182 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



propriety in different groups is of purely traditional 

 origin and character. 



Professor Sumner lias called this mass of social usage, 

 custom, tradition, and superstition,, which constitutes the 

 essential dissimilarity in the cultures of two peoples, 

 "folkways." The folkways are not creations of human 

 purpose and wit; they are produced by the ''frequent 

 repetition of petty acts, often by great numbers acting in 

 concert, or, at least, acting in the same way when face to 

 face with the same need." This process produces habit 

 in the individual and custom in the group. The folkways 

 ' are like the instinctive ways of animals, which develop 

 out of experience and are handed down by tradition ad- 

 mitting of no exception or variation, yet changing slowly 

 within the same limited methods, and w^ithout rational 

 reflection or purpose.^^ The folkways constitute that 

 mass of social usage which controls all unconscious re- 

 sponse to stimulus and action in accordance with custom. 

 We become aware of folkways only when the usual 

 performance of the act is interfered with, or when the 

 act is performed in violation of the custom. Thus, wear- 

 ing a hat in church violates the folkway which has ac- 

 customed us to seeing men sit uncovered in such places. 

 It would be a mistake to think that this process of making 

 folkways is ever superseded or changed. It goes on now 

 just as it did at the beginning of life in human society.^^ 

 Use and wont exert their force on all men always. They 

 produce familiarity, and mass acts become unconscious. 

 In modern times the factory system has created a body 

 of folkways in which artisans live, and which distinguish 

 the atmosphere of factory towns from that of commercial 

 cities or agricultural villages. 



14 76jU, pp. 3-4. i5/&tU, p. 35. 



