The human mind has certain innate or inherited tendencies which are the essential springs or motive powers of all thought and action, whether individual or collective, and are the bases from which the character and will of individuals and of nations are gradually developed under the guidance of the intellectual faculties. These primary innate tendenciesSocialPsychology have different relative strengths in the native constitutions of the ind-visuals of different races, and they are favored or checked in very different degrees by the very different social circumstances of men indifferent stages of culture; but they are probably common to the men of every race and of every age. If this view, that human nature has every-where and at all times this common native foundation, can be stab-lashed, it will afford a much-needed basis for speculation on the history of the development of human societies and human institutions. For soling as it is possible to assume, as has often been done, that these innate tendencies of the human mind have varied greatly from age to age and from race to race, all such speculation is founded on quicksand and we cannot hope to reach views of a reasonable degree of certainty.The evidence that the native basis of the human mind, constituted by the sum of these innate tendencies, has this stable unchanging char-cater is afforded by comparative psychology
The human mind has certain innate or inherited tendencies which are the essential springs or motive powers of all thought and action, whether individual or collective, and are the bases from which the character and will of individuals and of nations are gradually developed under the guidance of the intellectual faculties. These primary innate tendenciesSocialPsychology
ReplyDeletehave different relative strengths in the native constitutions of the ind-visuals of different races, and they are favored or checked in very different degrees by the very different social circumstances of men indifferent stages of culture; but they are probably common to the men of every race and of every age. If this view, that human nature has every-where and at all times this common native foundation, can be stab-lashed, it will afford a much-needed basis for speculation on the history of the development of human societies and human institutions. For soling as it is possible to assume, as has often been done, that these innate tendencies of the human mind have varied greatly from age to age and from race to race, all such speculation is founded on quicksand and we cannot hope to reach views of a reasonable degree of certainty.The evidence that the native basis of the human mind, constituted by the sum of these innate tendencies, has this stable unchanging char-cater is afforded by comparative psychology