.

Formalism in morality has periodically roused protest from
the Prophets down, and formalism is the result of an unconsidered
mechanical acquiescence in custom, or deliberate insistence
on traditional details when the spirit and motive are
forgotten.

CUSTOM AND PROGRESS. Emphasis upon customs as already
established tends to promote fixity and repetition, and to discourage
change regardless of the benefits to be derived from
specific changes. Custom is supported by the group merely
because it is custom; and the ineffective modes of life are
maintained along with those which are more useful. Progress
comes about through individual variation, and conformity
and individual variation are frequently in diametrical collision.
It is only when, in Bagehot's phrase, "the cake of
custom" is broken, that changes making for good have a
possibility of introduction and support. Where the only
moral sanctions are the sanctions of custom, change of
whatever sort is at a discount. For change implies deviation
from the ways of life sanctioned by the group, and
deviation is itself, in a custom-bound morality, regarded with
suspicion.

It is clear that complete conformity is impossible save in
a society of automata. There will be some individuals who
will not be able to curb their desires to fit the inhibitions
fixed by the group; there will be some who will deliberately
stand out against the group commands and prohibitions, and
assert their own imperious impulses against their fellows.
Where such men are powerful or persuasive they may indeed
bring about a transvaluation of all values; they may create
a new morality. There are geniuses of the moral as well
as the intellectual life, whose sudden insight becomes a
standard for succeeding generations.

There may, again, be more infringement of the moral code
than is overtly noticeable. Frequently, as in a Puritanical
regime, there may be, along with fanatic public professions
and practice of virtue, private violation of the conventional
moral codes. Our civilization is unpleasantly decorated with
countless examples of this discrepancy between professed
and practiced codes. The desire for praise and the fear of
blame and its consequences, the desire, as we say, for the
"good-will" and "respect of others," will lead to all the public
manifestations of virtue, "with a private vice or two to
appease the wayward flesh." The utterance of conventional
moral formulas by men in public, a