THE PHYSICAL BASIS BY C CARL KELSEY, PH.D. INTER D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 437 1294 Sociology COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America PREFACE For many years the writer has been in the habit of beginning his University courses in Sociology by briefly sketching the physical background of life, the relation of the organism to its environment, the question of heredity, and the general idea of evolution às applied to human beings and the development of social theory. Because of the interest shown by his classes he has come to believe that there is perhaps a larger group which would welcome the opportunity to survey this field but which will not spend the time to gather the evidence which now exists in widely scattered volumes. The real plagiarist is not the one who accidentally or willfully forgets to put quotation marks about given groupings of words, but he who gives the impression that the ideas conveyed are the result of his own thought-processes. I make no pretense to originality. I cannot remember the sources of many of my ideas, though I have tried to give due credit. It will probably be found that whatever is original is not good and whatever is good is not original. In reality I have sought to make accessible the best of modern thought on the questions involved even though this requires in some cases the presentation of conflicting views. I have tried also to indicate the limits of present knowledge and to point out the problems requiring further investigation before we can be very positive of our positions. I cannot even congratulate myself that I am acquainted with all the work that has been done and I have doubtless omitted much that should be included. More |