GROUP MORALITY--CUSTOMS OR MORES
We have seen how the natural forces of instinct lead to activities which
elevate men and knit them together. We consider next the means which
society uses for these purposes, and the kind of conduct which goes
along with the early forms of society's agencies. The organization of
early society is that of group life, and so far as the individual is
merged in the group the type of conduct may be called "group morality."
Inasmuch as the agencies by which the group controls its members are
largely those of custom, the morality may be called also "customary
morality." Such conduct is what we called at the opening of the previous
chapter "the second level." It is "ethical" or "moral" in the sense of
conforming to the _ethos_ or _mores_ of the group.
Sec. 1. MEANING, AUTHORITY, AND ORIGIN OF CUSTOMS
=Meaning of Customs or Mores.=--Wherever we find groups of men living as
outlined in Chapter II., we find that there are certain ways of acting
which are common to the group--"folkways." Some of these may be due
merely to the fact that the members are born of the same stock, just as
all ducks swim. But a large part of human conduct, in savage as truly as
in civilized life, is not merely instinctive. There are _approved_ ways
of acting, common to a group, and handed down from generation to
generation. Such approved ways of doing and acting are customs, or to
use the Latin term, which Professor Sumner thinks brings out more
clearly this factor of approval, they are _mores_.[23] They are
habits--but they are more. They imply the judgment of the group that
they are to be followed. The welfare of the group is regarded as in some
sense imbedded in them. If any one acts contrary to them he is made to
feel the group's disapproval. The young are carefully trained to observe
them. At times of special importance, they are rehearsed with special
solemnity.
=Authority Behind the Mores.=--The old men, or the priests, or medicine
men, or chiefs, or old women, may be the especial guardians of these
customs. They may modify details, or add new customs, or invent
explanations for old ones. But the authority back of them is the group
in the full sense. Not the group composed merely of visible and living
members, but the larger group which includes the dead, and the kindred
totemic or ancestral gods. Nor is it the group considered as a
collection of individual persons. It is rather in a vague way the whole
mental and social world. The fact that most of the customs have no known
date or origin makes them seem a part of the nature of things. Indeed
there is more than a mere analogy between the primitive regard for
custom and that respect for "Nature" which from the Stoics to Spencer
has sought a moral standard in living "according to nature." And there
is this much in favor of taking the world of custom as the standard: the
beings of this system are like the person who is expected to behave like
them; its rules are the ways in which his own kin have lived and
prospered, and not primarily the laws of cosmic forces, plants, and
animals.
=Origin of Customs; Luck.=--The origin of customs is to be sought in
several concurrent factors. There are in the first place the activities
induced by the great primitive needs and instincts. Some ways of acting
succeed; some fail. Man not only establishes habits of acting in the
successful ways; he remembers his failures. He hands successful ways
down with his approval; he condemns those that fail.
This attitude is reenforced by the views about good luck and bad luck.
Primitive man--and civilized man--is not ruled by a purely rational
theory of success and failure. "One might use the best known means with
the greatest care, yet fail of the result. On the other hand, one might
get a great result with no effort at all. One might also incur a
calamity without any fault of his own."[24] "Grimm gives more than a
thousand ancient German apothegms, dicta, and proverbs about
'luck.'"[25] Both good and bad fortune are attributed to the unseen
powers, hence a case of bad luck is not thought of as a mere chance. If
the ship that sailed Friday meets a storm, or one of thirteen falls
sick, the inference is that this is sure to happen again. And at this
point the conception of the group welfare as bound up with the acts of
every member, comes in to make individual conformity a matter for group
concern--to make conduct a matter of mores and not merely a private
affair. One most important, if not the most important, object of early
legislation was the enforcement of lucky rites to prevent the individual
from doing what might bring ill luck on all the tribe. For the
conception always was that the ill luck does not attach itself simply to
the doer, but may fall upon any member of the group. "The act of one
member is conceived to make all the tribe impious, to offend its
particular god, to expose all the tribe to penalties from heaven. When
the street statues of Hermes were mutilated, all the Athenians were
frightened and furious; they thought they should all be ruined because
some one had mutilated a god's image and so offended him."[26] "The
children were reproved for cutting and burning embers, on the ground
that this might be the cause for the accidental cutting of some member
of the family."[27] In the third place, besides these sources of custom,
in the usefulness or lucky character of certain acts, there is also the
more immediate reaction of individuals or groups to certain ways of
acting according "as things jump with the feelings or displease
them."[28] An act of daring is applauded, whether useful or not. The
individual judgment is caught up, repeated, and plays its part in the
formation of group opinion. "Individual impulse and social tradition are
thus the two poles between which we move." Or there may even be a more
conscious discussion analogous to the action of legislatures or
philosophic discussion. The old men among the Australians deliberate
carefully as to each step of the initiation ceremonies. They make
customs to be handed down.
Sec. 2. MEANS OF ENFORCING CUSTOMS
The most general means for enforcing customs are public opinion, taboos,
ritual or ceremony, and physical force.
=Public Approval= uses both language and form to express its judgments.
Its praise is likely to be emphasized by some form of art. The songs
that greet the returning victor, the decorations, costumes, and tattoos
for those who are honored, serve to voice the general sentiment. On the
other hand ridicule or contempt is a sufficient penalty to enforce
compliance with many customs that may be personally irksome. It is very
largely the ridicule of the men's house which enforces certain customs
among the men of peoples which have that institution. It is the ridicule
or scorn of both men and women which forbids the Indian to marry before
he has proved his manhood by some notable deed of prowess in war or
chase.
=Taboos.=--Taboos are perhaps not so much a means for enforcing custom,
as they are themselves customs invested with peculiar and awful
sanction. They prohibit or ban any contact with certain persons or
objects under penalty of danger from unseen beings. Any events supposed
to indicate the activity of spirits, such as birth and death, are likely
to be sanctified by taboos. The danger is contagious; if a Polynesian
chief is taboo, the ordinary man fears even to touch his footprints. But
the taboos are not all based on mere dread of the unseen.
"They include such acts as have been found by experience to
produce unwelcome results.--The primitive taboos correspond to the
fact that the life of man is environed by perils: His food quest
must be limited by shunning poisonous plants. His appetite must be
restrained from excess. His physical strength and health must be
guarded from dangers. The taboos carry on the accumulated wisdom
of generations which has almost always been purchased by pain,
loss, disease, and death. Other taboos contain inhibitions of what
will be injurious to the group. The laws about the sexes, about
property, about war, and about ghosts, have this character. They
always include some social philosophy." (SUMNER, _Folkways_, pp.
33 f.)
They may be used with conscious purpose. In order to have a supply of
cocoanuts for a religious festival the head men may place a taboo upon
the young cocoanuts to prevent them from being consumed before they are
fully ripe. The conception works in certain respects to supply the
purpose which is later subserved by ideas of property. But it serves
also as a powerful agency to maintain respect for the authority of the
group.
=Ritual.=--As taboo is the great negative guardian of customs, ritual is
the great positive agent. It works by forming habits, and operates
through associations formed by actually doing certain acts, usually
under conditions which appeal to the emotions. The charm of music and
of orderly movement, the impressiveness of ordered masses in
processions, the awe of mystery, all contribute to stamp in the meaning
and value. Praise or blame encourages or inhibits; ritual secures the
actual doing and at the same time gives a value to the doing. It is
employed by civilized peoples more in the case of military or athletic
drill, or in training children to observe forms of etiquette, so that
these may become "second nature." Certain religious bodies also use its
agency. But in primitive life it is widely and effectively used to
insure for educational, political, and domestic customs obedience to the
group standards, which among us it secures to the codes of the army, or
to those of social etiquette. Examples of its elaborate and impressive
use will be given below under educational ceremonies.
=Physical Force.=--When neither group opinion, nor taboo, nor ritual
secures conformity, there is always in the background physical force.
The chiefs are generally men of strength whose word may not be lightly
disregarded. Sometimes, as among the Sioux, the older braves constitute
a sort of police. Between different clans the blood feud is the accepted
method of enforcing custom, unless a substitute, the wergeld, is
provided. For homicide within a clan the remaining members may drive the
slayer out, and whoever meets such a Cain may slay him. If a man
murdered his chief of kindred among the ancient Welsh he was banished
and "it was required of every one of every sex and age within hearing of
the horn to follow that exile and to keep up the barking of dogs, to the
time of his putting to sea, until he shall have passed three score hours
out of sight."[29] It should be borne in mind, however, that physical
pains, either actual or dreaded, would go but a little way toward
maintaining authority in any such group as we have regarded as typical.
Absolutism, with all its cruel methods of enforcing terror, needs a more
highly organized system. In primitive groups the great majority support
the authority of the group as a matter of course, and uphold it as a
sacred duty when it is challenged. Physical coercion is not the rule but
the exception.
Sec. 3. CONDITIONS WHICH BRING OUT THE IMPORTANCE OF GROUP STANDARDS AND
RENDER GROUP CONTROL CONSCIOUS
Although customs or mores have in them an element of social approval
which makes them vehicles of moral judgment, they tend in many cases to
sink to the level of mere habits. The reason--such as it was--for their
original force--is forgotten. They become, like many of our forms of
etiquette, mere conventions. There are, however, certain conditions
which center attention upon their importance and lift them to the level
of conscious agencies. These conditions may be grouped under three
heads. (1) The education of the younger, immature members of the group
and their preparation for full membership. (2) The constraint and
restraint of refractory members and the adjustment of conflicting
interests. (3) Occasions which involve some notable danger or crisis and
therefore call for the greatest attention to secure the favor of the
gods and avert disaster.
=1. Educational Customs.=--Among the most striking and significant of
these are the initiation ceremonies which are so widely observed among
primitive peoples. They are held with the purpose of inducting boys into
the privileges of manhood and into the full life of the group. They are
calculated at every step to impress upon the initiate his own ignorance
and helplessness in contrast with the wisdom and power of the group; and
as the mystery with which they are conducted imposes reverence for the
elders and the authorities of the group, so the recital of the
traditions and performances of the tribe, the long series of ritual
acts, common participation in the mystic dance and song and decorations,
serve to reenforce the ties that bind the tribe.
Initiation into the full privileges of manhood among the tribes of
Central Australia, for instance, includes three sets of ceremonies which
occupy weeks, and even months, for their completion. The first set,
called "throwing up in the air," is performed for the boy when he has
reached the age of from ten to twelve. In connection with being thrown
up in the air by certain prescribed members of his tribe, he is
decorated with various totem emblems and afterward the septum of his
nose is bored for the insertion of the nose-bone. At a period some three
or four years later a larger and more formidable series of ceremonies is
undertaken, lasting for ten days. A screen of bushes is built, behind
which the boy is kept during the whole period, unless he is brought out
on the ceremonial ground to witness some performance. During this whole
period of ten days, he is forbidden to speak except in answer to
questions. He is decorated with various totem emblems, for which every
detail is prescribed by the council of the tribal fathers and tribal
elder brothers. He is charged to obey every command and never to tell
any woman or boy what he may see. The sense that something out of the
ordinary is to happen to him helps to impress him strongly with a
feeling of the deep importance of compliance with the tribal rules, and
further still, with a strong sense of the superiority of the older men
who know and are familiar with the mysterious rites of which he is about
to learn the meaning for the first time. At intervals he watches
symbolic performances of men decorated like various totem animals, who
represent the doings of the animal ancestors of the clan; he hears
mysterious sounds of the so-called bull-roarers, which are supposed by
the women and uninitiated to be due to unseen spirits; and the whole
ends with the operation which symbolizes his induction into young
manhood. But even this is not all; when the young man has reached the
age of discretion, when it is felt that he can fully comprehend the
traditions of the tribe, at the age of from twenty to twenty-five, a
still more impressive series of ceremonies is conducted, which in the
instance reported lasted from September to January. This period was
filled up with dances, "corroborees," and inspection of the churinga or
sacred emblems--stones or sticks which were supposed to be the dwellings
of ancestral spirits and which are carefully preserved in the tribe,
guarded from the sight of women and boys, but known individually to the
elders as the sacred dwelling-place of father or grandfather. As these
were shown and passed around, great solemnity was manifest and the
relatives sometimes wept at the sight of the sacred object. Ceremonies
imitating various totem animals, frequently of the most elaborate sort,
were also performed. The young men were told the traditions of the past
history of the tribe, and at the close of the recital they felt added
reverence for the old men who had been their instructors, a sense of
pride in the possession of this mysterious knowledge, and a deeper unity
because of what they now have in common. One is at a loss whether to
wonder most at the possibility of the whole tribe devoting itself for
three months to these elaborate functions of initiation, or at the
marvelous adaptability of such ceremonies to train the young into an
attitude of docility and reverence. A tribe that can enforce such a
process is not likely to be wanting in one side, at least, of the moral
consciousness, namely, reverence for authority and regard for the social
welfare.[30]
=2. Law and Justice.=--The occasions for some control over refractory
members will constantly arise, even though the conflict between group
and individual may need no physical sanctions to enforce the authority
of the group over its members. The economic motive frequently prompts an
individual to leave the tribe or the joint family. There was a constant
tendency, Eastman states, among his people, when on a hunting expedition
in the enemy's country, to break up into smaller parties to obtain food
more easily and freely. The police did all they could to keep in check
those parties who were intent on stealing away. Another illustration of
the same tendency is stated by Maine with reference to the joint
families of the South Slavonians:
"The adventurous and energetic member of the brotherhood is always
rebelling against its natural communism. He goes abroad and makes
his fortune, and as strenuously resists the demands of his
relatives to bring it into the common account. Or perhaps he
thinks that his share of the common stock would be more profitably
employed by him as capital in a mercantile venture. In either case
he becomes a dissatisfied member or a declared enemy of the
brotherhood."[31]
Or covetousness might lead to violation of the ban, as with Achan. Sex
impulse may lead a man to seek for his wife a woman not in the lawful
group. Or, as one of the most dangerous offenses possible, a member of
the group may be supposed to practice witchcraft. This is to use
invisible powers in a selfish manner, and has been feared and punished
by almost all peoples.
In all these cases it is of course no abstract theory of crime which
leads the community to react; it is self-preservation. The tribe must be
kept together for protection against enemies. Achan's sin is felt to be
the cause of defeat. The violation of sex taboos may ruin the clan. The
sorcerer may cause disease, or inflict torture and death, or bring a
pestilence or famine upon the whole group. None the less all such cases
bring to consciousness one aspect of moral authority, the social
control over the individual.
And it is a _social_ control--not an exercise of brute force or a mere
terrorizing by ghosts. For the chief or judge generally wins his
authority by his powerful service to his tribesmen. A Gideon or Barak or
Ehud or Jephthah judged Israel because he had delivered them. "Three
things, if possessed by a man, make him fit to be a chief of kindred:
That he should speak on behalf of his kin and be listened to, that he
should fight on behalf of his kin and be feared, and that he should be
security on behalf of his kin and be accepted."[32] If, as is often the
case, the king or judge or chief regards himself as acting by divine
right, the authority is still _within the group_. It is the group
judging itself.
In its _standards_ this primitive court is naturally on the level of
customary morality, of which it is an agent. There is usually neither
the conception of a general principle of justice (our Common Law), nor
of a positive law enacted as the express will of the people. At first
the judge or ruler may not act by any fixed law except that of upholding
the customs. Each decision is then a special case. A step in advance is
found when the heads or elders or priests of the tribe decide cases, not
independently of all others, but in accordance with certain precedents
or customs. A legal tradition is thus established, which, however
imperfect, is likely to be more impartial than the arbitrary caprice of
the moment, influenced as such special decisions are likely to be by the
rank or power of the parties concerned.[33] A law of precedents or
tradition is thus the normal method at this level. The progress toward a
more rational standard belongs under the next chapter, but it is
interesting to note that even at an early age the myths show a
conception of a divine judge who is righteous, and a divine judgment
which is ideal. Rhadamanthus is an embodiment of the demand for justice
which human collisions and decisions awakened.
The conscious authority of the group is also evoked in the case of feuds
or disputes between its members. The case of the blood feud, indeed,
might well be treated as belonging under war and international law
rather than as a case of private conflict. For so far as the members of
the victim's clan are concerned, it is a case of war. It is a patriotic
duty of every kinsman to avenge the shed blood. The groups concerned
were smaller than modern nations which go to war for similar reasons,
but the principle is the same. The chief difference in favor of modern
international wars is that since the groups are larger they do not fight
so often and require a more serious consideration of the possibility of
peaceable adjustment. Orestes and Hamlet feel it a sacred duty to avenge
their fathers' murders.
But the case is not simply that of clan against clan. For the smaller
group of kin, who are bound to avenge, are nearly always part of a
larger group. And the larger group may at once recognize the duty of
vengeance and also the need of keeping it within bounds, or of
substituting other practices. The larger group may see in the murder a
pollution, dangerous to all;[34] the blood which "cries from the
ground"[35] renders the ground "unclean" and the curse of gods or the
spirits of the dead may work woe upon the whole region. But an unending
blood feud is likewise an evil. And if the injured kin can be appeased
by less than blood in return, so much the better. Hence the wergeld, or
indemnity, a custom which persisted among the Irish until late, and
seemed to the English judges a scandalous procedure.
For lesser offenses a sort of regulated duel is sometimes allowed. For
example, among the Australians the incident is related of the treatment
of a man who had eloped with his neighbor's wife. When the recreant
parties returned the old men considered what should be done, and finally
arranged the following penalty. The offender stood and called out to the
injured husband, "I stole your woman; come and growl." The husband then
proceeded to throw a spear at him from a distance, and afterwards to
attack him with a knife, although he did not attempt to wound him in a
vital part. The offender was allowed to evade injury, though not to
resent the attack. Finally the old men said, "Enough." A curious form of
private agencies for securing justice is also found in the Japanese
custom of hara-kiri, according to which an injured man kills himself
before the door of his offender, in order that he may bring public odium
upon the man who has injured him. An Indian custom of Dharna is of
similar significance, though less violent. The creditor fasts before the
door of the debtor until he either is paid, or dies of starvation. It
may be that he thinks that his double or spirit will haunt the cruel
debtor who has thus permitted him to starve to death, but it also has
the effect of bringing public opinion to bear.
In all these cases of kindred feuds there is little personal
responsibility, and likewise little distinction between the accidental
and intentional. These facts are brought out in the opening quotations
in Chapter II. The important thing for the student to observe is that
like our present practices in international affairs they show a _grade_
of morality, a limited social unity, whether it is called kinship
feeling or patriotism; complete morality is not possible so long as
there is no complete way of settling disputes by justice instead of
force.[36]
=3. Occasions Which Involve Some Special Danger or Crisis.=--Such
occasions call for the greatest attention to secure success or avoid
disaster. Under this head we note as typical (a) the occasions of birth,
marriage, death; (b) seed time and harvest, or other seasons important
for the maintenance of the group; (c) war; (d) hospitality.
=(a) Birth and Death Customs.=--The entrance of a new life into the
world and the disappearance of the animating breath (_spiritus_,
_anima_, _psyche_), might well impress man with the mysteries of his
world. Whether the newborn infant is regarded as a reincarnation of an
ancestral spirit as with the Australians, or as a new creation from the
spirit world as with the Kafirs, it is a time of danger. The mother must
be "purified,"[37] the child, and in some cases the father, must be
carefully guarded. The elaborate customs show the group judgment of the
importance of the occasion. And the rites for the dead are yet more
impressive. For as a rule the savage has no thought of an entire
extinction of the person. The dead lives on in some mode, shadowy and
vague, perhaps, but he is still potent, still a member of the group,
present at the tomb or the hearth. The preparation of the body for
burial or other disposition, the ceremonies of interment or of the pyre,
the wailing, and mourning costumes, the provision of food and weapons,
or of the favorite horse or wife, to be with the dead in the unseen
world, the perpetual homage paid--all these are eloquent. The event, as
often as it occurs, appeals by both sympathy and awe to the common
feeling, and brings to consciousness the unity of the group and the
control exercised by its judgments.
The regulations for marriage are scarcely less important; indeed, they
are often seemingly the most important of the customs. The phrases
"marriage by capture" and "marriage by purchase," are quite misleading
if they give the impression that in early culture any man may have any
woman. It is an almost universal part of the clan system that the man
must marry out of his own clan or totem (exogamy), and it is frequently
specified exactly into what other clan he must marry. Among some the
regulations are minute as to which of the age classes, as well as to
which of the kin groups, a man of specific group must choose from. The
courtship may follow different rules from ours, and the relation of the
sexes in certain respects may seem so loose as to shock the student, but
the regulation is in many respects stricter than with us, and punishment
of its violation often severer. There can be no doubt of the meaning of
the control, however mistaken some of its features. Whether the
regulations for exogamy, which provide so effectually for avoiding
incest, are reinforced by an instinctive element of aversion to sex
relations with intimates, is uncertain; in any case, they are enforced
by the strongest taboos. Nor does primitive society stop with the
negative side. The actual marriage is invested with the social values
and religious sanctions which raise the relation to a higher level. Art,
in garments and ornament, in dance and epithalamium, lends ideal values.
The sacred meal at the encircled hearth secures the participation of the
kindred gods.
=(b) Certain Days or Seasons Important for the Industrial Life.=--Seed
time and harvest, the winter and summer solstices, the return of spring,
are of the highest importance to agricultural and pastoral peoples, and
are widely observed with solemn rites. Where the rain is the center of
anxiety, a whole ritual may arise in connection with it, as among the
Zuni Indians. Ceremonies lasting days, involving the preparation of
special symbols of clouds and lightning, and the participation of
numerous secret fraternities, constrain the attention of all. Moreover,
this constraint of need, working through the conception of what the
gods require, enforces some very positive moral attitudes:
"A Zuni must speak with one tongue (sincerely) in order to have
his prayers received by the gods, and unless his prayers are
accepted no rains will come, which means starvation. He must be
gentle, and he must speak and act with kindness to all, for the
gods care not for those whose lips speak harshly. He must observe
continence four days previous to, and four days following, the
sending of breath prayers through the spiritual essence of plume
offerings, and thus their passions are brought under control."
(MRS. M. C. STEVENSON in 23d Report, _Bureau of Ethnology_.)
Phases of the moon give other sacred days. Sabbaths which originally are
negative--the forbidding of labor--may become later the bearers of
positive social and spiritual value. In any case, all these festivals
bring the group authority to consciousness, and by their ritual promote
the intimate group sympathy and consciousness of a common end.
=(c) War.=--War as a special crisis always brings out the significance
and importance of certain customs. The deliberations, the magic, the war
paint which precede, the obedience compelled by it to chiefs, the
extraordinary powers exercised by the chief or heads at such crises, the
sense of danger which strains the attention, all insure attention. No
carelessness is permitted. Defeat is interpreted as a symbol of divine
anger because of a violated law or custom. Victory brings all together
to celebrate the glory of the clan and to mourn in common the warriors
slain in the common cause. Excellence here may be so conspicuous in its
service, or in the admiration it calls out, as to become a general term
for what the group approves. So the _aret[=e]_ of the Greeks became
their general term, and the Latin _virtus_, if not so clearly military,
was yet largely military in its early coloring. The "spirit of Jehovah,"
the symbol of divine approval and so of group approval, was believed to
be with Samson and Jephthah in their deeds of prowess in Israel's
behalf.
=(d) Hospitality.=--To the modern man who travels without fear and
receives guests as a matter of almost daily practice, it may seem
strained to include hospitality along with unusual or critical events.
But the ceremonies observed and the importance attached to its rites,
show that hospitality was a matter of great significance; its customs
were among the most sacred.
"But as for us," says Ulysses to the Cyclops, "we have lighted
here, and come to these thy knees, if perchance they will give us
a stranger's gift, or make any present, as is the due of
strangers. Nay, lord, have regard to the gods, for we are thy
suppliants, and Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and sojourners,
Zeus, the god of the stranger, who fareth in the company of
reverend strangers."
The duty of hospitality is one of the most widely recognized.
Westermarck has brought together a series of maxims from a great variety
of races which show this forcibly.[38] Indians, Kalmucks, Greeks,
Romans, Teutons, Arabs, Africans, Ainos, and other peoples are drawn
upon and tell the same story. The stranger is to be respected sacredly.
His person must be guarded from insult even if the honor of the daughter
of the house must be sacrificed.[39] "Jehovah preserveth the
sojourners," and they are grouped with the fatherless and the widow in
Israel's law.[40] The Romans had their _dii hospitales_ and the "duties
toward a guest were even more stringent than those toward a
relative"--_primum tutelae_, _delude hospiti_, _deinde clienti_, _tum
cognato_, _postea affini_.[41] "He who has a spark of caution in him,"
says Plato, "will do his best to pass through life without sinning
against the stranger." And there is no doubt that this sanctity of the
guest's person was not due to pure kindness. The whole conduct of group
life is opposed to a general spirit of consideration for those outside.
The word "guest" is akin to _hostis_, from which comes "hostile." The
stranger or the guest was looked upon rather as a being who was
specially potent. He was a "live wire." He might be a medium of
blessing, or he might be a medium of hurt. But it was highly important
to fail in no duty toward him. The definite possibility of entertaining
angels unawares might not be always present to consciousness, but there
seems reason to believe that the possibility of good luck or bad luck as
attending on a visitor was generally believed in. It is also plausible
that the importance attached to sharing a meal, or to bodily contact, is
based on magical ideas of the way in which blessing or curse may be
communicated. To cross a threshold or touch a tent-rope or to eat
"salt," gives a sacred claim. In the right of asylum, the refugee takes
advantage of his contact with the god. He lays hold of the altar and
assumes that the god will protect him. The whole practice of hospitality
is thus the converse of the custom of blood revenge. They are alike
sacred--or rather the duty of hospitality may protect even the man whom
the host is bound to pursue. But, whereas the one makes for group
solidarity by acts of exclusive and hostile character, the other tends
to set aside temporarily the division between the "we-group" and the
"others-group." Under the sanction of religion it keeps open a way of
communication which trade and other social interchange will widen. It
adds to family and the men's house a powerful agency in maintaining at
least the possibility of humaneness and sympathy.
Sec. 4. VALUES AND DEFECTS OF CUSTOMARY MORALITY
These have been suggested, in the main, in the description of the nature
of custom and its regulation of conduct. We may, however, summarize
them as a preparation for the next stage of morality.
=1. The Forming of Standards.=--There is a standard, a "good," a
"right," which is to some degree rational and to some degree social. We
have seen that custom rests in part on rational conceptions of welfare.
It is really nothing against this that a large element of luck enters
into the idea of welfare. For this means merely that the actual
conditions of welfare are not understood. The next generation may be
able to point out as equally absurd our present ignorance about health
and disease. The members of the group embodied in custom what they
thought to be important; they were approving some acts and forbidding or
condemning others; they were using the elders, and the wisdom of all the
past, in order to govern life. So far, then, they were acting morally.
They were also, to a degree, using a rational and social standard when
they made custom binding on all, and conceived its origin as immemorial.
When further they conceived it as approved by the gods, they gave it all
the value they knew how to put into it.
The standards and valuations of custom are, however, only partly
rational. Many customs are irrational; some are injurious. But in them
all the habitual is a large, if not the largest, factor. And this is
often strong enough to resist any attempt at rational testing. Dr.
Arthur Smith tells us of the advantage it would be in certain parts of
China to build a door on the south side of the house in order to get the
breeze in hot weather. The simple and sufficient answer to such a
suggestion is, "We don't build doors on the south side."
An additional weakness in the character of such irrational, or partly
rational standards, is the misplaced energy they involve. What is merely
trivial is made as important and impressive as what has real
significance. Tithing mint, anise, and cummin is quite likely to
involve neglect of the weightier matters of the law. Moral life
requires men to estimate the value of acts. If the irrelevant or the
petty is made important, it not only prevents a high level of value for
the really important act, it loads up conduct with burdens which keep it
back; it introduces elements which must be got rid of later, often with
heavy loss of what is genuinely valuable. When there are so many ways of
offending the gods and when these turn so often upon mere observance of
routine or formula, it may require much subsequent time and energy to
make amends. The morals get an expiatory character.
=2. The Motives.=--In the motives to which it appeals, custom is able to
make a far better showing than earlier writers, like Herbert Spencer,
gave it credit for. It doubtless employs fear in its taboos; it
doubtless enlists the passion of resentment in its blood feuds. Even
these are modified by a social environment. For the fear of violating a
taboo is in part the fear of bringing bad luck on the whole group, and
not merely on the violator. We have, therefore, a quasi-social fear, not
a purely instinctive reaction. The same is true in perhaps a stronger
degree of the resentments. The blood revenge is in a majority of cases
not a personal but a group affair. It is undertaken at personal risk and
for others' interest--or rather for a common interest. The resentment is
thus a "_sympathetic resentment_."[42] Regarded as a mere reaction for
self-preservation this instinctive-emotional process is unmoral. As a
mere desire to produce pain it would be immoral. But so far as it
implies an attitude of reacting from a general point of view and to aid
others, it is moral. Aside from the passions of fear and resentment,
however, there is a wide range of motives enlisted. Filial and parental
affection, some degree of affection between the sexes over and above sex
passion, respect for the aged and the beings who embody ideals however
crude, loyalty to fellow clansmen,--all these are not only fostered but
actually secured by the primitive group. But the motives which imply
reflection--reverence for duty as the imperious law of a larger life,
sincere love of what is good for its own sake--cannot be brought to full
consciousness until there is a more definite conception of a moral
authority, a more definite contrast between the one great good and the
partial or temporary satisfactions. The development of these conceptions
requires a growth in individuality; it requires conflicts between
authority and liberty, and those collisions between private interests
and the public welfare which a higher civilization affords.
=3. The Content.=--When we consider the "what" of group and customary
morality we note at once that the factors which make for the idealizing
and expansion of interests are less in evidence than those which make
for a common and social interest and satisfaction. There is indeed, as
we have noted, opportunity for memory and fancy. The traditions of the
past, the myths, the cultus, the folk songs--these keep up a mental life
which is as genuinely valued as the more physical activities. But as the
mode of life in question does not evoke the more abstractly rational
activities--reasoning, selecting, choosing--in the highest degree, the
ideals lack reach and power. It needs the incentives described in the
following chapters to call out a true life of the spirit. The social
aspects of the "what," on the other hand, are well rooted in group
morality. It is unnecessary to repeat what has been dwelt upon in the
present and preceding chapters so fully. We point out now that while the
standard is social, it is unconsciously rather than consciously social.
Or perhaps better: it is a standard of society but not a standard which
each member deliberately makes his own. He takes it as a matter of
course. He is in the clan, "with the gang"; he thinks and acts
accordingly. He cannot begin to be as selfish as a modern
individualist; he simply hasn't the imagery to conceive such an
exclusive good, nor the tools with which to carry it out. But he cannot
be as broadly social either. He may not be able to sink so low as the
civilized miser, or debauchee, or criminal, but neither can he conceive
or build up the character which implies facing opposition. The moral
hero achieves full stature only when he pits himself against others,
when he recognizes evil and fights it, when he "overcomes the world."
=4. Organization of Character.=--In the organization of stable character
the morality of custom is strong on one side. The group trains its
members to act in the ways it approves and afterwards holds them by all
the agencies in its power. It forms habits and enforces them. Its
weakness is that the element of habit is so large, that of freedom so
small. It holds up the average man; it holds back the man who might
forge ahead. It is an anchor, and a drag.
LITERATURE
Much of the literature at the close of Chapters II. and III.,
particularly the works of Spencer and Gillen and Schurtz, belongs here
also. Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, 1851-57; Eastman, _Indian Boyhood_,
1902. Papers on various cults of North American Indians in reports of
the _Bureau of Ethnology_, by Stevenson, 8th, 1886-87; Dorsey, 11th,
1889-90; Fewkes, 15th, 1893-94, 21st, 1899-1900; Fletcher, 22nd,
1900-01; Stevenson, 23d, 1901-02; Kidd, _Savage Childhood_, 1906; _The
Essential Kaffir_, 1904; Skeat, _Malay Magic_, 1900; N. W. Thomas,
general editor of Series, _The Native Races of the British Empire_,
1907-; Barton, _A Sketch of Semitic Origins_, 1902; Harrison,
_Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, 1903; Reinach, _Cultes,
Mythes et Religions_, 2 vols., 1905; Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, 3
vols., 1900; Marett, _Is Taboo Negative Magic?_ in Anthropological
Essays, presented to E. B. Tylor, 1907; Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_,
1902; Spencer, _Sociology_, 1876-96; Clifford, _On the Scientific Basis
of Morals_ in Lectures and Essays, 1886; Maine, _Early History of
Institutions_, 1888; _Early Law and Custom_, 1886; Post, _Die Grundlagen
des Rechts und die Grundzuege seiner Entwicklungsgeschichte_, 1884;
_Ethnologische Jurisprudenz_, 1894-95; Pollock and Maitland, _History of
English Law_, 1899; Steinmetz, _Ethnologische Studien zur ersten
Entwicklung der Strafe_, 1894.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] W. G. Sumner, _Folkways_.
[24] Sumner, _Folkways_, p. 6.
[25] _Ibid._, p. 11.
[26] Bagehot, _Physics and Politics_, p. 103.
[27] Eastman, _Indian Boyhood_, p. 31.
[28] Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, Part I., p. 16. Hume pointed out
this twofold basis of approval.
[29] Seebohm, _The Tribal System of Wales_, p. 59.
[30] The account is based on Spencer and Gillen, _The Native Tribes of
Central Australia_, chs. vii.-ix.
[31] Maine's _Early Law and Custom_, p. 264.
[32] _Welsh Triads_, cited by Seebohm, op. cit., p. 72.
[33] Post, _Grundlagen des Rechts_, pp. 45 ff.
[34] Deuteronomy 21:1-9; Numbers 35:33, 34.
[35] Genesis 4:10-12; Job 16:18.
[36] On the subject of early justice Westermarck, _The Origin and
Development of Moral Ideas_, ch. vii. ff.; Hobhouse, _Morals in
Evolution_, Part I., ch. ii.; Pollock and Maitland, _History of English
Law_.
[37] Leviticus, ch. xii.
[38] "The Influence of Magic on Social Relationships" in _Sociological
Papers_, II., 1905. Cf. also Morgan, _House-life_.
[39] Genesis 19:8; Judges 19:23, 24.
[40] Psalms 146:9; Deuteronomy 24:14-22.
[41] Gellius, in Westermarck, op. cit., p. 155.
[42] Westermarck regards this as one of the fundamental elements in the
beginnings of morality.