COSxMIC PHILOSOPHY 



reference to the comparatively stable and un- 

 changing environment. In psychology we have 

 to take the environment into account at every 

 step ; but unless we are studying the quite spe- 

 cial problem of the growth of the mental facul- 

 ties, we do not need to refer to a definite and 

 persistent succession of changes in the environ- 

 ment. But in sociology we cannot work in this 

 way. As M. Littre has well pointed out, when 

 we come to study humanity we are met by a 

 new phenomenon unknown in biology or in 

 psychology pure and simple. That new phe- 

 nomenon is Tradition, or the bequeathing of all 

 its organized intellectual and moral experience 

 by each generation to its successor. Here for 

 the first time we have an environment which is 

 rapidly changing in a definite order of sequence, 

 and changing by the very activity of the com- 

 munity itself. The organized experience of 

 each generation becomes a part of the environ- 

 ment of its successor, and since in each succes- 

 sive age " the empire of the dead over the liv- 

 ing increases," the environment of each genera- 

 tion consists to a greater and greater extent of 

 the sum total of traditions bequeathed by all 

 past generations. Hence we cannot hope sci- 

 entifically to comprehend the simplest feature 

 in any given state of the community without 

 reference to ancestral states. The religious phe- 

 nomena of the present day, for example, cannot 

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