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organic processes, or he gets his feet off the earth and risks losing himself in vague speculation. Grounds for this caution will appear as we go on.

CHAPTER II

VARIATION

VARIATION is the opposite of uniformity and monotony and is the basis for all need of classification. If there were no variation in nature, there could be no such multitude of forms, shading into one another by almost imperceptible gradation, as the naturalists tell us there is; similarly, if there were no variation in the folkways, human customs and institutions could show no such endless diversity of detail as we see about us. These are generalities. To demonstrate the existence of variation in the folkways would be a matter of rehearsing long series of instances, most of which would doubtless be more or less familiar to the reader, and many of which are to be found in the collections of cases, under various topics, in "Folkways." It does not seem necessary to assemble such exhaustive detail. Any one can see, on brief reflection, that no two human groups whether family, club, sect, secret

society, township, state, or nation - have the same code of mores. Even the code of personal conduct shows its variations and, by virtue of selection among them, is altered from time to time.

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Variation in the folkways is practically selfevident. If the first reactions on environment characteristic of men were clumsy, groping, and non-purposeful, then variation must have been there at the outset. The dream of a medicine-man has often set afloat a new societal variation. But random and inconsequent variation is not confined to primitive man - Joan of Arc too had her vision; it can be observed in every age, especially in the case of folkways not subject to conclusive test, as, for instance, in fashion. Variation comes to be limited after selection has operated for a time. The process is this: a considerable degree of concurrence having come about with regard to certain folkways, these are taken to be conducive to group welfare, and presently receive social and religious sanction and become mores.1

1 "When the elements of truth and right are developed into doctrines of welfare, the folkways are raised to another plane. They then become capable of producing inferences, developing into new forms, and extending their constructive influence over men and society. Then we call them mores. The mores are

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Then variations from them are, under this conviction and sanction, prejudged as inexpedient, and so, to recall a phrase quoted above, there is laid down a course on which efforts were compelled to go." This would be like building two lofty walls on either side of a growing tree; the outspreading of its branches must then take place within the narrowed space. So variations could appear only within the "course" left open. In our own societies the folkways governing diet no longer permit of variations in the direction of cannibalism; and those of war are supposed to exclude all variations in the direction of using poisons, employing certain types of treachery, and so on. But within the limits laid down, variation still goes on: new ideas about eating characterize the folkways of the time, and more new devices for killing men abound among civilized people than ever the savage could dream of.

It would be easy to immerse this subject of

the folkways, including the philosophical and ethical generalizations as to societal welfare which are suggested by them, and inherent in them, as they grow." Sumner, "Folkways," § 34. It will not be practicable always to maintain a clean-cut distinction between folkways and mores indeed, Sumner himself does not do so- - but that there is "another plane" should be kept in mind.

variation in analogies: to talk of mutations in the mores; to refer to the amalgamation of groups and the consequent development of new combinations in the code as social amphimixis, thus suggesting an explanation of variation along the lines laid down by Weismann. This sort of procedure is entertaining and might be suggestive; but it is dangerous. The fact of variation in the folkways is all that needs to be established here. No doubt when two or more codes are brought into contact by the compounding of groups, there appears to ensue an activity of variation in the mores that suggests fecundation of some sort. Perhaps there is really something more in such a case than mere inter-transmission of folkways between the groups thus brought into contact. But if there is, it is safer with our present knowledge to ignore so vague a quantity and to treat the whole matter objectively under the topics of selection and of transmission by contagion.1

Conscious variation within lines allowed by the folkways is now called experimentation. It is supposed to be scientific, that is, carefully directed on the basis of law and of knowledge of what has been done before; but it is not

1 1 Pp. 73 ff. and 232 ff. below.

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