Heredity and social progress

Front matter

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

BY

SIMON N. PATTEN

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Problem i

II. The Method 6

CHAPTER I The Problem

The social surplus is a part of the annual produce of nations. It is concretely embodied in goods which perish, and must be replaced by renewed effort in each epoch. Nature aids man freely, but not in increasing ratios. The amount of the natural surplus varies, and there are resultant periods of plenty and of scarcity ; but a static population ever presses against this limit, and leaves no room for progress, which comes only after conscious effort, and brings with it the social surplus.

Man, in his endeavor to improve his condition, faces a law of diminishing returns. In each epoch the purely natural conditions are a little worse than they were in the preceding, and society would decline, unless men made greater exertions. We picture this in a large way when we say that the sun is the source of all energy, and that the energy steadily wanes.

We come, however, closer to the real facts when we see that the denuding forces of nature acting on the surface of the earth yearly carry off a portion of the soil and deposit it in useless places or beneath the sea. It may of course be said that these denuding forces make soil as well as destroy it ; but the destroying action is in the present and the restoring process is in the future. In each epoch, therefore, men face diminishing natural returns, even though in the end, new soils may be added by the upheaval of submerged regions. The ice of the glacial epoch, for example, may have added much to the fertility of the regions it transformed; and yet the races of that age must have felt that their lot was cast in unpleasant lines.

Since the natural surplus falls off, it cannot be a source of social progress. Men must meet new conditions under more disadvantageous conditions, or they must create a social surplus which more than balances the increasing natural deficit. But even with a social surplus progress is not safe. The surplus is always in perishable goods, which must be

The Problem 3

periodically replaced. If all that society gains from them is the pleasure of their consumption, the presence of a surplus may create prosperity, give an immediate relief from toil, and add much to the fund of current enjoyment ; but in the end the periodic replacement of the surplus ceases through the diminution of its resources. To make progress secure, the temporary surplus must be transformed into permanent conditions or into mental traits. If this transformation is not possible, all progress is temporary ; if it is possible, then the process of its transformation becomes the key to social progress.

The problem is really simpler than I have here stated it. While permanent conditions may be said to be the peculiar province of the economist, and do attract much of his attention, yet their scope is limited. In fact, little of our material environment has come down from the past, — so that no nation survives which has relied on its permanent improvements. We talk freely about our inherited wealth, and yet, great as is the wealth of the leisure class, but few of the goods of its members are as old as themselves. Wealth does not endure, but is constantly replaced from the annual produce. The real source of progress must, therefore, lie in the acquisition of mental traits ; even permanent improvements are of little avail until a mental trait arises which causes them to be appreciated.

The situation, then, is this : the natural surplus is steadily decreasing, or at best it merely holds its own ; the social surplus is the result of conscious effort, which must so arouse mental traits that natural decreasing returns become socially increasing returns. How, then, is the social surplus, the temporary product of annual effort, transformed into mental traits that abide and become the basis of subsequent progress ?

This is the problem stated in terms of economics. The same problem arises in biology, and, as there stated, is : How can acquired characters become natural ? Notice that the two questions involve the same points. The social surplus is a consciously created product: it is made by effort after men arrive at maturity. Economic traits are thus ac-

The Problem 5

quired characters. If acquired characters cannot be inherited, then the social surplus cannot be transformed into mental traits, and enduring progress is impossible. Biologists have not considered the first proposition, " the natural surplus is a decreasing one," and they hope that through a natural differentiation of germ cells an unconscious progress may be continued. But if the natural surplus is actually decreasing, the natural differentiation will be regressive, not progressive. Men must stem a naturally adverse tide if they would progress, and unless the result of their effort favorably affect their descendants progress is hopeless. To the solution of this enigma economists as well as biologists must turn. It is not a problem that lies in any one science for the solution of which others must wait. It is the essential problem of all science and appears in some form in every field. I ask again, how is the social surplus transformed into permanent conditions and mental traits.? An answer will be given in the following pages, or at least an endeavor will be made to throw some light on it.

Chapter II

In the following discussion several logical principles are used as safeguards against error. They must be formulated so that the reader can determine their validity, or at least grant that I have used a consistent method and have not made haphazard guesses.

It is a well-accepted principle that mental and physical phenomena are parallel. Without deciding which is the cause and which the effect, it is easy to see that the presence of a given phenomenon in one field involves some expression of it in the other. The fact of parallelism having been accepted, classifications of differences in the two fields ought to be the same. The actual mental differences must correspond to, and be an expression of, physical differences. So, too, for each physical difference there must be some psychic expression.

I have used this principle to test the validity of distinctions as they are made by commonly used words in each science. It is too often assumed that distinctions correspond to words, and that when an array of words has been defined, they will be justified by facts in the real world. But language has had so long and so loose a development that the mere presence of words is no evidence of the reality of the distinctions they represent. Usage also gives so broad a meaning to many words that they lap over each other in every conceivable way. They must be pruned to the real differences as they exist in the parallelism of expression in two related fields. The word " emotion," for example, has a great variety of meanings. It can be restricted to one only when we define it by its physical parallel; for since thought and matter are parallel, emotion has its exact physical expression. We may be sure the word stands for something when it is defined in terms of this physical parallel. We can be sure of nothing if usage and custom alone are relied on.

This method of defining may err in unduly

8 Heredity aiid Social Progress

simplifying the field, but it is an effective remedy for loose language, and the distinctions it permits will have a reality back of them. I have used this test in defining terms and believe it is the only one that suffices to eject the superfluous. The size of dictionaries is partly responsible for loose thinking.

The parallelism of mind and matter is not the only one of which use has been made. I have assumed that there is a similar parallel between economics and biology, using these terms in a broad way as a study of the environment and of life. If the environment and the environed organism are adjusted, the peculiarities of the organism must correspond to those of the environment. To meet each difference in the environment some peculiarity in the organism will have developed to fit it to the situation. The distinctions in organisms run parallel to those in the environment, and those of the one may be expressed in terms of the other. It should be possible, therefore, to find real economic differences by checking against lists of corresponding differences in the organisms adjusted to these situations, and to test the reality of biologic terms by looking for their expression in terms of the environment. This method, again, would give us not only simplicity, but validity, and would dispose of the mass of useless distinctions that crowd both sciences.

The economist establishes laws by observing the use by the individual or by society of concrete goods ; while the biologist studies similar relations through the organism which utilizes the goods. Economics implies a conscious economy, and is perhaps too narrow for an inclusive classification. The term " ecology " has been suggested, and perhaps it makes a clearer analysis. It is not for words that I contend, but for the identity of the phenomena. There should be a science of the environment as a source of nutriment and protection to animal life whose distinctions should parallel those of biology.

Using these parallels of expression, many aids are obtained in transforming secondary into primary laws. Secondary laws are based on the observed facts in a single field. They are raised to primary laws by extending their lO Heredity and Social Progress

scope so that many independent inductions are summed up in one law. Facts of no prominence in one science become important as soon as they are perceived to express in a new way the generalizations in another field. What has the falling of an apple to do with the movements of the moon } Nothing until the two are known to be expressions of the same law. When a generalization in one science acquires the position of a secondary law, if expressions of the same law can be found in the parallel science, there is firm ground for believing that the generalization can be elevated to a primary law. The parallelism of the expression is the best evidence that really elementary principles have been reached. When, for example, I perceived that emotion is destructive of tissue and tends toward simplicity, I sought in biology some expression of the same process, and found the reduction in connection with germ cells — the same phenomenon in a very different form. I assumed that these independent facts are expressions of a primary law of far wider reach than the generalizations about them made in either science. In this

The Method ii

way seemingly incomplete generalizations are raised to a higher rank and given a validity that a multitude of facts in one field would not insure them. I do not mean to assert that this method may not lead to error, but I do claim that it is legitimate and will eliminate the errors into which deductive reasoning sinks. In every case where this method has been used I have sought for parallel expressions, and finding them, have assumed that I was on the track of a general law which ought to be formulated. The value of facts is thereby raised and laws are thrown into a more general form than if a purely inductive method were followed. Grant that the theory of parallelism is correct, and the broader generalizations will at least deserve consideration. They are not the result of a guess, but of a method persisted in through a long period.

The following rules are applications of this method and efificient checks to error : —

1. A principle cannot be accepted as the basis of a working hypothesis until at least one instance of its action is known.

2. The presumption is against an explanation that demands a new principle instead of one that is known to be active in other cases.

3. Not until an old principle fails to explain all cases brought under it is it legitimate to introduce a new principle.

4. A basis of explanation in a known principle is more valid than an explanation involving an unknown principle.

5. If a few elements are repeatedly used to make a complex organism, it is highly probable that all possible combinations have already been made, and therefore it is also probable that instances of every combination are in existence or have existed. The presumption of a general law is in favor of a hypothesis as soon as single instances of its operation are discovered.

6. Links missing in the verification of a chain of reasoning do not render a hypothesis improbable.

7. The principle of chance must never be admitted.

8. Whenever a specific form is found, variations from this form may be assumed. This is involved in the theor}' of evolution by which constant changes are made from one form to others.

9. A law having parallel expressions in two fields has greater validity than a complete induction in one field.

10. If the causes of present changes are sufficient to account for past changes, they should also be accepted for the latter.

There is in this last rule an importance not at first apparent. The principle of parallelism is well illustrated by the relation of geography to geology. Geography is a study of the earth as it is, including all its present changes. Geology is a study of it as it has developed through successive stages. Geology is thus a long series of past geographies. There were no forces at work in any of them that are not now active. Forces may, it is true, be obscure and subordinate at the present time, but they are here, and it is through their study that the great changes of the past are made manifest. We have few glaciers, but it is through them that the puzzles of the glacial epoch were solved. The denuding forces of air and water seem slight, but it is through their agencies, acting perhaps no more rapidly than at present, that great mountain ranges were lowered. The present changes throw light on the past, and the study of former changes is necessary to a knowledge of the present. It has been happily said, " Geology is the study of the past in the light of the present, while geography is a study of the present in the light of the past."

Do we not observe the same relations between biology and economics.-* The more elementary forms of life and the lower animals may be said to be the past of human evolution as geology is the past of physical evolution. Each organism was a changing being and then became a fixed type. Man, however, is changing; all the forces that have ever been at work on organisms are still at work on him. He has upbuilding forces and denuding forces ; they may be studied in actual operation just as the changes due to natural forces may still be studied in geography.

The laws of human evolution are the laws of natural evolution, and the order of its changes is the order of nature. It is a false assumption which forces the categories of animal life on human life and attempts to explain the latter by the former. Human life is conscious life, and human progress is conscious progress. In every field of endeavor, conscious acts precede those which are unconscious ; consciously acquired character is the antecedent of the natural character. If our logical canon is correct, this order is the order of nature, and lower life passes through the same stages when it is in mobile evolution. I would therefore raise the inductions concerning human life into primary laws and afifirm that its principles are of general application. What is happening has happened, and the course of its happening is the course of all happenings. Vital forces are to-day what they always have been, and it is a false premise which assumes that past changes were due to forces now extinct or of so little potency that the natural order of progress is changed.

Chapter III

The simplest and most obvious theory of heredity is that of growth through use and of organic change through the accumulated effects of use. It is plain that activity causes organs to grow. The laborer acquires additional strength by using his arms or his hands to do a particular sort of work. Those who walk regularly find that they can go farther than before the regular exercise began. Blacksmiths have strong arms, musicians have dexterous fingers, and porters have strong legs and backs. It is not necessary to give extended examples of what every one knows. Even the crudest observations verify the law that use precedes and is the cause of growth and change.

Differences of opinion, however, arise when it is asserted that these organs, developed through use, are inherited by descendants in their improved form. There can, of course,

i6 be no doubt that children resemble their parents, but do they resemble parents in those characters which have been modified by use? The answer will depend upon the observer. If he thinks of the general adjustment of each race to its special environment, he perceives that it has developed those qualities, aptitudes, and traits that are of special use in that environment. It would seem, therefore, from this general resemblance of son to father, that the qualities of the father have reappeared in the son; but how this has been done remains unanswered. Selection may have displaced those not inheriting the useful modifications, or the organism of the child may have been directly modified by the changes that took place in the parent.

Although there is little direct evidence to support either theory, there is indirect evidence which seems decisive. If children inherited the acquired qualities of parents, they would naturally and cheerfully do those acts and establish those relations that the parents have found useful in their struggle for survival. Parents have to teach children what they have found useful ; they must put pressure on children to make them accept their own avocation and mental attitude ; the standards and habits of each generation must be instilled into the succeeding generation. Every stable race is careful to impress on the young its habits, standards, and moral code. Surely this would not be necessary if every modification in the parent were directly inherited by the child. The experience of the race seems to negative the idea of the ready inheritance of acquired characters, and to affirm that they do, in some way, become natural characters. If not by direct descent, where, then, is the road.-*

Let us follow the process of acquisition more carefully, and perhaps its method will become more obvious. Some of the individuals in a given environment perceive that a new process or a new mode of adjustment, demanding, we will assume, a stronger arm or a firmer grasp, will give them an advantage or offer a greater return. The process, often repeated, develops the muscles of the arm and causes a larger return, let us say, of wheat, to be produced. After this fact is discovered by individuals, others, seeing that an advantage is derived, will imitate the deeds of the inventors and acquire the stronger arms due to increased use. Imitation will cause this habit to spread and will keep in the community the people who see the advantage of the acquired character, and through use voluntarily develop it. Children will also, through the example of parents, submit to the discipline needed to develop it, and thus it will be handed down from generation to generation as an acquired character. But not all the members of the community, and especially not all the children, will submit to the needed discipline, but will follow their natural inclinations and act in ways that do not develop the needed character. As a result they suffer from the lack of those articles of food obtained by its means. To coerce them, and especially to prevent children from suffering the consequences of following their natural bent, moral rules and local customs are devised which force on all members of the community the acquisition of traits and characters that, in the opinion of the majority, are necessary toward well-being. In some such way the discoveries and inventions of the few are extended and their use is enforced, until the whole community, acting in harmony with the local code and moral tradition, acquires and keeps the characters demanded for the best utilization of the environment. Many acquired characters are handed down from generation to generation, a fact in proof that acquired characters are not of necessity inherited. If they were, the great mass of customs, habits, and local traditions would not be needed, society would be organized on a simple basis, and every son would do naturally that which the father did through effort. When, therefore, an improvement is made, the whole community is fastened to the environment by a conscious process which imposes the new activity upon all, and prevents any one from utilizing surrounding conditions in a less effective way than that prescribed by the more efficient. The new conditions are generalized and perpetuated by methods which show that acquired characters are not of necessity transformed into natural characters. Certainly social customs are not based on this thought; naturalness has some other source.

If characters acquired by use are not directly inherited, a clew to the acquisition of natural characters may be obtained by a study of the changed relations of parent and child, brought about by the parents' acquired characters. We know that acquired characters have an economic use and permit a surer or a more abundant supply of economic goods, whereby the food is improved or new methods of obtaining it are devised ; or perhaps some method of defence is invented by which the situation may be better utilized than before. Certainly no action would be persisted in long enough to make it an acquired character, either of an individual or of a community, unless it gave a decisive advantage to its possessors. It may, therefore, be assumed that the new character gives to its possessors more food, leisure, or protection, and that some of these advantages will be shared by their children, who will have better food and a longer period of childhood in which to develop their natural qualities. While some parents might use the acquired character solely for their own advantage, not only would the majority share it with their children, but social custom and morality would force them to admit their children to some of its advantages. What changes, then, would this better food and longer childhood effect in the new generation ? An increased nutrition creates more energy, and this energy will be used to develop the natural qualities more fully than earlier conditions permitted. A longer childhood will have the same effect. Children play instead of work, and the incipient qualities which might fail to develop in a shorter childhood would now become prominent characters and elements in determining the activities of the child. When this child, becoming a man, chooses his vocation, he will not accept the discipline or the occupation of his father, or so live as to develop his acquired characters. The old discipline will be distasteful to him in proportion as his increased energy and longer period of childhood have differentiated his inclinations from those of the parent. He will, therefore, have a strong impetus to move into a new world or to seek at home a new occupation in which his natural characters will be more effective than in the old.

When, for example, a bricklayer has improved his condition by the acquired characters of his occupation, and has, as a consequence, bettered the position of his children, they tend to become clerks and mechanics ; the sons of mechanics become storekeepers, foremen, and superintendents, while the children of farmers become business men, lawyers, and clergymen. It is well known that the children of any class move into the class above them when the economic welfare of parents is so improved that children have more food, shelter, and leisure. This means that natural inclinations and more energy are used to break from the routine of parents and to enter occupations where the new energy and the stronger natural inclinations count for more in the success of the undertaking. There is a movement of population with every increase of energy, and with every opportunity to develop the inherent qualities born in men.

If this well-known tendency be formulated

24 Hej'edity and Social Progress

into a general law, it will be this : acquired characters are not inherited, but the improved situation of parents who acquire characters gives to their children more vitality and better opportunities to develop their natural qualities, and results in new qualities which the children utilize by a change of occupation or environment. In short, every acquired quality increases energy, and the additional energy starts a movement toward a new environment. Putting this fact in another way, it may be said that present environments do not make the qualities of those who live in them, but that people seek these environments because they have the characters necessary to their utilization. Qualities are an index of energy, and energy determines the environment that a man seeks. The adjustment to it is not the cause of the qualities, but a result of their presence. What men have of natural character, they acquired in some other environment. Acquired characters only are the result of present conditions, and when they have had their proper effect in the increase of energy, another shifting of environments results, by which the new natural characters will find a place and be the means of a new increase of energy and another shifting of environments. This principle, broader than human society, is a general law, and is recognized in biology under the head of secondary sexual qualities. Darwin assumes that the peculiar characters of males are due to the contests of rival males or to sexual selection caused by females choosing those males in whom the qualities are most prominent. Geddes and Thompson,^ however, point out that these secondary qualities are expressions of a natural characteristic of male animals. The males are more katabolic than the females, and from their activity results the qualities called secondary. The emphasis is thus placed on the natural effect of surplus energy, which shows itself more prominently in males than in females. If energy expresses itself in activity, and activity causes growth, there would seem to be no need of other explanations for sexual characters of males. When males enter into severe contests among themselves, their primary characters must be 1 "The Evolution of Sex," Chap. I.

more fully developed than the mere necessities of life demand. The successful contestant would be the one with the most energy, and this energy would also find an outlet in changes which create secondary qualities. The fighting males would grow; the surplus energy speeding in one direction would also find exit in the other. Secondary sexual characters are the natural expression of surplus energy created by acquired characters. At least they appear under improved conditions or when nutrition is superabundant, and are naturally associated with surplus energy. They suggest a way in which surplus energy can effect organic changes in harmony with welldemonstrated biological laws.

If sexual characters are natural expressions of surplus energy, they give a clew as to how other characters are formed. They seem not to be a class by themselves, but to reflect the superior vitality of males. Should any of these characters prove useful, not merely in contest but also in the acquisition of nutriment, they would be acquired through inheritance by females as well as by males, and so become necessary characters. It is a well-known fact that males are more variable than females and that new qualities are usually first acquired by them. Females then acquire what has proved useful, representing in their progress the net results of past development as it is shown in inherited structure. The order of the change from acquired to natural characters is : first, a surplus of energy following acquired characters ; second, the expression of this energy in the secondary sexual characters of the males ; third, the discovery of some use for these secondary characters in which the whole race or species can participate ; and fourth, their appearance through heredity in all individuals of the species, whereupon they cease to be secondary and become primary characters.

We note here three kinds of characters — primary, acquired, and secondary. The primary are those at a given moment necessary to the existence of an organism. The acquired are those due to individual action, and they are propagated by imitation, forethought, or some other conscious means. The secondary result from the success of the acquired characters in

28 Heredity a7id Social Progress

giving nutrition and energy in excess of the needs of mere existence and propagation. Secondary characters are not necessary to the acquisition of energy, but are the natural expressions of it when acquired. They often prove useful because they permit a change in the habits or the environment of organisms; and in the new situation, or under the new conditions, they become as essential to the new form of existence as the primary characters were. The difference between the two groups of characters having now disappeared, they both may be classed as primary. In this way the number of essential characters may gradually increase. The non-essentials of a simple life become the essentials of the more complex. Each new environment tends to develop acquired characters through which it is better utilized, and these become primary by a movement into a new environment. Use is not the cause of characters but a result of their appearance. It is of course true that most characters have a use, but this fact is a consequence of the multitude of environments into which organisms can go. Any combination of characters may prove advantageous in struggle if the organism possessing it is put in the proper environment.