It is to be noted then, although it may be a tedious truism,
that the institutions of today -- the present accepted scheme of
life -- do not entirely fit the situation of today. At the same
time, men's present habits of thought tend to persist
indefinitely, except as circumstances enforce a change. These
institutions which have thus been handed down, these habits of
thought, points of view, mental attitudes and aptitudes, or what
not, are therefore themselves a conservative factor. This is the
factor of social inertia, psychological inertia, conservatism.
Social structure changes, develops, adapts itself to an altered
situation, only through a change in the habits of thought of the
several classes of the community, or in the last analysis,
through a change in the habits of thought of the individuals
which make up the community. The evolution of society is
substantially a process of mental adaptation on the part of
individuals under the stress of circumstances which will no
longer tolerate habits of thought formed under and conforming to
a different set of circumstances in the past. For the immediate
purpose it need not be a question of serious importance whether
this adaptive process is a process of selection and survival of
persistent ethnic types or a process of individual adaptation and
an inheritance of acquired traits.
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