SOCIAL HEKEDITY 183 



There is another level in consciousness which customs 

 and usages attain. Certain folkways become the objects | 

 of thought when one group, through contact with another, 1 

 comes to recognize that in certain details its customs - 

 differ from those of its neighbor/ C#nscious reflection^ 

 is provoked, and, as a result, certain folkways are pre- \ 

 served and inculcated. These selected folkways become 

 the moresvi.'^^^ j\[ores are the usages which have received 

 the definite and positive commendation of the grouj). 

 The sanction back of thom is more than the sanction of 

 mere use and wo«t, it is the sanction of conscious com- 

 nmnity approval J And yet, "The mores contain the 

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

 liave to judge the mores." ^' The mores come do\\Ti to 

 us from the pasjt in the same manner as folkways and 

 other customs. Q'Each individual is born into them as 

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

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

 the atmosphere before he begins to breathe it. Each one 

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

 them, before he is capable of reasoning about themy' ^^ 

 For this reason the mores determine the content oi the 

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

 would have to use in that criticism terms and traditions 

 which the mores themselves had given current 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 ]n'ovoke 



1'"' Chapiii, op. cit., p. 70. i" Sumner, op. cit., p. 77. is /6i'(/., p. 70. 



