HABITS OF MIND 245 



Nor must we belittle our imitative faculty by 

 supposing that it merely imposes upon us a 

 mechanical uniformity, or conducts us forward 

 by leading strings which simply affect our external 

 behaviour. By following the ideas or actions of 

 another we gradually strengthen in ourselves the 

 influence of the impulses which these express, and 

 equip ourselves not only, as it were, with new 

 machinery, but with new motive power. We 

 form new habits oi mind, or " ideals," which affect 

 us in spirit as well as in conduct. Thus the accept- 

 ance of Christianity leads not only to kindliness of 

 manners but to a more effective working of the 

 kindly impulse. So also conditions of warfare 

 subject us more strongly to feelings of cruelty ; 

 and democratic politics stimulate our impulse of 

 deference to the crowd. 



And, although we may find that culture has been 

 won by steps that cheapen our ideas of human 

 dignity, we may well be proud of the actual results. 

 Man has so far outstripped the brutes as to deserve 

 a place for himself, above the ranks of the animal 

 kingdom. Between the chimpanzee and the 

 lowest savage there is such a gulf as divides no 

 other two classes of related animals. The one can 

 only progress by the slow-moving wheels of evo- 

 lutionary development : the other, able in some 

 measure to change himself, has invented and 

 adopted complications of behaviour which may 

 have added to misery, which may have hastened 

 death, but are the primaeval foundations of 

 modern culture. It is impossible to deny that 

 there has been progress that in manners and 

 ideas we surpass the Greeks and the Romans as 

 they surpassed the Egyptians and Babylonians. 

 It may be objected that so comforting a conclu- 

 sion might hardly be reached were our survey 

 made from a point in the Dark Ages of Europe. 



