Custom

“ But if custom be to conclude us, it is for us; for as custom is nothing more than ancient usage, I appeal to the practice of mankind, from the beginning of the world, through all nations, against the novelty of this confusion, viz. you to one person. ”

“ Daily custom grows up about us like a stone wall, and consolidates itself into almost as material an entity as mankind’s strongest architecture. It is sometimes a serious question with me whether ideas be not really visible and tangible, and endowed with all the other qualities of matter. ”

“ The good pleasure of the sovereign decides every appeal; his caprice is law. What we does or says is called custom, what it thinks is called opinion, what it believes to be beautiful or good is called fashion. Among such nations as these we is the brain, the conscience, the reason, the taste, and the judgment of all. The individual finds everything decided for him without his troubling about it. ”

“ This new creation appears as the marvel of a gift and personal power. The weight of custom has not as yet fallen upon it. It enables that which is buried in the depths of the human heart for the first time to freely unfold itself before the amazement of men. ”

“ If we suppose proportion in natural things to be relative to custom and use, the nature of use and custom will show that beauty, which is a positive and powerful quality, cannot result from it. We are so wonderfully formed, that, whilst we are creatures vehemently desirous of novelty, we are as strongly attached to habit and custom. ”

“ By Tradition I mean the entire circle of thought and practice, custom as well as belief, ceremonies, tales, music, songs, dances and other amusements, the philosophy and the superstitions and the institutions, delivered by word of mouth and by example from generation to generation through unremembered ages: in a word, the sum total of the psychological phenomena of uncivilized man. Every people has its own body of Tradition, its own Folklore, which comprises a slowly diminishing part, or the whole, of its mental furniture, according as the art of writing is, or is not, known. ”

“ Such is the effect of custom, that it not only reconciles us to any thing we have long enjoyed, but even gives us an affection for it, and makes us prefer it to other objects, which may be more valuable, but are less known to us. ”

“ Now this curious Observation upon the efficacy of Custom being introduc’d in a Paragraph treating of Modesty and Chastity, I appeal to all Persons of any sense or discernment, whether it does not imply, that all Modesty and Virtue is establish’d only by Custom, and whether it does not entirely destroy the notion of an innate Principle. ”

“ custom calls me to't:— What custom wills, in all things should we do't, The dust on antique time would lie unswept, And mountainous error be too highly heap'd For truth to o'erpeer. ”

“ Therefore, since custom is the principal magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor, to obtain good customs. ”

“ Of course, when a custom arises it is turned on the instant into something that can be used by egoism, and here comes the pivot of the matter. Custom renders men similar to each other. The letter killeth. But the letter does much more than kill. It educates, it trains, it transmits. ”

“ The custom here to be dealt with, therefore, holds its place in the history of humanity, and is as deserving of study as any other custom whose rise and decline constitute a phase in the world's development. ”

“ For, although the subject be one in which few, even among reasonable people, have made any careful observations, and fewer still have thought with any care, yet this very indifference to the subject, this readiness to fall in with custom, a custom maintained in the midst of a constant love of change, and outliving all that mere fashion has sustained—all this is enough to prove that the evidence of the custom being a bad one is not clear. ”

“ EVOLUTION OF THE MORES
All modern social institutions arise from the evolution of the primitive customs of your savage ancestors; the conventions of today are the modified and expanded customs of yesterday. What habit is to the individual, custom is to the group; and group customs develop into folkways or tribal traditions—mass conventions. From these early beginnings all of the institutions of present-day human society take their humble origin. ”

“ Authority, tradition, and custom are wholly or partially destroyed. And since authority, tradition, and custom are the cement of the social structure, there results a general dissolution of that structure into its component individuals. ”

“ The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth. ”

“ Some Important Social Forces.—The basis of custom is habit. Customs, in other words, are habits which extend 10|Two important social forces: habit and imitation.| to the whole community and receive its approval. We do not always realize how great a part habit plays in our daily lives. ”

“ Custom has introduced into society vices of all descriptions. Not long since it was the custom to pass the social glass, and it has been the means of making a great many inebriates, and making beggars of a great many families ”

“ But custom not only gives a facility to perform any action, but likewise an inclination and tendency towards it, where it is not entirely disagreeable, and can never be the object of inclination. And this is the reason why custom encreases all active habits, but diminishes passive, according to the observation of a late eminent philosopher. ”

“ Custom and fashion play a great part in the world, but they owe their origin entirely to sympathy; [656] and so do the various systems of philosophy which have flourished at different times, the disagreement between which depends on the fact, that each philosopher has sympathized with different ideas, some sympathizing with the notion of fitness or congruity, some with that of prudence, some with that of benevolence, and every one developing the conception paramount in his own mind. ”

“ It is something intrinsic in a man, a real modification of his being, abiding in him in the intervals between one occasion for its exercise and another: whereas custom is a mere denomination, expressive of frequent action and no more. ”

“ Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. ”

“ Custom, of course, is more durable than tradition, and there was until lately a custom in Niué that is, I believe, unique in the history of the human race. When a boy was a few weeks old the old men assembled, and a feast was made. ”

“ I shall in this Paper consider one very remarkable Effect which Custom has upon Human Nature; and which, if rightly observed, may lead us into very useful Rules of Life. What I shall here take notice of in Custom, is its wonderful Efficacy in making every thing pleasant to us. ”

“ It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people should exercise their understandings, and that an intelligent following of custom, or even occasionally an intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a blind and simply mechanical adhesion to it. ”

“ Whether any particular custom was to be regarded as innate in the φύσις of those who practised it, or as their response to the stresses of their present environment, or as the result, whether conformable to the environment or not, of intercourse with another variety of Man, was a question to be settled on the merits of each case. ”

“ Custom, fashion, the charm of old associations, the cravings of their own moral or spiritual [Pg 229] nature, a desire to support a useful system of moral training, to set a good example to their children, their household, or their neighbours, keep them in their old place when the beliefs which they profess with their lips have in a great measure ebbed away. ”

“ Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it; that our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, what is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom; an ever-renewed effort to transcend the sphere of blind Custom, and so become Transcendental? ”

“ The whole of our analysis has tended to lay emphasis on habit. [Pg 463] And this leads us to comment on a certain disdain and contempt for habit and custom which is continually arising in some quarters. The whole history of mankind is the history of the formation, gradual change, and spread of the change, of habit, and of custom as the social form of the latter. With the progress of society, habits and customs grow old and must be discarded ”

“ What are our natural principles but principles of custom? ”

“ Though unconsciously, the man conforming Page 420 to a custom is considering his fellows, and the values and traditions which have become current among them.
Customs, moreover, are the first invasion of moral chaos. They establish enduring standards; they give common and permanent bases of action. ”

“ We may compare, therefore, the culture of one people with the folk-lore of another, because both are upon the same level of development; or we may pare the different elements of folk-lore or of culture together.
Thus there are two elements in the comparative study of custom and belief—namely, the comparison of like elements in two distinct areas, and the comparison of unlike elements in the same area. ”

“ Custom should be followed only because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. ”

“ Consider this subject well, and you will find that custom has indeed no real influence upon our feelings of the beautiful, except in dulling and checking them; that is to say, it will and does, as we advance in years, deaden in some degree our enjoyment of all beauty, but it in no wise influences our determination of what is beautiful, and what is not. ”

“ Discriminate carefully between these words. In strict usage habit pertains exclusively to the individual; custom to a race or nation of people, as, the customs of the Jews. Usage refers particularly to habitual practise or something permitted by it or done in accordance with it. ”

“ The fact that the custom was at once adopted by all the races of men, whatever their geographical position and degree of civilization, proves that there must be a reason for it in the physical constitution of man. ”

“ But as custom or practice has brought to light all these principles, and has settled the just value of every thing; this must certainly contribute to the easy production of the passions, and guide us, by means of general established rules, in the proportions, which we ought to observe in prefering one object to another. ”

“ ‘Take the opposite course to that prescribed by custom,’ he wrote, ‘and you will almost always do right.’ We may doubt whether this blind approach is sound. ”

“ Custom allows the lover to do strange things.And in the pursuit of his love the custom of mankind allows him to do many strange things, which philosophy would 183 bitterly censure if they were done from any motive of interest, or wish for office or power. ”

“ He seems to me to have had a right and true apprehension of the power of custom, who first invented the story of a country-woman who, having accustomed herself to play with and carry a young calf in her arms, and daily continuing to do so as it grew up, obtained this by custom, that, when grown to be a great ox, she was still able to bear it. ”

“ But the fact of similarity or identity of custom, art, superstition, ceremony, tradition, or technology, is no longer to be regarded as a proof of ethnic relationship, but a manifestation of the practical identity of the human spirit in its operations in all times and places. ”