462 TRADITION AND HEREDITY 



ment of the individual a conflict of impressions invites selective 

 attention, so in the spiritual development of society a clash of 

 cultures awakes latent energies of a constructive kind.' ^ This 

 fact has led to the error of attributing to war a more direct 

 importance in stimulating energy than there is evidence for.^ 

 Contact usually implied war, but contact is equally effective 

 without war, as can be seen in the example of the Italian Renais- 

 sance. The stimulus in this case was largely derived from the 

 rediscovery of the ideals and learning of ancient society, and can 

 only be attributed to war in the far-fetched sense that Greek 

 scholars were disseminated over Europe by the capture of Con- 

 stantinople. And in more modern times stimulus is often derived 

 from indirect contact in which war plays no part at all — as can 

 be seen often enough in the history of art, in the influence, for 

 example, of Chinese and Japanese art upon European painting. 



The effect of a sudden stimulus may be to break down habit, 

 and the importance of habit has been dwelt upon as the character- 

 istic which enables tradition once acquired to be maintained. 

 Such breakings down can be observed in the lives of men and 

 women around us under the influence of sudden stress, and 

 something similar may happen to a nation as a whole. Professor 

 Graham Wallas has, for instance, dwelt upon the importance of the 

 breaking down of habit as accounting for the excesses of the 

 French Revolution.^ 



Though a stimulus may always be detected at work during 

 periods of advance, it is by no means always possible to find 

 evidence of favourable germinal change. There is frequently no 

 evidence at all of germinal change at such periods. In the past 

 no doubt contact often implied racial intermingling, and, though 

 in the present state of biological knowledge we are justified in 

 supposing that crosses between two races not too distinct would 



1 Marett, Psychology and Folk-Lore, p. 73. 



2 As, for instance, byRenan in the following passage which contains nevertheless 

 an element of truth : ' La guerre est, de la sorte, ime des conditions du progres, 

 le coup de fouet qui empeche un pays de s'endormir, en forgant la mediocrite 

 satisfaite d'elle-meme a sortir de son apathie. L'homme n'est soutenu que par 

 I'effort et la lutte. . . . Le jour oil I'humanite deviendrait un grand empire romain 

 pacific et n'ayant plus d'ennemis exterieurs serait le jour oii la moralite et I'in- 

 telligence courraient les plus grands dangers ' (Reforme intellectudle et vwrale, p. Ill ). 



3 Wallas, Great Society, p. 80. ' In a settled and traditional society custom is 

 of such overwhelming weight that a law can only act in accordance with it ; 

 a sudden change in the machinery of government would break down of itself — 

 nay, in such a society laws can hardly be passed save those that the development 

 of tradition demands ' (Belloc, Life of Danton, p. 142). 



