Tradition comes down from the past, while convention arrives, sidewise as it were, from our contemporaries; the fireside tales and maxims of our grandparents illustrate the one, the fashions of the day the other. Both indicate continuity of mind, but tradition has a long extension in time and very little, perhaps, in place, while convention extends in place but may endure only for a day. This seems a clear distinction, and a great deal has been made of it by some writers, who regard “custom imitation” and “fashion imitation,”[151] to use the terms of Tarde, the brilliant French sociologist, as among the primary traits that differentiate societies. Thus mediæval society, it is said, was traditional: people lived in somewhat isolated groups and were dominated by the ideas of their ancestors, these being more accessible than those of their contemporaries. On the other hand, modern society, with its telegraphs, newspapers and migrations, is conventional. Thought is transmitted over vast areas and countless multitudes; ancestral continuity is broken up; people get the habit of looking sidewise rather than backward, and there comes to be an instinctive preference of fashion over custom. In the time of Dante, if you travelled over Europe you would find that each town, each district, had its individual dress, dialect and local custom, handed down from the fathers. There was much change with place, little with time. If you did the same to-day, you would find the people everywhere dressed very much alike, dialects passing out of use and men eager to identify themselves with the common stir of contemporary life. And you would also find that the dress, behavior and objects of current interest, though much the same for whole nations and having a great deal in common the world over, were somewhat transient in character, changing much with time, little with place.