5IO GENERAL BIOLOGY 



retrace the course of human development ; and this though 

 comparatively short, is beset with difficulties; for his art 

 and science he must for himself acquire. Nature will make 

 of him only a barbarian; nurture must make of him a 

 citizen. 



He must first of all acquire the methods of education. 

 He begins with trial and error; but this method is too slow, 

 too uncertain in its results, and too apt to cultivate ways of 

 going elaborately wrong, alongside of those which go right. 

 He must learn to imitate, and must learn by imitiation. He 

 must learn to do, or not to do, as others do. By these 

 means he lays a broad basis of personal experience. By 

 these means he is made fit for social intercourse. For so 

 he learns the signs in which racial experience is expressed : 

 gestures and attitudes, manners and customs, and, most of 

 all, words. The circumstances of his nurture compel 

 imitiation. Only the same signs that others use will be 

 understood. And by continual imitation he establishes 

 automatic habits like those of other members of society. 

 His social conduct takes on forms that are like to the in- 

 stincts of animals in their fixity, and he becomes a fit and 

 acceptable member of society. The moral person is he 

 whose acts are in accord with the accepted rules of conduct 

 for the community. 



But society is an organism, and therefore adaptable. 

 Just as there are common emotions, ruling as with an iron 

 hand the general conduct of the people, so also there is a 

 common intelligence that may find better modes of action. 

 It may seem at times to exert but little influence. 

 Appeals to instinctive habits always bring tumultuous re- 

 sponses; for racial nerve paths are thoroughly well broken 

 for stimuli to eat, to drink, to fight and to indulgence of the 

 baser passions; and the plea for better things, may often 

 seem to fall on deaf ears. The prophets and seers who 



