What influences us from the moment of birth? Custom has not commonly（普通地） been regarded（把…看作） as a subject of any great moment. The inner（内部的） workings（工作） of our own brains, we feel to be uniquely（adv独特地） worthy（有价值的） of investigation（调查）, but custom, we have a way of thinking, is behavior at its most commonplace（常见的）. As a matter of fact, it is the other way round. Traditional custom, taken the world over, is a mass（块） of detailed（细节的） behavior, more astonishing（令人感到惊讶的） than what any one person can ever evolve（发展） in individual actions, no matter how apparent（显然的）. Yet, that is a rather trivial（琐细的） aspect（方面） of the matter.

  The fact of first-rate importance is the predominant（卓越的） role that custom plays in experience and in belief, and the very great varieties it may manifest（证明）. No man ever looks at the world with pristine（ 原始的） eyes. He sees it edited（编校） by a definite set of customs and institutions（协会） and ways of thinking. Even in his philosophical（哲学上的） probings, he cannot go behind these stereotypes（ 固定形式）. His very concepts（概念） of the true and the false（不真实的） will still have reference to his particular traditional customs. John Dewey has said in all seriousness（ 认真） that the part played by custom in shaping（形成） the behavior of the individual as against any way in which he can affect traditional custom is as the proportion（比例） of the total vocabulary of his mother tongue against those words of his own baby talk that are taken up into the vernacular of his family.