lt he can not verify, has
somewhat the function in his education of the puzzle in our society
amusements or the game of sliced animals in the nursery.

CHAPTER IX.

THE INDIVIDUAL MIND AND SOCIETY--SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY.

THE series of questions which arise when we consider the individual as
a member of society fall together under the general theory of what has
been called, in a figure, Social Heredity.

The treatment of this topic will show something of the normal relation
of the individual's mind to the social environment; and the chapter
following will give some hints as to the nature and position of that
exceptional man in whom we are commonly so much interested--the
Genius.

The theory of social heredity has been worked up through the
contributions, from different points of view, of several authors.
What, then, is social heredity?

This is a very easy question to answer, since the group of facts which
the phrase describes are extremely familiar--so much so that the
reader may despair, from such a commonplace beginning, of getting any
novelty from it. The social heritage is, of course, all that a man or
woman gets from the accumulated wisdom of society. All that the ages
have handed down--the literature, the art, the habits of social
conformity, the experience of social ills, the treatment of crime, the
relief of distress, the education of the young, the provision for the
old--all, in fact, however described, that we men owe to the ancestors
whom we reverence, and to the parents whose presence with us perhaps
we cherish still. Their struggles, the orator has told us, have bought
our freedom; we enter into the heritage of their thought and wisdom
and heroism. All true; we do. We all breathe a social atmosphere; and
our growth is by this breathing-in of the tradition and example of the
past.

Now, if this be the social heritage, we may go on to ask: Who are to
inherit it? To this we may again add the further question: How does
the one who is born to such a heritage as this come into his
inheritance? And with this yet again: How may he use his
inheritance--to what end and under what limitations? These questions
come so readily into the mind that we naturally wish the discussion to
cover them.

Generally, then, who is eligible for the social inheritance? This heir
to society we are, all of us. Society does not make a will, it is
true; nor does society die intestate. To say that it is we who inherit
the r