Note 2 — Chapter II · LIFE AND MIND.

Study of Psychology, pp. 139, 161-5. So again, a more recent writer says: "It is not man himself who thinks but his social community; the source of his thoughts is in the social medium in which he lives, the social atmosphere which he breathes.... The influence of environment upon the human mind has always been recognized by psychologists and philosophers, but it has been considered a secondary factor. On the contrary, the social medium which the child enters at birth, in which he lives, moves and has his being, is fundamental. Toward this environment the individual from childhood to ripest old age is more or less receptive; rarely can the maturest minds so far succeed in emancipating themselves from this medium so far as to undertake independent reflection, while complete emancipation is impossible, for all the organs and modes of thought, all the organs for constructing thoughts have been moulded or at least thoroughly imbued by it" (L. Gumplowicz, Outlines of Sociology, p. 157).