TRAITS NOT TRANSMISSIBLE 107 



ferent from saying that they are sinful, which 

 involves a voluntary element. 



But after all we persistently believe in the her- 

 itage of a disposition that is born with us, to 

 which we attribute the moral course of our life. 

 We need not deny the reality of disposition; but 

 we need to give more attention to its interpreta- 

 tion. What are the elements of the disposition 

 with which the child is born I We answer: He is 

 social, curious, imitative, active, etc. Among 

 these qualities there is none that can be identified 

 as sheerly evil. What, then, is an evil disposi- 

 tion? How does it arise? There is a certain 

 average of qualities which we call human nature, 

 the possession of which is thought to constitute 

 normality, and is sometimes called "horse sense, " 

 because we have no proper term for it. Baldwin, 

 seeking a term for it, calls it " average social 

 judgment" Deviation from this is called pe- 

 culiarity of disposition. The difference of dispo- 

 sition depends upon the preponderance of traits. 

 It might remove some presuppositions from our 

 mind if we should compare the "average social 

 judgment" of the various races and peoples. 

 What a different thing it is in China from what 

 it is in America! How different in civilization 

 now from what it was a thousand years ago. This 

 might indicate that its standards are quite un- 

 der the power of education and environment, 

 rather than an invariable innate something. 



How do individuals vary from this human 



