Abstract

To recapitulate some of the points of Darwin's theory. It is worth distinguishing three things that might be said to have evolved in the history of mankind: 1. the body, 2. the inherited intellectual and moral capacities of individuals (if any are inherited), and 3. the social system, including culture. (Culture: what is learnt during the individual's life from other people.) Let us tie down the term 'evolve': in the present context it does not mean any and every sort of development, but specifically change worked by selection, like the change produced over generations by plant and animal breeders. Thus it could be said that any good book contributes to human cultural 'evolution' (in a broad sense), but cultural evolution in this narrower sense will only be development due to the differing powers of competing cultures to propagate themselves through generations. Thus the invention of an easier to learn system of writing would contribute to cultural evolution, by making this culture easier to propagate: but probably not the publishing of a good book. One more terminological point: let us say that an individual or group is a 'bearer' of a characteristic if it is capable of passing it on to the next generation.