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TRADE MORALS 
 
PAGE LECTURES 
 
 Published by Yale University Press 
 
 MORALS IN MODERN BUSINESS. Addresses by Edward D. 
 Page, George W. Alger, Henry Holt, A. Barton Hepburn, Ed- 
 ward W. Bemis and James McKeen. 
 
 (Second printing) 12rao, cloth binding, leather label, 162 pages. 
 Syllabi. Price SI. 25 net, delivered. 
 
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 E. Sterrett, John Brooks Leavitt, Charles A. Prouty. 
 
 12mo, cloth binding, leather label, 150 pages, index. Price 
 $1.25 net, delivered. 
 
 INDUSTRY AND PROGRESS. By Norman Hapgood. 
 
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 12mo, cloth binding, 183 pages, index. Price $1.25 net, de- 
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 TRADE MORALS: THEIR ORIGIN, GROWTH AND PROV- 
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 12mo, cloth binding, 276 pages, index. Price $1.50 net, 
 delivered. 
 
Trade Morals 
 
 THEIR ORIGIN. GROWTH 
 AND PROVINCE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD D. PAGE 
 
 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 MDCCCCXIV 
 
 A 
 
 KQ 
 
^•'/> 
 
 A.rs-0^3 
 
 Copyright, 1914 
 Bv Yale University Press 
 
 First printed July, 1914, 1000 copies 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book is the outgrowth of a course of lectures 
 delivered to the graduating class at the Sheffield 
 Scientific School of Yale University in the spring of 
 191 1. Their object was to show in some consecutive 
 form the growth of trade morals from the social 
 and mental conditions which form the environment 
 of business men, and to illustrate their meaning and 
 purpose in such a way as to clarify if not to solve 
 some difficulties by which the men of our time are 
 perplexed. The lecturer took for granted a basis of 
 knowledge such as is possessed by undergraduate 
 students of the natural and social sciences, and the 
 effort was made to carry minds so prepared one step 
 further along toward the interpretation of some of 
 the problems with which they would soon be com- 
 pelled to cope. Nearly all of them were shortly to 
 come into contact with business — to engage in it, in 
 fact — and he felt that it was important that they 
 should make this start with some definite notion of 
 the values and problems involved in the business 
 side of their vocational career. 
 
 My object, as I explained to the class, in the 
 impromptu introduction to the first lecture, was to 
 paint with a broad brush, in bright colors and maybe 
 with rough outlines, an impressionistic picture of the 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 interrelations of society, morals and mind in their 
 effect upon the conduct of the business man. The 
 artist who essays this object has never been over- 
 concerned with such details as he considers unessen- 
 tial to the production of his effect, and his materials 
 he endeavors so to manage that they shall compose 
 at a glance into a truthful portrayal of the whole 
 scene or subject. In like spirit I have essayed to 
 treat the ever vital question of human activity, its 
 evolutionary progress and the co-ordinate develop- 
 ment of morals — with especial reference and appli- 
 cation to the business problems of our time. 
 
 Originally composed in the intervals of pressing 
 business demands and away from books of reference, 
 the lectures took a somewhat didactic form, which I 
 have not been at pains to alter. Their object was to 
 instruct, and to lead average men to think, rather 
 than to be the medium of original work along lines 
 of scientific discovery. So far as they lean upon the 
 sister sciences of biology, sociology and psychology 
 I have tried in them to restate in a simple and concise 
 form, but sometimes from different angles of vision, 
 the results arrived at by competent investigators in 
 these fields. If there is anything original in the 
 point of view here taken, it must lie in such results as 
 may be derived from a comprehensive rather than an 
 intensive scrutiny of the conditions which underlie 
 the entire fabric of business life. And business acts, 
 to paraphrase Matthew Arnold's famous generaliza- 
 tion of conduct, may make three fourths of civilized 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 life In our day and generation. Under modern con- 
 ditions of exchange nearly everybody in society is 
 engaged in business, and upon its results his welfare 
 largely depends. 
 
 Under the circumstances above outlined, It was 
 impossible to supply the text with footnotes of 
 acknowledgment to the various authorities upon 
 whom I have so liberally drawn. And so I have been 
 obliged to refer the reader to my sources In a more 
 general way by annexing, at the end, a list of the 
 works on which I have depended for my material. 
 
 If In this presentation a partisan view anywhere 
 has been adhered to, my conclusion may, of course, 
 be questioned by those holding different tenets; In 
 which case I shall hope either to be able to give a 
 good account of, and support for, my contentions, or 
 have the sense to make some alteration in my view- 
 point. But I believe that the conclusions here pre- 
 sented will well stand the test of experience, being 
 founded, In the main, upon induction from observa- 
 tion, and tinctured to no considerable degree with 
 unwarranted Inferences from Imaginary situations. 
 They do, however, summarize the results of a per- 
 sonal experience and observation of the ethical rela- 
 tions of men of business to the community extending 
 over many years, of which I may hope sometime to 
 make a more adequate presentation. 
 
 I acknowledge with gratitude the kind suggestions 
 of my friends; particularly those of Prof. Albert 
 G. Keller of Yale, who revised the proofs of the 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 first five chapters; and of Dr. Stewart Paton of 
 Princeton, whose criticism led to greater clarity in a 
 part of the seventh. 
 
 Edward D. Page. 
 Oakland, N. J., November 3, 19 13. 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 Two preliminary thoughts, if you please, before 
 we commit ourselves, unrestrained, to the mazes of 
 impulse and Intellection through which human con- 
 duct Is determined, with the trust that at the end we 
 shall have emerged successfully into a clearer light 
 of understanding and decision. 
 
 The first is this ; that it is necessary to remember 
 always that the definite and distinct classes, grades, 
 modes, levels, etc., of which we shall be obliged to Classifica- 
 speak, while aiding the clear comprehension of series tion an 
 of events or natural phenomena, do not In fact exist imperfect 
 In the exact sense with which they are described; and process 
 are not separated from each other by clear-cut 
 boundaries or lines of demarcation. In all the 
 sciences having to do with life, classes, genera, 
 species and varieties are in outline more shadowy 
 than distinct. There is a twilight zone or penumbra 
 between neighboring varieties, in which one shades 
 off more or less gradually Into the other, with more 
 or less mingling of their features. We must 
 not forget that the classification of the sciences Is An effort 
 only an approximation made imperative by that of the finite 
 imperfection of the human mind which demands to realize 
 halting places from which to survey Its work. ^^^ infinite 
 
 The natural state of all things is a state of motion. 
 The rate may be very slow, as In the building up of 
 geological strata, or very rapid, as in the case of what 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 The artifice 
 of classifi- 
 cation 
 
 Decline of 
 
 formal 
 
 religion 
 
 men in their ignorance have called the "fixed" stars, 
 but there is always motion except perhaps in death. 
 Nature progresses by the gradual and insidious 
 methods of evolution and never halts. But a 
 human sense finds great difficulty in observing objects 
 in motion. It cannot readily comprehend them ; and 
 so, instantaneous photographs of the postures 
 actually assumed by so familiar an object as a 
 running horse seem unreal, unless taken at some 
 stage of comparative rest that can be easily recog- 
 nized by the eye. 
 
 To overcome this difficulty, in the study of the 
 sciences, men have devised classifications, that is to 
 say, convenient but artificial stopping places, where 
 the mind turns away, as it were, from the constant 
 survey of motion and looks backward for a moment 
 to inspect what has gone before. The divisions or 
 categories by which it reviews the facts of observa- 
 tion are only stages wherein certain characteristics 
 have become more salient than in others ; and so lend 
 their name, for the purpose of convenient recogni- 
 tion, to a zone through which sequential changes are 
 nevertheless constantly passing at greater or lesser 
 rates of motion. 
 
 The second thought is less difficult of statement. 
 In the decline of formal religious influence which 
 has marked the course of civilization during the last 
 forty years there is a gap left where once there was 
 a keen impulse to right living, and right living more 
 than anything else is dependent upon right think- 
 
TO THE READER xi 
 
 ing. In default of the rise of another great Moral 
 Master, we must found our hope on an ethical pro- 
 gress fashioned by and of the people itself. So that 
 from a democratic consideration of conduct we may Democracy 
 hope to see principles arise with whose assistance in morals 
 we may make moral rules to fit the new modes of 
 action into which we have been forced by the techni- 
 cal and scientific advances of the times. If this 
 progress is to be aided by the study of ethics its con- 
 clusions must be expressed in words derived from 
 the vernacular. Dissertations which only college 
 professors can understand without effort, are of 
 very little value in leading people generally to think 
 about conduct. And so, the terms used must be those Value of the 
 which English-speaking people may understand so vernacular 
 natively that they will not shy at the effort of think- 
 ing in them. Having experienced the ease of compre- 
 hension which went with the reading of Professor 
 Sumner's massive but undigested treatise on the 
 folkways, I have ventured to follow his example, 
 and to form such new terms as seemed necessary 
 from words already current in English use. To do 
 so is no easy task and I shamefully admit one or two 
 lazy departures, which, in case it is ever necessary 
 to reprint, I shall endeavor to correct. For the 
 reader's convenience I have prefixed to these papers 
 the definitions of all terms used in special or definite 
 senses therein ; and now commend myself to his most 
 charitable indulgence. 
 
DEFINITIONS 
 
 Agent — the doer of an act of conduct or behavior. 
 
 Antagonism — the general principle of mutually resisting 
 forces which underlies all nature, whose expressions are 
 discord, conflict, competition, individualism, radiation, 
 centrifugence, etc. 
 
 Anthropology — the system of knowledge relating to man. 
 
 Behavior — involuntary action moulded to ends through 
 natural forces acting according to natural law. 
 
 Business — human activity in the exchange of services, com- 
 modities or money. 
 
 Character — the combination of qualities in any person aris- 
 ing from his disposition, temperament and habits of 
 conduct — an expression for the sum of the natureways 
 and nurtureways of a person. 
 
 Civilization — the aggregate expression of the life of a nation 
 in its arts, sciences and modes of conduct. 
 
 Clan — a folkgroup of families held together by the sentiment 
 of descent from a common ancestor. 
 
 Class-custom — ( see group-custom ) . 
 
 Commerce — the exchange of commodities, between different 
 peoples or folkgroups. 
 
 Commodities — goods destined to be exchanged. 
 
 Concurrence — the general principle of mutually co-operating 
 forces which underlies all nature, and whose expressions 
 are attraction, gravity, harmony, co-operation, combina- 
 tion, socialism, centripetence, etc. 
 
 Conduct — voluntary action adjusted to ends (Spencer). 
 
 Custom — habitual conduct, common to a group, consciously 
 recognized as conducive to welfare. 
 
DEFINITIONS xiii 
 
 Disposition — the sum of all the instincts and acquired habits 
 of using or controlling them of any person. 
 
 Economics — the system of knowledge relating to conduct 
 involved in the production of wealth. 
 
 Ethics — the system of knowledge relating to moral conduct. 
 
 Family — a group of two or more individuals of different 
 sexes; essentially parents with their children; held 
 together by the instinct of reproduction. 
 
 Fear — a sentiment derived from the instinct of flight — a 
 motive to conduct through (a) fear of the environment, 
 men, outgroups, wild beasts, disease or (b) fear of the 
 folkgroup, of ancestors or gods. 
 
 Finance — (human activity in) the exchange of money or the 
 written representatives of money value. 
 
 Folk — (in combination) pertaining to the folkgroup. 
 
 Folk-custom — a uniform mode of conscious folkgroup con- 
 duct; derived from folkways recognized as conducive to 
 groupal welfare ["one of the mores" (Sumner) ; "Sitte" 
 (Wundt)]. 
 
 Folkfaith — the religious belief of a folkgroup. 
 
 Folk-feeling — social sentiment, public opinion of a folkgroup. 
 
 Folkgroup — the largest number of human groups who at 
 a given time and place feel that they are held together 
 for the satisfaction of common interests ; — the prevailing 
 social group. 
 
 Folklaw — the common law; folk-custom methodized and 
 declared by courts of law. 
 
 Folkspeech — the language of a folkgroup. 
 
 Folkways — a uniform mode of conduct practiced by men 
 in group or mass conditions, under the stimulation 
 of common interests; usage, social habit [Branch 
 (Wundt)]. 
 
xiv DEFINITIONS 
 
 Folkweal — the welfare of the folkgroup. 
 
 Folkwill — the will of the folkgroup (Folkwille) . 
 
 Group — any number of individuals thinking and acting 
 
 together for a common purpose. 
 Group-custom — a uniform mode of conduct, common to a 
 
 group or class, and consciously recognized as conducive 
 
 to its welfare. 
 Habit — a uniform mode of acting established by a person 
 
 in the effort better to adjust himself to his environment 
 
 \_Gewohnheit (Wundt)]. 
 Heterethnic — of other groups. 
 Humanistics — uniform groupal modes of conduct arising 
 
 from pity or compassion for individuals. 
 Hunger — a feeling derived from tropisms, the stimulus of 
 
 the alimentary instincts. 
 Industry — human activity in the production of commodities. 
 Instinct — a faculty motiving behavior in animals and man; 
 
 reflexes co-ordinated by a central nervous ganglion or 
 
 brain. 
 Instinctive act — a uniform mode of behavior motived by 
 
 instincts. 
 Institution — an organized and formal artifice for the promo- 
 tion of folk-custom or humanistics. 
 Law — a rule of external human action, affirmed and enforced 
 
 by the folkgroup. 
 Love — the emotional expression of the reproductive instinct. 
 Market — a group of buyers and sellers (Emery). 
 Morals — the rules of right conduct recognized as valid at any 
 
 given time by any group. 
 Nation — a folkgroup of families or tribes held together by 
 
 the necessity of peace. 
 
DEFINITIONS xv 
 
 Natureways — modes of behavior ; uniform unconscious modes 
 
 of action, produced by the natural environment. 
 Nurtureways — modes of conduct; uniform conscious modes 
 
 of human action produced by education under group 
 
 conditions. 
 Personality — the self-expression of a person as determined 
 
 by his self-consciousness. 
 Pity — sympathy for the sufferings of others, together with a 
 
 desire to relieve them. 
 Psychology — the system of knowledge relating to neuro- 
 
 mental phenomena. 
 Reflexes — uniform modes of behavior, the indirect effect of 
 
 environment on the organism through nervous ganglia; 
 
 tropisms co-ordinated by a spinal cord. 
 Self-consciousness — the sum of knowledge, at a given time, 
 
 possessed by a person of himself, his feelings and desires. 
 Sociology — the system of knowledge relating to men or ani- 
 mals living together in groups. 
 Subject — one who is subjected to an act done by another. 
 Temperament — mental expression as influenced by bodily 
 
 organs and nervous system. 
 Trade — the exchange of commodities between markets 
 
 (Emery). 
 Transportation — the conveyance of persons or commodities 
 
 from one place to another. 
 Tribe — a folkgroup of families or clans held together by the 
 
 need for efficiency in war. 
 Tropism — a mode of behavior which is the direct response 
 
 of an organism to its environment. 
 Vanity — the expression of the instinct of positive self-feeling. 
 Volition — conscious choice between motives. 
 Welfare — a state or condition, arising from the adjustment 
 
 of an organism to its environment. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Preface v 
 
 To THE Reader ix 
 
 Definitions xii 
 
 I. The Evolution of Society 1 
 
 II. The Evolution of Nations .... 17 
 
 III. The Evolution of Conduct .... 33 
 
 IV. The Evolution of Morals 50 
 
 V. The Evolution of Humanistic Ideals . 72 
 
 VI. Moral Adjuncts — Institutions and Con- 
 science 91 
 
 VII. The Evolution of the Will: Its Regu- 
 lation of the Impulses 115 
 
 VIII. The Economic Impulses — Business . . 136 
 IX. Business Conditions of the Twentieth 
 
 Century in the United States . . 160 
 
 X. Immigration — Quick Trading . . . 188 
 
 XI. Moral Conditions of Success . . . . 213 
 
 XII. Competition — Contract — Conclusions . 242 
 
 Sources 263 
 
 Index 273 
 
TRADE MORALS 
 
I 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 
 
 On the granite block which forms the corner stone 
 of one of the largest manufactories in New Eng- 
 land — the first mill successfully established in this 
 country to spin and weave flax into linen cloths — 
 there is carved in strong letters these words : 
 
 " All was others, 
 All will be others." 
 
 In this rude phrasing is expressed a thought that 
 has dominated and guided the intellectual develop- 
 ment of the last half century. With the issue in 1859 
 of Darwin's Origin of Species, began the conception. The 
 now grown to a conclusion, that everything within Doctrine of 
 our ken, instead of being at rest or in fixed or stable Evolution 
 equilibrium, is really in a continual state of motion 
 or change; that what today is, is the issue of some- 
 thing that was yesterday and is the source of some- 
 thing else that will be tomorrow — "All was others; 
 All will be others." 
 
 Darwin's great discovery answered the question: 
 Are there causes in Nature for the differences which its 
 we observe between the many varieties of living Biological 
 animals and plants? With additions and subtrac- application 
 tions it remains today the accepted doctrine account- 
 
TRADE MORALS 
 
 Its 
 
 extension 
 to the 
 Physical 
 Sciences 
 
 Evolution 
 
 in 
 
 Psychology 
 
 ing for the development of all the different living 
 species which exist upon the face of the Earth. Upon 
 this doctrine is based the theory of the biological 
 sciences, Botany, Zoology, Physiology, Geology and 
 all their kindred branches of knowledge. More 
 recently this doctrine of continual change and devel- 
 opment has made its way into the physical sciences, 
 Chemistry, Physics and Mineralogy, and we may 
 now more than suspect that the metals themselves, 
 once a type of stability and inertness, are like living 
 beings subject to their own laws of orderly and 
 sequential change. Modern study of the phenomena 
 of radio-activity has led to the conclusion that like 
 plants they have a period of growth, and possibly 
 of decay — measured indeed by eons instead of by 
 years. Before long the philosopher's stone may 
 have become a reality. 
 
 Firmly established as the interpretation of the 
 observed sequence of facts with respect to the origin 
 and growth of physiological structure and function, 
 the theory of evolution is now extended to the 
 explanation of the problems presented by the more 
 newly observed assimilations between the mental 
 processes of men and beasts. And so. Psychology 
 is learning not only that the active instincts of man 
 originate in the lower animals, but that intellectual 
 ideas which have been classed as self-evident — 
 axioms which Euclid or Plato used as the starting 
 point of their logical arguments — are by no means 
 intuitively inherent in the natural constitution of the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 3 
 
 human mind. Rather do we now regard those 
 fundamental notions in mathematical and logical 
 sciences which we call axioms, aphorisms, maxims, 
 precepts or proverbs, and with which people start 
 their reasoning as postulates or self-evident truths, 
 as growing out of the observation and inference of 
 many generations over an immense period of time. 
 It follows that two and two make four, that things 
 equal to the same thing are equal to each other, 
 that the whole is greater than its part, are proposi- 
 tions universally accepted without argument, not 
 because of any inherent incapacity of the mind to 
 question them, but because centuries of observation 
 have proven them to be statements of fact, whereby 
 an unconscious and universal habit has been formed 
 of regarding them as self-evident and necessary 
 truths. 
 
 If, then, the facts, of which we have taken a brief 
 survey, advancing from the more elementary of 
 inert matter to the more complex of the human body 
 and brain, may all be generalized as nothing else than 
 particular phases of the universal phenomena of 
 change and growth, how is it when we come in con- 
 tact with the yet more complex aspects of mankind Evolution 
 in combination — the moral, economic and political in 
 relations which they assume to each other in society? Sociology 
 Are there the same problems of change and growth 
 to be solved in the sphere of the mutual relations of 
 man to man? And does the theory of evolution 
 play the same part in the solution of these social 
 
TRADE MORALS 
 
 problems as it does In the other less complex fields of 
 inquiry? For it is plain that the relations of man to 
 man in social life depend upon the conduct of each 
 man toward the other, considered first as individuals, 
 and then as bound together by some tie of associa- 
 tion, as in a state, or as in a common employment, 
 and that this conduct, being both intangible and 
 diffuse, is a matter of much greater complexity than 
 any of those previously considered. Intangible 
 because unrecorded, except as to the infinitesimal 
 fraction which is of contemporary interest; diffuse, 
 because so widespread that it is beyond the power 
 of any observer to perceive more than another small 
 fraction of the whole. 
 Conduct Conduct, "voluntary action adjusted to ends,"^ 
 
 follows apparently the caprices of the human will, 
 and at first blush would seem to be a subject incap- 
 able of appraisal and classification by the scientific 
 methods which have classified the more fixed and 
 settled phenomena of nature, recognized their inter- 
 relations and established the laws of their uniform 
 Its laws sequence in action. Nevertheless, through the 
 found by method of segregation or abstraction, that is to say, 
 abstraction by considering a certain class of conduct by itself, 
 men have made some progress in formulating the 
 uniform correspondence and sequence of conduct, 
 and have reached some definite scientific conceptions 
 of common modes of human action shown in rea- 
 soning, as in Logic or Mathematics; in the accu- 
 
 1 Herbert Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 2. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 5 
 
 mulation of wealth, as in Economics ; in talking, as in 
 Linguistics; and in the ways in which human beings 
 live together, as in Sociology. Each of these sciences 
 has succeeded in some degree in its quest for laws or 
 universal ways by which men act when reasoning, 
 when earning, when speaking or when associating in 
 a society. 
 
 Society, in the general sense in which I have here What is 
 used it, is not the little fellowship of congenial people Society? 
 in a neighborhood who take themselves seriously as 
 the self-appointed guardians of etiquette or courte- 
 sies, to appraise exactly the value of various styles 
 of dress, or the strict obligations of mutual enter- 
 tainment. On the contrary, what I refer to is the 
 largest body of persons who feel that they are held 
 together for the satisfaction of common interests. 
 A common political organization is not of necessity 
 the tie ; for three quarters of a century prior to the 
 Civil War two distinct societies were united in the 
 Federal Union, yet with such diverse interests as to 
 eventually rend them asunder. Except by force, 
 Ulster and Kerry can hardly be held together on 
 their common island with their common speech and 
 with their common king. Nor should we say 
 that Austria and Hungary, though joined by a 
 common rule, and contributors to a common war 
 chest, are anything but two distinct societies. 
 Common language is not the tie; quite different in 
 social customs and aspirations are Canada and New 
 Zealand. 1 he bond that unites men into a society is 
 
TRADE MORALS 
 
 Ethics the 
 science of 
 right and 
 wrong 
 conduct 
 
 Not all 
 conduct is 
 moral or 
 immoral 
 
 one of common thought and feeling, and centuries 
 of political separation as with the Poles in Austria, 
 Germany and Russia, or with the Greeks in Crete 
 and the Archipelago, are powerless to destroy it. 
 
 Ethics is the science by which we endeavor to dis- 
 cover principles governing human conduct when 
 appraised as either right or wrong. Its method is 
 similar to that of its sister science of Political 
 Economy, which has to do with the principles guiding 
 human conduct toward gainful or wasteful ends. In 
 the one, conduct having moral effect, purport or 
 implication is segregated for the time being from all 
 other conduct for study and classification; just as in 
 the other, conduct having a bearing on the acquisi- 
 tion of wealth is segregated for the same purpose. 
 Not all conduct must of necessity be moral or 
 immoral; often it has no moral significance whatso- 
 ever and is therefore simply unmoral. We should 
 not think of attaching moral consequences to ordi- 
 nary eating or drinking, the wearing of a coat or the 
 drawing of a check for money. And yet we must 
 admit that under circumstances gluttony or excessive 
 drinking of stimulants may be immoral because of its 
 consequences to our families or business associates; 
 we should quickly find ourselves in jail were we to 
 venture on the street naked, and were we to draw a 
 check on a bank in which we had no account we 
 would subject ourselves to the charge of fraud, and 
 to criminal prosecution. The essential difference 
 between the acts to which we are in the habit of 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 7 
 
 attributing moral significance and those which have 
 no implication of right and wrong lies in the fact that 
 the former are good or bad for others than our- 
 selves, that is to say, they affect either the feelings 
 or welfare of our families, or of our neighbors, or 
 maybe of the whole society in which the acts are 
 performed and of which the actor is a part. 
 
 If we could consider man as an isolated individual In isolation 
 we can understand why it is necessarily impossible no morals 
 for him under such circumstances to pursue an 
 immoral course of conduct; for in his case there is 
 no other person to be injured or benefited by his 
 conduct. So long as Robinson Crusoe remained 
 alone on the island of Juan Fernandez his acts con- 
 cerned no one but himself and hence were neither 
 wrong nor right. They might only be wise or foolish 
 so far as they were correctly or imperfectly adjusted 
 to his own survival in the environment by which he 
 was surrounded. But from the moment that he 
 found in the sand the footprints of the man Friday 
 some part of his conduct was adjusted with reference 
 to this other person and thus was in the way of being 
 compared with some standard, to agree with which 
 would be right, or to differ with would be wrong. 
 Conduct may have a variety of qualities; it may be 
 wise or imprudent, thrifty or wasteful, sensible or 
 foolish, healthy or morbid ; and yet neither right nor 
 wrong. Or it may be several of these and also right 
 or wrong. 
 
 Like a bargain or a quarrel, it takes two to make 
 
TRADE MORALS 
 
 Moral 
 conduct a 
 social 
 matter 
 
 Sociology 
 
 Social 
 traces in 
 fossil life 
 
 moral conduct. It therefore follows that the science 
 which deals with right and wrong conduct is essen- 
 tially one of the sciences of society. It assumes and 
 is dependent upon that aggregation of men and 
 women, leading a common existence, and depending 
 to a greater or less degree upon each other for the 
 amenities of life, which we are in the habit of calling 
 a community, people or society. 
 
 Society being the fabric upon which is traced the 
 embroidery of moral conduct, it will be necessary 
 briefly to inquire into Its raw material and texture as 
 shown by the researches of the biological and anthro- 
 pological sciences. 
 
 Looking backward by the aid of these departments 
 of knowledge to the earliest known manifestations 
 of the existence of man, we can find no conditions 
 under which even the most primitive of mankind are 
 devoid of some form of association. Paleontology 
 even teaches us through fossils preserved in early 
 geological strata that the roots of social life are to 
 be found in the most primeval animal history. In the 
 Paleozoic Age the compound nature of many poly- 
 zoan fossils points clearly to the existence of societies 
 in lower forms of life, whose individual members 
 were dependent upon each other and upon the entire 
 group or colony for food, propagation and protec- 
 tion from the enemies that might otherwise have 
 destroyed them. 
 
 What little we know of the habits of living animals 
 confirms the same general principle of a rudimentary 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 9 
 
 social or collective activity which permeates and Social traits 
 pervades almost the entire range of animal existence, of the lower 
 Many Polyzoa, like corals and sponges, cannot exist animals 
 independently of others of their kind. Insects, like 
 ants and bees, dwell together in orderly swarms. 
 Fishes are found together in schools or shoals. Of the 
 Birds consort in broods, coveys and flocks. Among higher 
 the higher mammals, flocks, herds and droves of animals 
 wild sheep, deer and cattle show a like social organi- 
 zation ; a tendency which seems to weaken only in the 
 case of a few carnivora and birds of prey, and even 
 with these there is never less than a pair. 
 
 What are the causes that underlie this tendency to Causes of 
 animal association? In the lower forms, scantily animal 
 provided with motive capacity, it would seem to society 
 arise from a need of greater self-protection than an 
 individual can furnish — a co-operation, so to speak, 
 in building a barrier, such as a shell, against the 
 assaults of more alert and food-seeking enemies ; and 
 this structure by reason of its weight assists in 
 the capture of sea-borne food which floats more 
 rapidly in the current than do the heavy protective 
 tissues which the colony secretes. It is quite appar- 
 ent that an individual escaping from such a colony 
 would have a comparatively slight chance of survival 
 wherever foes were plentiful and food scarce. In the 
 higher animals a flock or herd will better escape 
 beasts of prey by the warning or even by the sacrifice 
 of one of its outlying sentinels; and the group sur- 
 vives where stragglers perish. A group, too, gives 
 
10 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Causes of 
 
 human 
 
 society 
 
 Hunger 
 Love 
 Vanity 
 Fear 
 
 greater opportunities for sexual commerce and for 
 the protection of the young, so that it can reproduce 
 a larger number of its kind, in whom a habit of asso- 
 ciation, become instinctive, will strengthen with each 
 successive generation. 
 
 Society, as Sumner points out in his Folkways, is 
 the result of an effort to satisfy interests growing out 
 of four motive forces common to all mankind, tersely 
 stated as Hunger, Love, Vanity and Fear.^ These 
 may be called the primitive motives, because even 
 across the vague boundaries which part humankind 
 from animalkind we find them efficient causes of 
 social formation, in which the brutes participate as 
 well as our goodselves. Hunger, the need of sus- 
 tenance; love, the need of reproduction; are blotic 
 motives common in some form to all life, be it 
 vegetal or animal. But only beings possessing a 
 centralized ganglionic nervous organization are sus- 
 ceptible to the motives of fear and vanity, important, 
 as we shall see, to survival in the more complex 
 environment of all higher types of organisms. 
 No being without some form of mental devel- 
 opment can experience them, and therefore they may 
 be called psychic motives. For centuries they have 
 been recognized in literature and language as per- 
 
 2 It is quite possible that this, as a classification of motives, is 
 by no means exhaustive, for all of the instincts seem to be more 
 or less involved in the production of folkways. On the other hand 
 it is the essential part of a fundamentally true picture, and by its 
 vividness will be the more easily recalled to the student's mind. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 11 
 
 taining to the brutes as well as to ourselves. Has 
 not the peacock always been the symbol of vanity, 
 and "chicken-hearted" or "pigeon-hearted" a type 
 of timidity when applied to man?' 
 
 After the recognition of the germ of society Sub-human 
 throughout the animate life of the ages, however origin of 
 remote, it is easy to surmise that in the most primi- Society 
 tive form of human living some kind of social 
 structure will be found. And so, as a matter of fact, 
 except as a sport, or abnormal exception, the isolated 
 individual man does not exist ; and incapable of self- 
 propagation, his type cannot survive. Go back as 
 far as we can in anthropological research we can find 
 no time nor place in which mankind was not organ- 
 ized in groups. It seems reasonable that the funda- 
 mental group is the family, consisting of parents and 
 their children during their period of helplessness.* 
 To borrow an illustration from chemistry, the family The 
 may be looked upon as the sociological atom, the Family a 
 hypothetically indivisible group recognized by the sociological 
 science of mankind. ^*''™ 
 
 But this family group, the social atom, is itself 
 
 3 It is true that Sumner attempts to restrict his definition of fear 
 to that inspired by ghosts and spirits — too narrow, I believe, for 
 that fear of consequences inspired by a living enemy or by social 
 punishment, of which animal instinct as well as human intelligence 
 affords so many illustrations. 
 
 * Mindful of the fact that the family is not necessarily monog- 
 amous nor even monandrous, and that pre-marital promiscuity is 
 known to exist along with a subsequent fixed ideal of marital fidel- 
 ity, I think there is ground to agree with Westermarck's conclusion 
 as to the non-survival of the horde or herd group in human society. 
 
12 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 only exceptionally capable of independent or isolated 
 existence ; and like the physical or chemical atom can 
 effectively persist only in combination with other 
 similar atoms, forming a larger social group, just as 
 groups of atoms form the larger chemical molecule. 
 The earliest form of a larger social group of which 
 we have positive knowledge is composed of two or 
 more related families, and may be thought of as the 
 sociological molecule, the smallest portion that is 
 capable of prolonged or permanent separate exist- 
 ence. In the formation of such social groups 
 anthropology shows that everywhere and always a 
 common line of evolution has been followed; that 
 The Clan the clan, or kinship group, composed of a number 
 or Kinship of families and founded upon some fact or theory of 
 Group blood relationship, is the original form of molecule 
 
 into which all primitive races have first compounded 
 themselves for political or social purposes. Uni- 
 versally, therefore, the original coherent force that 
 held together a combination of similar family atoms 
 A in the larger molecule of the clan was the sentiment 
 
 sociological of descent from a common ancestor, 
 molecule An interesting expression of this sentiment is 
 
 found in the words which are used in the languages 
 of nations far beyond the stage where the former 
 existence of clan groups is even remembered. And 
 so each citizen of Rome called his country Patria — 
 fatherland — long after the feeling of descent from 
 a common ancestor which had held together the clan 
 of Romulus and Remus on the seven hills had passed 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 13 
 
 from the realm of fact to that of fancy. To this 
 day a relic of common descent can be seen In the 
 Scottish clan surnames, whose prefix Mac is the 
 Gaelic word for son. There are numerous instances 
 where words indicative of common ancestry have 
 survived the extinction of the clan through its absorp- 
 tion into a greater group. And pioneer colonists, 
 settled in isolation under primitive conditions, often 
 revert in their group structure to clan formations — 
 a process not uncommon in the mountains of our 
 Middle South. 
 
 In its general formation a primitive clan group 
 follows out with great similarity the group method 
 of anthozoans and other polyzoans. Each human 
 family, like each sponge or coral insect, is similarly 
 constituted, and in either case the molecule is com- 
 posed of aggregations of equal or similar atoms, be 
 they families or insects. Human families under 
 these conditions are no more self-sufficing and inde- 
 pendent than those of their insect analogues, and 
 when several families are brought together into one Clan 
 community, they find it easier to protect themselves conditions 
 against the aggressions of men or of wild beasts; to satisfy 
 mate without incest or inbreeding, and to co-operate '^^^'^ 
 in the pursuit of game, in the management of flocks ^°^^ 
 
 or in averaging the risks of tillage. Combined ^, . 
 
 r 1 <r • r Vanity 
 
 recognition or personal erhciency, or group prowess, 
 
 fostering family and clan pride — both gaining added 
 
 force from the reaction of one mind upon another — 
 
 satisfies better in clanship the interests flowing out 
 
14 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Clan 
 
 formation 
 subcon- 
 scious 
 
 of self-esteem. And so all of the primitive interests 
 are better satisfied by the social grouping of the clan, 
 and fit it better to survive in the struggle for existence 
 in proportion to its strength and efficiency. Although 
 it is unconsciously brought together by common 
 parentage, common breeding and common pursuits, 
 it is none the less man's first object lesson in the 
 economic advantages of combination. Being a 
 simple aggregation of similar parts, It tends toward 
 democratic equality and decentralized authority, its 
 territory is conditioned by the boundaries drawn 
 about by human enemies, by wild beasts and reptiles, 
 by rivers, mountains, deserts or swamps. It must 
 be compact; for kin-feeling is killed by severance; 
 and Its size Is limited by its available food supply. 
 
 The competition between clan groups for food in 
 seasons of scarcity, and the aggressions incident to 
 the capture of women, lead to reprisals, aggres- 
 sions and rivalry, which excite the primary instincts 
 of pugnacity and self-assertion and result In wars 
 between the groups. The stronger clans will best 
 survive such conflicts, and the fear which their 
 prowess excites eventually leads to a conscious com- 
 bination or consolidation of weaker ones for self- 
 defense. And thus two or more clans are welded in 
 the greater group of a tribe, held together by effi- 
 ciency in war. In terms of chemistry the tribe there- 
 fore may be compared to a compound of molecules 
 whose Ingredients are kinship groups, each of which 
 has been moulded by its own set of physical and 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 15 
 
 social environments. Each clan therefore associated 
 itself in the tribe with other clans of dissimilar occu- 
 pations and habits, and the process developed a 
 testimony of experience that such differences are not 
 incompatible with social union. The first step toward 
 civilization, which is a condition directly propor- 
 tioned to the development of differences of industrial 
 function between the members of a group, has been 
 taken. As it grows, the greater economic efficiency 
 of a division of labor encourages within the tribal 
 structure a variety of industrial groups : of its clans, 
 each still bound by the kinship tie, one will be 
 armorers or arrowsmiths ; another, farmers produc- Division of 
 ing food; a third, shepherds raising mutton and industry- 
 wool; others, perhaps, workers in stone for shelter; 
 in iron for tools ; or in silver for adornment. In the 
 tribal organization the most important group is 
 naturally that which cares for its defense against 
 enemies, which centers about a chief or war leader, 
 and in case of need draws upon the other groups for 
 reinforcement. The great need of the tribal organi- 
 zation for efficiency In war gives predominance and 
 leadership to the war group, which acquires privi- 
 leges as rewards for its service; and the prevalence 
 of war in primitive society soon makes of it a ruling 
 class. The persistent kinship ideals form from the Rise of a 
 war group an hereditary nobility, proud and tena- Nobility 
 cious of their privileges, which are now ascribed to 
 blood; and so these privileges are only accessible to 
 other persons after formal adoption, through such 
 
16 TRADE MORALS 
 
 ceremonies as those of knighthood or investiture. In 
 the tribe the pressure of outside hostility and the 
 need of effective resistance give great cohesiveness to 
 the molecules out of which it is formed; they must 
 hang together or be overcome by their neighbors. 
 
 We have now passed in rapid survey the growing 
 applications of the doctrine of evolution ; as first, an 
 explanation of variation in living beings ; next, of the 
 origin of physical elements ; and, last, of change and 
 growth in man's mental and emotional structure. 
 Ethics, whose subject-matter is right and wrong con- 
 duct, is conditioned by the existence of man, a mental 
 and emotional being, in contact with his fellows ; it is, 
 therefore, a social science. And so to understand 
 the structure which it adorns we have sketched 
 society from its sub-human origins to man, and have 
 seen that among men the group everywhere prevails, 
 progressing from simpler to more complex phases 
 through the family or social atom, the clan or social 
 molecule, to the social compound of the tribe, and in 
 all of these we can perceive a constant sequence of 
 change and growth. It will next be necessary to 
 examine the development of these groups into a yet 
 more complex form — the nation. 
 
II 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 
 
 Following society through its primitive phases of 
 change and growth we have found that from the 
 beginning mankind has been associated into groups ; 
 first in the family, a group of persons; next in the 
 clan, a group of families ; and thirdly in the tribe, a 
 group of clans. So that we might better understand 
 the relations between the types we have apphed to 
 them the physical and chemical similitude of the 
 atom, the molecule and the compound, to which, 
 roughly, they have a structural resemblance. 
 
 Since from now on we shall be dealing with typical 
 groups of ever increasing complexity, it will be con- 
 venient to express by a single word the prevailing 
 type of greatest group ; and this I propose to do by 
 the term folkgroup, so as to designate that largest The Folk- 
 number of men who at any given time feel that they group 
 are held together for the satisfaction of their 
 common interest. In this sense clans and tribes may 
 be folkgroups, as is also that still larger and more 
 complex social type, the Nation. Subordinate 
 groups can then be readily distinguished from the 
 folkgroup; either collectively, as subgroups, or by 
 prefixes indicative of their origin or function; and 
 without much circumlocution or any confusion. 
 
 As we have seen, the typical influence making for 
 
18 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Coales- 
 cence of 
 tribal into 
 national 
 groups 
 
 Effect on 
 transporta- 
 tion 
 
 the consolidation of clans into a tribe was their need 
 for greater efficiency in war. But in that phase of 
 social development when the tribe had become the 
 prevailing form of folkgroup, the constantly grow- 
 ing competition and pressure exerted by other hostile 
 or rival tribes furnished further coherent forces, 
 finally determining the coalescence of a number of 
 tribal groups into the still greater and more complex 
 aggregation of a nation; whose territory is generally 
 determined by natural boundaries ; great rivers, seas 
 or mountain ranges, forming of themselves barriers 
 and bulwarks, easily defended and difficult of pas- 
 sage to a hostile force. While in the single-com- 
 munity type of clan life the need of transportation 
 was at a minimum, a tribe is obliged to live dis- 
 persedly, and for the concentration of its defensive 
 forces its communities must be connected by paths or 
 primitive roads, and the deeper streams spanned by 
 temporary bridges. The nation is in need of the 
 rapid concentration of defensive forces over a much 
 greater territory; its ruler's power is dependent upon 
 his frequent contact and that of his lieutenants with 
 his subjects; added to this, the increasing differentia- 
 tion of industrial employment calls for better roads 
 for Its constant interchange of specialized products 
 between the more separated subgroups. So that 
 while tribal conflicts tend to keep roads narrow, 
 steep and bad lest approach should be too easy, cen- 
 tralized authority combines with industrial specializa- 
 tion to demand the substitution of wagon roads for 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 19 
 
 horse trails, and permanent stone instead of easily 
 destroyed wooden bridges, within the national 
 domain. 
 
 Because of its size and its ability to segregate a 
 professional soldiery, the nation folkgroup is bound Soldiery 
 together by less imperative ties of self-defense than 
 is the tribe ; the need and occasion of aggression are 
 lessened and the kinship ideals survive only as a 
 vague tie which is spoken of as race. Progressive 
 division of labor brings into existence and promotes Industry 
 the multiplication of subgroups unaccustomed to 
 warlike exercises and engaged in occupations requir- 
 ing internal order for their successful prosecution. 
 The chieftain, controlling an armed force which may 
 as well be used to suppress civil discord as to repel 
 invasion, becomes a king, upon whose functions as The King 
 a war lord is grafted the duty of enforcing an inter- 
 tribal peace within his boundaries. And so the grow- 
 ing need for peace takes its place alongside of the 
 waning necessities for self-defense in cementing the 
 tribes Into a nation, and finally supplants them. 
 
 While a tribe is a folkgroup composed of clan Structural 
 molecules or kinship groups each of which is some- contrast 
 what different from the other, yet its basic family between 
 atoms, the product of a fairly uniform environment, '"'^^* ^'^^ 
 are typically similar or homologous. But a nation "^.tions 
 composed of a number of tribes forced Into com- 
 pound social consolidation by the industrial neces- 
 sities of Intertribal peace and order. Is sure to find 
 within its broader domain subgroups both of the clan 
 
20 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Reactions 
 of peace 
 conditions 
 upon 
 industry 
 
 and family type, developed some in one direction, 
 some in another, by dissimilar climatic and physio- 
 graphic conditions ; so that the basic elements of the 
 nation folkgroup are typically diverse rather than 
 similar. Nations are, therefore, a much more com- 
 plex type of social compound than tribes. To con- 
 tinue our chemical comparison, we may perhaps say 
 that the nation typifies a complex organic compound, 
 while the tribe may be considered as its inorganic 
 analogue; industry standing in the social compound 
 for the carbon whose presence in an organic com- 
 pound is the distinguishing characteristic of its type. 
 Internal peace conditions, once established in the 
 nation by the suppression of intertribal conflict, 
 react upon industry and give new impetus to its exten- 
 sion. Industry, fostered by internal order, accumu- 
 lates wealth, and this reacts upon industry itself 
 through the growth of luxury, — new wants demand 
 new products to gratify desires for greater comfort 
 in living, for the adornment of the person, — wants 
 which are the logical extension of the primitive 
 motives of hunger and love. Fear of other nations 
 creates a demand for armaments, and fear in its 
 expression toward the Unseen builds and decorates 
 cathedrals, churches and cloisters. Thus, increasing 
 complexity of demand for commodities, finding its 
 origin in the four great basic motives of Hunger, 
 Love, Vanity and Fear, tends toward the evolution 
 of more highly specialized industrial subgroups 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 21 
 
 forming themselves out of the existing kinship 
 subgroups. At first it appears that the coherence of 
 each industrial subgroup is maintained through the 
 kinship tie, and the workers of an industry may be 
 drawn only from a clan or caste. But the kinship Clan 
 tie gradually weakens as the economic tie, the cohe- groups in 
 rent force of a group of workers in a common indus- industry 
 try, increases, and so the industrial groups tend to 
 grow rapidly and outside of kinship lines in direct 
 ratio to the increase of facilities for intercommunica- 
 tion. Industrial wealth vies with war leadership in 
 indulging the increasing sense of personal distinc- 
 tion — the outgrowth of vanity, following the 
 example progressively set by the tribal chieftains, 
 lords, barons, earls, counts, marquises, dukes and 
 princes. By degrees wealthy industrial leaders 
 acquire a part of the political power formerly pos- 
 sessed by the war lords and eventually the nobility 
 are ousted from the control of the State. 
 
 The atoms composing industrial subgroups finally 
 forget their kinship ideals and associate with other 
 subgroups, either along sentimental or political lines, 
 or in accordance with industrial changes brought 
 about by progress in the sciences or the arts. The 
 head of a family may thus be a member of several 
 subgroups. For Instance, under present-day condi- 
 tions, in addition to his trade group a plasterer may 
 be a Republican in politics and a Presbyterian in 
 religion; other plasterers may be Socialists or Free- 
 thinkers, and other Republicans may be stock- 
 
22 TRADE MORALS 
 
 brokers or Roman Catholics. In the more stable 
 inorganic stage of simple social combinations like 
 that of the tribe it would not be deemed possible for 
 these atoms ever to forget their allegiance to their 
 clan, to be disloyal to their chief or impious to their 
 Decay of God. But in the modern state the ancient kinship ties 
 the kinship have lost their power, and men who have mentally 
 group or economically outgrown the conditions of the sub- 
 
 group to which they have been born or educated, are 
 continually breaking through its boundaries and join- 
 ing industrial or intellectual classes other than those 
 with which they were formerly affiliated. 
 
 The more highly organized social compounds are, 
 therefore, like their chemical analogues, unstable In 
 association; their subgroups, no longer compact but 
 diffused over a large extent of territory, interpene- 
 trate each other. The social atoms may be com- 
 pelled by social or economic pressure to break away 
 from one or more of their subgroups and recomblne 
 with others. Our Presbyterian-Republlcan-plasterer 
 may be compelled to become a farmer or a motor- 
 man by an oversupply of labor In the building trades ; 
 he may join the Democrats in opposing a protective 
 tariff; and he may become a convert to Christian 
 Science. 
 
 The sentiment of common descent, which cements 
 atomic family groups into molecular kinship groups 
 In primitive society, weakens with the decay of the 
 clan. With the substitution of economic for kinship 
 ties In the subgroups of which national folkgroups 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 23 
 
 are compounded there is a tendency, illustrated by 
 the lengthening of the celibate period, and by the 
 increase of divorce, for the atoms themselves to dis- 
 integrate. The growth of individualism, one of Individual- 
 whose manifestations is the spread of liberty in ism 
 modern times, may be looked upon as an expression 
 of the universal centrifugal or radiant forces of 
 Nature, and while deplored by many as a menace to 
 social well-being is nevertheless always to be 
 reckoned with. It will be noticed in all of the cog- 
 nate relations of conduct, both moral and industrial, 
 in the later chapters of this essay. 
 
 Society in its evolution, therefore, progresses with 
 its family atoms through the various molecular and 
 compound folkgroup-structures of the clan, the tribe 
 and the nation from savagery to civilization. These 
 changes of structure are caused by the efforts of the 
 folkgroup to protect itself from the forces of famine, 
 war and industrial rivalry by which Its integrity is 
 continually threatened. As the folkgroup reaches 
 its higher stages of development the first two of these Forces of 
 forces are diminishing, while the latter is increasing social 
 in power. The rise of subgroups of the Industrial evolution 
 type and their gradual substitution for those of the 
 kinship type are, therefore, leading characteristics 
 of civilization. 
 
 But modern society is more than an aggregation of 
 groups held together by definite attractive forces; 
 they and it are bound together In a net of inter- 
 dependent relationships which suggest an organism. 
 
24 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Affinities of 
 Biological 
 and Social 
 structure 
 
 It is true that biological as well as physical or 
 chemical analogies help us better to understand the 
 interrelations of the subgroups in which men and 
 women are always joined together, as well as their 
 relations to the more highly organized social struc- 
 tures of the folkgroups of which they are a part; and 
 that the lessons of anatomy and physiology are help- 
 ful in interpreting the sequential order and laws of 
 growth, which are disclosed by the Science of Society. 
 Note, for example, the similarity of the sociological 
 family to the cell which is the unit of biological 
 structure. Each has functions of assimilation, 
 growth and reproduction. It is in the type of 
 grouping in either instance that its phase of progress 
 is expressed; and from such group types, become 
 subgroups, are constructed compound groups or 
 organisms by which functions other than those pos- 
 sible to its units are successfully assumed, and 
 obstacles surmounted by which the unit would have 
 been impounded. Clans have their analogues in the 
 simpler multicellular animal organisms composed of 
 cells almost alike, subsisting on the food in their 
 immediate neighborhood. In either instance any of 
 the units may be indifferently replaced so far as its 
 function goes by any other unit of the community. 
 And so, through the slowly growing complexity of 
 the invertebrates, or of the tribal system in which, 
 through the segregation of subgroups of cells, or 
 subgroups of families, as the case may be, simple 
 organs are by degrees formed for the performance 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 25 
 
 of special functions. Arrangements for self-defense Evolution 
 and for organized pursuit of food are in either case of 
 characteristic acquisitions of this period. And, functional 
 finally, in the more highly developed national groups o^'gan'^a- 
 and vertebrate animals we find that organization of '■'°" 
 highly specialized and dissimilar subgroups, each 
 composed of relatively similar cells or families, all 
 of which are interconnected, and dependent upon 
 each other as well as on the whole. 
 
 For in society, as in the living body, differentiation 
 and division of labor are the results of progressive 
 evolution. As the division of labor becomes more Division of 
 complete, family atoms combined into specialized labor 
 industrial subgroups lose by degrees their relative 
 capacity for existence independent of the folkgroup. 
 Industrial subgroups in our cities are so dependent 
 upon the transportation subgroup, for example, that 
 a famine would result if railway connections were 
 cut off for a week. They are so dependent upon the 
 water supply subgroup that they would be obliged to 
 emigrate in two days if their facilities in this direc- 
 tion were cut off. In severe weather many habita- 
 tions would be wrecked if the plumber subgroup Organic 
 were to go on strike. Some foreign cities have had nature of 
 experience of the inconvenience, if not of the distress, industrial 
 caused by a refusal of the baking subgroup to per- groups 
 form its functions. And what disorder and destruc- 
 tion have always followed any interruption in the 
 service of the police, such as is produced by an earth- 
 quake or other overwhelming catastrophe. Like the 
 
26 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Depend- 
 ency on 
 Institutional 
 organiza- 
 tion 
 
 Functional 
 diseases of 
 the social 
 organism 
 
 animal body the nation is a union of parts, special- 
 ized and dissimilar in function, each composed of 
 relatively similar elements interconnected and de- 
 pendent upon each other and upon the whole. The 
 subgroups within the national folkgroup grow to be 
 dependent upon other groups constituted by its 
 governing authorities to perform certain functions 
 essential to its Integrity, such as armies, navies, 
 courts of law, post offices and the like. Economic 
 subgroups, banks, exchanges, merchants, etc., are so 
 necessary that city subgroups would suffer hardship 
 and loss, and perhaps be obliged to disintegrate, If 
 the prompt exchange of products, which they effect, 
 were seriously impeded. 
 
 This Interdependence of subgroups upon other 
 subgroups and of all on the folkgroup has a close 
 likeness to the Interdependence of functional organs 
 In the human body, in that their uninterrupted opera- 
 tion, like that of the heart, the brain or the stomach 
 in the body. Is essential to the existence of the 
 prevailing type of folkgroup, and without them 
 civilization would speedily retrograde. Between all 
 of the subgroups there is constant action and Inter- 
 action, and a disruptive force applied to one of 
 them, as to the motormen, or the butchers, or the 
 firemen, will affect all of the others In the same way 
 that a piece of Infected food taken into the human 
 stomach will set up a typhoid, a dysentery or a 
 ptomaine poisoning, which may easily overwork the 
 secretions, paralyze the motor centers, irritate the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 27 
 
 heart, accelerate the respiration and possibly end in 
 complete collapse. And so, like those of the body, 
 social diseases originating in one subgroup affect the 
 entire social constitution, giving pathological as well 
 as physical symptoms to enrich the analogies by 
 which the origin and function of the social bodies 
 may be better understood. Is there a reality behind 
 these analogies ? Is society, or are societies, struc- Is there 
 turally as well as comparatively organic? It may identity in 
 well be that some higher conception will eventually be these 
 formed that may stand to the organic world in the analogies, 
 same relation that the organic stands to the physical 
 and that through such a superorganic conception we 
 shall more completely understand the social. Or 
 we may find that after all the folkgroup is only a big 
 animal, a leviathan,^ to whose body we can apply the 
 laws of biological formation and growth. Our pres- 
 ent imperfect knowledge need make no answer to 
 these important questions, which may well be 
 referred to our successors for determination. 
 
 The process by which the more complex folk- The Social 
 groups are evolved from the simpler compounds of process 
 the clan is by almost imperceptible change, continu- 
 ally adjusting them with slight changes in their en- 
 vironment. Folkgroup environment is duplex; it 
 consists first of out-conditions; climatic and physio- 
 graphic, floral, faunal and heterethnic ;^ and second, 
 
 1 Hobbes (1651) "the multitude so united in one person * * * * 
 called a commonwealth." 
 
 2 That is, of outgroups of people. 
 
28 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Folkgroup 
 types or 
 social 
 phases 
 
 The Clan 
 a kinship 
 group 
 
 of the reactions of in-conditions or folk, forces; I.e., 
 those within the folkgroup which manifest them- 
 selves In habits, usages and customs; and adjust the 
 way of life of the folk to emotional, political or eco- 
 nomical conditions, which have been formed among 
 the subgroups as reactions from the out-conditions 
 which form their direct environment. Of these latter 
 forces we shall hear further in succeeding lectures. 
 In our sketch of the method and content of social 
 evolution we have now seen that from the family, 
 the unit group of all social combinations, held 
 together by the instinct of reproduction, have suc- 
 cessively arisen three fairly distinct phases or types 
 of compound societies which we have chosen to call 
 folkgroups, each of which has at a given time and 
 place been the prevailing type of human associa- 
 tion. Each phase is broadly characterized by the 
 predominance of a distinctive arrangement, into 
 which Its families are cast, and by the predomi- 
 nance in each of a certain coherent force, by 
 which the type is distinguished. Earliest in the 
 sequence of folkgroups is the clan; which in struc- 
 ture is, like the chemical molecule, an assemblage of 
 similar atoms ; or like many multicellular protozoans, 
 parazoans or enterocoelans, a colony of undifferen- 
 tiated unicellular units. The coherent force by which 
 It Is held together is the next strongest to that of 
 reproduction — the sentiment of common descent. 
 The clan folkgroup is stable, enduring, difficult of 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 29 
 
 decomposition, slow to enter into combination with The Tribe 
 other molecules; conservatism personified. a war 
 
 In the second social phase the clans have become group 
 subgroups of a more complex folkgroup, the tribe; 
 and thereby men of one kin have been brought into 
 friendly social relations with men of other kin. 
 From the biological standpoint, the tribe may com- 
 pare with many of the forms of multicellular 
 organisms between the coelenterates and vetebrates, 
 and especially with those whose similar segments, 
 distinguished by rudimentary functional differences, 
 are arranged bilaterally, longitudinally or radiately 
 with reference to a common axis or center. In 
 structure, tribes are more diverse in type and in 
 differentiation of function than the folkgroups below 
 them, being nature's experiments^ on the way to the 
 evolution of the family unit into a nation. In the 
 tribe diverse social molecules are combined into a 
 social compound, just as the elements in their molecu- 
 lar proportions go together to make a chemical 
 compound. 
 
 The tribe is a folkgroup uniting previously exist- Efficiency 
 ing folkgroups for common defense and aggression in war its 
 against other folkgroups. Efficiency in war seems coherent 
 to be the coherent force that compels this combina- ^°'^^^ 
 tion and holds it in durable compacts; and yet their 
 units at first recognize a higher loyalty to kin than to 
 their fellow tribesmen and the tribal compound is less 
 
 3 This has an anthropomorphic ring which I did not intend ; but 
 as it is a fairly good simile I will let it stand. 
 
30 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The 
 
 Nation a 
 
 peace 
 
 group 
 
 Character- 
 ized by 
 Trade 
 
 stable than the clan molecule — ^just as inorganic 
 compounds are less stable than the molecular bases 
 and acids of which they are composed. 
 
 In the third social phase the necessities of peace 
 predominate. Industrial efficiency takes the place 
 of war as the agent determining the coherence and 
 combinations of atoms into molecular groups. 
 Friendly feeling is protracted beyond the limits of 
 kinship groups to much larger, much more complex 
 combinations of dissimilar social molecules, which, 
 owing to the comparative ease with which they may 
 be decomposed and recombined, present many of the 
 characteristics of the organic chemical compound. 
 Trade is the carbon which differentiates the organic 
 national from the inorganic kinship folkgroup. The 
 nation is a great folkgroup pacifying and amalga- 
 mating the lesser kinship war groups of preceding 
 periods, whose adverse interests had formerly made 
 them antagonistic one to the other. In the nation 
 the clan dissolves, and the atoms recombine into 
 other molecular groups of an industrial type in 
 which the coherent force of a common economic 
 interest takes the place of interest in a common 
 ancestor. 
 
 Biologically, the nation is like an organism of the 
 vertebrate type in that each of its constituent indus- 
 trial subgroups performs a specialized function, and 
 is interdependent upon other subgroups, with which 
 it is compounded. In it the family or social unit 
 cell may be and generally is affiliated with sev- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 31 
 
 eral subgroups, reacting to their influence alternately 
 with continually lessened resistance to changes, 
 whether these arise within or without the subgroups. 
 While a folkgroup of the lower order and organiza- 
 tion, like the clan, well resists many disruptive influ- 
 ences and is static rather than progressive, the nation 
 folkgroups are dynamic and progressive in direct 
 ratio to the complexity of their structure. Modern 
 nations are, therefore, in a state of continual flux and 
 change, and in progress along evolutionary lines at a 
 rate directly proportioned to the product of their 
 subgroup complexity with the rapidity of environ- 
 mental change. 
 
 We have now learned: 
 
 I. That Ethics is the science of right and wrong 
 human conduct as manifested toward others. 
 
 II. That conduct toward others exists only in 
 a society, whose roots and first development are 
 found in zoological groups antedating the evolution 
 of man. 
 
 III. That men in Society are drawn together in 
 groups; that of these a Folkgroup is the largest 
 which at any given time or place is united by a senti- 
 ment of common interest, and whether Clan, Tribe 
 or Nation, is evolved and survives because of its 
 efficiency at that time in promoting the common 
 interest; eventually giving way to a more efficient 
 type. 
 
 IV. That in evolution the Folkgroup progresses 
 toward a more complex type; composed of sub- 
 
32 TRADE MORALS 
 
 groups growing constantly more interdependent, and 
 more dependent upon tlie Folkgroup. 
 
 V. Society in all its phases is in motion rather 
 than standing still; its line of progress being deter- 
 mined by the resultant obtained from the interaction 
 of a constantly changing outer environment and of 
 the folk forces within the group. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 
 
 In the evolution of society, which is always Review of 
 organized into groups, there is a constant change and Social 
 growth in their structure in the course of evolution Evolution 
 from savagery to civilization. 
 
 The fundamental, theoretically indivisible, group 
 is the family, held together by the reproductive and 
 parental instincts. 
 
 Through the feeling of descent from a common 
 ancestor, out of a number of families Is compounded 
 the clan, a folkgroup bound together by kinship ties. 
 
 Heterethnic aggression compels a number of 
 clans to consolidate into the folkgroup of a tribe for 
 self-defense and self-assertion. Efficiency in war is 
 the tribal bond. Some of its clans may begin to 
 perform industrial functions. 
 
 Nations are folkgroups which are compounds of 
 clans and tribes after industrial development has so 
 far progressed as to make clear the need for a wider 
 internal peace. Efficiency in peace is the national 
 bond. 
 
 There is a general similitude between the physical 
 constitution of matter and the constitution of social 
 groups ; families being akin to atoms, clans to mole- 
 
34 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Behavior, a 
 type of sub- 
 conscious 
 action 
 
 Tropisms 
 
 cules, tribes to inorganic compounds, and nations, 
 more feebly coherent, to the organic compounds of 
 chemistry. And biologically there is a similar 
 resemblance between families and cells, clans and 
 simple multicellular organisms, tribes and the lower 
 forms of animal life, nations and the vertebrates. 
 
 Physiological and psychological studies show us 
 that some modes of common human activity are not 
 conduct, because they are either involuntary or else 
 not consciously adapted to ends. Uniform behavior 
 they are, however, and therefore may be classified. 
 
 In the first of these modes, human action is the 
 direct outcome of physical and chemical activity, the 
 efi^ect of which upon the body is the same that it 
 would have upon any other mass of matter of a 
 similar physical or chemical constitution. Tropisms, 
 as they are termed by biologists, the simplest and 
 most primitive of all modes of action, are the 
 direct reactions of organisms to their environment. 
 They characterize all life, and are the typical be- 
 havior modes of its lowest order. In them are 
 included internal bodily processes such as digestion 
 or secretion, in so far as they are the result of chemi- 
 cal reactions ; and also the acts directly occasioned by 
 the physical forces of nature, such as gravity, heat, 
 light, electricity, and the movement of wind and 
 water. Normally we are unconscious of these re- 
 actions, whose incidence extends over all material 
 objects, inanimate or animate. This lowest mode 
 of behavior is typical of the pre-gangllonic orders of 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 35 
 
 nervous life ; the subkingdoms below the arthropods, 
 and is the foundation upon which all higher modes 
 of activity are built. 
 
 A second mode is that shown in the nervous 
 reflexes; involuntary acts common to the post-gan- 
 glionic orders of animate nature, and in man pro- 
 duced by any irritation or excitation, through the 
 afferent nerves, of the ganglia or nervous centers of Reflexes 
 the body. The modes of nervous action, taken 
 together with tropisms, enable us to complete the 
 functions of secretion and digestion; excite sneezing 
 when an irritating substance has been inbreathed, or 
 winking when our eye is threatened with a blow, or 
 weeping when an insect blows into it. In all of the 
 reflex acts there is a reaction between matter and 
 nervous constitution. To carry out our system of 
 classification we might say that our reflex actions are 
 tropisms co-ordinated by the ganglionic centers. 
 Reflex modes of action are common to all animal life 
 except the lower orders of invertebrates, are uniform 
 in any given race or breed; they are unconsidered, 
 unconsciously performed, although we may subse- 
 quently be aware of their effects. 
 
 The third mode of uniform behavior is the result 
 of instinct, a higher grade of activity than that of 
 reflexes, and, common to all the higher animals, is Instincts 
 especially noticeable in those whose nervous ganglia 
 have become co-ordinated through the development 
 of one chief ganglion into a brain. Instinct appears 
 to be a form of impulse derived from the primordial 
 
36 TRADE MORALS 
 
 tissues of experience of the race ; a composite picture 
 of what behavior has resulted in its well-being and 
 preservation and therefore has been so impressed 
 upon Its nervous system as to be transmitted with it 
 by inheritance from one generation to another. The 
 emotions aroused by the Instincts of animals are 
 expressed therefore by automatic actions, as, for 
 Instance, In dogs by wagging the tail, by growling, 
 by howling and by fawning. They turn about before 
 lying down to sleep, they bury a surplus of their food 
 supply, they carry their puppies by the scruff of the 
 neck. The cause of animal instinct is the pressure of 
 natural environment, the habitual modes of action 
 being those that have better fitted their original 
 possessors to survive and propagate; while those In 
 whom they are wanting have more easily succumbed 
 to their enemies or to other adverse forces. They 
 can neither be eradicated from the mental constltu- 
 Instincts in tlon, of which they are innate elements, nor acquired 
 Man by individuals in the course of their lifetimes. A 
 
 number of instincts persist through the range of the 
 upper mammals and form the foundation, as it were, 
 of a superstructure of conscious conduct which is 
 built upon them by man. Such are those known to 
 psychologists as the primary Instincts of flight, repul- 
 sion, curiosity, pugnacity, self-abasement and self- 
 assertion, reproduction, acquisition, construction 
 and the parental and gregarious instincts, all of 
 which are the birthrights of our race by virtue of 
 its descent from the beasts. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 37 
 
 There are, therefore, three distinct modes of 
 uniform action or behavior which mankind shares 
 with all life below; tropisms, the direct reactions Natureways 
 of the organisms to external forces, typical of the 
 lower invertebrates; reflexes, the responses of the 
 subconscious nervous system to the stimulus of such 
 reactions, typical of the higher invertebrates; and 
 instinctive, the co-ordination of reflexes by the brain, 
 typical of the vertebrates. The distinguishing fea- 
 ture of all of the acts so directed is that In them the 
 actor Is unconscious of the purpose of his act — he is 
 behaving involuntarily and naturally. And for the 
 purpose of keeping these three behavior phases 
 distinct from a higher series I propose to call them 
 Natureways. 
 
 Anthropological research has demonstrated a 
 similar evolution of uniform modes of conduct, by 
 which life in any given social group is regulated 
 through the manners, customs, usages, habits or laws Conduct, 
 prevalent therein. an acquired 
 
 A consideration of human conduct makes it mode 
 apparent that In addition to the natureways we have 
 a common mode of action which governs the vast 
 preponderance of all our volitional acts, which like 
 those of an instinctive origin are unconsidered, 
 almost involuntary; being decided for us long In 
 advance of their performance. Unlike natureways 
 this mode Is not born In us, but is acquired from 
 imitation of others, or from well-established habits 
 learned from our elders and associates. We rarely 
 
38 TRADE MORALS 
 
 question these acts ; in fact, we are in large measure 
 unaware of their existence, and not having con- 
 sciously observed them have never considered their 
 why or wherefore. How many of us have seriously 
 wondered why we get up in the morning, and not at 
 noon or night, why we wash, dress, shoe our feet 
 with leather and proceed to eat breakfast? We pass 
 through the day doing a large number of acts of 
 which we are very imperfectly conscious, but which 
 we could change if we had any desire to do so. Why 
 do we put on underclothes and then cover them care- 
 fully so that no one shall see them, and why do we 
 Folkways never think of going into the street in them, except 
 in a nightmare? Why do our men cover their legs 
 with trousers, and not with a petticoat? In Turkey 
 men wear skirts and the women trousers. Why, in 
 fact, do we cover ourselves at all, especially in hot 
 weather? Why do we feel compelled, at a public 
 breakfast table, to refrain from sitting down in our 
 shirt sleeves; to eat with a knife and fork instead of 
 with our fingers, or to drink a hot drink from a cup 
 or bowl and a cold one from a glass? Imagine the 
 confusion which would result if for points like these 
 there were no settled convention, which, carried 
 through a single day, guides our conduct in uncounted 
 thousands of ways. What would happen had we to 
 exercise a conscious choice on all such points, and on 
 all occasions? Probably we should be finishing 
 breakfast about nine o'clock at night, thoroughly 
 exhausted, and in such a frame of mind that we 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 39 
 
 could hardly determine whether to sit down to 
 luncheon or go to bed. Our conduct in all these 
 matters is fortunately predetermined for us by 
 habits, sentiments and methods of thought, which, 
 when we begin consciously to observe them, we find 
 we have acquired in common with all the members 
 of our group. They are the basis of economies 
 in the use of our time which permit us as group 
 members to do something besides those acts by which 
 we perform the most necessary functions of life. 
 Called by Sumner folkways, few words have ever 
 been devised that so well illuminate their own 
 meaning. 
 
 The folkways, however, could not have been Origin of 
 acquired had it not been for the primeval group, the folkways 
 family. In it the mother teaches her child its 
 habitual modes of action at so youthful an age that 
 it forgets that it has ever learned them. Thus origi- 
 nated, folkways are promoted and extended as the 
 family is merged into the clan or kinship group, and 
 the child unconsciously imitates the manners and 
 habits of its seniors as they are brought to Its 
 observation. The members of the clan esteem those 
 who have ways of acting similar to theirs; they un- 
 consciously dislike others who have dissimilar ways; 
 and the forces of approbation and reprobation thus 
 exerted by the group are brought to bear through 
 psychical suggestion upon the susceptible, eagerly 
 absorbing minds of the children. It is obvious that 
 if there were no social life there would be few folk- 
 
■40 TRADE MORALS 
 
 ways; or rather each would be obliged to form 
 his own habits with a terrible waste of time and 
 energy. Certain folkways are common to aU 
 peoples; a larger number prevail within the nation; 
 more still are considered as binding upon subgroups 
 like those of fashionable society, or on industrial 
 subgroups such as farmers, or bladcsmiths; but the 
 largest nimiber of common habits are found among 
 the members of the unit group — the family. In any 
 given state of civilization the prevalence and obliga- 
 tion of the folkways are therefore in inverse ratio to 
 the size of the group. The folkways are not the 
 same in difierent places ; not alike in the same place 
 at different times, nor as between different subgroups 
 of the same folkgroup. 
 Uncon- Folkways are unconsidered, habitual, tiniform 
 
 sidered modes of action or customs practiced by men under 
 
 group conditions and are the result of efforts to 
 satisfy interests arising out of the four great primary 
 motives. Hunger. Love, Vanity and Fear. Folk- 
 ways are built upon the foundation of natureways. 
 but differ from them in that through imitation and 
 education they are acquired in the family- and folk- 
 groups. By origin they are therefore nurtural rather 
 than natural, and are the first term of a new series 
 of conduct modes: whose characteristic is that they 
 are not inherited but taught. This series may be 
 referred to properly as Xurturewavs. 
 
 Folkways are therefore nurtureways inteUigentlv 
 taught but irrationally practiced by man, and even 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 41 
 
 in a rudimentary way shared by some of his higher 
 animal associates. They might almost be described 
 as acquired instincts. An illustration of their per- 
 sistency is afforded by the ineffectual efforts of 
 Peter the Great to force the Russians to shave off 
 their beards ; they, however, preferring to submit to 
 any form of punishment rather than yield. 
 
 An interesting instance is found in the custom of Kissing a 
 kissing, which counts for a great deal in our folk- folkway 
 ways. It is regarded with disgust by the Chinese and 
 Japanese, it is unknown to the Polynesians, the Afri- 
 cans or the South Americans. On the other hand the 
 males of the Latin races publicly osculate each other 
 more liberally and ostentatiously than our own wives 
 or sweethearts. In Europe, and even in sober Eng- 
 land during and just after the Middle Ages, the 
 custom was far more extended than it is anywhere Its 
 today. The learned Erasmus, who came to lecture prevalence 
 at Oxford University in 1499, and who visited in 
 many of the great houses of the day, was amazed at 
 the freedom of the English ladies, whom he de- 
 scribed as "divinely pretty and too good natured." 
 "They have," he wrote, "an excellent custom among 
 them, that wherever you go the girls kiss you. They 
 kiss you when you come, they kiss you when you go, 
 they kiss you at intervening opportunities ; and their 
 lips are soft, warm and delicious." These ladies 
 evidently kissed the professor in sublime uncon- 
 sciousness of the fact that their delightful custom 
 was not a part of the folkways in which he had been 
 
42 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Discussion 
 of it 
 
 Its decline 
 
 Folk- 
 customs or 
 mores 
 
 brought up, or that he might find anything in the 
 practice to disturb his philosophic calm. During the 
 next two centuries, however, doubts seem to have 
 arisen as to the expediency of so free a use of this 
 form of salutation. It became the subject of wide- 
 spread discussion. It is popularly supposed to have 
 been ostracised by that phase of the reformed reli- 
 gion which we call Puritanism. The kissing games, 
 which were once played by adults, have by custom 
 become restricted to young children. Among the 
 educated groups the notion has gradually spread 
 that Indiscriminate kissing Is contrary to social 
 welfare and that It should not be approved. 
 
 The prevalence of this folkway, Its rise into 
 rational consciousness through discussion, its dis- 
 approval as contrary to welfare, and Its final prohi- 
 bition are typical of the evolution from the folkways 
 of a second mode of nurtureways; customs of which 
 the group is no longer unconscious, to which are 
 gradually attached the Idea of welfare, and which 
 are therefore subject to approval or disapproval. 
 As a conscious custom of the people this class 
 derived from folkways might well be designated as 
 Folk-custom; a more expressive and useful term, I 
 think, than the Latin word mores, adapted by Sum- 
 ner to distinguish them.^ To say that the group 
 members have become conscious of their folk- 
 
 1 The word mores has no convenient singular; a fact that in 
 many associations is compulsive of circumlocution. It lacks the 
 linguistic flexibility of the word custom, to which the idea we wish 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 43 
 
 customs means that they talk about them and find 
 reasons satisfactory to themselves for connecting Social 
 them with social welfare or mischief. forces 
 
 When by this process the folkgroup is agreed that 
 a certain folk-custom is necessary to its welfare it 
 puts forth all its powers, both of persuasion and 
 force, to provide motives for its observance by all its 
 members. To this end it uses all the arts of sugges- Suggestion 
 tion through myths, poems, symbols, pictures, watch- 
 words, catchwords, epithets, phrases, the exhorta- 
 tion of priests and the eloquence of statesmen. In 
 many subtle forms the subconscious forces of resent- Approba- 
 ful or kindly folk-feeling, even unexpressed in tion 
 words, will excite in the consciousness of one group 
 member, like an induced current of electricity, a 
 counterpart to the emotions formed in the brain of 
 his fellow. To suggestion and persuasion unorgan- 
 ized society adds two potent forces, approbation and 
 reprobation. Upon those who obey it confers popu- Reproba- 
 larity, distinctions, titles, decorations, offices and tion 
 other marks of its favor. To those who fail to fol- 
 low these, its unwritten rules of conduct, or who dis- 
 regard its taboos, it deals out unpopularity, ostra- 
 cism, public disapproval, condemnation, avoidances, 
 excommunications, disgrace, persecutions, lynchings, 
 punishments, death. 
 
 Failing to accomplish its purpose through appro- 
 
 to express has already become attached by the usage of a long line 
 of -writers on jurisprudence, as well as of many successful expo- 
 nents of sociology. 
 
44 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 bation or reprobation, the leaders of the folkgroup 
 Institutions devise institutions, which through certain machinery, 
 such as laws, courts and prisons, are designed to 
 supply extra motives in a definite and orderly but 
 often brutal way through duress and death, for the 
 conformity of all to such folk-customs as are con- 
 sidered most essential to its welfare, and from which 
 it endeavors to make "dissent so dangerous that no 
 one will dare to express it." Thus it is that the folk- 
 customs of any time or place become obligatory upon 
 the group and are generally followed by its members. 
 In the small, compact kinship group the compulsion 
 of a common environment toward uniform folk- 
 customs is naturally stronger than in the more loosely 
 bound tribal or national folkgroups and is somewhat 
 dependent upon the degree to which the clan is 
 isolated from its neighbors. Free circulation of its 
 members among other folkgroups may lead the 
 travelers to question any folk-custom of their own 
 which they deem less well fitted to their conditions 
 and needs than is that of some outgroup, and 
 may bring it back within the realm of discussion; 
 from which process a gradual change in some folk- 
 custom may arise. The strong folk-feeling by which 
 folk-customs are supported and changes disfavored 
 was well observed in Bacon's wise counsel to one 
 returning home; that he "let it appear that he doth 
 not change his country manners for those of foreign 
 parts, but only prick in some flowers of that he hath 
 learned abroad into the customs of his country." 
 
 Transplan- 
 tation from 
 group to 
 group 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 45 
 
 And thus, while the folkway is the first step up 
 from the natureways, being instinct plus nurture or 
 acquisition, the folk-custom is yet a second step on 
 the same evolutionary ladder, being folkway plus 
 rational group consciousness. Through these nur- 
 tureways behavior — action not volitional — rises into 
 conduct — volitional action adjusted to an end. 
 
 Roughly corresponding to the phases of the evo- 
 lution of society are the action-modes of instinct, 
 folkway and folk-custom in the evolution of conduct. 
 Instinct, the prevalent unconscious rule of conduct in 
 upper animal life, results from the pressure of natu- 
 ral environment and survives in the more funda- 
 mental impulses of our own behavior. Folkways, the 
 primitive, unconsidered rules of intelligent conduct, 
 emerge from instinct in the higher animals, have 
 their greatest power in the family and the clan, and 
 like these groups themselves are a result of the pres- 
 sure of both natural and social environment. Folk- 
 customs demand a still higher intelligence and a 
 higher social organization and are folkways become 
 conscious through the attribution of social welfare. 
 Emerging from the folkways in the clan, folk- 
 custom, by generating a sense of subordination to a 
 common welfare, promotes survival of the tribe in Contribute 
 war, and is the result of forces working both within to survival 
 and without the folkgroup — of structure as well as 
 environment. 
 
 It will be observed that small and compact groups 
 have a greater number of common interests than 
 
46 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Incidence 
 of folk- 
 custom 
 
 Differences 
 of folk- 
 custom 
 Slavery 
 
 large ones whose members are widely scattered. 
 The larger number of Items of common welfare 
 arising from these Interests produces a larger mass 
 of folk-customs in a small group than In a large one. 
 As the social forces of suggestion, of approbation 
 and of reprobation, can be much more powerfully 
 expressed in the kinship or industrial group, with its 
 daily and constant contact of group members, than 
 they can be In the mass of more scattered aggrega- 
 tions of such groups into tribes or nations, it follows 
 that the incidence and obligation of folk-custom (In 
 so far as It is controlled by unorganized forces) 
 In any given state of civilization are like those of the 
 folkways, in inverse ratio to the size of the group. 
 Folk-customs are the result of a conscious effort to 
 adapt the conduct of the folkgroup to Its environ- 
 ment, as the organization of institutions is a con- 
 scious effort to adapt its structure to Its surround- 
 ings, and Discovery or Invention a conscious effort 
 through art or craft to adapt the environment to Its 
 needs. 
 
 Like the folkways, folk-custom Is not the same In 
 different places, nor alike in the same place at differ- 
 ent times, and differs as between co-existing groups. 
 Slavery, the ownership of one human being by 
 another, which we have rejected as a folk-custom, 
 was approved by the ancients and probably as much 
 by slaves as by masters. It existed as an inherit- 
 ance from the Roman Empire everywhere In Europe 
 for the first thirteen centuries of the Christian Era. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 47 
 
 Even the Church did nothing for its suppression, 
 ecclesiastics being oftentimes large owners of slaves. Associated 
 To it was due the leisure which enabled the Hebrew with leisure 
 to become pre-eminent in literature and poetry, 
 the Greek in art and philosophy, the Roman in 
 politics, public works and conquest. While in 
 Europe the work of emancipation was for the most 
 part completed in the fourteenth century, slavery 
 was still a folk-custom in Scotland in the coal mines 
 until 1775, and in the salt mines until 1799. In a 
 few of the German principalities it survived until Discussion 
 1848. At the time of the formation of our Consti- in America 
 tution the relation of the slave folk-custom to 
 welfare was questioned, and was rejected by the 
 Northern States of the Union, who had no economic 
 interest in It. And yet it prevailed in New York 
 until 1840, while in New Jersey the census of i860 
 showed eighteen slaves out of a population of 672,- 
 000. At that time slavery was justified by the folk- 
 custom of the Southern States, whose people based 
 upon it their ideal of social welfare, in the belief 
 that without it cotton, the basis of their economic 
 prosperity, could not be grown. The Civil War was Persistence 
 the final arbitrament of a discussion which had lasted of 
 more than three quarters of a century, and as its Folk- 
 result the Northern States imposed their free labor custom 
 folk-custom upon their Southern brethren. But even 
 now, after a half century of attempted readjust- 
 ment, many of the folkways growing in and out of 
 slavery survive so long as the subject race and the 
 
48 TRADE MORALS 
 
 master race are obliged to live alongside of one 
 another. Laws and other institutions which dis- 
 regard such folk-customs as are founded upon the 
 welfare of the Southern people or of its leading 
 groups are difficult of enforcement; for no legisla- 
 tion can make wrong that conduct of which every- 
 body capable of self-expression approves. Where a 
 folkgroup feels itself strong it will always revolt 
 from an attempt to impose upon it an alien folk- 
 custom, and declare, as in the Dutch manifesto of 
 1 58 1 and the Declaration of Independence of 1776, 
 that governments derive their only justification from 
 the consent of the governed. 
 
 In the evolution of conduct, therefore, an exami- 
 nation of the movements or acts of the human 
 Character- organism leads us to believe that their uniformities 
 istics of can be grouped first in two great classes. The first 
 Natureways of these are Natureways, composed of tropisms, 
 reflexes and instincts, whose origin is material and 
 involuntary, arising from the constitution of matter 
 or from the known forces operating therein, are 
 transmitted from generation to generation, are exer- 
 cised without conscious choice on our part, resulting 
 Of in behavior; naturally. The second great class are 
 
 Nurture- Nurtureways, whose origin is intelligent; psycho- 
 ways logical; either consciously taught, or consciously 
 practiced; the subject of choice; never inherent but 
 always acquired, and dependent upon social or group 
 forces for their origin and continued existence. All 
 modes of behavior or conduct have a general ten- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT 49 
 
 dency toward motion or change along evolutionary 
 lines, in proportion to and in unison with changes in 
 the orders of Life, with which they co-exist. 
 
 The nurtureways in their expression result in con- 
 duct, voluntary action adapted to ends. Of them 
 we have so far recognized two modes; the first, folk- 
 ways, unconsidered, habitual, uniform modes of 
 action practiced by men who acquire them in the 
 family and folkgroups. From the folkway is 
 evolved the folk-custom, after the group has become 
 conscious of a feeling that it is essential to its wel- 
 fare, conformity to which it enforces with all its 
 powers. As typical of Society, the modes of the Relativity 
 Natureways roughly correspond to the phases of of conduct- 
 social evolution ; of which they are first the result, modes to 
 and then by reaction, the cause. social 
 
 It is in the folk-custom mode of nurtureways, ^ ^^^* 
 collectively sometimes also called mores, that we 
 find the germs of morality, whose origin and growth 
 will be discussed in the next lecture. 
 
IV 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 
 
 In the consideration of behavior we found that 
 in its gradual progress from involuntary and uncon- 
 scious action, arising out of physical forces or chemi- 
 cal reactions, to the first beginnings of conscious 
 
 Natureways conduct actuated by design, there are two great 
 classes into which we can assort acts. The first being 
 the product of natural forces without assistance 
 from the self, submental in origin, can be called 
 natureways and typically arises from the contact of 
 animal life with its environment. 
 
 The second great group of common human modes 
 of action are acquired instead of inherited, volitional 
 
 Nurture- rather than involuntary, and gradually rise out of 
 
 ways subconsciousness into the rational through various 
 
 degrees of decision or judgment applied to them by 
 the actor. Never "natural" and always "nurtural" 
 the title "nurtureways" seems not unfitting. 
 
 Of these the most primitive mode is that of the 
 
 Folkways folkways. Unconscious, habitual, uniform modes of 
 acting, they call for little or no effort of choice, 
 judgment or will, and arise from the instinctive 
 feelings of hunger, love, vanity and fear; acquired 
 by imitation they are rudimentary in the higher 
 animals, and reach their highest potency in the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 51 
 
 smaller and more primitive groups, such as families 
 and clans. 
 
 The next higher mode of human conduct is that 
 of folk-custom ; folkways of which the f olkgroup has Folk- 
 become conscious; recognized as necessary to the customs 
 welfare of the group, and enforced by it through 
 various artifices more or less intelligently devised to 
 that end. Conformity with folk-custom is approved 
 by the folkgroup as right, while its breach is con- 
 demned as wrong. Notions of right and wrong as 
 applied to conduct, therefore, grow out of the appro- 
 val or disapproval which the group visits upon those 
 who respect or disregard the uniform modes of con- 
 duct which it looks upon as essential to its welfare. 
 
 Folkways and folk-customs embody the results of 
 man's intelligence and observation through centuries 
 of experiments in the art of how to live and satisfy Folkways 
 his instincts with the least efFort. Faculties the most co-ordinate 
 recently developed are always those that involve the Life along 
 most effort in their exercise ; and the greatest and ""^* °^ 
 most fatiguing work that falls to the lot of man is ' 
 the exercise of choice and judgment. And so the 
 folkways are the outcome of an instinctive desire 
 to adjust life to environment along those lines that 
 call for the least constant output of choice and 
 judgment. 
 
 In spite of the resistance of folkway and folk- 
 custom to change, owing to mental effort involved in 
 new choices, it must not for a moment be supposed 
 that the ways and customs of the folk are fixed, 
 
52 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Mutability 
 in stability 
 
 Constant 
 evolution 
 and 
 
 devolution 
 of Nurture- 
 ways 
 
 crystallized or immutable; the dead hand of anti- 
 quity throttling a virile race in its struggles to gain 
 higher happiness through a nicer adjustment of life 
 to constantly changing environment. But folk- 
 custom says to the individual or to the subgroup — 
 You shall not pursue your advantage at the expense 
 of the folkgroup. The persistent force of folk- 
 custom is more than an anthropological curiosity, 
 although some reformers would persuade us that its 
 only function is to resist a worshipful movement 
 called Progress. We have become conscious of 
 the existence of folk-customs, it is true, through their 
 study among ancient and primitive peoples. But it 
 does not follow that they are of no service to the 
 modern State. Old they may be, but not always 
 outworn ; like the Archean rocks they may still yield 
 the richest ores for the making of the social part of 
 man's machinery of efficiency. 
 
 In modern society both folkways and folk-customs 
 exist in all stages of life, growth and decay; they are 
 born, pass from youth to maturity, and die daily. 
 Once attained, the sociological view of life gives 
 insight for the perception and classification of these 
 uniform sequences of conduct of which, in the main, 
 we are as unconscious as we are of the wonderful and 
 brilliant bird life which scintillates in the forest, 
 hidden behind its shade to those who know not how 
 and where to look. 
 
 The most striking attribute of folk-custom is that 
 it can make anything right and protect anything from 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 53 
 
 condemnation. Moreover, the same conduct may be 
 prohibited by the custom of one group and permitted 
 by that of another. 
 
 Slavery, for example, exists today by social Incompati- 
 approval in Turkey, Morocco, in many isolated bility of 
 districts of the Asiatic and African colonies and in ancient and 
 Mexico. Folk-custom in the tribe of Israel com- modern 
 mended the conduct of Samuel in hewing to pieces ^°^-'^"s- 
 his unarmed captive Agag, king of the Amalekites, ^""^ 
 by the direction of the Lord (I Sam. xv. 32, 33), 
 and likewise the slaughter by the Hebrews of 
 the helpless women captured from the Midianites 
 (Num. xxi.), although such conduct would be con- 
 demned by our folk-custom today as criminal and 
 wrong. Folk-custom sanctions the Sunday theater 
 in Chicago, St. Louis and New Orleans and prohibits 
 it in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. It per- 
 mits the sale of a cigar on Sunday in Washington 
 and makes it a crime in Charlotte, N. C. 
 
 Confusing as the discordance of folk-customs may Folk-cus- 
 seem to those who observe their wide divergences torn can be 
 under differences of time and space, they are none Classified 
 the less capable of being studied, compared and 
 grouped, and from their mandates or prohibitions 
 with respect to particular acts men have in the 
 course of time rudely drawn general rules covering 
 groups of acts ; and these rules are the beginning of And 
 morals. A moral rule is only an artifice of the mind becomes 
 to simplify the daily discovery of what particular the source 
 conduct is right or wrong, according to folk-custom, °^ Morals 
 
54 TRADE MORALS 
 
 with the least expenditure of effort. To its enforce- 
 ment the controlling coercive influence of the folk- 
 group is extended; and every act embraced by the 
 moral rule is as surely approved or reprobated as 
 were the particular acts from which the rule was 
 Right, Duty drawn. From moral rules are drawn the concepts 
 and of rights and duties. Rights are nothing more than 
 
 Obligation conduct which one member of the group has the 
 right to expect from another member of the same 
 group. And duty is simply a right turned round; 
 the conduct which the other group member is obli- 
 gated to perform. Thus, as in law, a moral right, 
 taken together with a moral duty, forms a moral 
 obligation. 
 Ethical Ethical principles are general statements of what 
 
 principle is moral, i.e., right, and due our fellows, drawn from 
 from Moral the comparison and classification of those obligations 
 obligations prescribed by folk-custom as binding upon all the 
 members of the folkgroup. The evolution of an 
 ethical principle can be made apparent by a con- 
 sideration of some one set of moral obligations in 
 their historical sequence through the various phases 
 of social evolution. Take for instance the rights of 
 property and the wrong of theft. 
 Property is Property, it must be observed, does not consist at 
 rights— all of material objects, but of the various rights of 
 use, control and disposal which persons exercise with 
 regard to their possessions. To begin with, the 
 simplest right which one may have with respect to 
 anything is to use it. And although he may have the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 55 
 
 right to use, he may neither be able to control it for —of Use 
 his continued enjoyment, nor for qualified disposal, 
 such as to lend or to hire. Nor do the rights of use —of 
 and control necessarily confer the right of absolute Control 
 disposal, either (a) by exchange, that is to say by —of 
 sale and delivery, (b) by gift, (c) by bequest or Disposal 
 other testamentary process or (d) by a contract to 
 sell and deliver at a future time. As a corollary to 
 these rights there are the cognate rights of acquisi- 
 tion; by plunder, by discovery, by fabrication, by 
 inheritance or by exchange. 
 
 The primitive foundations of property rights are 
 undoubtedly laid in the instinct of acquisition which Acquisitive 
 humanity inherits from its animal forebears, and instinct in 
 from whose influence it cannot escape. It shares this animals 
 innate tendency with the squirrel who lays by a store 
 of nuts against the winter, with the bird who defends 
 its nest, or the bee which both stores the honey and 
 stings the invader of its hive. Such primitive fore- 
 runners of property rights are hardly more than an 
 assertion of the right to defend them, for except 
 among the developed group life of the bee there Is 
 no acknowledgment of a corresponding duty to 
 respect the right of the hoarder or the builder, and 
 therefore no completed obligation. 
 
 In the life of the child the outcropping of the Its 
 instinct of acquisition may be observed at a very expression 
 tender age; before in fact the infant is capable of •" 
 expressing emotion other than in the crudest way; child life 
 but in its promptings we may unquestionably find 
 
56 TRADE MORALS 
 
 the source of its later potency in the folkways and 
 folk-customs of the successive social groupings, in 
 each of which the evolution of property rights has 
 its co-ordinate phase. 
 
 In the primitive family group individual property 
 rights, except that of use, were practically unde- 
 Community veloped; the folkway being for the group members 
 of family to make common use of its various possessions. As 
 goods the group was industrially self-sufficing there was no 
 
 occasion for disposal by exchange save in case of 
 famine. The family head, the father or mother, had 
 during lifetime only a titular right of control exer- 
 cised for and on behalf of the group, descending 
 automatically according to the folkways governing 
 primitive inheritances ; but without the right of testa- 
 tion or disposal; and in the rare cases when 
 exchanges were required folk-custom established a 
 groupal right to share the proceeds. When by sepa- 
 ration of some of Its members a new family was 
 established, a rough partition of the common stock 
 of goods was accomplished, as in the classic Instance 
 of Jacob and Laban. Under these circumstances 
 there could be no theft within the group. The sur- 
 vival In Roman civilization of the Patria potestas is 
 an enlightening Instance of the persistence in culture 
 of the shadowy folkways of control prevailing In a 
 much earlier social type. Common family property 
 rights exist to some degree to the present time ; what 
 family man has not suffered the inconvenience of 
 unauthorized appropriation of his dress suit, his 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 57 
 
 shoes, his shirt studs or cuff buttons, with no sense of 
 wrongfulness or shame by his children or his 
 brethren? The rudimentary idea of a community of 
 goods universal among primitive people still survives 
 in the developing mind of the child ; to whom it is not 
 robbery to take and use a part of what his ancestors 
 would have considered as common goods. 
 
 In the clan folkgroup, dominated by the interest 
 of kin, the folk-customs surrounding common use of 
 the joint product continued; each member had rights Limited 
 of use in the game, flocks and herds and fruits of the control- 
 field, still the result of joint effort. But the folkways rights in 
 permitted individual or family control of weapons ^'^"^ 
 of the chase, of war, of hunting dogs trained by 
 members, and possibly of some kinds of rude tools, 
 of which others, like grain crushers, were still the Commu- 
 property of the clan. Within family lines the folk- "ism in 
 ways preserved the earlier strict rules of succession disposal 
 for the common stock of family goods, which pro- 
 hibited disposal by gift, exchange or bequest. Ex- 
 changes, if made, were communal; members of out- 
 groups, strangers, could neither hold nor inherit any 
 sort of property rights. With environmental condi- 
 tions that made for scarcity of food began the 
 exchange of products by plunder, an inciting cause 
 perhaps of the petty wars that led on the one hand 
 to eventual subjection and slavery, and on the other 
 hand to that folk-custom of clan alliances which 
 eventuated in the formation of tribes. 
 
 The tribe, therefore, came into its own with folk- 
 
58 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Decline of 
 commu- 
 nism 
 
 Necessity 
 
 for 
 
 exchange 
 
 Plunder its 
 
 primitive 
 
 form 
 
 ways of family communism, a less complete clan 
 communism, and the beginnings of a folk-custom 
 asserting rights of continuous personal control over 
 certain classes of articles for enjoyment as well as 
 for qualified disposal, i.e., lending or hiring within 
 the limits of the tribal peace. The greater division 
 of labor within tribal bounds naturally overthrew 
 the self-sufficing industrial life of the pre-existing 
 clans ; there were commodities in excess here, in short 
 supply there. There was need for exchange. The 
 folk-custom already countenanced plunder; hence it 
 was no theft to rob an outgroup. When exhausted 
 by war, tribes who normally would shun reciprocal 
 intercourse, feigned to conform with this folkway by 
 taking a quantity of their common goods to the 
 border and leaving them there in the trust that so 
 easy a conformity with the plunder folkway would 
 tend to reciprocity. And so it was that the advan- 
 tages of exchange were brought into consciousness 
 and neutral grounds were established on contiguous 
 borders, and by joint folk-custom days agreed upon 
 for the conduct of exchanges in a primitive market. 
 Mercury, the god alike of plunder, of travel and of 
 trade, represented mythically the associations which 
 clustered about these age-long customs. 
 
 As intertribal commerce grew the kinship sub- 
 groups began to produce specialized products; and 
 the developing tribe, finding an economic loss 
 involved in communistic exchange, adapted its folk- 
 custom so as to acknowledge a right of disposal of 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 59 
 
 their products by the subgroups themselves. Mean- Commerce 
 time, the growing use of tools and the demand for begets 
 more effective weapons had gradually attached some "S^'s of 
 of the rights of disposal to the earlier folk-custom <iisposal 
 recognizing individual rights of use and control of 
 these implements. In a ruder and more primitive 
 age weapons and tools had been buried with him who 
 had enjoyed in them the primitive rights of use and 
 control; but as such implements grew more complex 
 and more valuable folk-custom attached to them the 
 right of gift or bequest, at first confined to kin, then 
 extended to all tribal members. Meantime, folk- 
 customs were growing which established private 
 rights of use, control and disposal in booty resulting 
 from the plunder of an outgroup by an individual, 
 or the tools, etc., used, made or inherited by him. 
 As facilities for market exchanges increased it could 
 not be but that thrifty industrials should be allowed 
 similar rights in purchased goods. 
 
 The private ownership of land Is unrecognized 
 amongst groups which in civilization have not passed Rise of 
 beyond the hunting and grazing stages of subsist- land 
 ence ; at first boundaries are recognized to communal ownership 
 domains, and later a more definite folkgroup interest 
 In the area which boundaries circumscribe, combined 
 with a capacity for disposal, becomes imbedded in 
 the tribal folkway. Later, a folkway of individual 
 possession of a portion of the soil through use and 
 occupancy is somewhere accidentally^ and sporadi- 
 
 1 The use of this terra does not imply that the event was un- 
 
60 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 cally developed; and the greater efficiency of a fixed 
 tenure so demonstrated gives rise to a nascent folk- 
 custom of full land ownership — which, in spite of its 
 spread, is far from universal even in the national 
 type of folkgroup. 
 Corrobora- There are a host of survivals in language, custom 
 tion from and law of these earlier and less complete property 
 language folk-customs of the family clan and tribal folkgroups. 
 In Roman jurisprudence the word dominium and in 
 English the words demesne and domain remind 
 us of the days when the dominus, or head of the 
 house, alone exercised the communal family rights of 
 possession. The word mancipium, "the firm grasp," 
 applied to another form of property right, is a relic 
 of the supposition that it was supposed to have been 
 acquired by plunder, and if not retained by a very 
 firm grasp would probably be lost again. 
 Evolution When but a few of these rights are in question it 
 
 of a moral is enough for folk-custom to say this man has a right 
 principle to his axe, his spade, his spear, his knife, his fishhook, 
 his arrow, etc., giving in each instance a specific 
 pronouncement for the members of the folkgroup to 
 follow. But as instances grow more and more 
 numerous there is need for a general rule condensing 
 and summarizing all of the separate prohibitions or 
 permissions of the separate folk-custom. And hence 
 the classification of all of these property rights as 
 possessions and the moral rule drawn therefrom — 
 
 caused; only that it was the product of normally conflicting forces 
 acting for once in harmony. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 61 
 
 "thou shalt not steal" — consolidating in a single 
 precept the duty of all with regard to the property 
 rights acquired by individuals in material objects. 
 
 In the nation, to the earlier rights of disposal by Property 
 exchange and gift are added the more personal rights rights in 
 of disposal by bequest and by contract ; in acqui- the nation- 
 sition, rights to exclusive possession of what objects ^^ phase 
 have been made, invented or used are developed 
 through patent right, copyright, easements, etc. ; and 
 the facility of exchange is much promoted by a 
 gradual growth of folk-customs covering the buying 
 and selling of written representatives of property 
 rights in more cumbrous material objects. Title to 
 a thousand bales of cotton or to a share in the 
 ownership of a railroad passes easily, according to 
 our folk-custom, by the transfer of a warehouse Extension 
 receipt or of a stock certificate. And thus nations of disposal 
 have seen their interest in the establishment of folk- rights 
 custom permitting a far wider range of individual 
 property rights than was dreamt of in the simpler 
 social structure. The right of disposal has, with few 
 exceptions, become absolute in those nations which 
 are most civilized, because experience has shown 
 that in this way is produced the largest supply of 
 consumable goods, fit for the fending off of famine 
 and want as well as for the satisfaction of those more 
 complex desires arising from the psychic motive 
 forces which more and more are dominating 
 mankind. 
 
 And so we may see, through all groupal phases of 
 
62 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Synchronic 
 growth of 
 social 
 structure 
 and moral 
 obligation 
 
 Prevalence 
 of custom 
 — in inverse 
 ratio to size 
 of group 
 
 the family, the clan, the tribe and the nation with a 
 constantly increasing complexity of social structure, 
 a corresponding accretion and enlargement by the 
 addition of one attribute after another to the folk- 
 custom of private ownership. In the family there 
 are few individual rights of property; use and con- 
 trol are communal, disposal is practically unrecog- 
 nized. In the clan structure the right of use becomes 
 personal ; the right of control vests in the family, the 
 right of disposal is stiU in the folkgroup. In the 
 tribe, rights of use and control become personal; 
 some of the simpler forms of the right of disposal 
 gradually attach to the individual; others are still 
 communal or unknown. In the nation the right of 
 contract is gradually discovered and, with caution, 
 the folk-customs admit individuals to Its privileges. 
 It is neither comprehensive nor universal to this day. 
 So far as land is concerned, property rights therein 
 are developed later and more slowly than those in 
 movable objects; In modern national societies land 
 ownership is in various stages of incomplete posses- 
 sion, varying widely from folk to folk. 
 
 As we have observed with respect to folkways, 
 their prevalence and incidence are in Inverse ratio to 
 the size of the group. And so it is with custom. The 
 customs simultaneously prevailing in any subgroup 
 are the folk-customs of its folkgroup plus an Incre- 
 ment of class-customs which are felt to be essential 
 to the welfare of the subgroup. Therefore, the prev- 
 alence of custom, like that of folkways, is in inverse 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 63 
 
 ratio to the size of the group. It follows that, given 
 a number of acts which the folkgroup recognizes as 
 right or wrong, the subgroup will place a still larger 
 number of acts in the same category. Certain con- 
 duct, like theft or fraud, are folkgroup wrongs, uni- 
 versally condemned by folk-custom; other conduct, 
 like unfair competition, destructive underselling or 
 preferential price rebates, are wrongs to some one of 
 the industrial groups and are so condemned by and 
 complained of by them. "Scabbing" is a wrong 
 only in the class-custom of the trades union groups. 
 Elsewhere to do what no other group member will 
 do, to work as no other group member will work, is 
 universally commended. It is conduct such as has 
 been idealized in that charming little tale, "A Mes- 
 sage to Garcia." From the progressive expansion 
 of the right of divorce it is evident that it is not con- 
 demned by folk-custom, while it is severely banned 
 by the sentiment of certain religious subgroups. 
 
 In any society compounded of subgroups there will 
 be co-existent numerous systems of class-customs, Class-cus- 
 some of whose rules are, but many of which are not, torn within 
 accepted by the greater group. ^ Society 
 
 The members of subgroups within the folkgroup 
 will hold to class-custom with respect to the fellow 
 members of their subgroup ; and to folk-custom with 
 respect to other members of their folkgroup. Some- 
 times this will display in intragroup relations a rever- 
 sion to clan folk-custom, often suggesting a variety 
 of social phases co-existent in the same folkgroup. 
 
64 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Social 
 morals 
 drawn 
 from 
 folk-cus- 
 tom 
 
 Method 
 growth 
 
 of 
 
 and of a lower phase of civilization in some of the 
 subgroups. Social morals being the generalized pre- 
 cepts of the folkgroup respecting conduct approved 
 by it as right, or condemned by it as wrong, It Is plain 
 that they are primarily based upon the whole body of 
 its folk-custom. But it must be noted particularly 
 that class or group morals are therefore not neces- 
 sarily social morals. According to the legal and 
 medical codes It is immoral for lawyers or physicians 
 to advertise. Yet advertising is approved by society 
 at large ; and It is deemed perfectly right. Rebating 
 has never seemed wrong to a railroad man while it 
 has been vigorously condemned by the public. Nor 
 are the morals of one group necessarily those of 
 another. Adulteration is not considered wrong by 
 a woolen manufacturer, while with an apothecary it 
 is a crime. Society is conscious, however, of those 
 customs which have received its general social recog- 
 nition and finds in these only the basis of its social 
 moral code. 
 
 The growth of social morals is continually pro- 
 ceeding through the adoption as socially binding on 
 the folkgroup of some of the obligations arising from 
 class-custom; particularly those which in the life of 
 the subgroup have conserved its welfare and made 
 it a more potent factor in the life of the folkgroup. 
 If the class-customs so selected are such as have been 
 common to a large number of subgroups they may 
 be accepted as folk-customs without discussion. But 
 if, on the other hand, they only express the welfare- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 65 
 
 ideals of a few of the more prosperous and powerful 
 of the constituent groups, efforts may be made to 
 impose them upon the folkgroup by discussion and 
 persuasion or perhaps by force. If by force, it will 
 be through institutions, — laws, courts or military 
 subjection, — and the obligation may be imperfectly 
 recognized or even rejected. And so neither the 
 British government nor the Christian churches, with 
 all their powers of institutional and moral control, 
 have even in three centuries been able to change the 
 sexual morality of the Creole population of the West 
 India Islands — ^which is still dominated by the folk- 
 custom of more plastic family ties imported from its 
 original African home. 
 
 Morals are born in the folk- or class-groups, grow Birth, 
 with their compounding or co-ordination, and decay growth 
 as they disintegrate. It is an example of growth, for ^'^^ death 
 instance, that it is now moral to take interest for ° "loras 
 the use of money; although this right has only been 
 socially accepted for about five hundred years ; before 
 that it was an item of the morals of a subgroup ; and 
 sinful in the civilization of the tribal Jews. As an 
 example of decay, the moral rule firmly fixed during 
 the first half of the nineteenth century that on Sunday 
 it was wrong to read a secular book, or take a walk, 
 or to go on a journey, has completely gone to pieces 
 during the last twenty years, partly through the 
 importation hither of German folk-custom, partly 
 through the reaction against the folk-customs of the 
 
66 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Puritans, whose stern folk-faith has been rejected by 
 modern religious thought. 
 The spread Morals once brought into existence are spread 
 of morals in the same way as folk-customs ( i ) by the consoli- 
 dation or combination of groups, (2) by the influence 
 of leading men who perceive the favorable effect on 
 welfare of some particular line of conduct, deduce 
 therefrom a moral principle and propagate it by 
 discussion from one contiguous group to another, 
 and (3) by commerce and migration — the inter- 
 change between various groups of their surplus pro- 
 ducts and their surplus men, inducing at the same 
 time interchange of custom and opinion. In this way 
 both folk-customs and the moral principles drawn 
 from them are diffused and modified and their bind- 
 ing force is spread from one people to another. 
 Thus a large part of the Puritan morals transplanted 
 from England in the seventeenth century were in the 
 early nineteenth century diffused throughout the 
 Western and the Northwestern States, wherever our 
 transportation facilities would carry them. 
 Incidence It is, of course, true that the moral rules univer- 
 
 of morals sally accepted by the whole of civilized society are 
 few and simple ; that a greater number are recognized 
 by each of the various subgroups of which the nation 
 is composed; and finally that a still larger number are 
 recognized as binding upon the family. Thus the 
 incidence of the morals is the same as that of the 
 folkways and of the folk-customs, in Inverse ratio to 
 the size of the group. Conflictions in the morals 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 67 
 
 prevalent in a folkgroup, naturally following conflic- Conflictions 
 tions in folk-customs from which moral rules have of morals 
 arisen, may be brought about therefore : 
 
 1. By differences in the class-customs and con- Through 
 sequent group morals of its subgroups. A difference class- 
 
 of opinion is likely to arise as to what conduct is customs 
 obligatory on both parties to a transaction when 
 they are members of subgroups widely separated 
 either in space or development. 
 
 2. By industrial or political changes bringing Through 
 about new conditions, such as the formation of new economic 
 subgroups to have relations with other subgroups, or changes 
 the absorption of outgroups, and where therefore 
 
 no folk-customs have as yet been established to 
 govern the conduct thus arising, causing the birth of 
 a new folk-custom. 
 
 3. By the decay of folk-customs, formerly firmly Through 
 established, but which by the reactions upon conduct the decay 
 caused by the disintegration of previously prevailing oi folk- 
 groups are made obsolete, and while nominally customs 
 respected are really no longer needed for welfare — 
 
 if indeed they are not absolutely contrary to it. 
 
 It is the clash of customs and the conflict of Moral 
 opinions that make human conduct a subject so selection of 
 inherently interesting to members of a folkgroup clashing 
 upon whom the task of selecting a general folkrule conduct- 
 of right conduct from conflicting or uncertain sub- ^'^^ ^^ ^ 
 group morals devolves. In each community the 
 activity of this process is proportioned to the ease of 
 intercommunication of thought, either by personal 
 
68 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Begins with 
 discussion 
 
 Formula- 
 tion of 
 principles 
 
 General 
 
 social 
 
 acceptance 
 
 contact or through the printed word, and to the 
 rapidity of industrial, political and economic changes 
 simultaneously becoming effective. The first step 
 in moral selection is discussion, and in this discussion 
 the leaders are those upon whom nature or culture 
 has bestowed the power of more faithfully and 
 clearly reproducing. In imagination, the conditions 
 to which conduct is to be applied and of developing 
 the rule or principle by which It should be gov- 
 erned. From this discussion rules of Idealized 
 right action are next formulated In which a certain 
 order and consistency of moral conduct are laid 
 down, and by which the most intelligent part of 
 the community — Its leaders — believe all Its mem- 
 bers should be guided. Finally these ideal stand- 
 ards of social morals get to be accepted by all 
 persons as binding upon the folkgroup, and the 
 conduct affected by them clearly recognized as 
 right or wrong, and a definite subject of social 
 punishment or approval. They are then adopted 
 as a folk-custom. 
 
 If moral rules were invariable. Immutable and 
 everlasting — always the same at one time and place 
 as at any other time and place — we would have none 
 of this conflict, debate and discussion as to the moral 
 obligation which we ought to assume. But we have 
 observed, on the contrary, that the prevailing ideal 
 of moral obligation, even as put forward by the 
 highest religious and legal authorities, has varied 
 from race to race, and from era to era. We have 
 
TIIK KVOI.miON OF MORALS 69 
 
 seen that the feeling of moral obligation is funda- Moral 
 mentally based upon the modes of conduct prevail- stages rcla- 
 ing as nurtureways at any given place and period, tive to social 
 Modes of conduct, themselves, vary directly with the phases and 
 phase of social development through which the folk- "^"^'^^ 
 group in which they arc current is passing. From " conduct 
 these known relations we can draw this inference; 
 that morals niove and change by steps or stages 
 along a line of constant evolution in direct accord 
 with the phase of society, and with the modes of 
 conduct, with which they co-exist. 
 
 Neither in clan, tribe or nation was there origi- 
 nally any eliort to preserve the rights of members 
 of outgroups; and so in the times of Elizabeth and 
 the Stuarts predatory private war on the subjects 
 of a peaceful nation was countenanced by British 
 folk-custom and excused by the international morals 
 of the day. The plunder of the outfolk in the form 
 of piracy was winked at in the Carolinas and not Folk-cus- 
 condemned by the citizens of New York or Phila- torn gives 
 delphia down to the beginning of the eighteenth "o riuhts to 
 century; so that efforts of lawmakers to suppress outcroups 
 the practice were nullified by the partiality of juries. 
 Until after the War of Independence the capture of 
 negroes and tlie trade in slaves formed a profitable 
 part of the ventures of the old merchants of Salem 
 anti Boston; in both instances because these practices 
 were supported as favorable to the folkgroup wel- 
 fare. They were a survival in the nation phase of 
 civilization, of plunder-exchange folk-customs in- 
 
70 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 herited from a previous phase of tribal society, and 
 morally excused by the persistence in outgroups of 
 the primitive exclusion from market rights, or of 
 obsolescent but not obsolete property rights in human 
 beings. Even in our own day modern folkgroups 
 or nations but imperfectly recognize a moral prin- 
 ciple when applied to other peoples ; and citizens feel 
 less firmly bound to protect the property rights of 
 foreigners than they do those of the fellows of their 
 own group. 
 
 Just as the savage considers it right to murder any 
 stranger but wrong to steal a trifle from any fellow 
 Restricted tribesman, so, at the present day, ingroups of trades- 
 to the unionists consider it a greater wrong to deprive a 
 
 ingroup fellow worker of his job than to waylay and assault 
 a strikebreaker, and our nation group has justified 
 a conduct toward the Colombians and Filipinos that 
 would be regarded as the grossest injustice if prac- 
 ticed at home. 
 
 Folk-custom, it will be remembered, is the selection 
 by the folkgroup, in accordance with its ideals of 
 welfare, of certain of the folkways produced by 
 efforts to satisfy interests arising out of the four 
 great leading motives of hunger, love, vanity and 
 fear. And these motives work with reference, not 
 to the interest of its members as individuals, but to 
 their interest as members of a group, or the interest 
 of the folkgroup itself. It is in fact the selfish 
 interest of the group, large or small, which prevails 
 in the establishment and choice of folk-custom, and 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF MORALS 71 
 
 which dominates the morals derived from those 
 folk-customs. These so derived are, however, only a 
 part of the body of moral rules which finally prevail 
 among the higher folkgroups; and another part, 
 drawn from nurtureways which are more the results 
 of individual emotions than of group feeling, it will 
 next be necessary to consider. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF HUMANISTIC 
 IDEALS 
 
 Folk-cus- 
 tom negli- 
 gent of 
 individual 
 interest 
 
 Conditions 
 limiting 
 the right 
 to live 
 
 It has been noticed by all observers that the moral 
 system founded upon folk-custom is disregardful of 
 the individual. This is not surprising when its 
 origin is considered. It is the product of social 
 evolution — of the evolution of folkgroups. Out of 
 the established folkways the group selects as folk- 
 customs those which it deems essential to its group 
 welfare and enforces them. Except in so far as the 
 individual shares the welfare of the group they do 
 not consider him. The men who compose the group 
 inherit the habits and instincts of their animal fore- 
 fathers, and the precedent of nature, which pays no 
 heed to individual welfare, is what they have to guide 
 them in their concept of what it is right that indi- 
 viduals should expect of the folkgroup. In all 
 nature and with primitive man there was almost 
 always an overproduction of individuals with respect 
 to the means of subsistence, so that many must in 
 some event perish, in order that few might survive. 
 
 And so it was not to be questioned that the primi- 
 tive folkgroup, under the pressure of recurring 
 famine, should find in a corresponding limitation of 
 the right to live some security for its own integrity 
 and survival. In many parts of China the redundant 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 73 
 
 population is still kept down by the folk-custom of 
 drowning or poisoning a considerable fraction of its 
 girl babies; they think no more of it than we do of 
 drowning kittens. It is a filial duty among the 
 Eskimos to kill their old people when they become 
 burdensome. 
 
 Many illustrations may be adduced of the essen- Brutality 
 tial brutality of folk-custom in its bearing upon the of 
 individual. In some groups it has made a sacred folk-cus- 
 duty of cannibalism. In mediaeval times folk-custom '•°'" 
 approved the slaughter of heretics just as we 
 approve the killing of rattlesnakes, and regarded 
 torture as a legitimate means of procuring evidence. 
 Our own folk-custom justifies and glorifies war, the 
 ruin of business rivals, and does not condemn the 
 bargain by which a titled roue buys the daughter of 
 a multimillionaire; just as the folk-custom of the 
 Italian peasant still permits him to sell his daughter 
 to a man she has never seen, and without reproach. 
 Folk-customs have until the last half-century relent- 
 lessly driven their own social victims — beggars, 
 prostitutes, criminals, the unfortunately disabled — 
 to the wall. Annually the Spartans had a roundup 
 of their subject Helots and killed a number of them 
 to keep fresh their own warlike qualities. Not con- 
 demned by folk-custom, these acts are not contrary 
 to the morals of the time and place. We ourselves 
 plead the "higher law" — or the sanction of custom — 
 in mitigation of murder or mutilation of persons 
 caught in adultery, and in the South it is impossible 
 
74 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Survey of 
 the motives 
 to behavior 
 — Nature- 
 ways 
 
 The 
 
 motives to 
 conduct — 
 Nurture- 
 ways 
 
 to convict of murder the white slayer of a colored 
 man. These are only extreme instances of the fre- 
 quent brutality of folk-custom, and of its indiffer- 
 ence to individual welfare whenever it is in supposed 
 conflict with that of the group. 
 
 In our survey of the various influences by which 
 conduct is guided we began with instinct; for it 
 seemed to be the parent of human folkways and to 
 govern conduct that might be partly influenced by the 
 will. Much of our behavior is, nevertheless, actu- 
 ated by reactions of our organism with its environ- 
 ment of an absolutely involuntary kind; tropisms, 
 or movements which are the result of purely physical 
 surroundings such as the external influence of heat, 
 light, electricity; the motions of air and water, and 
 the chemical reactions within the body. Above these 
 comes another class of Involuntary movements 
 caused by reflex nervous action, which must be 
 reckoned with in a full consideration of all the 
 conditions by which our ultimate action is deter- 
 mined. Beside instinct, the next higher faculty, we 
 have now considered the social influences of folk- 
 ways and folk-customs; but if we examine what is 
 conceded by everybody to be the highest type of 
 morals as they are, it is plain that there is something 
 yet needed to account for those higher motives, 
 beyond and superior to the merely groupal welfare; 
 which may express not the potency of the group 
 toward the individual, or the subjection of the indi- 
 vidual to the group; but that Interaction of Individ- 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 75 
 
 uals upon individuals whose rule has been expressed 
 by moral masters, from Confucius to Christ, in the 
 precept that we must do to others as we would have 
 others do to us. 
 
 Because up to this point we have heard little about 
 the individual man it will not do to suppose that he The 
 does not exist; or that his existence can be ignored individual 
 in any discussion of the moral principle by which, to 
 be selected for survival, his conduct must be guided. 
 Because in physics and chemistry we hear much of 
 atoms and molecules and compounds and of their 
 behavior under various reactions, it would not do to 
 overlook the less conspicuous electrons and ions of 
 which they are composed. 
 
 The conduct-mode which we shall now discuss is 
 discernible only when self-consciousness becomes so 
 far developed as to recognize the welfare of the indi- His claim 
 vidual as an individual. At first it obtrudes itself for con- 
 but faintly, for it Is overwhelmed and overshadowed sideration 
 by the tremendous social force of folk-customs which 
 arise from group-consciousness. It increases, how- 
 ever, in potency as man continues to evolve toward 
 the higher type. Individual, it co-operates with the 
 social, to the making of a wholly moral man. But 
 exactly as liberty — one of the social expressions of 
 individual consciousness — begins to express itself 
 politically, so soon as the tremendous integrating 
 bonds of intertribal conflict have begun to dissolve in 
 the more disintegral peace powers of a nation, just 
 so soon do men begin to seek a wider individual 
 
76 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Universal 
 
 contending 
 
 forces 
 
 Concur- 
 rence and 
 Antagonism 
 
 welfare than can be pursued under their continued 
 subjection to the folkgroup, as expressed in its folk- 
 customs. And so individualism enters into compe- 
 tition with socialization as a means of human 
 welfare. 
 
 In all kinds of action and reaction, whether of 
 material or physical bodies, we always find ourselves 
 in the presence of opposite and contending forces, 
 the resultant of which is a compromise or balance 
 along whose lines the resultant motion or activity 
 takes place. In physics we call these opposing forces 
 attraction and repulsion; in chemistry we speak of 
 them as affinity and resistance. The expression 
 which they take in economics is that of co-operation 
 and competition; in politics of socialism and 
 individualism. All in all these are nothing more 
 than the physical or psychical expression of two uni- 
 versal causes of motion underlying all nature and 
 life, which are summarized by the opposing ideas of 
 concurrence and antagonism. In morals the concur- 
 rent forces are those which impel men to act 
 together for the welfare of the group; the antago- 
 nistic forces are those which impel them to act for 
 their individual welfare. And it is along the balance, 
 or resultant of these forces, that society and morals 
 move in their onward progress. 
 
 For every act there are motives. In those that we 
 have thus far considered we have seen the influence 
 only of the four great primeval motives of hunger, 
 love, vanity and fear. As society progresses in the 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 77 
 
 practice of the peace folk-custom, as mankind be- Sympathy 
 comes more gentle and intelligent, a fifth social the fifth 
 motive is discernible in addition to these. This social 
 motive is that of compassion or pity, which since the motive 
 time of Confucius has been recognized as the source 
 of the highest form of moral conduct. Compassion 
 is the capacity that one individual possesses of 
 imagining the feelings of another and which makes 
 him unwilling to do anything which is likely to 
 injure that other person. And yet, as Dr. Johnson 
 has observed, it is not natural to man. Children are 
 always cruel. Savages are always cruel. We may 
 have uneasy sensations for seeing a creature in dis- 
 tress without pity; for we have not pity unless we 
 wish to relieve it. 
 
 The origin of pity is found in the parental instinct, Originates 
 expanding in man into the tender emotion which is in the 
 evoked by the helpless child — "flesh of our flesh." parental 
 This tender emotion is most naturally extended to "^^tmct 
 include blood relations composing the kinship group ; 
 its first heterethnic manifestation is probably the 
 feeling of guest-friendship, the earliest evidence of 
 compassionate relations with strangers. From its 
 impulses are generated modes of conduct satisfying 
 interests arising out of a new motive and tested by 
 a new standard. The new motive is compassion for 
 individual suffering, the interest is to prevent the 
 suffering, and the standard is that which we would 
 have the other person do to us under like circum- 
 stances — the Golden Rule. 
 
78 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Its psychic 
 aspect 
 
 Its 
 
 influence 
 on 
 evolution 
 
 Like the motives of vanity and fear, the compas- 
 sion motive is psychic, and is built upon the frame- 
 work of a developed brain. Psychologically it is a 
 complex sentiment instead of a primary instinct. Its 
 diffusion and acceptance are due to the fact that 
 those who are most actuated by this motive have a 
 better chance for survival in the struggle for exist- 
 ence than those by whom it is not possessed. 
 
 The course of natural selection in the evolution of 
 greater sensitiveness of nervous organization in 
 the human race through compassion has been well 
 stated by Sutherland: "The man who is a good 
 father, a good husband and a good citizen, is the 
 ancestor of many progeny; while the Napoleonic 
 type of abundant brains but deficient sympathies, 
 even though it make a brilliant career, perishes in 
 a century or less from off the face of the earth. 
 Each person now living has two parents, four grand- 
 parents, eight great grandparents and so on. Thus 
 ten generations back his ancestors formed a living 
 regiment of 1024 persons. Make a small allow- 
 ance" for in-breeding "and assume that on the 
 average each Englishman of the present day had 
 1000 ancestors of the tenth degree all living in the 
 time of Queen Elizabeth. Let us assume that there 
 were then born 500 boys and 500 girls who might 
 have been the ancestors of the now living individual. 
 A portion of these were weeded out, some of them 
 died through want of sufficient parental care, others 
 as they grew up died through their own failure of 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 79 
 
 sympathetic qualities. It is no exaggeration to say 
 that out of a thousand possible ancestors fifty would 
 on the average be eliminated through the failure of 
 parental, conjugal or social qualities. In Elizabeth's 
 time out of every looo persons born five were 
 actually hanged. But brawls, venereal diseases, etc., 
 were far more potent cleansers of society. Thus 
 those eliminated would be replaced by men and 
 women of better stock (that is to say, those who 
 were protected from elimination by more effective 
 sympathies) . And so we may feel sure that at each 
 generation a steady 5 per cent of the poorer type was 
 withdrawn, leaving room for the expansion of those 
 richer in sympathetic qualities. But the power of 
 such a steady withdrawal acting in cumulative 
 fashion is enormous when spread over a sufficient 
 time . . . and if we had means of sifting the people 
 of Queen Elizabeth's time into two equal sets, those 
 who could pass in these days for fairly good men 
 and women, and those who were more or less dis- 
 tinctly below the average ... it would be found 
 that practically none of the inferior blood flows in 
 the veins of the present generation; we being bred 
 almost wholly from the better stock." Evolution- 
 
 We have seen how folk-custom is important for f^^ contrast 
 the welfare and preservation of the folkgroup; it , ., 
 better fits the clan, tribe or nation to survive — as a ^^^ ^^^ 
 group. From the foregoing illustration we may compas- 
 perceive how conduct derived from compassion sion 
 
80 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Personal 
 liberty its 
 political 
 symptom 
 
 Characters 
 of Human- 
 istics 
 
 better fits for survival the individual, with which 
 folk-custom, except incidentally, is little concerned. 
 
 A progressive alteration of our moral sentiments 
 toward the recognition of a right of individual hap- 
 piness, as contrasted with group welfare, is due to 
 the increasing force which the compassion motive 
 acquires in the course of the social evolution from 
 savagery to civilization. Personal liberty, its politi- 
 cal symptom, is the outcome of a sense of pity felt 
 by the masses of a folkgroup for themselves and for 
 each other in a state of misery and degradation of 
 which they become conscious through the contrast 
 of their condition with that of their dominant sub- 
 group. Its force is individualistic, expressed either 
 by orderly attempts to change folk-custom through 
 institutional adaptations, as in the slow breaking up 
 of military feudalism in England; or, if repressed, by 
 outbursts of violence such as those of the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 Morals derived from the customs engendered by 
 pity flow from the individual to the group, while 
 those derived from folk-custom flow from the group 
 to the individual. So different in fact are these 
 customs from the folk-customs originating in folk- 
 ways that I propose, in order to keep them distinct 
 in our minds, to give them a special name, and to call 
 them Humanistics. Humanistics, therefore, are 
 habits of feeling and conduct formed to satisfy the 
 interests derived from the motive of compassion for 
 the misfortunes of others. The influence of human- 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 81 
 
 istic ideals moves centrifugally from the social atom 
 out toward the social compound; while that of folk- 
 custom moves centripetally in upon the individual 
 from the group. 
 
 To become the source of moral rules, the human- Their 
 istic ideals, at first advanced and practiced by indi- influence 
 viduals, must become accepted and imbedded in the «" niorals 
 ideals and emotions of some of the subgroups. We 
 have seen that many of them promote the survival 
 of the family, and it is there that their sway is always 
 firmest. The conduct which expresses them is actu- 
 ated by a nice regard for the feelings and welfare 
 of other individuals and its first recognition by folk- 
 feeling is in the prescription that whatever conduct 
 may be exacted from a man in his relations with 
 other groups, within the limits of his own family it Their 
 must always be honorable or it will be condemned expression 
 by the folkgroup. Later, and in a lesser degree, it in honor 
 is expected in his relations toward a larger kinship 
 group, such as may survive the extinction of the clan; 
 he may treat his cousin or his uncle less scrupulously 
 than his wife or children but yet the folk-feeling pre- Their 
 vails that compliance with prevailing folk-custom will hmitations 
 save him from obloquy in his dealings with the other 
 members of the folkgroup. And so we do not con- 
 demn a man who is merely honest in his dealings with 
 strangers; but we expect him to be more or less 
 honorable in his conduct toward his kin. 
 
 The process by which humanistic rules of conduct 
 become the basis of a new kind of folk-custom origi- 
 
82 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The 
 
 folk-cus- 
 tom of 
 infanticide 
 
 Denounced 
 by leaders 
 
 Slavery a 
 
 partial 
 
 remedy 
 
 nates, therefore, in the kinship group. Some of the 
 group members, in whom compassion, or the tender 
 emotion, is most strongly developed, discover the 
 suffering of other individuals, as a result of conduct 
 following some folk-custom, and by their protests 
 folk-feeling is gradually excited to the point of its 
 condemnation. 
 
 Take, for example, the folk-custom of infanticide. 
 It seems to have prevailed amongst the early peoples, 
 especially those in which population tended to outrun 
 subsistence. The Egyptians practiced it with no 
 feeling of guilt against the Hebrews in the days of 
 the captivity. The Jews themselves practiced it, and 
 the instance of Abraham's treatment of his two sons 
 shows that their folk-custom was averse neither to 
 child exposure nor to child sacrifice. They had at 
 no time any hesitation in perpetrating it upon an out- 
 group. But prophets and seers — idealists — de- 
 claimed against it. The best families showed that 
 they disapproved of it; and these families by their 
 continued aptitude for survival, and consequent 
 leadership, had great influence in the spread of their 
 ideals. Rather than expose or kill their daughters, 
 they introduced the humanistic of sparing them, even 
 if later sold as slaves or concubines. By degrees the 
 humanistic thus introduced became a folk-custom of 
 the Jews. The Greeks of the epic period were quite 
 indifferent to the survival of their children, so 
 much so that the great Spartan tribe was by this 
 sentiment reduced to insignificance. Infanticide was 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 83 
 
 well ingrained in early Roman folk-custom and it 
 was one of the unquestioned rights of the Patria 
 potestas. Softened by the humanistic of adoption, 
 it nevertheless prevailed long enough to become a 
 contributing condition of Roman degeneracy. In 
 the fourth century of our era the Hebrew human- 
 istics, which had prevailed over political ineptitude 
 to fit that tenacious race for selection in survival, 
 began through the Christian variant of its religion Mediaeval 
 to affect the folk-feeling of the Roman peoples. And orphan- 
 yet the folk-customs of exposure and abandonment ^e^^ 
 declined but slowly; throughout the Middle Ages 
 they persisted in spite of efforts at religious and 
 statutory suppression. In France, as late as 1638, 
 children were sold at the gates of the Lying-in-Hos- 
 pital to the first-comer for a franc apiece. Institu- 
 tions devised to mitigate their brutality, such as bre- 
 photrophia or orphanages, had a medieval incep- 
 tion, but only in the seventeenth century were they 
 popularized through the devoted efforts of St. 
 Vincent de Paul. The milder doctrines then found 
 their opportunity because the growth of the arts 
 under peace folk-customs had gradually changed 
 conditions by dispelling the fear of famine, and so 
 permitted the humanistic better to fit for survival 
 the nations by whom it was adopted. Thus by 
 degrees the barbaric folk-custom of infanticide 
 declined before the Hebrew humanistic of infant 
 preservation, until the children whose lives it had 
 saved lived to persecute the people by whom it had 
 
84 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Supplanting 
 a folk-cus- 
 tom with a 
 humanistic 
 
 Potency in 
 promoting 
 survival 
 
 been engendered ; among whom yet we find the most 
 notable examples of paternal love. 
 
 This illustration shows the salient features of a 
 humanistic as conducive to family or tribal survival. 
 Its origin through compassion in a minor f olkgroup ; 
 the individual stimulus to its ingroup spread through 
 the efforts of leading men and its adoption as a reli- 
 gious ideal; its further expansion through the 
 absorption of its folkgroup as a well-dispersed sub- 
 group in a greater folkgroup, and by the latter's 
 predilection for the religious system of the former; 
 the long-time failure of law and religion to sup- 
 press a folk-custom founded upon environmental 
 conditions ; and upon the change of those conditions 
 the renewal of the humanistic propaganda through 
 individual effort and institutional device; its final 
 acceptance as folk-custom and its firm hold in modern 
 morals. 
 
 We have seen how the higher sympathetic develop- 
 ment of groups which first established such a human- 
 istic gave them an advantage over other groups in 
 whom it was deficient; they became increasingly 
 better fitted to survive and correspondingly more 
 potent in folkgroup activities. For the success of a 
 tribe, both externally as a war group and internally 
 as a peace group, is dependent upon the strength of 
 its intergroup sympathies; and the tribes in whom 
 those sympathies are most developed are, therefore, 
 best fitted to survive. The superior brute force and 
 more selfish folk-customs of the Huns, Goths and 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 85 
 
 Vandals did not prevent them from being absorbed 
 and obliterated by the milder and more sympathetic 
 humanistic ideals of the European peoples whom 
 they subdued and amongst whom they settled. 
 Though better fighters than their adversaries, the 
 less sympathetic Turks have not been able to stand 
 up against their more civilized Northern neighbors 
 in the struggle for national supremacy. 
 
 Because the exercise of sympathy promotes the 
 survival of the folkgroup in the struggle for exist- 
 ence, the latter, therefore, consciously accepts and 
 enforces some of the humanistics of its subgroups in 
 the same way that it does its folk-custom and between Acceptance 
 these, except as to origin, difference disappears ; such as 
 humanistics being eventually merged in folk-custom, folk-cus- 
 And so at this juncture the sympathetic forces which ^°"^ 
 have been flowing outward from the individual to 
 the group react and flow inward from the group to 
 the members. The group now exacts socially what 
 its individual members first demanded. 
 
 While normally humanistics originate within 
 family groups, they may in the larger folkgroups 
 arise and spread through a propaganda led by an Influence of 
 individual and then accepted and promoted by organized 
 an artificial subgroup formed especially for the pur- propaganda 
 pose. Take for example the prevention of cruelty 
 to animals. It was never a British folk-custom before 
 the nineteenth century. In 1805 cock fighting, bull 
 baiting, bear gardens, badger baiting and dog fight- 
 ing were not considered wrong any more than bull 
 
86 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Idealistic 
 aspect 
 of the hu- 
 manistics 
 
 fighting is today in Spain or Mexico. Schools had 
 their cock fights at which the schoolmaster presided. 
 Thomas Young, who about that time wrote an essay 
 on humanity to animals, admitted that in doing so 
 he was sensible of laying himself open to no small 
 portion of ridicule. Twenty years later an altru- 
 istic group which had been converted to Young's 
 opinions founded an institution — the Royal Society 
 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Thirteen 
 years later the influence of this group on the national 
 folkgroup was so effective that the humanistic of 
 sympathy with brute creation was selected to be of 
 equal legal value with folk-custom, and the first 
 cruelty to animals act passed in 1837. By degrees 
 the humanistic won acceptance and was effectively 
 enforced by the folkgroup on all its members by the 
 sentiment which procured the passage of a more 
 stringent law in 1849. Finally vivisection was regu- 
 lated in 1876 — nearly three quarters of a century 
 after the work of propagating the humanistic had 
 been begun by a single leading mind. 
 
 Such principles when first asserted may be, and 
 often are, in advance of those changes in the mental 
 attitude of the folkgroup which would fit them to be 
 received and accepted as humanistics. For human- 
 istics like folk-customs must needs receive the 
 emotional assent of the folkgroup, or at least of that 
 portion of it which is recognized by the bulk of its 
 members as best fitted to lead in the acceptance of 
 new rules of conduct. There is, of course, a period 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 87 
 
 when the proposed humanistic is debated and denied, 
 a period during which the compassionate ideals from 
 which it is formed are under discussion and when it Influence of 
 is uncertain whether it will or will not accord with Discussion 
 the ultimate necessities of social group evolution. 
 During this period the folkgroup (which is nothing 
 if not practical) will refuse to accept it as a basis for 
 a general rule of moral conduct. Its advocates are 
 dreamers, theorists, reformers, impracticals, — and 
 so indeed they are, — yet it sometimes happens, as 
 was said of the reformers of the French Revolu- 
 tion, "the skins of those who opposed them were 
 tanned to bind the second edition of their works." 
 
 For it is in the humanistic, altruistic or sympa- Moral 
 thetic interpretation of group relationships where progress 
 lies the hope of moral progress in social justice. Pro- through 
 posed humanistics, therefore, should be patiently human- 
 considered and discussed, and not held to ridicule; '*'•'" 
 for before long such of these doctrines as survive 
 the discussion will reach the point of social accept- 
 ance. Their practice will be deemed honorably 
 binding on the subgroup by which it is first 
 accepted and then gradually will become accepted as 
 folk-custom; to act in accordance with which is a 
 moral duty, and generally binding upon the folk- 
 group, with its transgressor stigmatized as an 
 "inhuman" person or as a social enemy. 
 
 We have now arrived at a point from which we can 
 survey the whole field of conduct as influenced by 
 nurtureways, which are the three modes of common 
 
88 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Survey of 
 nurture- 
 way 
 influences 
 
 Folkways 
 
 Folk- 
 customs 
 
 Human- 
 istics 
 
 action characteristic of mankind as organized in the 
 groups of which society is constituted. 
 
 First then, the folkways: originating in animal 
 groups; characteristic of the most primitive folk- 
 groups; unconsidered, habitual, uniform within the 
 group; a means by which all men endeavor so to 
 systematize their daily life as to escape the effort of 
 a constant exercise of choice and judgment in the 
 doing of acts necessary to continued survival; 
 motived by forces of hunger, love, vanity and fear; 
 acquired through education and imitation; instinct 
 plus acquisition. 
 
 Next, folk-customs (or mores) derived from folk- 
 ways by a conscious choice of such as are deemed by 
 the folkgroup to be connected with its welfare. They 
 are the product of a newly arisen group-conscious- 
 ness. To conform with folk-customs is right, to dis- 
 regard them is wrong. They are favored by the 
 folkgroup through the suggestive influence of folk- 
 feeling and upheld with pains, penalties and 
 rewards. Folk-customs are folkways plus groupal 
 welfare. From the clan, tribe and other semi- 
 civilized social phases upward, they constitute a 
 potent factor in fitting folkgroups for selection and 
 survival. 
 
 The third mode of conduct is humanistics ; accord- 
 ing with ideals originating with, and propagated 
 by, individuals or subgroups so as to modify the 
 anti-individualistic trend of many folk-customs. 
 They are the offshoot of the growing sense of 
 
HUMANISTIC EVOLUTION 89 
 
 self-consciousness. Founded on compassion for 
 others, they are gradually diffused within the folk- 
 group through the power of sympathy to better 
 fit its possessors to survive in civilization. Charac- 
 teristic of the higher social phases of upper tribal 
 and national culture, they are the basis of the higher 
 or altruistic morality. Humanistics are folk-customs 
 plus compassion. Humanistic ideals flow from indi- 
 viduals to the groups, while the prohibitions and 
 precepts of folk-custom flow from the group to the 
 individual. Originating in the family and promoting 
 its survival, they are like the folkways in this, that Honor 
 their sway and incidence are in inverse ratio to the 
 size of the group. The conduct which expresses 
 them is often called honor; it is upheld by folk- 
 feeling in the greatest measure within the fellowship 
 of the family group ; in a lesser degree toward other 
 members of the f olkgroup. But by degrees a human- 
 istic may be emotionally enrolled as a folk-custom, 
 in which case the conduct which it prescribes is like- 
 wise upheld by social sanction. And thus conduct 
 which conforms with an accepted humanistic becomes 
 right, and conduct repugnant to it wrong, in like 
 manner to that which arises from a folk-custom 
 adapted from folkways; only with a lesser degree 
 of intensity. 
 
 From these two categories of right or wrong con- Moral 
 duct are drawn general rules of morals to aid men Conduct 
 in practicing the art of acting in accord with folk- ^n Art 
 feeling. And folk-feeling is that state of group-con- 
 
90 TRADE MORALS 
 
 sclousness which is excited by ideals of social welfare 
 held at a given time and place by a folkgroup. 
 Social welfare is a condition produced in direct ratio 
 to the complete adjustment of group life to its 
 environment. Morals, therefore, are a means of 
 harmonizing the folkgroup with the out-conditions 
 and in-conditions of its environment. Science, and 
 the arts which are derived from the sciences, are 
 other means to the same end; but with these we are 
 not now concerned. 
 
 Morals, like their parent folk-customs, correspond 
 to the phase of social structure through which 
 Its the folkgroup may be passing at any given time and 
 
 Adjuncts place; primitive society implies a different and 
 simpler set of moral rules from that which pre- 
 vails in the higher, more complex types of folk- 
 group. And so in drawing general moral rules it is 
 also found that there are often conflicts, sometimes 
 between folk-custom and humanistics, sometimes 
 between folk-custom and class-custom, and sometimes 
 between the class-customs of the different subgroups 
 within the folkgroup, so that men are uncertain 
 as to the conduct morally expected of them in certain 
 situations. Looking further we may observe that to 
 aid the determination of what conduct to pursue in 
 practice in the moral art there are certain instru- 
 ments, either devised by the folkgroup or developed 
 in human nature, the principal of which are religion, 
 law and conscience ; and these we shall proceed next 
 to consider under the general title of moral adjuncts. 
 
VI 
 
 MORAL ADJUNCTS— INSTITUTIONS AND 
 CONSCIENCE 
 
 The history of modern ideals relative to the treat- 
 ment of the insane affords another illustration of the 
 typical course by which humanistics are begotten, Early 
 grow, modify folk-custom and finally are absorbed theories of 
 into the folk-feeling and the morals of the folk- Insanity 
 group. To primitive or uncivilized man insanity 
 appears as a part of the supernatural. The bab- 
 blings of idiots and the irrational acts of lunatics are 
 looked upon as the direct expression of deities or 
 demons. Prevailing amongst all primitive peoples, 
 theories of the transmigration and embodiment of 
 good or evil spirits provide explanations reasonable 
 in their time and place for the phenomena of morbid 
 exaltation and derangement. Exaltations not de- 
 structive were looked upon as an expression of the 
 Good above nature. Piers Plowman (1377) speaks 
 of lunatics as God's minstrels. But paroxysms 
 having a violent or destructive outcome were con- 
 sidered symptoms of possession by evil spirits. In 
 holy writ theologians found indubitable support for 
 this theory and for the folk-customs which arose 
 from it. So persistent have been what we now 
 recognize as the delusions of witchcraft and diaboli- 
 cal possession that to this day they survive in Ian- 
 
92 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The 
 
 doctrine of 
 
 diabolical 
 
 possession 
 
 Inspiration 
 attributed 
 to some 
 forms of 
 insanity 
 
 Other 
 forms 
 deemed of 
 evil purpose 
 and so 
 treated 
 
 Witchcraft 
 
 guage and possibly to some degree in popular senti- 
 ment. Amulets to ward off evil spirits are still 
 carried in the most civilized countries in the world. 
 We still say of a perverse person that "he must be 
 possessed by a devil" and solemn, religious cere- 
 monies for casting out devils from the bodies of the 
 possessed are to this day officially retained in the 
 rituals of the Greek and Roman Churches. And 
 even within recent years the rite of exorcism has been 
 practiced by the Anglican priesthood. 
 
 While from heathen times the mildly Insane were 
 considered to be inspired, and their prophecies were 
 eagerly studied by those who expected to find in 
 them some forecast of future happenings, the lot of 
 those who were violent or destructive was by no 
 means so pleasant. Here it was held that the soul 
 of the real man was absent and that for the expul- 
 sion of the evil spirit which had taken its place any 
 means of bodily coercion was entirely legitimate. 
 Possession by demons was a characteristic of the 
 belief in witches, who were nothing more than 
 feeble-minded old women whose incoherent utter- 
 ances were taken as a sign of evil purpose. And so 
 folk-custom justified even death as an appropriate 
 remedy for this devil-devised disorder. King James 
 I of England in his "Demonology" (1599) wrote of 
 Its treatment, that "it is commonly used by fire, but 
 that is an indifferent thing, to be used In every coun- 
 try according to the law or custom thereof." Many 
 thousands of these agents of the evil one were thus 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 93 
 
 condemned and burned alive; even by ministers of 
 religion. It was not as an enemy to the British king 
 that Joan of Arc was put to death by the Bishop of 
 Beauvais, but as a demented person who had shown 
 all the attributes of witchcraft. According to the 
 reason of the times, folk-custom classed witchcraft 
 with murder and theft as inimical to folkgroup wel- 
 fare, and it was no wrong that it should be repressed 
 in the same way as other serious crimes against 
 society. 
 
 The first Christian asylums for the insane were Rise of 
 founded in Spain during the fifteenth century, but Christian 
 they did not begin to make their appearance in Eng- Insane 
 land and other parts of Europe until the latter part Asylums 
 of the seventeenth; and, except that their charges 
 were no longer burned alive, the methods of treat- 
 ment sanctioned by folk-custom were hardly less 
 cruel than those that had previously prevailed. If 
 any treatment were attempted it was by blows, bleed- 
 ing and chains. Often the insane were confined in the Cruelty 
 prisons with those who were awaiting trial or the of their 
 execution of sentence, and like the latter secured by methods 
 iron fetters. Shakspear (1600) refers to lunatics 
 as deserving "a dark house and a whip." Burton 
 (1621) describes a madman as "a ghastly sight, 
 naked in chains doth he lie, and roars amain." 
 
 But asylums were rare ; for the most part lunatics 
 were doomed to local custody, chained to a post in 
 the open air or under a shed, dependent for food on 
 the charity of passers-by. When cared for at home 
 
94 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Home 
 treatment 
 equally 
 cruel 
 
 Brutalities 
 justified by 
 folk-custom 
 in the 
 eighteenth 
 century 
 
 Skeptical 
 foundations 
 of a 
 
 humanistic 
 reform 
 
 the most indescribable cruelties were practiced on 
 troublesome patients and without social condemna- 
 tion. In Wales, as late as 1843, ^ "^^^ woman was 
 found in her own daughter's house chained in a 
 crouching posture, and her knees had worn so long 
 against her breast that its skin was raw and bleeding. 
 
 At the end of the eighteenth century public institu- 
 tions for the care of the insane were committed to 
 prevailing folk-custom by which vomitings, bleed- 
 ings — ad deliquium animi — prolonged duckings, 
 whippings, solitary confinement in dark cells and 
 restraint by chaining to posts or beds were the 
 approved remedies. Private institutions were even 
 worse. "Persons may be and are taken forcibly to 
 these houses without any authority, stripped naked, 
 taken to a dark room and deprived of all communi- 
 cation with the outer world." (1765.) As an 
 effort to expel the demon by which the sufferer was 
 possessed such treatment was wrong neither by folk- 
 custom nor by law. 
 
 With the progress of rationalism which followed 
 the renascence of classic learning there arose a band 
 of skeptics, to whom the sanctions of prevailing 
 custom were no deterrents. The supernatural origin 
 of Insanity began to be doubted by at least a few. In 
 1690 Locke laid the foundations of modern ration- 
 alistic psychology. Condillac in 1746 had popular- 
 ized the new philosophy in France. In 1762 
 Morgagnl had asserted the physical origin of mental 
 disease. In 1789 Howard had visited the insane 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 95 
 
 hospitals at Constantinople and Amsterdam, and had 
 drawn a comparison to their favor with the English 
 asylums of his day. Simultaneously in France and 
 England, in the year 1792, a new movement was 
 originated for a treatment of the insane based upon 
 the theory of them as sick human beings and not upon 
 their supposed embodiment of perverse demons. 
 Philippe Pinel, influenced by Locke and Condillac, Philippe 
 had studied mental disorders, and in 1789 had com- Pinel 
 municated the result of his researches to the Societe 
 Royale de la Medecine, which in 1791 offered a 
 prize for the best treatise on the care of the insane. 
 Pinel's theories attracted the attention of the repub- 
 lican commissioners of hospitals, who in 1792 placed 
 him in charge of the Bicetre. After overcoming 
 much opposition from the commune he was allowed 
 to try his methods, and within the week had stricken 
 the chains from the first fifty insane patients, one of 
 whom had been so restrained for forty years. 
 
 In the same year William Tuke, an English mer- William 
 chant, outraged by the treatment of a friend in the Tuke 
 York Asylum, arose in a Friends' meeting and advo- 
 cated the rational treatment of the insane. His 
 enthusiasm won support and through the efforts of 
 a group funds were raised to establish the York 
 Retreat, where mental disorder was for the first time 
 in England managed by pacific methods. 
 
 In spite of the success of the methods practiced by 
 Tuke and his followers, in spite of reports private 
 and public upon the manifest abuses of the existing 
 
96 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The agita- 
 tion for 
 humanistic 
 reform 
 
 Typical 
 cycle of 
 humanistic 
 evolution 
 
 Individual 
 inception 
 
 Propaga- 
 tion by 
 voluntary 
 institutions 
 
 Adoption 
 by a 
 political 
 institution 
 
 Institutions, in spite of reforms put in practice by the 
 more mobile French, in spite of the notorious cruel- 
 ties of the existing folk-custom and In spite of agita- 
 tion both in and out of Parliament, it was not until 
 1839, almost half a century later, that restraint was 
 abolished in the Harwell and Bethlem Asylums, and 
 not till 1845 that an efficient law controlling both 
 public and private asylums was enacted by Parlia- 
 ment. From that time, however, the humanistic of 
 kind treatment for the mentally defective has been 
 socially on the ascendant; so that the cruelties long 
 made right by folk-custom have been definitely dis- 
 owned and made wrong by folkgroup feeling. 
 
 As in the case of animals, our present attitude 
 toward the treatment of the insane Is the outcome of 
 a movement in popular feeling which derived Its 
 Initial Impulse from an individual, moved by pity for 
 suffering coming out of the maladjustment of a folk- 
 custom to present environment. The next step was 
 the diffusion of antagonism to this folk-custom 
 through the agency of voluntary subgroups, respec- 
 tively the societies for the suppression of cruelty to 
 animals, the Friends, or the Soclete Royale de la 
 Medecine. These are institutions, as is also 
 another body socially established, the Parliament or 
 Assembly. To the law-making institution such 
 movements turn for support, asking It to create a 
 third institution — a statute — establishing penalties 
 to supply additional motives for the adoption of the 
 humanistic by the folkgroup. The Parliament 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 97 
 
 moves slowly; it is representative of the conservative 
 folk-feeling behind the folk-custom as well as of the Promotion 
 class-feeling behind the humanistic. Early legisla- by a legal 
 tion favorable to a humanistic is rarely effective ; the institution 
 legislature does not at first dare to make it thorough- 
 going, for it has the support of folk-feeling only in 
 part. But as it wins popular acceptance, particularly 
 among the subgroups to whom the masses turn for 
 leadership, it becomes practical to create still more 
 solid and far-reaching institutional control; until 
 finally the humanistic becomes generally approved 
 by folk-feeling, and in large measure the laws en- 
 force themselves. 
 
 And so the typical cycle of humanistic evolution is ; 
 its conception by an individual; its publication; its 
 propagation and diffusion through institutions. Of 
 these there were (a) the voluntary subgroups, (b) 
 a political institution, the legislature, which created 
 (c) a third institution, a law, to supply motives for 
 folkgroup conformity with the ideal. Fourthly, reli- Sanction of 
 gion, another already existing institution, may be- a Religious 
 come conscious of the growing favor extended to the institution 
 humanistic by its leading minds, may adopt it as a 
 part of its spiritual message; and so make itself an 
 important vehicle in its spread; because of its capa- 
 city to join Fear with Pity as motive forces for the 
 acceptance of the humanistic ideal. When by such 
 means a humanistic has become thoroughly em- 
 bedded in folk-feeling, it begins to possess the 
 attributes of a folk-custom and is consciously recog- 
 
98 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Contrast 
 
 between 
 
 folk-custom 
 
 and 
 
 humanistics 
 
 Humanis- 
 tics grow 
 through 
 institutions 
 
 nized as essential to the sympathies, if not to the 
 welfare, of the folkgroup. 
 
 While a folk-custom is derived from folkways of 
 which the group was once unconscious, but which it 
 comes to feel are needful to group welfare, i.e., the 
 adjustment of its structure to its environment, a 
 humanistic is a growth from some person's con- 
 sciousness of a conflict between the welfare of indi- 
 viduals with some folk-custom, which by change of 
 the structure or of the environment of the group is 
 no longer needful for its welfare. 
 
 We observe further that the mode of humanistic 
 growth and diffusion is institutional rather than 
 moral; as the acme of conscious nurtureways, the 
 most thoroughly conscious means are used both for 
 their spread and maintenance. The institutions 
 through which we find them working are in part 
 voluntary societies — to repress slavery, to help the 
 poor, to promote education, to care for the sick, to 
 aid the insane, etc. ; and in part quasi-public institu- 
 tions, almshouses, hospitals, public schools and 
 libraries, savings banks, insurance funds, etc. — 
 which were originally private enterprises, but even- 
 tually have become socialized, i.e., publicly adopted 
 by the folkgroup into its folk-custom. The service 
 that such institutions perform is primarily for indi- 
 vidual welfare and is quite distinct from that ren- 
 dered to group welfare by public institutions growing 
 directly out of folk-custom such as public assemblies, 
 courts, jails, police, armies, banks of issue, stock and 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 99 
 
 produce exchanges, copartnerships, trades unions 
 and the like. 
 
 An institution is therefore an organized and for- Institutions 
 mal artifice either growing out of folk-custom or as Social 
 formed by leading minds to promote humanistics, artifices 
 with the conscious purpose of supplementing and 
 reinforcing the unorganized and almost uncon- 
 sciously exerted "moral" forces of approbation and 
 reprobation by which folkgroups endeavor to make 
 conduct accord with their folk-customs. The device 
 in its developed form is a subgroup created by pri- 
 vate enterprise or commanded by public enactment, 
 with the idea of bringing to bear concurrent forces 
 of co-operation, organization and persistence in 
 support of the uniform practice of a folk-custom or 
 to enlarge the acceptance of a humanistic as the case 
 may be. 
 
 In the dim twilight of primitive social structure, 
 we can always recognize the shadowy form of some The insti- 
 joint effort, on the part of the folkgroup, to express tution of 
 the sentiments growing out of its attempt to imagine Religion 
 and interpret the powers of nature by which it 
 is surrounded. Savage men appreciate fully that 
 they are in the grip of their surroundings ; and that 
 powers which they cannot fully understand hold in 
 strict limitation their capacity of existence and enjoy- Originally 
 ment. The human mind seems always to try to an explana- 
 explain these phenomena, and as it has only recently tion of 
 acquired the concept of natural forces its early natural 
 attempts at explanation are always along the lines phenomena 
 
100 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Consistent 
 with the 
 knowledge 
 of its day 
 
 Its organi- 
 zation of 
 the fear 
 motive 
 
 of myth; that Is to say, by the attribution of these 
 powers to unseen persons not unlike ourselves, super- 
 natural, but who dwell in nature and control its 
 forces. This line of development is aided by a 
 tendency of the savage mind to attribute an incor- 
 poreal and immortal essence to the dead or to 
 natural objects; a state of mind fostered by their 
 apparition In dreams; and doubtless superinduced 
 In a state of barbarism by folkways of Irregular 
 feeding and of intermittent periods of exercise 
 and repose which are conducive to disorders In the 
 circulation of the blood. For primitive man to 
 believe In the supernatural Is In fact as rational as 
 for us to deny It. The religious and scientific 
 rational processes of each social or cultural phase, 
 and the conduct which arises from them, are always 
 considered superstitious or Irrational by men who 
 have progressed onward Into higher phases. 
 
 As compared to human powers, the powers 
 deemed supernatural are Infinite in magnitude; and 
 the fear they Inspire leads to a desire for their 
 propitiation. Sacrifices and worship are the efforts 
 to express that propitiation. The example of In- 
 creased efl'iclency gained for the folkgroup through 
 concurrence In Its folk-customs must have been 
 apparent to men In the early phases of the social 
 structure, and some, at least, saw the value of the 
 fear of the supernatural already established in their 
 folkways, if Institutionalized, in supplementing the 
 less organized forces of social approbation or repro- 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 101 
 
 bation by which they were endeavoring to secure 
 uniformity of moral conduct. 
 
 In their turn religious institutions made use of the 
 same principle of concurrence. Their priests early 
 observed the psychic value of the rhythmic expres- 
 sion of emotion, many times multiplied in its effect And of the 
 upon the participant when manifested at the same rhythm of 
 time by an entire congregation. Churches and emotion 
 rituals are therefore effective means when directed 
 to moral ends, and to this purpose a large part of 
 their service is applied in lower social phases where 
 other institutional forces are wanting. 
 
 So long as religion can sustain in men the Idea that 
 they are accountable to powers greater than them- 
 selves, its potency in the enforcement of moral duties Conditions 
 is enormous ; but It parts with this power in propor- of its 
 tion as it may persist in the maintenance of doctrines ascendency 
 not in accord with the folk-feeling of the time. A 
 man who denies the efficacy of magical rites in cast- 
 ing out devils from a sick person, or doubts the value 
 of a sacrifice to the Deity in insuring a harvest. Is 
 not likely to be much impressed with the moral teach- 
 ings of those who insist upon the acceptance of such 
 beliefs as essential to salvation. No more in morals 
 than in dogma does religion represent immutable 
 truth. It commends at one period conduct which at 
 another It reprobates. Judged by Its then standard 
 David and Solomon were excellent men ; but imagine 
 them applying for church membership today! The 
 same support which religion gives to morals It 
 
102 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Substitution 
 of means 
 for ends 
 
 Political 
 institutions 
 
 accords to the now obsolete body of scientific doc- 
 trine, in which men once found an explanation of the 
 universe. The devout exalt the ritual, which is a 
 means, to the same level as its ends, and resist change 
 by whatever social powers they may possess; thus 
 from the second century idolatry was formally 
 classed by the hierarchy with murder and adultery 
 as a mortal sin. The churchmen of Mary's time 
 had as little compunction about burning a Protestant 
 as those of Elizabeth's had in torturing a Catholic; 
 the Pilgrim divines punished Antinomians by exile 
 and Quakers at the whipping post — and all for mere 
 differences of opinion about matters of little impor- 
 tance to folkgroup welfare. 
 
 Closely allied to the religious type of institution 
 is that of the political. The patriarchal family 
 seems early to have proved Its better fitness for sur- 
 vival than the matriarchal type; and the tribal exi- 
 gencies of military efficiency tended to develop the 
 chief or king as its leader In the almost constant 
 warfare In which tribes are engaged. In discover- 
 ing and carrying out the will of the tribe, the funda- 
 mental political folk-custom of assembly or mass 
 meeting was evolved from the clan custom previ- 
 ously prevailing; and from this folk-custom as a 
 basis arose a fundamental type of political institu- 
 tion such as the landesgemeinde, folkmote, council 
 or other form of deliberative assembly; to meet, 
 discuss and deliberate over the tribal needs of the 
 folkgroup, and to provide means for defense and 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 103 
 
 offense. The outcome of such needs was a primitive 
 secondary institution, the army. 
 
 By the time that nations had been formed from 
 the tribal groups, men had discovered the value of 
 institutions and that they could be organized by the Organiza- 
 royal authority or through the fundamental political tions of 
 institution ; which through the inconvenience of mass institutions 
 meetings for a scattered population soon developed ^y mstitu- 
 into a representative assembly, witenagemot, diet, *'°"* 
 folkthing or parliament. In nations peace-customs 
 develop rapidly through the necessities of the grow- 
 ing industrial life. The primitive remedy, estab- 
 lished by early folk-custom for torts or wrongs 
 committed by one person upon another, is blood Primitive 
 revenge ; a right of retaliation by the victim's family right of 
 or his kinship group exerted against the group to private 
 which the offender belonged. Punishment for theft, vengeance 
 for instance, was originally left in the hands of the 
 despoiled, and consisted either of reparation from 
 the family of the thief or of his pursuit, capture and 
 death. The custom of private vengeance or blood 
 revenge has survived even in civilized nations 
 amongst some subgroups, as is exemplified in the 
 duel, not yet obsolete in Europe, in lynch law, or in 
 the blood feuds of our own Tennessee mountains. 
 
 Blood revenge and its resultant feuds were both 
 destructive of the strength in war of the folk- 
 groups wherein it was most prevalent, and in a high 
 degree injurious to the growth of industrial sub- 
 groups, which needed internal peace for the practice 
 
 for torts 
 
104 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Blood 
 revenge a 
 clog upon 
 group 
 eiSciency 
 
 Laws and 
 
 Courts 
 
 derived 
 
 fronm 
 
 folk-custom 
 
 of their crafts. It was found that theft, murder and 
 other personal wrongs could be more efficiently 
 suppressed and punished by the folkgroup acting as 
 a unit, through constituted tribal authority. Thus 
 three conditions were always working to give greater 
 military and industrial efficiency to tribes who used 
 this means of eliminating the right of private ven- 
 geance from their folk-custom. The king's justice, 
 at first directly exercised, did the people's will upon 
 wrongdoers. In the more diffused populations of 
 the larger tribes the king's authority must needs be 
 delegated to judges; and to procure uniformity of 
 justice, statutes defining the offense and stating the 
 punishment established by folk-custom were insti- 
 tuted by the assembly or proclaimed by the king. 
 
 In its primitive form, therefore, a statute of law 
 is only a reduction to writing of a folk-custom. For 
 peaceable and orderly enforcement over a large 
 territory it involves the institution of a law court, 
 with judges to hear complaints and to give judg- 
 ments; with sheriffs or jailers to execute them; and 
 behind all a king and army providing an irresistible 
 power to enforce the decisions rendered. By such 
 institutions was the king's justice substituted for 
 blood revenge; an orderly for a disorderly process 
 of punishment; and each of the dominant elements 
 in the folkgroup was given what it needed — greater 
 efficiency to the war group in war, and peace con- 
 ditions for the growing group of industrial workers. 
 The penalties of the written law and of the unwritten 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 105 
 
 folk-custom were alike; but carried out by the irre- 
 sistible and impartial force of the folkgroup instead 
 of by the angry hand of the victim or his clan. 
 
 By degrees the association of legal remedies and Evolution 
 penalties with offenses against the person or against of Public 
 his property led to their recognition as crimes against Law 
 the peace of the folkgroup instead of wrongs against 
 the victim or his clan. In place, therefore, of draw- 
 ing the complaint for a wrong done to the aggrieved 
 person the action is brought against the offender in 
 the name of the State itself, which alone assumes 
 responsibility for the punishment of the offender. 
 The body of folk-custom which regulates the rela- 
 tions of the State with its citizens is known as public 
 law and is primarily a code declaring what are the Law as de- 
 peace-customs of the folkgroup, set down in writing claratory of 
 so as to avoid dispute and enforce uniform penalties, folk-custom 
 In the course of time public law has been extended by 
 statutes enacted by royal authority or by public 
 assemblies, to cover many other moral and economic 
 relations of the citizens to the State beside breaches 
 of peace-custom, but it remains a written law. 
 
 The discovery of the potency of legal Institutions 
 in enforcing the criminal law led to their use in 
 another direction. If one class of folk-custom could 
 be reduced to writing and enforced by the courts, 
 why not others ? In the almost constant intertribal 
 conflicts many were the victories that led to the con- 
 quest of one folkgroup by another; and when two 
 had intermingled there was always a question as to 
 
106 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Law as which folk-custom should prevail. This confusion 
 
 compro- led to conflicts between two bodies of folk-customs in 
 mise of which it often happened that the conquerors con- 
 folk-cus- ceded the superiority of some of those of the con- 
 °™* quered as well as insisted upon the observance of 
 
 some of their own. Disputes arose as to the pre- 
 scribed conduct which according to folk-custom one 
 member of the consolidated folkgroup had the right 
 to expect from one of his fellows. Once courts had 
 been established for the enforcement of the king's 
 peace, the machinery which they supplied could 
 naturally be used to settle a dispute of this nature, 
 with the result that their jurisdiction was extended 
 from the public law which they already enforced to 
 that of private law. 
 
 While public law is the body of folk-custom regu- 
 lating the relations of citizens and the State, private 
 Private Law law, on the other hand, is the body of folk-custom 
 regulating the conduct of citizens toward each other 
 together with the principles by which courts have 
 endeavored to classify them. In the main, private 
 law Is unwritten — and the dispute of the contestants 
 is, therefore, as to what conduct, according to folk- 
 custom, has each a reasonable right to expect from 
 The ideal the Other — and the Ideal of such conduct becomes 
 of Justice generalized In men's minds under the names of jus- 
 tice, equity or right. 
 
 This unwritten, or as It is known among Anglo- 
 Saxon peoples, common, law is, therefore, well de- 
 scribed as "the product of the wisdom, counsel and 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 107 
 
 experience of many ages of wise and observing The 
 men"; and attempts to write and codify it have in Common 
 large measure resulted in confusion. Through its Law, its 
 derivation and capacity for enforcement through Aexibilty 
 evidence and discussion in the courts, the common 
 law, especially in great matters, is reasonably 
 approximate in force and flexibility to folk-feeling 
 itself. On the other hand, it is quite beyond the 
 capacity of the human intellect to write down rules 
 which shall take into account the infinite variety of 
 human conduct covered by the folk-custom of all the 
 groups, and which either has happened, is happening 
 or may happen. And equally is it impossible to con- 
 struct a code flexible enough to keep pace with the 
 changes which are wrought in folk-custom by the 
 continually recurring changes in the structure and Inflexibility 
 environment of the folkgroup and of its constituent of codes 
 subgroups. 
 
 Existing codes of private or common law, such 
 as have been attempted in the countries which derive 
 their jurisprudence from the Romans, can cover only 
 a small fraction of the conduct prescribed by folk- 
 custom. The incidents treated are mainly those 
 about which disputes have already occurred, or 
 which have been occasioned by conflicts between the 
 folk-customs of different folkgroups merged by con- 
 quest or colonization. The laws of Moses, Solon 
 and Lycurgus — the earliest of codes — have to do 
 exclusively with private law and had the purpose of 
 effecting the adjustment of conflicts of interest which 
 
108 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 had arisen between different subgroups in their re- 
 spective states. The codes of the Barbarians com- 
 piled in the fifth and sixth centuries adjusted the rela- 
 tions between the provincial Romans and the rude 
 tribes by whom they had been overrun; so that the 
 conduct of the members of the subject folkgroup 
 toward each other could still be regulated by their 
 milder folk-customs, while their demeanor toward 
 the master folkgroups was controlled by the Salic, 
 Gothic or Hunnish law imposed by the conquering 
 race. 
 Law as an Law and its Courts, therefore, are institutions 
 institution whose main function is to establish in a more or 
 less fixed form, precepts drawn from folk-custom. 
 They prescribe for the members of the folkgroup 
 courses of conduct in accordance with folk-custom 
 and fix penalties for nonconformance. They are 
 primarily devices of the folkgroup (a) for de- 
 termining what is folk-custom, (b) for judging 
 Devised to whether conduct accords or disagrees with folk- 
 crystallize custom, (c) for substituting folk-penalties in place 
 folk-custom of private vengeance in case of transgression, 
 and (d) for furnishing its members with organized 
 and uniform series of motives, additional to the 
 ordinary moral approvals and condemnations exer- 
 cised through public opinion, for conformity with 
 its will. 
 
 The class of wrongful conduct initially made 
 criminal by statute, including such offenses as 
 murder, arson, rape, burglary and the like, is known 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 109 
 
 to jurists as mala in se — that is to say, it would be 
 condemned by folk-custom even if there were no 
 written laws. Another class is that in which are 
 placed acts not so condemned and only wrong be- 
 cause the law has made them so. Such acts in law 
 are known as mala prohibita. In the course of time 
 some of them, like smuggling, piracy, perjury and 
 drunkenness, while originally regarded with indiffer- 
 ence, have become to be generally condemned by 
 folk-custom. Others, such as relate to liquor selling, 
 trespass, profanity, building regulations, Sunday 
 observance, speed limits, etc., are either statutized 
 class-custom or artificial creations of the legislature ; 
 as such but imperfectly adopted by folk-custom, and 
 their infractions not necessarily recognized as 
 morally wrong. To classify them we might almost 
 adopt the continental term and call them contra- 
 ventions. 
 
 The supposed potency of written laws has given 
 rise to the superstition, peculiarly characteristic of Superstition 
 American politics, that a folk-custom can be created of the om- 
 by any man if he can only write it into a law and get nipotence 
 it enacted by a legislature. Nevertheless, such efforts °^ '^^ 
 to accomplish a change of conduct by writing and 
 enacting laws not declaratory of existing folk-custom 
 are largely unsuccessful, even when supported by the 
 party in power of the day. For strong as is the 
 institution of the law, it is weak as compared with the 
 tremendous force of folk-custom, which rests succes- 
 sively on ideals ingrained in man's sentimental nature 
 
110 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Moral 
 confusion 
 
 Emotional 
 sources of 
 morals 
 
 Conscience 
 a subjective 
 adjunct to 
 morals 
 
 by life-long moral training, on the century-long 
 folkway habits, and on the instincts inherited from 
 sources anterior to man. When such a law conflicts 
 with folk-custom a moral confusion is created, every- 
 one doubting whether the statute or folk-feeling 
 more correctly expresses the obligations Involved. 
 Such moral conflicts are not good for the supremacy 
 of the law; for one unenforceable statute tends to 
 bring all law into contempt, as well as to encourage 
 law-breakers. Moral confusion is not good for 
 morals; for the impulses to conduct are found pri- 
 marily in the emotions excited by the notions of right 
 and wrong derived from folk-custom and humanis- 
 tlcs. The approbation which every member of the 
 folkgroup feels and expresses for right conduct is 
 emotional; the condemnation which everyone feels 
 and expresses against a wrong is emotional ; few take 
 time or trouble to do much reasoning, or make much 
 inquiry when they see a man beating a woman, or a 
 thief running away with a purse; and resentment 
 springs unbidden In the mind of him who detects a 
 swindle. 
 
 The personal or subjective mental faculty by 
 which our moral emotions of resentment or praise 
 are aided In the determination of our moral duties 
 is called conscience. Conscience Is a general name 
 for the aggregate of a man's convictions as to his 
 moral obligations. Whether Inheritance plays some 
 part In the formation of this faculty or whether it is 
 the outcome of youthful training, unconscious Imita- 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 111 
 
 tlon and the constant and potent coercion of the 
 social group is Immaterial to this discussion. We 
 know that in either event It Is by no means uniform 
 or clear in its dictates, potent though they are with 
 regard to many fundamental social necessities. Like 
 the society, and like the conduct to which it applies, 
 it Is Itself the subject of growth and change. It will 
 not allow a young Australian, during the ceremony 
 of initiation Into manhood, to eat a female opossum, 
 which Is considered a great delicacy, no matter how Inconsist- 
 hungry or how much alone he may be. It enjoins encies of 
 one man from going to the theater; it forbids conscience 
 another to allow a good play to come to town with- 
 out taking his wife to see it. It permits one man to 
 stay away from church and forbids another to do so. 
 "Our consciences are absolutely Indifferent when we 
 sit down to a beefsteak but a Hindoo's would suffer 
 agonies." Conscience would not prevent a Jew of 
 the kingdoms from marrying several wives nor a 
 Christian priest of the tenth century from keeping a 
 concubine, but the consciences of modern Jews and 
 modem priests have acknowledged wholly contrary 
 mandates. All that we can say of conscience Is that, 
 as a general rule, it will guide us to doing what Is Its 
 considered right In our age and community. While limitations 
 the best men have the most sensitive consciences, the 
 worst have hardly any conscience. And where there 
 Is confusion arising from the conflict between cus- 
 toms, or of customs and humanlstlcs, conscience Is by 
 no means a certain guide to duty. 
 
112 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Religion 
 and Law 
 lag behind 
 folk-custom 
 
 A twilight 
 zone of 
 moral 
 conduct 
 
 The 
 
 aleatory 
 folkway 
 
 It is characteristic of both religion and law, as 
 moral adjuncts, that they generally lag behind the 
 folic-custom from which they are derived. They are 
 less sensitive to change in the ideals of folkgroup 
 welfare than is the folk-feeling, or public sentiment, 
 which is everywhere recognized as the most potent 
 and flexible of all incitations to conduct. While in 
 the main there is agreement between all these poten- 
 cies as to what conduct should be expected of men in 
 given situations, yet there is a twilight zone of acts 
 in which the commands of one agency may be more 
 or less contradictory to those of another. Thus 
 gambling has for years been contrary to law, and 
 nevertheless It has been recognized accessory to 
 church entertainments; whilst the aleatory instinct 
 is so strong among the masses that we cannot say 
 without qualification that it is condemned by folk- 
 custom. Neither does conscience in any degree seem 
 to class gambling among the criminal acts; in large 
 measure farmers, producers and business men are 
 obliged every year to take gambling chances in the 
 natural course of their vocations. If away from 
 home on a holiday most men have no compunctions 
 in playing the horses, or even staking modest sums 
 at the roulette wheel, which if confined within limits 
 proportioned to their fortunes Is not generally con- 
 demned. 
 
 Gambling is but one of a class of conduct within 
 the penumbra of moral confusion. Speculation, the 
 use of stimulants, tobacco smoking, horse racing. 
 
MORAL ADJUNCTS 
 
 113 
 
 card playing, divorce, factors agreements, price 
 restriction, etc., are not definitely and clearly dealt 
 with by folk-custom, humanistics or by the moral 
 adjuncts. For such acts, together with many other 
 items of business conduct, there is no settled moral 
 rule ; a great obstacle to perfect moral conduct on the 
 part even of the best intentioned. 
 
 The impulses to conduct afforded by conscience are 
 the outcome of personal or subjective feeling; those 
 put forward by folk-custom are controlled by folk- 
 feeling or public sentiment; those which arise from 
 class-custom are due to subgroup feelings; the force 
 of religion as an adjunct is emotional; that of the 
 law largely so, although devised by reasoning. 
 Moral conduct is, therefore, a matter of emotions so 
 far as it is under the influence of impulses which are 
 so plainly outlined as to be definite. But while emo- 
 tion may be considered as the engine which drives 
 the ship of human conduct, it needs rational intelli- 
 gence as a helmsman to keep it on its course and to 
 avoid obstacles; and such guidance is to be asked 
 from the science of ethics. It is, therefore, the busi- 
 ness of ethics to consider further what is needed for 
 the determination of right conduct and to offer a way 
 out of the confusion arising out of the conflictions 
 which arise between (a) the customs of one group or 
 of one folkgroup and those of another, (b) between 
 folkways and folk-customs, (c) between folk-cus- 
 toms and humanistics, and (d) between each of 
 these and their servants, law and religion. To man. 
 
 Other 
 conduct in 
 the shadow 
 of confu- 
 
 Emotional 
 impulse to 
 conduct 
 
 Need of 
 
 rational 
 
 guidance 
 
 Function 
 of ethics 
 
 The 
 
 conflictions 
 stated 
 
114 TRADE MORALS 
 
 the agent, the function of the science is to give a 
 guide to conscience, so that he may fit his conduct to 
 the social, economic and moral environment in which 
 he finds himself. 
 Summary We have now learned : 
 
 A. That in the evolution of humanistics — con- 
 duct arising from pity — there are these steps : 
 
 ( 1 ) The primary impulse of the compassionate 
 individual, communicated 
 
 (2) To a subgroup, often specially organized, 
 and thence 
 
 (3) By institutions, and finally 
 
 (4) By folk-feeling, the source of morals. 
 
 B. That there are two chief institutional ad- 
 juncts to morals : 
 
 ( 1 ) Law. 
 
 ( 2 ) Religion. 
 
 C. And one subjective or personal adjunct. Con- 
 science. 
 
 D. That all of these except the law are essen- 
 tially the outcome of the emotions. 
 
 E. That while these are aids to right conduct 
 there arise cases in which they are not certain guides 
 in conflicts between the precepts of custom, human- 
 istics, law and religion. 
 
 F. That we must look further for a rational 
 guide to conduct; and that if ethics be a science we 
 may find it there. 
 
VII 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL: ITS 
 REGULATION OF THE IMPULSES 
 
 Regarding moral acts as conditioned by the social 
 life of which they are the outcome, we have now 
 surveyed the structure of society in its evolution 
 from its fundamental or atomic group, the family, 
 through the various phases — clan, tribe and nation 
 — by which the gradual development of civilization 
 can be marked. We have seen that acts themselves 
 can also be classified into modes common to all life; 
 that anterior to the development in living creatures Natureways 
 of a reasoning brain their behavior is actuated along 
 common lines by three sets of forces — physical, 
 reflexive and instinctive — which ( i ) are inherent in 
 the constitution of matter and life, (2) exert them- 
 selves unconsciously in the agent as a consequence of 
 natural laws of which he is ignorant, (3) are trans- 
 mitted from generation to generation by inheritance, 
 and (4) serve to adapt the structure of the agent to 
 the environment by which he is surrounded. As 
 these three modes of action are never consciously 
 acquired and seem to be the issue of the laws of 
 nature, we have classified them for convenience as 
 natureways. 
 
 And we have further found that in that highest of 
 living creatures, man, in whom has been developed 
 
116 
 
 TRADE MOIL\LS 
 
 a brain capable of comparing and classifying things 
 Nurture- and acts, there are likewise uniformities of conduct, 
 ^^ys also capable of recognition as persistent phases 
 
 throughout human social life. These uniformities 
 result from impulses derived in the main from five 
 motive sources, hunger, love, vanity, fear and pity, 
 which are themselves based upon the constitution of 
 man's nervous system. The modes of action char- 
 acteristic of the three phases into which the resultant 
 conduct can be classified are ( i ) exerted with a 
 greater or less degree of consciousness by the agent, 
 (2) always acquired, (3) never inherited, and (4) 
 serve to adapt the structure of social groups to 
 their environmental conditions. They fit the defini- 
 tion of conduct as conscious action adjusted to ends. 
 As the outcome of education and imitation they may 
 be grouped together as nurtureways. 
 
 ^Ye may learn something of the relative values 
 of the motive forces behind the nurtureways bv a 
 The motive brief consideration of their origin and constitution, 
 sources of The sequence of their evolution is doubtless fairly 
 Nurture- ^ell indicated by the order in which they are named, 
 ways Hunger is a sensation arising from a set of reflexes, 
 
 which in turn are evoked by physical forces. Feed- 
 ing, its active functional expression, is needful for 
 all life however low. Love is an emotion arising out 
 of an instinct, which may be plainly derived from 
 reflexive impulses, and therefore is one step, in evo- 
 lution, above the hunger motive, ^'anitv and fear 
 also are the emotional expression of instincts; but 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 117 
 
 instincts evidently less fundamental than either hun- 
 ger or love; later in development, they are only to 
 be observed in the higher animals and In man. Pity 
 is a much more complex emotional state, the product 
 of the tender emotion tinged with sympathetically 
 induced pain. While pity may have its foothold in 
 the upper strata of animal life, itself it is peculiarly 
 human, and in its present degree of development 
 even here a recent product. 
 
 All of these five motives psychologically consid- 
 ered are produced by impulses traveling along the 
 network of fibrillated cells of which the human 
 nervous and mental system is composed. It is a 
 peculiarity of this system that every repetition of an Habit 
 impulse along these ropes or cords of nerve tissue 
 makes it easier for another of the same sort to 
 pass the same way. Habitual use along certain con- 
 necting lines makes future use along the same lines 
 easier; just as on the railway, a constant service on 
 one route, composed maybe of a dozen different 
 main lines and branches, not only induces increased 
 patronage on the part of travelers, but becomes 
 simpler to manage through the training of the habits 
 of all the engineers, conductors, signalmen and 
 switchmen along the line. Settled tendencies to re- 
 produce acts already several times repeated form 
 habits, which as sources of motive Impulses tend to 
 increase in power in direct ratio to their repetition. 
 
 In human conduct, therefore, it is always easier 
 for us to do and think as innumerable generations 
 
118 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Power of 
 the 
 
 primitive 
 modes of 
 behavior 
 
 Feebleness 
 of higher 
 emotions in 
 primitive 
 peoples 
 
 of our remote ancestors have done and thought. 
 The strength and persistence of our conduct-motives 
 are in direct proportion to the priority of their 
 origin. No impulse to our conduct is as strong as 
 that of hunger, a sensation which descends to us 
 from the zoophytes ; and next to that love, which is 
 at least as old as the vertebrates. 
 
 Fear is feeble or unnoticeable in the lower ani- 
 mals, and vanity is perceptible in only a few of the 
 higher vertebrates. As to pity, it is an emotional co- 
 ordination characteristically human, though its foot- 
 prints may perhaps be faintly traced in the parental 
 instinct shown by some of the upper orders of 
 animalkind. 
 
 A similar course of development runs through 
 the social life of man. The conduct of primitive 
 man is to a large degree under the influence of his 
 physical needs; he more often feels hunger, more 
 imperiously is impelled to reproduction than his 
 civilized descendant. Savages know less of fear, 
 and while they may display vanity in a crude and 
 conspicuous way, its reactions are less thorough- 
 going than in our more complex social life. Pity 
 with them is weak even within family or consan- 
 guineous lines; they have little regard for human 
 life or suffering, and none whatever for that of the 
 birds or beasts. In a word we may observe that the 
 later, and as we are accustomed to say higher, 
 motives grow fainter as we descend through the 
 biological phases of the whole evolution of life. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 119 
 
 And we may further observe so far as proportions 
 are concerned that as we ascend the evolutionary 
 scale these feebler impulses form an increasing part 
 of the whole motive mixture in direct ratio to the 
 development of the nervous and mental systems by 
 which they are felt, and through which they act. 
 
 Nevertheless, we cannot evade the question, Why 
 is it that we do not place the satisfaction of the 
 interests arising from these prior, stronger, agelong, 
 natureway forces first, and, disregarding all other 
 considerations, proceed directly and everywhere to Restraint 
 gratify them in the order of their intensity and of lower 
 origin? Why in our present social phase should not impulses 
 the stimulations of the hunger and love motives, for 
 instance, invariably supersede all later and feebler 
 incitements to action, since they arise distinctly out 
 of the natureways, and should be, as they are, most 
 fully and completely amalgamated with our natures 
 by longest continued habitual exercise ? 
 
 It is true that the primitive motives underlying 
 natureways indeed form the main tracks of our 
 nervous railway systems, but in the course of time 
 we have built up by means of nurtureways an almost 
 infinite network of branch and connecting lines, all of 
 which serve important districts of the broad and Inhibition 
 well-developed area of our minds; and at innumer- through 
 able junction stations our hunger and love mainline distraction 
 trains have to stop to make connections, and to 
 interchange traffic with these numerous branches. 
 For this reason our trunk line is so crowded that 
 
120 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 In society 
 weaker 
 motives 
 control 
 
 only infrequently can it be spared for the passage of 
 through express trains; and then, like those of the 
 railway itself, only according to a well-planned time- 
 table, with rules drawn up by a skillful manager, 
 controlled by an efficient system of block signals, in 
 the hands of the train dispatcher. 
 
 And so with our mental traffic lines ; the time-table 
 is found in the nurtureways, the rules are those of 
 morals; the general management is in the hands of 
 society, and the train dispatcher is individual self- 
 control through the will, based on self-consciousness, 
 the signal system. 
 
 While hunger and love are the most primitive, 
 the most racially repetitive and therefore the most 
 insistent of all the human motives; nevertheless in 
 civilized society we find them in subjection to what 
 we call our higher selves — to the later and, there- 
 fore, weaker impulses. This may be due partly to a 
 degree of antagonism between hunger — primarily 
 individualistic — and love — the emotional beginning 
 of socialization — and partly to an excess power 
 attained by the more numerous. If less potent, 
 nurtureway motives acting in combination. Nurture- 
 ways, as we have seen, are the outcome of folk- 
 feeling, a social expression of moral control. When, 
 therefore, by social means the margin of force, by 
 which the more primitive impulses normally over- 
 weigh the more recent ones, is reduced, there remains 
 but a minimum to be overcome by the individual in 
 the balance of desires. But a few more impulse 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 121 
 
 grains are needed to turn the scale against the lower 
 motives — which unloosed in the existing complex 
 civilization would tear us to pieces socially as well as 
 destroy us individually. Observation shows that this 
 final reinforcement of social moral control is drawn 
 from individual volition. 
 
 How is this support by individual volition of the 
 later and weaker impulses supplied? 
 
 The general question is one of a conflict between Conflict of 
 the impulses derived from one motive or set of impulses 
 motives with those of another. The conduct ulti- 
 mately performed by the agent is always the result 
 of a choice between two sets of Impulses, one of 
 which is always of the natureways. In behavior the Direct 
 choice may be determined directly by the greater choices 
 power of one of the two natureways In a given situa- between 
 tion, as for instance when a jackal has to choose natureways 
 between his desire for a piece of meat In the posses- 
 sion of a tiger and his fear of the great cat; in which 
 case the instinctive emotion of fear controls the reflex 
 feeling of hunger, and without volition on the part 
 of the agent. It Is In this way that behavior Is 
 determined as between the impulses of conflicting 
 natureways In the animalklnd. The result is a direct 
 choice predetermined by the reflexes or the instincts 
 and tends to the survival of the beast. So also the 
 choices of young children are controlled by that 
 impulse which at the moment happens to be least 
 hampered by existing circumstances; as for instance 
 when the desire for sweetmeats conflicts with the 
 
122 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Conscious 
 choices 
 when a 
 nurtureway 
 is con- 
 cerned 
 
 Volition 
 derived 
 from self- 
 conscious- 
 ness 
 
 fear of punishment. If elders are about, fear will 
 triumph ; if the child is alone, he will yield to tempta- 
 tion. Direct choice may be varied to some degree 
 through habits resulting from the contact of instinct 
 with experience — the progenitor of our folkways. 
 
 We have already observed that among human- 
 kind the prevalence of higher over lower motive 
 impulses, in making choices, is proportioned to the 
 degree of nervous and mental development in the 
 agent. While in primitive social phases, as in 
 animal life, much behavior springs directly from 
 instinct, yet the emotions organized by the folkgroup 
 through its folkways and folk-customs soon begin to 
 guide a more conscious choice between conflicting 
 impulses, conforming the resultant conduct to the 
 pressure of the group, the weaker desires being 
 reinforced and compelled by fear of the folk-feeling 
 and of its institutional adjuncts. In still higher 
 social phases, reasoning powers have been devel- 
 oped to a point where both the weaker and the 
 stronger impulses can be consciously presented to 
 and balanced by the mind. Such conscious choices 
 are the result of volitions — efforts of the will. They 
 are not observable in animals, although in them the 
 simulation of choice is sometimes produced by habits 
 due to external compulsion, such as a master's train- 
 
 ing. 
 
 etc. Now volition is a function of self-con- 
 
 sciousness, and its operations will be better under- 
 stood by a brief review of our present knowledge of 
 the development of personality in mankind. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 123 
 
 The evolution of self-consciousness can best be 
 observed in the growing minds of children. As the 
 embryo recapitulates the course of biological evolu- 
 tion so the development of the child-mind probably 
 recapitulates the course of social evolution. The 
 mental resemblances between adult savages and 
 young children of higher social phases have often 
 been remarked. 
 
 The acquisition of self-consciousness, in the 
 developing man or in the infant, is the result of a 
 process of accumulating knowledge of the self, its Evolution 
 structure and surroundings. This knowledge is of self- 
 cumulative; that later acquired based upon and conscious- 
 inspired by that which is previously possessed. And "^^^ 
 so the mind of every man gradually steps upward a 
 staircase of personality, attaining by degrees differ- 
 ent levels, marked by certain characteristics which 
 may be recognized and classified according to their 
 effect in the determination of conduct. 
 
 ( I ) The first level, then, of self-consciousness Levels of 
 is that whereon the self has been distinguished from self-con- 
 others, both persons and things. (2) Later comes sciousness 
 the level, whereon persons generally are perceived 
 to be of a different class or order from inanimate 
 objects, or from lower animals. In the personifica- 
 tion of stones, trees, etc., in early mythology and in 
 the attribution of human qualities to wild animals, we 
 can perceive the traces of the earlier level of self- 
 consciousness on which this distinction was not 
 obvious to the gradually opening mind. (3) The 
 
124 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The self- 
 regarding 
 senti- 
 ments — 
 
 next level is attained when social relations have been 
 discovered; the impulses derived from the contact 
 with others — parents, relatives, friends, groups — ■ 
 an appreciation not only of their existence, but of the 
 effect on us of their acts and of their beliefs about 
 ourselves; reactions upon the self-mind of the ideas 
 and observation of social groups about it and him; 
 conceptions of those things about the self that others 
 can see better than ourselves. (4) The self on the 
 fourth level has discovered that there are physical 
 rewards and punishments apportioned to different 
 classes of conduct, either by other persons or by the 
 folkgroup, and that from the standpoint of pain and 
 pleasure it pays to be good. (5) On the next level 
 man has advanced from this state of mind to an 
 appreciation of folk-feeling expressed by social 
 praise and blame, and of his satisfaction when he 
 conforms to public opinion, and of his shame when 
 it is transgressed. The highest levels thus far 
 developed in our civilization are those in which the 
 self- regarding sentiments are predominant; (6) 
 pride and (7) self-respect. As these two levels are 
 successively reached we first become conscious that 
 we are capable of being proud of that position which 
 we hold or that occupation which we pursue; and in 
 our relations with others we will do nothing to 
 imperil their high opinion for our class or for our 
 work; and lastly, as a being whose character has 
 been formed by the ascent of all of these successive 
 stages of self-consciousness into a person who by his 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 125 
 
 attitude toward the world, not only solicits respect — the 
 from others but pays it to himself. highest 
 
 If each of these steps in the formation of the ^^^el of 
 highest form of self-consciousness be considered of Personality 
 equal value, then the ascent to the upper level would 
 appear to be overwhelmingly due to the contact of 
 the mind with society. And since all men's oppor- 
 tunities for that contact are not equal we must expect 
 to find differences in the levels attained by the self- 
 consciousness of persons ( i ) in different social 
 phases, or even (2) within the limits of a single 
 folkgroup. It would be foolish as well as useless 
 to look for the higher levels in savage states, where 
 the necessary social conditions have never existed. Personality 
 And the minds of those upon whom this social con- from the 
 tact works — do they not possess sensitiveness and contact of 
 development in different degrees ? We may look in '"'"'^ ^'*^^ 
 vain for a high level of self-consciousness or a high '"^^ 
 grade of morality among peoples brought up in the 
 lower social phases, among mental defectives, or 
 among young children. 
 
 As the resultant of two sets of variables — social 
 contact and mental sensitiveness — ^we therefore find 
 great differences, in time and space, between the Personality 
 levels of self-consciousness to which individual minds variable in 
 have risen. But as each society has roughly a type ^^^^ ^"d 
 of mentality characteristic of itself, and each form ^P^*^^ 
 of folkgroup its characteristic type of association, we 
 shall not be surprised if we find that in each social 
 phase there is a corresponding level of self-conscious- 
 
126 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 — and pro- 
 portioned 
 to social 
 phases 
 
 Coinci- 
 dences of 
 favoring 
 conditions 
 produce 
 super- 
 normal men 
 
 Personality 
 conditioned 
 by age 
 
 — and by 
 
 social 
 
 experience 
 
 ness to which the average mind of the folkgroup 
 members has risen. The moral choices of the men in 
 that phase are reinforced and determined by control 
 impulses derived from the highest level of self- 
 consciousness to which their group has attained. 
 
 In every social phase, nevertheless, there are cer- 
 tain persons who, through superior opportunities of 
 social contact combined with a mentality above the 
 common, have passed on to the self-conscious level 
 characteristic of the approaching social phase. When 
 these persons are few in number, they are the 
 idealists and dreamers of their time and place; as 
 they Increase in numbers, however, they become the 
 leaders of their groups, destined to fashion their 
 folkgroup into a capacity for larger civilization, and 
 finally to raise it from a lower to a higher social 
 phase. They Increase and multiply in proportion to 
 their ability thus to better fit their folkgroup for 
 survival in the struggle for existence by an improved 
 adaptation of Its folk-customs to its environment. 
 
 The growth of self-consciousness being both 
 gradual and cumulative as men pass through the 
 social phases, we may observe that within each social 
 phase it Is also proportioned to age as well as to 
 intelligence. The activities of a young man would 
 be much Impeded by such self-knowledge as is neces- 
 sary to an old man's existence. Among the Inexperi- 
 enced or unintelligent a lower level of self-realiza- 
 tion forms the soil on which the fakir — medical, 
 political or social — cultivates his crop. Of the sub- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 127 
 
 groups within a complex folkgroup not every one is Folkgroups 
 capable of rising to the same level of self-conscious- rarely 
 ness as other subgroups ; for conditions may be and homo- 
 frequently are unfavorable to that mental content 6^"^°"^ 
 and fullness of social contact which are needed for "^^^ . ^ 
 the final steps of Its evolution. 
 
 The apportionment of culture Is uneven in every 
 folkgroup, just as the allotment of mentality is unlike 
 among the sons of a single family; both disparities 
 arise from conditions which we cannot control. 
 
 We must realize if we would know and under- 
 stand morals, that the study of barbaric peoples is 
 only one of the sources for knowledge of the more 
 primitive social phases and mental levels of the clan 
 or tribe, and that such undeveloped groups In fact 
 survive as subgroups within the bounds of the most The social 
 advanced nations of our time. In the United States problem in 
 this is peculiarly the case because, owing to the prin- the United 
 ciple that men in lower social phases are always ^^^^^^ 
 attracted toward the life of the phases next above 
 them, our country becomes the refuge for all the 
 inferior groups whose aspirations are repressed In 
 their native lands by obstructive folk-customs crystal- 
 lized in law, and supported by the force majeure of 
 an ancient and powerful institutional control. 
 
 Self-consciousness once conceived of as an evolu- 
 tion, proceeding step by step along the same pathway Personality 
 as life, man, society, conduct, mind and morals, it and will 
 remains only to explain its influence upon the choices, 
 which must be exercised when conduct-impulses 
 
128 TRADE MORALS 
 
 derived from higher and lower motives come in 
 conflict with one another. 
 
 We have seen that pride and self-respect are the 
 highest manifestations of self-consciousness. They 
 are also the sources of desires and aversions, which 
 are manifested through volitions favoring the 
 higher modes of conduct. The desires and aver- 
 sions arising from pride and self-respect reinforce 
 the choices by which the weaker and later conduct- 
 impulses are finally made to prevail. 
 
 To draw an instance from the field of business, 
 Personality we may take the everyday experience of investment 
 in banking banking in our provincial towns. Two well-defined 
 types of security dealers exist in almost every 
 interior city. The first is that of the local private 
 banker, generally a leading citizen, who with sons 
 and partners and partners' sons deals directly with 
 neighbors and friends. Such people carefully weigh 
 their words in giving advice to their clients ; they are 
 proud of the place they hold in the community, and 
 their self-respect will not permit them to do any- 
 thing to imperil it. They would prefer to sacrifice 
 business rather than do anything underhanded or 
 say anything untruthful to obtain it. If through an 
 error of theirs or through their bad judgment they 
 have persuaded a client to invest in an unsound 
 security, they would prefer to buy it back rather than 
 be the means by which he had lost his capital. It 
 is against the higher impulses of such a firm to 
 encourage speculative gambling, for they know that 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 129 
 
 those who indulge in it always lose in the long run. 
 In a word the high ideals of professional conduct 
 which .are the outcome of their pride and self-respect 
 have so reinforced the impulses arising from the 
 later and weaker humanistic of consideration for 
 the client that they prevail over those proceeding 
 from the folk-customs, — ancient and strong though 
 they be, — (i)that if people want to be cheated, let 
 them — si populus vult decipi, decipiatur — and (2) 
 that every purchaser must take and accept the risk 
 of his purchase — caveat emptor. 
 
 The other type is that of the local branch office 
 of a New York stockbroker In charge of a manager The 
 sent out by the parent house. Educated in the most brokerage 
 impersonal school of trading in the world, where the lype 
 quick succession of multitudinous transactions leaves 
 time neither for reflection nor for consideration, he 
 is sent abroad by his employers to get them business 
 in the smaller city. His success depends upon the 
 amount of new business he can bring in and the 
 quicker he does it the better ; he comes today, he may 
 go tomorrow; he has no established local reputation, 
 and his chief concern is to promote purchases and 
 so to increase commissions. Providing he gets busi- 
 ness he need have no pride in his job; to his 
 employer his clients are only names written in a book 
 and rated by Dun or Bradstreet. So long as they 
 keep their margins good they are welcome to specu- 
 late whether they have the means to do it or not. 
 The lifeblood of their business is to buy and sell. 
 
130 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Immoral 
 
 results 
 
 arising 
 
 from an 
 
 institutional 
 
 restriction 
 
 High 
 
 morals help 
 survival 
 
 this makes commissions; the principal cares little 
 how the agent gets the business. He cannot be paid 
 with a share of the earnings, and so have a stake in 
 the continuity of his business, for that is against the 
 rules of the exchange ; but he may lawfuUy be given 
 a liberal allowance of wines, liquors and cigars as a 
 part of the necessary expense of attracting trade. 
 The growth of pride and self-respect as reinforce- 
 ments to the humanistics of business is stifled here, as 
 it is encouraged there. 
 
 The policy of the stock exchange in prohibiting 
 the splitting of commissions is the excuse for the 
 branch office, in place of the more natural alliance 
 with an old established private business. The ex- 
 change allows its member to spend more than half- 
 commissions to get trade in a low way, but will not 
 allow him to spend as much on a legitimate business 
 proposition to get it in a high way. Thus it directly 
 promotes a low moral standard among its members, 
 a course which it wiU doubtless some day have cause 
 to regret. For the choice of the higher morality 
 always tends to survival; while the choice of the 
 lower, though often temporarily profitable, leads 
 eventually to social disapprobation, condemnation 
 and reprisal and costs the group more than is 
 compensated by individual gain. 
 
 In this illustration we can see ( i ) a conflict 
 between two modes of conduct: a humanistic — con- 
 sideration for the client; and some folk-customs — 
 allowable deceptions and caveat emptor; (2) vol- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 131 
 
 untary choice of the higher mode, despite the Moral 
 relative weakness of its impulses, through its conflict and 
 reinforcement by the higher level of self-regarding its solution 
 sentiment existing in the character of the bankers; 
 (3) voluntary choice of the older and stronger but 
 lower mode by the brokers, whose previous educa- 
 tion in an environment of obsolescent folk-custom, 
 institutionally crystallized, had formed their char- 
 acters on lower and more primitive levels of self- 
 consciousness. 
 
 Personal character, therefore, is the sounding 
 board for the moral tones through which volitions 
 are expressed in conduct. It is the sum of acquired 
 tendencies organized and built up by self-conscious- Character 
 ness and consolidated by habitual action, upon the organized 
 native basis of a man's temperament and disposition. ^V 
 It is dependent to as large a degree upon environ- personality 
 ment and opportunity as is its parent self-conscious- 
 ness; and so George Eliot says: "our deeds deter- 
 mine us as much as we determine our deeds, and until 
 we know what has been or will be the peculiar com- 
 bination of outward with inward facts which con- 
 stitutes a man's critical actions, it will be better not 
 to think ourselves wise about his character." 
 
 In our ignorance we have but two categories of 
 character, strong and weak. But the keynote of the 
 essential difference between these two aspects is The two 
 fairly clear. Strong character is that in which the categories 
 emotions and habits are organized by the influence of character 
 of an ideal — of what a man wants out of life, or of 
 
132 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The 
 strong — 
 
 — fashioned 
 by an ideal 
 
 The 
 weak- 
 
 — feeling 
 the master 
 of its 
 personality 
 
 what he beHeves is the ultimate aim of life — and 
 with the purposes so generated he persistently 
 adjusts his habits of conduct to the realization — so 
 far as his disposition and his volitional control 
 will permit — of the aims which his ideal inspires. 
 Disposition is inherent, the product of nature- 
 ways; a man cannot avoid his disposition any more 
 than he can alter the shape of his head or the color 
 of his eyes. Like the instincts from which it springs 
 it can be faintly modified by habitual self-control; 
 but the emotional impulses which are acquired during 
 lifetime from the contact of mind and society are 
 much more largely in the hands of the volitions with 
 which the development of a man's self-consciousness 
 has endowed him. And so, strong character is that 
 in which such control of the impulses has been under- 
 taken in a systematic manner, and for the fixed pur- 
 pose of carrying out an ideal, conceived by the mind, 
 and always before it. 
 
 Weak character is that in which the sentiments 
 dispositionally inherited or socially acquired are 
 not organized by strong ideals; and therefore, to 
 whatever level of self-consciousness its possessor 
 may have attained, he lacks the inspiration necessary 
 to bring his bundle of sentiments under the full 
 control of an intelligent volition. He may, there- 
 fore, have beautiful feelings, which run away with 
 his self-control — the sentimentalist type — and lead 
 him to forget the end in his abandon to the means. 
 
 In strong characters, therefore, emotion is the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 133 
 
 servant of a self-control actuated by Ideals ; while In 
 weak ones, emotion Is the master of a volition not 
 dominated by a strong conception of ends and aims. 
 To resume : 
 
 1. The springs of Impulses to behavior or con- Summary 
 duct He in the emotions. 
 
 2. Behavior-impulses proceed from natureways, 
 In which case they are inherent ; and conduct-Impulses 
 from nurtureways, in which case they are acquired. 
 
 3. Impulses are powerful In proportion to their 
 habitual exercise both racially and Individually; and 
 those which are the more primitive are the stronger. 
 
 4. In conflicts between Impulses in the lower 
 orders of life behavior Is directly determined by 
 whichever is the stronger, as modified by the circum- 
 stances of the time and place. 
 
 5. In conflicts between the Impulses of the higher 
 life the resultant conduct Is determined by a balance 
 of forces, in which conscious volition Is or may be the 
 makeweight. 
 
 6. Volition Is a function of self-consciousness 
 and Is directly proportioned to the level of Its 
 development. 
 
 7. The joint product of disposition, temperament 
 and self-conscious volition is organized in man as 
 character; and this organization is systematized and 
 strengthened by his ideals of life. 
 
 In the struggle to realize his Ideals, a man of 
 strong character will assist himself by the formula- 
 
134 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The tion and adherence to fixed principles of action, 
 
 value of Principle as an adjunct to volition gives the same 
 principle support to the systematic organization of individual 
 character as moral rules do to conformity with the 
 folk-custom ; they contribute to efficiency by minimiz- 
 ing effort. To determine, in each particular instance, 
 what course of action — what conduct — the man of 
 character shall pursue, involves thought, and 
 thought costs efiort. This effort Is in direct ratio to 
 the novelty of the act under consideration. To the 
 mind, as to the body, effort Is more or less disagree- 
 able. In order, therefore, to avoid effort the man 
 — as an of strong character devises rules of action for self- 
 
 economizer guidance which will bear the same relation to his 
 of efFort conduct as folkways and folk-customs bear to the 
 conduct of the group. Tending to economize 
 mental effort through predetermination of the voli- 
 tions, they help to organize his conduct along the 
 lines of least resistance and to set free a larger 
 amount of mental energy for the consummation of 
 the Ideal by which his character Is dominated. 
 Adherence to principle attracts others with whom 
 dealings are to be desired, and Bacon advises wisely 
 that he who desires great place should "seek to make 
 his course regular, that men may know beforehand 
 what they may expect." Most men of strong char- 
 acter understand well the value of fixed principles 
 and the danger and confusion produced by Irregular 
 exceptions. 
 
 In the practice of the business world these rela- 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE WILL 135 
 
 tions, though rarely formulated, are well understood. 
 Character is conceded to be the main foundation of — as an 
 credit ; other things being equal, men of principle are element 
 increasingly better fitted to survive in the bitter com- making for 
 petition by which the economic world is ruled. To survival 
 consider the relations of economics and business to 
 the evolutionary processes which, as we have seen, 
 are the explanation of matter, life, morals and char- 
 acter, will be the object of the remaining chapters 
 of this essay. 
 
VIII 
 THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES— BUSINESS 
 
 Conduct Moral conduct is a part — a large part but not 
 
 not all all — of the acts by which a group of men is enabled 
 
 moral to secure sufficient food supply, to protect itself 
 
 from its enemies, to prolong its existence by the 
 regulated exercise of its reproductive instincts, to 
 increase its potency by inner efficiency or by terri- 
 torial expansion, and finally to foster the welfare of 
 its individual members. Apart from morals there 
 is a very large class of impulses to conduct motived 
 by economic forces. 
 Economic Like ethics, economics is a quest for the ways in 
 
 conduct which with the least effort man can so adjust himself 
 to his environment as to procure the satisfaction of 
 certain desires. The most important of these are 
 food and clothing for the family, lodging and the 
 prospect of being to some degree Independent of 
 lifelong labor to supply these needs, or to gratify 
 other secondary desires arising from a variety of 
 instincts or tendencies such as those of curiosity or 
 beauty. The primitive impetus to economic conduct 
 Is, therefore, derived from the same primeval Im- 
 pulses of hunger and love, adding thereto that of a 
 number of morally neutral Instincts, the principal of 
 which are those of acquisition and construction. 
 Conduct resulting from economic motives is dis- 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 137 
 
 tinguished from that inspired by moral motives in — con- 
 that it is concerned with individual rather than with cerned with 
 folkgroup welfare, and that its uniformities are the individual 
 result of a rationally realized experience of their welfare 
 benefits instead of being induced by the folk-feelings 
 which rally in support of folk-custom. Thus, at 
 the outset, economic conduct is in the main pursued 
 for individual interest or for the interest of a sub- 
 group, and only incidentally in the interest of the 
 commonweal. As a product of the reason rather Rational 
 than of the emotions the expressions of its adapta- 
 tion to environment, or the reverse, are, therefore, 
 wise or foolish instead of right or wrong. Primarily 
 it has no bearing, real or fancied, upon the ideals of 
 social welfare which the folkgroup establishes for 
 itself. 
 
 But with the increasing complexity of the national Its inter- 
 folkgroups there is an increasing disposition to con- connection 
 nect social welfare with certain phases of individual ^'''^ morals 
 economic activity. The folkgroup vaguely recog- 
 nizes that the ramification of economic subgroups 
 throughout its entire structure must necessarily have 
 consequences beneficial or hostile to its welfare. 
 Wisely or foolishly, therefore, it is beginning to 
 attribute a social or moral aspect to a class of cen- 
 tralized, folkwide, economic conduct which per- 
 formed by the many or within a small area has a 
 negligible bearing upon the folkweal. It is here that 
 we find the explanation of the oft mooted question as The scale 
 to why certain conduct which on a small scale is not of offense 
 
138 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Economics 
 not 
 
 opposed 
 to morals 
 
 viewed with hostility, when exercised on a large 
 scale, the folkgroup resents, and endeavors to regu- 
 late or suppress by statutory Institutions. The prin- 
 ciple Involved In this change of attitude Is that so 
 long as a business is individualized by competition It 
 is an affair of Individual interest; but that when It Is 
 socialized by combination it becomes an affair of 
 social interest. 
 
 Inasmuch as economic conduct is an essential 
 means of adjusting the lives of Individuals to the 
 conditions of their environment, and as the greater 
 part of that environment Is social, it Is only when 
 maladjusted that economic conduct can normally run 
 counter to folkgroup Interests. The concern of 
 ethics with conduct arising from the economic 
 impulses will naturally be limited to that residuum of 
 cases, wherein they conflict with the accepted rules 
 of morality. 
 
 Rules of economics, like those of morals, are In 
 continual motion and change. In response to the con- 
 stantly changing conditions by which they are 
 affected. A series of situations arises in the effort 
 to form the conduct-adjustments : ( i ) of Individuals 
 to Individuals, (2) of individuals to groups, (3) of 
 groups to groups, (4) of groups to the folkgroup, 
 and (5) of the folkgroup to its environment. 
 Adjustment The adjustments thus outlined are complicated by 
 the process of motion and change through which 
 morals and economics are continually passing In the 
 course of evolution, for these factors of the problem 
 
 Economic- 
 moral 
 situations 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 139 
 
 of conduct move along their course of development 
 at rates which are not always the same ; and it often 
 happens that the structure of one of them is over- 
 developed with respect to the other. Such inequality Maladjust- 
 of progress leads to novel situations for which at the ment 
 time being no settled moral rules have been evolved. 
 Under these circumstances men are uncertain what 
 conduct they are under obligation to perform, and 
 are driven hither and thither by conflicting Interests 
 and emotions. In short, existing moral sentiment Is 
 for the time being incompetent to decide the ques- 
 tions that frequently arise during a constructive Moral 
 period of humanistics, or of interpenetrating sub- confusion 
 groups, or during a degenerative process involving 
 the survival of a law after Its basic folk-custom has 
 been disowned by folk-feeling. The emotional 
 forces by which the art of conduct Is commonly 
 inspired are confused by such conflicts. The voli- 
 tions, unguided by precedent, have to seek the aid of 
 the reasoning powers to form new principles of 
 action: this is a slow and deliberate process, and 
 until new rules are formulated and agreed upon the 
 community is temporarily In a state of quandary 
 toward the conduct In question. 
 
 A practical illustration of the theory of conflic- Transpor- 
 tions and confusions Is found In the history of trans- tation in the 
 portatlon rates in the United States. As originally United 
 conceived railways were private enterprises encour- ^^^^^ 
 aged by the folkgroup on account of their manifest 
 benefit to the communities which they serve. Their 
 
140 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Maxim of 
 ' 'what the 
 traffic will 
 bear" 
 
 charges for transport were fixed to agree with 
 existing folkways of rates, and the basis and method 
 of their assessment in accordance with the existing 
 folk-custom. This folk-custom was derived from two 
 sources : the custom of the water-carrying and of 
 the land-carrying groups. As established in the 
 folkways, the freight rates of the latter group were 
 high compared with present standards: being 
 adjusted to local needs by the competition of other 
 land carriers and limited by the cost of horse-drawn 
 carriage on the highways of that time. With the 
 advent of competition between the railways them- 
 selves, after other conditions had made such compe- 
 tition practical, rates of freight were vastly reduced, 
 especially where a large volume of business could be 
 so produced. At places where there was no railway 
 competition the reduction was adjusted to the point 
 necessary to secure, as against wagon traffic, all the 
 business there originating. Thus grew up the cus- 
 tom of the railway group of fixing its charges in 
 accordance with "what the traffic would bear" and 
 in accordance with existing folkways in satisfying 
 the conditions of life in the local village or other 
 group. To do so conflicted with no folk-custom, 
 because by increased speed and lower rates the ser- 
 vice rendered to each community increased its wel- 
 fare beyond that produced by any previous folkway 
 of transport. 
 
 Enterprising men discovered in certain com- 
 munity-groups folkM'ay conditions which they could 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 141 
 
 turn to their own profit, with corresponding advan- Origin of 
 
 tage to the members of the group, by promoting rebates 
 
 industrial enterprises therein, which had been held 
 
 back only by the high cost of transportation to that 
 
 point. These promoters approached the railroad 
 
 group with the proposition that special rates, or 
 
 perhaps rebates from existing rates, be given to 
 
 them, promising in return a large amount of traffic. 
 
 Such rates and rebates proved highly beneficial both 
 
 to railroad and to groupal welfare, and were adopted 
 
 into folk-custom. They furthered the incoming of 
 
 other enterprises into the favored towns and became 
 
 in time an important stimulus to the growth and 
 
 prosperity of cities. The ultimate result, however, 
 
 of these new adjustments between folkways and folk- Resulting in 
 
 customs was a large amount of irregularity in freight discrimina- 
 
 rates: unimportant local groups or individuals tio" 
 
 unable to control large shipments being subject to 
 
 very unfavorable discrimination. 
 
 Such discrimination was not, at first, regarded as Not prima- 
 unfair. According with groupal welfare in a very rily unfair 
 broad way it was not inconsistent with folk-custom. 
 The sufferers were a residuum, an insignificant 
 minority of industrial producers : de minimis mos non 
 curat. For it is not the business of the folk-custom to 
 look out for the individual : its concern is only with 
 the folkgroup. 
 
 Differences in carrying charges between different Supported 
 groups or persons in fact not only were supported by existing 
 by this precedent, but by another one, of immemorial folk-custom 
 
142 TRADE MORALS 
 
 usage. Until the advent of the railway the great 
 bulk — probably nineteen twentieths — of all freight 
 traffic was water-borne. Ships and other vessels are 
 comparatively large units of carriage, and in order to 
 sail them safely and profitably, it is necessary that 
 Thecustom they should be loaded full. If a loading vessel has 
 of sea-borne been only partly filled by complying with the existing 
 traffic folkway of competitive freight rates it is better for 
 
 the group who sail it, and for the folkgroup itself — 
 of whose organism the sailor-group is a most vital 
 member — that it should be fully loaded before de- 
 parture, even if the last end of its cargo should have 
 to be carried at a lower price. And so the sailor- 
 group from time immemorial, in accordance with 
 folk-custom has been in the habit of filling up its 
 ships at the best price it could get: anything was 
 better than sailing In ballast. Such is the custom of 
 sailing vessels to this day : and by these means over- 
 sea markets are often opened to classes of merchan- 
 dise which at a higher cost of carriage would not be 
 demanded abroad. The analogous situation on the 
 Back- railroads is that of back-loading, where almost any 
 
 loading revenue Is better than a train of empty cars. 
 
 Immediately following the Civil War a period of 
 industrial stimulation gave large profits and apparent 
 prosperity to all classes of business. Coinciding with 
 the reaction from these conditions was the inevitable 
 national return to a sound currency basis, involving 
 widespread folkway changes, with business losses to 
 those who were behindhand in adjusting their con- 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 143 
 
 duct to these environmental disturbances. Almost Depression 
 coincidently also came a period of hitherto unparal- of 1873-79 
 leled railway construction, involving keen competi- 
 tion for business, accompanied by an accentuation of 
 the rate irregularities above referred to. Discrimi- 
 nations favored the strong, and the weak, considered 
 politically, were in the majority. There was a grow- 
 ing need for a humanistic of equal treatment in the 
 adjustment of freight rates, to which the crude 
 railway management of the times was oblivious, 
 relying upon the well-established folk-customs by 
 which carrying charges had for centuries been fixed. The 
 This brought about political agitation, and the famil- Granger 
 iar establishment of a subgroup to forward such a agitation 
 change. The western farmers, in fact, organized 
 themselves into granges and attempted the accom- 
 plishment of this purpose by statutory legislation in 
 the states where they were preponderant. 
 
 But existing folk-custom was too well and firmly 
 fixed in folk-feeling for the immediate change desired 
 by the group. Railroad construction In the Granger Its failure 
 states abruptly ceased and the enforcement of their as a contest 
 crude statutes halted. The railway group and the between 
 farmer group rose to a higher level of self-conscious- groups 
 ness through the discovery that they were interde- 
 pendent members of a folkgroup organism. Mean- 
 time the conflict between the folkways founded on 
 economic impulses, and the proposed humanistic con- 
 tinued. The relations of the railway group to the 
 granger group, and to an increasing number of com- 
 
144 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Develop- 
 ment of 
 railroads 
 into social 
 organs 
 
 A case of 
 functional 
 disease 
 
 Railway 
 commis- 
 sions as a 
 remedy 
 
 munities and individuals, were out of adjustment to 
 each other. All these groups were out of adjustment 
 to their environment. From private enterprises 
 beginning with the simple relations of individuals to 
 individuals, later of groups to groups, the railways 
 had developed more complex folkgroup relations, 
 which in their inception had not been dreamed of. 
 They have been evolved into interdependent organs 
 essential to folkgroup welfare, and their structure 
 has become the means by which an integral and very 
 important function of the social organism is per- 
 formed — a gear wheel of the intricate social machine 
 without which it ceases to operate. 
 
 In the process economic impulses had come into 
 clash with moral impulses, with resultant strife and 
 bitterness between subgroups. It was fortunately a 
 condition of functional and not of organic disease. 
 Neither of the folkgroup organs — railway group 
 nor industrial group — was fundamentally affected. 
 Functional diseases either of the body or of society 
 are cured through readjustment of the functions ; and 
 the necessary therapy was supplied by the device of 
 institutions — the railway commissions — which for 
 the past thirty years have been gradually accom- 
 plishing this task. They have modified folk-custom 
 and furthered humanistic development in the interest 
 of weaker individuals and groups, and of the 
 commonweal ; that is to say, by a progressive adjust- 
 ment through moral and legal means of the changing 
 folkgroup structure to its environment. 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 145 
 
 In this sketch may be seen birth and the gradual 
 growth within the folkgroup of a new subgroup — ^ 
 the railway — its early development in conformity 
 with existing folk-custom and existing folkways; 
 economic evolution and the influence upon the sub- 
 group of economic impulses; their adjustment to 
 folkgroup environment, at first harmonious and later 
 discordant; the advance of the railways from indi- 
 vidualization to socialization through the ramifica- 
 tion and growth of the system; motion and change 
 also in folkgroup morals through the changed en- 
 vironment in the depression of 1873-79; conflict; 
 the earlier triumph of folk-custom over law; the 
 later growth of humanlstics evolving into new folk- Socializa- 
 custom ; the establishment of institutional control ; tion of the 
 and the process of final adjustment to the harmony railways 
 between folkways, class-custom and folk-custom, by 
 which our folkgroup better fits itself for survival. 
 The history is really one of the readjustment of busi- 
 ness to morals; the main subject with which this essay 
 is concerned. 
 
 Business is human activity, i.e., conduct, with 
 respect to the exchange of services, commodities or 
 moneys. In primitive social phases — the clan, for Business 
 instance — business is undeveloped. The kinship defined 
 molecule begins by holding most objects of use or 
 desire in common, very much as in the family atom 
 of today. In all probability the first exchanges were 
 largely by force or intimidation, the spoils of war or 
 of theft, plundered by one socialistic kinship group 
 
146 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 tion 
 
 Dependent 
 
 on 
 
 exchanges 
 
 Its evolu- from an outgroup not kin to itself — an act commend- 
 able rather than to be condemned. As society passed 
 from the kinship to the tribal phase, the relation of 
 common interest between the clans which form the 
 tribe developed a peaceful folk-custom for the ex- 
 change of commodities produced by the industry of 
 one and desired by another. 
 
 Business, therefore, is an outcome of the failure 
 of self-sufficing industry to adjust the structure of a 
 group to its environment. So long as the primitive 
 folkgroup produces within its bounds everything 
 needed to satisfy its wants it has no need of ex- 
 changes, but so soon as it produces an excess of any 
 commodity or acquires a folkway of using any com- 
 modity which it does not produce, it finds its interest 
 in exchanging a part of its product with other folk- 
 groups so as to procure such goods as others may 
 produce in excess of their needs. The folk-customs 
 of intragroup communism and intergroup plunder 
 which formerly prevailed are gradually supplanted 
 by new folk-customs governing the interchange of 
 The evolu- goods with outgroups, and finally of systematized 
 tion of exchange within the folkgroup bounds. The earliest 
 
 money form of peaceful exchange is barter, or the exchange 
 
 of one commodity directly against others, closing the 
 transaction, and barter is business in its most rudi- 
 mentary form. The formerly self-sufficing hunting, 
 pastoral or agricultural clan which begins to hoard 
 a surplus of its product for the use of others, and to 
 receive from others in exchange a part of their sur- 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 147 
 
 plus, next feels the need of a measure of value for 
 such exchange. The ultimate expression of this 
 necessity is money — cattle or bronze, gold or silver, 
 cowries or banknotes — as a medium of exchange. 
 
 Business originates in the excess product of in- 
 dustrial groups and is a potent factor in the develop- 
 ment of the conditions under which economic 
 subgroups are formed and maintained. In highly 
 civilized nations the economic type of subgroup 
 tends eventually to supplant the decaying tribal and 
 clan groups out of which they are originally formed. 
 
 The customs of business are probably at first clan 
 customs because the clan is the primitive industrial 
 group. But in the evolution of the tribe from the 
 clan, and of the nation from the tribe, that part of 
 the customs which has been developed by the Kin-groups 
 growth of business eventually adheres to the supplanted 
 industrial, rather than to the kinship group. The by industrial 
 contempt of trade manners peculiar to some aristoc- S™"P* 
 racies is very likely a survival of clan-feeling, origi- 
 nating at a time when that group and the industrial 
 group were in bitter rivalry. It is the fate of customs 
 based on kinship-ideals to become constantly less 
 important to group welfare, and so to be gradually 
 supplanted by customs based on economic ideals. 
 
 As an instance may be cited the subjection of chil- Subjection 
 dren to parents, which began in absolute ownership, of children 
 fairly analogous to slavery: a condition which in cus- ^ kinship- 
 tom, if not in law, persisted long after the maturity custom, 
 of the infant, until the eighteenth century. It is only 
 
148 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 — but is 
 yielding to 
 industrial 
 custom 
 
 Group 
 types of the 
 20th cen- 
 tury in the 
 U.S. 
 
 Industrial — 
 — extractive 
 
 — manufac- 
 turing 
 
 within the last ten years that the power of the 
 parent to control his child until the age of thirty has 
 been broken in France. The early laws of Ken- 
 tucky allowed parents to put disobedient children in 
 jail "until they were humbled." In the New Eng- 
 land agricultural family of the early nineteenth cen- 
 tury, the status of the children was often that of 
 dependents, participating in the common support but 
 without separate means so long as they lived at 
 home. But at present the economic independence of 
 the child of over school age Is folk-custom in the 
 Northern States, even where unrecognized by law; 
 while in parts of the South the right of parents to 
 exploit the labor of their progeny Is as yet undis- 
 puted. 
 
 The types of economic group which have grown 
 up during the nineteenth century and serve society 
 through the exercise of business functions may be 
 classified thus: 
 
 A. Industrial Groups: primarily producers of 
 raw materials extracted from the natural environ- 
 ment, such as game, skins, furs, wool, meats, food- 
 stuffs and textile fibres, and those similarly drawn 
 from mother earth, such as ores, crude chemicals, 
 fuels, oils, metals and minerals; and next manufac- 
 turers of raw materials by moving or combining their 
 particles so as to make them directly serve the folk- 
 ways of the consumer, through processes of tanning, 
 spinning, weaving, grinding, smelting, founding, 
 refining, etc. The importance of the business func- 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 149 
 
 tion of the industrial groups, in a given social phase, 
 is measured by the proportions of their product not 
 consumed within the group: the farmer who sup- 
 ports himself and his family entirely from the pro- 
 duct of his farm, and exchanges none of it for the 
 products of others, is not in any sense in business. 
 
 B. Transportation Groups perform the service Transpor- 
 of carrying commodities, either raw or finished, any- tation 
 where between their initial production and their ulti- 
 mate consumption and exercise a business function 
 
 whose importance is in direct proportion to the dis- 
 tance traversed or the obstacles overcome. 
 
 C. Trade Groups, such as selling agents, brokers. Trade 
 merchants, exporters or importers, and those en- 
 gaged in the distribution of merchandise from the 
 producing to the consuming markets, such as com- 
 mission merchants, jobbers and retailers, serve 
 actively in the exchange of commodities, either for 
 their own account or for that of others. The value 
 
 of their business function Is in direct proportion to 
 the existing obstacles opposing a direct communica- 
 tion between producer and consumer. These 
 obstacles may be natural, like distance, or lack of 
 facilities for intercommunication; artificial, such as 
 institutional barriers erected by law, tariff duties, 
 etc. ; or moral, arising out of a difference in folkway 
 and folk-custom — language, social status, scale of 
 living, etc. 
 
 D. Labor Groups sell their working time or Labor 
 task-performance either for subsistence, for wages 
 
150 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Financial 
 
 Profes- 
 sional 
 
 or for piece-price; and whether manual, skilled or 
 clerical, are evolved with the development of indus- 
 try, transportation or trade so soon as co-operative 
 rather than individual toil conduces better to the 
 survival of that subgroup by which it is performed. 
 The first phase of labor is of slavery or family work 
 in a communistically or patriarchally organized 
 society; its second phase is that of time wages, the 
 third is that of task-performance and piece payment; 
 its fourth seems to be along the lines of profit shar- 
 ing. A rudimentary trace of business exists, even in 
 its earliest phase, but that function takes a more 
 important place as the simpler stages of customary, 
 competitive and combination wages are passed and 
 the more complex conditions established by the piece- 
 price and the bonus systems are entered upon. 
 
 E. Financial Groups, such as bankers, stock- 
 brokers, promoters, insurers, serve society by trans- 
 acting the exchange of domestic and foreign money 
 and credits, and in the purchase or sale of market- 
 able property rights, investment securities, or con- 
 tracts for the assumption of risks. These groups 
 perform a business function whose importance is in 
 direct ratio to the complexity of the folkgroup 
 organization. 
 
 F. Professional Groups are those who sell ser- 
 vices based upon special knowledge needful to social 
 or industrial welfare, such as engineers, physicians, 
 lawyers, teachers, authors, artists or clergymen, and 
 these are in business to the extent that their services 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 151 
 
 are exchanged for money or for commodities ex- 
 changeable into money. 
 
 The conduct involved in the business activities of Conduct 
 each of these groups is influenced and determined by motives 
 three sets of forces — the economic impulses, the '" business 
 moral impulses and the self-conscious level to which activity 
 they have attained. The resultant of the conflict or 
 co-operation of these forces is expressed in the group 
 morals, or standard of what conduct it is right to 
 expect from a member of any one of these groups. Evolution 
 For each group has its own class-customs obligatory of business 
 upon all of its members, however imperfectly conduct 
 known or, may be, entirely unknown to the mem- 
 bers of the other groups. From the class- 
 custom, standards of right conduct are formed 
 from the group members, binding indeed upon 
 the group, but by no means binding upon mem- Group 
 hers of other groups, or upon all groups. For custom 
 example, advertising is contrary to good morals in 
 the medical and legal professions, but is right for the 
 industrial and trading classes. The pleading of a Group 
 purely technical objection is not wrong for a lawyer, morality 
 but is not considered right for a business man. A 
 broker who sells a security on the stock exchange 
 does not guarantee the value of his commodity: if it 
 proves worthless, he is not condemned, but a dry 
 goods merchant must see to it that what he sells is 
 merchantable, i.e., sufficiently perfect to be service- 
 able for the customary use which is made of It. A 
 textile producer may without moral wrong put on the 
 
152 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 market a mixture of silk and mercerized cotton to 
 answer the purpose of a pure silk fabric at a lower 
 price, provided he does not actively misrepresent its 
 quality, but an apothecary who uses a substitute in 
 the preparation of his prescription is guilty of a 
 Its vagaries crime. The most wrongful conduct in the class- 
 custom of the labor groups is to compete for a 
 fellow member's job, but elsewhere groups and com- 
 munities vxry generally resent restraint of competi- 
 tion as a restraint of trade. 
 
 Subgroup standards, therefore, are not neces- 
 sarily folkgroup standards for moral conduct, 
 whether because the conditions differ under which 
 they are to be applied, or because the principle which 
 underlies them is not recognized and approved by the 
 whole social fabric, no matter how completely it may 
 be accepted by some one of its constituent parts. To 
 win that degree of acceptance which will admit them 
 to an undisputed moral rank, they must either be 
 recognized by the folkgroup as essential to its wel- 
 fare, or as responding to that degree of emotional 
 satisfaction which the current development of its 
 sentiment of pity demands. 
 
 A comparison of the group morals derived from 
 class-customs with the universal morals derived from 
 folk-custom, and which are recognized by society as 
 obligatory upon all of its members, will give a fair 
 index to their correspondence with the prevailing 
 morality of the time. It is in the differences between 
 the customs of one group and those of other groups 
 
 Subgroup 
 standards 
 may vary 
 from folk- 
 group 
 standards 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 153 
 
 with whom they transact business that will be found Conflicts of 
 many of the disputed and debated questions of trade subgroup 
 morals which are always vexing so long as the morals 
 common ground of a folkwide moral principle fails 
 to be found. 
 
 The bearing of these subgroup differences upon 
 the development of business morals during the course 
 of the existing social, industrial and economic evolu- 
 tion is most important. The course of this evolution 
 has been rapid, especially during the last five decades 
 of the nineteenth century, and the first decade of the 
 twentieth. 
 
 Business groups are dependent upon the satisfac- Business 
 tion of their interests for their origin, development groups the 
 and continuance. The interests which bind a busi- outcome 
 ness group together and make it effective as a con- °' '"^''' 
 stituent factor in folkgroup welfare are economic 
 interests, and the functional activity of the group is 
 proportioned to the degree of satisfaction obtained. 
 This satisfaction is economically expressed by the 
 margin between the cost of its subsistence, and the Profit the 
 remuneration which existing conditions permit it to economical 
 obtain from its activities within the folkgroup. The expression 
 conditions are the nurtureways combined with °^ interests 
 natural and geographical surroundings. The remun- 
 eration is variously known as revenue, wages, fees, 
 rates, commissions, etc. The marginal result is 
 profit. 
 
 Business in the last analysis is based upon the 
 extent and potency of the desires of subgroups In 
 
154 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Business 
 results from 
 differences 
 in the 
 folkways 
 
 Profits 
 propor- 
 tioned to 
 difFerences 
 in folkways 
 
 domestic trade, and of folkgroups in foreign com- 
 merce, to exchange their surplus products so as better 
 to satisfy the interests arising from the motive 
 powers of instincts and other forms of mental activ- 
 ity, known to us by the terms hunger, love, vanity, 
 fear, etc. The primary expression of these interests, 
 as we have seen, is through the folkways. Business 
 is, therefore, due to an effort to cater to the folkways 
 which it discovers in groups whose needs it is organ- 
 ized to supply. Obviously the reason why it can 
 succeed is because there is a difference between its 
 folkways and that of the group it serves. Bakers 
 sell their products to bankers and not to other bakers. 
 If manufacturing bakers sell to retail bakers it 
 is because the latter are really traders and not of 
 the industrial-manufacturing group so far as the 
 transaction is concerned. 
 
 Business profits are evidently in some way propor- 
 tioned directly to differences between the folkways 
 of groups. Between an Indian, whose folkways pro- 
 moted the easy acquisition of fur-bearing skins, and 
 John Jacob Astor, whose folkways were favorable 
 to the importation of toys or muskets, the exchange 
 of commodities was immensely profitable ; the Indian 
 getting something that satisfied his hitherto unap- 
 peasable vanity and curiosity, the merchant being 
 able to exchange the furs against money at a net 
 profit, after paying all expenses, of four or fivefold 
 the cost. A stock exchange broker will do business 
 for a fellow member of the board, whose folk- 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 155 
 
 ways closely assimilate his own, at a gross profit of 
 two hundredths of one per cent, out of which his 
 sustenance is still to come. While folkway dissimi- 
 larities may in fact he rightly considered a large 
 determinant of business profit there are doubtless 
 other factors, not to be overlooked. One of these is 
 folk-custom, rather, however, as an inhibitant than 
 as a stimulant, for the economic interests of the busi- 
 ness groups are always subordinate to folkgroup 
 interests, and are limited by its moral laws. 
 
 It is not, however, for the ultimate welfare of the Results of 
 social organism that it should starve or throttle any folkgroup 
 of its component organs. Unfortunately folk-feeling antagonism 
 is not infallible. Through ignorance — mass delu- *° ''^ °^" 
 sions, hoaxes or superstitions — business groups are '^^'""^rs 
 sometimes unfairly treated, or discriminated against 
 by the folkgroup. And for the same reasons they 
 are sometimes unduly stimulated; as by high protec- 
 tive tariffs, or by statutory favoritism. In the long 
 run the community pays out of its own pocket the 
 price of its ignorance, just as do the individuals, who 
 for similar reasons misuse or maltreat their bodily Examples 
 organs. France suffered for centuries the depletion abroad 
 of her best intelligence through the persecution of 
 the Huguenots. Spain's intellectual decline began 
 with the expulsion of the Moors and Jews. Ger- 
 many's treatment of her grain traders was paid for 
 by the agrarians themselves as well as by all con- 
 sumers of breadstuffs. The people of New York 
 have paid at the nose for their attempt to limit the 
 
156 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Examples 
 at home 
 
 The com- 
 munity 
 suffers by 
 retaliatory 
 legislation 
 
 profits of the money-lending groups by usury laws 
 passed in the supposed interest of the farming group, 
 whose decline is partly attributable to that cause. 
 Missouri's vengeful attitude toward insurance com- 
 panies has been paid by her insurers both in cash and 
 in loss of credit. For many years the laws of Texas 
 and California so discriminated against non-resident 
 lenders that their merchants lost that power of com- 
 manding credit which was needful for the develop- 
 ment of the resources of the land, and for a rapid 
 increase of population. Business risks are still 
 greater there than in most other states, and such risks 
 are compensated by the consumer in the price of 
 merchandise. Enterprise along certain lines has now 
 and again been throttled by the too exclusive control 
 granted by our patent laws ; and it would have been 
 difficult to dislodge white phosphorus poisoning 
 except for the humanistic attitude of the Diamond 
 Match Company, which controlled the safer pro- 
 cesses. For the tariff favors granted to the wool and 
 woolen interests the people have paid a double toll 
 in the inferior quality and enhanced cost of their 
 clothing over a period of forty years. If the object 
 of a law is to satisfy the animosities or prejudices of 
 groups or sections, rather than to ensure the maxi- 
 mum efficiency of the existing activities of a business 
 group in the work which it has to perform, the com- 
 munity itself will have to foot the bill. 
 
 Materially decreased profits mean a diversion of 
 capital to other forms of enterprise, so that the struc- 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 157 
 
 ture affected by a misdirected antagonism becomes 
 anemic and less able to discharge Its natural functions 
 in the furtherance of the commonweal. If on the 
 contrary one of the subgroups be over-advantaged, 
 remote and unintended results may follow — witness 
 the growth of cities, the consequent relative dispro- 
 portion of tenants to landowners, and the decrease 
 in personal welfare which comes from an unsatisfied 
 normal land-hunger, the spread of panaceal dogmas, 
 the growing scarcity of the food supply — due to the 
 favoritism shown to the manufacturing subgroups 
 since the Civil War. 
 To summarize : 
 
 1. Economic conduct is a means of adjusting the Summary 
 lives of persons to their environment — of procuring 
 individual welfare. 
 
 2. Exercised within group limits It is always con- 
 ditioned by moral impulse ; which is in fact one ele- 
 ment of a person's environment. 
 
 3. Normally, therefore, the economic impulses 
 are not in conflict with the moral Impulses. 
 
 4. In their evolution, however, their progress Is 
 sometimes ahead of, sometimes behind, that of the 
 moral impulses. 
 
 5. This gives rise to conflicts, and may produce 
 confusion, uncertainty and business losses. 
 
 6. Business is human activity with respect to 
 exchanges of services, commodities or money. 
 
 7. Business may be classified In accordance with 
 groups who perform it. 
 
158 TRADE MORALS 
 
 8. The business groups are: 
 
 A. Industrial: in business to the extent of 
 their exchanges; in self-sufficing indus- 
 try there is no business. 
 
 (i) Extractive: farmers and miners, 
 producing raw materials. 
 
 (2) Manufacturing: producing finished 
 articles. 
 
 B. Trading: exchanging the products of the 
 industrial groups. 
 
 C. Transportation: distributing the pro- 
 ducts and exchanges of the industrial and 
 trading groups. 
 
 D. Financial : mobilizing the surplus capital 
 of the Industrial, trading and transporta- 
 tion groups. 
 
 E. Laboring: selling services to industrial, 
 trading and transportation groups. 
 
 [Groups B, C, D and E are wholly in business.] 
 
 F. Professional: selling special knowledge 
 or skill to the other groups, and to that 
 extent in business. 
 
 9. Conduct, in each of these groups, is deter- 
 mined by three factors: (a) economic impulses, (b) 
 moral impulses, and (c) their average level of self- 
 consciousness. 
 
 10. Each group has class-ways, class-customs 
 and, therefore, group morals peculiar to itself, which 
 do not always accord with folkgroup morals. 
 
THE ECONOMIC IMPULSES 159 
 
 1 1 . The vitality of business groups is dependent 
 upon the incentive of profit; i.e., the margin of 
 earnings above subsistence. 
 
 12. The earnings of business, and, therefore, its 
 profits, are due to differences in folkways between 
 business groups or between folkgroups. 
 
 13. Business groups perform functions by which 
 the folkgroup exists in that state of civilization (i.e., 
 of complexity) to which it may have developed. 
 
 14. Business groups are interdependent; and 
 reciprocally dependent on the folkgroup, to which 
 they stand in the relation of functional organs to an 
 organism; and therefore 
 
 15. Stimuli and inhibitions, applied by the folk- 
 group to its business groups, react upon the folkgroup 
 and further or impede its welfare. 
 
IX 
 
 BUSINESS CONDITIONS OF THE TWEN- 
 TIETH CENTURY IN THE UNITED 
 STATES 
 
 We have seen that moral conduct is the volition- 
 ally regulated outcome of the balance of two often 
 The conflicting sets of impulses, formed in the human 
 
 balance of mind from habits or modes of behavior derived 
 conduct- from physical environment, and habits or modes 
 impulses of conduct derived from social contact. It is like a 
 deliberative body divided into three parties, two of 
 them strong and nearly equal and one of them 
 weak, but holding the balance of power. The 
 stronger parties are natureways and nurtureways, 
 the weaker and yet generally determinative party is 
 Controlled self-consciousness. All of these sets of impulses are 
 by the product of evolution, slowly progressing over a 
 
 personality long period of time. There is a unison in the evolu- 
 tion of the orders of life, of society through its 
 various phases, of conduct through its various 
 modes, of morals with its adjuncts, and of mind as it 
 rises from one level to another of self-consciousness. 
 By comparison of the degrees of evolution attained 
 by the better known of these factors at any given 
 time or place, we can proceed to make tentative 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 161 
 
 inferences as to the degree of evolution and prob- 
 able operation, at the same time and place, of the 
 lesser known factors. This, in fact, is the hypothe- Inference 
 sis which, by degrees, we have been developing in the of the 
 study of social, moral and mental evolution that has unknown 
 been sketched in the preceding chapters. The end ^^"^ *^ 
 we now have in sight is the application of this '^"°^" 
 hypothesis to the business conditions of the first 
 decade of the twentieth century, and as conducive to 
 that purpose we have, in the last chapter, reviewed 
 the set of impulses derived from economic motives, 
 and have endeavored to discover their place in the 
 final determination of business conduct, at the same 
 time analyzing the business structure to which they 
 are applied. If this review is sketched in outline 
 rather than pictured in detail, it is because the object 
 of this essay is rather suggestive than final, being 
 designed to stimulate research and classification 
 along lines of discovery of which, at present, we have 
 but vague and hardly formulated ideas. It has the 
 further purpose of presenting to business men, pres- 
 ent and prospective, a method of interpreting busi- The 
 ness conduct and its relations to the community, method of 
 which may perhaps assist in the advance of their interpreting 
 vocation from the plane of an empirical art to that ''"^'"^ss 
 of a scientific profession — along which lines it is 
 now, but all too slowly, developing. 
 
 What are the conditions of economic, moral and Present-day 
 personal environment in the United States today, environ- 
 and from what have they proceeded? '"^"'- 
 
162 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Population 
 and its 
 conditions 
 in 1790 
 
 Transpor- 
 tation in the 
 eighteenth 
 century 
 
 The facts of the environment with which at the 
 opening of the nineteenth century our forefathers 
 were confronted, were as markedly different from 
 those with which their descendants had to cope at 
 its close, as today between Asia and America, Mada- 
 gascar and Massachusetts, or Peking and Phila- 
 delphia. During no previous time, and at no pre- 
 vious place in the history of the world, have the 
 conditions of life been so changed or so great an 
 alteration in manners and customs made manifest in 
 so short a time. 
 
 Substantially all of the population of the United 
 States, then about one twentieth of its present num- 
 ber, lived east of the Blue Ridge or Alleghany 
 mountains and south of the Penobscot or north of 
 the Savannah rivers. Ten times as many souls now 
 inhabit the same territory. In it there were only six 
 cities of over eight thousand inhabitants (Phila- 
 delphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Charleston 
 and Salem) where now there are four hundred and 
 nineteen. The main concentration of population 
 was on the coast and by the banks of rivers, of which 
 the Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, 
 Potomac, James and Savannah were navigable for 
 upwards of a hundred miles from their mouths. 
 
 Transportation then, as now, was the key to the 
 formation and concentration of social groups; and 
 the only practical means of freightage was by water. 
 In methods of land transport, little Improvement 
 had been made for nearly two thousand years. In 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 163 
 
 the eighteenth century London was no nearer Rome 
 than it was in Caesar's time. Travel was mainly on 
 horseback, except on the four or five post routes. 
 On those roads a maximum speed of forty miles a 
 day could be maintained, on others fifteen. At the 
 close of the Revolution it cost $12.24 to transport a 
 hundredweight of merchandise from Philadelphia 
 to Erie, Pa., a distance of four hundred miles. A 
 stone road, crudely constructed, had been built from 
 Philadelphia to Lancaster toward the end of the 
 eighteenth century, and in 1806 a National Turnpike 
 across the AUeghanies, to connect Cumberland, 
 Md., — the head of boat navigation on the Poto- 
 mac — with the western country was begun. In 
 twenty years it had been completed only as far as 
 Zanesville, Ohio. But such crude interstate transpor- 
 tation as this and other highways could furnish was 
 speedily made obsolete by the opening of the Erie 
 Canal. 
 
 Before our Revolution, the Duke of Bridgewater Water 
 had introduced a canal system into Great Britain, carriage by 
 and by the last decade of the eighteenth century its canal 
 success had been demonstrated. In this country the 
 first canals were naturally designed to extend the 
 already existing but imperfect means of river trans- 
 port — and by their means a number of eastern 
 interior settlements had been brought to tidewater. 
 But it was left for the Erie Canal, begun in 18 17 and The Erie 
 finished in 1825, to alter the distribution of popula- Canal 
 tion almost in the twinkling of an eye, as an earth- 
 
164 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 quake may change the course of a river or create a 
 great lake out of a fertile valley. In the next twenty 
 years it made New York the commercial metropolis 
 of the country, formed an outlet for the rich farming 
 districts of western New York, and founded the 
 industrial cities of Utica, Syracuse, Rochester and 
 Buffalo. At one clip it cut the cost of transporting 
 a hundred pounds of merchandise between New 
 York and Buffalo from five dollars to ninety cents. 
 It put the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh route, with its rate 
 of $11 per hundredweight, out of business in five 
 Its relation minutes. Following upon the heels of Fulton's great 
 to steam invention of steam navigation, which linked it up at 
 navigation either end with industrial possibilities, the Erie 
 Canal became the trunk of a cheap water route along 
 which poured freights and families, like the sap 
 which a tree gathers by its rootlets and distributes 
 through Its leaves. It revolutionized business by 
 halving the cost of the imports and manufactures of 
 the East to the western settler. The possibility of 
 exchanging these against his products began his con- 
 version from a self-sufficing farmer into a business 
 man. Lumber came in vast quantities from the 
 forests of New York and iron from Ohio. In 
 Yhe twenty years the population of Ohio, Indiana and 
 
 westward Michigan increased from 700,000 to nearly 3,000,- 
 flow of 000. A canal to the Ohio River and steam naviga- 
 
 population tion upon the western rivers distributed another 
 stream of settlers and merchandise through the 
 Southwest. 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 165 
 
 The most important trade route was, however, 
 fixed by the greater economy of the canal and lake 
 route, drawing men from New York and New Eng- 
 land, scattering them in the mid- West ; leavening the Its effect on 
 typical folkways of the frontier while binding it by folk-feeling 
 ties of trade and sentiment to the East. An influx of 
 German liberals, following the unsuccessful revo- 
 lutions of 1830 and 1848, established themselves at 
 the western branchlets of the canal in groups whose 
 contribution to the industrial, intellectual and moral 
 growth of the prairie states can hardly be over- 
 estimated. DeWitt Clinton, in fact, had won the 
 field of Gettysburg forty years before the battle was 
 fought, and had sounded the knell of the folk-custom 
 of slave labor when Lincoln was a boy of sixteen. 
 
 Towns — Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Growth of 
 Detroit — sprang up along the line of march. Chi- cities 
 cago and Milwaukee were made possible. In the 
 thirty years following the first census, the proportion 
 of urban to rural population had but slightly in- 
 creased, more than nineteen twentieths of the people 
 still lived in the country or in the smaller towns, and 
 the number of cities of eight thousand inhabitants or 
 more had hardly more than doubled. But in the five 
 decades after 1820, the number of these cities prac- 
 tically doubled with every decade, until in 1870 more 
 than one fifth of the entire population lived in cities 
 of this size. In the succeeding forty years this pro- 
 portion had doubled, and two fifths of the people 
 were in this class at 19 10. 
 
166 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Influence All of the older cities are on the waterways. This 
 
 of railways tendency was not profoundly altered by the advent 
 of the locomotive, invented by Stephenson in 1825, 
 and It was not until after 1850 that the railroads 
 began to influence the folkways of urban preference 
 and their resultant folk-customs. The reason is not 
 far to find. Up to the Civil War the efficiency of the 
 railroad as a means of cheap transportation was 
 undetermined. It could not compete with water 
 freight, and in many cases could not compete with 
 wagons over the now improving highroads. Rail- 
 road operation had to await the invention of the 
 telegraph and of the steam gauge in 1849 ^o make it 
 practical. Even then it had to wait for cheap steel 
 before it could be economically successful. The 
 introduction of the Bessemer process in 1870 com- 
 pleted the conditions under which it has become so 
 potent a factor In the shaping of our twentieth 
 century folkways and folk-customs. 
 Effect of The evolution of business is everywhere condi- 
 
 cheap trans- tloned by cheapness of transport. Every penny off 
 port on the freight rate makes It possible to effect exchanges 
 
 folkways over a wider territory, tends to break down folk- 
 ways of self-sufficing industry in which there is a 
 minimum of business, and to replace them with folk- 
 ways derived from the economic Impulse to exchange 
 surplus products, group against group, in which there 
 is a maximum of business. 
 
 And so the evolution of the business groups, 
 which had begun In a small way on the seaboard, and 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 167 
 
 in the area tied to it by natural waterways, went on Rapid 
 by leaps and bounds over a constantly widening area, growth of 
 In the farming group of extractive industrials, there ^^^ business 
 grew up a progressive tendency to specialize in S''°"Ps 
 response to an increased demand for specialities, the 
 outcome of city folkways. The general farmers of 
 Colonial days formed a strong group whose common 
 interests were modified only by territorial sepa- 
 ration. Their intragroup sympathy was in direct 
 ratio to the uniformity of their folkways, and of 
 the ensuing body of folk-custom. But with urban 
 growth and the increase of cheap transportation a — in 
 new kind of agricultural service was required; and extractive 
 the concomitant breaking up of the farming group industry 
 into a large number of specialty groups has had 
 important reactions upon the folk-customs and moral 
 impulses of the entire folkgroup. 
 
 Increasing concentration of population always 
 spells a loss of self-sufficing qualities, and the old 
 folk-custom must vanish as independence is lost. 
 Only forty years ago the milk supply of the city Urban milk 
 groups was obtained either from cows kept in their supply 
 own stables, or freshly milked from farms close to 
 the point where it was to be ultimately consumed. 
 Morning's milk could be served on the breakfast 
 table of men of moderate means, and for the 
 poorest, the previous night's milking was always 
 available. The continued aggregation together of 
 larger masses of people increased land values and 
 drove the milking herds a little farther into the 
 
168 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Bacterial 
 infection its 
 controlling 
 factor 
 
 Changing 
 folkways 
 — in cities 
 
 — on the 
 farms 
 
 country; but It was not until after 1850 that dairy 
 farming became a distinct type. The folkways of 
 the consuming adult of the city group, with respect to 
 milk drinking, have materially changed with the 
 Increasing distance of the source of supply, but it Is 
 still a necessity for children, and here the folkway 
 changes are less marked. The controlling factor Is 
 the susceptibility of the product to bacterial infec- 
 tion. In milk the production of bacteria is enor- 
 mously rapid; under favorable conditions billions 
 may breed in a single cubic centimeter within twenty- 
 four hours. The fluid now reaches the larger cities 
 from a zone three or four hundred miles In radius. 
 For example, milk trains begin to move on New 
 York the forenoon of the day before the beverage 
 can be delivered; therefore, Instead of twelve hours 
 old at the worst, it Is twenty-four hours old at the 
 best, and much of It has gone thirty-six and forty- 
 eight hours since It was drawn from the cow. 
 
 The effect of these conditions on urban folkways 
 has been to change folkways ( i ) of keeping dairy 
 cows within city limits, (2) of feeding them with 
 swill or fermenting brewer's grains, (3) of consum- 
 ing milk fresh from the cow or chilled only by stand- 
 ing through the night, (4) of feeding non-sterilized 
 milk to Infants, (5) of adult drinking of milk as a 
 beverage, (6) of Its use In the treatment of disease, 
 and probably many others. The farming folkways 
 of self-sufficing agriculture, formed during the lapse 
 of twenty centuries, have been equally disturbed. 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 169 
 
 (i) Cattle are no longer kept as an adjunct to 
 general farming, but as the producers of a money 
 crop, (2) the barns in which they are kept have to 
 be specially constructed, (3) higher standards of 
 cleanliness are upheld, (4) there is a growing ten- 
 dency to co-operation in bottling and selling, ( 5 ) ice 
 is stored or manufactured on the farm, (6) the milk 
 is immediately cooled, (7) dairy cows are tested for 
 tuberculosis, and the infected ones destroyed, (8) 
 much milk is pasteurized or sterilized, and (9) 
 through the requirements of city folkways, farm- 
 ing is being transformed into a strictly business 
 enterprise, and is being concentrated in large and 
 highly specialized units. The reaction of these 
 urban and industrial changes upon the folkways of 
 the transportation group has been ( i ) the building 
 of large freight cars on passenger trucks, often with 
 refrigeration, (2) their equipment with air brakes, — in the 
 (3) first-class rights allowed milk trains on railway transporta- 
 time-tables, (4) it has been a factor in the double t'o" group 
 tracking and standard gauging of railway lines as 
 they approach city groups, and (5) in their equip- 
 ment with steel rails, stone ballast and signal systems 
 for heavier and more rapid traffic. 
 
 Some of these folkways have become folk-customs Develop- 
 and have been institutionalized by statute law, estab- ment of 
 lishing standards for milk purity, regulating its sale folk-cus- 
 and delivery in large cities, forbidding the practice '"""^ '^™"^ 
 of swill feeding, and providing for the inspection of ^^ "^^ 
 milk vessels and dairies or a quarantining period for 
 
170 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 imported cattle. Among the formal institutions 
 which have been created wholly or in part to pro- 
 mote the recognition of these folk-customs are state 
 — and of dairy Inspections, colleges of agriculture, agricul- 
 institutional tural experiment stations and farmers' co-operative 
 adjuncts organizations to the number of eighty-five thousand. 
 Among their economic effects are increased wages 
 Economic for farm labor, now more than double those of the 
 effects preceding half century, and a fourfold to sixfold 
 
 increase in the efficiency of an acre of land. 
 
 In finance it has created funds drawn from the 
 accumulated profits of other industries to lend to 
 farmers for improvements, to establish great milk- 
 handling corporations, to lend to railroads for the 
 Financial increase of their facilities, and it has led to the 
 effects enlargement of the deposit and exchange functions 
 
 in country banks. As a secondary reaction there is 
 a demand for funds to finance extensions in the steel 
 and machinery industries, and collaterally with the 
 Improvement of running time on milk trains there 
 Is an Improvement in the facilities for local passenger 
 travel on the railroads. 
 Sociological Business groups have been promoted of dairy- 
 effects men, of creamerymen, of milk middlemen, and the 
 unionization of railway employees is materially 
 strengthened by the need for their co-operation In a 
 service of such Imperative necessity to the welfare of 
 the city groups. 
 
 Such changes have the Increase and enlargement 
 of the city groups made necessary in the folkways of 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 171 
 
 an industry, in social and economic groups, and 
 in human institutions. Similar changes, I may add, 
 have been produced in thousands of other social and Similar 
 economic groups likewise affected by great and sud- effect of 
 den changes in the folkways of urban people, so that ^'^^^'^ ''^^ 
 there is hardly a social or industrial group that has °" °*^'' 
 not been obliged to accommodate itself and its folk- ^'^^"P^ 
 ways to the unparalleled changes in environment 
 produced by the movement of population during the 
 last forty or fifty years. A vast amount of folkways, 
 the outcome of human experience in past ages, has 
 been thrown on the scrap-heap, and an enormous 
 number of new ones as yet uncatalogued has been 
 called for to accommodate the modern structure of 
 society to the changed conditions of its life. And 
 with them have gone time-honored folk-customs, 
 to be replaced with new, tediously built up in the folk- 
 group by discussion, debate and final adoption into 
 folk-feeling. 
 
 In effect equal to the results produced upon folk- Changes in 
 customs by a concentration of population, were those folk-custom 
 caused by the suddenness and magnitude of its diffu- from 
 sion in a frontier country. The conditions under western 
 which a pioneer in a newly settled territory must settlement 
 necessarily seek welfare are radically different from 
 the environment under which the citizen of a well- 
 established community pursues his more conven- 
 tional way. The pioneer of the decades of 1820 to 
 1870 had to cope with the scarcity of stored provi- 
 sion for subsistence, with the dangers of a wilderness 
 
172 TRADE MORALS 
 
 inhabited by wild beasts and savages, and with the 
 Need for pressing need for immediate results. Capital which 
 immediate was necessary for the development of the natural 
 results resources about him, he did not possess, and he was 
 
 fain to procure its usufruct as best he might. Under 
 these circumstances, the folkways of the interest rate 
 for capital went far beyond the limits which had been 
 fixed by those of the elder states. To compensate the 
 lender and to induce freedom in lending, terms based 
 Its effect on upon the legal and customary interest rates plus a 
 finance share in the profits were promised, the latter being 
 
 capitalized at the start by issues of so-called 
 "watered" stock. The exaggerated self-reliance of 
 the pioneer, overconfident of his powers, led to the 
 inception of all kinds of "wild-cat" enterprises, the 
 like of which Dickens has pungently satirized In 
 Martin Chuzzlewlt. The Inflated promises of the 
 promoter, but half realized In the end, became a part 
 of the folk-custom of pioneer finance, approved by 
 the overconfidence of frontier groups. This 
 approval gave the opportunity to the fraudulent 
 financier, who always thrives under the protection of 
 any folk- or class-custom which he can turn to per- 
 sonal advantage through affected compliance and 
 deceit. 
 
 Such are but two examples of the tremendous 
 changes in folkway and folk-custom due to the 
 breaking up of self-sufficing industry In the nine- 
 teenth century, produced by the development of 
 transportation and by the environmental and struc- 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 173 
 
 tural changes which followed. A similar account 
 could be given of almost any one of the fundamental 
 processes whereby food or raw materials are ex- 
 tracted from the earth and converted to the use 
 of civilized need. In every instance, the few and The effects 
 simple groups of the first half of the last century of Steam 
 have been obliged to abandon the easy folkways Power 
 accruing from hundreds of years of use and experi- 
 ence, and to break up into many and specialized 
 subgroups that, with great toil and effort, have 
 struggled during the latter half to adjust themselves 
 to the novel conditions forced up by the discoveries 
 of the Age of Steam. As well as anywhere, an 
 , illustration can be borrowed from the history of our 
 textile evolution. In the self-sufficing farmstead of Folkway 
 the early nineteenth century, the sheep that nibbled changes in 
 on its upland pastures were shorn in the spring by the textile 
 the men of the household, their wool was carded by industry 
 hand or by the local miller, and in the fall or winter 
 spun, woven and shaped into garments by the 
 women of the house. Of tools, the shear, distaff, 
 spindle and hand loom had existed in practically the 
 same form since prehistoric times. They were used 
 by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans long before 
 the Christian era. Woolcombing was introduced by 
 St. Blasius in the fourth century, and the single- 
 thread spinning wheel is seen pictured in illuminated 
 manuscripts of the fourteenth, but, at least in the 
 early days, it had failed to dislodge the distaff from 
 the folkways of the colonists. Allusion to women's 
 
174 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Power 
 applied to 
 spindle and 
 lootn 
 
 Power 
 applied to 
 the needle 
 
 former monopoly of the spinster's art survives in 
 our popular expression for maternal ancestry as "the 
 distaff side." These primitive methods of making 
 cloth and clothing had, therefore, been ingrained in 
 the folkways of many hundreds of years when, at 
 the breaking out of our Revolution, Hargreaves, 
 Arkwright and Crompton were perfecting machines 
 to spin several threads at once ; and these, after the 
 introduction into this country in 1813 of Cart- 
 wright's invention of the power loom, gave birth to 
 the factory system. By 1825 "tens of thousands of 
 men and women who would have been doomed to 
 eke out a scanty livelihood by farming, cobbling or 
 unskilled labor, now found new opportunities before 
 them" and so adopted new folkways from which new 
 folk-customs had to be devised. 
 
 The impetus which the power loom had given to 
 the growth of the textile factory system was trans- 
 mitted to the clothing trades by the invention of the 
 sewing machine. Ready-made clothing had been 
 introduced in a small way as early as 1831, to em- 
 ploy journeymen tailors during their idle seasons, 
 but it was not until the fifth decade of the century 
 that the employment of machinery and the division 
 of labor made possible great economies in the mak- 
 ing of both men's and women's suits. As a conse- 
 quence the home-making of men's clothes has entirely 
 disappeared as a folkway, as has also, in large 
 measure, that of the dress of women. The adjust- 
 ment of the textile industry to these folkways is the 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 175 
 
 cause of a large part of its profit in recent years. It 
 has profitably ventured the adaptation of the folk- 
 ways of one group of women, who preferred an inde- 
 pendent wage to a communistic family subsistence, 
 to a new folkway of using ready-to-wear garments. 
 While the group of women wage-earners was 
 acquiring one folkway, the family group was acquir- 
 ing the other folkway, in place of common folkways 
 which both groups had formerly shared, and the 
 textile manufacturer found his opportunity of profit 
 in catering to these changes. 
 
 The changes on which these new business relations 
 depended were, therefore, at once the cause and the 
 outcome of the factory system, which, in its nine- Genesis of 
 teenth century development, was the product of four the factory 
 factors — mechanical invention, cheap power, im- system 
 proved transportation, and the growing folkway of 
 the industrial exchange of surplus products replac- 
 ing the declining folkway of self-sufficing industry. 
 The factory system, in so far as it served as an 
 instrument of adjusting these changing folkways to 
 each other, was a device of great importance to social 
 welfare, and so was adopted by society as a folk- 
 custom. In New England, prior to 1850, It was a 
 means of escape for the women and children from 
 the dreary, unsocial atmosphere of the inland farm- 
 stead; a means of support for many whose home 
 labor had been displaced by altered ways of life; and 
 a means of culture for those who were brought Into 
 contact with the mental and religious advantages 
 
176 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Its spiritual 
 advantages 
 
 Its interpre- 
 tation 
 
 Other 
 
 groupal 
 changes 
 promoted 
 by invention 
 
 which only can be afforded by a more concentrated 
 community which is accumulating wealth. To these 
 it added the moral advantages of disciplined employ- 
 ment over idleness and of happiness over discontent. 
 If the hours were unduly long, the pace was not so 
 intense as to prohibit intellectual avocations ; witness 
 Lucy Larcom and the "Lowell Offering." Similar 
 conditions prevail today in large measure over the 
 South, where the group of the cotton mill is a prime 
 factor in the uplift of the mountain whites. 
 
 The factory system is, therefore, something more 
 than the mere outcome of economic impulses, since 
 it furthers new adjustments of the lives of individuals 
 to their environment along lines of ethical as well as 
 industrial efficiency. In the period under review this 
 system was passing through a process of continual 
 development, whose rate of motion was in direct 
 proportion to those folkway changes which had 
 made it practicable. Such changes came out of the 
 need for the adjustment of conduct to certain other 
 changes which have been taking place in both the 
 environment and structure of our American folk- 
 group, following a series of remarkable inventions, 
 affecting directly the industrial and transportation 
 groups, whose object was to increase the efficiency of 
 power derived from steam. The following table will 
 suggest concisely some of the groupal metamor- 
 phoses which have called into existence a tremendous 
 volume of new nurtureways. 
 
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182 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Summary 
 of groupal 
 changes 
 1860-1910 
 
 Urban 
 groups 
 
 Farming 
 groups 
 
 Factory 
 groups 
 
 These figures illustrate succinctly the essential 
 features of the condition and growth of the business 
 groups during the last half century. They are typical 
 and characteristic — a volume could be compiled of 
 which these are only a few instances. From them we 
 may infer that in the last half century 
 
 A. The folkgroup, expressed in terms of popu- 
 lation ( I ) , has nearly trebled. This rate of increase 
 is the base rate for the other comparisons for the 
 same period. The ten, thirty and forty year com- 
 parisons are based upon similar differentials for their 
 respective periods. Relative increase means a 
 growth greater than that of the base rate, relative 
 decrease a lesser rate. 
 
 B. The drift from rural to urban life, say to 
 towns and cities of over eight thousand (13), has 
 been three times as rapid as thegrowth of the popu- 
 lation. The rate of increase in the rural population 
 (7) has been a little more than half that of the whole 
 growth. The farming group (53) has grown about 
 eight tenths as fast as the folkgroup. 
 
 C. There was (21-27) ^ rapid formation and 
 increase of heterethnic subgroups largely of the un- 
 skilled labor class, the entry of which into many 
 industries has disturbed and complicated their cur- 
 rent ethical adjustments. 
 
 D. The increase in the groups laboring in all 
 factories (31) has been at a rate about four times 
 that of the folkgroup. 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 183 
 
 1. While laboring groups employed in an essen- 
 tial, basic and age-long established industry, the 
 smelting of iron (42), have materially declined Iron 
 relatively to the population, the total capital invest- industry 
 ment (43) has increased at nearly a tenfold ratio, 
 probably indicating a large increase in the groups 
 financially interested in iron making. As compared 
 
 to forty years ago, the output of pig iron per mechan- 
 ical unit of production (47) has increased thirty-fold 
 while that of each unit of the laboring group (48) Labor and 
 has increased less than tenfold. The effect of capital capital in 
 in promoting efficiency in this particular industry is, contrast 
 therefore, twice as great as that of the labor em- 
 ployed (45, 46, 47). In number the establishments Administra- 
 making pig iron (41) have decreased actually 27 per tiveconcen- 
 cent so that relatively to population they are now t^non 
 only 36 per cent of the basis of i860. There is a 
 great degree of concentration of this industry in 
 large units under the control of a comparatively few 
 condensed administrative groups. In each of these 
 concentrated units the average laboring group (44) Labor con- 
 is nearly three and a half times as large as in i860, centration 
 
 2. The number of textile groups (33) has 
 grown only one third as fast as the folkgroup, while Textile 
 the capital used by them (36) has grown six times industry 
 faster ; and the total laboring group in their employ 
 
 (34) has grown not quite twice as fast as population. 
 There is a moderate concentration of this industry 
 into larger units, in each of which the average labor- 
 
184 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 ing group is two and a half times as great as in i860 
 
 (35). 
 Clothing 3. Certain other industrial groups especially 
 
 industry favored by changes in the folkways have grown to 
 large proportions out of little or nothing; as in 
 women's clothing (39), where the establishments 
 have increased twelve times and the laboring group 
 (40) thirteen times faster than population. 
 Trading E. Trading groups (54) have grown at a rate 
 
 groups of about one and a half to one and three quarters 
 
 times that of the folkgroup; this in spite of a large 
 increase in the turnover of each trading unit, due to a 
 trebling in the average density of the population. 
 Increased turnover accounts partly for an increase In 
 labor employed (58) by these groups between i860 
 and 1900 of 623 per cent or four and a third times 
 that of the population. 
 Transpor- F. It is in the transportation groups that the 
 
 tation most startling changes have taken place. Large 
 
 groups subgroups, such as telegraphers and telephone em- 
 
 ployees, have grown like mushrooms. Fifteen mil- 
 lion miles of telephone circuit, with its appurtenant 
 groups of officials and employees, has been the crea- 
 tion of thirty years. Since i860 the mileage of steam 
 railroad lines (60) has increased three and one half 
 times as fast as population and their laboring groups 
 (62) nearly twenty-three times as fast. The most 
 Street marvelous growth is that of the street railway sys- 
 
 railways tem (61), which has increased ninety-eight-fold or 
 fifty times faster than population ; its laboring groups 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 185 
 
 (63) at less than half that rate, owing to the econ- 
 omies resulting from the change of motive power. 
 
 G. Financial groups have grown greatly in Financial 
 excess of populational increase. Bankers and brok- groups 
 ers (67) had increased four and a half times faster 
 than population in the forty years ending in 1900, 
 and in the full half century the banks themselves 
 
 (64) grew seven times more rapidly than the people; 
 their officials increasing at nearly four times that 
 rate (66). 
 
 H. Among the professions, engineers (72), Professional 
 statistics of whom for the full half century are not groups 
 yet available, increased more than five times as fast 
 as population in the first forty years and will doubt- 
 less show still more phenomenal progress when the 
 results for 19 10 are known. A large group of elec- 
 tricians ( 73 ) has grown out of nothing. The exten- 
 sion of education is reflected in an increase of 
 teachers (68) in forty years at twice the popula- 
 tional rate. The other older professions except that 
 of medicine (69) have grown more rapidly than the 
 folkgroup. The increase of the group of lawyers 
 (70), more than one and a half times that of the 
 population between i860 and 1900, is plainly corre- 
 lated to the business expansion and rapid evolution 
 of new custom characteristic of that period, resulting 
 in unsettlement and conflict, which In the national 
 social phase is resolved by the peaceful and orderly 
 processes of the common law. It may be queried, as 
 it is yet too early to determine, whether the relative 
 
186 TRADE MORALS 
 
 decrease of this group during the last decade is due 
 to a later progress toward a relative stability of 
 custom, or to other conditions, thus far unobserved. 
 I. It is impossible with our present data to give 
 Laboring more than a superficial account of the laboring 
 groups groups. Farm laborers (74) and domestic servants 
 
 (75) show a relative decrease. The exploitation 
 of our mineral wealth is reflected In the great growth 
 of the group of miners (76), and the increased 
 luxury of living by that of house mechanics — carpen- 
 ters, masons, plumbers, painters and the like (77). 
 The census volume of occupations in 19 10, when 
 published, will give the basis for many more instances 
 of phenomenal change In the group structure of 
 American society during the half-century than are 
 now available. 
 
 Such changes, calling for a prodigious creation 
 of new folkways, class-customs, folk-customs and 
 humanistics, are the outcome of efforts made by the 
 folkgroup to adjust itself to the novel conditions by 
 which it has been confronted during these years of 
 extraordinary motion and exceptional change. A 
 further pursuit of the line of investigation, of which 
 the more important features have been developed in 
 the foregoing, will display a period characterized not 
 only by an immense growth of new business groups 
 and by the development of old ones in new directions, 
 but by ethical conflicts due to an admixture of alien 
 races, folkways and folk-customs with our own. 
 
BUSINESS CONDITIONS 187 
 
 which has been briefly touched upon in the foregoing 
 discussion. We are now prepared more deliberately 
 to discuss the question of the ethical consequences of 
 heterethnic immigration, which will be the main 
 subject of the next succeeding chapter. 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 
 
 Effect of 
 economic 
 conditions 
 on social 
 stracture 
 
 We have seen in the last chapter the operation of 
 two conditions, arising from economic impulses, 
 which, during the last half century, have profoundly 
 influenced a series of far-reaching changes in the 
 structure of our American society. The first of these 
 forceful conditions is the movement of the popula- 
 tion (a) toward pioneer conditions, (b) toward city 
 life. The second, beginning as a reaction from the 
 first and then reacting upon it, is an industrial reor- 
 ganization, leading to the substitution of economic 
 exchange and intergroupal distribution of products in 
 place of the folkways of self-sufficing agriculture 
 inherited from the remote past. These changes 
 have promoted the decay of many long-established 
 folkways and folk-customs, and from them have 
 sprung new folkways out of which society is attempt- 
 ing to re-create its system of folk-custom and human- 
 istics, so that its life may be more completely 
 adjusted to the environment. 
 
 Economic profit is the incentive for the formation 
 of a business group; and profit, as we have seen, is 
 the result of differences in the folkways of social 
 groups. Therefore, the first response to these 
 broad, continuous and rapid folkway changes was a 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 189 
 
 widening of the opportunities of gain, encouraging Growth of 
 a rapid growth of new business groups to perform new 
 the exchanges needed to adjust the lives of the grow- business 
 ing subgroups to the changing folkgroup structure. S"'°"P^ 
 By 1893 the United States had grown from a simple 
 series of territorial groups, united by needs of self- 
 defense and self-development, into a complex series 
 of interpenetrating business groups, united by the 
 most imperative ties of economic interdependence — 
 from a simple segmented type into a complex organic 
 type, with intercommunicating systems of nerves and 
 arteries. The pursuit of greater efficiency in this 
 movement influenced the progress of invention and 
 the formation of ever more highly specialized busi- 
 ness subgroups to carry the burdens imposed by this 
 altered folkgroup structure in order to perform its 
 industrial, transportative, trading, financial, laboring 
 and professional functions. 
 
 But custom is a plant of slow growth, and the 
 class-customs which these groups have been called 
 upon to create have naturally been more or less Slower 
 experimental in character, hastily formed or im- readjust- 
 perfectly adapted to needs, and the work of choosing ment of 
 from them the folk-customs and adapting from them folk-custom 
 the humanistics has proceeded apace, but under the 
 sore trial of almost revolutionary conditions. Insti- 
 tutional adjuncts, like legislation, which is always a Inefficiency 
 laggard behind folk-feeling, have meddled rather of 
 than assisted in the change, and the hesitation of the institutional 
 religious organizations in accepting the changes in ^ ^^^^ ^ 
 
190 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 modes of thinking which are the inevitable outcome 
 of such folkway changes, has deprived the churches 
 of their wonted influence in support of the higher 
 moral ideals. As has already been observed, the 
 normal function of such institutional adjuncts is that 
 of buttresses to a completed moral structure rather 
 than that of scaffolds in its construction. We have 
 now to consider two other conditions of our moral 
 evolution — the influence of immigration and the 
 remodeling of business method in the period under 
 review. 
 Immigra- For the effect on folk-custom of the sudden 
 
 tion — absorption of many millions of people of alien race 
 
 will rank in potency with the sudden diffusion of one 
 part of our population and the sudden concentration 
 of another. From the known ratios of increase of 
 the population It may be inferred that immigration 
 — in the during the eighteenth century was an almost negli- 
 eighteenth gible quantity. An analysis of the family surnames 
 century enumerated in the census of 1790 shows that over 90 
 
 per cent of the then population was of British 
 descent. Six in a hundred were of German origin, 
 about two Dutch and less than two Irish. Little 
 changes in these conditions were effected in the first 
 quarter of the nineteenth century. 
 
 But following the great expansion which was the 
 
 result of the opening of the Erie Canal, the foreign 
 
 — in the influx began. In the previous decade every one thou- 
 
 nineteenth sand of the native population had to assimilate but 
 
 century one foreigner annually, but, between 1830 and 1840, 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 191 
 
 this had increased to two a year and in the next five 
 years to four. In 1 845 came the crop failure which 
 produced the Irish famine, and the annual immigra- 
 tion rate jumped at once to ten in the thousand of 
 the native population. By 1850 one tenth of the 
 people were of foreign birth and more than one 
 quarter of foreign birth and parentage. Today a 
 third of our population is either foreign-born or the 
 children of foreigners. 
 
 These people were not only aliens by birth, but by 
 language, folkways, folk-custom and religion. Their Alien folk- 
 moral ideals have been formed by previous environ- ways and 
 ment, in great measure under the influence of perse- folk- 
 cution or oppression from which they have fled, customs 
 Deceit and fraud are always sanctioned by the folk- 
 custom of persecuted or oppressed groups, because it 
 is by these means only that they are fitted to survive 
 the uncontrolled domination of a master race. The 
 weaker group is in the same case as a child brought The 
 up by exacting and irascible parents, who in self- influence of 
 defense is certain to become crafty and untruthful, persecution 
 The customs of the Irish peasant immigrant were 
 those of a folkgroup which had not passed the clan 
 or at most the tribal phase, with a proportionately 
 weak development of peace-customs. The folk- 
 custom of the Russian-Jewish urban immigrant is 
 that of tribal groups, welded together by heterethnic 
 oppression. In both instances, the external environ- 
 ment of persecution suppressing truth folkways had, 
 in fact, established the folk-custom of outgroup 
 
192 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Dual 
 
 conscience 
 a condition 
 of survival 
 
 The 
 
 problem of 
 assimilation 
 
 Under-de- 
 velopment 
 of self- 
 conscious- 
 ness 
 
 deceit as a condition of survival. This gave rise to 
 the phenomenon of dual conscience described by 
 Mary Antin. "The Gentiles . . . said our mer- 
 chants and money lenders preyed upon them, and 
 our shopkeepers gave false measure. People who 
 want to defend the Jews ought never to deny this. 
 . . . We cheated the Gentiles wherever we dared 
 because it was the only thing to do. . . . Wherever 
 we could we spared our own kind, directing against 
 our social foes the cunning wiles which bitter need 
 invented. ... A Jew could hardly exist in business 
 unless he developed a dual conscience which allowed 
 him to do to the Gentiles what he would call a sin 
 against a fellow Jew." 
 
 Until immigrants of this kind become assimilated 
 socially as well as territorially, they are slow to 
 adopt our folk-customs or to maintain our moral 
 standards. American moral ideals are already 
 adjusted to a structure and an environment out of 
 which have grown the folkways and folk-customs, 
 resultants of more than two centuries of individual 
 freedom, of struggle with nature and of conditions 
 of unimpeded and vigorous growth. Moreover, a 
 large part of this immigration Is of men who, by 
 lack of previous contact with the higher social 
 phases, have only attained the lower levels of self- 
 consciousness, and in whom, therefore, the motive 
 powers of the self-regarding sentiments of pride and 
 self-respect are undeveloped. This multitude, sud- 
 denly Injected Into such an environment and among 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 193 
 
 such folk-customs, have to do business in order to 
 live, and it is some time — often two generations or How alien 
 more — before they learn how to subordinate the folk-custom 
 folk-customs arising out of oppression to those that impairs 
 are formed by freedom; or to attain the self- business 
 conscious levels which are the outcome of life in a '"^''^^^ 
 folkgroup of the nation tj^e. The tendency of these 
 alien groups is to settle in the great mercantile cities, 
 of whose population they and their children form 
 three fourths or more. So it is that, in places like 
 New York and Chicago, there is barely more than 
 a fifth of the population whose respect for folk- 
 customs, formed out of the native environment, is 
 based upon an experience of more than a single 
 generation of descent.^ 
 
 Our ethical peril, in fact, is not a yellow but a The white 
 white one ; not beyond the Pacific, but at home. The peril 
 anarchy that it injects into our peace-loving customs 
 is, of course, relative. Tribal customs may be perfect 
 adjustments of tribal life to its environment and yet 
 may be the source of serious conflict when imported 
 into national conditions. The characteristic solu- 
 tion of conflict in clan and tribal phases of society is 
 war, and therefore appeals to force may sometimes 
 explode within a more civilized folkgroup which is 
 endeavoring to assimilate tribal groups. Those who 
 have fled from oppression are often unskilled In the 
 
 1 Is it not also probable that the disproportionate excess of males 
 in this inflow has an influence on sex morals which can hardly be 
 overestimated ? 
 
194 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The white 
 man's 
 burden in 
 the United 
 States 
 
 Change in 
 business 
 methods 
 1860-1910 
 
 methods of peaceful compromise by which groupal 
 adjustments are efEected in a democracy. Inter- 
 groupal conflicts which penetrate the innermost 
 structure of the national organism are a peril which 
 caUs for energy, patience and courage on the part of 
 all who have a stake in the higher ethical adjustments 
 to which the Anglo-Saxon race has attained. This is 
 presently more difficult by reason of the excursion of 
 business organization beyond the bounds of person- 
 ality; and it would be impossible were it not for the 
 democracy of our public life and public school, and 
 for the efforts of our social workers. 
 
 No nation in history has ever had such a Sisy- 
 phean task laid upon its shoulders, as to absorb in 
 fifty years a third its own numbers of subject races, 
 fleeing from the domination of political ideals less 
 humanistic than our own, and to adapt to their own 
 the imported folk-customs arising from this cause. 
 As a white man's burden there Is nothing to compare 
 with it short of the overflow of the Germanic tribes 
 into Europe in the early centuries of the Christian 
 
 era. 
 
 Hand in hand with these protean racial group 
 movements has gone a change in the methods 
 of the older established business which is at least of 
 equal force in begetting changes in folk-custom. In 
 the beginning of the century, business competition, by 
 which the margin of profit is restricted, was feeble. 
 Under the existing conditions profits were corre- 
 spondingly high. The reason for this is plain. Ex- 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 195 
 
 changes, on which business profit is founded, depend 
 upon differences in the folkways of the groups 
 between which the commodities, money or services 
 are exchanged. The business profit of the trade 
 between the Indians and the settlers was great 
 because of the wide divergencies of their respective 
 folkways. In the same way arose the large profits 
 of the British exploitation of India, of the mediaeval 
 trade between Italy and the Orient, and of the 
 ancient business relations of the Phoenicians and the 
 Greeks. While gross profits accrue from diverse 
 folkways, the competition to obtain them is regu- 
 lated by the interaction of ability, capital and credit 
 on the perils, secrets and distances involved in inter- 
 groupal trade. 
 
 Now, at the beginning of the century, the disparity Large 
 of folkways between the then unspecialized ingroup profits in 
 of American traders and the outgroups with whom the first half 
 they did business was enormous. Buying rice and °f ^^^ 
 tobacco from the planter groups at low prices, these nineteenth 
 traders supplied the ability, knowledge and capital ^^^ '^ 
 for shipping them to England, separated from us by 
 distances and secrets, and by extraordinary perils 
 during the wars of Napoleon and of 1812. Never- 
 theless, the average of perils, distances and secrets 
 was less between ourselves and Great Britain or the Features of 
 Indies than that involved for them in obtaining from outgroup 
 other shipping groups the naval stores, cotton, trade before 
 tobacco, rice and flour needed by them, and so the the Civil 
 business was both large and profitable to our mer- ^^'^ 
 
196 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 chants and to theirs. And of British manufactures, 
 as well as of West Indian sugar, molasses and ma- 
 hogany, we were eager buyers at large profits, 
 because our social structure and climatic environment 
 had not established folkways of these industries with- 
 in our own groups. Similar conditions prevailed in 
 the exchange of our ginseng root and silver dollars 
 against the tea, coffee, muslins and silks of the East; 
 so great were the risks and so wide the divergences 
 of folkways that the customary profit was to double 
 the capital Investment by every voyage. In the trade 
 with our own Indian tribes, with an even greater 
 disparity of folkways, a basket of toys or an old 
 musket would buy furs on the wharves of New York 
 which could be disposed of In London, after paying 
 all expenses, to an advantage of 400 to 500 per cent. 
 The enormous profits of slaving and smuggling were 
 due to folkway differences between ourselves and 
 outgroups which are too obvious to enumerate. 
 1890-1910 But in the last two decades the elements contrlb- 
 Suppression uting to profit have vastly changed. Business perils 
 of perils have been almost eliminated by almost universal 
 — of secrets peace. Business secrets have been abolished by the 
 telegraph and the printing press. Distances have 
 — of been annihilated by the steamship, the railroad, the 
 
 distances telephone and the trolley car. Trading skill and 
 knowledge have been diffused by a school system 
 which trains disproportionate numbers of the popu- 
 Diffusion lation to clerkly aspirations, for until the recent 
 of skill development of the engineering function In business, 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 197 
 
 the education that was generally given to the great 
 mass of common school pupils was sufficient for a 
 start in the store. For a population only two and a 
 third times that of 1870 there are four times as 
 many independent firms rated by the commercial 
 agencies. In each period of depression the competi- 
 tion between overstimulated industrial and trading 
 groups has grown more bitter, until the old-time 
 profits have disappeared. 
 
 Up to thirty years ago office operations were 
 performed by business clerks in the same way that 
 they had been for more than two centuries, but in 
 spite of the typewriter, the duplicating carbon, the 
 loose-leaf ledger, the card index and the calculating 
 machine, which have diminished the effort of routine 
 business operations by at least two thirds, the use 
 of clerical labor has increased four times as fast as 
 population. Between 1870 and 1900 the number of 
 commercial travelers increased thirteen-fold. Part 
 of this showing is doubtless due to the increasing 
 specialization of business functions, but taking all 
 these classes together their rate of increase has been 
 at least double that of the population which they 
 serve. These progressive changes toward more Diffusion of 
 widespread knowledge of business have wrought business 
 havoc with the rate of profit, and it is now impossible, knowledge 
 save in a few little-known specialties based upon 
 folkway-differences of small and isolated groups, to 
 accumulate a fortune from the profits of a business 
 of small or moderate size. 
 
198 TRADE MORALS 
 
 To meet this emergenq? the pace of trade had to 
 
 The folk- be vastly accelerated. Where a marginal profit 
 
 way of sufficient to support a given organization could no 
 
 quick longer be had from small sales, such firms as could 
 
 trading ^qj- compass the necessary increase have had to go 
 
 out of business. Business organizations have been 
 
 more constantly employed in out-of-season work, 
 
 and the number of transactions accomplished by 
 
 them has been proportionately increased so as to 
 
 meet the fall of net profits from an average of 20 
 
 or 25 per cent on the amount of the sale, to one of 
 
 from I to 4 per cent on the same. Quick trading 
 
 involving the minimum of time to each transaction 
 
 has become a commercial necessity; in it lies all the 
 
 hope of gain and the possibility of survival; this has 
 
 involved changes in every productive industry and 
 
 in the operations of every trading group. 
 
 Folkways of In pursuit of this ideal, products can no longer be 
 
 standardiza- irregularly produced; they must be standardized, 
 
 tion in mer- so as to be described by catalogue or by word of 
 
 chandise mouth, rather than by such personal inspection as 
 
 was the custom before 1875; or even by showing 
 
 of samples, a folkway which arose later. Even this 
 
 is not enough; and as in quick trading lies all the 
 
 — in trans- hope of gain and the possibility of survival, so must 
 
 portation also the operations of business be standardized as 
 
 well as the merchandise. In the same direction has 
 
 reacted powerfully the growth of markets following 
 
 the increase of population and of its constituent 
 
 groups. To fit these most Important changes in 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 199 
 
 folk-custom, forced by the decline of profit and the 
 resultant necessity of quick trading, grow new stan- — in busi- 
 dards of conduct which are the modern morals of ness con- 
 trade. The rapidity of the changes in methods and <iuct 
 customs which have been characteristic of the grow- 
 ing age of steam and the budding age of electricity, 
 have made it difficult for minds trained in the 
 methods and customs of an earlier part of this 
 period to grasp the moral necessities of its finish. 
 
 Standardization itself has in time become a potent 
 factor in laying the foundation for a still further 
 enlargement of industrial production. By making 
 possible the exchange of large quantities of standard- 
 ized merchandise • units, it has stimulated their 
 production by concentration, that is to say, by Folkways of 
 combination of smaller productive groups into concentra- 
 larger, more economical units under a single manage- "°" 
 ment. Doubtless the impetus given to certain indus- 
 tries by folkways of tariff protection has been a con- 
 dition contributing to the movement toward combi- 
 nation, as a relief from overstimulation of the 
 formation of subgroups. In some industries a Of 
 further step has been taken by integration, the knit- integration 
 ting together into one compact, harmonious whole of 
 all their related branches, or of all the necessary 
 processes, in the conversion of a raw material into 
 the finished product. Taking for example iron and 
 steel, the first step was the consolidation of the 
 formerly competing companies of each branch into 
 such organizations as the Tube Company, the Steel 
 
200 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 tion 
 
 and Wire Company, the Bridge Company, etc. ; next 
 the integration of these with their rival, the Carnegie 
 Company, into the enormous industrial group of the 
 The Steel United States Steel Corporation through the addition 
 Corpora- of mining companies, producing the ore; of barge 
 and steamship lines and railways, transporting it; of 
 coal, coke and limestone companies, producing the 
 materials for smelting; together with a number of 
 selling, engineering and financial groups, devising and 
 A type of exchanging the finished product. These various com- 
 integrated binations formed a single integrated group to extract 
 industry the stored-up forces of nature, to manufacture them 
 without break of continuous treatment into finished 
 commodities and finally to deliver these to their ulti- 
 mate consumer. Such processes have eliminated the 
 scattered mines, forges and blast furnaces which 
 produced our iron in the early seventies ; have created 
 railways and steamship lines for the service of a 
 single industry, and have greatly simplified and 
 standardized its product. In forty years (1870- 
 19 10) the number of blast furnaces decreased from 
 386 to 208, while their annual product increased 
 from 1,800,000 tons to 27,000,000. While the 
 metal working trades are perhaps the most conspicu- 
 ous examples of the concentrative process, yet it has 
 gone forward in almost every line of staple pro- 
 Other types duction. The number of concerns making men's 
 of concen- clothing decreased, 1 870-1905, 42 per cent, while the 
 tration value of their output increased two and a half times 
 
 on a much lower scale of prices. Between 1870 and 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 201 
 
 19 lo the number of slaughtering establishments 
 increased only 38 per cent, while their product grew 
 seventeen-fold. Two thirds of the woolen mills went 
 out of existence during the same period, but those 
 that remained made two and a half times as many 
 goods as before. 
 
 Nowhere has the potency of these forces been Labor 
 more revolutionary in its effect than in the duties and 
 efficiency demanded of the labor groups in all indus- 
 tries. Average wages of ordinary labor have more 
 than doubled, but in forty years the relations of the 
 laborer to his industry have been subject to changes 
 such as had not been accomplished in the preceding 
 four centuries. 
 
 Take the boot and shoe industry as an example. The boot 
 In 1870 there were more than twice as many fac- and shoe 
 tories as in 19 10. At the earlier date the average industry 
 number of workers in a factory was twenty-nine, Io70-19l0 
 each producing annually 877 pairs worth $1600. In 
 1910 the average number of wage-earners was 130, 
 each with a product for the working year of 1539 
 pairs, worth $2400. The organization of the in- 
 dustry has been revolutionized to produce this result. 
 The division of labor into three operations, cutting, 
 sewing and tapping, which was the outcome of a 
 standardization of sizes effected in the last year of 
 the seventeenth century, had prevailed down to 1 845, Group 
 when the simultaneous invention of a sewing machine speciahza- 
 for uppers and hand-power peg drivers started tionthrough 
 a new movement of specialization. The invention invention 
 
202 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 of the power pegging machine in 1855 was followed 
 by that of the power sewing machines of Mackay 
 and Goodyear in i860 and 1871. Before 1900 the 
 three primary labor operations involved in making 
 a pair of shoes had been subdivided into twenty-one. 
 To further cheapen the product this process of sub- 
 division and the speed at which it is carried on has 
 been almost indefinitely increased. Writing in 1903, 
 the expert of the Mosely Industrial Commission 
 Elaborate reported of a certain factory that "Labour is divided 
 division of and subdivided to such an extent that it would 
 labor require my personal presence on the firm for at least 
 
 a fortnight to detail it." He expressed surprise to 
 see the operation of skiving uppers, in England per- 
 formed by one woman, in Brockton performed by 
 four men on machines, each operator paring one side 
 only of the leg. And his guide remarked, "If only 
 the fractional part of a second is saved in each opera- 
 tion it tells up in the course of twelve months' work- 
 ing." He found all who were on machines working 
 "as hard as possible, . . . the machinery running at 
 the highest speed and the operators . . . had to 
 keep their eyes skinned and their fingers in motion." 
 Folkway The progressive specialization of such an industry 
 
 changes not only involves large innovations in folkways, 
 involved disturbs long-standing relations of settlement and 
 housing — for formerly, while the sewing was done in 
 factories, the soling was done in the household — 
 revolutionizes the relations between employers and 
 their help, etc., but brings forward immense moral 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 203 
 
 questions as to the outcome of these changes — the 
 right to contract, the right to work long hours, the 
 right to employ women and children, the right to 
 pursue private economic welfare at the cost of 
 groupal welfare, the right of employers to manage 
 the business, their duties as to the protection of high 
 speed machines, the rights of labor unions to inter- 
 vene, the rights of laborers to determine who their 
 fellow workmen shall be. The moral principles 
 involved in many of these questions are not yet 
 settled, but in the process of adjustment, unstable or 
 undetermined folkways and folk-customs have led to 
 confusion and conflict. 
 
 In every industrial group, especially in times of Trade 
 trade depression, the struggle with diminishing depressions 
 profits has evolved new folkways of efficiency, of ^nd 
 standardization and of the relations between master folkway 
 and servant; and of these many have not yet been ^ anges 
 absorbed into the mass of general ethical principle 
 which as morals it is our object to discuss. Trade 
 depression is a potent cause of new folkways of 
 industry; a force tending toward great efforts to 
 increase pre-existing efficiency, toward great econo- 
 mies, toward great consolidations and concentra- 
 tions. Of these, so long as times remain "hard," the 
 consuming public — the folkgroup — is the primary 
 beneficiary, but as a result in succeeding periods of 
 good times and advancing business, profits and 
 wages ultimately tend to increase. 
 
 It could not be expected that such changes could 
 
204 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The 
 
 finance of 
 a century 
 ago 
 
 Deposit 
 banking 
 
 Credit 
 changes in 
 fifty years 
 
 be accomplished in the folkways of industry, or of 
 labor, without corresponding changes in the folk- 
 ways of finance. At the close of the War of the 
 Revolution, finance was pretty much confined to deal- 
 ing in foreign exchange. In 1790 there was one 
 bank each in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, 
 and at the beginning of the century only twenty-eight 
 in the whole country, with a capital of twenty-one 
 millions, while the currency circulation averaged 
 but $5 per capita. Nearly all coins were foreign. 
 There were four standards of value for the British 
 penny, the use of which persisted in the folkways of 
 trade until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 
 Deposit banking was not established as a folkway; 
 the Bank of Maryland had been in existence a 
 twelvemonth before the first depositor came to its 
 doors. In fact, its development did not come until 
 after the Civil War, and the deposits of all the 
 1562 banks existing in i860 were less than those 
 now held by the two principal institutions in New 
 York City. While in i860 there was a bank for 
 each 22,991 persons, there is in 1910 a bank for as 
 few as 3975 persons. At the beginning of this epoch 
 the money in circulation averaged $13.85 per capita; 
 at its end $34-33- 
 
 The deposit function was, in a measure, supplied 
 by the country store, whose folkway was to credit 
 customers on its books with the produce which they 
 brought in, and to charge them with the commodi- 
 ties which they took away. As late as the middle of 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 205 
 
 the century there were retail stores in New England 
 towns doing a large business without handling as 
 much as five dollars in real money in a week's time. 
 The United States government allowed four years' 
 credit for land sales and twelve to eighteen months' 
 time for customs duties. Shrewd merchants took 
 advantage of this folkway, and from the proceeds 
 of a first cargo from the Indies often financed two 
 or three more, which could be turned into cash 
 before the duties of the first became due. At one 
 time John Jacob Astor was thus employing no less 
 than five millions of government money in his busi- 
 ness. Folk-feeling ran against this method, It was 
 repudiated by folk-custom and in 1842 it was pro- 
 hibited by statute, on the ground of privilege. 
 
 In merchandising, the rise of the humanistic prac- Rise of the 
 tice of implied warranties, and its gradual substitu- custom of 
 tion for the legal folk-custom of caveat emptor, have implied 
 had much to do with a thoroughgoing change in the warranties 
 folkways of the settlement of debt incurred through 
 time credits arising from sales. This practice is 
 largely responsible for the now rare use of the bill 
 receivable in closing merchandise credits, and its 
 virtual replacement by open book account, the reason 
 being that the seller's implied warranty of his goods 
 prevents the closing of the transaction and the final 
 fixing of the amount due. This interesting change 
 was furthered by a number of other folkways and 
 customs which grew up during the convulsion of the 
 Civil War. 
 
206 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Early state 
 socialism 
 
 Insurance 
 
 Taxation 
 
 Corpora- 
 tions 
 
 But for a long time thereafter no objection was 
 made to the advance of state bonds in aid of pike 
 and bridge corporations, and both city and county 
 bonds were issued to invest in the stocks of railroads 
 so as to induce transportation development. This 
 practice is now looked upon as wrong, but it was 
 only extinguished by the losses of the panic of 1873. 
 Our enormous insurance funds are the development 
 of the last sixty years, their real importance arising 
 in the last half of this period. The insurance inves- 
 tigation of 1906 showed folkways which had been of 
 no importance, or even of advantage to these funds 
 during their formative stage, that had subsequently 
 become wrongs because of their scale, and of their 
 gross partiality to favored Individuals. 
 
 Up to i860 the taxes collected for the support of 
 the general government had never exceeded seventy 
 millions in any year ; and they did not pass the hun- 
 dred million mark until the second year of the Civil 
 War. Up to that time the customs tariffs, on which 
 the treasury depended as the chief source of its 
 income, had fluctuated between revenue and protec- 
 tion; but the high-water mark of protective legisla- 
 tion, the "Tariff of Abominations" of 1828, would 
 be called a Free Trade measure today. Internal 
 revenue taxes are a growth of the necessities of the 
 War of the Rebellion. 
 
 Promoters existed, of course; wherever there are 
 great enterprises to be carried out the advantages of 
 the co-operation of capitals is apparent, and private 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 207 
 
 business corporations began to be chartered before 
 the end of the eighteenth century. Up to 1 8 1 5 there 
 were some 120 manufacturing corporations in 
 Massachusetts, and perhaps fifty in New York. 
 Every company then had to have a special charter 
 from the legislature. But until recognition by follc- 
 custom of the need of great transportation lines, cor- 
 porate progress was slow. In the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century general laws were passed per- 
 mitting incorporation to any group of men who — their 
 would comply with certain fixed conditions, but the standardiza- 
 main application of the corporate principle of '^•o" 
 organization to all branches of trade, industry and 
 finance has been made within the last twenty-five 
 years. More than two hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand such companies made returns to the United 
 States Internal Revenue in 19 10. Syndicates for the 
 underwriting of the great blocks of capital required 
 by these promotions have been developed only 
 during the last fifteen years. 
 
 The increasing complexity of production, and the Professions 
 association of power, mechanical and chemical prob- 
 lems with questions of light, heat and electricity, and 
 the need, in times of trade depression, of greater 
 efficiency in production, have given scope and impetus 
 to all of the old professions, and opportunity for 
 many which were not even heard of two or three 
 decades ago. New customs had to be developed on 
 which to base the rights and duties involved In the 
 contact of these new departments of science with the 
 
208 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 older and newer industries for which their skill 
 was needed, and to regulate the new expansion of 
 the older vocations of the architect, chemist and 
 mechanical engineer. 
 Labor In number, the wage-earners who sell their ser- 
 
 vices or their time to those engaged in industrial 
 operations have become by far the largest and most 
 important business group. Outside of agriculture 
 there were over 12,600,000 people thus employed 
 in 1900; assuming a family ratio of three to each 
 worker, about half the total population. 
 Change in During the last half century the collective char- 
 
 class- acter of none of our groups has been so profoundly 
 
 feeling altered as has that of industrial labor in the East 
 
 and Northwest. No longer is its temperament that 
 of the Puritan with a stoicism endued by generations 
 of contest with pioneer conditions in a self-restrain- 
 ing atmosphere of personal liberty; it is now mainly 
 that of men of more volatile races habituated to 
 pohce restraint rather than to self-control, imbued 
 with folk-custom arising from tribal rather than 
 national conditions and educated under such condi- 
 tions of discontent as to induce them to wrench them- 
 selves loose from all the ties of friends, homes and 
 fatherlands. The habits and customs of the immi- 
 grant workers are adjusted to their former environ- 
 ment; they find themselves projected into a social 
 fabric of folkways and folk-customs whose meaning 
 they do not understand, and to acquire which at their 
 average maturity is a difficult task. They interpret 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 209 
 
 the absence of police restraint as a license to allow 
 themselves modes of behavior and conduct whose 
 volitional control is not inspired by the higher levels 
 of self-consciousness; for to attain these levels pre- 
 supposes social conditions by which they have never 
 yet been influenced. To further complicate the prob- 
 lem of assimilation they find themselves confronted, 
 not with a fairly stable social and economic status, 
 but are plunged from the start into the series of 
 unstable conditions which are the outcome of great 
 and rapid evolutions in population, in business 
 groups, in invention, in immigration and in quick 
 trading. 
 
 Certain significant changes in the customs sur- 
 rounding this greatest of all industrial groups call 
 for especial mention. 
 
 The first of these is the change from the self- Transfer of 
 sufficing to the business type of industry, to which we opportunity 
 have already referred, with its resultant loss of 
 independence and of incentive to the development 
 of self-respect. 
 
 The second Is the increasing employment of 
 women in all business groups. In 1868 the first 
 typewriter was made, and so discovered a new 
 outlet for the occupation of the weaker sex, already 
 expanded by the power spindle and the loom. The 
 organization, first of water power, then of steam and 
 finally of electricity, has transferred three fourths of Women in 
 the female household occupations of the previous industry 
 two thousand years to the factories, located in large 
 
210 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 New 
 groups 
 
 Changed 
 relations of 
 employers 
 and 
 employees 
 
 social groups, towns and villages, whose civilizing 
 influence has reacted economically, biologically, 
 psychically 'and taorally upon the wants, health, 
 intellect and character not only of this generation, 
 but of many yet to come. The whole number of the 
 sex engaged in trade, transportation and manu- 
 facturing increased 385 per cent between 1870 and 
 1900, as contrasted with an increase in the whole 
 population of only 96 per cent, and of working males 
 of no more than 203 per cent. 
 
 Thirdly, the inventions of the last quarter century 
 have brought into existence industrial groups for- 
 merly unknown, like electricians, telephone opera- 
 tors, automobile drivers, street railway employees, 
 etc., and have led to the rapid decay of many others. 
 
 Last, but most important of all in the creation of 
 folk-custom, is the changed ratio in almost all the 
 manufacturing industries of workers to employers — 
 a necessary consequence, we may say, of concentra- 
 tion, in the effort to adjust production to the decline 
 of profits and the rise of quick trading. The en- 
 largement of the mechanical unit has caused the 
 decay of folkways of constant touch and sympathy 
 between masters and workmen, and has developed 
 group-feelings excited by the discords, rather than 
 by the harmonies, of their interests. It remains to be 
 seen whether this antagonism will eventuate in 
 destructive warfare, or whether the handwriting on 
 the wall will inspire these groups to draw nearer to 
 each other in a joint effort for their common weal. 
 
IMMIGRATION— QUICK TRADING 211 
 
 It seems likely, with respect to bigness, that the 
 Titanic disaster marked the end of an epoch. Per- 
 haps many of the merely big enterprises may dis- Distrust 
 integrate into humanly possible units. Otherwise of the 
 humanistics will probably gain a foothold in folk- overgrown 
 feeling that may cause the folkgroup, with a fine 
 disregard for merely economic motives, to adventure 
 the experiment of state control and management. 
 We may only feel sure that a folk-custom has 
 already arisen of intolerance to great enterprises, 
 and that on the scale to which many of them have 
 attained during the last fifteen years they are no 
 longer morally possible. The mainsprings of this 
 folk-custom are doubtless partly found in a dislike 
 of the unneighborly relations arising from the decline 
 of personal contact between the groups co-operating 
 to produce, and the neglect of quality which in many 
 cases has accompanied the excessive effort to cheapen 
 and expand production. 
 
 We have now reviewed the effect of the great Summary 
 immigrations of alien races disparate in their habits, 
 folkways and folk-customs; in their levels of self- 
 consciousness; in their social organization; in their 
 economic practice ; and in their moral principle with 
 all that our national environment, our political evo- 
 lution, our civil status and our established moralities 
 have led us to consider as necessary to our welfare. 
 The effort to assimilate such elements produces moral 
 confusions and moral conflicts and brings up the 
 complex question of the relations between one 
 
212 TRADE MORALS 
 
 organization of social groups passing through higher 
 social phases with other intrusive groups passing 
 through lower social phases. 
 
 If a problem of such magnitude were not enough 
 to vex and disturb our powers of moral construction, 
 in addition we have a social structure crystallized by 
 the practice of many centuries to be newly fitted to a 
 rapidly changing cultural environment — the outcome 
 of the tremendous progress of the last century in 
 science and the arts. 
 
 Folkway, folk-custom and humanistic, which are 
 the means of forming those moral adjustments with 
 the environment which better fit men for survival, 
 are by no means so rapid In grx)wth and development ; 
 and this is the more true because of our conscious 
 effort to stabilize them through institutional adjuncts. 
 Law and religion are often the means by which 
 obsolete custom Is maintained long after it has 
 become maladjusted to a changed environment. 
 Thus arises a third series of conflicts; clouding the 
 moral atmosphere and making the best Intentloned 
 and best trained of our population uncertain as to 
 what course of conduct should rightfully be pursued. 
 
 Both righteous conduct and economic success are 
 ideals of business life. It is quite possible to exag- 
 gerate the part that merely economic success plays in 
 the adjustment of the business life to its environment. 
 It Is with this question that we shall be particularly 
 concerned in the next chapter. 
 
XI 
 MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 
 
 We have now arrived at a point where it is pos- 
 sible to halt, and turning about, take stock of that 
 to which we have been giving a more or less detailed 
 attention. Thus far we have been concerned with Retrospect 
 a survey of the nature and origin of moral conduct, 
 analyzed with respect to its nature and synthesized 
 with respect to its origin. Moral conduct in its 
 essence is a social phenomenon, involving the rela- Morality 
 tions of the acts of one man with respect to other a social 
 men.^ In the preceding chapters we therefore matter 
 began by qonsidering that aspect of the subject pre- 
 sented by the relations of society to man. Inasmuch 
 as our purpose is to determine, if possible, by what 
 ethical principles the individual should be actuated 
 in his conduct toward the society of which he is a 
 part, it may lead to a better understanding of these 
 interrelations if we reverse for a time the current of 
 our investigation, and approach the subject from 
 
 ^ Involving also certain phases of its extension toward such of the 
 higher animals as have been domesticated by man, and so adopted by him 
 into the social structure. When man first accepted this responsibility his 
 conduct toward them was naturally regulated by the prevalent folkways 
 which in a hunting state had been adopted toward the wild animals that 
 formed the major part of the food supply. This aspect was only altered 
 when in a large way such animals were bred to be man's helpmates in the 
 task of modifying his environment. 
 
214 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Neural 
 factors in 
 behavior 
 
 Environ- 
 mental 
 factors of 
 behavior 
 
 Nature- 
 ways — 
 
 that aspect in which it presents itself to the individual 
 himself. We have found : 
 
 A. That all animal acts are the outcome of 
 nervous or quasi-nervous impulses; excited by exter- 
 nal forces but conditioned mainly by the degree of 
 development of the nervous system; possessed of 
 uniformities which enable them to be classified, and : 
 
 I. Animal life begins to develop in a primitive 
 environment of physical elements and natural forces 
 which gradually are modified by modes of behavior, 
 inherited, and not chosen, by an agent unconscious of 
 their purpose ; and these are the outcome of the pres- 
 sure of natural environment upon animal structure, 
 serving their mutual adaptation and so tending to 
 the survival of the races by which they are practiced. 
 Together they may be classed as natureways, whose 
 modes are : 
 
 (a) Tropisms; direct responses of the organ- 
 ism to its environment, characteristic of lower in- 
 vertebrate races whose nervous system, if any, is 
 diffuse or unco-ordinated; 
 
 (b) Reflexes, co-ordinations of tropisms, char- 
 acteristic of higher invertebrate races In whom a 
 segmentally co-ordinated nervous system has been 
 developed; and 
 
 (c) Instinctive acts, co-ordinations of reflexes, 
 characteristic of the vertebrate races possessing a 
 more complex nervous system centrally co-ordinated 
 by a brain. 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 215 
 
 Within races, natureways are more or less uni- — their 
 formly diffused; they cumulate by inheritance from racial 
 lower to higher races; they constantly grow, exist character- 
 and die; they are stable in direct ratio to their '^"" 
 diffusion and longevity; and, inherited by mankind, 
 form the foundation on which its conduct is builded. 
 Of these modes those derived from instinct, the least 
 stable, is capable of modification by experience and 
 reason. 
 
 2. All human acts are the outcome of a combi- Psychic 
 nation of nervous and mental impulses, which add factors of 
 to behavior conscious conduct. Conduct differs from conduct 
 behavior in that it is the result of voluntary purpose 
 and not physiologically inherited, is developed under 
 social conditions as the result of a concurrent effort 
 to adjust individual and groupal life to the environ- 
 ment, and expresses itself in three fairly distinct 
 modes, together classed as nurtureways, viz. : 
 
 (a) Folkways; simple volitional adjustments of Nurture- 
 persons to environment; unconsidered common ways — 
 habits of conduct, characteristic of the lower human 
 grades and social phases. 
 
 (b) Folk-customs; more complex adjustment of 
 groups to their environment; the general expression 
 in action of doing to others what one expects from 
 others, characteristic of the middle human grades 
 and social phases. 
 
 (c) Humanistics; effecting the triple adjustment 
 of environment to groups and individuals, the ex- 
 pression in conduct of pity or love for one's neigh- 
 
216 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 — their 
 groupal 
 characters 
 
 Nurture- 
 ways a 
 shield 
 against 
 nature 
 
 — are 
 
 conditioned 
 by volitional 
 develop- 
 ment 
 
 bor, characteristic of the higher human grades and 
 social phases. 
 
 Like natureways these modes of conduct grow, 
 exist and die among the human groups, and their 
 energy and stability is in direct ratio to their dura- 
 tion and exercise. 
 
 B. Man's life begins its development, then, in a 
 primitive environment composed of physical ele- 
 ments, natural forces and their modification through 
 natureways inherited from his animal ancestry. But 
 this environment changes, and the changes as they 
 come are adjusted to his life by almost imperceptible 
 adjustments — modes of conduct. Conduct is a de- 
 vice of man's intelligence to build between himself 
 and nature a screen of artificial or cultural environ- 
 ment, by which he is enabled to control and adjust 
 the primitive environment to his constantly growing 
 needs. In the last analysis this screen is nurtureways. 
 
 1. This process evokes a mental evolution in 
 man, in the course of which it is also possible to des- 
 cry a graduation. Conscious choice is the product of 
 volition ; and volition is found to be a function of the 
 conscious knowledge of the self. Self-consciousness 
 is proportioned to intelligence, and is conditioned by 
 it. The prime factor in the development of intelli- 
 gence is the opportunity of mixing with and acting 
 with other men and other minds. And so, both 
 conduct and intelligence are conditioned by the 
 society in which they are involved. 
 
 2. Man is adjusted to his final environment, 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 217 
 
 which is largely social, by both behavior and con with 
 
 duct. His actions are the outcome of conflict or of natureways 
 harmony between impulses derived from natureways are adjust- 
 and those derived from nurtureways ; in cases of "^^'^^^ to 
 conflict the lower, most energetic and most stable ^"^''o"- 
 modes would prevail were it not for the development 
 of his character. Character is organized by self- 
 consciousness. Consciousness of self in man is 
 gradually evolved along an ascending pathway by 
 whose levels we measure its attainment. Its lower 
 levels do not supply forces with which to overcome 
 impulses derived from the natureways or from the 
 lower nurtureways, when in conflict with less ener- 
 getic, less stable and later evolved modes. But self- 
 consciousness on its higher levels has accumulated 
 means whereby its function, volition, may over- 
 balance the lower impulses and deliberately choose 
 the higher but weaker impulses, thus determining 
 conduct of the higher modes. Volition becomes, 
 therefore, the regulating factor of conflicting im- 
 pulses to action from whatever source derived. The 
 habits of conduct thus formed, together with those - — in which, 
 proceeding from inherited disposition and bodily character 
 temperament, are organized together by self-con- '^ all 
 sciousness Into a system of sentiments; and this is 'rnportant 
 character. Thus character is the all-Important force 
 behind that conduct which other men have the right 
 to expect of any given human agent. The 
 
 C. Of the three component elements of char- nature of 
 acter, temperament is the outcome of an existing character 
 
218 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 — Its 
 
 relative 
 
 stability 
 
 — Its 
 
 degenera- 
 tive 
 possibilities 
 
 Social 
 groups- 
 
 — their 
 reactions 
 
 organic structure capable of modification within 
 narrovi^ limits; disposition is a still more stable in- 
 heritance of nurtureway tendencies, and habitual 
 conduct is fixed on the nervous highways by fre- 
 quency of repetition. Theoretically, therefore, char- 
 acter should be a comparatively stable product, and 
 this practically, it is. Business men recognize its 
 permanency to the degree that they have made it 
 their chief criterion of credit. But its temperamental 
 basis is subject to attack through sickness, or mental 
 disturbances may lower the level of self-conscious- 
 ness by which its three elements are organized. 
 There is no more dangerous debtor than one whose 
 character has been established on a high level, but 
 who by such degenerative processes is beginning to 
 lose it. For this reason, creditors properly keep 
 character under continual observation, lest reputa- 
 tion be continued as an asset, after the bases of char- 
 acter have been partly destroyed. 
 
 D. The social structures — groupal phases as- 
 sumed by the efforts of men to live in association — 
 In which conduct is performed, and in which charac- 
 ter is developed, are environmental conditions of 
 great potency and necessity in the development of 
 both nurtureways and personality. Without a cor- 
 respondingly complex social structure neither the 
 higher levels of self-consciousness nor the higher 
 modes of conduct would be possible. 
 In our survey of society we have seen : 
 r. That mankind has always ordered Itself into 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 219 
 
 groups of which the unit group is the family or social — their 
 atom. universality 
 
 2. That these units are compounded with other 
 families into a series of folkgroup types; each type — their 
 a social phase of advancing complexity, viz. : structure 
 
 (a) The Clan, a molecule of families tied by the 
 sentiment of kin. 
 
 (b) The Tribe, a simple or inorganic compound 
 of families or clans tied by efficiency in war. 
 
 (c) The Nation, a complex or organic compound 
 of families or tribes tied by the need of peace. 
 
 3. That in the struggle for existence it always — their 
 has been the experience of mankind that a groupal potency 
 organization better fits its members to survive, and in survival 
 that the ever-advancing complexity of environments 
 
 have always to be matched by increasing complexity 
 of folkgroup structure. In other words, the higher 
 groupal phases have become predominant because of 
 their efficiency in adjusting men to the surroundings 
 in which they have to live. 
 
 E. In the foregoing synthesis we have observed Parallelism 
 correspondences between modes of behavior and 
 levels of nervous development, and between the 
 latter and the stages of life; and a certain parallel- 
 ism between conduct modes, self-conscious levels and 
 social phases. Without forgetting the penumbrae 
 or twilight zones qualifying all border lines between 
 classes, we may now permit ourselves to draft a 
 tentative scheme, recapitulating the correspondence 
 between life, action, society and morals. 
 
220 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Assuming that the summaries and comparisons of 
 life, nerve structure, mind, society and conduct, as 
 shown by this table, form an approximately true 
 picture of their development and correspondences, 
 we may proceed to draw from it some tentative 
 generalizations bearing upon moral choices. 
 
 The main diflSculties found in choosing between 
 Moral impulses are found, as we have seen, in the cases in 
 
 conflicts — which they conflict. In the vast majority of instances, 
 of course, a preponderatingly powerful motive de- 
 termines choice without the exercise of volition, 
 because there is no conflict; as where we exchange 
 merchandise for cash in a department store, or 
 where we obey the direction of the traffic squad. In 
 both of these instances our conduct is perfectly co- 
 ordinated to predominant folk-custom. But in other 
 instances this predomination may be wanting ; where- 
 upon conflict of motives may arise from three 
 sources. 
 — due to In the first place, in every society we have to deal 
 
 diversity of with men of diverse characters. Some group mem- 
 character bers have one or other of the ingredients of char- 
 acter developed to a lesser or greater degree; they 
 may have attained different levels of self-conscious- 
 ness, they may have inherited different dispositions 
 and be unable to modify them, or they may have 
 temperaments maladjusted by bodily infirmity or 
 self-abuse. 
 — their Granted a person whose choice of conduct is 
 
 problems impelled by a high grade of character is brought into 
 

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MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 223 
 
 business association with another of a low grade, 
 what course is he to pursue? The latter does not 
 recognize at all duties which the former is bound to 
 consider if not to perform. Obviously there is here 
 a great difficulty in the choice of conduct, which does 
 not exist when transactions are entered into between 
 persons of fairly equal characters, high or low. 
 
 Next, and closely connected with the perplexities — due to 
 involved in disparities of character are those in- social 
 volved in dealings entered into between groups disparities 
 belonging to different social phases. The same con- 
 duct has different results in different groups. That 
 which in one place perfectly adjusts the agent to his 
 environment fails to do so in another. He who 
 would act in a Kalinga or Igorot village in the same 
 way that he would at a summer hotel In New Hamp- 
 shire would run grave risk of having his head added 
 to somebody's collection. The same financial atti- 
 tude toward a group of gold brick, operators as 
 toward the members of the Clearing House would 
 surely result in a loss of one's money. It Is quite 
 impossible to make the same wage-contract with the — their 
 I. W. W. as with the Iron Moulders' Union or problems 
 the Brotherhood of Railroad Engineers. Liberal 
 terms of credit to dual-conscience groups, such as we 
 find among certain of our Immigrant refugees, would 
 involve greater risks than the same terms extended 
 to the established wholesale jobbing trade. 
 
 The needs of our modern system of quick trading 
 have developed common super-honest modes of con- 
 
224 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Business 
 honor, 
 its basis 
 
 Intra- 
 groupal 
 conflicts of 
 custom 
 
 duct, based upon business honor, that is, upon 
 humanistic ideals of regard for the other party in 
 what recently was a selfish contract and a little 
 further back was based upon deceit and plunder. 
 These ideals are propagated by trading groups and 
 business organizations, and become finally a part of 
 the law merchant, or of the statutes of the state. The 
 trade morals involved in the extension of open 
 credits, in uniformity of prices to competing pur- 
 chasers, in implied warranties of the quality of 
 goods, in stable rates of discount and interest, and in 
 the taboos on preferential payments, secret liens, 
 freight underbilling, or customs undervaluation are 
 instances in point. A number of low-grade business 
 groups are still but faintly influenced by this whole 
 class of honorable or humanistic business considera- 
 tions, and their habitual conduct accords only with 
 the folk-customs of a by-gone age, or of the more 
 primitive social phases. Here is evidently another 
 perplexity : how to act toward the member of a group 
 or class which is not passing through the same social 
 phase as the agent. 
 
 Thirdly, there comes the question, intimately asso- 
 ciated with these preceding, of choice between the 
 various modes of conduct approved by our own 
 group in the case when these apparently are dis- 
 cordant. What course are we to follow when the 
 humanistic impulse tells us to do one thing, folk- 
 custom another, and the law, maybe, a third? What 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 225 
 
 generalizations may be drawn that will help judg- 
 ment in these contingencies ? 
 
 For example, consider the assessment of personal — their 
 taxes. Our method has descended to us from a time problems 
 when the larger part of the existing personalty was 
 as visible as the titles to real property; being com- 
 posed of the tools, cattle and household goods inci- 
 dent to self-sufficing industry. Out of the chaos 
 of the English revolution grew the folk-custom of a 
 fixed revenue for the state, and with it a humanistic 
 that taxes should be so levied as to bear with equal The tax 
 weight on all persons similarly situated. These two assessment 
 nurtureways grew into our existing legal institutions of intan- 
 for the assessment of both real and personal estates, gibles 
 But by degrees conditions changed. Personal 
 credits, the outcome of the substitution of commodity 
 exchange for self-subsistence, became an important 
 form of investment, fluctuating, intangible and unre- 
 corded. Industry, rapidly expanding, created a 
 further great investment field in negotiable instru- 
 ments, such as notes, bonds, shares, etc., the owner- 
 ship of which was as easily concealed as that of 
 personal credits and even more readily transferred. 
 
 As such forms of debt became more important, the — its 
 law assumed that ability to pay arising from the growing 
 ownership of these new forms of investment could divergence 
 still be measured by the same folk-custom which from '"^^^ 
 colonial times had been applied to real estate, that folk-custom 
 of their estimated value in sale. In the first half of 
 the nineteenth century public expenditure was so light 
 
226 TRADE MORALS 
 
 that tax rates were low and the inducement to the 
 evasion of these laws trivial. The assessment of 
 corporate property was hardly attempted, reliance 
 being made on assessment of the instruments of 
 ownership, when in private hands. And so the ques- 
 tion of double taxation, once upon the property and 
 again upon the evidences of its ownership was not 
 important. But with the great collective wastes that 
 began with the Civil War, tax rates increased; and 
 Its effect the line of least resistance brought corporate prop- 
 on social erty up to assessment for full value. Conscien- 
 welfare tious owners of intangibles were now asked to pay a 
 
 third to a half of the income which they received in 
 taxes, and they saw that to tax the property and then 
 to tax the instrument of its ownership was double 
 taxation. And so, where the law was enforced 
 business was driven into exile. In the twenty years 
 following 1870 factories employing 100,000 work- 
 men moved from New York City to the Jersey shore. 
 By the contrary policy of exempting personalty, 
 Pennsylvania attracted an enormous influx of manu- 
 factures. For political reasons, the people of New 
 York were powerless to correct this law-made in- 
 justice, but the group met its attack upon public wel- 
 fare by creating a folk-custom which sanctions the 
 evasion of taxes on intangibles. Only in the case of 
 publicly administered estates is there a constant con- 
 flict between the law and the folk-custom; wherein 
 again the humanistic of equal treatment is traversed. 
 In at least one Instance a municipality has publicly 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 227 
 
 refunded taxes legally collected from an over-con- 
 scientious citizen, others persistently refuse to assess 
 personalty, and some have revolted against their 
 own officials when they have tried to enforce the 
 law. 
 
 And so we have three sets of impulses at work — 
 one derived from the humanistic of equal treatment, — its 
 one from the attempt to enforce laws whose execu- perplexities 
 tion, by violating that humanistic, effect injustice, and 
 as a compromise between these the folk-custom of 
 evasion devised to further the survival of the folk- 
 group, menaced by the withdrawal of capital, one of 
 the vital factors of its welfare. Truly a tangle of 
 opposing impulses derived from nurtureways. 
 
 Equally significant are clashes between folk- 
 custom and class-custom. Many labor unions think Conflicts 
 it right to use force in the settlement of a trade dis- between 
 pute ; the public demands peace. Railroad managers folk- and 
 may starve their maintenance so as to support their ^^^^^' 
 dividends; the people demand that they make their 
 roads safe for travel. Beef packers long butchered 
 their cattle in unsanitary surroundings; the nation 
 speedily laid heavy penalties on such conduct. And 
 so arises the question, which to follow — class morals 
 or the morals of the folkgroup. 
 
 Lastly, there Is the conflict between the moral and Economic 
 the economic impulses. Fortunate indeed it is that and moral 
 business in actual practice is not conducted with a conflicts 
 sole eye to gain, but in general with due regard to 
 social, that is to say moral, consequences. But to be 
 
228 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 successful, the merchant or manufacturer must be 
 efficient, and in these days of large enterprises and 
 of quick trading we have seen that a large production 
 at minimum cost is essential to efficiency; to which 
 standardization of the product as surely succeeds as 
 the wheel follows the foot of him who draws the 
 wagon. 
 
 For, the economization of time and effort de- 
 manded by the modern methods of business leaves 
 little room for higgling or trading. Qualities are 
 standardized, quantities are standardized, prices and 
 terms of credit are standardized, so as to permit the 
 largest number of possible transactions to be con- 
 summated in the shortest measure of time. It is 
 clearly perceived that this is the nub of business effi- 
 ciency, and upon the totality of efficiency in any busi- 
 ness depends its welfare ; that is, its adjustment to its 
 environment, and its ability to survive. Alexander 
 of prices T. Stewart discovered the efficiency of standardized 
 prices in the early forties. Previous to that time it 
 was a folkway in the United States, as it is today 
 in Italy or Spain, to ask one price of the buyer with 
 the idea of taking another in the end; and of settling 
 the final question of what was to be paid by the 
 process of bargaining — the chaffering of the market. 
 Stewart saw the opportunity of creating a wide- 
 spread confidence in his business methods by intro- 
 ducing a custom that all who bought from him should 
 be treated exactly alike. His experiment was re- 
 ceived with derision by his competitors. Half the 
 
 Moral 
 effects of 
 quick 
 trading 
 
 Standardi 
 zation — 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 229 
 
 pleasure of buying would be lost to the public, they 
 said, if the opportunity for the interchange of wits 
 involved in higgling and trading were denied. It was 
 confidently asserted that customers would be driven 
 away from a shop where the delights of bargaining — its 
 were done away with. But Stewart's hopes were influence 
 more than realized, and on the foundation of the °'^ success 
 principle of fixed prices he built the most enormous 
 business success of his generation; many of his com- 
 petitors, driven out of business by their incapacity to 
 forecast the trend of folk-custom, were glad to hire 
 their services to aid the great merchant in the very 
 policy that had led to their own downfall. 
 
 The vast majority of attributes of all staple 
 merchandise are now so standardized that the main 
 question in selling is not so much persuasion as in 
 getting the standards fairly represented before the 
 prospective buyer's mind. If the offering fits his Ethical 
 economic needs his last doubt is the ethical one — i.e., standardiza- 
 is the representation a fair one? — and he acts in ^^°'^ 
 accordance with his answer to this question; if the 
 answer be "yes" the trade succeeds. Therefore the 
 standardization of conduct is equally important with 
 the other kinds of standardization to the success of 
 any business which is conducted in conformity with 
 the modern idea of large sales and small profits; 
 and thus it is that in business conduct, well-established 
 and widely known principles promote success. 
 
 We may at this juncture profitably engage in a 
 brief digression to discuss success in general. What Success — 
 
230 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 — as 
 
 related to 
 individual 
 welfare 
 
 — as related 
 to familial 
 welfare 
 
 does it imply? At least individual welfare. Some 
 would have us believe that the only measure of 
 welfare is wealth amassed. Many merely rich men, 
 however, must always lie under the stigma of failure, 
 because they cannot command the respect of their 
 groups. Others even have failed to command their 
 own self-respect, and have died under the strain of 
 that disgrace. What does it profit a man to have 
 won wealth if he may not live to enjoy riches? In 
 direct ratio to the station which they have achieved, 
 the terrible force of adverse mental suggestion pur- 
 sues men who fail to win the approbation of their 
 group; and if it does not kill, deprives life of the 
 pleasures which well-earned wealth can command. 
 
 We have observed, during our discussion of 
 humanistics, that not only the fitness of the indi- 
 vidual, but of his progeny, to survive derives from 
 and stimulates the compassion-motives to conduct. 
 And so, in the prospect of mere individual success, 
 there is less incentive to exertion than in the stimulus 
 that comes from the hope of building a successful 
 social unit, by better fitting its offspring to cope with 
 the world. Thus the second, the enduring element 
 by which success is judged, is familial fitness for sur- 
 vival, and here character is the all-important factor. 
 
 Looking even beyond individual and family wel- 
 fare in the quest of that more perfect adjust- 
 ment of life to environment, of which success is the 
 token, we find it universally conceded to those who 
 have developed the talents which are latent in their 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 231 
 
 dispositions. The meed of success is granted to the 
 statesman whose influence over others has gained 
 assent to policies devised for folkgroup welfare, to — as related 
 the artist who has portrayed nature or life so as to to social 
 appeal to men's emotions for all time, to the writer welfare 
 who has flashed thoughts, new or old, so vividly 
 before the imagination that they have found an 
 enduring place in the memory of the race, or to the 
 publicist who has aided the group in its efforts to fit 
 itself for survival. The third, the immortal element 
 of success lies, therefore, in the development of 
 man's power to aid in the building of the screen of 
 artificial environment which civilization raises be- 
 tween mankind and the forces of nature. 
 
 Success, therefore, is the name by which society 
 recognizes power to modify the natural environment 
 of the individual, the family and the group. That — as power 
 power is acquired through developed talents, char- of accom- 
 acter and wealth, mingled in proportions varied to plishment 
 the task undertaken. Money, the cold storage form 
 of wealth, is only feebly efficient as a substitute for 
 the other elements and reliance upon it alone leads 
 to eventual failure in the attainment of results. 
 
 No one knows this better than the business man, 
 for in business credit is the outward and visible sign Credit the 
 of success ; nobody of intelligence lends to the unsuc- touchstone 
 cessful. Capitalists require evidence of a full adjust- of business 
 ment of the borrower to his environment, and look success 
 for it in three factors; character, ability — that is to 
 say efficiency — and capital. Money, therefore, has 
 
232 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Fallacy 
 of the 
 
 wealth-basis 
 of credit 
 
 Social 
 conditions 
 of success 
 
 Economic 
 and moral 
 adjustments 
 
 indeed something to do with business success, but 
 only one third as much as most people imagine. In 
 time of trouble, wealthy men have been refused loans 
 on prime security because they could find none to 
 trust their character and ability, while those who 
 were strong in the latter qualities had no great diffi- 
 culty in supplying their needs. 
 
 Success, then, is a proof of fitness to survive, evi- 
 denced by self-development, by familial welfare, and 
 by individual prosperity; a series completely adjust- 
 ing the man to his environment, the major part of 
 which is society itself. If a man's conduct is mal- 
 adjusted to that of the major part of his environ- 
 ment, how can he maintain his fitness to survive? 
 
 As we have already seen, moral conduct is one of 
 the devices by which the folkgroup adjusts itself to 
 its environment. Economic conduct, primarily the 
 adjustment of the individual to his environment, in 
 a lesser degree aids the adjustment of the folkgroup 
 and its subgroupal constituents. When they con- 
 flict, the moral, that is to say the purely social, 
 impulses are certain to prevail in the long run. 
 Failure on the part of individuals or of a subgroup 
 to recognize this fact and to make their conduct 
 agree with the adjustments adopted by the folk- 
 group provokes retaliation on the part of the 
 folkgroup; sometimes this may proceed danger- 
 ously near to the point of starving an essential social 
 organ, as in the case of the railways during the last 
 ten years. Their troubles are due to an indifference 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 233 
 
 to folk-feeling. In the long run, a business group 
 will not succeed if it neglects or disregards the moral 
 expedients which the folkgroup has found essential 
 to its vitality, justified by long continued racial 
 experience. And so the principle to guide a business 
 group to the highest success through the conflicts 
 between economic and moral impulses is the first 
 rule of trade-morals; 
 
 I. Economic impulses must be adjusted to moral 
 impulses, by the subordination of immediate profits 
 to prevailing folk-customs and humanistics. 
 
 Reverting now to the question of conflicts be- Survival of 
 tween the modes of behavior or conduct, or between the higher 
 them and the moral adjuncts, religion or law, it will moral types 
 be well to remind ourselves that the primary object 
 of each phase of social organization is to promote 
 the survival of the group in which it prevails. At 
 any given time and place, therefore, the highest social 
 phase then and there established is that particular 
 form of group organization which best fits the group 
 to maintain itself in its environment and to compete 
 with other social groups therein. To aid its sur- 
 vival the group selects nurtureways; and experience 
 shows that of these it always finds most potent to 
 that end the higher and not the lower modes. In 
 our discussion of the humanistics we have observed 
 the potency of moral conduct derived from the cus- 
 toms engendered by pity — the highest of the nurture- 
 ways — to promote the survival of the individual 
 in civilization: 
 
234 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Ascending 
 scale of 
 moral 
 duties 
 
 1. Because they increase the efficiency of his 
 group ; 
 
 2. Because he is more likely to be approved by 
 the group leaders — who are themselves always of 
 the higher type — the nervous stimulus of this appro- 
 val being of itself a large factor in individual sur- 
 vival, and 
 
 3. Because, other things being equal, his children 
 and descendants will be more nearly adapted to the 
 moral environment of future generations; for this 
 is selected from the highest morality of the present. 
 
 The correspondences and parallelisms which we 
 have observed between the phases of social structure, 
 the levels of self-consciousness and the modes of 
 conduct confirm the observation that the higher 
 modes of the natureways are those which are always 
 associated with the survival of the more complex 
 social structures. We may further infer that they 
 are a large factor in the success of the individual, 
 considered as adjustment of his life to his environ- 
 ment, both natural and social ; and especially do they 
 tend toward fitting the family to survive. From 
 reasons of both social and individual welfare, there- 
 fore, is drawn the second of the rules of trade- 
 morals: 
 
 II. The perplexities arising from the contending 
 impulses of discordant nurtureways can he adjusted 
 in the interest of enduring welfare only by the choice 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 235 
 
 of the higher modes of conduct rather than the 
 lower. 
 
 This rule expresses the duty of one party to per- 
 form, and the right of the other to expect, conduct 
 which accords with humanistics rather than with folk- 
 customs; with folk-customs rather than with folk- 
 ways; with folkways rather than with instincts, and 
 so on. 
 
 And when the morals of a class are contending Ascending 
 with those of a people are we not right in concluding scale of 
 that national welfare is of more importance than ^^^^^ '^""^^ 
 those of any group of men within its domain? Thus 
 we arrive at the third general rule of trade-morals : 
 III. In conflicts between customs, those of the 
 folkgroup must always he preferred to those of any 
 of its subgroups; the welfare of society rather than 
 that of a class. Class-customs must be reconciled to 
 each other by mutual concessions not in conflict with 
 folk-custom. 
 
 But sometimes there is a conflict between a 
 humanistic, or a folk-custom, and a law, in spite of the 
 fact that laws are the creatures of folk-custom. In 
 considering this we must not forget that there are 
 two varieties of law: the private law which is sup- 
 posed to be declaratory of folk-custom, and pre- 
 scribes the relations of citizens to each other; and 
 the public law which prescribes the relation of the 
 citizen to the state. It may be said that private law 
 is declared for the convenience of the folkgroup; 
 
236 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 the private 
 law 
 
 but that public law is expressive of its will. Private 
 law may disaccord with folk-custom in various ways. 
 Ascen- The folk-custom expressed in a law may have 
 
 dency of died; i.e., become maladjusted to folkgroup welfare; 
 morals over qj. Jj ^^y j^j^^g j^g^j^ supplanted by another folk- 
 custom or by a humanistic. This is the case when 
 we say the law is obsolete. Under these circum- 
 stances, the dead law must yield to the live folk- 
 custom, though less readily on account of the penal- 
 ties which it commonly prescribes. It is the function 
 of juries to relieve defendants of these penalties and 
 they may be relied upon to do so. A man, therefore, 
 is justified in transgressing a law that is plainly repro- 
 bated by public opinion. 
 
 Through haste and lack of knowledge of the sub- 
 ject-matter, half-baked legislation, thoroughly inex- 
 pressive of intergroupal or of individual obligation, 
 may be placed upon the statute books. Private 
 law is tangled up with the interests of classes, by 
 whom it is often promoted. In spite of the aston- 
 ishing number of such projects as are annually pro- 
 posed to our legislatures few, fortunately, are actu- 
 ally enacted. But still there are some. In the state 
 of New Jersey, for instance, out of an annual pro- 
 duct of some six hundred new laws, a few are so 
 absurd or so impractical that they are repealed or 
 amended even before the end of the session in which 
 they are passed. The business man must not dis- 
 regard such laws ; but his duty to society is to disobey 
 
 Eccentric 
 laws 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 237 
 
 them, to follow folk-custom, and to take the first 
 opportunity of testing them before a jury. 
 
 With public laws, however, the case is different. Ascen- 
 They are expressive of duties toward the folkgroup, dency of 
 and provide penalties against crimes, misdemeanors P*iWic law 
 and contraventions. They do not involve private "^^"^ morals 
 interests, and are rarely inspired by them. It may 
 therefore be assumed that they are the reasonable 
 and proper expression of folk-feeling and of the 
 folkwill. It is better to suffer some economic dis- 
 advantage than allow any portion of this class of 
 laws to fall into disrepute. At all events, their theory, 
 which is that they bear equally on all citizens at all 
 times, may be supported. In order to do this, practi- 
 cally everyone must aid in their enforcement and see 
 that his neighbor's conduct conforms to them, as well 
 as his own. Hence we come to the fourth rule of 
 trade-morals : 
 
 IV. In cases of conflict between laws and the 
 nurtureways, private laws may be subordinate to 
 folk-customs and humanistics ; not, however, without 
 the duty of a public contest of the obsolete or mal- 
 adjusted statute. Public law may not be subordi- 
 nated to folk-custom and must be followed; but 
 there remains a duty, to compel conformity on the 
 part of other group members. Ascen- 
 
 Trade and religion have little to do with each dency of 
 other. We may simply note in passing that religious morals over 
 precepts which conflict with folk-custom need not be dogmas 
 
238 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 followed unless they are expressions of the higher 
 mode of humanistic conduct. It is a duty to the 
 public to make no profession of adherence to reli- 
 gious principles which have come to be contrary to 
 the welfare of the folk. It is an equal duty to 
 support such of them as are in accord with groupal 
 welfare; for upon occasion they may serve as a 
 powerful auxiliary to the practice of moral rules. 
 Disparities Finally, we must approach conflicts brought about 
 of character by unequal development of character between indi- 
 and group viduals and by unequal social evolution between 
 alliances groups. There is so intimate a connection of inter- 
 reactions between the levels of self-consciousness, by 
 which character is determined, and those of groupal 
 evolution that they may be considered together. 
 
 The observation of two groups or of two indi- 
 viduals widely separated in culture, whether they be 
 nations and classes or a civilized man and a savage, 
 leads us to the immediate conclusion that a mode of 
 conduct which is rightly expected within the higher 
 folkgroup or toward persons of the higher char- 
 acters is not primarily a duty toward the lower. 
 In most instances, in fact, it would preclude survival. 
 Nowhere in nature is the same behavior or conduct 
 expected from a higher racial group towards a lower. 
 Duty It is never that which prevails within the group. A 
 
 toward an wild beast demands no consideration by way of 
 outgroup gentle manners ; this is also true of a wild man. The 
 principle is generally recognized that there Is no 
 obligation upon an Individual to conform to the 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 239 
 
 nurtureways of a group in which he does not live. 
 As a corollary of this principle it is the duty of one 
 who lives within a group to fit his conduct to that 
 of the group. Placed in a new environment he must 
 fit his ways to it or impair his chance of survival. 
 By this necessity, missionaries of the highest char- 
 acter have properly adjusted to their use the folk- 
 ways and folk-customs of the tribes to whom they 
 have been accredited; and even when their purpose 
 was to train them to higher modes of conduct than 
 customary with their group. 
 
 In a mixed civilization, like that of the United The 
 States, there are both men and groups who are problem of 
 widely abnormal in folk-feeling. The conflict of ^ mixed 
 their morals and those of the folkgroup find their civilization 
 most destructive expression in business competition. 
 If unrestrained, the methods of those groups by the 
 operation of a moral Gresham's law would speedily 
 drive out the more honorable modes of conduct 
 demanded by the necessities of survival in our com- 
 plex environment. In the vast development of novel 
 business situations through the rapid expansion and 
 acceleration of business progress during the last half- 
 century the malicious and unscrupulous competitor 
 has at his hand an hundred means of injuring his 
 rival, where formerly he had one. But if these 
 methods were allowed to prevail the standardization 
 of business would be checked ; quick trading stopped 
 at the expense of a largely increased cost, which the 
 consumers would not tolerate. And so it arises that 
 
240 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Duty of the first duty, both of morals and of law, In the con- 
 ostracism ditions outlined above must be to control and sup- 
 toward press fraud and unfair competition in favor of the 
 
 raud more honorable forms of business conduct prescribed 
 
 by the law merchant. To accomplish so potent a 
 result, all of the social and groupal activities must be 
 enlisted, and therefore we come to the fifth rule of 
 trade-morals : 
 
 V. The perplexities arising in business competi- 
 tion, from disparities of character or of social evolu- 
 tion, can only be overcome by self-respect, ffroupal 
 co-operation and publicity. The first accords with 
 the necessities of self-survival; the second with the 
 necessities of class survival, and the third with the 
 necessities of folkgroup survival. 
 
 The business application of this principle is that 
 if we trade with a man at all we must trade with him 
 on our own level. We do not need to do business 
 with any one and therefore may decline his account. 
 The This should be done whenever his character is known 
 
 principle of to be on a low level. When by reason of his affilia- 
 honor with tions with a social group of low order his character 
 caution jg suspected, policy will lead us to deal cautiously but 
 
 still on our own level. Our share of the responsi- 
 bility to educate and develop such individuals to the 
 highest moral standard of which they are capable is 
 not discharged by acting toward them as if we were 
 on their own low plane. Both to our subgroup and 
 to the folkgroup we owe the duty of educating them 
 
MORAL CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS 241 
 
 to a higher one. If their self-conscious level is that 
 in which they are only influenced by fear, class co- 
 operation can effectively establish this kind of 
 motive. If they don't behave, the group will not 
 solicit their business. Finally, publicity will enlist 
 the services of the entire folkgroup; which may be 
 relied upon to use its own potent methods in com- 
 pelling adherence to those modes of conduct which 
 experience has shown to be necessary for its 
 survival. 
 
XII 
 
 COMPETITION— CONTRACT- 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 Compe- No more fundamental principle exists in business 
 
 tition is than competition. As has already been explained, 
 
 universal it is the economic form of a force that is universal; 
 that antagonism which for reasons beyond our ken is 
 latent in all matter, everywhere and at all times. 
 It must certainly be taken account of in any effort 
 made by business men to succeed, that Is, to effect a 
 complete adjustment of their lives to an environ- 
 ment, a part of which antagonism Is. Economic com- 
 petition is a species of antagonistic conduct resulting 
 from the desire of more than one person or group 
 to obtain the same thing at the same time. And such 
 desires are the outcome of Impulses, derived from 
 Instincts and feelings, which incessantly urge men 
 toward conduct designed to satisfy their Interests so 
 arising. 
 The Competition may be regarded from the point of 
 
 varieties of view of society as harmful or beneficial ; from the 
 competition point of view of Industry as constructive or destruc- 
 tive ; and from the standpoint of business as fair or 
 unfair. 
 — ^beneficial I shall pass lightly over the first two aspects, stop- 
 ping only to define beneficial competition as that 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 243 
 
 which brings to society a larger number of better 
 products at a lesser price; and constructive, as that — construe - 
 which makes for the improvement of merchandise "^e 
 and business methods by reason of the impetus which 
 it gives-^— especially in periods of economic contrac- 
 tion — to improvements in methods and economies 
 in production which in the long run revert to the 
 welfare both of society and of the industry itself. 
 
 By constructive competition, the remuneration of 
 the working groups — labor — is eventually increased 
 and they are made surer of continuous employment — 
 the capitalist groups find in such conditions a demand 
 for large amounts of new capital — and the groups 
 which employ both labor and capital have renewed 
 strength and power conferred upon them by the 
 successful solution of the problems involved. 
 
 Harmful competition is that which gives a poorer —harmful 
 article to society at a higher cost; and destructive 
 competition is that which so weakens the industry 
 that many able workers are driven out of business, — destruc- 
 and many sources of employment of both capital and uve 
 labor dissipated or destroyed. 
 
 Business competition is mainly between groups, 
 each of which has common interests, and common 
 ways, customs and compassions. Folk-custom recog- 
 nizes distinctly the welfare of the folkgroup in bene- —fair 
 ficial and fair competition and its disadvantage in 
 harmful competition; but less clearly the merits of 
 constructive or the calamities involved in destructive 
 
244 TRADE MORALS 
 
 — unfair or unfair competition. To what can be ascribed this 
 
 discrimination in folk- feeling? Doubtless to an 
 
 admiration of the marvelous results which have been 
 
 achieved through keen competition in the last three 
 
 generations ; and to the false sentiment which in this, 
 
 as in so many other cases, has exalted a means beyond 
 
 its ends and has in a way defied it. If a traveler 
 
 from ancient Greece could revisit our civilization 
 
 he would not wonder at our worship of any unknown 
 
 The fetich God; but he might very well satirize our blind 
 
 of devotion to the fetich of progress. We seem to 
 
 Progress" have forgotten that the result to be wished for is 
 
 welfare, and that progress is but its servant; not its 
 
 master. 
 
 Folk-feeling, indeed, has already begun to criti- 
 cise this folly of sentiment, and subtly to correct it, 
 though it may not yet be popular to disparage 
 Restraint of progress in public. A folk-custom is arising out of 
 unfair the discovery that folkgroup welfare is involved in 
 
 competition an effective restraint on that unfair or destructive 
 competition which results from this blind worship 
 of progress. The law merchant of the eighteenth 
 century recognized only one form of unfair com- 
 petition, the imitation of a trade-mark; other varie- 
 ties have since been added, some of them by statute, 
 but many more by the decisions of the courts. 
 Its origin in Practices, therefore, which in former times were 
 Progress- chiefly noted by their rarity have been instigated by 
 worship the precept that there is no economic limit under 
 conditions of quick trading to the possible growth of 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 245 
 
 industrial units. The larger the better has been the 
 rule for twenty years, and businesses which have not 
 grown continuously too often have been looked upon Limitations 
 as doubtful enterprises. It is true that a few indus- of size in 
 tries manufacturing controlled specialties, depend- produc- 
 ent upon advertising for their distribution, can always "°" 
 be operated at decreasing costs when their output 
 keeps pace with the growth of population. But this 
 is not the case in industries making standardized 
 products and articles of common use, or in those that 
 are engaged in the service of distribution. In such 
 branches of business and doubtless in many others, 
 there is a certain economic unit of installation whose 
 increase brings no further saving or efficiency. In — in 
 the card wool manufacture, for instance, better woolens 
 operating results are obtained by five ten-set mill 
 units than by one fifty-set unit. The most successful 
 fancy woolen mill in the country is a single unit of 
 only thirteen sets of cards. In many grades of cotton 
 goods, twenty thousand spindles make a more capa- — in cottons 
 ble productive unit than any larger one. It Is doubt- 
 ful If the costs of the larger mills are lower than of 
 such of their competitors as have discovered the 
 actual economic unit, have held fast to it, and have 
 refused to be led astray by the apotheosis of bigness. 
 
 But this is a digression along economic lines. The Selling 
 practical point of competition as related to moral competition 
 conduct lies In the conflict which often arises in the 
 choice of business methods. An overgrown competi- 
 tor needs to Increase its sales to the point of a full 
 
246 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 product and may resort to dubious methods to accom- 
 plish this result. 
 — leading Thus have arisen the modern forms of unfair com- 
 
 to unfair petition, which fall naturally into two classes : those 
 methods forbidden by law and those condemned by folk- 
 custom. Interference with a competitor's contracts, 
 "passing off," or the substitution of similar merchan- 
 dise, the misrepresentation of goods or methods, and 
 transportation rebates are now actionable at law and 
 can be prevented or punished by suit in the courts. 
 Graft But local price cutting, disparagement, customers' 
 
 graft and attempted boycotts of raw materials are 
 not as yet fully recognized by law; though often 
 exploited as contrary to public welfare. All of these 
 except the first are amenable to groupal co-operation 
 and publicity. Take for Instance customers' graft. 
 A merchant discovers that his rival is paying a per- 
 sonal tip to the buyer in consideration of an order. 
 Generally this knowledge in the possession of the 
 buyer's employer will put a stop to the practice. 
 Economically it is fatal to the success of the giver of 
 the graft. If known, it will destroy his credit. It is 
 Disparage- in the experience of most lenders of credit that the 
 ment first warning of Impending financial difficulties has 
 
 often been thus disclosed. Disparagement almost 
 surely reacts upon Its perpetrator and destroys con- 
 fidence in his own offering. It Is poor policy to 
 advertise the goods of your competitor in offering 
 Boycott your own. A boycott of raw materials rarely suc- 
 ceeds ; for It is as easy to form a co-operative group 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 247 
 
 of defense against it, as to effect the combination 
 necessary to control. 
 
 Local price cutting is the most effective weapon Local price 
 of overgrown business. It is a powerful tactic of cutting — 
 trade warfare, an effort to surround the adversary 
 or drive him into a corner, either to compel him to 
 surrender or to destroy him. The folkgroup, how- 
 ever, intuitive with the truth that its welfare depends 
 upon a balance of the competitive and co-operative 
 forces, is in no mood to tolerate the utter destruction 
 of either of them. Folk-feeling, therefore, disre- — con- 
 garding the immediate economic advantage of demned by 
 temporarily lower prices, condemns this tactic and is folk-feeling 
 now rightly endeavoring to penalize it by statute. 
 Folk-custom demands that the smaller competitor 
 be preserved so long as he is an efficient agent of 
 competition. It enters no protest against his extinc- 
 tion when by lack of ability, capital or character he 
 is no longer able to survive under conditions of fair 
 prices; i.e., those folkways of market value at which 
 the whole folkgroup is willing to absorb the whole 
 product of the industrial group. But the folkgroup 
 sees its interest in the conservation of competition, 
 and turns in wrath upon a group which disregards 
 its rule. 
 
 The most effective bulwark that the industrial Publicity, a 
 group can upbuild when attacked by the tactic of local bulwark 
 price cutting is, therefore, an appeal to the public con- 
 science of its customers. Publicity of the local prices 
 will often react upon the aggressor by interesting 
 
248 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 groups of buyers in other localities, eventually com- 
 pelling him either to desist, or to sell his goods at less 
 than cost over the entire area of his operations. For 
 with the growth of great industries there has been a 
 corresponding growth of great facilities for publicity 
 and of a great interest on the part of the people in 
 the novel moral questions which have grown out of 
 the rapid changes in art and business of the period 
 in which we live. Conduct, after all, is the most 
 universally interesting part of human existence, 
 wherefore its exploitation is profitable to the press. 
 Value of On the other hand, far-sighted economic judgment 
 
 fair generally recognizes the value of fair competition 
 
 competition j^ determining the ultimate success of any distrib- 
 uting organization. Its proximate effect is a con- 
 fidence in market prices, and a feeling of satisfaction 
 in the morality of business methods, which in all 
 experience are powerful stimuli to exchange. In 
 fine, fair competition is a distinct adjunct in the fixa- 
 tion of price folkways. So well known is this fact to 
 trade groups that a jobbing house in a local center is 
 always anxious to divide the market with a competi- 
 tor, and often offers inducements for the establish- 
 ment of another house in its own line of business. 
 Under such circumstances, granted a reasonable 
 equality in capital, ability and character, each of the 
 two competitors is more successful than the one had 
 Socialism been before. 
 
 anti-corn- To escape from competition has been the object 
 
 petitive of many experiments in modern society, and groups 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 249 
 
 have often been formed for the purpose of reverting 
 as nearly as possible to the non-competitive or primi- 
 tive type — ^like the Shakers of New Lebanon, the 
 Rappists of Economy, the Perfectionists of Oneida, 
 and the many Fourierite phalanxes, of which Brook 
 Farm was the best known. The Socialist theory is 
 based upon an escape from competitive conditions; 
 and it enlarges upon the hardship which often results 
 from economic competition, while minimizing its 
 benefit to the folkgroup, and to social evolution; 
 which, as we have seen, is most Intimately paralleled 
 by that development of Individual character which 
 Socialism deems to disregard. 
 
 The socialistic Ideal Is that of a state where con- —and 
 flict Is suppressed and harmony prevails. It Is as based on the 
 difficult to see how a society could exist which Is not suppression 
 
 founded upon a mixture of the competitive and co- ° 
 
 . r ... . L • 1 • economic 
 
 operative forces as it is to imagine a physical universe „. 
 
 without equal proportions of attraction and repul- 
 sion. 
 
 The primitive group, it Is true, was not economi- 
 cally competitive and It was contrary to its folk- 
 custom to protect Its Industry from the competition Primitive 
 of other groups by lowering prices; but instead it conflicts, 
 practiced biologic competition and it was its folk- biologic 
 custom, and therefore quite right, to arm Itself and "°* 
 to exterminate or enslave the rival group. Conflict economic 
 was biologic rather than economic because the 
 environment was that of nature rather than of that 
 development of social structure which we call civill- 
 
250 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Some 
 
 surviving 
 
 anti-social 
 
 class 
 
 customs 
 
 zation. There is, similarly, an interesting example 
 still surviving in the class-custom of some of the 
 lower trades-union groups which, rather than yield 
 to outside competition in the matter of a lower wage- 
 scale will resort to private war and endeavor to sup- 
 press competition by force majeure. These organi- 
 zations are essentially in the tribal phase of social, 
 and on the" lower levels of self-consciousness in 
 mental, evolution. Therefore they adhere to the 
 tribal principle of private vengeance as against the 
 national principle of intertribal peace. A similar 
 indictment may well be brought against industrial 
 groups who attempt to further their own interests 
 by perhaps less brutal but no less immoral methods 
 in endeavoring to destroy the plants or businesses of 
 their competitors. As members of the folkgroup 
 they precipitate a clash of class-custom against folk- 
 custom. The outcome of such conflicts in fitness for 
 survival is expressed by the third and fifth rules of 
 trade-morals. 
 
 The weaker elements of society have generally 
 denounced their successful competitors with about 
 the same resentment, I should say, as the weaker 
 stag in a herd of deer would feel for the rival who 
 had overthrown him; or that with which the van- 
 quished cock in the barnyard would regard the 
 chanticleer who had driven him out of the society 
 of his favorite hens. Folk-custom will have nothing 
 to do with this self-pity; and society has always 
 recognized the cleansing influence of business com- 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 251 
 
 petition upon the business groups. It is for the Evolution- 
 social welfare and a consequent folk-custom that the ary value 
 finally surviving business groups shall be those best of corn- 
 fitted to serve the needs of the folkgroup, which will Petition— 
 not condemn as wrong the process, however disas- 
 trous to the individual, by which this result is ob- — its 
 tained; provided it does not run counter to the cleansing 
 prohibitions against fraud and unfair competition influence on 
 which we have already discussed. business 
 
 In the competition of a weaker person or a weaker 
 group with its superiors, as in the relations of the 
 very weak to the very strong everywhere, there is a 
 constant temptation to the use of deceit. Especially Deceit — 
 is the impulse to this form of protection greatest, 
 where weakness is due to a relative deficiency in the 
 character elements. It may be practiced in business 
 either by buying or selling groups. 
 
 As an act of the seller, deceit is an attempt to 
 mislead, by falsehood spoken or acted, one of the 
 buying group with whom an exchange is contem- — a breach 
 plated, as to either the quality or value of the mer- of good 
 chandise which is its object or of merchandise ^^^^^ 
 competing with it. It is a breach of the good faith 
 which is now a well-established folk-custom regulat- 
 ing competitive merchandise exchanges. 
 
 Deceit was by no means contrary to primitive — sane- 
 morals, nor is it today contrary to the customs of tioned by 
 some of the smaller trading groups which remain on the 
 low levels of self-consciousness. In patriarchal times, primitives 
 Abraham was commended of God after he had 
 
252 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 — among 
 the Jews 
 
 — among 
 the Greeks 
 
 — among 
 the Romans 
 
 — in the 
 
 eighteenth 
 
 century 
 
 deceived his son into believing that not he, but a lamb, 
 was to be offered a sacrifice on Jehovah-jireh. The 
 Lord Himself appeared to Jacob at Bethel, and said, 
 "Behold, I am with thee and will keep thee in all 
 places, and in thee shall all the families of the earth 
 be blessed," just after the blessing intended for his 
 brother Esau had been stolen by the grossest of 
 frauds. Nor did Jehovah, through Michaiah His 
 prophet, hesitate to deceive Ahab, the king of 
 Israel to his destruction at Ramoth-gilead. All of 
 which is proof, not of any immorality in the Bible 
 tradition, but of the fact, evidenced by many other 
 tokens, that deceit was not considered wrongful by 
 folk-custom among the ancient Jews. 
 
 In Homeric times, neither Hector, the Trojan 
 hero, nor Ulysses, the pride of the Greeks, disdained 
 to deceive the unhappy Dolon by promises and oaths 
 to his death in the episode of the horses of Achilles. 
 The goddess Minerva herself, mirror of wisdom and 
 virtue, betrays the noble Hector and commends the 
 deceitful cunning of Ulysses. In Roman law, a 
 promise was not binding upon the parties to a con- 
 tract unless solemnized with ceremonial formalities. 
 The business morals of the Turks do not forbid any 
 reasonable deceit wherewith the sellers' interest may 
 well be forwarded. Defoe, at the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, found "certain trading lies" not 
 dishonest because expected, but the Lex Mercatoria, 
 written at the end of the same century, enjoined 
 "truth and the avoidance of fraud or deceit on all 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 253 
 
 occasions." In our own law the doctrine of caveat — its 
 emptor — "let the buyer look out!" — has only been survival in 
 gradually superseded by the opposing and humanistic modern 
 doctrines of implied warranties; and does still pre- 
 vail in many varieties of contract and sale, where, as 
 in real estate transactions or in horse trading, there 
 is opportunity for care and deliberation in the con- 
 clusion of the bargain and in the examination of the 
 object transferred. 
 
 For the evolution of modern business in the direc- — its 
 tion of candor, as we have seen, is governed by rejection by 
 methods of quick trading compelled through the q^'ck 
 reduction of profit margins by the unparalleled ^^ '"^ 
 improvements in the arts of transportation, of dif- 
 fusion of intelligence and of the transmission of 
 power, brought about in the latter half of the nine- 
 teenth century. The success of this method depends 
 upon radically different ethical standards from those 
 which might successfully be used in more leisurely 
 transactions. Many things have now to be fixed 
 which formerly were indeterminate. We have 
 noted its effects upon the standardization of mer- 
 chandise. Deliveries must correspond with the 
 samples. Often it is no longer necessary, because 
 impossible, to examine every unit for discovery of 
 discrepance, and therefore warranties of qualities, 
 quantities and of "dress" or packing will now be 
 implied in the sale itself and enforced by the courts 
 as a folk-custom well imbedded in the law merchant. 
 It was not so a century ago, or even among some pro- 
 
254 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 — its 
 
 control by 
 modern 
 customs of 
 good faith 
 
 Deceit 
 militates 
 against 
 success 
 
 Good faith 
 in merchan- 
 dising 
 
 ducer groups, more recently. In the newer varieties 
 of articles of sale and consumption standardization 
 is unsettled even today. But in all successful large 
 business the value of fixing the folk-custom of good- 
 faith in trade relations is recognized, for it is through 
 the general confidence engendered by reliance on it 
 that an increased outlet is found for a larger product. 
 
 Deceit, therefore, is not only wrong but rarely 
 pays in the long run. It works against business con- 
 tinuity, and so against success; as do all of the 
 palpable breaches of folk-custom. 
 
 During the latter half of the nineteenth century 
 the trade custom of uniform and fixed prices has 
 gradually been extended from retail to wholesale 
 transactions until now it is a well-established business 
 custom. It is wrong to sell merchandise for resale to 
 different members of the same buying group at such 
 differences either of price or of terms that one shall 
 have an advantage over the other members of his 
 group. Another way of stating this proposition is 
 to say that on a given market, that is to say to the 
 same group at the same time, the sale price of a stan- 
 dard article of merchandise shall be the same to all 
 members of that group. This does not prevent, 
 however, a different price being named to another 
 market, that is to say to the same group at another 
 time or to the members of another group. And so 
 the export price of an article may be higher or lower 
 than home or domestic price — always providing that 
 it does not lead to unfair competition. The details 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 255 
 
 of these variations are governed by a number of 
 group-customs; in some groups the prices may vary 
 from day to day without notice; in others only after 
 reasonable notice, as in the case of markets where 
 information as to market conditions is exclusively in 
 control of the selling group. 
 
 The basis of good faith in merchandising is com- 
 passionate as well as customary, the buyer must be — is 
 protected by the seller from any deceit; that is to humanistic 
 say, of a concealment of facts which would put him 
 at a disadvantage as compared with the other mem- 
 bers of his group in the same market. If this rule is 
 obeyed by sellers, there is no further duty on their 
 part to protect buyers against their own errors of 
 judgment. With no merchandise facts concealed 
 from him the buyer's business is to accept all market 
 risks. 
 
 In cases where the folkgroup itself creates the Fair 
 selling group of a commodity, and by virtue of that competition 
 creation establishes conditions which compel all ^'^^ 2°°'^ 
 buying groups to deal with its creation, society itself ^'* '" 
 has an interest in establishing fair competition and '"^"''P^ '^* 
 good faith, and properly institutes laws preventing 
 discrimination; as in the case of railroad rebates. 
 These folk-customs of good faith, which in private 
 business are enforced by the laws of successful com- 
 petition, must needs be established institutionally the 
 moment that the state lends its aid to a monopoly 
 with which its citizens have to deal. Therefore it 
 constitutes other institutional groups. Interstate Com- 
 
256 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 Contract — 
 
 — redeems 
 society 
 from 
 barbarism 
 
 — IS a 
 foundation 
 of business 
 
 merce, Railroad and Public Utility commissions to 
 enforce the folk-custom, now embodied into law, 
 upon the creature corporations with which it has en- 
 trusted its right of eminent domain; and which by 
 virtue thereof have evolved from the stage of com- 
 petition to that of monopoly. 
 
 Contract is the basis upon which all modern busi- 
 ness is founded, especially in those forms of ex- 
 change where the property and the consideration are 
 not delivered or exchanged at the same time. If 
 contracts, in which either party is to perform his 
 obligation either continuously or at some future time, 
 could not be made and enforced, the exchanges which 
 are the lifeblood of national civilization could not be 
 performed, and society with terrible throes and hor- 
 rible suffering would relapse at once into a state of 
 comparative savagery. The obligation of a contract 
 is therefore well established as a folk-custom fun- 
 damental to the social phase of our folkgroup, and 
 to induce Its violation Is an immoral act far-reaching 
 in its social consequences. To persuade a purchaser 
 to violate his contract with a competitor, or the em- 
 ployee of a competitor to break his contract of 
 employment, whether by coercion, bribery or other 
 Inducement, Is to strike a blow at the foundations of 
 business Itself. It is true that certain subgroups 
 within the folkgroup who In custom have not pro- 
 gressed beyond a low social phase frequently take 
 action that shows undeveloped moral motives, and 
 when they believe that their economic Interests are 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 257 
 
 injured by contracts into which they have entered 
 sometimes make efforts to evade or disrupt them. 
 Cases where a buyer endeavors to escape from his 
 obHgation to receive a purchase on a falling market 
 or a seller to avoid the obligation to deliver the mer- 
 chandise on a rising one, or where an employer tries 
 to discharge an employee before his term of employ- 
 ment has expired, or an employee to escape from the 
 conditions of his employment, are instances of a 
 breach of good faith between parties who have 
 entered into an engagement upon the validity of 
 whose type the structure of social life is founded. 
 With the vast bulk of possible contractual infractions 
 statute law is unable to cope ; and so beneath the law 
 there is an ever changing assemblage of contractual 
 rules or folk-customs, which in the main prove effi- 
 cient for their regulation. 
 
 Look back for a moment at the picture of organ- Contract, 
 ized society and see how completely the functioning the co- 
 and life of each of its parts is dependent upon the ordinating 
 fulfilment of the functions of each of its other parts. ^1^1"^"' 
 If in the human body the heart, the lungs, or the di- ° ^ 
 gestive tract fails to perform its functions, the body . ^ 
 dies because the co-ordination of its organs fails. „„_:.] 
 Just so a society, whose organic parts are co- structure 
 ordinated by the contractual relations which each 
 has assumed toward the others, must die or degener- 
 ate unless that co-ordination, that service which each 
 part performs for all the others, endures. And It is 
 by contract — that is to say by mutual agreement for 
 
258 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 The 
 
 validity of 
 contracts 
 conditioned 
 by social 
 welfare 
 
 the benefit of each to the advantage of the whole — 
 that the constant growth of this mutual service and 
 of this co-ordination is maintained. Society, there- 
 fore, sets a high value upon the validity of contracts ; 
 except when it can be proved that they are in conflict 
 with its welfare. And this class the law rejects, not 
 because they are not contracts, but because they are 
 contra bonos mores — and therefore immoral in 
 themselves. 
 
 Inferences 
 
 Evolution a 
 
 continuous 
 
 process 
 
 Without 
 society the 
 individual 
 must 
 perish — 
 without 
 morals so- 
 ciety must 
 disintegrate 
 
 The inferences which this sketch has endeavored 
 to present are these : 
 
 That biological and social evolution are parts of 
 one process, interconnected in a thousand ways, only 
 a small part of which are here pictured. There may 
 be a closer identity between contiguous sequences 
 of this process, as for instance between a man 
 and an ape, or between an instinct and a folk- 
 way, than there is between different members of a 
 single class or genus, for instance between the lower 
 and higher mammals, or between the diverse 
 nurtureways of different peoples. 
 
 That individuals are incapable of survival except 
 in groupal association, so that individual conduct 
 must conform and be subordinate to social conduct, 
 which at all costs ensures the welfare of the group. 
 Social morals, class or group morals and trade- 
 morals are alike founded upon this group principle. 
 
 That the irreducible group, or social cell or atom, 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 259 
 
 at the beginning of the twentieth century and in our 
 civilization is the monogamic family. 
 
 That these social cells or atoms form themselves Organic 
 
 into groups or classes, which are essential organs of relations of 
 
 social activity, and without which life on our plane of classes 
 culture could not proceed, or even exist. 
 
 That competition between groups is one, and co- Antago- 
 
 operation another of their modes of manifestation, nism and 
 
 both in like manner essential to their evolution and concur- 
 
 survival. Adjustment of group life to environment ''^"'^^ 
 
 is effected by the ebb and flow, the varying inter- ^"^"^ ^ 
 L c ^•^- J • necessary to 
 
 change or competition and co-operation. , . 
 
 T^i n- • \ •/•ii (•!• evolution 
 
 1 hat conflict is the expression of a lack of adjust- 
 ment between the organism and a constantly chang- 
 ing environment, and may be either biotic, between Conflict the 
 the orders of life; social, between groupal phases of expression 
 mankind; economic, between industrial interests, or of imperfect 
 moral, between modes of conduct approved by adjustments 
 common consent. 
 
 That conflicts are the outcome of a series of con- 
 ditions or concurrent causes and not of one simple 
 cause, the complexity of each conflict-situation being 
 in direct ratio to the evolutionary plane on which it 
 occurs; and in this sequence, biotic, social, economic, 
 or ethical. 
 
 That the presentation and understanding of 
 morals, the system of sentiments and rules of action 
 derived from the study and classification of conduct 
 can only be accomplished through the consideration 
 of all acts by which animals and men endeavor to 
 
260 
 
 TRADE MORALS 
 
 adjust their lives to their environments, and so fit 
 themselves to survive. 
 Moral That moral conflicts, i.e., between modes of be- 
 
 conflicts havior and conduct — between natureways and nur- 
 developed tureways — are continually arising, growing out of 
 daily unequal evolutionary development in characters, 
 
 groups, feelings, customs and societies. If uncon- 
 trolled by an opposite effort for harmony they would 
 speedily make social and individual existence diffi- 
 cult if not impossible. By the balance of conduct 
 effected by the principles of conflict and co-opera- 
 tion the life of the folk-group is adjusted to its 
 environment, and to its structure. 
 Human That conduct is regulated by Intelligent and con- 
 
 volition scious volition, the functional medium of choice. 
 
 That human volition is a part of, and is Inextri- 
 cably Interwoven with biological evolution, and that 
 conduct Is a part of, and inevitably connected with, 
 social evolution. 
 Folk- That folk- feeling is an expression of the cumula- 
 
 feeling tlve experience of the race, a combination of the 
 
 a means of memories of many generations, and affords a means 
 adjustment for an approximate adjustment of all moral conflicts. 
 That the perfection or imperfection of this adjust- 
 ment is the criterion for the estimation of all conduct. 
 That the foregoing considerations form the neces- 
 sary foundation of the study of the science of ethics ; 
 and are prehminary to the correct understanding of 
 the subject and to its pursuit as a branch of human 
 knowledge. 
 
COMPETITION— CONTRACT 261 
 
 That all the groups of which our complex society Inter- 
 is composed are interdependent, so that it is equally dependence 
 incumbent upon the individual and his group to of sub- 
 refrain from the pursuit of individual or class wel- Si^o^PS ^"^ 
 fare at the expense of folkgroup welfare, and for the ^o^^^S^oups 
 folkgroup neither to overtax nor to starve any of its 
 subsidiary components, all of which are necessary to 
 effect its continued adjustment to environment, and 
 to fit it for survival. 
 
 That business men in the twentieth century are The 
 peculiarly situated, in a whirl of conflicts arising adjustment 
 from a most extraordinary process of rapid social °^ "'^^ 
 and economic development and evolution; that as ""^in^^s 
 groups they form a system of functional organs of 
 society itself, instrumental to a degree heretofore , „ 
 undreamed of in effecting the exchanges by which the 
 life of modern civilization is maintained; that the 
 necessity of conforming their conduct to that of the 
 social group in which they live and work is impera- 
 tive; that a conformity to ancient and outworn 
 methods sometimes places them in antagonism to the 
 group; and being a part thereof it is a condition of 
 their survival and of social vigor that conflicts arising 
 from such antagonisms be speedily adjusted. 
 
 We have now completed our impressionistic pic- Conclusion 
 ture of the evolution of the social structure, of its 
 standards of conduct, of the development of busi- 
 ness, by which its exchanges are made and which like 
 the lifeblood, courses from group to group supply- 
 
262 TRADE MORALS 
 
 ing subsistence, strength, the means of growth 
 and satisfaction to each of the interests arising 
 from the great motive forces of hunger, love, 
 vanity, fear and pity. The moral forces arising 
 from the first four of these motives are expressed in 
 folk-custom, or those common modes of conduct 
 which the group has connected with its ideals of 
 groupal welfare; while the moral forces arising 
 from the last developed motive force, that of pity or 
 compassion, are expressed in the ideals of individual 
 welfare as adjusted to groupal welfare which we 
 have studied under the name of humanistics. From 
 these two modes of thought and action are drawn 
 ethical principles from which may be deduced rules 
 of right action applicable not only to the affairs of 
 business, but to all other phases of human conduct — 
 to the better fitting not only of the individual and of 
 his group, but of human society itself for survival in 
 the struggle for existence. The struggle for existence 
 and the survival of the fittest — ^which means not 
 proximately but eventually of the best — are indefi- 
 nitely continuing processes forming one chain of 
 evolution which links all life and conduct together; 
 men and animals, civilization and savagery, volitions 
 and instincts, conduct and behavior in a universe of 
 elemental motion and change. "All was others, all 
 will be others." 
 
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INDEX 
 
 Acquisitive instinct in families, 
 55. 
 
 Agricultural progress, 168-171 ; 
 colleges and experiment sta- 
 tions, purpose of, 170; effects 
 of progress in, 170. 
 
 Animal association, causes of, 
 9. 
 
 Antagonistic forces in morals, 
 76. 
 
 Antin, Mary, study of dual con- 
 science by, 192. 
 
 Arkwright, inventor of spin- 
 ning-jenny, 174. 
 
 Army, origin of, 103. 
 
 Assembly, deliberative, origin 
 of, 102-103 ; representative of, 
 103. 
 
 Assimilation of immigrant, 
 problem of, 192-194. 
 
 Astor, John Jacob, use of gov- 
 ernment money by, 205. 
 
 Asylums, insane, origin of, 93- 
 94. 
 
 Back-loading, custom on rail- 
 roads, 142. 
 
 Bacon's vyise counsel quoted, 44. 
 
 Banking, illustrative of person- 
 ality, 128-129; changes in 
 methods of, 204-206. 
 
 Behavior, a type of subcon- 
 scious action, 35; motives to, 
 74. 
 
 Blood revenge, primitive remedy 
 for torts, 103 ; drawbacks of, 
 103-104. 
 
 Boot and shoe industry, concen- 
 tration in, 201. 
 
 Boycott of raw materials, rarely 
 successful, 246. 
 
 Broking, illustrative of person- 
 ality, 129-131. 
 
 Business, defined, 145 ; evolution 
 of, 146 ; founded on ex- 
 changes, 146 ; customs of, 147 ; 
 groups must give satisfaction, 
 153 ; must cater to folkways, 
 153-154; sometimes unfairly 
 checked by legislation, etc., 
 155-156; conduct, method of 
 interpreting, 161 ; groups, 
 rapid growth of, 167, 188- 
 189; methods, changes in, 
 194-196; honor, need for, 223; 
 basis of, 224. 
 
 Canals, introduced in England 
 by Duke of Bridgewater, 163 ; 
 Erie, 163-164; to Ohio River, 
 164; system with Great Lakes, 
 165. 
 
 Capital, a factor of success, 
 231-232. 
 
 Character, formed by person- 
 ality, 131; strong, 132-133; 
 weak, 132; main foundation 
 of credit, 135; definition and 
 
274 
 
 INDEX 
 
 role of, 217; elements of, 
 217-218; importance of, in 
 business, 218 ; degeneration 
 of, 218 ; diversity of, makes 
 problems in trade, 222-223 ; 
 all-important factor of suc- 
 cess, 230-231; disparities of, 
 to be overcome, 240. 
 
 Children, subjection of, a kin- 
 ship-custom, 147-148. 
 
 Churches, hesitation of, to meet 
 new conditions, 190. 
 
 Cities, growth of, along line of 
 march, 165 ; increase in num- 
 ber of, 165. 
 
 Civil War, the final arbitra- 
 ment of a discussion lasting 
 three quarters of a century, 
 47; its result, 47. 
 
 Clan or Kinship Group, com- 
 posed of number of families, 
 12; survival of, seen in Scot- 
 tish clan surnames and in 
 Middle South, 13 ; follows 
 method of anthozoans and 
 other polyzoans, 13; condi- 
 tions of, satisfy various needs, 
 13 ; formation of, unconscious, 
 14; two or more form tribe, 
 14; how affected by indus- 
 trial development, 21 ; decay 
 of, in modern times, 22 ; 
 simpler multicellular animal 
 organism, analogue of, 24; 
 definition of, 219. 
 
 Class-custom, a subdivision of 
 folk-custom, 62 ; "scabbing" 
 offensive only to, 63 ; if 
 accepted by large number of 
 
 subgroups may become folk- 
 custom, 64; conflict of, with 
 folk-custom and with sub- 
 groups within the folkgroup, 
 90; at variance with folk- 
 custom, 227. 
 
 Classes, the organs of social 
 activity, 259. 
 
 Clerks, increase in, 197. 
 
 Clinton, DeWitt, enemy of the 
 folk-customs of slave labor, 
 165. 
 
 Clothing industry, concentration 
 in, 200-201. 
 
 Common law, flexibility and in- 
 flexibility of, 107-108. 
 
 Communism, instances of, in 
 domestic life, 56; in clan life, 
 57; decline of, 58. 
 
 Compassion. See Sympathy. 
 
 Competition, business morals 
 adjusted through, 239; unfair, 
 240, 243-244, 246; suppressed, 
 240; rule of adjustment of 
 business, 240 ; function of, 
 242; beneficial, 242-243; con- 
 structive, 243 ; harmful, 243 ; 
 destructive, 243; fair, 243; 
 restraint of, unfair, 244; sell- 
 ing, 245 ; value of fair, 248 ; 
 socialism against, 248-249; 
 cleansing influence of, 250- 
 251. 
 
 Concentration, folkways of, 
 199; examples of, 199-201. 
 
 Conclusion, summarizing facts, 
 261-262. 
 
 Concurrent forces in morals, 
 76. 
 
INDEX 
 
 275 
 
 Condi llac, popularizer of 
 Locke's philosophy in France, 
 94-95. 
 
 Conduct, defined as "voluntary 
 action adjusted to ends," its 
 laws found by abstraction, 4- 
 5 ; ethics, science of right and 
 wrong, 6; not all, moral or 
 immoral, 6 ; morality of, de- 
 pendent upon its effect on 
 others, 7; variety of qualities 
 of, 7 ; moral, a social matter, 
 8 ; in contrast with nature- 
 ways, an acquired mode, 37; 
 as distinct from natureways, 
 45 ; in upper animal life, the 
 prevalent unconscious rule of, 
 45 ; as influenced by nurture- 
 ways, 87-89; economic, 137- 
 138; in business influenced 
 by forces, 151; evolution of 
 business, 151; impulses, bal- 
 ance of, 160; business, me- 
 thod of determining, 161 ; 
 factors of, 215 ; function of, 
 216; habitual, function of, in 
 character, 218 ; difficulty of 
 choice between modes of, 224; 
 standardization of, 229 ; 
 higher modes of, should rule, 
 234-235; should be adjusted 
 to the group in which a man 
 lives, 239. 
 
 Conflict, caused by imperfect 
 social adjustment, 259; moral, 
 259-260. 
 
 Conscience, moral adjunct of 
 human nature, 90; definition 
 
 of, 110; inconsistencies of, 
 110-111; limitations of, 111. 
 
 Contract, basis of modern busi- 
 ness, 256; evasion of, only 
 from low moral motives, 256- 
 257; validity of, 258. 
 
 Co-operation, groupal, to adjust 
 perplexities from disparities 
 of conduct, 240. 
 
 Corporations, growth of, 206- 
 207; standardization of, 207. 
 
 Cotton, manufacture, 245. 
 
 Credit, touchstone of business 
 success, 231. 
 
 Crompton, inventor of spinning- 
 jenny, 174. 
 
 Culture, unevenly allotted in 
 every folkgroup, 127. 
 
 Customs, of business, clan cus- 
 toms, 147-148; kinship, as 
 subjection of children, 147- 
 148; group, 151; slow adjust- 
 ment of, to changed condi- 
 tions, 189; changes in, among 
 wage-earners, 208-211 ; in 
 conflicts of, folkgroup must 
 always prevail, 235. 
 
 Darwin's Origin of Species de- 
 fined, its effects upon biologi- 
 cal sciences, upon Chemistry, 
 Physics and Mineralogy, 1-2. 
 
 Deceit, use of, 251 ; among 
 Jews, 252; in Homeric times, 
 252; among Romans, 252; in 
 the 18th century, 252; survi- 
 val of, in modern times, 253- 
 254. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 
276 
 
 INDEX 
 
 1776, an instance of revolt 
 against imposition of alien 
 folk-custom, 48. 
 
 "Deraonology,"' by King James 
 I, quoted, 92. 
 
 Deposit banking, evolution of, 
 204. 
 
 Depressions of trade, cause of 
 new folkways, 203. 
 
 Diabolical possession, belief in 
 regard to insane, 92. 
 
 Differentiation of labor, result 
 of progressive evolution, 25. 
 
 Discovery or Invention, a con- 
 scious effort through art or 
 craft to adapt the environ- 
 ment to its needs, 46. 
 
 Disparagement, of rival goods, 
 poor policy, 246. 
 
 Disposition, influence of, on 
 character, 132; a natureway, 
 132; function of, in character, 
 218. 
 
 Division of labor in shoe fac- 
 tories, 202; changes in folk- 
 ways from, 202-203. 
 
 Dual conscience of the Jew, 
 192. 
 
 Dutch Manifesto of 1581, an- 
 other instance of revolt 
 against imposition of alien 
 folk-custom, 48. 
 
 Economic impulses, conflict of, 
 with moral, 227-228, 232-234. 
 
 Economics, definition of, 136; 
 concerned with individual 
 welfare, 137; rational, 137; 
 connection with morals, 137- 
 
 138; rules of, changing, 138- 
 139; groups, types of, 148- 
 151; parallelism of, 220-221. 
 
 Efficiency, one of three factors 
 of success, 231. 
 
 Eliot, George, quoted, 131. 
 
 Emotion, governed by self-con- 
 trol in strong characters, 132- 
 133. 
 
 Employer and employees, 
 changed ratio of, 210. 
 
 Environment, conditions of, in 
 United States today, 161 ; com- 
 pared with those of our fore- 
 fathers, 162; role of, 214; 
 adjustment of man to, 216- 
 217. 
 
 Erasmus, the learned, quoted, 
 41. 
 
 Erie Canal, resulted in foreign 
 influx, 190. 
 
 Ethics, defined, similar in 
 method to sister science, 6-7 ; 
 function of, 113. 
 
 Evolution, Doctrine of, in its 
 biological application, its 
 extension to physical sciences, 
 in Psychology, 2; influence of 
 sympathy on, 78-79; nature- 
 ways and nurtureways help 
 to determine, of less known 
 factors of conduct, 161; con- 
 tinuity of, 258. 
 
 Exchange, its origin and 
 growth, plunder its primitive 
 form, 58 ; begets rights of 
 disposal, 59; essential to 
 business, 146; barter, form of, 
 146. 
 
INDEX 
 
 277 
 
 Factory groups, rapid increase 
 in, 182. 
 
 Factory system, origin of, 174- 
 175 ; social advantages of, 
 175 ; spiritual advantages of, 
 176; interpretation of, 176. 
 
 Fakir, thrives on low level of 
 self-realization, 126. 
 
 Family, the sociological atom, 
 11 ; two, or more, the socio- 
 logical molecule, 12 ; forms 
 Clan or Kinship Group, 12; 
 social unit, 219 ; welfare of, 
 criterion of success, 230 ; 
 monogamic, the social atom, 
 258-259. 
 
 Farming, change in character 
 of, 169; introduction of busi- 
 ness methods in, 169; groups, 
 slow growth of, 182. 
 
 Fear, a nurtureway, 116-117; 
 weak in savages, 118. 
 
 Feeding, a nurtureway defined, 
 116. 
 
 Finance, folk-customs from 
 pioneer, 172 ; changes in folk- 
 ways of, 204-207. 
 
 Financial groups, 150; per- 
 centages in, see Table I, 180; 
 growth of, 185. 
 
 Fittest, definition of, 262. 
 
 Folk-custom (or Mores), a con- 
 scious custom of the people, 
 42; use of suggestion in se- 
 curing observance of, 43 ; 
 approbation and reprobation 
 of the use of, 43 ; institutions 
 devised to maintain, 44; 
 strong folk-feeling in support 
 
 of, 44; second step on evolu- 
 tionary ladder, 45 ; demand a 
 still higher intelligence than 
 folkways, 45 ; result of a con- 
 scious effort to adapt conduct 
 of folkgroup to its environ- 
 ment, 46 ; varies with locality, 
 46; of southern states justifies 
 slavery, 47 ; of which folk- 
 group has become conscious, 
 51; co-ordinate life along 
 lines of least resistance, 51 ; 
 persistent force of, more than 
 anthropological curiosity, 52 ; 
 exists in all stages of human 
 life, 52; examples of incom- 
 patibility of ancient and mod- 
 ern, 53 ; can be classified, 53 ; 
 source of morals, 54; facility 
 of exchange promoted by 
 gradual growth of, 61 ; syn- 
 chronic growth of social struc- 
 ture and moral obligation of, 
 62; divorce not condemned 
 by, 63 ; social morals drawn 
 from, 64; recruited from 
 class-customs, 64; revolution 
 of Sabbatarian observances a 
 changing, 65-66 ; gives no right 
 to outgroups, 69 ; selection of 
 certain, folkways to serve self- 
 ish ends of the particular 
 group, 70-71 ; disregardful of 
 individual, 72; instances of 
 cruelty of, among Chinese and 
 Eskimos, 73 ; infanticide, an 
 example of, 82-84; influence 
 of, 88; conflict of, with hu- 
 manistics, with class-custom, 
 
278 
 
 INDEX 
 
 90; declared by law, 105; 
 compromises between, ad- 
 justed by law, 106; crystal- 
 lized by law, 108 ; supports 
 law, 109-110; leads way for 
 law and religion, 112; con- 
 flict of, with a humanistic, 
 illustrated by broking, ISO- 
 IS 1; looks out for group, not 
 individual, 141 ; factor in 
 business profit, 155; human- 
 istics become merged in, 85- 
 86; altered by growth of 
 cities as seen in dairy pro- 
 duction, 169-170; changes in, 
 from western settlement, 171 ; 
 of pioneer finance, 172 ; 
 changed by introduction of 
 steam power in industries, 
 173 ; in textile industry, 173- 
 176 ; altered by introduction 
 of ready-made clothing, 174- 
 175 ; alien, introduced by 
 immigrants, 191 ; affected by 
 persecution, 191 ; alien, im- 
 pairs business morals, 193 ; 
 definition of, 215; sometimes 
 at variance with law, exam- 
 ple, tax assessment, 225-227; 
 with class-custom, 227 ; should 
 adjust profits, 2SS ; should 
 prevail over class-custom, 
 235; expressed in law, 235- 
 236; of good faith in business, 
 254-256. 
 Folk-feeling, effect of trade 
 routes on, 165; a means of 
 adjustment of moral conflicts, 
 260. 
 
 Folkgroup, definition of, 17; 
 development of, 18-19; nation, 
 less tied by defense, 19 ; effect 
 of forces of social evolution 
 upon, 23 ; possibly a levia- 
 than, 27; process of complex, 
 evolution of, 27; environment 
 of, duplex, 27 ; social phases 
 or types of, 28 ; compelled by 
 heterethnic aggression, 33 ; 
 rarely homogeneous, mentally 
 or socially, 127; sometimes 
 antagonistic to its own mem- 
 bers, 155 ; examples of, 
 abroad, 155 ; examples of, 
 in United States, 156; growth 
 of, see Table I, 177-181; 
 interdependence of, with sub- 
 groups, 261; adjustment with 
 business groups, 261. 
 
 Folkways, instanced, 38; origin 
 of name credited to Sumner, 
 39; origin of, 39-40; uncon- 
 sidered, habitual, uniform 
 modes of action practiced by 
 men under group conditions, 
 40 ; built on foundation of 
 natureways, by origin nur- 
 tural rather than natural, 
 first of new series of conduct 
 modes, 40 ; nurtureways in- 
 telligently taught but irra- 
 tionally practiced, 40-41 ; kiss- 
 ing, an example of, 41-42; 
 first step up from natureways, 
 45 ; defined as the primitive, 
 unconsidered rules of intelli- 
 gent conduct, 45 ; promote 
 survival of tribe in war, 45 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 279 
 
 one of the most primitive 
 modes, SO; embody the results 
 of man's intelligence through 
 centuries of experiments, 51; 
 are subject to all stages of 
 growth and decay, 52; permit 
 limited property control, 57; 
 individual possession of land 
 accidental and sporadic, 59 ; 
 corroboration in language of, 
 60; prevalence and incidence 
 in inverse ratio to size of 
 group, 62; influence of, 88; of 
 traffic, 140-141 ; business caters 
 to, 154; differences in, influ- 
 ence profit, 154-155; made 
 more business-like by rail- 
 roads, 166; altered by growth 
 of cities as shown by changes 
 in milk supply, 168 ; by 
 changed farming conditions, 
 169-170; similar changes of, 
 in other groups, 171 ; altered 
 by western settlement, 172 
 effect of introduction of steam 
 into industries on, 173-176 
 alien, introduced by immi 
 grants, 191 ; of quick trading, 
 198; of standardization, 198 
 changes in, due to specializa 
 tion in industry, 202-203 
 changed by trade depressions, 
 203 ; changes in, of finance 
 204-207; changes in, among 
 laborers, 208-211 ; definition 
 of, 215. 
 
 Fourierite phalanxes opposed to 
 competition, 249. 
 
 Fraud, to be ostracized, 240. 
 
 Gambling, instance of twilight 
 zone of moral conduct, 112. 
 
 German liberals, contribution 
 to progress of the prairie of, 
 165. 
 
 Golden Rule, expressed from 
 Confucius to Christ, 75 ; rule 
 of sympathy, 77. 
 
 Goodyear, inventor of power 
 sewing machine, 202. 
 
 Government, derives its only 
 justification from the consent 
 of the governed, 48 ; owner- 
 ship of railroads, early, 206. 
 
 Graft, description of, 246. 
 
 Granger agitation, 143-144. 
 
 Gresham's moral law, 239. 
 
 Groups, economic, 148-151; cus- 
 tom of, 151; morality of, 151- 
 152; growth of, see tables, 
 177-181 ; summary of changes 
 in, 1860-1910, 182; folk-, 
 trebled, 182; urban, increase 
 of, 182; farming, slow growth 
 of, 182; heterethnic subgroups, 
 182; factory, rapid growth 
 of, 182; laboring, 183; tex- 
 tile, 183; trading, 184; trans- 
 portation, 184; financial, 185; 
 professional, 185-186; labor- 
 ing, 186; growth of new busi- 
 ness, 188-189. 
 
 Guest-friendship, defined, 77. 
 
 Habit, defined, 117-118. 
 
 Hargreaves, inventor of spin- 
 ning-jenny, 174. 
 
 Higher selves gain ascendency 
 over weaker motives, 120. 
 
280 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Honor, huraanistics expressed 
 in, 81 ; conduct expressing 
 humanistics called, 89; busi- 
 ness, need for, 223 ; basis of, 
 224; principle of, in business, 
 240; former lack of, 251-254; 
 customs of, 254-256. 
 
 Howard drew attention to bru- 
 tality in English insane asy- 
 lums, 94-95. 
 
 Humanistics, definition of, 80- 
 81 ; must be adopted by sub- 
 groups, 81; expressed in 
 honor, 81; limitations, 81; 
 supplants folk-custom of 
 infanticide, 82-84; origin and 
 growth of, 84; another pos- 
 sible origin, prevention of 
 cruelty to animals, 85-86; 
 requires emotional assent of 
 folkgroup, 86-87; the hope for 
 moral progress, 87 ; influence 
 of, 88-89; conflicts of, with 
 folk-custom, 90; treatment of 
 insane, illustration of, 91-95 ; 
 typical cycle of evolution of, 
 96-97 ; origin in individual 
 consciousness, 98 ; mode of 
 growth institutional, 98; sum- 
 mary of evolution of, 114; 
 conflict with folk-customs, 
 illustrated by broking, 130- 
 131; may work for state con- 
 trol of business, 211 ; definition 
 of, 216; should adjust profits, 
 233 ; important element in 
 trading, 255. 
 
 Hunger, a nurtureway, defined, 
 116. 
 
 Immigrants, problem of assim- 
 ilation of, 192; under- 
 development of s6lf-con- 
 sciousness among, 192-193 ; 
 folk-customs of, impair busi- 
 ness morals, 193; problem of 
 assimilation of, in United 
 States, 194; characteristics of, 
 208-209. 
 
 Immigration in the 18th and 
 19th centuries, 190-191. 
 
 Impulses, conflict of, 121 ; paral- 
 lelism of, 220-221; difiiculty 
 in choice between, 222. 
 
 Individual, his claim to dis- 
 tinction, 75. 
 
 Individualism, growth of liberty 
 a manifestation of, 23 ; an 
 expression of the universal 
 centrifugal, considered as a 
 menace, always to be reck- 
 oned with, 23 ; in competition 
 with socialization, 76. 
 
 Industrial groups, producers, 
 148-149; percentages in, see 
 Table I, 178-179. 
 
 Industry, reaction of conditions 
 upon, 20 ; wealth of, rival of 
 war leadership, 21 ; leaders 
 of, acquire political power, 
 21 ; new groups in, 210. 
 
 Infanticide, example of folk- 
 custom, 82 ; slavery a partial 
 remedy for, 82-83. 
 
 Insane, treatment of, illustra- 
 tion of humanistics, 91-95. 
 
 Instincts, defined as the third 
 mode of uniform behavior. 
 
INDEX 
 
 281 
 
 35; higher grade of activity 
 than reflexes, common to all 
 higher animals, a form of 
 impulse derived from pri- 
 mordial tissues of experience, 
 35 ; instances of, in animals, 
 36; cause of, in animals, 
 pressure of natural environ- 
 ment, 36; neither eradicable 
 or acquirable, 36; in man, 
 36; defined as the unconscious 
 rule of conduct in upper ani- 
 mal life, 45; role of, 214. 
 
 Institutions, voluntary socie- 
 ties, quasi-public, help growth 
 of humanistics, 98 ; definition 
 of, 99; religious, 101-102; 
 political, 102; parallelism of, 
 220-221. 
 
 Insurance, growth of folkways 
 in, 206. 
 
 Integration, definition and ex- 
 ample of, 199-200. 
 
 Intergroup sympathies, potent 
 in a tribe, 84-85. 
 
 Interstate Commerce, Railroad 
 and Public Utility commis- 
 sions to enforce folk-custom, 
 255-256. 
 
 Invention, conducive to special- 
 ization, 201-202. 
 
 Irish peasant, folk-custom of, 
 191. 
 
 Iron and steel, example of con- 
 centration in industry, 199- 
 200. 
 
 Iron industry, effect of capital 
 in promoting efficiency in, 183. 
 
 Jacob and Laban, a classic in- 
 stance of partition of goods, 
 56. 
 
 Justice, equity or right, the 
 ideal of, 106. 
 
 Kin-groups, supplanted by in- 
 dustrial groups, 147. 
 
 Kinship-custom, subjection of 
 children, 147-148. 
 
 Kissing, a folkway, its preva- 
 lence, Erasmus on, 41 ; dis- 
 cussion on, 41-42; its decline, 
 42. 
 
 Labor groups, 149-150; growth 
 in and subdivisions of, 183 ; 
 percentages of, see Table I, 
 181; changes in, 186-187; 
 important business class, 208. 
 
 Larcom, Lucy, example of good 
 of factory system, 176. 
 
 Law, moral adjunct of human 
 nature, 90 ; derived from 
 folk-custom, 104; evolution 
 of, 105 ; declares folk-custom, 
 105 ; used to adjust compro- 
 mises between folk-customs, 
 106; private or common, 106- 
 107; definition of, 108; must 
 be supported by folk-custom, 
 109-110; lags behind folk- 
 custom, 112; definition of pri- 
 vate and public, 235-236; 
 eccentric private, 236-237; 
 importance of public, 237; 
 private, subordinate to folk- 
 customs, public not, 237. 
 
282 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Legislation, should follow folk- 
 feeling, 97; lags behind folk- 
 feeling, 189. 
 
 Liberty, definition of, 75 ; per- 
 sonal, outcome of a sense of 
 pity, 80 ; individualistic in its 
 force, 80. 
 
 Locke, rationalism of, influenced 
 superstition in regard to in- 
 sanity, 94-95. 
 
 Love, a nurtureway, defined, 
 116. 
 
 Mackay, inventor of power 
 sewing machine, 202. 
 
 Mala in se, defined, 108-109. 
 
 Mala prohibita, defined, 109. 
 
 "Message to Garcia, A," 63. 
 
 Metals, types of stability sus- 
 pected of being subject to 
 change, 2. 
 
 Milk supply, example of condi- 
 tions changed by growth of 
 cities, 167-168. 
 
 Money, evolution of, 146-147. 
 
 Monopolies, good faith in, 255. 
 
 Morality, group, 151-153 ; defi- 
 nition of, 213. 
 
 Morals, born in folkgroups or 
 class-groups, 65 ; change of 
 viewpoint of, in regard to 
 interest, in regard to observ- 
 ance of Sabbath, 65 ; spread 
 of, 66 ; incidence of, 66 ; con- 
 flictions of, 67; formulation, 
 growth and development of, 
 68 ; not invariable, immut- 
 able or everlasting, 68 ; move 
 
 along a line of constant evo- 
 lution, 69; definition of, 89- 
 90; varying codes of, 90; 
 adjuncts, religion, law, con- 
 science, etc., 90-114; emo- 
 tional sources of, 110; influ- 
 ence of conscience on, 110- 
 111; connection of economics 
 with, 137-139; confusion of, 
 from changing economic con- 
 ditions, 139; modern trade, 
 outcome of necessity of quick 
 trading, 199; questions of, 
 raised by progressive speciali- 
 zation, 203 ; parallelism of, 
 220-221 ; conflict of, in life, 
 222; trade, instances of, 224; 
 impulses, conflict of, with 
 economic, 227-228, 232-234; 
 trade. Rule I of, 233, Rule II 
 of, 234-235, Rule III of, 235, 
 Rule IV of, 237, Rule V of, 
 240; essential to society, 258; 
 conflicts of, developed daily, 
 260. 
 
 Mores (see Folk-custom), name 
 adapted from the Latin by 
 Sumner, 42 ; folk-custom mode 
 of nurtureways collectively 
 sometimes called, 49. 
 
 Mosely Industrial Commission, 
 report of, on manufacture of 
 shoes, 202. 
 
 Nation, how composed, 19 ; 
 more complex type of social 
 compound than tribes, 20; 
 typifies a complex organic 
 
INDEX 
 
 283 
 
 compound, 20; a peace group, 
 30 ; biologically compared, 
 30; compound folkgroups, 31; 
 definition of, 219. 
 
 Natureways, three phases of 
 behavior defined, 37 ; action 
 not volitional, 45 ; character- 
 istics of, 48 ; one of two great 
 classes of human acts com- 
 posed of tropisms, reflexes 
 and instincts, 48 ; roughly cor- 
 respond to the phases of 
 social evolution, 49 ; motives 
 to behavior, 74; classifica- 
 tions of, 115; agelong, placed 
 ahead of higher motives, 119; 
 choice between, 121-122; and 
 nurtureways usually less 
 determinative of conduct than 
 self -consciousness, 160; modes 
 of, 214-215. 
 
 Nervous system, role of, 214. 
 
 Nurtureways, the second great 
 class of human acts, 48 ; their 
 composition, 48 ; motives to 
 conduct, 74; influence of, on 
 conduct, 87, in folkways, 88, 
 in folk-customs, 88, in human- 
 istics, 88-89; classifications of, 
 116, 215; conflict of lower, 
 with higher selves, 120; con- 
 scious choice between, 122; 
 definition of, 216; can be 
 adjusted by choice of higher 
 modes of conduct, 234-235; 
 individual must conform to, 
 of group in which he lives, 
 238-239. 
 
 Orphanages, mediaeval, 83. 
 Outgroup, no need to conform 
 to nurtureways of, 238-239. 
 
 Parallelism, in evolution of life, 
 219; table illustrating, 220- 
 221. 
 
 Patria potestas, an instance in 
 culture of shadowy folkway, 
 56. 
 
 Perfectionists of Oneida, op- 
 posed to competition, 249. 
 
 Perils of trade, 195-196; sup- 
 pressed, 196. 
 
 Persecution, effect of, on folk- 
 custom, 191. 
 
 Personality, progress of, in 
 mind of man, 123-125 ; vary- 
 ing levels of, 125-126; vary- 
 ing conditions of, 126; an 
 evolution, 127-128; in bank- 
 ing, 128-129; in broking, 129- 
 131; control of impulse by, 
 160. 
 
 Peter the Great, instanced to 
 show power of folkways, 41. 
 
 Pinel, Philippe, notable work of, 
 in care of insane, 95. 
 
 Pioneer life in West, effect of, 
 on folk-custom, 171 ; on 
 finance, 172. 
 
 Pity, examples of, 80-84; de- 
 fined, 117; weak in savages, 
 118; highest of nurtureways, 
 233. 
 
 Political Economy, has to do 
 with principles guiding hu- 
 man conduct toward gainful 
 or wasteful ends, 6. 
 
284 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Political institutions, 102. 
 
 Polyzoa, many cannot exist in- 
 dependently of others of their 
 kind, 9. 
 
 Population, of eastern United 
 States, its distribution in 1790 
 and now, 162.; concentrated 
 where transportation facilities 
 are good, 162; westward flow 
 of, 164. 
 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Ani- 
 mals, 85-86. 
 
 Prices, cutting of local, con- 
 demned by popular opinion, 
 247-248 ; fixed for each mar- 
 ket, 254-255. 
 
 Principles of action, value of, 
 134-135. 
 
 Production, limitation in size of, 
 245. 
 
 Professional groups, 150-151; 
 percentages in, see Table I, 
 180-181; growth of, 185-186; 
 increase in number of, 207. 
 
 Profits, defined, 153; business, 
 proportioned to differences in 
 folkways of groups, 154-155 ; 
 in business, high, 194-195 ; 
 decreasing, 196-197; imme- 
 diate, should be subordinate 
 to folk-customs, 233. 
 
 Progress, fetich of, 244; wor- 
 ship of, 244-245. 
 
 Property, defined as right of use 
 or control, 54-55; rights of, 
 in the national phase, 61. 
 
 Psychology, broadened by evo- 
 lution, 23. 
 
 Publicity, to adjust perplexities 
 
 from disparities of conduct, 
 240; a weapon against local 
 price-cutting, 247-248. 
 
 Quick trading, moral effects of, 
 228 ; influence of, on candor, 
 253. 
 
 Racial groups, percentages in, 
 see Table I, 178. 
 
 Radio-activity, study of phe- 
 nomena of, leads to conclu- 
 sion of growth and decay, 2. 
 
 Railroads, influence of, on eco- 
 nomic conditions leads to 
 moral confusion, 139-145 ; 
 commissions helped adjust- 
 ment, 144; socialization of, 
 145 ; influence of, on folk- 
 ways, 166. 
 
 Rappists of Economy, opposed 
 to competition, 249. 
 
 Ready-made clothing has done 
 away with folkway of home- 
 making of clothing, 174-175; 
 growth of industry, 184. 
 
 Rebates, origin of, 141. 
 
 Reflexes, defined and explained, 
 35; definition of, 214. 
 
 Religion, moral adjunct of folk- 
 group, 90; may be important 
 vehicle in spread of reform, 
 97 ; among primitive people, 
 99-101 ; should grow and 
 evolve, 101 ; lags behind folk- 
 custom, 112; principles of, 
 should not be followed where 
 contrary to welfare of folk, 
 237-238. 
 
INDEX 
 
 285 
 
 Rome, citizens of, designate 
 country Patria, 12. 
 
 Russian- Jewish immigrant, folk- 
 custom of, 191. 
 
 St. Vincent de Paul popularized 
 orphanages, 83. 
 
 Science, use of, 90. 
 
 Self-consciousness, volition a 
 function of, 122; evolution of, 
 123; levels of, 123-125; vary- 
 ing conditions of, 126 ; an evo- 
 lution, 127-128; under-devel- 
 opment of, among immigrants, 
 192-193 ; the determinative 
 party in conduct, 217. 
 
 Self-respect, highest level of 
 personality, 124-125; fitted to 
 adjust perplexities from dis- 
 parities of character, 240. 
 
 Self-sufficing type of industry 
 changed to business type 
 among laborers, 209. 
 
 Sentimentalist often forgets end 
 in means, 132. 
 
 Sewing machine, progress in 
 folkways due to, 174. 
 
 Shakers of New Lebanon, op- 
 posed to competition, 249. 
 
 Slavery, formerly a folk-custom, 
 approved by ancients, 46; an 
 inheritance from Roman Em- 
 pire existing for thirteen cen- 
 turies of Christian Era, 46; 
 cause of leisure which re- 
 sulted in Hebrew pre-emi- 
 nence in literature and poetry, 
 Greek in art and philosophy, 
 Roman in politics, public 
 
 works and conquest, 47; sur- 
 vived in Scotland until 1775 
 and 1779, in a few German 
 principalities until 1848, pre- 
 vailed in New York until 
 1840, eighteen victims of, in 
 New Jersey in 1860, 47. 
 
 Social groups, growth of, see 
 Table I, 177. 
 
 Social organism, compared with 
 organic body, 24-25. 
 
 Socialism, in competition with 
 individualism, 76 ; early state, 
 206 ; against competition, 
 248-249. 
 
 Socialization of railways, 145. 
 
 Society, defined, 5 ; what it is 
 not, 5 ; bond which unites 
 men into, 5-6 ; fabric upon 
 which is embroidered moral 
 conduct, 8 ; no conditions of 
 man under which there was 
 no, traced in fossil age, 8 ; 
 social traits of lower animals, 
 9 ; among higher mammals, 
 causes of human, 10 ; sub- 
 human origin of, 11; progress 
 of, in evolution, 23 ; compared 
 with living body, 24-25 ; im- 
 portance of, in character for- 
 mation, 218; structure of, 218- 
 219; parallelism of, 220-221; 
 essential to individual wel- 
 fare, 258. 
 
 Sociological atom, molecule. 
 See Family. 
 
 Specialization, group, fostered 
 by invention, 201-202. 
 
286 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Spinning-jenny, invention of, 
 gave birth to factory system, 
 174. 
 
 Standardization, in merchan- 
 dise and transportation, 198; 
 has led to concentration, 199; 
 to integration, 199; of quali- 
 ties and prices, 228-229; of 
 conduct, 229. 
 
 Statutes, origin and definition 
 of, 104. 
 
 Steam navigation, effect on busi- 
 ness, 164. 
 
 Steam power, effect of introduc- 
 tion of, into industries, 173- 
 176. 
 
 Steel Corporation, evolution of, 
 199-200. 
 
 Stevfart, Alexander T., dis- 
 covered efficiency of stan- 
 dardized prices, 228-229. 
 
 Street railways, astounding 
 growth of, 184-185. 
 
 Subgroups, divisions of, exem- 
 plified, 21 ; no longer com- 
 pact, 22; rise of industrial 
 type of, leading characteristic 
 of civilization, 23 ; biological, 
 physical and chemical analo- 
 gies help in understanding of, 
 instanced by comparison with 
 unit of biological structure, 
 24; comparison of, with verte- 
 brate animals, 25; interde- 
 pendence of, on each other 
 and on folkgroup, 25 ; birth of 
 new, the railway, 145; stan- 
 dards not necessarily folk- 
 
 group standards, 152; conflict 
 of, morals, 153. 
 
 Success, definition and discus- 
 sion of, 229-233. 
 
 Sumner, William Graham, 
 "Folkways'' by, quoted from, 
 10. 
 
 Supernatural, belief in, among 
 primitive men, 99-100; in- 
 spires fear, 100. 
 
 Sutherland, quoted on influence 
 of sympathy on evolution, 78- 
 79. 
 
 Sympathy, defined, 77; origin 
 of, in parental instinct, 77; 
 its psychic aspect, 78 ; influ- 
 ence on evolution as stated 
 by Sutherland, 78-79; motive 
 for Humanistics, 80; inter- 
 group, potent in tribe, 84-85; 
 now accepted as folk-custom, 
 85 ; growth of, shown in pre- 
 vention of cruelty to animals, 
 85-86. 
 
 Table I, growth of groups com- 
 pared with population in 
 United States, 1860-1910, 177- 
 181; II, parallelism in evolu- 
 tion of life, 220-221. 
 
 Tax assessment, example of 
 diversity of folk-custom and 
 law, 225-227. 
 
 Taxation, changes in, 206. 
 
 Temperament, described, 132; 
 function of, in character, 217- 
 218. 
 
 Textile industry, introduction of 
 steam power in, caused 
 
INDEX 
 
 287 
 
 change in folkways, 173-176; 
 growth of groups in, 183-184. 
 
 Titanic, disaster to, probably 
 marked end of epoch, 211. 
 
 Trade groups, selling agents, 
 brokers, etc., 149; percentages 
 in, see Table I, 180; growth 
 of, 184. 
 
 Trades-union, lower groups of, 
 survival of anti-social class- 
 customs, 250. 
 
 Trading, quick, new folkway, 
 198. 
 
 Traffic, 139-145; sea-borne, 142. 
 
 Transportation, in United 
 States, illustration of moral 
 confusion from changing eco- 
 nomic conditions, 139-145; 
 key to concentration of social 
 groups, 162; former condi- 
 tions of, 162-165; made effi- 
 cient for dairy products, 169. 
 
 Transportation groups, 149 ; 
 percentages of, see Table I, 
 180; changes in, 184-185. 
 
 Tribes, how composed, 14; com- 
 pared to compound of mole- 
 cules, 14; composition of 
 organization of, 15; rise of 
 nobility in, 15-16; coalescence 
 of, into national groups, 18; 
 conflicts of, retard develop- 
 ment of roads, 18-19; struc- 
 tural contrast between nations 
 and, 19; elements of nations, 
 20; war groups, 29; com- 
 pared with folkgroups and 
 with multicellular organisms, 
 29; efficiency in war of, their 
 
 coherent force, 29-30; defini- 
 tion of, 219. 
 
 Tropisms, defined biologically, 
 34; definition of, 214. 
 
 Tuke, William, influential in 
 founding York Retreat for 
 the insane, 95. 
 
 Twilight zone of moral con- 
 duct, 112. 
 
 Urban groups, increase in, 182. 
 
 Vanity, a nurtureway, 116-117. 
 
 Volition, definition of, 122; de- 
 velopment of, in man, 216; 
 function of, 217; regulates 
 conduct, 260. 
 
 Wage-earners, most important 
 business group, 208. 
 
 Warranties, implied, rise of, 
 205 ; feature of modern trade, 
 253. 
 
 Wealth, as a measure of suc- 
 cess, 230-232. 
 
 West India Isles, Creole popu- 
 lation of, instance of folk- 
 custom, 65. 
 
 White peril, result of immigra- 
 tion, 193. 
 
 Witchcraft, belief in regard to 
 insane, 92. 
 
 Women in industry, increasing 
 employment of, 209-210. 
 
 Woolens, manufacture of, 245. 
 
 Young, Thomas, author of essay 
 on Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Animals, 86.