THE PKOBLEM AMONG MEN 81 



might have considerable bearing upon the position in man. 

 Owing to human activity under the guidance of reason, the 

 environment has been profoundly changed in many directions, 

 and without question in consequence of such changes the germ 

 cells of human beings are subject during their development to far 

 more varied stimuli than are those of other species. This, how- 

 ever, is only a possibility. Nothing is known with certainty upon 

 the subject. It may be that the great variety of foods, the absorp- 

 tion of alcohol and nicotin, the various occupations and customs, 

 and many other factors, all ultimately traceable to reason, may, 

 some of them in some way, tend to bring about mutation in man. 



It is by making possible the development of tradition that the 

 evolution of reason has fundamentally changed the nature of the 

 qualitative problem among men. Into the nature and origin of 

 tradition it will be necessary to go in another chapter. Here all 

 that is required is an indication of its main features in order that 

 its connexion with the problem of change may be understood. In 

 the stage of conceptual thought reached by man, the formation of 

 free ideas is the outstanding feature. With the development of 

 conceptual thought went the development of language. By 

 language ideas can be passed from one man to another and also 

 from one generation to another. There are other ways in which 

 the results of reasoning can be handed on, but they need not be 

 considered at present. What is important is that they can be and 

 are handed on. Let us consider for a moment the question of skill. 

 Some improvement may be made in the methods of hunting or of 

 fishing. It may, of course, be lost, but it may be, and perhaps 

 usually is, transmitted to other men by the inventor and afterwards 

 to succeeding generations. Tradition is, in fact, cumulative. 

 Even among the most primitive races now existing there is a huge 

 mass of tradition. Succeeding generations do not necessarily start 

 at the beginning again. They start with the experience of the 

 race behind them, so far as it has been preserved. 



Among the higher animals there is a certain handing on of what 

 has been learnt by experience ; to this extent there is tradition 

 also among them. We shall return to this point later. So relatively 

 unimportant, however, is tradition among other animals, that we 

 may for the moment regard tradition as something which is found 

 among men only. It is clear that tradition has played some part 

 jn any case in producing the changes which we call history. 



