inherited mores exert a coercion on every one born in the group. It
follows that only the greatest and best can react against the mores so
as to modify them. It is by no means to be inferred that every one who
sets himself at war with the traditional mores is a hero of social
correction and amelioration. The trained reason and conscience never
have heavier tasks laid upon them than where questions of conformity to,
or dissent from, the mores are raised. It is by the dissent and free
judgment of the best reason and conscience that the mores win
flexibility and automatic readjustment. Dissent is always unpopular in
the group. Groups form standards of orthodoxy as to the "principles"
which each member must profess and the ritual which each must practice.
Dissent seems to imply a claim of superiority. It evokes hatred and
persecution. Dissenters are rebels, traitors, and heretics. We see this
in all kinds of subgroups. Noble and patrician classes, merchants,
artisans, religious and philosophical sects, political parties,
academies and learned societies, punish by social penalties dissent
from, or disobedience to, their code of group conduct. The modern trades
union, in its treatment of a "scab," only presents another example. The
group also, by a majority, adopts a programme of policy and then demands
of each member that he shall work and make sacrifices for what has been
resolved upon for the group interest. He who refuses is a renegade or
apostate with respect to the group doctrines and interests. He who
adopts the mores of another group is a still more heinous criminal. The
mediaeval definition of a heretic was one who varied in life and
conversation, dress, speech, or manner (that is, the social ritual) from
the ordinary members of the Christian community. The first meaning of
"Catholic" in the fourth century was a summary of the features which
were common to all Christians in social and ecclesiastical behavior;
those were Catholic who conformed to the mores which were characteristic
of Christians.[119] If a heretic was better than the Catholics, they
hated him more. That never excused him before the church authorities.
They wanted loyalty to the ecclesiastical corporation. Persecution of a
dissenter is always popular in the group which he has abandoned.
Toleration of dissent is no sentiment of the masses.

+101. Retreat and isolation to make new mores. Quakers.+ In the stage of
half-civilization and above there have be