XIX THE NATURE OF TRADITION

1. So far as bodily characters are concerned, we have seen that we have to look for the explanation of human history primarily in changes in the germinal constitution. With regard to mental characters the position is different. It is evident that, at least in the later stages of history, the outstanding features are not correlated strictly with changes in the germinal constitution underlying mental faculties. To some extent, possibly to a large extent, they are independent of such changes. The influence of the environment in the second sense has to be considered, and until it has been considered we cannot arrive at any conclusion as to the importance to be attributed to the former factor in bringing these events about. What is now required, therefore, is a study of the influence of the environment in the second sense. It will be very briefly undertaken in this and the following chapter. In this chapter we are concerned with the nature of tradition, and the manner in which it is passed on, stored up, and retained. In the next chapter we have to examine the influence of the various factors in building up tradition.

In Chapter II we saw that, as far as mental development is concerned, the distinguishing characteristic of man is the conceptual process of thought. Man is, of course, also possessed of all the simpler mental processes there described. We have here in particular to study the consequences which follow the attainment to this higher level of mental process. It has already been observed that the circumstances were favourable to the evolution of this faculty. They also enabled the fullest use to be made of it.^[1648] In the first place the human instincts are very generalized. They provide a basis for all kinds of vaguely directed activities in response to vaguely discriminated impressions from a large class of objects. Since it is only through the instinctive faculties that the intellect gets to work, the generalized nature 408of the instincts is a great advantage. Secondly the immature period is prolonged. In comparison with the higher animals the immature period occupies a far longer proportion of the normal term of life and thus there is provided a far longer period in which learning can proceed. Lastly there is the power of speech.

The question has been much debated as to whether there can be thought on the conceptual level without language. It would seem that conceptual thought can only exist without language when of a very rudimentary kind. ‘Language is not merely an accompaniment of conceptual activity; it is an instrument essential to its development. It is an appropriate means of fixing attention upon ideally represented objects as distinguished from percepts.’^[1649] Language, on the other hand, so far as it is a means of communication concerning objects outside the actual range of perception, can only arise between persons capable of conceptual thought. And this is essentially the function of language. It reflects the conceptions by which empirical data are brought into relation. ‘Resemblances of quality are expressed by general terms, continuity of existence by individual names, the relation of ideas and the order of connexion in thought by the arrangement of words in a sentence.’^[1650] Language expresses that breaking up and re-combination of the elements of experience which we have seen to be the essential features of conceptual thought.

Language makes possible the influence of mind upon mind, and is the basis of all human social development. It fixes the mind of a thinker upon his own ideas, and, when in communication with another person, it fixes the mind of the hearer upon the ideally represented objects present in the mind of the speaker. Into its origin it is not necessary to go. But it may be observed that, just as the generalized nature of the instincts and the prolonged immature period enabled the fullest use to be made of the power of conceptual thinking, so the fact that the mouth and the throat, usually otherwise unoccupied, were ready at hand as convenient instruments of communication enabled speech to be developed without occupying other organs, such as the hands, which could be profitably employed at the same time for other purposes.

4092. Before we go on to consider how tradition—the product of conceptual thought—is passed on and stored up, it should be noticed that we have not to regard the process of conceptual thought as one which sprang into being in its present form and continued as such ever since. There has been a movement of thought up from dim and rudimentary beginnings to its present stage. This movement may be considered as consisting essentially in the clarification of concepts. It is possible to examine the nature of this movement without reference to the question as to how far the later stages are dependent upon the evolution of innate mental characters. It may be that the higher stages of conceptual thought are possible only when the evolution of the intellect has proceeded beyond the point where lower stages of thought alone are manifested. This question may be neglected for the present and we may consider very briefly the nature of this movement, which is best illustrated if we contrast in a few words the stage which conceptual thought has reached among primitive peoples as a whole with the stage it has reached in the everyday life of the so-called civilized races of the present time, and in so doing we may follow Professor Hobhouse’s recent exposition.^[1651]

With the origin of language arises the first sign of the power to grasp the data of experience in accordance with their affinities and so to build up conceptions of individuals, groups, and classes as the subject of rough-and-ready generalizations. ‘With regard to matters standing out very plainly in experience or very close to practical interests there is not room for much divergence in method.... But outside the limited area of readily tested belief lies a mass of more doubtful ideas of great significance in human life. In this region we find in the first stage that the movements of fancy under the sway of feeling take the lead in forming belief, and that the ideas formed are so obscure and inconsistent as to blur the deepest lines of distinction drawn for more developed thought in the logical categories. We may then consider the first stage in human thought to be one of which the process of organizing experience into common categories is incomplete, and the evidence for the truth of an idea is not yet separate from the quality which renders it pleasant.’^[1652] This is the stage characteristic 410of the most primitive peoples. The categories—particularly the category of substance—are not clearly defined. Thus vital functions may be confused with material substance, men and animals may be identified with their shadow, and a pain may be confused with a stone that can be extracted. So, too, it is thought that a man’s qualities can be obtained by eating him. Relations and qualities tend to become substances, substances deliquesce into a series of changes, and the general is confused with the particular. These tendencies of early thought underlie animism and magic, which are characteristic of all primitive races. Mr. Frazer, for instance, has distinguished two forms of sympathetic magic which he calls homoeopathic and contagious magic. Dancing and leaping to make the crops grow high is an example of the former; ‘the sympathy that is supposed to exist between a man and any severed portion of his person, as his hair or nails, so that whoever gets possession of human hair or nails may work his will at any distance upon the person from whom they were cut’,^[1653] is an example of the latter. ‘Homoeopathic magic is founded on the association of ideas by similarity: contagious magic is founded on the association of ideas by contiguity. Homoeopathic magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which resemble each other are the same; contagious magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which have once been in contact with each other are always in contact.’^[1654]

There follows a second stage which Professor Hobhouse calls the stage of ‘common sense’. It is characterized by the organization of ideas in accordance with the categories and by the differentiation of feeling from belief. At this stage the categories are no longer ordinarily confused and the difficulty of affirming what a man does not like to believe is no longer so strongly felt as in the previous stage. Experience is tested and good evidence is recognized as such. It is no longer believed that an enemy can be harmed by maltreating a likeness of him or that qualities like courage are substances that may be transferred. This is the stage of conceptual thought reached by the ordinary man in everyday life in a modern community when he is not specifically engaged in work of a scientific nature or in problems of religion or philosophy. Just as the simpler mental processes are present 411among men who have reached the conceptual level, so the earliest stage of conceptual thought can be recognized where later stages have been reached, as, for instance, when grace is conferred by the laying on of hands in a modern community.

The beginnings of the common-sense stage may perhaps be found in the second period. Essentially it is characteristic of the third period, and it was only within this period that this stage came to its full development. When this stage is contrasted with that which preceded it, it is seen that it is the clarification of concepts which is the distinguishing feature of the movement of thought. In other words there has been an improvement in the instrument whereby the intellect works—comparable to any other process through which skill is increased. Just as the bow and arrow and the plough have been improved by a series of inventions, so has the instrument of thought been improved; and just as further improvements in the plough and the bow and arrow after a certain stage has been reached may possibly depend upon further evolution of mental capacity, so possibly progress in the movement of thought may depend upon further evolution of the intellect. Again it should be observed that just as tools such as the plough are handed down as part of the tradition, so, too, the instrument of thought is handed down as part of the tradition and that, therefore, in studying in what follows the manner in which tradition is passed on and stored up, we are studying the methods whereby the instrument of thought as much as any other skilled process is transmitted.

Further stages in the movement of thought maybe distinguished. It is not necessary to go into them here. They arise within the third period, and relatively late within that period. They are characterized by the rise and development of science, philosophy, and religion—religion, that is to say, which has passed beyond the stage of folk-religion.

3. Let us now consider the passing on and storing up of the products of conceptual thinking. We may take the latter point first. Ideas may be stored up in language, customs, folk-lore, institutions, tools, and so on, using tools in the narrower sense of material implements. In one sense language is in itself a great storehouse of ideas quite apart from its function as a means of transmitting ideas regarding specific customs and rights. Slowly and painfully concepts have been elaborated, distinguished, 412clarified; and as a child learns his native language, in a few years he acquires the products of the thinking of untold generations from whom he is descended. It is difficult to exaggerate the immense importance of this method of storing ideas. Very largely through language alone, though not without the acquirement of ideas otherwise stored, a man passes, by the time he has reached maturity, through a stage of thought corresponding to the primitive stage, to the common-sense stage, and even to the higher stages.

It is obvious enough that at the present day ideas are largely stored in books and the vast importance of writing and printing—inventions of the third period^[1655]—is a commonplace. Similarly, ideas are stored in customs, institutions, rites, folk-lore, and so on. Behind all institutions, ceremonies for example, we must seek ideas. The original ideas which gave birth to customs have often been lost, but whether this is so or not, where an institution exists and is passed on there we are witnessing the perpetuation of an idea, if it is merely an idea that it is the correct thing to perform some simple action on certain occasions. Many valuable ideas are stored up in the making and use of tools and in the practice of skilled processes, especially those which are concerned with the provision of food. We can understand how by the exercise of thought improvements in some tool or in some method are now and again made, and, once made, how they are stored up. What is less easy is to understand precisely how the passing on of ideas so stored is brought about.

4. Something has already been said as to the manner in which by means of language ideas present in the mind of the speaker are transmitted to the hearer; and it has been pointed out that apart from this the learning of any language is in itself a process by which the ideas elaborated by former generations are acquired. Bearing in mind the manner in which ideas are transmitted by language, it is clear how, after the invention of writing and more especially after the invention of printing, ideas thus stored up are transmitted. But before these inventions, and indeed to a large extent after them also, ideas committed to memory by each generation are passed on by language. Among primitive people there is a vast store of ideas affecting conduct, belief, and 413every side of life which is so passed on. But the storing up of ideas is not merely a matter of memory and the passing on is not merely a matter of language. Rites, ceremonies, implements, and so on, are themselves storehouses of ideas, and the transmission of the ideas therein contained, as well indeed as the ideas solely retained in the memory of past generations, is accomplished in large part by a process of absorption.

This process of absorption is due to the presence of certain innate tendencies. These tendencies have sometimes been grouped under one head and called imitation—as, for instance, by Tarde and others who have studied the process and emphasized its great importance in social life. Following McDougall we may distinguish three innate tendencies. By sympathy is meant that the exhibition of emotional excitement on the part of the agent may induce a similar emotional excitement on the part of the patient. By imitation is meant that there may be a tendency for the patient to assimilate his bodily movements to those of the agent. Important as are these innate tendencies in facilitating the transmission of customs and so on—themselves ultimately the product of conceptual thought—suggestion assumes a far more prominent place.

McDougall’s definition of suggestion has already been quoted. According to his view it is essentially the acceptance with conviction of a proposition in the absence of logically adequate grounds for its acceptance. He points out that a proposition is not necessarily communicated in formal language, and further distinguishes certain conditions which are favourable for the communication of propositions by suggestion. Chief among these are deficiency of knowledge relating to the topic in regard to which the suggestion is made, imperfect organization of knowledge, and the impressive character of the source from which the suggested proposition is communicated. These conditions are very prominent among children and in all primitive society. There is no doubt that it is largely by virtue of suggestion that children absorb the tradition of their race and time. Children have little knowledge and what they have is imperfectly organized; further propositions come to them from a source which is impressive and has prestige whether it is from parents or grown-up people or from the conventions ruling in society. Just as children in modern society absorb tradition by suggestion, so do men 414among primitive races where the conditions are even more favourable for transmission by this means. Thus, in order that the products of conceptual thinking of former generations should be transmitted, it is not necessary that there should be convictions based on logical grounds or that formal language should be employed. Tradition can be, and is to a large extent, ‘absorbed’.

5. Tradition, having thus passed on, is retained, and in the process of retention habit plays an important part. Habit applies to all forms of mental process and to all forms of action. Once something has been performed in one way, it is easier to do it again in that way than in any other. ‘This is the great principle’, says McDougall, ‘by which all acquisitions of the individual mind are preserved’,^[1656] whatever the mode of acquisition may be.

6. The products of the thinking of past generations are thus stored up, transmitted, and retained. Additions are made to the store, and improvements are made in the method of storing. Tradition, by which is meant this store, is thus cumulative. The acquirements of past generations are passed on to the present generation and, modified in some degree, are transmitted to future generations. New generations, therefore, so far as acquired knowledge is concerned, begin at the point where the former generation left off. It does not, of course, follow that additions are always being made to tradition; it may be for all practical purposes stagnant or much that has been acquired may be lost.^[1657] It does, however, permit of accumulation, and this fact introduces an element of vast importance into the life of man as compared with his pre-human ancestors.

It is not, however, correct to say that this is a wholly new element. Tradition may be and is present before the level of conceptual thinking has been reached. Many animals, for example, live in herds and instinctively take shelter when one member of a herd utters a warning cry. If at some past time a new enemy has appeared, they will have learnt by experience to take shelter. Subsequent generations will raise the warning cry on the appearance of the enemy, because what we may think of as a tradition has grown up concerning the hostile nature of the species with which past generations were brought into contact. Thus 415we may think of a tradition among horses that motorcars are not dangerous. When cars were first introduced horses tended instinctively to avoid them. Many horses learnt from experience that cars were harmless, and young horses, seeing motorcars for the first time in the presence of older horses, which have learnt the lesson, absorb the tradition that they are not dangerous. Tradition among animals can go even farther than this. To some degree it seems that the manner of nest building among birds is traditional and not instinctive.^[1658] But compared with the vast importance of tradition among men, tradition among animals is an almost negligible feature in their lives, and for all practical purposes we can think of tradition as a peculiar characteristic of man due to the higher mental process to which he has attained.

7. In any race at any given time there is thus a vast body of tradition. These traditions govern both the degree and the direction in which the various mental processes function. What is meant will be clearer if we think of the influence of the mass of traditions upon physical characters. At any given time there are a number of tools and skilled processes known and employed and, in the first place, the degree in which the body is exercised will depend upon their nature. It may be that hunting with bow and arrow, or fishing in canoes, is the chief occupation of the men. The degree of physical exercise will be conditioned by these traditions and so too will, in the second place, the nature and direction of physical exercise. Similarly with regard to the intellectual faculties, the degree to which they are used will be conditioned by the form of language, by the necessity of learning what custom lays down as the acquirement of an average member of society, and by the opportunities and inducements generally to the employment of reasoning. The direction in which the intellectual faculties work will also be closely conditioned by tradition. Having absorbed the traditions of the race and time, the direction which reasoning follows will always be very largely 416governed by what has been acquired. Few men strike out new paths, and, when they do, the direction of the path is seen to be greatly influenced by the previous trend of thought. Tradition, as it advances, thus tends to proceed in grooves.

The manner in which tradition conditions the degree and nature of the manifestation of the instinctive tendencies is equally well marked. Among some races, such as the Eskimos, fighting is almost unknown. Though among such races the instinct of pugnacity is probably less strongly given in the germinal constitution than among other races, to a large extent the relative absence of fighting is certainly due to tradition. Among the Eskimos we find a great body of custom and ideas all of which tend to impress upon them that fighting is wrong. An emotion again may be greatly developed by some racial tradition. Self-assertion is much more developed among the members of the larger and more prosperous European races than among the smaller and weaker races. The attitude of the Englishman is very different from that of the Dane, who will tell you that Denmark is only a little country that wants to be let alone. Latterly the attention of the world has been drawn to the peculiar manner in which the teaching of various historians, moralists, philosophers and others has moulded the outlook of the Germans and come to direct the expression of their emotions. Thus in a most striking manner it has been made obvious how a peculiar body of tradition, ultimately the product of conceptual thinking, has directed the emotions and sentiments of a whole people into certain channels with such disastrous results. The direction of an instinct is often changed; the tender emotion may be diverted among the childless to charitable works, and the instincts of celibates obviously become much changed. Any instinct indeed is capable of manifesting itself in very different forms according to the outlet which it finds, and the nature of the outlet is determined chiefly by tradition. ‘On a, aujourd’hui’, says Joubert, ‘non seulement la cupidité mais l’ambition du gain.’^[1659] The simpler emotion has, that is to say, become more complex under the influence of the traditional environment.

8. Lastly we may note that the tradition acquired and present at any one time may form the basis for the selection of men and of groups of men. There are often, especially among the higher 417races, differences in tradition as between the groups and classes in the same race. The differences are usually much greater between different races. The tradition present in a race, whether because it includes a higher degree of skill, enables a greater degree of coherence to be realized, is the foundation of more vigorous endeavour, or because it is a combination of these and other elements, may enable one race, when in conflict with other races, to overcome those other races, should the latter be possessed of a tradition, which, taken as a whole, is, relatively to the conditions of the contest, less valuable. There is thus a process of natural selection based upon differences in tradition, just as there is a natural selection based upon differences due to modifications and also upon differences due to mutations. Selection of modifications, as we have seen, produces no permanent results. But selection of tradition, like selection of mutations, has results which may be permanent. In primitive society, where tradition within a race tends to be uniform, this selection of tradition chiefly comes into play in the conflict between races. In more advanced societies where there are considerable differences in tradition between the classes, it also comes into play within races.

The conflict between races is always in large measure a conflict between traditions whether or not the differences in tradition are a measure of more fundamental differences. In these conflicts a mass of tradition may be wiped out and lost for good or any degree of amalgamation of tradition may take place.

At length within modern races there arises a competition of ideas of a rather different nature. Within civilized races there is no longer a mass of tradition which has to be accepted as a whole; there are different ideas which may be said to compete. One idea may get the better of another within the minds of the majority without involving any elimination of men who hold any other idea, because men can now change their outlook—not, of course, in the case of the great majority by any logical process. Thus a struggle comes into being between ideas, customs, and institutions in modern communities which leads to change without involving human selection.

These considerations pave the way to an examination of the influence of the actual conditions under which tradition has been elaborated. We have seen that conceptual thinking develops with, and is furthered by, the use of speech. It does not develop 418merely to a particular level and there stop. There is a movement of thought which at least in its earlier stages takes the form of a clarification of concepts. The products of conceptual thinking are stored up and handed on in the form of tradition. This tradition is cumulative. Not only are additions made to it but the methods of storing are improved. Elements may also be lost. Finally, forming, as it does, a very important element in the manifestation of human mental character, men, and more particularly races of men, may be selected in accordance with the degree and quality of tradition acquired by them.

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