rary, positive, and imperative. If asked why
they act in a certain way in certain cases, primitive people always
answer that it is because they and their ancestors always have done so.
A sanction also arises from ghost fear. The ghosts of ancestors would be
angry if the living should change the ancient folkways (see sec. 6).

+2. The folkways are a societal force.+ The operation by which folkways
are produced consists in the frequent repetition of petty acts, often by
great numbers acting in concert or, at least, acting in the same way
when face to face with the same need. The immediate motive is interest.
It produces habit in the individual and custom in the group. It is,
therefore, in the highest degree original and primitive. By habit and
custom it exerts a strain on every individual within its range;
therefore it rises to a societal force to which great classes of
societal phenomena are due. Its earliest stages, its course, and laws
may be studied; also its influence on individuals and their reaction on
it. It is our present purpose so to study it. We have to recognize it as
one of the chief forces by which a society is made to be what it is. Out
of the unconscious experiment which every repetition of the ways
includes, there issues pleasure or pain, and then, so far as the men are
capable of reflection, convictions that the ways are conducive to
societal welfare. These two experiences are not the same. The most
uncivilized men, both in the food quest and in war, do things which are
painful, but which have been found to be expedient. Perhaps these cases
teach the sense of social welfare better than those which are
pleasurable and favorable to welfare. The former cases call for some
intelligent reflection on experience. When this conviction as to the
relation to welfare is added to the folkways they are converted into
mores, and, by virtue of the philosophical and ethical element added to
them, they win utility and importance and become the source of the
science and the art of living.

+3. Folkways are made unconsciously.+ It is of the first importance to
notice that, from the first acts by which men try to satisfy needs, each
act stands by itself, and looks no further than the immediate
satisfaction. From recurrent needs arise habits for the individual and
customs for the group, but these results are consequences which were
never conscious, and never foreseen or intended. They are not noticed
until they have long e