530 THE AMERICA* JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
of things, but none of these have seriously interfered with the law of heredity, and in some the power of structural advance- ment has been manifestly increased. These aberrations have all been due to the growth of an inchoate rational faculty which, in exact proportion to its strength, has made feeling more and more an end. The necessary effect of the reason is to increase the tendency to varv. and a stage was at length reached at which this tendency began to threaten the safety of the type.
Early in the human period this stage was reached, and but for certain countervailing agencies the race must have been pre- maturely extinguished. The law of self-preservation would not alone have sufficed to save it, and if there is any distinction between that law and the remedial optimism that supervened, this is what we are now seeking. Viewed from this standpoint, optimism may be characterized as the law of social self-preserva- tion. We find everywhere in savage, barbaric, semi-civilized, and even t civilized races a certain class of ideas in common which make for race preservation, in more or less direct conflict with individual interest. These are embodied in customs, institutions, religious observances, and moral precepts. They are sometimes referred to as the "collective wisdom" of mankind, a wisdom far greater than that of any individual, since they seem to involve foresight and to constitute a sort of social clairvoyance. They form the various codes of action legal, moral, conventional, and social of all races, and are rigidly enforced against the recognized anti-social propensities of individuals. Most of them are aimed directly at race preservation, but there are some, as, for example, the severe penalties imposed for the violation of the law of exogamy, which look to the preservation of the vigor of the race. They rest on a universal consensus respecting those things which, however pleasing to the individual, are injurious to the race and in any way threaten to reduce its num- bers or weaken its strength. In one sense they are not rational, and in many respects they strikingly resemble the instincts of animals. Indeed, they may be regarded as the true homologues of these instincts. If they do not rest on reason, they at least
