_Social Progress Involves Individual Development_.--If we trace progress backward over the trail which it has followed, there are two lines of development more or less clearly defined. One is the improvement of the racial stock through the hereditary traits of individuals. The brain is enlarged, the body developed in character and efficiency, and the entire physical system has changed through variation in accordance with the laws of heredity. What we observe is development in the individual, which is its primary function. Progress in this line must furnish individuals of a higher type in the procession of the generations. The other line is through social heredity, that is the accumulated products of civilization handed down from generation to generation. This gives each succeeding generation a new, improved kit of tools, it brings each new generation into a better environment and surrounds it with ready-made means to carry on the improvement and add something for the use of the next generation. Knowledge of the arts and industries, language and books, are thus products of social heredity. Also buildings, machinery, roads, educational systems, and school buildings are inherited. Connected with these two methods of development must {24} be the discovery of the use of the human mind evidenced by the beginning of reflective thought. It is said by some writers that we are still largely in the age of instincts and emotions and have just recently entered the age of reason. Such positive statements should be considered with a wider vision of life, for one cannot conceive of civilization at all without the beginning of reflective mental processes. Simple inventions, like the use of fire, the bow-and-arrow, or the flint knife, may have come about primarily through the desire to accomplish something by subjecting means to an end, but in the perfection of the use of these things, which occurred very early in primitive life, there must have been reflective thinking in order to shape the knife for its purpose, make the bow-and-arrow more effective, and utilize fire for cooking, heating, and smelting. All of these must have come primarily through the individual initiative. Frequent advocates of social achievement would lead one to suppose that the tribe in need of some method of cutting should assemble and pass the resolution that a flint knife be made, when any one knows it was the reflective process of the individual mind which sought adaptation to environment or means to accomplish a purpose. Of course the philosopher may read many generalizations into this which may confuse one in trying to observe the simple fact, for it is to be deplored that much of the philosophy of to-day is a smoke screen which obscures the simple truth.