The situation of today shapes the institutions of tomorrow
through a selective, coercive process, by acting upon men's
habitual view of things, and so altering or fortifying a point of
view or a mental attitude banded down from the past. The
institutions -- that is to say the habits of thought -- under the
guidance of which men live are in this way received from an
earlier time; more or less remotely earlier, but in any event
they have been elaborated in and received from the past.
Institutions are products of the past process, are adapted to
past circumstances, and are therefore never in full accord with
the requirements of the present. In the nature of the case, this
process of selective adaptation can never catch up with the
progressively changing situation in which the community finds
itself at any given time; for the environment, the situation, the
exigencies of life which enforce the adaptation and exercise the
selection, change from day to day; and each successive situation
of the community in its turn tends to obsolescence as soon as it
has been established. When a step in the development has been
taken, this step itself constitutes a change of situation which
requires a new adaptation; it becomes the point of departure for
a new step in the adjustment, and so on interminably.
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