412 THE NATURE OF TRADITION 



clarified ; and as a child learns his native language, in a few years 

 he acquires the products of the thinking of untold generations 

 from whom he is descended. It is difficult to exaggerate the 

 immense importance of this method of storing ideas. Very 

 largely through language alone, though not without the acquire- 

 ment of ideas otherwise stored, a man passes, by the time he has 

 reached maturity, through a stage of thought corresponding to 

 the primitive stage, to the common-sense stage, and even to the 

 higher stages. 



It is obvious, enough that at the present day ideas are largely 

 stored in books and the vast importance of writing and printing — 

 inventions of the third period* — is a commonplace. Similarly, 

 ideas are stored in customs, institutions, rites, folk-lore, and so on. 

 Behind all institutions, ceremonies for example, we must seek 

 ideas. The original ideas which gave birth to customs have often 

 been lost, but whether this is so or not, where an institution exists 

 and is passed on there we are witnessing the perpetuation of an 

 idea, if it is merely an idea that it is the correct thing to perform 

 some simple action on certain occasions. Many valuable ideas 

 are stored up in the making and use of tools and in the practice 

 of skilled processes, especially those which are concerned with 

 the provision of food. We can understand how by the exercise 

 of thought improvements in some tool or in some method are now 

 and again made, and, once made, how they are stored up. What 

 is less easy is to understand precisely how the passing on of ideas 

 so stored is brought about. 



4. Something has already been said as to the manner in which 

 by means of language ideas present in the mind of the speaker 

 are transmitted to the hearer ; and it has been pointed out that 

 apart from this the learning of any language is in itself a process 

 by which the ideas elaborated by former generations are acquired. 

 Bearing in mind the manner in which ideas are transmitted by 

 language, it is clear how, after the invention of writing and more 

 especially after the invention of printing, ideas thus stored up 

 are transmitted. But before these inventions, and indeed to 

 a large extent after them also, ideas committed to memory by 

 each generation are passed on by language. Among primitive 

 people there is a vast store of ideas affecting conduct, belief, and 



* The beginning of writing — for instance the Maya script — dates from the 

 second period. 



