482 CONCLUSION 



sound foundations. However much our power to control and 

 regulate vital processes may increase — and it is clearly upon the 

 verge of a very great increase — in the end a satisfactory physical 

 condition can only be the product of a certain germinal constitu- 

 tion. On the other hand, those who think that germinal change 

 in mental characters will effect the evolution of society and mould 

 the course of history are upon the whole mistaken. The course 

 of history is in the main dependent upon changes in tradition 

 which are for the most part independent of germinal change. 

 Just as the outstanding happenings in the last century — the 

 turning of thought and conduct in Germany, for example, along 

 certain lines, which ended in so great a catastrophe — ^were due 

 to changes in tradition and not to changes in the germinal consti- 

 tution, so whether the problems now pressing upon European 

 society are to be solved or whether some greater catastrophe, 

 reaching a climax in a long course of years or bursting suddenly 

 upon us, is to be the outcome, will depend upon changes in tradition 

 and not upon germinal change. The reason for this lies in the 

 fact that the vast accumulation of tradition overlays the outward 

 expression of ■ mental character, determines the direction of 

 intellectual activity and moulds the expression of the instinctive 

 faculties. But as far as tradition is equalized, so far do innate 

 mental differences manifest themselves as between man and man, 

 and since tradition is more or less equalized, if not within races, 

 at least within classes in the same race, to that degree is mental 

 endowment of pre-eminent importance to the individual. 



