ABSTRACT

We have reached the conclusion that man has more native abilities than any other species and that these are the main ground of man’s higher powers and achievements. It may seem to the reader that this greater wealth of native abilities is a very inadequate basis for the immense superiority of the average man to the highest of the animals. But we must clearly realize that the vast and undeniable superiority normally attained by man is for the most part due to his acquiring, in the process of growing up in a social group, a great part of the traditional skill, knowledge, and wisdom possessed by the group. In other words, the superiority of man is very largely a matter of social, rather than of biological, inheritance.