Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/202

188 nature. These generalizations, early developed, and seemingly supported by the observations of countless generations, came to be among the most firmly established scientific inductions of our primeval ancestor. They obtained a hold upon the mentality of our race that led subsequent generation to think and speak of them as "innate" ideas.

The observations upon which they were based are now for the most part susceptible of other interpretations; but the old interpretations have precedent and prejudice back of them, and they represent ideas more difficult than almost any others to eradicate. Always superstitions based upon unwarranted early scientific deductions have been the most implacable foes to the progress of science. These are still as firmly fixed in the minds of a large majority of our race as they were in the mind of our prehistoric ancestor. The fact of this heritage must not be forgotten in estimating the debt of gratitude which historic man owes to his primitive forebears.

