he seventeenth
century was a _cavalier servente_, who attended a married lady. Such men
practiced extravagances and affectations, and are generally described as
effeminate.[418]

+200. Heroes, scapegoats and butts, caricature.+ Fashion sets, for any
group at any time, its pet likes and dislikes. The mass must have its
heroes, but also its victims and scapegoats and the butts of its
ridicule. Caricature is futile when it is destitute of point. The test
of it lies in the popular response which shows whether it has touched
the core of the thing or not. When it can do this it reveals the real
truth about the thing better than a volume of argument could do it.
Sometimes a popular conviction is produced by a single incident which is
a very important societal fact. The voyage of the Oregon from the
Pacific (1898) convinced the American people that they must cut a canal
through the isthmus. Probably this conviction was a _non sequitur_, but
argument cannot overcome it, and it will control action with all the
financial and other consequences which must ensue. A satire, an epigram,
or a caricature may suffice to produce such a conviction.

+201. Caricature.+ The mere rhetorical form may have the greatest
importance. A caricature often stings national vanity. A state may be
represented as afraid, as having "backed down," as having appeared
ridiculous. Group vanity is often a stronger motive than personal
vanity, and the desire to gratify it will prove stronger than any
rational conviction.

+202. Relation of fads, etc., to mores.+ Thus the vanities, desires,
prejudices, faiths, likes, and dislikes, which pervade a society, coerce
dissenters and become stronger and stronger mass phenomena. They then
affect interests. Then they wind strands of influence and control around
individuals and demand sacrifices. In their combination they weave webs
of action which constitute life and history. The selection which they
exert, drawing in some and repelling others, produces results on the
societal fabric of a later time. The consequences react on character,
moral tone, life philosophy, ethical principles, and ruling sentiments.
Thus they affect the mores, or even enter into them. The whole is handed
on to the rising generation to be their outfit of knowledge, faith, and
policy, and their rules of duty and well living.

+203. Ideals.+ An ideal is entirely unscientific. It is a phantasm which
has little or no connection with fact. Ideals ar