urce of the
science and the art of living.

It is of the first importance to notice that, from the first acts by
which men try to satisfy needs, each act stands by itself, and looks no
further than immediate satisfaction. From recurrent needs arise habits
for the individual and customs for the group, but these results are
consequences which were never conscious and never foreseen or intended.
They are not noticed until they have long existed, and it is still
longer before they are appreciated. Another long time must pass, and a
higher stage of mental development must be reached, before they can be
used as a basis from which to deduce rules for meeting, in the future,
problems whose pressure can be foreseen. The folkways, therefore, are
not creations of human purpose and wit. They are like products of
natural forces which men unconsciously set in operation, or they are
like the instinctive ways of animals, which are developed out of
experience, which reach a final form of maximum adaptation to an
interest, which are handed down by tradition and admit of no exception
or variation, yet change to meet new conditions, still within the same
limited methods, and without rational reflection or purpose. From this
it results that all the life of human beings, in all ages and stages of
culture, is primarily controlled by a vast mass of folkways handed down
from the earliest existence of the race, having the nature of the ways
of other animals, only the topmost layers of which are subject to change
and control, and have been somewhat modified by human philosophy,
ethics, and religion, or by other acts of intelligent reflection. We are
told of savages that "it is difficult to exhaust the customs and small
ceremonial usages of a savage people. Custom regulates the whole of a
man's actions--his bathing, washing, cutting his hair, eating, drinking,
and fasting. From his cradle to his grave he is the slave of ancient
usage. In his life there is nothing free, nothing original, nothing
spontaneous, no progress toward a higher and better life, and no attempt
to improve his condition, mentally, morally, or spiritually." All men
act in this way, with only a little wider margin of voluntary variation.

The folkways are, therefore: (1) subject to a strain of improvement
toward better adaptation of means to ends, as long as the adaptation is
so imperfect that pain is produced. They are also (2) subject to a
strain of consistency with each othe