the public upon a conflict or an issue, we
expect, to be sure, some sort of unanimity of judgment, but in the
general consensus there will be some individual differences of opinion
still unmediated, or only partially so, and final agreement of the
public will be more or less qualified by all the different opinions that
co-operated to form its judgment.

In the materials which follow a distinction is made between public
opinion and the mores, and this distinction is important. Custom and the
folkways, like habit in the individual, may be regarded as a mere
residuum of past practices. When folkways assume the character of mores,
they are no longer merely matters of fact and common sense, they are
judgments upon matters which were probably once live issues and as such
they may be regarded as the products of public opinion.

Ritual, religious or social, is probably the crystallization of forms of
behavior which, like the choral dance, are the direct expression of the
emotions and the instincts. The mores, on the other hand, in so far as
they contain a rational element, are the accumulations, the residuum,
not only of past practices, but of judgments such as find expression in
public opinion. The mores, as thus conceived, are the judgments of
public opinion in regard to issues that have been settled and forgotten.

L. T. Hobhouse, in his volume, _Morals in Evolution_, has described, in
a convincing way, the process by which, as he conceives it, custom is
modified and grows under the influence of the personal judgments of
individuals and of the public. Public opinion, as he defines it, is
simply the combined and sublimated judgments of individuals.

Most of these judgments are, to be sure, merely the repetition of old
formulas. But occasionally, when the subject of discussion touches us
more deeply, when it touches upon some matter in which we have had a
deeper and more intimate experience, the ordinary patter that passes as
public opinion is dissipated and we originate a moral judgment that not
only differs from, but is in conflict with, the prevailing opinion. In
that case "we become, as it were, centers from which judgments of one
kind or another radiate and from which they pass forth to fill the
atmosphere of opinion and take their place among the influences that
mould the judgments of men."

The manner in which public opinion issues from the interaction of
individuals, and moral judgments are formed that eventually