ASSOCIATION 117 



the Nicobar Islands some natives who had just begun to 

 make pottery died. The art was given up and never 

 again attempted. 25 A Yakut woman contracted an 

 endogamous marriage. She soon afterwards became 

 blind. This was thought to be on account of the violation 

 of ancient customs. 26 



From the illustrations we have just cited it is clear 

 that as association increases the social experience of the 

 primitive group and complex relations develop, a social 

 pressure begins to operate and exercises restraint over 

 the actions of its members. The human consciousness 

 of kind including sympathies, antipathies, prejudices, 

 and cordialities, develops the notion of type and makes 

 the group sensitive to any lack of conformity to that type. 

 Members who do not follow the established usages of 

 the group come to be regarded as disloyal to its tradi- 

 tions. They are restrained, persecuted, or outlawed. 

 And so it happens that while the first essential to the 

 development of that group solidarity which spells vic- 

 tory and survival, is a bond of custom or usage, this very 

 unity may be preserved at the expense of exterminating 

 useful and helpful variation. The group pressure upon 

 its members becomes unreasonable and oppressive. 

 "What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a 

 fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law ; not of cementing 

 (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of cus- 

 tom, but of breaking the cake of custom ; not of making 

 the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, 

 and reaching something better." 27 



23 Ratzel, F. Anthropogeographie, vol. ii, p. 609. 



2 Sieroshcvski, V. L. Twelve Years in the Country cf the Yakuts, p. 

 558. 



27 Bagehot, op. cit., p. 53. 



