212 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-MASTERY
All these illustrations, with the exception of the first, describe the
process of gathering knowledge through direct experience. Observe the
marked difference between knowledge gathered by direct experience
and that which is gathered through the training of the young by the
old, as in the case of the ruffed grouse and her young.
The most impressive lessons are those learned by the young from
the old, through highly colored or emotionalized methods of teaching.
When the mother grouse spread her wings, stood her feathers on end,
shook herself like a man suffering with the palsy, and chattered to her
young in a highly excited manner, she planted the fear of humans in their
hearts in a manner which they were never to forget.
The term social heredity, as used in this lesson, refers to all methods
through which a child is taught any idea, dogma, creed, religion, or
system of ethical conduct, by its parents or by those who may have
authority over it, before reaching the age at which it may reason and
reflect upon such teaching in its own way. I would estimate the age of
such reasoning power at between seven and twelve years.Fear in Middle Age
There are myriad forms of ]ear, but none more deadly than the fear of
poverty and old age. We drive our bodies as if they were slaves because
we are so afraid of poverty that we wish to hoard money. For what? Old
age! This common form of fear drives us so hard that we overwork our
bodies and bring on the very thing we are struggling to avoid.
What a tragedy to watch men and women drive themselves when
they begin to arrive at about the forty-year milepost of life-the age
at which they are just beginning to mature mentally. At forty, we are
just entering the age in which we are able to see and understand and
assimilate the handwriting of Nature, as it appears in the forests and
flowing brooks and faces of other adults and little children. Yet this
devilfear drives us to the point that we become blinded and lost in the
entanglement of a maze of conflicting desires. The principle of organized