We have before us the significant fact that in some cases the collective mind of a nation has remained stationary at a rudimentary stage of development for long ages; while in other nations the collective mind has developed at a constantly accelerating rate, becoming more highly differentiated and specialised and at the same time more highly integrated, has in fact developed in a way closely analogous to the evolution of the individual mind. The collective mind, in thus developing, reacts upon the development of individual minds, raising all far above the level they could independently attain and some in each generation to a very high level both intellectually and morally. The merest outline of a discussion of this great problem is alone possible. I can do no more than offer some suggestions toward the full solution of it. Let us note, first, that continued progress, far from being the rule, as is commonly assumed by popular writers, has been a rare exception, as Sir H. Maine pointed out in _Ancient Law_. He wrote—“In spite of overwhelming evidence, it is most difficult for a citizen of Western Europe to bring thoroughly home to himself the truth that the civilisation which surrounds him is a rare exception in the history of the world.” “It is indisputable that much the greatest part of mankind has never shown a particle of desire that its civil institutions should be improved, since the moment when external completeness was first given to their embodiment in some permanent record. Except in a small section of the world, there has been nothing like the gradual amelioration of a legal system.” And what is true of systems of law is true of all the other elements of the intellectual and moral tradition which constitute a civilisation or national culture.