s or harmful.
In the case of the individual, the determination of action by
custom alone has its specific dangers and defects. Even
though the individual happens to conform to useful customs,
his conformity is purely mechanical. It involves no intelligent
discrimination. Merely to conform places one at
the disposition of the environment in which one chances to
be. There is not necessary any intelligent analysis on the
part of the agent, of the bearings and consequences of his
actions. He takes on with fatal facility the color of his
environment. To all men, however critical and reflective, a
certain degree of conformity to custom is both necessary and
useful. There must, in any social enterprise, be some common
basis of action. Because taking the right-hand side of the road
is a convention, it is none the less a useful one. But reflective
acquiescence in a custom differs from merely mechanical
conformity. It transforms a custom from a blind mechanism
into a consciously chosen instrument for achieving good.

The trivial and the important in a morality based upon
custom receive the same unconsidered support. "Tithing
mint, anise, and cummin are quite likely to involve the neglect
of weightier matters of the law." Physical, emotional, and
moral energies that should be devoted to matters genuinely
affecting human welfare are lavished upon the trivial and the
incidental. We may come to be concerned more with manners
than with morals; with ritual, than with right. Customary
morality tends to emphasize, moreover, the letter
rather than the spirit of the law. It implies complete and
punctilious obedience, meticulous conformity. It emphasizes
form rather than content. Since conformity is the only
criterion, the appearance of conformity is all that is required.
The individual may fear to dissent openly rather than actually.
This is seen frequently in the ritualistic performance
or fulfillment of a duty in all its external details, rather
than the actual and positive performance of its content. It
is just such Pharisaism that is protested against in the Sermon
on the Mount:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are;
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners
of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you,
They have their reward....

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do; for
they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking