egin because the mass wants to act together. The less they know what
it is right and best to do, the more open they are to suggestion from an
incident in nature, or from a chance act of one, or from the current
doctrines of ghost fear. A concurrent drift begins which is subject to
later correction. That being so, it is evident that instinctive action,
under the guidance of traditional folkways, is an operation of the first
importance in all societal matters. Since the custom never can be
antecedent to all action, what we should desire most is to see it arise
out of the first actions, but, inasmuch as that is impossible, the
course of the action after it is started is our field of study. The
origin of primitive customs is always lost in mystery, because when the
action begins the men are never conscious of historical action, or of
the historical importance of what they are doing. When they become
conscious of the historical importance of their acts, the origin is
already far behind.

+9. Good and bad luck; ills of life; goodness and happiness.+
There are in nature numerous antagonistic forces of growth or
production and destruction. The interests of man are between the
two and may be favored or ruined by either. Correct knowledge of
both is required to get the advantages and escape the injuries.
Until the knowledge becomes adequate the effects which are
encountered appear to be accidents or cases of luck. There is no
thrift in nature. There is rather waste. Human interests require
thrift, selection, and preservation. Capital is the condition
precedent of all gain in security and power, and capital is
produced by selection and thrift. It is threatened by all which
destroys material goods. Capital is therefore the essential means
of man's power over nature, and it implies the purest concept of
the power of intelligence to select and dispose of the processes
of nature for human welfare. All the earliest efforts in this
direction were blundering failures. Men selected things to be
desired and preserved under impulses of vanity and superstition,
and misconceived utility and interest. The errors entered into
the folkways, formed a part of them, and were protected by them.
Error, accident, and luck seem to be the only sense there is in
primitive life. Knowledge alone limits their sway, and at least
changes the range and form of their dominion. Primitive folkways