hich may
be improved or amended, but which cannot be ignored. Any
attempt to improve men's ways of action starts within
processes of action already going on. It is not as if we could
hold up the processes of human life, and say, "Let us begin
afresh." The generation whose habits are to be changed
consists of living men, who are acting on the basis of
customs which have become intimately and powerfully controlling
in their lives. These customs, though they may not
be altogether satisfactory, are yet great social economies.
They give men certain determinate and efficacious modes of
action. Reflection must start with them and from them.
Unless men, furthermore, did act according to custom, they
would have to reflect in detail about every step of their
conduct. The aim of reflection is simply to transform existing
customs into more effective methods for achieving the good.

Reflection, indeed, must move within certain limits; it must
take certain things for granted. We have already seen that
reflection arises in a crisis of greater or lesser degree; it settles
ambiguities, resolves the obscure and doubtful phases of
situations. It is designed to secure adjustments where instinct and
habit are inadequate to adapt the individual to his environment.
But unless there were certain fixed, determined points
to start with, certain limits within which reflection could
operate, and which it could use as points of reference or
departure, all would be chaos, and reflection would be impossible.
It is precisely because we do take certain things as settled,
because, as the phrase runs, "they go without saying," that we
can think to any purpose whatsoever. Useful customs once
established provide precisely these fixed points. If arbitration
of labor disputes has become a fixed social habit, for
example, attention can be turned to ways and means. If
education has become a generally approved social habit, we
can spend our time on instruments and methods. Every useful
custom firmly established gives a basis of operations.
That much is settled; that much does not demand our alert
attention and inquiry. A society without any fixed habits
would be sheer anarchy. The aim of intelligent consideration
of morals is not to abolish customs, but to bring about their
modification so that they will be the most effective adjustment
of the individual and the group to their environment.

Indeed, in advanced societies, reflection may itself become
a cu