This tendency to mechanization should not surprise us, for we meet with the phenomenon everywhere. The man who says, "Good-by" today does not mean "God be with thee," and the "Gruss Dich Gott" of the Bavarian peasant is very properly translated by the American child as "Hallo." The traditional tends to lose or to alter its meaning, but it continues to serve a purpose. A community without traditions, without settled ways of acting, followed, for the most part, without much reflection, would be in the position of a man without habits either good or bad. Human life as we know it could not go on upon such a basis. The rule has, at times, its inconveniences; but it leads somewhere, at least; whereas he who plunges into the unexplored forest may find every step a problem, and may come even to doubt whether any step is a step in advance. 62. SOCIAL WILL AND SOCIAL HABITS.--Within the province of the social will fall what may not inaptly be called the habits of a community--ways of acting acquired largely without premeditation and followed to a great extent through mere inertia. The province of the social will is a broad one. Deliberate choices; those half-conscious choices analogous to the unheeded expressions of preference which fill the days of the individual; impulses and tendencies which scarcely emerge into the light--all are expressions of the social will. In the next chapter I shall distinguish between customs proper and social habits in a broader sense. But, in discussing the general problem of the relation of habit to will, it is not necessary to mark the distinction. Some habits rest upon us lightly; some are inveterate. Of some we are well aware; others have to be pointed out to us before we recognize that we have them. Some we approve, some we disapprove, to some we are indulgent or indifferent. All these peculiarities are found in the relation of the social will to social habits. It may recognize them, approve of them, encourage them. It may pay them little attention. It may disapprove them and strive to repress them. Will has brought them into being; it is will that maintains them; it is will that must modify or suppress them. As a matter of fact, all communities do tend to change their habits, some more slowly, some more rapidly. And for its habits we hold a community responsible. Common sense refers them to its will, and exercises approval or disapproval. This it would not do were the practices upon which judgment is passed recognized as beyond the control of will altogether. 63. SOCIAL WILL AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION.--Under the general heading of the habits of a society it is not out of place to discuss its social and political organization.