p. 407–8 cited in: Hilary Putnam (2008) "Pragmatism and nonscientific knowledge" James Conant, Urszula M. Zeglen (2012) Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and … - John Dewey

We must stop even thinking of standing up straight. To think of it is fatal, for it commits us to the operation of an established habit of standing wrong. We must find an act within our power which is disconnected from any thought about standing. We must start to do another thing which on one side inhibits our falling into the customary bad position and on the other side is the beginning of a series of acts which may lead into the correct posture.[2] The hard-drinker

In a sense the mind of savage peoples is an effect, rather than a cause, of their backward institutions.

But the live creature adopts its past; it can make friends with even its stupidities, using them as warnings that increase present wariness. Instead of trying to live upon whatever may have been achieved in the past, it uses past successes to inform the present. Every living experience owes its richness to what Santayana well calls “hushed reverberations.