106 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



self been reared among the chimpanzees he might 

 have been a Grruebelkopf, but he would not have 

 known how to talk." ("Survey," May 6, 1911.) 

 The impossibility of handing down any posi- 

 tive moral traits is apparent again from the na- 

 ture of the content of consciousness. In our na- 

 ture there are certain powers capable of receiv- 

 ing and dealing with that which comes to us from 

 without. This is the gift of heredity. But this 

 power innate does not of itself furnish itself with 

 any material to work with or to build into char- 

 acter. That must all come from the outer world. 

 The soul is at first an empty chamber with no 

 hidden inhabitants in secret closets which after 

 a while present themselves to it. Says Baldwin: 

 "There is no question in psychological circles to- 

 day of the absolute mental creation which was 

 formerly assumed. The newer doctrine of 'men- 

 tal content, ' on the one hand, which holds that no 

 elements of representation can get into conscious- 

 ness except as they have been already present in 

 some form in presentation; and, on the other 

 hand, the doctrine that the activities of conscious- 

 ness are always conditioned on the content of 

 presentation and representation present at the 

 time these positions make it impossible to hold 

 that the agent or mind can make anything for it- 

 self 'out of whole cloth,' so to speak." ("Social 

 and Ethical Interpretations," 100.) One may 

 say, indeed, that these powers forming conscious- 

 ness are weak or defective.; but that is quite dif- 



