Each member of society gives and gets the same set of social suggestions; the differences being the degree of progress each has made, and the degree of variation which each one gives to what he has before received.

This last difference is treated below where we consider the genius.
There grows up, in all this give and take, in all the interchange of suggestions among you, me, and the other, an obscure sense of a certain social understanding about ourselves generally--a _Zeitgeist_, an atmosphere, a taste, or, in minor matters, a style.

It is a very peculiar thing, this social spirit.

The best way to understand that you have it, and something of what it is, is to get into a circle in which it is different.

The common phrase "fish out of water" is often heard in reference to it.