Custom 



and not a mere mechanical piece of repetition ? 

 Indeed, if our various actions and practices were 

 authentic and flowing from the true necessity, 

 perhaps we shouldn't quarrel with each other 

 over them so often as we do. 



And then to come to the subject of morals. 

 These also are customs — divergent to the last de- 

 gree among different races, at different times, 

 or in different localities ; customs for which 

 it is often difficult to find any ground in reason 

 or the " fitness of things." Thieving is supposed 

 to be discountenanced among us, yet our present- 

 day trade-morality sanctions it in a thousand dif- 

 ferent forms ; and the respectable usurer (who 

 can hardly be said to be other than a thief) takes 

 a high place at the table of life. To hunt the 

 earth for game has from time immemorial been 

 considered the natural birthright and privilege 

 of man, until the landlord class (whom wicked 

 Socialists now denounce !) invented the crime 

 of poaching and hanged men for it. As to 

 marriage customs, in different times and among 

 different peoples, they have been simply innum- 

 erable. And here the sense of inviolability in 

 each case is most powerful. The severest penalties, 

 the most stringent public opinion, biting deep 

 down into the individual conscience, enforce the 

 various codes of various times and places ; yet 

 they all contradict each other. Polygamy in 

 one country, polyandry in the next ; brother and 

 sister marriage allowed at one time, marriage 

 with your mother's cousin forbidden at another ; 



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