of a civilized legal system, the most powerful of all deterrents from flagrantly anti- social acts.  Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chaps.  II, iii.  H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap.  II, secs. 5, 6.  J. Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, part ii, chap.  XXII, second half.  A. Sutherland, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, vol.  I. C. S. Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol.  I, chaps.  V, vi, vii.  P. V. N. Myers, History as Past Ethics, chap.  I. P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, chaps.  I-iv.  L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, part I, chaps.  I-iii.  Westermarck, op. cit, chap.  XXXIV.  J. Fiske, Through Nature to God, part ii, “The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self-Sacrifice.”  C. Read, Natural and Social Morals, chap.  III.

CHAPTER III

OUTWARD DEVELOPMENT—­MORALS

What is the difference between morals and non-moral customs?

Morality, before it is a matter of legal prescription or of reflective insight, is a matter of instinctive and unconsciously imitated habit.  That this is so is shown by the fact that many ethical terms are by their etymology connected with the idea of custom.  “Morals” and “morality” are from the Latin mores, usually translated “customs,” “ethics,” from a Greek root of similar sense.  The German Sitten has the same fused meanings.  Most of our present-day morality is a matter of custom or convention; and there are those who make a complete identification of the two concepts, morality being simply to them conventional habits of conduct.  But a little thought will show that there is a distinction in our common usage; the two categories overlap, but are not identical.  On the one hand, our highest moral ideals have never become customary; we long, in our best moments, to make them habitual, but seldom actually attain them.  The morals of Jesus, of Buddha, of Marcus Aurelius, have never become habits with any but the saints, yet we recognize them as the high-water mark of human morality.  On the other hand, many of our customs have no moral aspect.  I may have a fixed habit of going from my home to my office by a certain one out of a number of equally advantageous routes.  All of the members of my set may habitually pronounce a given word in a certain way rather equally correct.  But about such habits there is nothing moral or immoral.  In a word, morals are customs that matter, or are supposed to matter; standards to which each member of a group is expected by the other members to conform, and for the neglect of which he is punished, frowned upon, scorned, or blamed.  Toward these standards he feels, therefore, a vague or definite pressure, the reflection in him of he feelings of his fellows.