SOCIAL HEREDITY 173 



sympathies, prejudices and prepossessions deeply seated 

 and concentrated in the mind of the 'free' individual like 

 countless rays in a focus. They live in him as thought, 

 though the crowd imagines that whether right or wrong, 

 praiseworthy or blameworthy, it is he that cherishes 

 them." 4 It is this mental precipitate of generations 

 long gone that is condensed in the mind of one person 

 and comprises the mental furniture which we acquire 

 in the course of our life's experience. It is active in 

 determining our explanations of our actions and always 

 modifies our interpretation of the conduct of others. 



Professor Cooley speaks of this social atmosphere 

 into which we are born, including its organization into 

 literature, art, and institutions, as the outside or visible 

 structure of thought. Although the symbols, the tradi- 

 tions, and the institutions are projected from the mind, 

 yet from the very instant of their projection, they react, 

 controlling, stimulating, developing, and fix certain 

 thoughts at the expense of others to which no awakening 

 suggestion comes. Thus all is one growth. The " in- 

 dividual is a member not alone of a family, a class, a 

 state, but of a larger whole reaching back to prehistoric 

 man whose thought has gone to make it up." 5 In this 

 social medium the individual lives as in an element, from 

 which he draws the materials of his growth and to which 

 he contributes whatever constructive thought he may ex- 

 press. The individual mind becomes a blank when sep- 

 arated from the stream of collective experience, but im- 

 mersed in the great currents of men and ideas the in- 

 dividual grows, drawing from the common experience 

 the material for its own life. This has led Professor 

 Cooley to say, "The growth of the individual mind 



* Gumplowicz, op. cit., p. 158, 5 Cooley, Social Organisation, p. 64, 



