Folkways. William Graham Sumner
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theological dogmas. Their leading notions were really about the mores and bore on social policy. In the Netherlands, in 1657, they appeared as a militant sect of revolutionary communists and levelers.120 In New England they courted persecution. They wanted to cultivate states of mind and traits of social character which they had selected as good, and their ritual was devised to that end (humility, simplicity, peacefulness, friendliness, truth). They are now being overpowered and absorbed by the mores of the society which surrounds them. The same is true of Shakers, Moravians, and other sects of dissenters from the mores of the time and place.
102. Social policy. In Germany an attempt has been made to develop social policy into an art (Socialpolitik). Systematic attempts are made to study demographical facts in order to deduce from them conclusions as to the things which need to be done to make society better. The scheme is captivating. It is one of the greatest needs of modern states, which have gone so far in the way of experimental devices for social amelioration and rectification, at the expense of tax payers, that those devices should be tested and that the notions on which they are based should be verified. So far as demographical information furnishes these tests it is of the highest value. When, however, the statesmen and social philosophers stand ready to undertake any manipulation of institutions and mores, and proceed on the assumption that they can obtain data upon which to proceed with confidence in that undertaking, as an architect or engineer would obtain data and apply his devices to a task in his art, a fallacy is included which is radical and mischievous beyond measure. We have, as yet, no calculus for the variable elements which enter into social problems and no analysis which can unravel their complications. The discussions always reveal the dominion of the prepossessions in the minds of the disputants which are in the mores. We know that an observer of nature always has to know his own personal equation. The mores are a societal equation. When the mores are the thing studied in one's own society, there is an operation like begging the question. Moreover, the convictions which are in the mores are "faiths." They are not affected by scientific facts or demonstration. We "believe in" democracy, as we have been brought up in it, or we do not. If we do, we accept its mythology. The reason is because we have grown up in it, are familiar with it, and like it. Argument would not touch this faith. In like manner the people of one state believe in "the state," or in militarism, or in commercialism, or in individualism. Those of another state are sentimental, nervous, fond of rhetorical phrases, full of group vanity. It is vain to imagine that any man can lift himself out of these characteristic features in the mores of the group to which he belongs, especially when he is dealing with the nearest and most familiar phenomena of everyday life. It is vain to imagine that a "scientific man" can divest himself of prejudice or previous opinion, and put himself in an attitude of neutral independence towards the mores. He might as well try to get out of gravity or the pressure of the atmosphere. The most learned scholar reveals all the philistinism and prejudice of the man-on-the-curbstone when mores are in discussion. The most elaborate discussion only consists in revolving on one's own axis. One only finds again the prepossessions which he brought to the consideration of the subject, returned to him with a little more intense faith. The philosophical drift in the mores of our time is towards state regulation, militarism, imperialism, towards petting and flattering the poor and laboring classes, and in favor of whatever is altruistic and humanitarian. What man of us ever gets out of his adopted attitude, for or against these now ruling tendencies, so that he forms judgments, not by his ruling interest or conviction, but by the supposed impact of demographic data on an empty brain. We have no grounds for confidence in these ruling tendencies of our time. They are only the present phases in the endless shifting of our philosophical generalizations, and it is only proposed, by the application of social policy, to subject society to another set of arbitrary interferences, dictated by a new set of dogmatic prepossessions that would only be a continuation of old methods and errors.
103. Degenerate and evil mores. Mores of advance and decline. The case is somewhat different when attempts are made by positive efforts to prevent the operation of bad mores, or to abolish them. The historians have familiarized us with the notion of corrupt or degenerate mores. Such periods as the later Roman empire, the Byzantine empire, the Merovingian kingdom, and the Renaissance offer us examples of evil mores. We need to give more exactitude to this idea. Bad mores are those which are not well fitted to the conditions and needs of the society at the time. But, as we have seen, the mores produce a philosophy of welfare, more or less complete, and they produce taboos which are concentrated inhibitions directed against conduct which the philosophy regards as harmful, or positive injunctions to do what is judged expedient and beneficial. The taboos constitute morality or a moral system which, in higher civilization, restrains passion and appetite, and curbs the will. Various conjunctures arise in which the taboos are weakened or the sanctions on them are withdrawn. Faith in the current religion may be lost. Then its mystic sanctions cease to operate. The political institutions may be weak or unfit, and the civil sanctions may fail. There may not be the necessary harmony between economic conditions and political institutions, or the classes which hold the social forces in their hands may misuse them for their selfish interest at the expense of others. The philosophical and ethical generalizations which are produced by the mores rise into a realm of intellect and reason which is proud, noble, and grand. The power of the intelligence is a human prerogative. If the power is correctly used the scope of achievement in the satisfaction of needs is enormously extended. The penalty of error in that domain is correspondingly great. When the mores go wrong it is, above all, on account of error in the attempt to employ the philosophical and ethical generalizations in order to impose upon mores and institutions a movement towards selected and "ideal" results which the ruling powers of the society have determined to aim at. Then the energy of the society may be diverted from its interests. Such a drift of the mores is exactly analogous to a vice of an individual, i.e. energy is expended on acts which are contrary to welfare. The result is a confusion of all the functions of the society, and a falseness in all its mores. Any of the aberrations which have been mentioned will produce evil mores, that is, mores which are not adapted to welfare, so that a group may fall into vicious mores just as an individual falls into vicious habits.
104. Illustrations. This was well illustrated at Byzantium. The development of courtesans and prostitutes into a great and flourishing institution; the political rule, by palace intrigues, of favorites, women, and eunuchs; the decisive interference of royal guards; the vices of public amusements and baths; the miseries and calamities of talented men and the consequent elimination of that class from the society; the sycophancy of clients; the servitude of peasants and artisans, with economic exhaustion as a consequence; demonism, fanaticism, and superstition in religion, combined with extravagant controversies over pedantic trifles—such are some of the phenomena of mores disordered by divorce from sober interests, and complicated by arbitrary dogmas of politics and religion, not forgetting the brutal and ignorant measures of selfish rulers. In the Merovingian kingdom barbaric and corrupt Roman mores were intermingled in a period of turmoil. In the Renaissance in Italy all the taboos were broken down, or had lost their sanctions, and vice and crime ran riot through social disorder. As to the degeneracy of mores, we meet with a current opinion that in time the mores tend to "run down," by the side of another current opinion that there is, in time, a tendency of the mores to become more refined and purer. If the life conditions do not change, there is no reason at all why the mores should change. Some barbarian peoples have brought their mores into true adjustment to their life conditions, and have gone on for centuries without change. What is true, however, is that there are periods of social advance and periods of social decline, that is, advance or decline in economic power, material prosperity, and group strength for war. In either case all the mores fall into a character, temper, and spirit which conform to the situation. The early centuries of the Christian era were a period of decline. Tertullian121 has a passage in which he describes in enthusiastic terms the prosperity and progress of his time (end of the second century). He did not perceive that society was in a conjuncture of decline. Many, however, from the time of Augustus saw evil coming. The splendors of the empire did not delude them. Tacitus feared evil from the Germans; others from the Parthians.122 The population of the Roman empire felt its inferiority to its ancestors. One thing