THE NATURE OF TRADITION 415 



we may think of a tradition among horses that motor-cars are 

 not dangerous. When cars were first introduced horses tended 

 instinctively to avoid them. Many horses learnt from experi- 

 ence that cars were harmless, and young horses, seeing motor- 

 cars 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.^ 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 pecuhar charac- 

 teristic 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 



1 There is a tendency to exaggerate the importance of tradition among animals. 

 Thus it has been said that nest building is ' largely ' traditional among birds. 

 But the Curator of Birds in the New York Zoological Park raised a number of 

 wild birds from incubated eggs, and found that these birds, although they had 

 never had parental care or example, nevertheless learnt to fly, to build nests, and 

 to perform all these activities — though they were sometimes slower in so doing 

 than they would otherwise have been — that are at times said to be ' largely ' 

 traditional (see Lull, Organic Evolution, p. 170). 



