THE INSTINCTS AND THE ACQUIREMENTS OF MAN 245 



power of making acquirements. This power is a substitute 

 for instinct in yet another way. Instinct descends from 

 parent to offspring through thousands of generations. But 

 some acquired mental characters, bits of knowledge, ideas, 

 belief, habits, ways of thinking and acting are almost as 

 permanent. Language, cooking, the wearing of garments, 

 and religions are examples. 



405. All things tend to become automatic in us as we 

 grow older. Not only our actions, but our habits, our ways 

 of thinking and acting, our beliefs, our whole nature gradually 

 become stereotyped, and approximate, as I say, in effect, 

 though not in fact, to the instinctive type of mind. A great 

 advantage is thereby gained and a great advantage lost. 

 The advantage is that we are able to act quickly and without 

 mental toil in the common affairs of life. Cycling is an 

 example. It is learnt with labour and difficulty, but practice 

 renders balancing and pedalling automatic and extremely 

 easy. It becomes an exact substitute for an instinct. 

 Arithmetic is another example. Practice so much facilitates 

 calculation that, did we not remember the learning and the 

 practice, we should think our powers instinctive. It is true 

 that cycling and arithmetic come more easily to some men 

 than to others, but that only means that the former have a 

 greater power of making these acquirements, that they have 

 a greater capacity, not that they are born with a greater 

 knowledge. Their powers of learning may, or may not, be 

 applied to cycling or arithmetic. They may be applied to 

 other things, or left dormant. 



406. The disadvantage, the tremendous disadvantage, is 

 that, as our actions become automatic and our beliefs and 

 thoughts stereotyped, we gradually lose our splendid human 

 power of learning, of profiting physically and mentally from 

 experience. Physically we cease to grow, both in body and 

 brain. Mentally we become less and less receptive. It is 

 interesting to ponder on the intellectual differences between 

 a little child and a grown man. Adults are apt to regard 

 the intellectual powers of children with amused contempt. 

 But when we compare ourselves with little children, when 

 we consider what we were and what we are, we should feel 

 humble enough. We cannot learn as a child learns. We 

 are not open in anything like the same degree to conviction 

 when faced with fresh evidence. We are less credulous than 

 children, not only because we know more, but because we 

 can learn less. When a child enters the world its mind is 

 almost a blank. Light reflected from various objects, now 



