Folkways. William Graham Sumner
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"The Status of Women in Chaldea, Egypt, India, Judea, and Greece to the time of Christ," in the Forum for August, 1909 (42: 113–136); "Mores of the Present and the Future," in the Yale Review for November, 1909 (18: 233–245); and "Religion and the Mores," in the American Journal of Sociology for March, 1910 (15: 577–591). Of these the first and last were presidential addresses before the American Sociological Society. All are included in Volume I (War and Other Essays) of a four-volume set of Sumner's writings, published since his death by the Yale University Press.
Regarding the treatise on the "science of society" (for he had decided to call it that instead of "sociology") mentioned in the Preface, it should be said that Professor Sumner left a considerable amount of manuscript in the rather rough form of a first draft, together with a great mass of classified materials. He wrote very little on this treatise after the completion of Folkways, and not infrequently spoke of the latter to the present writer as "my last book." It is intended, however, that the Science of Society shall be, at some time in the future, completed, and in such form as shall give to the world the fruits of Professor Sumner's intellectual power, clarity of vision, and truly herculean industry.
The present revision of Folkways incorporates but few and unimportant corrections. Certain of these are from the hand of the author, and others from that of the present writer.
A photograph of Professor Sumner has been chosen for insertion in the present edition. It was taken April 18, 1902, and is regarded by many as being the most faithful representation in existence of Sumner's expression and pose, as he appeared in later years. This is the Sumner of the "mores," with mental powers at ripe maturity and bodily vigor as yet unimpaired by age. The Yale commencement orator of 1909 said of Sumner, in presenting him for the Doctorate of Laws: "His intellect has broadened, his heart has mellowed, as he has descended into the vale of years." While advancing age weakened in no respect the sheer power and the steady-eyed fearlessness of mind and character which made Sumner a compelling force in the university and in the wider world, it seems to some of us that the essential kindliness of his nature came out with especial clearness in his later years. And it is the suggestion of this quality which lends a distinctive charm, in our eyes, to the portrait chosen to head this volume.
A. G. KELLER
Yale University
FOLKWAYS
CHAPTER I
FUNDAMENTAL NOTIONS OF THE FOLKWAYS AND OF THE MORES
Definition and mode of origin of the folkways.—The folkways are a societal force.—Folkways are made unconsciously.—Impulse and instinct; primeval stupidity; magic.—The strain of improvement and consistency.—The aleatory element.—All origins are lost in mystery.—Spencer on primitive custom.—Good and bad luck; ills of life; goodness and happiness.—Illustrations.—Immortality and compensation.—Tradition and its restraints.—The concepts of "primitive society"; "we-groups" and "others-groups."—Sentiments in the in-group towards out-groups.—Ethnocentrism.—Illustrations.—Patriotism.—Chauvinism.—The struggle for existence and the competition of life; antagonistic coöperation.—Four motives: hunger, love, vanity, fear.—The process of making folkways.—Suggestion and suggestibility.—Suggestion in education.—Manias.—Suggestion in politics.—Suggestion and criticism.—Folkways based on false inferences.—Harmful folkways.—How "true" and "right" are found.—The folkways are right; rights; morals.—The folkways are true.—Relations of world philosophy to folkways.—Definition of the mores.—Taboos.—No primitive philosophizing; myths; fables; notion of social welfare.—The imaginative element.—The ethical policy and the success policy.—Recapitulation.—Scope and method of the mores.—Integration of the mores of a group or age.—Purpose of the present work.—Why use the word "mores."—The mores are a directive force.—Consistency in the mores.—The mores of subgroups.—What are classes?—Classes rated by societal value.—Class; race; group solidarity.—The masses and the mores.—Fallacies about the classes and the masses.—Action of the masses on ideas.—Organization of the masses.—Institutions of civil liberty.—The common man.—The "people"; popular impulses.—Agitation.—The ruling element in the masses.—The mores and institutions.—Laws.—How laws and institutions differ from mores.—Difference between mores and some cognate things.—Goodness or badness of the mores.—More exact definition of the mores.—Ritual.—The ritual of the mores.—Group interests and policy.—Group interests and folkways.—Force in the folkways.—Might and right.—Status.—Conventionalization.—Conventions indispensable.—The "ethos" or group character; Japan.—Chinese ethos.—Hindoo ethos.—European ethos.
1. Definition and mode of origin of the folkways. If we put together all that we have learned from anthropology and ethnography about primitive men and primitive society, we perceive that the first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts. Every moment brings necessities which must be satisfied at once. Need was the first experience, and it was followed at once by a blundering effort to satisfy it. It is generally taken for granted that men inherited some guiding instincts from their beast ancestry, and it may be true, although it has never been proved. If there were such inheritances, they controlled and aided the first efforts to satisfy needs. Analogy makes it easy to assume that the ways of beasts had produced channels of habit and predisposition along which dexterities and other psychophysical activities would run easily. Experiments with newborn animals show that in the absence of any experience of the relation of means to ends, efforts to satisfy needs are clumsy and blundering. The method is that of trial and failure, which produces repeated pain, loss, and disappointments. Nevertheless, it is a method of rude experiment and selection. The earliest efforts of men were of this kind. Need was the impelling force. Pleasure and pain, on the one side and the other, were the rude constraints which defined the line on which efforts must proceed. The ability to distinguish between pleasure and pain is the only psychical power which is to be assumed. Thus ways of doing things were selected, which were expedient. They answered the purpose better than other ways, or with less toil and pain. Along the course on which efforts were compelled to go, habit, routine, and skill were developed. The struggle to maintain existence was carried on, not individually, but in groups. Each profited by the other's experience; hence there was concurrence towards that which proved to be most expedient. All at last adopted the same way for the same purpose; hence the ways turned into customs and became mass phenomena. Instincts were developed in connection with them. In this way folkways arise. The young learn them by tradition, imitation, and authority. The folkways, at a time, provide for all the needs of life then and there. They are uniform, universal in the group, imperative, and invariable. As time goes on, the folkways become more and more arbitrary, positive, and imperative. If asked why they act in a certain way in certain cases, primitive people always answer that it is because they and their ancestors always have done so. A sanction also arises from ghost fear. The ghosts of ancestors would be angry if the living should change the ancient folkways (see sec. 6).
2. The folkways are a societal force. The operation by which folkways are produced consists in 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. The immediate motive is interest. It produces habit in the individual and custom in the group. It is, therefore, in the highest degree original and primitive. By habit and custom it exerts a strain on every individual within its range; therefore it rises to a societal force to which great classes of societal phenomena are due. Its earliest stages, its course, and laws may be studied; also its influence on individuals and their reaction on it. It is our present purpose so to study it. We have to recognize it as one of the chief forces by which a society is made to be what it is. Out of the unconscious experiment which every repetition of the ways includes, there issues pleasure or pain, and then, so far