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That common resistance to progress called prejudice is a physical brain condition. Certain ideas are early formed, usually under strong pressure, and no further action is taken on that subject, no admission of new ideas, no examination of what is already there. This inactive area dwindles in disuse, is ill-nourished because unused, becomes stiff and feeble; and it is exceedingly difficult to make any fresh impression on the neglected part. When another person does try to arouse thought in that locality, to explain, convince, persuade, enlighten, he is confronted with this thick, inert mass we call a prejudice.

Prejudices are stronger and more extensive among the ignorant, because the brain is so little used in any part that the clogged areas spread and thicken undisturbed for generations. The lumpy brain is transmitted in turn to the young, and the false ideas promptly reinserted during each child’s defenceless infancy, so that in time a formidable obstacle to progress is developed, called race-prejudice. The more learned are not absolutely free from prejudice, only relatively so in comparison with the more ignorant. In whatever portion of the brain we do not actively think, we find an accumulating tendency to prejudice.