SOCIAL HEREDITY 177 



efforts to satisfy the need that instinct could not 

 gratify. It is the method of rude experiment and 

 selection which produces repeated pain, loss, and dis- 

 appointment. "The earliest efforts of men were of 

 this kind. Need was the impelling force. Pleasure 

 and pain, on the one side and the other, were the 

 rude constraints which defined the line on which efforts 

 must proceed. The ability to distinguish between pleas- 

 ure and pain is the only psychical power which is to be 

 assumed. Thus ways of doing things were selected, 

 which were expedient. They answered the purpose bet- 

 ter than other ways, or with less toil and pain. Along 

 the course which efforts were compelled to go, habit, 

 routine, and skill were developed. The struggle to main- 

 tain existence was carried on individually but in groups. 

 Each profited by the other's experience; hence there 

 was concurrence towards that which proved to be most 

 expedient. All, at last, adopted the same way for 

 the same purpose; hence ways turned into customs and 

 became mass phenomena. Instincts were developed in 

 connection with them. In this way folkways arise. The 

 young learn them by tradition, imitation, and authority. 

 The folkways, at a time, provide for all the needs of life 

 then and there. They are uniform, universal in the 

 group, imperative, and invariable. As time goes on, the 

 folkways become more and more arbitrary, positive, and 

 imperative. If asked why they act in a certain way in 

 certain cases, primitive people always answer that it is 

 because they and their ancestors always have done so. 

 A sanction also arises from ghost fear. The ghosts 

 would be angry if the living should change the ancient 

 folkways." 7 



TSumner, W. G.-^-Folkways, 1006, pp. 2-3. 



