184 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



controversy. For the great masses of mankind, mores 

 are learned as unconsciously as we learn to walk and eat 

 and breathe. The justification of them is that upon 

 awakening to consciousness the individual finds the 

 mores facts which already hold him in the bonds of tra- 

 dition, custom, and habit. 



To those composing the narrow margin of exception- 

 ally rational and critical individuals, the mores are often 

 a stumbling block of stupid insensibility, receiving their 

 scorn and impatient anger. From this class emanate the 

 original ideas which, when put into current circulation 

 and given the stamp of public approval, slowly change 

 the mores. For example, the comparatively new idea of 

 evolution had at first a rather limited diffusion among 

 the intellectual class. Gradually, the idea has filtered 

 down through the mores of the masses, and, being rubbed 

 down and smoothed off like an old coin, has taken the 

 form of a summary and glib generalization that "men 

 came from monkeys." The philosophical implication of 

 the theory of evolution that there is only relativity in the 

 changing flux of life processes, never any absolute stand- 

 ard of relations, is quite beyond the realm of mores. 

 The domain of mores is one of fixed forms and inert cus- 

 toms. Mores are answers to the problems of life and not 

 questions. Hence a world philosophy which represents it- 

 self as transitory, certainly incomplete, and liable to be set 

 aside to-morrow by more knowledge, can never receive 

 very widespread recognition. The majority of men want 

 their conduct and thought guided by established rules 

 and customs. They prefer to do and think with their 

 fathers before them. To do anything else would require 

 too great a mental effort. 



