The Nature of Society 67 



power of forming habits in a social environ- 

 ment through the various influences of con- 

 scious and unconscious education. It is based 

 upon a nervous system having dynamic tend- 

 encies rather than fixed instincts, and depend- 

 ing for its development on the influences 

 surrounding it as the vine depends upon the 

 trellis to which its tendrils cling. Without a 

 social organization into which to climb, man 

 would not grow above the brute. That which 

 is human in him is the response his plastic 

 nature makes to the lives and influences of 

 others. This is not to deny the force of innate 

 tendencies; people vary greatly in their sus- 

 ceptibility to different influences. But in what- 

 ever direction development may occur, it is 

 guided by influences flowing into the present 

 from the uncounted generations of the past. 



Thus at the beginning of society there arose 

 the distinction between physical and spiritual 

 elements, between flesh and spirit. That which 

 was born of the flesh passed through innumer- 

 able blendings of the germ plasm into succes- 

 sive generations of varying physical forms, 

 and that which was born of the spirit of the 

 occasional genius passed from mind to mind 

 as an accumulating social heritage. 



