8o< I \i. HEBEDm 183 



There IB another level in >usness which custom* 



and usages attain. Certain folkways become the objects 

 of thought when one group, through contact with another, 

 comes to recognize that in certain details its customs 

 i from 1 1 lose of its neighbor. Conscious reflection 

 is provoked, and, a- a r-Milt. c.-rtain fulkway^ an- |.n- 

 served and inculcated. These selected folkways become 

 the more-. : Mores an- tin* u>aLT-- which hav- n-,-, ived 

 the definite and positive commendation of the group. 

 The sanction back of tin -in i> m<>n than the sanction of 

 mere use and wont, h<> sanction of conscious com- 



munity approval. And yet, "The mores contain tin- 

 norm by which, if we should discuss the mores, we should 

 have to judge the mores." " The mores come down to 

 us from the past in the same manner as folkways and 

 customs. "Each individual is born into them as 

 he is born into the atmosphere, and he does not reflect 

 on them, or < them any more than a baby analyzes 



the atmosphere before he begins to breath* it. Hach one 

 is subjected to tin* influence of the mores, and formed by 

 them, before he is capable of reasoning about them." ls 

 For this reason the mores determine the content of the 

 growing mind, and so, if one were to criticize them he 

 would have to use in that eriti. i-m terms and traditions 

 which the mores themselves had given circula- 



tion. This is why the discussion of such established in- 

 stitutions as property and marriage does not immedi- 

 ately change our relations. Among the masses of people 

 such a discussion produces no controversy. It is only 

 among those who have emancipated themselves from the 

 control of habit and custom that there is sufficient in- 

 dependence of thought upon these subjects to provoke 



"Chapln, op. :;. IT Stunner, of. cil, p. 77. /**., p. 7t. 



