140 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



fact, the society's code is a sort of average or mean or type, 

 about which cluster the codes of classes, sects, and other larger 

 and smaller sub-groups. The individual may adhere to a num- 

 ber of these sub-groups, as his interests dictate. He may 

 belong, for instance, to the miners' union, the Baptist church, 

 the Socialist party, the Masonic lodge, at one and the same 

 time. When interests change, other and new codes may 

 appear, some of them departing widely in character, perhaps, 

 from the general or typical code of the society at large. In 

 general, the rise of such variations is a consequence of dis- 

 comfort under the prevailing code; interests strain toward a 

 better realization by way of change, small or great. 



It is to be noted that variations upon customs and institu- 

 tions may exhibit a high degree of rationality. They may 

 represent true experimentation, because they may be set forth 

 consciously and deliberately, after intensive study of situations 

 and of societal laws, with the intention of securing more ex- 

 pedient adjustment of society to its life-conditions. But they 

 come to nothing they do not get into the mores unless there 

 is general concurrence in them. They remain stillborn unless 

 verification is immediate, concrete, and positive. Rational 

 variations new details in the program of adjustment are 

 presented in every age. Whether they are adopted or not is 

 another matter, for, as we shall see, there is not much of the 

 rational in the selective process, except as the latter is seen, 

 in retrospect, to have worked out expedient adjustments 

 through the action of human agencies inspired by the most 

 diverse and often irrelevant motives. If deliberate and plan- 

 ful action enters anywhere into the process of societal evolu- 

 tion, it is in connection with variation; for variation is, as we 

 have seen, very much in the competence of individuals, and it 

 is the individual, not the crowd, that will occasionally be found 

 to think in terms of society. 



Among these variations, whatever their provenance, selec- 



