MATERIAL BASIS OF TRADITION 171 



of evolution, perhaps even the declining level of ' the 

 human builders that contribute in each generation a few 

 more stones to take a permanent place in its fabric'. 1 



This great edifice was founded on oral tradition. Later 

 on written tradition, and still later printed tradition took 

 its place. When Society comes to depend upon the one 

 it in large part ceases to depend upon the others, and in 

 changing its methods it is itself changed. Contrast, for 

 instance, the period in the life of each one of us when we 

 ceased to remember the affairs of daily life and gave our 

 memory into the keeping of ink and paper. Although 

 much was gained in the inevitable change, something was 

 lost. Until recently there have been many people in this 

 country, there are probably a few now, who, unable to 

 read or write, can remember the details of complicated 

 accounts in a manner astonishing and impossible to those 

 who possess these accomplishments. We see that when 

 society in any age has come to depend upon printing it 

 will be through printing and not in other ways that it will 

 contribute its chief share to the social edifice ; and this is 

 not a mere truism, for that age will have lost in large 

 measure other powers which would have developed in 

 earlier times, powers which would still develop if printing 

 did not exist. 



Our American friends, who enter so thoroughly into 

 the essentials of a subject whenever they direct their 

 attention to it, have not, so far as I am aware, made 

 any determined attack upon this problem. Indeed, the 

 majority of the scientific works, which they so freely and 

 generously place at the disposal of students in other lands, 

 are printed upon material — I cannot call it paper — con- 

 structed of the felted fragments of wood, or of a thin 

 paper backing overlaid and loaded with china-clay. The 

 latter class are abnormally heavy, the former abnormally 

 light. 



This is a matter so important that it ought not to be 

 left to the President of your Society to sound the warning. 

 It is a matter which it would have been well if the Royal 

 Society or the British Association had taken up years 



1 I.e. p. 345- 



