbers and of the contact of numbers. Hu- 
 man adaptation is therefore social as well as 
 mental. 
 
 » Tyler, "Man in the Light of Evolution," pp. 38-39. 
 
22 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 Further, the fact is sometimes lost sight of, 
 that civiUzation in its aspect of "power over 
 nature" is really adaptation, not mastery. We 
 get the idea that man does not adapt to en- 
 vironment, but adapts the environment to 
 himself and his needs. But we attain no power 
 over nature till we learn natural laws, to conform 
 and adapt ourselves to them. And then we 
 come to be as dependent upon our adaptations 
 as the bear upon his coat of fur or the wood- 
 pecker upon his sharp beak. Our lordship 
 over nature consists in the adroitness with 
 which we learn and conform. Judging by the 
 increase of numbers among the civilized nations 
 and the predominance of man over most other 
 forms of organic life, the human type of brain- 
 adaptation is proved to be a successful one. 
 But its success should not lead us to make a 
 mistake as to its true nature. 
 
 If we align, now, the hmnan type of adapta- 
 tion with that of plants and animals, we find 
 them both representing methods of escaping 
 the fatal sweep of natural selection. Plants 
 and animals exhibit structural modifications, 
 while with man it is his ideas which enable him 
 to oppose or evade the selective forces (starva- 
 tion, disease, violence) which would reduce 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 23 
 
 numbers or would prevent their increase. Let 
 us see how the two work out as respects growth 
 of numbers. Organic beings exclusive of man 
 tend to increase in numbers up to the limit of 
 the supporting power of the environment; to 
 avoid disaster, when numbers reach the "satu- 
 ration-point," there is no immediate recourse 
 save flight. The only way in which numbers 
 may increase beyond the supporting power of 
 the environment on any given stage is through 
 the development, under the merciless and pro- 
 tracted sway of natural selection, of some form 
 of structural adaptation. But in the case of 
 man, on the other hand, the entrance of the 
 factor of rapid mental variation, and of selec- 
 tion from among variations, brings it about 
 that both flight and slow painful adaptation 
 are usually eliminated, and an advance in the 
 arts of hfe (the external projection of mental 
 adaptations) enables him to extract more from 
 the environment; that is, to extend the limit 
 of its supporting power. Further, through the 
 development of mental adaptation along yet 
 another line, man can exercise some form of 
 limitation on numbers which shall slow up their 
 increase toward the limit whither they tend. 
 The peculiar effectiveness of man's adaptation 
 
24 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 may be seen in the clauses which must be 
 added to the above rule about the growth of 
 numbers, when it is a question of man : Human 
 population tends to increase up to the limit of 
 the supporting power of the environment, on a 
 given stage of the arts, and for a given standard 
 of living ^ — that is, for a given stage of civil- 
 ization. 
 
 If man's mental reactions are conceived of as 
 uncontrolled by law — as free in the sense of 
 being capricious — there is no object in trying 
 to go on with the present essay, or, indeed, with 
 any scientific treatment of society whatever. 
 But we know from a number of sources, and 
 from the standpoint of a posteriori reasoning, 
 that there are laws in accordance with which 
 groups of men are sure to act; human beings 
 are controlled in their actions even where to 
 the casual observer their conduct seems most 
 clearly self -chosen. Of course the reference to 
 "laws" is not to statutes, but to laws that are 
 on the order of "natural law." It is desirable 
 here to get down as near to fundamentals as 
 
 * This formula is a slightly modified statement of Professor 
 Sumner's "Law of Population." He used "land" where I use 
 "environment." 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 25 
 
 possible, and try to reach some idea of the nature 
 of these social laws. 
 
 I wish to take an outstanding example of the 
 above contention. It will be admitted, I sup- 
 pose, that sex-love is one of the most diflficult 
 impulses of man to control. If it could be put 
 under rein, certainly it would seem that other 
 and lesser impulses could be bridled. In fact, 
 it is spoken of often as pursuing its course in 
 the face of any and all attempts to check it. 
 "Love will have its way." Mating is supposed 
 to rest largely upon personal choice, to be mainly 
 a matter of chance. Marriage, we are told, 
 is a lottery. Indeed, the poetically inclined go 
 further and sing in inspired strain about how 
 wrong it is to stand in the way of the divine 
 impidse; and there is a degenerate element 
 abroad that wishes society to surrender all the 
 rights that guarantee its interests in marriage 
 and the family in favor of the free spirit-movings 
 of susceptible and impulsive individuals. 
 
 But if we go to the facts, we find that human 
 mating has never been uncontrolled. Among 
 savages, who have no statutes, the taboo pro- 
 scribes or prescribes so many different kinds of 
 sex-unions that one almost comes to discount 
 altogether the element of personal choice among 
 
26 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 them. And the taboo is effective, backed as it 
 is by ghost-fear. Among civiUzed people, also, 
 the sex-relation is subject to regulation which 
 considerably limits the field of personal choice. 
 Aside from laws, which form the crudest and 
 most obvious controls, the sway of convention 
 over this whole matter is more nearly absolute 
 than we are sometimes wont to think. A 
 favorite topic of fiction, which by its very 
 nature strives for effect, and often gets it by 
 making us believe for a time that things are as 
 they are not, is not seldom the satisfactions 
 attending in some especial manner the over- 
 stepping of convention. The prince marries 
 the beggar-girl and all is felicity. Nothing is 
 said of the probable offense caused to the prince 
 or his parents by the beggar-girl's native habits 
 and manners. Because such a situation is 
 diverting to the sense of romance, it proves 
 nothing about the way things are in real life. 
 In a novel-saturated age perhaps such a state- 
 ment as this is necessary. 
 
 What is society's attitude toward a romantic 
 mesalliance on the order of this one? It 
 ostracizes, or, if it does not dare do that, 
 it derides both parties. Its taboo is pitiless, 
 like the primitive one; witness the treatment 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 27 
 
 accorded, in modern England, to a girl who has 
 married her deceased sister's husband, and to 
 the children of that marriage. And as the di- 
 vergence from code approaches greater propor- 
 tions, the penalties increase ; witness the treat- 
 ment accorded the Mormons in this country, 
 the adherents of free love, "absolute mother- 
 hood," and so on. Note the change that came 
 over the spirit of the reception accorded to 
 Gorky, the Russian writer, when it was dis- 
 covered that the woman who was travelling 
 with hiTn was not Madame Gorky. Certainly 
 this supreme among the passions is subject to 
 control and direction; and the strongest and 
 most compelling control does not he in written 
 statute, as any one can see who reflects upon the 
 topic, but in convention. Convention pene- 
 trates where statutes are not; and enacted 
 laws are no more than the crystallization of 
 certain of the more tangible manifestations of 
 convention. 
 
 If, now, reahzing that there are deep-lying 
 forces of societal control, we can get at the nature 
 of the laws that determine convention, or, at 
 least, at the nature of convention, we are ap- 
 proaching the fundamentals of societal laws, and 
 so of societal evolution. It is important here to 
 
28 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 note the distinction between convention and 
 instinct, for it is significant of the distinction 
 between organic and societal evolution. By 
 convention I mean a piece of behavior that is 
 learned, and by instinct one that is inborn — 
 instinctive. Convention is "second-nature" ; 
 instinct, "first-nature." The relation between 
 the two is summarily expressed by saying 
 that convention consistently represses instinct. 
 Brief illustration will present this point. Sneez- 
 ing is natural enough, but convention taboos it, 
 and conventional people have learned to reduce 
 the paroxysm from an explosion to a delicate 
 murmur. Sneezing is as instinctive or natural 
 a happening as one could well find, but even 
 the most hardened unconventional would try 
 to repress himself if the impulse came at a 
 tense and solemn point of, say, some reUgious 
 service. If he did not, he would feel the dis- 
 approval of those about him. It will be noted 
 that he would have no occasion for repression 
 if he were alone. Robinson Crusoe could be 
 entirely unconventional before Friday came. 
 That which is natural, and so innocent, becomes 
 a fault in society — a fact which reveals the 
 essential truth that convention belongs to 
 societal, not natural evolution. 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 29 
 
 A child comes into the world, despite the 
 expression "to the manner born," without the 
 beginning of manners. Line upon line and 
 precept upon precept are necessary before he 
 is fit to associate with his fellow-men on terms 
 that do not include the overlooking of his 
 manners. All the conventions taught him, 
 from the time he is made to eat with some im- 
 plement other than his fingers, until he learns to 
 behave courteously in any sort of surroundings, 
 are repressive of the instincts — all the way 
 from that one which bids him seize and gorge 
 like an animal up to that of an undisciplined 
 selfishness, in the presence of which real courtesy 
 is impossible. 
 
 But these conventions are the rules of the 
 game for hving in society. No game is worth 
 anything, or pleasurable, or even endurable, 
 which has not its code of conduct; otherwise 
 it runs down into chaos and rough-and-tumble. 
 However, no one made these conventions ; they 
 grew up automatically where men Uved together. 
 The society, living its life, has imposed, as it 
 were, rules upon its members and a discipline 
 whose absence means anarchy and confusion. 
 The repression of this discipline occasionally 
 leads to revolt, but if the society is to live, it 
 
30 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 presently settles down to a new code of con- 
 ventions, which is again enforced with the ele- 
 mental stress characteristic of society's coer- 
 cion. For behind any such code, as its ultimate 
 guarantee, is the public opinion of the group- 
 members, dead as well as living. This is the 
 force behind all conventions, and, of course, 
 behind all laws, if they are effective. 
 
 Henc^ if we wish to get down to fundamentals 
 and so arrive at the hidden springs of societal 
 life and evolution, we must seek them in the 
 societal conventions and in public opinion.'^ 
 
 In mentioning, in a former connection, several 
 important works touching on evolution in society, 
 nothing was said of a book which develops what 
 seems to a growing body of us to be the connect- 
 ing idea between organic and societal evolution, 
 or, rather, the fundamental phenomenon of the 
 latter as it diverges from the former into its 
 own phase and mode. This idea is the concep- 
 tion of the "folkways" and "mores" developed 
 by the late William Graham Sumner.^ No 
 adequate notion of the folkways can be gained 
 apart from the study of this author's analysis, 
 with its supporting compendium of illustra- 
 
 ' In "Folkways, a Study of the Sociological Importance of 
 Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals." 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 31 
 
 tion ; but it is yet possible to get before us the 
 conception of the folkways in its broadest 
 lines. 
 
 If we recall certain of the salient points of 
 preceding pages, we seeNi^ the course of 
 human evolution is the course of civilization. 
 But civiKzation is a matter of the development 
 of inventions, systems, economies, and so on — 
 of what may be termed, in a broad sense, in- 
 stitutions. In their developed form these in- 
 stitutions are very complex and diflficult to 
 handle; but they must have had some simple 
 and informal beginnings and lowest terms (which 
 could be dealt with more readily) in some sort 
 of simple and habitual, unconscious, automatic, 
 unpremeditated reactions upon surroundings. 
 We find such habitudes represented in the 
 conventions, particularly in those of primitive 
 peoples, of which we have been talking. Now 
 here is where the conception of the folkways 
 fits in ; as a natural and essential societal form 
 the folkway is analogous to the germ or em- 
 bryo. It is less derived and more primordial. 
 Folkways represent the lowest terms or matrix 
 of the institutions, whose aggregate, civiliza- 
 tion or culture, we have seen to be the external 
 measure and projection of the human type of 
 
32 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 adaptation to environment. y But while it is 
 easy enough to talk vaguely and expansively 
 of convention, it is another thing to possess 
 some definite idea of its origin and nature, and 
 some terminology which shall hold that idea 
 steady amidst the looseness of thought and 
 usage that play about it. Sumner's analysis has 
 defined the conception of these unconsciously 
 arising societal habitudes and conventions, 
 and he has given us an inclusive name for them. 
 "If," says the opening sentence of "Folkways," 
 "we put together all that we have learned from 
 anthropology and ethnography about primitive 
 man and primitive society, we perceive that the 
 first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, 
 not with thoughts." Thus man's primitive 
 mental operations were more in the nature of 
 nervous reflexes as seen in animals, the only 
 apparent difference between the animal reflex 
 and that shown by nascent man lying in that 
 to which each leads. Here is one of the stock 
 areas of transition characteristic of evolution. 
 If the reflexes are called instinctive, and then 
 later we find the social habitudes or conventions 
 that develop out of them to be repressive of 
 instinct, it must be realized that an advance of 
 socialization has intervened. In evolution no 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 33 
 
 sharp line of distinction can be laid down at 
 the outset, nor yet for some time after lines of 
 development have begun to swerve one from 
 the other. 
 
 Men begin, then, "with acts, not with 
 thoughts. Every moment brings necessities 
 which must be satisfied at once." ^ These 
 necessities are those of adaptation, and the 
 sign of their presence is pain; and upon the 
 experience of pain there results an attempt — a 
 sort of reflex action, under some guiding instinct 
 come down from man's animal-ancestry, per- 
 haps — to satisfy the need. In the absence 
 of any experience of the relation of means to 
 ends, while the old need may be met with some 
 precision, new needs call forth but clumsy and 
 floundering efiForts for their satisfaction. "The 
 method is that of trial and failure, which pro- 
 duces repeated pain, loss, and disappointments." 
 Here is certainly a case of variation, and the 
 several variations could scarcely be of equal 
 
 ' What is here said about the folkways is a paraphrase, with 
 occasional direct quotation, from Sumner's book (chiefly from 
 chs. I, II, III, V, XV, XX). I have therefore thought it un- 
 necessary to equip the text with series of references, or to dis- 
 figure it with many quotations, or to reproduce many illustrations ; 
 but rather to make my general acknowledgment in this place 
 once and for all. 
 
34 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 value in the struggle to live. Hence thg^ 
 must come about a selection of these variations, 
 since early man is subjected, clearly enough, 
 to the same tendency to outrun the supporting 
 power of his environment, and so to the struggle 
 for existence, as are other organic beings. 
 "Pleasure and pain, on the one side and the 
 other, were the rude constraints which defined 
 the line on which efforts must proceed. The 
 ability to distinguish between pleasure and 
 pain is the,^only psychical power which is to be 
 assumed. Thus ways of doing things were 
 selected, which were expedient. They an- 
 swered the purpose better than other ways, or 
 with less toil and pain. Along the course on 
 which efforts were compelled to go, habit, 
 routine, and skill were developed.'^ 
 
 It must be recalled, at this point, that human 
 evolution is not an individual matter, but one 
 of societies. It is easy to show, even from in- 
 stances derived from the animal world, that 
 association is in many cases an important ad- 
 vantage in the pursuit of the struggle for exist- 
 ence, and so becomes a basis of selection. 
 Doubtless the earliest groups of men were very 
 small, but, judging from the most primitive 
 types of homo that have been found, associa- 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 35 
 
 tion in societies seems to have characterized the 
 race. This is where natural selection seems to 
 have prepared the way for a later form of evo- 
 lution. If, however, the struggle for existence 
 was carried on in groups, each niember could 
 profit by the others' experience; ^ence there 
 was a concurrence towards that which proved 
 to be most expedient, i^ll at last adopted the 
 same way for the same pm-pose; hence the 
 ways turned into,f!ustoms and became mass 
 phenomena. . . . The operation by which 
 folkways are produced consists in the frequent 
 repetition of petty acts, often by great numbers 
 acting in concert or, at least, acting in the same 
 way when face to face with the same need. 
 T^'he immediate motive is interest. It produces 
 habit in the individual and custom in the 
 group. It is, therefore, in the highest degree 
 original and primitive. By habit and custom 
 it exerts a strain on every individual within its 
 range; therefore it rises to a societal force to 
 which great classes of societal phenomena are 
 due." '^ 
 
 "It is of the first importance to notice that, 
 from the first acts by which men try to satisfy 
 needs, each act stands by itself, and looks no 
 further than the immediate satisfaction. From 
 
36 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 recurrent needs arise habits for the individual 
 and customs for the group, but these results 
 are consequences which were never conscious, 
 and never foreseen or intended. They are not 
 noticed until they have long existed, and it is 
 still longer before they are appreciated. An- 
 other long time must pass, and a higher stage 
 of mental development must be reached, before 
 they can be used as a basis from which to de- 
 duce rules for meeting, in the future, problems 
 whose pressure can be foreseen. The folkways, 
 therefore, are not creations of human purpose 
 and wit. They are like products of natural 
 force which men unconsciously set in operation, 
 or they are like the instinctive ways of animals 
 which are developed out of experience, which 
 reach a final form of maximum adaptation to 
 an interest, which are handed down by tradition 
 and admit of no exception or variation, yet 
 change to meet new conditions, still within 
 the same limited methods, and without rational 
 reflection or purpose. From this it results that 
 ^11 the life of human beings, in all ages and 
 stages of culture, is primarily controlled by a 
 vast mass of folkways handed down from the 
 earliest existence of the race, having the nature 
 of the ways of other am'mals, only the topmost 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 37 
 
 layers of which are subject to control, and have 
 been somewhat modified by human philosophy, 
 ethics, and religion, or by other acts of intelli- 
 gent reflection." Life is full of customs and 
 small ceremonial usages; all men are subject 
 to them and act under them, with only a little 
 wider margin of voluntary variation than that 
 shown by the savage. -^ 
 
 "No objection can lie against this postulate 
 about the way in which folkways began, on 
 account of the element of inference in it. . . . 
 We go up the stream of history to the utmost 
 point for which we have evidence of its course. 
 Then we are forced to reach out into the dark- 
 ness upon the hne of direction marked by the 
 remotest course of the historic stream. This 
 is the way in which we have to act in regard to 
 the origin of capital, language, the family, the 
 state, religion, and rights. We never can hope 
 to see the beginning of any one of these things. 
 Use and wont are products and results. They 
 had antecedents. We never can find or see 
 the first number of the series. It is only by 
 analysis and inference that we can form any 
 conception of the 'beginning,' which we are 
 always so eager to find. . . . The origin of primi- 
 tive customs is always lost in mystery, because 
 
38 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 when the action begins the men are never con- 
 scious of historical action, or of the historical 
 importance of what they are doing. When 
 they become conscious of the historical impor- 
 tance of their acts, the origin is already far 
 behind." 
 
 If this paraphrase and these quotations have 
 given the reader the fundamental idea of the 
 folkways, he has before him the conception of a 
 stage of societal development lying beyond the 
 purely organic stage, while plainly allied to it 
 in most essentials ; and'^et falling short of the 
 stage of societal development characterized by 
 compact institutions and a conscious policyr' 
 For the present purpose it is not deemed es- 
 sential to go back and seek to work out the 
 connection with organic nature through the 
 attempt to trace the folkways back into the 
 unconscious; nor is it conceived to be of con- 
 sequence that we should know, if we could, at 
 just what point the characteristically human 
 mental reactions, as distinguished from "in- 
 stincts," came first into play. "What we wish 
 to do is to see whether the essential ideas of 
 Darwinian evolution can be applied to the 
 course of civilization ; and since we can scarcely 
 fail to admit that the early stretches of the 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 39 
 
 course of civilization are to be found in the 
 folkways/ we should get the more fundamen- 
 tally at the issue before us by trying the Dar- 
 winian ideas, at first, at least, upon the folkways. 
 Here we are working in lower terms, which is 
 always an advantage in attacking a complex 
 and difficult matter. 
 
 Summing up at this point the several con- 
 siderations which precede : we see that man 
 possesses in the brain a sort of specialized 
 adapting organ which reHeves the rest of the 
 body from the necessity of structural adapta- 
 tion; that the human mode of adaptation is 
 thus mental, and that it is also social ; that the 
 measure of human adaptation is the degree of 
 civiHzation attained ; that the story of human 
 evolution thus becomes the story of the evolu- 
 tion of civihzation in human society ; and that 
 the law of population must receive character- 
 istic modifications when it is applied to man. 
 The brain becomes the organ of adaptation. 
 Looked at in one way it secures adaptation for 
 man by transforming his environment; but 
 in a broader and truer sense, by learning the 
 
 ^ If the sociologist cannot vary conditions and so study 
 phenomena under diverse and selected conditions, he can yet 
 go where, as among primitive people, the phenomena exist under 
 diverse, if not chosen conditions, and study them there. 
 
40 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 laws of nature and devising ways of conforma- 
 tion to them. But the details of this new 
 phase and mode of adaptation are no longer 
 matters of biology; the reactions of the in- 
 dividual are cerebral and psychical. However, 
 these reactions do not remain individual and 
 isolated, but, in ways indicated in this chapter, 
 they become societal and so fall into the domain 
 of sociological study. So soon as concurrence 
 of reactions takes place a new evolutionary 
 mode arises. This is a stage removed from 
 organic evolution, but the connection is un- 
 broken. Inquiring now as to the fundamental 
 factors and processes of societal evolution, we 
 have found human actions to be controlled, 
 not hit-or-miss, and to be controlled in last 
 analysis by convention, which is repressive of 
 "instinct" and which is guaranteed by public 
 opinion; and we have followed Sumner's 
 analysis and characterization of the folkways. 
 Since the folkways of a society include all 
 its forms of mental reaction on environment — 
 are, in fact, the irreducible elements on any 
 stage of civilization — it is now possible to 
 modify somewhat the formula with which we 
 started:^ The measure of the characteristic 
 
 ' P. 19 above. 
 
THE HUMAN TYPE OF EVOLUTION 41 
 
 type of human adaptation is the body of its 
 folkways and mores. 
 
 The folkways are the simplest and most 
 fundamental phenomena of societal life. They 
 form the germ and matrix of all human insti- 
 tutions.^ It is to them, then, that we can best 
 address ourselves in inquiring as to the applica- 
 tion of the Darwinian factors to the Hfe of so- 
 ciety. What we wish to consider is this : whether 
 these factors obtain in the folkways and their 
 derivatives, and whether, if they do, the final 
 result is, in the one case as in the other, adapta- 
 tion. If it can be shown that the folkways 
 are adaptive by way of the activity of factors 
 of the order of those operative in organic evo- 
 lution — factors which actually operate in the 
 societal domain in the same way that those do 
 in the organic world — then there is no reason 
 to refuse to extend the Darwinian theory, in its 
 new mode, into the "superorganic domain." 
 But in treating of evolution in the mores, one 
 must not forget that he is operating, as it were, 
 in a sort of secondary intension; he must al- 
 ways be ready to refer back to the underlying 
 
 ' For a vigorous scientific treatment of law as a development 
 out of the folkways, see Corbin, A. L., "The Law and the Judges," 
 in the Yale Review for January, 1914. 
 
42 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 organic processes, or he gets his feet ofif the 
 earth and risks losing himself in vague specu- 
 lation. Grounds for this caution will appear 
 as we go on. 
 
CHAPTER n 
 
 VABIATION 
 
 Vaeiation is the opposite of uniformity and 
 monotony and is the basis for all need of classi- 
 fication. If there were no variation in nature, 
 there could be no such multitude of forms, 
 shading into one another by almost imper- 
 ceptible gradation, as the naturalists tell us 
 there is ; similarly, if there were no variation 
 in the folkways, human customs and institu- 
 tions could show no such endless diversity of 
 detail as we see about us. These are general- 
 ities. To demonstrate the existence of varia- 
 tion in the folkways would be a matter of re- 
 hearsing long series of instances, most of which 
 would doubtless be more or less familiar to the 
 reader, and many of which are to be found in 
 the collections of cases, under various topics, 
 in "Folkways." It does not seem necessary 
 to assemble such exhaustive detail. Any one 
 can see, on brief reflection, that no two human 
 groups — whether family, club, sect, secret 
 
 43 
 
44 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 society, township, state, or nation — have the 
 same code of mores. Even the code of personal 
 conduct shows its variations and, by virtue 
 of selection among them, is altered from time 
 to time. 
 
 "^Variation in the folkways is practically seK- 
 evidentr If the first reactions on environment 
 characteristic of men were clumsy, groping, 
 and non-purposeful, then variation must have 
 been there at the outset. The dream of a 
 medicine-man has often set afloat a new societal 
 variation. But random and inconsequent vari- 
 ation is not confined to primitive man — Joan 
 of Arc too had her vision; it can be observed 
 in every age, especially in the case of folkways 
 not subject to conclusive test, as, for instance, 
 in fashion. \^ariation comes to be limited 
 after selection has operated for a time. The 
 process is this : a considerable degree of con- 
 currence having come about with regard to 
 certain folkways, these are taken to be con- 
 ducive to group welfare, and presently receive 
 social and religious sanction and become mores. ^ 
 
 1 "When the elements of truth and right are developed into 
 doctrines of welfare, the folkways are raised to another plane. 
 They then become capable of producing inferences, developing 
 into new forms, and extending their constructive influence over 
 men and society. Then we call them mores. The mores are 
 
VARIATION 45 
 
 Then variations from them are, under this 
 conviction and sanction, prejudged as inex- 
 pedient, and so, to recall a phrase quoted above, 
 there is laid down a "course on which efforts 
 were compelled to go." This would be like 
 building two lofty walls on either side of a 
 growing tree ; the outspreading of its branches 
 must then take place within the narrowed space. 
 So variations could appear only within the 
 "course" left open. In our own societies the 
 folkways governing diet no longer permit of 
 variations in the direction of cannibahsm ; and 
 those of war are supposed to exclude all varia- 
 tions in the direction of using poisons, employ- 
 ing certain types of treachery, and so on. But 
 within the limits laid down, variation still goes 
 on : new ideas about eating characterize the 
 folkways of the time, and more new devices 
 for killing men abound among civilized people 
 than ever the savage could dream of. 
 
 It would be easy to immerse this subject of 
 
 the folkways, including the philosophical and ethical generaliza- 
 tions as to societal welfare which are suggested by them, and 
 inherent in them, as they grow." Sumner, "Folkways," § 34. 
 It will not be practicable always to maintain a clean-cut dis- 
 tinction between folkways and mores — ■ indeed, Sumner him- 
 self does not do so — but that there is "another plane" should 
 be kept in mind. 
 
46 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 variation in analogies : to talk of mutations 
 in the mores; to refer to the amalgamation 
 of groups and the consequent development of 
 new combinations in the code as social amphi- 
 mixis, thus suggesting an explanation of varia- 
 tion along the lines laid down by Weismann. 
 This sort of procedure is entertaining and might 
 be suggestive; but it is dangerous. The fact 
 of variation in the folkways is all that needs to 
 be established here. No doubt when two or 
 more codes are brought into contact by the 
 compounding of groups, there appears to ensue 
 an activity of variation in the mores that sug- 
 gests fecundation of some sort. Perhaps there 
 is really something more in such a case than 
 mere inter-transmission of folkways between the 
 groups thus brought into contact. But if 
 there is, it is safer with our present knowledge 
 to ignore so vague a quantity and to treat the 
 whole matter objectively under the topics of 
 selection and of transmission by contagion.^ 
 
 Conscious variation within lines allowed by 
 the folkways is now called experimentation.. 
 It is supposed to be scientific, that is, carefully 
 directed on the basis of law and of knowledge 
 of what has been done before; but it is not 
 
 ' Pp. 73 ff . and 232 ff . below. 
 
VARIATION 47 
 
 seldom as clumsy and floundering, and as un- 
 conscious of the previous history of the race, 
 as are those wild procedures of the savage to 
 which we would deny the name of experimen- 
 tation. The rich and powerful, those who have 
 leisure or means to experiment, can set new 
 variations afloat; and so can the sensational 
 demagogue, Uving on his wits, and thriving by 
 reason of the fertiUty of his inventive and per- 
 suasive powers. Such have fathered many of 
 the "social experiments" of the modern age. 
 But, however "happy ideas" and "projects" 
 may be viewed, it is clear that variations in 
 the folkways, conscious or otherwise, have 
 always been occurring, sometimes perishing at 
 once, sometimes attaining a small following 
 among the concurrent, and again uniting huge 
 factions. The collections in the Patent Office 
 form a museum of variations in the purely 
 mechanical field, the courts and the newspapers 
 offer numerous cases in the realm of marriage 
 and the family,^ the records of administrative 
 
 ' "Every possible experiment [in the way of sex relations and 
 marriage], compatible with the duration of savage or barbarous 
 societies, has been tried, or is still practised, amongst various races, 
 without the least thought of the moral ideas generally prevailing 
 in Europe, and which our metaphysicians proclaim as innate and 
 necessary." Letoumeau, " Evolution of Marriage," p. 344. 
 
48 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 bodies of importance or insignificance provide 
 examples of variation in the political mores, 
 and the history of sects and creeds teems with 
 instances of the same process in the matter of 
 religious system and ritual. Fads and fancies 
 are the froth of all this variation.^ Similar 
 diversities can be shown in the manners and 
 customs of human groups upon all stages of 
 civilization; there seems to be no danger of 
 any stiffening into monotony. Quot homines, 
 tot sententiae. At any stage there are plenty of 
 budding variations in the folkways to select 
 from. 
 
 These human variations are not periodic, 
 depending upon birth-periods of new organisms ; 
 they take place in rapid and sometimes ap- 
 
 ' A ridiculous case of fad is reported by the New York Times 
 for January 25, 1914. " Professor Bergson's lectures on philosophy 
 at the College de France are becoming one of the social functions 
 of Paris, with the result of an amusing conflict in the lecture hall 
 between the society dilettanti for whom philosophy is the pres- 
 ent mode and the students who attend the lectures as part of 
 their course for a degree. Before the time fixed for a lecture 
 every seat is usually taken by society women, who, because the 
 university is a national one, cannot be excluded. The bona-fide 
 students cannot come early on account of other lectures. Already 
 there have been several scuffles in consequence. Maurice Croiset, 
 the head of the college, has made fruitless appeals to the smart 
 set, which refuses to be deprived of its new diversion. A protest 
 is now being made in the press." 
 
VARIATION 49 
 
 parently in inconsequent fashion ; ideas tumble 
 over each other in the face of the need which 
 evokes them. But selection cannot, as will be 
 seen, keep pace with the production of that 
 upon which it is to operate, and so the unfittest 
 variations are not ehminated with the expedi- 
 tion characteristic in nature. Further, new 
 variations depend upon older ones which may 
 not have been tested as yet; plenty of ideas 
 may gather about the elaboration of unver- 
 ified principles or happy thoughts. The mores 
 show a capabiHty for producing inferences. 
 So that when the original variations come up 
 for judgment, the case is already confused by 
 the existence of numerous corollaries, all of 
 which cannot well be ehminated along with 
 their supporting principle. For instance, if 
 protectionism might be taken as a variation in 
 social policy, there are not a few who reject 
 the principle, but fear to select it out for ex- 
 tinction because of the multitude of societal 
 structures which have developed in dependence 
 upon it.i It is plain that the evolution of 
 
 ' Illustrations appear in current literature ; the case of the 
 size of bricks is adverted to by the Philadelphia Inquirer (toward 
 end of August, 1911). "If bricks were made larger it would save 
 a great deal of time and labor in building, said a contractor, but 
 
50 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 society and of social forms is an extremely com- 
 plex affair and should be approached in any- 
 thing but a jaunty manner. Something is 
 gained if this point alone is apprehended. 
 
 Viewing this topic of variation in the large, 
 it should still be kept in mind that in societal 
 evolution as in organic there can be no compre- 
 hensive view of variation over long epochs by 
 reason of the extinction of transitional, non- 
 advantageous variants; and in the one case 
 as in the other many a mean between extremes 
 has been preserved, if at all, only under the 
 protection of isolation or in the form of a fossil 
 or survival. Such fossil variations, persisting 
 occasionally in isolation, are cannibalism and 
 human sacrifice, group-marriage and polyandry, 
 communal property and inheritance by nephews 
 
 the standard has been set and any change would be attended by 
 considerable inconveniences. In England when bricks were 
 first made, and up to sixty or seventy years ago, there was a 
 tax on bricks and in order to evade it the bricks were made ot 
 larger and larger sizes. 
 
 "These were used for cellars and other concealed places. 
 To stop this fraud, an act was passed in the reign of George III 
 fixing the legal size of bricks. Early in Queen Victoria's reign 
 the tax was taken off and the bricks may now be legally made of 
 any size whatever. But any change from the standard size would 
 bring about great inconvenience. All calculations are made for 
 building on this standard size, and the Loudon and other buUding 
 acts have practically fixed it." 
 
VARIATION 51 
 
 — outreachings in the effort to live which were 
 not destined to persist. 
 
 '^The case of societal variation reduces ulti- 
 mately, then, to the mental reaction of indi- 
 viduals. These, unconsciously, and later to 
 some extent consciously, throw out a series of 
 tentatives under the stimulus of need. Certain 
 of these tentatives cancel out at once or other- 
 wise disappear, while others are concurred in 
 and become characteristic of a group. They 
 are then the folkways of that group, and when 
 they become the object of group approval and 
 so become the embodiment of its prosperity- 
 poKcy, they become its mores. Here is where 
 they enter into the field of societal evolution 
 and invite the interest of the sociologist f 
 for they are now social phenomena as distin- 
 guished from individual phenomena. It must 
 not be forgotten that they probably go back 
 to physical change in the individual brain, 
 and so root in organic processes and organic 
 evolution, and in the resultant "race-character" 
 or temperament. But, having made this con- 
 nection clear, and having thus laid yet another 
 claim on behalf of societal evolution to an origin 
 in organic evolution, we need no longer concern 
 ourselves with the individual as with a neces- 
 
52 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 sary factor in our argument. The origin of and 
 the variation in the mores may go back to the 
 individual, but they themselves are group- 
 phenomena and their selection, transmission, 
 and adaptation are characteristically societal, 
 not individual — just as civilization is a so- 
 cietal product and incapable of advance imder 
 isolation. 
 
CHAPTER m 
 
 SELECTION (automatic) 
 
 Fkom the preceding chapter we carry away 
 the fact of variation in the ways and between 
 the codes of groups, based upon concurrences 
 alone certain lines struck out upon by individ- 
 uals. ^But the very fact of concurrence im- 
 phes selection already in the field ; thus selection 
 seems to exist on the stage immediately pre- 
 ceding the formation of the folkway . ^^his, 
 however, does not concern us except as it ex- 
 hibits one of the transition forms which Unk to- 
 gether organic and societal evolution and which 
 in so far justify the conviction that the evolu- 
 tionary system does not stop short of man and 
 human society. Individual tentatives are the 
 object of selection; and concurrence in them, 
 if they are apt, means the preservation of some 
 at the expense of the elimination of others. 
 This must be so even in a society of animals, 
 for they fall into group- ways also; in fact, 
 there are places enough where it would be diflS- 
 
 £8 
 
54 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 cult to draw a sharp distinction between some 
 animal ways and some folkways. 
 
 But, for the purpose in hand, concurrence is 
 supposed to have taken place, and we have 
 before us over the earth numerous aggregations 
 of folkways characterizing various groups, 
 smaller and larger. If we take the family as 
 the smallest group, we may say that no two 
 families are Ukely to have identical ways ; and 
 if we take the nation as the largest group, that 
 there are no two nations whose customs and 
 habitudes will exactly correspond. Here is 
 evidence, retroactive, as it were, for variation 
 in the mores. And here is, in any case, a good 
 ground for selection; on the organic stage, 
 such a condition would demand and evoke selec- 
 tion without delay, whether such selection were 
 artificial, at the hand of the breeder, or natural 
 in the most elemental sense. 
 
 It is a commonplace of history that customs 
 and institutions arise, attain strength and vogue, 
 finally to yield to other ways of procedure and 
 to disappear. For the explanation of this rise 
 and fall we do not look to the individual or to 
 the Umited group of individuals, except as he 
 or they stand forth as the leading agency or 
 exponent of the societal change. This is the 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 55 
 
 only way in which the sociologist can view the 
 "great man in history" ; he may sign an Eman- 
 cipation Proclamation, but he does it only as a 
 delegate or representative. For the causes of 
 alteration in the code we look to more massive 
 factors which have to do with the life of the 
 society as a whole, as, for instance, economic 
 change or the rise of a rehgion. No great 
 selection of the folkways can take place apart 
 from the swinging of the body of the society ; 
 there is a "social movement" and the result 
 is a "new social order," that is, an altered body 
 of mores. It is the society which performs this 
 societal selection, just as it is "nature" which 
 performs natural selection. By nature, whose 
 personification is so diflBcult to avoid, we mean 
 here, with Darwin,^ "only the aggregate action 
 and product of many natural laws, and by laws 
 the sequence of events as ascertained by us"; 
 similarly by society, or the social order, we mean 
 here only the aggregate action and product of 
 many societal laws, and by societal laws the 
 sequence of societal events as ascertained by us. 
 There is, as will be seen, something about 
 societal selection which is after the model of 
 natural selection, massive and elemental. 
 
 1 "Origin of Species," p. 76. 
 
56 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 ^To bring about any selection at all there is 
 need of conflict as between variationsr^ In the 
 case of the folkways this contest, plainly enough, 
 cannot take place as between ideas, though we 
 may figuratively represent it as so doing; as, 
 for example, when we speak of the conflict 
 between conservatism and radicalism, religion 
 and science, and so on. The real struggle is 
 between the adherents or exponents of the 
 mores in question, and it is through the issue 
 of that struggle that a given set of mores is 
 carried forward toward universality or con- 
 signed to oblivion. 
 
 That such a struggle between groups charac- 
 terized by different codes of mores shall never 
 cease is a matter which is settled in the order 
 of the universe. The struggle for existence — 
 the securing of a food supply — is in itself suffi- 
 cient to assure conflict between organic beings 
 of all grades. There will always be conflict 
 where there are wants and insufficient means 
 to satisfy all. And it is provided in human 
 nature that wants multiply and diversify as 
 they are about to be satisfied. "^And when the 
 habit of association has been evolved, then the 
 struggle is group-wise. '^ Driven by their inter- 
 ests, groups of all sizes, from the race-group 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 57 
 
 down to the smallest, are always in conflict of 
 some kind with their competitors. Their rela- 
 tions are those of latent hostility, or at best of 
 antagonistic cooperation.^ The reader may turn 
 to Gumplowicz for an eloquent exposition of 
 this "Rassenkampf." Wherever interests coin- 
 cide in their demands there is ground for com- 
 petition and conflict ; and the main interests of 
 all human groups are identical : to live, and 
 then to attain a higher standard of living. 
 
 But there exists in the mores themselves a 
 ground for antagonism due to differences in 
 code, which often cloaks over a more elemental 
 groimd. The mores of a group are not seldom 
 offensive to another group ; and where they are 
 not that, they are contemptible or laughable. 
 It would appear that certain groups brought 
 into contact with others find the ways of the 
 latter so intolerable that they may deliber- 
 ately and consciously set out to get rid of them. 
 We must pause here in our discussion of so- 
 cietal selection to look into this matter. It has 
 been seen that the code of mores of a group be- 
 comes its prosperity-policy ; the mores in which 
 the group has concurred are thought to be con- 
 ducive to societal welfare, and departure from 
 
 1 Sumner, "Folkways," § 21, 
 
58 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 them is regarded as perilous. Thus they be- 
 come "uniform, universal in a group, impera- 
 tive, and invariable," growing, as time goes on, 
 "more and more arbitrary, positive, and im- 
 perative." ^ They are thought of as the code 
 of a superior group, and this involves their 
 comparison with the codes of other groups, to 
 the disadvantage of the latter. The Kubus 
 of Sumatra believe illnesses arise from relations 
 with people outside the tribal group .^ This 
 group-egotism, which, among other things, 
 causes so many tribes to denominate them- 
 selves "Men," as distinguished from the rest 
 of the world, who do not measure up to that 
 exalted title, is called ethnocentrism. The 
 reason why the rest fall short of "us" is because 
 of their ways far more than for any other, for 
 example, any physical pecuharity. Ethnocen- 
 trism is thus a specifically human sentiment. It 
 enters to strengthen the local code of mores as 
 the distinguishing character of the group, and 
 to promote intolerance and hostility as respects 
 the ways of others. "Each group thinks its 
 own folkways the only right ones, and if it 
 observes that other groups have other folkways, 
 
 ' Sumner, "Folkways," § 21. 
 
 » "Die Kubus von Sumatra," in Globus, XXVI, 46. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 59 
 
 these excite its scorn. Opprobrious epithets 
 are derived from the differences. 'Pig-eater,' 
 * cow-eater,' 'uncircumcised,' 'jabberers,' are 
 epithets of contempt and abomination." A 
 galaxy of such terms could be gathered in our 
 own society and time, as, e.g., bog-trotter, dago, 
 sheeny, griner, hunkie, bohunk, guinea, wapp. 
 These and other terms have been invented to 
 mark the exponents of uncongenial mores, 
 racial, national, or sectional. Thus "ethno- 
 centrism leads a people to exaggerate and in- 
 tensify everything in their own folkways which 
 is peculiar and which differentiates them from 
 others. It therefore strengthens the mores." ^ 
 It is to be noted that the differences which 
 catch the eye and are thus held up to contempt 
 are often entirely inessential. Diversity in 
 language is prominent among these; ignorant 
 people take the attitude, so graphically por- 
 trayed in "Huckleberry Finn," that a human 
 being should talk in the way human beings were 
 meant to talk, i.e., as "we" do. Again, it is 
 what the other people eat that arouses our 
 contempt and even ire. Greek and American 
 Indian alike despised the "Raw-eaters" (" wfui- 
 ipayoi" "Eskimantsic") ; and the British sailor 
 
 ' Sumner, "Folkways," § 16. 
 
60 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 hastened to smite the snail-eating Johnny 
 Crapaud. Such judgments, often totally ir- 
 rational, as to the undesirability of others' 
 mores, have contributed not a little, with the 
 proper opportunities, to the attempt to eradi- 
 cate both mores and men. 
 
 Ethnocentrism as a factor securing loyalty 
 to code is supported by another agency even 
 stronger, and yet farther removed from ra- 
 tionality : religion. In their origin, as foregoing 
 passages have indicated, the mores arise en- 
 tirely apart from animistic and daimonistic 
 beliefs, and probably long before these. Having 
 become the prosperity-policy of the society, 
 they are inculcated by those in the society who 
 possess the chief influence, that is, by the old; 
 for the elders, the repositories of tradition, those 
 who remember, have ever been the guardians 
 of the mores. Then the aged die and become 
 beings of a superior power ; however, in accord- 
 ance with the prevailing views of the future 
 life, they are supposed still to cling to the ways 
 which they approved while among the living, 
 and still to be ready to lend their power to sup- 
 press departures from those ways. But their 
 power is now infinitely greater than it was in 
 life, however redoubtable it might then have 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 61 
 
 been; hence the supreme sanction, that of 
 ghost-fear, is added to the mores, thus securing 
 their persistence and their arbitrary quality. 
 "If asked why they act in a certain way in 
 certain cases, primitive people always answer 
 that it is because they and their ancestors 
 always have done so. . . . The ghosts of 
 ancestors would be angry if the living should 
 change the ancient folkways." ^ This attitude 
 toward the code reenforces the ethnocentric 
 element which, as has been seen, is itself of 
 great strength, and engenders towards other 
 codes a hostihty whose driving agency is not 
 alone group-vanity but also the fanatic fear 
 and devotion connected with relations with 
 the supernatural. The reUgious sanction of the 
 mores is so powerful and engrossing that in 
 the case of group-conflicts the divergence of the 
 mores which lay at the root of hostility has been 
 lost sight of by the actors and even by his- 
 torians, in the colKsion of the respective 
 sanctions of these mores. Not infrequently in 
 missionary enterprise of the past the essential 
 difference between a "lower" and a "higher" 
 people, between "heathen" and others, has been 
 taken to lie in the type of sanction accorded the 
 
 • Sumner, "Folkways," § 1. 
 
62 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 mores rather than in the mores themselves. 
 Attempts have been made to alter the sanction 
 of the mores, when the mores themselves form 
 the only real point of attack. 
 
 Both ethnocentrism and rehgious preoccu- 
 pation, as forming an attitude of mind making 
 for hostility to other codes, are essentially ir- 
 rational. It is by this quality that they show 
 their primeval character; they have been in 
 and of the mores since remote times — though 
 it must be added of religion that it takes a de- 
 veloped and systematized form to show what 
 thoroughgoing intolerance is. 
 
 Perennially fanned by elemental factors of 
 this order, group-conflict has never ceased, and 
 it is unthinkable that it should cease while 
 there are wants toward whose satisfaction men 
 must strive, but for whose universal satisfac- 
 tion there is an insufficiency of means in the 
 world. Thus are the exponents of diverging 
 codes of mores led into unceasing conflict with 
 each other. This struggle may take place in 
 diverse fields — military, industrial, poKtical — 
 and it is of various degrees of intensity. War, 
 resulting in the annihilation of one group by 
 another, is the primordial agency of selection 
 in the mores, and probably the most efficient 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 63 
 
 that has ever existed. It is after the order of 
 natural selection. But war presently issues 
 in subjection rather than destruction ; and sub- 
 jection is not of a single type, entailing always 
 the same degree of surrender of mores on the 
 part of the subjugated. A conquest may be 
 succeeded by enslavement, but this generally 
 runs out into milder forms of subjection, such 
 as exclusion from certain social privileges and 
 benefits. We shall work down through this 
 series so far as it may seem profitable, by way 
 of introduction to the later, modern form of 
 selection. 
 
 Before a decisive test of conflict comes, the 
 variations in the mores of two groups may have 
 decided its issue in advance. There are such 
 things as harmful mores ^ — codes which have 
 developed or persisted in the absence of a de- 
 cisive competition and test. For instance, 
 among some of the Shingu Indian tribes, which 
 were apparently in decline, the doctrine pre- 
 vailed that the old men should have the young 
 wives and the young men the older.^ It does 
 not appear that anything short of conflict can 
 
 1 Sumner, "Folkways," §§ 28, 29, 65. 
 
 ' Von den Steinen, "Shingu Tribes," in Berlin Mus. for 1888, 
 p. 331. 
 
64 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 select out such variations ; it is sometimes said 
 that "invention is the motive power and en- 
 vironment the selective factor," but if environ- 
 ment means merely physical nature, its selec-I 
 tive power is in any case very slow-working. 
 Where, however, group-conflict has been per- 
 sistent, the path of history is strewn with dis- 
 carded codes. Mores which have been super- 
 seded in the evolution of conflicting races, e.g., 
 polyandry, the mother-family, cannibaUsm, 
 incest, are still found persisting under isolation ; 
 or, as will be seen, reappear under isolation. If 
 certain mores physically or numerically weaken 
 a group, or impair its organization, rendering 
 it ever so little inferior to other groups, this 
 fact, which may remain long concealed under 
 isolation, is revealed at once when conflict 
 arises. Such revelation has been, in history, 
 one of the characteristic functions of war. 
 
 It is probable that the salient and charac- 
 teristic features of all prevailing codes of mores 
 represent the residue from such rude tests, 
 involving the virtual extirpation of the losers, 
 with the resultant elimination of many variant 
 codes. Milder forms of selection seem never 
 to have gotten the results ; but the war selec- 
 tion has been scarcely less rigorous and pitiless 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 65 
 
 than that which has produced the advancing 
 adaptation of plant and animal forms. 
 
 Selection in the mores through the death of 
 their adherents is not confined to inter-group 
 relations; it occurs within peaceful societies. 
 Religious mores have been uprooted through 
 the eradication of those sects who held to them ; 
 and divergences from the accepted codes, if 
 they are wide enough, are regarded even now as 
 deserving extinction through the capital pun- 
 ishment of those who practice them. 
 
 The destiny of such non-conforming elements 
 approaches that of the "unfit" in nature; they 
 are removed from the society through isolation 
 behind the bars or in more drastic manner. If 
 such rebels against the code are numerous 
 enough, there may come about in the society 
 an upheaval of civil strife and a reversion to 
 primordial methods of selection. It must be 
 realized that at any stage of the selective pro- 
 cess violence and bloodshed may reenter. 
 In fact, all forms of compulsion within the 
 group are reducible to violence and killing in 
 the end. Behind the power of the courts, the 
 poUce, and the rest of the regulative organiza- 
 tion of a society hes the force of the army, and, 
 ultimately, of a predominant section of the 
 
66 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 group-members, mobilized for mortal combat in 
 civil war. It is salutary to keep this considera- 
 tion in mind as a background, as one moves into 
 modified or derived forms of selection. And 
 upon such an upheaval or revolution there 
 attends a selection so rigorous as to result 
 sometimes in a "new dispensation." A society 
 may be so profoundly stirred that the results 
 reach far beyond the settlement of the issue 
 over which conflict has arisen ; for all the vari- 
 ous parts of the structure of society are inti- 
 mately connected one with the other, and the 
 "strain toward consistency" ^ in the mores 
 brings it about that no considerable change can 
 take place in one set of societal forms without 
 modifying the whole structure. Let one con- 
 sider the elimination of measures and men and 
 the change in the society at large that followed 
 upon the American Civil War. 
 ■"^ Where group conflict is to the death, selection 
 among the incipient folkways is speedy and sure ; 
 and the occasional catastrophe or ferocious 
 conflict of later ages reveals the presence of in- 
 exorable, elemental forces beneath all human 
 life.'^^ut as the mores develop and civiliza- 
 tion advances, the nature of the test becomes 
 
 ' Pp. 141 fl. below ; cf. Sumner, " Folkways," § 5. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 67 
 
 decreasingly severe, eliminative, and decisive. - 
 Not only are the sanctions of life and death 
 displaced, but even where they still remain, 
 their incidence is often determined by the mind 
 of man rather than by the elemental forces of 
 nature. Let us consider the effect of the in- 
 crease of civiKzation on the nature of this 
 selection. 
 
 It is clear that the apparatus of civilization 
 is calculated to shield men from the action of 
 natural selection ;--^o interpose a bulwark be- 
 tween them and the physical environment ; to 
 ease up the conditions of the struggle for exist- 
 ence. -The highest civilization develops the 
 human type farthest removed from the "na- 
 ture-man ";• it thwarts the action of natural 
 selection most thoroughly, that is, it shows the 
 greatest "power over nature." Whole series 
 of factors by which natural selection operates 
 in the non-human organic world are eliminated, 
 at least in large degree, viz., famine, cold, 
 physical conflict between individuals, unre- 
 stricted birth rate, and so on. The environ- 
 ment is artificialized, physical competition is 
 lessened, the conditions of strife are so altered 
 as to remove the advantage which the "fit" 
 under nature would enjoy. Or, taking it in the 
 
68 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 reverse direction, as we go down the scale of 
 civilization, these impediments to the action of 
 natural selection drop progressively away till 
 we get to the primitive people who live prac- 
 tically under its sway. The effectiveness of 
 natural selection varies inversely as the height 
 of civilization. Natural selection develops the 
 man-animal with specialized mental adapt- 
 ability; this quality (given association, which 
 is also a product of natural selection) works 
 out into the folkways and mores; but these 
 latter operate to exempt man from natural 
 forms of selection, by developing a societal 
 selection which spares those who would not be 
 spared under nature (counterselection) .^ It is 
 possible to take one point of view according 
 to which, starting with natural selection, we 
 seem to proceed by inevitable transitions 
 straight to its opposite. This will be shown, 
 I think, to be a partial view and a one-sided 
 position ; but a realization of what truth there 
 is in it helps to sharpen the conception of the 
 change in mode shown by selection, as it ac- 
 companies the advance of civilization. 
 
 It is necessary to conceive of this alteration 
 of mode in selection as clearly as may be. It 
 
 1 Cf. chap. VI below. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 69 
 
 has softened as the mores have come to include 
 elements, like the high valuation of human life, 
 which were not in them in earlier stages. Then 
 these mores, possessing "the authority of 
 facts," have "become capable of producing 
 inferences" resulting in developments of the 
 code which, it would seem, must ultimately 
 be selected away. For instance, along with the 
 advance of civilization there has developed a 
 sentimentaUty which is, in many of its mani- 
 festations, pure weak-mindedness. Ethical phi- 
 losophers, removed from contact with the facts 
 of life, have evolved, as inferences, a set of 
 ideals and dogmas about human relations which 
 they have succeeded in putting into the minds 
 of the emotional and susceptible. The latter 
 are prosperous enough to pay without much 
 self-sacrifice for the sensation of rectitude which 
 they feel in living in accord with these noble 
 sentiments; or, rather, they are able to make 
 those pay who do not agree, or who are too 
 fully occupied in the struggle for a living to 
 have much time for sentimentalizing. These 
 arbiters of ethics and their following raise 
 horrified outcries at the imposition of the death 
 penalty, at the pubUc lashing of a wife-beater, 
 at the insistence upon an adequate discipline 
 
70 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 in schools. They make the home a hothouse 
 instead of a toughening training school for life, 
 turning loose upon society undisciplined prod- 
 ucts prone to disregard the rights of their 
 fellows in society as they have overridden under 
 indulgence the rights of their fellows in the 
 home. Sentimentalists, warm of heart, but 
 soft of head, petition complaisant executives 
 to let loose upon society the wolves that have 
 been trapped and should have been ehminated 
 once for all; to set the scotched snakes free 
 again. The pseudo-heroic and pathetic aspects 
 of the life of a black-hearted criminal are re- 
 hearsed until he seems to be a martyr, and the 
 just judge who condemns him a persecutor 
 and a brute. All of which is done by volatile 
 spirits under the illusion that they are thereby 
 conserving the delicacy of the "ethical sense," 
 or what not, instead of proving recreant to 
 plain duties as members and supporters of 
 civilized society. 
 
 What sort of selection is this? Seen in its 
 more pronounced forms it seems to reverse the 
 findings of science and of sense in favor of an 
 aimless emotionalism. One is ready to beheve 
 that there is in modern civilization nothing anal- 
 ogous to the ehmination of what is unfit. We 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 71 
 
 should not lose sight, however, of the fact that 
 the natural processes underlie all others and 
 cannot be set aside. What human beings are 
 likely to forget is that they remain at last analy- 
 sis the playthings of the irresistible forces of 
 nature. The ground shakes a Uttle, and thou- 
 sands of human beings perish ; a relatively small 
 volume of poisonous gas spills over the rim of 
 a crater upon a town, and the inhabitants are 
 no more; the brute passions of men break 
 forth and they rage like primitive savages. 
 Underneath the artificialized Hfe of man, so 
 long as he remains, in the last analysis, an ani- 
 mal — which, so far as can be seen, will be for 
 all his days on earth — flow the ungovernable 
 currents of nature, in strength unimpaired. 
 The presence of what look hke senseless varia- 
 tions, sure to produce maladaptation to life- 
 conditions, is proof of nothing except that 
 either our unfavorable judgment of them is 
 wrong or that selection is not yet in operation. 
 If we wait till the prosperity declines and 
 the "pinch" comes, this doubt will be resolved 
 for us. 
 
 The primitive selection of the mores through 
 the annihilation of their bearers is largely re- 
 placed, as civilization advances, by a mixed 
 
72 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 form, whereby together with the destruction of 
 some of these bearers goes the subjection of 
 others. This form has characterized aill an- 
 tecedent ages, and is potential at any time. 
 Very many wars, whatever their ostensible 
 causes, have been fought over the mores. The 
 campaigns against piracy, from Pompey's time 
 and before down to the conflicts of the Spanish 
 against the Moros of the Philippines, are cases in 
 point; so is the series of conflicts fought to 
 destroy the slave trade and the slavery system. 
 In cases of this kind, however, selection of the 
 mores does not go to the full limit of annihi- 
 lation ; only so much of destruction is necessary 
 as will reduce the strength of the adherents of 
 certain mores, or will in such manner unfavor- 
 ably alter the conditions under which they must 
 pursue the struggle for existence as to lead to 
 a modification of their offensive ways. Phys- 
 ical collision and killing as a mode of selection 
 of the mores are a sort of last resort in these days, 
 called for when other forms of attack on certain 
 customs and habitudes are seen to have been 
 of no avail. Naturally, then, they are likely 
 to be put into operation as between groups 
 rather than within any given well-amalgamated 
 group. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 73 
 
 We may now set aside the case of war to the 
 death and take up the other broad alternative 
 of the struggle between the bearers of different 
 codes of mores — subjection. In so far as the 
 outcome of this struggle — without which, as 
 in nature, there could be no selection — was 
 life or death, in so far was the ensuing selection 
 found to be peremptory and thorough, resem- 
 bUng that in nature. But when the competition 
 comes to have as its outcome on the one side 
 mastery and on the other enslavement, mani- 
 festly the selection of the mores could not be 
 so thoroughgoing and rigorous. Some of the 
 mores of the conquered are sure to last on, for 
 the intolerance of the victors must have its 
 Umits of vigilance if not of intent; in fact, 
 certain of the mores of the subjugated might well 
 be of a superior order, although in their ensemble 
 they might have been proved inexpedient by 
 the test forced upon them. 
 
 Such cases are for the most part instances of 
 selection within a group. Conquest with en- 
 slavement creates the compounded group, and 
 we begin here to talk about class-conflict rather 
 than group-conflict. This is a developed form, 
 for a type of societal organization must be some- 
 what advanced in order to render enslavement 
 
74 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 possible. In general, the case as respects the 
 mores would run something like this. In the 
 conflict preceding subjection, two groups of 
 folkways have met and one group has been 
 proved, to its adherents at least, superior. It 
 is characteristic of the ethnocentric attitude of 
 societies, as has been seen, to believe their own 
 mores — their own prosperity-policy — to be 
 best. But through this conquest the prosperity- 
 policy of the prevailing group is vindicated. The 
 conquerors have only satisfaction in their own 
 system and contempt for the one whose ad- 
 herents have fallen before them ; compare the 
 scorn of nomadic conquerors for subjugated 
 industrial peoples. But it cannot be thought, 
 on the other hand, that the conquered will 
 regard their adverse fate as a condemnatory 
 test of their code ; this would assume a degree 
 of reflective power not to be found under such 
 conditions. Rather would they refer disaster 
 to the aleatory element,^ and so to some super- 
 natural agency. But whatever they think, 
 the situation impinges on them with power; 
 and in the course of time the refractory will 
 have been bent or broken, the less recalcitrant 
 will have adopted, with or without compulsion, 
 
 • Sumner, " Folkways," § 6. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 75 
 
 the ways of their masters, and the next genera- 
 tions will have grown up to accept the mores 
 popular or prevalent within their societal en- 
 vironment. Ridicule, i.e., an assault on vanity, 
 one of the most sensitive of human traits, has 
 always played an important r61e in selection 
 amongst the mores. The tendency will be to 
 imitate the ways of the powerful ^ and so the 
 mores of the conquering group will tend un- 
 consciously to prevail to the elimination of 
 conflicting codes. 
 
 The exact manner in which two sets of mores 
 belonging to two sections of a compounded 
 group will eliminate one another, or fuse, can- 
 not be predicted ; it depends upon the interplay 
 of many interests, which can never be the same 
 in any two cases. But it is certain that the 
 process must have been easier under primitive 
 conditions, for the codes of neighboring peoples 
 could not have been very diverse. To one who 
 reads ethnography one of the most striking 
 impressions is that of the essential likeness of 
 savage life and habitudes, not only within the 
 same region or continent, but all over the world. 
 It goes without saying that the mores of two 
 Congo tribes could more readily unite to form a 
 
 1 Cf. pp. 114 ff. below. 
 
76 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 composite than those of two advanced nations. 
 The result of advance in civilization is differ- 
 entiation of groups and the development of dis- 
 tinctions between their habitudes. Intolerance 
 of another religion, for example, is scarcely to 
 be found upon the primitive stage. Even more 
 difficult would be assimilation as between the 
 codes of a savage and of a civilized group. 
 
 And so generalizations from cases of amal- 
 gamation cannot give us more than vague out- 
 lines of the process. In any case it is the dem- 
 onstration of the fact of selection rather than 
 its details that interests us in the present con- 
 nection. Spencer has a good deal to say of the 
 effect of homogeneity in strengthening the 
 social bond : ^ the best conditions exist where 
 the environment and race-character are of a 
 similar type, where there is a bond of blood, real 
 or fictitious, where similar religious ideas and 
 sentiments prevail. "Joint exposure to uni- 
 form external actions, and joint reactions against 
 them, have from the beginning been the leading 
 causes of union among members of societies." 
 Gumplowicz,^ doubtless with Austro-Hungarian 
 conditions in mind, insists upon the importance 
 
 1 "Principles of Sociology," II, §§ 4S0, 451. 
 ' "Der Rassenkampf," pp. 249 ff. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 77 
 
 of a common language in securing amalgama- 
 tion of ethnic elements. Language, he says, 
 must first fall a sacrifice to the advancing group- 
 sense — which he calls "syngenism" — for only 
 by speech do men become men to one another. 
 ReUgion, he says, is more stubborn,^ but when 
 it has once fallen, a great barrier is gone. In- 
 termarriage, followed by community of blood, 
 comes last, since the greatest conservatism and 
 tendency to segregation reside here. This au- 
 thor adds to community of language, religion, 
 and blood also community of culture and educa- 
 tion and of material interests as providing the 
 necessary conditions of social amalgamation. 
 
 The fact of selection in the mores succeeding 
 the compounding of groups, whatever the 
 method or order followed, is observable in all 
 cases; and it is this fact which, for the time, 
 engages our interest. After the groups have 
 become amalgamated into one, changes appear- 
 ing in the industrial organization, religion, lan- 
 guage, etc., betray the fact that, without much 
 conscious effort, some of the mores of the com- 
 bining groups have been discarded and others 
 generally adopted, thus creating a new code dif- 
 
 1 The case of the Moriscos and Jews in Spain is illustrative of 
 the persistence of the religious barrier. 
 
78 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 f erent from either of the originals. If, now, there 
 is a recompounding with smaller conquered ele- 
 ments, the prevailing code will gradually secure 
 extension, showing contributions and substitu- 
 tions from the mores of the conquered, but in the 
 main remaining characteristic. There comes 
 about a relatively bloodless selection in the 
 folkways by which certain of them prevail 
 against others. The whole process, it should be 
 recalled, would be easier (and at the same time 
 less distinctive in result) among the more primi- 
 tive peoples, because of the lack of sharp and 
 characteristic distinctions in their codes. 
 
 Assume, now, a society whose constituent 
 elements are well unified, and which is at peace 
 with neighboring groups. Since no society 
 can be entirely homogeneous, the struggle goes 
 on; but the internal issue as to the mores is 
 concerned with less vital matters. It is a 
 struggle between sub-groups which accept the 
 broad code of their social union. The mores 
 of the several sub-groups or classes, partly tra- 
 ditional, partly adaptive,^ subdivide until they 
 reduce to the family mores which form the 
 basic categories. Each group has its code, 
 which contains its peculiar elements and also 
 
 » Pp. 91 ff. and 251 ff. below. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 79 
 
 others which it holds in common with other 
 groups, and which form a basis for union, per- 
 manent or transitory, with those others. Cer- 
 tain relatively few of the mores remain common 
 to the whole society ; ^ these are by the general 
 consensus regarded as vital, and members of the 
 society who violate them are excluded from 
 societal Ufe (by execution, imprisonment, ban- 
 ishment, etc.). As the groups are subdivided 
 in a society they show a more extended body of 
 mores to which all in the local group or class are 
 wUhng to conform {e.g., those of sects) ; until 
 
 1 "The rights of conscience, the equality of all men before the 
 law, the separation of church and state, religious toleration, 
 freedom of speech and of the press, popular education, are vital 
 traditions of the American people. They are not brought in 
 question; they form the stock of firm and universal convictions 
 on which our national life is based; they are ingrained into the 
 character of our people and you can assume, in any controversy, 
 that an American will admit their truth. But they form the 
 sum of traditions which we obtain as our birthright. They 
 are never explicitly taught to us, but we assimilate them in our 
 earliest childhood from all our surroundings, at the fireside, at 
 school, from the press, on the highways and streets. We never 
 hear them disputed and it is only when we observe how difScult 
 it is for some foreign nations to learn them that we perceive that 
 they are not implanted by nature in the human mind. They 
 are a part and the most valuable part of our national inheritance, 
 and the obUgation of love, labor, and protection which we owe 
 to the nation rests upon these benefits which we receive from it." 
 Sumner, "The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," pp. 353- 
 354. 
 
80 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 finally, in the family, the number of mores ac- 
 cepted by all members reaches the maximum. 
 Down this scale the vital importance of the 
 mores declines, so that, for example, many of 
 the mores of the sect receive no general societal 
 sanction, and a number of those regarded as of 
 importance inside the family are viewed with 
 complete indifference outside. This relation of 
 the mores to the size of groups can be covered 
 by the proposition that the number of accepted 
 mores in a group varies inversely with its size.^ 
 All these sub-groups, the more homogeneous 
 and coherent as they are smaller, are engaged 
 in a competitive struggle for self-realization, 
 under the general condition of unification within 
 the state and satisfaction with the national 
 code. Considering the state as a single group, 
 the great majority of its citizens will unite to 
 support the general interest against the rela- 
 
 ^ "In general, the size and extent of groups stands in an in- 
 verse relation to the number of common syngenetic elements 
 [mores] in them ; so that the more populous the group the fewer 
 are the syngenetic feelings common within it. The strongest, 
 the most concentrated, so to speak, of the syngenetic sentiments, 
 which rest upon the largest number of common syngenetic ele- 
 ments, are those which unite the smallest groups. The greater 
 the groups become, the weaker are these sentiments, since they 
 rest upon an ever smaller number of such syngenetic elements." 
 Gumplowicz, "Der Rassenkampf," p. 249. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 81 
 
 lively few recalcitrants who will not adapt 
 themselves to the broad group-code. National 
 public opinion will be against the latter and 
 their ways ; and in their cases selection will be 
 decisive. Thus will the great majority of citi- 
 zens in a civilized nation disapprove of po- 
 lygamy or incest. But, whereas the body of 
 the people will agree and cooperate in matters of 
 broad national interest, under the general code 
 to which nearly all subscribe, beyond this 
 point divergence of interests and dissent are 
 the rule. It is essential to the coherence of an 
 amalgamated society that there shall be agree- 
 ment upon what are conceived by powerful 
 combinations of citizens to be the vital issues, 
 or else there will be constant tension and civil 
 strife; the indispensable condition is that the 
 contentment over the provisions for what are 
 conceived to be the paramount interests of all 
 shall be profound enough to relegate the local 
 interests of some to a position of minor impor- 
 tance. This allows of peaceful competition and 
 rivalry and admits of toleration and compro- 
 mise. Disagreement over this or that detail of 
 the code does not become serious if all parties 
 value the major provisions of the code. One 
 of the chief utihties of otherwise inane and 
 
82 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 trite exhortations to patriotism and loyalty is 
 that, by reiteration of these, the broad essentials 
 of the common code and the need of supporting 
 it are kept before people whose conflicting minor 
 interests normally fill their horizons. They 
 are made to realize that they and their interests 
 are but part of a larger whole whose importance 
 is of the greatest; and this and the tickling 
 of their vanity help them to compose their 
 ■4Qcal differences more readily. 
 
 Within the settled state the struggle between 
 the exponents of divergent mores becomes, 
 then, a different sort of competition from any 
 we have yet viewed; and its prizes and pen- 
 alties of a different and less vital order. -^Com- 
 petition does not stop when violence is ruled 
 out ; it is only in the Utopias of dreamers that 
 it is eliminated. It can never cease, and this 
 is well ; for only with the reaUzation of Utopia 
 would the race cease to have further need of the 
 spur of necessity and of the stress which, 
 through the ages, have made us move toward 
 what we have become. This competition within 
 the state is, in these times, in theory at least, 
 no longer a struggle for existence, either of the 
 individual or of the group; there are societal 
 institutions and international codes whose busi- 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 83 
 
 ness it is to interfere in the struggle short of 
 that point.^ That mere existence is somehow 
 assured is taken to be a fundamental fact ; the 
 struggle is not for existence but for a certain 
 quality of existence; not for life, but for a 
 standard of Uving. Out of a form of competi- 
 tion thus mitigated no such clean-cut results 
 can be expected as are found in nature. This 
 struggle, in its separate cases, is that of the 
 individual or family, but it is carried on in 
 practice in some sort of wider association. 
 There is an unending series of identifications of 
 the individual or family interest with the interest 
 of this or that group, be it gild, union, sect, 
 party, class, or other. Let us take the class as 
 the most typical and least special of these 
 groupings of people with interests in common; 
 it is also an elemental one, developing as it does 
 out of the primordial master-slave differen- 
 tiation. Gumplowicz * has developed this idea 
 of the conflict of classes in considerable detail. 
 The interest of competing classes is, at bottom, 
 a better standard of Kving — in the direct line 
 of their class-mores, but idealized somewhat. 
 
 ' Cf. p. 307. 
 
 *"Der Rassenkampf"; also "Gnmdriss der Sociologie," and 
 "Sodologie und Politik." 
 
84 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 There is a body of wants, common to all, and 
 there is a cooperative effort to obtain satis- 
 faction of these wants. 
 
 The right of claim to such satisfactions is 
 the object of the struggle. We have a right to 
 a thing when fellow-competitors who want it 
 cannot or will not prevent us from gaining or 
 keeping it. To avoid a beastKke struggle it is 
 a condition that the rest hold off and let us 
 have it. But a right has to be established in 
 some way — has to be enforced by law or other- 
 wise against fellow-competitors for satisfactions 
 desired by many but not sufficient to supply 
 all. Rights cannot exist where there are no 
 fellow-competitors between whom claims to 
 satisfaction are apportioned. On Crusoe's Is- 
 land there was no occasion to define rights at 
 all till Friday came. Rights are societal in 
 origin and character. There is no such thing 
 as a "natural" right; what are sometimes so- 
 called are simply claims acquired so long ago 
 and, among some sections of humanity, so 
 strongly guaranteed and ingrained in the 
 mores that they are no longer questioned. 
 
 The beginning of all rights or claims must 
 have lain in force, or in the fear of its exercise. 
 Even the rights of an infant are enforced by the 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 85 
 
 might of the reproductive instinct projected 
 at last analysis into mother-love. Those who 
 could take and hold had the claim and the rest 
 perforce submitted. Competitors would not of 
 their own volition hold off from the appropria- 
 tion of satisfactions ; fear of some kind was the 
 disciplinary factor, here as elsewhere. Rights 
 were guaranteed and supported by appeals to 
 that of which people were afraid : physical 
 force, the power of authorities, of public opinion, 
 of the ghosts and spirits that sanctioned the 
 mores. Classes have always struggled to get 
 one or more of these forms of power on their 
 side, to enforce their "rights" against others. 
 Until they secvu"ed one of them they had no 
 rights at all; where slaves, for example, had 
 none of these supports, they were without 
 rights. 
 
 One of these forms of power has been singled 
 out in history as the most obvious means of 
 securing rights and the most evident sanction 
 of them; this is poUtical power. To-day talk 
 about woman's rights, the rights of the 
 laboring classes, etc., is mostly political talk; 
 organizations to secure such rights are mainly 
 political in nature, or soon become so. The 
 privilege of making laws is the objective. There 
 
86 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 is a widespread conviction that laws once 
 written on the statute books somehow acquire 
 a power to alter the conditions of life as desired ; 
 and this in the face of archives teeming with 
 legislation that was dead letter from the start, 
 or was promptly repealed because of adverse 
 effects. And yet the fact remains that the 
 "governing class," if there is such, can exercise 
 a certain selection in the mores. 
 
 A class is really definable only upon the basis 
 of its mores ; the code is the class. Terms like 
 bourgeoisie denote a standard of behavior, a 
 set of ideals, in short a standard of living, which 
 is in the mores. Its code is the only distinctive 
 thing about a class. But if a class gets political 
 power, it can conserve and further realize its 
 mores; and, since it is the powerful who are 
 imitated, can very likely transmit its code to a 
 wider social cUentage.^ The class, on the other 
 hand, which has no political rights, has no 
 chance to do this. Thus there is, in the class 
 conflict for political power, a selection in the 
 mores through their bearers. Probably the 
 importance of this variety of selection is easily 
 exaggerated, because it is an obvious form. 
 It exists among primitive peoples in rather 
 
 » Cf. pp. 114 ff. below. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 87 
 
 marked degree ; for instance, in cases where the 
 secret societies dominate the tribal Hfe. It is 
 a debatable question as to whether the imitation 
 of the powerful is very thoroughgoing. This 
 matter involves certain principles which will 
 be met under the topic of transmission of the 
 mores. But certainly all rights are not legal 
 rights secured by control over legislation, nor 
 does legislation alone confer rights. 
 
 With our present limited power of penetration 
 into the operation of societal forces there seems 
 to be, in this mode of societal selection, a lack 
 of that precision, exactitude, and finaUty char- 
 acteristic of a nature-process. Certain classes 
 may be thought prosperous, powerful, and in- 
 fluential upon the life of society, but those dis- 
 criminated against in the outcome are not 
 eliminated from all influence, let alone from 
 life. Even the slaves modified the language — 
 one of the purest forms of the mores ^ — in the 
 South. In Darwin's sexual selection the weaker 
 male is not always destroyed, but simply to 
 some degree excluded from passing on his 
 qualities ; and this sort of selection is regarded 
 by Darwin as much less rigorous than natural 
 selection. If that is so, then societal selection of 
 
 1 Sumner, "Folkways," §§ 135-141. 
 
88 , SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 the order before us is still less effective ; for the 
 unsuccessful class is to a still less degree pre- 
 vented from transmitting its qualities. 
 
 What is true of classes in the broader sense 
 is true in their degree of lesser societal groupings 
 which are formed with the idea, sometimes al- 
 most unconsciously held, of emphasizing and 
 propagating certain aspects of the mores ; as, 
 for example, sects and parties. They all strive 
 for a position in the societal organization 
 which shall enable them to pursue or enforce 
 their particular prosperity-policies or pet social 
 schemes. They gain recognition or vogue, it 
 may be, or they are selected out almost before 
 they have taken form. The fact of selection 
 in all such cases seems patent enough ; and it is 
 reasonably plain, for this stage of the argument, 
 that the struggle of classes, resulting as it does 
 in the exaltation of this or that group to an 
 influential position, results in some extension 
 of the corresponding type of mores. 
 
 But if the seat of the mores is in the "masses," 
 as Sumner demonstrates,^ then we have not as 
 yet sounded the depths of societal selection by 
 considering the influence of this or that group 
 
 ' Sumner, "Folkways," §§ 52 ff. 
 
SELECTION (AUTOMATIC) 89 
 
 which, for the time, has attained ascendancy. 
 There may well be here an underlying, slow- 
 working selection, which operates, when we come 
 to understand it better, with no less precision 
 and finality than its prototype in the organic 
 field. We are but at the beginning of the scien- 
 tific study of human society and the way for a 
 long distance ahead is beset with all manner of 
 difficulties unknown to natural science. 
 
 In any case, the whole process is in the societal 
 realm and seems quite divorced from the organic. 
 Selection as the result of armed conflict was not 
 so far from the nature-process ; but the charac- 
 teristic modem form of selection in the mores, 
 though under it lies the nature-process ready to 
 act in extremis, is on a different plane and of a 
 different mode.-^ 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 RATIONAL SELECTION 
 
 It has been important to get before us the 
 general nature of the social conflicts without 
 which there could be no societal selection, and 
 the fact that selection takes place as a result 
 of those conflicts. The nature of this selection 
 was clear enough when it was a case of physical 
 conflict followed by the extirpation of the con- 
 quered ; but when the conflicting groups went 
 on living together and amalgamating, finally 
 forming a peaceful union, there was a change in 
 the mode of selection which clearly distinguished 
 it from natural selection and seemed to replace 
 certitude and finality with vagueness and un- 
 certainty. It is now desirable to clear up this 
 uncertainty, if possible; and to do that it will 
 be necessary to attack the matter from a new 
 angle. 
 
 In organic evolution the sort of development 
 that may take place is often largely a matter of 
 what has already taken place; in a sense the 
 
 90 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 91 
 
 selection between variations is based upon the 
 body of characters already assembled by the 
 antecedent process. Certain lines of develop- 
 ment are virtually shut off by reason of the di- 
 rection along which the organism in question 
 has evolved. The horse cannot now develop 
 variations on the basis of five digits. If nature 
 could be regarded as choosing and as giving 
 reason for the choice, she might be figured as 
 saying: "This variation must not be favored 
 because it is not in the line of previous develop- 
 ment." Subsequent evolution is largely con- 
 ditioned by antecedent evolution. In societal 
 evolution, as it appears within the group and 
 under conditions that do not allow of violence, 
 it sometimes seems as if the only selective force 
 were of this order ; or, to put it in the termi- 
 nology here used, as if the only selective force to 
 be exercised over variations in the mores lies 
 in the antecedent mores. The great body of 
 the society moves on in an inert way, judging 
 everything on the basis of code, rejecting this 
 and accepting that, for the most part irration- 
 ally, its mind made up for it by the traditional 
 mores of the group. If this were strictly true, 
 then societal evolution must have remained al- 
 most in abeyance since the formation of these 
 
92 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 codes, and we might say that effective selection 
 stopped with the passing of the rude processes 
 presented in the last chapter. In fact, it is 
 borne in upon one who reflects much on these 
 matters that, in the life of society, the grand 
 feats of selection must have been accomplished 
 during the period of stern and bloody conflict ; 
 that at that time the general course of future 
 development was, in a broad way, determined. 
 But, however this may be, it is also plain, upon 
 reflection, that the process of selection has not 
 ceased. The mores show adaptation ^ which 
 betrays selection still at work; and the codes 
 actually change, at least in less important par- 
 ticulars, before our eyes. Along with the strain 
 toward consistency goes another strain toward 
 adaptation of means to ends.'' And it seems that 
 in some cases, at least, the means and ends are 
 visualized and that selection takes place on 
 rational grounds, and even in reaction against 
 the accepted code. In this country, for ex- 
 ample, while there are certain things that must 
 not and cannot be done, owing to the mores ' — 
 
 1 Chaps. VIII, IX, and X, below. » Sumner, "Folkways," § 5. 
 
 ' Edith Wharton, in "The Fruit of the Tree," skilfully develops 
 a situation wherein a nurse, in order to spare a dying patient 
 useless suffering, helps her to die. Then the fact becomes known 
 and society wreaks its vengeance for this infringement of the 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 93 
 
 which public opinion will not yet tolerate, how- 
 ever rational they might seem {e.g., cremation) 
 — there are important movements which public 
 opinion can be brought to support {e.g., pure 
 food laws). It is generally supposed that this 
 latter result can be achieved through an appeal 
 to reason ; and the conviction seems popularly 
 to be held that our social changes, alterations 
 of code, and so on, are the results of the applica- 
 tion of rational choice or selection. It is toward 
 an unconfused and just appraisal of this aspect 
 of societal selection that the present chapter 
 is to aim. 
 
 A great many of the prescriptions and pro- 
 hibitions in even the most primitive mores seem 
 in retrospect to have been well advised for 
 societal welfare. They seem to be rational.^ 
 
 traditional code. A while ago a prominent judge gave cogent 
 reasons for the conviction that, under certain circumstances, a 
 man had a right to die ; but such a proposition could not even 
 be discussed, for it was contrary to the prevalent code. 
 
 ' The following quotation, from McGee ("The Seri Indians," 
 in Bu. of Amer. EihnoL, XVII, .pt. 1, p. 203), presents a peculiar 
 illustration of this point. "Smaller rodents, especially the 
 long-tail nocturnal squirrel, are excluded from the Seri menu 
 by a rigidly observed tabu of undiscovered meaning. A general 
 consequence of this tabu is readily observed on entering Seriland ; 
 there is a notable rarity of the serpents, the high-colored and 
 swift efts, and the logy lizards and dull phrynosomas so abundant 
 in neighboring deserts, as well as of song birds and their nests; 
 
94 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 But this is true also in the case of animal ways, 
 and yet animals cannot be said to exercise 
 rational selection. That which conduces to 
 success in the struggle for existence, and so is 
 selected for perpetuation, turns out to be justi- 
 fiable by reasoning subsequently applied. Cir- 
 cumcision doubtless began as a religious rite; 
 later it was found to be hygienic in many cases ; 
 and presently the savage was accredited with 
 the development of a rational practice. The 
 mores of all civilized peoples have demanded 
 an increasing security of life and property, and 
 in the conflict of interests there has been no 
 limit to the infliction of pain and death which 
 the exponents of the prevailing code have been 
 willing to put upon those of the aberrant type, 
 
 and this dearth is coupled with a still more notable abundance 
 of the rodents, which have increased and multiplied throughout 
 Seriland so abundantly that their burrows honeycomb himdreds 
 of square miles of territory. A special consequence of the tabu 
 is found in the fact that the myriad squirrel tunnels have rendered 
 much of the territory impassable for horses and nearly so for 
 pedestrians, and have thereby served to repel invaders and 
 enable the jealous tribesmen to protect their principality against 
 the hated aUen. Seriland and the Seri are remarkable for illus- 
 trations of the interdependence between a primitive folk and 
 their environment; but none of the relations are more striking 
 than that exemplified by the timid nocturnal rodent, which, 
 protected by a faith, has not only risen to the leading place in 
 the local fauna, but has rewarded its protectors by protecting 
 their territory for centuries." 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 95 
 
 to secure its eUmination. Good reasons, accept- 
 able in the light of experience and knowledge, 
 could now be given for such action. But even 
 this does not mean that there was in that ruder 
 time any genuinely rational selection, deliber- 
 ately applied. Even in the most modern of 
 cases it is most difficult to be precise as to the 
 entrance of this factor, for the rational and the 
 traditional or irrational are intertwined, and it 
 is very difficult to disentangle them ; who, for 
 example, can analyze the attitude of the South 
 — or the North — toward the negro, and say 
 just what in it is rational and what irrational? 
 The "rational" is often no more than a subter- 
 fuge under cover of which the ancient "instinct" 
 or "second nature" gets its way — on the prin- 
 ciple that the chief use of the human mind is to 
 find reasons, or subsequent justification, for 
 doing what its possessor wants to do. Thus the 
 form of societal selection which we see about us 
 in the modern age — and which must include 
 rational selection if it appears anywhere — is 
 in the last degree complex ; it lacks all the clear- 
 ness and precision of natural selection and of 
 societal selection in its ruder forms. Some say 
 that the process is all hit-or-miss ; in fact, that 
 there is so httle regularity about it that to try 
 
96 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 to extend over the life of modern society such 
 reasoning and theory as have set the facts of a 
 less complex life in order is a vain and forlorn 
 enterprise. 
 
 If selection is to be rational, it must be per- 
 formed in the light of knowledge. The more 
 extended and precise the knowledge, the more 
 rational may be the selection. In order to 
 choose rationally among variations arising in 
 the mores, there is need of a perspective of the 
 course of the mores. But this could not have 
 existed in any significance among the uncivil- 
 ized, for we find primitive man devoid of the 
 imaginative power which would allow him to 
 represent to himself future contingencies and 
 plan to meet them, and not as yet in possession 
 of a store of experience out of the past. If he 
 thinks of the past, it is in the light of the code 
 of the ancestors ; if he questions the future, it 
 is through magical means of divination. He is 
 the "unfortunate child of the moment." ^ But 
 the course of evolution led presently to the 
 development of foresight ^ as the chief of the 
 
 iPritsch, "Die Eingeborenen SUd-Afrikas," p. 418; lappert, 
 "Kulturgeschichte der MenscKheit," I, 39. 
 
 ' Lippert takes "LebensfUrsorge" as the basic mental trait in 
 the evolution of civilization. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 97 
 
 social virtues ; upon the lower stages of societal 
 evolution, that quality was of the utmost im- 
 portance in the conflict of groups, and so became 
 a criterion of selection. This meant the selec- 
 tion of the imaginative quality, the ability to 
 foresee and plan. But this amounts, in time, 
 to the development of the power to see a per- 
 spective of individual, and at length, of group- 
 development ; and to the rise of a consequent 
 consciousness of the course of such develop- 
 ment. But if a course can be consciously vis- 
 ualized, it can be criticized, and the future can 
 be laid out in the light of possible corrections 
 of a faulty procedure. With the development 
 of writing, a record of the process can be kept. 
 There can be formed a body of ideas or knowl- 
 edge about the conditions of life which can be 
 held true, subject to correction. In other 
 words, laws can be derived from the instances 
 preserved. The ensemble of these is science ; and, 
 in its most perfect form, science (as "trained and 
 organized common sense") affords a basis for 
 rational prediction, a thing very different from 
 divination. It is by science that one gets as 
 far as possible outside of the mores of his time 
 and local group, and wins a vantage-ground 
 from which to pass rational judgment on the 
 
98 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 code. Knowledge about the laws of nature 
 and of societal life is that which enables us to 
 adapt ourselves more successfully to these laws 
 and so to avoid the pain and disappointment 
 that comes from the attempt to live out of 
 conformity with the inevitable. This is the 
 only sort of theory upon which a belief in ra- 
 tional selection could be based. 
 
 The process outlined is precarious and full of 
 error; for where the human mind, with all its 
 inefficiencies and limitations, comes in, there 
 are sure to be wrong valuations due to imperfect 
 knowledge and to bias of various kinds. The 
 most emancipated of men live largely in the 
 mores and cannot free themselves from their 
 domination. And it is well that they cannot, 
 for, as Sumner ^ remarks : "if we had to form 
 judgments as to all . . . cases before we could 
 act in them, and were forced always to act 
 rationally, the burden would be unendurable. 
 Beneficent use and wont save us this trouble." 
 The sum of real knowledge, especially of that 
 outside of the field of use of natural forces, 
 reveals itself repeatedly as being exceedingly 
 small; yet our folk- wisdom recognizes that 
 knowledge is power. Where knowledge has 
 
 ""Folkways," § 68. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 99 
 
 been checked in its course, power in the conflict 
 of life has not increased as it has where knowl- 
 edge has been on the constant increase. Com- 
 pare the present status of China with that of 
 the western nations, and then her status cen- 
 turies ago, when she led the world in knowledge, 
 with that of the ancient Germans and Gauls. 
 Compare the Japan of 1910 with the Japan of 
 1810. 
 
 Within, as well as between, groups or nations 
 it is proverbial that knowledge comes to the 
 top; if a father wishes his son to occupy an 
 influential position in Kfe, he educates him. 
 Every one knows that the great material ad- 
 vance of the last decades has come out of 
 science ; the son must know science. Likewise 
 must he be acquainted with the so-called cul- 
 tural studies; for a boor must be a veritable 
 genius to be tolerated by those whose interest 
 means success in various ways. Much that 
 is taught is untrue or trivial, but there is a 
 residuum of generally accepted truth which is 
 indispensable, and which can be taught to all 
 who are capable of learning. Its effectiveness 
 varies with its degree of positiveness and veri- 
 fiabihty. It serves as a touchstone on which 
 to test some at least of the mores. There are 
 
100 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 certain mores which an educated public opinion 
 will not tolerate, for example, expectoration 
 in public places ; science has shown that they 
 cannot possibly be good for welfare. These 
 must pass with the advance of science and edu- 
 cation ; in fact, they are selected out before the 
 body of the population know that they are 
 harmful ; for those who know are powerful out 
 of all proportion to their numbers, and are able 
 to suppress this or that habitude by the use of 
 the regulative system. The selection exercised 
 by positive knowledge in the folkways may be 
 very erratic and ill-advised in the light of more 
 knowledge; but we are not passing judgment 
 on it yet. The idea at the present point is to 
 demonstrate the fact that the progress of con- 
 scious mental activity may lead to rational se- 
 lection in the mores where it could never have 
 existed before. 
 
 It is not proposed, however, to concede any 
 extensive direct influence to rational selection 
 over the mores as a whole ; it is indispensable, 
 rather, in order to represent things as they are, 
 to throw into some prominence the essentially 
 irrational and traditional nature of the mores. 
 For one who observes the life of the society he 
 lives in without more bias than flesh is heir to, a 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 101 
 
 few words by way of illustration, and a reference 
 to the encyclopaedic chapters of "Folkways" are 
 all-sufficient. It has been said that most of us 
 live for the most part in the mores, acting uncon- 
 sciously after their prescriptions ; and that all 
 of us Uve to a very large degree in them ; that 
 is, that we are all mainly creatures of use and 
 wont. Few of us have a positive, well-thought- 
 out plan of Ufe, whether it be right or wrong. 
 We marvel at the self-directed Ufe of a Goethe, 
 and assign it forthwith to genius. We meet 
 emergencies one or two at a time, acting in 
 them for the most part without much perspec- 
 tive beyond the case in hand. There are too 
 many exigencies for us to give much thought to 
 each, and so we go on by rule of thumb, that 
 is, in the mores. So long as we slide over vi- 
 cissitudes, or shp past, that satisfies us. If our 
 mores effect for us a painless passage through 
 life, we have no idea of criticizing or altering 
 them; we let well enough alone. Every man, 
 no matter how enlightened, has his point where 
 it does not seem worth while to cerebrate any 
 further, and he "takes his chance." A Newton 
 could concentrate "a little longer" than the 
 rest of his fellows ; the savage leaves off some- 
 what earUer in the process, just as the child does ; 
 
102 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 but we are all only human beings with minds 
 that tire and attention that flags. Then we 
 fall back unconsciously on the ways that have 
 come out of the experience of the race. Con- 
 sequently, while the advance of knowledge has 
 exercised selective power over the folkways, and 
 will probably wield an ever increasing influence 
 upon them, yet the bulk of selection must 
 still be of an automatic and unconscious order ; 
 since the great majority of men live almost en- 
 tirely in the mores, and the great majority of 
 the actions of the most enlightened men are 
 likewise determined by them, the rational selec- 
 tion, of which we have spoken, does not go far 
 in explanation. 
 
 What is true of the individual is even more 
 marked of the group. Seldom does a group 
 deliberately set out to apply rational criticism 
 to its mores. Our sex taboo is largely irra- 
 tional, inherited as it is through religion from 
 dogmatic propositions of people who had no 
 authority for us. A Hindu lends his wife to 
 get good offspring. This may be rational on 
 the face of it, but it is also shocking, being 
 against our mores, and most of us would not 
 even tolerate the discussion of its rationality. 
 There is probably a good reason for our repug- 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 103 
 
 nance, but we do not stop to reason. It seems 
 rational in every way that a widower should 
 marry his deceased wife's sister, especially if 
 he has young children. Such a second wife 
 would naturally be least likely to turn out a 
 "viper to the first brood"; and there is, of 
 course, no more question of incest than there 
 was in the first marriage. But the vicissitudes 
 of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill in England 
 show how diflScult it was to make reason heard, 
 even iu so clear a case where the mores were 
 wide open to criticism. In short, as Sumner 
 says,^ the mores can make anything right and 
 true and exempt it from criticism. 
 
 The primitive touchstone for the mores was 
 the sensation of pleasiu"e and pain, or, to put 
 it more generally, the degree of satisfaction 
 experienced. It was all empirical and without 
 perspective beyond the case in hand. This is 
 characteristic of the action of men under the 
 mores as distinguished from action based upon 
 scientific knowledge. It is present dissatis- 
 faction rather than the anticipation of a better 
 satisfaction — a negative rather than a positive 
 incitement — that leads to change, involving 
 selection, in the mores. And the dissatis- 
 
 • "Folkways," §§ 31, 32, 80, chap. XV. 
 
104 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 faction or need must be felt strongly if it is to 
 provide an incentive capable of overcoming 
 all the inertia and superstition that block the 
 way to alteration in the code. 
 
 This dissatisfaction led, at the outset, to 
 "blundering efforts" to satisfy the need; but 
 the case is not so much different, upon higher 
 stages of culture, when it is a matter of old and 
 settled folkways. The stronghold of the mores 
 is in the "masses," ^ and their efforts to escape 
 from their dissatisfactions have always been 
 clumsy and often aimless. Sometimes they do 
 not even realize that they are unfortunate and 
 miserable — especially if they are isolated from 
 the rest of the world, as the Russian peasants 
 were, and so have no standard of comparison — 
 and when they are roused by their pain they 
 plunge about with no settled plan and no ra- 
 tional aim. A skilful demagogue can lead 
 them in almost any direction, by playing on 
 their inflamed feelings and then holding out 
 hopes which are seldom rationally criticized. 
 If the dissatisfaction is keen enough there comes 
 about, often with bloodshed, a revolution and 
 a new type of mores, which, whether it yields 
 satisfaction or not, amounts to an alteration of 
 
 1 Sumner, "Folkways," §§ 47 ff. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 106 
 
 the incidence of discontent, so that at length 
 the new order, by contrast with the unsettled 
 period of revolution, seems in some degree 
 satisfactory. In any case there is change, and 
 the monotony is reHeved. There is a selection 
 of some kind in the mores. 
 
 Such upheavals on the grand scale, as in 
 the French Revolution, are repeated on the 
 small scale from time to time in any state. 
 Some one has said that every presidential elec- 
 tion in the United States is a bloodless revolu- 
 tion; some of them have barely stopped at 
 that point. This brings before us the struggle 
 of two composite sub-groups not necessarily 
 conterminous with social classes : political par- 
 ties. In a general way political parties grow 
 up about the nucleus of a common interest 
 that is felt rather than reasoned out. Party 
 aflfiliations are largely in the mores and are 
 traditional. They are the expression of an 
 interest or interests held in common by smaller 
 groups which are willing to unite for their 
 realization. In other respects such uniting 
 groups may have very different codes ; " poUtics 
 makes strange bedfellows." However, pohtical 
 parties are Ukely to comprise those who have 
 a number of interests in common, or think they 
 
106 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 have, and so are often co-extensive with classes 
 or even geographical sections. 
 
 These diverging interests of parties are settled 
 for varying periods by elections, and the 
 methods of these reveal the essentially irrational 
 and even primitive nature of the selection of a 
 new prosperity-policy. In general, the party 
 in power will stay in power so long as it can 
 "give the people prosperity," or persuade them 
 that it is doing that — so long as they are con- 
 tented. The election plea at its weakest is to 
 let well enough alone. There is never any 
 candid reference of prosperity to non-political 
 factors, as, for example, the rich natural re- 
 sources of the country, its underpopulation, or 
 the like. It is always the pet policy, protection 
 or free-trade, war or peace, that has, singly and 
 alone, and as the result of wise and rational pro- 
 cedure, produced well-being. History and com- 
 mon sense are perverted, dehberately or under 
 bias, to demonstrate this. There is a great deal 
 of "pathos" in the party system, which betrays 
 its fundamental relation to the mores. Pathos, 
 in the original Greek sense of the word, says 
 Sumner,^ "is the glamour of sentiment which 
 grows up around the pet notion of an age and 
 
 1 "Folkways," §§ 178. 179. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 107 
 
 people, and which protects it from criticism. 
 . . . Whenever pathos is in play the subject 
 is privileged. It is regarded with a kind of 
 affection, and is protected from severe examina- 
 tion. It is made holy or sacred. The thing is 
 cherished with such a preestabUshed preference 
 and faith that it is thought wrong to verify it. 
 Pathos, therefore, is unfavorable to truth." 
 
 On some such body of sentiment in the mores 
 rests the "sohd" strength of a political party. 
 But to hold its dominance it must, like the 
 Indian medicine-man, prevent misfortune. No 
 matter what the source of "hard times," their 
 appearance is ominous for the party in power. 
 It is ineffectual to demonstrate that "we didn't 
 do it," even if that were possible in the face of 
 the accusations of the parties out of power ; the 
 answer would be: "Why didn't you stop it?" 
 and there would be no query tolerated as to 
 whether it was in himian power to stop it. This 
 condition of things is often jocularly expressed 
 by referring the cause of floods or droughts or 
 earthquakes to the ineflficiency of the ruUng 
 party. 
 
 A state of popular discontent, then, leads 
 politicians to expect an overturn, for the people, 
 in this country at least, having in their mores a 
 
108 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 great faith in government activity, think to 
 better their condition by voting out the party 
 in power. An appeal preceding election to the 
 mores of the several classes and sections, in 
 the platform of parties and in the utterances of 
 party men, is a characteristic part of procedure. 
 There is some show of appeal to reason, for 
 that flatters audiences, but the main line of 
 attack is along the argumentum ad hominem, 
 which is an appeal through the emotions to the 
 mores. The "straddle" is characteristic. The 
 fact that the post hoc ergo propter hoc argument 
 is the stock in trade of the parties in assault and 
 defense betrays the essentially non-intellectual 
 character of the whole proceeding. Each can- 
 didate is endowed by his supporters with the 
 standard virtues of the mores ("honesty," etc.), 
 and often the attempt is made to "blacken the 
 character" of the opposition candidate by refer- 
 ence to dehnquencies of one kind or another. 
 Our man is the "man-as-he-should-be" ^; the 
 other candidate is not; when we talk about 
 the former to people of a certain code we endow 
 him with the local virtues which we deny to his 
 antagonist — the latter takes wine, which our 
 man never does. But in certain other quarters 
 
 1 Cf. Sumner, "Folkways." §§ 206, 207. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 109 
 
 we assert that our man is a jolly good fellow, 
 whereas the opposition candidate is a dull prig, 
 a man of ice. Thus do we strive to enlist 
 prejudice by appealing to the mores, in order 
 to carry an election, that is, to bring about a 
 selection in the mores. And yet this scheme of 
 procedure is, almost by common consent, con- 
 ceived to be the fairest and most enlightened 
 way of securing such selection. Every one has 
 his vote, we say, under the modern democratic 
 system, which is itself the product of selection 
 through tremendous social upheavals. There 
 is, indeed, a "pathos" of democracy, but in 
 view of its spread over the civilized world, we 
 are almost forbidden to believe that it is not a 
 better adapted form than those which preceded 
 it. And certainly no better case for rational 
 selection could be made out for the antecedent 
 systems. 
 
 If we seek to focus the light thrown on selec- 
 tion in the mores by what has been said, we find 
 that dissatisfaction leads to an effort to secure 
 change, and that the effort is directed in a more 
 or less blind way toward the better realization 
 of local and personal interests. The latter 
 type of interest is almost if not always at the 
 bottom, but it can appear legitimately only as 
 
no SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 a group or class (societal) interest. This is the 
 class conflict, the clumsy straining after a 
 better, or a less bad standard of living, some- 
 what idealized out of the class mores ; e.g., a 
 "full dinner pail" for some, more "protection 
 for national industry" for others, and so on. 
 There is always the promise to "do something " 
 for the farmer, the laborer, or for some other 
 class; that is, to ease up the competition in 
 which he is engaged with his fellow-men, and 
 to elevate his standard of living. If this is not 
 societal selection in his favor, it is hard to give it 
 a name. But these beneficiaries seldom ap- 
 proach the "peaceful revolution" in a rational 
 state of mind ; at best their theory is the vicious 
 one that the state can do anything, and they 
 propose to tell it what to do, at least for them- 
 selves. 
 
 Here would be, perhaps, a proper place to 
 consider the demagogue or political boss. Says 
 Woodrow Wilson ^ of the latter : 
 
 "The man we call boss is the agent of those who wish 
 to control politics in their own interest. I have known 
 some of these gentlemen personally, and I know exactly 
 how they work. They haven't any politics at all. That 
 
 • Address to Princeton students, in the Associated Press report 
 for Sept. 26, 1912. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 111 
 
 is the point, and there is no difference between a demo- 
 cratic boss and a republican boss, because neither of them 
 is working for his party. They are both working for their 
 clients." 
 
 And it is needless to say, to American readers 
 at least, that the methods of the boss are as far 
 as possible from broad and rational policy. The 
 function of the demagogue in a democracy is 
 outlined by Lecky ^ : 
 
 "Every one," he says, "who will look facts honestly 
 in the face can convince himself that the pubUc opinion of 
 a nation is something quite different from the votes that 
 can be extracted from all the individuals who compose it. 
 There are multitudes in every nation who contribute 
 nothing to its public opinion; who never give a serious 
 thought to public affairs, who have no spontaneous wish 
 to take any part in them; who, if they are induced to 
 do so, will act under the complete direction of individuals 
 or organisations of another class. . . . And in a pure 
 democracy thfe art of winning and accumulating these 
 votes will become one of the chief parts of practical 
 politics. 
 
 "... The demagogue will try to persuade the voter 
 that by following a certain line of policy every member 
 of his class will obtain some advantage. He will en- 
 coiu-age all his Utopias. He will hold out hopes that 
 by breaking contracts, or shifting taxation and the 
 power of taxing, or enlarging the paternal functions of 
 
 1 "Democracy and Liberty," I, 22-23. 
 
112 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 government, something of the property of one class may 
 be transferred to another. He wiU also appeal persist- 
 ently, and often successfully, to class jealousies and 
 antipathies. AU the divisions which naturally grow out 
 of class lines and the relations between employer and 
 employed will be studiously inflamed. Envy, covetousness, 
 prejudice, will become great forces in political propagand- 
 ism. Every real grievance will be aggravated. Every re- 
 dressed grievance will be revived ; every imaginary griev- 
 ance will be encouraged. If the poorest, most numerous, 
 and most ignorant class can be persuaded to hate the 
 smaller class, and to vote solely for the purpose of 
 injuring them, the party manager will have achieved his 
 end. To set the many against the few becomes the chief 
 object of the electioneering agent." 
 
 Professor Sumner used to dilate upon the 
 absurdity of setting up a question upon which 
 experts were divided {e.g., the tariff, the cur- 
 rency system) for several millions of at most 
 partially informed people to vote on ; ^ that 
 
 ' " Propositions as to public policy," says Holmes (in Vegelahn 
 vs. Guntner, 167 Mass., 92), "rarely are unanimously accepted, 
 and still more rarely, if ever, are capable of unanswerable proof. 
 They require a special training to enable any one even to form 
 an intelligent opinion about them. In the early stages of law, 
 at least, they generally are acted on rather as inarticulate instincts 
 than as definite ideas for which a rational defence is ready." 
 
 Sumner writes of "legislation by clamor" as follows: ("The 
 Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," pp. 186-187) : " On the 
 one hand, the highest wisdom of those who want anything now 
 is to practise terrorism, to make themselves as disagreeable as 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 113 
 
 they do not vote on the merits of the case, the 
 sectional division of the parties (as in 1896) 
 would indicate. They vote for what promises 
 to come nearest to satisfying their interests. 
 From the standpoint of one who is looking to 
 see rational selection applied in the development 
 of intelligent policies, this is indeed absurd. 
 And it becomes the more ridiculous when the 
 
 possible, so that it shall be necessary to conciliate them, and 
 those who appeal to reason find themselves disregarded. On 
 the other hand, the public men seek peace and quiet by sacrificing 
 any one who cannot or does not know enough to make a great 
 clamor in order to appease a clamorous faction. It is thought 
 to be the triumph of practical statesmanship to give the clamorers 
 something which wiU quiet them, and a new and special kind of 
 legislative finesse has been developed, viz., to devise projects 
 which shall seem to the clamorous petitioners to meet their de- 
 mands, yet shall not really do it. 
 
 " The most important case of legislation of this kind which has 
 been passed in this country is the Bland SUver Bill. It contains 
 no rational plan for accomplishing any purpose whatever. It 
 never had any pvirpose which could be stated intelligibly. It 
 does not introduce the double standard, does not help debtors, 
 and if it favors silver miners at all, does so in an insignificant 
 degree. It satisfies the vanity of a few public men, quiets the 
 clamor of a very noisy faction who did not know what they 
 wanted and do not know whether they have got it or not, com- 
 plicates the monetary system of the country, and contains possi- 
 bilities of great mischief or great loss. It was passed as a patched- 
 up compromise under the most rhythmical and best sustained 
 clamor ever brought to bear on a public question. Those who 
 raised the clamor went off content because they thought that 
 they had obtained something, and they now resist the repeal of 
 the law because they would feel that they had lost something." 
 
114 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 very mechanism of the election is, as it were, 
 devised to thwart intelligent voting, and to 
 throw the management into the hands of spe- 
 cially interested parties.^ 
 
 If assent is given to the preceding views, it 
 cannot be asserted that rational selection pre- 
 vails in any comprehensive degree throughout 
 the evolution of even the most civilized so- 
 cieties ; the masses are far from being saturated 
 with knowledge, even in the most advanced 
 countries. And in the masses, as Sumner dem- 
 onstrates,^ is the seat of the mores. But "the 
 leading classes, no matter by what standard 
 they are selected, can lead by example, which 
 
 • "It may be said without reserve that the sound reform of 
 the ballot is a condition precedent to any real and lasting im- 
 provement in the management of political affairs throughout 
 all the Union. It is absurd to ask the voter to pass on principles 
 or policies, however good in themselves, when he is so handicapped 
 by a clumsy ballot and frequent elections that it is physically 
 impossible for him definitely to record his will. It is useless to 
 urge him to vote only for good men and good measures when the 
 conditions in which his vote is cast reduce him to a blind guess 
 as to the net result of the vote. And we especially urge on those 
 who are sincerely convinced that more 'direct' share for the 
 voters in the Government will accomplish needed changes that 
 no really direct or effective share in government can be attained 
 until the short ballot is secured. You cannot get rid of the pro- 
 fessionals when you leave the mechanism of politics so intricate 
 and confused that only professionals can run it." New York 
 Times, May 17, 1914. = "Folkways," §§ 52 ff. ; § 99 (quoted). 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 115 
 
 always affects ritual. An aristocracy acts in 
 this way. It suggests standards of elegance, 
 refinement, and nobility, and the usages of good 
 manners, from generation to generation, are 
 such as have spread from the aristocracy to 
 other classes." Possibly there is here some 
 opportunity for the exercise of rational selection 
 by the leading classes, which will be imitated 
 by the rest. But, Sumner goes on, "such in- 
 fluences are unspoken, unconscious, uninten- 
 tional. If we admit that it is possible and right 
 for some to undertake to mold the mores of 
 others, of set purpose, we see that the limits 
 within which any such effort can succeed are 
 very narrow, and the methods by which it can 
 operate are strictly defined. The favorite 
 methods of our time are legislation and preach- 
 ing. These methods faU because they do not 
 affect ritual, and because they always aim at 
 great results in a short time. Above all, we 
 can judge of the amount of serious attention 
 which is due to plans for 'reorganizing society,' 
 to get rid of alleged errors and inconveniences 
 in it. We might as well plan to reorganize our 
 globe by redistributing the elements in it." 
 
 The truth of these remarks is evident. 
 Schemes like the one projected a few years ago, 
 
116 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 to win the world to Christianity (Protestant 
 Christianity) within a generation are as fanciful 
 as any perpetual motion project. But if there 
 are ways in which even modest results can be 
 secured, these should not be passed over. Fol- 
 lowing the suggestion in the passage just 
 quoted, it would seem that the most promising 
 place in the society to apply rational direction 
 to societal life is among the "leading classes." 
 This brings us around again, but along a some- 
 what different avenue of approach, to the ques- 
 tion discussed above,^ as to the influence of a 
 dominant class upon the mores of other classes 
 in a society. Only now the query is a little 
 more precise, for we are now confining our 
 attention to rational selection. One point here 
 is quite clear : the dominating class has a better 
 chance than the rest to get knowledge upon 
 which to base a rational selection. It is better 
 educated. 
 
 There is not much sense, though, in the term 
 "leading classes," unless that means that such 
 classes have control over the policy of the so- 
 ciety, that is, influence over its regulative sys- 
 tem. But if we have the educated in power, 
 then do we not have the class best fitted to 
 
 1 Pp. 73 ff., 86-88 above. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 117 
 
 exercise rational selection in a position to exer- 
 cise it ? This cannot well be denied ; but then 
 we are thrown back on the general case and have 
 to recall what we have found out about the 
 power of a dominant class to efifect selection. 
 The matter of its competency, to do that, 
 scarcely enters into the question of its power. 
 However, if it has even a little more power than 
 the rest — and we have seen that it has — it 
 is comforting to feel that it is better equipped 
 for the function. 
 
 This is in some respects, and despite very 
 evident and discouraging examples to the con- 
 trary, a rather hopeful view. Let us consider 
 it in perspective and see what there has been 
 in it. What has been the influence of the aris- 
 tocracy of the educated, and what are its 
 limits.'' The chief and medicine-man at the 
 outset, even when they were not one and the 
 same person, represented the knowledge of the 
 group ; the councils were the experienced mem- 
 bers of the society; and so the destiny of the 
 latter was intrusted, so far as it depended on 
 reason at all, to those who rose to the top. 
 These had behind them, then, the political 
 power — it was the prize of the intra-group 
 (class) struggle, to which, by reason of some 
 
118 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 superiority, they had attained. This they 
 could use to control the rest ; and provided they 
 did not too directly oppose the mores residing 
 in the "masses," they could make this and that 
 change toward what they thought expedient. 
 They were a minority generally, but well-knit 
 and organized, and so were able to impose their 
 will, within limits set by the mores, upon the 
 majority. If they went beyond these limits, 
 they were overthrown; but they gradually 
 learned not to do that. They had certain 
 mores of their own and certain ideas about the 
 mores expedient to the societal welfare, and 
 they were able to enforce a certain rational 
 selection upon the whole group. If they acted 
 tactfully they could crowd out certain of the 
 mores, sometimes by almost imperceptible 
 degrees, and could foster others in the same way. 
 The fact that they were, in their position, ob- 
 jects of imitation,^ assisted them somewhat in 
 this direction. 
 
 This is true in any age, and can be seen to-day 
 as of old. The mores of subjection to authority 
 have strengthened the process. Respect for 
 those in authority over us is inculcated from 
 early years; and also we render unto Caesar 
 
 > P. 217 below. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION . 119 
 
 the things that are Caesar's because it is easier 
 to do that than to put up an unorganized resist- 
 ance against an organized power. Many of 
 our laws rest upon a clearly rational basis and 
 are regarded as extremely tyrannical by our 
 newer fellow-citizens; but they are obeyed 
 because they are law, and after a while habit 
 comes in, and the tyranny is felt no more. We 
 learn to adapt ourselves to a steady and not 
 too severe stress. Probably every one of our 
 laws would have seemed intolerable at some pre- 
 ceding rude age, and many laws, the German 
 for instance, would so seem to members of 
 another nation. At first come irritation and 
 evasion ; but if enforced for a time, and not 
 too violently in conflict with the mores, the 
 regulations are accepted, and for the most part 
 unintelligently, by the bulk of the population, 
 and taken as a matter of course, as a condition 
 of societal life than which no other is known. 
 Where, then, the educated hold a position that 
 enables them to "sway public opinion," they 
 can exercise a certain amount of rational selec- 
 tion over the mores. If their ideas can no 
 longer secure the eflEective sanction of religion, 
 they can at least secure that of the state. 
 By the exercise of such stress there may then 
 
120 . SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 occur for the body of a society, supposing the 
 measures of the leaders to have been rationally 
 conceived, a certain indirect rational societal 
 selection. This line of argument might be 
 pursued still farther. The lower classes of 
 to-day certainly rank the leading classes of a 
 past age in point of knowledge, at least in some 
 departments of life; will they not, therefore, 
 in the course of time, secure such share of the 
 mental outfit as will enable them to modify their 
 own codes for themselves in accord with reason ? 
 But all this is possibility rather than actual- 
 ity; the day of general intellectual emanci- 
 pation is yet afar off. Even for the best edu- 
 cated the power of rational selection, as directed 
 toward the destiny of the society of which they 
 are a part, is as yet an uncertain and unreliable 
 one in most departments of societal life. It is 
 a source of never ending astonishment and dis- 
 heartenment to observe the ignorance, preju- 
 dice, and even superstition displayed in poli- 
 tics by people who are well-informed and 
 rational of judgment in other lines. Yet it is 
 perfectly natural, after all ; the human mind 
 has its ever-present limits and cannot cover 
 much ground thoroughly. It is difficult to 
 look at the large interests of society in a large 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 121 
 
 way, on their merits, for the lesser interests of 
 person, group, constituents, etc., fill the fore- 
 ground and hinder perspective. Furthermore, 
 we all live so fully in the mores of our limited 
 group that it is next to impossible to set our- 
 selves in others' places and correctly and dis- 
 passionately appraise their interests. It is 
 asking too much of human beings to expect one 
 group to safeguard the diverging interests of 
 another. Each group must try to get power 
 to realize its own. It is the exceptional states- 
 man who can rise above party and local in- 
 terests ; the perfectly respectable representative 
 of a constituency with peculiar interests will 
 insist upon these in the face even of party 
 leaders, as witness the attitude of the Louisiana 
 senators when the sugar tariff has come under 
 discussion. Whatever lofty and rare states- 
 manship may be, politics is the play of local 
 interests ; for the realization of the interests of 
 the society at large something more powerful 
 and elemental than the ratiocination of in- 
 dividuals or parties must be in operation.^ Tak- 
 
 1 If any one is enthusiastic over the influence of the " intellec- 
 tuals," let him reflect that they could not introduce even a metric 
 system, however strong their appeal to pure reason. And yet, 
 in their automatic evolution, numeral systems show most satis- 
 factory examples of variation and selection. The development 
 
122 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 ing the field of societal life as a whole, one is 
 reluctantly forced to admit that, in default of 
 much power of rationalization, we are still 
 thrown back overwhelmingly upon the mores, 
 with all their apparent unreason and caprice. 
 
 This cannot in candor be denied. Rational 
 selection can come about only to a slight degree 
 as the result of the dominance of any single 
 class or sub-group, let alone individual. So- 
 cietal selection is too massive a phenomenon to 
 take its origin elsewhere than in masses of men ; 
 it is due to the largely unconscious contortions 
 of the whole social body. It is limited by 
 conditions in the physical and societal environ- 
 ment, the power of which the would-be inno- 
 vators are forced to acknowledge when at last 
 they attain the coveted control. Note how 
 the opposition party, the Jeffersonians,^ for in- 
 stance, is obliged to continue the policies against 
 which it has been inveighing. 
 
 Says the sagacious printer-statesman:^ "Those 
 who govern, having much business on their 
 hands, do not generally like to take the trouble 
 
 of the symbol zero carried a whole system with it. Cf. Smith 
 and Karpinsld, "The Hindu-Arabic Numerals," especially 
 chap. IV. 
 
 ' Sumner. "The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," p. 329. 
 
 'Franklin, B., "Autobiography" (ed. Aiton), p. 228. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 123 
 
 of considering and carrying into execution 
 new projects. The best public measures are 
 therefore seldom adopted from previous wis- 
 dom, but forced by the occasion." It is a com- 
 monplace that the "ins" are conservative, 
 just as the "outs" are radical. The former 
 have gotten and are maintaining their position, 
 and are serving their interests best, under the 
 status quo. This is one of the main reasons, 
 rising out of the depths of human nature, why 
 adaptive changes are brought about, at the 
 hands of the dominant class, less frequently 
 than one would expect at first sight. 
 
 Let us cease considering, therefore, the con- 
 stituent human elements of a society, and 
 attack the issue on a broader arena. Let us 
 consider the society as a whole, living a life 
 analogous to that of an indivisible organism, 
 and examine the functioning of the whole 
 rather than its constituent parts. 
 
 Here we must notice a point of view which 
 I can best introduce, perhaps, by a quotation.* 
 
 A professor of economics, we are told, " has expressed 
 great astonishment at the fact that the currency bill was 
 passed in so excellent a form by a congress in which ' not 
 
 1 Collier's Weekly (quoted in New Haven Joumal-CourieT, 
 January 20, 1914). 
 
124 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 10 men understood the subject.' This is the expert's 
 contempt for the intelligence of the average man. The 
 specialist is always astonished at the ' luck ' which ordinary 
 people have in making up their minds correctly. 
 
 " And yet this ' luck ' is democracy's only hope. If the 
 processes of government are too complex and subtle for the 
 average mind, then such a thing as a' people successfully 
 safe-governed is out of the question. Lawyers often con- 
 demn the jury system because the jurors are not ' special- 
 ists ' in evidence ; but a careful study of jury verdicts will 
 show that their decisions are as good as or better on the 
 average than those of judges on questions of fact where 
 such questions are submitted to the court. Congressmen 
 are, to speak within bounds, rather above the average in 
 intelligence, and greatly superior to jurymen ; but, if, as 
 [the professor] suggests, they were ignorant of the questions 
 involved in the currency bill, they were about in the same 
 position as jurymen seeking the truth honestly and ignorant 
 of the law. The one receives the instructions of the court ; 
 the other is favored with the expert instructions of [the 
 professor] and others. The jury takes it upon itself to 
 ignore the instructions once in a while, and the congress 
 refused to accept the opinions of the professors when told 
 by them." 
 
 It is implied in this quotation, wliich would 
 command considerable assent, that special 
 knowledge does not count for much, and that 
 the "common man" is a repository of a sort 
 of wisdom by intuition which enables him to 
 decide correctly on national policy — that is, to 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 125 
 
 perform an act of societal selection. If we dis- 
 card the demagogic character of such assertions, 
 and try to see what of truth there is in them, 
 it amounts to this : the legislators represent 
 the interests of different sections of the society ; 
 they do not, as we have seen, as a rule, try to 
 visualize the national interests concerned, but 
 vote as representatives of their constituencies. 
 They are the organs of transmission, therefore, 
 of public opinion. We are brought to the prop- 
 osition, then, that public opinion is right where 
 special knowledge may easily go astray. 
 
 One way of justifying this view about the 
 correctness of public opinion is conveyed by 
 the term "luck" as used in the quotation. 
 Luck is a term, like chance, used to cover that 
 which is, for the time, unreckonable and unpre- 
 dictable. But attempts are made, in insurance 
 enterprises, for example, to reduce the variable 
 called chance or luck to a constant. This is done 
 by applying the laws of chance to multitudes of 
 instances, and it is thereby seen that pluses and 
 minuses cancel out, leaving a residue upon which 
 such dependence can be placed that business 
 can be done with security. Now some people 
 think that a similar residue of dependable 
 truth is gained from the cancellation of opposite 
 
126 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 or partially conflicting judgments of multitudes 
 of people, irrespective, apparently, of the ra- 
 tionality of such judgments. This is merely a 
 matter of faith, with the chances against it. 
 It has been proved wrong plenty of times in 
 the outcome, based, as it has often been, on 
 ignorance and superstition. But this does not 
 say that it is always wrong when it opposes the 
 conclusions of the specialist, nor yet that it is 
 equally unreliable upon all varieties of issues. 
 No outside observer, however learned, can 
 sense interests as those can who feel their stress 
 directly ; and upon some interests men have a 
 sounder judgment than upon others. Hence 
 the conflict of interests, especially in the region 
 of self-maintenance, where, as we are to see, 
 they are concrete, objective, and material, may 
 result in a wholesome selection of measures 
 that no single specialist could have the breadth 
 of outlook even to visualize in their multiplicity 
 and complexity. 
 
 This somewhat anticipates what is next to 
 come. We are now considering a society as a 
 whole and have given up any idea of consistent 
 rational selection in its mores at the hand of 
 any dominant sub-group. Granted, however, 
 that there is no class or other limited group 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 127 
 
 through which radical rational selection is real- 
 ized ; is there not some point of entrance into the 
 societal system itself, some part of the code, 
 common to all constituent groups in a society, 
 which admits this factor ? I believe there is, and 
 that its determination opens the only vital point 
 of attack for rational selection. Rational selec- 
 tion in the mores, as applied constantly, directly, 
 and generally to all societal forms, cannot be 
 demonstrated ; but I think it will be seen that 
 such selection is natural and effective in certain 
 of the societal forms and then, strongly rooted 
 in the very seats of society's life, is enabled 
 to extend its effectiveness, though indirectly, 
 throughout the whole societal structure. In 
 order to render this view, toward which we 
 have been working, as clear and definite as pos- 
 sible, it will be necessary to approach the issue 
 from a selected point outside, and somewhat 
 by way of a detour. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 KATIONAL SELECTION — Continued 
 
 To act with reason, or science, or common 
 sense, that which is most needed is verification. 
 Verification, unmistakable and also repeated, 
 will prove anything. Neither logic nor prej- 
 udice can stand before it long; it is after the 
 facts of repeated experience that science comes 
 limping. Such verification can be attained in 
 the field of the natural sciences through experi- 
 mentation, where the environment can be con- 
 trolled and artificialized and the object of ex- 
 perimentation manipulated. This, we have 
 seen, cannot be done in the domain of social 
 science; it is forbidden that man should ex- 
 periment oil man. What goes by the name of 
 social experimentation is generally vague and 
 inconclusive in its results, and error must needs 
 be rife. This is one of the reasons why the 
 social scientist looks with keen envy upon the 
 procedure, yielding tangible results, of his col- 
 league in the natural sciences. The best the 
 social scientist can do is the worst the natural 
 
 128 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 129 
 
 scientist has to do — to wait on nature and his- 
 tory to perform quasi-experiments for him ; and 
 he seizes upon one of these, like that exhibited 
 in the case of the Pitcairn Island society, with 
 pathetic eagerness. But one can profit only 
 partially even by recorded previous experiences, 
 in view of the loss of detail, the omission of that 
 which is later seen to be of commanding impor- 
 tance, etc. ; and then nature next to never re- 
 peats societal phenomena in the same terms. 
 She even seems to act furtively, as it were, 
 so that men do not recognize the scientific 
 significance of what she has been doing till too 
 late. The social scientist must get the best 
 tests he can, and put up with their insufficien- 
 cies. We must know the best places in which 
 to look for the occurrence or repetition of 
 social phenomena; and in a hard matter like 
 this one of societal selection, the favorable field 
 of observation must be sedulously sought. 
 
 Where, then, in the societal system, canVeri- 
 fication be found? Where shall the student 
 look to discover and verify the activity of ra- 
 tional selection based upon positive knowledge ? 
 Where in the societal field are inadequate adapta- 
 tions to the environment, as exhibited in unfit 
 mores, most irresistibly demonstrated to be 
 
130 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 inadequate and unfit? It is a fact of observa- 
 tion that dissatisfaction due to the non-real- 
 ization of human interests may occur in an 
 equal degree anywhere in the societal field. But, 
 whereas in some parts of that field it seems al- 
 most impossible to reason out conclusively the 
 causes of dissatisfaction and then remove them, 
 in the case of others there is a general persuasion 
 that the nexus between effect and cause can be 
 passed and satisfaction attained — and that 
 through rational processes unaided. It is a 
 bold man who believes that through rational 
 means the race can be bred so as to be free of 
 the physically and mentally weak; but every 
 one expects as a matter of course that fifty 
 years will see the solution of many a present and 
 arising difficulty in the line of material progress. 
 Nobody in 1890 could reasonably expect the 
 abolition of prostitution within any definite 
 period; but there were those who regarded 
 aerial navigation as merely a question of time. 
 Men look to and depend upon rational procedure 
 all the time in some parts of the societal field ; 
 they take up the war against smallpox and 
 typhoid with confidence in their ultimate suc- 
 cess. They realize that there are probably 
 unknown physical elements, and are not forced 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 131 
 
 to regard that man as a wizard who discloses 
 them ; they expect more surprises like the dis- 
 covery of radium and the development of wire- 
 less telegraphy. But they have no hope that 
 their religious mores will be adjusted as the 
 result of some scientific discovery of a positive 
 character; or that sociologists of a certain 
 type may be able to set the relations of the 
 sexes upon a sure basis. They do not hope for 
 inventions in religion and marriage which can 
 be tested with certainty and introduced with 
 general or intelligent approval. Such results 
 will come, they say, in the millennium — that is, 
 when the conditions of life as now lived shall 
 have been altered as the result of an unpre- 
 dictable or even supematurally directed devel- 
 opment. Examples of this sort crowd to the 
 page. It is not hard to demonstrate to an 
 ignorant person in this country that he should 
 learn to read and write; he can see that by 
 living in this society. Similarly for his interest 
 is it that he shall use the English language. 
 Tests lie all about him, and are immediate and 
 decisive. But try to persuade him by abstract 
 argument to give up the vendetta, to renounce 
 anarchistic leanings, or to change his religion, 
 and you fail. There are no immediate and 
 
132 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 decisive tests at hand. You cannot demon- 
 strate that interest will be subserved by change ; 
 you cannot even secure visualization of evil 
 consequences. Even illness due to filth, where 
 such visualization is becoming more practi- 
 cable, can be referred unv^rifiably to too many 
 different causes, as, for instance, the evil eye. 
 
 If we seek to generalize from the multitudes 
 of instances on the order of those just given, the 
 only conclusion at which we can arrive is, that 
 the more nearly custom (the folkways) repre- 
 sents direct reaction on environment in the 
 actual struggle for material aids to existence, 
 the more rational a test does it undergo ; and, 
 conversely, the more derived the societal forms 
 the more clearly do they fall under the tests of 
 tradition rather than reason. The nearer the 
 mores come to the struggle for existence, the 
 more nearly they concern self-maintenance, 
 the more vivid is the demonstration of their 
 expediency or inexpediency. 
 
 But we must turn aside for the moment to 
 get before us some perspective of the activities 
 of a human society that we may observe which 
 of them represent the most direct reactions upon 
 environment. De Greef ^ has made a classi- 
 
 ' "Principes de Sociologie," p. 214. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 133 
 
 fication of societal phenomena which is as useful 
 as any for our present purpose. He divides 
 them into the economic, the genesic (of mar- 
 riage and the family), the artistic, those rela- 
 tive to beliefs, the moral, the juridic, and the 
 political. It is plain enough, without involving 
 ourselves in this author's balancings and cross- 
 classifications, that the first of these categories 
 contains the bulk of societal phenomena that 
 submit to ready and conclusive verification. 
 Sumner classified the activities of society in a 
 less meticulous manner into societal self-main- 
 tenance, self-perpetuation, and self-gratifica- 
 tion, adding to these the mental and social 
 reactions out of which come the religious and 
 regulative systems. It is plain that the least 
 derived of the mores corresponding to this clas- 
 sification are those which have to do with 
 societal self -maintenance — the struggle for 
 existence against nature and fellow-man, and 
 for a standard of living — the most concrete 
 and material activity of society. If then we 
 were to call the institutions of societal self- 
 maintenance the primary societal forms, those 
 of marriage, the family, religion, etc., might 
 be termed the secondary societal forms. 
 
 Recalling the above illustrations in the light of 
 
134 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 these classifications, it becomes clearer where we 
 are to look for evidences of rational selection. 
 Diflferent peoples disapprove of others' religious 
 habitudes, their forms of marriage and of the 
 family, their amusements, largely because these 
 are not in the ways of the group passing judg- 
 ment. Such condemnation is seldom the result 
 of rational processes. And for corresponding 
 reasons people approve and cling to their own 
 ways, deeply resenting criticism of them. A 
 number of societal forms on the line of those 
 mentioned are practically never submitted to 
 reason by the great majority of people, but lie 
 in the mores, changing automatically if at all. 
 But when one people comes to regard the 
 economic organization of another, it usually has 
 reason for its disapproval or may even be led 
 to approve and adopt. There is here less of 
 unconscious or unreasoning repugnance and 
 prejudice. Advice is sought and taken and the 
 prestige of superior knowledge is conceded. 
 But compare the case as respects politics : there 
 every man's opinion is equally good ; the vote 
 of the ignorant counts as much as that of the 
 wise. The trouble here is that there is no 
 immediate verification; any one can range 
 about over the field unchecked by tests; it is 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 135 
 
 like philosophy. Why is political discussion 
 forbidden in certain clubs? Because it results 
 in a clash of feeling rather than of cold intellect, 
 and it can run to any height of passion without 
 Hearing a decisive test on fact. 
 
 For, to return to our basic proposition, it is 
 in the field of the mores of societal self-main- 
 tenance that testing and verification are most 
 direct and inevitable. It is conceivable that 
 society could live on for a long time under 
 almost any religious form or marriage-system, 
 without seeing it subjected to some visible and 
 conclusive test. But this is not so when we 
 have to do with the institutions crystallized 
 out of the mores of societal self-maintenance. 
 If the mores lead to such ill success in the 
 struggle for existence that the group in question 
 is weakened in numbers or vitality, annihila- 
 tion or subjugation is at hand. And when man 
 has developed the power of criticism of his own 
 collective course, there is nothing that will 
 provoke in him distrust of that course more 
 speedily than economic distress. It is upon 
 this criterion that ministries rise and fall and 
 policies are adopted or rejected. 
 
 It is in this field that the inadequacy of means 
 to effect ends is most easily perceived, because 
 
136 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 the relation between means and ends is an im- 
 mediate, concrete, and striking one. Hence it 
 is here that rational selection of the mores is 
 strongest. It is only on a primitive, irrational 
 stage that the seH-maintenance mores are al- 
 lowed to check advance in the pursuit of a 
 higher standard of living — to insist that the 
 tree shall be felled with a shell ax rather than 
 one of steel. Only under societal isolation, as 
 is shown by the actual cases, could such a taboo 
 persist in the mores. Adherence to the harm- 
 ful mores becomes, even to the less developed 
 intelligence, inexpedient; for it is plainly con- 
 trary to the most concrete and unmistakable 
 of interests. You can persuade a savage of the 
 inadequacy of his stone hatchet long before he 
 can be made to see that his family system is 
 capable of being superseded by one yielding 
 better satisfaction to his interests. 
 
 Reason can be educated to go even farther 
 in its selective influence on the mores of societal 
 self -maintenance, and to reach out to the un- 
 known-better rather than simply to discard the 
 known-worse. Instead of taking form in blun- 
 dering, unconscious effort after relief, man's 
 mental reaction may advance to deliberate 
 experimentation in the conscious effort to get 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 1S7 
 
 something better. Here is where we have seen 
 invention coming in, which is the purposeful 
 search for the better method of procedure 
 through the development and comparison of 
 variations.^ But invention has never been 
 widely effective except in the range of the pri- 
 mary societal forms . In fact it has been confined 
 largely and has become recognizedly successful 
 and cumulative only in the development of 
 the mechanical aids to the prosecution of the 
 struggle for existence. No one thinks of in- 
 vention in connection with the organization of 
 the family or of the secondary societal forms 
 in general. Any one, upon reflection, perceives 
 that in these fields the mores move on in much 
 the same sort of way that they have always 
 taken. The more we know of these things the 
 more we distrust paper constitutions and 
 Utopias, and the more commonly do we refer 
 change to the elemental movements of the 
 mores — though many would not use the term 
 mores, but rather "race-character," "public 
 opinion," "national spirit," "Zeitgeist," "Volk- 
 erpsychologie," and so on. 
 
 If the best informed and educated of men 
 are likely to reach the conclusion that in the 
 
 » Cf. p. 46 above. 
 
138 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 more complicated issues of societal evolution it 
 is just as well, and probably inevitable, to 
 "trust nature," it is because they are better 
 aware than are those who wish to tinker and 
 meddle, of all the complexities and diflBculties 
 attendant upon an attempt at rational selection. 
 Dr. Maudsley,^ for example, said of the eugenics 
 program that he was not sure but that nature, 
 in her blind way, could settle the issues sur- 
 rounding human mating better than the 
 human mind, through the taking of thought, 
 could do it. This amounts to a distrust or de- 
 spair of rational selection, derived from profound 
 realization of the diflBculties and unforeseen 
 complications involved. It will be noted, how- 
 ever, that such distrust does not appear in cases 
 where it is proposed to apply rational programs 
 in connection with advance in the arts of life; 
 to secure, let us say, a better means of trans- 
 portation, a more satisfactory standard of 
 value, or an extension of markets. Here we 
 plan confidently enough; but it is only the 
 shallow and half-educated who do not hesitate 
 to evolve "programs" when it comes to the 
 more derived and less knowable and verifiable 
 societal processes. The truly wise stand aghast 
 
 ' See p. 196 below. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 139 
 
 before the tangled skein and hesitate to take 
 hold of it; they see that the multiplicity of 
 causes behind societal phenomena, and the con- 
 sequent impossibility of foreseeing effects, are 
 likely to vitiate any rational procedure possible 
 to the human mind as yet evolved. They real- 
 ize the precarious course that lies, in social 
 action, between motives and consequences, 
 where deflection is the rule, and where it would 
 seem almost the part of omniscience to calculate 
 times, places, and forces of impact. 
 
 The attitude of men of scientific discernment 
 toward rational selection is about on this order : 
 up to a certain point, where clean-cut verifica- 
 tion stops, they proceed confidently with their 
 projects of elimination and substitution. Be- 
 yond that they have their programs in which 
 they believe with all the reservations ; and 
 with these programs they must go ahead on 
 what knowledge and rational power they have, 
 in the last analysis throwing themselves on the 
 element of chance — that element of the un- 
 reckonable and unpredictable which surrounds 
 on all sides the small sphere of knowledge that 
 man's mental powers and limited energy are 
 able to encompass. The place where this ele- 
 ment enters is the outermost limit of the realm 
 
140 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 of rational selection, where it gives way to socie- 
 tal selection in its automatic, unconscious, and 
 most elemental form. 
 
 But let us return to the distinction we have 
 tried to make between phases of societal life 
 where selection between variations in the mo- 
 res is comparatively easy to verify and those 
 where, on the present stage, at least, of devel- 
 opment of the social sciences, it is difficult or 
 impossible. Let us bear in mind that the vari- 
 ations in the mores are the varying ideas of men 
 reacting to environmental conditions, and that 
 the effectiveness of such variations is most 
 easily tested out to every one's satisfaction (so 
 that they can be rationally selected without 
 much delay) in the field of societal self-main- 
 tenance. The circle-squarer or the apostle of 
 perpetual motion is a pathological phenomenon 
 where a crank of the same species, with a re- 
 ligious or political idea, happy but impossible, 
 may attain a considerable following. In gen- 
 eral, where the exact or scientific method can 
 be applied rational selection between the mores 
 is possible. But this is chiefly, if not entirely, 
 as things now are, in that part of societal ac- 
 tivity where men have to do with actual, con- 
 crete, natural objects rather than with each 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 141 
 
 other or with some higher power whose exist- 
 ence cannot be scientifically proved — that is, 
 where they react upon natural environment in 
 the effort to preserve life, or to preserve it more 
 satisfactorily. Self -maintenance is the primary 
 societal activity and its pursuit is a conditio 
 sine qua non. 
 
 Further, all other societal fonns are in this 
 sense secondary, that their types are to a large 
 degree functions of the type of the forms of 
 self-maintenance. The hunting tribe becomes 
 pastoral in its type of self -maintenance ; and 
 with this change go alterations in secondary soci- 
 etal forms, so that at length there is presented 
 a set of mores, typical aU along the line, which 
 are referred to as the distinguishing characters 
 of the pastoral status. A pastoral tribe becomes 
 agricultural and sedentary, and presently the 
 inevitable attendant characteristics in the sec- 
 ondary societal forms appear. An analogy is 
 the case of a person acting " just as one would 
 expect " from a knowledge of his circumstances, 
 exhibiting a habitude typical of those circum- 
 stances. This is what is meant by the phrase 
 "strain toward consistency", used of the mores. 
 Unquestionably the secondary societal forms 
 come to consist with each other, and there are 
 
142 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 doubtless minor mutual harmonizations be- 
 tween them which are independent of their 
 universal dependence upon the form taken by 
 the mores of societal self-maintenance. Mar- 
 riage mores and property mores consist, but it 
 is the mores arising out of direct reactions be- 
 tween the society and its environment that 
 form the independent variable, of which both 
 are functions. The ultimate activity of society 
 is to preserve (feed, clothe, shelter, and pro- 
 tect) itself, and so the mores and institutions 
 that contribute to this end are in a very real 
 sense fundamental. It is upon these forms as 
 a basis that the rest of the societal structure is 
 erected; and the form of the superstructure 
 cannot vary except in detail from the type con- 
 ditioned by the character of the foundation.^ 
 
 • " In general, then, when the men are too numerous for the 
 means of subsistence, the struggle for existence is fierce. The 
 finer sentiments decline; selfishness comes out again from the 
 repression under which culture binds it ; the social tie is loosened ; 
 all the dark sufferings of which humanity is capable become 
 familiar phenomena. Men are habituated to see distorted bodies, 
 harsh and frightful diseases, famine and pestilence; they find 
 out what depths of debasement humanity is capable of. Hideous 
 crimes are perpetrated; monstrous superstitions are embraced 
 even by the most cultivated members of society ; vices otherwise 
 inconceivable become common, and fester in the mass of society ; 
 culture is lost ; education dies out ; the arts and sciences decline. 
 All this follows for the most simple and obvious of all reasons: 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 143 
 
 The perspective of societal evolution, acquired 
 almost unconsciously by protracted contact 
 with the concrete evidence of ethnography, 
 fathers this conviction that facts and conditions 
 of the economic order are the basic ones ; and 
 there are those who will agree with the position 
 taken here as applying to primitive life, but 
 who would reject it as untrue of conditions 
 under a higher culture, just as they concede 
 the importance of the influences of natural 
 environment on the savage, but deny it in the 
 case of civilized man. I do not care to chal- 
 lenge any such conviction except as it is chal- 
 lenged by the general tenor and upshot of my 
 whole presentation ; but I have selected my first 
 and fullest illustrations of the basic nature of the 
 mores of self-maintenance outside the field of 
 ethnography or the history of primitive peoples. 
 
 because a man whose whole soul is absorbed in a struggle to get 
 enough to eat, will give up his manners, his morals, his education, 
 or that of his children, and will thus, step by step, withdraw 
 from and surrender everything else in order simply to maintain 
 existence. Indeed, it is a fact of familiar knowledge that, under 
 the stress of misery, all the finer acquisitions and sentiments slowly 
 but steadily perish. 
 
 " The converse of this statement, however, is true. ... If 
 the subsistence of men is in excess of the number of men all the 
 opposite results are produced, for in that case the demand is in 
 excess of the supply." Sumner, "The Challenge of Facts and 
 Other Essays," pp. 120-121. 
 
144 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 There is a great deal of such illustration to be 
 gathered, but the nearest to my hand at the 
 present time lies in certain essays about to be 
 published, which deal in the main with our own 
 society.^ Since my ideas about societal evolution 
 have developed about Sumner's treatment of 
 the folkways, and since he was always working 
 toward that treatment for years before it took 
 definite shape in his mind, it is particularly 
 appropriate to begin with him. His general- 
 izations, as quoted, are made for the most part 
 around discussions of American conditions. 
 
 "We are told that moral forces alone can elevate any 
 such people again [as the Irish were several decades ago]. 
 But it is plain that a people which has sunk below the 
 reach of the economic forces of self-interest has certainly 
 sunk below the reach of moral forces, and that this objec- 
 tion is superficial and short-sighted. What is true is 
 that economic forces always go before moral forces. 
 Men feel self-interest long before they feel prudence, 
 self-control, and temperance. They lose the moral forces 
 long before they lose the economic forces. If they can 
 be regenerated at all, it must be first by distress appealing 
 to self-interest and forcing recourse to some expedient 
 
 ' Sumner, "The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," pp. 
 29, 80, 51-52, 26-27, 304, 337-339. These are characteristic 
 extracts from Sumner's treatment of societal organization. His 
 point of view, with which I find myself in almost entire sym- 
 pathy, appears again and again throughout his writings. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 145 
 
 for relief. Emigration is certainly an economic force 
 for the relief of Irish distress. It is a palliative only, 
 when considered in itself, but the virtue of it is that it 
 gives the non-emigrating population a chance to rise to a 
 level on which the moral forces can act upon them." 
 
 "The economic forces work with moral forces and are 
 their handmaidens, but the economic forces are far more 
 primitive, original, and universal. The glib generalities 
 in which we sometimes hear people talk, as if you could 
 set moral and economic forces separate from and in 
 antithesis to each other, and discard the one to accept 
 and work by the other, gravely misconstrue the realities 
 of the social order." 
 
 "The sound student of sociology can hold out to man- 
 kind, as individuals or as a race, only one hope of better 
 and happier living. That hope lies in an enhancement 
 of the industrial virtues and of the moral forces which 
 thence arise. Industry, self-denial, and temperance 
 are the laws of prosperity for men and states; without 
 them advance in the arts and in wealth means only cor- 
 ruption and decay through luxury and vice. With them 
 progress in the arts and increasing wealth are the prime 
 conditions of an advancing civilization which is sound 
 enough to endure. The power of the human race to-day 
 over the conditions of prosperous and happy living are 
 sufficient to banish poverty and misery if it were not for 
 foUy and vice. The earth does not begin to be populated 
 up to its power to support population on the present stage 
 of the arts; if the United States were as densely popu- 
 lated as the British Islands, we should have 1,000,000,000 
 people here. If, therefore, men were willing to set to 
 I- 
 
146 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 work with energy and courage to subdue the outlying 
 parts of the earth, all might live in plenty and prosperity. 
 But if they insist on remaining in the slmns of great cities 
 or on the borders of an old society, and on a comparatively 
 exhausted soil, there is no device of economist or states- 
 man which can prevent them from falling victims to pov- 
 erty and misery or from succumbing in the competition 
 of hfe to those who have greater command of capital. 
 The socialist or philanthropist who nourishes them in 
 their situation and saves them from the distress of it is 
 only cultivating the distress which he pretends to cure." 
 
 And, again : 
 
 "It is impossible that the man with capital and the 
 man without capital should be equal. To affirm that 
 they are equal woidd be to say that a man who has no tool 
 can get as much food out of the ground as the man who has 
 a spade or a plough ; or that the man who has no weapon 
 can defend himself as well against hostile beasts or hostile 
 men as the man who has a weapon. If that were so, none 
 of us would work any more. We work and deny ourselves 
 to get capital just because, other things being equal, the 
 man who has it is superior, for attaining all the ends of hfe, 
 to the man who has it not. Considering the eagerness 
 with which we all seek capital and the estimate we put 
 upon it, either in cherishing it if we have it, or envying 
 others who have it while we have it not, it is very strange 
 what platitudes pass current about it in our society so 
 soon as we begin to generalize about it. If our young 
 people really believed some of the teachings they hear, 
 it would not be amiss to preach them a sermon once in 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 147 
 
 a while to reassure them, setting forth that it is not wicked 
 to be rich, nay even, that it is not wicked to be richer 
 than your neighbor." 
 
 Speaking of democracy in the Colonies, the 
 same author says : 
 
 "No convention ever decreed it or chose it. It existed 
 in the sense of social equality long before it was recognized 
 and employed as a guiding principle in institutions and 
 laws ; its strength in the latter is due to the fact that it 
 is rooted and grounded in economic facts. The current 
 popular notion that we have democratic institutions be- 
 cause the men of the eighteenth century were wise enough 
 to choose and create them is entirely erroneous. We have 
 not made America ; America has made us. There is, 
 indeed, a constant reaction between the environment and 
 the ideas of the people; the ideas turn into dogmas and 
 pet notions, which in their turn are appUed to the environ- 
 ment. What effect they have, however, except to pro- 
 duce confusion, error, mischief, and loss is a very serious 
 question. The current of our age has been entirely in 
 favor of the notion that a convention to amend the Con- 
 stitution can make any kind of a state or society which we 
 may choose as an ideal. That is a great delusion, but it 
 is one of the leading social faiths of the present time." 
 
 Again : 
 
 "The current opinion amongst us undoubtedly is that 
 the extension of the suffrage and the virtual transfer of 
 the powers of government to the uneducated and non- 
 property classes, compelUng the educated and property 
 
148 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 classes, if they want to influence the government, to do so 
 by persuading or perhaps corruptuig the former, is a 
 piece of poHtical wisdom to which our fathers were led by 
 philosophy and by the conviction that the doctrine of it 
 was true and just. There were causes for it, however, 
 which were far more powerful than preaching, argument, 
 and philosophy ; and besides, if you wiU notice how hope- 
 less it is by any argument to make headway against any 
 current of belief which has obtained momentum in a 
 society, you will put your faith in the current of beUef 
 and not in the power of logic or exhortation. You will 
 then look at the causes of the current of belief, and you 
 will find them in the economic conditions which are con- 
 troUing, at the time, the struggle for existence and the 
 competition of life. At the beginning of this century it 
 would have been just exactly as impossible to put aris- 
 tocratic restrictions on democracy here as it would have 
 been at the same time to put democratic restrictions on 
 aristocracy in England. Now the economic circumstances 
 of our century which have modified the struggle for exist- 
 ence and the competition of life have been, first, the open- 
 ing of a vast extent of new land to the use and advantage 
 of the people who had no social power of any kind ; and, 
 second, the advance in the arts. Of the arts, those of 
 transportation have been the most important because 
 they have made the new land accessible ; but all the other 
 applications of the arts have been increasing man's power 
 in the struggle for existence, and they have been most in 
 favor of the classes which otherwise had nothing but their 
 hands with which to carry on that struggle. This has 
 lessened the advantage of owning land, and it has lessened 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 149 
 
 the comparative advantage of having capital over that of 
 having only labor. An education has not now as great 
 value to give its possessor a special advantage — a share, 
 that is, in a hmited monopoly — as it had a century ago. 
 This is true in a still greater degree of higher education, 
 until we come up to those cases where exceptional talent, 
 armed with the highest training, once more wins the ad- 
 vantages of a natural monopoly. 
 
 "Hence it is that the great economic changes I have 
 mentioned have produced the greatest social revolution 
 that has ever occurred. It has raised the masses to power, 
 has set slaves free, has given a charter- of social and po- 
 Utical power to the people who have nothing, and has 
 forced those-who-have to get power, it they want it, by 
 persuading and influencing those-who-have-not. All the 
 demagogues, philosophers, and principle-brokers are 
 trying to lead the triumphal procession and crying : 'We 
 got it for you.' 'We are your friends.' 'It is to us that 
 you owe it all.' On the other hand the same social revo- 
 lution has undermined all social institutions and prescrip- 
 tions of an aristocratic character, and they are rapidly 
 crumbling away, even in the Old World, imder the re- 
 action from the New." 
 
 Viewed from the standpoint of what is taken 
 to be "progress," it would seem sometimes 
 that advance in the maintenance-mores has in- 
 volved retrogression of the other mores. For 
 example, the introduction of the factory-system 
 seemed to throw the whole organization of so- 
 ciety into disorder and chaos and to bring the 
 
150 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 secondary societal forms, to superficial observa- 
 tion, into general decline. Similar cases appear 
 all through the last two centuries of rapid in- 
 crease of economic power. But this phenome- 
 non means no more than the falling out of 
 adjustment of the secondary societal forms with 
 the primary. An access of pain and want — the 
 unmistakable sign of maladaptation — promptly 
 ensued and forced the secondary forms into 
 better adjustment with the primary. The former 
 had to catch up, so to speak, with the latter. 
 
 Further evidence of a general nature, show- 
 ing the basic character of the organization 
 for societal self-maintenance, may be gathered 
 from widely accepted generalizations of the 
 science of society. Spencer ^ has covered this 
 point in one of its broadest aspects in his clas- 
 sical comparison between the militant and 
 industrial types of society. Militarism and 
 industrialism are names for the two major cate- 
 gories of human effort by which societies are 
 self-maintained. But the character of all the 
 institutions of a society is determined according 
 to which of these two prevails. This is a con- 
 tention to which Spencer often recurs, and with 
 a wealth of concrete illustration. 
 
 ' "Principles of Sociology," II, chaps. XVII, XVIII, et al. 
 
, RATIONAL SELECTION 151 
 
 In the history of civilization there occur a 
 number of correlations which bear witness to 
 the basic character of the maintenance-mores. 
 Thus an advance to an agricultural economy 
 seems prerequisite for the development of 
 private property in land and also of slavery ; 
 the emergence of the typical patriarchal family 
 goes with the pastoral stage ; polygamy accom- 
 panies the prosperity and wealth accruing from 
 an advance in the maintenance-organization. 
 The status of women, in general low among 
 hunting peoples, advances under a settled agri- 
 cultural economy. We might include this last 
 item in some such series as the following : the 
 local forms of social intercourse between the 
 sexes depend upon the local ideas of decency, 
 chastity, etc. ; these on the form of the marriage 
 relation; this upon the position of woman; 
 this upon her economic function ; this upon the 
 form of sex-division of labor in the industrial 
 organization; this upon the nature of the 
 struggle for existence; this upon conditions of 
 the environment and of sex as they exist in 
 nature. 
 
 Forms of diversion and of worship reflect 
 the major occupation of the people, as, e.g., 
 the buffalo dance or the snake dance of the 
 
152 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 Western Indians. The ritual of religion is full 
 of reminiscences of the mores of self-mainte- 
 nance of the present or past ; in fact the nature 
 of the ritual could not be what it is, did it not 
 rest upon them as a basis. Let them change 
 form, and the ritual will change after a time, 
 no matter how conservative it, as a ritual, may 
 be. The nature of governmental institutions, 
 as the quotation from Sumner has indicated, 
 is correlative with the local type of industrial 
 organization. Class distinctions and the code 
 built around them result from inequalities im- 
 posed under slavery or a competitive system 
 whose very essence is the inequality of material 
 reward. 
 
 International relations are based ultimately 
 upon conditions involving self-maintenance in- 
 terests. For example, a noted student of such 
 relations has stated ^ that it is normal for a 
 great war, such as the one now in progress in 
 Europe, to start suddenly. If there is time for 
 deliberation, the commercial and financial in- 
 terests have an opportunity to assert them- 
 selves and to endeavor to secure some form of 
 peaceful adaptation. They will assert them- 
 selves later on, in any case, and the final settle- 
 
 ' Professor A. C. Coolidge, in a lecture delivered Oct. 30, 1914. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 163 
 
 ment must include the satisfaction of the basic 
 interests of the dominant groups. 
 
 The number of these general sociological cor- 
 relations might be multiplied ; they show that 
 certain secondary societal forms simply could 
 not come into being until the maintenance- 
 mores had taken on such type as would admit 
 of them or evoke them. But now I want to 
 assemble some instances of a more concrete 
 order, run together without much attempt at 
 connection one with the other. Every inven- 
 tion that made self-maintenance easier drew 
 after it a long string of consequences all through 
 the societal structure; instance the early dis- 
 coveries of the use of fire and of the method of 
 conveying thought by marks ; or the later dis- 
 coveries, or at least introduction into the Eu- 
 ropean world, of gunpowder, and of the mar- 
 iner's compass; or the latest inventions, of 
 flying-machines and of wireless communication. 
 To develop the societal effects of any one of these 
 in detail would be a long task ; but consider the 
 needful changes in and additions to law, which 
 the use of air-craft must call forth, and the many 
 results which flow out of the fact that nobody 
 can any longer be cut off, even during an ocean 
 trip, from his business or other interests. The 
 
154 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 societal effects of the development of trade and 
 transportation can scarcely be measured, and 
 certainly could not have been predicted. It 
 seems even to have an enlivening effect upon 
 the disposition. Graf von Gotzen ^ says of a 
 certain African tribe: "As in the case of all 
 trading peoples the disposition of the Was- 
 sumbwa is bright and volatile, and the power of 
 comprehension very highly developed. In as- 
 sociation with this stands an evident capacity 
 for adaptation to foreign customs and usages." 
 And now a noted specialist on Homer ^ refers 
 the Trojan War to trade rivalries and contends 
 that the catalogue of the ships has a trade-route 
 basis. Mathematicians show how the schools 
 took over the Hindu-Arabic numerals from the 
 tradesmen.* And clear on the other side of the 
 world and in a quite different part of the social 
 field, we find the development of transporta- 
 tion, in Jackson's time, allowing in this country 
 a convention of commoner people (as against 
 the intellectuals of earlier times), and this con- 
 tributing strongly to the development of the 
 characteristic American party system. 
 
 '■ "Durch Afrika von Ost nach West," p. 82. 
 
 2 Leaf, "Troy, A Study in Homeric Geography." 
 
 ' Smith and Karpinski, "The Hindu- Arabic Numerals," p. 136. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 155 
 
 There are two institutions of society which 
 are closely conjoined and correlated all through 
 history, namely, marriage and property. The 
 position of woman, in matrimony or out of it, 
 varies with her economic importance, but 
 within the institution her status is generally 
 felt to depend upon no more than a transitory 
 feeling unless it is steadied or rendered stable 
 by a property guarantee. A real marriage 
 should be founded upon permanent, positive 
 interests. Hence the passage of property, in 
 the form of bride-price or dowry, which dis- 
 tinguishes the taking of a wife of status as con- 
 trasted with the unceremonious and unguar- 
 anteed appropriation of a mere consort. This 
 might be illustrated copiously, but a single 
 case may serve to carry the point. 
 
 In Sumatra, where the bride-price is custom- 
 ary, the importance of material interests is so 
 well recognized, that the goods paid are often 
 overvalued in order to bring the nominal price 
 up to the demands of the adat (mores). In- 
 ability to pay changes the type of the marriage ; 
 it is then by abduction. In these regions there 
 exist side by side the marriage with bride-price 
 {cum manu) and that without bride-price, called 
 qmbel anak {sine manu). In each case the 
 
156 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 whole congeries of duties, rights, inheritance- 
 customs, divorce-settlements, etc., vary accord- 
 ing to the manner in which property has passed 
 or has not passed. In South Sumatra the 
 Dutch government tried to do away with the 
 bride-price ; in 1862 it was formally put under 
 penalty. The result is that the word for such 
 a marriage (jujur) is no longer used; but the 
 custom has been rechristened and remains. 
 The prohibitions have, in some cases, however, 
 coincided with the natural change (coming with 
 a developed material civilization) toward the 
 "parental" form (parents on an equality in 
 rights, power to bequeath, etc.), and have thus 
 hastened it somewhat.^ This citation is typical 
 of the dependence of the mores or societal self- 
 perpetuation upon those of self-maintenance. 
 The more primitive marriage is studied the more 
 clearly does the investigator see that its several 
 forms are reflections of the local economic life.* 
 
 •Wilken, "Verspreide Geschriften," II, 223-224; 230-231; 
 270-271, et passim. 
 
 ' That the prevalence, in Australia, of the primitive form of 
 group-marriage varies with the terms in which the struggle for 
 existence is set, is clearly indicated by Howitt (in Journal of the 
 Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, XVIII, 
 33) : "The most backward-standing types of social organization, 
 having descent through the mother and an archaic communal 
 marriage, exist in the dry and desert country ; the more developed 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 157 
 
 It is plain enough that all the mores focus upon 
 the art of getting a living as the primordial 
 activity, and that all the rest of the code is 
 valid only in its harmonization with self-main- 
 tenance. Says Kowalewsky,^ speaking of cer- 
 tain types of settlement : " I think that every 
 attempt to explain the types of settlement not 
 by the need of defence and through economic 
 circumstances, but through psychic character- 
 istics of the nation, must finally be given up." 
 Let us take an illustration of this principle 
 out of the history of a people whose mores have 
 undergone recognizable and great change. The 
 speediest way in which this result has been 
 secured — whether for good or ill of the people 
 concerned is no question here — has been by a 
 grand alteration of the natural environment. 
 The settlers in this country, in pursuit of their 
 own interests, effected such a change in the 
 environment of the aborigines. They cut down 
 
 Eamilaroi type, having descent through the mother, but a general 
 absence of the pirauru marriage practice, is found in the better 
 watered tracts which are the source of all the great rivers of 
 East Australia ; while the most developed types, having individual 
 marriage, and in which, in almost all cases, descent is counted 
 through the father, are found along the coasts where there is the 
 most permanent supply of water and most food." 
 ' " Okonomische Entwickelung Europas," I, 72. 
 
158 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 the trees, killed or drove off the game, and other- 
 wise rendered the Indian mores in the field of 
 societal self-maintenance no longer adequate 
 to their ends. Progressively this process went 
 on, until the whole societal system of the Indians 
 broke down and they retrograded in their mores 
 all along the line. This topic needs no extended 
 analysis, for a little reflection upon well-known 
 facts will show its bearings upon the subject be- 
 fore us. 
 
 A corollary of the contact of Indian and 
 white man was the introduction of the horse. 
 This altered the whole mode of the organiza- 
 tion for self-maintenance among the Plains 
 Indians ; they became an inveterate hunting 
 people. And with this selection of industrial 
 mores went changes in those dealing with the 
 rest of the societal activities'. Much and ex- 
 tended wandering led to the development of 
 their peculiar sign language; the position of 
 woman declined as her economic utility de- 
 creased; in short, the societal type of the 
 nomad-hunter was evolved in its fulness. The 
 mores of societal self-maintenance were al- 
 tered; then followed the inevitable alterations 
 and harmonizations in the secondary societal 
 forms. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 159 
 
 "The Egyptians owed their power and civilization to 
 the fact that the Nile mud so enriched the valley every 
 season that one man's labor could produce subsistence 
 for many. When the population increased, the power of 
 social maintenance was not diminished but increased. 
 When there was a great population there, using the land 
 with very painstaking labor according to the stage of 
 the arts, an immense surplus was produced which raised 
 war, statecraft, fiue arts, science, and religion up to a very 
 high plane. Then they tried to satisfy the demand for 
 men by slaves, that is, persons who contributed to the 
 social power to their utmost, yet shared in it only under 
 the narrowest limitations. The system, after reaching 
 the full flower of prosperity of which it was capable, be- 
 came rigid, chiefly, as it appears, because the sanction of 
 religion was given to the traditional and stereotyped forms. 
 Also the power of social support which lay in the fertiUty 
 of the soil had been ejcploited to its utmost. The arts 
 by which more product might have been won advanced 
 only very slowly — scarcely at all. There was hardly 
 any emigration to new land. Hence a culmination was 
 reached, after which there must be decline and decay. 
 The achievements of the Egyptians were made in the 
 period when they were growing up to the measure of the 
 chances which they possessed." ^ 
 
 I do not intend, in this place, to multiply 
 concrete examples of the point before us. All 
 of them woidd be, in a real sense, examples of 
 
 ' Sumner, "The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," pp. 
 146-147. 
 
160 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 adaptation in the mores. Adaptation is the 
 characteristic outcome of evolution, and so 
 presupposes variation, selection, and transmis- 
 sion. If, therefore, adaptation can be shown, 
 the strong presumption forthwith emerges that 
 the other evolutionary factors are there. In- 
 stances of adaptation are bound to give evi- 
 dence for the activity of all the factors that 
 lead to it. Further examples might, therefore, 
 conveniently be left until we come to the topic 
 of adaptation. There is no object in citing 
 at this point a mass of illustration the occasion 
 for which will naturally recur. The survey of 
 the societal system of an ethnic group, or of a 
 colonial (frontier) society, which can be taken 
 up somewhat more systematically,^ will show 
 us that consistency in the mores means, at last 
 analysis, the consistency of all the rest of the 
 mores with those of the organization for societal 
 self-maintenance. The latter, as we shall see, 
 adapt themselves to the environment, which 
 sets the conditions of the struggle for exist- 
 ence; and then the former fall into line with 
 these latter. The code of the maintenance- 
 organization is the dominant chord vibrating 
 to the tone of the struggle with nature and 
 
 ' P. 261 below. 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 161 
 
 fellow-man; the rest of the mores are, as it 
 were, overtones of that chord. The latter 
 must die away and be succeeded by others as 
 the major chord is altered under changed con- 
 ditions of the environment. Or, to use another 
 figure, we may regard the maintenance-mores 
 as the soil out of which the other mores derive 
 their sustenance. Let the soil be changed in 
 character and constituents — let it become acid 
 instead of alkaline in reaction — and the crop 
 must change. Let there be a retrogression or 
 an Slan of progress in the arts of self -mainte- 
 nance, and the society will respond throughout 
 its organization. 
 
 We have seen, now, that rational selection 
 can take place most readily among the mores 
 of self-maintenance, where there is the most 
 concrete and decisive test ; and then that these 
 mores are determinative of the other mores. 
 Converging these two lines of thought, the case 
 for rational selection in the mores does not look 
 as hopeless as it did. For rational selection 
 is most effective precisely in that part of the 
 societal organization where its operation is 
 farthest-reaching. There are thinkers who are 
 disposed to deny "progress" in the social field 
 
162 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 as a whole ; but none of them is hardy enough 
 to assert that there has been no progress in the 
 arts of life — in the industrial organization — 
 along the lines of material civilization. If the 
 positions taken above are correct, the altera- 
 tions (selections) effected in the mores at the 
 basis of the primary or fundamental societal 
 forms will presently entail corresponding alter- 
 ations in those less easily and surely modified. 
 Thus scientific selection, applied at the point 
 when it can be applied most readily — where 
 its results are most easily verifiable — is bound 
 to become indirectly effective, in a sure and 
 natural manner, at points less accessible. This 
 view is surely more hopeful for scientific selec- 
 tion than one which would deny such selection 
 altogether because it fails so often when the 
 effort is made to apply it directly to secondary 
 societal forms — in fact, a candid scientist will 
 perforce admit that in its attempted applica- 
 tion to secondary societal forms there does not 
 exist enough certainty, or a sufficiency of in- 
 disputable principles, to render procedure scien- 
 tific at all. It is equally contrary to experience 
 and sense to make a universal denial or a uni- 
 versal affirmation about the direct applicability 
 of rational selection in societal evolution. Every 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 163 
 
 one knows that it is directly effective in some 
 cases, and altogether out of question in others. 
 The intent of the foregoing analysis has been 
 to find out where it is regularly effective and 
 where not ; and the conclusion is, that it is 
 universally effective, but directly so only within 
 a Hmited range. 
 
 Where rational selection is really effective, 
 then, it enters in a manner that is not obvious 
 but impersonal; like a force of nature, it is 
 there in an elemental sort of way. That is 
 why its action cannot be seen at the moment or 
 on the surface, but must be detected, if at all, 
 over extended periods and by a more than super- 
 ficial scrutiny. That is why, viewing societal 
 Hfe without much perspective or insight, men 
 think either that all is in hopeless disorder, or 
 that anything and everything can be directly 
 altered to suit their ephemeral or local "choice." 
 But there can be no disorder where there is law, 
 nor yet can there be a capricious or whimsical 
 choice, undetermined by life-conditions. 
 
 If this be "economic determinism," it is 
 possible to make the most of it. The objections 
 to that doctrine seem to inhere in its application 
 rather than in its own validity. Marx had a 
 therapeutic plan, based upon his doctrine, for 
 
164 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 changing the mores of self-maintenance, i.e., a 
 plan of societal selection, from which most of 
 us would, very likely, dissent; but that does 
 not affect the truth that may be in the doctrine. 
 It is possible to believe in something like Marx- 
 ian economic determinism, and then, when it 
 comes to a plan of action, try to help adapt 
 society to the conditions of life as learned ; it is 
 not necessary that we should plan to alter the 
 environment in toto, change human nature and 
 other somewhat permanent elements in it, 
 rather than accommodate ourselves, even 
 though it is not so easy or grandiose, to life- 
 conditions and laws. Belief in some of the 
 socialistic doctrines, together with entire dis- 
 trust in the plan for their application, does not 
 make one a socialist any more than disbelief 
 in the doctrine of extended state power and 
 control renders one an anarchist with leanings 
 towards bomb-throwing. 
 
 Acceptation of the contention set down above 
 gives a broadly scientific basis for the survey 
 of societal evolution and acts as a safeguard 
 against the trickery of the plausible. It is 
 because the mores of the maintenance-organiza- 
 tion have moved far away from their status in 
 earlier times that the other mores have so 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 165 
 
 altered ; and since selection in the basic mores 
 has taken place over and over again so that 
 certain forms once in evidence cannot well 
 return again,^ so are certain of the less basic 
 superseded for good and all, and no amount 
 of theorizing can bring them back without a 
 return of the basic forms to the old status. 
 But then, again, if the form of the struggle for 
 existence alters, approaching a form once 
 existent, all the mores take on the type corre- 
 sponding, and so history may partially "repeat 
 itself." All the way down the scale, each 
 special group of mores is conditioned as to 
 selection within it by the nature of the wider 
 generic group of which it is a part, until at the 
 bottom all the wider groups are determined as 
 to their form by the maintenance-mores — 
 which themselves reflect the nature of the 
 struggle for societal self-maintenance, the form 
 of this struggle being itself determined by 
 natural conditions. Thus societal evolution, 
 
 '^Tbe New York Nation (Feb. 19, 1914, p. 177) protests against the 
 assumption that great men of the past, in imaginary resurrection, 
 would not only be " in fullest sympathy with the best movements 
 of the present, but that they would have discarded all the errors 
 and defects which clung to them during their actual lives." This 
 assumption of identity as between the codes of different epochs 
 is, like an analogy, a flimsy, though often seductive means of 
 appeal to the unreflecting. 
 
166 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 whatever the inmixture of the rational, runs 
 back ever to natural evolution. Transitional 
 forms are at hand and the chain is unbroken. 
 
 Summing up this extended treatment of 
 selection as a factor in societal evolution — and 
 it is by far the hardest to render account of — 
 we find this factor exercised at first in a form 
 scarcely different from that displayed in the 
 non-human organic world. Gradually, how- 
 ever, man comes to feel that his fate is in his 
 own hands and to look at his own evolution as a 
 different sort of process from that found else- 
 where. Making little or no distinction, he 
 attempts to exercise selective power over all 
 ranges of the mores — chiefly those of others — 
 depending for his criterion upon persuasions as 
 to their "rightness" or "wrongness," which are 
 largely a reflection of the code to which he is 
 accustomed. ""^ With further enlightenment, how- 
 ever, some come to believe that rational pro- 
 cedure may be followed in selection ; and with 
 the advance of science it has become part of 
 the mores of the civilized to try to support 
 selective enterprises by appeal to reason. 
 Sometimes this appeal is no more than a con- 
 cession, conscious or unconscious, to modern 
 
RATIONAL SELECTION 167 
 
 mores, or a cloak to cover the prosecution of 
 what unreasoning desires and interests of the 
 old primitive order seem to demand. It is hard 
 to find something that people want to do or do 
 not want to have done for which so-called 
 reasons cannot be assembled and stated suffi- 
 ciently well for the purpose. But, taking 
 societal evolution as a whole, or in long stretches, 
 the chief way in which genuinely rational selec- 
 tion has been effected in the mores is through 
 its application to the organization for societal 
 self-maintenance. A necessary result, conse- 
 quent upon selection in this range of the mores, 
 has been a corresponding alteration in derived 
 or dependent ranges. The obvious practical 
 procedure, then, if one wishes to "improve" 
 society, is to render the means of societal self- 
 maintenance, by judicious rational selection, 
 better adequate to secure the ends in view. In 
 this field the means are as readily susceptible 
 of test as the ends are definite and concrete, 
 and so there is some hope of attaining solid and 
 lasting results. Then the improver might turn 
 attention to the effort to help the secondary 
 societal forms get into consistency or harmony 
 with the improved primary ones. This is 
 about as far as reason can yet go safely and 
 
168 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 securely in societal selection. This conclusion 
 cannot content the "world-beatifier," but it 
 may afford a definite, though perhaps minimal 
 hope to those whose ideals are less exalted, and 
 who respect reason enough to wish to go a fur- 
 long with her rather than a mile, or even twain, 
 in an emotional ecstasy. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 COHNTERSELECTION 
 
 While societal selection arises out of natural 
 selection, and while, in its early stages, amidst 
 unmitigated violence, it is no more than a 
 variation on the process of nature, we have seen 
 that it takes on, as it develops, its own charac- 
 teristic mode. It becomes specifically distin- 
 guishable from natural selection. It selects 
 upon a different set of criteria. This is be- 
 cause it operates as between groups rather than 
 as between individuals, and so'^avors social 
 superiorities rather than biological onesr^ For 
 example, in the conflicts between the Roman 
 legions and the Germans, the social qualities 
 of discipline, organization, etc., were plainly 
 favored for extension and propagation over 
 superior physical qualities. Thus does a varia- 
 tion on the process of nature rise up to supplant 
 its parent stock. It is quite understandable 
 that an observer with eye trained upon the 
 nature-process and the resulting survival of the 
 
 169 
 
170 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 biologically fit, should conclude that societal 
 selection is antagonistic to natural selection. 
 Then if natural selection is selection par ex- 
 cellence, any selection that results in the sur- 
 vival of the biologically less fit must be counter- 
 selection. ^ 
 
 By way of rendering the conception of coun- 
 terselection as objective as possible, I hasten to 
 consider a list of factors in the life of modern 
 society which are asserted to be counterselective. 
 I do not aim at exhaustiveness of illustration, 
 but rather at objectivity of conception about 
 what counterselection is thought to be; nor 
 do I try to balance the pros and cons over the 
 listing of any particular factor as counter- 
 selective. When I have made clear what coun- 
 terselection is conceived to cover, and how it 
 should be viewed from the standpoint of societal 
 evolution, I wish then to show how it is pro- 
 posed to do away with some of it through an 
 ambitious program of rational selection. This 
 will throw more light upon the difficult topic 
 of societal selection, which is the subject we 
 have had before us now for some time. 
 
 Darwin himself ^ cites several instances of 
 counterselection, without using the term, and 
 
 1 "Descent of Man," pp. 151 ff. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 171 
 
 several of the authors mentioned in the In- 
 troduction to this essay have something to say 
 along the same line. Schallmayer ^ employs 
 the term freely and undertakes to list the social 
 factors making for the survival of the unfit; 
 his collection is complete enough to illustrate 
 all the points before us.^ I shall try to para- 
 phrase what he says, with such comment as 
 seems to me likely to bring his point of view out 
 clearly. 
 
 War and military organization, first of all, 
 though selective upon a lower stage of culture, 
 are now prevailingly counterselective.""^ The 
 best are exposed to danger, while the inferior 
 do not see the enemy; and, even among 
 the best, the superior man physically — the 
 strongest, the fleetest — has little better chance 
 of survival than his inferiors. All are "food for 
 the bullets." And even if there is no actual 
 war, the man in the service is exposed to diseases 
 and temptations from which the man at home 
 is relatively protected. Again, though he may 
 have escaped all these ills, the former has lost 
 
 1 "Vererbung und Auslese im Lebenslauf der Vblker," pp. 
 lllff. 
 
 ' Most of the matter immediately following is quoted or para- 
 phrased from an article by the author, on "Eugenics," in the 
 Yale Review for August, 1908. 
 
172 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 several years of youth, necessary habits of 
 steady industry are perhaps unformed, his 
 chance of getting on in the world is lessened, 
 his marriage is delayed, his family diminished. 
 It might be added that he is not infrequently 
 demoralized for the rest of his life, and that his 
 children are likely thereby to suffer some dim- 
 inution of opportunity, or even some positive 
 and vital harm. Schallmayer has in mind 
 chiefly German conditions ; America, with its 
 erstwhile diminutive standing-army and small 
 navy, has seemed to many to be profiting largely 
 in consequence of her beneficent isolation. But 
 anyone who has gained a remote conception of 
 the incurable injury to the quality of population 
 in the United States, inflicted as a consequence 
 of the Civil War — not to mention the eco- 
 nomic and political burdens which we have since 
 borne — needs not to have it proved from 
 others' experience that war has a strongly 
 counterselective aspect.^ 
 
 1 Naturally there is another side to this question, one strongly 
 supported especially under a regime of militarism. For the 
 present purpose it is not necessary to balance the evidence, as 
 no one would be disposed to deny most of the points above. 
 See Schallmayer, 156 ff. Attention might be called again, 
 however, to the trenchant paragraphs of Spencer ("Principles of 
 Sociology," I, § 266) respecting the metamorphosis of societal 
 ideals and institutions effected by a trend toward militarism. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 173 
 
 Again, the modern industrial organization 
 does not call for the biologically fitter, thereby 
 enhancing their chances in life, and so their 
 opportunity to hand down their qualities to a 
 numerous progeny. If a man is to be a machine, 
 certain relatively low human activities become 
 the object of selection. The biological ills of 
 the industrial system have been strongly stated 
 by many socialistic writers. At the other end 
 of the scale of prosperity, further, the institu- 
 tion of property 6perates to replace "natural 
 mating" with the less impulsive type. It 
 also ushers into domestic life not a few of the 
 biologically unfit who are well provided with 
 this world's goods. The way in which property 
 is inherited operates not infrequently to limit 
 procreation on the part of eligible parents, and 
 to throw all the opportunities of early marriage, 
 possession of a large family, and the like, in the 
 way of the less fit. This was one of the counter- 
 selective factors to which Darwin gave atten- 
 tion, in what he said of primogeniture and 
 entailed estates. But some critics of the 
 French system believe that there are equally 
 bad resiilts accruing from laws of inheritance 
 which involve the splitting up of estates. 
 
 Schallmayer lists also celibacy, late mar- 
 
174 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 riage, and the restriction of the size of families. 
 I shall consider the last two of these rather 
 fully as I go on. Celibacy, it is thought, is 
 more likely to appear where marriage is delayed 
 beyond the more impressionable years. And 
 where it has been a policy it has often removed 
 the pick of the young men and women from the 
 ^anks of the potential parents.^ 
 
 L)ne of the most unexpected of the counter- 
 selective factors is the development of thera- 
 peutics, hygiene, and the technique of nutri- 
 tion. At first sight this seems to constitute 
 the chief boon wrung by man from hostile na- 
 ture. But, in a sense, it is a gift (to change the 
 metaphor), in the giving of which nature might 
 be pardoned for having been reluctant. Briefly, 
 all these agencies, though of prevailing excel- 
 lence, yet are counterselective in this : that 
 they rear up to the age of maturity and of pro- 
 creation many who formerly fell early beneath 
 the sweep of natural selection. Precisely be- 
 
 ' A number of authors, including Galton, digress while speak- 
 ing of celibacy, generally with Spanish conditions in mind, to 
 the activity of such an institution as the Holy Inquisition, which 
 resolutely repressed, where it did not eliminate, any persons who 
 had mentality or originality enough to become heretic. These 
 left few descendants, at least in the land of oppression ; and the 
 result, for the society, was the loss of its best elements. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 175 
 
 cause these agencies constitute, from several 
 points of view, the most evident and important 
 benefits of civilization, do they become un- 
 wholesome checks upon the action of the piti- 
 less adapting agency of nature. Through the 
 development of civilization, as has been seen, 
 man withdraws himself from beneath the un- 
 tempered sway of natural forces ; here, it ap- 
 pears, he has probably emancipated himself 
 almost too fuUy. Selection as a preliminary 
 to mating, i.e., the death before maturity of 
 the weakly, has often been displaced and de- 
 layed until mating has been accomplished, after 
 which time it is powerless to secure to the "fit- 
 test " of the next generation their old birthright 
 of unburdened and unhindered development. 
 And the old-time survival-with-little-aid as a 
 guarantee of proper mating has as yet been 
 replaced by no strong and controlling body of 
 conventions or folkways. 
 
 Not to devote a disproportionate amount of 
 space to inverse selection, but one other factor 
 is singled out for mention : what Schallmayer 
 calls the "individualistic tendency of human- 
 itarianism." I take this to mean the tendency 
 to regard a case of relief, let us say, as a relation 
 merely of individuals, in which the society is 
 
176 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 conceded no interest. Humanitarianism in 
 general is, of course, counterselective, for it 
 always eases the struggle for existence and so 
 operates — and that is perhaps its chief aim — 
 against the elimination of those who are losing 
 in the conflictt^'Llarried to senseless excess, as 
 in Spain of the late Middle Ages, it foists upon 
 the really wholesome and vital body of society 
 a deadly parasitic growth; beggar-migrations 
 at one time literally invaded Spain, where un- 
 discriminating charity was one of the surest 
 titles to heavenly bliss. Nobody denies the 
 social value of willingness to aid the fellow-man 
 with discrimination; what is lost biologically 
 is doubtless made up for socially. No one 
 denies the social virtue, to say nothing of the 
 personal obligation to humanity, of succoring 
 a fellow-man in distress, whatever form the 
 affliction may take. But that complaisance 
 should extend to the assurance of the "right" 
 to procreate, is another matter. "The in- 
 dividualistic tendency" of Schallmayer is one 
 that is blind to all those larger group-interests 
 which at times dictate refusal of aid where the 
 personal inclination would be to aflPord it. No 
 one is fit to give charity whose sentiment over- 
 weighs his intelligence, and whose perspective 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 177 
 
 is bounded by the individual relation of giver 
 and recipient. 
 
 We have the conception of conterselection 
 now before us and may attack the situation, 
 at first upon the broadest lines. 
 
 In truth, since the whole trend of civilization 
 is to interpose barriers to the action of natural 
 selection,^ societal selection is logically certain to 
 preserve those who would perish under nature. 
 It must always be realized that societal selection 
 operates on a diflFerent plane, demanding dif- 
 ferent standards of fitness. The only sense 
 that there is in adjudging its results by a com- 
 parison with those of natural selection lies in the 
 fact that the latter is the ultimate and final 
 test. But there is a good deal of sense in doing 
 this. In view of our knowledge that man is, 
 at last analysis, an animal in a natural en- 
 vironment, there can be no doubt at all about 
 his ultimate subjection to the laws that control 
 organic nature. His new mode of selection is 
 performable, as it were, only upon a scaffolding 
 created by his civilization — only in an arti- 
 ficialized environment. If the scaffolding is 
 shaken down, the environment dis-artificialized, 
 by some catastrophe, he is again an animal 
 
 1 P. 67 above. 
 
178 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 *\ 
 
 among other animals. He cannot put more and 
 more dependence upon the scaffolding unless 
 he is constantly strengthening its supports/ 
 He can never bid utter defiance to natural law, 
 ignore biological qualities altogether, cut loose 
 once and for all from the earth. It would be 
 dangerous indeed if societal selection were going 
 to become unreservedly counterselective. 
 
 It is unthinkable that anything on that order 
 will take place. In general, a strong belief 
 in the evolutionary process fortifies one — 
 from an a priori standpoint, of course — against 
 the prediction that we are headed for ruin 
 because we are, as some assert, breeding from 
 the unfittest. If we had been going to ruin, 
 we have already had enough good chances 
 to do so. We have undoubtedly made errors 
 and paid heavily for them ; these payments 
 in pain and loss have been due, as I see it, to 
 the operation of selection, sometimes natural, 
 again societal, in disposing of erratic variations 
 that were leading to maladaptation. If we 
 carry on our operations upon the scaffolding too 
 violently or too near the edge, we shall un- 
 doubtedly get a fall and it will hurt ; but the 
 whole structure will not collapse thereby. What 
 we need for safety is to know the strength 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 179 
 
 of the underpinning and its carrying-power. 
 That is the limit within which our societal selec- 
 tion can go its own course, whether or not it is 
 counterselective. For safety it is necessary 
 to restrain the antics of those whose balance and 
 sense of caution are only rudimentarily de- 
 veloped. In any case we have to live on our 
 scaffolding; even if all societal selection were 
 counterselective, we cannot go back now to sur- 
 vival on the basis of biological fitness. But we 
 do well to have an eye on the nature-processes ; 
 and those who cry out against counterselection 
 and emphasize the need of biological fitness are 
 performing for us the great service of insisting 
 upon the presence of limits beyond which it is 
 unsafe to allow variations in the mores to go. 
 For well-being we want to avoid the ills that 
 attend grand-scale selection, if we can. The 
 collapse of any section of the scaffolding of 
 civilization shakes the whole structure, even 
 if it does not cast it down ; and those who have 
 not been hurled into the pit of brute violence 
 must yet suffer and sacrifice with those who 
 have. The life and prospects of all civilized 
 men are darkened by the war we now witness, 
 the work of civilization is set back, and much 
 of it will have to be done over again. The 
 
180 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 danger attending the growth of inapt variations 
 should not be minimized or ignored — the less 
 so as, in societal evolution, such variations may 
 develop with a great train of consequences be- 
 fore they are gotten to the bar of selection.^ 
 If counterselection is no more than tardiness 
 to act, on the part of societal selection, even so it 
 is well to have the dangers of such delay set 
 forth ^ ; for if not anticipated, selection must at 
 length be exercised by the brutal, primordial 
 methods of general violence and destruction. 
 
 ^ Cf. p. 49 above. 
 
 ' The following extract from the New York Times, of May 10, 
 1914, needs no comment. 
 
 "The recent agitation in the French press against the alarming 
 spread of leprosy in Southern France reached the culminating 
 point this week, when Clement Vautel wrote a humorous article 
 in Le Matin, prophesying that leprosy would take the place of 
 appendicitis as a popular malady and concluding that the hypo- 
 chondriacs had found a new source of alarm and doctors a new 
 source of profit. That the leprosy scare is being suflSciently 
 advertised to become a joke paradoxically indicates its impor- 
 tance, while the report of the latest meeting of the Academy of 
 Medicine did not tend in the direction of reassurance. After a 
 warm debate the Academy voted resolutions to this effect : 
 
 " First : That leprosy be made a notifiable disease. 
 
 " Second : That lepers submit to special treatment, and even 
 isolation, according to the gravity of the case. 
 
 " Third : That foreign lepers be forbidden to enter French 
 territory. 
 
 " Fourth : That measures be taken to warn the public to prevent 
 the spread of leprosy and treat existing cases more effectively. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 181 
 
 Those who warn of counterselection are in- 
 citers to rational selection, which, despite the 
 difficulties attending it, we must, as civilized 
 men, try to get the knowledge and skill and 
 fortitude to carry out. 
 
 I have come to the conclusion, then, that 
 part of what is called counterselection is straight 
 societal selection ; the differences between its 
 results and those of natural selection have 
 caught the attention, and the derived mode of 
 societal selection has not been recognized. Cases 
 of this order might well prove maleficent if they 
 occurred in nature, but they do not; they are 
 harmless enough occurring in an artificialized 
 environment. For example, a near-sighted man 
 would be one of the unfit under nature; but 
 the peculiar form of human adaptation, through 
 a materialized idea (glasses), renders him fit 
 
 " The following extract from an article in Le Journal indicates 
 the state of public feeling. 'During the ignorant Middle Ages 
 lepers were condemned to eternal solitude, to wear a hooded cloak 
 and ring a warning bell. They were forbidden to drink and wash 
 in public water, to enter a church or tavern, or even to speak to their 
 fellow-men, and finally had to undergo the frightful ceremony of 
 hearing their own death mass, receiving a handful of earth on the 
 head, meaning that henceforth they were dead and buried. 
 
 "'Thus leprosy decreased, but the modern humane methods 
 allow lepers to mix, trade, and even to marry. Thus leprosy 
 
182 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 enough to discharge the most useful functions 
 in a modern civilized society. The other part 
 of what is called counterselection I take to be 
 extreme and erratic variations in the mores 
 which have not yet been subjected to selection 
 at all. These are ominous as tending to expose 
 to a heavy strain the supports (capital, labor) 
 of civilization. I do not say that either set of 
 cases is not counterselective under the condi- 
 tions of a virgin natural environment — under 
 such conditions even the wearing of clothes and 
 living in houses are counterselective. What 
 I want to show is that instances of so-called 
 counterselection are normal phenomena of 
 societal evolution. 
 
 No one would doubt, I suppose, that the as- 
 surance of a right to life, given by civilized 
 societies to all who conform to what are regarded 
 as the essential mores, is a genuine product of 
 societal evolution. It has been pointed out ^ 
 that the rigor of selection decreases as civiliza- 
 tion increases ; that the issue of life and death 
 has been largely removed with the assumption 
 by society of the duty of seeing that none of its 
 members die of starvation or exposure, and with 
 the limitation, within the in-group, of physical 
 
 1 Pp. 67 ff. above. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 183 
 
 conflict between individuals and sub-groups. 
 It is taken to be the duty of a society to keep all 
 its members from dying. This is why societal 
 selection, except in its rudest forms, cannot hope 
 for the clean-cut results reached by a selection 
 issuing in survival or non-survival. But the 
 very fact that all members of a society are to be 
 regarded as equally entitled to protection by 
 it constitutes a real departure from nature's 
 norms, for there is no distinction made between 
 biologically fit and unfit. Perhaps we cannot 
 have genuine counterselection unless the fit 
 are put under disadvantages in favor of the 
 unfit ; but a selection which leaves fit and unfit 
 upon an approximate equality in the competi- 
 tion of life is far enough from natural selection 
 to deserve the counter designation. I shall not 
 seek to emphasize the distinction between these 
 two forms, as it would seem to serve no useful 
 purpose in the present instance. But it is clear 
 that such counterselection is normal in societal 
 evolution. 
 
 So much concerning the right to live; now 
 as to the opportunity to propagate. The fit 
 in nature are recognized by the fact that they 
 are numerous. Fewer die and more are born. 
 In society the death-rate is modified as I have 
 
184 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 described. No doubt the success in reducing 
 the death-rate — in increasing the average 
 length of Hf e — has redounded somewhat more 
 to the advantage of certain parts of the popu- 
 lation than of others ; but certainly there is 
 a strong tendency toward the dissemination of 
 achievements along this line. In a general way 
 the various groups in a society do not spread so 
 very widely in this respect. But there yet 
 remains the birth-rate. In general it declines 
 with the advance of standards of living, so that 
 we even hear of race-suicide. But there is a 
 spread between the groups in this case; we 
 find that the count of offspring per pair varies 
 widely among the different groups in a modem 
 society, being correlated as it is so closely with 
 the standard of living. Certain classes are 
 said to be barely or scarcely reproducing them- 
 selves ; while over against them stand what one 
 author has called the "swarming, spawning 
 millions." 
 
 Leaving out of account, for the moment, the 
 deliberate restriction of offspring, we have 
 Galton's calculation ^ to demonstrate to us that 
 anything which delays marriage acts strongly 
 to reduce the number of those who put it off, 
 
 » "Hereditary Genius" (1870 ed.). pp. 353-356. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 185 
 
 relatively to that of those who do not. If 
 M and N are each 22 years of age, and M and 
 all his descendants marry at once, while N and 
 his descendants marry at 33, the proportion of 
 mature M's to N's will be, in 300 years, as 26 is 
 to 1. Elsewhere ^ Galton states that the fer- 
 tility of mothers married at the ages of 17, 22, 
 27, and 32 is as 6, 5, 4, and 3. He concludes 
 that a "heavy doom" hangs over the group 
 that practices late marriage. But it is a fact 
 of common knowledge that there is a great dis- 
 parity as to the age of marriage between vari- 
 ous sub-groups in a modem society. Hence the 
 lowering of the birth-rate has not affected soci- 
 ety evenly throughout its constituent groups; 
 it has declined much for some and not much, 
 if at all, for others. That means that some 
 groups are increasing faster than others and 
 will presently constitute a preponderant frac- 
 tion of the whole. If such increasing constitu- 
 ents are the unfit, evidently we have a clear 
 case for the counterselectionist. 
 
 Perhaps the alarmist would have some trouble 
 proving that the less fecund classes are the 
 biologically fitter, but we can let him, in this 
 case, carry his assertion to the plane of societal 
 
 1 "Human Faculty," pp. 321, 323. 
 
186 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 evolution. He can say that those classes which 
 the society itself recognizes as of superior value 
 to it — the highly trained and eflficient — pro- 
 duce more slowly than those who have little 
 more than their bodily strength to put into the 
 social stock of power. 
 
 Now this is doubtless true, and it is signifi- 
 cant. It means a slower development of the 
 highly equipped. It is very likely an unfavor- 
 able variation. In any case those who exhibit 
 it do disappear by what has been called "race- 
 suicide," after a while. But their places are 
 filled and the process goes on. It is, in fact, 
 entirely normal in societal evolution. It will be 
 recalled that in the Law of Population, as 
 applying to man, there is the element of the 
 standard of living, with which varies inversely 
 the growth of numbers.^ The rise in this stand- 
 ard means limitation of numbers. But its 
 presence in a high power is characteristic of 
 those who know and who foresee; and these 
 are the trained and efficient. With a high or 
 a higher standard of living in view they marry 
 later and, possessing the continence or the 
 knowledge of means of restriction, have smaller 
 families. It is a case of the sensitive part of 
 
 1 P. 24 above. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 187 
 
 a society performing an adaptation, in part for 
 itself, but, more widely viewed, also for the 
 society as a whole; for here we see a society 
 adapting itself to its available means of sub- 
 sistence on a given stage of the arts. 
 
 These are two of the widest aspects of coun- 
 terselection, since they have to do with the 
 fundamental functions of living and of pro- 
 creating. Doubtless all of the factors listed at 
 the beginning of the chapter have contributed to 
 the survival of biologically unfit individuals or 
 even sub-groups; but from the standpoint of 
 the general evolution of societies they seem to 
 me normal, either representing forms of adap- 
 tation, on the part of the society in whose mores 
 they are, to the environment in which they 
 exist; or constituting, it may be, extreme and 
 erratic variations. Celibacy, certainly ecclesias- 
 tical celibacy, belongs to the latter category, 
 and in its pronounced form was presently se- 
 lected away. In fact it was never enforcible, 
 running as it did athwart the path of one of 
 the strongest natural impulses ; some of the 
 facts are collected by Mr. Henry C. Lea, in his 
 "Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in 
 the Christian Church." And yet even caste- 
 celibacy is a natural enough offshoot of the 
 
188 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 differentiation of function in society — one of 
 the first essentials in societal adaptation. 
 
 Recurring now to the rest of the counterselec- 
 tive factors listed by Schallmayer, we come first 
 to war and the military organization^ But we 
 see that, even though it discriminates against 
 the biologically fit, the warfare of civilized 
 peoples must be as it is : the evolution of war 
 has led from individual conflict to the collision 
 of larger and larger groups. It is now no longer 
 man to man, but army to army ; it is not even 
 ship to ship, but fleet to fleet. It requires 
 special training of great numbers ; and it can- 
 not be said that those ineligible as actual com- 
 batants do not help by their losses to pay its 
 price. Out of this situation, which is itself 
 normal enough in societal evolution, arise ills 
 which rational selection is engaged in lessening 
 as it can. Movements toward peace and peace- 
 ful settlement of collisions of interest are not 
 without their significance. 
 
 In the industrial organization the sani^ shift 
 from the individual to the group,~^haracter- 
 istic of societal evolution, is patent. The unit- 
 man does not count unless he allies himself 
 with other units having common interests, as 
 in trade-unions, and then, through industrial 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 189 
 
 war, struggles for their realization. Discom- 
 fort and pain call for such struggle toward 
 adaptation, and it is taking place. Again, 
 whatever may be said of "natural mating," 
 marriage and property have always been closely 
 linked together and the union has rendered the 
 family more stable, which was necessary in the 
 interest of the society. Primogeniture is often 
 favorable to a weak first son, it may be; but 
 it developed along with the societal evolution of 
 property, and seems to have no more ill effect 
 than the system of sharing property among all 
 the children. Societal evolution, I repeat, is the 
 evolution of society and its institutions, not of 
 a series of individuals. 
 
 As respects the counterselective aspect of 
 medicine and hygiene, in that they preserve 
 the physically weak until they can marry and 
 pass on their unfitnesses, it is perhaps super- 
 fluous to recall yet again the difference in mode 
 and plane of the societal type of evolution.^ 
 
 • The following report of an address by Professor Sedgwick 
 (Brooklyn Eagle, quoted in New Haven Journal-Courier for Dec. 
 22, 1913) illustrates several of the points before us, but particu- 
 larly the efiSciency of automatic selection operating through the 
 self-interest of individuals and groups. 
 
 "There is a pretty deep significance in the idea presented by 
 Prof. W. T. Sedgwick before the life insurance presidents, that 
 it is much more important for society to save the man of 40, 
 
190 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 ''The sickly mature have often contributed to 
 the strengthening and adjustment of the in- 
 stitutions of society, though by procreation they 
 may have subtracted something from its bio- 
 logical soundness. The question always is the 
 same : What will the scaffolding stand ? Is 
 the advantage worth the danger incurred? 
 
 This danger should never be minimized, but 
 it is often not so great as it seems at first sight. 
 Attention is called to the fact, as an instance of 
 
 the trained wealth-producer, than to save babies. The professor 
 does not, of course, oppose or deprecate efforts to reduce infant 
 mortality, but he favors and exalts such community experimen- 
 tation as will prolong the period of efiSciency in human life, after 
 efficiency has been proven. 
 
 "If babies are kept from dying, it is manifest enough to the 
 economist that a fairly large proportion of those saved are con- 
 genitally inefficient; that the interference with the law of the 
 survival of the fittest, justified as it is by all humanitarians, has 
 disadvantages as well as advantages. It may and often does 
 burden the future with incompetents to be supported or partly 
 supported by the community or by individuals. 
 
 "As Professor Sedgwick says, the man of 40, skilled at his 
 trade, a steady wage-earner, has passed the test of 'survival of 
 the fittest.' He is one of the fit who have survived. What 
 can the community do to prolong his productive energy ? 
 
 "Clearly secure tenure of a job, adequate wages, fair hours 
 and encouragement to use leisure intelligently must be considered. 
 The need of quick and scientific attention to any sickness is like- 
 wise apparent. Ventilation in working rooms and in homes is 
 impoHant. Other details will suggest themselves to keen minds. 
 The self-interest of the life insurance companies, enlisted to save 
 the man of 40, may be of immense advantage to the human race." 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 191 
 
 counterselection, due to advance in medical 
 science, that women need more and more care 
 at the time of chUd-birth ; that even domestic 
 animals are coming to require it. Very well : 
 they can get it, in our artificialized environ- 
 ment, just as the near-sighted person can get 
 glasses. Similarly with other such needs. Civ- 
 ilization, to be sure, has led to the crowding of 
 people together, and this has been attended by 
 the development of large-scale maladies ; but 
 the general course of societal evolution has led 
 to cities and slums, and it could not have been 
 otherwise. Thus even the disease is normal — 
 and, it may be added, so is the crime. We 
 adapt ourselves to these conditions in various 
 ways impossible under nature. There is con- 
 stant call for more knowledge, especially knowl- 
 edge that will contribute to societal welfare, 
 and for rational selection operating in its light. 
 The case is similar with humanitarianism. It 
 is plainly counterselective, viewed from the 
 standpoint of the zoologist, even in its least 
 pretentious manifestations, as in the protection 
 of life alluded to above. But,\)n the plane of 
 societal evolution, it is the society's interests, 
 always, that are paramount; and those in- 
 terests are conserved, first, by the development 
 
192 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 of antagonistic cobperation and, later on, by 
 closer forms of integration. -Extremes of short- 
 sighted humanitarianism are variations not 
 yet pruned away by selection. 
 
 Hence, as it seems to me, there is not much 
 truth in what some people appear to believe, 
 viz., that what they call counterselection is 
 something abnormal; that conditions allowing 
 of it ought not to have been permitted to de- 
 velop. Their development was inevitable on 
 the plane of societal evolution. But I do not 
 wish at all to deride the criticisms of our social 
 order, implied or expressed. I have said that 
 before. We are all organic beings, and as such, 
 subject ultimately to selection. Every one of 
 the counterselective factors we have considered, 
 and others too, are, in their extreme variations, 
 menacing to our well-being and to that of 
 society. Their presence calls for tirelessness 
 in the acquisition of knowledge and unabated 
 vigilance in the exercise of rational selection 
 based upon it. And we have not been utterly 
 slothful and torpid in doing this. Take one 
 illustration : the case of humanitarianism. We 
 would never duplicate Spain's performances 
 in the matter of the beggars' crusades. Charity 
 organizations, manned by a personnel which 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 193 
 
 includes cool heads as well as warm hearts, are 
 becoming agencies of intimidation to the sturdy 
 rogue ; for him they are turning into houses of 
 correction. Here is hope which we must not 
 forget when we encounter the mores of senti- 
 mentalism of which I have spoken elsewhere.^ 
 
 In this chapter, which is one of digression 
 and illustration rather than in the direct line 
 of argument, the topic of eugenics can scarcely 
 be passed over. Counterselection consists in 
 good part in the elimination of the biologically 
 fit from their proportionate share in the pro- 
 creation of the next generations ; but eugenics 
 is concerned with having future generations of 
 the highest possible quality. Hence it is bound 
 to run foul of counterselection. And the fact 
 that it is a special and aspiring program of 
 rational selection renders its examination, now 
 that we have surveyed the general case, the 
 more useful and appropriate. An amount of 
 indiscriminate effort at "social uplift" now 
 goes under the name of eugenics. Imbecile 
 pretentiousness and yearning sentimentality 
 have seized upon the term and are rapidly and 
 glibly laying it waste. In what I have to say 
 
 1 Pp. 6&-70 above. 
 
194 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 here of eugenics, I always refer to it as under- 
 stood and expounded by its founder, Francis 
 Galton. 
 
 Galton wanted to secure, in time, the rational 
 breeding of human beings, that is, rational 
 human mating within the marriage institution. 
 Eugenics has to do with "all influences that 
 improve the inborn qualities of a race; also 
 with those that develop them to the utmost 
 advantage." ^ As in the essay quoted, atten- 
 tion is here confined to "the improvement of 
 the inborn qualities, or stock, of some one 
 human population." "The aim of Eugenics," 
 says Galton,^ "is to bring as many influences as 
 can be reasonably employed, to cause the use- 
 ful classes in the community to contribute more 
 than their proportion to the next generation." 
 This is to be done through investigation fol- 
 lowed by popularization of results; by these 
 means Galton hoped at length — after genera- 
 tions — to introduce eugenics "into the na- 
 tional conscience like a new religion." "I 
 see no impossibility," he says,' "in Eugenics 
 becoming a religious dogma among mankind, 
 but its details must first be worked out sedu- 
 
 ' Galton, "Essays in Eugenics," p. 35. 
 « Ibid., p. 38. » Ibid., p. 43. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 195 
 
 lously in the study. Over-zeal leading to 
 hasty action would do harm, by holding out ex- 
 pectations of a new golden age, which will 
 certainly be falsified and cause the science to 
 be discredited. The first and main point is to 
 secure the general intellectual acceptance of 
 Eugenics as a hopeful and most important study. 
 Then let its principles work into the heart of the 
 nation, who will gradually give practical effect to 
 them in ways that we may not wholly foresee." 
 
 Here is a plan of rational selection which 
 possesses the unique character of an attempt to 
 secure better societal adaptation through ra- 
 tional action on heredity.^ It stands out for 
 this reason among the many tentatives which 
 aim at alteration of the environment. I do 
 not intend to describe it here in detail ; the 
 works of Galton " and others have set it before 
 the world. I only wish to view eugenics from 
 the standpoint of what we have learned about 
 the nature and Umits of such rational selection. 
 
 I have spoken of the program of eugenics 
 as ambitious. In a former connection * we 
 
 ' Pointed out in conversation by Professor J. E. Cutler. 
 
 * "Essays in Eugenics." A summary occurs in several of the 
 contributions to : "Eugenics ; Twelve University Lectures" ; col- 
 lected by Lucy James Wilson. 
 
 • Pp. 91-92 above. 
 
196 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 have seen that the mores are resistive of change 
 in proportion as they are of long standing and 
 are inveterate. But the plan here is to alter, 
 not the ephemeral folkways of fashion, nor yet 
 a method of industry; not a type of amuse- 
 ment, nor yet a local political form ; it aims at 
 a revolutionary change in the mores which 
 surround one of the most vital functions of 
 individual or society — that of self-perpetua- 
 tion. It is hoped that sedulous labor in the 
 study will here work out the details of what 
 may then become a religious dogma. Cer- 
 tainly this enterprise is ambitious — so am- 
 bitious that an authority like Dr. Maudsley 
 pronounces,^ after listening to the proposals: 
 "I am not sure but that Nature, in its own 
 blind, impulsive way, does not manage things 
 better than we can by any light of reason or by 
 any rules which we can at present lay down." 
 Distrust of the human agency, that is, of any 
 form of selection except the automatic, assails 
 one who has any conception of the diflBculties 
 involved in this project. For into this whole 
 matter comes the eternal question of compen- 
 sation and counterbalance, before whose un- 
 expected eventualities the human mind stands 
 
 > "Sociological Papers," 1904, p. 64. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 197 
 
 abashed, and is fain to resign the issue — as 
 yet — to chance, or Nature, or God. 
 
 The only general answer to such a counsel of 
 discouragement is that, for good or ill, man has 
 been interfering with his own destiny now for 
 some ages. It has become a sort of "natural 
 law" that he shall. Looked at in the broadest 
 way, all human civilization, as we have seen, 
 has been the gradual accumulation of maxims 
 and methods calculated to withdraw men from 
 beneath the undisputed sway of nature-forces. 
 From the invention of the hollowed log to the 
 construction of an ocean greyhound, from prim- 
 itive barter to modem exchange-operations, 
 man has been putting his forces to better use or 
 economizing them, in his endeavor to live, and 
 then to live on a better scale. One may harbor 
 reasonable doubts as to whether we are any 
 happier for being civilized; he may feel that 
 for every increase in the numerator of the frac- 
 tion there has taken place an equal or greater 
 accession to the denominator; a scrutiny of 
 the counterselective factors, several of which 
 are the direct outcome of "conquests over 
 nature," upon which the race has plumed 
 itself, may suggest to one that we have been 
 all the time tugging at our own boot-straps; 
 
198 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 but notwithstanding all this, it is evident that 
 it is man's earthly destiny, under some power- 
 ful natural constraint, to persist in setting up 
 his reason against "natural law." He will 
 continue to do so. Hence the objections based 
 upon misgivings and fear, however strong theo- 
 retically, fall out of practical reckoning; that 
 a thing looks doubtful or impossible has never 
 seriously deterred man from attempting it if he 
 has wanted to — and sometimes his assault has 
 not been a failure. 
 
 This may be called a pious hope rather than 
 an encouraging observation. To particularize 
 a little more, it may be recalled that while 
 certain ranges of the mores, where verification 
 and demonstration are most readily secured, 
 are more amenable to rational selection than 
 others, the former do not include the mores of 
 societal self-perpetuation. Sex-passion is a 
 force that does not easily submit to be bridled 
 except under the compulsion of restraints 
 evolved long ago. Galton tacitly admits this 
 point when he goes back for his cases of control 
 of sex-passion to primitive peoples and the 
 childhood of societal organization. He cites 
 as "restrictions on marriage" : monogamy, en- 
 dogamy, exogamy, the Australian marriages, 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 199 
 
 taboo, prohibited degrees, and celibacy. The 
 implication is that sex-passion has been re- 
 strained and so can be again; and the agency 
 is to be rational selection, as proposed in the 
 eugenics program. But let any one explain 
 and demonstrate how the above restrictions, or 
 any one of them, arose out of rational selection. 
 The origin of all such forms is lost in the past ; 
 but they must one and all have arisen before 
 man was capable of conscious rational selection.^ 
 They go back to the ruder forms of selection 
 practiced in the elder ages ; it was those ruder 
 forms, more nearly like those of nature, that 
 alone had the power to make broad and sweep- 
 ing selections such as are represented in Galton's 
 list — and it is to such a list, I repeat, that he 
 must have recourse to find a selection analogous 
 in sweeping quality to that proposed in the 
 program of eugenics. 
 
 Hence I caimot see the force of these support- 
 ing instances on an issue presentable to civil- 
 ized peoples only, and which must involve ra- 
 tional selection. Still less can I share Galton's 
 hope that eugenics can be introduced "into the 
 national conscience like a new religion." It is 
 after such selection only as has produced the 
 
 » Cf. p. 64 above, 
 
200 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 taboo, uncriticizable and imperative, that the 
 mores can get the sanction of religion — and by 
 religion I mean "old" religion, not "new," 
 that is, an unreasoning fear of the unknown and 
 supernatural, not a respect for the known and 
 demonstrated. I mean fear of ghosts and 
 goblins, not the gentle fright that is aroused by 
 a logical or experimental demonstration. If 
 one considers the origin and nature of religious 
 dogmas, he will hesitate to believe, with Galton, 
 that eugenics, after sedulous work in the study, 
 will emerge as such. Any sociologist knows 
 that to talk of a "new religion" is simply play- 
 ing with words; that there is no real religion 
 that does not rest upon unreasoning fear of the 
 unknown. Only so does it exercise, for the 
 masses of mankind, any compulsion on conduct. 
 If any one thinks he can introduce a religion 
 among the masses by the use of statistical 
 tables or microscopic sections, together with con- 
 clusions based thereon, he is not rational enough 
 to be talking about sociological subjects at all. 
 
 I do not believe that Galton meant literally 
 what he said about eugenics becoming a re- 
 ligion; his brief utterance on "Eugenics as a 
 Factor in Religion " ^ bears me out. He seems 
 
 1 "Essays in Eugenics," pp. 68-70. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 201 
 
 to mean by a "new religion" a new ethics, that 
 is, a new set of mores. But people less wise 
 than Galton have meant literally what Galton 
 said, and the statement has seemed to me de- 
 serving of a challenge. 
 
 . It is evident that the application of what we 
 found to be true about rational selection to 
 this case of proposed rational selection cannot 
 leave us sanguine as to its realization. But a 
 conclusion that the positive program of eu- 
 genics stands smaU chance of being carried out 
 under conditions as they exist in human society 
 does not exclude the possibility of partial 
 realization. It is a waste of time to deduce and 
 to rhapsodize about the details of a scheme, 
 supposing it about to be realized — on the 
 principle that "you cannot state the conse- 
 quences of what never happened" — but there 
 is in the eugenics program a great idea which 
 we can try to realize, in so far as the limits 
 within which our action is placed will allow, 
 and thus add to the sum of our civilization.^ 
 It is the strength of resistance encountered in 
 the mores, of course, which measures the hope 
 of realization of any such program, in whole 
 or in part; and of partial measures it is the 
 
 » Cf. p. 19 above. 
 
202 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 one which is capable of concrete demonstra- 
 tion that meets less resistance than the rest. 
 Those measures of regulation stand the best 
 chance of success which show a close relation 
 to the concrete interests of individuals and 
 groups, which seem to touch most closely upon 
 local spheres of self-maintenance and self- 
 realization. This is a point of view with which 
 we are now familiar. And, finally, it is easier 
 to demonstrate the need of cutting oflf certain 
 practices, whose results have sometimes been 
 verified over and over again, than it is to enlist 
 sympathy for some positive project, however 
 reasonable, which has never been tried. Men 
 have been taught by sorry experience to mis- 
 trust reason and logic. It is easier, then, 
 to enact a proscription than a prescription. 
 Regulations of conduct, from the Tables of the 
 Law forward and back, have been couched in 
 the negative; "Thou shalt not" has always 
 been a more clean-cut and cogent form, less 
 exposed to misconception, than "Thou shalt." 
 Negative regulations lend themselves less readily 
 to interpretation or cavil, and so inspire more 
 confidence that they will be observed. 
 
 In conformity with these conditions it is that 
 form of eugenics that is called "negative eu- 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 203 
 
 genics" which shows some prospect of being 
 able to introduce rational selection into the 
 field. Non-eugenic practices can be crippled, 
 if they are not eradicated, and may be held 
 within bounds, narrower or wider. In any 
 society the wiser and more powerful are con- 
 stantly handing down the ways of their group 
 to the more ignorant and less powerful, and 
 by virtue of their superior intelligence they 
 are able, through the control of the regulative 
 organization, to set up interdictions which, if 
 they do not have the force of taboos sanctioned 
 by religious fear, have at least the power of 
 the state behind them. Such regulations, as I 
 have said, are effective in proportion as they 
 are negative and concrete in form, like the 
 primitive taboo; contrast the laconic, "Thou 
 shalt not kill" with the diffuse, "Thou shalt 
 practice eugenics." This latter sort will not 
 do; societal control must be more rude and 
 peremptory and more definite. It must make 
 utterance more as follows : "Thou shalt not, 
 being an idiot, marry and beget thine own 
 kind." Eugenics legislation can turn reso- 
 lutely to the heavy-handed prohibition of the 
 grosser, the more obvious and undeniable phe- 
 nomena of counterselection. Very likely an 
 
204 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 almost general consent could be gained to the 
 prohibition of the union of imbeciles; in fact, 
 laws now exist forbidding it, and they are not 
 so foreign to the feelings and prejudices of the 
 masses as to be dead letter. 
 
 But when we try to prohibit more than the 
 obvious cases, we encmijiter, again, the limits 
 set by the folkways; for the latter have a 
 certain consistency among themselves, and an 
 attempted alteration of certain conventions 
 may wreck on the opposition of certain others, 
 which are apparently, at times, only rather 
 distantly correlated with the ones assailed. 
 Recent laws about sterilization horrify many 
 sensible people; and to justify such a horror 
 there is always a reservoir of argumentation, 
 illustration, and interpretation to be drawn 
 upon. As the gross and obvious is left behind 
 and an attempt is made, for example, to insist 
 upon a physical examination of those who pro- 
 pose to contract matrimony, the ranks of the 
 objectors (and so, of course, of the evaders) fill 
 up. The prospects of the laws about steriliza- 
 tion and the health-certificate for marriage do 
 not seem bright. The lack of rational basis 
 in them is not accountable for this; it is not 
 upon that criterion that they are opposed or 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 205 
 
 evaded. The trouble is that they are not con- 
 sistent with the body of the code. Here are 
 again the limits of a program of rational selec- 
 tion aiming at eugenic regulation, as set down 
 in the mores. These limits are, after all, very 
 narrow; and experience shows that they are 
 not overcome when once the law is inscribed 
 in the statute book. 
 
 If the reformers wish to do what can be done 
 instead of dreaming about a world-beatification 
 that has no prospect of occurring, there is yet 
 another way to take hold of the issue. They 
 may not be able to enlist the enthusiasm of the 
 ordinary man for the welfare of the tenth or 
 fifteenth generation from now ; but if they can 
 visualize for that man the fact that he is paying, 
 here and now, out of his own fund for self- 
 maintenance, for the support of those who 
 should never have been born, they can touch 
 him upon a very sensitive interest. If every 
 consimier realized that he himself is paying the 
 customs dues under a protective tariff — if the 
 tax were direct instead of indirect — there 
 might conceivably be a totally different align- 
 ment of opinion based upon a shifted concep- 
 tion of interest. So here. This is where any 
 campaign of education finds its strength : it 
 
206 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 engenders more rationality in selection. This 
 point scarcely needs to be labored here, as the 
 general case appears in the next chapter. That 
 which touches upon the struggle for a living, 
 and for a standard of living, is most readily 
 apprehended, and here action is closer on the 
 heels of understanding than it is elsewhere ia 
 the field. 
 
 I^have taken the case of eugenics to illustrate 
 a program of rational selectipn directed against 
 a case of counterselection. It is an extreme 
 case, proposing as it does an alteration of deep- 
 seated mores surrounding the union of the 
 sexes and an establishment of new ways in that 
 which has to do with the compelling passion 
 that insures society's self-perpetuation. The 
 case is at its hardest ; but what is true of it, is 
 true, in its degree, of any scheme of the sort. 
 
 The subject of societal selection is by far the 
 most diflScult of the topics which we have set out 
 to survey under societal evolution. I do not 
 see how it is possible to cover it exhaustively, 
 even in a large treatise ; but I have tried to set 
 down its essential phases, and I think it has been 
 shown to be a massive and elemental factor, fit 
 to take its place in an evolutionary formula. 
 
COUNTERSELECTION 207 
 
 To those who accept the essentials of the last 
 chapters, societal selection cannot, at any rate, 
 remain merely two vocables, used more or less 
 at random to connote an uncertain something 
 in the life of society vaguely perceived to be 
 more or less analogous to Darwinian selection 
 in the organic world. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 TRANSMISSION 
 
 "^ Implicit in the preceding pages lies the 
 assumption that the folkways are not a matter 
 of one generation or of one group alone; they 
 
 ^re not localized in time or in place ; they can 
 be transmitted. In examining variation and 
 selection there has been some need of modifi- 
 cation in the connotation of those terms as 
 used in organic evolution, to suit them to the 
 new medium where it was designed to employ 
 them. Thus variation in societal evolution has 
 nothing directly to do with the "ids" and 
 "determinants" of the germ-cell (to use Weis- 
 mann's conception by way of illustration) ; 
 and selection is not always — among civilized 
 peoples, not often — effected through the actual 
 extinction of life. These terms are general- 
 ized, without, however, as it seems to me, de- 
 stroying their validity as truly evolutionary 
 factors. Similarly in regard to transmission; 
 it can hardly be maintained that the agency in- 
 volved in societal evolution seems, at first sight, 
 
 208 
 
TRANSMISSION 209 
 
 closely akin to heredity. In a sense, variation 
 is always variation; and elimination, while 
 diverse in degree and mode, is always elimi- 
 nation. Variation through "ways" might even 
 be looked upon as a result of organic variation, 
 e.g., in. race-character ; and societal selection is 
 seen to have had its root in natural selection. 
 But there are doubtless many who would say 
 that there is nothing iu societal evolution corre- 
 sponding closely enough with heredity in natu- 
 ral evolution to lend to an argument for societal 
 evolution the weight of more than a vague anal- 
 ogy. If this were self-evident, there could be no 
 object in going on in this direction, for "reason- 
 ing from analogy " is out of date in science. 
 
 It would be easier to range the transmission 
 of the folkways under an evolutionary formula 
 if one were disposed to connect it directly, at 
 least in some degree, with heredity. This, 
 since the mores are always acquired characters, 
 coiild be done by assuming forthwith the in- 
 heritance of acquired characters. It would 
 thus be explained, for example, that certain of 
 the sex-mores (modesty) are really inherited; 
 that various ways of women, regarded as 
 peculiarly feminine (submissiveness), are the 
 inherited results of oppression on the part of 
 
210 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 man ; and so on. But there is too much evi- 
 dence against the theory that acquired char- 
 acters are inherited to render progress under its 
 auspices other than precarious ; whereas if the 
 case for transmission is rendered tenable on the 
 opposite hypothesis — namely, that at the 
 basis of Weismannism — then any possible 
 return to the alternative theory could but 
 strengthen the case. 
 
 It is not proposed to assert sweepingly that 
 heredity does not enter into the transmission 
 of the folkways at all. To take the instance 
 alluded to in the last paragraph : women must 
 have differed in the degree of their submission 
 to man, and this must have been due at bottom 
 to differences of temperament, etc., which were 
 not acquired characters at all, and which would 
 doubtless be transmissible through the germ- 
 plasm. Under the conditions prevailing upon 
 certain primitive stages the submissive type 
 would be the only one suited to the environ- 
 ment, and so the qualities of patience and en- 
 durance by which the female sex is charac- 
 terized ^ would become distinctions favorable 
 
 ^ Ellis, H., "Man and Woman"; Campbell, H., "Differences 
 in the Nervous Organization of Man and Woman"; Sumner, 
 "Folkways," Chap. IX. 
 
TRANSMISSION 211 
 
 to persistence. Hence the ways corresponding 
 to these qualities would tend to characterize 
 the sex. This does not mean that the sex 
 mores themselves, or any other mores, are 
 transmitted by heredity ; as in the case of 
 diseases, where the theory is that it is not the 
 disease but the predisposition which is in- 
 herited, so here : it is not the mores them- 
 selves, but the tendency toward submission — 
 or some other psycho-physical quality — which 
 is carried by heredity. Thus heredity may well 
 be connected indirectly with the transmission 
 of the mores; but it is not the characteristic 
 agency. 
 
 In general it may be said that the mores have 
 to be learned; they are acquired characters of 
 the groups practicing them. One of the clear- 
 est typical cases of the mores is language^; 
 but, as everybody knows, although the various 
 himian groups have used language for ages, 
 every infant (or every congenitally deaf person, 
 upon restoration of his powers) has to learn 
 it anew. Again, no child is born with "man- 
 ners"; children are born unmannerly, and it 
 takes the whole force of the societal environment, 
 including parental discipline, to coerce the 
 
 » Sumner, "Folkways," §| 135-141. 
 
212 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 young life into the mores of its time and place. 
 The mores have to be learned just as the rules 
 of a game have to be learned; they are the 
 rules of the game for life in society. And as 
 such they constitute constant limitation upon 
 "natural" action, limitation called for by the 
 presence of others. 
 
 "^ The factor in societal evolution corresponding 
 to heredity in organic evolution is tradition; 
 and the agency of transmission is the nervous 
 system by way of its various "senses" rather 
 than the germ-plasm. The organs of trans- 
 mission are the eye, ear, tongue, etc., and not 
 those of sex. The term tradition, like varia- 
 tion and selection, is taken in the broad sense. 
 Variation in nature causes the offspring to 
 differ from the parents and from one another; 
 variation in the folkways causes those of one 
 period (or place) to differ from their prede- 
 cessors and to some extent among themselves. 
 It is the vital fact at the bottom of change. 
 Heredity in nature causes the offspring to re- 
 semble or repeat the present type; tradition 
 in societal evolution causes the mores of one 
 period to repeat those of the preceding period. 
 Each is a stringent conservator. Variation 
 means diversity; heredity and tradition mean 
 
TRANSMISSION 213 
 
 the preservation of type. If there were no 
 force of heredity or tradition, there could be no 
 system or classification of natural or of societal 
 forms; the creation hypothesis would be the 
 only tenable one, for there could be no basis 
 for a theory of descent. If there were no 
 variation, all of natiu-e and all human insti- 
 tutions would show a monotony as of the desert 
 sand. Heredity and tradition allow respec- 
 tively of the accumulation of organic or societal 
 variations through repeated selection, extend- 
 ing over generations, in this or that direction. 
 In short, what one can say of the general 
 effects of heredity in the organic realm he can 
 say of tradition in the field of the folkways. 
 That the transmission is in the one case by way 
 of the organs of sex and the germ-plasm, and 
 in the other through the action of the vocal 
 cords, the auditory nerves, etc., would seem to 
 be of small moment in comparison with the 
 essential identity in the fimctions discharged. 
 ^Tradition is, in a sense and if such compar- 
 ison were profitable, more conservative than 
 heredity. There is in the content of tradition 
 an invariability which could not exist if it were 
 a dual composite as is the constitution of the 
 germ-plasm. Here we must recall certain es- 
 
214 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 sential qualities of the mores which we have 
 hitherto viewed from another angle. Tradition 
 always looks to the folkways as constituting 
 the matter to be transmitted. ' But the folk- 
 ways, after the concurrence in their practice 
 has been established, come to include a judg- 
 ment that they conduce to societal and, indeed, 
 individual welfare. This is where they come 
 properly to be called the mores.^ ' They be- 
 come the prosperity-policy of the group, and 
 the young are reared up under their sway, 
 looking to the older as the repositories of prec- 
 edent and convention. But presently the 
 older die, and in conformity with the ideas of 
 the time, they become beings of a higher 
 power toward whom the living owe duty, and 
 whose will they do not wish to cross. The 
 sanction of ghost-fear is thus extended to the 
 mores, which, as the prosperity-policy of the 
 group, have already taken on a stereotyped 
 character.* They thus become in an even 
 higher degree "uniform, universal in a group, 
 imperative, invariable. As time goes on, they 
 become more and more arbitrary, positive, and 
 imperative. If asked why they act in a certain 
 way in certain cases, primitive people always 
 
 » Sumner, "Folkways," § 2. 2 Pp. 57-38 above. 
 
TRANSMISSION 215 
 
 answer that it is because they and their an- 
 cestors always have done so." ^ Thus the 
 transmission of the mores comes to be a process 
 embodying the greatest conservatism and the 
 least likelihood of change. This situation rep- 
 resents an adaptation of society to life-con- 
 ditions; it would seem that because of the 
 rapidity of succession of variations there is 
 need of an intensely conservative force (like 
 ethnocentrism or religion) to preserve a certain 
 balance and poise in the evolutionary move- 
 ment. 
 
 \ Transmission of the mores takes place through 
 the agency of imitation or of inculcation; 
 through one or the other according as the ini- 
 tiative is taken by the receiving or the giving 
 party respectively ^^-Inculcation includes edu- 
 cation in its broadest sense; but since that 
 
 1 Sumner, "Folkways," § 1. Proverbs and other less con- 
 centrated forms of folk-wisdom, once tested and found good — 
 and never, it should be added, to be set aside without examination, 
 as foolish or childish — constitute the primitive mode of accumu- 
 lation of experience. For example, the Yorubas "have an extraor- 
 dinary ntmiber of proverbial sayings and regard a knowledge of 
 them as a proof of great wisdom, whence the saying, ' A counsellor 
 who understands proverbs soon sets matters right.' They are 
 in constant use, and another saying runs, ' A proverb is the horse 
 of conversation. When the conversation droops a proverb revives 
 it. Proverbs and conversation follow each other.'" ElUs, A. B., 
 "Yoruba-Speaking Peoples," p. 218. 
 
216 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 term implies in general usage a certain, let us 
 say, protective attitude taken by the educator 
 (as toward the young), the broader and more 
 colorless designation is chosen. Acculturation 
 is the process by which one group or people 
 learns from another, whether the cultxu-e or 
 civilization be gotten by imitation or by incul- 
 cation. As there must be contact, accultura- 
 tion is sometimes ascribed to "contagion." 
 
 This is a convenient point to set forth the 
 distinction between acculturation and parallel- 
 ism. Many a phenomenon has been referred 
 to the former which is plainly a case of the 
 latter; this is simply because the explanation 
 was easier and more obvious in the one way 
 than in the other. Parallelisms are fine cases 
 of adaptation ^ resulting from selection ; they 
 occur where groups which could not have been 
 in contact allowing of acculturation — that is, 
 the transfer of culture, or, more broadly speak- 
 ing, of the mores — display identical or closely 
 similar societal forms. It is, of course, easier 
 to say forthwith that group A must have given 
 group B such and such societal forms through 
 such and such probable or possible means of 
 transmission, than it is painfully to investigate 
 
 ' P. 267 below. 
 
TRANSMISSION 217 
 
 cases of similarity, rigidly exclude clever guess- 
 work as to the means of transmission, and de- 
 velop the argument along the line of the evolu- 
 tionary reasoning. In the present chapter, 
 which has to do with transmission, no account 
 is to be rendered of parallelism. 
 
 Recurring, then, to tradition, we jSnd its two 
 sub-forms as above distinguished to be of very 
 unequal effectiveness. In the positive and 
 conscious form of transmission, inculcation or 
 education, the aim is to pass over to the re- 
 cipient all the good, i.e., successful mores; 
 while imitation unconsciously transmits all the 
 mores, even those about to be eliminated. The 
 boy, let us say, has his father's virtues held 
 before him that he may acquire them; mean- 
 while he quickly and almost unconsciously 
 imitates his ideal in other respects. The sub- 
 ject race is to be lifted up by the inculcation 
 of selected European mores ; but in the mean- 
 time it acquires through imitation the peculiar 
 vices of civilization. It is plainly to be seen 
 that of those two forms of tradition, or trans- 
 mission of the mores, imitation is by far the 
 more effective, natural, and elemental; com- 
 pared with it the other agency is artificial and 
 late of development. In fact inculcation fills 
 
218 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 in transmission something of the position that 
 rational selection holds in selection : it repre- 
 sents the inmixture of the human mind, acting 
 consciously and with some end in view. Edu- 
 cation is gravid with theory and its aims vary 
 from time to time; imitation, being uncon- 
 scious, has no theory or aims to pursue or to 
 alter, and so goes its course with the steady, 
 consistent, and relentless urge of a natural 
 force. Education or inculcation of the mores 
 implies, in short, an antecedent display of 
 rational selection over the mores; and so its 
 programs are open to all the misgivings which, 
 as has been seen, cluster about all programs of 
 rational selection. 
 
 It is always useful to consider societal pro- 
 cesses in comparison with the natural ones, for 
 this renders the conception of the former more 
 objective. Thus, while transmission of organic 
 characters is always from parents to progeny, 
 from the older generation to the younger, in 
 the case of the mores this universal does not 
 hold. Education generally has reference to 
 transmission with the younger as recipients, and 
 the faculty of imitation is undoubtedly stronger 
 and is exercised to a greater degree by the 
 young ; but there are, none the less, many cases 
 
TRANSMISSION 219 
 
 of transmission in the reverse direction {e.g., 
 parents learning from their children), and ac- 
 culturation within or between groups of the 
 mature is common. Thus arise in societal evo- 
 lution complications of an order not represented 
 in the organic field. We are dealing with so- 
 cieties rather than individuals or pairs — and 
 in so doing, it may be added, transmission is 
 found to be chiefly an intra-group rather than 
 an inter-group process, for the checks upon 
 transmission, previously alluded to,* such as 
 ethnocentrism, are operative for the most part 
 between groups. 
 
 By way of getting the essential features of 
 tradition before us, let us consider the simplest 
 case, viz., the intra-group transmission of the 
 mores from the older generation to the imma- 
 ture. This must include both forms of tradi- 
 tion as sketched above, but will assist in their 
 further distinction. There is here a virtual 
 cancellation of the factor of diverse heredity 
 in its stronger manifestations, as, for example, 
 between races, the assumption being that 
 within the groups there exists the basis of a 
 common heredity. Such a group would be rep- 
 resented well enough, though not by any means 
 
 > Pp. 67-62 above. 
 
220 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 perfectly^ by England, France, or the northern 
 states of this country ; and still more perfectly 
 by a smaller, in some way segregated com- 
 munity, as, for instance. New England in the 
 Colonial times. 
 
 In organic evolution there is a "biogenetic 
 law" or law of reciapitulation, which has thrown 
 unexpected light upon the evolutionary process 
 and has lent peculiar strength to its demonstra- 
 tion, ^his law asserts that "ontogeny repeats 
 phylogeny," or that the life-history of the in- 
 dividual is an abbreviated repetition of that of 
 the race, .-^^rictly speaking, the life of the in- 
 dividual referred to means embryonic life; 
 but there seems to be little doubt but that the 
 life of the child after birth carries on its reca- 
 pitulation into further phases. However that 
 may be, the child speedily develops another 
 kind of summary of preceding racial phases ; for 
 he begins those mental reactions which, as was 
 seen early in this work, represent man's char- 
 acteristic mode. If, now, a societal law were 
 to be formulated on the lines of the biogenetic 
 law, it might run : The life history of the gen- 
 eration rising to maturity is an abbreviated 
 repetition of the societal evolution of the group. 
 No "argument from analogy" is sought ; but it 
 
TRANSMISSION 221 
 
 is desirable to consider the last formula for 
 itself, with such suggestion as the plainly anal- 
 ogous biogenetic law may afford. 
 
 There are certain of the mores whose appear- 
 ance in the young must be conditioned by their 
 physical development. Speech, for example, is 
 delayed until the organs of speech are ready to 
 undertake the task ; and the sex-mores lay but 
 little hold upon the boy or girl until the period 
 of puberty, with its subtle awakenings, is at 
 hand. Illustrations of this kind exhibit anew 
 the close and vital connection between the 
 processes of organic and of societal evolution. 
 But in general, and apart from cases as clear 
 as these,^he mores are taken on in a sort of 
 order. 'A. certain amount of originality may 
 be seen in some children, but the permanent 
 characters of the individual, or the permanent 
 individual character, is the last development 
 to be expected. That is, the child can be set 
 down as belonging to a certain nationality, a 
 certain class, a certain family, before its in- 
 dividual characters appear firmly settled. In 
 general this is the order in nature, where in 
 ontogenesis there emerge in sequence the char- 
 acteristics of the class, order, family, genus, 
 species, and so on. The analogy should not 
 
222 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 be pressed in detail, but there is evidently a 
 course of development in the societal life cor- 
 responding in general trend to that in nature. 
 However, our chief concern is with the group 
 rather than the individual ; and if we may con- 
 sider the immature as forming age-groups, their 
 course of development can be seen to pass 
 through phases roughly recalling those dis- 
 tinguished by scientists in the history of the 
 race. It is often said that children are primi- 
 tive — indeed, that they are little animals or 
 savages; and the prosecution of the study of 
 primitive peoples has led scientists to aver 
 that savages are beings with the bodies of 
 adults and the characters of children. The 
 child of the adult phase of the race reproduces 
 the adult of the childhood of the race. This 
 is a significant principle, and it has borne fruit 
 in application; for it has been seen that to 
 understand primitive peoples, inta whose life 
 and circle of ideas we ca;n set ourselves only 
 incompletely, it is well to apply what we can 
 find out from reminiscences and observation 
 of the life and circle of ideas of the young of our 
 own race. It is not intended in the present 
 connection to try to catalogue exhaustively 
 the correspondences between child life and 
 
TRANSMISSION 22S 
 
 previous racial life; but certain illustrations 
 may serve to bring out the broad contention 
 before us, viz., that there are features about 
 tradition which entitle it to take the place of 
 heredity in a formula of evolution, without 
 thereby disintegrating that formula as applied 
 to societal life. 
 
 The infant starts with no mores at all — 
 with no more than an animal could have. 
 "Natural" reactions upon environment lead 
 to the display of unbridled emotions, e.g., 
 towering rages, which the mores forbid inas- 
 much as indulgence in them is prejudicial to 
 the societal interest. There is an utter dis- 
 regard of meum et tuum which, in the absence 
 of discipline, that is, arbitrary enforcement of 
 the mores, persists for an indefinite period. 
 Later, the lying and thieving propensities which 
 no internal monitor can exist to check, since 
 they lead, apparently, to the satisfaction of the 
 individual interest, come into collision with the 
 rules of living in society; and they are then 
 done away with or modified from their baldest 
 form of expression. Among small children, 
 left to themselves, as among savages, force is 
 the only title to property ; and well up toward 
 "years of discretion" the rule is that of the 
 
g24 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 strongest. Of religion there is none, or it is 
 of the low order of excitement and fear. Taste 
 is crude and undeveloped. Affection for chil- 
 dren lends interest to the undeveloped stage; 
 but much of the amusement and diversion 
 derived from children lies in the incongruity 
 of their actions and motives with those pre- 
 scribed by the societal standards. It is possible 
 to become fanciful or poetic in dealing with 
 this topic — to say that part of the pleasure of 
 the child in his primitiveness lies in his uncon- 
 scious harmony with the life led during the child- 
 hood of the race; that certain hidden neces- 
 sities of his being are supplied and then purged 
 away through his submission to some elemental 
 law of progression in growth; and so on. It 
 might be said that, just as some important 
 weapon of the past, like the bow and arrow, 
 having lost its consequence, descends to be a 
 plaything, thus social habitudes, now super- 
 seded, have come to cater to the tastes of child- 
 hood, in its play-world. But all this is at 
 present imaginative construction, unverifiable, 
 and it is not science. One can believe much or 
 little of it in proportion to the development, in 
 his make-up, of critical spirit as against imag- 
 ination. But it is true that the mores are 
 
TRANSMISSION 225 
 
 learned in some order, or at least some before 
 others ; and that, in general, the earliest learned 
 are those earliest acquired by the race, and the 
 latest learned those latest acquired. The societal 
 life from birth to maturity (that is, up to the 
 development of an independent individuality 
 as a member of society) of the younger genera- 
 tion taken as a whole, is a rough and imperfect 
 summary of the societal evolution of the race 
 from the stage where the mores came into being 
 on up to the present. 
 
 Peal says ^ of certain tribes in Assam that 
 there is from childhood to marriage the most 
 complete and recognized sex liberty; that 
 morals begin with marriage, after which in- 
 fidelity, he thinks, is rare. When the oppor- 
 tunity to marry presents itself, if they have 
 the inclination, they pair off and settle down, 
 going through some public marriage ceremony. 
 "Thus the individuals epitomize their own 
 race history. The 'marriage' comes as a re- 
 striction on complete sexual liberty." Many 
 another survival in culture-history similarly 
 epitomizes the past of the race. 
 
 The young within the primitive group will 
 
 'The "Morong" as a possible Relic of Pre-Marriage Com- 
 munism, in Jour. Anth. Inst. Gi. Brit. & Ireland, XXII, 248 ff. 
 
226 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 attain at last to the type of their elders' mores 
 even if there is no deliberate education; what 
 happens as societal evolution proceeds is, how- 
 ever, that there is an accumulation of mental 
 reactions on environment, that is, a develop- 
 ment of civilization; and it is through this 
 accumulation that the status of the group rises. 
 In order that it may be kept up, then, it is 
 needful that the attention of the immature 
 shall be drawn toward the mores regarded as 
 most important for well-being, to the prosperity- 
 policy of the group. But this is education: 
 conscious and deliberate inculcation. One of 
 the essential functions of education is to create 
 appetites — wants. But wants are what begat 
 the first of the mores, ^ and they are what impel 
 the individual or the race toward self-realiza- 
 tion. At first education consists in so disposing 
 of the young that they shall have before them 
 that which it is desirable to imitate : the boys 
 are thrown with the men, the girls with the 
 women, and they thus have held before them 
 the respective types of sex-mores. The group 
 in its natural division is the first schoolmaster. 
 Later its function is partially usurped by the 
 family, but in any group whatsoever the society 
 1 P. 33 above. 
 
TRANSMISSION 227 
 
 itself always has a large voice in this matter.' 
 The home is at its best a sort of preparatory 
 school, where the penalties for infringement of 
 the mores can be tempered ; but at length the 
 child outgrows this school, and it is found that 
 he will learn at the hands of his fellows what it 
 is next to impossible to inculcate otherwise. 
 The final test of adaptation to the societal type 
 and the heavy finishing strokes are given by the 
 real author and guarantor of the mores, the 
 society as a whole. But with the proper home 
 discipline and training, the young may escape 
 many of the chastisements of the cold-hearted 
 schoolmaster whom we currently refer to as 
 "The World" — by which we mean public 
 opinion measuring up the human product 
 against the mores. 
 
 In the most primitive form of education, 
 where life is far from complex, voluntary imi- 
 tation is the predominant factor in tradition. 
 The mores are of a form approaching direct 
 reaction on environment and so are readily 
 tested. Many of them are easily proved to 
 be inexpedient through slight accidental or 
 careless deviation from their prescriptions ; 
 the boy who neglects to observe the example of 
 
 ' Cf. Todd, "The Primitive Family as an Educational Agency." 
 
228 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 his elders when hunting is speedily corrected 
 through physical hurt or hunger. To a very 
 feeble intellect the advisability of silence, 
 coolness, etc., during the chase appears un- 
 questionable because plainly and concretely 
 demonstrable. This is one of the reasons why 
 the accounts of the education of savage chil- 
 dren so astonish us; there are few blows or 
 harsh words, but the young are docile, showing 
 great respect for their models, the elders. Na- 
 ture imposes the discipline and penalty, and so 
 the young come to believe in their teachers and 
 their precepts. They see the use of them. 
 Inculcation results in adaptations whose ex- 
 pediency is self-evident. Further, the young do 
 not dare question the authority of the mores, 
 because of the traditional fear of their ghostly 
 sanction. What makes the education of the 
 modern child so hard is the distance and in- 
 directness of attainment of recognizable satis- 
 factions, and so the diflBculty of correctly valu- 
 ing the process; and likewise the absence of 
 sanctions of an awe-inspiring order.^ If a boy 
 
 * Cf . Lippert, "Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit," I, 226. 
 He gives some examples. To illustrate the eflSciency of the 
 religious sanction of the mores, as resting on tradition and as 
 endangered by education, the following quotation challenges 
 reflection. "The proprietor of a village in the £onkan, while 
 
TRANSMISSION 229 
 
 had seen a companion lose his Hfe because 
 he did not know a paradigm, or was sure he 
 would be damned if he could not demonstrate a 
 proposition, the status and repute of education 
 would forthwith rise in his estimation. Fancy 
 the zeal with which astronomy would be studied 
 if astrological beliefs were current ! 
 
 As long as the rising generation can proceed 
 at once to test the validity of the mores by 
 reference to the "exitus docet" principle — 
 whether the criteria of judgment are positive, 
 as in the case where bodily pain results, or 
 fictitious, though not less convincing, where 
 ghost-fear enters — so long will they accept 
 
 deprecating the action of Government in withholding support 
 from the higher education in the country, was on his own part 
 doing everything in his power to thwart the spread of primary 
 education among the peasantry of his village. On being asked 
 why he delighted in keeping the peasantry in ignorance, he 
 observed that it was a great blessing to him and other respectable 
 members of the village that the peasantry were left imeducated 
 and engrossed in superstition. 'At present,' he says, 'I am not 
 obliged to undergo the expense of keeping men to watch my 
 fields and my mango trees, because the village god does the duty 
 for me either without any remuneration or at the cost of a fowl 
 or a cocoanut. But once the peasants are educated and made 
 to believe that the great Gramadev, of whom they are so much 
 now in awe, is nothing more than a block of stone capable of 
 doing neither good nor evil, thefts and impudence will increase 
 in the village, and there will be no end to my troubles.'" Joshi, 
 "Household and Village Gods," in the Journal of the Anthropo- 
 logical Society of Bombay, II, 206. 
 
230 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 the transmitted ways with all docility. But 
 when a rational selection of the mores which 
 they are to have inculcated in them has taken 
 place through the antecedent action of minds 
 more experienced, far-sighted, and subtle than 
 their own, and they neither see the demonstra- 
 tion of resulting adaptation made in terms they 
 cannot misunderstand nor yet have much re- 
 spect for their instructors, natural docility is 
 rare. Still worse if they know that educators 
 are themselves in violent dispute over the value 
 of what is taught; they cannot then, even 
 though well intentioned, be more than half- 
 hearted. There is none of this in the early 
 stages, before much rational selection has come 
 in, for the code is the code, and all adhere to it. 
 Nor is there much of it nowadays in the matter 
 of elementary education. The value of the 
 "three R's" is seldom questioned even among 
 those ignorant of them. Tests of a concrete 
 order lie all about them. It is, as a matter 
 of fact, unquestionable that a distrustful at- 
 titude toward "higher education" has some 
 reason in it, especially in view of the assump- 
 tion that a higher education is the right of all. 
 Inculcation can be overdone; there is such a 
 thing as being over-educated for one's walk in 
 
TRANSMISSION 231 
 
 life. By the use of coercion and under the 
 mirage of theories and ideals, lofty indeed, but 
 for all that not verifiable as to their results, 
 people can be led into the adoption of a code, 
 the possession of which is of advantage neither 
 to society nor to themselves. This is one of 
 the results of the entrance of the human mind 
 into the process of transmission in societal evo- 
 lution. 
 
 The education of the young as a phase of 
 transmission of the mores is capable of extended 
 and intensive development. In fact,^the pro- 
 gram of education represents the greatest sys- 
 tematic attempt to put rational selection into 
 operation that the world has seen. It always 
 represents, moreover, the reflection of the exist- 
 ing social status, resting solidly upon the exist- 
 ing economic status, but played about by the 
 popular philosophy of the time. The root idea 
 of education cannot be anything else than to 
 raise up the rising generation to play its part 
 with the greatest satisfaction in its own self- 
 realization, in the societal environment and 
 within the societal code of its time. It is trained 
 to knowledge of the game by learning its rules. 
 It is put in the way of attaining what is thought 
 worth while according to the views held under 
 
232 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 the existing mores. For the young in their 
 irrationality there is performed an act of 
 rational selection in the mores by which they 
 are to profit. 
 
 When it is realized that the young have no 
 extended fixed code, but are impressionable in 
 a very high degree ; that their interests are but 
 accumulating and are not yet mature enough 
 to guide them in their own selection ; then the 
 exceeding importance of making a good selec- 
 tion for them becomes apparent and, indeed, 
 overpowering. It becomes a culpable thing 
 to take the eye from the young and their 
 destiny and fix all attention upon advancement 
 of the profession of educator, or, still worse, 
 upon petty personal vanity and private ends. 
 The profession of educator demands self-ab- 
 negation; for its very essence, when it is fol- 
 lowed truly, consists in straining all the powers 
 to do discerningly and judiciously for those who 
 are not yet ready to mark out their own destiny. 
 Fortunately for the race's interests this pro- 
 fession has always harbored a number of de- 
 voted and unselfish souls. 
 
 Returning now to inculcation in the broadest 
 sense, we may consider the matter of the educa- 
 tion or "uplifting" of one class in a society by 
 
TRANSMISSION 233 
 
 another (this being an intra-group process), or 
 of one people or race by another (this imply- 
 ing inter-group relations). Both are cases of 
 conscious and deliberate effort to transmit the 
 mores. They are different in degree, but not 
 in kind, and may be considered in conjunction. 
 In educating the young, the idea, when it con- 
 tains sense, is to equip them with the best code 
 to enable them to fit the position in life which 
 they presumably are to occupy in the future. 
 There is here some room for hope that they may 
 rise above the level of the standard of living of 
 their birth-group; it is as desirable to incite 
 in them all aspirations toward what they may 
 attain as it is unwise to instill within them vague 
 and restless yearnings for the impossible or 
 highly improbable. Youth is elastic and adapt- 
 able, and it is perhaps just as well to set for it 
 an aim slightly beyond the probable. When, 
 however, it becomes a question of "elevating" 
 classes and races, discretion and modesty of 
 expectation must guide any safe policy. 
 
 Granted that the intent of the proposed 
 "uplifters" is not disingenuous, what can they 
 expect as results ? To ask what they do expect 
 would be to require a voluminous list of some 
 of the chief chimseras and vagaries of history. 
 
234 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 Perhaps a better question would be: How is 
 it possible to get results at all ? The answer 
 conies directly out of our antecedent discussion 
 about selection. The body of the mores tends 
 to consist with the self-maintenance mores of 
 the class or race in question. It thus reflects 
 the status of the struggle for existence and for 
 a standard of living, that is, the status of the 
 relation between environment and the imme- 
 diate reactions upon it.^ Manifestly, if this is 
 true, the point of attack should be either along 
 the line of altering the environment (so that 
 different reactions will be evoked) or in deftly 
 hastening a lagging adaptation, chiefly of 
 the maintenance-mores, to existent conditions. 
 The former alternative represents a formidable 
 task ; the latter means that the uplifting agency 
 shall formulate, for the proposed beneficiaries, 
 a program of rational selection in their mores 
 and then force or persuade them to adopt it. 
 Here again great damage may be done by mis- 
 takes; and there is here more likelihood of 
 error than in the education of our young. The 
 latter are supposably being educated up into a 
 set of mores, which, since they are our own, 
 we may be assumed to know more about, both 
 
 1 Pp. 141 ff. above. 
 
TRANSMISSION 235 
 
 as to their nature and the conditions with which 
 they correspond; but when it conies to the 
 other form of inculcation, we can possess no 
 such intimate knowledge. This question of the 
 possibility or advisability of trying to transmit 
 our mores, as being the "best" — of trying to 
 exercise rational selection for a group more or 
 less alien to us — hinges largely upon an under- 
 standiag of adaptation in the mores, and for 
 the moment must be put over until that topic 
 shall have been considered. In general, as has 
 been seen, the effective place to take hold in 
 attempting rational selection is at the bottom, 
 with the mores whose adequacy is most quickly 
 and convincingly tested, those of societal self- 
 maintenance. Imitation will then ensue, for it 
 is really due to the perception, mistaken or 
 otherwise, of the pertinence of that which is 
 imitated to the conditions of life. 
 
 inculcation in all its forms rests ultimately 
 upon imitation, which is the dominant means 
 of transmission of the mores"! A number of 
 authors, whose interest lies largely in the psy- 
 chological activities connected with imitation, 
 have developed its "laws" in some detail.^ 
 This literature is readily accessible to those who 
 
 ' Tarde, "Lois d'Imitation " ; Ross, "Social Psychology." 
 
236 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 wish to consider that aspect of the subject. 
 Our interest in the present connection is in 
 imitation as an agency of transmission rather 
 than in an analysis of the mental state or action 
 underlying it. Inculcation is really in good 
 part an attempt to induce or force imitation; 
 it is a deliberate attempt to pass something on 
 to a prospective recipient. Having given this 
 aspect of the topic before us some attention, 
 let us now consider the wider and more general 
 case of imitation where the initiative lies 
 mainly with the recipient. 
 
 Imitation is discoverable well down in the 
 organic world, and is conspicuous in the life 
 of those animals which are nearest to man in 
 the scale. The ape has given his name to a 
 verb signifying to imitate. It is difficult to set 
 up any line of distinction between the highest 
 animal form of imitation and the lowest human 
 form ; here is yet another of those zones of transi- 
 tion, common along the path of evolution, and 
 effective to blur boundary-lines between its 
 grades. There is imitation in the concurrence as 
 a result of which folkways form and accultura- 
 tion begins ; and no very great mental activity 
 is necessary to secure such concurrence. "The 
 ability to distinguish between pleasure and 
 
TRANSMISSION 237 
 
 pain," says Sumner/ "is the only psychical 
 power which is to be assumed." Mental re- 
 actions took place, and may seem in retrospect 
 often to have been rationally directed ; but the 
 whole process was empirical. Mental opera- 
 tions were chaotic and imreliable; correctness 
 of conclusion came, in certaia categories of 
 cases, from the fact that conclusive tests lay 
 everywhere and unavoidable in the conditions 
 of a rude hfe. But the validity of reasoning, 
 as we view it, was not yet in the mental outfit 
 any more than it is in that of children ; and its 
 absence made no difference in the matter of 
 consensus. A more effective tool might be 
 invented and then imitated to the real advan- 
 tage of the imitators; but then, consensus in 
 the irrational device, e.g., the use of fire to 
 exorcise ghosts, was just as ready; and some 
 chance fortune or misfortune following action 
 was quite as clear a demonstration as the ob- 
 served superior efficiency of the tool could be. 
 Convictions attained by the post hoc ergo propter 
 hoc error were quite as imshaken as those ar- 
 rived at by what would seem to us a flawless 
 syllogism. That is, reasoning was scarcely yet 
 even rudimentary; there was a general chaos 
 
 1 "Folkways," § 1. 
 
238 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 except where the irrefutable logic of facts forced 
 a certain order. Whatever acculturation has 
 been eflfected among primitive peoples has been 
 received, except to some degree in the domain 
 of the maintenance-mores, imitatively, irra- 
 tionally, and almost unconsciously. Along the 
 lines of concrete material interest, recognition 
 of the superior values of others' mores is not 
 seldom very keen, as it is in children ; but else- 
 where cases are vague and scattering among 
 primitive peoples. The mores run out into 
 ritual,^ and the ritual, being supported by eth- 
 nocentric and religious sanction, becomes stere- 
 otyped and unchanging, so far as the will or 
 intent of the society goes. The main lines of 
 the mores once laid down by the rudest forms 
 of societal selection,^ variations in the mores 
 susceptible of preservation and transmission 
 are confined to ranges where, in the presence 
 of constant tests, ritualization develops less 
 readily. 
 
 ^ Further, the primitive condition is one of 
 group-isolation; and isolation is unfavorable 
 to receptiveness and change. And so trans- 
 mission goes on through the transfer of essen- 
 tially the same set of mores from generation 
 
 » Cf. Sumner, "Folkways," §§ 67-68. « P. 64 above. 
 
TRANSMISSION 239 
 
 to generation. This is perhaps the perfection 
 of imitation as a machine-like agency keeping 
 succeeding generations to the type of former 
 ones. The very word "tradition" is synony- 
 mous with negation of change or "progress." 
 In the absence of variation, competition, and 
 selection, it tends, like heredity in organic 
 evolution, to singleness of type and to monot- 
 ony. 
 
 ■« When, now, the society is compounded and 
 differentiated in its elements, these elements 
 are characterized by differing codes of mores. 
 But some of the elements, or classes, seem to 
 be succeeding in life — to be securing obvious 
 material advantages to which others have not 
 attained. Comparison of group-destiny, re- 
 sulting in dissatisfaction, must have developed 
 very early. Imitation of the ways of the suc- 
 cessful group is the natural sequel.^- Thus the 
 great and powerful — which means, in primi- 
 tive times, the rich — might come to set the 
 fashion in conduct, that is, their class mores 
 might to some extent be transmitted down 
 through the group. Vanity, fearing ridicule, 
 powerfully strengthens this tendency. Indi- 
 vidual variations in the mores of the great may 
 come to an extension unwarranted by their 
 
240 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 intrinsic importance as judged in cold blood; 
 and part of the mores of the upper classes of 
 one generation or age may be infused into the 
 mores of the lower classes in the next. Here 
 is where, as we saw under the topic of rational 
 selection, there is some chance, which can be 
 utilized by the better educated part of the 
 society, for alteration of the mores. But it 
 should be kept in mind that the moving factor 
 producing receptiveness to acculturation, and 
 so allowing of the free action of imitation all 
 through the body of the mores, is change ef- 
 fected in the maintenance-mores. Imitation as 
 between classes is no more than superficial 
 unless it rests upon a growing approximation 
 of economic conditions and habitudes. How- 
 ever, there lie in the way of imitation of the 
 economic mores fewer barriers of serious nature 
 than elsewhere, and their imitation, like ra- 
 tional selection, may operate indirectly and 
 has so done in history, with great effect. 
 
 Similar conclusions are reached when the 
 case of inter-group or inter-racial transmission 
 is considered. The imitation of a "higher" 
 race's mores by a "lower," where it is not a 
 superficial one, is generally confined to those of 
 a more material order. Vanity may lead to 
 
TRANSMISSION 241 
 
 the adoption of the clothing and some of the 
 other externals of the more advanced by the 
 less ; the outer forms of religion may be taken 
 over and accommodated to the essence of the 
 old religious beliefs or superstitions.^ But the 
 history of missions has demonstrated that, with 
 the development of sound reasoning by the 
 side of, or in place of mere enthusiasm and 
 good-will, the bare performance of the ritual — 
 pattering prayers by rote as the Jesuits taught 
 the Paraguay Indians to do * — is not deemed 
 an adequate demonstration of uplift. The 
 character of the inculcation has altered ; so 
 that medical missions (which aim to alter the 
 conditions of life) and industrial missions (which 
 aim to alter the maintenance-mores) have gradu- 
 ally come to prevail as against the older type. 
 For reasons previously set forth, imitation is 
 more easily secured within these ranges of in- 
 fluence; hence a wiser form of inculcation now 
 aims at what is surest to effect acculturation in 
 its best sense. 
 
 '"Experience shows," says W. R. Smith ("Religion of the 
 Semites," pp. 355-356), "that primitive religious behefs are 
 practically indestructible, except by the destruction of the race 
 in which they are ingrained." 
 
 ^Watson, "Spanish and Portuguese South America during 
 the Colonial Period," I, 272. 
 
242 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 And if we confine ourselves to cases where 
 inculcation is not attempted or thought of, 
 the same general principle emerges. Imita- 
 tion has, in a number of historic cases, taken 
 place unconsciously and naturally along the 
 line of the maintenance-mores, and has then 
 been followed by an approximation of the 
 "lower" to the "higher" mores all along the 
 line. This is the normal process of accultura- 
 tion, visible wherever real transmission of 
 culture has taken place. The undeveloped 
 race has had little difficulty in appreciating and 
 taking over the maintenance-mores, the arts 
 and crafts; here there is verification; things 
 are seen to "work." And then the transmis- 
 sion of these has made inevitable the transfer 
 of the rest. 
 
 For example, the Romans never tried to 
 "assimilate" their provinces. All they cared 
 about was the maintenance of their rule. But 
 the provincials, observing the obvious superior- 
 ities of the Roman industrial and military or- 
 ganizations, imitated and fell in with these. 
 They then began to see the advantage of the 
 Roman language, Roman laws, and other of the 
 secondary societal forms, and took them over 
 naturally, almost unconsciously, and certainly 
 
TRANSMISSION 243 
 
 without compulsion or exliortation.^ In general 
 the transmission of the mores which took its 
 course from Chaldaea and Egypt through the 
 Phoenicians, Greeks, Genoese, Venetians, and 
 others forms a grand illustration of the point 
 at issue.^ None of these peoples had any mis- 
 sion to uphft western Europe ; they were after 
 gain through trade. They operated exclusively 
 in the economic field, introducing first the prod- 
 ucts, then the processes of the superior arts 
 of the East. And with what result ? With the 
 result of modifying at length the whole societal 
 structure of the West, by gradually transmitting 
 to it, as it developed a substructure capable 
 of supporting them, the mores of an advanced 
 civilization. 
 
 ^^^ade has always be^ the greatest natural 
 carrier of civilizationfand before the Age of the 
 Discoveries it operated in isolation from later 
 developed carriers to which, in the time since, 
 
 • This case of transmission is worked out briefly, chiefly after 
 F. de Coulanges, by L. de Saussure, "Psychologic de la Colonisa- 
 tion Prangaise dans ses Rapports avec les Societes Indigenes," 
 chapter on "Roman Gaul." Cf. James Bryce's two historical 
 studies: "The Ancient Roman Empire and the British Empire 
 in India" and "The Diffusion of Roman and English Law 
 throughout the World." 
 
 ' This is worked out in some detail in Keller, "Colonization," 
 Chap. II. 
 
244 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 much of the influence exerted by commerce 
 has been freely accredited. But it has remained 
 the "handmaid of civilization," or, better, its 
 forerunner. Trade and the development of 
 communication, that is, the piercing of isola- 
 tion, have always gone together. But it is 
 precisely the contact of peoples ensuing upon 
 the passing of isolation that allows of tolerance, 
 mutual knowledge, and acculturation through 
 imitation.^ Commercial activities, however, 
 aim directly at the creation and supply of 
 material wants; this they do by suggestion 
 through some form of advertising. They have 
 enlisted imitation where missions, for example, 
 have attempted inculcation ; they have worked 
 "with the grain," so to speak, where agencies 
 of inculcation have gone against it. They 
 have impinged immediately upon the main- 
 tenance-mores, where other agencies have at- 
 tempted to begin with the secondary societal 
 forms. So that here again we meet the now fa- 
 miliar case of effecting changes throughout the 
 body of the mores by influence brought to bear 
 upon the organization for self -maintenance. So 
 
 ' This position has been worked out in an elementary .form 
 in Gregory, Keller, and Bishop, "Physical and Commercial 
 Geography," Chap. XIII. 
 
TRANSMISSION 245 
 
 high an authority as Livingstone^ suggested long 
 ago that the way to eradicate slavery in Africa 
 as he knew it was to better the transportation 
 system. For the only agency for carrying bur- 
 dens, capable of operating in the narrow paths 
 and tunnels which penetrated the tangle of 
 primeval vegetation, was the human pack- 
 animal. "A single railroad," says Fabri," who 
 quotes the keen and clear-headed Scotchman, 
 " is more effective to suppress slave-raids and 
 the slave-trade than a dozen crusades, which 
 would cost thousands of lives and would swallow 
 up millions to just about no use." There was 
 sense in these remarks, as the event is proving. 
 The case shows the advantage of applying effort 
 where it will count. 
 
 But it is plain that our cases are now verging 
 over to illustrate adaptation quite as much as 
 transmission. Imitation, I repeat, is really due 
 in the large to perception, accurate or mistaken, 
 vague or otherwise, of the pertinence of that 
 which is imitated to the conditions of life. In 
 particular is this the case with the imitation 
 of the secondary societal forms — law, prop- 
 
 ' livingstone always had an eye to the civilizing effects of 
 trade. See the last chapter of his " Travels in South Africa." 
 • Fabri, P., "FUnf Jahre deutscher Kolonialpolitik," p. 55. 
 
246 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 erty, religion, etc., — for these do not possess 
 vigor or effectiveness unless they are adapted 
 to those primary forms that belong in the 
 maintenance-mores. Fancy the maladaptation 
 and so the ineffectiveness of the governmental 
 system of the United States as existing among 
 the aborigines of Fiji; it would be as super- 
 fluous in its complexity in those islands as the 
 Fiji system would be meager and insufficient 
 to discharge the corresponding regulative func- 
 tions in this country. You cannot discuss any 
 of these factors of evolution without having 
 the end-result, adaptation, in the background 
 all the time. ""Adaptation is the summing-up, 
 as it were, of the activity of variation, selec- 
 tion, and transmission/ Hence I have already 
 infringed somewhat on the field of adaptation ; 
 and what I shall now have to say about it may 
 be expected to throw back light upon the way 
 already traversed. 
 
CHAPTER Vin 
 
 ADAPTATION 
 
 Sumner closes a manuscript essay on "Evo- 
 lution and the Mores " as follows : 
 
 "In short, as we go upwards from the arts to the 
 mores and from the mores to the philosophies and ethics, 
 we leave behind us the arena on which natural selection 
 produces progressive evolution out of the close competi- 
 tion of forms some of which are more fit to survive than 
 others, and we come into an arena which has no boun- 
 daries and no effective competition. The conflicts are 
 freer and freer and the results of the conflicts less and less 
 decisive. The folkways seem to me like a great restless 
 sea of clouds, in which the parts are forever rolling, chang- 
 ing, and jostling, as temperature, wind-currents, and 
 electric discharges vary. We may confidently beUeve 
 that there is not a cloud shape which does not correspond 
 exactly to the play of forces which makes it, and we may 
 be well convinced that no change of form takes place from 
 time to time behind which there is not a change in con- 
 ditions and forces, but we also know that the cloud shapes 
 do not change in a series of any definable character and 
 that they do not nm forward in time towards some ulti- 
 mate shape, but they change and change, rise and fall, 
 ebb and flow, without any sequence and purpose. If they 
 
 247 
 
248 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 conform to the conditions and forces from moment to 
 moment, that is the end of their existence. So it is with 
 the folkways and the attendant philosophy and ethics. 
 They conform to the interests which arise in the existing 
 conjimcture, and that is all the sense they have." 
 
 In this quotation the presence of "progressive 
 evolution" is denied in all the mores with the 
 exception of those surrounding the industrial 
 organization and so representing material con- 
 trol over nature. In speaking of progress 
 Sumner usually began by admitting its presence 
 in the arts of life and then went on to question 
 its existence in the more derived societal forms. 
 Because he did not find it there, he denied that 
 there was evolution in the mores. Though 
 he used to warn us that evolution included 
 retrogression, and to illustrate pointedly by 
 summoning us to witness that it was " the same 
 force that made the stone go down and the 
 balloon go up," he meant by evolution something 
 more than adaptation.^ 
 
 It would be a notable performance if we could 
 prove that societal evolution is progressive, or 
 that it is not progressive ; but that is not the 
 question we have set before us. All we have 
 undertaken to study out, in the present in- 
 
 * See Note at end of this volume. 
 
ADAPTATION 249 
 
 stance, is whether there is any evolution at all 
 in the mores, irrespective of its general trend. 
 ■ — Darwinian evolution is neither progress.^^r 
 retrogression; it is bothfa!s Sumner said. It 
 is, in its final phase, adaptation to environ- 
 ment. '^ut if we seek for adaptation in the 
 folkways, we have Sumner's word for it that 
 they are "subject to a strain of improvement 
 towards better adaptation of means to ends, as 
 long as the adaptation is so imperfect that 
 pain is produced." ^ For our present purpose 
 something like this is all we should care to 
 prove. That there may be some "end" or 
 "purpose" is, for the present at least, a matter 
 of indifference ; and as a philosophical concept 
 it will remain so. It would seem, from what has 
 gone before, that if improvement is admitted 
 for the arts, processes, and systems of ma- 
 terial culture, and if there is, as Sumner says, 
 a "strain toward consistency," * in the mores, 
 then there must inevitably result an improve- 
 ment all along the line. This would be par- 
 ticularly evident if, as has been asserted above, 
 
 1 "Folkways," § 5. 
 
 ' There is, says Sumner ("Folkways," § 6), a strain in the 
 mores " of consistency with each other, because they all answer 
 their several purposes with less friction and antagonism when 
 they cooperate and support each other." Examples follow. 
 
250 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 the maintenance-mores are basic. Thus all 
 that is said about the secondary societal forms 
 consisting with the primary, since the latter 
 represent direct reactions on environment, 
 belongs to the topic of adaptation in the mores. 
 
 There is no course of reasoning, apart from 
 copious illustration, which can demonstrate 
 adaptation. And so our treatment, while it 
 cannot pretend to fulness, least of all to ex- 
 haustiveness, must be made up largely of cases 
 regarded as comprehensive and typical, it then 
 being left to the reader to confirm or reject, 
 from his own knowledge of other cases, the 
 principles derived from these. 
 
 But the conclusion to be reached at the end 
 may be set down at the outset. First, in gen- 
 eral, if adaptation is admitted in the folkways, 
 their evolution on Darwinian lines is taken to be 
 thereby admitted. And if adaptation is seen 
 to be the result of the action of evolutionary 
 factors as treated in previous chapters, then the 
 Darwinian formula may be extended to cover 
 life in human society as well as in the organic 
 field. Second, and more particularly, the issue 
 of these chapters on adaptation is : Any settled 
 folkway (any institution, therefore, a fortiori) 
 
ADAPTATION 251 
 
 is justifiable in the setting of its time, as an 
 adaptation. It will be noted that the folkway 
 is supposed to be a settled one, i.e., a tried and 
 preserved variation ; a passing fashion or fad 
 is a variation upon which selection has yet to 
 pass, and neither in organic nor in societal evo- 
 lution is there any reason to look for adaptation 
 in variations prior to selection. 
 
 By way of a broad consideration bearing 
 upon adaptation, to precede our illustrations, 
 it may be said that the progress of knowledge 
 has led to an unconscious revision of opinion 
 concerning the justification of societal forms in 
 their setting of time and place. In former 
 ages of narrower horizons and small knowledge, 
 when outlying races whom our predecessors 
 were coming to know were seen to have mores 
 diverse from those of the observers and often 
 abhorrent to them, this was laid to perversity, 
 depravity, or some other reprehensible quality. 
 Naive ethnocentrism exerted a sway so undis- 
 puted that, as a corollary to their own self- 
 satisfaction, people believed that if the code of 
 an ahen society did not conform to their own, 
 or if their own were not adopted at sight as 
 self-evidently superior, it was because of wilful- 
 ness and even wickedness. Many survivals of 
 
252 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 this sort of belief yet appear ; but on the whole 
 such narrowness is now obsolescent. Igno- 
 rance, lack of opportunity, and lack of mental, 
 moral, and social development were admitted, 
 even by the Spanish crusaders in the New 
 World, as excuses for non-receptiveness ; and 
 the tendency is growing to seek reasons for 
 what used to be referred to stubbornness and 
 caprice. The study of ethnography and so- 
 ciology has contributed powerfully to this 
 change of attitude. Such a racial experience 
 and movement toward tolerance affords consid- 
 erable evidence of a general nature looking to 
 the establishment of our proposition about the 
 justifiableness of the mores in their place and 
 time — that is, toward the demonstration of 
 adaptation in the mores.^ For that growing 
 
 1 Numerous cases could be assembled to demonstrate the 
 damage done to primitive peoples by forcing or persuading them 
 to give up their peculiar habitudes. For example, McGee 
 (American Anthropologist, X, 338; Oct., 1897) shows that 
 the attempt to repress the Indian custom of self-destitution 
 through the potlatch wrought great injury to the natives. Rat- 
 zel ("History of Mankind," I, 284) describes the Hawaiian 
 system of land-ownership, whereby the tribal rights of ownership 
 went to the chief, the subjects cultivating for him or else giving 
 him the first fruits of every harvest or rendering him compulsory 
 service two days out of seven. He even received a quarter of 
 all the wages earned by his subjects. The people were virtually 
 serfs bound to the soil. The author comments : " A proof that 
 
ADAPTATION 253 
 
 tolerance, which is greatest among the best 
 informed, can be due to one thing only, viz., an 
 implicit, if not an explicit recognition of the 
 fact that diverse or even offensive mores rep- 
 resent ways, more or less justified by their 
 persistence over other ways, in which men have 
 reacted upon environment in the struggle for 
 life and for self-realization. Men have been in 
 deadly earnest in this struggle and have done 
 the best they could for themselves, dodging and 
 twisting and turning to avoid the pain of non- 
 adaptation; they have had no idea of being 
 perverse, but have been preoccupied in the 
 effort to secure greater satisfaction of tangible 
 interests. I think it is safe to say that respect 
 for the expediency of the mores of "lower" 
 races increases with acquaintance, for they are 
 not seldom remarkably apt to conditions ; and 
 where at first sight they look strange to the 
 alien, they are often found, later, to have a 
 great deal of sense, that is, to constitute felici- 
 tous adaptation. 
 
 this dependence was patriarchal, and not felt as oppressive, is 
 furnished by the fact that the sudden abolition of it through 
 Christianity has been indicated as one cause of the decrease of 
 the population." A protest against the discontinuance of debt- 
 slavery is recorded in Lewin's "Wild Races of Southeast India," 
 pp. 85-86. 
 
254 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 In this connection we have on record an in- 
 structive admission by Darwin himself. John 
 Morley had accused Darwin of deficiency in 
 historic spirit by reason of certain indignant 
 expressions in the "Descent of Man" about 
 slavery — expressions originating in quick sym- 
 pathy and in "pathos" rather than justified 
 by actual fact. Morley writes of Darwin: 
 
 "When, for instance, he speaks of the 'great sin of 
 slavery' having been general among primitive nations, he 
 forgets that though to hold a slave would be a sinful deg- 
 radation to a European to-day, the practice of turning 
 prisoners of war into slaves, instead of butchering them, 
 was not a sin at all, but marked a decided improvement 
 in human manners." 
 
 To which stricture the honest Darwin responds 
 by letter at once : 
 
 "I believe your criticism is quite just about my defi- 
 cient historic spirit, for I am aware of my ignorance in 
 this line." 
 
 He then refers to the "Descent of Man" and 
 continues : 
 
 "I felt that I was walking on a path unknown to me 
 and full of pitfalls ; but I had the advantage of previous 
 discussions by able men." ^ 
 
 ^Darwin, F., "More Letters of Charles Darwin," I, 326. 
 The letter cited is of March 24, 1871. 
 
ADAPTATION 255 
 
 If a man of Darwin's learning, discernment, 
 and scientific spirit is forced to acknowledge 
 such a piece of misjudgment of primitive mores, 
 it is indeed a warning to lesser men against a 
 glib and cocksure condemnation of whatever is 
 alien to the spirit and practice of their age. 
 Through several stretches in the "Descent of 
 Man" Darwin was out of his field and was 
 really not going behind the pronouncements of 
 the philosophers to the facts. He slipped thus 
 into the ethnocentric attitude and lost his 
 "historic sense," that is, his perspective of 
 evolution as a series of adaptations. He did 
 not see that society's successive adaptations 
 are as little the subject of moral judgments as is 
 the adaptation shown in the thick skin of the 
 pachyderm or in the "cruel" crunch of the 
 tiger's jaws. Dispassionateness and an austere 
 objectivity must characterize the attitude of 
 any one who wishes to deal scientifically with 
 society's evolution. 
 
 It is needed even more in the social sciences 
 than in the natural because there is much more 
 room for subjective bias in the former. Aus- 
 terity and objectivity of attitude are all that 
 can save the sociologist from merely painting 
 yet another picture of his own code of mores 
 
256 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 under the guise of science — a performance 
 in which he will be easily beaten by any second- 
 rate newspaper-man, novelist, or preacher. 
 
 If there were no adaptation in the mores, 
 there could scarcely be types of mores corre- 
 sponding to certain broader and even to certain 
 local conditions of the societies practicing them. 
 But such types are to be found, and have been 
 observed and distinguished from the most 
 ancient times of which we have written record. 
 These types naturally come out most sharply 
 in the case of primitive peoples, whose reactions 
 upon environment are most direct and simple. 
 Let us begin, then, with them. We thus 
 eliminate, for the time being, sub specie ex- 
 perimenti, those pervading intersocietal rela- 
 tions (of acculturation, etc.) which render the 
 problem so complex and indistinct. 
 
 There is an active group of scientists in these 
 days who have much to say about the influence 
 upon the life of human societies of geographical 
 environment. The fundamental and determin- 
 ing relations of a human group, these "an- 
 thropo-geographers " believe, are to its local 
 natural surroundings : land forms, climate, flora 
 and fauna, and so on. It is impossible to deny 
 
ADAPTATION 257 
 
 that these are fundamental conditions of life, for 
 the human animal as for the rest of the organic 
 world. This is particularly evident in the case 
 of primitive peoples, for they are thrown into 
 closer relations of dependence upon, nature 
 than are those whose civilization forms for them 
 a certain protection against the action of nature 
 forces.^ Those who are unwilling to accept 
 contentions about the influence of geographical 
 environment upon modem civilized societies 
 are often quite ready to concede the dominance 
 of such influence in the case of the savage and 
 barbaric. 
 
 Plainly the contentions of the anthropo- 
 geographers root in Darwinism, for they reiter- 
 ate and extend the idea of adaptation to en- 
 viromnent. Cases of parallelism ^ constitute 
 strong support for this position. But societal 
 parallelisms can be genuine only where accul- 
 turation is absent, that is, in isolation. The 
 constant tendency of civilization, however, is 
 to break down isolation. This makes the ap- 
 pearance of clean-cut parallelisms under high 
 civilization a matter of great rarity; indeed, 
 the presumption is against parallelism, and this 
 is reflected in the popular mind, whose tendency 
 
 1 Pp. 67 above and 307 below. ^P.ilO above. 
 
258 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 is always to assume acculturation. But this 
 tendency means a reference of phenomena to 
 reaction upon or response to the societal environ- 
 ment rather than the natural. That the type of 
 environment has been altered by the increase 
 and concentration of population and by the 
 ensuing development of civilization is not in- 
 frequently lost sight of by the anthropo- 
 geographer. 
 
 Civilization results also in the freeing of 
 energy from the mere struggle for existence. 
 But this freed energy — while it cannot exist 
 and so can have no results, where the condi- 
 tions of the environment impose a constant 
 strain for mere livelihood ; and while the form 
 of its results must depend in last analysis upon 
 what the environment can be made to yield 
 for self -maintenance — may yet be employed 
 in more or less whimsical or capricious ways, 
 often, apparently, quite independently of any 
 geographic "controls." Artistic creations, for 
 example, while they may on occasion unmis- 
 takably reflect environmental influences, may 
 on other occasions betray no connection with 
 them. Or, again, this freed energy may be 
 employed in reasoning about or drawing in- 
 ferences from phases of the code which are them- 
 
ADAPTATION 259 
 
 selves removed to some distance from concrete 
 verification on the touchstone of actual life- 
 conditions. Such reasoning might appear in 
 connection with politics, ethics, or philosophy. 
 The only reflection of the environment here 
 shown would be its relatively favorable char- 
 acter, in that the struggle to live in it must be 
 easy enough to admit of the release of this time 
 and energy. Under a high civilization and a 
 complex societal organization the multiplicity of 
 causes assignable for a societal phenomenon — 
 none of them verifiable through experimenta- 
 tion, while the ultimate test can be fended off 
 except in the extremest cases — raises immedi- 
 ate distrust of anybody who asserts single or 
 fundamental causes. 
 
 The only way to get at essential causes is to 
 study societies whose life has not yet become so 
 complicated; societies in such isolation that 
 cases of parallelism stand forth clearly as such. 
 It is the science of society which has shown us 
 this way ; and it becomes the conviction of the 
 sociologist that what were fundamental causes 
 once are always fundamental causes ; that a 
 catastrophic theory can be admitted here no 
 more than in geology. Hence he cannot but 
 believe that he may find, in the simpler life of 
 
260 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 a simpler society — there more clearly revealed 
 where societal life is, as it were, in its lowest 
 terms — the essential relations of adaptation 
 in societal evolution. And it is hardly ques- 
 tioned that in such societies the adaptation is 
 predominantly to physical environment. 
 
 I have gone to this length in contrasting 
 conditions in civilized and uncivilized society 
 partly because I do not want to ally myself 
 unreservedly with the more ardent adherents 
 of the suflficiency of geographical "controls." 
 Among men the physical environment is not 
 all; there is also the societal environment of 
 fellow-men; and it is not the same thing as 
 that of fellow-animals. And there is yet an- 
 other environment which does not appear in 
 nature at all: the imaginary environment of 
 ghosts and spirits. The universal belief in the 
 latter is one of the most significant cases of 
 parallelism that we have. One of the greatest 
 concerns in primitive life is adaptation to that 
 enviromnent. Fortunately for the non-com- 
 plication of the case, however, the ghosts and 
 spirits are entirely anthropomorphic, so that 
 adaptation here is, in its general lines, like ad- 
 aptation to the societal environment. No par- 
 ticularly divergent methods are called for ; the 
 
ADAPTATION 261 
 
 differences are of degree and not of kind. But 
 the whole case of adaptation, like that of se- 
 lection and transmission, becomes more com- 
 plicated from the very outset in societal than it 
 is in organic evolution. 
 
 V What I have found opening into view, then, 
 in primitive cases of societal adaptation in com- 
 parative isolation is this : the organization for 
 self -maintenance is of necessity directly adapted 
 to natural conditions ; then, on the principle of 
 consistency in the mores, the rest of the societal 
 system conforms to the maintenance-systemi-^ 
 This latter contention has received a good deal 
 of notice in foregoing pages, and, as I said at 
 the time, will now receive considerable illus- 
 tration here. It is evidently impossible, out- 
 side of an encyclopaedic collection of facts that 
 would take a life-time to assemble and set down, 
 to make any exhaustive proof of my convic- 
 tion. I shall limit myself, first, to one case of 
 a primitive society's adaptation, hoping that 
 that case, though extreme, will recall many 
 others to the mind of the scholar or of the gen- 
 eral reader. Then I mean to cite the adapta- 
 tion shown by another type of isolated society, 
 that of the frontier, which, in its rapid recapitu- 
 lation of societal evolution, spans the chasm be- 
 
262 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 tween the primitive and the civilized. I ex- 
 pect then to take up the type of adaptation 
 peculiarly characteristic of a modern civilized 
 society, and thus to conclude my essay. I do 
 not by any means undertake to explain any- 
 thing and everything in the societal organization 
 by a formula ; I am trying to indicate the main 
 and characteristic lines upon which societal 
 evolution operates, and no more. 
 
 The Eskimo are a primitive people occupying 
 an exceptional habitat under exceptional con- 
 ditions of isolation. They are likely to show 
 the human form of adaptation in terms ap- 
 proaching the lowest and simplest. Something 
 the same might be said of any group of desert- 
 dwellers : the Australians, the Indians of south- 
 western United States, the Hyperboreans of 
 Siberia, the Bushmen of Africa. Similarly 
 isolated are mountain and plateau peoples, as 
 in Tibet, or the inhabitants of inaccessible is- 
 lands, as the Andamanese. Steppe and plains 
 dwellers, as the Kirghiz, or the inhabitants of 
 any other more open type of natural environ- 
 ment, being as a rule considerably less isolated, 
 do not realize for us so good a "nature's ex- 
 periment." And in what I have to say of the 
 
ADAPTATION 263 
 
 Eskimo themselves I have reference rather to 
 their former conditions, under extreme isola- 
 tion, than to the present ; for of late some of 
 them, for instance in Alaska, have had their 
 life-conditions altered, in this case by the in- 
 troduction of the domesticated reindeer. The 
 effect of such acculturation is analogous to the 
 introduction of the horse among the Indians, 
 elsewhere ^ referred to. 
 
 The pursuit of the struggle for existence, in 
 the polar desert, must be carried on within the 
 conditions offered.^ Vegetable food can be had 
 but in the smallest amounts, and there are no 
 native condiments or intoxicants. Clothing 
 must be of a single type as to materials, and the 
 fact that it is worn for protection rather than 
 ornament has led to the adoption of practically 
 a single pattern. Shelter must be made out of 
 the materials at hand ; but these do not include 
 any wood, at least for many of the groups, and 
 
 1 P. 158 above. 
 
 * What is said here of the Eskimo is based chiefly upon the 
 following ethnographical writings: Cranz, "Historic von Gron- 
 land"; Holm, "Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne " ; 
 Fries, "Gronlaud, dess Natur och Innevanare"; Nansen, "Es- 
 kimo Life"; Boas, "The Central Eskimo," in Bu. Amer. EthnoL, 
 VI; Nelson, "Bering Strait Eskimo," in Bu. Amer. EthnoL, 
 XVm, pt. I; Murdoch, "Point Barrow Eskimo," in Bu. Amer. 
 Ethnol.,IK. Also Banke, "Der Mensch," II; Ratzel, "History 
 of Mankind," 11. 
 
264 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 so the house-builder is thrown back upon animal 
 products (bones and skins) and snow. If the 
 Eskimo's methods of supplying these three 
 main needs of man are scrutinized, there can 
 be nothing but astonishment at the cleverness 
 displayed in adaptation and at the perfection 
 of the result. Civilized man cannot better 
 them much, and finds it necessary, when so- 
 journing in the arctic regions, to adopt the Es- 
 kimo ways. This is one of the best proofs of 
 the success of their adaptation. 
 
 This same perfection of adaptation appears 
 all through the maintenance-mores. Consider 
 the tfiectiveness of the tools and weapons, 
 sledges and canoes, of the hunting and fishing 
 methods, and how this is attained by the use 
 of materials whose working-up would seem 
 hopeless for these purposes to peoples much 
 farther advanced in civilization. Here we 
 should note that what is to us a much superior 
 adaptation may be a maladaptation on the 
 Eskimo stage. The introduction of the rifle 
 among these childlike savages has led, in some 
 cases, to indiscriminate slaughter of game in 
 the most wasteful way. The pleasure of firing 
 off the "thunder-tubes" and of killing has been 
 succeeded by scarcity, want, and misery. 
 
ADAPTATION 265 
 
 One of the necessities of the environment is 
 the conservation and generation of heat. To 
 conserve animal heat the clothing and shelter 
 of the Eskimo are wonderfully adapted. Simi- 
 larly the heat in the bodies of slain animals is 
 made use of by the drinking of the blood of 
 those recently killed. And the lamp, simple as 
 it is, and the methods of expressing oil without 
 heat, represent apt reactions of the mind upon 
 a situation the overcoming of which alone en- 
 ables human beings to live in the environment. 
 
 Recurring for a moment to the matter of 
 shelter, we find in the summer shift to the 
 skin tent an adaptation which, when it was once 
 partially given up at the instigation of aliens 
 whose mores led them to think that people must 
 be sedentary to be civilized, proved itself to have 
 been entirely expedient.^ Further, it is note- 
 worthy that the use of snow for building pur- 
 poses forced these people to adapt their archi- 
 tectural methods to the material, with the result 
 that they developed the dome — a form un- 
 paralleled among primitive peoples, since it 
 was not imposed in the life-conditions elsewhere. 
 Similarly, it may be added, the environment 
 forced adaptation to the snow in the form of 
 
 ' Nansen, "Eskimo Life," p. 87. 
 
me SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 snow-spectacles. Each of these inventions and 
 practices is in the highest degree rational as we 
 look at it after the act, because it represents so 
 expedient an adaptation. 
 
 But let us extend the field of observation 
 somewhat. In such an environment the re- 
 lation of population to land is unique. The 
 former is thin and scattered (not over 35,000 
 all across America), and the groups are small 
 and segregated. The Law of Population ^ de- 
 mands it. This immediately alters the terms 
 of the struggle for existence, for, in a sense, the 
 social environment is removed. Hence the 
 mores corresponding to this situation of isola- 
 tion at once appear; and we find a virtual 
 absence of war (though legends, probably orig- 
 inating while this people occupied a habitat 
 less peculiar, refer to war) and of trade. Mili- 
 tancy on the one hand and commercialism on 
 the other are nearly unrepresented. In par- 
 ticular there have developed the mores of 
 peace, so that Eskimo who visited Europe 
 and saw the evidences of militarism thought 
 of sending missionaries there to inculcate the 
 loftier mores of amity. The absence of trade 
 caused the natives to remain strangers to its 
 
 1 P. 24 above. 
 
ADAPTATION 267 
 
 methods and they fell especially easy victims 
 to the frontier trader. 
 
 Out of this elementary organization came few 
 ideas and practices centering about the relation 
 of mine and thine. Property in land other than 
 in the use of a hunting ground could not enter 
 the mores, of course, and the property that was 
 recognized was largely communal where it was 
 not, by the nature of the case, personal. Food 
 was shared ; sometimes in times of plenty with 
 housemates alone, again in times of scarcity 
 with all, even if they did not belong to the vil- 
 lage. Among the Bering Strait Eskimo, says 
 Nelson,^ "if a man borrows from another and 
 fails to return the article he is not held to ac- 
 count for it. This is done under the general 
 feeling that if a person has enough property 
 to enable him to lend some of it, he has more 
 than he needs. The one who makes the loan 
 under these circumstances does not even feel 
 justified in asking a return of the article, and 
 waits for it to be given back voluntarily." 
 Here is an absence of recognition of capital, 
 which operates as a brake upon the advance of 
 the standard of living. Inheritance covers at 
 the widest the tent and oomiaJc, the equivalent 
 
 1 Bu. Amer. Eihnol, XVIII, pt. I, 294. 
 
ms SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 of house and premises. Without going into 
 further detail it is clear that the mores about 
 property reflect the simplicity of the mainte- 
 nance-mores, and respond, through them, to 
 the conditions of the environment. 
 
 Closely connected with what has been de- 
 scribed are the mores surrounding societal regu- 
 lation. There is virtually no government, 
 least of all control issuing out of militancy. 
 The oldest man and the most skilful hunter 
 enjoy prestige and the latter often holds the 
 position of honor and danger, in that his igloo 
 is the one farthest north. There is no slavery 
 and so not even the beginning of classes. It 
 will be recalled that enslavement comes out of 
 war or debt, and even then does not become a 
 settled institution till the agricultural stage is 
 reached.^ Here, then, where there is no war, 
 where debts are of the sort indicated in the 
 quotation just given, and where agriculture is 
 out of the question, the very basis for the de- 
 velopment of such a phase of the mores is absent. 
 There is, of course, no law, but merely vague 
 precedents. Crime is hardly defined, let alone 
 a schedule of penalties. Government is, in a 
 word, entirely elementary. 
 
 1 P. 151 above. 
 
ADAPTATION 269 
 
 The sex-mores harmonize with the conditions 
 of societal self -maintenance. The "sense" of 
 shame, which comes out of a realization of in- 
 vidious distinction from the rest, is rudimen- 
 tary. This goes back to the character ol 
 clothing and shelter as imposed by natural 
 conditions . The custom — an adaptation whost 
 abrogation has resulted in sickness — was to strip 
 upon entering the igloo, the temperature ol 
 which, in the absence of ventilation, is high 
 Thus does the skin get a chance to exhale aftei 
 being inclosed in fur garments whose pores hav< 
 been fiUed up to exclude cold. But the crowdec 
 igloo allows of little or no privacy. Hence th( 
 naturalness of nakedness and the absence oi 
 shame; hence also a lack of chastity anc 
 decency as judged from the standpoint of codei 
 formed under other conditions. 
 
 The preliminaries to marriage and the mar- 
 riage ceremony, as practiced by most othei 
 peoples, are virtually absent. The sense of th( 
 ceremony is to secure publicity of the relatioi 
 of a man and wonian in matrimony ; but then 
 is no need here, in a small group, to perform i 
 ceremony for that purpose. Capture survivals 
 in connection with marriage indicate, however 
 that under other former conditions there was 
 
270 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 a more extended ceremony of marriage just as 
 there was war and theft. The traditional form 
 of marriage is monogamy, as is natural where 
 poverty and a strenuous struggle for life exist; 
 but, here as elsewhere, polygamy is practiced by 
 those who can afford it. In fact, the situation 
 exerts a stress toward polygamy : the death- 
 rate of males, owing to the hazard of life, is 
 very high, reaching, it is said, eleven per cent 
 a year; hence the prevalence of mores calcu- 
 lated to foster the mating of all the potential 
 mothers. 
 
 Endogamy is the rule and is inevitable under 
 population-conditions ; exogamy in any wide 
 sense is impossible. However, there is a rather 
 strong disapprobation of close consanguineous 
 unions. Naturally enough there is no devel- 
 opment of clans and tribes leading to confed- 
 eration or wider societal organization. The 
 position of woman, on this hunting stage, is 
 not high ; but the tasks that fall to her in the 
 sex-division of labor are of sufficient signifi- 
 cance in the struggle for existence to demon- 
 strate her value and make her considerably 
 more than a slave. 
 
 Children are few and their death-rate high; 
 to find as many as three to a family is rather 
 
ADAPTATION 271 
 
 unusual. The nature of the food supply im- 
 poses protracted nursing upon the mothers, 
 and so a long period of barrenness between 
 successive births. But the few children are 
 valued highly and receive affectionate treat- 
 ment. They are untrained except by the ex- 
 igencies of life,^ but by these are disciplined 
 into a characteristic mood of patient endurance, 
 courage, and good nature. It is clear that from 
 all aspects the sex-mores and family life are 
 elementary in form and that they reflect the 
 organization for maintenance at every turn. 
 
 The severity of the struggle is such that but 
 little energy can be freed for the arts of pleasure. 
 What there are are very simple and childlike. 
 Such also is the religion of the region. The late 
 George Borup used to say that the Eskimo did 
 not believe in a God, but that they did most 
 fervently believe in a Devil — they had noth- 
 ing to expect from the former and everything 
 from the latter. Burial customs, and other of 
 the mores connected with the dead, witness to 
 the presence of simple animistic beliefs, but 
 these are very crude and vague. The spirits of 
 the ice, the aurora borealis, etc., are feared ; and 
 explorers have always had great difficulty in 
 
 « Cf. p. 2588 above. 
 
272 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 inducing an Eskimo to go far north. The 
 whole of the Eskimo rehgion betrays the over- 
 powering fear of ill — a fear entirely justified 
 amidst the life-conditions. What little cult 
 there is is of the negative sort : avoidance and 
 exorcism. The strain of the struggle for exist- 
 ence and the prevalent poverty admit of no 
 overplus of time or wealth to be spent on the 
 cult. Thus the religion too reflects indirectly 
 the nature of the struggle in the local environ- 
 ment. 
 
 Here then is a primitive and isolated society 
 a survey of whose mores indicates beyond ques- 
 tion the close adaptation of the maintenance- 
 mores to environmental conditions and the 
 consistency of the other mores with those of 
 self-maintenance. Even in an almost unique 
 case of primitive isolation like this it is possible 
 to discover many a detail of the mores that 
 shows no adaptation to or consistency with 
 anything else in particular. Such are the 
 variations in the mores that are either of too 
 little significance to living to have incurred 
 selection, or are too newly arisen to have yet 
 come under it. In dealing with adaptation it 
 is necessary to satisfy one's self with respect 
 to the larger and more massive groups of mores 
 
ADAPTATION 273 
 
 and institutions. It must be recalled that in 
 the social sciences we cannot experiment; 
 that the experiments nature performs for us are 
 generally over a long perspective and little 
 illuminative of detaU; and that the most we 
 can hope for, on our present stage of knowl- 
 edge, is a high degree of probability as to the 
 working of the larger factors in the life of 
 society. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ADAPTATION {Continued) 
 
 If what has just been said of the study of a 
 primitive and highly isolated society is true, it 
 is even more pertinent to bear it in mind when 
 we approach the question of adaptation in a 
 more complex, less primitive, and less isolated 
 one. Such a society is the frontier group or 
 the colony. It is a sort of primitive civilized 
 society, and yet of course it is not really 
 primitive. As a laconic student once put it: 
 "Frontier society is not primitive — no more 
 than a man who puts on overalls and fixes his 
 plumbing is a common laborer. The frontier 
 puts on the overalls." The Greeks used to call 
 the city which sent out a colony the metrop- 
 olis ; they made a good deal out of the analogy 
 between the colony-metropolis relation and 
 that of child and mother. We too speak of the 
 mother-country, and also refer to the colonies 
 as daughters. There is usually a good deal of 
 truth in popular and proverbial sayings — they 
 
 274 
 
ADAPTATION 275 
 
 often embody tested folk-wisdom — and the 
 present instance has something in it that is 
 deeper than figurative. The frontier society 
 is a child-society, with capacities for rapid 
 growth that may enable it to equal the mother- 
 society in point of size, strength, and culture 
 within a relatively short time. Here is, in 
 actuality, a case of recapitulation, where the 
 evolution of the child-society presents a sum- 
 mary, abbreviated and with a number of omis- 
 sions, of course, but in the main, and in the 
 order of rehearsal, faithful to the course of evo- 
 lution traversed by the adult society. This is 
 the reason why the study of frontier societies is 
 so important to the science of society; it, to- 
 gether with the study of savage and barbaric 
 peoples, provides actual evidence for societal 
 evolution and constitutes a point of detach- 
 ment and perspective from which to view that 
 of which we are all a part. 
 Says Simmer ^ : 
 
 "When we gather together the observations we have 
 made, showing the advance of the entire social organiza- 
 tion from the colonial settlement up to the present time, 
 in all its branches — the industrial system, the relations 
 of classes, the land system, the civil organization, and the 
 
 ' "The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," p. 331. 
 
276 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 organization of political institutions and liberty — we see 
 that it has been a life-process, a growth-process, which 
 bur society had to go through just as inevitably as an 
 infant after birth must go on to the stages of growth and 
 experience which belong to all human beings as such. This 
 evolution in our case has not been homogeneous. The 
 constant extension or settlement into the open territory 
 to the west has kept us in connection with forms of so- 
 ciety representing the stages through which the older 
 parts of the country have already passed. We could find 
 to-day vast tracts of territory in which society is on the 
 stage of organization which existed on the Atlantic coast 
 in the seventeenth century; and between those places 
 and the densest centers of population in the East we could 
 find represented every intervening stage through which 
 our society has passed in two hundred years. This com- 
 bination of heterogeneous stages of social and political 
 organization in one state is a delicate experiment; they 
 are sure to contend for the mastery in it, and that strife 
 threatens disruption. As I believe that this view has 
 rarely received any attention, it is one of the chief points 
 I have wished to make in surveying the advance of social 
 and political organization in this country." 
 
 From the evolutionary point of view a colony 
 is a reversion. But that means no more than 
 that it is an adaptation to a set of conditions out 
 of whose range older societies have passed. Re- 
 version is as much adaptation as is progression ; 
 both are evolution — "it is the same force that 
 makes the stone go down and the balloon go 
 
ADAPTATION 27-3 
 
 up." What produces the reversion is th( 
 change from a partly artificialized environ 
 ment to a natural one. The frontier societj 
 then adapts itself to the crudity of nature 
 sacrificing, as we shall see, much of the civil 
 ization which it had, in favor of forms of adap 
 tation which (and this, as I have said, con 
 stitutes a remarkable case of parallelism) ar< 
 successful as they resemble those of the natives 
 Acculturation takes place, strange to say 
 from the "lower" toward the "higher" race 
 thus the colonists in New England, as we shal 
 see, "Indianized." In short, the colony oi 
 frontier society presents cases of adaptation as 
 strildng in their way as those of a primitiv< 
 society of savages. 
 
 There are two major types of frontier societj 
 which are differentiated one from the othej 
 upon the basis of the character of their responses 
 to physical environment, chiefly climate. Thes< 
 are what I call the farm-colony (of the tem 
 perate zone) and the plantation-colony (o: 
 the tropics).^ This differentiation represent! 
 a fine underlying case of adaptation, and ] 
 shall return to it. The two types have generi< 
 likenesses in characters common to all frontie] 
 
 ' Keller, "Colonization," Chap. I. 
 
278 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 societies, and these I wish to bring out first of 
 all. This can be done most readily by first 
 throwing the temperate zone colony into con- 
 trast with the mother-country, and then the 
 plantation-colony into contrast with the farm- 
 colony. Hence the bulk of description will fall 
 to the latter form, which I have chiefly in mind 
 in dealing with the generic characters above 
 referred to. The temperate colony is, in a sense, 
 a simpler case, because it has more conditions 
 in common with the older society ; there is, in 
 general, an identity of climatic environment 
 and of race between them. 
 
 The significant condition in any country is 
 the relation of population to means of subsist- 
 ence, that is, in general, the relation of popula- 
 tion to land. The Law of Population for men, 
 as we have seen,^ is that population tends to 
 increase up to the supporting power of the 
 environment (land) on a given stage of the arts 
 and for a given standard of living. If, now, 
 there is a great deal more land, the arts may 
 decline or retrograde, especially if the standard 
 of living also declines, and yet the population 
 may increase rapidly. If this were not so, new 
 lands could scarcely be settled. In actuality 
 
 » P. M above. 
 
ADAPTATION 279 
 
 the arts will not decline to the level occupied 
 by them among the adapted natives of the new 
 land ; some of the arts brought in from the older 
 countries will be applicable at once to the new 
 conditions and will constitute a support for 
 population. The conjuncture is overwhelm- 
 ingly in favor of men as against land.^ Hence 
 a temperate colony shows, as a rule, a rapid 
 increase of population. The struggle for self- 
 maintenance is relatively easy. 
 
 However, with the retrogression of the arts 
 and of civilization there is a lessening of pro- 
 tection from natural selection.^ The frontier 
 is no place for the weak ; in fact, there is a sort 
 of preliminary selection before emigration, as 
 is shown by the overplus of men and the rela- 
 tive absence of women on the frontier. The 
 weak and timid are repelled by potential dan- 
 ger and suffering. Counterselection is much 
 less frequent tmder such conditions. A tem- 
 perate colony generally shows a high physical 
 quality of population — youth, strength, and 
 vitality — as well as a rapid increase of numbers. 
 
 The standard of living cannot but decline; 
 indeed there exists no possibility of realizing 
 
 1 Sumner, "The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," pp. 
 Ill ff., 293 flf. ' Pp. 66 ff. above. 
 
280 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 a high standard. Beyond physical comfort 
 there is little to strive for. But a lowered 
 standard of living means at the least less of 
 voluntary restriction of numbers. Marriages 
 are early and families large. Often a low birth- 
 rate is transformed into a high one upon re- 
 moval to the frontier and upon the consequent 
 cessation of the struggle to realize a standard of 
 living no longer represented in the environment. 
 
 These are some of the major relations between 
 population and land as they work out on the 
 frontier where land is plenty and men scarce. 
 The unoccupied land constitutes a sort of 
 vacuum into which population tends to flow, 
 not only by immigration, but also by natural 
 increase. This capacity for rapid growth in- 
 sures that the colony will presently catch up 
 with the older countries, passing swiftly through 
 stages through which the latter have moved 
 slowly, and thus recapitulating, so far as num- 
 bers and the consequences of numbers go, the 
 evolution of the older groups. 
 
 The general case may profit in clearness by 
 a parallel illustration where the conjuncture of 
 men and land was suddenly and violently al- 
 tered by entirely different forces. The Black 
 Death of 1348 acted through all Europe as a 
 
ADAPTATION 281 
 
 reducer of population, and during the ensuing 
 century the effect is visible on the whole so- 
 cietal organization in all its institutions and 
 customs. Similarly in the case of the Hun- 
 dred Years' War in France. Great areas re- 
 turned to wilderness and then were re-occupied 
 as free land, that is, by immigration. Those 
 who went out to reclaim the waste or into mili- 
 tary frontier stations were freed from traditional 
 tenure. There arose a new contract-relation 
 which was rational and advantageous, that is, 
 adapted to the altered conditions of the struggle 
 for existence. All through the last centuries, 
 as the result of the discovery of new lands, 
 these phenomena persisted. Steam navigation 
 really added millions of square miles to western 
 Europe, and the effects of the ensuing under- 
 population upon the societal structure have 
 been characteristic. 
 
 Recurring to the population conditions of 
 the temperate colony, we find that the men are 
 scattered in segregated small groups over wide 
 areas. This results in an isolation and a di- 
 versity of interests that set the groups off one 
 from another in somewhat the manner of prim- 
 itive tribes and communities. Socializing forces 
 are weakened and there appears a sort of lapse 
 
282 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 into the atomistic form. The subdivision of 
 the population into small groups makes it seem 
 at times as if the patriarchal family had come 
 again into its own. Then with the filling up 
 of the country these small groups are obliged 
 to coalesce under pressure, and so again there 
 appears a recapitulation of the process of com- 
 pounding societies which has produced the in- 
 tegrated state form. 
 
 On the basis of these population conditions 
 now surveyed, and the maintenance conditions 
 resulting from them, there has grown up a char- 
 acteristic set of mores of the frontier type. As 
 we come to particularize somewhat more, it is 
 convenient to have some definite frontier so- 
 ciety of temperate climate in mind. There' are 
 a number to select from; but a more compre- 
 hensive picture can be gained if we take a 
 European colony rather than one founded by 
 another race ; and a modern colony rather than 
 an ancient. I have in mind chiefly the northern 
 English colonies in what is now the United 
 States, though I do not intend to exclude the 
 offshoots of these colonies toward the American 
 West.^ In general it is the colonization of this 
 
 1 1 cannot say just where the information upon which the 
 following is based came from. Most of the facts are well known. 
 
ADAPTATION 283 
 
 country, with especial reference to the northern 
 members of the Thirteen Colonies, that I have 
 in mind in what is immediately to come, about 
 frontier societies and their conditions and habi- 
 tudes. Here it is possible to see an extraordi- 
 nary case of adaptation in the mores. 
 
 In the American colonies of the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries the industrial organ- 
 ization reflects with fidelity the condition of 
 the struggle for existence and the competition 
 of life. The commanding phenomenon is the 
 simplification of the maintenance-mores all 
 along the line ; they came to resemble those 
 of the adapted natives. There was a drop 
 from the manufacturing or commercial economy 
 to the agricultural, to the pastoral, and even to 
 the hunting stage. The characteristic develop- 
 
 having been set forth in such books as Bruce's "Virginia" and 
 Weeden's "New England," as well as in more extended histories 
 of the period. A great deal of what follows goes back to Professor 
 Sumner's courses in "American History," parts of which have 
 gotten into print in his collected essays ("War and Other Essays," 
 "Earth Hunger and Other Essays," "The Challenge of Facts 
 and Other Essays" — especially the essay on "Advancing Social 
 and Political Organization in the United States"), but the most 
 of which is preserved only in the notebooks or memories of those 
 of us who were fortunate enough to study with him. The con- 
 clusions about tropical colonies have been derived from reading 
 represented in good part in IJe bibliography of my book on 
 " Colonization." 
 
284 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 ments of an advanced industrial organization 
 — specialization of function, with consequent 
 cooperation — fell back to much more rudi- 
 mentary forms. And with the return of the 
 organization of labor to less complex and evolved 
 forms went that of capital; this prime neces- 
 sity of an advanced civilization existed in small 
 amounts and was largely unavailable under 
 the ruder and less artificialized life-conditions. 
 For our purposes the organization for societal 
 self-maintenance may be readily viewed under 
 the captions of production, consumption, and 
 distribution. The first of these was the result 
 of a direct and largely unconcerted assault on 
 the flora and fauna. Nearly everybody was a 
 farmer or cattle-raiser, whatever his ostensible 
 occupation ; the absence of the narrow special- 
 ist is as striking as the presence of the jack-of- 
 all-trades. Of manufacturing there was little 
 except along the line of home-industry for 
 local use; and this condition was encouraged 
 or even enforced by the mother-country, which 
 was bent on a division of function as between 
 itself and the colonies. This division of eco- 
 nomic function was in the nature of things, 
 especially in the early life of the colonies, and 
 clearly betrays the colonial society in adaptation. 
 
ADAPTATION 285 
 
 Consumption was of simple things locally 
 produced. The food was grown for the most 
 part by the eater of it, clothes were home-spun 
 where they were not made of the pelts of ani- 
 mals, houses were the product of the personal 
 industry of their future owners, aided by coop- 
 eration in the "raising" process on the part of 
 neighbors. In a word, the consumption of 
 materials for self-maintenance took place near 
 the spot where they were produced. 
 
 This was necessarily the case in view of the 
 rudimentary character of distribution. Roads 
 and vehicles were alike primitive, and the water- 
 ways, though these were not well-charted and 
 safeguarded, provided the best means of com- 
 munication. In view of these conditions ex- 
 change took on of necessity a primitive type. 
 It was developed on a small and local scale, 
 and was largely barter-trade. The standard 
 of value became the characteristic local com- 
 modity (beaver-skins, tobacco) and the cir- 
 ciilating medium (wampum) was adopted from 
 the Indians. Peddling introduced a certain 
 amount of goods from outside, and that stock 
 transitional form to the market, the local fair, 
 became characteristic of these as of all frontier 
 societies. Frontier trade, lacking the protec- 
 
286 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 tion of the market, whereby prices are stand- 
 ardized for all, and relying on defectiveness of 
 information, showed its usual phenomena of 
 haggling and overreaching. 
 
 The conjuncture, or relation of supply and 
 demand, as between land and men being in 
 favor of men, rents were low and wages high. 
 Land could have little rent where any one 
 could become an owner with comparatively 
 little effort; wages had to be high, for the la- 
 borer must be paid for renouncing independent 
 ownership and cultivation ("ophelimity ")• 
 Again, in the relative absence of capital and 
 under the risks attendant to lending, the rate 
 of interest was high. All these conditions 
 represent reactions on environment of an adap- 
 tive order, and afford parallelisms to the adap- 
 tations of primitive societies. 
 
 In short the struggle for existence was cruder 
 and coarser ; but with the forces at hand there 
 was presently an exuberance of simple satis- 
 factions. Quantity came to be prized over a 
 quality that could not be attained as yet ; the 
 standard of living was a simple and unrefined 
 one. Hence the criticisms of cultured travellers 
 in the colonies and even, later, in the United 
 States; hence also the long subsequent stric- 
 
ADAPTATION 287 
 
 tures of Dickens, Spencer, Brunetiere, on 
 American ideals. 
 
 Part of the self-maintenance organization in 
 the colonies was military, and this also shows 
 a primitive tjrpe. Methods of warfare were 
 largely those of the Indians, and that they were 
 better adapted to the local environment than 
 those of the English army, for example, was 
 shown in many an engagement, small and 
 large. The feeling about chivalry in conflict 
 and for human lite seems to have suffered 
 a change. Certainly a reversion to Indian 
 mores took place from time to time along 
 these lines; indeed, it was in respect to 
 methods of warfare practiced by the colonists 
 that the word "Indianize" was used. Various 
 forms of barbaric cruelty have been exhibited 
 by settlers in America, and even so savage a 
 practice as that of scalping. Some of these 
 cases plaioly come under acculturation through 
 imitation, but along the main lines of warfare 
 the illustration of adaptation in the mores is 
 clear. 
 
 Self-maintenance being assured, a society 
 turns naturally to self-gratification — to the 
 satisfaction of wants over and above subsistence. 
 The satisfaction of these, on the frontier, is 
 
288 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 of a crude and "boorish" order. High-class 
 drama or opera are out of the question and are 
 not desired; art in its more refined manifes- 
 tations would be entirely out of place. The 
 type of amusement is rather the itinerant 
 "show" and, more locally, the homely festivi- 
 ties accompanying corn-shucking, house-warm- 
 ing, horse-racing, turkey-shooting, and so on. 
 Gambling has been a constant phenomenon of 
 frontier life, as of that of the savage. The 
 satisfaction of curiosity has been attained by 
 the practice of a wide hospitality, and by an 
 extensive development of gossip still charac- 
 teristic of isolated communities. Litigation 
 has offered a wonderful field for self-gratifica- 
 tion; and the baiting of the English governor 
 was also a favorite pastime in the colonies, 
 ranking with bear-baiting. Politics formed a 
 most promising field of diversion. Even the 
 practice of religion became a means of self- 
 gratification ; church-going was one of the few 
 means of gratifying the so-called "social in- 
 stinct" in an environment of comparative iso- 
 lation. 
 
 The mores of self-perpetuation exhibit the 
 same phenomena of adaptation. Woman's eco- 
 nomic function was arduous, but honorable; 
 
ADAPTATION 289 
 
 hence her position was high. On the frontier 
 women are scarce and valuable.^ There was 
 less of property-consideration in marriage than 
 in a more developed community and the wife 
 was more of a help-mate. Children, under the 
 existing conditions of easy support, brief edu- 
 cation, scarcity of labor, and the like, were 
 economic assets, where, in a more developed 
 society, they are liabilities. Families held 
 together in the patriarchal style; much was 
 made of the extended relationship created by a 
 necessary endogamy. The maid-servant, often 
 the daughter of a neighbor, was "help" rather 
 than hirehng, and belonged to the familia. 
 One of the curious details in the sex-mores, of 
 which a number could be collected, is afforded 
 by the practice of "bundling." ^ 
 
 The religious code was not a gracious one, 
 but suited, rather, to the ruder conditions of 
 life. Like that of the Boers, another colonial 
 society showing characteristic adaptations, it 
 
 'This was chiefly under the agricultural economy. In early 
 Kentucky "the female sex, though certainly an object of much 
 more feeling and regard than among the Indians, was doomed 
 to endure much hardship and to occupy an inferior rank in 
 society to her male partner; in fine our frontier people were 
 much allied to their contemporaries of the forest in many things 
 more than in their complexion." Butler, "Kentucky," p. 135. 
 
 2 Cf. Sumner, "Folkways," §§ 576-581. 
 
290 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 was of the Old Testament type, with certain 
 ingredients of superstition and persecution, as 
 in the witch-craft beliefs. But a common creed 
 formed a socializing element where there were 
 few such, and in the face of a harsh struggle 
 against nature, natives, and external enemies, 
 conformity was insisted upon. There was no 
 refinement of religion ; ingenuity and reflection 
 went for the most part into the affairs of prac- 
 tical life. The religion of the colonists seems 
 never to have interfered much with the realiza- 
 tion of less spiritual purposes. 
 
 It has been noted above that the settlements 
 produced locally for local consumption. There 
 was in them an economic self-sufficiency and 
 independence that worked out into a general 
 mood corresponding to these qualities. This 
 mood was easily exaggerated into testiness and 
 irritability. The colonists were quick to sus- 
 pect an infringement upon their rights and 
 liberties and prompt to resent it. They were 
 hard to manage. This was due in part to their 
 life of economic independence, which contrasted 
 strongly with tropical colonial life, as we shall 
 soon see, and partly also to other factors, to 
 which we now turn, which developed as adapta- 
 tions to environment. 
 
ADAPTATION 291 
 
 I have quoted Sumner elsewhere ^ on the 
 topic of colonial democracy ; the following pas- 
 sage enforces much that is brought out in the 
 other citations, but from a somewhat more gen- 
 eral point of view. 
 
 " All men are easily equal when all are substantially well off, 
 because the social pressure is slight ; it is intense social pressure 
 which draws the society out into ranks and classes. The relax- 
 ation of social pressure lets the ranks and classes come together 
 again. 
 
 " The three classes which form the skeleton of any aristocratic 
 system, that is, of a system in which classes are widely separated 
 from each other, are landlords, tenants, and laborers. The land- 
 lords are the holders of the land. The tenants are the holders 
 of capital, because the land must be intensively cultivated, which 
 cannot be done without capital. The laborers are those who have 
 neither capital nor land, and who seek a livelihood by putting 
 personal services into the industrial organization. 
 
 " K the population is dense and the land is all occupied, the 
 possession of it is the possession of a natural monopoly of a thing 
 which is in high demand. The landowners, therefore, possess 
 an immense social advantage. The tenants and the whole middle 
 capitalist class, which stands on the same social plane with them, 
 possess the second social advantage. The laborers are those 
 who possess neither. The three, therefore, are widely separated 
 one from the other as respects the conditions of material well- 
 being and earthly happiness. 
 
 " Suppose then that new social power is won — let it be assumed 
 that some new mechanical force is obtained or that new areas of 
 land are made accessible — what is the effect on the position of 
 classes and on the relative difference in the status of classes ? 
 Plainly the social pressure is relaxed. The landlord finds that 
 his monopoly is no longer worth as much as before, because the 
 
 1 Pp. 147-149 above. 
 
292 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 supply of it has been greatly increased. His rents decline, and 
 his tenants refuse any longer to be tenants because it is so easy 
 to obtain land and become their own landlords. In their turn 
 they find it harder to hire laborers ; for when land is abundant 
 intensive cultivation is no longer necessary and no longer pays. 
 Capital is no longer indispensable for the cultivation, or a small 
 amount of it will suffice. The laborer, therefore, is no longer 
 dififerentiated from the other classes. He can easily obtain land 
 and also the minimum of capital necessary to cultivate it. Thus 
 the landlord comes down to be his own tenant and his own laborer. 
 The tenant owns his own land and is his own laborer. The 
 laborer becomes his own landlord and his own employer. The 
 three classes have melted into one. It is no longer worth while 
 to own a large estate in land, for the owner could not economically 
 exploit it. A substantial equality of all on the middle rank is the 
 inevitable social consequence, with democracy and all the other 
 cognate poUtical results. 
 
 " At the same time, since capital is no longer so necessary to 
 cultivate the ground, and since the accumulation of capital goes 
 on with constantly greater rapidity, on account of the large pro- 
 portion of the product to the labor under the new state of social 
 power, and since the capital cannot be made productive without 
 new supplies of labor, the men are on all accounts in demand and 
 are worth more and more when measured in capital. The class, 
 therefore, which was, under the first supposition, the worst off, 
 obtains under the second supposition the command of the 
 situation. 
 
 " Is not this the correct interpretation of what we see going on 
 about us ? If it is, then the dogmatic or philosophical theorems, 
 instead of being the cause of our social arrangements, are only 
 the metaphysical dress which we have amused ourselves by 
 imagining upon them. We are not free and equal because 
 Jefferson put it into the Declaration of Independence that we 
 were born so; but Jefferson could put it into the Declaration of 
 Independence that all men are born free and equal because the 
 economic relations existing in America made the members of 
 society to all intents and purposes free and equal. It makes 
 
ADAPTATION 293 
 
 some difference to him who desires to attain to a correct social 
 philosophy which of these ways of looking at the matter is true 
 to the facts." ' 
 
 This democratic form of the colonial mores 
 arose, then, in the nature of things, and was not 
 the product of the happy thoughts or superior 
 wisdom of the fathers. If we look to the nature 
 of immigration into the colonies, we see that 
 there was no place for the wealthy, nor yet for 
 the confirmed pauper; neither for the aris- 
 tocrat nor for the retainer. Both of the ex- 
 tremes of society were repelled from an environ- 
 ment where wealth could not profitably be 
 invested in large amounts, where control over 
 others, owing to the ease of evasion, was weak, 
 and where every one had to take care of himself 
 without much aid. Hence the bulk of the 
 stream of immigration was composed of the 
 sturdy middle class, or, in the case of the re- 
 demptioners, for example, of those who could 
 speedily rise to that class. The history of the 
 grants to aristocrats shows how out of keeping 
 were aristocratic institutions in the new land. 
 Again, though it was tried, slavery could not 
 flourish long in competition with free labor; 
 
 1 Sumner, "The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," 
 pp. 166-158. 
 
294 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 and slaves were few and not sharply distin- 
 guished from the rest of the population. Few 
 humanitarian devices could be developed or 
 supported under the conditions of small and 
 detached towns, and public dependents were 
 therefore relatively unrepresented. 
 
 All these conditions made for homogeneity 
 of population; and the situation as respects 
 rents and wages, added to these, produced a 
 general feeling of equality — of being as good a 
 man as the next one — that was reflected in 
 the mores throughout the whole societal system. 
 Hence a democracy inherent in the nature of 
 things and representing the type of adaptation 
 of society to environment inevitable for success 
 in the life-conditions. Hence the type of po- 
 litical system : town-meeting, selectmen, and 
 the other familiar forms. Hence also the im- 
 patience of control, revolution, and the found- 
 ing of a democratic republic. I shall return 
 to this point as one of comparison between a 
 colony of the temperate zone and one in the 
 tropics. 
 
 As in the case of the rest of the mores, those 
 which constitute regulation took on a simplified 
 form. Government was local and its machinery 
 simple. The democratic tendency led to the 
 
ADAPTATION 295 
 
 lodging of temporary authority in the hands 
 of selected men (selectmen) ; but this did nol 
 prevent the strong man, who was able to direcl 
 and lead the assault upon a harsh environment, 
 from exercising great influence. As in time ol 
 war, the military chief got political position 
 The posse comitatus was in evidence. But, ir 
 general, law and regulation were relaxed excepi 
 in the matter of essentials, and there they were 
 strengthened and made more arbitrary. There 
 were not so many petty regulations on conduct, 
 for those appear only when men are crowdec 
 together and societal adaptation calls for s 
 nicer dehmitation of spheres of rights. Regu- 
 lation was, as it were, less extensive and more 
 intensive; including less, but operating wit! 
 greater severity in a smaller field. 
 
 It is not necessary to go into full detail ir 
 connection with the adaptation of the mores o: 
 a frontier society to its environment. It ii 
 the point of view only which I am trying tc 
 bring out. I think that it emerges with es 
 pecial distinctness in the case of frontier justice 
 and with the development of that topic I shal 
 end this sketch of the mores of the frontie] 
 society in the temperate zone. 
 
 We are familiar with the beginnings of jus- 
 
296 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 tice in the individual settlement of private 
 wrongs. This is a primitive form; very early 
 in the evolution of societal institutions the ruling 
 power takes over such settlement. But on the 
 frontier there is a return or reversion to the 
 primitive form ; and it is clearly a case of adap- 
 tation. Even where the matter is not purely 
 individual, there exists the hereditary feud, or 
 a summary settlement, as in "lynch-law," or 
 something approaching court-martial.^ This 
 is not always due to the absence of law or of a 
 recognized government; it is generally refer- 
 able, where it is not merely an outbreak of 
 unregulated passion, to a dim recognition of the 
 maladaptability of the machinery of justice 
 as developed in a more artificialized environ- 
 ment. The law's complications, expenses, and 
 delays detract from its usefulness anywhere, 
 but they render it entirely ineflfective where 
 the society has no apparatus of police and 
 prisons, and where the business of living presses 
 too heavily upon the population to admit of long- 
 drawn-out processes. Hence frontier justice is 
 summary, and approaches the primitive type.^ 
 
 1 Cutler, "Lynch Law"; cf. Langford, N. P., "Vigilante Days 
 and Ways"; Haydon, A. L., "The Trooper Police of Australia." 
 
 * A graphic study in frontier justice is worked out in Wister's 
 novel, "The Virginian." 
 
ADAPTATION 297 
 
 It appears sometimes that the severity of 
 penalties exacted on the frontier is all out of 
 proportion to the magnitude of the offense; 
 horse-stealing, for instance, has often been 
 pxmished, on the frontier, by death. But this 
 case demonstrates the justification of a social 
 practice — to a city-dweller as tinjustifiabk 
 as many a habitude of savages — in its setting, 
 Horse-thieves were at least potential murderers, 
 because they took from a man what was all 
 but essential and often quite essential to life, 
 And so the retaliation was proportioned to the 
 peril rather than to the actual result. 
 
 In connection with crime and punishment 
 the case of the so-called convict or penal colony 
 affords a striking case of adaptation. One oi 
 the surprising facts about such colonies is that 
 presently they become respectable and, as in 
 the case of Australia, develop into seats of 
 cidture. It is also foimd to be true that the 
 deported criminal often became a useful member 
 of the colonial society. Some criminal col- 
 onies have presently served notice upon the 
 deporting country that they will receive no more 
 convicts. But the explanation of this situa- 
 tion is, from the evolutionary standpoint, 
 simple enough. A criminal is one who departs 
 
298 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 in his code from certain essentials of the mores, 
 conceived so to be by the society in which he 
 lives. But often what would be a crime in a 
 settled, civilized community would not be even 
 a misdemeanor on the frontier, with its primi- 
 tive code. In early Greece Herakles was a 
 god; but an individual who duplicated his 
 boisterous practices in an environment of civil- 
 ization would be imprisoned. The rude strength 
 which cannot brook the restraint of the code 
 developed in an artificialized environment may 
 be an asset in direct contact with the rudeness 
 of nature. If crime is a sort of atavism, then 
 the criminal may be well adapted to the code 
 of a less evolved stage of societal evolution. 
 The stock gets a new start and is found at 
 length to have adjusted itself to evolved stages 
 of the code ; it thus ceases to be criminal. And 
 if, as was so often the case in the past, a person 
 was branded as a criminal and deported for 
 slight infractions of the arbitrary code of a 
 ruling class (political criminals), the explana- 
 tion becomes still easier ; in such cases the line 
 between the traitor and the patriot can scarcely 
 be drawn apart from a knowledge of who has 
 gained the power. 
 
 It would appear, then, that the frontier 
 
ADAPTATION 299 
 
 society is obliged to adapt itself to a dis-arti- 
 ficialized environment and that in so doing it 
 presents a case of retrogression as seen from the 
 viewpoint of "civilization and progress," It 
 would seem sometimes that the "new" society 
 has to learn all the lessons of civilization ovei 
 again; that it cannot but fall into the admin- 
 istrative, financial, and other blunders out ol 
 whose heritage of ill the more developed so- 
 cieties have painfully extricated themselves, 
 But thus does the child, in his ontogenesis, re- 
 peat the experience of the race. Experience oi 
 these His is really essential, for only by reason oi 
 the pain of maladaptation is a better adjustmeni 
 to constantly changing conditions attained. 
 
 I wish now to make a brief contrast of th« 
 mores of two types of frontier society, whos( 
 basic distinction is that one develops in th< 
 temperate zone and the other in the tropics. 
 It is consequent upon adaptation to diverse 
 sets of environmental conditions, as I take it, 
 that these differences in societal forms ensue; 
 and if this is true, then we have another clean- 
 cut case of adaptation in the mores. 
 
 ' This contrast is worked out in greater detail in the author's 
 " Colonization," Chap. I. 
 
300 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 When Europeans migrate to another part of 
 their own climatic zone, the comparatively 
 slight change is a beneficial one, other things 
 being equal, for the human organism. Further, 
 the competition with the natives is short and the 
 coercion to healthful activity is beneficial. But 
 it is quite otherwise when migration is to the 
 hot lands : the organism feels a violent change ; 
 the menace of the acclimatized natives is always 
 present, inasmuch as the white man cannot 
 sweep them aside in competition; and there 
 descends on the powers of the immigrant a 
 lethargy which renders him economically of 
 small use. 
 
 These circumstances are reflected in the con- 
 ditions of population. In the temperate zone 
 the immigration is comparatively copious, and, 
 at least after a short time, includes both sexes. 
 Natural increase is rapid and there are few 
 half-breeds. The population is biologically 
 homogeneous, and it is vigorous and healthy. 
 In the tropics, on the contrary, immigration is 
 slight, and is almost exclusively of males. 
 Natural increase is also, for the immigrant 
 race, inconsiderable, but mixed matings result 
 in many hybrids. The immigrants cannot 
 work the soil and are neither healthy nor vig- 
 
ADAPTATION 301 
 
 orous. The population is biologically hetero- 
 geneous. 
 
 In the organization of the struggle for exist- 
 ence the contrast is sharp. In the temperate 
 colony the products are essentially those of 
 the home land. They constitute a variety of 
 necessities. They are raised on the small scale 
 on small freeholds or farms, and these are locally 
 self-maintaining. Labor is in the hands of the 
 immigrants and it is vigorous and carefully 
 expended with a view to preserving the soil. 
 There is Uttle danger of scarcity because of the 
 variety of crops raised, and there is developed 
 a consequent economic independence of the 
 mother-country and, iadeed, of the rest of the 
 world. In the warmer countries, on the other 
 hand, the production is of luxuries which are 
 few and costly, and which must be raised on 
 the grand scale to be profitable. But the white 
 man cannot do the work and the acclimatized 
 native does not want to do it. Hence the 
 "native labor question," which has generally 
 meant enslavement in some form. This mode 
 of organization has led to uneconomic methods 
 of treating the soil ; the white men are only by 
 rare exception more than temporary sojourners 
 in the land, and therefore do not naturally 
 
302 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 develop far-sighted policies in production. And 
 the colony remains economically dependent on 
 the mother-country, both because of its nar- 
 row specialization in production and because 
 of its need of protection as against the natives. 
 The failure of the staple crops means ruin, and 
 the natives always outnumber and are gener- 
 ally ready to turn upon their masters. 
 
 This sharp contrast in the industrial organ- 
 ization, following upon environmental diversi- 
 ties, is reflected in the secondary societal forms. 
 As I have described rather fully the mores of 
 the frontier society in temperate regions, I shall 
 confine myself in the main to a list of points of 
 difference shown in the other climatic environ- 
 ment. In place of the small freehold we find 
 here the manor and the chartered company; 
 this is a profound difference in organization, 
 resulting among other things in much absentee- 
 ism in tropical colonies, with consequent in- 
 evitable results in the treatment of the labor 
 force and in the general societal organization. 
 The tropical colonies, where the natives persist, 
 have also been the classic grounds for a mis- 
 sionary activity unknown in intensity where the 
 immigrants could quickly eliminate the natives. 
 
 Women, in the tropics, being for the most 
 
ADAPTATION 303 
 
 part native consorts, are not valued highly; 
 and the importance of children — who are 
 mainly half-breeds — is less. This reacts upon 
 the whole domestic organization, which cannot 
 be of the type I have sketched as characterizing 
 the temperate frontier. Scarcely anything I 
 have said of this latter type is true of marriage 
 and the family in the tropics. 
 
 In the hot lands population is socially as well 
 as biologically heterogeneous, and in time largely 
 mongrel. There is no middle class, but the 
 Eiu-opeans are investors and aristocrats or 
 officials at one end of the scale, and reckless 
 adventurers at the other. Slavery flourishes 
 as the only sweeping method of industrial 
 adaptation to life-conditions, but it divides the 
 population sharply and creates widely divergent 
 classes. Wages are low or are absent (under 
 slavery) ; it is not possible to utilize the land 
 without considerable capital; there is little 
 temptation to aspire to ownership of land. 
 
 And then the economic dependence works 
 out into political dependence : tropical de- 
 pendencies are protectorates and crown col- 
 onies. There is, instead of equality and democ- 
 racy, inequality in many grades and aristoc- 
 racy. A tropical colony could as readily be- 
 
304 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 come a democracy as a temperate colony could 
 become an aristocracy. The destinies of the 
 two are diverse; the one remains under some 
 sort of tutelage, while the other develops at 
 length into an independent state. 
 
 - — Here, then, we have the outlines of a sig- 
 nificant example of adaptation in the mores, 
 where those of self-maintenance first adapt 
 themselves to the environment, and then form 
 the basis for a societal code consistent with them. 
 The reader will be able to fill out many details 
 of these outlines. This example likewise throws 
 back light upon the contention as to the basic 
 character of the mores of self-maintenance. 
 And, finally, I think an appreciation of the 
 nature and course of development of frontier 
 communities will make clear to the reader the 
 significance for the science of society of the study 
 of such societies. As in the case of primitive 
 types, their processes of adaptation can be more 
 readily apprehended than those of an older and 
 more complex group ; and then their develop- 
 ment takes place rapidly through various 
 stages, in a recapitulary manner, and enables 
 us the more easily to derive the origin and 
 nature of the complex from those of the simple. 
 
ADAPTATION 305 
 
 This is one of the "experiments" which nature 
 performs for the scientific student of human 
 society; it is hardly paralleled on the large 
 scale, it cannot be repeated indefinitely, and 
 so it deserves the more careful examination 
 and analysis. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ADAPTATION {Continued) 
 
 When we come to adaptation in the mores 
 of a highly civilized society the subject reveals 
 at once an extreme complication. For, to use 
 the figure employed before, the life of such a 
 society, in an artificialized environment, is 
 lived on a sort of scaffolding or staging — on 
 a plane above the natural surface. It must 
 always rest upon the latter and be subject to 
 the results of the oscillation or upheaval of 
 its support; but where this sustaining terra 
 firma shows roughnesses and inequalities, these 
 are smoothed out, as it were, upon the arti- 
 ficial staging. To change the figure, the road of 
 civilization is like a railway-line; it follows in 
 general the topography of the earth-surface, 
 but it tunnels certain obstacles and spans 
 others, preserving a general level in spite of 
 considerable natural irregularities. The more 
 perfect the roadway, the less does it turn aside 
 and otherwise conform to the minor features of 
 natural environment.^ 
 
 306 ■ 
 
ADAPTATION 307 
 
 Thus do the mores of a civilized society reflect 
 less faithfully the minor features of the phys- 
 ical environment ; they conform to the staging 
 rather than to the supporting surface — to the 
 artificiahzed environment rather than to the 
 natural. Let us then consider somewhat more 
 closely than we have done hitherto the nature 
 of this artificiahzed environment. ^But let us 
 never forget, in so doing, that we have exem- 
 plified in it a grand product of adaptatiorff^By 
 learning the laws of nature and conforming to 
 them men are able to construct a railway line 
 passing through mountains and over chasms ; 
 and by the same process they have built up the 
 staging upon which civilized people pass their 
 existence, the artificialized environment in which 
 they Uve and move. ^ 
 
 To preserve and upbuild civilization there 
 must be labor and capital, and free interchange 
 of products, material and other. Hence the 
 mores of civihzed peoples must include industry, 
 foresight, and mutual toleration; and the op- 
 posite qualities of slothfulness, improvidence, 
 and animosity must be represented in the 
 minimum. War, which is a sort of reversion 
 to a primitive form of selection, may tear 
 away whole sections of the civilization-staging ; 
 
308 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 it often destroys the useless and the unfavorable 
 variations, but it is not discriminating, and 
 much that must be replaced goes down in the 
 general catastrophe. War takes its toll from 
 both labor and capital, the two pillars upon 
 which societal self -maintenance rests ; and it 
 handicaps trade. The recognition of this fact 
 — which is periodically verifiable — weakens 
 in the mores the age-long sanction placed on 
 war, and gives carrying-power to the assertions 
 and arguments, however flimsy, advanced by 
 the members of peace societies. Every one 
 reads and speaks of the traits or virtues upon 
 which civilization rests; and these represent, 
 in a broad way, the adaptations in the mores 
 to the artificialized environment. 
 
 The form of competition under civilization 
 becomes, as we have seen, industrial rather 
 than military, and thus, as we have also seen,^ 
 there arises in the society a set of mores con- 
 sistent all along the line, which Spencer summed 
 up under the term industrialism, as contrasted 
 with militarism. This is perhaps the broadest 
 designation for the congeries of mores and insti- 
 tutions which represent adaptation to the arti- 
 ficialized environment ; and a realization of the 
 
 ' P. 160 above. 
 
ADAPTATION 309 
 
 extent and consistency of development of this 
 type of code under advancing civilization is, 
 perhaps, the strongest element in a conviction 
 that the mores are adaptive, that is, evolu- 
 tionary. The rise of industrialism, depending 
 as it does on peace and settled order, would 
 have been impossible and, even if possible, a 
 case of maladaptation in uncivilization ; it is 
 an adaptation to the artificialized environment, 
 not to the natural, and is paralyzed and ruined 
 where the supports of civilization give way 
 under some catastrophe (earthquake, war) and 
 the society is cast down into the primitive. 
 This is irrespective of the question as to whether 
 the structure may not at length be better built 
 than it was before. 
 
 li we try to come down to the more concrete 
 instances of adaptation in the mores of civilized 
 peoples, we can no longer attain clear results 
 by taking a nation or people for an example. 
 Such a social unit comprises too many strata 
 of civilization. The United States, for ex- 
 ample, though generally regarded as a nation, 
 contains elements on all stages of culture. 
 This is true in large measure of any unit which 
 could be selected. Civilization is like the 
 snow-line: it crosses all countries and nations 
 
310 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 horizontally. In a very real sense, the most 
 highly cultured people of all lands have more 
 in common — more mores in common — than 
 do the cultured and the uncultured in any one 
 geographical or ethnological unit. That, under 
 pressure, the sense of unity falls back on the 
 old lines, clinging to the essentials of group- 
 identity and self-maintenance, detracts in no 
 way from the truth of this proposition. 
 
 However, we are not seeking for the code of 
 the literati of the earth, and are not to be cast 
 down if our unit is somewhat complex. I 
 suppose, in a general way, that one of the chief 
 results of the growth of civilization has been 
 the development of the city. The unparalleled 
 increase in the number of great cities and in 
 the proportion of urban to rural population has 
 constituted a characteristic feature of the last 
 century. Numbers and the contact of numbers 
 form, as we have found,^ the very conditions 
 of the development of civilization. The mod- 
 ern great city is, physically at least, the most 
 artificialized of environments. If grass and 
 trees are to be found at all in the more densely 
 populated sections, they are sedulously pre- 
 served in a sort of museum, the park. I need 
 
 » P. 21 above. 
 
ADAPTATION 311 
 
 not enlarge upon this point; a glance at the 
 sky-line of New York City impresses it at 
 once, when one puts aside the indifference of 
 familiarity. And so I propose to use the mod- 
 ern great city as the best example at hand after 
 which to outline the adaptation of the mores 
 to the artificialized environment. To go into 
 much detail would be to rehearse common- 
 places known to many. The numerous studies 
 of iirban versus rural conditions and habitudes 
 can be recalled by the reader, to point by con- 
 trast and to amplify the few generalities to be 
 cited here.^ 
 
 Self-maintenance in the city is attained very 
 
 ' Standard works on city conditions furnish an abundance of 
 instances which need not, I think, be quoted here. I have tried 
 to suggest their place in the arrangement of the evidence for 
 evolution in the mores. Such works are: Hurd, R. M., "Prin- 
 ciples of City Land Values"; Gemiind, W., "Die Grundlagen 
 zur Besserung der stadtischen Wohn verbal tnisse " ; Weber, 
 A. F., "Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century" ("Columbia 
 University Studies," vol. XI, for 1899) ; Schott, S., "Die gross- 
 stadtischen Agglomerationen des Deutschen Reichs," 1871- 
 1910; Pratt, E. E., "Industrial Causes of Congestion of Popu- 
 lation in New York City" ("Columbia University Studies," 
 vol. XLIII, for 1911) ; Rowe, L. S., "Problems of City Govern- 
 ment"; Wilcox, D.F., "Great Cities in America"; Howe, F. C, 
 "European Cities at Work"; Woods, R. A., and others, "The 
 City Wilderness," "Americans in Process"; Strong, J., "The 
 Challenge of the City"; Addams, J., "The Spirit of Youth and 
 City Streets." 
 
312 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 largely through an almost unvaried routine, 
 which reduces the ordinary man, as is often 
 remarked, to a cog in the great social machine. 
 It is complained that this is counterselective,^ 
 for it tends to remove the premium on intellect, 
 initiative, and resourcefulness existing in more 
 primitive conditions. But it is none the less 
 an adaptation, on the plane of societal selection.^ 
 As in a modern army, the activities are carried 
 on group-wise, and the thinking is specialized ; 
 it is the inventor of the machine who does the 
 thinking, and the captain of industry who lays 
 out the campaign. For the competition is 
 between such large bodies of industrial warriors 
 that Indian tactics would be ineffective as 
 maladaptations. This may be regretted, but 
 it is quite inevitable. 
 
 Similar mass-organization is visible every- 
 where in self -maintenance, as, e.g., in housing, 
 transportation, standardization of prices, pro- 
 tection of the market, and so on ; and the habi- 
 tudes of going and coming, eating and sleeping, 
 show a response to this organization which 
 does not need description. Consider the dweller 
 in an apartment, who travels miles every day, 
 
 1 Schallmayer, "Vererbung und Auslese im Lebenslauf der 
 Velker," p. 122. » Cf. pp. 177 £E. above. 
 
ADAPTATION 313 
 
 but who comes into contact with nature only 
 in the most sporadic and distant way; he 
 moves in an artificial environment of materials, 
 sounds, systems, crowding fellow-men, etc., 
 and lives and secures self-realization as he fits 
 into it and is part of it. Thus is developed a 
 group of urban mores which are contrasted, 
 as city ways, with country ways, a contrast 
 which has often been brought out facetiously 
 by pictm-ing the adventures of the rustic in the 
 city. Urban mores are reflected with fidelity 
 in the city newspapers ; and the contrast with 
 rural ways is brought out by cartoons and in 
 items from country exchanges which are se- 
 lected for their incongruity with the urban code. 
 The mores of the city are also more subject 
 to acculturative influence, by reason of the 
 fact that the city is at the crossways of lines of 
 communication while the country districts 
 remain in isolation. A foreign practice such as 
 tipping secures a hold more quickly in such 
 centers. Hence the city mores are "cosmo- 
 politan." And even apart from acculturation, 
 they are likely to show more variations as 
 numerous and heterogeneous elements come 
 into contact; they are less traditional and 
 consequently less stable, but at the same time 
 
314 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 offer a busier field for selection. Hence what 
 we call advance or progress is likely to appear 
 in the urban code, where the rural may seem 
 unprogressive, or poorly adaptive. But, on 
 the other hand, variations of the characteristic 
 mode may be carried to such extremes, as in 
 the exaggeration of mass-housing, that the ruder 
 selective processes, operating through under- 
 nourishment, disease, and death, are evoked. 
 
 I think it is not necessary to catalogue the 
 cases of adaptation to the artificialized envi- 
 ronment as shown in the industrial organi- 
 zation. Labor conditions and those of capital 
 show such adaptation. Wages, prices, and 
 rents reflect the peculiar life-conditions. The 
 property-system develops refinements which 
 are selected automatically or consciously out 
 of numerous variations, as adaptive to the 
 environment. In short, to use a classification 
 employed above, production, consumption, and 
 distribution are of a type unknown before the 
 development of such aggregations of popula- 
 tion. Nor do I think it needful to more than 
 direct attention to the mores of societal self- 
 gratification that are characteristic of the city 
 and are in striking contrast with those de- 
 veloped in a different physical and societal 
 
ADAPTATION 815 
 
 environment. Public amusement is highly or- 
 ganized and differentiated ; in fact, for many, 
 the public place of amusement usurps the func- 
 tion of the home as a center of diversion and 
 social intercourse. And it is noteworthy that 
 these mores spread, through imitation, and as- 
 sume forms characteristic of the environment 
 of adoption, approaching the city code in dif- 
 fering degrees as the local environment ap- 
 proaches that of the great city. Imitations of 
 New York life are laughable shams in isolated 
 rustic communities, where they may be no more 
 than premature and pretentious in a smaller 
 city. Reflection over details of the mores of self- 
 maintenance and self-gratification will afford 
 unmistakable evidence of their adaptation. 
 
 The code shows this adaptation also in what 
 has to do with marriage and the family. I 
 have already cited the case of deferred marriage 
 and the decline of the birth-rate of certain classes 
 as representiog adaptation by the whole society 
 through its most sensitive part, the part most 
 sensitive, that is, to considerations centering 
 about the standard of living. The most highly 
 equipped show this form of adaptation in a 
 unique degree. But the location of these, or 
 their goal, is, in general, the city. And while 
 
316 , SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 statistics about the birth-rate in the big cities 
 as compared with the less artificialized environ- 
 ments may prove little or nothing, it is certain, 
 on general principles, that the former does not 
 favor a rapid natm-al increase. The charac- 
 teristic mode of city growth is by accretion. 
 
 Living conditions impose everywhere a special 
 type of domestic economy. The women are 
 wage-earners, and so, in some degree, are the 
 children. Regarding the latter, the problem 
 itself of how to raise children in a city is still 
 before the urban community and the adequate 
 adaptation is yet to come. For any but the 
 wealthy, children must be reared in crowded 
 spaces and in contact with influences that would 
 not be deliberately chosen. The childless fam- 
 ily has much less difficxdty in securing living 
 accommodations and domestic service ; and, of 
 course, it is those who have the foresight and a 
 standard of living which they refuse to lower, 
 who adapt themselves to this situation most 
 readily. And if, in the artificialized environ- 
 ment, complicated and costly habits of self- 
 gratification have developed, these enter to 
 round out a standard of living which will not 
 be lowered — a standard that could not exist 
 under closer contact with nature. Such a 
 
ADAPTATION 317 
 
 status of the standard of living must inevitably 
 affect the mores of societal self-perpetuation. 
 
 This is a very general relation of adaptation ; 
 but I think that if one gives consideration to 
 the sex-mores and those of domestic life, he will 
 find detailed instances of adaptation, called 
 for by the nature of the artificialized environ- 
 ment, occurring to him all the time. The 
 conditions of the association of young men and 
 women which lead to courtship and marriage 
 are largely set for them by the general life- 
 conditions. The qualities which are attractive 
 in the sexes are not always, certainly, the same 
 ones which obtain in less sophisticated com- 
 mimities. What is demanded of the women in 
 marriage is not what the rustic community's 
 mores demand. In short, the pre-conditions 
 of marriage show adaptation of detail, if not 
 always of essence, to general life-conditions of 
 the society. 
 
 Satisfactory family life rests upon the same 
 general basis everywhere; but when it comes 
 to the innumerable details, the domestic econ- 
 omy of the city-dwellers has its own peculiari- 
 ties. Home, as any one knows, is not a spot 
 on the earth's surface, nor anything else that 
 is material; it is an atmosphere. But the 
 
318 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 character of the environment is not negligible 
 either, and the flat or apartment is not as yet 
 the home that the imagination conjures up 
 nor yet the one that the memory of many 
 recalls. It is often the mere lodging-house and 
 there is no real home at all. Narrow spaces 
 and the proximity of families, again, introduce 
 many an element that makes a special call 
 upon the patience, forbearance, discipline, af- 
 fection, etc., which go to make up the atmos- 
 phere of which I have spoken. Such elements 
 require adaptations in the domestic mores which 
 are, in a sense, parallel to the adaptations called 
 for in community life. And divorce and sex- 
 vice have also their great-city type. 
 
 The letter of a religion adapted to conditions 
 of relative uncivilization stands less chance of 
 preservation as it meets an environment more 
 widely differing from that of its origin. The 
 city has the reputation of being more godless 
 than lesser communities. Anachronistic ele- 
 ments are there the more speedily shown to be 
 maladaptive. For example, the life of the 
 urban community depends upon the uninter- 
 mittent activity of its transportation systems; 
 it could not cease labor for one-seventh of the 
 time and not suffer. Compromise between 
 
ADAPTATION S19 
 
 the exact prescriptions of the religious code and 
 the life-conditions occur all the time, and they 
 represent the adaptation of the former to the 
 latter. Tolerance is the result of insight into 
 the point of view of others; but such insight 
 is to be gained through close association with 
 those whose standpoints are not ours ; and this 
 association is most likely to occur where num- 
 bers are brought into recurring contact in daily 
 life. Here appears, then, a sort of amalgama- 
 tion of heterogeneous elements such as results 
 from primitive conquests, with the consequent 
 broadening of the code along all lines, including 
 those of religion. Religion is the great sanc- 
 tion of the mores, and if the latter are altered 
 by adaptation to a typical environment, the 
 former must at length change form to follow 
 them.^ There is much in the life of a great 
 city which religion in its provincial form could 
 not sanction. But the mores go their way 
 without such sanction; and the alienation of 
 the masses from the established forms of re- 
 ligion follows. The Bible reflects rural condi- 
 tions, and, unless interpreted as something of 
 wider reach than its own setting, does not fit 
 
 ' Cf. Sumner, on "Religion and the Mores," in "War and 
 Other Essays," Chap. V. 
 
320 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 city life and its problems. The power thus tc 
 interpret religion is yet undeveloped in the or- 
 dinary expositor. Hence the condemnation ol 
 the great city for its wickedness, which has 
 issued from many sources during the period oi 
 city-development. 
 
 The apparatus of control and administration 
 of great cities is yet following afar off upon 
 their rapid material development; adaptation 
 is still very imperfect. But that there is com- 
 ing into being a system of control which is 
 quite different in degree and complexity from 
 anything the world has yet seen, admits of no 
 doubt. New situations arise so rapidly and 
 suddenly that the existing regulative machinery 
 is always strained beyond its capacity. Much 
 of the time we are thrown back on luck and fall 
 into grave errors; there has not been time 
 to take in the situation and exercise rational 
 selection. 
 
 The two great issues in regulation (which are 
 really one) are: the defining of spheres ol 
 rights for crowding individuals; and, more 
 inclusively, the safeguarding of the society's 
 life in the highly artificialized environment, 
 Hence, on the one hand, rules for personal be- 
 havior that go into a detail uncalled for outside 
 
ADAPTATION 321 
 
 of a densely populated area ; and, on the other, 
 broad regulations and far-reaching provisions 
 that scarcely visualize the individual at all. 
 For example, take the traflfic-rules of all va- 
 rieties as a case of limitation of individual 
 freedom of movement ; and consider the build- 
 ing and fire codes as broad provisions for the 
 welfare of community hfe. Everywhere it 
 becomes necessary to resort to legislation, in- 
 spection, and enforcement; but everywhere at 
 the same time are to be seen the results of mal- 
 adaptation. The common interests have mul- 
 tiplied so fast and are so complex — including 
 representatives throughout the whole length 
 of the scale, from small-group interests to class 
 and racial interests — that experimentation 
 and rational selection have not been able to 
 keep pace. Hence adaptation is as yet far 
 from perfect. 
 
 Parallels might be cited from other fields. 
 As ocean-liners have become larger and faster, 
 it has been seen through sad experience that 
 the regulations for running them have lagged 
 behind. People have been thinking only of 
 size and speed, and neither builders, owners, 
 crew, nor passengers have really known the new 
 vehicles or the conditions within which they 
 
322 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 must operate to secure safety. It has been 
 largely an empirical matter. Says Sumner of 
 railroads : ^ 
 
 "We have only just reached the point where a few men 
 are competent to manage great lines of railroad on their 
 technical side; we have only just begun to educate men 
 for the railroad business as a profession. Railroad men 
 do not seem yet to have any code of right behavior or right 
 management between themselves — people often deride 
 the professional code of lawyers or doctors, but the value 
 of such a code is seen if we take a case like the one before 
 us, where a new profession has not yet developed a code. 
 The social and economic questions raised by railroads and 
 about railroads are extremely difficult and complicated ; we 
 have not, so far, accompUshed much of anything toward solv- 
 ing them by experience or theory. The discussion, so far as 
 it has yet gone, has shown only that we have the task yet 
 before us and that, so far, all has been a struggle of various 
 interests to use railroads for their own advantage. The 
 true solution of the only proper legislative problem, viz., 
 how to adjust all the interests so that no one of them can 
 encroach upon the others, has scarcely been furthered at 
 all. It is only necessary to take up a volume of the evi- 
 dence taken by one of the Congressional committees on 
 this subject, or any debate about it which has arisen in 
 Congress, to see how true it is that conflicting interests 
 are struggling for advantage over each other." 
 
 Similarly with a great city; the need of 
 adaptation to this novel environment has been 
 
 » "The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays," p. 178. 
 
ADAPTATION S23 
 
 so recent of development that it can as yet be 
 met only in part. Old methods will not do; 
 instance the insufficiency of rural charity or- 
 ganization in the big city. Naturally a pas- 
 sable adaptation is first achieved along the line 
 of the self -maintenance mores ; elsewhere in the 
 societal field variation and experiment are rife 
 and the most strenuous effort is being put forth 
 to understand, and then to perform a successful 
 selection. In any case the code comes to include 
 new elements and, even in its inadequacy and 
 incompleteness, grows characteristic. 
 
 The immigrant peasant finds the code of 
 personal conduct oppressive and incompre- 
 hensible, and wonders if the eulogies of America 
 as the land of freedom are not overdone. It is 
 wrong to peddle wares freely where one chooses, 
 to control the time and activities of one's own 
 children, to make such noises as one wishes, 
 even to expectorate when and where one pleases. 
 However, a species of half -adaptation, or adap- 
 tation by indirection, comes about, if the ex- 
 ponent of folkways alien to the code obtains a 
 buffer in the form of a patron — ward-boss or 
 other — who will for a consideration secure 
 exemption or evasion for the culprit. And, 
 indeed, where there are so many who adhere to 
 
324 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 alien codes, as usual the prescriptions am 
 taboos have to be enforced indulgently for ; 
 time. In general, regulations aim at practice 
 which are normal in the rural environment 
 but are both survivalistic and inexpedient h 
 that of the big modern city. European peas 
 ants may try to celebrate their harvest festival 
 in a thin and shadowy form ; but they may no 
 try to keep goats, chickens, and pigs in tene 
 ments. Gradually such survivals are elimi 
 nated, especially by the education of the ner 
 generation. But they are not wanting even h 
 the regulative system itself ; in American citj 
 government there is a persistence of the rura 
 forms, giving opportunities for "graft," th< 
 "spoils system," and general inefficiency. Th< 
 need of reform in the regulative organizatioi 
 of great cities is a topic of constant agitation 
 Says Mr. McAneny,^ an official whose extendec 
 service in, and study of city government giv< 
 him a right to speak: "The plan gaining ii 
 favor in both States and cities is to follow th< 
 example of the nation, to confine the list o: 
 elective offices to those chosen for the broad© 
 business of government, and to concentrate ii 
 a single executive the responsibility for the ap 
 
 1 New York Times, May 17, 1914. 
 
ADAPTATION 325 
 
 pointment of the rest. The establishment of 
 the 'short ballot' means nothing more or less 
 than this. It is of the essence of common 
 sense. To expect the voter, however high his 
 intelligence, to choose with proper discrimi- 
 nation between a multitude of candidates for 
 minor positions, when he has heard little or 
 nothing about either the candidates or the 
 positions, is to expect the impossible. Under 
 cloak of this system, political organizations 
 have been permitted for years to run in their 
 unfit men with the fit, and thus capture oflBces 
 that, though inconspicuous, are profitable from 
 the political point of view. It is a necessary 
 part of the complete reform of the electoral 
 machinery of cities that an end be put to this 
 practice." 
 
 Not all these regulations are peculiar to the 
 great city, but they arise in response to the 
 need of adaptation to a crowded and artificial- 
 ized environment of which the great city is the 
 extreme type. More broadly, the community 
 interest demands that great enterprises in 
 further developing the artificiality of the en- 
 vironment be carried out (sewage-systems, 
 water-supply, rapid-transit), and that the so- 
 ciety be fitted to exercise rational selection in 
 
326 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 its further adaptation (school-system, election- 
 reforms). And so an enormous and compli- 
 cated system of societal control evolves in 
 response to the society's life-conditions, for 
 which simpler aggregations felt little more need 
 than does the Papuan for a clearing-house. 
 
 This trio of illustrations of adaptation in the 
 mores — and in the institutions that crystal- 
 lize out of the mores — on the part of three 
 very differently situated human societies, seems 
 to me sufficient at least to suggest many other 
 and diverse cases of the same process. But 
 such adaptation is the end-result of evolution. 
 If we can accept the conclusion, stated in ad- 
 vance of the evidence at the outset of chap- 
 ter VIII, that every established and settled 
 human institution is justifiable, in its setting, as 
 an adaptation, it seems to me that we are there- 
 by accepting the extension of the Darwinian 
 theory to the field of the science of society. 
 
 But the attempt has been made in the fore- 
 going to show also that this end-result has been 
 reached through the operation of factors es- 
 sentially the same as those whose operation in 
 the organic field leads to organic adaptation. 
 It is freely admitted that we cannot demon- 
 
ADAPTATION 327 
 
 strate processes and results in the societal field 
 with the precision and under the authority of 
 verification which are characteristic of the nat- 
 ural sciences ; societal evolution is on a differ- 
 ent plane, and the social sciences, in their dif- 
 ferent mode, have as yet no such equipment of 
 evidence and method as have the natural 
 sciences. "Aller Anfang ist schwer," says 
 Goethe ; and we might venture to modify, un- 
 rhjrthmically, the rest of his line: "vor allem 
 der Anfang der Wissenschaft." But one of 
 the difficulties of the social sciences is, as I said 
 at the beginning, that they have no evolutionary 
 orientation such as Darwin gave to the natural 
 sciences. The question was : Cannot this 
 orientation be given to them by extending the 
 evolutionary theory to the field which they 
 cover ? This cannot be done, to any purpose, 
 by "reasoning from analogy." I have come 
 to believe that there is more here than analogy, 
 and have tried to convey some of the reasons 
 for that conviction. If what I have written 
 helps any one else to arrive at the same convic- 
 tion, I think he will find it useful in securing an 
 orientation for the study of human society. 
 
NOTE 
 
 It will perhaps occur to some close student of Sumner's 
 work that Sumner himself has written on "Evolution and 
 the Mores" (see "Folkways," preface, ad fin.). This is 
 correct ; and I feel that I must say something about that 
 essay in this place. Some time before the publication of 
 "Folkways," Professor Sumner read, before the Anthro- 
 pology Club of Yale University, a paper entitled, "The 
 Application of the Notions of Evolution and Progress on 
 the Superorganic Domain," in which he set forth his 
 conviction that there is no progressive evolution in the 
 folkways. This paper summarized, to some extent, a 
 much longer manuscript on "Sociology and Evolution," 
 the last passages of which I have quoted at the beginning 
 of Chapter VIII above. I think this was the projected 
 chapter of "Folkways," mentioned in the preface to that 
 book. 
 
 At the club meeting which I have mentioned there were 
 present representatives of several other departments — 
 biology, geology, psychology, history — and there ensued 
 upon Sumner's paper a prolonged discussion from the 
 different points of view represented. Several men then 
 undertook to set forth, at succeeding meetings, their views 
 on the subject. Sumner was present on all these occasions 
 and listened to the criticism with his usual care. He also 
 fought back lustily, as was his wont ; but as we returned 
 one evening from the last of these discussions, he told me 
 
 323 
 
NOTE 329 
 
 he had decided not to include the chapter on evolution and 
 the mores in his forthcoming book. I judge from the 
 unfinished character of the manuscript that he laid it 
 aside at that time and did not return to it again. Other 
 matters occupied his mind during the last few years of 
 his life ; in the course of many conversations I do not re- 
 call any further reference to the topic. 
 
 This essay of his, as it seems to me, would be relevant 
 and compelling if he could have completed it under the 
 title "Progress and the Mores," or with the understanding 
 that "evolution" connoted the process as Spencer saw it. 
 Criticism of Sumner's utterance was confined chiefly to 
 the position taken that evolution and progress are synony- 
 mous, or nearly so. Sumner admitted that he meant 
 "progressive evolution" and endeavored to show that he 
 was correct in that view. I expect sometime to utilize 
 the bulk of this essay in connection with other unfinished 
 manuscripts left by him. As a refutation of much fooUsh 
 talk about progress, some of its trenchant paragraphs 
 should be very effective. 
 
 As for the systematic application to the folkways of 
 the central idea of Darwinian evolution — adaptation to 
 environment, secured through the operation of variation, 
 selection, and transmission — I do not believe that it 
 occurred to Sunmer to undertake it. Often in "Folk- 
 ways," and even in much earher writings, he uses some of 
 the terms, as, for instance, variation and selection ("Folk- 
 ways," §§ 88, 170, et al.) ; and frequently the operation of 
 factors, as developed above, is implied ; but that was as 
 far as he went. What he wanted to make clear was the 
 origin and nature of the folkways ; and then he meant to 
 
330 SOCIETAL EVOLUTION 
 
 hasten back to his "Science of Society," rewrite in the 
 light of "Folkways" what he had akeady written, and 
 complete the treatise. 
 
 It is my behef that he would have been obhged to re- 
 turn to the topic of evolution in its relation to the folkways 
 before he could have satisfied himself to go on with his 
 "Science of Society." No one could be more in sympathy 
 with his general way of looking at the science than I am ; 
 but I could not accept his views about evolution and the 
 mores — views which were somewhat unsettled, I thought, 
 by the discussions I have mentioned ; and I have been 
 convinced that some imderstanding must be arrived at re- 
 specting societal evolution before it is possible to complete 
 a general book on the science of society that shall rest 
 upon the conception of the folkways. And so I have 
 worked out that which precedes. 
 
 This is what lies behind the statement in the preface 
 that the present volume is an extension upon the idea of 
 the folkways. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acculturation, 216 ff., 258, 263, 
 
 277, 313. 
 Acquired Characteristics, 209- 
 
 211. 
 Adaptation, 9, 23, 41, 92, 129, 
 
 154, 160, 164, 187, 215, 216, 
 
 227, 234, 245-247 ff. See 
 
 Darwinian Factors. 
 Mental and Social, 18 fE., 21 ff. 
 Physical M. Mental, 18. 
 To Geographic Environment. 
 
 See Anthropogeography. 
 Adat, 155. 
 Advertising, 244. 
 Aged, 60. 
 
 Aleatory Element, 74. 
 Amalgamation, 46, 75 ff., 80, 
 
 242-243, 319. 
 Artibel ajiak, 155. 
 American Traditions, 79. 
 Anachronism. See Maladap- 
 
 tation. 
 Analogy, 4, 14-15, 46, 209, 220- 
 
 222, 327. 
 Animism. See Religion. 
 Annihilation, 64 ff., 72, 135. 
 Antagonistic Cooperation, 192. 
 Anthropogeography, 256 ff. 
 Anthropomorphism, 260. 
 Aristocracy, 115, 148, 291-293, 
 
 303. 
 Artificialized Environment, 67, 
 
 306 ff. 
 Artificialization, 71, 177 ff. 
 Arts of Life, 23, 138, 248, 279. 
 
 See Maintenance-mores. 
 
 Assimilation. See Amalgama- 
 tion. 
 Association, 68. 
 Austerity, 255. 
 Australia, 297. 
 Australians, 156. 
 
 B 
 
 Bagehot, W., 11. 
 Bergson, H., 48. 
 Biogenetic Law, 220, 225. 
 Biological Qualities. See Selec- 
 tion, Counterselection. 
 Black Death, 280. 
 Bland SUver Bill, 113. 
 Boers, 289. 
 Borup, George, 271. 
 Brain, 18, 19. 
 Bricks, 49. 
 Bride-price, 155-156. 
 Bryce, J., 243. 
 
 C 
 
 CampbeU, H., 210. 
 
 Cannibalism, 45. 
 
 Capital, 146, 182, 286, 291-292, 
 
 303, 307, 314. 
 Capital Punishment, 65. 
 Catastrophic Theory, 259. 
 Cause, Single and Multiple, 259. 
 Celibacy, 173-174, 187. 
 Chance; See Luck. 
 Chapin, F. S., 11. 
 Charity. See Humanitarianism. 
 ChUdren, 29, 221, 222, 228, 289, 
 
 299, 316. See Eskimo. 
 
 331 
 
332 
 
 INDEX 
 
 China, 99. 
 
 Circumcision, 69, 94. 
 
 City, 191, 310 ff. 
 
 Civilization (culture), 18, 21, 31, 
 
 67 ff., 177 ff., 197, 226, 258, 
 
 299, 307, 309-310. 
 A Measure of Adaptation, 19. 
 Civil War, 65-66. 
 
 The American, 66, 172. 
 Classes, 83 ff., 86 ff., 152, 232 ff. 
 Dominant Classes, 47, 86, 100, 
 
 115, 116 ff., 122-123, 126, 
 
 203, 239. 
 Classification, 17 ff. 
 
 Of Social Phenomena, 132-133. 
 Climate. See Adaptation. 
 Code, 30, 44, 56 ff., 64-65, 78, 
 
 81, 86, 91, 104, 322, et 
 
 passim. 
 "Colonization," 283, 299. 
 Colony, 147, 220, 274 ff. 
 American Colonies, 283 ff. 
 Temperate vs. Tropical, 299 ff . 
 Competition. See Conflict. 
 Compounded Group, 73. 
 Conapoundiug Process, 239. 
 Concurrence, 35, 44, 53, 236. 
 Conflict, 56 ff., 62, 64, 73, 78, 
 
 88, 92, 105, 112, 121, 126, 
 
 308. 
 Mitigated by Civilization, 83. 
 
 See War, Sentimentality. 
 Conjuncture, 279. 
 Conn, H. W., 11. 
 Conquest, 63. See Enslave- 
 ment. 
 Consistency, and Strain towards, 
 
 49, 66, 92, 141, 162, 165, 
 
 167, 204, 242 ff., 249, 261, 
 
 282, 308. 
 Consumption. See Industrial 
 
 Organization, Maintenance- 
 mores. 
 Contagion, 216. 
 Control, 24 ff., 163. 
 "Controls." See Anthropo- 
 
 geography. 
 
 Convention, 26 ff., el passim. 
 
 Coolidge, A. C, 152. 
 
 Corbin, A. L., 41. 
 
 Coulanges, F. de, 243. 
 
 Counterselection, 68, 170 ff., 
 279, 312. 
 
 Counterseleetive Factors, 170 ff. 
 
 Cremation, 93. 
 
 Crime, 79, 191, 268, 297-298. 
 
 Criminal, 70. See Capital 
 Punishment. 
 
 Criticism. See Selection, Ra- 
 tional. 
 
 Crusoe, 28, 84. 
 
 Currency System, 112. 
 
 Cutler, J. E., 195, 296. 
 
 Darwin, C, 3, 6, 9, 11, 55, 87, 
 170, 254, 255, 326, 327. 
 
 Darwinian Factors, vi, 3, 14 ff. 
 41, 250, 326, 329. See 
 Variation, Selection, Hered- 
 ity, Adaptation. 
 
 Darwinism, v-vi, 2, 3, 5, 10, 
 13, 14, 38, 41, 207, 249, 250, 
 257, 329. 
 
 Deceased Wife's Sister, 27, 103. 
 
 De Greef, G., 132. 
 
 Demagogue, 47, 104, 110-112, 
 149. 
 
 Democracy, 109, 111, 124, 147 
 ff., 290, 292, 303. See 
 Equality. 
 
 "Descent of Man," 11, 12, 170, 
 254, 255. 
 
 Determinism, Economic, 163- 
 164. 
 
 Dickens, C, 287. 
 
 Discarded Mores, 50, 64. 
 
 Discipline, 29. 
 
 Dissatisfaction. See Wants. 
 
 Distribution. See Industrial 
 Organization, Maintenance- 
 mores. 
 
 Divination, 96-97. 
 
INDEX 
 
 333 
 
 Dominant Class. See Classes. 
 Dowry, 155-156. 
 
 E 
 
 Economic Mores. See Main- 
 tenance-mores. 
 
 Education, 29, 93, 99, 100, 116 
 ff., 120, 137-138, 149, 205, 
 215 ff., 326. 
 
 Educator, 232. 
 
 Egypt, 17, 159. 
 
 Elections, 105 ff., 324^325, 326. 
 
 Ellis, A. B., 215. 
 
 Ellis, H., 211. 
 
 Eoslavemeut, 63, 73. 
 
 Environment, 64, 157. See 
 Adaptation. 
 
 Epithets. See Ethnocentrism. 
 
 Equality, 291-294, 303. See 
 Democracy. 
 
 Eskimo, 262 ff. 
 
 Ethics. See Philosophy. 
 
 Ethnocentrism, 58 ff., 74, 134, 
 215, 219, 251-252, 255. 
 
 Ethnography, 143, 252. 
 
 Eugenics, 138, 171, 193 ff. 
 Negative Eugenics, 202 ff, 
 
 Evolution, 2, 5, et passim. See 
 Darwinism, Spencer, Pro- 
 gressive Evolution. 
 Societal vs. Organic, vii, 14, 
 15, 18, 19, 20 ff., 30, 90-91, 
 209, 218 ff., 221-222, 327. 
 Conditioned by Antecedent 
 Evolution, 91. 
 
 Evolution and the Mores, 328. 
 
 Experimentation, 1, 5, 39, 46 ff., 
 128, 136-137, 256, 262, 
 276, 305, 321, 323. 
 
 Expert, 124. 
 
 Fabri, F., 245. 
 Factory System, 149. 
 Fads, 48. 
 
 Fairs, 285. 
 
 Fashion, 180, 196. 
 
 Fiction, 26. 
 
 Fiske, J., 5, 8. 
 
 "Fit" and "Unfit," 67, 183, 185, 
 190, 210. See Selection, 
 Societal vs. Natural, Coun- 
 terselection. 
 
 Folkways, 31, 41 ff., 54, 61, 144, 
 et passim. 
 
 "Folkways," 30, 32-33 ff., 43, 
 45, 57, 58, 59, 61, 63, 66, 
 74, 88, 98, 101, 103, 104, 
 106, 108, 114, 215, 237, 238, 
 249, 328, 330. 
 
 Folk-wisdom. See Proverbs. 
 
 Foresight, 96. 
 
 Franklin, B., 122. 
 
 Frontier Justice, 295 ff. 
 
 Frontier Society, 261, 274 ff. 
 
 G 
 
 Galton, F., 13, 174, 184, 185, 
 194 ff. 
 
 Geographical Controls. See An- 
 thropogeography. 
 
 Ghost-fear, 26, 85. See Re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Goethe, J. W. von, 101, 327. 
 
 Gotzen, Graf von, 154. 
 
 Governing Class. See Classes. 
 
 "Great Man in History," 55. 
 
 Gumplowioz, L., 67, 76, 80, 83. 
 
 Hard Times, 107. 
 
 Harmful Mores, 63. 
 
 Haycraft, J. B., 10. 
 
 Hawaii, 252. 
 
 Health Certificate for Marriage, 
 
 204-205. 
 Herakles, 298. 
 Heredity, 195, 209, 212-213. 
 
 219, 298. 
 Vs. Tradition, 212 ff. 
 
334 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hindu, 102. 
 
 Historic Spirit, 254-255. 
 
 Home, 70, 317. 
 
 As a School, 227. 
 Homer, 154. 
 Housing. See City, Industrial 
 
 Organization. 
 " Huckleberry Finn," 69. 
 Humanitarianism, 175-177, 190, 
 
 191, 192-193. 
 Hundred Years' War, 281. 
 Huxley, T. H., vi, 6, 7. 
 Hygiene, 174-175. 
 
 Idealization, 110. 
 
 Imaginary Environment, 260. 
 
 Imagination, 96. 
 
 Imbeciles, 203-204. 
 
 Imitation, 75, 115, 118, 215 ff. 
 
 Immigration, 281, 293. 
 
 "Improvement," 167. 
 
 Incest, 81, 103. 
 
 Inculcation, 215 ff. 
 
 Independence. See Democracy. 
 
 "Indianize," 287. 
 
 Indians, 63, 93, 152, 157-158, 
 241, 287. 
 
 Individual, 51. 
 
 Industrialism, 150, 308. See 
 Militarism. 
 
 Industrial Organization, 173, 
 188-189, 283 S. See Es- 
 kimo, Frontier Society, 
 City, Maintenance-mores. 
 
 Inference, 37, 44, 49. 
 
 Inheritance, 156. 
 
 Of Acquired Characters, 209- 
 210. 
 
 Inquisition, 174. 
 
 "Ins" and "Outs," 106, 123. 
 
 "Instinct," 28 ff., 32, 33, 95, 
 223 
 
 Institutions, 19, 54. 
 
 Interests, 35, 75, 81, 83, 105, 
 109, 110, 120-121, 125, 126, 
 
 130, 144, 177, 188, 205, 321, 
 322, 325. -See Wants. 
 
 Intolerance, 62, 76. 
 
 Invention, 64, 153. See Ex- 
 perimentation, Variation. 
 
 Irish, 144. 
 
 Isolation, 21, 50, 52, 65, 79, 104, 
 172, 238-239, 244, 257, 259, 
 281, 288. -See Eskimo. 
 
 Japan, 99. 
 Jefferson, T., 282. 
 Jesuits, 241. 
 Jews, 77. 
 Joshi, P. B., 229. 
 
 Kidd, B., 10. 
 Knowledge, 96 ff., 191. 
 Kowalewsky, M., 157. 
 Kubus, 58. 
 
 Labor, 182, 207, 314. 
 Language, 59,77,87, 131,211,221. 
 
 Sign language, 158. 
 Law of Population, 23-24, 186, 
 
 266, 278. 
 Law, 24, 27, 41, 85, 87, 119, 
 
 205, 245. See Legislation, 
 
 Frontier Justice. 
 Lea, H. C, 187. 
 Leading Classes. See Classes. 
 Leaf, W., 154. 
 Lecky, W. E. H., 111. 
 Legislation, 115, 124, 203-204, 
 
 321-322. See Laws. 
 Legislation by Clamor, 112- 
 
 113. 
 Leprosy, 180-181. 
 Letourneau, C, 47. 
 Lewin, T. H., 253. 
 Limitation of Numbers, 23. See 
 
 Standard of Living. 
 
INDEX 
 
 335 
 
 Lippert, J., 228-229. 
 Livingstone, D., 245. 
 Logic, 202, 237. 
 Love. See Sex-passion. 
 Luck, 124-126, 139-140. 
 Lynch-law, 296. 
 
 M 
 
 Maintenance-mores, 133, 135 ff., 
 160, 205, 234 ff., 238, 242 ff ., 
 261, 283, 304. 323. See Es- 
 kimo, FroutierSociety, City. 
 
 Maladaptation, 71, 150, 178, 
 246, 264, 296, 299, 309, 312, 
 318, 319, 321, 323, 324. 
 
 Man, Dispersal of. Homogeneity 
 of, 17. 
 
 Manners, 29, 211. 
 
 Marriage, 25, 131, 133, 135, 
 151, 155 ff., 173, 225, 315 ff. 
 See Eskimo, Frontier So- 
 ciety, City. 
 Deferred, 172, 184 ff. 
 Restrictions on, 198-199. 
 
 Marriage and Property, 155— 
 156, 189. 
 
 Marx, K., 162, 163. 
 
 "Masses," 88, 104, 114, 124- 
 126, 184, 200. 
 
 "Materialized" Ideas, 19, 181, 
 201. See Civilization. 
 
 Mating Controlled, 25 ff. 
 
 Maudsley, Dr., 138, 196. 
 
 McAneny, G., 324. 
 
 McGee, W J, 252. 
 
 Medical Science, 174^175, 189, 
 191. 
 
 Medicine-man, 107, 117. 
 
 "Men," 58,77. 
 
 Mental Reactions, 18, 23, 24, 
 237. 
 
 Mesalliance, 26. 
 
 Metric System, 121. 
 
 Metropolis. See Colony. 
 
 Militarism, 150, 171-172, 268. 
 See Industrialism. 
 
 Military Organization. See War. 
 Missions, 61, 224, 266. 
 Moral Forces, 144 ff. 
 Moral Judgment. See Ethno- 
 
 oentrism. 
 Moral Sentiments, 12. 
 Mores, 44. See Folkways et 
 
 passim. 
 Mores, and Size of Groups, 80. 
 
 Power of, 101 ff. 
 Moriscos, 77. 
 Morley, J., 254. 
 Mormons, 27. 
 Motives and Consequences, 139. 
 
 N 
 
 Nansen, F., 265. 
 
 Nation, New York, 165. 
 
 National Traditions, 79. 
 
 Native-Labor Question, 301. 
 
 "Natural Law," 197. 
 
 Natural vs. Social Sciences, 1 ff . , 
 128-129. 
 
 "Nature," 55. 
 
 Need. See Want. 
 
 Negro, 95, 154, 215. 
 
 Nelson, E. W., 267. 
 
 New England, 220, 282-283. 
 
 Newton, I., 101. 
 
 New York City, 311 ff. 
 
 New York Times, 48, 114, 180. 
 
 Nomads, 74. 
 
 Numbers. See Law of Popu- 
 lation. 
 
 Numerals, 154. 
 
 O 
 
 Objectivity, 255. 
 Okuma, Count, 18. 
 Origin of Species, 20. 
 Overpopulation, 142-143. 
 
 Pain, 237. See Maladaptation. 
 
336 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Parallelism, 216-217, 257, 277, 
 286, 318, 321-322. 
 
 Parties, Political, 105 ff. 
 
 Party System, 154. 
 
 Patent Office, 47. 
 
 "Pathos," 106-107, 109, 254. 
 
 Patriarchal Family, 151, 282, 
 289. 
 
 Patriotism, 82. 
 
 Peal, S. E., 225. 
 
 Penal Colony, 297. 
 
 PhHosophy, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 
 37, 69, 148, 149, 231, 247- 
 249, 259, 292. 
 
 Philanthropist, 146. See Sen- 
 timentality. 
 
 Piracy, 72. 
 
 Pitoairn Island, 129. 
 
 Platform, Political. See Elec- 
 tions. 
 
 Political Power, 85 ff. 
 
 Political System, 294 ff. 
 
 Politics, 121, 134-135. See 
 Elections. 
 
 Polygamy, 81, 151. 
 
 Population and Land, 159. See 
 Law of Population. 
 
 "Power over Nature," 22, 67, 71. 
 
 Powerful, The. See Class, Dom- 
 inant. 
 
 Preaching, 115. 
 
 Prejudice, 109. 
 
 Primary and Secondary Societal 
 Forms, 133, 137, 141, 150, 
 153, 162, 167, 242 ff., 244- 
 246, 250, 302. 
 
 Primitive Peoples, 31, 96, 143, 
 214, 222, 228, 253 ff., 256, 
 275. See Eskimo. 
 
 Primogeniture, 189. 
 
 Production. See Industrial Or- 
 ganization, Maintenance- 
 mores. 
 
 "Progress," 8, 9, 149, 161, 239, 
 248, 299, 329. 
 
 Progressive Evolution, 247, 329. 
 
 Property, 151, 155 ff., 173, 223, 
 
 245-246,314. See Eskimo, 
 
 Marriage and Property. 
 Prosperity-policy, 35, 51, 57, 60, 
 
 74, 88, 106, 214, 226. 
 Protectionism, 49, 112, 205. 
 Protectorates, 303. 
 Proverbs, 98, 215, 274-275. 
 Public Opinion, 30, 93, 100, 125- 
 
 126. 
 Pure Food Laws, 93. 
 
 R 
 
 Race, "Lower" and "Higher," 
 217, 240 ff., 253, 277. 
 
 Race-character, 51, 209. 
 
 Race-suicide, 184, 186. 
 
 Rassenbiologie, 13. 
 
 " Rassenkampf ," 57. 
 
 Ratzel, F., 252. 
 
 "Raw-Eaters," 59. 
 
 Reason, 93, 95, 134, 136, 168, 
 202, 237. See Selection, 
 Rational. 
 
 Recapitulation, 220 ff., 261, 275, 
 280, 304. 
 
 Reflexes, 32, 33. See Instinct. 
 
 Reformers, 205. 
 
 Regulative System, 246, 320 ff. 
 See Eskimo, Frontier So- 
 ciety, City. 
 
 Religion, 44, 48, 60 ff., 74, 77, 
 131, 133, 135, 151, 174, 
 194 ff., 214, 215, 224, 229, 
 241, 246, 288, 289-290, 318- 
 320. See Eskimo, Fron- 
 tier Society, City. 
 
 Rent, 314. See Industrial Or- 
 ganization. 
 
 "Reorganizing Society," 115. 
 
 Retrogression, 149, 158, 276, 
 278. 
 
 Reversion, 276, 287, 298, 307. 
 
 Revolution, 104-105, 294. See 
 Elections. 
 
 Rich, The. See Classes, Domi- 
 nant. 
 
INDEX 
 
 337 
 
 Ridicule, 75, 239. See Epithets, 
 
 Vanity. 
 Rights, 84, 156, 176, 182-184, 
 
 320. 
 Ritchie, D. G., 10. 
 Ritual, 238. 
 Romanes, G. J., 9. 
 Romans, 169, 242. 
 Ross, E. A., 235. 
 
 S 
 
 Sanction of the Mores, 44, 60, 
 
 119, 227-229. See Reli- 
 gion. 
 Saussure, L. de, 243. 
 Schalhnayer, W., 12, 171 ff., 188, 
 
 312. 
 Science, 97. 
 Secondary Societal Forms. See 
 
 Primary and Secondary 
 
 Societal Forms. 
 Secret Societies, 87. 
 Security of Life and Property, 
 
 94^95. 
 Sedgwick, W. T., 189. 
 Selection, 34, 208-209, 279, 314. 
 
 See Darwinian Factors. 
 Automatic, 91, 101, 103, 112, 
 
 122-123, 140, 189, 238. 
 Natural, 22 ff., 35, 279. 
 Rational, 93 ff., 181, 188, 192, 
 
 196, 218, 230, 231, 235, 325. 
 
 See Eugenics. 
 Sexual, 87. 
 Societal, 55, 66 ff., vs. Natural, 
 
 67ff.,87, 169, 175, 177, 181, 
 
 183, 312. 
 Self-gratification, Mores of, 151, 
 
 258, 314 ff. See Eskimo, 
 
 Frontier Society, City. 
 Self-perpetuation, Mores of. 
 
 See Marriage. 
 Sentimentality, 69, 193. 
 Sex Mores, 196, 209, 221, 226, 
 
 289, 317. See Eskimo, 
 
 Frontier Society, City. 
 
 Sex-passion, 25 ff., 187, 196, 
 206. 
 Controlled, 198 ff. 
 
 Sex-taboo, 102. 
 
 Slavery, 85, 151, 245, 254, 294, 
 301, 303. 
 For debt, 253. 
 
 Smith, W. R., 241. 
 
 Sneezing, 28. 
 
 "Social Darwinism," 10. 
 
 "Social Experiments," 47. 
 
 Socialism, 146, 164, 173., See 
 Economic Determinism. 
 
 Social Sciences vs. Natural 
 Sciences, 1^, 10. 
 
 "Societal," 15. 
 
 "Sociological Papers," 197. 
 
 Spain, 77, 174, 176. 
 
 Speculation, 42. See Phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 Speech. See Language. 
 
 Spencer, H., 5-8, 10, 76, 160, 
 287, 308. 
 Darwin on, 6. 
 His Evolution Formula, 7. 
 
 Standard of Living, 24, 110, 184, 
 186, 233, 279 ff., 286-287, 
 316-317. 
 
 Statesmanship, 121. 
 
 Sterilisation, 204. 
 
 Stock Virtues, 108-109. 
 
 "Straddle," 108. 
 
 Struggle for Existence, 35, 66, 
 82, 151. See Eskimo. 
 Mitigated by Civilization, 67. 
 
 Subjection, 63, 73 ff., 135. 
 Mores of Subjection to Au- 
 thority, 118-119. 
 
 Sumner, W. G., vii, 24, 30, 
 79, 112-113, 122, 133, 142- 
 143, 144-149, 159, 247- 
 249, 275, 279, 283, 291, 
 319, 328-330. See "Folk- 
 ways." 
 
 Survivals, 324. See Maladap- 
 tations. 
 
 "Syngenism," 77, 80. 
 
338 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Taboo, 25, 26, 102, 136, 199, 
 
 200, 202, 203. 
 Tarde, G., 235. 
 Temperament, 210. 
 Test, 63, 66, 202, 227 ff., 230, 
 
 235. See Verification. 
 Therapeutics, 174-175. 
 Tolerance, 252, 253, 319. 
 Trade, 152, 154, 243 ff., 285 ff. 
 Tradition, 96, 132. 
 
 Vs. Heredity, 212 ff. 
 Transitional Forms, 50. See 
 
 Zones of Transition. 
 Transmission, 86-87, 136, 184, 
 
 208 ff, 315. See Darwinian 
 
 Factors. 
 Transportation and Communi- 
 cation, 244-245, 281. See 
 
 Trade. 
 Tyler, J. M., 21. 
 
 U 
 
 "Unfit." See "Fit" and "Un- 
 fit," Counterselection. 
 "Uplift," 168, 193, 205, 232 ff. 
 Urban vs. Rural. See City. 
 Utopia, 82. 
 
 Vanity, 75, 239. 
 
 Variation, 33, 43 ff., 50, 54, 137, 
 179, 180, 182, 186, 208, 209, 
 
 212, 213, 215, 239, 261, 272. 
 
 See Darwinian Factors. 
 Verification, 1, 5, 128 ff., 140, 
 
 242, 327. See Test. 
 Visualization, 205. 
 Von den Steinen, K., 63. 
 
 W 
 
 Wages, 314. See Industrial 
 
 Organization. 
 WaUace, A. K., 14. 
 Wants, 36, 62, 84, 103 ff., 109, 
 
 135, 226. See Interests. 
 War, 62 ff., 152, 171-172, 179, 
 
 188, 287, 307-308, 312. 
 
 See Eskimo. 
 Treachery in, 45. 
 Watson, R. G., 241. 
 Weismann, A. (Weismannism) , 
 
 13, 46, 208, 210. 
 Wilken, G. A., 156. 
 Wilson, Woodrow, 110-111. 
 Woman, 151, 155, 158, 209-210, 
 
 289, 302-303, 316. See 
 
 Eskimo, Frontier Society, 
 
 City. 
 Wister, O., 296. 
 Wharton, E., 92. 
 Writing, 97, 153. 
 
 Zones of Transition, 20, 32, 53, 
 54, 166, 236. 
 
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