  The metaphysical thesis claims that individuals are what they are because of their social relations. To the extent that Bradley offers anything in the way of argument for this position he tends to lean rather heavily on empirical evidence which shows us that people born at different times and places, and born into this or that cultural or religious or ethnic group, will tend to inherit the practices and attitudes of those by whom they are raised. He does think of children as born with certain natural needs and desires and with certain aptitudes and latent possibilities; but these need nurturing and some of these tendencies need to be ”civilized“, the effect being: ”These ‘civilized tendencies’, if we may use the phrase, are part of the essence of the child: he would only partly (if at all) be himself without them; he owes them to his ancestors, and his ancestors owe them to society“ (Ethical Studies, p. 170). Against the individualist who objects that there was, nevertheless, a point at which there were no societies but only individuals, he elicits the aid of Darwin in support of the view that humans have always been social, having evolved from social animals. But Bradley has a more interesting argument for holism which enters on language. The language a community speaks has to be truly public, with understood and accepted meanings for its central terms, on pain of ending with nobody ever understanding what anyone else is talking about. The language also has, embedded in it as it were, the values and beliefs of the community that speaks it. In passing on its language to the children a society is passing on its values, its understanding of its institutions and so on. As Bradley says, for each child, learning to speak the language ”carries into his mind the ideas and sentiments of the race É and stamps them in indelibly“ This child also observes and comes to participate in the practices of the society: he ”grows up in an atmosphere of example and general custom“ (Ethical Studies, p. 172).