A community, like an individual, may have habits which it does not approve. Such may be tolerated, although disapproved; or active efforts may be made to set them aside. Some habits may be regarded with comparative indifference, although professedly held in condemnation. The individual, in following such habits, may claim that they are not unequivocally condemned by the community, and he is not conscious of the weight of displeasure which visits the violation of the will of the community when unequivocally expressed. In simple and primitive societies custom prescribes to the individual his course of life in the minutest detail. It possesses the authority of the dictator. In societies upon a higher level it may leave to him some discretion in deciding upon the details of his daily life, while still exercising a paramount control over the general trend of his actions. Thus the will of the community, expressed in custom, determines what the members of the community _ought_ to do, and it takes measures to enforce obedience to its decisions. Is it surprising that the names which have been given to the science which treats of man's rights and duties, _morals, ethics_ (_mores, ethica, Sitten_), should reflect this truth? It would be an inadequate statement to maintain that the science of morals is no more than a systematic exposition of the customary in human societies. It is not an inadequate statement to assert that, in many societies, custom has, in fact, furnished the ultimate and complete standard of obligation, and that in all societies it is of enormous significance in moulding men's notions of right and wrong. 67. THE GROUND FOR THE AUTHORITY OF CUSTOM.--Habits are as essential to a society as they are to an individual human being. Without them, society could not live. In any social state--and no man can live except in a social state--there must be cooperation. How can there be cooperation if there are no social habits upon which men may count in their dealings with one another? Try to conceive all the tacit mutual conventions, the unconscious adaptations to custom, which guide our daily lives, suspended for twenty- four hours. When should one rise in the morning? How should one dress? What and how should one eat? Of business there could be no question, nor could there be cooperation in pleasures. Public order there could not be, for there would be no public worthy of the name. Protection of life and limb would be the creature of accident. Between civility and insult there would be no recognizable distinction. In short, men could not behave either well or ill, for there would be no rule to follow or to violate, nothing to expect, and, hence, no ground for disappointment.