XIII THE QUALITATIVE PROBLEM

We now approach the second part of the problem, and turn from a consideration of the quantity to a consideration of the quality of the population. In the second and third chapters we found that reproduction was a necessity, and that to the fact of reproduction can be traced the origin of problems both of quantity and of quality. In the third chapter we further found that the position of animals and plants in a state of nature as regards problems of quality was in its broadest aspect simple. The changes in the forms of organisms, which, when viewed as a whole, we call evolution, are due to changes in the physical basis from which new generations arise. The long procession of organisms, usually of increasing complexity, from the simplest type to the immediate ancestor of rational man, thus owes its being to a long procession of changes in the germ-cells.

When treating of the quantitative problem among men, we considered a large amount of evidence which bears also upon quality, and this evidence, supplemented as and where necessary, will enable us to make some estimate of the importance of qualitative changes among men. This is the object of the remaining chapters. We have to try and estimate how far human history is comparable with changes among species in a state of nature—is due, in other words, to germinal changes. There are two other possible causes of change among men—the direct influence of the environment and the influence of tradition—and in order to estimate the importance of germinal change, it will be necessary also to consider what importance is attributable to these two factors. To one of them—namely to tradition—we shall find reason to attribute great importance. Tradition, in fact, comes ultimately to be of more importance than germinal change among the underlying causes of history. But tradition is profoundly influenced by the quantity of population among other factors, and, therefore, to the extent to which this is so, the determining factor in human history is still bound up with the population problem. 323As history ceases to be strictly correlated with changes in quality, it comes to be influenced by a factor the nature and strength of which is largely determined by the quantity of population. Thus the two aspects of the whole problem are linked together in the case of man in a manner that does not obtain among species in a state of nature.

The attempt to deal with this problem will be undertaken in the following manner. In Chapter III reference was made to the influence of the environment upon growth and upon the adult form. In Chapter XIV this subject will be developed so far as species in a state of nature are concerned, and the results of the inquiry will be applied to man in Chapter XV. The subject-matter of Chapter XV will be confined to the influence of the environment upon human bodily and mental characters. The influence of the environment as a stimulus affecting the direction in which mental characters are used will be left to a future chapter.

We next turn to inquire what influence changes in the germ-cells have had. Before we can make any progress it is necessary to ask what characters—physical and mental—have their basis in the germ-cells, and an inquiry into this subject will occupy Chapter XVI. In Chapters XVII and XVIII we ask what evidence there is of selection and other factors throughout human history which we have reason to suppose have a bearing on change in the average germinal constitution of the human species. This will among other things necessitate an examination of the facts in Chapters VII, VIII, and X in order to ascertain what bearing they have upon selection. Having thus some knowledge of what is inherited, and having discussed the occurrence of such factors as in human history may have brought about changes from one generation to another in the character inherited, we shall be in a position in Chapter XVII to attempt an estimate of the results which the factors—selection and others—have had upon physical characters. We shall find that as regards these characters the position is more or less clear; we shall find, that is to say, that the influence of selection and other factors, considered in conjunction with the influence of the environment discussed in Chapter XV, does enable us in the main to understand how the physical evolution of man has come about. With regard to mental characters to be discussed in Chapter XVIII, we shall find that the task cannot be similarly completed. With a far less 324degree of certainty than in the case of physical characters we shall arrive at some idea as to how mental characters have evolved. This, however, still leaves unanswered the problem as to how far the evolution of mental characters accounts for what we call history. To attack this problem it is necessary to consider how the environment acts as a stimulus upon the mind, conditions the degree to which and the direction in which the mind is used, and thus leads to the building up of tradition. In Chapter XIX we consider the nature of human mental endowment and the manner in which tradition is built up and handed on. In Chapter XX we consider the nature of the environment under which human mental activities have been exerted. This will enable us in Chapter XXI to survey the broad facts of history and to come to some conclusion as to the parts played respectively by the changes in human mental endowment, by the direct influence of the environment upon the mental faculties, and by its influence as a stimulus upon the exercise of these faculties. In a concluding chapter the results of the whole inquiry will be summed up.

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