114 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



It must always be remembered there is not inborn 

 in any one of us any part of the effects either of the 

 good or of the evil of this collective heredity, includ- 

 ing its psychic elements. If it were interrupted, 

 therefore, in the case of society and the inheritance 

 was not thus conveyed between any two generations 

 either by teaching or by imitation, the result would 

 be extraordinary. There would be a sudden breach 

 in the whole order of civilization. Men would be 

 born mentally and physically the same, but they 

 would inherit in themselves no trace and none 

 of the effects of the past knowledge or training 

 of society, 



This impressive fact is to some extent already 

 dimly apprehended by the general mind through 

 the bearings of it being constantly brought under 

 notice by systems of education. But the contrary 

 fact has never been grasped by the human mind 

 in all its significance. If the incoming generation of 

 men were submitted to a new collective inheritance, 

 including in particular its psychic elements, they 

 would take it up as readily as they did the old. 

 We should then have the surprising spectacle of a 

 great change in the world, appearing to the observer 

 as if a fundamental alteration in human nature had 

 suddenly taken place on a universal scale. 



It is to this fact more than to any other in the 



