ount 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 economi