THE PROCESS OF SOCIAL CHANGE.

HE phrases "natural selection," "the survival of the

THE

fittest" and "the struggle for existence," with others that come from the Origin of Species and the Synthetic Philosophy, are now applied to social phenomena and circulate very generally as descriptions of what goes on among mankind. Some people would question, however, whether they do not, as is alleged of our silver dollars, pass rather on the credit of their authors than on the value of any definite ideas commonly associated with them.

In the use of such phrases there does, indeed, appear to be a great deal of vagueness; and it is one object of this paper to do something toward clearing it up-to find out, if possible, whether these dubious tokens are in any way exchangeable for standard coin of the realm of thought and fact. With this

end in view I purpose first to inquire how far natural selection of the primary, animal sort taught by Darwin is a process of social change; and then, if it appears that there is another process, I shall go on to consider its nature and operation. The inquiry falls conveniently into three divisions :

I. Natural selection as a process of social change.

II. Social change, proper.

III. The influence of communication upon social change.

I.

So far as concerns the different race elements in the population of the earth, the Darwinian idea of change by survival the idea that what exists does so because it has prevailed at some time or other in a struggle for existence is not at all a speculation, but the most verifiable thing in the world. There may be doubt about other species, but in the case of homo the process has gone on in the light of history and continues in full

vigor at the present time. It would be difficult to find any large region where one race, nation or tribe is not increasing in numbers at the expense of the diminution of some other. Mr. Galton finds that "there are probably hardly any spots on the earth that have not, within the last few thousand years, been tenanted by very different races";11 and "that on the average at least three different races are to be found in every moderately sized district on the earth's surface." His impres

sion of the races in South Africa "was one of a continual state of ferment and change, of the rapid development of some clan here and of the complete or almost complete suppression of another clan there." We are ourselves a part of this process. We are in the midst of a rapid and complicated movement of which the general direction is sufficiently clear, though the details are concealed. The European races are almost everywhere on the increase: within the present century they have nearly trebled in number, and with the Teutonic peoples in the lead, and the English at the head of these, have spread and multiplied over a great part of the earth.2 In the United States. we have seen the Indian go and the negro stay; while in our cities and our newer farming regions there is active competition among recent immigrants from all the European stocks, and between these and the descendants of immigrants of earlier date.

If the student turns, however, from the competition of races to inquire what is going on within any particular race, he does not find it so easy to learn what natural selection is doing: indeed, it is not easy to show that it is making any change that is of moment. Suppose, for example, that he were to inquire what alterations, aside from those due to intermixture with other

1 Inquiries into Human Faculty, pp. 310 et seq.

La

2 According to Hübner's Tables the population of Europe in 1895 was about 366 millions. In 1801 it was 175 millions. Levasseur calculates the number of Europeans out of Europe to have been 91 millions in 1800 and 911 in 1890. Population Française, vol. iii, ch. ix. Professor Brinton states that the white race two centuries ago numbered 100 millions, or about 10 per cent of the population of the earth; while at the present time the European branches alone number 500 millions, or one-third of the population of the earth. See his Races and Peoples, page 298.

races, the English stock has undergone within historic time. To understand the nature of this question one must remember that great changes may come to pass in the institutions, manners, morals, and even in the outward appearance of a people, which do not necessarily imply that any organic change has taken place in the stock, either through natural selection or otherwise. If an English couple settles in this country, the children will contract from our climate and society peculiarities of appearance and behavior that will mark them as Americans to the eyes of all the world; but these changes have little to do with natural selection, and it is uncertain whether they can in any degree be transmitted by heredity. So, also, those transformations which make up the rise and fall of nations are chiefly, if not altogether, of the same quality. They take place far too rapidly to be due to natural selection or to any organic change in the race. Decadence seems to be a social deterioration that drags down the individual by subjecting him to unwholesome influences. Thus, there is no evidence that the Chinamen or Spaniards of to-day are congenitally much different from their ancestors in the proudest days of those nations : their degeneracy is apparently of the same character as that observed in the behavior of a group of boys who have fallen into bad ways.1 It is a decline of tone, of morale, of institutions, not of natural capacity.

The decisive illustration of the possible divergence between natural selection and social change is the fact that institutions hostile to survival, like the monastic system, can spread and flourish for centuries in defiance of animal heredity.

1 "The Spanish-American of pure white blood, whose ancestors have lived for three centuries in tropical America, the citizen of the United States who traces his genealogy to the passengers in the Mayflower or the Welcome, have departed extremely little from the standard of the Andalusian or the Englishman of to-day though the contrary is often asserted by those who have not personally studied the variants in the countries compared. Conditions of climate and food materially impress the individual, but not the race. The Greeks of Nubia are as dark as Nubians, but let their children return to Greece and the Nubian hue is lost. This is a general truth and holds good of all the slight impressions made upon pure races by unaccustomed environments.” — Brinton, Races and Peoples, pp. 44, 45.

The scientific test of organic difference would be to take new-born infants typical of the stocks to be compared and note what unlikenesses they developed when brought up under the same social influences. Rude comparisons of this sort are possible between contemporary peoples, but they are, of course, impracticable between different periods in the history of the same race. In the case of the Jews the matter has been studied as thoroughly as the nature of the inquiry permits, and it is thought doubtful whether that race has undergone any noteworthy change since the time of Moses.1 As regards our own and kindred peoples — always leaving aside the mixture of races - I imagine that few anthropologists would venture to say anything positive. If they did, it is quite certain that there would be no agreement among them as to what the direction of change is. Many suppose, for example, that physical vigor is declining by disuse, by the growing preponderance of intellect as a factor in success, by the preservation of weakly children and by the support through charity of pauperism and vice.2 There is, however, no direct proof of a decline; and it is quite possible that the forces mentioned are more than counterbalanced by others which may be held to have an opposite tendency, such as better and more regular nourishment, the more general practice of systematic exercise, congenial marriages and the improvement of a great variety of degrading social conditions. Either side of this argument may be maintained by plausible a priori arguments, and in the present insufficiency of direct evidence there is no way to reach a definite conclusion.

It is even possible to question whether the thinking faculties are now stronger than they used to be. There has certainly been a great deal of mental work of various kinds among the Teutonic peoples since the revival of learning; but even if we suppose that the effect of such exercise can be inherited, we have still to consider that only a small fraction of the race has taken part in it. Moreover, when we see that the 1 See papers by Neubauer and Jacobs in vol. xv of the Journal of the Anthropological Institute.

2 For an admirable discussion of the influence of charity upon survival, see Warner, American Charities, ch. v.

men who lead in letters, science and statesmanship often spring from a peasant class whose forefathers have not shared appreciably in the intellectual activities of the past, it is clear that ancestral culture is not essential in producing eminence of this sort. It is significant, too, that one of the most noteworthy intellectual influences now at work comes from the Russians, a people new to civilization. In short, if we could transplant a few thousand babies out of our remote ancestry and give them modern nurture and training, they might, for aught we know, turn out their share of Congressmen, novelists and electrical engineers, and be little distinguishable in any way from the rest of the population. The statue called "The Dying Gladiator" represents a possible ancestor of more than two thousand years ago; yet he appears to me quite modern and familiar a little wild perhaps, as we might expect from his mode of life, but otherwise such a man as we might come across almost anywhere at the present time.

Natural selection, apart from the conflict of races, is apparently much more active in preserving than in changing types, for it discourages wide deviation in any direction. Out-and-out criminals and those sunk in self-destructive vices are not, as a class, prolific; but no more are the people of conspicuous intellectual or moral power. It is the intermediate and undistinguished multitude that keeps up the population.

Some entertain the notion that the most degraded classes are the most prolific; but I know of no support for this. Among the conditions of a rapid natural increase are physical vigor and a fairly stable family life. In both of these respects the pauper and criminal classes are decidedly inferior to the rest of the population. On the other hand, many suppose that success and survival go together that what we call competition is only a more or less mitigated form of the struggle for existence; and that as a rule and in the long run those who gain wealth, power, and other things for which men strive, are enabled to leave more children than others and so to perpetuate those characteristics to which they owe their success. It is often assumed that this is too clearly the case to require special