It is thus apparent that there is no institution that cannot easily be made to operate to a contradictory end. The criminal courts here have been used to collect debt. There is no wickedness to which the enginery of the Christian Church has not at one time or another been lent. The passions of a period run its institutions as easily as a stream turns any sort of a mill. To-day the United States Senate is a millionaires’ club. To-morrow the Stock Exchange may become a church. Now what is an institution? It is a custom which receives an assent because it is a custom. Man has always been ruled by custom. The notion that there was a time when disputes were settled by fighting, and that arbitration came in as a matter of convenience, stands on the same sort of footing as Rousseau’s social contract. It is an academic _jeu d’esprit_. In looking back over history all we see is custom, and farther back, still custom. All the fighting of savages is regulated by custom and always has been regulated by custom. Nay, the bees and the ants are ruled by custom. The idea of custom is the one idea that the genius of Kipling led him to see in the jungle. Now what is at the bottom of all this regard for custom? At the bottom of custom is non-self-regarding impulse. Man is both selfish and unselfish, but it makes a great difference whether we regard him _primarily_ as one thing or the other. The scientists, owing to their study of the lower animals, have tried to explain man on the selfish hypothesis and have made a mystery of him. They say “He must eat or die; therefore, he must be primarily egoistic.” And they attempt to explain progress by the expanding of egoism to include, first the family, then the tribe, then the nation, and finally mankind. Society according to them is a convention of egoism, a compromise, a joint-stock company. Religion is a matter of ghosts and ancestor worship, not fully explained yet. Note that this whole view depends upon a dogma that man _must_ be primarily selfish because he must eat. It is fair enough to retort with a paradox. Man absolutely selfish could not survive. Man absolutely unselfish would thrive splendidly. The individuals would support each other. But let us start square and remember that it is a question of science. Take the other hypothesis. The horse runs in herds and propagates his species because he is fond of the species. Incidentally he gets protected. It is through the illusion that he loves his fellows that his own welfare is secured. Non-self-regardant impulse is at the bottom, self-protection the result.