Tradition : 

 The Evidence of Biology^ 



In order to avoid any possible misunderstanding, I want to 

 make it clear from the beginning that I am going to address you 

 as a professional biologist, and that I shall consider only that 

 fraction of human behaviour about which a biologist might be 

 expected to have something pertinent to say. I shall touch very 

 briefly upon two problems. First, what is to be learned about 

 the causes and motives of human behaviour — about our Springs 

 of Action — by thinking of man as 'just another animal', that 

 is, by thinking of the biological similarities between animals 

 and men? Everybody recognizes that there are indeed profound 

 similarities between the behaviour of man and animals, but 

 biologists and laymen think about them in entirely different 

 ways. When laymen see mice nursing and cherishing their 

 young, their first thought is ''How like human beings they are, 

 after all!' The biologist (at all events when he is on duty) thinks 

 *'How mouse-like, after all, are men!' 



The second question is, what is to be learned by reflection 

 upon the biological differences between men and other animals.'^ 

 In answering this question I shall come to a conclusion that 

 may surprise you, viz. that tradition is responsible for a large 

 part of the present biological fitness of man. 



^ [The gist of one of several short addresses on 'Tradition' given at a 

 Present Question Conference in 1953 on the general theme of Springs of 

 Action^ 



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