,
but whatever they take up they assimilate and make it a part of their
own mores, which they then transmit by tradition, defend in its
integrity, and refuse to discard again. Consequently the writings of the
literary class may not represent the faiths, notions, tastes, standards,
etc., of the masses at all. The literature of the first Christian
centuries shows us scarcely anything of the mores of the time, as they
existed in the faith and practice of the masses. Every group takes out
of a new religion which is offered to it just what it can assimilate
with its own traditional mores. Christianity was a very different thing
amongst Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, Germans, and Slavs. It would be a great
mistake to suppose that any people ever accepted and held philosophical
or religious teaching as it was offered to them, and as we find it
recorded in the books of the teachers. The mores of the masses admit of
no such sudden and massive modification by doctrinal teaching. The
process of assimilation is slow, and it is attended by modifying
influences at every stage. What the classes adopt, be it good or ill,
may be found pervading the mass after generations, but it will appear as
a resultant of all the vicissitudes of the folkways in the interval. "It
was the most frightful feature of the corruption of ancient Rome, that
it extended through every class in the community."[73] "As in the
Renaissance, so now [in the Catholic reaction] vice trickled downward
from above, infiltrating the mass of the people with its virus."[74] It
is the classes who produce variation; it is the masses who carry forward
the traditional mores.

+53. Fallacies about the masses and classes.+ It is a fallacy to infer
that the masses have some occult wisdom or inspiration by virtue of
which they select what is wise, right, and good from what the classes
offer. There is, also, no device by which it is possible to obtain from
the masses, in advance or on demand, a judgment on any proposed changes
or innovations. The masses are not an oracle. If any answers can be
obtained on the problems of life, such answers will come rather from the
classes. The two sections of society are such that they may cooperate
with advantage to the good of all. Neither one has a right or a better
claim to rule the society.

+54. Action of the masses on thoughts.+ Fifty years ago Darwin put some
knowledge into the common stock. The peasants and artisans of his time
did nothing of t