What is true in so obvious a degree of innovations of first-rate importance is true in a less degree of changes of a smaller immediate importance.

The aversion to change is in large part an aversion to the bother of making the readjustment which any given change will necessitate; and this solidarity of the system of institutions of any given culture or of any given people strengthens the instinctive resistance offered to any change in men's habits of thought, even in matters which, taken by themselves, are of minor importance.

A consequence of this increased reluctance, due to the solidarity of human institutions, is that any innovation calls for a greater expenditure of nervous energy in making the necessary readjustment than would otherwise be the case.

It is not only that a change in established habits of thought is distasteful.

The process of readjustment of the accepted theory of life involves a degree of mental effort--a more or less protracted and laborious effort to find and to keep one's bearings under the altered circumstances.